IPHIGENIA
So are ye godlike forms reduc'd to dust!
PYLADES
Nor Palamede, nor Ajax, ere again
The daylight of their native land beheld.
IPHIGENIA
He speaks not of my father, doth not name
Him with the fallen. He may yet survive!
I may behold him! still hope on, fond heart!
PYLADES
Yet happy are the thousands who receiv'd
Their bitter death-blow from a hostile hand!
For terror wild, and end most tragical.
Some hostile, angry deity prepar'd,
Instead of triumph, for the home-returning.
Do human voices never reach this shore?
Far as their sound extends, they bear the fame
Of deeds unparallel'd. And is the woe
Which fills Mycene's halls with ceaseless sighs
To thee a secret still?—And know'st thou not
That Clytemnestra, with Ægisthus' aid,
Her royal consort artfully ensnar'd,
And murder'd on the day of his return?—
The monarch's house thou honorest! I perceive.
Thy breast with tidings vainly doth contend
Fraught with such monstrous and unlook'd for woe.
Art thou the daughter of a friend? Art born
Within the circuit of Mycene's walls?
Conceal it not, nor call me to account
That here the horrid crime I first announce.
IPHIGENIA
Proceed, and tell me how the deed was done.