Chapter XIII: Part 13

Note 21 (p. 106). "May Power and Justice aid thee, mighty Twain."

The reader will note this theological triad as very characteristic of the Greeks. POWER (Κράτος) is coupled with Jove, as being his most peculiar physical attribute. Personified, this attribute appears in the Prometheus; and in Homer,

"Jove, the lofty-pealing Thunderer, and in power the chiefest god,"

answers to the opening words of our own solemn addresses to the Supreme Being--ALMIGHTY GOD. JUSTICE, again, belongs to Jove as the highest moral attribute; and this conjunction we find also very distinctly expressed in Homer.

"By Olympian Jove I charge you, and by Themis who presides
O'er the assemblies of the people."--ODYSSEY II. 68.

Note 22 (p. 107). ". . . exasperate at the loss Of my so fair possessions."

ἀποχρημάτοισι ζημιάις ταυρόυμενον. KL. has made sad havoc of this line; but his objections to the old translation are weak, and his transpositions, so far as I can see, only make confusion more confounded. I stick by STAN. Ἀποχρήματος ζημιά est _damnum bonorum omnium_. Huc facit illud quod sequitur v. 299. και προσπιέζει χρημάτων ἀχηνία.

Note 23 (p. 107). ". . . The evil-minded Powers Beneath the Earth."

I am quite at a loss to explain the original of this passage further than that I see nothing harsh (as LIN. does) in referring the general term δυσφρόνων to the Furies, who are specially mentioned afterwards. It is quite common with Æschylus to give a general description first, and then specialise; and, moreover, in the present instance the λιχήνος which the δυσφρονες are to send on the flesh of the sinner, are strictly analogous to the λιχὴν ἀφυλλος (Eumen. v. 788), with which, in the Eumenides, they threaten to curse the Athenian soil. For the rest I should have little objection, in the present state of the MSS., to adopt LOBECK's suggestion, μηνίματα, into the text, and have in effect so translated.

Note 24 (p. 107). "And through the dark his prescient eyebrow arched."

The reference of this impracticable line to Apollo comes from Pauw, and has been adopted by SCHWENCK, who reads--

'Ορῶν τε λαμπρὸν ὲν σκότῳ τ᾽ ᾽οφρὺν.

Another way of squeezing a meaning from the line is to refer it to Agamemnon--

"With trains of heavier woes
Raised by the Furies from my father's blood,
Who in the realms of night sees this, and bends
His gloomy brows."--POT.

The other translations proposed are meagre and unpoetical.

Note 25 (p. 107). ". . . him no share In festal cup awaits, or hallowed drop Of pure libation."

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Here we have a notable example of the terms of that sort of excommunication which the religious and social feeling of the ancients passed against the perpetrators of atrocious crimes. See Introductory Remarks to the Eumenides.

Note 26 (p. 108). "Age to age with hoary wisdom Speaketh thus to men."

The old Jewish maxim of _an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth_, will here recur to every one; and, indeed, it is, to the present day, an instinctive dictate of social justice, however insufficient it may be as a general motive for individual conduct. In this spirit, wise old Nestor, in the Iliad (II. 354), considers that it would be disgraceful for the Greeks to think of returning home "before some Greek had slept with the wife of some Trojan," as a retaliation for the woes that Paris had inflicted on Greek social life, in the matter of Helen. In Dante's Inferno there are many instances, sometimes ingenious, sometimes only ridiculous, of the application of this principle to retributive punishment in a future life.

Note 27 (p. 108). "There where in dark, the dead-man's day, thou liest."

KL. appears to me to have supplied the true key to σκότω φάος ἰσόμοιρον, by comparing the exclamation of Ajax in Sophocles, v. 394--

Ιὼ σκότος ἐμὸν φάος
ἔρεβος ὠ φαεννότατον ὡς εμόι!

The gloomy state of the dead in Hades is pictured yet more darkly, by saying that the night, which covers them, is all that serves them for day.

Note 28 (p. 109). "The monarch of the awful dead."

The Hades of the ancients was, as is well remarked by KL. on this place, in all things an image of this upper world; an observation to be made on the surface of Virgil--

"Quae gratia currum
Armorumque fuit viris, quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."
ÆNEID VI. 653.

But the parallel most striking to the present passage occurs in the address of Ulysses to Achilles, Odyssey XI. 482--

"Achilles,
Never man before was happier, nor shall ever be, than thou;
When thou wert among the living all the Argives honoured thee
Like a god, and now amid the dead thou sway'st with mighty power."

To which address the hero gave the well-known reply, a reply characteristic at once of his own tremendous energy, and of the Greek views of a future state:--

"Noble Ulysses, praise me not the state of death; for I would rather
Be a serf, and break the clods to him that owneth acres few
On Earth, than reign the mighty lord of millions of the shadowy dead."

Note 29 (p. 110). "Hyperborean bliss."

"Fair birds have fair feathers;" so the Greeks, who had sent no voyages of discovery to the Arctic seas, were free, without contradiction, to place Utopia at the North Pole. (See Herodot. III. 106, quoted by _Nitzsh_ in his comments on the Phœacians, Od. VII. 201-6.) SCHÜTZ quotes POMP. MELA. III. 5--"_diutius quam ulli mortalium et beatius vivunt._" Some of {364} these Hyperboreans drank nothing but milk (γαλακτοφάγοι, Hom. Il. XIII. 6), and from this practice the alleged purity of their manners, according to certain modern theories of dietetics, may have arisen.

Note 30 (p. 110). "O Jove, O Jove! that sendest from below."

"Zeus, though his proper region is above, yet, by reason of his perfect concord with his brother in the moral government of the world, exercises authority also in Hades"--KL. This is one of the many instances to be found in Homer and Æschylus of the Monotheistic principle of an enlightened Deism controlling and overruling the apparent confusion and anarchy of Polytheism.

Note 31 (p. 111). "Ye that honoured reign below."

What the true reading of the corrupt original here is, no one can know; but it may be some satisfaction to the student to note that the different readings of all the emendators bring out substantially the same sense. I give the various translations as follows:--

_You, whose dreaded power_
_The infernal realms revere, ye Furies, hear me!_--POT.

O ye powers that are honoured among the dead, listen to my prayer.--E.
P., Oxon.

Höret ihr Herrscher der Tiefe, hört mich.--DROY.
Höret mich Erd, und des Abgrund's mächte!--FR.

Neither this "Earth," nor my "Furies," can be looked on as part of the text. They are only put in to fill up a gap, where nothing better can be done.

Note 32 (p. 111). "And if blithe confidence awhile."

This passage is desperate. I follow PEILE in the translation; though, if I were editing the Greek, I should prefer to follow WELL. and PAL. in doing nothing.

Note 33 (p. 111). "The mother gave her child This wolfish nature wild."

This translation, which is supported by PEILE, and PAL., and LIN., seems to me to give θυμὸς that reference to Orestes which connects it best with the previous lines, while it, at the same time, gives the least forced explanation of ἐκ μάτρος.

Note 34 (p. 112). "Like a Persian mourner."

The student will find a very remarkable difference between this version and that in POT. and E. P. Oxon., arising from the conversion of the word πολεμιστρίας into ἰηλεμιστρίας, a conjectural emendation which we owe to HERMANN and AHRENS, and which appears to me to be one of the most satisfactory that has ever been made on the text of Æschylus. It has, accordingly, been adopted by KL., PEILE, PAL., FR., and DROY. The oriental wailers were famous, and the "Maryandine and Mysian wailers" are especially mentioned by our poet in the final chorus of "the Persians;" which will be the best commentary on the exaggerated tone of the present passage. I have followed the recent German editors and translators in giving the first part of this Strophe to the Chorus. There seems to be a natural division at the words Ἰὼ, Ἰὼ δαία.

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Note 35 (p. 112).

_Orestes_. WELL. has certainly made a great oversight in running on continuously with these two Strophes. However the division be made, a new person must commence with Αέγεις πατρώϊον μόρον.

Note 36 (p. 113).

_Chorus_. Here again I follow the later editors and translators in dividing the part given to the Chorus by WELL. There is a sort of natural partition of the style and sentiment palpable to any reader. It may also be remarked in general, that the broken and exclamatory style of the lamentation in this Chorus is quite incompatible with long continuous speeches (such as POT. has given), out of one mouth. The order of persons I give as in PEILE.

Note 37 (p. 114). "Scathless myself."

φυγεῖν. FR. has unnecessarily changed this into τυχεῖν. In Odyssey XX. 43, Ulysses uses the same language to Athena.

Note 38 (p. 114). "Thou too shalt taste."

That the dead were believed actually to eat the meat and drink that was prepared for them at the funeral feast is evident from the eleventh book of the Odyssey, where they come up in fluttering swarms and sip the pool of blood from the victim which he had sacrificed.

Note 39 (p. 115). "Well spoken both."

With KL., PEILE, FR., and PAL., I adopt Hermann's emendation--

κὰι μὴν ἀμεμφῆ τον δ ἐτείνατον λόγον.

and with him give the four lines to the Chorus. A very obvious and natural sense is thus brought out, besides that καὶ μὴν naturally indicates a change of person.

Note 40 (p. 115). ". . . try what speed the gods may give thee."

δαίμονος πειρῶμενος. Literally _trying your god_--the dependence of fortune upon God being a truth so vividly before the Greek mind that the term δαίμων came to be used for both in a manner quite foreign to the use of the English language, and which can only be fully expressed by giving both the elements of the word in a sort of paraphrase.

Note 41 (p. 116). ". . . this whole house with ills Is sheer possessed."

δαὶμονᾷ δόμος κακοῖς. Literally, "the house is _godded_ with ills," that is, so beset with evil that we can attribute it only to a special superhuman power--to a god, as the Greeks expressed it, to the devil, as we say.

Note 42 (p. 116). ". . . Sirs, why dare ye shut Inhospitable doors against the stranger?"

To shut the door upon a stranger or a beggar, seems, in Homer's days, to have been accounted as great a sin, as it is now, from change of circumstances, necessarily looked on as almost a virtue. Every book of the Odyssey has some testimony to this; suffice it to quote the maxim--

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"προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντες
ξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε."

"ALL STRANGERS AND BEGGARS COME FROM JOVE."

Note 43 (p. 116). "The third and crowning cup."

"Alluding first to the slaughter of the children of Thyestes by Atreus, then to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and thirdly, that of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus presently to take place."--KL.

Note 44 (p. 116). ". . . his present aid I ask. Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task."

I am inclined with SCHÜTZ, KL., and PEILE, to think that there is more propriety in referring this to Apollo than to Pylades. It is true, also, as SCHÜTZ remarks, that Æschylus generally, if not invariably, applies the word ἐποπτεύω to the notice taken of anything by a god.

Note 45 (p. 117). "Earth breeds a fearful progeny."

The sentiment of this chorus was familiar to the ancients, and was suggested with peculiar force to the minds of the tragedians, from the contemplation of those terrible deeds of old traditionary crime, which so often formed the subject of their most popular and most powerful efforts. Sophocles had a famous chorus in the Antigone, beginning in the same strain, though ranging over a wider and a more ennobling field--"πολλὰ τα δεινὰ κ᾽ ουδὲν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει."

"Things of might hath Nature many
In her various plan,
But of daring powers who dareth
Most on Earth is man."

In imitation of which, the

"Audax omnia perpeti
Gens humana ruit in vetitum nefas"

of Horace has become proverbial. In modern times, the pages of the _Times_ newspaper will supply more ample and various illustrations of the same great truth than the most learned ancient could have collected. In England especially, the strong nature of the Saxon shows something Titanic, both in feats of mechanical enterprise and in crime.

Note 46 (p. 117). "All-venturing woman's dreadful ire."

KL. quotes here the Homeric

ὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς.
"Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do."

So a friend who was in Paris, at the time of the Revolution in 1848, wrote to me--"With the men I can easily manage, but _the women are tigers._"

Note 47 (p. 117). "Thestios' daughter, wild with rage."

Althea, the mother of the famous Calydonian boar-hunter, Meleager, who is so often seen on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. "When Meleager was seven days old, it is said the Fates appeared, declaring that the boy would die, as soon as the piece of wood that was burning on the hearth should be consumed. When Althea heard this, she extinguished the firebrand, and concealed it in a chest. Meleager himself became invulnerable; {367} but when--in the war between the Calydonians and the Curetes--he had unfortunately killed his mother's brother, she lighted the piece of wood, and Meleager died."--_Dict. Biog._

Note 48 (p. 117). "How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed."

The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who, when Minos, in his expedition against Athens, took Megara, betrayed the city to the enemy, by cutting off the purple or golden hair which grew on the top of her father's head, and on which his life and the preservation of the city depended.--_Dict. Biog._; _voce_ NISUS, and Virgil Georg. I. 404, and Ovid. Met VIII. 90, quoted here by STAN.

Note 49 (p. 118). "O woman! woman! Lemnos saw."

The Lemnian women, as Apollodorus relates (I. 9, 17), having neglected to pay due honor to Venus, were, by that goddess, made so ill-favoured and intolerable to consort with (ἀυταῖς ἐμβάλλη δοσοσμίαν), that their husbands, abandoning them, took themselves other wives from among the captive women that they had brought over from Thrace. The Lemnian women, in revenge, murdered both their fathers and their husbands; from which atrocious act, and another bloody deed mentioned by Herodotus (VI. 138), "it hath been the custom," says the historian, "to call by the name Lemnian any monstrous and inhuman action."

Note 50 (p. 118). "And honor from the threshold hies, On which the doom god-spoken lies."

We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm, Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain thus--"Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are once hostile, no one can escape their anger--not by hiding himself in darkness--not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things are subject to the gods."--_Anab_. II. 5. Think on some of the Psalms!

Note 51 (p. 119). "But nice regard for the fine feeling ear."

I have here with a certain freedom of version expressed KL.'s idea, that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is "inept" to believe, with BL. and PEILE, that we have here merely an instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public--as Achilles says, in Euripides--

ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.
"For me to hold exchange of words with women
Were most improper."--IPHIG. AULID. 830.

Note 52 (p. 119). "Hot baths."

To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a fact, however, as KL. well notes, that of nothing is there more frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially frequent in the Odyssey, {368} where so many journeys are made. Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet records with pleasure how "out of the bath he came in appearance like to the immortal gods" (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.

Note 53 (p. 119).

_Electra_. WELL. is very imperative in taking these words out of Electra's mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.

Note 54 (p. 120). "Is audited at nothing."

The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. 'Tis certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be referred to Clytemnestra.

Note 55 (p. 120). ". . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!"

The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line) peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings--

"Te boves olim nisi reddidisses
Per dolum amotas puerum minaci
Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra
Risit Apollo."

Note 56 (p. 120). "The nightly courier of the dead."

τὸν νύχιον. That there is a great propriety in the epithet _nightly_, as applied to Mercury, both in respect of his general function as πομπᾶιος, or leader of the dead through the realms of night, and in respect of the particular business now in hand, and the particular time of the action, is obvious. In spite of some grammatical objections, therefore, I cannot but think it far-fetched in BLOM. and PEILE to refer the epithet to Orestes. Were I editing the text I should be very much inclined to follow HERM. and PAL. in putting καὶ τὸν νύχιον within brackets, as perhaps a gloss.

Note 57 (p. 122). "The bearer of a tale can make it wear What face he pleases."

I translate thus generally, in order to avoid the necessity of settling the point whether κυπτὸς or κρυπτὸς is the proper reading--a point, however, of little consequence to the translator of Æschylus, as the Venetian Scholiast to Il. O. 207 has been triumphantly brought forward to prove the real meaning of this otherwise corrupt and unintelligible verse. POT. was not in a condition to get hold of the true text--so he has given the best version he could of what he had--

"_For the mind catches from the messenger_
_A secret elevation and bold swell,_"

evidently from the reading of PAW.--

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ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶ
_animo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto._

--See BUTLER's Notes.

Note 58 (p. 122).

CHORAL HYMN. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chiefly PEILE and LIN.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I follow PEILE.

Note 59 (p. 125). "Let's go aside, the deed being done, that we Seem not partakers of the bloody work."

'Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly; but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur.

Note 60 (p. 126). "I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die."

Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing. Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in battle--

"Not to his parents
The nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid."
--IL. IV. 478.

"In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his mother."--KLAUSEN.

Note 61 (p. 126). "Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber."

"Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee;
Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the order
Each to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrows
To the men and to me--for the man in the house is the master."
ODYSSEY XXI. 350.

So Telemachus says to his mother; and on other occasions he uses what we should think, rather sharp and undutiful language--but in Greece a woman who left the woman's chamber without a special and exceptional call {370} subjected herself to just rebuke. With regard to the matter here at issue between Orestes and Clytemnestra, KL. notes that, though the wandering Ulysses is allowed without blame to form an amorous alliance with Calypso, the same excuse is not allowed for the female sitting quietly in her "upper chamber" (ὑπερώιον, Il. II. 514) as Homer has it. For "in ancient times," says the Scholiast to that passage, "the Greeks shut up their women in garrets (ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι) _that they might be difficult to get at_."--How Turkish!

Note 62 (p. 126).

_Orestes_. I have little doubt that KL., PEILE, FR., WELL., and PAL., are right in giving the line ἦ κάρτα μάντις to Orestes. I should be inclined to agree with WELL. and PAL. also, that after this line a verse has dropt out--"_in quo instantem sibi mortem deprecata sit Clytemnestra;_" but there is no need of indicating the supposed blank in the translation, as the sense runs on smoothly enough without it.

Note 63 (p. 127). ". . . the eye of this great house, may live."

An Oriental expression, to which the magnificent phraseology of our Celestial brother who sells tea, has made the English ear sufficiently familiar. He calls our king, or our consul, I forget which, "the Barbarian eye." Other examples of this style occur in the Persians and the Eumenides.--See p. 172 above.

Note 64 (p. 127). "A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible."

Klausen, who, like other Germans, has a trick, sometimes, of preferring what is far-fetched to what is obvious, considers that this double Mars is the double death, first of Agamemnon in the previous piece, then of Clytemnestra in this; but notwithstanding what he says, the best comment on this passage is that given by the old Scholiast, when he writes "PYLADES and ORESTES."

Note 65 (p. 127). "Sore chastisement."

ποινὰ. AHRENS, with great boldness, changes this into Ἐρμᾶς, which reading has been rashly thrown into the text by FR. If any special allusion is needed, I agree with PAL. that Orestes is indicated, who is mentioned in the next clause as inflicting the blow, under the guidance of celestial Justice.

Note 66 (p. 127). "Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo."

In this corrupt passage I adopt HERMANN's correction of τάν περ for τάπέρ. How much the whole meaning is guesswork, the reader may see, by comparing my translation with POT. and the E. P. Oxon., in this place, who follow the old Scholiast in referring χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ to Clytemnestra.

Note 67 (p. 127). "And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest."

This passage being very corrupt, is rendered freely. I adopt STAN.'s conjecture ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θ᾽ ἱεμενοις, and suppose μέτοικοι to refer to Orestes and Electra.

Note 68 (p. 128). ". . . not My father, but the Sun that fathers all With light."

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There is a certain mannerism in this description of a thing by the negation of what is similar, to which the tragedians were much addicted. As to the invocation of the sun, see the note in the Prometheus to the speech beginning

O divine ether and swift-winged winds.

Note 69 (p. 128). "Or a torpedo, that with biteless touch Strikes numb who handles."

Literally, _a lamprey_, μύραινα; but to translate so would have been ludicrous; and besides, as BLOM. has noted from Athenaeus, it was not a common lamprey that, in the imagination of the Greeks, was coupled with a viper, but "a sort of monstrous reptile begotten between a viper and a lamprey."

Note 70 (p. 128). "This cloth to wrap the dead."

'Tis difficult to say whether δρόιτη, in this place, means the bath in which Agamemnon was murdered, or the bier on which any dead body is laid after death. KL. supports this latter interpretation. I have incorporated a reference to both versions.

Note 71 (p. 129). "Others 'twixt hope and fear may sway, my fate Is fixed and scapeless."

I read--

Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ὀ)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι.
PEILE.

Note 72 (p. 129). "With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch."

These insignia of suppliants are familiar to every reader of the Classics. I shall only recall two of the most familiar instances. In the opening scene of the Iliad the priest of Apollo appears before Agamemnon, and

"In his hand he held the chaplet of the distant-darting Phœbus
On a golden rod."

And in the opening lines of the Œdipus Tyrannus, the old King asks the Chorus--

"Why swarm ye here around the seats of the gods,
With branches furnished such as suppliants bear?"

Note 73 (p. 129). ". . . navel of earth, where burns the flame Of fire immortal."

As the old astronomers made Earth the centre of the planetary system, and as men are everywhere, and at all times, apt to consider their own position and point of view as of more importance in the great whole of things than it really is; so the Greeks, in their ignorant vanity, considered their own Delphi to be the navel, or central point of Earth. As to the immortal fire, STAN. quotes here from Plutarch, who, in his life of Numa (c. ix.), describing the institution of the Vestal Virgins, takes occasion to mention the sacred fire kept alive in Greece at two places, Delphi and Athens, which, if extinguished, was always rekindled from no earthly spark, but from the Sun.

Note 74 (p. 130). "There is atonement."

Ἐισιν καθαρμόι, SCHÜTZ, PAL.; (ε)᾽ σται καθαρμός, BOTHE. Either of these seems preferable to the vulgate ἐισω. FRANZ has ῟Εις σοι καθαρμὸς. _Eins bleibt Dir Sühnung._

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Note 75 (p. 130). "Ye see them not. I see them."

Ghosts and gods are never visible to the bystander, but only to the person or persons who may be under their special influence at the moment of their appearance--so in the Iliad (I. 197), Pallas Athena--

"There behind him stood, and by the yellow hair she seized Pelides,
Seen to him alone; the others saw not where the goddess stood."

and so in a thousand places of the poet. To the spectator, however, in the theatre, spiritual beings must be visible, because (as Müller, Eumen. 3, properly remarks) they are the very persons from before whose eyes it is the business of the poet to remove the veil that interposes between our everyday life and the spiritual world. That the Furies of the following piece were seen bodily at this part of the present play, and are not supposed to exist merely in the brain of Orestes, is only what a decent regard for common poetical consistency on the part of a great tragic poet seems to imply.

Note 76 (p. 130). ". . . the god whose eyes in love behold thee!"

What god is not said, but the word θεός is used indefinitely without the article. The Greeks had an indefinite style when talking of the divine providence--_a god_, or _some god_, or _the god_, or _the gods_--a style which arose naturally out of the Polytheistic form of celestial government. Examples of all the different kinds of phraseology are frequent in Homer. Sometimes, in that author, the expression, though indefinite in itself, has a special allusion, plain enough from the context; and in the present passage I see no harm in supposing an allusion to Apollo, under whose immediate patronage Orestes acts through the whole of this piece and that which follows.

NOTES TO THE EUMENIDES

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Note 1 (p. 141). "Old earth, primeval prophetess, I first With these my prayers invoke; and Themis next."

Earth, or GAEA, as the Greeks name her, is described here, and in Pausanias (X. 5), as the most ancient prophetess of Delphi, for two reasons; _first_, because out of the earth came those intoxicating fumes or vapours, by the inspiration of which the oracles were given forth (see Diodorus XVI. 26); _second_, because, as SCHOEMANN well observes, GAEA, as the aboriginal divine mother, out of whose womb all the future celestial genealogies were developed, necessarily contained in herself the law of their development, and is accordingly represented by Hesiod as exercising a prophetic power with regard to the fates of the other gods.--(Theog. 463, 494, 625). The same writer remarks with equal ingenuity and truth, that Themis, her successor in the prophetic office, is only a personification of that law of development which, by necessity of her divine nature, originally lay in Gaea; and I would remark, further, how admirable the instinct was of those old mythologists, who placed LOVE and RIGHT, and other ineradicable feelings or notions of the human mind, among the very oldest of the gods. It is notable also, that previous to Apollo, all the presidents of prophecy at Delphi--including the famous Phemonoe, not mentioned here but by Pausanias l. c., were women, and even Loxias himself could not give forth oracles without the help of a Pythoness. There is a great fitness in this, as women are naturally both more pious and more emotional than men. Hence their peculiar fitness for exercising prophetic functions, of which ancient Germany was witness--(see Cæsar B.C. I. 50).

Note 2 (p. 141). ". . . rocky Delos' lake."

There can be no question that SCHÜTZ was right in translating λίμνη, in this passage, _lake_ (and not _sea_, as ABRESCH did), it being impossible that a well-informed Athenian, on hearing this passage in the theatre, should not understand the poet to refer to the circular lake in Delos, described by Herodotus in II. 170.

Note 3 (p. 141). "The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path."

_i.e._ "The Athenians"--Scholiast--"who," adds STAN., "were called the sons of Vulcan, because they were skilled in all the arts of which Vulcan and Pallas were patrons; or, because Erichthonius, from whom the Athenians were descended, was the son of Vulcan;" with which latter view Müller and Schoemann concur; and it appears to me sufficiently reasonable. There is no reason, however, for not receiving, along with this explanation, another which has been given, that the sons of the fire-god mean "smiths." Artificers of this kind were necessary to pioneer the path for the procession of the god in the manner here described, and would naturally form, at least, a part of the convoy.

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Note 4 (p. 141). ". . . Loxias, prophet of his father Jove."

'Tis plain from the whole language of Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, that the fountain of the whole moral government of the world is Jove, and, of course, that all divination and inspiration comes originally from him. Even Phœbus Apollo acts only as his instrument (Nägelsbach Homerische Theologie, p. 105). STAN. compares Virgil Æneid III. 250.

Note 5 (p. 141). ". . . thee, likewise, who 'fore this temple dwellest."

The reading προνάια (or προνᾴα), which I translate, is that of WELL. and all the MSS.; but LIN. has put πρόνοια, _providential_ or _foreseeing_, into the text, following out a criticism of Lennep on Phalaris, which has been stoutly defended by Hermann, in his remarks on Müller's Eumenides (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 17). This, however, in the face of an express passage of Herodotus (I. 92), as PAL. well observes, has been done rashly; and now FR. and SCHOE. bring forward inscriptions which prove that there is not the slightest cause for tampering with the text. I have not been able to learn the substance of Lennep's remarks otherwise than from the account of them by Müller in the Anhang, p. 14; but, taken at their highest value, they seem only to prove that a vagueness had taken hold of the ancients themselves in respect to the designation of this temple, not certainly that Æschylus and Herodotus both made a mistake in calling it προνᾴα, or that all the transcribers of their texts made a blunder.

Note 6 (p. 141). ". . . ye Nymphs that love The hollow Corycian rock."

"From Delphi, which lies pretty high, the traveller ascended about 60 stadia, or two hours' travel, till he arrived at the Corycian cave, dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs, in which there were many stalactites and live fountains."--SICKLER. _alte geog_. II. 134.

Note 7 (p. 141). "Thee, Bromius, too, I worship."

Bacchus, so called from βρέμω, _fremo_--the roaring or boisterous god. His connection with Apollo (though drinking songs are not so common now as they were last century) is obvious enough; and some places of the ancient poets where the close connection of these two gods is described, may be seen in STAN. The Scholiast to Euripides Phœnissai (v. 227, Matthiae) says expressly that Apollo and Artemis were worshipped on the one peak of Parnassus, and Bacchus on the other.

Note 8 (p. 141). ". . . the godless Pentheus."

"A son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus. He was the successor of Cadmus as king of Thebes, and being opposed to the introduction of the worship of Dionysus in his kingdom, was torn to pieces by his own mother and two other Mænads, Ino and Autonoe, who in their Bacchic frenzy believed him to be a wild beast. The place where Pentheus suffered death is said to have been Mount Cithæron; but, according to some, it was Mount Parnassus."--_Myth. Dict._

Note 9 (p. 141). "Poseidon's mighty power."

Next to Jove, Poseidon is the strongest of the gods, as the element which he rules demands; and this strength, in works of art, is generally {375} indicated by the breadth of chest given to this god. So Homer, also, wishing to magnify Agamemnon, says--

"Like to Jove that rules the thunder were his kingly head and eyes;
Belted round the loins like Ares; like Poseidon was his breast."
IL. II. 478.

The connection of the god of the waters with Delphi is given by Pausanias x. 5, where it is said, that originally Poseidon possessed the oracle in common with Gaea; a legend easily explained by the fact, that all high mountains necessarily produce copious streams of water of which, no less than of the waves of ocean, Poseidon is lord.

Note 10 (p. 142). "A gray-haired woman, weaker than a child."

STAN. refers here to the account given by Diodorus of the origin of the Delphic oracle, c. xvi. 26, where he relates, that in the most ancient times the prophetess was a young woman; but that, afterwards, one Echecrates, a Spartan, being smitten with the beauty of a prophetess, had offered violence to her, in consequence of which an edict was published by the Delphians, forbidding any female to assume the office of Pythoness till she was fifty years old.

Note 11 (p. 142). ". . . the ravenous crew That filched the feast of Phineus."

The Harpies; who, from the names given to them in Homer and Hesiod (and specially from Odyssey xx. 66 and 77 compared) seem to have been impersonations of sudden and tempestuous gusts of wind; though, again, it is not impossible that these winds may be symbolical of the rapacious power of swift and sudden death--

"Venit Mors velociter
Rapit nos atrociter,"

as suggested by BRAUN. See the article by Dr. SCHMITZ in the Biographical Dictionary.

Note 12 (p. 142). "Such uncouth sisterhood, apparel'd so."

With regard to the dress of the Furies, STAN. quotes a curious passage from Diogenes Laertius, which I shall translate:--"Menedemus, the Cynic," says he, "went to such fantastic excess as to go about in the dress of the Furies, saying, that he was sent as a visitant of human iniquity from Hades, that he might descend again, and report to the Infernal powers. His garb was as follows--a dun-coloured tunic (χιτων) reaching down to the feet, girt with a crimson sash; on his head an Arcadian cap, with the twelve signs of the Zodiac inwoven; tragic buskins, a very long beard, and an ashen rod in his hand."--VI. 9. 2. The Romans were once put to flight by the Gauls, dressed in the terrible garb of the Furies, with burning torches in their hands.--LIVY VII. 17.

Note 13 (p. 143). ". . . A bitter pasture truly Was thine from Fate."

So I have thought it best to translate somewhat freely τὸνδε βουκολούμενος πόνον in order to express the original meaning of the verb βουκολουμαι. In this I have followed MÜLLER--_diese Schmerzentrift zu weiden._ This is surely more pregnant and poetical than to say with FR. "_Diese Lebensbahn durcheilend._" The idea of _soothing_ and _beguiling_, the only one given by {376} Hesychius, cannot apply to this place. PAL., who agrees with me in this, translates the word in both places of our author where it occurs (here and in Agam. 655) by "_brooding over_" which differs little from my idea of _feeding on_.

Note 14 (p. 143). "Her ancient image."

"The image of Athena Pallas, on the citadel, which existed in the days of Pausanias, and had maintained for ages its place here by a sort of inviolable holiness. In the narrow area of the temple, on the north-east slope of the Acropolis, Erechtheus had placed a carved image, either first made by himself, or, perhaps, fallen from Heaven; and round this, as a centre, the most ancient groups of Attic religion and legend assembled themselves."--GERHARD, "_über die Minerven Idole Athen's,_" quoted by SCHOE.

Note 15 (p. 144). "Behold these wounds."

I am not able to see what objection lies against the literal rendering of

ὁρά δε πληγὰς τάσδε καρδίᾴ σέθεν,

as I read with FR. and LINW. PAL. and SCHOE. take πληγὰς metaphorically to signify the contumelious language used by Clytemnestra to the Furies; but this is surely rather going out of the way. If there were any necessity for deserting the literal meaning, I would rather take Hermann's way of turning it (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 28), and read--

ὁρά δε πληγὰς τάσδε καρδιάς ὃθεν.
_Siehe diese Wunden meines Herzens woher sie kommen!_

Note 16 (p. 144). "Read with thy heart; some things the soul may scan More clearly, when the sensuous lid hath dropt, Nor garish day confounds."

This method of speaking is quite in keeping with ancient ideas on the nature of the connection 'twixt mind and body, as SCHOE. has proved from Galen (Kühn. Med. gr. V. 301). As to the sentiment which follows, STAN. has quoted--"_Quum ergo est somno sevocatus animus a societate et a contagione corporis, tum meminit praeteritorum, praesentia cernit, futura providet_"--Cic. Divinat. I. 30. According to Aelian (var. hist. III. 11). the Peripatetics held the same opinion.

Note 17 (p. 144). "Once Clytemnestra famous, now a dream."

There is another translation of this passage--the old one in STAN.--

"_In somno enim vos nunc Clytemnestra voco,_"

to which POT., E. P. Oxon., and MÜL. adhere; but I cannot help thinking with Hermann (Opusc. VI. p. ii. 30), that it is rather flat (_matt_) when compared with the other. Which of the two the poet meant cannot perhaps be settled now, as the meaning might depend on the rhetorical accent which the player was taught to give by the poet; but I am certain that the version in the text, sanctioned as it is by WAKEFIELD, SCHÜTZ, HERM., LIN., and PAL. does not deserve to be stigmatised (in E. P.'s language) as "fanciful nonsense." When Clytemnestra calls herself "a dream," she uses the same sort of language which Achilles does to Ulysses regarding his own unsubstantial state as a Shade.--Odys. XI.

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Note 18 (p. 144). ". . . and seeks For help from those that are no friends to me."

I have thought it better to retain the old and most obvious interpretation of this passage; not seeing any proof that προσίκτορες can be used in this general way as applied to the gods who are supplicated, without being affixed as an epithet to some special god; as when we say Ζεὺς ἀφίκτωρ (Suppl. I.)

Note 19 (p. 144).

CHORUS. Whether Hermann in his "_Dissertatio de Choro Eumenidum_" (Leipzig, 1816) was the first that directed special attention to the peculiar character of this Chorus as indicated by the Scholiast, I do not know (Wellauer says so, and I presume he knew). Certain it is that POT., by neglecting this indication, has lost a great deal of the dramatic effect of this part of the tragedy. The style of the chorus is decidedly fitful and exclamatory throughout, and must have formed a beautiful contrast to the steady stability of the solemn hymn that follows, beginning, "_Mother night that bore me_." As to the particular distribution of the parts of this chorus, that is a matter on which, as SCHOE. remarks, no two critics are likely to agree; nor is minute accuracy in this respect, even if it were attainable, a matter of any importance to the dramatic effect of the composition as now read. The only thing to be taken care of is, that we do not blend in a false continuity what was evidently spoken fitfully, and by different speakers, with a sort of _staccato_ movement, as the musicians express it. This is POT.'s grand error, not only here, but in many other of the choral parts of our poet; and, in this view, some of Hermann's remarks (Opusc. VI. 2, 38) on Müller's division are perfectly just. As for myself, by distributing the parts of the chorus among three voices, I mean nothing more than that these parts were likely spoken by separate voices. Scholefield and Dyer's view (Classical Museum, Vol. I. p. 281), that there were three principal Furies prominent above the rest in this piece, is not improbable, but admits of no proof. In my versification I have endeavoured to imitate the rapid Dochmiacs of the original.

Note 20 (p. 145). "Thou being young dost overleap the old."

The idea of a succession of celestial dynasties proceeding on a system of "development," as a certain class of modern philosophers are fond to express it, is characteristic of the Greek mythology.--(See p. 47 above, Antistrophe I.) The Furies, according to all the genealogies given of them, were more ancient gods than Apollo, with whom they are here brought, into collision. Our poet, as we shall see in the opening invocation of the first grand choral hymn of this piece, makes them the daughters of most ancient NIGHT, who, according to the Theogony (v. 123), proceeded immediately from the aboriginal CHAOS. Hesiod himself makes the Erinyes, along with the giants, to be produced from the blood of Uranus, when his genitals were cut off by Kronos (Theog. 185); a genealogy, by the way, quite in consistency with the Homeric representation given in the Introductory Remarks, of the origin of the Furies from the curses uttered by injured persons, worthy of special veneration, on those by whom their sacrosanct character had been violated.

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Note 21 (p. 147). "But where beheading, eye-out-digging dooms."

In this enumeration of horrors I have omitted κακοῦ τε χλ(ο)υνις, concerning which LIN. says, "_Omnino de hoc loco maximis in tenebris versamur; nam neque de lectione, neque de verborum significatione certi quidquam constat._"

Note 22 (p. 147). "She was murdered here, That murdered first her husband."

The reasons given by WELL. and HER. (Opusc. vi. 2. 42.) why the two lines, 203-4 W., should not both be given with STAN., SCHÜTZ, and MÜL., to Apollo, have satisfied LIN., PAL., FR., SCHOE., DR., E. P. Oxon., and BUT. Certainly the epithets ὅμαιμος and αυθέντης (which latter the Scholiast interprets μιαρὸς) sound anything but natural in the mouth of Apollo. The emphasis put on ὃμαιμος in this very connection by the Furies, in v. 575, _infra_, noted by Hermann, should decide the question.

Note 23 (p. 147). ". . . matrimonial Hera."

Literally the _perfect_ Hera, the _perfecting_ or _consummating_ Hera, Ἤρα τελεια, marriage being considered the sacred consummating ceremony of social life, and, therefore, designated among the Greeks by the same term, τέλος, which they used to express initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries. As Jove presides over all important turns in human fate, there is also necessarily a Ζὲυς τελειος. See BLOM. Agam. 946, and Passow _in voce_ τέλειος. Conf. Æn. iii. 605, _Juno pronuba._

Note 24 (p. 147). "The nuptial bed, to man and woman fated."

STAN. has remarked that this word _fated_, μορσίμη, so applied, is Homeric (Od. XVI. 392); and, indeed, though we seem to choose our wives, we choose them oft-times so strangely, that a man may be said, without exaggeration, to have as little to do with his marriage as with his birth or his death--but all the three in a peculiar sense belong to that Μοῖρα, or divine lot, which distributes all the good and evil of which human life is made up.

Note 25 (p. 149).

CHORUS. For the arrangement of this Chorus I refer the reader back to what I said on the previous one. The concluding part I have here arranged as an Epode, because it seems more continuous in its idea than what precedes--less violent and exclamatory.

Note 26 (p. 150). "On Libyan plains beside Tritonian pools."

Æschylus here follows the tradition of Apollodorus (I. 3, § 6), that the epithet Τριτογένεια, given by Homer to Pallas, was derived from the lake Tritonis in Libya, near which she is said to have been born. Compare Virgil Æn. IV. 480.

Note 27 (p. 150). ". . . with forward foot firm planted, Erect, or with decorous stole high-seated."

I have not the slightest doubt that τίθησιν (ο)ρθὸν πόδα in this passage can only mean to _plant the foot down firmly and stand erect_; if so, τίθησι κατηρεφῆ πόδα can only mean to _sit_, "the feet being covered by the robes while {379} sitting"--LIN.; so also PAL. and SCHOE. Sitting statues of the gods were very common in ancient times, as we see in the Egyptian statues, and in the common representations of the Greek and Roman Jupiter (see Thirlwall's History of Greece, c. VI.). I am sorry that Hermann (p. 57) should have thrown out the idea that κατηρεφῆς in this passage may mean "enveloped in clouds," which has been taken up by Franz--

"Sichtbar sic jezt herschreitet, oder Wolkumhüllt,"

because manifestly κατηρεφῆς, in this sense, forms no natural contrast to ὀρθὸς. The "_forward foot firm-planted_," I have taken from Müller's note, p. 112, as, perhaps, pointing out more fully what may have been in the poet's eye, without, however, meaning to assert seriously against a severe critic like Hermann, that the words of the text necessarily imply anything of the kind.

Note 28 (p. 150). "The ordered battle on Phlegrean fields Thou musterest."

The peninsula of Pallene in Macedonia, as also the district of Campania about Baiæ and Cumae, were called Phlegraean, or _fire-fields_ (φλέγω), in all likelihood from the volcanic nature of the country, to which Strabo (Lib. V. p. 245) alludes. These volcanic movements in the religious symbolism of early Greece became giants; and against these the Supreme Wisdom and his wise daughter had to carry on a war worthy of gods.

Note 29 (p. 151).

CHORAL HYMN. "This sublime hymn is of a character, in some respects, kindred to the καταδέσεις, or incantations of antiquity, which were directed to Hermes, the Earth, and other infernal Deities for the purpose of _binding down_ certain hated persons to destruction. For this reason it is called ὕμνος δέσμιος. This character is specially indicated by the refrain or burden, which occurs in the first pair of Strophes; such repetitions containing the emphatic words of the incantation being common in all magical odes. So in Theocritus (Idyll. 2), we have constantly repeated, '_Iungx, bring me the man, the man whom I mean, to my dwelling,_' and, in the song of the Fates at the marriage of Thetis in Catullus, the line--'_Currite ducentes subtemina, currite fusi!_' and there can be no question, the movements and gestures of the Furies while singing this hymn were such as to indicate the scapeless net of woe with which they were now encompassing their victim."--MÜL. The reader will observe how impressively the metre changes on the recurrence of this burden, the rhythm in the original being Pæonic _v v v_--, the agitated nature of which foot, when several times repeated, is sufficiently obvious. I have done what I could to make the transition and contrast sensible to the modern ear.

Note 30 (p. 151). "The seeing and the sightless."

αλα(ο)ισι και δεδορκόσι, _i.e._ the living and the dead; an expression familiar to the Greeks, and characteristic of a people who delighted to live in the sun. βλέπειν φάος--_to look on the light_, is the most common phrase in the tragedians for to live; and wisely so--

"Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,
The soul in every part."--MILTON.

POT. has allowed himself to be led quite astray here by a petulant criticism of De Pauw.

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Note 31 (p. 151). "The gleeless song, and the lyreless strain."

ὕμνος ἀφόρμιγκτος. "The musical character of this Choral Hymn must be imagined as working upon the feelings with a certain solemn grandeur. The κιθάρα or lyre is silent; an instrument which, as the Greeks used it, always exercised a soothing power, restorative of the equipoise of the mind: only the flute is heard, whose notes, according to the unanimous testimony of antiquity, excited feelings, now of thrilling excitement, now of mute awe; always, however, disturbing the just emotional tenor of the soul. Assuredly the ὕμνος ἀφόρμιγκτος in this place is no mere phrase."--MÜLLER.

Note 32 (p. 152). "This work of labour earnest."

I have paraphrased, or rather interpolated, in this Antistrophe, a little, because I do not see much in it that is either translatable or worth translating. A meaning has been squeezed out of the two lines beginning σπευδόμενοι; but one cannot help feeling, after all, that there is something wrong, and saying with honest Wellauer, "_certi nihil video._" The main idea, shimmering through the first three lines, is plain enough--_that the Furies exercise a function, the legitimacy of which no one is entitled to question._ This the words, μηδ ες ἄγκρισιν ἐλθεῖν, plainly indicate; and it is upon this, and SCHOE.'s conjectural emendation of the first line--

σπευδομένος ἀπέχειν τινὰ τᾶσδε μερίμνας,
"Diesem Geschäft das wir treiben verbleibe man ferne,"