Chorus Leader Look, here comes a herdsman, who has left the shores of the sea to bring you some new message.
Herdsman Daughter of Agamemnon, and of Clytemnestra, hear a strange report from me.
Iphigenia And what is amazing in your news?
Herdsman Two young men have come to this land, fleeing the dark Symplegades in their ship, an offering and sacrifice pleasing to the goddess Artemis. Be quick to prepare the purifications and the first offerings.
Iphigenia What country are the strangers from? How are they dressed?
Herdsman They are Hellenes; I know this one thing, and nothing further.
Iphigenia Can’t you tell me their names? Did you hear them?
Herdsman One was called Pylades by the other.
Iphigenia What is the name of his companion?
Herdsman No one knows; we didn’t hear it.
Iphigenia How did you see them? How did you come upon them and catch them?
Herdsman At the edge of the breakers of the Black Sea—
Iphigenia And what do herdsmen have to do with the sea?
Herdsman We came to wash our cattle in the salt water.
Iphigenia Go back to the earlier question, how did you take them, and in what way, for I want to know this. They have come after a long time; the altar of the goddess has not yet been reddened by streams of Hellene blood.
Herdsman
When we were driving the cattle, that feed in the forest, into the sea that flows through the Symplegades, there was a broken cleft, hollowed by the constant surge of waves, shelter for those who hunt the purple-fish. Here one of the herdsmen saw two youths, and made a retreat on tip-toe. He said: Don’t you see them? These are deities that sit there. One of us, who revered the gods, lifted up his hands and prayed, as he saw them: O son of the sea-goddess Leukothea, guardian of ships, lord Palaemon, be propitious to us! Or do you sit on our shores, twin sons of Zeus? Or the darlings of Nereus, father of the chorus of fifty Nereids? Another, who was foolish and bold in his lawlessness, laughed at the prayers and asserted that ship-wrecked sailors were sitting on the cliff, in fear of our custom, having heard that we sacrifice strangers here. Most of us thought that he spoke well, and that we ought to hunt down the customary offerings to the goddess. At this moment, one of the strangers left the rock, and stood, shaking his head up and down and groaning, with hands trembling, wandering in madness; and like a hunter, he cried aloud: Pylades, do you see her? Don’t you see hell’s dragon, how she wants to kill me, fringed with her dreadful vipers against me? and the one who breathes fire and slaughter from her robe and wings her way, my mother in her arms—the rocky mass, how she hurls it at me! Ah, she will kill me! Where can I escape? We could not see these shapes; but he alternated the sounds of sheep and howling of dogs . . . to send forth the Furies’ imitations.
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