The Project Gutenberg eBook of Æschylos, by E. H. Plumptre

298. Dramatically the words refer to the practical impiety of evildoers like Paris, with, perhaps, a half-latent allusion to that of Clytæmnestra. But it can hardly be doubted that for the Athenian audience it would have a more special significance, as a protest against the growing scepticism, what in a later age would have been called the Epicureanism, of the age of Pericles. It is the assertion of the belief of Æschylos in the moral government of the world. The very vagueness of the singular, “One there was,” would lead the hearers to think of some teacher like Anaxagoras, whom they suspected of Atheism.

299. The Chorus sees in the overthrow of Troïa, an instance of this righteous retribution. The audience were, perhaps, intended to think also of the punishment which had fallen on the Persians for the sacrilegious acts of their fathers. The “things inviolable” are the sanctities of the ties of marriage and hospitality, both of which Paris had set at nought.

300. Here, and again in v. 612, we have a similitude drawn from the metallurgy of Greek artists. Good bronze, made of copper and tin, takes the green rust which collectors prize, but when rubbed, the brightness reappears. If zinc be substituted for tin, as in our brass, or mixed largely with it, the surface loses its polish, oxidizes and becomes black. It is, however, doubtful whether this combination of metals was at the time in use, and the words may simply refer to different degrees of excellence in bronze properly so called.

301. In a corrupt passage like this, the text of which has been so variously restored and rendered, it may be well to give at least one alternative version:

“There stands she silent, with no honour met,
Nor yet with words of scorn,
Sweetest to see of all that he has lost.”

The words, as so taken, refer to the vision of Helen, described in the lines that follow. Another, for the line “In deepest woe,” &c., ... would give,

“Believing not he sees the lost one there.”

302. The art of Pheidias had already made it natural at Athens to speak of kings as decorating their palaces with the life-size busts or statues of those they loved.

303. Here again one may note a protest against the aggressive policy of Pericles, an assertion of the principle that a nation should be content with independence, without aiming at supremacy.

304. Perhaps passively, “Soon suffers trespassers.”

305. As the play opens on the morning of the day on which Troïa was taken, and now we have the arrivals, first, of the herald, and then of Agamemnon, after the capture has been completed, and the spoil divided, and the fleet escaped a storm, an interval of some days must be supposed between the two parts of the play, the imaginary law of the unities notwithstanding.

306. The customary adornment of heralds who brought good news. Comp. Sophocles, Œd. K. v. 83. The custom prevailed for many centuries, and is recognised by Dante, Purg. ii. 70, as usual in his time in Italy.

307. So in the Seven against Thebes (v. 494), smoke is called “the sister of fire.”

308. A probable reference, not only to the story, but to the actual words of Homer, Il. i. 45-52.

309. Specially the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeukes.

310. Such a position (especially in the case of Zeus or Apollo) was common in the temples both of Greece and Rome, and had a very obvious signification. As the play was performed, the actual hour of the day probably coincided with that required by the dramatic sequence of events, and the statues of the Gods were so placed on the stage as to catch the rays of the morning sun when the herald entered. Hence the allusion to the bright “cheerful glances” would have a visible as well as ethical fitness.

311. It formed part of the guilt of Paris, that, besides his seduction of Helena, he had carried off part of the treasures of Menelaos.

312. The idea of a payment twofold the amount of the wrong done, as a complete satisfaction to the sufferer, was common in the early jurisprudence both of Greeks and Hebrews (Exod. xxii. 4-7). In some cases it was even more, as in the four or fivefold restitution of Exod. xxii. 1. In the grand opening of Isaiah's message of glad tidings the fact that Jerusalem has received “double for all her sins” is made the ground on the strength of which she may now hope for pardon. Comp. also Isa. lxi. 7; Zech. ix. 12.

313. Perhaps—

“Full hardly, and the close and crowded decks.”

314. So stress is laid upon this form of hardship, as rising from the climate of Troïa, by Sophocles, Aias, 1206.

315. One may conjecture that here also, as with the passage describing the succession of beacon fires (vv. 281-314), the description would have for an Athenian audience the interest of recalling personal reminiscences of some recent campaign in Thrakè, or on the coasts of Asia.

316. We may, perhaps, think of the herald, as he speaks, placing some representative trophy upon the pegs on the pedestals of the statues of the great Gods of Hellas, whom he had invoked on his entrance.

317. Or,

“So that to this bright morn our sons may boast,
As they o'er land and ocean take their flight,
'The Argive host of old, who captured Troïa,
These spoils of battle to the Gods of Hellas,
Hung on their pegs, a trophy of old days.'”

318. The husband, on his departure, sealed up his special treasures. It was the glory of the faithful wife or the trusty steward to keep these seals unbroken.

319. There is an ambiguity, possibly an intentional one, in the comparison which Clytæmnestra uses. If there was no such art as that of “staining bronze” (or copper) known at the time, the words would be a natural phrase enough to describe what was represented as an impossibility. Later on in the history of art, however, as in the time of Plutarch, a process so described (perhaps analogous to enamelling) is mentioned (De Pyth. Orac. § 2) as common. If we suppose the art to have been a mystery known to the few, but not to the many, in the time of Æschylos, then the words would have for the hearers the point of a double entendre. She seems to the mass to disclaim what yet, to those in the secret she acknowledges.

Another rendering refers “bronze” to the “sword,” and makes the stains those of blood; as though she said, “I am as guiltless of adultery as of murder,” while yet she knew that she had committed the one, and meant to commit the other. The possibility of such a meaning is certainly in the words, and with a sharp-witted audience catching at ænigmas and dark sayings may have added to their suggestiveness. The ambiguous comment of the Chorus shows that they read, as between the lines, the shameful secret which they knew, but of which the Herald was ignorant.

320. The last two lines are by some editors assigned to the Herald.

321. It need hardly be said that it is as difficult to render a paronomasia of this kind as it is to reproduce those, more or less analogous, which we find in the prophets of the Old Testament (comp. especially Micah i.); but it seems better to substitute something which approaches, however imperfectly, to an equivalent than to obscure the reference to the nomen et omen by abandoning the attempt to translate it. “Hell of men, and hell of ships, and hell of towers,” has been the rendering adopted by many previous translators. The Greek fondness for this play on names is seen in Sophocles, Aias, v. 401.

322. Zephyros, Boreas, and the other great winds were represented in the Theogony of Hesiod (v. 134) as the offspring of Astræos and Eôs, and Astræos was a Titan. The west wind was, of course, favourable to Paris as he went with Helen from Greece to Troïa.

323. Here again the translator has to meet the difficulty of a pun. As an alternative we might take—

“To Ilion brought, well-named,

A marriage marring all.”

324. The sons of Priam are thought of as taking part in the celebration of Helen's marriage with Paris, and as, therefore, involving themselves in the guilt and the penalty of his crime.

325. Here, too, it may be well to give an alternative rendering—

“A mischief in his house,

A man reared, not on milk.”

Home-reared lions seem to have been common as pets, both among Greeks and Latins (Arist., Hist. Anim. ix. 31; Plutarch, de Cohib. irâ, § 14, p. 822), sometimes, as in Martial's Epigram, ii. 25, with fatal consequences. The text shows the practice to have been common enough in the time of Pericles to supply a similitude.

326. There may, possibly, be a half allusion here to the passage in the Iliad (vv. 154-160), which describes the fascination which the beauty of Helen exercised on the Troïan elders.

327. The poet becomes a prophet, and asserts what it has been given him to know of the righteous government of God. The dominant creed of Greece at the time was, that the Gods were envious of man's prosperity, that this alone, apart from moral evil, was enough to draw down their wrath, and bring a curse upon the prosperous house. So, e.g., Amasis tells Polycrates (Herod. iii. 40) that the unseen Divinity that rules the world is envious, that power and glory are inevitably the precursors of destruction. Comp. also the speech of Artabanos (Herod. vii. 10, 46). Against this, in the tone of one who speaks singlehanded for the truth, Æschylos, through the Chorus, enters his protest.

328. Sc., Agamemnon, by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, had induced his troops to persevere in an expedition from which, in their inmost hearts, they shrank back with strong dislike. A conjectural reading gives,

“By the sacrifice he offered

Giving death-doomed men false boldness.”

329. The tone of ambiguous irony mingles, it will be seen, even here, with the praises of the Chorus.

330. Possibly an allusion to Pandora's box. Here, too, Hope alone was left, but it only came up to where the curve of the rim began, not to its top. The imagery is drawn from the older method of voting, in which (as in Eumenides, v. 678) the votes for condemnation and acquittal were cast into separate urns.

331. The lion, as the symbol of the house of Atreus, still seen in the sculptures of Mykenæ; the horse, in allusion to the stratagem by which Troïa had been taken.

332. At the end of autumn, and therefore at a season when a storm like that described by the herald would be a probable incident enough.

333. So in Sophocles, Philoctetes (v. 1025) taunts Odysseus:—

“And yet thou sailedst with them by constraint,

By tricks fast bound.”

334. Geryon appears in the myth of Hercules as a monster with three heads and three bodies, ruling over the island Erytheia, in the far West, beyond Hesperia. To destroy him and seize his cattle was one of the “twelve labours,” with which Hesiod (Theogon. vv. 287-294) had already made men familiar.

335. When a man is buried, there is earth above and earth below him. Clytæmnestra having used the words “coverlet,” pauses to make her language accurate to the very letter. She is speaking only of the earth which would have been laid over her husband's corpse, had he died as often as he was reported to have done. She will not utter anything so ominous as an allusion to the depths below him stretching down to Hades.

336. Or—

“Weeping because the torches in thy house

No more were lighted as they were of yore.”

337. The words touch upon the psychological fact that in dreams, as in other abnormal states of the mind, the usual measures of time disappear, and we seem to pass through the experiences of many years in the slumber of a few minutes.

338. The rhetoric of the passage, with all its multiplied similitudes, fine as it is in itself, receives its dramatic significance by being put into the lips of Clytæmnestra. She “doth protest too much.” A true wife would have been content with fewer words.

339. The last three lines of the speech are of course intentionally ambiguous, carrying one meaning to the ear of Agamemnon, and another to that of the audience.

340. There is obviously a side-thrust, such as an Athenian audience would catch at, at the token of homage which the Persian kings required of their subjects, the prostration at their feet, the earth spread over with costly robes. Of the latter custom we have examples in the history of Jehu (2 Kings ix. 13), in our Lord's entry into Jerusalem (Mark xi. 8), in the usages of modern Persian kings (Malcolm's Persia, i. 580); perhaps also in the true rendering of Ps. xlv. 14. “She shall be brought unto the king on raiment of needle-work.” In the march of Xerxes across the Hellespont myrtle-boughs strown on the bridge of boats took the place of robes (Herod. vii. 54). To the Greek character, with its strong love of independence, such customs were hateful. The case of Pausanias, who offended the national feeling by assuming the outward state of the Persian kings, must have been recalled to the minds of the Athenians, intentionally or otherwise, by such a passage as this.e bridge of boats took the place of robes (Herod. vii. 54). To

341. The “old saying, famed of many men,” which we find in the Trachiniæ of Sophocles (v. 1), and in the counsel of Solon to Crœsos (Herod. i. 32).

342. He who had suffered so much from the wrath of Artemis at Aulis knew what it was to rouse the wrath and jealousy of the Gods.

343. An echo of a line in Hesiod (Works and Days, 763)—

“No whispered rumours which the many spread

Can ever wholly perish.”

344. Here, too, we may trace a reference to the Oriental custom of recognising the sanctity of a consecrated place by taking the shoes from off the feet, as in Exod. iii. 5, in the services of the Tabernacle and Temple, through all their history (Juven., Sat. vi. 159), in all mosques to the present day. Agamemnon, yielding to the temptress, seeks to make a compromise with his conscience. He will walk upon the tapestry, but will treat it as if it, of right, belonged to the Gods, and were a consecrated thing. It is probably in connection with this incident that Æschylos was said to have been the first to bring actors on the stage in these boots or buskins (Suidas. s. v. άρβύλη).

345. The words of Isaiah (xviii. 5), “when the sour grape is ripening in the flower,” present an almost verbal parallel.

346. The ever-recurring ambiguity of Clytæmnestra's language is again traceable, as is also her fondness for rhetorical similitudes.

347. The Chorus speaks in perplexity. In cannot get rid of its forebodings, and yet it would seem as if the time for the fulfilment of the dark words of Calchas must have passed long since. It actually sees the safe return of the leader of the host, yet still its fears haunt it.

348. Asclepios, whom Zeus smote with his thunderbolt for having restored Hippolytos to life.

349. The Chorus, in spite of their suspicions and forebodings, have given the king no warning. They excuse themselves by the plea of necessity, the sovereign decree of Zeus overruling all man's attempts to withstand it.

350. Cassandra is summoned to an act of worship. The household is gathered, the altar to Zeus Ktesios (the God of the family property, slaves included), standing in the servants' hall, is ready. The new slave must come in and take her place with the others.

351. As in the story which forms the groundwork of the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, vv. 250-280, that Heracles had been sold to Omphale as a slave, in penalty for the murder of Iphitos.

352. Political as well as dramatic. The Eupatrid poet appeals to public opinion against the nouveaux riches, the tanners and lamp-makers, who were already beginning to push themselves forward towards prominence and power. The way was thus prepared in the first play of the Trilogy for what is known to have been the main object of the last. Comp. Arist., Rhet. ii. 32.

353. Here again the translator has the task of finding an English paronomasia which approximates to that of the Greek, between Apollo and ἀπόλλων the destroyer. To Apollo, as the God of paths (Aguieus), an altar stood, column-fashion, before the street-door of every house, and to such an altar, placed by the door of Agamemnon's palace, Cassandra turns, with the twofold play upon the name.

354. This refers, probably, to the death of Hippodameia, the wife of Pelops, who killed herself, in remorse for the death of Chrysippos, or fear of her husband's anger. The horrors of the royal house of Argos pass, one by one, before the vision of the prophetess, and this leads the procession, followed by the spectres of the murdered children of Thyestes.

355. The Chorus, as in their last ode, had made up their minds, though foreboding ill, to let destiny take its course. They do not wish that policy of non-interference to be changed by any too clear vision of the future.

356. The Chorus understands the vision of the clairvoyante as regards the past tragedy of the house of Atreus, but not that which seems to portend another actually imminent.

357. Fresh visions come before the eyes of the seeress. She beholds the company of Erinnyes hovering over the accursed house, and calls on them to continue their work till the new crime has met with its due punishment. The murder which she sees as if already wrought, demands death by stoning.

358. The “yellow” look of fear is thought of as being caused by an actual change in the colour of the blood as it flows through the veins to the heart.

359. Here there is prevision as well as clairvoyance. The deed is not yet done. The sacrifice and the feast are still going on, yet she sees the crime in all its circumstances.

360. As before (v. 115) the black eagle had been the symbol of the warrior-chief, so here the black-horned bull, that being one of the notes of the best breed of cattle. A various reading gives “with her swarthy horn.”

361. What the Chorus had just said as to the fruitlessness of prophetic insight tallied all too well with her own bitter experience.

362. The ecstasy of horror interrupts the tenor of her speech, and the second “thou” is addressed not to the Chorus, but to Agamemnon, whose death Cassandra has just witnessed in her vision.

363. The song of the nightingale, represented by these sounds, was connected with a long legend, specially Attic in its origin. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king of Attica, suffered outrage at the hands of Tereus, who was married to her sister Procne, and was then changed into a nightingale, destined ever to lament over the fate of Itys her sister's son. The earliest form of the story appears in the Odyssey (xix. 518). Comp. Sophocles, Electr. v. 148.

364. In the marriage-rites of the Greeks of the time of Æschylos, the bride for three days after the wedding wore her veil; then, as now no longer shrinking from her matron life, she laid it aside and looked on her husband with unveiled face.

365. The picture might be drawn by any artist of power, but we may, perhaps, trace a reproduction of one of the grandest passages in the Iliad (iv. 422-426).

366. So in the Eumenides (v. 293), the Erinnyes appear as vampires, drinking the blood of their victims.

367. The death of Myrtilos as the first crime in the long history of the house of Pelops. Comp. Soth. Electr. v. 470. The “defiler” is Thyestes, who seduced Aerope, the wife of Atreus.

368. The horror of the Thyestes banquet again haunts her as the source of all the evils that followed, of the deaths both of Iphigenia and Agamemnon. The “stay-at-home” is Ægisthos.

369. Both words point to the Sindbad-like stories of distant marvels brought back by Greek sailors. The Amphisbæna (double-goer), wriggling itself backward and forward, believed to have a head at each extremity, was looked upon as at once the most subtle and the most venomous of serpents. Skylla, already famous in its mythical form from the story in the Odyssey (xii. 85-100), was probably a “development” of the monstrous cuttle-fish of the straits of Messina.

370. As in Homer (Il. i. 14) so here, the servant of Apollo bears the wand of augury, and fillets or wreaths round head and arms. The divining garments, in like manner, were of white linen.

371. If we adopt this reading, we must think of Cassandra as identifying herself with the woe (Atè) which makes up her life, just as afterwards Clytæmnestra speaks of herself as one with the avenging Demon (Alastor) of the house of Atreus (1473). The alternative reading gives—

“Make rich in woe another in my place.”

372. Perhaps, “in home not mine.”

373. When the victim, instead of shrinking and struggling, went, as with good courage, to the altar, it was noted as a sign of divine impulse. Such a strange, new courage the Chorus notices in Cassandra.

374. Possibly,

“My one escape, my friends, is but delay.”

375. The implied thoughts of the words is that Priam and his sons, though they had died nobly, were yet miserable, and not happy.

376. The Syrian ritual had, it would seem, become proverbial for its lavish use of frankincense and other spices.

377. The close parallel of Shakespeare's Henry VI., Act. v. sc. 6, is worth quoting—

“The bird that hath been limed in a bush,

With trembling eyes misdoubteth every bush”

378. The older reading gives—

“A shadow might o'erturn it.”

379. Her own doom, hard as it was, touches her less than the common lot of human suffering and mutability.

380. So far the dialogue has been sustained by the Coryphæos, or leader of the Chorus. Now each member of it speaks and gives his counsel.

381. The Coryphæos again takes up his part, sums up, and pronounces his decision.

382. i.e., He had had his triumph over her when, forgetful of her mother's feelings, he had sacrificed Iphigeneia. She has now repaid him to the full.

383. The third libation at all feasts was to Zeus, as the Preserver or Guardian Deity. Clytæmnestra boasts that her third blow was as an offering to a God of other kind, to Him who had in his keeping not the living, but the dead.

384. So in the Choëphori (vv. 351, 476), the custom of pouring libations on the burial-place of the dead is recognised as an element of their blessedness or shame in Hades, and Agamemnon is represented as lacking the honour which comes from them till he receives it at the hand of Orestes.

385. Incense was placed on the head of the victim. The Chorus tell Clytæmnestra that she has brought upon her own head the incense, not of praise and admiration, but of hatred and wrath, as though some poison had driven her mad.

386. The species of swan referred to is said to be the Cygnus Musicus. Aristotle (Hist. Anim. ix. 12) describes swans of some kind as having been heard by sailors near the coast of Libya, “singing with a lamentable cry.” Mrs. Somerville (Phys. Geog., c. xxxiii. 3) describes their note as “like that of a violin.” The same fact is reported of the swans of Iceland and other regions of the far North. The strange, tender beauty of the passage in the Phædo of Plato (p. 85, a), which speaks of them as singing when at the point of death, has done more than anything else to make the illustration one of the commonplaces of rhetoric and poetry.