Sophocles,
Electra 236-250 (Electra speaking; tr. David Grene):
What is the natural measure of my sorrow?
Come, how when the dead are in question
can it be honorable to forget?
In what human being is this instinctive?
Never may I have honor among such people,
nor, if I encounter any good thing,
may I live at ease with it, by restraining
the wings of shrill lament to my father's dishonor!
For if he that is dead
is earth and nothing,
lying in misery,
and they shall never in their turn
pay death for murderous death,
then shall all shame be dead
and all men's piety.
καὶ τί μέτρον κακότατος ἔφυ; φέρε,
πῶς ἐπὶ τοῖς φθιμένοις ἀμελεῖν καλόν;
ἐν τίνι τοῦτ᾽ ἔβλαστ᾽ ἀνθρώπων;
μήτ᾽ εἴην ἔντιμος τούτοις
μήτ᾽, εἴ τῳ πρόσκειμαι χρηστῷ, 240
ξυνναίοιμ᾽ εὔκηλος, γονέων
ἐκτίμους ἴσχουσα πτέρυγας
ὀξυτόνων γόων.
εἰ γὰρ ὁ μὲν θανὼν γᾶ τε καὶ οὐδὲν ὢν 245
κείσεται τάλας,
οἱ δὲ μὴ πάλιν
δώσουσ᾽ ἀντιφόνους δίκας,
ἔρροι τ᾽ ἂν αἰδὼς
ἁπάντων τ᾽ εὐσέβεια θνατῶν. 250
241 γονέων codd.: γονέως Morstadt
249 τ᾽ ἂν codd.: τἂν (i.e. τοι + ἂν per crasin) Martin
Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Nigel G. Wilson,
Sophocles: Second Thoughts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1997 =
Hypomnemata, 100), p. 32:
In 241 Morstadt conjectured γονέως, feeling that only one of Electra's
parents could be in question. But the generalising plural can be defended;
Blaydes (on p.284 of his edition of 1873) cited 146, and E., Hec. 403,
where Polyxena says to Odysseus, with reference to her mother, χάλα τοκεῦσιν εἰκότως θυμουμένοις. Still, Electra's relations with her two parents are so diverse that Morstadt's conjecture has to be considered.