Iphigenia in Taurus

Iphigenia in Taurus Summary | Part 1 Summary

This classical Greek play continues the mythic, archetypal story told in several other Greek plays - The Oresteia by Aeschylus and the Electra's of Sophocles and Euripides, among others. Two long-lost children of the slaughtered king Agamemnon are reunited under surprising circumstances and plot to escape both their earthly imprisonment and servitude to the will of the gods. The play makes thematic statements, revolutionary in the world of pre-Christian religion, about the nature of, and relationship between, destiny and free will.

The play is set in the courtyard of a temple sacred to the goddess Artemis. Iphigenia comes out, and, in a long speech, explains who she is, how she came to Tauris, the way that she became a priestess, and her role in the rituals of the temple. She reveals that she is the daughter of the Greek king Agamemnon, and that she was betrothed to the legendary warrior Achilles. She also reveals that Agamemnon was commanded by the gods to sacrifice her to Artemis so he and his army could sail to another country to rescue a kidnapped woman, the legendary Helen of Troy. Iphigenia goes on to say that, at the moment she was to be killed, Artemis replaced her with a deer, brought her to Tauris, and set her up as the high priestess of the temple there. Finally, she reveals that as a continuation of an ancient tradition, she prepares any Greek that comes to the island of Tauris for ritual sacrifice.

Iphigenia then recounts a dream she had the night before in which she saw the destruction of a temple. She interprets the dream to mean that her brother Orestes, who was still a baby when Artemis took her, is dead and that she is the only living member of her family. She then goes into the temple to make ritual offerings to Artemis in memory of her brother.

Orestes and Pylades appear, and after making sure they aren't being pursued, they agree that this must be the place to which they have been sent by a decree from the god Phoebus Apollo. As they comment on the blood and bones of sacrificed Greeks visible beneath the altar, Orestes then speaks a long prayer to Phoebus. He reveals his role in his family's troubled history, and that he killed his mother, Clytemnestra, in revenge for her murder of his father Agamemnon and that avenging goddesses called Furies have driven him close to madness and pursued him relentlessly all over Greece. He also reveals that when he prayed to Phoebus for freedom from their pursuit, the god commanded him to journey to Tauris, steal the statue of Artemis from her temple and bring it back to Greece, all of which would end his suffering.

At the conclusion of the prayer, Orestes and Pylades discuss how to go about stealing the statue. Orestes worries about being executed if they're caught and suggests they run away, but Pylades tells him that that would be foolish and cowardly. He suggests they hide until dark and steal the statue then. Orestes agrees, and they go back out in the direction from which they came.