But such incongruities as these do not affect us in the tragedies
based on the heroic fables; here the poet takes, without offense,
any liberty he likes with time and place; the whole affair is in his
hands, to do what he will, so long as he respects the internal harmony
of his own work. For this reason, I think, we find Alfieri at his best
in these tragedies, among which I have liked the Orestes best, as
giving the widest range of feeling with the greatest vigor of action.
The Agamemnon, which precedes it, and which ought to be read first,
closes with its most powerful scene. Agamemnon has returned from Troy
to Argos with his captive Cassandra, and Aegisthus has persuaded
Clytemnestra that her husband intends to raise Cassandra to the
throne. She kills him and reigns with Aegisthus, Electra concealing
Orestes on the night of the murder, and sending him secretly away with
Strophius, king of Phocis.
In the last scene, as Clytemnestra steals through the darkness to her
husband's chamber, she soliloquizes, with the dagger in her hand:
It is the hour; and sunk in slumber now
Lies Agamemnon. Shall he nevermore
Open his eyes to the fair light? My hand,
Once pledge to him of stainless love and faith,
Is it to be the minister of his death?
Did I swear that? Ay, that; and I must keep
My oath. Quick, let me go! My foot, heart, hand--
All over I tremble. Oh, what did I promise?
Wretch! what do I attempt? How all my courage
Hath vanished from me since Aegisthus vanished!
I only see the immense atrocity
Of this, my horrible deed; I only see
The bloody specter of Atrides! Ah,
In vain do I accuse thee! No, thou lovest
Cassandra not. Me, only me, thou lovest,
Unworthy of thy love. Thou hast no blame,
Save that thou art my husband, in the world!
Of trustful sleep, to death's arms by my hand?
And where then shall I hide me? O perfidy!
Can I e'er hope for peace? O woful life--
Life of remorse, of madness, and of tears!
How shall Aegisthus, even Aegisthus, dare
To rest beside the parricidal wife
Upon her murder-stained marriage-bed,
Nor tremble for himself? Away, away,--
Hence, horrible instrument of all my guilt
And harm, thou execrable dagger, hence!
I'll lose at once my lover and my life,
But never by this hand betrayed shall fall
So great a hero! Live, honor of Greece
And Asia's terror! Live to glory, live
To thy dear children, and a better wife!
--But what are these hushed steps? Into these rooms
Who is it comes by night? Aegisthus?--Lost,
I am lost!
_Aegisthus._ Hast thou not done the deed?
_Cly._ Aegisthus----
_Aeg._ What, stand'st thou here, wasting thyself in
tears?
Woman, untimely are thy tears; 't is late,
'T is vain, and it may cost us dear!
_Cly._ Thou here?
But how--woe's me, what did I promise thee!
What wicked counsel--
_Aeg._ Was it not thy counsel?
Love gave it thee and fear annuls it--well!
Since thou repentest, I am glad; and glad
To know thee guiltless shall I be in death.
I told thee that the enterprise was hard,
But thou, unduly trusting in the heart,
That hath not a man's courage in it, chose
Thyself thy feeble hands to strike the blow.
Now may Heaven grant that the intent of evil
Turn not to harm thee! Hither I by stealth
And favor of the darkness have returned
Unseen, I hope. For I perforce must come
Myself to tell thee that irrevocably
My life is dedicated to the vengeance
Of Agamemnon.
He appeals to her pity for him, and her fear for herself; he reminds
her of Agamemnon's consent to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and goads
her on to the crime from which she had recoiled. She goes into
Agamemnon's chamber, whence his dying outcries are heard:--
O treachery!
Thou, wife? O headens, I die! O treachery!
Clytemnestra comes out with the dagger in her hand:
The dagger drips with blood; my hands, my robe,
My face--they all are wet with blood. What vengeance
Shall yet be taken for this blood? Already
I see this very steel turned on my breast,
And by whose hand!
The son whom she forebodes as the avenger of Agamemnon's death passes
his childhood and early youth at the court of Strophius in Phocis. The
tragedy named for him opens with Electra's soliloquy as she goes to
weep at the tomb of their father:--
Night, gloomy, horrible, atrocious night,
Forever present to my thought! each year
For now two lusters I have seen thee come,
Clothed on with darkness and with dreams of blood,
And blood that should have expiated thine
Is not yet spilt! O memory, O sight!
Upon these stones I saw thee murdered lie,
Murdered, and by whose hand!...
I swear to thee,
If I in Argos, in thy palace live,
Slave of Aegisthus, with my wicked mother,
Nothing makes me endure a life like this
Saving the hope of vengeance. Far away
Orestes is; but living! I saved thee, brother;
I keep myself for thee, till the day rise
When thou shalt make to stream upon yon tomb
Not helpless tears like these, but our foe's blood.
While Electra fiercely muses, Clytemnestra enters, with the appeal:
_Cly._ Daughter!
_El._ What voice! Oh Heaven, thou here?
_Cly._ My daughter,
Ah, do not fly me! Thy pious task I fain
Would share with thee. Aegisthus in vain forbids,
He shall not know. Ah, come! go we together
Unto the tomb.
_El._ Whose tomb?
_Cly._ Thy--hapless--father's.
_El._ Wherefore not say thy husband's tomb? 'T is well:
Thou darest not speak it. But how dost thou dare
Turn thitherward thy steps--thou that dost reek
Yet with his blood?
_Cly._ Two lusters now are passed
Since that dread day, and two whole lusters now
I weep my crime.
_El._ And what time were enough
For that? Ah, if thy tears should be eternal,
They yet were nothing. Look! Seest thou not still
The blood upon these horrid walls the blood
That thou didst splash them with? And at thy presence
Lo, how it reddens and grows quick again!
Fly, thou, whom I must never more call mother!
* * * *
_Cly._ Oh, woe is me! What can I answer? Pity--
But I merit none!--And yet if in my heart,
Daughter, thou couldst but read--ah, who could look
Into the secret of a heart like mine,
Contaminated with such infamy,
And not abhor me? I blame not thy wrath,
No, nor thy hate. On earth I feel already
The guilty pangs of hell. Scarce had the blow
Escaped my hand before a swift remorse,
Swift but too late, fell terrible upon me.
From that hour still the sanguinary ghost
By day and night, and ever horrible,
Hath moved before mine eyes. Whene'er I turn
I see its bleeding footsteps trace the path
That I must follow; at table, on the throne,
It sits beside me; on my bitter pillow
If e'er it chance I close mine eyes in sleep,
The specter--fatal vision!--instantly
Shows itself in my dreams, and tears the breast,
Already mangled, with a furious hand,
And thence draws both its palms full of dark blood,
To dash it in my face! On dreadful nights
Follow more dreadful days. In a long death
I live my life. Daughter,--whate'er I am,
Thou art my daughter still,--dost thou not weep
At tears like mine?
Clytemnestra confesses that Aegisthus no longer loves her, but she
loves him, and she shrinks from Electra's fierce counsel that she
shall kill him. He enters to find her in tears, and a violent scene
between him and Electra follows, in which Clytemnestra interposes.
_Cly._ O daughter, he is my husband. Think, Aegisthus,
She is my daughter.
_Aeg._ She is Atrides' daughter!
_El._ He is Atrides' murderer!
_Cly._ Electra!
Have pity, Aegisthus! Look--the tomb! Oh, look,
The horrible tomb!--and art thou not content?
_Aeg._ Woman, be less unlike thyself. Atrides,--
Tell me by whose hand in yon tomb he lies?
_Cly._ O mortal blame! What else is lacking now
To my unhappy, miserable life?
Who drove me to it now upbraids my crime!
_El._ O marvelous joy! O only joy that's blessed
My heart in these ten years! I see you both
At last the prey of anger and remorse;
I hear at last what must the endearments be
Of love so blood-stained.
The first act closes with a scene between Aegisthus and Clytemnestra,
in which he urges her to consent that he shall send to have Orestes
murdered, and reminds her of her former crimes when she revolts from
this. The scene is very well managed, with that sparing phrase which
in Alfieri is quite as apt to be touchingly simple as bare and poor.
In the opening scene of the second act, Orestes has returned in
disguise to Argos with Pylades the son of Strophius, to whom he
speaks:
We are come at last. Here Agamemnon fell,
Murdered, and here Aegisthus reigns. Here rose
In memory still, though I a child departed,
These natal walls, and the just Heaven in time
Leads me back hither.
Twice five years have passed
This very day since that dread night of blood,
When, slain by treachery, my father made
The whole wide palace with his dolorous cries
Echo again. Oh, well do I remember!
Electra swiftly bore me through this hall
Thither where Strophius in his pitying arms
Received me--Strophius, less by far thy father
Than mine, thereafter--and fled onward with me
By yonder postern-gate, all tremulous;
And after me there ran upon the air
Long a wild clamor and a lamentation
That made me weep and shudder and lament,
I knew not why, and weeping Strophius ran,
Preventing with his hand my outcries shrill,
Clasping me close, and sprinkling all my face
With bitter tears; and to the lonely coast,
Where only now we landed, with his charge
He came apace; and eagerly unfurled
His sails before the wind.
Pylades strives to restrain the passion for revenge in Orestes,
which imperils them both. The friend proposes that they shall feign
themselves messengers sent by Strophius with tidings of Orestes'
death, and Orestes has reluctantly consented, when Electra re-appears,
and they recognize each other. Pylades discloses their plan, and when
her brother urges, “The means is vile,” she answers, all woman,--
Less vile than is Aegisthus. There is none
Better or surer, none, believe me. When
You are led to him, let it be mine to think
Of all--the place, the manner, time, and arms,
To kill him. Still I keep, Orestes, still
I keep the steel that in her husband's breast
She plunged whom nevermore we might call mother.
_Orestes._ How fares it with that impious woman?
_Electra._ Ah,
Thou canst not know how she drags out her life!
Save only Agamemnon's children, all
Must pity her--and even we must pity.
Full ever of suspicion and of terror,
And held in scorn even by Aegisthus' self,
Loving Aegisthus though she know his guilt;
Repentant, and yet ready to renew
Her crime, perchance, if the unworthy love
Which is her shame and her abhorrence, would;
Now wife, now mother, never wife nor mother,
Bitter remorse gnaws at her heart by day
Unceasingly, and horrible shapes by night
Scare slumber from her eyes.--So fares it with her.
In the third scene of the following act Clytemnestra meets Orestes
and Pylades, who announce themselves as messengers from Phocis to the
king; she bids them deliver their tidings to her, and they finally
do so, Pylades struggling to prevent Orestes from revealing himself.
There are touchingly simple and natural passages in the lament that
Clytemnestra breaks into over her son's death, and there is fire, with
its true natural extinction in tears, when she upbraids Aegisthus, who
now enters:
My only son beloved, I gave thee all.
* * * * *
All that I gave thou did'st account as nothing
While aught remained to take. Who ever saw
At once so cruel and so false a heart?
The guilty love that thou did'st feign so ill
And I believed so well, what hindrance to it,
What hindrance, tell me, was the child Orestes?
Yet scarce had Agamemnon died before
Thou did'st cry out for his son's blood; and searched
Through all the palace in thy fury. Then
The blade thou durst not wield against the father,
Then thou didst brandish! Ay, bold wast thou then
Against a helpless child!...
Unhappy son, what booted it to save thee
From thy sire's murderer, since thou hast found
Death ere thy time in strange lands far away?
Aegisthus, villainous usurper! Thou,
Thou hast slain my son! Aegisthus--Oh forgive!
I was a mother, and am so no more.
Throughout this scene, and in the soliloquy preceding it, Alfieri
paints very forcibly the struggle in Clytemnestra between her love for
her son and her love for Aegisthus, to whom she clings even while
he exults in the tidings that wring her heart. It is all too baldly
presented, doubtless, but it is very effective and affecting.
Orestes and Pylades are now brought before Aegisthus, and he demands
how and where Orestes died, for after his first rejoicing he has come
to doubt the fact. Pylades responds in one of those speeches with
which Alfieri seems to carve the scene in bas-relief:
Every fifth year an ancient use renews
In Crete the games and offerings unto Jove.
The love of glory and innate ambition
Lure to that coast the youth; and by his side
Goes Pylades, inseparable from him.
In the light car upon the arena wide,
The hopes of triumph urge him to contest
The proud palm of the flying-footed steeds,
And, too intent on winning, there his life
He gives for victory.
_Aeg._ But how? Say on.
_Pyl._ Too fierce, impatient, and incautious, he
Now frights his horses on with threatening cries,
Now whirls his blood-stained whip, and lashes them,
Till past the goal the ill-tamed coursers fly
Faster and faster. Reckless of the rein,
Deaf to the voice that fain would soothe them now,
Their nostrils breathing fire, their loose manes tossed
Upon the wind, and in thick clouds involved
Of choking dust, round the vast circle's bound,
As lightning swift they whirl and whirl again.
Fright, horror, mad confusion, death, the car
Spreads in its crooked circles everywhere,
Until at last, the smoking axle dashed
With horrible shock against a marble pillar,
Orestes headlong falls--
_Cly._ No more! Ah, peace!
His mother hears thee.
_Pyl._ It is true. Forgive me.
I will not tell how, horribly dragged on,
His streaming life-blood soaked the arena's dust--
Pylades ran--in vain--within his arms
His friend expired.
_Cly._ O wicked death!
_Pyl._ In Crete
All men lamented him, so potent in him
Were beauty, grace, and daring.
_Cly._ Nay, who would not
Lament him save this wretch alone? Dear son,
Must I then never, never see thee more?
O me! too well I see thee crossing now
The Stygian stream to clasp thy father's shade:
Both turn your frowning eyes askance on me,
Burning with dreadful wrath! Yea, it was I,
'T was I that slew you both. Infamous mother
And guilty wife!--Now art content, Aegisthus?
Aegisthus still doubts, and pursues the pretended messengers with such
insulting question that Orestes, goaded beyond endurance, betrays that
their character is assumed. They are seized and about to be led to
prison in chains, when Electra enters and in her anguish at the sight
exclaims, “Orestes led to die!” Then ensues a heroic scene, in which
each of the friends claims to be Orestes. At last Orestes shows the
dagger Electra has given him, and offers it to Clytemnestra, that
she may stab Aegisthus with the same weapon with which she killed
Agamemnon:
Whom then I would call mother. Take it; thou know'st how
To wield it; plunge it in Aegisthus' heart!
Leave me to die; I care not, if I see
My father avenged. I ask no other proof
Of thy maternal love from thee. Quick, now,
Strike! Oh, what is it that I see? Thou tremblest?
Thou growest pale? Thou weepest? From thy hand
The dagger falls? Thou lov'st Aegisthus, lov'st him
And art Orestes' mother? Madness! Go
And never let me look on thee again!
Aegisthus dooms Electra to the same death with Orestes and Pylades,
but on the way to prison the guards liberate them all, and the Argives
rise against the usurper with the beginning of the fifth act, which I
shall give entire, because I think it very characteristic of Alfieri,
and necessary to a conception of his vehement, if somewhat arid,
genius. I translate as heretofore almost line for line, and word for
word, keeping the Italian order as nearly as I can.