NOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Note 21 (p. 227).“All the land where Algos flows, and Strymon.”The geography here is very confused. I shall content myself with noting the different points from Müller’s map (Dorians)—(1)Algos; unknown.(2)Strymon; a well-known river in Thrace.(3)Perrhæbians; in Thessaly, North of the Peneus (Homer, Il. II. 749).(4)Pindus; the well-known mountain ridge in the centre of Northern Greece, separating the great rivers which descend on the one hand through Epirus into the Ionian sea and the Adriatic, on the other, into the Ægean.(5)Pæonia; in the North of Macedonia (Iliad II. 848).(6)Dodona; in Epirus.Note 22 (p. 227).“Apollo’s son, by double right, physicianAnd prophet both.”This is somewhat of a circumlocution for the single Greek phrase, ἱατρόμαντις,physician-prophet; a name applied to Apollo himself by the Pythoness, in the prologue to the Eumenides (p. 142above). The original conjunction of the two offices of prophet and leech in the person of Melampus, Apis, Chiron, etc. and their patron Apollo, is a remarkable fact in the history of civilization. The multiplication and isolation of professions originally combined and confounded is a natural enough consequence of the progress of society, of which examples occur in every sphere of human activity; but there is, besides, a peculiar fitness in the conjunction ofmedicine and theology, arising from the intimate connexion of mind with bodily ailment, too much neglected by some modern drug-minglers, and also, from the fact that, in ancient times, nothing was more common than to refer diseases, especially those of a striking kind, to the immediate interference of the Divine chastiser—(see Hippocrates περὶ ἱερῆς νόσουinit.). Men are never more disposed to acknowledge divine power than when under the influence of severe affliction; and accordingly we find that, in some savage or semi-savage tribes, the “medicine-man” is the only priest. It would be well, indeed, if, in the present state of advanced science, professional men would more frequently attempt to restore the original oneness of the healing science—(see Max. Tyr. πῶς ᾶν τις ἄλυπος ἒιη)—if all medical men would, like the late Dr. Abercrombie, bear in mind that man has a soul as well as a body, and all theologians more distinctly know that human bodies enclose a stomach as well as a conscience, with which latter the operations of the former are often strangely confounded.Note 23 (p. 228).“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,Erst bore the keys to Hera.”i.e.was priestess of the Argive goddess. The keys are the sign of custodiary authority in modern as in ancient times. See various instances inStan.Note 24 (p. 228).“So runs the general rumour.”After this,Well. supposes something has fallen out of the text; but to me a break in the narration of the Chorus, caused by the eagerness of the royal questioner, seems sufficiently to explain the state of the text.Pal. agrees.Note 25 (p. 228).“Like a leaping bull,Transformed he came.”Βουθόρῳ ταύρῳ. I have softened this expression a little; so modern delicacy compels. The original is quite Homeric—“συῶν ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον.”—Odyssey XI. 131. Homer and the author of the Book of Genesis agree in expressing natural things in a natural way, equally remote (as healthy nature always is) from fastidiousness and from prudery.Note 26 (p. 228).King. A question has evidently dropt here; but it is of no consequence. The answer supplies the first link in the genealogical chain deducing the Danaides from Io and Epaphus. See above,p. 400,Note 44.Note 27 (p. 229).“Both this and that.”I have translated this difficult passage freely, according to the note ofSchütz., as being most comprehensive, and excluding neither the one ground of objection nor the other, both of which seem to have occupied the mind of the virgins. I am not, however, by any means sure what the passage really means. E. P. Oxon. has—“Who would seek to obtain kindred as masters?”Pot.—“And who would wish to make their friends their lord.”Where the real ground of objection is so darkly indicated, a translator is at liberty to smuggle a sort of commentary into the text.Note 28 (p. 229).“The wrath of suppliant Jove.”i.e.Jove the protector of suppliants. See above,Note 1.Note 29 (p. 230).“Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued.”The scholar will recognize here a deviation fromWell.’s text λευκόστικτον, and the adoption of Hermann’s admirable emendation, λυκοδίωκτον.Pal. has received this into his text, andLin., generally a severe censor, approves.—Class. Museum, No. VII. p. 31. Both on metrical and philological grounds, the reading demands reception.Note 30 (p. 230).“Thou art the state, and the people art thou.”This is a very interesting passage in reference to the political constitution—if the term constitution be here allowable—of the loose political aggregates of the heroic ages. The Chorus, of course, speak only their own feelings; but their feelings, in this case, are in remarkable consistency with the usages of the ancient Greeks, as described by Homer. The government of the heroic ages, as it appears in the Iliad, was a monarchy, on common occasions absolute, but liable to be limited by a circumambient atmosphere of oligarchy, and the prospective possibility of resistance on the part of a people habitually passive. Another remarkable circumstance, is the identity of church and state, well indicated by Virgil, in that line—Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.ÆneidIII.and concerning which, Ottfried Müller says—“In ancient Greece it may be said, with almost equal truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings” (Mythology, Leitch, p. 187). On this identity of church and state were founded those laws against the worship of strange gods, which formed so remarkable an exception to the comprehensive spirit of toleration that Hume and Gibbon have not unjustly lauded as one of the advantageous concomitants of Polytheism. The intolerance, which is the necessary consequence of such an identity, has found its thorough and consistent champions only among the Mahommedan and Christian monotheists of modern times. Even the large-hearted and liberal-minded Dr. Arnold was so far possessed by the ancient doctrine of the identity of church and state, that he could not conceive of the possibility of admitting Jews to deliberate in the senate of a Christian state. In modern times, also, we have witnessed with wonder the full development of a doctrine most characteristically Homeric, that the absolute power of kings, whether in civil or in ecclesiastical matters, is equallyof divine right.Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.Il.II. 197.“For from Jove the honor cometh, him the counsellor Jove doth love.”On this very interesting subject every page of Homer is pregnant with instruction; but those who are not familiar with that bible of classical scholars will find a bright reflection of the most important truths inGrote, Hist. Greece, P. I. c. XX.Note 31 (p. 231).“Without the peopleI cannot do this thing.”Æschylus makes the monarch of the heroic ages speak here with a strong tincture of the democracy of the latter times of Greece, no doubt securingto himself thereby immense billows of applause from his Athenian auditors, as the tragedians were fond of doing, by giving utterance to liberal sentiments like that of Æmon in Sophocles—“πόλις γὰρ ὀυκ ἒσθ ἣτις ἀνδρός ἐσθ᾽ ἑνός.” But how little the people had to say in the government of the heroic ages appears strikingly in that most dramatic scene described in the second book of the Iliad, whichGrote(II. 94) has, with admirable judgment, brought prominently forward in his remarks on the power of the ἀγορά, or popular assembly, in the heroic ages. Ulysses holds forth the orthodox doctrine in these terms—“Sit thee down, and cease thy murmurings: sit, and hear thy betters speak,Thou unwarlike, not in battle known, in council all unheard!Soothly all who are Achæans are not kings, and cannot be;Evil is the sway of many; only one may bear the rule,One be king, to whom the deep-designing Kronos’ mighty sonGave the sceptre and the right.”—Il. II. 200.Note 32 (p. 233).“. . . possessory Jove.”Ζεύς κτήσιος.—An epithet characteristic of Jove, as the supreme disposer of human affairs.Klausen(Theolog. II. 15) compares the epithet κλαριος from κλῆρος,a lot, which I have paraphrased inp. 230above.“The Jove that allotteth their lot to all.”Klausenquotes Pausanias (I. 31-4) to the effect that Ζευς κτησιος was worshipped in Attica along with Ceres, Minerva, Cora, and the awful Maids or Furies.Note 33 (p. 234).“The pillar-compassed seats divine.”From a conjecture ofPal., περιστύλους; the πυλισσόυχων being evidently repeated by a wandering of the eye or ear of the transcriber. Sophocles, I recollect, in the Antigone, has ἀμφικίονας ναοὺς. Of course, in the case of such blunders, where the true reading cannot be restored, the best that can be done is to substitute an appropriate one.Note 34 (p. 235).“. . . the assembly of the people.”The word ἀγορά,popular assembly, does not occur here; but it is plainly implied. It is to be distinguished from the βουλή, orcouncil of the chiefs.—SeeGroteas above, andHomerpassim.Note 35 (p. 235).“All crowning Consummator.”As the opening words of this prayer generally are one of the finest testimonies to the sovereignty of Jove to be found in the poet, so the conjunction of words τελέων τελειὸτατον, κράτος is particularly to be noted. The adjectives τέλειος, τελεος, παντελής, and the verb τελέω, are often applied with a peculiar significancy to the king of the gods, as he who alone can conduct to a happy end every undertaking, under whatever auspices commenced. This doctrine is most reverently announced by the Chorus of this play towards the end (p. 244), in these comprehensive terms—τι δε ἄνευ σέθενθνατοισι τελειον εστι.“What thing to mortal men is completed without thee.” And in this sense Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 69), prays—Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε τὰς εμὰς ἐυχὰς τὲλει.On the over-ruling special providence of Jove generally the scholar should readKlausen,Theol.II., 15, andClass. Mus.No. XXVI. pp. 429-433.Note 36 (p. 236).“. . . hence by the brize.”The reader will observe that the course of Io’s wanderings here sketched is something very different from that given in the Prometheus, and much more intelligible. The geography is so familiar to the general reader from the Acts of the Apostles, that comment is unnecessary.Note 37 (p. 236).“Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies.”The partiality of Æschylus for sea-phrases has been often observed. Here, however, Paley for the ἐρεσσομένα, of the vulgate has proposed ἐρεθομένα, aptly for the sense and the metre; butLin. (Class. Mus.No. VII. 30) seems right in allowing the text to remain. I have taken up both readings into my rendering.Note 38 (p. 236).“Nor dared to approach this thing of human face.”It is difficult to know what δυσχερὲς in the text refers.Pot. refers it to the mind of the maid—“Disdaining to be touched.”To me it seems more natural to refer the difficulty of touching to the superstitious fears of the Egyptians; and to translate “not safely to be meddled with.” This is the feeling that my translation has attempted to bring out.Note 39 (p. 237).“Jove’s decided will.”I adopt Heath’s emendation Βούλιος for δούλιος.Well., with superstitious reverence for the most corrupt text extant, retaining the δούλίος, is forced to explain δούλιος φρην, “dictum videtur de hominibus qui Jovis auxilium imploraverunt;” but this will never do. The reader is requested to observe what a pious interpretation is, in this passage, given to the connection of Jove and Io—how different from that given by Prometheus,p. 202above. We may be assured that the orthodox Heathen view of this and other such matters lies in the present beautifully-toned hymn, and not in the hostile taunts which the poet, for purely dramatic purposes, puts into the mouth of the enemy of Jove.Note 40 (p. 240).“Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee.”Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaningfarordistant(ἕκας). According to the prevalent opinion among mythologists, both ancient and modern, this goddess is merely an impersonation of theMoon, asPhoebusof theSun. The term “far-darting” applies to both equally; the rays of the great luminaries being fitly represented as arrows of a far-shooting deity. In the Strophe which follows, Phoebus, under the name of Λυκειος, is called upon to be gracious to the youth of Argos.ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειοςἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,and in the translation I have taken the liberty,pro hac vice, as the lawyers say, to suppose that this epithet, as some modern scholars suggest, has nothing to do etymologically with λύκος,a wolf, but rather with the rootλυκ, which we find in the substantive λυκάβας, and in the Latinluceo. Æschylus, however, in theSeven against Thebes(p. 266above), adopts the derivation from λύκος, as will be seen from my version. I have only to add that, if Artemis be the Moon, her function as the patroness of parturition, alluded to in the present passage, is the most natural thing in the world. On this whole subject,Keightley, c. viii. is very sensible.Note 41 (p. 241).“The bulging fence-work on each side.”(παράῤῥυσεις, more commonly παραῤῥύματα.) “The ancients, as early as the time of Homer, had various preparations raised above the edge of a vessel, made of skins and wicker-work, which were intended as a protection against high waves, and also to serve as a kind of breast-work behind which the men might be safe from the attacks of the enemy.”—Dict. Antiq.voceShips.Note 42 (p. 241).“. . . the prowFronted with eyes to track its watery way.”“It is very common to represent an eye on each side of the prow of ancient ships.”—Do., and woodcuts there from Montfaucon. This custom,Pal. remarks, still continues in the Mediterranean.Note 43 (p. 241).“To champion our need.”Wellauersays that the “sense demands” a distribution of the concluding part of this speech between Danaus and the Chorus; but I can see no reason for disturbing the ancient order, which is retained byBut., though not byPal. That the sense requires no change, the translation should make evident.Note 44 (p. 242).“. . . their ships dark-fronted.”(κυανώπιδες.) The reader will call to mind the νῆες μέλαιναι, the black ships in Homer.—SeeDict. Antiq.voceShips.Note 45 (p. 242).“A strong-limbed race with noon-day sweats well hardened.”This sentiment must have awakened a hearty response in the minds of the Greeks, who were superior to the moderns in nothing so much as in the prominency which they gave to gymnastic exercises, and their contempt for all sorts of σκιοτροφία—rearing in the shade—which our modern bookish system tends to foster.Note 46 (p. 242).“No Mars is in her.”ὄυκ ἔνεστ Ἄρης, a proverbial expression forpithless,nerveless. The same expression is used in the initiatory anapæsts of the Agamemnon. Ἄρης δ ὄυκ ἔνι χώρᾳ.Note 47 (p. 242).“Good Greek corn is better than papyrus.”“Præter alios plurimos usus etiam in cibis recepta fuit papyrus”—Abul.Fadi—“radix ejus pulcis est; quapropter eam masticant et sugunt Ægyptii.” —Olaus Celsius,Hierozoicon, Upsal, 1745. I consulted this valuable work myself, but owe the original reference to an excellent “Essay on the Papyrus of the Ancients, by W. H.de Vriese,” translated from the Dutch by W. B.Macdonald, Esq. of Rammerscales, in theClass. Mus.No. XVI.p. 202, In that article it is stated that “when Guilandinus was in Egypt in the year 1559-60, the pith was then used as food.”Herodotus(Euterp. 92) says that they eat the lower part, roasting it in an oven (κλιβάνῳ πνίξαντες).Pliny(XIII. 11) says, “mandunt quoque, crudum decoctumque succum tantum devorantes.” In the text, of course, the allusion is a sort of proverbial ground of superiority, on the part of the Greeks, over the sons of the Nile, pretty much in the spirit of Dr. Johnston’s famous definition of oats—“food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland.” I have only further to add, that the papyrus belongs to the natural family of theCyperaceæorSedges, and, though not now common in Egypt, is a well-known plant, and to be seen in most of our botanical gardens.Note 48 (p. 242).“The shepherds of the ships.”I have retained this phrase scrupulously—ποιμένες ναῶν—as an interesting relique of the patriarchal age. So in the opening choral chaunt of the Persians, Xerxes is “shepherd of many sheep,” and a little farther on in the same play,Atossaasks the Chorus, “who is shepherd of this (the Athenian) people?” It is in such small peculiarities that the whole character and expression of a language lies.Note 49 (p. 242).“. . . on this coastHarbours are few.”“Nauplia was almost the only harbour on the coast of Argolis.”—Pal., fromBoth. I am not topographer enough to be able to confirm this.Note 50 (p. 243).“On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh.”κρεμὰς.Robortellus: whichWell. might surely have adopted. The description of wild mountain loneliness is here very fine. Let the reader imagine such a region as that ofBen-Macdhuiin Aberdeenshire, so well described inBlackwood’s Magazine, August, 1847. ὀιόφρων is more than ὄιος; and I have ventured on a periphrasis. Hermann’s Latin translation given byPal. is—“saxum praeruptum, capris inaccessum, incommonstrabile, solitudine vastum, propendens, vulturibus habitatum.”Note 51 (p. 244).Chorus(in separate voices, and short hurried exclamations). I most cordially agree withWell. in attaching the ten verses 805-15 to what follows, rather than making it stand as an Epode to what precedes. A change of style is distinctly felt at the conclusion of the third Antistrophe; the dim apprehension of approaching harm becomes a distinct perception, and the choral music more turbid, sudden, and exclamatory. This I have indicated by breaking up the general chaunt into individual voices.—Seep. 377,Note 19.Note 52 (p. 245).“Hence to the ships! to the good ships fare ye!”“What follows is most corrupt, but so made up of short sentences, commands, and exclamations, that if the whole passage were wanting, it would not be much missed. It is very tasteless, and full of turgid phraseology.”—Paley. All this is very true, if we look on the Suppliants as a play written to be read; but, being an opera composed for music, what appears to us tasteless and extravagant, without that stimulating emotional atmosphere,might have been, to the Athenians who heard it, the grand floodtide and tempestuous triumph of the piece. Compare, especially, the passionate Oriental coronach with which “The Persians” concludes. We must never forget that we possess only the skeleton of the sacred opera of the Greeks.Note 53 (p. 248).“To find stray goods the world all over, HermesIs prince of patrons.”“Rei furtivae,” as the civil law says, “acterna est auctoritas”; and the Herald, being sent out on a mission to reclaim what was abstracted, requires no credentials but the fact of the heraldship, which he exercises under the patronage of the herald-god Hermes. It may be also, as the commentators suggest—though I recollect no passage to prove it—that Hermes, being a thief himself, and the patron of thieves, was the most apt deity to whose intervention might be referred the recovery of stolen goods. Something of this kind seems implied in the epithet μαστηριῳ,the searcher, here given to Hermes.Note 54 (p. 250).“In the general view, and publishes their praise.”After these words I have missed out a line, of which I can make nothing satisfactory—κἄλωρα κωλύουσαν ὡς μένειν ἐρῶ.A few lines below, for (ὀ)υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ, I have followedPal. in adoptingHeath’s εἵνεκ᾽ ἠρόθη δορὶ.Note 55 (p. 251).Choral Hymn. This final Chorus of the Suppliants and the opening one of the Persians are remarkable for the use of that peculiar rhythm, technically called theIonic a minore, of which a familiar example exists in Horace, Ode III. 12. What the æsthetical or moral effect of this measure was on an Athenian ear it is perhaps impossible for us, at the present day, to know; but I have thought it right, in both cases, when it occurs, to mark the peculiarity by the adoption of an English rhythm, in some similar degree removed from the vulgar use, and not without a certain cognate character. In modern music, at least, the Ionic of the Greek text and the measure used in my translation are mere varieties of the same rhythmical genus marked musically by ¾. As for the structure of the Chorus, its division into two semi-choruses is anticipative of the division of feeling among the sisters, which afterwards arose when the conduct of their stern father forced them to choose between filial and connubial duty. One thing also is plain, that there is nothing of a real moral finale in this Chorus. Regarded as a concluding ode, it were a most weak and impotent performance. The tone of grateful jubilee with which it sets out, is, after the second Strophe, suddenly changed into the original note of apprehension, evil-foreboding, doubt, and anxiety, plainly pointing to the terrible catastrophe to be unveiled in the immediately succeeding play.Note 56 (p. 251).“Yet, mighty praise be thine,Cyprian queen divine!”The Chorus here are evidently moved by a religious apprehension that, in placing themselves under the patronage of the goddess of chastity, they may have treated lightly the power and the functions of the great goddess oflove. To reconcile the claims of opposing deities was a great problem of practical piety with all devout polytheists. The introduction of Aphrodite here, as has been remarked, is also plainly prophetic of the part which Hypermnestra is to play in the subsequent piece, under the influence of the great Cyprian goddess preferring the love of a husband to the command of a father.Note 57 (p. 252).“Lovely Harmonia.”“Hesiod says that Harmonia (ἁρμονία—order or arrangement) was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the appearance of a physical myth; for from love and strife—i.e.attraction and repulsion—arises the order or harmony of the universe.”—Keightley.Note 58 (p. 252).“Yet must I fear the chase.”φυγάδεσσιν δ ἒπιπλόιας.Hauptadopted byPal. An excellent conjecture.NOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBESNote 1 (p. 263).“Which may averting Jove from me avert.”The epithet ἀλεξητηριος or ἀλεξίκακος (Pausan. Att. III.) or the averter, applied to the gods (see Odys. III. 346, is to be noted), as characteristic of the grand fact in the history of mind, that with rude nations the fear of evil is the dominant religious motive; so much so, that in the accounts which we read of some savage, or semi-savage nations, religion seems to consist altogether in a vague, dim fear of some unknown power, either without moral attributes altogether, or even positively malignant. In this historical sense, the famous maxim,primus in orbe deos fecit timor—however insufficient as a principle of general theology—is quite true. In the present passage, the phraseology is remarkable.ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριοςἘπώνυμος γένοιτο—literally,of which evils may Jove be the averter, and in being so, answer to his name. This allusion to the names and epithets of the gods occurs in Æschylus with a frequency which marks it as a point of devotional propriety in the worship of the Greeks. I have expressed the same thing in the text by the repetition ofavert. So in theChoephoræ,p. 103,Herald Hermes, herald me in this,&c.Note 2 (p. 263).“In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,By no false art, though without help from fire.”“Tiresias, the Theban seer, was blind, and could not divine by fire or other visible signs; but he had received from Pallas a remarkably acute hearing, and the faculty of understanding the voices of birds.”—Apollodor. III. 6.—Stan.Well. objects to this, but surely without good reason. Why are the ears—εν ὦσι—mentioned so expressly, if not to make some contrast to the common method of divining by the eye?Note 3 (p. 264).“By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror.”With Mars in Homer (Il. IV. 440) are coupled φόβος and Δ(ε)ιμος,FearandTerror, as in this passage of Æschylus, and Ἔρις,Strife.“FearandTerrorwent with him, andStrifethat rages without bound,Strifeof Mars the man-destroyer, sister and companion dear.”And in Livy (I. 27), Tullus Hostilius being pressed in battle, “duodecim vovit Salios, fanaquePallorietPavori.”—Compare Cic. de Nat. Deor. III. c. 25.Enýois coupled in Homer as a war-goddess withAthena—“Well Tydides knew that Venus was no goddess made for war,Not Athena, not Eýno city-sacking.”In our language, we have naturalized her Roman counterpartBellona.Note 4 (p. 264).“. . . the chariot of Adrastus.”“Because it had been predicted that Adrastus alone should survive the war.”—Scholiast.Note 5 (p. 265).Chorus. This Chorus,Schneiderremarks, naturally divides itself into four, or, as I think, rather into five distinct parts, (1) The Chorus enter the stage in great hurry and agitation, indicated by the Dochmiac verse—σποράδην, according to the analogy of the Eumenides—(see the βιος Αισχύλου)—in scattered array, and, perhaps in the person of their Coryphæus, describe generally the arrival of the Theban host, and their march against the walls of Thebes. (2) But as the agitation increases, continuity of description becomes impossible, and a series of broken and irregular exclamations and invocations by individual voices follows. (3) Then a more regular prayer, or the chaunting of the Theban litany begins, in which we must suppose the whole band to join. (4) This is interrupted, however, by the near terror of the assault, and the chaunt is again broken into hurried exclamations of individual voices. (5) The litany is then wound up by the whole band. Of course no absolute external proof of matters of this kind can be offered; but the internal evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the translator in marking the peculiar character of the Chorus in some such manner as I have done. For dramatic effect, this is of the utmost consequence. Nothing has more hurt the dramatic character of Æschylus, than the practice of throwing into the form of a continuous ode what was written for a series of well-arranged individual voices. Whoever he was among more recent scholars that first analyzed the Choruses with a special view to separate the exclamatory parts from the continuous chaunt deserves my best thanks.—SeeNote 19to theEumenides,p. 377.Note 6 (p. 265).“With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride.”πεδιοπλόκτυπος. Before this word, another epithet ελεδεμνας occurs, which the intelligent scholar will readily excuse me for having omitted altogether.Note 7 (p. 265).“. . . the white-shielded host.”The epithet λεύκασπις seems characteristic of the Argive host in the Bœotian legend.Sophocles, in the beautiful opening Chorus of theAntigone, andEuripidesin thePhœnissæ, has it. Such traits were of course adopted by the tragedians from the old local legends always with conscientious fidelity.Stan. refers it to the general white or shining aspect of the shields of the common soldiers, distinguished by no various-coloured blazonry; which may be the true explanation.Note 8 (p. 265).“With chaplet and stole.”In modern times, the mightiest monarchs have not thought it beneath their dignity to present, and sometimes, even, to work a petticoat to the Virgin Mary. In ancient times, the presentation of a πέπλος to the maiden goddess of Athens was no less famous—“Take the largest and the finest robe that in thy chamber lies—Take the robe to thee so dear, and place it duly on the kneesOf the beautiful-haired Athena.”—Il. VI. 273.Virgilhas not forgotten this—ÆneidI. 480. Thepeploswas a large upper dress, often reaching to the feet.Yates, in theDict. Antiq., translates it “shawl,” which may be the most accurate word, but, from its modern associations, of course, unsuitable for poetry.—See the article.Note 9 (p. 265).“O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold.”Mars was one of the native ὲπιχώριοι gods of Thebes, as the old legend of the dragon and the sown-teeth sufficiently testifies. The dragon was the offspring of Mars; and the fountain which it guarded, when it was slain by the Phœnician wanderer, was sacred to that god.Apollodor. III. 4;Unger.de fonte Aret. p. 103.

Note 21 (p. 227).“All the land where Algos flows, and Strymon.”

“All the land where Algos flows, and Strymon.”

The geography here is very confused. I shall content myself with noting the different points from Müller’s map (Dorians)—

(1)Algos; unknown.

(2)Strymon; a well-known river in Thrace.

(3)Perrhæbians; in Thessaly, North of the Peneus (Homer, Il. II. 749).

(4)Pindus; the well-known mountain ridge in the centre of Northern Greece, separating the great rivers which descend on the one hand through Epirus into the Ionian sea and the Adriatic, on the other, into the Ægean.

(5)Pæonia; in the North of Macedonia (Iliad II. 848).

(6)Dodona; in Epirus.

Note 22 (p. 227).“Apollo’s son, by double right, physicianAnd prophet both.”

“Apollo’s son, by double right, physicianAnd prophet both.”

“Apollo’s son, by double right, physician

And prophet both.”

This is somewhat of a circumlocution for the single Greek phrase, ἱατρόμαντις,physician-prophet; a name applied to Apollo himself by the Pythoness, in the prologue to the Eumenides (p. 142above). The original conjunction of the two offices of prophet and leech in the person of Melampus, Apis, Chiron, etc. and their patron Apollo, is a remarkable fact in the history of civilization. The multiplication and isolation of professions originally combined and confounded is a natural enough consequence of the progress of society, of which examples occur in every sphere of human activity; but there is, besides, a peculiar fitness in the conjunction ofmedicine and theology, arising from the intimate connexion of mind with bodily ailment, too much neglected by some modern drug-minglers, and also, from the fact that, in ancient times, nothing was more common than to refer diseases, especially those of a striking kind, to the immediate interference of the Divine chastiser—(see Hippocrates περὶ ἱερῆς νόσουinit.). Men are never more disposed to acknowledge divine power than when under the influence of severe affliction; and accordingly we find that, in some savage or semi-savage tribes, the “medicine-man” is the only priest. It would be well, indeed, if, in the present state of advanced science, professional men would more frequently attempt to restore the original oneness of the healing science—(see Max. Tyr. πῶς ᾶν τις ἄλυπος ἒιη)—if all medical men would, like the late Dr. Abercrombie, bear in mind that man has a soul as well as a body, and all theologians more distinctly know that human bodies enclose a stomach as well as a conscience, with which latter the operations of the former are often strangely confounded.

Note 23 (p. 228).“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,Erst bore the keys to Hera.”

“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,Erst bore the keys to Hera.”

“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,

Erst bore the keys to Hera.”

i.e.was priestess of the Argive goddess. The keys are the sign of custodiary authority in modern as in ancient times. See various instances inStan.

Note 24 (p. 228).“So runs the general rumour.”

“So runs the general rumour.”

After this,Well. supposes something has fallen out of the text; but to me a break in the narration of the Chorus, caused by the eagerness of the royal questioner, seems sufficiently to explain the state of the text.Pal. agrees.

Note 25 (p. 228).“Like a leaping bull,Transformed he came.”

“Like a leaping bull,Transformed he came.”

“Like a leaping bull,

Transformed he came.”

Βουθόρῳ ταύρῳ. I have softened this expression a little; so modern delicacy compels. The original is quite Homeric—“συῶν ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον.”—Odyssey XI. 131. Homer and the author of the Book of Genesis agree in expressing natural things in a natural way, equally remote (as healthy nature always is) from fastidiousness and from prudery.

Note 26 (p. 228).

King. A question has evidently dropt here; but it is of no consequence. The answer supplies the first link in the genealogical chain deducing the Danaides from Io and Epaphus. See above,p. 400,Note 44.

Note 27 (p. 229).“Both this and that.”

“Both this and that.”

I have translated this difficult passage freely, according to the note ofSchütz., as being most comprehensive, and excluding neither the one ground of objection nor the other, both of which seem to have occupied the mind of the virgins. I am not, however, by any means sure what the passage really means. E. P. Oxon. has—

“Who would seek to obtain kindred as masters?”

Pot.—

“And who would wish to make their friends their lord.”

Where the real ground of objection is so darkly indicated, a translator is at liberty to smuggle a sort of commentary into the text.

Note 28 (p. 229).“The wrath of suppliant Jove.”

“The wrath of suppliant Jove.”

i.e.Jove the protector of suppliants. See above,Note 1.

Note 29 (p. 230).“Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued.”

“Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued.”

The scholar will recognize here a deviation fromWell.’s text λευκόστικτον, and the adoption of Hermann’s admirable emendation, λυκοδίωκτον.Pal. has received this into his text, andLin., generally a severe censor, approves.—Class. Museum, No. VII. p. 31. Both on metrical and philological grounds, the reading demands reception.

Note 30 (p. 230).“Thou art the state, and the people art thou.”

“Thou art the state, and the people art thou.”

This is a very interesting passage in reference to the political constitution—if the term constitution be here allowable—of the loose political aggregates of the heroic ages. The Chorus, of course, speak only their own feelings; but their feelings, in this case, are in remarkable consistency with the usages of the ancient Greeks, as described by Homer. The government of the heroic ages, as it appears in the Iliad, was a monarchy, on common occasions absolute, but liable to be limited by a circumambient atmosphere of oligarchy, and the prospective possibility of resistance on the part of a people habitually passive. Another remarkable circumstance, is the identity of church and state, well indicated by Virgil, in that line—

Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.ÆneidIII.

Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.

ÆneidIII.

and concerning which, Ottfried Müller says—“In ancient Greece it may be said, with almost equal truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings” (Mythology, Leitch, p. 187). On this identity of church and state were founded those laws against the worship of strange gods, which formed so remarkable an exception to the comprehensive spirit of toleration that Hume and Gibbon have not unjustly lauded as one of the advantageous concomitants of Polytheism. The intolerance, which is the necessary consequence of such an identity, has found its thorough and consistent champions only among the Mahommedan and Christian monotheists of modern times. Even the large-hearted and liberal-minded Dr. Arnold was so far possessed by the ancient doctrine of the identity of church and state, that he could not conceive of the possibility of admitting Jews to deliberate in the senate of a Christian state. In modern times, also, we have witnessed with wonder the full development of a doctrine most characteristically Homeric, that the absolute power of kings, whether in civil or in ecclesiastical matters, is equallyof divine right.

Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.Il.II. 197.“For from Jove the honor cometh, him the counsellor Jove doth love.”

Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.Il.II. 197.

Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.

Il.II. 197.

“For from Jove the honor cometh, him the counsellor Jove doth love.”

On this very interesting subject every page of Homer is pregnant with instruction; but those who are not familiar with that bible of classical scholars will find a bright reflection of the most important truths inGrote, Hist. Greece, P. I. c. XX.

Note 31 (p. 231).“Without the peopleI cannot do this thing.”

“Without the peopleI cannot do this thing.”

“Without the people

I cannot do this thing.”

Æschylus makes the monarch of the heroic ages speak here with a strong tincture of the democracy of the latter times of Greece, no doubt securingto himself thereby immense billows of applause from his Athenian auditors, as the tragedians were fond of doing, by giving utterance to liberal sentiments like that of Æmon in Sophocles—“πόλις γὰρ ὀυκ ἒσθ ἣτις ἀνδρός ἐσθ᾽ ἑνός.” But how little the people had to say in the government of the heroic ages appears strikingly in that most dramatic scene described in the second book of the Iliad, whichGrote(II. 94) has, with admirable judgment, brought prominently forward in his remarks on the power of the ἀγορά, or popular assembly, in the heroic ages. Ulysses holds forth the orthodox doctrine in these terms—

“Sit thee down, and cease thy murmurings: sit, and hear thy betters speak,Thou unwarlike, not in battle known, in council all unheard!Soothly all who are Achæans are not kings, and cannot be;Evil is the sway of many; only one may bear the rule,One be king, to whom the deep-designing Kronos’ mighty sonGave the sceptre and the right.”—Il. II. 200.

“Sit thee down, and cease thy murmurings: sit, and hear thy betters speak,

Thou unwarlike, not in battle known, in council all unheard!

Soothly all who are Achæans are not kings, and cannot be;

Evil is the sway of many; only one may bear the rule,

One be king, to whom the deep-designing Kronos’ mighty son

Gave the sceptre and the right.”—Il. II. 200.

Note 32 (p. 233).“. . . possessory Jove.”

“. . . possessory Jove.”

Ζεύς κτήσιος.—An epithet characteristic of Jove, as the supreme disposer of human affairs.Klausen(Theolog. II. 15) compares the epithet κλαριος from κλῆρος,a lot, which I have paraphrased inp. 230above.

“The Jove that allotteth their lot to all.”

Klausenquotes Pausanias (I. 31-4) to the effect that Ζευς κτησιος was worshipped in Attica along with Ceres, Minerva, Cora, and the awful Maids or Furies.

Note 33 (p. 234).“The pillar-compassed seats divine.”

“The pillar-compassed seats divine.”

From a conjecture ofPal., περιστύλους; the πυλισσόυχων being evidently repeated by a wandering of the eye or ear of the transcriber. Sophocles, I recollect, in the Antigone, has ἀμφικίονας ναοὺς. Of course, in the case of such blunders, where the true reading cannot be restored, the best that can be done is to substitute an appropriate one.

Note 34 (p. 235).“. . . the assembly of the people.”

“. . . the assembly of the people.”

The word ἀγορά,popular assembly, does not occur here; but it is plainly implied. It is to be distinguished from the βουλή, orcouncil of the chiefs.—SeeGroteas above, andHomerpassim.

Note 35 (p. 235).“All crowning Consummator.”

“All crowning Consummator.”

As the opening words of this prayer generally are one of the finest testimonies to the sovereignty of Jove to be found in the poet, so the conjunction of words τελέων τελειὸτατον, κράτος is particularly to be noted. The adjectives τέλειος, τελεος, παντελής, and the verb τελέω, are often applied with a peculiar significancy to the king of the gods, as he who alone can conduct to a happy end every undertaking, under whatever auspices commenced. This doctrine is most reverently announced by the Chorus of this play towards the end (p. 244), in these comprehensive terms—

τι δε ἄνευ σέθενθνατοισι τελειον εστι.

τι δε ἄνευ σέθεν

θνατοισι τελειον εστι.

“What thing to mortal men is completed without thee.” And in this sense Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 69), prays—

Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε τὰς εμὰς ἐυχὰς τὲλει.

On the over-ruling special providence of Jove generally the scholar should readKlausen,Theol.II., 15, andClass. Mus.No. XXVI. pp. 429-433.

Note 36 (p. 236).“. . . hence by the brize.”

“. . . hence by the brize.”

The reader will observe that the course of Io’s wanderings here sketched is something very different from that given in the Prometheus, and much more intelligible. The geography is so familiar to the general reader from the Acts of the Apostles, that comment is unnecessary.

Note 37 (p. 236).“Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies.”

“Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies.”

The partiality of Æschylus for sea-phrases has been often observed. Here, however, Paley for the ἐρεσσομένα, of the vulgate has proposed ἐρεθομένα, aptly for the sense and the metre; butLin. (Class. Mus.No. VII. 30) seems right in allowing the text to remain. I have taken up both readings into my rendering.

Note 38 (p. 236).“Nor dared to approach this thing of human face.”

“Nor dared to approach this thing of human face.”

It is difficult to know what δυσχερὲς in the text refers.Pot. refers it to the mind of the maid—

“Disdaining to be touched.”

To me it seems more natural to refer the difficulty of touching to the superstitious fears of the Egyptians; and to translate “not safely to be meddled with.” This is the feeling that my translation has attempted to bring out.

Note 39 (p. 237).“Jove’s decided will.”

“Jove’s decided will.”

I adopt Heath’s emendation Βούλιος for δούλιος.Well., with superstitious reverence for the most corrupt text extant, retaining the δούλίος, is forced to explain δούλιος φρην, “dictum videtur de hominibus qui Jovis auxilium imploraverunt;” but this will never do. The reader is requested to observe what a pious interpretation is, in this passage, given to the connection of Jove and Io—how different from that given by Prometheus,p. 202above. We may be assured that the orthodox Heathen view of this and other such matters lies in the present beautifully-toned hymn, and not in the hostile taunts which the poet, for purely dramatic purposes, puts into the mouth of the enemy of Jove.

Note 40 (p. 240).“Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee.”

“Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee.”

Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaningfarordistant(ἕκας). According to the prevalent opinion among mythologists, both ancient and modern, this goddess is merely an impersonation of theMoon, asPhoebusof theSun. The term “far-darting” applies to both equally; the rays of the great luminaries being fitly represented as arrows of a far-shooting deity. In the Strophe which follows, Phoebus, under the name of Λυκειος, is called upon to be gracious to the youth of Argos.

ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειοςἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,

ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειος

ἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,

and in the translation I have taken the liberty,pro hac vice, as the lawyers say, to suppose that this epithet, as some modern scholars suggest, has nothing to do etymologically with λύκος,a wolf, but rather with the rootλυκ, which we find in the substantive λυκάβας, and in the Latinluceo. Æschylus, however, in theSeven against Thebes(p. 266above), adopts the derivation from λύκος, as will be seen from my version. I have only to add that, if Artemis be the Moon, her function as the patroness of parturition, alluded to in the present passage, is the most natural thing in the world. On this whole subject,Keightley, c. viii. is very sensible.

Note 41 (p. 241).“The bulging fence-work on each side.”

“The bulging fence-work on each side.”

(παράῤῥυσεις, more commonly παραῤῥύματα.) “The ancients, as early as the time of Homer, had various preparations raised above the edge of a vessel, made of skins and wicker-work, which were intended as a protection against high waves, and also to serve as a kind of breast-work behind which the men might be safe from the attacks of the enemy.”—Dict. Antiq.voceShips.

Note 42 (p. 241).“. . . the prowFronted with eyes to track its watery way.”

“. . . the prowFronted with eyes to track its watery way.”

“. . . the prow

Fronted with eyes to track its watery way.”

“It is very common to represent an eye on each side of the prow of ancient ships.”—Do., and woodcuts there from Montfaucon. This custom,Pal. remarks, still continues in the Mediterranean.

Note 43 (p. 241).“To champion our need.”

“To champion our need.”

Wellauersays that the “sense demands” a distribution of the concluding part of this speech between Danaus and the Chorus; but I can see no reason for disturbing the ancient order, which is retained byBut., though not byPal. That the sense requires no change, the translation should make evident.

Note 44 (p. 242).“. . . their ships dark-fronted.”

“. . . their ships dark-fronted.”

(κυανώπιδες.) The reader will call to mind the νῆες μέλαιναι, the black ships in Homer.—SeeDict. Antiq.voceShips.

Note 45 (p. 242).“A strong-limbed race with noon-day sweats well hardened.”

“A strong-limbed race with noon-day sweats well hardened.”

This sentiment must have awakened a hearty response in the minds of the Greeks, who were superior to the moderns in nothing so much as in the prominency which they gave to gymnastic exercises, and their contempt for all sorts of σκιοτροφία—rearing in the shade—which our modern bookish system tends to foster.

Note 46 (p. 242).“No Mars is in her.”

“No Mars is in her.”

ὄυκ ἔνεστ Ἄρης, a proverbial expression forpithless,nerveless. The same expression is used in the initiatory anapæsts of the Agamemnon. Ἄρης δ ὄυκ ἔνι χώρᾳ.

Note 47 (p. 242).“Good Greek corn is better than papyrus.”

“Good Greek corn is better than papyrus.”

“Præter alios plurimos usus etiam in cibis recepta fuit papyrus”—Abul.Fadi—“radix ejus pulcis est; quapropter eam masticant et sugunt Ægyptii.” —Olaus Celsius,Hierozoicon, Upsal, 1745. I consulted this valuable work myself, but owe the original reference to an excellent “Essay on the Papyrus of the Ancients, by W. H.de Vriese,” translated from the Dutch by W. B.Macdonald, Esq. of Rammerscales, in theClass. Mus.No. XVI.p. 202, In that article it is stated that “when Guilandinus was in Egypt in the year 1559-60, the pith was then used as food.”Herodotus(Euterp. 92) says that they eat the lower part, roasting it in an oven (κλιβάνῳ πνίξαντες).Pliny(XIII. 11) says, “mandunt quoque, crudum decoctumque succum tantum devorantes.” In the text, of course, the allusion is a sort of proverbial ground of superiority, on the part of the Greeks, over the sons of the Nile, pretty much in the spirit of Dr. Johnston’s famous definition of oats—“food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland.” I have only further to add, that the papyrus belongs to the natural family of theCyperaceæorSedges, and, though not now common in Egypt, is a well-known plant, and to be seen in most of our botanical gardens.

Note 48 (p. 242).“The shepherds of the ships.”

“The shepherds of the ships.”

I have retained this phrase scrupulously—ποιμένες ναῶν—as an interesting relique of the patriarchal age. So in the opening choral chaunt of the Persians, Xerxes is “shepherd of many sheep,” and a little farther on in the same play,Atossaasks the Chorus, “who is shepherd of this (the Athenian) people?” It is in such small peculiarities that the whole character and expression of a language lies.

Note 49 (p. 242).“. . . on this coastHarbours are few.”

“. . . on this coastHarbours are few.”

“. . . on this coast

Harbours are few.”

“Nauplia was almost the only harbour on the coast of Argolis.”—Pal., fromBoth. I am not topographer enough to be able to confirm this.

Note 50 (p. 243).“On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh.”

“On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh.”

κρεμὰς.Robortellus: whichWell. might surely have adopted. The description of wild mountain loneliness is here very fine. Let the reader imagine such a region as that ofBen-Macdhuiin Aberdeenshire, so well described inBlackwood’s Magazine, August, 1847. ὀιόφρων is more than ὄιος; and I have ventured on a periphrasis. Hermann’s Latin translation given byPal. is—“saxum praeruptum, capris inaccessum, incommonstrabile, solitudine vastum, propendens, vulturibus habitatum.”

Note 51 (p. 244).

Chorus(in separate voices, and short hurried exclamations). I most cordially agree withWell. in attaching the ten verses 805-15 to what follows, rather than making it stand as an Epode to what precedes. A change of style is distinctly felt at the conclusion of the third Antistrophe; the dim apprehension of approaching harm becomes a distinct perception, and the choral music more turbid, sudden, and exclamatory. This I have indicated by breaking up the general chaunt into individual voices.—Seep. 377,Note 19.

Note 52 (p. 245).“Hence to the ships! to the good ships fare ye!”

“Hence to the ships! to the good ships fare ye!”

“What follows is most corrupt, but so made up of short sentences, commands, and exclamations, that if the whole passage were wanting, it would not be much missed. It is very tasteless, and full of turgid phraseology.”—Paley. All this is very true, if we look on the Suppliants as a play written to be read; but, being an opera composed for music, what appears to us tasteless and extravagant, without that stimulating emotional atmosphere,might have been, to the Athenians who heard it, the grand floodtide and tempestuous triumph of the piece. Compare, especially, the passionate Oriental coronach with which “The Persians” concludes. We must never forget that we possess only the skeleton of the sacred opera of the Greeks.

Note 53 (p. 248).“To find stray goods the world all over, HermesIs prince of patrons.”

“To find stray goods the world all over, HermesIs prince of patrons.”

“To find stray goods the world all over, Hermes

Is prince of patrons.”

“Rei furtivae,” as the civil law says, “acterna est auctoritas”; and the Herald, being sent out on a mission to reclaim what was abstracted, requires no credentials but the fact of the heraldship, which he exercises under the patronage of the herald-god Hermes. It may be also, as the commentators suggest—though I recollect no passage to prove it—that Hermes, being a thief himself, and the patron of thieves, was the most apt deity to whose intervention might be referred the recovery of stolen goods. Something of this kind seems implied in the epithet μαστηριῳ,the searcher, here given to Hermes.

Note 54 (p. 250).“In the general view, and publishes their praise.”

“In the general view, and publishes their praise.”

After these words I have missed out a line, of which I can make nothing satisfactory—

κἄλωρα κωλύουσαν ὡς μένειν ἐρῶ.

A few lines below, for (ὀ)υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ, I have followedPal. in adoptingHeath’s εἵνεκ᾽ ἠρόθη δορὶ.

Note 55 (p. 251).

Choral Hymn. This final Chorus of the Suppliants and the opening one of the Persians are remarkable for the use of that peculiar rhythm, technically called theIonic a minore, of which a familiar example exists in Horace, Ode III. 12. What the æsthetical or moral effect of this measure was on an Athenian ear it is perhaps impossible for us, at the present day, to know; but I have thought it right, in both cases, when it occurs, to mark the peculiarity by the adoption of an English rhythm, in some similar degree removed from the vulgar use, and not without a certain cognate character. In modern music, at least, the Ionic of the Greek text and the measure used in my translation are mere varieties of the same rhythmical genus marked musically by ¾. As for the structure of the Chorus, its division into two semi-choruses is anticipative of the division of feeling among the sisters, which afterwards arose when the conduct of their stern father forced them to choose between filial and connubial duty. One thing also is plain, that there is nothing of a real moral finale in this Chorus. Regarded as a concluding ode, it were a most weak and impotent performance. The tone of grateful jubilee with which it sets out, is, after the second Strophe, suddenly changed into the original note of apprehension, evil-foreboding, doubt, and anxiety, plainly pointing to the terrible catastrophe to be unveiled in the immediately succeeding play.

Note 56 (p. 251).“Yet, mighty praise be thine,Cyprian queen divine!”

“Yet, mighty praise be thine,Cyprian queen divine!”

“Yet, mighty praise be thine,

Cyprian queen divine!”

The Chorus here are evidently moved by a religious apprehension that, in placing themselves under the patronage of the goddess of chastity, they may have treated lightly the power and the functions of the great goddess oflove. To reconcile the claims of opposing deities was a great problem of practical piety with all devout polytheists. The introduction of Aphrodite here, as has been remarked, is also plainly prophetic of the part which Hypermnestra is to play in the subsequent piece, under the influence of the great Cyprian goddess preferring the love of a husband to the command of a father.

Note 57 (p. 252).“Lovely Harmonia.”

“Lovely Harmonia.”

“Hesiod says that Harmonia (ἁρμονία—order or arrangement) was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the appearance of a physical myth; for from love and strife—i.e.attraction and repulsion—arises the order or harmony of the universe.”—Keightley.

Note 58 (p. 252).“Yet must I fear the chase.”

“Yet must I fear the chase.”

φυγάδεσσιν δ ἒπιπλόιας.Hauptadopted byPal. An excellent conjecture.

Note 1 (p. 263).“Which may averting Jove from me avert.”

“Which may averting Jove from me avert.”

The epithet ἀλεξητηριος or ἀλεξίκακος (Pausan. Att. III.) or the averter, applied to the gods (see Odys. III. 346, is to be noted), as characteristic of the grand fact in the history of mind, that with rude nations the fear of evil is the dominant religious motive; so much so, that in the accounts which we read of some savage, or semi-savage nations, religion seems to consist altogether in a vague, dim fear of some unknown power, either without moral attributes altogether, or even positively malignant. In this historical sense, the famous maxim,primus in orbe deos fecit timor—however insufficient as a principle of general theology—is quite true. In the present passage, the phraseology is remarkable.

ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριοςἘπώνυμος γένοιτο—

ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριος

Ἐπώνυμος γένοιτο—

literally,of which evils may Jove be the averter, and in being so, answer to his name. This allusion to the names and epithets of the gods occurs in Æschylus with a frequency which marks it as a point of devotional propriety in the worship of the Greeks. I have expressed the same thing in the text by the repetition ofavert. So in theChoephoræ,p. 103,Herald Hermes, herald me in this,&c.

Note 2 (p. 263).“In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,By no false art, though without help from fire.”

“In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,By no false art, though without help from fire.”

“In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,

By no false art, though without help from fire.”

“Tiresias, the Theban seer, was blind, and could not divine by fire or other visible signs; but he had received from Pallas a remarkably acute hearing, and the faculty of understanding the voices of birds.”—Apollodor. III. 6.—Stan.Well. objects to this, but surely without good reason. Why are the ears—εν ὦσι—mentioned so expressly, if not to make some contrast to the common method of divining by the eye?

Note 3 (p. 264).“By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror.”

“By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror.”

With Mars in Homer (Il. IV. 440) are coupled φόβος and Δ(ε)ιμος,FearandTerror, as in this passage of Æschylus, and Ἔρις,Strife.

“FearandTerrorwent with him, andStrifethat rages without bound,Strifeof Mars the man-destroyer, sister and companion dear.”

“FearandTerrorwent with him, andStrifethat rages without bound,

Strifeof Mars the man-destroyer, sister and companion dear.”

And in Livy (I. 27), Tullus Hostilius being pressed in battle, “duodecim vovit Salios, fanaquePallorietPavori.”—Compare Cic. de Nat. Deor. III. c. 25.Enýois coupled in Homer as a war-goddess withAthena—

“Well Tydides knew that Venus was no goddess made for war,Not Athena, not Eýno city-sacking.”

“Well Tydides knew that Venus was no goddess made for war,

Not Athena, not Eýno city-sacking.”

In our language, we have naturalized her Roman counterpartBellona.

Note 4 (p. 264).“. . . the chariot of Adrastus.”

“. . . the chariot of Adrastus.”

“Because it had been predicted that Adrastus alone should survive the war.”—Scholiast.

Note 5 (p. 265).

Chorus. This Chorus,Schneiderremarks, naturally divides itself into four, or, as I think, rather into five distinct parts, (1) The Chorus enter the stage in great hurry and agitation, indicated by the Dochmiac verse—σποράδην, according to the analogy of the Eumenides—(see the βιος Αισχύλου)—in scattered array, and, perhaps in the person of their Coryphæus, describe generally the arrival of the Theban host, and their march against the walls of Thebes. (2) But as the agitation increases, continuity of description becomes impossible, and a series of broken and irregular exclamations and invocations by individual voices follows. (3) Then a more regular prayer, or the chaunting of the Theban litany begins, in which we must suppose the whole band to join. (4) This is interrupted, however, by the near terror of the assault, and the chaunt is again broken into hurried exclamations of individual voices. (5) The litany is then wound up by the whole band. Of course no absolute external proof of matters of this kind can be offered; but the internal evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the translator in marking the peculiar character of the Chorus in some such manner as I have done. For dramatic effect, this is of the utmost consequence. Nothing has more hurt the dramatic character of Æschylus, than the practice of throwing into the form of a continuous ode what was written for a series of well-arranged individual voices. Whoever he was among more recent scholars that first analyzed the Choruses with a special view to separate the exclamatory parts from the continuous chaunt deserves my best thanks.—SeeNote 19to theEumenides,p. 377.

Note 6 (p. 265).“With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride.”

“With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride.”

πεδιοπλόκτυπος. Before this word, another epithet ελεδεμνας occurs, which the intelligent scholar will readily excuse me for having omitted altogether.

Note 7 (p. 265).“. . . the white-shielded host.”

“. . . the white-shielded host.”

The epithet λεύκασπις seems characteristic of the Argive host in the Bœotian legend.Sophocles, in the beautiful opening Chorus of theAntigone, andEuripidesin thePhœnissæ, has it. Such traits were of course adopted by the tragedians from the old local legends always with conscientious fidelity.Stan. refers it to the general white or shining aspect of the shields of the common soldiers, distinguished by no various-coloured blazonry; which may be the true explanation.

Note 8 (p. 265).“With chaplet and stole.”

“With chaplet and stole.”

In modern times, the mightiest monarchs have not thought it beneath their dignity to present, and sometimes, even, to work a petticoat to the Virgin Mary. In ancient times, the presentation of a πέπλος to the maiden goddess of Athens was no less famous—

“Take the largest and the finest robe that in thy chamber lies—Take the robe to thee so dear, and place it duly on the kneesOf the beautiful-haired Athena.”—Il. VI. 273.

“Take the largest and the finest robe that in thy chamber lies—

Take the robe to thee so dear, and place it duly on the knees

Of the beautiful-haired Athena.”—Il. VI. 273.

Virgilhas not forgotten this—ÆneidI. 480. Thepeploswas a large upper dress, often reaching to the feet.Yates, in theDict. Antiq., translates it “shawl,” which may be the most accurate word, but, from its modern associations, of course, unsuitable for poetry.—See the article.

Note 9 (p. 265).“O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold.”

“O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold.”

Mars was one of the native ὲπιχώριοι gods of Thebes, as the old legend of the dragon and the sown-teeth sufficiently testifies. The dragon was the offspring of Mars; and the fountain which it guarded, when it was slain by the Phœnician wanderer, was sacred to that god.Apollodor. III. 4;Unger.de fonte Aret. p. 103.

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