Pelops,[1] the son of Tantalus, setting out to Pisa with his swift steeds,
weds the daughter of Œnomaus, from whom sprang Atreus; and from Atreus his
sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon, from which [latter] I was born, Iphigenia,
child of [Clytæmnestra,] daughter of Tyndarus, whom my father, as he
imagined, sacrificed to Diana on account of Helen, near the eddies, which
Euripus continually whirls to and fro, upturning the dark blue sea with
frequent blasts, in the famed[2] recesses of Aulis. For here indeed king
Agamemnon drew together a Grecian armament of a thousand ships, desiring
that the Greeks might take the glorious prize of victory over Troy,[3] and
avenge the outraged nuptials of Helen, for the gratification of Menelaus.
But, there being great difficulty of sailing,[4] and meeting with no winds,
he came to [the consideration of] the omens of burnt sacrifices, and
Calchas speaks thus. O thou who rulest over this Grecian expedition,
Agamemnon, thou wilt not lead forth thy ships from the ports of this land,
before Diana shall receive thy daughter Iphigenia as a victim; for thou
didst vow to sacrifice to the light-bearing Goddess whatsoever the year
should bring forth most beautiful. Now your wife Clytæmnestra has brought
forth a daughter in your house, referring to me the title of the most
beautiful, whom thou must needs sacrifice. And so, by the arts of
Ulysses,[5] they drew me from my mother under pretense of being wedded to
Achilles. But I wretched coming to Aulis, being seized and raised aloft
above[6] the pyre, would have been slain by the sword; but Diana, giving to
the Greeks a stag in my stead, stole me away, and, sending me through the
clear ether,[7] she settled me in this land of the Tauri, where barbarian
Thoas rules[8] the land, o'er barbarians, [Thoas,] who guiding his foot
swift as the pinion, has arrived at this epithet [of Thoas, i.e. _the
swift_] on account of his fleetness of foot. And she places me in this
house as priestess, since which time the Goddess Diana is wont to be
pleased with such rites as these,[9] the name of which alone is fair. But,
for the rest, I am silent, fearing the Goddess. For I sacrifice even as
before was the custom in the city, whatever Grecian man comes to this land.
I crop the hair, indeed, but the slaying that may not be told is the care
of others within these shrines.[10] But the new visions which the [past]
night hath brought with it, I will tell to the sky,[11] if indeed this be
any remedy. I seemed in my sleep, removed from this land, to be dwelling in
Argos, and to slumber in my virgin chamber, but the surface of the earth
[appeared] to be shaken with a movement, and I fled, and standing without
beheld the coping[12] of the house giving way, and all the roof falling
stricken to the ground from the high supports. And one pillar alone, as it
seemed to me, was left of my ancestral house, and from its capital it
seemed to stream down yellow locks, and to receive a human voice, and I,
cherishing this man-slaying office which I hold, weeping [began] to
besprinkle it, as though about to be slain. But I thus interpret my dream.
Orestes is dead, whose rites I was beginning. For male children are the
pillars of the house, and those whom my lustral waters[13] sprinkle die.
Nor yet can I connect the dream with my friends, for Strophius had no son,
when I was to have died. Now, therefore, I being present, will to my absent
brother offer the rites of the dead--for this I can do--in company with the
attendants whom the king gave to me, Grecian women. But from some cause
they are not yet present. I will go[14] within the home wherein I dwell,
these shrines of the Goddess.
ORESTES. Look out! Watch, lest there be any mortal in the way.
PYLADES. I am looking out, and keeping watch, turning my eyes every where.
OR. Pylades, does it seem to you that this is the temple of the Goddess,
whither we have directed our ship through the seas from Argos?[15]
PYL. It does, Orestes, and must seem the same to thee.
OR. And the altar where Grecian blood is shed?
PYL. At least it has its pinnacles tawny with blood.
OR. And under the pinnacles themselves do you behold the spoils?
PYL. The spoils, forsooth, of slain strangers.
OR. But it behooves one, turning one's eye around, to keep a careful watch.
O Phœbus, wherefore hast thou again led me into this snare by your
prophecies, when I had avenged the blood of my father by slaying my mother?
But by successive[16] attacks of the Furies was I driven an exile, an
outcast from the land, and fulfilled many diverse bending courses. But
coming [to thy oracle] I required of thee how I might arrive at an end of
the madness that drove me on, and of my toils [which I had labored through,
wandering over Greece.[17]] But thou didst answer that I must come to the
confines of the Tauric territory, where thy sister Diana possesses altars,
and must take the image of the Goddess, which they here say fell from
heaven[18] into these shrines; and that taking it either by stratagem or by
some stroke of fortune, having gone through the risk, I should give it to
the land of the Athenians--but no further directions were given--and that
having done this, I should have a respite from my toils.[19] But I am come
hither, persuaded by thy words, to an unknown and inhospitable land. I ask
you, then, Pylades, for you are a sharer with me in this toil, what shall
we do? For thou beholdest the lofty battlements of the walls. Shall we
proceed to the scaling of the walls? How then should we escape notice[20]
[if we did so?] Or shall we open the brass-wrought fastenings of the bolts?
of which things we know nothing.[21] But if we are caught opening the gates
and contriving an entrance, we shall die. But before we die, let us flee to
the temple, whither we lately sailed.
PYL. To fly is unendurable, nor are we accustomed [to do so,] and we must
not make light of the oracle of the God. But quitting the temple, let us
hide our bodies in the caves, which the dark sea splashes with its waters,
far away from the city, lest any one beholding the bark, inform the rulers,
and we be straightway seized by force. But when the eye of dim night shall
come, we must venture, bring all devices to bear, to seize the sculptured
image from the temple. But observe the eaves [of the roof,[22]] where there
is an empty space between the triglyphs in which you may let yourself down.
For good men dare encounter toils, but the cowardly are of no account any
where. We have not indeed come a long distance with our oars, so as to
return again from the goal.[23]
OR. But one must follow your advice, for you speak well. We must go
whithersoever in this land we can conceal our bodies, and lie hid. For the
[will] of the God will not be the cause of his oracle falling useless. We
must venture; for no toil has an excuse for young men.[24]
[ORESTES _and_ PYLADES _retire aside_.]
CHORUS. Keep silence,[25] O ye that inhabit the twain rocks of the Euxine
that face each other. O Dictynna, mountain daughter of Latona, to thy
court, the gold-decked pinnacles of temples with fine columns, I, servant
to the hallowed guardian of the key, conduct my pious virgin foot, changing
[for my present habitation] the towers and walls of Greece with its noble
steeds, and Europe with its fields abounding in trees, the dwelling of my
ancestral home. I am come. What new matter? What anxious care hast thou?
Wherefore hast thou led me, led me to the shrines, O daughter of him who
came to the walls of Troy with the glorious fleet, with thousand sail, ten
thousand spears of the renowned Atrides?[26]
IPHIGENIA. O attendants mine,[27] in what moans of bitter lamentation do I
dwell, in the songs of a songless strain unfit for the lyre, alas! alas! in
funereal griefs for the ills which befall me, bemoaning my brother, what a
vision have I seen in the night whose darkness has passed away![28] I am
undone, undone. No more is my father's house, ah me! no more is our race.
Alas! alas! for the toils in Argos! Alas! thou deity, who hast now robbed
me of my only brother, sending him to Hades, to whom I am about to pour
forth on the earth's surface these libations and this bowl for the
departed, and streams from the mountain heifer, and the wine draughts of
Bacchus, and the work of the swarthy bees,[29] which are the wonted
peace-offerings to the departed. O germ of Agamemnon beneath the earth, to
thee as dead do I send these offerings. And do thou receive them, for not
before [thine own] tomb do I offer my auburn locks,[30] my tears. For far
away am I journeyed from thy country and mine, where, as opinion goes, I
wretched lie slaughtered.
CHOR. A respondent strain and an Asiatic hymn of barbarian wailing will I
peal forth to thee, my mistress, the song of mourning which, delighting the
dead, Hades hymns in measure apart from Pæans.[31] Alas! the light of the
sceptre in the Atrides' house is faded away. Alas! alas for my ancestral
home! And what government of prosperous kings will there be in Argos?[32]
* * * * And labor upon labor comes on * * * * [33] with his winged mares
driven around. But the sun, changing from its proper place, [laid aside]
its eye of light.[34] And upon other houses woe has come, because of the
golden lamb, murder upon murder, and pang upon pang, whence the avenging
Fury[35] of those sons slain of old comes upon the houses of the sons of
Tantalus, and some deity hastens unkindly things against thee.
IPH. From the beginning the demon of my mother's zone[36] was hostile to
me, and from that night in which the Fates hastened the pangs of
childbirth[37] * * * * whom, the first-born germ the wretched daughter of
Leda, (Clytæmnestra,) wooed from among the Greeks brought forth, and
trained up as a victim to a father's sin, a joyless sacrifice, a votive
offering. But in a horse-chariot they brought[38] me to the sands of Aulis,
a bride, alas! unhappy bride to the son of Nereus' daughter, alas! And now
a stranger I dwell in an unpleasant home on the inhospitable sea, unwedded,
childless, without city, without a friend, not chanting Juno in Argos, nor
in the sweetly humming loom adorning with the shuttle the image of Athenian
Pallas[39] and of the Titans, but imbruing altars with the shed blood of
strangers, a pest unsuited to the harp, [of strangers] sighing forth[40] a
piteous cry, and shedding a piteous tear. And now indeed forgetfulness of
these matters [comes upon] me, but now I mourn my brother dead in Argos,
whom I left yet an infant at the breast, yet young, yet a germ in his
mother's arms and on her bosom, Orestes [the future] holder of the sceptre
in Argos.
CHOR. But hither comes a herdsman, leaving the sea-coast, about to tell
thee some new thing.
HERDSMAN. Daughter of Agamemnon and child of Clytæmnestra, hear thou from
me a new announcement.
IPH. And what is there astonishing in the present report?
HERDS. Two youths are come into this land, to the dark-blue Symplegades,
fleeing into a ship, a grateful sacrifice and offering to Diana. But you
can not use too much haste[41] in making ready the lustral waters and the
consecrations.
IPH. Of what country? of what land do the strangers bear the name?
HERDS. Greeks, this one thing I know, and nothing further.
IPH. Hast thou not heard the name of the strangers, so as to tell it?
HERDS. One of them was styled Pylades by the other.
IPH. But what was the name of the yoke-fellow of this stranger?
HERDS. No one knows this. For we heard it not.
IPH. But how saw ye them, and chanced to take them?
HERDS. Upon the furthest breakers of the inhospitable sea.
IPH. And what had herdsmen to do with the sea?
HERDS. We came to lave our steers in the dew of the sea.
IPH. Go back again to this point--how did ye catch them, and by what means,
for I would fain know this? For they are come after a long season, nor has
the altar of the Goddess yet been crimsoned with Grecian blood.[42]
HERDS. After we woodland herdsmen had brought our cattle down to the sea
that flows between the Symplegades, there is a certain hollow cave,[43]
broken by the frequent lashing of the waves, a retreat for those who hunt
for the purple fish. Here some herdsman among us beheld two youths, and he
retired back, piloting his step on tiptoe, and said: See ye not? these who
sit here are some divine powers. And one of us, being religiously given,
uplifted his hand, and addressed them, as he beheld: O son of Leucothea,
guardian of ships, Palæmon our lord, be propitious to us, whether indeed ye
be the twin sons of Jove (Castor and Pollux) who sit upon our shores, or
the image of Nereus, who begot the noble chorus of the fifty Nereids. But
another vain one, bold in his lawlessness, scoffed at these prayers, and
said that they were shipwrecked[44] seamen who sat upon the cleft through
fear of the law, hearing that we here sacrifice strangers. And to most of
us he seemed to speak well, and [we resolved] to hunt for the accustomed
victims for the Goddess. But meanwhile one of the strangers leaving the
rock, stood still, and shook his head up and down, and groaned, with his
very fingers quaking, wandering with ravings, and shouts with voice like
that of hunter, "Pylades, dost thou behold this? Dost not behold this snake
of Hades, how she would fain slay me, armed against me with horrid
vipers?[45] And she breathing from beneath her garments[46] fire and
slaughter, rows with her wings, bearing my mother in her arms, that she may
cast upon me this rocky mass. Alas! she will slay me. Whither shall I fly?"
And one beheld not the same form of countenance, but he uttered in turn the
bellowings of calves and howls of dogs, which imitations [of wild beasts]
they say the Furies utter. But we flinching, as though about to die, sat
mute; and he drawing a sword with his hand, rushing among the calves,
lion-like, strikes them on the flank with the steel, driving it into their
sides, fancying that he was thus avenging himself on the Fury Goddesses,
till that a gory foam was dashed up from the sea. Meanwhile, each one of
us, as he beheld the herds being slain and ravaged, armed himself, and
inflating the conch[47] shells and assembling the inhabitants--for we
thought that herdsmen were weak to fight against well-trained and youthful
strangers. And a large number of us was assembled in a short time. But the
stranger, released from the attack of madness, drops down, with his beard
befouled with foam. But when we saw him fallen opportunely [for us,] each
man did his part, with stones, with blows. But the other of the strangers
wiped away the foam, and tended his mouth, and spread over him the
well-woven texture of his garments, guarding well the coming wounds, and
aiding his friend with tender offices. But when the stranger returning to
his senses leaped up, he perceived that a hostile tempest and present
calamity was close upon them, and he groaned aloud. But we ceased not
hurling rocks, each standing in a different place. But then indeed we heard
a dread exhortation, "Pylades, we shall die, but that we die most
gloriously! Follow me, drawing thy sword in hand." But when we saw the
twain swords of the enemy[48] brandished, in flight we filled the woods
about the crag. But if one fled, others pressing on pelted them; and if
they drove these away, again the party who had just yielded aimed at them
with rocks. But it was incredible, for out of innumerable hands no one
succeeded in hitting these victims to the Goddess. And we with difficulty,
I will not say overcome them by force, but taking them in a circle,
beat[49] their swords out of their hands with stones, and they dropped
their knees to earth [overcome] with toil. And we brought them to the king
of this land, but he, when he beheld them, sent them as quickly as possible
to thee for lustral waters and sacrifice. But do thou, O virgin, wish that
such strangers may be here as victims, and if thou slayest these strangers,
Hellas will atone for thy [intended] murder, paying the penalty of the
sacrifice at Aulis.[50]
CHOR. Thou hast told wondrous things concerning him who has appeared,
whosoever he be that has come to the inhospitable sea from the Grecian
earth.[51]
IPH. Be it so. Do thou go and bring the strangers, but I will take care
respecting the matters[52] here. O hapless heart, that once wast mild and
full of pity toward strangers, awarding the tear to those of thine own
land, when thou didst receive Grecian men into thine hands.[53] But now,
because of the dreams by which I am driven wild, thinking that Orestes no
longer beholds the sun, ye will find me ill disposed, whoever ye be that
come. For this is true, I perceive it, my friends,[54] for the unhappy who
themselves fare ill have no good feelings toward those more fortunate. But
neither has any wind sent by Jove ever come [hither,] nor ship, which could
have brought hither Helen, who destroyed me, and Menelaus, in order that I
might be avenged on them, placing an Aulis here to the account[55] of the
one there, where the sons of Danaus seized, and would have slain me like as
a calf, and the father who begat me was the priest. Ah me! for I can not
forget the ills of that time, how oft I stretched out my hands to his
beard, and hanging on the knees of him who gave me life, spake words like
these: "O father, basely am I, basely am I wedded at thine hands. But my
mother, while thou art slaying me, and her Argive ladies are hymning my
wedding[56] with their nuptial songs, and all the house resounds with the
flute, while I perish by thy hands. Hades in truth was Achilles, not the
son of Peleus, whom thou didst name as my husband, and in the chariot didst
pilot me by craft unto a bloody wedding." But I, casting mine eye through
my slender woven veil, neither took up with mine hands my brother who is
now dead, nor joined my lips to my sister's,[57] through modesty, as
departing to the home of Peleus; and many a salutation I deferred, as
though about to come again to Argos. Oh wretched one, if thou hast died!
from what glorious state, Orestes, and from how envied a sire's fortune art
thou fallen! But I reproach the devices of the Goddess, who, if any one
work the death of a man, or touch with hands a woman newly delivered, or a
corpse, restrains him from her altars, as deeming him impure, but yet
herself takes pleasure in man-slaying sacrifices. It can not be that the
consort of Jove, Latona, hath brought forth so much ignorance. I even
disbelieve the banquets of Tantalus set before the Gods, [as that they]
should be pleased with feeding on a boy. But I deem that those in this
land, being themselves man-slayers, charge the Goddess with their own
baseness, for I think not that any one of the Gods is bad.
CHOR. Ye dark blue, dark blue meetings of the sea, which Io, hurried along
by the brize, once passed through to the Euxine wave, having changed the
territory of Asia for Europe,--who were they who left fair-watered Eurotas,
flourishing in reeds, or the sacred founts of Dirce, and came, and came to
the inhospitable land, where the daughter of Jove bedews her altars and
column-girt temples with human blood? Of a truth by the surge-dashing oars
of fir, worked on both sides, they sailed in a nautical carriage o'er the
ocean waves, striving in the emulation after loved wealth in their houses.
For darling hope is in dangers insatiate among men, who bear off the weight
of riches, wandering in vain speculation on the wave and o'er barbarian
cities. But to some[58] there is a mind immoderate after riches, to others
they come unsought. How did they pass through the rocks that run together,
the ne'er resting beaches of Phineus, [and] the marine shore, running o'er
the surge of Amphitrite,[59]--where the choruses of the fifty daughters of
Nereus entwine in the dance,--[although] with breezes that fill the sails,
the creaking rudders resting at the poop, with southern gales or the
breezes of Zephyr, to the bird-haunted land, the white beach, the glorious
race-course of Achilles, near the Euxine Sea. Would that, according to my
mistress' prayers, Helen, the dear daughter of Leda, might sometime chance
to come, quitting the city of Troy, that, having been drenched about the
head with the blood-stained lustral dews, she might die by my mistress'
hand, paying in turn an equal penalty [for her death.] Most joyfully then
would we receive this news, if any one came sailing from the Grecian land,
to make the toils of my hapless slavery to cease. And would that in my
dreams I might tread[60] in mine home and ancestral city, enjoying the
hymns of delight, a joy shared with the prosperous. But hither they come,
bound as to their two[61] hands with chains, a new sacrifice for the
Goddess. Be silent, my friends, for these first-fruits of the Greeks
approach the temples, nor has the herdsman told a false tale. O reverend
Goddess, if the city performs these things agreeably to thee, receive the
sacrifice which, not hallowed among the Greeks, the custom of this place
presents as a public offering.[62]
IPH. Be it so. I must first take care that the rites of the Goddess are as
they should be. Let go the hands of the strangers, that being consecrated
they may no longer be in bonds. And, going within the temple, make ready
the things which are necessary and usual on these occasions. Alas! Who is
the mother who once bore you? And who your father, and your sister, if
there be any born? Of what a pair of youths deprived will she be
brotherless! For all the dispensations of the Gods creep into obscurity,
and no one [absent] knows misfortune,[63] for fortune leads astray to what
is hardly known. Whence come ye, O unhappy strangers? After how long a time
have ye sailed to this land, and ye will be a long time from your home,
ever among the shades![64]
OR. Why mournest thou thus, and teasest us[65] concerning our future ills,
whoever thou art, O lady? In naught do I deem him wise, who, when about to
die, with bewailings seeks to overcome the fear of death, nor him who
deplores death now near at hand,[66] when he has no hope of safety, in that
he joins two ills instead of one, both incurs the charge of folly, and dies
none the less. But one must needs let fortune take its course. But mourn us
not, for we know and are acquainted with the sacrificial rites of this
place.
IPH. Which of ye twain here is named Pylades? This I would fain know first.
OR. This man, if indeed 'tis any pleasure for thee to know this.
IPH. Born citizen of what Grecian state?
OR. And what wouldst thou gain by knowing this, lady?
IPH. Are ye brothers from one mother?
OR. In friendship we are, but we are not related, lady.
IPH. But what name did the father who begot thee give to thee?
OR. In truth we might be styled the unhappy.
IPH. I ask not this. Leave this to fortune.
OR. Dying nameless, I should not be mocked.
IPH. Wherefore dost grudge this, and art thus proud?
OR. My body thou shalt sacrifice, not my name.
IPH. Nor wilt thou tell me which is thy city?
OR. No. For thou seekest a thing of no profit, seeing I am to die.
IPH. But what hinders thee from granting me this favor?
OR. I boast renowned Argos for my country.
IPH. In truth, by the Gods I ask thee, stranger, art thou thence born?
OR. From Mycenæ,[67] that was once prosperous.
IPH. And hast thou set out a wanderer from thy country, or by what hap?
OR. I flee in a certain wise unwilling, willingly.
IPH. Wouldst thou tell me one thing that I wish?
OR. That something, forsooth,[68] may be added to my misfortune.
IPH. And truly thou hast come desired by me, in coming from Argos.