“No whispered rumours which the many spread
Can ever wholly perish.”
Footnote 344:
Here, too, we may trace a reference to the Oriental custom of
recognising the sanctity of a consecrated place by taking the shoes
from off the feet, as in Exod. iii. 5, in the services of the
Tabernacle and Temple, through all their history (Juven., _Sat._ vi.
159), in all mosques to the present day. Agamemnon, yielding to the
temptress, seeks to make a compromise with his conscience. He will
walk upon the tapestry, but will treat it as if it, of right, belonged
to the Gods, and were a consecrated thing. It is probably in
connection with this incident that Æschylos was said to have been the
first to bring actors on the stage in these boots or buskins (Suidas.
s. v. άρβύλη).
Footnote 345:
The words of Isaiah (xviii. 5), “when the sour grape is ripening in
the flower,” present an almost verbal parallel.
Footnote 346:
The ever-recurring ambiguity of Clytæmnestra's language is again
traceable, as is also her fondness for rhetorical similitudes.
Footnote 347:
The Chorus speaks in perplexity. In cannot get rid of its forebodings,
and yet it would seem as if the time for the fulfilment of the dark
words of Calchas must have passed long since. It actually sees the
safe return of the leader of the host, yet still its fears haunt it.
Footnote 348:
Asclepios, whom Zeus smote with his thunderbolt for having restored
Hippolytos to life.
Footnote 349:
The Chorus, in spite of their suspicions and forebodings, have given
the king no warning. They excuse themselves by the plea of necessity,
the sovereign decree of Zeus overruling all man's attempts to
withstand it.
Footnote 350:
Cassandra is summoned to an act of worship. The household is gathered,
the altar to Zeus Ktesios (the God of the family property, slaves
included), standing in the servants' hall, is ready. The new slave
must come in and take her place with the others.
Footnote 351:
As in the story which forms the groundwork of the _Trachiniæ_ of
Sophocles, vv. 250-280, that Heracles had been sold to Omphale as a
slave, in penalty for the murder of Iphitos.
Footnote 352:
Political as well as dramatic. The Eupatrid poet appeals to public
opinion against the _nouveaux riches_, the tanners and lamp-makers,
who were already beginning to push themselves forward towards
prominence and power. The way was thus prepared in the first play of
the Trilogy for what is known to have been the main object of the
last. Comp. Arist., _Rhet._ ii. 32.
Footnote 353:
Here again the translator has the task of finding an English
_paronomasia_ which approximates to that of the Greek, between Apollo
and ἀπόλλων _the destroyer_. To Apollo, as the God of paths
(_Aguieus_), an altar stood, column-fashion, before the street-door of
every house, and to such an altar, placed by the door of Agamemnon's
palace, Cassandra turns, with the twofold play upon the name.
Footnote 354:
This refers, probably, to the death of Hippodameia, the wife of
Pelops, who killed herself, in remorse for the death of Chrysippos, or
fear of her husband's anger. The horrors of the royal house of Argos
pass, one by one, before the vision of the prophetess, and this leads
the procession, followed by the spectres of the murdered children of
Thyestes.
Footnote 355:
The Chorus, as in their last ode, had made up their minds, though
foreboding ill, to let destiny take its course. They do not wish that
policy of non-interference to be changed by any too clear vision of
the future.
Footnote 356:
The Chorus understands the vision of the _clairvoyante_ as regards the
past tragedy of the house of Atreus, but not that which seems to
portend another actually imminent.
Footnote 357:
Fresh visions come before the eyes of the seeress. She beholds the
company of Erinnyes hovering over the accursed house, and calls on
them to continue their work till the new crime has met with its due
punishment. The murder which she sees as if already wrought, demands
death by stoning.
Footnote 358:
The “yellow” look of fear is thought of as being caused by an actual
change in the colour of the blood as it flows through the veins to the
heart.
Footnote 359:
Here there is prevision as well as clairvoyance. The deed is not yet
done. The sacrifice and the feast are still going on, yet she sees the
crime in all its circumstances.
Footnote 360:
As before (v. 115) the black eagle had been the symbol of the
warrior-chief, so here the black-horned bull, that being one of the
notes of the best breed of cattle. A various reading gives “with _her_
swarthy horn.”
Footnote 361:
What the Chorus had just said as to the fruitlessness of prophetic
insight tallied all too well with her own bitter experience.
Footnote 362:
The ecstasy of horror interrupts the tenor of her speech, and the
second “thou” is addressed not to the Chorus, but to Agamemnon, whose
death Cassandra has just witnessed in her vision.
Footnote 363:
The song of the nightingale, represented by these sounds, was
connected with a long legend, specially Attic in its origin.
Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king of Attica, suffered outrage at
the hands of Tereus, who was married to her sister Procne, and was
then changed into a nightingale, destined ever to lament over the fate
of Itys her sister's son. The earliest form of the story appears in
the _Odyssey_ (xix. 518). Comp. Sophocles, _Electr._ v. 148.
Footnote 364:
In the marriage-rites of the Greeks of the time of Æschylos, the bride
for three days after the wedding wore her veil; then, as now no longer
shrinking from her matron life, she laid it aside and looked on her
husband with unveiled face.
Footnote 365:
The picture might be drawn by any artist of power, but we may,
perhaps, trace a reproduction of one of the grandest passages in the
_Iliad_ (iv. 422-426).
Footnote 366:
So in the _Eumenides_ (v. 293), the Erinnyes appear as vampires,
drinking the blood of their victims.
Footnote 367:
The death of Myrtilos as the first crime in the long history of the
house of Pelops. Comp. Soth. _Electr._ v. 470. The “defiler” is
Thyestes, who seduced Aerope, the wife of Atreus.
Footnote 368:
The horror of the Thyestes banquet again haunts her as the source of
all the evils that followed, of the deaths both of Iphigenia and
Agamemnon. The “stay-at-home” is Ægisthos.
Footnote 369:
Both words point to the Sindbad-like stories of distant marvels
brought back by Greek sailors. The Amphisbæna (double-goer), wriggling
itself backward and forward, believed to have a head at each
extremity, was looked upon as at once the most subtle and the most
venomous of serpents. Skylla, already famous in its mythical form from
the story in the _Odyssey_ (xii. 85-100), was probably a “development”
of the monstrous cuttle-fish of the straits of Messina.
Footnote 370:
As in Homer (_Il._ i. 14) so here, the servant of Apollo bears the
wand of augury, and fillets or wreaths round head and arms. The
divining garments, in like manner, were of white linen.
Footnote 371:
If we adopt this reading, we must think of Cassandra as identifying
herself with the woe (Atè) which makes up her life, just as afterwards
Clytæmnestra speaks of herself as one with the avenging Demon
(Alastor) of the house of Atreus (1473). The alternative reading
gives—
“Make rich in woe another in my place.”
Footnote 372:
Perhaps, “in home not mine.”
Footnote 373:
When the victim, instead of shrinking and struggling, went, as with
good courage, to the altar, it was noted as a sign of divine impulse.
Such a strange, new courage the Chorus notices in Cassandra.
Footnote 374:
Possibly,
“My one escape, my friends, is but delay.”
Footnote 375:
The implied thoughts of the words is that Priam and his sons, though
they had died nobly, were yet miserable, and not happy.
Footnote 376:
The Syrian ritual had, it would seem, become proverbial for its lavish
use of frankincense and other spices.
Footnote 377:
The close parallel of Shakespeare's _Henry VI._, Act. v. sc. 6, is
worth quoting—
“The bird that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling eyes misdoubteth every bush”
Footnote 378: