P. 56, 11. 990-1006.—­Iphigenia’s speech.  We must realise that Iphigenia has been suddenly confronted by a new and complicated difficulty.  She was prepared to make some plot to save her brother’s life.  She now realises that he is on the verge of madness; that he is determined to commit an act of what will be considered desperate sacrilege by stealing the image of Artemis; and that he expects her to help him to get the image to his ship.  —­She might hope to send him away safe and be forgiven by the King:  if she helps him to steal the image, she cannot possibly be forgiven.  Again, she might very possibly fly with him secretly, if she went alone; but to steal the statue and fly seems impossible.

Confronted with this problem, she deliberately abandons both her thoughts of vengeance and her hope of escape, and agrees to give her life for Orestes.

P. 59, 1. 1029, I think I dimly see.—­Compare Electra, translation, p. 42, where Electra suddenly solves the difficulty of slaying Clytemnestra.

P. 63, 11. 1075 ff., Be of good heart, sweet Mistress.—­The women of the Chorus are indeed “true of heart and faithful found,” as Athena says later.  And one feels that Iphigenia, after her first gush of gratitude, does not think of them much.  She will save her brother, and they will be left with very little hope of ever seeing Greece, if indeed they are not fatally compromised by their share in the plot.—­One can hardly blame Iphigenia; but it is like her.

P. 64, 1. 1089, Bird of the sea rocks.—­A wonderful lyric, as spoken by these exiles waiting on the shore.—­In their craving for home the island of Delos becomes the symbol for all that is Greek.  Delos, the birth-place of Apollo and of a kinder Artemis than that which they now serve, was the meeting-place of all the Ionians.  The palm-tree, the laurel, the olive, and the Orbed Lake of Delos were all celebrated in ritual poetry.  The singing Swan is not a myth; it is a migratory swan, with a bell-like cry, which comes in the winter down from South Russia to Greece.

Isle of Pain and Love.—­Literally, “Beloved birth-pang of Leto.”  When Leto was about to give birth to her twin children and no land would receive her, the little rock of Delos pitied her and gave her a resting-place.

P. 64, 11. 1106 ff., Ah the old tears.—­The singer’s mind goes back to her old grief, when her city was taken and she sold as a slave from market to market till she reached Thoas.  Then comes the thought of Iphigenia’s happy voyage to Greece and freedom; then a dream-like longing to fly home, to watch the dances where once she danced for the prize of beauty.

P. 67, 1. 1156, Iphigenia enters, carrying the Image.—­It would probably be a sort of Palladion—­a rough figure with a shield (originally typifying the moon?), not very large.  She would probably hold it in a robe of some sort, that her bare hand might not touch a thing so holy.  At sight of Thoas she would probably cover it up altogether.  It is not quite clear when she puts the image down.