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EuripidesIphigenia in Aulis
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Lines 607-1097Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Lines 607-800 Summary: “Second Episode and Second Stasimon”
Clytemnestra thanks the Chorus for their kind words and gives orders for the rich dowry she has brought for her daughter’s wedding to be unloaded from their carriage. Agamemnon enters to greet his family, and Iphigenia rushes eagerly to embrace him. She observes that Agamemnon is preoccupied and upset, but Agamemnon says that he simply has “the many cares of a general / And a king” (645-46).
Nearly breaking down, Agamemnon continues to deceive his family, repeating that Iphigenia must make a long journey and go far away from him but not explaining what he means. Iphigenia assumes that he is referring to her upcoming marriage, which will take her from her father’s household to the household of her new husband.
At last, Agamemnon sends Iphigenia into his tent and speaks with Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra asks about the man their daughter is to marry, and Agamemnon describes Achilles’ impressive pedigree. As Clytemnestra tries to question him further, Agamemnon orders her to return home. She balks at this request, and the two argue briefly. Eventually Clytemnestra storms off and enters the tent. Agamemnon exits to make arrangements for the sacrifice.
The Chorus sings the second stasimon. They predict the arrival of the Greek fleet at Troy and the war and bloodshed that will ensue. They imagine the wailing and weeping of the women of Troy and of Helen, who will be to blame.
Lines 801-1097 Summary (Third Episode and Third Stasimon)
Achilles enters looking for Agamemnon. He wants to complain to his about the delay in setting sail from Aulis. Clytemnestra hears him complaining from inside Agamemnon’s tent and comes out to greet him, and there is an awkward exchange when Clytemnestra brings up the marriage and Achilles does not know what she is talking about. As Clytemnestra and Achilles are about to part ways in confusion, the Old Man enters and tells them both the truth: Agamemnon has lured Iphigenia to Aulis under false pretenses so that he can sacrifice her to Artemis, who has demanded Iphigenia’s blood in exchange for a wind to blow the Greek fleet to Troy.
Clytemnestra is horrified and begins to weep. She asks the Old Man where he has received his information, and the Old Man tells her about the letter Agamemnon entrusted to him which Menelaus prevented him from delivering. Not knowing where to turn, Clytemnestra kneels before Achilles as a suppliant and begs him to help her. Since it was his name that lured Iphigenia to Aulis, Clytemnestra argues, it is also his responsibility to save her. Achilles responds with a monologue in which he first praises the importance of acting with moderation and composure, saying that he will obey his commanders only as long as what they command is righteous and declaring that he will help Clytemnestra and Iphigenia:
I tell you—never will your daughter
Who is my betrothed die murdered by
Her father’s hand. (Lines 935-36)
Achilles is especially disturbed at the idea that his name was used to bring Iphigenia to her death, believing that being used in this way brings him dishonor and that he will seem base if he does not help Iphigenia now.
Clytemnestra thanks Achilles and praises his bravery. She asks if she should bring Iphigenia to supplicate him as well. Achilles tells Clytemnestra that this is unnecessary and reaffirms his commitment to helping her. He then instructs Clytemnestra to first appeal to Agamemnon directly to ask him to reconsider his decision. If this approach fails, however, Achilles tells Clytemnestra to find him so that he can take more drastic measures.
After Clytemnestra and Achilles part ways, the Chorus sings the second stasimon. They depict in vivid language the impressive wedding of Achilles’ parents, the hero Peleus and the Nereid Thetis, a wedding attended by the gods themselves. They speak of Achilles’ great destiny, predicted even before he was born. They juxtapose the “blessed” (1076) marriage of Achilles’ parents with the grim fate awaiting Iphigenia, bemoaning the triumph of lawlessness and over modesty and virtue.
Lines 607-1097 Analysis
The first and second episodes of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis feature heavy use of dramatic irony. This literary device refers to the effect achieved when the full significance of a character’s words or actions is known to the audience or reader but not to one or more of the characters themselves. In the first episode of the play, for instance, Iphigenia speaks of herself taking a “voyage” (668) and going to a “new home” (670), believing that she is speaking of the journey she is to make to her husband’s home. But the truth—as the audience and readers know—is that Agamemnon plans on sacrificing Iphigenia, and that the “voyage” she is to make is the figurative voyage of death, while her “new home” is to be not the home of her husband but the Underworld.
The play’s dramatic irony helps the audience see how each character has their own sense of duties and responsibilities, and how these different perspectives often clash. Moreover, the conflicting ways of interpreting and prioritizing one’s duties increasingly becomes the source of much of the polarization between the different characters in the play. When Clytemnestra learns of Agamemnon’s true intentions for Iphigenia, she asks if he has been “stricken […] with madness” (876). Clytemnestra cannot understand Agamemnon’s or Menelaus’ view, namely, that Iphigenia must be sacrificed to support the Greek gods, for she prioritizes her familial duty to protect her child. Her perspective also allows the audience to consider the flimsy pretext for this war, namely, Menelaus’s hurt feelings. Achilles, meanwhile, has his own distinct sense of duty. While Agamemnon’s first duty is to his army and his people and Clytemnestra’s first duty is to her family, Achilles prioritizes his own honor above all else. Achilles feels duty-bound to protect Iphigenia, but this feeling originates not from personal feelings for her but from his concern that he will be seen as “the basest of all Greeks” (944) if he allows Iphigenia to die because of him. Indeed, Achilles even goes so far as to say that he would not have had any problem with Agamemnon’s using his name to draw Iphigenia to Aulis “for the sake of Greece” (965) if he had asked him first. Achilles does not feel a sense of horror at the prospect of Iphigenia’s sacrifice but anger at Agamemnon for the “insult and injury” (961) he has done him.
In exploring the range of duties embodied by the different characters of the play, the first and second episode also explores the different kinds of virtue. Achilles, for instance, speaks much of the importance of acting with moderation:
And yet I’ve learned to curb
My vaunting spirit, when I face disaster,
Just as I don’t immoderately rejoice
When triumphs come (Lines 920-21)
Achilles exemplifies courage and a commitment to his principles that other characters—especially Agamemnon—do not possess. At the same time, we glimpse Achilles’ considerable flaws. His self-conscious praise of moderation contrasts with his often impulsive and even rash behavior (a trait Achilles exhibits in earlier mythical narratives and poems, especially the Iliad). Achilles is also vain and proud, even urging Clytemnestra to look at him “as though I were a mighty god” (973-74).
Clytemnestra, like Achilles, shows great courage when it comes to protecting her daughter, even when it means humiliating herself by supplicating a man she barely knows. In the second stasimon that follows the second episode, finally, the Chorus expresses some of their own views on virtue:
Oh, where has the countenance
Of Modesty and Virtue
Any strength,
When the blasphemer rules,
And heedless men
Thrust Virtue behind them,
When Lawlessness rules law
And no man competes with his neighbor
To avoid the ill-will of the gods? (Lines 1090-97)
The Chorus, personifying “Modesty” and “Virtue” as gods, find fault with mortals too weak to follow and honor them, suggesting that the whole affair of the sacrifice of Iphigenia is an instance of “Lawlessness” triumphing over virtue. But this is not the only possible interpretation of the sacrifice, as we will continue to see.
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