_Clytæm._ Yes, thou hast touched with truth
That word oracular;
But I for my part wish,
(Binding with strongest oath
The evil dæmon of the Pleisthenids,)[396]
Though hard it be to bear,
To rest content with this our present lot;
And, for the future, that he go to vex
Another race with homicidal deaths. 1550
Lo! 'tis enough for me,
Though small my share of wealth,
At last to have freed my house
From madness that sets each man's hand 'gainst each.
_Enter_ ÆGISTHOS
_Ægis._ Hail, kindly light of day that vengeance brings!
Now I can say the Gods on high look down,
Avenging men, upon the woes of earth,
Since lying in the robes the Erinnyes wove
I see this man, right welcome sight to me,
Paying for deeds his father's hand had wrought. 1560
Atreus, our country's ruler, this man's father,
Drove out my sire Thyestes, his own brother,
(To tell the whole truth,) quarrelling for rule,
An exile from his country and his home.
And coming back a suppliant on the hearth,
The poor Thyestes found a lot secure,
Nor did he, dying, stain the soil with blood,
There in his home. But this man's godless sire,[397]
Atreus, more prompt than kindly in his deeds,
On plea of keeping festal day with cheer,
To my sire banquet gave of children's flesh, 1570
His own. The feet and finger-tips of hands
*He, sitting at the top, apart concealed;
And straight the other, in his blindness taking
The parts that could not be discerned, did eat
A meal which, as thou see'st, perdition works
For all his kin. And learning afterwards
The deed of dread, he groaned and backward fell,
Vomits the feast of blood, and imprecates
On Pelops' sons a doom intolerable,
And makes the o'erturning of the festive board,
With fullest justice, as a general curse,
That so might fall the race of Pleisthenes. 1580
And now thou see'st how here accordingly
This man lies fallen; I, of fullest right,
The weaver of the plot of murderous doom.
For me, a babe in swaddling-clothes, he banished
With my poor father, me, his thirteenth child;
And Vengeance brought me back, of full age grown:
And e'en far off I wrought against this man,
And planned the whole scheme of this dark device.
And so e'en death were now right good for me,
Seeing him into the nets of Vengeance fallen.
_Chor._ I honour not this arrogance in guilt, 1590
Ægisthos. Thou confessest thou hast slain
Of thy free will our chieftain here,—that thou
Alone did'st plot this murder lamentable;
Be sure, I say, thy head shall not escape
The righteous curse a people hurls with stones.
_Ægisth._ Dost thou say this, though seated on the bench
Of lowest oarsmen, while the upper row
Commands the ship?[398] But thou shalt find, though old,
How hard it is at such an age to learn,
When the word is, “keep temper.” But a prison
And fasting pains are admirably apt, 1600
As prophet-healers even for old age.
Dost see, and not see this? Against the pricks
Kick not,[399] lest thou perchance should'st smart for it.
_Chor._ Thou, thou, O Queen, when thy lord came from war,
While keeping house, thy husband's bed defiling,
Did'st scheme this death for this our hero-chief.
_Ægisth._ These words of thine shall parents prove of tears:
But this thy tongue is Orpheus' opposite;
He with his voice led all things on for joy,
But thou, provoking with thy childish cries,
Shalt now be led; and then, being kept in check,
Thou shall appear in somewhat gentler mood. 1610
_Chor._ As though thou should'st o'er Argives ruler be,
Who even when thou plotted'st this man's death
Did'st lack good heart to do the deed thyself?
_Ægisth._ E'en so; to work this fraud was clearly part
Fit for a woman. I was foe, of old
Suspected. But now will I with his wealth
See whether I his subjects may command,
And him who will not hearken I will yoke
In heavy harness as a full-fed colt,
Nowise as trace-horse;[400] but sharp hunger joined
With darksome dungeon shall behold him tamed. 1620
_Chor._ Why did'st not thou then, coward as thou art,
Thyself destroy him? but a woman with thee,
Pollution to our land and our land's Gods,
She slew him. Does Orestes see the light,
Perchance, that he, brought back by Fortune's grace,
May for both these prove slayer strong to smite?
_Ægisth._ Well, since thou think'st to act, not merely talk,
Thou shall know clearly....
[_Calling his Guards from the palace_
On then, my troops, the time for deeds is come.
_Chor._ On then, let each man grasp his sword in hand.
_Ægisth._ With sword in hand, I too shrink not from death. 1630
_Chor._ Thou talkest of thy death; we hail the word;
And make our own the fortune it implies.
_Clytæm._ Nay, let us not do other evil deeds,
Thou dearest of all friends. An ill-starred harvest
It is to have reaped so many. Enough of woe:
Let no more blood be shed: Go thou—[_to the Chorus_]—go ye,
Ye aged sires, to your allotted homes,
Ere ye do aught amiss and dree your weird:
*This that we have done ought to have sufficed;
But should it prove we've had enough of ills,
We will accept it gladly, stricken low
In evil doom by heavy hand of God.
This is a woman's counsel, if there be
That deigns to hear it.
_Ægisth._ But that these should fling
The blossoms of their idle speech at me, 1640
And utter words like these, so tempting Fate,
And fail of counsel wise, and flout their master...!
_Chor._ It suits not Argives on the vile to fawn.
_Ægisth._ Be sure, hereafter I will hunt thee down.
_Chor._ Not so, if God should guide Orestes back.
_Ægisth._ Right well I know how exiles feed on hopes.
_Chor._ Prosper, wax fat, do foul wrong—'tis thy day.
_Ægisth._ Know thou shalt pay full price for this thy folly.
_Chor._ Be bold, and boast, like cock beside his mate.
_Clytæm._ Nay, care not thou for these vain howlings; I
And thou together, ruling o'er the house,
Will settle all things rightly. [_Exeunt_
-----
Footnote 271:
The form of gambling from which the phrase is taken, had clearly
become common in Attica among the class to which the watchman was
supposed to belong, and had given rise to proverbial phrases like that
in the text. The Greeks themselves supposed it to have been invented
by the Lydians (Herod. i. 94), or Palamedes, one of the heroes of the
tale of Troïa, but it enters also into Egyptian legends (Herod. ii.
122), and its prevalence from remote antiquity in the farther East, as
in the Indian story of Nala and Damayanti, makes it probable that it
originated there. The game was commonly played, as the phrase shows,
with three dice, the highest throw being that which gave three sixes.
Æschylos, it may be noted, appears in a lost drama, which bore the
title of _Palamedes_, to have brought the game itself into his plot.
It is referred to, as invented by that hero, in a fragment of
Sophocles (_Fr._ 380), and again in the proverb,—
“The dice of Zeus have ever lucky throws.”—(_Fr._ 763.)
Footnote 272:
Here, also, the watchman takes up another common proverbial phrase,
belonging to the same group as that of “kicking against the pricks” in
v. 1624. He has his reasons for silence, weighty as would be the tread
of an ox to close his lips.
Footnote 273:
The vultures stand, _i.e._, to the rulers of Heaven, in the same
relation as the foreign sojourners in Athens, the _Metoics_, did to
the citizens under whose protection they placed themselves.
Footnote 274:
Alexandros, the other name of Paris, the seducer of Helen.
Footnote 275:
The words, perhaps, refer to the grief of Menelaos, as leading him to
neglect the wonted sacrifices to Zeus, but it seems better to see in
them a reference to the sin of Paris. He, at least, who had carried
off his host's wife, had not offered acceptable sacrifices, had
neglected all sacrifices to Zeus Xenios, the God of host and guest.
The allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which some (Donaldson and
Paley) have found here, and the wrath of Clytæmnestra, which Agamemnon
will fail to soothe, seems more far-fetched.
Footnote 276:
An allusion, such as the audience would catch and delight in, to the
well-known enigma of the Sphinx. See Sophocles (_Trans._), p. 1.
Footnote 277:
The Chorus, though too old to take part in the expedition, are yet
able to tell both of what passed as the expedition started, and of the
terrible fulfilment of the omens which they had seen. The two eagles
are, of course, in the symbolism of prophecy, the two chieftains,
Menelaos and Agamemnon. The “white feathers” of the one may point to
the less heroic character of Menelaos: so in v. 123, they are of
“diverse mood.” The hare whom they devour is, in the first instance,
Troïa, and so far the omen is good, portending the success of the
expedition; but, as Artemis hates the fierceness of the eagles, so
there is, in the eyes of the seer, a dark token of danger from her
wrath against the Atreidæ. Either their victory will be sullied by
cruelty which will bring down vengeance, or else there is some secret
sin in the past which must be atoned for by a terrible sacrifice. In
the legend followed by Sophocles (_Electr._ 566), Agamemnon had
offended Artemis by slaying a doe sacred to her, as he was hunting. In
the manifold meanings of such omens there is, probably, a latent
suggestion of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia by the two chieftains,
though this was at the time hidden from the seer. The fact that they
are seen on the right, not on the left hand, was itself ominous of
good.
Footnote 278:
The song of Linos, originally the dirge with which men mourned for the
death of Linos, the minstrel-son of Apollo and Urania, brother of
Orpheus, who was slain by Heracles—a type, like Thammuz and Adonis, of
life prematurely closed and bright hopes never to be fulfilled,—had
come to be the representative of all songs of mourning. So Hesiod (in
Eustath. on Hom. _Il._, vii. 569) speaks of the name, as applied to
all funeral dirges over poets and minstrels. So Herodotos (ii. 79)
compares it, as the type of this kind of music among the Greeks, with
what he found in Egypt connected with the name of Maneros, the only
son of the first king of Egypt, who died in the bloom of youth. The
name had, therefore, as definite a connotation for a Greek audience as
the words _Miserere_ or _Jubilate_ would have for us, and ought not, I
believe, to disappear from the translation.
Footnote 279:
The comparison of a lion's whelps to dew-drops, bold as the figure is,
has something in it analogous to that with which we are more familiar,
describing the children, or the army of a king, as the “dew” from “the
womb of the morning” (Ps. cx. 3).
Footnote 280:
The sacrifice, _i.e._, was to be such as could not, according to the
customary ritual, form a feast for the worshippers.
Footnote 281:
The dark words look at once before and after, back to the murder of
the sons of Thyestes, forward, though of this the seer knew not, to
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Clytæmnestra is the embodiment of the
Vengeance of which the Chorus speaks.
Footnote 282:
As a part of the drama the whole passage that follows is an assertion
by the Chorus that in this their trouble they will turn to no other
God, invoke no other name, but that of the Supreme Zeus. But it can
hardly be doubted that they have a meaning beyond this, and are the
utterance by the poet of his own theology. In the second part of the
Promethean trilogy (all that we now know of it) he had represented
Zeus as ruling in the might of despotic sovereignty, the
representative of a Power which men could not resist, but also could
not love, inflicting needless sufferings on the sons of men. Now he
has grown wiser. The sovereignty of Zeus is accepted as part of the
present order of the world; trust in Him brings peace; the pain which
He permits is the one only way to wisdom. The stress laid upon the
name of Zeus implies a wish to cleave to the religion inherited from
the older Hellenes, as contrasted with those with which their
intercourse with the East had made the Athenians familiar. Like the
voice which came to Epimenides, as he was building a sanctuary to the
Muses, bidding him dedicate it not to them but to Zeus (Diog. Laert.
i. 10), it represents a faint approximation to a truer, more
monotheistic creed than that of the popular mythology.
Footnote 283:
The two mighty ones who have passed away are Uranos and Cronos, the
representatives in Greek mythology of the earlier stages of the
world's history, (1) mere material creation, (2) an ideal period of
harmony, a golden, Saturnian age, preceding the present order of
divine government with its mingled good and evil. Comp. Hesiod.
_Theogon._, 459.
Footnote 284:
The Chorus returns, after its deeper speculative thoughts, to its
interrupted narrative.
Footnote 285:
The seer saw his augury fulfilled. When he uttered the name of Artemis
it was pregnant with all the woe which he had foreboded at the outset.
Footnote 286:
So that the blood may fall upon the altar, as the knife was drawn
across the throat.
Footnote 287:
The whole passage should be compared with the magnificent description
in Lucretius i. 84-101.
Footnote 288:
Beautiful as a picture, and as motionless and silent also. The art,
young as it was, had already reached the stage when it supplied to the
poet an ideal standard of perfection. Other allusions to it are found
in vv. 774, 1300.
Footnote 289:
The words point to the ritual of Greek feasts, which assigned the
first libation to Zeus and the Olympian Gods, the second to the
Heroes, the third to Zeus in his special character as Saviour and
Preserver; the last was commonly accompanied by a pæan, hymn of
praise. The life of Agamemnon is described as one which had good cause
to offer many such libations. Iphigeneia had sung many such pæans.
Footnote 290:
The mythical explanation of this title for the Argive territory is
found in the _Suppl._ v. 256, and its real meaning is discussed in a
note to that passage.
Footnote 291:
To speak of Morning as the child of Night was, we may well believe,
among the earliest parables of nature. In its mythical form it appears
in Hesiod (_Theogon._ 123), but its traces are found wherever, as
among Hebrews, Athenians, Germans, men reckoned by nights rather than
by days, and spoke of “the evening and the morning” rather than of
“day and night.”
Footnote 292:
The God thought of is, as in v. 272, Hephæstos, as being Lord of the
Fire, that had brought the tidings.
Footnote 293:
It is not without significance that Clytæmnestra scorns the channel of
divine instruction of which the Chorus had spoken with such reverence.
The dramatist puts into her mouth the language of those who scoffed at
the notion that truth might come to the soul in “visions of the
night,” when “deep sleep falleth upon men.” So Sophocles puts like
thoughts into the mouth of Jocasta (_Œd. King_, vv. 709, 858).
Footnote 294:
Omens came from the flight of birds. An omen which was not
trustworthy, or belonged to some lower form of divination, might
therefore be spoken of as “wingless.” But the word may possibly be
intensive, not negative, “swift-winged,” and then refer generically to
that form of divination.
Footnote 295:
The description that follows, over and above its general interest,
had, probably, for an Athenian audience, that of representing the
actual succession of beacon-stations, by which they, in the course of
the wars, under Pericles, had actually received intelligence from the
coasts of Asia. A glance at the map will show the fitness of the
places named—Ida, Lemnos, Athos, Makistos (a mountain in Eubœa),
Messapion (on the coast of Bœotia), over the plains of the Asôpos to
Kithæron, in the south of the same province, then over Gorgopis, a bay
of the Corinthian Gulf, to Ægiplanctos in Megaris, then across to a
headland overlooking the Saronic Gulf, to the Arachnæan hill in
Argolis. The word “_courier_-fire” connects itself also with the
system of posts or messengers, which the Persian kings seem to have
been the first to organise, and which impressed the minds both of
Hebrews (Esth. viii. 14) and Greeks (Herod. viii. 98) by their regular
transmission of the king's edicts, or of special news.
Footnote 296:
Our ignorance of the details of the _Lampadephoria_, or “torch-race
games,” in honour of the fire-God, Prometheus, makes the allusion to
them somewhat obscure. As described by Pausanias (I. xxx. 2), the
runners started with lighted torches from the altar of Prometheus in
the Academeia and ran towards the city. The first who reached the goal
with his torch still burning became the winner. If all the torches
were extinguished, then all were losers. As so described, however,
there is no succession, no taking the torch from one and passing it on
to another, like that described here and in the well-known line of
Lucretius (ii. 78),
“Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt.”
(And they, as runners, pass the torch of life.)
On the other hand, there are descriptions which show that such a
transfer was the chief element of the game. This is, indeed, implied
both in this passage and in the comparison between the game and the
Persian courier-system in Herod. viii. 98. The two views may be
reconciled by supposing (1) that there were sets of runners, vying
with each other as such, rather than individually, or (2) that a
runner whose speed failed him though his torch kept burning, was
allowed to hand it on to another who was more likely to win the race,
but whose torch was out. The next line seems meant to indicate where
the comparison failed. In the torch-race which Clytæmnestra describes
there had been no contest. One and the self-same fire (the idea of
succession passing into that of continuity) had started and had
reached the goal, and so had won the prize. An alternative rendering
would be,—
“He wins who is first in, though starting last.”
Footnote 297:
The complete foot-race was always to the column which marked the end
of the course, round it, and back again. In getting to Troïa,
therefore, but half the race was done.
Footnote 298:
Dramatically the words refer to the practical impiety of evildoers
like Paris, with, perhaps, a half-latent allusion to that of
Clytæmnestra. But it can hardly be doubted that for the Athenian
audience it would have a more special significance, as a protest
against the growing scepticism, what in a later age would have been
called the Epicureanism, of the age of Pericles. It is the assertion
of the belief of Æschylos in the moral government of the world. The
very vagueness of the singular, “One there was,” would lead the
hearers to think of some teacher like Anaxagoras, whom they suspected
of Atheism.
Footnote 299:
The Chorus sees in the overthrow of Troïa, an instance of this
righteous retribution. The audience were, perhaps, intended to think
also of the punishment which had fallen on the Persians for the
sacrilegious acts of their fathers. The “things inviolable” are the
sanctities of the ties of marriage and hospitality, both of which
Paris had set at nought.
Footnote 300:
Here, and again in v. 612, we have a similitude drawn from the
metallurgy of Greek artists. Good bronze, made of copper and tin,
takes the green rust which collectors prize, but when rubbed, the
brightness reappears. If zinc be substituted for tin, as in our brass,
or mixed largely with it, the surface loses its polish, oxidizes and
becomes black. It is, however, doubtful whether this combination of
metals was at the time in use, and the words may simply refer to
different degrees of excellence in bronze properly so called.
Footnote 301:
In a corrupt passage like this, the text of which has been so
variously restored and rendered, it may be well to give at least one
alternative version:
“There stands she silent, with no honour met,
Nor yet with words of scorn,
Sweetest to see of all that he has lost.”
The words, as so taken, refer to the vision of Helen, described in the
lines that follow. Another, for the line “In deepest woe,” &c., ...
would give,
“Believing not he sees the lost one there.”
Footnote 302:
The art of Pheidias had already made it natural at Athens to speak of
kings as decorating their palaces with the life-size busts or statues
of those they loved.
Footnote 303:
Here again one may note a protest against the aggressive policy of
Pericles, an assertion of the principle that a nation should be
content with independence, without aiming at supremacy.
Footnote 304:
Perhaps passively, “Soon suffers trespassers.”
Footnote 305:
As the play opens on the morning of the day on which Troïa was taken,
and now we have the arrivals, first, of the herald, and then of
Agamemnon, after the capture has been completed, and the spoil
divided, and the fleet escaped a storm, an interval of some days must
be supposed between the two parts of the play, the imaginary law of
the unities notwithstanding.
Footnote 306:
The customary adornment of heralds who brought good news. Comp.
Sophocles, _Œd. K._ v. 83. The custom prevailed for many centuries,
and is recognised by Dante, _Purg._ ii. 70, as usual in his time in
Italy.
Footnote 307:
So in the _Seven against Thebes_ (v. 494), smoke is called “the sister
of fire.”
Footnote 308:
A probable reference, not only to the story, but to the actual words
of Homer, _Il._ i. 45-52.
Footnote 309:
Specially the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeukes.
Footnote 310:
Such a position (especially in the case of Zeus or Apollo) was common
in the temples both of Greece and Rome, and had a very obvious
signification. As the play was performed, the actual hour of the day
probably coincided with that required by the dramatic sequence of
events, and the statues of the Gods were so placed on the stage as to
catch the rays of the morning sun when the herald entered. Hence the
allusion to the bright “cheerful glances” would have a visible as well
as ethical fitness.
Footnote 311:
It formed part of the guilt of Paris, that, besides his seduction of
Helena, he had carried off part of the treasures of Menelaos.
Footnote 312:
The idea of a payment twofold the amount of the wrong done, as a
complete satisfaction to the sufferer, was common in the early
jurisprudence both of Greeks and Hebrews (Exod. xxii. 4-7). In some
cases it was even more, as in the four or fivefold restitution of
Exod. xxii. 1. In the grand opening of Isaiah's message of glad
tidings the fact that Jerusalem has received “double for all her sins”
is made the ground on the strength of which she may now hope for
pardon. Comp. also Isa. lxi. 7; Zech. ix. 12.
Footnote 313: