ὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς.
"Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do."
So a friend who was in Paris, at the time of the Revolution in 1848,
wrote to me--"With the men I can easily manage, but _the women are
tigers._"
Note 47 (p. 117).
"Thestios' daughter, wild with rage."
Althea, the mother of the famous Calydonian boar-hunter, Meleager, who
is so often seen on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. "When Meleager was
seven days old, it is said the Fates appeared, declaring that the boy
would die, as soon as the piece of wood that was burning on the hearth
should be consumed. When Althea heard this, she extinguished the
firebrand, and concealed it in a chest. Meleager himself became
invulnerable; {367} but when--in the war between the Calydonians and the
Curetes--he had unfortunately killed his mother's brother, she lighted
the piece of wood, and Meleager died."--_Dict. Biog._
Note 48 (p. 117).
"How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed."
The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who, when Minos, in his
expedition against Athens, took Megara, betrayed the city to the enemy,
by cutting off the purple or golden hair which grew on the top of her
father's head, and on which his life and the preservation of the city
depended.--_Dict. Biog._; _voce_ NISUS, and Virgil Georg. I. 404, and
Ovid. Met VIII. 90, quoted here by STAN.
Note 49 (p. 118).
"O woman! woman! Lemnos saw."
The Lemnian women, as Apollodorus relates (I. 9, 17), having neglected
to pay due honor to Venus, were, by that goddess, made so ill-favoured
and intolerable to consort with (ἀυταῖς ἐμβάλλη δοσοσμίαν), that their
husbands, abandoning them, took themselves other wives from among the
captive women that they had brought over from Thrace. The Lemnian women,
in revenge, murdered both their fathers and their husbands; from which
atrocious act, and another bloody deed mentioned by Herodotus (VI. 138),
"it hath been the custom," says the historian, "to call by the name
Lemnian any monstrous and inhuman action."
Note 50 (p. 118).
"And honor from the threshold hies,
On which the doom god-spoken lies."
We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay
concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What
Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm,
Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain
thus--"Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I
can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are
once hostile, no one can escape their anger--not by hiding himself in
darkness--not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things
are subject to the gods."--_Anab_. II. 5. Think on some of the Psalms!
Note 51 (p. 119).
"But nice regard for the fine feeling ear."
I have here with a certain freedom of version expressed KL.'s idea,
that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his
message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is
"inept" to believe, with BL. and PEILE, that we have here merely an
instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so
that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public--as
Achilles says, in Euripides--
ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.
"For me to hold exchange of words with women
Were most improper."--IPHIG. AULID. 830.
Note 52 (p. 119).
"Hot baths."
To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury
than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a
fact, however, as KL. well notes, that of nothing is there more
frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially
frequent in the Odyssey, {368} where so many journeys are made.
Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful
Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet
records with pleasure how "out of the bath he came in appearance like to
the immortal gods" (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very
suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.
Note 53 (p. 119).
_Electra_. WELL. is very imperative in taking these words out of
Electra's mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not
exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no
reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing
what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.
Note 54 (p. 120).
"Is audited at nothing."
The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. 'Tis
certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to
depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be
referred to Clytemnestra.
Note 55 (p. 120).
". . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!"
The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary
to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line)
peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of
thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings--
"Te boves olim nisi reddidisses
Per dolum amotas puerum minaci
Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra
Risit Apollo."
Note 56 (p. 120).
"The nightly courier of the dead."
τὸν νύχιον. That there is a great propriety in the epithet _nightly_,
as applied to Mercury, both in respect of his general function as
πομπᾶιος, or leader of the dead through the realms of night, and in
respect of the particular business now in hand, and the particular time
of the action, is obvious. In spite of some grammatical objections,
therefore, I cannot but think it far-fetched in BLOM. and PEILE to
refer the epithet to Orestes. Were I editing the text I should be very
much inclined to follow HERM. and PAL. in putting καὶ τὸν νύχιον
within brackets, as perhaps a gloss.
Note 57 (p. 122).
"The bearer of a tale can make it wear
What face he pleases."
I translate thus generally, in order to avoid the necessity of settling
the point whether κυπτὸς or κρυπτὸς is the proper reading--a point,
however, of little consequence to the translator of Æschylus, as the
Venetian Scholiast to Il. O. 207 has been triumphantly brought forward
to prove the real meaning of this otherwise corrupt and unintelligible
verse. POT. was not in a condition to get hold of the true text--so
he has given the best version he could of what he had--
"_For the mind catches from the messenger_
_A secret elevation and bold swell,_"
evidently from the reading of PAW.--
{369}
ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶ
_animo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto._
--See BUTLER's Notes.
Note 58 (p. 122).
CHORAL HYMN. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and
there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like
the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so
meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places
impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these
circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chiefly PEILE and
LIN.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few
fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more
by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and
have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case
the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I
follow PEILE.
Note 59 (p. 125).
"Let's go aside, the deed being done, that we
Seem not partakers of the bloody work."
'Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on
the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot
be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret
sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many
occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very
strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus
along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly;
but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the
purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur.
Note 60 (p. 126).
"I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die."
Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old
age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling
strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of
her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing.
Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in
battle--
"Not to his parents
The nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid."
--IL. IV. 478.
"In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die
childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was
a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his
mother."--KLAUSEN.
Note 61 (p. 126).
"Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber."
"Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee;
Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the order
Each to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrows
To the men and to me--for the man in the house is the master."
ODYSSEY XXI. 350.
So Telemachus says to his mother; and on other occasions he uses what we
should think, rather sharp and undutiful language--but in Greece a woman
who left the woman's chamber without a special and exceptional call
{370} subjected herself to just rebuke. With regard to the matter here
at issue between Orestes and Clytemnestra, KL. notes that, though the
wandering Ulysses is allowed without blame to form an amorous alliance
with Calypso, the same excuse is not allowed for the female sitting
quietly in her "upper chamber" (ὑπερώιον, Il. II. 514) as Homer has it.
For "in ancient times," says the Scholiast to that passage, "the Greeks
shut up their women in garrets (ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι)
_that they might be difficult to get at_."--How Turkish!
Note 62 (p. 126).
_Orestes_. I have little doubt that KL., PEILE, FR., WELL., and
PAL., are right in giving the line ἦ κάρτα μάντις to Orestes. I
should be inclined to agree with WELL. and PAL. also, that after
this line a verse has dropt out--"_in quo instantem sibi mortem
deprecata sit Clytemnestra;_" but there is no need of indicating the
supposed blank in the translation, as the sense runs on smoothly enough
without it.
Note 63 (p. 127).
". . . the eye of this great house, may live."
An Oriental expression, to which the magnificent phraseology of our
Celestial brother who sells tea, has made the English ear sufficiently
familiar. He calls our king, or our consul, I forget which, "the
Barbarian eye." Other examples of this style occur in the Persians and
the Eumenides.--See p. 172 above.
Note 64 (p. 127).
"A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible."
Klausen, who, like other Germans, has a trick, sometimes, of preferring
what is far-fetched to what is obvious, considers that this double Mars
is the double death, first of Agamemnon in the previous piece, then of
Clytemnestra in this; but notwithstanding what he says, the best
comment on this passage is that given by the old Scholiast, when he
writes "PYLADES and ORESTES."
Note 65 (p. 127).
"Sore chastisement."
ποινὰ. AHRENS, with great boldness, changes this into Ἐρμᾶς, which
reading has been rashly thrown into the text by FR. If any special
allusion is needed, I agree with PAL. that Orestes is indicated, who
is mentioned in the next clause as inflicting the blow, under the
guidance of celestial Justice.
Note 66 (p. 127).
"Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo."
In this corrupt passage I adopt HERMANN's correction of τάν περ for
τάπέρ. How much the whole meaning is guesswork, the reader may see, by
comparing my translation with POT. and the E. P. Oxon., in this
place, who follow the old Scholiast in referring χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ to
Clytemnestra.
Note 67 (p. 127).
"And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest."
This passage being very corrupt, is rendered freely. I adopt STAN.'s
conjecture ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θ᾽ ἱεμενοις, and suppose μέτοικοι to refer to
Orestes and Electra.
Note 68 (p. 128).
". . . not
My father, but the Sun that fathers all
With light."
{371}
There is a certain mannerism in this description of a thing by the
negation of what is similar, to which the tragedians were much addicted.
As to the invocation of the sun, see the note in the Prometheus to the
speech beginning
O divine ether and swift-winged winds.
Note 69 (p. 128).
"Or a torpedo, that with biteless touch
Strikes numb who handles."
Literally, _a lamprey_, μύραινα; but to translate so would have been
ludicrous; and besides, as BLOM. has noted from Athenaeus, it was not
a common lamprey that, in the imagination of the Greeks, was coupled
with a viper, but "a sort of monstrous reptile begotten between a viper
and a lamprey."
Note 70 (p. 128).
"This cloth to wrap the dead."
'Tis difficult to say whether δρόιτη, in this place, means the bath in
which Agamemnon was murdered, or the bier on which any dead body is
laid after death. KL. supports this latter interpretation. I have
incorporated a reference to both versions.
Note 71 (p. 129).
"Others 'twixt hope and fear may sway, my fate
Is fixed and scapeless."