Electra (Argive)- Greek FigureMortal"Princess of Mycenae"

Princess of the House of Atreus

Electra was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, raised in the palace at Mycenae. Her childhood ended when her father sailed for Troy and sacrificed her sister Iphigenia at Aulis to appease Artemis. The family Electra knew would never be whole again.

The curse of the House of Atreus hung over her from birth. Atreus had served Thyestes a feast of his own children's flesh. Pelops before him had murdered Myrtilus. Each generation produced new crimes to feed the old ones. Electra was born into the pattern.

The Murder of Agamemnon

When Agamemnon returned from Troy after ten years, Clytemnestra killed him. She had never forgiven the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and during his long absence she had taken Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin, as her lover.

In Aeschylus, she laid out a crimson carpet for the returning king, welcomed him with fine words, then trapped him in a robe as he stepped from his bath and struck him with an axe. She killed Cassandra too, the Trojan prophetess he had brought home, and stood over both bodies. She declared the killing just: payment for a sacrificed daughter. In Homer's Odyssey, Aegisthus killed Agamemnon at a banquet, with Clytemnestra beside him. Either way, the king of Mycenae lay dead in his own palace on the day of his homecoming.

Electra was a young woman in a house now ruled by her father's killers.

Saving Orestes

Electra's first act was to save her brother. She smuggled Orestes out of Mycenae before Aegisthus could kill the boy, the only male heir. He was still a child. She sent him to Phocis, to the court of King Strophius, where he was raised alongside Strophius's son Pylades. She did not know when she would see him again.

For years afterward, Electra waited. She reminded Orestes of his duty in every message she sent. Every year without his return deepened her anguish and left the usurpers more secure on the stolen throne.

Years of Mourning

Under Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Electra endured a degraded existence. In Sophocles, she was kept in the palace but treated as a servant, denied the standing of a princess, forbidden from mourning her father. She told the chorus she had waited until hope itself had withered. In Euripides, Aegisthus married her to a poor farmer to ensure any children she bore would be too lowly to challenge the throne. The farmer, recognizing who she was, treated her with respect and never touched her. She lived in a peasant's cottage, a king's daughter carrying water.

While her sister Chrysothemis counseled acceptance, Electra kept her grief and rage alive. She accused Clytemnestra openly and reminded everyone in Mycenae that the throne was stolen. She wore her grief like armor: too pitiable to kill, too defiant to ignore.

The Return of Orestes

Orestes returned to Mycenae as a young man, sent by Apollo's oracle at Delphi to avenge his father. Pylades came with him.

In Aeschylus, Electra finds a lock of hair on Agamemnon's tomb that matches her own. She sees footprints in the dust that match her feet. Her brother has come. In Sophocles, she holds what she believes are Orestes's ashes in a funeral urn. She speaks to the urn as though speaking to her brother: all her years of waiting, all her hope, reduced to dust in a clay jar. Then the stranger before her tells her he is alive.

Together they planned the killing. Electra knew the palace and the movements of the usurpers. In Euripides, she drove Orestes forward when his resolve wavered.

The Vengeance

Orestes and Pylades entered the palace in disguise with a false report of Orestes's death. Aegisthus was killed first. Then came the harder act.

In Aeschylus, Orestes hesitates before his mother. It is Pylades who reminds him of Apollo's command. In Euripides, Electra guides Orestes's hand to the sword. The mother who killed a father was killed in turn by her children.

The Erinyes came for Orestes. They pursued him from Mycenae to Delphi to Athens, where Athena's court tried him for the matricide. The jury split evenly. Athena cast the deciding vote for acquittal. In Euripides's Orestes, the siblings face a different reckoning: condemned by the citizens of Argos, they take Hermione hostage before Apollo descends to impose order.

After the Vengeance

Electra married Pylades. He had stood beside her brother since Phocis and beside both of them in the killing. They had sons, Medon and Strophius. The curse of the House of Atreus, which had consumed every generation since Tantalus, stopped.