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Translated by A. Swanwick
Act I. Scene 1.—A Grove before the Temple of Diana
IPHIGENIA BENEATH your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs | |
| Of this old, shady, consecrated grove, | |
| As in the goddess’ silent sanctuary, | |
| With the same shuddering feeling forth I step, | |
| As when I trod it first, nor ever here | 5 |
| Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home. | |
| Long as the mighty will, to which I bow, | |
| Hath kept me here concealed, still, as at first, | |
| I feel myself a stranger. For the sea | |
| Doth sever me, alas! from those I love, | 10 |
| And day by day upon the shore I stand, | |
| My soul still seeking for the land of Greece. | |
| But to my sighs the hollow-sounding waves | |
| Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply. | |
| Alas for him who, friendless and alone, | 15 |
| Remote from parents and from brethren, dwells! | |
| From him grief snatches every coming joy | |
| Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts | |
| Revert forever to his father’s halls, | |
| Where first to him the radiant sun unclosed | 20 |
| The gates of heaven; where closer, day by day, | |
| Brothers and sisters, leagued in pastime sweet, | |
| Around each other twined the bonds of love. | |
| I will not judge the counsel of the gods; | |
| Yet, truly, woman’s lot doth merit pity. | 25 |
| Man rules alike at home and in the field, | |
| Nor is in foreign climes without resource; | |
| Possession gladdens him, him conquest crowns, | |
| And him an honorable death awaits. | |
| How circumscribed is woman’s destiny! | 30 |
| Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord | |
| Her duty and her comfort; sad her fate, | |
| Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote: | |
| Thus I, by noble Thoas, am detained, | |
| Bound with a heavy, though a sacred chain. | 35 |
| O, with what shame, Diana, I confess | |
| That with repugnance I perform these rites | |
| For thee, divine protectress! unto whom | |
| I would in freedom dedicate my life. | |
| In thee, Diana, I have always hoped, | 40 |
| And still I hope in thee, who didst infold | |
| Within the holy shelter of thine arm | |
| The outcast daughter of the mighty king. | |
| Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruined Troy | |
| Led back in triumph to his native land | 45 |
| The mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict, | |
| His daughter’s life in sacrifice demanding,— | |
| Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon, | |
| Who to thine altar led his darling child, | |
| Preserved his wife, Electra, and his son, | 50 |
| His dearest treasures?—then at length restore | |
| Thy suppliant also to her friends and home, | |
| And save her, as thou once from death didst save, | |
| So now, from living here, a second death. | |
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