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. stock, and are rightly a friend to your friends! May that one of my relatives who is left be such as you! For I am not without a brother, strangers, except in so far as I do not see him.
  2. Since you wish it, I will send this man
  3. with the tablet, and you will die; a great eagerness for this seems to possess you.
Orestes
  1. Who will sacrifice me and dare such a dreadful deed ?
Iphigenia
  1. I will; for I hold the office of this goddess.
Orestes
  1. It is not envied, lady, and not blessed.
Iphigenia
  1. But I am dedicated to necessity, which must be kept.
Orestes
  1. Do you yourself, a woman, sacrifice men with the sword?
Iphigenia
  1. No; but I sprinkle the holy water around your hair.
Orestes
  1. Who is the slayer? If I may ask this.
Iphigenia
  1. That charge belongs to those within this temple.
Orestes
  1. What sort of tomb will receive me, when I die?
Iphigenia
  1. The sacred fire within and the wide hollow of a cave.
Orestes
  1. Ah! Would that my sister’s hand might lay out my body!
Iphigenia
  1. You have prayed in vain, unhappy youth, whoever you are; for she lives far from a barbarian land.
  2. Yet indeed, since you happen to be an Argive, I too will not leave out any favor that I can do. I will set much ornament on the tomb and quench your body with yellow oil, and throw onto your funeral pyre the gleaming honey, that streams from flowers,
  3. of the tawny mountain bee.
  4. But I will go and bring the tablet from the temple of the goddess; take care not to bear me ill-will.
  5. Guard them, attendants, without chains. Perhaps I will send unexpected news to one of my friends,
  6. whom I especially love, in Argos; and the tablet, in telling him that those whom he thought dead are alive, will report a joy that can be believed. Exit Iphigenia.