Epeisodion 1
Chrysothemis
So you will not be persuaded to agree with me?
Electra
No, indeed; may I not yet be so devoid of intelligence.
Chrysothemis
Then I will move on to where I was sent.
Electra
And where is it that you go? For whom do you take these offerings to be burned?
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Chrysothemis
Mother sends me with funeral libations for our father.
Electra
What are you saying? For her deadliest enemy?
Chrysothemis
Whom she herself killed, no doubt you wanted to say this as well.
Electra
What friend persuaded her? Whose idea was it?
Chrysothemis
The cause, I think, was fear induced by some vision in the night.
410
Electra
My father’s Gods! Stand with me now at last!
Chrysothemis
Do you find something heartening in this terror?
Electra
If you would tell me the vision, then I could answer.
Chrysothemis
I know no more than a small part of the story.
Electra
Tell me that, anyway; a small tale has often before now tripped men up, or set them upright.
415
Chrysothemis
It is said that she saw the father of you and of me restored to the sunlight and to her company once more. Then he took the scepter—
once his own, but now carried by Aegisthus—and planted it at the hearth. From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present
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when she revealed her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I do not know, except that she sent me by reason of this fear of hers. Now, I beg you by our ancestral gods, obey me, and do not fall in your senselessness!
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If you reject me now, it is in misery that you will next seek me out.
430
Electra
Dear sister, let none of these offerings in your hands touch the tomb. For neither divine law nor piety allows you to dedicate funeral gifts or bring libations to our father from his hateful wife.
No! To the winds with them! Or cover them in a deep, dusty hole, where not one of them
will ever come near our father’s resting place. Rather let these treasures be
preserved for her below when she dies. Were she not by nature the most
audacious
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of all women, she would never at all have tried to pour these ill-willed offerings to the man she killed. Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonored and was mutilated
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like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean, wiped off the bloodstains on his
head? Surely you do not believe that your bringing these things will absolve
her of the murder?It is not possible. No, be rid of
them. Give him instead a lock of your hair’s ends, cut from your own head,
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and from wretched me, too, give these gifts, poor as they are, though all I have. Take this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness to us from the world below, a helper against our enemies;
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and that young Orestes may live to set his foot upon our enemies in superior might, so
that hereafter we may crown our father’s tomb with wealthier hands than those
with which we honor him now.I think, yes, I think that
he too had some part
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in sending her these appalling dreams. Still, sister, do yourself this service and help
me, and him, too, that most beloved of all men, who rests in Hades’ domain, our
shared father.
460
Chorus
The girl’s advice is pious; you,
dear friend, will do what she says, if you are wise.
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Chrysothemis
I will. In regard to a just deed, it is unreasonable for two people to argue, but reasonable to jump to action. But, by the gods, my friends, when I attempt this task, let me have your silence,
since if my mother hears of it, I believe that this attempt which I will dare shall in
the end cause me bitterness. Exit Chrysothemis on the spectators’
right.
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