Iphigenia Among The Taurians

Pelops, the son of Tantalus, arrived with his swift mares at Pisa

and married the daughter of Eunomius.

She bore Atreus to him, and Atreus' sons were Menelaus and Agamemnon.

I am Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia, the child of Clytemnestra, whose father was Tyndareus.

My father slaughtered me, or so he thought, in sacrifice to Artemis for Helen's sake in the famous bays of Aulis, beside the eddies which Euryapus whirls round and round with frequent gusts of wind as it ruffles the dark blue sea.

For it was there that King Agamemnon assembled the Greek sea force of a thousand ships, wishing to win the crown of glorious victory over Troy for the Achaeans, and to do Menelaus the favor of avenging the outrage of Helen's marriage.

However, he could get no winds, and that made sailing impossible.

Faced with this crisis, he resorted to divination from burnt offerings, and Calchas spoke these words, O Agamemnon, commander of this army of Greece, you shall not unmoor these ships from the land before Artemis receives your girl Iphigenia as her slaughtered victim.

for you vowed that you would sacrifice to the goddess of the moon the most beautiful thing that a year produced.

Well, Clytemnestra, your wife, bore a child in the house, said Calchas, applying the title of most beautiful to me, which you must sacrifice.

And in a scheme instigated by Odysseus, they said that I was to marry Achilles, and took me away from my mother.

I, poor girl, came to Aulis.

They lifted me above the altar and were on the point of killing me with the sword.

But Artemis stole me away and gave the Achaeans a deer in my place.

She sent me through the bright air and brought me to live in the land of the Tarians, where Thalass rules, a barbarian among barbarians.

He got this name thanks to his speed, for he runs as if his swift feet are wings.

She made me her priestess in this temple.

In that office, by the customs in which the goddess rejoices, I begin the holy rites of her festival.

Only its name is fair.

I keep silent by the rest in fear of the goddess.

For by the city's ancient custom, I sacrifice any Greek man who puts to shore in this land.

I begin the ritual slaughter, but the unspeakable deed is for others to perform inside this temple of the goddess.

I shall tell to the air the strange visions with the night time brought me, and see if that brings any healing.

In my sleep I seem to have escaped from this land, and to be living in Argos, and sleeping in the middle of my girls at our maiden quarters.

An earthquake shook the surface of the ground.