Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Sony XDCAM EX
Another new HD format. A new codec, carried in a new file wrapper, recorded on a new solid-state media. This is getting a little difficult to keep track of.
Sony XDCAM EX builds in the fairly recently established Sony XDCAM HD products, which are in turn derived from the earlier XDCAM products.
Currently there is one camera utilising the technology, the Sony EX1 - a handheld form factor HD camera that seems to compete in many ways with Panasonic’s HVX202. It has styling familiar from Sony’s HDV camera range, with a number of refinements (the flip out LCD is more protected now, for example).
XDCAM EX is a 1080/720 Long-GOP MPEG-2 format, based on a 25Mb/s CBR (SP) or 35Mb/s CBR (HQ) datastream. The 720 format is basically the same as what is established in XDCAM HD, but the 1080 mode is a little different. Rather than being 1440×1080 sampled (like HDV and just about all other 1080 formats) it records a full 1920×1080 raster, at 4:2:2 14bit. This is pretty special for a small form-factor HD camera, in fact pretty special for ANY HD camera, as few, if any, short of the HDCAM SR Genesis record a full raster.
The new codec is all wrapped up in an MP4 wrapper however, moving away from the promising MXF format, and adding another hurdle to the Post Production end of the workflow.
From an operation point of view the camera is boxing above it’s weight too. It features a Fujinon HD lens with real, genuine, manual controls for Iris, Zoom and Focus. And it records it all with 1920×1080 1/2inch CMOS sensors.
But all that good glass adds weight to the camera, and at just a smidge under 3kg, it is a real workout for a hand-held camera. Without being able to brace the weight on your shoulder, it could become pretty heavy pretty quick.
And being solid-state the media issue has to raise it’s head. Like the Panasonic P2 system, the XDCAM EX system relies of high-capacity solid state storage cards. Sony has created it’s own, the SxS (S-by-S) card. It is based
on the PCMCIA ExpressCard profile (whereas P2 is PCMCIA PC-Card) meaning the readers are not as widespread (basically only Macbook Pros and some top of the line PC laptops at the moment). However to their credit Sony have made the cards an open format - they are currently being made by Sony and Sandisk, although others may be expected to follow.
Presently the cards are available in 8GB and 16GB sizes (at NZ$720 and NZ$1,280 respectively, excluding GST). A 32GB card is expected early 2008. This makes the cards cheaper than their P2 equivilents, and given the lower datarate they will hold more. A 16GB card will record 25min of HQ mode 1080, and 35min of 720 in the same mode.
Post-production still presents a challenge however, as the format has changed enough from the HDV and XDCAM HD formats to make those processes impractical. At present FCP has announced native support for XDCAM EX, due ’soon’. In the meantime the workflow involves transcoding to Apple ProRes422. For Avid, who knows. There were no Avid resellers at the launch, and the word was never uttered by the Sony staffers.
In the end the camera is a very impressive option, and at a retail price of a shade under NZ$12,000 (including 2 SxS 8GB cards) it could be a HVX-killer. And is almost certainly Sony’s most innovative offering in this form factor since the PD150. However the uncertainty about post production (especially in the non-FCP world), the lack of trust in Long-GOP formats and the existing userbase of the HVX and P2 stand in it’s way. But it certainly has better glass, cheaper media and more pixels than the HVX and that could be enough. Plus it’s got the big Sony name on it.
Sony XDCAM EX builds in the fairly recently established Sony XDCAM HD products, which are in turn derived from the earlier XDCAM products.
Currently there is one camera utilising the technology, the Sony EX1 - a handheld form factor HD camera that seems to compete in many ways with Panasonic’s HVX202. It has styling familiar from Sony’s HDV camera range, with a number of refinements (the flip out LCD is more protected now, for example).
XDCAM EX is a 1080/720 Long-GOP MPEG-2 format, based on a 25Mb/s CBR (SP) or 35Mb/s CBR (HQ) datastream. The 720 format is basically the same as what is established in XDCAM HD, but the 1080 mode is a little different. Rather than being 1440×1080 sampled (like HDV and just about all other 1080 formats) it records a full 1920×1080 raster, at 4:2:2 14bit. This is pretty special for a small form-factor HD camera, in fact pretty special for ANY HD camera, as few, if any, short of the HDCAM SR Genesis record a full raster.
The new codec is all wrapped up in an MP4 wrapper however, moving away from the promising MXF format, and adding another hurdle to the Post Production end of the workflow.
From an operation point of view the camera is boxing above it’s weight too. It features a Fujinon HD lens with real, genuine, manual controls for Iris, Zoom and Focus. And it records it all with 1920×1080 1/2inch CMOS sensors.
But all that good glass adds weight to the camera, and at just a smidge under 3kg, it is a real workout for a hand-held camera. Without being able to brace the weight on your shoulder, it could become pretty heavy pretty quick.
And being solid-state the media issue has to raise it’s head. Like the Panasonic P2 system, the XDCAM EX system relies of high-capacity solid state storage cards. Sony has created it’s own, the SxS (S-by-S) card. It is based
on the PCMCIA ExpressCard profile (whereas P2 is PCMCIA PC-Card) meaning the readers are not as widespread (basically only Macbook Pros and some top of the line PC laptops at the moment). However to their credit Sony have made the cards an open format - they are currently being made by Sony and Sandisk, although others may be expected to follow.
Presently the cards are available in 8GB and 16GB sizes (at NZ$720 and NZ$1,280 respectively, excluding GST). A 32GB card is expected early 2008. This makes the cards cheaper than their P2 equivilents, and given the lower datarate they will hold more. A 16GB card will record 25min of HQ mode 1080, and 35min of 720 in the same mode.
Post-production still presents a challenge however, as the format has changed enough from the HDV and XDCAM HD formats to make those processes impractical. At present FCP has announced native support for XDCAM EX, due ’soon’. In the meantime the workflow involves transcoding to Apple ProRes422. For Avid, who knows. There were no Avid resellers at the launch, and the word was never uttered by the Sony staffers.
In the end the camera is a very impressive option, and at a retail price of a shade under NZ$12,000 (including 2 SxS 8GB cards) it could be a HVX-killer. And is almost certainly Sony’s most innovative offering in this form factor since the PD150. However the uncertainty about post production (especially in the non-FCP world), the lack of trust in Long-GOP formats and the existing userbase of the HVX and P2 stand in it’s way. But it certainly has better glass, cheaper media and more pixels than the HVX and that could be enough. Plus it’s got the big Sony name on it.
Classless Utopia of Reality TV
IT is sometimes hard to detect much difference between artfully edited reality shows like “The Hills” on MTV and scripted dramas like “Gossip Girl” on CW and the recently canceled Fox series “The OC.”
Yet the more reality shows mimic fictional series in tone, look and format, the easier it is to see where they differ: class consciousness. Sitcoms and dramatic series drum up tension by assaulting social barriers. Most reality shows take them for granted and leave them untouched.
It is a distinction that will become even more obvious as reality shows multiply, partly in response to the strike of the Writers Guild. Scripted series deliver the image of the society we would like to be: racially integrated, classless, well intentioned. Reality shows are more honest, but they also breed a kind of country dysmorphic disorder: half the nation is blond, beautiful and driving sports cars through Beverly Hills, while the other half is blond, sleazily oversexed and prone to hair-pulling and name-calling.
In fact, among the many subgenres of reality television, only one tinkers with social engineering at all. Before the all-volunteer army, the military served as America’s melting pot. Now reality competitions like “The Amazing Race” and “America’s Next Top Model” fill the void, putting contestants through a form of Fort Benning basic training. “Survivor,” and even “The Biggest Loser,” purposely toss together all kinds of people from all walks of life who might otherwise never meet.
But society is more cautious when it comes to the quest for love. Romance novels are one thing. In real life most people favor a marriage of equals.
“The Hills,” like its forerunner, “Laguna Beach,” aims to be absorbed as drama. This crypto-scripted show dispenses with the so-called confessionals, a convention of the reality genre in which a protagonist breaks away to vent directly to the camera, and relies instead on evocative shots of skylines or highway traffic at dusk, lingering close-ups and moody pop music to underscore emotional highs and lows.
The principals, whose romances and kitchen quarrels furnish plotlines, are not really actors, but neither are they ordinary people exactly; they are a new hybrid of semiprofessional personalities who play themselves on camera. Men and women recruited for their resemblance to Us magazine celebutantes are now featured players in Us magazine, and boast lifestyles as lavish, and socially restricted, as Paris Hilton’s. More so, actually: Ms. Hilton, after all, was a star of “The Simple Life,” a “Green Acres” takeoff that propelled her and her friend Nicole Richie to rough it as country bumpkins, trading stores for chores. But that fish-out-of-water formula ebbed; reality fans seem to prefer to watch pigs in clover.
Nowadays, the classes don’t collide on reality television.
The CW network has had success with its competition series “Beauty and the Geek,” but the pairing of opposites — dumb beauties and intelligent geeks — is illusory; the women are all alike, and so are the men.
“The Real World” began on MTV as an experiment in group dynamics, but it is now more of a dating service with no exit — and accordingly, the participants seem ever more socially and culturally akin. So much so, in fact, that the producers now spice up the monotony with pop-up commentary: sarcastic asides about the housemates delivered by two young, MTV know-it-alls. (Unconsciously, perhaps, the pair provide the kind of critical distance — and class awareness — spouted by the wise servant in Molière, or for that matter the wisecracking maid on “Maude.”)
On “The Hills,” a preserve for the young, good-looking and privileged, there is no other side of the tracks. Meanwhile, “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” caters to the trailer-park set. MTV promotes its heroine, a Web siren, as “the first bisexual bachelorette,” but the show isn’t shocking because it pits 16 lesbians and semi-lesbians against 16 heterosexual men. What is scandalous is the group’s homogeneity: all of them seem so poignantly coarse and equally undereducated — “The Jerry Springer Show: The Next Generation.”
On “The Hills,” girls fight with shrugs, false smiles and pinched sarcasm (“Have a great night”). On “Real World: Sydney” and “A Shot at Love” or even “I Love New York,” another “Bachelorette”-style showdown, friction is expressed with body slams and punches.
Scripted television favors myth. “Ugly Betty,” on ABC, puts a poor, plain girl (America Ferrera) from Queens deep inside the offices of a top fashion magazine and draws its humor from the class struggle between Betty and her snooty, conniving colleagues.
“The Hills” puts Lauren, an alumna of “Laguna Beach,” inside the real-life West Coast office of Teen Vogue, and draws its humor from the sleek, vacuous congruity of that world. Everybody fits in. Lauren’s tasks consist mostly of attending red-carpet premieres.
A recurring joke of the show is how the leaders of Hollywood’s young and pampered set feel oppressed by their careers. Lauren’s former friend Heidi, who works for an event planner, returns home in a white, bare-shouldered top, her blond hair impeccably blown out, and is greeted by her fiancé, Spencer. “How was your day, sweetheart?” he asks somewhat sardonically. “Long,” she replies wearily. “Tiring.”
“The OC” built its story line on the cultural collision between its underclass hero, Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), a teenage runaway, and the affluent and gorgeous denizens of Orange County, Calif. “Gossip Girl” pits a middle-class teenager, the son of a former rock singer, against the snobbish scions of Park Avenue and the Hamptons.
“Laguna Beach” never bothered with such contrivance. All its protagonists were young, wealthy and gorgeous, and they found plenty of drama in the small slights and petty misunderstandings of the overly examined life. Lauren went on to become one of the heroines of “The Hills,” and is once again surrounded by a posse of improbably blond, good-looking and pampered young people. The closest that series has come to a misalliance is a date Lauren’s friend Whitney had with her personal trainer, a tall, dark and handsome New Yorker.
The dramedy “Desperate Housewives” is not known for redeeming social values, but even that ABC soap opera tried to integrate Wisteria Lane in its second season, recruiting Alfre Woodard to play an African-American concert pianist who keeps a mystery man chained up in the basement.
“The Real Housewives of Orange County” doesn’t try to build racial understanding; its heroines, indistinguishable in plunging necklines and plumped-up lips, are too busy with facial reconstruction. These housewives do not need murder mysteries or race issues to hold attention. Their drama revolves around the self-indulgent middle-aged woman’s race against the ravages of time and cellulite. It is silly and excruciating to watch, a menopausal minstrel show.
There are other reality subgenres that follow the same unwritten rule. “Run’s House,” featuring the family antics of the hip-hop star Joseph Simmons, known as Rev Run, inhabits a parallel universe to “Hogan Knows Best,” which follows the family antics of the pro wrestling celebrity Hulk Hogan’s home. And the same formula sustains “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which centers on the wife and stepchildren of the former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner.
There is no fresh prince shaking up Bel Air.
All three of those reality families live a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” existence — and share similar story lines, down to a star-struck daughter seeking to trade family connections for fame. Kim Kardashian, the ambitious daughter of Mr. Jenner’s pushy wife, Kris, poses for Playboy to jump-start her career. Run’s daughter Angela sets her sights on starting her own magazine so that she can throw star-studded parties, while Brooke Hogan aspires to pop stardom.
These family sagas unfurl concurrently on television, but despite the fact that most of the participants live in the wealthier neighborhoods of Los Angeles, they rarely intersect. The only notable example of cross-pollination was a romance between Mr. Jenner’s son Brody, who was a leading character on the short-lived Fox reality series “Princes of Malibu,” and Lauren Conrad of “The Hills.”
Reality shows are dramas lived out on beta-blockers; microproblems stretch over more episodes than any network drama would allow, no crimes are solved, no lives are saved, and the characters speak most eloquently when silent. Most of all they focus on mating, not social mobility.
Yet the more reality shows mimic fictional series in tone, look and format, the easier it is to see where they differ: class consciousness. Sitcoms and dramatic series drum up tension by assaulting social barriers. Most reality shows take them for granted and leave them untouched.
It is a distinction that will become even more obvious as reality shows multiply, partly in response to the strike of the Writers Guild. Scripted series deliver the image of the society we would like to be: racially integrated, classless, well intentioned. Reality shows are more honest, but they also breed a kind of country dysmorphic disorder: half the nation is blond, beautiful and driving sports cars through Beverly Hills, while the other half is blond, sleazily oversexed and prone to hair-pulling and name-calling.
In fact, among the many subgenres of reality television, only one tinkers with social engineering at all. Before the all-volunteer army, the military served as America’s melting pot. Now reality competitions like “The Amazing Race” and “America’s Next Top Model” fill the void, putting contestants through a form of Fort Benning basic training. “Survivor,” and even “The Biggest Loser,” purposely toss together all kinds of people from all walks of life who might otherwise never meet.
But society is more cautious when it comes to the quest for love. Romance novels are one thing. In real life most people favor a marriage of equals.
“The Hills,” like its forerunner, “Laguna Beach,” aims to be absorbed as drama. This crypto-scripted show dispenses with the so-called confessionals, a convention of the reality genre in which a protagonist breaks away to vent directly to the camera, and relies instead on evocative shots of skylines or highway traffic at dusk, lingering close-ups and moody pop music to underscore emotional highs and lows.
The principals, whose romances and kitchen quarrels furnish plotlines, are not really actors, but neither are they ordinary people exactly; they are a new hybrid of semiprofessional personalities who play themselves on camera. Men and women recruited for their resemblance to Us magazine celebutantes are now featured players in Us magazine, and boast lifestyles as lavish, and socially restricted, as Paris Hilton’s. More so, actually: Ms. Hilton, after all, was a star of “The Simple Life,” a “Green Acres” takeoff that propelled her and her friend Nicole Richie to rough it as country bumpkins, trading stores for chores. But that fish-out-of-water formula ebbed; reality fans seem to prefer to watch pigs in clover.
Nowadays, the classes don’t collide on reality television.
The CW network has had success with its competition series “Beauty and the Geek,” but the pairing of opposites — dumb beauties and intelligent geeks — is illusory; the women are all alike, and so are the men.
“The Real World” began on MTV as an experiment in group dynamics, but it is now more of a dating service with no exit — and accordingly, the participants seem ever more socially and culturally akin. So much so, in fact, that the producers now spice up the monotony with pop-up commentary: sarcastic asides about the housemates delivered by two young, MTV know-it-alls. (Unconsciously, perhaps, the pair provide the kind of critical distance — and class awareness — spouted by the wise servant in Molière, or for that matter the wisecracking maid on “Maude.”)
On “The Hills,” a preserve for the young, good-looking and privileged, there is no other side of the tracks. Meanwhile, “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” caters to the trailer-park set. MTV promotes its heroine, a Web siren, as “the first bisexual bachelorette,” but the show isn’t shocking because it pits 16 lesbians and semi-lesbians against 16 heterosexual men. What is scandalous is the group’s homogeneity: all of them seem so poignantly coarse and equally undereducated — “The Jerry Springer Show: The Next Generation.”
On “The Hills,” girls fight with shrugs, false smiles and pinched sarcasm (“Have a great night”). On “Real World: Sydney” and “A Shot at Love” or even “I Love New York,” another “Bachelorette”-style showdown, friction is expressed with body slams and punches.
Scripted television favors myth. “Ugly Betty,” on ABC, puts a poor, plain girl (America Ferrera) from Queens deep inside the offices of a top fashion magazine and draws its humor from the class struggle between Betty and her snooty, conniving colleagues.
“The Hills” puts Lauren, an alumna of “Laguna Beach,” inside the real-life West Coast office of Teen Vogue, and draws its humor from the sleek, vacuous congruity of that world. Everybody fits in. Lauren’s tasks consist mostly of attending red-carpet premieres.
A recurring joke of the show is how the leaders of Hollywood’s young and pampered set feel oppressed by their careers. Lauren’s former friend Heidi, who works for an event planner, returns home in a white, bare-shouldered top, her blond hair impeccably blown out, and is greeted by her fiancé, Spencer. “How was your day, sweetheart?” he asks somewhat sardonically. “Long,” she replies wearily. “Tiring.”
“The OC” built its story line on the cultural collision between its underclass hero, Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), a teenage runaway, and the affluent and gorgeous denizens of Orange County, Calif. “Gossip Girl” pits a middle-class teenager, the son of a former rock singer, against the snobbish scions of Park Avenue and the Hamptons.
“Laguna Beach” never bothered with such contrivance. All its protagonists were young, wealthy and gorgeous, and they found plenty of drama in the small slights and petty misunderstandings of the overly examined life. Lauren went on to become one of the heroines of “The Hills,” and is once again surrounded by a posse of improbably blond, good-looking and pampered young people. The closest that series has come to a misalliance is a date Lauren’s friend Whitney had with her personal trainer, a tall, dark and handsome New Yorker.
The dramedy “Desperate Housewives” is not known for redeeming social values, but even that ABC soap opera tried to integrate Wisteria Lane in its second season, recruiting Alfre Woodard to play an African-American concert pianist who keeps a mystery man chained up in the basement.
“The Real Housewives of Orange County” doesn’t try to build racial understanding; its heroines, indistinguishable in plunging necklines and plumped-up lips, are too busy with facial reconstruction. These housewives do not need murder mysteries or race issues to hold attention. Their drama revolves around the self-indulgent middle-aged woman’s race against the ravages of time and cellulite. It is silly and excruciating to watch, a menopausal minstrel show.
There are other reality subgenres that follow the same unwritten rule. “Run’s House,” featuring the family antics of the hip-hop star Joseph Simmons, known as Rev Run, inhabits a parallel universe to “Hogan Knows Best,” which follows the family antics of the pro wrestling celebrity Hulk Hogan’s home. And the same formula sustains “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which centers on the wife and stepchildren of the former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner.
There is no fresh prince shaking up Bel Air.
All three of those reality families live a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” existence — and share similar story lines, down to a star-struck daughter seeking to trade family connections for fame. Kim Kardashian, the ambitious daughter of Mr. Jenner’s pushy wife, Kris, poses for Playboy to jump-start her career. Run’s daughter Angela sets her sights on starting her own magazine so that she can throw star-studded parties, while Brooke Hogan aspires to pop stardom.
These family sagas unfurl concurrently on television, but despite the fact that most of the participants live in the wealthier neighborhoods of Los Angeles, they rarely intersect. The only notable example of cross-pollination was a romance between Mr. Jenner’s son Brody, who was a leading character on the short-lived Fox reality series “Princes of Malibu,” and Lauren Conrad of “The Hills.”
Reality shows are dramas lived out on beta-blockers; microproblems stretch over more episodes than any network drama would allow, no crimes are solved, no lives are saved, and the characters speak most eloquently when silent. Most of all they focus on mating, not social mobility.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Greek Film Festival
The revived Greek Film Festival in New York comes at a time of change in contemporary Greek cinema. Just as the studio era of 1950-70 gave way to the director’s cinema of the post-junta era, that cinema now is giving way to a hybrid cinema that seeks to combine the virtues of its predecessors.
Production in the studio era often hit more than a hundred films a year. That fare was mainly composed of comedies, melodramas, and musicals. The emphasis was on entertainment and performers. Political themes could only be addressed indirectly. On the fringes of this commercial cinema, artistic films such as O Drakos, Magic City, Stella, and The Girl in Black also were produced. Greek actors such as Melina Mercouri and Irene Papas attained international celebrity status and the music of Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis earned Greek bouzouki world acclaim.
The era following the fall of the junta in 1974 shifted emphasis from performers to directors. The artistic vision of the director—a sense that the director is the author of a film—became paramount. Direct expression of political views was now considered one of the natural options open to every director and that option was frequently exercised. The outstanding film of this era is Thiasos (The Traveling Players) and Theo Angelopoulos, its director, embodies the era’s regard for author-directors.
Although numerous films made by various Greek directors often received international recognition, Greek cinema slowly lost its audience within Greece. Just as popular Greek cinema in its final years often seemed no more than visual junk food gone bad, much of the Greek public began to view the director’s cinema as idiosyncratic and pretentious. Half of the roughly twenty Greek films produced in each year of the 1990s had box office attendance of less than 10,000. At the same time, some of the better studio-era films being shown on television were drawing large audiences and a new wave of low-budget independents attracted a respectable number of viewers.
A turning point in contemporary Greek cinema occurred in 2000 with the release of Safe Sex. This spoof on Greek morality that featured personalities from television had over a million admissions. By attracting the largest audience for any film released that year in Greece, including all the Hollywood blockbusters, Safe Sex demonstrated that there remained a huge national appetite for Greek films.
In the years that followed the success of Safe Sex, a new trend began to emerge in Greek film. While the focus remained on the personal vision and style of the director, more attention was increasingly given to themes and formats that appealed to the popular imagination. This change, involving many veteran directors as well as newcomers, has been an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process, and it has remained more intuitive than programmatic. The films being screened at this festival reflect this new trend in Greek cinema. They range from hard-edged dramas to light comedies to surrealistic satires. Some employ cutting-edge technology or the improvisations of low-budget independent films; others rely on tested traditional techniques. Further enriching the festival are three feature-length documentaries that reflect the complexity of Greek culture. They deal with a Greek screenwriter in Hollywood, the Greek baseball team at the 2004 Olympics, and the Holocaust in Greece.
Production in the studio era often hit more than a hundred films a year. That fare was mainly composed of comedies, melodramas, and musicals. The emphasis was on entertainment and performers. Political themes could only be addressed indirectly. On the fringes of this commercial cinema, artistic films such as O Drakos, Magic City, Stella, and The Girl in Black also were produced. Greek actors such as Melina Mercouri and Irene Papas attained international celebrity status and the music of Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis earned Greek bouzouki world acclaim.
The era following the fall of the junta in 1974 shifted emphasis from performers to directors. The artistic vision of the director—a sense that the director is the author of a film—became paramount. Direct expression of political views was now considered one of the natural options open to every director and that option was frequently exercised. The outstanding film of this era is Thiasos (The Traveling Players) and Theo Angelopoulos, its director, embodies the era’s regard for author-directors.
Although numerous films made by various Greek directors often received international recognition, Greek cinema slowly lost its audience within Greece. Just as popular Greek cinema in its final years often seemed no more than visual junk food gone bad, much of the Greek public began to view the director’s cinema as idiosyncratic and pretentious. Half of the roughly twenty Greek films produced in each year of the 1990s had box office attendance of less than 10,000. At the same time, some of the better studio-era films being shown on television were drawing large audiences and a new wave of low-budget independents attracted a respectable number of viewers.
A turning point in contemporary Greek cinema occurred in 2000 with the release of Safe Sex. This spoof on Greek morality that featured personalities from television had over a million admissions. By attracting the largest audience for any film released that year in Greece, including all the Hollywood blockbusters, Safe Sex demonstrated that there remained a huge national appetite for Greek films.
In the years that followed the success of Safe Sex, a new trend began to emerge in Greek film. While the focus remained on the personal vision and style of the director, more attention was increasingly given to themes and formats that appealed to the popular imagination. This change, involving many veteran directors as well as newcomers, has been an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process, and it has remained more intuitive than programmatic. The films being screened at this festival reflect this new trend in Greek cinema. They range from hard-edged dramas to light comedies to surrealistic satires. Some employ cutting-edge technology or the improvisations of low-budget independent films; others rely on tested traditional techniques. Further enriching the festival are three feature-length documentaries that reflect the complexity of Greek culture. They deal with a Greek screenwriter in Hollywood, the Greek baseball team at the 2004 Olympics, and the Holocaust in Greece.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Food and Mood
The Connection of Food and Mood
Is Britney Spear's 'Toxic' Diet Causing Her Erratic Behavior?
From Britney Spears to Lindsay Lohan, young Hollywood stars are imploding. Spears and others are routinely photographed carrying sugar and fat-laden coffee drink and eating fast food. No doubt a host of issues may be at work, but one thing is clear --- the toxic diet of many celebrities can cause big problems.
Bestselling author, Dr. Timothy Brantley has taught his methods of naturally restoring physical and emotional health to thousands of people, including well-known celebrities. According to Dr. Brantley, the brain communicates by chemical neurotransmitters; which are created in the brain from the food we consume. You may be able to better balance your mood by knowing which "mood foods" to avoid and which to incorporate into your diet.
BAD MOOD FOODS
Greasy Fast Food
Burgers can linger in your stomach for a long time and can zap your energy for hours to come.
Caffeine
Caffeine can be addictive, altering brain chemistry in a way similar to amphetamines, often triggering irritability and agitation.
Alcohol
According to press reports Britney Spears indulged in Margaritas prior to her infamous MTV VMA thumbs-down performance. Connect the dots - alcohol is a sedative that can cause dehydration, muscle weakness, and inability to focus.
Sugar
Sugar causes mood swings and fatigue, hyperactivity, anxiety and can lead to emotional instability, as well as obesity.
Soda
Commercial sodas often contain high levels of sodium that can cause dehydration. The caffeine content in many sodas, particularly so-called "energy drinks," can cause weight gain, bloating, memory loss, inattention and anxiety.
GOOD MOOD FOODS
Omega 3
Omega 3 fatty acids have mood lifting benefits and help alleviate depression. Foods rich in Omega 3 include salmon, flaxseed, and walnuts.
Folic acid and B12
Low blood levels of folate and vitamin B12 may be related to depression. Folic acid rich foods include: lentils, oatmeal and broccoli. Foods loaded with mood enhancing B12 include: salmon and organic beef.
Vitamin D
Stave off the winter blues with a bit of sunshine and foods rich in Vitamin D like fish and egg yolks.
Tryptophan
Serotonin production is facilitated by tryptophan. Foods that are tryptophan-rich includes: raw milk, yogurt, eggs, meat, nuts, beans, fish and almonds.
Dr. Timothy Brantley has been an independent researcher utilizing naturopathic principles for many years. He is a frequent guest on The Rachael Ray Show, Montel Williams Show and Dr. Pat radio program. Dr. Brantley's very popular blog is currently featured in The Huffington Post. His best-selling new book, "The Cure: Heal Your Body, Save Your Life" (Wiley) prescribes a plan for empowering people to cure disease and restore vibrant health.
For more information, visit his website at www.brantleycure.com
Dr. Brantley will lecture in person at the Learning Annex in New York on November 6, 2007 and in Los Angeles on October 30, 2007.
Is Britney Spear's 'Toxic' Diet Causing Her Erratic Behavior?
From Britney Spears to Lindsay Lohan, young Hollywood stars are imploding. Spears and others are routinely photographed carrying sugar and fat-laden coffee drink and eating fast food. No doubt a host of issues may be at work, but one thing is clear --- the toxic diet of many celebrities can cause big problems.
Bestselling author, Dr. Timothy Brantley has taught his methods of naturally restoring physical and emotional health to thousands of people, including well-known celebrities. According to Dr. Brantley, the brain communicates by chemical neurotransmitters; which are created in the brain from the food we consume. You may be able to better balance your mood by knowing which "mood foods" to avoid and which to incorporate into your diet.
BAD MOOD FOODS
Greasy Fast Food
Burgers can linger in your stomach for a long time and can zap your energy for hours to come.
Caffeine
Caffeine can be addictive, altering brain chemistry in a way similar to amphetamines, often triggering irritability and agitation.
Alcohol
According to press reports Britney Spears indulged in Margaritas prior to her infamous MTV VMA thumbs-down performance. Connect the dots - alcohol is a sedative that can cause dehydration, muscle weakness, and inability to focus.
Sugar
Sugar causes mood swings and fatigue, hyperactivity, anxiety and can lead to emotional instability, as well as obesity.
Soda
Commercial sodas often contain high levels of sodium that can cause dehydration. The caffeine content in many sodas, particularly so-called "energy drinks," can cause weight gain, bloating, memory loss, inattention and anxiety.
GOOD MOOD FOODS
Omega 3
Omega 3 fatty acids have mood lifting benefits and help alleviate depression. Foods rich in Omega 3 include salmon, flaxseed, and walnuts.
Folic acid and B12
Low blood levels of folate and vitamin B12 may be related to depression. Folic acid rich foods include: lentils, oatmeal and broccoli. Foods loaded with mood enhancing B12 include: salmon and organic beef.
Vitamin D
Stave off the winter blues with a bit of sunshine and foods rich in Vitamin D like fish and egg yolks.
Tryptophan
Serotonin production is facilitated by tryptophan. Foods that are tryptophan-rich includes: raw milk, yogurt, eggs, meat, nuts, beans, fish and almonds.
Dr. Timothy Brantley has been an independent researcher utilizing naturopathic principles for many years. He is a frequent guest on The Rachael Ray Show, Montel Williams Show and Dr. Pat radio program. Dr. Brantley's very popular blog is currently featured in The Huffington Post. His best-selling new book, "The Cure: Heal Your Body, Save Your Life" (Wiley) prescribes a plan for empowering people to cure disease and restore vibrant health.
For more information, visit his website at www.brantleycure.com
Dr. Brantley will lecture in person at the Learning Annex in New York on November 6, 2007 and in Los Angeles on October 30, 2007.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Art Learn Art
PAINTING
Oil
Oil paint is a slow drying paint that is created by mixing pigments with oil, linseed oil being the most traditional. Oil paints are usually opaque and never dry fully, but rather develop a hard film. Since the sixteenth century oil painting on canvas has been a standard medium for artists as it can be easily manipulated and has great flexibility, making it possible for an artist to achieve a layered or smooth, rich coloured canvas.
Watercolour
Watercolours are translucent water-based paints. The technique is based on the transparent or glaze system of pigmentation that utilises the colour of the paper for its whites and pale tints.
Acrylic
This painting medium was developed in the middle of the twentieth century. Acrylic is a type of synthetic resin based on polymer colours and the paint is made by dispersing pigment in an acrylic emulsion. The artist can thin these colours with water, but when they dry the resin particles coalesce to form a tough, flexible, rubbery film that is impervious to water. This paint is popular because it dries quickly enabling an artist to work over a previously painted area almost immediately. Although acrylics lack the manipulative qualities of oils and watercolours, artists can produce a matt, semi-matt or glossy finish by mixing them with the appropriate mediums.
Gouache
Gouache is an opaque watercolour, but is different from transparent watercolour in that it has a definite, appreciable film thickness and creates an actual paint layer. It has a brilliant light-reflecting quality and is most popularly used in a high chromatic key or in strong contrasting values.
SCULPTURE
Carving
Carving is a reductive or subtractive technique in which the artist removes the material through cutting or abrading a block of material to create a piece. Wood is very pliable and is therefore easy to carve, although it is subject to humidity and extreme temperatures as it breathes more than stone, and must be dried and cured prior to carving to prevent subsequent splitting or warping. Marble, the stone used most often since ancient Greece, is very hard and difficult to carve; alabaster, which has a similar aesthetic property to marble, is soft and easy to carve; limestone, granite and sandstone are also popular media.
Modeling
Modeling is the process in which a three-dimensional form is shaped from clay or wax. Clay works are placed in a kiln or oven to be fired and the firing process makes the clay permanent and durable.
Casting
A fluid substance such as plastic, clay or molten metal is poured into a cast, a mould which is made from a clay or wax model. Bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) is often used in casting, but concrete and resin can also be cast.
Assemblage
The term refers to work such as welded metal constructions in which pre-formed elements are joined and was evident in the revolutionary art movements during the first quarter of the twentieth century in France, Russia and Germany.
PRINTMAKING
Lithography
Lithography consists of drawing or painting with greasy crayons and inks on limestone that has been ground down to a flat, smooth block. After several subsequent manipulations, the stone is moistened with water wetting the sections not covered by the crayon and leaving the areas of the greasy drawing dry as grease repels water. Oil-based ink is then applied with a roller and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. The print made by pressing paper against the inked drawing is an autographic replica, in reverse, of the original drawing on stone.
Monoprints and Monotypes
These two terms are often incorrectly assumed to be the same, but there are important differences. A Monoprint has a single underlying image (such as an etched plate or screen) that is made unique through a process of hand colouring or surface alteration to the printed image. A series of monoprints may be similar but are not identical. Monotypes are unique images and do not have a repeatable matrix (etched plate or screen). Instead, a thin even film of ink is rolled on to a plate which the artist then manipulates by drawing into it, or by rubbing sections off. The print image is taken directly from the plate.
Intaglio Process Prints
Intaglio prints can be created through a number of processes, the common element is that the printed area is recessed. These recessed areas are filled with a greasy printer's ink and then the surface is carefully wiped clean so that the ink remains only in the incised design. Types of intaglio processes include; Etching, Drypoint, Aquatint, Mezzotint, and Collagraphs.
Etching: The metal plate is coated with an acid-resisting wax or 'ground' that the artist draws into with a variety of tools, removing the ground from the areas that are to print black. The plate is immersed in an acid bath, which 'bites out' or etches the exposed areas. The etched plate is inked and the surface is wiped clean, leaving ink only in the etched depressions. Finally the plate is run through a press with dampened paper - the pressure forces the paper into the etched areas of the plate, transferring the ink onto the paper. Rembrandt van Rijn first popularized this technique.
Drypoint: Artists working in drypoint draw the image directly onto the plate using a steel tipped 'pencil' that produces an added richness due to the burr (or shaving of metal that is turned up at the furrow). As the burrs are delicate and crush easily under the weight of the press, usually less than 50 impressions can be made.
Aquatint: Aquatint is an etching technique which allows large areas of varying tones to be printed, by means of a textured plate. The area to be etched is dusted with a powdered resin and then heated to melt it onto the surface. The plate is then placed in the acid bath to etch away the tiny areas not protected by the granulated resin.
Mezzotint: This is perhaps the most labour intensive intaglio process and involves a plate being 'rocked' with a curved, notched blade until the surface is entirely and evenly pitted, creating a rough surface that prints black. Scraping the burr off or polishing the plate smooth creates half-tones and light. Colour mezzotints require a separate plate for each colour which will be printed separately on top of the previous colour in different print runs.
Collagraphs: Derived from the word 'collage,' Collagraphs are created by building up an image on a surface (cardboard, metal, or plastic) with glue and other materials thereby creating recessed areas where the ink is retained.
Relief Printing
This is the oldest printing technique and refers to the cutting away of part of the surface of a block of material so that the image area to be printed stands out in relief. Woodcuts or woodblock prints are made by cutting into the surface of a smooth piece of hardwood with a knife, and V and U gouges are used to create more delicate lines. When printed, the area that has been cut away remains white and the raised surface is visible. A separate block is required for each colour. Printmakers rarely use more than three or four colours for aesthetic purposes. The linocut, a twentieth century adaptation of woodcuts, uses linoleum in place of wood and while it is easier to work with, it will not take very delicate or subtle cutting.
Screenprinting / Serigraphy / Silkscreen Printing
Serigraphy is a twentieth century multicolour printmaking technique developed in America. The stencil process involves placing designs on a silk or nylon mesh screen that is attached to a wooden or metal frame about two inches deep, with the screen fabric at the bottom. Various film-forming materials, as well as hand-cut film stencils and photo-sensitive emulsions, are used as resists. Colour is poured into the frame which is placed in contact with the surface to be printed on. The colour is scraped over the stencil with a squeegee and deposited on the paper through the meshes of the uncoated areas of fabric.
OTHER MEDIA
Pencil / Charcoal / Chalk
Ordinary lead pencils are made of graphite mixed with variable amounts of clay according to the degree of hardness required, with the softest varieties containing little or no clay. The paper texture must be coarse so that it 'files' down the pencil. Charcoal, due to its crumbly nature, can be used either for wispy strokes or shading, and is good for creating strong dark lines - the drawback with charcoal is that it smudges and tends to break easily. Chalk is usually used for shading.
Pastel
Pastels are normally sold in three grades: soft, medium and hard. The soft is universally used, the other two mainly for special effects. The soft texture of pastels allows them to be easily manipulated. One of the charms of the finished drawing is its texture, as manipulations of the crayons produce a varied effect: thin or thick, smooth or rough, level or impasto.
Ink
Ink has been used for many centuries in the Far East, and used to be sold in sticks that were rubbed with water in shallow mortars. Modern ink is sold in liquid form, either soluble or waterproof; the former is more suited to fine lines and delicate manipulations and effects, and coloured ink can be applied to wet paper to produce magnificent spreading effects.
Collage
Collage became recognised as a serious art form in the early twentieth century. The term is derived from a nineteenth century craft called 'papiers collés' in which a variety of found objects including fabric, newspapers and cardboard are adhered to a flat surface to create a work of art. Decoupage refers to the pasting of cutouts all-over a surface rather than the use of cutouts as individual shapes or patterns in a design.
Digital Art
The term 'Digital Art' encompasses three different categories:
- Digitally produced reproduction of an artwork already existing in another form, for example a painting.
- Work produced to be viewed via digital means, which cannot be easily 'owned', such as web-art.
- Work produced digitally, or using a computer as a tool in the process, which results in a work existing outside of the computer - perhaps in the form of a lambda or giclee print, so that this digitally produced print can be considered to be an 'original'. Work in this category may also exist in the form of a video, or more recently, a DVD. Such videos and DVDs will often be sold in limited editions, as with prints.
At galeries, work in the first category is not accepted, as it is not considered to be an original work of art. Work in the second category tends not to be for sale, but is instead freely accessible to experience, but not to own, via the internet.
Works in the final category are sold at galleries, subject to their being produced under the same strictly limited editions as conventional prints. In other words, when a print's edition has been fully run, the artist must not produce any further prints in the series.
Oil
Oil paint is a slow drying paint that is created by mixing pigments with oil, linseed oil being the most traditional. Oil paints are usually opaque and never dry fully, but rather develop a hard film. Since the sixteenth century oil painting on canvas has been a standard medium for artists as it can be easily manipulated and has great flexibility, making it possible for an artist to achieve a layered or smooth, rich coloured canvas.
Watercolour
Watercolours are translucent water-based paints. The technique is based on the transparent or glaze system of pigmentation that utilises the colour of the paper for its whites and pale tints.
Acrylic
This painting medium was developed in the middle of the twentieth century. Acrylic is a type of synthetic resin based on polymer colours and the paint is made by dispersing pigment in an acrylic emulsion. The artist can thin these colours with water, but when they dry the resin particles coalesce to form a tough, flexible, rubbery film that is impervious to water. This paint is popular because it dries quickly enabling an artist to work over a previously painted area almost immediately. Although acrylics lack the manipulative qualities of oils and watercolours, artists can produce a matt, semi-matt or glossy finish by mixing them with the appropriate mediums.
Gouache
Gouache is an opaque watercolour, but is different from transparent watercolour in that it has a definite, appreciable film thickness and creates an actual paint layer. It has a brilliant light-reflecting quality and is most popularly used in a high chromatic key or in strong contrasting values.
SCULPTURE
Carving
Carving is a reductive or subtractive technique in which the artist removes the material through cutting or abrading a block of material to create a piece. Wood is very pliable and is therefore easy to carve, although it is subject to humidity and extreme temperatures as it breathes more than stone, and must be dried and cured prior to carving to prevent subsequent splitting or warping. Marble, the stone used most often since ancient Greece, is very hard and difficult to carve; alabaster, which has a similar aesthetic property to marble, is soft and easy to carve; limestone, granite and sandstone are also popular media.
Modeling
Modeling is the process in which a three-dimensional form is shaped from clay or wax. Clay works are placed in a kiln or oven to be fired and the firing process makes the clay permanent and durable.
Casting
A fluid substance such as plastic, clay or molten metal is poured into a cast, a mould which is made from a clay or wax model. Bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) is often used in casting, but concrete and resin can also be cast.
Assemblage
The term refers to work such as welded metal constructions in which pre-formed elements are joined and was evident in the revolutionary art movements during the first quarter of the twentieth century in France, Russia and Germany.
PRINTMAKING
Lithography
Lithography consists of drawing or painting with greasy crayons and inks on limestone that has been ground down to a flat, smooth block. After several subsequent manipulations, the stone is moistened with water wetting the sections not covered by the crayon and leaving the areas of the greasy drawing dry as grease repels water. Oil-based ink is then applied with a roller and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. The print made by pressing paper against the inked drawing is an autographic replica, in reverse, of the original drawing on stone.
Monoprints and Monotypes
These two terms are often incorrectly assumed to be the same, but there are important differences. A Monoprint has a single underlying image (such as an etched plate or screen) that is made unique through a process of hand colouring or surface alteration to the printed image. A series of monoprints may be similar but are not identical. Monotypes are unique images and do not have a repeatable matrix (etched plate or screen). Instead, a thin even film of ink is rolled on to a plate which the artist then manipulates by drawing into it, or by rubbing sections off. The print image is taken directly from the plate.
Intaglio Process Prints
Intaglio prints can be created through a number of processes, the common element is that the printed area is recessed. These recessed areas are filled with a greasy printer's ink and then the surface is carefully wiped clean so that the ink remains only in the incised design. Types of intaglio processes include; Etching, Drypoint, Aquatint, Mezzotint, and Collagraphs.
Etching: The metal plate is coated with an acid-resisting wax or 'ground' that the artist draws into with a variety of tools, removing the ground from the areas that are to print black. The plate is immersed in an acid bath, which 'bites out' or etches the exposed areas. The etched plate is inked and the surface is wiped clean, leaving ink only in the etched depressions. Finally the plate is run through a press with dampened paper - the pressure forces the paper into the etched areas of the plate, transferring the ink onto the paper. Rembrandt van Rijn first popularized this technique.
Drypoint: Artists working in drypoint draw the image directly onto the plate using a steel tipped 'pencil' that produces an added richness due to the burr (or shaving of metal that is turned up at the furrow). As the burrs are delicate and crush easily under the weight of the press, usually less than 50 impressions can be made.
Aquatint: Aquatint is an etching technique which allows large areas of varying tones to be printed, by means of a textured plate. The area to be etched is dusted with a powdered resin and then heated to melt it onto the surface. The plate is then placed in the acid bath to etch away the tiny areas not protected by the granulated resin.
Mezzotint: This is perhaps the most labour intensive intaglio process and involves a plate being 'rocked' with a curved, notched blade until the surface is entirely and evenly pitted, creating a rough surface that prints black. Scraping the burr off or polishing the plate smooth creates half-tones and light. Colour mezzotints require a separate plate for each colour which will be printed separately on top of the previous colour in different print runs.
Collagraphs: Derived from the word 'collage,' Collagraphs are created by building up an image on a surface (cardboard, metal, or plastic) with glue and other materials thereby creating recessed areas where the ink is retained.
Relief Printing
This is the oldest printing technique and refers to the cutting away of part of the surface of a block of material so that the image area to be printed stands out in relief. Woodcuts or woodblock prints are made by cutting into the surface of a smooth piece of hardwood with a knife, and V and U gouges are used to create more delicate lines. When printed, the area that has been cut away remains white and the raised surface is visible. A separate block is required for each colour. Printmakers rarely use more than three or four colours for aesthetic purposes. The linocut, a twentieth century adaptation of woodcuts, uses linoleum in place of wood and while it is easier to work with, it will not take very delicate or subtle cutting.
Screenprinting / Serigraphy / Silkscreen Printing
Serigraphy is a twentieth century multicolour printmaking technique developed in America. The stencil process involves placing designs on a silk or nylon mesh screen that is attached to a wooden or metal frame about two inches deep, with the screen fabric at the bottom. Various film-forming materials, as well as hand-cut film stencils and photo-sensitive emulsions, are used as resists. Colour is poured into the frame which is placed in contact with the surface to be printed on. The colour is scraped over the stencil with a squeegee and deposited on the paper through the meshes of the uncoated areas of fabric.
OTHER MEDIA
Pencil / Charcoal / Chalk
Ordinary lead pencils are made of graphite mixed with variable amounts of clay according to the degree of hardness required, with the softest varieties containing little or no clay. The paper texture must be coarse so that it 'files' down the pencil. Charcoal, due to its crumbly nature, can be used either for wispy strokes or shading, and is good for creating strong dark lines - the drawback with charcoal is that it smudges and tends to break easily. Chalk is usually used for shading.
Pastel
Pastels are normally sold in three grades: soft, medium and hard. The soft is universally used, the other two mainly for special effects. The soft texture of pastels allows them to be easily manipulated. One of the charms of the finished drawing is its texture, as manipulations of the crayons produce a varied effect: thin or thick, smooth or rough, level or impasto.
Ink
Ink has been used for many centuries in the Far East, and used to be sold in sticks that were rubbed with water in shallow mortars. Modern ink is sold in liquid form, either soluble or waterproof; the former is more suited to fine lines and delicate manipulations and effects, and coloured ink can be applied to wet paper to produce magnificent spreading effects.
Collage
Collage became recognised as a serious art form in the early twentieth century. The term is derived from a nineteenth century craft called 'papiers collés' in which a variety of found objects including fabric, newspapers and cardboard are adhered to a flat surface to create a work of art. Decoupage refers to the pasting of cutouts all-over a surface rather than the use of cutouts as individual shapes or patterns in a design.
Digital Art
The term 'Digital Art' encompasses three different categories:
- Digitally produced reproduction of an artwork already existing in another form, for example a painting.
- Work produced to be viewed via digital means, which cannot be easily 'owned', such as web-art.
- Work produced digitally, or using a computer as a tool in the process, which results in a work existing outside of the computer - perhaps in the form of a lambda or giclee print, so that this digitally produced print can be considered to be an 'original'. Work in this category may also exist in the form of a video, or more recently, a DVD. Such videos and DVDs will often be sold in limited editions, as with prints.
At galeries, work in the first category is not accepted, as it is not considered to be an original work of art. Work in the second category tends not to be for sale, but is instead freely accessible to experience, but not to own, via the internet.
Works in the final category are sold at galleries, subject to their being produced under the same strictly limited editions as conventional prints. In other words, when a print's edition has been fully run, the artist must not produce any further prints in the series.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Doris Lessing - Bio - Books - Analysis
Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Doris's mother adapted to the rough life in the settlement, energetically trying to reproduce what was, in her view, a civilized, Edwardian life among savages; but her father did not, and the thousand-odd acres of bush he had bought failed to yield the promised wealth.
Lessing has described her childhood as an uneven mix of some pleasure and much pain. The natural world, which she explored with her brother, Harry, was one retreat from an otherwise miserable existence. Her mother, obsessed with raising a proper daughter, enforced a rigid system of rules and hygiene at home, then installed Doris in a convent school, where nuns terrified their charges with stories of hell and damnation. Lessing was later sent to an all-girls high school in the capital of Salisbury, from which she soon dropped out. She was thirteen; and it was the end of her formal education.
But like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual. She recently commented that unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. "Yes, I think that is true. Though it wasn't apparent to me then. Of course, I wasn't thinking in terms of being a writer then - I was just thinking about how to escape, all the time." The parcels of books ordered from London fed her imagination, laying out other worlds to escape into. Lessing's early reading included Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling; later she discovered D.H. Lawrence, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Bedtime stories also nurtured her youth: her mother told them to the children and Doris herself kept her younger brother awake, spinning out tales. Doris's early years were also spent absorbing her fathers bitter memories of World War I, taking them in as a kind of "poison." "We are all of us made by war," Lessing has written, "twisted and warped by war, but we seem to forget it."
In flight from her mother, Lessing left home when she was fifteen and took a job as a nursemaid. Her employer gave her books on politics and sociology to read, while his brother-in-law crept into her bed at night and gave her inept kisses. During that time she was, Lessing has written, "in a fever of erotic longing." Frustrated by her backward suitor, she indulged in elaborate romantic fantasies. She was also writing stories, and sold two to magazines in South Africa.
Lessing's life has been a challenge to her belief that people cannot resist the currents of their time, as she fought against the biological and cultural imperatives that fated her to sink without a murmur into marriage and motherhood. "There is a whole generation of women," she has said, speaking of her mother's era, "and it was as if their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic - because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were capable of being and what actually happened to them." Lessing believes that she was freer than most people because she became a writer. For her, writing is a process of "setting at a distance," taking the "raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the unexamined, into the realm of the general."
In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.
Lessing's fiction is deeply autobiographical, much of it emerging out of her experiences in Africa. Drawing upon her childhood memories and her serious engagement with politics and social concerns, Lessing has written about the clash of cultures, the gross injustices of racial inequality, the struggle among opposing elements within an individuals own personality, and the conflict between the individual conscience and the collective good. Her stories and novellas set in Africa, published during the fifties and early sixties, decry the dispossession of black Africans by white colonials, and expose the sterility of the white culture in southern Africa. In 1956, in response to Lessing's courageous outspokenness, she was declared a prohibited alien in both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa.
Over the years, Lessing has attempted to accommodate what she admires in the novels of the nineteenth century - their "climate of ethical judgement" - to the demands of twentieth-century ideas about consciousness and time. After writing the Children of Violence series (1951-1959), a formally conventional bildungsroman (novel of education) about the growth in consciousness of her heroine, Martha Quest, Lessing broke new ground with The Golden Notebook (1962), a daring narrative experiment, in which the multiple selves of a contemporary woman are rendered in astonishing depth and detail. Anna Wulf, like Lessing herself, strives for ruthless honesty as she aims to free herself from the chaos, emotional numbness, and hypocrisy afflicting her generation.
Attacked for being "unfeminine" in her depiction of female anger and aggression, Lessing responded, "Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise." As at least one early critic noticed, Anna Wulf "tries to live with the freedom of a man" - a point Lessing seems to confirm: "These attitudes in male writers were taken for granted, accepted as sound philosophical bases, as quite normal, certainly not as woman-hating, aggressive, or neurotic."
In the 1970s and 1980s, Lessing began to explore more fully the quasi-mystical insight Anna Wulf seems to reach by the end of The Golden Notebook. Her "inner-space fiction" deals with cosmic fantasies (Briefing for a Descent into Hell, 1971), dreamscapes and other dimensions (Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974), and science fiction probings of higher planes of existence (Canopus in Argos: Archives, 1979-1983). These reflect Lessing's interest, since the 1960s, in Idries Shah, whose writings on Sufi mysticism stress the evolution of consciousness and the belief that individual liberation can come about only if people understand the link between their own fates and the fate of society.
Lessing's other novels include The Good Terrorist (1985) and The Fifth Child (1988); she also published two novels under the pseudonym Jane Somers (The Diary of a Good Neighbour, 1983 and If the Old Could..., 1984). In addition, she has written several nonfiction works, including books about cats, a love since childhood. Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 appeared in 1995 and received the James Tait Black Prize for best biography.
Addenda
In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.
She collaborated with illustrator Charlie Adlard to create the unique and unusual graphic novel, Playing the Game. After being out of print in the U.S. for more than 30 years, Going Home and In Pursuit of the English were republished by HarperCollins in 1996. These two fascinating and important books give rare insight into Mrs. Lessing's personality, life and views.
In 1996, her first novel in 7 years, Love Again, was published by HarperCollins. She did not make any personal appearances to promote the book. In an interview she describes the frustration she felt during a 14-week worldwide tour to promote her autobiography: "I told my publishers it would be far more useful for everyone if I stayed at home, writing another book. But they wouldn't listen. This time round I stamped my little foot and said I would not move from my house and would do only one interview." And the honors keep on coming: she was on the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize for Literature and Britain's Writer's Guild Award for Fiction in 1996.
Late in the year, HarperCollins published Play with A Tiger and Other Plays, a compilation of 3 of her plays: Play with a Tiger, The Singing Door and Each His Own Wilderness. In an unexplained move, HarperCollins only published this volume in the U.K. and it is not available in the U.S., to the disappointment of her North American readers.
In 1997 she collaborated with Philip Glass for the second time, providing the libretto for the opera "The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five" which premiered in Heidelberg, Germany in May. Walking in the Shade, the anxiously awaited second volume of her autobiography, was published in October and was nominated for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award in the biography/autobiography category. This volume documents her arrival in England in 1949 and takes us up to the publication of The Golden Notebook. This is the final volume of her autobiography, she will not be writing a third volume.
Her new novel, titled "Mara and Dann", was been published in the U.S in January 1999 and in the U.K. in April 1999. In an interview in the London Daily Telegraph she said, "I adore writing it. I'll be so sad when it's finished. It's freed my mind." 1999 also saw her first experience on-line, with a chat at Barnes & Noble (transcript). In May 1999 she will be presented with the XI Annual International Catalunya Award, an award by the government of Catalunya.
December 31 1999: In the U.K.'s last Honours List before the new Millennium, Doris Lessing was appointed a Companion of Honour, an exclusive order for those who have done "conspicuous national service." She revealed she had turned down the offer of becoming a Dame of the British Empire because there is no British Empire. Being a Companion of Honour, she explained, means "you're not called anything - and it's not demanding. I like that". Being a Dame was "a bit pantomimey". The list was selected by the Labor Party government to honor people in all walks of life for their contributions to their professions and to charity. It was officially bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II.
In January, 2000 the National Portrait Gallery in London unveiled Leonard McComb's portrait of Doris Lessing.
Ben, in the World, the sequel to The Fifth Child was published in Spring 2000 (U.K.) and Summer 2000 (U.S.).
In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.
In 2005 she was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize.
In 2007 she received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Her most recent novel is The Cleft.
“Oh, Christ!” Doris Lessing is reported to have said when told she’d won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. The 87-year-old author has been a favourite for the Nobel for at least three decades now — her collected works would fill an entire bookshelf, and she is still widely read and discussed. Her oeuvre is so vast that it’s hard to capture the full impact of her writing, but here’s a look at some of her work.
The Grass is Singing: (1950)
Doris Lessing’s first novel was set in the Rhodesia of her adolescent years. Some of the sexual neurosis of that time can be seen in the 1952 Bantam cover, which features the towering, King Kong-like figure of a black man armed with a sword, watched by a shrunken, doll-like white woman.
There was little distance between an Indian reader, even in 1980s India, and Lessing’s world. The immutable laws that governed white Africa and that Mary Turner broke were in place, if in slightly different form, in our time; a relationship between memsahib and servant was just as unthinkable as it was then. The novel captured the slow disintegration of a young woman whose confidence and sense of self is slowly eroded by a bad marriage and her inability to handle the natives, the heat, the farm, the house or anything about the reality of Africa. The interracial relationship between Mary and the servant Moses was one of the reasons why Rhodesia banned Lessing from entering the country in 1956.
The Golden Notebook: (1962)
For at least three, and perhaps four, generations of women, The Golden Notebook was as iconic a text as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Lessing called it her albatross: the continuing success of The Golden Notebook often threatened to cast the rest of her formidable oeuvre in the shade, and she ruffled feminist feathers when she said bluntly that she didn’t see herself as a feminist.
Lessing broke several rules of form when she wrote the story of Anna Wulf, author of a very successful novel, who keeps four notebooks of different colours. The black records her early years in Africa; the blue is a record of her personal life; the red of her political life and her growing disenchantment with communism; the yellow contains a novel based on personal experience. As Anna Wulf grapples with a love affair and with possible insanity, she brings these all together in The Golden Notebook. It should be read today, if only as a reminder that there was a time when feminism meant not just sexual liberation, but political and artistic freedom as well.
Children of Violence: (1952-1969)
This five-book series, following the life of Martha Quest, is still remarkable, to any serious fan of Lessing’s writing. She would write two volumes of autobiography in later years, ducking away from the third on the grounds that it might hurt peoples’ feelings, but the ‘Martha Quest’ books is where she explored her life in Rhodesia, her uneasy relationship with domestic life and her break with the communist party. It’s also where she explored science fiction, imagining what it would be to grow old in a post-nuclear Britain, as a legitimate branch of literature. The Four-Gated City ranks as a classic work of SF, and Lessing’s insight that madness is only our reaction to seeing the future clearly remains chilling.
Canopus in Argos: (1979-1983)
Perhaps the best-remembered of Lessing’s SF novels are Shikasta: Re Colonised Planet 5 and The Sirian Experiments, part of the Canopus in Argos series. Today, reading them can be a difficult exercise — they come off as stodgy and wooden, and the initial refreshing shock of the ideas Lessing was trying to convey has worn off. Lessing, who was born in Persia, had been studying Sufism, and that influence shows in Shikasta, with its grand theme of millions of years of evolution compressed into the pages of a novel. Shikasta spawned a cult who believe fervently in Lessing’s imaginary worlds; when the writer tried to explain that these worlds didn’t exist, they set it down as an attempt by their ‘creator’ to test them.
The Diaries of Jane Somers: 1984
The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could, novels by a “well-known journalist” called Jane Somers, were rejected by Doris Lessing’s publisher, had poor sales when finally published and only became a cause celebre when Lessing announced herself as the author. “If the books had come out in my name, they would have sold a lot of copies and reviewers would have said, ‘Oh, Doris, how wonderful’,” she said. She sparked off a furious debate: were the Somers books really as good as the rest of Lessing’s novels, what was she trying to prove? I found both ‘Somers’ books tedious, but then I find some of Lessing’s writing tedious too, so at least there was consistency.
«Είναι ηλίθιο να πιστεύεις σε δόγματα»
Πολλές φορές μέχρι τώρα ήταν υποψήφια για το Νομπέλ Λογοτεχνίας· το κέρδισε φέτος, χωρίς ωστόσο ιδιαίτερο ενθουσιασμό: «Μου είναι αδιάφορο...», έλεγε συχνά όταν τη ρωτούσαν στο παρελθόν αν θα επιθυμούσε μια τέτοια βράβευση. Αλλά δεν ήταν η μόνη τιμή που δεν την ενδιαφέρει. Ας θυμηθούμε πως είχε αρνηθεί προ ετών να πάρει τον τίτλο ευγενείας από τη βασίλισσα Ελισάβετ.
Εχοντας γράψει περίπου πενήντα βιβλία, δεκατέσσερα από αυτά έχουν μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά, η γλυκιά 88χρονη Ντόρις Λέσινγκ παραμένει μια συγγραφέας με νεανικό πνεύμα και ζωηρή φαντασία. Της αρέσει να προκαλεί, αλλά και να ακούει, να αφουγκράζεται τις αλλαγές των καιρών.
Επαναστάτρια στην εποχή της, μετά τον πόλεμο, άφησε τη Ροδεσία (σημερινή Ζιμπάμπουε) και το συντηρητικό γαιοκτήμονα άντρα της. Ως δεύτερο σύζυγο επέλεξε τον κομμουνιστή Γκόντφριντ Λέσινγκ, και μαζί με αυτόν την επανάσταση, τη λογοτεχνία και τη ζωή στην Αγγλία.
Οπως και η Νοτιοαφρικανή Ναντίν Γκορντιμέρ, δεν σπούδασε ποτέ. Ο πρώτος της σταθμός, φεύγοντας από την Αφρική, το 1949, ήταν το Παρίσι, χρονιά που η Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ δημοσίευε το «Δεύτερο Φύλο», το πρώτο μεγάλο βιβλίο του φεμινισμού του 20ού αιώνα. Αργότερα, ανατρέφοντας μόνη της το γιο της Πίτερ (τους άλλους δύο τους άφησε στον πατέρα τους), έγινε οπαδός του κομμουνιστικού κόμματος, αλλά όχι για μεγάλο διάστημα: «Ολοι ήμασταν κομμουνιστές τότε, την εποχή του Ψυχρού Πολέμου... Μετά βαρεθήκαμε και προτιμήσαμε να το ρίξουμε στη διασκέδαση. Εκείνη την εποχή είχαμε ακόμη την αίσθηση του χιούμορ».
Καταφέρνει γρήγορα να εκδώσει το πρώτο της βιβλίο, η υπόθεση του οποίου έχει πολλές ομοιότητες με τη ζωή της. Η ηρωίδα είναι μια νέα γυναίκα παντρεμένη με έναν αγρότη τον οποίο απεχθάνεται, όπως και το αγρόκτημα, το χωριό, τη χώρα, το απαρτχάιντ. Το βιβλίο είχε άμεση επιτυχία. Η Λέσινγκ, πολέμια του απαρτχάιντ, για μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα ήταν ανεπιθύμητο πρόσωπο στη Ροδεσία και στη Νότια Αφρική και ίνδαλμα για πολλούς Ευρωπαίους και κυρίως Ευρωπαίες.
Η ιδέα που έχει για τους πολιτικούς σήμερα δεν είναι ιδιαίτερα κολακευτική γι' αυτούς: Ο Τόνι Μπλερ; «Είναι ένα ανθρωπάκι, με όλες τις σημασίες της λέξης». Για τις πρόσφατες γαλλικές εκλογές και τον Σαρκοζί: «Δεν ξέρω, μπορεί και αυτός να είναι ανθρωπάκι», λέει σε πρόσφατη συνέντευξή της στην εφημερίδα «Λε Μοντ», με την ευκαιρία της έκδοσης στα γαλλικά του διηγήματος «Ο καρπός του έρωτα», που περιλαμβάνεται στο βιβλίο της «Οι Γιαγιάδες. Τέσσερις Ιστορίες» (εκδόσεις Καστανιώτης) που όμως στη Γαλλία κυκλοφόρησε ξεχωριστά.
Με Νόμπελ ή χωρίς αυτό, η Λέσινγκ παραμένει μια πολέμια του πολιτικά ορθού τρόπου ζωής και σκέψης. Επιτίθεται αδιάκοπα «σε εκείνους που έχουν ανάγκη από την αυστηρότητα και τα δόγματα και που συχνά είναι οι πιο ηλίθιοι», άνθρωποι που έχουν εγκαταστήσει «την πιο ισχυρή τυραννία σε αυτό που ονομάζουμε ελεύθερο κόσμο». Αλλά δεν είναι λιγότερο επικριτική απέναντι στις φεμινίστριες, τη στιγμή που η ίδια είχε χαρακτηριστεί, μετά την έκδοση του «Χρυσού Ημερολογίου» της, το 1962, «ζωντανή εικόνα του παγκόσμιου φεμινισμού».
Η γηραιά κυρία αντιμετωπίζει γενικότερα με σκωπτικό πνεύμα το φεμινιστικό κίνημα της δεκαετίας του '60, αφού -όπως λέει- όταν οι φεμινίστριες εκείνης της δεκαετίας πίστευαν πως είχαν ανακαλύψει τη σεξουαλική επανάσταση, η δική της γενιά, στους κύκλους της διανόησης και των τεχνών, στη δεκαετία του '50, είχε ήδη αποκτήσει κάθε είδους εμπειρία σε αυτόν τον τομέα.
«Αυτές οι γυναίκες» -είχε πει στη διάρκεια του Φεστιβάλ Βιβλίου στο Εδιμβούργο, το 2001- «συμπεριφέρονται άθλια απέναντι στους άντρες».
«Ηλίθιες, κακές και απαιδαγώγητες επιτίθενται σε ευγενικούς και έξυπνους άντρες... Εχει έρθει η ώρα να περάσουν στην αντεπίθεση». «Αυτά τα φεμινιστικά κινήματα- λέει επίσης στην εφημερίδα "Λιμπερασιόν"- δεν θέλησαν να δουν πως οι γυναίκες βρίσκονται πάντα στην αναζήτηση ενός άντρα και πως δεν μπορούμε να προχωρήσουμε στο χωρισμό μεταξύ ανδρών και γυναικών».
«Παραμένω σε αυτή τη θέση μου, λέει σήμερα η Λέσινγκ. Μετά την επανάστασή τους, πολλές γυναίκες δεν κατάλαβαν τίποτε, κι αυτό λόγω δογματισμού, λόγω έλλειψης ιστορικής ανάλυσης, λόγω της παραίτησής τους από την κριτική σκέψη, λόγω δραματικής έλλειψης χιούμορ».
Η διάθεσή της για συγκρούσεις ίσως είναι το μυστικό της εκπληκτικής της φόρμας. Δεν σκέπτεται δύο φορές αυτό που θέλει να πει. Αν θέλει να υποστηρίξει τους άντρες θα το κάνει, αν θέλει να μιλήσει για τις φυλές, θα μιλήσει για «Μαύρους» (όχι Εγχρωμους) και «Λευκούς» και γι' αυτό τα βιβλία της δεν θεωρούνται πολιτικά ορθά σε διάφορα αμερικανικά πανεπιστήμια. Λίγο τη νοιάζει. Ξαποστέλνει τους κριτικούς λογοτεχνικών βιβλίων, οι οποίοι -όπως λέει- πάσχουν, λόγω κομμουνιστικής επιρροής, από ψυχική ακαμψία. Ακόμη και η Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ δεν ξεφεύγει από την κριτική της και η σχέση της με τον Ζαν-Πολ Σαρτρ. Η Λέσινγκ δεν πίστεψε ποτέ στο μοντέλο του «δήθεν επαναστατικού ζευγαριού» που πρόβαλλαν οι ίδιοι και απογοητεύθηκε όταν είδε τη Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ να φέρεται τελικά σαν μια κοινή γυναίκα και τον Σαρτρ σαν έναν κοινό άντρα. «Επρεπε να είχε φύγει με τον Αμερικανό εραστή της», λέει σήμερα η Λέσινγκ και είναι σίγουρο πως εκείνη στη θέση της θα το είχε κάνει.
«Αυτό που με ενδιαφέρει πραγματικά είναι να προσπαθώ να καταλάβω τι "παίζεται" κάθε στιγμή. Αυτό είναι σημαντικό για κάθε συγγραφέα και αυτό πρέπει να αναδεικνύει στο έργο του». Το τελευταίο της βιβλίο που κυκλοφόρησε στη Βρετανία, στις αρχές του 2007, το «The Cleft», η Λέσινγκ το εμπνεύστηκε διαβάζοντας μια επιστημονική ανακοίνωση στην οποία υποστηριζόταν πως οι γυναίκες είναι το βασικό ανθρώπινο υλικό και πως οι άντρες εμφανίστηκαν αργότερα. Πρόκειται άραγε για μια επαναγραφή της Γένεσης με τον τρόπο του μύθου και του φανταστικού που τόσο αγαπά η συγγραφέας; Η απάντηση έρχεται με το σχόλιο μιας άλλης Βρετανίδας μυθιστοριογράφου, της Μάργκαρετ Ντραμπλ: «Η Ντόρις Λέσινγκ είναι μια από τις σπάνιες συγγραφείς που αρνήθηκαν να πιστέψουν πως ο κόσμος ήταν υπερβολικά περίπλοκος για να γίνει κατανοητός».
Η αλήθεια είναι πως οι γνώμες για το ταλέντο της Λέσινγκ είναι μοιρασμένες: άλλοι τοποθετούν τη Λέσινγκ στο Πάνθεον μαζί με τον Μπαλζάκ και την Τζορτζ Ελιοτ, εκτιμώντας τη λεπτότητα των συναισθημάτων της, την ιδιαίτερη προσοχή που προσδίδει στην ευαισθησία των νέων και των ηλικιωμένων και το μοναδικό της τρόπο να περιγράφει τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις.
Υπάρχουν όμως και οι άλλοι, εκείνοι που της προσάπτουν ότι μοναδικός της στόχος είναι η πρόκληση και η αναστάτωση των αναγνωστών της, καταστρέφοντας με αυτόν τον τρόπο την εκπληκτική ευφυΐα της.
Lessing has described her childhood as an uneven mix of some pleasure and much pain. The natural world, which she explored with her brother, Harry, was one retreat from an otherwise miserable existence. Her mother, obsessed with raising a proper daughter, enforced a rigid system of rules and hygiene at home, then installed Doris in a convent school, where nuns terrified their charges with stories of hell and damnation. Lessing was later sent to an all-girls high school in the capital of Salisbury, from which she soon dropped out. She was thirteen; and it was the end of her formal education.
But like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual. She recently commented that unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. "Yes, I think that is true. Though it wasn't apparent to me then. Of course, I wasn't thinking in terms of being a writer then - I was just thinking about how to escape, all the time." The parcels of books ordered from London fed her imagination, laying out other worlds to escape into. Lessing's early reading included Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling; later she discovered D.H. Lawrence, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Bedtime stories also nurtured her youth: her mother told them to the children and Doris herself kept her younger brother awake, spinning out tales. Doris's early years were also spent absorbing her fathers bitter memories of World War I, taking them in as a kind of "poison." "We are all of us made by war," Lessing has written, "twisted and warped by war, but we seem to forget it."
In flight from her mother, Lessing left home when she was fifteen and took a job as a nursemaid. Her employer gave her books on politics and sociology to read, while his brother-in-law crept into her bed at night and gave her inept kisses. During that time she was, Lessing has written, "in a fever of erotic longing." Frustrated by her backward suitor, she indulged in elaborate romantic fantasies. She was also writing stories, and sold two to magazines in South Africa.
Lessing's life has been a challenge to her belief that people cannot resist the currents of their time, as she fought against the biological and cultural imperatives that fated her to sink without a murmur into marriage and motherhood. "There is a whole generation of women," she has said, speaking of her mother's era, "and it was as if their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic - because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were capable of being and what actually happened to them." Lessing believes that she was freer than most people because she became a writer. For her, writing is a process of "setting at a distance," taking the "raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the unexamined, into the realm of the general."
In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.
Lessing's fiction is deeply autobiographical, much of it emerging out of her experiences in Africa. Drawing upon her childhood memories and her serious engagement with politics and social concerns, Lessing has written about the clash of cultures, the gross injustices of racial inequality, the struggle among opposing elements within an individuals own personality, and the conflict between the individual conscience and the collective good. Her stories and novellas set in Africa, published during the fifties and early sixties, decry the dispossession of black Africans by white colonials, and expose the sterility of the white culture in southern Africa. In 1956, in response to Lessing's courageous outspokenness, she was declared a prohibited alien in both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa.
Over the years, Lessing has attempted to accommodate what she admires in the novels of the nineteenth century - their "climate of ethical judgement" - to the demands of twentieth-century ideas about consciousness and time. After writing the Children of Violence series (1951-1959), a formally conventional bildungsroman (novel of education) about the growth in consciousness of her heroine, Martha Quest, Lessing broke new ground with The Golden Notebook (1962), a daring narrative experiment, in which the multiple selves of a contemporary woman are rendered in astonishing depth and detail. Anna Wulf, like Lessing herself, strives for ruthless honesty as she aims to free herself from the chaos, emotional numbness, and hypocrisy afflicting her generation.
Attacked for being "unfeminine" in her depiction of female anger and aggression, Lessing responded, "Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise." As at least one early critic noticed, Anna Wulf "tries to live with the freedom of a man" - a point Lessing seems to confirm: "These attitudes in male writers were taken for granted, accepted as sound philosophical bases, as quite normal, certainly not as woman-hating, aggressive, or neurotic."
In the 1970s and 1980s, Lessing began to explore more fully the quasi-mystical insight Anna Wulf seems to reach by the end of The Golden Notebook. Her "inner-space fiction" deals with cosmic fantasies (Briefing for a Descent into Hell, 1971), dreamscapes and other dimensions (Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974), and science fiction probings of higher planes of existence (Canopus in Argos: Archives, 1979-1983). These reflect Lessing's interest, since the 1960s, in Idries Shah, whose writings on Sufi mysticism stress the evolution of consciousness and the belief that individual liberation can come about only if people understand the link between their own fates and the fate of society.
Lessing's other novels include The Good Terrorist (1985) and The Fifth Child (1988); she also published two novels under the pseudonym Jane Somers (The Diary of a Good Neighbour, 1983 and If the Old Could..., 1984). In addition, she has written several nonfiction works, including books about cats, a love since childhood. Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 appeared in 1995 and received the James Tait Black Prize for best biography.
Addenda
In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.
She collaborated with illustrator Charlie Adlard to create the unique and unusual graphic novel, Playing the Game. After being out of print in the U.S. for more than 30 years, Going Home and In Pursuit of the English were republished by HarperCollins in 1996. These two fascinating and important books give rare insight into Mrs. Lessing's personality, life and views.
In 1996, her first novel in 7 years, Love Again, was published by HarperCollins. She did not make any personal appearances to promote the book. In an interview she describes the frustration she felt during a 14-week worldwide tour to promote her autobiography: "I told my publishers it would be far more useful for everyone if I stayed at home, writing another book. But they wouldn't listen. This time round I stamped my little foot and said I would not move from my house and would do only one interview." And the honors keep on coming: she was on the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize for Literature and Britain's Writer's Guild Award for Fiction in 1996.
Late in the year, HarperCollins published Play with A Tiger and Other Plays, a compilation of 3 of her plays: Play with a Tiger, The Singing Door and Each His Own Wilderness. In an unexplained move, HarperCollins only published this volume in the U.K. and it is not available in the U.S., to the disappointment of her North American readers.
In 1997 she collaborated with Philip Glass for the second time, providing the libretto for the opera "The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five" which premiered in Heidelberg, Germany in May. Walking in the Shade, the anxiously awaited second volume of her autobiography, was published in October and was nominated for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award in the biography/autobiography category. This volume documents her arrival in England in 1949 and takes us up to the publication of The Golden Notebook. This is the final volume of her autobiography, she will not be writing a third volume.
Her new novel, titled "Mara and Dann", was been published in the U.S in January 1999 and in the U.K. in April 1999. In an interview in the London Daily Telegraph she said, "I adore writing it. I'll be so sad when it's finished. It's freed my mind." 1999 also saw her first experience on-line, with a chat at Barnes & Noble (transcript). In May 1999 she will be presented with the XI Annual International Catalunya Award, an award by the government of Catalunya.
December 31 1999: In the U.K.'s last Honours List before the new Millennium, Doris Lessing was appointed a Companion of Honour, an exclusive order for those who have done "conspicuous national service." She revealed she had turned down the offer of becoming a Dame of the British Empire because there is no British Empire. Being a Companion of Honour, she explained, means "you're not called anything - and it's not demanding. I like that". Being a Dame was "a bit pantomimey". The list was selected by the Labor Party government to honor people in all walks of life for their contributions to their professions and to charity. It was officially bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II.
In January, 2000 the National Portrait Gallery in London unveiled Leonard McComb's portrait of Doris Lessing.
Ben, in the World, the sequel to The Fifth Child was published in Spring 2000 (U.K.) and Summer 2000 (U.S.).
In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.
In 2005 she was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize.
In 2007 she received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Her most recent novel is The Cleft.
“Oh, Christ!” Doris Lessing is reported to have said when told she’d won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. The 87-year-old author has been a favourite for the Nobel for at least three decades now — her collected works would fill an entire bookshelf, and she is still widely read and discussed. Her oeuvre is so vast that it’s hard to capture the full impact of her writing, but here’s a look at some of her work.
The Grass is Singing: (1950)
Doris Lessing’s first novel was set in the Rhodesia of her adolescent years. Some of the sexual neurosis of that time can be seen in the 1952 Bantam cover, which features the towering, King Kong-like figure of a black man armed with a sword, watched by a shrunken, doll-like white woman.
There was little distance between an Indian reader, even in 1980s India, and Lessing’s world. The immutable laws that governed white Africa and that Mary Turner broke were in place, if in slightly different form, in our time; a relationship between memsahib and servant was just as unthinkable as it was then. The novel captured the slow disintegration of a young woman whose confidence and sense of self is slowly eroded by a bad marriage and her inability to handle the natives, the heat, the farm, the house or anything about the reality of Africa. The interracial relationship between Mary and the servant Moses was one of the reasons why Rhodesia banned Lessing from entering the country in 1956.
The Golden Notebook: (1962)
For at least three, and perhaps four, generations of women, The Golden Notebook was as iconic a text as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Lessing called it her albatross: the continuing success of The Golden Notebook often threatened to cast the rest of her formidable oeuvre in the shade, and she ruffled feminist feathers when she said bluntly that she didn’t see herself as a feminist.
Lessing broke several rules of form when she wrote the story of Anna Wulf, author of a very successful novel, who keeps four notebooks of different colours. The black records her early years in Africa; the blue is a record of her personal life; the red of her political life and her growing disenchantment with communism; the yellow contains a novel based on personal experience. As Anna Wulf grapples with a love affair and with possible insanity, she brings these all together in The Golden Notebook. It should be read today, if only as a reminder that there was a time when feminism meant not just sexual liberation, but political and artistic freedom as well.
Children of Violence: (1952-1969)
This five-book series, following the life of Martha Quest, is still remarkable, to any serious fan of Lessing’s writing. She would write two volumes of autobiography in later years, ducking away from the third on the grounds that it might hurt peoples’ feelings, but the ‘Martha Quest’ books is where she explored her life in Rhodesia, her uneasy relationship with domestic life and her break with the communist party. It’s also where she explored science fiction, imagining what it would be to grow old in a post-nuclear Britain, as a legitimate branch of literature. The Four-Gated City ranks as a classic work of SF, and Lessing’s insight that madness is only our reaction to seeing the future clearly remains chilling.
Canopus in Argos: (1979-1983)
Perhaps the best-remembered of Lessing’s SF novels are Shikasta: Re Colonised Planet 5 and The Sirian Experiments, part of the Canopus in Argos series. Today, reading them can be a difficult exercise — they come off as stodgy and wooden, and the initial refreshing shock of the ideas Lessing was trying to convey has worn off. Lessing, who was born in Persia, had been studying Sufism, and that influence shows in Shikasta, with its grand theme of millions of years of evolution compressed into the pages of a novel. Shikasta spawned a cult who believe fervently in Lessing’s imaginary worlds; when the writer tried to explain that these worlds didn’t exist, they set it down as an attempt by their ‘creator’ to test them.
The Diaries of Jane Somers: 1984
The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could, novels by a “well-known journalist” called Jane Somers, were rejected by Doris Lessing’s publisher, had poor sales when finally published and only became a cause celebre when Lessing announced herself as the author. “If the books had come out in my name, they would have sold a lot of copies and reviewers would have said, ‘Oh, Doris, how wonderful’,” she said. She sparked off a furious debate: were the Somers books really as good as the rest of Lessing’s novels, what was she trying to prove? I found both ‘Somers’ books tedious, but then I find some of Lessing’s writing tedious too, so at least there was consistency.
«Είναι ηλίθιο να πιστεύεις σε δόγματα»
Πολλές φορές μέχρι τώρα ήταν υποψήφια για το Νομπέλ Λογοτεχνίας· το κέρδισε φέτος, χωρίς ωστόσο ιδιαίτερο ενθουσιασμό: «Μου είναι αδιάφορο...», έλεγε συχνά όταν τη ρωτούσαν στο παρελθόν αν θα επιθυμούσε μια τέτοια βράβευση. Αλλά δεν ήταν η μόνη τιμή που δεν την ενδιαφέρει. Ας θυμηθούμε πως είχε αρνηθεί προ ετών να πάρει τον τίτλο ευγενείας από τη βασίλισσα Ελισάβετ.
Εχοντας γράψει περίπου πενήντα βιβλία, δεκατέσσερα από αυτά έχουν μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά, η γλυκιά 88χρονη Ντόρις Λέσινγκ παραμένει μια συγγραφέας με νεανικό πνεύμα και ζωηρή φαντασία. Της αρέσει να προκαλεί, αλλά και να ακούει, να αφουγκράζεται τις αλλαγές των καιρών.
Επαναστάτρια στην εποχή της, μετά τον πόλεμο, άφησε τη Ροδεσία (σημερινή Ζιμπάμπουε) και το συντηρητικό γαιοκτήμονα άντρα της. Ως δεύτερο σύζυγο επέλεξε τον κομμουνιστή Γκόντφριντ Λέσινγκ, και μαζί με αυτόν την επανάσταση, τη λογοτεχνία και τη ζωή στην Αγγλία.
Οπως και η Νοτιοαφρικανή Ναντίν Γκορντιμέρ, δεν σπούδασε ποτέ. Ο πρώτος της σταθμός, φεύγοντας από την Αφρική, το 1949, ήταν το Παρίσι, χρονιά που η Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ δημοσίευε το «Δεύτερο Φύλο», το πρώτο μεγάλο βιβλίο του φεμινισμού του 20ού αιώνα. Αργότερα, ανατρέφοντας μόνη της το γιο της Πίτερ (τους άλλους δύο τους άφησε στον πατέρα τους), έγινε οπαδός του κομμουνιστικού κόμματος, αλλά όχι για μεγάλο διάστημα: «Ολοι ήμασταν κομμουνιστές τότε, την εποχή του Ψυχρού Πολέμου... Μετά βαρεθήκαμε και προτιμήσαμε να το ρίξουμε στη διασκέδαση. Εκείνη την εποχή είχαμε ακόμη την αίσθηση του χιούμορ».
Καταφέρνει γρήγορα να εκδώσει το πρώτο της βιβλίο, η υπόθεση του οποίου έχει πολλές ομοιότητες με τη ζωή της. Η ηρωίδα είναι μια νέα γυναίκα παντρεμένη με έναν αγρότη τον οποίο απεχθάνεται, όπως και το αγρόκτημα, το χωριό, τη χώρα, το απαρτχάιντ. Το βιβλίο είχε άμεση επιτυχία. Η Λέσινγκ, πολέμια του απαρτχάιντ, για μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα ήταν ανεπιθύμητο πρόσωπο στη Ροδεσία και στη Νότια Αφρική και ίνδαλμα για πολλούς Ευρωπαίους και κυρίως Ευρωπαίες.
Η ιδέα που έχει για τους πολιτικούς σήμερα δεν είναι ιδιαίτερα κολακευτική γι' αυτούς: Ο Τόνι Μπλερ; «Είναι ένα ανθρωπάκι, με όλες τις σημασίες της λέξης». Για τις πρόσφατες γαλλικές εκλογές και τον Σαρκοζί: «Δεν ξέρω, μπορεί και αυτός να είναι ανθρωπάκι», λέει σε πρόσφατη συνέντευξή της στην εφημερίδα «Λε Μοντ», με την ευκαιρία της έκδοσης στα γαλλικά του διηγήματος «Ο καρπός του έρωτα», που περιλαμβάνεται στο βιβλίο της «Οι Γιαγιάδες. Τέσσερις Ιστορίες» (εκδόσεις Καστανιώτης) που όμως στη Γαλλία κυκλοφόρησε ξεχωριστά.
Με Νόμπελ ή χωρίς αυτό, η Λέσινγκ παραμένει μια πολέμια του πολιτικά ορθού τρόπου ζωής και σκέψης. Επιτίθεται αδιάκοπα «σε εκείνους που έχουν ανάγκη από την αυστηρότητα και τα δόγματα και που συχνά είναι οι πιο ηλίθιοι», άνθρωποι που έχουν εγκαταστήσει «την πιο ισχυρή τυραννία σε αυτό που ονομάζουμε ελεύθερο κόσμο». Αλλά δεν είναι λιγότερο επικριτική απέναντι στις φεμινίστριες, τη στιγμή που η ίδια είχε χαρακτηριστεί, μετά την έκδοση του «Χρυσού Ημερολογίου» της, το 1962, «ζωντανή εικόνα του παγκόσμιου φεμινισμού».
Η γηραιά κυρία αντιμετωπίζει γενικότερα με σκωπτικό πνεύμα το φεμινιστικό κίνημα της δεκαετίας του '60, αφού -όπως λέει- όταν οι φεμινίστριες εκείνης της δεκαετίας πίστευαν πως είχαν ανακαλύψει τη σεξουαλική επανάσταση, η δική της γενιά, στους κύκλους της διανόησης και των τεχνών, στη δεκαετία του '50, είχε ήδη αποκτήσει κάθε είδους εμπειρία σε αυτόν τον τομέα.
«Αυτές οι γυναίκες» -είχε πει στη διάρκεια του Φεστιβάλ Βιβλίου στο Εδιμβούργο, το 2001- «συμπεριφέρονται άθλια απέναντι στους άντρες».
«Ηλίθιες, κακές και απαιδαγώγητες επιτίθενται σε ευγενικούς και έξυπνους άντρες... Εχει έρθει η ώρα να περάσουν στην αντεπίθεση». «Αυτά τα φεμινιστικά κινήματα- λέει επίσης στην εφημερίδα "Λιμπερασιόν"- δεν θέλησαν να δουν πως οι γυναίκες βρίσκονται πάντα στην αναζήτηση ενός άντρα και πως δεν μπορούμε να προχωρήσουμε στο χωρισμό μεταξύ ανδρών και γυναικών».
«Παραμένω σε αυτή τη θέση μου, λέει σήμερα η Λέσινγκ. Μετά την επανάστασή τους, πολλές γυναίκες δεν κατάλαβαν τίποτε, κι αυτό λόγω δογματισμού, λόγω έλλειψης ιστορικής ανάλυσης, λόγω της παραίτησής τους από την κριτική σκέψη, λόγω δραματικής έλλειψης χιούμορ».
Η διάθεσή της για συγκρούσεις ίσως είναι το μυστικό της εκπληκτικής της φόρμας. Δεν σκέπτεται δύο φορές αυτό που θέλει να πει. Αν θέλει να υποστηρίξει τους άντρες θα το κάνει, αν θέλει να μιλήσει για τις φυλές, θα μιλήσει για «Μαύρους» (όχι Εγχρωμους) και «Λευκούς» και γι' αυτό τα βιβλία της δεν θεωρούνται πολιτικά ορθά σε διάφορα αμερικανικά πανεπιστήμια. Λίγο τη νοιάζει. Ξαποστέλνει τους κριτικούς λογοτεχνικών βιβλίων, οι οποίοι -όπως λέει- πάσχουν, λόγω κομμουνιστικής επιρροής, από ψυχική ακαμψία. Ακόμη και η Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ δεν ξεφεύγει από την κριτική της και η σχέση της με τον Ζαν-Πολ Σαρτρ. Η Λέσινγκ δεν πίστεψε ποτέ στο μοντέλο του «δήθεν επαναστατικού ζευγαριού» που πρόβαλλαν οι ίδιοι και απογοητεύθηκε όταν είδε τη Σιμόν ντε Μποβουάρ να φέρεται τελικά σαν μια κοινή γυναίκα και τον Σαρτρ σαν έναν κοινό άντρα. «Επρεπε να είχε φύγει με τον Αμερικανό εραστή της», λέει σήμερα η Λέσινγκ και είναι σίγουρο πως εκείνη στη θέση της θα το είχε κάνει.
«Αυτό που με ενδιαφέρει πραγματικά είναι να προσπαθώ να καταλάβω τι "παίζεται" κάθε στιγμή. Αυτό είναι σημαντικό για κάθε συγγραφέα και αυτό πρέπει να αναδεικνύει στο έργο του». Το τελευταίο της βιβλίο που κυκλοφόρησε στη Βρετανία, στις αρχές του 2007, το «The Cleft», η Λέσινγκ το εμπνεύστηκε διαβάζοντας μια επιστημονική ανακοίνωση στην οποία υποστηριζόταν πως οι γυναίκες είναι το βασικό ανθρώπινο υλικό και πως οι άντρες εμφανίστηκαν αργότερα. Πρόκειται άραγε για μια επαναγραφή της Γένεσης με τον τρόπο του μύθου και του φανταστικού που τόσο αγαπά η συγγραφέας; Η απάντηση έρχεται με το σχόλιο μιας άλλης Βρετανίδας μυθιστοριογράφου, της Μάργκαρετ Ντραμπλ: «Η Ντόρις Λέσινγκ είναι μια από τις σπάνιες συγγραφείς που αρνήθηκαν να πιστέψουν πως ο κόσμος ήταν υπερβολικά περίπλοκος για να γίνει κατανοητός».
Η αλήθεια είναι πως οι γνώμες για το ταλέντο της Λέσινγκ είναι μοιρασμένες: άλλοι τοποθετούν τη Λέσινγκ στο Πάνθεον μαζί με τον Μπαλζάκ και την Τζορτζ Ελιοτ, εκτιμώντας τη λεπτότητα των συναισθημάτων της, την ιδιαίτερη προσοχή που προσδίδει στην ευαισθησία των νέων και των ηλικιωμένων και το μοναδικό της τρόπο να περιγράφει τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις.
Υπάρχουν όμως και οι άλλοι, εκείνοι που της προσάπτουν ότι μοναδικός της στόχος είναι η πρόκληση και η αναστάτωση των αναγνωστών της, καταστρέφοντας με αυτόν τον τρόπο την εκπληκτική ευφυΐα της.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
ELEKTRA (SOPHOCLES 410 BC)
Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragic play by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes (409 BC) and the Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC) lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.
When King Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War with his new concubine, Cassandra, his wife Clytemnestra (who has taken Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus as a lover) kills them. Clytemnestra believes the murder was justified, since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigeneia before the war, as commanded by the gods. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rescued her infant brother Orestes from her mother by sending him to Strophius of Phocis. The play begins years later when Orestes has returned as a grown man with a plot for revenge.
[edit]Storyline
Orestes arrives with his friend Pylades, son of Strophius, and a paedagogus (an old attendant of Orestes, who took him from Electra to Strophius). Their plan is to have the paedagogus announce that Orestes has died in a chariot accident, and that two men (really Orestes and Pylades) are arriving shortly to deliver an urn with his remains.
Electra laments over her father, first on her own, then (in lyrics) with the newly-arrived chorus. She bitterly argues first with her sister Chrysothemis over her accommodation with her father's killers, and then with her mother over her father's murder. Her only hope is that one day her brother will return to avenge him. When the messenger arrives with news of the death of Orestes, Clytemnestra is relieved to hear it. Electra however is devastated. Chrysothemis then enters: she has seen some offerings at the tomb of Agamemnon and (correctly) concludes that Orestes has returned. Electra dismisses her arguments, sure that Orestes is now dead. She suddenly turns to her sister with a proposal to kill Aegisthus, but Chrysothemis refuses to help, pointing out the impracticability of the plan.
After a choral ode Orestes arrives, carrying the urn supposedly containing his ashes. He does not recognize Electra, nor she him. He gives her the urn and she delivers a moving lament over it, unaware that her brother is in fact standing alive next to her. Now realizing the truth, Orestes reveals his identity to his emotional sister. She is overjoyed that he is alive, but in their excitement they nearly reveal his identity, and the paedagogus comes out from the palace to urge them on. Orestes and Pylades enter the house and slay his mother Clytemnestra. As Aegisthus returns home, they quickly put her corpse under a sheet and present it to him as the body of Orestes. He lifts the veil to discover who it really is, and Orestes then reveals himself. They escort Aegisthus off set to be killed at the hearth, the same location Agamemnon was slain. The play ends here, before the death of Aegisthus is announced.
[edit]Similar works
The story of Orestes' revenge was told at the end of the lost epic Nostoi, and the events are also brought up in the Odyssey. It was a popular subject in Greek tragedies, and there are surviving versions from all three of the great Athenian tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The first and largest is the Libation Bearers in the Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus (458 BC). Euripides wrote an Electra play. He tells a very different version of this same basic story as Sophocles despite them being written in proximity and time.
ELEKTRA - A Daughter’s Revenge - (REVIEW - 12OCT07 )
In many contemporary productions of Greek tragedy, the role of the chorus can be a distracting device. Standing around awkwardly, chattering away like talking wallpaper, the chorus makes us feel every year of the distance between the drama as it was conceived more than 2,000 years ago and the drama as we know it today.
The quiet revelation of the National Theater of Greece’s new production of Sophocles’ “Electra” at City Center is in the graceful attention the director, Peter Stein, brings to bear on this often troublesome convention. He understands and underscores the primal importance of the chorus in this chilly drama of revenge exacted with an almost monstrous glee.
Electra, grief-haunted and obsessed with dreams of retribution for her father’s death, is a figure of almost inhuman passions. She loves too much, hates too much, grieves with a single-mindedness that can be wearisome. Sharing her despair but scaling it down to human dimensions, the chorus in Mr. Stein’s staging is the crucial mediator of our response to Electra’s frenzied feeling. These women cannot turn away from her cruel, pained, imploring eyes, and so we must bear witness too.
The Greek troupe’s regular visits to City Center have become little-heralded highlights of the fall theater season, brief though they are. (“Electra” runs just through Sunday.) This year theater aficionados have reason to be particularly grateful for the company’s arrival, because this production occasions the tardy American theater debut of Mr. Stein, the German director of international renown whose work has never before been seen in the United States (aside from his production of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which was staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1989).
The words German and director, when paired today, may conjure up apprehension in theatergoers with an allergy to radical reworkings of classic texts. “Regietheater,” or director’s theater, the bugaboo of traditionalists everywhere, has become a byword for violent deconstruction.
German though he may be, Mr. Stein actually shares this aversion to directorial presumption. Acclaimed for his productions of work ranging from Chekhov to Shakespeare to Schiller (he also directed the world premiere of David Harrower’s drama “Blackbird,” seen here in a different production last season), Mr. Stein speaks in interviews of the primacy of the author’s words, and his technique involves intensive collaboration with his actors on interpretation of text.
Mr. Stein’s fuss-free “Electra” bears this out, illustrating in its clarity and focus the rewards — and perhaps a measure of the hazards too — of strict textual fidelity. The play is set on a bare, rounded stage covered in straw. A few stone slabs and an altar are the only furnishings; the facade of the palace of Mycenae is a wall of matte silver panels broken only by a coffin-shaped door. Mr. Stein’s meticulous traditionalism extends to using precisely 15 actors in the chorus, in keeping with one of the innovations Sophocles brought to the conventions of tragedy.
In a program note Mr. Stein describes the play as a “pure revenge drama,” in contrast to the versions of the story by Aeschylus and Euripides. “Injustice occurs,” he writes. “Orestes clears it by killing the trespassers, and everything is solved.” Game over.
This straightforward — even blunt — approach is borne out onstage. As Clytemnestra, Karyofyllia Karabeti, clad in a striking green dress with a plunging neckline, is hardly a morally ambiguous figure whose violent death will engender a complex response. Tossing her voluptuous hair and strutting like the evil queen of a fairy tale, she is corrupt to the core. (In the David Leveaux staging on Broadway in 1998, Claire Bloom’s Clytemnestra was a moving, sympathetic figure.)
Nor does Mr. Stein temper the outlandishness of Electra herself. Played with steely intensity and razor-sharp edges by Stefania Goulioti, she enters crawling from under the wall of the palace, like a rat. Begrimed and bedraggled, at times she seems literally warped by grief.
Electra’s obsessive misery can be kept from overwhelming her only through constant motion. As she spits her bitterness and bile at the chorus, or her sister, or her mother, she crawls, runs and stalks the stage with a hand broom, scraping away at the straw as if to clear an endless space to match the dimensions of her suffering.
Ms. Goulioti, who is onstage for almost all of the play’s intermissionless two-hour running time, never allows the ferocity to diminish. Even the tender scene in which she is reunited with her brother, Orestes (Apostolis Totsikas), registers only as a minor lull in the buffeting tides of emotion sweeping her around the stage. She is compelling but exhausting, this Electra.
But not exactly moving. The scholar and translator David Grene has written that “Electra” is “perhaps the best-constructed and most unpleasant play that Sophocles wrote.” The triumph of its bloodthirsty heroine cannot wrench our hearts the way the downfall of Oedipus does. Here too Mr. Stein’s production is faithful to the spirit of the play, easier to admire than to endure comfortably, particularly because the necessity of reading supertitles can be irksome. (The play is performed in Greek, using a full adaptation by Mr. Stein and the actors.)
I found my attention continually drawn away from the draining spectacle of Electra’s storms to the nuanced responses of the chorus. The young, talented actresses whom Mr. Stein has cast to perform the role have worked hard to individualize their performances, even as they move and sing together with remarkable fluidity. (The haunting music is by Alessando Nidi; the graceful choreography by Lia Tsolaki.) Each face responds with a different measure of terror, sympathy, despair or joy to the ghastly family drama playing itself out before it.
It is probable — and certainly to be hoped — that none of us will know the depths of anguish experienced by the mighty men and women of Greek tragedy. But this “Electra” powerfully illustrates the emotional price that those who merely bear witness pay, too. It reminds us, if any need reminding these days, that human suffering is contagious.
ELEKTRA
By Sophocles; directed by Peter Stein; sets and costumes by Dionissis Fotopoulos; lighting by Jady Weideman; music composition and direction by Alessando Nidi; choreography by Lia Tsolaki; modern Greek translation by Minos Volanakis; stage text version by Mr. Stein and the cast. Presented by the National Theater of Greece, Yannis Houvardas, artistic director. At City Center, 130 West 56th Street, Manhattan, (212) 581-1212. Through Sunday. Running time: 2 hours.
WITH: Stefania Goulioti (Electra), Apostolis Totsikas (Orestes), Karyofyllia Karaabeti (Clytemnestra), Lazaros Georgakopoulos (Aegisthus), Miltos Sotiriadis (Pylades), Yannis Fertis (Tutor) and Kora Karvouni (Chrysothemis).
(FULL TEXT)
Electra
It is extremely difficult to read this play without thinking of the middle portion of Aeschylus' trilogy.
410 BC
ELECTRA
by Sophocles
translated by R. C. Jebb
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
ORESTES, son of Agamemnon and CLYTEMNESTRA
ELECTRA } sister of ORESTES
CHRYSOTHEMIS} " " "
AN OLD MAN, formerly the PAEDAGOGUS or Attendant Of ORESTES
CLYTEMNESTRA
AEGISTHUS
CHORUS OF WOMEN OF MYCENAE
Mute Persons
PYLADES, son of Strophius, King of Crisa, the friend Of ORESTES.
A handmaid of CLYTEMNESTRA. Two attendants of ORESTES
ELECTRA
ELECTRA
(SCENE:- At Mycenae, before the palace of the Pelopidae. It is morning
and the new-risen sun is bright. The PAEDAGOGUS enters on the left
of the spectators, accompanied by the two youths, ORESTES and
PYLADES.)
PAEDAGOGUS
SON of him who led our hosts at Troy of old, son of Agamemnon!- now
thou mayest behold with thine eyes all that thy soul hath desired so
long. There is the ancient Argos of thy yearning,- that hallowed scene
whence the gadfly drove the daughter of Inachus; and there, Orestes,
is the Lycean Agora, named from the wolf-slaying god; there, on the
left, Hera's famous temple; and in this place to which we have come,
deem that thou seest Mycenae rich in gold, with the house of the
Pelopidae there, so often stained with bloodshed; whence I carried
thee of yore, from the slaying of thy father, as thy kinswoman, thy
sister, charged me; and saved thee, and reared thee up to manhood,
to be the avenger of thy murdered sire.
Now, therefore, Orestes, and thou, best of friends, Pylades, our
plans must be laid quickly; for lo, already the sun's bright ray is
waking the songs of the birds into clearness, and the dark night of
stars is spent. Before, then, anyone comes forth from the house,
take counsel; seeing that the time allows not of delay, but is full
ripe for deeds.
ORESTES
True friend and follower, how well dost thou prove thy loyalty
to our house! As a steed of generous race, though old, loses not
courage in danger, but pricks his ear, even so thou urgest us forward,
and art foremost in our support. I will tell thee, then, what I have
determined; listen closely to my words, and correct me, if I miss
the mark in aught.
When I went to the Pythian oracle, to learn how I might avenge
my father on his murderers, Phoebus gave me the response which thou
art now to hear:- that alone, and by stealth, without aid of arms or
numbers, I should snatch the righteous vengeance of my hand. Since,
then, the god spake to us on this wise, thou must go into yonder
house, when opportunity gives thee entrance, and learn all that is
passing there, so that thou mayest report to us from sure knowledge.
Thine age, and the lapse of time, will prevent them from recognising
thee; they will never suspect who thou art, with that silvered hair.
Let thy tale be that thou art a Phocian stranger, sent by Phanoteus;
for he is the greatest of their allies. Tell them, and confirm it with
thine oath, that Orestes hath perished by a fatal chance,- hurled at
the Pythian games from his rapid chariot; be that the substance of thy
story.
We, meanwhile, will first crown my father's tomb, as the god
enjoined, with drink-offerings and the luxuriant tribute of severed
hair; then come back, bearing in our hands an urn of shapely
bronze,-now hidden in the brushwood, as I think thou knowest,- so to
gladden them with the false tidings that this my body is no more,
but has been consumed with fire and turned to ashes. Why should the
omen trouble me, when by a feigned death I find life indeed, and win
renown? I trow, no word is ill-omened, if fraught with gain. Often ere
now have I seen wise men die in vain report; then, when they return
home, they are held in more abiding honour: as I trust that from
this rumour I also shall emerge in radiant life, and yet shine like
a star upon my foes.
O my fatherland, and ye gods of the land, receive me with good
fortune in this journey,- and ye also, halls of my fathers, for I come
with divine mandate to cleanse you righteously; send me not
dishonoured from the land, but grant that I may rule over my
possessions, and restore my house!
Enough;- be it now thy care, old man, to go and heed thy task;
and we twain will go forth; for so occasion bids, chief ruler of every
enterprise for men.
ELECTRA (within)
Ah me, ah me!
PAEDAGOGUS
Hark, my son,- from the doors, methought, came the sound of some
handmaid moaning within.
ORESTES
Can it be the hapless Electra? Shall we stay here, and listen to
her laments?
PAEDAGOGUS
No, no: before all else, let us seek to obey the command of
Loxias, and thence make a fair beginning, by pouring libations to
thy sire; that brings victory within our grasp, and gives us the
mastery in all that we do.
(Exeunt PAEDAGOGUS on the spectators' left, ORESTES and PYLADES
the right.- Enter ELECTRA, from the house. She is meanly clad.)
ELECTRA (chanting)
systema
O thou pure sunlight, and thou air, earth's canopy, how often have
ye heard the strains of my lament, the wild blows dealt against this
bleeding breast, when dark night fails! And my wretched couch in
yonder house of woe knows well, ere now, how I keep the watches of the
night,- how often I bewail my hapless sire; to whom deadly Ares gave
not of his gifts in a strange land, but my mother, and her mate
Aegisthus, cleft his head with murderous axe, as woodmen fell an
oak. And for this no plaint bursts from any lip save mine, when
thou, my father, hath died a death so cruel and so piteous!
antisystema
But never will I cease from dirge and sore lament, while I look on
the trembling rays of the bright stars, or on this light of day; but
like the nightingale, slayer of her offspring, I will wail without
ceasing, and cry aloud to all, here, at the doors of my father.
O home of Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! potent
Curse, and ye, dread daughters of the gods, Erinyes,- Ye who behold
when a life is reft by violence, when a bed is dishonoured by
stealth,- come, help me, avenge the murder of my sire,- and send to me
my brother; for I have no more the strength to bear up alone against
the load of grief that weighs me down.
(As ELECTRA finishes her lament,
the CHORUS OF WOMEN OF MYCENAE enter. The following
lines between ELECTRA and the CHORUS are chanted responsively.)
CHORUS
strophe 1
Ah, Electra, child of a wretched mother, why art thou ever
pining thus in ceaseless lament for Agamemnon, who long ago was
wickedly ensnared by thy false mother's wiles, and betrayed to death
by dastardly hand? Perish the author of that deed, if I may utter such
prayer!
ELECTRA
Ah, noble-hearted maidens, ye have come to soothe my woes. I
know and feel it, it escapes me not; but I cannot leave this task
undone, or cease from mourning for my hapless sire. Ah, friends
whose love responds to mine in every mood, leave me to rave thus,-
Oh leave me, I entreat you!
CHORUS
antistrophe 1
But never by laments or prayers shalt thou recall thy sire from
that lake of Hades to which all must pass. Nay, thine is a fatal
course of grief, passing ever from due bounds into a cureless
sorrow; wherein there is no deliverance from evils. Say, wherefore art
thou enamoured of misery?
ELECTRA
Foolish is the child who forgets a parent's piteous death. No,
dearer to my soul is the mourner that laments for Itys, Itys,
evermore, that bird distraught with grief, the messenger of Zeus.
Ah, queen of sorrow, Niobe, thee I deem divine,- thee, who evermore
weepest in thy rocky tomb!
CHORUS
strophe 2
Not to thee alone of mortals, my daughter, hath come any sorrow
which thou bearest less calmly than those within, thy kinswomen and
sisters, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa,I who still live,- as he, too,
lives, sorrowing in a secluded youth, yet happy in that this famous
realm of Mycenae shall one day welcome him to his heritage, when the
kindly guidance of Zeus shall have brought him to this land, Orestes.
ELECTRA
Yes, I wait for him with unwearied longing, as I move on my sad
path from day to day, unwed and childless, bathed in tears, bearing
that endless doom of woe; but he forgets all that he has suffered
and heard. What message comes to me, that is not belied? He is ever
yearning to be with us, but, though he yearns, he never resolves.
CHORUS
antistrophe 2
Courage, my daughter, courage; great still in heaven is Zeus,
who sees and governs all: leave thy bitter quarrel to him; forget
not thy foes, but refrain from excess of wrath against them; for
Time is god who makes rough ways smooth. Not heedless is the son of
Agamemnon, who dwells by Crisa's pastoral shore; not heedless is the
god who reigns by Acheron.
ELECTRA
Nay, the best part of life hath passed away from me in
hopelessness, and I have no strength left; I, who am pining away
without children,- whom no loving champion shields,- but, like some
despised alien, I serve in the halls of my father, clad in this mean
garb, and standing at a meagre board.
CHORUS
strophe 3
Piteous was the voice heard at his return, and piteous, as thy
sire lay on the festal couch, when the straight, swift blow was
dealt him with the blade of bronze. Guile was the plotter, Lust the
slayer, dread parents of a dreadful shape; whether it was mortal
that wrought therein, or god.
ELECTRA
O that bitter day, bitter beyond all that have come to me; O
that night, O the horrors of that unutterable feast, the ruthless
deathstrokes that my father saw from the hands of twain, who took my
life captive by treachery, who doomed me to woe! May the great god
of Olympus give them sufferings in requital, and never may their
splendour bring them joy, who have done such deeds!
CHORUS
antistrophe 3
Be advised to say no more; canst thou not see what conduct it is
which already plunges thee so cruelly in self-made miseries? Thou hast
greatly aggravated thy troubles, ever breeding wars with thy sullen
soul; but such strife should not be pushed to a conflict with the
strong.
ELECTRA
I have been forced to it,- forced by dread causes; I know my own
passion, it escapes me not; but, seeing that the causes are so dire,
will never curb these frenzied plaints, while life is in me. Who
indeed, ye kindly sisterhood, who that thinks aright, would deem
that any word of solace could avail me? Forbear, forbear, my
comforters! Such ills must be numbered with those which have no
cure; I can never know a respite from my sorrows, or a limit to this
wailing.
CHORUS
epode
At least it is in love, like a true-hearted mother, that I
dissuade thee from adding misery to miseries.
ELECTRA
But what measure is there in my wretchedness? Say, how can it be
right to neglect the dead? Was that impiety ever born in mortal? Never
may I have praise of such; never when my lot is cast in pleasant
places, may I cling to selfish ease, or dishonour my sire by
restraining the wings of shrill lamentation!
For if the hapless dead is to lie in dust and nothingness, while
the slayers pay not with blood for blood, all regard for man, all fear
of heaven, will vanish from the earth.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
I came, my child, in zeal for thy welfare no less than for mine
own; but if I speak not well, then be it as thou wilt; for we will
follow thee.
ELECTRA
I am ashamed, my friends, if ye deem me too impatient for my oft
complaining; but, since a hard constraint forces me to this, bear with
me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature refrain, who saw the
calamities of a father's house, as I see them by day and night
continually, not fading, but in the summer of their strength? I,
who, first, from the mother that bore me have found bitter enmity;
next, in mine own home I dwell with my father's murderers; they rule
over me, and with them it rests to give or to withhold what I need.
And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus
sitting on my father's throne, wearing the robes which he wore, and
pouring libations at the hearth where he slew my sire; and when I
see the outrage that crowns all, the murderer in our father's bed at
our wretched mother's side, if mother she should be called, who is his
wife; but so hardened is she that she lives with that accursed one,
fearing no Erinys; nay, as if exulting in her deeds, having found
the day on which she treacherously slew my father of old, she keeps it
with dance and song, and month by month sacrifices sheep to the gods
who have wrought her deliverance.
But I, hapless one, beholding it, weep and pine in the house,
and bewail the unholy feast named after my sire,- weep to myself
alone; since I may not even indulge my grief to the full measure of my
yearning. For this woman, in professions so noble, loudly upbraids
me with such taunts as these: 'Impious and hateful girl, hast thou
alone lost a father, and is there no other mourner in the world? An
evil doom be thine, and may the gods infernal give thee no riddance
from thy present laments.'
Thus she insults; save when any one brings her word that Orestes
is coming: then, infuriated, she comes up to me, and cries;- 'Hast not
thou brought this upon me? Is not this deed thine, who didst steal
Orestes from my hands, and privily convey him forth? Yet be sure
that thou shalt have thy due reward.' So she shrieks; and, aiding her,
the renowned spouse at her side is vehement in the same strain,-
that abject dastard, that utter pest, who fights his battles with
the help of women. But I, looking ever for Orestes to come and end
these woes, languish in my misery. Always intending to strike a
blow, he has worn out every hope that I could conceive. In such a
case, then, friends, there is no room for moderation or for reverence;
in sooth, the stress of ills leaves no choice but to follow evil ways.
LEADER
Say, is Aegisthus near while thou speakest thus, or absent from
home?
ELECTRA
Absent, certainly; do not think that I should have come to the
doors, if he had been near; but just now he is afield.
LEADER
Might I converse with thee more freely, if this is so?
ELECTRA
He is not here, so put thy question; what wouldst thou?
LEADER
I ask thee, then, what sayest thou of thy brother? Will he come
soon, or is he delaying? I fain would know.
ELECTRA
He promises to come; but he never fulfils the promise.
LEADER
Yea, a man will pause on the verge of a great work.
ELECTRA
And yet I saved him without pausing.
LEADER
Courage; he is too noble to fail his friends.
ELECTRA
I believe it; or I should not have lived so long.
LEADER
Say no more now; for I see thy sister coming from the house,
Chrysothemis, daughter of the same sire and mother, with sepulchral
gifts in her hands, such as are given to those in the world below.
(CHRYSOTHEMIS enters from the palace. She is richly dressed.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Why, sister, hast thou come forth once more to declaim thus at the
public doors? Why wilt thou not learn with any lapse of time to desist
from vain indulgence of idle wrath? Yet this I know,- that I myself
am- grieved at our plight; indeed, could I find the strength, I would
show what love I bear them. But now, in these troubled waters, 'tis
best, methinks, to shorten sail; I care not to seem active, without
the power to hurt. And would that thine own conduct were the same!
Nevertheless, right is on the side of thy choice, not of that which
I advise; but if I am to live in freedom, our rulers must be obeyed in
all things.
ELECTRA
Strange indeed, that thou, the daughter of such a sire as thine,
shouldst forget him, and think only of thy mother! All thy admonitions
to me have been taught by her; no word is thine own. Then take thy
choice,- to be imprudent; or prudent, but forgetful of thy friends:
thou, who hast just said that, couldst thou find the strength, thou
wouldst show thy hatred of them; yet, when I am doing my utmost to
avenge my sire, thou givest no aid, but seekest to turn thy sister
from her deed.
Does not this crown our miseries with cowardice? For tell me,-
Or let me tell thee,- what I should gain by ceasing from these
laments? Do not live?- miserably, I know, yet well enough for me.
And I vex them, thus rendering honour to the dead, if pleasure can
be felt in that world. But thou, who tellest me of thy hatred,
hatest in word alone, while in deeds thou art with the slayers of
thy sire. I, then, would never yield to them, though I were promised
the gifts which now make thee proud; thine be the richly-spread
table and the life of luxury. For me, be it food enough that I do
not wound mine own conscience; I covet not such privilege as thine,-
nor wouldst thou, wert thou wise. But now, when thou mightest be
called daughter of the noblest father among men, be called the child
of thy mother; so shall thy baseness be most widely seen, in
betrayal of thy dead sire and of thy kindred.
LEADER
No angry word, I entreat! For both of you there is good in what is
urged,- if thou, Electra, wouldst learn to profit by her counsel,
and she, again, by thine.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
For my part, friends, I am not wholly unused to her discourse; nor
should I have touched upon this theme, had I not heard that she was
threatened with a dread doom, which shall restrain her from her
long-drawn laments.
ELECTRA
Come, declare it then, this terror! If thou canst tell me of aught
worse than my present lot, I will resist no more.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Indeed, I will tell thee all that I know. They purpose, if thou
wilt not cease from these laments, to send thee where thou shalt never
look upon the sunlight, but pass thy days in a dungeon beyond the
borders of this land, there to chant thy dreary strain. Bethink
thee, then, and do not blame me hereafter, when the blow hath
fallen; now is the time to be wise.
ELECTRA
Have they indeed resolved to treat me thus?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Assuredly, whenever Aegisthus comes home.
ELECTRA
If that be all, then may he arrive with speed!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Misguided one! what dire prayer is this?
ELECTRA
That he may come, if he hath any such intent.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
That thou mayst suffer- what? Where are thy wits?
ELECTRA
That I may fly as far as may be from you all.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
But hast thou no care for thy present life?
ELECTRA
Aye, my life is marvellously fair.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
It might be, couldst thou only learn prudence.
ELECTRA
Do not teach me to betray my friends.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
I do not,- but to bend before the strong.
ELECTRA
Thine be such flattery: those are not my ways.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Tis well, however, not to fall by folly.
ELECTRA
I will fall, if need be, in the cause of my sire.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
But our father, I know, pardons me for this.
ELECTRA
It is for cowards to find peace in such maxims.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
So thou wilt not hearken, and take my counsel?
ELECTRA
No, verily; long may be it before I am so foolish.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Then I will go forth upon mine errand.
ELECTRA
And whither goest thou? To whom bearest thou these offerings?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Our mother sends me with funeral libations for our sire.
ELECTRA
How sayest thou? For her deadliest foe?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Slain by her own hand- so thou wouldest say.
ELECTRA
What friend hath persuaded her? Whose wish was this?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
The cause, I think, was some dread vision of the night.
ELECTRA
Gods of our house! be ye with me- now at last!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Dost thou find any encouragement in this terror?
ELECTRA
If thou wouldst tell me the vision, then I could answer.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Nay, I can tell but little of the story.
ELECTRA
Tell what thou canst; a little word hath often marred, or made,
men's fortunes.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
'Tis said that she beheld our sire, restored to the sunlight, at
her side once more; then he took the sceptre,- Once his own, but now
borne by Aegisthus,- and planted it at the hearth; and thence a
fruitful bough sprang upward, wherewith the whole land of Mycenae
was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was
present when she declared her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I
know not,- save that she sent me by reason of that fear. So by the-
gods of our house I beseech thee, hearken to me, and be not ruined
by folly! For if thou repel me now, thou wilt come back to seek me
in thy trouble.
ELECTRA
Nay, dear sister, let none of these things in thy hands touch
the tomb; for neither custom nor piety allows thee to dedicate gifts
or bring libations to our sire from a hateful wife. No- to the winds
with them or bury them deep in the earth, where none of them shall
ever come near his place of rest; but, when she dies, let her find
these treasures laid up for her below.
And were she not the most hardened of all women, she would never
have sought to pour these offerings of enmity on the grave of him whom
she slew. Think now if it is likely that the dead in the tomb should
take these honours kindly at her hand, who ruthlessly slew him, like a
foeman, and mangled him, and, for ablution, wiped off the blood-stains
on his head? Canst thou believe that these things which thou
bringest will absolve her of the murder?
It is not possible. No, cast these things aside; give him rather a
lock cut from thine own tresses, and on my part, hapless that I
am,-scant gifts these, but my best,- this hair, not glossy with
unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall
down and pray that he himself may come in kindness from the world
below, to aid us against our foes; and that the young Orestes may live
to set his foot upon his foes in victorious might, that henceforth
we may crown our father's tomb with wealthier hands than those which
grace it now.
I think, indeed, I think that he also had some part in sending her
these appalling dreams; still, sister, do this service, to help
thyself, and me, and him, that most beloved of all men, who rests in
the realm of Hades, thy sire and mine.
LEADER
The maiden counsels piously; and thou, friend, wilt do her
bidding, if- thou art wise.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
I will. When a duty is clear, reason forbids that two voices
should contend, and claims the hastening of the deed. Only, when I
attempt this task, aid me with your silence, I entreat you, my
friends; for, should my mother hear of it, methinks I shall yet have
cause to rue my venture.
(CHRYSOTHEMIS departs, to take the offerings to Agamemnon's grave.)
CHORUS (singing)
strophe
If I am not an erring seer and one who fails in wisdom, justice,
that hath sent the presage, will come, triumphant in her righteous
strength,- will come ere long, my child, to avenge. There is courage
in my heart, through those new tidings of the dream that breathes
comfort. Not forgetful is thy sire, the lord of Hellas; not
forgetful is the two-edged axe of bronze that struck the blow of
old, and slew him with foul cruelty.
antistrophe
The Erinys of untiring feet, who is lurking in her dread ambush,
will come, as with the march and with the might of a great host. For
wicked ones have been fired with passion that hurried them to a
forbidden bed, to accursed bridals, to a marriage stained with guilt
of blood. Therefore am I sure that the portent will not fail to
bring woe upon the partners in crime. Verily mortals cannot read the
future in fearful dreams or oracles, if this vision of the night
find not due fulfilment.
epode
O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what
weary troubles hast thou brought upon this land! For since Myrtilus
sank to rest beneath the waves, when a fatal and cruel hand hurled him
to destruction out of the golden car, this house was never yet free
from misery and violence.
(CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace.)
CLYTEMNESTRA
At large once more, it seems, thou rangest,- for Aegisthus is
not here, who always kept thee at least from passing the gates, to
shame thy friends. But now, since he is absent, thou takest no heed of
me, though thou hast said of me oft-times, and to many, that I am a
bold and lawless tyrant, who insults thee and thine. I am guilty of no
insolence; I do but return the taunts that I often hear from thee.
Thy father- this is thy constant pretext- was slain by me. Yes, by
me- I know it well; it admits of no denial; for justice slew him,
and not I alone,- justice, whom it became thee to support, hadst
thou been right-minded; seeing that this father of thine, whom thou
art ever lamenting, was the one man of the Greeks who had the heart to
sacrifice thy sister to the gods- he, the father, who had not shared
the mother's pangs.
Come, tell me now, wherefore, or to please whom, did he
sacrifice her? To please the Argives, thou wilt say? Nay, they had
no right to slay my daughter. Or if, forsooth, it was to screen his
brother Menelaus that he slew my child, was he not to pay me the
penalty for that? Had not Menelaus two children, who should in
fairness have been taken before my daughter, as sprung from the sire
and mother who had caused that voyage? Or had Hades some strange
desire to feast on my offspring, rather than on hers? Or had that
accursed father lost all tenderness for the children of my womb, while
he was tender to the children of Menelaus? Was not that the part of
a callous and perverse parent? I think so, though differ from thy
judgment; and so would say the dead, if she could speak. For myself,
then, I view the past without dismay; but if thou deemest me perverse,
see that thine own judgment is just, before thou blame thy neighbour.
ELECTRA
This time thou canst not say that I have done anything to
provoke such words from thee. But, if thou wilt give me leave, I
fain would declare the truth, in the cause alike of my dead sire and
of my sister.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Indeed, thou hast my leave; and didst thou always address me in
such a tone, thou wouldst be heard without pain.
ELECTRA
Then I will speak. Thou sayest that thou hast slain my father.
What word could bring thee deeper shame than that, whether the deed
was just or not? But I must tell thee that thy deed was not just;
no, thou wert drawn on to it by the wooing of the base man who is
now thy spouse.
Ask the huntress Artemis what sin she punished when she stayed the
frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell thee; for we may not learn
from her. My father- so I have heard- was once disporting himself in
the grove of the goddess, when his footfall startled a dappled and
antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to utter a certain boast
concerning its slaughter. Wroth thereat, the daughter of Leto detained
the Greeks, that, in quittance for the wild creature's life, my father
should yield up the life of his own child. Thus it befell that she was
sacrificed; since the fleet had no other release, homeward or to Troy;
and for that cause, under sore constraint and with sore reluctance, at
last he slew her- not for the sake of Menelaus.
But grant- for I will take thine own plea- grant that the motive
of his deed was to benefit his brother;- was that a reason for his
dying by thy hand? Under what law? See that, in making such a law
for men, thou make not trouble and remorse for thyself; for, if we are
to take blood for blood, thou wouldst be the first to die, didst
thou meet with thy desert.
But look if thy pretext is not false. For tell me, if thou wilt,
wherefore thou art now doing the most shameless deeds of all,-
dwelling as wife with that blood-guilty one, who first helped thee
to slay my sire, and bearing children to him, while thou hast cast out
the earlier-born, the stainless offspring of a stainless marriage. How
can I praise these things? Or wilt thou say that this, too, is thy
vengeance for thy daughter? Nay, shameful plea, if so thou plead; 'tis
not well to wed an enemy for a daughter's sake.
But indeed I may not even counsel thee,- who shriekest that I
revile my mother; and truly I think that to me thou art less a
mother than mistress; so wretched is the life that I live, ever
beset with miseries by thee and by thy partner. And that other, who
scarce escaped thy hand, the hapless Orestes, is wearing out his
ill-starred days in exile. Often hast thou charged me with rearing him
to punish thy crime; and I would have done so, if I could, thou
mayst be sure:-for that matter, denounce me to all, as disloyal, if
thou wilt, or petulant, or impudent; for if I am accomplished in
such ways, methinks I am no unworthy child of thee.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
I see that she breathes forth anger; but whether justice be with
her, for this she seems to care no longer.
CLYTEMNESTRA (to the CHORUS)
And what manner of care do I need to use against her, who hath
thus insulted a mother, and this at her ripe age? Thinkest thou not
that she would go forward to any deed, without shame?
ELECTRA
Now be assured that I do feel shame for this, though thou
believe it not; I know that my behaviour is unseemly, and becomes me
ill. But then the enmity on thy part, and thy treatment, compel me
in mine own despite to do thus; for base deeds are taught by base.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Thou brazen one! Truly I and my sayings and my deeds give thee too
much matter for words.
ELECTRA
The words are thine, not mine; for thine is the action; and the
acts find the utterance.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Now by our lady Artemis, thou shalt not fail to pay for this
boldness, so soon as Aegisthus returns.
ELECTRA
Lo, thou art transported by anger, after granting me free
speech, aid hast no patience to listen.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Now wilt thou not hush thy clamour, or even suffer me to
sacrifice, when I have permitted thee to speak unchecked?
ELECTRA
I hinder not,- begin thy rites, I pray thee; and blame not my
voice, for I shall say no more.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Raise then, my handmaid, the offerings of many fruits, that I
may uplift my prayers to this our king, for deliverance from my
present fears. Lend now a gracious ear, O Phoebus our defender, to
my words, though they be dark; for I speak not among friends, nor is
it meet to unfold my whole thought to the light, while she stands near
me, lest with her malice and her garrulous cry she spread some rash
rumour throughout the town: but hear me thus, since on this wise I
must speak.
That vision which I saw last night in doubtful dreams- if it
hath come for my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but
if for harm, then let it recoil upon my foes. And if any are
plotting to hurl me by treachery from the high estate which now is
mine, permit them not; rather vouch. safe that, still living thus
unscathed, I may bear sway over the house of the Atreidae and this
realm, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now,
and with those of my children from whom no enmity or bitterness
pursues me.
O Lycean Apollo, graciously hear these prayers, and grant them
to us all, even as we ask! For the rest, though I be silent, I deem
that thou, a god, must know it; all things, surely, are seen by the
sons of Zeus.
(The PAEDAGOGUS enters.)
PAEDAGOGUS
Ladies, might a stranger crave to know if this be the palace of
the king Aegisthus?
LEADER
It is, sir; thou thyself hast guessed aright.
PAEDAGOGUS
And am I right in surmising that this lady is his consort? She
is of queenly aspect.
LEADER
Assuredly; thou art in the presence of the queen.
PAEDAGOGUS
Hail, royal lady! I bring glad tidings to thee and to Aegisthus,
from friend.
CLYTEMNESTRA
I welcome the omen; but I would fain know from thee, first, who
may have sent thee.
PAEDAGOGUS
Phanoteus the Phocian, on a weighty mission.
CLYTEMNESTRA
What is it, sir? Tell me: coming from a friend, thou wilt bring, I
know; a kindly message.
PAEDAGOGUS
Orestes is dead; that is the sum.
ELECTRA
Oh, miserable that I am! I am lost this day!
CLYTEMNESTRA
What sayest thou, friend, what sayest thou?- listen not to her!
PAEDAGOGUS
I said, and say again- Orestes is dead.
ELECTRA
I am lost, hapless one, I am undone!
CLYTEMNESTRA (to ELECTRA)
See thou to thine own concerns.- But do thou, sir, tell me
exactly,-how did he perish?
PAEDAGOGUS
I was sent for that purpose, and will tell thee all. Having gone
to the renowned festival, the pride of Greece, for the Delphian games,
when he heard the loud summons to the foot-race which was first to
be decided, he entered the lists, a brilliant form, a wonder in the
eyes of all there; and, having finished his course at the point
where it began, he went out with the glorious meed of victory. To
speak briefly, where there is much to tell, I know not the man whose
deeds and triumphs have matched his; but one thing thou must know;
in all the contests that the judges announced, he bore away the prize;
and men deemed him happy, as oft as the herald proclaimed him an
Argive, by name Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who once gathered the
famous armament of Greece.
Thus far, 'twas well; but, when a god sends harm, not even the
strong man can escape. For, on another day, when chariots were to
try their speed at sunrise, he entered, with many charioteers. One was
an Achaean, one from Sparta, two masters of yoked cars were Libyans;
Orestes, driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixth
from Aetolia, with chestnut colts; a Magnesian was the seventh; the
eighth, with white horses, was of Aenian stock; the ninth, from
Athens, built of gods; there was a Boeotian too, making the tenth
chariot.
They took their stations where the appointed umpires placed them
by lot and ranged the cars; then, at the sound of the brazen trump,
they started. All shouted to their horses, and shook the reins in
their hands; the whole course was filled with the noise of rattling
chariots; the dust flew upward; and all, in a confused throng, plied
their goads unsparingly, each of them striving to pass the wheels
and the snorting steeds of his rivals; for alike at their backs and at
their rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed and smote.
Orestes, driving close to the pillar at either end of the
course, almost grazed it with his wheel each time, and, giving rein to
the trace-horse on the right, checked the horse on the inner side.
Hitherto, all the chariots had escaped overthrow; but presently the
Aenian's hard-mouthed colts ran away, and, swerving, as they passed
from the sixth into the seventh round, dashed their foreheads
against the team of the Barcaean. Other mishaps followed the first,
shock on shock and crash on crash, till the whole race-ground of Crisa
was strewn with the wreck of the chariots.
Seeing this, the wary charioteer from Athens drew aside and
paused, allowing the billow of chariots, surging in mid course, to
go by. Orestes was driving last, keeping his horses behind,- for his
trust was in the end; but when he saw that the Athenian was alone left
in, he sent a shrill cry ringing through the ears of his swift
colts, and gave chase. Team was brought level with team, and so they
raced,-first one man, then the other. showing his head in front of the
chariots.
Hitherto the ill-fated Orestes had passed safely through every
round, steadfast in his steadfast car; at last, slackening his left
rein while the horse was turning, unawares he struck the edge of the
pillar; he broke the axle-box in twain; he was thrown over the
chariot-rail; he was caught in the shapely reins; and, as he fell on
the ground, his colts were scattered into the middle of the course.
But when the people saw him fallen from the car, a cry of pity
went up for the youth, who had done such deeds and was meeting such
a doom,- now dashed to earth, now tossed feet uppermost to the sky,-
till the charioteers, with difficulty checking the career of his
horses, loosed him, so covered with blood that no friend who saw it
would have known the hapless corpse. Straightway they burned it on a
pyre; and chosen men of Phocis are bringing in a small urn of bronze
the sad dust of that mighty form, to find due burial in his
fatherland.
Such is my story,- grievous to hear, if words can grieve; but
for us, who beheld, the greatest of sorrows that these eyes have seen.
LEADER
Alas, alas Now, methinks, the stock of our ancient masters hath
utterly perished, root and branch.
CLYTEMNESTRA
O Zeus, what shall I call these tidings,- glad tidings? Or dire,
but gainful? 'Tis a bitter lot, when mine own calamities make the
safety of my life.
PAEDAGOGUS
Why art thou so downcast, lady, at this news?
CLYTEMNESTRA
There is a strange power in motherhood; a mother may be wronged,
but she never learns to hate her child.
PAEDAGOGUS
Then it seems that we have come in vain.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, not in vain; how canst thou say 'in vain,' when thou hast
brought an sure proofs of his death?- His, who sprang from mine own
life, yet, forsaking me who had suckled and reared him, became an
exile and an alien; and, after he went out of this land, he saw me
no more; but, charging me with the murder of his sire, he uttered
dread threats against me; so that neither by night nor by day could
sweet sleep cover mine eyes, but from moment to moment I lived in fear
of death. Now, however-since this day I am rid of terror from him, and
from this girl,- that worse plague who shared my home, while still she
drained my very life-blood,-now, methinks, for aught that she can
threaten, I shall pass my days in peace.
ELECTRA
Ah, woe is me! Now, indeed, Orestes, thy fortune may be
lamented, when it is thus with thee, and thou art mocked by this thy
mother! Is it not well?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Not with thee; but his state is well.
ELECTRA
Hear, Nemesis of him who hath lately died!
CLYTEMNESTRA
She hath heard who should be heard, and hath ordained well.
ELECTRA
Insult us, for this is the time of thy triumph.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Then will not Orestes and thou silence me?
ELECTRA
We are silenced; much less should we silence thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Thy coming, sir, would deserve large recompense, if thou hast
hushed her clamorous tongue.
PAEDAGOGUS
Then I may take my leave, if all is well.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Not so; thy welcome would then be unworthy of me, and of the
ally who sent thee. Nay, come thou in; and leave her without, to
make loud lament for herself and for her friends.
(CLYTEMNESTRA and the PAEDAGOGUS enter the palace.)
ELECTRA
How think ye? Was there not grief and anguish there, wondrous
weeping and wailing of that miserable mother, for the son who perished
by such a fate? Nay, she left us with a laugh! Ah, woe is me!
Dearest Orestes, how is my life quenched by thy death! Thou hast
torn away with the from my heart the only hopes which still were
mine,- that thou wouldst live to return some day, an avenger of thy
sire, and of me unhappy. But now- whither shall I turn? I am alone,
bereft of thee, as of my father.
Henceforth I must be a slave again among those whom most I hate,
my father's murderers. Is it not well with me? But never, at least,
henceforward, will I enter the house to dwell with them; nay, at these
gates I will lay me down, and here, without a friend, my days shall
wither. Therefore, if any in the house be wroth, let them slay me; for
'tis a grace, if I die, but if I live, a pain; I desire life no more.
(The following lines between ELECTRA
and the CHORUS are chanted responsively.)
CHORUS
strophe 1
Where are the thunderbolts of Zeus, or where is the bright Sun, if
they look upon these things, and brand them not, but rest?
ELECTRA
Woe, woe, ah me, ah me!
CHORUS
O daughter, why weepest thou?
ELECTRA (with hands outstretched to heaven)
Alas!
CHORUS
Utter no rash cry!
ELECTRA
Thou wilt break my heart!
CHORUS
How meanest thou?
ELECTRA
If thou suggest a hope concerning those who have surely passed
to the realm below, thou wilt trample yet more upon my misery.
CHORUS
antistrophe 1
Nay, I know how, ensnared by a woman for a chain of gold, the
prince Amphiaraus found a grave; and now beneath the earth-
ELECTRA
Ah me, ah me!
CHORUS
-he reigns in fulness of force.
ELECTRA
Alas!
CHORUS
Alas indeed! for the murderess-
ELECTRA
Was slain.
CHORUS
Yea.
ELECTRA
I know it, I know it; for a champion arose to avenge the
mourning dead; but to me no champion remains; for he who yet was
left hath been snatched away.
CHORUS
strophe 2
Hapless art thou, and hapless is thy lot!
ELECTRA
Well know I that, too well,- I, whose life is a torrent of woes
dread and dark, a torrent that surges through all the months!
CHORUS
We have seen the course of thy sorrow.
ELECTRA
Cease, then, to divert me from it, when no more-
CHORUS
How sayest thou?
ELECTRA
-when no more can I have the comfort of hope from a brother, the
seed of the same noble sire.
CHORUS
antistrophe 2
For all men it is appointed to die.
ELECTRA
What, to die as that ill-starred one died, amid the tramp of
racing steeds, entangled in the reins that dragged him?
CHORUS
Cruel was his doom, beyond thought!
ELECTRA
Yea, surely; when in foreign soil, without ministry of my hands,-
CHORUS
Alas!
ELECTRA
-he is buried, ungraced by me with sepulture or with tears.
(CHRYSOTHEMIS enters in excitement.)
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Joy wings my feet, dear sister, not careful of seemliness, if I
come with speed; for I bring joyful news, to relieve thy long
sufferings and sorrows.
ELECTRA
And whence couldst thou find help for my woes, whereof no cure can
be imagined?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Orestes is with us,- know this from my lips, in living presence,
as surely as thou seest me here.
ELECTRA
What, art thou mad, poor girl? Art thou laughing at my sorrows,
and thine own?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Nay, by our father's hearth, I speak not in mockery; I tell thee
that he is with us indeed.
ELECTRA
Ah, woe is me! And from whom hast thou heard this tale, which thou
believest so lightly?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
I believe it on mine own knowledge, not on hearsay; I have seen
clear proofs.
ELECTRA
What hast thou seen, poor girl, to warrant thy belief? Whither,
wonder hast thou turned thine eyes, that thou art fevered with this
baneful fire?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Then, for the gods' love, listen, that thou mayest know my
story, before deciding whether I am sane or foolish.
ELECTRA
Speak on, then, if thou findest pleasure in speaking.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Well, thou shalt hear all that I have seen. When I came to our
father's ancient tomb, I saw that streams of milk had lately flowed
from the top of the mound, and that his sepulchre was encircled with
garlands of all flowers that blow. I was astonished at the sight,
and peered about, lest haply some one should be close to my side.
But when I perceived that all the place was in stillness, I crept
nearer to the tomb; and on the mound's edge I saw a lock of hair,
freshly severed.
And the moment that I saw it, ah me, a familiar image rushed
upon my soul, telling me that there I beheld a token of him whom
most I love, Orestes. Then I took it in my hands, and uttered no
ill-omened word, but the tears of joy straightway filled mine eyes.
And I know well, as knew then, that this fair tribute has come from
none but him. Whose part else was that, save mine and thine? And I did
it not, I know,- nor thou; how shouldst thou?- when thou canst not
leave this house, even to worship the gods, but at thy peril. Nor,
again, does our mother's heart incline to do such deeds, nor could she
have so done without our knowledge.
No, these offerings are from Orestes! Come, dear sister,
courage! No mortal life is attended by a changeless fortune. Ours
was once gloomy; but this day, perchance, will seal the promise of
much good.
ELECTRA
Alas for thy folly! How I have been pitying thee!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
What, are not my tidings welcome?
ELECTRA
Thou knowest not whither or into what dreams thou wanderest.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Should I not know what mine own eyes have seen?
ELECTRA
He is dead, poor girl; and thy hopes in that deliverer are gone:
look not to him.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Woe, woe is me! From whom hast thou heard this?
ELECTRA
From the man who was present when he perished.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
And where is he? Wonder steals over my mind.
ELECTRA
He is within, a guest not unpleasing to our mother.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Ah, woe is me! Whose, then, can have been those ample offerings to
our father's tomb?
ELECTRA
Most likely, I think, some one brought those gifts in memory of
the dead Orestes.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Oh, hapless that I am! And I was bringing such news in joyous
haste, ignorant, it seems, how dire was our plight; but now that I
have come, I find fresh sorrows added to the old!
ELECTRA
So stands thy case; yet, if thou wilt hearken to me, thou wilt
lighten the load of our present trouble.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Can I ever raise the dead to life?
ELECTRA
I meant not that; I am not so foolish.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
What biddest thou, then, for which my strength avails?
ELECTRA
That thou be brave in doing what I enjoin.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Nay, if any good can be done, I will not refuse,
ELECTRA
Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
I know it, and will share thy burden with all my power.
ELECTRA
Hear, then, how I am resolved to act. As for the support of
friends, thou thyself must know that we have none; Hades hath taken
our friends away. and we two are left alone. I, so long as I heard
that my brother still lived and prospered, had hopes that he would yet
come to avenge the murder of our sire. But now that he is no more, I
look next to thee, not to flinch from aiding me thy sister to slay our
father's murderer, Aegisthus:- I must have no secret from thee more.
How long art thou to wait inactive? What hope is left standing, to
which thine eyes can turn? Thou hast to complain that thou art
robbed of thy father's heritage; thou hast to mourn that thus far
thy life is fading without nuptial song or wedded love. Nay, and do
not hope that such joys will ever be thine; Aegisthus is not so
ill-advised as ever to permit that children should spring from thee or
me for his own sure destruction. But if thou wilt follow my
counsels, first thou wilt win praise of piety from our dead sire
below, and from our brother too; next, thou shalt be called free
henceforth, as thou wert born, and shalt find worthy bridals; for
noble natures draw the gaze of all.
Then seest thou not what fair fame thou wilt win for thyself and
for me, by hearkening to my word? What citizen or stranger, when he
sees us, will not greet us with praises such as these?- 'Behold
these two sisters, my friends, who saved their father's house; who,
when their foes were firmly planted of yore, took their lives in their
hands and stood forth as avengers of blood! Worthy of love are these
twain, worthy of reverence from all; at festivals, and wherever the
folk are assembled, let these be honoured of all men for their
prowess.' Thus will every one speak of us, so that in life and in
death our glory shall not fail.
Come, dear sister, hearken! Work with thy sire, share the burden
of thy brother, win rest from woes for me and for thyself,- mindful of
this, that an ignoble life brings shame upon the noble.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
In such case as this, forethought is helpful for those who speak
and those who hear.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Yea, and before she spake, my friends, were she blest with a sound
mind, she would have remembered caution, as she doth not remember it.
Now whither canst thou have turned thine eyes, that thou art
arming thyself with such rashness, and calling me to aid thee? Seest
thou not, thou art a woman, not a man, and no match for thine
adversaries in strength? And their fortune prospers day by day,
while ours is ebbing and coming to nought. Who, then, plotting to
vanquish a foe so strong, shall escape without suffering deadly
scathe? See that we change not our evil plight to worse, if any one
hears these words. It brings us no relief or benefit, if, after
winning fair fame, we die an ignominious death; for mere death is
not the bitterest, but rather when one who wants to die cannot
obtain even that boon.
Nay, I beseech thee, before we are utterly destroyed, and leave
our house desolate, restrain thy rage! I will take care that thy words
remain secret and harmless; and learn thou the prudence, at last
though late, of yielding, when so helpless, to thy rulers.
LEADER
Hearken; there is no better gain for mortals to win than foresight
and a prudent mind.
ELECTRA
Thou hast said nothing unlooked-for; I well knew that thou wouldst
reject what I proffered. Well! I must do this deed with mine own hand,
and alone; for assuredly I will not leave it void.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Alas! Would thou hadst been so purposed on the day of our father's
death! What mightst thou not have wrought?
ELECTRA
My nature was the same then, but my mind less ripe.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Strive to keep such a mind through all thy life.
ELECTRA
These counsels mean that thou wilt not share my deed.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
No; for the venture is likely to bring disaster.
ELECTRA
I admire thy prudence; thy cowardice I hate.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
I will listen not less calmly when thou praise me.
ELECTRA
Never fear to suffer that from me.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Time enough in the future to decide that.
ELECTRA
Begone; there is no power to help in thee.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Not so; but in thee, no mind to learn.
ELECTRA
Go, declare all this to thy mother!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
But, again, I do not hate thee with such a hate.
ELECTRA
Yet know at least to what dishonour thou bringest me.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Dishonour, no! I am only thinking of thy good.
ELECTRA
Am I bound, then, to follow thy rule of right?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
When thou art wise, then thou shalt be our guide.
ELECTRA
Sad, that one who speaks so well should speak amiss!
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Thou hast well described the fault to which thou cleavest.
ELECTRA
How? Dost thou not think that I speak with justice?
CHRYSOTHEMIS
But sometimes justice itself is fraught with harm.
ELECTRA
I care not to live by such a law.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Well, if thou must do this, thou wilt praise me yet.
ELECTRA
And do it I will, no whit dismayed by thee.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Is this so indeed? Wilt thou not change thy counsels?
ELECTRA
No, for nothing is more hateful than bad counsel.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Thou seemest to agree with nothing that I urge.
ELECTRA
My resolve is not new, but long since fixed.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Then I will go; thou canst not be brought to approve my words, nor
to commend thy conduct.
ELECTRA
Nay, go within; never will I follow thee, however much thou
mayst desire it; it were great folly even to attempt an idle quest.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Nay, if thou art wise in thine own eyes, be such wisdom thine;
by and by, when thou standest in evil plight, thou wilt praise my
words.
(CHRYSOTHEMIS goes into the palace.)
CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
When we see the birds of the air, with sure instinct, careful to
nourish those who give them life and nurture, why do not we pay
these debts in like measure? Nay, by the lightning-flash of Zeus, by
Themis throned in heaven, it is not long till sin brings sorrow.
Voice that comest to the dead beneath the earth, send a piteous
cry, I pray thee, to the son of Atreus in that world, a joyless
message of dishonour;
antistrophe 1
tell him that the fortunes of his house are now distempered;
while, among his children, strife of sister with sister hath broken
the harmony of loving days. Electra, forsaken, braves the storm alone;
she bewails alway, hapless one, her father's fate, like the
nightingale unwearied in lament; she recks not of death, but is
ready to leave the sunlight, could she but quell the two Furies of her
house. Who shall match such noble child of noble sire?
strophe 2
No generous soul deigns, by a base life, to cloud a fair repute,
and leave a name inglorious; as thou, too, O my daughter, hast
chosen to mourn all thy days with those that mourn, and hast spurned
dishonour, that thou mightest win at once a twofold praise, as wise,
and as the best of daughters.
antistrophe 2
May I yet see thy life raised in might and wealth above thy
foes, even as now it is humbled beneath their hand! For I have found
thee in no prosperous estate; and yet, for observance of nature's
highest laws, winning the noblest renown, by thy piety towards Zeus.
(ORESTES enters, with PYLADES
and two attendants, one of them carrying a funeral urn.)
ORESTES
Ladies, have we been directed aright, and are we on the right path
to our goal?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
And what seekest thou? With what desire hast thou come?
ORESTES
I have been searching for the home of Aegisthus.
LEADER
Well, thou hast found it; and thy guide is blameless.
ORESTES
Which of you, then, will tell those within that our company,
long desired, hath arrived?
LEADER
This maiden,- if the nearest should announce it.
ORESTES
I pray thee, mistress, make it known in the house that certain men
of Phocis seek Aegisthus.
ELECTRA
Ah, woe is me! Surely ye are not bringing the visible proofs of
that rumour which we heard?
ORESTES
I know nothing of thy 'rumour'; but the aged Strophius charged
me with tidings of Orestes.
ELECTRA
What are they, sir? Ah, how I thrill with fear!
ORESTES
He is dead; and in a small urn, as thou seest, we bring the scanty
relics home.
ELECTRA
Ah me unhappy! There, at last, before mine eyes, I see that
woful burden in your hands
ORESTES
If thy tears are for aught which Orestes hath suffered, know
that yonder vessel holds his dust.
ELECTRA
Ah, sir, allow me, then, I implore thee, if this urn indeed
contains him, to take it in my hands,- that I may weep and wail, not
for these ashes alone, but for myself and for all our house therewith!
ORESTES (to the attendants)
Bring it and give it her, whoe'er she be; for she who begs this
boon must be one who wished him no evil, but a friend, or haply a
kinswoman in blood.
(The urn is placed in ELECTRA'S hands.)
ELECTRA
Ah, memorial of him whom I loved best on earth! Ah, Orestes, whose
life hath no relic left save this,- how far from the hopes with
which I sent thee forth is the manner in which I receive thee back!
Now I carry thy poor dust in my hands; but thou wert radiant, my
child, when I sped the forth from home! Would that I had yielded up my
breath, ere, with these hands, I stole thee away, and sent thee to a
strange land, and rescued the from death; that so thou mightest have
been stricken down on that self-same day, and had thy portion in the
tomb of thy sire!
But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished
miserably, far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not
washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad
burden from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless
one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust
in a narrow urn.
Ah, woe is me for my nursing long ago, so vain, that I oft
bestowed on thee with loving toil I For thou wast never thy mother's
darling so much as mine; nor was any in the house thy nurse but I; and
by thee I was ever called 'sister.' But now all this hath vanished
in a day, with thy death; like a whirlwind, thou hast swept all away
with thee. Our father is gone; I am dead in regard to thee; thou
thyself hast perished: our foes exult; that mother, who is none, is
mad with joy,- she of whom thou didst oft send me secret messages, thy
heralds, saying that thou thyself wouldst appear as an avenger. But
our evil fortune. thine and mine, hath reft all that away, and hath
sent thee forth unto me thus,- no more the form that I loved so
well, but ashes and an idle shade.
Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a
dire journey, how hast undone me,- undone me indeed, O brother mine!
Therefore take me to this thy home, me who am as nothing, to thy
nothingness, that I may dwell with thee henceforth below; for when
thou wert on earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that
I may not be parted from thee in the grave. For I see that the dead
have rest from pain.
LEADER
Bethink thee, Electra, thou art the child of mortal sire, and
mortal was Orestes; therefore grieve not too much. This is a debt
which all of us must pay.
ORESTES
Alas, what shall I say? What words can serve me at this pass? I
can restrain my lips no longer!
ELECTRA
What hath troubled thee? Why didst thou say that?
ORESTES
Is this the form of the illustrious Electra that I behold?
ELECTRA
It is; and very grievous is her plight.
ORESTES
Alas, then, for this miserable fortune!
ELECTRA
Surely, sir, thy lament is not for me?
ORESTES
O form cruelly, godlessly misused!
ELECTRA
Those ill-omened words, sir, fit no one better than me.
ORESTES
Alas for thy life, unwedded and all unblest!
ELECTRA
Why this steadfast gaze, stranger, and these laments?
ORESTES
How ignorant was I, then, of mine own sorrows!
ELECTRA
By what that hath been said hast thou perceived this?
ORESTES
By seeing thy sufferings, so many and so great.
ELECTRA
And yet thou seest but a few of my woes.
ORESTES
Could any be more painful to behold?
ELECTRA
This, that I share the dwelling of the murderers.
ORESTES
Whose murderers? Where lies the guilt at which thou hintest?
ELECTRA
My father's;- and then I am their slave perforce.
ORESTES
Who is it that subjects thee to this constraint?
ELECTRA
A mother-in name, but no mother in her deeds.
ORESTES
How doth she oppress thee? With violence or with hardship?
ELECTRA
With violence, and hardships, and all manner of ill.
ORESTES
And is there none to succour, or to hinder?
ELECTRA
None. I had one; and thou hast shown me his ashes.
ORESTES
Hapless girl, how this sight hath stirred my pity!
ELECTRA
Know, then, that thou art the first who ever pitied me.
ORESTES
No other visitor hath ever shared thy pain.
ELECTRA
Surely thou art not some unknown kinsman?
ORESTES
I would answer, if these were friends who hear us.
ELECTRA
Oh, they are friends; thou canst speak without mistrust.
ORESTES
Give up this urn, then, and thou shalt be told all.
ELECTRA
Nay, I beseech thee be not so cruel to me, sir!
ORESTES
Do as I say, and never fear to do amiss.
ELECTRA
I conjure thee, rob me not of my chief treasure!
ORESTES
Thou must not keep it.
ELECTRA
Ah woe is me for thee, Orestes, if I am not to give thee burial
ORESTES
Hush!-no such word!-Thou hast no right to lament.
ELECTRA
No right to lament for my dead brother?
ORESTES
It is not meet for thee to speak of him thus.
ELECTRA
Am I so dishonoured of the dead?
ORESTES
Dishonoured of none:- but this is not thy part.
ELECTRA
Yes, if these are the ashes of Orestes that I hold.
ORESTES
They are not; a fiction dothed them with his name.
(He gently takes the urn from her.)
ELECTRA
And where is that unhappy one's tomb?
ORESTES
There is none; the living have no tomb.
ELECTRA
What sayest thou, boy?
ORESTES
Nothing that is not true.
ELECTRA
The man is alive?
ORESTES
If there be life in me.
ELECTRA
What? Art thou he?
ORESTES
Look at this signet, once our father's, and judge if I speak
truth.
ELECTRA
O blissful day!
ORESTES
Blissful, in very deed!
ELECTRA
Is this thy voice?
ORESTES
Let no other voice reply.
ELECTRA
Do I hold thee in my arms?
ORESTES
As mayest thou hold me always!
ELECTRA
Ah, dear friends and fellow-citizens, behold Orestes here, who was
feigned dead, and now, by that feigning hath come safely home!
LEADER
We see him, daughter; and for this happy fortune a tear of joy
trickles from our eyes.
(The following lines between ORESTES
and ELECTRA are chanted responsively.)
ELECTRA
strophe
Offspring of him whom I loved best, thou hast come even now,
thou hast come, and found and seen her whom thy heart desired!
ORESTES
I am with thee;- but keep silence for a while.
ELECTRA
What meanest thou?
ORESTES
'Tis better to be silent, lest some one within should hear.
ELECTRA
Nay, by ever-virgin Artemis, I will never stoop to fear women,
stay-at-homes, vain burdens of the ground!
ORESTES
Yet remember that in women, too, dwells the spirit of battle; thou
hast had good proof of that, I ween.
ELECTRA
Alas! ah me! Thou hast reminded me of my sorrow, one which, from
its nature, cannot be veiled, cannot be done away with, cannot forget!
ORESTES
I know this also; but when occasion prompts, then will be the
moment to recall those deeds.
ELECTRA
antistrophe
Each moment of all time, as it comes, would be meet occasion for
these my just complaints; scarcely now have I had my lips set free.
ORESTES
I grant it; therefore guard thy freedom.
ELECTRA
What must I do?
ORESTES
When the season serves not, do not wish to speak too much.
ELECTRA
Nay, who could fitly exchange speech for such silence, when thou
hast appeared? For now I have seen thy face, beyond all thought and
hope!
ORESTES
Thou sawest it, when the gods moved me to come....
ELECTRA
Thou hast told me of a grace above the first, if a god hath indeed
brought thee to our house; I acknowledge therein the work of heaven.
ORESTES
I am loth, indeed, to curb thy gladness, but yet this excess of
joy moves my fear.
ELECTRA
epode
O thou who, after many a year, hast deigned thus to gladden mine
eyes by thy return, do not, now that thou hast seen me in all my woe-
ORESTES
What is thy prayer?
ELECTRA
-do not rob me of the comfort of thy face; do not force me to
forego it!
ORESTES
I should be wroth, indeed, if I saw another attempt it.
ELECTRA
My prayer is granted?
ORESTES
Canst thou doubt?
ELECTRA
Ah, friends, I heard a voice that I could never have hoped to
hear; nor could I have restrained my emotion in silence, and without
cry, when I heard it.
Ah me! But now I have thee; thou art come to me with the light
of that dear countenance, which never, even in sorrow, could I forget.
(The chant is concluded.)
ORESTES
Spare all superfluous words; tell me not of our mother's
wickedness, or how Aegisthus drains the wealth of our father's house
by lavish luxury or aimless waste; for the story would not suffer thee
to keep due limit. Tell me rather that which will serve our present
need,- where we must show ourselves, or wait in ambush, that this
our coming may confound the triumph of our foes.
And look that our mother read not thy secret in thy radiant
face, when we twain have advanced into the house, but make lament,
as for the feigned disaster; for when we have prospered, then there
will be leisure to rejoice and exult in freedom.
ELECTRA
Nay, brother, as it pleases thee, so shall be my conduct also; for
all my joy is a gift from thee, and not mine own. Nor would I
consent to win great good for myself at the cost of the least pain
to thee; for so should I ill serve the divine power that befriends
us now.
But thou knowest how matters stand here, I doubt not: thou must
have beard that Aegisthus is from home, but our mother within;- and
fear not that she will ever see my face lit up with smiles; for mine
old hatred of her hath sunk into my heart; and, since I have beheld
thee, for very joy I shall never cease to weep. How indeed should I
cease, who have seen thee come home this day, first as dead, and
then in life? Strangely hast thou wrought on me; so that, if my father
should return alive, I should no longer doubt my senses, but should
believe that I saw him. Now, therefore, that thou hast come to me so
wondrously, command me as thou wilt; for, had I been alone, I should
have achieved one of two things,- a noble deliverance, or a noble
death.
ORESTES
Thou hadst best be silent; for I hear some one within preparing to
go forth.
ELECTRA (to ORESTES and PYLADES)
Enter, sirs; especially as ye bring that which no one could
repulse from these doors, though he receive it without joy.
(The PAEDAGOGUS enters from the palace.)
PAEDAGOGUS
Foolish and senseless children! Are ye weary of your lives, or was
there no wit born in you, that ye see not how ye stand, not on the
brink, but in the very midst of deadly perils? Nay, had I not kept
watch this long while at these doors, your plans would have been in
the house before yourselves; but, as it is, my care shielded you
from that. Now have done with this long discourse, these insatiate
cries of joy, and pass within; for in such deeds delay is evil, and
'tis well to make an end.
ORESTES
What, then, will be my prospects when I enter?
PAEDAGOGUS
Good; for thou art secured from recognition.
ORESTES
Thou hast reported me, I presume, as dead?
PAEDAGOGUS
Know that here thou art numbered with the shades.
ORESTES
Do they rejoice, then, at these tidings? Or what say they?
PAEDAGOGUS
I will tell thee at the end; meanwhile, all is well for us on
their party-even that which is not well.
ELECTRA
Who is this, brother? I pray thee, tell me.
ORESTES
Dost thou not perceive?
ELECTRA
I cannot guess.
ORESTES
Knowest thou not the man to whose hands thou gavest me once?
ELECTRA
What man? How sayest thou?
ORESTES
By whose hands, through thy forethought, I was secretly conveyed
forth to Phocian soil.
ELECTRA
Is this he in whom, alone of many, I found a true ally of old,
when our sire was slain?
ORESTES
'Tis he; question me no further.
ELECTRA
O joyous day! O sole preserver of Agamemnon's house, how hast thou
come? Art thou he indeed, who didst save my brother and myself from
many sorrows? O dearest hands; O messenger whose feet were kindly
servants! How couldst thou be with me so long, and remain unknown, nor
give a ray of light, but afflict me by fables, while possessed of
truths most sweet? Hail, father,- for 'tis a father that I seem to
behold! All hail,- and know that I have hated thee, and loved thee, in
one day, as never man before!
PAEDAGOGUS
Enough, methinks; as for the story of the past, many are the
circling nights, and days as many, which shall show it thee,
Electra, in its fulness. (To ORESTES and PYLADES) But this is my
counsel to you twain, who stand there- now is the time to act; now
Clytemnestra is alone,- no man is now within: but, if ye pause,
consider that ye will have to fight, not with the inmates alone, but
with other foes more numerous and better skilled.
ORESTES
Pylades, this our task seems no longer to crave many words, but
rather that we should enter the house forthwith,- first adoring the
shrines of my father's gods, who keep these gates.
(ORESTES and PYLADES enter the Palace,
followed by the PAEDAGOGUS.- ELECTRA remains outside.)
ELECTRA
O King Apollo! graciously hear them, and hear me besides, who so
oft have come before thine altar with such gifts as my devout hand
could bring! And now, O Lycean Apollo, with such vows as I can make, I
pray thee, I supplicate, I implore, grant us thy benignant aid in
these designs, and show men how impiety is rewarded by the gods!
(ELECTRA enters the palace.)
CHORUS (singing)
Behold how Ares moves onward, breathing deadly vengeance,
against which none may strive!
Even now the pursuers of dark guilt have passed beneath yon
roof, the hounds which none may flee. Therefore the vision of my
soul shall not long tarry in suspense.
The champion of the spirits infernal is ushered with stealthy feet
into the house, the ancestral palace of his sire, bearing keen-edged
death in his hands; and Hermes, son of Maia, who hath shrouded the
guile in darkness, leads him forward, even to the end, and delays no
more.
(ELECTRA enters from the palace.)
ELECTRA
strophe
Ah, dearest friends, in a moment the men will do the deed;- but
wait in silence.
CHORUS
How is it?- what do they now?
ELECTRA
She is decking the urn for burial, and those two stand close to
her
CHORUS
And why hast thou sped forth?
ELECTRA
To guard against Aegisthus entering before we are aware.
CLYTEMNESTRA (within)
Alas! Woe for the house forsaken of friends and filled with
murderers!
ELECTRA
A cry goes up within:- hear ye not, friends?
CHORUS
I heard, ah me, sounds dire to hear, and shuddered!
CLYTEMNESTRA (within)
O hapless that I am!- Aegisthus, where, where art thou?
ELECTRA
Hark, once more a voice resounds I
CLYTEMNESTRA (within)
My son, my son, have pity on thy mother!
ELECTRA
Thou hadst none for him, nor for the father that begat him.
CHORUS
Ill-fated realm and race, now the fate that hath pursued thee
day by day is dying,- is dying!
CLYTEMNESTRA (within)
Oh, I am smitten!
ELECTRA
Smite, if thou canst, once more!
CLYTEMNESTRA (within)
Ah, woe is me again!
ELECTRA
Would that the woe were for Aegisthus too!
CHORUS
The curses are at work; the buried live; blood flows for blood,
drained from the slayers by those who died of yore.
(ORESTES and PYLADES enter from the palace.)
antistrophe
Behold, they come! That red hand reeks with sacrifice to Ares; nor
can I blame the deed.
ELECTRA
Orestes, how fare ye?
ORESTES
All is well within the house, if Apollo's oracle spake well.
ELECTRA
The guilty one is dead?
ORESTES
Fear no more that thy proud mother will ever put thee to
dishonour.
CHORUS
Cease; for I see Aegisthus full in view.
ELECTRA
Rash boys, back, back!
ORESTES
Where see ye the man?
ELECTRA
Yonder, at our mercy, be advances from the suburb, full of joy.
CHORUS
Make with all speed for the vestibule; that, as your first task
prospered. so this again may prosper now.
ORESTES
Fear not,- we will perform it.
ELECTRA
Haste, then, whither thou wouldst.
ORESTES
See, I am gone.
ELECTRA
I will look to matters here.
(ORESTES and PYLADES go back into the palace.)
CHORUS
'Twere well to soothe his ear with some few words of seeming
gentleness, that he may rush blindly upon the struggle with his doom.
(AEGISTHUS enters.)
AEGISTHUS
Which of you can tell me, where are those Phocian strangers,
who, 'tis said, have brought us tidings of Orestes slain in the
wreck of his chariot? Thee, thee I ask, yes, thee, in former days so
bold,- for methinks it touches thee most nearly; thou best must
know, and best canst tell.
ELECTRA
I know assuredly; else were I a stranger to the fortune of my
nearest kinsfolk.
AEGISTHUS
Where then may be the strangers? Tell me.
ELECTRA
Within; they have found a way to the heart of their hostess.
AEGISTHUS
Have they in truth reported him dead?
ELECTRA
Nay, not reported only; they have shown him.
AEGISTHUS
Can I, then, see the corpse with mine own eyes?
ELECTRA
Thou canst, indeed; and 'tis no enviable sight.
AEGISTHUS
Indeed, thou hast given me a joyful greeting, beyond thy wont.
ELECTRA
Joy be thine, if in these things thou findest joy.
AEGISTHUS
Silence, I say, and throw wide the gates, for all Mycenaeans and
Argives to behold; that, if any of them were once buoyed on empty
hopes from this man, now, seeing him dead, they may receive my curb,
instead of waiting till my chastisement make them wise perforce!
ELECTRA
No loyalty is lacking on my part; time hath taught me the prudence
of concord with the stronger.
(The central doors of the palace
are thrown open and a shrouded corpse is
disclosed. ORESTES and PYLADES stand near it.)
AEGISTHUS
O Zeus, I behold that which hath not fallen save by the doom of
jealous Heaven; but, if Nemesis attend that word, be it unsaid!
Take all the covering from the face, that kinship, at least, may
receive the tribute of lament from me also.
ORESTES
Lift the veil thyself; not my part this, but thine, to look upon
these relics, and to greet them kindly.
AEGISTHUS
'Tis good counsel, and I will follow it.- (To ELECTRA) But
thou-call me Clytemnestra, if she is within.
ORESTES
Lo, she is near thee: turn not thine eyes elsewhere.
(AEGISTHUS removes the face-cloth from the corpse.)
AEGISTHUS
O, what sight is this!
ORESTES
Why so scared? Is the face so strange?
AEGISTHUS
Who are the men into whose mid toils I have fallen, hapless that I
am?
ORESTES
Nay, hast thou not discovered ere now that the dead, as thou
miscallest them, are living?
AEGISTHUS
Alas, I read the riddle: this can be none but Orestes who speaks
to me!
ORESTES
And, though so good a prophet, thou wast deceived so long?
AEGISTHUS
Oh lost, undone! Yet suffer me to say one word...
ELECTRA
In heaven's name, my brother, suffer him not to speak further,
or to plead at length! When mortals are in the meshes of fate, how can
such respite avail one who is to die? No,- slay him forthwith, and
cast his corpse to the creatures from whom such as he should have
burial, far from our sight! To me, nothing but this can make amends
for the woes of the past.
ORESTES (to AEGISTHUS)
Go in, and quickly; the issue here is not of words, but of thy
life.
AEGISTHUS
Why take me into the house? If this deed be fair, what need of
darkness? Why is thy hand not prompt to strike?
ORESTES
Dictate not, but go where thou didst slay my father, that in the
same place thou mayest die.
AEGISTHUS
Is this dwelling doomed to see all woes of Pelops' line, now,
and in time to come?
ORESTES
Thine, at least; trust my prophetic skill so far.
AEGISTHUS
The skill thou vauntest belonged not to thy sire.
ORESTES
Thou bandiest words, and our going is delayed. Move forward!
AEGISTHUS
Lead thou.
ORESTES
Thou must go first.
AEGISTHUS
Lest I escape thee?
ORESTES
No, but that thou mayest not choose how to die; I must not spare
thee any bitterness of death. And well it were if this judgment came
straight-way upon all who dealt in lawless deeds, even the judgment of
the sword: so should not wickedness abound.
(ORESTES and PYLADES drive AEGISTHUS into the palace.)
CHORUS (singing)
O house of Atreus, through how many sufferings hast thou come
forth at last in freedom, crowned with good by this day's enterprise!
-THE END
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