Electra

Sophocles

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

  1. I have been forced to it, forced by a terrible compulsion. I know my own passion; it does not escape me; but, under such terrible compulsion, I will not restrain these disastrous cries of frenzy,
  2. so long as life is in me. Who indeed, my noble friends, who that keeps what is appropriate in mind, would think any word of comfort right for my ears? Let me be, let me be, my comforters!
  3. For these ills will be reckoned with those which have no cure; I will never know a respite from my pains, or the sum of this wailing.
Chorus
  1. It is nevertheless with goodwill, like a true-hearted mother,