CHAPTER XII.

_ÆSCHYLUS._

Life of Æschylus.--Nature of his Inspiration.--The Theory of Art in the _Ion_ of Plato.--Æschylus and Sophocles.--What Æschylus accomplished for the Attic Drama.--His Demiurgic Genius.--Colossal Scale of his Work.--Marlowe.--Oriental Imagery.--Absence of Love as a Motive in his Plays.--The Organic Vitality of his Art.--Opening Scenes.--Messenger.--Chorus.--His Theology.--Destiny in Æschylus.--The Domestic Curse.--His Character-drawing.--Clytemnestra.--Difficulty of Dealing with the _Prometheus_.--What was his Fault?--How was Zeus justified?--Shelley's Opinion.--The Last Trilogy of _Prometheus_.--Middle Plays in Trilogies.--Attempt to Reconstruct a _Prometheis_.--The Part of Herakles.--Obscurity of the Promethean Legend.--The Free Handling of Myths Permitted to the Dramatist.--The _Oresteia_.--Its Subject.--The Structure of the Three Plays.--The _Agamemnon_.---Its Imagery.--Cassandra.--The Cry of the King.--The Chorus.--Iphigeneia at the Altar.--Menelaus abandoned by Helen.--The Dead Soldiers on the Plains of Troy.--The _Persæ_.--The Crime of Xerxes.--Irony of the Situation.--Description of the Battle of Salamis.--The Style of Æschylus.--His Religious Feeling 372