IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
Should get them ready for the sacrifice. 335
Ask Artemis to send us more of them,
More sailor-boys from Greece, send them to Tauris,
And let more men from Hellas pay with blood
After their shouting for your blood at Aulis.
The First Maiden
This is no ordinary man who has come 340
From shores of Hellas to an alien shore
And battles like a God.
Iphigenia
Go back and bring me the two foreigners.
I shall be waiting for them when you come.
(The Herdsman leaves.)
Poor heart of mine, which always hitherto
Has been compassionate, tender toward strangers, 345
And even yesterday felt a quick pang
At thought of Greeks who might be lost in Tauris,
A crushing dream has changed you overnight.
For since Orestes is no more alive,
Now, where my heart was, there is only stone. 350
Strangers who come today, no matter who,
Will find in me a woman beyond tears.
Unhappiness, O friends, can harden us
Toward other sorrow harsher than our own.
If but some heaven-sent wind, forcing a ship
Between the Clashing Rocks, might bring me Helen, 355
The Helen whom I hate, and Menelaus,
That I might make of them the sacrifice,
Let a new Aulis expiate the old,
And vent my vengeance! It was Helen's fault
And his, that Greek hands lifted me at Aulis
And led me like a beast where, at the altar,
My father held the sacrificial knife. 360
I live it all again. My fingers, groping,
Go out to him like this and clutch his beard
385