Electra quotes

This will confirm the feignèd tale we bring, That I am dead and to the pyre consigned, Naught left of me but ashes and grey dust:

Little reck I by rumour to be dead, So I live on to win me deathless fame.

The end, methinks, gives any fraud excuse. Oft have I heard of men, reputed wise, Who spread the rumour of their death, and so Returning home a heartier welcome found.

Has time Not schooled thee to desist from idle rage? I too, my sister, chafe no less than thou At our sad fortunes, and had I the power, Would make it plain how I regard our masters.

But in the storm ’tis best to reef the sail, Nor utter threats we cannot execute.

I would thou wert likeminded; yet I know Justice is on thy side, and I am wrong. Yet if I am to keep my liberty, I needs must bow before the powers that be.

Why, lady, why downhearted at my news?

Strange is the force of motherhood; a mother, Whate’er her wrongs, can ne’er forget her child.

So it would seem our coming was in vain.

So will our fame be bruited far and wide, Nor shall our glory fail in life or death. Sweet sister, hear me, take thy father’s part, Side with thy brother, give me, give thyself Surcease of sorrow; and remember this,

A life of shame is shame for noble souls.

Forethought for those that speak and those that hear, In such grave issues, is most serviceable.

Who then could hope to grapple with a foe So mighty and escape without a fall? Bethink thee, if thy speech were overheard, We are like to change our evil plight for worse. Small comfort or commodity to win Glory and die an ignominious death!

Mere death were easy, but to crave for death And be denied that last boon⁠—there’s the sting.

Nay, I entreat, before we wreck ourselves And perish root and branch, restrain thy rage. All thou hast said for me shall be unsaid, An empty breath. O learn at length, though late, To yield, nor match thy weakness with their strength.

Yes, for misfortune dogs such enterprise.

I praise thy prudence, hate thy cowardice.

E’en when thou shalt commend me, I will bear Thy commendation no less patiently.

Last relics of the man I most did love, Orestes! high in hope I sent thee forth; How hast thou dashed all hope in thy return!

Radiant as day thou speddest forth, and now I hold a dusty nothing in my hands.

Would I had died before I rescued thee From death and sent thee to a foreign land! Then hadst thou fallen together with thy sire And lain beside him in the ancestral tomb:

Take me, O take me to thy last lone home, A shadow to a shade, that I may dwell With thee for ever in the underworld; For here on earth we shared alike, and now I fain would die to share with thee thy tomb;

For with the dead there is no mourning, none.

Child of a mortal sire, Electra, think, Orestes too was mortal; calm thy grief. Death is a debt that all of us must pay.

My countrywomen, dearest friends, behold

Orestes who in feigning died, and so By feigning is alive again and safe.

We see him, daughter, and this glad surprise Makes our eyes overflow with happy tears.

Nay, by Queen Artemis the virgin maid, Of womenfolk I ne’er will be afraid, Those stay-at-homes, mere cumberers of the ground,

Yet note that in the breasts of women dwells The War-God too, as thou methinks hast found.

Ah me, ah me! Thou wak’st a memory Inveterate, ineflaceable, An ache time cannot quell.