Sophocles' ELECTRA Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

71 Pages

Page 11

Electra: I am ashamed, my friends, if ye deem me too impatient for
my oft complaining; but, since a hard constraint forces me to this,
bear with me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature refrain,
who saw the calamities of a father's house, as I see them by day and
night continually, not fading, but in the summer of their strength?
I, who, first, from the mother that bore me have found bitter enmity;
next, in mine own home I dwell with my father's murderers; they rule
over me, and with them it rests to give or to withhold what I need.

And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus sitting
on my father's throne, wearing the robes which he wore, and pouring
libations at the hearth where he slew my sire; and when I see the
outrage that crowns all, the murderer in our father's bed at our wretched
mother's side, if mother she should be called, who is his wife; but
so hardened is she that she lives with that accursed one, fearing
no Erinys; nay, as if exulting in her deeds, having found the day
on which she treacherously slew my father of old, she keeps it with
dance and song, and month by month sacrifices sheep to the gods who
have wrought her deliverance.

But I, hapless one, beholding it, weep and pine in the house, and
bewail the unholy feast named after my sire,- weep to myself alone;
since I may not even indulge my grief to the full measure of my yearning.
For this woman, in professions so noble, loudly upbraids me with such
taunts as these: 'Impious and hateful girl, hast thou alone lost a
father, and is there no other mourner in the world? An evil doom be
thine, and may the gods infernal give thee no riddance from thy present
laments.'

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