Prologos
Iphigenia
Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses, married Oenomaus’ daughter, and she gave birth to Atreus, whose children are Menelaus and Agamemnon; from him I was born,
his child Iphigenia, by the daughter of Tyndareus. Where Euripus rolls about its whirlpools in the frequent winds and twists the darkening waves, my father sacrificed me to Artemis for Helen’s sake, or so he thought, in the famous clefts of Aulis.
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For there lord Agamemnon mustered his expedition of a thousand ships of Hellas, wanting to take the crown of Troy in glorious victory and avenge the outrage to Helen’s marriage, doing this favor for Menelaus.
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But when he met with dreadful winds that would not let him sail, he went to burnt sacrifices, and Calchas had this to say: Lord and general of Hellas, Agamemnon, you will not set free your ships from land until Artemis has your daughter Iphigenia
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as a victim. For you once vowed to sacrifice to the torch-bearing goddess the most beautiful creature brought forth that year; then your wife, Clytemnestra, bore a child in your house—ascribing the prize of beauty to me—whom you must sacrifice. And by the craft of Odysseus,
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they took me from my mother, pretending a marriage with Achilles. I came to Aulis; held up high over the altar, I, the unhappy one, was about to die by the sword; but Artemis gave the Achaeans a deer in exchange for me and stole me from them; conducting me through the bright air,
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she settled me here in the land of the Taurians. A barbarian rules this land of barbarians: Thoas, who runs as quickly as the flight of birds, and so he received his name for his swiftness of foot. Artemis has made me the priestess in this temple.
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Here I begin the rites, which the goddess delights in, of a banquet noble in name only—I am silent as to the rest, for I fear the goddess— for I sacrifice, by a custom of the city established earlier, any Hellene who comes to this land.
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But others carry out the sacrifices, not to be spoken of, within the temple of the goddess.
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But the strange visions which the night brought with it, I will tell to the air, if that is any relief. I dreamed that I had left this land
to live in Argos, and to sleep in the midst of the maidens’ rooms; but the earth’s back was shaken by a tossing swell. When I escaped and stood outside, I saw the cornice of the house fall, and the whole roof hurled in ruins on the ground, from the highest pillars.
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One support of my father’s house was left, I thought, and it had yellow locks of hair waving from its capital, and took on human voice. In observance of the art of slaughtering strangers that I practice here, I gave it holy water as if it were about to die, while I wept.
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This is my interpretation of this dream: Orestes, whom I consecrated by my rites, is dead. For male children are the supports of the house; and those whom I purify with holy water die. I cannot connect this dream to my friends,
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for Strophius, when I perished, had no son. Now I wish to give libations to my brother, though he is absent from me—for I would be able to do this—with the attendants given me by the king, Hellene women. But why
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are they not yet here? I will go inside this temple of the goddess where I live. Exit Iphigenia.
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Orestes
(entering cautiously.) Look out, take care that no one is in the path.
Pylades
I am looking, and turning my eyes everywhere, in examination.
Orestes
Pylades, do you think this is the hall of the goddess,
for which we set sail from Argos?
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Pylades
Yes, Orestes; and you must think so too.
Orestes
And the altar, that drips with the slaughter of Hellenes?
Pylades
Its dedications of hair, at least, are red with blood.
Orestes
Do you see the spoils hanging from the very walls?
Pylades
Trophies of strangers that have been slain. But I must look all around and keep careful watch.This sentence is assigned to Orestes in the Coleridge translation but has been moved to align with the Greek.
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Orestes
O Phoebus, where have you again brought me into the snare, by your oracles, since I avenged my father’s blood by the murder of my mother, and was driven by successive Furies,
a fugitive, away from the land, and completed many winding courses; and coming to you I asked how I might arrive at an end to whirling madness and my labors, which I have carried out, wandering all over Hellas. . . .
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And you told me to go to the boundaries of the Tauric land, where Artemis, your sister, has an altar, and to take the statue of the goddess, which is said here to have fallen to this temple from heaven; and, taking it by craft of some stroke of luck,
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to complete the venture by giving it to the Athenian land—what was to come next was not spoken of—and if I did this, I would have rest from my labors.
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I have come here, obedient to your words, to an unknown, inhospitable land. I ask you,
Pylades, for you are my accomplice in this task, what shall we do? You see that the surrounding walls are high; shall we ascend the steps leading up to the house? But how might we escape notice? Or loosening the bronze bars of the door with levers,
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of which we know nothing? If we are caught opening the gates and contriving an entrance, we shall die. No, but before we die, let us escape on the ship in which we sailed here.
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Pylades
Flight is not to be endured, nor are we accustomed to it,
and we must not bring reproach on the god’s oracle; let us leave the temple and hide in a cave which the black sea washes with its moisture—far from the ship, so that no one, seeing it, may tell the ruler, and then seize us by force.
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But when the eye of gloomy night comes on, then we must dare to take the polished statue from the shrine, by any means. See where between the triglyphs there is an empty space to let ourselves down. The brave endure their labors,
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the cowardly are worth nothing at all.
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Orestes
Yes, we did not come on a long sea voyage only to undertake a return home before the end; but you have spoken wel, we must obey. We should go wherever we can hide and escape notice.
For it will not be the god’s fault if his sacred oracle falls to the ground without effect. We must endure. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.
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