ELECTRA EURIPIDES THE ELECTRA TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY GILBERT MURRAY LL.D., D.LiTT. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THS UNIVERSITY OF OXFOBB Forty- Sixth Thousand NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 114 Fifth Avenue LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE & BOMBAY {All rights reserved) Performed at The Court Theatre, London , , , , TN T.^0.7 ^^.^4 ^25 Uv' '<^ erhaps, the best abused, and, one might add, not the best understood, of ancient tragedies. "A singular monument of poetical, or rather unpoetical perver- sity ; '"* *' the very worst of all his pieces ; ^ are, for instance, the phrases applied to it by Schlcgel. Con- sidering that he judged it by the standards of con- ventional classicism, he could scarcely have arrived at any different conclusion. For it is essentially, and perhaps consciously, a protest against those standards. So, indeed, is the tragedy of Tht Trojan Women ; but on very different lines. The EUctra has none of the imaginative splendour, the vastness, the intense poetry, of that wonderful work, It ^ii a clofe-knit > powerfuJL well-constructed play, as realistic as the tragic con- ventions will allow, intellectual and rebellious. Its psychology reminds one of Browning, or even of Ibsen. To a fifth-century Greek all history came in the form of legend ; and no less than three extant tragedies, Aeschylus* Libation- Bearer i (456 B.C.), Euri- pides* Electro {413 B.C.), and Sophocles' EUctra (date unknown : but perhaps the latest of the three) arc based on the' particular piece of legend or history now before us. It nau-rates how the son and daughter ^ Most of this introduction is reprinted, by the kind permiaiion 0/ th« Editon, from an article in the Independmt Review^ vol. i. No. 4. M77793 ri INTRODUCTION of the murdered king, Agamemnon, slew, in due ^ course of revenge, and by Apollo's express command, their guilty mother and her paramour. Homer had long since told the story, as he tells so many, simply and grandly, without moral questioning and without intensity. The atmosphere is heroic. It is all a blood-feud between chieftains, in which 1 Orestes, after seven years, succeeds in slaying his foe J Aegisthus, who had killed his father. He probably killed his mother also ; but we are not directly told so. His sister may have helped him, and he may possibly \ have gone mad afterwards ; but these painful issues V are kept determinedly in the shade. Somewhat surprisingly, Sophocles, although by his time Electra and Clytemncstra had become leading figures in the story and the mother-murder its essen- tial climax, preserves a very similar atmosphere. His tragedy is enthusiastically praised by Schlegel for " the celestial purity, the fresh breath of life and youth, that is diffused over so dreadful a subject." "Every- V thing dark and ominous is avoided. Orestes enjoys the fulness of health and strength. He it beset neither with doubts nor stings of conscience.'' Espe- cially laudable is the "austcdjty" with which Aegisthus is driven into the house to receive, according to Schlegel, a specially ignominious death I y\ This combination of matricide and good spirits, however satisfactory to the determined classicist, will probably strike most intelligent readers at a little curious, and even^ if one may use the word at all in connection with to powerful a play, nndrmmatic. It INTRODUCTION rii becomes intelligible as soon as we observe that Sopho- cles was deliberately seeking what he regarded as an archaic or " Homeric " style (cf. Jebb, Introd. p. xli.) ; and this archaism, in its turn, seems to me best explained as a conscious reaction against Euripides' searching and unconventional treatment of the same subject (cf. Wilamowitz in Hermes^ xviii. pp. 214 flf.). In the result Sophocles is not only more " classical " than Euripides; he is more primitive by far than Aeschylus. For Aeschylus, though steeped in the glory of the world of legend, would not lightly accept its judg- ment upon religious and moral questions, and above all would not, in thaC 'egion, play at make-believe. He would not elude the horror of this story by simply not mentioning it, like Homer, or by pretending that an evil act was a good one, like Sophocles. He faces the horror ; realises it ; and tries to surmount it on the sweep of a great wave of religious emotion. The mother-murder, even if done by a god's command, is ,a sin ; a sin to be expiated by unfathomable suffering. Yet, since the god cannot have commanded evil, it is a duty also. It is a sin that must be committed. Euripides, here as often, represents intellectually the thought of Aeschylus carried a step further. He faced the problem just as Aeschylus did, and as Sophocles did noc But the solution offered by Aeschylus did not satisfy him. It cannot, in its actual details, satisfy any one. To him the mpthcr- murder — like most acts of revenge, but more than most — was^ a sin and a horror. Therefore it should Tiii INTRODUCTION not have been committed ; and the god who enjoined it did command evil, as he had done in a hundred other cases I He is no god of light ; he is only a demon of old superstition, acting, among other in- fluences, upon a sore-beset man, and driving him towards a miscalled duty, the horror of which, when done, will unseat his reason. But another problem interests Euripides even more than this. What kind of man was it — above all, what kind of woman can it have been, who would do this deed of mother-murder, not in sudden fury but V deliberately, u an act of "justice," after many years ? A "sympathetic" hero and heroine are out of the question ; and Euripides does not deal in stage villains. "^He seeks real people. And few attentive readers of this play can doubt that he has found them. The son is an exile, bred in the desperate hopes and wild schemes of exile ; he is a prince without a kingdom, always dreaming of his wrongs and his restoration ; and driven by the old savage doctrine, which an oracle has confirmed, of the duty and manliness of revenge. He is, as was shown by his later history, a man subject to overpowering impulses and to fits of will-less brooding. Lastly, he is very \k^oung, and is swept away by hit sister's intenier nature. That sister \% the central figure of the timgedy. A woman shatteted in childhood by the shock of lui / experience too terrible for a girl to bear ; a poisoned and a Aaunted woman, eating her heart in ceaseless brooding! of hate and love, alike unsatisfied — hate ^ INTRODUCTION ix s^ainst her mother and stepfather, love for her dead father and her brother in exile ; a woman who has known luxury and state, and cares much for them ; who is intolerant of poverty, and who feels her youth passing away. And meantime there is her name, on which all legend, if I am not mistaken, insists ; she is A-Uktroy "the Unmated." There is, perhaps, no woman's character in the range of Greek tragedy so profoundly studied. Not Aeschylus' Clytemncstra, not Phaedra nor Medea. One's thoughts can only wander towards two great heroines of "lost" plays, Althaea in the Meleager^ ^Ti^ Stheneboea in the BilUrtphan. G. M. ELECTRA CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY Clttbmnbstka* Queen 0/ Argos and Mycenae ; widow oj /igm- metfinpn^ Elbctra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Okbstbs, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestray now in ianishmeni. A Peasant, Ausiand of Electro, An Old "hHK^, formerly servant to Agamemnon, Pyladbs, son of Strophios^ King of Phocis ; friend to Orestes, Abgisthus, usurping King of Argos emd Mycenae^ row husbctnd of Clytemnestra, The Heroes Castor and Polydbdcks. Chorus of Argive Women, with their Lbadbr. FOLLOWBRS of OrBSTBS ; HANDMAIDS of ClYTBU NBSTlA. The Seen* is laid in the mountains of Argos. The play wasfirtt produced between the years 414 and 412 B.C. ^ ELECTRA The scent represents a hut on a desolate mountain side ; the river Inachus is visible in the distance. The time is the dusk of early dawn^ before sunrise. The PlASANT is discovered in front of the hut, ^ Pbasant. i Old gleam on the face of the world, I give thee hail, River of Argos land, where sail on sail ^ J The long ships met, a thousand, near and far, . ft When Agamemnon walked the seas in war ; Who smote King Priam in t^c dust, and burned The storied streets of Ilion, and returned Above all conquerors, heaping tower and fane Of Argos high with spoils of Eastern slain. So in far lands he prospered ; and at home His own wife trapped and slew him. 'Twas the doom Aegisthus wrought, son of his father's foe. Gone is that' King, and the old spear laid low That Tantalus wielded when the world was young. Aegisthus hath his queen, and reigns among His people. And the children here alone, Orestes and Electra, buds unblown 4 EURIPIDES Of man and womanhood, when forth to Troy He shook his sail and left them — lo, the boy . .Orf^tes^ ere Acg'sthus' hand could fall, 'W,a}» stolen ;fifc»ih;Argos — borne by one old thrall, , Vyhq served his fether's boyhood, over seas 1 )&^:Af.^£^, .^n4 Jaid Mppn King Strophios* knees In Phocis, for the old king's sake. But here The maid Electra waited, year by year. Alone, till the warm days of womanhood Drew nigh and suitors came of gentle blood In Hellas. Then Acgisthus was in fear Lest she be wed in some great house, and bear A son to avenge her father. Close he wrought Her prison in his house, and gave her not To any wooer. Then, since even this Was full of peril, and the secret kiss Of some bold prince might find her yet, and rend Her prison walls, Aegisthus at the end Would slay her. Then her mother, she so wild Aforetime, pled with him and saved her child. Her heart had still an answer for her lord Murdered, but if the child's blood spoke, what word Could meet the hate thereof ? After that day Aegisthus thus decreed : whoso should slay The old king's wandering son, should win rich meed Of gold ; and for Electra, she must wed ^ J With me, not base of blood — in that I stand i^ ^Tnie Mycenaean — but in gold and land JMost poor, which makcth highest birth as naught. ^ I So from a powerless husband shall be wrought \ A powerless peril. Had some man of might Possessed her, he had called perchance to light ELECTRA 5 Her ftithcr's blood, and unknown vengeances Risen on Aegisthus yet. Aye, mine she is : But never yet these arms — the Cyprian knows My truth I — have clasped her body, and she goes A virgin still. Myself would hold it shame To abase this daughter of a royal name. I am too lowly^dTove violence. Yea, Orestes too doth move me, far away, Mine unknown brother I Will he ever now Come back and see his sister bowed so low ? Doth any deem me fool, to hold a fair Maid in my room and seek no joy, but spare Her maidenhood ? If any such there be. Let him but look within. The fool is he In gentle things, weighing the more and less Of love by his own heart's untenderness. Ijfs he ceases Electra ccmes out of the hut, Shi is in mourning garby and carries a large pitcher on her head. She speaks without observing the Peasant's presence. Electra. Dark shepherdess of many a golden star, Dost see me, Mother Night ? And how this jar Hath worn my earth- bowed head, as forth and fro For water to the hillward springs I go ? Not for mere stress of need, but purpose set, That never day nor night God may forget Aegisthus* sin : aye, and perchance a cry . Cast forth to the waste shining of the sky 6 EURIPIDES May find my father's car. . . , The woman bred Of Tyndarcus, my mother — on her head Be curses ! — from my house hath outcast me ; She hath borne children to our enemy ; She hath made me naught, she hath made Orestes naught. . • . l^s the bitterness of her tone increases^ the Peasant comes forward. Peasant. What wouldst thou now, my sad one, ever fraught With toil to lighten my toil ? And so soft Thy nurture was I Have I not chid thee oft. And thou wilt cease not, serving without end ? Elsctra {turning to him with impulsive affection), O friend, my friend, as God might be my friend. Thou only hast not trampled on my tears. Life scarce can be so hard, 'mid many fears And many shames, when mortal heart can find Somewhere one healing touch, as my sick mind Finds thee. . . . And should I wait thy word, to \ endure M A little for thine easing, yea, or pour J \ My strength out in thy toiling fellowship ? y ^^ Thou hast enough with fields and kine to keep.^!!!!^ 'Tis mine to make all bright within the door. 'Tis joy to him that toils, when toil is o'er, To find home waiting, full of happy thingi i ELECTRA Peasant. If so it please thee, go thy way. The springs Arc not far off. And I before the morn Must drive my team afield, and sow the corn In the hollows. — Not a thousand prayers can gain A man's bare bread, save an he work amain. [Elkctra and the Peasant depart on their several ways. After a few moments there enter stealthily two armed men^ Orestes and Pylades. Orestes. m Thou art the first that I have known m deed True and my friend,'*and shelterer of my need. Thou only, Pylades, of all that knew, Hast held Orestes of some worth, all through These years of helplcssn'sss, wherein I lie Downtrodden by the murderer — yea, and by The murderess, my mother ! ... I am come, Fresh from the cleansing of Apollo, home To Argos — and my coming no man yet Knoweth — to pay the bloody twain their debt Of blood. This very night I crept alone To my dead father's grave, and poured thereon My heart's first tears and tresses of my head New-shorn, and o'er the barrow of the dead Slew a black lamb, unknown of them that reign In this unhappy land. ; . . I am not ^n To pass the city gates, but hold me here Hard on the borders. So my road is clear S EURIPIDES To fly if men look close and watch my way } If not, to seek my sister. For men say She dwelleth in these hills, no more a maid But wedded. I must find her house, for aid To guide our work, and learn what hath betid Of late in Argos. — Ha, the radiant lid Of Dawn's eye lifteth t Come, friend ; leave we now This trodden path. Some worker of the plough. Or serving damsel at her early task Will presently come by, whom we may ask If here my sister dwells. But soft 1 Even now I see some bondmaid there, her death-shorn brow Bending beneath its freight of well-water. Lie close until she pass ; then question her. A slave might help us well, or speak some sign Of import to this work of mine and thine. [Thi two men retin into ambush, Elsctra intirSf returning from the well. Elbctra. Onward, O labouring tread. As on move the years ; Onward amid thy tears, O happier dead I Let me remember. I am she, [Strophe i, Agamemnon's child, and the mother of me Clytemnestra, the evil Queen, Helen's sister. And folk, I ween. That pass in the streets call yet my name Electn. . . . God protect my shame I ELECTRA 9 For toil, toil is a weary thing, And life is heavy about my head ; And thou far off, O Father and King, In the lost lands of the dead. A bloody twain made these things be $ One was thy bitterest enemy. And one the wife that lay by thee. Brother, brother, on some far shore [Antiitrophe i. Hast thou a city, is there a door That knows thy footfall, Wandering One ? Who left me, left me, when all our pain Was bitter about us, a father slain. And a girl that wept in her room alone. Thou couldst break me this bondage sore. Only thou, who art far away, Loose our father, and wake once more. . . . Zeus, Zeus, dost hear me pray ? . . . The sleeping blood and the shame and the doom ! O feet that rest not, over the foam Of distant seas, come home, come home 1 What boots this cruse that I carry ? [Strtphi 2, O, set free my brow I For the gathered tears that tarry Through the day and the dark till now, Now in the dawn are free. Father, and flow beneath The floor of the world, to be As a song in the house of Death : From the rising up of the day They guide my heart alway, The silent tears unshed. And my body mourns for the dead ; lo EURIPIDES fMP^ My checks bleed silently, ^ And these bruised temples keep ^ I Their pain, remembering thcc />"• And thy bloody sleep. Be rent, O hair of mine head ! As a swan crying alone Where the river windeth cold, For a loved, for a silent one, Whom the toils of the fowler hold, I cry, Father, to thee, O slain in misery ! The water, the wan water, [Antistrophe 2 Lapped him, and his head Drooped in the bed of slaughter -\AJL ,lWii Low, as one wearied ; u'\\<^*-' Woe for the cdg^d axe. And woe for the heart of hate, . Houndlike about thy tracks, (Jli^Vw EURIPIDES Lkadbr. Ha, sec : above the roof- tree high There shineth ... Is some spirit there Of earth or heaven ? That thin air "^ Was never trod by things that die I What bodes it now that forth they fare, To men revealW visibly ? [There appears in the air a vision ofCAsrrGK and PoLYDKUCKS. The mortals kneel §r veil their faces, ' Castor. Thou Agamemnon's -Son, give ear 1 'Tis we, Castor and Polydeuces, call to thee, God's Horsemen and thy mother's brethren twain. An Argive ship, spent with the toiling main, We bore but now to peace, and, here withal Being come, have seen thy mother's bloody fall, Our sister's. Righteous is her doom this day, But not thy d eed. And Phoebus, Phoebus . . Nay; He is my lord ; therefore I hold my peace. Yet though in light he dwell, no light was this He showed to thee, but darkness I Which do thou Endure, as man must, chafing npt. And now Fare forth where Zeus and Fate have laid thy life. The maid Electra thou shalt give for wife To Pylades j then turn thy head and flee from Argos' land. 'Tis never more for thee To tread this earth where thy dead mother lies. *^ And, lo, in the air her Spirits, bloodhound eyes, ELECTRA 79 Most horrible yet Godlike, hard at heel Following shall scourge thee as a burning wheel, Speed-maddened. Seek thou straight Athena's land. And round her awfiil image clasp thine hand, Praying : and she will fence them back, though hot With flickering serpents, that they touch thee not. Holding above thy brow her gorgon shield. There is a hill in Athens, Ares' field. Where first for that first death by Ares done On Halirrhothius, Poseidon's son. Who wronged his daughter, the great Gods of . yore r Held judgment : and true judgments evermore 1- Flow from that Hill, trusted of man and God. There shalt thou stand arraigned of this blood ; And of those judges half shall lay on thee Death, and half pardon ; so shalt thou go free. For Phoebus in that hour, who bade thee shed Thy mother's blood, shall take on his own head The stain thereof. And ever from that strife The law shall hold, that when, for death or life Of one pursued, men's voices equal stand, "^Then Mercy conquercth, — But for thee, the band Of Spirits dread, down, down, in very wrath. Shall sink beside that Hill, making their path Through a dim chasm, the which shall aye be trod By reverent feet, where men may speak with God. But thou forgotten and far off shalt dwell. By great Alphetls' waters, in a dell Of Arcady, where that gray Wolf-God's wall Stands holy. And thy dwelling men shall call Orestes" Town. So much to thee be spoke. But this dead man, Aegisthus, all the folk 8o EURIPIDES Shall bear to burial in a high green grave v^Of Argos. For thy mother, she shall have ^"JHcr tomb from Menelaus, who hath come This day, at last, to Argos, bearing home Helen. From Egypt comes she, and the hall Of Proteus, and in Troy hath ne'er at all Set foot. 'Twas but a wraith of Helen, sent By Zeus, to make much wrath and ravishment. So forth for home, bearing the virgin bride, Let Pylades make speed, and lead beside Thy once-named brother, and with golden store Stabllsh his house far off on Phocis' shore. Up, gird thee now to the steep Isthmian way, Seeking Athena's blessed rock ; one day, • Thy doom of blood fulfilled and this long stress Of penance past, thou shalt have happiness. Leader {looking up). Is it for us, O Seed of Zeus, To speak and hear your words again ? Castor. Speak : of this blood ye bear no stain. Electra. I also, sons of Tyndareus, My kinsmen ; may my word be said ? / Castor. Speak : on Apollo's head we lay The bloody doings of this day. Leader. Ye Gods, ye brethren of the deadj Why held ye not the deathly herd Of Kdres back from off this home? Castor, There came but that which needs must come By ancient Fate and that dark word ELECTRA 8i That rang from Phoebus in his mood. Elkctra. And what should Phoebus seek with me, Or all God's oracles that be, That I must bear my mother's blood ? Castor. Thy hand was as thy brother's hand, Thy doom shall be as his. One stain. From dim forefathers on the twain Lighting, hath sapped your hearts as sand. Orestes After so long, sister, to sec {whohasneyer And hold thee, and then part, then part, LL/, nor Sy *11 t^2.t chained thee to my heart spoken to the Forsaken, and forsaking thee 1 Gods ). Castor. Husband and house arc hers. She bears No bitter judgment, save to go Exiled from Argos. Electra. And what woe, What tears arc like an exile's tears ? Orestes. Exiled and more am I ; impure, A murderer in a stranger's hand ! Castor. , . Fear not. There dwells in Pallas' land ' Ail holiness. Till then endure ! [Orestes and Electra embrace. Orestes. Aye, closer ; clasp my body well, And let thy sorrow loose, and shed. As o'er the grave of one new dead. Dead evermore, thy last farewell I [A sound of weepings 82 EURIPIDES Castor. Alas, what would jc ? For that cry Ourselves and all the sons of heaven Have pity. Yea, our peace is riven By the strange pain of these that die. Orestes. No more to see thee I Electra. Nor thy breath Be near my face ! Orestes. Ah, so it ends. Electra. Farewell, dear Argos. All ye friends, Farewell 1 Orestes. O faithfijl unto death, Thou goest ? EiJBCTRA. Aye, I pass from you. Soft-eyed at last. Qrestes. Go, Pylades, And God go with you ! Wed in peace My tall Electra, and be true. [Electra and Pylades depart t§ the left. Castor. Their troth shall fill their hearts. — But on : Dread feet are near thee, hounds of prey, Snake-handed, midnight-visaged, yea, And bitter pains their fruit 1 Begone I [Qejstbs depams to the right* But hark, the Ur Sicilian sea Calls, and a noise of men and ships That labour sunken to the lips In bitter billows ; forth go we. Through the long leagues of fiery blue, With saving ; not to souls unshriven \ But whoso in his life hath striven To love things holy and be true, ELECTRA S3 Through toil and storm wc guard him ; wc Save, and he shall not die ! — Therefore, ^-5>0 praise the lying man no more, Nor with oath-breakers sail the sea : Farewell, ye walkers on thSshorc Of deatinl A God hath counselled yc. [Castor and Polydeuces disappear. Chorus. Farewell, farewell 1 — But he who can so fare, And stumbleth not on mischief anywhere, Blessed on earth is he 1 NOTES TO THE ELECTRA The chief characters in the play belong to one ^unily, as is shown by the two genealogies : — Atreus I I Agamemnon («=Clytemnestra) I Tantalus Pelops Menelaus ( = Helen) i Thyejrtes Aegisthus (■*Clytemnestra) !phigenia Electra Orestes (Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios, and was the mother of Pylades.) 11. Clytemnestra Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus I I I Castor I I Polydeuces Helen P. I, 1. 10, Son of his father's foe.] — Both foe and brother. Atreus and Thyestes became enemies after the theft of the Golden Lamb. See pp. 47 flF. P. 2, 1. 34, Must wed with me.] — In Aeschylus and Sophocles Electra is unmarried. This story of her peasant husband is found only in Euripides, but is 86 EURIPIDES not likely to have been wantonly invented by him. It was no doubt an existing legend — an cjp \0709, to use the phrase attributed to Euripides in the Frogs (1. 1052). He may have chosen to adopt it for several reasons. First, to marry Electra to a peasant was a likely step for Acgisthus to take, since any child born to her afterwards would bear a stigma, calculated to damage him fatally as a pretender to the throne. Again, it seemed to explain the name " A-lcktra " (as if from XeKTpbvy " bed ;" cf. Schol. Orestes, 71, Soph. EL 962, yfnt, 917) more pointedly than the commoner version. And it helps in the working out of Elcctra's character (cf. pp. 17, 22, &c.). Also it gives an oppor- tunity of introducing the fine character of the peasant. He is an Avrovpyo^iy literally "self- worker," a man who works his own land, far from the city, neither a slave nor a slave-master ; " the men," as Euripides says in the Orestes (920), **who alone save a nation." (Cf. Bacy p. 115 foot, and below, p. 26, 11. 367-390.) As Euripides became more and more alienated from the town democracy he tended, like Tolstoy and others, to idealise the workers of the soil. P. 6, 1. 62, Children to our enemy.] — Cf. 626. Soph. EL 589. They do not seem to be in existence at the time of the play. Pp. 5-6.] — Electra's first two speeches arc ad- mirable as expositions of her character — the morbid ?/ nursing of hatred as a duty, the deliberate posing, the impulsiveness, the quick response to kindness. y. 7, 1. 82, Pylades.] — Pylades is a persona muta both here and in Sophocles' Eiectroy a fixed traditional figure, possessing no quality but devotion to Orestes. In Aeschylus' Libation- Bearers he speaks only once, with tremendous cflPect, at the crisis of the play, to rebuke Orestes when his heart fails him. In the Iphigenia in Taurisy however, and still more in the Orestes^ he is a fully studied character. P. io» 1. I5i> A swan crying alone.] — Cf. Bacchat^ NOTES 87 p. 152, "As yearns the milk- white swar when old swans die." P. II, 11. 169 ff., The Watcher hath cried this day.] — Hera was an old Pelasgian goddess, whose worship was kept in part a mystery from the invading Achaeans or Dorians. There seems to have been a priest born " of the ancient folk," i,e,y a Pelasgian or aboriginal Mycenaean, who, by some secret lore — probably some ancient and superseded method of cal- culating the year — knew when Hera's festival was due, and walked round the country three days before- hand to announce it. He drank "the mi'k of the flock " and avoided wine, either from some religious taboo, or because he represented the religion of the milk-drinking mountain shepherds. P. 13, 11. 220 ff,] — Observe Electra's cowardice when surprised ; contrast her courage, p. 47, when sending Orestes off, and again her quick drop to despair when the news does not come soon enough. P. 16, 11. 247 ff., I am a wife. . . . O better dead !] — Rather ungenerous, when compared with her words on p. 6. (Cf. also her words on pp. 24 and 26.) But she feels this herself, almost immediately. Orestes naturally takes her to mean that her husband is one of Aegisthus' friends. This would have ruined his plot. (Cf. above, p. 8, 1. 98.) P. 22, 1. 312, Castor.] — I know no other mention of Electra's betrothal to Castor. He was her kins- man : see below on 1. 990. Pp. 22-23, 11. 300-337.] — In this wonderful out- break, observe the mixture of all sorts of personal resentments and jealousies with the devotion of the lonely woman to her father and her brother. "So men say," is an interesting touch ; perhaps conscience tells her midway that she does not quite believe what she is saying. So is the self-conscious recognition of her " bitter burning brain " that interprets all things in a sort of distortion. — Observe, too, how instinctively 88 EURIPIDES she turns to the peasant for sympathy in the strain of her emotion. It is his entrance, perhaps, which pre- vents Orestes from being swept away and revealing himself. The peasant's courage towards two armed men is striking, as well as his courtesy and his sanity. He is the one character in the play not somehow tainted with blood-madness. P. 27, 11. 403, 409.] — Why does Electra send her husband to the Old Man ? Not, I think, really for want of the food. It would have been easier to borrow (p. 12, 1. 191) from the Chorus; and, besides, what the peasant says is no doubt true, that, if she liked, she could find "many a pleasant thing" u the house. I think she sends for the Old Man be- cause he is the only person who would know Orestes (p. 21, 1. 285). She is already, like th^ Leader (p. 26, 1. 401), excited by hopes which she wili not con- fess. This reading makes the next scene clearer also. Pp. 28-30, 11. 432-487, for the Ships of Troy.] — The two main Choric songs of thfs play are markedly what Aristotle calls ifi^oXi^cty "things thrown in." They have no effect upon the action, and form little more than musical "relief." Not that they are positively irrelevant. Agamemnon is in our minds all through the play, and Agamemnon's glory is of course enhanced by the mention of Troy and the praises of his subordinate king, Achilles. Thetis, the Nereid, or sea-maiden, was won to wife by Peleus. (He wrestled with her on the sea- shore, and never loosed hold, though she turned into divers strange beings — a lion, and fire, and water, and sea-beasts.) She bore him Achilles, and then, unable permanently to live with a mortal, went back beneath the sea. When Achilles was about to sail to Troy, she and her sister Nereids brought him divine armour, and guided his ships across the Aegean. The designs on Achilles* armour, as on Heracles' shield, form a fttirly common topic of poetry, NOTES »9 The deix:ription8 of the designs arc mostly clear. Perseus with the Gorgon's head, guided by Hermes ; the Sun on a winged chariot, and stars about him ; two Sphinxes, holding as victims the men who had failed to answer the riddles which they sang ; and, on the breastplate, the Chimaera attacking Bellero- phon's winged horse, Pegasus. The name Pegasus suggested to a Greek irTj'yrjy "fountain;" and the great spring of Pir^n6, near Corinth, was made by Pegasus stamping on the rock. Pp. 30-47.] — The Old Man, like other old family rsrvants in Euripides — the extreme case is in the Ion — is absolutely and even morbidly devoted to his masters. Delightful in this first scene, he becomes a little horrible in the next, where they plot the murders ; not only ferocious himself, but, what seems worse, inclined to pet and enjoy the bloodthirstiness of his " little mistress." Pp. 30-33, 11. 510-545.] — The Signs of Orestes. This scene, I think, has been greatly misunderstood by critics. In Aeschylus' Libation-Bearers, which deals with thc^ same subject as the Electro^ 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 " {ofioirrepof; — 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 5 evidently Orestes and a fellow- traveller I Orestes enters and announces him- self; she refuses to believe, until he shows her a "woven thing," perhaps the robe which he is wear- ing, which she recognises as the work of her own hand. The same signs, described ''in one case by the same peculiar word, occur here. The Old Man mentions one after the other, and Electra refutes or rejects them. It has been thought therefore that 90 EURIPIDES this scene was meant as an attack — a very weak and undignified attack — on Euripides* great master. No parallel for such an artistically ruinous proceeding is quoted from any Greek tragedy- And, apart fronr the improbability h priori^ I do not think it even possible to read the scene in this sense, To my mind, Electra here rejects the signs not from IV reason, but from a sort of nervous terror. She dares not believe that Orestes has come ; because, if it prove otherwise, the disappointment will be so terrible. As to both signs, the lock of hair and the footprints, her arguments may be good ; but observe that she is afraid to make the comparison at all. And as to the footprint, she says there cannot be one, when the Old Man has just seen it 1 And, anyhow, she will not go to see it ! Similarly as to the robe, she does her best to deny that she ever wove it, though she and the Old Man both remember it perfectly. 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 kncAv^ the story of Orestes* return at all, knew of the hair and the footprint. Aristophanes in the Clouds (534 AT.) uses them pro- verbially, when he speaks of his comedy " recognising its brother's tress." It would have been frivolous to invent new onesL As a matter of fact, it seems probable that the signs are older than Aeschylus; neither they nor the word oficnrrepoff particularly suit Aeschylus' purpose. (Cf. Dr. Verrall's introduction to NOTES 91 the Libation^ Bearers.) They probably come from the old lyric poet, Stesichorus. P. 43, 1. 652, New-mothered of a Man-Child.] — Her true Man-Child, the Avenger whom they had sought to rob her of! This pitiless plan was suggested apparently by the sacrifice to the Nymphs (p. 40). " Weep my babe's low station " is of course ironical. The babe would set a seal on Electra's degradation to the peasant class, and so end the blood-feud, as far as she was concerned. Clytem- nestra, longing for peace, must rejoice in Electra's degradation. Yet she has motherly feelings too, and in fact hardly knows what to think or do till she can consult Aegisthus (p. 71). Electra, it would seem, actually calculates upon these feelings, while despising them. P. 45, 1. 669, If but some man will guide me.] — A suggestion of the irresolution or melancholia that beset Orestes afterwards, alternating with furious action. (Cf. Aeschylus* Libation- Bear ers^ Euripides' Andromache and Orestes,) P. 45, 1. 671, Zeus of my sires, &c.] — In this invocation, short and comparatively unmoving, one can see perhaps an effect of Aeschylus' play. In the Libation-Bearers the invocation of Agamemnon com- prises 200 lines of extraordinarily eloquent poetry. P. 47 ff., 11. 699 ff.]— -The Golden Lamb. The theft of the Golden Lamb is treated as a story of the First Sin, after which all the world was changed and became the poor place that it now is. It was at least the First Sin in the blood-feud of this drama. The story is not explicitly told. Apparently the magic lamb was brought by Pan from the gods, and given to Atreus as a special grace and a sign that he was the true king. His younger brother, Thyestes, helped by Atreus* wife, stole it and claimed to be king himself. So good was turned into evil, and love into hatred, and the stars shaken in their courses. 92 EURIPIDES [It is rather curious that the Lamb should have such a special effect upon the heavens and the weather. It is the same in Plato {Po/it. 268 ff.), and more definitely so in the treatise Dg Astrologta^ attributed to Lucian, which says that the Golden Lamb is the constellation Aries, " The Ram.*' Hugo Winckler (Jf^eltanschauung des alien OrienUy pp. 30, 31) suggests that the story is a piece of Babylonian astronomy misunderstood. It seems that the vernal equinox, which is now n»oving from the Ram into the Fish, was in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. moving from the Bull into the Ram. Now the Bull, Marduk, was the special god of Babylon, and the time when he yielded his place to the Ram was also, as a matter of fact, the time of the decline of Babylon. The gradual advance of the Ram not only upset the calendar, and made all the seasons wrong ; but seemed, since it coincided with the fall of the Great City, to upset the world in general I Of course Euripides would know nothing of this. He was apparently attracted to the Golden Lamb merely by the quaint beauty of the story.] P. 50, 1. 746, Thy brethren even now.] — Castor and Polydeuces, who were received into the stars after their death. See below, on 1. 990. P. 51, 1. 757, That answer bids me die.] — Why? Because Orestes, if he won at all, would win by a surprise attack, and would send news instantly. A prolonged conflict, without a message, would mean that Orestes and Pvlades were being overpowered. Of course she is wildly impatient, P. 51, 1. 765, Who an thou? I mistrust thec.]~ Just as she mistrusted the Old Man's signs. See above, p. 89. P. 52 ff., 11. 774 ff.] — Messenger's Speech. This speech, though swift and vivid, is less moving and also less sympathetic than most of the Messengers' Speeches. Less moving, because the slaying of NOTES 93 Acgisthus has little moral interest ; it is merely a daring and dangerous exploit. Less sympathetic, because even here, in the first and comparatively blameless step of the blood - vengeance, Euripides makes us feel the treacherous side of it. A SoXoovLay a " slaying by guile," even at its best, remains rather an ugly thing. P. 53, I. 793, Then quickly spake Orestes.] — If Orestes had washed with Aegisthus, he would have become his xenosy or guest, as much as if he had eaten his bread and salt. In that case the slaying would have been definitely a crime, a dishonourable act. Also, Acgisthus would have had the right to ask his name. — The unsuspiciousness of Aegisthus is partly natural ; it was not thus, alone and unarmed, that he expected Orestes to stand before him. Partly it seems like a heaven-sent blindness. Even the omens do not warn him, though no doubt in a moment more they would have done so. P. 56, 1. 878, With guile he hath slain.] —So the MSS. The Chorus have already a faint feeling, quickly suppressed, that there may be another side to Orestes' action. Most editors alter the text to mean " He hath slain these guileful ones." P. 58, 1. 900, It shames me, yet God knows I hunger sore.] — To treat the dead with respect was one of the special marks of a Greek as opposed to a barbarian. It is possible that the body of Aegisthus might legitimately have been refused burial, or even nailed on a cross as Orestes in a moment of excitement suggests. But to insult him lying dead would be a shock to all Greek feeling. ("Unholy is the voice of loud thanksgiving over slaughtered men," Odyssey xxii. 412.) Any excess of this kind, any violence towards the helpless, was apt to rouse " The sleeping wrath of the world." There was a Greek proverb, *'Even an injured dog has his Erinys" — /.^., his unseen guardian or avenger. It is interesting, though 94 £URIPID£S not surprising, to hear that men had little love for Electra. The wonderful speech that follows, though to a conventional Greek perhaps the most outrageous thing of which she is guilty, shows best the inherent nobility of her character before years of misery had "killed her soul within." P. 59, 11. 928 f., Being in falseness one, &c.] — The Greek here is very obscure and almost certainly corrupt. P. 61, I. 964, Tis my mother comes.] — The reaction has already begun in Orestes. In the excitement and danger of killing his enemy he has shown coolness and courage, but now a work lies before him vastly more horrible, a little more treacher- ous, and with no element of daring to redeem it. Electra, on the other hand, has done nothing yet ; she has merely tried, not very successfully, to revile the dead body, and her hate is unsatisfied. Besides, one sees all through the play that Aegisthus was a kind of odious stranger to her ; it was the woman, her mother, who came close to her and whom she really hated. P. 63, 1. 979, Was it some fiend of Hell ?]— The likeness to Hamlet is obvious. ("The spirit that I have seen May be the Devil." End of Act II.) P. 63, 1. 983, How shall it be then, the same stealthy blow ? . . .] — He means, I think, " the same as that with which I have already murdered an unsuspecting man to-day," but Electra for her own purposes misinterprets him. P. 64, 1. 990, God's horsemen, stars without a stain.] — Cf. above, 11. 312, 74.6. Castor and Poly- deuces were sons of Zeus and Leda, brothers of Helen, and half-brothers of Clytemnestra, whose father was the mortal Tyndareus. They lived as knights without reproach, and afterwards became stars and demigods. The story is told that originally Castor was mortal and Polydcuccs immortal ; but when Castor was fatally wounded Polydeuccs prayed NOTES 95 that he might be allowed to give him half hiis im- mortality. The prayer was granted ; and the two live as immortals, yet, in some mysterious way, knowing the taste of death. Unlike the common sinners and punishers of the rest of the play, these Heroes find their " glory '* in saving men from peril and suffering, especially at sea, where they appear as the globes of light, called St. Elmo's fire, upon masts and yards. Pp. 64-71, 11. 998 ff.] — Clytemssestra. «*And what sort of woman is this doomed and *evil' Queen ? We know the majestic murderess of Aeschylus, so strong as to be actually beautiful, so fearless and unrepentant that one almost feels her to be right. One can imagine also another figure that would be theatrically effective — a * sympathetic ' sinner, beautiful and penitent, eager to redeem her sin by self-sacrifice. But Euripides gives us neither. Perhaps he believed in neither. It is a piteous and most real character that we have here, in this sad middle-aged woman, whose first words are an apology ; controlling quickly her old fires, anxious to be as little hated as possible. She would even atone, one feels, if there were any safe way of atonement ; but the consequences of her old actions are holding her, and she is bound to persist. ... In her long speech it is scarcely to Electra that she is chiefly speaking ; it is to the Chorus, perhaps to her own bondmaids ; to any or all of the people whose shrinking so frets her." {^Independent Review^ i.e.) o P. 65, 1. loii. Cast his child away.} — The Greek fleet assembled for Troy was held by contrary winds at Aulis, in the Straits of Euboea, and the whole expedition was in danger of breaking up. The prophets demanded a human sacrifice, and Agamem- non gave his own daughter, Iphigenla. He induced Clytemnestra to send her to him, by the pretext that Achilles had asked for her in marriage. 96 EURIPIDES P. 66, 1. 1046, Which led me to the men he hated.] — It made Clytemnestra's crime worse, that her accomplice was the blood-foe. Pp. 65-68. As elsewhere in Euripides, these two speeches leave the matter undecided. He does not attempt to argue the case out. He gives us a flash of light, as it were, upon Clytemnestra'*s mind and then upon Electra's. Each believes what she is saying, and neither understands the whole truth. It is clear that Clytemnestra, being left for ten years utterly alone, and having perhaps something of Helen's temperament about her, naturally fell in love with the Lord of a neighbouring castle ; and having once committed herself, had no way of saving her life except by killing her husband, and afterwards either killing or keeping strict watch upon Orestes and Electra. Aegisthus, of course, was deliberately plotting to carry out his blood-feud and to win a great kingdom. P. 72, 1. 1 1 56, For the flying heart too fond.] — The text is doubtful, but this seems to be the literal translation, and the reference to Clytemnestra is intelligible enough. P. 73, 1. 1 157, The giants' cloud-capped ring.] — The great walls of Mvcenae, built by the Cycl6pes ; cf. Trojan Women^ p. 64, " Where the towers of the giants shine O'er Argos cloudily." P. 75, K 1 20 1, Back, back in the wind and rain.] — The only explicit moral judgment of the Chorus ; -f. note on 1. 878. P. 77, 1. 1225, I touched with my hand thy sword.] — U€.^ Electra dropped her own sword in horror, then in a revulsion of feeling laid her hand upon Orestes' sword — out of generosity, that he might not bear his guilt alone. P. 78, 1. 1 241, An Argivc ship.] — This may have been the ship of Menelaus, which was brought to Argos by Castor and Polydeuces, sec 1. 1278, Htleno NOTES 97 1663. The ships labouring in the " Sicilian sea " (p. 82, L 1347) must have suggested to the audiena the ships of the great expedition against Sicily, then 'Irawing near to its destruction. The Athenian fleet was destroyed early in September 413 b.c: this play was probably produced in the spring of the same year, at which time the last reinforcements were being sent out. P. 78, 1. 1249.] — Marriage of Py lades and Electra. A good example of the essentially historic naturp of Greek tragedy. No one would have invented 3 marriage between Electra and Pylades for tht purposes of this play. It is even a little disturbing. But it is here, because it was a fixed fact in the tradition (cf. Iphigenia in Taurisy 1. 915 ff.), and could not be ignored. Doubtless there were people living who claimed descent from Pylades and Electra. P. 79, 1. 1253, ScouTge thee as a burning wheel.] — At certain feasts a big wheel soaked in some inflam- mable resin or tar was set fire to and rolled down a mountain. P. 79, 1. 1258, There is a hill in Athens.J—The great fame of the Areopagus as a tribunal for man- slaying (see Aeschylus' Eumtnides) cannot have been due merely to its incorruptibility. Hardly any Athenian tribunal was corruptible. But the Areopagus in very ancient times seems to have superseded the early systems of " blood-feud " or " blood-debt " by 1 humane and rational system of law, taking account of intention, provocation, and the varying degrees of guilt. The Erinyes, being the old Pelasgian avengers of blood, now superseded, have their dwelling in a cavern underneath the Areopagus. P. 80, U. 1276 ff.] — The graves of Aegisthus and Clytcmnestra actually existed in Argos (Paus. ii. 16, 7). They form, so to speak, the concrete material fiict round which the legend of this play circles (cf. Ridjreway in H^tiUuic Jaurnal^ xxiv. p. xxxix.). 98 EURIPIDES P. 80, 1. 1280.] — Helen. The story here adum- brated is taken from Stesichorus, and forms the plot of Euripides* play Helena (cf. Herodotus, ii. 113 ff.). P. 80, I 1295, I also, sons of Tyndareus.] — Observe that Electra claims the gods as cousins (cf. p. 22, 1. 313), addressing them by the name of their mortal ftithcr. The Chorus has called them "sons of Zeus.'' In the same spirit she faces the gods, complains, and even argues, while Orestes never rai:>es his eyes to them. P. 80, 1. 1300.] — K^res. The death-spirits that flutter over our heads, as Homer says, " innumerable, whom no man can fly nor hide from." P. 82, 1. 1329, Yea, our peace is riven by the strange pain of these that die.] — Cf. the attitude of Artemis at the end of the Hippolytus, Sometimes Euripides introduces gods whose peace is not riven, but then they are always hateful. (Cf. Aphrodite in the Hippo lytus^ Dionysus in the Bacchae^ Athena in the Trojan JVomen.) P. 82, 1. 1336, O fiiithful unto death.]— This is the last word we hear of Electra, and it is interest- ing. With all her unlovely qualities it remains true that she was faithful — ^ithful to the dead and the absent, and to what she looked upon as a fearful duty. Additional Note on the presence of the Argive women during the plot against the King and Queen. (Cf. especially p. 19, 1. 272, These women hear us.) — It would seem to us almost mad to speak so freely before the women. But one must observe : I, Stasis, or civil enmity, ran very high in Greece, and these women were of the pauty that hated Acgisthut. 2. There runs all through Euripides a very strong N\- conception of the cohesivcness of women, their srcretiveness, and their faithfulness to one another. Medea, Iphigenia, and Creusa, for instance, trust a NOTES 99 their women friends with secrets involving life and death, and the secrets are kept. On the other hand, when a man — Xuthus in the Ion — tells the Chorus women a secret, they promptly and with great courage betray him. Aristophanes leaves the same impression ; and so do many incidents in Greek history. Cf. the murders plotted by the Athenian women (Hdt. v. 87), and both by and against the Lemnian women (Hdt. vi. 138). The subject is a large one, but I would observe : I. Athenian women were kept as a rule very much together, and apart from men. 2. At the time of the great invasions the women of a community must often have been of dif- ferent race from the men ; and this may have started a tradition of behaviour, 3. Members of a subject (or disaffected) nation have generally this cohesive- ness : in Ireland, Poland, and parts of Turkey the details of a political crime will, it is said, be known to a whole country side, but not a whisper come to the authorities. Of course the mere mechanical fact that the Chorus had to be present on the stage counts for something. It saved the dramatist trouble to make his heroine confide in the Chorus. But I do not think Euripides would have used this situation so often unless it had seemed to him both true to life and dramatically interesting. BY THE SAME AUTHOR ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES. 2nd Impression. Demy 8vo, cloth, I OS. 6d. net. *RELIGIO GRAMMATICI. 3rd Impression. Cloth, 2s. net. ♦ARISTOPHANES AND THE WAR PARTY. 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