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"O chariot-race of
Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow,
what disaster you have brought upon this land! For
ever since Myrtilus sank to rest beneath the waves,
hurled to utter destruction from his golden chariot
in disgraceful outrage, from that time to this,
outrage and its many sorrows were never yet gone
from this house." [Mycenaean women.
Sophocles,
Electra
504]
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Electra 2 is mainly remembered for having waited
for the return of her brother
Orestes 2, hoping that
he would avenge their father
Agamemnon, who was
murdered, at his return from
Troy, by his own wife
Clytaemnestra and
her lover, the usurper
Aegisthus.
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The problem with
Iphigenia at Aulis
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King Agamemnon of
Mycenae did not prove to
be a loving father towards
Iphigenia. For he,
caring more for the affairs of the state than for
the life of his daughter, let her be sacrificed at
Aulis, a Boeotian harbour, so that the fleet he
commanded could finally sail to
Troy. For this
army—that was determined to appear in front of
that city and obtain, through negotiation or by
force, the restoration of
Helen and the Spartan
property that the seducer
Paris, guided by a
goddess, had stolen—was now being detained by
the will of another goddess, who would not grant
favorable winds for the fleet to sail.
And because of the winds and for the sake of
another woman, who was now at
Troy,
Iphigenia was killed,
some say. But others affirm that
Iphigenia, who perhaps
was Agamemnon's
stepdaughter, never perished at Aulis, and that
instead was saved by
Artemis (the goddess who
had stayed the winds), who took her to Tauris, a
coastal region in the Black Sea, today called
Crimea.
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The Aulis affair contributes to
Agamemnon's death
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In any case, the Aulis affair, was neither
forgotten nor forgiven; and
Agamemnon's wife
Clytaemnestra, who
called Iphigenia her
'sweet flower', did not wait for her husband, who
many years later returned victorious from the
Trojan War, with crown
or garland but with a two-edged sword, murdering
him as soon as he came into the palace, with the
help of her lover
Aegisthus, the king's
cousin.
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Heir into exile
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This was
Clytaemnestra's
revenge, and
Aegisthus' day of
glory. For he, through the assassination of his
cousin, believed to have put an end to the feud
started by their parents
Atreus and Thyestes 1,
thereby gaining the throne of
Mycenae for himself.
But for Agamemnon's
children this was a sad and dangerous circumstance,
since they could not hope that the new king would
be well disposed towards the heirs of his enemy.
And as it became evident for them that
Aegisthus, fearing
Agamemnon's descent,
would try to kill the little prince
Orestes 2, he was
smuggled out of the country, either by his sister
Electra 2, or by some faithful servants, and
brought to Phocis, in the region bordering the Gulf
of Corinth west of
Boeotia.
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Situation of Electra 2
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But while Orestes 2
was raised in safety by his uncle Strophius 1 in
Phocis, his sister Electra 2 stayed at home,
sharing her life with her enemies. At the
beginning, she was simply prevented by
Aegisthus to marry,
lest she might have a son that would avenge
Agamemnon. But
later—due to the fact that the fears felt by
those who achieve their aims through murder have no
limits—,
Aegisthus started
shuddering at her possibly bearing a son in secret
to a man of noble blood. To put an end to this
apprehension, he planned then to murder Electra 2,
but he was prevented by
Clytaemnestra, who
wisely feared the hatred that such a deed would
arouse. This is why
Aegisthus, some say,
conceived instead the idea of marrying Electra 2 to
an insignificant man. For, he reasoned, a nobody
would neither go stirring up old blood nor asking
that the debt for
Agamemnon's death
should be paid.
Clytaemnestra
agreed to this arrangement; for, as it is said,
women's love is for their lovers, not their
children. And so Electra 2, some say, married a
peasant who never touched her; but others affirm
that she neither left the palace nor married anyone
at that time.
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Growing hate
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In any case, she never ceased to mourn her
father, and having no offspring of her own, she
hoped, during several years, for the return of her
brother Orestes 2. And
as she cherished that hope, she let her hate grow
against her adulterous mother, and against the
tyrant who usurped her father's throne and bed. And
by never putting an end to her lamentations, she
poisoned the nights and days of those who had
vanquished Agamemnon,
and were now king and queen, destroying the
enjoyment of their splendor, and calling upon them
the powers and curses of the
Underworld:
"O House of
Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! O potent Curse, and
you fearsome daughters of the gods, the
Erinyes, who take note when a life is
unjustly taken, when a marriage-bed is thievishly
dishonored, come, help me, bring vengeance for the
murder of my father and send me my brother."
[Electra 2. Sophocles,
Electra
110]
This is why her mother, who could not find peace
in the midst of so much mourning, reproached her:
"Wicked and
hateful girl, have you alone lost your father, and
is no one else in the world grieving? May your
death be harsh, and may the gods below never free
you from your current mourning."
[Clytaemnestra to
Electra 2. Sophocles,
Electra
290]
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Vengeance nourished with grief
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Electra 2 had no consolation during these years,
when she ceaselessly mourned her father while
seeing herself as the child of a wretched mother.
And although all know that neither weeping nor
prayer can resurrect anybody, Electra 2 spent her
days bathing in tears, and treading with unwearied
determination on the path of sorrows. Yet she did
not cherish pain for its own sake, but because she
knew that vengeance is best nourished with deep
grief. And as revenge would follow the steps of
Orestes 2, she added to
her grief limitless longing for her brother.
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Rejects comfort
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Such was Electra 2's determination: to live in
grief and longing, and wait for vengeance to
replace them. That is why she found no consolation
in such words as:
"Not to you
alone of mortals ... has sorrow come ..."
[Mycenaean women to Electra 2. Sophocles,
Electra
110]
Instead her grief and longing were her only
comfort and hope in the palace, where she lived as
a slave:
"I waste away
without children and have no loving husband to
champion me, but like some despised foreign slave,
I serve in the halls of my father, wrapped in
shabby garments and standing to eat scanty
meals." [Electra 2 to the Mycenaean women.
Sophocles,
Electra
190]
She was hated for her ceaseless wailing. But by
exercising her talent in achieving misfortune, she
succeeded in breeding wars in the depth of her
heart against the murderers of her father. And from
those wars she expected relief; that is why she
says:
"Let me be,
let me be, my comforters!" [Electra 2 to the
Mycenaean women. Sophocles,
Electra
229]
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Grief nourished with the hope of vengeance
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For he who knows the cause of his own wailing
and deems to have been forced into it, neither
wishes any respite from his pains nor to restrain
his cries, but to confront compulsion with a
greater force when Time,
who "... purges all things
..." [Aeschylus, Eumenides 285] comes. In
the meanwhile, mourning her father is the proper
way of waiting, and honouring the heart's desire:
"For if the
dead is to lie a wretch, merely dust and
nothingness, while his slayers do not pay back to
him blood for blood in penalty, then shame and
reverence will vanish from all humanity."
[Electra 2 to the Mycenaean women. Sophocles,
Electra
244]
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Indignation helps
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And to mourning Electra 2 added indignation on
account of the scandal that wrapped the rulers of
the palace, letting herself be utterly disgusted
when she saw Aegisthus
sitting on her father's throne, and wearing
Agamemnon's robes. But
the chief outrage was, as she put it, to see
"... the
murderer in my father's bed at my wretched mother's
side ..." [Electra 2 to the Mycenaean women.
Sophocles,
Electra
266]
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Different from another angle
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For whereas
Clytaemnestra
regarded the murder of
Agamemnon as an act of
deliverance, Electra 2 considered it as a
treacherous deed performed by a depraved wife and a
polluted usurper. These in turn, having grown weary
of so much mourning, had decided to imprison her
beyond the land's borders, if Electra 2 refused to
cease complaining.
'Unjust complaints',
Clytaemnestra
thought, for the father whom she constantly
bewailed had at Aulis sacrificed Electra 2's own
sister. But this was not an argument that could
estrange Electra 2 from her father's memory. For
according to her, the unhappy situation that forced
her father to sacrifice
Iphigenia against his
will had been caused by a goddess, and it had been,
she said, under fierce constraint that
Agamemnon at last
sacrificed her.
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Smuggling in after smuggling out
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It is to these dire straits that
Orestes 2, long awaited
with hope by his sister, and with fear by the
others, finally approached with his friend Pylades.
Yet he did not come blowing a trumpet at the gates
of Mycenae, but instead
he sent, as some say, a messenger to the palace to
announce his death, supposedly occurred in the
course of a contest at
Delphi. And in order to
disperse any doubts, he came later himself
disguised as a Phocian man, carrying a bronze urn,
said to be filled with his own dust. This is how
Orestes 2, who once had
been smuggled out of the palace, now smuggled
himself into it again.
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Good or bad news?
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When
Clytaemnestra
heard the news, she did not know whether to call
them fortunate or terrible. For knowing that
Orestes 2 would come
some day to avenge his father, she now had to
rejoice at her own misery, and regard the death of
her child as the lucky circumstance which would
preserve her own life. So watching the dissociation
of her own soul she reflected:
"There is a
terrible power in motherhood; a mother may be
wronged, but she can feel no hate for those whom
she bore."
[Clytaemnestra to
the messengers. Sophocles,
Electra
770]
For often had Orestes
2 from his exile charged his mother with murder
and made terrible threats, filling her heart with
fear, and making Sleep
desert her. That is why she felt that from now on
she could live her days in peace. But for Electra 2
no champion remained, and seeing herself alone,
except for her weak sister Chrysothemis 1, she
decided to slay
Aegisthus with her own
hands.
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Vengeance accomplished
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It was then that Orestes
2 appeared in front of his sister; and he and
Pylades, carrying the urn, came into the palace,
and slew
Clytaemnestra. And
when Electra 2 heard her wounded mother crying, she
exclaimed:
"Stab her
doubly, if you can!" [Electra 2. Sophocles,
Electra
770]
Later arrived
Aegisthus; and she
guided him so that he would meet the messengers
with the urn, who being his bane, slew him too.
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In spite of details
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Details, which usually proliferate in all
circumstances, are different in other accounts [see
Orestes 2]. But despite
details, all remember Electra 2 as the courageous
girl, who through love of her father and brother,
spent years nourishing, with woe and longing, the
vengeance that would fall upon her mother, whom she
detested, and upon the usurper, whom she despised.
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Condemned to death
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After the deaths of
Aegisthus and
Clytaemnestra, the
throne of Mycenae did
not immediately revert to
Orestes 2, since he,
being pursued by the
ERINYES of his mother,
went mad. Besides, the two siblings were tried by
the full court of the Argive people, who found them
guilty of matricide, and voted to condemn them to
die, leaving them the choice to hang themselves, or
to use a sword, or to be killed by someone
appointed by the citizens.
However, in order to escape this doom, they
decided, on account of
Menelaus' reluctance to
protect his nephew and niece, to kill
Helen, and by
Electra 2's advice, to
take Hermione as a
hostage, and threat to kill her if
Menelaus would dare to
make any move after
Helen's death. The plot
failed, but the divine intervention it caused
protected them [see Orestes
2].
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Aegisthus' son
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While Orestes 2 was
away purging his crime in various weird ways, a
false messenger came to
Electra 2 in
Mycenae saying that
Orestes 2 and Pylades
had been sacrificed in Tauris. It was then that
Aletes 1, son of
Aegisthus and
Clytaemnestra,
hearing that the family of the Atrides was extinct,
seized power in Mycenae,
and Electra 2 became
once again the subject of an usurper, now her own
half-brother.
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Meeting in Delphi
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Electra 2 then, accompanied by the messenger,
travelled to Delphi in
order to inquire about her brother's death, and
happened to arrive the same day that
Iphigenia and
Orestes 2 returned from
Tauris. When the sisters met, the false messenger
said that Iphigenia
was the murderess of her brother. So
Electra 2 seized a
burning firebrand from the altar, and would have
blinded her if Orestes
2 had not appeared and intervened.
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Married to an ally and loyal friend
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Now Orestes 2 was
cured, and after killing Aletes 1, he became ruler
of a vaster kingdom than his father's, marrying
Electra 2 to his loyal friend Pylades, who remained
an ally.
Nothing has been reported about the sons of
Electra 2 and Pylades, nor about her death.
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Others with identical name
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- Electra 1 is one of the
OCEANIDS
- Electra 3 is one of the
PLEIADES
- Electra 4 is one of the
DANAIDS
- Electra 5 was a maid of
Helen.
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