See the article Dionysia, by Dr. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiq.

The same doctrine, I am sorry to see, has been repeated with special reference to Æschylus, and with very little qualification, by Whiston in the article Tragædia in Dr. Smith’s Dict. Antiq., 2d Edit., p. 1146. Schlegel is quite wrong, when he says “the Greek gods are mere Naturmächte”—physical or elemental powers. Connington, however, in the preface to his Agamemnon, expresses exactly my sentiments, when he protests against a “crystallization of destiny” being set up “as the presiding genius of the national dramatic literature of the Greeks.”

See the works of Klausen and Blumner in the List of Editions. And our English Sewell recognizes, in the works of Æschylus, “the voice of a self-constituted Heathen Church protesting against the vices and follies that surrounded her.”—Preface to the Agamemnon, p. 15.

Cicero pro Muræna, 13.

Αισχύλος πολλὰ σχήματα ὸρχηστικὰ ἀυτος ὲξευρίσκων, ἀνεδίδου τοῖς χορευταῖς.—Lib. I. p. 22.

See Dyer, on the Choral Dancing of the Greeks,—Classical Museum, No. IX. p. 229.

Böckh and Donaldson, in their editions of the Antigone. Berlin, 1843, p. 280. London, 1848. Introduction, p. xxix.

I read ἐισόδῳ, not (ε)ξόδῳ, as it is in Matthiae, which is either a misprint, or a mistake in the writer, as the quotation immediately following proves.

This is Müller’s view in Eumenides, § 21.

It may be as well here, for the sake of some readers, to remark that the orchestra, or dancing place (for so the word means), was that part of the ancient theatre which corresponds to the modern Pit. For a minute description of the ancient stage, the reader must consult Donaldson’s Greek Theatre, c. VII.

One of the most striking proofs of this is the many instances that occur in the tragedians of that most undramatic of all mannerisms—self-description—as when a sorrowful Chorus describes the tears on its cheek, the beating on its breast, and such like. True grief never paints itself.

Bulwer, in Athens and the Athenians.

From the limited number of actors arose necessarily this evil, that the persons in a Greek dramatic fable appear not cotemporaneously, but in succession, one actor necessarily playing several parts. Now, the commonest fabricator of a novel for the circulating library knows how necessary it is to keep up a sustained interest, that the character, when once introduced, shall not be allowed to drop out of view, but be dexterously intermingled with the whole complex progress of the story, and be felt as necessary, or at least as agreeable, to the very end.

Writers on Belles Lettres, from Trapp down to Schlegel, have been very severe on the modern opera, and indignantly repudiated all comparison between it and the Greek tragedy. It is a common illusion of mental optics with the learned to magnify the defects of what is near and before their nose, while the peculiar excellencies of what is far distant in time or space are in a corresponding degree exalted. So Schlegel, in his sublime German zeal against certain shallow judgments of Voltaire and other French critics, worked himself up into an idealized enthusiasm for some of the most glaring imperfections of the Greek stage, while in the modern opera he only sees the absurdities of the real. In assuming this tone he has, of course, been imitated by certain persons of little speculation in this country, who have thought it necessary slavishly to worship the Germans in all things, merely because certain other persons of no speculation ignorantly despised them. With regard to the opera, it is plain enough that it differs from the ancient tragedy in the following points:—(1) In not being essentially of a religious character; (2) in not varying the musical with the declamatory element; (3) in dealing more in monody, and less in choral singing; (4) in using the Chorus freely, according to the nature of the action, and not being always encumbered with it; (5) in making the mere musical element so predominate that poets of the first order seldom condescend to employ their talents in writing the text for an opera. All these special differences, however, do not mar the propriety of the general comparison between an ancient “goat-song” and a modern opera, justified, as it is, plainly by the common musical element which both contain in different degrees of prominence. In point of high moral tone, high poetic diction, and noble conception, the ancient lyrical drama is no doubt vastly superior to the modern opera; but in some other points, as in the more free and adroit use of the Chorus, the opera is as much superior to the goat-song. With respect to the Chorus in particular, Schlegel has said many things that look very wise, but are simply not true. The Chorus is only half described (see above, p. 20), when it is called the “ideal spectator.” What he says about publicity is mere talk. There is no other reason for the presence of the Chorus than because it was originally the essential part of the performance, and could not but be to the end the most popular.

FOOTNOTES TO THE LIFE OF ÆSCHYLUS

“Æschylus used to say that his tragedies were only slices cut from the great banquet of Homeric dainties.”—Athenæus, VIII. p. 348.

In the Frogs (v. 886), Aristophanes makes him show at once the religiousness of his character, and its source, in the two lines of invocation—

From the διδασκαλία, or note of the year of representation with the name of the author, in the argument to that play. On the arguments from internal evidence brought forward to prove that the Suppliants is the oldest extant play, I place no value whatever. The simplicity of structure proves nothing, because it proves too much. Several of the extant plays are equally simple. For aught we know, it may have been the practice of Æschylus to the very last, as we see in the case of the Choephoræ, to give the middle piece of his trilogies less breadth and variety than the opening and concluding ones; and it is almost certain that the Suppliants was either the second or the first play of a trilogy.

Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 1060, Welcker’s Tril. p. 475, and the Vit. Robortel. (which, however, I have not seen).

Mar. Par. ep. 53. Welcker’s Tril. p. 116.

See Introduction to that piece.

Scholiast, Aristoph. Acharn. v. 10.

Philostratus, Vit. Soph. I. 9; Vit. Apollon. VI. 11, p. 244.

The great comedian is particularly amusing in the contrast which he draws between the rude instinctive grandeur of the Æschylean diction and the elegant rhetorical decorations of Euripides:—

Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom. III. 1. Clemen. Alex., Strom II. 14, p. 461. Pott. Aelian, V.H.V. 19, and Welcker, Trilog. p. 106.

The primary authorities for the life of Æschylus are the Parian Marble, the Βίος Αισχύλου, the Frogs of Aristophanes, the arguments of the extant plays, and various incidental notices in Athenæus and other ancient authors, most of whom have been quoted or mentioned in the text. With regard to secondary sources of information, the present writer has been much assisted, and had his labour essentially curtailed, by Petersen’s Vita Æschyli, Havniae, 1812; the article Æschylus, by Whiston, in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Biography and Mythology; the admirable condensed summary in Bernhardy’s Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur, 2ter, Theil, Halle, 1845; and Donaldson’s Greek Theatre. In Chronology, I have followed Clinton.

FOOTNOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON

Welcker, in the introductory remarks to his Epischer Cyclus (§ 1), has given what appear to me sufficient reasons for not confounding this Proclus with the famous Platonist of the same name.

This and other curious fragments from the wreck of the old Hellenic epos, will be found in Becker’s Scholia to Homer (Berlin, 1825), or in the second volume of Welcker’s Epic Cycle (Bonn, 1849), in the Appendix.

See Thucydides, I. 9.

See Welcker’s Trilogie, Darmstadt, 1824, p. 408, who, however, here, as in other parts of the same learned work, expends much superfluity of ingenious conjecture on subjects which, from their very nature, are necessarily barren of any certain result.

Jove to Priam sent the eagle, of all flying things that be

Noblest made, his dark-winged hunter.

i.e. The right hand—the hand which brandishes the spear, χερὸς ἐκ δοριπάλτου; right being the lucky side in Greek augury.—Iliad, xxiv. 320.

Calchas, the famous soothsayer of the Iliad.

Diana.

This excellent version I took from an article in the Quarterly Review.—Vol. lxx. p. 340.

The sacrifice of Iphigenia displeasing to Clytemnestra.

Chalcis, a city in Eubœa, opposite Aulis.

A river in Macedonia.

The epithet καλλιπρώρου, beautiful fronted, applied to στόματος being contrary to the genius of the English language, the translator must content himself with the simple epithet.

An old name for the Peloponnesus.

Vulcan.

Venus.

The Furies.

Mars.

“My bosom’s lord sits lightly on his throne.”—Shakespere, quoted by Symmons.

Æsculapius.

Swallow jabber.—“Barbarians are called swallows because their speech cannot be understood any more than the twitter of swallows.”—Stanley, from Hesychius.

An epithet of Apollo from λοξὸς oblique, for which Macrobius (Sat. I. 17) gives astronomical reasons; but it seems more obvious to say that the god is so called from the obliqueness or obscurity of his oracles.

From the looseness of the laws of quantity in English versification, it may be as well to state here that I wish these lines of seven syllables to be read as vv—’, v—’, v—’. not —’ v, —’ v , —’ v, —’.

The Furies.

Dun-plumed. ξουθὰ.

See Introductory Remarks.

The banquet of his own children, which Atreus offered to Thyestes.—See Introductory Remarks.

Apollo.

πόρθμευμ ἀχέων, whence Acheron, so familiar to English ears; as in the same way Cocytus, from κωκυω, to avail, and the other infernal streams, with a like appropriateness.

The house of Atreus, so called from Pleisthenes, one of the ancestry of Agamemnon.

FOOTNOTES TO THE CHOEPHORÆ

See Niebuhr’s Travels (§ 25, c. 4); Michaelis’ Commentaries on the Laws of Moses (Art. 135); and Southey’s Thalaba.

Dictionary—voce Goel, and Commentaries, § 131.

Die Thymele in der Orchestra ist durch ein Aschenkrug als Agamemnon’s Grab bezeichnet.—Droysen.

Hermes, or Mercury, in his capacity of guide of the dead (ψυχοπομπός) is here called Χθόνιος, or subterranean.

Iphigenia.

Proserpine.

See Note 64 to Agamemnon.

Hermes or Mercury. See Notes 55 and 56 above.

The Gorgon Medusa.

Agamemnon and Electra.

The Furies.—See next piece.

FOOTNOTES TO THE EUMENIDES

This original germ of the Furies is mentioned frequently in these plays, as πολυκρατεῖς ἀρὰι φθιμενων, Fell Curses of the Dead, in the Choephoræ, p. 111 in above. See also the words of Clytemnestra, My curse beware, p. 126 above.

Wordsworth’s “Athens and Attica,” London, 1836, c. 11.

“Καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ βουλὴν Ἑφιάλτης ἐκόλουσε καὶ Περικλῆς. τὰ δὲ δικαστήρια μισθοφόρα κατέστησε Περικλῆς.”—Aristotle, Pol. II. 9. 3.

“Τῆς ναναρχίας γὰρ ἐν τοῖς Μηδικοῖς ὁ δῆμος ἄιτιος γενόμενος ἐφρονηματίσθη.”—Aristotle, ibid.

The progeny of Earth and Heaven were called Titans, among whom Phœbe is numbered by Hesiod.—Theog. 136.

Apollo.

One of the waters that descend from Parnassus.

Neptune.

See note to Choephoræ, No. 73.

πομπᾶιος. Of the dead specially, but also of the living: as of Ulysses in the Odyssey, Book X.

Literally the unseen world. Sometimes used for the King of the unseen world—Pluto.

See Introductory Remarks.

Lucidae sedes.—Horace III. 3.

See Introductory Remarks. They designate themselves here from their origin, Ἀραὶ or imprecations.

That is, the Furies themselves.

See above, p. 141, Note 4.

That is, Asia. See Introduction to the Agamemnon.

Alluding to the well-known and beautiful allegoric myth that the goddess of wisdom sprang, full-armed, into birth from the brain of the all-wise Omnipotent, without the intervention of a mother.

See the Preliminary Remarks.

παρόρνιθας, as we say ill-starred—that is, unfortunate, unlucky, the metaphor being varied, according to the changes of fashions in the practice of divination.

Alii γελῶμαι—“fortasse non male.”—Paley.

The goddess of Persuasion—πειθὼ.

Like Erectheus (p. 167 above), one of the most ancient Earth-born kings of Attica.

So the Greeks called anything very ancient, from Ogyges, an old Bœotian king.

FOOTNOTES TO THE PROMETHEUS BOUND

Classical Museum, No. XV. p 1.

Buck. (Introduction, p. xiii.) has very aptly compared here the position of Antigone, in the well-known play of that name, and the half-approving, half-condemning tone of the Chorus in that play.

The most remarkable passages of the ancients where reference is made to the Prometheus Unbound of Æschylus are:—Cicero, Tusc. II. 10; Arrian. Periplus Pont. Eux. p. 19; Strabo, Lib. I. p. 33 and IV. 182-3; Plutarchus. vit. Pompeii, init.; Athenæus. XV. p. 672, Cas.

“Veniat Æschylus non poeta solum, sed etiam Pythagoreus. Sic enim accepimus. Quo modo fert apud eum Prometheus dolorem, quern excipit ob furtum Lemnium.”—Tusc. Quæst. II. 10, Welcker; Trilogie, p. 7.

“Chorus consilietur amicis.”—Horace.

On the stage, of course, her transmutation can only be indicated by the presence of a pair of ox horns on her virgin forehead.

ἡ ποικιλείμων νύξ. Buntgewandige—Schoe. “Various-vested Night.”—Coleridge, in a Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon.

ἀιθέριον κίνυγμα.

Saturn the father of Jove.

“And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it repenteth me that I have made him.”—Gen. vi. 7.

The Sea of Azof.

i.e. Delphi.—See Schol. to Iliad II. 519.

Rhea’s bosomed sea—the Hadriatic.

The Ionian sea.

The Danaids, daughters of Danaus, who colonized Argos from Egypt. This forms the subject of the next play—the Suppliants.

See the Agamemnon, Note 15.

Compare Odyssey, I. 32.

FOOTNOTES TO THE SUPPLIANTS

Vol. I., c. 3.

Fast., Hellen., Introduc. pp. 6, 7.

See Introductory Remarks to the Eumenides.

The usual insignia of Suppliants. Wool was commonly used in the adornment of insignia hallowed by religion.—See Dict. Antiq., voc. infula and apex.; and Note 72 to the Choephoræ, and Clem. Alex. Prot. § 10.

Epaphus and Io.

Epaphus, from ἑπαφὴ. See Note 3 immediately above.