Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris
Robert Potter, Ed.

Herdsman

Herdsman
[260] When we were driving the cattle, that feed in the forest, into the sea that flows through the Symplegades, there was a broken cleft, hollowed by the constant surge of waves, shelter for those who hunt the purple-fish. Here one of the herdsmen saw two youths, [265] and made a retreat on tip-toe. He said: “Don't you see them? These are deities that sit there.” One of us, who revered the gods, lifted up his hands and prayed, as he saw them: [270] “O son of the sea-goddess Leukothea, guardian of ships, lord Palaemon, be propitious to us! Or do you sit on our shores, twin sons of Zeus? Or the darlings of Nereus, father of the chorus of fifty Nereids?”

[275] Another, who was foolish and bold in his lawlessness, laughed at the prayers and asserted that ship-wrecked sailors were sitting on the cliff, in fear of our custom, having heard that we sacrifice strangers here. Most of us thought that he spoke well, [280] and that we ought to hunt down the customary offerings to the goddess. At this moment, one of the strangers left the rock, and stood, shaking his head up and down and groaning, with hands trembling, wandering in madness; and like a hunter, he cried aloud: [285] “Pylades, do you see her? Don't you see hell's dragon, how she wants to kill me, fringed with her dreadful vipers against me? and the one who breathes fire and slaughter from her robe and wings her way, my mother [290] in her arms—the rocky mass, how she hurls it at me! Ah, she will kill me! Where can I escape?” We could not see these shapes; but he alternated the sounds of sheep and howling of dogs . . . to send forth the Furies' imitations.