Iphigenia in Aulis and Other Plays

Summary

This volume completes the library's surviving plays of Euripides with eleven works in Edward P. Coleridge's prose translation of 1891. Iphigenia in Aulis, produced after the poet's death in 405 BC, opens at night on the shore of Aulis, where the Greek fleet is held back by windless weather. The seer Calchas has declared that Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis, and Agamemnon has summoned her by pretending she is to marry Achilles. He tries to cancel the summons, but Menelaus intercepts the letter, the brothers quarrel, and Clytemnestra arrives with the girl. Achilles, learning of the trick, offers to defend her against the whole army; Iphigenia begs her father for her life, then chooses to die willingly for Hellas. A messenger reports that at the altar a deer was found in her place, an ending many scholars think was added after Euripides. The Heracleidae shows the children of Heracles and old Iolaus taking refuge at Marathon, where King Demophon of Athens protects them from Eurystheus; Heracles's daughter Macaria gives her life to meet an oracle, Iolaus is made young again in battle, and the captured Eurystheus foretells that his tomb will guard Athens. In Andromache, Hector's widow, now the slave of Neoptolemus, is threatened with her son by Hermione and Menelaus until old Peleus rescues them. The Suppliants shows the mothers of the Seven against Thebes pleading at Eleusis; Theseus defends Athenian law against a Theban herald, recovers the bodies by force, and Evadne throws herself onto her husband's pyre. In Heracles, the hero returns from Hades to save his family from the usurper Lycus, then is driven mad by Hera's agents Iris and Madness and kills his wife and sons; Theseus persuades him to live and come to Athens. Ion tells of a Delphic temple servant who proves to be the son Creusa bore to Apollo and abandoned, after she nearly poisons him. Helen follows the version in which Helen never went to Troy; the Greeks fought for a phantom, and Menelaus, shipwrecked in Egypt, finds his true wife and escapes with her by a ruse. The Phoenician Maidens retells the war of Eteocles and Polynices with Jocasta still alive, trying to reconcile her sons; Menoeceus sacrifices himself for Thebes, the brothers kill each other, and Antigone leads the blind Oedipus into exile. Orestes shows the matricide six days after the deed, raving and nursed by Electra, condemned by Argos, and finally rescued by Apollo. Rhesus, whose authorship is disputed, dramatizes the night raid of Iliad X, and The Cyclops, the only complete satyr play to survive, comically retells Odysseus's blinding of Polyphemus.

Plot or Argument

• Iphigenia in Aulis

  Agamemnon's deceptive summons, the quarrel with Menelaus, Clytemnestra's arrival, Achilles's offer of protection, and Iphigenia's choice to die for Hellas; a messenger reports the substitution of a deer.

• The Heracleidae

  Athens shelters Heracles's children from Eurystheus; Macaria volunteers as sacrifice, Iolaus fights rejuvenated, and Alcmena demands the captive king's death.

• Andromache

  At Phthia, Hermione and Menelaus seek to kill Andromache and her son; Peleus intervenes, Orestes carries off Hermione, Neoptolemus is killed at Delphi, and Thetis appears.

• The Suppliants

  Adrastus and the Argive mothers ask Theseus to recover the dead of the Seven; Theseus debates a Theban herald on government, wins the bodies, and Evadne leaps onto the pyre.

• Heracles

  Heracles saves Megara, Amphitryon and his sons from Lycus, is maddened by Iris and Madness, kills his family, and is led by Theseus to Athens.

• Ion

  At Delphi, Xuthus is told the temple servant Ion is his son; Creusa, believing herself betrayed, attempts poison until the cradle tokens reveal that Ion is her child by Apollo.

• Helen

  In Egypt the true Helen resists King Theoclymenus; Menelaus arrives shipwrecked, learns the Troy Helen was a phantom, and with Theonoe's help they escape by a false funeral at sea.

• The Phoenician Maidens

  Jocasta's failed attempt to reconcile Eteocles and Polynices, the self-sacrifice of Menoeceus, the brothers' duel, Jocasta's death, and Oedipus's exile with Antigone.

• Orestes

  The maddened Orestes, nursed by Electra, is condemned by Argos; with Pylades he attempts to kill Helen and seizes Hermione until Apollo intervenes.

• Rhesus and The Cyclops

  Rhesus stages the night spying of Dolon and the killing of the Thracian king by Odysseus and Diomedes; The Cyclops shows Odysseus, Silenus and the satyrs outwitting Polyphemus.

Characters

• Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon

  Summoned to Aulis for a false wedding, she pleads for life and then offers herself for Hellas.

• Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks

  Torn between his daughter and the army, he deceives his wife and wavers between decisions.

• Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon

  Brings Iphigenia to Aulis and confronts her husband when she learns the truth.

• Achilles, Greek hero

  Outraged that his name was used in the deception, he offers to defend Iphigenia.

• Heracles, hero

  Rescuer of his family who, maddened by Hera's agents, destroys it, and is persuaded by Theseus to live.

• Theseus, king of Athens

  Defender of law and the burial of the dead in The Suppliants, and Heracles's friend in his ruin.

• Orestes, son of Agamemnon

  The matricide, sleepless and raving, condemned by Argos and finally spared by Apollo.

• Electra, sister of Orestes

  Nurses her brother through his fits and joins his desperate plans.

• Helen, wife of Menelaus

  In Helen, the faithful true Helen kept in Egypt while a phantom went to Troy.

• Jocasta, queen of Thebes

  In The Phoenician Maidens, a living mother who pleads with her warring sons.

• Ion, temple servant at Delphi

  A foundling devoted to Apollo who discovers he is Creusa's son.

• Polyphemus, Cyclops

  The man-eating giant of the satyr play, made drunk and blinded by Odysseus.

Lessons

• A sacrifice freely offered

  Iphigenia first begs her father for life, then accepts death so that Hellas may sail, calling it her monument; Macaria and Menoeceus also give themselves for their people. Euripides presents willing self-offering as noble while leaving the audience to weigh the men and gods who demand it.

  • Why does Iphigenia change her mind about dying?
  • Is Agamemnon's decision excused by the army's pressure, or not?
  • How do Macaria and Menoeceus compare with Iphigenia?

• Friendship in ruin

  After killing his family in madness, Heracles wants to die; Theseus uncovers his face, takes his blood-stained hand, and argues him into living. Pylades stands by Orestes in the same way. The plays show friendship as what holds a person to life after disaster.

  • What arguments does Theseus use to keep Heracles from suicide?
  • How does Pylades's loyalty to Orestes differ from Menelaus's?

• Law, burial and the city

  In The Suppliants Theseus argues that written laws give rich and poor equal justice, and he goes to war to secure burial for the dead. The play gives a classic Athenian defense of law and of the duty owed to the dead.

  • What does Theseus say is the difference between a free city and a city under a tyrant?
  • Why do the Greeks treat burial as a sacred duty?
  • Does the Theban herald make any fair points?

• Appearance and truth

  Helen reveals that the Greeks fought ten years for a phantom; Ion turns on mistaken identities; Agamemnon's false wedding hides a sacrifice. Euripides repeatedly sets what is believed against what is true.

  • What does the phantom Helen suggest about the Trojan War?
  • How are the truth about Ion and the truth about Iphigenia's wedding finally revealed?

Context

These plays span most of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Several reflect Athenian civic ideals, the city as protector of suppliants in The Heracleidae and The Suppliants; others show war's moral cost and the instability of leaders, as in Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis. The phantom Helen, an older version of the myth associated with the poet Stesichorus, allowed Euripides to question the reasons for the Trojan War.

Composition

Conventional dates, most approximate, are The Heracleidae c. 430, Andromache c. 425, The Suppliants c. 423, Heracles c. 416, Ion c. 414-413, Helen 412, The Phoenician Maidens c. 410-409 and Orestes 408 BC. Iphigenia in Aulis was produced posthumously in 405 BC, with The Bacchae, and its text, including the final messenger speech, is thought to have been completed or altered by others. The date of The Cyclops is uncertain, and Rhesus has been doubted as Euripides's work since antiquity. Coleridge's prose translations appeared in two volumes in 1891.

Reception

Orestes and The Phoenician Maidens were among the most read Greek plays in late antiquity and Byzantium, which helped preserve them. Iphigenia in Aulis inspired Racine's Iphigénie (1674) and Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Aulide (1774). The Cyclops is the chief surviving evidence for the form of the satyr play.

Comparisons

• the-iliad

  Iphigenia in Aulis shows the gathering of the fleet before the Iliad begins, with a young, impetuous Achilles; Rhesus dramatizes Iliad X, the night raid of Odysseus and Diomedes.

• the-oresteia

  Aeschylus's Agamemnon recalls Iphigenia's sacrifice as the root of Clytemnestra's revenge; Euripides stages the sacrifice itself and, in Orestes, the matricide's aftermath without the Areopagus resolution.

• euripides-trojan-women-and-other-plays

  Iphigenia among the Taurians, in the companion volume, continues Iphigenia's story after her rescue by Artemis; The Trojan Women shows the war's end that Aulis sets in motion.

• medea-and-other-plays

  Heracles's madness and Medea's deliberate killing of her children are Euripides's two great studies of a parent destroying a family, one by divine compulsion, one by choice.

• the-bacchae-and-other-plays

  The Bacchae was produced with Iphigenia in Aulis in 405 BC; both end with a god's power over a family, and both rank among Euripides's last works.

• the-odyssey

  The Cyclops turns Odyssey IX into a comic satyr play, keeping the wine, the blinding and the trick of the name Noman.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Agamemnon's two letters at the start of Iphigenia in Aulis and how often he changes his mind.
• The moment Iphigenia turns from pleading for her life to offering it.
• Theseus's speech on law in The Suppliants and the herald's arguments he answers.
• The entrance of Iris and Madness in the middle of Heracles, which splits the play in two.
• Electra's care for Orestes in the opening scenes of Orestes.

Key terms and names

Aulis

The harbor in Boeotia where the Greek fleet waited for winds before sailing to Troy.

Suppliant

One who seeks protection at an altar; the children of Heracles and the Argive mothers are suppliants of Athens.

Madness (Lyssa)

The personified goddess of frenzy whom Iris brings onstage in Heracles to drive the hero mad.

Satyr play

A comic piece with a chorus of satyrs, performed after three tragedies; The Cyclops is the only complete one to survive.

Deus ex machina

A god appearing above the stage to resolve the plot, as Apollo does at the end of Orestes and Thetis in Andromache.

Phantom Helen

In Helen, the image made by Hera that went to Troy while the real Helen was kept in Egypt.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does Agamemnon bring Iphigenia to Aulis, and why does he try to stop her coming?
2. Comprehension What does Theseus do for the Argive mothers in The Suppliants?
3. Comprehension What happens to Heracles after he rescues his family from Lycus?
4. Interpretation Is Iphigenia's final choice truly free? What pressures surround it?
5. Interpretation In Orestes, why does Orestes call his sickness his conscience rather than the Furies?
6. Interpretation What does the phantom in Helen suggest about the reasons men give for war?
7. Big Question Can it ever be right for a community to ask one innocent person to die for it?

Faith Connections

• Genesis 22:1-14 (Scripture)

  Abraham is told to offer Isaac and God provides a ram in his place; Iphigenia in Aulis ends with a reported deer at the altar, inviting comparison between a testing God who forbids human sacrifice and a goddess who demands it.

• John 11:49-52 (Scripture)

  Caiaphas says it is expedient that one man die for the people; the Gospel sees in his words a prophecy of Christ's willing death, which students can set beside Iphigenia's death for Hellas.

• Psalm 51:3 (Scripture)

  For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Orestes's conscience, his knowledge of his crime, echoes David's confession, though Orestes finds release only through Apollo's decree.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Agamemnon reasons that the army and the gods require Iphigenia's death and that he cannot resist them; Clytemnestra and Achilles argue that a father's duty and justice forbid it. Iphigenia resolves the debate by turning compulsion into gift: since she must die, she will die freely and for Hellas, and so make her death a monument. The play leaves open whether her nobility redeems or condemns the men who required it.

Rhetorical device: agon (formal debate). In The Suppliants, Theseus and the Theban herald exchange set speeches on monarchy and law before any fighting begins.

Debate: Resolved: that Agamemnon was responsible for Iphigenia's death, whatever the gods demanded.

Memory Work

My conscience; I know that I am guilty of a dreadful crime.

I give my body to Hellas; sacrifice it and make an utter end of Troy.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Compare the madness of Heracles and the madness of Orestes: what causes each, how each is described, and how each man is helped by a friend or sister.

Comparison with The Theban Plays: Compare Euripides's Phoenician Maidens, in which Jocasta lives to see her sons' duel, with Sophocles's treatment of the house of Oedipus, and explain what Euripides changes and why it matters.

Medical Lens

Two plays in this volume are central texts for the history of madness. In Heracles, madness is a character: Iris brings Madness (Lyssa) onstage to enter the hero, and the messenger describes the attack in bodily terms, rolling and bloodshot eyes, foam, wild laughter, and delusions that he is marching on Mycenae; when he wakes he has no memory of the killings. Modern commentators have compared the description with epileptic or psychotic episodes, a reading the play itself frames as divine assault. Orestes opens six days after the matricide with the hero sleepless and fasting, swept by fits in which he sees the Furies, and nursed by Electra, who wipes the foam from his lips; on waking he praises sleep and has lost recollection of the attack. Asked by Menelaus what his sickness is, he names his conscience, the knowledge of his own crime, one of the earliest literary statements of guilt as an illness of mind. Elsewhere Ion's Creusa attempts poisoning with a drop of Gorgon's blood, and a dove that drinks the poisoned wine dies in convulsions; Evadne and Jocasta die by suicide in grief; and The Cyclops shows drunkenness as Odysseus's weapon. These are dramatic and religious portrayals; clinical labels are interpretations.

• Heracles, Iris and Madness scene and messenger speech

  Madness is sent into Heracles; the messenger describes his eyes, foaming and delusions as he kills his sons and wife.

  Madness Psychosis Epilepsy Seizures
• Heracles, final scene

  Heracles wakes bound to a pillar, learns what he has done, contemplates suicide, and is persuaded by Theseus to live.

  Suicide Grief Dementia Memory
• Orestes, opening scenes

  Electra describes her brother's six days without food or bathing, tends him in sleep, and watches a fit in which he sees the Furies.

  Madness Psychosis Nursing Caregiving Sleep Insomnia
• Orestes, Menelaus scene

  Orestes names his conscience as his sickness and describes his grief and the visions of the avenging goddesses.

  Mind Body Madness Psychosis
• Ion, servant's report

  Creusa's poisoned cup is spilled; a dove drinks from it, convulses and dies, exposing the plot.

  Pharmacology Poisons
• The Suppliants, Evadne scene

  Evadne throws herself onto the pyre of Capaneus before her father Iphis.

  Suicide Grief
• The Cyclops

  Odysseus makes Polyphemus drunk on Maron's wine before blinding him.

  Alcohol

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Compare the three voluntary sacrifices in this volume, Iphigenia, Macaria and Menoeceus, and explain what each play says about dying for others.

• Classroom

  Stage the debate between Theseus and the Theban herald in The Suppliants, then let the class vote on which speaker argued better.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon after Iphigenia leaves for the altar.

• Fiction

  Retell Helen from the point of view of a Greek soldier who learns, years later, that he fought for a phantom.

Further Reading

• The Oresteia, Aeschylus

• Iphigenia, Jean Racine

  Racine's 1674 tragedy based on Iphigenia in Aulis.

• Greek Tragedy, H. D. F. Kitto

• Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness, Ruth Padel