Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 176

By such a dreadful deed, that if on earth

Aught could exculpate murder, it were this.

To Aulis he allur'd her, when the fleet

With unpropitious winds the goddess stay'd;

And there, a victim at Diana's shrine,

The monarch, for the welfare of the Greeks,

Her eldest daughter doomed, Iphigenia.

And this, so rumor saith, within her heart

Planted such deep abhorrence that forthwith

She to Ægisthus hath resigned herself,

And round her husband flung the web of death.

IPHIGENIA (veiling herself)

It is enough! Thou wilt again behold me.

PYLADES (alone)

The fortune of this royal house, it seems,

Doth move her deeply. Whosoe'er she be,

She must herself have known the monarch well;—

For our good fortune, from a noble house,

She hath been sold to bondage. Peace, my heart!

And let us steer our course with prudent zeal

Toward the star of hope which gleams upon us.