Iphigeneia 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.

AGAMEMNON: Oh miserable creature that I am,
now what can I say? Where
can I begin in the face of this misery?
I have fallen into the snare of fate.
I laid my plan, but I was outwitted
from the start by the cunning of destiny.

AGAMEMNON: Girl? Why do I call her a girl?
When it seems that Hades
is about to make her his wife. Oh I
pity her. I can hear her
calling out to me, "Father!
Are you going to kill me? I hope that you
and everyone you love are married like this."
And Orestes will be there too, scarcely
old enough to walk, and he will
scream cries without words,
but my heart will know what they mean.
Oh what ruin Priam's son
Paris has brought me! All this he called down
by winning the love of Helen.

AGAMEMNON: Even if I
could escape to Argos, they would follow me there.
They'd tear the city to the ground,
even the great walls that the Cyclopes built.
You see why I'm in despair. Almighty gods, how helpless
you have made me now!
There is nothing I can do.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Son of a goddess, I, a mortal,
am not ashamed to clasp your knees. What good
would pride do me now? What matters more to me
than my daughter's life?

ACHILLES: Pride rises up in me
and draws me on. But I have learned
to curb my grief in adversity, and my joy
in triumph.
Mortals who have learned this
can hope to live by reason.

ACHILLES: I will be watching, in the right place.
You will not have to be stared at
hunting through the troops to find me. Do nothing
that would disgrace your fathers.
Tyndareos should not suffer shame.
He was a great man in Greece.

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: And now you want to kill me. Oh, in the name
of Pelops, of your father
Atreus, of my mother, suffering here
again as at my birth, do not let it happen.

AGAMEMNON: It is Greece that compels me
to sacrifice you, whatever I wish.
We are in stronger hands than our own.
Greece must be free
if you and I can make her so. Being Greeks,
we must not be subject to barbarians,
we must not let them carry off our wives.

IPHIGENEIA: It is hard to hold out against the inevitable. […]
Now mother, listen to the conclusion
that I have reached. I have made up my mind to die.
I want to come to it
with glory. […]
You brought me into the world for the sake
of everyone in my country.

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.

AGAMEMNON: Oh miserable creature that I am,
now what can I say? Where
can I begin in the face of this misery?
I have fallen into the snare of fate.
I laid my plan, but I was outwitted
from the start by the cunning of destiny.

AGAMEMNON: Girl? Why do I call her a girl?
When it seems that Hades
is about to make her his wife. Oh I
pity her. I can hear her
calling out to me, "Father!
Are you going to kill me? I hope that you
and everyone you love are married like this."
And Orestes will be there too, scarcely
old enough to walk, and he will
scream cries without words,
but my heart will know what they mean.
Oh what ruin Priam's son
Paris has brought me! All this he called down
by winning the love of Helen.

AGAMEMNON: Even if I
could escape to Argos, they would follow me there.
They'd tear the city to the ground,
even the great walls that the Cyclopes built.
You see why I'm in despair. Almighty gods, how helpless
you have made me now!
There is nothing I can do.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Son of a goddess, I, a mortal,
am not ashamed to clasp your knees. What good
would pride do me now? What matters more to me
than my daughter's life?

ACHILLES: Pride rises up in me
and draws me on. But I have learned
to curb my grief in adversity, and my joy
in triumph.
Mortals who have learned this
can hope to live by reason.

ACHILLES: I will be watching, in the right place.
You will not have to be stared at
hunting through the troops to find me. Do nothing
that would disgrace your fathers.
Tyndareos should not suffer shame.
He was a great man in Greece.

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: And now you want to kill me. Oh, in the name
of Pelops, of your father
Atreus, of my mother, suffering here
again as at my birth, do not let it happen.

AGAMEMNON: It is Greece that compels me
to sacrifice you, whatever I wish.
We are in stronger hands than our own.
Greece must be free
if you and I can make her so. Being Greeks,
we must not be subject to barbarians,
we must not let them carry off our wives.

IPHIGENEIA: It is hard to hold out against the inevitable. […]
Now mother, listen to the conclusion
that I have reached. I have made up my mind to die.
I want to come to it
with glory. […]
You brought me into the world for the sake
of everyone in my country.

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.