So youth stole away, taking with it, as Iphigenia sadly thought, all the high things that inspire a fair young soul—the shining ideal, the simple and ardent faith, the generous emotion that leaps to sympathy and service. And at the moment of the opening of the play, when the ship that bears Orestes is being run ashore at Tauris, Iphigenia stands before her temple feeling hard and hopeless, dispossessed of all that is dear in life, and with every illusion long since fled. It is early morning, and Iphigenia has just emerged from the temple. There are a few lines of formal exposition: an involuntary cry of disgust at the blood-stained altar that is insulting the eye of day; and then a flow of troubled speech. “_Ah me! But what dark dreams, thou clear and morning sky I have to tell thee, can that bring them ease!_“[33] In the night that has just passed, she had dreamed of her home in Argos. She seemed to lie asleep there, with her maids around her, when suddenly an earthquake shook the palace; and running out of doors, she saw the great building reel and fall. Only one pillar remained; and as she watched it, she saw that brown hair waved about its head, and she heard it speak with a human voice. Then, in the strange confusion of dreams, she found herself fulfilling the office that she bears here in Tauris; and she washed the pillar clean for death, as it was her duty to wash the victims for the sacrifice. With pathetic readiness, Iphigenia has accepted the dream as an evil omen. The pillar of her father’s house must mean his son Orestes, whom she left a child in Argos all those years ago. Those whom she cleanses are doomed to die. What can the dream mean, therefore, save that her brother is dead? The conviction is so strong upon her that she at once decides to prepare the funeral rite. “_Therefore to my dead brother will I pour Such sacrifice, I on this bitter shore And he beyond great seas, as still I may._“[33] [Illustration: IPHIGENIA _M. Nonnenbruch_ _By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co. 133 New Bond St. W._ ] But hardly has she gone upon her errand when there is a sound of muffled voices approaching, and two youths enter, treading cautiously, and peering for danger on every side. They are Orestes and his friend Pylades, who have found their way up from the shore, and are searching for some means to carry out the god’s command. As they come before the temple, and note the grim signs of slain men on the altar and hanging from the roof, they realize that this is the very centre of their quest; and that they have now to face the most deadly peril of all.