"_Lenis_ fluctuum agitatio."
But why all this gentleness? Does it agree either with the strength of
the poet's genius, or with the desolation of the wild scene around his
hero? I at once admit that γελάω is often used in Greek, where,
according to our usage, _smile_ would be the word; but in the Old
Testament we find the broad strong word _laugh_ often retained in
descriptions of nature; and I see not the least reason for walking in
satin shoes here.
Note 11 (p. 186).
". . . in a reed concealed it."
νάρθηξ--"still used for this purpose in Cyprus, where the reed still
retains the old Greek name"--WELCKER, _Tril._ p. 8, who quotes
Walpole's Memoirs relative to Turkey, p. 284, and Tournefort, Letter
6. I recollect at school smoking a bit of bamboo cane for a cigar.
Note 12 (p. 186).
". . . Ah me! ah me! who comes?"
The increased agitation of mind is here expressed in the original by
the abandonment of the Iambic verse, and the adoption of the
Bacchic--τίς ἀχὼ, etc., which speedily passes into the anapæst, as
imitated by my Trochees. Milton was so steeped in Greek, that I think
he must have had this passage in his mind when he wrote the lines of
Samson Agonistes, v. 110, beginning "_But who are these?_" Altogether,
the Samson is, in its general tone and character, quite a sort of
Jewish Prometheus.
Note 13 (p. 187).
"Daughters of prolific Tethys."
The ancient sea-goddess, sister and wife of Oceanus, daughter of Heaven
and Earth. The reader will observe that the mythology of this drama
preserves a primeval or, according to our phrase, antediluvian character
throughout. The mythic personages are true contemporaries belonging to
the most ancient dynasty of the gods. For this reason Ocean appears in a
future stage of the play, not _Poseidon_. Tethys, with the other Titans
and Titanesses are enumerated by Hesiod, Theog. 132-7, as follows--
"Earth to Uranus wedded bore Ocean deep with whirling currents,
Coeus, Creios, Hyperion, Theia, Rhea, Iapetus,
Themis, Mnemosyne, lovely Tethys, likewise Phœbe golden-crowned,
Then the youngest of them all, deep-designing Kronos."
As for the epithet _prolific_ applied to _Tethys_, the fecundity of fish
is a proverb in natural history; but I suppose it is rather the infinite
succession of waves on the expanded surface of Ocean that makes his
daughters so numerous in the Theogony (362)--
"Thrice ten hundred they are counted delicate-ancled Ocean maids."
Note 14 (p. 187).
". . . the giant trace
Of Titan times hath vanished."
Here we have distinctly indicated that contrast between the _old_ and
the _new_ gods, which Æschylus makes so prominent, not only in this
play, but also in the Furies. The conclusion has been drawn by various
scholars that Æschylus was secretly unfavourable to the recognised
dynasty of Jove, and that his real allegiance was to these elder gods.
But the inference is hasty and unauthorised. His taste for the sublime
led him into these primeval ages, as it also did Milton: that is all we
can say.
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Note 15 (p. 188).
". . . the new-forged counsels
That shall hurl him from his throne."
The new-forged counsels were of Jove's own devising--viz., that he
should marry Thetis; of which marriage, if it should take place, the
son was destined to usurp his father's throne.--SCHOLIAST.
Note 16 (p. 188).
"O, 'tis hard, most hard to reach
The heart of Jove!"
Inexorability is a grand characteristic of the gods.
"Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando."--VIRG., ÆN. VI.
And so Homer makes Nestor say of Agamemnon, vainly hoping to appease
the wrath of Pallas Athena, by hecatombs--
"Witless in his heart he knew not what dire sufferings he must bear,
For not lightly from their purposed counsel swerve the eternal gods."
ODYS. III. 147.
And of Jove, in particular, Hera says to Themis, in the council of the
gods--
"Well thou knowest
How the Olympian's heart is haughty, and his temper how severe."
ILIAD XV. 94.
Note 17 (p. 188).
"My mother Themis, not once but oft, and Earth
(One shape of various names)."
Æschylus does not and could not confound these two distinct persons, as
POT. will have it.--See Eumenides, 2. SCHOE. has stated the whole
case very clearly. POT. remarks with great justice, that a
multiplicity of names "is a mark of dignity;" it by no means follows,
however, that _Themis_, in this passage, is one of those many names
which Earth receives. In illustration we may quote a passage from the
_Kurma Ouran_ (Kennedy's Researches on Hindoo Mythology; London, 1831;
p. 208)--"That," says Vishnu, pointing to Siva, "is the great god of
gods, shining in his own refulgence, eternal, devoid of thought, who
produced thee (Brahma), and gave to thee the Vedas, and who likewise
originated me, and _gave me various names._" Southey, in the roll of
celestial _dramatis personæ_ prefixed to the Curse of Kehama, says
"that Siva boasts as many as _one thousand and eight names_."
Note 18 (p 189).
"Suspicion's a disease that cleaves to tyrants,
And they who love most are the first suspected."
"_Nam regibus boni quam mali suspectiores sunt, semperque his aliena
virtus formidolosa est._"--Sall. Cat. VII. "In princes fear is stronger
than love; therefore it is often more difficult for them to tear
themselves from persons whom they hate than to cast off persons whom
they love."--RICHTER (Titan).
Note 19 (p. 189).
"I only of the gods
Thwarted his will."
This is one of the passages which has suggested to many minds a
comparison between the mythical tortures of the Caucasus and the real
agonies of Calvary. The analogy is just so far; only the Greek
imagination never could look on Prometheus as suffering altogether
without just cause; he suffered for his own sins. This TOEPEL. p. 71,
has well expressed thus--"_Prometheus deos laesit ut homines bearet:
Christus homines beavit ut suae, Deique patris obsecundaret voluntati._"
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Note 20 (p. 189).
". . . in cunning torment stretched."
ἀνηλεῶς ἐῤῥύθμισμαι--"_so bin ich zugerichtet_."--PASSOW. A sort of
studious malignity is here indicated. So we say allegorically to _trim_
one handsomely, to _dress_ him, when we mean to _punish_. The frequent
use of this verb ρυθμίζω is characteristic of the Greeks, than whom no
people, as has been frequently remarked, seem to have possessed a nicer
sense of the beauty of measure and the propriety of limitation in their
poetry and works of art. So Sophocles, Antig. 318, has ρυθμίζειν λύπην.
Note 21 (p. 190).
"Blind hopes of good I planted
In their dark breasts."
A striking phrase, meaning, however, nothing more, I imagine,
according to the use of the Greek writers (and also of the Latins with
_caecus_) than _dim_, _indistinct_; neither, indeed, is the phrase
foreign to our colloquial English idiom--"The swearing to a _blind_
etcetera they (the Puritans) looked upon as intolerable."--Calamy's Life
of Baxter. In the well-known story of Pandora, Hesiod relates that, when
the lid of the fatal box was opened, innumerable plagues flew out, only
HOPE remained within.--_Works and Days_, 84.
Note 22 (p. 190).
"And flame-faced fire is now enjoyed by mortals?"
Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, in his account of New South Wales (London,
1804), mentions that the wild natives produced fire with much
difficulty, and preserved it with the greatest care. The original
inhabitants of New Holland, and the wild African bushmen described by
Moffat, the missionary, are among the lowest specimens of human nature
with which we are acquainted. As for Æschylus, it is evident he follows
in this whole piece the notion of primitive humanity given in his
introductory chapters by Diodorus, and generally received amongst the
ancients, viz., that the fathers of our race were the most weak and
helpless creatures imaginable, like the famous Egyptian frogs, as it
were, only half developed from the primeval slime.
Note 23 (p. 191).
_Enter_ OCEAN. "This sea god enters," says Brunoy, quoted by POT.,
on "I know not what winged animal--_bizarrerie inexplicable._" Very
inexplicable certainly; and yet, as the tragedian expressly calls the
animal a _bird_, I do not see why so many translators, both English and
German, should insist on making it a _steed_. The bird certainly was a
little anomalous, having, as we learn below, four feet (τετρασκελὴς
ὀιωνός, v. 395--a _four-footed bira_); but it was a bird for all that,
and the air was its element. If the creature must have a name, we must
even call it a griffin, or a hippogriff, notwithstanding Welcker's
remarks (_Tril._ p. 26). Those who wish to see its physiognomy more
minutely described may consult Aeliean. hist, animal. IV. 27, in an apt
passage quoted from JACOBS by BOTH. There is an ambiguity in the
passage which I have translated--
"Thought instinctive reined the creature,"
some applying γνώμῃ not to the animal, but to the will of the rider. So
PROW.--
"Following still
Each impulse of my guiding will."
But for the poetical propriety of my translation I can plead the
authority of SOUTHEY--
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"The ship of Heaven instinct with thought displayed
Its living sail, and glides along the sky."
Curse of Kehama, VII. 1.
and of MILTON--
"The chariot of paternal Deity
Instinct with spirit."--VI. 750.
and what is much more conclusive in the present instance, that of
Homer, whose τιτυσκόμεναι φρεσὶ νῆες (Odyssey VIII. 556), or
self-piloted ships of the Phœnicians, belong clearly to the same
mythical family as the self-reined griffin of old Ocean.
Note 24 (p. 191).
"From my distant caves cerulean."
_i.e._, in the far West, extreme Atlantic, or "ends of the earth,"
according to the Homeric phrase.
"To the ends I make my journey of the many-nurturing Earth,
There where Ocean, sire of gods, and ancient mother Tethys dwells,
They who nursed me in their palace, and my infant strength sustained,"
says _Hera_ in the Iliad (XIV. 200).
Note 25 (p. 192).
"Enough my brother Atlas' miseries grieve me."
The reader will see by referring to the old editions and to POT. that
the following description of the miseries of Atlas and Typhon is, in the
MS., given to Ocean; and, it must be confessed, there seems a peculiar
dramatic propriety in making the old sea god hold up the fate of the
Cilician Blaster as a warning to the son of Iapetus, whom he saw
embarked in a similar career of hopeless rebellion against the
Thunderer. But philological considerations, well stated by SCHOE.,
have weighed with that editor, as with his predecessors BLOM. and
WELL., whose authority and arguments I am for the present willing to
follow, though not without some lingering doubts. The alteration of the
text originally proceeded from Elmsley, and the original order of the
dialogue is stoutly defended by TOEPEL. in his notes.
Note 26 (p. 192)
"The pillars of Heaven and Earth upon his shoulders."
If the reader is a curious person, he will ask how Atlas when standing
on the Earth--in the extreme west of the Earth--could bear the pillars
of _Heaven_ and _Earth?_ and the question will be a very proper one;
for the fact is that, as Hesiod distinctly states the case, he bore the
pillars of _Heaven only_ (Theog. 517). This is, indeed, the only
possible idea that could be admitted into a mythology which proceeded on
the old principle that the Earth was a flat solid platform in the centre
of the Universe, round which the celestial pole (πόλος) wheeled.
The phrase "_pillars of Heaven and Earth_" is, therefore, to a certain
extent an improper one; for the Earth, being the stable base of all
things, required no pillars to support it. In one sense it is true that
the pillars of Atlas are the pillars of Heaven and Earth, viz., in so
far as they have Heaven at one end and Earth at the other, which is what
Homer means when he says (Odyssey I. 54), that these pillars "γᾶιάν τε
καὶ ὀυρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν." And that this is the idea of Æschylus, also,
is plain, both from the present passage, and from the Epode of the next
following Chorus, where, unless we force in one conjecture of Schütz,
or another of Hermann into the text, there is no mention of anything but
the _celestial pole_. In all this I but express in my own words, {394}
and with a very decided conviction, the substance of the admirable note
in SCHOE. to v. 426, WELL.
Note 27 (p. 192).
". . . Typhon."
The idea of Typhon is that of a strong windy power, δεινόν ὑβριστήν
τ ἄνεμον, according to the express statement of Hesiod (Theog. 307).
The Greek word _Typhon_, with which our _typhus fever_ is identical,
expresses the state of being _swollen_ or _blown up_; with this, the
other idea of _heat_, which belongs also to Typhon (Sallust, περὶ θεῶν,
c. 4), is naturally connected. According to the elementary or physical
system of mythology, therefore, Typhon is neither more nor less than a
_simoom_ or _hot wind_.
Note 28 (p. 193).
"Knowest thou not this, Prometheus, that mild words
Are medicines of fierce wrath?"