Our father, do you help me? No; you try

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  To thwart me, adding cowardice on top

  Of misery. Come, tell me—or let me

  Tell you: if I give up my grief, what should

  I gain? Do I not live? Barely, I know,

  But well enough for me; and I give them

  Continual vexation, and thereby

  Honour the dead, if there is any feeling

  Beyond the grave. You hate them, so you tell me:

  Your tongue may hate them; what you do supports

  Our father’s enemies and murderers.

  I will not yield to them, no, not for all

  The toys and trinkets that give you such pleasure.

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  Enjoy your luxuries, your delicate food!

  It is enough for me if I may eat

  What does not turn my stomach. I have no

  Desire to share in your high privileges.

  And you would scorn them, if you knew your duty.

  You might be known as Agamemnon’s child,

  But let them call you Clytemnestra’s daughter,

  And recognize your treason, who abandon

  Your murdered father and your family.

  CHORUS. Do not give way to anger. Each of you

  Can with advantage listen to the other.

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  CHRYSOTHEMIS. I am well used to her tirades, my friends;

  I would not have provoked her, but that

  I Know that the gravest danger threatens her:

  They are resolved to end her long complaints.

  ELECTRA. What is this awful thing? If it is worse

  Than this I will not say another word.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. I’ll tell you everything I know.—

  They have determined,

  If you will not give up these protestations,

  To imprison you in such a place that you

  Will never see the sun again, but live

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  To sing your own laments in some dark dungeon.*

  So think on this, or, when the blow has fallen,

  Do not blame me. Now is the time for prudence.

  ELECTRA. Will they do that to me?

  CHRYSOTHEMIS.

  They will; it is

  Decreed, the moment that Aegisthus has returned.

  ELECTRA. Then let him come at once, for all I care!

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. How can you say it? Are you mad?

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  ELECTRA.

  At least,

  I shall be out of sight of all of you.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. But to give up the life you lead with us!

  ELECTRA. A marvellous existence! One to envy!

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. It could be, if you would behave with sense.

  ELECTRA. You’ll not teach me to abandon those I love.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Not that, but to give in to those who rule us.

  ELECTRA. Let that be your excuse; I will not make it!

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. It is a duty, not to fall through folly.

  ELECTRA. I’ll fall, if fall I must, avenging him.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Our father will not blame me, I am sure.

  400

  ELECTRA. Only a coward would rely on that!

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Will you not listen, and let me persuade you?

  ELECTRA. Never! I hope my judgement will not fall

  As low as that.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Then I will say no more.

  I’ll leave you now, and go upon my errand.

  ELECTRA. Where are you going, with those offerings?

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. I am to lay them on our father’s tomb;

  Our mother sent me.

  ELECTRA.

  She? Give offerings

  To him who is her deadliest enemy?

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Say next: ‘The husband slain by her own hand’!

  ELECTRA. Who thought of this? Or who persuaded her?

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. She had a dream, I think, that

  frightened her.

  410

  ELECTRA. Gods of our race! Be with us now, at last!

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Do you find cause of hope in this bad dream?

  ELECTRA. Tell me the dream, and then perhaps I’ll know.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. I cannot tell you much.

  ELECTRA.

  But tell me that!

  The safety or the ruin of a house

  Will often turn upon a little thing.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. They say that in her dream she saw our father

  Returned to life and standing at her side;

  He took the sceptre which he used to hold

  Himself—the one that now Aegisthus carries—

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  And planted it beside the hearth; from that

  There grew, and spread, an over-arching tree

  That gave its shelter to the whole of Argos.

  At sunrise, to allay her fear, she told

  Her vision to the sun-god:* one who stood

  Nearby and heard reported it to me.

  I cannot tell you more, except that I

  Am sent because the dream has frightened her.

  So now, I beg you, in the name of all

  The gods we worship, do as I advise:

  Give up this folly which will be your ruin.

  If you reject me now, you will return

  To me when nothing I can do will help you.

  430

  ELECTRA. Dear sister, do not let these offerings

  Come near his tomb; it is a thing that law

  And piety forbid, to dedicate

  To him gifts and libations that are sent

  By her, his deadliest, bitterest enemy.

  Bury them in the ground, or throw them to

  The random winds, that none of them may reach him.

  No; let them all be kept in store for her

  In Hell, a treasure for her when she dies.

  If she were not the most insensate woman

  The world has ever seen, she’d not have dared

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  To try to crown the tomb of him she killed

  With gifts inspired by enmity. Think: would they

  Cause any gratitude in him? Did she not kill him?

  And with such hatred, and with such dishonour,

  That she attacked even his lifeless body

  And mangled it?* You cannot think that gifts

  Will gain her absolution from her crime?

  Impossible! No, let them be, and make

  A different offering at our father’s grave:

  Give him a lock of hair for token, one

  Of yours, and one of mine*—no lordly gifts,

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  But all I have; and give him too this girdle,

  Poor, unadorned; and as you give them, kneel

  Upon his grave; beseech him, from the world

  Below, to look with favour on us, and

  To give his aid against our enemies;

  And that his son Orestes may be saved

  To come in triumph and to trample on

  His foes, that in the days to come we may

  Grace him with gifts more splendid far than those

  That we can offer now. For I believe,

  I do believe, that in this dream, to her

  So terrifying, the spirit of our father

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  Has played some part. However that may be,

  My sister, do this service to yourself,

  To me, and to the one we love beyond

  All others, him who now is dead—our father.

  CHORUS. My child, if you are wise, you will do all

  She bids you, for she speaks in piety.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS. Do it I will; when duty’s clear, there is

  No cause to argue, but to do it quickly.

  But, O my friends, I beg you, keep it secret,

  This that I undertake. If it should come

  To Clytemnestra’s knowledge, then I fear

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  I should pay dearly for this enterprise.

  [Exit CHRYSOTHEMIS

  Strophe 1

  CHORUS [sings]. If I have any foresight, any judgement to be trusted,

  Retribution* is at hand; her shadow falls before she comes.

  She is coming, and she brings with her a power invincible.

  Confidence rises in my heart;

  The dream is good; it makes me glad.

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  The King, your father, is not sunk in dull forgetfulness,

  Nor does the rusty two-edged axe* forget the foul blow.

  Antistrophe 1

  She will come swiftly and strongly, springing on

  490

  them from an ambush,

  The Vengeance of the gods, coming in might. For they were swept

  By a passion for a lawless and bloody mating into crime.

  Therefore I feel glad confidence;

  The omen has not come in vain.

  For evil doers must pay. Oracles and prophecies

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  Only deceive, if this dream is not now fulfilled.

  Epode

  That chariot-race of Pelops*

  Has become the cause of sorrow

  And of suffering without end.

  Since Myrtilus* was thrown from

  His golden car, and dashed to death into

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  The sea that roared beneath him,

  Cruel violence and bloodshed

  Have been quartered on this house.

  Enter CLYTEMNESTRA, with a servant carrying

  materials for a sacrifice

  CLYTEMNESTRA. At large again, it seems—because

  Aegisthus

  Is not at home to stop you. So you go

  Roaming about, putting us all to shame!

  But in his absence, you are not afraid

  Of me! And yet you say to everyone

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  That I am cruel and tyrannical,

  That I heap outrage both on you and yours.

  I do no outrage; if my tongue reviles you,

  It is because my tongue must answer yours.

  Your father: that is always your excuse,

  That he was killed by me.—By me! Of course;

  I know he was, and I do not deny it—

  Because his own crime killed him, and not I

  Alone. And you, if you had known your duty,

  Ought to have helped, for I was helping Justice.

  This father of yours, whom you are always

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  mourning,

  Had killed your sister,* sacrificing her

  To Artemis,* the only Greek* who could endure

  To do it—though his part, when he begot her,

  Was so much less than mine, who bore the child.

  So tell me why, in deference to whom,

  He sacrificed her? For the Greeks, you say?

  What right had they to kill a child of mine?

  But if you say he killed my child to serve

  His brother Menelaus, should not he

  Pay me for that? Did not this brother have

  Two sons, and should they rather not have died,

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  The sons of Helen* who had caused the war

  And Menelaus who had started it?

  Or had the god of death some strange desire

  To feast on mine, and not on Helen’s children?

  Or did this most unnatural father love

  His brother’s children, not the one I bore him?

  Was not this father monstrous, criminal?

  You will say No, but I declare he was,

  And so would she who died—if she could speak.

  Therefore at what has happened I am not

  Dismayed; and if you think me wrong, correct

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  Your own mistakes before you censure mine.

  ELECTRA. This time at least you will not say that I

  Attacked you first, and then got such an answer.

  If you allow it, I’ll declare the truth

  On his behalf and on my sister’s* too.

  CLYTEMNESTRA. I do allow it. Had you always spoken

  Like this, you would have given less offence.

  ELECTRA. Then listen. You admit you killed my

  father:

  Justly or not, could you say anything

  More foul? But I can prove to you it was

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  No love of Justice that inspired the deed,

  But the suggestions of that criminal

  With whom you now are living. Go and ask