The Electreia
Lekha Masoudi, Columbia University 2026
Characters
Electra, daughter of Clytaemestra and Agamemnon
Iphigenia, her sister
Clytaemestra, queen of Mycenae
Chorus: Achaian soldiers (Act 1) enslaved women of the palace in Mycenae (Act 2) Chorus sections are to be sung.
Act 1: Iphigenia
Scene: The port of Aulis, where the Achaian forces have gathered to set sail for Troy. Electra stands alone by the altar of Artemis.
Electra:
Soon a marriage shall take place here,
of a beautiful girl and a beautiful man,
surely praised by mortals and graced by gods.
I alone will know the truth of what is to come.
To whom do I compose this prayer,
To Aphrodite, or to Nemesis, my lady of vengeance?
How do I cope with this insult?
The loss of my rightful marriage to the blazing Achilles,
for his face is radiant as the quick-shining sea,
and his name brings our enemies terror, and me honor.
And I know his new bride well, for I taught her
how to weave, and how to sing to the immortals above.
But in my heart I summon no tears, only hot anger.
The disfavored have a bitter lot.
Enter Iphigenia.
Iphigenia:
Hera, if I have ever chanted
at the sacrifice of lambs in your honor,
guide my spirit away from apprehension.
I have prayed to Artemis to preserve my maidenhood
And now I offer it to the son of Peleus.
I wish I were to be married in Mycenae, with the temple girls singing,
And not beside my father’s ships.
He tells me what a great honor I have been given
To marry this man, this son of a goddess.
Electra:
Sister, you the fair and beloved
of our mother, Clytaemnestra,
You clutch my birthright and like the child you are, you refuse to let it go.
The first-born should also be first in marriage
yet our parents disregard this. Do you care about my unhappiness? I am cast aside like a dog.
Enter Chorus from the side.
Chorus Leader:
Aeolus, lord of the winds, grant us passage to Ilion. Let us bring the storm clouds of ruin to the arrogant Alexandros, and make good our assembly here in distant Aulis.
Chorus:
What curse could hold us here,
that makes useless the hollow ships of the Achaians?
Chorus Leader: That of fierce Artemis,
who in her pride slaughtered the girls of Niobe.
Her cursed tears trickled down
lamenting her daughters lost to her own hubris.
And now the goddess demands another maidenly sacrifice in return for the insult done to her by our king.
The son of Atreus is much disturbed. Come, let us see what is to be done to appease the terrible goddess.
Chorus exits.
Iphigenia:
I grow sick of this talk of war.
Electra, you blame me unjustly.
Electra:
Do not speak of injustice to me! For years I remained in the palace
soothing the cries of you and Orestes, I who was
little more than a baby myself.
Iphigenia:
Cilissa nursed me, not you.
Electra:
I do not know the will of the gods in this. Yet may they punish you for your insolence.
Iphigenia:
Your bitterness clouds your judgment. Will you never stop mourning your own fate?
Chorus enters as Iphigenia exits.
Strophe A
What a corrupt age we live in,
where youth falls as carelessly as a flower droops on its stalk, where the inheritance of the children is the error of their parents. In a time of war, things are so.
But to fall upon the young!
To fall upon the tender Iphigenia!
When we return, victorious or defeated,
will there be beauty left in the world, once we have vanquished it with our spears and chariots?
Antistrophe A
It is not his right to hesitate.
If he does not hold the knife, another will,
as we are being slain for his family’s honor. A reciprocal death for the cruelties of fate must not fall on us alone. Comrades,
we must harden our hearts.
The next years will witness
many more lovely victims.
It is fearsome to bow to the gods
but necessary.
Epode
May Artemis accept this shining tribute,
this pale statue with a beating heart,
and forgive the hubris of her father,
most royal, yet like all mortals
feeble before those who dwell on Mount Olympos.
Electra:
I knew the goddess wanted one of us.
I knew before my mother, who for once
believed my father, though she never believes me.
It was whispered on this land,
became vibrations that I felt
as I walked on this earth, murmurs I heard
as I watched Orestes play in my father’s tent.
Artemis longs to string her bow
with the soft hair of a princess.
I quarreled with Iphigenia as a sister does,
concealing what I knew,
that she would take my place in the house of the dead, not in the house of the son of Peleus.
I could have told my sister the truth.
I could have taken her place.
The bride and the sacrifice do not have to be the same, one marries Achilles, the other marries death.
Chorus:
Coldness lies in your dark heart, princess of Mycenae.
Electra:
You can condemn me as you wish.
Perhaps life costs less for you.
You will die soon, by the spears of the Trojans.
I am the eldest, it is my birthright
to do this for my family, for my father.
Yet this one time I refuse.
She is so adored, there will be more tears shed for her, for her helpless beauty and the innocence
they could not protect.
I am not as succulent an offering.
To live!
That is what remains for me.
Iphigenia enters, dragged by the priest and followed by a procession.
Electra:
Now death is your husband,
the man you begged to embrace you.
Accept your fate, sister,
as the most beloved daughter of Greece.
Iphigenia:
I pray for the man you wed to have a vicious bride! Lady Artemis, take me. Swallow the remnants of my virgin heart In the name of my pitiless father’s victory.
Strophe B
It is as if we all marry her
at once, as if we all hold the bridal knife.
Truly, there is some horror to this,
a divine rite so unsuited for mortal eyes.
It is necessary to bring back that faithless woman of broken spears, of men vainly lost, of destruction,
Helen, that sister of Eris, that daughter of ruin!
Antistrophe B
The unchecked passion in the hearts of women
brings about the overthrow of men. Eriphyle, in her lust for the jewels of Harmonia
led her husband to certain death
in Thebes. And Pandora cursed the world
in her foolish curiosity.
Yet the girl goes calmly, an honor to her mad sex, while her mother howls,
seeing no reason. Artemis, witness this,
daughter of Zeus, your hands are death.
But for the child’s virtue, grant that the knife is quick.
Epode
Hear us, you gods of heaven and earth,
For this blood shed, grant us the power to shed
the blood of Troy.
Iphigenia:
Only the unhappy
die so nobly, without a whisper.
Lucky are those left to rage
at the indignities of fate.
Will there be so many eyes on me in Hades?
Farewell, mother Gaia.
Farewell, my mother. You birthed two daughters,
the deer and the hunting dog. One is dead while the other lives.
One is free while the other is chained.
Earth, rest peacefully on me!
Electra:
Yet despite everything,
my traitorous eyes shed tears.
Chorus: Blood bubbles over her untouched lips.
Ares, bless us with rage!
ACT 2: The Palace Women
Scene: Electra is outside of the palace in Mycenae, wandering aimlessly and pouring dust over herself in lamentation. The Chorus is also present, doing the tasks they are ordered to.
Electra:
Hermes, my messenger of the dead,
my father’s bones are dust, and yet
his blood still chokes me. Bring my prayer
to his blessed spirit underground. For years
I have waited in this palace of insult
chained and trapped. Father, hear
my songs
for all the graves I have dug you,
let your beloved son come home
let me drink your killer’s blood
I beg you!
Strophe A
Electra,
you daughter of the ground,
we pray you, do not wound yourself so.
We, who have strangled our sorrowing hatred
at the rulers of this cursed nation,
we know better than anyone.
It is best to bide your time,
wait for the blessing of Nemesis.
Do not create enemies for yourself,
but make yourself the enemy.
The Furies will come, whether
you wail or not. Our gods
we left at the hearths we were dragged from, They witness our degradation and yours.
For now, wait.
Antistrophe A
Yet, the girl is indeed virtuous
for how she has suffered
in the name of justice.
The spirit of Procne has entered yours,
o faithful, vicious songbird!
Your throat-torn cries are music.
This ground has birthed an unspeakable monster, a beast who defiles this kingdom with tyranny, from the lust of a violent Pasiphaë.
Epode
O sorrow, in this foreign land
who is there to mourn us?
In the name of our lost sister
Cassandra, the prophetess,
she who saw her own death, grace on her,
may this daughter of our enemies succeed.
Electra:
Are we not comrades?
You see my shorn hair, my torn clothes
the harshness of my bones, of my body.
Foolishness, to die so beautifully, like my sister! I renounce beauty.
The ass is ugly, but survives
while the chariot-horse falls victim
to human hatred.
We hold death in our hands.
Chorus:
Patience, child.
in your actions, for it is far more difficult
for one to kill two
than for two to kill one.
Electra:
You speak wisely.
My hands are not steady.
I feel them weaken and tremble,
and while I long to wrap them
around the axe handle,
they only scrabble at the dirt,
preparing some empty burial.
Chorus Leader:
Quiet, the queen comes.
Enter Clytaemestra. Electra refuses to stand in her presence.
Clytaemnestra:
Your insanities bring shame
to my kingdom. You roll in filth like
a common mutt. Do you think the gods above
reward your ugliness?
Electra:
If I am a mutt, you are a bitch,
tyrant, in your polluted marriage chamber.
As for my ugliness, surely you resent
the loss of your sweet daughter, golden-haired and white-armed more than you care to keep such a grotesque, ragged figure alive. Never mind that I am your eldest daughter!
Clytaemnestra:
How dare you invoke
my lost one, my darling,
in your insolence. Why is she gone?
Answer me!
Electra:
You love your dead daughter more than your living one.
Clytaemnestra:
The living girl I birthed caused the death of the other. Daughter of Agamemnon!
Electra:
My father’s blood pours through my mind every night and every day, his spirit
blesses me with burning visions.
Oh Father, forgive me for what I have done
and what I have not done! How many more
graves must I dig to bury myself
in this mourning dust?
Clytaemnestra:
Deranged girl!
The only kingdom suitable for you
Is this dying ground. Leave the moralizing to the Fates, while I salvage this forsaken bloodline.
Electra: I have been your prisoner since
I was born. From you I swallow nothing but evil. If I am savage and deranged, it is only my inheritance.
Strophe B
How can a mother
so despise her own child?
The death of her youngest caused
this slow killing of her eldest.
For in her anger she will surely allow her
cowardly serpent-lover to slaughter the girl. Medea separated her sons from life
in unseeing rage and wept,
but this woman is calculating.
She knows how to make betrayal sting!
Antistrophe B
There will be no end to this lust
for the shuddering, flickering lives
of the daughters of Atreides.
Men go to war for the taste of conquest,
to rip away lives and virginities.
Their women eagerly await the spoils they bring. King or queen, they both tear
us from our homes, send us to carry
the jugs of lamentation.
Who is left to lament the degraded?
Who is left to lament for us?
Epode
We pray to the graves of
our slaughtered sons and daughters,
protect us
and protect this daughter.
Revenge is with us!
Revenge will come!
Clytaemnestra:
You must have been sent by the gods
as a punishment for the violence I was fated to commit.
You excuse the slaying of your sister as fate.
I rewrote her name in blood.
She wanted to live. My darling
will never again walk on this ground, singing.
This is your fate, Electra.
Who mourns a girl
that digs her own grave?
Clytaemnestra exits. The Shade of Iphigenia enters, a hallucination unseen by all except Electra.
Electra:
Sister! I know it is you,
I would know you anywhere
your golden hair that I pulled when we fought
and that I wreathed with flowers
for the rites of Thesmophoria.
I pray for my father’s guidance
and receive only your vindictive presence.
Why haunt me so?
Chorus:
She is tortured by the unseen.
Her eyes shine with madness,
more terrible than the maenads
who tear apart kings in their dance.
Electra:
I did what I had to.
Your insult still burns me, although
a woman must forgive.
Father must have loved you so,
to give to Artemis something so precious.
The gods demand only the best.
Iphigenia, whether a true Shade or delusion, refuses to speak to Electra.
Electra:
Please, in the name of Zeus,
in the name of all the gods above,
cease this pursuit of me.
Chorus:
A horror to witness.
Chorus Leader:
Our hatred strengthens us, but you, twisting girl,
child of incurable sickness,
must not lose sight of the cure
to this torment.
Hear us, dark gods underground.
Bring peace to her,
our Electra!
Chorus exits.
Electra:
Who will believe me when
I speak of your return to these grounds
that we walked together, sweet-stepping? The people whisper how insanity
surely clutches at my mind.
I become ever more grotesque,
horrific to witness.
Perhaps to be loved is a terrible thing.
You died so that other girls may die too,
so their families would weep
and dream of retribution.
Your winds carried the loss of our father for ten years, oh pointless victory!
If you had not been so treasured,
you would not have been taken, for it surely would have meant nothing.
But we must believe it is beautiful also, to be loved, for the unloved are forgotten
and wander for eternity, recollecting nothing. I have prayed for adoration so fervently
that my body grows weary of it.
This dust I cover myself with chokes me. Yet I have not once asked your forgiveness.
You can love a savage animal,
but how can you forgive it for acting in its nature? What is there to forgive?
Sister!
Are we not all dogs?
The End