Euripides' Electra

Pity is found not in ill-bred ignorance but only in the wise. (294-5)

The oracles of Loxias are unfailing, though I dismiss the divination of mortal men. (399-400)

I am confident: otherwise we must no longer believe in the gods if injustice is triumphant over justice. (583-4)

Once on a time a tender lamb taken from its mother
in the Argive mountains
(so runs the tale in our age-old legends)
did Pan, warder of the fields,
breathing sweet-voiced music
on well-joined reeds,
bring forth, a lamb with lovely fleece of gold. (699-706)

That is the story men tell, but the credit
it receives from me is but slight,
that the gold-visaged sun should turn,
altering its torrid station
to cause mortals grief
for the punishment of their wrongdoing.
But fearful tales benefit mortals,
making them worship the gods,
the gods you forgot, kinswoman of glorious brothers,
when you murdered your husband. (737-746)

When we were inside the house, he [Aegisthus] said, "Someone quickly bring purifying water for the guests [xenois]so that they may stand around the altar next to the lustral basins." But Orestes said, "We have but recently been cleansed by a pure bath in the running streams of a river. So if it is right for strangers [xenous]to help citizens at a sacrifice, Aegisthus, we are ready and do not refuse, my lord." (790-6)

Regard the gods first, Electra, as the authors of this turn of fate, and thereafter praise me also, the servant of the gods of fate. I arrive having killed Aegisthus, not in word but in deed: and in order to add to your clear knowledge of this, I bring you the dead man himself. You may, if you like, expose him as food for the wild beasts or spit him on a crag as spoil for birds, the children of the air. (890-7)

And among the Argives this was said of you, "The man belongs to his wife, not she to him." Yet it is a disgrace for the woman, rather than the man, to be the head of a house. I loathe any child who derives his name in the city not from his father but from his mother. For when a man marries a wife of greater eminence than himself, no account is taken of the man but only of his wife. (930-37)

The temples of the gods are adorned with Trojan spoils, and I have acquired for my house these slaves, pick of the land of Troy, a small badge of honor but a fine one, to replace the daughter I lost. (1000-10003)

The treatment she received was just, but the act that you did was not. And Phoebus, Phoebus - but no, since he is my lord I hold my peace. Still, wise god though he is, his oracle to you was not wise. (1244-6)

For Helen has left Egypt and the house of Proteus behind and come home. She never went to Troy. Rather, in order to cause strife and the slaying of mortals, Zeus sent an image of Helen to Troy. (1280-1283)

Select Bibliography:
*W. Geoffrey Arnott, 'Double the Vision: A Reading of Euripides' Electra,' Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1981) 179-192.*

D. J. Conacher, 'Tiptoeing through the Corpses: Euripides' Electra, Apollonius, and the Bouphonia,' Greek, Roman and Byzantime Studies, Vol. 31 (1990) 255-80.

Judith Fletcher, 'Women and Oaths in Euripides,' Theatre Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Ancient Theatre (Mar., 2003) 29-44.

David Kovacs, 'Castor in Euripides' Electra (El. 307-13 and 1292-1307),' The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2 (1985) 306-314.

*Masaaki Kubo, 'The Norm of Myth: Euripides' Electra,' Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 71. (1967), pp. 15-31.*

Michael Lloyd, 'Realism and Character in Euripides' Electra,' Phoenix, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring, 1986) 1-19.

Emily A. McDermott, 'Double Meaning and Mythic Novelty in Euripides' Plays,' Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 121, (1991), 123-132.

Gilbert Murray, Euripides and his Age, Oxford: OUP, 1946.

Michael J. O'Brien, 'Orestes and the Gorgon: Euripides' Electra,' The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan., 1964) 13-39.

David Raeburn, 'The Significance of Stage Properties in Euripides' Electra,' Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 47, No. 2 (Oct., 2000) 149-168.

*Vincent J. Rosivach, 'The "Golden Lamb" Ode in Euripides' Electra,' Classical Philology, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), 189-199.*

Froma I. Zeitlin, 'The Argive Festival of Hera and Euripides' Electra,' Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 101, (1970) 645-669.

*Articles mentioned in class*