Chorus Leader
This differs from your previous declaration, but there is good in it, your child's reprieve.
Menelaus
Ah me, how sad my lot! I have no friends then after all.
Agamemnon
[405]
Friends you have, if you do not seek their destruction.
Menelaus
Where will you find any proof that you are sprung from the same father as I?
Agamemnon
It is your moderation, not your madness, that I share by nature.
Menelaus
Friends should sympathize with friends in sorrow.
Agamemnon
Claim my help by kindly service, not by paining me.
Menelaus
[410]
So you have no mind to share this trouble with Hellas?
Agamemnon
No, Hellas is diseased like you, according to some god's design.
Menelaus
Go boast of your scepter, after betraying your own brother! while I will seek some different means and other friends.
Messenger
entering hurriedly.
Agamemnon, lord of Hellas!
[415]
I have come and bring you your daughter, whom you call Iphigenia in your home; and her mother, your wife Clytemnestra, is with her, and the child Orestes, a sight to gladden you after your long absence from your home;
[420]
but they had been travelling long and far, they are now resting their tender feet at the waters of a fair spring, they and their horses, for we turned these loose in the grassy meadow to browse their fill. But I have come as their forerunner to prepare you for their reception;
[425]
for the army knows already of your daughter's arrival, so quickly did the rumor spread; and all the people are running together to the sight, that they may see your child; for Fortune's favorites enjoy world-wide fame and have all eyes fixed on them.
[430]
Some say: “Is it a wedding, or what is happening? or has king Agamemnon from fond yearning summoned his daughter here?” From others you would have heard: “They are presenting the maiden to Artemis, queen of Aulis, previous to marriage; who can the bridegroom be, that is to lead her home?”
[435]
Come, then, begin the rites, that is the next step, by getting the baskets ready; crown your heads—you too, lord Menelaus; prepare the wedding hymn; let flutes sound throughout the tents with noise of dancer's feet; for this is a happy day, that has come for the maid.
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Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, translated by E. P. Coleridge. Volume II. London. George Bell and Sons. 1891.
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