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A review by goosemixtapes
Electra by Sophocles
4.0
aeschylus electra: i am so fucking upset about my dad whom my mother killed. orestes come home and kill her please. after hyping you up i will now dutifully disappear for the rest of the play to act the part of good daughter until my mother is dead
sophocles electra on stage while her brother kills her mother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyIilW_eBjc
things i don't like about this play: that clytemnestra is cartoonishly evil. cmon sophocles put some nuance in that beast. things i like a lot: electra is SO hamlet in this one. she gets to dominate the stage in her grief and near-madness. i mean, come on, tell me "You filthy creature, hated by the gods, // are you the only person in the world // who's lost a father?" is not exactly what claudius says to hamlet in 1.2. she also has her own heroic code!!! she's dead set on gaining glory for herself, by murdering her mother with her own hands if need be. (fascinating to think about how sophocles and euripides are playing with the same things here. this rendition, while not quite as cutting as euripides', feels much more cynical than aeschylus's--i mean, look at orestes' cruelty versus his hesitation in the oresteia, or electra implying they ought to toss aegisthus out for dogs.)
also interesting is the way this play toys with the idea of reciprocal justice, which is, of course, the thing destroying the house of atreus (father kills daughter, mother kills father, son kills mother, and so forth). clytemnestra claims she only speaks harshly to electra because electra lashes out at her first, and though electra condemns her for this, she proceeds to declare that her mother's evil deeds merit evil responses. it's what the chorus says: "in your misery you have won misery." the revenge narrative gets ya
also i think about ismene : antigone :: chrysothemis : electra parallels i do
translations read: sir richard claverhouse jebb, mary lefkowitz
--> unfortunately i did not love either of these translations. the former is in prose and it was written in the 1960s. so it's not even, like, brief and to-the-point prose. the latter is poetry, but it's from a book that tries to translate things as line-for-line as possible, which means sometimes it gets really lifeless (like electra's cries of grief being translated as flat "Oh, no, take pity on me, I've died this day," period, and "I'm dead, poor me, I'm nothing now," period).
notable lines:
"Why are you enamored of misery?" (Jebb)
“ELECTRA (to CLYTEMNESTRA): Denounce me to all as disloyal, if you will, or petulant, or impudent; for if I am accomplished in such ways I think I am no unworthy child of yours.” (Jebb)
“ELECTRA: At these gates I will lay me down, and here, without a friend, my days shall wither.” (Jebb)
“ELECTRA: If I had been alone I should have achieved one of two things, a noble deliverance or a noble death.” (Jebb)
"From your bloody hand drips an offering to Ares." (Lefkowitz, lines 1422-3)
and of course the wicked
“AEGISTHUS: Where then may the strangers be? Tell me.
ELECTRA: Inside. They have found a way to the heart of their hostess.” (Jebb)
as well as, i think, the thing that sums up the whole house of atreus Deal:
"Why, if the deed is good, must it be done in darkness?" (Lefkowitz, 1493-4)
sophocles electra on stage while her brother kills her mother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyIilW_eBjc
things i don't like about this play: that clytemnestra is cartoonishly evil. cmon sophocles put some nuance in that beast. things i like a lot: electra is SO hamlet in this one. she gets to dominate the stage in her grief and near-madness. i mean, come on, tell me "You filthy creature, hated by the gods, // are you the only person in the world // who's lost a father?" is not exactly what claudius says to hamlet in 1.2. she also has her own heroic code!!! she's dead set on gaining glory for herself, by murdering her mother with her own hands if need be. (fascinating to think about how sophocles and euripides are playing with the same things here. this rendition, while not quite as cutting as euripides', feels much more cynical than aeschylus's--i mean, look at orestes' cruelty versus his hesitation in the oresteia, or electra implying they ought to toss aegisthus out for dogs.)
also interesting is the way this play toys with the idea of reciprocal justice, which is, of course, the thing destroying the house of atreus (father kills daughter, mother kills father, son kills mother, and so forth). clytemnestra claims she only speaks harshly to electra because electra lashes out at her first, and though electra condemns her for this, she proceeds to declare that her mother's evil deeds merit evil responses. it's what the chorus says: "in your misery you have won misery." the revenge narrative gets ya
also i think about ismene : antigone :: chrysothemis : electra parallels i do
translations read: sir richard claverhouse jebb, mary lefkowitz
--> unfortunately i did not love either of these translations. the former is in prose and it was written in the 1960s. so it's not even, like, brief and to-the-point prose. the latter is poetry, but it's from a book that tries to translate things as line-for-line as possible, which means sometimes it gets really lifeless (like electra's cries of grief being translated as flat "Oh, no, take pity on me, I've died this day," period, and "I'm dead, poor me, I'm nothing now," period).
notable lines:
"Why are you enamored of misery?" (Jebb)
“ELECTRA (to CLYTEMNESTRA): Denounce me to all as disloyal, if you will, or petulant, or impudent; for if I am accomplished in such ways I think I am no unworthy child of yours.” (Jebb)
“ELECTRA: At these gates I will lay me down, and here, without a friend, my days shall wither.” (Jebb)
“ELECTRA: If I had been alone I should have achieved one of two things, a noble deliverance or a noble death.” (Jebb)
"From your bloody hand drips an offering to Ares." (Lefkowitz, lines 1422-3)
and of course the wicked
“AEGISTHUS: Where then may the strangers be? Tell me.
ELECTRA: Inside. They have found a way to the heart of their hostess.” (Jebb)
as well as, i think, the thing that sums up the whole house of atreus Deal:
"Why, if the deed is good, must it be done in darkness?" (Lefkowitz, 1493-4)