Eretria

“ Does he not send one body of mercenaries to Porthmus, to expel the popular party of Eretria, and another to Oreus, to set up Philistides as tyrant? And yet the Hellenes see these things and endure them, gazing (it seems to me) as they would gaze at a hailstorm--each people praying that it may not come their way, but no one trying to prevent it. Nor is it only his outrages upon Hellas that go unresisted. 34 No one resists even the aggressions which are committed against himself. ”

“ A swift-footed messenger was despatched to Sparta, to implore its prompt assistance. On the day after his departure from Athens, he reached his destination, went straight to the assembled magistrates, and thus addressed them:
"Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians supplicate your aid; suffer not the most ancient of the Grecian cities to be enslaved by the barbarian. Already Eretria is subjected to their yoke, and all Greece is diminished by the loss of that illustrious city." ”

“ Accordingly, when a young man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piræus, attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what Antigonus’s object was in treating him as he did. ”

“ He was girt by men who hated him; and he read in the dark fierce eyes of the Ionians—whose pride he had so often galled, whose revenge he had so carelessly provoked—the certainty of ruin. One hand hidden within the folds of his robe convulsively clinched the flesh, in the stern agony of his suspense. His calm and composed face nevertheless exhibited to the captains no trace of fear.
The draperies were again drawn aside, and Gongylus slowly entered.
Habituated to peril of every kind from his earliest youth, the Eretrian was quick to detect its presence. ”

“ Rome sends humble enquiries to Etruria, beseeching to be taught how to address and propitiate the great gods. Etruria gladly condescends to reply, and in a given time, though not without much strife and bloodshed, Etruria becomes first a tributary and then a vassal of the adolescent Empress of the world, who, through all the centuries of her after history, repeats that requisition. Rough, practical, hard-handed, and strong, yet avid of beauty, she will have all that is fairest and most precious. ”

“ Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.
Electra:
To me, too, grant this boon-dark death to deal
Unto Aegisthus, and to 'scape my doom.
Orestes:
So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shalt lie dishonoured: hear thou me!
Electra:
I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.
Orestes:
Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight! ”

“ Electra.
Then seek my mother, and my message tell.
Old Man.
Yea, it shall seem the utterance of thy lips.
Electra (to Orestes) .
Now to thy work. Thou drewest first blood-lot. [18]
Orestes.
I will set forth if any guide appear.
Old Man.
Even I will speed thee thither nothing loth. 670
Orestes. [19]
My fathers' God, Zeus, smiter of my foes,
Pity us: pitiful our wrongs have been.
Electra.
Ah, pity them whose lineage is of thee!
Orestes.
Queen of Mycenæ's altars, Hera, help!
Grant to us victory, if we claim the right. 675
Electra. ”

“ Art thou not wife to him that was thy fellow in this deed? Callest thou this taking vengeance for thy daughter that was slain? And thy children—art thou a mother to them? What ill do not I suffer at thy hand and the hand of thy partner? And Orestes, whom I barely saved from thy hand, liveth he not in exile? Surely, whatsoever it be that thou chargest against him, thou hast no cause to be ashamed of me."
Then the two spake many bitter words to each other; and at the last, when Electra held her peace, the Queen prayed to the Gods, and made her offerings to the tomb. ”

“ Electra.
Dearest, who bear'st a name desirable⁠1045
And sweet on sister's lips!—one soul with mine!
Orestes.
Ah, thou wilt melt me! Fain would I reply
With arms of love! Wretch, wherefore shame I now?
Ah, sister-bosom, dear embrace to me!
In children's stead, instead of wedded arms,⁠1050
This farewell to the hapless is vouchsafed.
Electra (sighs) .
Oh might the selfsame sword, if this may be,
Slay us, one coffin cedar-wrought receive!
Orestes.
Most sweet were this: yet, how forlorn of friends
Thou seest are we, who cannot claim one tomb!⁠1055
Electra. ”

“ Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
Orestes:
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
Electra:
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call?
Orestes:
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
Electra:
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
Orestes:
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
Electra:
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
Orestes:
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
Electra:
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woel
Orestes:
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
Electra:
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self? ”

“ Orestes.
⁠Thy mother stays
Unmoved 'mid all thy wrong?
Electra.
⁠A lover weighs
More than a child in any woman's heart.
Orestes.
But what end seeks Aegisthus, by such art
Of shame?
Electra.
⁠To make mine unborn children low
And weak, even as my husband.
Orestes.
⁠Lest there grow
From thee the avenger?
Electra.
⁠Such his purpose is:
For which may I requite him!
Orestes.
⁠And of this
Thy virgin life—Aegisthus knows it?
Electra.
⁠Nay,
We speak it not. It cometh not his way.
Orestes.
These women hear us. Are they friends to thee?
Electra. ”

“ How?—hath ruth seized thee, seeing thy mother's form?
Orestes.
Woe!
How can I slay her—her that nursed, that bare me?
Electra.
Even as she thy father slew and mine. 970
Orestes.
O Phœbus, folly exceeding was thine hest—
Electra.
Nay, where Apollo erreth, who is wise?
Orestes.
Who against nature bad'st me slay my mother!
Electra.
How art thou harmed, avenging thine own sire?
Orestes.
Arraigned for a mother's murder—pure ere this! 975
Electra.
Yet impious, if thou succour not thy sire.
Orestes.
My mother for her blood must I requite. [32]
Electra. ”

“ The door bursts open, and Orestes and Electra come forth in disorder. Attendants bring out the bodies of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Leader.
Lo, yonder, in their mother's new-spilt gore
Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door
They reel. . . . O horrible! Was it agony
Like this, she boded in her last wild cry?
There lives no seed of man calamitous,
Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus.
Orestes.
O Dark of the Earth, O God,
⁠Thou to whom all is plain;
Look on my sin, my blood,
⁠This horror of dead things twain:
Gathered as one they lie
Slain ”

“ What wouldst thou? Speak; the old fear nevermore
Need touch thee.
Electra.
⁠To let loose upon the dead
My hate! Perchance to rouse on mine own head
The sleeping hate of the world?
Orestes.
⁠No man that lives
Shall scathe thee by one word.
Electra.
⁠Our city gives
Quick blame; and little love have men for me.
Orestes.
If aught thou hast unsaid, sister, be free
And speak. ”

“ Electra.
God love thee for the sweetness of thy word!
Orestes.
God love the twain of us, both thee and me.
Electra.
He lives! Poor brother! In what land weareth he
His exile?
Orestes.
⁠Not one region nor one lot
His wasted life hath trod.
Electra.
⁠He lacketh not
For bread?
Orestes.
⁠Bread hath he; but a man is weak
In exile.
Electra.
⁠What charge laid he on thee? Speak.
Orestes.
To learn if thou still live, and how the storm,
Living, hath struck thee.
Electra.
⁠That thou seest; this form
Wasted . . .
Orestes. ”

“ Orestes! Life, not death, had been thy due.⁠1030
Orestes.
Ah, by the Gods, I pray, unman me not,
Nor bring to tears by mention of our woes.
Electra.
We die! I cannot but bemoan our fate.
All mortals grieve for precious life foregone.
Orestes.
This is our day of doom: the noose must coil⁠1035
About our necks, or our hands grasp the sword.
Electra.
Brother, thou slay me, that no Argive slay,
With outrage foul to Agamemnon's child.
Orestes.
Suffice the mother's blood: I will not slay thee.
Die in what wise thou wilt by thine own hand.⁠1040
Electra. ”

“ The guests were standing with their goblets in their hands ready to drink a last offering to Hermes. Just then they saw a stranger cross the hall and kneel before the queen. All listened attentively to what he was about to say. He clasped Arete’s knees, as was the custom of supplicants, and spoke: “O Arete, daughter of the immortal hero Rhexenor, I embrace thy knees and the king’s, thy husband’s, and all the guests. I am a man overwhelmed with misfortune. May the gods prosper thee and give thee long life and to thy children great honor and wealth! ”

“ The skirt worn by the androgynous British Cadi may be connoted with the kilt in which the Etrurians figured their Hercules, and that in Etruria the All Father was occasionally depicted like Punch, is clear from the following passage from The Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria: “Hercules and Minerva were the most generally honoured of the Etruscan divinities, the one representing the most valuable qualities of a man’s body and the other of his soul. They were the excellencies of flesh and spirit, and according to Etruscan mythology they were man and wife. ”

“ But when Orestes heard this, he brake in, “Where is this Iphigenia? Hath the dead come back among the living?”
[Pg 148] “Thou seest her in me. But interrupt me not. 'I bid thee fetch me before I die to Argos from a strange land, taking me from the altar that is red with the blood of strangers, whereat I serve.' And if Orestes ask by what means I am alive, thou shalt say that Artemis put a hind in my stead, and that the priest, thinking that he smote me with the knife, slew the beast, and that the goddess brought me to this land.” ”

“ Their priests were supposed to be experts in divining the future; and their gods often required to be propitiated with human sacrifices. Their civilization had a powerful effect upon that of Rome. In Etruria women were treated with a respect unusual among the races of that time; and it may have been owing to this influence that the women of Rome enjoyed so much more liberty than their sisters of Greece. On the other hand, to the Etruscans' characteristic delight in cruel sports has been attributed the introduction of gladiatorial contests in the arena at Rome. ”

“ Well hast thou counselled me.
But . . . where is she?
Old Man.
⁠In Argos now, I guess;
But goes to join her husband, ere the press
Of the feast.
Orestes.
⁠Why goeth not my mother straight
Forth at her husband's side?
Old Man.
⁠She fain will wait
Until the gathered country-folk be gone.
Orestes.
Enough! She knows what eyes are turned upon
Her passings in the land!
Old Man.
⁠Aye, all men hate
The unholy woman.
Orestes.
⁠How then can I set
My snare for wife and husband in one breath?
Electra (coming forward) .
Hold! It is I must work our mother's death. ”

“ Chapter 11 1 So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. 2 The king said again to Esther, on the second day at the banquet of wine, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be performed." 3 Then Esther the queen answered, "If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. 4 For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. ”

“ Then said Electra, "Hear now what I purpose. Thou knowest that we are utterly bereaved of friends, for Death hath devoured them all. Now, while Orestes yet lived and was prosperous, I hoped that he would come to avenge our father's death. But now that he is dead, I look to thee, that thou shouldest make common cause with me and work this vengeance on them that slew him. ”

“ The blood-madness comes on Orestes. He gets possession of his sword and turns upon Helen and Hermione. To take one touch from many: to escape stoning, Electra and Orestes are resolved to die. She begs him to kill her. He turns from her: "My mother's blood is enough. I will not kill thee. Die as best thou mayest."
The Têlephus* was in these several respects the typical play of Euripides's early period, but it strikes one as a young play. The realism, for instance, was probably not of the subtle type we find in the Electra. ”

“ Orestes.
A noble soul this, worthy of reward!
Electra.
Yea, if the absent to his home return.
Orestes.
But did the mother who bare thee suffer this?
Electra.
Wives be their husbands', not their children's friends. 265
Orestes.
Why did Aegisthus this despite to thee?
Electra.
That weaklings [4] of weak sire my sons might prove.
Orestes.
Ay, lest thou bear sons to avenge the wrong?
Electra.
So schemed he—God grant I requite him yet!
Orestes.
Knows he, thy mother's spouse, thou art maiden still? 270
Electra. ”

“ No, Erato, to these young men love is a disturbing influence; they avoid the maidens, and care only for a surer knowledge of Greek accentuation. When they have all gone to bed, you shall tell your story; great personages in history have fallen in love; I myself have no prejudice against it. But you may choose which of us shall tell the next story.”
Erato sighed, and glanced round the room. When her eyes fell on Euterpe her face brightened. And truly Euterpe was good to see: she had a wonderful grace of body, and fresh gladness in her eyes ”