Sophocles' ELECTRA Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

71 Pages

Page 24

But grant- for I will take thine own plea- grant that the motive of
his deed was to benefit his brother;- was that a reason for his dying
by thy hand? Under what law? See that, in making such a law for men,
thou make not trouble and remorse for thyself; for, if we are to take
blood for blood, thou wouldst be the first to die, didst thou meet
with thy desert.

But look if thy pretext is not false. For tell me, if thou wilt, wherefore
thou art now doing the most shameless deeds of all,- dwelling as wife
with that blood-guilty one, who first helped thee to slay my sire,
and bearing children to him, while thou hast cast out the earlier-born,
the stainless offspring of a stainless marriage. How can I praise
these things? Or wilt thou say that this, too, is thy vengeance for
thy daughter? Nay, shameful plea, if so thou plead; 'tis not well
to wed an enemy for a daughter's sake.

But indeed I may not even counsel thee,- who shriekest that I revile
my mother; and truly I think that to me thou art less a mother than
mistress; so wretched is the life that I live, ever beset with miseries
by thee and by thy partner. And that other, who scarce escaped thy
hand, the hapless Orestes, is wearing out his ill-starred days in
exile. Often hast thou charged me with rearing him to punish thy crime;
and I would have done so, if I could, thou mayst be sure:-for that
matter, denounce me to all, as disloyal, if thou wilt, or petulant,
or impudent; for if I am accomplished in such ways, methinks I am
no unworthy child of thee.

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