NOTES TO THE EUMENIDES

Note 32 (p. 111).“And if blithe confidence awhile.”This passage is desperate. I followPeilein the translation; though, if I were editing the Greek, I should prefer to followWell. andPal. in doing nothing.Note 33 (p. 111).“The mother gave her childThis wolfish nature wild.”This translation, which is supported byPeile, andPal., andLin., seems to me to give θυμὸς that reference to Orestes which connects it best with the previous lines, while it, at the same time, gives the least forced explanation of ἐκ μάτρος.Note 34 (p. 112).“Like a Persian mourner.”The student will find a very remarkable difference between this version and that inPot. and E. P. Oxon., arising from the conversion of the word πολεμιστρίας into ἰηλεμιστρίας, a conjectural emendation which we owe toHermannandAhrens, and which appears to me to be one of the most satisfactory that has ever been made on the text of Æschylus. It has, accordingly, been adopted byKl.,Peile,Pal.,Fr., andDroy. The oriental wailers were famous, and the “Maryandine and Mysian wailers” are especially mentioned by our poet in the final chorus of “the Persians;” which will be the best commentary on the exaggerated tone of the present passage. I have followed the recent German editors and translators in giving the first part of this Strophe to the Chorus. There seems to be a natural division at the words Ἰὼ, Ἰὼ δαία.Note 35 (p. 112).Orestes.Well. has certainly made a great oversight in running on continuously with these two Strophes. However the division be made, a new person must commence with Αέγεις πατρώϊον μόρον.Note 36 (p. 113).Chorus. Here again I follow the later editors and translators in dividing the part given to the Chorus byWell. There is a sort of natural partition of the style and sentiment palpable to any reader. It may also be remarked in general, that the broken and exclamatory style of the lamentation in this Chorus is quite incompatible with long continuous speeches (such asPot. has given), out of one mouth. The order of persons I give as inPeile.Note 37 (p. 114).“Scathless myself.”φυγεῖν.Fr. has unnecessarily changed this into τυχεῖν. In Odyssey XX. 43, Ulysses uses the same language to Athena.Note 38 (p. 114).“Thou too shalt taste.”That the dead were believed actually to eat the meat and drink that was prepared for them at the funeral feast is evident from the eleventh book of the Odyssey, where they come up in fluttering swarms and sip the pool of blood from the victim which he had sacrificed.Note 39 (p. 115).“Well spoken both.”WithKl.,Peile,Fr., andPal., I adopt Hermann’s emendation—κὰι μὴν ἀμεμφῆ τον δ ἐτείνατον λόγον.and with him give the four lines to the Chorus. A very obvious and natural sense is thus brought out, besides that καὶ μὴν naturally indicates a change of person.Note 40 (p. 115).“. . . try what speed the gods may give thee.”δαίμονος πειρῶμενος. Literallytrying your god—the dependence of fortune upon God being a truth so vividly before the Greek mind that the term δαίμων came to be used for both in a manner quite foreign to the use of the English language, and which can only be fully expressed by giving both the elements of the word in a sort of paraphrase.Note 41 (p. 116).“. . . this whole house with illsIs sheer possessed.”δαὶμονᾷ δόμος κακοῖς. Literally, “the house isgoddedwith ills,” that is, so beset with evil that we can attribute it only to a special superhuman power—to a god, as the Greeks expressed it, to the devil, as we say.Note 42 (p. 116).“. . . Sirs, why dare ye shutInhospitable doors against the stranger?”To shut the door upon a stranger or a beggar, seems, in Homer’s days, to have been accounted as great a sin, as it is now, from change of circumstances, necessarily looked on as almost a virtue. Every book of the Odyssey has some testimony to this; suffice it to quote the maxim—“προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντεςξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε.”“All strangers and beggars come from Jove.”Note 43 (p. 116).“The third and crowning cup.”“Alluding first to the slaughter of the children of Thyestes by Atreus, then to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and thirdly, that of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus presently to take place.”—Kl.Note 44 (p. 116).“. . . his present aid I ask.Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task.”I am inclined withSchütz,Kl., andPeile, to think that there is more propriety in referring this to Apollo than to Pylades. It is true, also, asSchützremarks, that Æschylus generally, if not invariably, applies the word ἐποπτεύω to the notice taken of anything by a god.Note 45 (p. 117).“Earth breeds a fearful progeny.”The sentiment of this chorus was familiar to the ancients, and was suggested with peculiar force to the minds of the tragedians, from the contemplation of those terrible deeds of old traditionary crime, which so often formed the subject of their most popular and most powerful efforts. Sophocles had a famous chorus in the Antigone, beginning in the same strain, though ranging over a wider and a more ennobling field—“πολλὰ τα δεινὰ κ᾽ ουδὲν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”“Things of might hath Nature manyIn her various plan,But of daring powers who darethMost on Earth is man.”In imitation of which, the“Audax omnia perpetiGens humana ruit in vetitum nefas”of Horace has become proverbial. In modern times, the pages of theTimesnewspaper will supply more ample and various illustrations of the same great truth than the most learned ancient could have collected. In England especially, the strong nature of the Saxon shows something Titanic, both in feats of mechanical enterprise and in crime.Note 46 (p. 117).“All-venturing woman’s dreadful ire.”Kl. quotes here the Homericὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς.“Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do.”So a friend who was in Paris, at the time of the Revolution in 1848, wrote to me—“With the men I can easily manage, butthe women are tigers.”Note 47 (p. 117).“Thestios’ daughter, wild with rage.”Althea, the mother of the famous Calydonian boar-hunter, Meleager, who is so often seen on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. “When Meleager was seven days old, it is said the Fates appeared, declaring that the boy would die, as soon as the piece of wood that was burning on the hearth should be consumed. When Althea heard this, she extinguished the firebrand, and concealed it in a chest. Meleager himself became invulnerable;but when—in the war between the Calydonians and the Curetes—he had unfortunately killed his mother’s brother, she lighted the piece of wood, and Meleager died.”—Dict. Biog.Note 48 (p. 117).“How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed.”The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who, when Minos, in his expedition against Athens, took Megara, betrayed the city to the enemy, by cutting off the purple or golden hair which grew on the top of her father’s head, and on which his life and the preservation of the city depended.—Dict. Biog.;voceNisus, and Virgil Georg. I. 404, and Ovid. Met VIII. 90, quoted here byStan.Note 49 (p. 118).“O woman! woman! Lemnos saw.”The Lemnian women, as Apollodorus relates (I. 9, 17), having neglected to pay due honor to Venus, were, by that goddess, made so ill-favoured and intolerable to consort with (ἀυταῖς ἐμβάλλη δοσοσμίαν), that their husbands, abandoning them, took themselves other wives from among the captive women that they had brought over from Thrace. The Lemnian women, in revenge, murdered both their fathers and their husbands; from which atrocious act, and another bloody deed mentioned by Herodotus (VI. 138), “it hath been the custom,” says the historian, “to call by the name Lemnian any monstrous and inhuman action.”Note 50 (p. 118).“And honor from the threshold hies,On which the doom god-spoken lies.”We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm, Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain thus—“Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are once hostile, no one can escape their anger—not by hiding himself in darkness—not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things are subject to the gods.”—Anab. II. 5. Think on some of the Psalms!Note 51 (p. 119).“But nice regard for the fine feeling ear.”I have here with a certain freedom of version expressedKl.’s idea, that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is “inept” to believe, withBl. andPeile, that we have here merely an instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public—as Achilles says, in Euripides—ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.“For me to hold exchange of words with womenWere most improper.”—Iphig. Aulid. 830.Note 52 (p. 119).“Hot baths.”To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a fact, however, asKl. well notes, that of nothing is there more frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially frequent in the Odyssey,where so many journeys are made. Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet records with pleasure how “out of the bath he came in appearance like to the immortal gods” (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.Note 53 (p. 119).Electra.Well. is very imperative in taking these words out of Electra’s mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.Note 54 (p. 120).“Is audited at nothing.”The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. ’Tis certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be referred to Clytemnestra.Note 55 (p. 120).“. . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!”The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line) peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings—“Te boves olim nisi reddidissesPer dolum amotas puerum minaciVoce dum terret, viduus pharetraRisit Apollo.”Note 56 (p. 120).“The nightly courier of the dead.”τὸν νύχιον. That there is a great propriety in the epithetnightly, as applied to Mercury, both in respect of his general function as πομπᾶιος, or leader of the dead through the realms of night, and in respect of the particular business now in hand, and the particular time of the action, is obvious. In spite of some grammatical objections, therefore, I cannot but think it far-fetched inBlom. andPeileto refer the epithet to Orestes. Were I editing the text I should be very much inclined to followHerm. andPal. in putting καὶ τὸν νύχιον within brackets, as perhaps a gloss.Note 57 (p. 122).“The bearer of a tale can make it wearWhat face he pleases.”I translate thus generally, in order to avoid the necessity of settling the point whether κυπτὸς or κρυπτὸς is the proper reading—a point, however, of little consequence to the translator of Æschylus, as the Venetian Scholiast to Il. O. 207 has been triumphantly brought forward to prove the real meaning of this otherwise corrupt and unintelligible verse.Pot. was not in a condition to get hold of the true text—so he has given the best version he could of what he had—“For the mind catches from the messengerA secret elevation and bold swell,”evidently from the reading ofPaw.—ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶanimo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto.—SeeButler’s Notes.Note 58 (p. 122).Choral Hymn. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chieflyPeileandLin.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I followPeile.Note 59 (p. 125).“Let’s go aside, the deed being done, that weSeem not partakers of the bloody work.”’Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly; but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur.Note 60 (p. 126).“I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die.”Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing. Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in battle—“Not to his parentsThe nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid.”—Il. IV. 478.“In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his mother.”—Klausen.Note 61 (p. 126).“Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber.”“Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee;Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the orderEach to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrowsTo the men and to me—for the man in the house is the master.”OdysseyXXI. 350.So Telemachus says to his mother; and on other occasions he uses what we should think, rather sharp and undutiful language—but in Greece a woman who left the woman’s chamber without a special and exceptional callsubjected herself to just rebuke. With regard to the matter here at issue between Orestes and Clytemnestra,Kl. notes that, though the wandering Ulysses is allowed without blame to form an amorous alliance with Calypso, the same excuse is not allowed for the female sitting quietly in her “upper chamber” (ὑπερώιον, Il. II. 514) as Homer has it. For “in ancient times,” says the Scholiast to that passage, “the Greeks shut up their women in garrets (ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι)that they might be difficult to get at.”—How Turkish!Note 62 (p. 126).Orestes. I have little doubt thatKl.,Peile,Fr.,Well., andPal., are right in giving the line ἦ κάρτα μάντις to Orestes. I should be inclined to agree withWell. andPal. also, that after this line a verse has dropt out—“in quo instantem sibi mortem deprecata sit Clytemnestra;” but there is no need of indicating the supposed blank in the translation, as the sense runs on smoothly enough without it.Note 63 (p. 127).“. . . the eye of this great house, may live.”An Oriental expression, to which the magnificent phraseology of our Celestial brother who sells tea, has made the English ear sufficiently familiar. He calls our king, or our consul, I forget which, “the Barbarian eye.” Other examples of this style occur in the Persians and the Eumenides.—Seep. 172above.Note 64 (p. 127).“A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible.”Klausen, who, like other Germans, has a trick, sometimes, of preferring what is far-fetched to what is obvious, considers that this double Mars is the double death, first of Agamemnon in the previous piece, then of Clytemnestra in this; but notwithstanding what he says, the best comment on this passage is that given by the old Scholiast, when he writes “PyladesandOrestes.”Note 65 (p. 127).“Sore chastisement.”ποινὰ.Ahrens, with great boldness, changes this into Ἐρμᾶς, which reading has been rashly thrown into the text byFr. If any special allusion is needed, I agree withPal. that Orestes is indicated, who is mentioned in the next clause as inflicting the blow, under the guidance of celestial Justice.Note 66 (p. 127).“Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo.”In this corrupt passage I adoptHermann’s correction of τάν περ for τάπέρ. How much the whole meaning is guesswork, the reader may see, by comparing my translation withPot. and the E. P. Oxon., in this place, who follow the old Scholiast in referring χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ to Clytemnestra.Note 67 (p. 127).“And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest.”This passage being very corrupt, is rendered freely. I adoptStan.’s conjecture ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θ᾽ ἱεμενοις, and suppose μέτοικοι to refer to Orestes and Electra.Note 68 (p. 128).“. . . notMy father, but the Sun that fathers allWith light.”There is a certain mannerism in this description of a thing by the negation of what is similar, to which the tragedians were much addicted. As to the invocation of the sun, see the note in the Prometheus to the speech beginningO divine ether and swift-winged winds.Note 69 (p. 128).“Or a torpedo, that with biteless touchStrikes numb who handles.”Literally,a lamprey, μύραινα; but to translate so would have been ludicrous; and besides, asBlom. has noted from Athenaeus, it was not a common lamprey that, in the imagination of the Greeks, was coupled with a viper, but “a sort of monstrous reptile begotten between a viper and a lamprey.”Note 70 (p. 128).“This cloth to wrap the dead.”’Tis difficult to say whether δρόιτη, in this place, means the bath in which Agamemnon was murdered, or the bier on which any dead body is laid after death.Kl. supports this latter interpretation. I have incorporated a reference to both versions.Note 71 (p. 129).“Others ’twixt hope and fear may sway, my fateIs fixed and scapeless.”I read—Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ὀ)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι.Peile.Note 72 (p. 129).“With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch.”These insignia of suppliants are familiar to every reader of the Classics. I shall only recall two of the most familiar instances. In the opening scene of the Iliad the priest of Apollo appears before Agamemnon, and“In his hand he held the chaplet of the distant-darting PhœbusOn a golden rod.”And in the opening lines of the Œdipus Tyrannus, the old King asks the Chorus—“Why swarm ye here around the seats of the gods,With branches furnished such as suppliants bear?”Note 73 (p. 129).“. . . navel of earth, where burns the flameOf fire immortal.”As the old astronomers made Earth the centre of the planetary system, and as men are everywhere, and at all times, apt to consider their own position and point of view as of more importance in the great whole of things than it really is; so the Greeks, in their ignorant vanity, considered their own Delphi to be the navel, or central point of Earth. As to the immortal fire,Stan. quotes here from Plutarch, who, in his life of Numa (c. ix.), describing the institution of the Vestal Virgins, takes occasion to mention the sacred fire kept alive in Greece at two places, Delphi and Athens, which, if extinguished, was always rekindled from no earthly spark, but from the Sun.Note 74 (p. 130).“There is atonement.”Ἐισιν καθαρμόι,Schütz,Pal.; (ε)᾽ σται καθαρμός,Bothe. Either of these seems preferable to the vulgate ἐισω.Franzhas ῟Εις σοι καθαρμὸς.Eins bleibt Dir Sühnung.Note 75 (p. 130).“Ye see them not. I see them.”Ghosts and gods are never visible to the bystander, but only to the person or persons who may be under their special influence at the moment of their appearance—so in the Iliad (I. 197), Pallas Athena—“There behind him stood, and by the yellow hair she seized Pelides,Seen to him alone; the others saw not where the goddess stood.”and so in a thousand places of the poet. To the spectator, however, in the theatre, spiritual beings must be visible, because (as Müller, Eumen. 3, properly remarks) they are the very persons from before whose eyes it is the business of the poet to remove the veil that interposes between our everyday life and the spiritual world. That the Furies of the following piece were seen bodily at this part of the present play, and are not supposed to exist merely in the brain of Orestes, is only what a decent regard for common poetical consistency on the part of a great tragic poet seems to imply.Note 76 (p. 130).“. . . the god whose eyes in love behold thee!”What god is not said, but the word θεός is used indefinitely without the article. The Greeks had an indefinite style when talking of the divine providence—a god, orsome god, orthe god, orthe gods—a style which arose naturally out of the Polytheistic form of celestial government. Examples of all the different kinds of phraseology are frequent in Homer. Sometimes, in that author, the expression, though indefinite in itself, has a special allusion, plain enough from the context; and in the present passage I see no harm in supposing an allusion to Apollo, under whose immediate patronage Orestes acts through the whole of this piece and that which follows.NOTES TO THE EUMENIDESNote 1 (p. 141).“Old earth, primeval prophetess, I firstWith these my prayers invoke; and Themis next.”Earth, orGaea, as the Greeks name her, is described here, and in Pausanias (X. 5), as the most ancient prophetess of Delphi, for two reasons;first, because out of the earth came those intoxicating fumes or vapours, by the inspiration of which the oracles were given forth (see Diodorus XVI. 26);second, because, asSchoemannwell observes,Gaea, as the aboriginal divine mother, out of whose womb all the future celestial genealogies were developed, necessarily contained in herself the law of their development, and is accordingly represented by Hesiod as exercising a prophetic power with regard to the fates of the other gods.—(Theog. 463, 494, 625). The same writer remarks with equal ingenuity and truth, that Themis, her successor in the prophetic office, is only a personification of that law of development which, by necessity of her divine nature, originally lay in Gaea; and I would remark, further, how admirable the instinct was of those old mythologists, who placedLoveandRight, and other ineradicable feelings or notions of the human mind, among the very oldest of the gods. It is notable also, that previous to Apollo, all the presidents of prophecy at Delphi—including the famous Phemonoe, not mentioned here but by Pausanias l. c., were women, and even Loxias himself could not give forth oracles without the help of a Pythoness. There is a great fitness in this, as women are naturally both more pious and more emotional than men. Hence their peculiar fitness for exercising prophetic functions, of which ancient Germany was witness—(see Cæsar B.C. I. 50).Note 2 (p. 141).“. . . rocky Delos’ lake.”There can be no question thatSchützwas right in translating λίμνη, in this passage,lake(and notsea, asAbreschdid), it being impossible that a well-informed Athenian, on hearing this passage in the theatre, should not understand the poet to refer to the circular lake in Delos, described by Herodotus in II. 170.Note 3 (p. 141).“The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path.”i.e.“The Athenians”—Scholiast—“who,” addsStan., “were called the sons of Vulcan, because they were skilled in all the arts of which Vulcan and Pallas were patrons; or, because Erichthonius, from whom the Athenians were descended, was the son of Vulcan;” with which latter view Müller and Schoemann concur; and it appears to me sufficiently reasonable. There is no reason, however, for not receiving, along with this explanation, another which has been given, that the sons of the fire-god mean “smiths.” Artificers of this kind were necessary to pioneer the path for the procession of the god in the manner here described, and would naturally form, at least, a part of the convoy.Note 4 (p. 141).“. . . Loxias, prophet of his father Jove.”’Tis plain from the whole language of Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, that the fountain of the whole moral government of the world is Jove, and, of course, that all divination and inspiration comes originally from him. Even Phœbus Apollo acts only as his instrument (Nägelsbach Homerische Theologie, p. 105).Stan. compares Virgil Æneid III. 250.Note 5 (p. 141).“. . . thee, likewise, who ’fore this temple dwellest.”The reading προνάια (or προνᾴα), which I translate, is that ofWell. and all the MSS.; butLin. has put πρόνοια,providentialorforeseeing, into the text, following out a criticism of Lennep on Phalaris, which has been stoutly defended by Hermann, in his remarks on Müller’s Eumenides (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 17). This, however, in the face of an express passage of Herodotus (I. 92), asPal. well observes, has been done rashly; and nowFr. andSchoe. bring forward inscriptions which prove that there is not the slightest cause for tampering with the text. I have not been able to learn the substance of Lennep’s remarks otherwise than from the account of them by Müller in the Anhang, p. 14; but, taken at their highest value, they seem only to prove that a vagueness had taken hold of the ancients themselves in respect to the designation of this temple, not certainly that Æschylus and Herodotus both made a mistake in calling it προνᾴα, or that all the transcribers of their texts made a blunder.Note 6 (p. 141).“. . . ye Nymphs that loveThe hollow Corycian rock.”“From Delphi, which lies pretty high, the traveller ascended about 60 stadia, or two hours’ travel, till he arrived at the Corycian cave, dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs, in which there were many stalactites and live fountains.”—Sickler.alte geog. II. 134.Note 7 (p. 141).“Thee, Bromius, too, I worship.”Bacchus, so called from βρέμω,fremo—the roaring or boisterous god. His connection with Apollo (though drinking songs are not so common now as they were last century) is obvious enough; and some places of the ancient poets where the close connection of these two gods is described, may be seen inStan. The Scholiast to Euripides Phœnissai (v. 227, Matthiae) says expressly that Apollo and Artemis were worshipped on the one peak of Parnassus, and Bacchus on the other.Note 8 (p. 141).“. . . the godless Pentheus.”“A son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus. He was the successor of Cadmus as king of Thebes, and being opposed to the introduction of the worship of Dionysus in his kingdom, was torn to pieces by his own mother and two other Mænads, Ino and Autonoe, who in their Bacchic frenzy believed him to be a wild beast. The place where Pentheus suffered death is said to have been Mount Cithæron; but, according to some, it was Mount Parnassus.”—Myth. Dict.Note 9 (p. 141).“Poseidon’s mighty power.”Next to Jove, Poseidon is the strongest of the gods, as the element which he rules demands; and this strength, in works of art, is generallyindicated by the breadth of chest given to this god. So Homer, also, wishing to magnify Agamemnon, says—

Note 32 (p. 111).“And if blithe confidence awhile.”

“And if blithe confidence awhile.”

This passage is desperate. I followPeilein the translation; though, if I were editing the Greek, I should prefer to followWell. andPal. in doing nothing.

Note 33 (p. 111).“The mother gave her childThis wolfish nature wild.”

“The mother gave her childThis wolfish nature wild.”

“The mother gave her child

This wolfish nature wild.”

This translation, which is supported byPeile, andPal., andLin., seems to me to give θυμὸς that reference to Orestes which connects it best with the previous lines, while it, at the same time, gives the least forced explanation of ἐκ μάτρος.

Note 34 (p. 112).“Like a Persian mourner.”

“Like a Persian mourner.”

The student will find a very remarkable difference between this version and that inPot. and E. P. Oxon., arising from the conversion of the word πολεμιστρίας into ἰηλεμιστρίας, a conjectural emendation which we owe toHermannandAhrens, and which appears to me to be one of the most satisfactory that has ever been made on the text of Æschylus. It has, accordingly, been adopted byKl.,Peile,Pal.,Fr., andDroy. The oriental wailers were famous, and the “Maryandine and Mysian wailers” are especially mentioned by our poet in the final chorus of “the Persians;” which will be the best commentary on the exaggerated tone of the present passage. I have followed the recent German editors and translators in giving the first part of this Strophe to the Chorus. There seems to be a natural division at the words Ἰὼ, Ἰὼ δαία.

Note 35 (p. 112).

Orestes.Well. has certainly made a great oversight in running on continuously with these two Strophes. However the division be made, a new person must commence with Αέγεις πατρώϊον μόρον.

Note 36 (p. 113).

Chorus. Here again I follow the later editors and translators in dividing the part given to the Chorus byWell. There is a sort of natural partition of the style and sentiment palpable to any reader. It may also be remarked in general, that the broken and exclamatory style of the lamentation in this Chorus is quite incompatible with long continuous speeches (such asPot. has given), out of one mouth. The order of persons I give as inPeile.

Note 37 (p. 114).“Scathless myself.”

“Scathless myself.”

φυγεῖν.Fr. has unnecessarily changed this into τυχεῖν. In Odyssey XX. 43, Ulysses uses the same language to Athena.

Note 38 (p. 114).“Thou too shalt taste.”

“Thou too shalt taste.”

That the dead were believed actually to eat the meat and drink that was prepared for them at the funeral feast is evident from the eleventh book of the Odyssey, where they come up in fluttering swarms and sip the pool of blood from the victim which he had sacrificed.

Note 39 (p. 115).“Well spoken both.”

“Well spoken both.”

WithKl.,Peile,Fr., andPal., I adopt Hermann’s emendation—

κὰι μὴν ἀμεμφῆ τον δ ἐτείνατον λόγον.

and with him give the four lines to the Chorus. A very obvious and natural sense is thus brought out, besides that καὶ μὴν naturally indicates a change of person.

Note 40 (p. 115).“. . . try what speed the gods may give thee.”

“. . . try what speed the gods may give thee.”

δαίμονος πειρῶμενος. Literallytrying your god—the dependence of fortune upon God being a truth so vividly before the Greek mind that the term δαίμων came to be used for both in a manner quite foreign to the use of the English language, and which can only be fully expressed by giving both the elements of the word in a sort of paraphrase.

Note 41 (p. 116).“. . . this whole house with illsIs sheer possessed.”

“. . . this whole house with illsIs sheer possessed.”

“. . . this whole house with ills

Is sheer possessed.”

δαὶμονᾷ δόμος κακοῖς. Literally, “the house isgoddedwith ills,” that is, so beset with evil that we can attribute it only to a special superhuman power—to a god, as the Greeks expressed it, to the devil, as we say.

Note 42 (p. 116).“. . . Sirs, why dare ye shutInhospitable doors against the stranger?”

“. . . Sirs, why dare ye shutInhospitable doors against the stranger?”

“. . . Sirs, why dare ye shut

Inhospitable doors against the stranger?”

To shut the door upon a stranger or a beggar, seems, in Homer’s days, to have been accounted as great a sin, as it is now, from change of circumstances, necessarily looked on as almost a virtue. Every book of the Odyssey has some testimony to this; suffice it to quote the maxim—

“προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντεςξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε.”“All strangers and beggars come from Jove.”

“προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντεςξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε.”

“προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντες

ξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε.”

“All strangers and beggars come from Jove.”

Note 43 (p. 116).“The third and crowning cup.”

“The third and crowning cup.”

“Alluding first to the slaughter of the children of Thyestes by Atreus, then to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and thirdly, that of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus presently to take place.”—Kl.

Note 44 (p. 116).“. . . his present aid I ask.Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task.”

“. . . his present aid I ask.Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task.”

“. . . his present aid I ask.

Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task.”

I am inclined withSchütz,Kl., andPeile, to think that there is more propriety in referring this to Apollo than to Pylades. It is true, also, asSchützremarks, that Æschylus generally, if not invariably, applies the word ἐποπτεύω to the notice taken of anything by a god.

Note 45 (p. 117).“Earth breeds a fearful progeny.”

“Earth breeds a fearful progeny.”

The sentiment of this chorus was familiar to the ancients, and was suggested with peculiar force to the minds of the tragedians, from the contemplation of those terrible deeds of old traditionary crime, which so often formed the subject of their most popular and most powerful efforts. Sophocles had a famous chorus in the Antigone, beginning in the same strain, though ranging over a wider and a more ennobling field—“πολλὰ τα δεινὰ κ᾽ ουδὲν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”

“Things of might hath Nature manyIn her various plan,But of daring powers who darethMost on Earth is man.”

“Things of might hath Nature many

In her various plan,

But of daring powers who dareth

Most on Earth is man.”

In imitation of which, the

“Audax omnia perpetiGens humana ruit in vetitum nefas”

“Audax omnia perpeti

Gens humana ruit in vetitum nefas”

of Horace has become proverbial. In modern times, the pages of theTimesnewspaper will supply more ample and various illustrations of the same great truth than the most learned ancient could have collected. In England especially, the strong nature of the Saxon shows something Titanic, both in feats of mechanical enterprise and in crime.

Note 46 (p. 117).“All-venturing woman’s dreadful ire.”

“All-venturing woman’s dreadful ire.”

Kl. quotes here the Homeric

ὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς.“Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do.”

ὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς.

“Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do.”

So a friend who was in Paris, at the time of the Revolution in 1848, wrote to me—“With the men I can easily manage, butthe women are tigers.”

Note 47 (p. 117).“Thestios’ daughter, wild with rage.”

“Thestios’ daughter, wild with rage.”

Althea, the mother of the famous Calydonian boar-hunter, Meleager, who is so often seen on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. “When Meleager was seven days old, it is said the Fates appeared, declaring that the boy would die, as soon as the piece of wood that was burning on the hearth should be consumed. When Althea heard this, she extinguished the firebrand, and concealed it in a chest. Meleager himself became invulnerable;but when—in the war between the Calydonians and the Curetes—he had unfortunately killed his mother’s brother, she lighted the piece of wood, and Meleager died.”—Dict. Biog.

Note 48 (p. 117).“How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed.”

“How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed.”

The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who, when Minos, in his expedition against Athens, took Megara, betrayed the city to the enemy, by cutting off the purple or golden hair which grew on the top of her father’s head, and on which his life and the preservation of the city depended.—Dict. Biog.;voceNisus, and Virgil Georg. I. 404, and Ovid. Met VIII. 90, quoted here byStan.

Note 49 (p. 118).“O woman! woman! Lemnos saw.”

“O woman! woman! Lemnos saw.”

The Lemnian women, as Apollodorus relates (I. 9, 17), having neglected to pay due honor to Venus, were, by that goddess, made so ill-favoured and intolerable to consort with (ἀυταῖς ἐμβάλλη δοσοσμίαν), that their husbands, abandoning them, took themselves other wives from among the captive women that they had brought over from Thrace. The Lemnian women, in revenge, murdered both their fathers and their husbands; from which atrocious act, and another bloody deed mentioned by Herodotus (VI. 138), “it hath been the custom,” says the historian, “to call by the name Lemnian any monstrous and inhuman action.”

Note 50 (p. 118).“And honor from the threshold hies,On which the doom god-spoken lies.”

“And honor from the threshold hies,On which the doom god-spoken lies.”

“And honor from the threshold hies,

On which the doom god-spoken lies.”

We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm, Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain thus—“Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are once hostile, no one can escape their anger—not by hiding himself in darkness—not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things are subject to the gods.”—Anab. II. 5. Think on some of the Psalms!

Note 51 (p. 119).“But nice regard for the fine feeling ear.”

“But nice regard for the fine feeling ear.”

I have here with a certain freedom of version expressedKl.’s idea, that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is “inept” to believe, withBl. andPeile, that we have here merely an instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public—as Achilles says, in Euripides—

ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.“For me to hold exchange of words with womenWere most improper.”—Iphig. Aulid. 830.

ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.

“For me to hold exchange of words with women

Were most improper.”—Iphig. Aulid. 830.

Note 52 (p. 119).“Hot baths.”

“Hot baths.”

To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a fact, however, asKl. well notes, that of nothing is there more frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially frequent in the Odyssey,where so many journeys are made. Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet records with pleasure how “out of the bath he came in appearance like to the immortal gods” (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.

Note 53 (p. 119).

Electra.Well. is very imperative in taking these words out of Electra’s mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.

Note 54 (p. 120).“Is audited at nothing.”

“Is audited at nothing.”

The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. ’Tis certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be referred to Clytemnestra.

Note 55 (p. 120).“. . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!”

“. . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!”

The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line) peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings—

“Te boves olim nisi reddidissesPer dolum amotas puerum minaciVoce dum terret, viduus pharetraRisit Apollo.”

“Te boves olim nisi reddidisses

Per dolum amotas puerum minaci

Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra

Risit Apollo.”

Note 56 (p. 120).“The nightly courier of the dead.”

“The nightly courier of the dead.”

τὸν νύχιον. That there is a great propriety in the epithetnightly, as applied to Mercury, both in respect of his general function as πομπᾶιος, or leader of the dead through the realms of night, and in respect of the particular business now in hand, and the particular time of the action, is obvious. In spite of some grammatical objections, therefore, I cannot but think it far-fetched inBlom. andPeileto refer the epithet to Orestes. Were I editing the text I should be very much inclined to followHerm. andPal. in putting καὶ τὸν νύχιον within brackets, as perhaps a gloss.

Note 57 (p. 122).“The bearer of a tale can make it wearWhat face he pleases.”

“The bearer of a tale can make it wearWhat face he pleases.”

“The bearer of a tale can make it wear

What face he pleases.”

I translate thus generally, in order to avoid the necessity of settling the point whether κυπτὸς or κρυπτὸς is the proper reading—a point, however, of little consequence to the translator of Æschylus, as the Venetian Scholiast to Il. O. 207 has been triumphantly brought forward to prove the real meaning of this otherwise corrupt and unintelligible verse.Pot. was not in a condition to get hold of the true text—so he has given the best version he could of what he had—

“For the mind catches from the messengerA secret elevation and bold swell,”

“For the mind catches from the messenger

A secret elevation and bold swell,”

evidently from the reading ofPaw.—

ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶanimo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto.

ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶ

animo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto.

—SeeButler’s Notes.

Note 58 (p. 122).

Choral Hymn. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chieflyPeileandLin.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I followPeile.

Note 59 (p. 125).“Let’s go aside, the deed being done, that weSeem not partakers of the bloody work.”

“Let’s go aside, the deed being done, that weSeem not partakers of the bloody work.”

“Let’s go aside, the deed being done, that we

Seem not partakers of the bloody work.”

’Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly; but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur.

Note 60 (p. 126).“I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die.”

“I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die.”

Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing. Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in battle—

“Not to his parentsThe nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid.”—Il. IV. 478.

“Not to his parents

The nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid.”

—Il. IV. 478.

“In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his mother.”—Klausen.

Note 61 (p. 126).“Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber.”

“Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber.”

“Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee;Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the orderEach to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrowsTo the men and to me—for the man in the house is the master.”OdysseyXXI. 350.

“Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee;

Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the order

Each to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrows

To the men and to me—for the man in the house is the master.”

OdysseyXXI. 350.

So Telemachus says to his mother; and on other occasions he uses what we should think, rather sharp and undutiful language—but in Greece a woman who left the woman’s chamber without a special and exceptional callsubjected herself to just rebuke. With regard to the matter here at issue between Orestes and Clytemnestra,Kl. notes that, though the wandering Ulysses is allowed without blame to form an amorous alliance with Calypso, the same excuse is not allowed for the female sitting quietly in her “upper chamber” (ὑπερώιον, Il. II. 514) as Homer has it. For “in ancient times,” says the Scholiast to that passage, “the Greeks shut up their women in garrets (ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι)that they might be difficult to get at.”—How Turkish!

Note 62 (p. 126).

Orestes. I have little doubt thatKl.,Peile,Fr.,Well., andPal., are right in giving the line ἦ κάρτα μάντις to Orestes. I should be inclined to agree withWell. andPal. also, that after this line a verse has dropt out—“in quo instantem sibi mortem deprecata sit Clytemnestra;” but there is no need of indicating the supposed blank in the translation, as the sense runs on smoothly enough without it.

Note 63 (p. 127).“. . . the eye of this great house, may live.”

“. . . the eye of this great house, may live.”

An Oriental expression, to which the magnificent phraseology of our Celestial brother who sells tea, has made the English ear sufficiently familiar. He calls our king, or our consul, I forget which, “the Barbarian eye.” Other examples of this style occur in the Persians and the Eumenides.—Seep. 172above.

Note 64 (p. 127).“A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible.”

“A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible.”

Klausen, who, like other Germans, has a trick, sometimes, of preferring what is far-fetched to what is obvious, considers that this double Mars is the double death, first of Agamemnon in the previous piece, then of Clytemnestra in this; but notwithstanding what he says, the best comment on this passage is that given by the old Scholiast, when he writes “PyladesandOrestes.”

Note 65 (p. 127).“Sore chastisement.”

“Sore chastisement.”

ποινὰ.Ahrens, with great boldness, changes this into Ἐρμᾶς, which reading has been rashly thrown into the text byFr. If any special allusion is needed, I agree withPal. that Orestes is indicated, who is mentioned in the next clause as inflicting the blow, under the guidance of celestial Justice.

Note 66 (p. 127).“Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo.”

“Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo.”

In this corrupt passage I adoptHermann’s correction of τάν περ for τάπέρ. How much the whole meaning is guesswork, the reader may see, by comparing my translation withPot. and the E. P. Oxon., in this place, who follow the old Scholiast in referring χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ to Clytemnestra.

Note 67 (p. 127).“And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest.”

“And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest.”

This passage being very corrupt, is rendered freely. I adoptStan.’s conjecture ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θ᾽ ἱεμενοις, and suppose μέτοικοι to refer to Orestes and Electra.

Note 68 (p. 128).“. . . notMy father, but the Sun that fathers allWith light.”

“. . . notMy father, but the Sun that fathers allWith light.”

“. . . not

My father, but the Sun that fathers all

With light.”

There is a certain mannerism in this description of a thing by the negation of what is similar, to which the tragedians were much addicted. As to the invocation of the sun, see the note in the Prometheus to the speech beginning

O divine ether and swift-winged winds.

Note 69 (p. 128).“Or a torpedo, that with biteless touchStrikes numb who handles.”

“Or a torpedo, that with biteless touchStrikes numb who handles.”

“Or a torpedo, that with biteless touch

Strikes numb who handles.”

Literally,a lamprey, μύραινα; but to translate so would have been ludicrous; and besides, asBlom. has noted from Athenaeus, it was not a common lamprey that, in the imagination of the Greeks, was coupled with a viper, but “a sort of monstrous reptile begotten between a viper and a lamprey.”

Note 70 (p. 128).“This cloth to wrap the dead.”

“This cloth to wrap the dead.”

’Tis difficult to say whether δρόιτη, in this place, means the bath in which Agamemnon was murdered, or the bier on which any dead body is laid after death.Kl. supports this latter interpretation. I have incorporated a reference to both versions.

Note 71 (p. 129).“Others ’twixt hope and fear may sway, my fateIs fixed and scapeless.”

“Others ’twixt hope and fear may sway, my fateIs fixed and scapeless.”

“Others ’twixt hope and fear may sway, my fate

Is fixed and scapeless.”

I read—

Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ὀ)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι.Peile.

Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ὀ)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι.

Peile.

Note 72 (p. 129).“With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch.”

“With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch.”

These insignia of suppliants are familiar to every reader of the Classics. I shall only recall two of the most familiar instances. In the opening scene of the Iliad the priest of Apollo appears before Agamemnon, and

“In his hand he held the chaplet of the distant-darting PhœbusOn a golden rod.”

“In his hand he held the chaplet of the distant-darting Phœbus

On a golden rod.”

And in the opening lines of the Œdipus Tyrannus, the old King asks the Chorus—

“Why swarm ye here around the seats of the gods,With branches furnished such as suppliants bear?”

“Why swarm ye here around the seats of the gods,

With branches furnished such as suppliants bear?”

Note 73 (p. 129).“. . . navel of earth, where burns the flameOf fire immortal.”

“. . . navel of earth, where burns the flameOf fire immortal.”

“. . . navel of earth, where burns the flame

Of fire immortal.”

As the old astronomers made Earth the centre of the planetary system, and as men are everywhere, and at all times, apt to consider their own position and point of view as of more importance in the great whole of things than it really is; so the Greeks, in their ignorant vanity, considered their own Delphi to be the navel, or central point of Earth. As to the immortal fire,Stan. quotes here from Plutarch, who, in his life of Numa (c. ix.), describing the institution of the Vestal Virgins, takes occasion to mention the sacred fire kept alive in Greece at two places, Delphi and Athens, which, if extinguished, was always rekindled from no earthly spark, but from the Sun.

Note 74 (p. 130).“There is atonement.”

“There is atonement.”

Ἐισιν καθαρμόι,Schütz,Pal.; (ε)᾽ σται καθαρμός,Bothe. Either of these seems preferable to the vulgate ἐισω.Franzhas ῟Εις σοι καθαρμὸς.Eins bleibt Dir Sühnung.

Note 75 (p. 130).“Ye see them not. I see them.”

“Ye see them not. I see them.”

Ghosts and gods are never visible to the bystander, but only to the person or persons who may be under their special influence at the moment of their appearance—so in the Iliad (I. 197), Pallas Athena—

“There behind him stood, and by the yellow hair she seized Pelides,Seen to him alone; the others saw not where the goddess stood.”

“There behind him stood, and by the yellow hair she seized Pelides,

Seen to him alone; the others saw not where the goddess stood.”

and so in a thousand places of the poet. To the spectator, however, in the theatre, spiritual beings must be visible, because (as Müller, Eumen. 3, properly remarks) they are the very persons from before whose eyes it is the business of the poet to remove the veil that interposes between our everyday life and the spiritual world. That the Furies of the following piece were seen bodily at this part of the present play, and are not supposed to exist merely in the brain of Orestes, is only what a decent regard for common poetical consistency on the part of a great tragic poet seems to imply.

Note 76 (p. 130).“. . . the god whose eyes in love behold thee!”

“. . . the god whose eyes in love behold thee!”

What god is not said, but the word θεός is used indefinitely without the article. The Greeks had an indefinite style when talking of the divine providence—a god, orsome god, orthe god, orthe gods—a style which arose naturally out of the Polytheistic form of celestial government. Examples of all the different kinds of phraseology are frequent in Homer. Sometimes, in that author, the expression, though indefinite in itself, has a special allusion, plain enough from the context; and in the present passage I see no harm in supposing an allusion to Apollo, under whose immediate patronage Orestes acts through the whole of this piece and that which follows.

Note 1 (p. 141).“Old earth, primeval prophetess, I firstWith these my prayers invoke; and Themis next.”

“Old earth, primeval prophetess, I firstWith these my prayers invoke; and Themis next.”

“Old earth, primeval prophetess, I first

With these my prayers invoke; and Themis next.”

Earth, orGaea, as the Greeks name her, is described here, and in Pausanias (X. 5), as the most ancient prophetess of Delphi, for two reasons;first, because out of the earth came those intoxicating fumes or vapours, by the inspiration of which the oracles were given forth (see Diodorus XVI. 26);second, because, asSchoemannwell observes,Gaea, as the aboriginal divine mother, out of whose womb all the future celestial genealogies were developed, necessarily contained in herself the law of their development, and is accordingly represented by Hesiod as exercising a prophetic power with regard to the fates of the other gods.—(Theog. 463, 494, 625). The same writer remarks with equal ingenuity and truth, that Themis, her successor in the prophetic office, is only a personification of that law of development which, by necessity of her divine nature, originally lay in Gaea; and I would remark, further, how admirable the instinct was of those old mythologists, who placedLoveandRight, and other ineradicable feelings or notions of the human mind, among the very oldest of the gods. It is notable also, that previous to Apollo, all the presidents of prophecy at Delphi—including the famous Phemonoe, not mentioned here but by Pausanias l. c., were women, and even Loxias himself could not give forth oracles without the help of a Pythoness. There is a great fitness in this, as women are naturally both more pious and more emotional than men. Hence their peculiar fitness for exercising prophetic functions, of which ancient Germany was witness—(see Cæsar B.C. I. 50).

Note 2 (p. 141).“. . . rocky Delos’ lake.”

“. . . rocky Delos’ lake.”

There can be no question thatSchützwas right in translating λίμνη, in this passage,lake(and notsea, asAbreschdid), it being impossible that a well-informed Athenian, on hearing this passage in the theatre, should not understand the poet to refer to the circular lake in Delos, described by Herodotus in II. 170.

Note 3 (p. 141).“The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path.”

“The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path.”

i.e.“The Athenians”—Scholiast—“who,” addsStan., “were called the sons of Vulcan, because they were skilled in all the arts of which Vulcan and Pallas were patrons; or, because Erichthonius, from whom the Athenians were descended, was the son of Vulcan;” with which latter view Müller and Schoemann concur; and it appears to me sufficiently reasonable. There is no reason, however, for not receiving, along with this explanation, another which has been given, that the sons of the fire-god mean “smiths.” Artificers of this kind were necessary to pioneer the path for the procession of the god in the manner here described, and would naturally form, at least, a part of the convoy.

Note 4 (p. 141).“. . . Loxias, prophet of his father Jove.”

“. . . Loxias, prophet of his father Jove.”

’Tis plain from the whole language of Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, that the fountain of the whole moral government of the world is Jove, and, of course, that all divination and inspiration comes originally from him. Even Phœbus Apollo acts only as his instrument (Nägelsbach Homerische Theologie, p. 105).Stan. compares Virgil Æneid III. 250.

Note 5 (p. 141).“. . . thee, likewise, who ’fore this temple dwellest.”

“. . . thee, likewise, who ’fore this temple dwellest.”

The reading προνάια (or προνᾴα), which I translate, is that ofWell. and all the MSS.; butLin. has put πρόνοια,providentialorforeseeing, into the text, following out a criticism of Lennep on Phalaris, which has been stoutly defended by Hermann, in his remarks on Müller’s Eumenides (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 17). This, however, in the face of an express passage of Herodotus (I. 92), asPal. well observes, has been done rashly; and nowFr. andSchoe. bring forward inscriptions which prove that there is not the slightest cause for tampering with the text. I have not been able to learn the substance of Lennep’s remarks otherwise than from the account of them by Müller in the Anhang, p. 14; but, taken at their highest value, they seem only to prove that a vagueness had taken hold of the ancients themselves in respect to the designation of this temple, not certainly that Æschylus and Herodotus both made a mistake in calling it προνᾴα, or that all the transcribers of their texts made a blunder.

Note 6 (p. 141).“. . . ye Nymphs that loveThe hollow Corycian rock.”

“. . . ye Nymphs that loveThe hollow Corycian rock.”

“. . . ye Nymphs that love

The hollow Corycian rock.”

“From Delphi, which lies pretty high, the traveller ascended about 60 stadia, or two hours’ travel, till he arrived at the Corycian cave, dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs, in which there were many stalactites and live fountains.”—Sickler.alte geog. II. 134.

Note 7 (p. 141).“Thee, Bromius, too, I worship.”

“Thee, Bromius, too, I worship.”

Bacchus, so called from βρέμω,fremo—the roaring or boisterous god. His connection with Apollo (though drinking songs are not so common now as they were last century) is obvious enough; and some places of the ancient poets where the close connection of these two gods is described, may be seen inStan. The Scholiast to Euripides Phœnissai (v. 227, Matthiae) says expressly that Apollo and Artemis were worshipped on the one peak of Parnassus, and Bacchus on the other.

Note 8 (p. 141).“. . . the godless Pentheus.”

“. . . the godless Pentheus.”

“A son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus. He was the successor of Cadmus as king of Thebes, and being opposed to the introduction of the worship of Dionysus in his kingdom, was torn to pieces by his own mother and two other Mænads, Ino and Autonoe, who in their Bacchic frenzy believed him to be a wild beast. The place where Pentheus suffered death is said to have been Mount Cithæron; but, according to some, it was Mount Parnassus.”—Myth. Dict.

Note 9 (p. 141).“Poseidon’s mighty power.”

“Poseidon’s mighty power.”

Next to Jove, Poseidon is the strongest of the gods, as the element which he rules demands; and this strength, in works of art, is generallyindicated by the breadth of chest given to this god. So Homer, also, wishing to magnify Agamemnon, says—

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