United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"And thou wilt keep it by thee with thy life. To Orestes, son of Agamemnon, say Iphigenia, his sister, is dead indeed unto her parents, but not to him. Say that Diana has had charge over her these many years since she was snatched away at Aulis, and that she waits until her brother shall come to rescue her from this duty of bloodshed and take her home."
The imagination of the poet EURIPIDES describes this armament as follows: With eager haste The sea-girt Aulis strand I paced, Till to my view appeared the embattled train Of Hellas, armed for mighty enterprise, And galleys of majestic size, To bear the heroes o'er the main; A thousand ships for Ilion steer, And round the two Atridae's spear The warriors swear fair Helen to regain.
At length he sat down, and wrote another letter: "Daughter of Leda, send not thy child to Aulis, for I will give her in marriage at another time." Then he called another messenger, an old and trusted servant of the household, and put this letter into his hands. "Take this with all haste to my queen, who, perchance, is even now on her way to Aulis.
We may regard the Bacchae as the poet's declaration of faith in the worship which gave Europe the Drama; it is altogether fitting that he who has left us the greatest number of tragedies should have been chosen by destiny to bequeath us the one drama which tells of one of the adventures of its patron deity. The Iphigeneia in Aulis was written in the last year of the poet's life.
The "inherited curse" then had developed itself in this unhappy stock and it did not fail to ruin it. When Helen abandoned Menelaus and went to Troy with Paris, Agamemnon led a great armament to recover the adulteress. The fleet was wind-bound at Aulis, because the Greeks had offended Artemis.
Menoeceus is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country. Iphigenia ordered herself to be conveyed to Aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood might be the cause of spilling that of her enemies. XLIX. From hence they proceed to instances of a fresher date.
And thus, in time, a great force of men and a great fleet of ships were gathered, there being in all eleven hundred and eighty-six ships and more than one hundred thousand men. The kings and chieftains of Greece led their followers from all parts of the land to Aulis, in Boeotia, whence they were to set sail for the opposite coast of Asia Minor, on which stood the city of Troy.
The occasion was the marriage of Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, with the eldest daughter of Veli Pacha, called the Princess of Aulis, because she had for dowry whole villages in that district. Immediately after the announcement of this marriage Ali set on foot a sort of saturnalia, about the details of which there seemed to be as much mystery as if he had been preparing an assassination.
The flight from Actium might seem as much a mere poet's dream as the gathering of the Achaeans at Aulis, if we were not certain that it is truly chronicled. She was the daughter of Zeus by Nemesis, or by Leda; or the daughter of the swan, or a child of the changeful moon, brooding on "the formless and multi-form waters."
King Agamemnon sat in his tent at Aulis, where the army of the Greeks was gathered together, being about to sail against the great city of Troy. And it was now past midnight; but the king slept not, for he was careful and troubled about many things. And he had a lamp before him and in his hand a tablet of pine wood, whereon he wrote.
Word Of The Day