The Furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the
land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship for-
ever in Attica.
land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship for-
ever in Attica.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v01 - A to Apu
extant tragedies
ÆschyLUS
breathe the very spirit of war, and
show a soldier's experience; and the epitaph upon his tomb, which
was said to have been written by himself, recorded how he had been
one of those who met the barbarians in the first shock of the great
struggle and had helped to save his country.
«How brave in battle was Euphorion's son,
The long-haired Mede can tell who fell at Marathon. ”
Before Æschylus, Attic tragedy had been essentially lyrical. It
arose 'from the dithyrambic chorus that was sung at the festivals of
Dionysus. Thespis had introduced the first actor, who, in the pauses
of the choral song, related in monologue the adventures of the god
or engaged in dialogue with the leader of the chorus. To Æschylus
## p. 184 (#210) ############################################
184
ÆSCHYLUS
is due the invention of the second actor. This essentially changed the
character of the performance. The dialogue could now be carried on
by the two actors, who were thus able to enact a complete story.
The functions of the chorus became less important, and the lyrical
element was subordinated to the action. (The word “drama” signi-
fies action. ) The number of actors was subsequently increased to
three, and Æschylus in his later plays used this number.
This re-
striction imposed upon the Greek playwright does not mean that he
was limited to two or three characters in his play, but that only two,
or at the most three, of these might take part in the action at once.
The same actor might assume different parts. The introduction of
the second actor was so capital an innovation that it rightly entitles
Æschylus to be regarded as the creator of the drama, for in his
hands tragedy first became essentially dramatic. This is his great
distinction, but his powerful genius wrought other changes. He per-
fected, if he did not discover, the practice of introducing three plays
upon a connected theme (technically named a trilogy), with an after-
piece of lighter character. He invented the tragic dress and buskin,
and perfected the tragic mask. He improved the tragic dance, and
by his use of scénic decoration and stage machinery, secured effects
that were unknown before him. His chief claim to superior excel-
lence, however, lies after all in his poetry. Splendid in diction, vivid
in the portraiture of character, and powerful in the expression of
passion, he is regarded by many competent critics as the greatest
tragic poet of all time.
The Greek lexicographer, Suidas, reports that Æschylus wrote
ninety plays. The titles of seventy-two of these have been handed
down in an ancient register. He brought out the first of these at
the age of twenty-five, and as he died at the age of sixty-nine, he
wrote on an average two plays each year throughout his lifetime.
Such fertility would be incredible, were not similar facts authen-
tically recorded of the older tragic poets of Greece. The Greek
drama, moreover, made unusual demands on the creative powers of
the poet.
It was lyrical, and the lyrics were accompanied by the
dance. All these elements — poetry, song, and dance — the poet con-
tributed; and we gain a new sense of the force of the word “poet”
(it means creator”), when we contemplate his triple function.
Moreover, he often staged” the play himself, and sometimes he
acted in it. Æschylus was singularly successful in an age that pro-
duced many great poets. He took the first prize at least thirteen
times; and as he brought out four plays at each contest, more than
half his plays were adjudged by his contemporaries to be of the
highest quality. After the poet's death, plays which he had writ-
ten, but which had not been acted in his lifetime, were brought out
## p. 185 (#211) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
185
by his sons and a nephew. It is on record that his son Euphorion
took the first prize four times with plays of his father; so the poet's
art lived after him and suffered no eclipse.
Only seven complete plays of Æschylus are still extant. The
best present source of the text of these is a manuscript preserved in
the Laurentian Library, at Florence in Italy, which was written in
the tenth or eleventh century after Christ. The number of plays
still extant is small, but fortunately, among them is the only com-
plete Greek trilogy that we possess, and luckily also the other four
serve to mark successive stages in the poet's artistic development.
The trilogy of the Oresteia' is certainly his masterpiece; in some of
the other plays he is clearly seen to be still bound by the limitations
which hampered the earlier writers of Greek tragedy. In the follow-
ing analysis the seven plays will be presented in their probable
chronological order.
The Greeks signally defeated Xerxes in the great sea fight in the
bay of Salamis, B. C. 480. The poet made this victory the theme of
his Persians. This is the only historical Greek tragedy which we
now possess: the subjects of all the rest are drawn from mythology.
But Æschylus had a model for his historical play in the Phæni-
cian Women of his predecessor Phrynichus, which dealt with the
same theme. Æschylus, indeed, is said to have imitated it closely
in the Persians. Plagiarism was thought to be a venial fault by
the ancients, just as in the Homeric times piracy was not considered
a disgrace. The scene of the play is not Athens, as one might
expect, but Susa. It opens without set prologue. The Chorus con-
sists of Persian elders, to whom the government of the country has
been committed in the absence of the King. These venerable men
gather in front of the royal palace, and their leader opens the play
with expressions of apprehension: no news has come from the host
absent in Greece. The Chorus at first express full confidence in the
resistless might of the great army; but remembering that the gods
are jealous of vast power and success in men, yield to gloomy fore-
bodings. These grow stronger when Atossa, the aged mother of
Xerxes, appears from the palace and relates the evil dreams which
she has had on the previous night, and the omen that followed. The
Chorus beseech her to make prayer to the gods, to offer libations to
the dead, and especially to invoke the spirit of Darius to avert the
evil which threatens his ancient kingdom. Too late! A messenger
arrives and announces that all is lost. By one fell stroke the might
of Persia has been laid low at Salamis. At Atossa's request, the mes-
senger, interrupted at first by the lamentations of the Chorus, recounts
what has befallen. His description of the battle in the straits is a
passage of signal power, and is justly celebrated. The Queen retires,
## p. 186 (#212) ############################################
186
ÆSCHYLUS
and the Chorus sing a song full of gloomy reflections. The Queen
reappears, and the ghost of Darius is invoked from the lower world.
He hears from Atossa what has happened, sees in this the fulfill-
ment of certain ancient prophecies, foretells disaster still to come,
and warns the Chorus against further attempts upon Greece. As he
departs to the underworld, the Chorus sing in praise of the wisdom
of his reign. Atossa has withdrawn. Xerxes now appears with
attendants, laments with the Chorus the disaster that has overtaken
him, and finally enters the palace.
The economy of the play is simple: only two actors are required.
The first played the parts of Atossa and Xerxes, the second that of
the messenger and the ghost of Darius. The play well illustrates
the conditions under which Æschylus at this period wrote. The
Chorus was still of first importance; the ratio of the choral parts in
the play to the dialogue is about one to two.
The exact date of the Suppliants' cannot be determined; but the
simplicity of its plot, the lack of a prologue, the paucity of its char-
acters, and the prominence of the Chorus, show that it is an early
play. The scene is Argos. The Chorus consists of the daughters of
Danaüs, and there are only three characters, — Danaüs, a Herald, and
Pelasgus King of Argos.
Danaüs and Ægyptus, brothers, and descendants of Io and Epa-
phus, had settled near Canopus at the mouth of the Nile. Ægyptus
sought to unite his fifty sons in marriage with the fifty daughters of
the brother. The daughters fled with their father to Argos. Here
his play opens. The Chorus appeal for protection to the country,
once the home of Io, and to its gods and heroes. Pelasgus, with the
consent of the Argive people, grants them refuge, and at the end of
the play repels the attempt to seize them made by the Herald of the
sons of Ægyptus.
A part of one of the choruses is of singular beauty, and it is
doubtless to them that the preservation of the play is due. The
play hardly seems to be a tragedy, for it ends without bloodshed.
Further, it lacks dramatic interest, for the action almost stands still.
It is a cantata rather than a tragedy. Both considerations, . however,
are sufficiently explained by the fact that this was the first play of a
trilogy. The remaining plays must have furnished, in the death of
forty-nine of the sons of Ægyptus, both action and tragedy in suffi-
cient measure to satisfy the most exacting demands.
The Seven Against Thebes' deals with the gloomy myth of the
house of Laïus. The tetralogy to which it belonged consisted of the
Laius,' 'Edipus, Seven Against Thebes,' and (Sphinx. The
themes of Greek tragedy were drawn from the national mythology,
but the myths were treated with a free hand. In his portrayal of
## p. 187 (#213) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
187
the fortunes of this doomed race, Æschylus departed in important
particulars, with gain in dramatic effect, from the story as it is read
in Homer.
Edipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons, Eteocles
and Polynices, for their unfilial neglect, — «they should one day
divide their land by steel. ” They thereupon agreed to reign in
turn, each for a year; but Eteocles, the elder, refused at the end of
the first year to give up the throne. Polynices appealed to Adrastus
King of Argos for help, and seven chiefs appeared before the walls
of Thebes to enforce his claim, and beleaguered the town. Here
the play opens, with an appeal addressed by Eteocles to the citizens
of Thebes to prove themselves stout defenders of their State in its
hour of peril. A messenger enters, and describes the sacrifice and
oath of the seven chiefs. The Chorus of Theban maidens enter in
confusion and sing the first ode. The hostile army is hurrying from
its camp against the town; the Chorus hear their shouts and the
rattling din of their arms, and are overcome by terror. Eteocles
reproves them for their fears, and bids them sing a pæan that shall
hearten the people. The messenger, in a noteworthy scene, de-
scribes the appearance of each hostile chief. The seventh and last
is Polynices. Eteocles, although conscious of his father's curse, nev-
ertheless declares with gloomy resoluteness that he will meet his
brother in single combat, and, resisting the entreaties of the Chorus,
goes forth to his doom. The attack on the town is repelled, but
the brothers fall, each by the other's hand. Thus is the curse ful-
filled. Presently their bodies are wheeled in. Their sisters, Antigone
and Ismene, follow and sing a lament over the dead. A herald an-
nounces that the Theban Senate forbid the burial of Polynices; his
body shall be cast forth as prey of dogs. Antigone declares her
resolution to brave their mandate, and perform the last sad rites for
her brother.
«Dread tie, the common womb from which we sprang,–
Of wretched mother born and hapless sire. »
The Chorus divides. The first semi-chorus sides with Antigone;
the second declares its resolution to follow to its last resting-place
the body of Eteocles. And thus the play ends. The theme is here
sketched, just at the close of the play, in outline, that Sophocles
has developed with such pathetic effect in his Antigone. '
The Prometheus' transports the reader to another world. The
characters are gods, the time is the remote past, the place a desolate
waste in Scythia, on the confines of the Northern Ocean. Pro-
metheus had sinned against the authority of Zeus. Zeus wished to
destroy the old race of mankind; but Prometheus gave them fire,
## p. 188 (#214) ############################################
188
ÆSCHYLUS
taught them arts and handicrafts, developed in them thought and
consciousness, and so assured both their existence and their happi-
ness. The play deals with his punishment. Prometheus is borne
upon the scene by Force and Strength, and is nailed to a lofty cliff
by Hephæstus. His appeal to Nature, when his tormentors depart
and he is left alone, is peculiarly pathetic. The daughters of Oce-
anus, constituting the Chorus, who have heard the sound of the ham-
mer in their ocean cave, are now borne in aloft on a winged car,
and bewail the fate of the outraged god. Oceanus appears upon a
winged steed, and offers his mediation; but this is scornfully rejected.
The resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the last is strength-
ened by the coming of Io. She too, as it seems, is a victim of the
Ruler of the Universe; driven by the jealous wrath of Hera, she
roams from land to land. She tells the tale of her sad wandering,
and finally rushes from the scene in frenzy, crazed by the sting of
the gadily that Hera has sent to torment her. Prometheus knows a
secret full of menace to Zeus. Relying on this, he prophesies his
overthrow, and defies him to do his worst. Hermes is sent to de-
mand with threats its revelation, but fails to accomplish his purpose.
Prometheus insults and taunts him. Hermes warns the Chorus to
leave, for Zeus is about to display his wrath. At first they refuse,
but then fly affrighted: the cliff is rending and sinking, the elements
are in wild tumult. As he sinks, about to be engulfed in the bowels
of the earth, Prometheus cries:
«Earth is rocking in space!
And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar,
And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face,
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round,
And the blasts of the winds universal leap free
And blow each upon each with a passion of sound,
And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea. ”
The play is Titanic. Its huge shapes, its weird effects, its mighty
passions, its wild display of the forces of earth and air, — these im-
press us chiefly at first; but its ethical interest is far greater. Zeus
is apparently represented in it as relentless, cruel, and unjust, -a
lawless ruler, who knows only his own will, — whereas in all the
other plays of Æschylus he is just and righteous, although sometimes
Æschylus, we know, was a religious man. It seems incred-
ible that he should have had two contradictory conceptions of the
character of Zeus. The solution of this problem is to be found in
the fact that this 'Prometheus) was the first play of the trilogy. In
the second play, the Prometheus Unbound, of which we have only
fragments, these apparent contradictions must have been reconciled.
Long ages are supposed to elapse between the plays. Prometheus
severe.
## p. 189 (#215) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
189
yields. He reveals the secret and is freed from his bonds. What
before seemed to be relentless wanton cruelty is now seen to have
been only the harsh but necessary severity of a ruler newly estab-
lished on his throne. By the reconciliation of this stern ruler with
the wise Titan, the giver of good gifts to men, order is restored to
the universe. Prometheus acknowledges his guilt, and the course
of Zeus is vindicated; but the loss of the second play of the trilogy
leaves much in doubt, and an extraordinary number of solutions of
the problem has been proposed. The reader must not look for one
of these, however, in the Prometheus Unbound' of Shelley, who
deliberately rejected the supposition of a reconciliation.
The three remaining plays are founded on the woful myth of the
house of Atreus, son of Pelops, a theme much treated by the Greek
tragic poets. They constitute the only existing Greek trilogy, and
are the last and greatest work of the poet. They were brought out
at Athens, B. C. 458, two years after the author's death.
The Aga-
memnon' sets forth the crime,—the murder, by his wife, of the
great King, on his return home from Troy; the 'Choëphori, the ven-
geance taken on the guilty wife by her own son; the Eumenides, the
atonement made by that son in expiation of his mother's murder.
Agamemnon on departing for Troy left behind him in his palace
a son and a daughter, Orestes and Electra. Orestes was exiled from
home by his mother Clytemnestra, who in Agamemnon's absence
lived in guilty union with Ægisthus, own cousin of the King, and
who could no longer endure to look upon the face of her son.
The scene of the Agamemnon' is the royal palace in Argos.
The time is night. A watchman is discovered on the flat roof of
the palace. For a year he has kept weary vigil there, waiting for
the beacon-fire that, sped from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall
announce the fall of Troy. The signal comes at last, and joyously
he proclaims the welcome news. The sacrificial fires which have
been made ready in anticipation of the event are set alight through-
out the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The
first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a
Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous
return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with
Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends
the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall
upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict
between the Chorus, still faithful to the murdered King, and Cly-
temnestra, beside whom stands her paramour Ægisthus.
Interest centres in Clytemnestra. Crafty, unscrupulous, resolute,
remorseless, she veils her deadly hatred for her lord, and welcomes
him home in tender speech :-
## p. 190 (#216) ############################################
190
ÆSCHYLUS
«So now, dear lord, I bid thee welcome home-
True as the faithful watchdog of the fold,
Strong as the mainstay of the laboring bark,
Stately as column, fond as only child,
Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner,
Bright as fair sunshine after winter's storms,
Sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer —
All this, and more, thou art, dear love, to me. )
Agamemnon passes within the palace; she slays him in his bath,
enmeshed in a net, and then, reappearing, vaunts her bloody deed:
«I smote him, and he bellowed; and again
I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way;
And as he fell before me, with a third
And last libation from the deadly mace,
I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due,
That subterranean Saviour- of the dead!
At which he spouted up the Ghost in such
A flood of purple as, bespattered with,
No less did I rejoice than the green ear
Rejoices in the largesse of the skies
That fleeting Iris follows as it flies. ”
Æschylus departs from the Homeric account, which was followed
by other poets, in making the action of the next play, the Cho-
ëphori,' follow closer upon that of the Agamemnon. ' Orestes has
heard in Phocis of his father's murder, and returns in secret, with
his friend Pylades, to exact vengeance. The scene is still Argos,
but Agamemnon's tomb is now seen in front of the palace. The
Chorus consists of captive women, who aid and abet the attempt.
The play sets forth the recognition of Orestes by Electra; the plot
by which Orestes gains admission to the palace; the deceit of the
old Nurse, a homely but capital character, by whom Ægisthus is
induced to come to the palace without armed attendants; the death
of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra; the appearance of the avenging
Furies; and the flight of Orestes.
The last play of the trilogy, the Eumenides,' has many singular
features. The Chorus of Furies seemed even to the ancients to be
a weird and terrible invention; the scene of the play shifts from
Delphi to Athens; the poet introduces into the play a trial scene;
and he had in it a distinct political purpose, whose development
occupies one-half of the drama.
Orestes, pursued by the avenging Furies, «Gorgon-like, vested in
sable stoles, their locks entwined with clustering snakes,” has fled to
Delphi to invoke the aid of Apollo. He clasps the navel-stone and
in his exhaustion falls asleep. Around him sleep the Furies. The
## p. 191 (#217) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
191
play opens with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar
in front of the temple. The interior of the sanctuary is then laid
bare. Orestes is awake, but the Furies sleep on. Apollo, standing
beside Orestes, promises to protect him, but bids him make all haste
to Athens, and there clasp, as a suppliant, the image of Athena.
Orestes flies. The ghost of Clytemnestra rises from the underworld,
and calls upon the Chorus to pursue. Overcome by their toil, they
moan in their sleep, but finally start to their feet. Apollo bids them
quit the temple.
The scene changes to the ancient temple of Athena on the
Acropolis at Athens, where Orestes is seen clasping the image of the
goddess. The Chorus enter in pursuit of their victim, and sing an ode
descriptive of their powers.
Athena appears, and learns from the Chorus and from Orestes the
reasons for their presence. She declares the issue to be too grave
even for her to decide, and determines to choose judges of the mur-
der, who shall become a solemn tribunal for all future time. These
are to be the best of the citizens of Athens. After an ode by the
Chorus, she returns, the court is established, and the trial proceeds
in due form. Apollo appears for the defense of Orestes. When the
arguments have been presented, Athena proclaims, before the vote
has been taken, the establishment of the court as a permanent tri-
bunal for the trial of cases of bloodshed. Its seat shall be the Are-
opagus. The votes are cast and Orestes is acquitted. He departs for
Argos.
The Furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the
land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship for-
ever in Attica. Heretofore they have been the Erinnyes, or Furies;
henceforth they shall be the Eumenides, or Gracious Goddesses.
The Eumenides are escorted from the scene in solemn procession.
Any analysis of the plays so brief as the preceding is necessarily
inadequate. The English reader is referred to the histories of Greek
Literature by K. O. Müller and by J. P. Mahaffy, to the striking
chapter on Æschylus in J. A. Symonds's Greek Poets,' and, for the
trilogy, to Moulton's 'Ancient Classical Drama. If he knows French,
he should add Croiset's Histoire de la Littérature Grecque,' and
should by all means read M. Patin's volume on Æschylus in his
'Études sur les Tragique Grècs. There are translations in English
of the poet's complete works by Potter, by Plumptre, by Blackie,
and by Miss Swanwick. Flaxman illustrated the plays. Ancient
illustrations are easily accessible in Baumeister's Denkmäler,' under
the names of the different characters in the plays. There is a transla-
tion of the Prometheus) by Mrs. Browning, and of the (Suppliants)
by Morshead, who has also translated the Atridean trilogy under
the title of The House of Atreus. ' Goldwin Smith has translated
portions of six of the plays in his “Specimens of Greek Tragedy. '
>
## p. 192 (#218) ############################################
192
ÆSCHYLUS
Many translations of the 'Agamemnon' have been made, among oth-
ers by Milman, by Symmons, by Lord Carnarvon, and by Fitzgerald.
Robert Browning also translated the play, with appalling literalness.
John Williams Weih
THE COMPLAINT OF PROMETHEUS
PROMETHEUS (alone)
O
HOLY Æther, and swift-winged Winds,
And River-wells, and laughter innumerous
Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all,
And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you, -
Behold me a god, what I endure from gods!
Behold, with throe on throe,
How, wasted by this woe,
I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!
Behold, how fast around me
The new King of the happy ones sublime
Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me!
Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's
I cover with one groan.
And where is found me
A limit to these sorrows ?
And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul — and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech. Because I gave
Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate. Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent
Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,
Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.
Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
-
-
## p. 193 (#219) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
193
To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!
The god Zeus hateth sore,
And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore.
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
As of birds flying near!
And the air undersings
The light stroke of their wings —
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.
From E. B. Browning's Translation of (Prometheus.
A PRAYER TO ARTEMIS
STROPHE IV
T"
HOUGH Zeus plan all things right,
Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace;
Nathless in every place
Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night,
Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.
ANTISTROPHE IV
Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight,
The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought;
For wrapt in shadowy night,
Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight,
Extend the path ways of his secret thought.
STROPHE V
From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone
To utter doom: but for their fall
No force arrayeth he; for all
That gods devise is without effort wrought.
A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne
By inborn energy achieves his thought.
ANTISTROPHE V
But let him mortal insolence behold:
How with proud contumacy rife,
Wantons the stem in lusty life
My marriage craving ; - frenzy over-bold,
Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate,
By ruin taught their folly all too late.
1-13
## p. 194 (#220) ############################################
194
ÆSCHYLUS
STROPHE VI
Thus I complain, in piteous strain,
Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill;
Ah woe is me! woe! woe!
Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill
I pour, yet breathing vital air.
Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer!
Full well, O land,
My voice barbaric thou canst understand;
While oft with rendings I assail
My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
ANTISTROPHE VI
My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight
Pollution were, death-laden, rude;
Ah woe is me! woe! woe!
Alas for sorrow's murky brood!
Where will this billow hurl me? Where?
Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer;
Full well, O land,
My voice barbaric thou canst understand,
While oft with rendings I assail
My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
STROPHE VII
The oar indeed and home with sails
Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales,
Stanch to the wave, from spear-storm free,
Have to this shore escorted me,
Nor so far blame I destiny.
But may the all-seeing Father send
In fitting time propitious end;
So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued!
ANTISTROPHE VII
Meeting my will with will divine,
Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold
Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-
Me, Artemis unstained, behold.
Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield,
Virgin thyself, a virgin shield;
## p. 195 (#221) ############################################
AESCHYLUS
195
So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued !
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of “The Suppliants.
THE DEFIANCE OF ETEOCLES
MESSENGER
N°
ow at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief,
Thy proper mother's son, I will announce,
What fortune for this city, for himself,
With curses he invoketh:- on the walls
Ascending, heralded as king, to stand,
With pæans for their capture; then with thee
To fight, and either slaying near thee die,
Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive,
Requite in kind his proper banishment.
Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods
Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland,
With gracious eye to look upon his prayers.
A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears,
With twofold blazon riveted thereon,
For there a woman leads, with sober mien,
A mailed warrior, enchased in gold;
Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks:-
“This man I will restore, and he shall hold
The city and his father's palace homes. ”
Such the devices of the hostile chiefs.
'Tis for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send;
But never shalt thou blame my herald-words.
To guide the rudder of the State be thine!
ETEOCLES
O heaven-demented race of Edipus,
My race, tear-fraught, detested of the gods!
Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit.
But it beseems not to lament or weep,
Lest lamentations sadder still be born.
For him, too truly Polyneikes named, -
What his device will work we soon shall know;
Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught,
Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back.
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
## p. 196 (#222) ############################################
196
ÆSCHYLUS
Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been;
But neither when he fled the darksome womb,
Or in his childhood, or in youth's fair prime,
Or when the hair thick gathered on his chin,
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed 'him hers,
Nor in this outrage on his Fatherland
Deem I she now beside him deigns to stand.
For Justice would in sooth belie her name,
Did she with this all-daring man consort.
In these regards confiding will I go,
Myself will meet him. Who with better right?
Brother to brother, chieftain against chief,
Foeman to foe, I'll stand. Quick, bring my spear,
My greaves, and armor, bulwark against stones.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of “The Seven Against Thebes. )
THE VISION OF CASSANDRA
CASSANDRA
HEBUS APOLLO!
Photos
CHORUS
Hark!
The lips at last unlocking.
CASSANDRA
Phoebus! Phobus!
CHORUS
Well, what of Phæbus, maiden ? though a name
'Tis but disparagement to call upon
In misery.
CASSANDRA
Apollo! Apollo! Again!
Oh, the burning arrow through the brain!
Phæbus Apollo! Apollo!
CHORUS
Seemingly
Possessed indeed — whether by —
CASSANDRA
Phæbus! Phoebus!
Through trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
## p. 197 (#223) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
197
Over water seething, and behind the breathing
War-horse in the darkness — till you rose again,
Took the helm -- took the rein -
CHORUS
As one that half asleep at dawn recalls
A night of Horror!
CASSANDRA
Hither, whither, Phoebus? And with whom,
Leading me, lighting me —
CHORUS
I can answer that-
CASSANDRA
Down to what slaughter-house!
Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it — drags me toward it -
Phæbus Apollo! Apollo!
-
CHORUS
One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems,
That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault-
This is no den of slaughter, but the house
Of Agamemnon.
CASSANDRA
Down upon the towers,
(man,
Phantoms of two mangled children hover — and a famished
At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours !
CHORUS
Thyestes and his children! Strange enough
For any maiden from abroad to know,
Or, knowing --
CASSANDRA
And look! in the chamber below
The terrible Woman, listening, watching,
Under a mask, preparing the blow
In the fold of her robe --
CHORUS
Nay, but again at fault:
For in the tragic story of this House
## p. 198 (#224) ############################################
198
ÆSCHYLUS
Unless, indeed the fatal Helen-
No woman
CASSANDRA
No Woman - Tisiphone! Daughter
Of Tartarus - love-grinning Woman above,
Dragon-tailed under — honey-tongued, Harpy-clawed,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter
She wheedles, entices him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent
CHORUS
Peace, mad woman, peace!
Whose stony lips once open vomit out
Such uncouth horrors.
CASSANDRA
I tell you the lioness
Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting
Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,
Bounds hither – Phæbus Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,
Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,
From my slaughtered kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine,
Slave-like to be butchered, the daughter of a royal line!
From Edward Fitzgerald's Version of the Agamemnon.
THE LAMENT OF THE OLD NURSE
NURSE
ur mistress bids me with all speed to call
O®Ægisthus to the strangers
, that he come
And hear more clearly, as a man from man,
This newly brought report. Before her slaves,
Under set eyes of melancholy cast,
She hid her inner chuckle at the events
That have been brought to pass — too well for her,
But for this house and hearth most miserably, -
As in the tale the strangers clearly told.
He, when he hears and learns the story's gist,
Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me!
How those old troubles, of all sorts made up,
Most hard to bear, in Atreus's palace-halls
-
-
---
## p. 199 (#225) ############################################
ESCHYLUS
199
.
Have made my heart full heavy in my breast !
But never have I known a woe like this.
For other ills I bore full patiently,
But as for dear Orestes, my sweet charge,
Whom from his mother I received and nursed
And then the shrill cries rousing me o' nights,
And many and unprofitable toils
For me who bore them. For one needs must rear
The heedless infant like an animal,
(How can it else be ? ) as his humor serve
For while a child is yet in swaddling clothes,
It speaketh not, if either hunger comes,
Or passing thirst, or lower calls of need;
And children's stomach works its own content.
And I, though I foresaw this, call to mind,
How I was cheated, washing swaddling clothes,
And nurse and laundress did the selfsame work.
I then with these my double handicrafts,
Brought up Orestes for his father dear;
And now, woe's me! I learn that he is dead,
And go to fetch the man that mars this house;
And gladly will he hear these words of mine.
From Plumptre's Translation of The Libation-Pourers. )
THE DECREE OF ATHENA
H
?
EAR ye my statute, men of Attica -
Ye who of bloodshed judge this primal cause;
Yea, and in future age shall Ægeus's host
Revere this court of jurors. This the hill
Of Ares, seat of Amazons, their tent,
What time 'gainst Theseus, breathing hate, they came,
Waging fierce battle, and their towers upreared,
A counter-fortress to Acropolis ;-
To Ares they did sacrifice, and hence
This rock is titled Areopagus.
Here then shall sacred Awe, to Fear allied,
By day and night my lieges hold from wrong,
Save if themselves do innovate my laws,
If thou with mud, or influx base, bedim
The sparkling water, nought thou'lt find to drink.
Nor Anarchy, nor Tyrant's lawless rule
Commend I to my people's reverence;-
Nor let them banish from their city Fear;
## p. 200 (#226) ############################################
200
ÆSOP
For who 'mong men, uncurbed by fear, is just ?
Thus holding Awe in seemly reverence,
A bulwark for your State shall ye possess,
A safeguard to protect your city walls,
Such as no mortals otherwhere can boast,
Neither in Scythia, nor in Pelops's realm.
Behold! This Court august, untouched by bribes,
Sharp to avenge, wakeful for those who sleep,
Establish I, a bulwark to this land.
This charge, extending to all future time,
I give my lieges. Meet it as ye rise,
Assume the pebbles, and decide the cause,
Your oath revering. All hath now been said.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of (The Eumenides.
ÆSOP
(Seventh Century B. C. )
BY HARRY THURSTON PECK
an
PIKE Homer, the greatest of the world's epic poets, Æsop
(Æsopus), the most famous of the world's fabulists, has
been regarded by certain scholars as a wholly mythical
personage. The many improbable stories that are told about him
gain some credence for this theory, which is set forth in detail by
the Italian scholar Vico, who says:-"Æsop, re-
garded philosophically, will be found not to have
been an actually existing man, but rather
abstraction representing a class,”— in other words,
merely a convenient invention of the later Greeks,
who ascribed to him all the fables of which they
could find no certain author.
The only narrative upon which the ancient
writers are in the main agreed represents Æsop
as living in the seventh century before Christ. As
with Homer, so with Æsop, several cities of Asia
Æsop
Minor claimed the honor of having been his birth-
place. Born a slave and hideously ugly, his keen
wit led his admiring master to set him free; after which he trav-
eled, visiting Athens, where he is said to have told his fable of
King Log and King Stork to the citizens who were complaining of
the rule of Pisistratus. Still later, having won the favor of King
## p. 201 (#227) ############################################
ÆSOP
201
Cræsus of Lydia, he was sent by him to Delphi with a gift of
money for the citizens of that place; but in the course of a dispute
as to its distribution, he was slain by the Delphians, who threw him
over a precipice.
The fables that bore his name seem not to have been committed
by him to writing, but for a long time were handed down from gen-
eration to generation by oral tradition; so that the same tables are
sometimes found quoted in slightly different forms, and we hear of
men learning them in conversation rather than from books. They
were, however, universally popular. Socrates while in prison amused
himself by turning some of them into verse. Aristophanes cites
them in his plays; and he tells how certain suitors once tried to win
favor of a judge by repeating to him some of the amusing stories of
Æsop. The Athenians even erected a statue in his honor. At a
later period, the fables were gathered together and published by the
Athenian statesman and orator, Demetrius Phalereus, in B. C. 320,
and were versified by Babrius (of uncertain date), whose collection is
the only one in Greek of which any substantial portion still sur-
vives. They were often translated by the Romans, and the Latin
version by Phædrus, the freedman of Augustus Cæsar, is still pre-
served and still used as a school-book. Forty-two of them are like-
wise found in a Latin work by one Avianus, dating from the fifth
century after Christ. During the Middle Ages, when much of the
classical literature had been lost or forgotten, Æsop, who was called
by the medievals "Isopet,” was still read in various forms; and in
modern times he has served as a model for a great number of imita-
tions, of which the most successful are those in French by Lafon-
taine and those in English by John Gay.
Whether or not such a person as Æsop ever lived, and whether
or not he actually narrated the fables that are ascribed to him, it is
certain that he did not himself invent them, but merely gave them
currency in Greece; for they can be shown to have existed long
before his time, and in fact to antedate even the beginnings of Hel-
lenic civilization. With some changes of form they are found in the
oldest literature of the Chinese; similar stories are preserved on the
inscribed Babylonian bricks; and an Egyptian papyrus of about the
year 1200 B. C. gives the fable of The Lion and the Mouse' in its
finished form. Other Æsopic apologues are essentially identical with
the Jatakas or Buddhist stories of India, and occur also in the great
Sanskrit story-book, the Panchatantra,' which is the very oldest
monument of Hindu literature.
The so-called Æsopic Fables are in fact only a part of the primi-
tive folk-lore, that springs up in prehistoric times, and passes from
country to country and from race to race by the process of popular
## p. 202 (#228) ############################################
202
ÆSOP
an
story-telling. They reached Greece, undoubtedly through Egypt and
Persia, and even in their present form they still retain certain Ori-
ental, or at any rate non-Hellenic elements, such as the introduction
of Eastern animals, — the panther, the peacock, and the ape. They
represent the beginnings of conscious literary effort, when man first
tried to enforce some maxim of practical wisdom and to teach some
useful truth through the fascinating medium of a story. The Fable
embodies a half-unconscious desire to give concrete form to
abstract principle, and a childish love for the picturesque and strik-
ing, which endows rocks and stones and trees with life, and gives
the power of speech to animals.
That beasts with the attributes of human beings should figure in
these tales involves, from the standpoint of primeval man, only a
very slight divergence from probability. In nothing, perhaps, has
civilization so changed us as in our mental attitude toward animals.
It has fixed a great gulf between us and them - a gulf far greater
than that which divided them from our first ancestors. In the early
ages of the world, when men lived by the chase, and gnawed the
raw flesh of their prey, and slept in lairs amid the jungle, the purely
animal virtues were the only ones they knew and exercised. They
adored courage and strength, and swiftness and endurance. They
respected keenness of scent and vision, and admired cunning. The
possession of these qualities was the very condition of existence, and
they valued them accordingly; but in each one of them they found
their equals, and in fact their superiors, among the brutes. A lion
was stronger than the strongest man. The hare was swifter. The
eagle was more keen-sighted. The fox was more cunning. Hence,
so far from looking down upon the animals from the remotely supe-
rior height that a hundred centuries of civilization have erected for
us, the primitive savage looked up to the beast, studied his ways,
copied him, and went to school to him. The man, then, was not in
those days the lord of creation, and the beast was not his servant;
but they were almost brothers in the subtle sympathy between them,
like that which united Mowgli, the wolf-nursed shikarri, and his hairy
brethren, in that most weirdly wonderful of all Mr. Kipling's inven-
tions - the one that carries us back, not as his other stories do, to
the India of the cities and the bazaars, of the supercilious tourist and
the sleek Babu, but to the older India of unbroken jungle, darkling
at noonday through its green mist of tangled leaves, and haunted by
memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute crouched
close together on the earthy breast of the great mother.
The Æsopic Fables, then, are the oldest representative that we
have of the literary art of primitive man. The charm that they have
always possessed springs in part from their utter simplicity, their
## p. 203 (#229) ############################################
1
203
ÆSOP
naiveté, and their directness; and in part from the fact that their
teachings are the teachings of universal experience, and therefore
appeal irresistibly to the consciousness of every one who hears them,
whether he be savage or scholar, child or sage. They are the liter-
ary antipodes of the last great effort of genius and art working upon
the same material, and found in Mr. Kipling's Jungle Books. The
Fables show only the first stirrings of the literary instinct, the Jungle
Stories bring to bear the full development of the fictive art, — creative
imagination, psychological insight, brilliantly picturesque description,
and the touch of one who is a daring master of vivid language; so
that no better theme can be given to a student of literary history
than the critical comparison of these two allied forms of composition,
representing as they do the two extremes of actual development.
The best general account in English of the origin of the Greek
Fable is that of Rutherford in the introduction to his Babrius?
(London, 1883).
ÆschyLUS
breathe the very spirit of war, and
show a soldier's experience; and the epitaph upon his tomb, which
was said to have been written by himself, recorded how he had been
one of those who met the barbarians in the first shock of the great
struggle and had helped to save his country.
«How brave in battle was Euphorion's son,
The long-haired Mede can tell who fell at Marathon. ”
Before Æschylus, Attic tragedy had been essentially lyrical. It
arose 'from the dithyrambic chorus that was sung at the festivals of
Dionysus. Thespis had introduced the first actor, who, in the pauses
of the choral song, related in monologue the adventures of the god
or engaged in dialogue with the leader of the chorus. To Æschylus
## p. 184 (#210) ############################################
184
ÆSCHYLUS
is due the invention of the second actor. This essentially changed the
character of the performance. The dialogue could now be carried on
by the two actors, who were thus able to enact a complete story.
The functions of the chorus became less important, and the lyrical
element was subordinated to the action. (The word “drama” signi-
fies action. ) The number of actors was subsequently increased to
three, and Æschylus in his later plays used this number.
This re-
striction imposed upon the Greek playwright does not mean that he
was limited to two or three characters in his play, but that only two,
or at the most three, of these might take part in the action at once.
The same actor might assume different parts. The introduction of
the second actor was so capital an innovation that it rightly entitles
Æschylus to be regarded as the creator of the drama, for in his
hands tragedy first became essentially dramatic. This is his great
distinction, but his powerful genius wrought other changes. He per-
fected, if he did not discover, the practice of introducing three plays
upon a connected theme (technically named a trilogy), with an after-
piece of lighter character. He invented the tragic dress and buskin,
and perfected the tragic mask. He improved the tragic dance, and
by his use of scénic decoration and stage machinery, secured effects
that were unknown before him. His chief claim to superior excel-
lence, however, lies after all in his poetry. Splendid in diction, vivid
in the portraiture of character, and powerful in the expression of
passion, he is regarded by many competent critics as the greatest
tragic poet of all time.
The Greek lexicographer, Suidas, reports that Æschylus wrote
ninety plays. The titles of seventy-two of these have been handed
down in an ancient register. He brought out the first of these at
the age of twenty-five, and as he died at the age of sixty-nine, he
wrote on an average two plays each year throughout his lifetime.
Such fertility would be incredible, were not similar facts authen-
tically recorded of the older tragic poets of Greece. The Greek
drama, moreover, made unusual demands on the creative powers of
the poet.
It was lyrical, and the lyrics were accompanied by the
dance. All these elements — poetry, song, and dance — the poet con-
tributed; and we gain a new sense of the force of the word “poet”
(it means creator”), when we contemplate his triple function.
Moreover, he often staged” the play himself, and sometimes he
acted in it. Æschylus was singularly successful in an age that pro-
duced many great poets. He took the first prize at least thirteen
times; and as he brought out four plays at each contest, more than
half his plays were adjudged by his contemporaries to be of the
highest quality. After the poet's death, plays which he had writ-
ten, but which had not been acted in his lifetime, were brought out
## p. 185 (#211) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
185
by his sons and a nephew. It is on record that his son Euphorion
took the first prize four times with plays of his father; so the poet's
art lived after him and suffered no eclipse.
Only seven complete plays of Æschylus are still extant. The
best present source of the text of these is a manuscript preserved in
the Laurentian Library, at Florence in Italy, which was written in
the tenth or eleventh century after Christ. The number of plays
still extant is small, but fortunately, among them is the only com-
plete Greek trilogy that we possess, and luckily also the other four
serve to mark successive stages in the poet's artistic development.
The trilogy of the Oresteia' is certainly his masterpiece; in some of
the other plays he is clearly seen to be still bound by the limitations
which hampered the earlier writers of Greek tragedy. In the follow-
ing analysis the seven plays will be presented in their probable
chronological order.
The Greeks signally defeated Xerxes in the great sea fight in the
bay of Salamis, B. C. 480. The poet made this victory the theme of
his Persians. This is the only historical Greek tragedy which we
now possess: the subjects of all the rest are drawn from mythology.
But Æschylus had a model for his historical play in the Phæni-
cian Women of his predecessor Phrynichus, which dealt with the
same theme. Æschylus, indeed, is said to have imitated it closely
in the Persians. Plagiarism was thought to be a venial fault by
the ancients, just as in the Homeric times piracy was not considered
a disgrace. The scene of the play is not Athens, as one might
expect, but Susa. It opens without set prologue. The Chorus con-
sists of Persian elders, to whom the government of the country has
been committed in the absence of the King. These venerable men
gather in front of the royal palace, and their leader opens the play
with expressions of apprehension: no news has come from the host
absent in Greece. The Chorus at first express full confidence in the
resistless might of the great army; but remembering that the gods
are jealous of vast power and success in men, yield to gloomy fore-
bodings. These grow stronger when Atossa, the aged mother of
Xerxes, appears from the palace and relates the evil dreams which
she has had on the previous night, and the omen that followed. The
Chorus beseech her to make prayer to the gods, to offer libations to
the dead, and especially to invoke the spirit of Darius to avert the
evil which threatens his ancient kingdom. Too late! A messenger
arrives and announces that all is lost. By one fell stroke the might
of Persia has been laid low at Salamis. At Atossa's request, the mes-
senger, interrupted at first by the lamentations of the Chorus, recounts
what has befallen. His description of the battle in the straits is a
passage of signal power, and is justly celebrated. The Queen retires,
## p. 186 (#212) ############################################
186
ÆSCHYLUS
and the Chorus sing a song full of gloomy reflections. The Queen
reappears, and the ghost of Darius is invoked from the lower world.
He hears from Atossa what has happened, sees in this the fulfill-
ment of certain ancient prophecies, foretells disaster still to come,
and warns the Chorus against further attempts upon Greece. As he
departs to the underworld, the Chorus sing in praise of the wisdom
of his reign. Atossa has withdrawn. Xerxes now appears with
attendants, laments with the Chorus the disaster that has overtaken
him, and finally enters the palace.
The economy of the play is simple: only two actors are required.
The first played the parts of Atossa and Xerxes, the second that of
the messenger and the ghost of Darius. The play well illustrates
the conditions under which Æschylus at this period wrote. The
Chorus was still of first importance; the ratio of the choral parts in
the play to the dialogue is about one to two.
The exact date of the Suppliants' cannot be determined; but the
simplicity of its plot, the lack of a prologue, the paucity of its char-
acters, and the prominence of the Chorus, show that it is an early
play. The scene is Argos. The Chorus consists of the daughters of
Danaüs, and there are only three characters, — Danaüs, a Herald, and
Pelasgus King of Argos.
Danaüs and Ægyptus, brothers, and descendants of Io and Epa-
phus, had settled near Canopus at the mouth of the Nile. Ægyptus
sought to unite his fifty sons in marriage with the fifty daughters of
the brother. The daughters fled with their father to Argos. Here
his play opens. The Chorus appeal for protection to the country,
once the home of Io, and to its gods and heroes. Pelasgus, with the
consent of the Argive people, grants them refuge, and at the end of
the play repels the attempt to seize them made by the Herald of the
sons of Ægyptus.
A part of one of the choruses is of singular beauty, and it is
doubtless to them that the preservation of the play is due. The
play hardly seems to be a tragedy, for it ends without bloodshed.
Further, it lacks dramatic interest, for the action almost stands still.
It is a cantata rather than a tragedy. Both considerations, . however,
are sufficiently explained by the fact that this was the first play of a
trilogy. The remaining plays must have furnished, in the death of
forty-nine of the sons of Ægyptus, both action and tragedy in suffi-
cient measure to satisfy the most exacting demands.
The Seven Against Thebes' deals with the gloomy myth of the
house of Laïus. The tetralogy to which it belonged consisted of the
Laius,' 'Edipus, Seven Against Thebes,' and (Sphinx. The
themes of Greek tragedy were drawn from the national mythology,
but the myths were treated with a free hand. In his portrayal of
## p. 187 (#213) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
187
the fortunes of this doomed race, Æschylus departed in important
particulars, with gain in dramatic effect, from the story as it is read
in Homer.
Edipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons, Eteocles
and Polynices, for their unfilial neglect, — «they should one day
divide their land by steel. ” They thereupon agreed to reign in
turn, each for a year; but Eteocles, the elder, refused at the end of
the first year to give up the throne. Polynices appealed to Adrastus
King of Argos for help, and seven chiefs appeared before the walls
of Thebes to enforce his claim, and beleaguered the town. Here
the play opens, with an appeal addressed by Eteocles to the citizens
of Thebes to prove themselves stout defenders of their State in its
hour of peril. A messenger enters, and describes the sacrifice and
oath of the seven chiefs. The Chorus of Theban maidens enter in
confusion and sing the first ode. The hostile army is hurrying from
its camp against the town; the Chorus hear their shouts and the
rattling din of their arms, and are overcome by terror. Eteocles
reproves them for their fears, and bids them sing a pæan that shall
hearten the people. The messenger, in a noteworthy scene, de-
scribes the appearance of each hostile chief. The seventh and last
is Polynices. Eteocles, although conscious of his father's curse, nev-
ertheless declares with gloomy resoluteness that he will meet his
brother in single combat, and, resisting the entreaties of the Chorus,
goes forth to his doom. The attack on the town is repelled, but
the brothers fall, each by the other's hand. Thus is the curse ful-
filled. Presently their bodies are wheeled in. Their sisters, Antigone
and Ismene, follow and sing a lament over the dead. A herald an-
nounces that the Theban Senate forbid the burial of Polynices; his
body shall be cast forth as prey of dogs. Antigone declares her
resolution to brave their mandate, and perform the last sad rites for
her brother.
«Dread tie, the common womb from which we sprang,–
Of wretched mother born and hapless sire. »
The Chorus divides. The first semi-chorus sides with Antigone;
the second declares its resolution to follow to its last resting-place
the body of Eteocles. And thus the play ends. The theme is here
sketched, just at the close of the play, in outline, that Sophocles
has developed with such pathetic effect in his Antigone. '
The Prometheus' transports the reader to another world. The
characters are gods, the time is the remote past, the place a desolate
waste in Scythia, on the confines of the Northern Ocean. Pro-
metheus had sinned against the authority of Zeus. Zeus wished to
destroy the old race of mankind; but Prometheus gave them fire,
## p. 188 (#214) ############################################
188
ÆSCHYLUS
taught them arts and handicrafts, developed in them thought and
consciousness, and so assured both their existence and their happi-
ness. The play deals with his punishment. Prometheus is borne
upon the scene by Force and Strength, and is nailed to a lofty cliff
by Hephæstus. His appeal to Nature, when his tormentors depart
and he is left alone, is peculiarly pathetic. The daughters of Oce-
anus, constituting the Chorus, who have heard the sound of the ham-
mer in their ocean cave, are now borne in aloft on a winged car,
and bewail the fate of the outraged god. Oceanus appears upon a
winged steed, and offers his mediation; but this is scornfully rejected.
The resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the last is strength-
ened by the coming of Io. She too, as it seems, is a victim of the
Ruler of the Universe; driven by the jealous wrath of Hera, she
roams from land to land. She tells the tale of her sad wandering,
and finally rushes from the scene in frenzy, crazed by the sting of
the gadily that Hera has sent to torment her. Prometheus knows a
secret full of menace to Zeus. Relying on this, he prophesies his
overthrow, and defies him to do his worst. Hermes is sent to de-
mand with threats its revelation, but fails to accomplish his purpose.
Prometheus insults and taunts him. Hermes warns the Chorus to
leave, for Zeus is about to display his wrath. At first they refuse,
but then fly affrighted: the cliff is rending and sinking, the elements
are in wild tumult. As he sinks, about to be engulfed in the bowels
of the earth, Prometheus cries:
«Earth is rocking in space!
And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar,
And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face,
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round,
And the blasts of the winds universal leap free
And blow each upon each with a passion of sound,
And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea. ”
The play is Titanic. Its huge shapes, its weird effects, its mighty
passions, its wild display of the forces of earth and air, — these im-
press us chiefly at first; but its ethical interest is far greater. Zeus
is apparently represented in it as relentless, cruel, and unjust, -a
lawless ruler, who knows only his own will, — whereas in all the
other plays of Æschylus he is just and righteous, although sometimes
Æschylus, we know, was a religious man. It seems incred-
ible that he should have had two contradictory conceptions of the
character of Zeus. The solution of this problem is to be found in
the fact that this 'Prometheus) was the first play of the trilogy. In
the second play, the Prometheus Unbound, of which we have only
fragments, these apparent contradictions must have been reconciled.
Long ages are supposed to elapse between the plays. Prometheus
severe.
## p. 189 (#215) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
189
yields. He reveals the secret and is freed from his bonds. What
before seemed to be relentless wanton cruelty is now seen to have
been only the harsh but necessary severity of a ruler newly estab-
lished on his throne. By the reconciliation of this stern ruler with
the wise Titan, the giver of good gifts to men, order is restored to
the universe. Prometheus acknowledges his guilt, and the course
of Zeus is vindicated; but the loss of the second play of the trilogy
leaves much in doubt, and an extraordinary number of solutions of
the problem has been proposed. The reader must not look for one
of these, however, in the Prometheus Unbound' of Shelley, who
deliberately rejected the supposition of a reconciliation.
The three remaining plays are founded on the woful myth of the
house of Atreus, son of Pelops, a theme much treated by the Greek
tragic poets. They constitute the only existing Greek trilogy, and
are the last and greatest work of the poet. They were brought out
at Athens, B. C. 458, two years after the author's death.
The Aga-
memnon' sets forth the crime,—the murder, by his wife, of the
great King, on his return home from Troy; the 'Choëphori, the ven-
geance taken on the guilty wife by her own son; the Eumenides, the
atonement made by that son in expiation of his mother's murder.
Agamemnon on departing for Troy left behind him in his palace
a son and a daughter, Orestes and Electra. Orestes was exiled from
home by his mother Clytemnestra, who in Agamemnon's absence
lived in guilty union with Ægisthus, own cousin of the King, and
who could no longer endure to look upon the face of her son.
The scene of the Agamemnon' is the royal palace in Argos.
The time is night. A watchman is discovered on the flat roof of
the palace. For a year he has kept weary vigil there, waiting for
the beacon-fire that, sped from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall
announce the fall of Troy. The signal comes at last, and joyously
he proclaims the welcome news. The sacrificial fires which have
been made ready in anticipation of the event are set alight through-
out the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The
first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a
Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous
return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with
Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends
the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall
upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict
between the Chorus, still faithful to the murdered King, and Cly-
temnestra, beside whom stands her paramour Ægisthus.
Interest centres in Clytemnestra. Crafty, unscrupulous, resolute,
remorseless, she veils her deadly hatred for her lord, and welcomes
him home in tender speech :-
## p. 190 (#216) ############################################
190
ÆSCHYLUS
«So now, dear lord, I bid thee welcome home-
True as the faithful watchdog of the fold,
Strong as the mainstay of the laboring bark,
Stately as column, fond as only child,
Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner,
Bright as fair sunshine after winter's storms,
Sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer —
All this, and more, thou art, dear love, to me. )
Agamemnon passes within the palace; she slays him in his bath,
enmeshed in a net, and then, reappearing, vaunts her bloody deed:
«I smote him, and he bellowed; and again
I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way;
And as he fell before me, with a third
And last libation from the deadly mace,
I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due,
That subterranean Saviour- of the dead!
At which he spouted up the Ghost in such
A flood of purple as, bespattered with,
No less did I rejoice than the green ear
Rejoices in the largesse of the skies
That fleeting Iris follows as it flies. ”
Æschylus departs from the Homeric account, which was followed
by other poets, in making the action of the next play, the Cho-
ëphori,' follow closer upon that of the Agamemnon. ' Orestes has
heard in Phocis of his father's murder, and returns in secret, with
his friend Pylades, to exact vengeance. The scene is still Argos,
but Agamemnon's tomb is now seen in front of the palace. The
Chorus consists of captive women, who aid and abet the attempt.
The play sets forth the recognition of Orestes by Electra; the plot
by which Orestes gains admission to the palace; the deceit of the
old Nurse, a homely but capital character, by whom Ægisthus is
induced to come to the palace without armed attendants; the death
of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra; the appearance of the avenging
Furies; and the flight of Orestes.
The last play of the trilogy, the Eumenides,' has many singular
features. The Chorus of Furies seemed even to the ancients to be
a weird and terrible invention; the scene of the play shifts from
Delphi to Athens; the poet introduces into the play a trial scene;
and he had in it a distinct political purpose, whose development
occupies one-half of the drama.
Orestes, pursued by the avenging Furies, «Gorgon-like, vested in
sable stoles, their locks entwined with clustering snakes,” has fled to
Delphi to invoke the aid of Apollo. He clasps the navel-stone and
in his exhaustion falls asleep. Around him sleep the Furies. The
## p. 191 (#217) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
191
play opens with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar
in front of the temple. The interior of the sanctuary is then laid
bare. Orestes is awake, but the Furies sleep on. Apollo, standing
beside Orestes, promises to protect him, but bids him make all haste
to Athens, and there clasp, as a suppliant, the image of Athena.
Orestes flies. The ghost of Clytemnestra rises from the underworld,
and calls upon the Chorus to pursue. Overcome by their toil, they
moan in their sleep, but finally start to their feet. Apollo bids them
quit the temple.
The scene changes to the ancient temple of Athena on the
Acropolis at Athens, where Orestes is seen clasping the image of the
goddess. The Chorus enter in pursuit of their victim, and sing an ode
descriptive of their powers.
Athena appears, and learns from the Chorus and from Orestes the
reasons for their presence. She declares the issue to be too grave
even for her to decide, and determines to choose judges of the mur-
der, who shall become a solemn tribunal for all future time. These
are to be the best of the citizens of Athens. After an ode by the
Chorus, she returns, the court is established, and the trial proceeds
in due form. Apollo appears for the defense of Orestes. When the
arguments have been presented, Athena proclaims, before the vote
has been taken, the establishment of the court as a permanent tri-
bunal for the trial of cases of bloodshed. Its seat shall be the Are-
opagus. The votes are cast and Orestes is acquitted. He departs for
Argos.
The Furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the
land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship for-
ever in Attica. Heretofore they have been the Erinnyes, or Furies;
henceforth they shall be the Eumenides, or Gracious Goddesses.
The Eumenides are escorted from the scene in solemn procession.
Any analysis of the plays so brief as the preceding is necessarily
inadequate. The English reader is referred to the histories of Greek
Literature by K. O. Müller and by J. P. Mahaffy, to the striking
chapter on Æschylus in J. A. Symonds's Greek Poets,' and, for the
trilogy, to Moulton's 'Ancient Classical Drama. If he knows French,
he should add Croiset's Histoire de la Littérature Grecque,' and
should by all means read M. Patin's volume on Æschylus in his
'Études sur les Tragique Grècs. There are translations in English
of the poet's complete works by Potter, by Plumptre, by Blackie,
and by Miss Swanwick. Flaxman illustrated the plays. Ancient
illustrations are easily accessible in Baumeister's Denkmäler,' under
the names of the different characters in the plays. There is a transla-
tion of the Prometheus) by Mrs. Browning, and of the (Suppliants)
by Morshead, who has also translated the Atridean trilogy under
the title of The House of Atreus. ' Goldwin Smith has translated
portions of six of the plays in his “Specimens of Greek Tragedy. '
>
## p. 192 (#218) ############################################
192
ÆSCHYLUS
Many translations of the 'Agamemnon' have been made, among oth-
ers by Milman, by Symmons, by Lord Carnarvon, and by Fitzgerald.
Robert Browning also translated the play, with appalling literalness.
John Williams Weih
THE COMPLAINT OF PROMETHEUS
PROMETHEUS (alone)
O
HOLY Æther, and swift-winged Winds,
And River-wells, and laughter innumerous
Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all,
And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you, -
Behold me a god, what I endure from gods!
Behold, with throe on throe,
How, wasted by this woe,
I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!
Behold, how fast around me
The new King of the happy ones sublime
Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me!
Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's
I cover with one groan.
And where is found me
A limit to these sorrows ?
And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul — and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech. Because I gave
Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate. Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent
Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,
Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.
Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
-
-
## p. 193 (#219) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
193
To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!
The god Zeus hateth sore,
And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore.
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
As of birds flying near!
And the air undersings
The light stroke of their wings —
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.
From E. B. Browning's Translation of (Prometheus.
A PRAYER TO ARTEMIS
STROPHE IV
T"
HOUGH Zeus plan all things right,
Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace;
Nathless in every place
Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night,
Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.
ANTISTROPHE IV
Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight,
The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought;
For wrapt in shadowy night,
Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight,
Extend the path ways of his secret thought.
STROPHE V
From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone
To utter doom: but for their fall
No force arrayeth he; for all
That gods devise is without effort wrought.
A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne
By inborn energy achieves his thought.
ANTISTROPHE V
But let him mortal insolence behold:
How with proud contumacy rife,
Wantons the stem in lusty life
My marriage craving ; - frenzy over-bold,
Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate,
By ruin taught their folly all too late.
1-13
## p. 194 (#220) ############################################
194
ÆSCHYLUS
STROPHE VI
Thus I complain, in piteous strain,
Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill;
Ah woe is me! woe! woe!
Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill
I pour, yet breathing vital air.
Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer!
Full well, O land,
My voice barbaric thou canst understand;
While oft with rendings I assail
My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
ANTISTROPHE VI
My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight
Pollution were, death-laden, rude;
Ah woe is me! woe! woe!
Alas for sorrow's murky brood!
Where will this billow hurl me? Where?
Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer;
Full well, O land,
My voice barbaric thou canst understand,
While oft with rendings I assail
My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
STROPHE VII
The oar indeed and home with sails
Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales,
Stanch to the wave, from spear-storm free,
Have to this shore escorted me,
Nor so far blame I destiny.
But may the all-seeing Father send
In fitting time propitious end;
So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued!
ANTISTROPHE VII
Meeting my will with will divine,
Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold
Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-
Me, Artemis unstained, behold.
Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield,
Virgin thyself, a virgin shield;
## p. 195 (#221) ############################################
AESCHYLUS
195
So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued !
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of “The Suppliants.
THE DEFIANCE OF ETEOCLES
MESSENGER
N°
ow at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief,
Thy proper mother's son, I will announce,
What fortune for this city, for himself,
With curses he invoketh:- on the walls
Ascending, heralded as king, to stand,
With pæans for their capture; then with thee
To fight, and either slaying near thee die,
Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive,
Requite in kind his proper banishment.
Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods
Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland,
With gracious eye to look upon his prayers.
A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears,
With twofold blazon riveted thereon,
For there a woman leads, with sober mien,
A mailed warrior, enchased in gold;
Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks:-
“This man I will restore, and he shall hold
The city and his father's palace homes. ”
Such the devices of the hostile chiefs.
'Tis for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send;
But never shalt thou blame my herald-words.
To guide the rudder of the State be thine!
ETEOCLES
O heaven-demented race of Edipus,
My race, tear-fraught, detested of the gods!
Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit.
But it beseems not to lament or weep,
Lest lamentations sadder still be born.
For him, too truly Polyneikes named, -
What his device will work we soon shall know;
Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught,
Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back.
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
## p. 196 (#222) ############################################
196
ÆSCHYLUS
Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been;
But neither when he fled the darksome womb,
Or in his childhood, or in youth's fair prime,
Or when the hair thick gathered on his chin,
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed 'him hers,
Nor in this outrage on his Fatherland
Deem I she now beside him deigns to stand.
For Justice would in sooth belie her name,
Did she with this all-daring man consort.
In these regards confiding will I go,
Myself will meet him. Who with better right?
Brother to brother, chieftain against chief,
Foeman to foe, I'll stand. Quick, bring my spear,
My greaves, and armor, bulwark against stones.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of “The Seven Against Thebes. )
THE VISION OF CASSANDRA
CASSANDRA
HEBUS APOLLO!
Photos
CHORUS
Hark!
The lips at last unlocking.
CASSANDRA
Phoebus! Phobus!
CHORUS
Well, what of Phæbus, maiden ? though a name
'Tis but disparagement to call upon
In misery.
CASSANDRA
Apollo! Apollo! Again!
Oh, the burning arrow through the brain!
Phæbus Apollo! Apollo!
CHORUS
Seemingly
Possessed indeed — whether by —
CASSANDRA
Phæbus! Phoebus!
Through trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
## p. 197 (#223) ############################################
ÆSCHYLUS
197
Over water seething, and behind the breathing
War-horse in the darkness — till you rose again,
Took the helm -- took the rein -
CHORUS
As one that half asleep at dawn recalls
A night of Horror!
CASSANDRA
Hither, whither, Phoebus? And with whom,
Leading me, lighting me —
CHORUS
I can answer that-
CASSANDRA
Down to what slaughter-house!
Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it — drags me toward it -
Phæbus Apollo! Apollo!
-
CHORUS
One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems,
That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault-
This is no den of slaughter, but the house
Of Agamemnon.
CASSANDRA
Down upon the towers,
(man,
Phantoms of two mangled children hover — and a famished
At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours !
CHORUS
Thyestes and his children! Strange enough
For any maiden from abroad to know,
Or, knowing --
CASSANDRA
And look! in the chamber below
The terrible Woman, listening, watching,
Under a mask, preparing the blow
In the fold of her robe --
CHORUS
Nay, but again at fault:
For in the tragic story of this House
## p. 198 (#224) ############################################
198
ÆSCHYLUS
Unless, indeed the fatal Helen-
No woman
CASSANDRA
No Woman - Tisiphone! Daughter
Of Tartarus - love-grinning Woman above,
Dragon-tailed under — honey-tongued, Harpy-clawed,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter
She wheedles, entices him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent
CHORUS
Peace, mad woman, peace!
Whose stony lips once open vomit out
Such uncouth horrors.
CASSANDRA
I tell you the lioness
Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting
Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,
Bounds hither – Phæbus Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,
Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,
From my slaughtered kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine,
Slave-like to be butchered, the daughter of a royal line!
From Edward Fitzgerald's Version of the Agamemnon.
THE LAMENT OF THE OLD NURSE
NURSE
ur mistress bids me with all speed to call
O®Ægisthus to the strangers
, that he come
And hear more clearly, as a man from man,
This newly brought report. Before her slaves,
Under set eyes of melancholy cast,
She hid her inner chuckle at the events
That have been brought to pass — too well for her,
But for this house and hearth most miserably, -
As in the tale the strangers clearly told.
He, when he hears and learns the story's gist,
Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me!
How those old troubles, of all sorts made up,
Most hard to bear, in Atreus's palace-halls
-
-
---
## p. 199 (#225) ############################################
ESCHYLUS
199
.
Have made my heart full heavy in my breast !
But never have I known a woe like this.
For other ills I bore full patiently,
But as for dear Orestes, my sweet charge,
Whom from his mother I received and nursed
And then the shrill cries rousing me o' nights,
And many and unprofitable toils
For me who bore them. For one needs must rear
The heedless infant like an animal,
(How can it else be ? ) as his humor serve
For while a child is yet in swaddling clothes,
It speaketh not, if either hunger comes,
Or passing thirst, or lower calls of need;
And children's stomach works its own content.
And I, though I foresaw this, call to mind,
How I was cheated, washing swaddling clothes,
And nurse and laundress did the selfsame work.
I then with these my double handicrafts,
Brought up Orestes for his father dear;
And now, woe's me! I learn that he is dead,
And go to fetch the man that mars this house;
And gladly will he hear these words of mine.
From Plumptre's Translation of The Libation-Pourers. )
THE DECREE OF ATHENA
H
?
EAR ye my statute, men of Attica -
Ye who of bloodshed judge this primal cause;
Yea, and in future age shall Ægeus's host
Revere this court of jurors. This the hill
Of Ares, seat of Amazons, their tent,
What time 'gainst Theseus, breathing hate, they came,
Waging fierce battle, and their towers upreared,
A counter-fortress to Acropolis ;-
To Ares they did sacrifice, and hence
This rock is titled Areopagus.
Here then shall sacred Awe, to Fear allied,
By day and night my lieges hold from wrong,
Save if themselves do innovate my laws,
If thou with mud, or influx base, bedim
The sparkling water, nought thou'lt find to drink.
Nor Anarchy, nor Tyrant's lawless rule
Commend I to my people's reverence;-
Nor let them banish from their city Fear;
## p. 200 (#226) ############################################
200
ÆSOP
For who 'mong men, uncurbed by fear, is just ?
Thus holding Awe in seemly reverence,
A bulwark for your State shall ye possess,
A safeguard to protect your city walls,
Such as no mortals otherwhere can boast,
Neither in Scythia, nor in Pelops's realm.
Behold! This Court august, untouched by bribes,
Sharp to avenge, wakeful for those who sleep,
Establish I, a bulwark to this land.
This charge, extending to all future time,
I give my lieges. Meet it as ye rise,
Assume the pebbles, and decide the cause,
Your oath revering. All hath now been said.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of (The Eumenides.
ÆSOP
(Seventh Century B. C. )
BY HARRY THURSTON PECK
an
PIKE Homer, the greatest of the world's epic poets, Æsop
(Æsopus), the most famous of the world's fabulists, has
been regarded by certain scholars as a wholly mythical
personage. The many improbable stories that are told about him
gain some credence for this theory, which is set forth in detail by
the Italian scholar Vico, who says:-"Æsop, re-
garded philosophically, will be found not to have
been an actually existing man, but rather
abstraction representing a class,”— in other words,
merely a convenient invention of the later Greeks,
who ascribed to him all the fables of which they
could find no certain author.
The only narrative upon which the ancient
writers are in the main agreed represents Æsop
as living in the seventh century before Christ. As
with Homer, so with Æsop, several cities of Asia
Æsop
Minor claimed the honor of having been his birth-
place. Born a slave and hideously ugly, his keen
wit led his admiring master to set him free; after which he trav-
eled, visiting Athens, where he is said to have told his fable of
King Log and King Stork to the citizens who were complaining of
the rule of Pisistratus. Still later, having won the favor of King
## p. 201 (#227) ############################################
ÆSOP
201
Cræsus of Lydia, he was sent by him to Delphi with a gift of
money for the citizens of that place; but in the course of a dispute
as to its distribution, he was slain by the Delphians, who threw him
over a precipice.
The fables that bore his name seem not to have been committed
by him to writing, but for a long time were handed down from gen-
eration to generation by oral tradition; so that the same tables are
sometimes found quoted in slightly different forms, and we hear of
men learning them in conversation rather than from books. They
were, however, universally popular. Socrates while in prison amused
himself by turning some of them into verse. Aristophanes cites
them in his plays; and he tells how certain suitors once tried to win
favor of a judge by repeating to him some of the amusing stories of
Æsop. The Athenians even erected a statue in his honor. At a
later period, the fables were gathered together and published by the
Athenian statesman and orator, Demetrius Phalereus, in B. C. 320,
and were versified by Babrius (of uncertain date), whose collection is
the only one in Greek of which any substantial portion still sur-
vives. They were often translated by the Romans, and the Latin
version by Phædrus, the freedman of Augustus Cæsar, is still pre-
served and still used as a school-book. Forty-two of them are like-
wise found in a Latin work by one Avianus, dating from the fifth
century after Christ. During the Middle Ages, when much of the
classical literature had been lost or forgotten, Æsop, who was called
by the medievals "Isopet,” was still read in various forms; and in
modern times he has served as a model for a great number of imita-
tions, of which the most successful are those in French by Lafon-
taine and those in English by John Gay.
Whether or not such a person as Æsop ever lived, and whether
or not he actually narrated the fables that are ascribed to him, it is
certain that he did not himself invent them, but merely gave them
currency in Greece; for they can be shown to have existed long
before his time, and in fact to antedate even the beginnings of Hel-
lenic civilization. With some changes of form they are found in the
oldest literature of the Chinese; similar stories are preserved on the
inscribed Babylonian bricks; and an Egyptian papyrus of about the
year 1200 B. C. gives the fable of The Lion and the Mouse' in its
finished form. Other Æsopic apologues are essentially identical with
the Jatakas or Buddhist stories of India, and occur also in the great
Sanskrit story-book, the Panchatantra,' which is the very oldest
monument of Hindu literature.
The so-called Æsopic Fables are in fact only a part of the primi-
tive folk-lore, that springs up in prehistoric times, and passes from
country to country and from race to race by the process of popular
## p. 202 (#228) ############################################
202
ÆSOP
an
story-telling. They reached Greece, undoubtedly through Egypt and
Persia, and even in their present form they still retain certain Ori-
ental, or at any rate non-Hellenic elements, such as the introduction
of Eastern animals, — the panther, the peacock, and the ape. They
represent the beginnings of conscious literary effort, when man first
tried to enforce some maxim of practical wisdom and to teach some
useful truth through the fascinating medium of a story. The Fable
embodies a half-unconscious desire to give concrete form to
abstract principle, and a childish love for the picturesque and strik-
ing, which endows rocks and stones and trees with life, and gives
the power of speech to animals.
That beasts with the attributes of human beings should figure in
these tales involves, from the standpoint of primeval man, only a
very slight divergence from probability. In nothing, perhaps, has
civilization so changed us as in our mental attitude toward animals.
It has fixed a great gulf between us and them - a gulf far greater
than that which divided them from our first ancestors. In the early
ages of the world, when men lived by the chase, and gnawed the
raw flesh of their prey, and slept in lairs amid the jungle, the purely
animal virtues were the only ones they knew and exercised. They
adored courage and strength, and swiftness and endurance. They
respected keenness of scent and vision, and admired cunning. The
possession of these qualities was the very condition of existence, and
they valued them accordingly; but in each one of them they found
their equals, and in fact their superiors, among the brutes. A lion
was stronger than the strongest man. The hare was swifter. The
eagle was more keen-sighted. The fox was more cunning. Hence,
so far from looking down upon the animals from the remotely supe-
rior height that a hundred centuries of civilization have erected for
us, the primitive savage looked up to the beast, studied his ways,
copied him, and went to school to him. The man, then, was not in
those days the lord of creation, and the beast was not his servant;
but they were almost brothers in the subtle sympathy between them,
like that which united Mowgli, the wolf-nursed shikarri, and his hairy
brethren, in that most weirdly wonderful of all Mr. Kipling's inven-
tions - the one that carries us back, not as his other stories do, to
the India of the cities and the bazaars, of the supercilious tourist and
the sleek Babu, but to the older India of unbroken jungle, darkling
at noonday through its green mist of tangled leaves, and haunted by
memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute crouched
close together on the earthy breast of the great mother.
The Æsopic Fables, then, are the oldest representative that we
have of the literary art of primitive man. The charm that they have
always possessed springs in part from their utter simplicity, their
## p. 203 (#229) ############################################
1
203
ÆSOP
naiveté, and their directness; and in part from the fact that their
teachings are the teachings of universal experience, and therefore
appeal irresistibly to the consciousness of every one who hears them,
whether he be savage or scholar, child or sage. They are the liter-
ary antipodes of the last great effort of genius and art working upon
the same material, and found in Mr. Kipling's Jungle Books. The
Fables show only the first stirrings of the literary instinct, the Jungle
Stories bring to bear the full development of the fictive art, — creative
imagination, psychological insight, brilliantly picturesque description,
and the touch of one who is a daring master of vivid language; so
that no better theme can be given to a student of literary history
than the critical comparison of these two allied forms of composition,
representing as they do the two extremes of actual development.
The best general account in English of the origin of the Greek
Fable is that of Rutherford in the introduction to his Babrius?
(London, 1883).
