410BC
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
by Euripides translated by Robert Potter CHARACTERS IN THE PLAYIPHIGENIA,daughter of Agamemnon ORESTES,brother of IPHIGENIAPYLADES,friend Of ORESTES
THOAS,King of the Taurians HERDSMAN
MESSENGER
MINERVA
CHORUS OF GREEK WOMEN,captives,attendants on IPHIGENIA in the temple IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS(SCENE:-Before the great temple of Diana of the Taurians.A blood-stained altar is prominently in view.IPHIGENIA,clad as a priestess,enters from the temple.)
IPHIGENIA
To Pisa,by the fleetest coursers borne,Comes Pelops,son of Tantalus,and weds The virgin daughter of Oenomaus:
From her sprung Atreus;Menelaus from him,And Agamemnon;I from him derive My birth,his Iphigenia,by his queen,Daughter of Tyndarus.Where frequent winds Swell the vex'd Euripus with eddying blasts,And roll the darkening waves,my father slew me,A victim to Diana,so he thought,For Helen's sake,its bay where Aulis winds,To fame well known;for there his thousand ships,The armament of Greece,the imperial chief Convened,desirous that his Greeks should snatch The glorious crown of victory from Troy,And punish the base insult to the bed Of Helen,vengeance grateful to the soul Of Menelaus.But 'gainst his ships the sea Long barr'd,and not one favouring breeze to swell His flagging sails,the hallow'd flames the chief Consults,and Calchas thus disclosed the fates:-"Imperial leader of the Grecian host,Hence shalt thou not unmoor thy vessels,ere Diana as a victim shall receive Thy daughter Iphigenia:what the year Most beauteous should produce,thou to the queen Dispensing light didst vow to sacrifice:
A daughter Clytemnestra in thy house Then bore (the peerless grace of beauty thus To me assigning);her must thou devote The victim."Then Ulysses by his arts,Me,to Achilles as design'd a bride,Won from my mother.My unhappy fate To Aulis brought me;on the altar there High was I placed,and o'er me gleam'd the sword,Aiming the fatal wound:but from the stroke Diana snatch'd me,in exchange a hind Giving the Grecians;through the lucid air Me she conveyed to Tauris,here to dwell,Where o'er barbarians a barbaric king Holds his rude sway,named Thoas,whose swift foot Equals the rapid wing:me he appoints The priestess of this temple,where such rites Are pleasing to Diana,that the name Alone claims honour;for I sacrifice (Such,ere I came,the custom of the state)Whatever Grecian to this savage shore Is driven:the previous rites are mine;the deed Of blood,too horrid to be told,devolves On others in the temple:but the rest,In reverence to the goddess,I forbear.