Authors of Greece

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The play now moves to its awful climax. The sight of Io stirs
Prometheus to prophesy more clearly the end in store for Zeus. There
would be born one to discover a terror far greater than the
thunderbolt, and smite Zeus and his brother Poseidon into utter
slavery. On hearing this Zeus sends from heaven his messenger Hermes
to demand fuller knowledge of this new monarch. Disdaining his
threats, Prometheus mocks the new gods and defies their ruler to do
his worst. Hermes then delivers his warning. Prometheus would be
overwhelmed with the terrors of thunder and lightning, while the red
eagle would tear out his heart unceasingly till one should arise to
inherit his agonies, descending to the depths of Tartarus. He advises
the Chorus to depart from the rebel, lest they too should share in the
vengeance. They remain faithful to Prometheus, ready to suffer with
him; then descend the thunderings and lightnings, the mountains rock,
the winds roar, and the sky is confounded with sea; the dread agony
has begun.

Once more the bold originality of Aeschylus displays itself. Here is a
theme unique in Greek literature. The strife between the two races of
gods opens out a vista of the world ages before man was created. It
will provide a solution to a very difficult problem which will
confront us in a later play. The conflict between two stubborn wills
is the source of a sublime tragedy in which our sympathies are with
the sufferer; Zeus, who punishes Prometheus for "unjustly" helping
mortals, himself falls below the level of human morality; he is
tyrannous, ungrateful and revengeful--in short, he displays all the
wrong-headedness of a new ruler. No doubt in the sequel these defects
would have disappeared; experience would have induced a kindlier
temper and the sense of an impending doom would have made it essential
for him to relent in order to learn the great secret about his
successor.

Pathos is repeatedly appealed to in the play. Hephaestus is one of the
kindliest figures in Greek tragedy; the noble-hearted young goddesses
cannot fail to hold our affection. They are the most human Chorus in
all drama; their entry is admirable; in the sequel we should have
found them still near Prometheus after his cycle of tortures. But the
subject-matter is calculated to win the admiration of all humanity; it
is the persecution of him to whom on Greek principles mankind owes all
that it is of value in its civilisation. We cannot help thinking of
another God, racked and tormented and nailed to a cross of shame to
save the race He loved. The very power and majesty of Aeschylus' work
has made it difficult for successors to imitate him; few can hope to
equal his sublime grandeur; Shelley attempted it in his _Prometheus
Unbound_, but his Prometheus becomes abstract Humanity, ceasing to be
a character, while his play is really a mere poem celebrating the
inevitable victory of man over the evils of his environment and
picturing the return of an age of happiness.

Nearly all the characters in Greek tragedy were the heroes of
well-known popular legends. In abandoning the well-trodden circle
Aeschylus has here ensured an undying freshness for his work--it is
novel, free and unconventional; more than that, it is dignified.

The slightest error of taste would have degraded if to the level of a
comedy; throughout it maintains a uniform tone of loftiness and
sincerity. The language is easy but powerful, the art with which the
story is told is consummate. Finally, it is one of the few pieces in
the literature of the world which are truly sublime; it ranks with Job
and Dante. The great purpose of creation, the struggles of beings of
terrific power, the majesty of gods, the whole universe sighing and
lamenting for the agonies of a deity of wondrous foresight, saving
others but not himself--such is the theme of this mighty and affecting
play.

In 458 Aeschylus wrote the one trilogy which is extant. It describes
the murder of Agamemnon, the revenge of Orestes and his purification
from blood-guiltiness. It will be necessary to trace the history of
Agamemnon's family before we can understand these plays. His
great-grandfather was Tantalus, who betrayed the secrets of the gods
and was subjected to unending torture in Hades. Pelops, his son, begat
two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. The former killed Thyestes' son,
invited the father to a banquet and served up his own son's body for
him to eat. The sons of Atreus were Agamemnon and Menelaus, who
married respectively Clytemnestra and Helen, daughters of Zeus and
Leda, both evil women; the son of Thyestes was Aegisthus, a deadly foe
of his cousins who had banished him. The "inherited curse" then had
developed itself in this unhappy stock and it did not fail to ruin it.

When Helen abandoned Menelaus and went to Troy with Paris, Agamemnon
led a great armament to recover the adulteress. The fleet was
wind-bound at Aulis, because the Greeks had offended Artemis. Chalcas
the seer informed Agamemnon that it would be impossible for him to
reach Troy unless he offered his eldest daughter Iphigeneia to
Artemis. Torn by patriotism and fatherly affection, Agamemnon resorted
to a strategem to bring his daughter to the sacrifice. He sent a
messenger to Clytemnestra saying he wished to marry their child to
Achilles. When the mother and daughter arrived at Aulis they learned
the bitter truth. Iphigeneia was indeed sacrificed, but Artemis
spirited her away to the country now called Crimea, there to serve as
her priestess. Believing that her daughter was dead, Clytemnestra
returned to Argos to plot destruction for her husband, forming an
illicit union with his foe Aegisthus, nursing her revenge during the
ten years of the siege.

The _Agamemnon_, the first play of the trilogy, opens in a romantic
setting. It is night. A watchman is on the wall of Argos, stationed
there by the Queen. For ten years he had waited for the signal of the
beacon-fire to be lit at Nauplia, the port of Argos, to announce the
fall of Troy. At last the expected signal is given. He hurries to tell
the news to the Queen, a woman with the resolution of a man; in his
absence the Chorus of Argive Elders enter the stage, singing one of
the finest odes to be found in any language. It likens Agamemnon and
his brother to two avenging spirits sent to punish the sinner. The
Chorus are past military age, and are come to learn from Clytemnestra
why there is sacrifice throughout all Argos. They remember the woes at
the beginning of the campaign, how Chalcas prophesied that in time
Troy would be taken, yet hinted darkly of some blinding curse of
Heaven hanging over the Greeks, his burden being

"Sing woe, sing woe, but let the good prevail."

"Yea, the law of Zeus is, wisdom by suffering, for thus soberness of
thought comes to those who wish not for it. First men are emboldened
by ill-counselling foolish frenzy which begins their troubles; even
as Agamemnon, through sin against Artemis, was compelled to slay his
daughter to save his armament. Her cries for a father's mercy, her
unuttered appeals to her slayers--these he disregarded. What is to
come of it, no man knows; yet it is useless to lament the issue before
it comes, as come it will, clear as the light of day."

Clytemnestra enters, the sternest woman figure in all literature. She
reminds the Chorus that she is no child and is not known to have a
slumbering wit. When they enquire how she has learned so quickly of
the capture of Troy, she describes with great brilliance the long
chain of beacon fires she has caused to be made, stretching from Ida
in Troyland to Argos. She imagines the wretched fate of the conquered
and the joy of the victors, rid for ever of their watchings beneath
the open sky. Striking the same ominous note as Chalcas did, she
continues:

"If they reverence the Gods of Troy and their shrines, they shall not
be caught even as they have taken the city. May no lust of plundering
fall upon the army, for it needs a safe return home. Yet even if the
army sins not against the gods, the anger of the slain may awake,
though no new ills arise. But let the right prevail, for all to see
it clearly."

This speech inspires the Chorus to sing another solemn ode. Too much
prosperity leads to godlessness; Paris carried away Helen in pride and
infatuation, stealing the light of Menelaus' eyes, leaving him only
the torturing memories of her beauty which visited him in his dreams.
But there is a spirit of discontent in every city of Greece; all had
sent their young men to Troy in the glory of life, and in return they
had a handful of ashes, asking why their sons should fall in murderous
strife for another man's wife. At night the dark dread haunts Argos
that the gods care not for men who shed much blood, who succeed by
injustice, who are well spoken of overmuch. Often these are smitten
full in the face by the thunderbolt; and perhaps this beacon message
is mere imagining or a lie sent from heaven.

Hearing this the Queen comes forth to prove the truth of her story. A
herald at that moment advances to confirm it, for Troy has been
sacked.

"Altars and shrines have been demolished and all the seed of land
destroyed. Thus is Agamemnon the happiest man of mortals, most
worthy of honour, for Paris and his city cannot say that their
crime was greater than its punishment."

Immediately after learning this story, Clytemnestra makes the first of
a number of speeches charged with a dreadful double meaning.

"When the first news came, I shouted for joy, but now I shall hear
the story from the King himself. And I will use all diligence to
give my lord the best of all possible welcomes. Bid him come with
speed. May he find in the house a wife as faithful as he left her!
I know of no wanton pleasure with another man more than I know how
to dye a sword."

The Chorus understand well the hidden force of this sinister speech
and bid the messenger speak of Menelaus, the other beloved King of the
land. In reply he tells how a dreadful storm sent by the angry gods
descended upon the Greek fleet. In it fire and water, those ancient
foes, forsook their feud, conspiring to destroy the unhappy armament.
Whether Menelaus was alive or not was uncertain; if he lived, it was
only by the will of Zeus who desired to save the royal house. The
Chorus who look at things with a deeper glance than the herald, hear
his story with a growing uneasiness.

"Helen, the cause of the war, at first was a spirit ofcalm to Troy,
but at the latter end she was their bane, the evil angel of ruin.
For one act of violence begets many others like it, until
righteousness can no longer dwell within the sinner."

They touch a more joyous chord of welcome and loyalty when at last
they see the actual arrival of Agamemnon himself.

The King enters the stage accompanied by Cassandra, the prophetic
daughter of Priam, thus giving visible proof of his contempt for
Apollo, the Trojan protector and inspirer of the prophetess. He has
heard the Chorus' welcome and promises to search out the false friends
and administer healing medicine to the city. Clytemnestra replies in a
second speech of double significance.

"The Argive Elders well know how dearly she loves her lord and the
impatience of her life while he was at Troy. Often stories came of
his wounds; were they all true, he would have more scars than a net
has holes. Orestes their son has been sent away, lest he should be
the victim of some popular uprising in the King's absence. Her fount
of tears is dried up, not a drop being left."

After some words of extravagant flattery, she bids her waiting women
lay down purple carpets on which Justice may bring him to a home which
he never hoped to see. Agamemnon coldly deprecates her long speech;
the honour she suggests is one for the gods alone; his fame will speak
loud enough without gaudy trappings, for a wise heart is Heaven's
greatest gift. But the Queen, not to be denied, overcomes his
scruples. Giving orders that Cassandra is to be well treated, he
passes over the purple carpets, led by Clytemnestra who avows that she
would have given many purple carpets to get him home alive. Thus
arrogating to himself the honours of a god, he proceeds within the
palace, while she lingers behind for one brief moment to pray openly
to Zeus to fulfil her prayers and to bring his will to its appointed
end. Thoroughly alarmed, the Chorus give free utterance to the vague
forebodings which shake them, the song of the avenging Furies which
cries within their hearts.

"Human prosperity often strikes a sunken rock; bloodshed calls to
Heaven for vengeance; yet there is comfort, for one destiny may
override another, and good may yet come to pass."

These pious hopes are broken by the entry of the Queen who summons
Cassandra within: when the captive prophetess answers her not a word,
Clytemnestra declares she has no time to waste outside the palace:
already there stands at the altar the ox ready for sacrifice, a joy
she never looked to have; if Cassandra will not obey, she must be
taught to foam out her spirit in blood.

In the marvellous scene which follows Aeschylus reaches the pinnacle
of tragic power. Cassandra advances to the palace, but starts back in
horror as a series of visions of growing vividness comes before her
eyes. These find utterance in language of blended sanity and madness,
creating a terror whose very vagueness increases its intensity. First
she sees Atreus' cruel murder of his brother's children; then follows
the sight of Clytemnestra's treacherous smile and of Agamemnon in the
bath, hand after hand reaching at him; quickly she sees the net cast
about him, the murderess' blow. In a flash she foresees her own end
and breaks out into a wild lament over the ruin of her native city.
Her words work up the Chorus into a state of confused dread and
foreboding; they can neither understand nor yet disbelieve. When their
mental confusion is at its height, relief comes in a prophecy of the
greatest clearness, no longer couched in riddling terms. The palace is
peopled by a band of kindred Furies, who have drunk their fill of
human blood and cannot be cast out; they sit there singing the story
of the origin of its ruin, loathing the murder of the innocent
children. Agamemnon himself would soon pay the penalty, but his son
would come to avenge him. Foretelling her own death, she hurls away
the badges of her office, the sceptre and oracular chaplets, things
which have brought her nothing but ridicule. She prays for a peaceful
end without a struggle; comparing human life to a shadow when it is
fortunate and to a picture wiped out by a sponge when it is hapless,
she moves in calmly to her fate.

There is a momentary interval of reflection, then Agamemnon's dying
voice is heard as he is stricken twice. Frantic with horror, the
Chorus prepare to rush within but are checked by the Queen, who throws
open the door and stands glorying in the triumph of self-confessed
murder. Her real character is revealed in her speech.

"This feud was not unpremeditated; rather, it proceeds from an
ancient quarrel, matured by time. Here I stand where I smote him,
over my handiwork. So I contrived it, I freely confess, that he
could neither escape his fate nor defend himself. I cast over him
the endless net, and I smote him twice--in two groans he gave up
the ghost--adding a third in grateful thanksgiving to the King of
the dead in the nether world. As he fell he gasped out his spirit,
and breathing a swift stream of gore he smote me with a drop of
murderous dew, while I rejoiced even as does the cornfield under
the Heavensent shimmering moisture when it brings the ears to the
birth. Ye Argive Elders, rejoice if ye can, but I exult. If it were
fitting to pour thank-offerings for any death, 'twere just, nay,
more than just, to offer such for him, so mighty was the bowl of
curses he filled up in his home, then came and drank them up himself
to the dregs."

To their solemn warning that she would herself be cut off, banished
and hated, she replies:

"He slew my child, my dearest birth-pang, to charm the Thracian
winds. In the name of the perfect justice I have exacted for my
daughter, in the name of Ruin and Vengeance, to whom I have
sacrificed him, my hopes cannot tread the halls of fear so long
as Aegisthus is true to me. There he lies, seducer of this woman,
darling of many a Chryseis in Troyland. As for this captive
prophetess, this babbler of oracles, she sat on the ship's bench
by his side and both have fared as they deserved. He died as ye see;
but she sang her swan-song of death and lies beside him she loved,
bringing me a sweet relish for the luxury of my own love."

A little later she denies her very humanity.

"Call me not his spouse; rather the ancient dread haunting evil
genius of this house has taken a woman's shape and punished him,
a full-grown man in vengeance for little children."

Burial he should have, but without any dirges from his people.

"Let Iphigeneia, his daughter, as is most fitting, meet her father
at the swift-conveying passage of woe, throw her arms about him and
kiss him welcome."

The last scene of this splendid drama brings forward the poltroon
Aegisthus who had skulked behind in the background till the deed was
done. He enters to air his ancient grievance, reminding the Chorus how
his father was outraged by Atreus, how he himself was a banished man,
yet found his arm long enough to smite the King from far away. In
contempt for the coward the Elders prepare to offer him battle; they
appeal to Orestes to avenge the murder. The quarrel was stopped by
Clytemnestra, who had had enough of bloodshed and was content to leave
things as they were, if the gods consented thereto.

Before the sustained power of this masterpiece criticism is nearly
dumb. The conception of the inherited curse is by now familiar to us;
familiar too is the teaching that sacrilege brings its own punishment,
that human pride may be flattered into assuming the privilege of a
deity. These were enough to cause Agamemnon's undoing. But it is the
part played by Clytemnestra which fixes the dramatic interest. She is
inspired by a lust for vengeance, yet, had she known the truth that
her daughter was not dead but a priestess, she would have had no
pretext for the murder. This ignorance of essentials which originates
some human action is called Irony; it was put to dramatic uses for the
first time in European literature by Aeschylus. The horrible tragedy
it may cause is clear enough in the _Agamemnon_; its power is terrible
and its value as a dramatic source is inestimable. There is another
and a far more subtle form of Irony, in which a character uses
riddling speech interpreted by another actor in a sense different from
the truth as it is known to the spectators; this too can be used in
such a manner as to charge human speech with a sinister double meaning
which bodes ruin under the mask of words of innocence. Few dramatic
personages have used this device so effectively as Clytemnestra,
certainly none with a more fiendish intent. Again, in this play the
Chorus is employed with amazing skill; their vague uneasiness takes
more and more definitely the shape of actual terror in every ode; this
terror is raised to its height in the masterly Cassandra scene--it is
then abated a little, perhaps it is just beginning to disappear, for
nobody believed Cassandra, when the blow falls. This integral
connection between the Chorus and the main action is difficult to
maintain; that it exists in the _Agamemnon_ is evidence of a
constructive genius of the highest order.

The _Choephori_ (Libation-bearers), the second play of the trilogy,
opens with the entry of Orestes. He has just laid a lock of hair on
his father's tomb and sees a band of maidens approaching, among them
Electra, his sister. He retires with Pylades his faithful friend to
listen to their conversation. The Chorus tell how in consequence of a
dream of Clytemnestra they have been sent to offer libations to the
dead, to appease their anger and resentment against the murderers.
They give utterance to a wild hopeless song, full of a presentiment of
disaster coming on successful wickedness enthroned in power. They are
captives from Troy, obliged to look on the deeds of Aegisthus, whether
just or unjust, yet they weep for the purposeless agonies of
Agamemnon's house. When asked by Electra what prayers she should offer
to her dead father, they bid her pray for some avenging god or mortal
to requite the murderers. Returning to them from the tomb, she tells
them of a strange occurrence; a lock of hair has been laid on the
grave, and there are two sets of footprints on the ground, one of
which corresponds with her own. Orestes then comes forward to reveal
himself; as a proof of his identity, he bids her consider the garments
which she wove with her own hands; urging her to restrain her joy lest
she betray his arrival, he tells how Apollo has commanded him to
avenge his father's death, threatening him with sickness, frenzy,
nightly terrors, excommunication and a dishonoured death if he
refuses.

In a long choral dialogue the actors tell of Clytemnestra's insolent
treatment of the dead King; she had buried him without funeral rites
or mourning, with no subjects to follow the corpse; she even mangled
his body and thrust Electra out of the palace; thus she filled the cup
of her iniquity. The Chorus remind Orestes of his duty to act, but
first he inquires why oblations have been offered; on learning that
they are the result of Clytemnestra's dreaming that she suckled a
serpent that stung her, and that she hopes to appease the angry dead,
he interprets the dream of himself. He then unfolds his plot. He and
Pylades will imitate a Phocian dialect and will seek out and slay
Aegisthus. An ode which succeeds recounts the legends of evil women,
closing with the declaration that Justice is firmly seated in the
world, that Fate prepares a sword for a murderer and a Fury punishes
him with it.

Approaching the palace Orestes summons the Queen and tells her that a
stranger called Strophius bade him bring to Argos the news that
Orestes is dead. Clytemnestra commands her servants within the house
to welcome him and sends out her son's old nurse Cilissa to take the
news to Aegisthus. The nurse stops to speak to the Chorus in the very
language of grief for the boy she had reared, like Constance in _King
John_. The Chorus advise her to summon Aegisthus alone without his
bodyguard, for Orestes is not yet dead; when she departs they pray
that the end may be speedily accomplished and the royal house cleansed
of its curse. Aegisthus crosses the stage into the palace to meet a
hasty end; seeing the deed, a servant rushes out to call Clytemnestra,
while Orestes bursts out from the house and faces his mother. For a
moment his resolution wavers; Pylades reminds him of Apollo's anger if
he fails. To his mother's plea that Destiny abetted her deed he
replies that Destiny intends her death likewise; before he thrusts her
into the palace she warns him of the avenging Furies she will send to
persecute him. She then passes to her doom.

After the Chorus have sung an ode of triumph Orestes shows the bodies
of the two who loved in sin while alive and were not separated in
death. He then displays the net which Clytemnestra threw around her
husband's body and the robe in which she caught his feet; he holds up
the garment through which Aegisthus' dagger ran. But in that very
moment the cloud of more agonies to come descends upon the hapless
family. In obedience to Apollo's command he takes the suppliant's
branch and chaplet, and prepares to hasten to Delphi, a wanderer cut
off from his native land. The dreadful shapes of the avenging Furies
close in upon him: the fancies of incipient madness thicken on his
mind: he is hounded out, his only hope of rest being Apollo's sacred
shrine. The play ends with a note of hopelessness, of calamity without
end.

After the _Agamemnon_ this play reads weak indeed. Yet it displays two
marked characteristics. It is full of vigorous action; the plot is
quickly conceived and quickly consummated; the business is soon over.
Further, Aeschylus has discovered yet another source of tragic power,
the conflict of duties. Orestes has to choose between obedience to
Apollo and reverence for his mother. That these duties are
incompatible is clear; whichever he performed, punishment was bound to
follow. It is in this enforced choice between two evils that the
pathos of life is often to be found; that Aeschylus should have so
faithfully depicted it is a great contribution to the growth of drama.

The concluding play, the _Eumenides_, calls for a briefer description.
It opens with one of the most awe-inspiring scenes which the
imagination of man has conceived. The priestess of Delphi finds a man
sitting as a suppliant at the central point of the earth, his hands
dripping with blood, a sword and an olive branch in his hand. Round
him is slumbering a troop of dreadful forms, beings from darkness, the
avengers. When the scene is disclosed, Apollo himself is seen standing
at Orestes' side. He urges Hermes to convey the youth with all speed
to Athens where he is to clasp the ancient image of Athena.
Immediately the ghost of Clytemnestra arises; waking the sleeping
forms, she bids them fly after their victim. They arise and confront
Apollo, a younger deity, whom they reproach for protecting one who
should be abandoned to them. Apollo replies with a charge that they
are prejudiced in favour of Clytemnestra, whom, though a murderess,
they had never tormented.

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