Chorus
Pour forth your tears, splashing as they fall for our fallen lord, to accompany this protection against evil, this charm for the good against the loathsome pollution. Hear me, oh hear me, my honored lord, out of the darkness of your spirit. Woe, woe, woe! Oh for a man mighty with the spear to deliver our house, an Ares, brandishing in the fight the springing Scythian bow and wielding his hilted sword in close combat.
Electra My father has by now received the libations, which the earth has drunk. But take your share of this startling news.
Chorus Speak—but my heart is dancing with fear.
Electra I see here a lock cut as an offering for the tomb.
Chorus A man’s, or a deep-girt maid’s?
Electra That is open to conjecture—anyone may guess.
Chorus How then? Let my age be taught by your youth.
Electra There is no one who could have cut it but myself.
Chorus Yes, for those who ought to have mourned with a lock of hair are enemies.
Electra And further, in appearance it is very much like—
Chorus Whose lock? This is what I would like to know.
Electra It is very much like my own in appearance.
Chorus Then can this be a secret offering from Orestes?
Electra It is his curling locks that it most resembles.
Chorus But how did he dare to come here?
Electra He has merely sent this cut lock to honor his father.
Chorus What you say is no less a cause of tears for me, if he will never again set foot on this land.
Electra Over my heart, too, there sweeps a surge of bitterness, and I am struck as if a sword had run me through. From my eyes thirsty drops of a stormy flood fall unchecked at the sight of this tress. For how can I expect to find that someone else, some townsman, owns this lock? Nor yet in truth did she clip it from her head, the murderess, my own mother, who has assumed a godless spirit regarding her children that ill accords with the name of mother. But as for me, how am I to assent to this outright, that it adorned the head of Orestes, the dearest to me of all mortals? No, hope is merely flattering me. Ah, woe! If only, like a messenger, it had a kind voice, so that I would not be tossed by my distracted thoughts. Rather it would plainly bid me to spurn this tress, if it was severed from a hated head. Or if it were a kinsman’s, he would share my grief as an adornment to this tomb and a tribute to my father. But I invoke the gods, who know by what storms we are tossed like seafarers. Yet if I am fated to reach safety, a great stock may come from a little seed. And look! Another proof! Footprints matching each other—and like my own! Yes, here are the outlines of two sets of feet, his own and some companion’s. The heels and the imprints of the tendons agree in proportion with my own tracks. I am in torment, my brain is in a whirl!
Orestes Give recognition to the gods that your prayers have been fulfilled, and pray that success may attend you in the future.
Electra What? Have I succeeded now by the will of the gods?
Orestes You have come to the sight of what you have long prayed for.
Electra And do you know whom among mortals I was invoking?
Orestes I know that you are pining for Orestes.
Electra Then how have I found an answer to my prayers?
Orestes Here I am. Search for no other friend than me.
Electra But surely, stranger, you are weaving some snare about me?
Orestes Then I am devising plots against myself.
Electra No, you wish to mock my distress.
Orestes Then my own also, if yours.
Electra Am I then to address you as Orestes in truth?
Orestes Now, even though you see him in me, you are slow to learn. Yet at the sight of this tress cut in mourning, and when you were scrutinizing the footprints of my tracks, your thought took wings and you knew you had found me. Put the lock of hair, your own brother’s, in the spot it was cut from and observe how it matches the hair on my head. And see this piece of weaving, your handiwork, the strokes of the batten and the beasts in the design. Control yourself! Do not go mad with joy! For I know that our nearest kin are bitter foes to us both.
Electra O best beloved darling of your father’s house, its hope of a saving seed longed for with tears, trust in your prowess and you will win back your father’s house. O delightful eyes that have four parts of love for me: for I must call you father; and to you falls the love I should bear my mother, whom I most rightly hate; and the love I bore my sister, victim of a pitiless sacrifice; and you were my faithful brother, bringing me your reverence. May Might and Justice, with Zeus, supreme over all, in the third place, lend you their aid!
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