Sophokles’ Elektra has been the subject of considerable interpretative debate this century. Is it a tragedy that ends on a note of clear and unequivocal triumph for the two children engaged in avenging their father and recovering their rightful heritage? Or are we to detect a much more ambivalent attitude to the matricide and to perceive a thread of darkness and ruin running through the play as we see the disintegration of Elektra as a person? The divine element is an important aspect of every one of Sophokles’ extant plays; and for Elektra that means Apollo above all. Other gods are invoked in prayers or alluded to occasionally — especially Zeus at 1095-7 — but Apollo is the deity most frequently in our minds throughout this drama.