Sophocles' ELECTRA Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

71 Pages

Page 50

Ah, woe is me for my nursing long ago, so vain, that I oft bestowed
on thee with loving toil I For thou wast never thy mother's darling
so much as mine; nor was any in the house thy nurse but I; and by
thee I was ever called 'sister.' But now all this hath vanished in
a day, with thy death; like a whirlwind, thou hast swept all away
with thee. Our father is gone; I am dead in regard to thee; thou thyself
hast perished: our foes exult; that mother, who is none, is mad with
joy,- she of whom thou didst oft send me secret messages, thy heralds,
saying that thou thyself wouldst appear as an avenger. But our evil
fortune. thine and mine, hath reft all that away, and hath sent thee
forth unto me thus,- no more the form that I loved so well, but ashes
and an idle shade.

Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a dire
journey, how hast undone me,- undone me indeed, O brother mine!

Therefore take me to this thy home, me who am as nothing, to thy nothingness,
that I may dwell with thee henceforth below; for when thou wert on
earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that I may not be
parted from thee in the grave. For I see that the dead have rest from
pain.

Leader: Bethink thee, Electra, thou art the child of mortal sire,
and mortal was Orestes; therefore grieve not too much. This is a debt
which all of us must pay.

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