Part 4

The girl was then able to persuade her mistress to follow her example, and soon all three were eating and drinking together.

‘You know,’ so says Eumolpus, ‘the result of a good meal: the soldier was soon as successful in overcoming the matron’s resolute virtue as he had been in overcoming her resolute desire for death.’

The doors of the vault were closed, so that it might appear that the good lady had breathed her last over her husband’s body; the soldier brought down all sorts of comestibles, and two or three days and nights were spent in dalliance.

Meanwhile the crucified robbers were quite forgotten, and on the third morning the soldier found that one of the crosses was empty, for the body had been removed for burial by the relatives in the night. He explained his plight to the lady, and announced his intention of committing suicide, the proper penalty, as he said, for his neglect of duty.

But the matron was as compassionate as she was virtuous, and ‘Heaven forfend!’ she cried. ‘I cannot bear to see two such dear men both depart from life. I would rather pay over the dead than lose the living.’ So she told the soldier to take the husband’s body out of its receptacle and fix it on the vacant cross. ‘The soldier gladly followed the clever lady’s ingenious idea, and the next day people were wondering how it was that a dead man had found his way to the cross.’

The Ephesian Widow represents the Milesian Tales at their best; at their worst they are only to be read by those who can touch pitch and not be defiled. In themselves they are beneath contempt, but they have a very considerable importance in the history of the world, and especially in the history of the relations of the sexes. The perverse ideas that underlie them were transplanted from Ionia to Athens, and, recommended by the literary genius of Athenian writers, they have had an influence on later thought which the Ionian pornographers would never have secured.

V.—ATHENS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

We have traced the main tendencies of Ionian thought, and have seen how the degradation of women involved a corresponding degradation of literature. Its very offensiveness protects a great deal of Ionian work from notice, but it has been necessary to quote some of the less noisome specimens, for it must be remembered that this immorality of literature was both the cause and the result of the low opinion in which women were held. The motives which inspired the whole school of writers were utterly contemptible, the means they employed were not much better; but they were successful in their purpose. When Athens took over the leadership of Greece, she took over from Ionia the idea of women as inferior creatures, and during all the great period of Athenian history women were a subject class. It became no longer necessary to slander them; they were simply neglected.

A woman’s life at Athens in the fifth century B.C. was a dreary business. She was confined closely to the house, a harem prisoner, but without any of that luxurious ease which the harem system has sometimes offered as a solace for the loss of freedom. An Athenian house was small, dark, and uncomfortable, and a woman’s day was occupied with a long round of monotonous work. Occasionally she was allowed out of prison to walk in some sacred procession, as we see the quiet line of girls marshalled on the Parthenon frieze, but all the amusements of the town were closed against her. From the school and the gymnasium, from the Odeon and the Academy, from public meetings and from private banquets, women were jealously debarred. It is doubtful whether they were permitted even to enter the theatre of Dionysus; and their shopping quarter, where they bought their rouge and white lead, was in the most remote and inaccessible part of the city.

The whole structure of social life was arranged to suit men and to exclude women. It is true that the patron divinity of the state was a woman, Athena, but the goddess was divested of feminine attributes. She became the ideal Athens, a conception as far remote from an anthropomorphic divinity as any race has ever possessed.

The stages by which women were reduced to this condition of inferiority are, in the general obscurity of early Athenian history, quite unknown; but there can be little doubt that the whole position was due to Ionian influence. The legal status of women, especially in relation to property, seems to have been changed by definite enactment about the end of the sixth century B.C., and in the _Suppliant Maidens_ of Æschylus there are traces of the conflict of principles on which the change was based. Henceforward, in the eyes of the Athenian law, a woman was merely an appanage of any property which she chanced to inherit, and her nearest male relative had to take charge of her person—a _damnosa hereditas_ for which the material advantages of her estate served as compensation.

Moreover, women in Athens were married far too young, for the average age was about fifteen, and the result of these early marriages was that by the time a woman had arrived at years of discretion and might have been an intellectual companion for her husband, her beauty too often was gone and she herself was worn out, a premature old woman. For girls no education was considered necessary, and throughout their childhood they were kept in constant seclusion. They were regarded only as potential bearers of children, and the most extreme precautions known to modern eugenics were apparently practised before marriage. But even as mothers they were not very efficient, for their physique suffered from the narrowness of their lives, and the wet-nurse—Titthe—was to be found in most families. Just as the Breton and Norman girls migrate to Paris, so those Athenian households that could afford the expense would hire the robust women of Sparta to take the mother’s place. Alcibiades, for example, was suckled by a Lacedæmonian nurse, and was not altogether an alien when, exiled from Athens, he took refuge in the Peloponnese. It was not in Athens, but at Sparta, or in the islands where girls wrestled and raced with young men, that Paionios found the model for his ‘Victory’ with her flying feet, deep bosom, and firm, rounded limbs; and in Aristophanes, when Lysistrata assembles the women of Greece, the Athenians can scarcely refrain their half-envious admiration of the buxom vigour of the Spartan Lampeto.

At Athens the restriction of women to one function meant that even that one function was badly performed, and all through the great period the Athenian race was slowly declining in numbers.

In one respect alone was there little difference between the sexes at Athens—that of dress. There was no distinction of sex, as there was no distinction of rank. In an Attic tragedy a chorus of generals, of fishermen, and of flower-girls would all appear in much the same garb. In Asia both sexes wore trousers (θύλακοι, ‘bags’), which the Greeks regarded with amused contempt. In Athens neither sex did. There were some slight varieties in shape, material, and colour, but, speaking generally, it is correct to say that an Athenian lady—or an Athenian gentleman was dressed informally when she or he had one blanket draped about their person. Full dress consisted of another blanket over the first, and the art of dress consisted in suitable pinning and the proper arrangement of the folds.

But when a woman left her husband’s house and went abroad, she had to don the symbol of her slavery, the ‘kredemnon.’ This article was a kind of yashmak-veil, drawn across the face to protect a woman from the gaze of strange men, not her lawful owners. It gave its wearer the white cheeks of the odalisque, and shut her off from the freedom of the outside world. It was, like our cap and apron, the badge of servitude, and to escape from it the only way was to become a slave indeed, for the slave-woman alone could walk abroad with open face.

This is what Euripides means when he makes the captive Andromache sob: ‘And I, even I, was dragged from my royal bower down to the sea-beach with nothing about my head save hideous slavery.’ (_And._ 109.)

And so Hecuba, in the _Trojan Women_, a slave bare-footed and bare-headed, crouches on the ground to escape from the gaze of men, and cries: ‘Guide me to my bed of straw and to the stones which now will hide my face.’ (_Trojan Women_, 508.) Slavery in ancient times was a hard fate, but for many an Athenian woman it could have had but little terror. A wife was already the property of her husband, and slaves and women are commonly classed together.

The Athenian, however, with all his faults was a genuine lover of freedom, and did not care for slaves. Neither his wife nor the flute-girls, whose charms could be bought by any bidder, could really satisfy him, strange mixture that he was of sensuality and intellect. The only women whose company he desired were those called, half in jest, half in earnest, the Hetairai, ‘the close companions,’ the same word being used for those political associations which formed the closest link between man and man.

The Hetairai were foreign women, and stood outside the law: they were not Athenian citizens, and so had no privileges; but, on the other hand, they were not under restraint. Often highly educated, it was their business to take part in all men’s interests: they were their own mistresses, engaged freely in the political life of Athens, and in many cases exercised very great influence even in affairs of state. To their personal attractions they added social charm and a long training in the arts of pleasure, and the contrast between them and the Athenian wives may be illustrated if we compare the life of an actress of the _Comédie Française_ with that of an inmate of a Turkish harem. The French actress and the Japanese geisha are the nearest modern parallels to the Greek hetaira, and all three owe their existence as a class to much the same social conditions, a high standard of culture and intelligence, a low standard of sexual morality.

Such were the conditions of Athenian life, and we shall find them reflected in literature. The great lyric poets, Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, concern themselves almost exclusively with men; Æschylus alone, in this, as in most things, the exact antithesis of the typical Athenian, regards women as creatures possessed of mind and soul. In sharp contrast to the tragedian is Herodotus, and a comparison between their views is possible, for, although the historian is a considerably younger man, a good deal of his material goes back to an earlier date, and in social matters especially he often represents the ideas of the first years of the fifth century.

Herodotus, great traveller and charming personality though he is, is still a true Ionian. There is frequently a Milesian flavour about his tales—for instance the story of Rhampsinitus and the robber—and it is not unfair to say that in his researches into ancient tribal life and folklore he is especially interested in such savage customs as put women in an inferior place. The account of the native races of Libya in the last chapters of the fourth book of the History will afford an example.

But the grandeur of his main theme, the struggle between Athens and Persia, raised the historian from these doubtful interests, and in the last five books of his work there is little depreciation of women as a class. It is true that women scarcely come into the narrative, and that Xerxes’ remark about Artemisia, ‘My men have become women and my women have become men,’ is framed to suit the ideas of an Athenian, as it would have suited the Romans, who could hardly conceive of a Queen. It is scarcely as appropriate in the mouth of a Persian whose own mother, Atossa, was then acting as regent. But this is a small point and, speaking generally, there is little in the last part of the History to offend.

Herodotus is really animated by an ardent patriotism and a genuine love of liberty. ‘Isonomy,’ he says—and many English race-goers will agree with him—‘the very sound of the word is most excellent.’ But it must be remembered that his patriotism is for males only, and that his equality before the law is an equality from which women were shut out; for even Plato makes isonomy between men and women the last and almost incredible stage of democratic licence.

So it is in the earlier books alone that the baser manner is evident, and one example of it will suffice to give a proof of the difference between the Ionian spirit which brought about the enslavement of women and the spirit of enlightenment which rebelled against that servitude.

We will take the story of Io, as told by Æschylus and Herodotus, for the ancient legends of Greece, subjects alike for history and drama, have one great advantage: their main outlines were impersonal and known to all; details, treatment, and interpretation could be varied to express the artist’s personal thought. Io, the daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, was beloved by Zeus: through the jealousy of Hera she was changed into a cow, and after long wanderings regained her mortal shape and found rest in Egypt, where she became mother of Epaphus, first king of the land. Such is the legend, and this is Herodotus’ version of it:

The Persians say that some Phœnicians once brought a cargo of merchandise to Argos. The women of the town, among them Io, came down to the sea-shore to bargain. The Phœnicians seized the women and carried them off to Egypt. Now to carry off women by violence the Persians think is the act of a wicked man; to trouble about avenging them is the act of a fool; to pay no regard to them when carried off is the part of a wise man; for it is clear that, if they had not wished it themselves, they would not be ravished. Such is the Persian account, but as regards Io the Phœnicians do not agree. They say that they used no violence in taking her to Egypt, but that she had an intrigue with their captain when he was at Argos. When she discovered that she was likely to become a mother she was afraid of her parents, and to hide her secret came of her own accord with them to Egypt.’

All the poetry and romance of the story have disappeared: realism has triumphed. Io is a woman; on the best interpretation of her conduct she is vain and imprudent; she shows herself to strange men, and is carried off by them, although, as the story is at pains, though not very logically, to add, it must have been with her own consent. On the worst interpretation she is a mere wanton. She allows a sea-captain to seduce her, and then deserts her home, her parents, and her native land.

Listen now to Æschylus—in the beautiful version by Mr. E. R. Bevan:

The chambers, where I housed, a virgin hidden, Strange faces aye in the night would visit, wooing With sooth suggestion: ‘Oh, most huge in fortune, Most happiest of all maidens—wherefore maiden, Oh, wherefore so long maiden, when there waits thee Wedlock the highest? He, the Lord of Heaven, Is waxen hot, pierced with desire of thee, Yea, and with thee would tread the passages Of love’s delight. Now therefore foot not from thee, O child, the bed of the Highest; but do this, Go forth to where the meadow is deep, the field Of Lerna—stations of the household flock, Home of thy father’s herds—go even thither, That so the eye of Zeus may ease desire.’

With such-like dreams the kingly dark for me Was ever fraught, me miserable: till, ridden, I gat me heart to open to my father The visions and the dreams of night. And he To Pytho, yea, and even to Dodona, Sent embassage on embassage, inquiring What thing he had need to do, or what word speak, To pleasure them that rule us. And they came, Bringing still back burden of wavering lips, Sentences, blind, dark syllables. At last A word clear-visaged came to Machus Enjoining plainly and saying he should thrust me Forth of the house, forth of the land, to wander At large, a separate thing even to the last Confines of earth.

The story is the same, but the treatment is different, and the two passages illustrate the difference between romantic idealism and realistic depreciation.

But Io, in the _Prometheus_, is only one of the gallery of Æschylus’ heroines, for in his art women take the foremost place. The dramatist is at variance with his age, and his fervent patriotism is almost the sole bond of union between him and his fellows. Æschylus is a mystic; he believed in the Delphic inspiration, and took an interest in religious speculation. His contemporaries were materialists, suspected the politics of Delphi, and regarded religion simply as a ceremony. Æschylus was a conservative in politics, although a liberal in thought; Athens was already becoming an extreme democracy. Finally, Æschylus bases his theatre on women, and makes them the chief agents of the drama, while the ordinary woman of his time was shut out altogether from the active business of life.

But he is an unconscious feminist, and the definite purpose which we find in Euripides is quite absent from his plays. It shows, however, a strange lack of appreciation to reproach him, as some critics have done, with neglecting the feminine interest. Of the seven tragedies that the Byzantine tradition has preserved for us, four, if their subject was handled by a modern dramatist, would be called feminist problem plays, and in the other three the female characters supply most of the dramatic interest, even though the first idea of the plot might seem to put them in the second plan of action.

Of the lost plays, many, as far as we may judge by their titles and meagre fragments, have the same characteristic. The most famous, the _Niobe_, had for its central figure the sorrowing mother, such another as Euripides’ Hecuba in the first scene of the _Trojan Women_, and represented perhaps in much the same fashion, for Æschylus, like most Athenian women, knew full well the dramatic value of silence, and the pathos of Niobe’s situation needs no long speeches. So, if we possessed the _Callisto_, the legend of the maiden changed into a bear, the _Penelope_, the _Iphigenia_, or the _Oreithyia_, that favourite Athenian story of the young girl roaming on the sea-shore and carried off by the fierce god to his northern fastness, we should appreciate even more vividly than we can now the romantic side of the tragedian’s art. It is a significant fact in this connection that of the sixty odd titles of lost plays which have come down to us, nearly half are names of women. Moreover, in seventeen of these plays, the title is taken from the chorus, and in the Æschylean Theatre the chorus is generally the central figure in the dramatic action. Such titles as the ‘Daughters of the Sun,’ the ‘Nurses of Dionysus,’ the ‘Daughters of Nereus,’ and the ‘Bacchanal Women,’ suggest at any rate romantic plays with a strong feminine interest; such others as the ‘Women of the Bedchamber,’ the ‘Water-carriers,’ and the ‘Women of Etna,’ might well be examples of that realistic treatment of women’s life of which we have an example in the Nurse of the ‘Libation-bearers.’ Arguments drawn merely from the names of lost plays are obviously of little value, except in so far as they strengthen the definite evidence which the existing tragedies supply, but an examination of the remaining seven plays will show that the first and greatest of Athenian dramatists was deeply impressed with the potentialities for good and evil of the female mind.

VI.—ÆSCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES

Of the seven plays of Æschylus that remain, three—the _Seven against Thebes_, the _Persians_, and the _Prometheus_—are concerned with battles, and with strife among men and among gods. It might be expected that women here would play but a small part, but, as a matter of fact, in two of the three the chorus, the intermediary between poet and audience, is composed of women, and in the third a woman is the chief character.

The _Seven against Thebes_ is a patriotic drama, ‘crammed full of the spirit of war,’ as the poet himself describes it, and also full of speeches. The male characters talk; what little action there is in the play falls to the women of the chorus. Their first song, for example, when they call on the gods to save them from the ravages of war, was probably accompanied by more vigorous movements than anything in the rest of the tragedy. The unsympathetic male, Eteocles, addresses them, it is true, as ‘unbearable creatures’ and ‘detestable animals,’ and says, ‘For my own part, I never want to share my house with any womankind, nor take them to my troubles and my joys;’ but his remarks are strictly in keeping with his unpleasant character, and the poet instinctively relies on the female characters for his chief dramatic interest. So in the _Persians_, a chronicle play composed mainly of choral odes and messengers’ speeches, the queen-mother, Atossa, takes the first place in the action, and the psychological contrast lies between her womanly strength and Xerxes’ manly weakness. In the _Prometheus_, certainly, most of the characters—gods and demi-gods—are males, but they have little dramatic significance. As far as they are concerned, the play is a good example of what Maeterlinck calls the ‘static drama.’ The characters stand still, _and talk_. The action is in the hands of the female characters, the pathetic figure of the wandering cow-maiden, Io, and the contrasted group of the mermaid chorus, the daughters of the sea. These latter are perhaps the most charming of all the poet’s creations, and the fragrance that heralds their approach, when, casting away modesty, they venture to appear before a man, spreads through the whole play. Sympathising, but not quite without merriment; inquisitive, but staunch in the hour of danger; they are just such characters as Nausicaa herself.

In these three plays, then, the feminine interest has forced its way, as it were, into the plot, which in its first form offered women no place. The _Seven against Thebes_, a ‘fragment from the table of Homer,’ differs chiefly from the epic in the feminine element that has been imported by the chorus; the _Persians_, dealing with the same events as those described by Herodotus, has for its point of difference the prominence given to the female character, Atossa; the _Prometheus_, which tells the story of the conflict between the fierce young god and the philanthropic old demiurge, relies for its dramatic interest largely on the episodes of the Nereides and Io; episodes which, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the main plot.

This feminism, inherent in the poet’s mind, finds full expression in the remaining four plays. The _Suppliant Women_, for example, archaic though it seems to us, deals with a social problem and a question of law, which was hotly debated in the poet’s time, and finally, in spite of his advocacy, settled against the women. The question is this—‘Should a woman be compelled to marry a man she dislikes, and to hand over to him the control of her property, merely because he is the nearest male relative?’ Æschylus answers in the negative; Athenian law _decided in the affirmative_.