κήρυξ μέγιστε των άνω τε καὶ κάτω,
from v. 162 to this place, where the initial words are plainly wanting.
"Hermes is invoked here as the great mediator between the living and
the dead."--KL. "_Herald me in this_"--κηύξας ᾽εμοι--_perform a
herald's function to me in this;_ the verb chosen with special
reference to the name κήρυξ, according to the common practice of the
Greek writers. In the second line below, I can have no hesitation in
adopting STAN.'s emendation of ὸωμάτων for ομμάτων. AHRENS (in
FR.) has tried to make the passage more pregnant by reading ἁιμάτων,
but this scarcely seems such an obvious emendation.
Note 13 (p. 103).
"These words of evil imprecation dire."
This is said to avoid the bad omen of mingling a curse with a blessing.
The ancients were very scrupulous as to the use of evil words in
religious services, and, when such were either necessary, or had
accidentally crept in, they always made a formal apology. This I have
expressed more largely than my text warrants in the next line, where I
follow SCHÜTZ in reading καλῆς for κακῆς; a correction which, though
not absolutely necessary, is sufficiently plausible to justify BLOM.,
SCHOL., and PAL. in their adoption of it.
Note 14 (p. 103).
_Chorus_. This chorus seems hopelessly botched in the first half, and
all the attempts to mend it are more or less unsatisfactory. If any one
think "plashing torrents" a strong phrase, he must know that it is no
stronger than καναχὲς in the original, a word familiar to every student
of Homer. The ἐρυμα (or ἐρμα--HERM.), I agree with every interpreter,
except Klausen, in applying to the tomb of Agamemnon; of the κακῶν
κεδνῶν τε, I can make nothing, beyond incorporating the Scholiast's
gloss, ἀπότροπον των ἠμετέρων κακῶν.
Note 15 (p. 104).
_Electra_. The reader will find in POT. a somewhat amplified
translation of the line here--
κήρυξ μεγιστε των άνω τε καὶ κάτω,
mentioned above as having been thrown back by Hermann to the
commencement of Electra's address over the tomb of her father,
immediately preceding the short choral ode. It is literally translated
by E. P., Oxon.--
"O mightiest herald of the powers above and below,"
but comes in quite awkwardly, and manifestly out of place.
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Note 16 (p. 104).
". . . a low-zoned maid's."
βαθυζώνου. "High-bosomed," POTTER; "hochgeschürzt," DROYSEN;
"deep-bosomed," E. P., Oxon.; "Weib im Festgewand," FRANZ. Not
having a distinct idea of what is meant by this epithet, I have
contented myself with a literal rendering.
Note 17 (p. 104).
"If it was dipt
From head in Argos, it should be my own."
This passage has given great trouble to commentators, who cannot see
how Electra should say that no person but herself could have owned this
lock, which yet she knew was not her own. They have, accordingly, at
least LIN., PEILE, and PAL., adopted DOBREES' emendation of
ἑνος (one person, _i.e._, _Orestes_), instead of ἐμου, mine, which,
though ingenious, does not appear to me at all necessary. Electra means
to say, _nobody here could have done it but me; and yet it is not mine_
(this implied); _therefore, of course, the conclusion to be made is
clear,_ ἐυξύμβολον τὸδ ἐστι δοξάσαι, _it must have been Orestes!_
Note 18 (p. 105).
". . . But lo! a further proof."
Imagine such evidence produced as a step in the chain of circumstantial
evidence before a court of justice! Even the perturbed state of
Electra's mind may not redeem it from the charge of being grossly
ludicrous. WELL. and FR., with that solemn conscientious gravity for
which the Germans are notable, have, however, taken it under their wing,
followed here, strangely enough, by PEILE. If the circumstance is to
be defended at all, we had better suppose that Æschylus has given the
details of the recognition exactly as he had received them from the old
popular legend in the mouth of some story-teller. But why should not the
father of tragedy, as well as the father of Epos, sometimes nod?
Note 19 (p. 105).
"Pray that fair end may fair beginning follow."
This seems to have been a sort of proverbial prayer among the Greeks,
used for the sake of a good omen, as we find Clytemnestra, in the
Agamemnon (p. 57 above), saying the same thing.
῏Ευ γὰρ πρὸς ἐυ φαν(ε)ισι προσθήκη πελοι. v. 486.
Note 20 (p. 106).
". . . behold this web."
"The ladies, in the simplicity of ancient times, valued themselves much,
and, indeed, were highly esteemed, for their skill in embroidery; those
rich wrought vests made great part of the wealth of noble houses.
Andromache, Helen, and Penelope, were celebrated for their fine work, of
which Minerva herself was the patroness, and Dido was as excellent as
the best of them."--POT. The student will recall a familiar instance
from Virgil--
"Munera praetrea Iliacis erepta ruinis
Ferre jubet; pallam signis auroque rigentem
Et circumtextum croceo velamen acantho
Ornatus Argivae Helenæ."--ÆNEID I. 651.
evidently modelled on Odys. xix. 225.
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Note 21 (p. 106).
"May Power and Justice aid thee, mighty Twain."
The reader will note this theological triad as very characteristic of
the Greeks. POWER (Κράτος) is coupled with Jove, as being his most
peculiar physical attribute. Personified, this attribute appears in the
Prometheus; and in Homer,
"Jove, the lofty-pealing Thunderer, and in power the chiefest god,"
answers to the opening words of our own solemn addresses to the Supreme
Being--ALMIGHTY GOD. JUSTICE, again, belongs to Jove as the highest
moral attribute; and this conjunction we find also very distinctly
expressed in Homer.
"By Olympian Jove I charge you, and by Themis who presides
O'er the assemblies of the people."--ODYSSEY II. 68.
Note 22 (p. 107).
". . . exasperate at the loss
Of my so fair possessions."
ἀποχρημάτοισι ζημιάις ταυρόυμενον. KL. has made sad havoc of this
line; but his objections to the old translation are weak, and his
transpositions, so far as I can see, only make confusion more
confounded. I stick by STAN. Ἀποχρήματος ζημιά est _damnum bonorum
omnium_. Huc facit illud quod sequitur v. 299. και προσπιέζει χρημάτων
ἀχηνία.
Note 23 (p. 107).
". . . The evil-minded Powers
Beneath the Earth."
I am quite at a loss to explain the original of this passage further
than that I see nothing harsh (as LIN. does) in referring the general
term δυσφρόνων to the Furies, who are specially mentioned afterwards.
It is quite common with Æschylus to give a general description first,
and then specialise; and, moreover, in the present instance the
λιχήνος which the δυσφρονες are to send on the flesh of the sinner,
are strictly analogous to the λιχὴν ἀφυλλος (Eumen. v. 788), with
which, in the Eumenides, they threaten to curse the Athenian soil. For
the rest I should have little objection, in the present state of the
MSS., to adopt LOBECK's suggestion, μηνίματα, into the text, and
have in effect so translated.
Note 24 (p. 107).
"And through the dark his prescient eyebrow arched."
The reference of this impracticable line to Apollo comes from Pauw,
and has been adopted by SCHWENCK, who reads--
'Ορῶν τε λαμπρὸν ὲν σκότῳ τ᾽ ᾽οφρὺν.
Another way of squeezing a meaning from the line is to refer it to
Agamemnon--
"With trains of heavier woes
Raised by the Furies from my father's blood,
Who in the realms of night sees this, and bends
His gloomy brows."--POT.
The other translations proposed are meagre and unpoetical.
Note 25 (p. 107).
". . . him no share
In festal cup awaits, or hallowed drop
Of pure libation."
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Here we have a notable example of the terms of that sort of
excommunication which the religious and social feeling of the ancients
passed against the perpetrators of atrocious crimes. See Introductory
Remarks to the Eumenides.
Note 26 (p. 108).
"Age to age with hoary wisdom
Speaketh thus to men."
The old Jewish maxim of _an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth_,
will here recur to every one; and, indeed, it is, to the present day, an
instinctive dictate of social justice, however insufficient it may be as
a general motive for individual conduct. In this spirit, wise old
Nestor, in the Iliad (II. 354), considers that it would be disgraceful
for the Greeks to think of returning home "before some Greek had slept
with the wife of some Trojan," as a retaliation for the woes that Paris
had inflicted on Greek social life, in the matter of Helen. In Dante's
Inferno there are many instances, sometimes ingenious, sometimes only
ridiculous, of the application of this principle to retributive
punishment in a future life.
Note 27 (p. 108).
"There where in dark, the dead-man's day, thou liest."
KL. appears to me to have supplied the true key to σκότω φάος
ἰσόμοιρον, by comparing the exclamation of Ajax in Sophocles, v. 394--
Ιὼ σκότος ἐμὸν φάος
ἔρεβος ὠ φαεννότατον ὡς εμόι!
The gloomy state of the dead in Hades is pictured yet more darkly, by
saying that the night, which covers them, is all that serves them for
day.
Note 28 (p. 109).
"The monarch of the awful dead."
The Hades of the ancients was, as is well remarked by KL. on this
place, in all things an image of this upper world; an observation to be
made on the surface of Virgil--
"Quae gratia currum
Armorumque fuit viris, quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."
ÆNEID VI. 653.
But the parallel most striking to the present passage occurs in the
address of Ulysses to Achilles, Odyssey XI. 482--
"Achilles,
Never man before was happier, nor shall ever be, than thou;
When thou wert among the living all the Argives honoured thee
Like a god, and now amid the dead thou sway'st with mighty power."
To which address the hero gave the well-known reply, a reply
characteristic at once of his own tremendous energy, and of the Greek
views of a future state:--
"Noble Ulysses, praise me not the state of death; for I would rather
Be a serf, and break the clods to him that owneth acres few
On Earth, than reign the mighty lord of millions of the shadowy dead."
Note 29 (p. 110).
"Hyperborean bliss."
"Fair birds have fair feathers;" so the Greeks, who had sent no voyages
of discovery to the Arctic seas, were free, without contradiction, to
place Utopia at the North Pole. (See Herodot. III. 106, quoted by
_Nitzsh_ in his comments on the Phœacians, Od. VII. 201-6.) SCHÜTZ
quotes POMP. MELA. III. 5--"_diutius quam ulli mortalium et beatius
vivunt._" Some of {364} these Hyperboreans drank nothing but milk
(γαλακτοφάγοι, Hom. Il. XIII. 6), and from this practice the alleged
purity of their manners, according to certain modern theories of
dietetics, may have arisen.
Note 30 (p. 110).
"O Jove, O Jove! that sendest from below."
"Zeus, though his proper region is above, yet, by reason of his perfect
concord with his brother in the moral government of the world, exercises
authority also in Hades"--KL. This is one of the many instances to be
found in Homer and Æschylus of the Monotheistic principle of an
enlightened Deism controlling and overruling the apparent confusion and
anarchy of Polytheism.
Note 31 (p. 111).
"Ye that honoured reign below."
What the true reading of the corrupt original here is, no one can know;
but it may be some satisfaction to the student to note that the
different readings of all the emendators bring out substantially the
same sense. I give the various translations as follows:--
_You, whose dreaded power_
_The infernal realms revere, ye Furies, hear me!_--POT.
O ye powers that are honoured among the dead, listen to my prayer.--E.
P., Oxon.
Höret ihr Herrscher der Tiefe, hört mich.--DROY.
Höret mich Erd, und des Abgrund's mächte!--FR.
Neither this "Earth," nor my "Furies," can be looked on as part of the
text. They are only put in to fill up a gap, where nothing better can be
done.
Note 32 (p. 111).
"And if blithe confidence awhile."
This passage is desperate. I follow PEILE in the translation; though,
if I were editing the Greek, I should prefer to follow WELL. and
PAL. in doing nothing.
Note 33 (p. 111).
"The mother gave her child
This wolfish nature wild."
This translation, which is supported by PEILE, and PAL., and LIN.,
seems to me to give θυμὸς that reference to Orestes which connects it
best with the previous lines, while it, at the same time, gives the
least forced explanation of ἐκ μάτρος.
Note 34 (p. 112).
"Like a Persian mourner."
The student will find a very remarkable difference between this version
and that in POT. and E. P. Oxon., arising from the conversion of the
word πολεμιστρίας into ἰηλεμιστρίας, a conjectural emendation which we
owe to HERMANN and AHRENS, and which appears to me to be one of the
most satisfactory that has ever been made on the text of Æschylus. It
has, accordingly, been adopted by KL., PEILE, PAL., FR., and
DROY. The oriental wailers were famous, and the "Maryandine and
Mysian wailers" are especially mentioned by our poet in the final
chorus of "the Persians;" which will be the best commentary on the
exaggerated tone of the present passage. I have followed the recent
German editors and translators in giving the first part of this Strophe
to the Chorus. There seems to be a natural division at the words Ἰὼ, Ἰὼ
δαία.
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Note 35 (p. 112).
_Orestes_. WELL. has certainly made a great oversight in running on
continuously with these two Strophes. However the division be made, a
new person must commence with Αέγεις πατρώϊον μόρον.
Note 36 (p. 113).
_Chorus_. Here again I follow the later editors and translators in
dividing the part given to the Chorus by WELL. There is a sort of
natural partition of the style and sentiment palpable to any reader. It
may also be remarked in general, that the broken and exclamatory style
of the lamentation in this Chorus is quite incompatible with long
continuous speeches (such as POT. has given), out of one mouth. The
order of persons I give as in PEILE.
Note 37 (p. 114).
"Scathless myself."
φυγεῖν. FR. has unnecessarily changed this into τυχεῖν. In Odyssey
XX. 43, Ulysses uses the same language to Athena.
Note 38 (p. 114).
"Thou too shalt taste."
That the dead were believed actually to eat the meat and drink that was
prepared for them at the funeral feast is evident from the eleventh
book of the Odyssey, where they come up in fluttering swarms and sip
the pool of blood from the victim which he had sacrificed.
Note 39 (p. 115).
"Well spoken both."