![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, in matters less related to clothing, let's get back to Euripides! This is still Electra's introduction. In good Greek tragedy style, she's moving on from a general statement about the themes of the play to introducing all the characters and her location, so that the audience knows who the heck is hanging out on stage--and thus, what story is going to be told--before the chorus gets their all-important singing and dancing entrance from offstage.
Electra cont.
For that reason, wretched Orestes, having fallen here, suffers a brutal illness, wasting away; and he lies in bed. His mother's blood drives him into mad fits; I am in awe of naming the goddesses, the Eumenides, who madden him with fear. And this the sixth day since our mother, dying from the slaughter, has been purified in body by fire; during which days he took no food through his throat, gave no bath to his skin. Whenever he's relieved of the disease, he weeps, huddling in shawls, sane again; other times, he leaps from the bed, dashing about like a colt under the yoke.
And it is decreed here in Argos that no one give us shelter or fire, nor say a thing to us, since we're matricides; and this is the decisive day, on which the city of the Argives will debate its vote: if it is necessary to kill the two of us by stoning, or if they'll sharpen a sword by casting it against our necks.
But we have some hope of not dying, for Menelaus has come into this land from Troy, filling up the harbor at Nauplia with his oars moored at the headland; and for a long time since Troy he has been wandering about. As for mournful Helen, he took care at night, lest anyone of those whose sons lie dead in Ilion, on seeing her walking about during the day, should go after her throwing stones. He sent her ahead into our house; and she is inside, mourning her sister and the misfortunes of the house.
But even suffering she has some consolation; for the daughter whom Menelaus left at home, when he was sailing for Troy, and handed over to my mother to raise, having brought her from Sparta--namely, Hermione--well, Helen delights in the girl, and forgets her troubles.
I am watching all the roads, so I will see when Menelaus has come; meanwhile we hold on with only a feeble power, if we are not saved by that man. A cursed house is a helpless thing.
Electra cont.
For that reason, wretched Orestes, having fallen here, suffers a brutal illness, wasting away; and he lies in bed. His mother's blood drives him into mad fits; I am in awe of naming the goddesses, the Eumenides, who madden him with fear. And this the sixth day since our mother, dying from the slaughter, has been purified in body by fire; during which days he took no food through his throat, gave no bath to his skin. Whenever he's relieved of the disease, he weeps, huddling in shawls, sane again; other times, he leaps from the bed, dashing about like a colt under the yoke.
And it is decreed here in Argos that no one give us shelter or fire, nor say a thing to us, since we're matricides; and this is the decisive day, on which the city of the Argives will debate its vote: if it is necessary to kill the two of us by stoning, or if they'll sharpen a sword by casting it against our necks.
But we have some hope of not dying, for Menelaus has come into this land from Troy, filling up the harbor at Nauplia with his oars moored at the headland; and for a long time since Troy he has been wandering about. As for mournful Helen, he took care at night, lest anyone of those whose sons lie dead in Ilion, on seeing her walking about during the day, should go after her throwing stones. He sent her ahead into our house; and she is inside, mourning her sister and the misfortunes of the house.
But even suffering she has some consolation; for the daughter whom Menelaus left at home, when he was sailing for Troy, and handed over to my mother to raise, having brought her from Sparta--namely, Hermione--well, Helen delights in the girl, and forgets her troubles.
I am watching all the roads, so I will see when Menelaus has come; meanwhile we hold on with only a feeble power, if we are not saved by that man. A cursed house is a helpless thing.