"With impatient instance oft
They urge me: 'Why, Achilles, stay we here?
What tedious length of time is yet to pass,
To Ilium ere we sail? Wouldst thou do aught,
Do it, or lead us home: nor here await
The sons of Atreus and their long delays.'"
Instead of his commander-in-chief he finds Clytemnestra, who greatly scandalises him by offering her hand to her destined son-in-law. She, on her part, is surprised at a modesty so uncommon in young men. The old slave, the same whom Menelaus so roughly handles at the opening of the drama, now comes forward and unfolds the mystery. Clytemnestra sues to the captain of the Myrmidons for protection against the cruel "black-bearded kings:" he is highly incensed at having been made a cat's-paw of by Agamemnon, Calchas the seer, and the crafty Ulysses, and promises to do all in his power to rescue Iphigenia from her fearful doom, even at any risk to himself from his impatient soldiers.
Agamemnon now reappears. Ignorant that his wife is now furnished with all the facts he had withheld, he is greatly discomfited by her upbraiding him with his weak and wicked consent to the sacrifice of Iphigenia. After threatening him with her vengeance—a threat she some years later fulfilled—she descends to entreaties, and prays him to spare their child. And now comes the most affecting scene of the tragedy. Iphigenia, aware that she is not the destined bride but the chosen victim, implores her father to change his purpose; and the more to prevail with him, brings in her arms her
