IPHIGENIA (singing)
O ye attendant train,How is my heart oppress'd with wo!
What notes,save notes of grief,can flow,A harsh and unmelodious strain?
My soul domestic ills oppress with dread,And bid me mourn a brother dead.
What visions did my sleeping sense appall In the past dark and midnight hour!
'Tis ruin,ruin all.
My father's houses-it is no more:
No more is his illustrious line.
What dreadful deeds hath Argos known!
One only brother,Fate,was mine;
And dost thou rend him from me?Is he gone To Pluto's dreary realms below?
For him,as dead,with pious care This goblet I prepare;And on the bosom of the earth shall flow Streams from the heifer mountain-bred,The grape's rich juice,and,mix'd with these,The labour of the yellow bees,Libations soothing to the dead.
Give me the oblation:let me hold The foaming goblet's hallow'd gold.
O thou,the earth beneath,Who didst from Agamemnon spring;To thee,deprived of vital breath,I these libations bring.
Accept them:to thy honour'd tomb,Never,ah!never shall I come;Never these golden tresses bear,To place them there,there shed the tear;For from my country far,a hind There deem'd as slain,my wild abode I find.
CHORUS (singing)
To thee thy faithful train The Asiatic hymn will raise,A doleful,a barbaric strain,Responsive to thy lays,And steep in tears the mournful song,-Notes,which to the dead belong;
Dismal notes,attuned to woe By Pluto in the realms below:
No sprightly air shall we employ To cheer the soul,and wake the sense of joy.
IPHIGENIA (singing)
The Atreidae are no more;
Extinct their sceptre's golden light;
My father's house from its proud height Is fallen:its ruins I deplore.
Who of her kings at Argos holds his reign,Her kings once bless'd?But Sorrow's train Rolls on impetuous for the rapid steeds Which o'er the strand with Pelops fly.
From what atrocious deeds Starts the sun back,his sacred eye Of brightness,loathing,turn'd aside?