Agamemnon, as in her previous expostulations and anguish, we see that a straw may turn the balance, and make her his deadliest foe. Just then, came the the suit of Ægisthus, then, when every feeling was uprooted or lacerated in her heart.
Iphigenia's moving address has no further effect than to make her father turn at bay and brave this terrible crisis. He goes out, firm in resolve; and she and her mother abandon themselves to a natural grief.
Hitherto nothing has been seen in Iphigenia, except the young girl, weak, delicate, full of feeling and beautiful as a sunbeam on the full green tree. But, in the next scene, the first impulse of that passion which makes and unmakes us, though unconfessed even to herself, though hopeless and unreturned, raises her at once into the heroic woman, worthy of the goddess who demands her.
Achilles appears to defend her, whom all others clamorously seek to deliver to the murderous knife. She sees him, and fired with thoughts, unknown before, devotes herself at once for the country which has given birth to such a man.
| “To be too fond of life |
| Becomes not me; nor for myself alone, |
| But to all Greece, a blessing didst thou bear me. |
| Shall thousands, when their country's injured, lift |
| Their shields; shall thousands grasp the oar, and dare, |
| Advancing bravely 'gainst the foe, to die |
| For Greece? And shall my life, my single life, |
| Obstruct all this? Would this be just? What word |
| Can we reply? Nay more, it is not right |
| That he with all the Grecians should contest |
| In fight, should die, and for a woman. No: |
| More than a thousand women is one man |
| Worthy to see the light of day. |
| ***for Greece I give my life. |
