Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides

*contains spoilers*

Euripides brings us, once more, to the fates of Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Orestes and Achilles, and in doing so he offers what I believe to be one of the most magnificent of the tragic plays: Iphigenia at Aulis. The play opens outside Agamemnon’s tent in Aulis, where the Achaean army are hell bent on setting sail for Troy so that they can win their glory for Greece, and in doing so, restore Helen back to her rightful place at Menelaus’s side in Mycenae. Near the tent are the sterns of the wooden boats of the Achaean army, shored upon the banks of the strait of Euripus, whose mercurial currents are reflected in the fluctuating natures of the characters. One of these characteristic shifts occurs rather early on in the play, in fact, as Agamemnon disputes with his brother, Menelaus, as to whether the wooden tablets on which he has written to Iphigenia, warning her not to join him in Aulis, should be delivered at all. Menelaus, desperately hoping for the war with Troy, believes that Iphigenia should be sacrificed just as Artemis wishes, and thus the tablets should be destroyed. Agamemnon, suddenly suffering from a (rightful) crisis of conscious, wants to renege on his initial decision to appease Artemis, and hopes to send the tablets off in time in order to stop Iphigenia’s arrival – even the sight of Iphigenia in Aulis could cause uproar amongst the Argive army.

A Messenger arrives, however, to say that Iphigenia has indeed already arrived, and that she brings with her her mother, Clytemnestra, and her brother, the baby Orestes. This puts a seriously sturdy spanner in the works, as sacrificing Iphigenia with Clytemnestra around will be a decidedly more difficult prospect. As you can see now, another shift has occurred, and Agamemnon is once more of the persuasion that Iphigenia must be sacrificed. He therefore pledges to continue with the scheme he plotted and tells both Iphigenia and Clytemnestra that Iphigenia’s presence in Aulis is required so that she can be wedded to the much-revered Achilles. The Messenger’s allusions to this wedding, which aptly matches the rites of an animal sacrifice to Artemis creates a sense of irony, which compounds the already established pathos; “Who is the bridegroom? Come then, bring the baskets, start the sacrificial rite and garland your heads”. At this point we see Agamemnon suffering the burden of all his schemes, the expectations of the gods and his inescapably eventual shame in the eyes of his wife for betraying his daughter in such a way in his long and languid soliloquies. At one point he even laments his position as king, supposing that “men of low birth have some advantages…they can weep without restraint and speak freely”. This, of course, highlights Agamemnon’s true lack of understanding of the situation, as amongst all mortals, he holds a relative position of luxury, especially as he is not the one here who is to die – instead he is prophesied to go on to greatness.

As Agamemnon resolves to relent to the assertions of Menelaus, the Greek army and, most of all, the gods, the audience can claim witness to the dubiousness of Menelaus’s argument as he references both their many deceitful ancestors, Pelops and Atreus. The pathos, here, is palpable, and one can only empathise with the absent Iphigenia less In fact, even the Chorus participate in this dubious association with the deceitful line of Atreus as they reference Tantalus, whose evil-doings on earth were so bad that he was famously punished in the Underworld for them. Also at this point we are introduced to the quite wonderful Iphigenia, and Clytemnestra describes her “weak, delicate and dainty feet”. This emphasis on Iphigenia’s fragility contrasts her eventual courageous and noble character, which is proven in the dying pages of the play in her glorious speech, as well as the inherent strength in her name – “Iphi” is Homeric Greek for “strongly” or “mightily”. We are also introduced to the baby Orestes, whose infant presence adds weight to the already established pathos through a clever use of dramatic irony: the audience are deeply touched by the familial closeness manifested onstage by the bringing together of this family unit in knowing that Orestes will, because of the events of this play and those afterwards, eventually murder the mother who holds him so closely to her chest. Euripides has this unit pose for some time in front of the Chorus, and the Chorus act as the spectators of this little piece of theatre to drive home the pathos.

In her enquiries of Iphigenia and Achilles’s wedding, Clytemnestra becomes agitated and confused, as Agamemnon is forced to construct lie upon lie about the supposed wedding ceremony; “But it is proper for me as the mother to give away my daughter.” The tension created by this uncomfortable back and forth is highlighted by Euripides’s use of stichomythia, as Agamemnon is forced to justify his odd requests in keeping Clytemnestra and Iphigenia separated so he can go about with conducting the sacrificial rites. In a brief absence of Agamemnon’s presence from the stage, Agamemnon’s Old Man (bestowed upon him by his marriage to Clytemnestra) arrives to reveal all to the confused Clytemnestra and Achilles, as on meeting Clytemnestra, Achilles admits that no such wedding had been arranged. Foreshadowing Clytemnestra’s vengeful actions upon Agamemnon on his return from Troy, the Chorus makes the universal point that “there is a strange power in motherhood”, and both Achilles and Clytemnestra plot to out Agamemnon’s true intentions. It must be noted here that Achilles, though his reaction at first seems rather noble, is not in fact angry at the notion of Iphigenia being slaughtered so that the Greek forces can sail to Troy (indeed, he later reflects that even his own men, the Myrmidons, are turning on him at the prospect of him getting in the way of Iphigenia’s sacrifice). No, his real anger lies more in the fact that his noble name was used without his consent – it is made clear, however, that had he been asked, he would have given his consent for Iphigenia’s sacrifice if it meant their eventual success at reaching the shores of Troy. It is also true that Euripides’s Achilles differs greatly from Homer’s Achilles, as in this piece Achilles seems concerned with preserving his friendship with Agamemnon and appeasing the Greek army.

The pressure mounting on Agamemnon reaches fever pitch, and Euripides highlights the effect of this pressure on Agamemnon with the use of asides; “(aside) All is over for me. My secrets are betrayed.” Clytemnestra, in her maternal rage, shames Agamemnon further in revealing the evils he has committed, and thus the suffering she has had to endure as his wife; “And you wafted my baby to your share of captives.” Upon murdering her husband, Tantalus, and taking her as his wife, Agamemnon then murdered Clytemnestra’s newly born baby by dashing its head upon the ground. Clytemnestra relented to Agamemnon, and dutifully bore him three daughters, Iphigenia (the eldest), Electra (who would go on to arrange the murder of Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus) and Chrysothemis, and a son, Orestes. Clytemnestra is now pushed to her limits, and we see her turn from devoted wife to soon-to-be murderess. Indeed, following Iphigenia’s sacrifice, and though all those who were present at its occurrence declare that Iphigenia was safely whisked away by Artemis to be with the gods, Clytemnestra’s silence on Agamemnon’s departure is pregnant with the tragedy yet to come upon his return from Troy.

Euripides never fails to comment on the power that the gods and fate wield over human beings, particularly as, at the time of writing, Euripides was exhausted by the very nearly ended Peloponnesian War, which had, by then, lost all its glamour and sense of nobility. As Iphigenia is about to die, she proclaims; “We humans are mere creatures of a day, and full of suffering, / yes full of suffering is our life. It is a hard undertaking / for men to find out their fate.” Euripides compounds this with the foreign filled Chorus lamenting the events that have occurred, but lamenting more so that “fate / and the goddess – that is where the sickness lies.”