Iphigenia in Tauris

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.

  1. 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,
  2. 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.
  3. My unhappy Orestes, if you are dead, what glories have you left, what achievements of a father!
  4. 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.
  5. 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,