δεῖ σ’ ἀντὶ τῶν πρὶν ὀλβίων φρονημάτωνπτῆξαι ταπεινήν, προσπεσεῖν τ’ ἐμὸν γόνυ,σαίρειν τε δῶμα τοὐμόν, ἐκ χρυσηλάτωντεύχεων χερὶ σπείρουσαν Ἀχελῴου δρόσον,γνῶναι θ’ ἵν’ εἶ γῆς,[551]
δεῖ σ’ ἀντὶ τῶν πρὶν ὀλβίων φρονημάτωνπτῆξαι ταπεινήν, προσπεσεῖν τ’ ἐμὸν γόνυ,σαίρειν τε δῶμα τοὐμόν, ἐκ χρυσηλάτωντεύχεων χερὶ σπείρουσαν Ἀχελῴου δρόσον,γνῶναι θ’ ἵν’ εἶ γῆς,[551]
δεῖ σ’ ἀντὶ τῶν πρὶν ὀλβίων φρονημάτωνπτῆξαι ταπεινήν, προσπεσεῖν τ’ ἐμὸν γόνυ,σαίρειν τε δῶμα τοὐμόν, ἐκ χρυσηλάτωντεύχεων χερὶ σπείρουσαν Ἀχελῴου δρόσον,γνῶναι θ’ ἵν’ εἶ γῆς,[551]
δεῖ σ’ ἀντὶ τῶν πρὶν ὀλβίων φρονημάτων
πτῆξαι ταπεινήν, προσπεσεῖν τ’ ἐμὸν γόνυ,
σαίρειν τε δῶμα τοὐμόν, ἐκ χρυσηλάτων
τεύχεων χερὶ σπείρουσαν Ἀχελῴου δρόσον,
γνῶναι θ’ ἵν’ εἶ γῆς,[551]
the last phrase is marvellous. The very sound and fall of the words, with the two long monosyllables, can only be described as a verbal box on the ears. Observe too the great speech[552]of Andromache. In the lines
νῦν δ’ ἐς γυναῖκα γοργὸς ὁπλίτης φανείςκτείνεις μ’· ἀπόκτειν’, ὡς ἀθώπευτόν γέ σεγλώσσης ἀφήσω τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ παῖδα σήν,
νῦν δ’ ἐς γυναῖκα γοργὸς ὁπλίτης φανείςκτείνεις μ’· ἀπόκτειν’, ὡς ἀθώπευτόν γέ σεγλώσσης ἀφήσω τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ παῖδα σήν,
νῦν δ’ ἐς γυναῖκα γοργὸς ὁπλίτης φανείςκτείνεις μ’· ἀπόκτειν’, ὡς ἀθώπευτόν γέ σεγλώσσης ἀφήσω τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ παῖδα σήν,
νῦν δ’ ἐς γυναῖκα γοργὸς ὁπλίτης φανείς
κτείνεις μ’· ἀπόκτειν’, ὡς ἀθώπευτόν γέ σε
γλώσσης ἀφήσω τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ παῖδα σήν,
one can hear the words gurgling in her throat before they issue in speech; at the end she is positively hissing. Peleus, too, ineffectual as he may be in argument, is a master of pungent rhetoric.[553]
For readers who admire exclusively the Sophoclean type of play, theAndromacheis a painful experience to be forgotten as soon as possible. For any who find interest in the behaviour of ordinary beings at a great testing moment, this work is an endless delight.
TheHercules Furens[554]orMad Heracles(Ἡρακλῆς Μαινόμενος) is perhaps the next play in order of time. Most critics place it about the year 420B.C.or a little earlier; the chief reason for this is the celebrated chorus about old age—it is natural supposition that the poet had recently passed beyond the military age, and so would now be just over sixty.
The scene is laid before the house of Heracles at Thebes. Amphitryon, reputed father of the hero, explains the situation. Heracles, leaving his wife Megara and his three sons with Amphitryon, has departed to Hades in quest of Cerberus. In his absence one Lycus has seized the throne and intends to murder Heracles’ family. Megara would submit, but Amphitryon still hopes for Heracles’ return. Certain aged Thebans, who form the chorus, arrive, followed by Lycus who, after sneers at Heracles, orders his henchmen to burn his victims in their house. Megara begs of Lycus that they be given time to array themselves for death. He consents, and the sufferers retire. Lycus departs, and soon the sad procession returns. Suddenly Heracles himself enters. He tells that he has brought back Cerberus and released Theseus, King of Athens, from the lower world; he promises to destroy Lycus and goes within. A splendid ode lamentsthe weakness of old age but glorifies the Muses. Lycus returns, enters the house, and is slain; the chorus greet his yells with delight and hail Heracles as now proved the son of Zeus. Suddenly Iris and Frenzy sweep down from the sky, sent by Hera to drive Heracles mad. Frenzy herself is reluctant, but enters the house, and the chorus raise cries of horror, amid which the house totters in ruin. A messenger relates how Heracles, after slaying Lycus, has been seized with madness and destroyed his wife and children. The eccyclema shows the hero sunk in stupor. He awakes and, realizing his situation, meditates suicide, but Theseus arrives and wins him back to courage; after terrible outbursts against Heaven he departs to live with Theseus in Athens.
After a cursory reading of this play one’s impressions are doubtful. Many features excite warm admiration, such as the superb lyric[555]on old age, the speeches[556]of Megara about her fatherless boys, Heracles’ replies[557]to Theseus; even the wrangle between Lycus and Amphitryon is full of idiomatic vigour.[558]But to be blunt, what is the play about? It works up to a climax in the deliverance of Amphitryon and his kin, and then begins again. Long before the close we have forgotten Lycus. We feel that the play is structureless, or (which is worse) that it falls so clearly into two dramas that we cannot view it as a single piece of art. But if we seriously seek for unity, we naturally look for it in the fortunes of Heracles himself. This granted, we shall expect to find that the incident which in a bare summary seems to disjoint the whole is specially treated. Looking then at the incursion of Lycus, we find that at every moment the events are considered from the point of view of Heracles, in terms of his actions, and the sentiments which cling to his personality. We are only prevented from seeing this at first by the modern supposition that the culmination of a tragedy is the death ofa leading person, not a spiritual crisis. The discussion between Amphitryon and Megara about instant submission is dominated by despair of the hero’s return in the latter’s mind and by hope of it in the former’s. As soon as Lycus arrives, he asks: “What hope, what defence find ye against death? Believe ye that the father of these lads, he who lies in Hades, will return?” Whereupon he proceeds to a long tirade in abuse of the hero, and Amphitryon’s even more garrulous response deals almost solely with his son’s achievements and the gratitude which he merits from Thebes and Greece. As the doomed party go indoors the old man reminds Heaven itself of the help it owes to Heracles, and the following lyrics are an elaborate chronicle of his marvellous exploits. Finally, when at point to die, Megara in a beautifully natural manner turns her farewell to her sons into a painful memory of the plans which their father used to make for them. In this way the danger of his family is considered as a test of Heracles’ powers and greatness. Will he make good the promise of his past glories? Will he return and free them from Lycus?
Dr. Verrall[559]follows this line of thought, giving to it far greater precision and colour. He believes that the subject of this play is the miraculous tone investing the traditional stories about Heracles. According to popular belief in the poet’s day, Heracles was a son of Zeus; he performed many exploits which were definitely superhuman, culminating in a descent to Hades and return therefrom. These stories are untrue. The play indicates this simply and directly, giving, however, most attention to the method by which they won credence. In a primitive civilization, when men had not yet attained to clear thinking, remarkable but human feats like those of Heracles were extolled as miraculous by the uncritical. Such are Amphitryon and the chorus, who when challenged by Lycus are capable only of violent reiteration of their belief, but offer, and can offer, noproof that the miracles happened. It is a curious symptom of the former’s vague credulity that while loving and defending Heracles as his own son, he yet claims[560]the help of Zeus on the ground that the god is himself Heracles’ father. The Theban elders join[561]in this irrational belief—as soon as it appears that the divine parentage is established by the return from Hades, which even if true would of course have nothing to do with the question. It is in such minds as this that belief in the miraculous life of Heracles first sprang up. But this belief rests largely upon the accounts of his adventures given by Heracles himself; thus we come to the heart of the tragedy, the mental condition of the hero.
Near the end he exclaims against the consolations of Theseus: “Alas! such words as thine are too trivial for my sorrows. I think not that the gods love unlawful unions, and that they put chains upon one another is a belief I never held nor will I ever. God, if he be God, in truth needs naught. These are but poets’ wretched tales.”[562]Plainly, the sober and reasonable speech which begins thus repudiates the highly-coloured but pernicious stories of tradition to which Theseus has just appealed. Heracles believes in one God utterly above human weaknesses. Then what of Zeus’ love of Alcmena, the jealousy of Hera, the whole basis of his suffering as conceived by the orthodox? And what of his own semi-divine nature, the foundation again of his superhuman deeds? They are delusions. Heracles is no demi-god; his exploits, however great and valuable, are in no sense miraculous. This view, moreover, is precisely that which we ought to gain from the early part of the drama. Lycus is no doubt an insolent bully, but would certainly not brave annihilation (whether at the hands of Zeus or of his son) by slaughtering a demi-god’s family. That he acts so proves that he does not believe in the divine parentage of Heracles; and the support soreadily given by Thebes to his policy shows as plainly that to the mass of citizens no real proofs of superhuman nature have been offered. In brief, the actions and language of every one in the play except Heracles himself, Amphitryon, and the chorus—of every one, including Theseus and even Megara, imply that in this play Heracles is indeed a person of note, but an “eminent man” of no very startling eminence.
But the hero himself long before this repudiation of “poets’ wretched tales” has himself given them authority. He tells his father that in truth he has visited Hades, dragged Cerberus thence, and rescued Theseus. At many places[563]in the drama he refers without misgiving or query to legendary monsters which he has quelled, and to his safe return from Hades. This inconsistency, according to Dr. Verrall, is the root of the drama. Heracles suffers from a growing tendency to madness; in his sane moods he knows that all his story is human, all the nobler for its humanity, but in his dark hours he accepts the vulgar splendours which rumour throws round his adventures, at such times lending nascent myth the support of his own false witness. The tragedy of his life has been this mental distemper, which has finally caused him to destroy his wife and children. It appears in dreadful paroxysms throughout the first speech which he addresses to Theseus—first an attempt to account for his murderous outbreak by an account of purely human events; then inconsistently a reference to Zeus’ fatherhood and the attempt of Hera upon his infant life, followed by a splendidly vigorous catalogue of legendary deeds, Typhos, the giants, and the rest, culminating with despairing comments on his hopeless guilt and on the complete victory of Hera; then he suddenly rends the goddess with his scorn: “to such a deity who would pray?—for a jealous quarrel she has destroyed the guiltless benefactor of Greece”.
Two important details should be noted in connexionwith this theory. First the apparition[564]of Iris and Frenzy seems to overthrow it utterly by a demonstration in presence of the audience that Heracles’ afflictions are caused by Hera. But the past scene, before ever Frenzy arrives, has shown the hero, if not mad, yet not in full possession of his senses.[565]Moreover, she is not seen by him at the moment when he goes mad, yet, if the chorus see her,a fortiorishe should be visible when attacking her victim himself; again the scene in which the fiend herself shows kind-hearted scruples, is ludicrous. These personages (Verrall suggests) are a dream beheld by a member of the chorus who has been impressed by what he has already seen of Heracles’ malady. This is proved by an absence of allusion to the event afterwards when the fatal incident is discussed, and when silence is incredible. The aged man (or men) will gradually remember the dream afterwards; this is another way in which stories like that of Hera’s vengeance obtain currency.
The second point arises from the conversation between Theseus and his friend when clearly sane. Does he confirm the story of the visit to Hades? Now, Heracles and he several times refer to his rescue “from below,” but never do they use language which necessarily refers to Hades. “Thou didst bring me back safe to the light from the dead (or corpses)”[566]—such is the style of allusion. Undoubtedly the language can be applied to Hades; undoubtedly also it could fit some natural event like a disaster in a cave or mine which may actually have been suggested[567]by rationalists of the day as an explanation of the myth—a suggestion which thepoet is inclined to adopt and for which therefore he leaves room in his phraseology.
Theseus, amiable as he is, yet presents little of interest; it is his function to voice the opinions of the normal unimaginative man. Megara, however, of whom little has been said, deserves sympathetic study. She does not share Amphitryon’s extraordinary beliefs about his son,[568]but loves and admires him with an affection beautifully expressed throughout the too brief portion of the drama in which she appears; it is she who long before the other realizes his mental state.[569]In her, too, poetical imagination shines forth with a radiance which surpasses the charm of the lyrics and Heracles’ impetuous eloquence. It is she who utters the Sophoclean description[570]of sovereignty:—
ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέριπηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα,
ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέριπηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα,
ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέριπηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα,
ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέρι
πηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα,
and that expression[571]of her yearning grief which in its strange felicity of pathos suggests Shakespeare’s Constance:—
πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτεροςμέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους,εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ;
πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτεροςμέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους,εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ;
πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτεροςμέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους,εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ;
πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτερος
μέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους,
εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ;
TheSupplices[572](Ἱκετίδες), orSuppliant Women, is generally supposed on internal evidence[573]to have been produced about 420B.C.
The Suppliants, who form the chorus, are the mothers of the Seven who attacked Thebes and their attendants. They surround Æthra, mother of Theseus, the Athenian king, and beg her to win his aid for them, since the Thebans have refused burial to the slain. Theseus at first refuses, but Æthra persuades him. A Theban herald enters to forbid Theseus, in the name ofthe Theban king Creon, to aid the Suppliants. Theseus rejects this behest and prepares for war. After an ode, news comes of the Athenian victory. The remains of five heroes are brought in (of the other two, Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth and Polynices is supposed still at Thebes). Adrastus delivers funeral speeches over them. The obsequies now take place. The body of Capaneus is burned separately, and Evadne his wife throws herself upon his pyre despite the entreaties of her father Iphis. The young sons of the chieftains bear in the funeral urns, and Adrastus promises that Argos will cherish undying gratitude towards Athens. The goddess Athena appears and bids Theseus exact an oath to this effect; she comforts the fatherless boys with a promise of vengeance.
This drama is perhaps the least popular and the least studied of all Greek plays, which is not surprising when one considers that, in spite of the praise merited by certain parts, the whole work considered by really dramatic standards is astonishingly bad. There is no character-drawing worth the name, and though it may be said that the real heroine of the drama is Athens,[574]it is still strange to find Euripides contented with such colourless persons as Theseus, Æthra, and indeed all the characters. Still more striking are the irrelevancies. Theseus’ address[575]to Adrastus and the assembly at large concerning the blessings conferred by Heaven upon man, have hardly a semblance of connexion with the urgent and painful subject of debate. Even more otiose, and far longer, is the dispute[576]between Theseus and the herald on the claims of monarchy and democracy. The scene of Evadne’ssuttee, however striking, is dramatically unjustifiable; it is an episode in the bad sense meant by Aristotle—no integral part of the action. The last scene is spoiled by the intervention of Athena, who merely causes the Argives to give an oath insteadof a simple promise that they will ever be loyal friends of Athens. That this intervention corresponds to very definite historical fact (the league between the two states in 420B.C.brought about by Alcibiades) makes no difference to the æsthetic fact. None the less one notes in theSupplicescertain excellent features. The appeal[577]of Æthra to her son, and the lyric dirge of Evadne over her husband’s pyre, are admirably composed. Several parts of the work are magnificent as spectacle—the opening in which the sorrowing mothers, Adrastus, and the fatherless boys are grouped about the aged queen, the return of Theseus and his troops with the dead bodies, the episode of Evadne as it struck the eye,[578]and the procession of boys carrying the funeral urns.
TheIon[579](Ἴων) is a play of uncertain date, but was probably produced late in Euripides’ life; some would place it as low as 413B.C.
The scene is laid before the temple at Delphi. Hermes tells how the Athenian princess Creusa, owing to the violence of Apollo, bore a child, which Hermes brought to Delphi, where the boy grew up as a temple-attendant. Later Creusa married Xuthus, and to-day they will come to ask the oracle some remedy for their childlessness. Apollo will give Ion to Xuthus as the latter’s son; later he is to be made known to Creusa as her own. Ion enters, and in a beautiful song expresses his joy in the service of Apollo. The chorus (attendants of Creusa) draw near; they converse with Ion and admire the temple façade. Creusa arrives; she and Ion are mutually attracted, and she tells how “a friend,” having borne a child to Apollo and exposed it, wishes to know whether it still lives. Ion rejects the story, and urges her not to put such a question to theoracle. Xuthus now appears, and goes within to consult the god; Creusa retires, while Ion muses on the immorality of gods. After a choric ode Xuthus returns and greets Ion as his son: the oracle has declared that the first man to meet him will be his offspring. Ion asks who is his mother; they agree that she must be some Delphian Bacchante. The youth is dismayed at the prospect of quitting Delphi for Athens, but Xuthus genially bids him prepare a farewell banquet for his friends, and departs to offer sacrifice upon Parnassus. The Athenian women express their consternation: Athens is to have an alien ruler and Creusa must remain childless. When she returns they tell her the news, and in bitter disappointment she breaks into an agonized recital of her old sorrow. An aged male attendant undertakes to murder Ion by poison at the banquet. Creusa consents. After an ode praying for vengeance, a messenger brings news that the plot has failed and Creusa has been condemned to death. The queen hurries in, pursued by Ion and a mob; she takes refuge on the altar. Bitter reproaches pass between the two till the Pythian prophetess appears; giving Ion the basket in which he was discovered as a babe, and which still contains the articles then found with him, she bids him seek his mother. Creusa greets him as her son and names the three objects. They embrace with joy, but Ion, learning that not Xuthus but Apollo is his father, determines to ask the oracle which account is true. Athena, however, appears and explains that Apollo has been compelled to change his plans; Xuthus must continue to believe Ion his own son.
This drama suggests a rich tasselled robe of gorgeous embroidery; were it not that the basis of the story is so painfully sexual, theIonwould be perhaps the most popular of Greek plays. The sudden changes of situation, the emotional crises, the sheer thrill of many passages, the lovely study of the Greek Samuel at his holy tasks—all these things make a glorious play. But our delight is blurred by a recurrent perplexity.Theology is obtruded throughout, and such a theology as never was.
Apollo ravishes Creusa and by help of Hermes brings her child to Delphi, where he lives happily up to manhood, but Creusa is allowed to suppose her child destroyed by wild beasts. The god, however, intends to secure Ion his rights as prince of Athens. Xuthus is to accept the lad as his son, while Creusa and Ion are to be made secretly known to each other. But this plan is disturbed by the Athenian women, and the god, revising his intention, sends the doves to save Ion, and the prophetess to save Creusa. All would now be well, since both Xuthus and the queen accept Ion as a son. But Ion wishes to know whether the oracle speaks truth or lies.[580]Apollo therefore sends Athena to prevent him from taxing the oracle with inconsistency. She explains the various activities of Apollo, prophesies concerning the Athenian race, and bids Creusa keep Xuthus in ignorance.
Apollo is as much fool[581]as knave.[582]Athena may say that “Apollo hath done all things well,”[583]but mortals will not endorse her sisterly admiration. Even the revised plan cannot succeed. How long will Xuthus remain ignorant of facts which are being proclaimed, not only to Creusa and her son, but also to the crowd of Delphians and the Athenian women? Even if this could be secured, things are no better: Apollo has said both that he himself, and that Xuthus, is the father of Ion. Which of these statements is true matters comparatively little. One of them must be a lie. The god who gives oracles to Greece is a trickster, and no celestial consolations or Athenian throne can compensate the youth for the loss of what filled his heart only this morning.
TheIonis the one play in which Euripides attacks the Olympian theology beyond all conceivable doubt.It is certain (i) that he does not believe in the existence of Apollo and Hermes; (ii) that the Delphic oracle is a human institution making impossible pretensions; and (iii) that his method of attack is by innuendo and implication. Verrall’s theory of the poet’s method is here on absolutely unassailable ground. The story is purely human, and the theological story is a mere addendum designed to suit the religious occasion and many of the spectators. What, then, is this human story? Verrall explains that Creusa was wronged by some man unknown, and that her child perished. The Pythian priestess bore[584]a child which she reared with a natural tenderness.[585]This child was Ion, whom the managers of the shrine determined to place in a station which could assist their influence. Then occurs the deadly scene in which the youth is about to kill Creusa. To save the Delphians from the responsibility of murdering a foreign queen in the open street, and the boy from conduct which would make his admission to Athens impossible, a plot is hastily concocted. It will prevent war with Athens, it will destroy Creusa’s hatred for Ion, and secure his future throne. The priests have already heard, even if Apollo has not, the story shrieked[586]out at him by Creusa. By an impudent master-stroke they determine that Ion shall be the queen’s long-lost child. To this end the history of the two persons supplies most of the means; all that is needed is something tangible to tie the knot. Hurriedly the clues are provided. The necklace exposed long ago upon the babe is an easy matter; its fellow was found upon the person of the Pædagogus.[587]The ever-blooming olive of the Acropolis can be equalled in freshness by sprays plucked to-day in Delphi; and for the embroidery, it is fairly certain that some such covering must have been wrapped round thechild, and its pattern is sufficiently vague.[588]The queen in her heart-hunger and peril snatches at these clues, and in a moment the two fall into one another’s arms. Finally, the clear-headed persistence of Ion is met by what may in truth be called adea ex machina.[589]Over the temple façade is protruded the gigantic head[590]of a figure, through which some one offers such fumbling “explanations” as are possible. All this is enough for Creusa—she has a son. As for Ion, whose life has been in his faith, he commits himself to nothing; in one day he has grown to the full stature of a man, but one hardly supposes that he visited Delphi again. Thus may Verrall’s theory be summarized. It has never been answered, nor does it seem possible to make any answer, except that the alleged real story is “far-fetched”—of course; for any rationalistic explanation of a supposed miracle must be strange, otherwise no one would have hitherto believed the miracle in order to account for the facts.
The “theological background” then being merely theatrical gauze and canvas, what of the human action? Though it forms an extraordinarily brilliant, powerful, fascinating spectacle, is it a tragedy?—the story ends with the appearance at any rate of joy and contentment. Yet tragedy is found not only in the death of the body but in the death of ideals; and the destruction of Ion’s faith in his all-knowing unerring father is a fate from which, when we remember his happy carolling upon the dawn-lit temple-steps, we could wish to see him saved even by the Gorgon’s venom. Any out-cry wherewith he might have challenged Creusa’s is checked by the cold disgust which fills him at the sound of Athena’s bland periods; but one knows the kind of man Athens will receive to-morrow—one who will agree with Xuthusthat “these things don’t happen,”[591]who will be an admirable connoisseur of party politics,[592]but who has lost his vision. This, then, is spiritually, though not technically, a tragedy. Further, it is technically a melodrama. That is, the external form and texture is calculated to produce not as in tragedy simple, profound, and enduring exaltation, but more superficial, violent, and transitory emotion. The Pædagogus is pure melodrama, witness his change from senile helplessness[593]to ruthless vigour,[594]the wildness of his suggestions—“burn down the temple” ... “murder your husband”; the utter absence of remorse and secondary interests, characteristic of villainous subordinates in melodrama; his complete breakdown when it is demanded by the plot.[595]Such also is the confrontation of Ion and Creusa with the terrified women and scowling Delphians as a background. But the finest thrill, and the touch least justified by any standards save those of melodrama, occurs in the speech of Ion as he stands with the fateful basket in his arms and determines not to open it but to dedicate it to Apollo. The next moment he reflects that he must carry out the god’s will and discover his origin. The genuine plot halts so as to cause theatrical sensation.
It is natural in such a play that the characterization should be simple. Xuthus, the Pædagogus, and the Prophetess, are scarcely more than foils to the two chief persons. Creusa attracts us rather because the poet has so well portrayed woman than because he has created a particular woman. More than this can be said of Ion. He is marked out from all the other persons of this play by sheer intelligence, by the power of facing facts, and of constantly readjusting his perspective.[596]He is a figure of somewhat quaint pathos.The happy child who sings to the birds on the temple-steps and thinks of nothing but his tranquil existence of pious routine, turns in a moment to the discreet adviser who can imagine incredible things: “There is no man who will transmit to thee response to such a question. For were he in his own house proved a villain, Phœbus would justly wreak mishap upon him that gave thee such reply.”[597]As he moves to and fro, filling the holy-water stoups, we can hear him murmuring to himself serene blasphemies. “But I must blame Phœbus. Such conduct! Use violence upon maidens, and betray them? Beget children in secret and leave them to die? Come, come! Since you have the power, remember its responsibility. You punish mankind for wrong-doing” ...[598]and so forth, including the suggestion that if Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo were compelled to pay damages for their lustful offences, their temples would become bankrupt. In politics, as in religion, Ion observes and deduces for himself. Athenian public life he well understands before entering it;[599]he has views about the influence of perverted religious feelings upon public opinion and the execution of the law.[600]All this prepares us for the splendid moment[601]when forgetting his own rule[602]he insists on bearding the oracle, and for the reception he gives to the patching-up of Apollo’s infallibility.
For the rest, the work is a study of emotions deeply conceived and wonderfully expressed. Creusa is induced to tell her story, though disguised, to Ion largely by her sudden feeling for the youth himself.[603]The revelation which she makes to the Pædagogus andthe chorus is wrung from her after all these years by the sudden loneliness which the gift of a son to her husband brings upon her heart. And the gloriously successful climax[604]where she suddenly addresses her executioner as her son is purely emotional also. Even the intellectual revolt of Ion is introduced by a sudden turn of the feelings in the recognition-scene: “Mother, let my father, too, share in our joy”.[605]
TheTroades[606](Τρῳάδες), orTrojan Women, was produced in 415B.C.together withAlexander,Palamedes, andSisyphusas satyric play. This group obtained the second prize, being defeated by the work of Xenocles “whoever he is”.[607]
The action takes place outside Troy after its capture; in the background is a tent wherein are captive Trojan women. Before the tent lies Hecuba in a stupor of grief. The deities Poseidon and Athena explain in a dialogue that they are quitting Troy with reluctance; Poseidon will destroy the Greek fleet on its way home. When they have departed, Hecuba stirs and laments; soon she is joined by the chorus of Trojan women. Talthybius tells her that Cassandra is to become the concubine of Agamemnon; concerning Polyxena he speaks evasively; Andromache is given to Neoptolemus, Hecuba herself to Odysseus, whom she detests above all Greeks. Cassandra rushes forward uttering in frenzy a horrible parody of a marriage-song in her own honour; she prophesies the woes of Agamemnon and Odysseus. Hecuba ponders her former greatness and present misery; the chorus sing the fatal day when Troy welcomed the Wooden Horse. Andromache and her infant Astyanax are brought in, and from her Hecuba hears Polyxena’s death. Though prostrated by grief she urges Andromache to please her new lord, that perchance his sonmay revive something of Troy’s greatness. Talthybius returns with tidings that Astyanax is to be hurled from the battlements. After an ode on the first siege of Troy, Menelaus enters rejoicing in his long-deferred opportunity of slaying Helen. Hecuba bursts into rapturous thanks to the Power which rules mankind, and when Helen pleads innocence refutes her bitterly. Talthybius brings in the mangled body of Astyanax over which Hecuba utters a speech of reproachful lament. The play ends with the burning of Troy.
In structure archaic, this play is in spirit something quite new to the Attic stage. On the one hand there is little unfolding of a plot; we are reminded strongly of thePrometheusby the portrayal of a situation which changes with extreme slowness. It is the manner of this portrayal which is new and terrible. TheTroadeswas performed after the sack of Melos and before the departure of the Sicilian expedition; it is a statement, by a member of the nation which annihilated Melos, of the horrors wherewith the vanquished are overwhelmed. The glory won by the Greeks who overthrew Troy was the best-known and most cherished gift of tradition. Now a Greek writer reveals the other side of conquest. After the crime of Melos, Euripides never felt as he had felt towards Athens or Greece. His intellect and his heart were appalled by the cold ferocity of which his fellows showed themselves every year more capable. Hitherto he has attacked the evils of human nature; now he impeaches one definite nation, and that his own. No spectator could doubt that “Troy” is Melos, “the Greeks” Athens. Such uncompromising hostility must have produced deep effects on so impressionable an assembly. For it is not merely a denunciation; it is a threat. The poet takes the whole picture of misery and stupid tyranny, and puts it into sinister perspective in his prologue. All the cruelties of the play are committed by the Greeks under shadow of the calamity denounced against them by the deities of the prologue, whereofwe are again and again reminded by the sentences casually dropped by Talthybius and others, that the host is eager to embark. And this when the great Athenian armament was itself thronging the Peiræus in preparation for the voyage to Sicily.[608]
Of characterization, therefore, little is to be found. Cassandra, though her pathos is less deep and wide than that of her namesake in theAgamemnon, is yet valuable, as aiding in that perspective which is given mainly by the prologue. Talthybius and Andromache are ably sketched, but Menelaus and Helen are introduced merely for the sake of the elaborate dispute between Hecuba and Helen. It is upon Hecuba that the whole poem hangs—not upon her action or even her character, but upon her capacity for suffering. With the progress of the play she changes from the Queen of Troy to a figure summing up in herself all the sorrows of humanity. As each woe is faced, lamented, and at last assimilated into an ennobling experience, another disaster flings her back into the primitive outcry to begin once more the task of resignation. She is a paganmater dolorosa. As each billow of grief descends upon her, leaving her still sentient, nay, filled with eager sympathy for others, the Greeks who oppress her become strangely puny and unreal like the legionaries in some mediæval picture of martyrdom. Even when she confesses to complete despair she yet the next moment begins to fashion within the abyss a tiny abode for hope: Astyanax may grow to manhood, “so that—if chance is kind—sons of thy blood may dwell again in Ilium, and there might yet be a city”.[609]Next moment the child is torn away to be flung from the battlements. Even so, Hecuba recovers her balance in the end and can deliver, as she stands over the little body, the stinging reproach[610]of a “barbarian” revolted by the crimes of “civilization”.[611]It is to this endless capacity for facing sorrow and transmuting it into rich experience that we owe one of the most beautiful and definite philosophicdictato be found in Euripides:—
ὦ γῆς ὄχημα, κἀπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδρανὅστις ποτ’ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,Ζεύς, εἴτ’ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι’ ἀψόφουβαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ’ ἄγεις.[612]
ὦ γῆς ὄχημα, κἀπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδρανὅστις ποτ’ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,Ζεύς, εἴτ’ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι’ ἀψόφουβαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ’ ἄγεις.[612]
ὦ γῆς ὄχημα, κἀπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδρανὅστις ποτ’ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,Ζεύς, εἴτ’ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι’ ἀψόφουβαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ’ ἄγεις.[612]
ὦ γῆς ὄχημα, κἀπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδραν
ὅστις ποτ’ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,
Ζεύς, εἴτ’ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,
προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι’ ἀψόφου
βαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ’ ἄγεις.[612]
“O Throne of earth, by earth upheld, whosoe’er Thou art, beyond conjecture of our knowledge—Zeus, or the law of Nature, or the mind of Man, to Thee do I address my prayer; for moving along Thy soundless path Thou dost guide all mortal life with justice.” As for the Olympian gods, they are scarcely attacked; there is little more than a jaded recognition that belief in them is no help or inspiration.[613]To this plaintive agnosticism there is here no alternative but fierce pessimism, as when in the frightful eloquence of Hecuba we are told that Fate is “a capering idiot”.[614]
Most mournful of all Greek tragedies, this is yet beautiful, and full of splendid spectacular effects: Cassandra bounding wildly forth with her bridal torches; the entry of Andromache seated in the waggon among the spoils of Troy; Hecuba bending over Astyanax’ body within the great buckler of his father; the little procession which carries the shield to burial, princely robes hanging therefrom; and the aged queen addressing her farewell to the blazing city.
Iphigenia in Tauris[615](Ἰφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Ταύροις) orIphigenia among the Taurians, is a work of uncertain date.[616]Nothing is known of its success when produced, and the absence of scholia suggests that it was not popular in later times.
Iphigenia, before the temple of Artemis among the Taurians (in South Russia), relates that she was not slain at Aulis, but brought by Artemis to serve as her priestess here, close to the city of King Thoas, where she is compelled to sacrifice all strangers. A dream has suggested to her that her brother Orestes is dead; she goes within to prepare offerings to his shade. Orestes and Pylades enter; they have been sent by the Delphian oracle to steal the image of Artemis; in this way Orestes will be freed from the Furies. They postpone their attempt till nightfall, and retire. The chorus of Greek captive maidens enter in attendance upon Iphigenia, and a cowherd brings news that two Greeks have been captured and are being brought for sacrifice. After a choric ode, the rustics enter with their prisoners. A conversation follows, in which neither Iphigenia’s name nor that of Orestes is revealed, and she offers to spare his life if he will take a letter to Argos. He insists that Pylades shall go, and the latter asks that the message be read. It proves to be an appeal to Orestes, and, exclaiming that he will at once perform his task, Pylades hands it to his friend. Brother and sister thus become known to one another, and all three agree to escape, taking the image with them. They enter the temple, after Iphigenia has enjoined secrecy upon the chorus, who sing their yearning for home. King Thoas enters and is tricked by Iphigenia into aiding the escape. The chorus sing Apollo’s conquest of Delphi. A messenger rushes in, seeking Thoas; the chorus misdirect him, but in vain. Thoas learns how his people have beenbeguiled into allowing the Greeks to embark. However, a contrary wind is even now driving them back. Thoas is preparing to hunt the fugitives down when Athena appears and stops him; he is, moreover, commanded to send the Greek maidens home. He consents, and the play ends with the joy of the chorus.
This drama is one of the finest among Euripides’ works. It provides a marked contrast with theTroades; there is bitterness here indeed, but it is the bitterness of Voltaire rather than that of Swift. And whereas in the former play plot is almost non-existent, here it is vital. Perhaps the most brilliant piece of construction in Euripides is the celebrated Recognition-scene of this drama. Indeed the whole tragedy is the story of a plot, skilful and breathless. Iphigenia’s method—to deceive by telling the truth (about Orestes’ matricide)—was particularly dear to Greeks, connoisseurs of falsehood both in life and in literature; so beautifully does she succeed that (partly for her own amusement) she tells the king further the news she has just heard concerning her brother’s welfare. But the poet is no more the slave of his wit than of his sympathies, and we are brought to realization of the facts—namely, that the three Greeks are thieves and Iphigenia a traitress—by her own self-mockery: “Falsehood, thy name is Hellas,”[617]and by the simple generosity with which the prince accepts her suggestions.
The second feature of importance is the atmosphere of adventure. A strange grim glamour lies upon this story of breathless dangers in a region which is itself a mystery and a menace. We must forget modern notions about South Russia, lines of steamboats, and Odessa as civilized as Hull. This kingdom of Thoas is as remote from Athens as Thibet or the Upper Congo from us; indeed at many points we recall the African stories of Sir Rider Haggard. Amid these ghastly altars, the secret fire and the cleft of death,[618]deserted seas andbloodthirsty savages, there is an infinite painful sweetness in Orestes’ reminder of a dusty heirloom in his sister’s bedchamber at home.[619]The poem is filled with suggestions of remoteness, the heaving of strange billows, legendary landing-places. Flowing from this is the home-sickness which breaks out again and again, in Pylades’ recollection, during his worst agony, of the winding Phocian glens,[620]and in the lyric songs where the Greek captives long to fly homeward with the halcyon to the hallowed places of Greece.[621]
But not only does religion as a radiant emotion setting a glow around “the hill of Cynthus” and the “circling mere” mark the play. Euripides here, as so often, treats religion intellectually as well as emotionally. By the lips of Orestes he passes judgment upon Olympian religion as a guide of conduct. Taking the story of Æschylus, he acts not as a lesser unbeliever would have acted; he does not dub the reconciliation of theEumenidesa delusion. With a studiously bungling air he explains that one section of the Furies was appeased, and the other not.[622]If the manner of this revision is delightfully impudent, the intention is deadly. Orestes has been sent away by the Delphian priests todosomething, to seek and undergo, if possible, a physiological effect simply through the excitement of a far journey. We are very near to the “long holiday and change of air”. The Furies exist nowhere but in his own brain. On the Athenian Areopagus he went through a climax of hallucination. Surrounded by stray animals,[623]he saw in imagination all the tremendous events imagined by Æschylus as objective reality. His mind only partly cleared by this paroxysm, he fled back to Delphi for complete healing. The “oracle” sent him to the remotest region known to Greeks, to a land, moreover,where the natives are wont to murder all strangers. Phœbus is ashamed of his “former responses” and seeks to be rid of his too obedient, too persistent devotee.[624]Such is the opinion of Orestes himself when at last in the “toils,”[625]and the whole work (with an exception presently to be noticed) is pervaded by this unflinching rationalism. The pious herdsmen who see marine deities in the Greek visitors are laughed to scorn by a companion who, though dubbed “a fool reckless and irreverent,”[626]is entirely justified. Iphigenia’s reflections[627]on the human sacrifices of the Tauri lead her to acquit the goddess of “such folly” and to attribute this practice to ferocious savages who make gods in their own image. At one point indeed simple faith is justified. Orestes when faced by death is comforted by his friend: “The god’s oracle hath not yet destroyed thee, close as thou dost stand to slaughter”.[628]In a moment Orestes is free from peril at the priestess’ hands. But no one, least of all Euripides, expects even the “gods” to blunder always. Finally, the ode on Apollo’s conquest of Delphi is a delicate but pungent satire: the “oracle” is a magnificent trade connexion.[629]
This cynical clearness is a guide in studying the exceptional passage above mentioned: in the last scene orthodox piety is upheld by the apparition of Athena. Does then theIphigeniain the end refute the rationalism impressed on it almost everywhere? We can take our choice, accepting Athena, Apollo’s divinity, and all the other traditional garnishments, but stultifying many passages, and the tone of nine-tenths of the play; or we can accept the latter as a thrilling and pathetic study in human superstition and intrepidity, but reject Athena as a conventional phantom. In this latter case we shall, with Dr. Verrall, consider that the play, for all artisticand intelligible purposes, ends at v. 1434, leaving Thoas to capture and destroy the Greeks. Many will find such a choice difficult. TheIphigeniais certainly not as clear a case as theOrestes, to say nothing of theIon. But it is difficult to believe that here he has composed a magnificent play to bolster up theology which elsewhere he strenuously attacks. Nevertheless, the speech of Athena is not in itself contradictory or ludicrous.
The mental pathology—it can hardly be called the character—of Orestes, deserves close study. He provides an admirable instance of that skill in portraying madness for which Euripides was famed.[630]A man of strong simple instincts, he is shaken terribly by the murderous events of his childhood. His brain is overthrown by the sway of the hierarchy and by the deeds to which he was impelled. From this overthrow he never quite recovered, as the dramatist himself carefully indicates.[631]Throughout theIphigeniawe discern, drawn with extraordinary skill and tact, the struggle between the old obsession and an intellect originally clear and acute. The prologue, when he explores the ground with Pylades, shows him (in spite of a ghastly brilliance of thought fit only for frenzy or the nightmare[632]) possessed of shrewdness which, if consistently applied, would have saved him from the expedition altogether. Later he is seen hurled by the excitement of his quest into complete, though temporary, insanity[633]—a fit which throws back strange light upon his “trial” at Athens and provides a comment upon the later scene,[634]where, though at the moment sane, he yet believes in the delusive experience. Everywhere we find this superstructure of sanity on an insane foundation. Though he can see through the “oracle” as clearly as any man with regard to itspast deceptions, he is pathetically enthusiastic for the latest nostrum.[635]The long account[636]of his sorrows which he gives his sister is full of such sinister meaning. He essays to describe the origin of the court which tried him: “There is a holy ...vote,[637]which long ago Zeus founded for Ares owing to some blood-guiltiness, whatever it was....” He has forgotten half the facts, and bungles the rest. This speech, full of obscurity, irrelevancy, and disconnected thought, is practically ignored by his sister, who realizes his condition both from the report of the herdsman and from the occasional lunacy he manifests in conversation.[638]Orestes, too, knows[639]how it is with him, and the complete absence of lament on his part when faced with death is one of the grimmest things in the drama.
TheElectra[640](Ἠλέκτρα) was probably acted in 413B.C.[641]The scene is laid before the cottage of a peasant, who explains that he is the husband of Electra, but in name only; she comes forth and they depart to their several tasks. Orestes and Pylades arrive; Orestes has come at Apollo’s bidding to avenge his father, at whose tomb he has offered sacrifice. Seeing Electra they retire. She is invited to a festival by the chorus of Argive women, but refuses, urging her sorrow and poverty. The two strangers approach, Orestes pretending that he has been sent by her brother for tidings of her; she gives him a passionate message begging Orestes to exact vengeance. The peasant returns andsends the strangers within as his guests; the chorus sing the expedition to Troy. An aged shepherd enters with the provisions for which Electra sent, and tells her that he has seen upon Agamemnon’s tomb a sacrifice and a votive lock of hair. He in vain seeks to convince Electra that her brother must be in Argos, but later recognizes Orestes by a scar. Brother and sister embrace with joy; after passionate prayers to Agamemnon’s shade he departs to seek Ægisthus. The chorus sing the crime of Thyestes which caused sun and stars to change their course. A messenger relates how Ægisthus has been cut down by Orestes in the midst of a religious service; the avengers return with the body, over which Electra gloats. Clytæmnestra is seen approaching, lured by a story that Electra has given birth to a child. Orestes feels remorse, but is hardened by his sister, who awaits her mother alone. A dispute follows about the queen’s past, but Clytæmnestra refuses to quarrel, and goes within to perform the birth-ritual. Soon her cries are heard, and Orestes and Electra re-enter, filled with grief and shame. In the sky appear Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux), brothers of Clytæmnestra, who blame the matricide, which they attribute to Apollo; then they depart to the Sicilian sea to save mariners who are righteous and unperjured.
Special interest clings to this play, because here only can we see Euripides traversing precisely the same ground as Æschylus (in theChoephorœ) and Sophocles (in theElectra), This similarity of subject long damaged Euripides’ play in the eyes of critics. It was assumed that the youngest poet was imitating his forerunners, and it needed small acumen to observe that the imitation was bad. Whereupon, instead of wondering whether perhaps Euripides was after all not copying others, critics proceeded to write cheerful nonsense about “frivolity” and “a profound falling off in art and taste”.[642]The fact simply is that each of these threetragedians discussed the story from a different viewpoint. Æschylus treated it as a religious fact, Sophocles as an emotional fact, Euripides as an ethical fact. Æschylus is on the side of Apollo, Sophocles on the side of Electra, Euripides on the side of no one. He asks himself what circumstances, what perversions of character, can result in this matricide.
Hence his careful study of Clytæmnestra, Electra, and Orestes, so careful that a reader at first supposes the poet a partisan of Clytæmnestra. Not so; he has merely tried to understand her. A placid woman of quick but shallow affections, she was abandoned by her husband for ten years to the memory of a murdered daughter. Delightfully characteristic is her argument: “Suppose Menelaus had been stolen from home; would it have been right for me to slay Orestes that Helen might regain her husband?”[643]Vigorous and damaging, this is yet tinged with comedy by its raw novelty and precision. One almost overhears thecommèragesof the street-corner. When Agamemnon brought back openly a concubine to his home, Clytæmnestra assisted[644]her lover in anticipating the king’s revenge by murdering him. From this act she has drifted into condoning cruelty against her unoffending children; throughout she has acted wickedly and acquiesced in worse conduct by others. Nevertheless, she is no figure of tragedy; she only suggests tragedy because she is the mother of her executioners. Her chief love is placid domesticity; if this can be obtained only by murdering those who threaten it, that is very terrible, but the world is notoriously imperfect. Clytæmnestra cannot, and will not, meet Electra on the tragic plane. Her daughter’s great outburst and threat of murderous vengeance she meets in this comfortable fashion: “My child, it was always your nature to love your father. It often happens so. Some favour the male side, while others love their mother rather than their father. I forgive you: forin truth I rejoice not greatly, child, in the acts that I have done.... But you!—unwashed and shabby in attire!” ... And so forth. Clytæmnestra is almost as ill-tuned to the atmosphere which Electra constantly and deliberately creates as Sancho Panza to the high converse of his master. The queen has been summoned to her daughter’s cottage by report of a newly-born infant. She shows her natural goodness of heart by hurrying thither at once (though of course she has not the taste to leave her gorgeous retinue behind) and doing all she can to comfort and help her daughter. By this time she has all unconsciously “taken the wind out of the sails” of the avengers. But Electra can maintain her grimness and actually utter black hints of a wedding-bed in the grave![645]We turn next to her; what manner of woman can this be?
Electra is one of Euripides’ most vivid and successful female characters. She has strong claims on our pity and sympathy, but fails to win them. Her mother is a ready victim of any emotion which breathes upon her; Electra has settled her position emotionally, intellectually, morally, years ago. Nothing can alter her; she is the victim and the apostle of anidée fixe. The crimes of love are no less frightful than the crimes of hate; in Electra affection for Agamemnon has become the basis of cold ferocity against Clytæmnestra. It is Orestes who shrinks when the deed is to be done, Electra who braces his resolution. She has borne no child. Instead of beginning a new life in her children, looking to the future, she has fed morbidly upon memories, stiffening natural grief and resentment into permanent inhuman morosity. Clytæmnestra has blandly outlived two murders in her own family, and remains neither unamiable nor uninteresting; but it is impossible to imagine what Electra will do, say, or think, after the events of to-day. This unnatural self-concentration, which means not only her mother’s deathbut her own spiritual suicide, is mainly the result of her childlessness. And it is on this that Euripides lays his finger. “Announce that I have given birth to a male child.... Then, when she has come, of course it is her death.”[646]This plot of Electra is possibly the most brilliantly skilful and most terrible stroke in all the poet’s work. It indicates the source of her heartlessness, it provides an excellent dramatic motive for the queen’s arrival, and it shows, as nothing else could show, the fiendishness of a woman who can use just this pretext to the very woman who gave her birth. She relies upon the sanctity of motherhood to aid her in trampling upon it. Her first words, as she slips forth to join her husband beneath the star-lit sky, show how the heavens themselves remind her that she has had no infant at her breast during the night-watches: “Black Night, thouNurseof golden stars”.[647]Moreover, not only does she feel her sorrows, she enjoys the sense of martyrdom. Her wrongs and present trials she is capable of exaggerating;[648]at every opportunity she exploits them for purposes of self-pity, as her husband hints more than once.[649]
Orestes, living in exile, has escaped the blight of Electra only to become a criminal with no illusions, proud of his worldly experience, witness the blundering disquisition on “the true gentleman,”[650]and his cynical comments on his humble brother-in-law.[651]His onslaught upon Ægisthus from behind proves him at the best deficient in gallantry, and on the matricide itself nothing need be said. We can pity Orestes for his fearful position, but he is a poor creature. TheElectra, in fact, is a clear-sighted attack upon the morality of blood-feuds. The poet feels that Ægisthus and Clytæmnestra,left so long unmolested, should have been left alone still; if Apollo at Delphi, and the peasant in his Argive cottage, had estimated human nature more wisely, this horror would have been escaped, and no harm done. To punish the guilty is not always a virtue; often it is a debauch of self-glory, and sometimes the worst of villainies.
As always, the poet regards the “oracle,” which commanded matricide, as an offence to civilization. But there is novelty in the extreme candour with which this is put forward. The Dioscuri repeatedly stigmatize its murderous command as “foolishness” or worse.[652]Equally outspoken are the chorus, who devote the last stanza of their lovely song on the Golden Lamb and Thyestes’ crime to a brilliant denial of its truth.... “But legends that fill men with dread are profitable to divine worship”[653]—it is admirably put, and may rank with the epigrams of Ovid[654]and Voltaire.[655]As for the Dioscuri, it is impossible to speak without affection of such quaint and charming figures. Their converse with Electra and the chorus is an irresistible combination of dignity and a breezy contempt for official reticence. In his first longex cathedraspeech Castor is on the verge of saying what he really thinks of Phœbus Apollo, remembers himself just in time, and then—gives a broad hint after all.[656]In the less formal talk which follows, these bluff naval deities show a soundness of heart and a simplicity as to the meaning of great affairs which recall delightfully the traditional nautical character of modern literature. The anguish of brother and sister who after long years meet for a few frightful hours only to part for ever awakes their instant deep sympathy.[657]On the other side these subordinate deities are assuredly in a maze as to the theological problem into which they have strayed. “How was it,” ask the Argive women,very pertinently, “that you, being gods and brothers of the woman that hath perished, did not repel destruction from the house?” Electra, too, would know why she was involved in the matricide. In answer the Brethren offer a bundle of reasons some one of which ought surely to be right: “the fate of necessity,” “the guidance of doom,” “the foolish utterances of Phœbus’ tongue,” “a partnership in act and in destiny,” “the ancestral curse”.[658]Even if traditional phrases could solve the problem of human sin, these simple souls are not qualified to use or expound them.
One incident in theElectrais of particular interest to the historian of literature. The pædagogus seeks to convince Electra that the mysterious visitor to Agamemnon’s tomb is her brother. He offers certain evidences which she contemptuously rejects. There can be no doubt that this scene is a criticism of the Recognition in Æschylus’Choephorœ. The severed lock of hair, the footprint, and the embroidered cloth, appear in both scenes. Electra rejects all these clues. How can the hair of an athletic man resemble the soft tresses of a woman? Is not a man’s foot larger than a woman’s? Will the full-grown Orestes wear the same garment as an infant? But Euripides’ attack is probably mistaken.[659]We may suppose that Æschylus could have seen these objections; and it is quite possible that tradition told of physical peculiarities in the Pelopid family. As for the embroidered garment, Æschylus does not call it so. It may well have been a cloth preserved by Orestes. However this may be, we have here the most distinct example of Euripides’ criticism of an earlier poet.
Helen[660](Ἑλένη), orHelena, was produced in 412B.C.The scene represents the palace of Theoclymenus, theyoung Egyptian king, with the tomb of his father Proteus. Helen relates that Hera gave Paris a phantom in place of the true Helen. While Greeks and Trojans fought for a wraith, she herself has lived in Egypt, waiting for Menelaus. Theoclymenus now seeks her hand; she has taken sanctuary in Proteus’ tomb. Teucer enters to consult Theonoe, the king’s prophetess-sister. On seeing Helen he barely refrains from shooting her, but realizing his “mistake” talks with the stranger, revealing that Menelaus and “Helen” have apparently been lost at sea. Helen sends him off and breaks into lamentation for Menelaus, but is advised by the chorus of captive Greek maidens to consult the omniscient Theonoe. She agrees, and they accompany her into the palace. Menelaus enters, a pitiable shipwrecked figure. He has left “Helen” and his comrades in hiding, and is looking for help. When he knocks at the palace-door the portress repels him with the warning that the king is hostile to Greeks because Helen is within his house. Menelaus is thunderstruck, but determines to await Theoclymenus. The chorus and Helen return in joy, for Menelaus, they learn, still lives. Menelaus comes forward; after a moment his wife recognizes and would embrace him, but he repels the stranger. One of his companions arrives announcing that “Helen” has vanished. As he ends his tale he sees the true Helen, who he supposes has played a practical joke; but Menelaus falls into her arms. They plot escape, but realize that all depends upon the omniscient Theonoe; she comes forth, and, explaining that she has a casting-vote in a dispute which to-day takes place in Heaven between Hera and Aphrodite, decides to aid the suppliants. When she has withdrawn it is arranged that Menelaus shall pretend he is the sole survivor, Menelaus being drowned; Helen is to gain permission to offer funeral-rites at sea. The chorus raise a beautiful song concerning Helen’s woes and the Trojan war. Theoclymenus enters and is easily hoodwinked. After an ode on Demeter’s search forPersephone, the plotters are sent on their way by the king. The chorus sing of Helen’s voyage and pray the Dioscuri to convoy their sister. A messenger hurries in and tells of the escape; the Egyptian crew has been massacred by Menelaus’ followers. Theoclymenus would take vengeance upon his sister, but is checked by the Dioscuri, who explain that all has occurred by the will of Zeus.