doing; but no sooner has she heard of the difficult position of the Athenians, who wish to protect the fugitives but cannot reconcile themselves to make a sacrifice from their own daughters, than she at once offers herself, contemptuously setting aside Iolaus' proposal to draw lots with her sisters. She paints an ironical picture of the fugitives appealing to others to make sacrifices and sparing themselves, and merely gives directions for her seemly death among women, and that in better days her tomb may be honoured. With affectionate advices to Iolaus concerning the education of her brothers and sisters, the worthy daughter of Heracles departs, hoping that death may end her troubles, and that there may be no future beyond the grave. This hopelessness in so young a creature—the result of constant adversity, is a very pathetic touch in the drawing of her character.[1] The whole picture is much harder than that of Polyxena; there is not even a commos or lyrical lamentation as she leaves the stage; there are no regrets though she is resigning the hope of marriage—to the Greek maiden a bitter loss. But all her hardness is in a noble cause; all her dying charges speak a pure and womanly anxiety for her brothers and sisters' welfare. She is, in fact, precisely such a character as the Antigone of Sophocles (in his Antigone), and strikes us as a nature possibly unbending and stern, but thoroughly honourable and devoted to the law of duty. But she occupies, like Polyxena, only an episode in the play, which has other interests, and not the least the glorification of the humanity and justice of Athens.
66. Iphigenia.—We have a far more explicitly drawn picture in Iphigenia (in Aulis) who is the chief figure in the play, and perhaps the finest gentle heroine
- ↑ Iphigenia, on the contrary, whose life has been happy, and whose hopes are fair, simply prays that she may not see "the realms beneath the earth," because it is madness to wish to abandon the present life. The real narrative of her sacrifice is unfortunately lost by a mutilation of our MSS.
