“For not as subject sitting 'neath the sway
Of strength above his own.”
Footnote 249:
The passage takes its place among the noblest utterances of a faith
passing above the popular polytheism to the thought of one sovereign
Will ruling and guiding all things, as Will—without effort, in the
calmness of a power irresistible.
Footnote 250:
Double, as involving a sin against the laws of hospitality, so far as
the suppliants were strangers—a sin against the laws of kindred, so
far as they might claim by descent the rights of citizenship.
Footnote 251:
If, as has been conjectured, the tragedy was written with a view to
the alliance between Argos and Athens, made in B.C. 461, this choral
ode must have been the centre, if not of the dramatic, at all events
of the political interest of the play.
Footnote 252:
The image is that of a bird of evil omen, perched upon the roof, and
defiling the house, while it uttered its boding cries.
Footnote 253:
The suppliants' boughs, so held as to shade the face from view.
Footnote 254:
The name of Hecate connected Artemis as, on the one side, with the
unseen world of Hades, so, on the other, with childbirth, and the
purifications that followed on it.
Footnote 255:
The name of Lykeian, originally, perhaps, simply representing Apollo
as the God of Light, came afterwards to be associated with the might
of destruction (the Wolf-destroyer) and the darts of pestilence and
sudden death. The prayer is therefore that he, the Destroyer, may
hearken to the suppliants, and spare the people for whom they pray.
Footnote 256:
The “three great laws” were those ascribed to Triptolemos, “to honour
parents, to worship the Gods with the fruits of the earth, to hurt
neither man nor beast.”
Footnote 257:
The Egyptian ships, like those of many other Eastern countries, had
eyes (the eyes of Osiris, as they were called) painted on their bows.
Footnote 258:
A side-thrust, directed by the poet, who had fought at Marathon,
against the growing effeminacy of the Athenian youth, many of whom
were learning to shrink from all activity and exposure that might
spoil their complexions. Comp. Plato, _Phædros_, p. 239.
Footnote 259:
The saying is somewhat dark, but the meaning seems to be that if the
“dogs” of Egypt are strong, the “wolves” of Argos are stronger; that
the wheat on which the Hellenes lived gave greater strength to limbs
and sinew than the “byblos fruit” on which the Egyptian soldiers and
sailors habitually lived. Some writers, however, have seen in the last
line, rendered—
“The byblos fruit not always bears full ear,”
a proverb like the English,
“There's many a slip
'Twixt the cup and the lip.”
Footnote 260:
The words recall the vision of the “seven well-favoured kine and
fat-fleshed,” which “came out of the river,” as Pharaoh dreamed (Gen.
xli. 1, 2), and which were associated so closely with the fertility
which it ordinarily produced through the whole extent of the valley of
the Nile.
Footnote 261:
Two dangerous low headlands seem to have been known by this name, one
on the coast of Kilikia, the other on that of the Thrakian Chersonese.
Footnote 262:
No traces of ships of this structure are found in Egyptian art; but,
if the reading be right, it implies the existence of boats of some
kind, so built that they could be steered from either end.
Footnote 263:
Hermes, the guardian deity of heralds, is here described by the
epithet which marked him out as being also the patron of detectives.
Every stranger arriving in a Greek port had to place himself under a
_proxenos_ or patron of some kind. The herald, having no _proxenos_
among the citizens, appeals to his patron deity.
Footnote 264:
The words refer to the custom of nailing decrees, proclamations,
treaties, and the like, engraved on metal or marble, upon the walls of
temples or public buildings. Traces of the same idea may possibly be
found in the promise to Eliakim that he shall be “as a nail in a sure
place” (Isa. xxii. 23), in the thanksgiving of Ezra that God had given
His people “a nail in his holy place” (Ezra ix. 8).
Footnote 265:
As before, the bread of the Hellenes was praised to the disparagement
of the “byblos fruit” of Egypt, so here their wine to that of the
Egyptian beer, which was the ordinary drink of the lower classes.
Footnote 266:
The words present a striking parallelism to the erotic imagery of the
_Song of Solomon_: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our
vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” (ii. 15).
Footnote 267:
The Erasinos was supposed to rise in Arcadia, in Mount Stymphalos, to
disappear below the earth, and to come to sight again in Argolis.
Footnote 268:
In this final choral ode of the _Suppliants_, as in that of the _Seven
against Thebes_, we have the phenomenon of the division of the Chorus,
hitherto united, into two sections of divergent thought and purpose.
Semi-Chorus A. remains steadfast in its purpose of perpetual
virginity; Semi-Chorus B. relents, and is ready to accept wedlock.
Footnote 269:
The two names were closely connected in the local worship of Athens,
the temples of Aphrodite and Peitho (Suasion) standing at the
south-west angle of the Acropolis. If any special purpose is to be
traced in the invocation, we may see it in the poet's desire to bring
out the nobler, more ethical side of Aphrodite's attributes, in
contrast with the growing tendency to look on her as simply the
patroness of brutal lust.
Footnote 270:
The play, as acted, formed part of a trilogy, and the next play, the
_Danaids_, probably contained the sequel of the story, the acceptance
by the Suppliants of the sons of Ægyptos in marriage, the plot of
Danaos for the destruction of the bridegrooms on the wedding-night,
and the execution of the deed of blood by all but Hypermnestra.