Electra

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 6: The Electra. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894.

  1. You must not keep it.
Electra
  1. Ah, what misery I will have because of you,
  2. Orestes, if I am robbed of your burial!
Orestes
  1. Hush! No ill-omened words! You have no right to grieve.
Electra
  1. How is it not right for me to grieve for my dead brother?
Orestes
  1. It is not proper for you to speak of him as you do.
Electra
  1. Am I so without rights in the dead?
Orestes
  1. You are without rights in nothing; but this burial is not your concern.
Electra
  1. Yes it is, if these are the remains of Orestes that I hold.
Orestes
  1. They are not his, except inasmuch as fiction alone contrives to make them so.He gently takes the urn from her.
Electra
  1. And where is that sufferer’s tomb?
Orestes
  1. There is none; the living have no tomb.
Electra
  1. What are you saying, boy?
Orestes
  1. Nothing that is untrue.
Electra
  1. The man is alive?
Orestes
  1. If there is life in me.
Electra
  1. What? Are you he?
Orestes
  1. Look at this signet, once our father’s, and know if I speak the truth.
Electra
  1. O blissful day!
Orestes
  1. Blissful, I am your witness!