you would not have Hesiod solemnly repeating it. But they very early
repudiated it; and it is just the earliness and the thoroughness
of their repudiation wherein they show themselves Greek. For the
surrounding Barbarians kept on believing myths hardly less damnable,
and kept acting on their faith; whereas as early as Homer you find
the Greek protest. In Homer it is silent; he simply leaves Hesiod’s
rubbish out. But the Ionian philosophers were not silent; indeed
they included in their condemnation Homer himself. Heraclitus said
that Homer deserved to be scourged out of the assemblies of men, and
Archilochus likewise. Xenophanês said, _Homer and Hesiod attribute
to the Gods all things that are scandals and reproach among men—to
thieve, to be adulterers, and to deceive one another._ Pindar (a very
moral poet) is indignant at the suggestion that an immortal god would
eat boiled baby. Naturally, however, the poets and the philosophers
approached the myths in a different spirit, which led to what in
Plato’s time was already “a standing quarrel.” The philosophers
objected to them altogether; the poets made them so beautiful in the
telling that they passed beyond the sphere of the moralist. Even the
_Theogony_ in parts achieves nobility; even in the _Theogony_ the
Hellenizing process is at work on the Barbarian matter.
We shall be better instructed, however, if we observe the process
in a later poet and a much greater artist. It so happens that the
_Prometheus Bound_ of Aeschylus, like the _Theogony_, deals with the
relations between the Old King and the New. The drama which we know
as the _Prometheus Bound_ is only a part of what ancient scholars
called a trilogy, which is a series of three plays developing a single
theme; and we cannot even be certain whether it is the first part or
the second. Of the other members of the trilogy we possess little more
than the titles, which are _Prometheus Unbound_ and _Prometheus the
Fire-Carrier_. Most students are now strongly disposed to believe that
the _Fire-Carrier_ received its name from the circumstance that the
play had for its theme, or part of its theme, the foundation of the
Prometheia or Festival of Prometheus at Athens, the culmination of
which was a torch-race engaged in by youthful fire-carriers. Every year
the Athenian ephêbi, running with lit torches in relays of competitors,
contended which should be the first to kindle anew the fire upon the
common altar of Prometheus and Hephaistos in the Academy. If this
conjecture regarding the theme of the _Fire-Carrier_ is just, then
we may be sure that this play came last in the series, because it
celebrates the triumph of the hero. Accordingly it is usual to arrange
the trilogy in the order: _Prometheus Bound_, _Prometheus Unbound_,
_Prometheus the Fire-Carrier_.
The _Prometheus Bound_ deals with the punishment of Prometheus by Zeus.
It is commonly said that the hero of the play is punished because he
had stolen fire, which Zeus had hidden away, and bestowed it upon
mortals, who are represented as hitherto uncivilized. There is a
certain amount of truth in this view, for in the opening scene of the
play, when Prometheus is nailed to his rock, the fiend Kratos repeats
that the reason for this torture is the theft of fire. But the proper
theme of the _Prometheus Bound_ is not so much the binding of the Titan
as the keeping him in bonds; and the reason for the prolongation of his
torture is quite different from the reason for beginning it. The new
reason is the refusal of Prometheus to reveal a secret, known to him
but not to Zeus. All that Zeus knows is that one day he is fated to be
superseded by his own son. What he does not, and what Prometheus does
know, is who must be the mother of that son. On the withholding and
the final revelation of this secret revolves the whole plot, not only
of the _Prometheus Bound_, but also of the lost plays of the trilogy.
To get the truth Zeus patiently tortures his immortal victim for three
myriads of years, himself tortured by the old dynastic terror. It is
the recurring situation of the _Theogony_ renewing itself once more.
Such crude material lay before Aeschylus. But his genius and his time
alike required from him a different treatment from that which does not
dissatisfy us in the archaic chronicle of Hesiod. The genius of the
Athenian poet is of course essentially dramatic, and he lived in an
age which had woken to the need for what I will simply call a better
religion. Therefore he chose the subject of Prometheus, and therefore
he treated it dramatically. Now for the poet and his audience what is
most dramatic is, or ought to be, what is felt by them as most human;
and what is most human is simply what is most alive and real to them;
for drama aims at the illusion of reality. So Aeschylus could not
handle his matter with the hieratic simplicity of the _Theogony_. The
issues could not be so simple for the dramatist, because they are never
so simple in actual life. If Aeschylus was to make Prometheus his hero,
he would have to make him “sympathetic.” And so, in _Prometheus Bound_,
he does; Prometheus engages all our sympathy, while Zeus appears a
tyrant in the modern, and not merely the ancient, sense of the word.
But that is not the conclusion of the matter. We know that in the last
play of the trilogy the tormentor and the tormented were reconciled.
To the uncompromising Shelley this was intolerable; and so he wrote
his “Prometheus Unbound.” And nearly every one who in modern times has
written on the subject, whatever explanation or apology he may have put
forward in behalf of Aeschylus, has wished in his heart that the Greek
had felt like the Englishman.
That he did not, is just the curious and disconcerting thing we should
like explained.
The tradition, of course, counts for much. Aeschylus did not invent
his story. He found it already in existence, and he found it ending
in a certain way. We cannot tell if it ended precisely in the way
that Aeschylus represented. But we can be perfectly sure that it
did not end in an unqualified victory for Prometheus. The tradition
appears to be dead against him. Aeschylus therefore was so far bound
by that. Then the problem presented itself to him with this further
complication, that as a matter of knowledge Zeus was reigning _now_.
So the justification of Zeus against the rebel Titan becomes a
justification of the moral governance of the universe. Yet although
Aeschylus felt the restraint of the myth and the restraint of the moral
issue, it is to be believed that he submitted to them with full, and
even passionate, acceptance. Like the great artist, like the great
dramatic poet he is, he begins by stating the case for Prometheus as
strongly as he can—more strongly, it would seem, than the existing
legends quite allowed—and even in the end the Titan is not shorn of his
due honour. But as against the Olympians, Aeschylus argues (with the
Greek poets in general), the Titans were in the wrong. The sin of the
Titans was lawlessness. Prometheus, in bringing to mortals the gift of
fire, broke the law which forbade them its use. The question whether
the dealings of God with man were “just” or no, was not to be decided
by your feelings (as Prometheus judged), but by cool and measured
reflection as to what was best in the end for mankind, or rather for
the universe, of which they formed after all so small a part.
Such doctrine falls chillingly on the modern spirit. But
that is largely because we realize so ill what it means. The
_Prometheus_-trilogy was a dramatization of the conflict of Pity and
Justice embodied in two superhuman wills. Before you condemn the
solution of Aeschylus, perhaps you are bound to answer the question if
this is not the conflict which the modern world is trying with blood
and tears to solve. In the end (so the old poet fabled) Zeus the rigid
Justicer learned mercy, while his passionate enemy came to recognize
the sovereignty of Law. A compromise, if you like; but if you are sorry
for it, it only means that you are sorry for human life. I daresay
Aeschylus was sorry too, but then he was not going to be sentimental.
Life _is_ after all governed by a compromise between Justice and Pity.
And if it comes to a mere question of emotional values, does not one
love Prometheus all the more because at the last he had, like any man,
to give up a little of his desire?
Even so we shall not have done complete justice to the Greek position,
until we have renewed in our minds the Greek emotion about law, order,
measure, limitation—the things we are engaged in criticizing and, most
of us, in disparaging. We must for our purpose accept the Hellenic
paradox. We must see with the Greek that it was not the wilderness,
but the ploughed field and the ordered vineyard that was truly
romantic. And in the moral reign it was Temperance, Self-Discipline,
_Sophrosyne_; in the sphere of art the strict outline, the subjugation
of excess, that filled the Greek with the pleasurable excitement
we find in the exotic, the crude, the violent, the bizarre. The
explanation is engagingly simple. To the ancient world law and order
were the exception—the wild, romantic, hardly attainable exception;
while us they interest about as much as a couple of boiled potatoes. We
are for the Open Road and somewhere east of Suez. But the attraction
then and now is exactly the same. It is the attraction of the
unfamiliar.
We could understand the Hellenic paradox better if we had to live in an
unsettled country. We should then receive the thrill which words like
_Nomos_ and _Thesmos_ and _Kosmos_, the watchwords of civilization,
awakened in the Greek bosom. We should understand the longing for a
clue in the maze of the lawless, a saving rule to guide one through the
thickets of desperate and degrading confusion. But as it is we are so
hedged about by the barbed-wire entanglements of Government regulations
and social conventions that our desires are chiefly concentrated on
breaking through—breaking through, let us admit, at but a little
point and for but a little time, for we are really rather fond of our
prison-house and care not to be too long out of it. Yes, I think with a
little effort we can understand. We can believe that the sense of home
is strongest in the wanderer. He wanders to find his home, and when he
has found it, he cannot make it “home-like” and conventional enough.
So to the ancients Greek civilization had the flavour of a high and
rare adventure. It was a crusade, the conquest of the Barbarian—the
Barbarian without and within. Viewed in this light, the conflict
between Zeus and Prometheus assumes an aspect novel enough to us.
Zeus represents the Law—unjust in this instance if you will, unjust
as perhaps Zeus himself came in the end partly to admit—but still the
Law. Prometheus represents Anarchy. In this he shows himself truly
a Titan, for the Titans embodied the lawless forces of nature and
an undisciplined emotionality. Our fatigued spirits love to gamble
a little with these excitements. But the Greeks had just escaped
from them, and were horribly afraid of them. There is nothing their
art loved to depict like the victory of the disciplined will—fairly
typified in Zeus, perfectly in Athena—over unchained passion. Hence
those endless pictures of Olympians warring against Titans, against
Giants—of Greeks against Amazons—of Heracles, of Theseus against the
monsters. They are records of a spiritual victory won at infinite cost.
The true theme of the _Prometheus_-trilogy is the Reign of Law. Law
in the realm of affairs, _Sophrosyne_ in morals, form in art. There
is nothing tame or negative about the doctrine. The Greek spirit was
not tame or negative; it would be difficult to say how much it was not
that! Indeed the inspiration of their creed was just the desire of the
Greeks to extract the full value of their emotions. None knew better
the danger lest one
_should lose distinction in his joys
As doth a battle when they charge on heaps,
The enemy flying_.
And, from the point of view of art—always so important for them—the
rule of “measure” becomes the art of concentration. So Law stands
revealed as Beauty. As Keats says, the final condemnation of the Titans
was that, compared with the Olympians, they failed in Beauty:
_For first in Beauty shall be first in Might_.
The evolution of Greek religion is thus largely an artistic process.
It would be obstinate to deny that the process may have been carried,
at last, too far. Greek art begins as almost a form of religion;
Greek religion ends as almost a form of art. Yet it would certainly
be still more obstinate to deny that more was gained than lost. There
was gained, for instance, the Greek mythology. And what simplicity and
sincerity that were lost were not more than made up for by that Greek
religion—no longer of the State but of the individual—which we find in
Plato and (as we have begun to see) in so much of the New Testament?
How much, and with what immense justification, the Greek religious
spirit was a spirit of beauty transforming Barbarism, could hardly
be more aptly illustrated than by a story in Herodotus. It is the
tale of Atys the son of Croesus. How beautiful it is, every reader
will confess. But how instructive it is, hardly any but the special
student will recognize. For he finds in it the unmistakable features
of an ancient myth. _Atys_, the brilliant, early-dying prince whom
Herodotus, repeating the legend as he heard it, calls the son of the
historical Croesus, is no other than _Attis_, brother and son and
spouse—the ambiguity is in the myth—of the Mountain Mother of Phrygia.
Atys, slain in hunting the boar, is Attis, who was a hunter, and
scarcely distinguishable from Adonis. The matter is explained at length
by Sir James Frazer in his _Attis, Adonis and Osiris._ The myth arose
out of the worship of the Asiatic goddess variously named by the Greeks
Kybelê, Kybêbê, Rhea, and other titles, though in reality a nameless
deity, a holy Mother and Bride wedded at the right season of the year
to her son, Attis, that its fruits might be renewed through the magic
of that ritual. There was a temple of “Kybelê” near Sardis—still stand
a column or two—where the Paktôlos rushes from its mountain gorge. That
helps to explain why a prince of Sardis has entered into her myth. It
is even possible that actual princes of Sardis, did anciently personate
once a year the consort of the great goddess of the region. This at
least accords with analogy, and best explains the origin of the story
in Herodotus. For the rest it is a Phrygian tale. Olympus, where the
fabled boar is hunted, was in Mysia, which was in Phrygia. Adrastos,
“He from whom there is no Escape,” is certainly connected with the
goddess Adrasteia, much worshipped in the Phrygian Troad. Above all
it was in Phrygia that the Mountain Mother was chiefly worshipped. In
spring the Phrygians fashioned an image of the young Attis, and mourned
over it with ritual dirges, recalling his doom. Thus gradually we may
dig down to the roots of the myth.
What we find there is a thing of horror. Nana, daughter of the River
Sangarios, saw an almond-tree, which had sprung from the blood of a son
of Kybelê, whom the gods in fear of his strength had mutilated. (Here
is the Hesiodic _motif_ again.) She conceived and bare a child, which
she exposed. At first the wild goats nurtured him; then shepherds of
the mountain. At last Attis was grown so beautiful that Agdistis (who
is but a form of Kybelê) loved him, and when he would not answer her
love, drove him mad, so that he fled to the hills and there under a
pine-tree unmanned himself. From his blood sprang violets to hang about
the tree.
But for the unexpected sweetness of wild violet and mountain pine at
the close, the story is curiously unlovely. But what really gives one a
shudder is the reflection that the story mirrors a fact. The priests of
Kybelê ... what I would say is that they behaved like Attis.
You would guess none of these things from Herodotus. What has happened
to the myth that it is transmuted to the exquisite and piteous tale he
has related? We can only say that it has suffered the Greek magic. The
Hellenic spirit, dreaming on the old dark fantasy, robs it a little of
its wild, outrageous beauty (which was to reappear later in the _Attis_
of Catullus), but keeps much of its natural magic, and by introducing
the figure of the father adds overwhelmingly to the dramatic value of
the story. Most of all it steeps the whole in a wonderful rightness
of emotion. The gift which has achieved this is, as I have hinted, a
dramatic gift; the magic is the same as that which pervades the Attic
Tragedy. So much is this the case that the Tale of Atys in Herodotus
reads like a Greek tragic drama in prose. The explanation is that
ancient Tragedy arose out of just such a ritual as that from which
sprang the Atys story. That story, so far as I know, was never made the
subject of an actual drama. It seems a pity. What a subject it would
have been for Euripides!
It seems to me a legitimate procedure, in an essay of this kind, to
indicate the affinity between the tale in Herodotus and the normal
structure and method of Attic Tragedy by treating the narrative
portions of the tale as so many stage-directions, and the dialogue as
we treat the dialogue in a play, assigning every speech to its proper
speaker. Let me only add that all the dialogue, and practically all of
the stage-directions, are literally translated.
_THE DEATH OF ATYS_
[_The scene is Sardis in Lydia. It is a populous settlement of
reed-thatched houses clustering about a wonderful, sheer, enormous rock
crowned by the great walls of the Citadel. Over against it, to the
south, rises the neighbouring range of Tmôlos, whence issues the famous
little stream of the Paktôlos, which, emerging from a gorge, rolls its
gold-grained sand actually through the market-place of Sardis into
the Hermos. Some miles away, by the margin of a lake, appear the vast
grave-mounds of the Lydian kings. Within the Citadel is the ancestral
Palace of_ CROESUS. _Any one entering the palace would observe its
unwonted splendour—silver and gold and electrum everywhere. He would
also be struck by the circumstance that the walls of the great Hall are
bare of the swords and spears and quivers, which it was customary to
hang there. At present the weapons are piled in the women’s chambers._
CROESUS _is seen clad in a great purple-red mantle, and carrying a long
golden sceptre tipped with a little eagle in gold. He is surrounded by
his bodyguard of spearmen, who wear greaves and breastplates of bronze,
and helmets crested with the tails of horses._
_A_ STRANGER _in the peaked cap, embroidered dress, and tall boots of
a Phrygian noble enters with drawn sword, and with looks of haste and
horror. Seeing_ CROESUS, _he utters no word, but, running forward, sits
down by the central hearth of the house, strikes his sword into the
floor, and covers his face. By this proceeding he confesses at once
that he is a homicide, and that he desires absolution from his sin.
In silence also the_ KING _approaches and gazes on the man. Then he
goes through the elaborate and displeasing ritual of purification from
bloodshed, calling aloud on the God of Suppliants to sanctify the rite.
At last he is free to question the_ STRANGER.]
CROESUS. Man sitting at my hearth, who art thou and whence comest thou
out of Phrygia? What man or what woman hast thou slain?
STRANGER. O King, I am the son of Gordias the son of Midas, and my name
is Adrastos. Behold here one that by unhappiness hath slain his own
brother, and my father hath driven me out, and all hath been taken from
me.
CROESUS. Now art thou among friends, for there is friendship between
our houses. Here wilt thou lack nothing, so long as thou abidest in my
house. Strive to forget thy mischance; that will be best for thee.
[_The man_ ADRASTOS _enters the Palace with_ CROESUS. _Meanwhile
arrive certain messengers. They are mountaineers, dressed in skins and
carrying staves hardened at the point by fire. They come from Mount
Olympus in Mysia._]
MYSIANS. Lord, a very mighty boar hath revealed himself in our land,
the which layeth waste our tillage, neither can we by any means slay
him. Now therefore we beseech thee, send thy son with us, and chosen
young men, and dogs, that we may destroy him out of the land.
CROESUS. As for my son, make ye no mention of him hereafter; I will not
send him with you; for he hath lately married a wife, and is occupied
with this. Yet will I send chosen men of the Lydians, and all the hunt,
and straitly charge them very zealously to aid you in destroying the
beast out of the land.
_[Enters now the young man_, ATYS, _the son of_ CROESUS. _He is
dressed much in the Greek fashion, but with such ornaments of gold and
embroidery of flowers upon him as beseem a prince of the House of the
Mermnadae. He has heard of the prayer of the_ MYSIANS, _and now pleads
with his father that he may be permitted to go with them._]
ATYS. Father, aforetime when I would be going to battle and the chase
and winning honour therein, that was brave and beautiful. But now hast
thou shut me out alike from war and from the hunt, albeit thou hast
not espied in me any cowardice or weakness of spirit. And now with
what countenance must I show myself either entering or departing from
the assembly of the people? What shall be deemed of me by the folk of
this city and my newly married wife? What manner of husband will she
suppose is hers? Therefore either suffer me to go upon this hunting, or
else persuade me that thy course is better.
CROESUS. O son, I do not this because I have espied cowardice or any
unlovely thing in thee at all. But the vision of a dream came to me in
sleep, and said that thy life was not for long; by an iron edge thou
wouldest perish. Therefore I was urgent for thy marrying, because I had
regard unto this vision, and therefore I will not send thee upon this
emprise, being careful if by any means I may steal thee from death,
while I am living. For thou art mine only son, not counting the other,
the dumb.
ATYS. I blame thee not, father, that having beheld such a vision
thou keepest ward over me. But what thou perceivest not neither
understandest the significance thereof in thy dream, meet is it that I
tell thee. Thou sayest that the dream told that I should be slain by
an iron edge. But a boar—what hands hath it, or what manner of iron
edge which thou fearest? Had the dream made mention of a tusk or the
like, needs must thou do as now thou doest; but it said an edge. Seeing
therefore that it is not against men that I go to fight, let me go.
CROESUS. My son, herein thou dost convince my judgement by thine
interpretation of the dream. Wherefore being thus persuaded by thee I
do now change my thought and suffer thee to go to the hunting.
[_The_ KING _now sends for_ ADRASTOS _and they speak as follows._]
CROESUS. Adrastos, when a foul mischance smote thee (I reproach thee
not therewith), I cleansed thee of thy sin, and received thee in my
house, and have furnished thee with abundance of all things. Now
therefore (for thou owest me a kindness) keep ward over my son that
goeth forth to the chase, lest evil thieves appear to your hurt.
Moreover for thyself also it is right that thou go where thou shalt
win glory by thy mighty deeds; for so did thy fathers before thee; and
moreover thou art a mighty man.
ADRASTOS. For another reason, O King, I would not have gone on such a
venture. For neither is it seemly, nor do I wish, that one so afflicted
mingle among his fortunate peers; yea, for manifold reasons I would
have refrained. But now, since thou art urgent thereto and I am bound
to perform thy pleasure—for I owe thee return of kindness—I am ready to
do this thing: thy son, whom thou straitly chargest me to guard, expect
thou to return home without hurt, so far as I am able to guard him.
_In this manner_, continues Herodotus, _did he then make answer to
Croesus. And after that they set forth with service of chosen young
men and of dogs. And when they had come to the mountain Olympus, they
began to quest for the beast; and having found him they stood round
about him, and cast their javelins at him. Then the stranger, the man
that had been purged of the stains of blood, even he that was named
Adrastos, cast his spear at the boar, and missed him, and smote the
son of Croesus instead. And he so smitten by the edge of the spear
fulfilled the saying of the nightly vision. But one ran to tell
Croesus that which had befallen; and when he was come to Sardis he
declared to him the manner of the fight and the slaying of his son.
And Croesus being mightily troubled by the death of the young man
complained the more vehemently for that he had been killed by that
very one whom he had purified of a manslaying. And in the passion
of his grief he cried aloud with a great and terrible voice on Zeus
of Purification, calling him to bear witness what recompense he had
received at the hands of the stranger; and he named him moreover God
of the Hearth and God of Companionship, naming him by the former name
because receiving the stranger into his house he had unwittingly given
meat and drink to the slayer of his child, and by the latter name
because having sent him with his son to guard him he now found him his
greatest enemy._