Electra

ORESTES: Never shall I see you again. ELECTRA: Nor I see myself in your eyes. ORESTES: This, the last time I'll talk with you ever. ELECTRA: O my homeland, goodbye. Goodbye to you, women of home. ORESTES: Most loyal of sisters, do you leave now? ELECTRA: I leave with tears blurring all that I see.

Yes, blood for blood, his bitter loan came due. He paid with death.

Of most dreadful suffering, I am the cause.

Yet censure strikes hard at women, while men, the true agents of trouble, hear no reproach.

I wish you joy. To spend life's fleeting days mid joy that never meets an evil hour is to be blessed beyond compare.

You gave birth to your own death.

What greater sorrow than being forced to leave behind my native earth?

Hurry, come hold me, though I am dead. Shed tears on my body as on my grave.

Give me a man, for his sons make courageous soldiers while pretty boys can only decorate the dance.

Bear witness for one who is loved and not loved: we cast the cloak gently around her, an end of great woe for our house.

The hounds snap fierce at your heels. Turn toward Athens. I hear them pelting hard on you, I see black flesh and snake-hands coiling round a fruit of agonizing pain.

Apollo, Apollo—but he is my lord. I will keep silence. He is wise forever, though his oracle spoke brutal words. We are bound to acquiesce. And you must do now as Fate and Zeus ordain.

Again, again your mind has changed course with the wind. For you think now of godly things ignored when you worked dreadful deeds on your brother against his will.

Apollo, your voice hymned a justice I could not see clear, but all too clear the anguish you caused, the bloodhaunted, homeless future you've doled out.

So goes the story: but to me it's hardly plausible that the sun, with its golden smile, should turn from its fiery home to cause mortal misfortune for mortal rights and wrongs. But fairy tales that scare us humans are useful for religion.

O black night, you who nurse he golden stars! In you I go, bearing this jar poised on my head, to fetch water from springs of rivers; not that any need pushes me to this point, but so I may show the gods the insolence of Aegisthus, and pour out my griefs under huge heaven to my father's spirit. My mother, Tyndareos' daughter, lost in wickedness, to show Aegisthus other sons, she treats me and O restes both s bastards of her house.

ELECTRA: ¡Ah, cómo puedes acoger a huéspedes tan altos en su alcurnia, cuando miras la escasez y miseria de tu hogar? CAMPESINO: Nobles dices que son y así se muestra. No importa la pequeñez y pobreza de nuestra casa: si nobles son, con ella han de ajustarse