Chereads / The Oresteia (Modernized) / Chapter 14 - Intermission II, Iphigenia

Chapter 14 - Intermission II, Iphigenia

If you remember, this was Orestes' sister who was sacrificed in the prologue.

Tauris means modern-day Crimea (The part of Ukraine that Russia recently annexed), which borders the Black Sea ('unfriendly sea' to the Greeks); the Black sea is connected to the Mediterranean by the Bosporus Strait (One of the reasons of the Russian annexation was to gain a port on the Black Sea that didn't freeze during winter - unlike all of Russia's other European ports - and hence gain access to the rest of Europe).

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From the Journals of Iphigenia:

So gentle is she, Artemis the holy,

She will not have her sacred altar

Stained with innocent blood.

She healed me, born me away

To this cursed barbaric land.

A fierce people here lives.

Their savage custom to spill

The blood of any Greek they seize.

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In greatest irony, Artemis had me

Be the high priestess of her sacred grove.

I have served and I have served,

Countless doomed bodies I cleansed:

Old, young, strong, frail, good, evil,

All went to Hades' dark embrace.

My own countrymen, my brothers and sisters,

To be put to death by my cursed divine hand.

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The guilt is unbearable,

I wish for deliverance.

I pray toward Apollo,

And Truth he speaks:

There is but one thread

For me in this world:

Not father the betrayer

But little brother dear.