Parnassus: see above, note to p. 39.

  Thebes and Corinth: the chorus has no conception that Oedipus’ Corinthian birth and provenance might be in doubt.

  69 rage of yours: this and the following three lines, as they stand in the MSS, make little sense. Two lines have probably been lost. The translation offers an intelligible and performable text reconstructed by guesswork: the lines printed in brackets were supplied by the translator.

  70 the chief of gods: the sun-god, Helios, is foremost among the gods not in terms of power, but in that he is the most conspicuous and apparent to men. It was customary to swear oaths by him.

  72 over a precipice: this detail is not in the Greek, which states that the baby was simply cast out on a ‘trackless mountain’.

  73 Daulia: a district south-east of Parnassus. The place where the three roads meet is the point on the road from Thebes to Delphi, leading westward, where a branch diverges off to the north-west in the direction of Daulia.

  a Herald: at line 114 the audience was told that Laius was killed while on a pilgrimage to Delphi. The company of a Herald, to lend solemnity to the sacred mission, would have been appropriate.

  74 Merope: the Greek adds that she was of ‘Dorian’ stock—a noble lineage which could trace itself back to Hellen, the eponymous ancestor of the Greek people.

  75 the stars alone have told me: Oedipus has only been able to locate the land in which he grew up by calculations from the stars, as a sailor uses the heavens to navigate.

  any bond of kinship: at this point Oedipus is only hypothesizing a distant blood relationship with Laius.

  77 laws: see above, note to p. 5.

  A god: the Greek implies a mysterious, but unnamed, divine presence.

  77 Pride makes the tyrant: this is one of the most hotly disputed textual points in Greek tragedy. Some editors believe that the sentence should read ‘a tyrant produces pride’. ‘Pride’ here translates hubris.

  78 the sacred dance: dancing was so central a component of the cults of Apollo, Dionysus, and other gods that this question really implies, ‘Why should I participate in public worship at all?’

  Abae: the location of an important shrine of Apollo, mentioned by Herodotus (8. 33), in north-west Phokis.

  Olympian Zeus: the famous cult centre of Zeus at Olympia in the Peloponnese is meant.

  thy oracles: a misleading translation of the Greek, which explicitly says ‘oracles concerning Laius’.

  79 in his grave: the translation omits two suspect lines after this. Iocasta asks ‘What are you saying? Has Polybus died?’, and the Corinthian responds ‘If I am not telling the truth, then I am worthy to die’.

  83 from the cradle: the Greek says literally ‘from my swaddling-clothes’.

  they named you Oedipus: Oedipus’ name means, literally, ‘Swollen-foot’.

  84 thrice a slave: i.e. a slave whose mother and grandmother had also been slaves.

  85 Fortune: the goddess Tuchē, who personified random chance. She was a daughter of Zeus and had a local cult in Thebes.

  when the moon | Next is full: the Greek may mean ‘at tomorrow’s full moon’.

  Pan: as a god of the countryside, who oversaw the reproduction of flocks, Pan was invested with considerable sexual energy, often expressed in chasing nymphs. He would therefore be a plausible divine candidate for fathering Oedipus on Mount Cithaeron.

  86 Kyllene: a mountain in Arcadia on which Hermes was supposed to have been born—a story dramatized by Sophocles in his satyric Trackers.

  Helicon: a mountain range in western Boeotia, associated primarily with the Muses.

  not bought: slaves who were born and bred in the house of their owners, rather than purchased, were regarded as more loyal to their masters. This fits the characterization of the Theban shepherd.

  87 Arcturus: the leading star of the constellation Boötes (Ursa Major), appearing as a morning star in September shortly before the autumnal equinox.

  89 parents: the masculine-plural Greek term tekontas is ambiguous. The plural could be used honorifically in place of the singular, in which case this occurrence should be translated ‘father’. But, as in this translation, the Greek can equally well be interpreted as meaning both parents, raising in the audience’s mind the question of the extent to which Oedipus is to be responsible for Iocasta’s death.

  Ah God! Ah God!: this is an over-translation of the Greek, in which Oedipus utters two meaningless cries of woe, ’iou iou’.

  O Sun: in the Greek Oedipus apostrophizes rather the light.

  all desiring: the loose translation omits an important appeal to Zeus.

  90 Ister: the ancient name for the river Danube.

  Phasis’ flood: now called the river Rion, running through Colchis (approximately equivalent to the modern Georgia) into the south-eastern end of the Black Sea.

  Evils self-sought: the suicide of Iocasta and the self-blinding of Oedipus are deliberate and conscious acts based on true knowledge. The messenger thus distinguishes them from the previous calamitous deeds (parricide and incest) which were performed unwittingly.

  91 ’Through this . . . To my own child’: there is no direct speech in the original.

  some deity: the messenger’s speech implies that Oedipus was guided by some unidentified supernatural agent, for which the Greek term is daimōn, often translated as ‘spirit’. This word is used repeatedly until the climactic moment when Oedipus names Apollo at line 1329.

  92 spirit: the Greek term, again, is the anonymous daimōn.

  93 O God: the Greek refrains from naming the divine agent, which is still referred to as a daimōn.

  93 a blind man: the translation omits Oedipus’ twice repeated utterance here of ‘alas’.

  What god: the Greek yet again uses the ambiguous term daimōn.

  94 Or on my mother: Oedipus anticipates that he will not have recovered his sight after death when he encounters his parents in the underworld. In the Odyssey, similarly, Teiresias is conceptualized as remaining blind in Hades (12. 266).

  death: the Greek actually says ‘hanging’—suicide by the same means as Iocasta.

  95 them: it is not clear to whom Oedipus here refers. It may be the members of his own family, or the Thebans in general.

  to dwell among the Thebans: the translation wanders far from the Greek. Oedipus actually says that if he had died on Cithaeron he would never have revealed his origins to mankind.

  96 nor sunlight can endure: Oedipus’ pollution is so great that it threatens the very purity of the elements, represented by Earth, the rain, and the light respectively.

  for she is yours: as Iocasta’s brother, Creon is to be responsible for her burial. It is noteworthy that Oedipus does not name her.

  97 some strange doom: it is not made clear in this play how, when, and where Oedipus is to die. In Antigone he had been buried, apparently, at Thebes; in Oedipus at Colonus he dies a supernatural death at Athens.

  98 parent: the Greek says ‘father’. Oedipus is officially handing over to Creon the guardianship (a responsibility which could only devolve upon a male) of his daughters.

  your kin: the translation omits a whole line after this, in which Oedipus asks Creon not to let the girls be reduced to the same level of misery as himself.

  99 the end: the translation omits the concluding utterance, as contained in the MSS, delivered by the chorus. It is possible that it is a spurious interpolation and should be omitted; it is also possible that it should be attributed to Oedipus himself. The seven lines can be translated thus: ‘Inhabitants of our native Thebes, behold here Oedipus, who understood the famous riddle and was a most powerful man. Which citizen did not look enviously upon his fortunes? But see the dreadful wave of disaster he has encountered! Therefore let no mortal be called happy until the final fated day when he has crossed life’s border without enduring pain.’

  ELECTRA

  103 Io and her father Inachus: Inachus was the earliest king of Argos known to Greek mythology. Zeus became enamoured with his daughter Io, but turned her into a heifer in order to protect her from the jealousy of his wife Hera. Sophocles dramatized this story in his lost Inachus: Io makes an appearance in her bovine form in the Prometheus tragedy attributed to Aeschylus.

  the market-place | That bears Apollo’s name: corroborative evidence that a temple of Apollo stood in the market-place at Argos is to be found in Pausanias 2. 19. 3.

  Hera’s famous temple: Hera was the tutelary deity of Argos and intimately associated with the city in mythology.

  Pelops’ dynasty: Pelops was the father of Atreus, grandfather of Agamemnon, and therefore great-grandfather of Orestes. See further below, note to p. 118.

  as a baby: the translation is misleading. The Greek here implies that Orestes was a child when he was given by Electra to the tutor, but it is clear from Clytemnestra’s words at 778–80 that the boy had already been capable of threatening her.

  my loyal servant: boys were entrusted to the care of male slaves whose duty was to oversee their upbringing and education. In tragedy they act as the equivalent of the ‘nurses’ who often attend aristocratic females. ‘Tutor’ is an approximate translation of the Greek term paidagōgos, ’pedagogue’.

  104 I went to Delphi: i.e. to consult the famous oracle of Apollo.

  Phanoteus of Phokis: this obscure mythical figure was thought to have had a feud with his brother Crisus, beginning with a fight in their mother’s womb. Since Crisus fathered Strophius, who had taken in the exiled Orestes, Phanoteus would be a natural choice for an ally of Orestes’ enemies, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

  The Pythian games at Delphi: from 582 BC athletics competitions modelled on the more famous games at Olympia were held every four years as part of the festival of Pythian Apollo at Delphi.

  104 Why should I fear an omen: it would normally be considered an inauspicious invitation to disaster for a living person to be described as dead.

  those philosophers Who were reported dead: there were several stories of this type. Pythagoras, for example, was reputed to have reappeared after concealing himself in a chamber beneath the earth, thus engendering rumours that he was dead.

  105 like the sun: the Greek actually says ‘like a star’.

  a cry of bitter grief: in the Greek the tutor suggests that the cry is specifically that of a slave-woman.

  Have you not heard: the translation omits the gruesome detail which Electra adds here. She describes the wild blows she strikes against her breast, making it bleed—a conventional sign of mourning.

  106 No Trojan spear: Electra regrets that her father was not killed in battle at Troy, in which case he would have received the honour of a warrior’s funeral.

  no god of war: the Greek explicitly names Ares.

  the sorrowing nightingale: in myth Procne, an Athenian princess, was supposed to have been turned into a nightingale after murdering her son Itys. She killed the boy in order to avenge herself on her husband Tereus, who had raped and mutilated her sister Philomela. The nightingale’s song was explained as her unceasing laments for Itys. Sophocles wrote a famous drama portraying this story, his Tereus.

  You powers of Death! You gods below!: The Greek text mentions by name Hades, Persephone, Hermes (the only Olympian who could pass between the upper and lower worlds) and a personified Curse.

  Avenging spirits . . . marriage-vow: the Erinyes (see above, note to p. 37). These agents of divine retribution were responsible for the punishment of misdemeanours to do with the family, both intra-familial murder and, as here, adultery.

  107 the sad nightingale: Procne. See above, note to p. 106.

  Itys: son of Procne and Tereus. See above, note to p. 106.

  Niobe: see above, note to p. 29.

  108 Iphianassa: this is the only mention in the play of a living sister of Electra other than Chrysothemis. She is named as a daughter of Agamemnon in the Iliad (9. 145).

  Plain of Crisa: an area of land to the south-west of Delphi which was kept unploughed as sacred to Apollo, and on which the horse races at the Pythian games are later said to have been run (see below, note to p. 124).

  his own father: the Greek adds that along with Orestes neither the dead Agamemnon nor Hades himself will neglect the situation in Mycenae.

  109 a Spirit loosed from Hell: an extravagant paraphrase of the plain Greek ‘a god’.

  O God that rulest Heaven and Earth: Zeus, the chief Olympian.

  110 Had any trace of spirit: the Greek is more accurately rendered ‘was a woman of high birth and character’.

  111 the hearth-stone: banquets were customarily opened and closed with libations poured to Hestia, goddess of the family hearth.

  the Gods her Saviours: especially Zeus in his capacity as Saviour (Sōtēr) and Apollo, to whom Clytemnestra later prays for protection (p. 122).

  112 Your sister: the Greek adds for clarity ‘by the same father and mother’, thus distinguishing Chrysothemis from Electra’s half-siblings borne by Clytemnestra to Aegisthus (see line 588).

  114 in some dark dungeon: in the Greek the punishment is to be even worse. Electra is to be held captive in exile, ‘beyond the borders of this land’.

  116 the sun-god: Helios. It was conventional to narrate frightening dreams to him, as the god whose light dispels nocturnal fears and expiates them. Compare Euripides, Iphigeneia in Tauris 42–3.

  117 mangled it: the Greek term makes it clear that Agamemnon’s corpse had been subjected to a ritual mutilation practised by murderers, probably taking the form of having his extremities removed and hung from his arm-pits and neck. This custom may have been intended to prevent the victim from retaliation after death, or to provide a gesture towards atonement.

  and one of mine: the Greek adds the pathetic detail that Electra’s hair is unkempt.

  118 Retribution: a rough translation of the Greek Dike (see above, note to p. 16).

  two-edged axe: even the murder weapon is imagined as bearing a grudge against its users. In Athenian law inanimate objects could be put on trial for causing death (Aeschines 3. 244).

  chariot-race of Pelops: Sophocles is using a version of the myth which referred the recurrent disasters afflicting this royal house back to a curse incurred by Pelops, Agamemnon’s grandfather (see also above, note to p. 105). He had competed in a chariot-race against Oenomaus, king of Pisa, for the hand of Oenomaus’ daughter Hippodameia. He won the race and the woman by treachery; he had bribed Myrtilus, Oenomaus’ charioteer, to sabotage the rival chariot. Oenomaus died in the ensuing accident; Myrtilus was thrown into the sea and drowned, but not before he had cursed Pelops. This myth may have suggested to Sophocles the means by which Orestes is said to have died in the ‘false’ messenger speech delivered by the tutor, pp. 124–6.

  Myrtilus: see note above.

  119 your sister: Iphigeneia, the eldest of Agamemnon’s daughters.

  Artemis: the virgin goddess, in charge of female rites of passage, hunting, and wild animals. She is not, however, named here in the Greek, which says only vaguely ‘to gods’.

  the only Greek: human sacrifice was regarded by Sophocles’ contemporaries as a barbarism permitted only in uncivilized, non-Greek lands.

  The sons of Helen: in Homer Helen and Menelaus had only one child, a daughter (Odyssey 4. 14). There was, however, another attested tradition older than Sophocles that they had one son, Nicostratus.

  120 my sister’s: Iphigeneia’s (not Chrysothemis’).

  windy Aulis: a site on the eastern coast of Greece in Boeotia with a large natural harbour, at which the Greek forces had traditionally mustered before their expedition to Troy.

  a forest that was sacred to the goddess: probably meant to be understood as the precinct of Artemis close to her temple at Aulis.

  121 bear him children: different versions of the myth variously give Aegisthus and Clytemnestra a son Aletes and a daughter Erigone. Sophocles composed plays about both. This ambiguous reference could be taken to imply that vengeance for the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus might await Orestes; it is one of several subtle ways in which Sophocles subverts the apparently satisfactory situation at the end of Electra.

  At her age too: i.e. at her stage of maturity (not of youthfulness).

  She is so impudent . . . not do: This sentence takes the form of a direct question in the Greek.

  122 ’Tis you that say it . . . find me the words: the translation of these two lines has been borrowed from John Milton’s An Apology Against a Pamphlet (Otherwise known as Apology for Smectymnus), in Douglas Bush et al. (eds.), Complete Prose Works of John Milton (New Haven/London 1953), i. 905.

  by Artemis: Artemis was the divinity thought to be responsible for the deaths of women. This adds weight to Clytemnestra’s threat.

  123 Atreus: the father of Agamemnon and uncle of Aegisthus.

  124 in the Festival: the translation here omits a corrupt line, which cited two events—some kind of race and the pentathlon.

  Achaea: the term here designates a specific area in southern Thessaly.

  Libya: the generic name for the Greek colonies in North Africa.

  Thessalian mares: Orestes is given horses from Thessaly, which reputedly produced the finest horses and most skilled cavalry in the Greek world (see e.g. Herodotus 7. 196).

  an Aetolian: Aetolia was a large inland district of mainland Greece.

  Magnesia: a mountainous district on the east coast of Thessaly.

  Aenia: an area in southern Thessaly.