Ἠλέκτρα
Electra
Euripides · Date disputed, c. 420–413 BC
Electra lives married to a poor farmer outside Argos. Her brother Orestes returns in secret; he kills Aegisthus, and together they kill their mother.
Persons, in order of appearance
- Αυ.Peasant
- Ηλ.Electra
- Ορ.Orestes
- Χο.Chorus
- Πρ.Old Man
- Αγ.Messenger
- Κλ.Clytemnestra
- Κα.Castor
Translations
- E. P. Coleridgeprose · 1891 · aligned by line · with Murray's Greek
- A. S. Wayverse · 1912 · aligned by speech · with Murray's Greek
- Ian Johnston (VIU)verse · aligned by speech · with Diggle's Greek
- Gilbert Murrayverse · aligned by speech · with Murray's Greek
Greek texts
Cite as Eur. El. 1–1359
Full synopsis (tells the ending)
Aegisthus has married Electra to a poor farmer so that her children will be nobodies. She lives in his hut outside Argos, hauling water, nursing her grievance. Orestes and Pylades come unannounced, and an old man who once smuggled Orestes to safety as a child knows him by a scar. Orestes kills Aegisthus at a sacrifice in the country. Clytemnestra is lured to the hut with news that her daughter has given birth, and the two of them kill her there. Both are sick with what they have done. The Dioscuri, Clytemnestra's brothers, appear to send Orestes to Athens for trial and Electra to marry Pylades.
Drawing: Line drawing after Karl Reichhold's drawing of the Berlin Painter's pelike, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum IV 3725 (Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei II, Taf. 72); cut out and retraced.