Iphigenia Among the Tauri (660-742)

Who is the girl? How like a Hellene she questioned me about the labors in Ilium and the return of the Achaeans, and Calchas, wise in omens, and Achilles’ name; and how she pitied the wretched Agamemnon, and asked me about

his wife and children! This stranger is an Argive by race, and from that land; or she would not be sending the tablet and examining these things, as if she had some share in Argos’ prosperity.

You are not much ahead of me: I was about to say the same things you said,

except this: all who move about in the world know what happens to kings. But I have arrived at another consideration.

What is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.

It is shameful for me to live when you are dead;

I sailed together with you, and I ought to die together with you. For I will seem a coward and base in Argos and Phocis of the many mountain folds. Most will think—for most people are base—that I betrayed you and saved myself to come home alone,

or I plotted your death, in the afflictions of your house, for the sake of your kingdom, since I married your sister and heiress. I fear these things and I am ashamed; and I must breathe my last with you,

be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.

Hush! I must bear my own ills, and when the grief is single, I will not bear it double. What you call vile and infamous,

would be mine, if I cause you, who have toiled with me, to die; for it is not a hardship for me, suffering as I do at the hands of the gods, to give up my life. But you are prosperous, and you have a house that is pure, not afflicted, while mine is impious and unfortunate.

If you are saved and get sons from my sister, whom I gave to you for wife, my name would remain and the whole house of my father would not be wiped out in childlessness. But go, and live, and dwell in my father’s house.

And when you come to Hellas and to Argos of the horses, I charge you, by this right hand: heap up a tomb and build a memorial for me, and let my sister give her hair and tears to the tomb. Report that I died at the hand of an Argive

woman, at an altar, purified for death. Do not ever betray my sister, when you see how lonely is my father’s house that you have joined by marriage. And now farewell; I have found you the dearest of my friends, you who have hunted with me, grown up with me,

and borne with me many miseries. Phoebus, though a prophet, has deceived me; creating his plot, he drove me far away from Hellas, ashamed of his earlier prophecies. I gave him my all and trusted in his words,

killed my mother, and myself perish in turn.

You will have a tomb, and I will never betray your sister’s bed, unhappy youth, since I will hold you dearer when dead than when alive. But the prophecy of the god has not destroyed you yet;

although you stand near to slaughter. Great misfortune can offer great reversals, when it is fated; it can indeed.

Silence; the words of Phoebus are no benefit to me; here comes the woman out of the temple.

(to the guard.) Go away and make the preparations within for those who attend to the sacrifice.

Here are the many folds of the tablet, strangers. Hear what I want in addition. No man is the same when he is in troubles

and when he falls out of fear into courage. I am afraid that when the one who is going to take this tablet to Argos leaves this land, he will put aside my letter as worth nothing.

What do you want, then? What are you perplexed about?

Let him give me an oath that he will convey this letter to Argos, to the friends to whom I wish to send it.

And will you give in return the same words to him?

To do what, or refrain from doing? Tell me.

To send him from this barbarous land alive.

What you say is right; how else could he deliver it?

Will the king agree to this?

Yes. I will persuade the king, and I myself will put this man on the ship.