in some sense round off the Orestean story. We had to leave that story
at a ragged edge—the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes in
revenge for the death of Agamemnon. We could not go on to the third
drama of the Æschylean trilogy, to follow the unhappy youth as he fled
in remorse to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and thence to Athens,
seeking to appease his mother’s Furies. But if we had done so we should
have found the whole theme brought to a calm and beautiful conclusion:
Orestes cleansed by suffering and set free from guilt by Athena; and the
avenging Furies changed into Spirits of Mercy.
Euripides, however, who took so many subjects for his drama from the
Trojan cycle and always gave them new significance, in this case chose
variants of the legend and wove them into a story which was entirely
fresh. So that the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, with which we are chiefly
concerned now, shows Orestes still fleeing before the Erinnyes; and
carries the tale to another and much more exciting conclusion. Indeed,
the peculiar charm of this tragedy is that it is not really tragedy at
all, but a thrilling adventure-play. It reminds us of the _Odyssey_,
with its flavour of the sea, the wistful note that haunts it and its
spice of physical peril; only, this is the work of a poet who adds high
dramatic values to the delight of the story, with a lyric note of
enchanting beauty, and penetrating thought.
Characteristically, when Euripides took up this part of the Orestean
legend, it was not so much the man Orestes in whom he was interested, as
the woman Iphigenia; with the result that we have two dramas called by
her name and in which she is the protagonist. Both were produced late in
the poet’s life, the _Iphigenia in Aulis_ being probably his last work.
It contains the earlier part of the heroine’s story—the sacrifice of the
virgin-martyr at Aulis; and the great new feature of it, her rescue by
Artemis just as the knife was falling to her throat, was perhaps the
poet’s own invention. There is no hint of it in Æschylus. To
Clytemnestra, the murder of her first-born child Iphigenia was the crime
which turned her life to bitterness and armed her against Agamemnon. He
had beguiled her to send the child—for she was but a mere girl—to Aulis,
for marriage with the splendid young hero Achilles. And then, at the
bidding of a soothsayer, he had ruthlessly slain his daughter on the
altar of Artemis; and sailed away to Troy.
Those are the facts at the heart of the mystery which is Clytemnestra;
but when we come to the _Iphigenia in Aulis_ we find some different data
and a far different interpretation. Agamemnon there is almost pitiably
human, driven by complex motives first to consent to Iphigenia’s death,
then to recant in horror, and finally to yield to forces which he could
not control. Iphigenia, too, is made at once nobler and more tragic in
the idea of a willing sacrifice—giving herself up, after the first shock
of terror, to die freely for her country’s good. And in her rescue by
the goddess there is added an element of marvel and mystery, which is at
the same time a protest against a form of religion so inhuman.
The _Iphigenia in Tauris_ opens at a period many years later.
Troy had fallen. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra were both dead in the manner
we know of; and Orestes was a fugitive, seeking through many lands to
expiate the crime of mother-murder. There had been laid upon him at
last, as the only means to peace, the command of Apollo to make his way
to the savage land of the Tauri. He was to seize and bring from the
temple of Artemis there a certain statue of the goddess which had fallen
from heaven long before, and which the people of the land were
dishonouring by human sacrifice. Every stranger cast upon their shores
was slain at the shrine of the goddess; and Orestes ran the risk of
almost certain death in making the venture. But he had a solemn promise
from Apollo; and the reward would be sweet indeed. He would be cleansed
of the crime, and set free from these haunting shapes of remorse which
sometimes drove him to madness. Moreover, he would rid the name of
Hellas from the stain which lay on its religion through the barbarous
practices of the Tauri. So he and his devoted comrade Pylades sailed for
those inhospitable waters.
_Through the Clashing Rocks they burst:
They passed by the Cape unsleeping
Of Phineus’ sons accurst;
They ran by the starlit bay
Upon magic surges sweeping,
Where folk on the waves astray
Have seen, through the gleaming grey,
Ring behind ring, men say,
The dance of the old Sea’s daughters._[33]
But Destiny was guiding them to something stranger than they had either
hoped or dreaded. For this wild land, fiercely guarded from approach by
the Rocky Gateway of the Symplêgades, was the country to which Artemis
had carried Iphigenia from the altar in Aulis. And in the temple where
they must seek the sacred statue, the daughter of Agamemnon was even now
a priestess.
The years had passed wearily since Iphigenia first found herself a
captive in Tauris. Completely shut off from the world by the sea which
foamed round that desolate coast, no word ever came to her from her home
in Argos; and she could make no sign to the friends who believed her
dead long since. She hated this savage people, and Thoas their king, and
the hideous sacrifices at which she had to perform the cleansing rite.
Sometimes she would grow sick at their brutality, and wild with
loneliness and longing to escape. Then sceptical thoughts would come
about the deity who could accept such worship; and it would seem to her
better to have died at Aulis than to have been saved for such slow
misery. At other times she would brood over her short sweet girlhood and
its bitter ending, gone irrevocably from the moment of her father’s
fraud; and bitterness would overwhelm her against Agamemnon, and the
Seer who counselled him, and the chieftains who persuaded him; but above
all against Helen, for whose sake the war was made.
So youth stole away, taking with it, as Iphigenia sadly thought, all the
high things that inspire a fair young soul—the shining ideal, the simple
and ardent faith, the generous emotion that leaps to sympathy and
service. And at the moment of the opening of the play, when the ship
that bears Orestes is being run ashore at Tauris, Iphigenia stands
before her temple feeling hard and hopeless, dispossessed of all that is
dear in life, and with every illusion long since fled.
It is early morning, and Iphigenia has just emerged from the temple.
There are a few lines of formal exposition: an involuntary cry of
disgust at the blood-stained altar that is insulting the eye of day; and
then a flow of troubled speech.
“_Ah me!
But what dark dreams, thou clear and morning sky
I have to tell thee, can that bring them ease!_“[33]
In the night that has just passed, she had dreamed of her home in Argos.
She seemed to lie asleep there, with her maids around her, when suddenly
an earthquake shook the palace; and running out of doors, she saw the
great building reel and fall. Only one pillar remained; and as she
watched it, she saw that brown hair waved about its head, and she heard
it speak with a human voice. Then, in the strange confusion of dreams,
she found herself fulfilling the office that she bears here in Tauris;
and she washed the pillar clean for death, as it was her duty to wash
the victims for the sacrifice.
With pathetic readiness, Iphigenia has accepted the dream as an evil
omen. The pillar of her father’s house must mean his son Orestes, whom
she left a child in Argos all those years ago. Those whom she cleanses
are doomed to die. What can the dream mean, therefore, save that her
brother is dead? The conviction is so strong upon her that she at once
decides to prepare the funeral rite.
“_Therefore to my dead brother will I pour
Such sacrifice, I on this bitter shore
And he beyond great seas, as still I may._“[33]
[Illustration:
IPHIGENIA
_M. Nonnenbruch_
_By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co. 133 New Bond St. W._
]
But hardly has she gone upon her errand when there is a sound of muffled
voices approaching, and two youths enter, treading cautiously, and
peering for danger on every side. They are Orestes and his friend
Pylades, who have found their way up from the shore, and are searching
for some means to carry out the god’s command. As they come before the
temple, and note the grim signs of slain men on the altar and hanging
from the roof, they realize that this is the very centre of their quest;
and that they have now to face the most deadly peril of all.
At this crucial moment, however, when all their hopes depend on a calm
nerve and rapid thought and resolute action, an approaching fit of
madness begins to shake Orestes. With strength sapped and courage
broken, he falls upon a seat while Pylades goes to reconnoitre. In his
weakened state he is overcome by the terror of the place and their
enormous danger; and when his friend returns, he implores him to fly
back to the galley. But Pylades has hopeful tidings. He has found a spot
in this almost impregnable temple where an entry might be forced by
courage and daring; and heartening Orestes with the news, he leads him
away, to hide till nightfall in a cavern by the seashore.
As they go out of sight, the Chorus enters, singing a hymn to Artemis,
the mountain-born child of Leto. They are Greek women, captured in war
by Thoas and given by him to the priestess for her handmaidens. They
come wonderingly, in answer to Iphigenia’s urgent summons; and are
amazed when she appears with every sign of grief, followed by attendants
who carry libations for the dead. In answer to a question from their
leader, the priestess tells them of her ominous dream and of the funeral
rite that she is about to perform for her brother.
“_Alas, O maidens mine!
I am filled full of tears;
My heart filled with the beat
Of tears, as of dancing feet._“[33]
From each attendant she takes in turn a golden goblet containing a
libation of wine and milk and honey; and as she pours them into the
altar for the dead, she and her women alternately chant a threnody for
Orestes. They sing of the old dark story of Agamemnon’s house, from its
beginning in the sin of Pelops down to what was for Iphigenia its last
and worst enormity, the sacrifice at Aulis. And as their voices rise and
fall in the long ceremonial, while Iphigenia is still upon her knees
before the altar, there is a violent interruption. A herdsman bursts
eagerly upon them, with news that shatters the mournful beauty of their
rite.
“_A ship hath passed the blue Symplêgades,
And here upon our coast two men are thrown,
Young, bold, good slaughter for the altar-stone
Of Artemis!_“[33]
The priestess rises, impatient at this sudden recall to her hated duty,
and the jarring note that has broken their obsequies. The man and his
ugly zeal are a complete offence to her, and she answers him curtly. Who
and what are these men he speaks of? At his reply, however, annoyance
gives place to astonishment, curiosity, and a strange mingling of joy
and pain. For he tells that the men are Greeks; and never yet, in all
the dreary time of her captivity, has one of her countrymen landed upon
these shores.
Once or twice, in her darkest hours, she had longed and prayed for such
a day as this—for fate to send some Hellenic victim to her altar. She
had thought she would be glad: that it would be a keen and satisfying
pleasure to take a Greek life for all that the Greeks had made her
suffer. But now that she stands face to face with her desire, there is a
tumult of emotion within her in which bitterness hardly shares.
She questions the herdsman closely of the name and appearance of the
strangers. One is called Pylades, he says; but the other’s name he did
not catch. And at Iphigenia’s command, he goes over the whole story of
their capture. He and his companions were washing their cattle in the
sea, when one of them had spied two strangers sitting on the beach in a
little bay. They were young, handsome and apparently noble; and there
was something in their fine physique and sudden unaccountable appearance
in that lonely spot which made one of his fellows cry out that they were
gods. But another jeered and said most likely they were shipwrecked
sailors who knew the custom of the country and were trying to escape it;
and just at that moment a strange thing happened. One of the youths was
suddenly seized with a fit of madness. They saw him spring from his seat
and beat his head up and down, while he shrieked wildly to his comrade:
“_Pylades,
Dost see her there?—And there.—Oh, no one sees!—
A she-dragon of Hell, and all her head
Agape with fangèd asps, to bite me dead!_“[33]
The distraught fancy of Orestes saw the cattle and their watch-dogs as
the pursuing Furies of his mother; and quick as a flash, before his
friend could intervene, he had drawn his sword and was slashing right
and left amongst the helpless beasts. The herdsmen blew their horns; and
soon a crowd had gathered and were pelting the strangers with stones.
While the fit of madness lasted Pylades guarded Orestes from attack; but
it passed quickly, and the two youths fought together gallantly for
life. Not one of the missiles struck home, the goddess, it seemed,
taking care to save her prey. But at last they were surrounded, and the
swords beaten out of their hands.
“_Then to the king
We bore them both, and he, not tarrying,
Sends them to thee, to touch with holy spray—
And then the blood-bowl._“[33]
All through the tale Iphigenia had listened in pity for the brave youths
so cruelly overborne; and now she is suddenly brought back to the
thought of the sacrifice and of her part in it. There is a shudder of
horror too, when the herdsman reminds her of her prayer in past times
for just such a capture as this. She restrains herself with an effort,
and coldly bids the man fetch the prisoners; but no sooner has he gone
than the tumult of emotion within rushes into speech. Memories of the
old times: of the bridal rites that were only a snare; and of the poor
timid child that she once had been, imploring her father to be merciful.
Thoughts, too, of shipwrecked men and of all the dreadful sacrifices
which she cannot and will not believe that the goddess delights in. And
above all, the certainty she feels that Orestes is dead; and which she
says has turned her heart to stone and made her pitiless.
“_’Tis true: I know by mine own evil will:
One long in pain, if things more suffering still
Fall to his hand, will hate them for his own
Torment,_“[33]
So she thinks she will not falter: that though she may have shrunk from
the task in former times, this last pain has made her cruel. Yet, when
the strangers are brought in, all the hardness melts in a moment.
“_Ah me!
What mother then was yours, O strangers, say,
And father? And your sister, if you have
A sister: both at once, so young and brave,
To leave her brotherless._“[33]
Orestes answers, a little irritated at the sight of her tears. Whoever
this stranger woman is, it is hardly kind of her, he thinks, to unman
them thus by pity; and he bids her cease. They know the form of worship
of the country, and are prepared to die.
Iphigenia checks her tears, but she cannot control her desire for news
of home and friends. So, rather heartlessly as the prisoners think, she
presses eager questions on them—for their name and parentage and city.
To Orestes it seems that she is prompted by the shallowest curiosity,
and he flings curt phrases at her, refusing the information. But the
clamour at her heart will not be silenced by the rebuke: her own pride
and the dignity of her office, and every other consideration but this
craving for word from Hellas, go down before it. She pleads that she at
least may know what land of Greece they hail from; and grudgingly, in
the fewest words possible, Orestes answers that Argos is his land, and
his home is at Mycenæ. His words evoke an exclamation of joy from
Iphigenia; and as his reluctance gradually breaks up under the spell of
her sincerity, he is drawn on to answer her on all those matters which,
unknown to either, are of such weighty interest to both.
She asks about Troy, and the fate of Helen: of Calchas, that evil
prophet who had bidden her father slay his child: of Achilles, her
promised bridegroom, dead long since outside the walls of Troy. And
Orestes in his turn begins to wonder who may be this searching
questioner, who asks so feelingly of the things that lie closest to his
heart. She tells him that she is Greek; and that explains a good deal.
But when she comes nearer home, and asks for news of Agamemnon, it is
only her evident emotion that wins a reply. Bit by bit she learns that
Agamemnon is dead by the hand of Clytemnestra; and a cry escapes her
which is full of the sense of the tragedy from the woman’s standpoint:
“_O God!
I pity her that slew ... and him that slew!_“[33]
Orestes, too, is moved, and begs her, shrinking from further questions
which he sees are coming, to desist. One word more, she entreats—what of
Clytemnestra? And when the youth, in slow words that seem wrung from him
in pain, tells that the great queen was slain by her son in vengeance
for his father’s death, it is again the woman’s judgment that springs to
utterance:
“_Alas!
A bad false duty bravely hath he wrought._“[33]
So little by little the tragic events that have filled the years of her
exile are related in this wonderful dialogue, where every sentence that
each speaker utters carries a significance to which the other has no
clue. All through the scene the underlying dramatic irony is profoundly
felt—the ignorance of each of the other’s identity; and at moments one
holds the breath in suspense. At one time the unknown priestess speaks
of the Greek king’s daughter who was slain at Aulis; and when the
stranger answers that of course nothing more was heard of her, she
having died at Aulis, Iphigenia sighs:
“_Poor child! Poor father, too, who killed and lied!_“[33]
Again, remembering her ominous dream, she asks what has become of
Agamemnon’s son, and receives the reply:
“_He lives, now here, now nowhere, bent with ill._“[33]
So her dream was a lie, she muses, thankfully; and falls silent while
the stranger, whose reserve has vanished now, breaks into bitter railing
against the gods who have brought him to this pass. Iphigenia scarcely
hears him. Relief and gratitude for the fact that Orestes is living:
renewed pity for the strangers’ doom and some wistful tenderness for him
to whom she has spoken, fill her mind and prompt her to rapid thought.
Suppose she were to rescue them, she ponders, or one of them? And
suppose, in doing so, she could bring help to herself from the brother
in Argos who believes her dead? Suddenly she turns upon Orestes and
begins rapidly to unfold a plan. She knows a way to save him; and she
will undertake to give him life in return for a promise. He must pledge
himself to carry a letter which she will give him to her friends in
Mycenæ.
So her proposal runs to the amazed and grateful youths; but a difficulty
instantly arises. Orestes will not by any means consent that Pylades
shall be left behind to die. His friend is very dear to him, he says:
let Pylades go free and bear the message. The priestess agrees, with a
word of admiration for his generous love; and goes into the temple to
fetch the tablet, which had been written for her long ago, by a prisoner
taken by king Thoas.
While Iphigenia is gone, the friends take a tender farewell of each
other. Pylades entreats Orestes to let him stay and die in his stead: he
will have no more joy in life, he says, when he returns without his
comrade; and men will scorn him for a coward. But the other puts his
pleading resolutely on one side, and when the priestess returns with the
tablet, both are composed and ready. She has one misgiving, however. She
fears that Pylades will forget his trust once he is free of Tauris; and
she requires of him an oath that her letter will be delivered. But when
the oath is solemnly given, Pylades perceives a difficulty in his turn.
Suppose the tablet should be lost, how could he fulfil his promise?
Iphigenia sees that there is only one thing to do—she must repeat the
contents of the letter, and the messenger must commit them to memory.
So, speaking slowly and impressively, she begins:
IPHIGENIA. _Say: “To Orestes, Agamemnon’s son,
She that was slain in Aulis, dead to Greece,
Yet quick, Iphigenia sendeth peace.”_
ORESTES. _Iphigenia! Where? Back from the dead?_
IPHIGENIA. _’Tis I. But speak not, lest thou break my thread._[33]
Orestes and Pylades, after a wild exclamation each to the other, stand
listening in bewildered joy as Iphigenia proceeds, relating the story of
her rescue by Artemis, and calling upon her brother to come and save her
from captivity. During the recital, they have had time to grasp the
wonder of the things they have heard; but no ray of the truth has come
to Iphigenia. And when Orestes, receiving the letter from the hand of
Pylades, turns eagerly to embrace the sister so marvellously saved, she
recoils in horror.
ORESTES. _O Sister mine, O my dead father’s child,
Agamemnon’s child; take me and have no fear,
Beyond all dreams ‘tis I thy brother here._[33]
Iphigenia, incredulous, thinks he is mocking her. She has been so long
dead to love and happiness that she cannot believe that they have come
to her at last, and that this is really the brother for whom, a little
while before, she had performed the funeral rite. She insists on proof
of his identity; and as he tells over the little homely signs by which
she may know him, her doubt slips away and she clasps him in her arms.
“_Is this the babe I knew,
The little babe, light lifted like a bird?...
O Argos land, O hearth and holy flame
That old Cyclôpes lit,
I bless ye that he lives, that he is grown,
A light and strength, my brother and mine own._“[33]
They cling to each other, Iphigenia oblivious of everything but her joy,
and Orestes loth to recall her to a sense of their danger. Presently her
thoughts come painfully back to it, fluttering wildly round each
possibility of escape together, and seeing no way clear. But when
Orestes tells her of his mission to carry off the statue of the goddess,
the very magnitude of its daring clarifies her mind. She sees one way,
and though it is not the way that she had hoped, she is ready for the
sacrifice. She must secure the statue, and Orestes must escape with it
to Attica, as the god commands. For herself, her part will be to stay,
and by every means prevent her brother from being followed. She is sure
of success in this, and though it mean death for her, it will be sweet
to give herself for the peace of one so dear.
“_Thou shalt walk free in Argolis again,
And all life smile on thee.... Dearest, we need
Not shrink from that._“[33]
But Orestes absolutely refuses to accept his life at such a price; and
they strain every nerve to contrive a scheme which will carry them to
safety together. There is a suggestion to kill Thoas, but the woman who
has been sheltered and protected by him will not hear of it. Again, they
think of hiding in the temple until nightfall; but that is
impracticable, because the guards would see and capture them. And at
last Iphigenia, beating backward and forward over all the possible
chances, sees a gleam of hope. Slowly and carefully she unfolds her
plan. She will give out that the victims for the altar have come from
Greece polluted with a mother’s blood, and that they may not be offered
to the goddess until they have been cleansed in the sea. The statue, she
will say, is unclean too, since one of the captives has touched it; and
she will prevail upon the king to allow her to take it, with the
victims, down to the seashore. The rest will be Orestes’ task; and as
his ship with fifty rowers lies waiting for them in the little bay, they
should be able to get away before Thoas can follow.