Electra
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 6: The Electra. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894.
- How could I not know what I have plainly seen?
- He is dead, poor girl, and your
- salvation by him is gone. Do not look to him.
- Ah, miserable me! From whom have you heard this?
- From the man who was present when he perished.
- And where is he? Amazement steals over my mind.
- He is inside, a welcome guest, not unpleasing to our mother.
- Ah, misery! Who, then, can have made those ample offerings to my father’s tomb?
- Most likely, I think, someone placed those gifts in memory of the dead Orestes.
- Oh, my misfortune! And I was hurrying here
- with such joyous nows, ignorant after all of our downfall. But now that I have arrived, I find fresh sorrows added to the old!
- So it stands with you. Yet if you will be persuaded by me, you will lighten the load of our present trouble.
- How can I ever raise the dead back to life?
- That is not what I meant; I was not born so foolish.
- What do you urge, then, of those things that I am capable of doing?
- That you be brave in executing what I recommend.
- If any good can be done, I will not refuse.
- Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.
- I know it, and I will share your burden with all my power.
- Hear, then, in what way I have decided to take action. As for the support of friends, you yourself doubtless know that we have none. Hades has taken our friends away,