Quickly all-working Time will bring a change
Across the threshold of the palace old,
When from the altar-hearth
It shall drive all the guilt,
With cleansing rites that chase away our woes;
And Fortune's throws shall fall with gladsome cast,
*Once more benign to see,[460]
For new-come strangers settled in the house:
At last we see the light.
_Enter_ ORESTES, PYLADES, _and followers from the palace. His
attendants bear the robe in which_ AGAMEMNON _had been murdered_
_Orest._ See ye this country's tyrant rulers twain, 960
My father's murderers, wasters of his house;
Stately were they, seen sitting on their thrones,
Friends too e'en now, to argue from their fate,
Whose oaths are kept to every pledge they gave.
Firmly they swore that they would slay my father,
And die together. Well those oaths are kept:
And ye who hear these ills, behold ye now
Their foul device, as bonds for my poor father,
Handcuffs, and fetters both his feet to bind.
Come, stretch it out, and standing all around, 970
Show ye the snare that wrapt him o'er, that He
May see, our Father,—not of mine I speak,
But the great Sun that looks on all we do,—
My mother's deeds, defilèd and impure,
That He may be a witness in my cause,
That I did justly bring this doom to pass
Upon my mother.... Of Ægisthos' fate
No word I speak. He bears the penalty,
As runs the law, of an adulterer's guilt;
But she who planned this crime against a man
By whom she knew the weight of children borne
Beneath her girdle, once a burden loved,
But now, as it is proved, a grievous ill, 980
What seems she to you? Had she viper been,
Or fell myræna,[461] she with touch alone,
*Rather than bite, had made a festering sore
With that bold daring of unrighteous mood.
What shall I call it, using mildest speech?
A wild beast's trap?—a pall that wraps a bier,
And hides a dead man's feet?—A net, I trow,
A snare, a robe entangling, one might call it.
Such might be owned by one to plunder trained,
Practised in duping travellers, and the life
That robs men of their money; with this trap 990
Destroying many, many deeds of ill
His fevered brain might hatch. May such as she
Ne'er share my dwelling! May the hand of God
Far rather smite me that I childless die!
_Chor._ [_looking on_ AGAMEMNON'S _robe._] Ah me! ah me! these deeds
most miserable!
By hateful murder thou wast done to death.
Woe, woe is me!
And evil buds and blooms for him that's left.
_Orest._ Was the deed hers or no? Lo! this same robe
Bears witness how she dyed Ægisthos' sword,
And the blood-stain helps Time's destroying work, 1000
Marring full many a tint of pattern fair:
*Now name I it, now as eye-witness wail;[462]
And calling on this robe that slew my father,
Moan for all done and suffered, wail my race,
Bearing the foul stains of this victory.
_Chor._ No mortal man shall live a life unharmed,
*Stout-hearted and rejoicing evermore.
Woe, woe is me!
One trouble vexes now, another comes.
_Orest._ (_wildly, as one distraught._) Nay, know ye—for I know not how
'twill end;1010
Like chariot-driver with his steeds I'm dragged
Out of my course; for passion's moods uncurbed
Bear me their victim headlong. At my heart
Stands terror ready or to sing or dance
In burst of frenzy. While my reason stays,
I tell my friends here that I slew my mother,
Not without right, my father's murderess,
Accursed, and hated of the Gods. And I
As chiefest spell that made me dare this deed
Count Loxias, Pythian prophet, warning me
That doing this I should be free from blame, 1020
But slighting.... I pass o'er the penalty[463]....
For none, aim as he will, such woes will hit.
And now ye see me, in what guise equipped,
[_Putting on the suppliant's wreaths of wool, and
taking an olive branch in his hand_
With this my bough and chaplet I will gain
Earth's central shrine, the home where Loxias dwells,
And the bright fire that is as deathless known,[464]
Seeking to 'scape this guilt of kindred blood;
And on no other hearth, so Loxias bade,
May I seek shelter. And I charge you all,
Ye Argives, bear ye witness in due time 1030
How these dark deeds of wretched ill were wrought:
But I, a wanderer, exiled from my land,
Shall live, and leaving these my prayers in death,...
_Chor._ Nay, thou hast prospered: burden not thy lips
With evil speech, nor speak ill-boding words,
When thou hast freed the Argive commonwealth,
By good chance lopping those two serpents' heads.
[_The Erinnyes are seen in the background, visible
to_ ORESTES _only, in black robes, and with
snakes in their hair_
_Orest._ Ah! ah! ye handmaids: see, like Gorgons these,
Dark-robed, and all their tresses hang entwined
With many serpents. I can bear no more.
_Chor._ What phantoms vex thee, best beloved of sons 1040
By thy dear sire? Hold, fear not, victory's thine.
_Orest._ These are no phantom terrors that I see:
Full clear they are my mother's vengeful hounds.
_Chor._ The blood fresh-shed is yet upon thy hands,
And thence it is these troubles haunt thy soul.
_Orest._ O King Apollo! See, they swarm, they swarm,
And from their eyes is dropping loathsome blood.
_Chor._ One way of cleansing is there; Loxias' form
Clasp thou, and he will free thee from these ills.
_Orest._ These forms ye see not, but I see them there:
They drive me on, and I can bear no more. [_Exit_
_Chor._ Well, may'st thou prosper; may the gracious God 1050
Watch o'er and guard thee with a chance well timed!
Here, then, upon this palace of our kings
A third storm blows again;
The blast that haunts the race has run its course.
First came the wretched meal of children's flesh;
Next what befell our king:
Slain in the bath was he who ruled our host,
Of all the Achæans lord;
And now a third has come, we know not whence,[465]
To save ... or shall I say,
To work a doom of death?
Where will it end? Where will it cease at last,
The mighty Atè dread,
Lulled into slumber deep?
-----
Footnote 401:
Hermes is invoked, (1) as the watcher over the souls of the dead in
Hades, and therefore the natural patron of the murdered Agamemnon; (2)
as exercising an authority delegated by Zeus, and therefore capable of
being, like Zeus himself, the deliverer and helper of suppliants. So
Electra, further on, invokes Hermes in the same character. The line
may, however, be rendered,
“Who stand'st as guardian of my father's house.”
The three opening lines are noticeable, as having been chosen by
Aristophanes as the special object for his satirical criticism
(_Frogs_, 1126-1176), abounding in a good score of ambiguities and
tautologies.
Footnote 402:
The words point to the two symbolic aspects of one and the same
practice. In both there are some points of analogy with the earlier
and later forms of the Nazarite vow among the Jews. (1) As being part
of the body, and yet separable from it without mutilation, it became
the representative of the whole man, and as such was the sign of a
votive dedication. As early as Homer, it was the custom of youths to
keep one long, flowing lock as consecrated, and when they reached
manhood, they cut it off, and offered it to the river-god of their
country, throwing it into the stream, as that to which, directly and
indirectly, they owed their nurture. Here the offering is made to
Inachos, as the hero-founder of Argos, identified with the river that
bore his name. (2) They shaved their head, wholly or in part, as a
token as a token of grief, and then, because true grief for the dead
was an acceptable and propitiatory offering, this became the natural
offering for suppliants who offered their prayers at the tombs of the
departed. So in the _Aias_ of Sophocles (v. 1174) Teucros calls on
Eurysakes to approach the corpse of his father, holding in his hand
locks of his own hair, his mother's, and that of Teucros. In the
offering which Achilles makes over the grave of Patroclos of the hair
which he had cherished for the river-god of his fatherland,
Spercheios, we have the union of the two customs. Homer. _Il._ xxiii.
141-151.
Footnote 403:
After the widespread fashion of the East, the handmaids of
Clytæmnestra (originally Troïan captives) had to rend their clothes,
beat their breasts, and lacerate their faces till the blood came. The
higher civilisation of Solon's laws had forbidden these wild,
barbarous forms of grief at Athens. Plutarch, _Solon_, p. 164.
Footnote 404:
Purposely, perhaps, obscure. They seem to say that the old reverence
for Agamemnon has passed away, and instead of it there is only a
slavish fear for Ægisthos. For the more acute, however, they imply
that those who have cause to fear are Ægisthos and Clytæmnestra
themselves.
Footnote 405:
The words, in their generalising sententiousness, refer specially to
the twofold crime of Ægisthos as an adulterer and murderer. Then, in
the Epode, the Chorus justify themselves for their seeming
inconsistency in thus abhorring the guilt, and yet acting as
instruments of the guilty in their attempts to escape punishment.
Footnote 406:
The mourners speak, of course, of Agamemnon and Orestes, not of
Ægisthos and Clytæmnestra.
Footnote 407:
A mixture of meal, honey, and oil formed the half-liquid substance
commonly used for these funereal libations. The “garlands” may be
wreaths of flowers or fillets, or the word may be used figuratively
for the libation itself, as crowning the mound in which Agamemnon lay.
Footnote 408:
The words point to a strange Athenian custom. When a house was
cleansed of that which defiled it, morally or physically, the filth
was carried in an earthen vessel to a place where three ways met, and
the worshipper flung the vessel behind him, and walked away without
turning to look at it. To Electra's mind, the libation which her
mother sends is equally unclean, and should be treated in the same
way. So in Hom. _Il._ i. 314, the Argives purify themselves, and then
cast the lustral water they have used into the sea. Lev. vi. 11, gives
us an analogous usage. Comp. also Theocritos, _Idyll_ xxiv., vv.
22-97.
Footnote 409:
Partly it is the youth of Electra that seeks counsel from those who
had more experience; partly she shrinks from the responsibility of
being the first to utter the formula of execration.
Footnote 410:
The word “escort” has a special reference to the function of Hermes in
the unseen world. As he was wont to act as guide to the souls of the
dead in their downward journey, so now Electra prays that he may lead
the blessings she asks for upward from the dark depths of Earth.
Footnote 411:
The Skythian bow, long and elastic, bending either way, like those of
the Arabians (Herod. vii. 69). The connection of Ares with the wild,
fierce tribes of Thrakia and Skythia meets us again and again in the
literature of Greece. He was the only God to whom they built temples
(_ibid._ iv. 59). They sacrificed human victims to an iron sword as
his more appropriate symbol (iv. 62). The use of iron for weapons of
war came to the Greeks from them (_Seven ag. Th._ 729; _Prom._ 714).
Footnote 412:
It may be worth while to compare the method adopted by the three
dramatists of Greece in bringing about the recognition of the brother
by the sister. (1) Here the lock of hair, in its peculiar colour and
texture resembling her own, followed by the likeness of his footsteps
to hers, prepares the way first for vague anticipations, and then the
robe she had made for him, leads to her acceptance of Orestes on his
own discovery of himself. To this it has been objected, by Euripides
in the first instance (_Electra_, vv. 462-500), that the evidence of
the colour of the hair is weak, that a young man's foot must have been
larger than a maiden's, and that he could not have worn as a man the
garment she had made for him as a child. It might be replied, perhaps,
that there are such things as hereditary resemblances extending to the
colour of the hair and the arch of the instep, and that the robe may
either have been shown instead of worn, or, being worn, have been
adapted for the larger growth. (2) In the _Electra_ of Sophocles the
lock of hair alone convinces Chrysothemis that her brother is near at
hand (v. 900), while Electra herself requires the further evidence of
Agamemnon's seal (v. 1223). In Euripides (v. 527), all proof fails
till Orestes shows a scar on his brow, which his sister remembers.
Footnote 413:
The saying is probably one of the widespread proverbs which imply
parables. The idea is obviously that with which we are familiar in the
Gospel “grain of mustard seed.” Here, as in the “kicking against the
pricks” of Acts ix. 5, xxvi. 14, and _Agam._ v. 1604, we are carried
back to a period which lies beyond the range of history as that in
which men took note of the analogies and embodied them in forms like
this.
Footnote 414:
So in the _Odyssey_ (xix. 228), Odysseus appears as wearing a woollen
cloak, on which are embroidered the figures of a fawn and a dog.
Footnote 415:
An obvious reproduction of the words of Andromache (_Il._ vi. 429).
Footnote 416:
The words seem to imply that burning alive was known among the Greeks
as a punishment for the most atrocious crimes. The “oozing pitch,” if
we adopt that rendering, apparently describes something like the
“_tunica molesta_” of Juvenal. (_Sat._ viii. 235.) Hesychios (s. v.
Κωνῆσαι) mentions the practice as alluded to in a lost play of
Æschylos.
Footnote 417:
The words are both doubtful and obscure. Taking the reading which I
have adopted, they seem to mean that while men in general had means of
propitiating the Erinnyes and other Powers for the guilt of unavenged
bloodshed, Orestes and Electra had no such way of escape open to them.
If they, the next of kin, failed to do their work, they would be
exposed to the full storm of wrath. But a conjectural emendation of
one word gives us,
“For making known to men the earth-born ills
That come from wrathful Powers.”
Footnote 418:
Either that old age would come prematurely, or that the hair itself
would share the leprous whiteness of the flesh.
Footnote 419:
The words, as taken in the text, refer to Orestes seeing even in sleep
the spectral forms of the Erinnyes. By some editors the verse is
placed after v. 276, and the lines then read thus:—
“And that he calls fresh onsets of the Erinnyes
As brought to issue from a father's blood,
Seeing clearly, though he move his brow in darkness.”
So taken, the last line refers to Agamemnon, who, though in the
darkness of Hades, sees the penalties which will fail upon his son
should he neglect to take vengeance on his father's murderers.
Footnote 420:
Stress is laid here, as in _Agam._ 1224, on the effeminacy of the
adulterer.
Footnote 421:
The great law of retribution is repeated from _Agam._ 1564. As one of
the earliest utterances of man's moral sense, it was referred
popularly among the Greeks to Rhadamanthos, who with Minos judged the
souls of the dead in Hades. Comp. Aristot. _Ethic. Nicom._, v. 8.
Footnote 422:
The funeral pyre, which consumes the body, leaves the life and power
of the man untouched. The spirit survives, and calls on the Gods that
dwell in darkness to avenge him. The very cry of wailing tends, as a
prayer to them, to the exposure of the murderer.
Footnote 423:
The Lykians, of whom Glaucos and Sarpedon are the representative
heroes in the _Iliad_, are named as the chief allies of the Troïans.
Footnote 424:
The words embody the widespread feeling that the absence of funereal
honours affected the spirit of the dead, and that the souls with whom
he dwelt held him in high or low esteem according as they had been
given or withheld.
Footnote 425:
Pindar (_Pyth._ x. 47), the contemporary of Æschylos, had made the
name of these Hyperborei well known to all Greeks. The vague dreams of
men, before the earth had been searched out, pictured a happy land as
lying beyond their reach. There were Islands of the Blest in the far
West; Æthiopians, peaceful and long-lived, in the South; and far away,
beyond the cold North, a people exempt from the common evils of
humanity. The latter have been connected with the old Aryan belief in
the paradise of Mount Meru. Comp. also Herod. iv. 421; _Prom._ 812.
Footnote 426:
_Sc._, the beating of both hands upon the breast, as the Chorus
uttered their lamentations.
Footnote 427:
Perhaps, simply “the sharp and bitter cry.” But the rendering in the
text seems justified as repeating the wish already expressed (v. 260),
that the murderers may die by this form of death.
Footnote 428:
The Chorus at this point renew their words and cries of lamentation,
smiting on their breasts. By some critics this speech and Antistrophe
VII. are assigned to Electra, Antistrophe VIII. to the Chorus, with a
corresponding change in the pronouns “my” and “thy.” The Chorus, as
consisting of Troïan captives, is represented as adopting the more
vehement Asiatic forms of wailing. Among these the Arians, Kissians,
and Mariandynians (_Pers._ 920) seem to have been most conspicuous for
their skill in lamentation, and, as such, were in request where hired
mourners were wanted. Compare the opening chorus, v. 22.
Footnote 429:
The practice of mutilating the corpse of a murdered man by cutting off
his hands and feet and fastening them round his waist, seems to have
been looked on as rendering him powerless to seek for vengeance. Comp.
Soph. _Elect._ v. 437. This kind of mutilation, and not mere wanton
outrage, is what the Chorus refer to.
Footnote 430:
As in v. 351 the loss of honour among the dead was represented as one
consequence of the absence of funereal rites from those who loved the
dead, so here the restoration of the children to their rights appears
as the condition without which that dishonour must continue. If they
succeed, then, and then only, can they offer funereal banquets, year
by year, as was the custom. There may be a special reference to an
Argive custom mentioned by Plutarch (_Quæst. Græc._, c. 24) of
sacrificing immediately after the death of a relative to Apollo, and
thirty days later to Hermes.
Footnote 431:
Another reference to the third cup of undiluted wine which men drank
to the honour of Zeus the Preserver. Comp. _Agam._ v. 245.
Footnote 432:
Possibly the pronoun refers to Pylades.
Footnote 433:
The story of Althæa has perhaps been made most familiar to English
readers by Mr. Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_. More briefly told,
the legend ran that she, being the wife of Œneus, bare a son, who was
believed to be the child of Ares—that the Fates came to her when the
boy, who was named Meleagros, was seven days old, and told her that
his life should last until the firebrand then burning on the earth
should be consumed. She took the firebrand and quenched it, and laid
it by in a chest; but when Meleagros grew up, he joined in the chase
of the great boar of Calydon, and when he had slain it, gave the skin
as a trophy to Atalanta, and when his mother's brothers, the sons of
Thestios, claimed it as their right, he waxed wroth with them and slew
them. And then Althæa, in her grief, caring more for her brothers than
her son, took the brand from the chest, and threw it into the fire,
and so Meleagros died. Phrynichos is said to have made the myth the
subject of a drama. In Homer (_Il._ x. 566), Althæa brings about her
son's death by her curses.
Footnote 434:
Skylla (not to be confounded with the sea-monster of Messina) was the
daughter of Nisos, king of Megaris, who had on his head a lock of
purple hair, which was a charm that preserved his life from all
danger. And the Cretans under Minos attacked Nisos, and besieged him
in his city; and Minos won the love of Skylla, and tempted her with
gifts, and she cut off her father's lock of hair, and so he perished.
But Minos, scorning her for her deed, bound her by the feet to the
stern of his ship and drowned her.
Footnote 435:
Hermes, _i.e._, in his office as the escort of the souls of the dead
to Hades.
Footnote 436:
The Chorus apparently is represented as on the point of completing its
catalogue of crimes committed by women with the story of
Clytæmnestra's guilt. Something leads them to check themselves, and
they are contented with a dark and vague allusion.
Footnote 437:
The story of the Lemnian women is told by Herodotos (vi. 138). They
rose up against their husbands and put them all to death; and the deed
passed into a proverb, so that all great crimes were spoken of as
Lemnian. This guilt is that alluded to in Strophe III.
Footnote 438:
In every case of which the Chorus had spoken guilt had been followed
by retribution. So, it is implied, it will be in that which is present
to their thoughts.
Footnote 439:
_Sc._, is not forgotten or overlooked, but will assuredly meet with
its due punishment.
Footnote 440:
So in Homer (_Il._ xxii. 444), the warm bath is prepared by Andromache
for Hector on his return from the battle in which he fell.
Footnote 441:
As in her speeches in the _Agamemnon_ (vv. 595, 884), Clytæmestra's
words here also are full of significant ambiguity. The “things that
befit the house,” the proposed conference with Ægisthos, her
separation of Orestes from his companions, are all indications of
suspicion already half aroused. The last three lines were probably
spoken as an “aside.”
Footnote 442:
Suasion is personified, and invoked to come and win Clytæmnestra to
trust herself in the power of the two avengers.
Footnote 443:
An alternative rendering is,
“Nay, say not that to him with show of hate.”
Footnote 444:
Apollo in the shrine at Delphi.
Footnote 445:
Hermes invoked once more, as at once the patron of craft and the
escort of the dead.
Footnote 446:
Or “before our eyes.”
Footnote 447:
The “treasured score” is explained by the words that follow to mean
the cry of exultation which the Chorus will raise when the deed of
vengeance is accomplished; or, possibly (as Mr. Paley suggests), the
funereal wail over the bodies of Ægisthos and Clytæmnestra, which the
Chorus would raise to avert the guilt of the murder from Orestes.
Footnote 448:
As Perseus could only overcome the Gorgon, Medusa, by turning away his
eyes, lest looking on her he should turn to stone, so Orestes was to
avoid meeting his mother's glance, lest that should unman him and
blunt his purpose.
Footnote 449:
Ægisthos had suffered enough, he says, for his share in Agamemnon's
death. He has no wish that fresh odium should fall on him, as being
implicated also in the death of Orestes, of which he has just heard.
Footnote 450:
The word (_ephedros_) was applied technically to one who sat by during
a conflict between two athletes, prepared to challenge the victor to a
fresh encounter. Orestes is such a combatant, taking the place of
Agamemnon.
Footnote 451:
So, in Homer (_Il._ xxii. 79), Hecuba, when the entreaties of Priam
had been in vain, makes this last appeal—
“Then to the front his mother rushed, in tears,
Her bosom bare, with either hand her breast
Sustaining, and with tears addressed him thus,
'Hector, my son, thy mother's breast revere.'”
Footnote 452:
The reader will note this as the only speech put into the lips of
Pylades, though he is present as accompanying Orestes throughout great
part of the drama.
Footnote 453:
The different ethical standard applied to the guilt of the husband and
the wife was, we may well believe, that which prevailed among the
Athenians generally. It has only too close a parallel in the ballads
and romances of our own early literature.
Footnote 454:
The line is memorable as prophetic of the whole plot of the
_Eumenides._
Footnote 455:
The phrase “wail as to a tomb” seems to have been a by-word for
fruitless entreaty and lamentation.
Footnote 456:
Clytæmnestra sees now the important of the dream referred to in vv.
518-522.
Footnote 457:
The words must be left in their obscurity. Commentators have
conjectured Orestes and Pylades, or the deaths of Agamemnon and
Iphigeneia, or those of Ægisthos and Clytæmnestra, as the “two lions,”
spoken of. The first seems most in harmony with the context.
Footnote 458:
The Eternal Justice which orders all things is mightier than any
arbitrary will, such as men attribute to the Gods. That will, even if
we dare to think of it as changeable or evil, is held in restraint. It
cannot, even if it would, protect the evildoers.
Footnote 459:
The Chorus feel that they have been too long silent; now, at last,
they can speak. As slaves dreading punishment they had been gagged
before; now the gag is removed.
Footnote 460:
Or, “Once more for those who wail.”
Footnote 461:
It is not clear with what form of animal life the _myræna_ is to be
identified. The ideal implied is that of some sea-monster whose touch
was poisonous, but this does not hold good of the “lamprey.”
Footnote 462:
As the text stands, Orestes says that at last he can speak of the
murder over which he had long brooded in silence. Another reading
makes him speak of the oscillations in his own mind—
“Now do I praise myself, now wail and blame.”
Footnote 463:
Comp. vv. 270-288.
Footnote 464:
Delphi was to the Greek (as Jerusalem was to mediæval Christendom) the
centre at once of his religious life and of the material earth. Its
rock was the _omphalos_ of the world. Consecrated widows watched over
the sacred and perpetual fire. Once only up to the time of Æschylos,
when the Temple itself was desecrated by the Persians, had it ceased
to burn.
Footnote 465:
Once again we have the thought of the third cup offered as a libation
to Zeus as saviour and deliverer. The Chorus asks whether this third
deed of blood will be true to that idea and work out deliverance.