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,"[1] 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."[2] 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.
