Prologos
Paedagogus
No, no; before all else, let us strive to obey the commands of Loxias and from them make a fair beginning by pouring libations to your father. For such actions bring
victory within our grasp and give us mastery in all our doings. Exeunt Paedagogus on the spectators left, Orestes and Pylades on the right.
85
Electra
O you pure sunlight, and you air, light’s equal partner over earth, how often have you
heard the chords of my laments
and the thudding blows against this bloodied breast at the time of gloomy night’s leaving
off! My accursed bed in that house of suffering there knows well already how I
observe my night-long rites—how often I bewail my miserable
90
father, whom bloody Ares did not welcome with deadly gifts in a foreign land, but my mother and her bedfellow Aegisthus split his head with murderous axe, just as woodmen chop an oak.
95
And for this crime no pitying cry bursts from any lips but mine, when you, Father, have died a death so cruel and so deserving of pity!
100
But never will I end from cries and bitter lamentation,
while I look on the stars’ glistening flashes or on this light of day. No, like the
nightingale, slayer of her offspring, I will wail without ceasing, and cry
aloud to all here at the doors of my father.
105
O House of Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! O potent Curse, and you fearsome daughters of the gods, the Erinyes, who take note when a life is unjustly taken, when a marriage-bed is thievishly dishonored,
110
come, help me, bring vengeance for the murder of my father and send me my brother. I no longer have the strength to hold up alone against
115
the load of grief that crushes me.
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