hate and love, alike unsatisfied--hate against her mother and stepfather,
love for her dead father and her brother in exile; a woman who has known
luxury and state, and cares much for them; who is intolerant of poverty,
and who feels her youth passing away. And meantime there is her name, on
which all legend, if I am not mistaken, insists; she is _A-lektra_, "the
Unmated."

There is, perhaps, no woman's character in the range of Greek tragedy so
profoundly studied. Not Aeschylus' Clytemnestra, not Phaedra nor Medea.
One's thoughts can only wander towards two great heroines of "lost" plays,
Althaea in the _Meleager_, and Stheneboea in the _Bellerophon_.

G.M.

[Footnote 1: Most of this introduction is reprinted, by the kind
permission of the Editors, from an article in the _Independent Review_
vol. i. No. 4.]

ELECTRA

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

CLYTEMNESTRA, _Queen of Argos and Mycenae; widow of Agamemnon_.

ELECTRA, _daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra_.

ORESTES, _son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, now in banishment_.

A PEASANT, _husband of Electra_.

AN OLD MAN, _formerly servant to Agamemnon_.

PYLADES, _son of Strophios, King of Phocis; friend to Orestes_.

AEGISTHUS, _usurping King of Argos and Mycenae, now husband of
Clytemnestra_.

The Heroes CASTOR and POLYDEUCES.

CHORUS of Argive Women, with their LEADER.

FOLLOWERS of ORESTES; HANDMAIDS of CLYTEMNESTRA.

_The Scene is laid in the mountains of Argos. The play was first produced
between the years_ 414 _and_ 412 B.C.

ELECTRA

_The scene represents a hut on a desolate mountain side; the river Inachus
is visible in the distance. The time is the dusk of early dawn, before
sunrise. The_ PEASANT _is discovered in front of the hut_.

PEASANT.

Old gleam on the face of the world, I give thee hail,
River of Argos land, where sail on sail
The long ships met, a thousand, near and far,
When Agamemnon walked the seas in war;
Who smote King Priam in the dust, and burned
The storied streets of Ilion, and returned
Above all conquerors, heaping tower and fane
Of Argos high with spoils of Eastern slain.

So in far lands he prospered; and at home
His own wife trapped and slew him. 'Twas the doom
Aegisthus wrought, son of his father's foe.

Gone is that King, and the old spear laid low
That Tantalus wielded when the world was young.
Aegisthus hath his queen, and reigns among
His people. And the children here alone,
O