ELECTRA
Fordone with care,
Without a parent’s love or husband’s aid,
An orphaned maid.
Here in the chambers of my sire I wait
In low estate,
Or like a stranger who in beggar’s weeds
On fragments feeds.
Chorus
(Str. 3)
Dire was the voice that greeted first
Thy sire’s return, and dire the cry
That from the banquet-chamber burst,
A wail of agony;
What time the brazen axe’s blow
Struck him and laid him low,
’Twas lust begat and craft conceived the deed,
A monstrous offspring of a monstrous seed,
Whether a god or mortal wrought the woe.
Electra
Dawn, the darkest of all morrows,
Night, the crown of all my sorrows,
When that foul feast for the dead
By those traitors twain was spread,
Who slew my sire—me too
In slaying him they slew.
May the great Olympian King
Send on them like suffering;
Bitter be of sin the fruit;
May they perish branch and root!
Chorus
(Ant. 3)
O curb thy tongue I hast thou no thought
