now, and wisdom when it comes will be the wisdom of remorse.
The fears of Calchas were too well founded. On Chalcis' coast, by Aulis' rock-bound shore, winds came that kept the fleet in unwelcome rest, and famine and weariness wasted the strength of Greece. At last the seer spoke out in the name of Artemis, and called for a virgin's blood, the blood of Iphigenia. It was a hard choice for Agamemnon,—
"Dire doom! to disobey the Gods' commands!
More dire, my child, mine house's pride, to slay,
Dabbling in virgin blood a father's hands."
But necessity is overpowering,—
"So he endured to be the priest
In that child-slaughtering rite unblest,
The first-fruit offering of that host
In fatal war for a bad woman lost.
The prayers, the mute appeal to her hard sire,
Her youth, her virgin beauty,
Nought heeded they, the Chiefs for war on fire.
So to the ministers of that dire duty
(First having prayed) the father gave the sign,
Like some soft kid, to lift her to the shrine.
There lay she prone,
Her graceful garments round her thrown;
But first her beauteous mouth around
Their violent bonds they wound,
Lest her dread curse the fated house should smite
With their rude inarticulate might.
But she her saffron robe to earth let fall:
