CHAPTER III

THE WORKS OF ÆSCHYLUS

The place of Æschylus in dramatic history has been discussed in the first

chapter. We have still to give some account of his seven extant plays and

of the fragments.

The SUPPLICES[207] (Ἱκετίδες, “Suppliant Women”) is no doubt the earliest

of these. The scene is laid near the sea-coast, not far from Argos. The

chorus, consisting of the fifty daughters of Danaus, enter, and in their

opening song tell how they have fled from Egypt to escape marriage with

their cousins, the fifty sons of Ægyptus. These suitors have pursued them

overseas, but they call upon Zeus, who through Io is their ancestor,

to defend them. Danaus, their father, urges them to take refuge upon

the steps of the altar.[208] This they do, becoming suppliants of the

State-deities and acquiring a claim upon the citizens. The King of Argos

enters; to him the women make their appeal. He replies that he must

consult the national assembly before facing the possibility of war with

the Egyptians; meanwhile he sends Danaus into the city to engage the

compassion of the Argives. After another song by the chorus, in which

they relate the wanderings of Io and her final peace, Danaus returns

with the news that the Argive assembly is unanimous in championing the

Suppliants; the women burst forth into lyrical blessings upon the land.

Danaus, who has been upon the watch, announces the approach of the

hostile ships; he comforts his shrinking daughters, goes to fetch help,

and does not return until the danger is over.[209] After a terrified

lyric, the Egyptian herald appears, accompanied no doubt by warriors;

he harshly bids them go to the ship and submit to their masters. They

refuse. He is on the point of dragging them away when the King enters,

rebukes the herald, and defies the power of Egypt. The intruder departs

with threats of war. Danaus returns, and with his daughters is given

lodging within the city-walls. The chorus end the drama with an ode

voicing their fear of war and oppression.

Such a close evidently implies that the story was continued in another

work, and it has been conjectured that the _Egyptians_ and the _Danaides_

(“Daughters of Danaus”) formed the second and third parts of the trilogy.

Scarcely anything of these two plays has been preserved, but there is

good reason to suppose that the Egyptians were victorious, that the

daughters of Danaus were compelled to marry their ferocious suitors,

and that on the command of their father each slew her husband on the

wedding-night. Hypermnestra alone spared her lover, by name Lynceus.

It seems that she was put on her trial for this disobedience and was

saved by the advocacy of Aphrodite, who thus foreshadows the Apollo

of the _Eumenides_. The satyric play was perhaps the _Amymone_; this

was the name of one of the Danaides, who was delivered from a satyr by

Poseidon. Viewed not historically, but æsthetically, especially by a

reader already familiar with the _Oresteia_, the play must be confessed

bald and monotonous. Many of Æschylus’ most splendid attributes, it

is true, are to be discerned, but their fire too often sinks into

smouldering grimness. The only really fine passages are those portions of

the lyrics which bear the impress of the poet’s masculine and profound

theology. Such strictures, however, are merely one way of saying that

the _Supplices_ is an early work. It would be fairer (were it only

possible) to compare it with the drama of Phrynichus rather than with

the _Agamemnon_. Here, perhaps for the first time, we have a genuinely

dramatic situation—the collision between the king and the herald. There

is little characterization. The chorus are simply distressed damsels

(save for their vivid and strong religious faith), the king is simply a

magnanimous and wary monarch, the herald simply a “myrmidon”. Danaus,

however, shows some interesting traits. He is extremely sententious and

rejoices in the fact: “Inscribe this on your hearts beside the many

other precepts of your father written there”.[210] His exhortation[211]

to chaste behaviour, though long and (as his daughters assure him)

unnecessary, is, albeit corrupt textually, one of the most striking

passages in the play. But one feels that characterization is perhaps less

needed in a work which, literally from the first word, is filled with

the name of God, Zeus,[212] the ancestor of the Danaids, the lord of the

universe, the guardian of right. “And whensoever it is decreed by nod of

Zeus that a thing be brought to fullness, it falls not prostrate, but

on its feet. Yea, through thicket and shadow stretch the paths of his

decrees, that no thoughts can spy them out.”[213] Equally majestic is the

language concerning that other Zeus[214] who judges the sins of men in

Hades. Finally, though the thought and diction are in the main stark if

dignified, a change comes over the play before the end: we get a little

“atmosphere”. Danaus already fears personal enemies (v. 1008), and the

arrangements for lodging the suppliants show a tinge of domesticity.

The PERSÆ[215] (Πέρσαι, “Men of Persia”), though perhaps twenty years

later, comes next among the surviving plays. The action takes place

before the palace of Xerxes. It opens with a song from the chorus,

who represent aged councillors of the Persian Empire. They describe

the departure of the host which is to conquer Greece, and their own

anxiety for news. Atossa, widow of Darius and mother of Xerxes, enters,

distressed by an ill-omened dream. The councillors discuss this portent

and the prospects of victory. A messenger arrives who announces the

complete overthrow of the “barbarians”. The queen speedily rallies from

her grief, learns that her son himself is safe, and hears the narrative

of Salamis and the flight of the Persians back to Asia. She determines

to offer supplications to Heaven and retires to fetch the materials of

sacrifice; the chorus pour forth a lyric lament and deplore the loss

of Darius the conqueror. Atossa returns bearing the libation which she

offers to the shade of Darius, while the chorus invoke the dead king,

praying him to appear and give counsel. In answer, the ghost of Darius

rises from his tomb. He learns the evil tidings, laments the impious

folly of his son, and foretells the coming disaster of Platæa. After

the shade has sunk back into the tomb, and Atossa has gone to meet

Xerxes,[216] the elders sing of Persia’s greatness under Darius. Finally,

Xerxes appears, plunged in despair. Amid the antiphonal wailings of the

king and his councillors the tragedy ends.

The scholiast says that “Æschylus won the prize in the archonship

of Menon, with _Phineus_, _Persæ_, _Glaucus of Potniæ_ and

_Prometheus_”.[217] This tetralogy seems (to judge from the titles

and the fragments) to have been a collection of plays which had no

relation of subject-matter. Interesting to the historian as the only

extant tragedy dealing with a contemporary subject, the _Persæ_ also

wins the highest admiration as a piece of literature not unworthy of

its theme. The muscular and majestic diction of the speeches, the

noble sweep of the lyrics, the colossal dignity of the characters,

the picturesqueness and vigour which make the story of Salamis one of

the greatest passages even in Æschylus—these are characteristics of

the poet which the _Supplices_ presents only in germ. But the noblest

feature of the whole is the manner in which Æschylus has faced his

chief obstacle. To dramatize the heroic spirit and overwhelming success

of Athens in the presence of Athenians—was this an easy task? Nothing

could be more cloying at the moment, more thin and unsatisfying to the

after-reflection. Æschylus rises clear above all this. First, he places

the scene not in Athens, but before the gates of the palace at Susa; that

dignity which elsewhere in Greek tragedy is secured by remoteness in

time, is here obtained by remoteness in space.[218] The whole incident

is held at arm’s length that it may be viewed with soberness, and as a

whole in perspective. Next, it has often been observed that on the one

hand he chronicles a host of Asiatic nobles while on the other not a

single Greek—not even Themistocles—is named. Both these facts spring from

the same source. Æschylus, it cannot be repeated too often, was a deeply

religious man. When he takes it in hand to dramatize an event of recent

history his instinct impels him, just as infallibly as if he were writing

of Heracles or Prometheus, to describe occurrences not in the language

of politics or of tactics, but of theology. Athens has been but the

instrument of Heaven; Persia has fallen, not through the brawn of oarsmen

or the skill of captains, but through the blasphemous infatuation of her

prince and the wrath of God following thereupon.

O God, thy arm was here;

And not to us, but to thy arm alone,

Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,

But in plain shock and even play of battle,

Was ever known so great and little loss

On one part and on th’ other?

Take it, God, For it is none but thine![219]

He is little concerned with that play of human psychology on the Greek

side, which forms so brilliant a page of Herodotus. Even when he narrates

that trick by which the conflict was precipitated, the false message from

Themistocles to Xerxes, nothing is said of the reasons for sending it.

Though the antecedent “facts” are known, yet he chooses to tell what he

does indeed regard as the truth, that the whole error of the king came

from “a fiend or evil spirit,” and that he fell into the trap because “he

perceived not the guile of the Greek nor _the spite of Heaven_”.[220] On

the Greek side, then, “the creatures of a day” are lost in the vision of

eternal righteousness. But the poet has no such reason to obliterate the

mighty names of Persia. Almost the whole effect of them is for us lost;

but to an Athenian ear these barbaric polysyllables must have sounded

with all the pomp of an ancient chivalry, the waves of the boundless and

terrible Orient descending in deluge upon the tiny states of Hellas. But

the billows at their highest had been stayed and had sunk; the appalling

roll of warlike titles was changed into a proclamation of glory—but not

the glory of Greece. No Greek name is immortalized in this play, which

resounds at every moment with the name of God.

The SEVEN AGAINST THEBES[221] (Οἱ Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας) was produced in 467

B.C. and deals with the fratricidal quarrel of the sons of Œdipus.

Eteocles, the elder, had become King of Thebes and expelled his brother

Polynices. The latter with six comrades-in-arms and an host led by

Adrastus, King of Argos, attacked the city. The seven invading champions

were met at the seven gates by as many Theban warriors. The scene is laid

in an open space in the town. A messenger brings to Eteocles the news

that the enemy are on the point of assaulting the walls. The chorus,

consisting of Theban maidens, enter, and in a vivid lyric express their

frantic terror. Eteocles attempts to calm them, urging that their

outcries will demoralize the citizens; but soon they burst forth again

into wild forebodings. Then follows a long scene in which the messenger

describes the seven heroes who are to attack at the seven gates. As each

is described Eteocles allots one of his comrades for defence. The seventh

enemy is Polynices, the king’s own brother; Eteocles, spurred on by the

curse of his house, declares that he will himself confront Polynices. He

rushes away and the maidens lament the frightful story of Œdipus’ curse.

The messenger returns with the news that the invaders have been routed

and that the brothers have fallen by each other’s hand. After the chorus

have lamented this crime, the corpses are brought forward, accompanied

by Antigone and Ismene, sisters of the dead, who utter an antiphonal

dirge. They are interrupted by a herald who proclaims the decree of the

“people’s councillors”. Eteocles is to be honourably buried; his brother

is to be left to the dogs and birds of prey. Antigone defies the decree

and declares that she will bury Polynices. The chorus divide into two

parties, one supporting Antigone, the other giving obedience to the State.

This tragedy won the prize. The trilogy consisted of _Laius_,

_Œdipus_, the _Seven_, with the _Sphinx_ as satyric play. Aristeas and

Polyphradmon, the sons of Pratinas and Phrynichus respectively, were

second and third. Very little is known about the companion plays. The

_Laius_ contained a reference to the exposure of the infant Œdipus; the

_Œdipus_ described the death of Laius.

The _Seven_ is a magnificently vigorous and graphic presentment of war

in one of its aspects. As such it is eulogized by Aristophanes, who puts

into the mouth of Æschylus the boast that he “composed a drama full of

the War-God—my _Seven against Thebes_”.[222] The chief excellences are

the first chorus and the celebrated Choosing of the Champions. This

latter contained the best-known passage in the play, where the messenger

says of Amphiaraus:—[223]

σῆμα δ’ οὐκ ἐπῆν κύκλῳ

οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ’ εἶναι θέλει,

βαθεῖαν ἄλοκα διὰ φρενὸς καρπούμενος,

ἐξ ἧς τὰ κεδνὰ βλαστάνει βουλεύματα.

His buckler bore no blazon; for he seeks

Not to seem great, but to be great indeed,

Reaping the deep-ploughed furrow of his soul

Wherefrom the harvest of good counsel springs.

As these lines were declaimed in the theatre, Plutarch[224] tells us,

every one turned and gazed at Aristides the Just. The first half of

the play is in strictness not dramatic[225] at all—a merely static

presentment of the situation: a city in a state of siege, panic among the

women, resolution in the mind of the general. The later portion gives

us decisive action. The King rushes to his fratricidal duel, spurred on

by the invisible curse; but even here there is no dramatic conflict of

personalities like the altercation between the brothers in the _Phœnissæ_

of Euripides. Such a collision is, however, provided at the very end,

where Antigone defies the State.

As regards the PROMETHEUS VINCTUS (Προμηθεὺς δεσμώτης, “Prometheus

Bound”) we are in doubt as to the date, the arrangement of the cast, and

the other parts of the trilogy.

Concerning the date, we know that the play was written after 475 B.C.,

the year in which occurred that eruption of Etna described by Prometheus

(vv. 363-72). Further, it is usually regarded as later than the _Seven_

owing to the increased preponderance of dialogue over lyrics. Also, the

supposition that three actors are required has led some scholars to

believe that the _Prometheus_ belongs to the period when Sophocles had

introduced a third actor, and so to place it in the last part of the

poet’s life.[226] The static nature of the drama might seem to forbid

such a view, but possibly it formed the centre of the trilogy, the most

likely place for an equilibrium of the tragic forces. And the theological

basis of the whole series is so profound, that an approximation in

date to the _Oresteia_ is not unreasonable. On the whole, then, the

_Prometheus_ may be conjecturally assigned to about the year 465 B.C.

As for the division of the parts among the actors, we find in the opening

scene three[227] persons engaged, Prometheus, Hephæstus, and Cratos

(“Strength”). Prometheus, however, does not utter a word until his

tormentors have retired, and it has been held that only two actors are

needed here (as in the rest of the work). On this view, Prometheus would

be represented by a lay-figure, either Hephæstus or Cratos would return

unseen, delivering the later speeches of Prometheus from behind the

figure, through a mouth-piece in the head. But as there was no curtain

in the theatre, it would be necessary for the executioners to carry the

lay-figure forth in view of the audience before the action began. The

true objection to this is not its absurdity; an audience will tolerate

much awkwardness in stage-management, if only it is accustomed to such

conventions. But it would scarcely have harmed the play if the poet had

dispensed with Cratos; the actor thus disengaged could have impersonated

Prometheus from the beginning. That Æschylus saw this possibility

cannot be doubted; therefore he did not feel bound to use a lay-figure;

therefore he did not, and we must assume that he employed three actors.

Two other tragedies were associated with this, _Prometheus the

Fire-bringer_ (Προμηθεὺς πυρφόρος) and _Prometheus Unbound_ (Προμηθεὺς

λυόμενος). That the latter followed the extant play is of course

certain, but the position of the _Fire-bringer_ is doubtful. One would

naturally place it first in the trilogy: the offence, the punishment,

the reconciliation. But, say some, in that case one can hardly imagine

how Æschylus wrote the first tragedy without anticipating a great part

of the second—the noble account which Prometheus gives of the victory of

Zeus, his own offence, and the blessings it conferred upon men. Hence

arises a theory that the _Fire-bringer_ was the last play of the trilogy

in which the Titan, reconciled to Zeus, became a local deity of Athens,

the giver of fire. But this view has been discredited by evidence[228]

that there is not enough matter remaining for the _Fire-bringer_ after

the close of the _Prometheus Unbound_. These two difficulties about the

position of the _Fire-bringer_ have induced some to identify it with that

_Prometheus_ which we know as the satyric play appended to the _Persæ_

trilogy, and to suppose that Æschylus told the story in two plays only,

the present trilogy being completed by a tragedy unconnected with the

subject. The best view is that the _Fire-bringer_ was the first play;

the title suggests that it dealt with the transgression which led to

the punishment portrayed in the extant drama; and the objection as

to overlapping of the _Fire-bringer_ and the _Prometheus Vinctus_ is

illusory.

The scene is a desolate gorge in Scythia. Hephæstus, the God of Fire,

with Cratos and Bia, Strength and Violence, servants of Zeus, appear,

dragging with them the Titan Prometheus. Hephæstus nails the prisoner

to the rocks under the superintendence of Cratos; he has little liking

for his task, but Cratos rebukes his tenderness for the malefactor who

has braved Heaven in order to succour mankind. At length Prometheus is

left to his lonely agony. Hitherto he has been silent, but now he voices

his pain and indignation to the sea and sky and earth around him. His

soliloquy breaks off as he catches the sound of wings, and the chorus

enter—a band of sea-nymphs who have been startled from their cave by the

clatter of iron. They strive to comfort him, and he tells how by his

counsel Zeus was enabled to defeat the Titans. Then, consolidating his

empire, the god determined to destroy mankind and create a new race.

Prometheus, in love of men, saved them from destruction and bestowed

upon them the gift of fire, which he stole from Heaven and which has

been the beginning of civilization. At this point Oceanus enters,

riding upon a four-legged bird; he is a Titan who stood aloof from the

conflict with Zeus. An amiable but obsolete person, he wishes to release

Prometheus (without running into danger himself) and urges submission.

The prisoner listens with disdainful courtesy, refuses the advice, and

hints to Oceanus that he had better not associate with a malefactor. His

visitor soon bustles away, and the chorus sing how all the nations of

the earth mourn over the torments of their deliverer. Prometheus then

tells of the arts by which he has taught man to alleviate his misery.

The Nymphs ask if he has no hope of release himself; he hints at the

possible downfall of Zeus. Another lyrical passage hymns the power of

that god and expresses surprise at the contumacy of the Titan. Then

appears Io, the heifer-maiden, who at the request of the chorus describes

her strange ill-fortune. Beloved of Zeus, she has incurred the wrath of

his queen, Hera, who has changed her into a heifer and sent her roaming

wildly over the earth pursued by a gadfly. Prometheus prophesies her

future wanderings, which shall end in Egypt. He speaks more clearly of

the fall of Zeus, who is preparing to wed one who shall bear a child

greater than his father. Then he narrates the story of Io’s course up to

the present hour, ending with the prophecy that in Egypt she shall bear

to Zeus a son named Epaphus. He speaks of the history of this man’s line,

particularly of one “courageous, famed for archery” who shall release

Prometheus. Io, in a sudden paroxysm, rushes from the scene. The chorus

sing of the dangers which lie in union with the Gods. Prometheus again

foretells the overthrow of Zeus by his own son. Hermes, the messenger

of Zeus, enters demanding that the prisoner reveal the fatal secret.

Prometheus treats his message with defiance. Hermes warns him of still

more fell tortures: the “winged hound of Zeus” will come each day to tear

his liver; a convulsion of the earth will hurl him into Hades. The nymphs

again urge submission, but when the messenger declares that unless they

leave Prometheus they will perchance suffer too, they haughtily refuse

to listen. Amid an upheaval of the whole of Nature, the Titan, still

defiant, sinks from sight.

The _Prometheus Vinctus_ has impressed all generations of readers with

wonder and delight; in particular it has inspired poetry only less

magnificent than itself. Shelley’s _Prometheus Unbound_ is a gorgeous

amplification of its spiritual and material features. The sinister and

terrific figure which dominates the early part of _Paradise Lost_ is

but Prometheus strayed at an untoward hour into Christian mythology.

Again, this play is the noblest surviving example of the purely Æschylean

manner. The _Oresteia_ is greater, perhaps, certainly more interesting

to us; but there Æschylus has reacted to the spirit of Sophocles. Here,

the stark hauteur of the _Supplices_ has developed into a desolate

magnificence. The lyrics which, since the _Seven_, have again dwindled

in size, have yet grown in beauty, variety, and characterization. On the

other side, there is a development of the dialogue which is amazing. Long

speeches are still the rule, but line-by-line conversations are frequent.

Characters in the _Supplices_ and the _Seven_ talk as if blank-verse

dialogue were a strange and difficult art—as indeed it was till Æschylus

forged it into shape. Throughout, whether in lengthy speeches or in

conversation, the iambic metre has found a grace and suppleness which is

too often ignored by those who come to the _Prometheus_ fresh from the

_Medea_ or the _Œdipus Tyrannus_. Above all, the maturity of Æschylus’

poetic strength is to be seen in the terrific perspectives which he

brings before us—perspectives of time, as the voice of the tortured

prophet carries us down a vista of centuries through the whole history of

Io’s race to the man of destiny; perspectives of scenery, as the eye of

the Ocean-Nymphs from the summit of earth gazes down upon the tribes of

men, horde behind horde fading into the distance, all raising lament for

the sorrows of their saviour; perspectives of thought, as the exultant

history of civilization leaps from the lips of him who dies hourly

through untold years to found and uphold it, telling how that creeping

victim of his own helplessness and the disdain of Heaven goes from

weakness to strength and from strength to triumph.

No less wonderful is the strictly dramatic economy of the play. The

action is slight. Prometheus works no more; it is his part to endure.

All the secondary characters act as a foil to bring the central figure

into massive relief. Each has some touch of Prometheus: Hephæstus, pity

without self-sacrifice; Cratos, strength without reflection; the Nymphs,

tenderness without force; Oceanus, common-sense without dignity; Io,

sensibility to suffering without the vision which learns the lesson

of pain; Hermes, the power to serve without perception of the secret

of sovereignty. Most essential of all these is Io. The only human

participant in the action, she reminds us that the hand of Zeus has been

heavy upon innocent mortals as well as rebel gods, and thus gives fresh

justification to the wrath of Prometheus. Still more, she is vital to the

whole trilogy. As Hephæstus links the _Fire-bringer_ to the second play,

so does she join the second play to the _Prometheus Unbound_. It is her

descendant Heracles who after thirteen generations will free Prometheus

and reconcile him to Zeus; the hero of the last drama is brought in a

sense upon the scene in the person of his ancestress. Prometheus himself

suggests to us the thought of Christ; and yet (as has been said) the

Satan of Milton is like him too. This double kinship is made possible by

the conception of Zeus which here obtains. Under the sceptre of a god

who hates mankind it is possible for the saviour of men to be a rebel

and an outcast. Right or wrong, the Titan is godlike in his goodness,

his wisdom, his courage. At one point only does his deity show a flaw;

he endures his pangs not as a god, but as a man; he agonizes, he laments

his pains, he utters exclamations of fear. Rightly, for if the actors in

this world-drama are immortal, the spectators are not. To have portrayed

Prometheus as facing his punishment without a quiver would have been

perhaps sounder theology, but worse drama; the human audience must be

made to understand something at least of these pangs, or the greatness

of the sacrifice will elude them. A parallel on which we must not dilate

cannot escape the reader. One strange outcome of his rebellion is

generally overlooked. Zeus had wished to destroy mankind and create a new

race. That is, he meant to treat men as he treated the Titans—or would

have treated them had they been mortal. Prometheus thwarted this plan, so

that we men are a survival of that pre-moral world which the new ruler

supersedes. We are the younger brothers of the Titans and (so to put it)

have all survived the Flood. Our pettiness and futility condemned us in

the eyes of Zeus, who wished for progress; but Prometheus loved us in

spite of our miserable failings, and so insisted on carrying us over into

the new and nobler world at the cost of his own age-long agony.

The basic question must be briefly discussed—the relation of Prometheus

to the new King of Heaven. Zeus is here described as a youthful tyrant,

blind to all rights and interests save the security of his recent

conquest. This cannot have been the picture presented by the whole

trilogy. Not only is enough known of Æschylus’ religious views to make

such a theory impossible; though the _Prometheus Unbound_ is lost

we know the story in outline. Heracles in his wanderings came upon

Prometheus, now released from Hades, but still chained to his rock and

gnawed by the vulture. The hero slew the bird with an arrow, and procured

the release of Prometheus by inducing the wounded Centaur Chiron to go

down to death in his place, and by reconciling the Titan to Zeus, who

promised to free him on hearing the secret of the fatal marriage.[229]

Prometheus, to commemorate his captivity, assumed a ring of iron. The

authority of the King of Gods was thus for ever established. It is

only in a different atmosphere that any inconsistency can be felt.

For Æschylus there was a progress in the history of Heaven as in the

civilization of earth. Even Zeus in the early days of his dominion seeks

to rule by might divorced from wisdom, a severance typified by his

feud with Prometheus. He has his lesson to learn like all others; if

he will not govern with the help of law, bowing to Fate, then the hope

of the Universe is vain and the blind forces of unguided Nature, the

half-quelled Titans, will bring chaos back. But youthful and harsh as he

is, his will has a moral foundation, unlike theirs; and so perhaps it is

that Prometheus cannot but exclaim “I sinned” in opposing that will. Upon

the reconciliation between Zeus and his antagonist, Prometheus became a

local Attic deity and no more. That eternal wisdom which he embodied is

mysteriously assimilated into the soul of Zeus. This is the consummation;

omnipotence and omniscience are at one.

We arrive finally at the trilogy which bears the name ORESTEIA and

which obtained the prize in 458 B.C. This is the only instance in which

the whole series has survived; the satyric play, _Proteus_,[230] has

perished. The name _Oresteia_ was applied to the whole tetralogy.

The background of the AGAMEMNON[231] is the palace of King Agamemnon at

Argos. A sentinel is discovered upon the roof; he is watching for the

beacon which shall signify that Troy has at length fallen. While waiting

he broods, dropping hints that all is not well at home. Then the beacon

flashes forth, and he shouts the news to the Queen Clytæmnestra within

the house. On his departure the chorus enter, aged councillors of Argos,

who have not yet heard the tidings. They sing of the quarrel between

Greece and Troy and describe the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s

daughter, who was offered up to Artemis in order to obtain a favourable

wind for the fleet. All the altars are blazing with incense; Clytæmnestra

enters, and they ask her the reason. Troy, she replies, was taken last

night; a system of beacons has been arranged; the signal has spread over

sea and land before dawn. She ponders over the state of the captured

city and hopes that the victors have not sinned against the gods of

Troy. The old men sing praise to Heaven and moralize on the downfall of

human pride. A herald appears, announcing that Agamemnon has landed and

will soon reach the city; he dilates on the miseries of the campaign,

till the queen sends him away with her welcome to Agamemnon. The chorus

call him back and ask news of Menelaus, the king’s brother; Menelaus,

he replies, is missing: as the Greeks were sailing home a tempest arose

which scattered the fleet. Agamemnon’s ship has returned alone. The

elders, after he has gone, sing of Helen and the deadly power of her

beauty. Agamemnon arrives, accompanied by the daughter of the Trojan King

Priam, Cassandra the prophetess, who has become his unwilling concubine.

Clytæmnestra greets him with effusiveness, to which he responds

haughtily. She persuades him against his will to walk into the palace

over rich carpets like an Oriental conqueror, and accompanies him within

doors. The chorus express forebodings which they cannot understand. The

queen comes forth and orders Cassandra within, to be present at the

sacrifice of thanksgiving, but the captive pays no heed and Clytæmnestra

in anger retires. The elders attempt to encourage the silent girl, who at

last breaks forth into incoherent cries, not of fear but of horror, and

utters vague but frightful prophecies of bloodshed and sin, punctuated

by the bewildered questions of her hearers. She tells them that they

will see the death of Agamemnon, bewails her own wretchedness, greets

her death, and prophesies the coming of an avenger. She passes into the

house. After a lyric on wicked prosperity, the voice of the king is heard

crying within that he has been mortally wounded. Another shriek follows,

and then silence. The chorus are in a tumult, when the doors are flung

open and Clytæmnestra is seen standing over the corpses of Agamemnon and

Cassandra. She has slain the king with an axe, entrapping him in the

folds of a robe while in his bath. In reply to the furious accusations

of the elders she glories in her act—she is the personification of

the ancestral curse; and she has avenged the murder of Iphigenia. The

altercation has for the moment reached something like calm, when Ægisthus

appears. He is the cousin of Agamemnon, but between the two families

there is a murderous and adulterous feud; Ægisthus himself is the lover

of Clytæmnestra and has shared in the plot. The Argives turn on him in

hatred and contempt, which he answers with tyrannical threats. They

remind him that Orestes, the king’s young son, is alive and safe abroad.

Swords are drawn, but Clytæmnestra insists that the quarrel shall cease;

she and Ægisthus must rule with dignity.

A novel theory of the plot has been put forward by the late Dr. A.

W. Verrall in his edition of the play.[232] He finds the following

difficulties in the usual acceptation: (i) Agamemnon lands in Argos on

the morning after the night in which Troy was captured, though as a

matter of course and a matter of “history” several days (at the very

least) must have elapsed before the Greek host so much as embarked; and

though a storm has befallen the fleet on its way. (ii) The story given by

Clytæmnestra about the beacons is absurd. Why has the arrangement existed

for only one year of the ten? Why make an arrangement which would depend

so entirely on the weather? How could the beacon on Mount Athos have been

seen from Eubœa (a hundred miles away) when a tempest was raging on the

intervening sea? (iii) This mystery, that Agamemnon reaches home only

two or three hours after his signal, is never cleared up: neither he nor

the queen mentions it when they meet. (iv) Thus the whole affair of the

beacons is gratuitous as well as incredible. (v) We are not told how

Agamemnon was slain. That is, though the poet is precise enough about the

details of the actual murder, we are not enlightened as to how a great

and victorious prince could be killed with impunity by his wife and her

lover, who thereupon, with no difficulty, usurp the government. (vi) What

does Ægisthus mean by claiming to have contrived the whole plot? On the

face of it he has done nothing but skulk in the background. Dr. Verrall’s

explanation, set forth with splendid lucidity, skill, and brilliance, may

be briefly summarized thus. For a year Clytæmnestra and Ægisthus have

been joined in a treasonable and adulterous league, Ægisthus knows what

is happening at Troy and has the first news of Agamemnon’s landing (at

night). He lights upon Mount Arachnæus a beacon which tells Clytæmnestra

that all is ready. (Her story of the fire-chain is a lie to deceive

the watchman and the elders.) Agamemnon thus naturally arrives only an

hour or two after the news that Troy has fallen. The assassination-plot

succeeds for various reasons. During the ten years’ war many citizens

of Argos have been alienated from the king by the enormous loss

of Greek lives. Hence the usurpers have a strong body of potential

adherents. In fact, several passages which our texts attribute to the

chorus really belong to conspirators. Next, Agamemnon by the accident

of the storm has with him, not the great host, but a single ship’s

company. Finally, though he has heard much ill of his wife—this only can

account for the brutality wherewith he greets her—he does not suspect

her resourcefulness, wickedness, and courage. Verrall’s theory should

probably be accepted.

This tragedy is beyond compare the greatest work of Æschylus. The lyrics

surpass those of any other drama. To the majesty and scope familiar

everywhere in Æschylean choric writing, and to the tenderness which

diffuses a gentle gleam through the _Prometheus_, are now added matchless

pathos and the authentic thrill of drama. The picture of Iphigenia (vv.

184-249) is not merely lovely and tearful beyond words; it is a marvel

that this gloomy colossus of the stage should for a moment have excelled

Euripides on Euripides’ strongest ground; it is as if Michelangelo

had painted Raffaelle’s “Madonna of the Grand Duke” amid the prophets

and sibyls of the Sistine Chapel. Even more poignant, because more

simple, are the brief lines (vv. 436-47) which tell how the War-God,

the money-changer of men’s bodies, sends back from Troy a handful of

charred dust, the pitiful return for a man who has departed into the

market-place of Death. Best known of all perhaps is the passage (vv.

402-26) which portrays the numb anguish of a deserted husband. Further,

these lyrics are dramatic. The choric songs do not suspend the action

by their sublime elucidations; the comments enable us to understand the

march of events, giving us the keynote of the scene which follows each

lyric. For instance, when the first stasimon dilates, not upon the glory

of conquest, but upon the fall of pride and the sorrows of war, we are

prepared for the herald and his tale in which triumph is overborne by

the memory of hardship and tempest. The misgivings which brood over

the third stasimon, in spite of the victorious entry of the king which

has just been witnessed, is a fit prelude to the terrible outbreaks of

Cassandra.

The characterization shows a marked advance on the _Prometheus_ in

variety and colour. This is not so much because three actors are needed

as against two in the earlier play; for though they are necessary,

comparatively little use is made of the increased facilities. But,

while Clytæmnestra is technically as great a creation as Prometheus,

the secondary persons are much more interesting in themselves than in

the earlier drama. They do of course form a series of admirable foils

to the queen, but they are worthy of careful study for their own sakes,

which cannot be said very heartily for the lesser personages of the

_Prometheus_. The sentinel is excellent, sketched in a few lines with a

sureness of touch which is a new thing in this poet’s minor characters.

The sense of impending trouble mixed with expected joy, the flavour

of rich colloquialism about his speech, and the hearty dance upon the

palace-roof wherewith he hails the beacon, make him live. Even more

commonplace, theoretically, is the part given to the herald, but him

again Æschylus has created a real man. The passionate joy with which he

greets his native soil, and the lugubrious relish wherewith he details

the hardships of the army before Troy, make him our friend at once, and

present us with that sense of atmosphere which is often lacking in Greek

tragedy. Agamemnon may seem a disappointing figure; very naturally, for

it is the poet’s purpose to disappoint us. To depict a great and noble

king would have spoiled the splendid effect of Clytæmnestra. Agamemnon’s

murder must be made for the moment as intelligible as may be, therefore

the dramatist shows us a conceited, heavy-witted, pompous person who none

the less reveals certain qualities which have made it possible for such a

man to overthrow Troy.

Clytæmnestra is Æschylus’ masterpiece—not indeed a masterly picture of

female character; such work was left to others—but a superb presentment

of a woman dowered with an imperial soul, pressed into sin by the memory

of her murdered child, the blind ambition of her husband, and the

consciousness of an accursed ancestry. Here, as elsewhere in these three

tragedies, the architectural skill with which Æschylus plans his trilogy

invite the closest study. In this first part, all the justification which

Clytæmnestra can claim is held steadily before the eyes. The slaughter

of Iphigenia, which killed her love for Agamemnon, is dwelt upon early

in the play and recalled by her once and again during her horrible

conversation with the chorus after the king’s death. Another wrong to her

is brought visibly upon the scene in the person of Cassandra. The sordid

side of her vengeance, her amour with Ægisthus, remains hardly hinted at

until the very end, where it springs into overwhelming prominence—but at

the very moment when we are preparing to pass over to the _Choephorœ_,

the second great stage of the action, in which the mission of Orestes is

to be exalted. Clytæmnestra has been often compared to Lady Macbeth. But

Shakespeare’s creation is more feminine than that of the Athenian. She

evinces inhuman heartlessness and cynicism till the task is accomplished;

before the play ends she is broken for ever. Clytæmnestra never falters

in her resolution, hardly a quiver reveals the strain of danger and

excitement upon her nerves while success is still unsure. When the deed

is accomplished and the strain relaxed, then, instead of yielding to

hysterical collapse, she is superbly collected.[233] Years after, she

re-appears in the _Choephorœ_, but time, security, and power have, to all

seeming, left little mark upon this soul of iron. At the last frightful

moment when she realizes that vengeance is knocking at the gate, her

courage blazes up more gloriously than ever: “Give me the axe, this

instant, wherewith that man was slain”.[234] It is a superb defiance;

for thrilling audacity this passage stands perhaps alone until we come to

the splendid “Stand neuter, Gods, this once, I do invoke you,” with which

Vanbrugh[235] rises, for his moment, into the heights where Æschylus

abode. Yet next moment the knowledge that her lover is dead brings her to

her knees.

Cassandra and Ægisthus have not yet been considered, for they belong also

to the next topic—the method in which the unity of the play is so handled

that it does not interfere with, but helps to effect, the unity of the

whole trilogy. The indescribable power and thrill of Cassandra’s scene

may easily blind us to the slightness of the character-drawing. Simply as

a character, the princess is no more subtly or carefully studied than the

herald; the extraordinary interest which surrounds her arises not from

what she is or does but from what happens to her. She is the analogue of

Io in the _Prometheus_. The mere structure of both plays allots to Io and

Cassandra precisely the same functions. Passive victims of misfortune,

they are the symbol and articulation of the background in the particular

drama; further, they are vital to the economy of the whole series, in

that they sum up in themselves the future happenings which the later

portions of it are to expound. So far, they are the same; but when we

go beyond theoretical structure and look to the finished composition,

Cassandra far outshines Io. The Argive maiden suffers, shrinks, and

laments in utter perplexity. The Trojan suffers, but she does not quail;

her lamentations are hardly lamentations at all, so charged are they with

lofty indignation, and the sense of pathos in human things. Io is broken

by her calamity; Cassandra is purified and schooled. The poet who in this

very play sings that suffering is the path to wisdom has not made us wait

long for an example. There is, too, a definite technical advance in this,

that Io merely hears the prophecy of justification and the possibility

of revenge, while Cassandra in her own person foretells the return of

Orestes.

Ægisthus also, but less obviously, is important to the progress of the

trilogy. His appearance and his speeches are no anti-climax to the

splendid scene of Clytæmnestra’s triumph. The queen and Cassandra have

talked of the Pelopid curse; Ægisthus is the curse personified. It is

through ancient wickedness that he has passed a half-savage life of

brooding exile; the sins of his fathers have turned him into a man fit to

better their instruction. Again, this last scene brings before us in full

power that aspect of Clytæmnestra which has been almost ignored—her baser

reason for the murder of her husband. This is done precisely at the right

place. To dwell on the queen’s intrigue earlier would have deprived her of

that measure of sympathy which throughout this first play she needs. Not

to have depicted it at all would have left that sympathy unimpaired, and

we should have entered upon the _Choephorœ_ fatally unable to side with

Orestes in his horrible mission.

The story of the CHOEPHORŒ[236] (Χοηφόροι, “Libation-Bearers”) is as

follows. The back-scene throughout probably represents the palace of

Argos; in the orchestra[237] is the tomb of Agamemnon. Something like

ten years have elapsed since the usurpation of Ægisthus. Orestes, son

of the murdered king, accompanied by his friend Pylades, enters and

greets his father’s grave, laying thereon a lock of his hair in sign of

mourning; they withdraw. The chorus (led by Electra) enter—attendants

of Electra carrying libations, to be poured in prayer upon Agamemnon’s

tomb. Their song expresses their grief, hints at revenge, and explains

that they have been sent by Clytæmnestra herself, who is terrified by a

dream interpreted to signify the wrath of Agamemnon’s spirit. Electra

discusses the situation with her friends, and pours the libations over

the mound in her own name, not on behalf of her mother, calling upon

the gods and Agamemnon’s spirit to bring Orestes home and punish the

murderess. Electra discovers the tress of hair left by Orestes. That

it has come from him she knows, as it resembles her own;[238] he must

have sent it. In the midst of her excitement, she perceives footprints;

these, too, she recognizes as like her own. Suddenly Orestes appears and

reveals himself. She still doubts, but he exhibits a piece of embroidery

which she herself worked long ago. Electra falls into his arms; Orestes

explains to his friends that Apollo has sent him home as an avenger. In

a long lyrical scene (κομμός), the chorus, Electra, and Orestes invoke

Agamemnon to assume life and activity in aid of his avenger.[239] The

chorus leader tells Orestes of Clytæmnestra’s vision. She dreamed that

she gave birth to a snake, which drew blood from her breast. He expounds

this as foretelling the death of the queen at his hands. Explaining that

he and his followers will gain admission to the palace as travellers,

he departs. The maidens raise a song of astonishment at the crimes of

which mortals are capable, dwelling especially upon the treachery of an

evil woman. Orestes comes back accompanied by his followers, and tells

the porter that he brings news for the head of the house. Clytæmnestra

appears, and receives the feigned message that Orestes is dead. The queen

is apparently overwhelmed, but bids the visitors become her guests.

While the chorus utter a brief prayer for success, the aged nurse of

Orestes comes forth, in grief for the loss of her foster-son. She tells

the chorus she has been despatched by Clytæmnestra to summon Ægisthus

and his bodyguard, that he may question the strangers. They persuade her

to alter the message; let Ægisthus come unattended. When she has gone,

they raise another lyric in passionate encouragement of Orestes. Ægisthus

enters and goes into the guest-wing of the house; in a moment his scream

is heard; the chorus retire.[240] A servant of Ægisthus bursts forth,

proclaiming the death of his master. He flings himself upon the main

door, desperately shouting for Clytæmnestra, who in a moment appears. His

message, “The dead are slaying them that live,” is clear to her: doom is

at hand, but she calls for her murderous axe. Orestes rushes out upon her

with drawn sword. His first words announce the death of Ægisthus, and she

beseeches him piteously for mercy. Orestes, unnerved, asks the counsel

of Pylades, who for the first and last time speaks, reminding the prince

of his oath and the command of Heaven. Clytæmnestra is driven within to

be slain beside her lover. After a song of triumph from the chorus, the

two corpses are displayed to the people; beside them stands Orestes who

brings forth the blood-stained robe wherein Agamemnon was entangled.

The sight of it brings upon the speaker a perturbation strange even in

such circumstances. It is the coming of madness. He sees in fancy the

Furies sent by his mother’s spirit, and rushes away to seek at Delphi the

protection which Apollo has promised. The play ends with a few lines from

the chorus lamenting the sinful history of the house.

The _Choephorœ_ is less popular with modern readers than either of its

companions. This is owing partly to the difficulty of perusal, for

the text of the lyrics is often corrupt; it is still more due to no

accident, but to technique. The second play of a trilogy was usually more

statuesque than the other two. There is, of course, a progress of events,

not merely a Phrynichean treatment of a static theme; but the poet

carefully retards his speed. Thus the _Choephorœ_ should be compared

rather with the _Prometheus_ than with the _Agamemnon_. We then observe

an improvement—if we wish to call it so—in construction. The great Commos

keeps the play almost[241] at a standstill; but the rest of the work is

full of dramatic vigour.

It is true that none of the characters has the arresting quality of those

in the _Agamemnon_. The nurse is a worthy companion to the watchman—her

quaint and explicit references to the trouble caused her by Orestes when

a baby are the most remarkable among the few comic touches found in our

poet; and the part of the slave who gives the alarm, minute indeed, is

yet the finest of its kind in Greek tragedy. But the persons of greater

import—Electra, Ægisthus, and Pylades—would not have taxed the skill of

a moderate playwright. Clytæmnestra is magnificent, but less through

her present part than through the superb continuation of her rôle in

the _Agamemnon_; her scenes are brief, like the glimpse of a fierce

sunset after a lowering day. She is the only person characterized,

except, indeed, Orestes, and even he through most of the drama is not

a character, but a purpose and a few emotions speaking appropriate

sentences. This is true even of the scene where he condemns his mother.

The only touch of genuine drama is the instant where he quails before her

entreaty; but though this is real enough, it is not great. The undoubted

power of the scene is due not to dramatic skill, but to the intrinsic

horror of the situation, Æschylus has given us almost as little as we

could expect. But turn the page and study Orestes’ address to the Argive

state—the increase in dramatic force is appalling. He begins by stately,

vigorous, and impassioned eloquence equal to almost anything in the

_Agamemnon_. The blood-stained robe is displayed, and the hideous sight

seems to eat into his brain. His grip on what he means to say slips;

he struggles to recapture it; one can see his failing mind stagger from

the mother of whom he strives to speak to the garment of death before

him. A word rises to the surface of his thoughts, he snatches at it, but

it brings up with it the wrong phrase. The horror passes into us; this

half-madness is not lunatic incoherence but the morbidly subtle coherence

of a masterful mind struggling against insanity. The deadly net entangles

his brain as it entangled his fathers body. By a final effort he collects

himself and declares that he goes to Delphi to claim the protection and

countenance of Heaven. Then his doom settles upon him; the Furies arise

before him and he flees distraught.

That such immense force should be manifested only at the end of the

play, that until and during the crisis Æschylus exerts only sufficient

dramatic energy to present his situations intelligibly, is the most

significant fact in the _Choephorœ_. This is deliberate in an artist who

has composed the _Agamemnon_ and the _Eumenides_. In the opening stage

it is human sin and courage which provide the rising interest; in the

third the righteousness and wisdom of the Most High unloose the knot and

save mankind; at both periods personality is the basis of action. But

in the middle stage the master is not personality, but the impersonal

Fury demanding blood in vengeance for blood, a law of life and of the

universe, named by a name but possessing no attributes. This law may be

called by a feminine title Erinys; it is called also by a phrase: “Do and

Suffer”;[242] it is the shade of Agamemnon, thirsting—is it for blood as

a bodily drink or for death as expiation?—and sending the dark progeny

of his soul up from Hades. This fact, then, and no person, it is which

dominates the play, and that is why the persons concerned are for the

time no magnificent figures of will or valour or wisdom, but the panting

driven thralls of something unseen which directs their movements and

decides their immediate destiny.

The plot of the third play, the EUMENIDES[243] (Εὐμενίδες, “the Kindly

Ones,” an euphemistic name of the Furies) is as follows. Outside the

shrine at Delphi, the Pythian priestess utters a prayer to all the

deities connected with the spot, after which she enters the sanctuary.

Almost instantly she returns in horror, and tells how she has seen a

blood-stained man seated upon the _Omphalos_ and round him a band of

sleeping females, loathly to the sight. She departs. From the temple

the god appears[244] with his suppliant Orestes, whom he encourages

and sends forth (led by the god Hermes) on his wanderings, which are

to end in peace at Athens. When the two have disappeared, the ghost of

Clytæmnestra rises and awakens the sleeping Furies. They burst forth

from the temple in frenzy at the escape of their victim. In the midst

of the clamour Apollo, with words of contemptuous hatred, bids them

begone. The scene now changes to Athens, where Orestes throws himself

upon the protection of the goddess Athena, whose statue he clasps. In

a moment the chorus of Furies enter in pursuit; they discover Orestes

and describe the horrible doom which he must suffer. He defies them and

calls upon the absent Athena. But they circle about him chanting their

fearful “binding-song”—the proclamation of their office and rights as the

implacable avengers of bloodshed and every other sin. As their strains

die away Athena enters. She hears the dispute in outline, the Furies

insisting that for matricide there can be no pardon, Orestes declaring

that he has been purified ritually by Apollo who urged him to his deed.

The goddess determines that the suit shall be tried by a court of her

own citizens. Meanwhile the Furies sing of the danger to righteousness

which must result if their prerogatives are withdrawn: “terror _has_ a

rightful place and must sit for ever watching over the soul”.[245] The

court of justice is now assembled on the Areopagus. Athena presides; with

her are the jurymen (generally supposed to number twelve); before her are

the Furies and Orestes; behind is a great crowd of Athenian citizens. A

trumpet blast announces the opening of the session, and Apollo enters

to aid Orestes. The trial begins with a cross-examination of Orestes

by the Furies, in which he is by no means triumphant. Apollo takes his

place and gives justification for the matricide, under three heads: (i)

it was the command of Zeus; (ii) Agamemnon was a great king; (iii) the

real parent of a child is the father, the mother being only the nurse.

To prove this last point Apollo instances the president herself, Athena,

born of no mother but from the head of Zeus. He ends by promising that

Orestes, if acquitted, will be a firm and useful ally to Athens. The

goddess now declares the pleading at an end, but before the vote is taken

she delivers a speech to the jury, proclaiming that she now and hereby

founds the Areopagite Court which shall for ever keep watch over the

welfare of Athens by the repression of crime. The judges advance one by

one and vote secretly; but before the votes are counted Athena gives her

ruling that if an equal number are cast on either side Orestes shall be

acquitted, for she gives her casting vote in his favour.[246] The votes

are counted and found equal, and the goddess proclaims that Orestes is

free. Apollo departs, and Orestes breaks forth into thanksgiving and

promises that Argos shall ever be the friend of Athens. He leaves Athena

and her citizens confronted by the Furies, who raise cries of frantic

indignation, turning their rage upon Athens and threatening to blight

the soil, the flocks, and the people. Athena seeks to placate them by

offering a habitation and worship in Attica. For a time they refuse to

listen, but after their fourth song of vengeance they relent. Athena

promises that they are to become kindly earth-deities[247] domiciled in

Attica, blessing the increase of crops, of herds, and of the family. The

citizens, with torches in their hands, form a procession led by Athena,

and conduct the new divinities to their dwelling in a cave beneath the

Acropolis.

It remains to deal with the literary and religious aspects of the play.

The poet sketches Orestes in but a rudimentary style. There is, indeed,

hardly any character-drawing in him; he is simply any brave, sensitive,

religious man. The “human interest” is almost confined to the gods,

without our forgetting that they are surrounded by human auditors. Athena

and the Furies are made to live by a few noble sweeping strokes; Athena,

the majestic presentment of Olympian wisdom and the visible head of her

favoured city; the Furies majestic in their rage, unanswerable in their

claim that punishment of crime cannot be done away if the world is to

endure. Apollo is a curious study, less sublime than we expected. His

manner under cross-examination by the Furies is a little too human;

indeed he loses his temper. The fact is that, though Æschylus has no

desire to treat Apollo irreverently, he is by no means concerned to

depict a perfect being; and for two reasons. Firstly, he insists on

reminding us that Apollo is but the minister of Zeus; it is Zeus only

whom he is bent on exalting. Secondly, he knows well that his audience,

as between the Furies and Apollo, have a strong bias in favour of the

latter. The poet does acquit Orestes, but it is of the deepest importance

in his eyes that we should not complacently regard the Furies as mere

malicious fiends, routed by a gloriously contemptuous Olympian; the

Furies may be wrong, perhaps, but _prima facie_ they have a terribly

strong case. Therefore in the scene of the pleadings they at least hold

their own. Apollo may be more right than they; he is emphatically not

their superior, his personal fiat is not a spiritual sanction profounder

than theirs. Neither party has got to the root of things. The Furies say:

“This man shed the blood of a kinswoman; he must be for ever damned”.

Apollo says: “He has not sinned, for Zeus bade him act thus”. The

acquittal of Orestes is not the solution of this disagreement, it is but

the beginning; we can hardly understand the dispute as yet.

We thus come to the religious aspect of the _Eumenides_. Æschylus is

of course too sincere to be satisfied, or to allow us to be satisfied,

with the fact that Orestes actually escapes. His pursuers attack not

the Argive prince only; much of their language is an indictment of

Apollo, and ultimately of Zeus. It is very well for Apollo to revile

them as “beasts detested by the gods,”[248] but the gods are themselves

arraigned. The earth-powers stand for the principle that sin, especially

bloodshed, must be punished; this demand is recognized as just by

Athena,[249] and is not repudiated by Apollo. Yet Zeus, the Sovereign of

all things, extends his hand over the man who has fallen under their sway

by his act. How shall these claims be reconciled?

The solution of Æschylus is not unlike that which (it appears) he offered

at the end of the Prometheus-trilogy. We are to imagine that we witness

the events of a time when Zeus himself has not attained to full stature.

His face is set towards the perfection of righteousness, but development

awaits even him. In the instance of Orestes, the jar between Furies and

Apollo, or more ultimately between the earth-powers and Zeus, shows

that neither party is perfectly right. None the less, it is essential

that there should be but one master of the universe, and the Furies are

compelled to submit. But Æschylus does not lay down his pen at this

point; nothing does he avoid more carefully than an ending which might

appear as desirable as obvious to a vulgar playwright, some showy tableau

of grovelling fiends and triumphant goddess. The Furies themselves look

for nothing less than moral annihilation[250] as the result of defeat.

But something of which they have never dreamed—of which, probably, no

Greek in the theatre has dreamed—is in store for them; neither victory

nor defeat, but recognition by the power to which they have been

forced to bow, assimilation to that religion from which they have kept

themselves so jealously sundered. They are still to be mighty powers of

earth, yet their function is to be cursing no more, but blessing only.

But is this a solution at all? Is it enough to hint at the thunderbolt,

to offer a bribe of power and worship that the Furies may forget their

rage against Attica?[251] What is to become of their function as

inflexible champions of righteousness, which has been the moral safeguard

of men? This duty the goddesses leave as a legacy to the newly-formed

court of chosen Athenians:—[252]

τὸ μήτ’ ἄναρχον μήτε δεσποτούμενον

ἀστοῖς περιστέλλουσι βουλεύω σέβειν

καὶ μὴ τὸ δεινὸν πᾶν πόλεως ἔξω βαλεῖν.[253]

“Loyalty and worship do I urge upon my citizens for a polity neither

anarchic nor tyrannical; fear must not be banished utterly from the

State.” These are the words of Athena; they are also the words of

Æschylus—a solemn warning to his fellow-citizens; finally, they are the

words of the Furies themselves—the very phrases which they have used are

here borrowed—and go far to explain why they consent to relinquish their

prerogative. First they have regarded the Areopagus with misgiving as a

possibly hostile tribunal; then with hatred as an enemy; at the last they

look upon it with benevolence as their heir to those stern duties which

must not be suffered, under whatever ruler of the world, to fall into

oblivion. It is true at the same time that the poet wished, for reasons

of contemporary politics, to impress upon his countrymen the sacredness

of this ancient court, then threatened with curtailment of its powers and

prestige at the hands of the popular party led by Pericles and Ephialtes;

and the manner in which he weaves this consideration of temporal

interests into the fabric of a vast religious poem is magnificently

conceived. What in a smaller man would have been merely a vulgar

dexterity is sanctified by religious genius. It is not the degradation of

religion, but the apotheosis of politics. The close of the _Eumenides_

is anything but an anti-climax. It is closely knit to the body of the

whole trilogy, showing the manner in which the playwright supposes the

necessary reconciliation between Zeus and the Furies to be made possible

and acceptable. The King of Heaven is mystically identified now and for

ever with Fate.[254] The joyful procession of προπομποί is the sign not

only that the moral government of the world has been set at last upon

a sure basis, but also that this government is already in operation and

sanctifying human institutions.

* * * * *

These seven plays are all that survive complete of the eighty[255]

tragedies and satyric dramas written by Æschylus. Our knowledge of the

lost works rests upon some hundreds of fragments and scattered mention or

comment in ancient writers.

Most interesting and important are those plays which were associated

with the extant dramas; these have been already discussed. Next in

attractiveness is the _Lycurgea_ (Λυκουργεία, or trilogy of Lycurgus), to

which the _Bacchæ_ of Euripides had close affinity in subject. Lycurgus

was a king of the Edoni, a Thracian people, who opposed the religion

of Dionysus when it entered his realm, and was punished with death.

The first play, the _Edoni_ (Ἠδωνοί), depicted the collision between

Dionysus and his enemy. There was an interview in which Lycurgus taunted

the god with his effeminate looks,[256] and which apparently closed with

the overthrow of his palace by the might of the god.[257] The longest

fragment gives an interesting account of the instruments of music used

in the bacchic orgies. The name of the second play is not certain; it

was either _Bassarides_ (Βασσαρίδες) or _Bassaræ_ (Βασσάραι)—the _Women

of the Fawn-Skin_. Here the anger of Dionysus fell upon Orpheus the

musician, who neglected the new deity and devoted himself to Apollo. He

was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes and the Muses gathered his remains,

to which they gave sepulture in Lesbos. The _Youths_ (Νεανίσκοι) formed

the last piece of the trilogy; practically nothing is known of it. It

was the chorus which gave its name to the play in all three cases. The

satyric drama was called _Lycurgus_; if we may judge from one of the

three fragments the tragic treatment of wine was transformed into a

comic discussion of beer.[258]

Another celebrated trilogy had for its theme the tale of Troy. The

_Myrmidons_ (Μυρμιδόνες), named from the followers of Achilles who formed

the chorus, dealt with the death of Patroclus. Achilles, withdrawn from

battle because of his quarrel with Agamemnon, is adjured by the chorus

to pity the defeat of the Greeks. He allows Patroclus, his friend, to go

forth against the Trojans. After doing valiantly, Patroclus is slain by

Hector. The news is brought by Antilochus to Achilles, who gives himself

up to passionate lament. This play was a favourite of Aristophanes, who

quotes from it repeatedly. In this drama occurred the celebrated simile

of the eagle struck to death with an arrow winged by his own feathers,

which was cited throughout antiquity and which Byron paraphrased in one

of his most majestic passages.[259] The story was apparently continued

in the _Nereides_ (Νηρηίδες). Achilles determined to revenge Patroclus.

The magic armour made for him by Hephæstus was brought by his mother

Thetis, accompanied by her sisters, the sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus,

who formed the chorus. The last play was the _Phrygians_ (Φρύγες) or

_Ransom of Hector_ (Ἕκτορος Λύτρα) in which Priam prevailed upon Achilles

to give up the corpse of Hector for burial. It appears likely that in

the two preceding plays Æschylus followed Homer somewhat closely. But in

the _Ransom_ he did not. Besides the detail to which Aristophanes[260]

makes allusion, that Achilles sat for a long time in complete silence,

no doubt while the chorus and Priam offered piteous and lengthy appeals,

there are differences of conception. In Homer, one of the most moving

features of the story is that Priam goes to the Trojan camp practically

alone. He is met by the God Hermes who conducts him to the tent of

Achilles. Then, solitary among his foes, he throws himself upon the mercy

of his son’s destroyer. No such effect was to be found in Æschylus. The

chorus of Phrygians accompanied their king, and we find in a fragment of

Aristophanes[261] a hint of much posturing and stage-managed supplication.

The _Women of Etna_ (Αἰτναῖαι) was produced in Sicily at the foundation

of Hiero’s new city. In the _Men of Eleusis_ (Ἐλευσίνιοι) Æschylus

dealt with the earliest struggle of Athens—the war with Eleusis, his

own birth-place. More ambitious in its topic was the _Daughters of the

Sun_ (Ἡλιάδες) which dealt with the fall of Phaethon. A pretty fragment

alludes to that “bowl of the Sun” so brilliantly described by Mimnermus,

in which the god travels back by night from West to East. It seems that

the geographical enumerations prominent in the Prometheus-trilogy were

found here also, tinged less with grimness and more with romance. In the

_Thracian Women_ (Θρῇσσαι) Æschylus treated the same theme as Sophocles

in the _Ajax_. It is significant that the death of the hero was announced

by a messenger. Possibly, then, it was a desire for novelty which caused

the younger playwright to diverge so strikingly from custom as to depict

the actual suicide. The _Cabiri_ (Κάβειροι) was the first tragedy to

portray men intoxicated. In the _Niobe_ (Νιόβη) occurred splendid lines

quoted with approbation by Plato:—

Close kin of heavenly powers,

Men near to Zeus, who upon Ida’s peak

Beneath the sky their Father’s altar serve,

Their veins yet quickened with the blood of gods.[262]

The _Philoctetes_ is the subject of an interesting essay by Dio

Chrysostom.[263] All the three great tragedians wrote plays[264] of this

name, and Dio offers a comparison. Naturally, but for us unfortunately,

he assumes a knowledge of these works in his readers; still, certain

facts emerge about the Æschylean work. Men of Lemnos—the island on which

Philoctetes had been marooned—constituted the chorus. To them the hero

narrated the story of his desertion by the Greeks, and his wretched life

afterwards. Odysseus persuaded him to come and help the Greeks at Troy

by a long recital of Hector’s victory and false reports of the death

of Agamemnon and Odysseus. Neither Neoptolemus nor Heracles (important

characters in Sophocles) seems to have been introduced by Æschylus.

Dio comments on the style and characterization. The primitive grandeur

of Æschylus, he remarks, the austerity of his thought and diction,

appear appropriate to the spirit of tragedy and to the manners of the

heroic age. Odysseus is indeed clever and crafty, but “far removed from

present-day rascality”; in fact he seems “absolutely patriarchal when

compared with the modern school”. That the play is named after one of the

persons and not the chorus, leads one to attribute it to a comparatively

late period in the poet’s life. Finally, the _Weighing of the Souls_

(Ψυχοστασία) is remarkable for the scene in Heaven, modelled upon a

passage in the _Iliad_, where Zeus, with Thetis, mother of Achilles, on

one hand, and Eos, mother of Memnon, on the other, weighed in a balance

the souls or lives of the two heroes about to engage in fight before Troy.

* * * * *

In attempting a general appreciation of this poet one should avoid making

the error of judging him practically by the _Agamemnon_ alone. Otherwise

we cannot hope to understand the feeling of fifth century Athens towards

him. Most of his work has vanished, but the collection we possess seems

fairly representative of his development; if we give weight to his

comparatively inferior plays we may understand the feeling of two such

different men as Aristophanes and Euripides. Incredible as it may seem,

by the end of that century Æschylus was looked on as half-obsolete.

Euripides thought of him much as Mr. Bernard Shaw now thinks of

Shakespeare; Aristophanes, lover of the old order as he was, seems to

have felt for the man who wrote the _Agamemnon_ a breezy half-patronizing

affection; while putting him forward in the _Frogs_ to discomfit

Euripides, he handles the older poet only less severely than he handles

the younger. He and his contemporaries viewed Æschylus as a whole, not

fixing their eyes exclusively on his final trilogy.

Let us consider him first as a purely literary artist, a master of

language, leaving his strictly dramatic qualities on one side. We find

that his three great notes are grandeur, simplicity, and picturesqueness.

To describe the grandeur of Æschylus is a hopeless task; some notion of

it may be drawn from the account of his individual works just given,

but the only true method is of course direct study of his writings. The

lyrics, from the _Supplices_ to the _Eumenides_, touch the very height

of solemn inspiration and moral dignity; as it has been often said, his

only peers are the prophets of Israel. The non-lyrical portions of his

work, stiff with gorgeous embroidery, are less like the conversations

of men and women than the august communings of gods; that majestic poem

which has for auditors the Sun himself, the rivers, the mountains, and

the sea, and for background the whole race of man, is not merely written

about Prometheus: it might have been written by Prometheus. But such

magnificence has its perils. The mere bombast for which Kyd and even

Marlowe are celebrated, and which has given us such things as

The golden sun salutes the morn

And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,

Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,[265]

was not unknown to Æschylus, as his wayward supporter Aristophanes

with much relish demonstrates. It seems that such extravagances, “the

beefy words, all frowns and crests, the frightful bogey-language,”[266]

occurred entirely in the lost plays. But in those which survive we have

much bombast of phrase, if not of words; the “thirsty dust, sister and

neighbour of mud,”[267] Zeus, “chairman of the immortals,”[268]

Typhos, who belcheth from fire-reeking mouth

Black fume, the eddying sister of the flame,[269]

“drill these words through thine ears with the quiet pace of thy

mind,”[270] “breathe upon him the gale of blood and wither him with the

reeking fire of thine entrails”.[271] Æschylus, indeed, like all poets,

understood the majesty of sounding words, apart from their meaning.

As Milton gloried in the use of magnificent proper names, so does the

Athenian delight in thunderous elaboration. Therefore, not possessing

the chastity of Sophocles, he is occasionally barbarous and noisy;

Aristophanes[272] jests at his lyrics for their frequent exhibition of

sound without sense.

Oddly combined with this occasional savagery of phrase is the second

quality of simplicity. Æschylus, so far as we know, was the creator of

tragic diction. However greatly his successors improved upon him in

flexibility, grace, and subtlety, it was he who first worked the mine of

spoken language, strove to purify the ore, and forged the metal into an

instrument of terror and delight. But even the creator needed practice

in its use. He has a giant’s strength, and at times uses it like a

giant, not like a gymnast. In his earlier work he seems muscle-bound,

clumsy in the use of his new-found powers. He wields the pen as one more

familiar with the spear; the warrior of Marathon does fierce battle with

particles and phrases; he strains ideas to his breast and wrestles with

elusive perfection; we seem to hear his panting when at last he erects as

trophy some noble speech or miraculous lyric. This stiffness of execution

persists faintly even in the _Oresteia_. The earlier tragedies, both

in the characters and in the language, are rough-hewn, for all their

glory. In the _Supplices_ this stark simplicity is actually the chief

note. Here, more than elsewhere, the poet has a strange way of writing

Greek at times as if it were some other language. The opening words of

the Egyptian herald—σοῦσθε σοῦσθ’ ἐπὶ βᾶριν ὅπως ποδῶν[273]—can only be

described as barbaric mouthing. Throughout this play the complete absence

of lightness and speed, the crude beginnings of greatness, a certain

bleak amplitude, are all typical of a new art-form not yet completely

evolved. The poet, himself the beginner of a new epoch, fills us with an

uncanny impression of persons standing on the threshold of history with

little behind them but the Deluge. In the _Persæ_ and the _Septem_ there

is the same instinct for spaciousness, but the canvas shows more colour

and less of the bare sky, for we are now more conscious of background,

the overthrow of Persia and the operations of human sin.

The third characteristic, picturesqueness, is the most obvious of all.

The few instances of bombastic diction noted above are but the necessary

failures of a supreme craftsman. Homer does not stay to embroider his

language with metaphor, which belongs to a more reflective age; Pindar’s

tropes are splendid and elaborate, a calculated jog to the attention.

For Æschylus, metaphor seems the natural speech, unmetaphorical language

a subtlety which requires practice. Danaus in his perplexity ponders

“at the chess-board”;[274] when the assembly votes, “heaven bristles

with right hands”;[275] an anxious heart “wears a black tunic”;[276]

heaven “loads the scales”[277] to the detriment of Persia; the trumpet

“blazes”;[278] misfortune “wells forth”;[279] Amphiaraus “reaps the

deep furrow of his soul”;[280] “the sea laughs in ripples without

number”;[281] the snow descends “with snowy wings”;[282] for an intrepid

woman “hope treads not the halls of fear”;[283] “Fate the maker of swords

is sharpening her weapon”;[284] Anarchy in the State is the “mixing

of mud with water”.[285] The best example of all is the celebrated

beacon-speech in the _Agamemnon_: “The flame is conceived as some mighty

spirit.... It ‘vaults over the back of the sea with joy’; it ‘hands its

message’ to the heights of Macistus; it ‘leaps across’ the plain of

Asopus, and ‘urges on’ the watchmen; its ‘mighty beard of fire’ streams

across the Saronic gulf, as it rushes along from peak to peak, until

finally it ‘swoops down’ upon the palace of the Atreidæ.”[286]

Allied to this picturesqueness of phrase is a picturesqueness of

characterization: Æschylus loves to give life and colour even to his

subordinate persons. Attic literature is so frugal of ornament that

the richness of this writer gains a double effect. The watchman of the

_Agamemnon_ has the effect of a Teniers peasant; Orestes’ nurse in the

_Choephorœ_ is a promise of the nurse of Juliet; the Egyptian herald

conveys with amazing skill the harem-atmosphere—one seems to see that

he is a negro; Hermes in the _Prometheus_ is the father of all stage

courtiers. Again, direct appeals to the eye were made by various quaint

devices—the winged car of the Ocean Nymphs, their father’s four-legged

bird, and the “tawny horse-cock” (whatever it was) which so puzzled

Dionysus.[287] Such curiosities were meant merely as a feast for the idle

gaze, at first; but the serious mind of the poet turned even these to

deeper issues. The red carpets of the _Agamemnon_, and the king treading

upon them in triumph, provided a handsome spectacle to the eye; but the

mind at the same instant fell into grimmer bodements as the doomed man

seemed to walk in blood. So, too, the word-pictures which please the

ear are raised by genius to an infinitely higher power, as in that same

scene, when Agamemnon complains of the waste of purple stuffs, and the

queen seems but to say that there is dye enough left in the sea: “There

is a sea, and who shall drain it dry?” The meaning of the words is as

inexhaustible as the ocean they tell of, revealing abysses of hatred and

love hellishly intertwined, courage to bear any strain, an hereditary

curse whose thirst for blood is never sated, a bottomless well of life.

If we now consider Æschylus on his purely dramatic side, as a builder of

plays, we find again the three distinctive notes, grandeur, simplicity,

and picturesqueness. The grandeur of his architecture is an authentic

sign of his massive genius—it by no means depends on his selection of

divine or terrific figures; the _Persæ_ and the _Septem_ are witnesses.

It is the outcome of his conception of life as the will of God impinging

upon human character. Æschylus knows nothing about “puppets of fate.”

Around and above men is a divine government about which many things may

be obscure, but of which we surely know that it is righteous and the

guardian of righteousness. Man by sin enters into collision with the law.

The drama of Æschylus is his study of the will and moral consciousness

of man in its efforts to understand, to justify to itself, and to obey

that law. Supreme justice working itself out in terms of human will—such

is his theme. Another source of grandeur lies in the perspectives which

his works reveal. This, perhaps most evident in the _Prometheus_, runs

through the other plays; and a technical result of this power is the

skill with which the whole trilogies are wrought. To compose trilogies

rather than simple tragedies shows indeed the instinct for perspective

working at the very heart of his method. Again, if this instinct likens

his work to painting, still more are we led by historical considerations

to make a comparison with sculpture. It has been said[288] that the

earliest play is “like one of those archaic statues which stand with

limbs stiff and countenance smiling and stony.” This brilliant simile

is full of enlightenment. Just as those early Greek statues which

seem to the casual observer merely distressing are to be contrasted,

not with the achievement of Praxiteles but with non-Hellenic art, the

winged bulls of Assyria and the graven hummocks which present the kings

of Egypt, whereupon we perceive the stirrings of life and beauty; so

should the _Supplices_, were it only in our power, be compared to the

rigid declamations from which, to all seeming, tragedy was born. In the

_Supplices_ tragedy came alive like the marble Galatea. Dædalus was

reputed to have made figures that walked and ran; it is no fable of

Æschylus, but the history of his art.

Simplicity, the second note of Æschylus, needs little demonstration after

the detailed account of his plots. The four earlier works contain each

the very minimum of action. The characterization is noble, but far from

subtle. All the persons are simply drawn, deriving their effect from

one informing concept and from the circumstances to which they react.

Euripides in the _Frogs_[289] fastens upon this, remarking, “You took

over from Phrynichus an audience who were mere fools”. A later generation

demanded smartness and subtlety; Æschylus was anything but artful, and

so the same critic accuses him of obscurity in his prologues.[290] The

_Oresteia_ exhibits a marked advance in construction. Leaving on one side

the vexed question of the plot in the _Agamemnon_,[291] we observe in the

_Choephorœ_ what we may call intrigue. Orestes has a device for securing

admission to the palace; the libations by which Clytæmnestra intends to

secure herself are turned into a weapon against her; the chorus intercept

the nurse and alter her message so as to aid the conspiracy. This

ingenuity is perhaps due to the influence of Sophocles.

Thirdly, what may be termed picturesqueness in structure is a matter

of vital import for Æschylus. To write dramatically is to portray life

by exhibiting persons, the vehicles of principles, in contact and

collision. For an artist of the right bent, it is not difficult to select

a scene of history or an imagined piece of contemporary life which under

manipulation and polishing will show the hues of drama. But the earliest

of dramatists turns aside in the main from such topics. His favourite

themes are the deepest issues, not of individual life, but the life of

the race, or the structure of the universe. What is the relation between

Justice and Mercy? Why is the omnipotent omniscient? May a man of free

will and noble instincts escape a hereditary curse sanctioned by heaven?

Such musings demand surely a quiet unhurried philosophic poem, not the

decisive shock of drama. Æschylus devoted himself, nevertheless, not to

literature in the fashion of Wordsworth, but to tragedy. How was he to

write a play about Justice and Mercy, to discuss a compromise between

the rigidity of safe government and the flexibility of wise government?

Justice and Mercy are both essential to the moral universe, says the

theologian—but they are incompatible. Friendship and strife are both

essential to the physical universe, says Empedocles—but how can they be

wedded? This impossibility is everywhere, and everywhere by miracle it is

achieved. This union of opposites pervades the world, from the primitive

protoplasm which must be rigid to resist external shock but flexible to

grow and reproduce itself, to the august constitution of the eternal

kingdom in which “righteousness and peace have kissed each other”. Where,

then, is the playwright to find foothold? His innumerable instances

merge into one another. Æschylus, with noble audacity, lifts us out of

the current of time and imagines a special instance, an instance which

presents the problem in dual form—for example the human tangle of the

Atridean house and the superhuman conflict between Zeus and the powers of

earth. It is assumed that there has been no earlier, less decisive, jar.

In the future, there will be no more. The great question is raised once

for all in its completest, most difficult form. The gradual processes

of time are abolished. Thus Atlas[292] is punished by condemnation to

the task of upholding heaven for ever; how it was sustained before his

offence is a question we must not raise. Hypermnestra[293] is put on

trial for disobeying her father that her husband may live. She is saved

by Aphrodite; and the innumerable cases of conflicts of duty which have

broken hearts in days past are summed up (rather than disregarded) by

this ultimate example. In the _Oresteia_ a man is hunted well-nigh to

death by fiends because he has obeyed the will of God. Why? It can only

be said that until the judgment in the _Eumenides_ all is nebulous,

the world is being governed desperately as by some committee of public

safety; morals, justice, and equity are still upon the anvil. After this

one case no man will ever again be tortured like Orestes; nor indeed, we

may conjecture, will the oracles of Zeus issue behests so merciless as

that which he received.

Finally, something should be said about Æschylus’ views on religion.

Other subjects had an interest for him, geography, history, and

politics,[294] but his never-failing and profound interest in religion

overshadows these. Not only was he interested in the local cults of

Athens, as were his great successors; he is at home in the deepest

regions of theology. Even more than this, he brings back strange messages

from the eternal world, he seeks to purify the beliefs of his fellows by

his deep sense of spiritual fact; he writes the chronicles of Heaven and

bears witness to the conquests of the Most High. Among Greek writers he

is the most religious, and, with Plato and Euripides, most alive to the

importance of belief to the national health. He is not ashamed of the

traditional gospel when he thinks it true: “the act comes back upon him

that did it; so runs the thrice-old saw”.[295] Still less is he ashamed

to denounce false maxims: “From of old hath this hoary tale been spread

abroad among men, that when prosperity hath grown to its full stature it

brings forth offspring and dies not childless; yea, that from good hap

a man’s posterity shall reap unendingly a harvest of woe. But I stand

apart from others, nor is my mind like theirs.”[296] This originality and

sincere mood is shown everywhere. Already we have noted how earnestly

just he is towards the claims of the Furies. The case was no foregone

conclusion for him. To realize how terrible the quarrel was in his eyes

we have only to imagine our feelings had Apollo been defeated. And

defeated he nearly is; the human judges vote equally.

The poet’s clear thinking and ethical soundness are shown in his

treatment of the hereditary Curse or Até (ἄτη). Some great sin brings

this curse into being, and it oppresses the sinner’s family with an

abnormal tendency to further crime. But the descendants are not forced

to sin. The action of the curse, according to Æschylus, is upon their

imagination. When some temptation to wrong-doing occurs to them, as to

all men, they may suddenly remember the curse and exclaim in effect: “Why

struggle against this temptation? our house is ridden by an Até which

drives us to sin”. Thus they rush upon evil with a desperate gusto and

abandon. So Eteocles[297] cries:—

Since Heav’n thus strongly urges on th’ event,

Let Laius’ race, by Phœbus loathed, all, all

Before the wind sweep down the stream of Hell!

But the curse can be resisted. The house of Atreus fed its curse from

generation to generation by criminal bloodshed. But Orestes shed blood

only at the behest of Heaven, and so combined necessary vengeance with

innocence. Thus the curse was laid to rest.[298]

The revision to which he subjected the myths of popular religion is

therefore characteristic. There were four leading phenomena which it

was necessary somehow to co-ordinate if a consistent faith was to be

possible. First, there was the Olympian hierarchy, the object of the

State-religion at Athens as elsewhere. Secondly, there was Chthonian

religion or the worship of earth-powers. Thirdly, there was the vague,

less personal, power called Fate. And lastly, there was conscience,

the feeling that sin polluted the soul, not merely the hands of the

wrong-doer.[299] None of these four conceptions was by itself adequate

in the eyes of Æschylus. The Olympians, though the rulers of men and

on the whole their friends, were according to universal report stained

with all the crimes of humanity. The earth-deities ruled only by fear;

they punished but they did not inspire; nor was it clear that their

power was not somehow subordinate to that of Heaven. Fate was impersonal

and had no moral aspect on which men could base their understanding of

its law. The conception of personal righteousness had no visible basis

in the scheme of things; there was no power outside man who guaranteed

the authenticity of his thirst for holiness. When once Æschylus set

out on his self-appointed path, he brooked no obstacle. First, as to

the Olympian gods, he explains away the difficulties. Most of them are

frankly ignored,[300] edifying accounts being substituted for them; some

few are accepted with a shrug.[301] Zeus is no longer the head of a

turbulent confederacy; he has become the father and lord of powers who

obey him implicitly and derive their prerogatives from his will. The

earth-deities, as has been shown, surrender their moral functions and

become mere spirits of fertility, localized, in the case of the Furies,

upon Attic soil. Nothing, even in this writer, is more audacious than

the monotheistic fervour which transforms these terrific beings into a

species of fairy. Fate, again, is mysteriously assimilated to Zeus; the

unvarying laws of the universe are invested with a moral tendency and a

personal will. And lastly, the conception of human holiness finds its

sanction in that will. Zeus bids us be righteous, and our faith affirms

that he will punish the guilty and reward the good.