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| Ugo da Carpi after Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi Hercules driving Avarice from the Temple of the Muses ca. 1510-30 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Ugo da Carpi after Raphael Hercules and Antaeus ca. 1510-30 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Hercules and Cacus 1588 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Niccolò Vicentino after Raphael Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion ca, 1540-50 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"Indeed it is not easy to decide what gives the screaming of Electra its power. Sophocles has invented for her a language of lament that is like listening to an X-ray. Electra's cries are just bones of sound. I itemize the cries of Electra as follows:
1. O
2. IO
3. PHEU
4. AIAI
5. TALAINA
6. OIMOI MOI
7. IO MOI MOI
8. EE IO
9. EE AIAI
10. IO GONAI
11. OIMOI TALAINA
12. OI 'GO TALAINA
13. OTOTOTOI TO TOI
14. OI MOI MOI DYSTENOS
In range and diversity of aural construction Electra surpasses all other screamers in Sophocles, including Philoctetes who suffers from gangrene in the foot and Heracles who gets burned alive at the end of his play. Let us consider how Electra constructs her screams. It should be noted at the outset that none of them occurs extra metrum; they scan, and are to be taken as integral to the rhythmic and musical economy of her utterance. As units of sound they employ the usual features of ritual lament (assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, balance, symmetry, repetition) in unusual ways. She creates, for example, certain unpronounceable concatenations of hiatus like EE AIAI or EE IO which hold the voice and the mouth open for the whole length of a measure of verse and are as painful to listen to as they are to say."
– Anne Carson, from the foreword to her translation of the Electra of Sophocles (Oxford University Press, 2001)
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| Anonymous printmaker after Parmigianino Circe ca. 1525-1600 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Nicolas Le Sueur after Sebastiano Conca Diana and Endymion before 1764 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| John Baptist Jackson after Parmigianino Ulysses and Polyphemus before 1780 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| John Baptist Jackson after Francesco Primaticcio Ulysses and Polyphemus before 1780 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art. Washington DC |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Marco Pino Perseus beheading Medusa ca. 1550-1600 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York |
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| Giovanni Gallo after Marco Pino Perseus beheading Medusa ca. 1550-1600 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Ludolph Busing after Georges Lallemand Aeneas saving his Father from burning Troy ca. 1630-40 chiaroscuro woodcut National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Giuseppe di Cosimo Bianchino Sea Monster with Putti ca. 1550-70- chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Oceanus ca. 1589-90 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Antonio da Trento after Parmigianino Narcissus ca. 1527-30 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |