Epeisodion 4
Electra
O glorious victor, Orestes, son of a father victorious in battle under Troy, receive this band for the locks of your hair. You have come home, running a contest of the stadium that was not useless, but rather killing
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Aegisthus, the murderer of your father and mine. And you, his companion, Pylades, taught by a most pious father, receive a garland from my hand; for you also bear an equal part of the contest, with Orestes. May you always seem to me fortunate!
885
Orestes
First believe that the gods, Electra, are the leaders of our fortune, and then praise me as the servant of them and of fate. I come, having killed Aegisthus not in word but in deed; to add this proof to your knowledge,
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I am bringing you his corpse, which, if you wish, you may expose as prey for wild animals or impale and press it down on a stake as spoil for birds, the children of the air; for now he is your slave, once called your master.
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Electra
I am ashamed, but equally I wish to speak.
900
Orestes
What is it? Speak, as you are free from fear.
Electra
I am ashamed to insult the dead, for fear someone might hurl malice at me.
Orestes
There is no one who would blame you.
Electra
Our citizens are hard to please, and love scandal.
Orestes
Speak, if you need to say anything, sister; for we engaged in hostilities with him on terms without truce.
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Electra
Well then! Which of your evil acts shall I tell of first, as a beginning? What sort of end shall I make? What part of my speech shall I assign to the middle place? And yet I never ceased, throughout the early mornings,
repeating what I wished to say to your face, if ever I were free from my old terrors. And now I am; so I will pay you back with those reproaches I wanted to make when you were alive. You destroyed me, and orphaned me
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and this man here of a dear father, though you were wronged in no way by us; and you made a shameful marriage with my mother, and killed her husband, who led the armies of Hellas, though you never went to Troy. You were so foolish that you really expected, in marrying my mother, that she would not be unfaithful to you,
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though you were wronging my father’s bed. Know that whoever ruins another’s wife, in secret love, and then is forced to take her himself, is pitiable, if he thinks that the chastity which did not govern her before will do so with him.
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You lived most miserably, although you thought it otherwise; you knew well that you had made an unholy marriage, and my mother knew that she had in you an impious husband. Both being wicked, she took up your fortune, you her evil.
925
Among all the Argives you would hear this: That woman’s husband, not that man’s wife. Although this is a shameful thing, for the wife to rule the house and not the husband; and I hate those children who are called in the city not the sons of the man, their father,
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but of their mother. For instance, when a man makes a remarkable marriage, one above his rank, there is no talk of the husband but only of the wife. This deceived you the most, in your ignorance: you professed to be some one, strong in your wealth,
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but that is nothing, except to associate with briefly. It is nature that is secure, not wealth; for, always standing by, it takes away troubles; but prosperity, when it lives wickedly and with fools, flies out of the house, flowering for a short time.
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As to your women, I am silent—for it is not good for a maiden to speak of this—but I will tell riddles that can be understood. You were insolent because you had a king’s house and were endowed with good looks. May I never have a husband with a girl’s face, but one with a man’s ways.
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For the children of the latter cling to a life of arms, while the fair ones are only an ornament in the dance.
Spurning the corpse with her foot Begone, knowing nothing of how you were discovered and paid the penalty in time. So let no evildoer suppose, even if he runs the first step well,
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that he will get the better of Justice, until he comes to the end of the finish-line and makes the last turn in life.
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Chorus Leader
He did terrible things, and repaid them to you and Orestes; for Justice has great strength.
Electra
Well then; you must carry the body of this man inside
and hide it, slaves, so that when my mother comes, she may not see his corpse before her slaughter.
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Orestes
Wait! Let us go into another matter.
Electra
What? Those are not rescuers from Mycenae whom I see?
Orestes
No, but the mother who bore me.
Electra
Then finely she walks to the middle of the net. —And here she comes, splendid in her chariot and dress.
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Orestes
What are we going to do? Shall we kill our mother?
Electra
Surely pity did not seize you, when you saw your mother?
Orestes
Ah! How can I kill her when she bore me and brought me up?
Electra
As she killed your father and mine.
970
Orestes
O Phoebus, you prophesied a great folly—
Electra
Where Apollo is a fool, who are the wise?
Orestes
You who declared I was to kill my mother, whom it is clearly wrong to kill.
Electra
How can you be hurt by avenging your father?
Orestes
I shall stand trial as a matricide, though I was pure before.
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Electra
And by not defending your father, you will be impious.
Orestes
I, my mother—? To whom will I pay the penalty for her murder?
Electra
And to whom, if you give up our father’s vengeance?
Orestes
Was it a fiend who spoke in the likeness of the god?
Electra
Seated on the holy tripod? I do not think so.
980
Orestes
I cannot believe that this oracle was well prophesied.
Electra
Do not become a coward and fall into unmanliness!
Orestes
Am I to devise the same crafty scheme for her?
Electra
The same death that you gave to her husband, Aegisthus.
Orestes
I will go in; it is a dreadful task I am beginning and I will do dreadful things. If the gods approve, let it be; to me the contest is bitter and also sweet.
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