Euripides was born near Athens between 485 and 480 BC and grew up during the years of Athenian recovery after the Persian Wars. His first play was presented in 455 BC and he wrote some hundred altogether. Nineteen survive—a greater number than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles combined—including Electra, Hippolytos, Andromache, Ion, Alkestis and The Women of Troy. A year or two before his death he left Athens to lie at the court of the King of Macedon, dying there in 406 BC.
Euripides was the scourge of his native Athens, his plays regarded as seditious and corrupting. Born in exile, on the island of Salamis, in 480 BC, he died in exile in Macedonia in his mid-seventies. Accounts differ as to the nature of his death, but chief among them is the hearsay that he was set upon and torn to death by mad dogs or mad women who could not tolerate his depiction of them as passionate, avenging, and murderous. His plays shocked public opinion, offended the critics, and ensured that he was overlooked year after year in the state competitions, with Sophocles and Aeschylus sharing the laurels. Sophocles was a distinguished figure who enjoyed public prestige, and Aeschylus could boast of his prowess in the war against the invading Persians. Euripides, however, was marginalized even though, as an able-bodied young man, he would have had to serve in army and fleet since Athens was vulnerable to marauders from east and west.
His crimes were legion. He had questioned the prestige of the state, of pious honor and ancient injunctions, had portrayed the gods as vicious, merciless, sparring creatures who gave rein to violent, even insane passions. Medea, who sent a robe of burning poison to her rival and subsequently butchered her children, was a heroine whose deeds were a blight on enlightened Athens, and the official judges of the annual prize put it at the bottom of the list. Three and a half centuries later, the historian Aelian said the judges “were either ignorant, imbecilic philistines, or else bribed.” Euripides’ depiction of women led to scatological rumors such as that he had learned their abnormal tendencies and sexual misconduct from everyday experience, that his mother Clito was an illiterate quack dabbling in herbs, potions, and fortune-telling, moreover he was a cuckold, a bigamist, and a misogynist who lived in rancorous isolation in a cave. It says much for his inward spirit and dedication to his calling that he wrote over a hundred plays—nineteen of which are in existense—and that when he died in Macedonia, Sophocles, out of a mark of delayed homage for his great rival, made his chorus wear mourning for the evening performance.
Euripides is the dramatist, along with Shakespeare, who delved most deeply into the doings and passions of men and women. His dramas, while being political, religious, and philosophic, are also lasting myths in which the beauty and lamentation of his choruses are in direct contrast with the barbarity of his subjects. As with Shakespeare he found the existing stories and legends too good, too primal, to be abandoned and so he appropriated tales from Homeric times, rewrote them, transformed them, and made them a foil for his prodigious imagination so that they serve as staple and forerunner for all drama that came after him. Sophocles’ characters can seem stiff, their language elaborate, but Euripides’—vacillating, egotistical, unbridled, and warring—are as timely now as when they were conceived in the fifth century before Christ.
Iphigenia in Aulis is the least performed of his plays, having been described by ongoing scholars as being picturesque, burlesque, and in the vein of “New Comedy.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The story is glaringly stark—Agamemnon, head of an oligarchic army, who has lived for power and conquest, is asked to sacrifice that which he loves most, his daughter Iphigenia. He demurs but we know that the lust for glory will prevail and yet in Euripides’ drama, each voice, each need, each nuance is beautifully and thoroughly rendered. Iphigenia is for the chop but at the moment when her little universe is shattered, when she realizes that she is being betrayed by both God and man, she pitches herself into an exalted mental realm, the realm of the martyr-mystic who is prepared to die but not to kill for her country. It is of course, as probably in the myth surrounding Joan of Arc, a heightened, histrionic moment which pitches its heroine in the ranks of the immortals. If one of the prerogatives of art is to catapult an audience from the base to the sublime, from the rotten to the unrotten, from the hating to the non-hating, then Iphigenia does that, but her sacrifice prefigures a more hideous fate. The catharsis is brief, as the grand mechanism of war and slaughter has been set in place. Clytemnestra, the mother, helpless to avert her daughter’s death, becomes an avenging fiend and ten years hence, when Agamemnon, victorious from Troy, will return with his Trojan concubine, the crazed prophetess Cassandra, he will meet a gory end at the hands of Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus.
After his death in 408 BC three plays by Euripides were found—Iphigenia in Aulis, Alcmaeon, and The Bacchanals and were put on the stage by his son, Euripides III. Iphigenia was incomplete and finished by another hand. The other hand is what gives the play as we know it a false and substanseless ending. At the very last moment the sacrifice is aborted, Iphigenia whisked away and a deer put lying on the ground, the altar sprinkled with the necessary blood. It seems unthinkable that an artist of Euripides’ unflinching integrity, with a depth and mercilessness of sensibility, would soften his powerful story for public palliation.
History has righted his standing. The Latin poets Virgil, Horace, and Ovid all acknowledged their debt to him, Plutarch would boast that he knew the plays by heart, and Goëthe devoted himself to reconstructing several of his plays from fragments. He now is recognized as the greatest of that triad of Athenian giants and even his fellow countryman Aristotle, after much carping, crowned him “that most tragic of poets.”
Edna O’Brien
January 2003
For Michael Straughan who brought it to light
Iphigenia premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield on February 5, 2003. The cast was as follows:
WITCH/NURSE Joanna Bacon
CALCHAS/MENELAUS John Marquez
OLD MAN Jack Carr
AGAMEMNON Lloyd Owen
SIXTH GIRL Charlotte Randle
IPHIGENIA Lisa Dillon
CLYTEMNESTRA Susan Brown
MESSENGER Dominic Charles-Rouse
ACHILLES Ben Price
Director Anna Mackmin
Designer Hayden Griffen
Lighting Oliver Fenwick
Composers Ben Ellin, Terry Davies
Sound Designer Huw Williams
Choreographer Scarlett Mackmin
A night scene, windless, hushed.
A starlit sky.
A high wall with ladders.
WITCH Great Zeus stopped the winds and why. He sends winds to other men’s expeditions, winds of sorrow, winds of hardship, winds to set sail, winds to drop sail, and winds of waiting but here upon the black and blasted straits of Aulis he sends no winds and an angry fleet keep asking why are we waiting, why is King Agamemnon hiding from us in his tent—because, because King Agamemnon, marshall of the fleet, made a vow to the goddess, Artemis of the sacred grove, a promise that he reneged on. Disastrous calm has driven him to augury, to Calchas the prophet who scans the flight of birds.
Spotlight on CALCHAS the prophet.
On the opposite side AGAMEMNON emerges from his tent.
The WITCH hides under the wall to listen.
CALCHAS King Agamemnon—to Artemis, goddess of the moon, you vowed that you would sacrifice the most beautiful you knew. You shall not unmoor your ships until you pay your dues. Your wife Clytemnestra has a child Iphigenia who in all the radiance of young beauty has been selected by the goddess Artemis to be offered in sacrifice in order that the Greek ships can leave these narrow straits for the towers and battlements of Troy. Then and only then will amorous Helen be restored to her husband Menelaus, Troy in ashes, her nobles slaughtered, her women slave women, to bring home here to Argos and plentitude of spoils.
AGAMEMNON My daughter, the jewel of my heart … no and no and no again.
CALCHAS Her mother Clytemnestra must bring her here, intended as a bride for swift-footed Achilles, son of goddess Thetis, nurtured in the watery waves.
AGAMEMNON You think I would deceive my wife and child.
CALCHAS The gods think it.
AGAMEMNON Be gone, you old werewolf.
CALCHAS Your daughter’s death ensures victory for Greece.
AGAMEMNON Unspeakable … unthinkable …
CALCHAS In time of war, unspeakable, unthinkable things are done. For the sake of the gods and for our land thus blasted with misfortune, send for her at once and sacrifice her on the altar of divinity.
AGAMEMNON Who else have you spoken to of this hatching?
CALCHAS Your brother Menelaus and Odysseus of the House of Athens. The goddess Artemis, lovely lady of the woodland and the forest, is growing impatient and your men wrathful at such long waiting.
AGAMEMNON I will not do it.
CALCHAS It will be done.
Agamemnon stands. When he turns, the Witch is in front of him.
WITCH Hail, Agamemnon, the sacker of cities … the child shall have garlands put upon her head and sprinklings of lustral water. She comes to nourish with the drops of flowing blood the altar of the divine goddess from her own throat, her lovely body’s throat. And grant that Agamemnon may wreathe the Hellene lances with a crown of fame and his own brows with the imperishable glory.
Agamemnon goes.
An OLD MAN who has overheard pulls himself up from under the wall.
OLD MAN Dark. Darkness. The story goes of how Atreus, father of Agamemnon, had his brother’s children foully and horribly slain, then boiled and served up at a banquet, all this, so that his own progeny, so that Agamemnon might rule. No one is safe. A curse is a curse. I was given as a young man with his wife Clytemnestra in all her dazzlement. I saw so much, too much. Oh, the passions, the passions; yet from great houses both were sprung.
Five wild YOUNG GIRLS rush in, drenched, laughing.
GIRL ONE We have come through the pouring waters to see the long ships, the chariots, the dappled horses, and the spear men delighting in the throw of the discus.
GIRL TWO Odysseus, son of Laertes, the chieftain Adrastus, earth-born Leitus, raging Menelaus that …
GIRL THREE … lost Helen to Paris the herdsman, on the mount of Ida, lured her away he did with his waxen barbarian pipe and took her to Troy.
GIRL TWO And Achilles, a marvel to mortals.
GIRL ONE To glut our women’s eyes.
OLD MAN Where are your husbands?
GIRL ONE At home.
GIRL THREE They take their pleasure at the draughts board.
They start to climb the ladders.
OLD MAN Harlots. Harlots.
Agamemnon comes out holding a book-shaped pine tablet.
AGAMEMNON Gone. Gone is every hope I had of sweetness.
He signals to a Messenger.
AGAMEMNON Take this to my wife. Give it into her own hands. Answer no questions. Tell her to do as I command. They are awaited here and she is to bring the dowry gifts for Iphigenia to be married to Achilles. Go. Go.
The Messenger goes.
OLD MAN My master, the will of the gods has swerved against you.
AGAMEMNON And made me wretched.
OLD MAN A king is a mortal too. Power is power, but close neighbor to grief.
AGAMEMNON What would you do if it were your daughter?
OLD MAN My tongue dare not answer that. A brave deed, yet a fearsome one. The child will need to pray at the shrines along the way.
The Old Man goes.
A SIXTH GIRL enters.
AGAMEMNON (to the constellations) What star are you and you and you? Do you shine into my child’s bedroom where she sleeps innocent of all that will befall her? Send her a dream, tell her not to come here, tell her in language that befits her unschooled ears.
He crosses to a single star.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) And what star are you?
SIXTH GIRL Sirius … still high in the heavens.
Agamemnon turns sharply.
AGAMEMNON Who are you?
SIXTH GIRL A stranger woman. Sirius … sailing near the seven Pleiads the sisters, seven in number, Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Sterope, whom Orion pursued, but they fled before him and Zeus, pitying them, placed them in the heavens. Only six are ever seen … the seventh hides in the bosom of the sky.
AGAMEMNON Come here for what?
SIXTH GIRL For what I find.
AGAMEMNON Where is your husband?
SIXTH GIRL Dead. Killed in the first strike of the war … on a small boat … sent out to reconnoiter in answer to the command of raging Menelaus. Goaded to frenzy on account of losing Helen.
SIXTH GIRL A soldier good and bad.
AGAMEMNON So you have heard of Helen.
SIXTH GIRL Of course. The legend of how young men went as suitors to Sparta … all desiring her … each one threatened to murder the other if he was successful, so when Menelaus of the House of Atreus won her, he made a pact with all the others that if she should ever be taken, they would all band together and fight. But Paris with Aphrodite’s help put the dart of love into her on Ida’s mountain among the white heifers and brought her thence to Troy. It is why we are at war and why the thousand ships out there are manned for passage. They say that even old Hector, the father of Paris, worships her … walks with her in the palace halls, bowing and discoursing like a young gallant.
AGAMEMNON But you would see her dead for your husband’s sake.
SIXTH GIRL I would not. I would curry favor with her and verse myself in all her wiles. Women can learn marvelous things from captivating women. I have told you my history … tell me yours … away from the main fleet … here in your own quarters … you must be high up.
AGAMEMNON Would you like me to say that I am?
SIXTH GIRL Of course.
AGAMEMNON That I am King?
SIXTH GIRL Of course … every woman desires a king.
AGAMEMNON Do they speak of King Agamemnon in your village?
SIXTH GIRL Ah no. The women speak of Achilles, the handsomest of all the Achaeans, who races in full armor on sand and shingle, racing against a four-horse chariot, lap after lap until the horses fall down in defeat.
AGAMEMNON Which would you rather look on, Achilles or the King?
SIXTH GIRL It depends. It may be that the King is old and past his prime.
AGAMEMNON What if I said that I were King?
SIXTH GIRL You, him? I would fall at your feet. King Agamemnon, leader of the Armada … supreme maneuverer of ships … respected in heaven … worshipped on earth … born for greatness … for war … for love of women … O great one … far from home … no soft bed … to lay your limbs on … turning this way and that in the night … duties to weigh you down … do you not sometimes wish you were a common man?
AGAMEMNON I wish it now.
SIXTH GIRL So we are equals.
He picks her up. In that embrace they go.
Off-stage the sounds of very young girls singing and playing a noisy game.
SCENE TWO
Early morning.
IPHIGENIA’s chamber, where she and five Girls (two of whom are her sisters) are having a pillow fight. They speak in a made-up inexplicable language, running in and out, the feathers from the pillows falling through the air.
A NURSE comes in.
NURSE The Queen. The Queen.
They stop instantly.
CLYTEMNESTRA enters.
IPHIGENIA We’re sorry.
CLYTEMNESTRA Sorry?
IPHIGENIA We won’t do it again … we got carried away.
CLYTEMNESTRA Dress yourself.
IPHIGENIA Oh, Mother … it’s only fun.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your father wishes you at Aulis. We are to leave immediately.
SISTER We are!
CLYTEMNESTRA Not you.
IPHIGENIA I knew Father would miss me … every night just before I sleep I say to the brightest star—“Please tell the King that Iphigenia misses him and is very lonely in this big palace without him … tell him to come home.”
CLYTEMNESTRA Dress yourself.
IPHIGENIA Mother … I would miss you almost as much. Did you not sleep … had you a bad dream?
CLYTEMNESTRA You are to be married.
NURSE Praise be to Zeus, Pelius, Hera, and Aphrodite.
CLYTEMNESTRA To Achilles of Thessaly.
IPHIGENIA Who is he?
NURSE Son of the goddess Thetis and a mortal father Peleus, nurtured in the watery waves of the sea.
IPHIGENIA Is it true, Mother?
CLYTEMNESTRA The letter says so.
IPHIGENIA Why has he chosen me … he’s never seen me.
CLYTEMNESTRA You are a king’s daughter … that is enough.
IPHIGENIA And I will take my stand in the dances and the nuptial feast … whirling round and round for three days and three nights … Achilles will be in his own tent and on the fourth morning he will be led to me and I will sit there veiled until my bridesmaid slowly lifts it and Achilles gazes into my eyes. I wonder what color eyes he has.
NURSE Sea eyes, no color and every color.
SISTER Can I come?
CLYTEMNESTRA No … Iphigenia and baby Orestes and I will travel … the rest of you remain here.
SISTER She gets everything.
CLYTEMNESTRA You will have a husband, in time.
SISTER I want him now.
NURSE Hush, child, hush … this is her hour.
Clytemnestra goes.
The Nurse unfolds a corset. Iphigenia lifts her arms for her nightgown to be taken off, the Nurse pulling tightly on the corset strings.
IPHIGENIA Ouch. Ouch. I can’t breathe …
SISTER What does he look like?
Nurse continues dressing Iphigenia.
NURSE He has a coat of arms made of gold, given him by his mother. The story is known throughout, in Lesbos, Tenedos, Chryses, and Cilla, in all Apollo’s cities and Skyrus too, how the nereid who was his mother took him down as a baby to the River Styx and submerged him in the water to protect him from all injury and so he was except for the little heel which she had held him by … then fearing he might be killed in the wars she had him dressed as a girl and hid him in the palace of a king who was her friend, where he lived among the king’s daughters, but, one day a peddler came in to the palace forecourt with a tray of trinkets, ribbons, and scarves plus a spear and a shield and while all the girls loved the fallals, Achilles picked up the spear and the peddler, who was really the scheming Odysseus dressed in rags, saw the young boy’s excitement and had a servant shout out an alarm to say the palace was under attack, whereupon Achilles tore off his woman’s clothing and rushed to defend the gates and so Odysseus knew he had come to the right palace and Achilles was recruited into the Greek army, given noble rank and a vast host to command.
IPHIGENIA He might change his mind when he sees me.
NURSE Fate, my little one … the tiny threads of fate from heaven’s loom, ordained this … This.
GIRL What else, nurse?
NURSE They say, that at the sight of him hearts are transformed.
NURSE I daren’t say.
IPHIGENIA How?
NURSE I lack the words, child.
GIRL What else?
NURSE His taste is to be solitary … he only shows himself for the tournaments and the championships and he always wins, being half a god.
IPHIGENIA Will you miss me?
NURSE More than I would my own children. The night you were born a rayon of gold shot across the sky, my name was the first name you said … not your noble mother Clytemnestra and not your noble father Agamemnon.
Sister One has taken out a veil yards long, is winding it around herself, both showing off and treading on it.
The Nurse rushes and takes it back.
NURSE You mustn’t tear it … it’s her wedding veil … it’s sacred.
SISTER ONE Achilles might prefer me to her.
GIRL ONE You’re jealous.
SISTER ONE It’s you that said she was a sly one coaxing the Queen.
GIRL ONE I did not.
Iphigenia lets out a cry—her menstrual blood has started to flow, running down her legs.
NURSE Sweet Iphigenia … sweetest Iphigenia … you mustn’t cry … this husband of yours has secured the rarest prize … a girl just become a woman … a treasure.
The Nurse rocks Iphigenia in her arms and sings a soft lullaby as she leads her away.
The Girls lie on the floor on their bellies and one starts a pre-wedding hymn, gradually the others join in and slowly with balletic precision they make their way on their bellies along the stage and off.
Change of light.
Two CHORUS GIRLS enter.
CHORUS GIRL ONE
I passed along by the grove of Artemis
Whose shrine is in the hollow of the hill.
Shelter of Leto’s travail
Soft tossed palms
The sweet laurel and silver swill of olive
The earth red-hued, stained
From much sacrifice.
Overhearing that
I would rather not speak of.
CHORUS GIRL TWO
The Danaan warriors
The oared ships of the Argives
The fleet of Ajax
The breezes soon
To fill the sails
To plough the unfriendly sea
For the greatness of war is great.
SIXTH GIRL Caring nothing for sacrifice.
SCENE THREE
The sound of men shouting, disputing, off-stage on the other side of the wall.
Sixth Girl is by a little brazier where she is boiling eggs in a long narrow saucepan.
Agamemnon emerges.
Sixth Girl takes boiled eggs from the saucepan, haws on them and cracks them on the ground. She offers one to Agamemnon, who eats it with relish.
AGAMEMNON This … husband … of yours?
SIXTH GIRL What about him?
AGAMEMNON What about him … did you give him boiled eggs?
SIXTH GIRL Sometimes … if we had any … The morning he left I did because he was on a grand expedition.
AGAMEMNON And now, you’re giving me boiled eggs … is that a … (Instead of the word he traces her lips.) Little serpent.
She starts to dance. He joins her in the dance but is not as carefree with the steps as she. She darts up the ladder.
She peers over the wall and looks down, then turns back.
SIXTH GIRL These soldiers of yours … they’re mad … they want to kill kill kill.
SIXTH GIRL If you cannot, who can?
AGAMEMNON I play the role expected of me.
SIXTH GIRL O … King.
Agamemnon turns away, sits, and starts writing on the tablet.
SIXTH GIRL Are you writing to me?
AGAMEMNON No. (pause) To my daughter.
SIXTH GIRL Is she beautiful?
AGAMEMNON Yes.
Sixth Girl squats and stares directly at him.
SIXTH GIRL Teach me the ways of the court … how to dance and be a lady.
AGAMEMNON There is no time.
SIXTH GIRL Don’t send me home … there is no one there for me … Only rock and goats.
AGAMEMNON You can’t stay here … it’s too dangerous … my men spy and gossip and would make trouble for us.
SIXTH GIRL I will find a hole where I can hide and sometimes you will send for me.
AGAMEMNON What makes you so sure that I will send for you?
SIXTH GIRL Because the blood wills it.
He kisses her. She goes.
SIXTH GIRL (cont.) A king. A king.
Agamemnon goes back to his letter.
Old Man comes in.
OLD MAN A father again … you have kindled your heart.
AGAMEMNON Sshhh … these walls have ears.
OLD MAN You can trust me … I am a faithful friend.
AGAMEMNON Find me a messenger.
OLD MAN My son … the fastest boy in all of Argos.
AGAMEMNON When you give it to him, tell him to learn it by heart in case he is set upon by thieves.
OLD MAN Teach it to me, master … we do not have your learning.
AGAMEMNON I send you this tablet, O daughter of Leda.
In lieu of the former.
Do not come to Aulis with the girl.
The wedding celebrations are no longer.
We shall feast our daughter’s wedding another time.
The Old Man murmurs it after him then hides the tablet under his jacket.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) When he comes to a fork in the road, tell him to look in all directions in case they have already set out. If so, tell him to turn the carriage, the horses toward Atreus, to pilot them hence. Speed, speed.
Agamemnon goes.
WITCH (from her bastion) The gods are not fooled. Upon the battlements of Troy and around its walls the Trojan guard now stand, but soon from over the sea the goodly ships of Argos will draw into the channels of Simois to wreak slaughter. When Agamemnon has cut the head of Paris from his neck and has overturned that city there will be gnashing and tears among the maidens and wives. Lydian ladies in their golden robes cursing Helen, child of the long-necked swan, cause of all their disasters.
A Man shouting offstage. Hearing it the Witch hides herself once again as MENELAUS pushes the Old Man onstage.
OLD MAN My master will make you pay for this.
MENELAUS Traitor. Lackey.
OLD MAN I serve Agamemnon and none other … unbind me.
MENELAUS I should bloody you here and now.
Agamemnon appears.
OLD MAN Master. He snatched the letter from my hand as I walked to my son’s hut … broke the seal and read it like a thief.
MENELAUS Oh, brother.
AGAMEMNON Hand it over.
MENELAUS Not before I show it to my comrades.
AGAMEMNON I am in command … I rule the army … I give orders.
MENELAUS Rule! You are ready to ditch them for your own crooked ends.
Agamemnon grabs the wooden tablet and smashes it in rage.
MENELAUS (cont.) They should see you now in dread and shame, trying to cover your tracks … remember how eager you were to curry favor, to be their commander … clasping every hand, keeping open house for every citizen to visit you … high and low all welcome.
AGAMEMNON And still are.
MENELAUS Phfff. You hide behind walls … you are seldom seen … when trouble started you showed yourself a man of straw … your ships were grounded and what solution did you arrive at—disband the army … send them home and only then did you come to me pleading, “What am I to do? What am I to do?,” and when I suggested Calchas the prophet you rejoiced and when he told you the ships would sail if your daughter would be sacrificed you agreed after a few fatherly tears and sent a letter and slept on it and sent another—traitor, coward. The Trojan barbarians will not be assailed for the very simple expedient of you and your daughter’s happiness. You are not a king.
AGAMEMNON Nor you a brother.
MENELAUS A weakling.
AGAMEMNON You call me that but what are you—a cuckold, a husband unable to keep his wife … something I am not charged with … no woman makes me wanting in the eyes of the world. You crave Helen back for lust or pride, or both, your so-called love of Greece, your great heroics a mere ploy that hides your basest need. I will not kill my child to fulfill your urges.
MENELAUS Nor will our plans be scuttled … a wind will blow us safe unto Troy’s coast.
The young Messenger from Scene One rushes in.
MESSENGER My lord, Clytemnestra the Queen has just arrived. She was supported from her chariot holding the baby Orestes lest she stumble. Soft maidenly arms reached up to receive your daughter Iphigenia so that she would not be frightened by so many strangers. They are now bathing, the fillies let loose to drink and the army are asking, asking, because a rumor has spread that the young girl has come.
AGAMEMNON What rumor?
MESSENGER They gape to catch sight of the golden young girl and ask why has Agamemnon sent for her, is it that he misses her or is it that some marriage has been arranged for her by Artemis, goddess of Aulis. They shout, let there be a wedding to relieve the wretched waiting hours, let the pipes sound in the tents, let the earth thud with dancing feet, they are happy at the maiden’s arrival … some see in it a deliverance.
AGAMEMNON Run and see if they are still bathing or if they are on their way toward the house.
The Messenger runs off.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) I am undone. (to Menelaus) What shall I say to my wife? How shall I receive her? What expression shall I assume? And my little daughter? It is when she pleads with me that I will break. Argument such as her mother excels in, merely hardens my resolve, but pleading … Iphigenia pleading, her trusting eyes, her innocence, no father should be asked for this.
MENELAUS Give me your hand.
AGAMEMNON Take it. For you there is victory, for me a compact with ruin …
MENELAUS By my father and yours, by Atreus who begot us, by the gods and goddesses, I see the tears that drop from your eyes and I am not your enemy. I withdraw the harsh words I spoke. It is not right that you should suffer this agony—I do not want your child to die. Am I to win Helen back by losing my brother’s loyalty—no. Or sacrifice my brother’s child—no. What has Iphigenia to do with all this—nothing. Let us disband the army, let them leave these bitter straits of Aulis, scatter their ships, and go home. I say this out of love for a brother and a deeper honor than winning back a faithless wife. I will search for her myself and drag her back to our homeland by her cursed hair.
AGAMEMNON I welcome your words as a loyal brother, but make no mistake we have come to a point where necessity dictates our misfortune. We must carry out this bestial command.
MENELAUS Who is forcing it?
AGAMEMNON The army.
MENELAUS They do not know of it yet. Send her back … go down to the fast-flowing stream and tell your wife the marriage with Achilles was something you dreamed, a father’s folly for his child.
AGAMEMNON Calchas will tell.
MENELAUS Not if he is dead.
AGAMEMNON By whose hands?
MENELAUS Ours.
AGAMEMNON To kill a seer invites great disaster and moreover Odysseus knows, that wily cur. Already I can see him standing before the army telling them how I proved false. He will carry them with him and for good measure allow them to kill us all … you, me, and my entire family. Even if we escaped they would follow us, destroy our city, our palace with its immemorial walls, our household and our tribe. She shall be sacrificed.
MENELAUS When?
AGAMEMNON Immediately—while this madness reigns over me. One favor, keep my wife away until it is done.
Over their speech stones have been thrown from beyond the wall and mutinous voices heard.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) Put an end to their brawls. Tell them to save their murderous rage for the hosts of Troy … for we are presently to sail to that Phrygian land.
MENELAUS Oh, my poor brother … Oh, my poor king.
AGAMEMNON As a broken king I go to war.
Menelaus goes.
Agamemnon hits his head against the wall, again and again, violently.
A stone is thrown over which almost hits him. He picks it up, looks at it and throws it back
Women’s voices offstage.
Agamemnon rushes into his tent.
Clytemnestra enters. She turns back to give instructions to a maid.
CLYTEMNESTRA Put the baby down … rock him … the journey has made him fidgety, and take the dower gifts and carry them into the house, lay them carefully.
Iphigenia runs in.
Agamemnon in soldier’s attire emerges.
IPHIGENIA Father, Father.
CLYTEMNESTRA My most reverent king, we are come and we are glad to come.
Screaming of the baby offstage.
Clytemnestra goes off. Iphigenia holds flowers.
IPHIGENIA Smell. I picked them specially for you. When we were leaving my sisters clung to me, they wanted to come. You are strange, more than strange, what has happened, has this war made you so distant, so cold.
AGAMEMNON The war has not even begun. We are paralyzed. The ships are stuck out there idle … no winds to lift the sails.
IPHIGENIA Blow the winds blow, ho the winds ho … You’re not happy to see us.
AGAMEMNON Happy. Yes yes.
IPHIGENIA Take away that frown, Father. You’ve been separated from us too long and we from you. I’ve made this huge embroidery for you … a lamb in a meadow. It has twenty shades of gold … Guess how I got them … guess guess, I followed the turning of the sun from dawn until sunset. It hangs in the great hall, just as you come in. You can’t miss it. We were so lonely without you and little Orestes does not know his father but guess what, I taught him to say your name … he has eight words in all, eight baby words and a lisp. There are tears in your eyes.
AGAMEMNON The time is not good.
IPHIGENIA Forget war … give it up … send the men away … come home with us …
AGAMEMNON If I could I would.
IPHIGENIA Where is Achilles? Is he in his tent waiting? What shall I say to him? What shall he say to me? Does he have a little beard? Is his voice from down here? … Is his armor really gold … Answer me, Father, answer me.
AGAMEMNON There is no answer.
IPHIGENIA I believe you’re jealous … that’s why you’re sulking.
AGAMEMNON Shut up.
Iphigenia looks at him appalled. He has never shouted at her before. She runs off.
CLYTEMNESTRA You have made her cry … why such a mood, such shiftiness?
Agamemnon turns and climbs the ladder to escape. Clytemnestra follows and pulls him back.
CLYTEMNESTRA (cont.) Of course you hate to lose her, but think what I feel … I too will feel the pangs when I lead her along the steps to the marriage grove. Yet marriage is a great thing and we should welcome it. Tell me his character.
AGAMEMNON Reserved. He is quite reserved. Chiron, it is said, reared him under the sea waves so that he should not learn wickedness from men.
CLYTEMNESTRA Excellent. So no fault is to be found in him.
AGAMEMNON He sits apart from all the others … aloof.
CLYTEMNESTRA It is good. It is very good … where does he come from … from which city of Thessaly?
AGAMEMNON Phthia, by the River Apidanus.
CLYTEMNESTRA Blessing on them both. Which day are they to be married?
AGAMEMNON When the moon comes full round.
CLYTEMNESTRA That is lucky.
Where shall I make the wedding feasts for the women?
AGAMEMNON Down on the shore. But better leave all that to me.
CLYTEMNESTRA Why?
AGAMEMNON Lady, you will do as I say.
CLYTEMNESTRA I am used to doing what you say … in everything … have you forgotten? And you have not kissed me. Are you afraid your men will think you weak?
AGAMEMNON Go back home and take little Orestes with you.
CLYTEMNESTRA What! Be absent from my daughter’s wedding! Who will raise the bridal torch, who will say the prayers, who will crown her?
AGAMEMNON I will.
CLYTEMNESTRA That is not the usual style. A mother does these things … it is her privilege.
AGAMEMNON I do not want you mingling with this rabble of soldiers.
CLYTEMNESTRA I shan’t mingle … I shall be with my husband, in his tent, under his protection.
He grips both her hands to convey his resolve.
She starts to bite his hands to free her own; the bite is both erotic and determined.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your wife has missed you. A mother loves her children but a wife hankers for her husband once they have been put down to sleep. And have you not felt the same absense?
AGAMEMNON I am at war.
CLYTEMNESTRA War. War. War. Why are men so enamored of war?
AGAMEMNON Go and tell her that I am sorry … leave me to settle something that must be settled. Patience, Clytemnestra … patience.
CLYTEMNESTRA Is there something … fatal?
AGAMEMNON No, no.
Clytemnestra leaves.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) And so I plot and weave and slither against her that I love so dearly.
He goes.
Clytemnestra enters.
On her way Sixth Girl passes under the wall—they exchange a look.
They both go.
Agamemnon comes out and goes to the ladder.
A huge stone is thrown and again he picks it up and throws it back.
Music swells the stage as a procession of Young Girls comes on slowly, chanting a wedding song. They circle the stage.
WITCH
To the strains of the Lythian lotus pipe
Daughters of Nereus gather
To stamp their golden sandals
On the earthen floor
For the wedding of Achilles, son of Peleus
His suit of gold mail
A gift
From his divine mother Thetis.
Daughters of Nereus join to crown
Iphigenia’s tresses.
Iphigenia, a young heifer undefiled,
(shrieks) is for the knife.
The Young Girls go inside and the music continues within.
SCENE FOUR
Clytemnestra enters, goes in search of Agamemnon.
When she comes out, Sixth Girl is waiting for her.
SIXTH GIRL May I speak with you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Who are you?
SIXTH GIRL A woman (pause) that befriends her sex.
CLYTEMNESTRA Really! And follows the camp to pick the leavings.
SIXTH GIRL My bed was cold. I lost a husband on account of Helen. Something is being kept hidden from you.
CLYTEMNESTRA What?
SIXTH GIRL Your daughter is to be sacrificed in order that they can hoist the sails and make war on Troy.
CLYTEMNESTRA You rave.
SIXTH GIRL Unhappy lady … you will wish you had let me into your confidence and opened that haughty heart of yours.
Sixth Girl goes.
ACHILLES in full armor comes down the ladder.
Clytemnestra draws aside.
ACHILLES Agamemnon, captain of the army, Achilles stands before your door … the men grow fierce … they curse … their murmurs swell. “How long more, how long more for the voyage to Ilium. What does Agamemnon intend to do, send us home.” Wreak shame on the House of Atreus and leave an army in perpetual desolation.
Over his speech the Old Man has come on from one side and Clytemnestra from the other.
CLYTEMNESTRA Achilles, prince of greatness.
ACHILLES How is this—a woman … So stately and so fair. Revered lady … this is no place for a woman, fenced in by an undisciplined mob.
CLYTEMNESTRA I am Clytemnestra, wife of the King and mother of Iphigenia.
Why do you run … join hands with me … as a happy prelude for the bridals.
ACHILLES Touch your hand! I could not face Agamemnon if I touched that which I have no right to.
CLYTEMNESTRA I admire your constraint, Achilles, son of the sea, but you are to marry my daughter Iphigenia, so we are already joined are we not?
ACHILLES Madam, you talk like a storybook.
CLYTEMNESTRA So formal on the brink of wedlock. Why?
ACHILLES Wedlock?
CLYTEMNESTRA To Iphigenia.
ACHILLES I have not courted your daughter Iphigenia and marriage is far from my mind. Ten thousand girls hunt for marriage with me, but I am a soldier first and last.
CLYTEMNESTRA I am sorry if I have overstepped—I am mortified. I took you for my son—an empty hope. You say you are not marrying her, an evil omen for her, for all.
Clytemnestra goes to leave.
OLD MAN Lady, I hold you dear. Your father pledged me to watch over you in danger.
CLYTEMNESTRA Not now … That youth has irked me.
OLD MAN With cause. Don’t blame him.
O Gods, save those I once saved. Save the seed of Agamemnon. A horrible deed is contrived, we are undone.
CLYTEMNESTRA Riddles.
OLD MAN The father that begat Iphigenia is going to kill her … to sacrifice her on the altar to Artemis.
CLYTEMNESTRA You’re out of your mind.
OLD MAN It’s what the girl from across the straits tried to tell you. All is prepared, the altar, the meal cakes, the cups for the blood … he will slit the child’s throat with a sword before the sun goes down.
CLYTEMNESTRA You are mad.
OLD MAN No. The King is mad.
CLYTEMNESTRA Why would he do this?
OLD MAN Oracles. Oracles … so the army can sail to Troy and Helen be brought back restored to Menelaus.
CLYTEMNESTRA How do you know?
OLD MAN I was sent with a second letter to you, in lieu of the first, it said, “Do not come to Aulis, do not bring Iphigenia here.” Menelaus met me and intercepted it … he is behind it … so is the prophet Calchas and crafty Odysseus … Achilles was a husband in name only, the marriage promise was a snare.
CLYTEMNESTRA I think I see.
ACHILLES I should not have spoken to you as I did. My pride was pricked. I am sometimes hasty.
CLYTEMNESTRA As befits a warrior.
ACHILLES Your husband used my name and fame for his own base ends.
CLYTEMNESTRA Think how I feel, drawn in by his honeyed wooing, a wife of many years, this child is an angel, she thinks her father supreme above all.
ACHILLES He will not succeed in this malevolent scheme.
CLYTEMNESTRA I fear it is already commenced. He left here hurriedly, no doubt to confer with Calchas the prophet.
ACHILLES Prophets serve their own interests, they say what suits the moment.
CLYTEMNESTRA Yet they can wreak magic too.
ACHILLES Let Calchas wreak good magic then.
CLYTEMNESTRA I am at your mercy. Guide me.
ACHILLES Act cunningly. When he returns draw him out as to what is weighing upon him, do it with your old sweetness, say you have observed his gloom, bring him round to a better mind.
CLYTEMNESTRA And then?
ACHILLES Together you will find a way to spirit her off to safety.
CLYTEMNESTRA What if we are not together but more divided?
ACHILLES As I live, I shall save the girl.
CLYTEMNESTRA O prince of princes, can that be true?
ACHILLES The army respect me, despite my young years. I will convene the generals, they are not fiends, they are not gutless knaves.
CLYTEMNESTRA Would it not be better if you spoke with him in all your prestige?
ACHILLES Not yet. My place in the army must not be compromised. Take the course I counsel.
CLYTEMNESTRA If I fail …
ACHILLES Then you may send for me.
CLYTEMNESTRA You are aware how cruel he can be, how ruthless?
ACHILLES I was not brought up to flinch in the face of danger. I no longer see him as my master, for I am his.
CLYTEMNESTRA For you I garlanded her, I brought her here for you. Let me ask you one last thing—see her and your heart will melt, so young, so shy, so modest, so full of trust.
ACHILLES Do not bring her into my sight—a soldier does not court the things that make him weak.
CLYTEMNESTRA You will save her from death?
ACHILLES I have said so.
Achilles goes up the ladder. Clytemnestra watches.
The music and revels from inside grow louder.
Agamemnon appears on the top rung of the ladder.
The Old Man goes.
Agamemnon comes down.
AGAMEMNON They are singing within.
CLYTEMNESTRA Indeed … singing and dancing.
AGAMEMNON They seem very merry.
CLYTEMNESTRA And you … you seem solemn … would it not help to unburden yourself … to let me know of this gravity.
AGAMEMNON Where do I begin. The yoke of circumstance … here in Aulis I am not a free man … a violent rage, a supernatural rage possesses them.
CLYTEMNESTRA And has infected you. You have a notion to kill your own daughter.
AGAMEMNON Who said such a thing? Who dares accuse me of this?
CLYTEMNESTRA It is written across your face. The moment we arrived I saw that some dreadful constraint was upon you … the way you twisted and turned and could not look in my eye or in hers.
AGAMEMNON Whoever spread this rumor shall be mortally punished.
CLYTEMNESTRA Isn’t one death enough to contemplate in one day, your own daughter’s at that. Who will draw the sword across her child’s neck?
Echo of “Who will draw the sword across her child’s neck” twice.
AGAMEMNON I will.
CLYTEMNESTRA Who will slit it?
Echo of “Who will slit it” once.
AGAMEMNON I will.
CLYTEMNESTRA Who will hold the cup for the … torrent of blood?
AGAMEMNON I will.
CLYTEMNESTRA The blade will fall from your hand.
AGAMEMNON Others will raise it up.
CLYTEMNESTRA Others. Lesser men. Menials. Stand up to them, show courage, or are you so eager to parade your scepter and play the general.
AGAMEMNON I do not count her wise, a wife, who when her husband is on the rack goads him further. Think what I have been through, think of how I have suffered, tossed from love to duty and back again, like a puppet.
CLYTEMNESTRA I will not let this happen.
Defy Artemis.
AGAMEMNON Defy her and risk her greater wrath … murder for all of us … you, me, Iphigenia, the baby …. it is out of my hands, even though my hand will be the doer of it.
Clytemnestra realizes that he is serious and rounds on him now, striking him.
CLYTEMNESTRA You killed the child I bore from Tantalus, you tore it from my breast and dashed it to the ground, murderer …
AGAMEMNON A murderer’s accomplice—you came with me, your tresses unbound.
CLYTEMNESTRA I did it for my poor aged father’s sake—he whom you tricked with your honeyed words, the way you tricked me.
AGAMEMNON Sister of Helen, daughter of Leda, sisters in lust.
CLYTEMNESTRA You dare lump me in with Helen! I grew temperate in Aphrodite’s realm, a blameless wife toward you and your household … I bore you children … Iphigenia, her sisters, and little Orestes, who is in there now with her, two children believing themselves to be safe in their parents’ quarters, under their parents’ tutelage.
AGAMEMNON From the moment I received the oracle I have been mad, mad. Phantom females dripping with blood visit me in my sleep.
CLYTEMNESTRA Huh. Phantom females.
AGAMEMNON I love my child as much and more than any father could.
CLYTEMNESTRA What prayers will you utter after she is dead. Do you think when you come home to Argos your other children will embrace you, your wife will welcome you back—God forbid it.
AGAMEMNON Be my companion in this … help me.
CLYTEMNESTRA Let Helen’s daughter Hermione be sacrificed, it is only right, she too is young and fair, tell Menelaus to send for her and let her be swapped for our darling girl.
AGAMEMNON Iphigenia was named as being the most pure, the one marked for godhead.
CLYTEMNESTRA Then Achilles must save her.
AGAMEMNON Achilles must not know of this.
CLYTEMNESTRA He knows. He was here when the message was relayed to me, not by one … but by more than one … he smarted at being used as a foil … a mockery of his standing … but he gave me his word that Iphigenia will be saved.
AGAMEMNON Would that she could.
CLYTEMNESTRA Let us flee now, as a family, call the children. Let us outwit them … arrange for the carriage. Do it.
AGAMEMNON It’s no use.
CLYTEMNESTRA You speak as if the deed is already done.
AGAMEMNON It is.
From his back pocket he takes out a bloodied knife and she screams repeatedly.
AGAMEMNON (cont.) I slew a lamb in preparation.
Iphigenia runs out at hearing her mother’s scream.
IPHIGENIA Mother! Why are you screaming? Are you and father arguing … but why, I am so happy … be happy with me …. don’t spoil it … I have been hearing about my husband … his feet are like the wind and he races on the shore against a four-horse chariot, lap after lap, day after day. O Mother, O Father, I thank you for giving me life, for being always so loving and so gentle with me … I thank you for Achilles, they say too that he sits alone, even at the feast, he is Achilles the unreachable and I shall have to humor him, the way I humor you … father.
CLYTEMNESTRA Tell her.
AGAMEMNON Iphigenia … child of my heart. I did not bring you here of my own free will, nor are you betrothed to Achilles.
IPHIGENIA Why not?
CLYTEMNESTRA Your father intends to sacrifice you to Artemis the goddess.
IPHIGENIA What a tall story.
AGAMEMNON The gods have willed it.
IPHIGENIA I begin to go cold.
Agamemnon exits.
Girls from inside the house have come out to listen.
IPHIGENIA Let’s get Orestes and run away.
CLYTEMNESTRA We can’t … we are watched on every side. I will have you escorted to Achilles’ tent … to plead with him.
IPHIGENIA No … no … the shame is too much … the shame on him and on me.
CLYTEMNESTRA Show him how you feel … reveal it … give him the bait and he will take it … he is young, virile.
IPHIGENIA I can’t do it, Mother.
CLYTEMNESTRA This is no time for delicacy.
IPHIGENIA My father will save me.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your father killed my first husband Tantalus … the babe of that first husband he wrenched it from my breast and smashed it to the ground. Pray that you do not cause me a bitterer grief.
A PRAYING GIRL comes on.
Agamemnon returns.
IPHIGENIA How far is Troy … I will come with you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Let her hear it from your own lips … tell her that she is to be slaughtered in order to bring Helen back.
IPHIGENIA I know nothing of Helen … I love life … why would I have to die for her sake?
AGAMEMNON Artemis wills it.
IPHIGENIA Why would Artemis pick on me?
AGAMEMNON On account of being ripe for beatitude.
IPHIGENIA Beatitude.
Iphigenia crosses to the Praying Girl muttering the word “Beatitude.”
Praying Girl kneels and rings the bell repeatedly.
Witch starts to sway, working herself into a trance.
PRAYING GIRL
So gentle are you, Artemis the holy
So loving are you, to dewy youth to tender nursling.
The young of all that roam the meadow
Of all who live within the forest
You protect
Hear us, Artemis
Do not have your altar stained
With human blood.
Praying Girl waits and they all wait.
Sounds like thunderclaps offstage.
PRAYING GIRL (cont.) Sshh. Sshh. The goddess speaks …
Witch tears open her coat to reveal her goddess attire.
Artemis speaks through the Witch.
ARTEMIS
Would that Paris had died
On the lonely mountain where he was left
Cast out to die on an oracle’s command
Hapless, unmothered
Paris the shepherd lad, prince of Troy
Would that he had died
By the lakeside
By the nymph-haunted fountains
By the meadows, starry with roses
Would that he had perished
But no
Beauty’s queen came
The blame for all those troubles.
Iphigenia
Child without blemish
Blessed above all the maidens
Undo these wrongs.
The altar is well prepared
The blood of the lamb upon the pyre
Say your farewells
For it is time
For it is time
Swap your raiment
Revere the sacrifice
Not with wailing
But with prayer
When you have fulfilled your destiny
You shall be raised among the blessed
And our dear land will honor you for ever
For it is time
For it is time.
Iphigenia runs to her father.
IPHIGENIA Save me.
AGAMEMNON I can’t.
CLYTEMNESTRA Vile Helen, I curse you now in whosoever’s arms you bask, the swan’s neck I hack with daggers, those gray dreaming eyes I gouge from their sockets; or better still, O daughters of Nereus, bring her here that I may maul her with my own hands.
AGAMEMNON A mother in name only, harken to the child with soothing prayer.
O golden hair, what burden Phrygia’s town has laid upon you.
IPHIGENIA No, the Greeks my own people are doing it to me.
AGAMEMNON That rage of my army is not against you, child, but a mad rage to sail to the barbarian land, to quash them and put an end to their rape of our women … Greek women … Greek wives … Greek daughters defiled. Greek men will not permit that most loathsome of crimes. It is not for Helen, not for Menelaus I sacrifice you, it is for Greece. She must be free. If it is in our power, yours and mine, to make her so, we must.
IPHIGENIA It falls to me alone … without you.
AGAMEMNON It does.
IPHIGENIA If I had Orpheus’ eloquence … the voice to charm the rocks …. if I could bewitch with words, I would bewitch now … but I only have tears and prayers … and these I offer … like a suppliant … O Father, I press against you now … this body of mine … which my mother bore … do not destroy me before my time … I love the light … do not despatch me down to the netherworld … hell is dark and creepy and I have no friends there … I am your child … I basked in your love … the little games we played … you would close the folding door and I would squeak squeak and you would come back in with sugar plums and put them under my pillow … you were never cross with me … never haughty … never the King … I could coax you out of your moods and when you grew a beard, I studied it … I counted the hairs, I pulled on it and clung to you as I cling to you now, my first and last and only hope. In your old age I will welcome you into my own house with my own husband—whoever he be—I will have children to lighten your weary heart … look at me … give me a kiss … at least let me have that as a memory of you … if am to … if I am to die.
SOLDIER rushes in.
SOLDIER The anger of heaven is nothing to the anger of men. They had heard that Achilles wanted to save the young girl and they leaped upon him, seizing him by his helmet, swung him from his feet and as the first stone was thrown, a hail of stones were aimed at him to decapitate his head from his neck.
Menelaus comes in during his speech.
SOLDIER (cont.) They would have killed him but that Odysseus said that even if Achilles had turned coward the sacrifice would be performed and so a few of his men that were loyal to him made a wall before him and took the stones.
AGAMEMNON Did his own guard not save him?
MENELAUS They were the first to turn against him—they called him lovesick because he pleaded for the girl.
Achilles is carried in in the arms of two bodyguards.
PRAYING GIRL O healer Phoebus, make great Achilles well again.
GIRL TWO Thetis, come down and save your godly son.
Iphigenia crosses and stands over him. She begins to take out the stones from his wounds. This is the turning point for her.
Soldiers have climbed on the far side of the wall, calling her name.
AGAMEMNON Get Odysseus to fend them back … tell him that …
MENELAUS Tell him what?
IPHIGENIA I will die.
Let me save Hellas if that is what the gods want. What is one life compared with thousands. I will do it gloriously … I will put frightened thoughts out of my head.
ACHILLES Shining one.
IPHIGENIA Don’t stir.
ACHILLES I swore to save you.
IPHIGENIA You will be my chariot on the path across …
ACHILLES I will die with you.
IPHIGENIA And fail Greece—no. You risked your life for me and that is everything.
ACHILLES Iphigenia … Pure star of our destiny.
Clytemnestra slaps Iphigenia on the face to put sense into her.
IPHIGENIA Mother, I am happy … and one must not love life too much.
CLYTEMNESTRA Child’s talk … babble … you do not know what this means.
IPHIGENIA I do know (pause) it is the end for me. Achilles tried to save me, one against all, and now I am alone.
CLYTEMNESTRA When the blade rips into your flesh you will cry for mercy.
IPHIGENIA Pray that I don’t. Pray that I draw courage from you and you from me, Mother. If we can’t give each other courage, who else can? We have lived a long time since we set out from home, the horses so frisky, the morning so young. Do not cut your hair, Mother, and do not go into mourning … you have my sisters and little Orestes who will grow into a man.
OLD MAN Diverse are the natures of the mortals, she willing to die for valor and they willing to kill.
Clytemnestra in a last desperate attempt holds Iphigenia’s face in her hands.
CLYTEMNESTRA Death is a fearful thing.
Iphigenia kisses her mother.
Agamemnon stands like someone in a trance.
AGAMEMNON There will be much adornment … she will be bathed in yellow oils, the tawny mountain honey will anoint her body … she shall rest upon the cenotaph; laurels, roses, and hyacinths all around her.
CLYTEMNESTRA The man has gone mad. He speaks as if it is a wedding feast.
IPHIGENIA O, poor Father. O, poor King.
CLYTEMNESTRA Man of stone.
AGAMEMNON In death I shall hold you dearer than in life.
Agamemnon embraces her.
Over that embrace the death ritual commences.
Menelaus takes a sword. Clytemnestra runs to grab it from him and risks her own hand to seize it. They fight over it.
MENELAUS Seize her.
Two men lift Clytemnestra up and pull her backward as she screams. One puts his hand across her mouth to muzzle her.
MENELAUS Discord between brothers must never be allowed to fester, we are our mother’s sons. She too presides above the altar of Artemis, wishing us godspeed to Ilium.
Iphigenia is raised up and carried offstage toward the altar.
Agamemnon follows.
AGAMEMNON Even now this heart breaks.
Menelaus gives Agamemnon the sword.
Death shrieks—all female.
The blood begins to drip.
That sound held for a moment.
A breeze gusts along the stage, raising the trampled feathers from Scene Two.
The men let go of Clytemnestra.
The death shrieks and music continue.
WITCH Fortunes now attained … the glittering seat of Atreus awash with victory.
PRAYING GIRL (coming out) The blood from her gashed throat matted the curls of her hair.
MENELAUS (coming out) Wise men ride their luck; they seize the chance to be great, to win fame and honor.
As he climbs the ladder he shouts triumphantly to the men.
MENELAUS (cont.) Hoist the sales … let the trumpets blare.
Agamemnon returns, a Girl pouring water over his bloodied hands. When they are washed he smells them and goes to Clytemnestra.
AGAMEMNON Noble Queen.
Clytemnestra stands with a cold, still loathing.
CLYTEMNESTRA Killed for a charm against the Thracian winds.
AGAMEMNON Will you not kiss a king goodbye. (pause) A husband then … Farewell. It will be long before I address you again.
Agamemnon climbs the ladder—she does not watch.
Clytemnestra stands utterly still.
Sixth Girl wearing a veil stands a little away from her as if to ask her something.
GIRL ONE There is no one left for her here.
CLYTEMNESTRA She may follow us. Her cunning will serve some purpose.
Sixth Girl lifts the veil, bows and goes off.
Bloodied rain starts to fall and Clytemnestra is drenched in it.
The Young Girls rise vivified, climb on to the ladders, speaking the prophecy of the fate to come.
(The lines are broken up and can be given as desired.)
YOUNG GIRLS
What all men fear.
Gold and silver brought back in the Aegean ships.
The captive women of Troy.
Cassandra, daughter of Priam, Virgin of Apollo, chosen by
Lord Agamemnon to be his concubine.
In contempt of the gods and all pious feeling.
Brought back to the House of Atreus.
You will greet your war-torn husband with every appearance of delight.
Unroll the purple carpet.
Lead him to the bathhouse.
When he steps out of the bath, eager for banquet, you will come forward …
As if to wrap a towel about him but instead …
It is a net …
Entangled in it like a fish, Agamemnon will perish at the hands of Aegisthus, son of Thysetes and corruptor of your marriage bed.
The broad blade driven in to Agamemnon’s garlanded throat.
He falls on the silver-sided bath, his brain awhirl, in death convulsion, his eyes staring in disbelief at you, at you his queen.
Will add her hand to the hand of Aegisthus and drive the blade clean home into your king’s breast, exacting the full price …
On the thirteenth day of Gamelian.
Not troubling to close his eyeballs and wiping the blood off your hands, you will return to the feast, unafraid of divine retribution.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Sweeter to me your words
Than heaven’s raindrops
When the cornland buds.
Darkness.