Progress of the Tragic Art among the Greeks--Various styles of Tragic Art
--Aeschylus--Connexion in a Trilogy of Aeschylus--His remaining Works.
Of the inexhaustible stores possessed by the Greeks in the department of
tragedy, which the public competition at the Athenian festivals called
into being (as the rival poets always contended for a prize), very little
indeed has come down to us. We only possess works of three of their
numerous tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and of these but
a few in proportion to the whole number of their compositions. The extant
dramas are such as were selected by the Alexandrian critics as the
foundation for the study of the older Grecian literature, not because they
alone were deserving of estimation, but because they afforded the best
illustration of the various styles of tragic art. Of each of the two older
poets, we have seven pieces remaining; in these, however, we have,
according to the testimony of the ancients, several of their most
distinguished productions. Of Euripides we have a much greater number, and
we might well exchange many of them for other works which are now lost;
for example, for the satirical dramas of Achaeus, Aeschylus, and
Sophocles, or, for the sake of comparison with Aeschylus, for some of
Phrynichus' pieces, or of Agathon's, whom Plato describes as effeminate,
but sweet and affecting, and who was a contemporary of Euripides, though
somewhat his junior.
Leaving to antiquarians to sift the stories about the waggon of the
strolling Thespis, the contests for the prize of a he-goat, from which the
name of tragedy is said to be derived, and the lees of wine with which the
first improvisatory actors smeared over their visages, from which rude
beginnings, it is pretended, Aeschylus, by one gigantic stride, gave to
tragedy that dignified form under which it appears in his works, we shall
proceed immediately to the consideration of the poets themselves.
The tragic style of Aeschylus (I use the word "style" in the sense it
receives in sculpture, and not in the exclusive signification of the
manner of writing,) is grand, severe, and not unfrequently hard: that of
Sophocles is marked by the most finished symmetry and harmonious
gracefulness: that of Euripides is soft and luxuriant; overflowing in his
easy copiousness, he often sacrifices the general effect to brilliant
passages. The analogies which the undisturbed development of the fine arts
among the Greeks everywhere furnishes, will enable us, throughout to
compare the epochs of tragic art with those of sculpture. Aeschylus is the
Phidias of Tragedy, Sophocles her Polycletus, and Euripides her Lysippus.
Phidias formed sublime images of the gods, but lent them an extrinsic
magnificence of material, and surrounded their majestic repose with images
of the most violent struggles in strong relief. Polycletus carried his art
to perfection of proportion, and hence one of his statues was called the
Standard of Beauty. Lysippus distinguished himself by the fire of his
works; but in his time Sculpture had deviated from its original
destination, and was much more desirous of expressing the charm of motion
and life than of adhering to ideality of form.
Aeschylus is to be considered as the creator of Tragedy: in full panoply
she sprung from his head, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter. He clad
her with dignity, and gave her an appropriate stage; he was the inventor
of scenic pomp, and not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing,
but appeared himself as an actor. He was the first that expanded the
dialogue, and set limits to the lyrical part of tragedy, which, however,
still occupies too much space in his pieces. His characters are sketched
with a few bold and strong touches. His plots are simple in the extreme:
he did not understand the art of enriching and varying an action, and of
giving a measured march and progress to the complication and denouement.
Hence his action often stands still; a circumstance which becomes yet more
apparent, from the undue extension of his choral songs. But all his poetry
evinces a sublime and earnest mind. Terror is his element, and not the
softer affections, he holds up a head of Medusa before the petrified
spectators. In his handling Destiny appears austere in the extreme; she
hovers over the heads of mortals in all her gloomy majesty. The cothurnus
of Aeschylus has, as it were, the weight of iron: gigantic figures stalk
in upon it. It seems as if it required an effort for him to condescend to
paint mere men; he is ever bringing in gods, but especially the Titans,
those elder divinities who typify the gloomy powers of primaeval nature,
and who had been driven long ago into Tartarus before the presence of a
new and better order of things. He endeavours to swell out his language to
a gigantic sublimity, corresponding to the vast dimensions of his
personages. Hence he abounds in harsh compounds and over-strained
epithets, and the lyrical parts of his pieces are often, from their
involved construction, extremely obscure. In the singular strangeness of
his images and expressions he resembles Dante and Shakspeare. Yet in these
images there is no want of that terrific grace which almost all the
writers of antiquity commend in Aeschylus.
Aeschylus flourished in the very freshness and vigour of Grecian freedom,
and a proud sense of the glorious struggle by which it was won, seems to
have animated him and his poetry. He had been an eye-witness of the
greatest and most glorious event in the history of Greece, the overthrow
and annihilation of the Persian hosts under Darius and Xerxes, and had
fought with distinguished bravery in the memorable battles of Marathon and
Salamis. In the _Persians_ he has, in an indirect manner, sung the
triumph which he contributed to obtain, while he paints the downfall of
the Persian ascendancy, and the ignominious return of the despot, with
difficulty escaping with his life, to his royal residence. The battle of
Salamis he describes in the most vivid and glowing colours. Through the
whole of this piece, and the _Seven before Thebes_, there gushes forth a
warlike vein; the personal inclination of the poet for a soldier's
life, shines throughout with the most dazzling lustre. It was well
remarked by Gorgias, the sophist, that Mars, instead of Bacchus, had
inspired this last drama; for Bacchus, and not Apollo, was the tutelary
deity of tragic poets, which, on a first view of the matter, appears
somewhat singular, but then we must recollect that Bacchus was not merely
the god of wine and joy, but also the god of all higher kinds of
inspiration.
Among the remaining pieces of Aeschylus, we have what is highly deserving
of our attention--a complete _Trilogy_. The antiquarian account of
the trilogies is this: that in the more early times the poet did not
contend for the prize with a single piece, but with three, which, however,
were not always connected together in their subjects, and that to these
was added a fourth,--namely, a _satiric drama_. All were acted in one
day, one after another. The idea which, in relation to the tragic art, we
must form of the trilogy, is this: a tragedy cannot be indefinitely
lengthened and continued, like the Homeric Epos for instance, to which
whole rhapsodies have been appended; tragedy is too independent and
complete within itself for this; nevertheless, several tragedies may be
connected together in one great cycle by means of a common destiny running
through the actions of all. Hence the restriction to the number three
admits of a satisfactory explanation. It is the thesis, the antithesis,
and the synthesis. The advantage of this conjunction was that, by the
consideration of the connected fables, a more complete gratification was
furnished than could possibly be obtained from a single action. The
subjects of the three tragedies might be separated by a wide interval of
time, or follow close upon one another.
The three pieces which form the trilogy of Aeschylus, are the _Agamemnon_,
the _Choephorae_ or, we should call it, _Electra_, and the _Eumenides_ or
_Furies_. The subject of the first is the murder of Agamemnon by
Clytemnestra, on his return from Troy. In the second, Orestes avenges his
father by killing his mother: _facto pius et sceleratus eodem_. This deed,
although enjoined by the most powerful motives, is, however, repugnant to
the natural and moral order of things. Orestes, as a prince, was, it is
true, called upon to exercise justice, even on the members of his own
family; but we behold him here under the necessity of stealing in disguise
into the dwelling of the tyrannical usurper of his throne, and of going to
work like an assassin. The memory of his father pleads his excuse; but
however much Clytemnestra may have deserved her death, the voice of blood
cries from within. This conflict of natural duties is represented in the
_Eumenides_ in the form of a contention among the gods, some of whom
approve of the deed of Orestes, while others persecute him, till at last
Divine Wisdom, in the persona of Minerva, balances the opposite claims,
establishes peace, and puts an end to the long series of crime and
punishment which have desolated the royal house of Atreus.
A considerable interval takes place between the period of the first and
second pieces, during which Orestes grows up to manhood. The second and
third are connected together immediately in order of time. Upon the murder
of his mother, Orestes flees forthwith to Delphi, where we find him at the
commencement of the _Eumenides_.
In each of the two first pieces, there is a visible reference to the one
which follows. In _Agamemnon_, Cassandra and the chorus, at the close,
predict to the haughty Clytemnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus, the
punishment which awaits them at the hands of Orestes. In the _Choephorae_,
Orestes, upon the execution of the deed of retribution, finds that all
peace is gone: the furies of his mother begin to persecute him, and he
announces his resolution of taking refuge in Delphi.
The connexion is therefore evident throughout; and we may consider the
three pieces, which were connected together even in the representation, as
so many acts of one great and entire drama. I mention this as a
preliminary justification of the practice of Shakspeare and other modern
poets, to connect together in one representation a larger circle of human
destinies, as we can produce to the critics who object to this the
supposed example of the ancients.
In _Agamemnon_, it was the intention of Aeschylus to exhibit to us a
sudden fall from the highest pinnacle of prosperity and renown into the
abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, the general of the combined forces of
the Greeks, in the very moment of success and the glorious achievement of
the destruction of Troy, the fame of which is to be re-echoed from the
mouths of the greatest poets of all ages, in the very act of crossing the
threshold of his home, after which he had so long sighed, and amidst the
fearless security of preparations for a festival, is butchered, according
to the expression of Homer, "like an ox in the stall," slain by his
faithless wife, his throne usurped by her worthless seducer, and his
children consigned to banishment or to hopeless servitude.
With the view of giving greater effect to this dreadful reverse of
fortune, the poet endeavours to throw a greater splendour over the
destruction of Troy. He has done this in the first half of the piece in a
manner peculiar to himself, which, however singular, must be allowed to be
impressive in the extreme, and well fitted to lay fast hold of the
imagination. It is of importance to Clytemnestra that she should not be
surprised by the sudden arrival of her husband; she has therefore arranged
an uninterrupted series of signal fires from Troy to Mycenae, to announce
to her that great event. The piece commences with the speech of a
watchman, who supplicates the gods for a deliverance from his labours, as
for ten long years he has been exposed to the cold dews of night, has
witnessed the changeful course of the stars, while looking in vain for the
expected signal; at the same time he sighs in secret over the corruption
which reigns within the royal house. At this moment he sees the long-
wished-for beacon blazing up, and hastens to announce it to his mistress.
A chorus of aged persons appears, and in their songs they go through the
whole history of the Trojan War, through all its eventful fluctuations of
fortune, from its origin, and recount all the prophecies relating to it,
and the sacrifice of Iphigenia, by which the sailing of the Greeks was
purchased. Clytemnestra explains to the chorus the joyful cause of the
sacrifice which she orders; and the herald Talthybius immediately makes
his appearance, who, as an eye-witness, relates the drama of the conquered
and plundered city, consigned as a prey to the flames, the joy of the
victors, and the glory of their leader. With reluctance, as if unwilling
to check their congratulatory prayers, he recounts to them the subsequent
misfortunes of the Greeks, their dispersion, and the shipwreck suffered by
many of them, an immediate symptom of the wrath of the gods. It is obvious
how little the unity of time was observed by the poet,--how much, on the
contrary, he avails himself of the prerogative of his mental dominion over
the powers of nature, to give wings to the circling hours in their course
towards the dreadful goal. Agamemnon now arrives, borne in a sort of
triumphal car; and seated on another, laden with booty, follows Cassandra,
his prisoner of war, and concubine also, according to the customary
privilege of heroes. Clytemnestra greets him with hypocritical joy and
veneration; she orders her slaves to cover the ground with the most costly
embroideries of purple, that it might not be touched by the foot of the
conqueror. Agamemnon, with wise moderation, refuses to accept an honour
due only to the gods; at last he yields to her solicitations, and enters
the palace. The chorus then begins to utter its dark forebodings.
Clytemnestra returns to allure, by friendly speeches, Cassandra also to
destruction. The latter is silent and unmoved, but the queen is hardly
gone, when, seized with prophetic furor, she breaks out into the most
confused and obscure lamentations, but presently unfolds her prophecies
more distinctly to the chorus; in spirit she beholds all the enormities
which have been perpetrated within that house--the repast of Thyestes,
which the sun refused to look upon; the ghosts of the mangled children
appear to her on the battlements of the palace. She also sees the death
which is preparing for her lord; and, though shuddering at the reek of
death, as if seized with madness, she rushes into the house to meet her
own inevitable doom, while from behind the scene we hear the groans of the
dying Agamemnon. The palace opens; Clytemnestra stands beside the body of
her king and husband; like an insolent criminal, she not only confesses
the deed, but boasts of and justifies it, as a righteous requital for
Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia to his own ambition. Her jealousy of
Cassandra, and criminal connexion with the worthless Aegisthus, who does
not appear till after the completion of the murder and towards the
conclusion of the piece, are motives which she hardly touches on, and
throws entirely into the background. This was necessary to preserve the
dignity of the subject; for, indeed, Clytemnestra could not with propriety
have been portrayed as a frail seduced woman--she must appear with the
features of that heroic age, so rich in bloody catastrophes, in which all
passions were violent, and men, both in good and evil, surpassed the
ordinary standard of later and more degenerated ages. What is more
revolting--what proves a deeper degeneracy of human nature, than horrid
crimes conceived in the bosom of cowardly effeminacy? If such crimes are
to be portrayed by the poet, he must neither seek to palliate them, nor to
mitigate our horror and aversion of them. Moreover, by bringing the
sacrifice of Iphigenia thus immediately before us, the poet has succeeded
in lessening the indignation which otherwise the foul and painful fate of
Agamemnon is calculated to awaken. He cannot be pronounced wholly
innocent; a former crime recoils on his own head: besides, according to
the religious idea of the ancients, an old curse hung over his house.
Aegisthus, the author of his destruction, is a son of that very Thyestes
on whom his father Atreus took such an unnatural revenge; and this fateful
connexion is vividly brought before our minds by the chorus, and more
especially by the prophecies of Cassandra.
I pass over the subsequent piece of the _Choephorae_ for the present;
I shall speak of it when I come to institute a comparison between the
manner in which the three poets have handled the same subject.
The fable of the _Eumenides_ is, as I have already said, the justification
of Orestes, and his absolution from blood-guiltiness: it is a trial, but a
trial where the accusers and the defenders and the presiding judges are
gods. And the manner in which the subject is treated corresponds with its
majesty and importance. The scene itself brought before the eyes of the
Greeks all the highest objects of veneration that they acknowledged.
It opens in front of the celebrated temple at Delphi, which occupies the
background; the aged Pythia enters in sacerdotal pomp, addresses her
prayers to all the gods who at any time presided, or still preside, over
the oracle, harangues the assembled people (represented by the actual
audience), and goes into the temple to seat herself on the tripod. She
returns full of consternation, and describes what she has seen in the
temple: a man, stained with blood, supplicating protection, surrounded by
sleeping women with snaky hair; she then makes her exit by the same
entrance as she came in by. Apollo now appears with Orestes, who is in a
traveller's garb, and carries a sword and olive-branch in his hands. He
promises him his farther protection, enjoins him to flee to Athens, and
commends him to the care of the present but invisible Mercury, to whose
safeguard travellers, and especially those who were under the necessity of
journeying by stealth, were usually consigned.
Orestes goes off at the side which was supposed to lead to foreign lands;
Apollo re-enters his temple, which remains open, and the Furies are seen
in the interior, sleeping on the benches. Clytemnestra's ghost now ascends
by the charonic stairs, and, passing through the orchestra, appears on the
stage. We are not to imagine it a haggard skeleton, but a figure with the
appearance of life, though paler, with the wound still open in her breast,
and shrouded in ethereal-coloured vestments. She calls on the Furies, in
the language of vehement reproach, and then disappears, probably through a
trap-door. The Furies awake, and not finding Orestes, they dance in wild
commotion round the stage, while they sing the choral song. Apollo again
comes out of the temple, and drives them away, as profaning his sanctuary.
We may imagine him appearing with the sublime displeasure of the Apollo of
the Vatican, with bow and quiver, but also clad with tunic and chlamys.
The scene now changes; but as the Greeks on such occasions were fond of
going the shortest way to work, the background probably remained
unchanged, and was now supposed to represent the temple of Minerva, on the
Areopagus, while the lateral decorations were converted into Athens and
its surrounding landscape. Orestes now enters, as from foreign land, and,
as a suppliant, embraces the statue of Pallas standing before the temple.
The chorus (who, according to the poet's own description, were clothed in
black, with purple girdles, and serpents in their hair, in masks having
perhaps something of the terrific beauty of Medusa-heads, and marking too
their great age on the principles of sculpture) follows close on his
steps, but for the rest of the piece remains below in the orchestra. The
Furies had at first behaved themselves like beasts of prey, furious at the
escape of their booty, but now, hymning with tranquil dignity the high and
terrible office they had among mortals, they claim the head of Orestes, as
forfeited to them, and devote it with mysterious charms to endless
torment. At the intercession of the suppliant, Pallas, the warrior-virgin,
appears in a chariot drawn by four horses. She inquires the cause of his
invocation, and listens with calm dignity to the mutual complaints of
Orestes and his adversaries, and, at the solicitation of the two parties,
finally undertakes, after due reflection, the office of umpire. The
assembled judges take their seats on the steps of the temple--the herald
commands silence among the people by sound of trumpet, just as in a real
trial. Apollo advances to advocate the cause of his suppliant, the Furies
in vain protest against his interference, and the arguments for and
against the deed are debated between them in short speeches. The judges
cast their ballots into the urn, Pallas throws in a white one; all is
wrought up to the highest pitch of expectation; Orestes, in agony of
suspense, exclaims to his protector--
O Phoebus Apollo, how will the cause be decided?
The Furies on the other hand:
O Night, black Mother, seest thou these doings?
Upon counting the black and white pebbles, they are found equal in number,
and the accused, therefore, by the decision of Pallas, is acquitted. He
breaks out into joyful thanksgiving, while the Furies on the other hand
declaim against the overbearing arrogance of these younger gods, who take
such liberties with those of Titanic race. Pallas bears their rage with
equanimity, addresses them in the language of kindness, and even of
veneration; and these so indomitable beings are unable to withstand the
charms of her mild eloquence. They promise to bless the land which is
under her tutelary protection, while on her part Pallas assigns them a
sanctuary in the Attic domain, where they are to be called the
_Eumenides_, that is, "the Benevolent Goddesses." The whole ends with
a solemn procession round the theatre, with hymns of blessing, while bands
of children, women, and old men, in purple robes and with torches in their
hands, accompany the Furies in their exit.
Let us now take a retrospective view of the whole trilogy. In the
_Agamemnon_ we have a predominance of free-will both in the plan and
execution of the deed: the principal character is a great criminal, and
the piece ends with the revolting impressions produced by the sight of
triumphant tyranny and crime. I have already pointed out the allusions it
contains to a preceding destiny.
The deed committed in the _Choephorae_ is partly enjoined by Apollo
as the appointment of fate, and partly originates in natural motives:
Orestes' desire of avenging his father, and his brotherly love for the
oppressed Electra. It is only after the execution of the deed that the
struggle between the most sacred feelings becomes manifest, and here again
the sympathies of the spectators are excited without being fully appeased.
From its very commencement, the _Eumenides_ stands on the very summit
of tragical elevation: all the past is here, as it were, concentrated into
a focus. Orestes has become the mere passive instrument of fate; and free
agency is transferred to the more elevated sphere of the gods. Pallas is
properly the principal character. That opposition between the most sacred
relations, which often occurs in life as a problem not to be solved by
man, is here represented as a contention in the world of the gods.
And this brings me to the pregnant meaning of the whole. The ancient
mythology is in general _symbolical_, although not _allegorical_; for the
two are _certainly_ distinct. Allegory is the personification of an idea,
a poetic story invented solely with such a view; but that is symbolical
which, created by the imagination for other purposes, or possessing an
independent reality of its own, is at the same time easily susceptible of
an emblematical explanation; and even of itself suggests it.
The Titans in general symbolize the dark and mysterious powers of
primaeval nature and mind; the younger gods, whatsoever enters more
immediately within the circle of consciousness. The former are more nearly
allied to original chaos, the latter belong to a world already reduced to
order. The Furies denote the dreadful powers of conscience, in so far as
it rests on obscure feelings and forebodings, and yields to no principles
of reason. In vain Orestes dwells on the just motives which urged him to
the deed, the cry of blood still sounds in his ear. Apollo is the god of
youth, of the noble ebullition of passionate indignation, of bold and
daring action. Accordingly this deed was commanded by him. Pallas is
thoughtful wisdom, justice, and moderation, which alone can allay the
conflict of reason and passion.
Even the sleep of the Furies in the temple is symbolical; for only in the
sanctuary, in the bosom of religion, can the fugitive find rest from the
torments of conscience. Scarcely, however, has he ventured forth again
into the world, when the image of his murdered mother appears, and again
awakes them. The very speech of Clytemnestra betrays its symbolical
import, as much as the attributes of the Furies, the serpents, and their
sucking of blood. The same may be said of Apollo's aversion for them; in
fact, this symbolical character runs through the whole. The equal cogency
of the motives for and against the deed is denoted by the equally divided
votes of the judges. And if at last a sanctuary within the Athenian
territory is offered to the softened Furies, this is as much as to say
that reason is not everywhere to enforce its principles against
involuntary instinct, that there are in the human mind certain boundaries
which are not to be passed, and all contact with which even every person
possessed of a true sentiment of reverence will cautiously avoid, if he
would preserve peace within.
So much for the deep philosophical meaning which we need not wonder to
find in this poet, who, according to the testimony of Cicero, was a
Pythagorean. Aeschylus had also political views. Foremost of these was the
design of rendering Athens illustrious. Delphi was the religious centre of
Greece, and yet how far it is thrown into the shade by him! It can shelter
Orestes, indeed, from the first onset of persecution, but not afford him a
complete liberation; this is reserved for the land of law and humanity.
But, a further, and in truth, his principal object was to recommend as
essential to the welfare of Athens the Areopagus [Footnote: I do not find
that this aim has ever been expressly ascribed to Aeschylus by any ancient
writer. It is, however, too plain to be mistaken, and is revealed
especially in the speech of Pallas, beginning with the 680th verse. It
agrees, moreover, with the account, that in the very year when the piece
was represented, (Olymp. lxxx. 1.) a certain Ephialtes excited the people
against the Areopagus, which was the best guardian of the old and more
austere constitution, and kept democratic extravagance in check. This
Ephialtes was murdered one night by an unknown hand. Aeschylus received
the first prize in the theatrical games, but we know that he left Athens
immediately afterwards, and passed his remaining years in Sicily. It is
possible that, although the theatrical judges did him justice, he might be
held in aversion by the populace, and that this induced him, without any
express sentence of banishment, to leave his native city. The story of the
sight of the terrible chorus of Furies having thrown children into mortal
convulsions, and caused women to miscarry, appears to be fabulous. A poet
would hardly have been crowned, who had been the occasion of profaning the
festival by such occurrences.], an uncorruptible yet mild tribunal, in
which the white ballot of Pallas given in favour of the accused is an
invention which does honour to the humanity of the Athenians. The poet
shows how a portentous series of crimes led to an institution fraught with
blessings to humanity.
But it will be asked, are not extrinsic aims of this kind prejudicial to
the pure poetical impressions which the composition ought to produce? Most
undoubtedly, if pursued in the manner in which other poets, and especially
Euripides, have followed them out. But in Aeschylus the aim is subservient
to the poetry, rather than the poetry to the aim. He does not lower
himself to a circumscribed reality, but, on the contrary, elevates it to a
higher sphere, and connects it with the most sublime conceptions.
In the _Oresteia_ (for so the trilogy or three connected pieces was
called,) we certainly possess one of the sublimest poems that ever was
conceived by the imagination of man, and, probably, the ripest and most
perfect of all the productions of his genius. The date of the composition
of them confirms this supposition: for Aeschylus was at least sixty years
of age when he brought these dramas on the stage, the last with which he
ever competed for the prize at Athens. But, indeed, every one of his
pieces that has come down to us, is remarkable either for displaying some
peculiar property of the poet, or, as indicative of the step in art at
which he stood at the date of its composition.
I am disposed to consider the _Suppliants_ one of his more early works. It
probably belonged to a trilogy, and stood between two other tragedies on
the same subject, the names of which are still preserved, namely the
_Egyptians_ and the _Danaidae_. The first, we may suppose, described the
flight of the _Danaidae_ from Egypt to avoid the detested marriage with
their cousins; the second depicts the protection which they sought and
obtained in Argos; while the third would contain the murder of the
husbands who were forced upon them. We are disposed to view the two first
pieces as single acts, introductory to the tragical action which properly
commences in the last. But the tragedy of the _Suppliants_, while it is
complete in itself, and forms a whole, is yet, when viewed in this
position, defective, since it is altogether without reference to or
connexion with what precedes and what follows. In the _Suppliants_ the
chorus not only takes a part in the action, as in the _Eumenides_, but it
is even the principal character that attracts and commands our interest.
This cast of the tragedy is neither favourable for the display of
peculiarity of character, nor the exciting emotion by the play of powerful
passions; or, to speak in the language of Grecian art, it is unfavourable
both to _ethos_ and to _pathos_. The chorus has but one voice and one
soul: to have marked the disposition common to fifty young women (for the
chorus of _Danaidae_ certainly amounted to this number,) by any exclusive
peculiarities, would have been absurd in the very nature of things: over
and above the common features of humanity such a multitude could only be
painted with those common to their sex, their age, and, perhaps, those of
their nation. In respect to the last, the intention of Aeschylus is more
conspicuous than his success: he lays a great stress on the foreign
descent of the _Danaidae_; but this he does but assert of them, without
allowing the foreign character to be discovered in their words and
discourse. The sentiments, resolutions, and actions of a multitude, and
yet manifested with such uniformity, and conceived and executed like the
movements of a regular army, have scarcely the appearance of proceeding
freely and directly from the inmost being. And, on the other hand, we take
a much stronger interest in the situations and fortunes of a single
individual with whose whole character we have become intimately
acquainted, than in a multitude of uniformly repeated impressions massed
as it were together. We have more than reason to doubt whether Aeschylus
treated the fable of the third piece in such a way that Hypermnestra, the
only one of the _Danaidae_ who is allowed to form an exception from the
rest, became, with her compassion or her love, the principal object of the
dramatic interest: here, again, probably, his chief object was by
expressing, in majestic choral songs, the complaints, the wishes, the
cares, and supplications of the whole sisterhood, to exhibit a kind of
social solemnity of action and suffering.
In the same manner, in the _Seven before Thebes_, the king and the
messenger, whose speeches occupy the greatest part of the piece, speak
more in virtue of their office than as interpreters of their own personal
feelings. The description of the assault with which the city is
threatened, and of the seven leaders who, like heaven-storming giants,
have sworn its destruction, and who, in the emblems borne on their
shields, display their arrogance, is an epic subject clothed in the pomp
of tragedy. This long and ascending series of preparation is every way
worthy the one agitating moment at which Eteocles, who has hitherto
displayed the utmost degree of prudence and firmness, and stationed, at
each gate, a patriotic hero to confront each of the insolent foes; when
the seventh is described to him as no other than Polynices, the author of
the whole threatened calamity, hurried away by the Erinnys of a father's
curse, insists on becoming himself his antagonist, and, notwithstanding
all the entreaties of the chorus, with the clear consciousness of
inevitable death, rushes headlong to the fratricidal strife. War, in
itself, is no subject for tragedy, and the poet hurries us rapidly from
the ominous preparation to the fatal moment of decision: the city is
saved, the two competitors for the throne fall by each other's hands, and
the whole is closed by their funeral dirge, sung conjointly by the sisters
and a chorus of Theban virgins. It is worthy of remark that Antigone's
determination to inter her brother, notwithstanding the prohibition with
which Sophocles opens his own piece, which he names after her, is
interwoven with the conclusion of this play, a circumstance which, as in
the case of the _Choephorae_, immediately connects it with a new and
further development of the tragic story.
I wish I could persuade myself that Aeschylus composed the _Persians_
to comply with the wish of Hiero, King of Syracuse, who was desirous
vividly to realize the great events of the Persian war. Such is the
substance of one tradition; but according to another, the piece had been
previously exhibited in Athens. We have already alluded to this drama,
which, both in point of choice of subject, and the manner of handling it,
is undoubtedly the most imperfect of all the tragedies of this poet that
we possess. Scarcely has the vision of Atossa raised our expectation in
the commencement, when the whole catastrophe immediately opens on us with
the arrival of the first messenger, and no further progress is even
imaginable. But although not a legitimate drama, we may still consider it
as a proud triumphal hymn of liberty, clothed in soft and unceasing
lamentations of kindred and subjects over the fallen majesty of the
ambitious despot. With great judgment, both here and in the _Seven before
Thebes_, the poet describes the issue of the war, not as accidental, which
is almost always the case in Homer, but (for in tragedy there is no place
for accident,) as the result of overweening infatuation on the one hand,
and wise moderation on the other.
The _Prometheus Bound_, held also a middle place between two others--
the _Fire-bringing Prometheus_ and the _Prometheus Unbound_, if we dare
reckon the first, which, without question, was a satiric drama, a part of
a trilogy. A considerable fragment of the _Prometheus Unbound_ has been
preserved to us in a Latin translation by Attius.
The _Prometheus Bound_ is the representation of constancy under suffering,
and that the never-ending suffering of a god. Exiled in its scene to a
naked rock on the shore of the earth-encircling ocean, this drama still
embraces the world, the Olympus of the gods, and the earth, the abode of
mortals; all as yet scarcely reposing in security above the dread abyss of
the dark primaeval powers--the Titans. The idea of a self-devoting
divinity has been mysteriously inculcated in many religions, in dim
foreboding of the true; here, however, it appears in most fearful
contrast to the consolations of Revelation. For Prometheus does not suffer
from any understanding with the power which rules the world, but in
atonement for his disobedience to that power, and his disobedience
consists in nothing but the attempt to give perfection to the human race.
He is thus an image of human nature itself; endowed with an unblessed
foresight and riveted to a narrow existence, without a friend or ally, and
with nothing to oppose to the combined and inexorable powers of nature,
but an unshaken will and the consciousness of her own lofty aspirations.
The other productions of the Greek Tragedians are so many tragedies; but
this I might say is Tragedy herself: her purest spirit revealed with all
the annihilating and overpowering force of its first, and as yet
unmitigated, austerity.
There is little of external action in this piece. Prometheus merely
suffers and resolves from the beginning to the end; and his sufferings and
resolutions are always the same. But the poet has, in a masterly manner,
contrived to introduce variety and progress into that which in itself was
determinately fixed, and has in the objects with which he has surrounded
him, given us a scale for the measurement of the matchless power of his
sublime Titan. First the silence of Prometheus, while he is chained down
under the harsh inspection of _Strength_ and _Force_, whose threats serve
only to excite a useless compassion in Vulcan, who is nevertheless forced
to carry them into execution; then his solitary complainings, the arrival
of the womanly tender ocean nymphs, whose kind but disheartening sympathy
stimulates him to give freer vent to his feelings, to relate the causes of
his fall, and to reveal the future, though with prudent reserve he reveals
it only in part; the visit of the ancient Oceanus, a kindred god of the
Titanian race, who, under the pretext of a zealous attachment to his
cause, counsels submission to Jupiter, and is therefore dismissed with
proud contempt; next comes Io, the frenzy-driven wanderer, a victim of the
same tyranny as Prometheus himself suffers under: to her he predicts the
wanderings to which she is still doomed, and the fate which at last awaits
her, which, in some degree, is connected with his own, as from her blood,
after the lapse of many ages, his deliverer is to spring; then the
appearance of Mercury, as the messenger of the universal tyrant, who, with
haughty menaces, commands him to disclose the secret which is to ensure
the safety of Jupiter's throne against all the malice of fate and fortune;
and, lastly, before Prometheus has well declared his refusal, the yawning
of the earth, which, amidst thunder and lightning, storms and earthquake,
engulfs both him and the rock to which he is chained in the abyss of the
nether world. The triumph of subjection was never perhaps more gloriously
celebrated, and we have difficulty in conceiving how the poet in the
_Prometheus Unbound_ could have sustained himself on the same height of
elevation.
In the dramas of Aeschylus we have one of many examples that, in art as
well as in nature, gigantic productions precede those that evince
regularity of proportion, which again in their turn decline gradually into
littleness and insignificance, and that poetry in her earliest appearance
attaches itself closely to the sanctities of religion, whatever may be the
form which the latter assumes among the various races of men.
A saying of the poet, which has been recorded, proves that he endeavoured
to maintain this elevation, and purposely avoided all artificial polish,
which might lower him from this godlike sublimity. His brothers urged him
to write a new Paean. He answered: "The old one of Tynnichus is the best,
and his compared with this, fare as the new statues do beside the old; for
the latter, with all their simplicity, are considered divine; while the
new, with all the care bestowed on their execution, are indeed admired,
but bear much less of the impression of divinity." In religion, as in
everything else, he carried his boldness to the utmost limits; and thus he
even came to be accused of having in one of his pieces disclosed the
Eleusinean mysteries, and was only acquitted on the intercession of his
brother Aminias, who bared in sight of the judges the wounds which he had
received in the battle of Salamis. He perhaps believed that in the
communication of the poetic feeling was contained the initiation into the
mysteries, and that nothing was in this way revealed to any one who was
not worthy of it.
In Aeschylus the tragic style is as yet imperfect, and not unfrequently
runs into either unmixed epic or lyric. It is often abrupt, irregular, and
harsh. To compose more regular and skilful tragedies than those of
Aeschylus was by no means difficult; but in the more than mortal grandeur
which he displayed, it was impossible that he should ever be surpassed;
and even Sophocles, his younger and more fortunate rival, did not in this
respect equal him. The latter, in speaking of Aeschylus, gave a proof that
he was himself a thoughtful artist: "Aeschylus does what is right without
knowing it." These few simple words exhaust the whole of what we
understand by the phrase, powerful genius working unconsciously.