IPHIGENIA Essay Example For Students

IPHIGENIA Essay A monologue from the play by Jean Racine NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine. Trans. Robert Bruce Boswell. London: George Bell and Sons, 1911. CLYTEMNESTRA: Fit offspring of a fatal stock!Thine is the blood of Atreus and Thyestes:Thy daughters murderer; there but remainsOne horror more, to serve her as a feastBefore her mother. Savage, this is thenThe gladsome sacrifice thou was preparingWith artful care! Did not thy hand refuseThe infamy of writing a commandSo cruel! Why dost thou pretend to feelA false distress? Think not that tears can proveA love that shrinks from bold defense in arms.Why has not blood been shed for her in torrents?What wreck and ruin till of thy resistance?What field of corpses coverd seals my mouth?Proofs such as these I would have had thee bring meOf thine affection and desire to save her.A fatal oracle ordains her death!But what an oracle may seem to sayNot always is its meaning. Can just HeavnThirst for the blood of innocence, or beHonourd by murder? If for Helens crimeHer kin are punishd, for her daughter sendTo Sparta. So let Menelaus ransomThe wife whose frailty in his eyes seems smallMatchd wit h her charms. But surely it is madnessTo make thyself the victim of her sin.And why should I, smiting upon my breast,With my own flesh and blood pay for her folly?Does Helen then, for whom such jealous firesWere kindled, curse of Europe and of Asia,Seem worthy of thine efforts to regain her?How often have we blushd to speak her name!Ere, to his woe, thy brother linkd his fateWith hers, she had been carried off by Theseus,Who, as thou knowest and hast heard from CalchasA thousand times, clandestinely unloosedHer virgin zone; and, pledge of that amour,A princess of her blood has been by herKept in concealment. But a brothers honourIs the least cause of thy solicitude:That lust of empire nothing can extinguish,The pride of seeing twenty monarchs serveAnd fear thee, empire to thine hands confided,These are the gods who claim this sacrificeFrom thee, who far from offering resistanceDost make a barbarous merit of submission.Jealous of powr that can excite their envy,Thou dost not grudge t o pay a heavy priceFrom thine own veins, that so thou mayest quellAll opposition to thy sovereign sway.Is this to be a father? Outraged natureRevolts at this perfidious cruelty.A priest, surrounded by a brutal crowd,Will on my child lay hands of violence,Rend her bared bosom, and with curious eyeFor omens search her palpitating heart!While I, who brought her hither proud and happy,Must needs go back alone and in despair!Still will the ways be scented with the flowrsThat neath her feet were scatterd as we came!It shall not be that to her doom I brought her,Or thou wilt have to add my death to hers.Ay, thou shalt never tear her from these arms,While life is mine: no fears can shake my purpose.Ruthless alike as husband and as fatherCome, if thou darest, snatch her from the breastThat nursed her!