The Nexus Archive
Greek Tragedy · Play
Electra
by Sophocles · The Judge of Fate · Classical Athens, 496-406 BCE
Electra's unrelenting mourning drives Sophocles' tragedy of vengeance, recognition, justice, and moral narrowing.
- Advanced
- ~55 min read
- 2 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the ELECTRA — Part 1 guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
Mourning That Will Not End
Years after Agamemnon's murder, Electra remains outside the palace turning grief into public accusation. Her refusal to accommodate power preserves the crime's memory, but it also narrows the world until revenge appears as the only possible future.
Her mother Clytemnestra rules with Aegisthus, who helped kill Agamemnon. Electra's sister Chrysothemis fears the rulers' power and urges her to yield. Their brother Orestes returns with a plan that depends on convincing the household he is dead.
Spoken confrontations alternate with choral songs of sympathy and warning. Sophocles gives Electra extraordinary force, then leaves the audience to ask whether vengeance handed down through a family can end in anything but another killing.
The opening pages
The Persons
An Old Man, formerly one of the retainers of Agamemnon.
ORESTES, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
ELECTRA, sister of Orestes.
CHORUS of Argive Women.
CHRYSOTHEMIS, sister of Orestes and Electra.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
AEGISTHUS.
PYLADES appears with ORESTES, but does not speak.
SCENE. Mycenae: before the palace of the Pelopidae.
Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, had been murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus, who had usurped the Mycenean throne. Orestes, then a child, had been rescued by his sister Electra, and sent into Phocis with the one servant who remained faithful to his old master. The son of Agamemnon now returns, being of a full age, accompanied by this same attendant and his friend Pylades, with whom he has already concerted a plan for taking vengeance on his father’s murderers, in obedience to the command of Apollo.
Orestes had been received in Phocis by Strophius, his father’s friend. Another Phocian prince, named Phanoteus, was a friend of Aegisthus.
ELECTRA — Part 1
ELECTRA
ORESTES and the Old Man—PYLADES is present.
OLD MAN.
Son of the king who led the Achaean host
Erewhile beleaguering Troy, ’tis thine to-day
To see around thee what through many a year
Thy forward spirit hath sighed for. Argolis
Lies here before us, hallowed as the scene
Of Io’s wildering pain: yonder, the mart
Named from the wolf-slaying God, and there, to our left,
Hera’s famed temple. For we reach the bourn
Of far-renowned Mycenae, rich in gold.
And Pelops’ fatal roofs before us rise,
Haunted with many horrors, whence my hand,
Thy murdered sire then lying in his gore,
Received thee from thy sister, and removed
Where I have kept thee safe and nourished thee
To this bright manhood thou dost bear, to be
The avenger of thy father’s bloody death.
Wherefore, Orestes, and thou, Pylades,
Dearest of friends, though from a foreign soil,
Prepare your enterprise with speed. Dark night
Is vanished with her stars, and day’s bright orb
Hath waked the birds of morn into full song.
Now, then, ere foot of man go forth, ye two
Knit counsels. ’Tis no time for shy delay:
The very moment for your act is come.
OR.
Kind faithful friend, how well thou mak’st appear
Thy constancy in service to our house!
As some good steed, aged, but nobly bred,
Slacks not his spirit in the day of war,
But points his ears to the fray, even so dost thou
Chapter guides · 2
ELECTRA — Part 1
Orestes's False Death Reaches the Palace
Orestes sends the Old Man to the palace with a false report of his death. Before the lie reaches her, Electra defends her mourning against Chrysothemis's caution and Clytemnestra's claim that Agamemnon's murder was just.
Orestes builds the story
At Mycenae, Orestes tells the Old Man to speak as Phanoteus's messenger and swear that Orestes died in a Pythian chariot race. Orestes plans to visit Agamemnon's tomb, then return with a bronze urn presented as the vessel holding his ashes.
Mourning against obedience
Electra refuses to moderate her grief. She rejects Chrysothemis's obedience to stronger rulers, tells her to discard Clytemnestra's offerings, and gives Chrysothemis a lock of her own hair to accompany a prayer for Orestes. She also disputes her mother's claim that Agamemnon's killing was just revenge for Iphigenia.
The report reaches Electra
The Old Man announces Orestes's death. Electra says the news has ended her life and hope, while Clytemnestra asks for the manner of his death. The Old Man claims that Orestes struck the turning stone, fell into the reins and was dragged, and that the Phocians are bringing his ashes home in a bronze urn.
ELECTRA — Part 2
An Urn for a Living Man
Clytemnestra welcomes the invented death report, and Electra treats the urn as Orestes's tomb. Orestes tells her to release it, names himself, offers their father's signet as proof, and enters the palace.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read Electra?
- About 55 min in total.
- How difficult is Electra?
- Advanced. A short play; about 55 minutes of reading.
- Which translation is this?
- The Lewis Campbell translation from the Ancient Greek. The text follows Sophocles: The Seven Plays in English Verse, translated by Lewis Campbell, new edition, revised (The World's Classics, Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1906).
- Can I read Electra for free?
- Electra is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 2 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. One opens in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About Sophocles
Sophocles was one of classical Athens' great tragedians. His surviving plays include Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, works that shaped dramatic structure, moral conflict, and the language of tragic recognition.
“What law must a person obey when every choice destroys something sacred?”
Sophocles gives Nexus tragedy at full force: compressed action, terrible knowledge, public conflict, and characters who discover too late what their choices mean.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. Electra is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.