Iphigenia in Tauris E-Book

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Iphigenia in Tauris Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Beloved by the gods for his wisdom, the demigod Tantalus was once invited to their fellowship. Becoming boisterous whilst celebrating with them, he began to boast, and he stole the gods' nectar and ambrosia, their food of immortality. When the gods came to see Tantalus in turn, he tested their omniscience by offering his own son Pelops to them as their meal. Offended by the deception, the gods banished Tantalus from their community to Tartarus and cursed him and his family. This became known as the curse on the Tantalids, in which descendants from Tantalus in every subsequent generation were driven by revenge and hatred to the killing of their own family members.Thus did Agamemnon, army commander and great-grandson of Tantalus, offer his eldest daughter Iphigenia to goddess Diana (in Greek known as Artemis) to ensure favourable winds for the voyage from Avlida to Troy, where he intended to wage war against Troy. In the mistaken belief that her husband Agamemnon had murdered their daughter Iphigenia, Clytemnestra then killed Agamemnon. As a result, Orestes and Electra, the brother and sister of Iphigenia, harboured a grudge against the mother over the murder of their father, and Orestes, with the help of Electra, murdered his mother Clytemnestra. Being now guilty of a murder, he too fell under the family curse. In an attempt to flee his impending fate of falling victim to revenge and of being killed for his crime, he fled. Consulting the Delphic oracle of Apollo, he was told to bring "the sister" to Tauris and that this would be the only way to lift the curse. Since he supposed his sister Iphigenia was already dead, Orestes assumed that the oracle must have meant Apollo's twin sister, the goddess Diana. He therefore planned to rob the statue of Diana from the temple in Tauris, and he set out with his old friend Pylades for the coast of Tauris.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature. His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentalism (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, his influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology were extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar.

Leseprobe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Iphigenia in Tauris

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ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

A Grove before the Temple of Diana.

IPHIGENIA.

Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs Of this old, shady, consecrated grove, As in the goddess' silent sanctuary, With the same shudd'ring feeling forth I step, As when I trod it first, nor ever here Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home. Long as the mighty will, to which I bow, Hath kept me here conceal'd, still, as at first, I feel myself a stranger. For the sea Doth sever me, alas! from those I love, And day by day upon the shore I stand, My soul still seeking for the land of Greece. But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding waves Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply. Alas for him! who friendless and alone, Remote from parents and from brethren dwells; From him grief snatches every coming joy Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts Revert for ever to his father's halls, Where first to him the radiant sun unclos'd The gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day, Brothers and sisters, leagu'd in pastime sweet, Around each other twin'd the bonds of love. I will not judge the counsel of the gods;

Yet, truly, woman's lot doth merit pity. Man rules alike at home and in the field, Nor is in foreign climes without resource; Possession gladdens him, him conquest crowns, And him an honourable death awaits. How circumscrib'd is woman's destiny! Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord, Her duty, and her comfort; sad her fate, Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote: Thus I, by noble Thoas, am detain'd, Bound with a heavy, though a sacred chain. Oh! with what shame, Diana, I confess That with repugnance I perform these rites For thee, divine protectress! unto whom I would in freedom dedicate my life. In thee, Diana, I have always hop'd, And still I hope in thee, who didst infold Within the holy shelter of thine arm The outcast daughter of the mighty king. Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruin'd Troy Led back in triumph to his native land The mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict, His daughter's life in sacrifice demanding,— Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon, Who to thine altar led his darling child, Preserv'd his wife, Electra, and his son. His dearest treasures?—then at length restore Thy suppliant also to her friends and home, And save her, as thou once from death didst save, So now, from living here, a second death.

SCENE II.

IPHIGENIA. ARKAS.

ARKAS.

The king hath sent me hither, and commands

To hail Diana's priestess. This the day,

On which for new and wonderful success,

Tauris her goddess thanks. The king and host

Draw near,—I come to herald their approach.

IPHIGENIA.

We are prepar'd to give them worthy greeting;

Our goddess doth behold with gracious eye

The welcome sacrifice from Thoas' hand.

ARKAS.

Oh, priestess, that thine eye more mildly beam'd,—

Thou much-rever'd one,—that I found thy glance,

O consecrated maid, more calm, more bright,

To all a happy omen! Still doth grief,

With gloom mysterious, shroud thy inner mind;

Still, still, through many a year we wait in vain

For one confiding utt'rance from thy breast.

Long as I've known thee in this holy place,

That look of thine hath ever made me shudder;

And, as with iron bands, thy soul remains

Lock'd in the deep recesses of thy breast.

IPHIGENIA.

As doth become the exile and the orphan.

ARKAS.

Dost thou then here seem exil'd and an orphan?

IPHIGENIA.

Can foreign scenes our fatherland replace?

ARKAS.

Thy fatherland is foreign now to thee.

IPHIGENIA.

Hence is it that my bleeding heart ne'er heals.

In early youth, when first my soul, in love,

Held father, mother, brethren fondly twin'd,

A group of tender germs, in union sweet,

We sprang in beauty from the parent stem,

And heavenward grew. An unrelenting curse

Then seiz'd and sever'd me from those I lov'd,

And wrench'd with iron grasp the beauteous bands.

It vanish'd then, the fairest charm of youth,

The simple gladness of life's early dawn;

Though sav'd, I was a shadow of myself,

And life's fresh joyance bloom'd in me no more.

ARKAS.

If thus thou ever dost lament thy fate,

I must accuse thee of ingratitude.

IPHIGENIA.

Thanks have you ever.

ARKAS.

Not the honest thanks

Which prompt the heart to offices of love;

The joyous glance, revealing to the host

A grateful spirit, with its lot content.

When thee a deep mysterious destiny

Brought to this sacred fane, long years ago.

To greet thee, as a treasure sent from heaven,

With reverence and affection, Thoas came.

Benign and friendly was this shore to thee,

Which had before each stranger's heart appall'd,

For, till thy coming, none e'er trod our realm

But fell, according to an ancient rite,

A bloody victim at Diana's shrine.

IPHIGENIA.

Freely to breathe alone is not to live.

Say, is it life, within this holy fane,

Like a poor ghost around its sepulchre

To linger out my days? Or call you that

A life of conscious happiness and joy,

When every hour, dream'd listlessly away,

Leads to those dark and melancholy days,

Which the sad troop of the departed spend

In self-forgetfulness on Lethe's shore?

A useless life is but an early death;

This, woman's lot, is eminently mine.

ARKAS.

I can forgive, though I must needs deplore, The noble pride which underrates itself It robs thee of the happiness of life. And hast thou, since thy coming here, done nought? Who cheer'd the gloomy temper of the king? Who hath with gentle eloquence annull'd, From year to year, the usage of our sires, By which, a victim at Diana's shrine, Each stranger perish'd, thus from certain death Sending so oft the rescued captive home? Hath not Diana, harbouring no revenge For this suspension of her bloody rites,

In richest measure heard thy gentle prayer?

On joyous pinions o'er the advancing host,

Doth not triumphant conquest proudly soar?

And feels not every one a happier lot,

Since Thoas, who so long hath guided us

With wisdom and with valour, sway'd by thee,

The joy of mild benignity approves,

Which leads him to relax the rigid claims

Of mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou,

Thou, from whose being o'er a thousand hearts,

A healing balsam flows? when to a race.

To whom a god consign'd thee, thou dost prove

A fountain of perpetual happiness,

And from this dire inhospitable shore

Dost to the stranger grant a safe return?

IPHIGENIA.

The little done doth vanish to the mind,

Which forward sees how much remains to do.

ARKAS.

Him dost thou praise, who underrates his deeds?

IPHIGENIA.

Who estimates his deeds is justly blam'd.

ARKAS.

We blame alike, who proudly disregard

Their genuine merit, and who vainly prize

Their spurious worth too highly. Trust me, priestess,

And hearken to the counsel of a man

With honest zeal devoted to thy service:

When Thoas comes to-day to speak with thee,

Lend to his purpos'd words a gracious ear.

IPHIGENIA.

The well-intention'd counsel troubles me:

His offer studiously I've sought to shun.

ARKAS.

Thy duty and thy interest calmly weigh. Since the king lost his son, he trusts but few, Nor those as formerly. Each noble's son He views with jealous eye as his successor; He dreads a solitary, helpless age, Or rash rebellion, or untimely death. A Scythian studies not the rules of speech,

And least of all the king. He who is used

To act and to command, knows not the art,

From far, with subtle tact, to guide discourse

Through many windings to its destin'd goal.

Do not embarrass him with shy reserve

And studied misconception: graciously,

And with submission, meet the royal wish.

IPHIGENIA.

Shall I then speed the doom that threatens me?

ARKAS.

His gracious offer canst thou call a threat?

IPHIGENIA.

'Tis the most terrible of all to me.

ARKAS.

For his affection grant him confidence.

IPHIGENIA.

If he will first redeem my soul from fear.

ARKAS.

Why dost thou hide from him thy origin?

IPHIGENIA.

A priestess secrecy doth well become.

ARKAS.

Nought to our monarch should a secret be;

And, though he doth not seek to fathom thine,

His noble nature feels, ay, deeply feels,

That studiously thou hid'st thyself from him.

IPHIGENIA.

Displeasure doth he harbour 'gainst me, then?

ARKAS.

Almost it seems so. True, he speaks not of thee.

But casual words have taught me that the wish

To call thee his hath firmly seiz'd his soul;

Oh, do not leave the monarch to himself!

Lest his displeasure, rip'ning in his breast,

Should work thee woe, so with repentance thou

Too late my faithful counsel shalt recall.

IPHIGENIA.

How! doth the monarch purpose what no man Of noble mind, who loves his honest name, Whose bosom reverence for the gods restrains, Would ever think of? Will he force employ