Aeschylus, The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [1906]

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The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus, translated into English Verse by John Stuart Blackie (London: J.M. Dent, 1906).

Author: Aeschylus

Translator: John Stuart Blackie

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A collection of the major plays of the great Athenian playwright Aeschylus.

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THE SAGES OF OLD LIVE AGAIN IN US GLANVILL

EDITOR’S NOTE

The following is a list of the chief English translators of Æschylus:—

The Tragedies translated into English Verse; R. Potter, 1777, 1779.

The Seven Tragedies literally translated into English Prose, from the Text of Blomfield and Schütz, 1822, 1827.

Literal translation by T. A. Buckley, 1849.

The Lyrical Dramas . . . into English Verse; J. S. Blackie, 1850: into English Prose, F. A. Paley, 1864, 1891; E. H. Plumptre, 1868, 1873; Anna Swanwick, 1873; from a revised Text, W. Headlam, 1900, etc.

The Seven Plays in English Verse; L. Campbell, 1890.

The Agamemnon was translated by Dean Milman, 1865; and “transcribed” by Robert Browning, 1877. A. W. Verrall’s edition of the text, with commentary and translation, appeared in 1889.

The most important of the earlier editions of the text was that by Stanley; of the more recent, that by Schütz, Wellauer, and Hermann.

PREFACE

Some men of literary note, in the present day, observing the great difficulties with which poetical translators have to contend, especially when using a language of inferior compass, have been of opinion that the task ought not to be attempted at all—that all poetical translations, from Greek at least into English, should be done in prose; and, in confirmation of this opinion, they point to the English translation of the Hebrew Bible as a model. But if, as Southey says, “a translation is good precisely as it faithfully represents the matter, manner, and spirit of the original,” it is difficult to see how this doctrine can be entertained. Poetry is distinguished from prose more by the manner than by the matter; and rhythmical regularity or verse is precisely that quality which distinguishes the manner of poetry from that of prose. In one sense, and in the best sense, Plato and Richter and Jeremy Taylor are poets; in another sense, and in the best sense, Æschylus and Dante and Shakespere are philosophers; but that which a poet as a poet has, and a philosopher as a philosopher has not, is verse; and this element the advocates of a prose translation of poetical works are content to miss out! That the argument from the English translation of the Bible is not applicable to every case, will appear plain to any one who will figure to himself Robert Burns or Horace or Beranger in a prose dress. In the Bible we seek for the simplicity of religious inculcation or devout meditation, and would consider the finest rhythmical decorations out of place. Besides, the style of the Hebrew poetry is eminently simple; and the rhythmical element of language, so far as I can learn, was never highly cultivated by the Jews, whose mission on earth was of a different kind. The Greeks, on the other hand, were eminently a poetical people; the poetry of their drama, though not without its own simplicity, is, in respect of mere linguistic organism, of a highly decorated order; and by nothing is that decoration so marked as by a systematic attention to rhythm. I consider, therefore, that prose translations of the Greek dramatists will never satisfy the just demands of a cultivated taste, for the plain reason that they omit that element which is most characteristic of the manner of the original.

I am persuaded that the demand for prose translations of poets had arisen, in this country, more from a sort of desperate reaction against certain vicious principles of the old English school of translation, than from a serious consideration either of the nature of the thing, or of the capacity of our noble language. In Germany, I do not find that this notion has ever been entertained; plainly because the German poetical translations did not err, like our English ones, in conspiring, by every sort of fine flourishing and delicate furbishment, to obscure or to blot out what was most characteristic in their originals. The proper problem of an English translator is not how to say a thing as the author would have said it, had he been an Englishman; but how, through the medium of the English language, to make the English reader feel both what he said and how he said it, being a Greek. Now, any one who is familiar with the general run of English rhythmical translations, of which Pope’s Iliad is the pattern, must be aware that they have too often been executed under the influence of the former of these principles rather than the latter. In Pope’s Homer, and in Sotheby’s also, I must add, we find many, perhaps all the finest passages very finely done; but so as Pope or Sotheby might have done themselves in an original poem written at the present day, while that which is most peculiarly Homeric, a certain blunt naturalness and a talkative simplicity, we do not find in these translators at all. The very things which most strike the eye of the accomplished connoisseur, and feed the meditations of the student of human nature, are omitted.

Now, I at once admit that a good prose translation—that is to say, a prose translation done by a poet or a man of poetical culture—of such an author as Homer, is preferable, for many purposes, to a poetical translation so elegantly defaced as that of Pope. A prose translation, also, of any poet, done accurately in a prosaic style by a proser, however much of a parody or a caricature in point of taste, may not be without its use, if in no other way, as a ready check on the free licence of omission or inoculation which rhythmical translators are so fond to usurp. But it is a mistake to suppose, because Pope, under the influence of Louis XIV. and Queen Anne, could not write a good poetical translation of Homer, that therefore such a work is beyond the compass of the English language. I believe that, if Alfred Tennyson were to give the world a translation of the Iliad in the measure of Locksley Hall, he would cut Pope out of the market of the million, even at this eleventh hour. We are, in the present epoch of our literary history, arrived at a very favourable moment for producing good translations. A band of highly-original and richly-furnished minds has just left the stage, leaving us the legacy of a poetical language which, under their hand, received a degree of rhythmical culture, of which it had been before considered incapable. The example of the Germans, also, now no longer confined to the knowledge of a few, stands forth to show us how excellent poetical translations may be made, free, at least, from those faults from which we have suffered. There is no reason why we should despair of producing poetical versions of the Classics which shall be at once graceful as English compositions, and characteristic as productions of the Greek or Roman mind. I, for one, have already passed this judgment on my own attempt, that if I have failed in these pages to bring out what is Greek and what is Æschylean prominently, in combination with force, grace, and clearness of English expression, it is for lack of skill in the workman, not for want of edge in the tool.

The next question that calls for answer is: it being admitted that a rhythmical translation of a Greek poem is preferable to a prose one, should we content ourselves with a blank rhythm (such as Shelley has used in Queen Mab, and Southey in Thalaba), or should we adopt also the sonorous ornament of rhyme. On this subject, when I first commenced this translation, about twelve years ago, I confess my feelings were strongly against the use of rhyme in translations from the antique; but experience and reflection have taught me considerably to modify, and, in some points of view, altogether to abandon this opinion. With regard to this matter, Southey has expressed himself thus:—“Rhyme is to passages of no inherent merit what rouge and candle-light are to ordinary faces. Merely ornamental passages, also, are aided by it, as foil sets off paste. But when there is either passion or power, the plainer and more straightforward the language can be made, the better.” This is the lowest ground on which the plea for rhyme can be put; but even thus, it will be impossible for a discriminating translator to ward off its application to the Greek tragedy. In all poetry written for music, there will occur, even from the best poets, not a few passages on which the mere reader will pronounce, in the language of Horace, that they are comparatively

“Inopes rerum nugaeque canorae.”

With regard to the proper choral odes—the most difficult, and, in my view, the most important part of my task—I have allowed myself a licence, which some may think too large, but which, if I were to do the work over again, I scarcely think I should contract. In very few cases have I given anything like a curious imitation of the original; and, when I have done so—as in the Trochaic Chaunt of the Furies, Vol. I. p. 212, and in the Cretics mingled with Trochees, in the short ode of the Suppliants, Vol. II. p 107 —it was more to humour the whim of the moment than from any fixed principle. For, to speak truth, rhyming men will have their whim; and I do not think it politic or judicious to deprive the translator altogether of that rhythmical freedom which is the great delight of the original composer. But another, and the principal reason with me for not attempting a systematic imitation of the choral measures, was, that many of them failed to produce, on my ear, an intelligible musical effect, which I could set myself to reproduce; while, in other cases, though I clearly saw the rhythmical principle on which they were constructed (for I do not speak of the blind jargon of inherited metrical terminology), I saw with equal clearness that in our English poetry written to be read, systematic imitation of ancient metres written on musical principles, and with a view to musical exhibition, is, in the majority of cases, altogether absurd and impertinent. I confined myself, therefore, to the selection of such English metres as to my ear seemed most dramatically to represent the feeling of the original, making a marked contrast everywhere between the rhythmical movement of joy and sorrow, and always distinguishing carefully between what was piled up with a stable continuity of sublime emotion, and what was ejaculated in a hurried and broken style, where the Dochmiac verse prevails.

So much for metres With regard to the more strictly linguistic part of my task, I have only to say that I thought it proper to assume Wellauer’s cautiously edited text as a safe general foundation, with the liberty, of course, to deviate from it whenever I saw distinct and clearly made out grounds. The other editions, old and new, which I have used are enumerated in an Appendix at the end of the second volume. There also will be found those Commentaries and Translations which I have consulted on all the difficult passages; my obligations to which are, of course, great, and are here gratefully acknowledged. I desire specially to name, as having been of most service to me, Linwood, Peile, and Paley among the English; Wellauer, Welcker, Müller, and Schoemann among the German scholars. My manner of proceeding with previous English translations was to borrow from them an occasional phrase or hint, only after I had finished and carefully revised my own. But my obligations in respect of poetical diction to my fellow-labourers in the same field are very few, and are for the most part specially acknowledged.

The introductory remarks to each play are intended to supply the English reader with that particular mythological or historical knowledge, and to inspire him with those Hellenic views and feelings, which are necessary to the enjoyment of the different dramas. The appended notes proceed on the principle, generally understood in this country, though apparently neglected in erudite Germany, that translations are made, not for the learned mainly, but for the unlearned. I have, therefore, not assumed even the most common points of mythological and antiquarian lore. Some of the notes, especially those on moral and religious points, have a higher view than mere explanation. They are intended to stir those human feelings, and suggest those trains of moral reflection without which the most profound scholarship issues only in a multitudinous cracking of empty nut-shells, and a ghastly exhibition of gilded bones. The few notes of a strictly hermeneutical character that are mingled with these, are mere jottings to preserve for my own use, and that of my fellow-students of the Greek text, the grounds of decision which have moved me in some of the more difficult passages, where I have either departed from Wellauer’s text, or where something appeared to lie in the various renderings fraught with a more than common poetical significance. In the general case, however, the translation must serve as its own commentary; and, though I do not pretend to have read every thing that has been written on the disputed passages of this most difficult, and, in many places, sadly corrupt author, I hope there is evidence enough in every page of my work to show that I have conscientiously grappled with all real difficulties in any way affecting the meaning of the text, and not leapt to a conclusion merely because it was the most obvious and most convenient one. If here and there I have made a rapid dash, a headlong plunge, or a bold sweep, beyond the rules of a strict philology, it was because these were the only tactics that the desperation of the case allowed.

In conclusion, I am glad to take this opportunity of publicly returning my thanks to two gentlemen of well-known literary taste and discernment, who took the trouble to read my sheets as they went through the press, and favour me with their valuable suggestions.

ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY

“In der Beurtheilung des Hellenischen Alterthums soll der Scharfsinnige nicht aus sich herauszuspinnen suchen, was nur aus der Verbindung mannichfacher Ueberlieferungen gewonnen werden kann.”

—Bockh.

Let us inquire, therefore, setting aside alike Shaksperian examples and Aristotelian canons, what the τραγῳδία, or “tragedy,” was to the ancient Greeks. Nor have we far to seek. The name, when the modern paint is rubbed off, declares its own history; and we find that the main idea of the old word τραῳδία—as, by the way, the only idea of the modern word τραγουδι —is a song. Of the second part of this word, we have preserved the root in our English words ode, melody, monody, thenody, and the other half of the word means goat; whether that descriptive addition to the principal substantive came from the circumstance that the song was originally sung by persons habited like goats, or from other circumstances connected with the worship of Dionysus, to whom this animal was sacred, is of no importance for our present purpose. The main fact to which we have to direct attention, is that the word tragedy, when analysed, bears upon its face, and in the living Greek tongue proclaims loudly to the present hour, that the essential character of this species of poetry—when the name was originally given to it—was lyrical, and not at all dramatic or tragic, in the modern sense of these words. A drama, in modern language, means an action represented by acting persons; and a tragedy is such a represented action, having a sad issue; but neither of these elements belonged to the original Greek tragedy, as inherited from his rude predecessors by Æschylus, nor (as we shall immediately show) do they form the prominent or characteristic part of that exhibition, as transmitted by him to his successors. With regard to the origin of the Greek “goat-song,” and its condition previous to the age of Æschylus, there is but one uncontradicted voice of tradition on the subject; the curious discussions and investigations of the learned affecting only certain minute points of detail in the progress, which have no interest for the general student. That tradition is to the effect that the Greek lyrical drama, as we find it in the extant works of Æschylus, arose out of the Dithyrambic hymns sung at the sacred festivals of the ancient Hellenes in honour of their god Dionysus, or, as he is vulgarly called, Bacchus; hymns which were first extemporized under the influence of the stimulating juice of the grape, and then sung by a regularly trained Chorus, under the direction of the famous Methymnean minstrel, Arion. The simplest form which such hymns, under such conditions, could assume, was that of a circular dance by a band of choristers round the statue or the altar of the god in whose honour the hymn was sung. This is not a matter peculiar to Greece, but to be found at all times, and all over the world, wherever there are men who are not mere brutes. So in the description of the religious practices of the ancient Mexicans, our erudite poet Southey has the following beautiful passage, picturing a sacred choral dance round the altar of sacrifice:—

Round the choral band

The circling nobles gay, with gorgeous plumes,

And gems which sparkled to the midnight fire,

Moved in the solemn dance, each in his hand,

In measured movements, lifts the feathery shield,

And shakes a rattling ball to measured sounds;

With quicker steps, the inferior chiefs without,

Equal in number, but in just array,

The spreading radii of the mystic wheel

Revolved; and outermost, the youths roll round,

In motions rapid as their quickened blood.

The academic student, who is familiar with these matters, is aware that what has been here constructed hypothetically, as a natural result of the circumstances, is the real historical account of the origin and progress of the Greek tragedy, as it is shortly given in a well-known passage of Diogenes Laertius. “In the oldest times,” says that biographer of the philosophers, “the Chorus alone went through the dramatic exhibition (διεδραματ[Editor: illegible character]ζεν) in tragedy; afterwards Thespis, to give rest to the Chorus, added one actor distinct from the singers; then Æschylus added a second, and Sophocles a third; which gave to tragedy its complete development.” The reason mentioned here for the addition of the first actor by Thespis, is a very probable one. The convenience or ease of the singers contributed, along with the lively wit of the Greeks, and a due regard for the entertainment of the spectators, to raise the dramatized ode, step by step, into the lyrical drama.

In the above account, two secondary circumstances connected with this transition, have not been mentioned The first is, that the jocund and sometimes boisterous hymn, in honour of the wine-god, should have passed into the lyrical representation of an action generally not at all connected with the worship or history of that divinity; and, secondly, that this action should have changed its tone from light to grave, from jocular to sad, and become, in fact, what we, in the popular language of modern times, call tragic. Now, for the first of these circumstances, I know nothing that can be said in the way of historical philosophy, except that man is fond of variety, that the Greek genius was fertile, and that accident often plays strange tricks with the usages and institutions of mortal men. For the other point, there can be no doubt that the worship of the god of physical and animal joy, being violent in its character, had its ebb as well as its flow, its broad-gleaming sunshine not without the cloud, its wail as well as its rejoicing. Whether Dionysus meant the sun, or only wine, which is the produce of the solar heat, or both, it is plain that his worshippers would have to lament his departure, at least as often as they hailed his advent; and, in this natural alternation, a foundation was laid for the separation of the original Dithyrambic Chorus into a wild, sportive element, represented by the Aristophanic comedy, and a deeply serious, meditative element represented by tragedy But we must beware, in reference to Æschylus at least, of supposing that the lyrical drama, as exhibited by him, however solemn and awe-inspiring, was necessarily sad, or, as we say, tragic in its issue. Aristotle indeed, in his famous treatise, lays down the doctrine that the main object of tragic composition is to excite pity and terror, and that Euripides, “though in other respects he manages badly, is in this respect the most tragic of the tragedians, that the most of his pieces end unfortunately.” But there is not the slightest reason, in the nature of things, why a solemn dramatic representation, any more than a high-toned epical narrative, should end unfortunately. The Hindoo drama, for one, never does; and, in the case of our poet, it is plain that the great trilogy, of which the Orestes is the middle piece, is constructed upon the principle of leading the sympathizing spectator through scenes of pity and terror, as stations in a journey, but finally to a goal of moral peace and harmonious reconciliation. That the great trilogy of the Prometheus, of which only one part remains, had an equally fortunate termination, is not to be doubted. Here, therefore, we see another impertinence in that modern word tragedy, which, in the superscriptions of these plays, I have been so careful to eschew.

We shall now examine one or two of the Æschylean pieces by a simple arithmetical process, and see how essentially the lyrical element predominates in their construction. Taking Wellauer’s edition, and turning up the Suppliants, I find that that play, consisting altogether of 1055 lines, is opened by a continuous lyric strain of 172 lines. Then we have dialogue, in part of which the Chorus uses lyric measures to the extent of 22 lines Then follows a short choral song of only 20 lines. The next Chorus comprises 76 lines, and the next 70. After this follows another dialogue, in which the Chorus, being in great mental agitation, use, according to the uniform practice of Æschylus, lyric measures to the extent altogether of 20 verses. Then follows another regular choral hymn of 47 lines. After that a violent lyrical altercation between the Chorus and a new actor, to the amount of 74 lines, in the most impassioned lyrical rhythm. Then follow 14 lines of anapæsts; and the whole concludes with a grand lyrical finale of 65 lines: altogether 580—considerably more than the half of the piece by bare arithmetic, and equal to two-thirds of it fully, if we consider how much more time the singing, with the musical accompaniments, must have occupied than the simple declamation. No more distinct proof could be required how essentially the account of Diogenes Laertius is right; how true it is that the choral part of the Æschylean drama is both its body and its soul, while the dialogic part, to use the technical language of Aristotle’s days, was, in fact, only an ἐπεισόδιον (from which our English word Episode) or thing thrown in between the main choral acts of the representation, for the sake of variety to the spectators, and, as the writer says, of rest to the singers. We thus see, also, what an incorrect and indefinite idea of the Æschylean drama Aristotle had when he says—so far as we can gather his meaning—that “Æschylus first added a second actor; he also abridged the chorus, and made the dialogue the principal part of tragedy.” The last article, so far as the play of the Suppliants is concerned, is simply not true. Let us make trial of another play. The Agamemnon, which, for many reasons, is one of the best for testing the mature genius of the bard, contains about 1600 lines; and, without troubling the reader with details, it will be found that about the half of this number is written in lyric measures. When we consider, further, that the most splendid imaginative pictures, and the wildest bursts of passion, all the interest, the doubt, and the anxiety, the fear, the terror, the surprise, and the final issue, are, according to the practice of Æschylus, regularly thrown into lyric measures, we shall be convinced that Aristotle (if we rightly apprehend him) was altogether mistaken when he led the moderns to imagine that the father of tragedy had really given such a preponderance to the dialogic element, that the lyric part is to be looked on, in his productions, as in any way subordinate. Unless it be the Prometheus, I do not know a single extant play of Æschylus in which the lyric element occupies a position which, in actual representation, would justify the dictum of the Stagyrite. And even in this play, let it be observed, how grandly the poet makes his anapæsts swell and billow with sonorous thunder in the finale; as if to make amends for the somewhat prolix epic recitals with which he had occupied the spectator, and to prove that a Greek tragedy could never be true to itself, unless it left upon the ear, in its last echoes, the permanent impression of its original character as a Song

Three observations strike me, that may conveniently be stated as corollaries from the above remarks. First, That those translators have erred who, whether from carelessness, or from ignorance, or from a desire to accommodate the ancient tragedy as much as possible to the modern, have given an undue predominance to blank verse in their versions, making it appear as if the spoken part of the Æschylean tragedy bore a much larger proportion, than it really does, to the sung. Second, Those critics have erred who, applying the principles of modern theatrical criticism to the chaunted parts of the ancient lyrical drama, have found many parts dull or wearisome, extravagant, and even ridiculous, which, there can be no doubt, with their proper musical accompaniment, were the most impressive, and the most popular parts of the representation. Third, We err altogether, when we judge of the excellence of an ancient Greek drama as a composition, by its effect on us when reading it. The Suppliants, for instance, is generally considered a stupid play; because it wants grand contrasts of character and striking dramatic situations, and contains so much of mere reiterated supplication. But this reiteration, though wearisome to us who read the text-book of the lost opera, was, in all probability, that on which the ravished ears of the devout ancient auditors dwelt with most voluptuous delight. In general, without re-creating some musical accompaniment, and dwelling with ear and heart on the frequent variations of the lyric burden of the piece, a man is utterly incapable of passing any sane judgment on an Æschylean drama. Such a piece may contain in abundance everything that the auditors desired and enjoyed, and yet be very stupid now to us who merely read and criticise.

The fact of the matter is, that the marshalled band of singers, however satisfactory to an ancient audience, who looked principally for musical excitement in their tragedies, and not for an interesting plot, was not at all calculated for allowing a dramatic genius to bring out those tragic situations in which the modern reader delights; but rather stood directly in the way of such an effect The fine development of character under the influence of various delicate situations, and in collision with different persons, all acting their part in some complex knot of various-coloured life, could not be exhibited in a performance where a band of singers on whom the eye of the spectators principally rested, and who formed the great attraction for the masses, constantly occupied the central ground, and constantly interfered with every thing that was either said or done, whether it was convenient for them to do so or not. For a perfect tragedy, as conceived scientifically by Aristotle, and executed with a grand practical instinct by Shakespere, the Chorus was, in the very nature of the thing, an incumbrance and an impediment. It was only very seldom that the persons of that body could form such an important part of the action, and come forward with such a startling dramatic effect as in the Eumenides. Too often they were obliged to hang round the action as an atmosphere, or look at it as spectators; spectators either impartial altogether, and then too wise for dramatic sympathy, or half-partial, and then, by indecision of utterance, often making themselves ridiculous, as in a noted scene of the Agamemnon (Vol I p. 79), or contemptible, as in the Antigone The proper position of the Chorus in a regularly constructed drama, is, like the witches in Macbeth, to form a mysterious musical background (not a fore-ground, as in the Greek tragedy), or to circle, as in the opera of Masaniello, the principal character with a band of associates naturally situated to assist and cheer him on to his grand enterprise. But the Greek Chorus, even in the time of Sophocles and Euripides, who enlarged the spoken part, was too independent, too stationary, too central a nucleus of the representation, not to impede the movements of the acting persons who performed the principal parts. As a form of art, therefore, the Greek tragedy, so soon as it attempted to assume the scientific ground so acutely seized on by the subtle analysis of Aristotle, was necessarily clumsy and incongruous. The lyric element, which was always the most popular element, refused to be incorporated with the acting element, and yet could not be altogether displaced, a position of scenic affairs which has strangely perplexed not a few modern critics, looking for a dramatic plot with all the dramatic proprieties in a composition where the old Hellenic spectator only felt a hymn to Jove; and curiously tasking their wits to find excuses for a poet like Euripides, who, with blossoming lyrics and sonorous rhetoric, might gain the prize of the “goat-song,” even over the head of a Sophocles, and yet, in point of dramatic propriety, as we demand it in our modern plays, be constantly perpetrating enormities which a clever schoolboy at Westminster or Eton might avoid.

So much for the artistic form of the Æschylean drama. As for the matter, it was essentially a combination of mythologial, legendary, and devotional elements, such as naturally belonged to a people whose religion was intimately blended with every passion of the human heart, and every chance of human life, and whose gods were only a sort of glorified men, as their men sometimes were nothing less than mortal gods The Greek lyrical dramas were part of the great public exhibitions at the great feasts of Bacchus, which took place, some in the winter season, and some in the spring of the year; and in this respect they bear a striking resemblance both to the Hindoo dramas (for which see Wilson), to the so-called mysteries and moralities of mediæval piety, and to the sacred dramas of Metastasio, exhibited to the court at Vienna. And what sort of an aspect does ancient polytheistic piety present, what sort of an attitude does it maintain, in these compositions? An aspect surprisingly fair, considering what motley confusion it sprang from, an attitude singularly noble, seeing how nearly it was allied to mere animal enjoyment, and how prone was its degeneration into the mire of the grossest sensuality. The pictured pages of Livy, and brazen tablets of the grave Roman senate still extant, tell only too true a tale into what a fearful mire of brutishness the fervent worship of Dionysus might plunge its votaries. And yet out of this Bacchantic worship, so wild, so animal, and so sensual, arose the Greek tragedy, confessedly amongst the most high-toned moral compositions that the history of literature knows. Our modern Puritans, who look upon the door of a theatre (according to the phrase of a famous Edinburgh preacher) as the gate of hell, might take any one of these seven plays which are here presented in an English dress, and with the simple substitution of a few Bible designations for Heathen ones, find, so far as moral and religious doctrine is concerned, that, with the smallest possible exercise of the pruning-knife, they might be exhibited in a Christian Church, and be made to subserve the purposes of practical piety, as usefully as many a sermon The following passage from the Agamemnon is not a solitary gem from a heap of rubbish, but the very soul and significance of the Æschylean drama:—

“For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins

To virtue by the tutoring of their sins;

Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill

The sleeper’s heart; ’gainst man’s rebellious will

Jove works the wise remorse:

Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel

Our hearts with gracious force.”

The only serious charge that, to my knowledge, has ever been made against the morality of the Greek drama, is that in it “an innocent person, one in the main of a virtuous character, through no crime of his own, nay not by the vices of others, but through mere Fatality and Blind Chance, is involved in the greatest of all human miseries.” This is the critical judgment of Dr. Blair (lecture xlvi.) in reference to the famous Labdacidan story of Œdipus. Now, though the personal history of Œdipus contains many incidents that expose it justly to criticism, especially when brought upon the stage in a modernized dress by modern French or other poets (which abuse the learned Doctor no doubt had principally in view); yet, as applied to the whole Labdacidan story, or to the subjects of the Greek drama generally, the allegation is either extremely shallow, or altogether false, There is no destiny or fatality of any kind in the Æschylean drama, other than that which, according to the Mosaic record, drove Adam out of Paradise; that destiny which a divine decree, seeing the end in the beginning, has prepared, and that fatality which makes a guilty man not merely the necessary architect of his own misery, but the propagator of a moral contagion, more or less, to the offspring that inherits his pollution and his curse. On this subject I need make no lengthened observations here, as I have brought it and other points of moral and religious feeling prominently forward, both in the introductory observations to the separate plays, and in various places of the notes. I shall only say that the reader who does not find a high moral purpose and a deep religious meaning in the specimens of ancient Greek worship now submitted to his inspection, has no eye for what is best in these pages, and had better throw the book down. The Germans, who look deeper into these matters than we have either time, inclination, or, in the general case, capacity to do, have written volumes on the subject. To me it has seemed more suitable to the genius of the English reader merely to hint the existence of this rich mine of moral wealth, leaving to the quiet thinker where, amid our various political and ecclesiastical clamour, he may have found a corner, to work out the vein with devout spade and mattock for himself.

A few words must now be said on the Dance, as an essential part of the lyrical element of the Greek tragedy. Our sober British, stern Protestant, and precise Presbyterian notions, make it very difficult for us to realize this peculiarity. Even the old Heathen Roman could say, “Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit”; much more must it be hard for a modern Presbyterian Christian to recognise, in the twinkling-footed celerity of the merry dance, an exercise which a pious old Dorian could look upon as an indispensable part of an act of public worship. To read the weighty moral sentences of a solemn Æschylean Chorus, and then figure to ourselves their author as a dancing-master, is an unnatural and almost painful transition of thought to a Christian man in these times; and yet Athenæus tells us, that the author of the Prometheus really was a professor of the orchestric art, and a very cunning one too. The fundamental truth of the case is, that the religion of the Greeks was not, like ours, a religion only of moral emotions and theological principles, but a religion of the whole man, with rather too decided a tendency, in some parts, it must be confessed, towards a disturbance of the equipoise on the side of the senses. But, whatever may be thought of Bacchic orgies and other associate rites, with regard to dancing, there is plainly nothing in the exercise, when decorously conducted, inconsistent either with dignity, or with piety; and the feelings of ancient Romans and modern Presbyterians on the subject, must be regarded as the mere products of arbitrary association. Certain it is, that all the Greek philosophers looked upon dancing as an essential element, not only in the education of a gentleman, but in the performance of public worship; nay, even among the severe Jews, we read that David, on occasion of a great religious festival, danced before the Lord; and only an idle woman called him an idle fellow for doing so. We need not be surprised, therefore, if among the merry Greeks, professing a religion fully as much of physical enjoyment as of moral culture, orchestric evolutions, along with sacred hymns, formed an essential part of the tragic exhibitions belonging to the feasts of the great god Dionysus. On the details of this matter, we are sadly wanting in satisfactory information; but that the fact was so, there can be no doubt. The only point with regard to which there is room for a serious difference of opinion is, whether every performance of the Chorus in full band included dancing, or whether it was only introduced occasionally, as the ballet in our modern operas. On this point, the greatest authority in Greek Literature at present living has declared strongly in favour of the latter view; and, in doing so, he has been followed by one of the first philologers of our own country; and as I have not been led, in the course of my studies, to make any particular examination of this subject, I am loath to contradict anything proceeding from such an authoritative quarter. One great branch of the evidence, I presume, on which this view is supported, lies in the words of the old Scholiast to the choral chaunt in the Phœnissae of Euripides, beginning with these words, Τύριον διδμα λιπονˆ[Editor: illegible character] ἒβαν. “This chaunt,” says the annotator, “is what is called a στάσιμον, or standing chorus; for when the Chorus, after the πάροδος, remaining motionless, sings a hymn arising out of the subject of the play, this song is called a στάσιμον. A πάροδος, on the other hand, is a song sung as they are marching into the orchestra on the first entrance.” Now, no doubt, if this matter be taken with a literal exactitude, the expression, ἀκίνητος, or without moving, will exclude dancing; but if we merely take it generally, as opposed to the great sweeping evolutions of the Chorus, and as implying only a permanent occupation of the same ground in the centre of the orchestra, by the band, as a whole, while the individual members might change their places in the most graceful and beautiful variety of forms, we are thus saved from the harshness of giving to the orchestric element, in many plays, a subordinate position, equally at variance with the original character of the Chorus, and with the place which the dance held as a prominent part of Greek social life With regard to Æschylus, in particular, I do not see how I should be acting in consistency with the testimony of Athenæus just quoted, if I were to assign such a small proportion of the choric performances to orchestric accompaniment, as Boeckh and Donaldson have done in their editions of the play of Sophocles, which the genius of Miss Faucit has rendered so dear to the friends of the drama in this country. It would be easy to show, from internal evidence such as Boeckh finds in what he calls the Orchestric Chorus, or ἐμμέλεια of the Antigone, that certain choruses of Æschylus are more adapted for violent and extensive orchestric movements than others. But I have thought it more prudent, considering the general uncertainty that surrounds this matter, not to make any allusion to dancing in any one performance of the Chorus more than another; contenting myself with carefully distinguishing everywhere between the anapæstic parts where the Chorus is plainly making extensive movements, and the Choral Hymn with regular Strophe and Antistrophe, which is sung when they are placed in their proper position in a square band round the Thymele (θυμέλη), or Bacchic altar, in the centre of the orchestra.

Having said so much with regard both to the form and substance of the lyric portion of the Æschylean drama, I have said almost all that I was anxious to say; for, in stating this matter clearly, I have brushed out of the way the principal part of that host of modern associations which is so apt to disturb our sympathetic enjoyment of the great masterpieces of Hellenic art. Anything that might be said in detail on the Iambic or dialogic part of ancient tragedy would only serve to set in a yet stronger light the grand fact which has been urged, that the strength of the Greek drama lies in the singing, and not in the acting. It were easy to show by an extensive analysis, that the classical “goat-singers” had but very imperfect notions on the subject of stage dialogue; and that it was a light thing for them to deal at large in mere epic description, or rhetorical declamation, without offending the taste of a fastidious audience, or sinning grossly against the understood laws of the sort of composition which they exhibited. Notwithstanding Aristotle’s nicely-drawn distinction, the narrated, or purely epic parts of the Greek tragedy, are often the best This is the case not seldom even with Æschylus, whose native dramatic power the voice of a master has judged to be first-rate. But with him the infant state of the art, and the insufficient supply of actors, combined with a radical faultiness of structure, produced, in not a few instances, the same anti-dramatic results as the want of dramatic genius in Euripides. Further, to use the language of Mr. Donaldson—“the narrowness and distance of the stage rendered any (free and complex) grouping unadvisable. The arrangement of the actors was that of a processional bas relief. Their movements were slow, their gesticulations abrupt and angular, and their delivery a sort of loud and deep-drawn sing-song, which resounded throughout the immense theatre. They probably neglected everything like by-play and making points, which are so effective on the English stage. The distance at which the spectators were placed would prevent them from seeing those little movements and hearing those low tones which have made the fortune of many a modern actor. The mask, too, precluded all attempts at varied expression, and it is probable that nothing more was expected from the performer than was looked for from his predecessor, the rhapsode—viz., good recitation.” These observations, flowing from a realization of the known circumstances of the case, will sufficiently explain to the modern reader the extreme stiffness and formality which distinguishes the tragic dialogue of the Greeks from that dexterous and various play of verbal interchange which delights us so much in Shakespere and the other masters of English tragedy. Every view, in short, that we can take, tends to fix our attention on the musical and the religious elements, as on the life-blood and vital soul of the Hellenic τραγῳδία; forces us to the conclusion that, with a due regard to organic principle, its proper designation is sacred opera, and not tragedy, in the modern sense of the word at all; and leads us to look on the dramatic art altogether in the hands of Æschylus, not as an infant Hercules strangling serpents, but as a Titan, like his own Prometheus, chained to a rock, whom only, after many ages, a strong Saxon Shakespere could unbind.

To conclude. If these observations shall seem to any conceived in a style too depreciatory of the masterpieces of Hellenic art, such persons will observe, that what has been here said of a negative character has reference only to the form of these productions as works of art, and not to their poetic contents. An unfortunate external arrangement is often, as in the case of the German writer Richter, united in intimate amalgamation with the richest and most exuberant energy of intellectual and moral life. However imperfect the Greek “tragedies” are as forms of artistic exhibition, they are not the less admirable, for the mass of healthy poetic life of which they are the embodiment, and the grand combination of artistic elements which they present As among the world’s notable men there are some who are great rather by a harmonious combination of the great healthy elements of humanity, than by the gigantic development of any one faculty, so in literature there are phenomena which must be measured by the mass of inward life which they concentrate, not by the structural perfection of form which they exhibit. The lyrical tragedy of the Greeks presents, in a combination elsewhere unexampled, the best elements of our serious drama, our opera, our oratorio, our public worship, and our festal recreations. The people who prepared and enjoyed such an intellectual banquet were not base-minded. Had their stability been equal to their susceptibility, the world had never seen their equal. As it is, they are like to remain for ages the great Hierophants of the intellectual world, whose influence will always be felt even by those who are ignorant or impudent enough to despise them; and among the various branches of art and science which owed a felicitous culture to their dexterous and subtle genius, there is certainly no phenomenon in the wide history of imaginative manifestation more imposing and more significant than that which bears on its face the signature of the rude god of wine, and his band of shaggy and goat-footed revellers.

THE LIFE OF ÆSCHYLUS

τονˆτον τὸν βακχεɩ̂ον ἅνακτα.

—Aristophanes.

. . . personæ pallæque repertor honestæ.

—Horace

After his death the Athenians testified their esteem for his character by decreeing—what was quite an extraordinary privilege according to their stage practice—that his dramas might be exhibited at the great Dionysiac festivals, when their author could be no longer a competitor for the prize The people of Gela, justly proud that the bones of so great a man should repose in their soil, erected a monument to his memory with the following inscription:—

“Here Æschylus lies, from his Athenian home

Remote, ’neath Gola’s wheat-producing loam.

How brave in battle was Euphorion’s son

The long-haired Mede can tell that fled from Marathon.”

With regard to the great merits of Æschylus both as a poet and as the creator of the tragic stage, there is but one testimony among the writers of antiquity. He not only introduced, as we have elsewhere stated, a second, and afterwards a third actor—without which there was no scope for the proper representation of an action—but he made the greatest improvements in the whole machinery and decorations of the stage, gave dignity to the actors by a minute attention to their masks, dresses, and buskins, besides attending specially to the graceful culture of the dance, according to the testimony of Athenæus above quoted. As a dramatist he is distinguished by peculiar loftiness of conception and grandeur of phraseology. His style is sometimes harsh and abrupt, but it is always manly and vigorous; his metaphors are bold and striking, with something at times almost oriental in their cast; and, though not free from the offence of mixing incongruous metaphors—the natural sin of an imagination at once fearless and fertile—I do not think he can be fairly charged with turgidity and bombast; for, as Aristophanes remarks, in the Frogs, there is a superhuman grandeur about his characters which demands a more than common elevation of phrase. As to the obscurity with which he has been charged, the comparative clearness of those plays which have been most frequently transcribed is a plain indication that this fault proceeds more from the carelessness of stupid copyists, than from confusion of thought or inadequate power of expression in the writer. In some cases, as in the prophecy of Calchas in the opening scene of the Agamemnon, the obscurity is studied and most appropriate Poetry, like painting, will have its shade. But the great excellence of Æschylus, as a poet, is the bracing tone of thorough manhood, noble morality, and profound piety which pervades his works Among those who are celebrated by Virgil as walking with Orpheus and Musæus in blissful Elysium—

“Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,”

“Ὁι Τρώων μεν ὑπεξέϕυγον στονόεσσαν ἀυτὴν

Ἐν νόστῳ δ’ απόλοντο κακη̂ς ἰότητι γυναιλός”

“Greeks that ’scaped the Trojan war-cry, and the wailing battle-field,

But home returning basely perished by a wicked woman’s guile”

Homer,Odys. xi 383-4.

PERSONS

Watchman.

Chorus of Argive Elders.

Clytemnestra, Wife of Agamemnon.

Herald.

Agamemnon, King of Argos and Mycenæ.

Cassandra, a Trojan Prophetess, Daughter of Priam.

Ægisthus, Son of Thyestes.

Scene—The Royal Palace in Arges.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The last sentence of this curious notice contains the Epic germ of which the famous trilogy—the Agamemnon, the Choephorœ, and the Eumenides of Æschylus—the three plays contained in the present volume, present the dramatic expansion. The celebrity of the legends with regard to the return of the mighty Atridan arose naturally from the prominent situation in which he stood as the admiral of the famous thousand-masted fleet; and, besides, the passage from the old Troezenian minstrel just quoted, is sufficiently attested by various passages—some of considerable length—in the Odyssey, which will readily present themselves to the memory of those who are familiar with the productions of the great Ionic Epopœist. In the very opening of that poem, for instance, occur the following remarkable lines:—

“Strange, O strange, that mortal men immortal gods will still be blaming,

Saying that the source of evil lies with us; while they, in sooth,

More than Fate would have infatuate with sharp sorrows pierce themselves!

Thus even now Ægisthus, working sorrow more than Fate would have,

The Atridan’s wife hath wedded, and himself returning slain,

Knowing well the steep destruction that awaits him, for ourselves

Sent the sharp-eyed Argus-slayer, Hermes, to proclaim our will,

That nor him he dare to murder, nor his wedded wife to woo.

Thus spoke Hermes well and wisely; but thy reckless wit, Ægisthus,

Moved he not; full richly therefore now thy folly’s fine thou payest.”

Agamemnon, the son, or, according to a less common account (for which see Schol. ad Iliad II. 249), the grandson of Atreus, being distinguished above the other Hellenic princes for wealth and power, was either by special election appointed, or by that sort of irregular kingship common among half-civilized nations, allowed to conduct the famous expedition against Troy that in early times foreshadowed the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the influence of the Greek language and letters in the East. Such a distant expedition as this, like the crusades in the middle ages, was not only a natural living Epos in itself, but would necessarily give rise to that intense glow of popular sympathy, and that excited state of the popular imagination, which enable the wandering poets of the people to make the best poetic use of the various dramatic incidents that the realities of a highly potentiated history present. Accordingly we find, in the very outset of the expedition, the fleet, storm-bound in the harbour of Aulis, opposite Eubœa, enabled to pursue its course, under good omens, only by the sacrifice of the fairest daughter of the chief. This event—a sad memorial of the barbarous practice of human sacrifice, even among the polished Greeks—formed the subject of a special play, perhaps a trilogic series of plays, by Æschylus. This performance, however, has been unfortunately lost; and we can only imagine what it may have been by the description in the opening chorus of the present play, and by the beautiful, though certainly far from Æschylean, tragedy of Euripides. For our present purpose, it is sufficient to note that, in the Agamemnon, special reference is made to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, both as an unrighteous deed on the part of the father, for which some retribution was naturally to be expected, and as the origin of a special grudge in the mind of the mother, which she afterwards gratifies by the murder of her husband

As to that deed of blood itself, and its special adaptation for dramatic purposes, there can be no doubt; as little that Æschylus has used his materials in the present play in a fashion that satisfies the highest demands both of lyric and dramatic poetry, as executed by the first masters of both. The calm majesty and modest dignity of the much-tried monarch; the cool self-possession, and the smooth front of specious politeness that mark the character of the royal murderess the obstreperous bullying of the cowardly braggart, who does the deed with his heart, not with his hand; the half-wild, half-tender ravings of the horror-haunted Trojan prophetess; these together contain a combination of highly wrought dramatic elements, such as is scarcely excelled even in the all-embracing pages of our own Shakespere As far removed from common-place are the lyrical—in Æschylus never the secondary—elements of the piece The sublime outbreak of Cassandra’s prophetic horror is, as the case demanded, made to exhibit itself as much under the lyric as in the declamatory form; while the other choral parts, remarkable for length and variety, are marked not only by that mighty power of intense moral feeling which is so peculiarly Æschylean, but by the pictorial beauty and dramatic reality that distinguish the workmanship of a great lyric master from that of the vulgar dealer in inflated sentiment and sonorous sentences.

AGAMEMNON

Watch.

I pray the gods a respite from these toils,

This long year’s watch that, dog-like, I have kept,

High on the Atridan’s battlements, beholding

The nightly council of the stars, the circling

Of the celestial signs, and those bright regents,

High-swung in ether, that bring mortal men

Summer and winter. Here I watch the torch,

The appointed flame that wings a voice from Troy,

Telling of capture; thus I serve her hopes,

The masculine-minded who is sovereign here

And when night-wandering shades encompass round

My dew-sprent dreamless couch (for fear doth sit

In slumber’s chair, and holds my lids apart),

I chaunt some dolorous ditty, making song,

Sleep’s substitute, surgeon my nightly care,

And the misfortunes of this house I weep,

Not now, as erst, by prudent counsels swayed.

Oh! soon may the wished for sign relieve my toils,

Thrice-welcome herald, gleaming through the night!

[The beacon is seen shining.]

All hail thou cresset of the dark! fair gleam

Of day through midnight shed, all hail! bright father

Of joy and dance, in Argos, hail! all hail!

Hillo! hilloa!

I will go tell the wife of Agamemnon

To shake dull sleep away, and lift high-voiced,

The jubilant shout well-omened, to salute

This welcome beacon, if, indeed, old Troy

Hath fallen—as flames this courier torch to tell.

Myself will dance the prelude to this joy.

My master’s house hath had a lucky throw,

And thrice six falls to me, thanks to the flame!

Soon may he see his home; and soon may I

Carry my dear-loved master’s hand in mine!

The rest I whisper not, for on my tongue

Is laid a seal. These walls, if they could speak,

Would say strange things Myself to those that know

Am free of speech, to whoso knows not dumb.

[Exit

EnterChorusin procession. March time.

Chorus.

Nine years have rolled, the tenth is rolling,

Since the strong Atridan pair,

Menelaus and Agamemnon,

Sceptied kings by Jove’s high grace,

With a host of sworn alliance,

With a thousand triremes rare,

With a righteous strong defiance,

Sailed for Troy From furious breast

Loud they clanged the peal of battle;

Like the cry of vultures wild

O’er the lone paths fitful-wheeling,

With their plumy oarage oaring

Over the nest by the spoiler spoiled,

The nest dispeopled now and bare,

Their long but fruitless care.

But the gods see it: some Apollo,

Pan or Jove, the wrong hath noted,

Heard the sharp and piercing cry

Of the startled birds, shrill-throated

Tenants of the sky;

And the late-chastising Fury

Sent from above to track the spoiler,

Hovers vengeful nigh.

Thus great Jove, the high protector

Of the hospitable laws,

’Gainst Alexander sends the Atridans,

Harnessed in a woman’s cause,

The many-lorded fair.

Toils on toils shall come uncounted,

(Jove hath willed it so);

Limb-outwearying hard endeavour,

Where the strong knees press the dust,

Where the spear-shafts split and shiver,

Trojan and Greek shall know.

But things are as they are: the chain

Of Fate doth bind them; sighs are vain,

Tears, libations, fruitless flow,

To divert from purposed ire

The powers whose altars know no fire.

But we behind that martial train

Inglorious left remain,

Old and frail, and feebly leaning

Strength as of childhood on a staff.

Yea! even as life’s first unripe marrow

In the tender bones are we,

From war’s harsh service free.

For hoary Eld, life’s leaf up-shrunken,

Totters, his three-footed way

Feebly feeling, weak as childhood,

Like a dream that walks by day.

But what is this? what wandering word,

Clytemnestra queen, hath reached thee?

What hast seen? or what hast heard

That from street to street swift flies

Thy word, commanding sacrifice?

All the altars of all the gods

That keep the city, gods supernal,

Gods Olympian, gods infernal,

Gods of the Forum, blaze with gifts;

Right and left the flame mounts high,

Spiring to the sky,

With the gentle soothings cherished

Of the oil that knows no malice,

And the sacred cake that smokes

From the queen’s chamber in the palace.

What thou canst and may’st, declare,

Be the healer of the care

That bodes black harm within me; change it

To the bright and hopeful ray,

Which from the altar riseth, chasing

From the heart the sateless sorrow

That eats vexed life away.

TheChorus,having now arranged themselves into a regular band in the middle of the Orchestra, sing the FirstChoral Hymn.

STROPHE.

I’ll voice the strain. What though the arm be weak

That once was strong,

The suasive breath of Heaven-sent memories stirs

The old man’s breast with song.

My age hath virtue left

To sing what fateful omens strangely beckoned

The twin kings to the fray,

What time to Troy concentuous marched

The embattled Greek array.

Jove’s swooping bird, king of all birds, led on

The kings of the fleet with spear and vengeful hand:

By the way-side from shining seats serene,

Close by the palace, on the spear-hand seen,

Two eagles flapped the air,

One black, the other silver-tipt behind,

And with keen talons seized a timorous hare,

Whose strength could run no more,

Itself, and the live burden which it bore.

Sing woe and well-a-day! But still

May the good omens shame the ill.

ANTISTROPHE.

The wise diviner of the host beheld,

And knew the sign;

The hare-devouring birds with diverse wings

Typed the Atridan pair,

The diverse-minded kings,

And thus the fate he chaunted:—Not in vain

Ye march this march to-day;

Old Troy shall surely fall, but not

Till moons on moons away

Have lingering rolled. Rich stores by labour massed

Clean-sweeping Fate shall plunder. Grant the gods,

While this strong bit for Troy we forge with gladness,

No heavenly might in jealous wrath o’ercast

Our mounting hope with sadness.

For the chaste Artemis a sore grudge nurses

Against the kings: Jove’s winged hounds she curses,

The fierce war-birds that tore

The fearful hare, with the young brood it bore.

Sing woe and well-a-day! but still

May the good omens shame the ill.

EPODE.

The lion’s fresh-dropt younglings, and each whelp

That sucks wild milk, and through the forest roves,

Live not unfriended; them the fair goddess loves,

And lends her ready help.

The vision of the birds shall work its end

In bliss, but dashed not lightly with black bane;

I pray thee, Pæan, may she never send

Contrarious blasts dark-lowering, to detain

The Argive fleet.

Ah! ne’er may she desire to feast her eyes

On an unblest unholy sacrifice,

From festal use abhorrent, mother of strife,

And sundering from her lawful lord the wife.

Stern-purposed waits the child-avenging wrath

About the fore-doomed halls,

Weaving dark wiles, while with sure-memoried sting

Fury to Fury calls.

Thus hymned the seer, the doom, in dubious chaunt

Bliss to the chiefs dark-mingling with the bane,

From the way-haunting birds; and we

Respondent to the strain,

Sing woe and well-a-day! but still

May the good omens shame the ill.

STROPHE I.

Jove, or what other name

The god that reigns supreme delights to claim,

Him I invoke; him of all powers that be,

Alone I find,

Who from this bootless load of doubt can free

My labouring mind.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Who was so great of yore,

With all-defiant valour brimming o’er,

Is mute; and who came next by a stronger arm

Thrice-vanquished fell;

But thou hymn victor Jove: so in thy heart

His truth shall dwell.

STROPHE II.

For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins

To virtue by the tutoring of their sins,

Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill

The sleeper’s heart, ’gainst man’s rebellious will

Jove works the wise remorse:

Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel

Our hearts with gracious force.

ANTISTROPHE II.

The elder chief, the leader of the ships,

Heard the dire doom, nor dared to ope his lips

Against the seer, and feared alone to stand

’Gainst buffeting fate, what time the Chalcian strand

Saw the vexed Argive masts

In Aulis tides hoarse-refluent, idly chained

By the fierce Borean blasts;

STROPHE III.

Blasts from Strymon adverse braying,

Harbour-vexing, ship-delaying,

Snapping cables, shattering oars,

Wasting time, consuming stores,

With vain-wandering expectation,

And with long-drawn slow vexation

Wasting Argive bloom.

At length the seer forth-clanged the doom,

A remedy strong to sway the breeze,

And direful Artemis to appease,

But to the chiefs severe:

The Atridans with their sceptres struck the ground,

Nor could restrain the tear.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Then spake the elder. To deny,

How hard! still harder to comply!

My daughter dear, my joy, my life,

To slay with sacrificial knife,

And with life’s purple-gushing tide,

Imbrue a father’s hand, beside

The altar of the gods.

This way or that is ill: for how

Shall I despise my federate vow?

How leave the ships? That all conspire

Thus hotly to desire

The virgin’s blood—wind-soothing sacrifice—

Is the gods’ right. So be it

STROPHE IV.

Thus to necessity’s harsh yoke he bared

His patient neck. Unblissful blew the gale

That turned the father’s heart

To horrid thoughts unholy, thoughts that dared

The extreme of daring. Sin from its primal spring

Mads the ill-counsell’d heart, and arms the hand

With reckless strength. Thus he

Gave his own daughter’s blood, his life, his joy,

To speed a woman’s war, and consecrate

His ships for Troy.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

In vain with prayers, in vain she beats dull ears

With a father’s name; the war-delighting chiefs

Heed not her virgin years.

The father stood; and when the priests had prayed

Take her, he said; in her loose robes enfolden,

Where prone and spent she lies, so lift the maid.

Even as a kid is laid,

So lay her on the altar; with dumb force

Her beauteous mouth gag, lest it breathe a voice

Of curse to Argos.

STROPHE V.

And as they led the maid, her saffron robe

Sweeping the ground, with pity-moving dart

She smote each from her eye,

Even as a picture beautiful, fain to speak,

But could not. Well that voice they knew of yore;

Oft at her father’s festive board,

With gallant banqueters ringed cheerly round,

The virgin strain they heard

That did so sweetly pour

Her father’s praise, whom Heaven had richly crowned

With bounty brimming o’er.

ANTISTROPHE V.

The rest I know not, nor will vainly pry;

But Calchas was a seer not wont to lie.

Justice doth wait to teach

Wisdom by suffering. Fate will have its way.

The quickest ear is pricked in vain to-day,

To catch to-morrow’s note. What boots

To forecast woe, which, on no wavering wing,

The burthen’d hour shall bring.

But we, a chosen band,

Left here sole guardians of the Apian land,

Pray Heaven, all good betide!

EnterClytemnestra.

Chorus.

Hail Clytemnestra! honour to thy sceptre!

When her lord’s throne is vacant, the wife claims

His honour meetly. Queen, if thou hast heard

Good news, or to the hope of good that shall be,

With festal sacrifice dost fill the city,

I fain would know; but nothing grudge thy silence.

Clytem.

Bearing blithe tidings, saith the ancient saw,

Fair Morn be gendered from boon mother Night!

News thou shalt hear beyond thy topmost hope;

The Greeks have ta’en old Priam’s city.

Chorus.

How!

Troy taken! the word drops from my faithless ear.

Clytem.

The Greeks have taken Troy. Can I speak plainer?

Chorus.

Joy o’er my heart creeps, and provokes the tear.

Clytem.

Thine eye accuses thee that thou art kind.

Chorus.

What warrant of such news? What certain sign?

Clytem

Both sign and seal, unless some god deceive me.

Chorus.

Dreams sometimes speak; did suasive visions move thee?

Clytem.

Where the soul sleeps, and the sense slumbers, there Shall the wise ask for reasons?

Chorus.

Ever swift

Though wingless, Fame, with tidings fair hath cheered thee.

Clytem

Thou speak’st as one who mocks a simple girl.

Chorus.

Old Troy is taken? how?—when did it fall?

Clytem.

The self-same night that mothers this to-day.

Chorus

But how? what stalwart herald ran so fleetly?

Clytem.

Hephæstus. He from Ida shot the spark,

And flaming straightway leapt the courier fire

From height to height; to the Hermæan rock

Of Lemnos, first from Ida; from the isle

The Athóan steep of mighty Jove received

The beaming beacon; thence the forward strength

Of the far-travelling lamp strode gallantly

Athwart the broad sea’s back. The flaming pine

Rayed out a golden glory like the sun,

And winged the message to Macistus’ watch-tower.

There the wise watchman, guiltless of delay,

Lent to the sleepless courier further speed,

And the Messapian station hailed the torch

Far-beaming o’er the floods of the Eurípus.

There the grey heath lit the responsive fire,

Speeding the portioned message; waxing strong,

And nothing dulled across Asopus’ plain

The flame swift darted like the twinkling moon,

And on Cithæron’s rocky heights awaked

A new receiver of the wandering light.

The far-sent ray, by the faithful watch not spurned,

With bright addition journeying, bounded o’er

Gorgópus’ lake and Ægiplanctus’ mount,

Weaving the chain unbroken. Hence it spread

Not scant in strength, a mighty beard of flame,

Flaring across the headlands that look down

On the Saronic gulf. Speeding its march,

It reached the neighbour-station of our city,

Arachne’s rocky steep; and thence the halls

Of the Atridæ recognised the signal,

Light not unfathered by Idæan fire.

Such the bright train of my torch-bearing heralds,

Each from the other fired with happy news,

And last and first was victor in the race

Such the fair tidings that my lord hath sent,

A sign that Troy hath fallen.

Chorus.

And for its fall

Our voice shall hymn the gods anon: meanwhile

I’m fain to drink more wonder from thy words.

Clytem.

This day Troy fell. Methinks I see’t; a host

Of jarring voices stirs the startled city,

Like oil and acid, sounds that will not mingle,

By natural hatred sundered. Thou may’st hear

Shouts of the victor, with the dying groan,

Battling, and captives’ cry, upon the dead—

Fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, wives—

The living fall—the young upon the old;

And from enthralléd necks wail out their woe

Fresh from the fight, through the dark night the spoilers

Tumultuous rush where hunger spurs them on,

To feast on banquets never spread for them.

The homes of captive Trojan chiefs they share

As chance decides the lodgment; there secure

From the cold night-dews and the biting frosts,

Beneath the lordly roof, to their hearts’ content

They live, and through the watchless night prolong

Sound slumbers Happy if the native gods

They reverence, and the captured altars spare,

Themselves not captive led by their own folly!

May no unbridled lust of unjust gain

Master their hearts, no reckless rash desire!

Much toil yet waits them. Having turned the goal,

The course’s other half they must mete out,

Ere home receive them safe Their ships must brook

The chances of the sea; and, these being scaped,

If they have sinned the gods their own will claim,

And vengeance wakes till blood shall be atoned.

I am a woman; but mark thou well my words;

I hint the harm; but with no wavering scale,

Prevail the good! I thank the gods who gave me

Rich store of blessings, richly to enjoy.

Chorus.

Woman, thou speakest wisely as a man,

And kindly as thyself. But having heard

The certain signs of Agamemnon’s coming,

Prepare we now to hymn the gods; for surely

With their strong help we have not toiled in vain.

O regal Jove! O blessed Night!

Thou hast won thee rich adornments,

Thou hast spread thy shrouding meshes

O’er the towers of Priam Ruin

Whelms the young, the old. In vain

Shall they strive to o’erleap the snare,

And snap the bondsman’s galling chain,

In woe retrieveless lost.

Jove, I fear thee, just protector

Of the wrong’d host’s sacred rights;

Thou didst keep thy bow sure bent

’Gainst Alexander; not before

The fate-predestined hour, and not

Beyond the stars, with idle aim,

Thy cunning shaft was shot.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

The hand of Jove hath smote them; thou

May’st trace it plainly,

What the god willed, behold it now

Not purposed vainly!

The gods are blind, and little caring,

So one hath said, to mark the daring

Of men, whose graceless foot hath ridden

O’er things to human touch forbidden.

Godless who said so; sons shall rue

Their parents’ folly,

Who flushed with wealth, with insolence flown,

The sober bliss of man outgrown,

The trump of Mars unchastened blew,

And stirred red strife without the hue

Of justice wholly.

Live wiselier thou, not waxing gross

With gain, thou shalt be free from loss.

Weak is his tower, with pampering wealth

In brief alliance

Who spurns great Justice’ altar dread

With damned defiance,

Him the deep hell shall claim, and shame

His vain reliance.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Self-will fell Até’s daughter, still

Fore-counselling ruin,

Shall spur him on resistless borne

To his undoing.

Fined with sharp loss beyond repairing,

His misery like a beacon flaring,

Shall shine to all. Like evil brass,

That tested shows a coarse black mass,

His deep distemper he shall show

By dints of trial.

Even as a boy in wanton sport,

Chasing a bird to his own hurt,

And to the state’s redeemless loss,

Whom, when he prays, the gods shall cross

With sheer denial,

And sweep the lewd and lawless liver

From earth’s fair memory for ever;

Thus to the Atridans’ palace came

False Alexander,

And shared the hospitable board,

A bold offender,

Filching his host’s fair wife away

To far Scamander.

STROPHE II.

She went, and to the Argive city left

Squadrons shield-bearing,

Battle preparing,

Swords many-flashing,

Oars many-plashing;

She went, destruction for her dowry bearing,

To the Sigean shore;

Light with swift foot she brushed the doorstead, daring

A deed undared before.

The prophets of the house loud wailing,

Cried with sorrow unavailing,

“Woe to the Atridans! woe!

The lofty palaces fallen low!

The marriage and the marriage bed,

The steps once faithful, fond to follow

There where the faithful husband led!”

He silent stood in sadness, not in wrath,

His own eye scarce believing,

As he followed her flight beyond the path

Of the sea-wave broadly heaving.

And phantoms sway each haunt well known,

Which the lost loved one wont to own,

And the statued forms that look from their seats

With a cold smile serenely,

He loathes to look on; in his eye

Pines Aphrodité leanly.

ANTISTROPHE II.

In vain he sleeps; for in the fretful night

Shapes of fair seeming

Flit through his dreaming,

Soothing him sweetly,

Leaving him fleetly

Of bliss all barren. The shape fond fancy weaves him

His eager grasp would keep,

In vain; it cheats the hand; and leaves him, sweeping

Swift o’er the paths of sleep.

These sorrows pierce the Atridan chiefs,

And, worse than these, their private griefs,

But general Greece that to the fray

Sent her thousands, mourns to-day;

And Grief stout-hearted at each door

Sits to bear the burden sore

Of deathful news from the Trojan shore.

Ah! many an Argive heart to-day

Is pricked with wail and mourning,

Knowing how many went to Troy,

From Troy how few returning!

The mothers of each house shall wait

To greet their sons at every gate,

But, alas! not men, but dust of men

Each sorrowing house receiveth,

The urn in which the fleshly case

Its cindered ruin leaveth.

STROPHE III.

For Mars doth market bodies, and for gold

Gives dust, and in the battle of the bold

Holds the dread scales of Fate.

Burnt cinders, a light burden, but to friends

A heavy freight,

He sends from Troy; the beautiful vase he sends

With dust, for hearts, well lined, on which descends

The frequent tear.

And friends do wail their praise; this here

Expert to wield the pointed spear,

And this who cast his life away,

Nobly in ignoble fray,

For a strange woman’s sake.

And in their silent hearts hate burns;

Against the kings

The moody-muttered grudge creeps forth,

And points its stings.

Others they mourn who ’neath Troy’s wall

Entombed, dark sleep prolong,

Low pressed beneath the hostile sod,

The beautiful, the strong!

ANTISTROPHE III.

O hard to bear, when evil murmurs fly,

Is a nation’s hate; unblest on whom doth lie

A people’s curse!

My heart is dark, in my fear-procreant brain

Bad begets worse.

For not from heaven the gods behold in vain

Hands red with slaughter. The black-mantled train

Who watch and wait,

In their own hour shall turn to bane

The bliss that grew from godless gain.

The mighty man with heart elate

Shall fall; even as the sightless shades,

The great man’s glory fades.

Sweet to the ear is the popular cheer

Forth billowed loudly;

But the bolt from on high shall blast his eye

That looketh proudly.

Be mine the sober bliss, and far

From fortune’s high-strung rapture,

Not capturing others, may I never

See my own city’s capture!

EPODE.

Swift-winged with thrilling note it came,

The blithe news from the courier-flame;

But whether true and witnessed well,

Or if some god hath forged a lie,

What tongue can tell?

Who is so young, so green of wit,

That his heart should blaze with a fever fit,

At a tale of this fire-courier’s telling,

When a new rumour swiftly swelling,

May turn him back to dole? To lift the note

Of clamorous triumph ere the fight be fought,

Is a light chance may fitly fall,

Where women wield the spear.

A wandering word by woman’s fond faith sped

Swells and increases,

But with dispersion swift a woman’s tale

Is lost and ceases.

EnterClytemnestra.

Soon shall we know if the light-bearing lamps

And the bright signals of the fiery changes

Spake true or, dream-like, have deceived our sense

With smiling semblance. For, behold, where comes,

Beneath the outspread olive’s branchy shade,

A herald from the beach; and thirsty dust,

Twin-sister of the clay, attests his speed.

Not voiceless he, nor with the smoking flame

Of mountain pine will bring uncertain news.

His heraldry gives increase to our joy,

Or—but to speak ill-omened words I shun;—

May fair addition fair beginning follow!

Chorus.

Whoso fears evil where no harm appears,

Reap first himself the fruit of his own fears.

EnterHerald.

Hail Argive land! dear fatherland, all hail!

This tenth year’s light doth shine on my return!

And now this one heart’s hope from countless wrecks

I save! Scarce hoped I e’er to lay my bones

Within the tomb where dearest dust is stored.

I greet thee, native land! thee, shining sun!

Thee, the land’s Sovereign, Jove! thee, Pythian King,

Shooting no more thy swift-winged shafts against us.

Enough on red Scamander’s banks we knew

Thee hostile; now our saviour-god be thou,

Apollo, and our healer from much harm!

And you, all gods that guide the chance of fight,

I here invoke; and thee, my high protector,

Loved Hermes, of all heralds most revered.

And you, all heroes that sent forth our hosts,

Bring back, I pray, our remnant with good omens.

O kingly halls! O venerated seats!

O dear-loved roofs, and ye sun-fronting gods,

If ever erst, now on this happy day,

With these bright-beaming eyes, duly receive

Your late returning king; for Agamemnon

Comes, like the sun, a common joy to all.

Greet him with triumph, as beseems the man,

Who with the mattock of justice-bringing Jove

Hath dug the roots of Troy, hath made its altars

Things seen no more, its towering temples razed,

And caused the seed of the whole land to perish.

Such yoke on Ilium’s haughty neck the elder

Atridan threw, a king whom gods have blessed

And men revere, ’mongst mortals worthy most

Of honour; now nor Paris, nor in the bond

Partner’d with him, old Troy more crime may boast

Than penalty; duly in the court of fight,

In the just doom of rape and robbery damned,

His pledge is forfeited, his hand hath reaped

Clean bare the harvest of all bliss from Troy.

Doubly they suffer for a double crime.

Chorus.

Hail soldier herald, how farest thou?

Herald.

Right well!

So well that I could bless the gods and die.

Chorus.

Doubtless thy love of country tried thy heart?

Herald.

To see these shores I weep for very joy.

Chorus.

And that soul-sickness sweetly held thee?

Herald.

How?

Instruct my wit to comprehend thy words.

Chorus.

Smitten with love of them that much loved thee.

Herald.

Say’st thou? loved Argos us as we loved Argos?

Chorus.

Ofttimes we sorrowed from a sunless soul.

Herald.

How so? Why should the thought of the host have clouded

Thy soul with sadness?

Chorus.

Sorrow not causeless came;

But I have learned to drug all woes by silence.

Herald.

Whom should’st thou quail before, the chiefs away?

Chorus.

I could have used thy phrase, and wished to die.

Herald.

Die now, an’ thou wilt, for joy! The rolling years

Have given all things a prosperous end, though some

Were hard to bear; for who, not being a god,

Can hope to live long years of bliss unbroken?

A weary tale it were to tell the tithe

Of all our hardships; toils by day, by night,

Harsh harbourage, hard hammocks, and scant sleep.

No sun without new troubles, and new groans,

Shone on our voyage; and when at length we landed,

Our woes were doubled; ’neath the hostile walls,

On marshy meads night-sprinkled by the dews,

We slept, our clothes rotted with drenching rain,

And like wild beasts with shaggy-knotted hair.

Why should I tell bird-killing winter’s sorrows,

Long months of suffering from Idéan snows,

Then summer’s scorching heat, when noon beheld

The waveless sea beneath the windless air

In sleep diffused; these toils have run their hour.

The dead care not to rise; their roll our grief

Would muster o’er in vain; and we who live

Vainly shall fret at the cross strokes of fate.

Henceforth to each harsh memory of the past

Farewell! we who survive this long-drawn war

Have gains to count that far outweigh the loss.

Well may we boast in the face of the shining sun,

O’er land and sea our winged tidings wafting,

The Achæan host hath captured Troy; and now

On the high temples of the gods we hang

These spoils, a shining grace, there to remain

An heritage for ever. These things to hear

Shall men rejoice, and with fair praises laud

The state and its great generals, laud the grace

Of Jove the Consummator. I have said.

Chorus.

I own thy speech the conqueror; for a man

Can never be too old to learn good news,

And though thy words touch Clytemnestra most,

Joy to the Atridan’s halls is wealth to me.

Clytem.

I lifted first the shout of jubilee,

Then when the midnight sign of the courier fire

Told the deep downfall of the captured Troy,

But one then mocked my faith, that I believed

The fire-sped message in so true a tale.

’Tis a light thing to buoy a woman’s heart

With hopeful news, they cried; and with these words

They wildered my weak wit. And yet I sped

The sacrifice, and raised the welcoming shout

In woman’s wise, and at a woman’s word

Forthwith from street to street uprose to the gods

Well-omened salutations, and glad hymns,

Lulling the fragrant incense-feeding flame.

What needs there more? The event has proved me right,

Himself—my lord—with his own lips shall speak

The weighty tale; myself will go make ready

With well-earned honour to receive the honoured.

What brighter bliss on woman’s lot may beam,

Than when a god gives back her spouse from war,

To ope the gates of welcome. Tell my husband,

To his loved home, desired of all, to haste.

A faithful wife, even as he left her, here

He’ll find expectant, like a watch-dog, gentle

To him and his, to all that hate him harsh.

The seals that knew his stamp, when hence he sailed,

Unharmed remain, untouched: and for myself

Nor praise nor blame from other man I know,

No more than dyer’s art can tincture brass.

Herald.

A boast like this, instinct with very truth,

Comes from a noble lady without blame.

Chorus.

Wise words she spake, and words that need no comment

To ears that understand. But say, good Herald,

Comes Menelaus safe back from the wars,

His kindly sway in Argos to resume?

Herald.

I cannot gloss a lie with fair pretence;

The best told lie bears but a short-lived fruit.

Chorus.

Speak the truth plainly, if thou canst not pleasantly;

These twain be seldom wedded; and here, alas!

They stand out sundered with too clear a mark.

Herald

The man is vanished from the Achæan host,

He and his vessel. Thou hast heard the truth.

Chorus.

Sailed he from Ilium separate from the fleet?

Or did the tempest part him from his friends!

Herald.

Like a good marksman thou hast hit the mark,

In one short sentence summing many sorrows.

Chorus.

Alive is he or dead? What word hath reached you?

What wandering rumour from sea-faring men?

Herald.

This none can tell, save yon bright sun aloft,

That cherishes all things with his friendly light.

Chorus.

How came the storm on the fleet? or how was ended

The wrath of the gods?

Herald.

Not well it suits to blot

With black rehearsal this auspicious day.

Far from the honors of the blissful gods

Be grief’s recital. When with gloomy visage

An ugly tale the herald’s voice unfolds,

At once a general wound, and private grief,

An army lost, the sons of countless houses

Death-doomed by the double scourge so dear to Ares,

A twin-speared harm, a yoke of crimson slaughter:

A herald saddled with such woes may sing

A pæan to the Erinnyes. But I,

Who to this city blithe and prosperous

Brought the fair news of Agamemnon’s safety,

How shall I mingle bad with good, rehearsing

The wintry wrath sent by the gods to whelm us?

Fire and the sea, sworn enemies of old,

Made friendly league to sweep the Achæan host

With swift destruction pitiless. Forth rushed

The tyrannous Thracian blasts, and wave chased wave,

Fierce ’neath the starless night, and ship on ship

Struck clashing; beak on butting beak was driven;

The puffing blast, the beat of boiling billows,

The whirling gulph (an evil pilot) wrapt them

In sightless death. And when the shining sun

Shone forth again, we see the Ægean tide

Strewn with the purple blossoms of the dead,

And wrecks of shattered ships. Us and our bark

Some god, no man, the storm-tost hull directing,

Hath rescued scathless, stealing us from the fray,

Or with a prayer begging our life from Fate.

Kind Fortune helmed us further, safely kept

From yeasty ferment in the billowy bay,

Nor dashed on far-ledged rocks. Thus having ’scaped

That ocean hell, scarce trusting our fair fortune,

We hailed the lucid day; but could we hope,

The chance that saved ourselves had saved our friends?

Our fearful hearts with thoughts of them we fed,

Far-labouring o’er the loosely-driving main.

And doubtless they, if yet live breath they breathe,

Deem so of us, as we must fear of them,

That they have perished. But I hope the best.

And first and chief expect ye the return

Of Menelaus. If the sun’s blest ray

Yet looks on him, where he beholds the day

By Jove’s devising, not yet willing wholly

To uproot the race of Atreus, hope may be

He yet returns. Thou hast my tale; and I

Have told the truth untinctured with a lie.

[Exit.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Who gave her a name

So true to her fame?

Does a Providence rule in the fate of a word?

Sways there in heaven a viewless power

O’er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour?

Who gave her a name,

This daughter of strife, this daughter of shame,

The spear-wooed maid of Greece?

Helen the taker! ’tis plain to see

A taker of ships, a taker of men,

A taker of cities is she.

From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled,

By the breath of giant Zephyr sped,

And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array

Hounded her flight o’er the printless way,

Where the swift-plashing oar

The fair booty bore

To swirling Simois’ leafy shore,

And stirred the crimson fray.

ANTISTROPHE I.

For the gods sent a bride,

Kin but not kind,

Ripe with the counsel of wrath to Troy,

In the fulness of years, the offender to prove,

And assert the justice of Jove;

For great Jove is lord

Of the rights of the hearth and the festal board.

The sons of Priam sang

A song to the praise of the bride:

From jubilant throats they praised her then,

The bride from Hellas brought;

But now the ancient city hath changed

Her hymn to a doleful note.

She weeps bitter tears; she curses the head

Of the woe-wedded Paris; she curses the bed

Of the beautiful bride

That crossed the flood,

And filched the life of her sons, and washed

Her wide-paved streets with blood.

STROPHE II.

Whoso nurseth the cub of a lion

Weaned from the dugs of its dam, where the draught

Of its mountain-milk was free,

Finds it gentle at first and tame.

It frisks with the children in innocent game,

And the old man smiles to see;

It is dandled about like a babe in the arm,

It licketh the hand that fears no harm,

And when hunger pinches its fretful maw,

It fawns with an eager glee.

ANTISTROPHE II.

But it grows with the years; and soon reveals

The fount of fierceness whence it came:

And, loathing the food of the tame,

It roams abroad, and feasts in the fold,

On feasts forbidden, and stains the floor

Of the house that nursed it with gore.

A curse they nursed for their own undoing,

A mouth by which their own friends shall perish;

A servant of Até, a priest of Ruin,

Some god hath taught them to cherish.

STROPHE III.

Thus to Troy came a bride of the Spartan race,

With a beauty as bland as a windless calm,

Prosperity’s gentlest grace;

And mild was love’s blossom that rayed from her eye,

The soft-winged dart that with pleasing pain

Thrills heart and brain.

But anon she changed: herself fulfilled

Her wedlock’s bitter end;

A fatal sister, a fatal bride,

Her fateful head she rears;

Herself the Erinnys from Jove to avenge

The right of the injured host, and change

The bridal joy to tears.

ANTISTROPHE III.

’Twas said of old, and ’tis said to-day,

That wealth to prosperous stature grown

Begets a birth of its own:

That a surfeit of evil by good is prepared,

And sons must bear what allotment of woe

Their sires were spared.

But this I rebel to believe: I know

That impious deeds conspire

To beget an offspring of impious deeds

Too like their ugly sire.

But whoso is just, though his wealth like a river

Flow down, shall be scathless his house shall rejoice

In an offspring of beauty for ever.

STROPHE IV.

The heart of the haughty delights to beget

A haughty heart. From time to time

In children’s children recurrent appears

The ancestral crime.

When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed,

And the Fury burns with wrathful fires,

A demon unholy, with ire unabated,

Lies like black night on the halls of the fated:

And the recreant son plunges guiltily on

To perfect the guilt of his sires.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

But Justice shines in a lowly cell;

In the homes of poverty, smoke-begrimed,

With the sober-minded she loves to dwell.

But she turns aside

From the rich man’s house with averted eye,

The golden-fretted halls of pride

Where hands with lucre are foul, and the praise

Of counterfeit goodness smoothly sways:

And wisely she guides in the strong man’s despite

All things to an issue of right.

Chorus.

But, hail the king! the city-taking

Seed of Atreus’ race.

How shall I accost thee! How

With beseeming reverence greet thee?

Nor above the mark, nor sinking

Beneath the line of grace?

Many of mortal men there be,

’Gainst the rule of right preferring

Seeming to substance; tears are free

In the eye when woe its tale rehearseth,

But the sting of sorrow pierceth

No man’s liver; many force

Lack-laughter faces to relax

Into the soft lines traced by joy.

But the shepherd true and wise

Knows the faithless man, whose eyes,

With a forward friendship twinkling,

Fawn with watery love.

For me, I nothing hide. O King,

In my fancy’s picturing,

From the Muses far I deemed thee,

And thy soul not wisely helming

When thou drew’st the knife

For Helen’s sake, a woman, whelming

Thousands in ruin, rushing rashly

On unwelcome strife.

But now all’s well. No shallow smiles

We wear for thee, thy weary toils

All finished. Thou shalt know anon

What friends do serve thee truly,

And who in thy long absence used

Their stewardship unduly.

EnterAgamemnonwith attendants;Cassandrabehind.

Aga.

First Argos hail! and ye, my country’s gods,

Who worked my safe return, and nerved my arm

With vengeance against Priam! for the gods,

Taught by no glozing tongue, but by the sight

Of their own eyes knew justice; voting ruin

And men-destroying death to ancient Troy,

Their fatal pebbles in the bloody urn

Not doubtingly they dropt; the other vase,

Unfed with hope of suffrage-bearing hand,

Stood empty. Now the captured city’s smoke

Points where it fell. Raves Ruin’s storm; the winds

With crumbled dust and dissipated gold

Float grossly laden. To the immortal gods

These thanks, fraught with rich memory of much good,

We pay; they taught our hands to spread the net

With anger-whetted wit, a woman’s frailty

Laid bare old Ilium to the Argive bite,

And with the setting Pleiads outleapt a birth

Of strong shield-bearers from the fateful horse.

A fierce flesh-tearing lion leapt their walls,

And licked a surfeit of tyrannic blood.

This prelude to the gods. As for thy words

Of friendly welcome, I return thy greeting,

And as your thought, so mine; for few are gifted

With such rich store of love, to see a friend

Preferred and feel no envy; ’tis a disease

Possessing mortal men, a poison lodged

Close by the heart, eating all joy away

With double barb—his own mischance who suffers

And bliss of others sitting at his gate,

Which when he sees he groans. I know it well;

They who seemed most my friends, and many seemed,

Were but the mirrored show, the shadowy ghost

Of something like to friendship, substanceless.

Ulysses only, most averse to sail,

Was still most ready in the yoke with me

To bear the harness; living now or dead,

This praise I frankly give him. For the rest,

The city and the gods, we will take counsel

In full assembly freely. What is good

We will give heed that it be lasting; where

Disease the cutting or the caustic cure

Demands, we will apply it. I, meanwhile,

My hearth and home salute, and greet the gods,

Who, as they sent me to the distant fray,

Have brought me safely back. Fair victory,

Once mine, may she dwell with me evermore!

Clytem.

Men! Citizens! ye reverend Argive seniors,

No shame feel I, even in your face, to tell

My husband-loving ways. Long converse lends

Boldness to bashfulness. No foreign griefs,

Mine own self-suffered woes I tell. While he

Was camping far at Ilium, I at home

Sat all forlorn, uncherished by the mate

Whom I had chosen; this was woe enough

Without enforcement; but, to try me further,

A host of jarring rumours stormed my doors,

Each fresh recital with a murkier hue

Than its precedent; and I must hear all.

If this my lord, had borne as many wounds

In battle as the bloody fame recounted,

He had been pierced throughout even as a net;

And had he died as oft as Rumour slew him,

He might have boasted of a triple coil

Like the three-bodied Geryon, while on earth

(Of him below I speak not), and like him

Been three times heaped with a cloak of funeral dust.

Thus fretted by cross-grained reports, oft-times

The knotted rope high-swung had held my neck,

But that my friends with forceful aid prevented.

Add that my son, pledge of our mutual vows,

Orestes is not here; nor think it strange.

Thy Phocian spear-guest, the most trusty Strophius,

Took him in charge, a twofold danger urging

First thine beneath the walls of Troy, and further

The evil likelihood that, should the Greeks

Be worsted in the strife, at home the voice

Of many-babbling anarchy might cast

The council down, and as man’s baseness is,

At fallen greatness insolently spurn.

Moved by these thoughts I parted with my boy,

And for no other cause. Myself the while

So woe-worn lived, the fountains of my grief

To their last drop were with much weeping drained;

And far into the night my watch I’ve kept

With weary eyes, while in my lonely room

The night-torch faintly glimmered. In my dream

The buzzing gnat, with its light-brushing wing,

Startled the fretful sleeper; thou hast been

In waking hours, as in sleep’s fitful turns

My only thought. But having bravely borne

This weight of woe, now with blithe heart I greet

Thee, my heart’s lord, the watch-dog of the fold,

The ship’s sure mainstay, pillared shaft whereon

Rests the high roof, fond parent’s only child,

Land seen by sailors past all hope, a day

Lovely to look on when the storm hath broken,

And to the thirsty wayfarer the flow

Of gushing rill. O sweet it is, how sweet

To see an end of the harsh yoke that galled us!

These greetings to my lord; nor grudge me, friends,

This breadth of welcome; sorrows we have known

Ample enough. And now, thou precious head,

Come from thy car, nay, do not set thy foot,

The foot that trampled Troy, on common clay.

What ho! ye laggard maids! why lags your task

Behind the hour? Spread purple where he treads.

Fitly the broidered foot-cloth marks his path,

Whom Justice leadeth to his long-lost home

With unexpected train. What else remains

Our sleepless zeal, with favour of the gods,

Shall order as befits.

Aga.

Daughter of Leda, guardian of my house!

Almost thou seem’st to have spun thy welcome out

To match my lengthened absence; but I pray thee

Praise with discretion, and let other mouths

Proclaim my pæans. For the rest, abstain

From delicate tendance that would turn my manhood

To woman’s temper. Not in barbaric wise

With prostrate reverence base, kissing the ground,

Mouth sounding salutations; not with purple,

Breeder of envy, spread my path. Such honors

Suit the immortal gods; me, being mortal,

To tread on rich-flowered carpetings wise fear

Prohibits. As a man, not as a god,

Let me be honored. Not the less my fame

Shall be far blazoned, that on common earth

I tread untapestried. A sober heart

Is the best gift of God; call no man happy

Till death hath found him prosperous to the close.

For me, if what awaits me fall not worse

Than what hath fallen, I have good cause to look

Bravely on fate.

Clytem.

Nay, but my good lord will not

In this gainsay my heart’s most warm desire.

Aga.

My wish and will thou shalt not lightly mar.

Clytem.

Hast thou a vow belike, and fear’st the gods?

Aga.

If e’er man knew, I know my will in this.

Clytem.

Had Priam conquered, what had Priam done?

Aga.

His feet had trod the purple; doubt it not.

Clytem.

What Priam would, thou may’st, unless the fear

Of popular blame make Agamemnon quail.

Aga.

But popular babble strengthens Envy’s wing.

Clytem.

Thou must be envied if thou wilt be great.

Aga.

Is it a woman’s part to hatch contention?

Clytem.

For once be conquered; they who conquer may Yield with a grace.

Aga.

And thou in this vain strife

Must be perforce the conqueror; is it so?

Clytem.

’Tis even so: for once give me the reins.

Aga.

Thou hast thy will. Come, boy, unbind these sandals,

That are the prostrate subjects to my feet,

When I do tread; for with shod feet I never

May leave my print on the sea-purple, lest

Some god with jealous eye look from afar

And mark me. Much I fear with insolent foot

To trample wealth, and rudely soil the web

Whose precious threads the pure-veined silver buys.

So much for this. As for this maid, receive

The stranger kindly: the far-seeing gods

Look down with love on him who mildly sways.

For never yet was yoke of slavery borne

By willing neck; of all the captive maids

The choicest flower she to my portion fell.

And now, since thou art victor o’er my will,

I tread the purple to my father’s hall.

Clytem.

The wide sea flows; and who shall dry it up?

The ocean flows, and in its vasty depths

Is brewed the purple’s die, as silver precious,

A tincture ever-fresh for countless robes.

But Agamemnon’s house is not a beggar;

With this, and with much more the gods provide us;

And purple I had vowed enough to spread

The path of many triumphs, had a god

Given me such ’hest oracular to buy

The ransom of thy life. We have thee now,

Both root and trunk, a tree rich leafage spreading

To shade this mansion from the Sirian dog.

Welcome, thou double blessing [Editor: illegible character] to this hearth

That bringest heat against keen winter’s cold,

And coolness when the sweltering Jove prepares

Wine from the crudeness of the bitter grape;

Enter the house, made perfect by thy presence.

Jove, Jove, the perfecter! perfect thou my vow,

And thine own counsels quickly perfect thou!

[Exeunt.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Whence these shapes of fear that haunt me?

These hovering portents why?

Is my heart a seer inspired,

To chaunt unbidden and unhired

Notes of dark prophecy?

Blithe confidence, my bosom’s lord,

That swayed the doubtful theme,

Arise, and with thy clear command

Chase the vain-vexing dream!

Long years have rolled; and still I fear,

As when the Argive band

Unloosed their cables from the shore,

And eager plied the frequent oar

To the far Ilian strand.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Now they return: my vouching eyes

To prop my faith conspire,

And yet my heart, in self-taught hymns,

As with a Fury’s burden brims,

And will not own the lyre.

I fear, I fear: the bold-faced Hope

Hath left my heart all drear;

And my thought, not idly tossed within,

Feels evil creeping near.

For the heart hath scent of things to come

And prophesies by fear;

And yet I pray, may all conspire

To prove my boding heart a liar,

And me a foolish seer.

STROPHE II.

Full-blooded health, that in the veins

With lusty pulses hotly wells,

Shall soon have check. Disease beside it

Wall to wall, ill-sundered, dwells.

The proud trireme, with sudden shock,

In its mid career, on a sunken rock

Strikes, and all is lost.

Yet there is hope; the ship may rein

Its plunge, from whelming ruin free,

If with wise sling the merchant fling

Into the greedy sea

A part to save the whole. And thus

Jove, that two-handed stores for us,

In our mid woe may pause,

Heap gifts on gifts from yearly furrows,

And save the house from swamping sorrows,

And lean starvation’s jaws.

ANTISTROPHE II.

But, oh! when black blood stains the ground,

And the mortal mortal lies,

Shall the dead hear when thou chauntest?

To thy charming shall he rise?

Once there was a leech so wise

Could raise the dead, but, from the skies,

Struck by Jove, he ceased.

But cease my song. Were link with link

In the chain of things not bound together

That each event must wait its time,

Nor one dare trip the other,

My tongue had played the prophet’s part,

And rolled the burden from my heart;

But now, to doubt resigned,

With smothered fears, all dumb I wait

The unravelling hour; while sparks of fate

Flit through my darksome mind.

EnterClytemnestra.

Clytem.

Come thou, too, in; this maid, I mean; Cassandra!

For not in wrath Jove sent thee here to share

Our family lustrations, and to stand,

With many slaves, beside the household altar.

Step from this car, nor bear thy spirit proudly

Above thy fate, for even Alcmena’s son,

To slavery sold, once bore the hated yoke.

What must be, must be; rather thank the chance

That gave thee to an old and wealthy house;

For they who reap an unexpected growth

Of wealth, are harsh to slaves beyond the line

Of a well-tempered rule. Here thou shalt find

The common use of bondage.

Chorus.

Plainly she speaks;

And thou within Fate’s iron toils once caught

Wert wise to go—if go thou wilt—but, soothly,

Thou hast no willing look.

Clytem.

Nay! an’ she be not

Barbarian to the bone, and speaking nought

Save swallow jabber, she shall hear my voice.

I’ll pierce her marrow with it.

Chorus

Captive maid,

Obey! thou shouldst; ’tis best; be thou persuaded

To leave thy chariot-seat and follow her.

Clytem.

No time have I to stand without the gate

Prating with her. Within, on the central hearth,

The fire burns bright, the sheep’s fat slaughter waiting,

To furnish forth a banquet that transcends

The topmost of our hopes. Wilt thou obey,

Obey me quickly! If with stubborn sense

Thou hast nor ear to hear, nor voice to speak,

Answer my sign with thy barbarian hand.

Chorus.

A wise interpreter the maid demands;

Like a wild beast new caught, even so she stands.

Clytem.

Ay! she is mad; her wit to sober counsels

Is deaf; she comes from the new-captured city,

Untaught to bear the Argive bit with patience,

But foams and dashes bloody froth. I will not

Make myself base by wasting words on her.

[Exit.

Chorus.

Poor maid, I may not blame; I pity thee.

Come, leave thy seat, for, though the yoke be strange,

Necessity compels, and thou must bear it.

STROPHE I.

Cass.

Ah! ah! woes me! woe! woe!

Apollo! O Apollo!

Chorus.

Why dost thou wail to Loxias? is he

A gloomy god that he should list sad tales?

ANTISTROPHE I.

Cass.

Ah! ah! woes me! woe! woe!

Apollo! O Apollo!

Chorus.

Again with evil-omened voice she cries

Upon the god least fit to wait on woe.

STROPHE II.

Cass.

Apollo! Apollo!

My way-god, my leader Apollo!

Apollo the destroyer!

Thou with light labour hast destroyed me quite.

Chorus.

Strange oracles against herself she speaks;

Ev’n in the bondsman’s bosom dwells the god.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Cass.

Apollo! Apollo!

Apollo, my leader, whither hast thou led me?

My way-god, Apollo?

What homes receive thy captive prophetess?

Chorus.

The Atridæ’s homes. This, an’ thou knowst it not,

I tell thee, and the words I speak are true.

STROPHE III.

Cass.

Ha! the house of the Atridæ!

Well the godless house I know,

With the dagger and the rope,

And the self-inflicted blow!

Where red blood is on the floor,

And black murder at the door—

This house—this house I know.

Chorus.

She scents out slaughter, mark me, like a hound,

And tracks the spot where she shall feast on blood.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Cass.

Ay! I scent a truthful scent,

And the thing I say I know.

See! see! these weeping children,

How they vouch the monstrous woe!

Their red wounds are bleeding fresh,

And their father eats their flesh,

This bloody house I know.

Chorus.

The fame of thy divinings far renowned

Have reached us, but we wish no prophets here.

STROPHE IV.

Cass.

Ha! ha! what plots she now!

A new sorrow, a new snare

To the house of the Atridæ,

And a burden none may bear!

A black harm to all and each,

A disease that none may leech,

And the evil plot to mar

All help and hope is far.

Chorus.

Nay now I’m lost and mazed in vain surmise.

What first she said I knew—the common rumour.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Cass.

Ha! woman wilt thou dare?

Thy bed’s partner and thy mate

In the warm refreshing bath

Shall he find his bloody fate?

How shall I dare to say

What comes and will not stay?

See, to do her heart’s command

Where she stretches her red hand!

Chorus.

Not yet I understand: through riddles dark

And cloudy oracles my wits are wandering.

STROPHE V.

Cass.

Ha! what bloody sight is this!

’Tis a net of Hades spread—

’Tis a snare to snare her lord,

The fond sharer of her bed.

The black chorus of the place

Shout for vengeance o’er the race,

Whose offence cries for atoning,

With a heavy death of stoning!

STROPHE VI.

Chorus.

What black Fury of the place

Shall shout vengeance o’er the race?

Such strange words I hate to hear.

The blithe blood, that crimson ran

In my veins, runs pale and wan

With the taint of yellow fear,

As when in the mortal anguish,

Life’s last fitful glimpses languish

And Fate, as now, is near!

ANTISTROPHE V.

Cass.

Ha! ha! the work proceeds!

From the bull keep back the cow!

Lo! now she seizes him

By the strong black horn, and now

She hath wrapt him round with slaughter;

She strikes! and in the water

Of the bath he falls. Mark well,

In the bath doth murder dwell.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Chorus.

No prophetic gift is mine

The dark saying to divine,

But this sounds like evil quite;

For to mortal man was never

The diviner’s voice the giver

Of a message of delight,

But in words of mazy mourning,

Comes the prophet’s voice of warning,

With a lesson of affright.

STROPHE VII.

Cass.

Fill the cup, and brim the woe!

’Tis my own heart’s blood must flow

Me! miserable me!

From old Troy why didst thou bring me

Poor captive maid, to sing thee

Thy dirge, and die with thee?

STROPHE VIII.

Chorus.

By a god thou art possessed,

And he raveth in thy breast,

And he sings a song of thee

That hath music, but no glee.

Like a dun-plumed nightingale,

That, with never-sated wail,

Crieth Itys! Itys! aye,

As it scatters, in sweet flow,

The thick blossoms of its woe,

So singest thou to-day.

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Cass.

Ah! the clear-toned nightingale!

Mellow bird, thou dost not wail,

For the good gods gave to thee

A light shape of fleetest winging,

A bright life of sweetest singing,

But a sharp-edged death to me.

ANTISTROPHE VIII.

Chorus.

By a god thou art possessed,

And he goads thee without rest,

And he racks thy throbbing brain

With a busy-beating pain,

And he presses from thy throat

The heavy struggling note,

And the cry that rends the air.

Who bade her tread this path,

With the prophecy of wiath,

And the burden of despair?

STROPHE IX.

Cass.

O the wedlock and the woe

Of the evil Alexander,

To his chiefest friends a foe!

O my native stream Scamander,

Where in youth I wont to wander,

And was nursed for future woes,

Where thy swirling current flows!

But now on sluggish shore

Of Cocytus I shall pour,

’Mid the Acherusian glades,

My divinings to the shades.

STROPHE X.

Chorus.

Nothing doubtful is the token;

For the words the maid hath spoken

To a very child are clear.

She hath pierced me to the marrow;

And her cry of shrieking sorrow

Ah! it crushes me to hear.

ANTISTROPHE IX.

Cass.

The proud city lieth lowly,

Nevermore to rise again!

It is lost and ruined wholly;

And before the walls in vain

Hath my pious father slain

Many meadow-cropping kine,

To appease the wrath divine.

Where it lieth it shall lie,

Ancient Ilium: and I

On the ground, when all is past,

Soon my reeking heart shall cast.

ANTISTROPHE X.

Chorus.

Ah! the mighty god, wrath-laden,

He hath smote the burdened maiden

With a weighty doom severe.

From her heart sharp cries he wringeth,

Dismal, deathful strains she singeth,

And I wait the end in fear.

Cass.

No more my prophecy, like a young bride

Shall from a veil peep forth, but like a wind

Waves shall it dash from the west in the sun’s face,

And curl high-crested surges of fierce woes,

That far outbillow mine. I’ll speak no more

In dark enigmas. Ye my vouchers be,

While with keen scent I snuff the breath of the past,

And point the track of monstrous crimes of eld.

There is a choir, to destiny well-tuned,

Haunts these doomed halls, no mellow-throated choir,

And they of human blood have largely drunk:

And by that wine made bold, the Bacchanals

Cling to their place of revels. The sister’d Furies

Sit on these roofs, and hymn the prime offence

Of this crime-burthened race; the brother’s sin

That trod the brother’s bed. Speak! do I hit

The mark, a marksman true? or do I beat

Your doors, a babbling beggar prophesying

False dooms for hire? Be ye my witnesses,

And with an oath avouch, how well I know

The hoary sins that hang upon these walls

Chorus.

Would oaths make whole our ills, though I should wedge them

As stark as ice? But I do marvel much

That thou, a stranger born, from distant seas,

Dost know our city as it were thine own.

Cass.

Even this to know, Apollo stirred my breast.

Chorus.

Apollo! didst thou strike the god with love?

Cass.

Till now I was ashamed to hint the tale.

Chorus.

The dainty lips of nice prosperity

Misfortune opens.

Cass.

Like a wrestler he

Strove for my love; he breathed his grace upon me.

Chorus.

And hast thou children from divine embrace?

Cass.

I gave the word to Loxias, not the deed

Chorus.

Hadst thou before received the gift divine?

Cass.

I had foretold my countrymen all their woes

Chorus.

Did not the anger of the god pursue thee?

Cass.

It did; I warned, but none believed my warning.

Chorus

To us thou seem’st to utter things that look

Only too like the truth.

Cass.

Ah me! woe! woe!

Again strong divination’s troublous whirl

Seizes my soul, and stirs my labouring breast

With presages of doom. Lo! where they sit,

These pitiful young ones on the fated roof,

Like to the shapes of dreams! The innocent babes,

Butchered by friends that should have blessed them, and

In their own hands their proper bowels they bear,

Banquet abhorred, and their own father eats it.

This deed a lion, not a lion-hearted

Shall punish; wantonly in her bed, whose lord

Shall pay the heavy forfeit, he shall roll,

And snare my master—woe’s me, even my master,

For slavery’s yoke my neck must learn to own.

Ah! little weens the leader of the ships,

Troy’s leveller, how a hateful bitch’s tongue,

With long-drawn phrase, and broad-sown smile, doth weave

His secret ruin. This a woman dares;

The female mars the male. Where shall I find

A name to name such monster? dragon dire,

Rock-lurking Scylla, the vexed seaman’s harm,

Mother of Hades, murder’s Mænad, breathing

Implacable breath of curses on her kin.

All-daring woman! shouting in her heart,

As o’er the foe, when backward rolls the fight,

Yet hymning kindliest welcome with her tongue.

Ye look mistrustful; I am used to that.

That comes which is to come; and ye shall know

Full soon, with piteous witness in your eyes,

How true, and very true, Cassandra spake.

Chorus.

Thyestes’ banquet, and his children’s flesh

I know, and shudder; strange that she should know

The horrors of that tale; but for the rest

She runs beyond my following.

Cass.

Thus I said;

Thine eyes shall witness Agamemnon’s death

Chorus.

Hush, wretched maiden! lull thy tongue to rest,

And cease from evil-boding words!

Cass.

Alas!

The gods that heal all evil, heal not this.

Chorus

If it must be, but may the gods forefend!

Cass.

Pray thou, and they will have more time to kill.

Chorus.

What man will dare to do such bloody deed?

Cass.

I spake not of a man: thy thoughts shoot wide

Chorus.

The deed I heard, but not whose hand should do it.

Cass.

And yet I spake good Greek with a good Greek tongue.

Chorus.

Thou speakest Apollo’s words: true, but obscure.

Cass.

Ah me! the god! like fire within my breast

Burns the Lycéan god. Ah me! pain! pain!

A lioness two-footed with a wolf

Is bedded, when the noble lion roamed

Far from his den; and she will murder me.

She crowns the cup of wrath; she whets the knife

Against the neck of the man, and he must pay

The price of capture, I of being captive.

Vain gauds, that do but mock my grief, farewell!

This laurel-rod, and this diviner’s wreath

About my neck, should they outlive the wearer?

Away! As ye have paid me, I repay.

Make rich some other prophetess with woe!

Lo! where Apollo looks, and sees me now

Doff this diviner’s garb, the self-same weeds

He tricked me erst withal, to live for him,

The public scorn, the scoff of friends and foes,

The mark of every ribald jester’s tongue,

The homeless girl, the raving mountebank,

The beggar’d, wretched, starving maniac.

And now who made the prophetess unmakes her,

And leads me to my doom—ah! not beside

My father’s altar doomed to die! the block

From my hot life shall drink the purple stain.

But we shall fall not unavenged: the gods

A mother-murdering shoot shall send from far

To avenge his sire; the wanderer shall return

To pile the cope-stone on these towering woes.

The gods in heaven a mighty oath have sworn,

To raise anew the father’s prostrate fate

By the son’s arm.—But why stand here, and beat

The air with cries, seeing what I have seen;

When Troy hath fallen, suffering what it suffered,

And they who took the city by the doom

Of righteous gods faring as they shall fare?

I will endure to die, and greet these gates

Of Hades gaping for me Grant me, ye gods,

A mortal stroke well-aimed, and a light fall

From cramped convulsion free! Let the red blood

Flow smoothly from its fount, that I may close

These eyes in peaceful death.

Chorus.

O hapless maid!

And wise as hapless! thou hast spoken long!

But if thou see’st the harm, why rush on fate

Even as an ox, whom favouring gods inspire

To stand by the altar’s steps, and woo the knife.

Cass.

I’m in the net. Time will not break the meshes.

Chorus.

But the last moment of sweet life is honoured.

Cass.

My hour is come, what should I gain by flight?

Chorus.

Thou with a stout heart bravely look’st on fate.

Cass.

Bravely thou praisest: but the happy hear not Such commendations.

Chorus.

Yet if death must come,

His fame is fair who nobly fronts the foe.

Cass.

Woe’s me, the father and his noble children!

Chorus.

Whither now? What father and what children? Speak.

Cass.

[Approaching and starting back from the house.]

Woe! woe!

Chorus.

What means this woe? What horrid fancy scares thee?

Cass.

Blood-dripping murder reeks from yonder house.

Chorus.

How? ’Tis the scent of festal sacrifice.

Cass.

The scent of death—a fragrance from the grave.

Chorus.

Soothly no breath of Syrian nard she names.

Cass.

But now the time is come. I go within

To wail for Agamemnon and myself.

I’ve done with life. Farewell! My vouchers ye,

Not with vain screaming, like a fluttering bird,

Above the bush I cry. Yourselves shall know it

Then when, for me a woman, a woman dies,

And for a man ill-wived a man shall fall

Trust me in this. Your honest faith is all

The Trojan guest, the dying woman, craves.

Chorus.

O wretched maid! O luckless prophetess

Cass.

Yet will I speak one other word, before

I leave this light. Hear thou my vows, bright sun,

And, though a slave’s death be a little thing,

Send thou the avenging hand with full requital,

To pay my murderers back, as they have paid.

Alas! the fates of men! their brightest bloom

A shadow blights; and, in their evil day,

An oozy sponge blots out their fleeting prints,

And they are seen no more. From bad to worse

Our changes run, and with the worst we end.

[Exit.

Chorus.

Men crave increase of riches ever

With insatiate craving. Never

From the finger-pointed halls

Of envied wealth their owner calls,

“Enter no more! I have enough!”

This man the gods with honour crowned;

He hath levelled with the ground

Priam’s city, and in triumph

Glorious home returns;

But if doomed the fine to pay

Of ancient guilt, and death with death

To guerdon in the end,

Who of mortals will not pray,

From high-perched Fortune’s favour far,

A blameless life to spend.

Aga.

[From within.] O I am struck! struck with a mortal blow!

Chorus.

Hush! what painful voice is speaking there of strokes and mortal blows?

Aga.

O struck again! struck with a mortal blow!

Chorus.

’Tis the king that groans; the work, the bloody work, I fear, is doing.

Weave we counsel now together, and concert a sure design.

1st Chorus.

I give my voice to lift the loud alarm,

And rouse the city to besiege the doors.

2nd Chorus.

Rather forthwith go in ourselves, and prove

The murderer with the freshly-dripping blade.

3rd Chorus.

I add my pebble to thine. It is not well

That we delay. Fate hangs upon the moment.

4th Chorus.

The event is plain, with this prelusive blood

They hang out signs of tyranny to Argos.

5th Chorus.

Then why stay we? Procrastination they

Tramp underfoot; they sleep not with their hands.

6th Chorus.

Not so. When all is dark, shall we unwisely

Rush blindfold on an unconsulted deed?

7th Chorus.

Thou speakest well. If he indeed be dead,

Our words are vain to bring him back from Hades.

8th Chorus.

Shall we submit to drag a weary life

Beneath the shameless tyrants of this house?

9th Chorus.

Unbearable! and better far to die!

Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.

10th Chorus.

First ask we this, if to have heard a groan

Gives a sure augury that the man is dead.

11th Chorus.

Wisdom requires to probe the matter well:

To guess is one thing, and to know another.

12th Chorus.

So wisely spoken With full-voiced assent

Inquire we first how Agamemnon fares.

[The scene opens from behind, and discoversClytemnestrastanding over the dead bodies ofAgamemnonandCassandra.]

Clytem.

I spoke to you before; and what I spoke

Suited the time; nor shames me now to speak

Mine own refutal. For how shall we entrap

Our foe, our seeming friend, in scapeless ruin,

Save that we fence him round with nets too high

For his o’erleaping? What I did, I did

Not with a random inconsiderate blow,

But from old Hate, and with maturing Time.

Here, where I struck, I take my rooted stand,

Upon the finished deed: the blow so given,

And with wise forethought so by me devised,

That flight was hopeless, and to ward it vain.

With many-folding net, as fish are caught,

I drew the lines about him, mantled round

With bountiful destruction; twice I struck him,

And twice he groaning fell with limbs diffused

Upon the ground; and as he fell, I gave

The third blow, sealing him a votive gift

To gloomy Hades, saviour of the dead.

And thus he spouted forth his angry soul,

Bubbling a bitter stream of frothy slaughter,

And with the dark drops of the gory dew

Bedashed me; I delighted nothing less

Than doth the flowery calix, full surcharged

With fruity promise, when Jove’s welkin down

Distils the rainy blessing. Men of Argos,

Rejoice with me in this, or, if ye will not,

Then do I boast alone. If e’er ’twas meet

To pour libations to the dead, he hath them

In justest measure. By most righteous doom,

Who drugged the cup with curses to the brim,

Himself hath drunk damnation to the dregs.

Chorus.

Thou art a bold-mouthed woman. Much we marvel

To hear thee boast thy husband’s murder thus.

Clytem.

Ye tempt me as a woman, weak, unschooled.

But what I say, ye know, or ought to know,

I say with fearless heart. Your praise or blame

Is one to me. Here Agamemnon lies,

My husband, dead, the work of this right hand—

The hand of a true workman. Thus it stands.

STROPHE.

Chorus.

Woman! what food on wide earth growing

Hast thou eaten of? What draught

From the briny ocean quaffed,

That for such deed the popular breath

Of Argos should with curses crown thee,

As a victim crowned for death?

Thou hast cast off: thou hast cut off

Thine own husband: thou shalt be

From the city of the free

Thyself a cast-off: justly hated

With staunch hatred unabated.

Clytem.

My sentence thou hast spoken; shameful flight,

The citizens’ hate, the people’s vengeful curse:

For him thou hast no curse, the bloody man

Who, when the fleecy flocks innumerous pastured,

Passed the brute by, and sacrificed my child,

My best-beloved, fruit of my throes, to lull

The Thracian blasts asleep. Why did thy wrath,

In righteous guerdon of this foulest crime,

Not chase this man from Greece? A greedy ear

And a harsh tongue thou hast for me alone.

But mark my words, threats I repay with threats;

If that thou canst subdue me in fair fight,

Subdue me; but if Jove for me decide,

Thou shalt be wise, when wisdom comes too late.

ANTISTROPHE.

Chorus.

Thou art high and haughty-hearted,

And from lofty thoughts within thee

Mighty words are brimming o’er:

For thy sober sense is madded

With the purple-dripping gore;

And thine eyes with fatness swell

From bloody feasts: but mark me well,

Time shall come, avenging Time,

And hunt thee out, and track thy crime:

Then thou, when friends are far, shalt know

Stroke for stroke, and blow for blow.

Clytem.

Hear thou this oath, that seals my cause with right:

By sacred Justice, perfecting revenge,

By Até, and the Erinnys of my child,

To whom I slew this man, I shall not tread

The threshold of pale Fear, the while doth live

Ægisthus, now, as he hath been, my friend,

Stirring the flame that blazes on my hearth,

My shield of strong assurance. For the slain,

Here lieth he that wronged a much-wronged woman,

Sweet honey-lord of Trojan Chryseids.

And for this spear-won maid, this prophetess,

This wise diviner, well-beloved bed-fellow,

And trusty messmate of great Agamemnon,

She shares his fate, paying with him the fee

Of her own sin, and like a swan hath sung

Her mortal song beside him. She hath been

Rare seasoning added to my banquet rare.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

O would some stroke of Fate—no dull disease

Life’s strings slow-rending,

No bed-bound pain—might bring, my smart to soothe,

The sleep unending!

For he, my gracious lord, my guide, is gone,

Beyond recalling;

Slain for a woman’s cause, and by the hands

Of woman falling.

STROPHE II.

O Helen! Helen! phrenzied Helen,

Many hearts of thee are telling

Damned destruction thou hast done,

There where thousands fell for one

’Neath the walls of Troy

ANTISTROPHE II.

Bloomed from thee the blossom gory

Of famous Agamemnon’s glory;

Thou hast roused the slumbering strife,

From age to age, with eager knife,

Watching to destroy.

STROPHE III.

Clytem.

Death invoke not to relieve thee

From the ills that vainly grieve thee!

Nor, with ire indignant swelling,

Blame the many-murdering Helen!

Damned destruction did she none,

There, where thousands fell for one,

’Neath the walls of Troy.

ANTISTROPHE I.

O god that o’er the doomed Atridan halls

With might prevailest,

Weak woman’s breast to do thy headlong will

With murder mailest!

O’er his dead body, like a boding raven,

Thou tak’st thy station,

Piercing my marrow with thy savage hymn

Of exultation.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Clytem.

Nay, but now thou speakest wisely;

This thrice-potent god precisely

Works our woe, and weaves our sorrow.

He with madness stings the marrow,

And with greed that thirsts for blood;

Ere to-day’s is dry, the flood

Flows afresh to-morrow.

STROPHE IV.

Chorus.

Him, even him, this terrible god, to bear

These walls are fated;

From age to age he worketh wildly there

With wrath unsated.

Not without Jove, Jove cause and end of all,

Nor working vainly.

Comes no event but with high sway the gods

Have ruled it plainly.

STROPHE V.

Chorus.

O the king! the king! for thee

Tears in vain my cheek shall furrow,

Words in vain shall voice my sorrow!

As in a spider’s web thou liest;

Godless meshes spread for thee,

An unworthy death thou diest!

STROPHE VI.

Chorus.

There, even there thou liest, woe’s me, outstretched

On couch inglorious;

O’er thee the knife prevailed, keen-edged, by damned

Deceit victorious.

STROPHE VII.

Clytem.

Nay, be wise, and understand;

Say not Agamemnon’s wife

Wielded in this human hand

The fateful knife.

But a god, my spirit’s master,

The unrelenting old Alastor

Chose this wife, his incarnation,

To avenge the desecration

Of foul-feasting Atreus, he

Gave, to work his wrath’s completion

To the babes this grown addition.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Chorus.

Thy crime is plain: bear thou what thou hast merited,

Guilt’s heavy lading;

But that fell Spirit, from sire to son inherited,

Perchance was aiding.

Black-mantled Mars through consanguineous gore

Borne onwards blindly,

Old horrors to atone, fresh Murder’s store

Upheaps unkindly.

ANTISTROPHE V.

O the king! the king! for thee

Tears in vain my cheek shall furrow,

Words in vain shall voice my sorrow!

As in a spider’s web thou liest;

Godless meshes spread for thee,

An unworthy death thou diest.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Chorus.

There, even there, thou liest, woe’s me, outstretched

On couch inglorious!

O’er thee the knife prevailed, keen-edged, by damned

Decent victorious.

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Clytem.

Say not thou that he did die

By unworthy death inglorious,

Erst himself prevailed by damned

Deceit victorious,

Then when he killed the deep-lamented

Iphigenía, nor relented

When for my body’s fruit with weeping

I besought him. Springs his reaping

From what seed he sowed. Not he

In Hades housed shall boast to-day;

So slain by steel as he did slay.

STROPHE VIII.

Chorus.

I’m tossed with doubt, on no sure counsel grounded,

With fear confounded.

No drizzling drops, a red ensanguined shower,

Upon the crazy house, that was my tower,

Comes wildly sweeping,

On a new whetstone whets her blade the Fate

With eyes unweeping.

STROPHE IX.

Chorus.

O Earth, O Earth, would thou hadst yawned,

And in thy black pit whelmed me wholly,

Ere I had seen my dear-loved lord

In the silver bath thus bedded lowly!

Who will bury him? and for him

With salt tears what eyes shall brim?

Wilt thou do it—thou, the wife

That slew thy husband with the knife?

Wilt thou dare, with blushless face,

Thus to offer a graceless grace?

With false show of pious moaning,

Thine own damned deed atoning?

STROPHE X.

Chorus.

What voice the praises of the godlike man

Shall publish clearly?

And o’er his tomb the tear from eyelids wan

Shall drop sincerely?

STROPHE XI.

Clytem.

In vain thy doubtful heart is tried

With many sorrows. By my hand

Falling he fell, and dying died.

I too will bury him; but no train

Of mourning men for him shall plain

In our Argive streets; but rather

In the land of sunless cheer

She shall be his convoy; she,

Iphigenía, his daughter dear.

By the stream of woes swift-flowing,

Round his neck her white arms throwing,

She shall meet her gentle father,

And greet him with a kiss.

ANTISTROPHE VIII.

Chorus.

Crime quitting crime, and which the more profanely

Were questioned vainly;

’Tis robber robbed, and slayer slain, for, though

Oft-times it lag, with measured blow for blow

Vengeance prevaileth,

While great Jove lives. Who breaks the close-linked woe

Which Heaven entaileth?

ANTISTROPHE IX.

Chorus.

O Earth, O Earth, would thou hadst yawned,

And in thy black pit whelmed me wholly,

Ere I had seen my dear-loved lord

In the silver bath thus bedded lowly!

Who will bury him? and for him

With salt tears, what eyes shall brim?

Wilt thou do it? thou, the wife

That killed thy husband with the knife?

Wilt thou dare, with blushless face,

Thus to offer a graceless grace?

With false show of pious moaning

Thine own damned deed atoning?

ANTISTROPHE X.

Chorus.

What voice the praises of the god-like man

Shall publish clearly?

And o’er his tomb the tear from eyelids wan

Shall drop sincerely?

ANTISTROPHE XI.

Clytem.

Cease thy cries. Where Heaven entaileth,

Thyself didst say, woe there prevaileth.

But for this tide enough hath been

Of bloody work. My score is clean.

Now to the ancient stern Alastor,

That crowns the Pleisthenids with disaster,

I vow, having reaped his crop of woe

From me, to others let him go,

And hold with them his bloody bridal,

Of horrid murders suicidal!

Myself, my little store amassed

Shall freely use, while it may last,

From murdering madness healed.

EnterÆgisthus.

Ægis.

O blessed light! O happy day proclaiming

The justice of the gods! Now may I say

The Olympians look from heaven sublime, to note

Our woes, and right our wrongs, seeing as I see

In the close meshes of the Erinnyes tangled

This man—sweet sight to see!—prostrate before me,

Having paid the forfeit of his father’s crime.

For Atreus, ruler of this Argive land,

This dead man’s father—to be plain—contending

About the mastery, banished from the city

Thyestes, his own brother and my father.

In suppliant guise back to his hearth again

The unhappy prince returned, content if he

Might tread his native acres, not besprent

With his own blood. Him with a formal show

Of hospitality—not love—received

The father of this dead, the godless Atreus;

And to my father for the savoury use

Of festive viands gave his children’s flesh

To feed on; in a separate dish concealed

Were legs and arms, and the fingers’ pointed tips,

Broke from the body. These my father saw not;

But what remained, the undistinguished flesh,

He with unwitting greed devoured, and ate

A curse to Argos. Soon as known, his heart

Disowned the unholy feast, and with a groan

Back-falling he disgorged it. Then he vowed

Dark doom to the Pelopidae, and woes

Intolerable, while with his heel he spurned

The supper, and thus voiced the righteous curse:

Thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!

See here the cause why Agamemnon died,

And why his death most righteous was devised

By me; for I, Thyestes’ thirteenth son,

While yet a swaddled babe, was driven away

To houseless exile with my hapless sire.

But me avenging Justice nursed, and taught me,

Safer by distance, with invisible hand

To reach this man, and weave the brooded plot,

That worked his sure destruction. Now ’tis done;

And gladly might I die, beholding him,

There as he lies where Vengeance trapped his crimes.

Chorus.

Ægisthus, that thou wantonest in the woe

Worked by thy crime I praise not. Thou alone

Didst slay this man, and planned the piteous slaughter

With willing heart. So say’st thou: but mark well,

Justice upon thy head the stony curse

Shall bring avoidless from the people’s hand.

Ægis.

How? Thou who sittest on the neathmost bench,

Speak’st thus to me who ply the upper oar?

’Tis a hard task to teach an old man wisdom,

And dullness at thy years is doubly dull;

But chains and hunger’s pangs sure leeches are,

And no diviner vends more potent balms

To drug a doting wit. Have eyes, and see,

Kick not against the pricks, nor vainly beat

Thy head on rocks.

Chorus[toClytemnestra].

Woman, how couldst thou dare,

On thine own hearth to plot thy husband’s death;

First having shamed his bed, to welcome him

With murder from the wars?

Ægis.

Speak on; each word shall be a fount of tears,

I’ll make thy tongue old Orpheus’ opposite.

He with sweet sounds led wild beasts where he would,

Thou where thou wilt not shalt be led, confounding

The woods with baby cries. Thou barkest now,

But, being bound, the old man shall be tame.

Chorus.

A comely king wert thou to rule the Argives!

Whose wit had wickedness to plan the deed,

But failed the nerve in thy weak hand to do it.

Ægis.

’Twas wisely schemed with woman’s cunning wit

To snare him. I, from ancient date his foe,

Stood in most just suspicion. Now, ’tis done;

And I, succeeding to his wealth, shall know

To hold the reins full tightly. Who rebels

Shall not with corn be fatted for my traces,

But, stiffly haltered, he shall lodge secure

In darkness, with starvation for his mate.

Chorus.

Hear me yet once. Why did thy dastard hand

Shrink from the deed? But now his wife hath done it,

Tainting this land with murder most abhorred,

Polluting Argive gods. But still Orestes

Looks on the light; him favouring Fortune shall

Nerve with one stroke to smite this guilty pair.

Ægis.

Nay, if thou for brawls art eager, and for battle, thou shalt know—

Chorus.

Ho! my gallant co-mates, rouse ye! ’tis an earnest business now!

Quick, each hand with sure embracement hold the dagger by the hilt!

Ægis.

I can also hold a hilted dagger—not afraid to die.

Chorus.

Die!—we catch the word thou droppest, lucky chance, if thou wert dead!

Clytem.

Not so, best-beloved! there needeth no enlargement to our ills.

We have reaped a liberal harvest, gleaned a crop of fruitful woes,

Gained a loss in brimming measure: blood’s been shed enough to-day.

Peacefully, ye hoary Elders, enter now your destined homes,

Ere mischance o’ertake you, deeming what is done hath so been done,

As it behoved to be, contented if the dread god add no more,

He that now the house of Pelops smiteth in his anger dire.

Thus a woman’s word doth warn ye, if that ye have wit to hear.

Ægis.

Babbling fools are they; and I forsooth must meekly bear the shower,

Flowers of contumely cast from doting drivellers, tempting fate!

O! if length of hoary winters brought discretion, ye should know

Where the power is; wisely subject you the weak to me the strong.

Chorus.

Ill beseems our Argive mettle to court a coward on a throne.

Ægis.

Shielded now, be brave with words; my deeds expect some future day.

Chorus.

Ere that day belike some god shall bring Orestes to his home.

Ægis.

Feed, for thou hast nothing better, thou and he, on empty hope.

Chorus.

Glut thy soul, a lusty sinner, with sin’s fatness, while thou may’st.

Ægis.

Thou shalt pay the forfeit, greybeard, of thy braggart tongue anon.

Chorus.

Oh, the cock beside its partlet now may crow right valiantly!

Clytem.

Heed not thou these brainless barkings. While to folly folly calls,

Thou and I with wise command shall surely sway these Argive halls.

CHOEPHORÆ OR, THE LIBATION-BEARERS

A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE

Ἐκ γὰρ Ὀρέσταο τίσις [Editor: illegible character]σσεται Ἀτρέιδαο

Ὀπποτ [Editor: illegible character]ν ‘ηβήσ[Editor: illegible character] τε κὰι ἠ̂ς ἱμείρεται ἄιης.

Homer.

Think upon our father,

Give the sword scope—think what a man was he

Landoe.

PERSONS

Orestes, Son of Agamemnon.

Pylades, Friend of Orestes

Chorus of Captive Women.

Electra, Sister of Orestes.

Nurse of Orestes.

Clytemnestra, Mother of Orestes.

Ægisthus.

Servant.

Sceneas in the preceding piece. The Tomb of Agamemnon in the centre of the Stage.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

“Good, how good, when one who dies unjustly leaves a son behind him To avenge his death!”

—Odyss. iii. 196,

As a composition, the Choephoræ is decidedly inferior both to the Agamemnon which precedes, and the Eumenides which follows it; and the poet, as if sensible of this weakness, following the approved tactics of rhetoricians and warriors, has dexterously placed it in a position where its deficiencies are least observed. At the same time, in passing a critical judgment on this piece we must bear in mind two things—first, that some parts of this play that appear languid, long-drawn, and ineffective to us who read, may have been overflowing with the richest emotional power in their living musical exhibition; and, secondly, that many parts, especially of the choral chaunts, have been so maimed and shattered by time that the modern commentator is perhaps as much chargeable with the faults of the translation as the ancient tragedian.

EnterOrestesandPylades.

Orest.

Hermes, that wieldest underneath the ground

What power thy father lent, be thou my saviour

And my strong help, and grant his heart’s request

To the returning exile! On this mound,

My father’s tomb, my father I invoke,

To hear my cry!

* * * * * *

* * My early growth of hair

To Inachus I vowed; this later lock

The right of grief for my great sire demands.

* * * * *

But what is this? what sad procession comes

Of marshalled maids in sable mantles clad?

What mission brings them? Some new woe that breaks

Upon our fated house? Or, do they come

To soothe the ancient anger of the dead

With sweet libations for my father’s tomb?

’Tis even so for lo! Electra comes—

My sister—with them in unblissful grief

Pre-eminent. O Jove, be thou mine aid,

And nerve my hand to avenge my father’s wrong!

Stand we aside, my Pylades, that we

May learn the purpose of the murky pomp.

[They go aside.

Chorus,dressed in sable vestments, bearing vessels with libations.

STROPHE I.

Missioned from these halls I come

In the sable pomp of woe,

Here to wail and pour libations,

with the bosom-beating blow;

And my cheeks, that herald sorrow,

With the fresh-cut nail-ploughed furrow,

Grief’s vocation show.

See! my rent and ragged stole

Speaks the conflict of my soul;

My vex’d heart on grief is feeding,

Night and day withouten rest;

Riven with the ruthless mourning,

Hangs the linen vest, adorning

Woefully my breast.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Breathing wrath through nightly slumbers,

By a dream-encompassed lair,

Prophet of the house of Pelops,

Terror stands with bristling hair.

Through the dark night fitful yelling,

He within our inmost dwelling

Did the sleeper scare.

Heavily, heavily terror falls

On the woman-governed halls!

And, instinct with high assurance,

Speak the wise diviners all;

“The dead, the earth-hid dead are fretful,

And for vengeance unforgetful,

From their graves they call.”

STROPHE II.

This graceless grace to do, to ward

What ills the dream portendeth

This pomp—O mother Earth!—and me

The godless woman sendeth.

Thankless office! Can I dare,

Naming thee, to mock the air?

Blood that stains with purple track

The ground, what price can purchase back?

O the hearth beset with mourning!

O the proud halls’ overturning!

Darkness, blithe sight’s detestation,

Sunless sorrow spread

Round the house of desolation,

Whence the lord is fled.

ANTISTROPHE II.

The kingly majesty that was

The mighty, warlike-hearted,

That swayed the general ear and will,

The unconquered, hath departed.

And now fear rules, and we obey,

Unwillingly, a loveless sway.

Who holds the key of plenty’s portals

Is god, and more than god to mortals;

But justice from her watchful station,

With a sure-winged visitation

Swoops; and some in blazing noon

She for doom doth mark,

Some in lingering eve, and some

In the deedless dark.

EPODE.

When mother Earth hath drunk black gore,

Printed on the faithful floor,

The staring blot remaineth;

There the deep disease is lurking;

There thrice double-guilt is working

Woes that none restraineth.

As virgin-chambers once polluted

Never may be pure again,

So filthy hands with blood bedabbled

All the streams of all the rivers

Flow to wash in vain

For me I suffer what I must;

By ordinance divine,

Since Troy was levelled with the dust

The bondman’s fate is mine.

What the masters of my fate

In their strength decree,

Just or unjust, matters not,

Is the law to me.

I must look content; and chain

Strongest hate with tightest rein;

I for my mistress’ woes must wail,

And for my own, beneath the veil;

I must sit apart,

And thaw with tears my frozen heart,

When no eye may see.

EnterElectra.

Elect.

Ye ministering maids with dexterous heed

That tend this household, as with me ye share

This pomp of supplication, let me share

In your good counsel. Speak, and tell me how,

This flood funereal pouring on the tomb,

I shall find utterance in well-omened words?

Shall I declare me bearer of sweet gifts

From a dear wife to her dear lord? I fear

To mingle faslehood with libations pure,

Poured on my father’s tomb. Or shall I pray,

As mortals wont to pray, that he may send

Just retribution, and a worthy gift

Of ill for ill to them that sent these garlands?

Or shall I silent stand, nor with my tongue

Give honour, as in dumb dishonoured death

My father died, and give the Earth to drink

A joyless stream, as who throws lustral ashes

With eyes averse, and flings the vase away?

Your counsel here I crave; ye are my friends,

And bear with me, within these fated halls

A common burden. Speak, and no craven fear

Lurk in your breasts! The man that lives most free,

And him to sternest masterdom enthralled,

One fate abides Lend me your wisdom, friends.

Chorus.

Thy father’s tomb shall be to me an altar;

As before God I’ll speak the truth to thee.

Elect.

Speak thus devoutly, and thou’lt answer well.

Chorus

Give words of seemly honour, as thou pourest,

To all that love thy father.

Elect.

Who are they?

Chorus.

Thyself the first, and whoso hates Ægisthus.

Elect.

That is myself and thou.

Chorus.

Thyself may’st judge.

Elect.

Hast thou none else to swell the scanty roll?

Chorus.

One far away, thy brother, add—Orestes.

Elect.

’Tis well remembered, very well remembered.

Chorus.

Nor them forget that worked the deed of guilt.

Elect.

Ha! what of them? I’d hear of this more nearly.

Chorus.

Pray that some god may come, or mortal man.

Elect.

Judge or avenger?

Chorus.

Roundly pray the prayer,

Some god or man may come to slay the slayer.

Elect.

And may I pray the gods such boon as this?

Chorus.

Why not? What other quittance to a foe

Than hate repaid with hate, and blow with blow?

Elect.

[approaching to the tomb of Agamemnon]. Hermes, that

swayest underneath the ground,

Of powers divine, Infernal and Supernal,

Most weighty herald, herald me in this,

That every subterranean god, and earth,

Even mother earth, who gave all things their birth,

And nurseth the reviving germs of all,

May hear my prayer, and with their sleepless eyes

Watch my parental halls. And while I dew

Thy tomb with purifying stream, O father,

Pity thou me, and on thy loved Orestes

With pity look, and to our long lost home

Restore us!—us, poor friendless outcasts both,

Bartered by her who bore us, and exchanged

Thy love for his who was thy murderer.

Myself do menial service in this house;

Orestes lives in exile; and they twain

In riot waste the fruits of thy great toils.

Hear thou my prayers, and quickly send Orestes

With happy chance to claim his father’s sceptre!

And give thou me a wiser heart, and hand

More holy-functioned than the mother’s was

That bore thy daughter. Thus much for myself,

And for my friends. To those that hate my father,

Rise thou with vengeance mantled-dark to smite

Those justly that unjustly smote the just.

These words of evil imprecation dire,

Marring the pious tenor of my prayer,

I speak constrained: but thou for me and mine

Send good, and only good, to the upper air,

The gods being with thee, mother Earth, and Justice

With triumph in her train. This prayer receive

And these libations. Ye, my friends, the while

Let your grief blossom in luxuriant wail,

Lifting the solemn pæan of the dead.

Chorus.

Flow! in plashing torrents flow!

Wretched grief for wretched master!

O’er this heaped mound freely flow,

Refuge of my heart’s disaster!

O thou dark majestic shade,

Hear, O hear me! While anear thee

Pours this sorrow-stricken maid

The pure libation,

May the solemn wail we lift

Atone the guilt that taints the gift

With desecration!

O that some god from Scythia far,

To my imploring,

Might send a spearman strong in war,

Our house restoring!

Come Mars, with back-bent bow, thy hail

Of arrows pouring,

Or with the hilted sword assail,

And in the grapple close prevail,

Of battle roaring!

Elect.

These mild libations, earth-imbibed, my father

Hath now received. Thy further counsel lend.

Chorus

In what? Within me leaps my heart for fear.

Elect

Seest thou this lock of hair upon the tomb?

Chorus.

A man’s hair is it, or a low-zoned maid’s?

Elect.

Few points there are to hit. ’Tis light divining

Chorus.

I am thine elder, yet I fain would reap Instruction from young lips

Elect.

If it was clipt

From head in Argos, it should be my own.

Chorus.

For they that should have shorn the mourning lock

Are foes, not friends.

Elect.

’Tis like, O strange! how like!

Chorus.

Like what? What strange conception stirs thy brain?

Elect

’Tis like—O strange!—to these same locks I wear.

And yet—

Chorus.

Not being yours, there’s none, I know,

Can claim it but Orestes.

Elect.

In sooth, ’tis like

Trimmed with one plume Orestes was and I

Chorus.

But how should he have dared to tread this ground?

Elect.

Belike, he sent it by another’s hand,

A votive lock to grace his father’s tomb.

Chorus.

Small solace to my grief, if that he lives,

Yet never more may touch his native soil.

Elect.

I, too, as with a bitter wave was lashed,

And pierced, as with an arrow, at the sight

Of this loved lock; and from my thirsty eyne

With troubled overflowings unrestrained

The full tide gushes: for none here would dare

To gift a lock to Agamemnon’s grave;

No citizen, much less the wife that slew him.

My mother most unmotherly, her own children

With godless hate pursuing, evil-minded:

And though to think this wandering lock have graced

My brother’s head—even his—my loved Orestes,

Were bliss too great, yet will I hold the hope.

O that this lock might with articulate voice

Pronounce a herald’s tale, and I no more

This way and that with dubious thought be swayed!

That I might know if from a hostile head

’Twas shorn, and hate it as it hate deserves,

Or, if from friends, my sorrows’ fellow make it,

The dearest grace of my dear father’s tomb!

But the gods know our woes; them we invoke,

Whirled to and fro in eddies of dark doubt,

Like vessels tempest-tossed. If they will save us,

They have the power from smallest seed to raise

The goodliest tree. But lo! a further proof —

Footsteps, a perfect print, that seem to bear

A brotherhood with mine! Nay, there are two—

This claimed by him, and that by some true friend

That shares his wanderings. See, the heel, the sole,

Thus measured with my own, prove that they were

Both fashioned in one mould ’Tis very strange!

I’m racked with doubt, my wits are wandering.

Orest.

[coming forward]. Nay, rather thank the gods! Thy first prayer granted,

Pray that fair end may fair beginning follow.

Elect.

Sayest thou? What cause have I to thank the gods?

Orest.

Even here before thee stands thine answered prayer.

Elect.

One man I wish to see: dost know him—thou?

Orest.

Thy wish of wishes is to see Orestes.

Elect.

Even so: but wishing answers no man’s prayer.

Orest.

I am the man. No dearer one expect

That wears that name.

Elect.

Nay, but this is some plot?

Orest.

That were to frame a plot against myself.

Elect.

Unkind, to scoff at my calamities!

Orest.

To scoff at thine, were scoffing at mine own.

Elect.

And can it be? Art thou indeed Orestes?

Orest.

My bodily self thou seest, and dost not know!

And yet the votive lock shorn from my head,

Being to thine, my sister’s hair, conform,

And my foot’s print with curious ardour scanned,

Could wing thy faith beyond the reach of sense,

That thou didst seem to see me! Take the lock,

And match it nicely with this mother crop

That bore it. More; behold this web, the fruit

Of thine own toil, the strokes of thine own shuttle,

The wild beasts of the woods by thine own hand

Empictured! Nay, be calm, and keep thy joy

Within wise bounds Too well I know that they

Who should be friends here are our bitterest foes.

Elect.

O of my father’s house the chiefest care!

Seed of salvation, hope with many tears

Bewept, with thy strong arm thou shalt restore

Thy father’s house. O my life’s eye, thou dost

Four several functions corporate in one

Discharge for me! My father thou, and thine

The gentler love that should have been my mother’s,

My justly hated mother; and in her place,

Who died by merciless immolation, thou

Must be my sister, so even as thou art

My faithful brother, loved much and revered.

May Power and Justice aid thee, mighty Twain,

And a third mightier, Jove supremely great.

Orest.

O Jove, great Jove, of all these things be thou

Spectator! And behold the orphan’d brood,

Of eagle father strangled in the folds

And deadly coil of loathly basilisk!

Them sireless see in dire starvation’s gripe,

Too weak of wing to bear unto the nest

Their father’s prey. So we before thee stand,

Myself and this Electra, sire-bereaved,

And exiles both from our paternal roof.

If we, the chickens of the pious father

That crowned thee with much sacrifice, shall fail,

Where shalt thou find a hand like his, to offer

Gifts from the steaming banquet? If the brood

Of the eagle perish, where shall be thy signs,

That speak from Heaven persuasive to mankind?

If all this royal trunk shall rot, say who,

When blood of oxen flows on holidays,

Shall stand beside thine altar? O give ear,

And of this house so little now, and fallen

So low, rebuild the fortunes!

Chorus.

Hush, my children!

If ye would save your father’s house, speak softly,

Lest some one hear, and, with swift babblement,

Inform their ears who rule; whom may I see

Flayed on a fire, with streaming pitch well fed!

Orest.

Fear not. The mighty oracle of Loxias,

By whose commands I dare the thing I dare,

Will not deceive me. He, with shrill-voiced warning,

Foretold that freezing pains through my warm liver

Should torturing shoot, if backward to avenge

My father’s death, and even as he was slain,

To slay the slayers, exasperate at the loss

Of my so fair possessions. Thus to do

He gave me strict injunction: else myself

With terrible pains, of filial zeal remiss,

Should pay the fine. The evil-minded Powers

Beneath the Earth would visit me in wrath,

A leprous tetter with corrosive tooth

Creep o’er my skin, and fasten on my flesh,

And with white scales the white hair grow, defacing

My bloom of health; and from my father’s tomb

Ripe with avenging ire the Erinnyes

Should ruthlessly invade me. Thus he spake,

And through the dark his prescient eyebrow arched.

Sharp arrows through the subterranean night,

Shot by dear Shades that through the Infernal halls

Roam peaceless, madness, and vain fear o’ nights,

Prick with sharp goads, and chase from street to street,

With iron scourge, the meagre-wasted form

Of the Fury-hunted sinner; him no share

In festal cup awaits, or hallowed drop

Of pure libation; the paternal wrath,

Hovering unseen, shall drive him from the altar;

Him shall no home receive, no lodgment hold,

Unhonoured and unfriended he shall die,

Withered and mummied with the hot dry plague.

Such oracle divine behoves me trust

With single faith, or, be I faithless, still

The vengeance must be done. All things concur

To point my purpose; the divine command

My sore heart-grief for a loved father’s death,

The press of want, the spoiling of my goods,

The shame to see these noble citizens,

Proud Troy’s destroyers, basely bent beneath

The yoke of two weak women: for he hath

A woman’s soul: if not, the proof is near.

Chorus.

Mighty Fates, divinely guiding

Human fortunes to their end,

Send this man, with Jove presiding,

Whither Justice points the way.

Words of bitter hatred duly

Pay with bitter words for thus

With loud cry triumphant shouting

Justice pays the sinner’s debt.

Blood for blood and blow for blow,

Thou shalt reap as thou didst sow;

Age to age with hoary wisdom

Speaketh thus to men.

STROPHE I.

Orest.

O father, wretched father, with what air

Of word or deed impelling,

Shall I be strong to waft the filial prayer

To thy dim distant dwelling?

There where in dark, the dead-man’s day, thou liest,

Be our sharp wailing

(Grace of the dead, and Hades’ honour highest),

With thee prevailing!

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Son, the strong-jawed funeral fire

Burns not the mind in the smoky pyre;

Sleeps, but not forgets the dead

To show betimes his anger dread.

For the dead the living moan,

That the murderer may be known.

They who mourn for parent slain

Shall not pour the wail in vain,

Bright disclosure shall not lack

Who through darkness hunts the track.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Elect.

Hear thou our cries, O father, when for thee

The frequent tear is falling;

The wailing pair o’er thy dear tomb to thee

From their hearts’ depths are calling;

The suppliant and the exile at one tomb

Their sorrow showering,

Helpless and hopeless; mantled round with gloom,

Woe overpouring!

Chorus.

Nay, be calm; the god that speaks

With voice oracular shall attune

Thy throat to happier notes;

Instead the voice of wail funereal,

Soon the jubilant shout shall shake

His father’s halls with joy, and welcome

The new friend to his home.

STROPHE III.

Orest.

If but some Lycian spear, ’neath Ilium’s walls,

Had lowly laid thee,

A mighty name in the Atridan halls

Thou wouldst have made thee!

Then hadst thou pitched thy fortune like a star,

To son and grandson shining from afar;

Beyond the wide-waved sea, the high-heaped mound

Had told for ever

Thy feats of battle, and with glory crowned

Thy high endeavour.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

Ah! would that thou hadst found thy end

There, where dear friend fell with friend,

And marched with them to Hades dread,

The monarch of the awful dead,

Sitting beside the throne with might

Of them that rule the realms of night;

For thou in life wert monarch true,

Expert each kingly deed to do,

Leading, with thy persuasive rod,

Submissive mortals like a god.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Elect.

Thou wert a king, no fate it was for thee

To die as others

’Neath Ilium’s walls, far, far beyond the sea,

With many brothers.

Unworthy was the spear to drink thy blood,

Where far Scamander rolls his swirling flood.

Justly who slew had drawn themselves thy lot,

And perished rather,

And thou their timeless fate had welcomed, not

They thine, my father.

Chorus.

Child, thy grief begetteth visions

Brighter than gold, and overtopping

Hyperborean bliss.

Ah, here the misery rudely riots,

With double lash. These twins, their help

Sleeps beneath the ground; and they

Who hold dominion here, alas!

With unholy sceptre sway.

Woe is me! but chiefly woe

Children dear to you!

STROPHE IV.

Elect.

Chiefly to me! Thy words shoot like an arrow,

And pierce my marrow.

O Jove, O Jove! that sendest from below

The retribution slow,

Against the stout heart and bold hand,

That dared defy thy high command.

Even though a parent feel the woe,

Prepare, prepare the finished blow.

STROPHE V.

Chorus.

Mine be soon to lift the strain,

O’er the treacherous slayer slain,

To shout with bitter exultation,

O’er the murtherous wife’s prostration!

Why should I the hate conceal,

That spurs my heart with promptest zeal,

Bitter thoughts, that gathering grow,

Like blustering winds, that beat the plunging vessel’s prow?

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Orest.

O thou that flourishest, and mak’st to flourish,

By thy hands perish

All they that hate me! Cleave the heads of those,

That are Orestes’ foes!

Pledge the land in peace to live,

For injustice justice give;

Ye that honoured reign below,

Furies! prepare the crowning blow.

Chorus.

Wont hath been, and shall be ever,

That when purple gouts bedash

The guilty ground, then blood doth blood

Demand, and blood for blood shall flow.

Fury to Havoc cries, and Havoc,

The tainted track of blood pursuing,

From age to age works woe.

STROPHE VI.

Elect.

Ye powers of Hades dread!

Fell Curses of the Dead,

Hear me when I call!

Behold! The Atridan hall,

Dashed in dishonoured fall,

Lies low and graceless all.

O mighty Jove, I see

Mine only help in thee!

ANTISTROPHE V.

Chorus.

Thy piteous tale doth make my heart

From its central hold back start;

Hope departs, and blackening Fear

Rules my fancy, while I hear.

And if blithe confidence awhile

Lends my dull faith the feeble smile,

Soon, soon departs that glimpse of cheer,

And all my map of things is desolate and drear.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Orest.

For why! our tale of wrong

In hate of parents strong,

Spurneth the flatterer’s arm,

Mocketh the soothing charm.

The mother gave her child

This wolfish nature wild;

And I from her shall learn

To be thus harsh and stern.

STROPHE VII.

Chorus.

Like a Persian mourner

Singing sorrow’s tale,

Like a Cissian wailer,

I did weep and wail.

O’er my head swift-oaring

Came arm on arm amain,

The voice of my deploring

Like the lashing rain!

Sorrow’s rushing river

O’er me flooding spread,

Black misfortune’s quiver

Emptied on my head!

Elect.

Mother bold, all-daring,

On a bloody bier

Thine own lord forth bearing

Slain without a tear.

Alone, unfriended he did go

Down to the sunless homes below.

STROPHE VIII.

Orest.

Thou hast named the dire dishonor;

The gods shall send swift judgment on her.

By Heaven’s command,

By her own son’s hand,

Slain she shall lie;

And I, having dealt the fated death,

Myself shall die!

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Elect.

Be the butcher’s work remembered,

Mangled was he, and dismembered;

Like vilest clay,

She cast him away,

With burial base;

Mocking the son, the father branding

With dark disgrace.

ANTISTROPHE VIII.

Orest.

Thou dost tell too truly

All my father’s woe.

Elect.

I, the while, accounted

Lower than most low,

Like a dog, was sundered

From my father’s hearth,

An evil dog, and wandered

Far from seats of mirth;

In my chamber weeping

Tears of silent woe,

From rude gazers keeping

Grief too great for show.

Hear these words; and hearing

Nail them in thy soul,

With steady purpose nearing,

And noiseless pace, thy goal.

Go where just wrath leads the way,

With stout heart tread the lists to-day.

STROPHE IX.

Orest.

O father, help thy friends, when helping thee!

Elect.

My tears, if they can help, shall flow for thee.

Chorus.

And this whole mingled choir shall raise for thee

The sistered cry: O hear!

In light of day appear,

And help thy banded friends, to avenge thy foes for thee!

ANTISTROPHE IX.

Orest.

Now might with might engage, and right with right!

Elect.

And the gods justly the unjust shall smite.

Chorus.

The tremulous fear creeps o’er my frame to hear

Thy words; for, though long-dated,

The thing divinely fated

Shall surely come at last, our cloudy prayers to clear.

STROPHE X.

Elect.

O home-bred pain,

Stroke of perdition that refuses

Concord with the holy Muses!

O burden more than heart can bear,

Disease that no physician’s care

Makes sound again!

ANTISTROPHE X.

Orest.

So; even so.

No far-sent leech this tetter uses;

A home-bred surgery it chooses.

I the red strife myself pursue,

Pouring this dismal hymn to you,

Ye gods below!

Chorus.

Blessed powers, propitious dwelling,

Deep in subterranean darkness,

Hear this pious prayer;

May all trials end in triumph

To the suppliant pair!

Orest.

Father, who died not as a king should die,

Give me to rule, as thou didst rule, these halls.

Elect.

My supplication hear, thy strong help lend me,

Scathless myself to work Ægisthus’ harm.

Orest.

Thus of the rightful feasts that soothe the Shades

Thou too shalt taste, and not dishonoured lie,

When savoury fumes mount to our country’s dead.

Elect.

And I my whole of heritage will offer,

The blithe libations of my marriage feast.

Thy tomb before all tombs I will revere.

Orest.

O Earth, relax thy hold, and give my father

To see the fight!

Elect.

O Persephassa, send

The Atridan forth, in beauty clad and strength.

Orest.

The bath that drank thy life remember, father.

Elect.

The close-drawn meshes of thy death remember.

Orest.

The chain, not iron-linked, that bound thee, then

When to the death the kingly game was hunted.

Elect.

Then when with treacherous folds they curtained thee.

Orest.

Wake, father, wake to avenge thy speechless wrongs!

Elect.

Lift, father, lift thy dear-loved head sublime!

Orest.

Send justice forth to work the just revenge,

Like quit with like, and harm with harm repay;

Thou wert the conquered then, rise now to conquer.

Elect.

And hear this last request, my father, looking

On thy twin chickens nestling by thy tomb;

Pity the daughter, the male seed protect,

Nor let the name revered of ancient Pelops

Be blotted from the Earth! Thou art not dead,

Though housed in Hades, while thy children live,

For children are as echoes that prolong

Their parents’ fame; the floating cork are they

That buoyant bear the net deep sunk in the sea.

Hear, father—when we weep, we weep for thee,

And, saving us, thou savest thine own honour.

Chorus.

Well spoken both: and worthily fall the tears

On this dear tomb, too long without them. Now,

If to the deed thy purpose thou hast buckled,

Orestes, try what speed the gods may give thee.

Orest.

I’ll do the deed. Meanwhile not idly this

I ask of thee—what moved her soul to send

These late libations, limping remedy

For wounds that cannot heal? A sorry grace

To feed the senseless dead with sacrifice,

When we have killed the living. What she means

I scarce may guess, but the amend is less

Than the offence. All ocean poured in offering

For the warm life-drops of one innocent man

Is labour lost. Old truth thus speaks to all.

How was it?

Chorus.

That I well may tell, for I

Was with her. Hideous dreams did haunt her sleep;

Night-wandering terrors scared her godless breast,

That she did send these gifts to soothe the Shades.

Orest.

What saw she in her dream?

Chorus.

She dreamt, she said,

She had brought forth a serpent.

Orest.

A serpent, say’st thou?

Chorus.

Ay! and the dragon birth portentous moved,

All swaddled like a boy.

Orest.

Eager for food, doubtless, the new-born monster?

Chorus.

The nurturing nipple herself did fearless bare.

Orest.

How then? escaped the nipple from the bite?

Chorus.

The gouted blood did taint the milk, that flowed

From the wounded paps.

Orest.

No idle dream was this.

And he who sent it was my father.

Chorus.

Then

She from her sleep up started, and cried out,

And many lamps, whose splendour night had blinded,

Rushed forth, to wait upon their mistress’ word.

Straightway she sends us with funereal gifts,

A medicinal charm, if medicine be

For griefs like hers!

Orest.

Now hear me, Earth profound,

And my dear father’s tomb, that so this dream

May find in me completion! Thus I read it—

As left the snake the womb that once hid me,

And in the clothes was swathed that once swathed me

And as it sucked the breast that suckled me,

And mingled blood with milk once sucked by me,

And as she groaned with horror at the sight,

Thus it beseems who bore a monstrous birth

No common death to die. I am the serpent

Shall bite her breast. It is a truthful dream.

My seer be thou. Say have I read it well?

Chorus.

Bravely. Now, for the rest, thy friends instruct

What things to do, and what things to refrain.

Orest.

’Tis said in few. Electra, go within,

And keep my counsels in wise secrecy;

For, as they killed an honourable man

Deceitfully, by cunning and deceit

Themselves shall find the halter. Thus Apollo,

A prophet never known to lie, foretold.

Myself will come, like a wayfaring man

Accoutred, guest and spear-guest of this house,

With Pylades, my friend, to the court gates.

We both will speak with a Parnassian voice,

Aping the Phocian tongue. If then it chance

(As seems most like, for this whole house with ills

Is sheer possessed) that with a welcome greeting

No servant shall receive us, we will wait

Till some one pass, and for their churlish ways

Rate them thus sharply. “Sirs, why dare ye shut

Inhospitable doors against the stranger,

Making Ægisthus sin against the gods?”

When thus I pass the threshold of his courts,

And see him sitting on my father’s throne,

When he shall scan me face to face, and seek

To hear my tale; ere he may say the word,

Whence is the stranger? I will lay him dead,

Dressing him trimly o’er with points of steel.

The Fury thus, not scanted of her banquet,

Shall drink unmingled blood from Pelops’ veins,

The third and crowning cup. Now, sister, see to ’t

That all within be ordered, as shall serve

My end most fitly. Ye, when ye shall speak,

Speak words of happy omen; teach your tongue

Both to be silent, and to speak in season.

For what remains, his present aid I ask,

Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task.

[Exeunt.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Earth breeds a fearful progeny,

To man a hostile band,

With finny monsters teems the sea,

With creeping plagues the land;

And winged portents scour mid-air,

And flaring lightnings fly,

And storms, sublimely coursing, scare

The fields of the silent sky.

ANTISTROPHE I.

But Earth begets no monster dire

Than man’s own heart more dreaded,

All-venturing woman’s dreadful ire,

When love to woe is wedded.

No mate with mate there gently dwells,

There peace and joy depart,

Where loveless love triumphant swells,

In fearless woman’s heart.

STROPHE II.

This the light-witted may not know,

The wise shall understand,

Who hear the tale from age to age,

How Thestios’ daughter, wild with rage,

Lighted the fatal brand,

The brand that burned with conscious flashes

At the cry of her new-born son;

And, when the brand had burned to ashes,

His measured course was run.

ANTISTROPHE II.

And yet a tale of bloody love

From hoary eld I know,

How Scylla gay, in gold arrayed,

The gift of Minos old, betrayed

Her father to the foe.

Sleeping all careless as he lay,

She cut the immortal hair,

And Hermes bore his life away,

From the bold and blushless fair.

STROPHE III.

Ah me! not far needs fancy range

For tales of harshest wrong:

Here, even here, damned wedlock thrives,

And lawless loves are strong.

Within these halls, where blazes now

No holy hearth, a bloody vow

Against her liege lord’s life

She vowed; and he, the king divine,

Whose look back-drove the bristling line,

Bled by a woman’s knife.

ANTISTROPHE III.

O woman! woman! Lemnos saw

Your jealous fountains flow,

And, when the worst of woes is named,

It is a Lemnian woe.

From age to age the infected tale,

Far echoed by a wandering wail,

To East and West shall go;

And honor from the threshold hies,

On which the doom god-spoken lies;

Speak I not wisely so?

STROPHE IV.

Right through the heart shall pierce the blow,

When Justice is the sinner’s foe,

With the avenging steel;

In vain with brief success they strove,

Who trampled on the law of Jove,

With unregarding heel.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Firm is the base of Justice. Fate,

With whetted knife, doth eager wait

At hoary Murder’s door;

The Fury, with dark-bosomed ire,

Doth send the son a mission dire,

To clear the parent’s score.

EnterOrestes.

Orest.

What, ho! dost hear no knocking? boy! within!

Is none within, boy? ho! dost hear me call

The third time at thy portal? Is Ægisthus

A man, whose ears are deaf to the strangers’ cry?

Ser.

[appearing at the door]. Enough I hear thee. Who art thou, and whence?

Orest.

Tell those within that a poor stranger waits

Before the gate, bearer of weighty news.

Speed thee; night’s dusky chariot swoopeth down,

And the dark hour invites the travelling man

To fix his anchor ’neath some friendly roof.

Thy mistress I would see, if here a mistress

Rules, or thy master rather, if a master.

For with a man a man may plainly deal,

But nice regard for the fine feeling ear

Oft mars the teller’s tale, when women hear.

EnterClytemnestra.

Clytem

Strangers, speak your desire. Whate’er becomes

This house to give is free to you to share.

Hot baths, a couch to soothe your travelled toil,

Blithe welcoming eyes, and gentle tendance; these

I freely give. If aught beyond ye crave,

There’s counsel with my lord. I’ll speak to him.

Orest.

I am a stranger come from Phocian Daulis.

When I, my burden to my back well saddled,

Stood for the road accoutred, lo! a man

To me not known, nor of me knowing more,

But seeing only that my feet were bound

For Argos, thus accosted me (his name,

I learned, was Strophius the Phocian): Stranger,

If Argos be thy purpose, bear this message

From me to whom it touches near. Orestes

Is dead; charge well thy memory with the tale,

And bring me mandate back, if so his friends

Would have him carried to his native home,

Or he with us due sepulture shall find,

A sojourner for ever. A brazen urn

Holds all the remnant of the much-wept man,

The ashes of his clay. Thus Strophius spake:

And if ye are the friends, whom chiefly grief

Pricks for his loss, my mission’s done; at least

His parents will be grieved to hear ’t.

Elect.

Woe’s me!

Sheer down we topple from proud height; harsh fate

Is ours to wrestle with. O jealous Curse,

How dost thou eye us fatal from afar,

And with thy well-trimmed bow shoot chiefly there

Where thou wert least suspect! Thou hast me now

A helpless captive lorn, and reft of all

My trustiest friends. Orestes also gone,

Whose feet above the miry slough most sure

Seemed planted! Now our revelry of hope,

The fair account that should have surgeoned woe,

Is audited at nothing!

Orest.

Would the gods,

Where happy hosts give welcome, I were guest

On a more pleasant tale! The entertained

No greater joy can know than with good news

To recreate his entertainer’s ears;

But piety forbade, nor faith allowed

To lop the head of truth.

Clytem.

Thou shalt not fare the worse for thy bad news,

Nor be less dear to us. Hadst thou been dumb,

Some other tongue had vented the sad tale.

But ye have travelled weary leagues to-day,

And doubtless need restoring. Take him, boy,

With the attendant sharers of his travel,

To the men’s chambers. See them well bestowed,

And do all things as one, that for neglect

Shall give account. Meanwhile, our lord shall know

What fate hath chanced, his wit and mine shall find

What solace may be for these news unkind.

[Exeunt into the house.

Chorus.

When, O when, shall we, my sisters,

Lift the strong full-throated hymn,

To greet Orestes’ triumph? Thou,

O sacred Earth, and verge revered

Of this lofty mound, where sleeps

The kingly helmsman of our State,

Hear thou, and help! prevail the hour

Of suasive wile, and smooth deceit!

Herald him Hermes—lead him, thou

The nightly courier of the dead,

Through this black business of the sword!

In sooth the host hath housed a grievous guest;

For see where comes Orestes’ nurse, all tears!

Where goest thou, nurse, beyond our gates to walk,

And why walks Grief, an unfee’d page, with thee!

EnterNurse.

Nurse.

My mistress bids me bring Ægisthus quickly,

To see the strangers face to face, that he

May of their sad tale more assurance win

From their own mouths. Herself to us doth show

A murky-visaged grief; but in her eye

Twinkles a secret joy, that time hath brought

The consummation most devoutly wished

By her—to us and Agamemnon’s house

Most fatal issue, if these news be true.

Ægisthus, too, with a light heart will hear

These Phocian tidings. O wretched me! what weight

Of mingled woes from sire to son bequeathed,

Have the gods burdened us withal! Myself,

How many griefs have shaken my old heart;

But this o’ertops them all! The rest I bore,

As best I might, with patience: but Orestes,

My own dear boy, my daily, hourly care,

Whom from his mother’s womb these breasts did suckle—

How often did I rise o’ nights, and walked

From room to room, to soothe his baby cries;

But all my nursing now, and all my cares

Fall fruitless. ’Tis a pithless thing a child,

No forest whelp so helpless; one must even

Wait on its humour, as the hour may bring.

No voice it has to speak its fitful wants,

When hunger, thirst, or Nature’s need commands.

The infant’s belly asks no counsel. I

Was a wise prophetess to all his wants,

Though sometimes false, as others are. I was

Nurse to the child, and fuller to its clothes,

And both to one sad end. Alack the day!

This double trade with little fruit I plied,

What time I nursed Orestes for his father;

For he is dead, and I must live to hear it.

But I must go, and glad his heart, who lives

Plague of this house, with news that make me weep.

Chorus.

What say’st thou, Nurse? how shall thy master come?

Nurse.

How say’st thou? how shall I receive the question?

Chorus.

Alone, I mean, or with his guards?

Nurse.

She says

His spearmen shall attend him.

Chorus.

Not so, Nurse!

If thou dost hate our most hate-worthy master,

Tell him to come alone, without delay,

To hear glad tidings with exulting heart.

The bearer of a tale can make it wear

What face he pleases.

Nurse.

Well! if thou mean’st well,

Perhaps—

Chorus.

Perhaps that Jove may make the breeze

Yet veer to us.

Nurse.

How so? Our only hope,

Orestes, is no more.

Chorus.

Softly, good Nurse;

Thou art an evil prophet, if thou say’st so.

Nurse.

How? hast thou news to a different tune?

Chorus.

Go! go!

Mind thine own business, and the gods will do

What thing they will do.

Nurse.

Well! I’ll do thy bidding!

The gods lead all things to a fair conclusion!

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

O thou, o’er all Olympian gods that be,

Supremely swaying,

With words of wisdom, when I pray to thee,

Inspire my praying.

We can but pray; to do, O Jove, is thine,

Thou great director;

Of him within, who works thy will divine,

Be thou protector!

Him raise, the orphaned son whom thou dost see

In sheer prostration;

Twofold and threefold he shall find from thee

Just compensation.

ANTISTROPHE I.

But hard the toil. Yoked to the car of Fate,

When harshly driven,

O rein him thou! his goaded speed abate

Wisely from Heaven!

Jove tempers all, steadies all things that reel;

When wildly swerveth

From the safe line life’s burning chariot wheel,

His hand preserveth.

Ye gods, that guard these gold-stored halls, this day

Receive the claimant,

Who comes, that old Wrong to young Right may pay

A purple payment.

STROPHE II.

Blood begets blood; but, when this blow shall fall,

O thou, whose dwelling

Is Delphi’s fuming throat, may this be all!

Of red blood, welling

From guilty veins, enough. Henceforth may joy

Look from the eyes of the Atridan boy,

Discerning clearly

From his ancestral halls the clouds unrolled,

That hung so drearly.

ANTISTROPHE II.

And thou, O Maia’s son, fair breezes blow,

The full sail swelling!

Cunning art thou through murky ways to go,

To Death’s dim dwelling;

Dark are the doings of the gods; and we,

When they are clearest shown, but dimly see;

Yet faith will follow

Where Hermes leads, the leader of the dead,

And thou, Apollo.

EPODE.

Crown ye the deed; then will I freely pour

The blithe libation,

And, with pure offerings, cleanse the Atridan floor

From desecration!

Then with my prosperous hymn the lyre shall blend

Its kindly chorus,

And Argos shall be glad, and every friend

Rejoice before us!

Gird thee with manhood, boy; though hard to do,

It is thy father’s work; to him be true.

And, when she cries—Son, wilt thou kill thyMother?

Cry—Father, Father! and with that name smother

The rising ruth. As Perseus, when he slew

The stony Dread, was stony-hearted, do

Thy mission stoutly;

For him below, and her above, pursue

This work devoutly.

The gods by thee, in righteous judgment, show

Their grace untender!

Thou to the man, that dealt the deathful blow,

Like death shalt render.

EnterÆgisthus.

Ægis.

Not uninvited come I, having heard

A rumour strange, by certain strangers brought,

No pleasant tale—Orestes’ death. In sooth,

A heavy fear-distilling sorrow this,

More than a house may bear, whose wounds yet bleed,

And ulcerate from the fangs of fate. But say,

Is this a fact that looks us in the face,

Or startling words of woman’s fears begotten,

That shoot like meteors through the air, and die?

What proof, ye maids, what proof?

Chorus.

Our ears have heard.

But go within; thyself shalt see the man;

Try well the teller, e’er thou trust the tale.

Ægis.

I’ll scan him well, and prove him close, if he

Himself was at the death, or but repeat

From blind report the news another told.

It will go hard, if idle breath cheat me.

My eyes are in my head, and I can see.

[Exit into the house.

Chorus.

Jove! great Jove! What shall I say?

How with pious fervour pray,

That from thee the answer fair

Be wafted to my friendly prayer?

Now the keen-edged axe shall strike,

With a life-destroying blow;

Now, or, plunged in deep perdition,

Agamemnon’s house sinks low,

Or the hearth with hope this day

Shall blaze, through all the ransomed halls,

And the son his father’s wealth

Shall win, and with his sceptre sway.

In the bloody combat fresh,

He shall risk it, one with two;

Hand to hand the fight shall be.

Godlike son of Agamemnon,

Jove give strength to thee!

Ægis.

[from within]. Ah me! I fall. Ah! Ah!

Chorus.

Hear’st thou that cry? How is’t? Whose was that groan?

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

Seem not partakers of the bloody work.

’Tis ended now.

EnterServant.

Serv.

Woe’s me! my murdered master!

Thrice woeful deed! Ægisthus lives no more.

Open the women’s gates! uncase the bolts!

Were needed here a Titan’s strength—though that

Would nothing boot the dead. Ho! hillo! ho!

Are all here deaf? or do I babble breath

In sleepers’ ears? Where, where is Clytemnestra?

What keeps my mistress? On a razor’s edge

Her fate now lies; the blow’s already poised,

That falls on her too—nor unjustly falls.

EnterClytemnestra.

Clytem.

Well! what’s the matter? why this clamorous cry?

Serv.

He, who was dead, has slain the quick. ’Tis so.

Clytem.

Ha! Thou speak’st riddles; but I understand thee.

We die by guile, as guilefully we slew.

Bring me an axe! an axe to kill a man!

Quickly!—or conqueror or conquered, I

Will fight it out. To this ’tis come at last.

EnterOrestes,dragging in the dead body ofÆgisthus;with himPylades.

Orest.

Thee next I seek. For him, he hath enough.

Clytem.

Ah me! my lord, my loved Ægisthus dead!

Orest.

Dost love this man? then thou shalt sleep with him,

In the same tomb. He was thy bedmate living,

Be thou his comrade, dead.

Clytem.

Hold thee, my son!

Look on this breast, to which with slumbrous eyes

Thou oft hast clung, the while thy baby gum

Sucked the nutritious milk.

Orest.

What say’st thou, Pylades?

Shall I curtail the work, and spare my mother?

Pyl.

Bethink thee well; the Loxian oracles,

Thy sure-pledged vows, where are they, if she live?

Make every man thy foe, but fear the gods.

Orest.

Thy voice shall rule in this; thou judgest wisely.

Follow this man, here, side by side with him,

I’ll butcher thee. Seemed he a fairer man

Than was my father when my father lived?

Sleep thou, where he sleeps; him thou lovest well,

And whom thou chiefly shouldst have loved thou hatedst.

Clytem.

I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die.

Orest.

Spare thee to live with me—my father’s murderer?

Clytem.

Not I; say rather Fate ordained his death.

Orest.

The self-same Fate ordains thee now to die.

Clytem.

My curse beware, the mother’s curse that bore thee.

Orest

That cast me homeless from my father’s house.

Clytem.

Nay; to a friendly house I lent thee, boy.

Orest.

Being free-born, I like a slave was sold.

Clytem.

I trafficked not with thee. I gat no gold.

Orest.

Worse—worse than gold—a thing too foul to name!

Clytem.

Name all my faults; but had thy father none?

Orest.

Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber.

Judge not the man that goes abroad, and labours.

Clytem.

Hard was my lot, my child, alone, uncherished.

Orest.

Alone by the fire, while for thy gentle ease

The husband toiled.

Clytem.

Thou wilt not kill me, son?

Orest.

I kill thee not. Thyself dost kill thyself.

Clytem.

Beware thy mother’s anger-whetted hounds.

Orest.

My father’s hounds have hunted me to thee.

Clytem.

The stone that sepulchres the dead art thou,

And I the tear on’t.

Orest.

Cease: I voyaged here,

With a fair breeze; my father’s murder brought me.

Clytem.

Ah me! I nursed a serpent on my breast.

Orest.

Thou hadst a prophet in thy dream, last night;

And since thou kill’d the man thou shouldst have spared,

The man, that now should spare thee, can but kill.

[He drives her into the house, and there murders her.

Chorus.

There’s food for sorrow here; but rather, since

Orestes could not choose but scale the height

Of bloody enterprise, our prayer is this:

That he, the eye of this great house, may live.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Hall of old Priam, with sorrow unbearable,

Vengeance hath come on the Argive thy foe;

A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible,

Comes to his palace, that levelled thee low.

Chanced hath the doom of the guilty precisely,

Even as Phœbus foretold it, and wisely

Where the god pointed, was levelled the blow.

Lift up the hymn of rejoicing; the lecherous,

Sin-laden tyrant shall lord it no more;

No more shall the mistress so bloody and treacherous

Lavish the plundered Pelopidan store.

STROPHE II.

Sore chastisement came on the doomed and devoted,

With dark-brooding purpose and fair-smiling show;

And the daughter of Jove the eternal was noted,

Guiding the hand that inflicted the blow—

Bright Justice, of Jove, the Olympian daughter;

But blasted they fell with the breath of her slaughter

Whose deeds of injustice made Justice their foe.

Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo,

The will of her high-purposed sire to obey,

The track of the blood-stained remorseless to follow,

Winged with sure death, though she lag by the way.

EPODE.

Ye rulers on Earth, fear the rulers in Heaven,

No aid by the gods to the froward is given;

For the bonds of our thraldom asunder are riven,

And the day dawns clear.

Lift up your heads; from prostration untimely

Ye halls of the mighty be lifted sublimely!

All-perfecting Time shall bring swift restitution,

And cleanse the hearth pure from the gory pollution,

Now the day dawns clear.

And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest,

The brother and sister, with omens the rarest;

Each friend of this house show the warm love thou bearest,

Now the day dawns clear!

EnterOrestes,with the body ofClytemnestra.

Orest.

Behold this tyrant pair, my father’s murderers,

Usurpers of this land, and of this house

Destroyers. They this throne did use in pride,

And now in love, as whoso looks may guess,

They lie together, all their vows fulfilled.

Death to my hapless father, and to lie

Themselves on a common bier—this was their vow;

And they have vowed it well. Behold these toils,

Wherewith they worked destruction to my father,

Chained his free feet, and manacled his hands.

There—spread it forth—approach—peruse it nicely.

This mortal vest, that so the father—not

My father, but the Sun that fathers all

With light —may see what godless deed was done

Here by my mother. Let him witness duly,

That not unjustly I have spilt this blood—

My mother’s; for Ægisthus recks me not;

As an adulterer should, he died: but she,

That did devise such foul detested wrong

Against the lord, to whom beneath her zone

She bore a burden, once so valued, now

A weight that damns her; what was she?—a viper

Or a torpedo—that with biteless touch

Strikes numb who handles. Harsh the smoothest phrase

To name the bold unrighteous will she used.

And for this fowler’s net—this snare—this trap—

This cloth to wrap the dead —this veil to curtain

A bloody bath—teach me a name for it!

Such murderous toils the ruffians use, who spill

Their neighbour’s blood, that they may seize his gold,

And warm their heart with plenty not their own.

Lodge no such mate with me! Sooner may I

Live by high Heaven accursed, and childless die.

Chorus.

A sorry work—alas! alas!

A dismal death she found.

Nor sorrow quite from man may pass

That lives above the ground.

Orest.

A speaking proof! Behold, Ægisthus’ sword

Hath left its witness on this robe; the time

Hath paled the murtherous spot, but where it was

The sumptuous stole hath lost its radiant dye.

Alas! I know not, when mine eyes behold

This father-murdering web, if I should own

Joy lord, or grief. Let grief prevail. I grieve

Our crimes, our woes, our generation doomed,

Our tearful trophies blazoned with a curse.

Chorus.

The gods so will that, soon or late,

Each mortal taste of sorrow;

A frown to-day from surly Fate,

A biting blast to-morrow.

Orest.

Others ’twixt hope and fear may sway, my fate

Is fixed and scapeless. Like a charioteer,

Dragged from his course by steeds that spurned the rein,

Thoughts past control usurp me. Terror lifts,

Even now, the prelude to her savage hymn,

Within my heart exultant. But, while yet

My sober mind remains, witness ye all

My friends, this solemn abjuration! Not

Unjustly, when I slew, I slew my mother—

That mother, with my father’s blood polluted,

Of every god abhorred. And I protest

The god that charmed me to the daring point

Was Loxias, with his Pythian oracles,

Pledging me blameless, this harsh work once done,

Not done, foredooming what I will not say;

All thoughts most horrible undershoot the mark.

And now behold me, as a suppliant goes,

With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch,

Addressed for Delphi, the firm-seated shrine

Of Loxias, navel of earth, where burns the flame

Of fire immortal named. For I must flee

This kindred blood, and hie me where the god

Forespoke me refuge. Once again I call

On you, and Argive men of every time,

To witness my great griefs. I go an exile

From this dear soil. Living, or dead, I leave

These words, the one sad memory of my name.

Chorus.

Thou hast done well; yoke not thy mouth this day

To evil words. Thou art the liberator

Of universal Argos, justly greeted,

Who from the dragon pair the head hath lopped.

[TheFuriesappear in the background.

Orest.

Ah, me! see there! like Gorgons! look! look there!

All dusky-vested, and their locks entwined

With knotted snakes. Away! I may not stay.

Chorus.

O son, loved of thy sire, be calm, nor let

Vain phantoms fret thy soul, in triumph’s hour.

Orest.

These are no phantoms, but substantial horrors;

Too like themselves they show, the infernal hounds

Sent from my mother!

Chorus.

’Tis the fresh-gouted blood

Upon thy hand, that breeds thy brain’s distraction.

Orest.

Ha! how they swarm! Apollo! more—yet more!

And from their fell eyes droppeth murderous gore.

Chorus.

There is atonement. Touch but Loxias’ altar,

And he from bloody stain shall wash thee clean.

Orest.

Ye see them not. I see them. There!—Away!

The hell-hounds hunt me: here I may not stay.

Chorus.

Nay, but with blessing go. From fatal harm

Guard thee the god whose eyes in love behold thee!

Blown hath now the third harsh tempest,

O’er the proud Atridan palace,

Floods of family woe!

First thy damned feast, Thyestes,

On thy children’s flesh abhorrent;

Then the kingly man’s prostration,

And thy warlike pride, Achaia,

Butchered in a bath,

Now he, too, our greeted Saviour

Red with this new woe!

When shall Fate’s stern work be ended,

When shall cease the boisterous vengeance,

Hushed in slumbers low?

NOTES TO THE CHOEPHORÆ

Here we have a notable example of the terms of that sort of excommunication which the religious and social feeling of the ancients passed against the perpetrators of atrocious crimes. See Introductory Remarks to the Eumenides.

“προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντες

ξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε.”

ἄλγεα

Πολλὰ μἀλ’ δσσα τε μητρὸς Ἐριννύες ἐκτελέουσιν.

Odyssey xi. 289.

My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the Furies

Byron.

PERSONS

The Pythoness of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.

Apollo.

Hermes (Mute).

The Shade of Clytemnestra.

Chorus of Furies.

Pallas Athena.

Judges of the Court of Areopagus (Mute).

Convoy of the Furies.

Scene—First at Delphi in the Temple of Apollo; then on the Hill of Mars, Athens.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Πολλὰ κατηρατο, στυγερὰς δ’ ἐπίκεκλετ Εριννῠς,

In order to understand thoroughly the situation of the matricide Orestes, in the present play, we must consider further the ancient doctrine of pollution attaching to an act of murder, and the consequent necessity of purification to the offender. The nature of this is distinctly set forth by Orestes himself in a reply to his sister Iphigenia, put into his mouth by Euripides. “Loxias,” he says, “first sent me to Athens, and

There first arrived, no host would entertain me,

As being hated of the immortal gods,

And some, who pitied me, before me placed

Cold entertainment on a separate board;

Beneath the same roof though I lodged with them,

No interchange of living voice I knew,

But sat apart and ate my food alone.”

Iphig. Taur. 954.

Like an unclean leper among the Jews, the man polluted with human blood wandered from land to land, as with a Cain’s mark upon his brow, and every fellow-being shrank from his touch as from a living plague.

“For wisely thus our ancestors ordained,

That the blood-tainted man should know no joy

From sight of fellow-mortal or from touch,

But with an horrid sanctitude protected

Range the wide earth an exile.”

Eurip. Orest. 512.

But Æschylus is not a patriot only, and a pious worshipper of his country’s gods in this play, he is also, to some small extent at least, manifestly a politician. The main feature of the constitutional history of Athens in the period immediately following the great Persian war, to which period our trilogy belongs, was the enlargement and the systematic completion of those democratic forms, of which the timocratic legislation of Solon, about a century and a-half before, had planted the first germs. Of these changes, Pericles, the man above all others who knew both to understand and to control his age, was the chief promoter; and in a policy whose main tendency was the substitution of a numerous popular for a narrow professional control of public business, it could not fail to be a main feature, that the authority of the judges of the old aristocratic courts was curtailed in favour of those bodies of paid jurymen, the institution of which is specially attributed to Pericles and his coadjutor Ephialtes. Whether these changes were politic or not, in the large sense of that word, need not be inquired here; Mr. Grote has done much to lengthen the focus of those short-sighted national spectacles, through which the English eye has been accustomed to view the classic democracies; but let it be that Pericles kept within the bounds of a wise liberty in giving a fair and a large trial to the action of democratic principles at that time and place; or let it be, on the other hand, that he overstepped the line

“Which whoso passes, or who reaches not,

Misses the mark of right”—

in either case, where decision was so difficult, and discretion so delicate, no one can accuse the thoughtful tragic poet of a stolid conservatism, when he comes forward, in this play, as the advocate of the only court of high jurisdiction in Athens, now left unshaken by the great surge of those popular billows, that were yet swelling everywhere with the eager inspiration of Marathon and Salamis. The court of Areopagus was not now, since the legislation of Solon, and the further democratic movement of Cleisthenes, in any invidious or exclusive sense an aristocratic assembly, such as the close corporations of the old Roman aristocracy before the series of popular changes introduced by Licinius Stolo; it was a council, in fact, altogether without that family and hereditary element, in which the principal offence of aristocracy has always lain; its members were composed entirely (not recruited merely like our House of Lords) of those superior magistrates—archons annually elected by the people—who had retired from office. To magnify the authority of such a body, and maintain intact the few privileges that had now been left it, was, when an obvious opportunity offered, not only excusable in a great national tragedian, but imperative. One thing his political attitude in this matter certainly proves, that he was not a vulgar hunter after popularity, delighting to swell to the point of insane exaggeration the cry of the hour, but one of those men of high purpose, who prove a greater strength of patriotism by stemming the popular stream, than by swimming with it.

Besides the championship of the Court of the Areopagus, there is another political element in this rich drama, which, though of less consequence, must not be omitted. No sooner had the Persian invaders been fairly driven back from the Hellenic shore, than that old spirit of narrow local jealousy, which was the worm at the heart of Grecian political existence, broke out with renewed vigour, and gave ominous indications in the untoward affair of Tanagra, of that terrible collision which shook the two great rival powers a few years afterwards in the famous Peloponnesian war. Sparta and Athens, opposed as they were by race, by geographical position, and by political character, after some public attempts at co-operation, in which Cimon was the principal actor, shrunk back, as in quiet preparation for the great trial of strength, into a state of isolated antagonism. But, though open hostility was deferred, wise precaution could not sleep; and, accordingly, we find the Athenians, about this time, anxious to secure a base of operations, so to speak, against Sparta in the Peloponnesus, by entering into an alliance with Argos. As a genuine Athenian, Æschylus, whatever his political feelings might be towards Cimon and the Spartan party, could not but look with pleasure on the additional strength which this Argive connection gave to Athens in the general council of Greece; and, accordingly, he dexterously takes advantage of the circumstance of Orestes being an Argive, to trace back the now historical union of the two countries to a period where Fancy is free to add what links she pleases to the brittle bonds of international association

Such is a rapid sketch of the principal religious and political relations, some notion of which is necessary to enable the general English reader to enter with sympathy on the perusal of the very powerful and singular drama of the Eumenides The professional student, of course, will not content himself with what he finds here, but will seek for complete satisfaction in the luminous pages of Thirlwall and Grote—in the learned articles of Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, in the notes of Schoemann, and, above all, in the rare Dissertations of Ottfried Muller, accompanying his edition of the Eumenides—a work which I have read once and again with mingled admiration and delight—from which I have necessarily drawn with no stinted hand in my endeavours to comprehend the Orestean trilogy for myself, and to make it comprehensible to others; and which I most earnestly recommend to all classical students as a pattern-specimen of erudite architecture raised by the hand of a master, from whom, even in his points of most baseless speculation (as what German is without such?), more is to be learned than from the triple-fanged certainties of vulgar commentators.

THE EUMENIDES

Scene.—In front of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

The Pythoness.

Old Earth, primeval prophetess, I first

With these my prayers invoke; and Themis next,

Who doth her mother’s throne and temple both

Inherit, as the legend runs; and third

In lot’s due course, another Earth-born maid

The unforced homage of the land received,

Titanian Phœbe; she in natal gift

With her own name her hoary right bequeathed

To Phœbus: he from rocky Delos’ lake

To Attica’s ship-cruised bays was wafted, whence

He in Parnassus fixed his sure abode.

Hither with pious escort they attend him:

The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path,

Smoothing the rugged desert where he comes:

The thronging people own him, and king Delphos,

The land’s high helmsman, flings his portals wide.

Jove with divinest skill his heart inspires,

And now the fourth on this dread seat enthroned

Sits Loxias, prophet of his father Jove.

These be the gods, whom chiefly I invoke:

But thee, likewise, who ’fore this temple dwellest,

Pallas, I pray, and you, ye Nymphs that love

The hollow Corycian rock, the frequent haunt

Of pleasant birds, the home of awful gods.

Thee, Bromius, too, I worship, not unweeting

How, led by thee, the furious Thyads rushed

To seize the godless Pentheus, ev’n as a hare

Is dogged to death. And you, the fountains pure

Of Pleistus, and Poseidon’s mighty power

I pray, and Jove most high, that crowns all things

With consummation. These the gods that lead me

To the prophetic seat, and may they grant me

Best-omened entrance; may consulting Greeks,

If any be, by custom’d lot approach;

For as the gods my bosom stir, I pour

The fateful answer.

[She goes into the Temple, but suddenly returns.

O horrid tale to tell! O sight to see

Most horrible! that drives me from the halls

Of Loxias, so that I nor stand nor run,

But, like a beast fourfooted stumble on,

Losing the gait and station of my kind,

A gray-haired woman, weaker than a child!

Up to the garlanded recess I walked,

And on the navel-stone behold! a man

With crime polluted to the altar clinging,

And in his bloody hand he held a sword

Dripping with recent murder, and a branch

Of breezy olive, with flocks of fleecy wool

All nicely tipt. Even thus I saw the man;

And stretched before him an unearthly host

Of strangest women, on the sacred seats

Sleeping—not women, but a Gorgon brood,

And worse than Gorgons, or the ravenous crew

That filched the feast of Phineus (such I’ve seen

In painted terror); but these are wingless, black,

Incarnate horrors, and with breathings dire

Snort unapproachable, and from their eyes

Pestiferous beads of poison they distil.

Such uncouth sisterhood, apparel’d so,

From all affinity of gods or men

Divorced, from me and from the gods be far,

And from all human homes! Nor can the land,

That lends these unblest hags a home, remain

Uncursed by fearful scourges. But the god,

Thrice-potent Loxias himself will ward

His holiest shrine from lawless outrage. Him

Physician, prophet, soothsayer, we call,

Cleansing from guilt the blood-polluted hall.

[Exit.

The interior of the Delphic Temple is now presented to view.Orestesis seen clinging to the navel-stone; theEumenideslie sleeping on the seats around. In the backgroundHermesbesideOrestes.EnterApollo.

Apollo[to Orestes].

Trust me, I’ll not betray thee. Far or near,

Thy guardian I, and to thine every foe

No gentle god. Thy madded persecutors

Sleep-captured lie: the hideous host is bound.

Primeval virgins, hoary maids, with whom

Nor god, nor man, nor beast hath known communion.

For evil’s sake they are: in evil depth

Of rayless Tartarus, underneath the ground,

They dwell, of men and of Olympian gods

Abhorred. But hence! nor faint thy heart, though they

Are mighty to pursue from land to land

O’er measureless tracks, from rolling sea to sea,

And sea-swept cities. A bitter pasture truly

Was thine from Fate; but bear all stoutly. Hie thee

Away to Pallas’ city, and embrace

Her ancient image with close-clinging arms.

Just Judges there we will appoint to judge

Thy cause, and with soft-soothing pleas will pluck

The sting from thy offence, and free thee quite

From all thy troubles. Thou know’st that I, the god,

When thou didst strike, myself the blow directed.

Orest.

Liege lord Apollo, justice to the gods

Belongs; in justice, O remember me.

Thy power divine assurance gives that thou

Can’st make thy will a deed.

Apollo.

Fear nought. Trust me.

[To Hermes] And thou, true brother’s blood, true father’s son,

Hermes, attend, and to this mission gird thee.

Fulfil the happy omen of thy name,

The Guide, and guide this suppliant on his way.

For Jove respects thy function and thy pride,

The prosperous convoy, and the faithful guide.

[ExitHermes,leadingOrestes. Apolloretires.

Enterthe Shade of Clytemnestra.

Clytem.

Sleeping? All sleeping! Ho! What need of sleepers?

While I roam restless, of my fellow-dead

Dishonoured and reproached, by fault of you,

That when I slew swift vengeance overtook me.

But being slain myself, my avengers sleep

And leave my cause to drift! Hear me, sleepers!

Such taunts I bear, such contumelious gibes,

Yet not one god is touched with wrath to avenge

My death, who died by matricidal hands.

Behold these wounds! look through thy sleep, and see!

Read with thy heart; some things the soul may scan

More clearly, when the sensuous lid hath dropt,

Nor garish day confounds. Full oft have ye

Of my libations sipped the wineless streams,

The soothings of my sober sacrifice,

The silent supper from the solemn altar,

At midnight hour when only ye are worshipped.

But now all this beneath your feet lies trampled.

The man is gone; fled like a hind! he snaps

The meshes of your toils, and makes—O shame!

Your Deity a mark for scoffers’ eyes

To wink at! Hear me, ye infernal hags,

Unhoused from hell! For my soul’s peace I plead,

Once Clytemnestra famous, now a dream.

[TheChorusmoans.

Ye moan! the while the man hath fled, and seeks

For help from those that are no friends to me.

[TheChorusmoans again.

Sleep-bound art thou. Hast thou no bowels for me?

My Furies sleep, and let my murderer flee.

[TheChorusgroans.

Groaning and sleeping! Up! What work hast thou

To do, but thine own work of sorrow? Rouse thee!

[TheChorusgroans again.

Sleep and fatigue have sworn a league to bind

The fearful dragon with strong mastery.

Chorus

[with redoubled groans and shrill cries].

Hold! seize him! seize him! seize there! there! there! hold!

Clytem.

Thy dream scents blood, and, like a dog that doth

In dreams pursue the chase, even so dost thou

At phantasms bark and howl. To work! to work!

Let not fatigue o’ermaster thus thy strength,

Nor slumber soothe the sense of sharpest wrong.

Torture thy liver with reproachful thoughts;

Reproaches are the pricks that goad the wise.

Up! blow a blast of bloody breath behind him!

Dry up his marrow with the fiery vengeance!

Follow! give chase! pursue him to the death!

Chorus,starting up in hurry and confusion.

Voice 1.

Awake! awake! rouse her as I rouse thee!

Voice 2.

Dost sleep? arise! dash drowsy sleep away!

Brave dreams be prelude to brave deed! Ho, sisters!

STROPHE I.

Voice 1.

Shame, sisters, shame!

Insult and injury!

Shame, O shame!

Voice 2.

Shame on me, too: a bootless, fruitless shame!

Voice 1.

Insult and injury,

Sorrow and shame!

Burden unbearable,

Shame! O shame!

Voice 2.

The snare hath sprung: flown is the goodly game.

Voice 3.

I slept, and when sleeping

He sprang from my keeping;

Shame, O shame!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Voice 1.

O son of Jove, in sooth,

If thou wilt hear the truth,

Robber’s thy name!

Voice 2.

Thou being young dost overleap the old.

Voice 1.

A suppliant, godless,

And bloodstained, I see,

And bitter to parents,

Harboured by thee.

Voice 2.

Apollo’s shrine a mother-murderer’s hold!

Voice 3.

Apollo rewardeth

Whom Justice discardeth,

And robber’s his name!

STROPHE II.

Voice 1.

A voice of reproach

Came through my sleeping,

Like a charioteer

With his swift lash sweeping.

Voice 2.

Thorough my heart,

Thorough my liver,

Keen as the cold ice

Shot through the river.

Voice 3.

Harsh as the headsman,

Ruthless exacter,

When tearless he scourges

The doomed malefactor.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Voice 1.

All blushless and bold

The gods that are younger

Would rule o’er the old,

With the right of the stronger.

Voice 2.

The Earth’s navel-stone

So holy reputed,

All gouted with blood,

With fresh murder polluted,

Behold, O behold!

Voice 3.

By the fault of the younger,

The holiest holy

Is holy no longer.

STROPHE III.

Voice 1.

Thyself thy hearth with this pollution stained

Thyself, a prophet, free and unconstrained

Voice 2.

O’er the laws of the gods

Thou hast recklessly ridden,

Dispensing to men

Gifts to mortals forbidden;

Voice 3.

Us thou hast reft

Of our name and our glory,

Us and the Fates,

The primeval, the hoary.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Voice 1.

I hate the god. Though underneath the ground

He hide my prey, there, too, he shall be found.

Voice 2.

I at each shrine

Where the mortal shall bend him,

Will jealously watch,

That no god may defend him.

Voice 3.

Go where he will,

A blood-guilty ranger,

Hotly will hound him still

I, the Avenger!

Apollo.

Begone! I charge thee, leave these sacred halls!

From this prophetic cell avaunt! lest thou

A feathered serpent in thy breast receive,

Shot from my golden bow; and, inly pained,

Thou vomit forth black froth of murdered men,

Belching the clotted slaughter by thy maw

Insatiate sucked. These halls suit not for thee;

But where beheading, eye-out-digging dooms,

Abortions, butcheries, barrenness abound,

Where mutilations, flayings, torturings,

Make wretches groan, on pointed stakes impaled,

There fix your seats; there hold the horrid feasts,

In which your savage hearts exultant revel,

Of gods abominate—maids whose features foul

Speak your foul tempers plainly. Find a home

In some grim lion’s den sanguinolent, not

In holy temples which your breath pollutes.

Depart, ye sheep unshepherded, whom none

Of all the gods may own!

Chorus.

Liege lord, Apollo,

Ours now to speak, and thine to hear: thyself

Not aided only, but the single cause

Wert thou of all thou blamest.

Apollo.

How so? Speak!

Chorus.

Thine was the voice that bade him kill his mother.

Apollo.

Mine was the voice bade him avenge his father.

Chorus.

All reeking red with gore thou didst receive him.

Apollo.

Not uninvited to these halls he came.

Chorus.

And we come with him. Wheresoe’er he goes,

His convoy we. Our function is to follow.

Apollo.

Follow! but from this holy threshold keep

Unholy feet.

Chorus.

We, where we must go, go

By virtue of our office.

Apollo.

A goodly vaunt!

Your office what?

Chorus.

From hearth and home we chase

All mother-murderers.

Apollo.

She was murdered here,

That murdered first her husband.

Chorus.

Yet should she

By her own body’s fruitage have been slain?

Apollo.

Thus speaking, ye mispraise the sacred rites

Of matrimonial Hera and of Jove,

Unvalued make fair Aphrodite’s grace,

Whence dearest joys to mortal man descend.

The nuptial bed, to man and woman fated,

Hath obligation stronger than an oath,

And Justice guards it. Ye who watch our crimes,

If that loose reins to nuptial sins ye yield,

Offend, and grossly. If the murtherous wife

Escape your sharp-set vengeance, how can ye

Pursue Orestes justly? I can read

No even judgment in your partial scales,

In this more wrathful, and in that more mild.

She who is wise shall judge between us, Pallas.

Chorus.

The man is mine already. I will keep him.

Apollo.

He’s gone; and thou’lt but waste thy toil to follow.

Chorus.

Thy words shall not be swords, to cut my honors.

Apollo.

Crowned with such honors, I would tear them from me!

Chorus.

A mighty god beside thy father’s throne

Art thou, Apollo. Me this mother’s blood

Goads on to hound this culprit to his doom.

Apollo.

And I will help this man, champion and save him,

My suppliant, my client; should I not,

Both gods and men would brand the treachery.

The scene changes to the Temple of Pallas in Athens. A considerable interval of time is supposed to have elapsed between the two parts of the Play.

EnterOrestes.

Orest.

Athena queen, at Loxias’ hest I come.

Receive the suppliant with propitious grace.

Not now polluted, nor unwashed from guilt

I cling to the first altar; time hath mellowed

My hue of crime, and friendly men receive

The curse-beladen wanderer to their homes.

True to the god’s oracular command,

O’er land and sea with weary foot I fare,

To find thy shrine, O goddess, and clasp thine image;

And now redemption from thy doom I wait.

EnterChorus.

Chorus.

’Tis well. The man is here. His track I know.

The sure advisal of our voiceless guide

Follow; as hound a wounded stag pursues,

We track the blood, and snuff the coming death.

Soothly we pant, with life-outwearying toils

Sore overburdened! O’er the wide sea far

I came, and with my wingless flight outstripped

The couriers of the deep. Here he must lie,

In some pent corner skulking. In my nostrils

The scent of mortal blood doth laugh me welcome.

Chorus.

Voice 1.

Look, sisters, look!

Voice 2.

On the right, on the left, and round about,

Search every nook!

Voice 3.

Warily watch him,

The blood-guilty ranger,

That Fraud may not snatch him,

From me the Avenger!

Voice 1.

At the shrine of the goddess,

He bendeth him lowly,

Embracing her image,

The ancient the holy.

Voice 2.

With hands crimson-reeking,

He clingeth profanely,

A free pardon seeking

From Pallas—how vainly!

Voice 3.

For blood, when it floweth,

For once and for ever

It sinks, and it knoweth

To mount again never.

Voice 1.

Thou shalt pay me with pain;

From thy heart, from thy liver

I will suck, I will drain

Thy life’s crimson river.

Voice 2.

The cup from thy veins

I will quaff it, how rarely!

I will wither thy brains,

Thou shalt pine late and early.

Voice 3.

I will drag thee alive,

For thy guilt matricidal,

To the dens of the damned,

For thy lasting abidal.

EPODE.

Tutti.

There imprisoned thou shalt see

All who living sinned with thee,

’Gainst the gods whom men revere,

’Gainst honoured guest, or parents dear;

All the guilty who inherited

Woe, even as their guilt had merited.

For Hades, in his halls of gloom,

With a justly portioned doom,

Binds them down securely:

All the crimes of human kind,

In the tablet of his mind,

He hath graven surely.

Orest.

By manifold ills I have been taught to know

All expiations; and the time to speak

I know, and to be silent. In this matter

As a wise master taught me, so my tongue

Shapes utterance. The curse that bound me sleeps,

My harsh-grained guilt is finer worn, the deep

Ensanguined stain washed to a softer hue;

Still reeking fresh with gore, on Phœbus’ hearth,

The blood of swine hath now wrought my lustration,

And I have held communings with my kind

Once and again unharming. Time, that smooths

All things, hath smoothed the front of my offence.

With unpolluted lips I now implore

Thy aid, Athena, of this land the queen.

Myself, a firm ally, I pledge to thee,

Myself, the Argive people, and their land,

Thy bloodless prize. And whether distant far

On Libyan plains beside Tritonian pools,

Thy natal flood, with forward foot firm planted,

Erect, or with decorous stole high-seated,

Thy friends thou aidest, or with practised eye

The ordered battle on Phlegrean fields

Thou musterest —come!—for gods can hear from far—

And from these woes complete deliverance send!

Chorus.

Not all Apollo’s, all Athena’s power

Shall aid thee. Thou, of gods and men forsook,

Shalt pine and dwindle, stranger to the name

Of joy, a wasted shadow, bloodless sucked

To fatten wrathful gods. Thou dost not speak,

But, as a thing devoted, standest dumb,

My prey, even mine! my living banquet thou,

My fireless victim. List, and thou shalt hear

My song, that binds thee with its viewless chain.

Chorus.

Deftly, deftly weave the dance!

Sisters lift the dismal strain!

Sing the Furies, justly dealing

Dooms deserved to guilty mortals;

Deftly, deftly lift the strain!

Whoso lifted hands untainted

Him no Furies’ wrath shall follow,

He shall live unharmed by me;

But who sinned, as this offender,

Hiding foul ensanguined hands,

We with him are present, bearing

Unhired witness for the dead;

We will tread his heels, exacting

Blood for blood, even to the end.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Mother Night that bore me,

A scourge, to go before thee,

To scourge, with stripes delightless,

The seeing and the sightless,

Hear me, I implore thee,

O Mother Night!

Mother Night that bore me,

The son of Leto o’er me

Rough rides, in thy despite.

From me, the just pursuer,

He shields the evil-doer,

The son to me devoted,

For mother-murder noted,

He claims against the right.

Where the victim lies,

Let the death-hymn rise!

Lift ye the hymn of the Furies amain!

The gleeless song, and the lyreless strain,

That bindeth the heart with a viewless chain,

With notes of distraction and maddening sorrow,

Blighting the brain, and burning the marrow!

Where the victim lies,

Let the death-hymn rise,

The hymn that binds with a viewless chain!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Mother Night that bore me,

The Fate that was before me,

This portion gave me surely,

This lot for mine securely,

To bear the scourge before thee,

O Mother Night!

And, in embrace untender

To hold the red offender,

That sinned in gods’ despite,

And wheresoe’er he wend him,

His keepers close we tend him.

In living or in dying,

From us there is no flying,

The daughters of the Night.

Where the victim lies,

Let the death-hymn rise!

Lift ye the hymn of the Furies amain!

The gleeless song, and the lyreless strain,

That bindeth the heart with a viewless chain,

With notes of distraction and maddening sorrow,

Blighting the brain, and burning the marrow!

Where the victim lies,

Let the death-hymn rise,

The hymn that binds with a viewless chain!

STROPHE II.

From primal ages hoary,

This lot, our pride and glory,

Appointed was to us,

To Hades’ gloomy portal,

To chase the guilty mortal,

But from Olympians, reigning

In lucid seats, abstaining,

Their nectared feasts we taste not,

Their sun-white robes invest not

The maids of Erebus.

But, with scourge and with ban,

We prostrate the man,

Who with smooth-woven wile,

And a fair-faced smile,

Hath planted a snare for his friend;

Though fleet, we shall find him,

Though strong, we shall bind him,

Who planted a snare for his friend.

ANTISTROPHE II.

This work of labour earnest,

This task severest, sternest,

Let none remove from us.

To all their due we render,

Each deeply-marked offender

Our searching eye reproveth,

Though blissful Jove removeth,

From his Olympian glory,

Abhorr’d of all and gory,

The maids of Erebus.

But, swift as the wind,

We follow and find,

Till he stumbles apace,

Who had hoped in the race,

To escape from the grasp of the Furies!

And we trample him low,

Till he writhe in his woe,

Who had fled from the chase of the Furies.

STROPHE III.

The thoughts heaven-scaling

Of men haughty-hearted,

At our breath, unavailing

Like smoke they departed.

Our jealous foot hearing,

They stumble before us,

And bite the ground, fearing

Our dark-vested chorus.

ANTISTROPHE III.

They fall, and perceive not

The foe that hath found them;

They are blind and believe not,

Thick darkness hath bound them.

From the halls of the fated,

A many-voiced wailing

Of sorrow unsated

Ascends unavailing.

STROPHE IV.

For the Furies work readily

Vengeance unsparing,

Surely and steadily

Ruin preparing.

Dark crimes strictly noted,

Sure-memoried they store them;

And, judgment once voted,

Prayers vainly implore them.

For they know no communion

With the bright-throned union

Of the gods of the day;

Where the living appear not,

Where the pale Shades near not,

In regions delightless,

All sunless and sightless,

They dwell far away.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

What mortal reveres not

Our deity awful?

When he names us, who fears not

To work deeds unlawful?

From times hoary-dated,

This statute for ever

Divinely was fated;

Time takes from it never.

For dishonour we bear not,

Though the bright thrones we share not

With the gods of the day.

Our right hoary-dated

We claim unabated,

Though we dwell, where delightless

No sun cheers the sightless,

’Neath the ground far away.

EnterAthena.

Athena.

The cry that called me from Scamander’s banks

I heard afar, even as I hied to claim

The land for mine which the Achæan chiefs

Assigned me, root and branch, my portion fair

Of the conquered roods, a goodly heritage

To Theseus’ sons. Thence, with unwearied foot,

I journeyed here by these high-mettled steeds

Car-borne, my wingless ægis in the gale

Full-bosomed whirring. And now, who are ye,

A strange assembly, though I fear you not,

Here gathered at my gates? I speak to both,

To thee the stranger, that with suppliant arms

Enclasps my statue—Whence art thou? And you,

Like to no generation seed-begotten,

Like to no goddess ever known of gods,

Like to no breathing forms of mortal kind;

But to reproach with contumelious phrase

Who wrong not us, nor courtesy allows,

Nor Themis wills. Whence are ye?

Chorus.

Daughter of Jove,

’Tis shortly said: of the most ancient Night

The tristful daughters we, and our dread name,

Even from the fearful Curse we bear, we borrow.

Athena.

I know you, and the dreaded name ye bear.

Chorus.

Our sacred office, too—

Athena.

That I would hear.

Chorus.

The guilty murderer from his home we hunt.

Athena.

And the hot chase, where ends it?

Chorus.

There, where joy

Is never named.

Athena.

And is this man the quarry,

That, with hoarse-throated whoop, thou now pursuest?

Chorus.

He slew his mother—dared the worst of crimes.

Athena.

What mightier fear, what strong necessity

Spurred him to this?

Chorus.

What fear so strong that it

Should prompt a mother’s murder?

Athena.

There are two parties. Only one hath spoken.

Chorus.

He’ll neither swear himself, nor take my oath.

Athena.

The show of justice, not fair Justice self,

Thou lovest.

Chorus.

How? Speak—thou so rich in wisdom.

Athena.

Oaths are no proof, to make the wrong the right.

Chorus.

Prove thou. A true and righteous judgment judge.

Athena.

I shall be judge, betwixt this man and thee

To speak the doom.

Chorus.

Even thou. Thy worthy deeds

Give thee the worth in this high strife to judge.

Athena.

Now, stranger, ’tis thy part to speak. Whence come,

Thy lineage what, and what thy fortunes, say,

And then refute this charge against thee brought.

For well I note the sacredness about thee,

That marks the suppliant who atonement seeks,

In old Ixíon’s guise; and thou hast fled

For refuge, to my holy altar clinging.

Answer me this, and plainly tell thy tale.

Orest.

Sovran Athena, first from these last words

A cause of much concernment be removed.

I seek for no atonement; no pollution

Cleaves to thy sacred image from my touch.

Of this receive a proof. Thou know’st a murderer

Being unatoned a voiceless penance bears,

Till, from the hand of friendly man, the blood

Of a young beast from lusty veins hath sprent him,

Cleansing from guiltiness. These sacred rites

Have been performed: the blood of beasts hath sprent me,

The lucent lymph hath purged the filthy stain.

For this enough. As for my race, I am

An Argive born: and for my father, he

Was Agamemnon, king of men, by whom

The chosen admiral of the masted fleet,

The ancient city of famous Priam thou

Didst sheer uncity. Sad was his return;

For, with dark-bosomed guile, my mother killed him,

Snared in the meshes of a tangled net,

And of the bloody deed the bath was witness.

I then, returning to my father’s house

After long exile—I confess the deed—

Slew her who bore me, a dear father’s murder

With murder quitting. The blame—what blame may be—

I share with Loxias, who fore-augured griefs

To goad my heart if, by my fault, such guilt

Should go unpunished. I have spoken. Thou

What I have done, if justly or unjustly,

Decide. Thy doom, howe’er it fall, contents me.

Athena.

In this high cause to judge, no mortal man

May venture; nor may I divide the law

Of right and wrong, in such keen strife of blood.

For thee, in that thou comest to my halls,

In holy preparation perfected,

A pure and harmless suppliant, I, as pledged

Already thy protector, may not judge thee.

For these, ’tis no light thing to slight their office.

For, should I send them hence uncrowned with triumph,

Dripping fell poison from their wrathful breasts,

They’d leave a noisome pestilence in the land

Behind them. Thus both ways I’m sore perplexed;

Absent or present, they do bring a curse.

But since this business needs a swift decision,

Sworn judges I’ll appoint, and they shall judge

Of blood in every age. Your testimonies

And proofs meanwhile, and all that clears the truth,

Provide. Myself, to try this weighty cause,

My choicest citizens will choose, and bind them

By solemn oath to judge a righteous judgment.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Ancient rights and hoary uses

Now shall yield to young abuses,

Right and wrong together chime,

If the vote

Fail to note

Mother-murder for a crime.

Murder now, made nimble-handed,

Wide shall rage without control;

Sons against their parents banded

Deeds abhorred

With the sword

Now shall work, while ages roll.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Now no more, o’er deeds unlawful,

Shall the sleeping Mænads awful

Watch, with jealous eyes to scan;

Free and chainless,

Wild and reinless,

Stalks o’er Earth each murtherous plan.

Friend to friend his loss deploreth,

Lawless rapine, treacherous wound,

But in vain his plaint he poureth;

To his bruises

Earth refuses

Balm; no balm on Earth is found.

STROPHE II.

Now no more, from grief’s prostration,

Cries and groans

Heaven shall scale with invocation—

“Justice hear my supplication,

Hear me, Furies, from your thrones!”

From the recent sorrow bleeding,

Father thus or mother calls,

Vainly with a piteous pleading,

For the House of Justice falls.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Blest the man in whose heart reigneth

Holy Fear;

Fear his heart severely traineth;

Blest, from troublous woe who gaineth

Ripest fruits of wisdom clear;

But who sports, a careless liver,

In the sunshine’s flaunting show,

Holy Justice, he shall never

Thy severest virtue know.

STROPHE III.

Lordless life, or despot-ridden,

Be they both from me forbidden.

To the wise mean strength is given,

Thus the gods have ruled in heaven;

Gods, that gently or severely

Judge, discerning all things clearly.

Mark my word, I tell thee truly,

Pride, that lifts itself unduly,

Had a godless heart for sire.

Healthy-minded moderation

Wins the wealthy consummation,

Every heart’s desire.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Yet, again, I tell thee truly,

At Justice’ altar bend thee duly.

Wean thine eye from lawless yearning

After gain; with godless spurning

Smite not thou that shrine most holy.

Punishment, that travels slowly,

Comes at last, when least thou fearest.

Yet, once more; with truth sincerest,

Love thy parents and revere,

And the guest, that to protect him,

Claims thy guardian roof, respect him,

With an holy fear.

STROPHE IV.

Whoso, with no forced endeavour,

Sin-eschewing liveth,

Him to hopeless ruin never

Jove the Saviour giveth.

But whose hand, with greed rapacious,

Draggeth all things for his prey,

He shall strike his flag audacious,

When the god-sent storm shall bray,

Winged with fate at last;

When the stayless sail is flapping,

When the sail-yard swings, and, snapping,

Crashes to the blast.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

He shall call, but none shall hear him,

When dark ocean surges;

None with saving hand shall near him,

When his prayer he urges.

Laughs the god, to see him vainly

Grasping at the crested rock;

Fool, who boasted once profanely

Firm to stand in Fortune’s shock;

Who so great had been

His freighted wealth with fearful crashing,

On the rock of Justice dashing,

Dies, unwept, unseen.

EnterAthena,behind a Herald.

Athena.

Herald, proclaim the diet, and command

The people to attention; with strong breath

Give the air-shattering Tyrrhene trump free voice,

To speak shrill-throated to the assembled throngs;

And, while the judges take their solemn seats,

In hushed submission, let the city hear

My laws that shall endure for aye; and these,

In hushed submission, wait the righteous doom.

EnterApollo.

Chorus.

Sovran Apollo, rule where thou art lord;

But here what business brings the prophet? Speak.

Apollo.

I come a witness of the truth; this man

Is suppliant to me, he on my hearth

Found refuge, him I purified from blood.

I, too, am patron of his cause, I share

The blame, if blame there be, in that he slew

His mother. Pallas, order thou the trial.

Athena [to the Furies].

Speak ye the first, ’tis wiseliest ordered thus,

That, who complains, his plaint set forth in order,

Point after point, articulately clear.

Chorus.

Though we be many, yet our words are few.

Answer thou singly, as we singly ask;

This first—art thou the murderer of thy mother?

Orest.

I did the deed. This fact hath no denial.

Chorus.

Once worsted! With three fits I gain the trial.

Orest.

Boast, when thou seest me fall. As yet I stand.

Chorus.

This answer now—how didst thou do the deed.

Orest.

Thus; with my pointed dagger, in the neck

I smote her.

Chorus.

Who the bloody deed advised?

Orest.

The god of oracles. Here he stands to witness.

Chorus.

Commanding murder with prophetic nod?

Orest.

Ay! and even now I do not blame the god.

Chorus.

Soon, soon, thou’lt blame him, when the pebble drops

Into the urn of justice with thy doom.

Orest.

My murdered sire will aid me from the tomb.

Chorus.

Trust in the dead; in thy dead mother trust.

Orest.

She died, with two foul blots well marked for vengeance.

Chorus.

How so? This let the judges understand

Orest.

The hand that killed her husband killed my father.

Chorus.

If she for her crimes died, why livest thou?

Orest.

If her thou didst not vex, why vex me now?

Chorus.

She slew a man, but not of kindred blood.

Orest.

Is the son’s blood all to the mother kin,

None to the father?

Chorus.

Peace, thou sin-stained monster!

Dost thou abjure the dearest blood, the mother’s

That bore thee ’neath her zone?

Orest. [to Apollo].

Be witness thou.

Apollo, speak for me, if by the rule

Of Justice she was murdered. That the deed

Was done, and by these hands, I not deny;

If justly or unjustly blood was spilt,

Thou knowest. Teach me how to make reply.

Apollo.

I speak to you, Athena’s mighty council;

And what I speak is truth: the prophet lies not.

From my oracular seat was published never

To man, to woman, or to city aught

By my Olympian sire unfathered Ye

How Justice sways the scale will wisely weigh;

But this remember—what my father wills

Is law. Jove’s will is stronger than an oath.

Chorus.

Jove, say’st thou, touched thy tongue with inspiration,

To teach Orestes that he might avenge

A father’s death by murdering a mother?

Apollo.

His was no common father—Agamemnon,

Honoured the kingly sceptre god-bestowed

To bear—he slain by a weak woman, not

By furious Amazon with far-darting bow,

But in such wise as I shall now set forth

To thee, Athena, and to these that sit

On this grave bench of judgment. Him returning

All prosperous from the wars, with fairest welcome

She hailed her lord, and in the freshening bath

Bestowed him; there, ev’n while he laved, she came

Spreading death’s mantle out, and, in a web

Of curious craft entangled, stabbed him. Such

Was the sad fate of this most kingly man,

Of all revered, the fleet’s high admiral.

A tale it is to prick your heart with pity,

Even yours that seal the judgment.

Chorus.

Jove, thou sayest,

Prefers the father: yet himself did bind

With bonds his hoary-dated father Kronos.

Make this with that to square, and thou art wise.

Ye judges, mark me, if I reason well.

Apollo.

O odious monsters, of all gods abhorred!

A chain made fast may be untied again.

This ill hath many cures; but, when the dust

Hath once drunk blood, no power can raise it. Jove

Himself doth know no charm to disenchant

Death; other things he turns both up and down,

At his good pleasure, fainting not in strength.

Chorus.

Consider well whereto thy words will lead thee.

How shall this man, who spilt his mother’s blood,

Dwell in his father’s halls at Argos? How

Devoutly kneel at the public altar? How

With any clanship share lustration?

Apollo.

This

Likewise I’ll answer. Mark me! whom we call

The mother begets not; she is but the nurse,

Whose fostering breast the new-sown seed receives.

The father truly gets; the dam but cherishes

A stranger-bud, that, if the gods be kind,

May blossom soon, and bear. Behold a proof!

Without a mother may a child be born,

Not so without a father. Which to witness

Here is this daughter of Olympian Jove,

Not nursed in darkness, in the womb, and yet

She stands a goddess, heavenly mother ne’er

Bore greater. Pallas, here I plight my faith

To magnify thy city and thy people;

And I this suppliant to thy hearth hath sent,

Thy faithful ally ever. May the league

Here sworn to-day their children’s children bind!

Athena

Now judges, as your judgment is, I charge you, So vote the doom. Words we have had enough.

Chorus.

Our quiver’s emptied. We await the doom.

Athena

How should the sentence fall to keep me free Of your displeasure?

Chorus.

What we said we said.

Even as your heart informs you, nothing fearing,

So judges justly vote, the oath revering.

Athena.

Now, hear my ordinance, Athenians! Ye,

In this first strife of blood, umpires elect,

While age on age shall roll, the sons of Aegeus

This Council shall revere. Here, on this hill,

The embattled Amazons pitched their tents of yore,

What time with Theseus striving, they their tents

Against these high-towered infant walls uptowered.

To Mars they sacrificed, and, to this day,

This Mars’ Hill speaks their story. Here, Athenians,

Shall reverence of the gods, and holy fear,

That shrinks from wrong, both night and day possess.

A place apart, so long as fickle change

Your ancient laws disturbs not; but, if this

Pure fount with muddy streams ye trouble, ye

Shall draw the draught in vain From anarchy

And slavish masterdom alike my ordinance

Preserve my people! Cast not from your walls

All high authority; for where no fear

Awful remains, what mortal will be just?

This holy reverence use, and ye possess

A bulwark, and a safeguard of the land,

Such as no race of mortals vaunteth, far

In Borean Scythia, or the land of Pelops.

This council I appoint intact to stand

From gain, a venerated conclave, quick

In pointed indignation, when all sleep

A sleepless watch These words of warning hear,

My citizens for ever. Now ye judges

Rise, take your pebbles, and by vote decide,

The sacred oath revering. I have spoken.

TheAeropagitesadvance; and, as each puts his pebble into the urn, theChorusandApolloalternately address them as follows:

Chorus.

I warn ye well: the sisterhood beware,

Whose wrath hangs heavier than the land may bear.

Apollo.

I warn ye well: Jove is my father; fear

To turn to nought the words of me, his seer.

Chorus.

If thou dost plead, where thou hast no vocation,

For blood, will men respect thy divination?

Apollo.

Must then my father share thy condemnation,

When first he heard Ixion’s supplication?

Chorus.

Thou say’st. But I, if justice be denied me,

Will sorely smite the land that so defied me.

Apollo.

Among the gods the elder, and the younger,

Thou hast no favour; I shall prove the stronger.

Chorus.

Such were thy deeds in Pheres’ house, deceiving

The Fates, and mortal men from death reprieving.

Apollo.

Was it a crime to help a host? to lend

A friendly hand to raise a sinking friend?

Chorus.

Thou the primeval Power didst undermine,

Mocking the hoary goddesses with wine.

Apollo.

Soon, very soon, when I the cause shall gain,

Thou’lt spit thy venom on the ground in vain.

Chorus.

Thou being young, dost jeer my ancient years

With youthful insolence; till the doom appears,

I’ll patient wait; my hot-spurred wrath I’ll stay,

And even-poised betwixt two tempers sway.

Athena.

My part remains; and I this crowning pebble

Drop to Orestes; for I never knew

The mother’s womb that bore me. I give honor,

Save in my virgin nature, to the male

In all things; all my father lives in me.

Not blameless be the wife, who dared to slay

Her husband, lord and ruler of her home.

My voice is for Orestes; though the votes

Fall equal from the urn, my voice shall save him.

Now shake the urn, to whom this duty falls,

And tell the votes.

Orest.

O Phœbus, how shall end

This doubtful issue?

Chorus.

O dark Night, my mother,

Behold these things!

Orest.

One moment blinds me quite,

Or to a blaze of glory opes my eyes.

Chorus.

We sink to shame, or to more honor rise.

Apollo.

Judges, count well the pebbles as they fall,

And with just jealousy divide them. One

Being falsely counted works no simple harm.

One little pebble saves a mighty house.

Athena.

Hear now the doom. This man from blood is free.

The votes are equal; he escapes by me.

Orest.

O Pallas, Saviour of my father’s house,

Restorer of the exile’s hope, Athena,

I praise thee! Now belike some Greek will say,

The Argive man revisiteth the homes

And fortunes of his father, by the aid

Of Pallas, Loxias, and Jove the Saviour

All-perfecting, who pled the father’s cause,

Fronting the wrathful Furies of the mother!

I now depart: and to this land I leave,

And to this people, through all future time,

An oath behind me, that no lord of Argos

Shall ever brandish the well-pointed spear

Against this friendly land. When, from the tomb,

I shall perceive who disregards this oath

Of my sons’ sons, I will perplex that man

With sore perplexities inextricable;

Ways of despair, and evil-birded paths

Shall be his portion, cursing his own choice.

But if my vows be duly kept, with those

That in the closely-banded league shall aid

Athena’s city, I am present ever.

Then fare thee well, thou and thy people! Never

May foe escape thy grasp! When thou dost struggle,

Safety and victory attend thy spear!

[Exit.

Chorus.

Curse on your cause,

Ye gods that are younger!

O’er the time-hallowed laws

Rough ye ride as the stronger.

Of the prey that was ours

Ye with rude hands bereave us,

’Mid the dark-dreaded Powers

Shorn of honor ye leave us.

Behold, on the ground

From a heart of hostility,

I sprinkle around

Black gouts of sterility!

A plague I will bring,

With a dry lichen spreading;

No green blade shall spring

Where the Fury is treading.

To abortion I turn

The birth of the blooming,

Where the plague-spot shall burn

Of my wrath, life-consuming.

I am mocked, but in vain

They rejoice at my moaning;

They shall pay for my pain,

With a fearful atoning,

Who seized on my right,

And, with wrong unexampled,

On the daughters of Night

High scornfully trampled.

Athena

Be ruled by me your heavy-bosomed groans

Refrain Not vanquished thou, but the fair vote

Leapt equal from the urn, with no disgrace

To thee. From Jove himself clear witness came;

The oracular god that urged the deed, the same

Stood here to vouch it, that Orestes might not

Reap harm from his obedience. Soothe ye, therefore;

Cast not your bolted vengeance on this land,

Your gouts of wrath divine distil not, stings

Of pointed venom, with keen corrosive power

Eating life’s seeds, all barrenness and blight.

A home within this land I pledge you, here

A shrine, a refuge, and a hearth secure,

Where ye on shining thrones shall sit, my city

Yielding devoutest homage to your power.

Chorus.

Curse on your cause,

Ye gods that are younger!

O’er the time-hallowed laws

Rough ye ride, as the stronger.

Of the prey that was ours

Ye with rude hands bereave us,

’Mid the dark-dreaded Powers

Shorn of honor ye leave us.

Behold, on the ground

From a heart of hostility,

I sprinkle around

Black gouts of sterility!

A plague I will bring

With a dry lichen spreading;

No green blade shall spring

Where the Fury is treading.

To abortion I turn

The birth of the blooming,

Where the plague-spot shall burn

Of my wrath, life-consuming.

I am mocked, but in vain

They rejoice at my moaning;

They shall pay for my pain,

With a fearful atoning,

Who seized on my right,

And, with wrong unexampled,

On the daughters of Night

High scornfully trampled.

Athena.

Dishonoured are ye not: Spit not your rancour

On this fair land remediless. Rests my trust

On Jove, the mighty, I of all the gods

Sharing alone the strong keys that unlock

His thunder-halls: but this I name not here.

Yield thou: cast not the seed of reckless speech

To crop the land with woe Soothing the waves

Of bitter anger darkling in thy breast,

Dwell in this land, thy dreadful deity

Sistered with me. When thronging worshippers .

Henceforth shall cull choice firstlings for thine altars,

Praying thy grace to bless the wedded rite,

And the child-bearing womb—then honoured so,

How wise my present counsel thou shalt know.

Chorus.

Voice 1.

I to dwell ’neath the Earth

All clipt of my glory,

In the dark-chambered Earth,

I, the ancient, the hoary!

Voice 2.

I breathe on thee curses,

I cut through thy marrow,

For the insult that pierces

My heart like an arrow.

Voice 3.

Hear my cry, mother Night,

’Gainst the gods that deceived me!

With their harsh-handed might

Of my right they bereaved me.

Athena.

Thy anger I forgive; for thou’rt the elder

But though thy years bring wisdom, to me also

Jove gave a heart, not undiscerning. You—

Mark well my words—if now some foreign land

Ye choose, will rue your choice, and long for Athens.

The years to be shall float more richly fraught

With honor to my citizens; thou shalt hold

An honoured seat beside Erectheus’ home,

Where men and women in marshalled pomp shall pay thee

Such homage, as no land on Earth may render.

But cast not ye on this my chosen land

Whetstones of fury, teaching knives to drink

The blood of tender bowels, madding the heart

With wineless drunkenness, that men shall swell

Like game cocks for the battle; save my city

From brothered strife, and from domestic brawls.

Without the walls, and far from kindred hearths

Rage war, where honor calls, and glory crowns.

A bird of blood within the house I love not.

Use thine election; wisely use it; give

A blessing, and a blessing take; with me

May this land dear to the gods be dear to thee!

Chorus.

Voice 1.

I to dwell ’neath the Earth

All clipt of my glory,

In the dark-chambered Earth

I, the ancient, the hoary!

Voice 2.

I breathe on thee curses,

I cut through thy marrow,

For the insult that pierces

My heart like an arrow.

Voice 3.

Hear my cry, mother Night,

’Gainst the gods that deceived me!

With their harsh-handed might

Of my right they bereaved me.

Athena

To advise thee well I faint not. Never more

Shalt thou, a hoary-dated power, complain

That I, a younger, or my citizens,

From our inhospitable gates expelled thee

Of thy due honors shortened. If respect

For sacred Peitho’s godhead, for the honey

And charming of the tongue may move thee, stay;

But, if ye will go, show of justice none

Remains, with rancour, wrath, and scathe to smite

This land and people. Stands your honoured lot

With me for ever, so ye scorn it not.

Chorus.

Sovran Athena, what sure home receives me?

Athena.

A home from sorrow free. Receive it freely.

Chorus.

And when received, what honors wait me then?

Athena.

No house shall prosper where thy blessing fails.

Chorus.

This by thy grace is sure?

Athena.

I will upbuild

His house who honours thee.

Chorus.

This pledged for ever?

Athena.

I cannot promise what I not perform

Chorus.

Thy words have soothed me, and my wrath relents.

Athena.

Here harboured thou wilt number many friends.

Chorus

Say, then, how shall my hymn uprise to bless thee?

Athena

Hymn things that strike fair victory’s mark: from Earth,

From the sea’s briny dew, and from the sky

Bring blessings, the benignly-breathing gales

On summer wings be wafted to this land,

Let the Earth swell with the exuberant flow

Of fruits and flowers, that want may be unknown.

Bless human seed with increase, but cast out

The impious man; even as a gardener, I

Would tend the flowers, the briars and the thorns

Heaped for the burning. This thy province I

In feats of Mars conspicuous will not fail

To plant this city ’fore all eyes triumphant.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Pallas, thy welcome so kindly compelling

Hath moved me; I scorn not to mingle my dwelling

With thine, and with Jove’s, the all-ruling, thy sire.

The city I scorn not, where Mars guards the portals,

The fortress of gods, the fair grace of Immortals.

I bless thee prophetic; to work thy desire

To the Sun, when he shines in his full-flooded splendour,

Her tribute to thee may the swelling Earth render,

And bounty with bounty conspire!

Athena.

Athens, no trifling gain I’ve won thee.

With rich blessing thou shalt harbour,

Through my grace, these much-prevailing

Sternest-hearted Powers. For they

Rule, o’er human fates appointed,

With far-reaching sway.

Woe to the wretch, by their wrath smitten!

With strokes he knows not whence descending,

Not for his own, for guilt inherited,

They with silent-footed vengeance

Shall o’ertake him: in the dust,

Heaven with piercing cries imploring,

Crushed the sinner lies.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

Far from thy dwelling, and far from thy border,

By the grace of my godhead benignant I order

The blight that may blacken the bloom of thy trees.

Far from thy border, and far from thy dwelling

Be the hot blast that shrivels the bud in its swelling,

The seed-rotting taint, and the creeping disease!

Thy flocks still be doubled, thy seasons be steady,

And, when Hermes is near thee, thy hand still be ready

The Heaven-dropt bounty to seize!

Athena.

Hear her words, my city’s warders,

Fraught with blessing; she prevaileth

With Olympians and Infernals,

Dread Erinnys much revered.

Mortal fates she guideth plainly

To what goal she pleaseth, sending

Songs to some, to others days

With tearful sorrows dulled.

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Far from your dwelling

Be death’s early knelling,

When falls in his green strength the strong

Your virgins, the fairest,

To brave youths the rarest

Be mated, glad life to prolong!

Ye Fates, high-presiding,

The right well dividing,

Dread powers darkly mothered with me;

Our firm favour sharing,

From judgment unsparing

The homes of the just man be free!

But the guilty shall fear them,

When in terror shall near them

The Fates, sternly sistered with me.

Athena.

Work your perfect will, dread maidens,

O’er my land benignly watching!

I rejoice. Blest be the eyes

Of Peitho, that with strong persuasion

Armed my tongue, to soothe the fierce

Refusal of these awful maids.

Jove, that rules the forum, nobly

In the high debate hath conquered.

In the strife of blessing now,

You with me shall vie for ever.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus

Far from thy border

The lawless disorder,

That sateless of evil shall reign!

Far from thy dwelling

The dear blood welling,

That taints thy own hearth with the stain,

When slaughter from slaughter

Shall flow, like the water,

And rancour from rancour shall grow!

But joy with joy blending

Live, each to all lending,

And hating one-hearted the foe!

When bliss hath departed,

From will single-hearted,

A fountain of healing shall flow.

Athena.

Wisely now the tongue of kindness

Thou hast found, the way of love;

And these terror-speaking faces

Now look wealth to me and mine.

Her so willing, ye more willing

Now receive, this land and city,

On ancient right securely throned,

Shall shine for evermore

STROPHE III

Chorus.

Hail, and all hail! mighty people be greeted!

On the sons of Athena shine sunshine the clearest!

Blest people, near Jove the Olympian seated,

And dear to the virgin his daughter the dearest.

Timely wise ’neath the wings of the daughter ye gather;

And mildly looks down on her children the father.

Athena.

Hail, all hail to you! but chiefly

Me behoves it now to lead you

To your fore-appointed homes.

Go, with holy train attendant,

With sacrifice, and torch resplendent.

Underneath the ground.

Go, and with your potent godhead

Quell the ill that threats the city,

Spur the good to victory’s goal.

Lead the way ye sons of Cranaus,

To these strangers, strange no more;

Their kindly thoughts to you remember,

Grateful evermore.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

Hail, yet again, with this last salutation,

Ye sons of Athena, ye citizens all!

On gods, and on mortals, in high congregation

Assembled, my blessing not vainly shall fall.

O city of Pallas, while thou shalt revere me,

Thy walls hold the pledge that no harm shall come near thee.

Athena.

Well hymned. My heart chimes with you, and I send

The beamy-twinkling torches to conduct you

To your dark-vaulted chambers ’neath the ground.

They who attend my shrine, with pious homage,

Shall be your convoy. The fair eye of the land,

The marshalled host of Theseus’ sons shall march

In festive train with you, both man and woman,

Matron and maid, green youth and hoary age.

Honor the awful maids, clad with the grace

Of purple-tinctured robes; and let the flame

March ’fore their path bright-rayed; and, evermore,

With populous wealth smile every Attic rood

Blessed by this gracious-minded sisterhood.

Convoy,conducting theEumenidesin festal pomp to their subterranean temple, with torches in their hands:

STROPHE I.

Go with honor crowned and glory,

Of hoary Night the daughters hoary,

To your destined hall.

Where our sacred train is wending,

Stand, ye pious throngs attending,

Hushed in silence all.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Go to hallowed habitations,

’Neath Ogygian Earth’s foundations:

In that darksome hall

Sacrifice and supplication

Shall not fail. In adoration

Silent worship all.

STROPHE II.

Here, in caverned halls, abiding,

High on awful thrones presiding,

Gracious ye shall reign.

March in torches’ glare rejoicing!

Sing, ye throngs, their praises, voicing

Loud the exultant strain!

ANTISTROPHE II.

Blazing torch, and pure libation

From age to age this pious nation

Shall not use in vain.

Thus hath willed it Jove all-seeing,

Thus the Fate. To their decreeing

Shout the responsive strain!

PROMETHEUS BOUND

A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE

Δη̂σε δ’ἀλυκτοπέδ[Editor: illegible character]σι Προμηθέα ποικιλόβουλην

Δεσμοɩ̂ς ἀργαλέοισι.

Hesiod.

Neither to change, nor flatter, nor repent.

Shelley.

PERSONS

Might and Force, Ministers of Jove.

Hephaesthus or Vulcan, the God of Fire.

Prometheus, Son of Iapetus, a Titan.

Chorus of Oceanides.

Oceanus.

Io, Daughter of Inachus, King of Argos.

Hermes, Messenger of the Gods.

Scene—A Rocky Desert in European Scythia.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Vain the wit is of the wisest to deceive the mind of Jove;

Not Prometheus, son of Iapetus, though his heart was moved by love,

Might escape the heavy anger of the god that rules the skies,

But, despite of all his cunning, with a strong chain bound he lies.

Theog. 613.

Those who are acquainted with the philological learning on this subject, which I have discussed elsewhere, or even with the common ideas on the legend of Prometheus brought into circulation by the productions of modern poetry, are aware that the view just given of the moral significance of this weighty old myth, is not the current one, and that we are rather accustomed to look upon Prometheus as a sort of proto-martyr of liberty, bearing up with the strength of a god against the punishment unjustly inflicted on him by the celestial usurper and tyrant, Jove But Hesiod, we have just seen, looks on the matter with very different eyes, and the unquestioned supremacy of Jove that stands out everywhere, from the otherwise not always consistent theological system of the Iliad, leads plainly to the conclusion that Homer also, had he had occasion to introduce this legend, would have handled it in a spirit altogether different from our Shelleys and Byrons, and other earth-shaking and heaven-scaling poets of the modern revolutionary school. As little is there any ground (see the life of Æschylus, vol. I.) for the supposition that our tragedian has taken up different theological ground in reference to this myth, from that which belonged to the two great expositors of the popular creed, not to mention the staring absurdity of the idea, that a grave tragic poet in a serious composition, at a public religious festival, should have dared, or daring, should have been allowed, to hold up their supreme deity to a nation of freemen in the character of a cruel and unjust tyrant. Thrown back, therefore, on the original Hesiodic conception of the myth, we are led to observe that the imperfect and unsatisfactory ideas so current on this subject in modern times, have taken their rise from the practice (so natural under the circumstances) of looking on the extant piece as a complete whole, whereas nothing is more certain than that it is only a fragment; the second part, in fact, of a dramatic trilogy similar in conception and execution to that, of which we have endeavoured to present a reflection in the preceding pages. Potter, in his translation published a hundred years ago, prefaced his version of the present piece with the well-known fact, that Æschylus wrote three plays on this subject—the Fire-bringing Prometheus, the Prometheus Bound, and the Prometheus Unbound—but this intimation was not sufficient to prevent his readers, with the usual hastiness of human logic, from judging of what they saw, as if it were an organic whole, containing within itself every element necessary for forming a true conception of its character. The consequence was, that the hero of the piece, who, of course, tells his own story in the most favourable way for himself, was considered as having passed a final judgment on the case, as the friend and representative of man, he naturally seemed entitled to the gratitude of men; while Jove, being now only an idol in the world (perhaps a devil), and having no advocate in the heart of the modern reader, was made to stand—on the representation of the same Prometheus—as the type of heartless tyranny, and the impersonation of absolute power combined with absolute selfishness. This is Shelley’s view; but that such was not the view of Æschylus we may be assured, both from the consideration already mentioned, and from the poet’s method of reconciling apparently incompatible claims of opposite celestial powers, so curiously exhibited in the Eumenides. In the trilogy of the preceding pages, Orestes stands in a situation, so far as the development of the plot is concerned, precisely analogous to that of Prometheus in the present piece. His conduct, as submitted to the moral judgment of the spectator, produces the same conflict of contrary emotions of which his own bosom is the victim. With the one-half of our heart we approve of his avenging his father’s murder; with the other half, we plead that a son shall, on no ground of offence, allow his indignation to proceed so far as to imbrue his hands in the blood of her whose milk he had sucked. This contrariety of emotions excited in the second piece of the trilogy, produces the tragic knot, which it is the business of the poet to unloose, by the worthy interposition of a god. “Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus.”—Exactly so in the second piece of the Promethean trilogy, our moral judgment praises the benevolence of the god, who, to elevate our human race from brutish degradation, dared to defy omnipotent power, and to deceive the wisdom of the omniscient; while, at the same time, we cannot but condemn the spirit of unreined independence that would shake itself free from the great centre of moral cohesion, and the reckless boldness that casts reproach in the face of the great Ruler of the universe. In this state of suspense, represented by the doubtful attitude of the Chorus through the whole play, the present fragment of the great Æschylean Promethiad leaves the well-instructed modern reader; and it admits not, in my view, of a doubt that, in the concluding piece, it remained for the poet to effect a reconciliation between the contending interests and clashing emotions, somewhat after the fashion of which we possess a specimen in the Eumenides. By what agency of individuals or of arguments this was done, it is hopeless now to inquire; the fragmentary notices that remain are too meagre to justify a scientific restoration of the lost drama; they who wish to see what erudite imagination can do in this direction may consult Welcker and Schoemann—Welcker, in the shape of prose dissertation in his Trilogie, p. 28; and Schoemann, in the shape of a poetical restoration of the lost poem, in the Appendix to his very valuable edition of this play. About one thing only can we be certain, that, in the ultimate settlement of disputed claims, neither will Prometheus, on the one hand, be degraded from the high position on which the poet has planted him as a sort of umpire between gods and men, nor will Jove yield one whit of his supreme right to exact the bitterest penalties from man or god who presumes to act independently of, and even in opposition to his will. The tragic poet will duly exercise his grand function of keeping the powers of the celestial world—as he does the contending emotions of the human mind—in due equipoise and subordination.

The plot of the Prometheus Bound is the simplest possible, being not so much the dramatic progression of a course of events, as a single dramatic situation presented through the whole piece under different aspects. The theft of fire from Heaven, or (as the notice of Cicero seems to indicate) from the Lemnian volcano of Mosychlos, having been perpetrated in the previous piece, Might and Force, two allegorical personages, the ministers of Jove’s vengeance, are now introduced, along with Hephaestus, the forger of celestial chains, nailing the benevolent offender to a cold craggy rock in the wastes of European Scythia. In this condition when, after a long silence, he at length gives vent to his complaint, certain kindred divine persons—first, the Oceanides, or daughters of Ocean, and then their hoary sire himself, are brought on the scene, with words of solace and friendly exhortation to the sufferer. When all the arguments that these parties have to advance are exhausted in vain, another mythic personage, of a different character, and for a different purpose, appears. This is Io, the daughter of Inachus, the primeval king of Argos, who, having enjoyed the unblissful distinction of stirring the heart of Jove with love, is, by the jealous wrath of Hera, transmuted into the likeness of a cow, and sent wandering to the ends of the Earth, fretted into restless distraction by the stings of a malignant insect. This character serves a threefold purpose. First, as a sufferer, tracing the origin of all her misery from Jove, she both sympathizes strongly with Prometheus, and exhibits the character of Jove in another unfavourable aspect; secondly, with her wild maniac cries and reinless fits of distraction, she presents a fine contrast to the calm self-possession with which the stout-hearted Titan endures the penalty of his pride; and, in the third place, as the progenitrix of the Argive Hercules, the destined instrument of the delivery of Prometheus, she connects the middle with the concluding piece of the trilogy. Last of all, when this strange apparition has vanished, appears on the scene the great Olympian negotiator, Hermes; who, with the eloquence peculiar to himself, and the threatened terrors of his supreme master, endeavours to break the pride and to bend the will of the lofty-minded offender. In vain. The threatened terrors of the Thunderer now suddenly start into reality; and, amid the roar of contending elements, the pealing Heaven and the quaking Earth, the Jove-defying son of Iapetus descends into Hell.

The superhuman grandeur and high tragic sublimity which belongs to the very conception of this subject, has suffered nothing in respect of treatment from the genius of the bard who dared to handle it. The Prometheus Bound, though inferior in point of lyric richness and variety to the Agamemnon, and though somewhat overloaded with narrative in one place, is nevertheless felt throughout to be one of the most powerful productions of one of the most powerful minds that the history of literature knows. No work of a similar lofty character certainly has ever been so extensively popular. The Prometheus Unbound of Shelley, and Lord Byron’s Manfred, bear ample witness, of which we may well be proud, to the relationship which exists between the severe Melpomene of ancient Greece, and the lofty British Muse.

PROMETHEUS BOUND

EnterMightandForce,leading inPrometheus; Hephaestus,with chains.

Might.

At length the utmost bound of Earth we’ve reached,

This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste.

Hephaestus now Jove’s high behests demand

Thy care; to these steep cliffy rocks bind down

With close-linked chains of during adamant

This daring wretch For he the bright-rayed fire,

Mother of arts, flower of thy potency,

Filched from the gods, and gave to mortals. Here,

Just guerdon of his sin shall find him; here

Let his pride learn to bow to Jove supreme,

And love men well, but love them not too much.

Heph.

Ye twain, rude Might and Force, have done your work

To the perfect end; but I—my heart shrinks back

From the harsh task to nail a kindred god

To this storm-battered crag. Yet dare I must.

Where Jove commands, whoso neglects rebels,

And pays the traitor’s fine. High-counselled son

Of right-decreeing Themis, I force myself

No less than thee, when to this friendless rock

With iron bonds I chain thee, where nor shape

Nor voice of wandering mortal shall relieve

Thy lonely watch; but the fierce-burning sun

Shall parch and bleach thy fresh complexion. Thou,

When motley-mantled Night hath hid the day,

Shalt greet the darkness, with how short a joy!

For the morn’s sun the nightly dew shall scatter,

And thou be pierced again with the same pricks

Of endless woe—and saviour shall be none.

Such fruits thy forward love to men hath wrought thee.

Thyself a god, the wrath of gods to thee

Seemed little, and to men thou didst dispense

Forbidden gifts. For this thou shalt keep watch

On this delightless rock, fixed and erect,

With lid unsleeping, and with knee unbent.

Alas! what groans and wails shalt thou pour forth,

Fruitless. Jove is not weak that he should bend,

For young authority must ever be

Harsh and severe.

Might

Enough of words and tears.

This god, whom all the gods detest, wilt thou

Not hate, thou, whom his impious larceny

Did chiefly injure?

Heph.

But, my friend, my kinsman—

Might.

True, that respect; but the dread father’s word

Respect much more. Jove’s word respect and fear.

Heph.

Harsh is thy nature, and thy heart is full

Of pitiless daring.

Might.

Tears were wasted here,

And labour lost is all concern for him

Heph.

O thrice-cursed trade, that e’er my hand should use it!

Might.

Curse not thy craft; the cunning of thy hand

Makes not his woes; he made them for himself.

Heph.

Would that some other hand had drawn the lot

To do this deed!

Might.

All things may be, but this

To dictate to the gods. There’s one that’s free,

One only, Jove.

Heph

I know it, and am dumb.

Might

Then gird thee to the work, chain down the culprit,

Lest Jove thy laggard zeal behold, and blame.

Heph.

The irons here are ready.

Might.

Take them, and strike

Stout blows with the hammer; nail him to the rock.

Heph.

The work speeds well, and lingers not.

Might.

Strike! strike!

With ring, and clamp, and wedge make sure the work.

He hath a subtle wit will find itself

A way where way is none.

Heph.

This arm is fast.

Might.

Then clasp this other. Let the sophist know,

Against great Jove how dull a thing is wit.

Heph

None but the victim can reprove my zeal.

Might.

Now take this adamantine bolt, and force

Its point resistless through his rebel breast.

Heph.

Alas! alas! Prometheus, but I pity thee!

Might.

Dost lag again, and for Jove’s enemies weep

Fond tears? Beware thou have no cause to weep

Tears for thyself.

Heph.

Thou see’st no sightly sight

For eyes to look on.

Might.

I behold a sower

Reaping what thing he sowed. But take these thongs,

And bind his sides withal.

Heph.

I must! I must!

Nor needs thy urging.

Might.

Nay, but I will urge,

Command, and bellow in thine ear! Proceed,

Lower—yet lower—and with these iron rings

Enclasp his legs.

Heph.

’Tis done, and quickly done.

Might.

Now pierce his feet through with these nails. Strike hard!

There’s one will sternly prove thy work, and thee.

Heph.

Harsh is thy tongue, and, like thy nature, hard.

Might.

Art thou a weakling, do not therefore blame

The firm harsh-fronted will that suits my office.

Heph.

Let us away. He’s fettered limb and thew.

Might.

There lie, and feed thy pride on this bare rock,

Filching gods’ gifts for mortal men. What man

Shall free thee from these woes? Thou hast been called

In vain the Provident: had thy soul possessed

The virtue of thy name, thou hadst foreseen

These cunning toils, and hadst unwound thee from them.

[Exeunt all, exceptPrometheus,who is left chained.

Prom.

O divine ether, and swift-winged winds,

And river-fountains, and of ocean waves

The multitudinous laughter, and thou Earth,

Boon mother of us all, and thou bright round

Of the all-seeing Sun, you I invoke!

Behold what ignominy of causeless wrongs

I suffer from the gods, myself a god.

See what piercing pains shall goad me

Through long ages myraid-numbered!

With such wrongful chains hath bound me

This new leader of the gods.

Ah me! present woes and future

I bemoan. O! when, O! when

Shall the just redemption dawn.

Yet why thus prate? I know what ills await me.

No unexpected torture can surprise

My soul prophetic; and with quiet mind

We all must bear our portioned fate, nor idly

Court battle with a strong necessity.

Alas! alas! ’tis hard to speak to the winds;

Still harder to be dumb! my well-deservings

To mortal men are all the offence that bowed me

Beneath this yoke. The secret fount of fire

I sought, and found, and in a reed concealed it;

Whence arts have sprung to man, and life hath drawn

Rich store of comforts For such deed I suffer

These bonds, in the broad eye of gracious day,

Here crucified Ah me! ah me! who comes?

What sound, what viewless breath, thus taints the air,

God sent, or mortal, or of mingled kind?

What errant traveller ill-sped comes to view

This naked ridge of extreme Earth, and me?

Whoe’er thou art, a hapless god thou see’st

Nailed to this crag, the foe of Jove thou seest.

Him thou see’st, whom all the Immortals

Whoso tread the Olympian threshold,

Name with hatred; thou beholdest

Man’s best friend, and, therefore, hated

For excess of love.

Hark, again! I hear the whirring

As of winged birds approaching;

With the light strokes of their pinions

Ether pipes ill-boding whispers!—

Alas! alas! that I should fear

Each breath that nears me.

TheOceanidesapproach, borne through the air in a winged car.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Fear nothing; for a friendly band approaches;

Fleet rivalry of wings

Oar’d us to this far height, with hard consent

Wrung from our careful sire

The winds swift-sweeping bore me: for I heard

The harsh hammer’s note deep deep in ocean caves,

And, throwing virgin shame aside, unshod

The winged car I mounted.

Prom.

Ah! ah!

Daughters of prolific Tethys,

And of ancient father Ocean,

With his sleepless current whirling

Round the firm ball of the globe

Look! with rueful eyes behold me

Nailed by adamantine rivets,

Keeping weary watch unenvied

On this tempest-rifted rock!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

I look, Prometheus, and a tearful cloud

My woeful sight bedims,

To see thy goodliest form with insult chained,

In adamantine bonds,

To this bare crag, where pinching airs shall blast thee.

New gods now hold the helm of Heaven; new laws

Mark Jove’s unrighteous rule; the giant trace

Of Titan times hath vanished.

Prom.

Deep in death-receiving Hades

Had he bound me, had he whelmed me

In Tartarean pit, unfathomed,

Fettered with unyielding bonds!

Then nor god nor man had feasted

Eyes of triumph on my wrongs,

Nor I, thus swung in middle ether,

Moved the laughter of my foes.

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Which of the gods hath heart so hard

To mock thy woes? Who will withhold

The fellow-feeling and the tear,

Save only Jove But he doth nurse

Strong wrath within his stubborn breast,

And holds all Heaven in awe.

Nor will he cease till his hot rage is glutted,

Or some new venture shakes his stable throne.

Prom.

By my Titan soul, I swear it!

Though with harsh chains now he mocks me,

Even now the hour is ripening,

When this haughty lord of Heaven

Shall embrace my knees, beseeching

Me to unveil the new-forged counsels

That shall hurl him from his throne.

But no honey-tongued persuasion,

No smooth words of artful charming,

No stout threats shall loose my tongue,

Till he loose these bonds of insult,

And himself make just atonement

For injustice done to me.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

Thou art a bold man, and defiest

The keenest pangs to force thy will.

With a most unreined tongue thou speakest;

But me—sharp fear hath pierced my heart.

I fear for thee: and of thy woes

The distant, doubtful end

I see not. O, ’tis hard, most hard to reach

The heart of Jove! prayer beats his ear in vain.

Prom

Harsh is Jove, I know—he frameth

Justice for himself; but soon,

When the destined arm o’ertakes him,

He shall tremble as a child.

He shall smooth his bristling anger,

Courting friendship shunned before,

More importunate to unbind me

Than impatient I of bonds.

Chorus

Speak now, and let us know the whole offence

Jove charges thee withal, for which he seized,

And with dishonor and dire insult loads thee.

Unfold the tale, unless, perhaps, such sorrow

Irks thee to tell.

Prom.

To tell or not to tell

Irks me the same; which way I turn is pain.

When first the gods their fatal strife began,

And insurrection raged in Heaven—some striving

To cast old Kronos from his hoary throne,

That Jove might reign, and others to crush i’ the bud

His swelling mastery—I wise counsel gave

To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth;

But gave in vain Their dauntless stubborn souls

Spurned gentle ways, and patient-working wiles,

Weening swift triumph with a blow. But me,

My mother Themis, not once but oft, and Earth

(One shape of various names), prophetic told

That violence and rude strength in such a strife

Were vain—craft haply might prevail. This lesson

I taught the haughty Titans, but they deigned

Scarce with contempt to hear my prudent words.

Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best,

As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis,

To accept Jove’s proffered friendship. By my counsels

From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled

Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound,

With all his troop of friends. Such was the kindness

From me received by him who now doth hold

The masterdom of Heaven; these the rewards

Of my great zeal: for so it hath been ever.

Suspicion’s a disease that cleaves to tyrants,

And they who love most are the first suspected.

As for your question, for what present fault

I bear the wrong that now afflicts me, hear.

Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne

He called the gods together, and assigned

To each his fair allotment, and his sphere

Of sway supreme; but, ah! for wretched man!

To him nor part nor portion fell: Jove vowed

To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould

The race anew. I only of the gods

Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid,

Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped

All men that breathe. Such were my crimes: these pains

Grievous to suffer, pitiful to behold,

Were purchased thus; and mercy’s now denied

To him whose crime was mercy to mankind:

And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched,

A spectacle inglorious to Jove.

Chorus.

An iron-heart were his, and flinty hard,

Who on thy woes could look without a tear,

Prometheus; I had liefer not so seen thee,

And seeing thee fain would call mine eyesight liar.

Prom.

Certes no sight am I for friends to look on.

Chorus.

Was this thy sole offence?

Prom.

I taught weak mortals

Not to foresee harm, and forestall the Fates.

Chorus.

A sore disease to anticipate mischance:

How didst thou cure it?

Prom.

Blind hopes of good I planted

In their dark breasts.

Chorus.

That was a boon indeed,

To ephemeral man.

Prom.

Nay more, I gave them fire.

Chorus.

And flame-faced fire is now enjoyed by mortals?

Prom.

Enjoyed, and of all arts the destined mother.

Chorus.

And is this all the roll of thy offendings

That he should rage so fierce? Hath he not set

Bounds to his vengeance?

Prom.

None, but his own pleasure.

Chorus.

And when shall he please? Vain the hope; thou see’st

That thou hast erred, and that thou hast to us

No pleasure brings, to thee excess of pain.

Of this enough. Seek now to cure the evil.

Prom.

’Tis a light thing for him whose foot’s unwarped

By misadventure’s meshes to advise

And counsel the unfortunate. But I

Foreknew my fate, and if I erred, I erred

With conscious purpose, purchasing man’s weal

With mine own grief. I knew I should offend

The Thunderer, though deeming not that he

Would perch me thus to pine ’twixt Earth and Sky,

Of this wild wintry waste sole habitant.

But cease to weep for ills that weeping mends not;

Descend, and I’ll discourse to thee at length

Of chances yet to come. Nay, do not doubt;

But leave thy car, nor be ashamed to share

The afflictions of the afflicted; for Mishap,

Of things that lawless wander, wanders most;

With me to-day it is with you to-morrow.

Chorus.

Not to sluggish ears, Prometheus,

Hast thou spoken thy desire,

From our breeze-borne car descending,

With light foot we greet the ground.

Leaving ether chaste, smooth pathway

Of the gently-winnowing wing,

On this craggy rock I stand,

To hear the tale, while thou mayst tell it,

Of thy sorrows to the end.

EnterOcean.

Ocean.

From my distant caves cerulean

This fleet-pinioned bird hath borne me;

Needed neither bit nor bridle,

Thought instinctive reined the creature;

Thus, to know thy griefs, Prometheus,

And to grieve with thee I come

Soothly strong the tie of kindred

Binds the heart of man and god;

But, though no such tie had bound me,

I had wept for thee the same.

Well thou know’st not mine the cunning

To discourse with glozing phrase:

Tell me how I may relieve thee,

I am ready to relieve;

Friend thou boastest none than Ocean

Surer, in the hour of need.

Prom.

How now, old Ocean? thou too come to view

My dire disasters?—how shouldst thou have dared,

Leaving the billowy stream whose name thou bearest,

Thy rock-roofed halls, and self-built palaces,

To visit this Scythian land, stern mother of iron,

To know my sorrows, and to grieve with me?

Look on this sight—thy friend, the friend of Jove,

Who helped him to the sway which now he bears,

Crushed by the self-same god himself exalted.

Ocean.

I see, Prometheus; and I come to speak

A wise word to the wise; receive it wisely.

Know what thou art, and make thy manners new;

For a new king doth rule the subject gods.

Compose thy speech, nor cast such whetted words

’Gainst Jove, who, though he sits apart sublime,

Hath ears, and with new pains may smite his victim,

To which his present wrath shall seem a toy.

Listen to me, slack thy fierce ire, and seek

Speedy deliverance from these woes. Trite wisdom

Belike I speak, Prometheus; but thou knowest

A lofty-sounding tongue with passionate phrase

Buys its own ruin. Proud art thou, unyielding,

And heap’st new woes tenfold on thine own head.

Why should’st thou kick against the pricks? Jove reigns

A lord severe, and of his acts need give

Account to none. I go to plead for thee,

And, what I can, will try to save my kinsman;

But be thou calm the while, curb thy rash speech,

And let not fame report, that one so wise

Fell by the forfeit of a foolish tongue.

Prom.

Count thyself happy, Ocean, being free

From blame, who shared and dared with me. Be wise,

And what thy meddling aids not, let alone.

In vain thou plead’st with him; his ears are deaf.

Look to thyself: thy errand is not safe.

Ocean.

Wise art thou, passing wise, for others’ weal,

For thine own good most foolish. Prithee do not

So stretch thy stubborn whim to pull against

The friends that pull for thee. ’Tis no vain boast;

I know that Jove will hear me.

Prom.

Thou art kind;

And for thy kind intent and friendly feeling

Have my best thanks. But do not, I beseech thee,

Waste labour upon me. If thou wilt labour,

Seek a more hopeful subject. Thou wert wiser,

Being safe, to keep thee safe. I, when I suffer,

Wish not that all my friends should suffer with me.

Enough my brother Atlas’ miseries grieve me.

Who in the extreme West stands, stoutly bearing

The pillars of Heaven and Earth upon his shoulders,

No lightsome burden. Him too, I bewail,

That made his home in dark Cilician caverns.

The hostile portent, Earth-born, hundred-headed

Impetuous Typhon, quelled by force, who stood

Alone, against the embattled host of gods,

Hissing out murder from his monstrous jaws;

And from his eyes there flashed a Gorgon glare,

As he would smite the tyranny of great Jove

Clean down; but he, with sleepless thunder watching,

Hurl’d headlong a flame-breathing bolt, and laid

The big-mouthed vaunter low. Struck to the heart

With blasted strength, and shrunk to ashes, there

A huge and helpless hulk, outstretched he lies,

Beside the salt sea’s strait, pressed down beneath

The roots of Ætna, on whose peaks Hephaestus

Sits hammering the hot metal. Thence, one day,

Shall streams of liquid fire, swift passage forcing,

With savage jaws the wide-spread plains devour

Of the fair-fruited Sicilly. Such hot shafts,

From the flame-breathing ferment of the deep,

Shall Typhon cast with sateless wrath, though now

All scorched and cindered by the Thunderer’s stroke,

Moveless he lies. But why should I teach thee?

Thou art a wise man, thine own wisdom use

To save thyself. For me, I’ll even endure

These pains, till Jove shall please to slack his ire.

Ocean.

Know’st thou not this, Prometheus, that mild words

Are medicines of fierce wrath?

Prom

They are, when spoken

In a mild hour; but the high-swelling heart

They do but fret the more.

Ocean.

But, in the attempt

To ward the threatened harm, what evil see’st thou?

Prom.

Most bootless toil, and folly most inane.

Ocean.

Be it so; but yet ’tis sometimes well, believe me,

That a wise man should seem to be a fool.

Prom.

Seem fool, seem wise, I, in the end, am blamed.

Ocean.

Thy reckless words reluctant send me home.

Prom.

Beware, lest love for me make thyself hated.

Ocean.

Of whom? Of him, who, on the all-powerful throne

Sits, a new lord?

Prom.

Even him. Beware thou vex not

Jove’s jealous heart.

Ocean.

In this, thy fate shall warn me.

Prom.

Away! farewell; and may the prudent thoughts,

That sway thy bosom now, direct thee ever.

Ocean.

I go, and quickly. My four-footed bird

Brushes the broad path of the limpid air

With forward wing: right gladly will he bend

The wearied knee on his familiar stall.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Thy dire disasters, unexampled wrongs,

I weep, Prometheus.

From its soft founts distilled the flowing tear

My cheek bedashes.

’Tis hard, most hard! By self-made laws Jove rules,

And ’gainst the host of primal gods he points

The lordly spear.

ANTISTROPHE I.

With echoing groans the ambient waste bewails

Thy fate, Prometheus;

The neighbouring tribes of holy Asia weep

For thee, Prometheus;

For thee and thine! names mighty and revered

Of yore, now shamed, dishonoured, and cast down,

And chained with thee.

STROPHE II.

And Colchis, with her belted daughters, weeps

For thee, Prometheus,

And Scythian tribes, on Earth’s remotest verge,

Where lone Mæotis spreads her wintry waters,

Do weep for thee.

ANTISTROPHE II.

The flower of Araby’s wandering warriors weep

For thee, Prometheus;

And they who high their airy holds have perched

On Caucasus’ ridge, with pointed lances bristling,

Do weep for thee.

EPODE.

One only vexed like thee, and even as thou,

In adamant bound,

A Titan, and a god scorned by the gods,

Atlas I knew.

He on his shoulders the surpassing weight

Of the celestial pole stoutly upbore,

And groaned beneath.

Roars billowy Ocean, and the Deep sucks back

Its waters when he sobs; from Earth’s dark caves

Deep hell resounds,

The fountains of the holy-streaming rivers

Do moan with him.

Prom.

Deem me not self-willed, nor with pride high-strung,

That I am dumb, my heart is gnawed to see

Myself thus mocked and jeered. These gods, to whom

Owe they their green advancement but to me?

But this ye know, and, not to teach the taught,

I’ll speak of it no more. Of human kind,

My great offence in aiding them, in teaching

The babe to speak, and rousing torpid mind

To take the grasp of itself—of this I’ll talk;

Meaning to mortal men no blame, but only

The true recital of mine own deserts.

For, soothly, having eyes to see they saw not,

And hearing heard not, but like dreamy phantoms,

A random life they led from year to year,

All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew

With woven brick or jointed beam to pile

The sunward porch; but in the dark earth burrowed

And housed, like tiny ants in sunless caves.

No signs they knew to mark the wintry year.

The flower-strewn Spring, and the fruit-laden Summer,

Uncalendared, unregistered, returned—

Till I the difficult art of the stars revealed,

Their risings and their settings Numbers, too,

I taught them (a most choice device) and how

By marshalled signs to fix their shifting thoughts,

That Memory, mother of Muses, might achieve

Her wondrous works. I first slaved to the yoke

Both ox and ass. I, the rein-loving steeds

(Of wealth’s gay-flaunting pomp the chiefest pride)

Joined to the car; and bade them ease the toils

Of labouring men vicarious. I the first

Upon the lint-winged car of mariner

Was launched, sea-wandering. Such wise arts I found

To soothe the ills of man’s ephemeral life;

But for myself, plunged in this depth of woe,

No prop I find.

Chorus.

Sad chance! Thy wit hath slipt

From its firm footing then when needed most,

Like some unlearned leech who many healed,

But being sick himself, from all his store,

Cannot cull out one medicinal drug.

Prom.

Hear me yet farther, and in hearing marvel,

What arts and curious shifts my wit devised.

Chiefest of all, the cure of dire disease

Men owe to me. Nor healing food, nor drink,

Nor unguent knew they, but did slowly wither

And waste away for lack of pharmacy,

Till taught by me to mix the soothing drug,

And check corruption’s march. I fixed the art

Of divination with its various phase

Of dim revealings, making dreams speak truth,

Stray voices, and encounters by the way

Significant; the flight of taloned birds

On right and left I marked—these fraught with ban,

With blissful augury those; their way of life,

Their mutual loves and enmities, their flocks,

And friendly gatherings; the entrails’ smoothness,

The hue best liked by the gods, the gall, the liver

With all its just proportions. I first wrapped

In the smooth fat the thighs; first burnt the loins,

And from the flickering flame taught men to spell

No easy lore, and cleared the fire-faced signs

Obscure before. Yet more: I probed the Earth,

To yield its hidden wealth to help man’s weakness—

Iron, copper, silver, gold None but a fool,

A prating fool, will stint me of this praise.

And thus, with one short word to sum the tale,

Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men.

Chorus.

Do good to men, but do it with discretion.

Why shouldst thou harm thyself? Good hope I nurse

To see thee soon from these harsh chains unbound,

As free, as mighty, as great Jove himself.

Prom.

This may not be; the destined course of things

Fate must accomplish; I must bend me yet

’Neath wrongs on wrongs, ere I may ’scape these bonds.

Though Art be strong, Necessity is stronger.

Chorus.

And who is lord of strong Necessity?

Prom.

The triform Fates, and the sure-memoried Furies.

Chorus.

And mighty Jove himself must yield to them?

Prom.

No more than others Jove can ’scape his doom.

Chorus.

What doom?—No doom hath he but endless sway.

Prom.

’Tis not for thee to know: tempt not the question.

Chorus.

There’s some dread mystery in thy chary speech,

Close-veiled.

Prom.

Urge this no more: the truth thou’lt know

In fitting season; now it lies concealed

In deepest darkness! for relenting Jove

Himself must woo this secret from my breast.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Never, O never may Jove,

Who in Olympus reigns omnipotent lord,

Plant his high will against my weak opinion!

Let me approach the gods

With blood of oxen and with holy feasts,

By father Ocean’s quenchless stream, and pay

No backward vows:

Nor let my tongue offend; but in my heart

Be lowly wisdom graven.

ANTISTROPHE I.

For thus old Wisdom speaks:

Thy life ’tis sweet to cherish, and while the length

Of years is thine, thy heart with cheerful hopes

And lightsome joys to feed.

But thee—ah me! my blood runs cold to see thee,

Pierced to the marrow with a thousand pains.

Not fearing Jove,

Self-willed thou hast respect to man, Prometheus,

Much more than man deserveth.

STROPHE II.

For what is man? behold!

Can he requite thy love—child of a day—

Or help thy extreme need? Hast thou not seen

The blind and aimless strivings,

The barren blank endeavour,

The pithless deeds, of the fleeting dreamlike race?

Never, O nevermore,

May mortal wit Jove’s ordered plan deceive.

ANTISTROPHE II.

This lore my heart hath learned

From sight of thee, and thy sharp pains, Prometheus.

Alas! what diverse strain I sang thee then,

Around the bridal chamber,

And around the bridal bath,

When thou my sister fair, Hesione,

Won by rich gifts didst lead

From Ocean’s caves thy spousal bed to share.

Enter Io.

What land is this?—what race of mortals

Owns this desert? who art thou,

Rock-bound with these wintry fetters,

And for what crime tortured thus?

Worn and weary with far travel,

Tell me where my feet have borne me!

O pain! pain! pain! it stings and goads me again,

The fateful brize!—save me, O Earth! —Avaunt

Thou horrible shadow of the Earth-born Argus!

Could not the grave close up thy hundred eyes,

But thou must come,

Haunting my path with thy suspicious look,

Unhoused from Hades?

Avaunt! avaunt!—why wilt thou hound my track,

The famished wanderer on the waste sea-shore?

STROPHE.

Pipe not thy sounding wax-compacted reed

With drowsy drone at me! Ah wretched me!

Wandering, still wandering o’er wide Earth, and driven

Where? where? O tell me where?

O Son of Kronos, in what damned sin

Being caught hast thou to misery yoked me thus,

Pricked me to desperation, and my heart

Pierced with thy furious goads?

Blast me with lightnings! bury me in Earth! To the gape

Of greedy sea-monsters give me! Hear, O hear

My prayer, O King!

Enough, enough, these errant toils have tried me;

And yet no rest I find: nor when, nor where

These woes shall cease may know.

Chorus.

Dost hear the plaint of the ox-horned maid?

Prom

How should I not? the Inachian maid who knows not,

Stung by the god-sent brize? the maid who smote

Jove’s lustful heart with love: and his harsh spouse

Hounds her o’er Earth with chase interminable.

ANTISTROPHE.

Io

My father’s name thou know’st, and my descent!

Who art thou? god or mortal? Speak! what charm

Gives wretch like thee, the certain clue to know

My lamentable fate?

Aye, and the god-sent plague thou know’st; the sting

That spurs me o’er the far-stretched Earth; the goad

That mads me sheer, wastes, withers, and consumes,

A worn and famished maid,

Whipt by the scourge of jealous Hera’s wrath!

Ah me! ah me! Misery has many shapes,

But none like mine.

O thou, who named my Argive home, declare

What ills await me yet; what end, what hope?

If hope there be for Io

Chorus.

I pray thee speak to the weary way-worn maid.

Prom.

I’ll tell thee all thy wish, not in enigmas

Tangled and dark, but in plain phrase, as friend

Should speak to friend Thou see’st Prometheus, who

To mortal men gifted immortal fire.

Io

O thou, to man a common blessing given,

What crime hath bound thee to this wintry rock?

Prom.

I have but ceased rehearsing all my wrongs.

Io.

And dost thou then refuse the boon I ask?

Prom.

What boon? ask what thou wilt, and I will answer.

Io.

Say, then, who bound thee to this ragged cliff?

Prom.

Stern Jove’s decree, and harsh Hephaestus’ hand.

Io

And for what crime?

Prom.

Let what I’ve said suffice.

Io.

This, too, I ask—what bound hath fate appointed

To my far-wandering toils?

Prom.

This not to know

Were better than to learn

Io.

Nay, do not hide

This thing from me!

Prom.

If ’tis a boon, believe me,

I grudge it not.

Io.

Then why so slow to answer?

Prom.

I would not crush thee with the cruel truth.

Io

Fear not; I choose to hear it.

Prom.

Listen then.

Chorus.

Nay, hear me rather. With her own mouth this maid

Shall first her bygone woes rehearse; next thou

What yet remains shalt tell.

Prom.

Even so. [To Io.] Speak thou;

They are the sisters of thy father, Io;

And to wail out our griefs, when they who listen

Our troubles with a willing tear requite,

Is not without its use.

Io

I will obey,

And in plain speech my chanceful story tell;

Though much it grieves me to retrace the source,

Whence sprung this god-sent pest, and of my shape

Disfigurement abhorred. Night after night

Strange dreams around my maiden pillow hovering

Whispered soft temptings. “O thrice-blessed maid,

Why pin’st thou thus in virgin loneliness,

When highest wedlock courts thee? Struck by the shaft

Of fond desire for thee Jove burns, and pants

To twine his loves with thine. Spurn not, O maid,

The proffered bed of Jove, but hie thee straight

To Lerne’s bosomed mead,where are the sheep-folds

And ox-stalls of thy sire, that so the eye

Of Jove, being filled with thee, may cease from craving.”

Such nightly dreams my restless couch possessed

Till I, all tears, did force me to unfold

The portent to my father. He to Pytho

Sent frequent messengers, and to Dodona,

Searching the pleasure of the gods, but they

With various-woven phrase came back, and answers

More doubtful than the quest. At length, a clear

And unambiguous voice came to my father,

Enjoining, with most strict command, to send me

Far from my home, and from my country far,

To the extreme bounds of Earth an outcast wanderer,

Else that the fire-faced bolt of Jove should smite

Our universal race. By such responses,

Moved of oracular Loxias, my father

Reluctant me reluctant drove from home,

And shut the door against me. What he did

He did perforce; Jove’s bit was in his mouth.

Forthwith my wit was frenzied, and my form

Assumed the brute. With maniac bound I rushed,

Horned as thou see’st, and with the sharp-mouthed sting

Of gad-fly pricked infuriate to the cliff

Of Lerne, and Cenchréa’s limpid wave;

While Argus, Earth-born cow-herd, hundred-eyed,

Followed the winding traces of my path

With sharp observance. Him swift-swooping Fate

Snatched unexpected from his sleepless guard;

But I from land to land still wander on,

Scourged by the wrath of Heaven’s relentless Queen.

Thou hast my tale; the sequel, if thou know’st it,

Is thine to tell; but do not seek, I pray thee,

In pity for me, to drop soft lies, for nothing

Is worse than the smooth craft of practised phrase.

Chorus.

Enough, enough! Woe’s me that ever

Such voices of strange grief should rend my ear!

That such a tale of woe,

Insults, and wrongs, and horrors, should freeze me through,

As with a two-edged sword!

O destiny! destiny! woes most hard to see,

More hard to bear! Alas! poor maid for thee!

Prom.

Thy wails anticipate her woes; restrain

Thy trembling tears till thou hast heard the whole.

Chorus.

Proceed: to know the worst some solace brings

To the vexed heart.

Prom.

Your first request I granted,

And lightly; from her own mouth, ye have heard

The spring of harm, the stream expect from me,

How Hera shall draw out her slow revenge.

Meanwhile, thou seed of Inachus, lend an ear

And learn thy future travel. First to the east

Turn thee, and traverse the unploughed Scythian fields,

Whose wandering tribes their wattled homes transport

Aloft on well-wheeled wains, themselves well slung

With the far-darting bow. These pass, and, holding

Thy course by the salt sea’s sounding surge, pass through

The land; next, on thy left, thou’lt reach the Chalybs,

Workers in iron. These too avoid—for they

Are savage, and harsh to strangers. Thence proceeding,

Thou to a stream shalt come, not falsely named

Hubristes: but the fierce ill-forded wave

Pass not till Caucasus, hugest hill, receives thee,

There where the flood its gushing strength foams forth

Fresh from the rocky brow. Cross then the peaks

That neighbour with the stars, and thence direct

Southward thy path to where the Amazons

Dwell, husband-hated, who shall one day people

Thermódon’s bank, and Themiscyre, and where

Harsh Salmydessus whets his ravening jaws,

The sailor’s foe, stepmother to the ships.

These maids shall give thee escort. Next thou’lt reach

The narrow Cimmerian isthmus, skirting bleak

The waters of Mæotis. Here delay not,

But with bold breast cross thou the strait Thy passage

Linked with the storied name of Bosphorus

Shall live through endless time. Here, leaving Europe,

The Asian soil receives thee. Now, answer me,

Daughters of Ocean, doth not Jove in all things

Prove his despotic will?—In lawless love

Longing to mingle with this mortal maid,

He heaps her with these woes A bitter suitor,

Poor maid, was thine, and I have told thee scarce

The prelude of thy griefs

Io

Ah! wretched me!

Prom.

Alas, thy cries and groans!—What wilt thou do,

When the full measure of thy woes is told thee?

Chorus.

What! more? her cup of woes not full?

Prom

’Twill flow

And overflow, a sea of whelming woes.

Io.

Why do I live? Why not embrace the gain

That, with one cast, this toppling cliff secures,

And dash me headlong on the ground, to end

Life and life’s sorrows? Once to die is better

Than thus to drag sick life.

Prom.

Thou’rt happy, Io,

That death from all thy living wrongs may free thee;

But I, whom Fate hath made immortal, see

No end to my long-lingering pains appointed,

Till Jove from his usurping sway be hurled.

Io.

Jove from his tyranny hurled—can such thing be?

Prom.

Doubtless ’twould feast thine eyes to see’t?

Io.

Ay, truly,

Wronged as I am by him.

Prom

Then, learn from me

That ne is doomed to fall.

Io.

What hand shall wrest

Jove’s sceptre?

Prom.

Jove’s own empty wit.

Io.

How so?

Prom.

From evil marriage reaping evil fruit.

Io.

Marriage! of mortal lineage or divine?

Prom.

Ask me no further. This I may not answer.

Io.

Shall his spouse thrust him from his ancient throne?

Prom.

The son that she brings forth shall wound his father.

Io.

And hath he no redemption from this doom?

Prom.

None, till he loose me from these hated bonds.

Io.

But who, in Jove’s despite, shall loose thee?

Prom.

One

From thine own womb descended.

Io.

How? My Son?

One born of me shall be thy Saviour!—When?

Prom.

When generations ten have passed, the third.

Io.

Thou speak’st ambiguous oracles.

Prom.

I have spoken

Enough for thee. Pry not into the Fates.

Io.

Wilt thou hold forth a hope to cheat my grasp?

Prom.

I give thee choice of two things: choose thou one.

Io.

What things? Speak, and I’ll choose

Prom

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.

Prom

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 parts

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 The 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

Prom.

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 sea

Thy steps were driven thence with mazy course

Tossed hither; gaining, if a gain, this solace,

That future times, by famous Io’s name,

Shall know that sea These 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, he shall possess

What fruitful fields fat Nile broad-streaming laves.

Four generations then shall pass; the fifth

In fifty daughters glorying 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?

Prom

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.

Prom.

I both speak truth and wish the truth to be.

Chorus.

But who can think that Jove shall find a master?

Prom.

He shall be mastered! Ay, and worse endure.

Chorus.

Dost thou not blench to cast such words about thee?

Prom.

How should I fear, being a god and deathless?

Chorus.

But he can scourge with something worse than death.

Prom.

Even let him scourge! I’m armed for all conclusions.

Chorus.

Yet they are wise who worship Adrastéa

Prom.

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

Prom.

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.

Prom.

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.

Prom.

Wanton! delighted! would my worst enemies

Might wanton in these bonds, thyself the first!

Hermes.

Must I, too, share the blame of thy distress?

Prom.

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.

Prom.

Most mad! if madness ’tis to hate our foes.

Hermes.

Prosperity’s too good for thee: thy temper

Could not endure’t.

Prom.

Alas! this piercing pang!

Hermes.

“Alas!”—this word Jove does not understand.

Prom,

As Time grows old he teaches many things.

Hermes.

Yet Time that teaches all leaves thee untaught.

Prom.

Untaught in sooth, thus parleying with a slave!

Hermes.

It seems thou wilt not grant great Jove’s demand.

Prom.

Such love as his to me should be repaid

With like!

Hermes.

Dost beard me like a boy? Beware.

Prom.

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.

Prom.

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.

Prom.

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. But 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, in 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, and 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.

Prom.

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!

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.

Jove hath laid no trap to snare thee,

But the scapeless net of ruin

Thou hast woven for thyself.

Prom.

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 SUPPLIANTS

A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby

Some have entertained angels unawares.

St. Paul.

πρὸς γὰρ Διός ἐισιν ἅπαντες

Ξεɩ̂νοί τε πτωχόι τε.

Homer.

PERSONS

Chorus of Danaides.

Danaus.

Pelasgus, King of Argos, and Attendants.

Herald.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

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. On this, 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 ξἑνιος 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,

Look from Heaven, benignly favouring

Us the suppliant band, swift-oared

Hither sailing, from the seven mouths

Of the fat fine-sanded Nile!

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, but 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 heifer

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?

Ye blissful gods supremely swaying

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,

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.

STROPHE I.

Give ear to our prayer, we implore thee,

Thou son, and the mother that bore thee—

The calf and the heifer divine!

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!

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, to 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;

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,

My cheek with the keen nail I tear;

And I pluck, where it bloweth,

Grief’s blossom that groweth

In this heart first acquainted with care;

And I fear the fierce band,

From the far misty land,

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; and 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!

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!

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, 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!

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,

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,

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. Of 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 gods

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 hands

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!

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: pray

Apollo, too, the pure, the exiled once

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!

Danaus.

Here’s Hermes likewise, as Greece knows the god.

Chorus.

Be he my herald, heralding the free!

Danaus.

This common altar of these mighty gods

Adore: within these holy precincts lodged,

Pure doves from hawks of kindred plumage fleeing,

Foes of your blood, polluters of your race.

Can bird eat bird and be an holy thing?

Can man be pure, from an unwilling father

Robbing unwilling brides? Who does these deeds

Will find no refuge from lewd guilt in Hades;

For there, as we have heard, another Jove

Holds final judgment on the guilty shades.

But now be ready. Here await their coming;

May the gods grant a victory to our prayers!

EnterKing.

King.

Whom speak we here? Whence come? Certes no Greeks.

Your tire rich-flaunting with barbaric pride

Bespeaks you strangers. Argos knows you not,

Nor any part of Greece. Strange surely ’tis

That all unheralded, unattended all,

And of no host the acknowledged guest, unfearing

Ye tread this land. If these boughs, woolly-wreathed,

That grace the altars of the Agonian gods

Speak what to Greeks they should speak, ye are suppliants.

Thus much I see: what more remains to guess

I spare; yourselves have tongues to speak the truth.

Chorus.

That we are strangers is most true; but whom

See we in thee? a citizen? a priest?

A temple warder with his sacred wand?

The ruler of the state?

King.

Speak with a fearless tongue, and plainly. I

Of old earth-born Palæcthon am the son,

My name Pelasgus, ruler of this land;

And fathered with my name the men who reap

Earth’s fruits beneath my sway are called Pelasgi;

And all the land where Algos flows, and Strymon,

Toward the westering sun my sceptre holds.

My kingdom the Perrhæbians bound, and those

Beyond high Pindus, by Pæonia, and

The Dodonéan heights; the briny wave

Completes the circling line; within these bounds

I rule; but here, where now thy foot is planted,

The land is Apia, from a wise physician

Of hoary date so called. He, from Naupactus,

Apollo’s son, by double right, physician

And prophet both, crossed to this coast, and freed it

By holy purifyings, from the plague

Of man-destroying monsters, which the ground

With ancient taint of blood polluted bore.

This plague his virtue medicinal healed,

That we no more unfriendly fellowship

Hold with the dragon-brood. Such worthy service

With thankful heart the Argive land received,

And Apis lives remembered in her prayers.

Of this from me assured, now let me hear

Your whence, and what your purpose. Briefly speak;

This people hates much phrase.

Chorus.

Our tale is short.

We by descent are Argives, from the seed

Of the heifer sprung, whose womb was blest in bearing;

And this in every word we can confirm

By manifest proofs.

King.

That ye are Argives, this

My ear receives not; an unlikely tale!

Like Libyan women rather; not a line

I trace in you that marks our native race.

Nile might produce such daughters; ye do bear

A Cyprian character in your female features,

The impressed likeness of some plastic male.

Of wandering Indians I have heard, that harness

Camels for mules, huge-striding, dwelling near

The swarthy Æthiop land; ye may be such;

Or, had ye war’s accoutrement, the bow,

Ye might be Amazons, stern, husband-hating,

Flesh-eating maids. But speak, that I may know

The truth. How vouch ye your descent from Argos?

Chorus.

They say that Io, on this Argive ground,

Erst bore the keys to Hera, then ’tis said,

So runs the general rumour—

King.

I have heard.

Was it not so, Jove with the mortal maid

Mingled in love?

Chorus.

Even so; in love they mingled,

Deceiving Hera’s bed.

King.

And how then ended

The Olympian strife?

Chorus.

Enraged, the Argive goddess

To a heifer changed the maid.

King.

And the god came

To the fair horned heifer?

Chorus.

Like a leaping bull,

Transformed he came, so the hoar legend tells.

King.

And what did then the potent spouse of Jove?

Chorus.

She sent a watchman ringed with eyes to watch.

King.

This all-beholding herdsman, who was he?

Chorus.

Argus the son of Earth, by Hermes slain.

King.

How further fared the ill-fated heifer, say?

Chorus.

A persecuting brize was sent to sting her.

King.

And o’er the wide earth goaded her the brize?

Chorus.

Just so, thy tale with mine accordant chimes.

King.

Then to Canopus, and to Memphis came she?

Chorus.

There, touched by Jove’s boon hand, she bore a son.

King.

The heifer’s boasted offspring, who was he?

Chorus.

Epaphus, who plainly with his name declares

His mother’s safety wrought by touch of Jove.

King.

* * * *

Chorus.

Libya, dowered with a fair land’s goodly name.

King.

And from this root divine what other shoots?

Chorus.

Belus, my father’s father, and my uncle’s.

King.

Who is thy honoured father?

Chorus.

Danaus;

And fifty sons his brother hath, my uncle.

King.

This brother who? Spare not to tell the whole.

Chorus.

Ægyptus. Now, O king, our ancient race

Thou knowest. Us from our prostration raising,

Thou raisest Argos

King.

Argives in sooth ye seem,

By old descent participant of the soil;

But by what stroke of sore mischance harsh-smitten,

Dared ye to wander from your native seats?

Chorus.

Pelasgian prince, a motley-threaded web

Is human woe; a wing of dappled plumes.

Past hope and faith it was that we, whose blood

From Argive Io flows, to Io’s city,

In startled flight, should measure back our way,

To escape from hated marriage.

King.

How say’st thou?

To escape from marriage thou art here, displaying

These fresh-cropt branches, snowy-wreathed, before

The Agonian gods?

Chorus

Ay! Never, never may we

Be thralled to Ægyptus’ sons!

King.

Speak’st thou of hate

To them, or of a bond your laws forbid?

Chorus.

Both this and that. Who should be friends were foes,

And blood with blood near-mingled basely flows

King.

But branch on branch well grafted goodlier grows

Chorus.

Urge not this point; but rather think one word

From thee the wretched rescues.

King.

How then shall I

My friendly disposition show?

Chorus.

We ask

But this—from our pursuers save us.

King.

What!

Shall I for unknown exiles breed a war?

Chorus.

Justice will fight for him who fights for us.

King.

Doubtless; if Justice from the first hath stamped

Your cause for hers.

Chorus[pointing to the altar].

The state’s high poop here crowned Revere.

King.

This green environment of shade,

Mantling the seats of the gods I see, and shudder.

Chorus.

The wrath of suppliant Jove is hard to bear.

STROPHE I.

O hear my cry, benignly hear!

Thou son of Palæcthon, hear me!

The fugitive wandering suppliant hear!

Thou king of Pelasgians, hear me!

Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued

O’er the rocks so cliffy and lonely,

And loudly it lows to the herdsman good,

Whose strength can save it only.

King

My eyes are tasked; there, ’neath the shielding shade

Of fresh-lopt branches I behold you clinging

To these Agonian gods; but what I do

Must spare the state from harm. I must provide

That no unlooked-for unprepared event

Beget new strife; of this we have enough.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

Great Jove that allotteth their lot to all,

By his sentence of right shall clear thee,

Dread Themis that heareth the suppliants’ call,

No harm shall allow to come near thee.

Though I speak to the old with the voice of the young,

Do the will of the gods, and surely

Their favour to thee justly weighed shall belong,

When thy gifts thou offerest purely.

King.

Not at my hearth with precatory boughs

Ye lie. The state, if guilty taint from you

Affect the general weal, will for the state

Take counsel. I nor pledge nor promise give,

Till all the citizens hear what thou shalt say.

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Thou art the state, and the people art thou,

The deed that thou doest who judges?

The hearth and the altar before thee bow,

The grace that thou grantest who grudges?

Thou noddest, the will that thou willest is thine,

Thy vote with no voter thou sharest;

The throne is all thine, and the sceptre divine,

And thy guilt, when thou sinnest, thou bearest.

King

Guilt lie on those that hate me! but your prayers

Harmless I may not hear; and to reject them

Were harsh. To do, and not to do alike

Perplex me; on the edge of choice I tremble.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

Him worship who sitteth a watchman in Heaven,

And looks on this life of our labour;

Nor looketh in vain, when the wretched is driven

From the gate of his pitiless neighbour.

On our knees when we fall, and for mercy we call,

If his right thou deny to the stranger,

Jove shall look on thy home, from his thunder dome,

Sternly wrathful, the suppliants’ avenger.

King.

But if Ægyptus’ sons shall claim you, pleading

Their country’s laws, and their near kinship, who

Shall dare to stand respondent? You must plead

Your native laws, so the laws plead for you,

And speak you free from who would force your love.

STROPHE III.

Chorus.

Ah ne’er to the rough-handed youth let me yield,

But rather alone, ’neath the wide starry field,

Let me wander, an outcast, a stranger!

The ill-sorted yoke I abhor: and do thou,

With Justice to second thee, judge for me now,

And fear Him above, the Avenger!

King.

Not I shall judge: it is no easy judgment.

What I have said, I said. Without the people

I cannot do this thing; being absolute king,

I would not. Justly, if mischance shall follow,

The popular tongue will blame the ruler, who,

To save the stranger, ruined his own flock.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

Where kindred with kindred contendeth in war,

Jove looks on the strife, and decides from afar,

Where he holdeth the scales even-handed,

O why wilt thou doubt to declare for the right?

He blesseth the good, but in anger will smite,

Where the sons of the wicked are banded.

King.

To advise for you in such confounding depths,

My soul should be a diver, to plunge down

Far in the pool profound with seeing eye,

And feel no dizziness. ’Tis no light matter

Here to unite your safety and the state’s.

If that your kindred claim you as their right,

And we withstand, a bloody strife ensues.

If from these altars of the gods we tear you,

Your chosen refuge, we shall surely bring

The all-destroying god, the stern Alastor,

To house with us, whom not the dead in Hades

Can flee. Is here no cause to ponder well?

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Ponder well,

With thee to dwell,

A righteous-minded host receive us!

Weary-worn,

Exiles lorn,

From the godless men that grieve us

Save to-day;

Nor cast-a-way

Homeless, houseless, hopeless leave us!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Shall rash assaulters

From these altars

Rudely drag the friendless stranger?

Thou art king,

’Neath thy wing

Cowers in vain the weak from danger?

Thy terror show

To our fierce foe,

Fear, O fear our High Avenger!

STROPHE II.

Where they see

The gods and thee,

Shall their lawless will not falter?

Shall they tear

My floating hair,

As a horse dragged by the halter?

Wilt thou bear

Him to tear

My frontlets fair,

My linen robes—the bold assaulter?

ANTISTROPHE II.

One the danger,

If the stranger

Thou reject, or welcome wisely;

For thee and thine

To Mars a fine

Thou shalt pay the same precisely:

From Egypt far

Fearing war,

Thou shalt mar

Thy peace with mighty Jove, not wisely.

King.

Both ways I’m marred. Even here my wits are stranded.

With these or those harsh war to make, strong Force

Compels my will. Nailed am I like a vessel

Screwed to the dock, beneath the shipwright’s tool.

Which way I turn is woe. A plundered house

By grace of possessory Jove may freight

New ships with bales that far outweigh the loss;

And a rash tongue that overshoots the mark

With barbéd phrase that harshly frets the heart,

With one smooth word, may charm the offence away.

But ere the sluice of kindred blood be opened,

With vows and victims we must pray the gods

Importunate, if perchance such fateful harm

They may avert. Myself were little wise

To mingle in this strife: of such a war

Most ignorant is most blest: but may the gods

Deceive my fears, and crown your hopes with blessing!

Chorus.

Now hear the end of my respectful prayers.

King.

I hear. Speak on. Thy words shall not escape me.

Chorus.

Thou see’st this sash, this zone my stole begirding.

King.

Fit garniture of women. Yes; I see it.

Chorus.

This zone well-used may serve us well.

King.

How so?

Chorus.

If thou refuse to pledge our safety, then—

King.

Thy zone shall pledge it how?

Chorus.

Thou shalt behold

These ancient altars with new tablets hung.

King.

Thou speak’st in riddles. Explain.

Chorus.

These gods shall see me

Here hanging from their shrines.

King.

Hush, maiden! Hush!

Thy words pierce through my marrow!

Chorus.

Thou hast heard

No blind enigma now. I gave it eyes.

King.

Alas! with vast environment of ills

I’m hedged all round. Misfortune, like a sea,

Comes rushing in: the deep unfathomed flood

I fear to cross, and find no harbour nigh.

Thy prayer if I refuse, black horror rises

Before me, that no highest-pointed aim

May overshoot. If posted fore these walls

I give thy kindred battle, I shall be

Amerced with bitter loss, who reckless dared

For woman’s sake to incarnadine the plain

With brave men’s blood. Yet I perforce must fear

The wrath of suppliant Jove, than which no terror

Awes human hearts more strongly. Take these branches,

Thou aged father of these maids, and place them

On other altars of the native gods,

Where they may speak, true heralds of thy mission,

To all the citizens: and, mark me, keep

My words within thy breast: for still the people

To spy a fault in whoso bears authority

Have a most subtle sight. Trust your good cause.

Thy pitiful tale may move their righteous ire

Against your haughty-hearted persecutors,

And ’neath their wings they’ll shield you. The afflicted

Plead for themselves: their natural due is kindness.

Danaus.

Your worth we know to prize, and at their weight

Our high protector’s friendly words we value.

But send, we pray, attendant guides to show us

The pillar-compassed seats divine, the altars

That stand before their temples, who protect

This city and this land, and to insure

Our safety mid the people: for our coming

(Being strangers from the distant Nile, and not

Like you that drink the stream of Inachus

In features or in bearing) might seem strange.

Too bold an air might rouse suspicion; men

Oft-times have slain their best friends unawares.

King[to the Attendants].

See him escorted well! conduct him

hence

To the altars of the city, to the shrines

Of the protecting gods, wasting no speech

On whom you meet. Attend the suppliant stranger!

[Exeunt Attendants withDanaus.

Chorus.

These words to him: and, with his sails well trimmed,

Fair be his voyage! But I, what shall I do,

My anchor where?

King.

Here leave these boughs that prove

Thy sorrows.

Chorus.

Here at thy rever’d command

I leave them.

King.

This ample wood shall shade thee; wait thou here!

Chorus.

No sacred grove is this how should it shield me?

King.

We will not yield thee to the vultures’ claws.

Chorus.

But worse than vultures, worse than dragons threat us.

King.

Gently. To fair words give a fair reply.

Chorus.

I’m terror-struck. Small marvel that I fret.

King.

Fear should be far, when I the king am near.

Chorus.

With kind words cheer me, and kind actions too.

King.

Thy father will return anon, meanwhile

I go to call the assembly of the people,

And in thy favour move them, if I can.

Thy father, too, I’ll aptly train, how he

Should woo their favour. Wait ye here, and pray

The native gods to crown your heart’s desire

I go to speed the business; may Persuasion

And Chance, with happy issue pregnant, guide me!

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

King of all kings, high-blest above

Each blest celestial nature,

Strength of the strong, all-glorious Jove,

All crowning Consummator!

Hear thou our prayer: the proud confound;

With hate pursue the hateful,

And plunge in purpling pools profound

The black-bench’d bark, the fateful!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Our ancient line from thee we trace

Our root divinely planted;

Look on these sisters with the grace

To that loved maid once granted,

Our mother Io; and renew

Sweet memory in the daughters

Of her thy gentle touch who knew

By Nile’s deep-rolling waters.

STROPHE II.

Here, even here, where ’mid the browsing kine,

My Argive mother fed her eye divine,

With rich mead’s flowery store,

My Libyan foot I’ve planted; hence by the brize

Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies

From various shore to shore,

God-madded wanderer. Twice the billowy wave

She crossed; and twice her fated name she gave

To the wide sea’s straitened roar.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Spurred through the Asian land with swiftest speed

She fled, where Phrygian flocks far-pasturing feed

Then restless travelled o’er

Mysia, where Teuthras holds his fortress high,

Cilician and Pamphylian heights, and nigh

Where roaring waters pour

From fountains ever fresh their torrent floods,

And Aphrodite’s land whose loamy roods

Swell with the wheaten store.

STROPHE III.

Thence by her wingéd keeper stung, she speeds

To the land divine, the many-nurturing meads,

And to the snow-fed stream,

Which like impetuous Typhon, vasty pours

Its purest waves, that the salubrious shores

From pestilent taint redeem.

Here from harsh Hera’s madly-goading pest,

From hattering chase of undeserved unrest,

At length by the holy stream

ANTISTROPHE III.

She rests. Pale terror smote their hearts who saw

The unwonted sight beheld with startled awe

The thronging sons of Nile;

Nor dared to approach this thing of human face,

Portentous-mingled with the lowing race,

Treading the Libyan soil.

Who then was he, the brize-stung Io’s friend,

With charms of soothing virtue strong to end

Her weary-wandering toil?

STROPHE IV.

Jove, mighty Jove, Heaven’s everlasting king,

He soft-inspiring came,

And with fond force innocuous heals her ills;

She from her eyes in lucent drops distils

The stream of sorrowful shame,

And in her womb from Jove a burden bore,

A son of blameless fame,

Who with his prosperous life long blessed the Libyan shore

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Far-pealed the land with jubilant shout—from Jove,

From Jove it surely came,

This living root of a far-branching line!

For who but Jove prevailed, with power divine,

Harsh Hera’s wrath to tame?

Such the great work of Jove; and we are such,

O Jove, our race who claim

From him whose name declares the virtue of thy touch.

STROPHE V.

For whom more justly shall my hymn be chaunted

Than thee, above all gods that be, high-vaunted,

Root of my race, great Jove;

Prime moulder from whose plastic-touching hand

Life leaps: thine ancient-minded counsels stand,

Thou all-devising Jove.

ANTISTROPHE V.

High-throned above the highest as the lowest,

Beyond thee none, and mightier none thou knowest,

The unfearing, all-feared one.

When his deep thought takes counsel to fulfil,

No dull delays clog Jove’s decided will,

He speaks, and it is done.

EnterDanaus.

Danaus.

Be of good cheer, my daughters! All is well,

The popular voice hath perfected our prayers.

Chorus.

Hail father, bearer of good news: but say,

How was the matter stablished? and how far

Prevailed the people’s uplifted hands to save us?

Danaus.

Not doubtingly, but with a bold decision,

That made my old heart young again to see’t.

With one acclaim, a forest of right hands

Rose through the hurtled air. These Libyan exiles—

So ran the popular will—shall find a home

In Argos, free, and from each robber hand

Inviolate, the native or the stranger,

And, whoso holding Argive land refuses

To shield these virgins from the threatened force,

Disgrace shall brand him, and the popular vote

Oust him from Argos. Such response the king

Persuasive forced, with wise admonishment;

Urging the wrath of Jove, which else provoked

Would fatten on our woes, and the twin wrong

To you the stranger, and to them the city,

Pollution at their gate, a fuel to feed

Ills without end. These words the Argive people

Answered with suffragating hands, nor waited

The herald’s call to register their votes:

Just eloquence ruled their willing ear, and Jove

Crowned their fair purpose with the perfect deed.

[Exit.

Chorus.

Come then, sisters, pour we freely

Grateful prayers for Argive kindness;

Jove, the stranger’s friend, befriend us,

While from stranger’s mouth sincerest

Here we voice the hymn,

To a blameless issue, surely,

Jove will guide the fate.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Jove-born gods, benignly bending,

Look, we pray, with eyes befriending,

On these Argive halls!

Ne’er may Mars, the wanton daring,

With his shrill trump, joyless-blaring,

Wrap, in wild flames, fiercely flaring,

These Pelasgian walls!

Go! thy gory harvest reaping

Far from us: thy bloody weeping

Distant tribes may know.

Bless, O Jove, this Argive nation!

They have heard the supplication

Of thy suppliants low;

Where the swooping Fate abased us,

They with Mercy’s vote upraised us

From the prostrate woe!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Not with the male, the stronger, erring,

But, woman’s weaker cause preferring,

Stood their virtue proof:

Wisely Jove, the Avenger, fearing,

To the chastened eye appearing,

High his front of wrath up-rearing

’Gainst the guilty roof.

For heavily, heavily weighs the Alastor,

Scapeless, and, with sore disaster,

Sinks the sinner low.

Bless, O Jove, this Argive nation,

That knew their kindred’s supplication,

And saved them from the foe:

And when their vows they pay, then surely

Gifts from clean hands offered purely

Thou in grace shalt know.

STROPHE II.

High these suppliant branches raising,

Sisters, ancient Argos praising,

Pour the grateful strain!

Far from thy Pelasgian portals

Dwell black Plague, from drooping mortals

Ebbing life to drain!

May’st thou see the crimson river

From fierce home-bred slaughter, never

Flowing o’er thy plain!

Far from thee the youth-consuming

Blossom-plucking strife!

The harsh spouse of Aphrodite,

Furious Mars in murder mighty,

Where he sees thy beauty blooming,

Spare his blood-smeared knife!

ANTISTROPHE II

May a reverend priesthood hoary

Belt thy shrines, their chiefest glory,

With an holy band!

By the bountiful libation,

By the blazing pile, this nation

Shall securely stand.

Jove, the great All-ruler, fearing,

Jove, the stranger’s stay, revering,

Ye shall save the land;

Jove, sure-throned above all cavil,

Rules by ancient right,

May just rulers never fail thee!

Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee,

To thy mothers when in travail

Sending labours light!

STROPHE III.

May no wasting march of ruin

Work, O Argos, thine undoing!

Never may’st thou hear

Cries of Mars, the shrill, the lyreless!

Ne’er may tearful moans, and quireless,

Wake the sleeper’s ear!

Far from thee the shapes black-trooping

Of disease, delightless-drooping!

May the blazing death-winged arrow

Of the Sun-god spare the marrow

Of thy children dear!

ANTISTROPHE III.

Mighty Jove, the gracious giver,

With his full-sheaved bounty ever

Crown the fruited year!

Flocks that graze before thy dwelling

With rich increase yearly swelling

The prosperous ploughman cheer!

May the gods no grace deny thee,

And the tuneful Muses nigh thee,

With exuberant raptures brimming,

From virgin throats thy praises hymning

Hold the charmèd ear!

STROPHE IV.

O’er the general weal presiding,

They that rule with far-providing

Wisdom sway, and stably-guiding,

Changeful counsels mar!

Timely with each foreign nation

Leagues of wise conciliation

Let them join, fierce wars avoiding,

From sharp losses far!

ANTISTROPHE IV.

The native gods, strong to deliver,

With blood of oxen free-poured ever,

With laurel-branches failing never,

Piously adore!

Honour thy parents: spurn not lightly

This prime statute sanctioned rightly,

Cling to this, a holy liver,

Steadfast evermore!

Re-enterDanaus.

Danaus.

Well hymned, my daughters! I commend your prayers;

But brace your hearts, nor fear, though I, your father,

Approach the bearer of unlooked-for news.

For from this consecrated hold of gods

I spy the ship; too gallantly it peers

To cheat mine eye. The sinuous sail I see,

The bulging fence-work on each side, the prow

Fronted with eyes to track its watery way,

True to the steerman’s hint that sits behind,

And with no friendly bearing On the deck

Appear the crew, their swarthy limbs more swart

By snow-white vests revealed: a goodly line

Of succour in the rear: but in the van

The admiral ship, with low-furled sail makes way

By the swift strokes of measured-beating oars.

Wait calmly ye, and with well-counselled awe

Cling to the gods; the while ye watch their coming,

Myself will hence, and straight return with aid

To champion our need. For I must look for

Some herald or ambassador claiming you,

Their rightful prey, forthwith; but fear ye not,

Their harsh will may not be. This warning take

Should we with help be slow, remain you here

Nor leave these gods, your strength. Faint not: for surely

Comes the appointed hour, and will not stay,

When godless men to Jove just fine shall pay.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Father, I tremble, lest the fleet-winged ships,

Ere thou return, shall land—soon—very soon!

O father, I tremble to stay, and not flee,

When the bands of the ruthless are near!

My flight to foreclose from the chase of my foes!

O father, I faint for fear!

Danaus.

Fear not, my children. The accomplished vote

Of Argos saves you. They are champions sworn.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

They come—destruction’s minions mad with hate,

Of fight insatiate: well thou know’st the men.

With their host many-counted, their ships dark-fronted,

They are near, O father, how near!

Their ships stoutly-timbered, their crews swarthy-membered,

Triumphant in wrath I fear!

Danaus.

Even let them come. They’ll find their match in Argos;

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

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Only not leave me! Pray thee, father, stay!

Weak is a lonely woman. No Mars is in her.

Dark-counselled, false, cunning-hearted are they,

Unholy, as obscene crows

On the feast of the altar that filthily prey;

They fear not the gods, my foes!

Danaus.

’Twill make our cause the stronger, daughters, if

Their crime be sacrilege, and their foes the gods.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

The trident and the sacred blazonry

Will not repel their violent hands, O father!

They are proud, haughty-hearted, a high-blown race;

They are hot, they are mad for the fray!

With the hound in their heart, and the dog in their face,

They will tear from the altar their prey.

Danaus.

Dogs let them be, the world has wolves to master them!

And good Greek corn is better than papyrus.

Chorus.

Being reasonless as brutes, unholy monsters,

And spurred with wrath we must beware their fury.

Danaus.

’Tis no light work to land a fleet. To find

Safe roads, sure anchorage, and to make fast

The cables, this not with mere thought is done.

The shepherds of the ships are slow to feel

Full confidence, the more that on this coast

Harbours are few. Besides, thou see’st the sun

Slants to the night; and still a prudent pilot

Fears in the dark. No man will disembark,

Trust me, till all are firmly anchored. Thou

Through all thy terrors still cling to the gods,

Thy most sure stay. Thy safety’s pledged. For me

I’m old, but with the tongue of fluent youth

I’ll speak for thee, a pleader without blame.

[Exit.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

O hilly land, high-honoured land,

What wait we now, poor fugitive band?

Some dark, dark cave

Show me, within thy winding strand,

To hide and save!

Would I might vanish in smoke, ascending

To Heaven, with Jove’s light clouds dim-blending

In misty air,

Like wingless, viewless dust, and ending

In nothing there!

ANTISTROPHE I.

’Tis more than heart may bear. Quick Fear

My quaking life with dusky drear

Alarm surroundeth!

My father spied my ruin: sheer

Despair confoundeth.

Sooner, high-swung from fatal rope,

Here may I end both life and hope,

And strong Death bind me,

Than hated hearts shall reach their scope,

And shame shall find me!

STROPHE II.

Would I were throned in ether high,

Where snows are born, and through the sky

The white rack skurries! Would that I

Might sit sublime

On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh,

Where human finger never showed

The far-perched vultures’ drear abode,

Nor goat may climb!

Thence sheer to leap, and end for ever

My life and name,

Ere forceful hands this heart deliver

To married shame!

ANTISTROPHE II.

There, where no friendly foot may stray,

There let me lie, my limbs a prey

To dogs and birds: I not gainsay:

’Twas wisely said,

Free from much woe who dies to-day

Shall be to-morrow. Rather than wedded

To whom I hate, let me be bedded

Now with the dead!

Or if there be, my life to free,

A way, declare it,

Ye gods!—a surgeon’s cut for me,

My heart shall bear it!

STROPHE III.

Voice ye your sorrow! with the cry

Of doleful litany pierce the sky!

For freedom, for quick rescue cry

To him above!

Ruler of Earth, look from thy throne,

With eyes of love!

These deeds of violence wilt thou own,

Nor know thy prostrate suppliant’s groan,

Almighty Jove?

ANTISTROPHE III.

Ægyptus’ sons, a haughty race,

Follow my flight with sleepless chase,

With whoop and bay they scent my trace

To force my love

Thy beam is true; both good and ill

Thy sure scales prove,

Thou even-handed! Mortals still

Reap fair fulfilment from thy will,

All-crowning Jove.

Chorus,in separate voices, and short hurried exclamations:

Voice 1.

Ah me! he lands! he leaps ashore!

He strides with ruffian hands to hale us!

Voice 2.

Cry, sisters, cry! swift help implore!

If here to cry may aught avail us!

Voice 3.

Ah me! ’tis but the muffled roar

Of forceful storms soon to assail us!

Voice 1.

Flee to the gods! to the altars cling!

Voice 2.

By sea, by land, the ruthless foe

Grimly wantons in our woe!

Voice 3.

Beneath thy wing shield us, O king!

EnterHerald.

Herald.

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

Swiftly as your feet may bear ye!

Chorus.

Tear us! tear us!

Rend us rather,

Torture and tear us!

From this body

Cut the head!

Gorily gather

Us to the dead!

Herald.

Hence to the ships, away! away!

A curse on you, and your delay!

O’er the briny billowy way

Thou shalt go to-day, to-day!

Wilt thou stand, a mulish striver,

I can spur, a forceful driver;

Deftly, deftly, thou shalt trip

To the stoutly-timbered ship!

If to yield thou wilt not know,

Gorily, gorily thou shalt go!

An’ thou be not madded wholly,

Know thy state, and quit thy folly!

Chorus.

Help, ho! help, ho! help!

Herald.

To the ships! to the ships away with me!

These gods of Argos what reck we?

Chorus.

Never, O never

The nurturing river,

Of life the giver,

The healthful flood

That quickens the blood

Let me behold!

An Argive am I,

From Inachus old,

These gods deny

Thy claim. Withhold!

Herald.

To the ships, to the ships, with march not slow,

Will ye, nill ye, ye must go!

Quickly, quickly, hence away!

Know thy master and obey!

Ere a worse thing thou shalt know—

Blows and beating—gently go!

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Worse than worsest

May’st thou know!

As thou cursest,

Curst be so!

The briny billow

O’er thee flow!

On sandy pillow

Bedded low,

’Neath Sarpedon’s breezy brow,

With the shifting sands shift thou!

Herald.

Scream—rend your robes in rags!—call on the gods!

The Egyptian bark thou shalt not overleap.

Pour ye the bitter bootless wail at will!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

With fierce heart swelling

To work my woe,

With keen hate yelling

Barks the foe.

Broad Nile welling

O’er thee flow!

Find thy dwelling

Bedded low,

’Neath the towering Libyan waters,

Towering thou ’gainst Libya’s daughters!

Herald.

To the ships! to the ships! the swift ships even-oared!

Quickly! no laggard shifts! the hand that drags thee

Will lord it o’er thy locks, not gently handled!

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

O father, oh!

From the altar

The assaulter

Drags me to my woe!

Step by step, a torturing guider,

Like the slowly-dragging spider,

Cruel-minded so

Like a dream,

A dusky dream,

My hope away doth go!

O Earth, O Earth,

From death redeem!

O Earth, O Jove deliver!

Herald.

Your Argive gods I know not; they nor nursed

My infant life, nor reared my riper age.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

O father, oh!

From the altar

The assaulter

Drags me to my woe!

A snake two-footed fiercely fretted

Swells beside me! from his whetted

Fangs, black death doth flow!

Like a dream,

A dusky dream,

My hope is vanished so!

O Earth, O Earth,

From death redeem!

O Earth, O Jove deliver!

Herald.

To the ships! to the ships! Obey! I say, obey!

Pity thy robes, if not thy flesh—away!

STROPHE III.

Chorus.

Ye chiefs of the city,

By force they subdue me!

Herald.

Well! I must drag thee by the hair! come! come!

Point thy dull ears, and hear me!—come! come! come!

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

I’m lost! I’m ruined!

O king, they undo me!

Herald.

Thou shalt see kings enough anon, believe me,

Ægyptus’ sons—kingless thou shalt not die.

EnterKingwith Attendants.

King.

Fellow, what wouldst thou? With what purpose here

Dost flout this land of brave Pelasgian men?

Deem’st thou us women? A barbarian truly

Art thou, if o’er the Greek to sport it thus

The fancy tempts thee. Nay, but thou art wrong

Both root and branch in this

Herald.

How wrong? Speak plainly.

King.

Thou art a stranger here, and dost not know

As a stranger how to bear thee.

Herald.

This I know,

I lost my own, and what I lost I found.

King.

Thy patrons who, on this Pelasgian ground?

Herald.

To find stray goods the world all over, Hermes

Is prince of patrons

King.

Hermes is a god,

Thou, therefore, fear the gods

Herald.

And I do fear

The gods of the Nile.

King.

We too have gods in Argos.

Herald.

So be it: but, in Argos or in Africk,

My own’s my own

King.

Who touches these reaps harm,

And that right soon

Herald.

No friendly word thou speak’st,

To welcome strangers.

King.

Strangers are welcome here;

But not to spoil the gods.

Herald.

These words of thine

To Ægyptus’ sons be spoken, not to me

King.

I take no counsel, or from them, or thee.

Herald.

Thou—who art thou? for I must plainly make

Rehearsal to my masters—this my office

Enforces—both by whom, and why, unjustly

I of this kindred company of women

Am robbed. A serious strife it is; no bandying

Of words from witnesses, no silver passed

From hand to hand will lay such ugly strife;

But man for man must fall, and noblest souls

Must dash their lives away.

King.

For what I am,

You, and your shipmates, soon enough shall know me

These maids, if with the softly suasive word

Thou canst prevail, are thine; to force we never

Will yield the suppliant sisters; thus the people

With one acclaim have voted; ’tis nailed down

Thus to the letter. So it must remain.

Thou hast my answer, not in tablets graven,

Or in the volumed scroll, all stamped and sealed,

But from a free Greek mouth. Dost understand me?

Hence quickly from my sight!

Herald.

Of this be sure,

A war thou stirrest, in which, when once begun,

The males will be the stronger.

King.

We, too, have males

In Argos, lusty-blooded men, who drink

Good wine, not brewed from barley. As for you,

Ye virgins, fearless follow where these guides

Shall lead. Our city strongly girt with wall,

And high-reared tower receives you. We can boast

Full many a stately mansion; stateliest piled

My palace stands, work of no feeble hands.

Right pleasant ’tis in populous floors to lodge

With many a fellow-tenant: some will find

A greater good in closely severed homes,

That have no common gates: of these thou hast

The ample choice: take what shall like thee most

Know me thy patron, and in all things know

My citizens thy shield, whose vote hath pledged

Thy safety; surer guarantee what wouldst thou?

Chorus.

Blessing for thy blessing given,

Flow to thee, divine Pelasgian!

But for our advisal forthwith

Send, we pray thee, for our father;

He the firm, the far foreseeing,

How to live, and where to lodge us,

Duly shall direct. For ever

Quick to note the faults of strangers

Sways the general tongue; though we

Hope all that’s good and best from thee.

King[to the attendant maids]:

Likewise you, ye maids attendant

For his daughters’ service, wisely

Portioned by the father, here

Be your home secure,

Far from idle-bruited babblings,

’Neath my wing to dwell!

EnterDanaus,attended by an Argive guard.

Danaus.

Daughters! if so the Olympian gods deserve

Your sacrifices, your libations, surely

Argos no less may claim them! Argos truly

Your Saviour in worst need! With eager ears

They drank my tale, indignant the foul deeds

Of our fell-purposed cousinship they heard,

And for my guard this goodly band they set me

Of strong spear-bearing men, lest being slain

By the lurking lance of some insidious foe

My death bring shame to Argos. Such high honor,

From hearts where kindness moves the friendly deed,

They heaped the sire withal, that you, the daughters,

In father’s stead should own them. For the rest,

To the chaste precepts graven on your heart

That oft I gave, one timely warning add,

That time, which proveth all, approve your lives

Before this people; for ’gainst the stranger, calumny

Flows deftly from the tongue, and cheap traducement

Costs not a thought. I charge ye, therefore, daughters,

Your age being such that turns the eyes of men

To ready gaze, in all ye do consult

Your father’s honor: such ripe bloom as yours

No careless watch demands: so fair a flower

Wild beasts and men, monsters of all degrees,

Winged and four-footed, wantonly will tear.

Her luscious-dropping fruits the Cyprian hangs

In the general view, and publishes their praise;

That whoso passes, and beholds the pomp

Of shapeliest beauty, feels the charmed dart

That shoots from eye to eye, and vanquished falls

By strong desire. Give, therefore, jealous heed

That our long toils, and ploughing the deep sea

Not fruitless fall; but be your portment such

As breeds no shame to us, nor to our enemies

Laughter. A double lodgment for our use,

One from the state, the other from the king,

Rentless we hold. All things look bright. This only,

Your father’s word, remember. More than life

Hold a chaste heart in honor.

Chorus.

The high Olympians

Grant all thy wish! For us and our young bloom,

Fear nothing, father: for unless the gods

Have forged new counsels, we ev’n to the end

Will tread the trodden path, and will not bend.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Lift ye the solemn hymn!

High let your pæans brim!

Praise in your strain

Gods that in glory reign

High o’er the Argive plain,

High o’er each castled hold,

Where Erasinus old

Winds to the main!

Semi-Chorus 2 [to the attendant maids]:

Sing, happy maids, with me!

Loud with responsive glee

Voice ye the strain!

Praise ye the Argive shore,

Praise holy Nile no more,

Wide where his waters roar,

Mixed with the main!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Lift ye the solemn hymn!

High let your pæans brim!

Praise in your strain

Torrents that bravely swell

Fresh through each Argive dell,

Broad streams that lazily

Wander, and mazily

Fatten the plain.

Semi-Chorus 2.

Sing, sisters, sing with me

Artemis chaste! may she

List to the strain!

Never, O never may

Marriage with fearful sway

Bind me; nor I obey

Hatefullest chain!

STROPHE II.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Yet, mighty praise be thine

Cyprian queen divine!

Hera, with thee I join,

Nearest to Jove.

Subtly conceiving all,

Wiseliest weaving all,

Thy will achieving all

Nobly by love!

Semi-Chorus 2.

With thee Desire doth go;

Peitho, with suasive flow

Bending the willing foe,

Marches with thee.

Lovely Harmonia

Knows thee, and, smote with awc,

Strong kings obey the law

Whispered by thee.

STROPHE IV.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Yet must I fear the chase,

Sail spread in evil race,

War with a bloody pace

Spurred after me.

Why to this Argive shore

Came they with plashing oar,

If not with sorrow’s store

Treasured for me?

Semi-Chorus 2.

Comes fated good or ill,

Wait we in patience still!

No power may thwart his will

Jove, mighty Jove.

Laden with sorrow’s store

Virgins in days of yore

Praised, when their grief was o’er,

Jove, mighty Jove.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Jove, mighty Jove, may he

From wedded force for me

Rescue prepare!

Semi-Chorus 2.

Fair fall our maiden lot!

But mighty Jove may not

Yield to thy prayer.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Know’st thou what woes may be

Stored yet by Fate for me?

Semi-Chorus 2.

Jove and his hidden plan

Sight of the sharpest man

Searcheth in vain;

Thou in thy narrow span

Wisely remain!

Semi-Chorus 1.

Wisely my thought may fare

Tell me, O tell me where?

Semi-Chorus 2.

’Gainst what the gods ordain

Fret not thy heart in vain

STROPHE

Semi-Chorus 1

Save me, thou chief of gods, great Jove,

From violent bonds of hated love,

Even as the Inachian maid of yore

Thy hand set free from labour sore,

What time thou soothed with touch divine

Her weary frame,

And with a friendly force benign

Thy healing came.

ANTISTROPHE.

Semi-Chorus 2.

May the woman’s cause prevail!

And, when two certain ills assail,

Be ours the less: and Justice fair

For the just shall still declare.

Ye mighty gods o’er human fates

Supremely swaying,

On you my prayer, my fortune waits,

Your will obeying.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

A LYRICO-DRAMATIC SPECTACLE

I cannot think but curses climb the sky,

And there awake God’s gentle-sleeping peace.

Shakespere.

Alle Schuld rächt sich auf Erden.

Goethe.

PERSONS

Eteocles, Son of Oedipus.

Messenger.

Chorus of Theban Virgins.

Ismene, } Sisters of Eteocles.

Antigone, } Sisters of Eteocles.

Herald.

Scene—The Acropolis of Thebes.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Sow not the seed of children, in despite

Of the gods: for if thou shalt beget a son,

Him who begat shall the begotten slay,

And all thy house in bloody ruin perish.

With regard to the merits of the present piece, while its structure exhibits, in the most striking manner, the deficient skill of the early dramatists, its spirit is everywhere manly and noble, and instinct with the soul of the warlike actions which it describes. The best parts are epic, not dramatic—namely, those in which the Messenger describes the different characters and appearance of the seven chiefs posted each at a separate gate of the Cadmean city. The drama concludes with a Theban coronach or wall over the dead bodies of the self-slain brothers; for the proper relishing of which, the imaginative reproduction of some appropriate music is indispensable. The introduction after this of the Herald, announcing the decree of the Theban senate, whereby burial is denied to the body of Polynices, and the heroic display of sisterly affection on the part of Antigone, are—if this really was the last piece of a trilogy—altogether foreign both to the action and to the tone of the tragedy, and must be regarded as a blunder. If Schiller, and even Shakespeare, on occasions, could err in such matters, much more Æschylus.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Eteocles.

Ye citizens of Cadmus! he who sits

Holding the helm in the high poop of state,

Watchful, with sleepless eyes, must, when he speaks,

Speak words that suit the time. If we succeed,

The gods will have the praise; but should we fail

(Which may averting Jove from me avert,

And from this Theban city!), I alone

Must bear the up-heaped murmurings of the whole,

A motley-voiced lament. Ye men of Thebes,

Not manhood’s vigour only, but ye also

Who lack ripe years, and ye whose green old age

Nurses unwithered strength, arm, and redeem

Your country’s honor from a cruel blot.

Let not the citadel of your ancient sires,

The altars of your native gods, your children,

Nor the dear mother Earth, that nursed you, blame

The slackness of your love—the nurse who bore

Your creeping childhood on her fostering soil,

And through your slow growth up to firmer years,

Toiled that the strong arms of her faithful sons,

Might shield her need. Up to this hour the god

Inclines to us; though close hedged in by the foe,

The vantage hath been ours. But now the seer,

The shepherd of prophetic birds’ revolving

In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,

By no false art, though without help from fire,

Even he soothsaying sings that the Argive camp

Holds midnight council to attack the city.

Therefore be ready; mount the battlements;

Top every tower; crown every parapet;

Fence every gate with valiant-hearted men,

Well harnessed for the fight: and never fear

This trooping alien foe. The gods will give

A happy issue. Myself have sent out scouts,

Sure men, not wont to linger. Their advice

Shall shield us from surprise.

EnterMessenger.

Mess.

Eteocles,

Most excellent lord of Thebes! what I have seen

With mine own eyes, no idle unvouched tale,

I bring thee from the camp Seven warlike chiefs

I saw, in solemn sacrifice assembled:

Holding the head of the devoted ox,

Over the shield with iron rimmed they dipped

Their hands in the steaming blood, and swore an oath,

By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror,

Either to raze the walls of Thebes, and plunder

The citadel of Cadmus, or else drench

This soil with Argive blood. Then, as for death

Prepared, they decked the chariot of Adrastus

With choice love-tokens to their Argive kin,

Dropping a tear, but with their mouths they gave

No voice. An iron-hearted band are they,

Breathing hot war, like lions when their eye

Looks instant battle. Such my news; nor I

Slow to report; for in the camp I left them

Eager to share among their several bands

Our gates by lot. Therefore, bestir thee; fence

Each gate with the choicest men: dash all delay;

For now the Argive host, near and more near,

All panoplied comes on; the dark-wreathed dust

Rolls, and the snowy foam of snorting chargers

Stains the pure Theban soil. Like a wise pilot

That scents the coming gale, hold thou the city

Tight, ere the storm of Ares on our heads

Burst pitiless. Loud the mainland wave is roaring.

This charge be thine: myself, a sleepless spy,

Will bring thee sure word from the hostile camp:

Safe from without, so ye be strong within

[Exit.

Eteocles.

O Jove! O Earth! O Gods that keep the city!

And thou fell Fury of my father’s curse!

Destroy not utterly this Cadméan seat

Rent, razed, deracinated by the foe!

Yield not our pious hearths, where the loved speech

Of Hellas echoes, to a stranger host!

Let not the free-born Theban bend the neck,

To slavery thralled, beneath a tyrant’s yoke!

Be ye our strength! our common cause we plead;

A prosperous state hath cause to bless the gods.

[Exit.

I.

TheChorusenter the scene in great hurry and agitation.

O wailing and sorrow, O wailing and woe!

Their tents they have left, many-banded they ride,

And onward they tramp with the prance of pride,

The horsemen of the foe.

The dark-volumed dust-cloud that rides on the gale,

Though voiceless, declares a true messenger’s tale;

With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride,

It swells on my ear, loud it rusheth and roareth,

As a fierce wintry torrent precipitous poureth,

Rapidly lashing the mountain side.

Hear me ye gods, and ye goddesses hear me!

The black harm prevent that swells near and more near me!

As a wave on the shore when the blast beats the coast,

So breaks o’er the walls, from the white-shielded host,

The eager war-cry, the sharp cry of fear,

As near still it rolls, and more near.

II.

TheChorusbecome more and more agitated. They speak one to another in short hurried exclamations, and in great confusion.

Chorus 1.

To which of the gods and the goddesses now

Shall I pay my vow?

Chorus 2.

Shall I cling to the altar, and kneeling embrace

The guardian gods of the Theban race?

Tutti.

Ye blissful Olympians, throned sublime,

In the hour of need, in the urgent time,

May the deep drawn sigh,

And the heart’s strong cry

Ascend not in vain to your seats sublime!

Chorus 1.

Heard ye the shields rattle, heard ye the spear?

In this dark day of dole,

With chaplet and stole

Let us march to the temples, and worship in fear!

Chorus 2.

I heard the shield’s rattle, and spear clashed on spear

Came stunning my ear.

Tutti.

O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold,

Thine own chosen city wilt thou behold

To slavery sold?

O Ares, Ares, wilt thou betray

Thy Theban home to-day?

III.

TheChoruscrown the altars of the gods, and then, falling on their knees, sing the following Theban Litany, in one continuous chaunt.

Patron gods that keep the city,

Look, look down upon our woe,

Save this band of suppliant virgins

From the harsh-enslaving foe!

For a rush of high-plumed warriors

Round the city of the free,

By the blast of Ares driven,

Roars, like billows of the sea.

Father Jove the consummator,

Save us from the Argive spear;

For their bristling ranks enclose us,

And our hearts do quake with fear,

And their steeds with ringing bridles

Knell destruction o’er the land;

And seven chiefs, with lance in hand,

Fixed by lot to share the slaughter,

At the seventh gate proudly stand.

Save us, Pallas, war-delighting

Daughter of immortal Jove!

Save us, lord of billowy ocean!

God of pawing steeds, Poseidon,

Join thine aid to his above,

And with thy fish-piercing trident

Still our hearts, our fears remove.

Save us Ares! father Ares,

Father now thy children’s need!

Save us Cypris, mother of Thebans,

For we are thy blood indeed!

Save us, save us, Wolf-Apollo,

Be a wolf against the foe!

Whet thine arrows, born of Leto,

Leto’s daughter bend thy bow!

IV.

The Litany is here interrupted by the noise of the besiegers storming the city, and is continued in a hurried irregular manner.

Chorus 1.

I hear the dread roll of the chariots of war!

Tutti.

O holy Hera!

Chorus 2.

And the axles harsh-creaking with dissonant jar!

Tutti.

O Artemis dear!

Chorus 1.

And the vext air is madded with quick-branished spears.

Semi-Chorus 1.

To Thebes, our loved city, what hope now appears?

Semi-Chorus 2.

And when shall the gods bring an end of our fears?

Chorus 1.

Hark! hark! stony hail the near rampart is lashing!

Tutti.

O blest Apollo!

Chorus 2.

And iron-bound shield against shield is clashing!

Tutti.

The issue of war with the gods abideth,

The doubtful struggle great Jove decideth.

O Onca, blest Onca, whose worshippers ever

Invoke thee, the queen of the Oncan gate,

The seven-gated city deliver, deliver,

Thou guardian queen of the gate.

V.

TheChorusunite again into a full band, and sing the Finale of the Litany in regular Strophe and Antistrophe.

STROPHE.

Gods and goddesses almighty!

Earthly and celestial powers!

Of all good things consummators,

Guardians of the Theban towers!

Save the spear-encompassed city

From a foreign-speaking foe!

Hear the virgin band, that prays thee

With the out-stretched arms of woe!

ANTISTROPHE.

Gods and demigods! the city

Aid that on your aid depends,

Watch around us, and defend us;

He is strong whom God defends.

Bear the incense in remembrance

Of our public sacrifice;

From a people rich in offerings

Let no prayer unanswered rise!

Re-enterEteocles.

Eteocles.

Answer me this, insufferable brood!

Is this your wisdom, this your safety-note

To Theban soldiers, this your war-cry, thus

In prostrate woe clasping the guardian gods,

To scream and wail the vain lament of fools?

I pray the gods, in good or evil days,

May never fate be mine to lodge with women.

When fortune’s brave, their pride’s unbearable,

But, comes a thought of fear, both hall and forum

Must ring with their laments. Why run ye thus

From street to street, into the hearts of men

Scattering dastardy, and bruiting fear?

Nay, but ye chiefly help the enemy’s cause

Without the gate, and we by friends within

Are more besieged; such aid expect from women!

Thebans give ear; whoso shall disobey

My word in Thebes, man, woman, old, or young,

Whoe’er he be, against himself he writes

Black sentence to be stoned by the public hand.

Without the gates let brave men fight; within

Let women tend their children, and their webs.

Hear ye, or hear ye not? or do I speak

To the deaf?

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

Son of Oedipus be witness!

Should not terror rob our wits,

When we hear the roll of chariots,

Whirling wheels, and creaking axles,

And the unresting tramp of horses

Champing fierce their fire-forged bits?

Eteocles.

What then? when with the storm the good ship labours,

Shall the wise helmsman leave his proper post,

To clasp the painted gods upon the prow?

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

When we heard war’s rattling hail-drift

Round our ramparts wildly rave,

Trusting to the gods of Cadmus,

Spurred by fear, we hither hurried,

Here to pray, and clasp the statues

Of the good gods strong to save.

Eteocles.

Pray that our well-manned walls be strong to save us,

Else will the gods help little. Who knows not

That, when a city falls, they pass to the Victor?

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Never, never may the council

Of the assembled gods desert us,

While I live, and look on day!

Never, never may the stranger

Rush through the streets, while midnight burning

Lights the robber to his prey!

Eteocles.

Weak prayers confound wise counsel. Know ye not

Obedience is the mother of success,

And pledge of victory. So the wise have spoken.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

But the gods are strong. When mortals

Stretch the arm in vain to save us,

Help is waiting from above.

When dark night enveils the welkin,

And thick-mantled ruin gathers,

They enclasp us round with love.

Eteocles.

Leave sacrifice and oracles to men,

And ’gainst the imminent foe pray to the gods.

Women should hold their tongues, and keep their homes.

STROPHE III.

Chorus.

By the strength of gods the city

Each rude tide hath learnt to stem;

Who shall charge us with offending,

When we make our vows to them?

Eteocles.

Your vows I grudge not, nor would stint your prayers;

But this I say, blow not your fears about,

Nor taint the general heart with apprehension.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

Startled by the blare of battle,

Hearing clash of combat fell,

With a quaking heart I hied me

To this sacred citadel.

Eteocles.

And when ye hear that some are dead or wounded,

Drag not the news with wailings through the town;

For blood of mortals is the common food

Of the war god.

Chorus.

Hark! the angry steeds are snorting.

Eteocles.

Hear what thou wilt; but do not hear aloud

Chorus.

The Earth beneath me groans, the wall is shaking.

Eteocles.

The walls are mine to uphold. Pray you, be silent.

Chorus.

Woe’s me, the clash of arms, loud and more loud,

Rings at the gate!

Eteocles.

And thou the loudest!—Peace!

Chorus.

Great council of the gods, O save us! save us!

Eteocles

Perdition seize thee! thy words flow like water.

Chorus.

O patron gods, save me from captive chains!

Eteocles.

Thy fear makes captive me, and thee, and all.

Chorus.

O mighty Jove, fix with thy dart the foe!

Eteocles.

O Jove, of what strange stuff hast thou made women!

Chorus.

Men are no better, when their city’s captured.

Eteocles.

Dost clasp the gods again, and scream and howl?

Chorus.

Fear hurries on my overmastered tongue

Eteocles.

One small request I have; beseech you hear me.

Chorus.

Speak: I am willing, if I can, to please thee

Eteocles.

Please me by silence; do not fright thy friends.

Chorus.

I speak no more: and wait my doom with them.

Eteocles.

This word is wiser than a host of wails.

And now, instead of running to and fro,

Clinging to every image as you pass,

Pray to the gods with sober supplication,

To aid the Theban cause: and, when ye hear

My vow, lift up a blithe auspicious shout,

A sacred hymn, a sacrificial cry,

As brave Greek hearts are wont, whose voice shall speak

Sure confidence to friends, and to the foe

Dismay. Now, hear my vow. If they who keep

The city, keep it now from the Argive spear,

I vow to them, and to the patron gods

Of field and forum, and the holy fount

Of Dirce and Ismenus’ sacred stream,

That blood of lambs and bulls shall wash their altars,

And spear-pierced trophies, Argive harnesses,

Bedeck their holy halls. Such be your prayers;

Not sighs and sobs, and frantic screams, that shake

The hearts of men, but not the will of gods.

Meanwhile, with six choice men, myself the seventh,

I’ll gallantly oppose these boastful chiefs

That block our outlets. Timely thus I’ll gag

The swift-winged rush of various-bruited news,

That in the hour of danger blazes fear.

[Exit.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Well thou speakest; but unsleeping

Terrors shake my virgin frame,

And the blasts of war around me

Fan my fears into a flame.

As the dove her dovelets nursing,

Fears the tree-encircling serpent,

Fatal neighbour of her nest;

Thus the foe, our walls enclosing,

Thrills with ceaseless fears my breast.

Hark! in hurrying throngs careering

Rude they beat our Theban towers,

And a rain of rock-torn fragments

On the roofs of Cadmus showers!

Save us, gods that keep the city,

Save us, Jove-begotten Powers!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Say what region shall receive ye,

When the Theban soil is waste?

When pure Dirce’s fount is troubled,

From what waters shall ye taste?

Theban soil, the deepest, richest,

That with fruits of joy is pregnant,

Dirce, sweetest fount that runs,

From Poseidon earth-embracing,

And from Tethys’ winding sons.

Patron-gods maintain your glory,

Sit in might enthroned to-day:

Smite the foe with fear; fear stricken

Let them fling their arms away:

Hear our sharp shrill-piercing wailings,

When for Cadmus’ weal we pray!

STROPHE II.

Sad it were, and food for weeping,

To behold these walls Ogygian,

By the stranger spearman mounted,

Levelled by the Argive foe,

And these towers by god-sent vengeance

Laid in crumbling ashes low.

Sad it were to see the daughters,

And the sonless mothers grey,

Of old Thebes, with hair dishevelled,

And rent vestments, even as horses

Dragged by the mane, a helpless prey;

Sad to hear the victors’ clamour

Mingling with the captive’s moan,

And the frequent-clanking fetter

Struggling with the dying groan.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Sad, most sad, should hands unlicensed

Rudely pluck our opening blossom;

Sad—yea better far to die!

Changing nuptial torch and chamber

For dark homes of slavery.

Ah! my soul within me trembles,

When it shapes the sight of shame,

Swift the chase of lawless murder,

And the swifter chase of flame;

Black the surly smoke upwreathing,

Cries, confusion, choking heat;

Shrine-polluting, man-subduing

Mars, wild borne from street to street!

STROPHE III.

Towers and catapults surrounding,

And the greedy spear upswallowing

Man by man, its gory food:

And the sucking infants clinging

To the breasts that cannot bear them,

Cries to ears that cannot hear them

Mingle with their mother’s blood.

Plunder, daughter of Confusion,

Startles Plenty from his lair,

And the robber with the robber

Bargains for an equal share;

Gods! in such a night of terrors

How shall helpless maidens fare?

ANTISTROPHE III.

Planless is the strife of Plunder.

Fruits of patient years are trampled

Reckless in the moment’s grave;

And the maids that tend the household,

With a bitter eye of weeping,

See the treasured store of summers

Hurried by the barren wave.

Woe, deep woe, waits captive maidens,

To an untried thraldom led,

Bound, by chains of forced affection,

To some haughty husband’s bed:

Sooner, sooner may I wander

Sister of the sunless dead!

Semi-Chorus 1.

Methinks I see the scout sent by the king:

Doubtless he brings us news; his tripping feet

Come swift as wheels that turn on willing axles.

Semi-Chorus 2.

The king himself, the son of Oedipus,

Comes in the exact nick to hear his tidings:

With rapid and unequal steps he too

Urges the way.

EnterMessengerandEteoclesfrom opposite sides

Mess.

What I have seen I come

To tell; the movements of the foe, the station

That lot hath given each champion at the gates.

First at the Prœtian portal Tydeus stands,

Storming against the seer, who wise forbids

To pass Ismenus’ wave, before the sacrifice

Auspicious smiles. But he, for battle burning,

Fumes like a fretful snake in the sultry noon,

Lashing with gibes the wise Oiclidan seer,

Whose prudence he interprets dastardy,

Cajoling death away. Thus fierce he raves,

And shakes the overshadowing crest sublime,

His helmet’s triple mane, while ’neath his shield

The brazen bells ring fear. On his shield’s face

A sign he bears as haughty as himself,

The welkin flaming with a thousand lights,

And in its centre the full moon shines forth,

Eye of the night, and regent of the stars.

So speaks his vaunting shield: on the stream’s bank

He stands, loud-roaring, eager for the fight,

As some fierce steed that frets against the bit,

And waits with ruffling neck, and ears erect,

To catch the trumpet’s blare. Who will oppose

This man? what champion, when the bolts are broken,

Shall plant his body in the Prœtian gate?

Eteocles.

No blows I fear from the trim dress of war,

No wounds from blazoned terrors. Triple crests

And ringing bells bite not without the spear;

And for this braggart shield, with starry night

Studded, too soon for the fool’s wit that owns it

The scutcheon may prove seer. When death’s dark night

Shall settle on his eyes, and the blithe day

Beams joy on him no more, hath not the shield

Spoken significant, and pictured borne

A boast against its bearer? I, to match

This Tydeus, will set forth the son of Astacus,

A noble youth not rich in boasts, who bows

Before the sacred throne of Modesty,

In base things cowardly, in high virtue bold.

His race from those whom Ares spared he draws,

Born from the sown field of the dragon’s teeth,

His name Melanippus. Mars shall throw the dice

Bravely for him, and Justice call him brother,

While girt he goes from his loved Theban mother

To ward the Argive spear.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

May the gods protect our champion!

Be the cause of Right his shield!

But I fear to see the breathless

Bleeding bodies of true warriors

Strewn upon the battle field.

Mess.

Speed well your pious prayers! The lot hath placed

Proud Capaneus before the Electran gate,

A giant warrior mightier than the first,

And boasting more than mortal. His high threats

May never Chance fulfil! for with the aid

Of gods, or in the gods’ despite, he vows

To sack the city, and sets the bolted wrath

Of Jove at nought, his lightnings and his thunders

Recking no more—so speaks the vauntful tongue—

Than vulgar noonday heat. His orbéd shield

The blazon of a naked man displays,

Shaking a flaring torch with lofty threat

In golden letters—i will burn the city.

Such is the man: who shall not quail before

A pride that flings defiance to the gods?

Eteocles.

Here, too, we meet the strong with something stronger.

When men are proud beyond the mark of right,

They do proclaim with forward tongue their folly,

Themselves their own accuser. This brave Capaneus

With empty threats and wordy exercise,

Fights mortal ’gainst immortals, and upcasts

Loud billowy boasts in Jove’s high face But I

In Jove have faith that he will smite this boaster

With flaming bolts, to vulgar heat of noon

In no wise like. The gallant Polyphontus,

A man of glowing heart, against this blusterer

I’ll send, himself a garrison to pledge

Our safety, by the grace of Artemis,

And the protecting gods. Name now the others.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

Perish, with his boasts, the boaster,

By strong thunder prostrate laid!

Never, never may I see him

Into holy homes of virgins

Rushing, with his godless blade!

Mess.

Hear more. The third lot to Eteocles

Leapt from the upturned brazen helm, and fixed him

At the Netaean gate. His eager steeds,

Their frontlets tossed in the breeze, their swelling nostrils

High-snorting with the impatient blast of war,

Their bridles flapping with barbaric clang,

He curbs, and furious ’gainst the city wheels them,

Even as a whirling storm. His breadth of shield,

Superbly rounded, shows an armed man

Scaling a city, with this proud device,

Not Mars himself shall hurl me from these towers.

Choose thou a champion worthy to oppose

This haughty chief, and pledge his country’s weal.

Eteocles.

Fear not: with happy omen, I will send,

Have sent already, one to meet this foe,

Whose boasts are deeds, brave Megareus, a son

Of the dragon’s race, a warrior recking nothing

The snortings of impatient steeds. This man

Will, with his heart’s blood, pay the nursing fee

Due to his Theban mother, or come back—

Which grant the gods!—bearing on that proud shield

Rich spoil to garnish forth his father’s halls,

The painted champion, and the painted city,

And him that living bore the false-faced sign.

Now name the fourth, and spare me not your boasts.

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

May the gods protect my champion!

Ruin seize the ruthless foe!

As they boast to raze the city,

So may Jove with wrathful vengeance

Lay their frenzied babblings low!

Mess.

The fourth’s Hippomedon Before the gate

He stands of Onca Pallas, clamouring on

With lordly port. His shield’s huge round he waved,

(Fearful to view), a halo not a shield

No vulgar cunning did his hand possess

Who carved the dread device upon its face,

Typhon, forth-belching, from fire-breathing mouth,

Black smoke, the volumed sister of the flame,

And round its hollow belly was embossed

A ring of knotted snakes. Himself did rage,

Shouting for battle, by the god of war

Indwelt, and, like a Maenad, his dark eyes

Look fear. Against this man be doubly armed,

For, where he is, grim Fear is with him.

Eteocles.

Onca

Herself will guard the gate that bears her name,

From her own ramparts hurl the proud assailer,

And shield her nurslings from this crested snake.

Hyperbius, the right valiant son of Oenops,

Shall stand against this foe, casting his life

Into the chance of war; in lordly port,

In courage, in all the accoutrements of fight

Hippomedon’s counterpart—a hostile pair

Well matched by Hermes. But no equal match

Their shields display—two hostile gods—the one

Fire-breathing Typhon, father Jove the other,

Erect, firm-planted, in his flaming hand

Grasping red thunder, an unvanquished god.

Such are the gods beneath whose wing they fight,

For us the strong, for them the weaker power.

And as the gods are, so the men shall be

That on their aid depend. If Jove hath worsted

This Typhon in the fight, we too shall worst

Our adverse. Shall the king of gods not save

The man whose shield doth bear the Saviour Jove.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

Earth-born Typhon, hateful monster,

Sight that men and gods appals,

Whoso bears in godless blazon

Great Jove’s foe, shall Jove almighty

Dash his head against the walls.

Mess.

So grant the gods! The fifth proud foe is stationed

Before the Borean gate, hard by the tomb

Of the Jove-born Amphion. By his spear

He swears, his spear more dear to him than gods,

Or light of day, that he will sack the city

In Jove’s despite: thus speaks half-man, half-boy.

The fair-faced scion of a mountain mother.

The manly down, luxuriant, bushy, sprouts

Full from his blooming cheek no virgin he

In aspect, though most virgin-like his name.

Keen are his looks, and fierce his soul; he too

Comes not without a boast against the gates;

For on his shield, stout forgery of brass,

A broad circumference of sure defence,

He shows, in mockery of Cadméan Thebes,

The terrible Sphynx, in gory food delighting,

Hugely embossed, with terror brightly studded,

And in her mortal paw the monster rends

A Theban man: for which reproachful sign

Thick-showered the bearer bears the keenest darts,—

Parthenopæus, bold Arcadian chief.

No man seems he to shame the leagues he travelled

By petty war’s detail. Not born an Argive,

In Argos nursed, he now her love repays,

By fighting ’gainst her foes. His threats—the god

Grant they be only threats!

Eteocles.

Did they receive

What punishment their impious vaunts deserve,

Ruin with one wide swoop should swamp them all.

This braggart stripling, fresh from Arcady,

The brother of Hyperbius shall confront,

Actor, a man whose hand pursues its deed,

Not brandishing vain boasts No enemy,

Whose strength is in his tongue, shall sap these walls,

While Actor has a spear: nor shall the man

Who bears the hated portent on his shield

Enter our gate, but rather the grim sign

Frown on its bearer, when thick-rattling hail

Showered from our walls shall dint it. If the gods

Are just, the words I speak are prophecy.

STROPHE III.

Chorus.

The eager cry doth rend my breast,

And on end stands every hair,

When I hear the godless vaunting

Of unholy men! May Até

Fang them in her hopeless snare!

Mess.

The sixth a sober man, a seer of might,

Before the Homoloidian gate stands forth,

And speaks harsh words against the might of Tydeus

Rating him murderer, teacher of all ill

To Argos, troubler of the city’s peace,

The Furies’ herald, crimson slaughter’s minion,

And councillor of folly to Adrastus.

Thy brother too, the might of Polynices,

He whips with keen reproaches, and upcasts

With bitter taunts his evil-omened name,

Making it spell his ugly sin that owns it.

O fair and pious deed, even thus he cries,

To blot thy native soil with war, and lead

A foreign host against thy country’s gods!

Soothly a worthy deed, a pleasant tale

For future years to tell! Most specious right,

To stop the sacred fountain up whence sprung

Thy traitor life! How canst thou hope to live

A ruler well acknowledged in the land,

That thou hast wounded with invading spear?

Myself this foreign soil, on which I tread,

Shall feed with prophet’s blood. I hope to die,

Since die I must, an undishonoured death.

Thus spake the seer, and waved his full-orb’d shield

Of solid brass, but plain, without device.

Of substance studious, careless of the show,

The wise man is what fools but seem to be,

Reaping rich harvest from the mellow soil

Of quiet thought, the mother of great deeds

Choose thou a wise and virtuous man to meet

The wise and virtuous. Whoso fears the gods

Is fearful to oppose.

Eteocles.

Alas! the fate

That mingles up the godless and the just

In one companionship! wise was the man

Who taught that evil converse is the worst

Of evils, that death’s unblest fruit is reaped

By him who sows in Até’s fields. The man

Who, being godly, with ungodly men

And hot-brained sailors mounts the brittle bark,

He, when the god-detested crew goes down,

Shall with the guilty guiltless perish. When

One righteous man is common citizen

With godless and unhospitable men,

One god-sent scourge must smite the whole, one net

Snare bad and good. Even so, Oicleus’ son,

This sober, just, and good, and pious man,

This mighty prophet and soothsayer, he,

Leagued with the cause of bad and bold-mouthed men

In his own despite—so Jove hath willed—shall lead

Down to the distant city of the dead

The murky march with them. He will not even

Approach the walls, so I may justly judge.

No dastard soul is his, no wavering will;

But well he knows, if Loxias’ words bear fruit,

(And, when he speaks not true, the god is dumb)

Amphiaraus dies by Theban spear.

Yet to oppose this man I will dispatch

The valiant Lasthenes, a Theban true,

Who wastes no love on strangers; swift his eye,

Nor slow his hand to make the eager spear

Leap from behind the shield. The gods be with him!

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

May the gods our just entreaties

For the cause of Cadmus hear!

Jove! when the sharp spear approaches,

Sit enthroned upon our rampires,

Darting bolts, and darting fear!

Mess.

Against the seventh gate the seventh chief

Leads on the foe, thy brother Polynices;

And fearful vows he makes, and fearful doom

His prayers invoke. Mounted upon our walls,

By herald’s voice Thebes’ rightful prince proclaimed,

Shouting loud hymns of capture, hand to hand

He vows to encounter thee, and either die

Himself in killing thee, or should he live

And spare thy recreant life, he will repay

Like deed with like, and thou in turn shalt know

Dishonouring exile. Thus he speaks and prays

The family gods, and all the gods of Thebes,

To aid his traitor suit. Upon his shield,

New-forged, and nicely fitted to the hand,

He bears this double blazonry—a woman

Leading with sober pace an armed man

All bossed in gold, and thus the superscription,

“I, Justice, bring this injured exile back,

To claim his portion in his father’s hall.”

Such are the strange inventions of the foe.

Choose thou a man that’s fit to meet thy brother;

Nor blame thy servant: what he saw he says:

To helm the state through such rude storm be thine!

Eteocles.

O god-detested! god-bemadded race!

Woe-worthy sons of woe-worn Oedipus!

Your father’s curse is ripe! but tears are vain,

And weeping might but mother worser woe.

O Polynices! thy prophetic name

Speaks more than all the emblems of thy shield;

Soon shall we see if gold-bossed words can save thee,

Babbling vain madness in a proud device.

If Jove-born Justice, maid divine, might be

Of thoughts and deeds like thine participant,

Thou mightst have hope; but, Polynices, never,

Or when the darkness of the mother’s womb

Thou first didst leave, or in thy nursling prime,

Or in thy bloom of youth, or in the gathering

Of beard on manhood’s chin, hath Justice owned thee,

Or known thy name; and shall she know thee now

Thou leadst a stranger host against thy country?

Her nature were a mockery of her name

If she could fight for knaves, and still be Justice.

In this faith strong, this traitor I will meet

Myself: the cause is mine, and I will fight it.

For equal prince to prince, to brother brother,

Fell foe to foe, suits well. And now to arms!

Bring me my spear and shield, hauberk and greaves!

[ExitMessenger.

Chorus.

Dear son of Oedipus! let not thy wrath

Wax hot as his whom thou dost chiefly chide!

Let the Cadméans with the Argives fight;

This is enough: their blood may be atoned.

But, when a brother falls by brother’s hands,

Age may not mellow such dark due of guilt.

Eteocles.

If thou canst bear an ill, and fear no shame,

Bear it: but if to bear is to be base,

Choose death, thy only refuge from disgrace.

STROPHE IV.

Chorus.

Whither wouldst thou? calm thy bosom,

Tame the madness of thy blood;

Ere it bear a crimson blossom,

Pluck thy passion in the bud.

Eteocles.

Fate urges on; the god will have it so.

Now drift the race of Laius, with full sail,

Abhorred by Phœbus, down Cocytus’ stream!

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Chorus.

Let not ravening rage consume thee!

Bitter fruit thy wrath will bear;

Sate thy hunger with the thousands,

But of brother’s blood beware!

Eteocles.

The Curse must work its will: and thus it speaks,

Watching beside me with dry tearless eyes,

Death is thy only gain, and death to-day

Is better than to-morrow!

STROPHE V.

Chorus.

Save thy life: the wise will praise thee;

To the gods with incense come,

And the storm-clad black Erinnys

Passes by thy holy home.

Eteocles.

The gods will reck the curse, but not the prayers

Of Laius’ race. Our doom is their delight.

’Tis now too late to fawn the Fate away.

ANTISTROPHE V.

Chorus.

Nay! but yet thou mayst: the god,

That long hath raged, and burneth now,

With a gentler sway soft-wafted,

Soon may fan thy fevered brow.

Eteocles.

The Curse must sway, my father’s burning curse.

The visions of the night were true, that showed me

His heritage twin-portioned by the sword.

Chorus.

We are but women: yet we pray thee hear us.

Eteocles.

Speak things that may be, and I’ll hear. Be brief.

Chorus.

Fight not before the seventh gate, we pray thee.

Eteocles.

My whetted will thy words may never blunt.

Chorus.

Why rush on danger? Victory’s sure without thee.

Eteocles.

So speak to slaves; a soldier may not hear thee.

Chorus.

But brother’s blood—pluck not the bloody blossom.

Eteocles.

If gods are just, he shall not ’scape from harm.

[Exit.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

I fear the house-destroying power; I fear

The goddess most ungodlike,

The all-truth-speaking seer

Of evil things, whose sleepless wrath doth nurse

Fulfilment of the frenzied father’s curse.

The time doth darkly lower;

This strife of brother’s blood with brother’s blood

Spurs the dread hour.

ANTISTROPHE I.

O son of Scythia, must we ask thine aid?

Chalybian stranger thine,

Here with the keen unsparing blade

To part our fair possessions? thou dost deal

A bitter lot, O savage-minded steel!

Much loss is all the gain,

When mighty lords with their stark corpses measure

Their whole domain.

STROPHE II.

When the slain shall slay the slayer,

And kindred blood with blood

Shall mingle, when the thirsty Theban soil

Drinks eager the black-clotting sanguine flood,

Who then shall purge the murderous stain,

Who wash it clean again?

When ancient guilt and new shall burst,

In one dire flood of woe?

ANTISTROPHE II.

With urgent pace the Fury treadeth,

To generations three

Avenging Laius’ sin on Laius’ race;

What time he sinned against the gods’ decree,

When Phœbus from Earth’s central shrine

Thrice sent the word divine—

Live childless, Laius, for thy seed

Shall work thy country’s woe.

STROPHE III.

But he to foolish words gave ear,

And ruin to himself begot,

The parricidal Oedipus, who joined

A frenzied bond in most unholy kind,

Sowing where he was sown; whence sprung a bud

Of bitterness and blood.

ANTISTROPHE III.

The city tosses to and fro,

Like a drifted ship; wave after wave,

Now high, now low, with triple-crested flow

Now reared sublime, brays round the plunging prow

These walls are but a plank: if the kings fall

’Tis ruin to us all.

STROPHE IV.

The ancestral curse, the hoary doom is ripe.

Who now shall smooth such hate?

What hand shall stay, when it hath willed to strike,

The uplifted arm of Fate?

When the ship creaks beneath the straining gale,

The wealthy merchant flings the well-stowed bale

Into the gulf below.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

When the enigma of the baleful Sphynx

By Oedipus was read,

And the man-rending monster on a stone

Despairful dashed her head;

What mortal man by herd-possessing men,

What god by gods above was honoured then,

Like Oedipus below!

STROPHE V.

But when his soul was conscious, and he saw

The monstrous wedlock made ’gainst Nature’s law,

Him struck dismay,

In wild deray,

He from their socket roots uptore

His eyes, more dear than children, worthy no more

To look upon the day.

ANTISTROPHE V.

And he, for sorry tendance wrathful, flung

Curses against his sons with bitter tongue,

“They shall dispute

A dire dispute,

And share their land with steel.” I fear

The threatened harm; with boding heart I hear

The Fury’s sleepless foot.

Re-enterMessenger.

Mess.

Fear not, fair maids of Theban mothers nursed!

The city hath ’scaped the yoke; the insolent boasts

Of violent men hath fallen; the ship o’ the state

Is safe, in sunshine calm we float; in vain

Hath wave on wave lashed our sure-jointed beams,

No leaky gap our close-lipped timbers knew,

Our champions with safety hedged us round,

Our towers stand firm. Six of the seven gates

Show all things prosperous, the seventh Phœbus

Chose for his own (for still in four and three

The god delights), he led the seventh pair,

Crowning the doom of evil-counselled Laius.

Chorus.

What sayst thou? What new ills to ancient Thebes?

Mess.

Two men are dead—by mutual slaughter slain.

Chorus.

Who?—what?—my wit doth crack with apprehension.

Mess

Hear soberly: the sons of Oedipus—

Chorus.

O wretched me! true prophet of true woe.

Mess.

Too true. They lie stretched in the dust.

Chorus.

Sayst so?

Sad tale! yet must I school mine ears to hear it.

Mess.

Brother by brother’s hand untimely slain.

Chorus.

The impartial god smote equally the twain.

Mess.

A wrathful god the luckless race destroys,

And I for plaints no less than pæans bring thee

Plentiful food. The state now stands secure,

But the twin rulers, with hard-hammered steel,

Have sharply portioned all their heritage,

By the dire curse to sheer destruction hurried

What land they sought they find it in the grave,

The hostile kings in one red woe are brothered;

The soil that called them lord hath drunk their blood.

[Exit.

Chorus.

O Jove almighty! gods of Cadmus,

By whose keeping Thebes is strong,

Shall I sing a joyful pæan,

Thee the god full-throated hymning

That saved the state from instant harm?

Or shall drops of swelling pity

To a wail invert my ditty?

O wretched, hapless, childless princes!

Truly, truly was his name

Prophet of your mutual shame!

Godless was the strife ye cherished,

And in godless strife ye perished!

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

The curse that rides on sable wing,

Hath done its part,

And horror, like a creeping thing,

Freezes my heart.

Their ghastly death in kindred blood

Doth pierce me thorough,

And deeply stirs the Thyad flood

Of wail and sorrow.

An evil bird on boding wing

Did darkly sway,

When steel on steel did sternly ring

In strife to-day.

ANTISTROPHE I.

The voice that from the blind old king

With cursing came,

In rank fulfilment forth doth bring

Its fruit of shame.

O Laius, thou didst work our woe

With faithless heart;

Nor Phœbus with a half-dealt blow

Will now depart.

His word is sure, or pacing slow,

Or winged with speed,

And now the burthened cloud of woe,

Bursts black indeed.

[The bodies ofEteoclesandPolynicesare brought on the stage.

EPODE.

Lo! where it comes the murky pomp,

No wandering voice, but clear, too clear

The visible body of our fear!

Twin-faced sorrow, twin-faced slaughter,

And twin-fated woe is here.

Ills on ills of monstrous birth

Rush on Laius’ god-doom’d-hearth.

Sisters raise the shrill lament,

Let your lifted arms be oars!

Let your sighs be breezes lent,

Down the wailing stream to float

The black-sail’d Stygian boat;

Down to the home which all receiveth,

Down to the land which no man leaveth,

By Apollo’s foot untrodden,

Sullen, silent, sunless shores!

But I see the fair Ismene,

And Antigone the fair,

Moving to this place of mourning,

Slow, a sorrow-guided pair.

We shall see a sight for weeping

(They obey a doleful hest)

Lovely maids deep-bosomed pouring

Wails from heavy-laden breast.

Chaunts of sorrow, dismal prelude

Of their grief, to us belong:

Let us hymn the dread Erinnys!

To the gloomy might of Hades,

Let us lift the sombre song.

EnterAntigoneandIsmenein sorrowful silence.

Hapless sisters! maids more hapless

Ne’er were girded with a zone:

I weep, and wail, and mine, believe me,

Is a heart’s sigh, no hireling moan

[Here commences the Funeral Wail over the dead bodies ofEteoclesandPolyniceswith mournful music.

STROPHE I.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Alas! alas! the hapless pair.

To friendly voice and warning Fate

They stopped the ear: and now too late

Dear bought with blood their father’s wealth

In death they share.

Semi-Chorus 2.

Outstretched in death, and prostrate low

Them and their house the iron Woe

Hath sternly crushed.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Alas! alas! the old thrones reel,

The lofty palace topples down;

And Death hath won a bloody crown,

And thou sure end of strife hast made,

O keen cold steel!

Semi-Chorus 2.

And, with fulfilment on her wing,

Curse-laden from the blind old king

The Fury rushed.

STROPHE II.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Pierced through the left, with gaping gashes

Gory they lie.

Semi-Chorus 2.

All gashed and gored, by fratricidal

Wounds they die.

Semi-Chorus 1.

* * * *

* * *

Semi-Chorus 2.

A god, a god doth rule the hour,

Slaughter meets slaughter, and the curse

Doth reign with power.

Semi-Chorus 1.

See where the steel clean through hath cut

Their bleeding life,

Even to the marrow deep hath pierced

The ruthless knife.

Semi-Chorus 2.

Deep in their silent hearts they cherished

The fateful curse,

And, with fell purpose sternly hating,

Defied remorse.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Semi-Chorus 1.

From street to street shrill speeds the cry

Of wail and woe.

Semi-Chorus 2.

And towers and peopled plains reply

With wail and woe.

Semi-Chorus 1.

And all their wealth a stranger heir

Shall rightly share.

Semi-Chorus 2.

The wealth that waked the deadly strife,

The strife that raged till rage and strife

Ceased with their life.

Semi-Chorus 1.

With whetted heart, and whetted glaive,

They shared the lot;

Victor and vanquished each in the grave

Six feet hath got.

Semi-Chorus 2.

A harsh allotment! who shall praise it,

Friend or foe?

Harsh strife in pride begun, and ending

In wail and woe.

STROPHE III.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Sword-stricken here they lie, they lie

A breathless pair.

Semi-Chorus 2.

Sword-stricken here they find, they find

What home, and where?

Semi-Chorus 1.

A lonely home, a home of gloom

In their fathers’ tomb.

Semi-Chorus 2.

And wailing follows from the halls

The dismal bier;

Wailing and woe the heart-strings breaking,

And sorrow from its own self taking

The food it feeds on, moody sadness,

Shunning all sights and sounds of gladness,

And from the eye spontaneous bringing

No practised tear;

My heart within me wastes, beholding

This dismal bier.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Semi-Chorus 1.

And on the bier we drop the tear

And justly say,

Semi-Chorus 2.

To friend and foe, they purchased woe

And wail to-day.

Semi-Chorus 1.

And to Hades showed full many the road

In the deadly fray.

Semi-Chorus 2.

O ill-starred she!—there hath not been

Nor will be more,

Of sore-tried women children-bearing,

One like her, like sorrow sharing.

With her own body’s fruit she joined

Wedlock in most unholy kind,

And to her son, twin sons the mother,

O monstrous! bore:

And here they lie, by brother brother

Now drenched in gore.

STROPHE IV.

Semi-Chorus 1.

Ay, drenched in gore, in brothered gore,

Weltering they lie;

Mad was the strife, and sharp the knife

That bade them die.

Semi-Chorus 2.

The strife hath ceased: life’s purple flood

The dry Earth drinks;

And kinsman’s now to kinsman’s blood

Keen slaughter links.

The far sea stranger forged i’ the fire

The pointed iron soothed their ire.

A bitter soother! Mars hath made

A keen division

Of all their lands, and lent swift wing

To the curse that came from the blind old king

With harsh completion.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Semi-Chorus 1.

They strove for land, and did demand

An equal share;

In the ground deep, deep, where now they sleep,

There’s land to spare.

Semi-Chorus 2.

A goodly crop to you hath grown

Of woe and wailing;

Ye reaped the seed by Laius sown,

The god prevailing.

Shrill yelled the curse, a deathful shout,

And scattered sheer in hopeless rout

The kingly race did fall; and lo!

Fell Até planteth

Her trophy at the gate; and there

Triumphant o’er the princely pair

Her banner flaunteth.

[AntigoneandIsmenenow come forward, and standing beside the dead bodies, pointing now to the one, and now to the other, finish the Wail as chief mourners.

PRELUDE.

Antig.

Wounded, thou didst wound again.

Ismene.

Thou didst slay, and yet wert slain.

Antig.

Thou didst pierce him with the spear.

Ismene.

Deadly-pierced thou liest here.

Antig.

Sons of sorrow!

Ismene.

Sons of pain!

Antig.

Break out grief!

Ismene.

Flow tears amain!

Antig.

Weep the slayer.

Ismene.

And the slain.

STROPHE.

Antig.

Ah! my soul is mad with moaning.

Ismene.

And my heart within is groaning.

Antig.

O thrice-wretched, wretched brother!

Ismene.

Thou more wretched than the other!

Antig.

Thine own kindred pierced thee thorough.

Ismene.

And thy kin was pierced by thee.

Antig.

Sight of sadness!

Ismene.

Tale of sorrow!

Antig.

Deadly to say!

Ismene.

Deadly to see!

Antig.

We with you the sorrow bear.

Ismene.

And twin woes twin sisters share.

Chorus.

Alas! alas!

Moera, baneful gifts dispensing

To the toilsome race of mortals,

Now prevails thy murky hour:

Shade of Oedipus thrice sacred,

Night-clad Fury, dread Erinnys,

Mighty, mighty is thy power!

ANTISTROPHE.

Antig.

Food to feed the eyes with mourning,

Ismene.

Exile sad, more sad returning!

Antig.

Slain wert thou, when thou hadst slain

Ismene.

Found wert thou and lost again

Antig.

Lost, in sooth, beyond reprieving.

Ismene.

Life-bereft and life-bereaving.

Antig.

Race of Laius, woe is thee!

Ismene.

Woe, and wail, and misery!

Antig.

Woe, woe, thy fatal name!

Ismene.

Prophet of our triple shame.

Antig.

Deadly to say!

Ismene.

Deadly to see!

Chorus.

Alas! alas!

Moera, baneful gifts dispensing

To the toilsome race of mortals,

Now prevails thy murky hour;

Shade of Oedipus thrice sacred,

Night-clad Fury, dread Erinnys,

Mighty, mighty is thy power.

EPODE.

Antig.

Thou hast marched a distant road.

Ismene.

Thou hast gone to the dark abode.

Antig.

Cruel welcome met thee here.

Ismene.

Falling by thy brother’s spear.

Antig.

Deadly to say!

Ismene.

Deadly to see!

Antig.

Woe and wailing.

Ismene.

Wail and woe!

Antig.

To my home and to my country.

Ismene.

And to me much wail and woe.

Antig.

Chief woe to me!

Ismene.

Weeping and woe!

Antig.

Alas! Eteocles, laid thus low!

Ismene.

O thrice woe-worthy pair!

Antig.

A god, a god, hath dealt the blow!

Ismene.

Where shall they find their clay-cold lair?

Antig.

An honoured place their bones shall keep.

Ismene.

With their fathers they shall sleep.

EnterHerald.

Herald.

Hear ye my words—my herald’s voice declaring

What seemed and seems good to the Theban senate

Eteocles, his country’s friend, shall find

Due burial in its friendly bosom. He

Is free from sin against the gods of Cadmus,

And died, the champion of his country’s cause,

As generous youths should die. Severer doom

Falls on his brother Polynices. He

Shall lie in the breeze unburied, food for dogs,

Most fit bestowal of a traitor’s corpse;

For, had some god not stept between to save us,

And turned the spear aside, Cadméan Thebes

Had stood no more. His country’s gods demand

Such stern atonement of the impious will

That led a hireling host against their shrines.

On him shall vultures banquet, ravening birds

His flesh shall tear; no pious hand shall pile

The fresh green mound, no wailing notes for him

Be lifted shrill, no tearful friends attend

His funeral march. Thus they who rule in Thebes

Have strictly ordered.

Antig.

Go thou back, and give

This message to the rulers.—If none other

Will grant the just interment to my brother

Myself will bury him. The risk I reck not,

Nor blush to call rebellion’s self a virtue,

Where I rebel, being kind to my own kin.

Our common source of life, a mother doomed

To matchless woes, nor less the father doomed,

Demand no vulgar reverence. I will share

Reproach with the reproached, and with my kin

Know kindred grief, the living with the dead.

For his dear flesh, no hollow-stomach’d wolves

Shall tear it—no! myself, though I’m but woman,

Will make his tomb, and do the sacred office.

Even in this bosom’s linen folds, I’ll bear

Enough of earth to cover him withal

This thing I’ll do I will. For bold resolves

Still find bold hands; the purpose makes the plan.

Herald.

When Thebes commands, ’tis duty to obey.

Antig.

When ears are deaf, ’tis wisdom to be dumb.

Herald

Fierce is a people with young victory flushed.

Antig.

Fierce let them be; he shall not go unburied.

Herald.

What? wilt thou honour whom the city hates?

Antig.

And did the gods not honour whom I honour?

Herald.

Once: ere he led the spear against his country.

Antig.

Evil entreatment he repaid with evil.

Herald.

Should thousands suffer for the fault of one?

Antig

Strife is the last of gods to end her tale;

My brother I will bury. Make no more talk.

Herald.

Be wilful, if thou wilt. I counsel wisdom.

Chorus.

Mighty Furies that triumphant

Ride on ruin’s baleful wings,

Crushed ye have and clean uprooted

This great race of Theban kings.

Who shall help me? Who shall give me,

Sure advice, and counsel clear?

Shall mine eyes freeze up their weeping?

Shall my feet refuse to follow

Thy loved remnant? but I fear

Much the rulers, and their mandate

Sternly sanctioned. Shall it be?

Him shall many mourners follow?

Thee, rejected by thy country,

Thee no voice of wailing nears,

All thy funeral march a sister

Weeping solitary tears?

[TheChorusnow divides itself into two parts, of which one attaches itself toAntigoneand the corpse ofPolynices;the other toIsmeneand the corpse ofEteocles.

Semi-Chorus.

Let them threaten, or not threaten,

We will drop the friendly tear,

With the pious-minded sister,

We will tend the brother’s bier.

And though public law forbids

These tears, free-shed for public sorrow,

Laws oft will change, and in one state

What’s right to-day is wrong to morrow.

Semi-Chorus.

For us we’ll follow, where the city

And the law of Cadmus leads us,

To the funeral of the brave.

By the aid of Jove Supernal,

And the gods that keep the city,

Mighty hath he been to save;

He hath smote the proud invader,

He hath rolled the ruin backward

Of the whelming Argive wave.

THE PERSIANS

A HISTORICAL CANTATA

“Why should calamity be full of words?

Windy attorneys to their client woes,

Airy succeeders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

Let them have scope; though what they do in part

Help nothing else, yet they do ease the heart.”

Shakespere.

Ὥ θείη Σαλαμὶς . ἀπολεɩ̂ς δὲ σὺ τέκνα γυναικωˆν.

Delphic Oracle

PERSONS

Chorus of Persian Elders.

Atossa, Mother of Xerxes.

Messenger.

Shade of Darius, Father of Xerxes.

Xerxes, King of Persia.

Scene—Before the Palace at Susa. Tomb of Darius in the background.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Of the battle of Salamis and the expedition of Xerxes, as an historical event, it must be unnecessary for me to say a single word here, entitled, as I am, to presume that no reader of the plays of Æschylus can be ignorant of the main facts, and the tremendous moral significance of that event. I shall only mention, for the sake of those whose memory is not well exercised in chronology, that it took place in the autumn of the year 480 before Christ, ten years after the battle of Marathon, thirty years after the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, and eighty years after the foundation of the great Persian empire by Cyrus the great. Those who wish to read the descriptions of the poet with complete interest and satisfaction should peruse the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st chapters (Vol. V.), of Mr. Grote’s great work, and, if possible, also, the 7th and 8th books of Herodotus.

On the poetical merit of the Persians, as a work of art, a great authority, Schlegel, has pronounced that it is “undoubtedly the most imperfect of all the extant tragedies of this poet;” but, unless the historical theme be the stumbling-block, I really cannot see on what ground this judgment proceeds. As for the descriptive parts, the battle of Salamis, and the retreat of the routed monarch, are pictured with a vividness and a power to which nothing in this massive and manly author is superior; the interest to the reader being increased tenfold by the fact, that he is here dealing with a real event of the most important character, and recited by one of the best qualified of eye-witnesses. The moral of the piece, as already stated, is, in every respect, what in a great drama or epos could be desired; and, with respect to the lyrics, the Anapæstic march, and the choral chaunt in Ionic measure, with which it opens, has about it a breadth, a magnificence, and a solemnity surpassed only in the choral hymns of the Agamemnon. Not less effective, to an ancient audience, I am sure, must have been the grand antiphonal chaunt with which (as in The Seven against Thebes) the variously repeated wail of this tragedy is brought to a climax; and if the Bishop of London, and some other scholars, have thought this sad exhibition of national lamentation ridiculous, we ought to believe that these critics have forgot the difference between a modern reader and an ancient spectator, rather than that so great a master as Æschylus did not know how to distinguish between a tragedy and a farce

In common with other historical poems, the Persians of Æschylus is not altogether free from the fault of bringing our imaginative faculty into collision with our understanding, by a partial suppression or exaggeration of historical truth. In the way of suppression, the most noticable thing is, that the slave of Themistocles, who is described as having, by a false report to Xerxes, brought on the battle of Salamis, appears, according to the poet, to have cheated the Persians only; whereas, according to the real story, he cheated his countrymen also, and forced them to fight in that place against the will of the non-Athenian members of the confederation. In the way of exaggeration, again, Grote, in an able note, has shown what appear to me valid reasons for disbelieving the fact of the freezing of the Strymon, and its sudden thaw, described so piteously by our poet; while the very nature of the case plainly shows that the whole circumstances of the retreat, coming to us through Greek reporters, were very liable to exaggeration. This, however, in a poetical description, is a small matter What appears to me much worse, and, indeed, the weakest point in the structure of the whole drama, is that the contrast between the character and conduct of Darius and that of his son is drawn in colours much too strong; the fact being that the son, in following the advice of Mardonius to attack Athens, was only carrying into execution the design of the father, and making use of his preparations. All that I have to say in defence of this misrepresentation is, that the poet wrote with a glowing patriotic heat what we now contemplate with a cold historical criticism. The greatest works of the greatest masters can, as human nature is constituted, seldom be altogether free from inconsistencies of this kind

I have only further to add, that I have carefully read what Welcker and Gruppe have written on the supposed ideal connection between the four pieces of the tetralogy, among which the Persians stands second, in the extant Greek argument; but that, while I admire exceedingly the learning and ingenuity of these writers, I doubt much the utility of attempting to restore the palaces of ancient art out of those few loose bricks which Time has spared us from the once compact mass Poetry may be benefited by such speculations; Philology, I rather fear, has been injured.

Chorus,entering the Orchestra in procession. March time.

Chorus

We are the Persian watchmen old,

The guardians true of the palace of gold,

Left to defend the Asian land,

When the army marched to Hellas’ strand;

Elders chosen by Xerxes the king,

The son of Darius, to hold the reins,

Till he the conquering host shall bring

Back to Susa’s sunny plains.

But the spirit within me is troubled and tossed,

When I think of the King and the Persian host;

And my soul, dark-stirred with the prophet’s mood,

Bodes nothing good

For the strength of the Asian land went forth,

And my heart cries out for the young king’s worth

That marshalled them on to the war.

Nor herald, nor horseman, nor wandering fame,

Since then to the towers of the Persian came.

From Susa and from Ecbatana far,

And from the Cissian fortress old,

Strong in the ordered ranks of war

Forth they went, the warriors bold;

Horseman and footman and seaman went,

A vast and various armament.

Amistres, Artaphrenes, led the van,

Megabátes, Astaspes, obeyed the ban;

Persian leaders, kings from afar

Followed the great King’s call to the war.

Forth they went with arrow and bow,

And in clattering turms with chivalrous show;

To the eye of the dastard a terrible sight,

And with constancy mailed for the fight.

Artembáres in steeds delighting,

Imaeus the foe with the sure arrow smiting,

Pharandáces, Masistres, Sosthánes in war

Who lashes the steed, and drives the car.

The mighty and many-nurturing Nile

Sent forth many a swarthy file;

Susiscánes and Egypt’s son

Pegastágon lead them on.

Arsámes the mighty, whose word commands

The strength of the sacred Memphian bands,

And Ariomardus brave, whose sway

The sons of Ogygian Thebes obey.

And the countless host with sturdy oar

That plough the lagoons of the slimy shore.

And the Lydians march in luxurious pride,

And the tribes of the continent far and wide

Whom Arcteus and valiant Metragathes lead,

Kings that serve the great King’s need,

And the men who fight from the sharp-scythed car,

Whom golden Sardes sends to the war;

Some with two yoke, some with three,

A terrible sight to see.

And the sons of sacred Tmolus appear

On free-necked Hellas to lay the yoke,

Mardon and Tharybis, stiff to the spear

As the anvil is stiff to the hammer’s stroke.

And the men of Mysia skilful to throw

The well-poised dart, and they who ride

On wide Ocean’s swelling tide,

A mingled people with motley show

From golden Babylon, men who know

To point the arrow and bend the bow.

The Asian tribes that wear the sword

From far and near

The summons hear,

And follow the hest of their mighty Lord.

All the flower of the Persian youth hath gone,

And the land that nursed them is left alone

To pine with love’s delay;

And wives and mothers from day to day,

Fearing what birth

The time shall bring forth,

Fret the long-drawn hours away.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Proudly the kingly host,

City-destroying, crossed

Hence to the neighbouring

Contrary coast;

Paving the sea with planks,

Marched he his serried ranks

Hellè’s swift-rushing stream,

Binding with cord and chain,

Forging a yoke

For the neck of the main.

ANTISTROPHE I.

King of a countless host,

Asia’s warlike boast,

Shepherd of many sheep,

Conquering crossed.

Trusting to men of might,

Footman and harnessed knight;

Son of a golden race,

Strong both by land and sea,

Equal to gods,

Though a mortal was he.

STROPHE II.

His eyes like the dragon’s dire

Flashing with dark blue fire,

See him appear!

Through the long lines of war

Driving the Syrian car,

Ares in arrows strong

Leading against the strong

Men of the spear!

ANTISTROPHE II.

When wave upon wave of men

Breaks through each Grecian glen,

Whelming the land,

War like wild Ocean’s tide,

What arm shall turn aside?

Persia’s stout-hearted race,

Hand to hand, face to face,

Who shall withstand?

MESODE.

But, when the gods deceive,

Wiles which immortals weave

Who shall beware?

Who, when their nets surround,

Breaks with a nimble bound

Out of the snare?

First they approach with smiles

Wreathing their hidden wiles:

Then with surprise,

Seize they their prey; and lo!

Writhing in toils of woe

Tangled he lies.

STROPHE III.

Fate hath decreed it so,

Peace, peace, is not for thee!

Persia, hear and know,

War is the lot for thee!

Spake the supernal powers,

Charging of steeds shall be,

Taking of towns and towers,

Persia, to thee!

ANTISTROPHE III.

Where the sea, hoar with wrath,

Roars to the roaring blast,

Daring a doubtful path,

Persian hosts have passed;

Where wave on wave cresting on

Bristles with angry breath,

Cable and plank alone

Part them from death!

STROPHE IV

Therefore is my soul within me

Murky-mantled, pricked with fear:

Alas! the Persian army! Never

May such cry invade my ear!

Susa, emptied of her children,

Desolate and drear!

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Never may the Cissian fortress

With such echo split the air;

Spare mine ears the shrieks of women,

And mine eyes the sad sight spare,

When fair hands the costly linen

From gentle bosoms tear!

STROPHE V.

For all our horse with frequent tramp,

And our footmen from the camp,

Even as bees on busy wing,

Swarmed out with the king:

And they paved their briny way,

Where beats the many-mingling spray

The bridge that joins the Thracian strand

To Asian land.

ANTISTROPHE V.

Wives bedew with many a tear

The couches where the partner dear

Hath been, and is not; Persian wives

Fret with desire their lives.

Far, far, he roams from land to land,

Her restless lord with lance in hand;

She in unmated grief to moan

Is left alone.

But come, ye Persian elders all,

Let us seat us beside this ancient hall;

Wise counsel to-day let us honestly frame,

Touching the fate of the kingly one,

Race of our race, and name of our name,

Darius’ godlike son:

For much it concerns us to know

Whether the winged shaft shot from the bow,

Or the strength of the pointed spear hath won.

But lo! where she comes, a moving light,

Like the eyes of the god so bright,

The mother of Xerxes, my queen.

Let us fall down before her with humble prostration,

And greet her to-day with a fair salutation,

The mother of Xerxes, my queen.

[ToAtossa,entering.] Mistress of the low-zoned women, queen of Persia’s daughters, hail!

Aged mother of King Xerxes, wife of great Darius, hail!

Spouse of him who was a god, and of a present god the mother,

If the ancient bliss that crowned it hath not left the Persian host.

EnterAtossa,drawn with royal pomp in a chariot.

Atossa.

Even this hath moved me, leaving these proud golden-garnished halls,

And the common sleeping chamber of Darius and myself,

Here to come. Sharp fear within me pricks my heart; I will declare

All the thoughts that deep perplex me to my friends; the secret fear

Lest our pride of ramping riches kick our sober weal in the dust,

Scattering wide what wealth Darius gathered, not without a god.

Twofold apprehension moves me, when I ponder this old truth;

Without men much riches profit little; without wealth the state,

Though in numbers much abounding, may not look on joyous light.

Riches are a thing not evil; but I tremble for the eye,

And the eye I call the presence of the master in the house.

Ye have heard my sorrows; make me sharer of your counsel now,

In what matter I shall tell you, ancient, trusty Persian men;

For with you my whole of wisdom, all my healthy counsels dwell.

Chorus.

Mistress of this land, believe it, never shalt thou ask a kindness,

Be it word from us or action, twice, while power shall aid the will;

We are willing to advise thee in this matter, what we may.

Atossa.

Since when my son departed with the army,

To bring destruction on Ionia, scarcely

One night hath been that did not bring me dreams;

But yesternight, with figurement most clear,

I dreamt; hear thou the theme. Methought I saw

Two women richly dight, in Persian robes

The one, the other in a Dorian dress,

Both tall above the vulgar stature, both

Of beauty blameless, and descended both

From the same race. The one on Hellas dwelt,

The other on fair Asia’s continent.

Between these twain some strife there seemed to rise;

Which when my son beheld, forthwith he seized them,

And joined them to his car, and made their necks

Submissive to the yoke. The one uptowered

In pride of harness, as rejoiced to follow

The kingly rein. The other kicked and plunged,

And tossed the gear away, and broke the traces,

The yoke in sunder snapt, and from the car

Ran reinless. On the ground my son was thrown,

And to his aid Darius pitying came,

Whom when he saw, my Xerxes rent his robes.

Such was my vision of the night; the morn

Brought a new portent with it. When I rose,

And dipped my hands in the fair-flowing fount,

And to the altar of the averting gods,

To whom such right pertains, with sacred cake

In sacrificial ministry advanced,

I saw an eagle flying to the altar

Of Phœbus; there all mute with fear I stood;

And after it in swiftest flight I saw

A hawk that darted on the eagle’s head,

And tore it with his claws, the royal bird

Yielding his glory meekly to be plucked.

These things I saw in fear, as ye in fear

Must hear them. Ye know well, my son commands

Supreme in Persia. Should success attend him,

’Tis well; but should mischance o’ertake him, he

Will rule in Susa as he ruled before;

No power is here to whom he owes account.

Chorus.

We advise thee, mother, neither with the feeble words of fear,

Nor with boastful courage. Turn thee to the gods in supplication:

Theirs it is to ward fulfilment of all evil-omened sights,

Bringing good to full fruition for thyself and for thy children,

For the city and all that love thee. Then a pure libation pour

To the Earth and to the Manes; with especial honor pray

The dread Shade of thy Darius whom thou sawest in the night,

To send blessings on thy Xerxes in the gladness of the day,

Keeping back unblissful sorrows in the sightless gloom of death.

Thus my soul its own diviner with a friendly kind concern

Counsels. Doubtless time will perfect happy fates for thee and thine.

Atossa.

Truly, with a friendly reading thou hast read my midnight dreams,

Words of strengthening solace speaking to my son and to my house.

May the gods all blessing perfect. I to them, as thou hast said,

And the Shades, the well-beloved, will perform befitting rites,

In the palace; meanwhile tell me this, for I would gladly know

Where, O friends, is famous Athens on the broad face of the Earth?

Chorus.

Far in the west: beside the setting of the lord of light the sun.

Atossa.

This same Athens, my son Xerxes longed with much desire to take.

Chorus.

Wisely: for all Greece submissive, when this city falls, will fall.

Atossa.

Are they many? do they number men enough to meet my son?

Chorus.

What they number was sufficient once to work the Medes much harm.

Atossa.

Other strength than numbers have they? wealth enough within themselves?

Chorus.

They can boast a fount of silver, native treasure to the land.

Atossa.

Are they bowmen good? sure-feathered do their pointed arrows fly?

Chorus.

Not so. Stable spears they carry, massy armature of shields.

Atossa.

Who is shepherd of this people? lord of the Athenian host?

Chorus.

Slaves are they to no man living, subject to no earthly name.

Atossa.

How can such repel the onset of a strong united host?

Chorus.

How Darius knew in Hellas, when he lost vast armies there.

Atossa.

Things of deep concern thou speakest to all mothers in this land.

Chorus.

Thou shalt know anon exactly more than I can guess, for lo!

Here comes one—a hasty runner—he should be a Persian man

News, I wis, this herald bringeth of deep import, good or bad.

EnterMessenger.

Mess.

O towns and cities of wide Asia,

O Persian land, wide harbour of much wealth,

How hath one stroke laid all thy grandeur low,

One frost nipt all thy bloom! Woe’s me that I

Should be first bearer of bad news! but strong

Necessity commands to speak the truth.

Persians, the whole barbaric host hath perished.

STROPHE I.

Chorus.

O misery! misery, dark and deep!

Dole and sorrow and woe!

Weep, ye Persians! wail and weep,

For wounds that freshly flow!

Mess.

All, all is ruined: not a remnant left.

Myself, against all hope, see Persia’s sun.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Chorus.

O long, too long, through creeping years

Hath the life of the old man lasted,

To see—and nurse his griefs with tears—

The hopes of Persia blasted!

Mess.

I speak no hearsay: what these eyes beheld

Of blackest evil, Persians, I declare.

STROPHE II.

Chorus.

Ah me! all in vain against Hellas divine

Were the twanging bow and whizzing reed,

All vainly mustered the thickly clustered

Armies of the Mede!

Mess.

The shores of Salamis, and all around

With the thick bodies of our dead are peopled.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Chorus.

Alas! the wreck of the countless host!

The sundered planks, and the drifted dead,

Rocked to and fro, with the ebb and the flow

On a wavy-wandering bed!

Mess.

Vain were our shafts; our mighty multitude

Vanished before their brazen-beaked attack.

STROPHE III.

Chorus.

Sing ye, sing ye a sorrowful song,

Lift ye, lift ye a piercing cry!

Our harnessed throng and armies strong

Lost and ruined utterly!

Mess.

O hated name to hear, sad Salamis!

O Athens, I remember thee with groans.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Chorus.

O Athens, Athens, thou hast reft us

Of our all we did possess!

Sonless mothers thou hast left us,

Weeping wives and husbandless!

Atossa.

Thou see’st I have kept silence. this sad stroke

Hath struck me dumb, as powerless to give voice

To my own sorrows, as to ask another’s.

Yet when the gods send trouble, mortal men

Must learn to bear it. Therefore be thou calm;

Unfold the perfect volume of our woes,

And, though the memory grieve thee, let us hear

Thy tale to the end, what loss demands our tears,

Which of the baton-bearing chiefs hath left

An army to march home without a head.

Mess.

Xerxes yet lives, and looks on the light.

Atossa.

Much light

In this to me, and to my house thou speakest,

A shining day from out a pitchy night.

Mess.

Artembares, captain of ten thousand horse,

Upon the rough Silenian shores lies dead,

And Dadaces, the chiliarch, spear-struck fell

Precipitate from his ship—an easy leap;

And noble Tenagon, a pure Bactrian born,

Around the sea-lashed isle of Ajax floats.

Lilaeus, Arsames, Argestes, these

The waves have made their battering ram, to beat

The hard rocks of the turtle-nurturing isle.

Pharnuchus, Pheresseues, and Adeues,

And Arcteus from their native Nile-spring far

Fell from one ship into one grave. Matallus,

The Chrysian myriontarch, who led to Hellas

Full thrice ten thousand sable cavalry,

His thick and bushy beard’s long tawny pride

Hath dyed in purple gore. The Magian Arabus

The Bactrian Artames on the self-same shore

Have found no cushioned lodgment. There Amestris,

And there Amphistreus, wielder of the spear,

And there Metragathes lies, for whom the Sardians

Weep well-earned tears; and Sersames, the Mysian.

With them, of five times fifty ships commander,

Lyrnaean Tharybis, a goodly man,

Lies hopeless stretched on the unfriendly strand.

Syennesis, the brave Cilician chief

Who singly wrought more trouble to the foe

Than thousands, died with a brave man’s report.

These names I tell thee of the chiefs that fell,

A few selecting out of many losses.

Atossa.

Alas! alas! more than enough I hear;

Shame to the Persians and shrill wails. But say,

Retracing thy discourse, what was the number

Of the Greek ships that dared with Persia’s fleet

To engage, and grapple beak to beak.

Mess.

If number

Of ships might gain the fight, believe me, queen,

The victory had been ours. The Greeks could tell

But ten times thirty ships, with other ten,

Of most select equipment. Xerxes numbered

A thousand ships, two hundred sail and seven

Of rapid wing beside. Of this be assured,

What might of man could do was done to save us,

Some god hath ruined us, not weighing justly

An equal measure. Pallas saves her city.

Atossa.

The city? is it safe? does Athens stand?

Mess.

It stands without the fence of walls. Men wall it

Atossa.

But say, who first commenced the fight—the Greeks

Or, in his numbers strong, my kingly son.

Mess.

Some evil god, or an avenging spirit,

Began the fray. From the Athenian fleet

There came a Greek, and thus thy son bespoke.

“Soon as the gloom of night shall fall, the Greeks

No more will wait, but, rushing to their oars,

Each man will seek his safety where he may,

By secret flight.” This Xerxes heard, but knew not

The guile of Greece, nor yet the jealous gods,

And to his captains straightway gave command

That, when the sun withdrew his burning beams,

And darkness filled the temple of the sky,

In triple lines their ships they should dispose,

Each wave-plashed outlet guarding, fencing round

The isle of Ajax surely. Should the Greeks

Deceive this guard, or with their ships escape

In secret flight, each captain with his head

Should pay for his remissness. These commands

With lofty heart, thy son gave forth, nor thought

What harm the gods were weaving. They obeyed.

Each man prepared his supper, and the sailors

Bound the lithe oar to its familiar block.

Then, when the sun his shining glory paled,

And night swooped down, each master of the oar,

Each marshaller of arms, embarked; and then

Line called on line to take its ordered place.

All night they cruised, and, with a moving belt,

Prisoned the frith, till day ’gan peep, and still

No stealthy Greek the expected flight essayed.

But when at length the snowy-steeded Day

Burst o’er the main, all beautiful to see,

First from the Greeks a tuneful shout uprose,

Well-omened, and, with replication loud,

Leapt the blithe echo from the rocky shore.

Fear seized the Persian host, no longer tricked

By vain opinion; not like wavering flight

Billowed the solemn pæan of the Greeks,

But like the shout of men to battle urging,

With lusty cheer. Then the fierce trumpet’s voice

Blazed o’er the main; and on the salt sea flood

Forthwith the oars, with measured plash, descended,

And all their lines, with dexterous speed displayed,

Stood with opposing front. The right wing first,

Then the whole fleet bore down, and straight uprose

A mighty shout. “Sons of the Greeks, advance!

Your country free, your children free, your wives!

The altars of your native gods deliver,

And your ancestral tombs—all’s now at stake!”

A like salute from our whole line back-rolled

In Persian speech. Nor more delay, but straight

Trireme on trireme, brazen beak on beak

Dashed furious. A Greek ship led on the attack,

And from the prow of a Phœnician struck

The figure-head; and now the grapple closed

Of each ship with his adverse desperate.

At first the main line of the Persian fleet

Stood the harsh shock; but soon their multitude

Became their ruin; in the narrow frith

They might not use their strength, and, jammed together,

Their ships with brazen beaks did bite each other,

And shattered their own oars. Meanwhile the Greeks

Stroke after stroke dealt dexterous all around,

Till our ships showed their keels, and the blue sea

Was seen no more, with multitude of ships

And corpses covered. All the shores were strewn,

And the rough rocks, with dead, till, in the end,

Each ship in the barbaric host, that yet

Had oars, in most disordered flight rowed off.

As men that fish for tunnies, so the Greeks,

With broken booms, and fragments of the wreck,

Struck our snared men, and hacked them, that the sea,

With wail and moaning, was possessed around,

Till black-eyed Night shot darkness o’er the fray.

These ills thou hearest: to rehearse the whole,

Ten days were few; but this my queen, believe,

No day yet shone on Earth whose brightness looked

On such a tale of death.

Atossa.

A sea of woes

On Persia bursts, and all the Persian name!

Mess.

Thou hast not heard the half: another woe

Remains, that twice outweighs what I have told

Atossa

What worse than this? Say what mischance so strong

To hurt us more, being already ruined?

Mess

The bloom of all the Persian youth, in spirit

The bravest, and in birth the noblest, princes

In whom thy son placed his especial trust,

All by a most inglorious doom have perished.

Atossa.

O wretched me, that I should live to hear it!

But by what death did Persia’s princes die?

Mess

There is an islet, fronting Salamis,

To ships unfriendly, of dance-loving Pan

The chosen haunt, and near the Attic coast.

Here Xerxes placed his chiefest men, that when

The routed Greeks should seek this strand, our troops

Might both aid friends, where friends their aid required,

And kill the scattered Greeks, an easy prey;

Ill-auguring what should hap! for when the gods

Gave to the Greeks the glory of the day,

Straightway well-cased in mail from their triremes

They leapt, rushed on the isle, and hedged it round,

That neither right nor left our men might turn,

But fell in heaps, some struck by rattling stones,

Some pierced by arrows from the twanging bow.

Then, in one onslaught fiercely massed, the Greeks

Our fenceless chiefs in slashing butchery

Mowed down, till not one breath remained to groan.

But Xerxes groaned: for from a height that rose

From the sea-shore conspicuous, with clear view

He mustered the black fortune of the fight.

His stole he rent, and lifting a shrill wail

Gave the poor remnant of his host command

To flee, and fled with them. Lament with me,

This second sorrow heaped upon the first.

Atossa.

O dismal god! how has thy hate deceived

The mind of the Mede! A bitter vengeance truly

Hath famous Athens wreaked on my poor son,

To all the dead that fell at Marathon

Adding this slaughter!—O my son! my son!

Thyself hast paid the penalty that thou

Went to inflict on others!—But let me hear

Where hast thou left the few ships that escaped?

Mess.

The remnant of the fleet with full sail sped

Swift in disordered flight from Salamis

The wreck of the army through Bœotia trailed

Its sickly line: there some of thirst fell dead

Even in the water’s view; some with fatigue

Panting toiled on through Phocian land, and Doris,

And passed the Melian gulf, where through the plain

Spercheius rolls his fructifying flood

Then faint and famished the Achaean land

Received us, and fair Thessaly’s city, there

The most of hunger died and thirst; for with

This double plague we struggled Next Magnesia

And Macedonian ground we traversed, then

The stream of Axius, reedy Bolbe’s mere,

The Edonian fields, and the Pangaean hills.

But here some god stirred winter premature,

And in the night froze Strymon’s holy stream.

Then men who never worshipped gods before

Called on the heavens and on the Earth to save them,

With many prayers, in vain. A few escaped,

What few had crossed the ice-compacted flood

Ere the strong god of light shot forth his rays.

For soon the lustrous orb of day shone out

With blazing beams, unbound the stream, and oped

Inevitable fate beneath them: then

Man upon man in crowded ruin fell,

And he was happiest who the soonest died.

We who survived, a miserable wreck,

Struggled through Thrace slowly with much hard toil,

And stand again on Persian ground, and see

Our native hearths. Much cause the city has

To weep the loss of her selectest youth.

These words are true: much I omit to tell

Of all the woes a god hath smote withal

Our Persian land.

Chorus.

O sorely-vexing god,

How hast thou trampled ’neath no gentle foot

The Persian race!

Atossa.

Woe’s me! the army’s lost

O dreamy shapes night wandering, too clearly

Your prophecy spoke truth! But you, good Seniors,

Sorry expounders though ye be, in one thing

I will obey. I will go pray the gods,

As ye advised; then gifts I will present

To Earth and to the Manes. I will offer,

The sacred cake to appease them For the past,

’Tis past beyond all change; but hope may be

To make the gods propitious for the future.

Meanwhile your counsel in this need I crave;

A faithful man is mighty in mischance

My son, if he shall come ere I return,

Cheer him with friendly words, and see him safe,

Lest to this ill some worser woe be added

[Exit.

Chorus.

O Jove, king Jove destroyed hast thou

Our high-vaunting countless hosts!

Our high-vaunting countless hosts

Where be they now?

Susa’s glory, Ecbatana’s pride,

In murky sorrow thou didst hide,

And with delicate hands the virgins fair

Their white veils tear,

And salt streams flow from bright fountains of woe,

And rain on the bosoms of snow.

They whose love was fresh and young,

Where are now their husbands strong?

The soft delights of the nuptial bed

With purple spread,

Where, where be they?

They have lost the joy of their jocund years,

And they weep with insatiate tears:

And I will reply with my heart’s strong cry,

And lift the doleful lay.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I

Asia from each furthest corner

Weeps her woes, a sonless mourner,

Xerxes a wild chase pursuing,

Xerxes led thee to thy ruin;

Xerxes, luckless fancies wooing,

Trimmed vain fleets for thy undoing.

Not like him the old Darius

Shattered thus from Hellas came;

Rightly he is honoured by us,

Susa’s bowman without blame.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Dark-prowed ships that plough wide ocean

With well-poised wings through waves’ commotion,

Ships, the countless crews that carried,

In briny death ye saw them buried,

Where the Ionian beaks were dashing,

Where the Persian booms were crashing!

And our monarch scarcely scaping,

Left with life the deathful fray,

Through the plains of Thracia shaping

Sad his bleak and wintry way.

STROPHE II.

But the firstlings of our losses

The Ionian billow tosses,

And Cychréan waves are hurried,

O’er the stranded dead unburied.

Let the sharp grief bite thy marrow,

With thy wailing smite the sky!

Freely voice thy heaving sorrow,

With a weighty burden cry!

ANTISTROPHE II.

Woe’s me! by the wild waves driven,

By the mute sea-monsters riven,

The untainted ocean’s creatures

Battening on their traceless features!

Heirless homes are lorn and lonely,

Childless parents weep and wail,

Old men weep, with weeping only

They receive the woeful tale.

STROPHE III.

Ah me! even now while we are mourning

Some rebel hearts belike are spurning

The Persian rule; some serf refuses

The gold due to his master’s uses.

And some are slow with reverence low

To kiss the ground and adore,

For the power that long was fresh and strong

Is found no more.

ANTISTROPHE III.

The tongues of men, free from wise reining,

Will now break forth with loud complaining;

Unmuzzled now, unyoked, the rabble

Will blaze abroad licentious babble.

For the blood-drenched soil of the sea-swept isle

Its prey restoreth never.

And the thing that hath been henceforth shall be seen

No more for ever.

EnterAtossa.

Atossa.

Good friends, whoso hath knowledge of mishap,

Knows this, that men, when swelling ills surge o’er them,

Brood o’er the harm till all things catch the hue

Of apprehension; but, when Fortune’s stream

Runs smooth, the same, with confidence elate,

Hope the boon god will blow fair breezes ever.

Thus to my soul all things are full of fear,

The adverse gods from all sides strike my eye,

And in my ear, with ominous-ringing peal,

Fate prophesies. Such terror scares my wits.

No royal car to-day, no queenly pomp

Is mine, the broidered stole would ill become

My present mission, bringing as thou see’st,

These simple offerings to appease the Shades;

From the chaste cow, this white and healthful milk,

This clearest juice, by the flower-working bee

Distilled, this pure wave from the virgin spring,

This draught of joyaunce from the unmingled grape,

Of a wild mother born; this fragrant fruit

Of the pale green olive, ever leafy-fair,

And these wreathed flowers, of all-producing Earth

Fair children. But, my dear lov’d friends, I pray you,

With pious supplication, now invoke,

The god Darius while on the earth I pour

These pure libations to the honour’d dead.

Chorus.

O queen, much-revered of the Persian nation,

To the chambers below pour thou the libation,

While we shall uplift the holy hymn,

That the gods who reign in the regions dim,

May graciously hear when we pray.

O holy powers that darkly sway

In the subterranean night,

O Earth, and Hermes, and thou who art king

Of the Shades that float on bodiless wing,

Send, O send him back to the light!

For, if remedy be to our burden of woes,

He surely knows.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

And dost thou hear me, blessed Shade, imploring

Thy aid divine, and freely pouring

Of plaintive grief

The various flow?

I will cry out, till Persia’s godlike chief

Shall hear below.

ANTISTROPHE I.

O Earth, and ye that rule the shadowy homes,

Send from your sunless domes

The mighty god

Of Susan birth,

Than whom no greater yet was pressed by the sod

Of Persian earth.

STROPHE II.

O dear-loved man! dear tomb! and dearer dust

That in thee lies!

O Aidóneus, thy charge release,

O stern Aidóneus, and, in peace,

Let king Darius rise!

ANTISTROPHE II.

He was a king no myriads vast he lost

In wars inglorious.

Persia, a counsellor was he,

A counsellor of god to thee,

He with his hosts victorious.

STROPHE III.

Come, dread lord! Appear! Appear!

O’er the sepulchre’s topmost tier;

The disc of thy regal tiara showing,

With thy sandals saffron-glowing,

Come, good father Darius, come!

ANTISTROPHE III.

Fresh and unstaunched woes to hear,

Lord of a mighty lord appear!

For the clouds of Stygian night o’ercome us,

And all our youth are perished from us,

Come, good father Darius, come!

EPODE.

O woe! and woe! and yet again

Woe, and misery, and pain!

Why should’st thou die, and leave the land

Thou master of the mighty hand?

Why should thy son with foolish venture

Shake thy sure Empire to its centre?

And why must we deplore

The countless triremes on the sea-swept shore

Triremes no more?

The Shade ofDariusrises from the Tomb.

Darius.

O faithfullest of my faithful friends, compeers

Of my fair youth, elders of Persia, say

With what sore labour labours now the state?

Pierced is the Earth, and rent with sounds of woe!

And I my spouse beholding near the tomb

Am troubled, and her offerings I receive

Propitious. Ye with her this cry have raised

Of shrill lament to bring the dead from Hades,

No easy climb; the gods beneath the ground

Are readier to receive than to dismiss;

But I was lord above them. I am come

To meet your questioning. Ask, while yet the time

Chides not my stay. What ill weighs Persia down?

STROPHE

Chorus.

I cannot speak before thee;

I tremble to behold thee;

The ancient awe subdues me.

Darius.

Not to hold a long discourse, but swift to grant a short reply,

I have left the homes of Hades, by your wailings deeply moved.

What thou hast to ask me, therefore ask, and throw all fear aside.

ANTISTROPHE.

Chorus.

I tremble to obey thee.

Such sorrows to unfold thee,

My powerless lips refuse me.

Darius.

Since the ancient reverence holds thee, and enchains thy mind, to thee

I will speak, the aged partner of my bed, my high-born spouse.

Cease thy weepings and thy wailings; tell me what mischance hath hapt

’Tis most human that mischances come to mortal man, not few

Woes by seas, not few by land, if the Fates prolong his span.

Atossa.

O all men in bliss surpassing while thine eyes beheld the day,

Of all Persians envied, living like a god on earth, no less

Happy wert thou in thy dying, ere thou didst behold the depth

Of this present woe, Darius. Thou, in short phrase shalt hear all.

Persia’s strength is gone: the army lost: all ruined. I have said.

Darius.

How? Did pestilence smite the city, or did foul sedition rise?

Atossa.

Neither. Near far Athens routed was the Persian host.

Darius.

Who marched?

Which of my children marched the host to Athens?

Atossa.

Thy impetuous son

Xerxes. Xerxes of her children drained wide Asia’s plains.

Darius.

On foot,

Or with triremes did he risk this foolish venture?

Atossa.

With two fronts,

One by sea, by land the other.

Darius.

But so vast an army how?

Atossa.

With rare bonds of wood and iron, Helle’s streaming frith they crossed.

Darius.

Wood and iron! Could these fetter billowy Bosphorus in his flow?

Atossa.

So it was. Some god had lent him wit to plan his own perdition.

Darius.

Alas! a mighty god full surely robbed him of his sober mind.

Atossa.

And the fruit of his great folly we behold in matchless woes

Darius.

I have heard your wailings: tell me more exact the dismal chance

Atossa.

First the whole sea host being ruined brought like ruin on the foot

Darius.

By the hostile spear of Hellas they have perished one and all?

Atossa.

Ay. The citadel of Susa, emptied of her children, moans.

Darius.

Alas! the faithful army!

Atossa.

All the flower of Bactria’s youth are slain.

Darius.

Woe, my hapless son! What myriads of our faithful friends he ruined!

Atossa.

Xerxes, stripped of all his glory, with a straggling few they say—

Darius.

What of him? Speak! Speak! I pray thee; is there safety, is there hope?

Atossa.

Fainly comes, with life scarce rescued, to the bridge that links the lands.

Darius.

And has crossed to Asia?

Atossa.

Even so, most surely, ran the news.

Darius.

Ah! on wings how swift the issue of the ancient doom hath sped!

Thee, my son, great Jove hath smitten. Long-drawn years I hoped would roll,

Ere fulfilment of the dread prophetic burden should be known.

But when man to run is eager, swift is the god to add a spur.

Opened flows a fount of sorrow to ourselves and to our friends.

This my son knew not: he acted with green youth’s presumptuous daring,

Weening Helle’s sacred current, Bosphorus’ flood divine to bind

Like a slave with hammered fetters, damming its unconquered tide,

Forcing passage against Nature for a host unwisely great.

Being mortal with immortals, with Poseidon’s power he dared

To contend fool-hardy. Did not strong distemper hold the soul

Of my hapless son? The riches stored by me with mickle care

Now, I fear, will be the booty of the swiftest-seizing hand.

Atossa.

Converse with the sons of folly taught thy eager son to err,

Thou wert great they said, and mighty, winning riches with thy spear,

He, unmanly, chamber-fighting, adding nothing to thy store.

With these taunts the ears assailing of thy warlike son, bad men

Planned at length the march to Hellas—planned his ruin and our woe

Darius.

And, doing this, my son hath done a deed

Whose heavy memory shall not die. For never

Fell such mischance on Susa’s halls, since when

Jove gave his honor that one sceptre sways

Sheep-pasturing Asia. First the Mede was King

Of the vast host of people. Him his son

Succeeded, ending well things well begun;

For wisdom still was rudder to his valour.

Cyrus, the third from him, a prosperous man,

Brought peace to all his friends. The Lydian people,

The Phrygians, the Ionians, he subdued:

With him no god was wroth; for he was wise.

The fourth was Cyrus’ son: he was a leader

Of mighty hosts. Him, the fifth, Mardus followed,

A blot to Persia, and the ancestral throne;

Whom in the palace slew Artaphrenes,

Sworn, with a chosen band of faithful friends,

To give him secret riddance. Maraphis next,

And seventh Artaphrenes: myself

Then won the lot I coveted. I marched

My hosts to many wars, but never brought

Mishap like this on Susa. My son, Xerxes,

Being young hath young conceits; and takes no note

Of my advisement. Ye, who were my friends,

And fellows in the government, can witness,

We suffered loss, but we preserved the state.

Chorus.

Liege lord Darius, to what issue tend

Thy words? With greedy ears we wait to hear

How Persia henceforth may her strength repair.

Darius.

Learn from your loss, and never march your armies

Again to Hellas, were they twice as strong.

Not man alone, the land fights for the foe.

Chorus.

How mean’st thou this? how fights the land for them?

Darius.

Our mighty multitudes their barren coast

Kills by sheer famine.

Chorus.

But with a moderate host?

Darius.

A moderate host remains, but, of that few,

Few shall see Persian land.

Chorus.

How? Shall the army

Not all from Europe cross by Helle’s frith?

Darius.

Few out of many, if the prophecies,

That are in part fulfilled by what we see,

(And the gods lie not) speak the future true.

It is an empty hope that bids him leave

A select force behind him: they remain,

Where with fat streams Asopus feeds the plain,

Themselves to feed it fatter: in Bœotia

Much woe awaits them justly, the fair price

Of their own godless pride, that did not fear

When first they entered Greece, to rob the altars

Of the eternal gods, to fire their temples,

Uproot the old foundations of their shrines,

And from their basements in commingled wreck

Dash down the images. Much harm they worked,

And much shall suffer. From no shallow bed

Their woes shall flow, but like a spring gush forth,

Still fresh enforced. With such gore-streaming death

The Dorian spear shall daub Plataea’s soil;

And the piled dead to generations three

Speak this mute wisdom to the thoughtful eye—

Proud thoughts were never made for mortal man;

A haughty spirit blossoming bears a crop

Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair.

Look on these things, pride’s just avengement; think

On Athens and on Hellas; fear to slight

The present bounty of the gods, lest they

Rob you of much, while greed still gapes for more.

Jove is chastiser of high-vaunting thoughts,

And heavily falls his judgment on the proud;

Therefore, my foolish son, when he shall come,

With friendly warnings teach, that he may cease

From rash imaginings that offend the gods.

And thou, his aged mother, go within,

And bring a seemly robe with thee, to meet

Thy son withal: for thou shalt see him soon,

His broidered vestments torn in many a shred,

Grief’s blazonry. Thou only with kind words

Canst soothe his sorrow, deaf to all beside.

But now I go hence to the gloom below.

Ye aged friends, farewell. Though ills surround,

Yet give your souls to joyaunce, while ye may,

For riches profit nothing to the dead.

[The Shade ofDariusdescends.

Chorus.

O many woes, both present and to come,

On the barbaric race I weep to hear!

Atossa.

O god, how many sorrows hast thou sent

To weigh me down: but this doth gnaw my heart,

That I should live to see my kingly son

Come in grief’s tattered weeds to Susa’s halls;

But I will go and bring a seemly robe

To meet him, if I may. I will not leave

My dear-loved son unsolaced in his woe.

[Exit into the palace.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

O glorious and great was the Persian land!

To the cities of Susa that owned his command

How blest was the day!

Defeat came not nigh us when good old Darius

With invincible, godlike, victorious hand

Held fortunate sway.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Sure-fenced were his cities with law, and no fear

The Persian knew when his armies were near;

They came from the fight,

Not weary and worn, and of glory shorn,

But trophied with spoils, and with costliest gear

All proudly bedight.

STROPHE II.

What cities of splendour

To him did surrender,

Though he crossed not the border that Halys prescribes

To the Median tribes!

From Susa far

Thrace feared his war,

And the islanded cities of Strymon the river

Cowered at the clang of his sounding quiver.

ANTISTROPHE II.

And cities of power,

Girt with wall and with tower,

Far inland away from the frith and the bay,

Rejoiced in his sway,

The proud roofs that gleam

O’er Helle’s broad stream,

That fringe Propontis’ bosomed shores,

And where the mouth of hoarse Pontus roars.

STROPHE III.

And the sea-swept isles that like sentinels stand

Breasting the ports of the Asian land,

Lesbos and Chios, with bright wine glowing,

And Samos, where groves of green olive are growing

Myconos, Paros, and Naxos together,

Studding the main like brother with brother,

And Andros that neighbourly lies in the sea,

Tenos to thee

ANTISTROPHE III.

And Lemnos that looks with a doubtful face

Half to Asia, half to Thrace,

And where Daedalean Icarus fell,

And Rhodes and Cnidos of him can tell,

And the cities of Cyprus great and small,

Paphos and Soli obeyed his call,

And the mother whose name the daughter borrows,

That caused our sorrows.

EPODE.

And the towns of the Greeks, well peopled and wealthy,

He swayed with counsels wise and healthy;

And the mustered strength of the East stood by us,

A harnessed array,

Many-mingled were they,

Made one at the call of the mighty Darius.

But now the tide hath turned indeed,

The gods have worked our woe,

By the spear, and the glaive,

And the fierce-lashing wave

Low lies the might of the Mede!

EnterXerxes.

Xerxes.

Ah wretched me! even so, even so;

Suddenly, suddenly came the blow,

And strong was the rod of the merciless god

That struck the Persian low!

Ah me! Ah me!

My knees beneath me shake, to see

These seniors reverend and grey,

Gathered to meet me on such a day.

O would that I had been fated to die

With the brave where destiny found them,

When they stained with gore the stranger’s shore,

And the darkness of death came round them!

Chorus

O king of the goodly army, for thee

We weep, and the princes that went with thee,

Of Persian nobles the glory and crown,

Whom a god with his scythe mowed down!

For the halls of Hades, dark and wide,

Xerxes hath plenished with Persia’s pride,

And the land laments her sons.

Hundreds have trodden the path of gloom,

Thousands of Asia’s choicest bloom;

Tens of thousands, that wielded the bow,

Are gone to the chambers of death below

Ah me! ah me! these strong-limbed men,

Where be they now that were lusty then?

All Asia mourns, O King, with thee,

And bends the feeble knee.

Here commences, with mournful Oriental music, and with violent gesticulations, a great National Wail over the misfortunes of the Persian people.

STROPHE I.

Xerxes.

I am the man! I am the man!

The father of shame! the fount of disgrace!

Weep me! weep me! once a king,

Now to my country an evil thing,

A curse to my race!

Chorus

To meet thy returning,

A voice of deep mourning,

A tune evil-aboding,

A cry spirit-goading,

Of a Maryandine wailer,

Thou shalt hear, thou shalt hear,

O King, with many a tear!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Xerxes.

Lift ye, lift ye, the piercing cry!

Tune ye, tune ye, the doleful lay!

For the ancient god of the Persian race,

That bless’d our fathers, hath turned his face

From Xerxes away!

Chorus.

A cry spirit-piercing,

The dark tale rehearsing,

Of ocean red-heaving,

The slaughtered receiving,

The cry of a city that wails for her children

Thou shalt hear, thou shalt hear,

O King, with many a tear!

STROPHE II.

Xerxes.

Ares was strong on the side of the foe,

The Ionian foe!

Bristling with ships he worked our woe.

His scythe did mow,

The sea, the land,

And laid us low

On the dismal strand.

Leader of Chorus.

Lift, O lift, the earnest cry!

Ask, and he will make reply.

Chorus.

Where is all thy troop of friends,

That marched with thee away, away?

Where is the might of Pharandaces,

Susas and Pelagon, where be they?

Where is Datamas, where Agdabatus,

Psammis, and Susiscánes, say?

All that marched from Ecbatana’s halls,

Where be they? where be they?

ANTISTROPHE II.

Xerxes.

From a Tyrian ship they leapt on shore,

To leap no more.

On the shore of Salamis drenched in gore,

The stony shore,

They made their bed,

To rise no more,

The dead! the dead!

Leader of Chorus.

Lift, O lift the earnest cry,

Ask, and he will make reply!

Chorus.

Ah! say, where is Pharnúchus, where?

Cariomardus, where is he?

Where the chief Seualces, where

Aelæus of noble degree?

Memphis, Tharybis, and Masistris,

Hystæchmas, and Artembares, say?

All the brave that journeyed to Hellas,

Where be they? where be they?

STROPHE III.

Xerxes.

Ah me! ah me!

They looked on Ogygian Athens, and straight

With one fell swoop down came the Fate,

And we left them there with gasp and groan,

On the shore of the stranger strewn.

Chorus.

Didst thou leave him there to lie,

Batanóchus’ son, thy faithful eye?

Him didst thou leave on Salamis’ shores

Who counted thy thousands by tens and by scores?

The strong Oebáres and Parthus, were they

Left to be lashed by the hostile spray?

The Persian princes—woe! woe! woe!

Hast thou left to the flood and the foe?

ANTISTROPHE III.

Xerxes.

Ah me! ah me!

Balefully, balefully with sharp sorrow,

Thou dost pierce my inmost marrow;

My heart, my heart cries out to hear thee

Name the lost friends I loved so dearly!

Chorus.

One other name compels my grief,

Xanthus, of Mardian men the chief;

Ancháres the warlike, and lords of the steed

Diaexis, Arsáces that ride with speed?

Lythimnas, Kygdabatas, where be they,

And Tolmos eager for the fray?

Not, I wis, where they wont to be,

Behind the tented car with thee.

STROPHE IV.

Xerxes.

They are gone, the generals, gone for ever!

Chorus.

Lost, and to be heard of never!

Xerxes.

Woe worth the day!

Chorus.

Ye gods! on a public place of woe

Ye set us high;

And Até on the sorrowful show

Doth feast her eye.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Xerxes.

We are stricken, beyond redemption stricken!

Chorus.

Stricken of Heaven! with vengeance stricken!

Xerxes.

And sore dismay!

Chorus.

On an evil day we joined the fray,

With the brave Greek name;

From Ionian ships a sheer eclipse

On Persia came.

STROPHE V.

Xerxes.

With such an army, struck so dire a blow!

Chorus.

So great a power, the Persian power, laid low!

Xerxes.

These rags, the rest of all my state, behold!

Chorus.

Ay! we behold.

Xerxes.

This arrow-case thou see’st, this quiver alone—

Chorus.

What say’st thou? this alone?

Xerxes.

This arrow-case my all.

Chorus.

From store how great, remnant how small!

Xerxes.

With no friends near, abandoned sheer.

Chorus.

The Ionian people shrinks not from the spear.

ANTISTROPHE V.

Xerxes.

They face it well. I saw the deadly fight.

Chorus.

The sea-encounter saw’st thou, and the flight?

Xerxes.

Ay! and beholding it I tore my stole.

Chorus

O dole! O dole!

Xerxes.

More dolorous than dole! and worse than worst!

Chorus

O doubly, trebly curst!

Xerxes.

To us annoy, to Athens joy!

Chorus

Our sinews lamed, our vigour maimed!

Xerxes.

Unministered and unattended!

Chorus

Alas! thy friends on Salamis were stranded!

STROPHE VI.

Xerxes.

Weep, and while the salt tears flow,

To the palace let us go!

Chorus

We weep, and, while the salt tears flow,

To the palace with thee go.

Xerxes.

Ring the peal both loud and shrill!

Chorus.

An ill addition is ill to ill.

Xerxes.

Swell the echo!—high and higher

Lift the wail to my desire!

Chorus.

With echoing sorrow, high and higher,

We lift the wail to thy desire.

Xerxes.

Heavy came the blow, and stunning.

Chorus.

From my eyes the tears are running.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Xerxes.

Lift thine arms and sink them low,

Oaring with the oars of woe!

Chorus.

Our arms we lift, dark woes deploring,

With the oars of sorrow oaring.

Xerxes.

Ring the peal both loud and shrill!

Chorus.

Grief to grief, and ill to ill.

Xerxes.

With shrill melody, high and higher,

Lift the wail to my desire!

Chorus.

With thrilling melody, high and higher,

We lift the wail to thy desire.

Xerxes.

Mingle, mingle sigh with sigh!

Chorus.

Wail for wail, and cry for cry.

STROPHE VII.

Xerxes.

Beat your breasts; let sorrow surge,

Like a Mysian wailer’s dirge!

Chorus.

Even as a dirge; a Mysian dirge.

Xerxes.

From thy chin the honor tear,

Pluck thy beard of snowy hair!

Chorus.

We tear, we tear, the snowy hair.

Xerxes.

Lift again the thrilling strain!

Chorus.

Again, again, ascends the strain.

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Xerxes.

From thy breast the white robe tear,

Make thy wounded bosom bare!

Chorus.

The purfled linen, lo! I tear.

Xerxes.

Pluck the honor from thy head,

Weep in baldness for the dead!

Chorus.

I pluck my locks, and weep the dead

Xerxes.

Weep, weep! till thine eyes be dim!

Chorus.

With streaming woe, they swim, they swim.

EPODE.

Xerxes.

Ring the peal both loud and shrill!

Chorus.

Grief to grief, and ill to ill!

Xerxes

Go to the palace: go in sadness!

Chorus.

I tread the ground sure not with gladness

Xerxes.

Let sorrow echo through the city!

Chorus.

From street to street the wailing ditty.

Xerxes.

Sons of Susa, with delicate feet,

Gently, gently tread the street!

Chorus.

Gently we tread the grief-sown soil.

Xerxes.

The ships, the ships by Ajax isle,

The triremes worked our ruin sheer.

Chorus.

Go. Thy convoy be a tear.

[Exeunt.

LIST OF EDITIONS COMMENTARIES AND TRANSLATIONS

USED BY THE TRANSLATOR

Editions of the whole Plays.

Aldus: Venet., 1518

Victorius: ex officina Stephani; 1557.

Foulis: Glasguæ; 1746.

Schütz: 2 vols. Oxon.; 1810.

Butler: Cantab.; 1809-16, ex editione Stanleii; 4 vols. 4to.

Wellauer: cum. Lexico. Lipsiæ; 1823-31.

Scholefield: Cantab.; 1828.

Paley: Cantab.; 1844-47. 2 vols. 8vo.

Editions of the Separate Plays.

THE AGAMEMNON.

Blomfield: Cantab.; 1822.

Kennedy (with an English version, and Voss, German one). Dublin; 1829.

Klausen: Gothæ et Erfordiæ; 1833.

Peile. London Murray; 1839.

Connington (with an English poetical version). London; 1848.

Franz: with the Choephoræ and the Eumenides, and a German metrical translation. Leipzig; 1849.

CHOEPHORÆ.

Schwenk: Trajecti ad Rhenum; 1819.

Klausen: Gothæ et Erfordiæ; 1835.

Peile. London: Murray; 1844.

EUMENIDES.

K. O. Müller (with a German translation). Gottingen; 1833: and Anhang; 1834.

Linwood: Oxon.; 1844.

PROMETHEUS.

Bothe: Lipsiæ; 1830.

G C W. Schneider. Weimar; 1834.

Schoemann (with a German translation). Greifswald; 1844.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.

Blomfield. Cantab.; 1817.

G. C. W. Schneider. Weimar; 1834.

Griffith. Oxford.

THE PERSIANS.

Blomfield. Cantab; 1815.

G. C. W. Schneider. Weimar; 1837.

Commentaries, Dissertations, Monograms, &c.

Apparatus Criticus et Exegeticus in Æschyli tragædias; continens Stanleii commentarium, Abreschii animadersiones, et Reisigii emendationes in Prometheum. 2 vols. 8vo. Halis Saxonum; 1832.

Linwood: lexicon to Æschylus, 2nd edition. London; 1847.

Blumner: Weber die Idee des Schicksals in den Tragoedien des Æschylus. Leipzig; 1814.

Welcker: Die Æschyleische Trilogie. Darmstadt; 1824.

Hermanni Opuscula: 6 vols. 8vo., Latin and German. Leipzig; 1827-35.

Unger: Thebana Paradoxa. Halis; 1839.

Klausen: Theologoumena Æschyli. Berolini; 1829.

Toepelmann: Commentatio de Æschyli Prometheo (with a German translation). Lipsiæ, 1829.

B. G. Weiske: Prometheus und sein Mythenkreis. Leipzig; 1842.

Schoemann: Vindiciæ Jovis Æeschylei. Gryphiswaldiæ; 1846.

Translations.

Potter: English verse, 4to. Norwich; 1777.

Anon.: English prose (marked in my notes E. P. Oxon), 3rd edition. Oxford; 1840.

Droysen: German verse, 2nd edition. Berlin; 1842.

T. A. Buckley: English prose. London: 1849.

Wilhelm von Humboldt: Agamemnon metrisch ubersetzt. Leipzig; 1816.

Symmons: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1824.

Harford: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1831.

Th Medwyn: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1832.

Sewell: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1846.

Schoemann: die Eumeniden, German verse. Greifswald; 1845.

Th. Medwyn: the Prometheus, in English verse. London; 1832.

Prowett: the Prometheus, in English verse. Cambridge; 1846.

Swayne: the Prometheus, in English verse. London; 1846.

C. P. Conz: die Perser, and die Sieben vor Tuebae. Tübingen; 1817.

EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY By ERNEST RHYS