Electra (284-357)

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,

but his altar is barren of ornament. That famous one, my mother’s husband, leaps on the grave, they say, when soaked in drink, and pelts my father’s marble monument with stones, and dares to say this to us:

Where is your son Orestes? Is he here to defend the tomb for you nobly? Orestes is insulted in this way while absent. But, stranger, I beg you, report these things. There are many calling him to come—I am their interpreter—these hands, this tongue, my broken heart,

my shorn head, and his own father. For it is shameful, if his father exterminated the Trojans but Orestes is unable to kill a man, one against one, being young and born from a more noble father.

And look, I see him, I mean your husband,

on his way home, his day’s work done.

Oh! who are these strangers I see at my door? Why have they come here to my rustic gate? Do they want something from me? For it is shameful for a woman to be standing with young men.

Dearest, do not be suspicious of me; you shall hear the truth; for these strangers have come to me as messengers of news from Orestes. But, strangers, pardon him for what he said.

What do they say? The man is alive and sees the light of day?

He is, at least in their report, and I believe them.

Surely then he remembers something of your father’s wrongs and your own?

These are things to hope for; a man in exile is powerless.

What message from Orestes have they come to declare?

He sent them as spies of my wrongs.

Then they see a part of it, and perhaps you are telling them the rest.

They know; they have all these things in abundance.

Then shouldn’t you have opened the doors to them long before? Go into the house; for in return for your good tidings, you shall find as much hospitality as my house holds in store.