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Filippino Lippi Five Sibyls seated in Niches (Samian, Cumean, Hellespontine, Phrygian and Tiburtine) ca. 1472-75 tempera and oil on panel Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford |
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workshop of Sandro Botticelli Five Sibyls seated in Niches (Babylonian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian and Erythraean) ca. 1472-75 oil on panel Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford |
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Israel van Meckenem Mass of St Gregory ca. 1515-20 oil on panel (central panel of triptych) National Museum, Warsaw |
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Master Francke Man of Sorrows ca. 1435 tempera on panel Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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Moderno (Galeazzo Mondella) The Flagellation ca. 1490-1510 bronze plaquette Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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Moderno (Galeazzo Mondella) The Crucifixion ca. 1485-89 gilt-bronze plaquette Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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Jacob Apt The Transfiguration (epitaph for Johannes Göckerlein) ca. 1515 oil on panel Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
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Segna di Bonaventura The Last Judgment ca. 1320 tempera on panel (altarpiece fragment) Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers |
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Cosimo Rosselli Virgin and Child enthroned with St Anthony Abbot and St Nicolas of Bari ca. 1470 oil on panel Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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Luca Signorelli Virgin and Child with Saints ca. 1515 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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Gerard David Virgin among the Virgins 1509 oil on panel Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen |
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Anonymous Netherlandish Artist Mystic Marriage of St Catherine ca. 1515-20 oil on panel Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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Anonymous Flemish Artist Penitent Magdalen in Glory 15th century tempera on vellum Rhode Island School of Design, Providence |
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Giulio Benso The Blood of Christ redeems the World ca. 1628-32 drawing (study for altarpiece) Morgan Library, New York |
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Conrad Laib The Crucifixion 1449 tempera on panel Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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Bernard van Orley Christ among the Doctors ca. 1513 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Electra:
What can we say that will hit the mark? Should it be
the pains we have suffered, and from a parent, too?
She may fawn on us, but they cannot be soothed;
for like a savage-hearted wolf, we have a rage,
caused by our mother, that is past fawning.
Chorus [beating their heads and tearing at their hair] :
I strike myself blows like an Arian and in the manner
of a Cissian wailing woman;
my arms stretch out, hitting and grasping,
beating thick and fast, making many a smirch to behold,
from above, from high above, and my wretched head
rings with the sound of my battering.
Electra:
Ió, ió, cruel mother
of limitless audacity, it was a cruel funeral
when you had the hardihood to bury your husband,
a king, without the presence of his city's people,
without mourning and with no lamentation!
Chorus [to Orestes]:
And – so you may know this – he was mutilated* as well;
and the perpetrator was she who buried him thus,
And – so you may know this – he was mutilated* as well;
and the perpetrator was she who buried him thus,
striving to make his death
unbearable for you to live with.
Do you hear these degrading sufferings of your father?
Orestes:
You tell a tale of utter degradation!
Well, she shall pay for degrading my father,
with the help of the gods
and with the help of my hands.
Then, when I have removed her, let me die!
– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*by cutting off his extremities (hands and feet, sometimes also nose and ears), stringing them together and tying them around his neck and under his armpits, with a view, inter alia, to disabling his ghost from pursuit and vengeance