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I will speak. This will be the beginning of my introduction:
Would that you had, mother, better sense.
For your appearance is worthy of winning praise,
Both your's and Helen's; but you are two of a kind in nature,
Both useless and both not worthy of Castor.
For she was snatched and corrupted willingly,
You destroyed the best man in Greece . . . |
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As Penelope is praised in the Odyssey for  , 'good sense', so Electra here wishes her mother had 'better sense',  . Homer (Od. 3.26572) allows Clytemnestra an initial good sense,  , as Penelope allowed Helen a similar dispensation ('not before . . .'  3.265/ 23.223); Electra dispenses with a narrative of gradual corruption. Clytemnestra's appearance ( that which distinguishes Homer's heroic women and goddesses) is worthy of praise as is Helen's. As Agamemnon in Homer promised praise and blame for Penelope and Clytemnestra, here Electra allows Clytemnestra a measure of praise ( )as a foil to the reproach to come. For the 'praise-worthy form' is to be contrasted with the 'unworthy nature' ( ) a fifth-century interest in phusis, which also shifts eidos towards a polarization of 'real nature'/'mere appearance'. The duals (rendered by 'both'/'you two') emphasize the pairing of the sisters as equally vain Helen because she was destroyed/corrupted ( )willingly (and here Electra speaks against not only Penelope's exoneration of Helen as the dupe of the gods but also the writing of contemporary figures such as Gorgias); Clytemnestra because she destroyed ( ) the best man (Achilles' Iliadic title here used of Agamemnon) of Greece. The punning that enforces the parallel narrative of corrupt destruction recalls the exclamation of the Homeric Odysseus on how the family of Atreus is god-hated, because through Helen 'many of us were destroyed', . |
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Electra's fifth-century redeployment and development of the Homeric Odysseus' expression leads into an attack on any woman who uses make-up in her husband's absence (106979), before she returns to the comparison with Helen (10805): |
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