The Electra of Euripides

The Electra of Euripides is presented as translated into English rhyming verse with explanatory notes. The introduction says the play has the distinction of being, perhaps, the best abused, and, one might add, not the best understood, of ancient tragedies. The introduction says that Euripides, here as often, represents intellectually the thought of Aeschylus carried a step further, and that to him the deed done to the mother was a sin and a horror that should not have been committed.

The introduction says another problem interests Euripides even more: what kind of woman can it have been who would do this deed, not in sudden fury but deliberately. Electra speaks of the doorways of her soul flung free and cries that Aegisthus is dead. A note says the Greek fleet assembled for Troy was held by contrary winds at Aulis, in the Straits of Euboea, and that the prophets demanded a human sacrifice, and Agamemnon gave his own daughter, Iphigenîa.