Electra

Sophocles

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

  1. Would that Aegisthus, too, were wounded!
Chorus
  1. The curses bring fulfillment: those who are buried live.
  2. For men long dead are draining their killers’ blood in a stream of requital.
Enter Orestes and Pylades from the house.
Chorus
  1. And now they are here! The red hand drips with sacrifice to Ares, and I cannot blame the deed.
Electra
  1. Orestes, what happened?
Orestes
  1. All is well within the house,
  2. if Apollo’s oracle spoke well.
Electra
  1. The miserable woman is dead?
Orestes
  1. Have no more fear that your haughty mother will ever again trample on your rights.
Chorus
  1. Quiet! For I see Aegisthus in plain sight.
Electra
  1. You, young men, get back inside!
Orestes
  1. Where do you see the man?
Electra
  1. He is at our mercy walking from the suburb, full of joy.
Chorus
  1. Go with all speed to the vestibule, so that, just as your first task prospered, so this one again may prosper now.
Orestes
  1. Have courage. We will accomplish it.
Electra
  1. Hurry, then, to wherever you wish.
Orestes
  1. See, I am gone.
Electra
  1. Things here will be my concern.Exeunt Orestes and Pylades, into the house.
Chorus
  1. It would be well to whisper into this man’s ear some few words of seeming gentleness,
  2. so that he may rush blindly upon his trial before Justice.