The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01

INTRODUCTION TO IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

BY ARTHUR H. PALMER, A.M., LL.D

Professor of German Language and Literature, Yale University

To what literary genus does Goethe's Iphigenia belongs? Dramatic in form, is it a drama? For A. W. Schlegel "an echo of Greek song," and for many German critics the best modern reproduction of Greek tragedy, it is for others a thoroughly German work in its substitution of profound moral struggles for the older passionate, more external conflicts. Schiller said: "It is, however, so astonishingly modern and un-Greek, that I cannot understand how it was ever thought to resemble a Greek play. It is purely moral; but the sensuous power, the life, the agitation, and everything which specifically belongs to a dramatic work is wanting." He adds, however, that it is a marvelous production which must forever remain the delight and wonderment of mankind. This is the view of G. H. Lewes, whose characterization is so apt also in other respects: "A drama it is not; it is a marvelous dramatic poem. The grand and solemn movement responds to the large and simple ideas which it unfolds. It has the calmness of majesty. In the limpid clearness of its language the involved mental processes of the characters are as transparent as the operations of bees within a crystal hive; while a constant strain of high and lofty music makes the reader feel as if in a holy temple. And above all witcheries of detail there is one capital witchery, belonging to Greek statues more than to other works of human cunning—the perfect unity of impression produced by the whole, so that nothing in it seems made, but all to grow; nothing is superfluous, but all is in organic dependence; nothing is there for detached effect, but the whole is effect. The poem fills the mind; beautiful as the separate passages are, admirers seldom think of passages, they think of the wondrous whole."

But may we not deepen and spiritualize our conception of the drama and say that in Iphigenia, Goethe created a new dramatic genus, the soul-drama—the first psychological drama of modern literature, the result of ethical and artistic development through two milleniums? Surely a Greek dramatist of the first rank, come to life again in Goethe's age and entering into the heritage of this development, would have modernized both subject and form in the same way.

Most intimate is the relation of Iphigenia to Goethe's inner life, and this relation best illumines the spiritual import of the drama. Like his Torquato Tasso, it springs entirely from conditions and experiences of the early Weimar years and those just preceding. It was conceived and the first prose version written early in 1779; it received its final metrical form December, 1786—in Rome indeed, but it owed to Italy only a higher artistic finish.

In his autobiography Goethe has revealed to us that his works are fragments of a great confession. Moods of his pre-Weimar storm and stress vibrate in his Iphigenia—feverish unrest, defiance of conventionality, Titanic trust in his individual genius, self-reproach, and remorse for guilt toward those he loved,—Friederike and Lili. Thus feeling his inner conflicts to be like the sufferings of Orestes, he wrote in a letter, August, 1775, shortly after returning to Frankfurt from his first Swiss journey: "Perhaps the invisible scourge of the Eumenides will soon drive me out again from my fatherland."

In November, 1775, Goethe went to Weimar, and there he found redemption from his unrest and dejection in the friendship of Frau von Stein. Her beneficent influence effected his new-birth into calm self-control and harmony of spirit. On August 7, 1779, Goethe wrote in his diary: "May the idea of purity, extending even to the morsel I take into my mouth, become ever more luminous in me!" If Orestes is Goethe, Iphigenia is Frau von Stein; and in the personal sense the theme of the drama is the restoration of the poet to spiritual purity by the influence of noble womanhood.

But there is a larger, universally human sense. Such healing of Orestes is typically human; noble womanhood best realizes the ideal of the truly human (Humanität). In a way that transcends understanding, one pure, strong human personality may by its influence restore moral vigor and bring peace and hope to other souls rent by remorse and sunk in despair. This Goethe himself expressed as the central thought of this drama in the lines:

Alle menschlichen GebrechenSühnet reine Menschlichkeit(For each human fault and frailtyPure humanity atones).

The eighteenth century's conception of "humanity," the ideal of the truly human, found two-fold classic, artistic expression in Germany at the same time; in Lessing's Nathan the Wise and in Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris, the former rationalistic, the latter broader, more subtle, mystical.

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS (1787)32 A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS

TRANSLATED BY ANNA SWANWICK

Like Torquato Tasso, Iphigenia was originally written in prose, and in that form was acted at the Weimar Court Theatre about 1779. Goethe himself took the part of Orestes.

* * * * *

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

IPHIGENIA.

THOAS, King of the Taurians.

ORESTES.

PYLADES.

ARKAS.

* * * * *

ACT I

SCENE I

A Grove before the Temple of Diana.

IPHIGENIA

Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughsOf this old, shady, consecrated grove,As in the goddess' silent sanctuary,With the same shuddering feeling forth I step,As when I trod it first, nor ever hereDoth my unquiet spirit feel at home.Long as a higher will, to which I bow,Hath kept me here conceal'd, still, as at first,I feel myself a stranger. For the seaDoth sever me, alas! from those I love,And day by day upon the shore I stand,The land of Hellas seeking with my soul;But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding wavesBring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply.Alas for him! who friendless and alone,Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;From him grief snatches every coming joyEre it doth reach his lip. His yearning thoughtsThrong back for ever to his father's halls,Where first to him the radiant sun unclosedThe gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day,Brothers and sisters, leagued in pastime sweet,Around each other twin'd love's tender bonds.I will not reckon with the gods; yet trulyDeserving of lament is woman's lot.Man rules alike at home and in the field,Nor is in foreign climes without resource;Him conquest crowneth, him possession gladdens,And him an honorable death awaits.How circumscrib'd is woman's destiny!Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord,Her duty, and her comfort; sad her fate,Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote!Thus Thoas holds me here, a noble manBound with a heavy though a sacred chain.O how it shames me, goddess, to confessThat with repugnance I perform these ritesFor thee, divine protectress! unto whomI would in freedom dedicate my life.In thee, Diana, I have always hoped,And still I hope in thee, who didst infoldWithin the holy shelter of thine armThe outcast daughter of the mighty king.Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruin'd TroyLed back in triumph to his native landThe mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict,His daughter's life in sacrifice demanding,—Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon,Who to thine altar led his darling child,Preserv'd his wife, Electra, and his son,His dearest treasures?—then at length restoreThy suppliant also to her friends and home,And save her, as thou once from death didst save,So now, from living here, a second death.

SCENE II

IPHIGENIA, ARKAS

ARKAS

The king hath sent me hither, bade me greetWith hail, and fair salute, Diana's priestess.For new and wondrous conquest, this the day,When to her goddess Tauris renders thanks.I hasten on before the king and host,Himself to herald, and its near approach.

IPHIGENIA

We are prepar'd to give them worthy greeting;Our goddess doth behold with gracious eyeThe welcome sacrifice from Thoas' hand.

ARKAS

Would that I also found the priestess' eye,Much honor'd, much revered one, found thine eye,O consecrated maid, more calm, more bright,To all a happy omen! Still doth grief,With gloom mysterious, shroud thy inner mind;Vainly, through many a tedious year we waitFor one confiding utterance from thy breast.Long as I've known thee in this holy place,That look of thine hath ever made me shudder;And, as with iron bands, thy soul remainsLock'd in the deep recesses of thy breast.

IPHIGENIA

As doth become the exile and the orphan.

ARKAS

Dost thou then here seem exil'd and an orphan?

IPHIGENIA

Can foreign scenes our fatherland replace?

ARKAS

Thy fatherland is foreign now to thee.

IPHIGENIA

Hence is it that my bleeding heart ne'er heals.In early youth, when first my soul, in love,Held father, mother, brethren fondly twin'd,A group of tender germs, in union sweet,We sprang in beauty from the parent stem,And heavenward grew; alas, a foreign curseThen seized and sever'd me from those I loved,And wrench'd with iron grasp the beauteous bandsIt vanish'd then, the fairest charm of youth,The simple gladness of life's early dawn;Though sav'd I was a shadow of myself,And life's fresh joyance blooms in me no more.

ARKAS

If thou wilt ever call thyself unblest,I must accuse thee of ingratitude.

IPHIGENIA

Thanks have you ever.

ARKAS

               Not the honest thanksWhich prompt the heart to offices of love;The joyous glance, revealing to the hostA grateful spirit, with its lot content.When thee a deep mysterious destinyBrought to this sacred fane, long years ago,To greet thee, as a treasure sent from heaven,With reverence and affection, Thoas came.Benign and friendly was this shore to thee,To every stranger else with horror fraught,For, till thy coming, none e'er trod our realmBut fell, according to an ancient rite,A bloody victim at Diana's shrine.

IPHIGENIA

Freely to breathe alone is not to live.Say, is it life, within this holy fane,Like a poor ghost around its sepulchreTo linger out my days? Or call you thatA life of conscious happiness and joy,When every hour, dream'd listlessly away,Still leadeth onward to those gloomy days,Which the sad troop of the departed spendIn self-forgetfulness on Lethe's shore?A useless life is but an early death;This woman's destiny hath still been mine.

ARKAS

I can forgive, though I must needs deplore,The noble pride which underrates itself;It robs thee of the happiness of life.But hast thou, since thy coming here, done naught?Who hath the monarch's gloomy temper cheered?Who hath with gentle eloquence annull'd,From year to year, the usage of our sires,By which, a victim at Diana's shrine,Each stranger perish'd, thus from certain deathSending so oft the rescued captive home?Hath not Diana, harboring no revengeFor this suspension of her bloody rites,In richest measure heard thy gentle prayer?On joyous pinions o'er the advancing host,Doth not triumphant conquest proudly soar?And feels not every one a happier lot,Since Thoas, who so long hath guided usWith wisdom and with valor, sway'd by thee.The joy of mild benignity approves,Which leads him to relax the rigid claimsOf mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou,When from thy being o'er a thousand hearts,A healing balsam flows? when to a race,To whom a god consign'd thee, thou dost proveA fountain of perpetual happiness,And from this dire inhospitable coast,Dost to the stranger grant a safe return?

IPHIGENIA

The little done doth vanish to the mind,Which forward sees how much remains to do.

ARKAS

Him dost thou praise, who underrates his deeds?

IPHIGENIA

Who weigheth his own deeds is justly blam'd.

ARKAS

He too, real worth too proudly who condemns,As who, too vainly, spurious worth o'er-rateth.Trust me, and heed the counsel of a manWith honest zeal devoted to thy service:When Thoas comes to-day to speak with thee,Lend to his purposed words a gracious ear.

IPHIGENIA

Thy well-intention'd counsel troubles me:His offer I have ever sought to shun.

ARKAS

Thy duty and thy interest calmly weigh.Sithence King Thoas lost his son and heir,Among his followers he trusts but few,And trusts those few no more as formerly.With jealous eye he views each noble's sonAs the successor of his realm, he dreadsA solitary, helpless age—perchanceSudden rebellion and untimely death.A Scythian studies not the rules of speech,And least of all the king. He who is usedTo act and to command, knows not the art,From far, with subtle tact, to guide discourseThrough many windings to its destin'd goal.Thwart not his purpose by a cold refusal,By an intended misconception. Meet,With gracious mien, half-way the royal wish.

IPHIGENIA

Shall I then speed the doom that threatens me?

ARKAS

His gracious offer canst thou call a threat?

IPHIGENIA

'Tis the most terrible of all to me.

ARKAS

For his affection grant him confidence.

IPHIGENIA

If he will first redeem my soul from fear.

ARKAS

Why dost thou hide from him thy origin?

IPHIGENIA

A priestess secrecy doth well become.

ARKAS

Naught to a monarch should a secret be;And, though he doth not seek to fathom thine,His noble nature feels, ay, deeply feels,That thou with care dost hide thyself from him.

IPHIGENIA

Ill-will and anger harbors he against me?

ARKAS

Almost it seems so. True, he speaks not of thee,But casual words have taught me that the wishThee to possess hath firmly seiz'd his soul;O leave him not a prey unto himself,Lest his displeasure, rip'ning in his breast,Should work thee woe, so with repentance thouToo late my faithful counsel shalt recall.

IPHIGENIA

How! doth the monarch purpose what no manOf noble mind, who loves his honest name,Whose bosom reverence for the gods restrains,Would ever think of? Will he force employTo drag me from the altar to his bed?Then will I call the gods, and chiefly thee,Diana, goddess resolute, to aid me;Thyself a virgin, wilt a virgin shield,And to thy priestess gladly render aid.

ARKAS

Be tranquil! Passion, and youth's fiery bloodImpel not Thoas rashly to commitA deed so lawless. In his present mood,I fear from him another harsh resolve,Which (for his soul is steadfast and unmov'd)He then will execute without delay.Therefore I pray thee, canst thou grant no more;At least be grateful—give thy confidence.

IPHIGENIA

Oh tell me what is further known to thee.

ARKAS

Learn it from him. I see the king approach:Him thou dost honor, thine own heart enjoinsTo meet him kindly and with confidence.A man of noble mind may oft be ledBy woman's gentle word.

IPHIGENIA (alone)

                           How to observeHis faithful counsel see I not in sooth.But willingly the duty I performOf giving thanks for benefits receiv'd,And much I wish that to the king my lipsWith truth could utter what would please his ear.

SCENE III

IPHIGENIA, THOAS

IPHIGENIA

Her royal gifts the goddess shower on theeImparting conquest, wealth, and high renownDominion, and the welfare of thy house,With the fulfilment of each pious wish,That thou, whose sway for multitudes provides,Thyself may'st be supreme in happiness!

THOAS

Contented were I with my people's praise;My conquests others more than I enjoy.Oh! be he king or subject, he's most blest;Whose happiness is centred in his home.My deep affliction thou didst share with meWhat time, in war's encounter, the fell swordTore from my side my last, my dearest son;So long as fierce revenge possessed my heart,I did not feel my dwelling's dreary void;But now, returning home, my rage appeas'd,Their kingdom wasted, and my son aveng'd,I find there nothing left to comfort me.The glad obedience I was wont to seeKindling in every eye, is smother'd nowIn discontent and gloom; each, pondering, weighsThe changes which a future day may bring,And serves the childless king, because he must.To-day I come within this sacred fane,Which I have often enter'd to imploreAnd thank the gods for conquest. In my breastI bear an old and fondly-cherish'd wish,To which methinks thou canst not be a stranger;I hope, a blessing to myself and realm,To lead thee to my dwelling as my bride.

IPHIGENIA

Too great thine offer, king, to one unknown;Abash'd the fugitive before thee stands,Who on this shore sought only what thou gavest,Safety and peace.

THOAS

                Thus still to shroud thyselfFrom me, as from the lowest, in the veilOf mystery which wrapp'd thy coming here,Would in no country be deem'd just or right.Strangers this shore appall'd; 'twas so ordain'd,Alike by law and stern necessity.From thee alone—a kindly welcom'd guest,Who hast enjoy'd each hallow'd privilege,And spent thy days in freedom unrestrain'd—From thee I hop'd that confidence to gainWhich every faithful host may justly claim.

IPHIGENIA

If I conceal'd, O king, my name, my race,It was embarrassment, and not mistrust.For didst thou know who stands before thee now,And what accursed head thine arm protects,Strange horror would possess thy mighty heart;And, far from wishing me to share thy throne,Thou, ere the time appointed, from thy realmWouldst banish me; wouldst thrust me forth, perchanceBefore a glad reunion with my friendsAnd period to my wand'rings is ordain'd,To meet that sorrow, which in every clime,With cold, inhospitable, fearful hand,Awaits the outcast, exil'd from his home.

THOAS

Whate'er respecting thee the gods decree,Whate'er their doom for thee and for thy house,Since thou hast dwelt amongst us, and enjoy'dThe privilege the pious stranger claims,To me hath fail'd no blessing sent from heaven;And to persuade me, that protecting theeI shield a guilty head, were hard indeed.

IPHIGENIA

Thy bounty, not the guest, draws blessings down.

THOAS

The kindness shown the wicked is not blest.End then thy silence, priestess; not unjustIs he who doth demand it. In my handsThe goddess placed thee; thou hast been to meAs sacred as to her, and her behestShall for the future also be my law:If thou canst hope in safety to returnBack to thy kindred, I renounce my claims:But is thy homeward path for ever closed—Or doth thy race in hopeless exile rove,Or lie extinguish'd by some mighty woe—Then may I claim thee by more laws than one.Speak openly, thou know'st I keep my word.

IPHIGENIA

Its ancient bands reluctantly my tongueDoth loose, a long hid secret to divulge;For once imparted, it resumes no moreThe safe asylum of the inmost heart,But thenceforth, as the powers above decree,Doth work its ministry of weal or woe.Attend! I issue from the Titan's race.

THOAS

A word momentous calmly hast thou spoken.Him nam'st thou ancestor whom all the worldKnows as a sometime favorite of the gods?Is it that Tantalus, whom Jove himselfDrew to his council and his social board?On whose experienc'd words, with wisdom fraught,As on the language of an oracle,E'en gods delighted hung?

IPHIGENIA

                       'Tis even he;But the immortal gods with mortal menShould not, on equal terms, hold intercourse;For all too feeble is the human race,Not to grow dizzy on unwonted heights.Ignoble was he not, and no betrayer;To be the Thunderer's slave, he was too great;To be his friend and comrade,—but a man.His crime was human, and their doom severe;For poets sing, that treachery and prideDid from Jove's table hurl him headlong downTo grovel in the depths of Tartarus.Alas, and his whole race must bear their hate.

THOAS

Bear they their own guilt, or their ancestor's?

IPHIGENIA

The Titan's mighty breast and nervous frameWas his descendants' certain heritage;But round their brow Jove forg'd a band of brass.Wisdom and patience, prudence and restraint,He from their gloomy, fearful eye conceal'd;In them each passion grew to savage rage,And headlong rush'd with violence uncheck'd.Already Pelops, Tantalus' loved son,Mighty of will, obtained his beauteous bride,Hippodamia, child of Oenomaus,Through treachery and murder; she ere long,To glad her consort's heart, bare him two sons,Thyest and Atreus. They with envy markedThe ever-growing love their father bareTo his first-born, sprung from another union.Hate leagued the pair, and secretly they wrought,In fratricide, the first dread crime. The sireHippodamia held as murderess,With savage rage he claim'd from her his son,And she in terror did destroy herself—

THOAS

Thou'rt silent? Pause not in thy narrative;Repent not of thy confidence—say on!

IPHIGENIA

How blest is he who his progenitorsWith pride remembers, to the listener tellsThe story of their greatness, of their deeds,And, silently rejoicing, sees himselfThe latest link of this illustrious chain!For seldom does the selfsame stock produceThe monster and the demigod: a lineOf good or evil ushers in, at last,The glory or the terror of the world.—After the death of Pelops, his two sonsRul'd o'er the city with divided sway.But such an union could not long endure.His brother's honor first Thyestes wounds.In vengeance Atreus drove him from the realm.Thyestes, planning horrors, long beforeHad stealthily procur'd his brother's son,Whom he in secret nurtur'd as his own.Revenge and fury in his breast he pour'd,Then to the royal city sent him forth,That in his uncle he might slay his sire.The meditated murder was disclos'd,And by the king most cruelly aveng'd,Who slaughter'd as he thought, his brother's son.Too late he learn'd whose dying tortures metHis drunken gaze; and seeking to assuageThe insatiate vengeance that possess'd his soul,He plann'd a deed unheard of. He assum'dA friendly tone, seem'd reconcil'd, appeas'd,And lur'd his brother, with his children twain,Back to his kingdom; these he seiz'd and slew;Then plac'd the loathsome and abhorrent foodAt his first meal before the unconscious sire.And when Thyestes had his hunger still'dWith his own flesh, a sadness seiz'd his soul;He for his children ask'd,—their steps, their voiceFancied he heard already at the door;And Atreus, grinning with malicious joy,Threw in the members of the slaughter'd boys.—Shudd'ring, O king, thou dost avert thy face:So did the sun his radiant visage hide,And swerve his chariot from the eternal path.These, monarch, are thy priestess' ancestors,And many a dreadful fate of mortal doom,And many a deed of the bewilder'd brain,Dark night doth cover with her sable wing,Or shroud in gloomy twilight.

THOAS

                       Hidden thereLet them abide. A truce to horror now,And tell me by what miracle thou sprangestFrom race so savage.

IPHIGENIA

                    Atreus' eldest sonWas Agamemnon; he, O king, my sire:But I may say with truth, that, from a child,In him the model of a perfect manI witness'd ever. Clytemnestra boreTo him, myself, the firstling of their love,Electra then. Peaceful the monarch rul'd,And to the house of Tantalus was givenA long-withheld repose. A son aloneWas wanting to complete my parents' bliss;Scarce was this wish fulfill'd, and young Orestes,The household's darling, with his sisters grew,When new misfortunes vex'd our ancient house.To you hath come the rumor of the war,Which, to avenge the fairest woman's wrongs,The force united of the Grecian kingsRound Ilion's walls encamp'd. Whether the townWas humbled, and achieved their great revenge,I have not heard. My father led the host.In Aulis vainly for a favoring galeThey waited; for, enrag'd against their chief,Diana stay'd their progress, and requir'd,Through Chalcas' voice, the monarch's eldest daughter.They lured me with my mother to the camp,They dragged me to the altar, and this headThere to the goddess doomed.—She was appeased;She did not wish my blood, and shrouded meIn a protecting cloud; within this templeI first awakened from the dream of death;Yes, I myself am she, Iphigenia,Grandchild of Atreus, Agamemnon's child,Diana's priestess, I who speak with thee.

THOAS