Electra (Euripides)

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Electra (Euripides)

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' Electra was probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely after 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
' version

Electra (Sophocles)

Electra or Elektra is a Ancient Greece tragedy Play by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career....
of the Electra

Electra

In Greek mythology, Electra was an Argosian princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and was a sibling to sisters Iphigeneia, Chrysothemis, and brother Orestes....
story.

Background
Years before, near the start of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
, the Greek

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
general Agamemnon

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos....
sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia

Iphigeneia

Iphigenia is a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. In Attic accounts, Iphigenia is sometimes called a daughter of Theseus and Helen raised by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra....
in order to appease the goddess Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
and allow the Greek army to set sail for Troy

Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
. His wife Clytemnestra never forgave him, and when he returned from the war ten years later, she and her lover Aegisthus

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of his daughter, Pelopia.Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenae throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus....
murdered Agamemnon.

Their daughter Electra was married off to a farmer, amidst fears that if she remained in the royal household and wed a nobleman, their children would be more likely to try to avenge Agamemnon's death.

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Background

Years before, near the start of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
, the Greek

Ancient Greece

Agamemnon

Iphigeneia

Artemis

Troy

Aegisthus

Virginity

A Virgin is, originally, a woman who has never had sexual intercourse. Virginity is the state of being a virgin. The term has traditionally also been applied to men....
, Electra resents being cast out of her house and her mother's loyalty to Aegisthus

Aegisthus

Phocis

Phocis is an ancient district and a modern Prefectures of Greece of Greece, located in Central Greece, stretching from the western mountainsides of Mount Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth....
, where he became friends with the king's son Pylades

Pylades

In Greek mythology, Pylades is the son of King Strophius of Phocis and is mostly known for his strong friendship or homosexual relationship with Orestes ....
.

Plot

Now grown, Orestes

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , an Classical Athens tragedy from 408 BCE by Euripides...
and his companion Pylades

Pylades

In Greek mythology, Pylades is the son of King Strophius of Phocis and is mostly known for his strong friendship or homosexual relationship with Orestes ....
travel to Argos

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, hoping for revenge, and end up at the house of Electra and her husband. They have concealed their identities in order to get information, claiming that they are messengers from Orestes, but the aged servant who smuggled Orestes off to Phocis years before recognizes him by a scar, and the siblings are reunited. Electra is eager to help her brother in bringing down Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and they conspire together.

While the old servant goes to lure Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greece kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon—said by Euripides to be her second husband—and his concubine Cassandra....
to Electra's house by telling her that her daughter has had a baby, Orestes sets off and kills Aegisthus and returns with the body. His resolve begins to waver at the prospect of matricide but Electra coaxes him into going through with it. When Clytemnestra arrives, he and Electra kill her by pushing a sword down her throat (which is only recounted and not shown), leaving both feeling oppressive guilt. At the end, Clytemnestra's deified brothers Castor

Castor

Castor or CASTOR may refer to:...
and Polydeuces

Polydeuces

Polydeuces may refer to:*Polydeuces , a moon of Saturn*An alternative name for the Greek mythological hero Castor and Pollux...
(often called the Dioscuri) appear. They tell Electra

Electra

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , an Classical Athens tragedy from 408 BCE by Euripides...
that their mother received just punishment but that their matricide was still a shameful act, and they instruct the siblings on what they must do to atone and purge their souls of the crime.

Aeschylean parody and Homeric allusion

The enduring popularity of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
' Oresteia trilogy (produced in 458 BC) is evident in Euripides' construction of the recognition scene between Orestes and Electra. In The Libation Bearers (whose plot is roughly equivalent to the events in the Electra), Electra recognizes her brother by a series of tokens: a lock of his hair, a footprint he leaves at Agamemnon's grave, and an article of clothing she had made for him years earlier. Euripides' own recognition scene clearly parodies Aeschylus' account. In Euripides' play (510ff.), Electra laughs at the idea of using such tokens to recognize her brother because: there is no reason their hair should match; Orestes' footprint would in no way resemble her smaller footprint; and it would be illogical

Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
for a grown Orestes to still have a piece of clothing made for him when he was a small child.

Orestes is instead recognized from a scar he received on the forehead while chasing a doe in the house as a child (571-74). This is a mock-heroic allusion to a scene from Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
. In Odyssey 19.428-54, the nurse Eurycleia recognizes a newly returned Odysseus from a scar on his thigh that he received as a child while on his first boar hunt. In the Odyssey, Orestes' return to Argos and taking revenge for his father's death is held up several times as a model for Telemachus' behavior (see Telemachy
Telemachy

The Telemachy is a term traditionally applied to the first four books of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. They are named so because -- just as the Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus -- they tell the story of Odysseus' son Telemachus as he journeys from home for the first time in search of news about his missing father....
). Euripides in turn uses his recognition scene to allude to the one in Odyssey 19. Instead of an epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation....
heroic boar hunt, Euripides instead invents a semi-comic incident involving a fawn.

Translations

Edward P. Coleridge, 1891 - prose:
Gilbert Murray
Gilbert Murray

George Gilbert Aim? Murray was a United Kingdom classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century....
, 1911 - verse
Aurthur S. Way, 1912 - verse
Emily Townsend Vermeule, 1958 - verse
J. Davie, 1998
J. Morwood, 1998
G.Theodoridis, "Elektra", 2006 - Full Text, prose: