Thoas. 
    Then go! the promptings of thy heart obey;
    Despise the voice of reason and good counsel. 
    Be quite the woman, sway’d by each desire,
    That bridleless impels her to and fro. 
    When passion rages fiercely in her breast,
    No sacred tie withholds her from the wretch
    Who would allure her to forsake for him
    A husband’s or a father’s guardian arms;
    Extinct within her heart its fiery glow,
    The golden tongue of eloquence in vain
    With words of truth and power assails her ear.

                 Iphigenia. 

Remember now, O king, thy noble words! 
My trust and candour wilt thou thus repay? 
Thou seem’dst, methought, prepar’d to hear the truth.

                   Thoas. 

For this unlook’d-for answer not prepar’d. 
Yet ’twas to be expected; knew I not
That ’twas with woman I had now to deal?

                 Iphigenia. 

Upbraid not thus, O king, our feeble sex! 
Though not in dignity to match with yours,
The weapons woman wields are not ignoble. 
And trust me, Thoas, in thy happiness
I have a deeper insight than thyself. 
Thou thinkest, ignorant alike of both,
A closer union would augment our bliss;
Inspir’d with confidence and honest zeal
Thou strongly urgest me to yield consent;
And here I thank the gods, who give me strength
To shun a doom unratified by them.

Thoas. 
’Tis not a god, ’tis thine own heart that speaks.

Iphigenia. 
’Tis through the heart alone they speak to us.

Thoas. 
To hear them have I not an equal right?

Iphigenia. 
The raging tempest drowns the still, small voice.

Thoas. 
This voice no doubt the priestess hears alone.

Iphigenia. 
Before all others should the prince attend it.

                   Thoas. 

Thy sacred office, and ancestral right
To Jove’s own table, place thee with the gods
In closer union than an earth-born savage.

Iphigenia. 
Thus must I now the confidence atone
Thyself extorted from me!

Thoas. 
I’m a man,
And better ’tis we end this conference. 
Hear then my last resolve.  Be priestess still
Of the great goddess who selected thee;
And may she pardon me, that I from her,
Unjustly and with secret self-reproach,
Her ancient sacrifice so long withheld. 
From olden times no stranger near’d our shore
But fell a victim at her sacred shrine. 
But thou, with kind affection (which at times
Seem’d like a gentle daughter’s tender love,
At times assum’d to my enraptur’d heart
The modest inclination of a bride),
Didst so inthral me, as with magic bonds,
That I forgot my duty.  Thou didst rock
My senses in a dream:  I did not hear
My people’s murmurs:  now they cry aloud,
Ascribing my poor son’s untimely death
To this my guilt.  No longer for thy sake
Will I oppose the wishes of the crowd,
Who urgently demand the sacrifice.