Iphigenia in Tauris

Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris (the Greek title means Iphigenia among the Taurians) is one of the two surviving plays by the author in which Iphigenia is the main character. It tells what became of her after Artemis rescued her at Aulis: she serves as priestess in a savage land on the Black Sea, where she must prepare any Greek who lands there for sacrifice. In the prologue (lines 1–66) she says that she was not killed at Aulis but carried off by Artemis, who left a deer in her place, and that she now lives among the Taurians. She dreams that her brother Orestes is dead and goes into the temple to pour libations for him. At that moment Orestes, with his faithful friend Pylades, arrives at the temple. Apollo has told him to bring the statue of Artemis from the Taurian land to Athens, the last task he must complete to be free of the Furies who still haunt him (lines 67–122). Soon a herdsman announces that two Greeks have been captured on the shore, and the prisoners are brought before Iphigenia to be prepared for sacrifice. Instead, brother and sister recognize each other (lines 725–826) and together plan the theft of the statue. Iphigenia tells Thoas, the king of the Taurians, that the Greeks are matricides who have polluted the statue, and that she must wash both statue and prisoners in the sea (lines 1153–1233). A messenger then reports to Thoas that the priestess has escaped with the strangers and the statue (lines 1284–1419). The Taurians prepare to pursue the ship, but the goddess Athena appears and forbids it (lines 1435–1474).

Date and Historical Background

Although the play is generally known in English as Iphigenia in Tauris, this is a Latin form of its title, properly rendered Iphigenia among the Taurians. The Greek text speaks of the Taurian land (for example line 85, where Apollo’s order to go to the “Tauric land” is recalled), and there is no place called Tauris in the play. Herodotus, who describes the Tauric country on the Black Sea (4.99), says that the Taurians sacrifice shipwrecked men and any Greeks they capture to a “Virgin” goddess, and that they themselves say this goddess is Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon (Herodotus 4.103). In Euripides’ play, by contrast, Iphigenia is the priestess of Artemis, and the statue of the goddess is said to have fallen from heaven (line 88).

No ancient source that survives in our texts records the year or the festival at which Iphigenia in Tauris was produced, or which plays were performed with it. The date is therefore uncertain. The play carries on the story told in Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Orestes recalls his trial in Athens, where the votes were equal (lines 939–986), and Athena herself recalls it (lines 1469–1472).

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, sister of Orestes, and priestess of Artemis
• Orestes, son of Agamemnon, brother of Iphigenia
• Pylades, cousin of Orestes (his father Strophius married a daughter of Atreus, lines 915–919) and his loyal friend
• Herdsman, the first messenger
• Thoas, king of the Taurians
• Messenger, one of Thoas’ men
• Athena, who appears at the end and settles the matter
• Chorus of Greek captive women, servants of Iphigenia in the temple (lines 1089–1151)

Setting

The play is set in front of the temple of Artemis among the Taurians, on the shore of the Black Sea (the “Axine” sea, called here the home of the clashing rocks, lines 123–125).

Summary of Iphigenia in Tauris

Prologue

The prologue begins, as often in Euripides, with a short genealogy of the speaker. Iphigenia traces her descent from Tantalus through Pelops and Atreus to Agamemnon, and then tells how her father sacrificed her to Artemis “for Helen’s sake” (lines 1–24). The fleet was held at Aulis by contrary winds; the seer Calchas declared that the ships could not sail until Agamemnon gave his daughter to Artemis, and by the craft of Odysseus she was brought from her mother on the pretext of a marriage to Achilles. As she was held over the altar, Artemis snatched her away, left a deer in her place, and carried her through the air to the land of the Taurians (lines 24–30). Its barbarian king is Thoas, who runs as swiftly as a bird (lines 31–33). Artemis made her priestess in the temple, where she begins the rites of sacrifice of any Greek who comes to the land, a custom of the country, while others carry out the killing inside (lines 34–41).

She tells the air (“if it is any relief”) of a dream that visited her the night before (lines 42–66). She was back in Argos, asleep in the maidens’ rooms, when the earth shook and the house collapsed, leaving one pillar standing; this pillar grew yellow hair and spoke with a human voice, and she sprinkled it with the water she uses on victims. She reads the dream to mean that Orestes, the pillar of the house, is dead, and goes into the temple to pour libations for him.

Orestes and Pylades arrive, looking carefully around (lines 67–76). They see the altar dripping with blood and the spoils of strangers hanging from the walls. Orestes reproaches Apollo, who sent him on this journey after he avenged his father by killing his mother and was driven from land to land by the Furies. The god told him to go to the Tauric land, take the statue of Artemis that fell from heaven, and bring it to Athens; if he did so he would find rest from his labors (lines 77–93). The two consider climbing into the temple or forcing the door, and decide instead to hide in a cave by the sea until night, then steal the statue by the gap between the triglyphs (lines 94–122).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

The Chorus, Greek women who serve in the temple, enter with a call for holy silence (lines 123–142). Iphigenia comes out to them and tells of her dream and her brother’s supposed death. She pours libations of milk, wine and honey for him, and the women join in a lament for the house of Atreus (lines 143–202). Iphigenia sings of her own fate, married in name only to Achilles, now “without marriage, or children, or city, or friends” (lines 203–235), recalling Orestes as he was when she last saw him, a baby in his mother’s arms.

First Episode

The Chorus announces a herdsman (lines 236–237). He tells her that two young Greeks have been caught on the shore, “an offering and sacrifice pleasing to the goddess Artemis,” and she should prepare the purifications (lines 238–247). He knows the name of one only, Pylades, because the other called him by it (lines 248–250). His account of the capture fills the rest of the scene (lines 253–339). The cowherds were washing their cattle by the sea when they saw the two sitting in a hollow of the rocks. Some took them for gods, but one laughed and said they were shipwrecked sailors afraid of the local custom. Then one of the strangers began to rave, crying out against Furies that only he could see, and he drew his sword and rushed into the cattle “like a lion,” thinking in this way to ward off the Furies, until the sea ran red. The cowherds called their neighbors, and when the stranger fell exhausted, foaming at the mouth, they attacked him with stones while the other stranger wiped away the foam and shielded him with his cloak. When the madness passed, both drew their swords and fought, but the Taurians, who had gathered in great numbers, got the better of them with stones and took their swords away. The herdsman’s last point to Iphigenia is that if she destroys these victims, Greece will pay for the sacrifice at Aulis (lines 336–339). “You go and bring the strangers here,” she answers, “the holy rites will be my concern” (lines 342–343).

Left alone, Iphigenia says that her heart was once gentle and full of pity for strangers, but that her dreams of Orestes’ death have made her savage (lines 344–353). She wishes that Helen, who has destroyed her, would come to the Taurian shore so that she could take vengeance (lines 354–358), and she recalls pleading with her father at Aulis (lines 359–377). She then criticizes the goddess’ rites: she refuses to believe the story that the gods ate the flesh of Tantalus’ son, and thinks the Taurians, who are themselves murderers, attribute their own deeds to the goddess, “for I believe that no god is evil” (lines 380–391).

In the first stasimon (lines 392–466) the Chorus wonders who the strangers can be who have sailed through the clashing rocks to this land. They share Iphigenia’s wish that Helen might come and have her throat cut by their mistress (lines 436–438), and hope that some Greek sailor will come to end their slavery (lines 447–455).

Second Episode

The two Greeks are brought in with their hands bound, and Iphigenia orders them freed (lines 467–471). She pities them: “Unhappy strangers, where have you come from?” (line 479). Orestes tells her not to weep, since he who is going to die only adds one evil to another by lamenting (lines 482–491). When she asks if they are brothers, he answers, “By friendship, yes; we are not brothers by birth, lady” (lines 497–498). Orestes refuses to give his name, but he names Argos as his city, and this leads to a longer exchange (lines 499–571). Iphigenia asks about the Greeks who fought at Troy: Helen is at Sparta with Menelaus; Calchas is dead; Odysseus has not returned; Achilles is dead (lines 511–540). When she asks about Agamemnon, she learns that he was murdered by his wife and that Clytemnestra was killed by her son (lines 541–558). Agamemnon left one daughter, Electra (line 562), and of the daughter sacrificed at Aulis there is no news except that she is dead (lines 563–565). “And does the dead father’s son live at Argos?” she asks. “He lives, the miserable one, both nowhere and everywhere,” answers Orestes (lines 568–570).

Iphigenia now concludes that her dream was false, and she proposes a bargain (lines 578–596). A Greek captive once wrote a letter for her, and she would like to send it to Argos. If one of them will carry it, she will save him, and the other will be sacrificed. Orestes will not let his friend die in his place, and insists that Pylades take the letter, “for it is most shameful for anyone to save himself by hurling his friends’ affairs into catastrophe” (lines 597–608). Iphigenia explains that she will only sprinkle the victim with water, while the killing is done by those inside the temple, and promises to bury him with honey and oil (lines 609–635). Left to themselves, Pylades protests that he cannot live while Orestes dies and would be thought a traitor in Argos (lines 674–686), but Orestes persuades him and asks him to build a tomb and be good to Electra, whom Orestes has given him as wife (lines 687–715).

Iphigenia returns with the tablet (line 725). She fears that Pylades, once safe, may forget it, and so makes him swear an oath, and in turn promises to see him safely out of the country (lines 735–752). When Pylades adds that if the tablet is lost at sea he should be free of his oath, she decides to tell him the letter’s contents aloud: “Report to Orestes, the son of Agamemnon: the one slain at Aulis sends you this, Iphigenia, who is alive, though no longer alive to those there” (lines 769–771). Orestes answers that she is standing in front of him, and Pylades gives him the tablet with the words: “See, Orestes, I bring you a tablet from your sister here” (lines 787–792). Orestes embraces her, though she at first rejects him, and he has to give proof (lines 793–826). He recalls the strife between Atreus and Thyestes over the golden lamb, which she had woven into a cloth, the sun turned back on her loom, her bath before the supposed marriage, the lock of hair she left to be sent to her mother, and the old spear of Pelops that hung in her chamber in the house. She believes him, and the two share a long duet of joy and fear (lines 827–899).

Pylades interrupts with a reminder that they must decide how to escape (lines 902–908). Iphigenia asks about Electra and about Pylades, and Orestes tells her who his friend is and how he came to the Taurian land (lines 909–938). He fled from Argos to Athens, where Apollo sent him to stand trial before the goddesses; he tells of the cold welcome he received there, with each guest given a separate cup of wine, which he says is the origin of the Athenian festival of the pitchers, and of the trial on the hill of Ares in which Athena counted equal votes and he was acquitted (lines 939–967). Some of the Furies were persuaded and settled near the court, but others kept pursuing him, until Apollo sent him to Tauris to take the image that fell from heaven to Athens (lines 968–986). Iphigenia says she is willing to help, though she fears the king and the goddess. Orestes asks if they could kill the king, but Iphigenia cannot bear the thought of murdering a host, and she suggests a trick instead (lines 1017–1032). She will say that he is a matricide, that he has polluted the statue by touching it, and that it must be carried to the sea to be washed, together with the prisoners; and since she alone may touch the image, she will do it herself (lines 1017–1051). She then appeals to the Chorus to keep the secret, which they promise (lines 1056–1077). Iphigenia prays to Artemis, asking her to save her again, as she did at Aulis (lines 1078–1088).

In the second stasimon (lines 1089–1151) the Chorus sings of the halcyon bird lamenting its mate, and of the women’s own longing for Greece, for the festivals of Artemis at Delos and the dances of their girlhood. They imagine Iphigenia sailing home to Athens with Pan’s reed pipe and Apollo’s lyre guiding the oars (lines 1124–1131), while they themselves are left behind.

Third Episode

Thoas arrives, asking if the strangers have been dealt with, and is astonished to see Iphigenia carrying the statue of the goddess out of the temple (lines 1153–1158). She tells him to stand back: the image has turned away from its seat, and closed its eyes, because the strangers who were brought to it are polluted by murder (lines 1161–1168). He asks what they did, and she says, “They killed their mother together with a shared sword” (line 1173). “Apollo!” cries Thoas. “No barbarian would have dared this” (line 1174). Iphigenia says she must wash the statue and the strangers in the sea, as the sea washes away all human evils (lines 1191–1201). Thoas orders chains for the prisoners and veils for their faces, and sends servants to tell the city to stay indoors (lines 1203–1213). Iphigenia tells him to purify the temple with fire and to cover his eyes when the strangers come out, and not to wonder if she is long (lines 1214–1221). She leads the procession away with a torch and lambs (lines 1222–1233).

In the third stasimon (lines 1234–1282) the Chorus sings of the birth of Apollo at Delos, of how he killed the serpent at Delphi and took the oracle that belonged to Themis, and of how Earth, angry for her daughter, sent dreams to mortals in the night, until Apollo went to Zeus, who put an end to the night visions and restored the oracle to him.

Exodos (Exit Song)

A messenger arrives and calls for the king (lines 1284–1306). Thoas emerges and learns that Iphigenia has fled with the strangers and the statue, and that the purification was a trick (lines 1307–1324). The messenger tells the story of the escape (lines 1327–1419). When they reached the shore, Iphigenia sent Thoas’ men away so that the rites would be private, and chanted strange spells for a long time. At last they went to look, and saw a Greek ship with fifty oars and the two young men standing at the stern. They seized Iphigenia and the cables, and the stranger said, “I am Orestes, her brother” (lines 1361–1363). There was a fight, without swords, and the Taurians were beaten off with blows and arrows. Orestes carried his sister through the surf and up the ladder, together with the statue, and the ship put out to sea. But a sudden wind drove it back toward the land, and Iphigenia prayed to Artemis to forgive the theft: the goddess loves her brother, and Iphigenia loves hers (lines 1398–1402). The messenger urges Thoas to bring nets and chains, because unless the sea grows calm there is no hope for the strangers.

Thoas calls on his people to ride to the shore and drag ships into the sea, and tells the Chorus that he will deal with them later (lines 1422–1434). At that moment Athena appears and stops him: “Where, where are you carrying this pursuit, lord Thoas?” (line 1435). Orestes came by Apollo’s command, she says, and Poseidon, for her sake, now lets him sail over a calm sea (lines 1435–1445). She tells Orestes to take his sister and the statue to Athens and to build a temple at Halae on the edge of Attica, where the image will be worshipped as Artemis Tauropolos; at the festival of the goddess, a sword is to be held to a man’s throat and blood drawn, in atonement for the sacrifice (lines 1446–1461). Iphigenia will be keeper of the keys of the goddess at Brauron, where she will die and be buried, and women who die in childbirth will leave their robes for her (lines 1462–1467). Athena also commands Thoas to send the Greek women home (lines 1467–1468). Thoas gives way: it is pointless to fight the strength of the gods, and he will send the women to Greece and call off the army and ships (lines 1475–1485). Athena tells the winds to carry Orestes to Athens (lines 1486–1489), and the Chorus ends with a prayer to Athena and to Victory (lines 1490–1499).

A Brief Analysis

Iphigenia in Tauris is one of several plays by Euripides, with Ion, Helen and Orestes, in which an intrigue plot leads to a happy ending. Aristotle (Poetics 16) singles out its recognition: he praises the way Iphigenia is made known through the letter, because it is natural that she should want to send one (lines 769–792), but he calls the proofs that Orestes gives of himself (lines 808–826) an invention of the poet rather than a product of the plot. The plot turns on a series of reversals, from the herdsman’s report of a doomed sacrifice (lines 238–339) to the recognition (lines 769–826) and the sudden rescue by Athena (lines 1435–1474).

The play continues the story of Orestes and the Furies. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides the Furies lose the vote at the Areopagus but are persuaded to settle in Athens (Aeschylus, Eumenides 778–1047). In Euripides, only some of them accept the verdict, and the rest keep driving Orestes, which is why Apollo sends him on a further task (lines 968–978). Both Orestes and Iphigenia are saved by a god, and there is a pattern of siblings: Apollo sends Orestes to rescue the statue of his sister Artemis, and Orestes ends by rescuing his own sister Iphigenia; Iphigenia, whom Artemis once saved, prays to Artemis for a safe voyage (lines 1398–1402).

Friendship and kinship are tested in the scene where each of the two young men tries to die instead of the other (lines 597–724). Orestes explains the bond by saying that they are brothers by friendship, not by birth (lines 497–498), and Pylades says it would be shameful to survive his friend (lines 674–686). At the same time, the play shows the Taurians and Greeks side by side. The Taurians sacrifice strangers, but Iphigenia herself performs the same rites and does not believe that a god can desire them (lines 380–391). Thoas reacts to the news that the strangers killed their mother with the words “No barbarian would have dared this” (line 1174), a reminder that, in this play, the “barbarian” king is shocked by an act committed by Greeks.

Sources

Euripides, Iphigenia among the Taurians (cited by line), which can be read in Greek and English at Perseus Iphigenia in Tauris 1; Herodotus 4.99 and 4.103 on the Taurians; Aeschylus, Eumenides 778–1047; Aristotle, Poetics 16. On the later history of the image of Artemis, Pausanias 1.33.1 (Brauron) and 3.16.7–8 (the Spartan claim).

See Also: Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia, Orestes, Pylades, Thoas, Eumenides