Authors of Greece

T >> T. W. Lumb >> Authors of Greece

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

A messenger brings the news that Teucer, Ajax' brother, on his return
to the camp from a raid was nearly stoned to death as the kinsman of
the army's foe. He inquires where Ajax is; hearing that he had gone
out to make atonement, he knows the terror that is to come. Chalcas
the seer adjured Teucer to use all means in his power to keep Ajax in
his tent that day, for in it alone Athena's wrath would persecute him.
She had punished him with madness for two proud utterances. On leaving
his father he had boasted he would win glory in spite of Heaven, and
later had bidden Athena assist the other Greeks, for the line would
never break where he stood. Such was his pride, and such its
punishment. Tecmessa hurries in and sends some to fetch Teucer, others
to go east and west to seek out her lord. The scene rapidly changes to
the shore, where Ajax cries to the gods, imprecates his foes, prays to
Death, and after a remembrance of his native land falls on his sword.

The Chorus enter in two bands, but find nothing. Tecmessa discovers
the body in a brake, and hides it under her robe. Distracted and
haunted by the dread of slavery and ridicule, she gives way to grief.
Teucer enters to learn of the tragedy; after dispatching Tecmessa to
save the child while there is yet time, he reflects on his own state.
Telamon his father will cast him off for being absent in his brother's
hour of weakness whom he loved as his own life. Sadly he bears out the
truth of Ajax utterance, that a foe's gifts are fraught with ruin; the
belt that Ajax gave Hector served to tie his feet to Achilles'
car--and Hector's sword was in his brother's heart.

The plot now appeals to fiercer passions. Menelaus entering commands
Teucer to leave the corpse where it is, for an enemy shall receive no
burial. He strikes the same note as Creon:--

"It is the mark of an ill-conditioned man that he, a commoner,
should see fit to disobey the powers that be. Law cannot prosper
in a city where there is no settled fear; where a man trembles and
is loyal, there is salvation; when he is insolent and does as he
will, his city soon or late will sink to ruin."

Teucer answers that Ajax never was a subject, but was always an equal.
He fought, not for Helen, but for his oath's sake. The dispute waxes
hot; the calm dignity of Teucer easily discomfits the Spartan
braggart, who departs to bring aid. Meanwhile Tecmessa returns with
the child whom Teucer in a scene of consummate pathos bids kneel at
his father's side, holding in his hand a triple lock of
hair--Teucer's, his mother's, his own; this sacred symbol, if
violated, would bring a curse on any who dared outrage him. While
the Chorus sing a song full of longings for home, Agamemnon advances to
the place, followed by Teucer. The King is deliberately insolent,
reviling Teucer for the stain on his birth. In reply the latter in a
great speech reminds him that there was a time when the flames licked
the Greek ships and there was none to save them but Ajax, who had
faced Hector single-handed. With kindling passion he hurls the taunt
of a stained birth back on Agamemnon and plainly tells him that Ajax
shall be buried and that the King will rue any attempt at violence.
Odysseus comes in to hear the quarrel. He admits that he had once been
the foe of the dead man, who yet had no equal in bravery except
Achilles. For all that, enmity in men should end where death begins.
Astonished at this defence of a foe, Agamemnon argues a little with
Odysseus, who gently reminds him that one day he too will need burial.
This human appeal obtains the necessary permission; Odysseus, left
alone with Teucer, offers him friendship. Too much overcome by
surprise and joy to say many words, Teucer accepts his friendship and
the play ends with a ray of sunlight after storm and gloom.

Once more Sophocles has filled every inch of his canvas. The plot
never flags and has no diminuendo after the death of Ajax. The cause
of the tragedy is not plainly indicated at the outset; with a skill
which is masterly, Sophocles represents in the opening scene Athena
and Odysseus as beings purely odious, mocking a great man's fall. With
the progress of the action these two characters recover their dignity;
Athena has just cause for her anger, while Odysseus obtains for the
dead his right of burial. We should notice further how the pathos of
this fine play is heightened by the conception of the "one day" which
brought ruin to a noble warrior. Had he been kept within his tent that
one day--had this fatal day been known, the ruin need not have
happened. "The pity of it", the needless waste of human life, what a
theme is there for a tragedy!

The _Ajax_ has never exercised an acknowledged influence on
literature. It was a favourite with the Greeks, but modern writers
have strangely overlooked it. For us it has a good lesson. Here was a
hero, born in an island, who unaided saved a fleet when his allies
were forced back on their trenches and beyond them to the sea. His
reward was such as Wordsworth tells of:--

Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.

We remember many a long month of agony during which another island
kept destruction from a fleet and saved her allies withal. In some
quarters this island has received the gratitude which Ajax had; her
friends asked, "What has England done in the war, anyhow?" If it
befits anybody to answer, it must be England's Teucer, who has built
another Salamis overseas, just as he did. Our kindred across the
oceans will give us the reward of praise; for us the chastisement of
Ajax may serve to reinforce the warning which is to be found on the
lips of not the least of our own poets:--

"For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord."

The _Electra_ is Sophocles' version of the revenge of Orestes which
Aeschylus described in the _Choephori_ and is useful as affording a
comparison between the methods of the two masters. An aged tutor at
early dawn enters the scene with Orestes to whom he shows his father's
palace and then departs with him to offer libations at the dead king's
tomb. Electra with a Chorus of Argive girls comes forward, the former
describing the insolent conduct of Clytemnestra who holds high revelry
on the anniversary of her husband's death and curses Electra for
saving Orestes. Chrysothemis, another daughter, comes out to talk with
Electra; she is of a different mould, gentle and timid like Ismene,
and warns Electra that in consequence of her obstinacy in revering her
father's memory Aegisthus intends to shut her up in a rocky cavern as
soon as he returns. She advises her to use good counsel, then departs
to pour on Agamemnon's tomb some libations which Clytemnestra offers
in consequence of a dream.

The Queen finds Electra ranging abroad as usual in the absence of
Aegisthus. She defends the murder of her husband, but is easily
refuted by Electra who points out that, if it is right to exact a life
for a life, she ought to suffer death herself. Clytemnestra prays to
Apollo to avert the omen of her dream, her prayer seemingly being
answered immediately by the entry of the old tutor who comes to inform
her of the death of Orestes, killed at Delphi in a chariot race which
he brilliantly describes. Torn by her emotions, Clytemnestra can be
neither glad nor sorry.

"Shall I call this happy news, or dreadful but profitable? Hapless
am I, if I save my life at the cost of my own miseries. Strong is
the tie of motherhood; no parent hates a child even if outraged by
him. Yet, now that he is gone, I shall have rest and peace from his
threats."

Hearing so circumstantial a proof of her brother's death, Electra is
plunged into the depths of misery.

But soon Chrysothemis returns in a state of high excitement. She has
found a lock of Orestes' hair and some offerings at the tomb. Electra
quickly informs her that her elation is groundless, for their brother
is dead; she suggests that they two should strike the murderers, but
Chrysothemis recoils in horror from the plot. Then Orestes enters with
a casket in his hand; this he gives to Electra, saying it contains the
mortal remains of the dead prince. In utter hopelessness Electra takes
it and soliloquises over it. Seeing her misery, Orestes cannot
refrain; gently taking the casket from her he gradually reveals
himself. The tutor enters and recalls him to their immediate business.
Electra asks who the stranger is and learns that it is the very man to
whom she gave the infant boy her brother. The three advance to the
palace which Orestes enters to dispatch his mother, Electra bidding
him smite with double force, wishing only that Aegisthus were with her
mother.

The end of Aegisthus himself is contrived with Sophoclean art. He
comes in hurriedly to find the two strangers who have proof of
Orestes' death.

Electra tells him they are in the palace; they have not only told her
of the dead Orestes, but have shown him to her; Aegisthus himself can
see the unenviable sight; he can rejoice at it, if there is any joy in
it. Exulting, he sings a note of triumph at the removal of his fears
and threatens to chastise all who try henceforth to thwart his will.
He dashes open the door, and there sees the Queen lying dead. Orestes
bids him enter the palace, to be slain on the very spot where his
father was murdered.

Fortune has been kind in preserving us this play. The great difference
between the art of Sophocles and that of Aeschylus is here apparent.
Only one man has ventured to paint for us Aeschylus' Clytemnestra;
Leighton has revealed her, stern as Nature herself, remorseless, armed
with a sword to smite first, then argue if she can find time to do so.
Sophocles' Clytemnestra is a woman, lost as soon as she begins to
reason out her misdeeds. She prays to Apollo in secret, for fear lest
Electra may overhear her prayer and make it void. But the crudity of
Aeschylus' resources did not satisfy Sophocles, whose taste demanded a
contrast to heighten the character of his heroine and found one in the
Homeric story that Agamemnon had a second daughter. Aeschylus' stern
nature did not shrink from the sight of a meeting between mother and
son; Sophocles closed the doors upon the act of vengeance, though he
represents Electra as encouraging her brother from outside the palace.
The Aegisthus incident maintains the interest to the end in the
masterly Sophoclean style of refined and searching irony. The tone of
the play is singular; from misery it at first sinks to hopelessness,
then to despair, and finally it soars to triumphant joy. Such a
dangerous venture was unattempted before.

The most lovable woman in Greek literature is the heroine of the next
play, the _Trachiniae_, produced at an uncertain date. Deianeira had
been won and wed by Heracles; after a brief spell of happiness she
found herself left more and more alone as her husband's labours called
him away from her. For fifteen months she had heard no news of him.
Her nurse suggests that she should send her eldest son to Euboea to
seek him out, a rumour being abroad that he has reached that island.
The mother in her loneliness is comforted by a band of girls of
Trachis, the scene of the action. But her uneasiness is too great to
be cheered; she describes the strange curse of womanhood:--

"When it is young it groweth in a clime of its own, plagued by no
heat of the sun nor rain nor wind; in careless gaiety it builds up
its days till it is no longer maid, but wife; then in the night it
hath its meed of cares, terrified for lord or children. Only such a
one can know from the sight of her own sorrows what is my burden
of grief."

But there is a deeper cause for anxiety; Heracles had said that if he
did not return in fifteen months he would either die or be rid for
ever of his labours; that very hour had come.

News reached her that Heracles is alive and triumphant; Lichas was coming
to give fuller details. Very soon he enters with a band of captive maidens,
telling how his master had been kept in slavery in Lydia; shaking off the
yoke, he had sacked and destroyed the city of Eurytus who had caused his
captivity, the girls were Heracles' offering of the spoils to Deianeira.
Filled with pity at their lot, she looked closely at them and was
attracted by one of them, a silent girl of noble countenance. Lichas when
questioned denied all knowledge of her identity and departed. When he had
gone, the messenger desired private speech with Deianeira. Lichas had
lied; the girl was Iole, daughter of Eurytus; it was for her sake that his
master destroyed the city, for he loved the maid and intended to keep her
in his home to be a rival to his wife. Lichas on coming out was confronted
by the messenger, and attempted to dissemble, but Deianeira appealed to
him thus:--

"Nay, deceive me not. Thou shalt not speak to a woman of evil heart,
who knoweth not the ways of men, how that they by a law of their
own being delight not always in the same thing. 'Tis a fool who
standeth up to battle against Love who ruleth even gods as he will,
and me too; then why not another such as I? Therefore if I revile
my lord when taken with this plague, I am crazed indeed--or this
woman is, who hath brought me no shame or sorrow. If my lord
teacheth thee to lie, thy lesson is no good one; if thou art
schooling thyself to falsehood in a desire to be kind to me, thou
shalt prove unkind. Speak all the truth; it is an ignoble lot for a
man of honour to be called false."

Completely won by this appeal, Lichas confesses the truth.

During the singing of a choral ode Deianeira has had time to reflect.
The reward of her loyalty is to take a second place. The girl is young
and her beauty is fast ripening; she herself is losing her charm. But
no prudent woman should fly into a passion; happily she has a remedy,
for in the first days of her wedded life Heracles had shot Nessus, a
half-human monster, for insulting her. Before he died Nessus bade her
steep her robe in his blood and treasure it as a certain charm for
recovering his waning affection. Summoning Lichas, she gives him
strict orders to take the robe to Heracles who was to allow no light
of the sun or fire to fall upon it before wearing it. After a short
interval, she returns in the greatest agitation; a little tuft of wool
which she had anointed with the monster's blood had caught the
sunlight and shrivelled up to dust. If the robe proved a means of
death, she determined to slay herself rather than live in disgrace. At
that moment Hyllus bursts in to describe the horrible tortures which
seized Heracles when he put on the poisoned mantle; the hero commanded
his son to ferry him across from Euboea to witness the curse which his
mother's evil deed would bring with it. Hearing these tidings
Deianeira leaves the scene without uttering a word.

The old nurse quickly rushes in from the palace to tell how Deianeira
had killed herself--while Hyllus was kissing her dead mother's lips in
vain self-reproach, bereft of both his parents. Heracles himself is
borne in on a litter, tormented with the slow consuming poison. In
agony, he prays for death; when he learns of the decease of his wife
and her beguilement by Nessus into an unintentional crime, his
resentment softens. In a flash of inspiration the double meaning of
the oracle comes over him, his labour is indeed over. Commanding
Hyllus to wed Iole he passes on his last journey to the lonely top of
Oeta, to be consumed on the funeral pyre.

The Sophoclean marks are clear enough in this play--the tragic moment,
the life and movement, the splendid pathos, breadth of outlook and
fascination of language. Yet there is a serious fault as well, for
Sophocles, like the youngest of dramatists, can strangely enough make
mistakes. The entry of Heracles practically makes the play double,
marring its continuity. The necessary and remorseless sequence of
events which is looked for in dramatic writing is absent. This
tendency to disrupt a whole into parts brilliant but unrelated is a
feature of Euripides' work; it may perhaps find a readier pardon
exactly because Sophocles himself is not able to avoid it always. But
the greatest triumph is the character of Deianeira. It is such as one
would rarely find in warm-blooded Southern peoples. She dreads that
loss of her power over her husband which her waning beauty brings; she
is grossly insulted in being forced to countenance a rival living in
the same house after she has given her husband the best years of her
life; yet she hopes on, and perhaps she would have won him back by her
very gentleness. This creation of a type of almost perfect human
nature is the justification of a poet's existence; it was a saying of
Sophocles that he painted men as they ought to be, Euripides painted
them as they are.

The rivalry of the younger poet produced its effect on another play
with which Sophocles gained the first prize in 409. _Philoctetes_, the
hero after whom it is named, had lit the funeral pyre of Heracles on
Oeta and had received from him his unconquerable bow and arrows. When
he went to Troy he was bitten in the foot by a serpent in Tenedos. As
the wound festered and made him loathsome to the army he was left in
Lemnos in the first year of the war. An oracle declared that Troy
could not be taken without him and his arrows; at the end of the
siege, as Achilles and Ajax were dead, Philoctetes, outraged and
abandoned, became necessary to the Greeks. How could they win him over
to rejoin them?

Odysseus his bitterest foe takes with him Neoptolemus, the young son
of Achilles. Landing at Lemnos, they find the cave in which
Philoctetes lives, see his rude bed, rough-hewn cup and rags of
clothing, and lay their plot. Neoptolemus is to say that he is
Achilles' son, homeward bound in anger with the Greeks for the loss of
his father's arms. As he was not one of the original confederacy,
Philoctetes will trust him. He is then to obtain the bow and arrows by
treachery, for violence will be useless. The young man's soul rises
against the idea of foul play but Odysseus bids him surrender to
shamelessness for one day, to reap eternal glory. Left alone with the
Chorus, composed of sailors from his ship, Neoptolemus pities the
hero's deserted existence, wretched, famished and half-brutalised. He
comes along towards them, creeping and crying in agony. Seeing them he
inquires who they are; Neoptolemus answers as he had been bidden and
wins the heart of Philoctetes who describes the misery of his life,
his desertion and the unquenchable malady that feeds on him. In return
Neoptolemus tells how he was beguiled to Troy by the prophecy that he
should capture it after his father's death; arriving there he obtained
possession of all Achilles' property except the arms, which Odysseus
had won. He pretends to return to his ship, but Philoctetes implores
him to set him once more in Greece. The great pathos of his appeal
wins the youth's consent; they prepare to depart when a merchant
enters with a sailor; from him they learn that Odysseus with Diomedes
are on the way to bring Philoctetes by force or persuasion to Troy
which cannot fall without his aid. The mere mention of Odysseus' name
fills Philoctetes with anger and he retires to the cave, taking
Neoptolemus with him.

When they reappear, a violent attack of the malady prostrates
Philoctetes who gives his bow to Neoptolemus, praying him to burn him
and put an end to his agony. Noticing a strange silence in the youth,
suspicions seem to be aroused in him, but when he falls into a slumber
the Chorus takes a decided part in the action, advising the youth to
fly with the bow and to talk in a whisper for fear of waking the
sleeper. The latter unexpectedly starts out of slumber, again begging
to be taken on board. Again Neoptolemus' heart smites him at the
villainy he is about to commit; he reveals that his real objective is
Troy. Betrayed and defenceless, Philoctetes appeals to Heaven, to the
wild things, to Neoptolemus' better self to restore the bow which is
his one means of procuring him food. A profound pity overcomes
Neoptolemus, who is in the act of returning the weapon when Odysseus
appears. Seeing him Philoctetes knows he is undone. Odysseus invites
him to come to Troy of his own freewill, but is met with a curse; as
he refuses to rejoin the Greeks, Odysseus and Neoptolemus depart
bearing with them the bow for Teucer to use.

Left without that which brought him his daily food Philoctetes bursts
out into a wild lyric dialogue with the Chorus. They advise him to
make terms with Odysseus, but he bids them begone. When they obey, he
recalls them to ask one little boon, a sword. At this moment
Neoptolemus runs in, Odysseus close behind him. He has come to restore
the bow he got by treachery. A violent quarrel ends in the temporary
retirement of Odysseus. Advancing to Philoctetes, Neoptolemus gives
him his property; Philoctetes takes it and is barely restrained from
shooting at Odysseus who appears for a moment, only to take refuge in
flight. Neoptolemus then tells him the whole truth about the prophecy,
promising him great glory if he will go back to Troy which can fall
only through him. In vain Neoptolemus assures him of a perfect cure;
nothing will satisfy the broken man but a full redemption of the
promise he had to be landed once more in Greece. When Neoptolemus
tells him that such action will earn him the hatred of the Greeks,
Philoctetes promises him the succour of his unerring shafts in a
conflict.

The action has thus reached a deadlock. The problem is solved by the
sudden appearance of the deified Heracles. He commands his old friend
to go to Troy which he is to sack, and return home in peace. His lot
is inseparably connected with that of Neoptolemus and a cure is
promised him at the hands of Asclepius. This assurance overcomes his
obstinacy; he leaves Lemnos in obedience to the will of Heaven.

Such is the work of an old dramatist well over eighty years old. It is
exciting, vigorous, pathetic and everywhere dignified. The characters
of the old hero and the young warrior are masterly. The Chorus takes
an integral part in the action--its whisperings to Neoptolemus remind
the reader of the evil suggestions of which Satan breathed into Eve's
equally guileless ears in _Paradise Lost_. But the most remarkable
feature of the piece is its close resemblance to the new type of drama
which Euripides had popularised. The miserable life of Philoctetes,
his rags, destitution and sickness are a parallel to the Euripidean
Telephus; most of all, the appearance of a god at the end to untie the
knot is genuine Euripides. But there is a great difference; of the
disjointed actions which disfigure later tragedy and are not absent
from Sophocles' own earlier work there is not a trace. The odes are
relevant, the Chorus is indispensable; in short, Sophocles has shown
Euripides that he can beat him even on his own terms. Melodramatic the
play may be, but it wins for its author our affection by the sheer
beauty of a boyish nature as noble as Deianeira's; the return of
Neoptolemus upon his own baseness is one of the many compliments
Sophocles has paid to our human kind.

Many years previously Sophocles had written his masterpiece, the
_Oedipus Tyrannus_. It cannot easily be treated separately from its
sequel. A mysterious plague had broken out in Thebes; Creon had been
sent to Delphi by Oedipus to learn the cause of the disaster. Apollo
bade the Thebans cast out the murderer of the last King Laius, who was
still lurking in Theban territory. Oedipus on inquiry learns that
there are several murderers, but only one of Laius' attendants escaped
alive. In discovering the culprit Oedipus promises the sternest
vengeance on his nearest friends, nay, on his own kin, if necessary.
After a prayer from the Chorus of elders he repeats his determination
even more emphatically, invoking a curse on the assassin in language
of a terrible double meaning, for in every word he utters he
unconsciously pronounces his own doom. With commendable foresight he
had summoned the old seer Teiresias, but the seer for some reason is
unwilling to appear. When at last he confronts the King, he craves
permission to depart with his secret unsaid. Oedipus at once flies
into a towering passion, finally accusing him without any
justification of accepting bribes from Creon. With equal heat
Teiresias more and more clearly indicates in every speech the real
murderer, though his words are dark to him who could read the Sphinx's
riddle.

The Chorus break out into an ode full of uneasy surmises as to the
identity of the culprit. When Creon enters, Oedipus flies at him in
headlong passion accusing him of bribery, disloyalty and eventually of
murder. With great dignity he clears himself, warning the King of the
pains which hasty temper brings upon itself. Their quarrel brings out
Jocasta, the Queen and sister of Creon, who succeeds in settling the
unseemly strife. She bids Oedipus take no notice of oracles; one such
had declared that Laius would be slain by his own son, who would marry
her, his mother. The oracle was false, for Laius had died at the hands
of robbers in a place where three roads met. Aghast at hearing this,
Oedipus inquires the exact scene of the murder, the time when it was
committed, the actual appearance of Laius. Jocasta supplies the
details, adding that the one survivor had implored her after Oedipus
became King to live as far away as possible from the city. Oedipus
commands him to be sent for and tells his life story. He was the
reputed son of Polybus and Merope, rulers of Corinth. One day at a
wine-party a man insinuated that he was not really the son of the
royal pair. Stung by the taunt he went to Delphi, where he was warned
that he should kill his father and marry his mother. He therefore fled
away from Corinth towards Thebes. On the road he was insulted by an
old man in a chariot who thrust him rudely from his path; in anger he
smote the man at the place where three ways met. If then this man was
Laius, he had imprecated a curse on himself; his one hope is the
solitary survivor whom he had sent for; perhaps more than one man had
killed Laius after all.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18