This drama is one of the finest among Euripides’ works. It provides a marked contrast with the _Troades_; there is bitterness here indeed, but it is the bitterness of Voltaire rather than that of Swift. And whereas in the former play plot is almost non-existent, here it is vital. Perhaps the most brilliant piece of construction in Euripides is the celebrated Recognition-scene of this drama. Indeed the whole tragedy is the story of a plot, skilful and breathless. Iphigenia’s method—to deceive by telling the truth (about Orestes’ matricide)—was particularly dear to Greeks, connoisseurs of falsehood both in life and in literature; so beautifully does she succeed that (partly for her own amusement) she tells the king further the news she has just heard concerning her brother’s welfare. But the poet is no more the slave of his wit than of his sympathies, and we are brought to realization of the facts—namely, that the three Greeks are thieves and Iphigenia a traitress—by her own self-mockery: “Falsehood, thy name is Hellas,”[617] and by the simple generosity with which the prince accepts her suggestions. The second feature of importance is the atmosphere of adventure. A strange grim glamour lies upon this story of breathless dangers in a region which is itself a mystery and a menace. We must forget modern notions about South Russia, lines of steamboats, and Odessa as civilized as Hull. This kingdom of Thoas is as remote from Athens as Thibet or the Upper Congo from us; indeed at many points we recall the African stories of Sir Rider Haggard. Amid these ghastly altars, the secret fire and the cleft of death,[618] deserted seas and bloodthirsty savages, there is an infinite painful sweetness in Orestes’ reminder of a dusty heirloom in his sister’s bedchamber at home.[619] The poem is filled with suggestions of remoteness, the heaving of strange billows, legendary landing-places. Flowing from this is the home-sickness which breaks out again and again, in Pylades’ recollection, during his worst agony, of the winding Phocian glens,[620] and in the lyric songs where the Greek captives long to fly homeward with the halcyon to the hallowed places of Greece.[621]