Triptych and Iphigenia (11 page)

CLYTEMNESTRA
   I am Clytemnestra, wife of the King and mother of Iphigenia.

Why do you run … join hands with me … as a happy prelude for the bridals.

ACHILLES
   Touch your hand! I could not face Agamemnon if I touched that which I have no right to.

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 Hermione 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.