Electra (115-223)

I am Agamemnon’s child, and Clytemnestra, hated daughter of Tyndareus, bore me; the citizens call me unhappy Electra.

Alas for my cruel pain and hateful life! O father, Agamemnon, you lie in Hades, by the butchery of your wife and Aegisthus.

Take this pitcher from my head and put it down, so that I may cry aloud the night-time laments for my father. A wail, a song of death, of death, for you, father, under the earth, I speak the laments

in which I am always engaged, day by day, tearing my skin with my nails, and striking my cropped head with my hand, for your death.

O Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, I have come to your rustic courtyard. A milk-drinker from Mycenae has come, he has come,

a mountain walker; he reports that the Argives are proclaiming a sacrifice for the third day from now, and that all maidens are to go to Hera’s temple.

My unhappy heart beats fast, friends, but not at adornment or gold; nor will I set up choruses with the maidens of Argos

and beat my foot in the mazes of the dance. By tears I pass the night; tears are my unhappy care day by day. See if my filthy hair,

and the rags of my dress, will be fit for a princess, a daughter of Agamemnon, or for Troy, once taken, which remembers my father.