Electra

Sophocles

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

  1. the vision of my soul hang in suspense.
Chorus
  1. The champion of the spirits infernal is ushered on guileful feet into the house, the rich, ancestral palace of his father, and he bears keen-edged death in his hands.
  2. Maia’s son Hermes, who has shrouded the guile in darkness, leads him right to his goal and delays no longer.
Enter Electra from the house.
Electra
  1. My dearest friends, in a moment the men will do the deed. But wait in silence.
Chorus
  1. How do they fare? What are they doing now?
Electra
  1. She is decking the urn for burial; the two of them stand close to her.
Chorus
  1. And why have you hurried out?
Electra
  1. To guard against Aegisthus entering before we are aware.
Clytaemnestra
  1. Oh! Oh! Our house
  2. is empty of friends and filled with murderers!
Electra
  1. Someone shouts inside. Do you not hear, friends?
Chorus
  1. I heard, ah, me, sounds unfit to be heard, and I shudder!
Clytaemnestra
  1. Ah, misery! Aegisthus, where, where are you?
Electra
  1. Look, once more someone cries out!
Clytaemnestra
  1. My son, my son, have pity on your mother!
Electra
  1. Why? You had none for him, nor for the father that begot him.
Chorus
  1. Wretched city, wretched race, now the fate that has held you day by day perishes—it perishes!
Clytaemnestra
  1. Oh, I am wounded!
Electra
  1. Stab her doubly, if you can!
Clytaemnestra
  1. Ah, wounded again!