Part 9 (1/2)

_Ores._ [To _Aegisthus_.] Go thou within, and quickly.

Now our strife Is not of words, but for thy life itself.

_Aegis._ Why dost thou force me in? If this be right, What need of darkness? Why not slay at once?

_Ores._ Give thou no orders, but where thou did'st slay My father go, that thou too there may'st die.

_Aegis._ Truly the doom is fixed, this house should see The ills that on the house of Pelops fall, Or present, or to come.

_Ores._ Yes, those that fall On thee: of these I am a prophet true.

_Aegis._ Thou boastest of a skill which he had not-- Thy father.

_Ores._ Still thou bandiest many words, And length'nest out the way. Move on.

_Aegis._ Lead thou.

_Ores._ Not so, thou must go first.

_Aegis._ Dost think I'll flee?

_Ores._ Thou must not die the death thou would'st desire.

I needs must make it utter. Doom like this Should fall on all who dare transgress the laws, The doom of death. Then wickedness no more Would multiply its strength.

_Chor._ O seed of Atreus, after many woes, Thou hast come forth, thy freedom hardly won, By this emprise made perfect!

[1] The quotations of Sophocles are (mostly) from Plumptre's translation.

THE ELECTRA OF EURIPIDES[1]

PROLOGUE

_The Scene is in front of a Peasant's Cottage: the Centre is the door of the Cottage, the scene on the two sides of it represents the ways to fields and to the river. Time: early Morning, the stars still s.h.i.+ning._

_Enter from the Cottage the Peasant on his way to his day's work_. In the form of a Morning Prayer to the stream Inachus, he makes known the situation of affairs, the murder of Agamemnon, etc.--and in particular how Aegisthus, fearing lest some n.o.bleman might marry Electra and be her avenger, had forced her into wedlock with himself, a peasant, honest but in the lowest poverty. But he is too good a friend to his master's house and to the absent Orestes to wrong Electra; he has been a husband only in name, to give her the shelter of his humble roof.

_Enter Electra from the Cottage with a watering pot_: not seeing the Peasant she in a similar soliloquy announces that she is on her way to the river to prosecute her unnatural toil.

_Peas._ Why will thou thus, unhappy lady, toil For my sake bearing labours, nor desist At my desire? Not thus hast thou been train'd.

_Elec._ Thee equal to the G.o.ds I deem my friend, For in my ills thou hast not treated me With insult. In misfortunes thus to find What I have found in thee, a gentle pow'r, Lenient of grief, must be a mighty source Of consolations. It behoves me then, Far as my pow'r avails, to ease thy toils, That lighter thou may'st feel them, and to share Thy labour, though unbidden; in the fields Thou hast enough of work; be it my task Within to order well. The lab'rer tired Abroad, with pleasure to his house returns.

Accustom'd all things grateful there to find.

_Peas._ Go then, since such thy will; nor distant far The fountain from the house. At the first dawn My bullocks yoked I to the field will drive, And sow my furrows; for no idle wretch With the G.o.ds always in the mouth can gain Without due labour the support of life. {95}

_Stage vacant a moment. Then enter by Distance-door Orestes and Pylades._

_Orestes_ in conversation with his friend makes known he is come by divine command to avenge his father's death: he has fulfilled the G.o.d's first charge to present offerings on his father's tomb; the second is that he must not enter the walls of the city; thus he wishes to find his sister--now, as he hears, wedded to a peasant!--and consult--they step aside as they see one whom 'female slave her tresses show'

approaching. {127}

_Re-enter Electra with her water-pot filled_: and in a _Monody_ (_strophe, antistrophe and epode_) laments her situation: laments for her lost father, her brother afar off, in servitude it may be: and adjures her father's spirit to send vengeance. {187}

PARODE JOINING ON TO EPISODE I

_Enter the Orchestra Chorus of Maidens of Mycenae, and in dialogue_ (_two Strophes and Antistrophes_) beg Electra to join them in an approaching festival, as she had been wont in happier days.--Electra declares she is fit for tears and rags, not for festivities.--As for rags they will find her the festal robes; and vows, instead of tears may gain the G.o.ddess's help.--No G.o.d, says Electra, has an ear for the wretched, and in wretched toil and obscure retreat her life is wasting away.--_A sob from the concealed Orestes startles them, and they are about to flee, when Orestes and Pylades discover themselves and rea.s.sure them_. With difficulty he restrains his emotions throughout a long conversation, personating a messenger from himself to Electra.

_Ores._ Bearing thy brother's words to thee I come. {251} _Elec._ Most welcome: breathes he yet this vital air?

_Ores._ He lives: I first would speak what brings thee joy.

_Elec._ Oh be thou blest for these most grateful words!

_Ores._ To both in common this I give to share.

_Elec._ Where is th' unhappy outcast wand'ring now?

_Ores._ He wastes his life not subject to one state.

_Elec._ Finds he with toil what life each day requires?