Iphigenia Among the Tauri (279-385)

Most of us thought that he spoke well,

and that we ought to hunt down the customary offerings to the goddess. At this moment, one of the strangers left the rock, and stood, shaking his head up and down and groaning, with hands trembling, wandering in madness; and like a hunter, he cried aloud:

Pylades, do you see her? Don’t you see hell’s dragon, how she wants to kill me, fringed with her dreadful vipers against me? and the one who breathes fire and slaughter from her robe and wings her way, my mother

in her arms—the rocky mass, how she hurls it at me! Ah, she will kill me! Where can I escape?

We could not see these shapes; but he alternated the sounds of sheep and howling of dogs . . . to send forth the Furies’ imitations.

Astonished, we cowered together and sat in silence; but he drew his sword and rushed like a lion into the midst of our cattle, striking their flanks with his iron sword and thrusting it into their sides, thinking in this way to ward off the Furies,

so that the waves of the sea blossomed red with blood. And all of us, as we saw our herds falling and ravaged, took arms, blew our conch shells, and collected the neighbors; for we thought cowherds would make a poor fight of it

against well-grown and young foreigners. After a long time, our numbers were complete. But the stranger fell down, his pulsing beat of madness gone, his chin dripping with foam; when we saw him, so conveniently fallen, each of us went to work,

hurling and striking at him. The other stranger wiped off the foam and tended his body, covering him with a finely-woven robe, looking out for the attacking blows, treating his friend kindly with his care.

The stranger, now in his senses, started up from his fall and realized the surge of enemies close at hand and the present danger to them both, with a groan; we did not let up our attack with stones, pressing hard from all sides.

Then we heard his dreadful exhortation: Pylades, we shall die, but let us die with glory; draw your sword, and follow me.

But when we saw our enemies brandishing their two swords, we fled and filled up the rocky glens.

But while some would flee, others pressed on and attacked them; if they drove those back, the ones who had just given way struck them with stones again. But it was hard to believe; with so many hands, no one succeeded in hitting these offerings to the goddess.

We got the better of them with difficulty; not by daring, but by surrounding them in a circle, with stones we took away their swords; they sank on their knees to the ground, in weariness. Then we brought them to the lord of this land. He saw them, and at once

sent them to you, for purification and slaughter. You have prayed for such sacrificial victims as these strangers, lady; if you destroy them, Hellas will make atonement for your murder and pay the penalty for the sacrifice in Aulis.

You have told an amazing story about this madman, whoever he is, who has come from Hellas to the Black Sea.

Very well. You go and bring the strangers here; the holy rites will be my concern. Exit Herdsman.

O my unhappy heart, you were gentle to strangers before,

and always full of pity, measuring out tears for the sake of our common race, whenever Hellenes came into your hands. But now, after those dreams that have made me savage, thinking that Orestes is no longer alive,

whoever comes here will find me harsh to them. This is true after all, my friends, I have realized: the unfortunate, when themselves doing badly, do not have kind thoughts towards those who are more unfortunate.

But no breeze from Zeus ever came,

or a boat, bringing Helen here, through the rocks of the Symplegedes—Helen who destroyed me, with Menelaus, so that I might avenge myself on them, setting an Aulis here against that one there, where the Danaids overpowered me and were going to sacrifice me like a calf,

and my own father was the priest.

Ah me!—I cannot forget those past evils—how often did I stroke my father’s cheek and, hanging on his knees, told him: O father, I am brought

to a shameful betrothal by you; but while you are killing me, my mother and the Argive women are singing wedding hymns, and the whole house is filled with the music of flutes; but I am being destroyed by you. For Achilles was Hades after all, not the son of Peleus,

whom you held out to me as a husband, and you brought me in a chariot to a bloody wedding by treachery. But I was modestly looking out through a fine veil, and did not take up my brother in my arms—and now he is dead—did not kiss my sister,

because I was going to the house of Peleus; I put off many embraces to another time, thinking that I would come back again to Argos.

My unhappy Orestes, if you are dead, what glories have you left, what achievements of a father!

I blame the goddess’ subtleties; whichever mortal has engaged in murder, or has touched a woman in childbirth or a corpse, she drives from her altars, thinking him impure; but she herself delights in human sacrifices.

It is not possible that Leto, the wife of Zeus, gave birth to such folly. I judge that the feast prepared by Tantalus for the gods is not to be believed, that they fed on the flesh of his son; and I think that the people here, who are themselves killers of men,