Eurymedon

“ They abandoned their mercenary auxiliaries altogether, and only stipulated that they should themselves be sent to Athens, and left to the discretion of the Athenian people. Eurymedon, assenting to these terms, deposited the disarmed prisoners in the neighboring islet of Ptychia, under the distinct condition that, if a single man tried to escape, the whole capitulation should be null and void. ”

“ Eurymedon remained with his fleet for seven days, during all which time the victorious Korkyræans carried on a sanguinary persecution against the party who had been concerned in the late oligarchical revolution. Five hundred of this party contrived to escape by flight to the mainland; while those who did not, or could not flee, were slain wherever they could be found. ”

“ Ulysses saw her in spite of the mist, and asked her 21 to show him the way to the house of Alcinous; this, she said, she could easily do, and when they reached the house she told Ulysses all about the king's family history, and advised him how he should behave himself.
"Be bold," she said; "boldness always tells, no matter 50 where a man comes from. First find the mistress of the house. She is of the same family as her husband, and her descent is in this wise. Eurymedon was king of the giants, but he and his people were overthrown, and he lost his own [Pg 35] life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She is fighting tremulously, with all her flagging strength, against the thing she longs for. The whole point of the scene requires that one ray of hope after another should be shown to Electra, and that she should passionately, blindly, reject them all. That is what Euripides wanted the signs for.
But why, it may be asked, did he adopt Aeschylus' signs, and even his peculiar word? Because, whether invented by Aeschylus or not, these signs were a canonical part of the story by the time Euripides wrote. Every one who knew the story of Orestes' return at all, knew of the hair and the footprint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Electra and in Iphigenia in Tauris, [32] Euripides deals with the familiar tragedy of Orestes, pursued by the Furies after the murder of his mother, and in the Alcestis he tells the old tale of how a noble woman was willing to sacrifice her life for that of a selfish husband, and of how she was brought back from the gates of Hades by Heracles.
The strength of Euripides lies in his wonderful portrayal of character. He judges his characters by the standards of the men and women of his own day and not by those of the gods and heroes, and he is a merciless critic. ”

“ The spring is from yon cot. I at the dawn
Will drive my team afield and sow the glebe.
None idle—though his lips aye prate of Gods— 80
Can gather without toil a livelihood.
[Exeunt Peasant and Electra.
Enter Orestes and Pylades.
Orestes.
Pylades, foremost thee of men I count
In loyalty, love, and friendship unto me.
Sole of Orestes' friends, thou honouredst me
In this my plight, wronged foully by Aegisthus, 85
Who, with my utter-baneful mother, slew
My sire. At Phœbus' oracle-hest [2] I come
To Argos' soil, none privy thereunto,
To pay my father's murderers murder-wage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They fly to their spears. But Telephus has snatched up the baby prince, Orestes, from his cradle and stands at bay; if one of his enemies moves the child shall die. Eventually they accept his terms and make peace with him. A fine melodrama, one would guess, and a move in the direction of realism—a direction which Euripides only followed within certain strict limits. But we find two marks of Euripides the philosopher. The beggar who pleads for reasonable justice towards the national enemy strikes a note which Euripides himself often had to sound afterwards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Aeschylus' Libation-Bearers, which deals with the same subject as the Electra, the scene is at Agamemnon's tomb. Orestes lays his tress there in the prologue. Electra comes bringing libations, sees the hair, compares it with her own, finds that it is similar "wing for wing" ( [Greek: homopteros] —the same word as here) , and guesses that it belongs to Orestes. She then measures the footprints, and finds one that is like her own, one not; evidently Orestes and a fellow-traveller! Orestes enters and announces himself ”

“ Straight yonder, where Aegisthus makes his prayer!
Electra.
Then seek my mother's presence, and declare
My news.
Old Man.
⁠Thy very words, child, as tho' spoke
From thine own lips!
Electra.
⁠Brother, thine hour is struck.
Thou standest in the van of war this day.
Orestes (rousing hirmelf) .
Aye, I am ready. . . . I will go my way,
If but some man will guide me.
Old Man.
⁠Here am I,
To speed thee to the end, right thankfully.
Orestes (turning as he goes and raising his hands to heaven) .
Zeus of my sires, Zeus of the lost battle,
Electra. ”

“ It never in any single case holds good—not even in the Orestes. And there are some plays, like the Iphigenîa in Tauris, in which, so far from the god coming to clear up a tangled plot, the plot has to be diverted at the last moment so as to provide an excuse for the god's arrival. Euripides evidently liked a supernatural ending, and when he had to do without a real god—as in the Medea and the Hecuba—he was apt to end with winged chariots and prophecies. ”

“ One sees the fantastic satyr note. The play is not truly tragic; it touches its theme tenderly and with romance. But amid all the romance Euripides cannot keep his hand from unveiling the weak spot in the sacred legend. Alcestis, no doubt, is beautiful, and it was beautiful of her to die. But what was it of Admetus to let her die? An ordinary playwright would elude the awkward question. Admetus would refuse his wife's sacrifice and she would perform it against his will or without his knowledge. We should somehow save our hero's character. Not so Euripides. ”

“ For since their father was removed from the earth, first Eurystheus wished to kill me, but I escaped; and my country indeed is no more, but my life is saved, and I wander in exile, migrating from one city to another. For, in addition to my other ills, Eurystheus has chosen to insult me with this insult; sending heralds whenever on earth he learns we are settled, he demands us, and drives us out of the land; alleging the city of Argos, one not paltry either to be friends with or to make an enemy, and himself too prospering as he is ”

“ But they have come hither, either because they perceived some folly in thee, or, in their perplexity, staking all on one risky throw to win or lose; for surely they do not suppose that thou, if so thou hast thy senses still, and only thou, in all the breadth of Hellas they have traversed, wilt pity their foolish troubles. Come now, put argument against argument: what will be thy gain, suppose thou admit them to thy land, or let us take them hence? From us these benefits are thine to win: this city can secure as friends Argos, with its far-reaching arm, and Eurystheus' might complete ”

“ Some more the mothers than the father love.
I pardon thee. In sooth, not all so glad 1105
Am I, my child, for deeds that I have done.
But thou, why thus unwashed and meanly clad,
Seeing thy travail-sickness now is past?
Woe and alas for my devisings!—more
I spurred my spouse [41] to anger than was need. 1110
Electra.
Too late thou sighest, since thou canst not heal.
My sire is dead: but him, the banished one,
Why dost thou not bring back, thine homeless son?
Klytemnestra.
I fear: mine own good I regard, not his.
Wroth for his father's blood he is, men say. 1115
Electra. ”

“ Allowing for the great difference of treatment and the comparative absence of detail in the ancient drama, this phrase would, I think, be true of all the great Greek tragedians. In Euripides it is clear enough. Jason, as well as Medea, Clytemnestra as well as Electra, even satirized characters like Menelaus in the Trojan Women or Agamemnon in the Iphigenia in Aulis, are creatures of one blood with ourselves; they are beings who must be understood, who cannot be thrust beyond the pale ”

“ 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 ”

“ Diomedes.
I will be slayer. Manage thou the steeds;
For versed art thou in craft, and keen of wit. 625
Best set each man where best his help avails.
Athena.
Lo, yonder Alexander I discern
Draw nigh us. From some watchman hath he heard
A doubtful rumour of the approach of foes.
Diomedes.
Or cometh he with others, or alone? 630
Athena.
Alone. To Hector's couch, meseems, he fares,
To tell how spies upon the host be here.
Diomedes.
Ought he not then to be the first to die?
Athena.
Thou canst not overpass the doom of fate.
It may not be that by thine hand he die. ”

“ He would have slain her; yet, how cruel soe'er,
Her mother saved her from Aegisthus' hand;—
A plea she had for murder of her lord,
But feared to be abhorred for children's blood:— 30
Wherefore Aegisthus found out this device:
On Agamemnon's son, who had fled the land,
He set a price, even gold to whoso slew;
But to me gives Electra, her to have
To wife,—from sires Mycenian sprung indeed 35
Am I, herein I may not be contemned; [1]
Noble my line is, I in this world's goods
Am poor, whereby men's high descent is marred,—
To make his fear naught by this spouse of naught. ”

“ Pylades.
That I helped thee slay thy mother, this he names an impious thing.
Orestes.
Woe is me! the anguish of mine anguish unto thee must cling!
Pylades.
I am not a Menelaus: these afflictions must I bear.
Orestes.
Fear'st thou not lest Argos doom thee with my deed my death to share?⁠770
Pylades.
I belong not unto them to punish, but to Phocis-land.
Orestes.
Fearful is the people's rage, when evil men its course command.
Pylades.
Nay, but when they take them honest chiefs, they counsel honest rede.
Orestes.
Come, let thou and I commune— [22]
Pylades. ”

“ MEN. Orestes, I indeed reverence thy person, and I am willing to labor with thee in thy misfortunes. For thus it is right to endure together the misfortunes of one's relations, if the God gives the ability, even so far as to die, and to kill the adversary; but this ability again I want from the Gods. For I am come having my single spear unaided by allies, having wandered with infinite labors with small assistance of friends left me. In battle therefore we can not come off superior to Pelasgian Argos; but if we can by soft speeches, to that hope are we equal. ”