Io.Thou speak’st ambiguous oracles.Prometheus.I have spokenEnough for thee. Pry not into the Fates.Io.Wilt thou hold forth a hope to cheat my grasp?Prometheus.I give thee choice of two things: choose thou one.Io.What things? Speak, and I’ll choose.Prometheus.Thou hast the choiceTo hear thy toils to the end, or learn his nameWho comes to save me.Chorus.Nay, divide the choice;One half to her concede, to me the other,Thus doubly gracious: to the maid her toils,To me thy destined Saviour tell.Prometheus.So be it!Being thus whetted in desire, I would notOppose your wills. First Io, what remainsOf thy far-sweeping wanderings hear, and graveMy words on the sure tablets of thy mind.When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that partsn45The continents, to the far flame-faced EastThou shalt proceed, the highway of the Sun;Then cross the sounding Ocean, till thou reachCisthené and the Gorgon plains, where dwellPhorcys’ three daughters, maids with frosty eldHoar as the swan, with one eye and one toothShared by the three; them Phœbus beamy-brightBeholds not, nor the nightly Moon. Near themTheir winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire,Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eyeOf mortal ne’er might look upon and live.This for thy warning. One more sight remains,That fills the eye with horror: mark me well;The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid.Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed hostOf Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofsBeating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto.A distant land, a swarthy people nextReceives thee: near the fountains of the SunThey dwell by Aethiops’ wave. This river traceUntil thy weary feet shall reach the passWhence from the Bybline heights the sacred NilePours his salubrious flood.n46The winding waveThence to triangled Egypt guides thee, whereA distant home awaits thee, fated motherOf no unstoried race. And now, if aughtThat I have spoken doubtful seem or dark,Repeat the question, and in plainer speechExpect reply. I feel no lack of leisure.Chorus.If thou hast more to speak to her, speak on;Or aught omitted to supply, supply it;But if her tale is finished, as thou say’st,Remember our request.Prometheus.Her tale is told,But for the more assurance of my wordsThe path of toils through which her feet had struggledBefore she reached this coast I will declare;Lightly, and with no cumbrous comment, touchingThy latest travel only, wandering Io.When thou hadst trod the Molossian plains, and reachedSteep-ridged Dodona, where Thesprotian JoveIn council sits, and from the articulate oaks(Strange wonder!) speaks prophetic, there thine earsThis salutation with no doubtful phraseReceived: “All hail, great spouse of mighty JoveThat shall be!”—say, was it a pleasing sound?Thence by the sting of jealous Hera goaded,Along the coast of Rhea’s bosomed seaf14Thy steps were driven: thence with mazy courseTossed hither;n47gaining, if a gain, this solace,That future times, by famous Io’s name,Shall know that sea.f15These things may be a signThat I, beyond the outward show, can pierceTo the heart of truth. What yet remains, I tellTo thee and them in common, tracing backMy speech to whence it came. There is a cityIn extreme Egypt, where with outspread loamNile breasts the sea, its name Canopus. ThereJove to thy sober sense shall bring thee back,Soft with no fearful touch, and thou shalt bearA son, dark Epaphus, whose name shall tellThe wonder of his birth;n48he shall possessWhat fruitful fields fat Nile broad-streaming laves.Four generations then shall pass; the fifthIn fifty daughtersf16glorying shall returnTo ancient Argos, fatal wedlock shunningWith fathers’ brothers’ sons; these, their wild heartsFooled with blind lust, as hawks the gentle doves,Shall track the fugitive virgins; but a godShall disappoint their chase, and the fair preySave from their lawless touch; the Apian soilShall welcome them to death, and woman’s handsShall dare the deed amid the nuptial watches.Each bride shall rob her lord of life, and dipThe sharp steel in his throat. Such nuptial blissMay all my enemies know! Only one maidOf all the fifty, with a blunted will,Shall own the charm of love, and spare her mate,And of two adverse reputations chooseThe coward, not the murderess. She shall beThe mother of a royal race in Argos.To tell what follows, with minute remark,Were irksome; but from this same root shall springA hero, strong in the archer’s craft, whose handShall free me from these bonds. Such oracle spakeTitanian Themis, my time-honoured mother,But how and why were a long tale to tell,Nor being told would boot thine ear to hear it.Io.Ah me! pain! pain! ah me!Again the fevered spasm hath seized me,And the stroke of madness smites!Again that fiery sting torments me,And my heart doth knock my ribs!My aching eyes in dizziness roll,And my helmless feet are drivenWhither gusty frenzy blows!And my tongue with thick words strugglingLike a sinking swimmer plashes’Gainst the whelming waves of woe! [Exit.CHORAL HYMN.STROPHE.Wise was the man, most wise,Who in deep-thoughted mood conceived, and firstIn pictured speech and pregnant phrase declaredThat marriage, if the Fates shall bless the bond,Must be of like with like;And that the daughters of an humble houseShun tempting union with the pomp of wealthAnd with the pride of birth.ANTISTROPHE.Never, O! never may Fate,All-powerful Fate which rules both gods and men,See me approaching the dread Thunderer’s bed,And sharing marriage with the Olympian king,An humble Ocean-maid!May wretched Io, chased by Hera’s wrath,Unhusbanded, unfriended, fill my senseWith profitable fear.EPODE.Me may an equal bondBind with my equal: never may the eyeOf a celestial suitor fix the gazeOf forceful love on me.This were against all odds of war to war,And in such strife entangled I were lost;For how should humble maid resist the embrace,Against great Jove’s decree?Prometheus.Nay, but this Jove, though insolent now, shall soonBe humbled low. Such wedlock even nowHe blindly broods, as shall uptear his kingdom,And leave no trace behind; then shall the curse,Which Kronos heaped upon his ingrate son,When hurled unjustly from his hoary throne,Be all fulfilled. What remedy remainsFor that dread ruin I alone can tell;I only know. Then let him sit aloft,Rolling his thunder, his fire-breathing boltFar-brandishing; his arts are vain; his fall,Unless my aid prevent, his shameful fall,Is doomed. Against himself to life he bringsA champion fierce, a portent of grim war,Who shall invent a fiercer flame than lightning,And peals to outpeal the thunder, who shall shiverThe trident mace that stirs the sea, and shakesThe solid Earth, the spear of strong Poseidon.Thus shall the tyrant learn how much to serveIs different from to sway.Chorus.Thou dost but makeThy wishes father to thy slanderous phrase.Prometheus.I both speak truth and wish the truth to be.Chorus.But who can think that Jove shall find a master?Prometheus.He shall be mastered! Ay, and worse endure.Chorus.Dost thou not blench to cast such words about thee?Prometheus.How should I fear, being a god and deathless?Chorus.But he can scourge with something worse than death.Prometheus.Even let him scourge! I’m armed for all conclusions.Chorus.Yet they are wise who worship Adrastéa.n49Prometheus.Worship, and pray; fawn on the powers that be;But Jove to me is less than very nothing.Let him command, and rule his little hourTo please himself; long time he cannot sway.But lo! where comes the courier of this Jove,The obsequious minion of this upstart King,Doubtless the bearer of some weighty news.EnterHermes.Hermes.Thee, cunning sophist, dealing bitter wordsMost bitterly against the gods, the friendOf ephemeral man, the thief of sacred fire,Thee, Father Jove commands to curb thy boasts,And say what marriage threats his stable throne.Answer this question in plain phrase, no darkTangled enigmas; do not add, Prometheus,A second journey to my first: and, mark me!Thy obduracy cannot soften Jove.Prometheus.This solemn mouthing, this proud pomp of phraseBeseems the lackey of the gods. New godsYe are, and, being new, ye ween to holdUnshaken citadels. Have I not seenTwo Monarchs ousted from that throne? the thirdI yet shall see precipitate hurled from HeavenWith baser, speedier, ruin. Do I seemTo quail before this new-forged dynasty?Fear is my farthest thought. I pray thee goTurn up the dust again upon the roadThou cam’st. Reply from me thou shalt have none.Hermes.This haughty tone hath been thy sin before:Thy pride will strand thee on a worser woe.Prometheus.And were my woe tenfold what now it is,I would not barter it for thy sweet chains;For liefer would I lackey this bare rockThan trip the messages of Father Jove.The insolent thus with insolence I repay.Hermes.Thou dost delight in miseries; thou art wanton.Prometheus.Wanton! delighted! would my worst enemiesMight wanton in these bonds, thyself the first!Hermes.Must I, too, share the blame of thy distress?Prometheus.In one round sentence, every god I hateThat injures me who never injured him.Hermes.Thou’rt mad, clean mad; thy wit’s diseased, Prometheus.Prometheus.Most mad! if madness ’tis to hate our foes.Hermes.Prosperity’s too good for thee: thy temperCould not endure’t.Prometheus.Alas! this piercing pang!Hermes.“Alas!”—this word Jove does not understand.Prometheus.As Time grows old he teaches many things.Hermes.Yet Time that teaches all leaves thee untaught.Prometheus.Untaught in sooth, thus parleying with a slave!Hermes.It seems thou wilt not grant great Jove’s demand.Prometheus.Such love as his to me should be repaidWith like!Hermes.Dost beard me like a boy? Beware.Prometheus.Art not a boy, and something yet more witless,If thou expectest answer from my mouth?Nor insult harsh, nor cunning craft of JoveShall force this tale from me, till he unlooseThese bonds. Yea! let him dart his levin bolts,With white-winged snows and subterranean thundersMix and confound the elements of things!No threat, no fear, shall move me to revealThe hand that hurls him from his tyrant’s throne.Hermes.Bethink thee well: thy vaunts can help thee nothing.Prometheus.I speak not rashly: what I said I said.Hermes.If thou art not the bought and sold of folly,Dare to learn wisdom from thy present ills.Prometheus.Speak to the waves: thou speak’st to me as vainly!Deem not that I, to win a smile from Jove,Will spread a maiden smoothness o’er my soul,And importune the foe whom most I hateWith womanish upliftings of the hands.Thou’lt see the deathless die first!Hermes.I have saidMuch, but that much is vain: thy rigid natureTo thaw with prayer is hopeless. A young coltThat frets the bit, and fights against the reins,Art thou, fierce-champing with most impotent rage;For wilful strength that hath no wisdom in itIs less than nothing.n50But bethink thee well;If thou despise my words of timely warning,What wintry storm, what threefold surge of woesWhelms thee inevitable. Jove shall splitThese craggy cliffs with his cloud-bosomed bolt,And sink thee deep: the cold rock shall embrace thee;There thou shalt lie, till he shall please to bring theeBack to the day, to find new pains prepared:For he will send his Eagle-messenger,His winged hound,f17in crimson food delighting,To tear thy rags of flesh with bloody beak,And daily come an uninvited guestTo banquet on thy gory liver. This,And worse expect, unless some god endureVicarious thy tortures,n51and exchangeHis sunny ether for the rayless homesOf gloomy Hades, and deep Tartarus.Consider well. No empty boast I speak,But weighty words well weighed: the mouth of JoveHath never known a lie, and speech with himIs prophet of its deed. Ponder and weigh,Close not thy stubborn ears to good advice.Chorus.If we may speak, what Hermes says is wise,And fitting the occasion. He advisesThat stubborn will should yield to prudent counsel.Obey: thy wisdom should not league with folly.Prometheus.Nothing new this preacher preaches:Seems it strange that foe should sufferFrom the vengeance of his foe?I am ready. Let him wreatheCurls of scorching flame around me;Let him fret the air with thunder,And the savage-blustering winds!Let the deep abysmal tempestWrench the firm roots of the Earth!Let the sea upheave her billows,Mingling the fierce rush of watersWith the pathway of the stars!Let the harsh-winged hurricane sweep meIn its whirls, and fling me downTo black Tartarus: there to lieBound in the iron folds of Fate.I will bear: but cannot die.Hermes.Whom the nymphs have struck with madnessRaves as this loud blusterer raves;Seems he not a willing madman,Let him reap the fruits he sowed!n52But ye maids, who share his sorrows,Not his crimes, with quick removalHie from this devoted spot,Lest with idiocy the thunderHarshly blast your maundering wits.Chorus.Wouldst thou with thy words persuade us,Use a more persuasive speech;Urge no reasons to convince meThat an honest heart must hate.With his sorrows I will sorrow:I will hate a traitor’s name;Earth has plagues, but none more noisomeThan a faithless friend in need.Hermes.Ponder well my prudent counsel,Nor, when evil hunts thee out,Blame great Jove that he doth smite theeWith an unexpected stroke.Not the gods; thy proper follyIs the parent of thy woes.f18Jove hath laid no trap to snare thee,But the scapeless net of ruinThou hast woven for thyself.Prometheus.Now his threats walk forth in action,And the firm Earth quakes indeed.Deep and loud the ambient ThunderBellows, and the flaring LightningWreathes his fiery curls around me,And the Whirlwind rolls his dust;And the Winds from rival regionsRush in elemental strife,And the Ocean’s storm-vexed billowsMingle with the startled stars!Doubtless now the tyrant gathersAll his hoarded wrath to whelm me.Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis,Circling Ether that diffusestLight, a common joy to all,Thou beholdest these my wrongs![The End]THE SUPPLIANTSA LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLEBe not forgetful to entertain strangers; for therebySome have entertained angels unawares.St. Paul.πρὸς γὰρ Διός ἐισιν ἅπαντεςΞεῖνοί τε πτωχόι τε.Homer.PERSONSChorus of Danaides.Danaus.Pelasgus,King of Argos, and Attendants.Herald.INTRODUCTORY REMARKSDanaus, according to the received Greek story, was an Egyptian, who founded a colony in Argos, at some date between the age of the oldest Argive king Inachus, and the Trojan war. In the reality of this sea-faring adventurer, modern historians, following the faith of the ancient Greeks, have generally acquiesced, till, latterly, the Germans, with that instinctive hostility to external tradition which characterises them, have boldly ventured to explain both the Egyptian and his colony away into a symbol, or an inanity. Of our most recent writers, however,Thirlwall, after considering all the German speculations on the subject, is not ashamed to say a word in favour of the possibility or probability of an Egyptian colony in Argos;f1whileClintonf2(Introd. pp. 6, 7), boldly announces the principle that “we may acknowledge as real persons all those whom there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is in favour of the early tradition. . . . Cadmus and Danaus appear to be real persons; for it is conformable to the state of mankind, and perfectly credible that Phœnician and Egyptian adventurers, in the ages to which these persons are ascribed, should have found their way to the coasts of Greece.”Grote, however, seems to have acted most wisely in refusing to decide whether any particular legend of the earliest times is mythical or historical, on the ground that, though many of the legends doubtless contain truth, they contain it only “in a sort of chemical combination with fiction, which we have no means of decomposing”—(II. p. 50). This play of Æschylus, therefore, cannot boast of any accessory historical superadded to the principal poetic interest.Danaus, the legend tells, though an Egyptian born, was not of Egyptian descent. The original mother of his race was Io, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, and priestess of Hera in that place. How this much-persecuted maid found her way from the banks of the “Erasinus old” to the shores of the nurturing Nile, we have seen in the previous piece. Danaus had a brother called Ægyptus, the father of fifty sons, as himself was of fifty daughters. These fifty sons Ægyptus sought to unite in wedlock to the equal-numbered progeny of his brother; but the chaste maidens, whether because they actually thought it unholy (as it certainly is, in the general case, unadvisable) for first cousins to marry first cousins, orbecause the suit was pressed in a manner not the most respectful, or from a combination of both motives, refused to enter into the bond; and, to escape the importunities of their stronger male suitors, fled, under the guidance of their father, over the seas to Greece. As kind chance, or, rather, Divine Providence, would have it, they were wafted to that very part of Greece whence their famous ancestress Io had originally proceeded, when the god-sent gadfly drove her, in a career of tempestuous wanderings, through great part of Europe and Asia, to Egypt. With their landing on this coast the present opera commences; and the action which it represents is the very simple one of the reception of the Libyan fugitives, by the Argive monarch Pelasgus (otherwise called Gelanor), and their participation in the rights and privileges of Argive citizenship. The transference of their affections from Nile to Erasinus is solemnly sung in the concluding chaunt. The Danaides are now Argives.Considered by itself, the action of this piece is the most meagre that can be conceived, and, as the poet has handled it, contains little that can stir the deeper feelings of the heart, or strike the imagination strongly. That the king of the Argives should feel serious doubts as to the propriety of receiving such a band of foreigners into his kingdom, formidable not in their own strength, indeed, but in respect of the pursuing party, by whom they were claimed, was most natural; equally natural, however, and, in a poetic point of view, necessary, that his political fears should finally be outweighed by his benevolent regard for the rights of unprotected virgins, and his pious fear of the wrath of Jove, the protector of suppliants. The alternation of mind between these contending feelings, till a final resolve is taken on the side of the right, affords no field for the higher faculty of the dramatist to display itself. As we have it, accordingly, the Suppliants is, perhaps, the weakest performance of Æschylus. But the fact is, there is the best reason to believe that the great father of tragedy never meant this piece to stand alone, but wrote it merely to usher in the main action, which followed in the other pieces of a trilogy; the names of which pieces—Ἀιγύπτιοι, and Δαναίδες—are preserved in the list of the author’s pieces still extant. Of this, the whole conclusion of the present piece, and especially the latter half of the last choral chaunt, furnishes the most conclusive evidence.The remainder of the story, which formed the main action of the trilogy, is well known. Immediately after the reception of the fugitives, by the Argives, their pursuers arrive, and land on the coast. This arrival is announced in the last scene of the present piece. Onthis, Danaus, unwilling to lead his kind host into a war, pretends to yield to the suit still as eagerly pressed, and the marriage is agreed on. But a terrible revenge had been devised. At the very moment that he hands over his unwilling but obedient daughters to the subjection of their hated cousins, he gives them secret instructions to furnish themselves each with a dagger, and, during the watches of the nuptial night, to dip the steel in the throats of their unsuspecting lords. The bloody deed was completed. Only one of all the fifty daughters, preferring the fame of true womanhood to the claims of filial homage, spared her mate. Hypermnestra saved her husband Lynceus. This conduct, of course, brought the daughter into collision with her father and her father’s family; and one of those strifes of our mysterious moral nature was educed, which, as we have seen in the trilogy of the Orestiad, it was one great purpose of the Æschylean drama to reconcile. If the murder occupied the second piece, as the progress of the story naturally brings with it, a third piece, according to the analogy of the Eumenides, would be necessary to bring about the reconciliation, and effect that purifying of the passions which Aristotle points out as the great moral result of tragic composition. That Aphrodite was the great celestial agent employed in the finale of the Suppliants, as Pallas Athena is in the Furies, has been well divined; a beautiful fragment in celebration of love, and in favour of Hypermnestra remains; but to attempt a reconstruction of these lost pieces at the present day, though an amusement of which the learned Germans are fond, is foreign to the habits of the British mind. Those who feel inclined to see what ingenuity may achieve in this region, are referred to Welcker’s Trilogie, and Gruppe’s Ariadne.The moral tone and character of this piece is in the highest degree pleasing and satisfactory. The Supreme Jove, whose prominent attribute is power, here receives a glorification as the protector of the persecuted, and the refuge of the distressed. On the duty of hospitality, under the sanction of Ζεύς ξένιος and ἱκεσιος, as practised among the ancient Greeks, I refer the reader with pleasure to Grote’s History of Greece, Vol. II., p. 114.“The scene,” says Potter, “is near the shore, in an open grove, close to the altar and images of the gods presiding over the sacred games, with a view of the sea and ships of Egyptus on one side, and of the town of Argos on the other, with hills, and woods, and vales, a river flowing between them: all, together with the persons of the drama, forming a picture that would have well employed the united pencils of Poussin and Claude.”THE SUPPLIANTSChorus,entering the stage in procession. March time.Chorus.Jove, the suppliant’s high protector,n1Look from Heaven, benignly favouringUs the suppliant band, swift-oaredHither sailing, from the seven mouthsOf the fat fine-sanded Nile!n2From the land that fringes Syria,Land divine, in flight we came,Not by public vote forth-driven,Not by taint of blood divorcedFrom our native state,f3but chastelyOur abhorrent foot withdrawingFrom impure ungodly wedlockWith Ægyptus’ sons, too nearlyCousined with ourselves. For wisely,This our threatened harm well-weighing,Danaus, our sire, prime counsellor,And leader of our sistered band,Timely chose this least of sorrowsO’er the salt-sea wave to flee;And here on Argive soil to plant us,Whence our race its vaunted springDrew divinely, when great JoveGently thrilled the brize-stung heifern3With his procreant touch, and breathedGodlike virtue on her womb.Where on Earth should we hope refugeOn more friendly ground than this,In our hands these green boughs bearingWreathed with precatory wool?f4Ye blissful gods supremely swayingn4Land and city, and lucid streams;And ye in sepulchres dark, severelyWorshipped ’neath the sunless ground;And thou, the third, great Jove the Saviour,Guardian of all holy homes,With your spirit gracious-wafted,Breathe fair welcome on this bandOf suppliant maids. But in the depthOf whirling waves engulph the swarmOf insolent youths, Ægyptus’ sons,Them, and their sea-cars swiftly oared,Ere this slimy shore receiveTheir hated footprint. Let them labour,With wrath-spitting seas confronted:By the wild storm wintry-beating,Thunder-crashing, lightning flashing,By the tyrannous blast shower-ladenLet them perish, ere they mountMarriage beds which right refuses,n5Us, their father’s brother’s daughtersTo their lawless yoke enthralling![TheChorusassemble in a band round the centre of the Orchestra, and sing the Choral Hymn.CHORAL HYMN.STROPHE I.Give ear to our prayer, we implore thee,Thou son, and the mother that bore thee—The calf and the heifer divine!f5From afar be thine offspring’s avenger,Even thou, once a beautiful rangerO’er these meads with the grass-cropping kine!And thou, whom she bore to her honor,When the breath of the Highest was on her,And the touch of the finger divine;Thine ear, mighty god, we implore theeTo the prayer of thine offspring incline!ANTISTROPHE I.O Thou who with blessing anointed,Wert born when by Fate ’twas appointed,With thy name to all ages a sign!f6In this land of the mother that bore thee,Her toils we remember before thee,Where she cropped the green mead with the kine.O strange were her fortunes, and strangerThe fate that hath chased me from dangerTo the home of the heifer divine.O son, with the mother that bore thee,Stamp my tale with thy truth for a sign!STROPHE AND ANTISTROPHE II.While we cry, should there haply be near usAn Argive, an augur,f7to hear us,When our shrill-piercing wailHis ear shall assail,’Tis the cry he will deem, and none other,Of Procne, the woe-wedded mother,The hawk-hunted nightingale;f8Sad bird, when its known streams it leaveth,And with fresh-bleeding grief lonely grieveth,And telleth the tale,With a shrill-voiced wail,How the son that she loved, and none other,Was slain by his fell-purposed mother,The woe-wedded nightingale!STROPHE III.Even so from the Nile summer-tinted,With Ionian wailings unstinted,n6My cheek with the keen nail I tear;And I pluck, where it bloweth,Griefs blossom that growethIn this heart first acquainted with care;And I fear the fierce band,From the far misty land,n7Whom the swift ships to Argos may bear.ANTISTROPHE III.Ye gods of my race, seeing clearlyThe right which ye cherish so dearly,To the haughty your hatred declare!’Gainst the right ye will neverChaste virgins deliver,The bed of the lawless to share;From the god-fenced altarEach awe-struck assaulterBack shrinks. Our sure bulwark is there.STROPHE IV.O would that Jove might show to menHis counsel as he planned it;But ah! he darky weaves the scheme,No mortal eye hath scanned it.It burns through darkness brightly clearTo whom the god shall show it;But mortal man, through cloudy fear,Shall search in vain to know it.ANTISTROPHE IV.Firm to the goal his purpose treads,His will knows no frustration;When with his brow the mighty godHath nodded consummation.But strangely, strangely weave their mazeHis counsels, dusky wending,Concealed in densely-tangled waysFrom human comprehending.STROPHE V.From their high-towering hopes the proudIn wretched rout he casteth.No force he wields; his simple will,His quiet sentence blasteth.All godlike power is calm;n8and highOn thrones of glory seated,Jove looks from Heaven with tranquil eye,And sees his will completed.ANTISTROPHE V.Look down, O mighty god, and seeHow this harsh wedlock planning,That dry old tree in saplings green,The insolent lust is fanning!Madly he hugs the frenzied planWith perverse heart unbending,Hot-spurred, till Ruin seize the man,Too late to think of mending.STROPHE VI.Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!n9Thus sadly I hymn the sorrowful lay,With a shrill-voiced cry,With a sorrow-streaming eye,Well-a-day, woe’s me!Thus I grace my own tomb with the wail pouring free,Thus I sing my own dirge, ah me!f9Ye Apian hills, be kind to me,And throw not back the stranger’s note,But know the Libyan wail.Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,My linen robes all loosely float,And my Sidonian veil.ANTISTROPHE VI.Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!My plighted vows I’ll duly pay,Ye gods, if ye will saveFrom the foe, and from the graveMy trembling life set free!Surges high, surges high, sorrow’s many-billowed sea,And woe towers on woe. Ah me!Ye Apian hills,n10be kind to me,And throw not back the stranger’s noteBut know the Libyan wail!Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,My linen robes all loosely float,And my Sidonian veil!STROPHE VII.And yet, in that slight timbered house, well-armedWith frequent-plashing oar,Stiff sail and cordage straining, all unharmedBy winter’s stormy roar,We reached this Argive shore.Safely so far. May Jove, the all-seeing, sendAs the beginning, so the prosperous end.And may he grant, indeed,That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,By no harsh kindred wooed,May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued!ANTISTROPHE VII.May she, the virgin daughter of high Jove,f10Our virgin litany hear,Our loving homage answering with more love!She that, with face severe,Repelled, in awful fear,Each rude aggressor, in firm virtue cased,Nor knew the lustful touch divinely chaste.And may she grant, indeed,That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,By no harsh kindred wooed,May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued.STROPHE VIII.But if no aid to us may be,Libya’s swart sun-beaten daughters,The rope shall end our toils; and we,Beneath the ground, shall fare to thee,Thou many-guested Jove,f11To thee our suppliant boughs we’ll spread,Thou Saviour of the weary Dead,Far from the shining thrones of blissful gods above.Ah, Jove too well we knowWhat wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailingBeneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;And even so,On Io’s seed may blowA buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.ANTISTROPHE VIII.O Jove, how then wilt thou be freeFrom just reproach of Libya’s daughters,If thou in us dishonoured seeHim whom the heifer bore to theeWhom thou didst chiefly love.If thou from us shalt turn thy face,What suppliant then shall seek thy grace?O hear my prayer enthroned in loftiest state above!For well, too well, we knowWhat wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailingBeneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;And even so,On Io’s seed may blowA buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.EnterDanaus.Danaus.Be wise, my daughters. In no rash flight with me,A hoary father, and a faithful pilot,Ye crossed the seas; nor less is wisdom needfulAshore; be wise, and on your heart’s true tabletEngrave my words. For lo! where mounts the dust,A voiceless herald of their coming; hearTheir distant-rumbling wheels! A host I seeOf bright shield-bearing and spear-shaking men,Swift steeds, and rounded cars.n11Of our here landing,Timely apprised, the chiefs that rule this countryCome with their eyes to read us. But be their comingHarmless, or harsh with fell displeasure, hereOn this high-seat of the Agonian godsn12Is safety for my daughters; for an altarIs a sure tower of strength, a shield that bearsThe rattling terror dintless. Go ye, therefore,Embrace these altars, in your sistered handsn13These white-wreathed precatory boughs presenting,Which awful Jove reveres; and with choice phraseWisely your pity-moving tale-commendWhen they shall ask you; as becomes the stranger,The bloodless motive of your flight declaringWith clear recital. The bold tongue eschewing,With sober-fronted face and quiet eyeYour tale unfold. The garrulous prate, the lengthOf slow-drawn speech beware. Such fault offendsThis people sorely. Chiefly know to yield:Thou art the weaker—a poor helpless stranger—The bold-mouthed phrase suits ill with thy condition.Chorus.Father, thou speakest wisely: nor unwiselyThy words would we receive, in memory’s wardStoring thy hests; ancestral Jove be witness!Danaus.Even so; and with benignant eye look down!n14Chorus.* * * *Danaus.Delay not. In performance show thy strength.Chorus.Even there where thou dost sit, I’d sit beside thee!Danaus.O Jove show pity ere pity come too late!Chorus.Jove willing, all is well.Danaus.Him, therefore, pray,There where his bird the altar decorates:n15prayApollo, too, the pure, the exiled oncen16From bright Olympus.Chorus.The sun’s restoring raysWe pray: the god what fate he knew will pity.Danaus.May he with pity and with aid be near!Chorus.Whom next shall I invoke?Danaus.Thou see’st this tridentAnd know’st of whom the symbol?Chorus.May the sameThat sent us hither kindly now receive us!
Io.
Thou speak’st ambiguous oracles.
Prometheus.
I have spoken
Enough for thee. Pry not into the Fates.
Io.
Wilt thou hold forth a hope to cheat my grasp?
Prometheus.
I give thee choice of two things: choose thou one.
Io.
What things? Speak, and I’ll choose.
Prometheus.
Thou hast the choice
To hear thy toils to the end, or learn his name
Who comes to save me.
Chorus.
Nay, divide the choice;
One half to her concede, to me the other,
Thus doubly gracious: to the maid her toils,
To me thy destined Saviour tell.
Prometheus.
So be it!
Being thus whetted in desire, I would not
Oppose your wills. First Io, what remains
Of thy far-sweeping wanderings hear, and grave
My words on the sure tablets of thy mind.
When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that partsn45
The continents, to the far flame-faced East
Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the Sun;
Then cross the sounding Ocean, till thou reach
Cisthené and the Gorgon plains, where dwell
Phorcys’ three daughters, maids with frosty eld
Hoar as the swan, with one eye and one tooth
Shared by the three; them Phœbus beamy-bright
Beholds not, nor the nightly Moon. Near them
Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire,
Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye
Of mortal ne’er might look upon and live.
This for thy warning. One more sight remains,
That fills the eye with horror: mark me well;
The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid.
Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host
Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs
Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto.
A distant land, a swarthy people next
Receives thee: near the fountains of the Sun
They dwell by Aethiops’ wave. This river trace
Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass
Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile
Pours his salubrious flood.n46The winding wave
Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where
A distant home awaits thee, fated mother
Of no unstoried race. And now, if aught
That I have spoken doubtful seem or dark,
Repeat the question, and in plainer speech
Expect reply. I feel no lack of leisure.
Chorus.
If thou hast more to speak to her, speak on;
Or aught omitted to supply, supply it;
But if her tale is finished, as thou say’st,
Remember our request.
Prometheus.
Her tale is told,
But for the more assurance of my words
The path of toils through which her feet had struggled
Before she reached this coast I will declare;
Lightly, and with no cumbrous comment, touching
Thy latest travel only, wandering Io.
When thou hadst trod the Molossian plains, and reached
Steep-ridged Dodona, where Thesprotian Jove
In council sits, and from the articulate oaks
(Strange wonder!) speaks prophetic, there thine ears
This salutation with no doubtful phrase
Received: “All hail, great spouse of mighty Jove
That shall be!”—say, was it a pleasing sound?
Thence by the sting of jealous Hera goaded,
Along the coast of Rhea’s bosomed seaf14
Thy steps were driven: thence with mazy course
Tossed hither;n47gaining, if a gain, this solace,
That future times, by famous Io’s name,
Shall know that sea.f15These things may be a sign
That I, beyond the outward show, can pierce
To the heart of truth. What yet remains, I tell
To thee and them in common, tracing back
My speech to whence it came. There is a city
In extreme Egypt, where with outspread loam
Nile breasts the sea, its name Canopus. There
Jove to thy sober sense shall bring thee back,
Soft with no fearful touch, and thou shalt bear
A son, dark Epaphus, whose name shall tell
The wonder of his birth;n48he shall possess
What fruitful fields fat Nile broad-streaming laves.
Four generations then shall pass; the fifth
In fifty daughtersf16glorying shall return
To ancient Argos, fatal wedlock shunning
With fathers’ brothers’ sons; these, their wild hearts
Fooled with blind lust, as hawks the gentle doves,
Shall track the fugitive virgins; but a god
Shall disappoint their chase, and the fair prey
Save from their lawless touch; the Apian soil
Shall welcome them to death, and woman’s hands
Shall dare the deed amid the nuptial watches.
Each bride shall rob her lord of life, and dip
The sharp steel in his throat. Such nuptial bliss
May all my enemies know! Only one maid
Of all the fifty, with a blunted will,
Shall own the charm of love, and spare her mate,
And of two adverse reputations choose
The coward, not the murderess. She shall be
The mother of a royal race in Argos.
To tell what follows, with minute remark,
Were irksome; but from this same root shall spring
A hero, strong in the archer’s craft, whose hand
Shall free me from these bonds. Such oracle spake
Titanian Themis, my time-honoured mother,
But how and why were a long tale to tell,
Nor being told would boot thine ear to hear it.
Io.
Ah me! pain! pain! ah me!
Again the fevered spasm hath seized me,
And the stroke of madness smites!
Again that fiery sting torments me,
And my heart doth knock my ribs!
My aching eyes in dizziness roll,
And my helmless feet are driven
Whither gusty frenzy blows!
And my tongue with thick words struggling
Like a sinking swimmer plashes
’Gainst the whelming waves of woe! [Exit.
CHORAL HYMN.STROPHE.
Wise was the man, most wise,
Who in deep-thoughted mood conceived, and first
In pictured speech and pregnant phrase declared
That marriage, if the Fates shall bless the bond,
Must be of like with like;
And that the daughters of an humble house
Shun tempting union with the pomp of wealth
And with the pride of birth.
ANTISTROPHE.
Never, O! never may Fate,
All-powerful Fate which rules both gods and men,
See me approaching the dread Thunderer’s bed,
And sharing marriage with the Olympian king,
An humble Ocean-maid!
May wretched Io, chased by Hera’s wrath,
Unhusbanded, unfriended, fill my sense
With profitable fear.
EPODE.
Me may an equal bond
Bind with my equal: never may the eye
Of a celestial suitor fix the gaze
Of forceful love on me.
This were against all odds of war to war,
And in such strife entangled I were lost;
For how should humble maid resist the embrace,
Against great Jove’s decree?
Prometheus.
Nay, but this Jove, though insolent now, shall soon
Be humbled low. Such wedlock even now
He blindly broods, as shall uptear his kingdom,
And leave no trace behind; then shall the curse,
Which Kronos heaped upon his ingrate son,
When hurled unjustly from his hoary throne,
Be all fulfilled. What remedy remains
For that dread ruin I alone can tell;
I only know. Then let him sit aloft,
Rolling his thunder, his fire-breathing bolt
Far-brandishing; his arts are vain; his fall,
Unless my aid prevent, his shameful fall,
Is doomed. Against himself to life he brings
A champion fierce, a portent of grim war,
Who shall invent a fiercer flame than lightning,
And peals to outpeal the thunder, who shall shiver
The trident mace that stirs the sea, and shakes
The solid Earth, the spear of strong Poseidon.
Thus shall the tyrant learn how much to serve
Is different from to sway.
Chorus.
Thou dost but make
Thy wishes father to thy slanderous phrase.
Prometheus.
I both speak truth and wish the truth to be.
Chorus.
But who can think that Jove shall find a master?
Prometheus.
He shall be mastered! Ay, and worse endure.
Chorus.
Dost thou not blench to cast such words about thee?
Prometheus.
How should I fear, being a god and deathless?
Chorus.
But he can scourge with something worse than death.
Prometheus.
Even let him scourge! I’m armed for all conclusions.
Chorus.
Yet they are wise who worship Adrastéa.n49
Prometheus.
Worship, and pray; fawn on the powers that be;
But Jove to me is less than very nothing.
Let him command, and rule his little hour
To please himself; long time he cannot sway.
But lo! where comes the courier of this Jove,
The obsequious minion of this upstart King,
Doubtless the bearer of some weighty news.
EnterHermes.
Hermes.
Thee, cunning sophist, dealing bitter words
Most bitterly against the gods, the friend
Of ephemeral man, the thief of sacred fire,
Thee, Father Jove commands to curb thy boasts,
And say what marriage threats his stable throne.
Answer this question in plain phrase, no dark
Tangled enigmas; do not add, Prometheus,
A second journey to my first: and, mark me!
Thy obduracy cannot soften Jove.
Prometheus.
This solemn mouthing, this proud pomp of phrase
Beseems the lackey of the gods. New gods
Ye are, and, being new, ye ween to hold
Unshaken citadels. Have I not seen
Two Monarchs ousted from that throne? the third
I yet shall see precipitate hurled from Heaven
With baser, speedier, ruin. Do I seem
To quail before this new-forged dynasty?
Fear is my farthest thought. I pray thee go
Turn up the dust again upon the road
Thou cam’st. Reply from me thou shalt have none.
Hermes.
This haughty tone hath been thy sin before:
Thy pride will strand thee on a worser woe.
Prometheus.
And were my woe tenfold what now it is,
I would not barter it for thy sweet chains;
For liefer would I lackey this bare rock
Than trip the messages of Father Jove.
The insolent thus with insolence I repay.
Hermes.
Thou dost delight in miseries; thou art wanton.
Prometheus.
Wanton! delighted! would my worst enemies
Might wanton in these bonds, thyself the first!
Hermes.
Must I, too, share the blame of thy distress?
Prometheus.
In one round sentence, every god I hate
That injures me who never injured him.
Hermes.
Thou’rt mad, clean mad; thy wit’s diseased, Prometheus.
Prometheus.
Most mad! if madness ’tis to hate our foes.
Hermes.
Prosperity’s too good for thee: thy temper
Could not endure’t.
Prometheus.
Alas! this piercing pang!
Hermes.
“Alas!”—this word Jove does not understand.
Prometheus.
As Time grows old he teaches many things.
Hermes.
Yet Time that teaches all leaves thee untaught.
Prometheus.
Untaught in sooth, thus parleying with a slave!
Hermes.
It seems thou wilt not grant great Jove’s demand.
Prometheus.
Such love as his to me should be repaid
With like!
Hermes.
Dost beard me like a boy? Beware.
Prometheus.
Art not a boy, and something yet more witless,
If thou expectest answer from my mouth?
Nor insult harsh, nor cunning craft of Jove
Shall force this tale from me, till he unloose
These bonds. Yea! let him dart his levin bolts,
With white-winged snows and subterranean thunders
Mix and confound the elements of things!
No threat, no fear, shall move me to reveal
The hand that hurls him from his tyrant’s throne.
Hermes.
Bethink thee well: thy vaunts can help thee nothing.
Prometheus.
I speak not rashly: what I said I said.
Hermes.
If thou art not the bought and sold of folly,
Dare to learn wisdom from thy present ills.
Prometheus.
Speak to the waves: thou speak’st to me as vainly!
Deem not that I, to win a smile from Jove,
Will spread a maiden smoothness o’er my soul,
And importune the foe whom most I hate
With womanish upliftings of the hands.
Thou’lt see the deathless die first!
Hermes.
I have said
Much, but that much is vain: thy rigid nature
To thaw with prayer is hopeless. A young colt
That frets the bit, and fights against the reins,
Art thou, fierce-champing with most impotent rage;
For wilful strength that hath no wisdom in it
Is less than nothing.n50But bethink thee well;
If thou despise my words of timely warning,
What wintry storm, what threefold surge of woes
Whelms thee inevitable. Jove shall split
These craggy cliffs with his cloud-bosomed bolt,
And sink thee deep: the cold rock shall embrace thee;
There thou shalt lie, till he shall please to bring thee
Back to the day, to find new pains prepared:
For he will send his Eagle-messenger,
His winged hound,f17in crimson food delighting,
To tear thy rags of flesh with bloody beak,
And daily come an uninvited guest
To banquet on thy gory liver. This,
And worse expect, unless some god endure
Vicarious thy tortures,n51and exchange
His sunny ether for the rayless homes
Of gloomy Hades, and deep Tartarus.
Consider well. No empty boast I speak,
But weighty words well weighed: the mouth of Jove
Hath never known a lie, and speech with him
Is prophet of its deed. Ponder and weigh,
Close not thy stubborn ears to good advice.
Chorus.
If we may speak, what Hermes says is wise,
And fitting the occasion. He advises
That stubborn will should yield to prudent counsel.
Obey: thy wisdom should not league with folly.
Prometheus.
Nothing new this preacher preaches:
Seems it strange that foe should suffer
From the vengeance of his foe?
I am ready. Let him wreathe
Curls of scorching flame around me;
Let him fret the air with thunder,
And the savage-blustering winds!
Let the deep abysmal tempest
Wrench the firm roots of the Earth!
Let the sea upheave her billows,
Mingling the fierce rush of waters
With the pathway of the stars!
Let the harsh-winged hurricane sweep me
In its whirls, and fling me down
To black Tartarus: there to lie
Bound in the iron folds of Fate.
I will bear: but cannot die.
Hermes.
Whom the nymphs have struck with madness
Raves as this loud blusterer raves;
Seems he not a willing madman,
Let him reap the fruits he sowed!n52
But ye maids, who share his sorrows,
Not his crimes, with quick removal
Hie from this devoted spot,
Lest with idiocy the thunder
Harshly blast your maundering wits.
Chorus.
Wouldst thou with thy words persuade us,
Use a more persuasive speech;
Urge no reasons to convince me
That an honest heart must hate.
With his sorrows I will sorrow:
I will hate a traitor’s name;
Earth has plagues, but none more noisome
Than a faithless friend in need.
Hermes.
Ponder well my prudent counsel,
Nor, when evil hunts thee out,
Blame great Jove that he doth smite thee
With an unexpected stroke.
Not the gods; thy proper folly
Is the parent of thy woes.f18
Jove hath laid no trap to snare thee,
But the scapeless net of ruin
Thou hast woven for thyself.
Prometheus.
Now his threats walk forth in action,
And the firm Earth quakes indeed.
Deep and loud the ambient Thunder
Bellows, and the flaring Lightning
Wreathes his fiery curls around me,
And the Whirlwind rolls his dust;
And the Winds from rival regions
Rush in elemental strife,
And the Ocean’s storm-vexed billows
Mingle with the startled stars!
Doubtless now the tyrant gathers
All his hoarded wrath to whelm me.
Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis,
Circling Ether that diffusest
Light, a common joy to all,
Thou beholdest these my wrongs!
[The End]
A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLEBe not forgetful to entertain strangers; for therebySome have entertained angels unawares.St. Paul.πρὸς γὰρ Διός ἐισιν ἅπαντεςΞεῖνοί τε πτωχόι τε.Homer.
A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE
A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for therebySome have entertained angels unawares.St. Paul.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby
Some have entertained angels unawares.
St. Paul.
πρὸς γὰρ Διός ἐισιν ἅπαντεςΞεῖνοί τε πτωχόι τε.Homer.
πρὸς γὰρ Διός ἐισιν ἅπαντες
Ξεῖνοί τε πτωχόι τε.
Homer.
Chorus of Danaides.Danaus.Pelasgus,King of Argos, and Attendants.Herald.
Chorus of Danaides.Danaus.Pelasgus,King of Argos, and Attendants.Herald.
Chorus of Danaides.
Danaus.
Pelasgus,King of Argos, and Attendants.
Herald.
Danaus, according to the received Greek story, was an Egyptian, who founded a colony in Argos, at some date between the age of the oldest Argive king Inachus, and the Trojan war. In the reality of this sea-faring adventurer, modern historians, following the faith of the ancient Greeks, have generally acquiesced, till, latterly, the Germans, with that instinctive hostility to external tradition which characterises them, have boldly ventured to explain both the Egyptian and his colony away into a symbol, or an inanity. Of our most recent writers, however,Thirlwall, after considering all the German speculations on the subject, is not ashamed to say a word in favour of the possibility or probability of an Egyptian colony in Argos;f1whileClintonf2(Introd. pp. 6, 7), boldly announces the principle that “we may acknowledge as real persons all those whom there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is in favour of the early tradition. . . . Cadmus and Danaus appear to be real persons; for it is conformable to the state of mankind, and perfectly credible that Phœnician and Egyptian adventurers, in the ages to which these persons are ascribed, should have found their way to the coasts of Greece.”Grote, however, seems to have acted most wisely in refusing to decide whether any particular legend of the earliest times is mythical or historical, on the ground that, though many of the legends doubtless contain truth, they contain it only “in a sort of chemical combination with fiction, which we have no means of decomposing”—(II. p. 50). This play of Æschylus, therefore, cannot boast of any accessory historical superadded to the principal poetic interest.
Danaus, the legend tells, though an Egyptian born, was not of Egyptian descent. The original mother of his race was Io, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, and priestess of Hera in that place. How this much-persecuted maid found her way from the banks of the “Erasinus old” to the shores of the nurturing Nile, we have seen in the previous piece. Danaus had a brother called Ægyptus, the father of fifty sons, as himself was of fifty daughters. These fifty sons Ægyptus sought to unite in wedlock to the equal-numbered progeny of his brother; but the chaste maidens, whether because they actually thought it unholy (as it certainly is, in the general case, unadvisable) for first cousins to marry first cousins, orbecause the suit was pressed in a manner not the most respectful, or from a combination of both motives, refused to enter into the bond; and, to escape the importunities of their stronger male suitors, fled, under the guidance of their father, over the seas to Greece. As kind chance, or, rather, Divine Providence, would have it, they were wafted to that very part of Greece whence their famous ancestress Io had originally proceeded, when the god-sent gadfly drove her, in a career of tempestuous wanderings, through great part of Europe and Asia, to Egypt. With their landing on this coast the present opera commences; and the action which it represents is the very simple one of the reception of the Libyan fugitives, by the Argive monarch Pelasgus (otherwise called Gelanor), and their participation in the rights and privileges of Argive citizenship. The transference of their affections from Nile to Erasinus is solemnly sung in the concluding chaunt. The Danaides are now Argives.
Considered by itself, the action of this piece is the most meagre that can be conceived, and, as the poet has handled it, contains little that can stir the deeper feelings of the heart, or strike the imagination strongly. That the king of the Argives should feel serious doubts as to the propriety of receiving such a band of foreigners into his kingdom, formidable not in their own strength, indeed, but in respect of the pursuing party, by whom they were claimed, was most natural; equally natural, however, and, in a poetic point of view, necessary, that his political fears should finally be outweighed by his benevolent regard for the rights of unprotected virgins, and his pious fear of the wrath of Jove, the protector of suppliants. The alternation of mind between these contending feelings, till a final resolve is taken on the side of the right, affords no field for the higher faculty of the dramatist to display itself. As we have it, accordingly, the Suppliants is, perhaps, the weakest performance of Æschylus. But the fact is, there is the best reason to believe that the great father of tragedy never meant this piece to stand alone, but wrote it merely to usher in the main action, which followed in the other pieces of a trilogy; the names of which pieces—Ἀιγύπτιοι, and Δαναίδες—are preserved in the list of the author’s pieces still extant. Of this, the whole conclusion of the present piece, and especially the latter half of the last choral chaunt, furnishes the most conclusive evidence.
The remainder of the story, which formed the main action of the trilogy, is well known. Immediately after the reception of the fugitives, by the Argives, their pursuers arrive, and land on the coast. This arrival is announced in the last scene of the present piece. Onthis, Danaus, unwilling to lead his kind host into a war, pretends to yield to the suit still as eagerly pressed, and the marriage is agreed on. But a terrible revenge had been devised. At the very moment that he hands over his unwilling but obedient daughters to the subjection of their hated cousins, he gives them secret instructions to furnish themselves each with a dagger, and, during the watches of the nuptial night, to dip the steel in the throats of their unsuspecting lords. The bloody deed was completed. Only one of all the fifty daughters, preferring the fame of true womanhood to the claims of filial homage, spared her mate. Hypermnestra saved her husband Lynceus. This conduct, of course, brought the daughter into collision with her father and her father’s family; and one of those strifes of our mysterious moral nature was educed, which, as we have seen in the trilogy of the Orestiad, it was one great purpose of the Æschylean drama to reconcile. If the murder occupied the second piece, as the progress of the story naturally brings with it, a third piece, according to the analogy of the Eumenides, would be necessary to bring about the reconciliation, and effect that purifying of the passions which Aristotle points out as the great moral result of tragic composition. That Aphrodite was the great celestial agent employed in the finale of the Suppliants, as Pallas Athena is in the Furies, has been well divined; a beautiful fragment in celebration of love, and in favour of Hypermnestra remains; but to attempt a reconstruction of these lost pieces at the present day, though an amusement of which the learned Germans are fond, is foreign to the habits of the British mind. Those who feel inclined to see what ingenuity may achieve in this region, are referred to Welcker’s Trilogie, and Gruppe’s Ariadne.
The moral tone and character of this piece is in the highest degree pleasing and satisfactory. The Supreme Jove, whose prominent attribute is power, here receives a glorification as the protector of the persecuted, and the refuge of the distressed. On the duty of hospitality, under the sanction of Ζεύς ξένιος and ἱκεσιος, as practised among the ancient Greeks, I refer the reader with pleasure to Grote’s History of Greece, Vol. II., p. 114.
“The scene,” says Potter, “is near the shore, in an open grove, close to the altar and images of the gods presiding over the sacred games, with a view of the sea and ships of Egyptus on one side, and of the town of Argos on the other, with hills, and woods, and vales, a river flowing between them: all, together with the persons of the drama, forming a picture that would have well employed the united pencils of Poussin and Claude.”
Chorus,entering the stage in procession. March time.
Chorus.
Jove, the suppliant’s high protector,n1
Look from Heaven, benignly favouring
Us the suppliant band, swift-oared
Hither sailing, from the seven mouths
Of the fat fine-sanded Nile!n2
From the land that fringes Syria,
Land divine, in flight we came,
Not by public vote forth-driven,
Not by taint of blood divorced
From our native state,f3but chastely
Our abhorrent foot withdrawing
From impure ungodly wedlock
With Ægyptus’ sons, too nearly
Cousined with ourselves. For wisely,
This our threatened harm well-weighing,
Danaus, our sire, prime counsellor,
And leader of our sistered band,
Timely chose this least of sorrows
O’er the salt-sea wave to flee;
And here on Argive soil to plant us,
Whence our race its vaunted spring
Drew divinely, when great Jove
Gently thrilled the brize-stung heifern3
With his procreant touch, and breathed
Godlike virtue on her womb.
Where on Earth should we hope refuge
On more friendly ground than this,
In our hands these green boughs bearing
Wreathed with precatory wool?f4
Ye blissful gods supremely swayingn4
Land and city, and lucid streams;
And ye in sepulchres dark, severely
Worshipped ’neath the sunless ground;
And thou, the third, great Jove the Saviour,
Guardian of all holy homes,
With your spirit gracious-wafted,
Breathe fair welcome on this band
Of suppliant maids. But in the depth
Of whirling waves engulph the swarm
Of insolent youths, Ægyptus’ sons,
Them, and their sea-cars swiftly oared,
Ere this slimy shore receive
Their hated footprint. Let them labour,
With wrath-spitting seas confronted:
By the wild storm wintry-beating,
Thunder-crashing, lightning flashing,
By the tyrannous blast shower-laden
Let them perish, ere they mount
Marriage beds which right refuses,n5
Us, their father’s brother’s daughters
To their lawless yoke enthralling!
[TheChorusassemble in a band round the centre of the Orchestra, and sing the Choral Hymn.
CHORAL HYMN.STROPHE I.
Give ear to our prayer, we implore thee,
Thou son, and the mother that bore thee—
The calf and the heifer divine!f5
From afar be thine offspring’s avenger,
Even thou, once a beautiful ranger
O’er these meads with the grass-cropping kine!
And thou, whom she bore to her honor,
When the breath of the Highest was on her,
And the touch of the finger divine;
Thine ear, mighty god, we implore thee
To the prayer of thine offspring incline!
ANTISTROPHE I.
O Thou who with blessing anointed,
Wert born when by Fate ’twas appointed,
With thy name to all ages a sign!f6
In this land of the mother that bore thee,
Her toils we remember before thee,
Where she cropped the green mead with the kine.
O strange were her fortunes, and stranger
The fate that hath chased me from danger
To the home of the heifer divine.
O son, with the mother that bore thee,
Stamp my tale with thy truth for a sign!
STROPHE AND ANTISTROPHE II.
While we cry, should there haply be near us
An Argive, an augur,f7to hear us,
When our shrill-piercing wail
His ear shall assail,
’Tis the cry he will deem, and none other,
Of Procne, the woe-wedded mother,
The hawk-hunted nightingale;f8
Sad bird, when its known streams it leaveth,
And with fresh-bleeding grief lonely grieveth,
And telleth the tale,
With a shrill-voiced wail,
How the son that she loved, and none other,
Was slain by his fell-purposed mother,
The woe-wedded nightingale!
STROPHE III.
Even so from the Nile summer-tinted,
With Ionian wailings unstinted,n6
My cheek with the keen nail I tear;
And I pluck, where it bloweth,
Griefs blossom that groweth
In this heart first acquainted with care;
And I fear the fierce band,
From the far misty land,n7
Whom the swift ships to Argos may bear.
ANTISTROPHE III.
Ye gods of my race, seeing clearly
The right which ye cherish so dearly,
To the haughty your hatred declare!
’Gainst the right ye will never
Chaste virgins deliver,
The bed of the lawless to share;
From the god-fenced altar
Each awe-struck assaulter
Back shrinks. Our sure bulwark is there.
STROPHE IV.
O would that Jove might show to men
His counsel as he planned it;
But ah! he darky weaves the scheme,
No mortal eye hath scanned it.
It burns through darkness brightly clear
To whom the god shall show it;
But mortal man, through cloudy fear,
Shall search in vain to know it.
ANTISTROPHE IV.
Firm to the goal his purpose treads,
His will knows no frustration;
When with his brow the mighty god
Hath nodded consummation.
But strangely, strangely weave their maze
His counsels, dusky wending,
Concealed in densely-tangled ways
From human comprehending.
STROPHE V.
From their high-towering hopes the proud
In wretched rout he casteth.
No force he wields; his simple will,
His quiet sentence blasteth.
All godlike power is calm;n8and high
On thrones of glory seated,
Jove looks from Heaven with tranquil eye,
And sees his will completed.
ANTISTROPHE V.
Look down, O mighty god, and see
How this harsh wedlock planning,
That dry old tree in saplings green,
The insolent lust is fanning!
Madly he hugs the frenzied plan
With perverse heart unbending,
Hot-spurred, till Ruin seize the man,
Too late to think of mending.
STROPHE VI.
Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!n9
Thus sadly I hymn the sorrowful lay,
With a shrill-voiced cry,
With a sorrow-streaming eye,
Well-a-day, woe’s me!
Thus I grace my own tomb with the wail pouring free,
Thus I sing my own dirge, ah me!f9
Ye Apian hills, be kind to me,
And throw not back the stranger’s note,
But know the Libyan wail.
Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,
My linen robes all loosely float,
And my Sidonian veil.
ANTISTROPHE VI.
Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!
My plighted vows I’ll duly pay,
Ye gods, if ye will save
From the foe, and from the grave
My trembling life set free!
Surges high, surges high, sorrow’s many-billowed sea,
And woe towers on woe. Ah me!
Ye Apian hills,n10be kind to me,
And throw not back the stranger’s note
But know the Libyan wail!
Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,
My linen robes all loosely float,
And my Sidonian veil!
STROPHE VII.
And yet, in that slight timbered house, well-armed
With frequent-plashing oar,
Stiff sail and cordage straining, all unharmed
By winter’s stormy roar,
We reached this Argive shore.
Safely so far. May Jove, the all-seeing, send
As the beginning, so the prosperous end.
And may he grant, indeed,
That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,
By no harsh kindred wooed,
May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued!
ANTISTROPHE VII.
May she, the virgin daughter of high Jove,f10
Our virgin litany hear,
Our loving homage answering with more love!
She that, with face severe,
Repelled, in awful fear,
Each rude aggressor, in firm virtue cased,
Nor knew the lustful touch divinely chaste.
And may she grant, indeed,
That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,
By no harsh kindred wooed,
May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued.
STROPHE VIII.
But if no aid to us may be,
Libya’s swart sun-beaten daughters,
The rope shall end our toils; and we,
Beneath the ground, shall fare to thee,
Thou many-guested Jove,f11
To thee our suppliant boughs we’ll spread,
Thou Saviour of the weary Dead,
Far from the shining thrones of blissful gods above.
Ah, Jove too well we know
What wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailing
Beneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;
And even so,
On Io’s seed may blow
A buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.
ANTISTROPHE VIII.
O Jove, how then wilt thou be free
From just reproach of Libya’s daughters,
If thou in us dishonoured see
Him whom the heifer bore to thee
Whom thou didst chiefly love.
If thou from us shalt turn thy face,
What suppliant then shall seek thy grace?
O hear my prayer enthroned in loftiest state above!
For well, too well, we know
What wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailing
Beneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;
And even so,
On Io’s seed may blow
A buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.
EnterDanaus.
Danaus.
Be wise, my daughters. In no rash flight with me,
A hoary father, and a faithful pilot,
Ye crossed the seas; nor less is wisdom needful
Ashore; be wise, and on your heart’s true tablet
Engrave my words. For lo! where mounts the dust,
A voiceless herald of their coming; hear
Their distant-rumbling wheels! A host I see
Of bright shield-bearing and spear-shaking men,
Swift steeds, and rounded cars.n11Of our here landing,
Timely apprised, the chiefs that rule this country
Come with their eyes to read us. But be their coming
Harmless, or harsh with fell displeasure, here
On this high-seat of the Agonian godsn12
Is safety for my daughters; for an altar
Is a sure tower of strength, a shield that bears
The rattling terror dintless. Go ye, therefore,
Embrace these altars, in your sistered handsn13
These white-wreathed precatory boughs presenting,
Which awful Jove reveres; and with choice phrase
Wisely your pity-moving tale-commend
When they shall ask you; as becomes the stranger,
The bloodless motive of your flight declaring
With clear recital. The bold tongue eschewing,
With sober-fronted face and quiet eye
Your tale unfold. The garrulous prate, the length
Of slow-drawn speech beware. Such fault offends
This people sorely. Chiefly know to yield:
Thou art the weaker—a poor helpless stranger—
The bold-mouthed phrase suits ill with thy condition.
Chorus.
Father, thou speakest wisely: nor unwisely
Thy words would we receive, in memory’s ward
Storing thy hests; ancestral Jove be witness!
Danaus.
Even so; and with benignant eye look down!n14
Chorus.
* * * *
Danaus.
Delay not. In performance show thy strength.
Chorus.
Even there where thou dost sit, I’d sit beside thee!
Danaus.
O Jove show pity ere pity come too late!
Chorus.
Jove willing, all is well.
Danaus.
Him, therefore, pray,
There where his bird the altar decorates:n15pray
Apollo, too, the pure, the exiled oncen16
From bright Olympus.
Chorus.
The sun’s restoring rays
We pray: the god what fate he knew will pity.
Danaus.
May he with pity and with aid be near!
Chorus.
Whom next shall I invoke?
Danaus.
Thou see’st this trident
And know’st of whom the symbol?
Chorus.
May the same
That sent us hither kindly now receive us!