5 - Electra

Summary

Electra presents us with a world in which Help Friends/Harm Enemies remains unquestioned. In the prologue Orestes announces his intention ’to shine out like a star against my enemies’, and when he reappears, declares that he will stop his laughing enemies in their tracks. Electra expresses similar sentiments, and makes loyalty to friends a cardinal principle. Like Orestes, she assumes that their enemies are indulging in hostile mockery. Clytemnestra prays that if her dream is hostile it may recoil on her enemies, and that she may enjoy prosperity with her present friends. The chorus console Electra with the assurance that Orestes is ’noble (esthlos), so as to help his friends’, and their general approval of Electra’s values is clear from their praise and sympathy. When they advise her to moderate her hatred, they are thinking of her welfare, and add that she should not forget it entirely. Neither they nor Chrysothemis, in their efforts to restrain her, maintain that she is wrong in principle. Clytemnestra does suggest that Electra should not treat her philoi as she does (518), but she casts no doubt on Help Friends/Harm Enemies – in fact her criticism of Electra depends on it.