Iphigenia Among the Taurians

By Euripides

Euripides, along was Sophocles and Aeschylus, is responsible for the rise of Greek tragedy. It was in the 5th Century BC, during the height of Greece's cultural bloom, that Euripides lived and worked. Of his roughly ninety-two plays, only seventeen tragedies survive. Both ridiculed and lauded during his life, Euripides now stands as an innovator of the Greek drama. Here, in "Iphigenia Among the Taurians" is an escape play with a familiar cast of characters. Iphigenia, Orestes, and Pylades all appear at the Black Sea in a fascinating drama about ritual and sacrifice among the cult of Artemis. "Iphigenia" is difficult to categorize as it deftly moves from romance to comedy to tragedy. Considered by many classicists to be Euripides most well executed play, "Iphigenia" displays the deeply philosophical leanings absent in many of his other plays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781420945737

Euripides

Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC to his mother, Cleito, and father, Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. He had two disastrous marriages, and both his wives—Melite and Choerine (the latter bearing him three sons)—were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. He became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education. The details of his death are uncertain.

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IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS

BY EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED BY E. P. COLERIDGE

A Digireads.com Book

Digireads.com Publishing

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4525-6

Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4573-7

This edition copyright © 2012

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CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONSAE.

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS

DRAMATIS PERSONSAE.

IPHIGENIA.

ORESTES

PYLADES.

CHORUS OF CAPTIVE WOMEN from Hellas.

HERDSMAN.

THOAS, KING OF THE TAURI.

MESSENGER.

ATHENA.

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS

[On the sea-shore, in the Tauric Chersonese, near a temple of Artemis. Enter IPHIGENIA.]

IPHIGENIA. Pelops, the son of Tantalus, came to Pisa with swift steeds and won his bride, the daughter of Œnomaus, who bare Atreus to him; Atreus had issue Menelaus and Agamemnon; and I am Agamemnon's child, Iphigenia, by the daughter of Tyndareus, the maid whom 'tis thought my father offered to Artemis for the sake of Helen in the famous bay of Aulis, hard by the eddies which Euripus turneth ever to and fro before the changing breeze, as he rolls along his deep dark wave; for there it was that king Agamemnon gathered a fleet of a thousand ships from Hellas, wishing his Achaeans to win the fair crown of victory over Ilium and avenge the outrage offered to Helen's marriage-vow, all for the sake of Menelaus. But when, owing to foul weather, he could not get a favouring wind, he had recourse to the diviner's flame, and this was what Calchas told him: O Agamemnon, captain of this host of Hellas, no chance hast thou of unmooring thy ships, till Artemis has received thy daughter Iphigenia in sacrifice; for thou didst vow to offer to the goddess of light the fairest thing the year produced. Now thy wife Clytemnestra has given birth to a daughter in thy house, whom thou must sacrifice, ascribing to me the title of fairest; and by the arts of Odysseus they took me from my mother's side, on the pretext of wedding me to Achilles; but, when I reached Aulis, I was seized, poor maid, and lifted high above the pyre; I saw the sword in act to strike, when Artemis stole me out of the Achæans hands, leaving a hind in my place; and she carried me through the radiant air and set me to dwell here in the land of the Tauri, where a barbarian is king over barbarians, e'en Thoas, whose name is due to his fleetness, for swift as a bird on the wing he speeds his course. He made me priestess in the temple here; and this is why, in accordance with the observances of a festival in which the goddess Artemis delights, a festival fair only in name—but I say no more from fear of that deity; for I sacrifice each son of Hellas who touches at these shores, this being the custom in the city even before I came; I begin the rite, but the awful act of slaughter belongs to others inside the shrine of the goddess.

Strange visions the past night brought me, which I will tell to the air, if there is really any help in that. As I slept, methought I had escaped this land and was once more in Argos, sleeping in the midst of my maidens, when lo! the surface of the ground was shaken by an earthquake; whereat I fled, and, standing outside the house, I saw its coping falling and the whole building dashed in ruin from roof to base. Only one column, methought, of my father's halls was left standing, and from its capital it let stream the auburn hair and took a human tongue; and I, observant of the murderous craft I practise against strangers, began sprinkling it, as it had been a victim, weeping the while.

Now this is my interpretation of the dream: Orestes is dead; 'twas for him I began the rites; for sons are the pillars of a house, and death is the lot of all whom once my lustral waters sprinkle. Again, I cannot fix the dream upon my friends, for Strophius had no son at the time I was called to