Antigone / Oedipus the King / Electra by Sophocles
By Strophius,* Orestes’ friend, with news.
ELECTRA. O, tell me what it is! You frighten me.
ORESTES. We bring him home; this little urn contains
What now is left of him; for he is dead.
ELECTRA. Ah, this is what I feared! I see your burden;
Small weight for you, but heavy grief to me.
ORESTES. It is—if that which moves your sorrow is
Orestes’ death: in that we bring his ashes.
ELECTRA. Then give it me, I beg you! If this vessel
Now holds him, let me take it in my arms.*
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ORESTES. Men, give it her, whoever she may be:
A friend; perhaps, one of his family.
This is no prayer of one who wished him evil.
[ELECTRA advances to the front of the stage.
ORESTES and PYLADES retire near the palace gate
ELECTRA. Orestes! my Orestes! you have come
To this! The hopes with which I sent you forth
Are come to this! How radiant you were!
And now I hold you—so: a little dust!
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O, would to God that I had died myself,
And had not snatched you from the edge of death
To have you sent into a foreign land!
They would have killed you—but you would have shared
Your father’s death and burial; not been killed
Far from your home, an exile, pitiably,
Alone, without your sister. Not for you,
The last sad tribute of a sister’s hand!
Some stranger washed your wounds, and laid your body
On the devouring fire; the charity
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Of strangers brings you home—so light a burden,
And in so small a vessel!
O, my brother,
What love and tenderness I spent on you!
For you were my child rather than your mother’s;
I was your nurse—or you would not have had
A nurse; I was the one you always called
Your sister—and it has come to nothing.
One single day has made it all in vain,
And, like a blast of wind, has swept it all
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To ruin. You are dead; my father too
Lies in his grave; your death is death to me,
Joy to our enemies: our mother—if
She is a mother!—dances in delight,
When you had sent me many a secret promise
That you would come and be revenged on her.
But no! A cruel fate has ruined you,
And ruined me, and brought it all to nothing:
The brother that I loved is gone, and in
His place are ashes, and an empty shadow.
O pity! pity, grief and sorrow!*
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How cruel, cruel, is your home-coming,
My dearest brother! I can live no longer.
O take me with you! You are nothing; I
Am nothing, now. Let me henceforward be
A shade among the shades, with you. We lived
As one; so now in death, let us be one,
And share a common grave, as while you lived
We shared a common life. O, let me die;
For death alone can put an end to grief.
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CHORUS. Your father died, Electra; he was mortal:
So has Orestes died; so shall we all.
Remember this, and do not grieve too much.
ORESTES. What answer can I make to this? What can
I say? I must, and yet I cannot, speak.
ELECTRA. Sir, what has troubled you? Why speak like this?
ORESTES. Are you the Princess? Can you be Electra?
ELECTRA. I am Electra, though I look so mean.
ORESTES. To think that it has gone so far as this!
ELECTRA. But why such words of pity over me?
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ORESTES.—Treated so harshly and with such dishonour!
ELECTRA. Ill words well spoken, stranger—of Electra.
ORESTES.—How cruel! Kept unmarried, and ill-used!
ELECTRA. Sir, why do you look at me so fixedly,
And in such pity?
ORESTES. Little did I know
My own unhappiness, how great it was.
ELECTRA. What words of mine have made you think of that?
ORESTES. No words; it is the sight of all you suffer.
ELECTRA. The sight of it? What you can see is nothing!
ORESTES. How? What can be more terrible than this?
ELECTRA. To live, as I do, with the murderers.
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ORESTES. What murderers? Who are these guilty men?
ELECTRA. My father’s.—And they treat me as their slave!
ORESTES. But who has forced you to this servitude?
ELECTRA. She who has the name of mother—nothing else!
ORESTES. What does she do? Oppression? Violence?
ELECTRA. Violence, oppression, everything that’s evil!
ORESTES. You have no champion? no one to oppose them?
ELECTRA. The one I had is dead: here are his ashes.
ORESTES. A cruel life! How much I pity you.
ELECTRA. You are the only one who pities me!
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ORESTES. I am the only one who shares your sorrow.
ELECTRA. Who are you? Can it be you are some kinsman?
ORESTES. If I may trust these women I would tell you.
ELECTRA. Yes, you may trust them: they are friends, and loyal.
ORESTES. Give back the urn, and I will tell you all.
ELECTRA. No, no, I beg you; do not be so cruel!
ORESTES. Do as I ask; you will do nothing wrong.
ELECTRA. It is all I have! You cannot take it from me!
ORESTES. You may not keep it.
ELECTRA. O, my dear Orestes,
How cruel! I may not even bury you.
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ORESTES. Your talk of burial, your tears, are wrong.
ELECTRA. How is it wrong to mourn my brother’s death?
ORESTES. You must not speak of him in words like these.
ELECTRA. Must I be robbed of all my rights in him?
ORESTES. You are robbed of nothing! This is not for you.
ELECTRA. Yes, if I hold Orestes in my arms!
ORESTES. This is Orestes only by a fiction.
ELECTRA. Then where is my unhappy brother’s grave?
ORESTES. Nowhere. The living do not have a grave!
ELECTRA. My friend!* What do you mean?
ORESTES. I mean—
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the truth.
ELECTRA. My brother is alive?
ORESTES. If I’ m alive!
ELECTRA. You are Orestes?
ORESTES. Look upon this ring—
Our father’s ring.*—Do you believe me now?
ELECTRA. O day of happiness!
ORESTES. Great happiness!
ELECTRA. It is your voice?—And have you come?
ORESTES. My voice,
And I am here!
ELECTRA. I hold you in my arms?
ORESTES. You do—and may we nevermore be parted.
ELECTRA. O look, my friends! My friends of Argos, look!
It is Orestes!—dead, by artifice,
And by that artifice restored to us.
CHORUS. To see him, and to see your happiness,
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My child, brings tears of joy into my eyes.
[From here until line 1288, ELECTRA sings, ORESTES speaks.] 142
Strophe
ELECTRA. My brother is here! the son of my own dear father!
You longed to see me, and now, at last,
You have found me! O, you have come to me!
ORESTES. Yes, I have come: but wait;* contain your joy
In silence; they will hear us in the palace.
ELECTRA. O by the virgin
I despise them, those in the palace—
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Women, useless and helpless!
O, why should I fear them?
ORESTES. Remember: women may not be too weak
To strike a blow.* You have seen proof of it.
ELECTRA. Ah me! The foul crime, that no
Darkness can ever hide, that no
Oblivion can wash away, no
Power on earth remove.
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ORESTES. All this I know; but we will speak of it
When we can speak of it without restraint.
Antistrophe
ELECTRA. Each moment of time, now or to come, is time
To proclaim aloud the abomination.
At last, at last, I can speak with freedom.
ORESTES. You can; and yet,* until the hour has come,
By speaking freely we may lose our freedom.
ELECTRA. How can I chain my tongue and repress my
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joy?
Can I look upon you and be silent,
Safe returned, my brother?
It is more than I dared hope.
ORESTES. I waited long, but when the voice of God
Spoke, then I made no more delay. *
ELECTRA. O, this is joy crowning joy, if
Heaven has brought you home to me!
I see the hand of God
Working along with us.
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ORESTES. To stem your flood of joy is hard, but yet
There is some danger in this long rejoicing.
Epode
ELECTRA. So weary was the time of waiting!
Now when you have come at last
And all my sorrows have reached their end,*
O, do not check my happiness.
ORESTES. Nor would I do it—but we must be
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prudent. *
ELECTRA. My friends, I heard my brother’s voice,
And I had thought
That I would never hear his voice again:
How could I restrain my joy?
Ah, now I have you; I can look upon
The well-loved face that I could not forget
Even in darkest sorrow.
ORESTES. How much there is to hear!—our mother’s sin
And cruelty, that our ancestral wealth
Is plundered, ravished, wantonly misused
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By that usurper. Yet our time is short
And their misdeeds are more than can be told.
But tell me what may help our present venture:
Where can I hide, or where can I confront
Our foes, to turn their laughter into silence?
And see to this: our mother must not read
Our secret in your face. Conceal your joy
When we go in; look sad, and mourn, as if
The tale that you have heard were true. There will
Be time enough to smile when we have conquered.
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ELECTRA. My brother, what seems good to you shall be
My law; your pleasure shall be mine, for mine
Is nothing, except what you have brought to me,
And to win all there is I would not cause
A moment’s pain to you, nor would that serve
The favour of the gods, which now is with us.
Now as to what you ask.—You surely know
Aegisthus is abroad, not in the palace;
But she is there, and you need have no fear
That she will see a look of happiness
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Upon my face. The settled hatred which
I have for her will banish any smile.
I shall be weeping!—though my tears will be
Of joy at your return. My tears today
Flow in abundance; I have seen you dead,
And now alive. So strange the day has been
That if our father came and greeted us
I should not think it was a ghost; I should
Believe it. Therefore, being yourself a miracle
In your return, command me as you will;
For had you died, had I been left alone,
I should myself have ventured all, and found