Sophocles' ELECTRA Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

71 Pages

Page 49

Orestes: (to the attendants) Bring it and give it her, whoe'er she
be; for she who begs this boon must be one who wished him no evil,
but a friend, or haply a kinswoman in blood. (The urn is placed in
Electra'S hands.)

Electra: Ah, memorial of him whom I loved best on earth! Ah, Orestes,
whose life hath no relic left save this,- how far from the hopes with
which I sent thee forth is the manner in which I receive thee back!
Now I carry thy poor dust in my hands; but thou wert radiant, my child,
when I sped the forth from home! Would that I had yielded up my breath,
ere, with these hands, I stole thee away, and sent thee to a strange
land, and rescued the from death; that so thou mightest have been
stricken down on that self-same day, and had thy portion in the tomb
of thy sire!

But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished miserably,
far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not washed
or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden
from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless one,
thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in
a narrow urn.

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