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    Iphigenia
    Iphigenia
    Iphigenia
    Ebook94 pages48 minutes

    Iphigenia

    By Jean Racine

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    The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Molière and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of Jean Racine, at present, he is widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. In this volume of Racine's plays we find "Iphigenia", the ninth of twelve plays by the author. After a series of historical dramas Racine choose to return to mythological subject matter for his ninth play. As Agamemnon, King of the Greeks, prepares his navy to attack Troy, the gods quell the winds for their journey and demand the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter. Based in part on Euripides' "Iphigenia in Aulis", Racine departs somewhat by substituting an alternative dramatic solution for the ending.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781420949018
    Iphigenia
    Author

    Jean Racine

    Jean Racine, né le 22 décembre 1639 à La Ferté-Milon et mort le 21 avril 1699 à Paris, est un dramaturge et poète français. Issu d'une famille de petits notables de la Ferté-Milon et tôt orphelin, Racine reçoit auprès des « Solitaires » de Port-Royal une éducation littéraire et religieuse rare.

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      Book preview

      Iphigenia - Jean Racine

      cover.jpg

      IPHIGENIA

      BY JEAN RACINE

      TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BRUCE BOSWELL

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4901-8

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4900-1

      This edition copyright © 2013

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION TO IPHIGENIA.

      CHARACTERS.

      ACT I.

      ACT II.

      ACT III.

      ACT IV.

      ACT V.

      IPHIGENIA.

      1674.

      INTRODUCTION TO IPHIGENIA.

      Racine's version of the time-honoured story of Iphigenia was acted for the first time in 1674. The model upon which it is shaped is the Iphigenia in Aulis of his favourite Euripides, but the French poet has heightened the romantic interest and complicated the plot by the important part which Eriphyle is made to play, a character which he derived from Pausanias and other writers, though her jealousy of Iphigenia, her treachery, and suicide, are due to his own invention. According to Æschylus and Sophocles the daughter of Agamemnon was actually slain at Aulis; and the graphic description of Lucretius which embodies this view of the catastrophe (De Rerum Naturâ lib. i. 85, etc.) has furnished Racine with one touch at least of exquisite pathos:—

      "It was I

      Who call'd thee first by the dear name of father."

      (Act iv. scene 4.)

      According to Euripides a fawn was substituted for the maiden by divine interposition at the last moment, and Iphigenia herself was spirited away in a cloud to serve as priestess at the shrine of Artemis (Diana) among the Tauri, the savage inhabitants of what is now the Crimea. Ovid in his Metamorphoses (lib. xii. 31, etc.) adopts this myth, and the genius of Goethe has presented it afresh to the modern world in a drama which bears as close a relation to the Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides, as this play does to the Iphigenia in Aulide. The tradition that Racine has followed introduces another Iphigenia, a daughter of Helen by Theseus, as the actual victim. How far he has succeeded in disarming our sympathy with Eriphyle is a matter that admits of dispute, but there is at least a dramatic justice in representing her destruction as the result of her own treachery.

      CHARACTERS.

      AGAMEMNON.

      ACHILLES.

      ULYSSES.

      CLYTÆMNESTRA, Wife of Agamemnon.

      IPHIGENIA, Daughter of Agamemnon.

      ERIPHYLE, Daughter of Helm and of Theseus,

      ARCAS, Servant of Agamemnon.

      EURYBATES, Servant of Agamemnon.

      ÆGINA, Attendant of Clytæmnestra.

      DORIS, Friend of Eriphyle.

      Guards.

      The scene is laid at Aulis, in the tent of Agamemnon.

      IPHIGENIA.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I. AGAMEMNON, ARCAS.

      AGAMEMNON. Ay, it is Agamemnon, 'tis thy King

      That wakes thee; his the voice that strikes thine ear.

      ARCAS. Is't thou indeed, my lord? What grave concern

      Has made thee leave thy couch before the dawn?

      A feeble light scarce lets me see thy face,

      No eyes but ours are open yet in Aulis.

      Hast thou caught any sound of rising winds?

      And can it be that Heav'n has heard our pray'r

      This night? Nay, all are sleeping,—winds and waves

      As sleeps the host.

      AGAMEMNON. Happy the man content

      With humble fortune, free from the proud yoke

      'Neath which I bow, who lives a life obscure,

      Thanks to kind Heav'n!

      ARCAS. How long, my lord, hast thou

      Thought thus? What secret injury has work'd

      This hatred and contempt of all the honours

      That Heav'n's rich bounty has on thee bestow'd?

      Blest as king, sire, and husband, son and heir

      Of Atreus, the most favour'd land in Greece

      Is thine, and thou canst boast kinship with Jove

      Both by direct descent as well as marriage;

      And young Achilles now, to whom the gods

      Promise such fame by all their oracles,

      Sues for thy daughter's hand, and at the flames

      Of burning Troy would light the nuptial torch.

      What glory, Sire, what triumphs can be match'd

      With this grand sight display'd along these shores;

      A thousand vessels and a score of kings,

      All waiting here but for the winds to sail

      'Neath thy command? 'Tis true this tedious calm

      Delays thy conquests, and, for three months chain'd,

      The winds have block'd thy course to Troy too long.

      Supremely honour'd, thou art yet a mortal;

      Nor has thy life from Fortune's shifting breeze

      Been promised happiness without alloy.

      Soon—

      But what troubles, in that letter traced,

      Force from thine eyes, my lord, a burst of tears?

      Is thine Orestes doom'd in infancy

      To death? For Clytæmnestra dost thou weep,

      Or for Iphigenia? Prithee, tell me

      What is writ there.

      AGAMEMNON. Thou shalt not die; no, never

      Will I consent.

      ARCAS. My lord!

      AGAMEMNON. Thou seest my grief,

      Learn thou its cause, and judge if I

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