Electra

“ By and by he would remember Electra, how dignified she was, how irreproachable, in the moments when her virtues did not get the bit between their teeth and dash away with her; but now, under this abounding summer sun, with the leaves trembling, she withdrew into a gray seclusion like an almost forgotten task—one that had resolved itself into a beneficent fulfillment quite unlike what it had promised. ”

“ Girt with thine own dead armies, wake, O wake!
Electra.
With all that died at I lion for thy sake . . .
Old Man.
⁠And hate earth's dark defilers; help us now!
Electra.
Dost hear us yet, O thou in deadly wrong,
Wronged by my mother?
Old Man.
⁠Child, we stay too long.
He hears; be sure he hears!
Electra.
⁠And while he hears,
I speak this word for omen in his ears:
"Aegisthus dies, Aegisthus dies." . . . Ah me,
My brother, should it strike not him, but thee,
This wrestling with dark death, behold, I too
Am dead that hour. Think of me as one true,
Not one that lives. ”

“ Far off; there might be pity for thy son?
Clytemnestra.
I dare not! . . . Yes, I fear him. 'Tis mine own
Life, and not his, comes first. And rumour saith
His heart yet burneth for his father's death.
Electra.
Why dost thou keep thine husband ever hot
Against me?
Clytemnestra.
⁠'Tis his mood. And thou art not
So gentle, child!
Electra.
⁠My spirit is too sore!
Howbeit, from this day I will no more
Hate him.
Clytemnestra (with a flash of hope) .
⁠O daughter!—Then, indeed, shall he,
I promise, never more be harsh to thee!
Electra. ”

“ Electra placed it on the easel once more, and stood before it in rapt contemplation. Coldness, silence, neglect, all were forgotten when she looked into the deep, beautiful eyes, and upon the broad, bold, matchless brow.
She had not the faintest hope that he would ever cherish a tenderer feeling for her; but love is a plant of strange growth. A curious plant, truly, and one which will not bear transplanting, as many a luckless experiment has proved. To-day, as Electra looked upon her labours, the coils of Time seemed to fall away ”

“ The Electra.—The same leading characters appear in the Electra, or matricide of Orestes to avenge his father's death, a play intended as a critique of the corresponding Choephoræ of Æschylus, and perhaps of the Electra of Sophocles. For the expedients of the conspirators to entice Clytemnestra and her paramour Ægisthus within their power are all carefully altered; Electra is relegated to an obscure cottage, where she lives the pretended wife of an honest farmer, or the same type as the country-speaker in the Orestes ”

“ The walks were deserted, save where a hurrying form crossed from street to street, homeward bound; and Electra passed slowly along, absorbed in thoughts colder than the frosting that gathered on shawl and bonnet. The face and figure of the painter glided spectrally before her at every step, and a mighty temptation followed at its heels. Why not strangle her heart? Why not marry him and bear his name, if, thereby, she could make his few remaining months of existence happy, and, by accompanying him South, prolong his life even for a few weeks? ”

“ What wouldst thou? Speak; the old fear nevermore
Need touch thee.
Electra.
⁠To let loose upon the dead
My hate! Perchance to rouse on mine own head
The sleeping hate of the world?
Orestes.
⁠No man that lives
Shall scathe thee by one word.
Electra.
⁠Our city gives
Quick blame; and little love have men for me.
Orestes.
If aught thou hast unsaid, sister, be free
And speak. ”

“ He showed to thee, but darkness! Which do thou
Endure, as man must, chafing not. And now
Fare forth where Zeus and Fate have laid thy life.
⁠The maid Electra thou shalt give for wife
To Pylades; then turn thy head and flee
From Argos' land. 'Tis never more for thee
To tread this earth where thy dead mother lies.
Andy lo, in the air her Spirits, bloodhound eyes,
Most horrible yet Godlike, hard at heel
Following shall scourge thee as a burning wheel,
Speed-maddened. ”

“ Electra.
God love thee for the sweetness of thy word!
Orestes.
God love the twain of us, both thee and me.
Electra.
He lives! Poor brother! In what land weareth he
His exile?
Orestes.
⁠Not one region nor one lot
His wasted life hath trod.
Electra.
⁠He lacketh not
For bread?
Orestes.
⁠Bread hath he; but a man is weak
In exile.
Electra.
⁠What charge laid he on thee? Speak.
Orestes.
To learn if thou still live, and how the storm,
Living, hath struck thee.
Electra.
⁠That thou seest; this form
Wasted . . .
Orestes. ”

“ It was late at night when Electra retired to her room, and sat down to collect her thoughts after the unexpected occurrences of the day.
More than one discovery had been made since the sunrise, which she awoke so early to study. She had found relatives, and an opportunity of living luxuriously; but, in the midst of this beautiful bouquet of surprises, a serpent's head peered out at her. Mr. Clifton loved her; not as a teacher his pupil, not as guardian loves ward, not as parent loves child. ”

“ Straight yonder, where Aegisthus makes his prayer!
Electra.
Then seek my mother's presence, and declare
My news.
Old Man.
⁠Thy very words, child, as tho' spoke
From thine own lips!
Electra.
⁠Brother, thine hour is struck.
Thou standest in the van of war this day.
Orestes (rousing hirmelf) .
Aye, I am ready. . . . I will go my way,
If but some man will guide me.
Old Man.
⁠Here am I,
To speed thee to the end, right thankfully.
Orestes (turning as he goes and raising his hands to heaven) .
Zeus of my sires, Zeus of the lost battle,
Electra. ”

“ Intuitively I divined that Electra must be the steam fire-engine. Big, brawny Antaeus was in love! The ludicrousness of the notion did not strike me then as it did afterward. On the contrary, it seemed to be one of the most natural things imaginable.
“Yes,” he said, in response to my thoughts, “I am passionately enamored of her. I desire unutterably to gain her friendship, her esteem, her love—even though she may scorn me. I realize that her station in life is far above mine. ”

“ It all made Electra feel very much alone. Perhaps she had gone to the piano in a tacit emulation of the mastery Rose had shown, to see if, by a happy miracle, she also could bring to birth some of those magical things she never knew she felt until she heard others expressing them. But when she struck a chord, it was no richer and no more responsive than she remembered it in her old practicing days. Then she tried singing a little:—
"'Drink to me only with thine eyes.'"
And all the time she was recalling the liquid flow of another voice, its restrained fervor and dying falls. ”

“ Electra.
Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
Orestes.
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
Electra.
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call?
Orestes.
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
Electra.
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
Orestes.
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
Electra.
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
Orestes.
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
Electra.
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!
Orestes.
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
Electra. ”

“ Thinkest thou not with me, Electra?”
Scarcely could Electra reply to so much. But Deucalion spoke for her. “Hellen, leave that which may happen in the coming years to itself. Come back to the present. There art thou on safe ground. There can Electra answer thee. And that she may answer, I will leave you together, while I go to tell those above.”
“That is it, Father. After some little time, will we follow thee.”
281“Take thy time—take thy time. Life is too short to be in a hurry.” ”

“ Orestes.
⁠Thy mother stays
Unmoved 'mid all thy wrong?
Electra.
⁠A lover weighs
More than a child in any woman's heart.
Orestes.
But what end seeks Aegisthus, by such art
Of shame?
Electra.
⁠To make mine unborn children low
And weak, even as my husband.
Orestes.
⁠Lest there grow
From thee the avenger?
Electra.
⁠Such his purpose is:
For which may I requite him!
Orestes.
⁠And of this
Thy virgin life—Aegisthus knows it?
Electra.
⁠Nay,
We speak it not. It cometh not his way.
Orestes.
These women hear us. Are they friends to thee?
Electra. ”

“ Electra, informing her of the fatal news, proposes that they, women as they are, shall attempt the terrible revenge which their brother can no longer execute. When Chrysothemis recoils and refuses, Electra still nurses the fell design. The poet has more than once, and now again with judgment, made us sensible of the mature years of Electra 364; she is no passionate, wavering, and inexperienced girl, but the eldest born of the house ”

“ How?—hath ruth seized thee, seeing thy mother's form?
Orestes.
Woe!
How can I slay her—her that nursed, that bare me?
Electra.
Even as she thy father slew and mine. 970
Orestes.
O Phœbus, folly exceeding was thine hest—
Electra.
Nay, where Apollo erreth, who is wise?
Orestes.
Who against nature bad'st me slay my mother!
Electra.
How art thou harmed, avenging thine own sire?
Orestes.
Arraigned for a mother's murder—pure ere this! 975
Electra.
Yet impious, if thou succour not thy sire.
Orestes.
My mother for her blood must I requite. [32]
Electra. ”

“ Now, more than heretofore, Electra, glows
Mine heart with joy. Thy fortune now, though late
Advancing, haply shall be stablished fair.
Electra.
Poor man, thou know'st thine house's poverty.
Wherefore receive these guests too great for thee? 405
Peasant.
How?—an they be of high birth, as they seem,
Will they content them not with little or much?
Electra.
Since then thou so hast erred, and thou so poor,
Go to the ancient fosterer of my sire,
Who on the banks of Tanaüs, which parts 410
The Argive marches from the Spartan land,
An outcast from our city, tends his flocks. ”

“ Of the friends of Argos whom
Durst I have sought, to aid me to the doom
I craved?—Speak if thou wouldst, and fear not me,
If yet thou deemst him slain unrighteously.
Leader.
Thy words be just, yet shame their justice brings;
A woman true of heart should bear all things
From him she loves. And she who feels it not,
I cannot reason of her, nor speak aught.
Electra.
Remember, mother, thy last word of grace,
Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face.
Clytemnestra. ”

“ It is interesting, though not surprising, to hear that men had little love for Electra. The wonderful speech that follows, though to a conventional Greek perhaps the most outrageous thing of which she is guilty, shows best the inherent nobility of her character before years of misery had "killed her soul within." ”

“ Electra comes forth before it is yet daybreak bearing upon her head, which is close shorn in servile fashion, a pitcher to fetch water: her husband entreats her not to trouble herself with such unaccustomed labours, but she will not be withheld from the discharge of her household duties ”

“ So if it finds something that seems good—well, Electra, you're off on your fool's errand. Don't you deny other folks the comfort of theirs."
"I don't understand you, grandmother."
"No, of course you don't. But you will. Once I shouldn't have cared whether you did or not, but I've taken a kind of a liking to you. I told you I should when you turned human and made a fool of yourself like the rest of us. And now you're going out into the wilderness, to found a city or something of that sort."
"I am going to help the Brotherhood," said Electra, with punctilious truth. ”

“ Electra's love of drawing had early displayed itself; first, in strange, weird figures on her slate, then in her copy-book, on every slip of paper which she could lay her hands upon; and, finally, for want of more suitable material, she scrawled all over the walls of the little bedroom, to the great horror of her aunt, who spread a coat of whitewash over the child's frescos, and begged her to be guilty of no such conduct in future, as Mr. Clark might, with great justice, sue for damages. ”

“ Electra.
⁠What chance gave,
My father had, cast out to rot in the sun.
Orestes.
God, 'tis too much! . . . To hear of such things done
Even to a stranger, stings a man. . . . But speak,
Tell of thy life, that I may know, and seek
Thy brother with a tale that must be heard
Howe'er it sicken. If mine eyes be blurred,
Remember, 'tis the fool that feels not. Aye,
Wisdom is full of pity; and thereby
Men pay for too much wisdom with much pain.
Leader.
My heart is moved as this man's. I would fain
Learn all thy tale. Here dwelling on the hills
Little I know of Argos and its ills. ”

“ So, indeed, is the tragedy of The Trojan Women; but on very different lines. The Electra has none of the imaginative splendour, the vastness, the intense poetry, of that wonderful work. It is a close-knit, powerful, well-constructed play, as realistic as the tragic conventions will allow, intellectual and rebellious. Its psychology reminds one of Browning, or even of Ibsen.
To a fifth-century Greek all history came in the form of legend ”

“ In murder-bond the while is dwelling!
Chorus.
Of many an ill to Hellas and thine house
Was Helen, sister of thy mother, cause.
Orestes and Pylades approach.
Electra.
Woe's me, friends!—needs must I break off my moan! 215
Lo, yonder strangers ambushed nigh the house
Out of their hiding-place are rising up!
With flying feet—thou down the path, and I
Into the house,—flee we from evil men!
Orestes (intercepting her) .
Tarry, thou hapless one: fear not mine hand. 220
Electra. ”