Oh that last and fatal bath of yours
As you splashed with death
And lay down dying there.
It is unbelievable:
The bitter double blade, the bitter plot,
That ambushed you when you came back from Troy.
It was not with wreaths and garlands, no,
That your wife saluted you,
But with the two-edged sword of Aegisthus.

[The CHORUS, composed of fifteen young peasant women, in a slow march, enters]

CHORAL DIALOGUE

STROPHE

Daughter of Agamemnon,
I have found your rustic home.
A man came by from the mountains,
A milkman from Mycenae,
With news that the Argives have proclaimed
A three-day festival,
And all the young girls are to go in procession
To the temple of Hera.

ELECTRA: No splendid raiment,
No necklaces of gold,
Stir the heart of this wretch that I am.
I shall not take my place among the Argive girls
To trip and twirl,
But pass the night in tears—
As I pass the day.
Look at my snarled hair ²⁷
And the rags I wear . . .
How do they suit a princess—
Agamemnon’s daughter?
How do they match
My father’s sack of Troy?

ANTISTROPHE

CHORUS: Great is the goddess, so come.
I’ll lend you a beautiful gown
And glittering jewels of gold.
Do you think that tears can quell
Your foes if you do not honor the gods:
Not with moaning but with prayers
For happy days, my child?

ELECTRA: Not one of the gods
Will listen to the cries
Of this wretched girl
Or recall her sacrifices for her father.
But I grieve for him, he that is gone,
And he that wanders
A slave at someone’s hearth
In an alien land—
And he sprung from a king,
While I live in a hovel
Pining in the cliffs,
Banished from my home.
My mother shares with another
A bed blotched with murder.
LEADER: Your mother’s sister, Helen, is the cause
of so much the Greeks have endured.

[ORESTES and PYLADES show themselves, together with their servants in the background]

SECOND EPISODE

ELECTRA: God help us, women, I must cease my dirge.
Strange-looking men from near the cottage have ambushed us.

Take to the road and fly.

I shall run into the cottage to escape these blackguards.

[ORESTES puts out a hand to stop her]

ORESTES: Stay, unhappy woman . . . Don’t tremble at my touch.

ELECTRA: God Apollo, please, don’t let me be killed.

ORESTES: I’d rather kill someone that I hated.

ELECTRA: Let go. Don’t handle what you should not touch.

ORESTES: There is none I may touch with better right.

ELECTRA: What, with drawn sword right outside my house?

ORESTES: Wait, hear me out and you’ll not say no.

ELECTRA: I have no choice. I am in your power.

ORESTES: I have news for you from your brother.

ELECTRA: Oh my friend, is he alive or dead?

ORESTES: Alive. Let me give you the good news first.

ELECTRA: Blessings on you for your sweet words.

ORESTES: Blessings on us both, to share together.

ELECTRA: Poor forlorn! Where does he live his forlorn days of banishment?

ORESTES: He roams abroad. He has no single city.

ELECTRA: But does he have enough to live on day by day?

ORESTES: In truth, no. But exile cuts down a man’s appetite.

ELECTRA: What is the message you bring from him?

ORESTES: He wants to know if you live and how you are.

ELECTRA: Well, to begin with, see how my body has withered.

ORESTES: Indeed, so wasted with grief it makes me cry to see.

ELECTRA: And cropped head—like a Scythian slave.

ORESTES: The loss of your brother and father are eating your heart away.

ELECTRA: I know, I know! Who can be dearer than they?

ORESTES: How sad! And what do you feel about your brother?

ELECTRA: A dear one far away when he should be near.

ORESTES: What makes you live here, so far from town?

ELECTRA: My friend, I am married. A marriage like death.

ORESTES: To a lowly Mycenaean? I pity your brother.

ELECTRA: Hardly the kind of man my father had in mind.

ORESTES: Say whom, so I can tell your brother.

ELECTRA: This is my husband’s cottage—far from the city.

ORESTES: Fit dwelling for a ditch-digger or a cowman.

ELECTRA: He is a poor man but kind, and he respects me.

ORESTES: How does this husband of yours show respect?

ELECTRA: Not once has he taken advantage of me.

ORESTES: Through some scruple of religion, or do you not appeal to him?

ELECTRA: He thinks it wrong to dishonor my parents.

ORESTES: Surely he was thrilled to make a match like this?

ELECTRA: He thought the man who gave me had no right to.

ORESTES: And he was fearful of the wrath of Orestes?

ELECTRA: Fearful maybe, but he is also naturally good.

ORESTES: A generous character . . . He must be rewarded.

ELECTRA: Yes, if Orestes ever reaches home.

ORESTES: And your own mother allowed you to be treated so?

ELECTRA: My friend, women love their husbands, not their children.

ORESTES: But Aegisthus, why did he treat you so abominably?

ELECTRA: He wanted my children to be nonentities.

ORESTES: I see . . . Who would never be avengers?

ELECTRA: That’s what he had in mind. May he be punished for it.

ORESTES: Does Aegisthus know you are still a virgin?

ELECTRA: He does not. I have kept it from him.

ORESTES: [glancing at the CHORUS]

These women listening here—are they your friends?

ELECTRA: Yes, they will not divulge our conversation.

ORESTES: But if Orestes came to Argos, what could he do?

ELECTRA: Your question surprises me. He’d act, of course!

ORESTES: If he did return, how would he kill your father’s murderers?

ELECTRA: He’d dare what those assassins of his father dared.

ORESTES: And would you dare with him to kill your mother?

ELECTRA: I would . . . using the same ax that destroyed my father.²⁸

ORESTES: Shall I tell Orestes this? Is your mind made up?

ELECTRA: Let me die, so long as I kill my mother.

ORESTES: If only Orestes was here to hear you utter this!

ELECTRA: My friend, I should not know him if I saw him.

ORESTES: Of course! You were both children when you parted.

ELECTRA: Only one of my friends would recognize him.

ORESTES: The one, they say, who stole him away from murder?

ELECTRA: An old man from long ago who brought my father up.

ORESTES: Is your father buried in a tomb?

ELECTRA: Yes, of sorts—he was flung out from the palace.

ORESTES: A sorry sorry tale! How even the troubles of strangers can wring the human heart.

But continue
so that I may report your story to your brother . . .
Not a matter to celebrate but to attend to all the same.

Compassion is an attribute of the cultured man
that the dolt knows nothing of:
but compassion and understanding exact their price.

LEADER: I feel what this man feels,
but living far from the city
have no idea what goes on there.

I should like to know.

ELECTRA: Since I must, let me speak out,
but be it to a friend.

Let me tell of the disasters
that have fallen on me and my father.

And I ask you, my friend,
since it is you who have prompted me,
to relay to Orestes the horrors that have happened to me and
Agamemnon.

Tell him first
of the rags I wear in this rustic hovel.

Tell him of the filthy sight I am,
living in a hut—I that stem from royal palaces.

I weave my own clothes with my own hands,
else would be naked.

I fetch water from the spring.

I take no part in festivals:
no part in dances.

I flee the society of matrons,
virgin that I am.

I blush when I think of Castor my cousin,
to whom I was engaged before he joined the gods.

My mother lords it on a throne,
weltering in the captured wealth of Troy
and surrounded by captive ladies from the Orient
whom my father won:
all clad in gorgeous Oriental robes
fastened with brooches of gold.

And all the time my father’s blood
rots and blackens in the palace
while his murderer mounts his chariot,
the very chariot my father rode,
and rides out in public
proudly holding in his criminal hands
the scepter that once marshaled the whole of Hellas.

Agamemnon’s tomb, neglected and unhonored,
has received neither libations nor sprigs of myrtle.

It is bare of ornament,
and that magnificent man, called my mother’s consort,
sodden in wine cavorts on the grave
and pelts my father’s monument with stones,
shouting out insults like:

“Where is Orestes, that fine lad?
How zealous he shows himself
in protecting your tomb!”

So by Orestes’ absence is he ridiculed.

[Going down on her knees]

My friend, I beseech you, tell him this.
I speak for the many who summon him . . .
my hands, my lips, my blighted heart, my shaven head,
and the father that begot him.

It is unthinkable that the son of a father who dismembered Troy
should not cut down in single combat his mortal enemy.

LEADER: I see the man who is called your husband
approaching the cottage, his day’s work done.

[The PEASANT, looking a little weary after his digging and with mud clinging to his boots, approaches with a look of concern at seeing ORESTES and PYLADES together with ELECTRA]

PEASANT: Holla! Who are these strangers coming towards my
house?
What brings them to my rural doors?

Is it me they want?

A woman should not stand around talking with young men.

ELECTRA: [taking his hand] Dear friend, do not be suspicious.
Let me tell you what this means.
These visitors have brought me tidings of Orestes.

[Turning to ORESTES and PYLADES]

Sirs, forgive his abruptness.

PEASANT: Do they say he lives and sees the light?

ELECTRA: According to their story, yes—and I believe them.

PEASANT: Does he know what you and your father have been through?

ELECTRA: Let us hope so. But a man in exile has little power.

PEASANT: What was the message from Orestes that they brought?

ELECTRA: He sent to find out what I was suffering.

PEASANT: Your sufferings are obvious, and you will tell the rest.

ELECTRA: They already know. There is nothing left to tell them.

PEASANT: Then shouldn’t you open your doors and welcome them in?

[The PEASANT turns to ORESTES and PYLADES, beckoning]

Come into the house.
In exchange for your good news accept my modest hospitality.

[Turning to the young men’s servants]

Take their baggage into the house, men.

[Seeing the hesitation of ORESTES and PYLADES]

Please do not refuse me.
You are friends coming from a friend,
Poor as I am, I shall not be niggardly.

[As the PEASANT leads the way into his cottage, followed by PYLADES, ORESTES and ELECTRA pause on the threshold]

ORESTES: Great gods! So this is the man that lets you thwart his
marriage—
the man who will not shame Orestes.

ELECTRA: Yes, the man known as unlucky Electra’s husband.

ORESTES: Ah, one can never foretell a manly spirit, so full of variety is the nature of men.

I have met a nonentity, the son of a fine man, and I have seen cultured children born of humble parents.

I have seen a millionaire with a shriveled heart, and a generous spirit in the heart of a pauper.

By what measure can one truly judge and discriminate?

By riches?
That would be no better gauge than poverty,
and poverty’s even worse:

It teaches men to do wrong through need.

What about skill at arms?
Just to see a man with a spear is no guarantee
that he is a brave man . . .

Best not try to unravel these paradoxes.

Look at this man:
he has no standing among the Argives,
is not swollen-headed because of his line,
is a man of the people,
yet whose humanity blazes forth.

So learn some wisdom
and avoid the pitfall of hasty judgment.

Only by conduct and by character
should you judge the quality of a human being:
those that make contented states and happy families.

The mere muscled hunk
with not a thought in his head
is an effigy fit for the marketplace.

Bulging biceps succumb to the shock of the lance
no less than the puny arm.

In all, it is the spirit that matters.

So let us honor the hospitality of this cottage,
in the name of Agamemnon’s son whether here or not—
him for whom we have come.

Slaves push inside . . .

Give me a poor man for a host rather than a rich one: a poor man with a heart.

[Turning to ELECTRA]

I thank this man for his invitation,
but I wish your brother were here
bursting with prosperity
to lead me into a prosperous home.

Perhaps he will come.

The oracles of Apollo can’t go wrong and human guesswork’s not worth a damn.

[ORESTES and his servants enter the cottage, leaving the PEASANT and ELECTRA still outside]

LEADER: Some joy, Electra, more than ever,
should rekindle our hearts.

Fate is softening its hardness
and unfolding a little happiness.

ELECTRA: [to PEASANT] My dear friend,
you know the poverty of your hearth,
why must you strain your resources for these guests?

PEASANT: Why ever not?

If they are as noble as they seem
they will surely be content with my provision,
meager or otherwise.

ELECTRA: Well, since you have made your mistake, poor as you
are,
go to the good old man who brought my father up.

You will find him pasturing his flocks
near the river Tanais
which separates Argos from Sparta,
for he has been banished from the city.

Ask him to come here
with some provender for the guests that have arrived.

He will be overjoyed and thank heaven to hear
that the boy he once saved is still alive.

From my mother’s home, my father’s palace,
we would not get a scrap:
and our news that Orestes is alive
would come as a deathblow to that wretched woman.

PEASANT: So, if you please,
let me go and take your message to the old man.

Meanwhile, get things ready in the cottage
as quickly as you can.

Women are magic improvisors when it comes to food.

Even now there’s enough in the house
to take care of these men for a single day.

[ELECTRA goes into the cottage. The PEASANT pauses on the threshold as if some great thought had struck him]

When I come to think it over,
it occurs to me that wealth is almost everything.

One can entertain,
or provide for a sick body:
though for one’s daily bread
it’s much the same rich or poor:
a full stomach is a full stomach.

[As the PEASANT goes off to find the OLD MAN, the women of the CHORUS celebrate in retrospect the arrival of Achilles and Agamemnon on the shores of Troy. They describe with wonder Achilles’ famous shield with its Gorgon’s head and chariot of the Sun: also Achilles’ golden helmet depicting the Sphinxes carrying off their victims. Finally, they turn on CLYTEMNESTRA, the traitoress of all this glory, and prophesy her death. ELECTRA stands listening]

FOURTH CHORAL ODE

STROPHE I

CHORUS: You glorious ships that sailed to Troy
Bristling with oars and pounding the main
Where the Nereids danced
And the music-besotted dolphins bounded
Teasing the prows as they forged along:
You ships that escorted spring-footed Achilles,
Agamemnon too,
To the shores of Simoïs at Troy . . .

ANTISTROPHE I

The Nereids skirting the Cape of Euboea
Carried the shield Hephaestus shaped
On his anvil of gold.
Past Mount Pelion, past the lonely glens of Ossa,
They came for Achilles, the stripling son
Of Thetis, reared by a gentle father
To be the glory of Greece and champion
Challenger for the sons of Atreus.

STROPHE II

Achilles, son of Thetis, one day
I heard in the port of Nauplia,
From one returning from Troy, of your famous shield
Whose design itself was enough to frighten the Trojans.
Its rim showed Perseus winged with sandals
Hovering over the sea and holding
The head of the Gorgon with sliced throat.
With him was Hermes, Maia’s son:
A god of the fields.

ANTISTROPHE II

In the center of the shield the sun blazed
Drawn by a chariot of flying chargers.
There too the Pleiades danced with the Hyades
To tell Hector his sun was about to set.
On the gold of the helmet Sphinxes clutched
In their talons victims failing the riddle.
On the breastplate a fire-breathing
Lioness with open claws was leaping
On a colt from Pirene.

EPODE

On his murderous lance a four-horse chariot
Careering on, and a cloud of black dust
Rolling along behind their backs . . .
But the leader of these warriors was cut down
For your illicit love, perfidious child of Tyndareus.
Therefore the gods above one day
Shall send you to your slaughter,
And I shall see, oh, I shall see
The steel piercing your throat
And the spurt of blood.

[The OLD TUTOR enters. He is dressed in a homespun mantle that reaches to his knees, and his loose trouser legs are lagged with hessian. Around his shoulders he carries a lamb, and a basket hangs full of provisions. He walks carefully over the uneven ground, talking to himself.

THIRD EPISODE

TUTOR: Where, where is the young woman, the princess my
mistress,
daughter of Agamemnon,
whom long ago I reared?

My word, how hard this path is to her house!
Hard for the feet of this shriveled old man.

No matter, I must reach my friends:
push on this bent old back,
these quaking knees.

[He sees ELECTRA coming out of the cottage]

Ah, there you are, my daughter, by the house.

Look, I’ve brought you a suckling from my flock
just taken from its mother,
and wreaths of flowers,
and cheese fresh from the frame,
and last, not least, this ancient wine, this gift of Bacchus,
with its smooth bouquet.

There is only a little
but enough to transform a weaker draft.

[Clapping his hands]

Come, servants,
and carry all this into the house—
it is for the guests . . .

I must wipe away my tears with this ragged old sleeve.

ELECTRA: What’s this, old man, your eyes are brimming?
Have my old sorrows mingled with your own?
Or is your sadness for Orestes’ banishment
and for my father whom you dandled in your arms and nurtured?

A lost delight to you and to your friends.

TUTOR: Lost indeed! But that is not what made me sad.

It was that as I passed the tomb
and found it abandoned, I knelt and wept.

Then I undid the plug of the wineskin
that I’ve brought your guests and poured libations,
placing sprigs of myrtle on the tomb.

Nearby the pyre
I saw a slaughtered sheep with black fleece,
its blood but newly spilt,
and locks of golden hair from a blond head.
It made me wonder, child,
who in the world would approach that tomb?

Certainly no Argive would.

Could your brother have arrived by stealth and passed
paying this honor to your father’s tomb?

Put this lock of hair against your head
and see if its hue is like yours.

Offspring of the same father
often manifest similarities.

ELECTRA: What nonsense you talk, old man,
if you imagine that my courageous brother
would slink into this land in terror of Aegisthus.

Besides,
how could a lock of his hair match mine:
the hair of a man exposed to manly sports
with the hair of a woman
softened by brush and comb?

No, the comparison does not hold.

Besides, old man, one often comes across
people with similar hair
who are not related at all.

TUTOR: Then step into his footstep
and see if the print of his sole
matches your foot, my child.

ELECTRA: Footprints on this rocky terrain? Hardly,
and even if there could be,
the feet of brother and sister, of male and female,
are not the same. The male is larger.

TUTOR: If your brother did come here
is there any piece of cloth of yours on him
that you could recognize—
such as the clothes he wore when I stole him away from
death?

ELECTRA: Don’t you know I was only a child
when Orestes was banished from the land?

If I had woven garments for him
how could he still be wearing
clothes he wore as a child . . .
unless his clothes grew with him?

No, some visitor passed and took compassion
and made an offering of his hair,
or he himself did by means of spies.

TUTOR: Who are these strangers?
I’d like to question them about your brother.

ELECTRA: Here they come briskly from the house.

[ORESTES and PYLADES emerge from the cottage]

A good-looking couple, sure!
but one cannot always go by that.
A noble facade can hide a villain.

ORESTES: Greetings, old man. . . Electra,
who among your friends is this ancient relic?

ELECTRA: He was the one who brought my father up, sir.

ORESTES: You mean the one who stole your brother away?

ELECTRA: Yes, the one that saved him . . . if he is still alive.

ORESTES: Why is he staring at me like that—as if he scrutinized a newly minted coin?

Is he comparing me with someone?

ELECTRA: It delights him perhaps to see a comrade of Orestes.

ORESTES: A very dear comrade . . . Why is he circling me?

ELECTRA: That surprises me, too, my friend.

TUTOR: [taking her hand] Electra, noble child, say a prayer to the gods.

ELECTRA: For what? Something gone, something coming?

TUTOR: Something—a treasure—the god is about to reveal.

ELECTRA: See, I do say a prayer, though I don’t know what you’re talking about.

TUTOR: Take a second look, my child, at this beloved man.

ELECTRA: I’ve been staring at him a long time and I fear you’ve lost your wits.

TUTOR: Lost my wits when I see your own brother standing there?

ELECTRA: Do you really mean it? . . . I can’t believe it.

TUTOR: Yes, I am looking at Orestes, Agamemnon’s son.

ELECTRA: How can I believe you? What evidence do you offer?

TUTOR: The scar on his eyebrow from a fall long ago when chasing a fawn with you in your father’s palace.

ELECTRA: Are you sure? . . . I do see the mark of a fall.

TUTOR: But still hesitate to run into his arms?

ELECTRA: [flinging herself on ORESTES]
No no no, old man, I am convinced . . .
At long last, Orestes, beyond all hope you have appeared.

ORESTES: At long last held by me.

ELECTRA: Never to be expected!

ORESTES: Never to be hoped!

ELECTRA: You are really he?

ORESTES: Yes, your only champion . . .
But now to close the net I have come to cast and shall—
or give up belief in gods if the good can be undone by evil.

[Brother and sister remain in each other’s arms while the women of the CHORUS burst out in celebration]

THIRD CHORAL ODE

CHORUS: You have come, you have come, at last you have come
As bright as a flare flooding the city.
Long was his exile . . . Far from the hearth of his fathers
He has roamed in disconsolate misery.
Some deity, some powerful god
Is making us triumph, oh yes.
So lift up your hands, lift up your voice,
Hurl your thanksgiving high into heaven,
That fortune, good fortune in his own country,
May follow the steps of your brother.

FOURTH EPISODE

ORESTES: So be it.
I thank you for your generous welcome.
Someday I shall make a return.

Meanwhile, old man,
you have appeared in the nick of time.

Tell me what I must do
to avenge my father’s murder.
Is there anyone in Argos, my friend,
sympathetic to me,
or am I—like my fate—a shattered man?

Whom shall I ask to help me?

Shall I do it by night or day?

What is the way to go against my foes?

TUTOR: My son, in failure no one is a friend: rare indeed is it to be accepted regardless of success or failure.

Now, listen to me.

You are not sustained by friends or wishful thinking.

The regaining of your ancestral home and city depends entirely on yourself—and a little luck.

ORESTES: Well, what do I have to do?

TUTOR: You must kill Aegisthus and your mother.

ORESTES: I have come for exactly that. But how shall I achieve it?

TUTOR: Not by going inside the walls, even if you were willing to.

ORESTES: Are they guarded by sentries and armed patrols?

TUTOR: Precisely. He’s frightened of you. He cannot sleep.

ORESTES: So . . . what’s the next move, old man?

TUTOR: Listen carefully. I have a plan.

ORESTES: A good one, I hope . . . I am all ears.

TUTOR: I caught a glimpse of Aegisthus as I stole here.

ORESTES: I follow you, but where exactly was it?

TUTOR: In the paddocks adjacent to these fields.

ORESTES: What was he up to? . . . I see a gleam of hope.

TUTOR: It looked as though he was preparing a banquet for the nymphs.

ORESTES: For an infant’s birthday, or a baby on its way?

TUTOR: I only know he was preparing to slay an ox.

ORESTES: How many were with him . . . just his servants?

TUTOR: No Argives were there—only people from the palace.

ORESTES: Was there anyone, old man, who could recognize me?

TUTOR: No, they are slaves. They have never seen you.

ORESTES: Would they side with me if I succeeded?

TUTOR: Yes. That is the nature of a slave—luckily for you.

ORESTES: How could I manage to get near him?

TUTOR: Let him see you at the spot where he celebrates.

ORESTES: Near his fields along the road, you mean.

TUTOR: When he sees you he’ll invite you to the feast.

ORESTES: Please God, I’ll be the bitterest of guests.

TUTOR: Just watch for your chance.

ORESTES: I will . . . Where is my mother at this moment?

TUTOR: In Argos. Her consort expects her later at the feast.

ORESTES: Why don’t my mother and her husband go together?

TUTOR: She is embarrassed and fears derision.

ORESTES: I see. She’s aware of the people’s hatred.

TUTOR: Just so . . . An evil woman is abhorred.

ORESTES: But how can I kill her at the same time as him?

ELECTRA: [stepping forward] Leave my mother to me. I’ll manage her death.

ORESTES: And fortune will arrange the rest.

ELECTRA: [pointing to the TUTOR] He can be a help to both of us.

ORESTES: Good . . . How do you mean to kill our mother?

ELECTRA: [pauses in thought]
Go to Clytemnestra, old man, and tell her . . . tell her
I have given birth to a boy.

TUTOR: Delivered some time ago or just now?

ELECTRA: Ten days ago . . . the normal time for a mother’s purification.

TUTOR: How can this lead to your mother’s demise?

ELECTRA: She will come when she hears I am not well and with a baby.

TUTOR: What makes you think she cares for you, my child?

ELECTRA: Mark my words, she’ll come—to moan over the low birth of my baby.

TUTOR: Perhaps . . . But the main question is . . .

ELECTRA: The main question is: if she comes, she dies.

TUTOR: Then I hope she’ll come right in at the door.

ELECTRA: Which is only a step from the entrance to Hades.

TUTOR: It would give me joy to see it.

ELECTRA: But first, old man, be Orestes’ guide.

TUTOR: To the spot where Aegisthus is offering sacrifice?

ELECTRA: Yes, then deliver my message to my mother.

TUTOR: Straight as if it came from your own lips.

ELECTRA: [to Orestes] Go to work. Yours the privilege of first blood.

ORESTES: So I do, following my guide.

TUTOR: Right here to escort you most willingly.

[All three lift their hands in prayer]

ORESTES: Great Zeus, God of Fathers, be god also of avengers.

ELECTRA: Pity us, for pitifully have we suffered.

TUTOR: Have compassion on the offspring of your blood.

ORESTES: Hera, Queen, who reigns over the altars of Mycenae . . .

ELECTRA: Grant us victory if our cause be right.

TUTOR: Let them avenge the murder of their father.

[All three fall to the ground rapping the earth with their knuckles]

ORESTES: You, my father under the earth and foully wronged . . .

ELECTRA: Awesome Earth whom I batter with my hands . . .

TUTOR: Fend, oh forfend your darling children.

ORESTES: Come with the hosts of the dead as allies.

ELECTRA: Those whose lances smashed the Trojans.

TUTOR: All those who hate sacrilege and perfidy.

[They rise]

ORESTES: Do you hear us—you whom my mother mangled?

TUTOR: Your father hears everything . . . but it is time to go.

ELECTRA: Let me shout it out: Aegisthus has to die.
But should you succumb in the duel, I too am dead—spoken
of no more as living.
I shall drive a two-edged sword into my heart.

Now to make ready in the house.
If I hear the best, the house will yell with joy.
But if you die . . . how different!
This I must tell you.

ORESTES: I know, I know.

ELECTRA: Then play the man.

[ORESTES and the TUTOR walk towards the fields. ELECTRA turns to the women of the CHORUS]

ELECTRA: Women, blaze out the outcome of this contest.
I shall keep watch with weapon in hand
for never shall I deliver my person for revenge
should I not win.

[ELECTRA retires into the cottage. The women of the CHORUS sing the story of the Golden Lamb, which was a talisman of power for whoever got hold of it. Thyestes (Aegisthus’ father) did, with awesome consequences]

FOURTH CHORAL ODE

STROPHE I

Ancient tradition tells
That Pan the god of meadows and fields,
With the trilling music of his pipes,
Tempted a lamb with golden fleece
Away from its mother on the Argive hills.
High on the stone steps the herald
Stood and cried:
“Mycenaeans,
To the marketplace, the marketplace . . .
Come see the miracle that foretells
A prosperous reign for him who has the lamb.”
The house of Atreus won it. The people danced.

ANTISTROPHE I

The gilded temples opened
And fire blazed on the Argive altars.
The master of the lotus flute
Breathed out the most bewitching airs
And song after song celebrated
The Golden Lamb—now Thyestes’
(Who had seduced Atreus’ wife
Into covert bed with him). He took
The prodigy into his own house; then
He went to the Assembly and declared he owned
The horned phenomenon with the golden fleece.

STROPHE II

That was the moment Zeus
Reshaped the glittering stars in their courses,
The glory of the sun and the silvery visage
Of dawn and bathed the western savannas
In a wash of divine fire. The clouds,
Lumbered with water, fled to the north.
With no refreshing showers from Zeus,
Ammon ²⁹ in Africa shriveled.

ANTISTROPHE II

There is a legend, which
Frankly I do not believe, that
The Sun averted his golden face,
Canceled his rays and let the world
Go down in misery, because
Of a single human being. Religion
Cultivates these tales of fear.
But when you killed you had forgot.

FIFTH EPISODE

LEADER: A . . . h! my friends, did you hear a shout,
or am I imagining it . . .
Like Zeus rumbling underground?

But now a calming breeze is blowing
and Electra, my lady, issues from the house.

[ELECTRA comes out of the cottage, distraught with anticipation]

ELECTRA: My friends, how does it go? How do we stand in the
struggle?

LEADER: I know only that I heard a death cry.

ELECTRA: [straining her ears] I hear it too . . . far away . . . but still I hear it.

LEADER: Yes, unmistakable—though a long way off.

ELECTRA: The shriek of an Argive, is it? Is it my friends?

LEADER: I cannot be sure . . . the shriek is a jumbled sound.

ELECTRA: Then you sentence me to death. Why do I wait?

LEADER: Wait, till you find out how things lie for you.

ELECTRA: It is useless. We are done for. Where are his messengers?

LEADER: His messenger will come. It is not easy to kill a king.

[A moment later a MESSENGER bursts on the scene. He is the servant who attends ORESTES]

MESSENGER: Women of Mycenae, victory!
To all who love Orestes I announce that he has won.
Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s murderer, lies dead upon the field.

Let us thank the gods.

ELECTRA: Who are you? What evidence do you have that this is true?

MESSENGER: You know me, madam—remember?—the servant of Orestes.

ELECTRA: My friend, I was too frightened to recognize your face. Do you really mean the hated butcher of my father is no more?

MESSENGER: Since you insist, I’ll say it twice: he is dead.

ELECTRA: O you gods, and you all-seeing Justice who has struck at last . . .

But tell me exactly—I must know—how he killed Thyestes’ son.

MESSENGER: After we had marched off from this house
we followed the noisy chariot route
till we came to the spot where the prestigious king of the
Mycenaeans was.

He was plucking tender sprigs of myrtle for a wreath
in his well-watered park.

On seeing us he called out:

“Greetings, strangers!
Who are you and where do you come from?
What is your country?”

Orestes replied:
“We are Thessalonians on our way to the river Alpheus
to sacrifice to the Zeus of Olympia.”

To which Aegisthus replied:
“You must be my guests and share this banquet with me:
I am making offerings to the Nymphs.

Tomorrow if you rise at dawn
you can make up for lost time.

Deign to enter my domain.”

Saying this, he took our hands and led us in.

We could not refuse.
“Servants, on the double,” he ordered,
“bring water for our guests,
that they may stand near the altar by the lustral bowls.”

“My lord Aegisthus,” Orestes answered,
“we have just bathed in the clearest-running streams,
so if it is permitted for strangers
to take part in the sacrifice of citizens, we are ready.”

That is the way their conversation went.

Then, laying down the spears with which they guard their
master,
one and all set their hands to work.

Some fetched the blood-letting bowls,

Others got receiving baskets ready.

Still others lit the fire and lined up the cauldrons round the hearth.

The whole house was in a turmoil.

Then taking the barley grains, this bedfellow of your mother scattered them on the altar, uttering:

“Nymphs of the grottoes,
grant that I may offer up many a bull,
and that my Tyndarid wife and I
continue to flourish—as we do—in our home:
that, and destruction to our enemies.”

He meant, of course, Orestes and you.

My master for his part quietly whispered the opposite: that he should regain his ancestral house.

Then Aegisthus took a sharp flat knife from the basket
and sheared off a tuft from the bullock’s head,
throwing it on the sacred fire with his right hand.

The slaves heaved the bullock onto their shoulders
and he killed it, saying this to your brother:
“The Thessalonians brag about their prowess
at dismembering a bull and at breaking horses.

Take this well-hammered hunk of steel, my friend,
and prove that reputation true.”

Orestes, gripping the tempered Dorian blade,
tossed from his shoulders his elegant cloak,
brooch and all, pushed away the slaves,
and beckoned Pylades to be his second.

Grasping the bullock’s foot,
he swept down his outstretched arm
and flared open the glistening flesh,
flensing the hide off faster than a sprinter at the hippodrome
finishes two laps.

Then he split apart the flanks.

Aegisthus, scooping up the entrails in his hands,
stared at them in some dismay:
they were devoid of liver lobes
and the rigid bladder forewarned him of evil to come.

As Aegisthus glowered, my master asked him:
“What makes you so downhearted?”

“Stranger,” he said, “I suspect the guile of an outsider:
the man I most hate,
the enemy of my house—the son of Agamemnon.”

Orestes replied:
“You fear the resources of a banished man,
you who reign over the city?

No matter, let us proceed to the feast . . .

If someone will bring me a Phthian cleaver
instead of this inept Dorian blade,
I shall plunge it through the thorax.”

He was given one and he cut right through.

Aegisthus meanwhile rummaged among the entrails, staring at them as he drew them apart.

He was bent low, and your brother
raising himself on his toes
struck through his back, smashing through the vertebrae.
His whole frame jolted
and he bawled out, convulsing, in the bloody agony of death.

Seeing this, the slaves ran for their weapons:
a crowd to fight against a couple.

But Pylades and Orestes with drawn swords
confronted them like men.

“I come not as an enemy,
against this city and my subjects.

I have avenged the murder of my father.

I am Orestes, the distressed one.

Do not kill me.

You were my father’s servants long ago.”

Hearing this they held back their spears,
and when Orestes was recognized by an old man
who had long served the house,
they crowned your brother with garlands,
cheering and shouting:

“He is on his way here
bringing you not a Gorgon’s head
but the Aegisthus that you hated.

Blood for blood, the dead has paid with interest
the debt he owed.”

[As the MESSENGER bows out, the women of the CHORUS begin to celebrate, inviting ELECTRA to the dance]

FIFTH CHORAL ODE

STROPHE

Set your footsteps to our dance, dear friend,
Just like a fawn
That lightly bounds in the air for joy.
Your brother has won:
More wreathed in triumph
Than an athlete coming from Olympia.³⁰
Sing a song of victory while we dance.

ELECTRA: O glorious light, you hurtling chariot of the Sun,
O Earth and Night that held my gaze till now:

my eyes open wide and free,

for Aegisthus has fallen,

the assassin of my father.

Let me go at once, my friends and fetch
the jewels I used to dress my hair with,
locked up in the cottage,
to adorn the head of my victorious brother.

[ELECTRA hurries into the house while the CHORUS sings another burst of celebration]

SIXTH CHORAL ODE

ANTISTROPHE

Yes yes, bring out your jewels to dress his head
While we dance away
Delighting the Muses. The dynasty
Of old has been
Restored: to reign over the land
Justly. The unjust are abolished.
Shout it out with all the music of joy.

[ELECTRA emerges from the cottage as ORESTES and PYLADES arrive with servants carrying the body of AEGISTHUS]

SIXTH EPISODE

ELECTRA: Hail, Orestes, beautiful conqueror
sprung from a conquering father—the hero of Ilium.

Receive this wreath to crown your head of curls.

In the athletes’ heats you’ve run a winning race
and slain your enemy, Aegisthus—
murderer of your sire and mine.

And you, Pylades, his ally,
reared by a gentle man,
accept from my hands this wreath,
for you had an equal share in the struggle.

Be blessed always in my sight.

ORESTES: But first, Electra,
salute the gods, the authors of this outcome,
then praise me.

I am only the pawn of fate and heaven,
who have in a battle of deeds not words destroyed Aegisthus.

So all should know it, I bring you the corpse itself.

Expose it if you will for beasts to ravage or impale it on a stake for vultures to rend.

He is your chattel now, once called your king.

ELECTRA: I blush to speak but am forced to say it . . .

ORESTES: Say what? Speak out. All fear is past.

ELECTRA: . . . that gloating over the dead invites reprisals.

ORESTES: You are blameless. No one can find fault.

ELECTRA: But the city and our people are querulous and censure-prone.

ORESTES: Then, sister, say your say. Between this man and us, there’s nothing blocks us now.

ELECTRA: [addressing the corpse of Aegisthus] But where can I even begin my indictment?

Where can I end it, and how fill the middle?
In truth every morning I have gone over it again and again.
What to say to you face to face if I were free from fear.

Well, I am free now,
So I shall whip you with the words
I wanted to let fly while you were alive.

You wrecked my life,
orphaned me of my dear father—Orestes and me—
though we had never hurt you.

You made a disgusting marriage with my mother,
having murdered her spouse.

Though you never set foot in Troy
you destroyed the commander of the Greek armada;

and having befouled my father’s nuptial bed,
you were fool enough to imagine
that in my mother you would have a virtuous wife.

Ah! when a man plays around with another’s wife,
seduces her and is forced to marry,
he is an idiot if he thinks she will be faithful to him
when she was not to her first husband.

You led a miserable life, unconscious of it.

You knew you had married a sacrilegious woman
and she knew her husband was a fraud.

Both of you were criminals, each infecting the other.
She took on your dishonesty, and you her reputation.

“Clytemnestra’s husband,” the Argives called you,
never “Aegisthus’ wife.”

I think it disgraceful when the woman rules the house,
not the man.

Nor am in favor of children being called by their mother’s name,
and not the father’s.

When a man marries a woman of high station
the husband counts for nothing, only his wife.

In your simplicity you made a fatal mistake,
imagining you’d be someone just because you were rich.

Wealth is something transient—on the side.

Character not money is the true gauge.

Character is permanent: it excludes evil.

Mere wealth by itself is grotesque—
fit servant of oafs—
and after a brief flowering, scatters.

As to your sins with women,
it is not for me, a virgin, to speak,
so I’ll say no more—though I can hint.

Possessing a regal house and fetching features
went to your head.

But I’d rather have a real man—
not a girl-faced husband—
one whose sons are potential warriors.

The merely pretty is decoration—
fit for the dance.

[Approaching the corpse]

Be forever cursed, you blind, crookèd man,
found out at last and punished.
Let no miscreant ever think
that if he has got away with the first lap
he has outrun Justice.

Let him wait till the finishing line
when he completes his course.

LEADER: [to the corpse]
Enormous were your misdeeds, enormous the price you paid—
to him and her. Mighty is the competence of Justice.

ORESTES: Come, slaves, carry the body into the house,
enshroud it in shadow.

My mother when she comes must not see the corpse
before she is cut down.

[While slaves take the body of AEGISTHUS inside, the sound of a carriage can be heard in the distance]

ELECTRA: Listen, we must secure the next phase of our plan.

ORESTES: Do you see reinforcements coming from Mycenae?

ELECTRA: No, my mother—the woman who gave me birth.

[CLYTEMNESTRA’s horse-drawn carriage, capacious and sumptuous, hoves into view]

ORESTES: How she glitters in the luxury of her chariot and dress!

ELECTRA: Primed for the meshes of our net.

ORESTES: Our mother . . . what are we to do . . . murder her?

ELECTRA: Have you gone soft at the sight of your mother?

ORESTES: No, but to kill the one who bore me, gave me suck!

ELECTRA: The one who butchered your father and mine.

ORESTES: Apollo, what a blunder your oracle has made!

ELECTRA: If Apollo blunders, who on earth is wise?

ORESTES: But to have me kill my mother—against all nature!

ELECTRA: How does it hurt you to avenge your own father?

ORESTES: But to be branded as a matricide—I who was innocent!

ELECTRA: Be branded as sacrilegious, then, if you don’t succor your father.

ORESTES: I’ll have to pay the blood-price of my mother.

ELECTRA: But if you do not avenge, what price for your father?

ORESTES: It was a demon telling me to do it, pretending to be a god.

ELECTRA: Sitting at the holy tripod? I think not.

ORESTES: I’ll never be persuaded that this oracle is wholesome.

ELECTRA: So you’ll turn coward? Be no more a man?

ORESTES: [after a long pause] Very well then, how do I do it? Lay the same trap for her?

ELECTRA: Exactly: the snare that trapped and killed Aegisthus.

ORESTES: Sheer horror is this enterprise, and horror if I succeed. But if it please the gods, so be it: a bittersweet ordeal.

[As ORESTES and PYLADES go into the cottage, CLYTEMNESTRA , riding majestically in her carriage with her captive Trojan ladies-in-waiting, halts, while the CHORUS sings a short but dubious and subservient welcome]

SIXTH CHORAL ODE

Queen of the land of Argos, welcome,
Tyndareus’ child,
Sister of the handsome twins, the sons of Zeus,
Who dwell in the empyrean among the stars
And safeguard mariners at sea:
I bow before you as to a goddess
For your great wealth and blessedness.
To revere such blessedness is right.
Salutations, Queen!

SIXTH EPISODE

CLYTEMNESTRA: My ladies of Troy, descend from the carriage . . .
Take my hand and help me down.

[To herself as she descends]

The temples here are loaded with Trojan loot,
and these women from Phrygia
are assigned for my household use:
A paltry reward for my lost daughter—Iphigenia—
but very acceptable.

ELECTRA: Mother, let me take your blessed hand.
After all, I too am a slave,
cast out from my father’s home and living in misery.

CLYTEMNESTRA: [waving her away] Don’t trouble yourself.
Leave it to the slaves.

ELECTRA: Why should I? . . . I am a slave:
torn from my home when my home was torn from me.

I was made a captive like these women,
and left without a father.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Only because of the plots your father was hatching
against his nearest and dearest.

Now, I know I am a woman saddled with a bad reputation,
but bitterly criticized as I am—and unjustly—
let me explain.

Once you know the truth,
if you still think I am worthy of hate, then hate away,
but if not, where is the hate coming from?

Tyndareus gave me to your father
not to be slain, nor slain those I bore.

But Agamemnon tricked my child from home
with the promise of a wedding to Achilles.

He enticed her far away from the palace
to the blocked naval base at Aulis.

There he lay her on the sacrificial altar pyre
and shore through her tender white throat.

If he had been seeking to defend Mycenae,
or bolster up his house, or save his other children,
and had sacrificed one for the many,
it would not be past forgiving.

But no, it was all done
because of that harlot Helen
and a husband unable to curb her lust.

It was for that my daughter was immolated.

Even so, though I was outrageously wronged,
I did not storm and fume, nor would I have killed my husband.

But he came home with that crazy Cassandra for his bed,
and there we were two brides under the same roof.

Women are silly creatures, I grant you,
all the same, when the husband goes a-roaming
and neglects his nuptial bed,
the wife is apt to copy her husband and get herself a lover.

Then what a burst of scandal flares up around her,
while the real culprit, the man, goes off without a blotch.

If Menelaus had been kidnapped from his palace,
would I have had to kill Orestes
to save my sister’s husband?

Would your father have allowed such a thing?

If after killing my daughter he did not deserve to pay with his life, did I deserve to pay with mine if I laid a hand on his son?

Yes, I killed him. There was no other way.

I turned to his enemies,
for who of your father’s friends
would have helped me in his murder?

Speak if you wish. Feel free to explain
why you think your father died unjustly.

ELECTRA: You plead justice,
and your plea is a sham—utterly unjust.

A woman, in everything, if she has any sense,
should yield to her husband.

Women who think otherwise
are for me beyond the pale . . .

Bear in mind, Mother, what you last said:
that I was to speak with complete freedom.

CLYTEMNESTRA: I repeat that, daughter, and take nothing back.

ELECTRA: Yes, Mother, but will you listen, then castigate?

CLYTEMNESTRA: Not at all. I shall be gentle with your sentiments.

ELECTRA: Then I shall speak, and my prelude is:
I wish, Mother, you had more compassion.

It is all very well to praise
your and Helen’s beauty—and rightly so,
you are a handsome pair, but profligates both,
unworthy of your brother Castor.

She, torn from home and longing to be ravished,
You, on the plea that you must destroy a husband for the sake
of a daughter,
Murderess of the noblest man in Hellas.

Nobody knows you as I do.

Why, even before your daughter’s sacrifice,
when your husband had just left home,
you sat primping before a looking glass,
sleeking your shining hair.

Any woman who dolls herself up
when her husband is far from home,
can be dismissed as a profligate.

There is no call for her to make herself up for display
unless she is up to no good.

You were the only woman I know
who became ecstatic when the Trojans were winning
but quite downcast when they were not.

You did not want Agamemnon back from Troy,
and yet you had every reason to be a faithful wife:

Your man was not one whit inferior to Aegisthus.

He was chosen by Hellas to lead her armada.

And you, in contrast to your sister Helen’s disgrace,
you could have shone;
for wrongdoing is a foil for the beauty of the right.

If, as you say, my father killed his daughter,
how does that make me and my brother reprehensible?

Why, when you killed your husband,
did you not give to Orestes and me our ancestral home,
but instead intruded an outsider—bought with it your lover,
the price of shame?

Your lover was not banished for the sake of your son,
nor put to death for the sake of me—
I who have suffered a death far worse than my sister’s,
a living death.

And justice? If it comes to blood for blood,
only by your death can Orestes and I avenge our father.

If the first murder was right, so is the second.
[She turns to the CHORUS]³¹

He is an idiot who marries a woman because of birth and wealth.

A loyal if lowly wife is best.

LEADER: The marriage of woman depends on luck.
It’s a toss-up whether it all goes well or dismally.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Dear girl, you always loved your father,
which is natural enough: some are father-lovers,
some are drawn more to mothers.

I can forgive you . . . and to tell the truth,
I am not proud of everything I’ve done, my child.

[Looking her up and down]

But why are you so dirty and in rags,
considering the turmoil of giving birth is over? . . .

Oh, I’m so sorry for all my plottings:
I drove my husband to resentment and went too far.

ELECTRA: Your regrets come too late. They cannot be redressed.
My father is dead.
But why do you not bring back your banished vagabond son?

CLYTEMNESTRA: Because I am afraid,
and must think of myself not him.

He is angry, they say, about his father’s death.

ELECTRA: Why is your husband so antagonistic towards us?

CLYTEMNESTRA: It is his way . . . and you are stubborn too.

ELECTRA: Because I am hurt. But I’ll let my anger go.

CLYTEMNESTRA: In which case he’ll stop oppressing you.

ELECTRA: He puts on airs living in my palace.

CLYTEMNESTRA: There you go again—adding fuel to the quarrel.

ELECTRA: I’ll keep quiet, and fear him as I fear him.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Enough of this. What made you call me, child?

ELECTRA: I expect you’ve heard about my baby.
Will you make the offering for me—
I haven’t an inkling what—
the usual tenth-day offering for a newborn.³²

I’ve never had a child and I’m at a loss.

CLYTEMNESTRA: This is the duty of the midwife: the woman who helped to deliver you.

ELECTRA: I was my own midwife. I bore my child alone. CLYTEMNESTRA: Do you live far from friends and neighbors?

ELECTRA: Friends? No one wants the poor for friends.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Let me go and pay the dues for your child’s birth.
After this service to you
I shall go to the pastures where my husband
is making offerings to the Nymphs.

[Turning to her attendants]

Put away my carriage, servants,
and take the horses to their stalls.

When you think I have finished my devotions
come for me.

I must consider too my husband’s wants.

ELECTRA: Enter my humble abode.
Be careful the sooty beams don’t soil your dress.
Offer whatever sacrifice you think is proper.

[CLYTEMNESTRA enters the cottage. ELECTRA pauses on the threshold]

The basket is ready to receive.
The blade that slew the bull is whetted.
By his side, struck down you’ll lie,
and in Hades you shall be the bride
of him you loved in the light of day.
That is the most that I can do for you,
and for my father’s death the least repayment due.

[As CLYTEMNESTRA goes into the cottage unwittingly to her death, the CHORUS recapitulates the revolving story of horror]

SEVENTH CHORAL ODE

STROPHE

Revulsion relived, full cycle the evil’s return
Like a gale that veers on this house.
Yesterday it was my king cut down,
My dear king killed in his bath.
Steeped in the ceiling, the cornice blocks,
Are his last shrieks: “Surely not, wife?
How miserably sad to kill me the day
I come back to my dear country
After ten years away!”

ANTISTROPHE

And now full cycle the evil returns to punish
The bad woman untrue to her marriage
Who slaughtered her husband, swinging
An ax in her hands when he came home
After a long time away:
Home to the Cyclopean walls that tower
Into the sky . . . You poor man,
What a woman you got yourself!
What ruin in her redressing a wrong!

SEVENTH EPISODE

[The cries of CLYTEMNESTRA can be heard inside the cottage]

CLYTEMNESTRA: No no, children, by the gods, do not kill your mother.

LEADER: Do you hear that shriek coming from within?

CLYTEMNESTRA: No no, I beg.

LEADER: My heart goes out to her—slain by her children.

CHORUS: God when the right time comes does right.
Though pitiable your fate
It was your fault to perpetrate
A crime yourself, you doomed woman.

LEADER: Look, they are coming back,
all smeared with the fresh blood of their mother:
they have achieved undoubtedly their slaughter.

No house exists, no house ever was
more blighted than the house of Tantalus.

[ORESTES, ELECTRA, and PYLADES emerge from the cottage. The ekkyklema, a customary stage device, opens the scene to reveal the bodies of CLYTEMNESTRA and AEGISTHUS stretched out side by side]

LYRIC DIALOGUE

STROPHE I ³³

ORESTES: O Earth and Zeus who see everything
That mortals do, see these things too,
Bloody and horrible:
Two corpses stretched out on the ground
By the swipe of my hand
To pay for all my wrongs.

ELECTRA: What a fall of tears, my brother,
And I am the cause.
My anger was a furnace
Against this my mother:
Yes, my own mother.

CHORUS: What a fate, what a fortune
For the mother who bore
In her children avengers.
Nevertheless it was right
To atone for their father’s murder.

ANTISTROPHE I

ORESTES: It was you, Phoebus, who commended
This revenge. You’ve dragged into day
Deep sorrows asleep.
Me you have branded to roam far
From Hellas. For, what city,
What honest man,
What host could bear to face
A matricide?

ELECTRA: Gone, gone . . .
What dances to join?
What wedding ever, or what husband
Will let me near a marriage bed?

CHORUS: A change of heart!
How you have veered with the wind!
Now tender thoughts—not then:
A ghastly act and a forced brother.

STROPHE II

ORESTES: Did you see how the stricken thing threw open
Her bosom as she was being murdered? Ah!
Those limbs, my mother’s limbs,
Strewn on the ground
And her hair, which I . . .

ELECTRA: I can understand the agony
You felt when you heard those cries of hers,
Your own mother.

ANTISTROPHE II

ORESTES: Her hand touched my chin. “O my child,”
She pleaded as she hung on my neck
And I let go the grip on my sword:
It dropped to the floor.

CHORUS: [to ELECTRA] Poor woman, how could you bear
To watch the blood oozing from
Your dying mother?

STROPHE III

ORESTES: I threw my cloak over my eyes
And did the thing, forcing the steel
Through my mother’s throat.

ELECTRA: I was urging you on.
My hand was on the sword with yours.

CHORUS: What you have done is heinous beyond all words.

ANTISTROPHE III

ORESTES: Lift her up. Staunch her wounds.
Cover my mother’s limbs with a gown.
The children born to you
Have become your murderers.

ELECTRA: Shroud her whom we hated and loved
In this robe, and end the curse of this house.

[With a rumble of thunder and flash of light, CASTOR and POLLUX appear above the scene]

CHORUS: What is this vision flooding over the housetops?
Am I seeing demons or gods from heaven
Who come by no earthly path?
Why have they made themselves visible?