Chapter XII: æschylus

Life of Æschylus.--Nature of his Inspiration.--The
Theory of Art in the _Ion_ of Plato.--Æschylus and
Sophocles.--What Æschylus accomplished for the Attic
Drama.--His Demiurgic Genius.--Colossal Scale of his
Work.--Marlowe.--Oriental Imagery.--Absence of Love
as a Motive in his Plays.--The Organic Vitality of
his Art.--Opening Scenes.--Messenger.--Chorus.--His
Theology.--Destiny in Æschylus.--The Domestic Curse.--His
Character-drawing.--Clytemnestra.--Difficulty of Dealing
with the _Prometheus_.--What was his Fault?--How was
Zeus justified?--Shelley's Opinion.--The Last Trilogy of
_Prometheus_.--Middle Plays in Trilogies.--Attempt to
Reconstruct a _Prometheis_.--The Part of Herakles.--Obscurity
of the Promethean Legend.--The Free Handling of Myths
Permitted to the Dramatist.--The _Oresteia_.--Its
Subject.--The Structure of the Three Plays.--The
_Agamemnon_.---Its Imagery.--Cassandra.--The Cry of the
King.--The Chorus.--Iphigeneia at the Altar.--Menelaus
abandoned by Helen.--The Dead Soldiers on the Plains of
Troy.--The _Persæ_.--The Crime of Xerxes.--Irony of the
Situation.--Description of the Battle of Salamis.--The Style of
Æschylus.--His Religious Feeling 372