by Euripides
Dance like an idiot in the wind! And none
By any strength hath his own fortune won.
[During these lines several Women are seen approaching with garlands and raiment in their hands.
LEADER.
Lo these, who bear thee raiment harvested
From Ilion’s slain, to fold upon the dead.
[During the following scene HECUBA gradually takes the garments and wraps them about the Child.
HECUBA.
O not in pride for speeding of the car
Beyond thy peers, not for the shaft of war
True aimed, as Phrygians use; not any prize
Of joy for thee, nor splendour in men’s eyes,
Thy father’s mother lays these offerings
About thee, from the many fragrant things
That were all thine of old. But now no more.
One woman, loathed of God, hath broke the door
And robbed thy treasure-house, and thy warm breath
Made cold, and trod thy people down to death!
CHORUS. Some Women.
Deep in the heart of me
I feel thine hand,
Mother: and is it he
Dead here, our prince to be,
And lord of the land?
HECUBA.
Glory of Phrygian raiment, which my thought
Kept for thy bridal day with some far-sought
Queen of the East, folds thee for evermore.
And thou, grey Mother, Mother-Shield that bore
THE TROJAN WOMEN
A thousand days of glory, thy last crown
Is here…. Dear Hector’s shield! Thou shalt lie
down
Undying with the dead, and lordlier there
Than all the gold Odysseus’ breast can bear,
The evil and the strong!
CHORUS. Some Women.
Child of the Shield-bearer,
Alas, Hector’s child!
Great Earth, the All-mother,
Taketh thee unto her
With wailing wild!
Others.
Mother of misery,
Give Death his song!
(HEC. Woe!) Aye and bitterly
(HEC. Woe!) We too weep for thee,
And the infinite wrong!
[During these lines HECUBA, kneeling by the body, has been performing a funeral rite, symbolically staunching the dead Child’s wounds.
HECUBA.
I make thee whole;
I bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul.
This wound and this I heal with linen white:
O emptiness of aid!… Yet let the rite
Be spoken. This and…. Nay, not I, but he,
Thy father far away shall comfort thee!
[She bows her head to the ground and remains motionless and unseeing.
CHORUS.
Beat, beat thine head:
Beat with the wailing chime
Of hands lifted in time:
Beat and bleed for the dead.
Woe is me for the dead!
HECUBA.
O Women! Ye, mine own….
[She rises bewildered, as though she had seen a vision.
LEADER.
Hecuba, speak!
Oh, ere thy bosom break….
HECUBA.
Lo, I have seen the open hand of God;
And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod
Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate,
Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great
For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell
And bulls’ blood on the altars!… All is well.
Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust
Our high things low and shook our hills as dust,
We had not been this splendour, and our wrong
An everlasting music for the song
Of earth and heaven!
Go, women: lay our dead
In his low sepulchre. He hath his meed
Of robing. And, methinks, but little care
Toucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there
Have rich encerement. ’Tis we, ’tis we,
That dream, we living and our vanity!
[The Women bear out the dead Child upon the shield, singing, when presently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of the City.
CHORUS. Some Women.
Woe for the mother that bare thee, child,
Thread so frail of a hope so high,
That Time hath broken: and all men smiled
About thy cradle, and, passing by,
Spoke of thy father’s majesty.
Low, low, thou liest!
Others.
Ha! Who be these on the crested rock?
Fiery hands in the dusk, and a shock
Of torches flung! What lingereth still,
O wounded City, of unknown ill,
Ere yet thou diest?
TALTHYBIUS (coming out through the ruined Wall).
Ye Captains that have charge to wreck this keep
Of Priam’s City, let your torches sleep
No more! Up, fling the fire into her heart!
Then have we done with Ilion, and may part
In joy to Hellas from this evil land.
And ye — so hath one word two faces — stand,
Daughters of Troy, till on your ruined wall
The echo of my master’s trumpet call
In signal breaks: then, forward to the sea,
Where the long ships lie waiting.
And for thee,
O ancient woman most unfortunate,
Follow: Odysseus’ men be here, and wait
To guide thee…. ’Tis to him thou go’st for thrall.
HECUBA.
Ah, me! and is it come, the end of all,
The very crest and summit of my days?
I go forth from my land, and all its ways
Are filled with fire! Bear me, O aged feet,
A little nearer: I must gaze, and greet
My poor town ere she fall.
Farewell, farewell!
O thou whose breath was mighty on the swell
Of orient winds, my Troy! Even thy name
Shall soon be taken from thee. Lo, the flame
Hath thee, and we, thy children, pass away
To slavery…. God! O God of mercy!… Nay:
Why call I on the Gods? They know, they know,
My prayers, and would not hear them long ago.
Quick, to the flames! O, in thine agony,
My Troy, mine own, take me to die with thee!
[She springs toward the flames, but is seized and held by the Soldiers.
TALTHYBIUS.
Back! Thou art drunken with thy miseries,
Poor woman! — Hold her fast, men, till it please
Odysseus that she come. She was his lot
Chosen from all and portioned. Lose her not!
[He goes to watch over the burning of the City. The dusk deepens.
CHORUS. Divers Women.
Woe, woe, woe!
Thou of the Ages, O wherefore fleëst thou,
Lord of the Phrygian, Father that made us?
’Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us?
’Tis we, thy children! Seëst thou, seëst thou?
Others.
He seëth, only his heart is pitiless;
And the land dies: yea, she,
She of the Mighty Cities perisheth citiless!
Troy shall no more be!
Others.
Woe, woe, woe!
Ilion shineth afar!
Fire in the deeps thereof,
Fire in the heights above,
And crested walls of War!
Others.
As smoke on the wing of heaven
Climbeth and scattereth,
Torn of the spear and driven,
The land crieth for death:
O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven,
And the sword’s angry breath!
[A new thought comes to HECUBA; she kneels and beats the earth with her hands.
HECUBA.
[Strophe.
O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O
mine own,
Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness
lying!
LEADER.
Now hast thou found thy prayer, crying to them that are gone.
HECUBA.
Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your
head;
Hearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!
LEADER.
I, I am near thee;
I kneel to thy dead to hear thee,
Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear
my crying!
HECUBA.
Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they
bear,
LEADER.
(Pain; O pain!)
HECUBA.
We go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O
hear!
LEADER.
(Go, and come not again!)
HECUBA.
Priam, mine own Priam,
Lying so lowly,
Thou in thy nothingness,
Shelterless, comfortless,
See’st thou the thing I am?
Know’st thou my bitter stress?
LEADER.
Nay, thou art naught to him!
Out of the strife there came,
Out of the noise and shame,
Making his eyelids dim,
Death, the Most Holy!
[The fire and smoke rise constantly higher.
HECUBA.
[Antistrophe.
O high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth,
Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and
blood-red river!
LEADER.
Fall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the gentle earth.
HECUBA.
The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing; It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished thing!
LEADER.
Out on the smoke she goeth,
And her name no man knoweth;
And the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone
for ever!
[A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in smoke and darkness.
HECUBA.
Ha! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the towers that fall!
LEADER.
All is gone!
HECUBA.
Wrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that sweepeth all,
LEADER.
And passeth on! [The Greek trumpet sounds.
HECUBA.
Farewell! — O spirit grey,
Whatso is coming,
Fail not from under me.
Weak limbs, why tremble ye?
Forth where the new long day
Dawneth to slavery!
CHORUS.
Farewell from parting lips,
Farewell! — Come, I and thou,
Whatso may wait us now,
Forth to the long Greek ships
And the sea’s foaming.
[The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go out in the darkness.
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
Translated by Theodore Alois Buckley
Composed between 414 BC and 412 BC, this play is often described as a romance, forming a tragi-comedy, unlike the more severe tragedies in the Euripidean corpus. The drama concerns the daughter of Agamemnon, Iphigenia, who, years before the time period covered in the play, narrowly avoided death by sacrifice at the hands of her father. At the last moment the goddess Artemis intervened and replaced Iphigenia on the altar with a deer, secretly taking the girl off to Tauris. There she was made a priestess at the temple of Artemis, a position in which she has the gruesome task of ritually sacrificing foreigners that land on King Thoas’ shores. Despising her forced religious servitude, she is desperate to contact her family in Greece and let them know she is still alive and wants to return to her homeland.
The play also features Iphigenia’s brother Orestes, who has, with assistance from his friend Pylades, killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge his father Agamemnon. Haunted by the Erinyes for committing matricide, he suffers periodic fits of madness and so has travelled to Tauris in order to steal a sacred statue of Artemis to help free him from his madness. Unknown to him, he will shortly meet his sister, whom he still believes perished years ago.
‘Pylades and Orestes Brought as Victims before Iphigenia’ by Benjamin West, 1766
CONTENTS
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
THE ARGUMENT.
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
IPHIGENIA.
ORESTES.
PYLADES.
HERDSMAN.
THOAS.
MESSENGER.
MINERVA.
CHORUS OF GRECIAN CAPTIVE WOMEN.
THE ARGUMENT.
Orestes, coming into Tauri in Scythia, in company with Pylades, had been commanded to bear away the image of Diana, after which he was to meet with a respite from the avenging Erinnyes of his mother. His sister Iphigenia, who had been carried away by Diana from Aulis, when on the point of being sacrificed by her father, chances to be expiating a dream that led her to suppose Orestes dead, when a herdsman announces to her the arrival and detection of two strangers, whom she is bound by her office to sacrifice to Diana. On meeting, a mutual discovery takes place, and they plot their escape. Iphigenia imposes on the superstitious fears of Thoas, and, removing them to the sea-coast, they are on the point of making their escape together, when they are surprised, and subsequently detained and driven back by stress of weather. Thoas is about to pursue them, when Minerva appears, and restrains him from doing so, at the same time procuring liberty of return for the Grecian captives who form the chorus.
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.
IPHIGENIA. Pelops, 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 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, and avenge the outraged nuptials of Helen, for the gratification of Menelaus. But, there being great difficulty of sailing, 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, 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 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, she settled me in this land of the Tauri, where barbarian Thoas rules 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, 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 ha
ir, indeed, but the slaying that may not be told is the care of others within these shrines. But the new visions which the [past] night hath brought with it, I will tell to the sky, 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 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 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 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?
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 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.] 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 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. 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 [if we did so?] Or shall we open the brass-wrought fastenings of the bolts? of which things we know nothing. 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.
