Artemis Character Analysis

AGAMEMNON: I envy you, old man. I envy any man
whose life passes quietly, unnoticed by fame.
I do not envy those in authority.

OLD MAN: But it is they who have the good of life.

AGAMEMNON: You call that good? It’s a trap. Great honors
taste sweet
but they come bringing pain.
Something goes wrong
between a man and the gods
and his whole life is overturned.

AGAMEMNON: because Menelaos is my brother, they chose
me to be their general.
I wish they had saved the honor for someone else.
And when the whole army had mustered
here at Aulis,
the wind died. Calm. We still cannot sail.
There is only one hope of our going,
according to Kalchas,
the prophet. Iphigeneia, my daughter,
must be sacrificed to Artemis,
the deity of this place.
Then the wind will take us to Troy,
and the city will fall to us.

MENELAOS: At this point you'd never murder your daughter.
Well. This same sky
watched you speak otherwise. It's true
men find this happening to them
all the time. They sweat and clamber
for power until it's theirs,
then all at once they
fall back and amount to nothing again.

CHORUS: But you, Iphigeneia, on your
lovely hair the Argives will set
a wreath, as on the brows
of a spotted heifer, led down
from caves in the mountains
to the sacrifice,
and the knife will open the throat
and let the blood of a girl.
And you were not
brought up to the sound of the shepherd's pipe
and the cries of the herdsmen,
but nurtured by your mother
to be a bride for one of great Inachos’ sons.
Oh where is the noble face
of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now
that blasphemy is in power
and men have put justice
behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness,
and none join in fear of the gods?

AGAMEMNON: Oh immovable law of heaven! Oh my
anguish, my relentless fate!

CLYTEMNESTRA: Yours? Mine. Hers. No relenting for any of us.

IPHIGENEIA: If it means that one man can see the sunlight
what are the lives of thousands of women
in the balance? And if Artemis
demands the offering of my body,
I am a mortal: who am I
to oppose the goddess? It is not to be
considered. I give my life to Greece.

MESSENGER: And the miracle happened. Everyone
distinctly heard the sound of the knife
striking, but no one could see
the girl. She had vanished.
The priest cried out, and the whole army
echoed him, seeing
what some god had sent, a thing
nobody could have prophesied. There it was,
we could see it, but we could scarcely
believe it: a deer
lay there gasping, a large
beautiful animal, and its blood ran
streaming over the altar of the goddess.

AGAMEMNON: I envy you, old man. I envy any man
whose life passes quietly, unnoticed by fame.
I do not envy those in authority.

OLD MAN: But it is they who have the good of life.

AGAMEMNON: You call that good? It’s a trap. Great honors
taste sweet
but they come bringing pain.
Something goes wrong
between a man and the gods
and his whole life is overturned.

AGAMEMNON: because Menelaos is my brother, they chose
me to be their general.
I wish they had saved the honor for someone else.
And when the whole army had mustered
here at Aulis,
the wind died. Calm. We still cannot sail.
There is only one hope of our going,
according to Kalchas,
the prophet. Iphigeneia, my daughter,
must be sacrificed to Artemis,
the deity of this place.
Then the wind will take us to Troy,
and the city will fall to us.

MENELAOS: At this point you'd never murder your daughter.
Well. This same sky
watched you speak otherwise. It's true
men find this happening to them
all the time. They sweat and clamber
for power until it's theirs,
then all at once they
fall back and amount to nothing again.

CHORUS: But you, Iphigeneia, on your
lovely hair the Argives will set
a wreath, as on the brows
of a spotted heifer, led down
from caves in the mountains
to the sacrifice,
and the knife will open the throat
and let the blood of a girl.
And you were not
brought up to the sound of the shepherd's pipe
and the cries of the herdsmen,
but nurtured by your mother
to be a bride for one of great Inachos’ sons.
Oh where is the noble face
of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now
that blasphemy is in power
and men have put justice
behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness,
and none join in fear of the gods?

AGAMEMNON: Oh immovable law of heaven! Oh my
anguish, my relentless fate!

CLYTEMNESTRA: Yours? Mine. Hers. No relenting for any of us.

IPHIGENEIA: If it means that one man can see the sunlight
what are the lives of thousands of women
in the balance? And if Artemis
demands the offering of my body,
I am a mortal: who am I
to oppose the goddess? It is not to be
considered. I give my life to Greece.

MESSENGER: And the miracle happened. Everyone
distinctly heard the sound of the knife
striking, but no one could see
the girl. She had vanished.
The priest cried out, and the whole army
echoed him, seeing
what some god had sent, a thing
nobody could have prophesied. There it was,
we could see it, but we could scarcely
believe it: a deer
lay there gasping, a large
beautiful animal, and its blood ran
streaming over the altar of the goddess.