Iphigenia

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Meredith Oakes

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849431644
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The Greek fleet bound for Troy is becalmed. For the sake of a wind, Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces, is persuaded that he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. But as the priest raises his knife to slit the child's throat, the goddess Diana spirits her away. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, believing her beloved daughter to be dead, slays her husband in revenge on hisreturn from the Trojan wars. Their son, Orestes, avenges his father's death by killing his mother. Now, years later, as Iphigenia, a prisoner of the temple of Diana, looks across the sea to Greece, longing to return home, her brother Orestes arrives...

ACT I

SCENE 1

IPHIGENIA:	Entering your shadow, sacred grove,
	Under the moving leafy branches where The ancient silence seems the very centre Of the holy stillness of the goddess, I shiver just as if it were the first time, Even though I know this place so well.
	Kept secluded for so many years, Serving a will that’s higher than my own, I’m still as much a stranger here as ever.
	The sea divides me from the ones I love.
	I go and stand for days down on the shore, Seeking the land of Greece with all my soul;
	My sighs are answered only by the waves, Whose empty thudding breaks against my head. Pity the child torn from her family, Living alone. The pain of separation Robs from her lips the taste of any joy.
	Her thoughts are always wandering away Towards her father’s house, where first the sun Showed her the sky; where in their childhood games She and her brother and her sister wound The tender bonds of love closer and closer.
	I’d never speak against the gods; but still The fate of women is unfortunate.
	Men rule at home just as they do in war, And even in foreign lands a man can thrive. Blessed with possessions, crowned by victory, A man lives well and dies an honored death.
	A woman’s happiness is more restricted!
	Merely belonging to a boorish husband Is comfort and duty done. And how much worse If by a hostile fate she’s forced abroad!
	Thoas is noble, but he keeps me here In chains of strict religious slavery.
	Goddess, I’m embarrassed to confess The dumb rebelliousness with which I serve you, Though you saved me. My whole life should be An offering in your service, freely made.
	Still I’ve hoped in you and still do hope In you, sacred Diana, who took up The king’s abandoned child in your soft arms. Daughter of Zeus, if that all-powerful king You tested so, asking his daughter’s life, If godlike Agamemnon lives, who bravely Sacrificed his dear child on your altar, If you’ve brought him from Troy’s broken walls Back to his native land with fame and honour, If you’ve kept his wife and children safe, Electra and his boy, those precious jewels, Take me back too, to my own kin at last And rescue me, as once you rescued me From death, for living here is death as well.

SCENE 2

IPHIGENIA, ARKAS.

ARKAS:	The king has sent me here to greet and hail
	Diana’s priestess. For today the Taurians Will venerate their goddess and give thanks For great new victories. I have come ahead, Followed by the king and multitude, To tell you of his coming and of theirs.
IPHIGENIA:	We are ready to receive them graciously.
	The goddess will look favourably on A welcome offering at the hands of Thoas.
ARKAS:	Much-honoured, noble priestess, sacred virgin,
	How I’d like to see in your eyes too A brighter light to be a sign for us.
	You still remain shrouded in secret sorrow;
	For years we’ve tried in vain to wring from you What’s in your heart. But all the time that you’ve Been living here and known to me, this Is the look that strikes me cold; your soul is still Imprisoned in your breast as if it had An iron band around it.
IPHIGENIA:	That’s how it is
	With every exile and with every orphan.
ARKAS:	Are you an exile or an orphan here?
IPHIGENIA:	Can one’s own land be found on foreign shores?
ARKAS:	Your own land must be foreign to you now.
IPHIGENIA:	That’s why my heart still bleeds and never heals.
	When I was barely old enough to learn To cling to mother, father, sister and brother, Clustering at the family stem like shoots Starting to grow; that was the moment when Disaster seized me, tearing me away From those I loved, as if a giant hand Had twisted us apart. And so I lost The happiness of youth, and all the growth That should have happened then. Though I was saved, I was a shadow of myself. The fresh Delight of life will never bloom in me.
ARKAS:	If it’s for that you tell me you’re unfortunate,
	I have the right to tell you you’re ungrateful.
IPHIGENIA:	You’ll always have my thanks.
ARKAS:	Your thanks are not
	The genuine thanks for which the deed is done; The happy eyes that show contented living And a fond heart inclined towards the giver. When an enigmatic fate conveyed you Into this temple many years ago, Thoas came here to greet you with respect And bow to you as someone heaven-sent.
	This shore was kind to you and welcoming, That had been gruesome to all other strangers; Before you, everyone who landed here Became a blood-soaked sacrificial victim On Diana’s altar; that was the custom.
IPHIGENIA:	Being alive isn’t the same as living.
	What kind of life is it, that I spend sadly Here in the sacred precinct, like a ghost Walking around its grave? And can you call it Proud and happy life, when every day I dream away in vain only foreshadows The grey day still to come, when on the banks Of Lethe, river of forgetfulness, The wailing dead will gather to receive me?
	A useless life is death before its time;
	True for all women; very true for me.
ARKAS:	The noble pride that makes you think yourself
	Not good enough is easy to forgive.
	I’m sorry though; it robs you of all joy.
	Have you accomplished nothing since you came here? Who has brought light into the king’s dark spirit? Who has from year to year with quiet persuasion Brought to an end the old barbaric custom By which all foreigners yielded up their lives In blood upon the altar of Diana?
	Who is it saved so many prisoners From certain death, and sent them safely home?
	Has not Diana, far from being angered At seeing the human sacrifices ended, Heeded and rewarded your soft prayers?
	Does not success with joyful wingbeats fly Above our ships, and even lead them on?
	And is the lot of every man not better Because the king who governed us so long Wisely and bravely, now takes pleasure in The mildness of your company, and has softened Our duty of unquestioning obedience?
	You call that useless? When a soothing balm Drops from your being on thousands; when to our people, To whom a goddess brought you, you’ve become A never-ending source of new good fortune, While to the foreigner landing on our shore So inhospitable and deadly, you embody Safety and the chance to go back home?
IPHIGENIA:	Small things soon fade from sight when we look forward
	And see how much is still to do.
ARKAS:	Could you
	Respect a man who doesn’t prize his work?
IPHIGENIA:	We frown on those who boast about their deeds.
ARKAS:	But those too proud to recognise real worth
	Are frowned on too, like idle boasters. Trust In me and listen to the words of one Who truly and sincerely wants to serve you:...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• Act I
• Act II
• Act III
• Act IV
• Act V