IPHIGENIA. Thy bounty, not the guest, draws blessings down.
THOAS. The kindness shown the wicked is not blest. End then thy silence, priestess; not unjust Is he who doth demand it. In my hands The goddess plac'd thee; thou hast been to me As sacred as to her, and her behest Shall for the future also be my law. If thou canst hope in safety to return Back to thy kindred, I renounce my claims: But is thy homeward path for ever clos'd-- 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 tongue Doth loose, a long-hid secret to divulge; For once imparted, it resumes no more The 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 world Knows as a sometime favourite of the gods? Is it that Tantalus, whom Jove himself Drew 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 gods should not hold intercourse with men As with themselves. Too weak 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 pride Did from Jove's table hurl him headlong down, To grovel in the depths of Tartarus. Alas, and his whole race their hate pursues.
THOAS. Bear they their own guilt, or their ancestors'?
IPHIGENIA. The Titan's mighty breast and nervous frame Was his descendant's 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 uncheck'd. The Titan's son, The strong-will'd Pelops, won his beauteous bride, Hippodamia, child of OEnomaus, Through treachery and murder; she ere long Bore him two children, Atreus and Thyestes; With envy they beheld the growing love Their father cherish'd for a first-born son Sprung from another union. Bound by hate, In secret they contrive their brother's death. The sire, the crime imputing to his wife, With savage fury claim'd from her his child, And she in terror did destroy herself--