Iphigenia in Tauris

Iphigenia in Tauris is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, Helen, as well as the lost play Andromeda, and is often described as a romance, a melodrama, a tr ... Read more

Iphigenia in Tauris is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, Helen, as well as the lost play Andromeda, and is often described as a romance, a melodrama, a tragi-comedy or an escape play. Although the play is generally known in English as Iphigenia in Tauris, this is, strictly speaking, the Latin title of the play, the meaning of which is Iphigenia among the Taurians. There is no such place as "Tauris" in Euripides' play, although Goethe, in his play Iphigenie auf Tauris (on which Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Tauride is based), ironically utilizing this translation error, posits such a place. The name refers to the Crimean Penins The scene represents the front of the temple of Artemis in the land of the Taurians (modern Crimea). The altar is in the center. The play begins with Iphigenia reflecting on her brother's death. She recounts her "sacrifice" at the hands of Agamemnon, and how she was saved by Artemis and made priestess in this temple. She has had a dream in which the structure of her family's house crashed down in ruins, leaving only a single column which she then washed clean as if preparing it for ritual sacrifice. She interprets this dream to mean that Orestes is dead.   Less