IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
Lifted to watch me, held up by your nurse 835
To wave goodbye. And now those little arms
I saw reach out have come to me, grown strong
To comfort me! How can I tell my joy?
There is no language sweet enough to tell it.
There is no joy like this. There never was. 840
Orestes
And there must never be an end of it.
Iphigenia
I am bewildered. And I cannot think
What I should say, my friends. I cannot think
Of anything but joy—except a fear
That he might vanish as he came. O Argosl
My heart is full of my beloved Argos, 845
Of everybody who belongs to Argos,
And of my brother born and bred in Argos
To be a living light honoring Argos!
Orestes
How could the happiness we both were bora for 850
Become unhappiness?
Iphigenia
Unhappiness
Began for me when my unhappy father
Lifted a knife and drew it toward my throat.
Orestes
I was not there, and yet how plain I see you!
Iphigenia
And do you see what I remember there? 855
The treachery, the misery, the shame!
After the trickery, the vanishing
Of all my dreams! Not to Achilles' arms
I went, circled with songs, but, shaken with sobs,
409