She was confined closely to the house, a harem prisoner, but without any
of that luxurious ease which the harem system has sometimes offered as
a solace for the loss of freedom. An Athenian house was small, dark,
and uncomfortable, and a woman’s day was occupied with a long round of
monotonous work. Occasionally she was allowed out of prison to walk in
some sacred procession, as we see the quiet line of girls marshalled on
the Parthenon frieze, but all the amusements of the town were closed
against her. From the school and the gymnasium, from the Odeon and the
Academy, from public meetings and from private banquets, women were
jealously debarred. It is doubtful whether they were permitted even
to enter the theatre of Dionysus; and their shopping quarter, where
they bought their rouge and white lead, was in the most remote and
inaccessible part of the city.
The whole structure of social life was arranged to suit men and to
exclude women. It is true that the patron divinity of the state was a
woman, Athena, but the goddess was divested of feminine attributes.
She became the ideal Athens, a conception as far remote from an
anthropomorphic divinity as any race has ever possessed.
The stages by which women were reduced to this condition of inferiority
are, in the general obscurity of early Athenian history, quite unknown;
but there can be little doubt that the whole position was due to Ionian
influence. The legal status of women, especially in relation to property,
seems to have been changed by definite enactment about the end of the
sixth century B.C., and in the _Suppliant Maidens_ of Æschylus there
are traces of the conflict of principles on which the change was based.
Henceforward, in the eyes of the Athenian law, a woman was merely an
appanage of any property which she chanced to inherit, and her nearest
male relative had to take charge of her person—a _damnosa hereditas_ for
which the material advantages of her estate served as compensation.
Moreover, women in Athens were married far too young, for the average
age was about fifteen, and the result of these early marriages was that
by the time a woman had arrived at years of discretion and might have
been an intellectual companion for her husband, her beauty too often was
gone and she herself was worn out, a premature old woman. For girls no
education was considered necessary, and throughout their childhood they
were kept in constant seclusion. They were regarded only as potential
bearers of children, and the most extreme precautions known to modern
eugenics were apparently practised before marriage. But even as mothers
they were not very efficient, for their physique suffered from the
narrowness of their lives, and the wet-nurse—Titthe—was to be found in
most families. Just as the Breton and Norman girls migrate to Paris,
so those Athenian households that could afford the expense would hire
the robust women of Sparta to take the mother’s place. Alcibiades, for
example, was suckled by a Lacedæmonian nurse, and was not altogether
an alien when, exiled from Athens, he took refuge in the Peloponnese.
It was not in Athens, but at Sparta, or in the islands where girls
wrestled and raced with young men, that Paionios found the model for his
‘Victory’ with her flying feet, deep bosom, and firm, rounded limbs;
and in Aristophanes, when Lysistrata assembles the women of Greece, the
Athenians can scarcely refrain their half-envious admiration of the buxom
vigour of the Spartan Lampeto.
At Athens the restriction of women to one function meant that even that
one function was badly performed, and all through the great period the
Athenian race was slowly declining in numbers.
In one respect alone was there little difference between the sexes at
Athens—that of dress. There was no distinction of sex, as there was
no distinction of rank. In an Attic tragedy a chorus of generals, of
fishermen, and of flower-girls would all appear in much the same garb.
In Asia both sexes wore trousers (θύλακοι, ‘bags’), which the Greeks
regarded with amused contempt. In Athens neither sex did. There were some
slight varieties in shape, material, and colour, but, speaking generally,
it is correct to say that an Athenian lady—or an Athenian gentleman was
dressed informally when she or he had one blanket draped about their
person. Full dress consisted of another blanket over the first, and the
art of dress consisted in suitable pinning and the proper arrangement of
the folds.
But when a woman left her husband’s house and went abroad, she had to don
the symbol of her slavery, the ‘kredemnon.’ This article was a kind of
yashmak-veil, drawn across the face to protect a woman from the gaze of
strange men, not her lawful owners. It gave its wearer the white cheeks
of the odalisque, and shut her off from the freedom of the outside world.
It was, like our cap and apron, the badge of servitude, and to escape
from it the only way was to become a slave indeed, for the slave-woman
alone could walk abroad with open face.
This is what Euripides means when he makes the captive Andromache sob:
‘And I, even I, was dragged from my royal bower down to the sea-beach
with nothing about my head save hideous slavery.’ (_And._ 109.)
And so Hecuba, in the _Trojan Women_, a slave bare-footed and
bare-headed, crouches on the ground to escape from the gaze of men, and
cries: ‘Guide me to my bed of straw and to the stones which now will
hide my face.’ (_Trojan Women_, 508.) Slavery in ancient times was a
hard fate, but for many an Athenian woman it could have had but little
terror. A wife was already the property of her husband, and slaves and
women are commonly classed together.
The Athenian, however, with all his faults was a genuine lover of
freedom, and did not care for slaves. Neither his wife nor the
flute-girls, whose charms could be bought by any bidder, could really
satisfy him, strange mixture that he was of sensuality and intellect.
The only women whose company he desired were those called, half in jest,
half in earnest, the Hetairai, ‘the close companions,’ the same word
being used for those political associations which formed the closest link
between man and man.
The Hetairai were foreign women, and stood outside the law: they were not
Athenian citizens, and so had no privileges; but, on the other hand, they
were not under restraint. Often highly educated, it was their business to
take part in all men’s interests: they were their own mistresses, engaged
freely in the political life of Athens, and in many cases exercised very
great influence even in affairs of state. To their personal attractions
they added social charm and a long training in the arts of pleasure, and
the contrast between them and the Athenian wives may be illustrated if we
compare the life of an actress of the _Comédie Française_ with that of an
inmate of a Turkish harem. The French actress and the Japanese geisha
are the nearest modern parallels to the Greek hetaira, and all three owe
their existence as a class to much the same social conditions, a high
standard of culture and intelligence, a low standard of sexual morality.
Such were the conditions of Athenian life, and we shall find them
reflected in literature. The great lyric poets, Simonides, Pindar,
Bacchylides, concern themselves almost exclusively with men; Æschylus
alone, in this, as in most things, the exact antithesis of the typical
Athenian, regards women as creatures possessed of mind and soul. In sharp
contrast to the tragedian is Herodotus, and a comparison between their
views is possible, for, although the historian is a considerably younger
man, a good deal of his material goes back to an earlier date, and in
social matters especially he often represents the ideas of the first
years of the fifth century.
Herodotus, great traveller and charming personality though he is, is
still a true Ionian. There is frequently a Milesian flavour about his
tales—for instance the story of Rhampsinitus and the robber—and it is
not unfair to say that in his researches into ancient tribal life and
folklore he is especially interested in such savage customs as put women
in an inferior place. The account of the native races of Libya in the
last chapters of the fourth book of the History will afford an example.
But the grandeur of his main theme, the struggle between Athens and
Persia, raised the historian from these doubtful interests, and in the
last five books of his work there is little depreciation of women as a
class. It is true that women scarcely come into the narrative, and that
Xerxes’ remark about Artemisia, ‘My men have become women and my women
have become men,’ is framed to suit the ideas of an Athenian, as it
would have suited the Romans, who could hardly conceive of a Queen. It
is scarcely as appropriate in the mouth of a Persian whose own mother,
Atossa, was then acting as regent. But this is a small point and,
speaking generally, there is little in the last part of the History to
offend.
Herodotus is really animated by an ardent patriotism and a genuine love
of liberty. ‘Isonomy,’ he says—and many English race-goers will agree
with him—‘the very sound of the word is most excellent.’ But it must be
remembered that his patriotism is for males only, and that his equality
before the law is an equality from which women were shut out; for even
Plato makes isonomy between men and women the last and almost incredible
stage of democratic licence.
So it is in the earlier books alone that the baser manner is evident, and
one example of it will suffice to give a proof of the difference between
the Ionian spirit which brought about the enslavement of women and the
spirit of enlightenment which rebelled against that servitude.
We will take the story of Io, as told by Æschylus and Herodotus, for the
ancient legends of Greece, subjects alike for history and drama, have one
great advantage: their main outlines were impersonal and known to all;
details, treatment, and interpretation could be varied to express the
artist’s personal thought. Io, the daughter of Inachus, king of Argos,
was beloved by Zeus: through the jealousy of Hera she was changed into a
cow, and after long wanderings regained her mortal shape and found rest
in Egypt, where she became mother of Epaphus, first king of the land.
Such is the legend, and this is Herodotus’ version of it:
The Persians say that some Phœnicians once brought a cargo of
merchandise to Argos. The women of the town, among them Io,
came down to the sea-shore to bargain. The Phœnicians seized
the women and carried them off to Egypt. Now to carry off women
by violence the Persians think is the act of a wicked man; to
trouble about avenging them is the act of a fool; to pay no
regard to them when carried off is the part of a wise man;
for it is clear that, if they had not wished it themselves,
they would not be ravished. Such is the Persian account, but
as regards Io the Phœnicians do not agree. They say that they
used no violence in taking her to Egypt, but that she had an
intrigue with their captain when he was at Argos. When she
discovered that she was likely to become a mother she was
afraid of her parents, and to hide her secret came of her own
accord with them to Egypt.’
All the poetry and romance of the story have disappeared: realism has
triumphed. Io is a woman; on the best interpretation of her conduct
she is vain and imprudent; she shows herself to strange men, and is
carried off by them, although, as the story is at pains, though not very
logically, to add, it must have been with her own consent. On the worst
interpretation she is a mere wanton. She allows a sea-captain to seduce
her, and then deserts her home, her parents, and her native land.
Listen now to Æschylus—in the beautiful version by Mr. E. R. Bevan:
The chambers, where I housed, a virgin hidden,
Strange faces aye in the night would visit, wooing
With sooth suggestion: ‘Oh, most huge in fortune,
Most happiest of all maidens—wherefore maiden,
Oh, wherefore so long maiden, when there waits thee
Wedlock the highest? He, the Lord of Heaven,
Is waxen hot, pierced with desire of thee,
Yea, and with thee would tread the passages
Of love’s delight. Now therefore foot not from thee,
O child, the bed of the Highest; but do this,
Go forth to where the meadow is deep, the field
Of Lerna—stations of the household flock,
Home of thy father’s herds—go even thither,
That so the eye of Zeus may ease desire.’
With such-like dreams the kingly dark for me
Was ever fraught, me miserable: till, ridden,
I gat me heart to open to my father
The visions and the dreams of night. And he
To Pytho, yea, and even to Dodona,
Sent embassage on embassage, inquiring
What thing he had need to do, or what word speak,
To pleasure them that rule us. And they came,
Bringing still back burden of wavering lips,
Sentences, blind, dark syllables. At last
A word clear-visaged came to Machus
Enjoining plainly and saying he should thrust me
Forth of the house, forth of the land, to wander
At large, a separate thing even to the last
Confines of earth.
The story is the same, but the treatment is different, and the two
passages illustrate the difference between romantic idealism and
realistic depreciation.
But Io, in the _Prometheus_, is only one of the gallery of Æschylus’
heroines, for in his art women take the foremost place. The dramatist
is at variance with his age, and his fervent patriotism is almost the
sole bond of union between him and his fellows. Æschylus is a mystic; he
believed in the Delphic inspiration, and took an interest in religious
speculation. His contemporaries were materialists, suspected the politics
of Delphi, and regarded religion simply as a ceremony. Æschylus was a
conservative in politics, although a liberal in thought; Athens was
already becoming an extreme democracy. Finally, Æschylus bases his
theatre on women, and makes them the chief agents of the drama, while
the ordinary woman of his time was shut out altogether from the active
business of life.
But he is an unconscious feminist, and the definite purpose which we
find in Euripides is quite absent from his plays. It shows, however, a
strange lack of appreciation to reproach him, as some critics have done,
with neglecting the feminine interest. Of the seven tragedies that the
Byzantine tradition has preserved for us, four, if their subject was
handled by a modern dramatist, would be called feminist problem plays,
and in the other three the female characters supply most of the dramatic
interest, even though the first idea of the plot might seem to put them
in the second plan of action.
Of the lost plays, many, as far as we may judge by their titles and
meagre fragments, have the same characteristic. The most famous, the
_Niobe_, had for its central figure the sorrowing mother, such another
as Euripides’ Hecuba in the first scene of the _Trojan Women_, and
represented perhaps in much the same fashion, for Æschylus, like most
Athenian women, knew full well the dramatic value of silence, and the
pathos of Niobe’s situation needs no long speeches. So, if we possessed
the _Callisto_, the legend of the maiden changed into a bear, the
_Penelope_, the _Iphigenia_, or the _Oreithyia_, that favourite Athenian
story of the young girl roaming on the sea-shore and carried off by
the fierce god to his northern fastness, we should appreciate even more
vividly than we can now the romantic side of the tragedian’s art. It
is a significant fact in this connection that of the sixty odd titles
of lost plays which have come down to us, nearly half are names of
women. Moreover, in seventeen of these plays, the title is taken from
the chorus, and in the Æschylean Theatre the chorus is generally the
central figure in the dramatic action. Such titles as the ‘Daughters
of the Sun,’ the ‘Nurses of Dionysus,’ the ‘Daughters of Nereus,’ and
the ‘Bacchanal Women,’ suggest at any rate romantic plays with a strong
feminine interest; such others as the ‘Women of the Bedchamber,’ the
‘Water-carriers,’ and the ‘Women of Etna,’ might well be examples of that
realistic treatment of women’s life of which we have an example in the
Nurse of the ‘Libation-bearers.’ Arguments drawn merely from the names
of lost plays are obviously of little value, except in so far as they
strengthen the definite evidence which the existing tragedies supply,
but an examination of the remaining seven plays will show that the
first and greatest of Athenian dramatists was deeply impressed with the
potentialities for good and evil of the female mind.
VI.—ÆSCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES
Of the seven plays of Æschylus that remain, three—the _Seven against
Thebes_, the _Persians_, and the _Prometheus_—are concerned with battles,
and with strife among men and among gods. It might be expected that women
here would play but a small part, but, as a matter of fact, in two of the
three the chorus, the intermediary between poet and audience, is composed
of women, and in the third a woman is the chief character.
The _Seven against Thebes_ is a patriotic drama, ‘crammed full of the
spirit of war,’ as the poet himself describes it, and also full of
speeches. The male characters talk; what little action there is in the
play falls to the women of the chorus. Their first song, for example,
when they call on the gods to save them from the ravages of war, was
probably accompanied by more vigorous movements than anything in the rest
of the tragedy. The unsympathetic male, Eteocles, addresses them, it
is true, as ‘unbearable creatures’ and ‘detestable animals,’ and says,
‘For my own part, I never want to share my house with any womankind, nor
take them to my troubles and my joys;’ but his remarks are strictly
in keeping with his unpleasant character, and the poet instinctively
relies on the female characters for his chief dramatic interest. So in
the _Persians_, a chronicle play composed mainly of choral odes and
messengers’ speeches, the queen-mother, Atossa, takes the first place
in the action, and the psychological contrast lies between her womanly
strength and Xerxes’ manly weakness. In the _Prometheus_, certainly, most
of the characters—gods and demi-gods—are males, but they have little
dramatic significance. As far as they are concerned, the play is a good
example of what Maeterlinck calls the ‘static drama.’ The characters
stand still, _and talk_. The action is in the hands of the female
characters, the pathetic figure of the wandering cow-maiden, Io, and the
contrasted group of the mermaid chorus, the daughters of the sea. These
latter are perhaps the most charming of all the poet’s creations, and
the fragrance that heralds their approach, when, casting away modesty,
they venture to appear before a man, spreads through the whole play.
Sympathising, but not quite without merriment; inquisitive, but staunch
in the hour of danger; they are just such characters as Nausicaa herself.
In these three plays, then, the feminine interest has forced its way, as
it were, into the plot, which in its first form offered women no place.
The _Seven against Thebes_, a ‘fragment from the table of Homer,’ differs
chiefly from the epic in the feminine element that has been imported
by the chorus; the _Persians_, dealing with the same events as those
described by Herodotus, has for its point of difference the prominence
given to the female character, Atossa; the _Prometheus_, which tells the
story of the conflict between the fierce young god and the philanthropic
old demiurge, relies for its dramatic interest largely on the episodes of
the Nereides and Io; episodes which, strictly speaking, have nothing to
do with the main plot.
This feminism, inherent in the poet’s mind, finds full expression in
the remaining four plays. The _Suppliant Women_, for example, archaic
though it seems to us, deals with a social problem and a question of
law, which was hotly debated in the poet’s time, and finally, in spite
of his advocacy, settled against the women. The question is this—‘Should
a woman be compelled to marry a man she dislikes, and to hand over to
him the control of her property, merely because he is the nearest male
relative?’ Æschylus answers in the negative; Athenian law _decided in the
affirmative_.
The characters in the play are nearly all women, the fifty daughters of
Danaus, accompanied by their old father, who have fled from Egypt to
Greece in order to escape from the violence of their cousins, the sons
of Ægyptus, who wish to marry them by force. It is a lyric drama, and the
burden of the action and the music rests with the women. The agony of the
crowd of girls crouching helpless at the altar is depicted in the most
entrancing melody; they are not regarded as separate individuals, but as
representing women in general; their plight is that of all womankind, and
the problem is presented as universal. Swarthy daughters of the South,
they call upon their god to help them, the god who once found delight
in the arms of their ancestress, Io; and in the play their prayer is
answered. The King of Argos protects and gives them shelter, the Egyptian
herald who would have taken them back is scornfully dismissed. Of the
three male characters Danaus is the most interesting, and his advice to
his daughters is applicable to women generally in ancient times:
Children, you must be prudent: let your utterance be attended
before all by absence of boldness: a modest face and a tranquil
eye: no wanton looks. Be not forward in your speech nor prolix:
people here are very prone to take offence. And remember to be
submissive—you are needy foreign fugitives—it is not seemly for
the weak to be bold in speech.
So in his concluding words he hints at some of the difficulties of a
woman’s life:
I charge you, bring me not to shame, you whose youthful bloom
is so attractive to men. Ripe tender fruit is never easy to
protect; men are like animals, they seek only to destroy. Your
gardens fair, the lady of love herself proclaims their dewy
freshness, and when a virgin comes in dainty loveliness every
man as he passes by falls victim to desire, and shoots a swift
glance to win her fancy.... Observe, then, this your father’s
charge, and value chastity more than life itself.
The _Suppliant Women_ presents one particular phase of women’s subjection
considered impersonally, and scarcely deals with the great question of
how far force may be rightly met by force. In the legend the daughters
of Danaus escape from slavery by killing their husbands on their wedding
night, but of that Æschylus in this play tells us nothing.
The problem, however, is too vital to escape his notice, and it forms the
central motive of the greatest play in world-literature, the _Agamemnon_.
‘Is a woman ever justified in killing her husband?’ The question had a
special interest in Athens, as it must have in any society where women
are kept enslaved, for the tyrant always walks in dread of the assassin’s
knife. Euripides, with his stinging irony, reveals the secret fear:
‘If women are to be allowed to shed male blood,’ he makes Orestes cry,
‘then we men had better commit suicide at once; if it is a matter only
of the will to kill, we may be sure that all women have that already.’
The _Agamemnon_ deals with this problem; the sequel plays with a second
question, ‘Is it right for a son to kill his mother in order to avenge
his father’s death?’