What tidings, ho? With what intent
Hast called me to thy shrine and thee,
O child of him who crossed the sea
To Troy with that great armament,
The thousand prows, the myriad swords?
I come, O child of Atreid Lords.
(Iphigenia, followed by attendants, comes from the Temple.)
Iphigenia.
Alas! O maidens mine,
I am filled full of tears:
My heart filled with the beat
Of tears, as of dancing feet,
A lyreless, joyless line,
And music meet for the dead.
For a whisper is in mine ears,
By visions borne on the breath
Of the Night that now is fled,
Of a brother gone to death.
Oh sorrow and weeping sore,
For the house that no more is,
For the dead that were kings of yore
And the labour of Argolis!
Iphigenia and the Chorus then lament together over the ruin and loss that has befallen the House of Agamemnon. Suddenly the Leader of the Chorus stops them.
Leader.
Stay, yonder from some headland of the sea
There comes, methinks a herdsman, seeking thee.
(Enter a Herdsman. Iphigenia is still on her knees.)
Herdsman.