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APPENDIX.
“ | By lot I will not die, for to such death |
No thanks are due, or glory—name it not. | |
If you accept me, if my offered life | |
Be grateful to you, willingly I give it | |
For these, but by constraint I will not die.” |
Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:
“ | Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach |
These youths in all things to be wise, like thee, | |
Naught will avail them more.” |
Macaria has the clear Minerva eye: Antigone's is deeper, and more capable of emotion, but calm. Iphigenia's, glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.
I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his “Dream of fair women,” has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circumstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jeptha's daughter, he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when
“ | I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became |
A solemn scorn of ills. | |
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell | |
That I subdued me to my father's will; | |
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, | |
Sweetens the spirit still. | |
Moreover it is written, that my race | |
Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh from Arroer | |
Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face | |
Glow'd as I look'd on her. | |
She locked her lips; she left me where I stood; | |
“Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar, |