Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Tragedy: I. Greece

Iphigeneia and Agamemnon

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

IPHIGENEIA, when she heard her doom

At Aulis, and when all beside the king

Had gone away, took his right hand, and said:

“O father! I am young and very happy.

I do not think the pious Calchas heard

Distinctly what the goddess spake; old age

Obscures the senses. If my nurse, who knew

My voice so well, sometimes misunderstood,

While I was resting on her knee both arms,

And hitting it to make her mind my words,

And looking in her face, and she in mine,

Might not he, also, hear one word amiss,

Spoken from so far off, even from Olympus?”

The father placed his cheek upon her head,

And tears dropt down it; but the king of men

Replied not. Then the maiden spake once more:

“O father! sayest thou nothing? Hearest thou not

Me, whom thou ever hast, until this hour,

Listened to fondly, and awakened me

To hear my voice amid the voice of birds,

When it was inarticulate as theirs,

And the down deadened it within the nest?”

He moved her gently from him, silent still;

And this, and this alone, brought tears from her,

Although she saw fate nearer. Then with sighs:

“I thought to have laid down my hair before

Benignant Artemis, and not dimmed

Her polished altar with my virgin blood;

I thought to have selected the white flowers

To please the nymphs, and to have asked of each

By name, and with no sorrowful regret,

Whether, since both my parents willed the change,

I might at Hymen’s feet bend my clipt brow;

And (after these who mind us girls the most)

Adore our own Athene, that she would

Regard me mildly with her azure eyes,—

But, father, to see you no more, and see

Your love, O father! go ere I am gone!”

Gently he moved her off, and drew her back,

Bending his lofty head far over hers;

And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst.

He turned away,—not far, but silent still.

She now first shuddered; for in him, so nigh,

So long a silence seemed the approach of death,

And like it. Once again she raised her voice:

“O father! if the ships are now detained,

And all your vows move not the gods above,

When the knife strikes me there will be one prayer

The less to them; and purer can there be

Any, or more fervent, than the daughter’s prayer

For her dear father’s safety and success?”

A groan that shook him shook not his resolve.

An aged man now entered, and without

One word stepped slowly on, and took the wrist

Of the pale maiden. She looked up, and saw

The fillet of the priest and calm, cold eyes.

Then turned she where her parent stood, and cried:

“O father! grieve no more; the ships can sail.”