The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.. Euripides
taken a thing in hand, to give it up. But to me, be assured, thou neither appearest for my sake, nor for the sake of the Grecians, to have killed this man thy guest, but that thou mightest possess the gold in thy palace. But thou talkest of thy advantage, when thou art in calamities.29 Perhaps with you it is a slight thing to kill your guests; but with us Grecians this thing is abhorred. How then, in giving my decision that thou hast not injured, can I escape blame? I can not; but as thou hast dared to do things dishonorable, endure now things unpleasant.
POLY. Alas me! worsted, as it seems, by a woman who is a slave, I shall submit to the vengeance of my inferiors.
AGA. Will it not then be justly, seeing thou hast acted wrong?
POLY. Alas me! wretched on account of these children and on account of my eyes.
HEC. Thou sufferest? but what do I? Thinkest thou I suffer not for my child?
POLY. Thou rejoicest in insulting me, O thou malicious woman.
HEC. For ought not I to rejoice on having avenged myself on thee?
POLY. But thou wilt not soon, when the liquid wave —
HEC. Shall bear me, dost thou mean, to the confines of the Grecian land?
POLY. – shall cover thee, having fallen from the shrouds.
HEC. From whom meeting with this violent leap?
POLY. Thyself shalt climb with thy feet up the ship's mast.
HEC. Having wings on my back, or in what way?
POLY. Thou shalt become a dog with a fiery aspect.
HEC. But how dost thou know of this my metamorphose?
POLY. Dionysius the Thracian prophet told it me.
HEC. But did he not declare to thee any of the evils which thou sufferest?
POLY. No: for, if he had, thou never wouldst thus treacherously have taken me.
HEC. 30Thence shall I conclude my life in death, or still live on?
POLY. Thou shalt die. But the name of thy tomb shall be —
HEC. Dost thou speak of it as in any way correspondent to my shape?
POLY. 31The tomb of the wretched dog, a mark to mariners.
HEC. I heed it not, since thou at least hast felt my vengeance.
POLY. And it is fated too for thy daughter Cassandra to die.
HEC. I renounce these prophecies; I give them for thyself to bear.
POLY. Him shall his wife slay, a cruel guardian of his house.
HEC. Never yet may the daughter of Tyndarus have arrived at such madness.
POLY. Even this man himself, having lifted up the axe.
AGA. What ho! thou art mad, and art desirous of obtaining greater ills.
POLY. Kill me, for the murderous bath at Argos awaits thee.
AGA. Will ye not, slaves, forcibly drag him from my presence?
POLY. Thou art galled at what thou hearest.
AGA. Will ye not stop his mouth?
POLY. Stop it: for the word is spoken.
AGA. Will ye not as quick as possible cast him out on some desert island, since he is thus, and past endurance insolent? But do thou, wretched Hecuba, go and bury thy two dead: and you, O Trojan dames, must approach your masters' tents, for I perceive that the gales are favorable for wafting us to our homes. And may we sail in safety to our native country, and behold our household and families in prosperity, having found rest from these toils.
CHOR. Come, my friends, to the harbor, and the tents, to undergo the tasks imposed by our masters. For necessity is relentless.
ORESTES
PERSONS REPRESENTED
ELECTRA.
HELEN.
HERMIONE.
CHORUS.
ORESTES.
MENELAUS.
TYNDARUS.
PYLADES.
A PHRYGIAN.
APOLLO.
THE ARGUMENT
Orestes, in revenge for the murder of his father, took off Ægisthus and Clyætmnestra; but having dared to slay his mother, he was instantly punished for it by being afflicted with madness. But on Tyndarus, the father of her who was slain, laying an accusation against him, the Argives were about to give a public decision on this question, "What ought he, who has dared this impious deed, to suffer?" By chance Menelaus, having returned from his wanderings, sent in Helen indeed by night, but himself came by day, and being entreated by Orestes to aid him, he rather feared Tyndarus the accuser: but when the speeches came to be spoken among the populace, the multitude were stirred up to kill Orestes. * * * * But Pylades, his friend, accompanying him, counseled him first to take revenge on Menelaus by killing Helen. As they were going on this project, they were disappointed of their hope by the Gods snatching away Helen from them. But Electra delivered up Hermione, when she made her appearance, into their hands, and they were about to kill her. When Menelaus came, and saw himself bereft by them at once of his wife and child, he endeavored to storm the palace; but they, anticipating his purpose, threatened to set it on fire. Apollo, however, having appeared, said that he had conducted Helen to the Gods, and commanded Orestes to take Hermione to wife, and Electra to dwell with Pylades, and, after that he was purified of the murder, to reign over Argos.
The scene of the piece is laid at Argos; But the chorus consists of Argive women, intimate associates of Electra, who also come on inquiring about the calamity of Orestes. The play has a catastrophe rather suited to comedy. The opening scene of the play is thus arranged. Orestes is discovered before the palace of Agamemnon, fatigued, and, on account of his madness, lying on a couch on which Electra is sitting by him at his feet. A difficulty has been started, why does not she sit at his head? for thus would she seem to watch more tenderly over her brother, if she sat nearer him. The poet, it is answered, seems to have made this arrangement on account of the Chorus; for Orestes, who had but just then and with difficulty gotten to sleep, would have been awakened, if the women that constituted the Chorus had stood nearer to him. But this we may infer from what Electra says to the Chorus, "Σιγα, σιγα, λεπτον ιχνος αρβυληις." It is probable then that the above is the reason of this arrangement.
The play is among the most celebrated on the stage, but infamous in its morals; for, with the exception of Pylades, all the characters are bad persons.
ORESTES
ELECTRA
There is no word so dreadful to relate, nor suffering, nor heaven-inflicted calamity, the burden of which human nature may not be compelled to bear. For Tantalus, the blest, (and I am not reproaching his fortune, when I say this,) the son of Jupiter, as they report, trembling at the rock which impends over his head, hangs in the air, and suffers this punishment, as they say indeed, because, although being a man, yet having the honor of a table in common with the Gods upon equal terms, he possessed an ungovernable tongue, a most disgraceful malady. He begat Pelops, and from him sprung Atreus, for whom the Goddess having carded the wool32 spun the thread of contention, and doomed him to make war on Thyestes his relation; (why must I commemorate things unspeakable?) But Atreus then33 killed his children – and feasted him. But from Atreus, for I pass over in silence the misfortunes which intervened, sprung Agamemnon, the illustrious, (if he was indeed illustrious,) and Menelaus; their mother Aërope of Crete. But Menelaus indeed marries Helen, the hated of the Gods, but King Agamemnon obtained Clytæmnestra's bed, memorable throughout the Grecians:
Perhaps the preferable way is to make κακοισιν agree with ανθρωποις understood; that the sense may be,
Θανουσα δ' η ζωσ' ενθαδ' εκπλησω βιον; a similar expression occurs in the Anthologia.
The place of her burial was called Cynosema, a promontory of the Thracian Chersonese. It was here that the Athenians gained a naval victory over the Peloponnesians and Syracusans, in the twenty-first year of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides, book viii.
στεμματα, ερια,
"