ALLEIN
All text is translated from the original libretto for Richard Strauss’ Elektra,
Written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in German.
Elektra:
Alone! How completely alone! The father dead, chased down to his
cold crevasses... Agamemnon ! Agamemnon
Where are father? Don’t you have the strength
To show me your face?
Tis the hour, yours and mine. Yes, 'tis the hour when they struck you. Your wife and he who in your royal bed, sleeps with her.
They struck you dead in the bathtub. That bath was red with foaming blood. He took you, he the coward, by the shoulders, And dragged you, head first, from the room. Your feet dragging behind. Thine eyes, wide open saw through the house. So return like this, step by step, and stand there again. Your eyes shall be wide open, staring. And the royal crown shall again adorn your brow The purple gash of your wound.
Agamemnon! Father!
I want to see you! Don’t leave me alone. Just like yesterday, like a shadow. There in the corner, show yourself to your child!
Father! Agamemnon!
Your day will come!
As from the stars a rain of fire descends. So did the blood of a hundred throats spill on your grave like overturned pitchers, will the blood of the bound flow, and in an overflowing stream will their lives pour out. And we will slaughter the horses for you that lived in the house for you. We’ll drive them to the grave together and they’ll die. And will kill the dogs for you, that licked your feet, that hunted with you, and received treats. Therefore must there blood come down to serve you.
And we, we your blood, your son, Rest and your daughters, we three, when all is brought to pass,
And purple tents of blood vapour are erected, when the sun shines through we will dance rings around your grave. Over dead bodies I will lift my steps high, and those who see me dancing will say: a great King is given a great celebration by his flesh and blood.
Happy is he who has children to have children to dance around his kingly grave! Agamemnon ! Agamemnon
Chrysothemis: Elektra!
Elektra: Ah! that face!
Chrysothemis: Is my face so hateful to you?.
Elektra: What do you want? Speak, explain yourself, then go!
Elektra: Why do you raise your hands? Thus my father raised his hands when th axe came down and split his flesh! What do you want? Daughter of my mother, Daughter of Klytemnestra?
Chrysothemis: They’re planning something terrible!
Elektra: The two women?
Chrys: Who
Elektra: Just my mother and that other woman. Yes, Aegisthe, the cowardly murderer who only does heroic acts in bed. What are they planning?
Chrys: They’re going to through you in a tower where you won’t see the light of sun or moon!
They’ll do it, I heard their plan!
Elektra: How could your hear it?
Chrys: Through the door
Elektra! Open no doors in this house! Trapped breath and rustling from the strangled. There is nothing else in these walls. Don’t sneak around. Sit here like me and wish death and judgement upon she and him.
Chrys: I cannot sit and stare into darkness like you!
no! there's fire in my breast; ‘It pushes me always forward through the house In no chamber can I rest, now here, now there I wander madly, up and down... Did they not call my name? I rush in, but, alas!
An empty chamber, nothing more I see!
I have such fear it shakes my knees both day and night.
It chokes me. I cannot cry. Everything is like stone.
Sister, have mercy!
Elektra: with whom?
Chrys: You are the one who with iron clamps welds me to the floor! If it wasn’t for you, your sleepless unrestrained Fury that they shiver from… they’d let us out of this prison. Sister! I want out! I don’t want to sleep here every night until death.
I’m dying but I want to live!
I want to have children before my body withers! And even if I were with a farmer, I want to bear him children. And with my body warm them on cold nights when the hut shakes.
Are you listening to me? Speak to me, Sister!
Elektra: Poor creature
Chrys: Have pity on yourself and on me! Who profits from such suffering?
Our father is dead. Our brother doesn’t come home.
Always we sit here on the fence, turning our heads right and left.
And no one comes. No brother, no message from our brother, no message of a message.
Nothing. With a knife the days dig their mark in our faces. And outside the sun goes up and down. And women who were slim become heavy with blessings are can barely lift the bucket at the spring. Then all at once they are free from their burden and come to the spring again.
And out of their selves comes a sweet drink, and babies hang their lives on them, and the children grow tall. No! I am a woman and want a woman’s fate! Much better dead than alive and not living!
Elektra: What are you whining about? Go inside, that is your place!
- Something is happening! (inside) Perhaps they’re preparing your wedding. I hear them running. The whole house is awake. They’re giving birth or they’re murdering. When there’s a shortage of corpses upon which to sleep, they must murder.
Chrysothemis.
Go and hide so she doesn’t see you! Don’t get in her way today. She sends death with every look. She dreamed, I don’t know what. I heard from the maids that she dreamed of Orest and screamed in he sleep like one screams who is being strangled. They’re coming soon. She drives the maids with torches before her. The drag animals and sacrificial knives. Just this once stay out of there way!
Elektra: I have a desire to speak with my mother like never before!
Chrys: I don't want to hear it.
(She hurries away)
(Klytemnestra appears in the distance with her entourage)
KLYTEMNESTRA
What do you want? Look there! Look at that! How it rears up with its neck puffed out and hisses at me! And I let it run around freely in my house!
If only it could kill me with its gaze! Oh gods, why do you weigh so heavily on me?
Why do you ravage me so? Why must my strength be paralyzed within me,
why am I, alive, like a barren field, and this nettle grows out of me,
and I have no strength to weed it out! Why is this happening to me, eternal gods?
ELEKTRA
The gods! You yourself are a goddess! You are what they are.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Did you hear that? Did you understand what she said?
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
That you too belong to the tribe of the gods. She means it maliciously.
KLYTEMNESTRA
This seems so familiar to me. And yet, it's as if I had long forgotten it, long, long ago. She knows me well. But one never knows what she is planning.
ELEKTRA
You are no longer yourself. The vermin are always around you. What they whisper in your ear
divides your thoughts again and again, so that you continue in a daze,
always as if in a dream.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I want to go downstairs. Let me, let me, I want to talk to her. Today she is not repulsive.
She speaks like a doctor.
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
She does not speak what she means. Every word is a lie.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Clytemnestra's heavy eyelids fall shut. This seems so familiar to me. And yet, it's as if I had long forgotten it, long, long ago. She knows me well. But you never know what she's up to.
ELEKTRA
You are no longer yourself. The vermin are always around you. What they whisper in your ear
divides your thoughts again and again, so that you continue in a daze,
always as if in a dream.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I want to go downstairs. Let me, let me, I want to talk to her. Today she is not repulsive.
She speaks like a doctor.
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
She does not speak what she means. Every word is a lie.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I do not want to hear anything. What comes out of you is only the breath of Aegisthus.
And when I wake you at night, do you not all say something different? Don't you cry out
that my eyelids are swollen and my liver is diseased, and don't you whisper
in my other ear that you have seen demons with long, pointed beaks
proclaiming my blood? Don't you show me the marks on my flesh, and don't I follow you and slaughter, slaughter, slaughter sacrifice after sacrifice? Do you not drag me to death with your words and counterarguments? I want to hear nothing more: this is true
and this is a lie.
No human being can bring forth the truth.
When she speaks to me what I like to hear, I will listen to what she says.
If someone says something pleasant, even if it is my daughter, even if it is her,
I will remove all veils from my soul and let in the gentle breeze,
whatever its source, just as sick people do when they sit by the pond in the evening and expose their ulcers and all their festering wounds to the cool air
and think of nothing else but finding relief.
Leave me alone with her!
KLYTEMNESTRA
I don't have good nights. Do you know
a remedy for dreams?
ELEKTRA
Do you dream, mother?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Those who grow older dream. That is why I am so laden with stones.
For there is certainly a power within every one. One only has to know
how to use it. If only you would, you could say something that would be useful to me.
ELEKTRA
Me, mother, me?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Yes, you! Because you are clever. Everything in your head is strong. You could say many things
that would help me. Even if it's just one word! What is a breath!
And yet, between day and night, when I lie with my eyes open, something creeps
over me, it is not a word, it is not pain, it does not oppress me, it does not choke me, it is nothing, not even a nightmare, and yet it is so terrible that my soul wishes to be hanged, and every limb cries out for death, and yet I live and am not even sick; you see me, do I look like a sick person? Can one decay while alive, like rotten carrion? Can one decay when one is not sick at all? Decay while awake, like a dress eaten away by moths? And then I sleep and dream, dream! That the marrow in my bones is loosening, and I stagger back up, and not even a tenth of the water clock has run out, and what grins in from under the curtain is not yet the pale morning, no, still the torch in front of the door, flickering horribly like a living thing and watching my sleep.
These dreams must come to an end. Whoever sends them: every demon will leave us as soon as the right blood has flowed.
ELEKTRA
Every one!
KLYTEMNESTRA
And even if I had to bleed every animal that crawls and flies, and rise in the steam of blood and go to sleep like the peoples of the last Thule in blood-red mist:
I will dream no longer.
ELEKTRA
When the right blood sacrifice falls under the axe, then you will dream no longer.
KLYTEMNESTRA
So you know which sacred animal...
ELEKTRA
An unsacred one!
KLYTAIMNESTRA
That lies bound inside?
ELEKTRA
No! It runs free.
KLYTEMNESTRA
And what customs?
ELEKTRA
Wonderful customs, and very precise to perform.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Speak!
ELEKTRA
Can't you guess?
KLYTEMNESTRA
No, that's why I'm asking. Tell me the name of the sacrificial animal.
ELEKTRA
A woman.
KLYTEMNESTRA
One of my servants? A child? A virgin woman? A woman
who has already been known to a man?
ELEKTRA
Yes! Known! That's it!
KLYTEMNESTRA
And how will the sacrifice be performed? At what hour, and where?
ELEKTRA
In every place, at every hour of the day and night.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Tell me the customs! How should I offer it? I myself must--
ELEKTRA
No. This time you will not go hunting with a net and an axe.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Then who? Who will offer it?
ELEKTRA
A man.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Aegisthus?
ELEKTRA
I said: a man!
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who? Answer me. Someone from the house? Or must a stranger come?
ELEKTRA
Yes, yes, a stranger. But of course he is from the house.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Don't riddle me. Elektra, listen to me. I'm glad
that for once I don't find you stubborn today.
ELEKTRA
Won't you let my brother come home, mother?
KLYTEMNESTRA
I forbade you to speak of him.
ELEKTRA
So you're afraid of him?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who says that?
ELEKTRA
Mother, you're trembling!
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who fears a madman?
ELEKTRA
What?
KLYTEMNESTRA
They say he stammers, lies in the courtyard with the dogs,
and cannot distinguish between humans and animals.
ELEKTRA
The child was perfectly healthy.
KLYTEMNESTRA
They say they gave him poor lodgings and kept him company with the animals in the courtyard.
I sent them gold and more gold, so that they would treat him well, as a king's child.
ELEKTRA
You're lying! You sent gold so that they would strangle him.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who told you that?
ELEKTRA
I can see it in your eyes. I can also see from your trembling that he is still alive.
That you think of nothing but him day and night. That your heart is withering with horror because you know he is coming.
KLYTEMNESTRA
What do I care who is out of the house? I live here and I am the mistress. I have enough servants to guard the gates, and if I want, I can have three armed men sitting with their eyes open in front of my chamber day and night. And I will get the right word out of you one way or another.
You have already revealed that you know the right sacrifice and also You have already betrayed yourself, that you know the right sacrifice and also
the customs that benefit me. I will find out who must bleed so that I can sleep again.
ELEKTRA
Who must bleed? Your own neck, when the hunter catches you!
I hear him walking through the rooms, I hear him lifting the curtain from the bed:
Who slaughters a sacrificial animal in their sleep! He hunts you down, you flee screaming. But he is behind you, he drives you through the house! If you want to go right, there is the bed! If you want to go left, the bath foams like blood! The darkness and the torches cast black-red nets of death over you. Down the stairs through vaults, vaults and vaults, the hunt goes on And I, I, I, I, I, who sent him to you, I stand there and finally see you die! Then you will no longer dream, then I will no longer need to dream, and whoever is still alive will rejoice
and can enjoy their life!
( Klytemnestra flies, but then her horror turns into evil laughter.)
ELEKTRA
What are they saying to her? She's happy! My head! I can't think of anything.
What is that woman happy about?
PAUSE
EPISODE 2
(Chrysothemis comes running in, wailing loudly like a wounded animal.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Orestes! Orestes is dead!
ELEKTRA
Be quiet!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Orestes is dead! I came out and they already knew! Everyone was standing around and everyone already knew, except us.
ELEKTRA
No one knows.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Everyone knows!
ELEKTRA
No one can know: because it's not true.
It's not true! It's not true! I'm telling you! It's not true!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
The strangers stood by the wall, the strangers who were sent to report it: two,
an old man and a young man. They had already told everyone, everyone stood around them in a circle and everyone, everyone already knew.
ELEKTRA
It's not true!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
No one thinks of us. Dead! Elektra, dead! Died in a foreign land! Dead! Died there in a foreign land. Killed and dragged by his horses.. (Chrys runs off)
. . .
ELEKTRA
Well then, alone!
(She begins to dig. A stranger arrives.)
ELEKTRA
What do you want, stranger? What are you doing here at this dark hour, spying on what others are doing? I have business here. What does it matter to you? Leave me alone!
Stranger
I have to wait here.
ELEKTRA
Wait?
Stranger
But you're from this house, aren't you? Are you one of the maids in this house?
ELEKTRA
Yes, I serve here in this house. But you have no business here. Be glad and go.
Stranger
I told you, I have to wait here until they call me.
ELEKTRA
The ones inside? You're lying. I know very well that the master is not at home. And she,
what would she want with you?
Stranger
I and another who is with me have a mission for the lady.
We were sent to her because we can testify that her son, Orestes, died before our eyes. For he was killed by his own horses. I was as old as he was and his companion day and night.
ELEKTRA
Must I still see you? Do you drag yourself here to my sad corner,
herald of misfortune! Can't you trumpet the message where they rejoice! Your eye stares at me and his is gelatinous. Your mouth opens and closes and his is stuffed with earth. You live, and he, who was better than you and a thousand times nobler, and a thousand times more important that he lived. He is gone!
Stranger
Leave Orestes alone. He enjoyed his life too much, and the gods above cannot tolerate the overly bright sound of joy. So he had to die.
ELEKTRA
But me! But me! To lie there and know that the child will never come back, never come back. That the child is lurking down there in the chasms of horror, that they live in there and rejoice, that this brood lives in its cave and eats and drinks and sleeps, and I live up here like a lonely and hideous beast of the forest, I live up here alone.
Stranger: Who are you?
ELEKTRA: What does it matter to you who I am?
Stranger: You must be related by blood to those who died, Agamemnon and Orestes.
ELEKTRA: Related? I am that blood! I am the blood of King Agamemnon, shed like a dog's!
My name is Elektra.
Stranger: No!
ELEKTRA: He denies it. He blows on me and takes my name away.
Stranger: Elektra!
ELEKTRA: Because I have no father, nor brother, I am the laughingstock of the boys!
Stranger: Elektra! Elektra! Is that really her? Am I really seeing her? You? So they let you starve, or—did they beat you?
ELEKTRA: Leave my dress alone, don't stare at it.
Stranger: What have they done to your nights! Your eyes are terrible.
ELEKTRA: Leave me alone!
Stranger: Your cheeks are hollow!
ELEKTRA: Go into the house, I have a sister there who is saving herself for celebrations!
Stranger Elektra, listen to me.
ELEKTRA: I don't want to know who you are. I don't want to see anyone!
Stranger: Listen to me, I don't have time. Listen. Orestes is alive. If you move, you will betray him.
ELEKTRA: So he is free? Where is he?
Stranger: He is unharmed, like me.
ELEKTRA: Then save him before they strangle him.
Stranger: By my father's corpse! That is why I came here!
ELEKTRA Who are you? Who are you? I'm afraid.
Stranger: The dogs in the courtyard recognize me, but not my sister?
ELEKTRA: Orestes! Orestes! Orestes! Orestes! No one moves. Oh, let me see your eyes! Dream image, dream image given to me, more beautiful than all dreams. Sublime, incomprehensible, exalted face, oh stay with me! Do not vanish into thin air, do not leave me, do not leave me,
unless I must die right now and you reveal yourself and come to take me: then I will die happier than I have lived. Orestes! Orestes! Orestes!
No, you shall not embrace me! Step away, I am ashamed before you. I do not know how you look at me. I am now only the corpse of your sister, my poor child. I know you shudder at me. And yet I was a king's daughter! I believe I was beautiful: when I blew out the lamp before my mirror, I felt it with a chaste shudder. I felt how the thin beam of the moon bathed my body's white nakedness as if in a pond, and my hair was such hair that men tremble before, this hair, tangled, soiled, humiliated, do you understand, brother? I had to give up everything I was. I sacrificed my shame, the shame that is sweeter than anything, the shame that surrounds every woman like the silvery mist, the milky mist of the moon, and keeps the horrible away from her and her soul. Do you understand, brother? Why are you looking around fearfully? Speak to me! Speak! You are trembling all over!
OREST: Let this body tremble. It senses the path I am leading it down.
ELEKTRA: You will do it? Alone? You poor child.
OREST: This deed is imposed upon me,
ELEKTRA: You will do it!
OREST I will do it, I will do it quickly!
ELEKTRA: Blessed be he who may do it! The deed is like a bed on which the soul rests, like a bed of balm on which the soul can rest, which is a wound, a burn, pus, and a flame!
OREST: I will do it!
Elektra: Blessed be he who comes to perform his deed, blessed be he who longs for it, blessed be he who sees it! Blessed be he who recognizes it, blessed be he who touches it! Blessed be he who digs the axe out of the ground for him, blessed be he who holds the torch for him, blessed, blessed be he who opens the door for him.
(Orestes leaves…Elektra is at first exalted, then realises she has made a terrible mistake)
ELEKTRA: I couldn't give him the axe! They left, and I couldn't give him the axe. There are no gods in heaven!
(A terrible wait. Klytemnestra's cry can be heard from afar.)
ELEKTRA: Strike once more!!
(Chrysothemis enters.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Elektra! Sister! Come with us! Oh, come with us! Our brother is in the
house! It was Orestes who did it! Come! He is standing in the hall, everyone is surrounding him, kissing his feet, all those who hated Aegisthus from the bottom of their hearts have pounced on the others, corpses lie everywhere in the courtyards, all those who are still alive are splattered with blood
and wounded themselves, and yet everyone is beaming, everyone is embracing each other and cheering! A thousand torches are lit. Can't you hear it, can't you hear it?
ELEKTRA: Can't I hear it? Can't I hear the music? It comes from within me. The thousands with torches, their footsteps, their endless myriads of footsteps that make the earth tremble everywhere, all waiting for me: I know they are all waiting because I must lead the dance, and I cannot, the ocean, the immeasurable ocean,
the twentyfold ocean buries every limb of mine with its power, I cannot rise!
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Can't you hear it, they are carrying him, they are carrying him on their hands!
ELEKTRA. We are with the gods, we who accomplish. They pass through us like the sharpness of a sword, the gods, but their glory is not too much for us! I have sown darkness and reap joy upon joy. I was a black corpse among the living, and in this hour I am the fire of life, and my flame burns away the darkness of the world. My face must be whiter than the white shining face of the moon. When someone looks at me, they must receive death or perish with pleasure. Do you see my face? Do you see the light that emanates from me? Love kills, but no one dies without having known love!
CHRYSOTHEMIS: I must stand by my brother!
(She runs out. Elektra strides forward and dances a nameless dance.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Elektra!
ELEKTRA Be quiet! And dance. Everyone must come here! Come to us! I bear the burden of
happiness and dance before you. Those who are happy like us can only do one thing:
be quiet and dance!
(Elektra dances ever more wildly until she collapses lifeless.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Orest! Orest!
THE END
All text is translated from the original libretto for Richard Strauss’ Elektra,
Written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in German.
Elektra:
Alone! How completely alone! The father dead, chased down to his
cold crevasses... Agamemnon ! Agamemnon
Where are father? Don’t you have the strength
To show me your face?
Tis the hour, yours and mine. Yes, 'tis the hour when they struck you. Your wife and he who in your royal bed, sleeps with her.
They struck you dead in the bathtub. That bath was red with foaming blood. He took you, he the coward, by the shoulders, And dragged you, head first, from the room. Your feet dragging behind. Thine eyes, wide open saw through the house. So return like this, step by step, and stand there again. Your eyes shall be wide open, staring. And the royal crown shall again adorn your brow The purple gash of your wound.
Agamemnon! Father!
I want to see you! Don’t leave me alone. Just like yesterday, like a shadow. There in the corner, show yourself to your child!
Father! Agamemnon!
Your day will come!
As from the stars a rain of fire descends. So did the blood of a hundred throats spill on your grave like overturned pitchers, will the blood of the bound flow, and in an overflowing stream will their lives pour out. And we will slaughter the horses for you that lived in the house for you. We’ll drive them to the grave together and they’ll die. And will kill the dogs for you, that licked your feet, that hunted with you, and received treats. Therefore must there blood come down to serve you.
And we, we your blood, your son, Rest and your daughters, we three, when all is brought to pass,
And purple tents of blood vapour are erected, when the sun shines through we will dance rings around your grave. Over dead bodies I will lift my steps high, and those who see me dancing will say: a great King is given a great celebration by his flesh and blood.
Happy is he who has children to have children to dance around his kingly grave! Agamemnon ! Agamemnon
Chrysothemis: Elektra!
Elektra: Ah! that face!
Chrysothemis: Is my face so hateful to you?.
Elektra: What do you want? Speak, explain yourself, then go!
Elektra: Why do you raise your hands? Thus my father raised his hands when th axe came down and split his flesh! What do you want? Daughter of my mother, Daughter of Klytemnestra?
Chrysothemis: They’re planning something terrible!
Elektra: The two women?
Chrys: Who
Elektra: Just my mother and that other woman. Yes, Aegisthe, the cowardly murderer who only does heroic acts in bed. What are they planning?
Chrys: They’re going to through you in a tower where you won’t see the light of sun or moon!
They’ll do it, I heard their plan!
Elektra: How could your hear it?
Chrys: Through the door
Elektra! Open no doors in this house! Trapped breath and rustling from the strangled. There is nothing else in these walls. Don’t sneak around. Sit here like me and wish death and judgement upon she and him.
Chrys: I cannot sit and stare into darkness like you!
no! there's fire in my breast; ‘It pushes me always forward through the house In no chamber can I rest, now here, now there I wander madly, up and down... Did they not call my name? I rush in, but, alas!
An empty chamber, nothing more I see!
I have such fear it shakes my knees both day and night.
It chokes me. I cannot cry. Everything is like stone.
Sister, have mercy!
Elektra: with whom?
Chrys: You are the one who with iron clamps welds me to the floor! If it wasn’t for you, your sleepless unrestrained Fury that they shiver from… they’d let us out of this prison. Sister! I want out! I don’t want to sleep here every night until death.
I’m dying but I want to live!
I want to have children before my body withers! And even if I were with a farmer, I want to bear him children. And with my body warm them on cold nights when the hut shakes.
Are you listening to me? Speak to me, Sister!
Elektra: Poor creature
Chrys: Have pity on yourself and on me! Who profits from such suffering?
Our father is dead. Our brother doesn’t come home.
Always we sit here on the fence, turning our heads right and left.
And no one comes. No brother, no message from our brother, no message of a message.
Nothing. With a knife the days dig their mark in our faces. And outside the sun goes up and down. And women who were slim become heavy with blessings are can barely lift the bucket at the spring. Then all at once they are free from their burden and come to the spring again.
And out of their selves comes a sweet drink, and babies hang their lives on them, and the children grow tall. No! I am a woman and want a woman’s fate! Much better dead than alive and not living!
Elektra: What are you whining about? Go inside, that is your place!
- Something is happening! (inside) Perhaps they’re preparing your wedding. I hear them running. The whole house is awake. They’re giving birth or they’re murdering. When there’s a shortage of corpses upon which to sleep, they must murder.
Chrysothemis.
Go and hide so she doesn’t see you! Don’t get in her way today. She sends death with every look. She dreamed, I don’t know what. I heard from the maids that she dreamed of Orest and screamed in he sleep like one screams who is being strangled. They’re coming soon. She drives the maids with torches before her. The drag animals and sacrificial knives. Just this once stay out of there way!
Elektra: I have a desire to speak with my mother like never before!
Chrys: I don't want to hear it.
(She hurries away)
(Klytemnestra appears in the distance with her entourage)
KLYTEMNESTRA
What do you want? Look there! Look at that! How it rears up with its neck puffed out and hisses at me! And I let it run around freely in my house!
If only it could kill me with its gaze! Oh gods, why do you weigh so heavily on me?
Why do you ravage me so? Why must my strength be paralyzed within me,
why am I, alive, like a barren field, and this nettle grows out of me,
and I have no strength to weed it out! Why is this happening to me, eternal gods?
ELEKTRA
The gods! You yourself are a goddess! You are what they are.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Did you hear that? Did you understand what she said?
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
That you too belong to the tribe of the gods. She means it maliciously.
KLYTEMNESTRA
This seems so familiar to me. And yet, it's as if I had long forgotten it, long, long ago. She knows me well. But one never knows what she is planning.
ELEKTRA
You are no longer yourself. The vermin are always around you. What they whisper in your ear
divides your thoughts again and again, so that you continue in a daze,
always as if in a dream.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I want to go downstairs. Let me, let me, I want to talk to her. Today she is not repulsive.
She speaks like a doctor.
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
She does not speak what she means. Every word is a lie.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Clytemnestra's heavy eyelids fall shut. This seems so familiar to me. And yet, it's as if I had long forgotten it, long, long ago. She knows me well. But you never know what she's up to.
ELEKTRA
You are no longer yourself. The vermin are always around you. What they whisper in your ear
divides your thoughts again and again, so that you continue in a daze,
always as if in a dream.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I want to go downstairs. Let me, let me, I want to talk to her. Today she is not repulsive.
She speaks like a doctor.
THE CONFIDANTE & THE TRAIN BEARER
She does not speak what she means. Every word is a lie.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I do not want to hear anything. What comes out of you is only the breath of Aegisthus.
And when I wake you at night, do you not all say something different? Don't you cry out
that my eyelids are swollen and my liver is diseased, and don't you whisper
in my other ear that you have seen demons with long, pointed beaks
proclaiming my blood? Don't you show me the marks on my flesh, and don't I follow you and slaughter, slaughter, slaughter sacrifice after sacrifice? Do you not drag me to death with your words and counterarguments? I want to hear nothing more: this is true
and this is a lie.
No human being can bring forth the truth.
When she speaks to me what I like to hear, I will listen to what she says.
If someone says something pleasant, even if it is my daughter, even if it is her,
I will remove all veils from my soul and let in the gentle breeze,
whatever its source, just as sick people do when they sit by the pond in the evening and expose their ulcers and all their festering wounds to the cool air
and think of nothing else but finding relief.
Leave me alone with her!
KLYTEMNESTRA
I don't have good nights. Do you know
a remedy for dreams?
ELEKTRA
Do you dream, mother?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Those who grow older dream. That is why I am so laden with stones.
For there is certainly a power within every one. One only has to know
how to use it. If only you would, you could say something that would be useful to me.
ELEKTRA
Me, mother, me?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Yes, you! Because you are clever. Everything in your head is strong. You could say many things
that would help me. Even if it's just one word! What is a breath!
And yet, between day and night, when I lie with my eyes open, something creeps
over me, it is not a word, it is not pain, it does not oppress me, it does not choke me, it is nothing, not even a nightmare, and yet it is so terrible that my soul wishes to be hanged, and every limb cries out for death, and yet I live and am not even sick; you see me, do I look like a sick person? Can one decay while alive, like rotten carrion? Can one decay when one is not sick at all? Decay while awake, like a dress eaten away by moths? And then I sleep and dream, dream! That the marrow in my bones is loosening, and I stagger back up, and not even a tenth of the water clock has run out, and what grins in from under the curtain is not yet the pale morning, no, still the torch in front of the door, flickering horribly like a living thing and watching my sleep.
These dreams must come to an end. Whoever sends them: every demon will leave us as soon as the right blood has flowed.
ELEKTRA
Every one!
KLYTEMNESTRA
And even if I had to bleed every animal that crawls and flies, and rise in the steam of blood and go to sleep like the peoples of the last Thule in blood-red mist:
I will dream no longer.
ELEKTRA
When the right blood sacrifice falls under the axe, then you will dream no longer.
KLYTEMNESTRA
So you know which sacred animal...
ELEKTRA
An unsacred one!
KLYTAIMNESTRA
That lies bound inside?
ELEKTRA
No! It runs free.
KLYTEMNESTRA
And what customs?
ELEKTRA
Wonderful customs, and very precise to perform.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Speak!
ELEKTRA
Can't you guess?
KLYTEMNESTRA
No, that's why I'm asking. Tell me the name of the sacrificial animal.
ELEKTRA
A woman.
KLYTEMNESTRA
One of my servants? A child? A virgin woman? A woman
who has already been known to a man?
ELEKTRA
Yes! Known! That's it!
KLYTEMNESTRA
And how will the sacrifice be performed? At what hour, and where?
ELEKTRA
In every place, at every hour of the day and night.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Tell me the customs! How should I offer it? I myself must--
ELEKTRA
No. This time you will not go hunting with a net and an axe.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Then who? Who will offer it?
ELEKTRA
A man.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Aegisthus?
ELEKTRA
I said: a man!
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who? Answer me. Someone from the house? Or must a stranger come?
ELEKTRA
Yes, yes, a stranger. But of course he is from the house.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Don't riddle me. Elektra, listen to me. I'm glad
that for once I don't find you stubborn today.
ELEKTRA
Won't you let my brother come home, mother?
KLYTEMNESTRA
I forbade you to speak of him.
ELEKTRA
So you're afraid of him?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who says that?
ELEKTRA
Mother, you're trembling!
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who fears a madman?
ELEKTRA
What?
KLYTEMNESTRA
They say he stammers, lies in the courtyard with the dogs,
and cannot distinguish between humans and animals.
ELEKTRA
The child was perfectly healthy.
KLYTEMNESTRA
They say they gave him poor lodgings and kept him company with the animals in the courtyard.
I sent them gold and more gold, so that they would treat him well, as a king's child.
ELEKTRA
You're lying! You sent gold so that they would strangle him.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Who told you that?
ELEKTRA
I can see it in your eyes. I can also see from your trembling that he is still alive.
That you think of nothing but him day and night. That your heart is withering with horror because you know he is coming.
KLYTEMNESTRA
What do I care who is out of the house? I live here and I am the mistress. I have enough servants to guard the gates, and if I want, I can have three armed men sitting with their eyes open in front of my chamber day and night. And I will get the right word out of you one way or another.
You have already revealed that you know the right sacrifice and also You have already betrayed yourself, that you know the right sacrifice and also
the customs that benefit me. I will find out who must bleed so that I can sleep again.
ELEKTRA
Who must bleed? Your own neck, when the hunter catches you!
I hear him walking through the rooms, I hear him lifting the curtain from the bed:
Who slaughters a sacrificial animal in their sleep! He hunts you down, you flee screaming. But he is behind you, he drives you through the house! If you want to go right, there is the bed! If you want to go left, the bath foams like blood! The darkness and the torches cast black-red nets of death over you. Down the stairs through vaults, vaults and vaults, the hunt goes on And I, I, I, I, I, who sent him to you, I stand there and finally see you die! Then you will no longer dream, then I will no longer need to dream, and whoever is still alive will rejoice
and can enjoy their life!
( Klytemnestra flies, but then her horror turns into evil laughter.)
ELEKTRA
What are they saying to her? She's happy! My head! I can't think of anything.
What is that woman happy about?
PAUSE
EPISODE 2
(Chrysothemis comes running in, wailing loudly like a wounded animal.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Orestes! Orestes is dead!
ELEKTRA
Be quiet!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Orestes is dead! I came out and they already knew! Everyone was standing around and everyone already knew, except us.
ELEKTRA
No one knows.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Everyone knows!
ELEKTRA
No one can know: because it's not true.
It's not true! It's not true! I'm telling you! It's not true!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
The strangers stood by the wall, the strangers who were sent to report it: two,
an old man and a young man. They had already told everyone, everyone stood around them in a circle and everyone, everyone already knew.
ELEKTRA
It's not true!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
No one thinks of us. Dead! Elektra, dead! Died in a foreign land! Dead! Died there in a foreign land. Killed and dragged by his horses.. (Chrys runs off)
. . .
ELEKTRA
Well then, alone!
(She begins to dig. A stranger arrives.)
ELEKTRA
What do you want, stranger? What are you doing here at this dark hour, spying on what others are doing? I have business here. What does it matter to you? Leave me alone!
Stranger
I have to wait here.
ELEKTRA
Wait?
Stranger
But you're from this house, aren't you? Are you one of the maids in this house?
ELEKTRA
Yes, I serve here in this house. But you have no business here. Be glad and go.
Stranger
I told you, I have to wait here until they call me.
ELEKTRA
The ones inside? You're lying. I know very well that the master is not at home. And she,
what would she want with you?
Stranger
I and another who is with me have a mission for the lady.
We were sent to her because we can testify that her son, Orestes, died before our eyes. For he was killed by his own horses. I was as old as he was and his companion day and night.
ELEKTRA
Must I still see you? Do you drag yourself here to my sad corner,
herald of misfortune! Can't you trumpet the message where they rejoice! Your eye stares at me and his is gelatinous. Your mouth opens and closes and his is stuffed with earth. You live, and he, who was better than you and a thousand times nobler, and a thousand times more important that he lived. He is gone!
Stranger
Leave Orestes alone. He enjoyed his life too much, and the gods above cannot tolerate the overly bright sound of joy. So he had to die.
ELEKTRA
But me! But me! To lie there and know that the child will never come back, never come back. That the child is lurking down there in the chasms of horror, that they live in there and rejoice, that this brood lives in its cave and eats and drinks and sleeps, and I live up here like a lonely and hideous beast of the forest, I live up here alone.
Stranger: Who are you?
ELEKTRA: What does it matter to you who I am?
Stranger: You must be related by blood to those who died, Agamemnon and Orestes.
ELEKTRA: Related? I am that blood! I am the blood of King Agamemnon, shed like a dog's!
My name is Elektra.
Stranger: No!
ELEKTRA: He denies it. He blows on me and takes my name away.
Stranger: Elektra!
ELEKTRA: Because I have no father, nor brother, I am the laughingstock of the boys!
Stranger: Elektra! Elektra! Is that really her? Am I really seeing her? You? So they let you starve, or—did they beat you?
ELEKTRA: Leave my dress alone, don't stare at it.
Stranger: What have they done to your nights! Your eyes are terrible.
ELEKTRA: Leave me alone!
Stranger: Your cheeks are hollow!
ELEKTRA: Go into the house, I have a sister there who is saving herself for celebrations!
Stranger Elektra, listen to me.
ELEKTRA: I don't want to know who you are. I don't want to see anyone!
Stranger: Listen to me, I don't have time. Listen. Orestes is alive. If you move, you will betray him.
ELEKTRA: So he is free? Where is he?
Stranger: He is unharmed, like me.
ELEKTRA: Then save him before they strangle him.
Stranger: By my father's corpse! That is why I came here!
ELEKTRA Who are you? Who are you? I'm afraid.
Stranger: The dogs in the courtyard recognize me, but not my sister?
ELEKTRA: Orestes! Orestes! Orestes! Orestes! No one moves. Oh, let me see your eyes! Dream image, dream image given to me, more beautiful than all dreams. Sublime, incomprehensible, exalted face, oh stay with me! Do not vanish into thin air, do not leave me, do not leave me,
unless I must die right now and you reveal yourself and come to take me: then I will die happier than I have lived. Orestes! Orestes! Orestes!
No, you shall not embrace me! Step away, I am ashamed before you. I do not know how you look at me. I am now only the corpse of your sister, my poor child. I know you shudder at me. And yet I was a king's daughter! I believe I was beautiful: when I blew out the lamp before my mirror, I felt it with a chaste shudder. I felt how the thin beam of the moon bathed my body's white nakedness as if in a pond, and my hair was such hair that men tremble before, this hair, tangled, soiled, humiliated, do you understand, brother? I had to give up everything I was. I sacrificed my shame, the shame that is sweeter than anything, the shame that surrounds every woman like the silvery mist, the milky mist of the moon, and keeps the horrible away from her and her soul. Do you understand, brother? Why are you looking around fearfully? Speak to me! Speak! You are trembling all over!
OREST: Let this body tremble. It senses the path I am leading it down.
ELEKTRA: You will do it? Alone? You poor child.
OREST: This deed is imposed upon me,
ELEKTRA: You will do it!
OREST I will do it, I will do it quickly!
ELEKTRA: Blessed be he who may do it! The deed is like a bed on which the soul rests, like a bed of balm on which the soul can rest, which is a wound, a burn, pus, and a flame!
OREST: I will do it!
Elektra: Blessed be he who comes to perform his deed, blessed be he who longs for it, blessed be he who sees it! Blessed be he who recognizes it, blessed be he who touches it! Blessed be he who digs the axe out of the ground for him, blessed be he who holds the torch for him, blessed, blessed be he who opens the door for him.
(Orestes leaves…Elektra is at first exalted, then realises she has made a terrible mistake)
ELEKTRA: I couldn't give him the axe! They left, and I couldn't give him the axe. There are no gods in heaven!
(A terrible wait. Klytemnestra's cry can be heard from afar.)
ELEKTRA: Strike once more!!
(Chrysothemis enters.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Elektra! Sister! Come with us! Oh, come with us! Our brother is in the
house! It was Orestes who did it! Come! He is standing in the hall, everyone is surrounding him, kissing his feet, all those who hated Aegisthus from the bottom of their hearts have pounced on the others, corpses lie everywhere in the courtyards, all those who are still alive are splattered with blood
and wounded themselves, and yet everyone is beaming, everyone is embracing each other and cheering! A thousand torches are lit. Can't you hear it, can't you hear it?
ELEKTRA: Can't I hear it? Can't I hear the music? It comes from within me. The thousands with torches, their footsteps, their endless myriads of footsteps that make the earth tremble everywhere, all waiting for me: I know they are all waiting because I must lead the dance, and I cannot, the ocean, the immeasurable ocean,
the twentyfold ocean buries every limb of mine with its power, I cannot rise!
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Can't you hear it, they are carrying him, they are carrying him on their hands!
ELEKTRA. We are with the gods, we who accomplish. They pass through us like the sharpness of a sword, the gods, but their glory is not too much for us! I have sown darkness and reap joy upon joy. I was a black corpse among the living, and in this hour I am the fire of life, and my flame burns away the darkness of the world. My face must be whiter than the white shining face of the moon. When someone looks at me, they must receive death or perish with pleasure. Do you see my face? Do you see the light that emanates from me? Love kills, but no one dies without having known love!
CHRYSOTHEMIS: I must stand by my brother!
(She runs out. Elektra strides forward and dances a nameless dance.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Elektra!
ELEKTRA Be quiet! And dance. Everyone must come here! Come to us! I bear the burden of
happiness and dance before you. Those who are happy like us can only do one thing:
be quiet and dance!
(Elektra dances ever more wildly until she collapses lifeless.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS: Orest! Orest!
THE END