ELECTRA 
 
EURIPIDES 
 
 THE ELECTRA 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE 
 WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY 
 
 GILBERT MURRAY 
 LL.D., D.LiTT. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THS 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFOBB 
 
 Forty- Sixth Thousand 
 
 NEW YORK 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 AMERICAN BRANCH: 114 Fifth Avenue 
 LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE & BOMBAY 
 
{All rights reserved) 
 
 Performed at 
 The Court Theatre, London 
 
 , , , , TN T.^0.7 
 
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 / 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 Unwin Brothers Ltd., Woking 
 

 INTRODUCTION' 
 
 'hi Elictra of Euripides has the distinction of being, 
 (>erhaps, the best abused, and, one might add, not the 
 best understood, of ancient tragedies. "A singular 
 monument of poetical, or rather unpoetical perver- 
 sity ; '"* *' the very worst of all his pieces ; ^ are, for 
 instance, the phrases applied to it by Schlcgel. Con- 
 sidering that he judged it by the standards of con- 
 ventional classicism, he could scarcely have arrived at 
 any different conclusion. For it is essentially, and 
 perhaps consciously, a protest against those standards. 
 So, indeed, is the tragedy of Tht Trojan Women ; but 
 on very different lines. The EUctra has none of the 
 imaginative splendour, the vastness, the intense poetry, 
 of that wonderful work, It ^ii a clofe-knit > powerfuJL 
 well-constructed play, as realistic as the tragic con- 
 ventions will allow, intellectual and rebellious. Its 
 psychology reminds one of Browning, or even of Ibsen. 
 
 To a fifth-century Greek all history came in the 
 form of legend ; and no less than three extant 
 tragedies, Aeschylus* Libation- Bearer i (456 B.C.), Euri- 
 pides* Electro {413 B.C.), and Sophocles' EUctra (date 
 unknown : but perhaps the latest of the three) arc 
 based on the' particular piece of legend or history 
 now before us. It nau-rates how the son and daughter 
 
 ^ Most of this introduction is reprinted, by the kind permiaiion 0/ 
 th« Editon, from an article in the Independmt Review^ vol. i. No. 4. 
 
 M77793 
 
ri INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the murdered king, Agamemnon, slew, in due 
 ^ course of revenge, and by Apollo's express command, 
 
 their guilty mother and her paramour. 
 
 Homer had long since told the story, as he tells so 
 
 many, simply and grandly, without moral questioning 
 
 and without intensity. The atmosphere is heroic. 
 
 It is all a blood-feud between chieftains, in which 
 1 Orestes, after seven years, succeeds in slaying his foe 
 J Aegisthus, who had killed his father. He probably 
 
 killed his mother also ; but we are not directly told so. 
 
 His sister may have helped him, and he may possibly 
 \ have gone mad afterwards ; but these painful issues 
 
 V are kept determinedly in the shade. 
 
 Somewhat surprisingly, Sophocles, although by his 
 time Electra and Clytemncstra had become leading 
 figures in the story and the mother-murder its essen- 
 tial climax, preserves a very similar atmosphere. His 
 tragedy is enthusiastically praised by Schlegel for " the 
 celestial purity, the fresh breath of life and youth, 
 that is diffused over so dreadful a subject." "Every- 
 
 V thing dark and ominous is avoided. Orestes enjoys 
 the fulness of health and strength. He it beset 
 neither with doubts nor stings of conscience.'' Espe- 
 cially laudable is the "austcdjty" with which Aegisthus 
 is driven into the house to receive, according to 
 Schlegel, a specially ignominious death I 
 
 y\ This combination of matricide and good spirits, 
 however satisfactory to the determined classicist, will 
 probably strike most intelligent readers at a little 
 curious, and even^ if one may use the word at all in 
 connection with to powerful a play, nndrmmatic. It 
 
INTRODUCTION rii 
 
 becomes intelligible as soon as we observe that Sopho- 
 cles was deliberately seeking what he regarded as an 
 archaic or " Homeric " style (cf. Jebb, Introd. p. xli.) ; 
 and this archaism, in its turn, seems to me best 
 explained as a conscious reaction against Euripides' 
 searching and unconventional treatment of the same 
 subject (cf. Wilamowitz in Hermes^ xviii. pp. 214 flf.). 
 In the result Sophocles is not only more " classical " 
 than Euripides; he is more primitive by far than 
 Aeschylus. 
 
 For Aeschylus, though steeped in the glory of the 
 world of legend, would not lightly accept its judg- 
 ment upon religious and moral questions, and above 
 all would not, in thaC 'egion, play at make-believe. 
 He would not elude the horror of this story by simply 
 not mentioning it, like Homer, or by pretending that 
 an evil act was a good one, like Sophocles. He faces 
 the horror ; realises it ; and tries to surmount it on 
 the sweep of a great wave of religious emotion. The 
 mother-murder, even if done by a god's command, is 
 ,a sin ; a sin to be expiated by unfathomable suffering. 
 Yet, since the god cannot have commanded evil, it is 
 a duty also. It is a sin that must be committed. 
 
 Euripides, here as often, represents intellectually 
 the thought of Aeschylus carried a step further. He 
 faced the problem just as Aeschylus did, and as 
 Sophocles did noc But the solution offered by 
 Aeschylus did not satisfy him. It cannot, in its 
 actual details, satisfy any one. To him the mpthcr- 
 murder — like most acts of revenge, but more than 
 most — was^ a sin and a horror. Therefore it should 
 
Tiii INTRODUCTION 
 
 not have been committed ; and the god who enjoined 
 it did command evil, as he had done in a hundred 
 other cases I He is no god of light ; he is only a 
 demon of old superstition, acting, among other in- 
 fluences, upon a sore-beset man, and driving him 
 towards a miscalled duty, the horror of which, when 
 done, will unseat his reason. 
 
 But another problem interests Euripides even more 
 than this. What kind of man was it — above all, 
 what kind of woman can it have been, who would do 
 this deed of mother-murder, not in sudden fury but 
 V deliberately, u an act of "justice," after many years ? 
 A "sympathetic" hero and heroine are out of the 
 question ; and Euripides does not deal in stage villains. 
 "^He seeks real people. And few attentive readers of 
 this play can doubt that he has found them. 
 
 The son is an exile, bred in the desperate hopes 
 and wild schemes of exile ; he is a prince without 
 a kingdom, always dreaming of his wrongs and his 
 restoration ; and driven by the old savage doctrine, 
 which an oracle has confirmed, of the duty and 
 manliness of revenge. He is, as was shown by his 
 later history, a man subject to overpowering impulses 
 and to fits of will-less brooding. Lastly, he is very 
 \k^oung, and is swept away by hit sister's intenier 
 nature. 
 
 That sister \% the central figure of the timgedy. A 
 
 woman shatteted in childhood by the shock of lui 
 
 / experience too terrible for a girl to bear ; a poisoned 
 
 and a Aaunted woman, eating her heart in ceaseless 
 
 brooding! of hate and love, alike unsatisfied — hate 
 
^ 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 s^ainst her mother and stepfather, love for her dead 
 father and her brother in exile ; a woman who has 
 known luxury and state, and cares much for them ; 
 who is intolerant of poverty, and who feels her youth 
 passing away. And meantime there is her name, on 
 which all legend, if I am not mistaken, insists ; she is 
 A-Uktroy "the Unmated." 
 
 There is, perhaps, no woman's character in the 
 range of Greek tragedy so profoundly studied. Not 
 Aeschylus' Clytemncstra, not Phaedra nor Medea. 
 One's thoughts can only wander towards two great 
 heroines of "lost" plays, Althaea in the Meleager^ 
 ^Ti^ Stheneboea in the BilUrtphan. 
 
 G. M. 
 
ELECTRA 
 
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY 
 
 Clttbmnbstka* Queen 0/ Argos and Mycenae ; widow oj /igm- 
 metfinpn^ 
 
 Elbctra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. 
 Okbstbs, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestray now in ianishmeni. 
 A Peasant, Ausiand of Electro, 
 An Old "hHK^, formerly servant to Agamemnon, 
 Pyladbs, son of Strophios^ King of Phocis ; friend to Orestes, 
 Abgisthus, usurping King of Argos emd Mycenae^ row husbctnd 
 of Clytemnestra, 
 
 The Heroes Castor and Polydbdcks. 
 Chorus of Argive Women, with their Lbadbr. 
 
 FOLLOWBRS of OrBSTBS ; HANDMAIDS of ClYTBU NBSTlA. 
 
 The Seen* is laid in the mountains of Argos. The play wasfirtt 
 produced between the years 414 and 412 B.C. 
 
 ^ 
 
ELECTRA 
 
 The scent represents a hut on a desolate mountain side ; 
 the river Inachus is visible in the distance. The 
 time is the dusk of early dawn^ before sunrise. The 
 PlASANT is discovered in front of the hut, ^ 
 
 Pbasant. 
 
 i 
 
 Old gleam on the face of the world, I give thee 
 
 hail, 
 River of Argos land, where sail on sail ^ J 
 
 The long ships met, a thousand, near and far, . ft 
 
 When Agamemnon walked the seas in war ; 
 Who smote King Priam in t^c dust, and burned 
 The storied streets of Ilion, and returned 
 Above all conquerors, heaping tower and fane 
 Of Argos high with spoils of Eastern slain. 
 
 So in far lands he prospered ; and at home 
 His own wife trapped and slew him. 'Twas the doom 
 Aegisthus wrought, son of his father's foe. 
 
 Gone is that' King, and the old spear laid low 
 That Tantalus wielded when the world was young. 
 Aegisthus hath his queen, and reigns among 
 His people. And the children here alone, 
 Orestes and Electra, buds unblown 
 
4 EURIPIDES 
 
 Of man and womanhood, when forth to Troy 
 He shook his sail and left them — lo, the boy 
 
 . .Orf^tes^ ere Acg'sthus' hand could fall, 
 'W,a}» stolen ;fifc»ih;Argos — borne by one old thrall, 
 , Vyhq served his fether's boyhood, over seas 
 
 1 )&^:Af.^£^, .^n4 Jaid Mppn King Strophios* knees 
 In Phocis, for the old king's sake. But here 
 The maid Electra waited, year by year. 
 Alone, till the warm days of womanhood 
 Drew nigh and suitors came of gentle blood 
 In Hellas. Then Acgisthus was in fear 
 Lest she be wed in some great house, and bear 
 A son to avenge her father. Close he wrought 
 Her prison in his house, and gave her not 
 To any wooer. Then, since even this 
 Was full of peril, and the secret kiss 
 Of some bold prince might find her yet, and rend 
 Her prison walls, Aegisthus at the end 
 Would slay her. Then her mother, she so wild 
 Aforetime, pled with him and saved her child. 
 Her heart had still an answer for her lord 
 Murdered, but if the child's blood spoke, what word 
 Could meet the hate thereof ? After that day 
 Aegisthus thus decreed : whoso should slay 
 The old king's wandering son, should win rich 
 
 meed 
 Of gold ; and for Electra, she must wed 
 ^ J With me, not base of blood — in that I stand 
 i^ ^Tnie Mycenaean — but in gold and land 
 
 JMost poor, which makcth highest birth as naught. 
 ^ I So from a powerless husband shall be wrought 
 
 \ A powerless peril. Had some man of might 
 Possessed her, he had called perchance to light 
 
ELECTRA 5 
 
 Her ftithcr's blood, and unknown vengeances 
 Risen on Aegisthus yet. 
 
 Aye, mine she is : 
 But never yet these arms — the Cyprian knows 
 My truth I — have clasped her body, and she goes 
 A virgin still. Myself would hold it shame 
 To abase this daughter of a royal name. 
 I am too lowly^dTove violence. Yea, 
 Orestes too doth move me, far away, 
 Mine unknown brother I Will he ever now 
 Come back and see his sister bowed so low ? 
 
 Doth any deem me fool, to hold a fair 
 Maid in my room and seek no joy, but spare 
 Her maidenhood ? If any such there be. 
 Let him but look within. The fool is he 
 In gentle things, weighing the more and less 
 Of love by his own heart's untenderness. 
 
 Ijfs he ceases Electra ccmes out of the hut, Shi 
 is in mourning garby and carries a large 
 pitcher on her head. She speaks without 
 observing the Peasant's presence. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Dark shepherdess of many a golden star, 
 Dost see me, Mother Night ? And how this jar 
 Hath worn my earth- bowed head, as forth and fro 
 For water to the hillward springs I go ? 
 Not for mere stress of need, but purpose set, 
 That never day nor night God may forget 
 Aegisthus* sin : aye, and perchance a cry . 
 Cast forth to the waste shining of the sky 
 
6 EURIPIDES 
 
 May find my father's car. . . , The woman bred 
 Of Tyndarcus, my mother — on her head 
 Be curses ! — from my house hath outcast me ; 
 She hath borne children to our enemy ; 
 She hath made me naught, she hath made Orestes 
 naught. . • . 
 
 l^s the bitterness of her tone increases^ the 
 Peasant comes forward. 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 What wouldst thou now, my sad one, ever fraught 
 With toil to lighten my toil ? And so soft 
 Thy nurture was I Have I not chid thee oft. 
 And thou wilt cease not, serving without end ? 
 
 Elsctra {turning to him with impulsive affection), 
 
 O friend, my friend, as God might be my friend. 
 Thou only hast not trampled on my tears. 
 Life scarce can be so hard, 'mid many fears 
 And many shames, when mortal heart can find 
 Somewhere one healing touch, as my sick mind 
 Finds thee. . . . And should I wait thy word, to \ 
 endure M 
 
 A little for thine easing, yea, or pour J \ 
 
 My strength out in thy toiling fellowship ? y ^^ 
 
 Thou hast enough with fields and kine to keep.^!!!!^ 
 'Tis mine to make all bright within the door. 
 'Tis joy to him that toils, when toil is o'er, 
 To find home waiting, full of happy thingi 
 
 i 
 
ELECTRA 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 If so it please thee, go thy way. The springs 
 Arc not far off. And I before the morn 
 Must drive my team afield, and sow the corn 
 In the hollows. — Not a thousand prayers can gain 
 A man's bare bread, save an he work amain. 
 
 [Elkctra and the Peasant depart on their several 
 ways. After a few moments there enter 
 stealthily two armed men^ Orestes and 
 Pylades. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 m 
 
 Thou art the first that I have known m deed 
 True and my friend,'*and shelterer of my need. 
 Thou only, Pylades, of all that knew, 
 Hast held Orestes of some worth, all through 
 These years of helplcssn'sss, wherein I lie 
 Downtrodden by the murderer — yea, and by 
 The murderess, my mother ! ... I am come, 
 Fresh from the cleansing of Apollo, home 
 To Argos — and my coming no man yet 
 Knoweth — to pay the bloody twain their debt 
 Of blood. This very night I crept alone 
 To my dead father's grave, and poured thereon 
 My heart's first tears and tresses of my head 
 New-shorn, and o'er the barrow of the dead 
 Slew a black lamb, unknown of them that reign 
 In this unhappy land. ; . . I am not ^n 
 To pass the city gates, but hold me here 
 Hard on the borders. So my road is clear 
 
S EURIPIDES 
 
 To fly if men look close and watch my way } 
 
 If not, to seek my sister. For men say 
 
 She dwelleth in these hills, no more a maid 
 
 But wedded. I must find her house, for aid 
 
 To guide our work, and learn what hath betid 
 
 Of late in Argos. — Ha, the radiant lid 
 
 Of Dawn's eye lifteth t Come, friend ; leave we now 
 
 This trodden path. Some worker of the plough. 
 
 Or serving damsel at her early task 
 
 Will presently come by, whom we may ask 
 
 If here my sister dwells. But soft 1 Even now 
 
 I see some bondmaid there, her death-shorn brow 
 
 Bending beneath its freight of well-water. 
 
 Lie close until she pass ; then question her. 
 
 A slave might help us well, or speak some sign 
 
 Of import to this work of mine and thine. 
 
 [Thi two men retin into ambush, Elsctra 
 intirSf returning from the well. 
 
 Elbctra. 
 
 Onward, O labouring tread. 
 
 As on move the years ; 
 Onward amid thy tears, 
 
 O happier dead I 
 
 Let me remember. I am she, [Strophe i, 
 
 Agamemnon's child, and the mother of me 
 
 Clytemnestra, the evil Queen, 
 
 Helen's sister. And folk, I ween. 
 
 That pass in the streets call yet my name 
 
 Electn. . . . God protect my shame I 
 
ELECTRA 9 
 
 For toil, toil is a weary thing, 
 
 And life is heavy about my head ; 
 And thou far off, O Father and King, 
 In the lost lands of the dead. 
 A bloody twain made these things be $ 
 One was thy bitterest enemy. 
 And one the wife that lay by thee. 
 
 Brother, brother, on some far shore [Antiitrophe i. 
 
 Hast thou a city, is there a door 
 
 That knows thy footfall, Wandering One ? 
 
 Who left me, left me, when all our pain 
 
 Was bitter about us, a father slain. 
 
 And a girl that wept in her room alone. 
 
 Thou couldst break me this bondage sore. 
 Only thou, who art far away, 
 
 Loose our father, and wake once more. . . . 
 Zeus, Zeus, dost hear me pray ? . . . 
 The sleeping blood and the shame and the doom ! 
 O feet that rest not, over the foam 
 Of distant seas, come home, come home 1 
 
 What boots this cruse that I carry ? [Strtphi 2, 
 
 O, set free my brow I 
 For the gathered tears that tarry 
 
 Through the day and the dark till now, 
 Now in the dawn are free. 
 
 Father, and flow beneath 
 The floor of the world, to be 
 
 As a song in the house of Death : 
 From the rising up of the day 
 They guide my heart alway, 
 The silent tears unshed. 
 And my body mourns for the dead ; 
 
lo EURIPIDES 
 
 fMP^ My checks bleed silently, 
 
 ^ And these bruised temples keep 
 
 ^ I Their pain, remembering thcc 
 
 />"• And thy bloody sleep. 
 
 Be rent, O hair of mine head ! 
 
 As a swan crying alone 
 
 Where the river windeth cold, 
 For a loved, for a silent one, 
 
 Whom the toils of the fowler hold, 
 I cry, Father, to thee, 
 O slain in misery ! 
 
 The water, the wan water, [Antistrophe 2 
 
 Lapped him, and his head 
 Drooped in the bed of slaughter 
 -\AJL ,lWii Low, as one wearied ; 
 u'\\<^*-' Woe for the cdg^d axe. 
 
 And woe for the heart of hate, 
 . Houndlike about thy tracks, 
 
 (Jli^Vw<M.M-W O conqueror desolate. 
 
 From Troy over land and sea, 
 Till a wife stood waiting thee ; 
 Not with crowns did she stand, 
 Nor flowers of peace in her hand % 
 With Aegisthus' dagger drawn 
 
 For her hire she strove. 
 Through shame and through blood alone ; 
 And won her a traitor's love. 
 
 [As she ceases there enter from right and 
 left the Chorus, consisting of women oj 
 , ^^i*'% y^^ng and tidf in festal dress* 
 
ELECTRA II 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Some Women. 
 
 Child of the mighty dead, [Strophe. 
 
 Electra, lo, my way 
 To thee in the dawn hath sped, 
 
 And the cot on the mountain grey, 
 
 For the Watcher hath cried this day : 
 He of the ancient folk. 
 
 The walker of waste and hill, 
 Who drinketh the milk of the flock ; 
 
 And he told of Hera's will ; 
 For the morrow's morrow now 
 
 They cry her festival. 
 And before her throne shall bow 
 Our damsels all 
 
 Elkctra. 
 
 Not unto joy, nor sweet 
 Music, nor shining of gold. 
 
 The wings of my spirit beat. 
 Let the brides of Argos hold 
 Their dance in the night, as of old ; 
 
 I lead no dance ; I mark 
 
 No beat as the dancers sway ; ^ 
 
 With tears I dwell in the dark, '^C^ 
 And my thought is of tears alway, 
 To the going down of the day. 
 
 Look on my wasted hair 
 
 And raiment. . . . This that I bear, 
 
la EURIPIDES 
 
 Is it meet for the King my sire, 
 
 And her whom the King begot ? 
 For Troy, that was burned with fire 
 And forgetteth not ? 
 
 Choru*. 
 Other Women, 
 
 Hera is great ! — Ah, come, [Aniistrophi, 
 
 Be kind ; and my hand shall bring 
 Fair raiment, work of the loom. 
 
 And many a golden thing, 
 
 For joyous robe-wearing. 
 Deemest thou this thy woe 
 
 Shall rise unto God as prayer, 
 Or bend thine haters low ? 
 
 Doth God for thy pain have care ? 
 Not tears for the dead nor sighs. 
 
 But worship and joy divine 
 Shall win thee peace in thy skies, 
 O daughter mine I 
 
 Elkctra. 
 
 No care cometh to God 
 
 For the voice of the helpless ; none 
 For the crying of ancient blood. 
 
 Alas for him that is gone. 
 
 And for thee, O wandering one : 
 That now, methinks, in a land 
 
 Of the stranger must toil for hire, 
 And stand where the poor men stand, 
 
 A-cold by another's fire, 
 
 O son of the mighty sire : 
 
ELECTRA 13 
 
 While I in a beggar's cot 
 
 On the wrecked hills, changing not. 
 
 Starve in my soul for food ; 
 
 But our mother licth wed 
 In another's arms, and blood 
 Is about her bed. 
 
 LlADSR. 
 
 On all of Greece she wrought great jeopardy, 
 Thy mother's sister, Helen, — and on thee. 
 
 [Orestes and Pyladks move out from their con- 
 cealment ; Orestes comes forward : Pyladks 
 beckons to two Armed Servants and stays 
 with them in the background, 
 
 Elkctra. 
 
 Woe's me 1 No more of wailing ! Women, flee ! 
 Strange armid men beside the dwelling there 
 Lie ambushed ! They are rising from their lair. 
 Back by the road, all you. I will essay 
 The house ; and may our good feet save us ! 
 
 Orestes {between Electra and the hut). 
 
 Star, 
 Unhappy woman ! Never fear my steel. 
 
 Electra {in utter panic), 
 
 O bright Apollo 1 Mercy I See, I kneel ; 
 Slay me not 
 
14 EURIPIDES 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Others I have yet to slay 
 Less dear than thou. 
 
 Elsctra. 
 
 Go from me ! Wouldst thou Uf 
 Hand on a body that is not for thee ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 None is there I would touch more righteously. 
 
 Elsctra. 
 
 Why lurk'st thou by my house ? And why a sword ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 Stay. Listen I Thou wilt not gainsay my word. 
 
 Electra. 
 There — I am still. Do what thou wilt with me. 
 Thou art too strong. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 A word I bear to thee • • • 
 Word of thy brother. 
 
 Electra. 
 Oh, friend I More than friend I 
 Living or dead ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 He lives ; so let me send 
 My comfort foremost, ere the rest be heard. 
 
ELECTRA 15 
 
 Electra. 
 God love thcc for the sweetness of thy word I 
 
 Orkstks. 
 God love the twain of us, both thee and me. 
 
 Elkctra. 
 He lives ! Poor brother I In what land weareth he 
 His exile ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 Not one region nor one lot 
 His wasted life hath trod. 
 
 Elbctra. 
 
 He lacketh not 
 For bread ? 
 
 In exile. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Bread hath he ; but a man is weak 
 
 Electra. 
 
 What charge laid he on thee i Speak. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 To learn if thou still live, and how the storm. 
 Living, hy.th struck thee. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 That thou secst ; this form 
 Was'^cd . , . 
 
i6 EURIPIDES 
 
 Orxstbs. 
 Yea, riven with the fire of woe 
 I sigh to look on thee. 
 
 Elkctra. 
 
 Mj fsice ; and, lo, 
 My temples of their ancient glory shorn. 
 
 Orestis. 
 
 Methinks thy brother haunts thee, being forlorn ; 
 Aye, and perchance thy father, whom they slew. . 
 
 Elbctra. 
 What should be nearer to me than those two ? 
 
 Orestbs. 
 And what to him, thy brother, half so dear 
 As thou ? 
 
 Elkctra. 
 His it a distant love, not near 
 At need. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 But why this dwelling place, this life 
 Of loneliness ? 
 
 Electra {with sudden hitttrtufs). 
 
 Stranger, I am a wife. • • • 
 O better dead I 
 
ELECTRA 17 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 That seals thy brother's doom ! 
 What Prince of Argos . . . ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Not the man to whom 
 My father thought to give mc. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Speak ; that I 
 May tell thy brother all. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 'Tis there, hard by, 
 His dwelling, where I live, far from men's eyes. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Some ditcher's cot, or cowherd's, by its guise ! 
 
 Electra {struct with shame for her ingratitude). 
 A poor man ; but true-hearted, and to mc 
 God-fearing. 
 
 Orestes. 
 How ? What fear of God hath he ? 
 
 Electra. 
 He hath never held my body to his own. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Hath he some vow to keep ? Or is it done 
 To scorn thee I 
 
il EURIPIDES 
 
 l'^^ EtECTRA. 
 
 Agatntt my father's greatness. 
 
 Orestbs. 
 
 But to win 
 A princess I Doth his heart not leap for pride ? 
 
 Electra. 
 He honoureth not the hand that gave the bride. 
 
 Orsstis. 
 I see. He trembles for Orestes' wrath ? 
 
 £lectra. 
 Aye, that would move him. But beside, he hath 
 A gentle heart. 
 
 Orestbs. 
 
 Strange I A good man. ... I swear 
 He well shall be requited. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Whensoc'er 
 Our wanderer comes again I 
 
 Orestbs. 
 
 Thy mother stays 
 Unmoved 'mid all thy wrong ? 
 
 Electra. 
 \ A lover weighs 
 
 / More than i child in any woman's heart. 
 
ELECTRA 19 
 
 OREarris, 
 
 But what end seeks Aegisthus, by such art 
 Of shame ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 To make mine unborn children low 
 And weak, even as my husband, 
 
 Orkstks. 
 
 Lest there grow 
 From thee the avenger ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Such his purpose it : 
 For which may I requite him 1 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 And of this 
 Thy virgin life — Aegisthus knows it ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Nay, 
 We speak it not. It cometh not his way, 
 
 Orestes. 
 These women hear us. Are they friends to thee ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Aye, friends and true. They will keep fiiithfiilly 
 All words of mine and thine. 
 
) 
 
 ao EURIPIDES 
 
 Orestes {trying her). 
 
 Thou art well stayed 
 With friends. And could Orestes give thee »id 
 In aught, if e'er . . . 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Shame on thee I Seest thou not ? 
 Is it not time ? 
 
 Orestes {catching her excitement). 
 
 How time ? And if he sought 
 To slay, how should he come at his desire ? 
 
 Electra. 
 By daring, as they dared who slew his sire I 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Wouldst thou dare with him, if he came, thou too, 
 To slay her? 
 
 Electra. 
 Yes ; with the same axe that slew 
 My father 1 
 
 Orestes. 
 'Tis thy message ? And thy mood 
 Unchanging ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Let me shed my mother's blood. 
 
 And I die happy. 
 
ELECTRA ai 
 
 Orestes, 
 
 God I ... I would that now 
 Orestes heard thee here. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Yet, wottest thou, 
 Though here I saw him, I should know him not. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Surely. Ye both were children, when they wrought 
 Your parting. 
 
 Electra, 
 One alone in all this land 
 Would know his face. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 The thrall, methinks, whose hand 
 Stole him from death — or so the story ran ? 
 
 Electra. 
 He taught my father, too, an old old man 
 Of other days than these. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Thy ftither*s grave . . . 
 He had due rites and tendance ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 What chance gave, 
 My ^ther had, cast out to rot in the sun. 
 
it EURIPIDES 
 
 Orestes. 
 God, 'tis too much I . . . To hear of such things done 
 Even to a stranger, stings a man. . . . But speak, 
 Tell of thy life, that I may know, and seek 
 Thy brother with a talc that must be heard 
 Howe'er it sicken. If mine eyes be blurred. 
 Remember, 'tis the fool that feels not. Aye, 
 Wisdom is full of pity ; and thereby 
 Men pay for too much wisdom with much pain. 
 
 Leader. 
 My heart is moved as this man's. I would fain 
 Learn all thy tale. Here dwelling on the hills 
 Little I know of Argos and its ills. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 If I must speak — and at love's call, God knows, 
 
 I fear not — I will tell thee all ; my woes, 
 
 My father's woes, and — O, smce thou hast stirred 
 
 This storm of speech, thou bear him this my word — 
 
 H i s woes and shame I Tell of this narrow cloak 
 
 In the wind ; this grime and reek of toil, that choke 
 
 My breathing ; this low roof that bows my head 
 
 After a king's. This raiment . . . thread by thread, 
 
 *Tis I must weave it, or go bare — must bring, 
 
 Myself, eiih jar of water from the spring 
 
 No holy day for me, no festival. 
 
 No dance upon the green I From all, from mil 
 
 I am cut oC No portion hath my life 
 
 *Mid wives of Argos, being no true wife. 
 
 No portion where the maidens throng to praise 
 
 Castor — my Cattor, whon^i in ancient dayt, 
 
ELECTRA 23 
 
 Ere he passed from us and men worshipped him. 
 They named my bridegroom I — 
 
 And she, s h e I . . . The grim 
 Troy spoils gleam round her throne, and by each 
 
 hand 
 Queens of the East, my fathcr^s prisoners, stand, 
 A cloud of Orient webs and tangling gold. 
 And there upon the floor, the blood, the old 
 Black blood, yet crawls^aTid_canJkcrsJij^^ jUi^^ k ^ 
 
 In the stone ! And on our father's chariot 
 The murderer's foot stands glorying, and the red 
 False hand uplifts that ancient staff, that led 
 The armies of the world I . . . Aye, tell him how 
 The grave of Agamemnon, even now, 
 Lacketh the common honour of the dead ; 
 A desert barrow, where no tears are shed. 
 No tresses hung, no gift, no myrtle spray. 
 And when the wine is in him, so men say, 
 Our mother's mighty master leaps thereon. 
 Spurning the slab, or pelteth stone on stone. 
 Flouting the lone dead and the twain that live : 
 " Where is thy son Orestes ? Doth he give 
 Thy tomb good tendance ? Or is all forgot ? " 
 So is he scorned because he cometh not. . . . 
 O Stranger, on my knees, I charge thee, tell 
 This tale, not mine, but of dumb wrongs that swell 
 Crowding — and I the trumpet of their paift, 
 This tongue, these arms, this bitter burning brain ; 
 These dead shorn locks, and he for whom they 
 
 died I 
 His father slew Troy's thousands in their pride : 
 He hath but one to kill. . . . O God, but one ! 
 Is he a man, and Agamemnon's son P '* 
 
24 £URIPIO£S 
 
 Lbader. 
 
 But hold : is this thy husband from the plain. 
 His labour ended, hasting home again ? 
 
 ^ Enter the Peasant. 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 Ha, who be these I Strange men in arms before 
 My house ! What would they at this lonely door ? 
 Seek they for me ? — Strange gallants should not stay 
 A woman's goings. 
 
 Electra. 
 Friend and helper I — Nay, 
 Think not of any evil. These men be 
 Friends of Orestes, charged with words for me I . . , 
 Strangers, forgive his speech. 
 
 Peasant, 
 
 What word have they 
 Of him ? At least he lives and sees the day ? 
 
 Electra. 
 So fares their tale — and sure I doubt it not I 
 
 Peasant, 
 And ye two still are living in his thought, 
 Thou and his father ? 
 
 Electra. 
 In his dreams we lire. 
 An exile hath small power. 
 
ELECTRA 15 
 
 Feasant. 
 
 And did he give 
 Some privy message ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 None : they come as spies 
 For news of me. 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 Thine outward news their eyes 
 Can see ; the rest, mcthinks, thyself will telL 
 
 Elbctra. 
 They have seen all, heard all. I trust them well. 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 Why were our doors not open long ago ? — \JJm if^t^^hr 
 
 Be welcome, strangers both, and pass below 
 
 My lintel. In return for your glad words 
 
 Be sure all greeting that mine house affords 
 
 Is yours. — Ye followers, bear in their gear I — 
 
 Gainsay me not ; for his sake are ye dear 
 
 That sent you to our house ; and though my part 
 
 In life be low, I an i no churl at heart . 
 
 [Thi Peasant gets to the Armed Servants at 
 the back^ to help them with the baggage, 
 
 Orestes {aside to Electra). 
 
 Is this the man that shields thy maidenhood 
 Unknown, and will not wrong thy father's blood ? 
 
a6 EURIPIDES 
 
 Elbctra. 
 He is called my husband. 'Tis for him I toiL 
 
 ' ,'--^ Orestbs. 
 
 How dark lies honour hid I And what turmoil 
 In all things human : sons of mighty men 
 Fallen to naught, and from ill seed again 
 Good fruit : yea, famine in the rich man's scroll 
 Writ deep, and in poor flesh a lordly soul. 
 As, lo, this man, not great in Argos, not 
 With pride of house uplifted, in a lot 
 Of unmarked life hath shown a prince's grace. 
 
 [To tht Peasant, who has returnecU 
 All that is here of Agamemnon's race, 
 And all that lacketh yet, for whom we come, 
 Do thank thee, and the welcome of thy home 
 Accept with gladness. — Ho, men ; hasten ye 
 Within ! — This open-hearted poverty 
 Is blither to my sense than feasts of gold. 
 
 Lady, thine husband's welcome makes me bold ; 
 Yet would thou hadst thy brother, before all 
 Confessed, to greet us in a prince's hall I 
 Which may be, even yet. Apollo spake 
 The word ; and surely, though small store I make 
 Of man's divining, God will fail us not, 
 
 [Orestbs and Pylades go in^ following thi 
 Sebvants. 
 
 Leader. 
 
 O never was the heart of hope so hot 
 
 Within me. How ? So moveless in time past. 
 
 Hath Fortune girded up her loint at last I 
 
ELECTRA 27 
 
 ELECTRAi 
 
 Now know*st thou not thine own ill furniture^ 
 To bid these strangers in, to whom for sure 
 Our best were hardship, men of gentle breed ? 
 
 PEASAN-r. 
 
 Nay, if the men be gentle, as indeed 
 
 I deem them, they will take good cheer or ill 
 
 With even kindness. 
 
 Electra, 
 
 *Twas ill done ; but still — 
 Go, since so poor thou art, to that old friend 
 Who reared my father. At the realm's last end 
 He dwells, where Tanaos river foams between 
 Argos and Sparta. Long time hath he been 
 An exile 'mid his flocks. Tell him what thing 
 Hath chanced on me, and bid him haste and bring 
 Meat for the strangers' tending. — Glad, I trow. 
 That old man's heart will be, and many a vow 
 Will lift to God, to learn the child he stole 
 From death, yet breathes. — I will not ask a dole 
 From home ; how should my mother help me i Nay^ 
 I pity him that seeks that door, to say 
 Orestes livcth I 
 
 Peasant. 
 
 Wilt thou have it so ? 
 I will take word to the old man. But go 
 Quickly W4thin, and whatso there thou find 
 Set out for them. A woman, if her mind 
 So turn, can light on many a pleasant thing 
 To fill her board. And surely plenishing 
 Wc have for this one day. — 'Tis in such shifts 
 
2S £URIPID£S 
 
 As these, I care for riches, to make gifts 
 To friends, or lead a sick man back to health 
 With ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealth 
 For daily gladness ; once a man be done 
 With hunger, rich and poor are all as one. 
 
 [The Peasant goes offu the left ; Electra goei 
 into the house. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O for the ships of Troy, the beat [Strophe i, 
 
 Of oars that shimmered 
 Innumerable, and dancing feet 
 
 Of Nereids glimmered ; 
 And dolphins, drunken with the lyre, 
 Across the dark blue prows, like fire, . 
 
 Did bound and quiver, ^«. ►'<'*^^ 
 To cleave the way for Thetis' son, 
 Fleet-in-the-wind Achilles, on 
 To war, to war, till Troy be won 
 
 Beside the reedy river. 
 
 Up from Euboea's caverns came [Antistrophe i. 
 
 The Nereids, bearing 
 Gold armour from the Lords of Flame, 
 
 Wrought for his wearing : 
 Long sought those daughters of the deep, 
 Ud Pelion's glen, up Ossa's steep 
 
 Forest enchanted. 
 Where Peleus reared alone, afar. 
 His lost sea-maiden's child, the star 
 Of Hellas, and swift help of war 
 
 When wntry armies oanted. 
 
ELECTRA :I9 
 
 There came a man from Troy, and told [Strophe 2, 
 
 Here in the haven, ^ ko^m 
 How, orb on orb, to strike with cold 
 The Trojan, o'er that targe of gold. 
 
 Dread shapes were graven. 
 All round the level rim thereof 
 Perseus, on wingid feet, above 
 
 The long seas hied him ; 
 The Gorgon's wild and bleeding hair 
 He lifted ; and a herald i^Eiir, 
 He of the wilds, whom Maia bare, 
 
 God's Hermes, flew beside him. 
 
 [Antistropht 2. 
 But midmost, where the boss rose higher, 
 
 A sun stood blazing, 
 And winged steeds, and stars in choir, 
 Hyad and Pleiad, fire on fire, 
 
 For Hector's dazing : 
 Across the golden helm, each way. 
 Two taloncd Sphinxes held their prey, 
 
 Song-drawn to slaughter : 
 And round the breastplate ramping came 
 A mingled breed of lion and flamcj__ /p 
 Hot-eyed to tear that stee^ of fame / ^ 
 
 That found Pir^n^'s water. 
 
 The red red sword with steeds four-yoked [Epsde, 
 
 Black-maned, was graven. 
 That laboured, and the hot dust smoked 
 
 Cloudwise to heaven. 
 
30 EURIPIDES 
 
 Thou Tyndarid woman I Fair and tall 
 Thos^ warriors were, and o'er them all 
 
 One king great-hearted. 
 Whom thou and thy false love did slay : 
 Therefore the tribes of Heaven one day 
 For these thy dead shall send on thee 
 An iron death : yea, men shall see 
 The white throat drawn, and blood's red spray, 
 And lips in terror parted. 
 
 J[Js they cease^ there enters from the left a very 
 •Id mariy hearing a lamb^ a wineskin^ and 
 a walltt. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Where is my little Princess ? Ah, not now ; 
 But still my queen, who tended long ago 
 The lad that was her father. . . . How steep-set 
 These last steps to her porch I But faint not yet : 
 Onward, ye foiling knees and back with pain 
 Bowed, till we look on that dear face again. 
 
 \Enter Electha. 
 Ah, daughter, is it thou ? — Lo, here I am. 
 With gifts from all my store ; this suckling lamb 
 Fresh from the ewe, green crowns for joy fulness, 
 And creamy things new-curdled from the press. 
 And this long-storid juice of vintages 
 Forgotten, cased in fragrance : scant it is, 
 But passing sweet to mingle nectar-wise 
 With feebler wine. — Go, bear them in; mine eyes . * • 
 Where is my cloak? — They arc all blurred with 
 tears. 
 
ELECTRA 31 
 
 Electra. 
 
 What ails thine eyes, old friend ? After these years 
 Doth my low plight still stir thy memories ? 
 Or think'st thou of Orestes, where he lies 
 In exile, and my father ? Aye, long love 
 Thou gavcst him, and sccst the fruit thereof 
 Wasted, for thee and all who love thee I 
 
 Old Mam. 
 
 All 
 Wasted ! And yet 'tis that lost hope withal 
 I cannot brook. But now I turned aside 
 To sec my master's grave. All, far and wide. 
 Was silence ; so I bent these knees of mine 
 And wept and poured drink-offerings from the wine 
 I bear the strangers, and about the stone 
 Laid myrtle sprays. And, child, I saw thereon 
 Just at the censer slain, a fleeced ewe. 
 Deep black, in sacrifice : the blood was new 
 About it : and a tress of bright brown hair 
 Shorn as in mourning, close. Long stood I there 
 And wondered, of all men what man had gone 
 In mourning to that grave. — My child, 'tis none 
 In Argos. Did there come . . . Nay, mark me 
 
 now ... 
 Thy brother in the dark, last night, to bow 
 His head before that unador^d tomb ? 
 
 O come, and mark the colour of it. Come 
 And lay thine own hair by that mourner's tress I 
 A hundred little things make likenesses 
 In brethren born^ and show the father^s blood. 
 
3i EURIPIDES 
 
 Electra {trying t9 mask her ixcitement and resist thi 
 contagion of his). 
 Old heart, old heart, is this a wise man^s mood ? . • . 
 O, not in darkness, not in fear of men, 
 Shall Argos find him, when he comes again. 
 Mine own undaunted . . . Nay, and if it were. 
 What likeness could there be ? My brother's hair 
 Is as a prince's and a rover's, strong 
 With sunlight and with strife : not like the long 
 Locks that a woman combs. . . . And many a head 
 A Hath this same semblance, wing for wing, tho' bred 
 Of blood not ours. . . . *Tis hopeless. Peace, old 
 man. 
 
 Old Mam. 
 The footprints I Set thy foot by his, and scan 
 The track of frame and muscles, how they fit I 
 
 Electra. 
 That ground will take no footprint I All of it 
 Is bitter stone. ... It hath ? . . . And who hath 
 
 said 
 There should be likeness in a brother's tread 
 And sister's ? His is stronger ercry way. 
 
 Old Mam. 
 But hast thou nothing . . . ? If he came this day 
 And sought to show thee, is there no one sign 
 Whereby to know him f . . . Stay ; the robe was 
 
 thine. 
 Work of thy loom, wherein I wrapt him o'er 
 Thai .:«eht. and stole him through the murderers' door. 
 
ELECTRA 33 
 
 Electra. 
 Thou knowest, when Orestes was cast out 
 I was a child. ... If I did weave some clout 
 Of raiment, would he keep the vesture now 
 He wore in childhood ? Should my weaving grow 
 As his limbs grew ? . . . *Tis lost long since. No 
 
 more I 
 O, either 'twas some stranger passed, and shore 
 His locks for very ruth before that tomb : 
 Or, if he found perchance, to seek his home, 
 Some spy . . . 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 The strangers I Where arc they ? I fain 
 Would sec them, aye, and bid them answer plain . . . 
 
 Electra. 
 Here at the door ! How swift upon the thought ! 
 
 Enter Orestes and Pylades. 
 Old Man. 
 High-born : albeit for that I trust them not. 
 The highest oft are false. . . . Howe'er it be, 
 
 [Approaching them, 
 I bid the strangers hail I 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 All hail to thcc, 
 Greybeard I-^Prithee, what man of all the King 
 Trusted of old, is now this broken thing ? 
 
 Electra. 
 'Tis he that trained my father's boyhood. 
 
34 EURIPIDES 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 How? 
 And stoic from death thy brother ? Sayest thou ? 
 
 Electra. 
 Q This man was his deliverer, if it be 
 Deliverance, 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 How his old eye pierceth me, 
 As one that tcstcth silver and alloy I 
 Sees he some likeness here ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Perchance 'tis joy. 
 To see Orestes' comrade, that he feels. 
 
 Orestes. 
 None dearer. — But what ails the man ? He reels 
 Dizzily back. 
 
 Electra. 
 I marvel. I can say 
 No more. 
 
 Old Man (in a brtken voict), 
 
 Electra, mistress, daughter, pray I 
 Pray unto God 1 
 
 Electra. 
 Of all the things I crave. 
 The thousand things, or all that others have, 
 What should I pray for ? 
 
ELECTRA 35 
 
 Old Man. 
 Trxy thine arms may hold 
 
 At last this treasure-dream of more than gol^ 
 God shows us I 
 
 Electra. 
 God, I pray thee I . . . Wouldst thou more ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 Gaze now upon this man, and bow before 
 Thy dearest upon earth ! 
 
 Electra. 
 
 I gaze on t h e e I 
 O, hath time made thee mad ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Mad, that I see 
 Thy brother ? 
 
 Electra. 
 My ... I know not what thou say'st : 
 I looked not for it . . . 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 I tell thee, here confessed 
 Standeth Orestes, Agamemnon's sou I 
 
 Electra. 
 A sign before I trust thee ! O, but one ! 
 How dost thou know . . . ? 
 
36 • EURIPIDES 
 
 Old Man. ' 
 
 There, by his brow, I sec 
 The scar he made, that day he ran with thee 
 Chasing thy fawn, and fell. 
 
 Electra [in a dull voice), 
 
 A scar ? 'Tis so. 
 I see a scar. 
 
 Old Man. 
 And fearest still to throw 
 Thine arms round him thou lovest ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 O, no more I 
 Thy sign hath conquered me. . . . {throwing herselj 
 
 into Orestes' arms). At last, at lasc \ 
 Thy face like light ! And do I hold thee hst, 
 Unhoped for I 
 
 Orestes. 
 Yea, at last 1 And I hold thee. 
 
 Electra. 
 I never knew • « • 
 
 Orestes. 
 I dreamed not. 
 
 Elsctra. 
 
 Is it hc^ 
 Orestes f 
 
ELECTRA 37 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Thy defender, yea, alone 
 To fight the world I Lo, this day have I thrown 
 A net, which once unbroken from the sea 
 Drawn home, shall . . . O, and it must surely be ! 
 Else men shall know there is no God, no light 
 In Heaven, if wrong to the end shall conquer right. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Comest thou, comest thou now, 
 Chained by the years and slow, 
 
 O Day long sought ? 
 A light on the mountains cold 
 Is lit, yea, a fire burneth. 
 *Tis the light of one that turneth 
 From roamings manifold. 
 Back out of exile old 
 
 To the house that knew him not. 
 
 Some spirit hath turned our way, 
 
 Victory visible. 
 Walking at thy right hand. 
 Beloved ; O lift this day 
 Thine arms, thy voice, as a spell ; 
 And pray for thy brother, pray, 
 Threading the perilous land. 
 
 That all be well ! 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Enough ; this dear delight is mine at last 
 Of thine embracing ; and the hour comes fast 
 
38 EURIPIDES 
 
 When we shall stand again as now we stand. 
 And stint not. — Stay, Old Man : thou, being at hand 
 At the edge of time, advise me, by what way 
 Best to requite my father's murderers. Say, 
 Have I in Argos any still to trust ; 
 Or is the love, once borne me, trod in dust. 
 Even as my fdrrnnes are ? Whom shall I seek ? 
 ^ By day or night ? And whither turn, to wreak 
 ^ My will on them that hate us ? Say. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 My son. 
 In thine adversity, there is not one 
 Will call thee friend. Nay, that were treasure-trovei 
 A friend to share, not faltering from love, 
 
 Fair days and foul the same. Thy name is gone 
 
 — Forth to all Argos, as a thing o'erthrown 
 r- And dead. Thou hast not left one spark to glow 
 J) With hope in one friend's heart I Hear all, and 
 / know : 
 
 /Thou hast God's fortune and thine own right hand, 
 V Naught else, to conquer back thy fatherland. 
 
 Orestbs. 
 The deed, the deed I What must we do ? 
 
 Old Mam. 
 
 Strike down 
 Aegisthus . • • and thy mother. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 •Tis the crown 
 My race is run for. But how find him i 
 
ELECTRA 39 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Not 
 
 Within the city walls, however hot 
 Thj spirit. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Ha ! With watchers doth he go 
 Begirt, and mailed pikemen ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Even so : 
 He lives in rear of thee, and night nor day 
 Hath slumber. 
 
 Orestes. 
 That way blocked I — 'Tis thine to say 
 What next remains. 
 
 Old Man. 
 I will ; and thou give ear. 
 A thought has found me 1 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 All good thoughts be near, 
 For thee to speak and me to understand I 
 
 Old Man 
 But now I saw Aegisthus, close at hana 
 As here I journeyed. 
 
 Orestes. 
 That good word shall liacc 
 My path for me ! Thou saw'st him ? In what place ? 
 
^40 EURIPIDES 
 
 Old Man, 
 Out on the pastures where his horses stray. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 What did he there so far ? — A gleam of day 
 Crosseth our darkness. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 'Twas a feast, methought, 
 Of worship to the wild- wood nymphs he wrought. 
 
 Orestes. 
 The watchers of men's birth ? Is there a son 
 New born to him, or doth he pray for one 
 That Cometh ? [Movement ^Electra. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 More I know not ; he had there 
 A wreathed ox, as for some weighty prayer. 
 
 Orestes. 
 What force was with him ? Not his serfis alone ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 No Argive lord was there ; none but his own 
 Household. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Not any that might know my race, 
 Or guess ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 Thralls, thralls ; who ne'er have seen thy fiicc. 
 
ELECTRA 41 
 
 Orestes. 
 Once I prevail, the thralls will welcome me I 
 
 Old Man. 
 The slaves' way, that ; and no ill thing for thee 1 
 
 Orestes. 
 How can I once come near him ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Walk thy ways 
 Hard by, where he may see thee, ere he slays 
 His sacrifice. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 How ? Is the road so nigh i 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 He cannot choose but see thee, passing by, 
 'r And bid thee stay to share the beast they kill. 
 
 Orestes. 
 A bitter fellow-feaster, if God will I 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 And then . . . then swift be heart and brain, to see 
 God's chalices I 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Aye. Well hast thou counselled me. 
 But . * . where is she? 
 
4a EURIPIDES 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 In Argos now, I guess ; 
 But goes to join her husband, ere the press 
 Of the feast. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Why gocth not my mother straight 
 Forth at her husband's side ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 She fain will wait 
 Until the gathered country-folk be gone. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Enough I She knows what eyes are turned upon 
 Her passings in the land I 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Aye, all men hate 
 The unholy woman. 
 
 Orestes. 
 How then can I set 
 My snare for wife and husband in one breath ? 
 
 Electra {ctming firward). 
 Hold I It is I must work our mother's death. 
 
 Orkstbs. 
 If that be done, I think the other deed 
 Fortune will guide. 
 
ELECTRA 43 
 
 Elbctra, 
 This man must help our need, 
 One friend alone for both. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 He will, he will I 
 Speak on. What cunning hast thou found to fill 
 Thy purpose ? 
 
 Electra. 
 Get thee forth. Old Man, and quick 
 Tell Qytemnestra . . . tell her I lie sick, 
 ~ New-mothered of a man-child. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Thou hast borne 
 A son I But when ? 
 
 Electra. 
 Let this be the tenth morn. 
 Till then a mother stays in sanctity, 
 Unseen. 
 
 Old Man. 
 And if I tell her, where shall be 
 The death in this ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 That word let her but hear. 
 Straight she will seek me out \ 
 
EURIPIDES 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 The queen I What care 
 Hath she for thee, or pain of thine ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 She will ; 
 And weep my babe's low station I 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Thou hast skill 
 To know her, child ; say on. 
 
 Elsctra. 
 
 But bring her here, 
 Here to my hand ; the rest will come. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 I swear, 
 Here at the gate she shall stand palpable I 
 
 Electra. 
 The gate : the gate that leads to me and Hell. 
 
 Old Man. 
 Let mc but see it, and I die content. 
 
 Electra. 
 First, then, my brother : see his steps be bent . • • 
 
 Old Man. 
 Straight yonder, where Aegisthus makes his prayer I 
 
ELECTRA 45 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Then seek my mother's presence, and declare 
 My news. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Thy very words, child, as tho' spoke 
 From thine own lips I 
 
 Electra. 
 Brother, thine hour is struck* 
 Thou standest in the van of war this day. 
 
 Orestes {rousing himself). 
 
 Aye, I am iSady. ... I will go my way, 
 If but some man will guide me. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Here am I, 
 To speed thee to the end, right thankfully. 
 
 V Orestes [turning as hi goes and raising his hands t9 
 heaven), 
 
 Zeus of my sires, Zeus of the lost battle, 
 
 Electra. 
 Have pity ; have pity ; we have earned It well ! 
 
 Old Man. 
 Pity these twain, of thine own body sprung ! 
 
 Electra. 
 O Queen o'er Argive altars, Hera high, ^ 
 
46 EURIPIDES 
 
 Orestes. 
 Grant us thy strength, if for the right wc cry. 
 
 Old Man. 
 Strength to these twain, to right their father's wrong I 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Earth, deep Earth, to whom I yearn in vain, 
 
 Orestes. 
 And deeper thou, O father darkly slain. 
 
 Old Man. 
 Thy children call, who love thee : hearken thou I 
 
 Orestes. 
 Girt with thine own dead armies, wake, O wake I 
 
 Electra. 
 "i With all that died at Ilion for thy sake . • • 
 
 Old Man. 
 And hate earth's dark deiilers ; help us now ! 
 
 Electra. 
 Dost hear us yet, O thou in deadly wrong. 
 Wronged by my mother ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Child, we stay too long. 
 He hears ; be sure he hears I 
 
 Electra. 
 
 And while he hears, 
 
 1 tpeak this word for omen in his eart ; 
 
ELECTRA 47 
 
 " Aegisthus dies, Acgisthus dies." . . . Ah me, 
 My brother, should it strike not him, but thee, 
 This wrestling with dark death, behold, I too 
 Am dead that hour. Think of me as one true, 
 Not one that lives. I have a sword made keen 
 For this, and shall strike deep. 
 
 I will go in 
 And make all ready. If there come from thee 
 Good tidings, all my house for ecstasy 
 Shall cry ; and if we hear that thou art dead, 
 Then comes the other end ! — Lo, I have said. 
 
 Or^^tks. 
 I know all, all. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Then be a man to-day ! 
 [Orestks and the Old Man depart. 
 O Women, let your voices from this fray 
 Flash me a fiery signal, where I sit. 
 The sword across my knees, expecting it. 
 For never, though they kill me, shall they touch 
 My living limbs ! — I know my way thus much. 
 
 [She goes into the house. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Whei;i white-haired folk are met [Strophe, 
 
 In Argos about the fold, 
 \A story lingereth yet, 
 
 A voice of the mountains old. 
 That tells of the Lamb of Gold : 
 
EURIPIDES 
 
 A lamb from a mother mild, 
 
 But the gold of it curled and beat ; 
 And Pan, who holdeth the keys of the wild, 
 
 Bore it to Atreus"* feet : 
 His wild reed pipes he blew, 
 
 And the reeds were filled with peace, 
 And a joy of singing before him flew. 
 
 Over the fiery fleece : 
 And up on the basW rock. 
 
 As a herald cries, cried he : 
 " Gather ye, gather, O Argive folk. 
 
 The King's Sign to see. 
 The sign of the blest of God, 
 
 For he that hath this, hath all I " 
 Therefore the dance of praise they trod 
 
 In the Atreid brethren's hall. 
 
 They opened before men's eyes [Antistrophi. 
 
 That which was hid before. 
 The chambers of sacrifice. 
 
 The dark of the golden door. 
 
 And fires on the altar floor. 
 And bright was every street, 
 
 And the voice of the Muses' tree, * 
 
 The carven lotus, was lifted sweet ; 
 
 When afar and suddenly. 
 Strange songs, and a voice that grew : 
 
 " Come to your king, ye folk ! 
 Mine, mine, is the Golden Ewe 1 ** 
 
 'Twas dark Thyestes spoke. 
 For, lo, when the world was still. 
 
 With his brother's bride he lay, 
 And won her to work his will. 
 
 And they stole the Lamb away I 
 
ELECTRA 49 
 
 Then forth to the folk strode he, 
 
 And called them about his fold, 
 ^And showed that Sign of the King to be, 
 L The fleece and the horns of gold. 
 
 Then, then, the world was changed ;. [Strophe 2 
 
 And the Father, where they ranged, 
 Shook the golden stars and glowing. 
 
 And the great Sun stood deranged 
 In the glory of his going. 
 
 Lo, from that day forth, the East 
 
 Bears the sunrise on his breast. 
 And the flaming Day in heaven 
 
 Down the dim ways of the west 
 Driveth, to be lost at even. 
 
 The wet clouds to Northward beat ; 
 
 And Lord Ammon's desert seat 
 Crieth from the South, unslaken, 
 
 For the dews that once were sweet. 
 For the rain that God hath taken. 
 
 *Tis a children's tale, that old [Antistrophe 2. 
 
 Shepherds on far hills have told ; 
 And we reck not of their telling, 
 
 Deem not that the Sun of gold 
 Ever turned his fiery dwelling. 
 
 Or beat backward in the sky, 
 
 For the wrongs of man, the cry 
 Of his ailing tribes assembled, 
 
 To do justly, ere they die ! 
 Once, men told the tale, and trembled ; 
 
50 EURIPIDES 
 
 Fearing God, O Queen : whom thou 
 Hast forgotten, till thy brow 
 
 With old blood is dark and daunted. 
 And thy brethren, even now, 
 
 Walk among the stars, enchanted. 
 
 Leadbr. 
 
 Ha, firiends, was that a voice? Or some dream 
 
 sound 
 Of voices shaketh me, as underground 
 God's thunder shuddering ? Hark, again, and clear I 
 It swells upon the wind. — Come forth and hear ! 
 Mistress, Electra I 
 
 Electra, a bare sword in htr hand^ comts 
 from the house, 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Friends I Some news is brought ? 
 How hath the battle ended ? 
 
 Leader. 
 
 I know naught. 
 There seemed a cry as of men massacred 1 
 
 Electra. 
 I heard it too. Far off, but still I heard. 
 
 Leader. 
 A distant floating voice . . . Ah, plainer now I 
 
ELECTRA %i 
 
 Electra. 
 Of Argivc anguish I — Brother, is it thou r 
 
 Leader. 
 I know not. Many confused voices ciy • • 
 
 Electra. 
 Death, then for mc I That answer bids me die. 
 
 Leader. 
 Nay, wait ! We know not yet thy fortune. Wait I 
 
 Electra. 
 •;• No messenger from him I — Too late, too late ! 
 
 Leader. 
 
 / The message yet will come. 'Tis not a thing 
 So light of compass, to strike down a king. 
 
 Entir a Messenger, running. 
 Messenger. 
 Victory, Maids of Argos, Victory I 
 Orestes ... all that love him, list to me I . , . 
 Hath conquered I Agamemnon's murderer Hes 
 Dead I O give thanks to God with happy cries 1 
 
 Electra. 
 Who art thou ? I mistrust thee. . . • *Tis a plot I 
 
 Messenger. 
 Thy brother's man. Look well. Dost know me not ? 
 
5« EURIPIDES 
 
 Electra. 
 Friend, friend ; my terror made me not to sec 
 Thy visage. Now I know and welcome thee. 
 How sayst thou ? He is dead, verily dead. 
 My father's murderer . • • f 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 Shall it be said 
 Once more ? I know again and yet again 
 Thy heart would hear. Aegisthus lieth slain ! 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Ye Gods I And thou, O Right, that seest all. 
 Art come at last ? . . . But speak ; how did he fall ? 
 How swooped the wing of death? . • . I crave 
 to hear. 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 Forth of this hut we set our faces clear 
 
 To the world, and struck the open chariot road ; 
 
 Then on toward the pasture lands, where stood 
 
 The great Lord of Mycenae. In a set 
 
 Garden beside a channelled rivulet. 
 
 Culling a myrtle garland for his brow. 
 
 He walked : but hailed us as we passed : " How now, 
 
 Strangers I Who are ye ? Of what city sprung. 
 
 And whither bound ? " " Thessalians,*' answered 
 
 young 
 Orestes : " to Alphetis journeying. 
 With gifts to Olympian Zeus." Whereat the king : 
 ** This while, beseech you, tarry, and make full 
 The feast upon my hearth. tWc slay a bull 
 
ELECTRA 53 
 
 Here to the NymphsJ Set forth at break of day 
 To-morrow, and 'twill cost you no delay. 
 But come " — and so he gave his hand, and led 
 The two men in — " I must not be gainsaid ; 
 Come to the house. Ho, there ; set close at hand 
 Vats of pure water, that the guests may stand 
 At the altar's verge, where falls the holy spray." 
 Then quickly spake Orestes : " By the way 
 We cleansed us in a torrent stream. We need 
 No purifying here, .^ut if indeed 
 Strangers may share thy worship, here are wc 
 Ready, O King, and swift to follow thee." 
 1 So spoke they in the midst. And every thrall 
 Laid down the spears they served the King withal, 
 And hied him to the work. Some bore amain 
 The death-vat, some the corbs of hallowed grain ; 
 Or kindled fire, and round the fire and in 
 Set cauldrons foaming ; and a festal din 
 Filled all the place. Then took thy mother's lord 
 The ritual grains, and o'er the altar poured 
 Its due, and prayed : " O Nymphs of Rock and 
 
 Mere, 
 With many a sacrifice for many a year, 
 May I and she who waits at home for me, 
 My Tyndarid Queen, adore you. May it be 
 Peace with us always, even as now ; and all 
 \ 111 to mine enemies " — meaning withal 
 
 Thee and Orestes. Then my master prayed 
 Against that prayer, but silently, and said 
 No word, to win once more his fatherland. 
 Then in the corb Aegisthus set his hand, 
 X Took the straight blade, cut from the proud bull's head 
 ^A locJc, and laid it where the fire was red f 
 
54 EURIPIDES 
 
 Then, while the young men held the bull on high. 
 
 Slew it with one clean gash ; and suddenly 
 
 Turned on thy brother : " Stranger, every true 
 
 Thessalian, so the story goes, can hew 
 
 A bull's limbs clean, and tame a mountain steed. 
 
 Take up the steel, and show us if indeed 
 
 Rumour speak true." Right swift Orestes took 
 
 The Dorian blade, b»c;k from his shoulders shook 
 
 His broochW mantle, called on Pylades 
 
 To aid him, and waved back the thralls. With ease 
 
 Heelwise he held the bull, and with one glide 
 
 Bared the white limb; then stripped the mighty 
 
 hide 
 From oflF him, swifter than a runner runs 
 His furlongs, and laid clean the flank. At once 
 Aegisthus stooped, and lifted up with care 
 The ominous parts, and gazed. No lobe was there ; 
 But \0f strange caves of gall, and, darkly raised. 
 The portal vein boded to him that gazed 
 Fell visitations. Dark as night his brow 
 Clouded. Then spake Orestes : " Why art thou 
 Cast down so sudden ? " " Guest,'^ he cried, " there be 
 Treasons from whence I know not, seeking me. 
 Of all my foes, 'tis Agamemnon's son ; 
 His hate is on my house, like war." " Have done I " 
 Orestes cried : " thou fear'st an exile's plot, 
 Lord of a city ? Make thy cold heart hot 
 With meat. — Ho, flfmg me a Thessalian steel I 
 This Dorian is too light. I will unseal 
 The breast of him." He took the heavier blade. 
 And clave the bone. And there Aegisthus stayed. 
 The omens in his hand, dividing slow 
 This tign from that ; till, while his head bent low, 
 
ELECTRA 55 
 
 Up with a leap thy brother flashed the sword. 
 
 Then down upon his neck, and cleft the cord 
 
 Of brain and spine. Shuddering the body stood 
 
 One instant in an agony of blood, 
 
 And gasped an(f fell. The henchmen saw, and 
 
 straight 
 Fkw to their spears, a host of them to set 
 Against those twain. But there the twain did 
 
 stand 
 Unfaltering, each his iron in his hand, 
 Edge fronting edge. Till " Hold," Orestes calls : 
 ^" I come not as in wrath against these walls 
 And mine own people. One man righteously 
 I have slain, who slew my father. It is I, 
 [The wronged Orestes ! Hold, and smite me not, 
 Old housefolk of my father I " When they caught 
 That name, their lances fell. And one old man. 
 An ancient in the house, drew nigh to scan 
 His fece, and knew him. Then with one accord 
 They crowned thy brother's temples, and outpoured 
 Joy and loud songs. And hither now he fares 
 To show the head, no Gorgon, that he bears, 
 But that Aegisthus whom thou hatest I Yea, 
 Blood against blood, his debt is paid this day. 
 
 [Hi goes off to meet the others — Electra itandt 
 as though stupefied. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Now, now thou shalt dance in our dances, 
 
 Beloved, as a fawn in the night I 
 The wind is astir for the glances 
 
 Of thy feet ; thou art robed with deHght. 
 
56 EURIPIDES 
 
 He hath conquered, he comcth to free us 
 
 With garlands new-won, 
 More high than the crowns of AlpheUs, 
 
 Thine own father's son : 
 Cry, cry, for the day that is won I 
 
 Elkctra. 
 
 O Light of the Sun, O chariot wheels of flame, 
 O Earth and Night, dead Night without a name 
 That held me I Now mine eyes are raised to see, 
 And all the doorways of my soul flung free. 
 Aegisthus dead I My father's murderer dead 1 
 What have I still of wreathing for the head 
 Stored in my chambers ? Let it come forth now 
 To bind my brother's and my conqueror's brow. 
 
 ISome garlands are brought out from the house to 
 Elkctra. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Go, gather thy garlands, and lay them 
 
 As a crown on his brow, many-trcssed. 
 But our feet shall refrain not nor stay them : 
 
 'Tis the joy that the Muses have blest. 
 For our king is returned as from prison, 
 
 The old king, to be master again, 
 Our beloved in justice re-risen : 
 With guile he hath slain • . . 
 But cry, cry in joyance again I 
 
 [Then ente^ from the left Orestes and Pyladb*, 
 followed by some thralls. 
 
ELECTRA 57 
 
 Electra. 
 
 O conqueror, come I The king that trampled Troy 
 
 Knoweth his son Orestes. Come in joy, 
 
 Brother, and take to bind thy rippling hair 
 
 My crowns I . . . O what arc crowns, that runners 
 
 wear 
 For some vain race ? But thou in battle true 
 Hast felled our foe Acgisthus, him that slew 
 By craft thy sire and mine. [She crowns Orestes. 
 
 And thou no less, 
 O friend at need, O reared in righteousness, 
 Take, Pylades, this chaplet from my hand. 
 'Twas half thy battle. And may ye two stand 
 Thus alway, victory-crowned, before my face I 
 
 [She crowns Pylades. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Electra, first as workers of this grace 
 
 Praise thou the Gods, and after, if thou will, 
 
 Praise also me, as chosen to fulfil 
 
 God's work and Fate's. — Aye, 'tis no more a 
 
 dream ; 
 In very deed I come from slaying him. 
 Thou hast the knowledge clear, but lo, 1 bring 
 More also. See himself, dead 1 
 
 [Attendants bring in the body <7/Aegisthos on a bier, 
 
 Wouldst thou fling / 
 This lord on the rotting earth for beasts to tear ? 
 Or up, where all the vultures of the air 
 May glut them, pierce and nail him for a sign 
 Far off ? Work ail thy will. Now he is thine. 
 
58 EURIPIDES 
 
 Elbctra. 
 It shames mc ; yet, God knows, I hunger sore— 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 What wouldst thou ? Speak ; the old fear nevermore 
 Need touch thee. 
 
 Electra, 
 
 To let loose upon the dead 
 My hate ! Perchance to rouse on mine own head 
 The sleeping hate of the world i 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 No man that lives 
 Shall scathe thee by one word. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Our city gives 
 Quick blame ; and little love have men for me. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 If aught thou hast unsaid, sister, be free 
 And speak. Between this man and us no bar 
 Cometh nor stint, but the utter rage of war. 
 
 [Shg goes and stands over the body, A moments 
 silence. 
 
 Ah me, what have I ? What first flood of hate 
 To loose upon thee ? What Ust curse to sate 
 My pain, or river of wild words to flow 
 Bank-high between ? . . . Nothing ? . . . And yet 
 
ELECTRA 59 
 
 There hatii not passed one sun, but through the long 
 Cold dawns, over and over, like a song, 
 I have said them — words held back, O, some day yet 
 To flash into thy face, would but the fret 
 Of ancient fear fall loose and let me free. 
 And free I am, now ; and can pay to thee 
 At last the weary debt, 
 / Oh, thou didst kill 
 
 ^ My soul within. Who wrought thee any ill, 
 That thou shouldst make me fatherless ? Aye, me 
 And this my brother, loveless, solitary ? 
 'Twas thou, didst bend my mother to her shame : 
 Thy weak hand murdered him who led to fame 
 The hosts of Hellas — thou, that never crossed 
 O'erscas to Troy I . . . God help thee, wast thou lost 
 In blindness, long ago, dreaming, some-wise. 
 She would be true with thee, whose sin and lies 
 Thyself had tasted in my father's place ? - 
 And then, that thou wert happy, when thy days 
 Were all one pain ? Thou knewest ceaselessly 
 Her kiss a thing unclean, and she knew thee 
 * A lord so little true, so dearly won I 
 So lost ye both, being in falseness one, 
 What fortune else had granted ; she thy curse, < 
 Who marred thee as she loved thee, and thou hers , • • 
 And on thy ways thou heardst men whispering, 
 " Lo, the Queen's husband yonder " — not " the King.** 
 
 And then the lie of lies that dimmed thy brow. 
 Vaunting that by thy gold, thy chattels, Thou 
 Wert Something ; which themselves are nothingness. 
 Shadows, to clasp a moment ere they cease. 
 The thing thou art, and not the things thou hast, 
 Abideth, yea, and bindeth to the last 
 
6o EURIPIDES 
 
 Thy burden on thee : while all else, ill-won 
 y And sin-com panioned^ like a flc^wer^'cr blown, 
 ' Flics on the wind away. 
 
 Or didst thou find 
 In women . . . Women ? . . . Nay, peace, peace I 
 
 The blind 
 Could read thee. Cruel wast thou in thine hour, 
 Lord of a great king's house, and like a tower 
 Firm in thy beauty^ 
 
 [Starting hack with a look of loathing, 
 ^ Ah, that girl-like face I 
 
 ^ God grant, not that, not that, but some plain grace 
 Of manhood to the man who brings me love : 
 A father of straight children, that shall move 
 Swift on the wings of War. 
 
 So, get thee gone I 
 Naught knowing how the great years, rolling on, 
 Have laid thee bare, and thy long debt full paid. 
 
 O vaunt not, if one step be proudly made 
 In evil, that all Justice is o'ercast : 
 Vaunt not, ye men of sin, ere at the last 
 The thin-drawn marge before you glimmercth 
 Close, and the goal that wheels 'twixt life and death. 
 
 Leader. 
 
 Justice is mighty. Passing dark hath been 
 His sin : and dark the payment of his sin. 
 
 Elkctra [with a weary sigh^ turning from tht body). 
 
 Ah me I Go some of you, bear him from sight, 
 That when my mother come, her eyes may light 
 On nothing, nothing, till she know the sword . . . 
 \Tht body is bornt into tht hut, Pyladss goi$ with it. 
 
 / 
 
ELECTRA 6i 
 
 Orestes {looking along the road). 
 
 Stay, 'tis a new thing ! We have still a word 
 To speak . . • 
 
 Electra, 
 
 What ? Not a rescue from the town 
 Thou seSst ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 'Tis tnj mother comes : my own 
 Mother, that bare me. [He takes off his crnun, 
 
 Elkctra {springing, as it were, to life again, and 
 moving where she can see the road). 
 
 Straight into the snare I 
 Aye, there she cometh. — Welcome in thy rare 
 Chariot I All welcome in thy brave array I 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 V What would we with our mother ? Didst thou say \ 
 Kill her ? 
 
 Electra {turning on him). 
 
 What ? Is it pity ? Dost thou fear 
 To see thy mother's shape ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 'Twas she that bare 
 My body into life. She gave me suck. 
 How can I strike her P 
 
6a EURIPIDES 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Strike her as she struck 
 Our father I 
 
 Orestes [to himself^ brooding), 
 
 1 1 \ Phoebus, God, was all thy mind 
 
 / Turned unto darkness ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 If thy God be blind, 
 Shalt thou have light ? 
 
 Orestes {at before), 
 
 /Thou, thou, didst bid me kill 
 .My mother : which is sin. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 How brings it ill 
 To thee, to raise our ^ther from the dust ? 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 I was a clean man once. Shall I be thrust 
 From men's sight, l^Jsitted with her blood ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Thyjj^ 
 ''Is black as death if him thou succour not I 
 
 Orestis. 
 
 Who shall do judgment on me, when she dies } 
 
ELECTRA 63 
 
 Elsctra. 
 
 Who shall do judgment, if thy father lies 
 Forgotten ? 
 
 Orestes (turning suddenly to Electra). 
 
 Stay 1 How if some fiend of Hell, 
 Hid in God's likeness, spake that oracle ? 
 
 Electra. 
 In God's own house ? I trow not, 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 And I trow 
 It was an evil charge I [Hi moves away from her^ 
 
 Electra {almost despairing). 
 To fail me now I 
 To fail me now I A coward I — O brother, no I 
 
 Orestes. 
 What shall it be, then ? The same stealthy blow . . . 
 
 Electra. 
 
 That slew our ^therl Courage I thou hast slain 
 Aegisthus. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 Aye. So be it. — I have ta'cn 
 A path of many terrors : and shall do 
 S^ Deeds horrible. 'Tis God will have it so. • • • 
 Is this the joy of battle, or wild woe ? 
 
 \He goes into the house* 
 
 \ 
 \ 
 
64 EURIPIDES 
 
 , Lkader. 
 
 ^ O Queen o'er Argos thronid high, 
 
 O Woman, sister of the twain, 
 
 God's Horsemen, stars without a stain. 
 Whose home is in the deathless sky. 
 
 Whose glory in the sea's wild pain. 
 Toiling to succour men that die : 
 Long years above us hast thou been, 
 God-like for gold and marvelled power : 
 
 Ah, well may mortal eyes this hour 
 Observe thy state : All hail, O Queen ! 
 
 Enter from the right Clytkmnestra on a chariot^ 
 accompanied by richly dreaed Handmaidens. 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 
 Down from the wain, ye dames of Troy, and hold 
 Mine arm as I dismount. ... 
 
 [^Answering Electra's thought. 
 The spoils and gold 
 Of Ilion I have sent out of my hall 
 To many shrines. These bondwomen are all 
 I keep in mine own house . . . Deemst thou the 
 
 cost 
 Too rich to pay me for the child I lost — 
 Fair though they be ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Nay, Mother, here am I 
 Bond likewise, yea, and homeless, to hold high 
 Thy royal arm ! 
 
ELECTRA 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 
 Child, the war-sla ves are here ) 
 Fhou needst not toil. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 What was it but the spear 
 Of war, drove me forth too ? Mine enemies 
 Have sacked my father's house, and, even as these, 
 Captives and fatherless, made me their prey. 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 
 It was thy father cast his child away, 
 
 A child he might have loved 1 . • . Shall I speak 
 
 out? 
 (Controlling herself) Nay ; when a woman once is 
 
 caught about 
 With evil fame, there riseth in her tongue 
 A bitter spirit — wrong, I know ! Yet, wrong 
 Or right, I charge ye look on the deeds done ; ' 
 And if ye needs must hate, when all is known, 
 Hate on 1 What profits loathing ere ye know i ' 
 
 My father gave me to be his. 'Tis so. 
 But was it his to kill me, or to kill 
 The babes I bore ? Vet, lo, he tricked my will 
 With fables of Achilles' love : he bore 
 To Aulis and the dark ship-clutching shore, 
 He held above the altar-flame, and smote. 
 Cool as one reaping, through the strained throat, 
 My white Iphigenia. . . . Had it been 
 To save some falling city, Icaguered in 
 
 9 
 
66 EURIPIDES 
 
 Witn focmen ; to prop up ouj; castle towers, 
 And rescue other children that were ours, 
 Giving one life for many, by God's laws 
 I had forgiven all I Not so. Because 
 Helen was wanton, and her master knew 
 No curb for her : for that, for that, he slew 
 My daughter ! — Even then, with all my wrong, 
 No wild beast yet was in me. Nay, for long, 
 
 I never would have killed him. But he came, 
 At last, bringing that damsel, with the flame 
 Of God about her, mad and knowing all : 
 And set her in my room ; and in one wall 
 Would hold two queens I— O wild arc woman^s eyes 
 And hot her heart I say not otherwise. 
 But, being thus wild, if then her master stray 
 To love far off, and cast his own away, 
 Shall not her will break prison too, and wend 
 Somewhere to win some other for a friend i 
 And then on us the world's curse waxes strong 
 In righteousness 1 The lords of all the wrong 
 
 ^ Must hear no curse ! — I slew him. I trod then 
 The only road : which led me to the men 
 He hatpd. Of the friends of Argos whom 
 Dursi I have sought, to aid me to the doorr^ 
 L craved ? — Speak if thou wouldst, and fear not mc, 
 If yet thou deemst him slain unrighteously. 
 
 Leader. 
 
 Thy words be just, yet shame their justice brings | 
 A woman true of heart should bear all things 
 From him she loves. And she who feels it not, 
 I cannot reason of her, nor speak aught. 
 
ELECTRA 6j 
 
 Elkctra. 
 Remember, mother, thy last word of grace, 
 Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face. 
 
 Clytbmnestra. 
 So said I truly, child, and so say still. 
 
 Elkctra. 
 Wilt softly hear, and after work me ill ? 
 
 Clytkmnkstra, 
 Not so, not so. I will but pleasure thee. 
 
 Electra, 
 
 ' I answer then. And, mother, this shall be 
 My prayer of opening, where hangs the whole : 
 Would God jhat He had mad^ of soul I ^ VVa» ^ 
 
 Helen and thou — O, face and form were fair, q^^ j vv 
 
 Meet for men's praise ; but sisters twain ye were, ^ Jit*** 
 Both things of naught, a stain on Castor's star. \ ^J^ 
 
 And Helen slew her honour, borne afar .-^^ 
 
 In wilful ravishment : but thou didst slay 
 The highest man of the world. And now wilt say 
 'Twas wrought in justice for thy child laid low 
 At Aulis r . . Ah, who knows thee as I know ? --^ 
 Thou, thou, who long ere aught of ill was done 
 Thy child, when Agamemnon scarce was gone, 
 Sate at the looking-glass, and tress by tress 
 Didst comb the twined gold in loneliness. 
 
 ""^^^^When any wife, her lord being far away, 
 Toils to be fair, O blot her out that day 
 
/iTThy 
 
 68 EURIPIDES 
 
 As false within I What would she with a check 
 So bright in strange men's eyes, unless she seek 
 Some treason ? None but I, thy child, could so 
 Watch thee in Hellas : none but I could know 
 Thy face of gladness when our enemies 
 Were strong, and the swift cloud upon thine eyes 
 If Troy seemed falling, all thy soul keen-set 
 Praying that h e might come no more 1 , . . And yet 
 It was so easy to be truc,^ A king 
 Was thine, not feebler, not in anything 
 Below Aegisthus ; one whom Hellas chose 
 For chief beyond all kings. Aye, and God knows. 
 How sweet a name in Greece, after the sin 
 sister wrought, lay in thy ways to win. 
 Ill deeds make fair ones shine, and turn thereto 
 Men's eyes. — Enough : but say he wronged thee ; slew 
 By craft thy child : — what wrong had I done, what 
 The babe Orestes ? Why didst render not 
 Back unto us, the children of the dead. 
 Our father's portion ? Must thou heap thy bed 
 With gold of murdered men, to buy to thee 
 Thy strange man's arms ? Justice I Why is not he 
 Who cast Orestes out, cast out again ? 
 Not slain for me whom doubly he hath slain, 
 In living death, more bitter than of old 
 ^ My sister's ? Nay, when all the tale is told 
 U\ Of blood for blood, what murder shall we make, 
 ^ I and Orestes, for our father's sake ? 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 Aye, child ; I know thy heart, from long ago. 
 ? Thou hast alway loved him best. *Tis oft-time so : 
 One is her father's daughter, and one hot 
 
ELECTRA 69 
 
 To bear her mother's part. I blame thee not . • . 
 U^ Yet think not I am happy, child ; nor flown 
 -^ ^ With pride now, in the deeds my hand hath done . . , 
 [Seeing Electra unsympathetic^ she checks herself. 
 But thou art all untended, comfortless 
 Of body and wild of raiment ; and thy stress 
 Of travail scarce yet ended ! . . . Woe is mc I 
 'Tis all as I have willed it. Bitterly 
 I wrought against him, to the last blind deep 
 Of bitterness. • . • Woe's mc I 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Fair days to weep, 
 When help is not 1 Or stay : though he lie cold 
 Long since, there lives another of thy fold 
 Far off; there might be pity for thy son ? 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 * I dare not I . . . Yes, I fear him. Tis mine own 
 ' Life, and not his, comes first. And rumour saith 
 His heart yet burneth for his father's death. 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Why dost thou keep thine husband ever hot 
 Against me ? 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 'Tis his mood. And thou art not 
 So gentle, child I 
 
 Electra. 
 
 My spirit is too sore I 
 Howbeit, from this day I will no more 
 Hate him. 
 
70 EURIPIDES 
 
 Clytkmnestra {with a flash of hope). 
 
 O daughter I — Then, indeed, shall he, 
 I promise, never more be harsh to thee I 
 
 Electra. 
 He h'eth in my house, as 'twere his own. 
 'Tis that hath made him proud. 
 
 Clytemnsstra. 
 
 Nay, art thou flown 
 To strife again so quick, child ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Well ; I say 
 No more ; long have I feared him, and alway 
 Shall fear him, even as now ! 
 
 Clytemnsstra. 
 
 Nay, daughter, peace I 
 It bringeth little profit, speech like this • • • 
 Why didst thou call me hither ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 It reached thce« 
 My word that a man-child is born to me ? 
 Do thou make oflfering for me — for the rite 
 I know not — as is meet on the tenth nighc 
 I cannot ; I have borne no child till now. 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 Who tended thcc ? Tis she should make the vow. 
 
ELECTRA 71 
 
 Electra. 
 None tended mc. Alone I bare my child. 
 
 Clytkmnestra 
 
 What, is thy cot so friendless ? And this wild 
 So far from aid ? 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Who seeks for friendship sake 
 A beggar's house ? 
 
 Clytemnestra. 
 
 I will go in, and make 
 • Due worship for thy child, the Pcace-bringer. 
 To all thy need I would be minister. 
 Then to my lord, where by the meadow side 
 He prays the woodland nymphs. 
 
 Yc handmaids, guide 
 My chariot to the stall, and when ye guess 
 The rite draws near its end, in readiness 
 Be here again. Then to my lord ! . . • I owe 
 My lord this gladness, too. 
 
 [Thi Attendants depart ; Clytemnestra, .eft 
 alone^ proceeds to enter the house, 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Welcome belois* 
 My narrow roof! But have a care withal, 
 A grime of smoke lies deep upon the wall. 
 Soil not thy robe I . • • 
 
72 EURIPIDES 
 
 Not far now shall it be. 
 The sacrifice God asks of me and thee. 
 The bread of Death is broken, and the knife 
 Lifted again that drank the Wild Bull's life : 
 And on his breast . . . Ha, Mother, hast slept well 
 ^ Aforetime ? Thou shalt lie with him in Hell. 
 "^ That grace I give to cheer thee on thy road ; 
 Give thou to me— ^peace from my father's blood I 
 
 [She follows her mother into the house. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Lo, the returns of wrong. 
 
 The wind as a changed thing 
 Whispereth overhead 
 Of one that of old lay dead 
 In the water lapping long : 
 
 My King, O my King I 
 
 A cry in the rafters then 
 
 Rang, and the marble dome : 
 
 ** Mercy of God, not thou, 
 
 ** Woman I To slay me now, 
 
 •* After the harvests ten 
 
 *• Now, at the last, come home I * 
 
 O Fate shall turn as the tide, 
 Turn, with a doom of tears 
 
 For the flying heart too fond ; 
 
 A doom for the broken bond. 
 
 She hailed him there in his pride, 
 Home from the perilous years, 
 
ELECTRA • 73 
 
 In the heart of his walled lands. 
 In the Giants' cloud-capt ring $ 
 
 Herself, none other, laid 
 
 The hone to the axc*s blade ; 
 
 She lifted it in her hands, 
 
 The woman, and slew her king. 
 
 Woe upon spouse and spouse, 
 
 Whatso of evil sway 
 Held her in that distress ! 
 Even as a lioness 
 Breaketh the woodland boughs 
 
 Starving, she wrought her way. 
 
 Voice of Clytemnesira. 
 O Children, Children ; in the name of God, 
 Slay not your mother I 
 
 A Woman. 
 
 Did ye hear a cry 
 Under the rafters ? 
 
 Another. 
 I weep too, yea, I ; 
 Down on the mother's heart the child hath trod ! 
 
 [/i death-cry from within. 
 
 Another. 
 "^God bringeth Justice in his own slow tide. 
 
 Aye, cruel is thy doom ; but thy deeds done 
 Evil, thou piteous woman, and on one 
 Whose sleep was by thy side I 
 
 [Thi door bunts eperiy and Orestbs and 
 Elbctra come forth in disorder. Attends 
 ants bring out the bodies tf/CLYTEMNESTRil 
 and Akgisthus. 
 
74 EURIPIDES 
 
 ]^/ 
 
 icf^ Leader. 
 
 Lo, yonder, in their mother's new-spilt gore 
 Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door 
 They reel. . . . O horrible ! Was it agony 
 Like this, she boded in her last wild cry ? 
 There lives no seed of man calamitous, 
 Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus. 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 O Dark of the Earth, O God, 
 
 Thou to whom all is plain ; 
 Look on my sin, my blood. 
 
 This horror of dead things twain : 
 Gathered as one they lie 
 Slain ; and the slayer was I, 
 ** I, to pay for my pain I 
 
 Electra. 
 
 Let tear rain upon tear. 
 
 Brother : but mine is the blame. 
 
 A fire stood over her, 
 
 And out of the fire I came, 
 
 I, in my misery. . . • 
 
 And I was the child at her knee. 
 ^ ' Mother ' I named her name. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Alas for Fate, for the Fate of thee, 
 O Mother, Mother of Misery : 
 And Misery, lo, hath turned again, 
 
ELECTRA 75 
 
 To slay thee, Misery and more. 
 Even in the fruit thy body bore. 
 Yet hast thou Justice, Justice plain. 
 For a sire's blood spilt of yore I 
 
 Orestes. 
 Apollo, alas for the hymn 
 
 Thou sangest, as hope in mine car t 
 The Song was of Justice dim, 
 
 But the Deed is anguish clear ; 
 And the Gift, long nights of fear, 
 
 Of blood and of wandering. 
 
 Where cometh no Greek thing, 
 Nor sight, nor sound on the air. 
 Yea, and beyond, beyond. 
 
 Roaming — what rest is there ? 
 Who shall break bread with me ? 
 Who, that is clean, shall see 
 And hate not the blood-red hand, 
 
 His mother^s murderer ? 
 
 Elkctra. 
 And I ? What clime shall hold 
 
 My evil, or roof it above ? 
 I cried for dancing of old, / 
 
 I cried in my heart for love : 
 What dancing waiteth me now ? 
 What love that shall kiss my brow 
 
 I^lor blench at the brand thereof? 
 
 Chorus. 
 Back, back, in the wind and rain 
 Thy driven spirit whcclcth again. 
 
76 EURIPIDES 
 
 Now is thine heart made clean within 
 That was dark of old and murder-fraught. 
 But, lo, thy brother ; what hast thou wrought . . . 
 Yea, though I love thee . . . what woe, what sin, 
 On him, who willed it not 1 
 
 Orestes. 
 Saw'st thou her raiment there. 
 Sister, there in the blood ? 
 She drew it back as she stood, 
 She opened her bosom bare. 
 
 She bent her knees to the earth. 
 The knees that bent in my birth . . . 
 And I . • . Oh, her hair, her hair . . , 
 
 [He breaks into inarticulate wesbit^ 
 
 Chorus. 
 V Oh, thou didst walk in agony. 
 Hearing thy mother's cry, the cry 
 Of wordless wailing, well know L 
 
 Electra. 
 She stretched her hand to my cheek, 
 
 ^And there brake from her lips a moan ; 
 * Mercy, my child, my own I * 
 Her hand clung to my cheek ; 
 Clung, and my arm was weak ; 
 And the sword fell and was gone, 
 
 Chorus. 
 Unhappy woman, could thine eye 
 Look on the blood, and see her lie. 
 Thy mother, where she turned to die ? 
 
ELECTRA 77 
 
 Orestes. 
 
 I lifted over mine eyes 
 
 My mantle : blinded I smote, 
 As one smiteth a sacrifice ; 
 
 And the sword found her throat. 
 
 Electra. 
 I gave thee the sign and the word ; 
 I touched with mine hand thy sword. 
 
 Leader. 
 Dire is the grief yc have wrought. 
 
 Orestes. 
 Sister, touch her again : 
 Oh, veil the body of her ; 
 Shed on her raiment fair, 
 And close that death-red stain. 
 
 — Mother! And didst thou bear, 
 Bear in thy bitter pain. 
 
 To life, thy murderer ? 
 [The two kneel over the body of Clytemnestra, 
 and cover her with raiment, 
 
 Electra. 
 
 On her that I loved of yore. 
 
 Robe upon robe I cast : 
 On her that I hated sore. 
 
 Chorus. 
 O House thut hath hated sore, 
 Behold thy peace at the last 1 
 
<i> 
 
 EURIPIDES 
 
 Lkadbr. 
 
 Ha, sec : above the roof- tree high 
 
 There shineth ... Is some spirit there 
 Of earth or heaven ? That thin air 
 "^ Was never trod by things that die I 
 
 What bodes it now that forth they fare, 
 To men revealW visibly ? 
 
 [There appears in the air a vision ofCAsrrGK and 
 PoLYDKUCKS. The mortals kneel §r veil 
 their faces, ' 
 
 Castor. 
 
 Thou Agamemnon's -Son, give ear 1 'Tis we, 
 Castor and Polydeuces, call to thee, 
 God's Horsemen and thy mother's brethren twain. 
 An Argive ship, spent with the toiling main, 
 We bore but now to peace, and, here withal 
 Being come, have seen thy mother's bloody fall, 
 Our sister's. Righteous is her doom this day, 
 But not thy d eed. And Phoebus, Phoebus . . 
 
 Nay; 
 He is my lord ; therefore I hold my peace. 
 Yet though in light he dwell, no light was this 
 He showed to thee, but darkness I Which do thou 
 Endure, as man must, chafing npt. And now 
 Fare forth where Zeus and Fate have laid thy life. 
 
 The maid Electra thou shalt give for wife 
 To Pylades j then turn thy head and flee 
 from Argos' land. 'Tis never more for thee 
 To tread this earth where thy dead mother lies. 
 *^ And, lo, in the air her Spirits, bloodhound eyes, 
 
ELECTRA 79 
 
 Most horrible yet Godlike, hard at heel 
 Following shall scourge thee as a burning wheel, 
 Speed-maddened. Seek thou straight Athena's land. 
 And round her awfiil image clasp thine hand, 
 Praying : and she will fence them back, though hot 
 With flickering serpents, that they touch thee not. 
 Holding above thy brow her gorgon shield. 
 
 There is a hill in Athens, Ares' field. 
 Where first for that first death by Ares done 
 On Halirrhothius, Poseidon's son. 
 Who wronged his daughter, the great Gods of 
 . yore 
 
 r Held judgment : and true judgments evermore 
 1- Flow from that Hill, trusted of man and God. 
 There shalt thou stand arraigned of this blood ; 
 And of those judges half shall lay on thee 
 Death, and half pardon ; so shalt thou go free. 
 For Phoebus in that hour, who bade thee shed 
 Thy mother's blood, shall take on his own head 
 The stain thereof. And ever from that strife 
 The law shall hold, that when, for death or life 
 Of one pursued, men's voices equal stand, 
 "^Then Mercy conquercth, — But for thee, the band 
 Of Spirits dread, down, down, in very wrath. 
 Shall sink beside that Hill, making their path 
 Through a dim chasm, the which shall aye be trod 
 By reverent feet, where men may speak with God. 
 But thou forgotten and far off shalt dwell. 
 By great Alphetls' waters, in a dell 
 Of Arcady, where that gray Wolf-God's wall 
 Stands holy. And thy dwelling men shall call 
 Orestes" Town. So much to thee be spoke. 
 But this dead man, Aegisthus, all the folk 
 
8o EURIPIDES 
 
 Shall bear to burial in a high green grave 
 v^Of Argos. For thy mother, she shall have 
 
 ^"JHcr tomb from Menelaus, who hath come 
 This day, at last, to Argos, bearing home 
 Helen. From Egypt comes she, and the hall 
 Of Proteus, and in Troy hath ne'er at all 
 Set foot. 'Twas but a wraith of Helen, sent 
 By Zeus, to make much wrath and ravishment. 
 
 So forth for home, bearing the virgin bride, 
 Let Pylades make speed, and lead beside 
 Thy once-named brother, and with golden store 
 Stabllsh his house far off on Phocis' shore. 
 
 Up, gird thee now to the steep Isthmian way, 
 Seeking Athena's blessed rock ; one day, 
 
 • Thy doom of blood fulfilled and this long stress 
 Of penance past, thou shalt have happiness. 
 
 Leader {looking up). 
 
 Is it for us, O Seed of Zeus, 
 
 To speak and hear your words again ? 
 Castor. Speak : of this blood ye bear no stain. 
 Electra. I also, sons of Tyndareus, 
 
 My kinsmen ; may my word be said ? 
 / Castor. Speak : on Apollo's head we lay 
 The bloody doings of this day. 
 Leader. Ye Gods, ye brethren of the deadj 
 
 Why held ye not the deathly herd 
 Of Kdres back from off this home? 
 Castor, There came but that which needs must 
 come 
 By ancient Fate and that dark word 
 
ELECTRA 
 
 8i 
 
 That rang from Phoebus in his mood. 
 Elkctra. And what should Phoebus seek with me, 
 Or all God's oracles that be, 
 That I must bear my mother's blood ? 
 
 Castor. Thy hand was as thy brother's hand, 
 
 Thy doom shall be as his. One stain. 
 From dim forefathers on the twain 
 Lighting, hath sapped your hearts as sand. 
 
 Orestes After so long, sister, to sec 
 
 {whohasneyer And hold thee, and then part, then part, 
 
 LL/, nor Sy *11 t^2.t chained thee to my heart 
 
 spoken to the Forsaken, and forsaking thee 1 
 Gods ). 
 
 Castor. Husband and house arc hers. She bears 
 No bitter judgment, save to go 
 Exiled from Argos. 
 
 Electra. And what woe, 
 
 What tears arc like an exile's tears ? 
 
 Orestes. Exiled and more am I ; impure, 
 
 A murderer in a stranger's hand ! 
 Castor. , . Fear not. There dwells in Pallas' land 
 ' Ail holiness. Till then endure ! 
 
 [Orestes and Electra embrace. 
 
 Orestes. Aye, closer ; clasp my body well, 
 
 And let thy sorrow loose, and shed. 
 As o'er the grave of one new dead. 
 Dead evermore, thy last farewell I 
 
 [A sound of weepings 
 
82 EURIPIDES 
 
 Castor. Alas, what would jc ? For that cry 
 Ourselves and all the sons of heaven 
 Have pity. Yea, our peace is riven 
 By the strange pain of these that die. 
 
 Orestes. No more to see thee I Electra. Nor thy 
 breath 
 Be near my face ! Orestes. Ah, so it 
 ends. 
 Electra. Farewell, dear Argos. All ye friends, 
 
 Farewell 1 Orestes. O faithfijl unto death, 
 
 Thou goest ? EiJBCTRA. Aye, I pass from 
 you. 
 Soft-eyed at last. Qrestes. Go, Pylades, 
 And God go with you ! Wed in peace 
 My tall Electra, and be true. 
 
 [Electra and Pylades depart t§ the left. 
 
 Castor. 
 Their troth shall fill their hearts. — But on : 
 Dread feet are near thee, hounds of prey, 
 Snake-handed, midnight-visaged, yea, 
 And bitter pains their fruit 1 Begone I 
 
 [Qejstbs depams to the right* 
 
 But hark, the Ur Sicilian sea 
 
 Calls, and a noise of men and ships 
 That labour sunken to the lips 
 
 In bitter billows ; forth go we. 
 
 Through the long leagues of fiery blue, 
 With saving ; not to souls unshriven \ 
 But whoso in his life hath striven 
 
 To love things holy and be true, 
 
ELECTRA S3 
 
 Through toil and storm wc guard him ; wc 
 Save, and he shall not die ! — Therefore, 
 ^-5>0 praise the lying man no more, 
 Nor with oath-breakers sail the sea : 
 Farewell, ye walkers on thSshorc 
 Of deatinl A God hath counselled yc. 
 
 [Castor and Polydeuces disappear. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Farewell, farewell 1 — But he who can so fare, 
 And stumbleth not on mischief anywhere, 
 Blessed on earth is he 1 
 
NOTES TO THE ELECTRA 
 
 The chief characters in the play belong to one 
 ^unily, as is shown by the two genealogies : — 
 
 Atreus 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 Agamemnon 
 
 («=Clytemnestra) 
 
 I 
 
 Tantalus 
 Pelops 
 
 Menelaus 
 ( = Helen) 
 
 i 
 
 Thyejrtes 
 
 Aegisthus 
 (■*Clytemnestra) 
 
 !phigenia Electra Orestes 
 
 (Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, 
 married Strophios, and was the mother of Pylades.) 
 
 11. 
 
 Clytemnestra 
 
 Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus 
 
 I I 
 
 I 
 
 Castor 
 
 I I 
 
 Polydeuces Helen 
 
 P. I, 1. 10, Son of his father's foe.] — Both foe and 
 brother. Atreus and Thyestes became enemies after 
 the theft of the Golden Lamb. See pp. 47 flF. 
 
 P. 2, 1. 34, Must wed with me.] — In Aeschylus 
 and Sophocles Electra is unmarried. This story of 
 her peasant husband is found only in Euripides, but is 
 
86 EURIPIDES 
 
 not likely to have been wantonly invented by him. 
 It was no doubt an existing legend — an cjp \0709, to 
 use the phrase attributed to Euripides in the Frogs (1. 
 1052). He may have chosen to adopt it for several 
 reasons. First, to marry Electra to a peasant was a 
 likely step for Acgisthus to take, since any child born 
 to her afterwards would bear a stigma, calculated to 
 damage him fatally as a pretender to the throne. 
 Again, it seemed to explain the name " A-lcktra " (as 
 if from XeKTpbvy " bed ;" cf. Schol. Orestes, 71, Soph. 
 EL 962, yfnt, 917) more pointedly than the commoner 
 version. And it helps in the working out of Elcctra's 
 character (cf. pp. 17, 22, &c.). Also it gives an oppor- 
 tunity of introducing the fine character of the peasant. 
 He is an Avrovpyo^iy literally "self- worker," a man who 
 works his own land, far from the city, neither a slave 
 nor a slave-master ; " the men," as Euripides says in 
 the Orestes (920), **who alone save a nation." (Cf. 
 Bacy p. 115 foot, and below, p. 26, 11. 367-390.) As 
 Euripides became more and more alienated from the 
 town democracy he tended, like Tolstoy and others, to 
 idealise the workers of the soil. 
 
 P. 6, 1. 62, Children to our enemy.] — Cf. 626. 
 Soph. EL 589. They do not seem to be in existence 
 at the time of the play. 
 
 Pp. 5-6.] — Electra's first two speeches arc ad- 
 mirable as expositions of her character — the morbid 
 ?/ nursing of hatred as a duty, the deliberate posing, the 
 impulsiveness, the quick response to kindness. 
 
 y. 7, 1. 82, Pylades.] — Pylades is a persona muta 
 both here and in Sophocles' Eiectroy a fixed traditional 
 figure, possessing no quality but devotion to Orestes. 
 In Aeschylus' Libation- Bearers he speaks only once, 
 with tremendous cflPect, at the crisis of the play, to 
 rebuke Orestes when his heart fails him. In the 
 Iphigenia in Taurisy however, and still more in the 
 Orestes^ he is a fully studied character. 
 
 P. io» 1. I5i> A swan crying alone.] — Cf. Bacchat^ 
 
NOTES 87 
 
 p. 152, "As yearns the milk- white swar when old 
 swans die." 
 
 P. II, 11. 169 ff., The Watcher hath cried this 
 day.] — Hera was an old Pelasgian goddess, whose 
 worship was kept in part a mystery from the invading 
 Achaeans or Dorians. There seems to have been a 
 priest born " of the ancient folk," i,e,y a Pelasgian or 
 aboriginal Mycenaean, who, by some secret lore — 
 probably some ancient and superseded method of cal- 
 culating the year — knew when Hera's festival was 
 due, and walked round the country three days before- 
 hand to announce it. He drank "the mi'k of the 
 flock " and avoided wine, either from some religious 
 taboo, or because he represented the religion of the 
 milk-drinking mountain shepherds. 
 
 P. 13, 11. 220 ff,] — Observe Electra's cowardice 
 when surprised ; contrast her courage, p. 47, when 
 sending Orestes off, and again her quick drop to 
 despair when the news does not come soon enough. 
 
 P. 16, 11. 247 ff., I am a wife. . . . O better dead !] 
 — Rather ungenerous, when compared with her words 
 on p. 6. (Cf. also her words on pp. 24 and 26.) But 
 she feels this herself, almost immediately. Orestes 
 naturally takes her to mean that her husband is one 
 of Aegisthus' friends. This would have ruined his 
 plot. (Cf. above, p. 8, 1. 98.) 
 
 P. 22, 1. 312, Castor.] — I know no other mention 
 of Electra's betrothal to Castor. He was her kins- 
 man : see below on 1. 990. 
 
 Pp. 22-23, 11. 300-337.] — In this wonderful out- 
 break, observe the mixture of all sorts of personal 
 resentments and jealousies with the devotion of the 
 lonely woman to her father and her brother. "So 
 men say," is an interesting touch ; perhaps conscience 
 tells her midway that she does not quite believe what 
 she is saying. So is the self-conscious recognition of 
 her " bitter burning brain " that interprets all things 
 in a sort of distortion. — Observe, too, how instinctively 
 
88 EURIPIDES 
 
 she turns to the peasant for sympathy in the strain of 
 her emotion. It is his entrance, perhaps, which pre- 
 vents Orestes from being swept away and revealing 
 himself. The peasant's courage towards two armed 
 men is striking, as well as his courtesy and his sanity. 
 He is the one character in the play not somehow tainted 
 with blood-madness. 
 
 P. 27, 11. 403, 409.] — Why does Electra send 
 her husband to the Old Man ? Not, I think, really 
 for want of the food. It would have been easier to 
 borrow (p. 12, 1. 191) from the Chorus; and, besides, 
 what the peasant says is no doubt true, that, if she 
 liked, she could find "many a pleasant thing" u 
 the house. I think she sends for the Old Man be- 
 cause he is the only person who would know Orestes 
 (p. 21, 1. 285). She is already, like th^ Leader 
 (p. 26, 1. 401), excited by hopes which she wili not con- 
 fess. This reading makes the next scene clearer also. 
 
 Pp. 28-30, 11. 432-487, for the Ships of Troy.] — 
 The two main Choric songs of thfs play are markedly 
 what Aristotle calls ifi^oXi^cty "things thrown in." 
 They have no effect upon the action, and form little 
 more than musical "relief." Not that they are 
 positively irrelevant. Agamemnon is in our minds 
 all through the play, and Agamemnon's glory is of 
 course enhanced by the mention of Troy and the 
 praises of his subordinate king, Achilles. 
 
 Thetis, the Nereid, or sea-maiden, was won to 
 wife by Peleus. (He wrestled with her on the sea- 
 shore, and never loosed hold, though she turned into 
 divers strange beings — a lion, and fire, and water, and 
 sea-beasts.) She bore him Achilles, and then, unable 
 permanently to live with a mortal, went back beneath 
 the sea. When Achilles was about to sail to Troy, 
 she and her sister Nereids brought him divine armour, 
 and guided his ships across the Aegean. The designs 
 on Achilles* armour, as on Heracles' shield, form a 
 fttirly common topic of poetry, 
 
NOTES »9 
 
 The deix:ription8 of the designs arc mostly clear. 
 Perseus with the Gorgon's head, guided by Hermes ; 
 the Sun on a winged chariot, and stars about him ; 
 two Sphinxes, holding as victims the men who had 
 failed to answer the riddles which they sang ; and, 
 on the breastplate, the Chimaera attacking Bellero- 
 phon's winged horse, Pegasus. The name Pegasus 
 suggested to a Greek irTj'yrjy "fountain;" and the great 
 spring of Pir^n6, near Corinth, was made by Pegasus 
 stamping on the rock. 
 
 Pp. 30-47.] — The Old Man, like other old family 
 rsrvants in Euripides — the extreme case is in the Ion 
 — is absolutely and even morbidly devoted to his 
 masters. Delightful in this first scene, he becomes 
 a little horrible in the next, where they plot the 
 murders ; not only ferocious himself, but, what seems 
 worse, inclined to pet and enjoy the bloodthirstiness 
 of his " little mistress." 
 
 Pp. 30-33, 11. 510-545.] — The Signs of Orestes. 
 This scene, I think, has been greatly misunderstood 
 by critics. In Aeschylus' Libation-Bearers, which 
 deals with thc^ same subject as the Electro^ the scene 
 is at Agamemnon's tomb. Orestes lays his tress there 
 in the prologue. Electra comes bringing libations, 
 sees the hair, compares it with her own, finds that 
 it is similar " wing for wing " {ofioirrepof; — the same 
 word as here), and guesses that it belongs to Orestes. 
 She then measures the footprints, and finds one that 
 is like her own, one not 5 evidently Orestes and a 
 fellow- traveller I Orestes enters and announces him- 
 self; she refuses to believe, until he shows her a 
 "woven thing," perhaps the robe which he is wear- 
 ing, which she recognises as the work of her own 
 hand. 
 
 The same signs, described ''in one case by the 
 same peculiar word, occur here. The Old Man 
 mentions one after the other, and Electra refutes 
 or rejects them. It has been thought therefore that 
 
90 EURIPIDES 
 
 this scene was meant as an attack — a very weak 
 and undignified attack — on Euripides* great master. 
 No parallel for such an artistically ruinous proceeding 
 is quoted from any Greek tragedy- And, apart 
 fronr the improbability h priori^ I do not think it 
 even possible to read the scene in this sense, To 
 my mind, Electra here rejects the signs not from 
 IV reason, but from a sort of nervous terror. She dares 
 not believe that Orestes has come ; because, if it prove 
 otherwise, the disappointment will be so terrible. As 
 to both signs, the lock of hair and the footprints, 
 her arguments may be good ; but observe that she 
 is afraid to make the comparison at all. And as to 
 the footprint, she says there cannot be one, when 
 the Old Man has just seen it 1 And, anyhow, she 
 will not go to see it ! Similarly as to the robe, 
 she does her best to deny that she ever wove it, 
 though she and the Old Man both remember it 
 perfectly. She is fighting tremulously, with all 
 her flagging strength, against the thing she longs 
 for. The whole point of the scene requires that 
 one ray of hope after another should be shown to 
 Electra, and that she should passionately, blindly, 
 reject them all. That is what Euripides wanted 
 the signs for. 
 
 But why, it may be asked, did he adopt Aeschylus* 
 signs, and even his peculiar word ? Because, whether 
 invented by Aeschylus or not, these signs were a 
 canonical part of the story by the time Euripides 
 wrote. Every one who kncAv^ the story of Orestes* 
 return at all, knew of the hair and the footprint. 
 Aristophanes in the Clouds (534 AT.) uses them pro- 
 verbially, when he speaks of his comedy " recognising 
 its brother's tress." It would have been frivolous 
 to invent new onesL As a matter of fact, it seems 
 probable that the signs are older than Aeschylus; 
 neither they nor the word oficnrrepoff particularly suit 
 Aeschylus' purpose. (Cf. Dr. Verrall's introduction to 
 
NOTES 91 
 
 the Libation^ Bearers.) They probably come from the 
 old lyric poet, Stesichorus. 
 
 P. 43, 1. 652, New-mothered of a Man-Child.] — 
 Her true Man-Child, the Avenger whom they had 
 sought to rob her of! This pitiless plan was 
 suggested apparently by the sacrifice to the Nymphs 
 (p. 40). " Weep my babe's low station " is of 
 course ironical. The babe would set a seal on 
 Electra's degradation to the peasant class, and so end 
 the blood-feud, as far as she was concerned. Clytem- 
 nestra, longing for peace, must rejoice in Electra's 
 degradation. Yet she has motherly feelings too, and 
 in fact hardly knows what to think or do till she can 
 consult Aegisthus (p. 71). Electra, it would seem, 
 actually calculates upon these feelings, while despising 
 them. 
 
 P. 45, 1. 669, If but some man will guide me.] — 
 A suggestion of the irresolution or melancholia that 
 beset Orestes afterwards, alternating with furious 
 action. (Cf. Aeschylus* Libation- Bear ers^ Euripides' 
 Andromache and Orestes,) 
 
 P. 45, 1. 671, Zeus of my sires, &c.] — In this 
 invocation, short and comparatively unmoving, one 
 can see perhaps an effect of Aeschylus' play. In the 
 Libation-Bearers the invocation of Agamemnon com- 
 prises 200 lines of extraordinarily eloquent poetry. 
 
 P. 47 ff., 11. 699 ff.]— -The Golden Lamb. The theft 
 of the Golden Lamb is treated as a story of the First 
 Sin, after which all the world was changed and 
 became the poor place that it now is. It was at 
 least the First Sin in the blood-feud of this drama. 
 
 The story is not explicitly told. Apparently the 
 magic lamb was brought by Pan from the gods, and 
 given to Atreus as a special grace and a sign that he 
 was the true king. His younger brother, Thyestes, 
 helped by Atreus* wife, stole it and claimed to be 
 king himself. So good was turned into evil, and love 
 into hatred, and the stars shaken in their courses. 
 
92 EURIPIDES 
 
 [It is rather curious that the Lamb should have 
 such a special effect upon the heavens and the 
 weather. It is the same in Plato {Po/it. 268 ff.), 
 and more definitely so in the treatise Dg Astrologta^ 
 attributed to Lucian, which says that the Golden 
 Lamb is the constellation Aries, " The Ram.*' Hugo 
 Winckler (Jf^eltanschauung des alien OrienUy pp. 30, 
 31) suggests that the story is a piece of Babylonian 
 astronomy misunderstood. It seems that the vernal 
 equinox, which is now n»oving from the Ram into 
 the Fish, was in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. 
 moving from the Bull into the Ram. Now the 
 Bull, Marduk, was the special god of Babylon, and 
 the time when he yielded his place to the Ram was 
 also, as a matter of fact, the time of the decline of 
 Babylon. The gradual advance of the Ram not 
 only upset the calendar, and made all the seasons 
 wrong ; but seemed, since it coincided with the 
 fall of the Great City, to upset the world in general I 
 Of course Euripides would know nothing of this. 
 He was apparently attracted to the Golden Lamb 
 merely by the quaint beauty of the story.] 
 
 P. 50, 1. 746, Thy brethren even now.] — Castor 
 and Polydeuces, who were received into the stars 
 after their death. See below, on 1. 990. 
 
 P. 51, 1. 757, That answer bids me die.] — Why? 
 Because Orestes, if he won at all, would win by a 
 surprise attack, and would send news instantly. A 
 prolonged conflict, without a message, would mean 
 that Orestes and Pvlades were being overpowered. 
 Of course she is wildly impatient, 
 
 P. 51, 1. 765, Who an thou? I mistrust thec.]~ 
 Just as she mistrusted the Old Man's signs. See 
 above, p. 89. 
 
 P. 52 ff., 11. 774 ff.] — Messenger's Speech. This 
 speech, though swift and vivid, is less moving and 
 also less sympathetic than most of the Messengers' 
 Speeches. Less moving, because the slaying of 
 
NOTES 93 
 
 Acgisthus has little moral interest ; it is merely a 
 daring and dangerous exploit. Less sympathetic, 
 because even here, in the first and comparatively 
 blameless step of the blood - vengeance, Euripides 
 makes us feel the treacherous side of it. A SoXo<f>ovLay 
 a " slaying by guile," even at its best, remains rather 
 an ugly thing. 
 
 P. 53, I. 793, Then quickly spake Orestes.] — 
 If Orestes had washed with Aegisthus, he would 
 have become his xenosy or guest, as much as if he had 
 eaten his bread and salt. In that case the slaying 
 would have been definitely a crime, a dishonourable 
 act. Also, Acgisthus would have had the right to 
 ask his name. — The unsuspiciousness of Aegisthus is 
 partly natural ; it was not thus, alone and unarmed, 
 that he expected Orestes to stand before him. Partly 
 it seems like a heaven-sent blindness. Even the omens 
 do not warn him, though no doubt in a moment more 
 they would have done so. 
 
 P. 56, 1. 878, With guile he hath slain.] —So 
 the MSS. The Chorus have already a faint feeling, 
 quickly suppressed, that there may be another side 
 to Orestes' action. Most editors alter the text to 
 mean " He hath slain these guileful ones." 
 
 P. 58, 1. 900, It shames me, yet God knows I 
 hunger sore.] — To treat the dead with respect was 
 one of the special marks of a Greek as opposed to a 
 barbarian. It is possible that the body of Aegisthus 
 might legitimately have been refused burial, or even 
 nailed on a cross as Orestes in a moment of excitement 
 suggests. But to insult him lying dead would be a 
 shock to all Greek feeling. ("Unholy is the voice 
 of loud thanksgiving over slaughtered men," Odyssey 
 xxii. 412.) Any excess of this kind, any violence 
 towards the helpless, was apt to rouse " The sleeping 
 wrath of the world." There was a Greek proverb, 
 *'Even an injured dog has his Erinys" — /.^., his 
 unseen guardian or avenger. It is interesting, though 
 
94 £URIPID£S 
 
 not surprising, to hear that men had little love for 
 Electra. The wonderful speech that follows, though 
 to a conventional Greek perhaps the most outrageous 
 thing of which she is guilty, shows best the inherent 
 nobility of her character before years of misery had 
 "killed her soul within." 
 
 P. 59, 11. 928 f., Being in falseness one, &c.] — The 
 Greek here is very obscure and almost certainly 
 corrupt. 
 
 P. 61, I. 964, Tis my mother comes.] — The 
 reaction has already begun in Orestes. In the 
 excitement and danger of killing his enemy he has 
 shown coolness and courage, but now a work lies 
 before him vastly more horrible, a little more treacher- 
 ous, and with no element of daring to redeem it. 
 Electra, on the other hand, has done nothing yet ; she 
 has merely tried, not very successfully, to revile the 
 dead body, and her hate is unsatisfied. Besides, one 
 sees all through the play that Aegisthus was a kind of 
 odious stranger to her ; it was the woman, her mother, 
 who came close to her and whom she really hated. 
 
 P. 63, 1. 979, Was it some fiend of Hell ?]— The 
 likeness to Hamlet is obvious. ("The spirit that I 
 have seen May be the Devil." End of Act II.) 
 
 P. 63, 1. 983, How shall it be then, the same 
 stealthy blow ? . . .] — He means, I think, " the same 
 as that with which I have already murdered an 
 unsuspecting man to-day," but Electra for her own 
 purposes misinterprets him. 
 
 P. 64, 1. 990, God's horsemen, stars without a 
 stain.] — Cf. above, 11. 312, 74.6. Castor and Poly- 
 deuces were sons of Zeus and Leda, brothers of 
 Helen, and half-brothers of Clytemnestra, whose 
 father was the mortal Tyndareus. They lived as 
 knights without reproach, and afterwards became 
 stars and demigods. The story is told that originally 
 Castor was mortal and Polydcuccs immortal ; but 
 when Castor was fatally wounded Polydeuccs prayed 
 
NOTES 95 
 
 that he might be allowed to give him half hiis im- 
 mortality. The prayer was granted ; and the two 
 live as immortals, yet, in some mysterious way, 
 knowing the taste of death. Unlike the common 
 sinners and punishers of the rest of the play, these 
 Heroes find their " glory '* in saving men from peril 
 and suffering, especially at sea, where they appear as 
 the globes of light, called St. Elmo's fire, upon masts 
 and yards. 
 
 Pp. 64-71, 11. 998 ff.] — Clytemssestra. «*And 
 what sort of woman is this doomed and *evil' 
 Queen ? We know the majestic murderess of 
 Aeschylus, so strong as to be actually beautiful, so 
 fearless and unrepentant that one almost feels her to 
 be right. One can imagine also another figure that 
 would be theatrically effective — a * sympathetic ' 
 sinner, beautiful and penitent, eager to redeem her 
 sin by self-sacrifice. But Euripides gives us neither. 
 Perhaps he believed in neither. It is a piteous and 
 most real character that we have here, in this sad 
 middle-aged woman, whose first words are an apology ; 
 controlling quickly her old fires, anxious to be as little 
 hated as possible. She would even atone, one feels, 
 if there were any safe way of atonement ; but the 
 consequences of her old actions are holding her, and 
 she is bound to persist. ... In her long speech it is 
 scarcely to Electra that she is chiefly speaking ; it is 
 to the Chorus, perhaps to her own bondmaids ; to 
 any or all of the people whose shrinking so frets her." 
 {^Independent Review^ i.e.) o 
 
 P. 65, 1. loii. Cast his child away.} — The Greek 
 fleet assembled for Troy was held by contrary winds 
 at Aulis, in the Straits of Euboea, and the whole 
 expedition was in danger of breaking up. The 
 prophets demanded a human sacrifice, and Agamem- 
 non gave his own daughter, Iphigenla. He induced 
 Clytemnestra to send her to him, by the pretext that 
 Achilles had asked for her in marriage. 
 
96 EURIPIDES 
 
 P. 66, 1. 1046, Which led me to the men he 
 hated.] — It made Clytemnestra's crime worse, that 
 her accomplice was the blood-foe. 
 
 Pp. 65-68. As elsewhere in Euripides, these two 
 speeches leave the matter undecided. He does not 
 attempt to argue the case out. He gives us a flash 
 of light, as it were, upon Clytemnestra'*s mind and 
 then upon Electra's. Each believes what she is 
 saying, and neither understands the whole truth. 
 It is clear that Clytemnestra, being left for ten years 
 utterly alone, and having perhaps something of Helen's 
 temperament about her, naturally fell in love with the 
 Lord of a neighbouring castle ; and having once 
 committed herself, had no way of saving her life 
 except by killing her husband, and afterwards either 
 killing or keeping strict watch upon Orestes and 
 Electra. Aegisthus, of course, was deliberately 
 plotting to carry out his blood-feud and to win a 
 great kingdom. 
 
 P. 72, 1. 1 1 56, For the flying heart too fond.] — 
 The text is doubtful, but this seems to be the literal 
 translation, and the reference to Clytemnestra is 
 intelligible enough. 
 
 P. 73, 1. 1 157, The giants' cloud-capped ring.] — 
 The great walls of Mvcenae, built by the Cycl6pes ; 
 cf. Trojan Women^ p. 64, " Where the towers of the 
 giants shine O'er Argos cloudily." 
 
 P. 75, K 1 20 1, Back, back in the wind and rain.] 
 — The only explicit moral judgment of the Chorus ; 
 -f. note on 1. 878. 
 
 P. 77, 1. 1225, I touched with my hand thy 
 sword.] — U€.^ Electra dropped her own sword in 
 horror, then in a revulsion of feeling laid her hand 
 upon Orestes' sword — out of generosity, that he 
 might not bear his guilt alone. 
 
 P. 78, 1. 1 241, An Argivc ship.] — This may have 
 been the ship of Menelaus, which was brought to 
 Argos by Castor and Polydeuces, sec 1. 1278, Htleno 
 
NOTES 97 
 
 1663. The ships labouring in the " Sicilian sea " 
 (p. 82, L 1347) must have suggested to the audiena 
 the ships of the great expedition against Sicily, then 
 'Irawing near to its destruction. The Athenian fleet 
 was destroyed early in September 413 b.c: this play 
 was probably produced in the spring of the same year, 
 at which time the last reinforcements were being 
 sent out. 
 
 P. 78, 1. 1249.] — Marriage of Py lades and Electra. 
 A good example of the essentially historic naturp 
 of Greek tragedy. No one would have invented 3 
 marriage between Electra and Pylades for tht purposes 
 of this play. It is even a little disturbing. But it is 
 here, because it was a fixed fact in the tradition (cf. 
 Iphigenia in Taurisy 1. 915 ff.), and could not be 
 ignored. Doubtless there were people living who 
 claimed descent from Pylades and Electra. 
 
 P. 79, 1. 1253, ScouTge thee as a burning wheel.] 
 — At certain feasts a big wheel soaked in some inflam- 
 mable resin or tar was set fire to and rolled down 
 a mountain. 
 
 P. 79, 1. 1258, There is a hill in Athens.J—The 
 great fame of the Areopagus as a tribunal for man- 
 slaying (see Aeschylus' Eumtnides) cannot have been 
 due merely to its incorruptibility. Hardly any 
 Athenian tribunal was corruptible. But the Areopagus 
 in very ancient times seems to have superseded the 
 early systems of " blood-feud " or " blood-debt " by 1 
 humane and rational system of law, taking account 
 of intention, provocation, and the varying degrees of 
 guilt. The Erinyes, being the old Pelasgian avengers 
 of blood, now superseded, have their dwelling in a 
 cavern underneath the Areopagus. 
 
 P. 80, U. 1276 ff.] — The graves of Aegisthus and 
 Clytcmnestra actually existed in Argos (Paus. ii. 
 16, 7). They form, so to speak, the concrete material 
 fiict round which the legend of this play circles (cf. 
 Ridjreway in H^tiUuic Jaurnal^ xxiv. p. xxxix.). 
 
98 EURIPIDES 
 
 P. 80, 1. 1280.] — Helen. The story here adum- 
 brated is taken from Stesichorus, and forms the plot of 
 Euripides* play Helena (cf. Herodotus, ii. 113 ff.). 
 
 P. 80, I 1295, I also, sons of Tyndareus.] — 
 Observe that Electra claims the gods as cousins (cf. 
 p. 22, 1. 313), addressing them by the name of their 
 mortal ftithcr. The Chorus has called them "sons 
 of Zeus.'' In the same spirit she faces the gods, 
 complains, and even argues, while Orestes never rai:>es 
 his eyes to them. 
 
 P. 80, 1. 1300.] — K^res. The death-spirits that 
 flutter over our heads, as Homer says, " innumerable, 
 whom no man can fly nor hide from." 
 
 P. 82, 1. 1329, Yea, our peace is riven by the 
 strange pain of these that die.] — Cf. the attitude of 
 Artemis at the end of the Hippolytus, Sometimes 
 Euripides introduces gods whose peace is not riven, 
 but then they are always hateful. (Cf. Aphrodite in 
 the Hippo lytus^ Dionysus in the Bacchae^ Athena in 
 the Trojan JVomen.) 
 
 P. 82, 1. 1336, O fiiithful unto death.]— This is 
 the last word we hear of Electra, and it is interest- 
 ing. With all her unlovely qualities it remains true 
 that she was faithful — ^ithful to the dead and the 
 absent, and to what she looked upon as a fearful duty. 
 
 Additional Note on the presence of the Argive 
 women during the plot against the King and Queen. 
 (Cf. especially p. 19, 1. 272, These women hear us.) 
 — It would seem to us almost mad to speak so freely 
 before the women. But one must observe : I, 
 Stasis, or civil enmity, ran very high in Greece, and 
 these women were of the pauty that hated Acgisthut. 
 2. There runs all through Euripides a very strong 
 N\- conception of the cohesivcness of women, their 
 srcretiveness, and their faithfulness to one another. 
 Medea, Iphigenia, and Creusa, for instance, trust 
 
a 
 
 NOTES 99 
 
 their women friends with secrets involving life and 
 death, and the secrets are kept. On the other hand, 
 when a man — Xuthus in the Ion — tells the Chorus 
 women a secret, they promptly and with great 
 courage betray him. Aristophanes leaves the same 
 impression ; and so do many incidents in Greek 
 history. Cf. the murders plotted by the Athenian 
 women (Hdt. v. 87), and both by and against the 
 Lemnian women (Hdt. vi. 138). The subject is a 
 large one, but I would observe : I. Athenian women 
 were kept as a rule very much together, and apart 
 from men. 2. At the time of the great invasions the 
 women of a community must often have been of dif- 
 ferent race from the men ; and this may have started 
 a tradition of behaviour, 3. Members of a subject 
 (or disaffected) nation have generally this cohesive- 
 ness : in Ireland, Poland, and parts of Turkey the 
 details of a political crime will, it is said, be known 
 to a whole country side, but not a whisper come to 
 the authorities. 
 
 Of course the mere mechanical fact that the 
 Chorus had to be present on the stage counts for 
 something. It saved the dramatist trouble to make 
 his heroine confide in the Chorus. But I do not 
 think Euripides would have used this situation so 
 often unless it had seemed to him both true to life 
 and dramatically interesting. 
 
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