Eumenides

“ The concluding play, the Eumenides, calls for a briefer description. It opens with one of the most awe-inspiring scenes which the imagination of man has conceived. The priestess of Delphi finds a man sitting as a suppliant at the central point of the earth, his hands dripping with blood, a sword and an olive branch in his hand. Round him is slumbering a troop of dreadful forms, beings from darkness, the avengers. ”

“ We the fearful family of Night fasten ourselves upon his whole being. Thinks he by flight to escape us? We fly still faster in pursuit, twine our snakes around his feet, and bring him to the ground. Unwearied we pursue; no pity checks our course; still on and on, to the end of life, we give him no peace nor rest." Thus the Eumenides sang, and moved in solemn cadence, while stillness like the stillness of death sat over the whole assembly as if in the presence of superhuman beings; and then in solemn march completing the circuit of the theatre, they passed out at the back of the stage. ”

“ It seems as if we heard the serpents of the Eumenides hissing, and as if the stern goddesses would make no distinction between the elder and younger branches of the outlawed race. But it would be unjust if men did not recognise this distinction. ”

“ Sometimes, indeed, she seems to overshadow and hide him from our vision. Thus was it when the Eumenides in their final triumph swept the stage, and victory seemed all in the hands of invisible Powers, with no human participant: even as throughout the Homeric epos there runs an undercurrent of unutterable sadness; because, while to the Gods there ever remains a sure seat upon Olympus, unshaken by the winds, untouched by rain or snow, crowned with a cloudless radiance,—yet upon man come vanity, sorrow, and strife ”

“ The essential point is that the Zeus who learns and understands is also the Zeus who can forgive the sinner. He can forgive just because he understands. The Law of the Moirai and the Erinyes neither understands nor forgives. It simply operates.
"All this," it may be said, "is possible enough, but it is not what Aeschylus represents as occurring. Zeus does not appear at all in the Eumenides." ”

“ In hell they were seated around Pluto’s throne, as the ministers of his vengeance. Aeschylus, Eumenides.—Sophocles, Œdipus at Colonus.
Eumĕnĭdia, festivals in honour of the Eumenides, called by the Athenians σεμναι θεαι, venerable goddesses. They were celebrated once every year with sacrifices of pregnant ewes, with offerings of cakes made by the most eminent youths, and libations of honey and wine. At Athens none but free-born citizens were admitted, such as had led a life the most virtuous and unsullied. ”

“ I therefore, who participated, as it were, in the troubles of Orestes (excepting only in his agitated conscience) , participated no less in all his supports. My Eumenides, like his, were at my bed-feet, and stared in upon me through the curtains; but watching by my pillow, or defrauding herself of sleep to bear me company through the heavy watches of the night, sate my Electra; for thou, beloved M., dear companion of my later years, thou wast my Electra! and neither in nobility of mind nor in long-suffering affection wouldst permit that a Grecian sister should excel an English wife. ”

“ The main theme of the Eumenides is the trial, at the Athenian Areopagus, of the Argive Orestes who had slain at Argos his mother and her paramour, and who upon acquittal returns to Argos to occupy the throne of his murdered father. We admit that the exaltation of the Areopagus is one of the motives of the dramatist. There is much to be said for the view of Blass [36] that the conflict between Apollo and the Furies made this ‘divine drama’ worthy of Athenian interest. ”

“ It is only after the execution of the deed that the struggle between the most sacred feelings becomes manifest, and here again the sympathies of the spectators are excited without being fully appeased.
From its very commencement, the Eumenides stands on the very summit of tragical elevation: all the past is here, as it were, concentrated into a focus. Orestes has become the mere passive instrument of fate; and free agency is transferred to the more elevated sphere of the gods. Pallas is properly the principal character. ”

“ They inflicted their vengeance upon earth by wars, pestilence, and dissensions, and by the secret stings of conscience; and in hell they punished the guilty by continual flagellation and torments. They were also called Furiæ, Erinnyes, and Diræ, and the appellation of Eumenides, which signifies benevolence and compassion, they received after they had ceased to persecute Orestes, who in gratitude offered them sacrifices, and erected a temple in honour of their divinity. Their worship was almost universal, and people presumed not to mention their names or fix their eyes upon their temples. ”

“ So strong is the conviction of men that names are powers. Nay, it must have been sometimes thought that the good name might so react on the evil nature that it should not remain evil altogether, but might be induced, in part at least, to conform itself to the designation which it bore. Here we have an explanation of the title Eumenides, or the Well-minded, given to the Furies; of Euxine, or the kind to strangers, to the inhospitable Black Sea, 'stepmother of ships,' as the Greek poet called it ”

“ As the Eumenides not only punished crimes after death, but during life on earth, they were conceived also as goddesses of fate, who, together with Zeus and the Moerae or Parcae, led such men as were doomed to suffer into misery and misfortunes. (Horn. Il. xix. 87, Od. xv. 234.) In the same capacity they also prevented man from obtaining too much knowledge of the future. (Il. xix. 418.) Homer does not mention any particular names of the Erinnyes, nor does he seem to know of any definite number. ”

“ Though the Eumenides, from which this last extract is taken, had a narrower and more local object, namely, to support the prestige and authority of the Areopagus, it contains, like the other plays of the Trilogy, reiterated statements of a lofty faith in the justice of providence, in the punishment of sin and presumptuous pride, and in the eternal laws of right and wrong. It is the Prometheus that shows us the poet touched by the philosophic or rationalistic movement. Prometheus represents humanity struggling with the inequalities and injustice of the divine rule of the world. ”

“ Mitth. 1891, pp. 5–6) . Acc. to Löschcke, D. Enneakrunosepis. bei Paus., pp. 15–16, these Eleusinian divinities were imported into Athens, established in the chasm of the Eumenides, and instead of ὁ θεός, ἡ θεά and Eubouleus, were called Hermes, Ge, and Plouton. But the correlation of these divinities worshipped there in conjunction with the Σεμναί (acc. to Paus. 1, 28, 6) with the Eleusinian group depends entirely upon the identification of the Σεμναί with Demeter and Kore. ”

“ It was Aeschylus who, wishing to bring on the stage in bodily form in his Eumenides the powers that avenge kindred blood, transformed the Erinnyes, who had hitherto been worshipped at Athens as the Eumenides{41} or gentle goddesses, in beautiful and dignified form [39] . He took as his models the Gorgons and Harpies of earlier art. So he himself tells us in the Eumenides [40] , where his priestess thus describes the sleeping visitors: ‘I call them not women, but Gorgons ”

“ Eumenides, Philoctetes, and Ædipus et Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening termination.
The only historical tragedies by Grecian authors [p. 580] were The Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of Æschylus.
The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch. ”

“ Of rightful honor,”
seems to spring from the contrast of the “pæan to the Furies” mentioned below, with the hymns of joyful thanksgivings to the gods that suit the present occasion. But when the term “gods” is used generally on a joyful occasion, it seems more agreeable to Greek feeling to interpret it as excluding than as including the Furies. The hymns in the Eumenides show that they were considered as a dreadful power in the background, rather than prominent figures in the foreground of Hellenic polytheism. ”

“ Still, truth is not immediately to be deserted because there happens to be much difficulty in defending it. It will be time enough to run when we have exhausted all our resources. An unknown writer, but still a Greek, [1172] relates that, during the acting of the Eumenides, that awe-inspiring and terrible drama of Æschylus, the sight of the furies rushing tumultuously, like dogs of hell, upon the stage, with their frightful masks and blood-dripping hands, shed so 413deep a terror over the theatre, that children were thrown into fits, and pregnant women seized with premature birth-pangs. ”

“ Appeased by the worship of the Athenians after the acquittal of Orestes, the avenging Erinnyes became the kindly, propitious Eumenides. ↑ Prometheus, as the guardian deity of the potters, and perhaps also of the iron-founders, of Athens and Colonos. Torch-races in his honour were run from his altar in the Academeia through the Kerameikos to the city. ↑ The Oracle had spoken vaguely, and till now Œdipus had not known who the "dreaded Gods" were. The chance words of the stranger, telling him of the "dread" daughters of the earth and darkness, give him a new ray of hope. ”

“ 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 {20} 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 ”

“ Thus Aegisthus, as son of Thyestes, acted quite correctly in killing Agamemnon, and Orestes in killing him. Similarly, when Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon the eternal law compelled Orestes to avenge him, however reluctantly.
But suppose there is no avenger left, what then? It is one of the fears that torment Orestes in Euripides' Electra, "Who will do justice on me, when she is dead?" In that case, though there is no visible human avenger, the Law nevertheless acts. The doer must suffer. That is Dikê, Justice. It is the law of Themis, of Moira, of the Erînyes, and ultimately of Mother Earth. ”

“ For, among us, in actual fact, scribes are considered mere hirelings, but among them on the contrary no one is admitted to this office if they are not of honourable rank, with recognised faithfulness and industry, because he must participate in every council. Eumenes held this position of friendship under Philip for seven years. [2] After he died, Eumenes remained at the same rank under Alexander for thirteen years. ”

“ Eumenes was the man he hated most of all, and he determined to begin the war by shedding his blood. He suborned Euander of Crete, a leader of mercenaries, and three Macedonians who were accustomed to lend their services for crimes of this nature, and gave them a letter for Praxo, a friend of his, the wealthiest and most influential woman in Delphi. It was generally understood that Eumenes would go up to Delphi to sacrifice to Apollo. The only thing the assassins needed for executing their project was a suitable spot, and they and Euander traversed the neighbourhood to find one. ”

“ Here the ambassadors of Eumenes said, that “if the Romans wished that Ænus and Maronea should be independent, the king felt ashamed to say more, than to recommend it to them to leave those people free in fact, and not in words; nor to suffer their kindness to be intercepted by another. But if they had not so much concern for the states situated in Thrace, it was much more reasonable that Eumenes should possess, as the rewards of war, the places which had been under the dominion of Antiochus, than Philip ”

“ I. Eumenes the Cardian. If he had been given fortune equal to his virtue, he would not have been a greater man, although far more illustrious and even more honoured, because we measure men's greatness by their virtue, not their fortune. For in the times when his life began, the Macedonians were prospering, and he was deprived of a lot as a result of living among them, because he was from a foreign community and he lacked nothing other than a noble lineage. ”

“ From this time Eumenes, daily flying and wandering about, persuaded many of his men to disband, whether out of kindness to them, or unwillingness to lead about such a body of men as were too few to engage, and too many to fly undiscovered. Taking refuge at Nora, a place on the confines of Lycaonia and Cappadocia, with five hundred horse, and two hundred heavy-armed foot, he again dismissed as many of his friends as desired it, through fear of the probable hardships to be encountered there, and embracing them with all demonstrations of kindness, gave them license to depart. ”

“ Who does not know that the poets are prophets, and that nothing is hidden from them? Being a poet myself, and crowned with Apollo’s laurel, I will make known to all the last incarnation of Eunoia. The eternal Helen is close to us; she is looking at us, and we are looking at her. You see that woman reclining on the cushions of her couch—so beautiful and so contemplative—whose eyes shed tears, and whose lips abound with kisses! It is she! Lovely as in the time of Priam and the halcyon days of Asia, Eunoia is now called Thais. ”