stands at the tomb. Her heart is filled with bitter grief. She loathes
the task that she is commanded to perform—the rite which, after years of
callous neglect, is only now offered to the injured shade because some
beginning of fear has come into her mother’s mind. In all this time,
none of the dues that are sacred to the dead had been permitted for
Agamemnon. No libations had been poured, no locks had been shorn from
the head; and even the mourning of Electra and her women had had to be
hidden away from sight and sound of the queen. Now, suddenly, from no
motive of love or reverence to the dead, from no sense of tenderness to
her daughter, from no reason that Electra can perceive save a
premonition of danger to herself, Clytemnestra orders that the proper
ceremonies shall be observed.
Electra cannot see the real motive which sways the queen. Partly from
her very youth and innocence, partly because there is in her a tinge of
the iron temper of her father, she is blind to everything but
Clytemnestra’s guilt. She sees her mother in the light of one fact
only—the murder of the being whom she had loved most dearly. And looking
back upon the past, all its events are viewed through that harsh light.
There was the banishment of her brother Orestes; the coming of the
strange man Egisthus whom, for some reason that she could not then
comprehend, she had always loathed; the return and death of her father;
her own subsequent misery and degradation. With the hardness of youth,
she can conceive of nothing which could explain her mother’s action,
much less palliate it. Her sister Iphigenia she could not clearly
remember; and if the story of her sacrifice was known to Electra, her
absolute devotion to her father accepted it unquestioningly. In no case
could she apprehend how that crime would wound her mother; just as she
could not see or understand the darker side of Agamemnon’s character.
Only one thing was painfully realized—that the great king who was her
father, and who had known how to be tender to the little girl he left at
home in Mycenæ, had been done to death by the woman she called her
mother. And now this woman, whom the years had taught Electra to hate,
commanded her to supplicate the wronged dead for peace. Electra cannot,
and will not, entreat the dead in terms like these; and her first speech
is awful with the bitterness in her heart. She turns to the slaves, the
Trojan women who are attending her:
“_Ministrant women, orderers of the house,
Since ye move with me to this suppliant rite,
Be ye my counsellors, how I must perform it.
When I pour this tribute at the grave,
What words will be in tune? What prayer will please?
Shall I say, Father, from a loving wife
This comes to thy dear soul: yea, from my mother?’
That dare I not.—I know not how to speak,
Shedding this draught upon my father’s tomb.
Or shall I say, as mortals use, ‘Give back
The giver meet return?—to wit, some evil’?
... Be kind, and speak._“[16]
Grief and anger make her speech broken and barely coherent, as her
thoughts are. But below the emotion, and almost unconsciously, there is
a hint of some purpose forming. Once for all she puts aside her mother’s
orders; but she is not clear what will take their place. The dawning
thought has not taken shape yet; and the vague counsels of the women do
not at first help her. But presently they speak the name of Orestes, and
bid her look for help to him. She is startled at the name, and the gleam
of hope it brings lights up the underlying thought. She realizes
suddenly what it means.
ELEC. _Well said and wisely! That most heartens me._
CHO. _Then think of those who shed this blood, and pray—_
ELEC. _How? Teach me; I am ignorant. Speak on._
CHO. _Some power, divine or human, may descend——_
ELEC. _To judge or execute? What wilt thou say?_
CHO. _Few words, but clear. To kill the murderer._[16]
Here then is the thought of her own brain, clothed in words and echoed
back to her from the women whom she has implored to advise. But put thus
into cold language, they have a dreadful sound from which she recoils in
horror.
ELEC. _But will the gods not frown upon such prayer?_
CHO. _Do they not favour vengeance on a foe?_[16]
In this tense dramatic moment, we are shown what the theme of the Drama
is to be. We are shown too, as vividly and almost as rapidly as in a
lightning-flash, the clear outlines of Electra’s character. The
beautiful devotion to her father’s memory: the blind hatred of
Clytemnestra: the desire for revenge vaguely forming, and leaping
full-grown at the first prompting from without; but—and here is the
crux—that desire held in check by a profound religious sentiment. This
reverence for the gods makes the whole tragedy, for Electra and Orestes
both; it provides the dramatist with the inevitable inner conflict round
which the action will revolve; and, most important of all, it has an
ethical significance which will sanctify the revenge of Electra and
Orestes. For while the mere human impulse with them both is to strike
back rapidly and without mercy for the blow that has killed their
father, a higher sense restrains them; and it needs an imperious mandate
from Apollo to nerve them to the deed. This reluctance for the shedding
of blood is a new thing in the age-long record of the house of Tantalus.
When Electra asks whether the gods will not frown upon a prayer for
vengeance, there is the birth of a holier spirit which will atone for
and purify all those old crimes.
But first the final retribution must fall. Electra now lifts her voice
in solemn prayer to the awful gods of the underworld and to the spirit
of her father. She prays for a wiser heart and purer hand than her
mother’s. With almost faltering words—literally constrained thereto, she
says—she prays for vengeance; and she implores that Orestes may return
and claim the throne now occupied by the hated Egisthus.
It is at this moment, just as the prayer closes in the Choral hymn, that
Electra sees the locks of hair upon the tomb. She is amazed, almost
alarmed. There is only one creature in all the world who should bring
such an offering. If any other has placed it here, it is an act of
sacrilege. She takes up the hair, examines it, and speaks about it
rapidly and anxiously to the women. Gradually the conviction dawns that
it can be no other than a votive lock shorn from the head of Orestes
himself. Then he has been here? But where is he now? The thought that he
has indeed returned, that he may even be near at hand at this moment,
drives wild hope and fear alternately through her mind. Holding the lock
within her hand, she says:
“_Ah! could it but speak, and tell me
Kind news, I were not shaken thus and cloven,
Thinking two ways: but either with clear scorn
I would renounce it, as an enemy’s hair;
Or being my brother’s, it should mourn with me,
And pay sweet honours at our father’s tomb._“[16]
Meantime, Orestes in his hiding-place had verified the fact that Electra
was his sister. He had reassured himself, too, on another vital point.
What he had heard and seen had convinced him that this group of women at
least was friendly to his cause. And at its head, holding out against
great odds, and suffering extreme ills in consequence, was this brave
spirit of Electra who, with all her tender and loyal devotion, was
strong enough to dare the uttermost with him. He need no longer delay to
reveal himself. He had heard Electra’s prayer for his return, and for
vengeance on his father’s murderers; and, stepping forward, he came like
an instant answer to her petition.
ORES. _First tell the gods thy former prayer is heard.
Then pray that all to come be likewise good._[16]
But Electra cannot recognize in this tall young man the boy who left
their home so many years before. She is startled and incredulous; and
there follows a curious little scene which, if it occurred in a modern
play, would simply cause derision. Orestes gives such quaint evidence of
his identity—the colour of his hair, which matches her own; the length
of their footprints, which is similar; the embroidery on the robe that
he is wearing, which he says was wrought by her own hands before he went
to Athens. The poet is not very much concerned with probabilities. He
has a great religious purpose which dominates all other considerations;
and in the sublime onward sweep of the tragedy we are not troubled by
minor inconsistencies. At this point they are simply lost sight of, in
the keen dramatic interest of the scene when Electra is at last
convinced that this is indeed her brother. What is proof to her is more
than ample proof to us.
ELEC. _Shall I, in very truth, call thee Orestes?_
ORES. _You see myself ...
Nay, be not lost in gladness! Curb thy heart
We know, our nearest friends are dangerous foes._
ELEC. _Centre of fondness in thy father’s hall,
Tear-watered hope of blessings yet to be,
Faith in thy might shall win thee back thy home!
Oh how I joy beholding thee! Thou hast_
_Four parts in my desires, not one alone.
I call thee Father: and my mother’s claim
Falls to thy side, since utter hate is hers.
And my poor butchered sister’s share is thine.
And I adore thee as my own true brother.
But oh! may holy Right and Victory,
And highest Zeus, the Saviour, speed thee too!_[16]
Then Orestes plainly declares the reason for his return, and taking up
Electra’s prayer to Zeus, he cries for help in the vengeance to be
accomplished for his father. He claims that he has a direct mandate from
Apollo.
ORES. _... Apollo’s mighty word
Will be performed, that bade me stem this peril.
High rose that sovran voice, and clearly spake
Of stormy curses that should freeze my blood,
Should I not wreak my father’s wrongful death.
He bade me pay them back the self-same deed
Maddened by loss of all: yea, mine own soul
Should know much bitterness, were not this done._
_... For one so slain
Sees clearly, though his brows in darkness move!—
The darkling arrow of the dead, that flies
From kindred souls abominably slain ...
Should harass and unman me ..._
_... I should have no share
Of wine or dear libation, but, unseen,
My father’s wrath should drive me from all altars._[16]
Thus the command of Apollo was clear, definite, and imperative; and the
oracular utterance carried with it terrible penalties, should these two
children of the murdered king dare to disobey. Yet we feel, all through
Orestes’ speech, that the conflict is warring within him too. He cannot
accept the mandate implicitly. In the emphasis that he lays on his
authority, in the precise repetition of the very words of the oracle, in
the horror with which he enumerates the threatened punishments, we know
that he is trying to fortify himself against fear and horror at the
deed. Now that he comes close to his actual purpose, a strange new
questioning spirit arises which he strives to appease—a shuddering
reluctance which compels him to throw himself back upon the divine
mandate. “Was not this a word to be obeyed?” he asks; and then, “Yea!
Were it not, the deed must yet be done.”
But struggle as Orestes may, the doubt will not be quelled. The crime of
mother-murder which they contemplate starts up before them in all its
hideous barbarity; and the burden imposed on Orestes is more than he can
bear. As we know, it will lead him ultimately to madness. All through
the _kommos_ which follows, a long and sublimely mournful hymn chanted
alternately by Orestes, Electra and the Chorus, the brother and sister
seem to be battling with this question of the righteousness of their
action. They appeal to Zeus and to the powers of the nether world: they
cry to the spirit of their father: they remind each other of the cruelty
and shamelessness of Clytemnestra: they recall the greatness of
Agamemnon, and contrast it with his ignominious end: they dwell upon the
wrongs done to Electra, and the sin of Egisthus, and the curse upon
their house. The wave of emotion rises and falls. At one moment a solemn
confidence reassures them that the vengeance is righteous; at another,
the doubt sweeps back and shatters their assurance, and again they are
driven to bewail their wrongs and invoke the name of Justice.
ORES. _Father, no word of mine, no deed may bring
Light to the darkness where thou liest below:_
_Yet shall the dirge lament thy matchless woe,
And grace the tomb of Argos’ noblest king...._
ELEC. _Hear me, too, father, mourning in my turn;
Both thine afflicted ones towards thee yearn.
Both outcasts, both sad suppliants at thy tomb.
What dawn may pierce this overwhelming gloom?..._
ORES. _Where is your power to save,
Lords of the grave?
Oh curse, of endless might,
From lips long lost to light,
We, last of Atreus’ race
Implore thy dreadful grace,
Reft of our halls, and outlawed from our right,
Zeus, whither should we turn?_[16]
At this point is felt most strongly the undercurrent of doubt and
horror. It brims and rushes, overwhelming for a time the confident sense
of justice and trust in the oracle of the god. And here the Chorus,
expressing, as its function is, the brooding meditation of an onlooker,
echoes their inmost thought in sympathetic strains:
CHOR. _Again ye make my changeful heart to yearn,
Listening your plaintive cry. One while I feel
My soul with dark misgivings shake and reel,
But by and by the clouds are rolled away
And courage heightens with new hopes of day._
ELEC. _Oh mother! Oh enemy! Oh hard soul!
Like a foe, unhonoured by funeral bowl,
Though a prince, unfollowed by mean or high,
Thou didst bury thy husband without one sigh._
ORES. _Ah! ah! every word there hath stung.
But shall she not pay
For each shame she then flung
On my sire?_
[Illustration:
ELECTRA
_Gertrude Demain Hammond R.I._
]
ELEC. _Thou hearest our father’s death; but I was driven
To grieve apart beneath the dews of heaven;
Chased from the chambers like a thievish hound,
To pour my grief in tears upon the ground,
They came more readily than smiles.... Write this in thy
soul ..._
ORES. _Father, assist thy children in their deed!_
ELEC. _Thy daughter’s tears implore thee in deep need!..._
ORES. _The cause is set. The battle doth begin!_
ELEC. _Oh gods, be just; and make the righteous win!_[16]
The resolution is taken at last. It remains now only to ask their
father’s blessing, before putting it into effect. Orestes begs for power
to rule well in Agamemnon’s stead, and promises rich sacrifices to his
shade.
ELEC. _And I will bring
Choice offerings from all my patrimony
In day of marriage, and will honour first
My father’s tomb from the paternal hall...._
ORES. _Either send justice fighting on our side,
If thou wouldst gain requital for thy fall,
Or grant us to catch them as they caught thee._
ELEC. _Hear this last cry, my father! Look with pity
On these thy young ones sitting at thy grave,
And feel for both, the maiden and the man._[16]
The real crisis of the tragedy is in this wonderful ode, although the
action has all to follow. Doubts and fears are now subdued: Orestes and
Electra have risen to a height of stern conviction which will carry them
to the fulfilment of their purpose, although neither it nor the sanction
of Apollo will save them from remorse. The action moves rapidly now, as
though the revenge must be accomplished at once, in the heat of this
terrible purpose. Orestes is told of Clytemnestra’s dream—that she had
borne a serpent which had turned and rent her breast. He welcomes it
gladly, as an auspicious omen for him; and forms a hasty plan of action.
He and Pylades will apply for entrance at the palace gates, with a
feigned story of Orestes’ death. Electra must make ready for them
within, and secure their admittance. They will kill Egisthus first, and
afterward complete the revenge by the murder of Clytemnestra.
It is not a very skilful plot, but it succeeds. Clytemnestra receives
Orestes and his friend, believing them to be strangers from Phokis. She
is grieved and shocked at their story of Orestes’ death; and goes out to
apprise Egisthus of it. Presently Egisthus passes across the stage
alone, on his way to give an audience to the guests and, though he does
not know it, to pay the penalty for his crime. He goes into the palace,
and an instant afterward he is heard to utter a dreadful cry. Attendants
rush forth, calling upon the name of the queen.
CLYTEM. _What cry is here? What dost thou by the gate?_
ATTEN. _I say, the dead have slain the living there._
CLYTEM. _Ay me! I read thy riddle! Oh! undone!
By guile, even as we slew! Give me an axe,
A strong one; quickly too! I’ll dare the issue,
Be it for me or against me! I am come
To the utterance in this fight with Fate and Doom._[16]
Then there follows an awful scene between Orestes and Clytemnestra, as
she grieves over the body of Egisthus.
ORES. _Was he so dear to thee? Then thou shalt lie
In the same grave with blameless constancy._
CLYTEM. _Oh son, forbear! O child, respect and pity
This breast, whereat thou often, soothed to slumber,
Drainèdst with baby mouth the bounteous milk._[16]
For an instant these poignant words make Orestes waver; and he half
turns to Pylades with an appeal for counsel. But the answer is a stern
reminder of the oracular command; and the pitying moment passes.
ORES. _How should I live with her who killed my sire?_
CLYTEM. _The destinies wrought there. My son! my son!_
ORES. _Destiny works a different doom to-day...._
CLYTEM. _Oh! Wilt thou kill thy mother? O my son!_
ORES. _I kill thee not. Thy sin destroyeth thee...._
CLYTEM. _Ah!_
_I have borne and reared a serpent for my son._
ORES. _Then is fulfilled the terror of thy dream!_[16]
So Clytemnestra falls at the hands of Orestes; but the vengeance has no
joy for him. Before his mother’s mighty spirit has taken its way along
the road to Hades, a torture of remorse has fallen upon her son. Even
while he stands above the murdered body, her avenging Furies come
thronging about him “with Gorgon faces and thick serpent hair” and he
feels his reason totter.
ORES. _Hear me declare:—How this will end I know not.
I feel the chariot of my spirit borne
Far wide. My soul, like an ill-managed courser,
Is carrying me away, while my poor heart
To her own music dances in wild fear._[16]
He cries in anguish to Apollo to justify him; but there comes no answer
from the god; and faster and faster crowd those grizzly spectre forms,
rushing upon him in hideous multitudes, and menacing him with ghastly
torments. And as the tragedy closes, we see Orestes fleeing before the
rout of the Furies to find sanctuary at the shrine of Apollo, while the
Chorus wails:
“_When shall cease
Dread, Atè’s fury? When be lulled to peace?_”[16]
We hear no more of Electra from Æschylus. Measured by action, or even by
language, the part she plays in his trilogy is quite a small one. It is
significant, too, that this her first appearance in Attic Tragedy is not
called by her name, but the _Libation-bearers_. Such a title, while it
serves to remind us of a stage of Greek Drama when the Chorus was the
whole play, indicates also the poet’s conception of the theme. To
Æschylus, the religious act at Agamemnon’s tomb, with all that it
implies, was of much greater import than the figure of the great king’s
daughter. The force of destiny, the amazing mandate of the god and its
conflict with filial love and duty, and the pursuit of the matricide by
the Furies, constitute for him the essence of the tragedy. The spiritual
aspect of the story transcends for him the human interest of it. Hence
his characters, though sublimely great, are great in outline only; and
hence the brief appearance of Electra.
But when we find that Sophocles and Euripides, who wrote about Electra
afterward, have boldly made her the protagonist, and have called their
plays by her name, we are prepared for a change of attitude. The story
is now viewed from a more human standpoint. The protagonist is no longer
a chorus, but a woman: the ruling passion is now not so much a
principle, a moral, a duty, or any idea in the abstract; but strong
human will, intense human love, and mortal hatred. The motive of the
Drama is no longer a religious ceremonial, but the enactment of a tragic
story. And the final result is not now that of a grand moral lesson
conveyed through the lips of shadowy demi-gods, but a really dramatic
drama.
It follows, therefore, that with this change the character of Electra
has taken on a stronger and more complete individuality. In the version
of Sophocles, she rises to her greatest height. She is a creature who
can endure to the end and dare the uttermost: of absorbing love and
strenuous hatred: tender and strong. Unbending and uncompromising, she
is in conflict not only with the mother whom she loathes, but with the
weakness of a sister whom she loves. Implacable to her enemies, she is
capable of absolute devotion to the memory of her father and to the
absent Orestes; and in these contrasted qualities Sophocles has made of
his Electra a tremendously dramatic figure. For the finest drama, and
for the most enthralling story we must go to him. But his purpose seems
to have been merely artistic. He takes a hint from the old legend, and
developing its possibilities to the utmost he evolves a play which is
perhaps more powerful as drama and certainly more perfect as art than
that of Æschylus or Euripides. But it has hardly any other significance.
His conception of Electra, while finely complete and harmonious, is of a
being untroubled by ethical considerations, and casting no fearful
glance ‘before and after.’
With Euripides, on the other hand, the character of the protagonist
becomes more deeply significant than even Æschylus had made her. For
Euripides, the mandate of the god was false, and the vengeance taken was
a stupendous crime against humanity. When Orestes and Electra, wrought
up by passion, have accomplished it, Euripides makes reaction come to
them as to any other mortal being. They are not pursued by visible
Furies, from which they may flee to the sanctuary of Apollo, but by
remorse and cankering doubt of their own motives. For him they are
simply human creatures; and the touch of realism, animated as it is by a
daring sceptical spirit, has laid a blight on much that was beautiful in
the earlier conception of Electra’s character. To recover that, we must
go back to the _Libation-bearers_ of Æschylus.
-----
Footnote 16:
From Professor Lewis Campbell’s translation of the _Choephorœ_
(Clarendon Press).
_Æschylus: Cassandra_
For the beginning of Cassandra’s story we must go back to the epic
theme. The first word which Homer tells of her is in the Thirteenth Book
of the _Iliad_, where she is called “the fairest of Priam’s daughters.”
But that is late in the Siege; and there is a legend which gives her an
earlier connection with the tale of Troy. Indeed, we find that she was a
link in the chain of events which led Helen and the Greek army to her
native city. When she was still a young girl she had, in some mysterious
way, been beloved by the god Apollo. The god gave her the gift of
prophecy; but because she refused his love he angrily confounded the
gift that he could not recall by decreeing that her prophetic utterances
should never be believed. This is the central point round which our
thought about Cassandra must revolve. She is the virgin priestess who
holds herself inviolate even from the embraces of a divine lover; and
she is an oracle of clear vision and stainless truth, whose divination
is cursed with futility.
The events of her career show blacker and more hideous against the clear
light of her spirit. All through the long agony of the Trojan war we
have a sense of Cassandra at the altar, lifting pure hands in
supplication for her dear city. The fighting raged outside the walls
like an angry sea, while inside the town and away in the Greek
encampment all the passions let loose by war raged no less fiercely than
the battle itself. But Cassandra, withdrawn from sight and sound of the
conflict, continued to pray and sacrifice. Her life was consecrated. And
although the gods themselves seemed sometimes leagued against her;
although she had a perception of what the end must be, nothing could
weaken her endurance nor shake her will. The Trojan princes wooed her in
vain: the love of the great Sun-god himself could not make her swerve.
The glory of her beauty: her gift of vision: her lofty impassioned soul,
were vowed irrevocably to the service of her country and her home.