From the Pound / Fleming Sophocles: Electra mourns over the ashes of the brother she believes to be dead

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[Electra mourns over the ashes of the brother she believes to be dead]

          Elektra's Keening

All that is left me

my hope was Orestes

dust is returned me

in my hands nothing, dust that is all of him, 

flower that went forth

  

would I had died then

ere stealing thee from the slaughter 

died both together 

lain with our father

Far from thy homeland

died far in exile

no hand was near thee

to soothe thy passing,

corpse unanointed 

fire consumed thee, 

all now is nothing, 

strangers have brought thee

small in this urn here

Sorrow upon me

fruitless my caring

I as mother and sister both 

thy nurse also ere thou hadst thy growth 

this was my past 

and swept away with thee

ever to me

this summons came. 

all in a day 

and is no more. 

Dead Agamemnon, dead now my brother

I am dead also, the great wind in passing  

bears us together. 

Mirth for our foemen.

[anger now stronger than grief, for a moment: SPOKEN]

And that bitch of a mother is laughing
and they haven't sent back even the shape of him

but a ghost that cant do its job.

Ajnn.    aihn.

[SINGS]

thou the avenger, no more avenging

born to misfortune, ashes avail not

shadows avail not

ahi,    ahi,

bodiless

brother that art not.

[SPOKEN]

The spirits love me no longer.

you kept sending messages

secretly, you would take vengeance.

[SINGS]

thy death, my dying

dred road thou goest

brother, my slayer

as ever above earth

let death divide not
 
[singing to the urn]

Oimoi     Oimoi

take me in with you

I now am nothing, make place beside thee

naught into naught, zero to zero

to enter beside thee

or fortune equal

death endeth pain.

Sophocles (c. 496 BC - 406/405 BC):  Electra (c. 410 BC) 1126 - 1170, translation by Ezra Pound and Rudd Fleming: Elektra: A Version (1949), 1989

Ἠλέκτρα
ὦ φιλτάτου μνημεῖον ἀνθρώπων ἐμοὶ
ψυχῆς Ὀρέστου λοιπόν, ὥς σ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἐλπίδων
οὐχ ὧνπερ ἐξέπεμπον εἰσεδεξάμην.
νῦν μὲν γὰρ οὐδὲν ὄντα βαστάζω χεροῖν,
δόμων δέ σ᾽, ὦ παῖ, λαμπρὸν ἐξέπεμψ᾽ ἐγώ.
ὡς ὤφελον πάροιθεν ἐκλιπεῖν βίον,
πρὶν ἐς ξένην σε γαῖαν ἐκπέμψαι χεροῖν
κλέψασα ταῖνδε κἀνασώσασθαι φόνου,
ὅπως θανὼν ἔκεισο τῇ τόθ᾽ ἡμέρᾳ,
τύμβου πατρῴου κοινὸν εἰληχὼς μέρος.
νῦν δ᾽ ἐκτὸς οἴκων κἀπὶ γῆς ἄλλης φυγὰς
κακῶς ἀπώλου, σῆς κασιγνήτης δίχα,
κοὔτ᾽ ἐν φίλαισι χερσὶν ἡ τάλαιν᾽ ἐγὼ
λουτροῖς σ᾽ ἐκόσμησ᾽ οὔτε παμφλέκτου πυρὸς
ἀνειλόμην, ὡς εἰκός, ἄθλιον βάρος,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ξέναισι χερσὶ κηδευθεὶς τάλας
σμικρὸς προσήκεις ὄγκος ἐν σμικρῷ κύτει.
οἴμοι τάλαινα τῆς ἐμῆς πάλαι τροφῆς
ἀνωφελήτου, τὴν ἐγὼ θάμ᾽ ἀμφὶ σοὶ
πόνῳ γλυκεῖ παρέσχον: οὔτε γάρ ποτε
μητρὸς σύ γ᾽ ἦσθα μᾶλλον ἢ κἀμοῦ φίλος,
οὔθ᾽ οἱ κατ᾽ οἶκον ἦσαν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ τροφός,
ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἀδελφὴ σοὶ προσηυδώμην ἀεί.
νῦν δ᾽ ἐκλέλοιπε ταῦτ᾽ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ μιᾷ
θανόντι σὺν σοί: πάντα γὰρ συναρπάσας
θύελλ᾽ ὅπως βέβηκας. οἴχεται πατήρ:
τέθνηκ᾽ ἐγὼ σοί: φροῦδος αὐτὸς εἶ θανών:
γελῶσι δ᾽ ἐχθροί: μαίνεται δ᾽ ὑφ᾽ ἡδονῆς
μήτηρ ἀμήτωρ, ἧς ἐμοὶ σὺ πολλάκις
φήμας λάθρᾳ προύπεμπες ὡς φανούμενος
τιμωρὸς αὐτός. ἀλλὰ ταῦθ᾽ ὁ δυστυχὴς
δαίμων ὁ σός τε κἀμὸς ἐξαφείλετο,
ὅς σ᾽ ὧδέ μοι προύπεμψεν ἀντὶ φιλτάτης
μορφῆς σποδόν τε καὶ σκιὰν ἀνωφελῆ.

οἴμοι μοι.
ὦ δέμας οἰκτρόν. φεῦ φεῦ.
ὦ δεινοτάτας, οἴμοι μοι,
πεμφθεὶς κελεύθους, φίλταθ᾽, ὥς μ᾽ ἀπώλεσας:
ἀπώλεσας δῆτ᾽, ὦ κασίγνητον κάρα.
τοιγὰρ σὺ δέξαι μ᾽ ἐς τὸ σὸν τόδε στέγος,
τὴν μηδὲν εἰς τὸ μηδέν, ὡς σὺν σοὶ κάτω
ναίω τὸ λοιπόν: καὶ γὰρ ἡνίκ᾽ ἦσθ᾽ ἄνω,
ξὺν σοὶ μετεῖχον τῶν ἴσων, καὶ νῦν ποθῶ
τοῦ σοῦ θανοῦσα μὴ ἀπολείπεσθαι τάφου.
τοὺς γὰρ θανόντας οὐχ ὁρῶ λυπουμένους.

The urn is placed in ELECTRA'S hands.

ELECTRA

Ah, memorial of him whom I loved best on earth! Ah, Orestes, whose life hath no relic left save this,-- how far from the hopes with which I sent thee forth is the manner in which I receive thee back! Now I carry thy poor dust in my hands; but thou wert radiant, my child, when I sped the forth from home! Would that I had yielded up my breath, ere, with these hands, I stole thee away, and sent thee to a strange land, and rescued the from death; that so thou mightest have been stricken down on that self-same day, and had thy portion in the tomb of thy sire!

But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished miserably, far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in a narrow urn.

Ah, woe is me for my nursing long ago, so vain, that I oft bestowed on thee with loving toil I For thou wast never thy mother's darling so much as mine; nor was any in the house thy nurse but I; and by thee I was ever called 'sister.' But now all this hath vanished in a day, with thy death; like a whirlwind, thou hast swept all away with thee. Our father is gone; I am dead in regard to thee; thou thyself hast perished: our foes exult; that mother, who is none, is mad with joy,- she of whom thou didst oft send me secret messages, thy heralds, saying that thou thyself wouldst appear as an avenger. But our evil fortune. thine and mine, hath reft all that away, and hath sent thee forth unto me thus,- no more the form that I loved so well, but ashes and an idle shade.

Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a dire journey, how hast undone me,-- undone me indeed, O brother mine!

Therefore take me to this thy home, me who am as nothing, to thy nothingness, that I may dwell with thee henceforth below; for when thou wert on earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that I may not be parted from thee in the grave. For I see that the dead have rest from pain.

Sophocles. Electra 1126-1190 trans. R.C. Jebb 

 

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