Aeschylus

“ We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm, Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain thus—“Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are once hostile, no one can escape their anger—not by hiding himself in darkness—not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things are subject to the gods.”—Anab. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ In short, if a man will enjoy and judge a Greek “tragedy,” he must seek to know not what it is in reference to the general idea of tragedy which he brings with him from modern theatrical exhibitions, but what it was to the ancient Greeks, sitting in the open air, on their wooden bench, or on their seat hewn from the native rock, with the merry Bacchic echoes in their ears, long before Aristotle laid down those nice rules of tragic composition which only Shakespere might dare to despise. ”

“ 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.
Cassandra.
I’m in the net. Time will not break the meshes.
Chorus. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.n21
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! ”

“ What friends do serve thee truly,
And who in thy long absence used
Their stewardship unduly.
Enter Agamemnon with attendants; Cassandra behind.
Agamemnon.
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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!
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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. ”

“ Though the ancient Greek religion, there can be no question, was too much the creation of mere imagination, and tended rather to cultivate a delicate sense of beauty than to strike the soul with a severe reverence before the awful majesty of the moral law, yet it is no less certain that to look upon it as altogether addressed to our sensuous emotions, however convenient for a certain shallow school of theology, would lead the calm inquirer after moral truth far away from the right track. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.n47
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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Which way I turn is woe. A plundered house
By grace of possessory Joven32 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. ”

“ It appears to me that rhyme is so essential an accomplishment of lyrical language, according to English use, that a translator is not doing justice to his author who habitually rejects it. I have accordingly adopted it more or less in every play, except the Prometheus, the calm statuesque massiveness of which seemed to render the common decorations of lyric poetry dispensable. In the Seven against Thebes, I have, in the first two choral chaunts, rhymed only in the closes; and in the opening chorus of the Agamemnon, I have used irregular rhyme. ”

“ From murdering madness healed.
Enter Ægisthus.
Ægisthus.
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
Ægisthus.
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 ”

“ 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.
Electra.
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! ”

“ Antigone.
When ears are deaf, ’tis wisdom to be dumb.
Herald.
Fierce is a people with young victory flushed.
Antigone.
Fierce let them be; he shall not go unburied.
Herald.
What? wilt thou honour whom the city hates?
Antigone.
And did the gods not honour whom I honour?
Herald.
Once: ere he led the spear against his country.
Antigone.
Evil entreatment he repaid with evil.
Herald.
Should thousands suffer for the fault of one?
Antigone.
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. ”

“ 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 ”