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This monologue is spoken by Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease the goddess Artemis. She has been living among the Tauri people, where she is forced to sacrifice visitors to Artemis' altar. In her monologue, Iphigenia reflects on her past and family through dreams. Her most recent dream is a dark omen, showing the destruction of her family home and the death of her brother Orestes. Grief-stricken and unable to comfort her brother, Iphigenia prays to the ocean to carry her message of grief to Greece.
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A monologue adaption of Euripides 'Iphigenia In Tauris' by Petros Vouris
This monologue is spoken by Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease the goddess Artemis. She has been living among the Tauri people, where she is forced to sacrifice visitors to Artemis' altar. In her monologue, Iphigenia reflects on her past and family through dreams. Her most recent dream is a dark omen, showing the destruction of her family home and the death of her brother Orestes. Grief-stricken and unable to comfort her brother, Iphigenia prays to the ocean to carry her message of grief to Greece.
This monologue is spoken by Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease the goddess Artemis. She has been living among the Tauri people, where she is forced to sacrifice visitors to Artemis' altar. In her monologue, Iphigenia reflects on her past and family through dreams. Her most recent dream is a dark omen, showing the destruction of her family home and the death of her brother Orestes. Grief-stricken and unable to comfort her brother, Iphigenia prays to the ocean to carry her message of grief to Greece.
An adaption of Euripides Iphigenia in Tauris, by Petros
Vouris. Set as a Monologue. 2015
By this altar, the sanctuary of Artemis, rich in
innocent blood. I Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, glare into the vastness of this ocean.
Oh Thalassa, no familiar faces, or distant
horizons, do you bring to me by night. Only blackened dreams and the echoes of the innocent ones.
Those Hellenes, men of my fatherland, fathers
and sons - all will be sacrificed to the goddess of the night, their blood will colour the walls of this sanctuary.
I their bride will take them to this altar, where
they will meet the same fate that brought me here.
I was not the first to fulfil this sacrament - if
men desire to be remembered, they must first give up their lives.
This is how the one I was falsely betrothed to,
met his fate. For the will of the gods will cast him amongst the stars - scattered in the never-ending wake.
Ah Helen, the house of Atreus, so bitter by
your hurtful act. For sake of pride, a thousand ships would sail, to avenge your shame.
What havoc wrought, those boundless men, so
hungry for the spoils, to be led by my fatherking, oh prideful one! His ambition to ruin Troy.
Yet left idle, by the shores of Aulis, no winds
would stir to aid my fathers glory. Left with no resolve but to seek divination, adamant king Agamemnon called on artful Calcus.
What a mournful decision he made that day,
such a dissonance to fate alone, for nature cannot stand against the shrewdness of such men.
So was foretold by Calcus, that not a breeze
would come, to fill their sails, till harmony was restored. From you my King he said, a vow is still owed, to the sacred huntress; Artemis.
Long ago you made an oath, to pay a price
for your mistake, for you killed the hallowed stag of Artemis, For that a hefty sacrifice must you make.
So my king, the cure you seek, calls for the
blood of your first-born. For only such a sacrament, can secure our glory over Troy.
It was at such pains that tore at the sanity of
my father, by the ills of his conceit, and the cunning of Odysseus. I was taken from my mothers arms under the pretence of marriage - to the god-like Achilles.
I Iphigenia, daughter of Clytemnestra, fell
instead into the arms of butcher priests. They held me above the pyre and the winds began to sing, but as soon as the iron sword touched my throat, I was rapt away from mortal eyes, and taken away by the light of Artemis.
O my dearest Hellas, I was torn from you, by
the cruel consequence of war. Now here I am, among the Tauri, where king Thalos rules the rock breaking shores. 4
Here in the house of Artemis, I am in
servitude to my host. For her I purify the illfated ones, with the cleansing waters from this sea.
A ritual pure, but in name only, for what other
selfish interpretations has man cast on the divine a veil for their own selfish deceit!
[Sigh] Such is life, for beneath every heroic
act, there is a hidden crime. Though, I cannot bury the crimes of my father - They still echo in my mind - A haunted myriad of restless dreams, and the longing for my family.
Tormented by my own judgement, I even
yearn to feel my fathers embrace - His bushy beard against my brow - when he holds me As if awoken from a bad dream *Just a bad dream.
So who is it that speaks such visions, to
mortals of my kind, is it she who wears the saffron veil? The daughter of Hegemone, graced with the gift of providence, she quavers through her earthen womb by dawn a gift of dreams divine.
But how to hold without the fear, the dream
she brought me last night, such foresight haunts me in my wake, and cruellest of all is my curiosity Now before daybreak I dread to review what I saw.
In my dream, in the kingdom of Argos, an
immense quake heaved in waves. By flight of panic! When fear overtook me, I ran to make my escape... Only when dear calm held me close, I hesitantly turned to see the waste.
What once was great is now all ruin - Cracked
foundations, and roof, now shards of clay. For the capitals of the house of Atreus have fallen - the devastation of my family name.
Now surrounded by unsettling silence, an
emptied vessel that was once my home. I noticed only one lonely column standing, from which a plume of hair began to grow.
Such an irrational sight, but stranger still! Its
voice! a mans! With breathless tones reflecting but to which direction? I could not tell.
But what had come over me, when I started to
act out my cruel rite, treating the pillar instead like a Greek sailor, preparing it for the sacrifice.
For when I sprinkled its ornate face with
water, only tears would stream down mine, as I watched on helplessly, as it withered in my arms, and died.
Arx kako ohnero me epiphanies, this dream, it
hits me too hard! For what is the strength of a Greek household? But the pillars of its sons.
This dream is a dark omen, an agent of cruel
news. For the one I performed the ritual on the oldest of the sons, is my beloved brother Orestes - the heir of Agamemnon.
Why!? My loss is too surreal to accept, and
the pain of it too hard to bear awake. The oracles of such dreams have been my only portals to my beloved kin, for dreams do not deceive in the house of the divine.
Such hurt boils even the coldest of hearts,
how helpless in my longing I now am To hold his lifeless hands in mine; to press my tear stained lips across his brow, to grieve for him in his presence.
There the warm sands of Hellas, would sift
through my tempered fingers - scattering across his lifeless body A sisters humble duty and at this time, my only concern.
Instead due to my pitiful fate I can only
prepare libations and prayers here for my brother such a mean conciliation for my fate alone.
Oh my rosy-cheeked little brother Orestes, at
such a loss am I. Separated from you by the vastness of this dark blue ocean, a far stretch that not even my sorrow could reach. I instead for solace pray to the voiceless ones.
[Sitting up or moving to perform a prayer
towards audience, with hands upturned and looking out to the sea/audience]
You great Pontus, ocean of the Greeks, it is
through you, I speak to him, on this shore, In reverence of the life and death you bring, I voice out to you, against these winds, my prayers like ripples along your breast, in hope that your waters will echo my words, guided homeward achingly, across this cruel sea.
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