Electra

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.

  1. Was it a fiend who spoke in the likeness of the god?
Electra
  1. Seated on the holy tripod? I do not think so.
Orestes
  1. I cannot believe that this oracle was well prophesied.
Electra
  1. Do not become a coward and fall into unmanliness!
Orestes
  1. Am I to devise the same crafty scheme for her?
Electra
  1. The same death that you gave to her husband, Aegisthus.
Orestes
  1. I will go in; it is a dreadful task I am beginning and I will do dreadful things. If the gods approve, let it be; to me the contest is bitter and also sweet.
Orestes withdraws into the house.
Chorus
  1. Hail, Queen of the land of Argos, child of Tyndareus,
  2. and sister of those two noble sons of Zeus who dwell in the fiery heavens among the stars, whose honored office it is to save mortals in the high waves. Welcome, I give you worship equal to the blessed gods
  3. for your wealth and great prosperity. Now is the time to pay our court to your fortunes. Welcome, o queen.
Clytemnestra
  1. Come out of the wagon, Trojan maids, and take my hand, that I may step down from the chariot.
  2. The homes of the gods are adorned with Phrygian spoils, but I have obtained these women, choice objects from the land of Troy, in return for the daughter whom I lost, a slight reward but an ornament to my house.
Electra
  1. And, mother—for I live as a slave
  2. in this miserable house, cast out from my father’s home—may I not take that blessed hand of yours?
Clytemnestra
  1. These slaves are here; take no trouble on my account.
Electra
  1. What? You sent me away from home, a captive; I was taken when my home was taken, like these,
  2. all of us orphaned of a father.
Clytemnestra
  1. Well, your father laid such plots against those whom least of all he should have, his own family. I will tell you; although when a woman gets an evil reputation, her tongue is bitter.
  2. In my opinion, not rightly; but it is correct for those who learn about the matter to hate, if it deserves hatred; if not, why hate at all? Now Tyndareus gave me to your father not so that I or any children I might bear should die.
  3. But that man went from the house, taking my child, with the persuasion of a marriage with Achilles, to Aulis which held the fleet; and there he stretched Iphigenia over the pyre, and cut her white cheek. And if, as a cure for the capture of the city,