D.

The following extract from Spinoza is worthy of attention, as expressing the view which a man of the largest intellectual scope may take of Woman, if that part of his life to which her influence appeals has been left unawakened. He was a man of the largest intellect, of unsurpassed reasoning powers; yet he makes a statement false to history, for we well know how often men and women have ruled together without difficulty, and one in which very few men even at the present day--I mean men who are thinkers, like him--would acquiesce.

I have put in contrast with it three expressions of the latest literature.

First, from the poems of W. E. Channing, a poem called "Reverence," equally remarkable for the deep wisdom of its thought and the beauty of its utterance, and containing as fine a description of one class of women as exists in literature.

In contrast with this picture of Woman, the happy Goddess of Beauty, the wife, the friend, "the summer queen," I add one by the author of "Festus," of a woman of the muse, the sybil kind, which seems painted from living experience.

And, thirdly, I subjoin Eugene Sue's description of a wicked but able woman of the practical sort, and appeal to all readers whether a species that admits of three such varieties is so easily to be classed away, or kept within prescribed limits, as Spinoza, and those who think like him, believe.

SPINOZA. TRACTATUS POLITICI DE DEMOCRATIA. CAPUT XI.

Perhaps some one will here ask, whether the supremacy of Man over Woman is attributable to nature or custom? Since, if It be human institutions alone to which this fact is owing, there is no reason why we should exclude women from a share in government. Experience most plainly teaches that it is Woman's weakness which places her under the authority of Man. It has nowhere happened that men and women ruled together; but wherever men and women are found, the world over, there we see the men ruling and the women ruled, and in this order of things men and women live together in peace and harmony. The Amazons, it is true, are reputed formerly to have held the reins of government, but they drove men from their dominions; the male of their offspring they invariably destroyed, permitting their daughters alone to live. Now, if women were by nature upon an equality with men, if they equalled men in fortitude, in genius (qualities which give to men might, and consequently right), it surely would be the case, that, among the numerous and diverse nations of the earth, some would be found where both sexes ruled conjointly, and others where the men were ruled by the women, and so educated as to be mentally inferior; and since this state of things nowhere exists, it is perfectly fair to infer that the rights of women are not equal to those of men; but that women must be subordinate, and therefore cannot have an equal, far less a superior place in the government. If, too, we consider the passions of men--how the love men feel towards women is seldom anything but lust and impulse, and much less a reverence for qualities of soul than an admiration of physical beauty; observing, too, the jealousy of lovers, and other things of the same character--we shall see at a glance that it would be, in the highest degree, detrimental to peace and harmony, for men and women to possess on equal share in government.

REVERENCE.

As an ancestral heritage revere All learning, and all thought. The painter's fame Is thine, whate'er thy lot, who honorest grace. And need enough in this low time, when they, Who seek to captivate the fleeting notes Of heaven's sweet beauty, must despair almost, So heavy and obdurate show the hearts Of their companions. Honor kindly then Those who bear up in their so generous arms The beautiful ideas of matchless forms; For were these not portrayed, our human fate,-- Which is to be all high, majestical, To grow to goodness with each coming age, Till virtue leap and sing for joy to see So noble, virtuous men,--would brief decay; And the green, festering slime, oblivious, haunt About our common fate. O, honor them!

But what to all true eyes has chiefest charm, And what to every breast where beats a heart Framed to one beautiful emotion,--to One sweet and natural feeling, lends a grace To all the tedious walks of common life, This is fair Woman,--Woman, whose applause Each poet sings,--Woman the beautiful. Not that her fairest brow, or gentlest form, Charm us to tears; not that the smoothest cheek, Wherever rosy tints have made their home, So rivet us on her; but that she is The subtle, delicate grace,--the inward grace, For words too excellent; the noble, true, The majesty of earth; the summer queen; In whose conceptions nothing but what's great Has any right. And, O! her love for him, Who does but his small part in honoring her; Discharging a sweet office, sweeter none, Mother and child, friend, counsel and repose; Naught matches with her, naught has leave with her To highest human praise. Farewell to him Who reverences not with an excess Of faith the beauteous sex; all barren he Shall live a living death of mockery. Ah! had but words the power, what could we say Of Woman! We, rude men of violent phrase, Harsh action, even in repose inwardly harsh; Whose lives walk blustering on high stilts, removed From all the purely gracious influence Of mother earth. To single from the host Of angel forms one only, and to her Devote our deepest heart and deepest mind, Seems almost contradiction. Unto her We owe our greatest blessings, hours of cheer, Gay smiles, and sudden tears, and more than these A sure perpetual love. Regard her as She walks along the vast still earth; and see! Before her flies a laughing troop of joys, And by her side treads old experience, With never-failing voice admonitory; The gentle, though infallible, kind advice, The watchful care, the fine regardfulness, Whatever mates with what we hope to find, All consummate in her--the summer queen.

To call past ages better than what now Man is enacting on life's crowded stage, Cannot improve our worth; and for the world Blue is the sky as ever, and the stars Kindle their crystal flames at soft fallen eve With the same purest lustre that the east Worshipped. The river gently flows through fields Where the broad-leaved corn spreads out, and loads Its ear as when the Indian tilled the soil. The dark green pine,--green in the winter's cold,-- Still whispers meaning emblems, as of old; The cricket chirps, and the sweet eager birds In the sad woods crowd their thick melodies; But yet, to common eyes, life's poetry Something has faded, and the cause of this May be that Man, no longer at the shrine Of Woman, kneeling with true reverence, In spite of field, wood, river, stars and sea, Goes most disconsolate. A babble now, A huge and wind-swelled babble, fills the place Of that great adoration which of old Man had for Woman. In these days no more Is love the pith and marrow of Man's fate. Thou who in early years feelest awake To finest impulses from nature's breath, And in thy walk hearest such sounds of truth As on the common ear strike without heed, Beware of men around thee! Men are foul With avarice, ambition and deceit; The worst of all, ambition. This is life, Spent in a feverish chase for selfish ends, Which has no virtue to redeem its toil, But one long, stagnant hope to raise the self. The miser's life to this seems sweet and fair; Better to pile the glittering coin, than seek To overtop our brothers and our loves. Merit in this? Where lies it, though thy name Ring over distant lands, meeting the wind Even on the extremest verge of the wide world? Merit in this? Better be hurled abroad On the vast whirling tide, than, in thyself Concentred, feed upon thy own applause. Thee shall the good man yield no reverence; But, while the Idle, dissolute crowd are loud In voice to send thee flattery, shall rejoice That he has 'scaped thy fatal doom, and known How humble faith in the good soul of things Provides amplest enjoyment. O, my brother If the Past's counsel any honor claim From thee, go read the history of those Who a like path have trod, and see a fate Wretched with fears, changing like leaves at noon, When the new wind sings in the white birch wood. Learn from the simple child the rule of life, And from the movements of the unconscious tribes Of animal nature, those that bend the wing Or cleave the azure tide, content to be, What the great frame provides,--freedom and grace. Thee, simple child, do the swift winds obey, And the white waterfalls with their bold leaps Follow thy movements. Tenderly the light Thee watches, girding with a zone of radiance, And all the swinging herbs love thy soft steps.

DESCRIPTION OF ANGELA, FROM "FESTUS."

I loved her for that she was beautiful, And that to me she seemed to be all nature And all varieties of things in one; Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise All light and laughter in the morning; fear No petty customs nor appearances, But think what others only dreamed about; And say what others did but think; and do What others would but say; and glory in What others dared but do; it was these which won me; And that she never schooled within her breast One thought or feeling, but gave holiday To all; that she told me all her woes, And wrongs, and ills; and so she made them mine In the communion of love; and we Grew like each other, for we loved each other; She, mild and generous as the sun in spring; And I, like earth, all budding out with love.

* * * * *

The beautiful are never desolate; For some one alway loves them; God or man; If man abandons, God himself takes them; And thus it was. She whom I once loved died; The lightning loathes its cloud; the soul its clay. Can I forget the hand I took in mine, Pale as pale violets; that eye, where mind And matter met alike divine?--ah, no! May God that moment judge me when I do! O! she was fair; her nature once all spring And deadly beauty, like a maiden sword, Startlingly beautiful. I see her now! Wherever thou art thy soul is in my mind; Thy shadow hourly lengthens o'er my brain And peoples all its pictures with thyself; Gone, not forgotten; passed, not lost; thou wilt shine In heaven like a bright spot in the sun! She said she wished to die, and so she died, For, cloudlike, she poured out her love, which was Her life, to freshen this parched heart. It was thus; I said we were to part, but she said nothing; There was no discord; it was music ceased, Life's thrilling, bursting, bounding joy. She sate, Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee, And her dark hair lay loose and long behind her, Through which her wild bright eye flashed like a flint; She spake not, moved not, but she looked the more, As if her eye were action, speech, and feeling. I felt it all, and came and knelt beside her, The electric touch solved both our souls together; Then came the feeling which unmakes, undoes; Which tears the sea-like soul up by the roots, And lashes it in scorn against the skies.

* * * * *

It is the saddest and the sorest sight, One's own love weeping. But why call on God? But that the feeling of the boundless bounds All feeling; as the welkin does the world; It is this which ones us with the whole and God. Then first we wept; then closed and clung together; And my heart shook this building of my breast Like a live engine booming up and down; She fell upon me like a snow-wreath thawing. Never were bliss and beauty, love and woe, Ravelled and twined together into madness, As in that one wild hour to which all else The past is but a picture. That alone Is real, and forever there in front.

* * * * *

* * * After that I left her, And only saw her once again alive.

"Mother Saint Perpetua, the superior of the convent, was a tall woman, of about forty years, dressed in dark gray serge, with a long rosary hanging at her girdle. A white mob-cap, with a long black veil, surrounded her thin, wan face with its narrow, hooded border. A great number of deep, transverse wrinkles ploughed her brow, which resembled yellowish ivory in color and substance. Her keen and prominent nose was curved like the hooked beak of a bird of prey; her black eye was piercing and sagacious; her face was at once intelligent, firm, and cold.

"For comprehending and managing the material interests of the society, Mother Saint Perpetua could have vied with the shrewdest and most wily lawyer. When women are possessed of what is called _business talent_, and when they apply thereto the sharpness of perception, the indefatigable perseverance, the prudent dissimulation, and, above all, the correctness and rapidity of judgment at first sight, which are peculiar to them, they arrive at prodigious results.

"To Mother Saint Perpetua, a woman of a strong and solid head, the vast moneyed business of the society was but child's play. None better than she understood how to buy depreciated properties, to raise them to their original value, and sell them to advantage; the average purchase of rents, the fluctuations of exchange, and the current prices of shares in all the leading speculations, were perfectly familiar to her. Never had she directed her agents to make a single false speculation, when it had been the question how to invest funds, with which good souls were constantly endowing the society of Saint Mary. She had established in the house a degree of order, of discipline, and, above all, of economy, that were indeed remarkable; the constant aim of all her exertions being, not to enrich herself, but the community over which she presided; for the spirit of association, when it is directed to an object of _collective selfishness_, gives to corporations all the faults and vices of individuals."

* * * * *

E.

The following is an extract from a letter addressed to me by one of the monks of the nineteenth century. A part I have omitted, because it does not express my own view, unless with qualifications which I could not make, except by full discussion of the subject.

"Woman in the Nineteenth Century should be a pure, chaste, holy being.

"This state of being in Woman is no more attained by the expansion of her intellectual capacity, than by the augmentation of her physical force.

"Neither is it attained by the increase or refinement of her love for Man, or for any object whatever, or for all objects collectively; but

"This state of being is attained by the reference of all her powers and all her actions to the source of Universal Love, whose constant requisition is a pure, chaste and holy life.

"So long as Woman looks to Man (or to society) for that which she needs, she will remain in an indigent state, for he himself is indigent of it, and as much needs it as she does.

"So long as this indigence continues, all unions or relations constructed between Man and Woman are constructed in indigence, and can produce only indigent results or unhappy consequences.

"The unions now constructing, as well as those in which the parties constructing them were generated, being based on self-delight, or lust, can lead to no more happiness in the twentieth than is found in the nineteenth century.

"It is not amended institutions, it is not improved education, it is not another selection of individuals for union, that can meliorate the said result, but the _basis_ of the union must be changed.

"If in the natural order Woman and Man would adhere strictly to physiological or natural laws, in physical chastity, a most beautiful amendment of the human race, and human condition, would in a few generations adorn the world.

"Still, it belongs to Woman in the spiritual order, to devote herself wholly to her eternal husband, and become the Free Bride of the One who alone can elevate her to her true position, and reconstruct her a pure, chaste, and holy being."

F.

I have mislaid an extract from "The Memoirs of an American Lady," which I wished to use on this subject, but its import is, briefly, this:

Observing of how little consequence the Indian women are in youth, and how much in age, because in that trying life, good counsel and sagacity are more prized than charms, Mrs. Grant expresses a wish that reformers would take a hint from observation of this circumstance.

In another place she says: "The misfortune of our sex is, that young women are not regarded as the material from which old women must be made."

I quote from memory, but believe the weight of the remark is retained.

* * * * *

G.

EURIPIDES. SOPHOCLES.

As many allusions are made in the foregoing pages to characters of women drawn by the Greek dramatists, which may not be familiar to the majority of readers, I have borrowed from the papers of Miranda some notes upon them. I trust the girlish tone of apostrophising rapture may be excused. Miranda was very young at the time of writing, compared with her present mental age. _Now_, she would express the same feelings, but in a worthier garb--if she expressed them at all.

Iphigenia! Antigone! you were worthy to live! _We_ are fallen on evil times, my sisters; our feelings have been checked; our thoughts questioned; our forms dwarfed and defaced by a bad nurture. Yet hearts like yours are in our breasts, living, if unawakened; and our minds are capable of the same resolves. You we understand at once; those who stare upon us pertly in the street, we cannot--could never understand.

You knew heroes, maidens, and your fathers were kings of men. You believed in your country and the gods of your country. A great occasion was given to each, whereby to test her character.

You did not love on earth; for the poets wished to show us the force of Woman's nature, virgin and unbiased. You were women; not wives, or lovers, or mothers. Those are great names, but we are glad to see _you_ in untouched flower.

Were brothers so dear, then, Antigone? We have no brothers. We see no men into whose lives we dare look steadfastly, or to whose destinies we look forward confidently. We care not for their urns; what inscription could we put upon them? They live for petty successes, or to win daily the bread of the day. No spark of kingly fire flashes from their eyes.

None! are there _none_?

It is a base speech to say it. Yes! there are some such; we have sometimes caught their glances. But rarely have they been rocked in the same cradle as we, and they do not look upon us much; for the time is not yet come.

Thou art so grand and simple! we need not follow thee; thou dost not need our love.

But, sweetest Iphigenia! who knew _thee_, as to me thou art known? I was not born in vain, if only for the heavenly tears I have shed with thee. She will be grateful for them. I have understood her wholly, as a friend should; better than she understood herself.

With what artless art the narrative rises to the crisis! The conflicts in Agamemnon's mind, and the imputations of Menelaus, give us, at once, the full image of him, strong in will and pride, weak in virtue, weak in the noble powers of the mind that depend on imagination. He suffers, yet it requires the presence of his daughter to make him feel the full horror of what he is to do.

"Ah me! that breast, those cheeks, those golden tresses!"

It is her beauty, not her misery, that makes the pathos. This is noble. And then, too, the injustice of the gods, that she, this creature of unblemished loveliness, must perish for the sake of a worthless woman. Even Menelaus feels it the moment he recovers from his wrath.

"What hath she to do, The virgin daughter, with my Helena! * * Its former reasonings now My soul foregoes. * * * * For it is not just That thou shouldst groan, while my affairs go pleasantly, That those of thy house should die, and mine see the light."

Indeed, the overwhelmed aspect of the king of men might well move him.

"_Men_. Brother, give me to take thy right hand.

_Aga_. I give it, _for_ the victory is thine, and I am wretched. I am, indeed, ashamed to drop the tear, And not to drop the tear I am ashamed."

How beautifully is Iphigenia introduced; beaming more and more softly on us with every touch of description! After Clytemnestra has given Orestes (then an infant) out of the chariot, she says:

"Ye females, in your arms Receive her, for she is of tender age. Sit here by my feet, my child, By thy mother, Iphigenia, and show These strangers how I am blessed in thee, And here address thee to thy father.

_Iphi_. O, mother! should I run, wouldst thou be angry? And embrace my father heart to heart?"

With the same sweet, timid trust she prefers the request to himself, and, as he holds her in his arms, he seems as noble as Guido's Archangel; as if he never could sink below the trust of such a being!

The Achilles, in the first scene, is fine. A true Greek hero; not too good; all flushed with the pride of youth, but capable of godlike impulses. At first, he thinks only of his own wounded pride (when he finds Iphigenia has been decoyed to Aulis under the pretest of becoming his wife); but the grief of the queen soon makes him superior to his arrogant chafings. How well he says,

"_Far as a young man may_, I will repress So great a wrong!"

By seeing him here, we understand why he, not Hector, was the hero of the Iliad. The beautiful moral nature of Hector was early developed by close domestic ties, and the cause of his country. Except in a purer simplicity of speech and manner, he might be a modern and a Christian. But Achilles is cast in the largest and most vigorous mould of the earlier day. His nature is one of the richest capabilities, and therefore less quickly unfolds its meaning. The impression it makes at the early period is only of power and pride; running as fleetly with his armor on as with it off; but sparks of pure lustre are struck, at moments, from the mass of ore. Of this sort is his refusal to see the beautiful virgin he has promised to protect. None of the Grecians must have the right to doubt his motives, How wise and prudent, too, the advice he gives as to the queen's conduct! He will cot show himself unless needed. His pride is the farthest possible remote from vanity. His thoughts are as free as any in our own time.

"The prophet? what is he? a man Who speaks, 'mong many falsehoods, but few truths, Whene'er chance leads him to speak true; when false, The prophet is no more."

Had Agamemnon possessed like clearness of sight, the virgin would not have perished, but Greece would have had no religion and no national existence.

When, in the interview with Agamemnon, the queen begins her speech, in the true matrimonial style, dignified though her gesture be, and true all she says, we feel that truth, thus sauced with taunts, will not touch his heart, nor turn him from his purpose. But when Iphigenia, begins her exquisite speech, as with the breathings of a lute,--

"Had I, my father, the persuasive voice Of Orpheus, &c. Compel me not What is beneath to view. I was the first To call thee father; me thou first didst call Thy child. I was the first that on thy knees Fondly caressed thee, and from thee received The fond caress. This was thy speech to me:-- 'Shall I, my child, e'er see thee in some house Of splendor, happy in thy husband, live And flourish, as becomes my dignity?' My speech to thee was, leaning 'gainst thy cheek, (Which with my hand I now caress): 'And what Shall I then do for thee? Shall I receive My father when grown old, and in my house Cheer him with each fond office, to repay The careful nurture which he gave my youth?' These words are in my memory deep impressed; Thou hast forgot them, and will kill thy child."

Then she adjures him by all the sacred ties, and dwells pathetically on the circumstance which had struck even Menelaus.

"If Paris be enamored of his bride, His Helen,--what concerns it me? and how Comes he to my destruction? Look upon me; Give me a smile, give me a kiss, my father; That, if my words persuade thee not, in death I may have this memorial of thy love."

Never have the names of father and daughter been uttered with a holier tenderness than by Euripides, as in this most lovely passage, or in the "Supplicants," after the voluntary death of Evadne. Iphis says:

"What shall this wretch now do? Should I return To my own house?--sad desolation there I shall behold, to sink my soul with grief. Or go I to the house of Capaneus? That was delightful to me, when I found My daughter there; but she is there no more. Oft would she kiss my check, with fond caress Oft soothe me. To a father, waxing old, Nothing is dearer than a daughter! Sons Have spirits of higher pitch, but less inclined To sweet, endearing fondness. Lead me then, Instantly lead me to my house; consign My wretched age to darkness, there to pine And waste away. Old age, Struggling with many griefs, O, how I hate thee!"

But to return to Iphigenia,--how infinitely melting is her appeal to Orestes, whom she holds in her robe!

"My brother, small assistance canst thou give Thy friends; yet for thy sister with thy tears Implore thy father that she may not die. Even infants have a sense of ills; and see, My father! silent though he be, he sues To thee. Be gentle to me; on my life Have pity. Thy two children by this beard Entreat thee, thy dear children; one is yet An infant, one to riper years arrived."

The mention of Orestes, then an infant, though slight, is of a domestic charm that prepares the mind to feel the tragedy of his after lot. When the queen says,

"Dost thou sleep, My son? The rolling chariot hath subdued thee; Wake to thy sister's marriage happily."

we understand the horror of the doom which makes this cherished child a parricide. And so, when Iphigenia takes leave of him after her fate is by herself accepted,--

"_Iphi_. To manhood train Orestes. _Cly_. Embrace him, for thou ne'er shalt see him more. _Iphi_. (_To Orestes_.) Far as thou couldst, thou didst assist thy friends,"--

we know not how to blame the guilt of the maddened wife and mother. In her last meeting with Agamemnon, as in her previous expostulations and anguish, we see that a straw may turn the balance, and make her his deadliest foe. Just then, came the suit of Aegisthus,--then, when every feeling was uprooted or lacerated in her heart.

Iphigenia's moving address has no further effect than to make her father turn at bay and brave this terrible crisis. He goes out, firm in resolve; and she and her mother abandon themselves to a natural grief.

Hitherto nothing has been seen in Iphigenia, except the young girl, weak, delicate, full of feeling, and beautiful as a sunbeam on the full, green tree. But, in the next scene, the first impulse of that passion which makes and unmakes us, though unconfessed even to herself, though hopeless and unreturned, raises her at once into the heroic woman, worthy of the goddess who demands her.

Achilles appears to defend her, whom all others clamorously seek to deliver to the murderous knife. She sees him, and, fired with thoughts unknown before, devotes herself at once for the country which has given birth to such a man.

"To be too fond of life Becomes not me; nor for myself alone, But to all Greece, a blessing didst thou bear me. Shall thousands, when their country's injured, lift Their shields? shall thousands grasp the oar and dare, Advancing bravely 'gainst the foe, to die For Greece? And shall my life, my single life, Obstruct all this? Would this be just? What word Can we reply? Nay more, it is not right That he with all the Grecians should contest In fight, should die, _and for a woman_. No! More than a thousand women is one man Worthy to see the light of day. * * * for Greece I give my life. Slay me! demolish Troy! for these shall be Long time my monuments, my children these, My nuptials and my glory."

This sentiment marks Woman, when she loves enough to feel what a creature of glory and beauty a true _Man_ would be, as much in our own time as that of Euripides. Cooper makes the weak Hetty say to her beautiful sister:

"Of course, I don't compare you with Harry. A handsome man is always far handsomer than any woman." True, it was the sentiment of the age, but it was the first time Iphigenia had felt it. In Agamemnon she saw _her father_; to him she could prefer her claim. In Achilles she saw a _Man_, the crown of creation, enough to fill the world with his presence, were all other beings blotted from its spaces. [Footnote: Men do not often reciprocate this pure love.

"Her prentice han' she tried on man, And then she made the lasses o',"

is a fancy, not a feeling, in their more frequently passionate and strong than noble or tender natures.]

The reply of Achilles is as noble. Here is his bride; he feels it now, and all his vain vaunting are hushed.

"Daughter of Agamemnon, highly blest Some god would make me, if I might attain Thy nuptials. Greece in thee I happy deem, And thee in Greece. * * * in thy thought Revolve this well; death is a dreadful thing."

How sweet it her reply,--and then the tender modesty with which she addresses him here and elsewhere as "_stranger_"

"Reflecting not on any, thus I speak: Enough of wars and slaughters from the charms Of Helen rise; but die not thou for me, O Stranger, nor distain thy sword with blood, But let me save my country if I may.

_Achilles_. O glorious spirit! naught have I 'gainst this To urge, since such thy will, for what thou sayst Is generous. Why should not the truth be spoken?"

But feeling that human weakness may conquer yet, he goes to wait at the alter, resolved to keep his promise of protection thoroughly.

In the next beautiful scene she shows that a few tears might overwhelm her in his absence. She raises her mother beyond weeping them, yet her soft purity she cannot impart.

"_Iphi_. My father, and my husband do not hate; _Cly_. For thy dear sake fierce contest must he bear. _Iphi_. For Greece reluctant me to death he yields; _Cly_. Basely, with guile unworthy Atreus' son."

This is truth incapable of an answer, and Iphigenia attempts none.

She begins the hymn which is to sustain her:

"Lead me; mine the glorious fate, To o'erturn the Phrygian state."

After the sublime flow of lyric heroism, she suddenly sinks back into the tenderer feeling of her dreadful fate.

"O my country, where these eyes Opened on Pelasgic skies! O ye virgins, once my pride, In Mycenae who abide!

CHORUS.

Why of Perseus, name the town, Which Cyclopean ramparts crown?

IPHIGENIA

Me you reared a beam of light, Freely now I sink in night."

_Freely_; as the messenger afterwards recounts it.

* * * * *

"Imperial Agamemnon, when he saw His daughter, as a victim to the grave, Advancing, groaned, and, bursting into tears, Turned from the sight his head, before his eyes, Holding his robe. The virgin near him stood, And thus addressed him: 'Father, I to thee Am present; for my country, and for all The land of Greece, I freely give myself A victim: to the altar let them lead me, Since such the oracle. If aught on me Depends, be happy, and obtain the prize Of glorious conquest, and revisit safe Your country. Of the Grecians, for this cause, Let no one touch me; with intrepid spirit Silent will I present my neck.' She spoke, And all that heard revered the noble soul And virtue of the virgin."

How quickly had the fair bud bloomed up into its perfection! Had she lived a thousand years, she could not have surpassed this. Goethe's Iphigenia, the mature Woman, with its myriad delicate traits, never surpasses, scarcely equals, what we know of her in Euripides.

Can I appreciate this work in a translation? I think so, impossible as it may seem to one who can enjoy the thousand melodies, and words in exactly the right place, and cadence of the original. They say you can see the Apollo Belvidere in a plaster cast, and I cannot doubt it, so great the benefit conferred on my mind by a transcript thus imperfect. And so with these translations from the Greek. I can divine the original through this veil, as I can see the movements of a spirited horse by those of his coarse grasscloth muffler. Besides, every translator who feels his subject is inspired, and the divine Aura informs even his stammering lips.

Iphigenia is more like one of the women Shakspeare loved than the others; she is a tender virgin, ennobled and strengthened by sentiment more than intellect; what they call a Woman _par excellence_.

Macaria is more like one of Massinger's women. She advances boldly, though with the decorum of her sex and nation:

"_Macaria_. Impute not boldness to me that I come Before you, strangers; this my first request I urge; for silence and a chaste reserve Is Woman's genuine praise, and to remain Quiet within the house. But I come forth, Hearing thy lamentations, Iolaus; Though charged with no commission, yet perhaps I may be useful." * *

Her speech when she offers herself as the victim is reasonable, as one might speak to-day. She counts the cost all through. Iphigenia is too timid and delicate to dwell upon the loss of earthly bliss and the due experience of life, even as much as Jephtha'a daughter did; but Macaria is explicit, as well befits the daughter of Hercules.

"Should _these_ die, myself Preserved, of prosperous future could I form One cheerful hope? A poor forsaken virgin who would deign To take in marriage? Who would wish for sons From one so wretched? Better then to die, Than bear such undeserved miseries; One less illustrious this might more beseem.

* * * * *

I have a soul that unreluctantly Presents itself, and I proclaim aloud That for my brothers and myself I die. I am not fond of life, but think I gain An honorable prize to die with glory."

Still nobler when Iolaus proposes rather that she shall draw lots with her sisters.

"By _lot_ I will not die, for to such death No thanks are due, or glory--name it not. If you accept me, if my offered life Be grateful to you, willingly I give it For these; but by constraint I will not die."

Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:

"Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach These youths in all things to be wise, like thee, Naught will avail them more."

Macaria has the clear Minerva eye; Antigone's is deeper and more capable of emotion, but calm; Iphigenia's glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.

I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his "Dream of fair Women," has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circumstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jephtha's daughter he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when

"I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became A solemn scorn of Ills.

It comforts me in this one thought to dwell-- That I subdued me to my father's will; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still.

Moreover it is written, that my race Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh, from Arroer Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face Glowed as I looked on her.

She looked her lips; she left me where I stood; 'Glory to God,' she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the woods, Toward the morning-star."

In the "Trojan dames" there are fine touches of nature with regard to Cassandra. Hecuba shows that mixture of shame and reverence that prose kindred always do, towards the inspired child, the poet, the elected sufferer for the race.

When the herald announces that she is chosen to be the mistress of Agamemnon, Hecuba answers indignant, and betraying the involuntary pride and faith she felt in this daughter.

"The virgin of Apollo, whom the God, Radiant with golden looks, allowed to live. In her pure vow of maiden chastity? _Tal_. With love the raptured virgin smote his heart. _Hec_. Cast from thee, O my daughter, cast away Thy sacred wand; rend off the honored wreaths, The splendid ornaments that grace thy brows."

But the moment Cassandra appears, singing wildly her inspired song, Hecuba, calls her

"My _frantic_ child."

Yet how graceful she is in her tragic phrenzy, the chorus shows--

"How sweetly at thy house's ills thou smilest, Chanting what haply thou wilt not show true!"

But if Hecuba dares not trust her highest instinct about her daughter, still less can the vulgar mind of the herald (a man not without tenderness of heart, but with no princely, no poetic blood) abide the wild, prophetic mood which insults his prejudices both as to country and decorums of the sex. Yet Agamemnon, though not a noble man, is of large mould, and could admire this strange beauty which excited distaste in common minds.

"_Tal_. What commands respect, and is held high As wise, is nothing better than the mean Of no repute; for this most potent king Of all the Grecians, the much-honored son Of Atreus, is enamored with his prize, This frantic raver. I am a poor man, Yet would I not receive her to my bed."

Cassandra answers, with a careless disdain,

"This is a busy slave."

With all the lofty decorum of manners among the ancients, how free was their intercourse, man to man, how full the mutual understanding between prince and "busy slave!" Not here in adversity only, but in the pomp of power it was so. Kings were approached with ceremonious obeisance, but not hedged round with etiquette; they could see and know their fellows.

The Andromache here is just as lovely as that of the Iliad.

To her child whom they are about to murder, the same that was frightened at the "glittering plume," she says,

"Dost thou weep, My son? Hast thou a sense of thy ill fate? Why dost thou clasp me with thy hands, why hold My robes, and shelter thee beneath my wings, Like a young bird? No more my Hector comes, Returning from the tomb; he grasps no more His glittering spear, bringing protection to thee."

* * * * *

* * "O, soft embrace, And to thy mother dear. O, fragrant breath! In vain I swathed thy infant limbs, in vain I gave thee nurture at this breast, and tolled, Wasted with care. _If ever_, now embrace, Now clasp thy mother; throw thine arms around My neck, and join thy cheek, thy lips to mine."

As I look up, I meet the eyes of Beatrice Cenci, Beautiful one! these woes, even, were less than thine, yet thou seemest to understand them all. Thy clear, melancholy gaze says, they, at least, had known moments of bliss, and the tender relations of nature had not been broken and polluted from the very first. Yes! the gradations of woe are all but infinite: only good can be infinite.

Certainly the Greeks knew more of real home intercourse and more of Woman than the Americans. It is in vain to tell me of outward observances. The poets, the sculptors, always tell the truth. In proportion as a nation is refined, women _must_ have an ascendency. It is the law of nature.

Beatrice! thou wert not "fond of life," either, more than those princesses. Thou wert able to cut it down in the full flower of beauty, as an offering to _the best_ known to thee. Thou wert not so happy as to die for thy country or thy brethren, but thou wert worthy of such an occasion.

In the days of chivalry, Woman was habitually viewed more as an ideal; but I do not know that she inspired a deeper and more home-felt reverence than Iphigenia in the breast of Achilles, or Macarla in that of her old guardian, Iolaus.

We may, with satisfaction, add to these notes the words to which Haydn has adapted his magnificent music in "The Creation."

"In native worth and honor clad, with beauty, courage, strength adorned, erect to heaven, and tall, he stands, a Man!--the lord and king of all! The large and arched front sublime of wisdom deep declares the seat, and in his eyes with brightness shines the soul, the breath and image of his God. With fondness leans upon his breast the partner for him formed,--a woman fair, and graceful spouse. Her softly smiling virgin looks, of flowery spring the mirror, bespeak him love, and joy and bliss."

Whoever has heard this music must have a mental standard as to what Man and Woman should be. Such was marriage in Eden when "erect to heaven _he_ stood;" but since, like other institutions, this must be not only reformed, but revived, the following lines may be offered as a picture of something intermediate,--the seed of the future growth:--

H.

THE SACRED MARRIAGE.

And has another's life as large a scope? It may give due fulfilment to thy hope, And every portal to the unknown may ope.

If, near this other life, thy inmost feeling Trembles with fateful prescience of revealing The future Deity, time is still concealing;

If thou feel thy whole force drawn more and more To launch that other bark on seas without a shore; And no still secret must be kept in store;

If meannesses that dim each temporal deed, The dull decay that mars the fleshly weed, And flower of love that seems to fall and leave no seed--

Hide never the full presence from thy sight Of mutual aims and tasks, ideals bright, Which feed their roots to-day on all this seeming blight.

Twin stars that mutual circle in the heaven, Two parts for spiritual concord given, Twin Sabbaths that inlock the Sacred Seven;

Still looking to the centre for the cause, Mutual light giving to draw out the powers, And learning all the other groups by cognizance of one another's laws.

The parent love the wedded love includes; The one permits the two their mutual moods; The two each other know, 'mid myriad multitudes;

With child-like intellect discerning love, And mutual action energising love, In myriad forms affiliating love.

A world whose seasons bloom from pole to pole, A force which knows both starting-point and goal, A Home in Heaven,--the Union in the Soul.