IPHIGENIE AUF TAURIS

I.i

IPHIGENIE

Out, out into your shadows, restless treetops

Of the ancient, holy and thick-foliaged grove,

As if into the Goddess' quiet sanctuary,

I step even now with awe and with a shudder,

As if I entered it for the very first time

And my spirit will not grow used to being here.

So many a year has kept me here concealed

A supreme will to which I yield myself;

Yet still I am, as at first, not at home.

The sea, alas, divides me from my loved ones

And on the shore I stand long day by day

Seeking the land of the Greeks with my soul,

And all the while to meet my sighs the waves

Bring only their dull roar across to me.

Alas for him who far from his family

Leads but a lonely life! Grief gnaws away

The happiness that lies within his grasp.

His thoughts sink ever downwards and away

Back to the halls of his father where the sun

First opened up the sky to him, and where

Those born with him made ever firm and firmer

The gentle bonds that bound them one to another.

I do not quarrel with the Gods; and yet

The state of women is most lamentable.

At home and in wartime the man holds sway

In foreign parts he still knows what to do.

Possessions give him pleasure, victory crowns him,

For him an honourable death is prepared.

How tightly limited is women's fortune!

Obeying a rough husband gives enough

Duty and comfort, then how wretched when

A hostile destiny drives her far from home.

Thus Thoas holds me here, a noble man,

In serious holy bonds of slavery.

O with what shame must I confess I serve you

With unspoken reluctance, o my Goddess,

You, who preserved me! and to whom my life

Should in free servitude be dedicated.

Always I hoped in you and even now

Still hope in you, Diana, you who took me,

Cast-aside daughter of the greatest king,

Into your holy and your gentle arm.

Yes, Zeus's daughter, if that mighty man,

Whom you you made fear, by asking for his daughter,

If Agamemnon, who is like the Gods,

And brought you what he loved most to your altar,

If you have brought him back with fame from Troy

And all its toppled walls to his native land,

And have preserved in health his fairest treasures

His wife, daughter Electra, and his son;

O then restore me too at last to mine,

And rescue me, whom you from death once rescued,

From life here, too, which is a second death.

1.ii

ARKAS

The King dispatched me hither and proclaims

Greetings and health unto Diana's priestess.

This is the day when Tauris thanks its Goddess

For its miraculous new victories.

I hasten here before the King and army

To tell you that he comes and it draws near

IPHIGENIE

We are prepared to greet them worthily,

Our Goddess looks to take with gracious glance

A welcome sacrifice from Thoas' hand.

ARKAS

O would that I could find the priestess' glance,

Yours, worthy and much honoured one, your glance,

O holy virgin, brighter and more shining,

A good sign to us all! But yet still covers

Sorrow mysteriously your inmost being;

In vain have we now waited for long years

To hear a friendly word come from your breast.

As long as I have known you in this place

This is the glance at which I always shudder

As if with bonds of iron your soul remains

Forged fast within your innermost recess.

IPHIGENIE

As only fits an exile and an orphan.

ARKAS

You feel yourself exiled and orphaned here?

IPHIGENIE

Can foreign lands become a home to us?

ARKAS

Your fatherland has foreign grown to you.

IPHIGENIE

And that is why my heart bleeds and not heals.

In earliest youth, when scarcely had my soul

Quite bound itself to father, mother, family,

When new shoots all together and most sweetly

Strove upwards from the foot of ancient trunks

To reach the sky, a foreign curse gripped me,

Tore me from those I loved, rent that fair tie

With brazen fist asunder. It was gone,

The finest joy of youth, the flourishing

Of those first years. And though preserved I was

Only a shadow to myself and the fresh joy

Of life will never bloom again in me.

ARKAS

If you elect to call yourself unfortunate,

Then I may justly call you, too, ungrateful.

IPHIGENIE

Thanks you have always.

ARKAS

But not that pure thanks

For whose sake people do a generous deed,

The happy look which shows the host a life

That's satisfied, a heart inclined to him.

When a deeply mysterious destiny

So many years ago brought you to this temple,

Thoas came to meet you as a gift of the gods

With reverence and with inclination

And this shore was to you gracious and friendly,

To every stranger else brimful with horror,

Since, before you, none set foot in our kingdom

That did not on Diana's holy steps

By ancient use fall a blood-sacrifice.

IPHIGENIE

Drawing free breath is not the whole of life.

What life is it that in this holy place,

Like to a shadow haunting its own grave,

I must lament away, and can I call it

A happy and a confident life when

Each single day that's dreamt away in vain

Merely prepares me for those days of greyness

Which on the shore of Lethe, self-forgetting,

The mournful crowd of the departed spend.

A useless life is but an early death;

This women's destiny is above all mine.

ARKAS

The noble pride you do not satisfy yourself,

I do forgive you, much as I pity you,

It robs you of the enjoyment of life.

You have done nothing here since your arrival?

Who has made happy the king's downcast spirit?

Who has suspended with gentle persuasion

From year to year the ancient terrible custom

By which at Dian's altar every stranger

Must leave his life in blood, and who has sent

So often captives back from certain death

To their own fatherlands again?

Has not Diana, far from being angry

At lacking the old bloody sacrifices,

Granted your gentle prayer in rich measure?

Does victory not hover on happy wing

About the army, even overtaking it?

And does not everyone feel a better fate

Since the king who led us so long with wisdom and valour

Rejoices now in mercy in your presence

Easing for us the duty of silent obedience?

You call that useless? when from your own essence

Balsam is scattered down on thousands; when you become

The eternal fountain of new happiness

For that people to whom a god has brought you,

And on the inhospitable shore of death

You give the stranger safety and return.

IPHIGENIE

The small things easily elude the gaze

That looks ahead and sees how much remains.

ARKAS

Do you praise those who value not what they do?

IPHIGENIE

The weighing of a deed is worth rebuke.

ARKAS

Likewise excessive pride that scorns true worth,

Or vanity that sets false value high.

Believe me and give ear to a man's word

Who serves you faithfully and honestly:

When the king talks to you today make it easy

For him to say what he wants to say to you.

IPHIGENIE

You worry me with every kind word;

Often with trouble I evaded his proposal.

ARKAS

Think what you do and what will do you good.

Since the king has lost his son and heir

He trusts but few among his followers,

And trusts those few no longer as he did.

Resentfully he sees each noble's son

Inheriting his kingdom, and he fears

Lonely, helpless old age, perhaps indeed

Bold insurrection and premature death.

The Scythian sets no value upon speech,

Least of all the king. He who is wont

Merely to issue orders and to act

Does not know the art of leading a conversation

Slowly and skilfully as he intends it.

Don't make things hard for him by reserved refusal

Or deliberate misunderstanding.

Be kind to him and go halfway to meet him.

IPHIGENIE

Should I smooth the path of that which threatens me?

ARKAS

You call his courtship of you threatening?

IPHIGENIE

The threat that terrifies me worst of all.

ARKAS

Give for his inclination only trust.

IPHIGENIE

Only if he first frees my soul from fear.

ARKAS

Why do you keep your origins from him?

IPHIGENIE

Because a secret's fitting for a priestess.

ARKAS

Nothing should be a secret from the king.

And though he does not ask at once, still he feels it

And feels it deep in his great soul, that you

So carefully conceal yourself from him.

IPHIGENIE

Does he harbour annoyance and resentment towards me?

ARKAS

It almost seems so. Though he does not speak of you,

But words he has let fall instructed me

That the wish to possess you has gained firm

Hold on his soul. O do not, do not leave

Him to himself in this! Lest in his bosom

Resentment ripen to your terror and too late

You recall my loyal counsel with regret.

IPHIGENIE

What? does the king contemplate what no noble man

Who loves his reputation and whose bosom

Is held in check by reverence of the heavenly ones

Should ever contemplate, does he think to drag me

Away from the altar by force into his bed?

Then I call on all the gods and above all

On Diana the goddess of firm resolution

Who will surely grant a priestess her protection,

Most willingly, a virgin to a virgin.

ARKAS

Be calm! It is no violently fresh blood

Drives on the king to rashly carry out

Such a young man's deed. Rather, as he thinks,

I fear another, harder resolve from him

Which he inexorably will carry through,

Seeing his soul is immovable and firm.

Therefore I beg you trust him and be grateful,

Even if you can grant him nothing further.

IPHIGENIE

O tell me what is further known to you.

ARKAS

Learn it from him, I see the king is coming.

You honour him, besides your own heart bids you

Encounter him with friendship and with closeness.

A noble man by a good word from women

Can be led a long way.

IPHIGENIE

Yet I do not see

How I should follow this loyal man's advice.

And yet I follow happily the duty

To give the king for his good deed good words

And wish that I may say to him with truth

What will give pleasure to this powerful man.

1.iii

IPHIGENIE

With royal goods may the goddess bless you,

May she grant you victory and fame

And riches and the welfare of your subjects

And the fulfilment of each pious wish!

That you who rule over and care for so many

May, too, enjoy rare fortune more than most.

THOAS

I would be content if my people boasted for me,

What I have acquired, others enjoy more

Than I, he is most fortunate, let him be

A king or commoner, who finds joy at home.

You sympathised with my deep sufferings

When the sword of my enemies tore away

My son, my last, my best, from my side.

So long as vengeance still possessed my spirit,

I did not feel the emptiness of my dwelling;

But now that satisfied I return again,

Their kingdom wasted and my son revenged,

Nothing is left at home to give me pleasure.

Cheerful obedience which in former times

I saw look out of every eye at me

Is quietly muted now by care and sadness.

Everyone wonders what will come to pass,

Following the childless man because they must.

Now today I come to this temple which

I often entered to pray for victory

And to give thanks for it. An ancient wish

I bear in my bosom, which is neither strange

To you nor unexpected: it is my hope

As a blessing for my people and for me

To take you to my dwelling as my bride.

IPHIGENIE

To an unknown woman you offer too much,

O King, ashamed the refugee stands before you,

Who sought upon this shore nothing at all

Beyond the protection and peace which you gave her.

THOAS

That you wrap yourself in the secret of your origins

Before me as if I were the least of men,

Would not be fair and just among any people.

This shore is terror to strangers: thus the law

Commands it, and necessity. And yet from you,

Enjoying as you do each pious right,

A well-receivéd guest who spends her days

As she pleases and wills, from you I hoped

For trust which in return for loyalty

A host may well expect as recompense.

IPHIGENIE

If I concealed, o king, my parents' names

And lineage, it was embarrassment

Not lack of trust. Perhaps, alas, if you knew

Who stands before you and what curséd head

You nourish and protect; a horror would grip

Your mighty heart with an especial shudder,

And instead of offering me a share of your throne

You would drive me away prematurely from your kingdom,

Thrust me perhaps, before a glad return

To my own people and my wandering's end

Is destined for me, out into the misery

That waits with cold, strange, terrifying hand

Everywhere for those driven from their homes.

THOAS

Whatever the gods may intend with you

And what they destined for your house and you;

There has not been since you have dwelt with us

Enjoying the right of a pious guest

A lack of blessing sent me from on high.

It would be hard for me to be persuaded

That I protect in you a guilty head.

IPHIGENIE

Your good deed brings you blessing not your guest.

THOAS

A deed done for the wicked is not blessed.

And therefore end your silence and refusals!

It is no unjust man makes this demand.

The goddess rendered you into my hands,

As you to her were holy, so to me.

Let her hint still in future be my law;

If you can hope for a return to home,

I set you free from all of my demands.

But if the way is blocked to you for ever

And if your race is banished, or else by

Some monstrous misfortune is extinguished,

Then you are mine by more than just one law.

Speak openly! you know I keep my word.

IPHIGENIE

From ancient bonds only unwillingly

The tongue frees itself to reveal at last

A secret long kept silent. For once confided

It leaves without the chance of ever returning

The secure dwelling of my deepest heart

To harm, as the gods will, or to do good.

Then hear! I am from Tantalus descended.

THOAS

It is a great word you pronounce so calmly.

Call you that man your ancestor whom the world

Knows as a former favourite of the gods?

Is it that Tantalus whom Jupiter

Called to his council and to dine with him,

And in whose conversation, full of experience,

Combining many meanings, Gods themselves

Took pleasure as in oracular pronouncements?

IPHIGENIE

He is the one indeed; but gods should not

Mingle with men as they do with their equals:

The race of mortal men is far too weak

Not to grow dizzy at such unwonted heights.

Ignoble he was not nor yet a traitor,

Simply too great to be a slave and as companion

Of the great thunderer but a human being.

Thus his transgression human and their judgement

Severe, and thus the poets sing: that arrogance

And disloyalty tumbled him from Jove's table

Down to disgrace in ancient Tartarus.

And his whole race alas has borne their hatred!

THOAS

And bore its own guilt, or its ancestor's?

IPHIGENIE

'Tis true the powerful breast and strength-filled marrow

Of Titans was the sure inheritance

Of sons and grandsons, but the god had forged

A brazen bond about their every brow.

Counsel, moderation, wisdom, patience,

He veiled from their sidelong and darkling glance,

Their every desire turned into rage,

And without boundaries their rage ranged round.

Pelops the first, who willed with fearful force,

Beloved son of Tantalus, acquired

By treachery and murder the fairest wife,

Daughter of Onomaeus, Hippodamia,

Meeting her husband's wishes with two sons,

Thyestes and Atreus. Full of envy,

They see as they grow up their father's love

To his first son, sprung from another bed.

Hatred unites them, secretly the pair

Dare their first deed together: fratricide.

The father falsely credits Hippodamia

With the murder, and in his rage demands

His son back from her, and she kills herself--

THOAS

You have fallen silent? Carry on speaking!

Do not repent your openness! Speak on!

IPHIGENIE

Lucky for him who likes to thinks of his fathers,

Who happily can entertain his hearers

With tales of their deeds and greatness and sees himself

With quiet satisfaction at the end

Of this fine sequence. For a house does not

At once engender demi-god or monster,

Only a sequence of the good or evil

Produces finally the whole world's joy

Or its horror. - After their father's death

Atreus and Thyestes rule the city,

Reigning together. But such unity

Could not last long. Thyestes soon dishonours

His brother's bed. Atreus in his vengeance

Drives him from the realm. Thyestes' malice,

Planning ill deeds, had long since stolen a son

From his brother and secretly raised him as his own.

Filling his breast with rage and vengeance he sends him

To the king's city, to murder his uncle - and father.

The youth's intention is discovered, the king

Punishes horribly the murderer sent him,

Imagining he kills his brother's son.

Too late he learns who before his drunken eyes

Is dying in torment, and to still the desire

For revenge in his breast he quietly thinks

Of an unheard-of deed. Appearing calm,

Indifferent, reconciled, he lures his brother

With his two sons to come back to the kingdom,

Seizes the children, slaughters them at once,

And serves this nauseating, fearful dish

At the first banquet up to their own father.

And when Thyestes finds himself replete

With his own flesh, and gripped by melancholy

Asks for his children, thinks he hears the steps,

The voices of the boys at the door of the room,

Atreus grinning tosses down before him

The heads and feet of his two slaughtered sons.

You shudder and turn your face away, o king.

So turned the sun its countenance away,

Its chariot out of its eternal course.

These are the ancestors of me, your priestess,

And many an ill destiny of men,

Many a deed of clouded mind is covered

By night with her heavy feathers, letting us look

But into twilight that is full of terror.

THOAS

Conceal them still in silence. That is enough

Of horrors! Tell me through what miracle

From this wild race you took your origin.

IPHIGENIE

Atreus' eldest son was Agamemnon.

He is my father, but I may well say:

In him I have, since my earliest days,

Beheld a model of the perfect man.

To him Clytemnestra presented me, the first-born

Of their love, and then Electra. Peacefully

Ruled the king, and the house of Tantalus

Was granted rest long missed. And yet there lacked

For parents' happiness a son, and scarcely

Was this wish granted, and the favourite,

Orestes, grew between two sisters, than

New evil was prepared for the secure house.

The reputation of the war has reached you

Which, to revenge the rape of the loveliest woman,

Massed round the walls of Troy the entire might

Of Greece's princes. Did they take the city?

Reach their revenge's goal? I have not heard.

My father led the army of the Greeks,

In Aulis for a favourable wind

They waited but in vain, Diana angry

With their great leader held their hurry back,

Demanding through the mouth of Calchas the king's

Eldest daughter. They lured me with my mother

Into the camp, dragged me before the altar,

And dedicated this head to the goddess -

She was reconciled! She did not want my blood,

But wrapped me in a cloud to save me, and

Within this temple first I found myself,

Preserved from death. I am that Iphigenie,

Atreus' grand-child, Agamemnon's daughter,

The goddess's possession, who speaks with you.

THOAS

I give no greater preference or trust

To the king's daughter than to the unknown.

And I can but repeat my first proposal.

Come, follow me, and share the things I have.

IPHIGENIE

How can I dare take such a step, o king?

Does not the Goddess, who rescued me, have

Alone the right to my sanctified life?

She has sought out the place of safety for me

And she preserves me here for a father, whom

She has punished enough by appearances,

Perhaps as the fairest joy of his old age.

Perhaps the joyful return is near for me?

And I, all heedless of her path, might have

Bound myself here, going against her will.

I asked for a sign if I should still remain.

THOAS

The sign is that you are still staying here.

Do not seek fearfully this kind of evasion.

It is in vain one says much to refuse,

The other hears, of all you say, just NO.

IPHIGENIE

It is not only words designed to blind you,

I have revealed to you my deepest heart.

Do you not say to yourself how I must be yearning

For father, mother, sister, and for brother,

That in the ancient halls where lamentation

Still sometimes quietly whispers my name,

Joy over me, as over one new-born

Would weave the fairest wreath from column to column.

O if you sent me thither on your ships -

You would give me and all of them new life.

THOAS

Go back then! do what your heart bids you do!

And do not listen to the voice of good counsel

Or reason. Be completely a woman and give

Yourself up without restraint to the drive

That grips you and drags you hither and thither.

When a desire is burning in their bosom,

No holy bond can keep them from the traitor

Who lures them from the father or the husband,

Away from loyal arms long tried and tested,

And if swift fire is silent in their breast,

Why then in vain persuasion's golden tongue

Presses upon them with its power and faith.

IPHIGENIE

Recall, o King, the noble word you spoke.

Will you repay my confidence like this?

You appeared ready to hear anything.

THOAS

I was not prepared for the unhoped-for.

Yet I should have expected it, I knew

That I was going to deal with a woman.

IPHIGENIE

Do not attack, o king, our poor race,

Not splendid as your weapons are, but not

Ignoble are the weapons of a woman.

Believe me, I am preferable to you,

Knowing your happiness better than you do.

You think, ignorant of yourself and me,

A closer bond will join and make us happy.

Full of good courage as full of good will

You press me that I should give in to you,

And here I thank the gods that they have given me

The firmness to resist this union

To which they have not given their approval.

THOAS

No god speaks this, it is your own heart speaking.

IPHIGENIE

They only speak to us through our own heart.

THOAS

And do not I too have the right to hear them?

IPHIGENIE

The tempest will drown out the still small voice.

THOAS

The priestess is the only one who hears it?

IPHIGENIE

Above all others, let the prince pay heed to it.

THOAS

Your holy office and inherited right

At Jove's table bring you closer to the gods

Than any earth-born savage.

IPHIGENIE

Thus I pay for

The confidences you forced out of me.

THOAS

I am a human being, it's better we stop.

Then let my word remain: be priestess to

The goddess as she has selected you,

But let Diana pardon me that I

Till now both wrongly and with self-reproach

Withheld from her her ancient sacrifices.

No stranger nears our shore in happiness;

From time long past, death has been sure for him.

It was only you, with a friendliness

In which to see now a tender daughter's love,

Now a bride's quiet inclination, pleased me,

Who bound me, as if with magic bonds, that I

Forgot my duty. You lulled my senses asleep,

I did not hear the muttering of my people.

Now with a louder voice they call down on me

Blame for my son who died before his time,

For your sake I no longer will hold back

The crowd urgently demanding sacrifice.

IPHIGENIE

It was not for my sake that I desired it.

He understands the heavenly ones amiss,

Who thinks they are bloodthirsty, he ascribes

To them only his own cruel desires.

Did not the goddess herself free me from the priest?

My service was more welcome than my death.

THOAS

It is not proper for us to interpret

And bend the holy usage to our sense

With reason that is all too lightly moved.

Perform your duty, and I shall do mine.

Two strangers we found hidden in the sea-caves,

And who do not bring good upon my land,

Are in my hands. With these your goddess may

Receive again her first, true, long-missed offering.

I send them here; you know what must be done.

1.iv

IPHIGENIE

You have clouds, gracious saving goddess,

To wrap up the innocent who are pursued,

And upon winds to bear them from the arms of

Brazen destiny over the sea

Over the farthest reaches of the earth

To where you think best.

You are wise and see what is coming,

What is past has not gone by for you,

And your gaze rests on your own ones,

As your light, the life of the nights,

Rests and has power over the earth.

O preserve my hands free from blood!

It will never bring blessing and peace.

And the shape of the casually slaughtered

Will wait on the evil hour of the one who

Sadly unwillingly murders - and terrify him.

For the immortals love the widespread

Good generations of human beings

And they willingly stretch the fleeting

Life of the mortal, happily wanting

To grant him and give him for a while

The joyous sight that shares his pleasure

Of their own eternal heaven.