The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCCDEEDFGCHCHIJKI LL MNMNOO PPPP QPQPRR SSPPPPTITIUVPP RRNNLLPPWXWX| Now long and long from wintry Strymon blew | A |
| The weary hungry anchor straining blasts | B |
| The winds that wandering seamen dearly rue | A |
| Nor spared the cables worn and groaning masts | B |
| And lingering on in indolent delay | C |
| Slow wasted all the strength of Greece away | C |
| But when the shrill voiced prophet 'gan proclaim | D |
| That remedy more dismal and more dread | E |
| Than the drear weather blackening overhead | E |
| And spoke in Artemis' most awful name | D |
| The sons of Atreus 'mid their armed peers | F |
| Their sceptres dashed to earth and each broke out in tears | G |
| And thus the elder king began to say | C |
| Dire doom to disobey the gods' commands | H |
| More dire my child mine house's pride to slay | C |
| Dabbling in virgin blood a father's hands | H |
| Alas alas which way to fly | I |
| As base deserter quit the host | J |
| The pride and strength of our great league all lost | K |
| Should I the storm appeasing rite deny | I |
| Will not their wrathfullest wrath rage up and swell | L |
| Exact the virgin's blood oh would 't were o'er and well | L |
| - | |
| So 'neath Necessity's stern yoke he passed | M |
| And his lost soul with impious impulse veering | N |
| Surrendered to the accursed unholy blast | M |
| Warped to the dire extreme of human daring | N |
| The frenzy of affliction still | O |
| Maddens dire counselor man's soul to ill | O |
| - | |
| So he endured to be the priest | P |
| In that child slaughtering rite unblest | P |
| The first full offering of that host | P |
| In fatal war for a bad woman lost | P |
| - | |
| The prayers the mute appeal to her hard sire | Q |
| Her youth her virgin beauty | P |
| Naught heeded they the chiefs for war on fire | Q |
| So to the ministers of that dire duty | P |
| First having prayed the father gave the sign | R |
| Like some soft kid to lift her to the shrine | R |
| - | |
| There lay she prone | S |
| Her graceful garments round her thrown | S |
| But first her beauteous mouth around | P |
| Their violent bonds they wound | P |
| With their rude inarticulate might | P |
| Lest her dread curse the fatal house should smite | P |
| But she her saffron robe to earth let fall | T |
| The shaft of pity from her eye | I |
| Transpierced that awful priesthood one and all | T |
| Lovely as in a picture stood she by | I |
| As she would speak Thus at her father's feasts | U |
| The virgin 'mid the reveling guests | V |
| Was wont with her chaste voice to supplicate | P |
| For her dear father an auspicious fate | P |
| - | |
| I saw no more to speak more is not mine | R |
| Not unfulfilled was Calchas' lore divine | R |
| Eternal justice still will bring | N |
| Wisdom out of suffering | N |
| So to the fond desire farewell | L |
| The inevitable future to foretell | L |
| 'Tis but our woe to antedate | P |
| Joint knit with joint expands the full formed fate | P |
| Yet at the end of these dark days | W |
| May prospering weal return at length | X |
| Thus in his spirit prays | W |
| He of the Apian land the sole remaining strength | X |
Aeschylus
(1)
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