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A daughter of Zeus, Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon and is protectress of virgins. Artemis stalls the winds at the port of Aulis to prevent the Greek army from sailing on Troy after Agamemnon offends her by killing a deer, Artemis’s favorite animal. The prophet Kalchas declares that the only way to appease the goddess and summon the winds again is for Agamemnon to offer his daughter Iphigeneia as a sacrifice. At the end of the play, after much agonizing, Iphigeneia at last decides to nobly submit herself as a sacrifice. Artemis is so moved by the girl’s goodness and nobility that she chooses to replace the girl with one of her own deer at the last moment and kill the animal instead, while delivering Iphigeneia up to the safety of heaven in exchange for her selflessness. Though never seen onstage, Artemis’s presence is felt throughout the play.
Artemis Quotes in Iphigenia at Aulis
The Iphigenia at Aulis quotes below are all either spoken by Artemis or refer to Artemis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Iphigeneia at Aulis Quotes
AGAMEMNON: I envy you, old man. I envy any man
whose life passes quietly, unnoticed by fame.
I do not envy those in authority.
OLD MAN: But it is they who have the good of life.
AGAMEMNON: You call that good? It’s a trap. Great honors
taste sweet
but they come bringing pain.
Something goes wrong
between a man and the gods
and his whole life is overturned.
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Explanation and Analysis:
In the first scene of Iphigeneia at Aulis, Agamemnon (the king of Mycenae) paces nervously in front of his command tent set up at the port of Aulis. The winds which are supposed to take the army he’s leading across the sea to Troy have stalled, and Agamemnon must make a terrible decision if he wants to inspire the winds to rise again. The audience does not yet know the dilemma weighing on Agamemnon’s mind, but as he calls his servant, an old man, out of the tent to ask a favor of him, a hint of what Agamemnon is Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur
AGAMEMNON: because Menelaos is my brother, they chose
me to be their general.
I wish they had saved the honor for someone else.
And when the whole army had mustered
here at Aulis,
the wind died. Calm. We still cannot sail.
There is only one hope of our going,
according to Kalchas,
the prophet. Iphigeneia, my daughter,
must be sacrificed to Artemis,
the deity of this place.
Then the wind will take us to Troy,
and the city will fall to us.
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In this passage, Agamemnon laments to his servant, an old man, that he has been chosen to lead the Greek armies as they march against Troy. Agamemnon feels indebted to lead the army, as his brother Menelaos wants to sail to Troy to bring his wife Helen back from the clutches of the people he sees as “barbarians.” However, Agamemnon doesn’t want the power he’s been given anymore because he has recently learned that in order for the ships to sail, he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia to Artemis. This passage provides important practical context for the serious grief and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima
MENELAOS: At this point you'd never murder your daughter.
Well. This same sky
watched you speak otherwise. It's true
men find this happening to them
all the time. They sweat and clamber
for power until it's theirs,
then all at once they
fall back and amount to nothing again.
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After Agamemnon tells Menelaos that he cannot and will not sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia—even though the girl’s death is, according to the prophet Kalchas, the only thing that would reanimate the winds and allow the Greek armies to sail on Troy—Menelaos offers this speech in response to what he perceives as his brother’s betrayal. This moment is significant because it provides a closer examination of how Menelaos and Agamemnon conceive of family and duty: Menelaos believes that his brother owes him fealty, because together the two of them represent the honor of the house of their forefathers. Agamemnon, however, shirks Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accu
CHORUS: But you, Iphigeneia, on your
lovely hair the Argives will set
a wreath, as on the brows
of a spotted heifer, led down
from caves in the mountains
to the sacrifice,
and the knife will open the throat
and let the blood of a girl.
And you were not
brought up to the sound of the shepherd's pipe
and the cries of the herdsmen,
but nurtured by your mother
to be a bride for one of great Inachos’ sons.
Oh where is the noble face
of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now
that blasphemy is in power
and men have put justice
behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness,
and none join in fear of the gods?
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Here, the chorus of Chalkidian women, which has been commenting upon the action throughout the duration of the play, steps forward to lament Iphigeneia’s cruel fate as a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis. The women’s speech engages with many of the play’s major thematic ideas. Their words are florid and their speech is reverent, which makes it seem at first as if they are describing Iphigeneia’s march to glory as she heads to the sacrificial altar—but parsing their language further reveals that they are comparing Iphigeneia to a cow that is to be sacrificed, lamenting that “the blood of a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore i
AGAMEMNON: Oh immovable law of heaven! Oh my
anguish, my relentless fate!
CLYTEMNESTRA: Yours? Mine. Hers. No relenting for any of us.
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In this passage, Clytemnestra confronts her husband, Agamemnon, about his deceit of her and their daughter Iphigeneia and about his plans to sacrifice Iphigeneia to the goddess Artemis. Faced with his deceptions and cruelties against his own family, Agamemnon curses his “relentless fate” and declares the “immovable law of heaven” responsible for his suffering and loss of control over his own life. Clytemnestra stoically and shortly points out that Agamemnon is not the only one who suffers at the hands of fate—she and Iphigeneia, too, are unable to control their circumstances. Clytemnestra’s statement also implies that as women, she and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium r
IPHIGENEIA: If it means that one man can see the sunlight
what are the lives of thousands of women
in the balance? And if Artemis
demands the offering of my body,
I am a mortal: who am I
to oppose the goddess? It is not to be
considered. I give my life to Greece.
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As Iphigeneia continues her lengthy speech about her decision to willingly offer herself up as a sacrifice to Artemis, she speaks about the role of women’s lives in a world of men. Iphigeneia’s conclusions in this passage can be viewed two ways: they can be taken literally at face value, or they can be seen as her desperately satirizing a world which forces her to place her own life at a lesser value than the lives of the men around her. Either way, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Euripides is using this passage to highlight the unfairness Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque
MESSENGER: And the miracle happened. Everyone
distinctly heard the sound of the knife
striking, but no one could see
the girl. She had vanished.
The priest cried out, and the whole army
echoed him, seeing
what some god had sent, a thing
nobody could have prophesied. There it was,
we could see it, but we could scarcely
believe it: a deer
lay there gasping, a large
beautiful animal, and its blood ran
streaming over the altar of the goddess.
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Toward the end of the play, after Iphigeneia has gone willingly to meet her father at the sacrificial altar, a messenger returns to Clytemnestra to relay to her a miraculous piece of news. As the messenger describes Iphigeneia’s salvation at the altar, Euripides employs a deus ex machina, or unlikely last-minute solution to an impossible problem. Artemis replaces Iphigeneia with a deer at the very moment of sacrifice—and because deer are the animals sacred to Artemis, and because Artemis stalled the winds in Aulis after Agamemnon offended her by killing one on his way to the port, her gift of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut a
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Artemis Character Timeline in Iphigenia at Aulis
The timeline below shows where the character Artemis appears in Iphigenia at Aulis. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Iphigeneia at Aulis
...moving again: according to the prophet Kalchas, Agamemnon must sacrifice his own daughter Iphigeneia to Artemis, the deity of Aulis. If he does, the winds will pick up and the Greeks’...
(full context)
...winds rise. Menelaos fetched the prophet Kalchas who decreed that Iphigeneia must be sacrificed to Artemis. Menelaos accuses Agamemnon of being the kind of man who “sweat[s] and clamber[s] for power”...
(full context)
...to keep him from breathing a word about Agamemnon’s plot to sacrifice his daughter to Artemis.
(full context)
...demon but rather the prophet Kalchas has decreed that only the sacrifice of Iphigeneia to Artemis can bring the winds needed to take the Greek army to Troy.
(full context)
...decision in the face of a “sick” destiny and a terrible command from the goddess Artemis.
(full context)
...Iphigeneia turns to the chorus and asks them to join her in a hymn to Artemis which will “celebrate [her] fate.”
(full context)
...a “triumphant lament” about how she will be the one to conquer Troy. She blesses Artemis and says she is looking forward to “wash[ing] away with [her] own blood” the conflict...
(full context)
...soon be cut by her father’s own hand. The women raise their voices up to Artemis, begging the goddess to be pleased enough by this sacrifice to let the armies of...
(full context)
...that in Iphigeneia’s place, there was suddenly a gasping and bleeding deer—the animal associated with Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt. Kalchas decreed the miracle a blessing from Artemis...
(full context)
