Electra (269-320)

That was his plan; may he make amends to me for it!

Does your mother’s husband know that you are a virgin?

He does not know; we steal that from him by our silence.

Are these women who hear our talk friends of yours ?

They will keep both your words and mine well hidden.

What then could Orestes do in this matter if he comes to Argos?

Do you ask this? You have said a shameful word; isn’t it the critical time now?

But if he does come, how might he kill his father’s murderers?

By daring such things as his enemies dared against my father.

And would you dare, with him, to kill your mother?

Yes, with that same axe by which my father died.

Am I to tell him this, and that your purpose is steadfast?

Once I had shed my mother’s blood, I might die!

Ah! Would that Orestes were near by, to hear that!

But, stranger, I would not know him if I saw him.

No wonder, for you were both young when you were parted.

There is only one of my friends who would recognize him.

The man who is said to have stolen him away from murder?

Yes, the old man, my father’s old servant.

Did the dead man, your father, find burial?

He found what he could, cast out of the house.

Alas, the things you have said! For perception of suffering, even another’s, gnaws at mortals. Speak, so that when I know, I may tell your brother the story, unpleasant, but necessary to hear. Pity is not present at all in clownishness,

but in wise men. And indeed it is not without mischief for the wise to have overly profound thoughts.

And I have the same desire in my heart as this man. Being far from the town, I do not know the city’s scandals, and now I want to learn them.

I will speak, if I must—and one must speak to a friend—about my own and my father’s heavy misfortunes. Since you are setting the tale in motion, I entreat you, stranger, tell Orestes of our sorrows, mine and his. First of all, in what clothes I live like a beast in a stall,

with what filth I am weighted down, under what roof I dwell, having lived in a royal home; I myself working hard on my clothes at the loom, or else I shall go barely clad and do without; always carrying water from the springs myself,

with no share in the festival rites, no part in the dance. I turn away from married women, as a virgin; and I turn away from Castor, who sought me in marriage before he joined the gods, for I was his relative. But my mother, in the spoils of Troy,

is seated on her throne, and at her chair stand slaves from Asia, my father’s plunder, fastening their Trojan robes with golden brooches. And still my father’s blood has rotted black on the wall, while the one who killed him

mounts the same chariot and goes forth; and is proud to hold in his blood-stained hands the scepter with which my father used to command the Hellenes. Agamemnon’s grave, dishonoured, has not yet ever received any libations, or branch of myrtle,