Euripides' IPHIGENIA AT AULIS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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Clytaemnestra: My child Ye stranger ladies!
Woe is me for this thy death! Thy father flies, surrendering thee
to Hades.

Iphigenia: Woe is me, O mother mine! for the same strain hath fallen
to both of us in our fortune. No more for me the light of day! no
more the beams of yonder sun! Woe for that snow-beat glen in Phrygia
and the hills of Ida, where Priam once exposed a tender babe, torn
from his mother's arms to meet a deadly doom, e'en Paris, called the
child of Ida in the Phrygians' town. Would Priam ne'er had settled
him, the herdsman reared amid the herds, beside that water crystal-clear,
where are fountains of the Nymphs and their meadow rich with blooming
flowers, where hyacinths and rose-buds blow for goddesses to gather!
Hither one day came Pallas and Cypris of the subtle heart, Hera too
and Hermes messenger of Zeus-Cypris, proud of the longing she causes;
Pallas of her prowess; and Hera of her royal marriage with king Zeus-to
decide a hateful strife about their beauty; but it is my death, maidens-fraught,
'tis true, with glory to the Danai-that Artemis has received as an
offering, before they begin the voyage to Ilium.

O mother, mother! he that begat me to this life of sorrow has gone
and left me all alone. Ah! woe is me! a bitter, bitter sight for me
was Helen, evil Helen! to me now doomed to bleed and die, slaughtered
by an impious sire.

I would this Aulis had never received in its havens here the sterns
of their bronze-beaked ships, the fleet which was speeding them to
Troy; and would that Zeus had never breathed on the Euripus a wind
to stop the expedition, tempering, as he doth, a different breeze
to different men, so that some have joy in setting sail, and sorrow
some, and others hard constraint, to make some start and others stay
and others furl their sails! Full of trouble then, it seems, is the
race of mortals, full of trouble verily; and 'tis ever Fate's decree
that man should find distress.

Woe! woe to thee, thou child of Tyndareus, for the suffering and anguish
sore, which thou art causing the Danai!

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