Euripides' IPHIGENIA AT AULIS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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80 pages - You are on Page 5

Would that some other had gained that distinction instead of me! But
after the army was gathered and come together, we still remained at
Aulis weather-bound; and Calchas, the seer, bade us in our perplexity
sacrifice my own begotten child Iphigenia to Artemis, whose home is
in this land, declaring that if we offered her, we should sail and
sack the Phrygians' capital, but if we forbore, this was not for us.
When I heard this, I commanded Talthybius with loud proclamation to
disband the whole host, as I could never bear to slay daughter of
mine. Whereupon my brother, bringing every argument to bear, persuaded
me at last to face the crime; so I wrote in a folded scroll and sent
to my wife, bidding her despatch our daughter to me on the pretence
of wedding Achilles, it the same time magnifying his exalted rank
and saying that he refused to sail with the Achaeans, unless a bride
of our lineage should go to Phthia. Yes, this was the inducement I
offered my wife, inventing, as I did, a sham marriage for the maiden.
Of all the Achaeans we alone know the real truth, Calchas, Odysseus,
Menelaus and myself; but that which I then decided wrongly, I now
rightly countermand again in this scroll, which thou, old man, hast
found me opening and resealing beneath the shade of night. Up now
and away with this missive to Argos, and I will tell thee by word
of mouth all that is written herein, the contents of the folded scroll,
for thou art loyal to my wife and house.

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