Opening Iphigenia in Aulis — Euripides in Plato Scroll… Continue →
Euripides · E. P. Coleridge (1891), modernised by Perseus
Scene. — The sea-coast at Aulis. Leda, the daughter of Thestius, had three children, maidens, Phoebe, Clytemnestra my wife, and Helen; the foremost of the favored sons of Hellas came to woo Helen; but terrible threats of spilling his rival’s blood were uttered by each of them, if he should fail to win the girl. Now the matter filled Tyndareus, her father, with perplexity, whether to give her or not, how he might best succeed. This thought occurred to him: the suitors should swear to each other and join right hands and pour libations with burnt-sacrifice, binding themselves by this curse: whoever wins the child of Tyndareus for wife, they will assist that man, in case a rival takes her from his house and goes his way, robbing her husband of his rights; and march against that man in armed array and raze his city to the ground, Hellene no less than barbarian. Now when they had once pledged …
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