Or thinks to have slain; such sacrifice he swore
To Artemis on that deep-bosomed shore. 
  For there Lord Agamemnon, hot with joy
To win for Greece the crown of conquered Troy,
For Menelaus’ sake through all distress
Pursuing Helen’s vanished loveliness,
Gathered his thousand ships from every coast
Of Hellas:  when there fell on that great host
Storms and despair of sailing.  Then the King
Sought signs of fire, and Calchas answering

Spake thus:  “O Lord of Hellas, from this shore
No ship of thine may move for evermore,
Till Artemis receive in gift of blood
Thy child, Iphigenia.  Long hath stood
Thy vow, to pay to Her that bringeth light
Whatever birth most fair by day or night
The year should bring.  That year thy queen did bear
A child—­whom here I name of all most fair. 
See that she die.”

So from my mother’s side
By lies Odysseus won me, to be bride
In Aulis to Achilles.  When I came,
They took me and above the altar flame
Held, and the sword was swinging to the gash,
When, lo, out of their vision in a flash
Artemis rapt me, leaving in my place
A deer to bleed; and on through a great space
Of shining sky upbore and in this town
Of Tauris the Unfriended set me down;
Where o’er a savage people savagely
King Thoas rules.  This is her sanctuary
And I her priestess.  Therefore, by the rite
Of worship here, wherein she hath delight—­
Though fair in naught but name. ...  But Artemis
Is near; I speak no further.  Mine it is
To consecrate and touch the victim’s hair;
Doings of blood unspoken are the care
Of others, where her inmost chambers lie. 
Ah me! 
But what dark dreams, thou clear and morning sky,
I have to tell thee, can that bring them ease! 
Meseemed in sleep, far over distant seas,
I lay in Argos, and about me slept
My maids:  and, lo, the level earth was swept
With quaking like the sea.  Out, out I fled,
And, turning, saw the cornice overhead
Reel, and the beams and mighty door-trees down
In blocks of ruin round me overthrown. 
One single oaken pillar, so I dreamed,
Stood of my father’s house; and hair, meseemed,
Waved from its head all brown:  and suddenly
A human voice it had, and spoke.  And I,
Fulfilling this mine office, built on blood
Of unknown men, before that pillar stood,
And washed him clean for death, mine eyes astream
With weeping.

          And this way I read my dream. 
Orestes is no more:  on him did fall
My cleansing drops.—­The pillar of the hall
Must be the man first-born; and they, on whom
My cleansing falls, their way is to the tomb. 
  Therefore to my dead brother will I pour
Such sacrifice, I on this bitter shore
And he beyond great seas, as still I may,
With all those maids whom Thoas bore away
In war from Greece and gave me for mine own. 
But wherefore come they not?  I must be gone
And wait them in the temple, where I dwell.