Elektra

by Jennifer Saint

‘I know my own passion, it escapes me not . . . but never will I cease from sore lament, while I look on the trembling rays of the bright stars, or on this light of day . . . For if the hapless dead 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.’ – Elektra, The Tragedies of Sophocles, translated by Richard Claverhouse Jebb, 1904

When I was born, it was our father who named me. He named me for the sun: fiery and incandescent. He’d told me that when I was a little girl: that I was the light of our family.

Now, I don’t care about the lack of suitors clamouring in our throne room for me. I’ve heard the stories about my aunt Helen, and have never felt envy. Look at where her beauty led her.

News of each triumph gives me a surge of pride, of elation, that it is my father, Agamemnon, who has fought for so long, and who rallies his men to fight on until the towering walls of Troy crumble into rubble beneath their conquering feet.

I see it all the time, in my mind’s eye. How he will storm the gates of the city; how they will fall cowering at his feet at last. And after it all, he will come home to me. His loyal daughter, waiting here for him as year after year passes.

I know that some people will say he never loved his children, that he couldn’t have done, given what he did. But I remember the feel of his arms around me and the steady beat of his heart against my ear, and I know there ...

A flutter of orange sparks spirals into the sky as another beacon lights, closer still. Tears start in my eyes. As I watch the beacons in disbelief, I feel a spark ignite within me, the dazzling realisation of what this means. Troy has fallen. My father is coming home.

The House of Atreus carried a curse. A particularly gruesome one, even by the standards of divine torment.

Daughter of Zeus, that’s what the stories said of Helen. Whilst I was born red-faced and squalling from the commonplace indignity of childbirth, my sister supposedly tapped her way delicately through a pure white eggshell and hatched whole and beautiful.

The legend was adorned with fanciful details – it was well known that Zeus could adopt many forms, and on this particular occasion he had appeared to our mother feathered and snowy white, gliding down the river towards her with unmistakable purpose.

To be blessed by Zeus in such a way was a thing of glory. That’s what everyone said. If Leda, our mother, had been deemed lovely enough by the ruler of the gods ...

I looked at Penelope. Our quiet, grey-eyed cousin could always be relied upon to keep a cool head. But Penelope did not return my frantic stare, for she was intent upon Odysseus.

The two of them gazed into one another’s eyes as though they wandered alone across a fragrant meadow, rather than being trapped in a hall with a hundred fraying tempers and the spark about to be struck to light them all into flame.

Odysseus was here as one of Helen’s suitors just like the rest of them, but of course nothing that man did was as it seemed. We could rather do with his famous wits in this situation, I thought, frustrated that he in...

But what I had mistaken for a dreamy exchange of glances between my cousin and her lover was actually the silent formation of a plan, for Odysseus bounded up on to the platform where we sat and shouted for order. Though short and bandy-legged,...

‘Before the lady Helen makes her choice,’ he boomed, ‘we will all swear an oath.’ They listened to him. He had a gift for bending the will of others to his own purpose. Even my clever cousin was enthralled by him, and I ha...

‘We have all come here today for the same purpose,’ he continued. ‘We all wish to wed the beautiful Helen, and we all have good reason to think that we are a worthy husband to such a woman. She is a prize beyond any that we can imagine, and the man that can call her his own will have to go to great...

‘So, I propose that we all swear that, no matter whom she chooses, we will all join him in protecting her. We will all make a most solemn vow that we shall defend his right to have her – and keep her – with our own lives.’ Our father leapt up, overjoyed that Odysseus had saved his triumphant day from almost certain disaster.

And so, it was done, and all our father lost that day was a horse. Well, a horse and his daughter, I should say, and a niece as well, to make it quite the bargain.

All were taken off his hands in one fell swoop, for Helen had only to breathe the name ‘Menelaus’ before he was up, clasping her hand in his and stammering out his gratitude and devotion; Odysseus offered for Penelope in almost the next breath; but my eye was caught by the dark-haired brother, whose surly gaze stayed fixed upon the stone tiles. Agamemnon.

People only ever spoke of her dazzling radiance, sometimes moved to poetry or song in praise of it. No one ever mentioned that she was thoughtful or that she was kind.

‘Perhaps there were others richer or more handsome,’ she said. ‘Bolder, certainly.’ She curled her lip slightly, maybe thinking of the undercurrent of violence that had throbbed invisibly around the hall as the suitors eyed one another. ‘But Menelaus . . . he seemed different.’

suppose,’ she continued as she bestowed a smile upon them, ‘that he was simply so very grateful.’ I paused, the words I had sought evaporating on the air. Helen noticed my silence, perhaps read some reproval in it, for she straightened her shoulders and fixed me directly in her gaze.

‘An army.’ ‘Really? What for?’ ‘To take back Mycenae.’ Helen tossed her head. ‘They’re taking what’s theirs. Their uncle killed their father and exiled them when they were children. Now they’re men, and they have the support of Sparta.’ I knew that much of the story. Menelaus and Agamemnon were sons of Atreus, whose brother, Thyestes, had murdered him for the throne and cast them out.

‘Won’t Menelaus want to go back to Mycenae, then?’ I asked. ‘No, Agamemnon will take Mycenae,’ Helen said. ‘Menelaus is happy to be here.’

Every word I speak is unwelcome. My throat is raw from the words that are torn from me when I touch someone, when I look into their eyes and see the blinding white truth. My prophecies rip out my insides, but still they come, unbidden, even as I quake at the consequences.

But when I was a child, I could not tell the future. I was preoccupied only with the concerns of the now; with my most treasured doll and with how best to adorn her – for even she could be swathed in the richest of fabrics and bedecked with tiny jewels.

My mother, however, had visions. A blinding flash of knowledge, bestowed no doubt by one of the many gods who smiled upon us and helped us avert misfortune. Perhaps even Apollo himself, for he was said to love my mother as one of his chosen favourites.

‘I was,’ I protested. ‘I remember Aesacus and the fire – I remember what he said.’ ‘What? Speak up, girl,’ she commanded. She hated how quiet my voice was. As a child, I rarely made it through a sentence without being told to start it again and say it more loudly, more clearly. No one ever asks me to repeat myself now.

‘Go and play, Cassandra,’ she said firmly, and I went. But no one wanted me near, not really. All the other girls seemed so sure, so certain of themselves. I felt like a reed swaying in the wind, never daring to say what I thought aloud, not wanting to face scorn or laughter.

I could never make myself understood, even then, and my mother was a busy woman. She had no time to try to understand me. If she had seen what I was to become, seen a vision of me and not just Paris, I feel sure she would have hurled my infant form on to the rocks herself.

But no one peered into ashes to divine my future. No one intervened to try to stop me from becoming what I became.

Clytemnestra Whilst the Atreidae were gone, I was consumed with restlessness. The days, which had always been so easy to fill, now seemed to drag, especially the afternoons.

I loved my sister more than anything, and had she come to me to say she feared for Menelaus’ life, I would have gone to any lengths to reassure her.

longed for it to be evening, for the endless afternoon to finally be over. Once night fell, I knew I would yearn for dawn.

‘And when the brothers do come back,’ she said, a teasing note in her voice, ‘do you know that Father has plans for you and Agamemnon?’ She had no fear in asking her questions directly. Her charm was in her openness, her daring, and nothing she said ever seemed too impertinent or shocking.

I hadn’t told her about the odd, abrupt conversation I’d had with Agamemnon out by the river on the night of her wedding. There had never been a topic of conversation off limits between us, but she was a married woman, and I was still a girl. I felt an unaccustomed shyness.

Agamemnon and his brother had a glamour about them, I couldn’t deny it, arriving from their unjust exile and heading off bravely to take back what belonged to them.

Helen’s face was hidden in Menelaus’ shoulder, but as the oars sliced cleanly through the foam, she looked up at me and I saw her face shining, radiant and proud. I had grown so used to her beauty that I hardly noticed it any more, until a moment like this when she would sweep away my breath in a heartbeat.

Cassandra I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as I waited, the rising steam from the hot water making my dress cling to my skin.

With all of my heart, that was what I wanted. To be something other than myself; to speak in someone else’s words instead of my own.

And then, out of the light, he stepped forward. My hands dropped, hanging useless at my sides. There was nothing but his presence – his true, real presence – suffocating, overwhelming, dizzying in its intensity. It was impossible that he was truly there, but he was. Apollo, an Olympian god made flesh, beautiful and terrifying at once.

The air was as fresh as a summer meadow, as warm as sunshine. ‘Cassandra,’ he said, and his voice was like the soft plucking of mellow strings, humming with poetry; nothing like a human voice.

I shrank back, afraid that his touch would sear my skin, that he would turn my bones to ashes with the brush of his fingertips. He smiled. And then he seized my face between his hands and pressed his immortal lips to mine.

I felt that my skull would shatter, that it would rain down in fragments. He had breathed it into me; a gift I was sure I would not survive. Prophecy, the prize my mother had warned me never to ask for.

His gift was not free. I realised the price he wanted to take.

Apollo had blessed me with his gift, and the truth of the world belonged to me. But the other girls, who loved him just as ardently as I did, did not recognise the words I spoke.

I truly had the gift of prophecy, breathed into my mouth by Apollo himself. But no one would ever believe another word I said.

Clytemnestra My farewell to Sparta was emblazoned on my memory; an image burned against the darkness when I shut my eyes.

‘Why would I be pleased to hear the prattling of slaves?’ he grumbled. I felt wrong-footed, confused by his reaction. ‘You have won their loyalty with your generosity—’ I started, but he cut me off. ‘What does their loyalty matter? I have the throne. I don’t care for the opinion of slaves.’