She asks what Helen and Paris have to do with her, or she with them, that she should perish in their quarrel. She makes the little Orestes kneel and clasp his hands in speechless prayer. At last the whole energy of her grief finds vent in words more thrilling even than Claudio's when he thinks of death: "Of all the joys that men can have, the sweetest is to live and see the light. The dead are nothing; only madmen pray for death; it is better to live miserably than to die gloriously." The effect of these passionate entreaties and of the lyrical outburst of anguish which follows is to make us feel the price of Iphigenia's sacrifice. She is no forlorn captive like Polyxena, but a princess in the very bloom and promise of her prime, affianced to Achilles, just entering upon the sweetness of new life divined "in rich foreshadowings of the world." How can she leave it all and go forth to dust and endless darkness? Yet her father has dropped one word which in her first passion of grief seems to be unheeded. "Hellas requires this of us both, my daughter--of you as far as in you lies, and of me also, in order that she should be free." When we next behold Iphigenia, his words had borne noble fruit. Clytemnestra and Achilles are devising how to save her. She enters, firm and resolute, but with the rapid utterance of exalted enthusiasm. Her determination has been taken. The duty laid upon her, the greatness of the glory, the grandeur of the part she has to play, had reconciled her to death. "Mother, listen to my words! The whole of mighty Hellas looks to me for her salvation and her freedom. How, then, should I be so life-loving as to shrink? And you, you did not bear me for yourself alone, but for all Greece. I give this my body for our land. Slay me; destroy the towers of Ilion. This shall be my everlasting monument, and this my children and my marriage and my fame." What follows in her dialogue with Clytemnestra and Achilles, Clytemnestra vainly seeking to overthrow her resolution, and Achilles blending his admiration of her heroism with regret that he should lose this flower of royalty, raises the unselfish passion of the girl to still sublimer height. She is not only firm, but exquisitely gentle. She thinks of her brother, whom she leaves behind. She entreats her mother to forgive Agamemnon. And even when she breaks into lamentation, her one sustaining thought remains, that she, she only, will overwhelm Troy, and bring the light of safety and of freedom upon Hellas. Here, then, in the #eupsychia# of Iphigenia, the antique thirst for glory is the determining motive; and her final resolution contradicts that first outcry of simple nature uttered to her father. The spiritual element, aflame with hope of everlasting honor, discards the cruder instincts that make men cling to life for life's sake only.