[The scene is set in front of the temple of Artemis in the region of the Chersonese inhabited by the Taurians. IPHIGENIA enters from the temple.]

IPHIGENIA: Pelops,² son of Tantalus, came to Pisa with his swift horses and won the hand of Oenomaus’ daughter. She became the mother of Atreus, and Atreus had as sons Menelaus and Agamemnon. I am Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia, the child he had by Tyndareus’ daughter. By Euripus’ banks, where the ceaseless gusts churn its waters and disturb the dark surface of the sea, my father sacrificed me, as he thought, for Helen’s sake,³ to honour Artemis in Aulis’ famous bay.

For it was there he had assembled a Greek fleet of [one 10] thousand ships, King Agamemnon, determined to win for the Greeks the crown of a glorious victory over Troy and to please Menelaus by avenging the insult to Helen’s marriage. But when unfavourable winds struck, preventing the fleet from sailing, he turned to sacrifice to see what the flames could tell. These were the words of Calchas: ‘King Agamemnon, who commands this Greek expedition, do not put your fleet to sea until your daughter Iphigenia has been offered in sacrifice to Artemis. For it was your vow to sacrifice to the goddess who brings light whatever fairest creature the year should bring [20] forth.⁴ Well, your wife Clytemnestra gave birth to a child in your palace,’ said Calchas, referring the title of ‘fairest’ to me, ‘and it is this child you must sacrifice.’

Through the stratagems of Odysseus, the Greeks took me from my mother on the pretext of marriage to Achilles.⁵ I came to Aulis and there in my wretchedness they hoisted me above the pyre, intending to kill me with the sword. But Artemis stole me away, giving the Greeks a deer in my place, and [30] conducted me through the bright air to this land of the Taurians where she gave me a home.

Thoas is king here, barbarian ruler of barbarians, whose wing-like speed of foot earned him this name in recognition of his nimble heels.⁶ My lady Artemis has made me priestess in her temple and ever since that day, according to the ritual customs of the festival in which the goddess takes delight (only its name is honourable; as to the rest, my lips are sealed, for I fear the goddess), I consecrate the victim before the slaying; others have responsibility for the sacrifice itself.

[40] A weird vision⁷ has appeared to me, brought by the night just passed, and I mean to tell it to the sky; perhaps this will heal my troubled mind. I dreamt that I had left this land and was living in Argos, where I lay asleep in the seclusion of the women’s quarters. The earth, it seemed, was suddenly shaken by convulsions. I rushed outside and, standing there, I saw the cornice of the house fall and the whole building from its high [50] gables collapse in ruin to the ground. One solitary pillar, it seemed to me, was left from all my father’s house. This sprouted forth from its capital golden hair and it assumed a human voice. Then, in due observance of this office I have of slaying strangers, I sprinkled water on him, with tears falling from my eyes, to mark him for the sacrificial blade.

Here is the way I interpret this dream: Orestes is dead, for it was he I consigned to death at the altar. The pillars of a home [60] are its male offspring and death is the fate of all who are purified at my hands. So now I wish to offer funeral libations for my brother (that at least I can do), though we are not united here but far apart, I and my maidservants, the women of Greece given to me by the king. But some reason keeps them yet absent. I will go into the house where I dwell inside the goddess’s precinct.

[IPHIGENIA enters the shrine. PYLADES enters cautiously, followed by ORESTES.]

ORESTES: Look out, mind that no one is in our path!

PYLADES: I’m looking, I’m keeping my eyes open, searching everywhere.

ORESTES : Pylades, do you think this is the temple of the goddess [70] that we sailed the seas from Argos to find?

PYLADES: I do, Orestes; and you must share my view.

ORESTES: And the altar where the blood of Greeks drips from the sacrifice?

PYLADES: Well, the streams of blood have made the cornice bright.

ORESTES: And under the cornice itself do you see the severed heads that hang down?

PYLADES: Yes, trophies taken from the bodies of slaughtered strangers. But I must take a good look round and examine things carefully. [PYLADES approaches the temple to inspect it.]

ORESTES: O Phoebus,⁸ what new trap is this you have led me into with your prophecies, since I avenged my father’s murder by killing my mother? Furies in droves have hounded me on [80] my exile’s path, a stranger now to my homeland, and many a lap has this race seen me run. I came to you and put the question how I might end these sufferings, this madness that spins me ever onward. You told me to come to the borders of the Tauric land, where Artemis your sister has her altars, and to take from there the goddess’s statue, which they say fell from heaven into this temple here. When I had done this, either by deceitful means or good fortune, and seen the dangerous task [90] through, I was to present the statue to the land of the Athenians (beyond that there was no further instruction) and, this done, I would breathe free, my agony at an end. Your words have won me over, and here I stand in this unknown land where strangers find no welcome.

[PYLADES returns and joins ORESTES.]
I ask you, Pylades (you are my partner in this labour), how should we proceed? You see how high the surrounding walls are. Shall we climb up a ladder and make our way inside? But how would we avoid being seen? Or shall we use crowbars to force the bronze bolts, so gaining access to the shrine? If we [100] are caught opening the gates or devising some means of entry, it will be death for us. No, sooner than die, let’s make a run for the ship that brought us here!

PYLADES: Making a run for it is out of the question; when has this been our way?⁹ We must not disregard the oracle of the god. Let’s get away from the temple and hide ourselves in the cave that the dark sea washes with its waves, away from the ship, in case anyone spies the hull and reports it to the rulers. [110] Then we would find ourselves prisoners. When gloomy night’s eye comes, we need to show our daring and try to take the statue of hewn stone from the temple, using all our ingenuity. Our best plan is to let ourselves down where there is an empty space between the triglyphs. Hardship brings out daring in men of true worth; cowards vanish from sight. We haven’t voyaged all this way only to spread our sails for home again without reaching our goal.

ORESTES: Good advice and it shall be taken! We must find a [120] place where we can hide without being seen. I will not be the cause of the god’s holy word coming to nothing; we must brave it. Young men have no excuse for shunning any hard task.

[Both men leave the stage. IPHIGENIA comes out of the shrine. At the same time the CHORUS enters from the right of the orchestra. They are Greek captive women who join with their mistress in singing a lament for her brother ORESTES, presumed dead.]

IPHIGENIA: Keep holy silence, you who dwell by the twin clashing rocks¹⁰ that guard the inhospitable sea!

CHORUS: O Dictynna who haunts the mountains, daughter of Leto, to your courts, to your pillared temple with cornice of gold I come, [130] waiting upon the holy steps of the holy maid I serve, the one who keeps the keys of your shrine. The towers of Greece, land of noble horses, and its walled cities have I forsaken, an exile from the seat of my ancestral home, and Europe’s pasturelands, blessed with trees.

[To IPHIGENIA herself] I have come. What has happened? What troubles you? Why have you brought me here, brought me to the temple, daughter of Atreus’ famous son, of him who came to the [140] towered walls of Troy with a glorious fleet of a thousand ships and a host of ten thousand men?

IPHIGENIA: Ah, my serving-women,¹¹ how deep I am in lamentations with mournful lamentation, in sorrowful songs unfit for the lyre, no tunes to please the Muses’ ears, oh, no, as I mourn a member of my family! Disaster has come upon me, disaster, for it is my brother’s life[150] I shed these tears for; such a vision of dreams have I seen in this night whose darkness has just passed! lam ruined, ruined! The house of my fathers is at an end! It is no more, my race, alas, no more! Oh, weep, weep for the sufferings that Argos knows!

Ah, Fate, you have stolen from me my only brother and sent him down to Hades! In his honour I mean to sprinkle these libations¹² on [160] the earth’s surface, the bowl with which we honour the dead: milk from mountain heifers, Bacchus’ offerings of wine and the honey that tawny bees labour to produce – these we offer to soothe the departed. [IPHIGENIA turns to one of her attendants.] Now give me the bowl of gold and its libation for honouring Hades.

O scion of Agamemnon below the earth, to you as one dead I bring [170] these offerings. Accept them; I cannot bring to your tomb my yellow locks, or my tears. Far from your homeland I now dwell, far from my own, where, as men suppose, I lie, the wretched victim of the sacrificial knife.

CHORUS: My lady, I will utter an answering strain to you, a barbaric [180] song of Asiatic tunes, the music of lamentation that brings an empty offering to the dead, melodies that Hades chants, not heard in songs of victory. I weep for the house of Atreus and his sons. The light of your ancestral home is quenched, the glory of the sceptre vanished, ah, the pity of it! The beginning of the present ruin lay with the prosperous [190] kings of Argos. Woe upon woe has fallen upon it, ¹³ unceasing, since the Sun in his holy radiance changed his accustomed course, drawn by his whirling winged steeds. Diverse tribulation did the golden–fleeced lamb bring upon the house, slaughter upon slaughter, woe upon [200] woe. Vengeance for the offspring of Tantalus who came to grief in earlier days is visited on the house; Fate leaps upon you, eager in malignity.

IPHIGENIA: From the beginning my life has been accursed, since my mother's bridal night and my conception; from the beginning the Fates, goddesses who presided at my birth, have kept a hard hand upon me; my schooling to the rein has been a harsh one. I was born as the [210] first-begotten fruit in her chamber to Leda’s wretched daughter; she raised me to become the victim of sacrifice outraged by my father, an offering of little pleasure to the nostrils of the gods.¹⁴ In a chariot drawn by horses they brought me to Aulis’ sands, a bride (though no true bride) for the son of Nereus’ daughter– it makes me weep!

Now I live, a stranger, in cheerless dwellings by the sea that is no [220] friend to strangers, and no husband have I, no children, no fellow-citizens, no friends, I whose hand the men of Greece sued to win! No hymns do I sing to honour Argive Hera,¹⁵ no likeness of Attic Pallas and the Titans do I embroider with shuttle as the loom hums sweetly; my work is to make altars run red with the blood of slaughtered strangers, harsh music to the ear, while pity resounds in their agonized cries, pity in the tears they shed.

[230] But even this I can now forget, as I weep for my brother, dead in Argos, who was still a suckling babe when I left him, a youngster still, an infant still, in his mother’s arms and at her breast, my princely Orestes.

 

[A COWHERD enters from the sea-shore.]

CHORUS-LEADER: But here comes a cowherd, leaving the sea-shore to bring you some news.

COWHERD: Child of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, listen to the news I have to bring to your attention!

[240] IPHIGENIA: What can there be in what you have to say to cause such alarm?

COWHERD: Two young men have arrived in our land, after braving the dark-blue Clashing Rocks in their ship and passing safely through. Their blood will flow in welcome sacrifice before the shrine of our goddess Artemis. You must lose no time in preparing the bowls and first offerings!

IPHIGENIA: Where are they from? What country does the strangers’ clothing suggest?

COWHERD: They are Greeks; this is the one thing I know and nothing more.

IPHIGENIA: Did you not hear even the strangers’ names? Do you not know this? Can you not tell me?

COWHERD: Pylades was the name that one of them called the other.

IPHIGENIA: What was the name of this one’s partner? [250]

COWHERD: Nobody knows; we didn’t get to hear.

IPHIGENIA: Where did you see them? Where did you come across them and take them prisoner?

COWHERD: By the very edge of the Unfriendly Sea.

IPHIGENIA: And what do cowherds have to do with the sea?

COWHERD: We had come to wash our cattle down in sea-water.

IPHIGENIA: Go back to that question I asked earlier, how it was you made them your prisoners. That’s what I want to hear about.¹⁶

COWHERD: When we had begun to drive our cattle that usually [260] graze in the woodlands into the sea that flows out through the Clashing Rocks, there was a broken cliff, shattered and worn hollow by the constant pounding of the waves, where purple-fishers¹⁷ were accustomed to shelter. It was there that one of us cowherds caught sight of two young men and came straight back to tell us his news, making his way on tiptoe. ‘Don’t you see?’ he said, ‘Gods are sitting over there!’¹⁸ One of us, a man who feared the gods, raised his hand at the sight and invited them: ‘O son of sea-dwelling Leucothea, Lord Palaemon, [270] protector of ships, be gracious to us! Or if you are the Sons of Zeus who sit on the shore, or beloved offspring of Nereus, who fathered his noble band of fifty Nereids, give us your favour likewise!’

But another fellow, a scoffer whose irreverence made him bold, laughed at these prayers, saying that they were shipwrecked sailors sitting in the cave out of fear of our custom, since they had heard we sacrifice strangers in these parts. Now most of us reckoned that he was talking sense and so we decided [280] to hunt down the victims for the goddess as custom prescribes. During this time one of the strangers had left the cave in the cliff and stood outside, shaking his head up and down and groaning. He was trembling to the tips of his fingers and, as his wits wandered in madness, he cried out like a hunter: ‘Do you see her, Pylades? Don’t you see the hellish dragon there, how she means to kill me, her face fringed by fearful serpents to launch against me? She breathes murderous flames all around, [290] she hovers on wings; she has my mother, that mass of rock, in her arms and is going to hurl her at me!¹⁹ Oh, no, no! She is going to kill me! Where can I run to?’

Now, no such forms or shapes as these were to be seen; he mistook the lowing of the cows and the barking of the dogs for the Furies’ voices: they are said to utter sounds similar to those animals’. We shrank back from him, thinking his last moment was near, and huddled there in silence. He drew his sword and, leaping like a lion into the midst of the cows, he slashed at their flanks with the blade and pierced their ribs until [300] the sea glowed blood red like a field of flowers. In this way, he imagined, he was defending himself against the divine Furies.

In the meantime, at the sight of our cattle falling to this wild butchery, each one of us started to arm himself and blew on conch-shells, rousing the countryfolk around; we thought that cowherds would be no match in a fight against strangers who were young and trained athletes. In no time our numbers had swelled considerably. Then the stranger lost the pulse of madness and collapsed, froth dripping from his chin. When we [310] saw him fall, a ready victim, not one of us held back as we pelted and beat him. But the other stranger wiped the froth away and tended him, using his finely woven cloak to shield him, as he sought to protect his friend from the hail of blows and minister to him with loving attention.

The stranger returned to his senses. Leaping to his feet he saw the wave of attackers threatening and, realizing the calamity facing the two of them, he cried out in despair. We continued our assault with stones as we pressed on them from all sides. That was when we heard the shout of exhortation that made [320] us quake: ‘Pylades, we are going to die, but make sure it is a death for heroes! Draw your sword and follow me!’

Now, when we saw those two swords in our enemies’ hands, we fled, flocking into the woodland glens. But only some of us fled, the rest kept up the attack, pelting the pair, and whenever they drove off those opponents, the others returned to the offensive with a volley of stones. It was beyond belief; though stones were flung from countless hands, not a single marksman succeeded in hitting those destined for the goddess’s altar. After a long struggle we gained the upper hand, but not [330] through any courage on our part; we formed a circle round them, dashing the swords from their hands with our stones, and they sank to the ground on their knees out of weariness. Then we brought them before the ruler of this land. The moment he set eyes on them, he sent them to you for the lustral water and the bowls of sacrifice.

Maiden, you prayed to have such fine strangers grace your altars hereafter. Slaughter some more strangers of this quality and Greece will pay in full for shedding your own blood in sacrifice at Aulis!²⁰

CHORUS-LEADER: This is a weird tale of madness, whoever the [340] man is who has come from Greece to the Unfriendly Sea!

IPHIGENIA: No matter; [to the COWHERD] Go and bring the strangers, while I turn my mind to the rites I must perform here. [He leaves and IPHIGENIA reflects.]

O my poor heart, before you were always gentle to strangers, always disposed to pity, paying due measure of tears to victims of your own race, whenever men of Greece came into your power. But now these visitors will find no warmth in me, [350] whoever they are: my dreams have made me savage. Not a breath of wind has ever come from Zeus, not a ship, that would have brought Helen my destroyer here, through the Clashing Rocks, and with her Menelaus, to let me take my revenge and pay them back – an Aulis here for the one I suffered there, when the sons of Greece trussed me like a young heifer and [360] tried to slaughter me, and my own dear father was the wielder of the knife!

Ah (I cannot rid my mind of that day’s horror²¹), how many times I clasped my father’s chin and knees, clinging to them, as I spoke words like these: ‘Father, you give me away in a marriage that brings you shame! While you are preparing to kill me, my mother and the women of Argos are singing marriage-songs, the whole palace resounds with flutes, and here am I, facing death at your hands! He is Hades, then, not [370] the son of Peleus, this Achilles whom you pretended was to be my wedded lord;²² you used deceit to bring me here by chariot to a marriage of blood!’ A fine-spun veil was covering my eyes, and so I did not pick up in my arms my brother who is alive no more, and modesty kept me from kissing my sister. I thought I was going to the palace ofPeleus, and so, supposing I would soon return to Argos, I saved for a later day all those loving greetings.

O poor boy, if dead you are! O my Orestes, what prosperity, what an enviable lot have you lost that your father now enjoys!

380 [IPHIGENIA breaks out in anger.] Oh, I cannot admire this equivocating of the goddess! She denies her altars to any man whose hand has shed blood or touched a woman due to give birth or a dead body, counting him unclean, but she herself delights in sacrifices where men’s blood is spilled. Leto won the heart of Zeus;²³ never would she have brought such foolishness into the world, I cannot believe it. No, I think it incredible that Tantalus gave a banquet for the gods in which they feasted with pleasure on his son’s flesh. It is the inhabitants of this land, [390] I think, being themselves murderers, who attribute their vileness to the goddess. I cannot suppose any god capable of evil.²⁴ [IPHIGENIA goes into the temple.]

CHORUS [Strophe]: O dark, dark meeting place of the seas, where the gadfly, winging its way from Argos, passed from Europe to the land of Asia, crossing the Inhospitable Gulf!²⁵ Who are these men who have come from reedy Eurotas’ lovely stream, or from Dirce’s holy [400] waters, come to this alien land, where the divine maiden is honoured by the human blood that sprinkles her altars and pillared temples?

[Antistrophe:] Did they sail their vessel over the ocean’s waves with breezes wafting their sails, their pinewood oars churning the [410] water on either side, eagerly striving to increase wealth for their homes? For hope is prized by mortals and, as they cannot have their fill, it brings ruin upon them, when they strive to carry off the burden of wealth, wandering over swelling seas and passing from city to city in foreign lands, possessed all alike by the same expectation. To some the thought of wealth comes ill-timed, but to others in proper [420] measure.

[Strophe:] How did they pass by the Clashing Rocks and Phineus’ coast that never slumbers?²⁶ Amid Amphitrite’s surge where Nereus’ fifty daughters sing and circle in the dance, loveliest of sights, the two did race along the cape with breezes filling their sails; at the stern the [430] rudder creaked in its rowlock, as the southerly winds or Zephyrus’ breath brought them over the Unfriendly Sea to the white isle, land beloved of birds, land of Achilles, his glorious racecourse.²⁷

[Antistrophe:] If only my lady’s prayers were answered and Helen, [440] precious child of Leda, could leave Troy’s city and come here to die by my mistress’ throat-slashing hand, the curls of her hair soaked with the water that receives the blood – then would she pay full justice! And how gladly would I hear the news, if some mariner came to bring me release from this miserable servitude! Oh, how I long, even in dreams, [450] to be in my home again, in the city of my fathers, enjoying blissful sleep and sharing in the pleasures of prosperity!

 

[IPHIGENIA comes out of the temple. ORESTES and PYLADES are brought on from offstage by guards.]

CHORUS–LEADER: But here come the two of them, the latest offering to be sacrificed to the goddess, their hands tightly secured by cords. Silence, friends! These are the finest speci-[460] mens of Greek manhood who are approaching the temple; the cowherd was no false messenger. [CHORUS raise their arms in prayer to Artemis.] O my lady, if you are satisfied with the rites of your people here, accept the sacrifice that we Greeks find unholy but the custom of the land prescribes.²⁸

IPHIGENIA: Very well; my first concern must be to see that my duty to the goddess is properly fulfilled. [To the guards] Untie the strangers’ hands – they are consecrated to the goddess and [470] so must no longer be tethered. Go inside the temple and make the preparations that are necessary and customary for the present situation.

[IPHIGENIA is struck by the sight of the two young men.] Ah! Who is she, the mother²⁹ who gave you birth? Who is your father and, if you have one, your sister? No brothers will she have soon, robbed of such a fine pair of men! Who knows on whom such fates will fall? All the gods’ dealings with us proceed obscurely and no one knows the harm that is to come. Chance leads us on to dark pathways.

480 Where have you come from, wretched strangers? It took many a day for your ship to reach this land, and many a day will you be parted from home in the world below!

ORESTES: Why do you shed these tears, lady, whoever you are, and cause yourself pain over sufferings that affect us? I see no sense in someone about to kill another seeking to use pity to overcome the victim’s fear of death nor in someone who laments death’s proximity when he has no hope of rescue. He compounds two evils out of one; he shows himself to be a fool and dies in any case. Fate must be allowed to run its course.[ 490] You should not lament us; we know the rites of sacrifice you practise here, we realize their nature.

IPHIGENIA : Which one of you was called by the name Pylades over there? This is what I wish to learn first.³⁰

ORESTES: The man here, if you want to know.

IPHIGENIA: What Greek land claims him as a citizen?

ORESTES: How would you benefit from this knowledge, lady?

IPHIGENIA : Are you two brothers, born of one mother?

ORESTES: Our friendship makes us so, but we are not true brothers.

IPHIGENIA: And you? What name did your own father give you?

ORESTES : The right name for me would be Unlucky. [500]

IPHIGENIA : That is not my question; blame that on chance.

ORESTES: If I died without a name, I would escape mockery.

IPHIGENIA: Why do you grudge me this? Is your pride so great?

ORESTES: You can sacrifice my body, but not my name.

IPHIGENIA: Will you not even tell me the name of your city?

ORESTES: No; as I am about to die, your question brings me little gain.

IPHIGENIA: But what prevents you from doing me this kindness?

ORESTES : The land I call my own is Argos the renowned.

IPHIGENIA: Gods above, is that really where you come from, stranger?

ORESTES: From Mycenae the prosperous, as once it was.[ 510]

IPHIGENIA: Well, if you came from Argos, someone longed for you to come!

ORESTES: I didn’t; if you did, that’s your affair!

IPHIGENIA: Did you leave your homeland as an exile, or how did it happen?

ORESTES: I am an exile in some sense – I fled willingly and yet against my will.

IPHIGENIA: Will you tell me something I want to know?

ORESTES: That is a trifle compared with my misfortune.

IPHIGENIA: I take it you know of Troy, as all the world does?

ORESTES: How I wish I did not, even in a dream!

IPHIGENIA: Men say it exists no more, levelled by the spear. [520]

ORESTES: It is true; your ears have not been deceived.

IPHIGENIA: Did Helen return to Menelaus’ house?

ORESTES: She did, and her coming brought ruin to one of my family.

IPHIGENIA: Where is she? I too have a debt to settle with her.

ORESTES : She lives in Sparta with her former bedfellow.

IPHIGENIA: O creature hated by all Greece, not me alone!

ORESTES: I too gained little joy from her marriage.

IPHIGENIA: Did the Greeks get safely home, as report tells?

ORESTES: How you ask me all your questions at once!

IPHIGENIA: Yes, for I want to ask you this before you die.

[530] ORESTES : Ask away, as this is your desire; I will answer you.

IPHIGENIA: Did a man called Calchas,³¹ a prophet, return from Troy?

ORESTES: He is dead, according to the people of Mycenae.

IPHIGENIA: O my Lady, good news! What of Laertes’ son?

ORESTES: He has not yet returned to his home but he is alive, they say.

IPHIGENIA: I pray he never reaches his own land but dies first!

ORESTES: Spare your curses; all his world has been overturned.³²

IPHIGENIA : What of the Nereid Thetis’ son, is he still alive?

ORESTES: No; little good came to him from his marriage at Aulis.³³

IPHIGENIA: Yes, it was a piece of trickery – those involved know this.

[540] ORESTES: But who in the world are you? How well informed you are of matters in Greece!

IPHIGENIA: That is my homeland; when I was still a child I lost it.

ORESTES: Then I understand why you long to know the news from there, lady.

IPHIGENIA: What of the commander? They say he prospers.

ORESTES: Which man? The one I know is not to be numbered with the prosperous.

IPHIGENIA: He was, I believe, called Agamemnon, Atreus’ son.

ORESTES: I do not know; leave this line of questioning, lady.

IPHIGENIA: In heaven’s name, stranger, do not deny me! Tell me and make my heart glad!

ORESTES: He is dead, poor man, but he destroyed another besides.

IPHIGENIA: Dead? What happened to him? Oh, misery!

[550] ORESTES: Why that cry of sorrow? You were not related to him, surely?

IPHIGENIA: I grieve to think of his former happiness.

ORESTES: Yes, it was a terrible end, slaughtered by a woman.

IPHIGENIA : Oh, how pitiful they both are, she who killed and he who died!

ORESTES: Stop now at last, no further questions!

IPHIGENIA: This only: is the wretched man’s wife alive?

ORESTES: She is not; the child she bore, he killed her with his own hands.

IPHIGENIA: A ruined household! What on earth made him do this?

ORESTES: He was taking revenge on her for his father’s murder.

IPHIGENIA: Ah, how well he exacted his wicked justice!

ORESTES: He may well be a just man but the gods do not make [560] him prosper.

IPHIGENIA: Has Agamemnon another son left in his palace?

ORESTES: He left behind only Electra, a virgin child.

IPHIGENIA: Is there any word, tell me, of the daughter who was sacrificed?

ORESTES: None, except that she died and sees the sunlight no more.

IPHIGENIA: I pity her, and the father who killed her.

ORESTES: For a wicked woman’s sake she was killed, a reason that was no reason!

IPHIGENIA: Is he living still in Argos, the son of the father who was killed?

ORESTES: He lives a life of misery, nowhere and everywhere.

IPHIGENIA: O dream that lied to me,³⁴ farewell! Now I know your worth!

ORESTES: Gods whom we credit with wisdom can mislead us [570] even more than winged dreams. In matters divine, as in human, much confusion reigns. But one thing brings pain above all: when a man comes to grief, not through folly but because a prophet’s words have won him over, as one man fell – those who know him know how.³⁵

CHORUS-LEADER: Oh, how this makes me weep! What of us and those who are our parents? Are they alive? Are they not? Who will say?

IPHIGENIA: Listen! I have formed a plan that furthers your [580] interests, strangers, and my own at the same time. It is our best means of achieving success, provided we all agree on the same course. [To ORESTES] Would you be willing, if I saved your life, to go to Argos with a message from me to my friends there? Would you take a letter that a prisoner of war wrote out of pity for me, for he felt that my hand was not a murderer’s but he was dying because of the custom prescribed by the [590] goddess? I have had no one to take my message to Argos, no one who could be saved to deliver my letter to any of my family. But you, sir (it seems you are of noble birth, you know Mycenae and my friends), save yourself and go there – it is no shameful reward you will win, your life for carrying a letter!

This man must not share your journey, however; he must be sacrificed to the goddess, as the Taurians require.

ORESTES: I approve of all you say, stranger, except for one point; it would be a heavy burden for me to bear if this man were sacrificed. I am the one who steered his course to disaster; he [600] has shared my voyage because of my troubles. Justice does not allow that his death should be the price of earning your gratitude and escaping from ruin. I propose a different way. Give your letter to this man; he will take it to Argos and your wish will be fulfilled. As for me, let me be killed – it makes no difference who wields the knife. It brings only shame if a man secures his own safety by bringing ruin on his friends. This man is my friend; I want him to live no less than myself.

[610] IPHIGENIA: No common man could show such a spirit – you are born of some noble stock and are a true friend to your friends! If only I might have in any of my surviving family a man of your stamp! For I do have a brother, strangers, it is just that I do not see him. Since it is your wish, I shall send this man with my letter and you shall be killed; you are truly possessed by some great desire for death.

ORESTES : Who will sacrifice me and dare do the terrible deed?

IPHIGENIA: I shall; this service of the goddess is mine to perform.

ORESTES: Not one to be envied, young woman, or a happy one.

IPHIGENIA : Necessity constrains me and I cannot disobey. [620]

ORESTES: You do the deed yourself, sword in hand, a woman sacrificing men?

IPHIGENIA: No, I will only sprinkle the holy water on your hair.

ORESTES: Who, then, will wield the blade – I must put the question?

IPHIGENIA: Inside the temple here are men whose task this is.

ORESTES: What kind of grave shall hold me when I die?

IPHIGENIA: A sacred fire inside and a wide, rocky chasm.

ORESTES: Oh, what an end! If only a sister’s hands could shroud me!

IPHIGENIA: That’s a foolish prayer to make, poor man, whoever you are; she lives far away from this barbarian land. All the [630] same, as you are a true citizen of Argos, I shall not leave undone any service I can render. I will dress you fully for the tomb, quench your ashes with yellow oil and pour on your pyre the gleaming labour of the nimble mountain bee, culled from flowers.

Now I will go and fetch my letter from the goddess’s temple. [The attendants once more take ORESTES and PYLADES into custody.] Lest you think it is I who bear you ill will, keep them under guard, you men, but unfettered! Perhaps I shall be [640] sending to Argos news that was never imagined by the member of my family I love best; by telling him that the one he thought dead still lives, the letter will bring a joy beyond belief.

[IPHIGENIA enters the shrine.]

CHORUS: We shed tears for you, the victim of the lustral bowl’s bloody drops.

ORESTES: My fate merits no pity, stranger women, but fare you well.

REST OF THE CHORUS: We honour you, young man, for your blessed fortune in returning to your native land.

PYLADES: No one is to be envied this, if it means the death of [650] his friend.

CHORUS: O wretched homecoming – it racks my heart – you bring ruin upon two; ah, what sorrow! My wavering heart still debates two courses: should I wail in lamentation first for you or for you?

ORESTES: Pylades, in the name of the gods, have you had the same thought as I?

PYLADES: I do not know; you ask me a question I cannot answer.

[660] ORESTES: Who is the young woman? How like a Greek she questioned us – about the sufferings at Troy, the homecoming of the Greeks, Calchas skilled at reading omens, and the name of Achilles! How she showed pity for the wretched Agamemnon and kept asking me about his wife and children! This stranger must be from that part of the world, an Argive by birth. Otherwise she would never be sending a letter and questioning us like this, behaving as if the good fortune of Argos was hers as well.

PYLADES: You anticipated me a little; I would have said the same [670] as you except for one thought: the fate of kings is known to all men familiar with the world and its ways. But a second thought has occurred to me.

ORESTES: What is it? Share it with me and your thinking will become clearer.

PYLADES: It brings me no credit that you should die and I continue to live. I shared your voyage here and I should share your death as well. If not, I will be thought a coward and villain in Argos and the many glens of Phocis’ land. Most people, being malicious themselves, will conclude that I betrayed you to save my own skin and returned home alone. They may even [680] suppose I murdered you, taking advantage of your stricken house to plot your death and seize your throne, calculating that I would gain your sister’s inheritance as her husband.³⁶ I am afraid to incur such disgrace as this. There is no other way: I must breathe my last with you, face with you the sacrificial knife and the pyre that will consume our bones, for I am your true friend and fear for my good name.

ORESTES: In heaven’s name, mind what you say! The woes that are mine to bear I must bear; I will not endure a double agony when a single one is possible. What you say brings pain and [690] reproach on you wounds me no less, if I am to cause your death, the man who has shared the burden of my tribulations. As far as I am concerned, it is no great sorrow for me to lose my life when the gods use me in this fashion. But Fortune smiles on you, your house is pure, untainted by any curse, while mine has offended the gods and earned her hatred. If you survive, you will father children by my sister, the woman I gave you as your wife, and my family name would remain; my ancestral home would never fade from men’s lips through lack of progeny.

No, go your way and live! Make my father’s house your [700] home. When you come to Greece, and Argos rich in horses, I urge you to do this for me, by this right hand of yours: build a tomb and lay on it some memento of mine. Let my sister grace my grave with her tears and locks of hair. Tell how I died at the hands of an Argive woman, ritually slaughtered over an altar. Never betray my sister, though you witness the desolation of my father’s family that you have now joined by marriage. [ORESTES embraces PYLADES.]

Fare you well! You have proved the truest of my friends, my comrade in the hunt, my boyhood playmate! How you [710] have shouldered all my many woes!

I have been deceived by Phoebus,³⁷ prophet though he is; he cunningly drove me as far from Greece as possible, ashamed of his former prophecies. Entrusting all my fortune to him, I killed my mother in obedience to his oracle and now in turn my own life is forfeit.

PYLADES: You shall have your tomb, poor man, and I shall be no traitor to your sister’s bed; in death no less than in life you may count on my love.

But the god’s oracle has not destroyed you yet, though you [720] stand on the verge of death. It is possible there is yet a chance that your dire ill fortune may swing round to the other extreme.

ORESTES: Speak no more; Phoebus’ words are no help to me, for here is the woman coming out of the temple. [IPHIGENIA emerges.]

IPHIGENIA [to the guards] Away, go and prepare things inside for those who oversee the sacrifice! [Guards enter the temple.] Here it is ready, strangers, the letter with its folded tablets.³⁸ [730] Let me tell you the rest of my wishes. No man shows the same spirit in adversity and when his fear gives way to courage. I am afraid that the man who is going to take this message to Argos may think my letter of no importance once he has left these shores and reached his home.

ORESTES : What do you want? What is your difficulty?

IPHIGENIA: Let him give me his oath that he will take this letter to Argos and deliver it to the friends I wish.

ORESTES : And will you give him as good an oath in return?

IPHIGENIA: To do or not do what? Tell me.

ORESTES: To let him leave this barbarian land with his life.

[740] IPHIGENIA: That is a fair request; how else would he act as my messenger?

ORESTES: And will the king agree to this?

IPHIGENIA: Yes; I will persuade him. And I will put your friend on board a ship myself.

ORESTES [to PYLADES]: Swear. [To IPHIGENIA] And you prescribe an oath that will be holy.

IPHIGENIA: ‘I shall give this letter to your friends.’ Say it!

PYLADES: I shall give this letter to your friends.

IPHIGENIA: And I shall send you safely beyond the Dark Rocks.

PYLADES : Which of the gods do you pray will witness this oath?

IPHIGENIA: Artemis, in whose dwelling I hold office.

PYLADES: And I invoke heaven’s lord, venerated Zeus.

[750] IPHIGENIA: And if you abandon your oath and do me wrong?

PYLADES: May I never reach home. And what should be your fate, if you fail to ensure my escape?

IPHIGENIA: Never to live to set foot again in Argos.

PYLADES : But let me tell you something we have not taken into account.

IPHIGENIA : Share it with me straight away, if it is a good idea.

PYLADES: Allow me to make this proviso: if anything happens to the ship, if the letter gets lost in the waves along with the rest of my belongings and I escape only with my life, grant that this oath between us should no longer be binding.

IPHIGENIA: Listen to what I shall do; it’s as well to have more than one string to your bow. I will tell you in my own words [760] the contents that are written in the folds of the letter, so you can give your friends a full account. This will ensure the message does not perish. If you manage to save the letter, it will need no voice to convey its contents; but if it is swallowed up at sea, and you preserve your own life, you will preserve my words as well.

PYLADES: That is an excellent suggestion; it suits your interests and benefits me too. Now tell me to whom I am to take this letter in Argos and what I am to say in your name.

IPHIGENIA [handing the letter to him and reciting from memory]: Take this news to Orestes, son of Agamemnon: ‘She who was [770] slaughtered at Aulis sends this message, Iphigenia who is alive, though in Argos they think her dead –’

PYLADES [interrupting]: Where is that lady? Has she come back from the dead?

IPHIGENIA[impatiently]: She is before your eyes – do not disturb my train of thought! ‘Bring me back to Argos, brother, before I die! Take me away from this savage land, from the bloody service I render the goddess, murdering strangers in my holy office…’

ORESTES [turning to Pylades]: Pylades, what shall I say? Where do we find ourselves?

IPHIGENIA: ‘… or else I will become a curse to your house, Orestes’, to make you hear the name a second time and note it well.

ORESTES: O you gods! [780]

IPHIGENIA: What makes you call upon the gods in matters that are my business?

ORESTES: I have no reason. Continue; my thoughts were on something else.

IPHIGENIA: Perhaps when he questions you he will become sceptical. Say this: ‘The goddess Artemis rescued me by substituting in my place a deer which my father sacrificed, thinking he was driving the sharp blade into me. She gave me a new home in this land.’ This is the letter, these are the words written in the tablets.

PYLADES: It is an easy oath you require me to honour, yes, and an excellent guarantee you make. I will not waste a moment [790] in fulfilling the pledge I have given. Look, I bring you a letter, Orestes,³⁹ and duly deliver it, from your sister here.

ORESTES: I receive it. But I will not look at the folded tablet; first I will enjoy a pleasure no words can supply. [ORESTES moves forward to embrace IPHIGENIA.] O my darling sister, I am overwhelmed, but I will rush to seize my joy, clasping you in incredulous arms! This discovery fills me with wonder.

IPHIGENIA [retreating in alarm]: Sir, you offend justice in laying hands on the servant of the goddess, grasping her inviolable robe!

[800] ORESTES: O my own sister, born of the same father, Agamemnon, do not reject me! You have the brother you thought you would never have!

IPHIGENIA: You – my brother? No more of your words! Argos and Nauplia are both full of his name.

ORESTES: Poor woman, your brother is not to be found there.

IPHIGENIA: Was your mother the Spartan woman, Tyndareus’ daughter?

ORESTES : Yes, and my father was the grandson of Pelops, whose descendant I am.

IPHIGENIA: What are you saying? Can you show me any evidence for this?⁴⁰

ORESTES: I can; ask some question about your father’s house.

[810] IPHIGENIA: Should you not be speaking and I drawing conclusions?

ORESTES : I will begin by saying what I have been told by Electra. You remember the dispute that took place between Atreus and Thyestes?⁴¹

IPHIGENIA: I have heard about it; they quarrelled over a golden lamb.

ORESTES: Do you remember weaving this subject on a fine web?

IPHIGENIA: O dearest, you strike a chord in my heart!

ORESTES: And a likeness of the sun turning back in its course?

IPHIGENIA: I did indeed weave that picture with fine threads!

ORESTES : And you know the holy water that your mother gave you for your wedding at Aulis?

IPHIGENIA: I remember; it was not so fine a wedding as to make me forget that.

ORESTES: Yes, and how you gave a lock of your hair to be taken [820] to your mother?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, to serve as a memorial at my tomb, empty as it was of my body.

ORESTES: I will tell you what my own eyes have seen, to prove who I am: in our father’s house lies the ancient spear of Pelops, which he brandished in his hand when he killed Oenomaus and won the maid of Pisa, Hippodameia; it was hidden away in the quarters where you women lived.

[They embrace one another and IPHIGENIA sings in her happiness.]

IPHIGENIA: O my dearest, I can call you by no other name, for dearest you are, I hold you in my arms, Orestes, so far from your homeland [830] of Argos, my love!

ORESTES : And I hold you, the one who was thought dead!

IPHIGENIA: Tears moisten your eyes, as they do mine, and grief mingling with joy. You were a little baby when I left you in our home, a tender infant in the arms of your nurse. O my heart that knows a happiness words cannot express, what can I say? What has happened here is beyond wonder, far beyond imagining!

ORESTES: I pray that all our days to come may know such happiness between us!

IPHIGENIA [to the CHORUS]: This is a strange pleasure I feel, my friends; I am afraid he may escape my hands and fly up to the sky. O hearth of my city, raised by Cyclopes, o my country, beloved Mycenae, I thank you, thank you for letting him live, for rearing this brother of mine to be a beacon to his house!

[850] ORESTES: We are fortunate in birth, sister, but our experience of life has not been a happy one.

IPHIGENIA: I remember, ah, how bitterly I remember the time when my father with misery in his heart thrust his sword into my throat.

ORESTES: Oh, terrible! I was not present but I fancy I see you there!

IPHIGENIA: It was for no wedding, my brother, that I was taken to the [860] deceitful marriage-bed of Achilles; beside the altar there were tears and cries of mourning. Oh, the pain, the pain, when I think back to that washing of hands for purification!

ORESTES : I too feel the pain at the thought of what our father steeled himself to do.

IPHIGENIA: No father, no father could have treated me in such a fashion! Yet various are the fates that come upon us by heaven’s will.

ORESTES: At least you did not kill your own brother, my poor girl.

IPHIGENIA: Oh, what a wretch I was to dare so terrible a deed! Terrible [870] was my resolve, terrible, my brother, ah, the pain of that thought! How close you were to an impious death, slaughtered by these hands of mine! But how will these misfortunes end? What will happen to me now? What way can I discover,⁴² what way to send you back to your [880] homeland of Argos, away from death, away from this land, before the sword threatens to spill your blood?

Here, poor heart, here lies the problem you must solve. Should it be by land, not by ship but on swift feet? If so you will court death, passing through barbarous tribes over trackless land. And yet the way [890] by the Dark Rocks that clash is long for escape by ship. Oh, pity me, pity me! What god, what mortal, what chance unlooked for, will find a way where no way there is and show the only two scions of Atreus’ house a release from their troubles?

[900] CHORUS-LEADER: Wonderful is what I have seen here, and with my own eyes, not heard from messengers. Words cannot describe it.

PYLADES : When loved ones set eyes on loved ones, Orestes, it is natural for them to embrace one another. But now you must give up these tears for each other and face the question how we are to make good our escape, a glorious prize, and get clear of this barbarous land.

ORESTES: Well said; and I think fortune will aid our escape, if we help ourselves. The gods are more likely to support a man [910] if he puts his heart into the task.

IPHIGENIA: No, do not obstruct me or seek to divert me from learning what is Electra’s lot in life. This is of close concern to me.

ORESTES: She lives as this man’s wife and enjoys good fortune.

IPHIGENIA: And where does this man come from? Whose son is he?

ORESTES: Strophius of Phocis is his father.

IPHIGENIA: So he is the son of Atreus’ daughter and a kinsman of mine?

ORESTES: Your cousin, and the only true friend I have.

IPHIGENIA: He was not living when my father tried to kill [920] me.⁴³

ORESTES: He was not; for some time Strophius had no children.

IPHIGENIA: Welcome, husband of my sister!

ORESTES : Yes, and not just a relative but the man who saved my life.

IPHIGENIA: That terrible action you took over our mother, how did you find the nerve for it?

ORESTES : Let us not discuss it; I was avenging my father.

IPHIGENIA : What was her reason for killing her husband?

ORESTES: Say nothing about our mother's behaviour; it is not fitting for you to hear.⁴⁴

IPHIGENIA: I will not ask. Does Argos look to you now?

ORESTES: Menelaus is king; I am banished from my father’s land.

IPHIGENIA: Surely your uncle did not take advantage of our [930] stricken house?

ORESTES : No, panic caused by the Furies sent me into exile from my country.

IPHIGENIA: Oh, I understand; because of your mother the goddesses drove you onward.

ORESTES : Yes, thrusting their bridle into my mouth till it bled.

IPHIGENIA: So this was the madness you showed on the shore, as reported to us here?

ORESTES : This is not the first time my wretchedness has been observed.

IPHIGENIA: What on earth caused you to make the journey to this land?

ORESTES: I came here in obedience to the orders of Phoebus’ oracle.

IPHIGENIA: What were you required to do? May it be spoken or is it not for other ears?

ORESTES: I will tell you; this was the beginning of much suffering [940] for me. When my mother’s – when that monstrous act I will not speak of had been performed, I was hounded by the Furies and driven into exile. Next Loxias directed my steps to Athens⁴⁵ to stand trial there before the nameless goddesses. There is a holy tribunal that in days gone by Zeus established for Ares as the result of a crime that polluted that god’s hands. When I reached this place, at first no host was willing to receive me as one hated by the gods. Some, however, felt shame at this and [950] provided me with a solitary table as hospitality, though we all shared the same roof, and by refusing to speak to me they denied me the chance to converse with them. Their intention was that I should enjoy their food and drink, but separately from them, and, serving the wine in individual cups, an equal measure for all, they made merry.

I did not think it right to question my hosts and so I suffered in silence, pretending not to have it on my conscience, despite my heavy sighs, that I was my mother’s murderer. I hear that my unhappy experience has become a religious rite for the [960] Athenians, and that the custom still stands whereby Pallas’ folk honour the six-pint pot.

When I came to Ares’ hill, I stood trial, I mounting the defendant’s plinth, and the eldest Fury the other one. After I had given and heard the arguments about my mother’s bloodshed, Phoebus saved me by his testimony, and Pallas’ arm, separating the votes for and against me, found them equal in number. I came off the victor in my trial for murder.

Those Furies who were won over by the verdict settled there, marking out for themselves a sanctuary beside the very [970] scene of the voting. But those who disagreed with the decision have hounded me constantly, denying me a place to rest my head as onward I fled, until I came again to Phoebus’ sanctuary. There I prostrated myself before the holy entrance, refusing all food, and swore that there I would die and end my life unless Phoebus, my destroyer, saved me.⁴⁶

Then the voice ofPhoebus rang out from his golden tripod;⁴⁷ he sent me here to seize a statue fallen from Zeus and to set it up in the land of Athens. Now help me achieve the deliverance [980] the god has appointed for me. If we get possession of the goddess’s image my madness will leave me, I will provide you with a ship and crew and restore you to Mycenae once more!

O my precious girl, dear sister, preserve your father’s house, save my life! It is ruin for my fortunes, ruin for all of Pelops’ house if we fail to seize-the goddess’s image from heaven.

CHORUS-LEADER: The gods’ anger seethes, strange and terrible, against the seed of Tantalus and drives them from one tribulation to another.

IPHIGENIA: Before you came here my heart was set on being in [990] Argos and seeing you, brother. Your wishes are mine as well, to free you from your troubles, to rescue our stricken house and restore the fortunes of our ancestral home, bearing no grudge against the man who tried to kill me. Thus I would both keep my hands free from the stain of spilling your blood and preserve my home. But I fear detection by the goddess – will she not see me? I fear the action of the king when he finds the stone pedestal empty, its statue gone. Then will I surely die; there is no excuse I can make. But if we succeed in both these plans together, if you carry off the statue and set me on [1000] board your fine ship, the prize is worth the risk. If you fail to manage my escape, it is the end of my life but you would succeed in your aim and return home safely. I do not shrink from this, even if the cost of saving you is my own death; a man’s death is a sore loss to a house, a woman’s counts for little.⁴⁸

ORESTES: I will not be your murderer as well as my mother’s. Her blood is enough! We think alike: I would like to live with [1010] you or to die and share your lot. I will take you with me, if I can escape from here myself and make the voyage home, or else I will stay here and die with you. Listen to what is in my mind. If this was an action that offended Artemis, how would Loxias have ordered me in his oracle to bring the goddess’s statue to the town of Pallas and seen to it that I set eyes on you here? When I draw together all these threads it gives me hope of winning my way home after all.

IPHIGENIA: How then are we to avoid death and achieve our end? This is where my homecoming falters; this is where we need to plan.

[1020] ORESTES : Would we be able to kill the king?

IPHIGENIA: What a monstrous idea – visitors kill their host?

ORESTES: But if it means safety for you and me, we must take the risk.

IPHIGENIA: I could not do it – but I admire your boldness.

ORESTES: What if you were to hide me secretly in the temple here?

IPHIGENIA : There are guards inside the temple who will see us.

ORESTES: Ah, we are ruined! How can we be saved?

IPHIGENIA: I think I have a new kind of device.

[1030] ORESTES: What kind of device? Let me share your thoughts, so that I too may know.

IPHIGENIA: I shall use your troubles as a trick.

ORESTES : Women are certainly adept at thinking up schemes.⁴⁹

IPHIGENIA: I will say that you have been driven from Argos as your mother’s murderer.

ORESTES: Make use of my misfortunes, if you can turn them to advantage.

IPHIGENIA: I shall say it is unlawful to offer you in sacrifice to the goddess.

ORESTES: What will be your pretext? I am beginning to understand…

IPHIGENIA : That you are an impure victim; I will sacrifice only what is unblemished.

ORESTES: How will it then be easier to seize the statue of the goddess?

IPHIGENIA: I shall say I want to purify you in sea-water.

ORESTES : But the statue for which we have come will still stand [1040] in the temple.

IPHIGENIA: I will say I intend to wash it as well since your hands touched it. ⁵⁰

ORESTES : Where is this to happen? Is it an inlet of the sea, swept by the spray, you mean to visit?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, the place where your ship is anchored by hawsers of stout rope.

ORESTES: Will you or someone else carry the image in your arms?

IPHIGENIA: I shall; piety requires that I alone should touch it.

ORESTES: What role in this task shall we assign to Pylades here?

IPHIGENIA: I will say his hands are tainted with the same pollution as your own.

ORESTES: When you carry out this plan, will it be without the king’s knowledge or not?

IPHIGENIA: I will win him round with my version of events; I could not keep him in the dark. Your task is to see that everything else goes well.

ORESTES: Well, my good ship’s thrashing oars are ready for [1050] action. We need one thing only: these women must join us in keeping this a secret.⁵¹ [ORESTES gestures towards the CHORUS.] Appeal to them, devise words to win them over; women have the power to arouse pity. As for the rest, no doubt all will turn out well.

IPHIGENIA [addressing the CHORUS directly]: O my women, good friends all, I look to you. On you depend my fortunes, either to find happiness or to lose everything, robbed of my homeland,

[1060] my dear brother and my beloved sister. First of all let this thought begin my appeal: we are women, naturally supportive of one another, and steadfast in guarding our common interests. Give us your guarantee of silence and help us in the task of managing our escape! It is a fine thing when a person may be relied upon not to betray confidences. You see how we three, so close to one another, are subject to one fate, either returning to our native land or dying. [Addressing the CHORUS- LEADER first, then individual members of the CHORUS] Help us to escape and, to make you also share our fortune, I will see you safe to Greece. I beg you by your right hand, and you, and you, and [1070] you by your fair cheek, your knees and all your loved ones at home! What do you say? Who among you agrees to this, who does not – speak out! If my words fall on deaf ears, it is the end for me and for my poor brother!

CHORUS - LEADER: Never fear, dear mistress, only save yourself. As far as I am concerned, nothing will be said about all you bid me keep hidden (great Zeus be my witness).

IPHIGENIA: Bless you for these words! May fortune smile on you! [Turning to ORESTES and PYLADES] Now it is your task, [1080] and yours, to go inside the temple. The ruler of this land will be here soon to ask if the strangers have been sacrificed. [ORESTES and PYLADES go into the temple.]

O lady divine, who in the glens of Aulis saved me from the terrible hands of a murderous father, save me now too, and these men! Otherwise, thanks to you, the oracles of Loxias will no longer ring true for mankind. Be gracious and consent to leave this barbarous land for Athens; this is no fit dwelling-place for you, when you might have as your home a city favoured by the gods.⁵² [IPHIGENIA turns and enters the temple.]

 

1090 CHORUS [Strophe]: Halcyon,⁵³ bird that sings your fate as a dirge along the rocky sea-cliffs, uttering to those who understand that familiar cry, your constant lament in song for your husband, I also have lamentations to rival yours, I a bird without wings, pining for the assembly-places of the Greeks, pining for Artemis, protectress of mothers, in her dwelling by the hill of Cynthus, by the soft-leaved [1100] palm and the lovely bay and the holy shoots of the pale olive, welcome shelter to Leto in the pangs of childbirth, by the lake whose waters swirl in a circle, where the swan honours the Muses with his song.

[Antistrophe:] O the many fountains of tears that tumbled down my cheeks on the day when our walls fell in ruin and I was brought to the ships, amidst the oars and spears of the enemy! Bartered for much [1110] gold, I sailed to a barbarous land where I serve the daughter of Agamemnon, herself the handmaiden of the deer-slaying goddess, at altars where no sheep are sacrificed. I envy the man who has never known happiness; necessity’s yoke does not oppress him, for it is his constant companion. Change of fortune is misery; to know hardship [1120] after experiencing happiness, that is an existence that weighs hard on mortals.

[Strophe:] As for you, my lady, an Argive ship of fifty oars shall bear you home. The piping of the wax-bound reeds, played by mountain-dwelling Pan, will urge on the oarsmen, and prophetic Phoebus, singing to the music of his seven-stringed lyre, will give you [1130] fair passage to the Athenians’ gleaming land. But I shall be left here when you set sail and the oars splash in the water; the breeze will make the halyards and sheets stretch out the sails so they billow out over the bows of the speeding vessel.

[Antistrophe:] If only I might follow the glittering course of the Sun’s chariot, where his bright fire leaps onward! Oh, to still the fluttering wings on my back above the chambers of my own home! To [1140] take my place in the dancing bands, where once, a maiden marked out for a splendid marriage, I left my loving mother’s side to whirl with friends in competitions of grace amidst the joyful ring, eager to vie with them in luxuriant hair, tossing my gorgeous veils and the curls that [1150] darkly clustered round my cheeks!

 

[King THOAS enters with attendants. At the same time IPHIGENIA emerges from the temple behind, carrying the sacred image.]

THOAS [to the CHORUS]: Where is the Greek woman who keeps watch over this temple? Has she already consecrated the strangers for sacrifice?

CHORUS – LEADER [pointing to IPHIGENIA as she emerges]: There, my lord, is the woman who will give you a clear account of everything.

THOAS: What’s this? Why have you taken in your arms the image of the goddess, daughter of Agamemnon? Why have you lifted it from its inviolate pedestal?

IPHIGENIA: My lord, stay where you are in the vestibule.

[1160] THOAS: What strange thing has happened in the temple, Iphigenia?

IPHIGENIA: It is revolting! I say this to honour Holiness.

THOAS: What news is prefaced by these words? Speak plainly!

IPHIGENIA: The victims you hunted down for me were not unblemished ones, my lord.

THOAS: What has convinced you of this? Or do you speak of surmise?

IPHIGENIA: The statue of the goddess turned backwards on its plinth.⁵⁴

THOAS: Of its own accord, or did some earth tremor twist it round?

IPHIGENIA: Of its own accord; and the statue closed its eyes.

THOAS: What caused this? Was it pollution carried by the strangers?

IPHIGENIA: That and nothing else; they have done a terrible thing.

[1170] THOAS: Did they kill one of my barbarian subjects on the sea-shore, then?

IPHIGENIA : They came here with the blood of kinship on their hands.

THOAS: Whose blood? I long to learn!

IPHIGENIA : They joined forces to dispatch their mother with a sword.

THOAS: Apollo! Not even barbarians would have had the heart for such a deed!⁵⁵

IPHIGENIA: They were pursued and driven from all of Greece.

THOAS : These, then, are your reasons for bringing the statue outside?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, under the holy sky, to expel the taint of murder.

THOAS: How did you discover the strangers’ pollution?

IPHIGENIA: I questioned them when the goddess’s statue turned backwards.

THOAS: You are a clever daughter of Greece to have such sharp [1180] sight!

IPHIGENIA: And then they dangled a bait to ensnare my heart.

THOAS: Did they offer some news of events in Argos to charm you?

IPHIGENIA: They said that my brother, my one and only Orestes, was prospering.

THOAS: No doubt they hoped your delight at this report would make you save them.

IPHIGENIA: And that my father was alive and enjoyed good fortune.

THOAS: You then naturally took the side of the goddess.

IPHIGENIA: Yes, in my hatred for all Greece that destroyed me.

THOAS: What then should we do about the strangers? Tell me!

IPHIGENIA: We are bound to honour the appointed custom.

THOAS: Are they not ready for action, the lustral bowl and your 1190 sword?

IPHIGENIA: I wish first to cleanse them with purifying ablutions.

THOAS : In water from springs or from the sea?

IPHIGENIA : The sea purges all taint of human evil.

THOAS: They would certainly be the purer when they fell as victims to the goddess.

IPHIGENIA: Yes, and my duty would be better fulfilled.

THOAS [noticing that IPHIGENIA was not taking the direct route to the sea]: Surely the waves break right by the temple?

IPHIGENIA: I need to be alone; there are other rites I intend to perform.

THOAS: Take them where you wish; I do not wish to see what may not be spoken of.

IPHIGENIA: I must also sanctify the statue of the goddess.

[1200] THOAS: Yes, in case it has become infected by the taint of matricide.

IPHIGENIA: Otherwise I would never have removed it from its pedestal.

THOAS: Your foresight and devotion to the gods are entirely proper.⁵⁶

IPHIGENIA [warming to her scheme]: You know what you must do for me now.

THOAS: It is for you to instruct me.

IPHIGENIA: Put the strangers in fetters.

THOAS: But where would they run to, if they escaped from you?

IPHIGENIA: There is no trusting a Greek.

THOAS [to his attendants]: Go now, men, put on the fetters.

IPHIGENIA: Yes, and let them also bring the strangers out here.

THOAS: So be it.

IPHIGENIA: Let them cover the prisoners’ heads with their cloaks.

THO AS: As a protection for the fiery sun.⁵⁷

IPHIGENIA: Send some of your attendants to escort me.

THOAS : These men will accompany you.

IPHIGENIA: And send a man to tell the townsfolk…

THOAS: That what has happened?

[I2I0] IPHIGENIA:… to stay every one of them indoors.

THOAS: To avoid coming into contact with murder?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, such things are an affront to decency.

THOAS [to an attendant]: Away with you now; give the instruction

IPHIGENIA: No one is to come near the sight.

THOAS: Your concern for the people does you credit.

IPHIGENIA : And for friends to whom my duty is greatest.

THOAS: These words refer to me.⁵⁸† † How right all my people are to admire you!

IPHIGENIA: You should stay here in front of the temple and serve the goddess.

THOAS: What am I to do?

IPHIGENIA: Cleanse her dwelling with torches.

THOAS: So that you may find it purified on your return.

IPHIGENIA: And when the strangers come out…

THOAS: What should I do?

IPHIGENIA:… pull your cloak over your eyes.

THOAS: I see, to avoid being tainted by the murder.

IPHIGENIA: And if you think my absence is too long…

THOAS: What limit should I set on this?

IPHIGENIA:…let nothing make you wonder. [1220]

THOAS: Do not be hasty in satisfying the goddess’s wishes; honour her well.

IPHIGENIA : I pray this purification may fall out as I wish!

THOAS: I echo that prayer.

[THOAS ’ attendants appear at the door of the temple, leading ORESTES and PYLADES in chains. They are followed by servants carrying vessels for purification and leading animals for sacrifice. The procession moves off.]

IPHIGENIA: Here are the strangers now, I see, leaving the temple, and with them the adornments of the goddess, and new-born lambs whose blood will let me wash away the taint of blood. Blazing torches, too, are here and all the other means of purification I prescribed for the strangers and goddess. [IPHIGENIA joins the end of the procession.] I warn all citizens to keep their distance from this pollution, whether they are temple servants purifying themselves for the gods, or approaching to ask for blessing before marriage or for aid in childbirth. Flee, stand aside, let none of you incur this taint!

Royal mistress, virgin child of Zeus and Leto, if I cleanse [1230] these men of blood guilt and offer sacrifice at the proper place, you will inhabit a dwelling that is pure and we shall know happiness. I shall not speak of the rest but show my heart to the gods who know more and to you, goddess.

[The procession leaves and THOAS enters the temple.]

CHORUS [Strophe]: A lovely child was Leto’s baby boy,⁵⁹ when she bore him in Delos’ fertile vales. Golden-haired he was, and skilful with the lyre, and his joy is in true archery. Leaving the glorious

[1240] birthplace, his mother brought her child from the sea-reef to Parnassus’ summit with its bountiful springs where Dionysus leads the revel. There the ruddy serpent with spotted back, a wondrous monster on the earth, used to haunt the grove amid the dense shade of the leafy laurel, infesting the oracle founded by Earth. That creature you slew, Phoebus, [1250] though you were still a babe, still bouncing in your mother’s arms, and you entered the holy oracle. At the tripod of gold you sit, on the throne of truth, and from the depths of the holy chamber you issue to mortal men your oracular decrees. Beside Castalia’s waters you dwell in your shrine at earth’s centre.

[1260] [Antistrophe:] But Apollo had dispossessed Themis from Earth’s holy oracle, and so Earth brought forth nocturnal visions, dreams that revealed to many a mortal as he slumbered in darkness upon the ground the past and the future, all that it held in store. Thus Earth, jealous on her daughter’s behalf, robbed Phoebus of his oracular [1270] privileges. At this the king rushed on swift feet to Olympus, and, clasping the throne of Zeus in baby fingers, he entreated him to release his Pythian home from the divine anger of Earth. The god laughed to see his child come so quickly to claim the worship that brought in so much wealth. Shaking his locks to give consent, he ordered that the nocturnal voices should cease. He withdrew from mortals the prophetic [1280] truth that came by night and restored his privileges to Loxias. And so he revived men’s confidence in the verses of his oracles, chanted at his throne where troops of visitors throng.

 

[Enter a MESSENGER in haste.]

MESSENGER: Temple guards, attendants at the altar, where has Thoas gone, the ruler of this land? Open the bolted doors and call the Taurians’ king out of these halls!

CHORUS-LEADER: What is it, if I may speak without your ermission?

[1290] MESSENGER: They’ve gone, the two young men, clean gone! Thanks to the planning of Agamemnon’s daughter they’ve fled from this land, taking the holy statue with them in the bowels of their Greek ship!

CHORUS-LEADER: I cannot believe your words! As for the king of this land whom you wish to see, he has left the temple in some haste.⁶⁰

MESSENGER: Where did he go? He must be told what is happening.

CHORUS-LEADER: We do not know. Go, hurry after him and, if you find him, tell your story!

MESSENGER: You see how little trust should be put in women! You, too, have some share in these events!

CHORUS-LEADER: You are mad! If the strangers have run away [1300] what fault is it of ours? Hurry off to the king’s gates and don’t waste more time!

MESSENGER: Not until a functionary tells me if the country’s ruler is indoors or not! [He hammers at the door.] Hey there! Undo the bars, I say, you inside, and tell your master why I’m here at his gates, with a load of bad news to announce!

THOAS [coming out of the temple]: Who is raising a shout at the goddess’s house here, hammering at the doors and deafening those inside?

MESSENGER: These women were misleading me and trying to keep me away from the temple, saying you were out; but you [1310] are at home after all, it seems.

THOAS: What did they hope to gain? What were they fishing for?

MESSENGER: I will explain their motives another time. Hear what trouble you are faced with right now. The young woman whose place was beside the altar here, Iphigenia, is gone, and the strangers with her. She has left this land, taking with her the holy statue of the goddess. The purification was a trick.

THOAS: What’s that you say? What ill wind favoured her?

MESSENGER: Her plan was to save Orestes; that will surprise you!

THOAS: Orestes, you say? The son of Tyndareus’ daughter?

MESSENGER: The man the goddess marked for dedication at this [1320] altar.

THOAS: It’s beyond belief! What stronger words can I find for what has happened?

MESSENGER: Think no more of that and listen to me; pay close attention and, as you hear my words, consider what manner of pursuit will hunt the strangers down.

THOAS : Speak; your advice is sound. A long sea-voyage awaits them and they will not outdistance my ships.

MESSENGER: When we reached the sea-shore, where Orestes’ ship was moored in secret, we whom you had sent as escorts for the strangers, with fetters, had our instructions from [1330] Agamemnon’s daughter. She said that we should stand at some distance to let her carry out the secret rites of fire and cleansing for which she had come. She walked behind alone, holding the strangers’ fetters in her hands. This did strike us as suspicious, my lord, but your servants let it pass.

Sometime later she raised a piercing cry, to make us think she was engaged in some momentous business. Then she began to chant in unintelligible strains as part of her magic ritual, as if she were washing away the taint of murder.

[1340] When we have been sitting there for a long time, it occurred to us that the strangers, released from their fetters, might kill her and make their escape. Fear of seeing that which we should not kept us sitting there in silence, but in the end we all had the same thought, to go to the place where they were, though we were forbidden. And there we saw a Greek ship, a fine broadside of oars furnishing it with wings, and a crew of fifty men with oars in the rowlocks, and the young men standing [1350] at the ship’s stern, freed of their fetters. Some of the seamen were steadying the prow with poles, others were hauling up the anchor to the cat-heads, while others again were hastily passing a ladder through, which they lowered from the stern into the sea for the stranger woman.

[1350] at the ship’s stern, freed of their fetters. Some of the seamen were steadying the prow with poles, others were hauling up the anchor to the cat-heads, while others again were hastily passing a ladder through, which they lowered from the stern into the sea for the stranger woman.

Now, when we saw this cunning piece of trickery, we lost all respect for the woman and grabbed hold of her and the hawsers as well, trying to pull the rudder-blades from their holes at the stern of the sturdy vessel. Then we called out: ‘By what right do you descend on our shores and steal statues and [1360] priestesses? Who are you, whose son are you, to carry off this

woman from our land?’ Then came his reply: ‘Orestes, her brother, let me tell you, and son of Agamemnon! This is my own sister I am taking away as my prize, the woman I lost from my home!’

But we kept our grip on the woman all the more determinedly, trying to force her to accompany us back to you. That was when our cheeks sustained some fearful blows. Like us they had no weapons to hand, but their fists kept dashing into us and both the young men together rained kicks against [1370] our ribs and stomachs, making us collapse stunned with the pain. They stamped us with their terrible signature until we started to run for the cliff, some with bloody wounds on our heads, others on our faces. We took our stand on the hill and put up a more cautious defence by pelting them with stones. But their archers, standing on the stern, kept us in check with their arrows and forced us to keep our distance.

At this point a fearful wave threatened to drive the ship onto [1380] land but the maiden was afraid to step into the water. Orestes hoisted his sister onto his left shoulder and, striding into the surf, he leapt onto the ladder and set her down inside the sturdy ship, along with the statue of Zeus’ daughter that fell from the sky. A cry rang out from midship: ‘Sailors of Greece, good lads, bend to your oars and send the white spray flying! We have it now, the prize we sailed to win, past the Clashing Rocks and into the Unfriendly Sea!’

Then the crew roared out a yell of joy and struck the brine [1390] with their oars. As long as the ship was inside the harbour, she made progress towards the entrance, but once past this she encountered a heavy sea and started to labour. An alarming gale had sprung up suddenly, forcing the sails aback. The crew worked manfully, struggling against the waves, but the surging undercurrent was driving the ship back to land. Then Agamemnon’s daughter stood up and prayed: ‘Maiden child of Leto, I am your priestess: bring me safe from this barbarous [1400] land to Greece and look kindly on my theft. You also, goddess, love your brother; consider that I too love my family.’

The sailors began to sing the paean⁶¹ in response to the girl’s prayer and with arms bared to the shoulder they swung their oars in time to the call. Closer and closer to the rocks moved the ship. Some of us rushed into the sea, others were making loops of rope fast on shore. I was dispatched here at once, my [1410] lord, to tell you what is happening there. Come now, bring fetters and ropes with you! Unless the sea calms down,⁶² the strangers have no hope of being saved. The revered Poseidon, ocean’s king, is no friend to Pelops’ house and watches over Ilium. And so now, it seems, he will deliver into your hands and your people’s the prize of Agamemnon’s son and his sister, who is guilty of betraying the goddess, forgetting the bloodshed at Aulis.

[1420] CHORUS-LEADER: Poor Iphigenia, you will fall under the power of your master once again and be killed, together with your brother!

THOAS: Come on, all you citizens of this barbarous land, fling bridles on your horses, race along the shore and capture the survivors of the Greek ship! Hurry with the goddess’s help and hunt down these godless men! You others, drag my fast ships down into the sea! With them by sea and horsemen on land [I 1430] mean to seize our quarry, then throw them from some craggy rock or impale their bodies on stakes! [Turning to address the CHORUS] As for you women who were a party to this plot, I will punish you later, when I have the time! For the moment we have this business in hand and must not stand idle.

[The goddess ATHENA suddenly appears above the stage.]⁶³

ATHENA: Where, oh where are you leading this chase, King Thoas? Hear my words, the words of Athena! Give up this pursuit! Stop inciting your men to stream out for battle! It was ordained by Loxias’ oracles that Orestes should come here, [1440] seeking to escape the anger of the Furies,⁶⁴ and that he should escort his sister to Argos, bringing to my land the holy statue, and so find respite from the woes that haunt him now. These are my words to you. As for Orestes, whom you expect to seize on the swelling sea and kill, Poseidon for my sake is already calming the rough waters, so that his ship can voyage over the sea.

And you, Orestes, learn my commands (you are not here but can still hear the voice of the goddess): go on your way, taking the statue and your sister. When you come to Athens,⁶⁵ built by a god, there is a place on the furthest borders of Attica, [1450] close to the Carystian rock, a sacred place that my people now call by the name Halae. There you are to build a temple and set up the statue in it, and let it bear the name of the Taurian land and the tortured wanderings you endured as you journeyed throughout Greece, maddened by the Furies. In days to come mortals will honour her in hymns as Artemis who dwells among the Tauri. You are also to institute this custom: whenever the folk hold a festival in the goddess’s honour, in requital for your blood not spilled in sacrifice, let them apply a sword-blade to the neck of a man and draw blood, to satisfy religion and so [1460] that the goddess may have her privileges.

Your duty, Iphigenia, is to keep the keys for this goddess in Brauron’s holy meadows. There you shall die and have your grave. Garments of fine-spun web, such as women who die in childbirth leave in their homes, will be your offerings.

[ATHENA gestures to the CHORUS.] As for these women of Greece, in recognition of their virtue I order you to send them out of this land. I saved your life once before, Orestes, when I judged the votes equal on the hill of Ares. This shall stand as a 1470 custom: if the votes for a man are equal to those against, he shall be acquitted.⁶⁶ Take your sister away from this land, son of Agamemnon. And you, Thoas, forget your anger.

THOAS: Queen Athena, the man who disobeys the gods when he has heard their wishes has taken leave of his senses. I will not be angry with Orestes for carrying off the goddess’s image, or with his sister. What is the use? Let them go to your land [1480] with the goddess’s statue and may they set up her image with good fortune! I will indeed give these women escort to blessed Greece, as your bidding requires. And I will stop the spearsmen I launched against the strangers, together with the ships’ crews, as this is your will, goddess.

ATHENA: Well said! The gods as well as you must bow to necessity. Come, you breezes, blow Agamemnon’s son on his course to Athens! I will accompany his voyage and protect my sister’s holy image. [ATHENA disappears.]

 

[1490] C HORUS: Go in good fortune, blessed in belonging to the number of the saved!

Pallas Athena, revered among immortals as among mortals, we will carry out your command. Truly joyous and unexpected is this message my ears have heard!

 

[The CHORUS exits.]