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.
- What reason did she have to kill her husband?
- Let our mother’s affairs be; nor is it good for you to hear.
- I am silent; does Argos now look to you?
- Menelaus rules there; I am an exile from my country
- Our uncle has surely not maltreated our afflicted house, has he?
- No, but fear of the Furies drives me out of the land.
- That was the madness that they reported there on the shore?
- That was not the first time that I was seen to be wretched.
- I know; the goddesses were driving you for the sake of your mother.
- So as to put a bloody bit in my mouth.
- Why have you made a journey to this land?
- I have come at the commands of Phoebus’ oracles.
- To do what? Can you speak of it, or must you be silent?
- I will tell you; this is the beginning of my many troubles.
- When my mother’s evil deeds, that I cannot speak of, came into my hands, I was driven to flight by the Furies’ pursuit; then Loxias sent me to Athens, to stand trial with the goddesses who may not be named.
- For there is a holy tribunal there, which Zeus once established for Ares, when his hands were stained with blood-pollution. I came there . . . at first, no host would willingly take me in, as one hated by the gods; then some who felt shame offered me a table apart, as a guest,
- themselves being under the same roof, and in silence they kept me from speaking, so that I might be apart from them in food and drink, and into each private cup they poured an equal measure of wine and had their delight.
- And I did not think it right to blame my hosts, but I grieved in silence and seemed not to know, while I sighed deeply, that I was the murderer of my mother. I hear that my misfortunes have become a festival at Athens, and they still hold this custom
- and the people of Pallas honor the cup that belongs to the Feast of Pitchers. When I came to the hill of Ares to stand my trial, I took one seat, and the eldest of the Furies took the other. I spoke and heard arguments on the murder of my mother,
- and Phoebus saved me by bearing witness; Pallas counted out equal votes for me; and I went away victorious in my ordeal of blood. Some of the Furies who sat there, persuaded by the judgment, marked out a holy place for themselves beside this very tribunal;