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CTS Library / Iphigenia Among the Tauri

Iphigenia Among the Tauri (195-275)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg013.perseus-eng2:195-275
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One pain comes after another, to the house of the golden lamb. . . . from that earlier time when the Tantalids were killed,
punishment came to the house, and fate presses what you do not want upon you.
203
Iphigenia
From the beginning my fate was unhappy, from that first night of my mather’s marriage;
from the beginning the Fates attendant on my birth directed a hard upbringing for me, wooed by Hellenes, the first-born child in the home,
whom the unhappy daughter of Leda, by my father’s fault, bore as a victim and a sacrifice not joyful, she brought me up as an offering. In the horse-drawn chariot,
they set me as a bride on the sands of Aulis, oh woe, a wretched bride for the son of the Nereid, alas! But now, as a stranger I live in an unfertile home on this sea that is hostile to strangers,
without marriage, or children, or city, or friends, not raising hymns to Hera at Argos, nor embroidering with my shuttle, in the singing loom, the likeness of Athenian Pallas and the Titans; but
. . . a bloody fate, not to be hymned by the lyre, of strangers who wail a piteous cry and weep piteous tears. And now I must forget these things,
and lament my brother, killed in Argos, whom I left at the breast, still a baby, still an infant, still a young child in his mother’s arms and at her breast,
the holder of the scepter in Argos, Orestes.
236
Chorus Leader
Look, here comes a herdsman, who has left the shores of the sea to bring you some new message.
Herdsman
Daughter of Agamemnon, and of Clytemnestra, hear a strange report from me.
Iphigenia
And what is amazing in your news?
Herdsman
Two young men have come to this land, fleeing the dark Symplegades in their ship, an offering and sacrifice pleasing to the goddess Artemis. Be quick to prepare
the purifications and the first offerings.
Iphigenia
What country are the strangers from? How are they dressed?
Herdsman
They are Hellenes; I know this one thing, and nothing further.
Iphigenia
Can’t you tell me their names? Did you hear them?
Herdsman
One was called Pylades by the other.
Iphigenia
What is the name of his companion?
Herdsman
No one knows; we didn’t hear it.
Iphigenia
How did you see them? How did you come upon them and catch them?
Herdsman
At the edge of the breakers of the Black Sea—
Iphigenia
And what do herdsmen have to do with the sea?
Herdsman
We came to wash our cattle in the salt water.
Iphigenia
Go back to the earlier question, how did you take them, and in what way, for I want to know this. They have come after a long time; the altar of the goddess has not yet been reddened by streams of Hellene blood.
260
Herdsman
When we were driving the cattle, that feed in the forest, into the sea that flows through the Symplegades, there was a broken cleft, hollowed by the constant surge of waves, shelter for those who hunt the purple-fish. Here one of the herdsmen saw two youths,
and made a retreat on tip-toe. He said: Don’t you see them? These are deities that sit there. One of us, who revered the gods, lifted up his hands and prayed, as he saw them:
O son of the sea-goddess Leukothea, guardian of ships, lord Palaemon, be propitious to us! Or do you sit on our shores, twin sons of Zeus? Or the darlings of Nereus, father of the chorus of fifty Nereids?
Another, who was foolish and bold in his lawlessness, laughed at the prayers and asserted that ship-wrecked sailors were sitting on the cliff, in fear of our custom, having heard that we sacrifice strangers here.
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