Chapter X: Part II: Page (8)

_Clytæm._ Nay, let us not do other evil deeds, Thou dearest of all friends. An ill-starred harvest It is to have reaped so many. Enough of woe: Let no more blood be shed: Go thou—[_to the Chorus_]—go ye, Ye aged sires, to your allotted homes, Ere ye do aught amiss and dree your weird: *This that we have done ought to have sufficed; But should it prove we've had enough of ills, We will accept it gladly, stricken low In evil doom by heavy hand of God. This is a woman's counsel, if there be That deigns to hear it.

_Ægisth._ But that these should fling The blossoms of their idle speech at me, 1640 And utter words like these, so tempting Fate, And fail of counsel wise, and flout their master...!

_Chor._ It suits not Argives on the vile to fawn.

_Ægisth._ Be sure, hereafter I will hunt thee down.

_Chor._ Not so, if God should guide Orestes back.

_Ægisth._ Right well I know how exiles feed on hopes.

_Chor._ Prosper, wax fat, do foul wrong—'tis thy day.

_Ægisth._ Know thou shalt pay full price for this thy folly.

_Chor._ Be bold, and boast, like cock beside his mate.

_Clytæm._ Nay, care not thou for these vain howlings; I And thou together, ruling o'er the house, Will settle all things rightly. [_Exeunt_

-----

Footnote 271:

The form of gambling from which the phrase is taken, had clearly
become common in Attica among the class to which the watchman was
supposed to belong, and had given rise to proverbial phrases like that
in the text. The Greeks themselves supposed it to have been invented
by the Lydians (Herod. i. 94), or Palamedes, one of the heroes of the
tale of Troïa, but it enters also into Egyptian legends (Herod. ii.
122), and its prevalence from remote antiquity in the farther East, as
in the Indian story of Nala and Damayanti, makes it probable that it
originated there. The game was commonly played, as the phrase shows,
with three dice, the highest throw being that which gave three sixes.
Æschylos, it may be noted, appears in a lost drama, which bore the
title of _Palamedes_, to have brought the game itself into his plot.
It is referred to, as invented by that hero, in a fragment of
Sophocles (_Fr._ 380), and again in the proverb,—

“The dice of Zeus have ever lucky throws.”—(_Fr._ 763.)

Footnote 272:

Here, also, the watchman takes up another common proverbial phrase,
belonging to the same group as that of “kicking against the pricks” in
v. 1624. He has his reasons for silence, weighty as would be the tread
of an ox to close his lips.

Footnote 273:

The vultures stand, _i.e._, to the rulers of Heaven, in the same
relation as the foreign sojourners in Athens, the _Metoics_, did to
the citizens under whose protection they placed themselves.

Footnote 274:

Alexandros, the other name of Paris, the seducer of Helen.

Footnote 275:

The words, perhaps, refer to the grief of Menelaos, as leading him to
neglect the wonted sacrifices to Zeus, but it seems better to see in
them a reference to the sin of Paris. He, at least, who had carried
off his host's wife, had not offered acceptable sacrifices, had
neglected all sacrifices to Zeus Xenios, the God of host and guest.
The allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which some (Donaldson and
Paley) have found here, and the wrath of Clytæmnestra, which Agamemnon
will fail to soothe, seems more far-fetched.

Footnote 276:

An allusion, such as the audience would catch and delight in, to the
well-known enigma of the Sphinx. See Sophocles (_Trans._), p. 1.

Footnote 277:

The Chorus, though too old to take part in the expedition, are yet
able to tell both of what passed as the expedition started, and of the
terrible fulfilment of the omens which they had seen. The two eagles
are, of course, in the symbolism of prophecy, the two chieftains,
Menelaos and Agamemnon. The “white feathers” of the one may point to
the less heroic character of Menelaos: so in v. 123, they are of
“diverse mood.” The hare whom they devour is, in the first instance,
Troïa, and so far the omen is good, portending the success of the
expedition; but, as Artemis hates the fierceness of the eagles, so
there is, in the eyes of the seer, a dark token of danger from her
wrath against the Atreidæ. Either their victory will be sullied by
cruelty which will bring down vengeance, or else there is some secret
sin in the past which must be atoned for by a terrible sacrifice. In
the legend followed by Sophocles (_Electr._ 566), Agamemnon had
offended Artemis by slaying a doe sacred to her, as he was hunting. In
the manifold meanings of such omens there is, probably, a latent
suggestion of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia by the two chieftains,
though this was at the time hidden from the seer. The fact that they
are seen on the right, not on the left hand, was itself ominous of
good.

Footnote 278:

The song of Linos, originally the dirge with which men mourned for the
death of Linos, the minstrel-son of Apollo and Urania, brother of
Orpheus, who was slain by Heracles—a type, like Thammuz and Adonis, of
life prematurely closed and bright hopes never to be fulfilled,—had
come to be the representative of all songs of mourning. So Hesiod (in
Eustath. on Hom. _Il._, vii. 569) speaks of the name, as applied to
all funeral dirges over poets and minstrels. So Herodotos (ii. 79)
compares it, as the type of this kind of music among the Greeks, with
what he found in Egypt connected with the name of Maneros, the only
son of the first king of Egypt, who died in the bloom of youth. The
name had, therefore, as definite a connotation for a Greek audience as
the words _Miserere_ or _Jubilate_ would have for us, and ought not, I
believe, to disappear from the translation.

Footnote 279:

The comparison of a lion's whelps to dew-drops, bold as the figure is,
has something in it analogous to that with which we are more familiar,
describing the children, or the army of a king, as the “dew” from “the
womb of the morning” (Ps. cx. 3).

Footnote 280:

The sacrifice, _i.e._, was to be such as could not, according to the
customary ritual, form a feast for the worshippers.

Footnote 281:

The dark words look at once before and after, back to the murder of
the sons of Thyestes, forward, though of this the seer knew not, to
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Clytæmnestra is the embodiment of the
Vengeance of which the Chorus speaks.

Footnote 282:

As a part of the drama the whole passage that follows is an assertion
by the Chorus that in this their trouble they will turn to no other
God, invoke no other name, but that of the Supreme Zeus. But it can
hardly be doubted that they have a meaning beyond this, and are the
utterance by the poet of his own theology. In the second part of the
Promethean trilogy (all that we now know of it) he had represented
Zeus as ruling in the might of despotic sovereignty, the
representative of a Power which men could not resist, but also could
not love, inflicting needless sufferings on the sons of men. Now he
has grown wiser. The sovereignty of Zeus is accepted as part of the
present order of the world; trust in Him brings peace; the pain which
He permits is the one only way to wisdom. The stress laid upon the
name of Zeus implies a wish to cleave to the religion inherited from
the older Hellenes, as contrasted with those with which their
intercourse with the East had made the Athenians familiar. Like the
voice which came to Epimenides, as he was building a sanctuary to the
Muses, bidding him dedicate it not to them but to Zeus (Diog. Laert.
i. 10), it represents a faint approximation to a truer, more
monotheistic creed than that of the popular mythology.

Footnote 283:

The two mighty ones who have passed away are Uranos and Cronos, the
representatives in Greek mythology of the earlier stages of the
world's history, (1) mere material creation, (2) an ideal period of
harmony, a golden, Saturnian age, preceding the present order of
divine government with its mingled good and evil. Comp. Hesiod.
_Theogon._, 459.

Footnote 284:

The Chorus returns, after its deeper speculative thoughts, to its
interrupted narrative.

Footnote 285:

The seer saw his augury fulfilled. When he uttered the name of Artemis
it was pregnant with all the woe which he had foreboded at the outset.

Footnote 286:

So that the blood may fall upon the altar, as the knife was drawn
across the throat.

Footnote 287:

The whole passage should be compared with the magnificent description
in Lucretius i. 84-101.

Footnote 288:

Beautiful as a picture, and as motionless and silent also. The art,
young as it was, had already reached the stage when it supplied to the
poet an ideal standard of perfection. Other allusions to it are found
in vv. 774, 1300.

Footnote 289:

The words point to the ritual of Greek feasts, which assigned the
first libation to Zeus and the Olympian Gods, the second to the
Heroes, the third to Zeus in his special character as Saviour and
Preserver; the last was commonly accompanied by a pæan, hymn of
praise. The life of Agamemnon is described as one which had good cause
to offer many such libations. Iphigeneia had sung many such pæans.

Footnote 290:

The mythical explanation of this title for the Argive territory is
found in the _Suppl._ v. 256, and its real meaning is discussed in a
note to that passage.

Footnote 291:

To speak of Morning as the child of Night was, we may well believe,
among the earliest parables of nature. In its mythical form it appears
in Hesiod (_Theogon._ 123), but its traces are found wherever, as
among Hebrews, Athenians, Germans, men reckoned by nights rather than
by days, and spoke of “the evening and the morning” rather than of
“day and night.”

Footnote 292:

The God thought of is, as in v. 272, Hephæstos, as being Lord of the
Fire, that had brought the tidings.

Footnote 293:

It is not without significance that Clytæmnestra scorns the channel of
divine instruction of which the Chorus had spoken with such reverence.
The dramatist puts into her mouth the language of those who scoffed at
the notion that truth might come to the soul in “visions of the
night,” when “deep sleep falleth upon men.” So Sophocles puts like
thoughts into the mouth of Jocasta (_Œd. King_, vv. 709, 858).

Footnote 294:

Omens came from the flight of birds. An omen which was not
trustworthy, or belonged to some lower form of divination, might
therefore be spoken of as “wingless.” But the word may possibly be
intensive, not negative, “swift-winged,” and then refer generically to
that form of divination.

Footnote 295:

The description that follows, over and above its general interest,
had, probably, for an Athenian audience, that of representing the
actual succession of beacon-stations, by which they, in the course of
the wars, under Pericles, had actually received intelligence from the
coasts of Asia. A glance at the map will show the fitness of the
places named—Ida, Lemnos, Athos, Makistos (a mountain in Eubœa),
Messapion (on the coast of Bœotia), over the plains of the Asôpos to
Kithæron, in the south of the same province, then over Gorgopis, a bay
of the Corinthian Gulf, to Ægiplanctos in Megaris, then across to a
headland overlooking the Saronic Gulf, to the Arachnæan hill in
Argolis. The word “_courier_-fire” connects itself also with the
system of posts or messengers, which the Persian kings seem to have
been the first to organise, and which impressed the minds both of
Hebrews (Esth. viii. 14) and Greeks (Herod. viii. 98) by their regular
transmission of the king's edicts, or of special news.

Footnote 296:

Our ignorance of the details of the _Lampadephoria_, or “torch-race
games,” in honour of the fire-God, Prometheus, makes the allusion to
them somewhat obscure. As described by Pausanias (I. xxx. 2), the
runners started with lighted torches from the altar of Prometheus in
the Academeia and ran towards the city. The first who reached the goal
with his torch still burning became the winner. If all the torches
were extinguished, then all were losers. As so described, however,
there is no succession, no taking the torch from one and passing it on
to another, like that described here and in the well-known line of
Lucretius (ii. 78),

“Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt.”
(And they, as runners, pass the torch of life.)

On the other hand, there are descriptions which show that such a
transfer was the chief element of the game. This is, indeed, implied
both in this passage and in the comparison between the game and the
Persian courier-system in Herod. viii. 98. The two views may be
reconciled by supposing (1) that there were sets of runners, vying
with each other as such, rather than individually, or (2) that a
runner whose speed failed him though his torch kept burning, was
allowed to hand it on to another who was more likely to win the race,
but whose torch was out. The next line seems meant to indicate where
the comparison failed. In the torch-race which Clytæmnestra describes
there had been no contest. One and the self-same fire (the idea of
succession passing into that of continuity) had started and had
reached the goal, and so had won the prize. An alternative rendering
would be,—

“He wins who is first in, though starting last.”

Footnote 297:

The complete foot-race was always to the column which marked the end
of the course, round it, and back again. In getting to Troïa,
therefore, but half the race was done.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 304:

Perhaps passively, “Soon suffers trespassers.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 307:

So in the _Seven against Thebes_ (v. 494), smoke is called “the sister
of fire.”

Footnote 308:

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

Footnote 309:

Specially the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeukes.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 313:

Perhaps—

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

Footnote 314:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.'”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 320:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 329:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 333:

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

“And yet thou sailedst with them by constraint,
By tricks fast bound.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 336:

Or—

“Weeping because the torches in thy house
No more were lighted as they were of yore.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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

Footnote 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).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 343:

An echo of a line in Hesiod (_Works and Days_, 763)—

“No whispered rumours which the many spread
Can ever wholly perish.”

Footnote 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).

Footnote 345:

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

Footnote 346:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 348:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 361:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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).

Footnote 366:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 372:

Perhaps, “in home not mine.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 374:

Possibly,

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

Footnote 375:

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

Footnote 376:

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

Footnote 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”

Footnote 378:

The older reading gives—

“A shadow might o'erturn it.”

Footnote 379:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 381:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 387:

The structure of the lyrical dialogue that follows is rather
complicated, and different editors have adopted different
arrangements. I have followed Paley's.

Footnote 388:

Several lines seem to have dropped out by some accident of
transcription.

Footnote 389:

Agamemnon and Menelaos, as descended from Tantalos, the father of
Pelops.

Footnote 390:

In each case women, Helen and Clytæmnestra, had been the unconscious
instruments of the divine Nemesis, to which the Chorus traces the ruin
of the house of Atreus.

Footnote 391:

Or, with another reading,—

“He (_sc._ the avenging Demon) boasteth in his pride of heart.”

Footnote 392:

It is characteristic of the teaching of Æschylos that the Chorus
passes from the thought of the agency of any lower Power to the
supreme will of Zeus.

Footnote 393:

Or, “Dying, as dies a slave.”

Footnote 394:

Clytæmnestra still harps (though in ambiguous words, which may refer
also to the murder of the children of Thyestes) upon the death of
Iphigeneia as the crime which it had been her work to avenge.

Footnote 395:

Perhaps, “And that, too, not a slave's.”

Footnote 396:

Here the genealogy is carried one step further to Pleisthenes, the
father of Tantalos.

Footnote 397:

Ægisthos, in his version of the story, suppresses the adultery of
Thyestes with the wife of Atreus, which led the latter to his horrible
revenge.

Footnote 398:

The image is taken from the trireme with its three benches full of
rowers. The Chorus is compared to the men on the lowest, Ægisthos and
Clytæmnestra to those on the uppermost bench.

Footnote 399:

The earliest occurrence of the proverb with which we are familiar
through the history of St. Paul's conversion, Acts ix. 5, xxvi. 14.

Footnote 400:

The trace-horse, as not under the pressure of the collar, was taken as
the type of free, those that wore the yoke, of enforced submission.

THE LIBATION-POURERS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ORESTES
CLYTÆMNESTRA
PYLADES
ELECTRA
ÆGISTHOS
_Nurse_
_Servant_
_Chorus of Captive Women_

_ARGUMENT.—It came to pass, after Agamemnon had been slain, that Clytæmnestra and Ægisthos ruled in Argos, and all things seemed to go well with them. Orestes, who was heir to Agamemnon, they had sent away to the care of Strophios of Phokis, and there he abode. Electra, his sister, mourned in secret over her father's death, and prayed for vengeance, but no avenger came. And when Orestes grew up to man's estate, he went to ask counsel of the God at Delphi, and the Gods straitly charged him to take vengeance on his father's murderers; and so he started on his journey with his trusty friend Pylades, and arrived at Argos. And it chanced that a little while before he came, the Gods sent Clytæmnestra a fearful dream, that troubled her soul greatly; and in her terror she bade Electra go with her handmaids to pour libations on the tomb of Agamemnon, that so she might appease his soul, and propitiate the Powers that rule over the dark world of the dead._

THE LIBATION-POURERS

SCENE.—Argos, _in front of the palace of the Atreidæ. The tomb of_
AGAMEMNON _(a raised mound of earth) is seen in the background._

_Enter_ ORESTES _and_ PYLADES _from the left;_ ORESTES _advances to
the mound, and, as he speaks, lays on it a lock of his hair._

_Orest._ O Hermes of the darkness 'neath the earth, Who hast the charge of all thy Father's[401] sway, To me who pray deliverer, helper be; For I to this land come, from exile come, And on the raised mound of this monument I bid my father hear and list. One tress, Thank-offering for the gifts that fed my youth, To Inachos I consecrate, and this The second as the token of my grief;[402] For mine it was not, father, being by, Over thy death to groan, nor yet to stretch My hand forth for the burial of thy corpse.

[_As he speaks_, ELECTRA, _followed by a train of
captive women in black garments, bearing libations,
wailing and tearing their clothes, comes
forth from the palace_

What see I now? What company of women Is this that comes in mourning garb attired? What chance shall I conjecture as its cause? 10 Does a new sorrow fall upon this house? Or am I right in guessing that they bring Libations to my father, soothing gifts To those beneath? It cannot but be so. I think Electra, mine own sister, comes, By wailing grief conspicuous. Thou, O Zeus, Grant me full vengeance for my father's death, And of thine own good will my helper be! Come, Pylades, and let us stand aside, That I may clearly learn what means this train Of women offering prayers. 20

STROPHE I

_Chor._ Sent from the house I come, With quick, sharp beatings of the hands in grief, To pour libations here; *And see, my cheeks with bloody marks are tracked,[403] The new-cut furrows which my nails have made, And evermore my heart is fed with groans; And folds of mantles tied Across the breast are rent To shreds and rags in grief, *Marring the grace of linen vestments fair, *Since we by woes that shut out smiles are smitten. 30

ANTISTROPHE I

*Full clear a spectre came That made each single hair to stand on end, Dream-prophet of this house, That e'en in sleep breathes out avenging wrath; And from the secret chamber cried in fear A cry that broke the silence of the night, There, where the women dwell, Falling with heaviest weight; And those who judge such dreams Told, calling God to witness, that the souls Below were wroth and vexed with those that slew them. 40

STROPHE II

On such a graceless deed of grace, as charm
To ward off ill, (O Earth! O mother kind!)
A godless woman now
Sends me with eager heart;
And yet I dread to utter that same prayer;
What ransom has been found
For blood on earth once poured?
Oh! hearth all miserable!
Oh! utter overthrow of house and home!
Yea, mists of darkness, sunless, loathed of men, 50
Cover both home and house
With its lords' bloody deaths.

ANTISTROPHE II

Yea, all the majesty that awed of old,
Unchecked, unconquered, irresistible,
Thrilling the people's heart
As well as ears, is gone;
There are, may be, that fear;[404] but now Success
Is man's sole God and more;
Yet stroke of Vengeance swift
Smites some in life's clear day,
For some who tarry long their sorrows wait
In twilight dim, on darkness' borderland,
*And some an endless night
Of nothingness holds fast.

STROPHE III

Because of blood that mother earth has drunk, The guilt of slaughter that will vengeance work Is fixed indelibly; And Atè, working grief, 60 Permits awhile the guilty one to wait, That so he may be full and overflow *With all-devouring ill.

ANTISTROPHE III

For him whose foul touch stains the marriage bed[405]
No remedy avails; and water-streams,
Though all as from one source
Should pour to cleanse the guilt
*Of murder that the sin-stained hand defiles,
*Would yet flow all in vain
*That guilt to purify.

EPODE

But now to me, since the high Gods have sent A doom of bondage round my city's walls, (For from my father's home They have brought on me fate of slavery,) Deeds right and wrong alike Have been as things 'twas meet I should accept, 70 Since this slave-life began, Where deeds are done by violence and force,— And I must needs suppress *The bitter loathing of my inmost heart, *And now beneath my cloak I weep and wail *For all the frustrate fortunes of my lords,[406] Chilled through with secret grief.

_Elect._ Ye handmaids, ye who deftly tend this house, Since ye are here companions in my task As suppliants, give me your advice in this, What shall I say as these funereal gifts I pour? How shall I speak acceptably? 80 How to my father pray? What? Shall I say “I bring from loving wife to husband loved Gifts”—from my mother? No, I am not bold Enough for that, nor know I what to speak, Pouring this chrism on my father's tomb,[407] Or shall I say this prayer, as men are wont, “Good recompense make thou to those who bring These garlands,” yea, a gift full well deserved By deeds of ill? Or dumb, with ignominy Like that with which he perished, shall I pour Libations on the earth, and like a man That flings away the lustral filth, shall I Throw down the urn and walk with eyes not turned?[408] 90 Be sharers in my counsels, O my friends; A common hate we cherish in the house; Hide nothing in your heart through fear of man. Fate's doom firm-fixed awaits alike the free, And those in bondage to another's hand. Speak, if thou can'st a better counsel give. 100

_Chor._ [_laying their hands on Agamemnon's tomb._] Thy father's tomb as altar honouring, I, as thou bidd'st, will speak my heart-thoughts out!

_Elect._ Speak, then, as thou my father's tomb dost honour,

_Chor._ Say, as thou pour'st, good words for those that love,

_Elect._ Which of my friends shall I address as such!

_Chor._ First then thyself, and whoso hates Ægisthos.

_Elect._ Shall I for thee, as for myself, pray thus?

_Chor._ Now that thou'rt learning, judge of that thyself.

_Elect._ Whom shall I add then to this company?

_Chor._ Far though Orestes be, forget him not.

_Elect._ Right well is this: thou teachest admirably.

_Chor._ Then, for the blood-stained ones remembering say....

_Elect._ What then? Explain, and teach my ignorance.[409] 110

_Chor._ That there may come to them some God or man....

_Elect._ Shall I “as judge” or as “avenger” say?

_Chor._ Say it out plain! “to give them death for death.”...

_Elect._ May prayers like these consist with piety?

_Chor._ Why not,—a foe with evils to requite?

_Elect._ [_moving to the tomb, and pouring libations as she speaks._] *O mightiest herald of the Gods on high And those below, O Hermes of the dark, Call thou the Powers beneath, and bid them hear The prayers that look towards my father's house; And Earth herself, who all things bringeth forth, 120 And rears them and again receives their fruit. And I to human souls libations pouring, Say, calling on my father, “Pity me; How shall we bring our dear Orestes home?” For now as sold to ill by her who bore us, We poor ones wander. She as husband gained Ægisthos, who was partner in thy death; And I am as a slave, and from his wealth Orestes now is banished, and they wax Full haughty in the wealth thy toil had gained. 130 And that Orestes hither with good luck May come, I pray. Hear thou that prayer, my father! And to myself grant thou that I may be Than that my mother wiser far of heart, Holier in act. For us this prayer I pour; And for our foes, my father, this I pray, That Justice may as thine avenger come, And that thy murderers perish. Thus I place Midway in prayer for good that now I speak, My prayer 'gainst them for evil. Be thou then The escort[410] of these good things that I ask, 140 With help of Gods, and Earth, and conquering Justice. With prayers like these my votive gifts I pour; And as for you [_turning to the Chorus_] 'tis meet with cries to crown The pæan ye utter, wailing for the dead.

STROPHE

_Chor._ *Pour ye the pattering tear, *Falling for fallen lord, *Here by the tomb that shuts out good and ill,— Here, where the full libations have been poured That turn aside the curse men deprecate, Hear me, O Thou my Dread, 150 Hear thou, O Sire, the words my dark mind speaks!

ANTISTROPHE

Oh, woe is me, woe, woe!
Woe, woe, and woe is me!
*What warrior strong of spear
Shall come the house to free,
Or Ares with his Skythian bow[411] in hand,
Shaking its pliant strength in deeds of war,
*Or guiding in encounter closer yet
The weapons made with hilts?

[_During the choral ode_ ELECTRA, _after going to the
mound, and pouring the libations on it, returns
holding in her hands the lock of hair which_
ORESTES _had left there_

_Elect._ The gifts the earth hath drunk, my father hath them: Now this new wonder come and share with me.

_Chor._ Speak on, my heart goes pit-a-pat with fear.

_Elect._ There on the tomb I see this lock cut off. 160

_Chor._ What man or maid low-girdled can it claim?

_Elect._ Full easy this for any one to guess.

_Chor._ Old as I am, may I from younger learn?

_Elect._ None but myself could cut off lock like this.

_Chor._ Yea, foes are they that should with grief-locks mourn.

_Elect._ Yes, surely, 'tis indeed the self-same hair....

_Chor._ But as what tresses? This I seek to know.

_Elect._ And of a truth 'tis very like to ours....

_Chor._ Did then Orestes send this secret gift?[412]

_Elect._ It is most like those flowing locks of his. 170

_Chor._ Yet how had he adventured to come hither?

_Elect._ He to his father sent the lock as gift.

_Chor._ Not less regretful than before, thy words, If on this soil his foot shall never tread.

_Elect._ Yea, on me too there rushed heart-surge of gall And I was smitten as with dart that pierced; And from mine eyes there fell the thirsty drops That pour unchecked, of this full bitter flood, As I this lock beheld. How can I think That any other townsman owns this hair? 180 Nay, she who slew ... she did not cut it off, My mother ... who towards her children shows A godless mood that little suits the name; And yet that I should this assert outright, The precious gift is his whom most of men I love, Orestes.... Nay, hope flatters me. Alas! alas! Would, herald-like, it had a kindly voice! So should I not turn to and fro in doubt; But either it had told me with all clearness To loathe this tress, if cut from hated head; 190 Or, being of kin, had sought to share my grief, To deck the tomb and do my father honour.

_Chor._ Well, on the Gods we call, on those who know In what storms we, like sailors, now are tossed: But if deliverance may indeed be ours, From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.[413]

_Elect._ Here too are foot-prints as a second proof, Just like ... yea, close resembling those of mine. For here are outlines of two separate feet, His own and those of fellow-traveller, 200 And all the heels and impress of the feet, When measured, fit well with my footsteps here.... Pangs come on me, and sore bewilderment.

[_As she ceases speaking_ ORESTES _comes forward
from his concealment_