United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Further, I have to mention that a new edition of the "Iphigenia in Aulis" of Euripides has once more turned my attention to that incomparable Greek poet. Of course, his great and unique talent excited my admiration as of old, but what has now mainly attracted me is the element, as boundless as it is potent, in which he moves.
Iphigenia and her mother Clytemnestra are on their way to join the fleet at Aulis, and Agamemnon has sent a despairing message to bid them return home, hoping thus to avoid the necessity of sacrificing his child. Meanwhile the Greek hosts, impatient of delay, clamour for the victim, and are only appeased by the assurance of Calchas that the sacrifice shall take place that very day.
On the night of the first performance Mile. Laguerre, to whom Piccini had trusted the rôle of Iphigenia, could not stand straight from intoxication. "This is not 'Iphigenia in Tauris," said the witty Sophie Arnould, "but 'Iphigenia in champagne." She compensated afterward though by singing the part with exquisite effect.
It is precisely because Goethe is an elusive Proteus that all doctrines may equally claim him. Romanticists turn with predilection to the creator of Werther or the first “Faust.” Classicists admire the plastic beauty of Tasso and Iphigenia. The cosmopolitan sees in Goethe the Weltbürger, the citizen of the world, the incarnation of die Weltweisheit.
The audience broke out into a storm of rapturous applause, and Marie Antoinette, kissing her fair hand, took her seat and prepared to listen to the music. But the spectators were less interested in "Iphigenia" than in the imperial box. Their eyes were continually seeking the emperor, who, concealed behind the heavy velvet draperies, was absorbed in the performance.
In a word, there was no ruffle of the great passion which these two, man and woman, had trodden beneath their feet. She did not hint of Iphigenia; he borrowed no plumes from Don Quixote. Nor need one fancy that their contentment was all counterfeit. They were neither of them grumblers, and "fate" and "destiny" were words seldom upon their lips.
But when the two had talked together for a space, rejoicing over each other, and telling the things that had befallen them, Pylades said, "Greetings of friends after long parting are well; but we must needs consider how best we shall escape from this land of the barbarians." But Iphigenia answered, "Yet nothing shall hinder me from knowing how fareth my sister Electra."
Love has not been unaptly compared to the smallpox which most people have sooner or later. Iphigenia had a wonderful effect upon Cimon; I wish some Hanover Iphigenia may try her skill upon you.
Now when Iphigenia heard that he was alive, and knew that she had been deceived by the dreams which she had dreamt, she conceived a thought in her heart, and said to Orestes, "Hearken now, for I have somewhat to say to thee that shall bring profit both to thee and to me. Wilt thou, if I save thee from this death, carry tidings of me to Argos to my friends, and bear a tablet from me to them?
The greater part of Naevius' plays, both in tragedy and comedy, were, it is true, translated or adapted from Greek originals; but alongside of these, the Danae, the Iphigenia, the Andromache, which even his masculine genius can hardly have made more than pale reflexes of Euripides were new creations, "plays of the purple stripe," as they came to be called, where he wakened a tragic note from the legendary or actual history of the Roman race.
Word Of The Day