# Sophocles (Collins)/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
ELECTRA.
In this drama Sophocles has selected a portion of the same story which formed the subject of the famous trilogy of Æschylus. The Electra is simply the return of Orestes, and the vengeance which he takes on Clytemnestra and Ægisthus. By both poets this act of vengeance is elevated to a religious duty. The gods above and the shades of the dead below demand that a "foul unnatural murder" shall not go unpunished. Accordingly Orestes never swerves for a moment from his deadly purpose. Pity and tenderness have no place in his breast, nor do we ever find him reasoning with himself after the manner of Hamlet—
"O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom; Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers, but will use none."
Once more—as in the trilogy of Æschylus—the scene is the royal palace of the Pelopidæ, "rich in ​gold and rich in slaughter," as Electra describes it, fronted by the stately "Gate of Lions" which then guarded the statue of Apollo, and built in that stupendous Cyclopæan style which still impresses every traveller. But Agatharchus, or whatever artist Sophocles employed, has given us on this occasion more than the usual architectural background. There is the grove of Io, "the tormented wanderer," and the market-place sacred to Apollo as the "Wolf-god;" on the left is the famous temple of Juno, while in the far distance are seen the towers of Argos. The time is early morning in Athens as well as on the stage, and it is such a morning as Chaucer would have loved, with the hills and greenwood bright and fresh in the sunlight, as one of the speakers describes it,—
"Which wakes the birds to tune their matin song, And star-decked night's dark shadows flee away.—(P.)
Two young men enter. They are the famous friends, whose names, like those of David and Jonathan, have consecrated all later friendships,—Orestes and Pylades. With them comes an old and faithful servant (perhaps "the watchman" of Æschylus's 'Agamemnon'), who had saved the young Orestes at the time of his father's murder, had reared him up to manhood, and is now ​guiding him back, after his long exile, to the familiar scenes of Argolis. Orestes has returned to Mycenæ (as he tells his friends and the audience) on a holy mission of vengeance, consecrated by Apollo himself; but in order to gain his ends he must use a pious fraud. His old attendant must enter the palace, and represent himself as a Phocian stranger, sent by an old friend of the family:—
"And tell them—yea, and add a solemn oath— That some fell fate has brought Orestes' death In Pythian games, from out the whirling car Polled headlong to the earth. This tale tell thou; And we, first honouring my father's grave, As the God bade us, with libations pure And tresses from our brow, will then come back, Bearing the urn well wrought with sides of bronze, Which, thou know'st well, 'mid yonder shrubs lies hid, That we with crafty words may bring to them The pleasant news that my poor frame is gone, Consumed with fire, to dust and ashes turned. ******* So I, from out this rumour of my death, Shall, like a meteor, blaze upon my foes."—(P.)
Then the three retire, for the purpose of pouring a libation at Agamemnon's grave. Pylades, it should be observed, owing to the strict rule of the Athenian drama limiting the speakers on the stage to three, never takes part in the dialogue throughout the play.
Even before they left the stage, they had heard the wailing of women from the palace; and now there issues from the gates Electra, the sister of Orestes, ​meanly clad and with dishevelled hair, followed by a train of Argive maidens. Her history had been a sad one. Years had passed away since that day of horror, when her father had been cut off in his glory—not slain by the sword on the battle-field, but felled by the axe of Ægisthus, "as the woodman fells the oak-tree in the forest." Years had passed away, but each year had only imbittered the resentment of Electra, and turned to gall all the sweetness of her woman's nature. She can neither tear from her heart the remembrance of that deed of blood, nor forgive those who wrought it. It had needed no message from the grave, no spirit returned from limbo, to keep alive this memory. Always before her was the same repulsive contrast which tortured the keener sensibilities of Hamlet,—the cowardly Ægisthus, sitting in the dead man's place, and receiving the caresses of the perjured wife; while the guilty pair had seemed to glory in their shame,—the one pouring libations on the very hearth where the king had fallen, and the other, with an impious and unnatural joy, celebrating each month the day of her husband's murder, as though it were a religious festival, with sacrifices and solemn dances. Meanwhile, the portion of Electra had been mockery and insult; for her proud spirit had scorned such submission as her more facile sister Chrysothemis had been ready to give. She had been a living protest against the sin of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus; her incessant grief had provoked their hatred, and this hatred had found its vent in bitter and continual ​reproach. Day and night, as she tells the Chorus, she had been mourning over the ruin of her race in the plaintive strains of the nightingale, whose note was proverbial among the Greeks for a never-ending grief; and she had been rated by her mother much in the same style as Hamlet is lectured by his uncle:—
"To persevere In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness. ...'Tis a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature; To reason most absurd; whose common theme Is death of fathers."
Then, again, these tears had been followed by a sterner feeling, and soon
"Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain, Had locked the source of softer woe."
She had cherished the thought of a day of retribution, and had implored all the gods of the lower world not to overlook the shedding of innocent blood, or to allow "the guile which devised and the lust which struck the blow" to go for long unpunished. But years had passed, and still Orestes, for whose coming she had prayed, came not; and Electra, in her despair, had begun to question the justice of those careless gods who allowed the guilty to flourish in their sin, and murder to go unavenged—
"For if the dull earth cover thus the blood Of him who basely died, ​And they who wrought his fall Repay not life for life;— Then perish shame for aye, And piety be banished from mankind!"—(D.)
The Chorus vainly try to comfort her. No tears or prayers, they say, can recall the dead from "the lake of darkness." Let her trust to Time, that "calm and patient deity," to bring her brother home at last.
Then there enters to her "bright Chrysothemis with golden hair," bearing funeral offerings. The scene between the sisters recalls a similar one in a former play, with the difference that here the characters are more strongly drawn. Electra is cast in a harsher and sterner mould than her counterpart, Antigone, for it is hatred rather than love which hardens her resolution. Chrysothemis, again, is more deliberately selfish than Ismene. "She should have been the ally, but is only the temptress of her sister, a weaker Goneril or Regan, serving as a foil to a more masculine Cordelia." Electra cannot conceal her scorn and indignation at this unworthy daughter of a king, who attempts to justify her baseness, and whose cowardly spirit can endure to sit at the same table with her father's murderers. For her own part, she prefers the isolation of a slave to the gifts and delicacies which Chrysothemis accepts at such hands.
"Loin d'eux, à ces festins, leur esclave préfère Le pain de la pitié qu'on jette à sa misère, A leur table insolente allez courber le front; Flattez les meurtriers, mes pleurs me suffiront. ​Des pleurs sont mes trésors, des pleurs ma nourriture, Ils ne me verront pas outrageant la nature, A mon père infidèle, indigne de mon nom, Boire avec eux dans l'or le sang d'Agamemnon."
Chrysothemis is too well accustomed to her sister's reproaches to attempt any further justification. In reply, she tells her the strange mission on which she has now come from the palace. On the previous night Clytemnestra had dreamed a dream, in which she had seen her husband, tall and majestic as in his lifetime, and carrying the sceptre which had descended from prince to prince in the dynasty of Argos, and was now wielded by the murderer Ægisthus. In her vision, Clytemnestra sees him plant this sceptre in the hearth of his palace, and there it had seemed to take root downwards and bear fruit upwards, spreading forth into boughs and branches, and overshadowing all Mycenæ. So terribly significant had been this vision of the night, and so accordant with the restless dread of her son's return which has haunted the guilty woman, ​that after rising early in the morning, and telling her dream to the Sun-god, she had sent Chrysothemis to carry libations to the tomb of Agamemnon, in the hope of appeasing the manes of the murdered king.
Electra can hardly restrain the fiery wrath which consumes her, as she hears of what she considers a fresh act of impious effrontery on the part of Clytemnestra. Her sister must never insult the dead by presenting these offerings from the guilty wife:—
"Cast them forth To the wild winds, or hide them in the earth Deep, deep; that never to my father's tomb The accursed thing may reach; but when she dies, Lie hid in earth to grace her sepulchre. For had she not been formed of all her sex The most abandoned, never had she crowned These loathed libations to the man she slew. Think'st thou the dead entombed could e'er receive In friendly mood such obsequies from her By whom he fell dishonoured, like a foe, While on her mangled victim's head she wiped His blood for expiation?"—(D.)
Let her rather offer at her father's tomb locks of hair cut from his daughters' heads, accompanied by a prayer that the son may speedily return to avenge his death. Chrysothemis assents, but begs her sister to keep her counsel.
Then follows a noble choral ode—almost rising to the grandeur of Æschylus. The dream which had terrified the queen animates the dying hopes of the ​Argive maidens. Something in their hearts tells them that the day of vengeance is nigh at hand. Neither the spirit of the murdered man, nor the axe which struck that felon stroke, "though dimmed by the rust of years," has ever forgotten the deed of blood. They can already see the shadow—nay, they can almost feel the breath and hear the approaching tramp—of the "brazen-footed fury with many hands and feet." And then their thoughts revert to the fountainhead of all these troubles—the curse invoked on the treacherous Pelops by Myrtilus, as he was "dashed headlong from his golden chariot, and sent to his last sleep beneath the waves."
There is a pause upon the stage, and a low murmur of expectancy runs through the audience, as the Chorus respectfully move back to make way for Clytenmestra, who comes forward with a haughty and defiant mien, and whose speech shows that she is as "man-minded" as of old. She at once sharply rebukes Electra for taking her ease abroad in the absence of Ægisthus; and then she vindicates her murder of Agamemnon. He had slain his daughter, and she had only slain her husband in retaliation; and why should she not?
Electra is not slow to reply, and her tone and manner are as defiant and insulting as her mother's. It was the wrath of Diana, she says, reverting to a "wasted theme," and the contrary winds at Aulis, ​that forced the king, sorely against his will, to sacrifice Iphigenia. And as to the doctrine of "blood for blood," if it were put in force, Clytemnestra herself would be the first victim. "Yes," says the maiden, with a fierce look,
"And I own, Had I but strength, be sure of this, 'twere done."
The Chorus stand too much amazed and terrified at this stormy altercation between mother and daughter to offer advice, or even to speak, and at last Electra's passion exhausts itself. She turns her back upon her mother, and stands aloof in gloomy silence. Then Clytemnestra makes her secret prayer to the Sun-god:—
"Hear thou the while, Phœbus who guard'st our gates, My secret prayer; for not to friendly ears Can I speak forth, nor dare I breathe in air All that I mean, while she stands here beside me. Yet hear me—thus—as I with heed will speak. Those visions of the night, whose two-edged sense I dimly read,—if they be good, O King Grant them fulfilment! but, if they be evil, Then launch them back upon mine enemies! And if there be who by their cunning plots Would strip me of this wealth, suffer it not; But grant me still, living an unharmed life, To wield the sceptre here in Atreus' halls, Consorting still with whom I consort now, And happy in such children as may nurse No secret hate or bitter grudge against me. Such boon, Apollo, Slayer of the wolf, Grant of thy grace as fully as we ask it! And, for the rest, even though I be silent, ​Thou art a god—and needs must understand me. For they see all things who are born of Jove."
It would seem as if her prayers were to be quickly answered; for at this moment the old attendant enters, and announces, according to the previous agreement, the death of Orestes. Clytemnestra, strangely disturbed herself by conflicting feelings, cuts short the bitter cry of grief which bursts from the lips of Electra, and bids the messenger tell the manner of his death.
Then follows a false but closely circumstantial account of the death of Orestes in the Pythian games at Delphi—a tragedy within a tragedy, so real and life-like, that it is difficult to believe that it is not a description of some actual catastrophe. The lists were set, says the supposed Phocian stranger; the herald made proclamation; all Greece was there; every nation had sent its representatives, and among them came Orestes, winning the hearts of the spectators by his grace and noble bearing. His achievements on the first day were worthy of his name and lineage, for he came off victorious in five contests. On the second day followed the fatal tournament of chariots, in which there were ten competitors.
"They took their stand where the appointed judges Had cast their lots and ranged the rival cars. Rang out the brazen trump! Away they bound, Cheer the hot steeds and shake the slackened reins; As with a body the large space is filled With the huge clangour of the battling cars. High whirl aloft the dust-clouds; blent together, Each presses each, and the lash rings; and loud ​Snort the wild steeds, and from their fiery breath Along their manes and down the circling wheels Scatter the foam."—(Lord Lytton.)
Six times they had rounded the goal at the end of the course; but in the seventh the horses of one chariot had proved unmanageable, and dashed against the next.
"Then order changed to ruin, Car crashed on car; the wild Crissæan plain Was sea-like strewed with wrecks; the Athenian saw, Slackened his speed, and, wheeling round the marge, Left the wild tumult of that tossing storm. Behind Orestes, hitherto the last, Had yet kept back his coursers for the close; Now one sole rival left—on, on he flew, And the sharp sound of the impelling scourge Rang in the keen ears of the flying steeds. He hears, he reaches—they are side by side— Now one—the other—by a length the victor. The courses all are past—the wheels erect— All safe—when, as the hurrying coursers round The fatal pillar dashed, the wretched boy Slackened the left rein: on the column's edge Crashed the frail axle: headlong from the car, Caught and all meshed within the reins, he fell; And masterless the mad steeds raged along!
Loud from that mighty multitude arose A shriek—a shout! But yesterday such deeds, To-day such doom! Now whirled upon the earth, Now his limbs dashed aloft, they dragged him—those Wild horses—till all gory from the wheels Released,—and no man, not his nearest friends, Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes They laid the body on the funeral-pyre; ​And while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear, In a small brazen melancholy urn, That handful of cold ashes to which all The grandeur of the Beautiful hath shrunk. Hither they bear him, in his father's land To find that heritage—a tomb!"—(Lord Lytton.)
So circumstantial is this narrative, that no doubt is left on the minds of the hearers as to its truth. Even Clytemnestra is touched and impressed by the sudden end of one
"So young, so noble, so unfortunate."—(P.)
After all, she is a woman and a mother. Orestes is dead, and the secret prayer of her heart is thus fulfilled. Orestes is dead, and she is at once delivered from those terrors which had haunted her sleep. But, hardened and guilty as she is, there is sorrow in the thought that her peace of mind should be regained only by the death of her first-born, "the child of her own life." "Wondrous," she exclaims, almost against her will, as if excusing her emotion—
"Wondrous and strange the force of motherhood! Though wronged, a mother cannot hate her children."
—(P.)
It is a finer touch like this which stamps the poet. "These few words of genuine grief," says Mr Jebb, "humanise, and therefore dramatise, Clytemnestra more vividly than anything in Æschylus."
But the queen's better nature does not assert itself for long. A question put by the messenger as to ​whether his news be not welcome, and the sight of Electra's unfeigned sorrow, rouse in her a feeling of triumph and relief. Now at last, she says, she may sleep soundly, and pass her days in peace. Then, bidding the disguised attendant follow her, she retires within the palace, while Electra bemoans her own fate, left thus desolate and friendless. Her day-dreams of vengeance have come to an end for ever, since the brother on whom she had built her hopes has died cruelly, trampled to death under horses' feet, in a strange land—
"By strangers honoured and by strangers mourned."
Suddenly Chrysothemis runs eagerly in with what she conceives to be good news. She had found her father's tomb covered with flowers, and moist with freshly-poured libations, while on its summit lay a lock of hair, which she at once divines to be a token from Orestes. "My poor sister!" says Electra, "your Orestes is dead;"—and then she tells the story she has heard; but though he be dead, she continues, let us, women as we are, take upon ourselves the work of vengeance, and earn a glorious renown by slaying Ægisthus, our mother's paramour.
"All men love to look On deeds of goodness. Dost not see full clear All the fair fame thou'lt gain for thee and me, If thou obey my counsels? Who, seeing us, Or citizen or stranger, will not greet us With praises such as these: 'Behold, my friends, Those sisters twain, who saved their father's house, ​And on their foes who walked in pride of strength, Regardless of their lives, wrought doom of death! These all must love, these all must reverence; These in our feasts, and when the city meets Tn full assemblage, all should honour well For this their manly prowess.' Thus will all Speak of us, so that fame we shall not miss, Living or dying."—(P.)
But Chrysothemis recoils from the suggestion. Her spirit is too weak to venture on such a hazardous enterprise. Besides, she says, our foes are stronger than we are;—
"And nothing does it help or profit us, Gaining fair fame, a shameful death to die."—(P.)
Then the pretended Phocians enter, carrying, as they say,
"In one small urn All that is left, sad relics of the dead."—(P.)
The sight only increases Electra's sorrow, for it confirms what she had at first hoped might have been only an evil rumour. She takes the urn from the stranger—(we must remember that the brother and sister had not met for years)—and she muses over her shattered hopes, and over the untimely death of the Orestes whom she had loved with such devoted affection:—
"But now all joy has vanished in a day In this thy death, for, like a whirlwind, thou Hast passed and swept off all. My father falls; I perish; thou thyself hast gone from sight; Our foes exult. My mother—wrongly named, For mother she is none—is mad with joy. ******* How hast thou brought me low, thou dearest one! Therefore receive thou me to this thy home, Ashes to ashes, that "with thee below I may from henceforth dwell."—(P.)
Then the disguised stranger knows that this maiden—noble even in her mean dress—must be his sister; and his heart yearns towards her, and he can contain himself no longer. He burns with indignation as he looks on one whom he had left a light-hearted and innocent girl, now worn and wasted, as she says herself,
"By blows, by hardships, and all forms of ill."
"Funeral urns," he cries, "are not for the living, and Orestes is alive." Then he shows his father's signet-ring, and Electra knows that he must be indeed her brother. The haughty spirit which had defied Ægisthus, and repaid the queen with scorn for scorn, is at once softened. She bursts into tears, and with wild exclamations of joy throws herself into the arms of "her own, her dear Orestes."
Even when told through the cold medium of a dead language—without a stage direction, without the aid of dress or scenery—no "recognition" in any drama ​comes up to the simple reality of this, although critics may object that it is not in the highest style of art.
But this is not a time for caresses and embraces. Orestes remembers that there is sterner work before them, and that
"Much speech might lose occasion's golden hour."—(P.)
And while Electra still clings to her brother, as though loath to leave him even for a moment, the old attendant roughly breaks in upon their dialogue. Are they weary of their lives, he asks, that they stand thus idly prating on the brink of danger? It is well that he has kept good watch. Let them go in, and they will find Clytemnestra alone within the palace. Then Orestes and Pylades obey his advice and enter. For a while there is a dead silence; but suddenly the silence is broken by a woman's shriek, and Electra turns exultingly to the Chorus:—
"A cry goes up within; friends, hear ye not? Cho. I heard what none should hear—ah, misery!— And shuddered listening. Clytem. (within) Ah me! ah me! Woe, woe! Ægisthus, where art thou? Elec. Ha! List again. I hear a bitter cry. Clytem. (within) My son, my son, Have pity on thy mother! Elec. Thou hadst none On him, nor on the father that begat him. ​Clytem. (within.) Ah, I am smitten! Elec. Smite her yet again, If thou hast strength for it. Clytem. (within.) Ah! blow on blow! Elec. Would that Ægisthus shared them! Cho. Yes; the curse Is now fulfilled. The buried live again; For they who died long since now drain in turn The blood of those that slew them."—(P.)
The shrieks from within have grown fainter and fainter; and then follows the stillness of the grave, until Orestes and Pylades come forth from the palace, carrying their swords unsheathed and dripping with blood. Almost at the same moment Ægisthus is seen coming from the country, and Electra hurriedly pushes back her brother and his friend behind the scene. The usurper has heard on the way a rumour of the death of Orestes, and is radiant with triumphant joy. He asks for the Phocian strangers, that he may hear these good tidings from their own lips. "And so they really report," he asks Electra, half incredulously, "that your brother is dead?" "You may see the corpse," is her guarded answer. Then he bids the palace-doors be thrown open, that all Mycenæ may behold the welcome sight. The set scene in the background opens, and the interior of the palace is discovered. There, on a bier, lies a body covered with a veil.
"Ægis. Great Jove! a grateful spectacle—if thus May it be said unsinning; yet if she, The awful Nemesis, be nigh and hear, ​I do recall the sentence. Raise the pall,— The dead was kindred to me, and shall know A kinsman's sorrow. Ores. Lift thyself the pall; Not mine, but thine, the office to survey That which lies mute beneath, and to salute, Lovingly sad, the dead one. Ægis. Be it so,— It is well said. Go thou and call the queen. Is she within? Ores. Look not around for her,— She is beside thee."—(Lord Lytton.)
Then Ægisthus lifts the veil, and recognises the body of Clytemnestra. He knows at once that it must be Orestes who stands before him, and that he is a doomed man. "Let me speak one little word," he pleads; but Electra fiercely cuts him short, and bids her brother "slay him out of hand, and cast his body to the dogs and vultures:"—
"Qu'il tombe, il en est temps, sous vos glaives vengeurs! Que son corps soit privé des funébres honneurs! Aux oiseaux dévorants qu'il serve de pâture, Et trouve dans leurs flancs sa digne sépulture!"
Orestes accordingly forces him within the palace, that the murderer may die by the son's hand on the same spot where the father had fallen. And thus "poetical justice elevates what on the modern stage would have been but a spectacle of physical horror into the deeper terror and sublimer gloom of a moral awe; and ​vindictive murder, losing its aspect, is idealised and hallowed into a religious sacrifice."
In an ancient epigram, a statue of Bacchus (the patron god of the drama) is supposed to shadow and protect the tomb of Sophocles. This statue holds in its hands a mask, representing a woman's face of perfect beauty. "Whose face is that?" asks a passer-by. "The face of Antigone," is the answer; "or, if you prefer it, that of Electra. You can make your choice, for both are masterpieces."
END OF SOPHOCLES.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
* ↑ Hamlet, act iii. sc. 3.
* ↑ Mr Jebb quotes Clark's Peloponnesus (p. 72), with reference to the famous historic localities which Sophocles has thus brought together in one picture, irrespectively of distance, and which Clark compares with a stage direction in Victor Hugo's play of 'Marie Tudor.' "Palais de Richmond: dans le fond à gauche l'Eglise de Westminster, à droite la Tour de Londres."—Jebb's Electra, p. 3.
* ↑ Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.
* ↑ Iliad, ix. 145 (Pope).
* ↑ Jebb's Ajax, p. 34, note.
* ↑ Chénier's Electre, act i. sc. 3. (Quoted by M. Patin.)
* ↑ Homer gives us the history of this sceptre:— "His royal staff, the work of Vulcan's art, Which Vulcan to the son of Saturn gave, To Hermes he, the heavenly messenger; Hermes to Pelops, matchless charioteer; Pelops to Atreus; Atreus at his death Bequeathed it to Thyestes, wealthy lord Of num'rous herds; to Agamemnon last Thyestes left it—token of his sway O'er all the Argive coast and neighbouring isles." —Iliad, ii. 100 (Lord Derby).
* ↑ Myrtilus was the charioteer of Œnomaus, and was bribed by Pelops to take out the linch-pins from his master's chariot. Pelops won the race, but, unwilling to give him his reward, threw him from Cape Geræstus.
* ↑ An anecdote is told of the great actor Polus, that once, when playing the part of Electra (for no woman ever appeared on the Athenian stage), he embraced an urn containing the real ashes of a much-loved son who had lately died, and, affected by uncontrollable emotion, burst into genuine tears, and uttered a cry of sorrow which deeply moved the sympathies of the audience.
* ↑ Aristotle (Poet, xi. 30) calls recognition by signs "most inartistic."
* ↑ From the 'Electre' of M. Léon Halévy, acted on the stage at Paris in 1863 and 1865.
* ↑ Lord Lytton's Athens, ii. 568.