Stasimon 2
[Episode]
Oh! great is the bliss the great enjoy. Behold Iphigenia, the king’s child, my lady, and Clytemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus; how proud their lineage!
590
Chorus of Argive men
how high their pinnacle of fortune! These mighty ones, whom wealth attends, are very gods in the eyes of less favored folk.
595
Chorus
Let us stand here, maidens of Chalcis, and lift the queen from her chariot
to the ground without stumbling, supporting her gently in our arms, with kind intent, that the renowned daughter of Agamemnon, just arrived, may feel no fear; strangers ourselves, let us avoid anything that may disturb
600
or frighten the strangers from Argos.The whole passage from l. 574-606 is regarded by Paley and Dindorf as an interpolation; while most editors concur in regarding 11. 599-606 as undoubtedly spurious.
605
Clytemnestra
I take this as a lucky omen, your kindness and auspicious greeting, and have good hope that it is to a happy marriage
I conduct the bride. To attendants. Take from the chariot the dowry I am bringing for my daughter and convey it within with careful heed.
610
My daughter, leave the horse-drawn chariot, planting your faltering footstep delicately.κῶλον ἀσθενές θ’ ἅμα, but Hermann’s κῶλον ἀσφαλῶς χαμαί is tempting. To the Chorus.
Young women,νεάνιδές, νίν so Pierson for νεανίδασιν. take her in your arms and lift her from the chariot, and let one of you give me the support of her hand, that I may quit my seat in the carriage with fitting grace.
615
Some of you stand at the horses’ heads;
for the horse has a timid eye, easily frightened; here, take this child Orestes, son of Agamemnon, baby as he still is.
620
What! sleeping, little one, tired out by your ride in the chariot? Awake to bless your sister’s wedding; for you, my gallant boy,
shall get by this marriage a kinsman gallant as yourself, the Nereid’s godlike offspring. Come here to your mother, my daughter, Iphigenia, and seat yourself beside me, and stationed near show my happiness to these strangers;
625
yes, come here and welcome the father you love so dearly.The passages indosed in brackets are regarded by Paley and Dindorf, and, in the main, by Kirchhoff, as spurious. Monk only oraits 11. 627-30, and 11.635-7.
630
Iphigenia
Do not be angry with me, mother, if I run from your side and throw myself on my father’s breast.
Clytemnestra
Hail! my honored lord, king Agamemnon! we have obeyed your commands and have come.These two lines were placed here by Porson instead of after the next distich; the same critic read προσβαλῶ and περιβαλεῖν instead of περιβαλῶ and προσβαλεῖν; both of which changes are followed in the translation, though Paley, while mentioning the second, has not actually adopted it in his text.
Iphigenia
O my father! I long to outrun others and embrace you after this long while; for I yearn to see your face; do not be angry with me.
635
Clytemnestra
You may do so, daughter; for of all the children I have borne, you have always loved your father best.
Iphigenia
I see you, father, joyfully after a long time.
640
Agamemnon
And I, your father, see you; your words do equal duty for both of us.
Iphigenia
All hail, father! you did well in bringing me here to you.
Agamemnon
I know not how I am to say yes or no to that, my child.
Iphigenia
Ah! how wildly you are looking, spite of your joy at seeing me.
Agamemnon
A man has many cares when he is king and general too.
645
Iphigenia
Be mine, all mine today; do not turn to moody thoughts.
Agamemnon
Why so I am, all yours today; I have no other thought.
Iphigenia
Then smooth your knitted brow, unbend and smile.
Agamemnon
See! my child, my joy at seeing you is even as it is.
Iphigenia
And do you then have tears streaming from your eyes?
650
Agamemnon
Yes, for long is the absence from each other, that awaits us.
Iphigenia
I do not know, dear father, I do not know of what you are speaking.This line is corrupt, though the sense, so far, is preserved. Dindorf suspects 11. 652-5, and it certainly is difficult to see the connection of 1. 652 with what precedes. Paley suggests that several lines have been lost.
Agamemnon
You are moving my pity all the more by speaking so sensibly.
Iphigenia
My words shall turn to senselessness if that will cheer you more.
Agamemnon
Alas! this silence is too much. You have my thanks.
655
Iphigenia
Stay with your children at home, father.
Agamemnon
My own wish!θέλω γε· τὸ θέλειν δ᾽ but the words are probably corrupt. But to my sorrow I may not
Iphigenia
Ruin seize their wars and the woes of Menelaus!
Agamemnon
First will that, which has been my life-long ruin, bring ruin to others.ἄλλους ὀλεῖ πρόσθ᾽ ἁμὲ διολέσαντ᾽ ἔχει. None of the various proposed emendations are great improvements on this reading of Porson’s, though it is hardly likely that this is what Euripides wrote.
Iphigenia
How long you were absent in the bays of Aulis!
660
Agamemnon
Yes, and there is still a hindrance to my sending the army forward.
Iphigenia
Where do men say the Phrygians live, father?
Agamemnon
In a land where I wish Paris, the son of Priam, never had dwelt.
Iphigenia
It is a long voyage you are bound on, father, after you leave me.
Agamemnon
You will meet your father again, my daughter.
665
Iphigenia
Ah! would it were seemly for you to take me as a fellow voyager!These two lines, 665-6 are corrupt, probably interpolated, in Paley’s opinion. Omitting them, 1. 667 comes in very properly. To obtain any sense in the first of them, Weil’s correction, ἐς ταὐτὸν αὗθις, ὦ θύγατερ ἥξεις πατρί has been adopted; the meaning being, we shall meet after death.
Agamemnon
You too haveReading ἀλλ᾽ ἔστι, Hermann’s correction for MSS. αἰτεῖς τι. a voyage to make to a haven where you will remember your father.
Iphigenia
Shall I sail there with my mother or alone?
Agamemnon
All alone, without father or mother.
Iphigenia
What! have you found me a new home, father?
670
Agamemnon
Enough of this! it is not for girls to know such things.
Iphigenia
Please hurry home from Troy, father, as soon as you have triumphed there.
Agamemnon
There is a sacrifice I have first to offer here.
Iphigenia
Yes, it is your duty to heed religion with aid of holy rites.Monk interprets in a matter of religion thou must consult the priests. Paley inclines to the view that ll. 674-7 are interpolated.
Agamemnon
You will witness it, for you will be standing near the libations.
675
Iphigenia
Am I to lead the dance then round the altar, father?
Agamemnon
I count you happier than myself because you know nothing. Go within—it is wrong for maidens to be seen—after you have given me your hand and a kiss,
on the eve of your lengthy sojourn far from your father’s side.
680
Breast, cheek, and golden hair! ah, how grievous you have found Helen and the Phrygians’ city! I can speak no more; the tears come welling to my eyes, the moment I touch you.
Go into the house. Exit Iphigenia.
685
Agamemnon turns to Clytemnestra. I beg your pardon, daughter of Leda, if I showed excessive grief at the thought of giving my daughter to Achilles; for though we are sending her to taste of bliss, still it wrings a parent’s heart, when he, the father who has toiled so hard for them,
685
commits his children to the homes of strangers.
690
Clytemnestra
I am not so senseless; But I think I will go through this as well, when I lead the girl from the chamber to the sound of the marriage hymn; so I do not chide you; but custom will combine with time to make the smart grow less.
As for him, to whom you have betrothed our daughter, I know his name, it is true, but want to learn his lineage and the land of his birth.
695
Agamemnon
There was one Aegina, the daughter of Asopus.
Clytemnestra
Who wedded her? Some mortal or a god?
Agamemnon
Zeus, and she bore Aeacus, the prince of Oenone.The old name of Aegina.
Clytemnestra
What son of Aeacus secured his father’s halls?
700
Agamemnon
Peleus, who wedded the daughter of Nereus.
Clytemnestra
With the god’s consent, or when he had taken her in spite of gods?
Agamemnon
Zeus betrothed her, and her guardian gave consent.
Clytemnestra
Where did he marry her? in the billows of the sea?
Agamemnon
In Chiron’s home, at sacred Pelion’s foot.
705
Clytemnestra
What! the abode ascribed to the race of Centaurs?
Agamemnon
It was there the gods celebrated the marriage feast of Peleus.
Clytemnestra
Did Thetis or his father train Achilles?
Agamemnon
Chiron brought him up, to prevent his learning the ways of the wicked.
Clytemnestra
Ah! wise the teacher, still wiser the one who gave his son.
710
Agamemnon
Such is the future husband of your daughter.
Clytemnestra
A blameless lord; but what city in Hellas is his?
Agamemnon
He dwells on the banks of the river Apidanus, in the borders of Phthia.
Clytemnestra
Will you conveyἀπάξεις, so Dobree for ἀπάξει. our daughter there?
Agamemnon
He who takes her to himself will see to that.
715
Clytemnestra
Happiness attend the pair! Which day will he marry her?
Agamemnon
As soon as the full moon comes to give its blessing
Clytemnestra
Have you already offered the goddess a sacrifice to usher in the maiden’s marriage?
Agamemnon
I am about to do so; that is the very thing I was engaged in.
Clytemnestra
And then will you celebrate the marriage feast afterwards?
720
Agamemnon
Yes, when I have offered a sacrifice required by the gods of me.
Clytemnestra
But where am I to make ready the feast for the women?
Agamemnon
Here beside our gallant Argive ships.
Clytemnestra
Finely here! but still I must;Reading καλῶς γ᾽, ἀνασκαίως δὲ·, as Paley edits on his own correction. good come of it for all that!
Agamemnon
Do you know what to do, lady? Then obey me.
725
Clytemnestra
In what matter? for I was ever accustomed to obey you.
Agamemnon
Here, where the bridegroom is, I will—
Clytemnestra
Which of my duties will you perform in the mother’s absence?
Agamemnon
Give your child away with help of Danaids.
Clytemnestra
And where am I to be then?
730
Agamemnon
Go to Argos, and take care of your unwedded daughters.
Clytemnestra
And leave my child? Then who will raise her bridal torch?
Agamemnon
I will provide the proper wedding torch.
Clytemnestra
That is not the custom; but you think lightly of these things.
Agamemnon
It is not good for you to be alone among a soldier-crowd.
735
Clytemnestra
It is good that a mother should give her own child away.
Agamemnon
Yes, and that those maidens at home should not be left alone.
Clytemnestra
They are well guarded in their maiden bowers.
Clytemnestra
No, by the goddess-queen of Argos!
730
Go, manage matters out of doors; but in the house it is my place to decide what is proper for maidens at their wedding.This line is rejected by Monk as spurious; Hermann proposes to read νυμφίοισι παρθένων, and without some such emendation it is diificult to find any meaning in it.
740
Agamemnon
Woe is me! my efforts are baffled; I am disappointed in my hope, anxious as I was to get my wife out of sight; foiled at every point,
I form my plots and subtle schemes against my best-beloved. But I will go, in spite of all, with Calchas the priest, to inquire the goddess’s good pleasure, fraught with ill-luck as it is to me, and with trouble to Hellas.Lines 746-8 are rejected by Monk, whom most editors follow. He who is wise should keep in his house
745
a good and useful wife or none at all.
750
[Choral]
The Hellenes’ gathered army will come in arms aboard their ships to Simois with its silver eddies,
Chorus
to Ilium, the plain of Troy beloved by Phoebus; where Cassandra, I am told, wildly tosses her golden tresses, wreathed with crown of green laurel,
755
whenever the god’s resistless prophecies inspire her.
760
And on the towers of Troy and round her walls shall Trojans stand, when sea-borne troops
with brazen shields row in on shapely ships to the channels of the Simois, eager to take Helen, the sister of that heavenly pair whom Zeus begot, from Priam, and bear her back to Hellas by toil
765
of Achaean shields and spears.
770
The son of Atreus, encircling Pergamus, the Phrygians’ town, with murderous war
around her stone-built towers, dragging Paris’s head backward to cut his throat and sacking the cityThe words πόλισμα Τροίας are omitted by Monk as a gloss on πόλιν. Hartung regards 11. 773-83 as interpolated, and there is certainly much in them that Euripides can scarcely have written; both Dindorf and Kirchhoff reject large portions of what follows 1. 773. from roof to base, shall be a cause of many tears to maids and
775
Priam’s wife. And Helen, the daughter of Zeus, shallἐσεῖται. Hermann gives εἴσεται, shall know to her cost. weep in bitter grief because she left her lord.
780
Never may there appear to me or to my children’s children
the prospect which the wealthy Lydian ladies and Phrygia’s brides will havePerhaps Tyrrwhitt’s σχήσουσι should be read for στήσουσι. as at their looms they converse:
785
Tell me, who will pluck me away from my ruined country, tightening his grasp on lovely tresses till the tears flow? it is all through you, the offspring of the long-necked swan; if indeed it is a true report
790
that Leda boreReading ἔτεκεν with Musgrave for ἔτυχεν. you to a winged bird, when Zeus transformed himself there, or whether, in the tablets of the poets, fables have carried these tales to men’s ears
795