Part 1 Summary

This classical Greek play continues the mythic, archetypal story told in several other Greek plays - The Oresteia by Aeschylus and the Electra's of Sophocles and Euripides, among others. Two long-lost children of the slaughtered king Agamemnon are reunited under surprising circumstances and plot to escape both their earthly imprisonment and servitude to the will of the gods. The play makes thematic statements, revolutionary in the world of pre-Christian religion, about the nature of, and relationship between, destiny and free will.

The play is set in the courtyard of a temple sacred to the goddess Artemis. Iphigenia comes out, and, in a long speech, explains who she is, how she came to Tauris, the way that she became a priestess, and her role in the rituals of the temple. She reveals that she is the daughter of the Greek king Agamemnon, and that...