Epeisodion 1
Orestes
And would you dare, with him, to kill your mother?
Electra
Yes, with that same axe by which my father died.
Orestes
Am I to tell him this, and that your purpose is steadfast?
280
Electra
Once I had shed my mother’s blood, I might die!
Orestes
Ah! Would that Orestes were near by, to hear that!
Electra
But, stranger, I would not know him if I saw him.
Orestes
No wonder, for you were both young when you were parted.
Electra
There is only one of my friends who would recognize him.
285
Orestes
The man who is said to have stolen him away from murder?
Electra
Yes, the old man, my father’s old servant.
Orestes
Did the dead man, your father, find burial?
Electra
He found what he could, cast out of the house.
Orestes
Alas, the things you have said! For perception of suffering, even another’s, gnaws at mortals. Speak, so that when I know, I may tell your brother the story, unpleasant, but necessary to hear. Pity is not present at all in clownishness,
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but in wise men. And indeed it is not without mischief for the wise to have overly profound thoughts.
295
Chorus Leader
And I have the same desire in my heart as this man. Being far from the town, I do not know the city’s scandals, and now I want to learn them.
Electra
I will speak, if I must—and one must speak to a friend—about my own and my father’s heavy misfortunes. Since you are setting the tale in motion, I entreat you, stranger, tell Orestes of our sorrows, mine and his. First of all, in what clothes I live like a beast in a stall,
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with what filth I am weighted down, under what roof I dwell, having lived in a royal home; I myself working hard on my clothes at the loom, or else I shall go barely clad and do without; always carrying water from the springs myself,
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with no share in the festival rites, no part in the dance. I turn away from married women, as a virgin; and I turn away from Castor, who sought me in marriage before he joined the gods, for I was his relative. But my mother, in the spoils of Troy,
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is seated on her throne, and at her chair stand slaves from Asia, my father’s plunder, fastening their Trojan robes with golden brooches. And still my father’s blood has rotted black on the wall, while the one who killed him
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mounts the same chariot and goes forth; and is proud to hold in his blood-stained hands the scepter with which my father used to command the Hellenes. Agamemnon’s grave, dishonoured, has not yet ever received any libations, or branch of myrtle,
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but his altar is barren of ornament. That famous one, my mother’s husband, leaps on the grave, they say, when soaked in drink, and pelts my father’s marble monument with stones, and dares to say this to us:
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Where is your son Orestes? Is he here to defend the tomb for you nobly? Orestes is insulted in this way while absent. But, stranger, I beg you, report these things. There are many calling him to come—I am their interpreter—these hands, this tongue, my broken heart,
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my shorn head, and his own father. For it is shameful, if his father exterminated the Trojans but Orestes is unable to kill a man, one against one, being young and born from a more noble father.
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Chorus Leader
And look, I see him, I mean your husband,
on his way home, his day’s work done.
340
Peasant
Oh! who are these strangers I see at my door? Why have they come here to my rustic gate? Do they want something from me? For it is shameful for a woman to be standing with young men.
Electra
Dearest, do not be suspicious of me; you shall hear the truth; for these strangers have come to me as messengers of news from Orestes. But, strangers, pardon him for what he said.
345
Peasant
What do they say? The man is alive and sees the light of day?
Electra
He is, at least in their report, and I believe them.
350
Peasant
Surely then he remembers something of your father’s wrongs and your own?
