Part 20
Danaüs and Aegyptus, brothers, and descendants of Io and Epaphus, had settled near Canopus at the mouth of the Nile. Aegyptus sought to unite his fifty sons in marriage with the fifty daughters of the brother. The daughters fled with their father to Argos. Here his play opens. The Chorus appeal for protection to the country, once the home of Io, and to its gods and heroes. Pelasgus, with the consent of the Argive people, grants them refuge, and at the end of the play repels the attempt to seize them made by the Herald of the sons of Aegyptus.
A part of one of the choruses is of singular beauty, and it is doubtless to them that the preservation of the play is due. The play hardly seems to be a tragedy, for it ends without bloodshed. Further, it lacks dramatic interest, for the action almost stands still. It is a cantata rather than a tragedy. Both considerations, however, are sufficiently explained by the fact that this was the first play of a trilogy. The remaining plays must have furnished, in the death of forty-nine of the sons of Aegyptus, both action and tragedy in sufficient measure to satisfy the most exacting demands.
The 'Seven Against Thebes' deals with the gloomy myth of the house of Laïus. The tetralogy to which it belonged consisted of the 'Laïus,' 'Oedipus,' 'Seven Against Thebes,' and 'Sphinx.' The themes of Greek tragedy were drawn from the national mythology, but the myths were treated with a free hand. In his portrayal of the fortunes of this doomed race, Aeschylus departed in important particulars, with gain in dramatic effect, from the story as it is read in Homer.
Oedipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, for their unfilial neglect,--"they should one day divide their land by steel." They thereupon agreed to reign in turn, each for a year; but Eteocles, the elder, refused at the end of the first year to give up the throne. Polynices appealed to Adrastus King of Argos for help, and seven chiefs appeared before the walls of Thebes to enforce his claim, and beleaguered the town. Here the play opens, with an appeal addressed by Eteocles to the citizens of Thebes to prove themselves stout defenders of their State in its hour of peril. A messenger enters, and describes the sacrifice and oath of the seven chiefs. The Chorus of Theban maidens enter in confusion and sing the first ode. The hostile army is hurrying from its camp against the town; the Chorus hear their shouts and the rattling din of their arms, and are overcome by terror. Eteocles reproves them for their fears, and bids them sing a paean that shall hearten the people. The messenger, in a noteworthy scene, describes the appearance of each hostile chief. The seventh and last is Polynices. Eteocles, although conscious of his father's curse, nevertheless declares with gloomy resoluteness that he will meet his brother in single combat, and, resisting the entreaties of the Chorus, goes forth to his doom. The attack on the town is repelled, but the brothers fall, each by the other's hand. Thus is the curse fulfilled. Presently their bodies are wheeled in. Their sisters, Antigone and Ismene, follow and sing a lament over the dead. A herald announces that the Theban Senate forbid the burial of Polynices; his body shall be cast forth as prey of dogs. Antigone declares her resolution to brave their mandate, and perform the last sad rites for her brother.
"Dread tie, the common womb from which we sprang,-- Of wretched mother born and hapless sire."
The Chorus divides. The first semi-chorus sides with Antigone; the second declares its resolution to follow to its last resting-place the body of Eteocles. And thus the play ends. The theme is here sketched, just at the close of the play, in outline, that Sophocles has developed with such pathetic effect in his 'Antigone.'
The 'Prometheus' transports the reader to another world. The characters are gods, the time is the remote past, the place a desolate waste in Scythia, on the confines of the Northern Ocean. Prometheus had sinned against the authority of Zeus. Zeus wished to destroy the old race of mankind; but Prometheus gave them fire, taught them arts and handicrafts, developed in them thought and consciousness, and so assured both their existence and their happiness. The play deals with his punishment. Prometheus is borne upon the scene by Force and Strength, and is nailed to a lofty cliff by Hephaestus. His appeal to Nature, when his tormentors depart and he is left alone, is peculiarly pathetic. The daughters of Oceanus, constituting the Chorus, who have heard the sound of the hammer in their ocean cave, are now borne in aloft on a winged car, and bewail the fate of the outraged god. Oceanus appears upon a winged steed, and offers his mediation; but this is scornfully rejected. The resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the last is strengthened by the coming of Io. She too, as it seems, is a victim of the Ruler of the Universe; driven by the jealous wrath of Hera, she roams from land to land. She tells the tale of her sad wandering, and finally rushes from the scene in frenzy, crazed by the sting of the gadfly that Hera has sent to torment her. Prometheus knows a secret full of menace to Zeus. Relying on this, he prophesies his overthrow, and defies him to do his worst. Hermes is sent to demand with threats its revelation, but fails to accomplish his purpose. Prometheus insults and taunts him. Hermes warns the Chorus to leave, for Zeus is about to display his wrath. At first they refuse, but then fly affrighted: the cliff is rending and sinking, the elements are in wild tumult. As he sinks, about to be engulfed in the bowels of the earth, Prometheus cries:--
"Earth is rocking in space! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And aether goes mingling in storm with the sea."
The play is Titanic. Its huge shapes, its weird effects, its mighty passions, its wild display of the forces of earth and air,--these impress us chiefly at first; but its ethical interest is far greater. Zeus is apparently represented in it as relentless, cruel, and unjust,--a lawless ruler, who knows only his own will,--whereas in all the other plays of Aeschylus he is just and righteous, although sometimes severe. Aeschylus, we know, was a religious man. It seems incredible that he should have had two contradictory conceptions of the character of Zeus. The solution of this problem is to be found in the fact that this 'Prometheus' was the first play of the trilogy. In the second play, the 'Prometheus Unbound,' of which we have only fragments, these apparent contradictions must have been reconciled. Long ages are supposed to elapse between the plays. Prometheus yields. He reveals the secret and is freed from his bonds. What before seemed to be relentless wanton cruelty is now seen to have been only the harsh but necessary severity of a ruler newly established on his throne. By the reconciliation of this stern ruler with the wise Titan, the giver of good gifts to men, order is restored to the universe. Prometheus acknowledges his guilt, and the course of Zeus is vindicated; but the loss of the second play of the trilogy leaves much in doubt, and an extraordinary number of solutions of the problem has been proposed. The reader must not look for one of these, however, in the 'Prometheus Unbound' of Shelley, who deliberately rejected the supposition of a reconciliation.
The three remaining plays are founded on the woful myth of the house of Atreus, son of Pelops, a theme much treated by the Greek tragic poets. They constitute the only existing Greek trilogy, and are the last and greatest work of the poet. They were brought out at Athens, B.C. 458, two years after the author's death. The 'Agamemnon' sets forth the crime,--the murder, by his wife, of the great King, on his return home from Troy; the 'Choëphori,' the vengeance taken on the guilty wife by her own son; the 'Eumenides,' the atonement made by that son in expiation of his mother's murder.
Agamemnon on departing for Troy left behind him in his palace a son and a daughter, Orestes and Electra. Orestes was exiled from home by his mother Clytemnestra, who in Agamemnon's absence lived in guilty union with Aegisthus, own cousin of the King, and who could no longer endure to look upon the face of her son.
The scene of the 'Agamemnon' is the royal palace in Argos. The time is night. A watchman is discovered on the flat roof of the palace. For a year he has kept weary vigil there, waiting for the beacon-fire that, sped from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall announce the fall of Troy. The signal comes at last, and joyously he proclaims the welcome news. The sacrificial fires which have been made ready in anticipation of the event are set alight throughout the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict between the Chorus, still faithful to the murdered King, and Clytemnestra, beside whom stands her paramour Aegisthus.
Interest centres in Clytemnestra. Crafty, unscrupulous, resolute, remorseless, she veils her deadly hatred for her lord, and welcomes him home in tender speech:--
"So now, dear lord, I bid thee welcome home-- True as the faithful watchdog of the fold, Strong as the mainstay of the laboring bark, Stately as column, fond as only child, Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner, Bright as fair sunshine after winter's storms, Sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer-- All this, and more, thou art, dear love, to me."
Agamemnon passes within the palace; she slays him in his bath, enmeshed in a net, and then, reappearing, vaunts her bloody deed:
"I smote him, and he bellowed; and again I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way; And as he fell before me, with a third And last libation from the deadly mace, I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due, That subterranean Saviour--of the dead! At which he spouted up the Ghost in such A flood of purple as, bespattered with, No less did I rejoice than the green ear Rejoices in the largesse of the skies That fleeting Iris follows as it flies."
Aeschylus departs from the Homeric account, which was followed by other poets, in making the action of the next play, the 'Choëphori,' follow closer upon that of the 'Agamemnon.' Orestes has heard in Phocis of his father's murder, and returns in secret, with his friend Pylades, to exact vengeance. The scene is still Argos, but Agamemnon's tomb is now seen in front of the palace. The Chorus consists of captive women, who aid and abet the attempt. The play sets forth the recognition of Orestes by Electra; the plot by which Orestes gains admission to the palace; the deceit of the old Nurse, a homely but capital character, by whom Aegisthus is induced to come to the palace without armed attendants; the death of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; the appearance of the avenging Furies; and the flight of Orestes.
The last play of the trilogy, the 'Eumenides,' has many singular features. The Chorus of Furies seemed even to the ancients to be a weird and terrible invention; the scene of the play shifts from Delphi to Athens; the poet introduces into the play a trial scene; and he had in it a distinct political purpose, whose development occupies one-half of the drama.
Orestes, pursued by the avenging Furies, "Gorgon-like, vested in sable stoles, their locks entwined with clustering snakes," has fled to Delphi to invoke the aid of Apollo. He clasps the navel-stone and in his exhaustion falls asleep. Around him sleep the Furies. The play opens with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar in front of the temple. The interior of the sanctuary is then laid bare. Orestes is awake, but the Furies sleep on. Apollo, standing beside Orestes, promises to protect him, but bids him make all haste to Athens, and there clasp, as a suppliant, the image of Athena. Orestes flies. The ghost of Clytemnestra rises from the underworld, and calls upon the Chorus to pursue. Overcome by their toil, they moan in their sleep, but finally start to their feet. Apollo bids them quit the temple.
The scene changes to the ancient temple of Athena on the Acropolis at Athens, where Orestes is seen clasping the image of the goddess. The Chorus enter in pursuit of their victim, and sing an ode descriptive of their powers.
Athena appears, and learns from the Chorus and from Orestes the reasons for their presence. She declares the issue to be too grave even for her to decide, and determines to choose judges of the murder, who shall become a solemn tribunal for all future time. These are to be the best of the citizens of Athens. After an ode by the Chorus, she returns, the court is established, and the trial proceeds in due form. Apollo appears for the defense of Orestes. When the arguments have been presented, Athena proclaims, before the vote has been taken, the establishment of the court as a permanent tribunal for the trial of cases of bloodshed. Its seat shall be the Areopagus. The votes are cast and Orestes is acquitted. He departs for Argos. The Furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship forever in Attica. Heretofore they have been the Erinnyes, or Furies; henceforth they shall be the Eumenides, or Gracious Goddesses. The Eumenides are escorted from the scene in solemn procession.
Any analysis of the plays so brief as the preceding is necessarily inadequate. The English reader is referred to the histories of Greek Literature by K.O. Müller and by J.P. Mahaffy, to the striking chapter on Aeschylus in J.A. Symonds's 'Greek Poets,' and, for the trilogy, to Moulton's 'Ancient Classical Drama.' If he knows French, he should add Croiset's 'Histoire de la Littérature Grecque,' and should by all means read M. Patin's volume on Aeschylus in his 'Études sur les Tragique Grècs.' There are translations in English of the poet's complete works by Potter, by Plumptre, by Blackie, and by Miss Swanwick. Flaxman illustrated the plays. Ancient illustrations are easily accessible in Baumeister's 'Denkmäler,' under the names of the different characters in the plays. There is a translation of the 'Prometheus' by Mrs. Browning, and of the 'Suppliants' by Morshead, who has also translated the Atridean trilogy under the title of 'The House of Atreus.' Goldwin Smith has translated portions of six of the plays in his 'Specimens of Greek Tragedy.' Many translations of the 'Agamemnon' have been made, among others by Milman, by Symmons, by Lord Carnarvon, and by Fitzgerald. Robert Browning also translated the play, with appalling literalness.
THE COMPLAINT OF PROMETHEUS
PROMETHEUS (alone)
O holy Aether, and swift-winged Winds, And River-wells, and laughter innumerous Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,-- Behold me a god, what I endure from gods! Behold, with throe on throe, How, wasted by this woe, I wrestle down the myriad years of Time! Behold, how fast around me The new King of the happy ones sublime Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's I cover with one groan. And where is found me A limit to these sorrows? And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul--and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because I gave Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul To this compelling fate. Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment, That sin I expiate in this agony, Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky. Ah, ah me! what a sound, What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between, Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain-- Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! The god Zeus hateth sore, And his gods hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I loved mortals too much evermore. Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings-- And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.
From E.B. Browning's Translation of 'Prometheus.'
A PRAYER TO ARTEMIS
STROPHE IV
Though Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace; Nathless in every place Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.
ANTISTROPHE IV
Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight, The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought; For wrapt in shadowy night, Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight, Extend the pathways of his secret thought.
STROPHE V
From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone To utter doom; but for their fall No force arrayeth he; for all That gods devise is without effort wrought. A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne By inborn energy achieves his thought.
ANTISTROPHE V
But let him mortal insolence behold:-- How with proud contumacy rife, Wantons the stem in lusty life My marriage craving;--frenzy over-bold, Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate, By ruin taught their folly all too late.
STROPHE VI
Thus I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
ANTISTROPHE VI
My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight Pollution were, death-laden, rude; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Alas for sorrow's murky brood! Where will this billow hurl me? Where? Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer; Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand, While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
STROPHE VII
The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty brood, The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued!
ANTISTROPHE VII
Meeting my will with will divine, Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-- Me, Artemis unstained, behold, Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield, Virgin thyself, a virgin shield;
So our dread Mother's mighty brood The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued!
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of 'The Suppliants.'
THE DEFIANCE OF ETEOCLES
MESSENGER
Now at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief, Thy proper mother's son, I will announce, What fortune for this city, for himself, With curses he invoketh:--on the walls Ascending, heralded as king, to stand, With paeans for their capture; then with thee To fight, and either slaying near thee die, Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive, Requite in kind his proper banishment. Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland, With gracious eye to look upon his prayers. A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears, With twofold blazon riveted thereon, For there a woman leads, with sober mien, A mailèd warrior, enchased in gold; Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks:-- "This man I will restore, and he shall hold The city and his father's palace homes." Such the devices of the hostile chiefs. 'Tis for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send; But never shalt thou blame my herald-words. To guide the rudder of the State be thine!
ETEOCLES
O heaven-demented race of Oedipus, My race, tear-fraught, detested of the gods! Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit. But it beseems not to lament or weep, Lest lamentations sadder still be born. For him, too truly Polyneikes named,-- What his device will work we soon shall know; Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught, Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back. Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers, Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been; But neither when he fled the darksome womb, Or in his childhood, or in youth's fair prime, Or when the hair thick gathered on his chin, Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers, Nor in this outrage on his Fatherland Deem I she now beside him deigns to stand. For Justice would in sooth belie her name, Did she with this all-daring man consort. In these regards confiding will I go, Myself will meet him. Who with better right? Brother to brother, chieftain against chief, Foeman to foe, I'll stand. Quick, bring my spear, My greaves, and armor, bulwark against stones.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of 'The Seven Against Thebes.'
THE VISION OF CASSANDRA
CASSANDRA
Phoebus Apollo!
CHORUS
Hark! The lips at last unlocking.
CASSANDRA
Phoebus! Phoebus!
CHORUS
Well, what of Phoebus, maiden? though a name 'Tis but disparagement to call upon In misery.
CASSANDRA
Apollo! Apollo! Again! Oh, the burning arrow through the brain! Phoebus Apollo! Apollo!
CHORUS
Seemingly Possessed indeed--whether by--
CASSANDRA
Phoebus! Phoebus! Through trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain, Over water seething, and behind the breathing War-horse in the darkness--till you rose again, Took the helm--took the rein--
CHORUS
As one that half asleep at dawn recalls A night of Horror!
CASSANDRA
Hither, whither, Phoebus? And with whom, Leading me, lighting me--
CHORUS
I can answer that--
CASSANDRA
Down to what slaughter-house! Foh! the smell of carnage through the door Scares me from it--drags me toward it-- Phoebus Apollo! Apollo!
CHORUS
One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems, That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault-- This is no den of slaughter, but the house Of Agamemnon.
CASSANDRA
Down upon the towers, Phantoms of two mangled children hover--and a famished man, At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours!
CHORUS
Thyestes and his children! Strange enough For any maiden from abroad to know, Or, knowing--
CASSANDRA
And look! in the chamber below The terrible Woman, listening, watching, Under a mask, preparing the blow In the fold of her robe--
CHORUS
Nay, but again at fault: For in the tragic story of this House-- Unless, indeed the fatal Helen--No woman--
CASSANDRA
No Woman--Tisiphone! Daughter Of Tartarus--love-grinning Woman above, Dragon-tailed under--honey-tongued, Harpy-clawed, Into the glittering meshes of slaughter She wheedles, entices him into the poisonous Fold of the serpent--
CHORUS