Chapter 1

AEGISTHUS _and Soldiers._

_Aeg._ O treachery unforseen! O madness! Freed, Orestes freed? Now we shall see....

_Enter_ CLYTEMNESTRA.

_Cly._ Ah! turn Backward thy steps.

_Aeg._ Ah, wretch, dost thou arm too Against me?

_Cly._ I would save thee. Hearken to me, I am no longer--

_Aeg._ Traitress--

_Cly._ Stay!

_Aeg._ Thou 'st promised Haply to give me to that wretch alive?

_Cly._ To keep thee, save thee from him, I have sworn, Though I should perish for thee! Ah, remain And hide thee here in safety. I will be Thy stay against his fury--

_Aeg._ Against his fury My sword shall be my stay. Go, leave me! I go--

_Cly._ Whither?

_Aeg._ To kill him!

_Cly._ To thy death thou goest! O me! What dost thou? Hark! Dost thou not hear The yells and threats of the whole people? Hold! I will not leave thee.

_Aeg._ Nay, thou hop'st in vain To save thy impious son from death. Hence! Peace! Or I will else--

_Cly._ Oh, yes, Aegisthus, kill me, If thou believest me not. “Orestes!” Hark! “Orestes!” How that terrible name on high Rings everywhere! I am no longer mother When thou 'rt in danger. Against my blood I grow Cruel once more.

_Aeg._ Thou knowest well the Argives Do hate thy face, and at the sight of thee The fury were redoubled in their hearts. The tumult rises. Ah, thou wicked wretch, Thou wast the cause! For thee did I delay Vengeance that turns on me now.

_Cly._ Kill me, then!

_Aeg._ I'll find escape some other way.

_Cly._ I follow--

_Aeg._ Ill shield wert thou for me. Leave me--away, away! At no price would I have thee by my side! {_Exit._

_Cly._ All hunt me from them! O most hapless state! My son no longer owns me for his mother, My husband for his wife: and wife and mother I still must be! O misery! Afar I'll follow him, nor lose the way he went.

_Enter_ ELECTRA.

_El._ Mother, where goest thou! Turn thy steps again Into the palace. Danger--

_Cly._ Orestes--speak! Where is he now? What does he do?

_El._ Orestes, Pylades, and myself, we are all safe. Even Aegisthus' minions pitied us. They cried, “This is Orestes!” and the people, “Long live Orestes! Let Aegisthus die!”

_Cly._ What do I hear?

_El._ Calm thyself, mother; soon Thou shalt behold thy son again, and soon Th' infamous tyrant's corse--

_Cly._ Ah, cruel, leave me! I go--

_El._ No, stay! The people rage, and cry Out on thee for a parricidal wife. Show thyself not as yet, or thou incurrest Great peril. 'T was for this I came. In thee A mother's agony appeared, to see Thy children dragged to death, and thou hast now Atoned for thy misdeed. My brother sends me To comfort thee, to succor and to hide thee From dreadful sights. To find Aegisthus out, All armed meanwhile, he and his Pylades Search everywhere. Where is the wicked wretch?

_Cly._ Orestes is the wicked wretch!

_El_. O Heaven!

_Cly._ I go to save him or to perish with him.

_El._ Nay, mother, thou shalt never go. Thou ravest--

_Cly._ The penalty is mine. I go--

_El._ O mother! The monster that but now thy children doomed To death, wouldst thou--

_Cly._ Yes, I would save him--I! Out of my path! My terrible destiny I must obey. He is my husband. All Too dear he cost me. I will not, can not lose him. You I abhor, traitors, not children to me! I go to him. Loose me, thou wicked girl! At any risk I go, and may I only Reach him in time! {_Exit._

_El_. Go to thy fate, then, go, If thou wilt so, but be thy steps too late! Why can not I, too, arm me with a dagger, To pierce with stabs a thousand-fold the breast Of infamous Aegisthus! O blind mother, oh, How art thou fettered to his baseness! Yet, And yet, I tremble--If the angry mob Avenge their murdered king on her--O Heaven! Let me go after her--But who comes here? Pylades, and my brother not beside him?

_Enter_ PYLADES.

Oh, tell me! Orestes--?

_Pyl._ Compasses the palace About with swords. And now our prey is safe. Where lurks Aegisthus! Hast thou seen him?

_El._ Nay, I saw and strove in vain a moment since To stay his maddened wife. She flung herself Out of this door, crying that she would make Herself a shield unto Aegisthus. He Already had fled the palace.

_Pyl._ Durst he then Show himself in the sight of Argos? Why, Then he is slain ere this! Happy the man That struck him first. Nearer and louder yet I hear their yells.

_El._ “Orestes!” Ah, were't so!

_Pyl._ Look at him in his fury where he comes!

_Enter_ ORESTES _and his followers_.

_Or._ No man of you attempt to slay Aegisthus: There is no wounding sword here save my own. Aegisthus, ho! Where art thou, coward! Speak! Aegisthus, where art thou? Come forth: it is The voice of Death that calls thee! Thou comest not? Ah, villain, dost thou hide thyself? In vain: The midmost deep of Erebus should not hide thee! Thou shalt soon see if I be Atrides' son. _El._ He is not here; he--

_Or._ Traitors! You perchance Have slain him without me?

_Pyl._ Before I came He had fled the palace.

_Or._ In the palace still Somewhere he lurks; but I will drag him forth; By his soft locks I'll drag him with my hand: There is no prayer, nor god, nor force of hell Shall snatch thee from me. I will make thee plow The dust with thy vile body to the tomb Of Agamemnon,--I will drag thee thither And pour out there all thine adulterous blood.

_El._ Orestes, dost thou not believe me?--me!

_Or._ Who'rt thou? I want Aegisthus.

_El._ He is fled.

_Or._ He's fled, and you, ye wretches, linger here? But I will find him.

_Enter_ CLYTEMNESTRA.

_Cly._ Oh, have pity, son!

_Or._ Pity? Whose son am I? Atrides' son Am I.

_Cly._ Aegisthus, loaded with chains--

_Or._ He lives yet? O joy! Let me go slay him!

_Cly._ Nay, kill me! I slew thy father--I alone. Aegisthus Had no guilt in it.

_Or._ Who, who grips my arm! Who holds me back? O Madness! Ah Aegisthus! I see him; they drag him hither--Off with thee!

_Cly._ Orestes, dost thou not know thy mother?

_Or._ Die, Aegisthus! By Orestes' hand, die, villain! {_Exit._

_Cly._ Ah, thou'st escaped me! Thou shalt slay me first! {_Exit_.

_El._ Pylades, go! Run, run! Oh, stay her! fly; Bring her back hither! {_Exit_ PYLADES. I shudder! She is still His mother, and he must have pity on her. Yet only now she saw her children stand Upon the brink of an ignoble death; And was her sorrow and her daring then As great as they are now for him? At last The day so long desired has come; at last, Tyrant, thou diest; and once more I hear The palace all resound with wails and cries, As on that horrible and bloody night, Which was my father's last, I heard it ring. Already hath Orestes struck the blow, The mighty blow; already is Aegisthus Fallen--the tumult of the crowd proclaims it. Behold Orestes conqueror, his sword Dripping with blood!

_Enter_ ORESTES.

O brother mine, come, Avenger of the king of kings, our father, Argos, and me, come to my heart!

_Or._ Sister, At last thou seest me Atrides' worthy son. Look, 't is Aegisthus' blood! I hardly saw him And ran to slay him where he stood, forgetting To drag him to our father's sepulcher. Full twice seven times I plunged and plunged my sword Into his cowardly and quaking heart; Yet have I slaked not my long thirst of vengeance!

_El_. Then Clytemnestra did not come in time To stay thine arm?

_Or._ And who had been enough For that? To stay my arm? I hurled myself Upon him; not more swift the thunderbolt. The coward wept, and those vile tears the more Filled me with hate. A man that durst not die Slew thee, my father!

_El._ Now is our sire avenged! Calm thyself now, and tell me, did thine eyes Behold not Pylades?

_Or._ I saw Aegisthus; None other. Where is dear Pylades? And why Did he not second me in this glorious deed?

_El._ I had confided to his care our mad And desperate mother.

_Or._ I knew nothing of them.

_Enter_ PYLADES.

_El._ See, Pylades returns--O heavens, what do I see? Returns alone?

_Or._ And sad? Oh wherefore sad, Part of myself, art thou? Know'st not I've slain Yon villain? Look, how with his life-blood yet My sword is dripping! Ah, thou did'st not share His death-blow with me! Feed then on this sight Thine eyes, my Pylades!

_Pyl._ O sight! Orestes, Give me that sword.

_Or._ And wherefore?

_Pyl._ Give it me.

_Or._ Take it.

_Pyl._ Oh listen! We may not tarry longer Within these borders; come--

_Or._ But what--

_El_. Oh speak! Where's Clytemnestra? _Or._ Leave her; she is perchance Kindling the pyre unto her traitor husband.

_Pyl._ Oh, thou hast far more than fulfilled thy vengeance. Come, now, and ask no more.

_Or._ What dost thou say?

_El._ Our mother! I beseech thee yet again! Pylades--Oh what chill is this that creeps Through all my veins?

_Pyl._ The heavens--

_El._ Ah, she is dead!

_Or._ Hath turned her dagger, maddened, on herself?

_El._ Alas, Pylades! Why dost thou not answer?

_Or._. Speak! What hath been?

_Pyl._ Slain--

_Or._ And by whose hand?

_Pyl._ Come!

_El._ (_To_ ORESTES.) Thou slewest her!

_Or._ I parricide?

_Pyl._ Unknowing Thou plungèdst in her heart thy sword, as blind With rage thou rannest on Aegisthus--

_Or._ Oh, What horror seizes me! I parricide? My sword! Pylades, give it me; I'll have it--

_Pyl._ It shall not be.

_El._ Brother--

_Or._ Who calls me brother? Thou, haply, impious wretch, thou that didst save me To life and matricide? Give me my sword! My sword! O fury! Where am I? What is it That I have done? Who stays me? Who follows me? Ah, whither shall I fly, where hide myself?-- O father, dost thou look on me askance? Thou wouldst have blood of me, and this is blood; For thee alone--for thee alone I shed it!

_El._ Orestes, Orestes--miserable brother! He hears us not! ah, he is mad! Forever, Pylades, we must go beside him.

_Pyl._ Hard, Inevitable law of ruthless Fate!

IV

Alfieri himself wrote a critical comment on each of his tragedies, discussing their qualities and the question of their failure or success dispassionately enough. For example, he frankly says of his Maria Stuarda that it is the worst tragedy he ever wrote, and the only one that he could wish not to have written; of his Agamennone, that all the good in it came from the author and all the bad from the subject; of his Fillippo II., that it may make a very terrible impression indeed of mingled pity and horror, or that it may disgust, through the cold atrocity of Philip, even to the point of nausea. On the Orestes, we may very well consult him more at length. He declares: “This tragic action has no other motive or development, nor admits any other passion, than an implacable revenge; but the passion of revenge (though very strong by nature), having become greatly enfeebled among civilized peoples, is regarded as a vile passion, and its effects are wont to be blamed and looked upon with loathing. Nevertheless, when it is just, when the offense received is very atrocious, when the persons and the circumstances are such that no human law can indemnify the aggrieved and punish the aggressor, then revenge, under the names of war, invasion, conspiracy, the duel, and the like, ennobles itself, and so works upon our minds as not only to be endured but to be admirable and sublime.”

In his Orestes he confesses that he sees much to praise and very little to blame: “Orestes, to my thinking, is ardent in sublime degree, and this daring character of his, together with the perils he confronts, may greatly diminish in him the atrocity and coldness of a meditated revenge.... Let those who do not believe in the force of a passion for high and just revenge add to it, in the heart of Orestes, private interest, the love of power, rage at beholding his natural heritage occupied by a murderous usurper, and then they will have a sufficient reason for all his fury. Let them consider, also, the ferocious ideas in which he must have been nurtured by Strophius, king of Phocis, the persecutions which he knows to have been everywhere moved against him by the usurper,--his being, in fine, the son of Agamemnon, and greatly priding himself thereon,--and all these things will certainly account for the vindictive passion of Orestes.... Clytemnestra is very difficult to treat in this tragedy, since she must be here,

“Now wife, now mother, never wife nor mother,

“which is much easier to say in a verse than to manage in the space of five acts. Yet I believe that Clytemnestra, through the terrible remorse she feels, the vile treatment which she receives from Aegisthus, and the awful perplexity in which she lives ... will be considered sufficiently punished by the spectator. Aegisthus is never able to elevate his soul; ... he will always be an unpleasing, vile, and difficult personage to manage well; a character that brings small praise to the author when made sufferable, and much blame if not made so.... I believe the fourth and fifth acts would produce the highest effect on the stage if well represented. In the fifth, there is a movement, a brevity, a rapidly operating heat, that ought to touch, agitate, and singularly surprise the spirit. So it seems to me, but perhaps it is not so.”

This analysis is not only very amusing for the candor with which Alfieri praises himself, but it is also remarkable for the justice with which the praise is given, and the strong, conscious hold which it shows him to have had upon his creations. It leaves one very little to add, but I cannot help saying that I think the management of Clytemnestra especially admirable throughout. She loves Aegisthus with the fatal passion which no scorn or cruelty on his part can quench; but while he is in power and triumphant, her heart turns tenderly to her hapless children, whom she abhors as soon as his calamity comes; then she has no thought but to save him. She can join her children in hating the murder which she has herself done on Agamemnon, but she cannot avenge it on Aegisthus, and thus expiate her crime in their eyes. Aegisthus is never able to conceive of the unselfishness of her love; he believes her ready to betray him when danger threatens and to shield herself behind him from the anger of the Argives; it is a deep knowledge of human nature that makes him interpose the memory of her unatoned-for crime between her and any purpose of good.

Orestes always sees his revenge as something sacred, and that is a great scene in which he offers his dagger to Clytemnestra and bids her kill Aegisthus with it, believing for the instant that even she must exult to share his vengeance. His feeling towards Aegisthus never changes; it is not revolting to the spectator, since Orestes is so absolutely unconscious of wrong in putting him to death. He shows his blood-stained sword to Pylades with a real sorrow that his friend should not also have enjoyed the rapture of killing the usurper. His story of his escape on the night of Agamemnon's murder is as simple and grand in movement as that of figures in an antique bas-relief. Here and elsewhere one feels how Alfieri does not paint, but sculptures his scenes and persons, cuts their outlines deep, and strongly carves their attitudes and expression.

Electra is the worthy sister of Orestes, and the family likeness between them is sharply traced. She has all his faith in the sacredness of his purpose, while she has, woman-like, a far keener and more specific hatred of Aegisthus. The ferocity of her exultation when Clytemnestra and Aegisthus upbraid each other is terrible, but the picture she draws for Orestes of their mother's life is touched with an exquisite filial pity. She seems to me studied with marvelous success.

The close of the tragedy is full of fire and life, yet never wanting in a sort of lofty, austere grace, that lapses at last into a truly statuesque despair. Orestes mad, with Electra and Pylades on either side: it is the attitude and gesture of Greek sculpture, a group forever fixed in the imperishable sorrow of stone.

In reading Alfieri, I am always struck with what I may call the narrowness of his tragedies. They have height and depth, but not breadth. The range of sentiment is as limited in any one of them as the range of phrase in this Orestes, where the recurrence of the same epithets, horrible, bloody, terrible, fatal, awful, is not apparently felt by the poet as monotonous. Four or five persons, each representing a purpose or a passion, occupy the scene, and obviously contribute by every word and deed to the advancement of the tragic action; and this narrowness and rigidity of intent would be intolerable, if the tragedies were not so brief: I do not think any of them is much longer than a single act of one of Shakespeare's plays. They are in all other ways equally unlike Shakespeare's plays. When you read Macbeth or Hamlet, you find yourself in a world where the interests and passions are complex and divided against themselves, as they are here and now. The action progresses fitfully, as events do in life; it is promoted by the things that seem to retard it; and it includes long stretches of time and many places. When you read Orestes, you find yourself attendant upon an imminent calamity, which nothing can avert or delay. In a solitude like that of dreams, those hapless phantasms, dark types of remorse, of cruel ambition, of inexorable revenge, move swiftly on the fatal end. They do not grow or develop on the imagination; their character is stamped at once, and they have but to act it out. There is no lingering upon episodes, no digressions, no reliefs. They cannot stir from that spot where they are doomed to expiate or consummate their crimes; one little day is given them, and then all is over.

Mr. Lowell, in his essay on Dryden, speaks of “a style of poetry whose great excellence was that it was in perfect sympathy with the genius of the people among whom it came into being”, and this I conceive to be the virtue of the Alferian poetry. The Italians love beauty of form, and we Goths love picturesque effect; and Alfieri has little or none of the kind of excellence which we enjoy. But while

I look and own myself a happy Goth,

I have moods, in the presence of his simplicity and severity, when I feel that he and all the classicists may be right. When I see how much he achieves with his sparing phrase, his sparsely populated scene, his narrow plot and angular design, when I find him perfectly sufficient in expression and entirely adequate in suggestion, the Classic alone appears elegant and true--till I read Shakespeare again; or till I turn to Nature, whom I do not find sparing or severe, but full of variety and change and relief, and yet having a sort of elegance and truth of her own.

In the treatment of historical subjects Alfieri allowed himself every freedom. He makes Lorenzo de' Medici, a brutal and very insolent tyrant, a tyrant after the high Roman fashion, a tyrant almost after the fashion of the late Edwin Forrest. Yet there are some good passages in the Congiura dei Pazzi, of the peculiarly hard Alfierian sort:

An enemy insulted and not slain! What breast in triple iron armed, but needs Must tremble at him?

is a saying of Giuliano de' Medici, who, when asked if he does not fear one of the conspirators, puts the whole political wisdom of the sixteenth century into his answer,--

Being feared, I fear.

The Filippo of Alfieri must always have an interest for English readers because of its chance relation to Keats, who, sick to death of consumption, bought a copy of Alfieri when on his way to Rome. As Mr. Lowell relates in his sketch of the poet's life, the dying man opened the book at the second page, and read the lines--perhaps the tenderest that Alfieri ever wrote--

Misero me! sollievo a me non resta Altro che il pianto, e il pianto è delitto!

Keats read these words, and then laid down the book and opened it no more. The closing scene of the fourth act of this tragedy can well be studied as a striking example of Alfieri's power of condensation.

Some of the non-political tragedies of Alfieri are still played; Ristori has played his Mirra, and Salvini his Saul; but I believe there is now no Italian critic who praises him so entirely as Giudici