Elettra alla tomba del padre L’aiuto del morto nelle Coefore

This contribution examines Electra’s role at her father’s tomb in Aeschylus’ Choephoroi. Through close analysis of prayers and invocations in ll. 124a-151 and subsequent interventions in the kommos, it investigates a dramaturgical line parallel to Orestes’, establishing its ritual and symbolic preconditions. Electra’s prayers, libations, and distancing from maternal behaviour define an autonomous performative space within her brother’s actions. Rather than acting as an autonomous agent of vengeance, she opens the communicative channel to the deceased father, enabling “the dead to kill the living” (l. 886).