IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
A monologue from the
play by Euripides
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. i. Trans.
Shelley Dean Milman. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1920. |
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- IPHIGENIA: Th' Atridæ are no more:
- Extinct their sceptre's golden light;
- My father's house from its proud height
- Is fall'n: its ruins I deplore.
- Who of her kings at Argos holds his reign,
- Her kings once blest? But Sorrow's train
- Rolls on impetuous for the rapid steeds
- Which o'er the strand with Pelops fly.
- From what Atrocious deeds
- Starts the sun back, his sacred eye
- Of brightness, loathing, turned aside?
- And fatal to their house arose
- From the rich Ram, Thessalia's golden pride,
- Slaughter on slaughter, woes on woes.
- Thence from the dead of ages past
- Vengeance came rushing on its prey,
- And swept the race of Tantalus away:
- Fatal to thee its ruthless haste;
- To me too fatal from the hour
- My mother wedded, from the night
- She gave me to life's opening light,
- Nursed by affliction's cruel power.
- Early to me the fates unkind
- To know what sorrow is assigned;
- Me, Leda's daughter, hapless dame,
- First blooming offspring of her bed
- (A father's conduct here I blame),
- A joyless victim bred;
- When o'er the strand of Aulis, in the pride
- Of beauty kindling flames of love,
- High on my splendid car I move,
- Betrothed to Thetis' son a bride:
- Ah hapless bride, to all the train
- Of Grecian fair preferred in vain!
- But now a stranger on this strand,
- 'Gainst which the wild waves beat,
- I hold my dreary, joyless seat,
- Far distant from my native land;
- Nor nuptial bed is mine, nor child, nor friend.
- At Argos now no more I raise
- The festal song in Juno's praise;
- Nor o'er the loom sweet-sounding bend,
- As the creative shuttle flies,
- Give forms of Titans fierce to rise,
- And dreadful with her purple spear
- Image Athenian Pallas there.
- But on this barb'rous shore
- Th' unhappy stranger's fate I moan,
- The ruthless altar stained with gore,
- His deep and dying groan:
- And for each tear that weeps his woes,
- From me a tear of pity flows.
- Of these the sad remembrance now must sleep:
- A brother dead, ah me! I weep:
- At Argos him by fate opprest
- I left an infant at the breast.
- A beauteous bud, whose opening charms
- Then blossomed in his mother's arms,
- Orestes, born to high command,
- Th' imperial sceptre of the Argive land.
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MONOLOGUES BY EURIPIDES |
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