and matricide. In Sophocles, Electra has been forced to remain under the same roof with Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, under fairly heavy guard, from the time Aegisthus and Clytemnestra have taken power. Only when Aegisthus is away on state business does Electra have anything like the run of the palace, as Clytemnestra disgustedly observes upon her first entrance:
I see you have twisted loose again.
Aegisthos is gone, who always keeps you in
Where you cannot revile your kin publicly.
With him away you do not fear me,
For you have often enough informed the city
That I was a tyrant, lost to all justice,
Outraging you and yours. But it is not I
Who am insolent, I only answer you.1
This is plain old cattiness and nastiness, hardly worthy of a queen, as only estranged mother and daughter can exhibit almost the stuff of a domestic tragedy. Arnott notes the atmosphere of poison that pervades the royal house when he says that Sophocles sets his play "in a household devoured by guilt and festering from within" (Arnott 51). Despite the taunts from her mother and the curbs on her freedom, Electra has assumed a mourning for Agamemnon that is as public and as disagreeable to her mother as she can make it. And by Electra's lights, her mourning is hardly public enough. Her recounting the confrontational scenes that have taken place in the household since Agamemnon's murder not only illustrates this but also suggests the poisonous rancor that reigns in the royal family.
Yet I cannot wail as I would, for she [Clytemnestra]
Attacks me: 'Ungodly, ugly girl!
'Are you the only one whose father died,
'The only miserable mortal? May you sink to Hell,
And the gods of Hell not stop your wailing!'
So she screams till she hears that Orestes is coming.
Then she will shout in my ear . . .
'But you shall pay for everything!'
...