In Klytemnestraâs bedroom in Agamemnonâs palace. It is an ostentatious room, full of clothes and pairs of shoes, full of the gold-plated trappings of wealth.
ELECTRA is sitting at the dressing table. She is wearing one of her motherâs dresses over the top of her own clothes.
ORESTES is on the bed, asleep.
ELECTRA. Sometimes she would let me stay while she undressed. Sometimes she would send the servants away and she would sit here while I brushed her hair. My mother. She would let me open jars and bottles, sniff and touch, she would let me uncover close things from drawers, treasures, and tell me where they came from. Tell me stories of a life before. Sometimes she would hold out her hands for me and I would rub them with oil, taking the rings off, one by one, feeling the deep lines on her knuckles, shifting her skin, gently, over veins and bone.
HELEN. Do you recognise me?
ELECTRA. Yes.
HELEN. Speak my name.
ELECTRA. Helen. You are Helen, if you are real.
HELEN. I havenât changed so much. Unlike you, Electra. You were a child when I left.
ELECTRA. Youâre back.
HELEN. Sixteen years.
ELECTRA. Youâre back.
HELEN. Yes. Iâm back.
ELECTRA. My uncle? Is he with you?
HELEN. âUncleâ Menelaos. Heâll be here. Soon. He sent me on ahead under cover of darkness, to slip unseen through the city gates. He feared the people would be baying for my blood, poor souls who lost their sons to the war. But the people have scented fresh blood now.
ELECTRA. Yes. It is Orestes.
HELEN. Wake him up.
ELECTRA. No. Please. No. He hasnât slept for six days and nights. He hasnât closed his eyes.
HELEN. Since he murdered his mother? Since he murdered my sister?
ELECTRA. We both did it. I did it too. Apollo told us to.
HELEN. This room. A mausoleum. It smells of her. (She picks up a hairbrush from the dressing table.) Is this her hair?
ELECTRA. Yes.
HELEN. It was always stronger than mine, though it never shone so well. Is this where she died?
ELECTRA. No.
HELEN. Where then? Where did she die? My sister?
ELECTRA. In the hills outside the city. After they killed my father â she and Aigisthos â they wanted me gone. They married me to a farmer, a peasant, a man much older than myself, so that any son I should chance to have would be too low to set himself against them. But Orestes came. Back from long years away. He found me, knew me. Our hands locked together. He told me what Apollo had decreed and so we lured them to us and we killed them. And then we came home.
HELEN. Pretty dress, Electra. Was it one of hers?
ELECTRA. Helen?
HELEN. Yes.
ELECTRA. If you find water . . . if you could spare some for Orestes. He is ill. He is hot, feverish. A little food perhaps?
HELEN. Are you still a virgin?
ELECTRA. Yes. My husband was a good man. He had no wish to shame me.
HELEN. Is that what he told you?