Triptych and Iphigenia Read online

  CLYTEMNESTRA I admire your constraint, Achilles, son of the sea, but you are to marry my daughter Iphigenia, so we are already joined are we not?

  ACHILLES Madam, you talk like a storybook.

  CLYTEMNESTRA So formal on the brink of wedlock. Why?

  ACHILLES Wedlock?

  CLYTEMNESTRA To Iphigenia.

  ACHILLES I have not courted your daughter Iphigenia and marriage is far from my mind. Ten thousand girls hunt for marriage with me, but I am a soldier first and last.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I am sorry if I have overstepped—I am mortified. I took you for my son—an empty hope. You say you are not marrying her, an evil omen for her, for all.

  Clytemnestra goes to leave.

  OLD MAN Lady, I hold you dear. Your father pledged me to watch over you in danger.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Not now … That youth has irked me.

  OLD MAN With cause. Don’t blame him.

  O Gods, save those I once saved. Save the seed of Agamemnon. A horrible deed is contrived, we are undone.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Riddles.

  OLD MAN The father that begat Iphigenia is going to kill her … to sacrifice her on the altar to Artemis.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You’re out of your mind.

  OLD MAN It’s what the girl from across the straits tried to tell you. All is prepared, the altar, the meal cakes, the cups for the blood … he will slit the child’s throat with a sword before the sun goes down.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You are mad.

  OLD MAN No. The King is mad.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Why would he do this?

  OLD MAN Oracles. Oracles … so the army can sail to Troy and Helen be brought back restored to Menelaus.

  CLYTEMNESTRA How do you know?

  OLD MAN I was sent with a second letter to you, in lieu of the first, it said, “Do not come to Aulis, do not bring Iphigenia here.” Menelaus met me and intercepted it … he is behind it … so is the prophet Calchas and crafty Odysseus … Achilles was a husband in name only, the marriage promise was a snare.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I think I see.

  ACHILLES I should not have spoken to you as I did. My pride was pricked. I am sometimes hasty.

  CLYTEMNESTRA As befits a warrior.

  ACHILLES Your husband used my name and fame for his own base ends.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Think how I feel, drawn in by his honeyed wooing, a wife of many years, this child is an angel, she thinks her father supreme above all.

  ACHILLES He will not succeed in this malevolent scheme.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I fear it is already commenced. He left here hurriedly, no doubt to confer with Calchas the prophet.

  ACHILLES Prophets serve their own interests, they say what suits the moment.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Yet they can wreak magic too.

  ACHILLES Let Calchas wreak good magic then.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I am at your mercy. Guide me.

  ACHILLES Act cunningly. When he returns draw him out as to what is weighing upon him, do it with your old sweetness, say you have observed his gloom, bring him round to a better mind.

  CLYTEMNESTRA And then?

  ACHILLES Together you will find a way to spirit her off to safety.

  CLYTEMNESTRA What if we are not together but more divided?

  ACHILLES As I live, I shall save the girl.

  CLYTEMNESTRA O prince of princes, can that be true?

  ACHILLES The army respect me, despite my young years. I will convene the generals, they are not fiends, they are not gutless knaves.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Would it not be better if you spoke with him in all your prestige?

  ACHILLES Not yet. My place in the army must not be compromised. Take the course I counsel.

  CLYTEMNESTRA If I fail …

  ACHILLES Then you may send for me.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You are aware how cruel he can be, how ruthless?

  ACHILLES I was not brought up to flinch in the face of danger. I no longer see him as my master, for I am his.

  CLYTEMNESTRA For you I garlanded her, I brought her here for you. Let me ask you one last thing—see her and your heart will melt, so young, so shy, so modest, so full of trust.

  ACHILLES Do not bring her into my sight—a soldier does not court the things that make him weak.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You will save her from death?

  ACHILLES I have said so.

  Achilles goes up the ladder. Clytemnestra watches.

  The music and revels from inside grow louder.

  Agamemnon appears on the top rung of the ladder.

  The Old Man goes.

  Agamemnon comes down.

  AGAMEMNON They are singing within.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Indeed … singing and dancing.

  AGAMEMNON They seem very merry.

  CLYTEMNESTRA And you … you seem solemn … would it not help to unburden yourself … to let me know of this gravity.

  AGAMEMNON Where do I begin. The yoke of circumstance … here in Aulis I am not a free man … a violent rage, a supernatural rage possesses them.

  CLYTEMNESTRA And has infected you. You have a notion to kill your own daughter.

  AGAMEMNON Who said such a thing? Who dares accuse me of this?

  CLYTEMNESTRA It is written across your face. The moment we arrived I saw that some dreadful constraint was upon you … the way you twisted and turned and could not look in my eye or in hers.

  AGAMEMNON Whoever spread this rumor shall be mortally punished.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Isn’t one death enough to contemplate in one day, your own daughter’s at that. Who will draw the sword across her child’s neck?

  Echo of “Who will draw the sword across her child’s neck” twice.

  AGAMEMNON I will.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Who will slit it?

  Echo of “Who will slit it” once.

  AGAMEMNON I will.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Who will hold the cup for the … torrent of blood?

  AGAMEMNON I will.

  CLYTEMNESTRA The blade will fall from your hand.

  AGAMEMNON Others will raise it up.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Others. Lesser men. Menials. Stand up to them, show courage, or are you so eager to parade your scepter and play the general.

  AGAMEMNON I do not count her wise, a wife, who when her husband is on the rack goads him further. Think what I have been through, think of how I have suffered, tossed from love to duty and back again, like a puppet.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I will not let this happen.

  Defy Artemis.

  AGAMEMNON Defy her and risk her greater wrath … murder for all of us … you, me, Iphigenia, the baby …. it is out of my hands, even though my hand will be the doer of it.

  Clytemnestra realizes that he is serious and rounds on him now, striking him.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You killed the child I bore from Tantalus, you tore it from my breast and dashed it to the ground, murderer …

  AGAMEMNON A murderer’s accomplice—you came with me, your tresses unbound.

  CLYTEMNESTRA I did it for my poor aged father’s sake—he whom you tricked with your honeyed words, the way you tricked me.

  AGAMEMNON Sister of Helen, daughter of Leda, sisters in lust.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You dare lump me in with Helen! I grew temperate in Aphrodite’s realm, a blameless wife toward you and your household … I bore you children … Iphigenia, her sisters, and little Orestes, who is in there now with her, two children believing themselves to be safe in their parents’ quarters, under their parents’ tutelage.

  AGAMEMNON From the moment I received the oracle I have been mad, mad. Phantom females dripping with blood visit me in my sleep.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Huh. Phantom females.

  AGAMEMNON I love my child as much and more than any father could.

  CLYTEMNESTRA What prayers will you utter after she is dead. Do you think when you come home to Argos your other children will embrace you, your wife will welcome you back—God forbid it.

  AGAMEMNON Be my companion in this … help me.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Let Helen’s daughter He
rmione be sacrificed, it is only right, she too is young and fair, tell Menelaus to send for her and let her be swapped for our darling girl.

  AGAMEMNON Iphigenia was named as being the most pure, the one marked for godhead.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Then Achilles must save her.

  AGAMEMNON Achilles must not know of this.

  CLYTEMNESTRA He knows. He was here when the message was relayed to me, not by one … but by more than one … he smarted at being used as a foil … a mockery of his standing … but he gave me his word that Iphigenia will be saved.

  AGAMEMNON Would that she could.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Let us flee now, as a family, call the children. Let us outwit them … arrange for the carriage. Do it.

  AGAMEMNON It’s no use.

  CLYTEMNESTRA You speak as if the deed is already done.

  AGAMEMNON It is.

  From his back pocket he takes out a bloodied knife and she screams repeatedly.

  AGAMEMNON (cont.) I slew a lamb in preparation.

  Iphigenia runs out at hearing her mother’s scream.

  IPHIGENIA Mother! Why are you screaming? Are you and father arguing … but why, I am so happy … be happy with me …. don’t spoil it … I have been hearing about my husband … his feet are like the wind and he races on the shore against a four-horse chariot, lap after lap, day after day. O Mother, O Father, I thank you for giving me life, for being always so loving and so gentle with me … I thank you for Achilles, they say too that he sits alone, even at the feast, he is Achilles the unreachable and I shall have to humor him, the way I humor you … father.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Tell her.

  AGAMEMNON Iphigenia … child of my heart. I did not bring you here of my own free will, nor are you betrothed to Achilles.

  IPHIGENIA Why not?

  CLYTEMNESTRA Your father intends to sacrifice you to Artemis the goddess.

  IPHIGENIA What a tall story.

  AGAMEMNON The gods have willed it.

  IPHIGENIA I begin to go cold.

  Agamemnon exits.

  Girls from inside the house have come out to listen.

  IPHIGENIA Let’s get Orestes and run away.

  CLYTEMNESTRA We can’t … we are watched on every side. I will have you escorted to Achilles’ tent … to plead with him.

  IPHIGENIA No … no … the shame is too much … the shame on him and on me.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Show him how you feel … reveal it … give him the bait and he will take it … he is young, virile.

  IPHIGENIA I can’t do it, Mother.

  CLYTEMNESTRA This is no time for delicacy.

  IPHIGENIA My father will save me.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Your father killed my first husband Tantalus … the babe of that first husband he wrenched it from my breast and smashed it to the ground. Pray that you do not cause me a bitterer grief.

  A PRAYING GIRL comes on.

  Agamemnon returns.

  IPHIGENIA How far is Troy … I will come with you.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Let her hear it from your own lips … tell her that she is to be slaughtered in order to bring Helen back.

  IPHIGENIA I know nothing of Helen … I love life … why would I have to die for her sake?

  AGAMEMNON Artemis wills it.

  IPHIGENIA Why would Artemis pick on me?

  AGAMEMNON On account of being ripe for beatitude.

  IPHIGENIA Beatitude.

  Iphigenia crosses to the Praying Girl muttering the word “Beatitude.”

  Praying Girl kneels and rings the bell repeatedly.

  Witch starts to sway, working herself into a trance.

  PRAYING GIRL

  So gentle are you, Artemis the holy

  So loving are you, to dewy youth to tender nursling.

  The young of all that roam the meadow

  Of all who live within the forest

  You protect

  Hear us, Artemis

  Do not have your altar stained

  With human blood.

  Praying Girl waits and they all wait.

  Sounds like thunderclaps offstage.

  PRAYING GIRL (cont.) Sshh. Sshh. The goddess speaks …

  Witch tears open her coat to reveal her goddess attire.

  Artemis speaks through the Witch.

  ARTEMIS

  Would that Paris had died

  On the lonely mountain where he was left

  Cast out to die on an oracle’s command

  Hapless, unmothered

  Paris the shepherd lad, prince of Troy

  Would that he had died

  By the lakeside

  By the nymph-haunted fountains

  By the meadows, starry with roses

  Would that he had perished

  But no

  Beauty’s queen came

  Child of the long-necked swan

  The blame for all those troubles.

  Iphigenia

  Child without blemish

  Blessed above all the maidens

  Undo these wrongs.

  The altar is well prepared

  The blood of the lamb upon the pyre

  Say your farewells

  For it is time

  For it is time

  Swap your raiment

  Revere the sacrifice

  Not with wailing

  But with prayer

  When you have fulfilled your destiny

  You shall be raised among the blessed

  And our dear land will honor you for ever

  For it is time

  For it is time.

  Iphigenia runs to her father.

  IPHIGENIA Save me.

  AGAMEMNON I can’t.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Vile Helen, I curse you now in whosoever’s arms you bask, the swan’s neck I hack with daggers, those gray dreaming eyes I gouge from their sockets; or better still, O daughters of Nereus, bring her here that I may maul her with my own hands.

  AGAMEMNON A mother in name only, harken to the child with soothing prayer.

  O golden hair, what burden Phrygia’s town has laid upon you.

  IPHIGENIA No, the Greeks my own people are doing it to me.

  AGAMEMNON That rage of my army is not against you, child, but a mad rage to sail to the barbarian land, to quash them and put an end to their rape of our women … Greek women … Greek wives … Greek daughters defiled. Greek men will not permit that most loathsome of crimes. It is not for Helen, not for Menelaus I sacrifice you, it is for Greece. She must be free. If it is in our power, yours and mine, to make her so, we must.

  IPHIGENIA It falls to me alone … without you.

  AGAMEMNON It does.

  IPHIGENIA If I had Orpheus’ eloquence … the voice to charm the rocks …. if I could bewitch with words, I would bewitch now … but I only have tears and prayers … and these I offer … like a suppliant … O Father, I press against you now … this body of mine … which my mother bore … do not destroy me before my time … I love the light … do not despatch me down to the netherworld … hell is dark and creepy and I have no friends there … I am your child … I basked in your love … the little games we played … you would close the folding door and I would squeak squeak and you would come back in with sugar plums and put them under my pillow … you were never cross with me … never haughty … never the King … I could coax you out of your moods and when you grew a beard, I studied it … I counted the hairs, I pulled on it and clung to you as I cling to you now, my first and last and only hope. In your old age I will welcome you into my own house with my own husband—whoever he be—I will have children to lighten your weary heart … look at me … give me a kiss … at least let me have that as a memory of you … if am to … if I am to die.

  SOLDIER rushes in.

  SOLDIER The anger of heaven is nothing to the anger of men. They had heard that Achilles wanted to save the young girl and they leaped upon him, seizing him by his helmet, swung him from his feet and as the first stone was thrown, a hail of stones were aimed at him to decapitate his head from his
neck.

  Menelaus comes in during his speech.

  SOLDIER (cont.) They would have killed him but that Odysseus said that even if Achilles had turned coward the sacrifice would be performed and so a few of his men that were loyal to him made a wall before him and took the stones.

  AGAMEMNON Did his own guard not save him?

  MENELAUS They were the first to turn against him—they called him lovesick because he pleaded for the girl.

  Achilles is carried in in the arms of two bodyguards.

  PRAYING GIRL O healer Phoebus, make great Achilles well again.

  GIRL TWO Thetis, come down and save your godly son.

  Iphigenia crosses and stands over him. She begins to take out the stones from his wounds. This is the turning point for her.

  Soldiers have climbed on the far side of the wall, calling her name.

  AGAMEMNON Get Odysseus to fend them back … tell him that …

  MENELAUS Tell him what?

  IPHIGENIA I will die.

  Let me save Hellas if that is what the gods want. What is one life compared with thousands. I will do it gloriously … I will put frightened thoughts out of my head.

  ACHILLES Shining one.

  IPHIGENIA Don’t stir.

  ACHILLES I swore to save you.

  IPHIGENIA You will be my chariot on the path across …

  ACHILLES I will die with you.

  IPHIGENIA And fail Greece—no. You risked your life for me and that is everything.

  ACHILLES Iphigenia … Pure star of our destiny.

  Clytemnestra slaps Iphigenia on the face to put sense into her.

  IPHIGENIA Mother, I am happy … and one must not love life too much.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Child’s talk … babble … you do not know what this means.

  IPHIGENIA I do know (pause) it is the end for me. Achilles tried to save me, one against all, and now I am alone.

  CLYTEMNESTRA When the blade rips into your flesh you will cry for mercy.

  IPHIGENIA Pray that I don’t. Pray that I draw courage from you and you from me, Mother. If we can’t give each other courage, who else can? We have lived a long time since we set out from home, the horses so frisky, the morning so young. Do not cut your hair, Mother, and do not go into mourning … you have my sisters and little Orestes who will grow into a man.

  OLD MAN Diverse are the natures of the mortals, she willing to die for valor and they willing to kill.

  Clytemnestra in a last desperate attempt holds Iphigenia’s face in her hands.