Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris
Robert Potter, Ed.

Iphigenia
From the beginning my fate was unhappy, from that first night of my mather's marriage; [205] from the beginning the Fates attendant on my birth directed a hard upbringing for me, wooed by Hellenes, the first-born child in the home, [210] whom the unhappy daughter of Leda, by my father's fault, bore as a victim and a sacrifice not joyful, she brought me up as an offering. In the horse-drawn chariot, [215] they set me as a bride on the sands of Aulis, oh woe, a wretched bride for the son of the Nereid, alas! But now, as a stranger I live in an unfertile home on this sea that is hostile to strangers, [220] without marriage, or children, or city, or friends, not raising hymns to Hera at Argos, nor embroidering with my shuttle, in the singing loom, the likeness of Athenian Pallas and the Titans; but [225] . . . a bloody fate, not to be hymned by the lyre, of strangers who wail a piteous cry and weep piteous tears. And now I must forget these things, [230] and lament my brother, killed in Argos, whom I left at the breast, still a baby, still an infant, still a young child in his mother's arms and at her breast, [235] the holder of the scepter in Argos, Orestes.