Euripides' IPHIGENIA AT AULIS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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Agamemnon: Thou hast my thanks; now go within; for the rest it will
be well, as Fate proceeds. (Exit Messenger.) Ah, woe is me! unhappy
wretch, what can I say? where shall I begin? Into what cruel straits
have I been plunged! Fortune has outwitted me, proving far cleverer
than any cunning of mine. What an advantage humble birth possesses!
for it is easy for her sons to weep and tell out all their sorrows;
while to the high-born man come these same sorrows, but we have dignity
throned o'er our life and are the people's slaves. I, for instance,
am ashamed to weep, nor less, poor wretch, to check my tears at the
awful pass to which I am brought. Oh! what am I to tell my wife? how
shall I welcome her? with what face meet her? for she too has undone
me by coming uninvited in this my hour of sorrow; yet it was but natural
she should come with her daughter to prepare the bride and perform
the fondest duties, where she will discover my villainy. And for this
poor maid-why maid? Death, methinks, will soon make her his bride-how
I pity her! Thus will she plead to me, I trow: "My father will thou
slay me? Be such the wedding thou thyself mayst find, and whosoever
is a friend to thee!" while Orestes, from his station near us, will
cry in childish accents, inarticulate, yet fraught with meaning. Alas!
to what utter ruin Paris, the son of Priam, the cause of these troubles,
has brought me by his union with Helen!

Chorus: I pity her myself, in such wise as a woman, and she a stranger,
may bemoan the misfortunes of royalty.

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