Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1255–1335: Fourth episode: Agamemnon says the army leaves him no choice; Iphigenia laments

While loving my own children, I yet understand what should move my pity and what should not; I would be a madman otherwise. It is terrible for me to bring myself to this, nor is it less terrible to refuse, daughter; for I must do this. You see the vastness of that naval army, and the numbers of bronze-clad warriors from Hellas, who can neither make their way to Ilium’s towers nor raze the far-famed citadel of Troy, unless I offer you according to the word of Calchas the seer. Some mad desire possesses the army of Hellas to sail at once to the land of the barbarians, and put a stop to the rape of wives from Hellas, and they will slay my daughter in Argos as well as you and me, if I disregard the goddess’s commands. It is not Menelaus who has enslaved me to him, child, nor have I followed his wish; no, it is Hellas, for whom I must sacrifice you whether I will or not; to this necessity I bow my head; for her freedom must be preserved, as far as any help of yours daughter, or mine can go; or they, who are the sons of Hellas, must be pillaged of their wives by barbarian robbery.

Clytemnestra My child! oh, foreign women! Alas for me, for your death! Your father escapes, surrendering you to Hades.

Iphigenia Alas for me, mother! for the same lament has fallen to both of us in our fortune. No more for me the light of day! no more these beams of the sun! Oh, oh! that snow-beat glen in Phrygia and the hills of Ida, where Priam once exposed a tender baby, torn from his mother’s arms to meet a deadly doom, Paris, called the child of Ida in the Phrygians’ town. Would that he never had settled Alexander, the herdsman reared among the herds, beside that water crystal-clear, where are fountains of the Nymphs and their meadow rich with blooming flowers, where hyacinths and rose-buds blow for goddesses to gather! Here one day came Pallas and Cypris of the subtle heart, Hera too and Hermes messenger of Zeus; Cypris, proud of the longing she causes, Pallas of her prowess; and Hera of her royal marriage with king Zeus; to decide a hateful strife about their beauty; but it is my death, maidens, bringing, it is true, glory to the Danaids, that Artemis has received as an offering, before they begin the voyage to Ilium.

O mother, mother! he that begot me to this life of sorrow has gone and left me all alone. Ah! woe is me! a bitter, bitter sight for me was Helen, evil Helen! to me now doomed to bleed and die, slaughtered by an impious father! I wish this Aulis had never received in its havens here the stems of their bronze-beaked ships, the fleet which was speeding them to Troy; and would that Zeus had never breathed on the Euripus a wind to stop the expedition, tempering, as he does, a different breeze to different men, so that some have joy in setting sail, and sorrow some, and others hard constraint, to make some start and others prepare and others delay! Full of trouble then, it seems, is the race of mortals, full of trouble indeed; and it is Fate’s decree that man should find distress. Woe! woe to you, you child of Tyndareus, for the suffering and anguish sore, which you are causing the Danaids!