Iphigenia in Aulis
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.
- Her father, he that begot her, is on the point of slaying your daughter with his own hand.
- How? That for your story, old man! you are mad.
- Severing with a sword the hapless girl’s white throat.
- Ah, alas for me! Does my husband happen to have gone mad?
- No; he is sane, except where you and your daughter are concerned; there he is mad.
- What is his reason? what vengeful fiend impels him?
- Oracles, at least so Calchas says, in order that the army may start—
- Where? Alas for me, and for the one her father is going to kill!
- To the halls of Dardanus, that Menelaus may recover Helen.
- So Helen’s return then was fated to affect Iphigenia?
- You know all; her father is about to offer your child to Artemis.
- But that marriage—what pretext had it for bringing me from home?
- An inducement to you to bring your daughter cheerfully, to wed her to Achilles.
- On a deadly errand have you come, my daughter, both you, and I, your mother.
- Piteous the lot of both of you, and dreadful Agamemnon’s venture.
- Alas, I am undone; my eyes can no longer hold their tears.
- If the loss[*](Reading with Wecklein εἴπερ ἄλλ᾽ εἰκὸς. Paley retains the old reading εἴπερ ἀλγεινὸν. Hartung gives οὐ γὰρ ἄλογόν ἐστι. Kirchhoff οὐ γὰρ ἀλλ᾽ εἰκὸς.) of children is painful, shed your tears.
- From where, old man, do you say you had this news?
- I had started to carry you a letter referring to the former writing.
- Forbidding or combining to urge my bringing the child to her death?