“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.”
~ ‘Electra’ by Sophocles (Richard. C. Jebb translation. p156)
The play starts with Orestes (Agamemnon’s son), Pylades (his friend) and Paedagogus (an old man who was Orestes’ attendant and tutor in his childhood, the man who took him to safety secretly to Phocis) plotting how to take revenge on Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra for murdering his father. They decide to send Paedagogus to announce the news of Orestes’ death and, in the process, find out who is in the palace. Then, Orestes and Pylades could go in as messengers and kill Clytaemnestra & Aegisthus.
Inside the gates, Electra, one of Agamemnon’s daughters, is seen crying about her mistreatment by her mother and her wanting to take revenge on her mother and Aegisthus for the murder of her father. All her hopes are in Orestes, that he will come back and take revenge. Her sister Chysothemis comes in and tells her to not cry and blame her mother and Aegisthus so openly. They are the current rulers after all. She says Electra might get punished and thrown into a dungeon. But Electra is not afraid but wants to pursue justice and see her mother and her lover to be punished. Her sister goes to their father’s tomb to make offerings, and their mother comes in.