Chapter IV: Part 4

The story of Clytemnestra, then, rightly begins here. She too was passionate and proud, with a will of iron: a nature of strangely blended strength and tenderness. When the blow came from the hand which should have shielded her, it struck dead her gentler self. She gave herself up to thoughts of revenge; and hearing from Troy as the years passed tidings of Agamemnon’s infidelity, the last link between them was broken. Other news would come to her ears: of sedition amongst the people, left so long without a ruler; of the country suffering from the need of its strongest men, who were all away at the war; and of a certain Egisthus, her husband’s enemy, who had returned from exile. There would be a bond of sympathy between Clytemnestra and this Egisthus. Had he not a feud against her husband? Was he not wronged by Agamemnon, too? Had his father not suffered at the hands of Agamemnon’s father? There would be a meeting between them, followed by other meetings, while they made common cause against the king; and presently the two were united, not only in a plot for Agamemnon’s overthrow, but in the bonds of guilty love.

When the news came of the fall of Troy and the return of the army, Clytemnestra had matured her plans for vengeance. For years she had nursed her wrath, and plotted with all the subtlety of her mental powers. And for years she had hoped for and dreaded the day which would bring back the king to Mycenæ. Her love for Egisthus was common knowledge in the palace. Her sin would doubtless be proclaimed to Agamemnon immediately after his arrival, even if he did not already know of it; and she knew that the penalty of it would be death. So every instinct and impulse of her nature, and every consideration of self-defence too, demanded instant action. Vengeance for the murder of her daughter, her love for Egisthus, and the need of self-preservation all combined to nerve her for what she had to do. Agamemnon’s arrival was imminent; she must be ready, and when the moment came she must not falter. But meanwhile, before the old senators who had gathered to welcome him (and who form the Chorus of the drama) she must play the part of a loving wife.

When the first part of the Trilogy (the _Agamemnon_) opens, beacon-lights announce the fall of Troy. The news flies through the palace, and there is instant excitement. The old senators come thronging out; and as they sing, wonderingly and half-doubting, Clytemnestra the queen suddenly enters. She stands for a moment to confirm this amazing news, and the old men turn to address her. But she makes no answer: it is as though she has not heard them—as though nothing but the words “The king is coming” clamour in her ears, and bring a rush of emotion that stifles speech. She goes out silently; but while the old men are singing of the doom of Troy, she reappears. Her entrance now is resolute and majestical: her purpose is taken, and in firm tones she declares to the Senators that the news they have heard is true. As she speaks, the tide of emotion rises again and carries her on to utterance that is almost prophetic:

CLY. _This day Troy fell. Methinks I see’t; a host
Of jarring voices stirs the startled city,
Like oil and acid, sounds that will not mingle,
By natural hatred sundered. Thou may’st hear
Shouts of the victor, with the dying groan,
Battling, and captives cry....
... Happy if the native gods
They reverence, and the captured altars spare,
Themselves not captive led by their own folly.
May no unbridled lust of unjust gain
Master their hearts, no reckless, rash desire._

CHO. _Woman, thou speakest wisely as a man,
And kindly as thyself._[13]

Clytemnestra’s speech is significant. She knows the nature of the king, and she fears that his victory over Troy has been a brutal one, pushed even to the last extremity of insult to the country’s gods. That impious pride is her uppermost thought; with it, she steels her heart; and when the herald arrives, she listens in ominous silence as his tale confirms her utmost fears.

HER. _Agamemnon
Comes, like the sun, a common joy to all.
Greet him with triumph, as beseems the man
Who with the mattock of justice-bearing Jove
Hath dug the roots of Troy, hath made its altars
Things seen no more, its towering temples razed,
And caused the seed of the whole land to perish.
... His hand hath reaped
Clean bare the harvest of all bliss from Troy._[13]

If anything were needed to confirm Clytemnestra’s resolution, surely it lay in these words. Agamemnon, the ruthless slayer of his daughter, the destroyer of Troy, who had no fear of the gods and no pity for man, would have no mercy upon her. She must kill or be killed; and she must act quickly.

Even while the herald spoke came the sound of the procession which was bringing the king up from the ships. First, his own chariot, surrounded by his guard and by the people who had gone out along the road to welcome him. Then, following close behind, a chariot containing the solitary figure of a woman, seated amid the spoils of war. She was Cassandra, a prize of battle, brought home by Agamemnon to be his slave-wife. But she was no ordinary slave. Daughter of Priam, King of Troy, and virgin priestess of Apollo, she had been torn from the altar of the god by her captor; and Clytemnestra, watching her wild eyes, knew that Agamemnon had filled up the measure of impiety to the gods and insult to herself.

Agamemnon uttered a laconic greeting to the people, while the queen stood tense and still. By no word or sign did he acknowledge his wife: only, in perfunctory terms, hailed his country and his country’s gods, and thanked the people for their welcome.

Then Clytemnestra, holding tremendous passions in the leash, began her formal speech of welcome.

CLY. _Men! Citizens! ye reverend Argive seniors,
No shame feel I, even to your face, to tell
My husband-loving ways._[13]

The hour has come for which she has waited so long: her desperate plan is formed: all that may have been needed to strengthen it has been heaped upon her in the pride and insolence of the king. But she must dissemble a little longer; she must force herself to speak lovingly, to appear faithful before the people, and to lull suspicion in Agamemnon’s mind. In her husband’s speech there had been a veiled menace: and now, after the first conventional phrases of affection, her words, too, take on a double meaning; and an undercurrent of bitter irony runs through them. On the surface lies the obvious meaning, to meet the exigency of the moment; just below it lay another sense, designed to leap to life and plead for her when the deed that she is contemplating shall be accomplished.

“_There comes a time when all fear fades and dies.
... Does any heart but mine
Know the long burden of the life I bore
While he was under Troy?_“[14]

The time has indeed come to put aside fear, but for a reason that these senators cannot see yet, any more than they can conceive the real nature of the burden that she had borne so long. To say that Clytemnestra’s speech is not really that of a faithful wife, that it is too loud in its protestations of joy, too insistent and eager in its avowal of fidelity, is beside the mark. For not only is Agamemnon in all probability aware of Clytemnestra’s sin, but she realizes that he may be aware of it. Hence the deep irony of the situation; and hence too the fact that these protestations, begun calmly and deliberately with the object of deceiving the crowd, gradually take on a different tone. The king’s manner to her from the moment of arrival had been cold, even repellent. The conviction grows that he has been forewarned, and with that conviction, the sense of danger to herself is heightened. As her speech proceeds we seem to feel her quickening pulse and tingling nerve, we seem to share the rush of fear that sweeps away restraint and carries her along a torrent of language that is wild, vehement, and almost frenzied.

“_Now with heart at peace
I hail my King, my watchdog of the fold,
My ship’s one cable of hope, my pillar firm
Where all else reels, my father’s one-born heir,
My land scarce seen at sea when hope was dead,
My happy sunrise after nights of storm,
My living well-spring in the wilderness!
Oh, it is joy, the waiting time is past!
Thus, King, I greet thee home. No god need grudge—
Sure we have suffered in time past enough—
This one day’s triumph._“[14]

At this point she seeks relief in action from the stress of emotion:

“_Light thee, sweet my husband
From this high seat: yet set not on bare earth
Thy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy!
Ho thralls, why tarry ye, whose task is set
To carpet the King’s way? Bring priceless crimson:
Let all his path be red, and Justice guide him,
Who saw his deeds, at last, unhoped for, home._“[14]

Self-control is clearly returning. There is profound significance in her closing words, an invocation to Justice to lead Agamemnon to his doom. There is an inner motive, too, as well as awful irony, in the invitation to the king to walk on ‘priceless crimson.’ She must contrive that he will commit himself still further before the people, who are already stirred by faction and chilled by his hauteur. In the full light of what she is about to do, she sees that this is Agamemnon’s last public act; and has determined that the man of blood shall walk to his death along a crimson path. The deed is almost sacrilege; but after some protest, Agamemnon yields to her entreaties.

“_If you must have it so, let some one loose
The shoe that like a slave supports my tread;
Lest, trampling o’er these royal dyes, some god
Smite me with envious glances from afar._“[15]

He has a consciousness of what he is doing, and his mind misgives him; but he who could deny to the mother the life of her child, cannot refuse this indulgence to his pride. Clytemnestra, in exultation that she can hardly conceal, reassures him. In lines of exquisite poetic beauty, but weighted with a meaning that he does not see, she declares that this honour is his due; that it is a sacrifice for his return. Then, as Agamemnon passes within the palace, she remains for one instant outside. The fire of exultation dies away. She forgets the people standing round, the need for dissimulation, the danger of discovery. One thought sweeps everything else away—the thought of the stupendous deed that she is about to attempt, its horror and its peril. She raises her hands and utters an awful prayer:

“_Zeus—thou fulfillest all—fulfil my prayer!
And take good heed of all thou doest herein!_“[15]

Then she follows Agamemnon into the palace. But there remains one person whom she has overlooked, Cassandra, priestess and prophetess of Apollo. As the Chorus takes up a lovely song full of foreboding, the queen returns and calls to Cassandra to come within. But there has fallen upon Cassandra a prophetic vision of the crime. She is distraught with fear and horror, and can find no answer to the imperious queen. Clytemnestra, to whom every moment is of infinite importance, suddenly loses all her dignity in mere rage at the silent, helpless girl.

“_I have not time to waste out here with her.
By this the victims at our midmost hearth
Stand ready for the slaughter and the fire;—
Rich thank-offerings for mercies long despaired.
... I’ll not demean myself
By throwing more words away._“[15]

As Clytemnestra passes a second time within doors, the poor captive begins to wail a prophecy of what is about to be enacted there. She mourns for the awful curse upon the house.

“_There bides within
A band of voices,—all in unison,
Yet neither sweet nor tuneful, for their song
Is not of blessing. Ay, a revel-rout,
Ever emboldened with new draughts of blood,
Within these walls, a furious multitude,
Hard to drive forth, keep haunt, all of one kin.
They cling to the walls; they hymn the primal curse,
Their fatal hymn._”

She foresees the death of Agamemnon, and her own fate beside him. Twice she approaches the palace and twice recoils in horror. But at last, committing herself to Apollo, she rushes within; and instantly there rises a dreadful cry. It is the voice of the king.

“_Ah! Ah! I am mortally stricken, here, in the palace!_”

The old men stand paralysed with fear; and before they can move a step to help, the agonized voice cries a second time:

“_Oh me! Again I am smitten, to the death!_”

There is an instant uproar and outcry. The palace becomes noisy with hurrying feet and clamorous voices; the old men feebly rush this way and that, unable to decide, in their weakness and senility, how to act. In the midst of the disorder, the doors of the palace are thrown open, and Clytemnestra is revealed, weapon in hand, bending over the body of Agamemnon. A dreadful hush falls; and the queen, drawing herself up before the people, deliberately confesses to the deed and declares her motives.

“_I, who spake much before to serve my need,
Will here unspeak it, unappalled by shame.
... Time, and thought still brooding
On that old quarrel, brought me to this blow.
‘Tis done, and here I stand: here where I smote him!—
I so contrived it,—that I’ll ne’er deny,—
As neither loophole nor defence was left him....
Such—O ye Argive elders who stand here,—
Such is the fact. Whereat, an if ye will,
Rejoice ye!...
Such a cup of death
He filled with household crime, and now, returning,
Has drained in retribution._”

But to the Senators only one thing is clear. A terrible crime has been committed: their king has been foully slain. All Clytemnestra’s pleas in extenuation of the deed are wasted words. To them the situation is tragically simple: her guilt is plain; there is but one word that fits her—murderess. There is no question for them of reason or of motive. What she claims to be a righteous judgment upon Agamemnon, they declare to be a crime demanding punishment. But they are not strong enough to enforce their will; and when they threaten Clytemnestra with banishment, she answers with scorn.

“_That is your sentence. I must fly the land
With public execration on my head.
Wise justicers! What said ye, then, to him
Who slew his child, nor recked of her dear blood
More than if sacrificing some ewe-lamb
From countless flocks that choked the teeming fold,
But slew the priceless travail of my womb
For a charm, to allay the wind from Thrace?..._”

“_Then hear my oath. By mighty Justice,
Final avenger of my murdered child,
By Atè and Erinys, gods of power,
To whom I sacrificed this man, I look not
For danger as an inmate, whiles our hearth
Is lightened by Aegisthus, evermore,
As hitherto, constant in love to me;
My shield, my courage!_“[15]

CLYTÆMNESTRA

_Hon. John Collier_

_By permission from the original picture in the Guildhall Art Gallery_
]

Then, as the elders mourn the death of the king and the demon of vengeance that haunts the house, Clytemnestra, in passionate conviction, declares that she has been merely an instrument of that spirit of vengeance.

“_But I
Here make my compact with the hellish Power
That haunts the house of Atreus. What has been,
Though hard, we will endure. But let him leave
This roof, and plague some other race henceforth
With kindred-harrowing strife. Small share of wealth
Shall amply serve, now I have made an end
Of mutual-murdering madness in this hall._“[15]

She comforts herself with the thought that now at last the Furies are appeased. No doubt of her own motives assails her: no warning hint that crime is not cancelled by fresh crime. In the first glow of triumph she has no premonition of the return of an avenging son. She proposes to herself a reign of peace with Egisthus which shall erase all memory of the past.

“_Might but this be all of sorrow, we would bargain now for peace.... I and thou together ruling with a firm and even hand, Will control and keep in order both the palace and the land._“[15]

On this note of false security the _Agamemnon_ closes; and for the fate of Clytemnestra, which now becomes bound up with the story of Electra, we must go to the second drama of the trilogy, the _Libation-bearers_.

-----

Footnote 13:

From Professor J. S. Blackie’s translation of the _Agamemnon_
(Everyman’s Library).

Footnote 14:

From Professor G. Murray’s translation of part of the _Agamemnon_ in
his _Ancient Greek Literature_ (William Heinemann).

Footnote 15:

From Professor Lewis Campbell’s translation of the _Agamemnon_
(Clarendon Press).

_Æschylus: Electra_

The Æschylean Trilogy pauses at the point of Clytemnestra’s triumph. The first drama, the _Agamemnon_, ends there. We left the queen tasting the joy of revenge, but by no means gloating heartlessly over Agamemnon’s fall. She was conscious of the magnitude of the event; and the awfulness of her deed would have daunted even her strong spirit had she not been confident that she was the instrument of destiny in striking down the proud and cruel king.

The friends of Agamemnon, the loyal faction which should have risen against her, must have been few and weak. They were evidently soon subdued. They could not stand against the force of her powerful will; and, moreover, she combined with her strength a wise tact and a keen sense of justice. Doubtless these qualities had gone far to establish her government in Agamemnon’s long absence. Her sway was no new thing to the people of Argos; and when she resumed it with Egisthus as her consort, she took up the thread of her former life, with little outward sign to mark the change.

Underneath the surface of national life, wrath and horror at the murder of the king must have smouldered. Inside the palace itself, as we shall see presently, there was a small party ardently devoted to his memory and to the cause of his absent son, Orestes. But they were no match for Clytemnestra; and she in her turn, having shaken off the nightmare of fear in which she had lived for so many years, proposed to herself a future that should cleanse and sweeten all the past. Her first emotion was one of intense relief, not only from the long strain of suspense, but from the fact that now, as she firmly believed, the old curse upon the house of Atreus had at last been fulfilled. Her hand had dealt the final blow; the last life demanded by that implacable spirit had now been offered up. Henceforward it only remained to wipe out the past by just rule and sober living.

So for a time—we do not know quite how long—she lulled herself in false security. Years may have passed in this ominous calm: memory fell asleep, and she lived serenely in a present that was full of such interest and action as her mind delighted in. In such a mood, she would not observe, or would disregard, small signs of disaffection around her. Day by day she would see the sad face of her daughter Electra; but until some shock came to awaken her sleeping soul, Electra’s accusing eyes would fall upon her unheeded. The awakening came at last, however; and it is at this point that Æschylus opens the second part of his Trilogy, in the drama called the _Choephorœ, or Libation-Bearers_.

The scene is laid outside the Royal Palace at Mycenæ, before that tomb of Agamemnon which archæologists within recent years have brought to light on the ancient site of the city. The time is morning, and two young men, who have evidently travelled far, approach the tomb. One is Orestes, the son of Agamemnon whom Clytemnestra had sent away as a child. The other is his dear friend Pylades. Orestes has returned secretly to Argos, bidden by the oracle of Apollo to avenge his father’s death. But he has no army: he does not know that he has a single friend in Mycenæ; and his purpose is fraught with extreme danger. How he will accomplish it he cannot yet imagine; but he must first try to discover if there are any in the palace who will befriend him.

As they reach the tomb, Orestes calls upon Hermes, the god who guides the shades of the dead, and invokes his father’s spirit.

“_O Hermes of the Shades, that watchest over
My buried father’s right, be now mine aid.
I come from exile to this land. Oh save me!_

· · · · ·

_Father, here standing at thy tomb I bid thee
Hear me! Oh hear!_“[16]

Then, according to a solemn custom of the heroic age, Orestes begins to clip the locks of hair from his head and place them upon the tomb as a votive offering. As he is thus engaged, a train of mourning women slowly emerge from the palace, carrying vessels in their hands with libations for the dead. They are slaves, captive Trojan women whom the poet uses as the Chorus of his Drama; and they are followed at a little distance by the drooping figure of a girl, whom Orestes rightly believes to be his sister Electra. They are coming to pour offerings at the tomb of the king. This in itself is a sign of encouragement to Orestes. But he dare not show himself until he is assured that they are friendly to his cause; and he and Pylades hastily withdraw, where they may hear and see the ceremony without being seen.

The women are singing; and as their lovely parodos rises and falls, we learn why they are coming thus early to the neglected tomb of the murdered king. The astounding fact reveals itself that they are sent by Clytemnestra. Clearly, the awakening has come to her at last. In the night that has just passed she had been visited by a dream that seemed to her a dreadful portent. She had started from her bed, screaming with horror, and had called for lights. But the crowding women with their lamps could not drive away the vision of the fearful serpent-birth that had turned and rent her breast. And Clytemnestra, her conscience suddenly shaken into life, had sent for the interpreters. They had no comfort for her, however, in their reply:

_They cried, aloud, by heavenly sureties bound,—
“One rages there beneath
Menacing death for death....”_

So the interpreters confirmed her fear, that this dream was an omen sent from the unquiet spirit of her husband. Remorse assailed her. The shade of Agamemnon, neglected hitherto, must be propitiated. As soon as daylight came, libations should be poured upon the tomb; and that they should be acceptable, Electra should perform the rite. She might not herself call upon that dread spirit in the underworld; but Electra, with her grief-marred face and her loyal love to her father, would be a fitting suppliant.

Thus it happens that Electra, in the first light of early morning, stands at the tomb. Her heart is filled with bitter grief. She loathes the task that she is commanded to perform—the rite which, after years of callous neglect, is only now offered to the injured shade because some beginning of fear has come into her mother’s mind. In all this time, none of the dues that are sacred to the dead had been permitted for Agamemnon. No libations had been poured, no locks had been shorn from the head; and even the mourning of Electra and her women had had to be hidden away from sight and sound of the queen. Now, suddenly, from no motive of love or reverence to the dead, from no sense of tenderness to her daughter, from no reason that Electra can perceive save a premonition of danger to herself, Clytemnestra orders that the proper ceremonies shall be observed.

Electra cannot see the real motive which sways the queen. Partly from her very youth and innocence, partly because there is in her a tinge of the iron temper of her father, she is blind to everything but Clytemnestra’s guilt. She sees her mother in the light of one fact only—the murder of the being whom she had loved most dearly. And looking back upon the past, all its events are viewed through that harsh light. There was the banishment of her brother Orestes; the coming of the strange man Egisthus whom, for some reason that she could not then comprehend, she had always loathed; the return and death of her father; her own subsequent misery and degradation. With the hardness of youth, she can conceive of nothing which could explain her mother’s action, much less palliate it. Her sister Iphigenia she could not clearly remember; and if the story of her sacrifice was known to Electra, her absolute devotion to her father accepted it unquestioningly. In no case could she apprehend how that crime would wound her mother; just as she could not see or understand the darker side of Agamemnon’s character. Only one thing was painfully realized—that the great king who was her father, and who had known how to be tender to the little girl he left at home in Mycenæ, had been done to death by the woman she called her mother. And now this woman, whom the years had taught Electra to hate, commanded her to supplicate the wronged dead for peace. Electra cannot, and will not, entreat the dead in terms like these; and her first speech is awful with the bitterness in her heart. She turns to the slaves, the Trojan women who are attending her:

“_Ministrant women, orderers of the house,
Since ye move with me to this suppliant rite,
Be ye my counsellors, how I must perform it.
When I pour this tribute at the grave,
What words will be in tune? What prayer will please?
Shall I say, Father, from a loving wife
This comes to thy dear soul: yea, from my mother?’
That dare I not.—I know not how to speak,
Shedding this draught upon my father’s tomb.
Or shall I say, as mortals use, ‘Give back
The giver meet return?—to wit, some evil’?
... Be kind, and speak._“[16]

Grief and anger make her speech broken and barely coherent, as her thoughts are. But below the emotion, and almost unconsciously, there is a hint of some purpose forming. Once for all she puts aside her mother’s orders; but she is not clear what will take their place. The dawning thought has not taken shape yet; and the vague counsels of the women do not at first help her. But presently they speak the name of Orestes, and bid her look for help to him. She is startled at the name, and the gleam of hope it brings lights up the underlying thought. She realizes suddenly what it means.

ELEC. _Well said and wisely! That most heartens me._

CHO. _Then think of those who shed this blood, and pray—_

ELEC. _How? Teach me; I am ignorant. Speak on._

CHO. _Some power, divine or human, may descend——_

ELEC. _To judge or execute? What wilt thou say?_

CHO. _Few words, but clear. To kill the murderer._[16]

Here then is the thought of her own brain, clothed in words and echoed back to her from the women whom she has implored to advise. But put thus into cold language, they have a dreadful sound from which she recoils in horror.

ELEC. _But will the gods not frown upon such prayer?_

CHO. _Do they not favour vengeance on a foe?_[16]

In this tense dramatic moment, we are shown what the theme of the Drama is to be. We are shown too, as vividly and almost as rapidly as in a lightning-flash, the clear outlines of Electra’s character. The beautiful devotion to her father’s memory: the blind hatred of Clytemnestra: the desire for revenge vaguely forming, and leaping full-grown at the first prompting from without; but—and here is the crux—that desire held in check by a profound religious sentiment. This reverence for the gods makes the whole tragedy, for Electra and Orestes both; it provides the dramatist with the inevitable inner conflict round which the action will revolve; and, most important of all, it has an ethical significance which will sanctify the revenge of Electra and Orestes. For while the mere human impulse with them both is to strike back rapidly and without mercy for the blow that has killed their father, a higher sense restrains them; and it needs an imperious mandate from Apollo to nerve them to the deed. This reluctance for the shedding of blood is a new thing in the age-long record of the house of Tantalus. When Electra asks whether the gods will not frown upon a prayer for vengeance, there is the birth of a holier spirit which will atone for and purify all those old crimes.

But first the final retribution must fall. Electra now lifts her voice in solemn prayer to the awful gods of the underworld and to the spirit of her father. She prays for a wiser heart and purer hand than her mother’s. With almost faltering words—literally constrained thereto, she says—she prays for vengeance; and she implores that Orestes may return and claim the throne now occupied by the hated Egisthus.

It is at this moment, just as the prayer closes in the Choral hymn, that Electra sees the locks of hair upon the tomb. She is amazed, almost alarmed. There is only one creature in all the world who should bring such an offering. If any other has placed it here, it is an act of sacrilege. She takes up the hair, examines it, and speaks about it rapidly and anxiously to the women. Gradually the conviction dawns that it can be no other than a votive lock shorn from the head of Orestes himself. Then he has been here? But where is he now? The thought that he has indeed returned, that he may even be near at hand at this moment, drives wild hope and fear alternately through her mind. Holding the lock within her hand, she says:

“_Ah! could it but speak, and tell me
Kind news, I were not shaken thus and cloven,
Thinking two ways: but either with clear scorn
I would renounce it, as an enemy’s hair;
Or being my brother’s, it should mourn with me,
And pay sweet honours at our father’s tomb._“[16]

Meantime, Orestes in his hiding-place had verified the fact that Electra was his sister. He had reassured himself, too, on another vital point. What he had heard and seen had convinced him that this group of women at least was friendly to his cause. And at its head, holding out against great odds, and suffering extreme ills in consequence, was this brave spirit of Electra who, with all her tender and loyal devotion, was strong enough to dare the uttermost with him. He need no longer delay to reveal himself. He had heard Electra’s prayer for his return, and for vengeance on his father’s murderers; and, stepping forward, he came like an instant answer to her petition.

ORES. _First tell the gods thy former prayer is heard.
Then pray that all to come be likewise good._[16]

But Electra cannot recognize in this tall young man the boy who left their home so many years before. She is startled and incredulous; and there follows a curious little scene which, if it occurred in a modern play, would simply cause derision. Orestes gives such quaint evidence of his identity—the colour of his hair, which matches her own; the length of their footprints, which is similar; the embroidery on the robe that he is wearing, which he says was wrought by her own hands before he went to Athens. The poet is not very much concerned with probabilities. He has a great religious purpose which dominates all other considerations; and in the sublime onward sweep of the tragedy we are not troubled by minor inconsistencies. At this point they are simply lost sight of, in the keen dramatic interest of the scene when Electra is at last convinced that this is indeed her brother. What is proof to her is more than ample proof to us.

ELEC. _Shall I, in very truth, call thee Orestes?_

ORES. _You see myself ...
Nay, be not lost in gladness! Curb thy heart
We know, our nearest friends are dangerous foes._

ELEC. _Centre of fondness in thy father’s hall,
Tear-watered hope of blessings yet to be,
Faith in thy might shall win thee back thy home!
Oh how I joy beholding thee! Thou hast_
_Four parts in my desires, not one alone.
I call thee Father: and my mother’s claim
Falls to thy side, since utter hate is hers.
And my poor butchered sister’s share is thine.
And I adore thee as my own true brother.
But oh! may holy Right and Victory,
And highest Zeus, the Saviour, speed thee too!_[16]

Then Orestes plainly declares the reason for his return, and taking up Electra’s prayer to Zeus, he cries for help in the vengeance to be accomplished for his father. He claims that he has a direct mandate from Apollo.

ORES. _... Apollo’s mighty word
Will be performed, that bade me stem this peril.
High rose that sovran voice, and clearly spake
Of stormy curses that should freeze my blood,
Should I not wreak my father’s wrongful death.
He bade me pay them back the self-same deed
Maddened by loss of all: yea, mine own soul
Should know much bitterness, were not this done._

_... For one so slain
Sees clearly, though his brows in darkness move!—
The darkling arrow of the dead, that flies
From kindred souls abominably slain ...
Should harass and unman me ..._

_... I should have no share
Of wine or dear libation, but, unseen,
My father’s wrath should drive me from all altars._[16]

Thus the command of Apollo was clear, definite, and imperative; and the oracular utterance carried with it terrible penalties, should these two children of the murdered king dare to disobey. Yet we feel, all through Orestes’ speech, that the conflict is warring within him too. He cannot accept the mandate implicitly. In the emphasis that he lays on his authority, in the precise repetition of the very words of the oracle, in the horror with which he enumerates the threatened punishments, we know that he is trying to fortify himself against fear and horror at the deed. Now that he comes close to his actual purpose, a strange new questioning spirit arises which he strives to appease—a shuddering reluctance which compels him to throw himself back upon the divine mandate. “Was not this a word to be obeyed?” he asks; and then, “Yea! Were it not, the deed must yet be done.”

But struggle as Orestes may, the doubt will not be quelled. The crime of mother-murder which they contemplate starts up before them in all its hideous barbarity; and the burden imposed on Orestes is more than he can bear. As we know, it will lead him ultimately to madness. All through the _kommos_ which follows, a long and sublimely mournful hymn chanted alternately by Orestes, Electra and the Chorus, the brother and sister seem to be battling with this question of the righteousness of their action. They appeal to Zeus and to the powers of the nether world: they cry to the spirit of their father: they remind each other of the cruelty and shamelessness of Clytemnestra: they recall the greatness of Agamemnon, and contrast it with his ignominious end: they dwell upon the wrongs done to Electra, and the sin of Egisthus, and the curse upon their house. The wave of emotion rises and falls. At one moment a solemn confidence reassures them that the vengeance is righteous; at another, the doubt sweeps back and shatters their assurance, and again they are driven to bewail their wrongs and invoke the name of Justice.

ORES. _Father, no word of mine, no deed may bring
Light to the darkness where thou liest below:_
_Yet shall the dirge lament thy matchless woe,
And grace the tomb of Argos’ noblest king...._

ELEC. _Hear me, too, father, mourning in my turn;
Both thine afflicted ones towards thee yearn.
Both outcasts, both sad suppliants at thy tomb.
What dawn may pierce this overwhelming gloom?..._

ORES. _Where is your power to save,
Lords of the grave?
Oh curse, of endless might,
From lips long lost to light,
We, last of Atreus’ race
Implore thy dreadful grace,
Reft of our halls, and outlawed from our right,
Zeus, whither should we turn?_[16]

At this point is felt most strongly the undercurrent of doubt and horror. It brims and rushes, overwhelming for a time the confident sense of justice and trust in the oracle of the god. And here the Chorus, expressing, as its function is, the brooding meditation of an onlooker, echoes their inmost thought in sympathetic strains:

CHOR. _Again ye make my changeful heart to yearn,
Listening your plaintive cry. One while I feel
My soul with dark misgivings shake and reel,
But by and by the clouds are rolled away
And courage heightens with new hopes of day._

ELEC. _Oh mother! Oh enemy! Oh hard soul!
Like a foe, unhonoured by funeral bowl,
Though a prince, unfollowed by mean or high,
Thou didst bury thy husband without one sigh._

ORES. _Ah! ah! every word there hath stung.
But shall she not pay
For each shame she then flung
On my sire?_

ELECTRA

_Gertrude Demain Hammond R.I._
]

ELEC. _Thou hearest our father’s death; but I was driven
To grieve apart beneath the dews of heaven;
Chased from the chambers like a thievish hound,
To pour my grief in tears upon the ground,
They came more readily than smiles.... Write this in thy
soul ..._

ORES. _Father, assist thy children in their deed!_

ELEC. _Thy daughter’s tears implore thee in deep need!..._

ORES. _The cause is set. The battle doth begin!_

ELEC. _Oh gods, be just; and make the righteous win!_[16]

The resolution is taken at last. It remains now only to ask their father’s blessing, before putting it into effect. Orestes begs for power to rule well in Agamemnon’s stead, and promises rich sacrifices to his shade.

ELEC. _And I will bring
Choice offerings from all my patrimony
In day of marriage, and will honour first
My father’s tomb from the paternal hall...._

ORES. _Either send justice fighting on our side,
If thou wouldst gain requital for thy fall,
Or grant us to catch them as they caught thee._

ELEC. _Hear this last cry, my father! Look with pity
On these thy young ones sitting at thy grave,
And feel for both, the maiden and the man._[16]

The real crisis of the tragedy is in this wonderful ode, although the action has all to follow. Doubts and fears are now subdued: Orestes and Electra have risen to a height of stern conviction which will carry them to the fulfilment of their purpose, although neither it nor the sanction of Apollo will save them from remorse. The action moves rapidly now, as though the revenge must be accomplished at once, in the heat of this terrible purpose. Orestes is told of Clytemnestra’s dream—that she had borne a serpent which had turned and rent her breast. He welcomes it gladly, as an auspicious omen for him; and forms a hasty plan of action. He and Pylades will apply for entrance at the palace gates, with a feigned story of Orestes’ death. Electra must make ready for them within, and secure their admittance. They will kill Egisthus first, and afterward complete the revenge by the murder of Clytemnestra.

It is not a very skilful plot, but it succeeds. Clytemnestra receives Orestes and his friend, believing them to be strangers from Phokis. She is grieved and shocked at their story of Orestes’ death; and goes out to apprise Egisthus of it. Presently Egisthus passes across the stage alone, on his way to give an audience to the guests and, though he does not know it, to pay the penalty for his crime. He goes into the palace, and an instant afterward he is heard to utter a dreadful cry. Attendants rush forth, calling upon the name of the queen.

CLYTEM. _What cry is here? What dost thou by the gate?_

ATTEN. _I say, the dead have slain the living there._

CLYTEM. _Ay me! I read thy riddle! Oh! undone!
By guile, even as we slew! Give me an axe,
A strong one; quickly too! I’ll dare the issue,
Be it for me or against me! I am come
To the utterance in this fight with Fate and Doom._[16]

Then there follows an awful scene between Orestes and Clytemnestra, as she grieves over the body of Egisthus.

ORES. _Was he so dear to thee? Then thou shalt lie
In the same grave with blameless constancy._

CLYTEM. _Oh son, forbear! O child, respect and pity
This breast, whereat thou often, soothed to slumber,
Drainèdst with baby mouth the bounteous milk._[16]

For an instant these poignant words make Orestes waver; and he half turns to Pylades with an appeal for counsel. But the answer is a stern reminder of the oracular command; and the pitying moment passes.

ORES. _How should I live with her who killed my sire?_

CLYTEM. _The destinies wrought there. My son! my son!_

ORES. _Destiny works a different doom to-day...._

CLYTEM. _Oh! Wilt thou kill thy mother? O my son!_

ORES. _I kill thee not. Thy sin destroyeth thee...._

CLYTEM. _Ah!_

_I have borne and reared a serpent for my son._

ORES. _Then is fulfilled the terror of thy dream!_[16]

So Clytemnestra falls at the hands of Orestes; but the vengeance has no joy for him. Before his mother’s mighty spirit has taken its way along the road to Hades, a torture of remorse has fallen upon her son. Even while he stands above the murdered body, her avenging Furies come thronging about him “with Gorgon faces and thick serpent hair” and he feels his reason totter.

ORES. _Hear me declare:—How this will end I know not.
I feel the chariot of my spirit borne
Far wide. My soul, like an ill-managed courser,
Is carrying me away, while my poor heart
To her own music dances in wild fear._[16]

He cries in anguish to Apollo to justify him; but there comes no answer from the god; and faster and faster crowd those grizzly spectre forms, rushing upon him in hideous multitudes, and menacing him with ghastly torments. And as the tragedy closes, we see Orestes fleeing before the rout of the Furies to find sanctuary at the shrine of Apollo, while the Chorus wails:

“_When shall cease
Dread, Atè’s fury? When be lulled to peace?_”[16]

We hear no more of Electra from Æschylus. Measured by action, or even by language, the part she plays in his trilogy is quite a small one. It is significant, too, that this her first appearance in Attic Tragedy is not called by her name, but the _Libation-bearers_. Such a title, while it serves to remind us of a stage of Greek Drama when the Chorus was the whole play, indicates also the poet’s conception of the theme. To Æschylus, the religious act at Agamemnon’s tomb, with all that it implies, was of much greater import than the figure of the great king’s daughter. The force of destiny, the amazing mandate of the god and its conflict with filial love and duty, and the pursuit of the matricide by the Furies, constitute for him the essence of the tragedy. The spiritual aspect of the story transcends for him the human interest of it. Hence his characters, though sublimely great, are great in outline only; and hence the brief appearance of Electra.

But when we find that Sophocles and Euripides, who wrote about Electra afterward, have boldly made her the protagonist, and have called their plays by her name, we are prepared for a change of attitude. The story is now viewed from a more human standpoint. The protagonist is no longer a chorus, but a woman: the ruling passion is now not so much a principle, a moral, a duty, or any idea in the abstract; but strong human will, intense human love, and mortal hatred. The motive of the Drama is no longer a religious ceremonial, but the enactment of a tragic story. And the final result is not now that of a grand moral lesson conveyed through the lips of shadowy demi-gods, but a really dramatic drama.

It follows, therefore, that with this change the character of Electra has taken on a stronger and more complete individuality. In the version of Sophocles, she rises to her greatest height. She is a creature who can endure to the end and dare the uttermost: of absorbing love and strenuous hatred: tender and strong. Unbending and uncompromising, she is in conflict not only with the mother whom she loathes, but with the weakness of a sister whom she loves. Implacable to her enemies, she is capable of absolute devotion to the memory of her father and to the absent Orestes; and in these contrasted qualities Sophocles has made of his Electra a tremendously dramatic figure. For the finest drama, and for the most enthralling story we must go to him. But his purpose seems to have been merely artistic. He takes a hint from the old legend, and developing its possibilities to the utmost he evolves a play which is perhaps more powerful as drama and certainly more perfect as art than that of Æschylus or Euripides. But it has hardly any other significance. His conception of Electra, while finely complete and harmonious, is of a being untroubled by ethical considerations, and casting no fearful glance ‘before and after.’

With Euripides, on the other hand, the character of the protagonist becomes more deeply significant than even Æschylus had made her. For Euripides, the mandate of the god was false, and the vengeance taken was a stupendous crime against humanity. When Orestes and Electra, wrought up by passion, have accomplished it, Euripides makes reaction come to them as to any other mortal being. They are not pursued by visible Furies, from which they may flee to the sanctuary of Apollo, but by remorse and cankering doubt of their own motives. For him they are simply human creatures; and the touch of realism, animated as it is by a daring sceptical spirit, has laid a blight on much that was beautiful in the earlier conception of Electra’s character. To recover that, we must go back to the _Libation-bearers_ of Æschylus.

-----

Footnote 16:

From Professor Lewis Campbell’s translation of the _Choephorœ_
(Clarendon Press).

_Æschylus: Cassandra_

For the beginning of Cassandra’s story we must go back to the epic theme. The first word which Homer tells of her is in the Thirteenth Book of the _Iliad_, where she is called “the fairest of Priam’s daughters.” But that is late in the Siege; and there is a legend which gives her an earlier connection with the tale of Troy. Indeed, we find that she was a link in the chain of events which led Helen and the Greek army to her native city. When she was still a young girl she had, in some mysterious way, been beloved by the god Apollo. The god gave her the gift of prophecy; but because she refused his love he angrily confounded the gift that he could not recall by decreeing that her prophetic utterances should never be believed. This is the central point round which our thought about Cassandra must revolve. She is the virgin priestess who holds herself inviolate even from the embraces of a divine lover; and she is an oracle of clear vision and stainless truth, whose divination is cursed with futility.

The events of her career show blacker and more hideous against the clear light of her spirit. All through the long agony of the Trojan war we have a sense of Cassandra at the altar, lifting pure hands in supplication for her dear city. The fighting raged outside the walls like an angry sea, while inside the town and away in the Greek encampment all the passions let loose by war raged no less fiercely than the battle itself. But Cassandra, withdrawn from sight and sound of the conflict, continued to pray and sacrifice. Her life was consecrated. And although the gods themselves seemed sometimes leagued against her; although she had a perception of what the end must be, nothing could weaken her endurance nor shake her will. The Trojan princes wooed her in vain: the love of the great Sun-god himself could not make her swerve. The glory of her beauty: her gift of vision: her lofty impassioned soul, were vowed irrevocably to the service of her country and her home.

Yet this idealist and mystic was destined to suffer the worst brutalities of war in the hour of Troy’s destruction. She was made captive at her own altar; and was carried away by Agamemnon to be his slave-wife and the rival of his queen. The mind revolts at the thought: it is too awful to contemplate, and will not shape itself in cold reflection. The poets seem to have felt this; and we find that Æschylus and Euripides, who have both dwelt upon the story of Cassandra’s downfall, rise to stormy heights of emotion when they tell about it.

Euripides has placed Cassandra in the group of royal women in his _Troades_. The time of the drama is the morning which follows the overthrow of Troy; and the action represents the carrying-off of the princesses by their captors. It is, one would think, a time and a scene quite unfitted for dramatic presentation. The immense excitement—of victory on the one hand and defeat upon the other—has ebbed away; and all that remains to the Trojan women is misery so profound and hopeless as almost to be beyond the power of expression. The measure of their pain seems to claim a reverent silence; and we feel that the _Troades_ does need the sanction of the ethical purpose which Professor Murray has found in it. But once we realize the deep and humane thought behind it: that the poet has chosen this part of the story expressly to reveal the hideous suffering which war entails upon women, the tragedy is fraught with significance.

The final act of Cassandra’s life is given by Æschylus in the _Agamemnon_. He, no less than Euripides, feels the appalling tragedy of her story; and both poets have put into her lips lyrics of wild and haunting beauty. But Æschylus, by removing the action to Mycenæ and by bringing Cassandra into conflict with Clytemnestra, has wrought a climax of extraordinary power.

* * * * *

If there be any truth in the legend, it was Cassandra who first recognized the shepherd Paris for the son of Priam. The stripling who descended from the glens of Mt. Ida to compete in the games outside the city was unknown and unloved by the Trojans whom he defeated. They were jealous of the handsome stranger who carried off the prizes from them; and he soon found himself embroiled with Priam’s athletic sons. He was hard beset. The odds were heavy against him; and like a hunted animal he flung himself before the altar of Apollo for protection.

_And lo! Apollo’s priestess with a train
Of holy maidens came into that place,
And jar did she outshine the rest in grace,
But in her eyes such dread was frozen then
As glares eternal from the gorgon’s face
Wherewith Athene quells the ranks of men._[17]

It was of course Cassandra. She had never before seen this young suppliant who was clinging to the altar; but as she looked on him now there came upon her a revelation of his identity. She knew of the old ring which had been placed about her baby brother’s neck when he was exposed to death upon the mountain; and taking Paris by the hand, she touched the chain he wore and slowly drew to light the talisman.

_This sign Cassandra showed to Priam straight.
The king waxed pale and asked what this might be?
And she made answer, “Sir, and King, thy fate
That comes on all men horn hath come on thee;
This shepherd is thine own child verily.”_[17]

Here, then, is the real beginning of the story of Cassandra. For the old king would not be warned against his fate. He welcomed his boy as one returned from death. A great festival was made in his honour; and of all the many sons of Priam there was not one so dearly loved. Joy and merriment filled the city. All the warning oracles which had spoken at the birth of Paris were forgotten. Nothing but thanksgiving was heard for the restoration of the fair young prince; and amid it all, Cassandra knew that when she placed his hand in the hand of Priam, Destiny had wrought for the fall of Troy.