Book of illustrations : Ancient Tragedy

Ores. Wert thou then deceived,
Thou excellent diviner?
Aegis. Woe is me!
I perish, yet permit me first to speak
One little word.
Elec. Give him no leave to speak,
By all the gods, my brother, nor to spin
His long discourse. When men are plunged in ills
What gain can one who stands condemned to die
Reap from delay? No, slay him out of hand;
And, having slain him, cast him forth, to find
Fit burial at their hands from whom 'tis meet
That he should have it, far away from view.
Thus only shall I gain a remedy
For all the evils of the years gone by.
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 ELECTRA OF EURIPIDES[6 - The quotations of Euripides are from Potter's translation.]

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 shining.

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 nobleman 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 gods 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 gods 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 god'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 goddess's help. – No god, 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 reassure 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? Ores. Not so; but mean the wand'ring exile's state. Elec. But with what message art thou from him charg'd? Ores. T' inquire, if living, where thou bear'st thy griefs. Elec. First then observe my thin and wasted state. Ores. Wasted with grief, so that I pity thee. Elec. Behold my head, its crisped honours shorn. Ores. Mourning thy brother, or thy father dead? Elec. What can be dearer to my soul than these? Ores. Alas! What deem'st thou are thy brother's thoughts? Elec. He, though far distant, is most dear to me. Ores. Why here thy dwelling from the city far? Elec. O, stranger, in base nuptials I am join'd – Ores. I feel thy brother's grief! – To one of rank? Elec. Not as my father once to place me hop'd – Ores. That hearing I may tell thy brother, speak. Elec. This is his house: in this I dwell remote. Ores. This house some digger or some herdsman suits. Elec. Generous, though poor, in reverence me he holds. Ores. To thee what reverence doth thy husband pay? Elec. He never hath presumed t' approach my bed.

The conversation is prolonged, bringing out for the benefit of the Strangers and the Chorus the whole of Electra's troubles, and how her father's blood is crying for vengeance.

Elec. The monarch's tomb
Unhonoured, nor libations hath receiv'd,
Nor myrtle bough, no hallow'd ornament
Hath dignified the pyre. Inflamed with wine,
My mother's husband, the illustrious lord,
For so they call him, trampled on the earth
Insultingly where Agamemnon lies,
And hurling 'gainst his monument a stone,
Thus taunts us with proud scorn, "Where is thy son,