Project Gutenberg's Iphigenia in Tauris, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Title: Iphigenia in Tauris

Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translator: Anna Swanwick

Release Date: May 18, 2005 [EBook #15850]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Handy Literal Translations

GOETHE'S

Iphigenia In Tauris

_Translated by_ ANNA SWANWICK

ARTHUR HINDS & CO.
4 COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK CITY

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

IPHIGENIA. THOAS, _King of the Taurians_.
ORESTES. PYLADES. ARKAS.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.
_A Grove before the Temple of Diana_.

IPHIGENIA.
Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs
Of this old, shady, consecrated grove,
As in the goddess' silent sanctuary,
With the same shudd'ring feeling forth I step,
As when I trod it first, nor ever here
Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home.
Long as the mighty will, to which I bow,
Hath kept me here conceal'd, still, as at first,
I feel myself a stranger. For the sea
Doth sever me, alas! from those I love,
And day by day upon the shore I stand,
My soul still seeking for the land of Greece.
But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding waves
Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply.
Alas for him! who friendless and alone,
Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;
From him grief snatches every coming joy
Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts
Revert for ever to his father's halls,
Where first to him the radiant sun unclos'd
The gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day,
Brothers and sisters, leagu'd in past