Aeschylus, Agamemnon 176–263: Parodos (2): the hymn to Zeus and the sacrifice of Iphigenia

Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that wisdom comes by suffering. But even as trouble, bringing memory of pain, drips over the mind in sleep, so wisdom comes to men, whether they want it or not. Harsh, it seems to me, is the grace of gods enthroned upon their awful seats.

So then the captain of the Achaean ships, the elder of the two— holding no seer at fault, bending to the adverse blasts of fortune, when the Achaean folk, on the shore over against Chalcis in the region where Aulis’ tides surge to and fro, were very distressed by opposing winds and failing stores.

The breezes that blew from the Strymon, bringing harmful leisure, hunger, and tribulation of spirit in a cruel port, idle wandering of men, and sparing neither ship nor cable, began, by doubling the season of their stay, to rub away and wither the flower of Argos; and when the seer, pointing to Artemis as cause, proclaimed to the chieftains another remedy, more oppressive even than the bitter storm, so that the sons of Atreus struck the ground with their canes and did not stifle their tears—

Then the elder king spoke and said: It is a hard fate to refuse obedience, and hard, if I must slay my child, the glory of my home, and at the altar-side stain a father’s hand with streams of virgin’s blood. Which of these courses is not filled with evil? How can I become a deserter to my fleet and fail my allies in arms? For that they should with all too impassioned passion crave a sacrifice to lull the winds—even a virgin’s blood—stands within their right. May all be for the best.

But when he had donned the yoke of Necessity, with veering of mind, impious, unholy, unsanctified, from that moment he changed his intention and began to conceive that deed of uttermost audacity. For wretched delusion, counsellor of ill, primal source of woe, makes mortals bold. So then he hardened his heart to sacrifice his daughter so that he might further a war waged to avenge a woman, and as an offering for the voyage of a fleet!

For her supplications, her cries of Father, and her virgin life, the commanders in their eagerness for war cared nothing. Her father, after a prayer, bade his ministers lay hold of her as, enwrapped in her robes, she lay fallen forward, and with stout heart to raise her, as if she were a young goat, high above the altar; and with a gag upon her lovely mouth to hold back the shouted curse against her house— by the bit’s strong and stifling might.

Then, as she shed to earth her saffron robe, she struck each of her sacrificers with a glance from her eyes beseeching pity, looking as if in a picture, wishing she could speak; for she had often sung where men met at her father’s hospitable table, and with her virgin voice would lovingly honor her dear father’s prayer for blessing at the third libation—

What happened next I did not see and do not tell. The art of Calchas was not unfulfilled. Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. But the future, that you shall know when it occurs; till then, leave it be—it is just as someone weeping ahead of time. Clear it will come, together with the light of dawn. But as for what shall follow, may the issue be happy, even as she wishes, our sole guardian here, the bulwark of the Apian land, who stands nearest to our lord.

I have come, Clytaemestra, in obedience to your royal authority; for it is fitting to do homage to the consort of a sovereign prince when her husband’s throne is empty. Now whether the news you have heard is good or ill, and you do make sacrifice with hopes that herald gladness, I wish to hear; yet, if you would keep silence, I make no complaint.