ELECTRA
A monologue from the
play by Euripides
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. i. Trans.
Shelley Dean Milman. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1920. |
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- ELECTRA: Then I will speak, and preface thus my speech.
- I wish, my mother, that a better mind
- Were thine; for excellence of form hath brought
- To thee and Helena deserved praise.
- Nature hath formed you sisters, light and vain,
- Of Castor much unworthy. She was borne
- Away, and by her own consent undone;
- Thou hast destroyed the noblest man of Greece:
- Thy daughter's death thy pretext, thou hast slain
- Thy husband; but so well as I none knows,
- Before it was decreed that she should die,
- Whilst from Mycenæ his departure yet
- Was recent, at the mirror didst thou form
- The graceful ringlets of thy golden hair.
- The wife, that in her husband's absence seeks
- With curious care to set her beauty forth,
- Mark as a wanton: she with nicest skill
- Would not adorn her person to appear
- Abroad, but that she is inclined to ill.
- Of all the Grecian dames didst thou alone,
- I know, rejoice, when prosperous were the arms
- Of Troy; but when defeated, on thine eyes
- A cloud hung dark; for never didst thou wish
- That Agamemnon should from Troy return.
- Yet glorious was th' occasion offered thee
- The strength of female virtue to display:
- Thou hadst a husband in no excellence
- Inferior to Ægisthus: and so vile
- Thy sister's conduct, thou hadst power from thence
- The highest honour to thyself to draw;
- For in the foulness of th' example vice
- Instructive holds a mirror to the good.
- But if my father, as thou urgest, killed
- Thy daughter, how have I to thee done wrong?
- My brother how? Or why, when thou hadst slain
- Thy husband, didst thou not to us consign
- Our father's house, but make it the lewd scene
- Of other nuptials purchased by that prize?
- Nor is thy husband exiled for thy son;
- Nor hath he died for me, though, far beyond
- My sister's death, me living hath he slain.
- If blood, in righteous retribution, calls
- For blood, by me behoves it thou shouldst bleed,
- And by thy son Orestes, to avenge
- My father: there if this was just alike
- Is it just here. Unwise is he, who weds,
- Allured by riches or nobility,
- A vicious woman: all that greatness brings
- Must yield to that endeared domestic bliss,
- Which on the chaste though humble bed attends.
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY EURIPIDES |
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