ELECTRA [6]
For
wicked ones have been fired with passion that hurried them to a
forbidden bed, to accursed bridals, to a marriage stained with guilt
of blood. Therefore am I sure that the portent will not fail to
bring woe upon the partners in crime. Verily mortals cannot read the
future in fearful dreams or oracles, if this vision of the night
find not due fulfilment.
epode
O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what
weary troubles hast thou brought upon this land! For since Myrtilus
sank to rest beneath the waves, when a fatal and cruel hand hurled him
to destruction out of the golden car, this house was never yet free
from misery and violence.
(CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace.)
CLYTEMNESTRA
At large once more, it seems, thou rangest,- for Aegisthus is
not here, who always kept thee at least from passing the gates, to
shame thy friends. But now, since he is absent, thou takest no heed of
me, though thou hast said of me oft-times, and to many, that I am a
bold and lawless tyrant, who insults thee and thine. I am guilty of no
insolence; I do but return the taunts that I often hear from thee.
Thy father- this is thy constant pretext- was slain by me. Yes, by
me- I know it well; it admits of no denial; for justice slew him,
and not I alone,- justice, whom it became thee to support, hadst
thou been right-minded; seeing that this father of thine, whom thou
art ever lamenting, was the one man of the Greeks who had the heart to
sacrifice thy sister to the gods- he, the father, who had not shared
the mother's pangs.
Come, tell me now, wherefore, or to please whom, did he
sacrifice her? To please the Argives, thou wilt say? Nay, they had
no right to slay my daughter. Or if, forsooth, it was to screen his
brother Menelaus that he slew my child, was he not to pay me the
penalty for that? Had not Menelaus two children, who should in
fairness have been taken before my daughter, as sprung from the sire
and mother who had caused that voyage? Or had Hades some strange
desire to feast on my offspring, rather than on hers? Or had that
accursed father lost all tenderness for the children of my womb, while
he was tender to the children of Menelaus? Was not that the part of
a callous and perverse parent? I think so, though differ from thy
judgment; and so would say the dead, if she could speak. For myself,
then, I view the past without dismay; but if thou deemest me perverse,
see that thine own judgment is just, before thou blame thy neighbour.
ELECTRA
This time thou canst not say that I have done anything to
provoke such words from thee. But, if thou wilt give me leave, I
fain would declare the truth, in the cause alike of my dead sire and
of my sister.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Indeed, thou hast my leave; and didst thou always address me in
such a tone, thou wouldst be heard without pain.
ELECTRA
Then I will speak. Thou sayest that thou hast slain my father.
What word could bring thee deeper shame than that, whether the deed
was just or not? But I must tell thee that thy deed was not just;
no, thou wert drawn on to it by the wooing of the base man who is
now thy spouse.
Ask the huntress Artemis what sin she punished when she stayed the
frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell thee; for we may not learn
from her. My father- so I have heard- was once disporting himself in
the grove of the goddess, when his footfall startled a dappled and
antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to utter a certain boast
concerning its slaughter. Wroth thereat, the daughter of Leto detained
the Greeks, that, in quittance for the wild creature's life, my father
should yield up the life of his own child. Thus it befell that she was
sacrificed; since the fleet had no other release, homeward or to Troy;
and for that cause, under sore constraint and with sore reluctance, at
last he slew her- not for the sake of Menelaus.
But grant- for I will take thine own plea-
wicked ones have been fired with passion that hurried them to a
forbidden bed, to accursed bridals, to a marriage stained with guilt
of blood. Therefore am I sure that the portent will not fail to
bring woe upon the partners in crime. Verily mortals cannot read the
future in fearful dreams or oracles, if this vision of the night
find not due fulfilment.
epode
O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what
weary troubles hast thou brought upon this land! For since Myrtilus
sank to rest beneath the waves, when a fatal and cruel hand hurled him
to destruction out of the golden car, this house was never yet free
from misery and violence.
(CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace.)
CLYTEMNESTRA
At large once more, it seems, thou rangest,- for Aegisthus is
not here, who always kept thee at least from passing the gates, to
shame thy friends. But now, since he is absent, thou takest no heed of
me, though thou hast said of me oft-times, and to many, that I am a
bold and lawless tyrant, who insults thee and thine. I am guilty of no
insolence; I do but return the taunts that I often hear from thee.
Thy father- this is thy constant pretext- was slain by me. Yes, by
me- I know it well; it admits of no denial; for justice slew him,
and not I alone,- justice, whom it became thee to support, hadst
thou been right-minded; seeing that this father of thine, whom thou
art ever lamenting, was the one man of the Greeks who had the heart to
sacrifice thy sister to the gods- he, the father, who had not shared
the mother's pangs.
Come, tell me now, wherefore, or to please whom, did he
sacrifice her? To please the Argives, thou wilt say? Nay, they had
no right to slay my daughter. Or if, forsooth, it was to screen his
brother Menelaus that he slew my child, was he not to pay me the
penalty for that? Had not Menelaus two children, who should in
fairness have been taken before my daughter, as sprung from the sire
and mother who had caused that voyage? Or had Hades some strange
desire to feast on my offspring, rather than on hers? Or had that
accursed father lost all tenderness for the children of my womb, while
he was tender to the children of Menelaus? Was not that the part of
a callous and perverse parent? I think so, though differ from thy
judgment; and so would say the dead, if she could speak. For myself,
then, I view the past without dismay; but if thou deemest me perverse,
see that thine own judgment is just, before thou blame thy neighbour.
ELECTRA
This time thou canst not say that I have done anything to
provoke such words from thee. But, if thou wilt give me leave, I
fain would declare the truth, in the cause alike of my dead sire and
of my sister.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Indeed, thou hast my leave; and didst thou always address me in
such a tone, thou wouldst be heard without pain.
ELECTRA
Then I will speak. Thou sayest that thou hast slain my father.
What word could bring thee deeper shame than that, whether the deed
was just or not? But I must tell thee that thy deed was not just;
no, thou wert drawn on to it by the wooing of the base man who is
now thy spouse.
Ask the huntress Artemis what sin she punished when she stayed the
frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell thee; for we may not learn
from her. My father- so I have heard- was once disporting himself in
the grove of the goddess, when his footfall startled a dappled and
antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to utter a certain boast
concerning its slaughter. Wroth thereat, the daughter of Leto detained
the Greeks, that, in quittance for the wild creature's life, my father
should yield up the life of his own child. Thus it befell that she was
sacrificed; since the fleet had no other release, homeward or to Troy;
and for that cause, under sore constraint and with sore reluctance, at
last he slew her- not for the sake of Menelaus.
But grant- for I will take thine own plea-