410BC
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
by Euripides translated by Robert Potter CHARACTERS IN THE PLAYIPHIGENIA,daughter of Agamemnon ORESTES,brother of IPHIGENIAPYLADES,friend Of ORESTES
THOAS,King of the Taurians HERDSMAN
MESSENGER
MINERVA
CHORUS OF GREEK WOMEN,captives,attendants on IPHIGENIA in the temple IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS(SCENE:-Before the great temple of Diana of the Taurians.A blood-stained altar is prominently in view.IPHIGENIA,clad as a priestess,enters from the temple.)
IPHIGENIA
To Pisa,by the fleetest coursers borne,Comes Pelops,son of Tantalus,and weds The virgin daughter of Oenomaus:
From her sprung Atreus;Menelaus from him,And Agamemnon;I from him derive My birth,his Iphigenia,by his queen,Daughter of Tyndarus.Where frequent winds Swell the vex'd Euripus with eddying blasts,And roll the darkening waves,my father slew me,A victim to Diana,so he thought,For Helen's sake,its bay where Aulis winds,To fame well known;for there his thousand ships,The armament of Greece,the imperial chief Convened,desirous that his Greeks should snatch The glorious crown of victory from Troy,And punish the base insult to the bed Of Helen,vengeance grateful to the soul Of Menelaus.But 'gainst his ships the sea Long barr'd,and not one favouring breeze to swell His flagging sails,the hallow'd flames the chief Consults,and Calchas thus disclosed the fates:-"Imperial leader of the Grecian host,Hence shalt thou not unmoor thy vessels,ere Diana as a victim shall receive Thy daughter Iphigenia:what the year Most beauteous should produce,thou to the queen Dispensing light didst vow to sacrifice:
A daughter Clytemnestra in thy house Then bore (the peerless grace of beauty thus To me assigning);her must thou devote The victim."Then Ulysses by his arts,Me,to Achilles as design'd a bride,Won from my mother.My unhappy fate To Aulis brought me;on the altar there High was I placed,and o'er me gleam'd the sword,Aiming the fatal wound:but from the stroke Diana snatch'd me,in exchange a hind Giving the Grecians;through the lucid air Me she conveyed to Tauris,here to dwell,Where o'er barbarians a barbaric king Holds his rude sway,named Thoas,whose swift foot Equals the rapid wing:me he appoints The priestess of this temple,where such rites Are pleasing to Diana,that the name Alone claims honour;for I sacrifice (Such,ere I came,the custom of the state)Whatever Grecian to this savage shore Is driven:the previous rites are mine;the deed Of blood,too horrid to be told,devolves On others in the temple:but the rest,In reverence to the goddess,I forbear.
But the strange visions which the night now past Brought with it,to the air,if that may soothe My troubled thought,I will relate.I seem'd,As I lay sleeping,from this land removed,To dwell at Argos,resting on my couch Mid the apartments of the virgin train.
Sudden the firm earth shook:I fled,and stood Without;the battlements I saw,and all The rocking roof fall from its lofty height In ruins to the ground:of all the house,My father's house,one pillar,as I thought,Alone was left,which from its cornice waved A length of auburn locks,and human voice Assumed:the bloody office,which is mine To strangers here,respecting,I to death,Sprinkling the lustral drops,devoted it With many tears.My dream I thus expound:-Orestes,whom I hallow'd by my rites,Is dead:for sons are pillars of the house;They,whom my lustral lavers sprinkle,die.
I cannot to my friends apply my dream,For Strophius,when I perish'd,had no son.
Now,to my brother,absent though he be,Libations will I offer:this,at least,With the attendants given me by the king,Virgins of Greece,I can:but what the cause They yet attend me not within the house,The temple of the goddess,where I dwell?
(She goes into the temple.ORESTES and PYLADES enter cautiously.)
ORESTES
Keep careful watch,lest some one come this way.
PYLADES
I watch,and turn mine eye to every part.
ORESTES
And dost thou,Pylades,imagine this The temple of the goddess,which we seek,Our sails from Argos sweeping o'er the main?
PYLADES
Orestes,such my thought,and must be thine.
ORESTES
And this the altar wet with Grecian blood?
PYLADES
Crimson'd with gore behold its sculptured wreaths.
ORESTES
See,from the battlements what trophies hang!
PYLADES
The spoils of strangers that have here been slain.
ORESTES
Behooves us then to watch with careful eye.
O Phoebus,by thy oracles again Why hast thou led me to these toils?E'er since,In vengeance for my father's blood,I slew My mother,ceaseless by the Furies driven,Vagrant,an outcast,many a bending course My feet have trod:to thee I came,of the Inquired this whirling frenzy by what means,And by what means my labours I might end.
Thy voice commanded me to speed my course To this wild coast of Tauris,where a shrine Thy sister hath,Diana;thence to take The statue of the goddess,which from heaven (So say the natives)to this temple fell:
This image,or by fraud or fortune won,The dangerous toil achieved,to place the prize In the Athenian land:no more was said;But that,performing this,I should obtain Rest from my toils.Obedient to thy words,On this unknown,inhospitable coast Am I arrived.Now,Pylades (for thou Art my associate in this dangerous task),Of thee I ask,What shall we do?for high The walls,thou seest,which fence the temple round.
Shall we ascend their height?But how escape Observing eyes?Or burst the brazen bars?
Of these we nothing know:in the attempt To force the gates,or meditating means To enter,if detected,we shall die.
Shall we then,ere we die,by flight regain The ship in which we hither plough'd the sea?
PYLADES