Electra by Sophocles is the last text chosen for the fourth day of the Lenaia. I couldn’t avoid ending with one of the traditional winners of an original Lenaia’s prize. The daughter of the murdered king Agamemnon is kept hopeless in Mycenae. She’s however waiting for the return of her brother Orestes who would provide the revenge she is seeking. While the brother wanted to hide his return by pretending to be dead, Electra is first mistaken. But when she realises that he’s still alive and back to Mycenae, her dark hope of revenge is born again.
Wrath of life? Light of revenge? This strange circle of pleasing violence is not stranger to us, since love and hate grow up as siblings.
After this meditation, the Lenaia naturally end. There is no specific ceremony but as they are supposed to be a contest, we are left free to choose for our own favourite play. Before having been moved to the temple of Dionysus (Ληναῖος), the Lenaia could have been acted at the lenaion, the wine-press area. Lenaios, demon of theatre, is also demon who crushes grapes for the new blood. Whence here, Electra’s wrath of life.
The urn is placed in Electra’s hands.
ELECTRA
Ah, memorial of him whom I loved best on earth! Ah, Orestes, whose life hath no relic left save this,—how far from the hopes with which I sent thee forth is the manner in which I receive thee back! Now I carry thy poor dust in my hands; but thou wert radiant, my child, when I sped thee forth from home! Would that I had yielded up my breath, ere, with these hands, I stole thee away, and sent thee to a strange land, and rescued thee from death; that so thou mightest have been stricken down on that self-same day, and had thy portion in the tomb of thy sire!
But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished miserably, far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in a narrow urn.
Ah, woe is me for my nursing long ago, so vain, that I oft bestowed on thee with loving toil! For thou wast never thy mother’s darling so much as mine; nor was any in the house thy nurse but I; and by thee I was ever called ‘sister.’ But now all this hath vanished in a day, with thy death; like a whirlwind, thou hast swept all away with thee. Our father is gone; I am dead in regard to thee; thou thyself hast perished: our foes exult; that mother, who is none, is mad with joy,—she of whom thou didst oft send me secret messages, thy heralds, saying that thou thyself wouldst appear as an avenger. But our evil fortune, thine and mine, hath reft all that away, and hath sent thee forth unto me thus,—no more the form that I loved so well, but ashes and an idle shade.
Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a dire journey, how hast undone me,—undone me indeed, O brother mine!
Therefore take me to this thy home, me who am as nothing, to thy nothingness, that I may dwell with thee henceforth below; for when thou wert on earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that I may not be parted from thee in the grave. For I see that the dead have rest from pain.
CHORUS
Bethink thee, Electra, thou art the child of mortal sire, and mortal was Orestes; therefore grieve not too much. This is a debt which all of us must pay.
ORESTES
Alas, what shall I say? What words can serve me at this pass? I can restrain my lips no longer!
ELECTRA
What hath troubled thee? Why didst thou say that?
ORESTES
Is this the form of the illustrious Electra that I behold?
ELECTRA
It is; and very grievous is her plight.
ORESTES
Alas, then, for this miserable fortune!
ELECTRA
Surely, sir, thy lament is not for me?
ORESTES
O form cruelly, godlessly misused!
ELECTRA
Those ill-omened words, sir, fit no one better than me.
ORESTES
Alas for thy life, unwedded and all unblest!
ELECTRA
Why this steadfast gaze, stranger, and these laments?
ORESTES
How ignorant was I, then, of mine own sorrows!
ELECTRA
By what that hath been said hast thou perceived this?
ORESTES
By seeing thy sufferings, so many and so great.
ELECTRA
And yet thou seest but a few of my woes.
ORESTES
Could any be more painful to behold?
ELECTRA
This, that I share the dwelling of the murderers.
ORESTES
Whose murderers? Where lies the guilt at which thou hintest?
ELECTRA
My father’s;—and then I am their slave perforce.
ORESTES
Who is it that subjects thee to this constraint?
ELECTRA
A mother—in name, but no mother in her deeds.
ORESTES
How doth she oppress thee? With violence or with hardship?
ELECTRA
With violence, and hardships, and all manner of ill.
ORESTES
And is there none to succour, or to hinder?
ELECTRA
None. I had one; and thou hast shown me his ashes.
ORESTES
Hapless girl, how this sight hath stirred my pity!
ELECTRA
Know, then, that thou art the first who ever pitied me.
ORESTES
No other visitor hath ever shared thy pain.
ELECTRA
Surely thou art not some unknown kinsman?
ORESTES
I would answer, if these were friends who hear us.
ELECTRA
Oh, they are friends; thou canst speak without mistrust.
ORESTES
Give up this urn, then, and thou shalt be told all.
ELECTRA
Nay, I beseech thee be not so cruel to me, sir!
ORESTES
Do as I say, and never fear to do amiss.
ELECTRA
I conjure thee, rob me not of my chief treasure!
ORESTES
Thou must not keep it.
ELECTRA
Ah woe is me for thee, Orestes, if I am not to give thee burial!
ORESTES
Hush!—no such word!—Thou hast no right to lament.
ELECTRA
No right to lament for my dead brother?
ORESTES
It is not meet for thee to speak of him thus.
ELECTRA
Am I so dishonoured of the dead?
ORESTES
Dishonoured of none:—but this is not thy part.
ELECTRA
Yes, if these are the ashes of Orestes that I hold.
ORESTES
They are not; a fiction clothed them with his name.
He gently takes the urn from her.
ELECTRA
And where is that unhappy one’s tomb?
ORESTES
There is none; the living have no tomb.
ELECTRA
What sayest thou, boy? Or. Nothing that is not true.
ELECTRA
The man is alive? Or. If there be life in me.
ELECTRA
What? Art thou he? Or. Look at this signet, once our father’s, and judge if I speak truth.
ELECTRA
O blissful day! Or. Blissful, in very deed!
ELECTRA
Is this thy voice? Or. Let no other voice reply.
ELECTRA
Do I hold thee in my arms?
ORESTES
As mayest thou hold me always!
ELECTRA
Ah, dear friends and fellow-citizens, behold Orestes here, who was feigned dead, and now, by that feigning hath come safely home!
CHORUS
We see him, daughter; and for this happy fortune a tear of joy trickles from our eyes.
ELECTRA
Offspring of him whom I loved best, thou hast come even now, thou hast come, and found and seen her whom thy heart desired!
ORESTES
I am with thee;—but keep silence for a while.
ELECTRA
What meanest thou?
ORESTES
‘Tis better to be silent, lest some one within should hear.
ELECTRA
Nay, by ever-virgin Artemis, I will never stoop to fear women, stay-at-homes, vain burdens of the ground!
ORESTES
Yet remember that in women, too, dwells the spirit of battle; thou hast had good proof of that I ween.
ELECTRA
Alas! ah me! Thou hast reminded me of my sorrow, one which, from its nature, cannot be veiled, cannot be done away with, cannot forget!
ORESTES
I know this also; but when occasion prompts, then will be the moment to recall those deeds.
ELECTRA
Each moment of all time, as it comes, would be meet occasion for these my just complaints; scarcely now have I had my lips set free.
ORESTES
I grant it; therefore guard thy freedom.
ELECTRA
What must I do?
ORESTES
When the season serves not, do not wish to speak too much.
ELECTRA
Nay, who could fitly exchange speech for such silence, when thou hast appeared? For now I have seen thy face, beyond all thought and hope!
ORESTES
Thou sawest it, when the gods moved me to come.…
Electra, by Sophocles
Translated by Richard Claverhouse Jebb
BΑCCHOPITHÈQVE 
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