H.D. (Hilda Doolittle): Euripides: The Chorus to Iphigeneia

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76,000 killed in #Syria last year: image via Belfast Telegraph @BelTel, 1 January 2015

(To Iphigeneia)

Your hair is scattered light:
The Greeks will bind it with petals.

And like a little beast,
Dappled and without horns,
That scampered on the hill-rocks,
They will leave you
With stained throat --
Though you never cropped hill-grass
To the reed-cry
And the shepherd's note.

Some Greek hero is cheated
And your mother's court
Of its bride.

And we ask this -- where truth is,
Of what use is valour and is worth?
For evil has conquered the race,
There is no power but in base men,
Nor any man whom the gods do not hate.

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961): Chorus to Iphigeneia, from Choruses from The Iphigeneia in Aulis and the Hippolytus of Euripides, The Egoist, London, 1919

@nytopinion on why donating to #WFP's #Syria appeal is a lifeline to #Syrian refugees: image via WFP UK @WFP_UK, 4 December 2014

Χορός

σὲ δ᾽ ἐπὶ κάρα στέψουσι καλλικόμαν
πλόκαμον Ἀργεῖοι, βαλιὰν
ὥστε πετραίων ἀπ᾽ ἄντρων
ἐλθοῦσαν ὀρέων
μόσχον ἀκήρατον, βρότειον
αἱμάσσοντες λαιμόν:
οὐ σύριγγι τραφεῖσαν οὐδ᾽
ἐν ῥοιβδήσεσι βουκόλων,
παρὰ δὲ ματέρι νυμφοκόμον
Ἰναχίδαις γάμον.
ποῦ τὸ τᾶς Αἰδοῦς
ἢ τὸ τᾶς Ἀρετᾶς ἔχει
σθένειν τι πρόσωπον,
ὁπότε τὸ μὲν ἄσεπτον ἔχει
δύνασιν, ἁ δ᾽ Ἀρετὰ κατόπι-
σθεν θνατοῖς ἀμελεῖται,
Ἀνομία δὲ νόμων κρατεῖ,
καὶ μὴ κοινὸς ἀγὼν βροτοῖς
μή τις θεῶν φθόνος ἔλθῃ;

Euripides 480-406 BC): Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι (Iphigeneia en Aulidi), written between 408-406 BC,  ll. 1080-1097 in Euripidis Fabulae, vol. 3, ed. Gilbert Murray, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913

  A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Turkey: photo by Bulent Kilic / AFP, 23 September 2014 via The Guardian, 29 December 2014

Chorus

But the Argives will crown you, wreathing the lovely tresses of your hair, like a pure, dappled heifer brought from some rocky cave, and staining with blood your human throat; though you were never reared among the piping and whistling of herdsmen, but at your mother's side, to be decked as the bride of a son of Inachus. Where now does the face of modesty or virtue have any strength? seeing that godlessness holds sway, and virtue is neglected by men and thrust behind them, lawlessness over law prevailing, and mortals no longer making common cause to keep the jealousy of gods from reaching them.

 

Euripides: Iphigenia in Aulis, ll. 1080-1097, in The Plays of Euripides, translated by E. P. Coleridge. Volume II. London. George Bell and Sons. 1891

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