MESS. O wretched hapless daughter of the chief Agamemnon, revered Electra,
hear the unfortunate words which I am come to bring.
ELEC. Alas! alas! we are undone; this thou signifiest by thy speech. For
thou comest, as it seems, a messenger of woes.
MESS. It has been carried by the vote of the Pelasgians, that thy brother
and thou must die this day.
ELEC. Ah me! the expected event has come, which long since fearing, I pined
away with lamentations on account of what was in prospect.--But what was
the debate? What arguments among the Argives condemned us, and confirmed
our sentence of death? Tell me, old man, whether by the hand raised to
stone me, or by the sword must I breathe out my soul, having this calamity
in common with my brother?
MESS. I chanced indeed to be entering the gates from the country, anxious
to hear both what regarded thee, and what regarded Orestes; for at all
times I had a favorable inclination toward thy father: and thy house fed
me, poor indeed, but noble in my conduct toward friends. But I see the
crowd going and sitting down on an eminence; where they say Danaus first
collected the people to a common council, when he suffered punishment at
the hands of Ægyptus. But seeing this concourse, I asked one of the
citizens, "What new thing is stirring in Argos? Has any message from
hostile powers roused the city of the Danaids?" But he said, "Seest thou
not this Orestes walking near us, who is about to run in the contest of
life and death?" But I see an unexpected sight, which oh that I had never
seen! Pylades and thy brother walking together, the one indeed broken with
sickness, but the other, like a brother, sympathizing with his friend,
tending his weakened state with fostering care. But when the assembly of
the Argives was full, a herald stood forth and said, "Who wishes to speak
_on the question_, whether it is right that Orestes, who has killed his
mother, should die, or not?" And on this Talthybius rises, who, in
conjunction with thy father, laid waste the Phrygians. But he spoke words
of divided import, being the constant slave of those in power; struck with
admiration indeed at thy father, but not commending thy brother (speciously
mixing up words of bad import), because he laid down no good laws toward
his parents: but he was continually casting a smiling glance on Ægisthus's
friends. For such is this kind; heralds always dance attendance on the
prosperous; but that man is their friend, whoever may chance to have power
in the state, and to be in office. But next to him prince Diomed harangued;
he indeed was for suffering them to kill neither thee nor thy brother, but
_bid them_ observe piety by punishing you with banishment. But some indeed
murmured their assent, that he spoke well, but others praised him not.[22]
And after him rises up some man, intemperate in speech, powerful in
boldness, an Argive, yet not an Argive,[23] forced upon us, relying both on
the tumult, and on ignorant boldness, prompt by persuasion to involve them
in some mischief. (For when a man, sweet in words, holding bad sentiments,
persuades the multitude, it is a great evil to the city. But as many as
always advise good things with understanding, although not at the present
moment, eventually are of service to the state: but the intelligent leader
ought to look to this, for the case is the same with the man who speaks
words, and the man who approves them.) Who said, that they ought to kill
Orestes and thee by stoning. But Tyndarus was privily making up such sort
of speeches for him who wished your death to speak. But another man stood
up, and spoke in opposition to him, in form indeed not made to catch the
eye; but a man endued with the qualities of a man, rarely polluting the
city, and the circle of the forum; one who farmed his own land,[24] which
class of persons[25] alone preserve the country, but prudent, and wishing
the tenor of his conduct to be in unison with his words, uncorrupted, one
that had conformed to a blameless mode of living; he proposed to crown
Orestes the son of Agamemnon,[25a] who was willing to avenge his father by
slaying a wicked and unholy woman, who took this out of the power of men,
and would no one have been the cause of arming the hand for war, nor
undertaking an expedition, leaving his home, if those who are left destroy
what is intrusted to their charge in the house, disgracing their husbands'
beds. And to right-minded men at least he appeared to speak well: and none
spoke besides, but thy brother advanced and said, "O inhabitants of the
land of Inachus, avenging you no less than my father, I slew my mother, for
if the murder of men shall become licensed to women, ye no longer can
escape dying, or ye must be slaves to your wives. But ye do the contrary to
what ye ought to do. For now she that was false to the bed of my father is
dead; but if ye do indeed slay me, the law has lost its force, and no man
can escape dying, forasmuch as there will be no lack of this audacity."
But he persuaded not the people, though appearing to speak well. But that
villain, who spoke among the multitude, overcomes him, he that harangued
for the killing of thy brother and thee. But scarcely did the wretched
Orestes persuade them that he might not die by stoning; but he promised
that this day he would quit his life by self-slaughter together with
thee:--but Pylades is conducting him from the council, weeping: but his
friends accompany him bewailing him, pitying him; but he is coming a sad
spectacle to thee, and a wretched sight. But prepare the sword, or the
noose for thy neck, for thou must die, but thy nobleness of birth hath
profited thee nothing, nor the Pythian Phœbus who sits on the tripod, but
hath destroyed thee.
CHOR. O unhappy virgin! how art thou dumb, casting thy muffled countenance
toward the ground, as though about to run into a strain of groans and
lamentations!
ELEC. I begin the lament, O land of Greece, digging my white nail into my
cheek, sad bleeding woe, and dashing my head, which[26] the lovely[27]
goddess of the manes beneath the earth has to her share. And let the
Cyclopian land[28] howl, applying the steel to their head cropped of hair
over the calamity of our house. This pity, this pity, proceeds for those
who are about to die, who once were the princes of Greece. For it is gone,
it is gone, the entire race of the children of Pelops has perished, and the
happiness which once resided in these blest abodes. Envy from heaven has
now seized it, and the harsh decree of blood in the state. Alas! alas! O
race of mortals that endure for a day, full of tears, full of troubles,
behold how contrary to expectation fate comes. But in the long lapse of
time each different man receives by turns his different sufferings.[29] But
the whole race of mortals is unstable and uncertain.
Oh! could I go to that rock stretched from Olympus in its loftiness midst
heaven and earth by golden chains, that mass of clay borne round with rapid
revolutions, that in my plaints I might cry out to my ancient father
Tantalus; who begat the progenitors of my family, who saw calamities, what
time in the pursuing of steeds, Pelops in his car drawn by four horses
perpetrated, as he drove, the murder of Myrtilus, _by casting him_ into the
sea, hurling him down to the surge of the ocean, as he guided his car on
the shore of the briny sea by Geræstus foaming with its white billows.
Whence the baleful curse came on my house since, by the agency of Maia's
son,[30] there appeared the pernicious, pernicious prodigy of the
golden-fleeced lamb, a birth which took place among the flocks of the
warlike Atreus. On which both Discord drove back the winged chariot of the
sun, directing it from the path of heaven leading to the west toward Aurora
borne on her single horse.[31] And Jupiter drove back the course of the
seven moving Pleiads another way: and from that period[32] he sends deaths
in succession to deaths, and "the feast of Thyestes," so named from
Thyestes. And the bed of the Cretan Ærope deceitful in a deceitful marriage
has come as a finishing stroke on me and my father, to the miserable
destruction of our family.
CHOR. But see, thy brother is advancing, condemned by the vote of death,
and Pylades the most faithful of all, a man like a brother, supporting the
enfeebled limbs of Orestes, walking by his side[33] with the foot of tender
solicitude.