v. 133-5

And again--

"Then another deed devised Achilles, godlike, swift of foot; Stationed sad behind the pyre he dipt his locks of yellow hair, Which, luxuriant shed, he cherished to Spercheius' flowing stream." v. 140-3.

Compare the beautiful passage on the Greek mythology in Wordsworth's Excursion, Book IV.

Note 3 (p. 99). "O Jove, be thou mine aid."

Of the high functions which belong to the supreme god of the Greeks, that of _avenger_ is not the least notable, and is alluded to with special frequency in the Odyssey, of which poem, _retribution in this life for wicked works_ is the great moral--whence the frequent line--

ἀι κε πόθι Ζεὺς δῶσι παλίντιτα ἔργα γενέσθαι.

Note 4 (p. 99). "And my cheeks, that herald sorrow."

"As these violent manifestations of grief were forbidden by Solon (Plut. 21), we are to look upon them in this place as peculiarly characteristic of the foreign captive maidens who compose the chorus"--KL.; though the epithet of ἄμφιδρυφὴς ἄλοχος applied to the wife of Protesilaus by Homer (Il. ii. 700, xi. 393), shows that, in the heroic times, at least, the expression of sorrow was almost as violent on the west as on the east side of the Hellespont.

Note 5 (p. 101). "And now fear rules."

φοβεῖτας δέ τις. "_People are afraid, and dare not speak out_"--PEILE. abruptness of this passage renders it difficult to see the allusion. PALEY {359} gives it quite a different turn. "_Sunt qui ob commissi sceleris quo adepti sint magnam fortunam_ (το ἐυτυχ(ε)ίν) _conscientiam torqueantur._" But I do not think that this rendering agrees so well with the words that follow. The thought seems to be--_the world judges by results; and men are content, even in fear, to obey a usurper, who shows his right by his success._ This brings out a beautiful contrast to the σέβας, or feeling of loyal reverence that filled the public mind towards Agamemnon, who is alluded to in the first words of the Antistrophe.

Note 6 (p. 101). "So filthy hands with blood bedabbled."

I do not see why WELL. and KL. should object to πόροι being taken, as the Scholiast hints, for an equivalent to ποταμοὶ. The word simply means "_channels_," and in the present connection of purification would naturally explain itself to a Greek ear, as _channels of water_. KL.'s rendering of πόρος, _ratio expiandae caedis_, has no merit but being unpoetical. The ἰοῦσαν ἄτην holds concealed some hopeless blunder; but for the need the κλύσειαν άν μάτην of FR. may be adopted.

Note 7 (p. 101). "What the masters of my fate In their strength decree."

"There is a proverb, Δ(ο)υλε δεσποτῶν ἄκουε καὶ δίκαια καὶ αδικα. _Slave hear thy master whether right or wrong_."--SCHOLIAST.

Note 8 (p. 101). ". . . beneath the veil."

ὑφ (ε)ιμάτων. STAN. quotes the beautiful picture of Telemachus (Odyssey IV. 114), endeavouring to conceal his filial sorrow from the eyes of Menelaus at Sparta--

"From his eye the tear-drop fell when he heard his father's name, And with both his hands before his eyes he held the purple cloak."

Note 9 (p. 102). ". . . libations pure, Poured on my father's tomb."

These libations are described in various passages of the Classics, of which the following may suffice:--

"Then to all the dead I poured libations, first with honied milk, Then with sweetest wine, and then with water, and I strewed the grains Of whitest meal."--ODYSSEY XI. 26.

"Go, my Hermione, without the door, And these libations take, and take my hair, And, standing over Clytemnestra's tomb, Milk-mingled honey and the winy foam Pour, and thus speak."--EURIP., OREST. 112.

"And with the due libation's triple flow She crowns the corpse."--SOPH. ANTIG., 429.

The χοᾶισι πρισπόνδαισι, being the _wine_, _water_, and _milk_, particularised in the above extract from Homer. Compare Virgil's Æn. V. 78, and St. Augustine's Confessions vi. 2, with regard to his mother's offering at the tombs of the martyrs--_pultes et panem et merum_.

Note 10 (p. 102). ". . . as who throws lustral ashes."

καθάρματα. "Ashes of lustral offerings"--PEILE. "Alluding to the custom of the Athenians, who, after purifying their houses with incense in an earthen vessel, threw the vessel into the streets, and retired with averted eyes."--SCHOLIAST.

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Note 11 (p. 102). "What other quittance to a foe Than hate repaid with hate, and blow with blow?"

Why not? πῶς δ᾽ ου; how should it be otherwise? Observe, here, how far the Christian rule, _love thine enemies_, was from the Heathen mind. It is very far yet from our practice; though it is difficult to over-estimate the value of having such ideal moral maxims as those of the New Testament to refer to as a generally recognized standard.

Note 12 (p. 103). "Hermes, that swayest underneath the ground."

All the recent editors agree in bringing up the line--

κήρυξ μέγιστε των άνω τε καὶ κάτω,

from v. 162 to this place, where the initial words are plainly wanting. "Hermes is invoked here as the great mediator between the living and the dead."--KL. "_Herald me in this_"--κηύξας ᾽εμοι--_perform a herald's function to me in this;_ the verb chosen with special reference to the name κήρυξ, according to the common practice of the Greek writers. In the second line below, I can have no hesitation in adopting STAN.'s emendation of ὸωμάτων for ομμάτων. AHRENS (in FR.) has tried to make the passage more pregnant by reading ἁιμάτων, but this scarcely seems such an obvious emendation.

Note 13 (p. 103). "These words of evil imprecation dire."

This is said to avoid the bad omen of mingling a curse with a blessing. The ancients were very scrupulous as to the use of evil words in religious services, and, when such were either necessary, or had accidentally crept in, they always made a formal apology. This I have expressed more largely than my text warrants in the next line, where I follow SCHÜTZ in reading καλῆς for κακῆς; a correction which, though not absolutely necessary, is sufficiently plausible to justify BLOM., SCHOL., and PAL. in their adoption of it.

Note 14 (p. 103).

_Chorus_. This chorus seems hopelessly botched in the first half, and all the attempts to mend it are more or less unsatisfactory. If any one think "plashing torrents" a strong phrase, he must know that it is no stronger than καναχὲς in the original, a word familiar to every student of Homer. The ἐρυμα (or ἐρμα--HERM.), I agree with every interpreter, except Klausen, in applying to the tomb of Agamemnon; of the κακῶν κεδνῶν τε, I can make nothing, beyond incorporating the Scholiast's gloss, ἀπότροπον των ἠμετέρων κακῶν.

Note 15 (p. 104).

_Electra_. The reader will find in POT. a somewhat amplified translation of the line here--

κήρυξ μεγιστε των άνω τε καὶ κάτω,

mentioned above as having been thrown back by Hermann to the commencement of Electra's address over the tomb of her father, immediately preceding the short choral ode. It is literally translated by E. P., Oxon.--

"O mightiest herald of the powers above and below,"

but comes in quite awkwardly, and manifestly out of place.

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Note 16 (p. 104). ". . . a low-zoned maid's."

βαθυζώνου. "High-bosomed," POTTER; "hochgeschürzt," DROYSEN; "deep-bosomed," E. P., Oxon.; "Weib im Festgewand," FRANZ. Not having a distinct idea of what is meant by this epithet, I have contented myself with a literal rendering.

Note 17 (p. 104). "If it was dipt From head in Argos, it should be my own."

This passage has given great trouble to commentators, who cannot see how Electra should say that no person but herself could have owned this lock, which yet she knew was not her own. They have, accordingly, at least LIN., PEILE, and PAL., adopted DOBREES' emendation of ἑνος (one person, _i.e._, _Orestes_), instead of ἐμου, mine, which, though ingenious, does not appear to me at all necessary. Electra means to say, _nobody here could have done it but me; and yet it is not mine_ (this implied); _therefore, of course, the conclusion to be made is clear,_ ἐυξύμβολον τὸδ ἐστι δοξάσαι, _it must have been Orestes!_

Note 18 (p. 105). ". . . But lo! a further proof."

Imagine such evidence produced as a step in the chain of circumstantial evidence before a court of justice! Even the perturbed state of Electra's mind may not redeem it from the charge of being grossly ludicrous. WELL. and FR., with that solemn conscientious gravity for which the Germans are notable, have, however, taken it under their wing, followed here, strangely enough, by PEILE. If the circumstance is to be defended at all, we had better suppose that Æschylus has given the details of the recognition exactly as he had received them from the old popular legend in the mouth of some story-teller. But why should not the father of tragedy, as well as the father of Epos, sometimes nod?

Note 19 (p. 105). "Pray that fair end may fair beginning follow."

This seems to have been a sort of proverbial prayer among the Greeks, used for the sake of a good omen, as we find Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 57 above), saying the same thing.

῏Ευ γὰρ πρὸς ἐυ φαν(ε)ισι προσθήκη πελοι. v. 486.

Note 20 (p. 106). ". . . behold this web."

"The ladies, in the simplicity of ancient times, valued themselves much, and, indeed, were highly esteemed, for their skill in embroidery; those rich wrought vests made great part of the wealth of noble houses. Andromache, Helen, and Penelope, were celebrated for their fine work, of which Minerva herself was the patroness, and Dido was as excellent as the best of them."--POT. The student will recall a familiar instance from Virgil--

"Munera praetrea Iliacis erepta ruinis Ferre jubet; pallam signis auroque rigentem Et circumtextum croceo velamen acantho Ornatus Argivae Helenæ."--ÆNEID I. 651.

evidently modelled on Odys. xix. 225.

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Note 21 (p. 106). "May Power and Justice aid thee, mighty Twain."

The reader will note this theological triad as very characteristic of the Greeks. POWER (Κράτος) is coupled with Jove, as being his most peculiar physical attribute. Personified, this attribute appears in the Prometheus; and in Homer,

"Jove, the lofty-pealing Thunderer, and in power the chiefest god,"

answers to the opening words of our own solemn addresses to the Supreme Being--ALMIGHTY GOD. JUSTICE, again, belongs to Jove as the highest moral attribute; and this conjunction we find also very distinctly expressed in Homer.

"By Olympian Jove I charge you, and by Themis who presides O'er the assemblies of the people."--ODYSSEY II. 68.

Note 22 (p. 107). ". . . exasperate at the loss Of my so fair possessions."

ἀποχρημάτοισι ζημιάις ταυρόυμενον. KL. has made sad havoc of this line; but his objections to the old translation are weak, and his transpositions, so far as I can see, only make confusion more confounded. I stick by STAN. Ἀποχρήματος ζημιά est _damnum bonorum omnium_. Huc facit illud quod sequitur v. 299. και προσπιέζει χρημάτων ἀχηνία.

Note 23 (p. 107). ". . . The evil-minded Powers Beneath the Earth."

I am quite at a loss to explain the original of this passage further than that I see nothing harsh (as LIN. does) in referring the general term δυσφρόνων to the Furies, who are specially mentioned afterwards. It is quite common with Æschylus to give a general description first, and then specialise; and, moreover, in the present instance the λιχήνος which the δυσφρονες are to send on the flesh of the sinner, are strictly analogous to the λιχὴν ἀφυλλος (Eumen. v. 788), with which, in the Eumenides, they threaten to curse the Athenian soil. For the rest I should have little objection, in the present state of the MSS., to adopt LOBECK's suggestion, μηνίματα, into the text, and have in effect so translated.

Note 24 (p. 107). "And through the dark his prescient eyebrow arched."

The reference of this impracticable line to Apollo comes from Pauw, and has been adopted by SCHWENCK, who reads--

'Ορῶν τε λαμπρὸν ὲν σκότῳ τ᾽ ᾽οφρὺν.

Another way of squeezing a meaning from the line is to refer it to Agamemnon--

"With trains of heavier woes Raised by the Furies from my father's blood, Who in the realms of night sees this, and bends His gloomy brows."--POT.

The other translations proposed are meagre and unpoetical.

Note 25 (p. 107). ". . . him no share In festal cup awaits, or hallowed drop Of pure libation."

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Here we have a notable example of the terms of that sort of excommunication which the religious and social feeling of the ancients passed against the perpetrators of atrocious crimes. See Introductory Remarks to the Eumenides.

Note 26 (p. 108). "Age to age with hoary wisdom Speaketh thus to men."

The old Jewish maxim of _an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth_, will here recur to every one; and, indeed, it is, to the present day, an instinctive dictate of social justice, however insufficient it may be as a general motive for individual conduct. In this spirit, wise old Nestor, in the Iliad (II. 354), considers that it would be disgraceful for the Greeks to think of returning home "before some Greek had slept with the wife of some Trojan," as a retaliation for the woes that Paris had inflicted on Greek social life, in the matter of Helen. In Dante's Inferno there are many instances, sometimes ingenious, sometimes only ridiculous, of the application of this principle to retributive punishment in a future life.

Note 27 (p. 108). "There where in dark, the dead-man's day, thou liest."

KL. appears to me to have supplied the true key to σκότω φάος ἰσόμοιρον, by comparing the exclamation of Ajax in Sophocles, v. 394--

Ιὼ σκότος ἐμὸν φάος ἔρεβος ὠ φαεννότατον ὡς εμόι!

The gloomy state of the dead in Hades is pictured yet more darkly, by saying that the night, which covers them, is all that serves them for day.

Note 28 (p. 109). "The monarch of the awful dead."

The Hades of the ancients was, as is well remarked by KL. on this place, in all things an image of this upper world; an observation to be made on the surface of Virgil--

"Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit viris, quæ cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos." ÆNEID VI. 653.

But the parallel most striking to the present passage occurs in the address of Ulysses to Achilles, Odyssey XI. 482--

"Achilles, Never man before was happier, nor shall ever be, than thou; When thou wert among the living all the Argives honoured thee Like a god, and now amid the dead thou sway'st with mighty power."

To which address the hero gave the well-known reply, a reply characteristic at once of his own tremendous energy, and of the Greek views of a future state:--

"Noble Ulysses, praise me not the state of death; for I would rather Be a serf, and break the clods to him that owneth acres few On Earth, than reign the mighty lord of millions of the shadowy dead."

Note 29 (p. 110). "Hyperborean bliss."

"Fair birds have fair feathers;" so the Greeks, who had sent no voyages of discovery to the Arctic seas, were free, without contradiction, to place Utopia at the North Pole. (See Herodot. III. 106, quoted by _Nitzsh_ in his comments on the Phœacians, Od. VII. 201-6.) SCHÜTZ quotes POMP. MELA. III. 5--"_diutius quam ulli mortalium et beatius vivunt._" Some of {364} these Hyperboreans drank nothing but milk (γαλακτοφάγοι, Hom. Il. XIII. 6), and from this practice the alleged purity of their manners, according to certain modern theories of dietetics, may have arisen.

Note 30 (p. 110). "O Jove, O Jove! that sendest from below."

"Zeus, though his proper region is above, yet, by reason of his perfect concord with his brother in the moral government of the world, exercises authority also in Hades"--KL. This is one of the many instances to be found in Homer and Æschylus of the Monotheistic principle of an enlightened Deism controlling and overruling the apparent confusion and anarchy of Polytheism.

Note 31 (p. 111). "Ye that honoured reign below."

What the true reading of the corrupt original here is, no one can know; but it may be some satisfaction to the student to note that the different readings of all the emendators bring out substantially the same sense. I give the various translations as follows:--

_You, whose dreaded power_ _The infernal realms revere, ye Furies, hear me!_--POT.

O ye powers that are honoured among the dead, listen to my prayer.--E. P., Oxon.

Höret ihr Herrscher der Tiefe, hört mich.--DROY. Höret mich Erd, und des Abgrund's mächte!--FR.

Neither this "Earth," nor my "Furies," can be looked on as part of the text. They are only put in to fill up a gap, where nothing better can be done.

Note 32 (p. 111). "And if blithe confidence awhile."

This passage is desperate. I follow PEILE in the translation; though, if I were editing the Greek, I should prefer to follow WELL. and PAL. in doing nothing.

Note 33 (p. 111). "The mother gave her child This wolfish nature wild."

This translation, which is supported by PEILE, and PAL., and LIN., seems to me to give θυμὸς that reference to Orestes which connects it best with the previous lines, while it, at the same time, gives the least forced explanation of ἐκ μάτρος.

Note 34 (p. 112). "Like a Persian mourner."

The student will find a very remarkable difference between this version and that in POT. and E. P. Oxon., arising from the conversion of the word πολεμιστρίας into ἰηλεμιστρίας, a conjectural emendation which we owe to HERMANN and AHRENS, and which appears to me to be one of the most satisfactory that has ever been made on the text of Æschylus. It has, accordingly, been adopted by KL., PEILE, PAL., FR., and DROY. The oriental wailers were famous, and the "Maryandine and Mysian wailers" are especially mentioned by our poet in the final chorus of "the Persians;" which will be the best commentary on the exaggerated tone of the present passage. I have followed the recent German editors and translators in giving the first part of this Strophe to the Chorus. There seems to be a natural division at the words Ἰὼ, Ἰὼ δαία.

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Note 35 (p. 112).

_Orestes_. WELL. has certainly made a great oversight in running on continuously with these two Strophes. However the division be made, a new person must commence with Αέγεις πατρώϊον μόρον.

Note 36 (p. 113).

_Chorus_. Here again I follow the later editors and translators in dividing the part given to the Chorus by WELL. There is a sort of natural partition of the style and sentiment palpable to any reader. It may also be remarked in general, that the broken and exclamatory style of the lamentation in this Chorus is quite incompatible with long continuous speeches (such as POT. has given), out of one mouth. The order of persons I give as in PEILE.

Note 37 (p. 114). "Scathless myself."

φυγεῖν. FR. has unnecessarily changed this into τυχεῖν. In Odyssey XX. 43, Ulysses uses the same language to Athena.

Note 38 (p. 114). "Thou too shalt taste."

That the dead were believed actually to eat the meat and drink that was prepared for them at the funeral feast is evident from the eleventh book of the Odyssey, where they come up in fluttering swarms and sip the pool of blood from the victim which he had sacrificed.

Note 39 (p. 115). "Well spoken both."

With KL., PEILE, FR., and PAL., I adopt Hermann's emendation--

κὰι μὴν ἀμεμφῆ τον δ ἐτείνατον λόγον.

and with him give the four lines to the Chorus. A very obvious and natural sense is thus brought out, besides that καὶ μὴν naturally indicates a change of person.

Note 40 (p. 115). ". . . try what speed the gods may give thee."

δαίμονος πειρῶμενος. Literally _trying your god_--the dependence of fortune upon God being a truth so vividly before the Greek mind that the term δαίμων came to be used for both in a manner quite foreign to the use of the English language, and which can only be fully expressed by giving both the elements of the word in a sort of paraphrase.

Note 41 (p. 116). ". . . this whole house with ills Is sheer possessed."

δαὶμονᾷ δόμος κακοῖς. Literally, "the house is _godded_ with ills," that is, so beset with evil that we can attribute it only to a special superhuman power--to a god, as the Greeks expressed it, to the devil, as we say.

Note 42 (p. 116). ". . . Sirs, why dare ye shut Inhospitable doors against the stranger?"

To shut the door upon a stranger or a beggar, seems, in Homer's days, to have been accounted as great a sin, as it is now, from change of circumstances, necessarily looked on as almost a virtue. Every book of the Odyssey has some testimony to this; suffice it to quote the maxim--

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"προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντες ξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε."

"ALL STRANGERS AND BEGGARS COME FROM JOVE."

Note 43 (p. 116). "The third and crowning cup."

"Alluding first to the slaughter of the children of Thyestes by Atreus, then to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and thirdly, that of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus presently to take place."--KL.

Note 44 (p. 116). ". . . his present aid I ask. Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task."

I am inclined with SCHÜTZ, KL., and PEILE, to think that there is more propriety in referring this to Apollo than to Pylades. It is true, also, as SCHÜTZ remarks, that Æschylus generally, if not invariably, applies the word ἐποπτεύω to the notice taken of anything by a god.

Note 45 (p. 117). "Earth breeds a fearful progeny."

The sentiment of this chorus was familiar to the ancients, and was suggested with peculiar force to the minds of the tragedians, from the contemplation of those terrible deeds of old traditionary crime, which so often formed the subject of their most popular and most powerful efforts. Sophocles had a famous chorus in the Antigone, beginning in the same strain, though ranging over a wider and a more ennobling field--"πολλὰ τα δεινὰ κ᾽ ουδὲν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει."

"Things of might hath Nature many In her various plan, But of daring powers who dareth Most on Earth is man."

In imitation of which, the

"Audax omnia perpeti Gens humana ruit in vetitum nefas"

of Horace has become proverbial. In modern times, the pages of the _Times_ newspaper will supply more ample and various illustrations of the same great truth than the most learned ancient could have collected. In England especially, the strong nature of the Saxon shows something Titanic, both in feats of mechanical enterprise and in crime.

Note 46 (p. 117). "All-venturing woman's dreadful ire."

KL. quotes here the Homeric

ὡς ὀυκ ἀινότερον και κύντερον ἀλλο γυναικὸς. "Woman like a dog unblushing deeds of terrible name will do."

So a friend who was in Paris, at the time of the Revolution in 1848, wrote to me--"With the men I can easily manage, but _the women are tigers._"

Note 47 (p. 117). "Thestios' daughter, wild with rage."

Althea, the mother of the famous Calydonian boar-hunter, Meleager, who is so often seen on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. "When Meleager was seven days old, it is said the Fates appeared, declaring that the boy would die, as soon as the piece of wood that was burning on the hearth should be consumed. When Althea heard this, she extinguished the firebrand, and concealed it in a chest. Meleager himself became invulnerable; {367} but when--in the war between the Calydonians and the Curetes--he had unfortunately killed his mother's brother, she lighted the piece of wood, and Meleager died."--_Dict. Biog._

Note 48 (p. 117). "How Scylla, gay, in gold arrayed."

The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who, when Minos, in his expedition against Athens, took Megara, betrayed the city to the enemy, by cutting off the purple or golden hair which grew on the top of her father's head, and on which his life and the preservation of the city depended.--_Dict. Biog._; _voce_ NISUS, and Virgil Georg. I. 404, and Ovid. Met VIII. 90, quoted here by STAN.

Note 49 (p. 118). "O woman! woman! Lemnos saw."

The Lemnian women, as Apollodorus relates (I. 9, 17), having neglected to pay due honor to Venus, were, by that goddess, made so ill-favoured and intolerable to consort with (ἀυταῖς ἐμβάλλη δοσοσμίαν), that their husbands, abandoning them, took themselves other wives from among the captive women that they had brought over from Thrace. The Lemnian women, in revenge, murdered both their fathers and their husbands; from which atrocious act, and another bloody deed mentioned by Herodotus (VI. 138), "it hath been the custom," says the historian, "to call by the name Lemnian any monstrous and inhuman action."

Note 50 (p. 118). "And honor from the threshold hies, On which the doom god-spoken lies."

We are not always sufficiently alive to the deep moral power which lay concealed beneath the harlequin dress of the old Greek Polytheism. What Æschylus puts into the mouth of a theatrical chorus in sounding rhythm, Xenophon, in plain prose, teaches from the mouth of a Greek captain thus--"Whosoever violates an oath to which the gods are witness, him I can never be brought to look on as a happy man. For, when the gods are once hostile, no one can escape their anger--not by hiding himself in darkness--not by fencing himself within a strong place. For all things are subject to the gods."--_Anab_. II. 5. Think on some of the Psalms!

Note 51 (p. 119). "But nice regard for the fine feeling ear."

I have here with a certain freedom of version expressed KL.'s idea, that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is "inept" to believe, with BL. and PEILE, that we have here merely an instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public--as Achilles says, in Euripides--

ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους. "For me to hold exchange of words with women Were most improper."--IPHIG. AULID. 830.

Note 52 (p. 119). "Hot baths."

To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a fact, however, as KL. well notes, that of nothing is there more frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially frequent in the Odyssey, {368} where so many journeys are made. Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet records with pleasure how "out of the bath he came in appearance like to the immortal gods" (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.

Note 53 (p. 119).

_Electra_. WELL. is very imperative in taking these words out of Electra's mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.

Note 54 (p. 120). "Is audited at nothing."

The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. 'Tis certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be referred to Clytemnestra.

Note 55 (p. 120). ". . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!"

The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line) peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings--

"Te boves olim nisi reddidisses Per dolum amotas puerum minaci Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra Risit Apollo."

Note 56 (p. 120). "The nightly courier of the dead."

τὸν νύχιον. That there is a great propriety in the epithet _nightly_, as applied to Mercury, both in respect of his general function as πομπᾶιος, or leader of the dead through the realms of night, and in respect of the particular business now in hand, and the particular time of the action, is obvious. In spite of some grammatical objections, therefore, I cannot but think it far-fetched in BLOM. and PEILE to refer the epithet to Orestes. Were I editing the text I should be very much inclined to follow HERM. and PAL. in putting καὶ τὸν νύχιον within brackets, as perhaps a gloss.

Note 57 (p. 122). "The bearer of a tale can make it wear What face he pleases."

I translate thus generally, in order to avoid the necessity of settling the point whether κυπτὸς or κρυπτὸς is the proper reading--a point, however, of little consequence to the translator of Æschylus, as the Venetian Scholiast to Il. O. 207 has been triumphantly brought forward to prove the real meaning of this otherwise corrupt and unintelligible verse. POT. was not in a condition to get hold of the true text--so he has given the best version he could of what he had--

"_For the mind catches from the messenger_ _A secret elevation and bold swell,_"

evidently from the reading of PAW.--

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ἐν ὰγγελῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὠρθωθῃ φρενὶ _animo enim clam erigatur nuntio isto._

--See BUTLER's Notes.

Note 58 (p. 122).

CHORAL HYMN. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chiefly PEILE and LIN.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I follow PEILE.

Note 59 (p. 125). "Let's go aside, the deed being done, that we Seem not partakers of the bloody work."

'Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly; but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur.

Note 60 (p. 126). "I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die."

Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing. Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in battle--

"Not to his parents The nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid." --IL. IV. 478.

"In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his mother."--KLAUSEN.

Note 61 (p. 126). "Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber."

"Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee; Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the order Each to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrows To the men and to me--for the man in the house is the master." ODYSSEY XXI. 350.

So Telemachus says to his mother; and on other occasions he uses what we should think, rather sharp and undutiful language--but in Greece a woman who left the woman's chamber without a special and exceptional call {370} subjected herself to just rebuke. With regard to the matter here at issue between Orestes and Clytemnestra, KL. notes that, though the wandering Ulysses is allowed without blame to form an amorous alliance with Calypso, the same excuse is not allowed for the female sitting quietly in her "upper chamber" (ὑπερώιον, Il. II. 514) as Homer has it. For "in ancient times," says the Scholiast to that passage, "the Greeks shut up their women in garrets (ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι) _that they might be difficult to get at_."--How Turkish!

Note 62 (p. 126).

_Orestes_. I have little doubt that KL., PEILE, FR., WELL., and PAL., are right in giving the line ἦ κάρτα μάντις to Orestes. I should be inclined to agree with WELL. and PAL. also, that after this line a verse has dropt out--"_in quo instantem sibi mortem deprecata sit Clytemnestra;_" but there is no need of indicating the supposed blank in the translation, as the sense runs on smoothly enough without it.

Note 63 (p. 127). ". . . the eye of this great house, may live."

An Oriental expression, to which the magnificent phraseology of our Celestial brother who sells tea, has made the English ear sufficiently familiar. He calls our king, or our consul, I forget which, "the Barbarian eye." Other examples of this style occur in the Persians and the Eumenides.--See p. 172 above.

Note 64 (p. 127). "A pair of grim lions, a double Mars terrible."

Klausen, who, like other Germans, has a trick, sometimes, of preferring what is far-fetched to what is obvious, considers that this double Mars is the double death, first of Agamemnon in the previous piece, then of Clytemnestra in this; but notwithstanding what he says, the best comment on this passage is that given by the old Scholiast, when he writes "PYLADES and ORESTES."

Note 65 (p. 127). "Sore chastisement."

ποινὰ. AHRENS, with great boldness, changes this into Ἐρμᾶς, which reading has been rashly thrown into the text by FR. If any special allusion is needed, I agree with PAL. that Orestes is indicated, who is mentioned in the next clause as inflicting the blow, under the guidance of celestial Justice.

Note 66 (p. 127). "Her from his shrine sent the rock-throned Apollo."

In this corrupt passage I adopt HERMANN's correction of τάν περ for τάπέρ. How much the whole meaning is guesswork, the reader may see, by comparing my translation with POT. and the E. P. Oxon., in this place, who follow the old Scholiast in referring χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ to Clytemnestra.

Note 67 (p. 127). "And blithely shall welcome them Fortune the fairest."

This passage being very corrupt, is rendered freely. I adopt STAN.'s conjecture ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θ᾽ ἱεμενοις, and suppose μέτοικοι to refer to Orestes and Electra.

Note 68 (p. 128). ". . . not My father, but the Sun that fathers all With light."

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There is a certain mannerism in this description of a thing by the negation of what is similar, to which the tragedians were much addicted. As to the invocation of the sun, see the note in the Prometheus to the speech beginning

O divine ether and swift-winged winds.

Note 69 (p. 128). "Or a torpedo, that with biteless touch Strikes numb who handles."

Literally, _a lamprey_, μύραινα; but to translate so would have been ludicrous; and besides, as BLOM. has noted from Athenaeus, it was not a common lamprey that, in the imagination of the Greeks, was coupled with a viper, but "a sort of monstrous reptile begotten between a viper and a lamprey."

Note 70 (p. 128). "This cloth to wrap the dead."

'Tis difficult to say whether δρόιτη, in this place, means the bath in which Agamemnon was murdered, or the bier on which any dead body is laid after death. KL. supports this latter interpretation. I have incorporated a reference to both versions.

Note 71 (p. 129). "Others 'twixt hope and fear may sway, my fate Is fixed and scapeless."

I read--

Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ὀ)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι. PEILE.

Note 72 (p. 129). "With soft-wreathed wool, and precatory branch."

These insignia of suppliants are familiar to every reader of the Classics. I shall only recall two of the most familiar instances. In the opening scene of the Iliad the priest of Apollo appears before Agamemnon, and

"In his hand he held the chaplet of the distant-darting Phœbus On a golden rod."

And in the opening lines of the Œdipus Tyrannus, the old King asks the Chorus--

"Why swarm ye here around the seats of the gods, With branches furnished such as suppliants bear?"

Note 73 (p. 129). ". . . navel of earth, where burns the flame Of fire immortal."

As the old astronomers made Earth the centre of the planetary system, and as men are everywhere, and at all times, apt to consider their own position and point of view as of more importance in the great whole of things than it really is; so the Greeks, in their ignorant vanity, considered their own Delphi to be the navel, or central point of Earth. As to the immortal fire, STAN. quotes here from Plutarch, who, in his life of Numa (c. ix.), describing the institution of the Vestal Virgins, takes occasion to mention the sacred fire kept alive in Greece at two places, Delphi and Athens, which, if extinguished, was always rekindled from no earthly spark, but from the Sun.

Note 74 (p. 130). "There is atonement."

Ἐισιν καθαρμόι, SCHÜTZ, PAL.; (ε)᾽ σται καθαρμός, BOTHE. Either of these seems preferable to the vulgate ἐισω. FRANZ has ῟Εις σοι καθαρμὸς. _Eins bleibt Dir Sühnung._

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Note 75 (p. 130). "Ye see them not. I see them."

Ghosts and gods are never visible to the bystander, but only to the person or persons who may be under their special influence at the moment of their appearance--so in the Iliad (I. 197), Pallas Athena--

"There behind him stood, and by the yellow hair she seized Pelides, Seen to him alone; the others saw not where the goddess stood."

and so in a thousand places of the poet. To the spectator, however, in the theatre, spiritual beings must be visible, because (as Müller, Eumen. 3, properly remarks) they are the very persons from before whose eyes it is the business of the poet to remove the veil that interposes between our everyday life and the spiritual world. That the Furies of the following piece were seen bodily at this part of the present play, and are not supposed to exist merely in the brain of Orestes, is only what a decent regard for common poetical consistency on the part of a great tragic poet seems to imply.

Note 76 (p. 130). ". . . the god whose eyes in love behold thee!"

What god is not said, but the word θεός is used indefinitely without the article. The Greeks had an indefinite style when talking of the divine providence--_a god_, or _some god_, or _the god_, or _the gods_--a style which arose naturally out of the Polytheistic form of celestial government. Examples of all the different kinds of phraseology are frequent in Homer. Sometimes, in that author, the expression, though indefinite in itself, has a special allusion, plain enough from the context; and in the present passage I see no harm in supposing an allusion to Apollo, under whose immediate patronage Orestes acts through the whole of this piece and that which follows.

NOTES TO THE EUMENIDES

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Note 1 (p. 141). "Old earth, primeval prophetess, I first With these my prayers invoke; and Themis next."

Earth, or GAEA, as the Greeks name her, is described here, and in Pausanias (X. 5), as the most ancient prophetess of Delphi, for two reasons; _first_, because out of the earth came those intoxicating fumes or vapours, by the inspiration of which the oracles were given forth (see Diodorus XVI. 26); _second_, because, as SCHOEMANN well observes, GAEA, as the aboriginal divine mother, out of whose womb all the future celestial genealogies were developed, necessarily contained in herself the law of their development, and is accordingly represented by Hesiod as exercising a prophetic power with regard to the fates of the other gods.--(Theog. 463, 494, 625). The same writer remarks with equal ingenuity and truth, that Themis, her successor in the prophetic office, is only a personification of that law of development which, by necessity of her divine nature, originally lay in Gaea; and I would remark, further, how admirable the instinct was of those old mythologists, who placed LOVE and RIGHT, and other ineradicable feelings or notions of the human mind, among the very oldest of the gods. It is notable also, that previous to Apollo, all the presidents of prophecy at Delphi--including the famous Phemonoe, not mentioned here but by Pausanias l. c., were women, and even Loxias himself could not give forth oracles without the help of a Pythoness. There is a great fitness in this, as women are naturally both more pious and more emotional than men. Hence their peculiar fitness for exercising prophetic functions, of which ancient Germany was witness--(see Cæsar B.C. I. 50).

Note 2 (p. 141). ". . . rocky Delos' lake."

There can be no question that SCHÜTZ was right in translating λίμνη, in this passage, _lake_ (and not _sea_, as ABRESCH did), it being impossible that a well-informed Athenian, on hearing this passage in the theatre, should not understand the poet to refer to the circular lake in Delos, described by Herodotus in II. 170.

Note 3 (p. 141). "The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path."

_i.e._ "The Athenians"--Scholiast--"who," adds STAN., "were called the sons of Vulcan, because they were skilled in all the arts of which Vulcan and Pallas were patrons; or, because Erichthonius, from whom the Athenians were descended, was the son of Vulcan;" with which latter view Müller and Schoemann concur; and it appears to me sufficiently reasonable. There is no reason, however, for not receiving, along with this explanation, another which has been given, that the sons of the fire-god mean "smiths." Artificers of this kind were necessary to pioneer the path for the procession of the god in the manner here described, and would naturally form, at least, a part of the convoy.

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Note 4 (p. 141). ". . . Loxias, prophet of his father Jove."

'Tis plain from the whole language of Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, that the fountain of the whole moral government of the world is Jove, and, of course, that all divination and inspiration comes originally from him. Even Phœbus Apollo acts only as his instrument (Nägelsbach Homerische Theologie, p. 105). STAN. compares Virgil Æneid III. 250.

Note 5 (p. 141). ". . . thee, likewise, who 'fore this temple dwellest."

The reading προνάια (or προνᾴα), which I translate, is that of WELL. and all the MSS.; but LIN. has put πρόνοια, _providential_ or _foreseeing_, into the text, following out a criticism of Lennep on Phalaris, which has been stoutly defended by Hermann, in his remarks on Müller's Eumenides (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 17). This, however, in the face of an express passage of Herodotus (I. 92), as PAL. well observes, has been done rashly; and now FR. and SCHOE. bring forward inscriptions which prove that there is not the slightest cause for tampering with the text. I have not been able to learn the substance of Lennep's remarks otherwise than from the account of them by Müller in the Anhang, p. 14; but, taken at their highest value, they seem only to prove that a vagueness had taken hold of the ancients themselves in respect to the designation of this temple, not certainly that Æschylus and Herodotus both made a mistake in calling it προνᾴα, or that all the transcribers of their texts made a blunder.

Note 6 (p. 141). ". . . ye Nymphs that love The hollow Corycian rock."

"From Delphi, which lies pretty high, the traveller ascended about 60 stadia, or two hours' travel, till he arrived at the Corycian cave, dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs, in which there were many stalactites and live fountains."--SICKLER. _alte geog_. II. 134.

Note 7 (p. 141). "Thee, Bromius, too, I worship."

Bacchus, so called from βρέμω, _fremo_--the roaring or boisterous god. His connection with Apollo (though drinking songs are not so common now as they were last century) is obvious enough; and some places of the ancient poets where the close connection of these two gods is described, may be seen in STAN. The Scholiast to Euripides Phœnissai (v. 227, Matthiae) says expressly that Apollo and Artemis were worshipped on the one peak of Parnassus, and Bacchus on the other.

Note 8 (p. 141). ". . . the godless Pentheus."

"A son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus. He was the successor of Cadmus as king of Thebes, and being opposed to the introduction of the worship of Dionysus in his kingdom, was torn to pieces by his own mother and two other Mænads, Ino and Autonoe, who in their Bacchic frenzy believed him to be a wild beast. The place where Pentheus suffered death is said to have been Mount Cithæron; but, according to some, it was Mount Parnassus."--_Myth. Dict._

Note 9 (p. 141). "Poseidon's mighty power."

Next to Jove, Poseidon is the strongest of the gods, as the element which he rules demands; and this strength, in works of art, is generally {375} indicated by the breadth of chest given to this god. So Homer, also, wishing to magnify Agamemnon, says--

"Like to Jove that rules the thunder were his kingly head and eyes; Belted round the loins like Ares; like Poseidon was his breast." IL. II. 478.

The connection of the god of the waters with Delphi is given by Pausanias x. 5, where it is said, that originally Poseidon possessed the oracle in common with Gaea; a legend easily explained by the fact, that all high mountains necessarily produce copious streams of water of which, no less than of the waves of ocean, Poseidon is lord.

Note 10 (p. 142). "A gray-haired woman, weaker than a child."

STAN. refers here to the account given by Diodorus of the origin of the Delphic oracle, c. xvi. 26, where he relates, that in the most ancient times the prophetess was a young woman; but that, afterwards, one Echecrates, a Spartan, being smitten with the beauty of a prophetess, had offered violence to her, in consequence of which an edict was published by the Delphians, forbidding any female to assume the office of Pythoness till she was fifty years old.

Note 11 (p. 142). ". . . the ravenous crew That filched the feast of Phineus."

The Harpies; who, from the names given to them in Homer and Hesiod (and specially from Odyssey xx. 66 and 77 compared) seem to have been impersonations of sudden and tempestuous gusts of wind; though, again, it is not impossible that these winds may be symbolical of the rapacious power of swift and sudden death--

"Venit Mors velociter Rapit nos atrociter,"

as suggested by BRAUN. See the article by Dr. SCHMITZ in the Biographical Dictionary.

Note 12 (p. 142). "Such uncouth sisterhood, apparel'd so."

With regard to the dress of the Furies, STAN. quotes a curious passage from Diogenes Laertius, which I shall translate:--"Menedemus, the Cynic," says he, "went to such fantastic excess as to go about in the dress of the Furies, saying, that he was sent as a visitant of human iniquity from Hades, that he might descend again, and report to the Infernal powers. His garb was as follows--a dun-coloured tunic (χιτων) reaching down to the feet, girt with a crimson sash; on his head an Arcadian cap, with the twelve signs of the Zodiac inwoven; tragic buskins, a very long beard, and an ashen rod in his hand."--VI. 9. 2. The Romans were once put to flight by the Gauls, dressed in the terrible garb of the Furies, with burning torches in their hands.--LIVY VII. 17.

Note 13 (p. 143). ". . . A bitter pasture truly Was thine from Fate."

So I have thought it best to translate somewhat freely τὸνδε βουκολούμενος πόνον in order to express the original meaning of the verb βουκολουμαι. In this I have followed MÜLLER--_diese Schmerzentrift zu weiden._ This is surely more pregnant and poetical than to say with FR. "_Diese Lebensbahn durcheilend._" The idea of _soothing_ and _beguiling_, the only one given by {376} Hesychius, cannot apply to this place. PAL., who agrees with me in this, translates the word in both places of our author where it occurs (here and in Agam. 655) by "_brooding over_" which differs little from my idea of _feeding on_.

Note 14 (p. 143). "Her ancient image."

"The image of Athena Pallas, on the citadel, which existed in the days of Pausanias, and had maintained for ages its place here by a sort of inviolable holiness. In the narrow area of the temple, on the north-east slope of the Acropolis, Erechtheus had placed a carved image, either first made by himself, or, perhaps, fallen from Heaven; and round this, as a centre, the most ancient groups of Attic religion and legend assembled themselves."--GERHARD, "_über die Minerven Idole Athen's,_" quoted by SCHOE.

Note 15 (p. 144). "Behold these wounds."

I am not able to see what objection lies against the literal rendering of

ὁρά δε πληγὰς τάσδε καρδίᾴ σέθεν,

as I read with FR. and LINW. PAL. and SCHOE. take πληγὰς metaphorically to signify the contumelious language used by Clytemnestra to the Furies; but this is surely rather going out of the way. If there were any necessity for deserting the literal meaning, I would rather take Hermann's way of turning it (Opusc. VI. v. 2, p. 28), and read--

ὁρά δε πληγὰς τάσδε καρδιάς ὃθεν. _Siehe diese Wunden meines Herzens woher sie kommen!_

Note 16 (p. 144). "Read with thy heart; some things the soul may scan More clearly, when the sensuous lid hath dropt, Nor garish day confounds."

This method of speaking is quite in keeping with ancient ideas on the nature of the connection 'twixt mind and body, as SCHOE. has proved from Galen (Kühn. Med. gr. V. 301). As to the sentiment which follows, STAN. has quoted--"_Quum ergo est somno sevocatus animus a societate et a contagione corporis, tum meminit praeteritorum, praesentia cernit, futura providet_"--Cic. Divinat. I. 30. According to Aelian (var. hist. III. 11). the Peripatetics held the same opinion.

Note 17 (p. 144). "Once Clytemnestra famous, now a dream."

There is another translation of this passage--the old one in STAN.--

"_In somno enim vos nunc Clytemnestra voco,_"

to which POT., E. P. Oxon., and MÜL. adhere; but I cannot help thinking with Hermann (Opusc. VI. p. ii. 30), that it is rather flat (_matt_) when compared with the other. Which of the two the poet meant cannot perhaps be settled now, as the meaning might depend on the rhetorical accent which the player was taught to give by the poet; but I am certain that the version in the text, sanctioned as it is by WAKEFIELD, SCHÜTZ, HERM., LIN., and PAL. does not deserve to be stigmatised (in E. P.'s language) as "fanciful nonsense." When Clytemnestra calls herself "a dream," she uses the same sort of language which Achilles does to Ulysses regarding his own unsubstantial state as a Shade.--Odys. XI.

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Note 18 (p. 144). ". . . and seeks For help from those that are no friends to me."

I have thought it better to retain the old and most obvious interpretation of this passage; not seeing any proof that προσίκτορες can be used in this general way as applied to the gods who are supplicated, without being affixed as an epithet to some special god; as when we say Ζεὺς ἀφίκτωρ (Suppl. I.)

Note 19 (p. 144).

CHORUS. Whether Hermann in his "_Dissertatio de Choro Eumenidum_" (Leipzig, 1816) was the first that directed special attention to the peculiar character of this Chorus as indicated by the Scholiast, I do not know (Wellauer says so, and I presume he knew). Certain it is that POT., by neglecting this indication, has lost a great deal of the dramatic effect of this part of the tragedy. The style of the chorus is decidedly fitful and exclamatory throughout, and must have formed a beautiful contrast to the steady stability of the solemn hymn that follows, beginning, "_Mother night that bore me_." As to the particular distribution of the parts of this chorus, that is a matter on which, as SCHOE. remarks, no two critics are likely to agree; nor is minute accuracy in this respect, even if it were attainable, a matter of any importance to the dramatic effect of the composition as now read. The only thing to be taken care of is, that we do not blend in a false continuity what was evidently spoken fitfully, and by different speakers, with a sort of _staccato_ movement, as the musicians express it. This is POT.'s grand error, not only here, but in many other of the choral parts of our poet; and, in this view, some of Hermann's remarks (Opusc. VI. 2, 38) on Müller's division are perfectly just. As for myself, by distributing the parts of the chorus among three voices, I mean nothing more than that these parts were likely spoken by separate voices. Scholefield and Dyer's view (Classical Museum, Vol. I. p. 281), that there were three principal Furies prominent above the rest in this piece, is not improbable, but admits of no proof. In my versification I have endeavoured to imitate the rapid Dochmiacs of the original.

Note 20 (p. 145). "Thou being young dost overleap the old."

The idea of a succession of celestial dynasties proceeding on a system of "development," as a certain class of modern philosophers are fond to express it, is characteristic of the Greek mythology.--(See p. 47 above, Antistrophe I.) The Furies, according to all the genealogies given of them, were more ancient gods than Apollo, with whom they are here brought, into collision. Our poet, as we shall see in the opening invocation of the first grand choral hymn of this piece, makes them the daughters of most ancient NIGHT, who, according to the Theogony (v. 123), proceeded immediately from the aboriginal CHAOS. Hesiod himself makes the Erinyes, along with the giants, to be produced from the blood of Uranus, when his genitals were cut off by Kronos (Theog. 185); a genealogy, by the way, quite in consistency with the Homeric representation given in the Introductory Remarks, of the origin of the Furies from the curses uttered by injured persons, worthy of special veneration, on those by whom their sacrosanct character had been violated.

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Note 21 (p. 147). "But where beheading, eye-out-digging dooms."

In this enumeration of horrors I have omitted κακοῦ τε χλ(ο)υνις, concerning which LIN. says, "_Omnino de hoc loco maximis in tenebris versamur; nam neque de lectione, neque de verborum significatione certi quidquam constat._"

Note 22 (p. 147). "She was murdered here, That murdered first her husband."

The reasons given by WELL. and HER. (Opusc. vi. 2. 42.) why the two lines, 203-4 W., should not both be given with STAN., SCHÜTZ, and MÜL., to Apollo, have satisfied LIN., PAL., FR., SCHOE., DR., E. P. Oxon., and BUT. Certainly the epithets ὅμαιμος and αυθέντης (which latter the Scholiast interprets μιαρὸς) sound anything but natural in the mouth of Apollo. The emphasis put on ὃμαιμος in this very connection by the Furies, in v. 575, _infra_, noted by Hermann, should decide the question.

Note 23 (p. 147). ". . . matrimonial Hera."

Literally the _perfect_ Hera, the _perfecting_ or _consummating_ Hera, Ἤρα τελεια, marriage being considered the sacred consummating ceremony of social life, and, therefore, designated among the Greeks by the same term, τέλος, which they used to express initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries. As Jove presides over all important turns in human fate, there is also necessarily a Ζὲυς τελειος. See BLOM. Agam. 946, and Passow _in voce_ τέλειος. Conf. Æn. iii. 605, _Juno pronuba._

Note 24 (p. 147). "The nuptial bed, to man and woman fated."

STAN. has remarked that this word _fated_, μορσίμη, so applied, is Homeric (Od. XVI. 392); and, indeed, though we seem to choose our wives, we choose them oft-times so strangely, that a man may be said, without exaggeration, to have as little to do with his marriage as with his birth or his death--but all the three in a peculiar sense belong to that Μοῖρα, or divine lot, which distributes all the good and evil of which human life is made up.

Note 25 (p. 149).

CHORUS. For the arrangement of this Chorus I refer the reader back to what I said on the previous one. The concluding part I have here arranged as an Epode, because it seems more continuous in its idea than what precedes--less violent and exclamatory.

Note 26 (p. 150). "On Libyan plains beside Tritonian pools."

Æschylus here follows the tradition of Apollodorus (I. 3, § 6), that the epithet Τριτογένεια, given by Homer to Pallas, was derived from the lake Tritonis in Libya, near which she is said to have been born. Compare Virgil Æn. IV. 480.

Note 27 (p. 150). ". . . with forward foot firm planted, Erect, or with decorous stole high-seated."

I have not the slightest doubt that τίθησιν (ο)ρθὸν πόδα in this passage can only mean to _plant the foot down firmly and stand erect_; if so, τίθησι κατηρεφῆ πόδα can only mean to _sit_, "the feet being covered by the robes while {379} sitting"--LIN.; so also PAL. and SCHOE. Sitting statues of the gods were very common in ancient times, as we see in the Egyptian statues, and in the common representations of the Greek and Roman Jupiter (see Thirlwall's History of Greece, c. VI.). I am sorry that Hermann (p. 57) should have thrown out the idea that κατηρεφῆς in this passage may mean "enveloped in clouds," which has been taken up by Franz--

"Sichtbar sic jezt herschreitet, oder Wolkumhüllt,"

because manifestly κατηρεφῆς, in this sense, forms no natural contrast to ὀρθὸς. The "_forward foot firm-planted_," I have taken from Müller's note, p. 112, as, perhaps, pointing out more fully what may have been in the poet's eye, without, however, meaning to assert seriously against a severe critic like Hermann, that the words of the text necessarily imply anything of the kind.

Note 28 (p. 150). "The ordered battle on Phlegrean fields Thou musterest."

The peninsula of Pallene in Macedonia, as also the district of Campania about Baiæ and Cumae, were called Phlegraean, or _fire-fields_ (φλέγω), in all likelihood from the volcanic nature of the country, to which Strabo (Lib. V. p. 245) alludes. These volcanic movements in the religious symbolism of early Greece became giants; and against these the Supreme Wisdom and his wise daughter had to carry on a war worthy of gods.

Note 29 (p. 151).

CHORAL HYMN. "This sublime hymn is of a character, in some respects, kindred to the καταδέσεις, or incantations of antiquity, which were directed to Hermes, the Earth, and other infernal Deities for the purpose of _binding down_ certain hated persons to destruction. For this reason it is called ὕμνος δέσμιος. This character is specially indicated by the refrain or burden, which occurs in the first pair of Strophes; such repetitions containing the emphatic words of the incantation being common in all magical odes. So in Theocritus (Idyll. 2), we have constantly repeated, '_Iungx, bring me the man, the man whom I mean, to my dwelling,_' and, in the song of the Fates at the marriage of Thetis in Catullus, the line--'_Currite ducentes subtemina, currite fusi!_' and there can be no question, the movements and gestures of the Furies while singing this hymn were such as to indicate the scapeless net of woe with which they were now encompassing their victim."--MÜL. The reader will observe how impressively the metre changes on the recurrence of this burden, the rhythm in the original being Pæonic _v v v_--, the agitated nature of which foot, when several times repeated, is sufficiently obvious. I have done what I could to make the transition and contrast sensible to the modern ear.

Note 30 (p. 151). "The seeing and the sightless."

αλα(ο)ισι και δεδορκόσι, _i.e._ the living and the dead; an expression familiar to the Greeks, and characteristic of a people who delighted to live in the sun. βλέπειν φάος--_to look on the light_, is the most common phrase in the tragedians for to live; and wisely so--

"Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, The soul in every part."--MILTON.

POT. has allowed himself to be led quite astray here by a petulant criticism of De Pauw.

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Note 31 (p. 151). "The gleeless song, and the lyreless strain."

ὕμνος ἀφόρμιγκτος. "The musical character of this Choral Hymn must be imagined as working upon the feelings with a certain solemn grandeur. The κιθάρα or lyre is silent; an instrument which, as the Greeks used it, always exercised a soothing power, restorative of the equipoise of the mind: only the flute is heard, whose notes, according to the unanimous testimony of antiquity, excited feelings, now of thrilling excitement, now of mute awe; always, however, disturbing the just emotional tenor of the soul. Assuredly the ὕμνος ἀφόρμιγκτος in this place is no mere phrase."--MÜLLER.

Note 32 (p. 152). "This work of labour earnest."

I have paraphrased, or rather interpolated, in this Antistrophe, a little, because I do not see much in it that is either translatable or worth translating. A meaning has been squeezed out of the two lines beginning σπευδόμενοι; but one cannot help feeling, after all, that there is something wrong, and saying with honest Wellauer, "_certi nihil video._" The main idea, shimmering through the first three lines, is plain enough--_that the Furies exercise a function, the legitimacy of which no one is entitled to question._ This the words, μηδ ες ἄγκρισιν ἐλθεῖν, plainly indicate; and it is upon this, and SCHOE.'s conjectural emendation of the first line--

σπευδομένος ἀπέχειν τινὰ τᾶσδε μερίμνας, "Diesem Geschäft das wir treiben verbleibe man ferne,"

that my paraphrase proceeds. With regard to the second part of this Strophe, beginning with Μάλα γὰρ (ὀ)υν, I follow WELL. and all the later editors, except SCHOE., in retaining it for metrical reasons, in the place to which Heath transposed it. SCHOE's observations, however, are worthy of serious consideration, as it is manifest that, if these Pæonic lines be replaced to where they stand in all the old editions, viz.:--between ὀρχησμοῖς τ᾽ (ε)πιφθόνοις ποδός and πιπτων δ᾽ ουκ ὀιδεν, their connection with what precedes, and also with what follows, will be more obvious than what it is now. FR.'s observation, however, in answer to this, is not to be kept out of view--that this second part of the Antistrophe takes up the idea, as it takes up the measure, with which the corresponding part of the Strophe, as now arranged, ends, viz.--διόμεναί κρατερὸν ὄνθ, which the reader will find clearly brought out in my version--the concluding lines of the Pæonic section of the Strophe--

"Though fleet we shall find him,"

being taken up in the opening lines of the Pæonic section of the Antistrophe--

"But swift as the wind, We follow and find."

Note 33 (p. 154). "The cry that called me from Scamander's banks."

The Sigean territory in the Troad was disputed between the Athenians and the people of Mitylene; which strife Herodotus informs us (V. 94) ended, by the activity of Pisistratus, in favour of the Athenians--B.C. 606. In that same territory, continues the historian, there was a temple of Pallas, where the Athenians hung up the arms of the poet Alcæus, who, though "_ferox bello_," had been obliged to flee from the battle which decided the matter in favour of the Athenians. Æschylus, like a true patriot and poet, throws the claim of the Athenians to this territory as far back into the heroic times as possible; and, by the words put into the mouth of Athena, makes the claim {381} on the part of the Lesbians tantamount to sacrilege.--See SCHOLIAST and STAN.

Note 34 (p. 155). "He'll neither swear himself, nor take my oath."

"The Greek words, ἀλλ ὅρκον ὀυ δεξαιτ ἄν, ὀυ δοῦναι θέλει have, in the juridical language of Athens, decidedly only this meaning; and, in the present passage, there is no reasonable ground for taking them in any other sense, though it is perfectly true that in some passages, ὅρκου διδόναι signifies simply to _swear_, and ὅρκον δέχεσθαι, _to accept an attestation on oath._"--SCHOEMANN.

Note 35 (p. 155). "In old Ixíon's guise."

"Ixíon was the son of Phlegyas, his mother Dia, a daughter of Deioneus. He was king of the Lapithæ, or Phlegyes, and the father of Peirithous. When Deioneus demanded of Ixíon the bridal gifts he had promised, Ixíon treacherously invited him as though to a banquet, and then contrived to make him fall into a pit filled with fire. As no one purified Ixíon from this treacherous murder, and all the gods were indignant at him, Zeus took pity on him, purified him, and invited him to his table."--_Mythol. Dict._

Note 36 (p. 156). "The ancient city of famous Priam thou Didst sheer uncity."

The original ἄπολιν Ιλίου πόλιν ἔθηκας, contains a mannerism of the tragedians too characteristic to be omitted. 'Tis one of the many tricks of that wisdom of words which the curious Greeklings sought, and did not find, in the rough Gospel of St. Paul.

Note 37 (p. 156). "For thee, in that thou comest to my halls."

The best exposition that I have seen of the various difficulties of this speech, is that of SCHOE., unfortunately too long for extract. As to κατηρτὺκὼς, LIN. has, in the notes to his edition, justly characterised his own translation of it, in the Dictionary as _durissimum_. The first ὃμως, of course, must go; and there is nothing better than changing it with PAUW, MÜLL., and SCHOE., into ἐμ(ο)ις. The second ὅμως must likewise go; say ὁσιὼς with MÜLL. or ὅυτως with SCHOE. There is then no difficulty.

Note 38 (p. 157).

CHORAL HYMN. This chorus contains a solemn enumeration of some of the main texts of Greek morality, and is in that view very important. The leading measure is the heptasyllabic trochaic verse so common in English, varied with cretics and dactyles. I have amused myself with giving a sort of imitation of the rhythm, so far as the trochees and cretics are concerned; to introduce the dactyles in the places where they occur, would produce--as I found by experiment--a tripping effect altogether out of keeping with the general solemnity of the piece.

Note 39 (p. 158). "But who sports, a careless liver."

'Tis impossible not to agree with SCHOE. that these two lines are corrupt beyond the hope of emendation. He proposes to read--

τίς δὲ μηδὲν ἐυσεβεῖ καρδίας ἄγᾳ τρεων.

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A very ingenious restoration; and one which, as matters now stand, I should have little scruple in introducing into the text; but, for poetical purposes, I have not been willing to lose the image with which the present reading, ἐν φάει, supplies me and FR.--

"Wer der nicht bei Wonneglanz Trauer auch im Herzen hegt," etc.

Note 40 (p. 158). "To the wise mean strength is given, Thus the gods have ruled in heaven."

This is one of those current common-places of ancient wisdom, which are now so cheap to the ear, but are still as remote from the general temper and the public heart as they were some thousands of years ago, when first promulgated by some prophetic Phemonoe of the Primeval Pelasgi. The great philosopher of common sense, Aristotle, seized this maxim, as the groundwork of practical ethics, some three hundred years before Christ--῾Φθείρεται γαρ, says he, ἡ σωφροσύνη και ἡ ἀνδρεία ὑπὸ τῆς ὑπερβολῆς καὶ τῆς ἐλλειψεως, ὑπὸ δὲ τῆς μεσότητος σώζεται; and Horace, the poet of common sense, preached many a quiet, tuneful sermon to the same ancient text--

"Auream quisquis mediocritatem Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda Sobrius aula."

Note 41 (p. 158). "Pride, that lifts itself unduly."

I will not multiply citations here to show the reader how this pride or insolence of disposition, ὓβρις (the German _Uebermuth_), is marked by the Greek moralists as the great source of all the darker crimes with which the annals of our floundering race are stained (See Note, p. 349 above). They are wrong who tell us that Humility is a Christian and not a Heathen virtue: no doubt the name ταπεινοφροσύνη, used in the New Testament, was not the fashionable one among the Greeks: but that they had the thing, every page of their poetry testifies, with this difference, however, to be carefully noted, that while Heathen humility is founded solely on a sense of dependence, Christian humility proceeds also, and perhaps more decidedly, from a sense of guilt. Neither does the phraseology of Heathen and Christian writers on this subject differ always so much as people seem to imagine; between the μη ὐπερφρον(ε)ιν παρ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν of St. Paul (Rom. xii. 3), and the ὀυδεπώποτε ὐπερ ἄνθρωπον ἐφρόνησα of Xenophon (Cyropaed. VIII), it were a foolish subtlety that should attempt to make a distinction.

Note 42 (p. 159). "Give the air-shattering Tyrrhene trump free voice."

"It is a correct and significant observation made by the Scholiast on Iliad XVIII. 219, that Homer never mentions the trumpet (σάλπιγξ) in the narrative part of his poem, but only for a comparison: familiar as he was with the instrument, he was not ignorant that the use of it was new, and not native in Greece. Indeed, it was never universally adopted in that country: the Spartans and Cretans marching into battle, first to the accompaniment of the lyre, and afterwards of the flute. The tragedians again are quite familiar with the Tuscan origin of the trumpet, though they make no scruple of introducing it into their descriptions of the Hellenic heroic age"--MÜLL.; Etrusker I. p. 286.

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Note 43 (p. 160).

_Enter_ APOLLO. Here commences a debate between the daughters of Night and the god accusing and defending, which, as Grote (History of Greece, I. 512) remarks, is "eminently curious." And not only curious, but unfortunately, to our modern sense at least, not a little ludicrous in some places. The fact is, that the strange moral contradictions and inconsistencies so common in the Greek mythology, so long as they are concealed or palliated under a fair imaginative show, give small offence; but when placed before the understanding, in order to be interrogated by the strict forms of judicial logic, they necessarily produce a collision with our practical reason and a smile is the result.

Note 44 (p. 161) ". . . himself did bind With bonds his hoary-dated father Kronos."

"In the fable of the binding of Kronos by his son Jove, Æschylus saw nothing disrespectful to the character of the supreme ruler, but only the imaginative embodiment of the fact, that one celestial dynasty had been succeeded by another. The image of binding, and of the battles of the Titans generally, might seem to his mind not the most appropriate; but the offence that lay in them was softened not a little by the consideration that the enchainment of Kronos and the Titans was only a temporary affair, leading to a reconciliation. The result was, that the Titans themselves at last acknowledged the justice of their punishment, and submitted themselves to Jove, as the alone legitimate ruler of Earth; and Herr Welcker is quite wrong in supposing that either here, or in the Agamemnon, or the Prometheus, there is any indication that the mind of Æschylus was fundamentally at war with his age in regard to the celestial dynasties."--SCHOEMANN's Prometheus, p. 97.

Note 45 (p. 162). ". . . How With any clanship share lustration?"

Or, with BUCK., "what laver of his tribe shall receive him?"--the word in the original being φρατόρων. The ancient Hellenic tribes φράτραι were social unions, founded originally in the family tie, and afterwards extended. These unions had certain religious ceremonies which they performed in common, and to which allusion is here made. (Compare Livy VI. 40, 41, _nos privatim auspicia habemus_ of the Patrician families.) To be ἀφρήτωρ, or _excluded from a tribe_ (Il. IX. 63), was among the Greeks of the heroic ages a penalty half-civil, half-religious, similar in character to the _excommunication_ of the middle ages. Of this extremely interesting subject, the English reader will find a most luminous exposition in GROTE's _Greece_, vol. iii. p. 74.

Note 46 (p. 162). ". . . whom we call The mother begets not."

Strange as this doctrine may seem to our modern physiologists, it seems founded on a very natural notion; and to the Greeks, who had such a low estimate of women, must have appeared perfectly orthodox. The same doctrine is enunciated by the poet in the Suppliants, v. 279, when he says, "the male artist has imprinted a Cyprian character on your female features"--the image being borrowed from the art of coining. And this, like many fancies cherished by the Greeks, seems to have had its home originally in {384} Egypt. STAN. quotes from Diodorus I. 80, who says--"The Egyptians count none of their sons bastards, not even the sons of a bought slave. For they are of opinion that the father is the only author of generation; the mother but supplieth space and nourishment to the fœtus." In the play of Euripides, Orestes uses the same argument (Orest. 543).

Note 47 (p. 162). "Now, hear my ordinance, Athenians!"

This address of the goddess, of practical wisdom, in constituting the Court of the Areopagus, was pointed by the poet directly against the democratic spirit, in his day beginning to become rampant in Athens; and is applicable not less to all times in which great and, perhaps, necessary social changes take place. The poet states, with the most solemn distinctness, that the mere love of liberty will never protect liberty from degenerating into licentiousness; but that a religious reverence for law is as essential to society as a religious jealousy of despotism. Only he who profoundly fears God can dispense with the fear of man; and he who fears both God and man is the only good citizen.

Note 48 (p. 162). ". . . Here, on this hill, The embattled Amazons pitched their tents of yore."

The Amazons, "as strong as men" (αντιάνειραι, Il. III. 189), are famous in the history of the Trojan war; and their expedition against Athens, mentioned here, was familiar to every Athenian eye, from the painting in the _Stoa Pœcile_, described by Pausanias (I. 15). As to the historical reality of these hardy females, the sober Arrian (VII. 13) is by no means inclined (after the modern German fashion) to brush them, with a stroke of his pen, out of the world of realities; and, considering what a strange and strangely adaptable creature man is, I see no reason why we should be sceptical as to their historical existence.

Note 49 (p. 163). "Thou say'st."

"This is an ancient way of replying to a captious question, as we see in the Gospel (Matth. xxvii.), where, when Pilate asks, 'art thou the king of the Jews,' our Lord, Jesus Christ, answers in these very words Συ λέγεις--'_Thou say'st._'"--STAN.

Note 50 (p. 163). "Such were thy deeds in Pheres' house."

"Alluding to Admetus, son of Pheres, whom Apollo raised from the dead, having obtained this boon from the Fates, on condition that some one should die in his stead.--See the well-known play of Euripides, the Alcestes."--STAN. The Scholiast on that play, v. 12, as Dindorf notes, remarks that, on this occasion, Apollo moved the inflexible goddesses by the potent influence of wine. This is alluded to a few lines below.

Note 51 (p. 164). ". . . all my father lives in me."

κάρτα δ᾽ ειμι τοῦ πατρος; specially wisdom and energy.--So Milton--

"All my father shines in me."--Paradise Lost, VII.

Compare the Homeric epithet of Pallas ὁβριμοπάτρη with Nägelsbach's Comprehensive Commentary--Hom. Theologie, p. 100.

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Note 52 (p. 164).

_Apollo_, FR., who examined the Medicean Codex, says that there is here discernible the mark which introduces a new speaker. Who that speaker is, however, the sense does not allow us to decide; but Orestes and the Chorus having spoken, I do not see why Apollo, who showed such eagerness before, should not now also, put in his word; and, therefore, deserting WELL., I follow the old arrangement of VICT. and STAN.

Note 53 (p. 167). "Sharing alone the strong keys that unlock His thunder-halls."

As Pallas possesses all her father's characteristic qualities of wisdom and strength, so she is entitled to wield all his instruments, and even the thunder. STAN. quotes--

"Ipsa (Pallas) Jovis rapidum jaculata e nubibus ignem."--Virgil, ÆN. I. 46.

And Wakefield compares CALLIM, Lavac. Pall, 132. So the _aegis_, or _shield of dark-rushing storms_ (ἀισσω), belongs to Pallas no less than to Zeus (Il. V. 738).

Note 54 (p. 167). ". . . thou shalt hold An honoured seat beside Erectheus' home."

Erectheus, who, as his name signifies (ἔραζε, _Eretz_, Heb., _Erde_, Teut., _Earth_), was the earth-born, or Adam of Attic legend, had a temple on the Acropolis, beside the temple of the city-protecting (πολιάς) Pallas, of which the ruins yet remain. The cave of the Furies was on the Hill of Mars, directly opposite.--See Introductory Remarks.

Note 55 (p. 168). ". . . save my city From brothered strife, and from domestic brawls."

It was a principle with the Romans that no victory in a civil war should be followed by a triumph; and, accordingly, in the famous triumph of Julius Cæsar, which lasted three days, there was nothing to remind the Roman eye that the conqueror of Pharsalia had ever plucked a leaf from Pompey's laurels. In v. 826, I read with MÜL. ὀυ δόμοις παρων, the present reading, μόλις, being clumsy any way that I have seen it translated.

Note 56 (p. 169). "The fortress of gods."

This designation is given to Athens with special reference to the Persian wars; for the Persians destroyed everywhere the temples of the Greek gods (only in the single case of Delos are they said to have made an exception), and the Athenians, in conquering the Persians, saved not only their own lives, but the temples of the gods from destruction.

Note 57 (p. 169). "Woe to the wretch, by their wrath smitten."

WELL., as usual, is too cautious in not changing μὴ κύρσας into δὴ κύρσας with PAUW and MÜL., or μὴν with LIN. and SCHOE.

Note 58 (p. 169). "Not for his own, for guilt inherited."

"The sins of the fathers, as in the Old Testament, so also among the Greeks, are visited on the children even to the third and fourth generation; nay, even the idea of original sin, derived from the Titanic men of the early ages, and exhibiting itself as a rebellious inclination against the gods more or less in all--this essentially Christian idea was not altogether unknown to the ancient Greeks."--SCHOEMANN.

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Note 59 (p. 170). "And, when Hermes is near thee."

What we call a "god-send," or a "wind-fall," was called by the Greeks ἓρμαιον, or a thing given by the grace of Hermes. In his original capacity as the patron god of Arcadian shepherds, Hermes was, in like manner, looked on as the giver of patriarchal wealth in the shape of flocks.--Il. xiv. 490.

Note 60 (p. 170). "Ye Fates, high-presiding."

There is no small difficulty in this passage, from the state of the text; but, unless it be the Furies themselves that are spoken of, as KL. imagines (Theol. p. 45), I cannot think there are any celestial powers to whom the strong language of the Strophe will apply but the Fates. If the former supposition be adopted, we must interrupt the chaunt between Athena and the Furies, putting this Strophe into the mouth of the Areopagites, as, indeed, KL. proposes; but this seems rather a bold measure, and has found no favour. It remains, therefore, only to make such changes in the text as will admit of the application of the whole passage to the Fates, who stand in the closest relation to the Furies, as is evident from Strophe III. of the chorus (p. 146 above). This MÜL. has done; and I follow him, not, however, without desiring some more distinct proof that ματροκασιγνῆται, in Greek, can possibly mean sisters.--See SCHOE.'s note.

Note 61 (p. 170). "Jove, that rules the forum, nobly In the high debate hath conquered."

Ζεὺς ἀγορᾶιος. The students of Homer may recollect the appeal of Telemachus to the Ithacans in council assembled (Odys. II. 68). Jove, as we have already had occasion to remark, has a peculiar right of presidency over every grand event of human life, and every important social institution; so that, on certain occasions, the Greek Polytheism becomes, for the need, a Monotheism--somewhat after the same fashion as the aristocratic Government of the old Roman Republic had the power of suddenly changing itself, on important occasions, into an absolute monarchy, by the creation of a Dictator.

Note 62 (p. 172). "Gracious-minded sisterhood."

The Furies were called Ευμενίδες, or gracious, to propitiate their stern deity by complimentary language. Suidas says (_voc_. Ευμενίδες) that Athena, in this play, calls the Furies expressly by this name; but the fact is, that it does not occur in the whole play. Either, therefore, the word ἔυφρων, which I have translated "gracious-minded" in the play, must be considered to have given occasion to the remark of the lexicographer (which seems sufficient), or, with HERMANN and SCHOE., we must suppose something to have fallen out of the present speech.

NOTE.

On p. 132, after the _dramatis personæ_, I perceive that I have stated that the scene of this piece changes from Delphi to the _Hill of Mars_, Athens. This is either inaccurate, or, at least, imperfect; for the first change of scene is manifestly (as stated p. 148), to the temple of Athena Pallas, on the Acropolis; and, though the imagination naturally desires that the institution of the Court of the Areopagus should take place on the exact seat of its future labours, yet the construction of the drama by no means necessitates another change of scene, and the allusion to the Hill of Mars in p. 162 is easily explicable on the supposition that it lies directly opposite the Acropolis, and that Pallas points to it with her finger.

NOTES TO PROMETHEUS BOUND

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Note 1 (p. 183). "This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste."

"The ancient Greek writers called all the Northern tribes (_i.e._ all who dwelt in the Northern parts of Europe and Asia) generally by the name of Scythians and Celto-Scythians; while some even more ancient than these make a division, calling those beyond the Euxine, Ister, and Adria, Hyperboreans, Sarmatians, and Arimaspi; but those beyond the Caspian Sea, Sacæ and Massagetæ." Strabo, Lib. XI. p. 507.--STAN.

Note 2 (p. 183). "This daring wretch."

λεωργὸν, a difficult word; "evil-doer"--MED. and PROW.; _Bösewicht_--TOELP.; _Freveler_--SCHOE. The other translation of this word--"artificer of man" (Potter)--given in the _Etym._ was very likely an invention of Lexicographers to explain this very passage. But the expounders did not consider that _Æschylus_ through the whole play makes no allusion to this function of the fire-worker. It was, I believe, altogether a recent form of the myth.--See WEISKE. "The precise etymology of the word is uncertain."--LIN.

Note 3 (p. 183). ". . . a kindred god."

"A fellow deity"--MED. But this is not enough. Vulcan, as a smith, and Prometheus were kindred in their divine functions, for which reason they were often confounded in the popular legends, as in the case of the birth of Pallas from the brain of Jove, effected by the axe, some say of Hephaestus, some of Prometheus--APOLLODOR. I. 3-6. EURIPID. Ion. 455; from which passage of the tragedian WELCKER is of opinion that Prometheus, not Hephaestus, must have a place in the pediment of the Parthenon representing the birth of Pallas.--_Class. Museum_, Vol. II. p. 385.

Note 4 (p. 183). "High-counselled son Of right-decreeing Themis."

Not CLYMENE according to the Theogony (V. 508) or ASIA, one of the Oceanides according to Apollodorus (I. 2), which parentage has been adopted by SHELLEY in his _Prometheus Unbound_. That Æschylus in preferring this maternity meant to represent the Titan as suffering in the cause of _Right_ against _Might_, as Welcker will have it (_Trilog_. p. 42), is more than doubtful. One advantage, however, is certainly gained, viz., that Prometheus is thus brought one degree further up the line of ascent in direct progress from the two original divinities of the Theogony--URANUS or HEAVEN, and GEE or the EARTH; for, according to Hesiod, THEMIS is the daughter, CLYMENE only the grand-daughter, of these primeval powers (Theog. 135, 315). Thus, Prometheus is invested with more dignity, and becomes a more worthy rival of Jove.

Note 5 (p. 183). ". . . saviour shall be none."

I entirely agree with SCHOE. that in the indefinite expression--(ο) λωφήσων γὰρ ὀυ πέφυκέ πω any allusion, such as the Scholiast suggests, to {388} HERCULES, the person by whom salvation did at length come, would be in the worst possible taste here, and quite foreign to the tone of the passage.

Note 6 (p. 184). "Jove is not weak that he should bend."

This character of harshness and inexorability belongs as essentially to JOVE as to the FATES. Pallas, in the Iliad, makes the same complaint--

"But my father, harsh and cruel, with no gentle humour raging, Thwarts my will in all things." ILIAD VIII. 360.

We must bear in mind that Jove represents three things--(1) that iron firmness of purpose which is so essential to the character of a great ruler; (2) the impetuous violence and resistless power of the heavenly elements when in commotion; (3) the immutability of the laws of Nature.

Note 7 (p. 184). "All things may be, but this To dictate to the gods."

Ἅπαντ ἐπράχθη πλὴν θε(ο)ισι κοιρανεῖν--literally, _all things have been done, save commanding the gods_. I do not know whether there is any philological difficulty in the way of this translation. It certainly agrees perfectly well with the context, and has the advantage of not changing the received text. SCHOE., however, adopting HERM.'s emendation of ἐπαχθῆ translates--

"Last trägt ein jeder, nur der Götter König nicht." "All have their burdens save the king of the gods."

On the theological sentiment, I would compare that of SENECA--"_In regno nati sumus; Deo parere libertas est_" (_Vit. Beat._ 15)--and that of EURIPIDES, where the captive Trojan queen, finding the king of men, Agamemnon, willing to assist her, but afraid of the opinion of the Greeks, speaks as follows:--

"Ουκἔστι θνητῶν ὃστις ἐστ ἐλέυθερος, ἢ χρημάτων γαρ δ(ο)υλος ἐστιν ἡ τύχης η πλῆθος ἀυτὸν πόλεως, ἤ νόμων γρἤφαι ἔιργουσι χρῆσθαι μὴ κατὰ γνῶμην τρόποις." HEC. 864.

Note 8 (p. 185). "Thou hast been called In vain the Provident."

This is merely translating PROMETHEUS (from προ before, and μῆτις counsel) into English. These allusions to names are very frequent in Æschylus--so much so as to amount to a _mannerism_; but we who use a language, the heritage of years, a coinage from which the signature has been mostly rubbed off, must bear in mind that originally all words, and especially names, were significant. See the Old Testament everywhere (particularly Gen. c. xxix. and xli., with which compare Homer, Odyssey xix. 407). And, indeed, in all original languages, like Greek or German, which declare their own etymology publicly to the most unlearned, no taunt is more natural and more obvious than that derived from a name. Even in Scotland, a man who is called _Bairnsfather_ will be apt to feel rather awkward if he has no children. "In the oldest Greek legend," says WELCKER (_Tril._ p. 356), "names were frequently invented, in order to fix down the character or main feature of the story"--(so Bunyan in the Pilgrim's Progress)--a true principle, which many German writers abuse, to evaporate all tradition into mere fictitious allegory. But the practice of the Old Testament patriarchs shows that the significancy of a name affords of itself no presumption against its historical reality.

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Note 9 (p. 185).

_Prometheus_. The critics remark with good reason the propriety of the stout-hearted sufferer observing complete silence up to this point. It is natural for pain to find a vent in words, but a proud man will not complain in the presence of his adversary. Compare the similar silence of Cassandra in the Agamemnon; and for reasons equally wise, that of Faust in the Auerbach cellar scene. So true is it that a great poet, like a wise man, is often best known, not by what he says, but by what he does _not_ say--(και τῆς ἂγαν γάρ έστί που σιγῆς βάρος, as Sophocles has it). As to the subject of the beautiful invocation here made by the Titan sufferer, the reader will observe not merely its poetical beauty (to which there is something analogous in Manfred, act I. sc. 2--

"My mother Earth, And thou fresh-breaking day, and you, ye mountains, And thou the bright eye of the Universe,")

but also its mythological propriety in the person of the speaker, as in the early times the original elementary theology common to the Greeks with all polytheists, had not been superseded by those often sadly disguised impersonations which are represented by the dynasty of Jove. OCEAN and HYPERION (ὑπερίων--he that walks aloft) are named in the Theogony, along with THEMIS and IAPETUS, as the first generation of gods, directly begotten from Heaven and Earth.--(Theog. 133-4.) In the natural progress of religious opinion, this original cosmical meaning of the Greek gods, though lost by anthropomorphism to the vulgar, was afterwards brought out by the natural philosophers, and by the philosophical poets; of which examples occur everywhere among the later classics. Indeed, the elemental worship seems never to have been altogether exploded, but continued to exist in strange confusion along with the congregation of fictitious persons to which it had given birth. So in Homer, Agamemnon prays--

"Father Jove from Ida swaying, god most glorious and great, And thou Sun, the all-perceiving and all-hearing power, and ye RIVERS and EARTH," etc.--Il. III. 277.

Note 10 (p. 185). "The multitudinous laughter."

ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα. I must offer an apology here for myself, Mr. Swayne, and Captain Medwyn, because I find we are in a minority. The Captain, indeed, has paraphrased it a little--

"With long loud laughs, exulting to be free,"

but he retains the laugh, which is the stumbling-block. Swayne has

"Ye ocean waves That with incessant laughter bound and swell Countless,"

also a little paraphrased, but giving due prominence to the characteristic idea. E. P. Oxon. has

"Ocean smiling with its countless waves,"

with a reference to Stanley's note, "Refertur ad levem sonum undarum ventis exagitatarum qui etiam aliquantulum _crispant_ maris dorsum quasi amabili quadam γελασιᾳ," in which words we see the origin of POT.'s--

"Ye waves That o'er the interminable ocean wreathe Your crisped smiles."

PROW. has--

"_Dimpled in multitudinous smiles._"

And SCHOE.'s--

"_Zahllosses Blinken._"

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And so BLOM. in a note, emphatically--

"_Lenis_ fluctuum agitatio."

But why all this gentleness? Does it agree either with the strength of the poet's genius, or with the desolation of the wild scene around his hero? I at once admit that γελάω is often used in Greek, where, according to our usage, _smile_ would be the word; but in the Old Testament we find the broad strong word _laugh_ often retained in descriptions of nature; and I see not the least reason for walking in satin shoes here.

Note 11 (p. 186). ". . . in a reed concealed it."

νάρθηξ--"still used for this purpose in Cyprus, where the reed still retains the old Greek name"--WELCKER, _Tril._ p. 8, who quotes Walpole's Memoirs relative to Turkey, p. 284, and Tournefort, Letter 6. I recollect at school smoking a bit of bamboo cane for a cigar.

Note 12 (p. 186). ". . . Ah me! ah me! who comes?"

The increased agitation of mind is here expressed in the original by the abandonment of the Iambic verse, and the adoption of the Bacchic--τίς ἀχὼ, etc., which speedily passes into the anapæst, as imitated by my Trochees. Milton was so steeped in Greek, that I think he must have had this passage in his mind when he wrote the lines of Samson Agonistes, v. 110, beginning "_But who are these?_" Altogether, the Samson is, in its general tone and character, quite a sort of Jewish Prometheus.

Note 13 (p. 187). "Daughters of prolific Tethys."

The ancient sea-goddess, sister and wife of Oceanus, daughter of Heaven and Earth. The reader will observe that the mythology of this drama preserves a primeval or, according to our phrase, antediluvian character throughout. The mythic personages are true contemporaries belonging to the most ancient dynasty of the gods. For this reason Ocean appears in a future stage of the play, not _Poseidon_. Tethys, with the other Titans and Titanesses are enumerated by Hesiod, Theog. 132-7, as follows--

"Earth to Uranus wedded bore Ocean deep with whirling currents, Coeus, Creios, Hyperion, Theia, Rhea, Iapetus, Themis, Mnemosyne, lovely Tethys, likewise Phœbe golden-crowned, Then the youngest of them all, deep-designing Kronos."

As for the epithet _prolific_ applied to _Tethys_, the fecundity of fish is a proverb in natural history; but I suppose it is rather the infinite succession of waves on the expanded surface of Ocean that makes his daughters so numerous in the Theogony (362)--

"Thrice ten hundred they are counted delicate-ancled Ocean maids."

Note 14 (p. 187). ". . . the giant trace Of Titan times hath vanished."

Here we have distinctly indicated that contrast between the _old_ and the _new_ gods, which Æschylus makes so prominent, not only in this play, but also in the Furies. The conclusion has been drawn by various scholars that Æschylus was secretly unfavourable to the recognised dynasty of Jove, and that his real allegiance was to these elder gods. But the inference is hasty and unauthorised. His taste for the sublime led him into these primeval ages, as it also did Milton: that is all we can say.

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Note 15 (p. 188). ". . . the new-forged counsels That shall hurl him from his throne."

The new-forged counsels were of Jove's own devising--viz., that he should marry Thetis; of which marriage, if it should take place, the son was destined to usurp his father's throne.--SCHOLIAST.

Note 16 (p. 188). "O, 'tis hard, most hard to reach The heart of Jove!"

Inexorability is a grand characteristic of the gods.

"Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando."--VIRG., ÆN. VI.

And so Homer makes Nestor say of Agamemnon, vainly hoping to appease the wrath of Pallas Athena, by hecatombs--

"Witless in his heart he knew not what dire sufferings he must bear, For not lightly from their purposed counsel swerve the eternal gods." ODYS. III. 147.

And of Jove, in particular, Hera says to Themis, in the council of the gods--

"Well thou knowest How the Olympian's heart is haughty, and his temper how severe." ILIAD XV. 94.

Note 17 (p. 188). "My mother Themis, not once but oft, and Earth (One shape of various names)."

Æschylus does not and could not confound these two distinct persons, as POT. will have it.--See Eumenides, 2. SCHOE. has stated the whole case very clearly. POT. remarks with great justice, that a multiplicity of names "is a mark of dignity;" it by no means follows, however, that _Themis_, in this passage, is one of those many names which Earth receives. In illustration we may quote a passage from the _Kurma Ouran_ (Kennedy's Researches on Hindoo Mythology; London, 1831; p. 208)--"That," says Vishnu, pointing to Siva, "is the great god of gods, shining in his own refulgence, eternal, devoid of thought, who produced thee (Brahma), and gave to thee the Vedas, and who likewise originated me, and _gave me various names._" Southey, in the roll of celestial _dramatis personæ_ prefixed to the Curse of Kehama, says "that Siva boasts as many as _one thousand and eight names_."

Note 18 (p 189). "Suspicion's a disease that cleaves to tyrants, And they who love most are the first suspected."

"_Nam regibus boni quam mali suspectiores sunt, semperque his aliena virtus formidolosa est._"--Sall. Cat. VII. "In princes fear is stronger than love; therefore it is often more difficult for them to tear themselves from persons whom they hate than to cast off persons whom they love."--RICHTER (Titan).

Note 19 (p. 189). "I only of the gods Thwarted his will."

This is one of the passages which has suggested to many minds a comparison between the mythical tortures of the Caucasus and the real agonies of Calvary. The analogy is just so far; only the Greek imagination never could look on Prometheus as suffering altogether without just cause; he suffered for his own sins. This TOEPEL. p. 71, has well expressed thus--"_Prometheus deos laesit ut homines bearet: Christus homines beavit ut suae, Deique patris obsecundaret voluntati._"

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Note 20 (p. 189). ". . . in cunning torment stretched."

ἀνηλεῶς ἐῤῥύθμισμαι--"_so bin ich zugerichtet_."--PASSOW. A sort of studious malignity is here indicated. So we say allegorically to _trim_ one handsomely, to _dress_ him, when we mean to _punish_. The frequent use of this verb ρυθμίζω is characteristic of the Greeks, than whom no people, as has been frequently remarked, seem to have possessed a nicer sense of the beauty of measure and the propriety of limitation in their poetry and works of art. So Sophocles, Antig. 318, has ρυθμίζειν λύπην.

Note 21 (p. 190). "Blind hopes of good I planted In their dark breasts."

A striking phrase, meaning, however, nothing more, I imagine, according to the use of the Greek writers (and also of the Latins with _caecus_) than _dim_, _indistinct_; neither, indeed, is the phrase foreign to our colloquial English idiom--"The swearing to a _blind_ etcetera they (the Puritans) looked upon as intolerable."--Calamy's Life of Baxter. In the well-known story of Pandora, Hesiod relates that, when the lid of the fatal box was opened, innumerable plagues flew out, only HOPE remained within.--_Works and Days_, 84.

Note 22 (p. 190). "And flame-faced fire is now enjoyed by mortals?"

Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, in his account of New South Wales (London, 1804), mentions that the wild natives produced fire with much difficulty, and preserved it with the greatest care. The original inhabitants of New Holland, and the wild African bushmen described by Moffat, the missionary, are among the lowest specimens of human nature with which we are acquainted. As for Æschylus, it is evident he follows in this whole piece the notion of primitive humanity given in his introductory chapters by Diodorus, and generally received amongst the ancients, viz., that the fathers of our race were the most weak and helpless creatures imaginable, like the famous Egyptian frogs, as it were, only half developed from the primeval slime.

Note 23 (p. 191).

_Enter_ OCEAN. "This sea god enters," says Brunoy, quoted by POT., on "I know not what winged animal--_bizarrerie inexplicable._" Very inexplicable certainly; and yet, as the tragedian expressly calls the animal a _bird_, I do not see why so many translators, both English and German, should insist on making it a _steed_. The bird certainly was a little anomalous, having, as we learn below, four feet (τετρασκελὴς ὀιωνός, v. 395--a _four-footed bira_); but it was a bird for all that, and the air was its element. If the creature must have a name, we must even call it a griffin, or a hippogriff, notwithstanding Welcker's remarks (_Tril._ p. 26). Those who wish to see its physiognomy more minutely described may consult Aeliean. hist, animal. IV. 27, in an apt passage quoted from JACOBS by BOTH. There is an ambiguity in the passage which I have translated--

"Thought instinctive reined the creature,"

some applying γνώμῃ not to the animal, but to the will of the rider. So PROW.--

"Following still Each impulse of my guiding will."

But for the poetical propriety of my translation I can plead the authority of SOUTHEY--

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"The ship of Heaven instinct with thought displayed Its living sail, and glides along the sky." Curse of Kehama, VII. 1.

and of MILTON--

"The chariot of paternal Deity Instinct with spirit."--VI. 750.

and what is much more conclusive in the present instance, that of Homer, whose τιτυσκόμεναι φρεσὶ νῆες (Odyssey VIII. 556), or self-piloted ships of the Phœnicians, belong clearly to the same mythical family as the self-reined griffin of old Ocean.

Note 24 (p. 191). "From my distant caves cerulean."

_i.e._, in the far West, extreme Atlantic, or "ends of the earth," according to the Homeric phrase.

"To the ends I make my journey of the many-nurturing Earth, There where Ocean, sire of gods, and ancient mother Tethys dwells, They who nursed me in their palace, and my infant strength sustained,"

says _Hera_ in the Iliad (XIV. 200).

Note 25 (p. 192). "Enough my brother Atlas' miseries grieve me."

The reader will see by referring to the old editions and to POT. that the following description of the miseries of Atlas and Typhon is, in the MS., given to Ocean; and, it must be confessed, there seems a peculiar dramatic propriety in making the old sea god hold up the fate of the Cilician Blaster as a warning to the son of Iapetus, whom he saw embarked in a similar career of hopeless rebellion against the Thunderer. But philological considerations, well stated by SCHOE., have weighed with that editor, as with his predecessors BLOM. and WELL., whose authority and arguments I am for the present willing to follow, though not without some lingering doubts. The alteration of the text originally proceeded from Elmsley, and the original order of the dialogue is stoutly defended by TOEPEL. in his notes.

Note 26 (p. 192) "The pillars of Heaven and Earth upon his shoulders."

If the reader is a curious person, he will ask how Atlas when standing on the Earth--in the extreme west of the Earth--could bear the pillars of _Heaven_ and _Earth?_ and the question will be a very proper one; for the fact is that, as Hesiod distinctly states the case, he bore the pillars of _Heaven only_ (Theog. 517). This is, indeed, the only possible idea that could be admitted into a mythology which proceeded on the old principle that the Earth was a flat solid platform in the centre of the Universe, round which the celestial pole (πόλος) wheeled. The phrase "_pillars of Heaven and Earth_" is, therefore, to a certain extent an improper one; for the Earth, being the stable base of all things, required no pillars to support it. In one sense it is true that the pillars of Atlas are the pillars of Heaven and Earth, viz., in so far as they have Heaven at one end and Earth at the other, which is what Homer means when he says (Odyssey I. 54), that these pillars "γᾶιάν τε καὶ ὀυρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν." And that this is the idea of Æschylus, also, is plain, both from the present passage, and from the Epode of the next following Chorus, where, unless we force in one conjecture of Schütz, or another of Hermann into the text, there is no mention of anything but the _celestial pole_. In all this I but express in my own words, {394} and with a very decided conviction, the substance of the admirable note in SCHOE. to v. 426, WELL.

Note 27 (p. 192). ". . . Typhon."

The idea of Typhon is that of a strong windy power, δεινόν ὑβριστήν τ ἄνεμον, according to the express statement of Hesiod (Theog. 307). The Greek word _Typhon_, with which our _typhus fever_ is identical, expresses the state of being _swollen_ or _blown up_; with this, the other idea of _heat_, which belongs also to Typhon (Sallust, περὶ θεῶν, c. 4), is naturally connected. According to the elementary or physical system of mythology, therefore, Typhon is neither more nor less than a _simoom_ or _hot wind_.

Note 28 (p. 193). "Knowest thou not this, Prometheus, that mild words Are medicines of fierce wrath?"

The reader may like to see Cicero's version of these four lines--

"_Oceanus_. Atqui Prometheu te hoc, tenere existimo Mederi posse rationem iracundiæ." "_Prom_. Si quidem qui tempestivam medicinam admovens Non ad gravescens vulnus illidat manus." TUSC. Q., III. 31.

Note 29 (p. 194). ". . . holy Asia weep For thee, Prometheus."

Here, and in the epithet of the rivers in the Epode (compare Homer's Odyssey X. 351, ἱερων ποταμων, and _Nägelsbach_, Homer, Theologie, p. 85), the original word is ἁγνος, a term to be particularly noted, both in the heathen writers and in the Old Testament, as denoting that religious purity in connection with external objects and outward ceremonies which the Christian sentiment confines exclusively to the moral state of the soul. I have thought it important, in all cases, to retain the Greek phrase, and not by modernizing to dilute it. The religious sentiment in connection with external nature is what the moderns generally do not understand, and least of all the English, whose piety does not readily exhibit itself beyond the precincts of the church porch. The Germans, in this regard, have a much more profound sympathy with the Greek mind.

Note 30 (p. 194). ". . . Araby's wandering warriors weep For thee, Prometheus."

Arabia certainly comes in, to a modern ear, not a little strangely here, between the Sea of Azof and the Caucasus; but the Greeks, we must remember, were a people whose notions of _barbarian_ geography (as they would call it) were anything but distinct; and, in this play, the poet seems wisely to court vagueness in these matters rather than to study accuracy.

Note 31 (p 195). "For, soothly, having eyes to see, they saw not."

With regard to the origin of the human race there are two principal opinions, which have in all times prevailed. One is, that man was originally created perfect, or in a state of dignity far transcending what he now exhibits; that the state in which the earliest historical records present him is a state of declension and aberration from the primeval source; and that the {395} whole progress of what is called civilization is only a series of attempts, for the most part sufficiently clumsy, and always painful, whereby we endeavour to reinstate ourselves in our lost position. This philosophy of history--for so it may most fitly be called--is that which has always been received in the general Christian world; and, indeed, it seems to flow necessarily from the reception of the Mosaic records, not merely as authentic Hebrew documents, but as veritable cosmogony and primeval history--as containing a historical exposition of the creation of the world, and the early history of man. The other doctrine is, that man was originally created in a condition extremely feeble and imperfect; very little removed from vegetable dulness and brutish stupidity; and that he gradually raised himself by slow steps to the exercise of the higher moral and intellectual faculties, by virtue of which he claims successful mastery over the brute, and affinity with the angel. This doctrine was very common, I think I may safely say the current and generally received doctrine, among the educated Greeks and Romans; though the poets certainly did not omit, as they so often do, to contradict themselves by their famous tradition of a golden age, which it was their delight to trick out and embellish. In modern times, this theory of _progressive development_, as it may be called, has, as might have been expected, found little favour, except with philosophers of the French school; and those who have broached it in this country latterly have met with a most hot reception from scientific men, principally, we may presume, from the general conviction that such ideas go directly to undermine the authority of the Mosaic record. It has been thought, also, that there is something debasing and contrary to the dignity of human nature in the supposition that the great-grandfather of the primeval father of our race may have been a monkey, or not far removed from that species; but, however this be, with regard to ÆSCHYLUS, it is plain he did not find it inconsistent with the loftiest views of human duty and destiny to adopt the then commonly received theory of a gradual development; and, in illustration, I cannot do better than translate a few sentences from DIODORUS, where the same doctrine is stated in prose: "Men, as originally generated, lived in a confused and brutish condition, preserving existence by feeding on herbs and fruits that grew spontaneously. * * * Their speech was quite indistinct and confused, but by degrees they invented articulate speech. * * * They lived without any of the comforts and conveniences of life, without clothing, without habitations, _without fire_ (Prometheus!), and without cooked victuals; and not knowing to lay up stores for future need, great numbers of them died during the winter from the effects of cold and starvation. By which sad experience taught, they learned to lodge themselves in caves, and laid up stores there. By-and-by, they discovered fire and other things pertaining to a comfortable existence. The arts were then invented, and man became in every respect such as a highly-gifted animal might well be, having hands and speech, and a devising mind ever present to work out his purposes." Thus far the Sicilian (I. 8); and the intelligent reader need not be informed that, to a certain extent, many obvious and patent facts seemed to give a high probability to his doctrine. "Dwellers in caves," for instance, or "troglodytes," were well known to the ancients, and the modern reader will find a historical account of them in STRABO, and other obvious places. The HORITES (Gen. xiv. 6) were so called from the Hebrew word HOR, a cave--(see Gesenius and Jahn, I. 2-26). But it is needless to accumulate learned references in a matter patent to the most modern observation.--MOFFAT's "African Missions" will supply instances of human beings in a state as degraded as anything here described by the poet; and with {396} regard to the aboriginal Australians, I have preserved in my notes the following passage from COLLINS: "The Australians dwell in miserable huts of bark, all huddled together promiscuously (ἔφυρον εικῆ πάντα!) amid much smoke and dirt. _Some also live in caves._" I do by no means assert, however, that these creatures are remnants of primeval humanity, according to the development theory; I only say they afford that theory a historic analogy; while, on the other hand, they are equally consistent with the commonly received Christian doctrine, as man is a creature who degenerates from excellence much more readily in all circumstances than he attains to it. These Australians and Africans may be mere imbecile stragglers who have been dropt from the great army of humanity in its march.

Note 32 (p. 195). "Numbers, too, I taught them (a most choice device)."

"The Pythagorean tenets of Æschylus here display themselves. It was one of the doctrines attributed to this mysterious sect that they professed to find in numbers, and their combinations, the primordial types of everything cognisable by the mind, whether of a physical or moral nature. They even spoke of the soul as a number."--PROW. But, apart from all Pythagorean notions, we may safely say--from observation of travellers indeed certainly affirm--that there is nothing in which the civilized man so remarkably distinguishes himself from the savage, as in the power to grasp and handle relations of number. The special reference to Pythagoras in this passage is, I perceive, decidedly rejected by SCHOE.; BERGK. and HAUPT., according to his statement, admitting it. Of course, such a reference in the mind of the poet can never be _proved_; only it does no harm to suppose it.

Note 33 (p. 196). ". . . the fire-faced signs."

(φλογωπὰ σήματα). PROWETT refers this to _lightning_; but surely, in the present connection, the obvious reference is to the sacrificial flame, from which, as from most parts of the sacrificial ceremony, omens were wont to be taken. When the flame burned bright it was a good omen; when with a smoky and troublous flame, the omen was bad. See a well-known description of this in Sophocles' Antigone, from the mouth of the blind old diviner Tiresias, when he first enters the stage, v. 1005; and another curious passage in Euripides' Phœniss. 1261.

Note 34 (p. 196). "And who is lord of strong Necessity?"

Necessity (Ἀνάγκη), a favourite power to which reference is made by the Greek dramatists, is merely an impersonation of the fact patent to all, that the world is governed by a system of strict and inexorable law, from the operation of which no man can escape. That the gods themselves are subject to this Ἀνάγκη. is a method of expression not seldom used by Heathen writers; but that they had any distinct idea, or fixed theological notion of NECESSITY or FATE, as a power separate from and superior to the gods I see no reason to believe.--See my observations on the Homeric μοῖρα in _Clas. Mus._, No. XXVI., p. 437. And in the same way that Homer talks of the _fate from the gods_, so the tragedians talk of _necessity from or imposed by the gods_--τὰς γὰρ ἐκ θεῶν ἀνάγκας θνητον ὀντα δεῖ φέρειν. With regard to Æschylus, certainly one must beware of drawing any hasty inference with regard to his theological creed from this insulated passage. For here the poet adopts the notion of the strict subjection of Jove to an external FATE, {397} principally, one may suppose, from dramatic propriety; it suits the person and the occasion. Otherwise, the Æschylean theology is very favourable to the absolute supremacy of Jove; and, accordingly, in the Eumenides, those very Furies, who are here called his superiors, though they dispute with Apollo, are careful not to be provoked into a single expression which shall seem to throw a doubt on the infallibility of "the Father." For the rest, the Fates and Furies, both here and in the Eumenides, are aptly coupled, and, in signification, indeed, are identical; because a man's _fate_ in this world can never be separated from his _conduct_, nor his conduct from his _conscience_, of which the Furies are the impersonation.

Note 35 (p. 196). "No more than others Jove can 'scape his doom."

The idea that the Supreme Ruler of the Universe can ever be dethroned is foreign to every closely reasoned system of monotheism; but in polytheistic systems it is not unnatural (for gods who had a beginning may have an end); and in the Hindoo theology receives an especial prominence. Southey accordingly makes Indra, the Hindoo Jove, say--

"A stronger hand May wrest my sceptre, and unparadise The Swerga."--Curse of Kehama, VII.

We must bear in mind, however, that it is not Æschylus in the present passage, but Prometheus who says this.

Note 36 (p. 197) "Plant his high will against my weak opinion!"

The original of these words, "μηδάμ θ(ε)ιτ᾽ εμᾀ γνώμᾶ κράτος ἀντίπαλον Ζεὺς," has been otherwise translated "_Minime Jupiter indat animo meo vim rebellem;_" but, apart altogether from theological considerations, I entirely agree with SCHOE. that this rendering puts a force upon the word κράτος, which is by no means called for, and which it will not easily bear.

Note 37 (p. 197) "Won by rich gifts didst lead."

Observe here the primitive practice according to which the bridegroom purchased his wife, by rich presents made to the father. In Iliad IX. 288, Agamemnon promises, as a particular favour, to give his daughter in marriage to Achilles ἀνάεδνον, that is, without any consideration in the shape of a marriage gift.

Note 38 (p. 197).

_Enter_ IO. Io is one of those mysterious characters on the borderland between history and fable, concerning which it is difficult to say whether they are to be looked on as personal realities, or as impersonated ideas. According to the historical view of ancient legends, Io is the daughter of Inachus, a primeval king of Argos; and, from this fact as a root, the extravagant legends about her, sprouting from the ever active inoculation of human fancy, branched out. Interpreted by the principles of early theological allegory, however, she is, according to the witness of Suidas, the MOON, and her wanderings the revolutions of that satellite. In either view, the immense extent of these wanderings is well explained by mythological writers (1) from the influence of Argive colonies at Byzantium and elsewhere; and (2) from the vain desire of the Greeks to connect their {398} horned virgin Io, with the horned ISIS of the Egyptians. It need scarcely be remarked that, if Io means the moon, her horns are as naturally explained as her wanderings. But, in reading Æschylus, all these considerations are most wisely left out of view, the Athenians, no doubt, who introduced this play, believing in the historical reality of the Inachian maid, as firmly as we believe in that of Adam or Methuselah. As little can I agree with BOTH. that we are called upon to rationalize away the reality of the persecuting insect, whether under the name of ᾽(ο)ιστρος or μύωψ. In popular legends the sublime is ever apt to be associated with circumstances that either are, or, to the cultivated imagination, necessarily appear to be ridiculous.

Note 39 (p. 198). ". . . save me, O Earth!"

I have here given the received traditionary rendering of Αλεῦ ὦ δᾶ; but I must confess the appeal to Earth here in this passage always appeared to me something unexpected; and it is, accordingly, with pleasure that I submit the following observations of SCHOE. to the consideration of the scholar--"Δᾶ is generally looked on as a dialectic variation of γᾶ; and, in conformity with this opinion, Theocritus has used the accusation Δᾶν. I consider this erroneous, and am of opinion that in Δημητηρ we are rather to understand Δεαμητηρ than Γημητηρ; and δᾶ is to be taken only as an interjection. This is not the place to discuss this matter fully; but, in the meantime, I may mention that AHRENS _de dialecta Doricâ_, p. 80, has refuted the traditionary notion with regard to δᾶ.

Note 40 (p. 198).

_Chorus_. With WELL., and SCHOE., and the MSS., I give this verse to the Chorus, though certainly it is not to be denied that the continuation of the lyrical metre of the Strophe pleads strongly in favour of giving it to Io. It is also certain that, for the sake of symmetry, the last line of the Antistrophe must also be given to the Chorus, as SCHOE. has done.

Note 41 (p. 199). ". . . the sisters of thy father, Io."

Inachus, the Argive river, was, like all other rivers, the son of Ocean, and, of course, the brother of the Ocean-maids, the Chorus of the present play. Afterwards, according to the historical method of conception, characteristic of the early legends, the elementary god became a human person--the river was metamorphosed into a king.

Note 42 (p. 200). ". . . Lerne's bosomed mead."

We most commonly read of the _water_ or _fountain_ of Lerne; this implies a meadow--and this, again, implies high overhanging grounds, or cliffs, of which mention is made in the twenty-third line below. In that place, however, the reading ἄκρην is not at all certain; and, were I editing the text, I should have no objection to follow PAL. in reading Λέρνης τε κρήνην, with Canter. In fixing this point, something will depend upon the actual landscape.

Note 43 (p. 201). "First to the east."

Here begins the narration of the mythical wanderings of Io--a strange matter, and of a piece with the whole fable, which, however, with all its perplexities, Æschylus, no doubt, and his audience, following the old minstrels, took very lightly. In such matters, the less curious a man is, {399} the greater chance is there of his not going far wrong; and to be superficial is safer than to be profound. The following causes may be stated as presumptive grounds why we ought not to be surprised at any startling inaccuracy in geographical detail in legends of this kind:--(1) The Greeks, as stated above, even in their most scientific days, had the vaguest possible ideas of the geography of the extreme circumference of the habitable globe and the parts nearest to it which are spoken of in the passage. (2) The geographical ideas of Æschylus must be assumed as more kindred to those of Homer than of the best informed later Greeks. (3) Even supposing Æschylus to have had the most accurate geographical ideas, he had no reasons in handling a Titanic myth to make his geographical scenery particularly tangible; on the contrary, as a skilful artist, the more misty and indefinite he could keep it the better. (4) He may have taken the wanderings of Io, as Welcker still suggests (_Trilog._ 137), literally from the old Epic poem "Aigimius," or some other traditionary lay as old as Homer, leaving to himself no more discretion in the matter, and caring as little to do so as Shakespere did about the geographical localities in Macbeth, which he borrowed from Hollinshed. For all these reasons I am of opinion that any attempt to explain the geographical difficulties of the following wanderings would be labour lost to myself no less than to the reader; and shall, therefore, content myself with noting _seriatim_ the different points of the progress, and explaining, for the sake of the general reader, what is or is not known in the learned world about the matter:--

(1) The starting-point is not from Mount Caucasus, according to the common representation, but from some indefinite point in the NORTHERN PARTS OF EUROPE. So the Scholiast on v. 1, arguing from the present passage, clearly concludes; and with him agree HER. and SCHOE.; Welcker whimsically, I think, maintaining a contrary opinion.

(2) The SCYTHIAN NOMADS, _vid._ note on v. 2, _supra._; their particular customs alluded to here are well known, presenting a familiar ancient analogy to the gipsy life of the present day. The reader of Horace will recall the lines--

"Campestres melius Scythae Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos." --Ode III. 24-9.

and the same poet (III. 4-35) mentions the "quiver-bearing Geloni"; for the bow is the most convenient weapon to all wandering and semi-civilized warriors.

(3) The CHALYBS, or CHALDAEI, are properly a people in Pontus, at the north-east corner of Asia Minor; but Æschylus, in his primeval Titanic geography, takes the liberty of planting them to the north of the Euxine.

(4) The river HUBRISTES. The Araxes, says the Scholiast; the TANAIS, say others; or the CUBAN (Dr. Schmitz in Smith's Dict.). The word means _boisterous_ or _outrageous_, and recalls the Virgilian "_pontem indignatus Araxes._"

(5) The CAUCASUS, as in modern geography.

(6) The AMAZONS; placed here in the country about Colchis to the northward of their final settlement in Themiscyre, on the Thermodon, in Pontus, east of the Halys.

(7) SALMYDESSUS, on the Euxine, _west_ of the Symplegades and the Thracian Bosphorus; of course a violent jump in the geography.

{400}

(8) The CIMMERIAN BOSPHORUS, between the Euxine and the Sea of Azof. Puzzling enough that this should come in here, and no mention be made of the Thracian Bosphorus in the whole flight! The word _Bosporus_ means in Greek the _passage of the Cow_.

(9) The ASIAN CONTINENT; from the beginning a strange wheel! For the rest see below.

Note 44 (p. 203). "When generations ten have passed, the third."

This mythical genealogy is thus given by SCHÜTZ from Apollodorus. 1. Epaphus; 2. Libya; 3. Belus (see Suppliants, p. 228, above); 4. Danaus; 5. Hypermnestra; 6. Abas; 7. Proetus; 8. Acrisias; 9. Danae; 10. Perseus; 11. Electryon; 12. Alcmena; 13. Heracles.

Note 45 (p. 203). "When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts."

I now proceed with the mythical wanderings of the "ox-horned maid," naming the different points, and continuing the numbers, from the former Note--

(10) The SOUNDING OCEAN.--Before these words, something seems to have dropt out of the text; what the "sounding sea" (πόντου φλ(ο)ισβος) is, no man can say; but, as a southward direction is clearly indicated in what follows, we may suppose the CASPIAN, with HER.; or the PERSIAN GULF, with SCHOE.

(11) The GORGONIAN PLAINS.--"The Gorgons are conceived by Hesiod to live in the Western Ocean, in the neighbourhood of Night, and the Hesperides; but later traditions place them in Libya."--Dr. SCHMITZ, in Smith's Dict.: but SCHOE., in his note, quotes a scholiast to Pindar, _Pyth._ X. 72, which places them near the Red Sea, and in Ethiopia. This latter habitation, of course, agrees best with the present passage of Æschylus.

With regard to CISTHENE, the same writer (SCHOE.) has an ingenious conjecture, that it may be a mistake of the old copyists, for the CISSIANS, a Persian people, mentioned in the opening chorus to the play of the Persians.

(12) The country of the GRIFFINS, the ARIMASPI, and the river PLUTO. The Griffins and the Arimaspi are well known from Herodotus and Strabo, which latter, we have seen above (Note 1), places them to the north of the Euxine Sea, as a sub-division of the Scythians. Æschylus, however, either meant to confound all geographical distinctions, or followed a different tradition, which placed the Arimaspi in the south, as to which see SCHOE. "The river PLUTO is easily explained, from the accounts of golden-sanded rivers in the East which had reached Greece."--SCHOE.

(13) The river Aethiops seems altogether fabulous.

(14) The "Bybline Heights," meaning the κατάδουπα (Herod. II. 17), or place where the Nile falls from the mountains.--LIN. _in voce_ καταβασμός, which is translated _pass_. No such place as BYBLUS is mentioned here by the geographers, in want of which POT. has allowed himself to be led, by the Scholiast, into rather a curious error. The old annotator, having nothing geographical to say {401} about this _Byblus_, thought he might try what etymology could do; so he tells us that the Bybline Mountains were so called from the _Byblos_ or _Papyrus_ that grew on them. This Potter took up and gave--

"Where from the _mountains with papyrus crowned_ The venerable Nile impetuous pours,"

overlooking the fact that the papyrus is a sedge, and grows in flat, moist places.

Note 46 (p. 204). ". . . the sacred Nile Pours his salubrious flood."

ἔυποτον ρέος, literally, _good for drinking_. The medicinal qualities of the _Nile_ were famous in ancient times. In the Suppliants, v. 556, our poet calls the Nile water, νόσοις ἄθικτον, _not to be reached by diseases;_ and in v. 835, _the nurturing river that makes the blood flow more buoyantly_. On this subject, the celebrated Venetian physician, Prosper Alpin, in his _Rerum Ægyptiarum_, Lib. IV. (Lugd. Bat. 1735) writes as follows: "Nili aqua merito omnibus aliis præfertur quod ipsa alvum subducat, menses pellat ut propterea raro mensium suppressio in Ægypti mulieribus reperiatur. Potui suavis est, et dulcis; sitim promptissime extinguit; frigida tuto bibitur, concoctionem juvat, ac distributioni auxilio est, minime hypochondriis gravis corpus firmum et coloratum reddit," etc.--Lib. I. c. 3. If the water of the Nile really be not only pleasant to drink, but, strictly speaking, of medicinal virtue, it has a companion in the Ness, at Inverness, the waters of which are said to possess such a drastic power, that they cannot be drunk with safety by strangers.

Note 47 (p. 204). ". . . thence with mazy course Tossed hither."

I quite agree with SCHOE. that, in the word παλιμπλάγκτος, in this passage, we must understand πάλιν to mean _to and fro_, not _backwards_. With a backward or reverted course from the Adriatic, Io could never have been brought northward to Scythia. The maziness of Io's course arises naturally from the fitful attacks of the persecuting insect of which she was the victim. A direct course is followed by sane reason, a zigzag course by insane impulse.

Note 48 (p. 204). ". . . Epaphus, whose name shall tell The wonder of his birth."

As Io was identified with Isis, so Epaphus seems merely a Greek term for the famous bull-god Apis.--(Herod. III. 27, and Müller's Prolegom. myth.) The etymology, like many others given by the ancients, is ridiculous enough; ἐπαφή, _touch_. This derivation is often alluded to in the next play, _The Suppliants_. With regard to the idea of a virgin mother so prominent in this legend of Io, PROW. has remarked that it occurs in the Hindoo and in the Mexican mythology; but nothing can be more puerile than the attempt which he mentions as made by FABER to connect this idea with the "promise respecting the seed of the woman made to man at the fall." Sound philosophy will never seek a distant reason for a phenomenon, when a near one is ready. When an object of worship or admiration is once acknowledged as superhuman, it is the most natural thing in the world for the imagination to supply a superhuman birth. A miraculous life flows most fitly from a miraculous generation. The mother of the great type of Roman {402} warriors is a vestal, and his father is the god of war. Romans and Greeks will wisely be left to settle such matters for themselves, without the aid of "patriarchal traditions" or "the prophecy of Isaiah." The ancient Hellenes were not so barren, either of fancy or feeling, as that they required to borrow matters of this kind from the Hebrews. On the idea of "generation by a god" generally, see the admirable note in GROTE's History of Greece, P. I. c. 16 (Vol. I. p. 471).

Note 49 (p. 207). ". . . they are wise who worship Adrastéa."

"A surname of Nemesis, derived by some writers from Adrastus, who is said to have built the first sanctuary of Nemesis on the river Asopus (Strabo XIII. p. 588), and by others from the verb διδράσκειν, according to which it would signify the goddess whom none could escape."--Dr. SCHMITZ. On this subject, STAN. has a long note, where the student will find various illustrative references.

Note 50 (p. 209). "For wilful strength that hath no wisdom in it Is less than nothing."

The word in the original, ἀυθαδιά, literally "self-pleasing," expresses a state of mind which the Greeks, with no shallow ethical discernment, were accustomed to denounce as the great source of all those sins whose consequences are the most fearful to the individual and to society. St. Paul, in his epistle to Titus (i. 7), uses the same word emphatically to express what a Christian bishop should _not_ be (ἀυθὰδη, self-willed). The same word is used by the blind old soothsayer Tiresias in the ANTIGONE, when preaching repentance to the passionate and self-willed tyrant of Thebes, ἀυθαδιά τοι σκαιότητ ὀφλισκάνει, where Donaldson gives the whole passage as follows:--

"Then take these things to heart, my son; for error Is as the universal lot of man; But, whensoe'er he errs, that man no longer Is witless, or unblest, who, having fallen Into misfortune, seeks to mend his ways, And is not obstinate: _the stiff-necked temper_ Must oft plead guilty to the charge of folly." SOPHOCLES, ANTIG. v. 1028.

Note 51 (p. 209). ". . . unless some god endure Vicarious thy tortures."

The idea of vicarious sacrifice, or punishment by substitution of one person for another, does not seem to have been very familiar to the Greek mind; at least, I do not trace it in Homer. It occurs, however, most distinctly in the well-known case of MENŒCEUS, in Euripides' play of the PHŒNISSÆ. In this passage, also, it is plainly implied, though the word διάδοχος, strictly translated, means only a _successor_, and not a _substitute_. WELCK. (_Trilog_. p. 47) has pointed out that the person here alluded to is the centaur CHIRON, of whom Apollodorus (II. 5-11-12) says that "Hercules, after freeing Prometheus, who had assumed the olive chaplet (WELCK. reads ἑλόμένον), delivered up Chiron to Jove willing, though immortal, to die in his room (θνήσκειν ὰντ᾽ ἁυτου). This is literally the Christian idea of vicarious death. The Druids, according to Cæsar (B.C. VI. 16), held the doctrine strictly--"_pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur non posse aliter deorum immortalium numen placari._" Of existing heathens practising human sacrifice, the religious rites of the Khonds in Orissa present the idea {403} of vicarious sacrifice in the most distinct outline. See the interesting memoir of Captain Macpherson in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for August, 1842.

Note 52 (p. 210). "Seems he not a willing madman, Let him reap the fruits he sowed."

I have translated these lines quite freely, as the text is corrupt, and the emendations proposed do not contain any idea worth the translator's adopting. SCHOE. reads--

Τί γὰρ ἐλλείπει μὴ παραπάιειν Ἐι τάδ ἐπαυχεῖ τί χαλᾷ μανιῶν;

and translates

_Was fehlet ihm noch wahnwitzig zo seyn,_ _Wenn also er pocht? Wie zahmt er die Wuth?_

PROW. from a different reading, has

To thee, if this resolve seems good, Why shouldst thou check thy frenzied mood?

NOTES TO THE SUPPLIANTS

{404}

Note 1 (p. 219). "Jove the suppliant's high protector."

Ζεὺς ἀφίκτωρ, literally _suppliant Jove_, the epithet which properly belongs to the worshipper being transferred to the object of worship. The reader will note here another instance of the monotheistic element in Polytheism, so often alluded to in these Notes. Jove, as the supreme moral governor of the universe, has a general supervision of the whole social system of gods and men; and specially where there is no inferior protector, as in the case of fugitives and suppliants--there he presses with all the weight of his high authority. In such cases, religion presents a generous and truly humanizing aspect, and the "_primus in orbe Deos fecit timor_" of the philosophers loses its sting.

Note 2 (p. 219). "Of the fat fine-sanded Nile!"

WELLAUER, in his usual over-cautious way, has not received PAUW's emendation λεπτοψαμάθων into his text, though he calls it _certissimum_ in his notes. PAL., whom I follow, acts in these matters with a more manly decision. Even without the authority of PLINY (XXXV. 13), I should adopt so natural an emendation, where the text is plainly corrupt.

Note 3 (p. 219). "Gently thrilled the brize-stung heifer With his procreant touch."

See p. 204 above, and Note 48 to Prometheus. There prevails throughout this play a constant allusion to the divine significance of the name EPAPHUS, meaning, as it does, _touch_. To the Greeks, as already remarked (p. 388), this was no mere punning; and the names of the gods (Note 17, p. 391 above) were one of the strongest instruments of Heathen devotion. That there is an allusion to this in Matthew vi. 7, I have no doubt.

Note 4 (p. 219). "Ye blissful gods supremely swaying."

I see no necessity here, with PAL., for changing ὧν πολις into ὦ πολις--but it is a matter of small importance to the translator. Jove, _the third_, is a method of designating the supreme power of which we have frequent examples in Æschylus--see the Eumenides, p. 164, where _Jove the Saviour all-perfecting_ is mentioned after _Pallas_ and _Loxias_, as it were, to crown the invocation with the greatest of all names. In that passage τρίτου occurs in the original, which I was wrong to omit.

Note 5 (p. 220). "Marriage beds which right refuses."

In what countries are first cousins forbidden to marry? WELCKER does not know. "_Das Eherecht worauf diese Weigerung beruht ist nicht bekannt._"--WELCKER (_Trilog._ 391).

Note 6 (p. 221). "With Ionian wailings unstinted."

"Perhaps _Ionian_ is put in this place antithetically to Νειλοθερῆ, _from the Nile_, in the next line, and the sense is, 'though coming from Egypt, {405} yet, being of Greek extraction, I speak Greek.' "--PALEY. This appears to me the simplest and most satisfactory comment on the passage.

Note 7 (p. 221). "From the far misty land."

That is EGYPT. So called according to the Etymol. M. quoted by STAN., from the cloudy appearance which the low-lying Delta district presents to the stranger approaching it from the sea.

Note 8 (p. 222). "All godlike power is calm."

It would be unfair not to advertise the English reader that this fine sentiment is a translation from a conjectural reading, πᾶν ἄπονον δαιμονιων, of WELL., which, however, is in beautiful harmony with the context. The text generally in this part of the play is extremely corrupt. In the present stanza, WELL.'s correction of δε ἀπιδων into ἐλπίδων deserves to be celebrated as one of the few grand triumphs of verbal criticism that have a genuine poetical value.

Note 9 (p. 222). "Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!"

The reader must imagine here a complete change in the style of the music--say from the major to the minor key. In the whole Chorus, the mind of the singer sways fitfully between a hopeful confidence and a dark despair. The faith in the counsel of Jove, and in the sure destruction of the wicked, so finely expressed in the preceding stanzas, supports the sinking soul but weakly in this closing part of the hymn. These alterations of feeling exhibited under such circumstances will appear strange to no one who is acquainted with the human, and especially with the female heart.

Note 10 (p. 223). "Ye Apian hills."

"Apia, an old name for Peloponnesus, which remains still a mystery, even after the attempt of Butmann to throw light upon it."--GROTE, Hist, of Greece, Part I. c. 4. Æschylus' own account of Apis, the supposed originator of the name Apia, will be found in this play a few lines below. I have consulted Butmann, and find nothing but a conglomeration of vague and slippery etymologies.

Note 11 (p. 225). ". . . rounded cars."

καμπύλος, _with a bend_ or _sweep_; alluding to the form of the rim of the ancient chariot, between the charioteer and the horses. See the figure in SMITH's _Dict. Antiq._, Articles ἄντυξ and _currus_.

Note 12 (p. 225). ". . . the Agonian gods."

The common meaning that a Greek scholar would naturally give to the phrase θεοῖ ἀγωνιοι is that given by HESYCH, viz., _gods that preside over public games_, or, as I have rendered it in the Agamemnon (p. 57 above), _gods that rule the chance of combat_. For persons who, like the Herald in that play, had just escaped from a great struggle, or, like the fugitive Virgins in this piece, were going through one, there does not appear to be any great impropriety (notwithstanding PAL.'s. _inepte_) in an appeal to the gods of combat. Opposed to this interpretation, however, we have the common practice of Homer, with whom the substantive ἀγών generally means an assembly; and the testimony of Eustathius, who, in his notes to {406} that poet, Iliad, Ω 1335, 58, says "παρ Αισχύλῳ ἀγώνιοι θεοὶ ὁι ἀγορᾶιοι;" _i.e. gods that preside over assemblies._

Note 13 (p. 225). ". . . your sistered hands."

διὰ χερων συνωνύμων. I am inclined to think with PAL. that ἐυωνύμων may be the true reading; _i.e. in your left hands_. And yet, so fond is Æschylus of quaint phrases that I do not think myself at liberty to reject the vulgate, so long as it is susceptible of the very appropriate meaning given in the text. "_Hands of the same name_" may very well be tolerated for "_hands of the same race_"--"hands of sisters."

Note 14 (p. 225). "Even so; and with benignant eye look down!"

I have here departed from WELL.'s arrangement of this short colloquy between Danaus and his daughters, and adopted PAL.'s, which appears to me to satisfy the demands both of sense and metrical symmetry. That there is something wrong in the received text WELL. admits.

Note 15 (p. 226). "There where his bird the altar decorates."

I have here incorporated into the text the natural and unembarrassed meaning of this passage given by PAL. The bird of Jove, of course, is the eagle. What the Scholiast and STAN. say about the cock appears to be pure nonsense, which would never have been invented but for the confused order of the dialogue in the received text.

Note 16 (p. 226). "Apollo, too, the pure, the exiled once."

"They invoke Apollo to help them, strangers and fugitives, because that god himself had once been banished from heaven by Jove, and kept the herds of Admetus.

'Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.'"--STAN.

Note 17 (p. 226). "Here, Hermes likewise, as Greece knows the god."

This plainly points out a distinction between the Greek and the famous Egyptian Hermes. So the Scholiast, and STAN. who quotes Cic., Nat. Deor. III. 22.

Note 18 (p. 226). "Can bird eat bird and be an holy thing?"

This seems to have been a common-place among the ancients. PLINY, in the following passage, draws a contrast between man and the inferior animals, not much to the honor of the former:--"_Cætera animalia in suo genere probe degunt; congregari videmus et stare contra dissimilia; leonum feritas inter se non dimicat; serpentum morsus non petit serpentes; ne maris quidem belluæ ac pisces nisi in diversa genera sæviunt. At hercule homini plarima ex homine sunt mala._"--NAT. HIST. VII. proem. This custom of blackening human nature (which is bad enough, without being made worse) has been common enough also in modern times, especially among a certain school of theologians, very far, indeed, in other respects, from claiming kindred with the Roman polyhistor; but the fact is, one great general law over-rides both man and the brute, viz. this--LIKE HERDS {407} WITH LIKE--the only difference being that human beings, with a great outward similarity, are characterized by a more various inward diversity than the lower animals. There are, in fact, men of all various kinds represented in the moral world--all those varieties which different races and species exhibit in the physical. There are lamb-men, tiger-men, serpent-men, pigeon-men, and hawk-men. That such discordant natures should sometimes, nay always in a certain sense, strive, is a necessary consequence of their existing.

Note 19 (p. 226). "And of no host the acknowledged guest, unfearing Ye tread this land."

ἀπρόξενος, without a πρόξενος, or a _public host_ or _entertainer_--one who occupied the same position on the part of the state towards a stranger that a ξένος or landlord, did to his private guest. In some respects "the office of proxenus bears great resemblance to that of a modern consul or minister resident."--Dr. SCHMITZ, in Smith's Dict., article _Hospitium_. Compare SOUTHEY, Notes to MADOC. I. 5, _The Stranger's House_.

Note 20 (p. 227). "Of old earth-born Palæcthon am the son, My name Pelasgus."

Here we have an example of those names of the earliest progenitors of an ancient race that seem to bear fiction on their face; PALAECTHON meaning merely the _ancient son of the land_, and PELASGUS being the name-father of the famous ante-Homeric wandering Greeks, whom we call PELASGI.

Note 21 (p. 227). "All the land where Algos flows, and Strymon."

The geography here is very confused. I shall content myself with noting the different points from Müller's map (_Dorians_)--

(1) ALGOS; unknown.

(2) STRYMON; a well-known river in Thrace.

(3) PERRHÆBIANS; in Thessaly, North of the Peneus (Homer, Il. II. 749).

(4) PINDUS; the well-known mountain ridge in the centre of Northern Greece, separating the great rivers which descend on the one hand through Epirus into the Ionian sea and the Adriatic, on the other, into the Ægean.

(5) PÆONIA; in the North of Macedonia (Iliad II. 848).

(6) DODONA; in Epirus.

Note 22 (p. 227). "Apollo's son, by double right, physician And prophet both."

This is somewhat of a circumlocution for the single Greek phrase, ἱατρόμαντις, _physician-prophet_; a name applied to Apollo himself by the Pythoness, in the prologue to the Eumenides (p. 142 above). The original conjunction of the two offices of prophet and leech in the person of Melampus, Apis, Chiron, etc. and their patron Apollo, is a remarkable fact in the history of civilization. The multiplication and isolation of professions originally combined and confounded is a natural enough consequence of the progress of society, of which examples occur in every sphere of human activity; but there is, besides, a peculiar fitness in the conjunction of {408} medicine and theology, arising from the intimate connexion of mind with bodily ailment, too much neglected by some modern drug-minglers, and also, from the fact that, in ancient times, nothing was more common than to refer diseases, especially those of a striking kind, to the immediate interference of the Divine chastiser--(see Hippocrates περὶ ἱερῆς νόσου _init_.). Men are never more disposed to acknowledge divine power than when under the influence of severe affliction; and accordingly we find that, in some savage or semi-savage tribes, the "medicine-man" is the only priest. It would be well, indeed, if, in the present state of advanced science, professional men would more frequently attempt to restore the original oneness of the healing science--(see Max. Tyr. πῶς ᾶν τις ἄλυπος ἒιη)--if all medical men would, like the late Dr. Abercrombie, bear in mind that man has a soul as well as a body, and all theologians more distinctly know that human bodies enclose a stomach as well as a conscience, with which latter the operations of the former are often strangely confounded.

Note 23 (p. 228). ". . . Io, on this Argive ground, Erst bore the keys to Hera."

_i.e._ was priestess of the Argive goddess. The keys are the sign of custodiary authority in modern as in ancient times. See various instances in STAN.

Note 24 (p. 228). "So runs the general rumour."

After this, WELL. supposes something has fallen out of the text; but to me a break in the narration of the Chorus, caused by the eagerness of the royal questioner, seems sufficiently to explain the state of the text. PAL. agrees.

Note 25 (p. 228). "Like a leaping bull, Transformed he came."

Βουθόρῳ ταύρῳ. I have softened this expression a little; so modern delicacy compels. The original is quite Homeric--"συῶν ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον."--Odyssey XI. 131. Homer and the author of the Book of Genesis agree in expressing natural things in a natural way, equally remote (as healthy nature always is) from fastidiousness and from prudery.

Note 26 (p. 228).

_King_. A question has evidently dropt here; but it is of no consequence. The answer supplies the first link in the genealogical chain deducing the Danaides from Io and Epaphus. See above, p. 400, Note 44.

Note 27 (p. 229). "Both this and that."

I have translated this difficult passage freely, according to the note of SCHÜTZ., as being most comprehensive, and excluding neither the one ground of objection nor the other, both of which seem to have occupied the mind of the virgins. I am not, however, by any means sure what the passage really means. E. P. Oxon. has--

"Who would seek to obtain kindred as masters?"

POT.--

"And who would wish to make their friends their lord."

Where the real ground of objection is so darkly indicated, a translator is at liberty to smuggle a sort of commentary into the text.

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Note 28 (p. 229). "The wrath of suppliant Jove."

_i.e._ Jove the protector of suppliants. See above, Note 1.

Note 29 (p. 230). "Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued."

The scholar will recognize here a deviation from WELL.'s text λευκόστικτον, and the adoption of Hermann's admirable emendation, λυκοδίωκτον. PAL. has received this into his text, and LIN., generally a severe censor, approves.--_Class. Museum_, No. VII. p. 31. Both on metrical and philological grounds, the reading demands reception.

Note 30 (p. 230). "Thou art the state, and the people art thou."

This is a very interesting passage in reference to the political constitution--if the term constitution be here allowable--of the loose political aggregates of the heroic ages. The Chorus, of course, speak only their own feelings; but their feelings, in this case, are in remarkable consistency with the usages of the ancient Greeks, as described by Homer. The government of the heroic ages, as it appears in the Iliad, was a monarchy, on common occasions absolute, but liable to be limited by a circumambient atmosphere of oligarchy, and the prospective possibility of resistance on the part of a people habitually passive. Another remarkable circumstance, is the identity of church and state, well indicated by Virgil, in that line--

Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos. ÆNEID III.

and concerning which, Ottfried Müller says--"In ancient Greece it may be said, with almost equal truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings" (Mythology, Leitch, p. 187). On this identity of church and state were founded those laws against the worship of strange gods, which formed so remarkable an exception to the comprehensive spirit of toleration that Hume and Gibbon have not unjustly lauded as one of the advantageous concomitants of Polytheism. The intolerance, which is the necessary consequence of such an identity, has found its thorough and consistent champions only among the Mahommedan and Christian monotheists of modern times. Even the large-hearted and liberal-minded Dr. Arnold was so far possessed by the ancient doctrine of the identity of church and state, that he could not conceive of the possibility of admitting Jews to deliberate in the senate of a Christian state. In modern times, also, we have witnessed with wonder the full development of a doctrine most characteristically Homeric, that the absolute power of kings, whether in civil or in ecclesiastical matters, is equally _of divine right_.

Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς. IL. II. 197.

"For from Jove the honor cometh, him the counsellor Jove doth love."

On this very interesting subject every page of Homer is pregnant with instruction; but those who are not familiar with that bible of classical scholars will find a bright reflection of the most important truths in GROTE, Hist. Greece, P. I. c. XX.

Note 31 (p. 231). "Without the people I cannot do this thing."

Æschylus makes the monarch of the heroic ages speak here with a strong tincture of the democracy of the latter times of Greece, no doubt securing {410} to himself thereby immense billows of applause from his Athenian auditors, as the tragedians were fond of doing, by giving utterance to liberal sentiments like that of Æmon in Sophocles--"πόλις γὰρ ὀυκ ἒσθ ἣτις ἀνδρός ἐσθ᾽ ἑνός." But how little the people had to say in the government of the heroic ages appears strikingly in that most dramatic scene described in the second book of the Iliad, which GROTE (II. 94) has, with admirable judgment, brought prominently forward in his remarks on the power of the ἀγορά, or popular assembly, in the heroic ages. Ulysses holds forth the orthodox doctrine in these terms--

"Sit thee down, and cease thy murmurings: sit, and hear thy betters speak, Thou unwarlike, not in battle known, in council all unheard! Soothly all who are Achæans are not kings, and cannot be; Evil is the sway of many; only one may bear the rule, One be king, to whom the deep-designing Kronos' mighty son Gave the sceptre and the right."--Il. II. 200.

Note 32 (p. 233). ". . . possessory Jove."

Ζεύς κτήσιος.--An epithet characteristic of Jove, as the supreme disposer of human affairs. KLAUSEN (Theolog. II. 15) compares the epithet κλαριος from κλῆρος, _a lot_, which I have paraphrased in p. 230 above.

"_The Jove that allotteth their lot to all._"

KLAUSEN quotes Pausanias (I. 31-4) to the effect that Ζευς κτησιος was worshipped in Attica along with Ceres, Minerva, Cora, and the awful Maids or Furies.

Note 33 (p. 234). "The pillar-compassed seats divine."

From a conjecture of PAL., περιστύλους; the πυλισσόυχων being evidently repeated by a wandering of the eye or ear of the transcriber. Sophocles, I recollect, in the Antigone, has ἀμφικίονας ναοὺς. Of course, in the case of such blunders, where the true reading cannot be restored, the best that can be done is to substitute an appropriate one.

Note 34 (p. 235). ". . . the assembly of the people."

The word ἀγορά, _popular assembly_, does not occur here; but it is plainly implied. It is to be distinguished from the βουλή, or _council of the chiefs_.--See GROTE as above, and HOMER _passim_.

Note 35 (p. 235). "All crowning Consummator."

As the opening words of this prayer generally are one of the finest testimonies to the sovereignty of Jove to be found in the poet, so the conjunction of words τελέων τελειὸτατον, κράτος is particularly to be noted. The adjectives τέλειος, τελεος, παντελής, and the verb τελέω, are often applied with a peculiar significancy to the king of the gods, as he who alone can conduct to a happy end every undertaking, under whatever auspices commenced. This doctrine is most reverently announced by the Chorus of this play towards the end (p. 244), in these comprehensive terms--

τι δε ἄνευ σέθεν θνατοισι τελειον εστι.

"What thing to mortal men is completed without thee." And in this sense Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 69), prays--

Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε τὰς εμὰς ἐυχὰς τὲλει.

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On the over-ruling special providence of Jove generally the scholar should read KLAUSEN, _Theol._ II., 15, and _Class. Mus._ No. XXVI. pp. 429-433.

Note 36 (p. 236). ". . . hence by the brize."

The reader will observe that the course of Io's wanderings here sketched is something very different from that given in the Prometheus, and much more intelligible. The geography is so familiar to the general reader from the Acts of the Apostles, that comment is unnecessary.

Note 37 (p. 236). "Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies."

The partiality of Æschylus for sea-phrases has been often observed. Here, however, Paley for the ἐρεσσομένα, of the vulgate has proposed ἐρεθομένα, aptly for the sense and the metre; but LIN. (_Class. Mus._ No. VII. 30) seems right in allowing the text to remain. I have taken up both readings into my rendering.

Note 38 (p. 236). "Nor dared to approach this thing of human face."

It is difficult to know what δυσχερὲς in the text refers. POT. refers it to the mind of the maid--

"Disdaining to be touched."

To me it seems more natural to refer the difficulty of touching to the superstitious fears of the Egyptians; and to translate "_not safely to be meddled with_." This is the feeling that my translation has attempted to bring out.

Note 39 (p. 237). "Jove's decided will."

I adopt Heath's emendation Βούλιος for δούλιος. WELL., with superstitious reverence for the most corrupt text extant, retaining the δούλίος, is forced to explain δούλιος φρην, "_dictum videtur de hominibus qui Jovis auxilium imploraverunt;_" but this will never do. The reader is requested to observe what a pious interpretation is, in this passage, given to the connection of Jove and Io--how different from that given by Prometheus, p. 202 above. We may be assured that the orthodox Heathen view of this and other such matters lies in the present beautifully-toned hymn, and not in the hostile taunts which the poet, for purely dramatic purposes, puts into the mouth of the enemy of Jove.

Note 40 (p. 240). "Holy Hecate's aid avail thee."

Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaning _far_ or _distant_ (ἕκας). According to the prevalent opinion among mythologists, both ancient and modern, this goddess is merely an impersonation of the MOON, as PHOEBUS of the SUN. The term "far-darting" applies to both equally; the rays of the great luminaries being fitly represented as arrows of a far-shooting deity. In the Strophe which follows, Phoebus, under the name of Λυκειος, is called upon to be gracious to the youth of Argos.

ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειος ἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,

and in the translation I have taken the liberty, _pro hac vice_, as the lawyers say, to suppose that this epithet, as some modern scholars suggest, has nothing to do etymologically with λύκος, _a wolf_, but rather with the root {412} λυκ, which we find in the substantive λυκάβας, and in the Latin _luceo_. Æschylus, however, in the SEVEN AGAINST THEBES (p. 266 above), adopts the derivation from λύκος, as will be seen from my version. I have only to add that, if Artemis be the Moon, her function as the patroness of parturition, alluded to in the present passage, is the most natural thing in the world. On this whole subject, KEIGHTLEY, c. viii. is very sensible.

Note 41 (p. 241). "The bulging fence-work on each side."

(παράῤῥυσεις, more commonly παραῤῥύματα.) "The ancients, as early as the time of Homer, had various preparations raised above the edge of a vessel, made of skins and wicker-work, which were intended as a protection against high waves, and also to serve as a kind of breast-work behind which the men might be safe from the attacks of the enemy."--DICT. ANTIQ _voce_ SHIPS.

Note 42 (p. 241). ". . . the prow Fronted with eyes to track its watery way."

"It is very common to represent an eye on each side of the prow of ancient ships."--Do., and woodcuts there from Montfaucon. This custom, PAL. remarks, still continues in the Mediterranean.

Note 43 (p. 241). "To champion our need."

WELLAUER says that the "sense demands" a distribution of the concluding part of this speech between Danaus and the Chorus; but I can see no reason for disturbing the ancient order, which is retained by BUT., though not by PAL. That the sense requires no change, the translation should make evident.

Note 44 (p. 242). ". . . their ships dark-fronted."

(κυανώπιδες.) The reader will call to mind the νῆες μέλαιναι, the black ships in Homer.--See DICT. ANTIQ. _voce_ SHIPS.

Note 45 (p. 242). "A strong-limbed race with noon-day sweats well hardened."

This sentiment must have awakened a hearty response in the minds of the Greeks, who were superior to the moderns in nothing so much as in the prominency which they gave to gymnastic exercises, and their contempt for all sorts of σκιοτροφία--_rearing in the shade_--which our modern bookish system tends to foster.

Note 46 (p. 242). "No Mars is in her."

ὄυκ ἔνεστ Ἄρης, a proverbial expression for _pithless_, _nerveless_. The same expression is used in the initiatory anapæsts of the Agamemnon. Ἄρης δ ὄυκ ἔνι χώρᾳ.

Note 47 (p. 242). "Good Greek corn is better than papyrus."

"Præter alios plurimos usus etiam in cibis recepta fuit papyrus"--ABUL. FADI--"radix ejus pulcis est; quapropter eam masticant et sugunt Ægyptii." --OLAUS CELSIUS, _Hierozoicon, Upsal_, 1745. I consulted this valuable work myself, but owe the original reference to an excellent "Essay on the Papyrus of the Ancients, by W. H. DE VRIESE," translated from the Dutch by W. B. MACDONALD, Esq. of Rammerscales, in the _Class. Mus._ No. XVI. {413} p. 202, In that article it is stated that "when Guilandinus was in Egypt in the year 1559-60, the pith was then used as food." HERODOTUS (Euterp. 92) says that they eat the lower part, roasting it in an oven (κλιβάνῳ πνίξαντες). PLINY (XIII. 11) says, "mandunt quoque, crudum decoctumque succum tantum devorantes." In the text, of course, the allusion is a sort of proverbial ground of superiority, on the part of the Greeks, over the sons of the Nile, pretty much in the spirit of Dr. Johnston's famous definition of oats--"_food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland._" I have only further to add, that the papyrus belongs to the natural family of the _Cyperaceæ_ or _Sedges_, and, though not now common in Egypt, is a well-known plant, and to be seen in most of our botanical gardens.

Note 48 (p. 242). "The shepherds of the ships."

I have retained this phrase scrupulously--ποιμένες ναῶν--as an interesting relique of the patriarchal age. So in the opening choral chaunt of the Persians, Xerxes is "shepherd of many sheep," and a little farther on in the same play, _Atossa_ asks the Chorus, "who is shepherd of this (the Athenian) people?" It is in such small peculiarities that the whole character and expression of a language lies.

Note 49 (p. 242). ". . . on this coast Harbours are few."

"Nauplia was almost the only harbour on the coast of Argolis."--PAL., from BOTH. I am not topographer enough to be able to confirm this.

Note 50 (p. 243). "On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh."

κρεμὰς. _Robortellus_: which WELL. might surely have adopted. The description of wild mountain loneliness is here very fine. Let the reader imagine such a region as that of BEN-MACDHUI in Aberdeenshire, so well described in _Blackwood's Magazine_, August, 1847. ὀιόφρων is more than ὄιος; and I have ventured on a periphrasis. Hermann's Latin translation given by PAL. is--"_saxum praeruptum, capris inaccessum, incommonstrabile, solitudine vastum, propendens, vulturibus habitatum._"

Note 51 (p. 244).

CHORUS (_in separate voices, and short hurried exclamations_). I most cordially agree with WELL. in attaching the ten verses 805-15 to what follows, rather than making it stand as an Epode to what precedes. A change of style is distinctly felt at the conclusion of the third Antistrophe; the dim apprehension of approaching harm becomes a distinct perception, and the choral music more turbid, sudden, and exclamatory. This I have indicated by breaking up the general chaunt into individual voices.--See p. 377, Note 19.

Note 52 (p. 245). "Hence to the ships! to the good ships fare ye!"

"What follows is most corrupt, but so made up of short sentences, commands, and exclamations, that if the whole passage were wanting, it would not be much missed. It is very tasteless, and full of turgid phraseology."--PALEY. All this is very true, if we look on the Suppliants as a play written to be read; but, being an opera composed for music, what appears to us tasteless and extravagant, without that stimulating emotional atmosphere, {414} might have been, to the Athenians who heard it, the grand floodtide and tempestuous triumph of the piece. Compare, especially, the passionate Oriental coronach with which "The Persians" concludes. We must never forget that we possess only the skeleton of the sacred opera of the Greeks.

Note 53 (p. 248). "To find stray goods the world all over, Hermes Is prince of patrons."

"_Rei furtivae_," as the civil law says, "_acterna est auctoritas_"; and the Herald, being sent out on a mission to reclaim what was abstracted, requires no credentials but the fact of the heraldship, which he exercises under the patronage of the herald-god Hermes. It may be also, as the commentators suggest--though I recollect no passage to prove it--that Hermes, being a thief himself, and the patron of thieves, was the most apt deity to whose intervention might be referred the recovery of stolen goods. Something of this kind seems implied in the epithet μαστηριῳ, _the searcher_, here given to Hermes.

Note 54 (p. 250). "In the general view, and publishes their praise."

After these words I have missed out a line, of which I can make nothing satisfactory--

κἄλωρα κωλύουσαν ὡς μένειν ἐρῶ.

A few lines below, for (ὀ)υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ, I have followed PAL. in adopting HEATH's εἵνεκ᾽ ἠρόθη δορὶ.

Note 55 (p. 251).

CHORAL HYMN. This final Chorus of the Suppliants and the opening one of the Persians are remarkable for the use of that peculiar rhythm, technically called the _Ionic a minore_, of which a familiar example exists in Horace, Ode III. 12. What the æsthetical or moral effect of this measure was on an Athenian ear it is perhaps impossible for us, at the present day, to know; but I have thought it right, in both cases, when it occurs, to mark the peculiarity by the adoption of an English rhythm, in some similar degree removed from the vulgar use, and not without a certain cognate character. In modern music, at least, the Ionic of the Greek text and the measure used in my translation are mere varieties of the same rhythmical genus marked musically by ¾. As for the structure of the Chorus, its division into two semi-choruses is anticipative of the division of feeling among the sisters, which afterwards arose when the conduct of their stern father forced them to choose between filial and connubial duty. One thing also is plain, that there is nothing of a real moral finale in this Chorus. Regarded as a concluding ode, it were a most weak and impotent performance. The tone of grateful jubilee with which it sets out, is, after the second Strophe, suddenly changed into the original note of apprehension, evil-foreboding, doubt, and anxiety, plainly pointing to the terrible catastrophe to be unveiled in the immediately succeeding play.

Note 56 (p. 251). "Yet, mighty praise be thine, Cyprian queen divine!"

The Chorus here are evidently moved by a religious apprehension that, in placing themselves under the patronage of the goddess of chastity, they may have treated lightly the power and the functions of the great goddess of {415} love. To reconcile the claims of opposing deities was a great problem of practical piety with all devout polytheists. The introduction of Aphrodite here, as has been remarked, is also plainly prophetic of the part which Hypermnestra is to play in the subsequent piece, under the influence of the great Cyprian goddess preferring the love of a husband to the command of a father.

Note 57 (p. 252). "Lovely Harmonia."

"Hesiod says that Harmonia (ἁρμονία--order or arrangement) was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the appearance of a physical myth; for from love and strife--_i.e._ attraction and repulsion--arises the order or harmony of the universe."--KEIGHTLEY.

Note 58 (p. 252). "Yet must I fear the chase."

φυγάδεσσιν δ ἒπιπλόιας. HAUPT adopted by PAL. An excellent conjecture.

NOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

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Note 1 (p. 263). "Which may averting Jove from me avert."

The epithet ἀλεξητηριος or ἀλεξίκακος (Pausan. Att. III.) or the averter, applied to the gods (see Odys. III. 346, is to be noted), as characteristic of the grand fact in the history of mind, that with rude nations the fear of evil is the dominant religious motive; so much so, that in the accounts which we read of some savage, or semi-savage nations, religion seems to consist altogether in a vague, dim fear of some unknown power, either without moral attributes altogether, or even positively malignant. In this historical sense, the famous maxim, _primus in orbe deos fecit timor_--however insufficient as a principle of general theology--is quite true. In the present passage, the phraseology is remarkable.

ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριος Ἐπώνυμος γένοιτο--

literally, _of which evils may Jove be the averter, and in being so, answer to his name_. This allusion to the names and epithets of the gods occurs in Æschylus with a frequency which marks it as a point of devotional propriety in the worship of the Greeks. I have expressed the same thing in the text by the repetition of _avert_. So in the _Choephoræ_, p. 103, _Herald Hermes, herald me in this,_ &c.

Note 2 (p. 263). "In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths, By no false art, though without help from fire."

"Tiresias, the Theban seer, was blind, and could not divine by fire or other visible signs; but he had received from Pallas a remarkably acute hearing, and the faculty of understanding the voices of birds."--_Apollodor_. III. 6.--STAN. WELL. objects to this, but surely without good reason. Why are the ears--εν ὦσι--mentioned so expressly, if not to make some contrast to the common method of divining by the eye?

Note 3 (p. 264). "By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror."

With Mars in Homer (Il. IV. 440) are coupled φόβος and Δ(ε)ιμος, _Fear_ and _Terror_, as in this passage of Æschylus, and Ἔρις, _Strife_.

"FEAR and TERROR went with him, and STRIFE that rages without bound, STRIFE of Mars the man-destroyer, sister and companion dear."

And in Livy (I. 27), Tullus Hostilius being pressed in battle, "_duodecim vovit Salios, fanaque_ PALLORI _et_ PAVORI."--Compare Cic. de Nat. Deor. III. c. 25. ENÝO is coupled in Homer as a war-goddess with ATHENA--

"Well Tydides knew that Venus was no goddess made for war, Not Athena, not Eýno city-sacking."

In our language, we have naturalized her Roman counterpart BELLONA.

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Note 4 (p. 264). ". . . the chariot of Adrastus."

"Because it had been predicted that Adrastus alone should survive the war."--SCHOLIAST.

Note 5 (p. 265).

CHORUS. This Chorus, SCHNEIDER remarks, naturally divides itself into four, or, as I think, rather into five distinct parts, (1) The Chorus enter the stage in great hurry and agitation, indicated by the Dochmiac verse--σποράδην, according to the analogy of the Eumenides--(see the βιος Αισχύλου)--in scattered array, and, perhaps in the person of their Coryphæus, describe generally the arrival of the Theban host, and their march against the walls of Thebes. (2) But as the agitation increases, continuity of description becomes impossible, and a series of broken and irregular exclamations and invocations by individual voices follows. (3) Then a more regular prayer, or the chaunting of the Theban litany begins, in which we must suppose the whole band to join. (4) This is interrupted, however, by the near terror of the assault, and the chaunt is again broken into hurried exclamations of individual voices. (5) The litany is then wound up by the whole band. Of course no absolute external proof of matters of this kind can be offered; but the internal evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the translator in marking the peculiar character of the Chorus in some such manner as I have done. For dramatic effect, this is of the utmost consequence. Nothing has more hurt the dramatic character of Æschylus, than the practice of throwing into the form of a continuous ode what was written for a series of well-arranged individual voices. Whoever he was among more recent scholars that first analyzed the Choruses with a special view to separate the exclamatory parts from the continuous chaunt deserves my best thanks.--See Note 19 to the EUMENIDES, p. 377.

Note 6 (p. 265). "With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride."

πεδιοπλόκτυπος. Before this word, another epithet ελεδεμνας occurs, which the intelligent scholar will readily excuse me for having omitted altogether.

Note 7 (p. 265). ". . . the white-shielded host."

The epithet λεύκασπις seems characteristic of the Argive host in the Bœotian legend. SOPHOCLES, in the beautiful opening Chorus of the _Antigone_, and EURIPIDES in the _Phœnissæ_, has it. Such traits were of course adopted by the tragedians from the old local legends always with conscientious fidelity. STAN. refers it to the general white or shining aspect of the shields of the common soldiers, distinguished by no various-coloured blazonry; which may be the true explanation.

Note 8 (p. 265). "With chaplet and stole."

In modern times, the mightiest monarchs have not thought it beneath their dignity to present, and sometimes, even, to work a petticoat to the Virgin Mary. In ancient times, the presentation of a πέπλος to the maiden goddess of Athens was no less famous--

"Take the largest and the finest robe that in thy chamber lies-- Take the robe to thee so dear, and place it duly on the knees Of the beautiful-haired Athena."--IL. VI. 273.

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VIRGIL has not forgotten this--_Æneid_ I. 480. The _peplos_ was a large upper dress, often reaching to the feet. YATES, in the _Dict. Antiq._, translates it "shawl," which may be the most accurate word, but, from its modern associations, of course, unsuitable for poetry.--See the article.

Note 9 (p. 265). "O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold."

Mars was one of the native ὲπιχώριοι gods of Thebes, as the old legend of the dragon and the sown-teeth sufficiently testifies. The dragon was the offspring of Mars; and the fountain which it guarded, when it was slain by the Phœnician wanderer, was sacred to that god. APOLLODOR. III. 4; UNGER. _de fonte Aret_. p. 103.

Note 10 (p. 266) "And their steeds with ringing bridles."

Bells were often used on the harness of horses, and on different parts of the armour, to increase the war-alarm--the κλαγγή τε ἐνοπή τε (Il. III. 2), which is so essential a part of the instinct of assault. See the description of Tydeus below, and Dict. Antiq. _tintinnabulum_, where is represented a fragment of ancient sculpture, showing the manner in which bells were attached to the collars of war-horses. Dio Cassius (Lib. LXXVI. 12) mentions that "the arms of the Britons are a shield and short spear, in the upper part whereof is an apple of brass, which, being shaken, terrifies the enemy with the sound." Compare κωδωνο, φαλαραπωλους. _Aristoph. Ran._ 963.

Note 11 (p. 266). "God of pawing steeds, Poseidon."

Neptune is called equestrian or ἱππίος, no doubt, from the analogy of the swift waves, over which his car rides, to the fleet ambling of horses. In the mythical contest with Pallas, accordingly, while the Athenian maid produces the olive tree, the god of waves sends forth a war-horse.

Note 12 (p. 266). "Save us, Cypris, mother of Thebans."

"Harmonia, whom Cadmus married, was the daughter of Mars and Aphrodite."--SCHOLIAST.

Note 13 (p. 266). "Save us, save us, Wolf-Apollo."

Here is one of those pious puns upon the epithets of the gods, which were alluded to in Note 1 above. With regard to this epithet of Apollo, who, in the Electra of SOPHOCLES, v. 6, is called distinctly _wolf-slayer_ (λυκοκτόνος), there seems to me little doubt that the Scholiast on that passage is right in referring this function to Apollo, as the god of a pastoral people (νὸμιος). PASSOW (_Dict. in voce_), compare _Pausan_. (Cor. II. 19).

Note 14 (p. 267). "O Onca, blest Onca."

Onca, says the Scholiast, was a name of Athena, a Phœnician epithet, brought by Cadmus from his native country. The Oncan gate was the same as the Ogygian gate of Thebes mentioned by other writers, and the most ancient of all the seven.--UNGER. p. 267; Pausan. IX. 8.

Note 15 (p. 267). "The seven-gated city deliver, deliver."

The current traditional epithet of Thebes, whose seven gates were as famous as the seven mouths of the Nile--

{419}

"Rari quippe boni: numerus vix est totidem quot Thebarum portæ vel divitis ostia Nili."--JUV. Sat. XIII. 26.

And _Homer_, in the Odyssey XI. 263, talks of--

"Amphion and Zethus, First who founded and uptowered the seat of seven-gated Thebes."

These may suffice from a whole host of citations in UNGER. Vol. I. p. 254-6, and Pausan. IX. 8. 3.

Note 16 (p. 267). ". . . a foreign-speaking foe!"

This appears strange, as both besieged and besiegers were Greeks, differing no more in dialect than the Prussians and the Austrians, or we Scotch from our English neighbours. I agree with E. P. that it is better not to be over-curious in such matters, and that Butler is right when he says that ἐτερόφωνος is only _paullo gravius dictum ad miserationem_--that is, only a little tragic exaggeration for _hostile_ or _foreign_.

Note 17 (p. 268). ". . . the painted gods upon the prow."

The general practice was, that the tutelary gods were on the poop, and only the figure-head on the prow (Dict. Antiq., _Ships_ and _Insigne_), but, as there was nothing to prevent the figure-head being itself a god, the case alluded to by Æschylus might often occur.--See the long note in STAN.

Note 18 (p 268). "Who knows not That, when a city falls, they pass to the Victor"

The Roman custom of evoking the gods of a conquered city to come out of the subject shrines, and take up their dwelling with the conqueror, is well known. In LIVY, V. 21, there is a remarkable instance of this in the case of Veii--"Tuo ductu," says CAMILLUS, "Pythice Apollo, tuoque numine instinctus pergo ad delendam urbem Veios: tibique hinc decumam partem prædæ voveo. Te simul, JUNO REGINA, quæ nunc Veios colis, precor ut nos victores in nostram tuamque mox futuram urbem sequare; ubi te dignum amplitudine tua templum accipiat."

Note 19 (p. 269). "For blood of mortals is the common food."

I read φόνῳ, not φόβῳ, principally for the sake of the sentiment, as the other idea which φοβῳ gives, has been already expressed. Certainly WELL. is too positive in saying that φόβῳ is "_prorsus necessarium_." Both readings give an equally appropriate sense: that in the text, which POT. also gives; or this other--

"Your fear but heaps the fuel of hot war I' the hearts o' the foe."

Note 20 (p. 270). "Dirce and Ismenus' sacred stream."

These were waters in Theban legend no less famous than INACHUS and ERASINUS in that of Argos. The waters of Dirce, in particular, were famous for their clearness and pleasantness to drink. "Dirce, flowing with a pure and sweet stream," says AELIAN, _Var. Hist._ XII. 57, quoted by UNGER. p. 187, and Æschylus in the Chorus immediately following, equals its praise to that of the Nile, sung so magnificently in the Suppliants."

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Note 21 (p. 271). "From Poseidon earth-embracing, And from Tethys' winding sons."

Γαιήοχος--the "_Earth-holder_" or "_Earth-embracer_," is a designation of Poseidon, stamped to the Greek ear with the familiar authority of Homer. According to Hesiod, and the Greek mythology generally, the fountains were the sons of Ocean either directly or indirectly, through the rivers, who owned the same fatherhood. Tethys is the primeval Amphitrite.--See Note 13 to Prometheus, p. 390 above.

Note 22 (p. 273). ". . . at the Prœtian portal Tydeus stands."

"A gate of doubtful parentage, from which the road went out from Thebes direct to Chalcis in Eubœa."--UNGER. p. 297. "Here, by the wayside, was the tomb of Melanippus, the champion of this gate, who slew his adversary Tydeus."--PAUSAN. IX. 8. This Tydeus is the father of Diomedes, whose exploits against men and gods are so nobly sung in Iliad V. From the frequency of the words βοᾶν, βοὴν, βρέμειν, etc. in this fine description, one might almost think that Æschylus had wished to paint the father after the Homeric likeness of the son, who, like Menelaus, was βοὴν ἀγαθός. In the heroic ages, a pair of brazen lungs was not the least useful accomplishment of a warrior. The great fame of the father of Diomedes as a warrior appears strikingly from that passage of the Iliad (IV. 370), where Agamemnon uses it as a strong goad to prick the valorous purpose of the son.

Note 23 (p. 273). ". . . the wise Oiclidan seer."

"Amphiaraus, the son of Oicles, being a prophet, and foreseeing that all who should join in the expedition against Thebes would perish, refused to go himself, and dissuaded others. Polynices, however, coming to Iphis, the son of Alector, inquired how Amphiaraus might be forced to join the expedition, and was told that this would take place if his wife Eriphyle should obtain the necklace of Harmonia. This, accordingly, Polynices gave her, she receiving the gift in the face of an interdict in that matter laid on her by her husband. Induced by this bribe, she persuaded her husband to march against his will, he having beforehand promised to refer any matter in dispute between him and Adrastus to the decision of his wife.--APOLLODOR. III. 6; Confr. Hor. III. 16, 11.

Note 24 (p. 273). "The brazen bells ring fear."

A Scottish knight, in an old ballad, has these warlike bells on his horse's mane--

"At ilk tail o' his horse's mane, There hung a siller bell: The wind was loud, the steed was proud, And they gied a sindry knell."--YOUNG WATERS.

And one of SOUTHEY's Mexican heroes has them on his helmet--

"Bells of gold Embossed his glittering helmet, and where'er Their sound was heard, there lay the press of war, And Death was busiest there."--MADOC. II. 18.

Note 25 (p. 274). "His race from those whom Ares spared he draws."

That is to say, he belonged to one of the oldest originally Theban families--was one of the children of the soil, sprung from the teeth of the {421} old Theban dragon, which Cadmus, by the advice of Athena, sowed in the Earth; and from that act, the old race of Thebans were called σπαρτόι, or the _Sown_. See STAN.'s note.

Note 26 (p. 274). "Proud Capaneus before the Electran gate."

This gate was so called from Electra, the sister of Cadmus. _Pausan_. IX. 8-3. And was the gate which led to Platæa and Athens. _Unger_. p. 274.

Note 27 (p. 275). ". . . The third lot to Eteocles Leapt from the upturned brazen helm."

The custom of using the helmet, for the _situla_ or urn, when lots were taken in war, must have been noted by the most superficial student of Homer. STAN. has collected many instances, of which one may suffice--

"Quickly, in the brazen helm, we shake the lot; and first of all, Of Eurylochus, mighty-hearted, leapt the lot."--ODYSSEY X. 206.

Note 28 (p. 275). "At the Netaean gate."

So called from Neis, a son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion. _Pausan_. IX. 8; _Unger_. p. 313.

Note 29 (p. 276). "Black smoke, the volumed sister of the flame."

Just as Homer, in a familiar passage, calls "sleep the mother of death" (Il. XIV. 231), adopted by SHELLEY in the exquisite exordium of Queen Mab--

"How beautiful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep!"

MITCHELL, in a note on the metaphors of Æschylus (Aristoph. Ran. 871), mentions this as being one of those tropes, where the high-vaulting tragedian has jerked himself over from the sublime into the closely-bordering territory of the ridiculous; but neither here nor in διαδρομᾶν (ο)μαίμονες, which he quarrels with, is there anything offensive to the laws of good taste. It sounds, indeed, a little queer to translate literally, _Rapine near akin to running hither and thither_; but, as a matter of plain fact, it is true that, when in the confusion of the taking of a city, men run hither and thither, rapine is the result. In my version, _Plunder, daughter of Confusion_ (p. 272 above), expresses the idea intelligibly enough, I hope, to an English ear.

Note 30 (p. 276). "Round its hollow belly was embossed A ring of knotted snakes."

The old Argolic shield, round as the sun--

"Argolici clypei aut Phœbæœ lampadis instar."

See Dict. Antiq. _Clypeus_. The kind described in the text finds its modern counterpart in those hollow Burmese shields often found in our museums, only larger.

Note 31 (p. 276). ". . . by the god of war Indwelt."

ἔνθεος δ᾽ Αρει, literally, "ingodded by Mars," or having the god of war dwelling in him. This phrase shows the meaning of that reproach cast by the Pharisees in the teeth of Christ--ἔχει δαιμόνιον--_he hath a devil_, or, as the Greeks would have said, _a god--i.e._ he is possessed by a moral power {422} so far removed from the common, that we must attribute it to the indwelling might of a god or devil.

Note 32 (p. 276). ". . . a hostile pair Well matched by Hermes."

The Greeks ascribed to Hermes every thing that they met with on the road, and every thing accidentally found, and whatever happens by chance--and so two adversaries well matched in battle were said to have been brought together by the happy contrivance of that god."--SCHOL.; and see Note 59 to the Eumenides, p. 386.

Note 33 (p. 278). "The sixth a sober man, a seer of might, Before the Homoloidian gate stands forth."

_i.e._ AMPHIARAUS--see above, Note 23, p. 420. Homer (Odys. XV. 244) speaks of him as beloved by Jove and Apollo. The Homoloidian gates were so called either from mount Homole in Thessaly (Pausan. IX. 8), or from Homolois, a daughter of Niobe and Amphion.--UNGER. p. 324.

Note 34 (p. 278). "With bitter taunts his evil-omened name, Making it spell his ugly sin that owns it."

The name Polynices means literally _much strife_; and there can be no question that the prophet in this place is described as taunting the Son of Oedipus with the evil omen of his name after the fashion so familiar with the Greek writers. See _Prometheus_, Note 8, p. 388. The text, however, is in more places than one extremely corrupt; and, in present circumstances, I quite agree with WELL. and LIN. that we are not warranted in introducing the conjectural reading of ὄμμα for ὄνομα, though there can be no question that the reading ὄμμα admits of a sufficiently appropriate sense.--See DUNBAR, _Class. Museum_, No. XII. p. 206.

Note 35 (p. 278). "The wise man is what fools but seem to be."

"When this tragedy was first acted, ARISTIDES, surnamed the JUST, was present. At the declamation of these words--

ὀυ γὰρ δοκ(ε)ιν ἄριστος ἀλλ᾽ (ἐ)ίναι θέλει,

the whole audience, by an instantaneous instinct, directed their eyes to him."--PLUTARCH, _Apoth. Reg. et duc._ SALLUST describes Cato in the same language--"_Esse quam videri bonus malebat._"--STAN.

Note 36 (p. 280). "O god-detested! god-bemadded race!"

In modern theological language we are not accustomed to impute mental infatuation, insanity, or desperate impulses of any kind to the Supreme Being; but in the olden time such language as that of the text was familiarly in the mouth of Jew and Gentile. "_The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart_," is a sentence which we all remember, perhaps with a strange sensation of mysterious terror, from our juvenile lessons; and "_quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat_," is a common maxim in our mouths, though we scarcely half believe it. In Homer and the tragedians instances of this kind occur everywhere; and in the Persians of our author the gods are addressed in a style of the most unmitigated accusation. In such cases, modern translators are often inclined {423} to soften down the apparent impiety of the expression into some polite modern generality; but I have scrupulously retained the original phraseology. I leave it to the intelligent reader to work out the philosophy of this matter for himself.

Note 37 (p. 281). ". . . the god will have it so."

This is one of the cases so frequent in the ancient poets (Note 76 to Choephoræ, p. 372) where θεός is used in the singular without the article. In the present case the translators seem agreed in supplying the definite particle, as Phœbus, mentioned in the next line, may naturally be understood. In modern language, where a man is urged on to his destruction by a violent unreasoning passion, reference is generally made to an overruling decree or destiny, rather than directly to the author of all destiny. "But my ill-fate pushed me on with an obstinacy that nothing could resist; and, though I had several times loud calls from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. _I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon as with our eyes open_. Certainly nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery attending, and which it was impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts."--_Robinson Crusoe_. On this subject see my _Homeric Theology_. _Class. Mus._ No. XXVI. Propositions 5, 12, and 18 compared.

Note 38 (p. 281). "Death is thy only gain, and death to-day Is better than to-morrow!"

λέγουσα κέρδος πρότερον ὑστερου μόρου--_mentioning to me an advantage_ (viz., in my dying now) _preferable to a death at a later period;_ as his good genius might have whispered to Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. In translating thus a confessedly difficult passage I have WELCKER (Trilog. 363), BUTLER, BLOM., and SCHÜTZ., and E. P. Oxon., on my side, also the simple comment of Scholiast II.--κερδ(ο)ς, _i.e._ τὸ νῦν τεθνᾶναι πρότερον, _i.e._ τιμιώτερον. LIN. agreeing with WELL. translates "urging the glory of the victory which precedes the death which follows after it." CONZ. is singular, and certainly not to be imitated in translating with Schol. I.--

"_Wer der erste tödlet gewinnt den Sieg._" "He who inflicts the first lethal blow gains the victory."

POT. has not grappled with the passage. If LIN.'s interpretation be preferred, I should render--

"Beside me sits The Fury with dry tearless eye, and points to One glimpse of glory heralding black death."

or--

"The glorious gain that shall precede the death."

It will be observed that if πρότερον be taken in the sense of τιμιώτερον, with the Scholiast, and το νῦν τεθναναι understood to κέρδος, Wellauer's objection falls that μαλλον or μειζον must be understood to render the rendering in my text admissible.

Note 39 (p. 282). ". . . goddess most ungodlike."

I have remarked, in a Note above, that the Greeks, so far from having any objection to the idea that the gods were the authors of evil, rather {424} encouraged it; and accordingly, in their theology, they had no need for a devil or devils in any shape. This truth, however, must be received with the qualification, arising from the general preponderating character of the Greek deities, which was unquestionably benign, and coloured more from the sunshine than the cloud; in reference to which general character, it might well be said that certain deities, whose function was purely to induce misery, were ὀυ θεοῖς ὅμοιοι--_nothing like the gods_.

Note 40 (p. 282). "O son of Scythia, must we ask thine aid? Chalybian stranger thine."

We see here how loosely the ancients used Certain geographical terms, and especially this word SCYTHIA; for the CHALYBES or CHALDAEI, as they were afterwards called, were a people of PONTUS. Their country produced, in the most ancient times, silver also; but, in the days of Strabo, iron only.--STRABO, Lib. XII. p. 549.

Note. 41 (p. 284). ". . . for sorry tendance wrathful."

I read ἐπίκοτος τροφᾶς with HEATH., BLOM., and PAL. For the common reading, ἐπικότους τροφάς, WELL., with his usual conservative ingenuity, finds a sort of meaning; but the change which the new reading requires is very slight, and gives a much more obvious sense; besides that it enables us to understand the allusion to Æschylus in Schol. Oedip. Col. 1375.--See Introductory Remarks, WELCKER's _Trilogie_, p. 358, and PAL.'s Note.

Note 42 (p. 284). ". . . (for still in four and three The god delights)."

These words are a sort of comment on the epithet ἑβδομαγέτας given to Apollo in the text, of which PAPE, in his Dictionary, gives the following account: "Surname of Apollo, because sacrifice was offered to him on the seventh day of every month, or as LOBECK says (Aglaoph. p. 434), because seven boys and seven girls led the procession at his feasts.--Herod. VI. 57. The ancients were not agreed in the interpretation of this epithet." It is not _necessary_, however, I must admit with SCHNEIDER, to suppose any reference to this religious arithmetic here. Phœbus receives the seventh gate, because, as the prophet of the doom, it was his special business to see it fulfilled; and this he could do only there, where the devoted heads of Eteocles and Polynices stood.

Note 43 (P. 285). "And I for plaints no less than pæans bring thee."

I see no sufficient case made out for giving these words from τοιᾶυτα down to φορουμενοι to the Chorus. The Messenger, surely, may be allowed his moral reflections without stint in the first place, as the Chorus is to enlarge on the same theme in the chaunt which immediately follows. It strikes me also, that the tone of the passage is not sufficiently passionate for the Chorus.

Note 44 (p. 289). "Ay, drenched in gore, in brothered gore."

In the old editions, and in POT. and GLASG. these words are given to Ismene; but never was a scenic change made with greater propriety than that of BRUNCK, when he continued these speeches down to the end of Antistrophe IV. to the Chorus. Nothing could be more unnatural than that the {425} afflicted sisters, under such a load of woe, should open their mouths with long speeches--long, assuredly, in comparison of what they afterwards say. They are properly silent, till the Chorus has finished the wail; and then they speak only in short exclamations--articulated sobs--nothing more. For the same reason, deserting WELL., I have given the repeated burden Ἰὼ Μοιρα, etc. to the Chorus. The principal mourners in this dirge should sing only in short and broken cries.

Note 45 (p. 290). "Moera, baneful gifts dispensing."

The word μοῖρα originally means _lot, portion, part, that which is dealt or divided out to one_. In this sense it occurs frequently in Homer, and is there regarded as proceeding from the gods, and specially from Jove. But with an inconsistency natural enough in popular poetry, we sometimes find μοῖρα in Homer, like ἀτη, elevated to the rank of a separate divine personage. "Not I," says Agamemnon, in the Iliad (XIX. 86), "was to blame for the quarrel with Achilles,

_But_ JOVE _and_ MOERA _and the_ FURY, _walking through the darkness dread_."

The three Fates, CLOTHO, LACHESIS, and ATROPOS, like the three FURIES, were a post-Homeric birth. We thus see how, under the influence of the Polytheistic system, new gods were continually created from what were originally mere functions of the divine mind, or results of the divine activity.

Note 46 (p. 292). "Due burial in its friendly bosom."

θάπτειν ἔδοξε γῆς φιλαις κατασκφαῖς. The words here used seem to imply interment in the modern fashion, without burning, but they may also refer to the depositing of the urns in subterranean chambers. Ancient remains, as well as the testimony of classical authors, prove that both practices existed among the ancients, though cremation was latterly the more common. The reader will be instructed by the following extract on this subject from Dr. Smith's admirable Dictionary of Antiquities, article _Funus_: "The body was either buried or burnt. Lucian, _de luctu_, says that the Greeks burn, and the Persians bury, their dead; but modern writers are greatly divided in opinion as to which was the usual practice. Wachsmuth (_Hell. Alt._ II. 2, p. 79) says that, in historical times, the dead were always buried; but this statement is not strictly correct. Thus we find that Socrates (Plut. Phædon) speaks of his body being either burnt or buried; the body of Timoleon was burnt; and so was that of Philopæmon (Plutarch). The word θάπτειν is used in connection with either mode; it is applied to the collection of the ashes after burning; and accordingly we find the words κάιειν and θάπτειν used together (Dionys. Archæolog. Rom. V. 48). The proper expression for interment in the earth is κατορύττειν; whereas we find Socrates speaking of το σῶμα η καόμενον, ἠ κατορυττόμενον. In Homer, the bodies of the dead are burnt; but interment was also used in very ancient times. Cicero (_de leg._ II. 25) says that the dead were buried at Athens in the time of Cecrops; and we also read of the bones of Orestes being found in a coffin at Tegea (Herod. I. 68). The dead were commonly buried among the Spartans (Plut. Lycurg. 27) and the Sicyonians (Paus. II. 7); and the prevalence of this practice is proved by the great number of skeletons found in coffins in modern times, which have evidently not been exposed to the action of fire. Both burning and burying appear to have been always used, to a greater or less extent, at different periods; till the spread of Christianity at length put an end to the former practice."

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Note 47 (p. 293). "Mighty Furies that triumphant Ride on ruin's baleful wings."

I have here, by a paraphrase, endeavoured to express the remarkably pregnant expression of the original κῆρες Εριννύες--combining, as it does, in grammatical apposition, two terrible divine powers, that the ancient poets generally keep separate. The κῆρες, or goddesses of destruction and violent death, occur frequently in Homer. Strictly speaking, they represent only one of the methods by which the retributive Furies may operate; but, in a loose way of talking, they are sometimes identified with them. Schoemann, in a note to the Eumenides, p. 62, has quoted to this effect, Hesiod v. 217, and Eurip. Elect, v. 1252:--

"The terrible Kerés, blushless persecutors, Will chase thee wandering frenzied o'er the earth."

NOTES TO THE PERSIANS

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Note 1 (p. 301). "Forth they went with arrow and bow."

The bow was as characteristic of Persian as the spear of Hellenic warfare; and, accordingly, they are contrasted below, p. 305. The Persian Darics bore the figure of an archer. DICT. ANTIQ _voci_ DARIC. "The army of Xerxes, generally," says GROTE, "was armed with missile weapons, and light shields, or no shield at all; not properly equipped either for fighting in regular order, or for resisting the line of spears and shields which the Grecian heavy-armed infantry brought to bear upon them."--Vol. V. p. 43. This was seen with striking evidence when an engagement took place on confined ground as at Thermopylæ, Do. p. 117.

Note 2 (p. 302). ". . . golden Sardes."

So Creon, in the Antigone of Sophocles, in wrathful suspicion that Tiresias is in conspiracy to prophesy against him for filthy lucre, is made to exclaim (v. 1037)--

"Traffic as ye will In the amber-ore that opulent Sardes sends, And Indian gold."

So also, "golden Babylon," below; which will recall to the Christian reader the famous words, "Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased!"--Isaiah xiv. 4. In the same way XERXES is called "the god-like son of a golden race," in the choral hymn which immediately follows the present introductory chaunt. SOUTHEY, the most learned of our poets, has not forgotten this orientalism when he says--

"Hark! at the golden palaces The Brahmin strikes the hour." --CURSE OF KEHAMA V.

where see the note.

Note 3 (p. 302). "The well-poised dart."

The Mysians had on their heads a peculiar sort of helmet belonging to the country, small shields, and javelins burnt at the point.--HERODOT. VII. 74.--STAN.

Note 4 (p. 302). "The Asian tribes that wear the sword."

The μάχαιρα here is the _acinaces_, or short scimitar, of which the fashion may be seen in the _Dict. Antiq._ under that word.

Note 5 (p. 303). "Shepherd of many sheep."

A phraseology inherited from the times when "Mesha, king of Moab, was a _sheepmaster_, and rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with the wool."--2 Kings iii. 4. So Agamemnon, in Homer (Od. III. 156), is called ποιμήν λάων--the shepherd of the people. See above, p. 413, Note 48.

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Note 6 (p. 304). "But, when the gods deceive."

The sudden change of tone here from unlimited confidence in the strength of their own armament, to a pious doubt arising from the consideration that the gods often disappoint "the best laid schemes of men and mice," and that "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong"; this is at once extremely characteristic of ancient Hellenic piety (see the Note on ὕβρις, p. 348), and serves here the dramatic purpose of making the over-weening pride of Xerxes, by contrast, appear more sinful. With regard to the style of religious conception here, and the general doctrine that the gods deceive mortal men, especially at moments of extraordinary prosperity and on the point of some sudden reversal, the student will read GROTE's Greece, Vol. V. p. 13.

Note 7 (p. 306). "Let us fall down before her with humble prostration."

This very humble way of expressing respect was quite oriental, and altogether abhorrent to the feelings of the erect Greek, boasting of his liberty. The reader of history may call to mind how this was one of the points of oriental court state, the mooting of which in his later years caused a breach between Alexander the Great and his captains. For references, see STAN.

Note 8 (p. 307). "And dipped my hands in the fair-flowing fount."

This purification, as STAN. has noted, was customary among the ancients, after an ill-omened dream. He quotes ARISTOPHANES, Ran. 1338.

"But come, attendants, light a lamp And take a pail, and from the stream Water bring, and warm it well, To wash away the god-sent dream"--

and other passages.

Note 9 (p. 307). "I saw an eagle flying to the altar."

The sight in reality, or in vision, of one bird plucking another under various modifications, was familiar to the ancient divination, as the natural expression of conquest and subjugation. So in the Odyssey shortly before the opening of the catastrophe--

"Thus as he spake, on his right hand a bird of omen flew, A hawk, Apollo's messenger swift, and held within its claws A pigeon, which it rudely plucked, and scattered on the ground Its feathery plumes, between the skies and where Telemachus stood."--XV. 525.

In such matters, the ancients did not strain after originality, as a modern would do, but held closely by the most natural, obvious, and most significant types.

Note 10 (p. 308). "Where, O friends, is famous Athens on the broad face of the earth?"

Here commences a series of questions with regard to Attic geography, topography, and statistics, which to the most inexperienced reader will appear to come in here not in the most natural way. That the mother of Xerxes should have actually been so ignorant of the state of Athens, as she is here dramatically represented, seems scarcely supposable. But that she {429} and the mighty persons of the East generally were grossly ignorant of, and greatly underrated the resources of the small state that was rising in the West, is plain, both from the general habit of the oriental mind, and from what Herodotus (V. 105, quoted by PAL.) narrates of Darius, that, when he heard of the burning of Sardes by the Athenians and the Ionians, he asked "_who the Athenians were_." On this foundation, a dramatic poet, willing "to pay a pleasant compliment to Athenian vanity" (BUCK.), might well erect such a series of interrogatories as we have in the text, though it may be doubted whether he has done it with that tact which a more perfect master of the dramatic art--Shakespere, for instance--would have displayed. There are not a few other passages in the Greek drama where this formal style of questioning _ab ovo_ assumes somewhat of a ludicrous aspect.

Note 11 (p. 309). "Slaves are they to no man living, subject to no earthly name."

As in the quickness of their spirits, the sharpness of their wits, and their love of glory, so particularly in the forward boast of freedom, the ancient Hellenes were very like the modern French. 'Twere a curious parallel to carry out; and that other one also, which would prove even more fertile in curious results, between the ancient Romans and the modern English.

Note 12 (p. 310). "The sundered planks, and the drifted dead."

I do not think there can be any doubt as to the meaning of the original here, πλαγκτοῖς (ε)ν διπλάκεσσιν--_among the wandering planks_--δίπλαξ can mean nothing but a double or very strong plank, plate, or (if applied to a dress, as in HOMER) _fold_. There is no need of supposing any "clinging to the planks," as LIN., following BUTLER, does. Nevertheless, I have given, likewise, in my translation, the full force of BLOM.'s idea that δίπλαξ means the _ebb and flow of the sea_. This, indeed, lies already in φέρεσθαι. CONZ. agrees with my version. "_Wie treiben stürmend umher sie die Planken!_"

Note 13 (p. 311). ". . . There Amestris."

PAL. asserts confidently that the three following verses are corrupt. One of them sins against Porson's canon of the Cretic ending, and (what is of much more consequence) connects the name of Ariomardus with Sardes, which we found above (p. 302), connected with Thebes. For the sake of consistency, I have taken PORSON's hint, and introduced Metragathus here, from v. 43.

Note 14 (p. 312). ". . . Pallas saves her city."

The apportionment of the last clause of this, and the whole of the following lines, I give according to WELL. and PAL., which BUCK. also approves in his note. The translation, in such a case, is its own best vindication.

Note 15 (p. 312). "There came a Greek."

The sending of this person was a device of Themistocles, to hasten on a battle, and keep the Greeks from quarrelling amongst themselves. The person sent was Sicinnus his slave, "seemingly an Asiatic Greek, who understood Persian, and had perhaps been sold during the late Ionic revolt, {430} but whose superior qualities are marked by the fact, that he had the care and teaching of the children of his master."--GROTE.

Note 16 (p. 312). "And darkness filled the temple of the sky."

The word τέμενος, says Passow, in the post-Homeric writers of the classical age was used almost exclusively in reference to sacred, or, as we should say, consecrated property. I do not think, therefore, that LIN. does full justice to this word when he translates it merely "the _region of the air_"; as little can I be content with CONZ.'s "_Hallen_." DROYSEN preserves the religious association to well-instructed readers, by using the word _Hain_; but surely _temple_ is better in the present connection and to a modern ear. Lucretius (Lib. I. near the end) has "_Coeli tonitralia templa._"

Note 17 (p. 314). ". . . dance-loving Pan."

PAN, "the simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god" (Wordsworth, Exc. IV.), was in the mind of the Athenians intimately associated with the glory of the Persian wars, and regarded as one of their chief patrons at Marathon (Herod. VI. 105). This god was the natural patron of all wild and solitary places, such as are seldom disturbed by any human foot save that of the Arcadian shepherds, whose imagination first produced this half-solemn half-freakish creation; and in this view no place could be more appropriate to him than "the barren and rocky Psyttaleia" (STRABO, 395). That he was actually worshipped there, we have, besides the present passage of our poet, the express testimony of Pausanias (I. 36)--"What are called Panic terrors were ascribed to Pan; for loud noises whose cause could not be easily traced were not unfrequently heard in mountainous regions; and the gloom and loneliness of forests and mountains fill the mind with a secret horror, and dispose it to superstitious apprehensions."--KEIGHTLEY.

Note 18 (p. 315). ". . . slowly with much hard toil."

The verse in the original--

Θρῄκην περάσαντες μόγις πολλῷ πονῳ

--is remarkable for being divided into two equal halves, in violation of the common cæsuras, the laws of which Porson has pointed out so curiously. Whether there was a special cause for this in the present case--the wish, namely, on the part of the poet to make a harsh line suit a harsh subject, I shall not assert, as the line does not fall particularly harsh on my ear; I have at least done something, by the help of rough consonants and monosyllables, to make my English line come up to the great metrician's idea of the Greek.

Note 19 (p. 317). "By the mute sea-monsters riven."

It needs hardly be mentioned here that the restless state of the dead body in death by drowning, implied, according to the sensuous metaphysics of the vulgar Greeks, an equally restless condition of the soul in Hades. Hence the point of Achilles' wrath against Lycaon, in Iliad XXI. 122--

"Go, and with the fishes lay thee; they shall lick thy bloody wound With a greedy unconcern; thy mother shall not weep for thee There, nor dew thy bier with sorrow; but Scamander's whirling flood To the bosom deep shall bear thee of the broad and briny sea."

{431}

And, in the same book, of another victim of the same inexorable wrath it is said--

"To the eels and to the fishes, occupation meet he gave, As they gnawed his flesh, and nicely picked the fat from off his bones."--v. 203.

Note 20 (p. 318). "Of the pale green olive, ever leafy-fair."

I think it right so to translate, because such is actually the colour of the olive; but I must state, at the same time, that the word in the original is ξανθῆς, which has been imitated by Virgil, Æn. V. 309. How the same word should mean both _yellow_ and _green_, I cannot understand. No doubt the light green of many trees, when the leafage first comes out in spring, has a yellowish appearance; but the ever-green olive is always γλαυκός, as Sophocles has it (O. C. 701). What we call _olive-coloured_ is a mixture of green and yellow; does this come from the colour of the fruit or the oil?

Note 21 (p. 318). "The god Darius."

The word δαίμονα here used is that by which both Homer and Æschylus designate the highest celestial beings, from which practice we see what an easy transition there was in the minds of the early Christians to the deification of the martyrs, and the canonization of the saints. Compare Æn. V. v. 47. There is nothing in Popery which is not seated in the deepest roots of human nature.

Note 22 (p. 319). "O Aïdóneus, thy charge release."

_i.e._ Pluto. The reader must not be surprised to see Æschylus putting the names of Greek gods and Greek feelings and ideas generally into the mouths of Persian characters. His excuse lies partly in the fact, that these divine powers and human feelings, though in a Greek form, belonged to the universal heart of man, and partly in the extreme nationality of the old Hellenic culture, which was not apt to go abroad with curiously inquiring eyes into the regions of the barbarian. A national poet, moreover, addressing the masses, must beware of being too learned. Shakespere, in his foreign dramas, though less erudite, is much more effective than Southey in his Epics.

Note 23 (p. 319). "Come, dread lord!"

The word in the original here is βαλὴν, a Phœnician word, the same as _Baal_ and _Belus_, meaning _lord_.--See Gesenius, _voce Baal_. This root appears significantly in some Carthaginian names, as HANNIBAL, HASDRUBAL, etc.

Note 24 (p. 319). "The disc of thy regal tiara showing."

This word belongs as characteristically to the ancient kings of the East, in respect of their head-gear, as the _triregno_ or triple crown, in modern language, belongs to the Pope, and the iron crown to the sovereigns of Lombardy. Accordingly we find Virgil giving it to Priam--

"Sceptrumque sacerque tiaras."--ÆNEID VII. 247.

See further, Dr. Smith's Dict. Antiq. _in voce tiara_, and also φάλαρον, which I translate _disc_. As for the _sandals_, the reader will observe that _saffron_ is a colour, like _purple_, peculiarly regal and luxurious--στολίδα κροκόεσσαν ἀνεῖσα τρυφᾶς.--Eurip. Phœniss. 1491.--_Matth_.

{432}

Note 25 (p. 320). "Why should'st thou die, and leave the land, Thou master of the mighty hand? Why should thy son with foolish venture Shake thy sure Empire to its centre?"

Here I may say with BUCK., "I have given the best sense I can to the text, but nothing is here certain but the uncertainty of the reading." For a translator, δι ἄνοιαν, proposed by BLOM., is convenient enough.

Note 26 (p. 320). "Triremes no more?"

ναες ἄναες (α)ναες--A phraseology of which we have found many instances, and of which the Greeks are very fond. So in Homer, before the fight between Ulysses and Irus, one of the spectators foreseeing the discomfiture of the latter, says--

Ἠ τάχα ῏Ιρος (α)Ιρος ἐπίσπαστον κακον ἔξει ὁιην ἐκ ρακέων ὁ γέρων ἐπιγουνίδα φαινει.

"Irus soon shall be no Irus, crushed by such dire weight of woes, Self-incurred; beneath his tatters what a thigh the old man shows!"

Note 27 (p. 322). "But when man to run is eager, swift is the god to add a spur."

This is sound morality and orthodox theology, even at the present hour. _Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat_. Observe here how high Æschylus rises in moral tone above Herodotus, who, in the style that offends us so much in Homer, represents Xerxes, after yielding to the sensible advice of his father's counsellor Artabanus, as urged on to his ruin by a god-sent vision thrice repeated (VII. 12-18). The whole expedition, according to the historian, is as much a matter of divine planning as the death of Hector by Athena's cruel deceit in Iliad XXII. 299. Even Artabanus is carried along by the stream of evil counsel, confessing that δαιμονίη τις γίνεται ὁρμὴ, _there is an impulse from the gods_ in the matter which a man may not resist.--See GROTE.

Note 28 (p. 323). "Converse with the sons of folly taught thy eager son to err."

The original word for _eager_ here is the same as that translated above _impetuous_--θούριος, and had a peculiar significancy to a Greek ear, as being that epithet by which Mars is constantly designated in the Iliad; and this god, as the readers of that poem well know, signifies only the wild, unreasoning hurricane power of battle, as distinguished from the calmly-calculated, surely-guided hostility of the wise Athena. With regard to the matter of fact asserted in this line, it is literally true that the son of Darius was not of himself originally much inclined to the Greek expedition (ὲπὶ μεν τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὀυδαμῶς πρόθυμος ᾖν κατ ἀρχὰς στρατέυεσθαι.--Herod. VII. 5), but, like all weaklings in high places, was wrought upon by others; in this case, specially, by his cousin Mardonius, according to the account of Herodotus.--See GROTE, Vol. V. p. 4.

{433}

Note 29 (p. 323). ". . . First the Mede was king Of the vast host of people."

Two peculiarities in this enumeration of the early Persian kings will strike the reader. _First_, Two of the Median kings--ASTYAGES and CYAXARES, according to the common account, are named before CYRUS the Great, who, as being the first native Persian sovereign, is commonly regarded as the founder of the later Persian empire. _Second_, Between MARDUS (commonly called SMERDIS), and Darius, the father of Xerxes, two intermediate names--contrary to common account--are introduced. I do not believe our historical materials are such as entitle us curiously to scrutinize these matters.

Note 30 (p. 328). "A Maryandine wailer."

The _Maryandini_ were a Bithynian people, near the Greek city of Heraclea, Xenoph. Anab. vi. 2; Strabo xii. p. 542. The peasants in that quarter were famous for singing a rustic wail, which is alluded to in the text. See POLLUX, Lib. iv. περὶ ᾳσμάτων ἐθνικῶν. The _Mysians_ mentioned, p. 331, below, were their next door neighbours; and the Phrygians generally, who in a large sense include the Mysians and Bithynians, were famous for their violent and passionate music, displayed principally in the worship of Cybele. So the Phrygian in Euripides (Orest. 1384) is introduced wailing ἁρμάτειον μέλος βαρβαρῳ βοᾳ. The critics who have considered this last scene of the cantata ridiculous, have not attended either to human nature or to the customs of the Persians, as STAN. quotes them from HEROD. ix. 24, and CURTIUS iii. 12.

Note 31 (p. 328).

_Leader of the Chorus_. I have here adopted LIN.'s view, that the Leader of the Chorus here addresses the whole body; and, for the sake of symmetry, have repeated the couplet in the Antistrophe. No violence is thus done to the meaning of ἐκπεύθου. Another way is, with PAL., to put the line into the mouth of Xerxes--"_Cry out and ask me!_"

Note 32 (p. 331). "Oaring with the oars of woe!"

I have carefully retained the original phraseology here, as being characteristic of the Greek tragedians, perhaps of the maritime propensities of the Athenians. See in SEVEN AGAINST THEBES, p. 286 above, and CHŒOPHORÆ, p. 112, Strophe VII. Euripides, in Iphig. Aul. 131, applies the same verb to the lower extremities, making Agamemnon say to his old servant ερέσσον σὸν πόδα--as if one of our jolly tars should say in his pleasant slang, "_Come along, my boy, put the oars to your old hull, and move off!_"

Note 33 (p. 332). "Sons of Susa, with delicate feet."

I should be most happy for the sake of Æschylus, and my translation, to think there was nothing in the ἁβροβάται. of this passage but the natural expression of grief so simply given in the scriptural narrative, I Kings xxi. 27; and in that stanza of one of Mr. Tennyson's most beautiful poems--

"Full knee-deep lies the wintry snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing; {434} Toll ye the church bell sad and slow, And _tread softly_ and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying."

But there is more in ἁβρός than mere _gentleness_, and to the Greek ear it would no doubt speak of the general luxuriance and effeminacy of the Persian manners. To put such an allusion into the mouth of Xerxes on the present occasion is no doubt in the worst possible taste; but the Greeks were too intensely national in their feelings to take a curious account of such matters.

[End of Notes]

LIST OF EDITIONS, COMMENTARIES, AND TRANSLATIONS USED BY THE TRANSLATOR

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_Editions of the whole Plays._

Aldus: Venet, 1518.

Victorius: ex officina Stephani; 1557.

Foulis: Glasguæ; 1746.

Schütz: 2 vols. Oxon.; 1810.

Butler: Cantab.; 1809-16, ex editione Stanleii; 4 vols. 4to.

Wellauer: cum. Lexico. Lipsiæ; 1823-31.

Scholefield: Cantab.; 1828.

Paley: Cantab.; 1844-47. 2 vols. 8vo.

_Editions of the Separate Plays._

THE AGAMEMNON.

Blomfield: Cantab.; 1822.

Kennedy (with an English version, and Voss, German one). Dublin; 1829.

Klausen: Gothæ et Erfordiæ; 1833.

Peile. London: Murray; 1839.

Connington (with an English poetical version). London; 1848.

Franz: with the Choephoræ and the Eumenides, and a German metrical translation. Leipzig; 1849.

CHOEPHORÆ.

Schwenk: Trajecti ad Rhenum; 1819.

Klausen: Gothæ et Erfordiæ; 1835.

Peile. London: Murray; 1844.

EUMENIDES.

K. O. Müller (with a German translation). Göttingen; 1833: and Anhang; 1834.

Linwood: Oxon.; 1844.

PROMETHEUS.

Bothe: Lipsiæ; 1830.

G. C. W. Schneider. Weimar; 1834.

Schoemann (with a German translation). Greifswald; 1844.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.

Blomfield. Cantab.; 1817.

G. C. W. Schneider. Weimar; 1834.

Griffith. Oxford.

THE PERSIANS.

Blomfield. Cantab; 1815.

G. C. W. Schneider. Weimar; 1837.

_Commentaries, Dissertations, Monograms, &c._

Apparatus Criticus et Exegeticus in Æschyli tragædias; continens STANLEII commentarium, ABRESCHII animadersiones, et REISIGII emendationes in Prometheum. 2 vols. 8vo. Halis Saxonum; 1832.

Linwood: lexicon to Æschylus, 2nd edition. London; 1847.

Blümner: Weber die Idee des Schicksals in den Tragoedien des Æschylus. Leipzig; 1814.

Welcker: Die Æschyleische Trilogie. Darmstadt; 1824.

Hermanni Opuscula: 6 vols. 8vo., Latin and German. Leipzig; 1827-35.

Unger: Thebana Paradoxa. Halis; 1839.

Klausen: Theologoumena Æschyli. Berolini; 1829.

Toepelmann: Commentatio de Æschyli Prometheo (with a German translation). Lipsiæ; 1829.

B. G. Weiske: Prometheus und sein Mythenkreis. Leipzig; 1842.

Schoemann: Vindiciæ Jovis Æeschylei. Gryphiswaldiæ; 1846.

_Translations._

Potter: English verse, 4to. Norwich; 1777.

Anon.: English prose (marked in my notes E. P. Oxon), 3rd edition. Oxford; 1840.

Droysen: German verse, 2nd edition. Berlin; 1842.

T. A. Buckley: English prose. London: 1849.

Wilhelm von Humboldt: Agamemnon metrisch übersetzt. Leipzig; 1816.

Symmons: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1824.

Harford: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1831.

Th. Medwyn: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1832.

Sewell: the Agamemnon in English verse. London; 1846.

{437}

Schoemann: die Eumeniden, German verse. Greifswald; 1845.

Th. Medwyn: the Prometheus, in English verse. London; 1832.

Prowett: the Prometheus, in English verse. Cambridge; 1846.

Swayne: the Prometheus, in English verse. London; 1846.

C. P. Conz: die Perser, and die Sieben vor Tüebae. Tübingen; 1817.

FOOTNOTES

FOOTNOTES TO THE PREFACE

[f1] Life, Vol. I. p. 192.

[f2] SOUTHEY requested a Frenchman ambitious of translating his Roderick, to do so in prose, not because he preferred that method in general, but because he believed that "_poetry of the higher order is as impossible in French, as it is in Chinese!_"--Life, Vol. IV. p. 100.

[f3] Life, Vol. III. p. 44.

[f4] SOUTHEY--Preface to _A Vision of Judgment_.

[f5] As for Klopstock's Odes, written mostly in classical metres, Zelter, the Berlin musician, said significantly that, when reading them, _he felt as if he were eating stones!_--See _Briefwechsel mit_ GOETHE.

[f6] Τὸ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον τετραμετρῳ εχρῶντο διὰ τὸ σατυρικὴν καὶ ὀρχηστκωτέραν (ἐ)ιναι τὴν ποίησιν. POET. 4.

[f7] As in the conclusion of the Agamemnon, when the passion of the interested parties has wrought itself up to a climax. So in the passionate dialogue between Eteocles and Polynices, in Eurip. Phœnis. 591. The use of the Trochees in these passages is thus precisely the same as that of the Anapæsts in the finale of the PROMETHEUS. In the PERSIANS, they serve to give an increased dignity to the person of Atossa, and the Shade of the royal Darius.

[f8] "Take our blank verse for all in all, in all its gradations from the elaborate rhythm of Milton, down to its lowest structure in the early dramatists, and I believe that there is no measure comparable to it, either in our own or in any other language, for might and majesty, flexibility and compass."--SOUTHEY, Preface to the _Vision of Judgment_. What BULWER says to the contrary (Athens and the Athenians, vol. II. p. 43), was crudely thought, or idly spoken, and unworthy of so great a genius.

[f9] Eumenides, § 16.

[f10] See Aristides and the musical writers; also Dionysius. Consider, also, what a solemnity Plutarch attributes to the ἐμβατηριος παιων of the Spartans (Lycurg. 22), which, of course, was either Dactylic or Anapæstic verse. Altogether, there can be no greater mistake than to imagine that our Dactylic and Anapæstic verse are the æsthetical equivalents of the ancient measures from which their names are borrowed. They are, in many parts of my translation, rather the equivalent of Dochmiac verse; and this, in obedience to the uniform practice of our highest poets, in passages of high passion and excitement.

[f11] MITCHELL (Aristoph. Ran. v. 1083) has remarked, with justice, that Æschylus is particularly fond of this verse. I was prevented from using it so often as might have been desirable in the choric odes, from having made it the representative of the Anapæsts.

[f12] On the Dochmiacs, Ionic a minori, and other rhythmical details, the reader will find occasional observations in the Notes; and those who are curious in those matters will find my views on some points more fully stated in _Classical Museum_, No. III. p. 338; No. XIII. p. 319, and No. XXII. p. 432. The Dochmiac verse was, in fact, equivalent to a bar of 9/8 in modern music.--See _Apel's Metrik_.

[f13] The corrupt state of the Æschylean text is no doubt to be attributed mainly to the rhetorical taste which, in the ages of the decadence, prevailed so long at Rome, Athens, Alexandria, and Byzantium, and which naturally directed the attention of transcribers to the text of Euripides, the great master of tongue-fence and the model-poet of the schools.--See QUINCTIL. X. 1.

FOOTNOTES TO ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY

[f1] There is a prevalent idea that the modern Greek language, or Romaic, as it is called, is a different language from the ancient Greek, pretty much in the same way that Italian is different from Latin. But this is a gross mistake. Greek was and is one unbroken living language, and ought to be taught as such.

[f2] WHISTON, Article TRAGEDY in SMITH's Dictionary of Antiquities, Second Edition; and DONALDSON in the GREEK THEATRE, Sixth Edition. London: 1849. P. 30.

[f3] Γενομένη ἀπ ἀρχῆς ἀυτοσχεδιαστικὴ ἡ τραγῳδία ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὸν διθύραμβον κατὰ μικρον ἠυξήθη.--ARISTOT. poet. 4.--Compare the words of the old Iambic poet Archilochus, given by Athenaeus (XIV. p. 628)--"_I know well how to dance the Dithyramb when the wine thunders dizzily through my brain!_" The word _Dithyramb_, according to the best etymology which has come in my way (DONALDSON & HARTUNG), means the _revel of the god_.

[f4] Αρίον τὸν Μηθυμναῖον πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν ποιήσαντα τε καὶ ὀνομάσαντα και διδάξαντα τὸν διθύραμβον ἐν Κορίνθῳ.--HEROD. I. 23. Compare SUIDAS _in voce_ ARION, and _Schol_. PINDAR., Olymp. XIII. 25.

[f5] Διθύραμβος (ο)ς ᾖν κύκλιος χορός.--Schol., Pindar, as above.

[f6] χορὸς ᾿εστὼς κυκλικῶς.--Tzetzes. Proleg. to Lycophron.

[f7] HARTUNG, on the Dithyramb.--Classical Museum, No. XVIII. p. 373. MURE's literature of ancient Greece.--Vol. III., p. 85.

[f8] The number fifty is mentioned in the Epigram of SIMONIDES, beginning ἠρχεν Αδείμαντος, in the above-mentioned prologue of TZETZES, and in POLLUX, Lib. iv., 15, who says that this number of the Chorus was used even by Æschylus up to the time when the Eumenides was represented. The number _twelve_ is commonly mentioned by other authorities as having been used by Æschylus, while Sophocles is said to have increased it to fifteen, which afterwards became the standard number. Müller (Eumenides) ingeniously supposes that the tragic poets, so long as the exhibition by tetralogies lasted, got the original number of _fifty_ from the public authorities, and divided it among the different pieces of the tetralogy. Blomfield's notion (Preface to the PERSAE) that the Chorus to the Eumenides consisted of only three persons, though a kind word has been said in its favour lately (MASON in Smith's Dict. of Antiq. _voce_ CHORUS), deserves, in my opinion, not a moment's consideration, either on philological or æsthetical grounds. I may mention here further, for the sake of those to whom these matters are strange, that the Chorus holds communication with the other characters in a Greek play generally by means of its Coryphaeus or Leader, which is the reason why it is often addressed in the singular and not in the plural number.

[f9] _Vit. Philos._ III. 34. It will be observed that, if a third actor appears on the stage in some parts of the Orestean trilogy, this is to be accounted for by the supposition that, in his later plays, the poet adopted the improvements which his young rival had first introduced. The number of actors here spoken of does not, of course, take into account mutes or supernumeraries, such as we find in great numbers in the Eumenides, and more or less almost in every extant piece of Æschylus.

[f10] Poetics, c. xiii.

[f11] Wilson, Vol. I. p. xxvi.

[f12] Twining; but the meaning of the Greek is disputed.

[f13] "ἡ μελοποίια, μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων."--Poetics, c. vi. The success of the modern _Italian_ opera in England, proves this in a style of which Aristotle could have had no conception.

[f14] The position of the old Theban senators, who form the Chorus in this play, has called forth not a little learned gladiatorship lately; BÖCKH (whose opinion on all such matters is entitled to the profoundest respect) maintaining that the Chorus is the impersonated wisdom of the play as conceived in the poet's mind, while some of his critics (_Dyer_ in _Class. Mus._ Vol. II. p. 69) represent them as a pack of cowardly sneaking Thebans, whom it was the express object of the poet to make ridiculous. This latter opinion is no more tenable than it would be to say that it was the object of Æschylus to make his Chorus of old men in that noted scene of the Agamemnon ridiculous; but so much truth there certainly is in it, that from the inherent defect of structure in the Greek tragedy, consisting in the constant presence of the Chorus in the double capacity of impartial moralizers and actors after a sort, there could not but arise this awkwardness to the poet that, while he always contrived to make them speak wisely, he sometimes could not prevent them from acting weakly, and even contemptibly.

[f15] On the dramatic imbecility of EURIPIDES, see my article in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_, No. XLVIII. His success as a dramatist is the strongest possible proof of the undramatic nature of the stage for which he wrote.

[f16] See the article DIONYSIA, by Dr. SCHMITZ, in SMITH's Dictionary of Antiq.

[f17] The same doctrine, I am sorry to see, has been repeated with special reference to Æschylus, and with very little qualification, by WHISTON in the article _Tragædia_ in Dr. Smith's Dict. Antiq., 2d Edit., p. 1146. SCHLEGEL is quite wrong, when he says "the Greek gods are mere _Naturmächte_"--physical or elemental powers. CONNINGTON, however, in the preface to his Agamemnon, expresses exactly my sentiments, when he protests against a "crystallization of destiny" being set up "as the presiding genius of the national dramatic literature of the Greeks."

[f18] See the works of KLAUSEN and BLUMNER in the List of Editions. And our English SEWELL recognizes, in the works of Æschylus, "the voice of a self-constituted Heathen Church protesting against the vices and follies that surrounded her."--Preface to the Agamemnon, p. 15.

[f19] Cicero pro Muræna, 13.

[f20] Αισχύλος πολλὰ σχήματα ὸρχηστικὰ ἀυτος ὲξευρίσκων, ἀνεδίδου τοῖς χορευταῖς.--Lib. I. p. 22.

[f21] See DYER, on the Choral Dancing of the Greeks,--_Classical Museum_, No. IX. p. 229.

[f22] BÖCKH and DONALDSON, in their editions of the ANTIGONE. Berlin, 1843, p. 280. London, 1848. Introduction, p. xxix.

[f23] I read ἐισόδῳ, not (ε)ξόδῳ, as it is in Matthiae, which is either a misprint, or a mistake in the writer, as the quotation immediately following proves.

[f24] This is MÜLLER's view in Eumenides, § 21.

[f25] It may be as well here, for the sake of some readers, to remark that the orchestra, or _dancing place_ (for so the word means), was that part of the ancient theatre which corresponds to the modern PIT. For a minute description of the ancient stage, the reader must consult DONALDSON's Greek Theatre, c. VII.

[f26] One of the most striking proofs of this is the many instances that occur in the tragedians of that most undramatic of all mannerisms--_self-description_--as when a sorrowful Chorus describes the tears on its cheek, the beating on its breast, and such like. True grief never paints itself.

[f27] BULWER, in Athens and the Athenians.

[f28] From the limited number of actors arose necessarily this evil, that the persons in a Greek dramatic fable appear not cotemporaneously, but in succession, one actor necessarily playing several parts. Now, the commonest fabricator of a novel for the circulating library knows how necessary it is to keep up a sustained interest, that the character, when once introduced, shall not be allowed to drop out of view, but be dexterously intermingled with the whole complex progress of the story, and be felt as necessary, or at least as agreeable, to the very end.

[f29] Writers on Belles Lettres, from TRAPP down to SCHLEGEL, have been very severe on the modern opera, and indignantly repudiated all comparison between it and the Greek tragedy. It is a common illusion of mental optics with the learned to magnify the defects of what is near and before their nose, while the peculiar excellencies of what is far distant in time or space are in a corresponding degree exalted. So SCHLEGEL, in his sublime German zeal against certain shallow judgments of Voltaire and other French critics, worked himself up into an idealized enthusiasm for some of the most glaring imperfections of the Greek stage, while in the modern opera he only sees the absurdities of the real. In assuming this tone he has, of course, been imitated by certain persons of little speculation in this country, who have thought it necessary slavishly to worship the Germans in all things, merely because certain other persons of no speculation ignorantly despised them. With regard to the opera, it is plain enough that it differs from the ancient tragedy in the following points:--(1) In not being essentially of a religious character; (2) in not varying the musical with the declamatory element; (3) in dealing more in monody, and less in choral singing; (4) in using the Chorus freely, according to the nature of the action, and not being always encumbered with it; (5) in making the mere musical element so predominate that poets of the first order seldom condescend to employ their talents in writing the text for an opera. All these special differences, however, do not mar the propriety of the general comparison between an ancient "goat-song" and a modern opera, justified, as it is, plainly by the common musical element which both contain in different degrees of prominence. In point of high moral tone, high poetic diction, and noble conception, the ancient lyrical drama is no doubt vastly superior to the modern opera; but in some other points, as in the more free and adroit use of the Chorus, the opera is as much superior to the goat-song. With respect to the CHORUS in particular, SCHLEGEL has said many things that look very wise, but are simply not true. The Chorus is only half described (see above, p. 20), when it is called the "ideal spectator." What he says about _publicity_ is mere talk. There is no other reason for the presence of the Chorus than because it was originally the essential part of the performance, and could not but be to the end the most popular.

FOOTNOTES TO THE LIFE OF ÆSCHYLUS

[f1] "Æschylus used to say that his tragedies were only slices cut from the great banquet of Homeric dainties."--Athenæus, VIII. p. 348.

[f2] In the FROGS (v. 886), Aristophanes makes him show at once the religiousness of his character, and its source, in the two lines of invocation--

"O thou that nourished my young soul, Demeter, Make thou me worthy of thy mysteries!"

[f3] From the διδασκαλία, or note of the year of representation with the name of the author, in the argument to that play. On the arguments from internal evidence brought forward to prove that the SUPPLIANTS is the oldest extant play, I place no value whatever. The simplicity of structure proves nothing, because it proves too much. Several of the extant plays are equally simple. For aught we know, it may have been the practice of Æschylus to the very last, as we see in the case of the Choephoræ, to give the middle piece of his trilogies less breadth and variety than the opening and concluding ones; and it is almost certain that the SUPPLIANTS was either the second or the first play of a trilogy.

[f4] Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 1060, Welcker's Tril. p. 475, and the _Vit. Robortel._ (which, however, I have not seen).

[f5] Mar. Par. ep. 53. Welcker's _Tril._ p. 116.

[f6] See Introduction to that piece.

[f7] Scholiast, Aristoph. Acharn. v. 10.

[f8] PHILOSTRATUS, Vit. Soph. I. 9; Vit. Apollon. VI. 11, p. 244.

[f9] The great comedian is particularly amusing in the contrast which he draws between the rude instinctive grandeur of the Æschylean diction and the elegant rhetorical decorations of Euripides:--

"With high-sounding words he will make such a pother, With helmeted speeches he bravely will spout; With chippings and shavings of rhetoric the other All whirling and dancing about Will stand at bay; but the deep-thoughted bard, With equestrian harmonies, galloping hard, Will floor in the fight The glib-tongued wight. The stiff hair of his mane all alive for the fray, Bristling and big from the roots he will ruffle; His black brows he will knit, and terribly bray, Like a lion that roars for the scuffle. Huge words by rivets and spike-nails bound, Like plank on plank he will fling on the ground, Blasting so bold Like a Titan of old."

[f10] ARISTOTLE, Ethic. Nicom. III. 1. CLEMEN. ALEX., Strom II. 14, p. 461. POTT. Aelian, V.H.V. 19, and WELCKER, Trilog. p. 106.

[f11] The primary authorities for the life of Æschylus are the PARIAN MARBLE, the Βίος Αισχύλου, the FROGS of ARISTOPHANES, the arguments of the extant plays, and various incidental notices in ATHENÆUS and other ancient authors, most of whom have been quoted or mentioned in the text. With regard to secondary sources of information, the present writer has been much assisted, and had his labour essentially curtailed, by PETERSEN's _Vita Æschyli_, Havniae, 1812; the article ÆSCHYLUS, by WHISTON, in Dr. SMITH's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology; the admirable condensed summary in BERNHARDY's _Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur, 2ter, Theil_, HALLE, 1845; and DONALDSON's Greek Theatre. In Chronology, I have followed CLINTON.

FOOTNOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON

[f1] Welcker, in the introductory remarks to his _Epischer Cyclus_ (§ 1), has given what appear to me sufficient reasons for not confounding this Proclus with the famous Platonist of the same name.

[f2] This and other curious fragments from the wreck of the old Hellenic epos, will be found in Becker's Scholia to Homer (Berlin, 1825), or in the second volume of Welcker's Epic Cycle (Bonn, 1849), in the Appendix.

[f3] See Thucydides, I. 9.

[f4] See Welcker's _Trilogie_, Darmstadt, 1824, p. 408, who, however, here, as in other parts of the same learned work, expends much superfluity of ingenious conjecture on subjects which, from their very nature, are necessarily barren of any certain result.

[f5] Jove to Priam sent the eagle, of all flying things that be Noblest made, his dark-winged hunter.

[f6] _i.e._ The right hand--the hand which brandishes the spear, χερὸς ἐκ δοριπάλτου; right being the lucky side in Greek augury.--ILIAD, xxiv. 320.

[f7] Calchas, the famous soothsayer of the Iliad.

[f8] Diana.

[f9] This excellent version I took from an article in the _Quarterly Review_.--Vol. lxx. p. 340.

[f10] The sacrifice of Iphigenia displeasing to Clytemnestra.

[f11] Chalcis, a city in Eubœa, opposite Aulis.

[f12] A river in Macedonia.

[f13] The epithet καλλιπρώρου, _beautiful fronted_, applied to στόματος being contrary to the genius of the English language, the translator must content himself with the simple epithet.

[f14] An old name for the Peloponnesus.

[f15] Vulcan.

[f16] Venus.

[f17] The Furies.

[f18] Mars.

[f19] "My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne."--SHAKESPEARE, quoted by Symmons.

[f20] Æsculapius.

[f21] _Swallow jabber_.--"Barbarians are called swallows because their speech cannot be understood any more than the twitter of swallows."--_Stanley, from Hesychius_.

[f22] An epithet of Apollo from λοξὸς oblique, for which Macrobius (Sat. I. 17) gives astronomical reasons; but it seems more obvious to say that the god is so called from the obliqueness or obscurity of his oracles.

[f23] From the looseness of the laws of quantity in English versification, it may be as well to state here that I wish these lines of seven syllables to be read as vv--', v--', v--'. not --' v, --' v , --' v, --'.

[f24] The Furies.

[f25] Dun-plumed. ξουθὰ.

"Because the poor brown bird, alas! Sings in the garden sweet and true." MISS BARRETT.

[f26] "Most musical, most melancholy bird! A melancholy bird? O idle thought! In Nature there is nothing melancholy." COLERIDGE

[f27] See Introductory Remarks.

[f28] The banquet of his own children, which Atreus offered to Thyestes.--See Introductory Remarks.

[f29] Apollo.

[f30] πόρθμευμ ἀχέων, whence Acheron, so familiar to English ears; as in the same way _Cocytus_, from κωκυω, to avail, and the other infernal streams, with a like appropriateness.

[f31] The house of Atreus, so called from Pleisthenes, one of the ancestry of Agamemnon.

FOOTNOTES TO THE CHOEPHORÆ

[f1] See Niebuhr's Travels (§ 25, c. 4); Michaelis' Commentaries on the Laws of Moses (Art. 135); and Southey's Thalaba.

[f2] _Dictionary_--voce GOEL, and Commentaries, § 131.

[f3] Die Thymele in der Orchestra ist durch ein Aschenkrug als Agamemnon's Grab bezeichnet.--DROYSEN.

[f4] Hermes, or Mercury, in his capacity of guide of the dead (ψυχοπομπός) is here called Χθόνιος, or subterranean.

[f5] Iphigenia.

[f6] Proserpine.

[f7] See Note 64 to Agamemnon.

[f8] Hermes or Mercury. See Notes 55 and 56 above.

[f9] The Gorgon Medusa.

[f10] Agamemnon and Electra.

[f11] The Furies.--See next piece.

FOOTNOTES TO THE EUMENIDES

[f1] This original germ of the Furies is mentioned frequently in these plays, as πολυκρατεῖς ἀρὰι φθιμενων, _Fell Curses of the Dead_, in the Choephoræ, p. 111 in above. See also the words of Clytemnestra, _My curse beware_, p. 126 above.

[f2] Wordsworth's "Athens and Attica," London, 1836, c. 11.

[f3] "Καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ βουλὴν Ἑφιάλτης ἐκόλουσε καὶ Περικλῆς. τὰ δὲ δικαστήρια μισθοφόρα κατέστησε Περικλῆς."--ARISTOTLE, Pol. II. 9. 3.

[f4] "Τῆς ναναρχίας γὰρ ἐν τοῖς Μηδικοῖς ὁ δῆμος ἄιτιος γενόμενος ἐφρονηματίσθη."--ARISTOTLE, _ibid_.

[f5] The progeny of Earth and Heaven were called Titans, among whom Phœbe is numbered by Hesiod.--Theog. 136.

[f6] Apollo.

[f7] One of the waters that descend from Parnassus.

[f8] Neptune.

[f9] See note to Choephoræ, No. 73.

[f10] πομπᾶιος. Of the dead specially, but also of the living: as of Ulysses in the Odyssey, Book X.

[f11] Literally the unseen world. Sometimes used for the King of the unseen world--Pluto.

[f12] See Introductory Remarks.

[f13] _Lucidae sedes_.--HORACE III. 3.

[f14] See Introductory Remarks. They designate themselves here from their origin, Ἀραὶ or _imprecations_.

[f15] That is, the Furies themselves.

[f16] Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass, Und durch die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend sass, Er kennt Euch nicht, ihr hîmmlischen Mächte!--GOETHE.

[f17] "For strangers and the poor are from Jove."--HOMER.

[f18] See above, p. 141, Note 4.

[f19] That is, _Asia_. See Introduction to the Agamemnon.

[f20] Alluding to the well-known and beautiful allegoric myth that the goddess of wisdom sprang, full-armed, into birth from the brain of the all-wise Omnipotent, without the intervention of a mother.

[f21] See the Preliminary Remarks.

[f22] παρόρνιθας, as we say ill-starred--that is, _unfortunate_, _unlucky_, the metaphor being varied, according to the changes of fashions in the practice of divination.

[f23] Alii γελῶμαι--"fortasse non male."--PALEY.

[f24] The goddess of Persuasion--πειθὼ.

[f25] Like Erectheus (p. 167 above), one of the most ancient Earth-born kings of Attica.

[f26] So the Greeks called anything very ancient, from Ogyges, an old Bœotian king.

FOOTNOTES TO THE PROMETHEUS BOUND

[f1] Classical Museum, No. XV. p 1.

[f2] BUCK. (Introduction, p. xiii.) has very aptly compared here the position of Antigone, in the well-known play of that name, and the half-approving, half-condemning tone of the Chorus in that play.

[f3] The most remarkable passages of the ancients where reference is made to the _Prometheus Unbound_ of Æschylus are:--CICERO, Tusc. II. 10; ARRIAN. Periplus Pont. Eux. p. 19; STRABO, Lib. I. p. 33 and IV. 182-3; PLUTARCHUS. vit. Pompeii, init.; ATHENÆUS. XV. p. 672, Cas.

[f4] "Veniat Æschylus non poeta solum, sed etiam Pythagoreus. Sic enim accepimus. Quo modo fert apud eum Prometheus dolorem, quern excipit _ob furtum Lemnium_."--_Tusc. Quæst_. II. 10, _Welcker; Trilogie_, p. 7.

[f5] "_Chorus consilietur amicis._"--HORACE.

[f6] On the stage, of course, her transmutation can only be indicated by the presence of a pair of ox horns on her virgin forehead.

[f7] ἡ ποικιλείμων νύξ. _Buntgewandige_--SCHOE. "_Various-vested Night._"--COLERIDGE, in a Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon.

[f8] ἀιθέριον κίνυγμα.

[f9] Saturn the father of Jove.

[f10] "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it repenteth me that I have made him."--GEN. vi. 7.

[f11] The Sea of Azof.

[f12] "Of all the things that breathe the air, and creep upon the Earth, The weakest thing that breathes and creeps on nurturing Earth is Man." HOMER'S ODYS. xviii. 130.

[f13] _i.e._ Delphi.--See Schol. to Iliad II. 519.

[f14] Rhea's bosomed sea--the Hadriatic.

[f15] The Ionian sea.

[f16] The Danaids, daughters of Danaus, who colonized Argos from Egypt. This forms the subject of the next play--the Suppliants.

[f17] See the Agamemnon, Note 15.

[f18] Compare Odyssey, I. 32.

FOOTNOTES TO THE SUPPLIANTS

[f1] Vol. I., c. 3.

[f2] FAST., HELLEN., Introduc. pp. 6, 7.

[f3] See Introductory Remarks to the Eumenides.

[f4] The usual insignia of Suppliants. Wool was commonly used in the adornment of insignia hallowed by religion.--See Dict. Antiq., _voc. infula_ and _apex._; and Note 72 to the Choephoræ, and Clem. Alex. Prot. § 10.

[f5] Epaphus and Io.

[f6] Epaphus, from ἑπαφὴ. See Note 3 immediately above.

[f7] This is explained by what follows. An augur, of course, was the proper person to recognise the notes of birds, or what resembled them.

[f8] See Note 76 to Agamemnon.

[f9] PAL. quotes from Massinger's _Emperor of the East_, "To a sad tune I sing my own dirge," which I have adopted.

[f10] Artemis, or Diana.

[f11] τον πολυξενώτατον Ζῆνα, that is, PLUTO.

[f12] See Note 46 to the Eumenides.

[f13] See Iliad viii. 69, and other passages, describing the "golden scales of Jove," in which the fates of men are weighed.

[f14] See the Agamemnon, Note 94.

[f15] See PALEY.

[f16] Cyprus.

[f17] See Prometheus Bound, p. 192 above.

[f18] See Prometheus Bound, p. 204 and Note 46.

[f19] In this very perplexed passage I follow PAL. BOTHE's conjecture, Αργεῖος, is very happy.

[f20] A promontory in Cilicia.--STRABO, p. 670. PAL.

[f21] πρόξενοι.--See Note 19 to page 226 above.

[f22] "Potui humor ex hordeo aut frumento in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus."--TACITUS de mor. Geom. c. 23.

[f23] Venus.

[f24] This river and the Inachus flow into the Argolic gulf, both near the city of Argos, taking their rise in the mountain ridge that separates Argos from Arcadia.

[f25] The goddess of Persuasion.

FOOTNOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

[f1] Eurip. Phœnissae. Prolog., and Argument to the same from the Cod. Guelpherbyt. in Matthiae.

[f2] πρῶτος ᾿εν ᾿ανθρώποις τὴν ἀῤῥενοφθορίαν ἑυρων.--Compare ROMANS i, 27.

[f3] Μὴ σπ(ε)ίρε τέκνων ἄλοκα δαιμόνων βίᾳ, κ.τ.λ.--Eurip. Phœnis. 19.

[f4] ὀιδέω to swell, and ποῦς a foot; literally _swell-foot_. Welcker remarks that there is a peculiar significancy in the appellations connected with this legend; even Λάϊος being connected with λαικάζω, λαισκαπρος, and other similar words--(_Trilog_. p. 355)--but this is dangerous ground.

[f5] The σχιστή ὁδος.--See Wordsworth's Greece, p. 21.

[f6] It is particularly mentioned in the oldest form of the legend, that he considered his sons had not sent him his due share of the flesh offered in the family sacrifice.--Scholiast Soph. O. C. 1375. This is alluded to in the fifth antistrophe of the third great choral chaunt of this play, v. 768. WELL. See my Note.

[f7] The subject of "The Eleusinians" was the burial of the dead bodies of the chiefs who had fallen before Thebes, through the mediation of Theseus.--See Plutarch, Life of that hero, c. 29.

[f8] See Welcker's Trilogie, p. 359, etc.

[f9] Classical Museum, No. XXV. p. 312.

[f10] See PALEY's Note.

[f11] See Introductory Remarks.

[f12] See Note 35 to the Suppliants, p. 235 above.

[f13] CHANCE (Τύχη), it must be recollected, was a divine power among the ancients.

[f14] See Note 60 to the Choephoræ.

[f15] The name PARTHENOPAUS, from παρθένος, a virgin, and ὤψ the countenance.

[f16] See Note 60 to Agamemnon.

[f17] See Note 73 to the Choephoræ.

[f18] See PAPE. _in voce_ αλφηστής.

[f19] Maritime similes are very common in Æschylus, and specially this.--Compare Agamemnon, p. 70, Strophe II.

[f20] Another pun on POLYNICES, see above, p. 278.

[f21] _i.e._ Raging flood, _Thyad_, from θύω, to rage.

[f22] See Note 67 to Agamemnon.

FOOTNOTES TO THE PERSIANS

[f1] The play of Phrynichus, which celebrated the defeat of Xerxes, was called _Phœnissæ_, from the Phœnician virgins who composed the chorus. How far Æschylus may have borrowed from this work is now impossible to know. Nothing certainly can be gained by pressing curiously the word παραπεποιῆσθαι in the mouth of an old grammarian.

[f2] Chœrilus was a Samian, contemporary of Herodotus, but younger. His poem, entitled περσικά, included the expedition of Darius as well as that of Xerxes.

[f3] By the praiseworthy exertions of Mr. Bohn, the English reader is now supplied with translations of this, and other Classical writers, at a very cheap rate.

[f4] Vol. V. p. 191. THIRLWALL had defended the statement of Æschylus.

[f5] Herodotus VII. 1-4.

[f6] Trilogie, p. 470; Ariadne, p. 81.

[f7] These plays were PHINEUS, the PERSIANS, GLAUCUS, and PROMETHEUS. The last was a satiric piece, having no connection with the Prometheus Bound, or the trilogy to which it belonged.

[f8] See LINWOOD--_voce_ βαΰζω.

[f9] "The people of Susa are also called Cissians."--STRABO, p. 728.

[f10] See p. 172, Note.

[f11] "They who dwell in the marshes are the most warlike of the Egyptians."--Thucyd. I. 110. ABRESCH.

[f12] "Tmolus, a hill overhanging Sardes, from which the famous golden-flooded Pactolus flows."--STRABO, p. 625. "Called sacred from Bacchus worshipped there."--Eurip. Bacch. 65. PAL.

[f13] The Hellespont; so called from Helle, the daughter of Athamas, a character famous in the Argonautic legend.

[f14] "As a dragon in a hollow fiercely waiteth for a man, Eating venomed herbs, and darkly nursing anger in his breast, Glaring with fierce looks of terror, as he winds him in his den." ILIAD.

[f15] "They who are called by the Greeks SYRIANS, are called ASSYRIANS by the Barbarians."--HERODOT. VII. 63.

[f16] The bridge of boats built by Xerxes. The original ἀμφίζευκτον αλιον πρῶνα ἀμφοτέρας κοινὸν ἄιας seems intelligible no other way. So BLOM., PAL., and BUCK., and LINW.--Compare Note 34 to the Eumenides.

[f17] See Note 63 to the Choephoræ.

[f18] Attica.

[f19] θυμόμαντις.--See Note 67 to Agamemnon.

[f20] The mines of Laurium, near the Sunian promontory. On their importance to the Athenians during this great struggle with Persia, see GROTE, V. p. 71.

[f21] ἐπι σκηπτουχίᾳ ταχθεὶς. So the σκηπτουχοι βασιλεῖς of Homer.

[f22] Part of the shore of Salamis, called τροπάια ἄκρα.--SCHOL.

[f23] σκληρᾶς μέτοικος γῆς: inest amara ironia.--BLOM.

[f24] αλάστωρ.

[f25] ἐπέφλεγεν.

[f26] The captain of this ship was Ameinias, brother of Æschylus.--See GROTE, V. 178.

[f27] A bold expression, but used also by Euripides.--νυκτὸς ὄμμα λυγάιας--(Iphig. Taur., 110). To Polytheists such terms were the most natural things in language.

[f28] "As soon as the Persian fleet was put to flight, Aristides arrived with some Grecian hoplites at the island of Psyttaleia, overpowered the enemy, and put them to death to a man."--GROTE.

[f29] "Having caused the land force to be drawn up along the shore opposite to Salamis, Xerxes had erected for himself a lofty seat or throne upon one of the projecting declivities of Mount Aegaleos, near the Heracleion, immediately overhanging the sea."--GROTE.

[f30] θεὸς indefinitely; a common way of talking in Homer.

[f31] Facilis descensus Averni, etc.--VIRGIL, Æneid VI.

[f32] ὕβρις--See Note 61 to Agamemnon, and Note 41 Eumenides.

[f33] Salamis in Cyprus, from which the Grecian Salamis was a colony.

[f34] See p. 172, and compare p. 271.

[f35] See Note 63 to the Choephoræ.

[f36] See Ezra ix. 3.

[End of Footnotes]

GREEK TEXTUAL NOTES

The following passages included Greek characters that were not supported by Unicode at the time this ebook was prepared. The characters in question are surrounded by parentheses with the proper character described below.

PREFACE

ὀρχηστκωτέραν (ἐ)ιναι τὴν ποίησιν. Footnote 6, page 6. original: smooth epsilon with circumflex

ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY

Διθύραμβος (ο)ς ᾖν κύκλιος χορός. Footnote 5, page 14. original: omicron with circumflex

Τύριον (ὀ)ιδμα λιπῦσ ἔβαν. Page 24. original: smooth omicron with circumflex

I read ἐισόδῳ, not (ε)ξόδῳ, as it is. . . Footnote 23, page 24. original: epsilon with circumflex

NOTES

AGAMEMNON

Βρύει ἂυθ(ε)ι λευκῳ Note 19, page 339. original: epsilon with diaeresis

ῶς (ε)υδαιμονες. . . Note 36, page 343. original: epsilon with circumflex

(ε)υδαίμονες Note 36, page 343. original: epsilon with circumflex

ἁιρέω 2 aor (ἑ)ιλον. Note 57, page 348. original: rough epsilon with circumflex

ὁρῶμεν ἀνθουν πέλαγος Ἀιγᾶιον νεκρ(ο)ις Note 77, page 353. original: omicron with circumflex

ὰλλ ἐυκλεῶς τοι κατθαν(ε)ιν χάρις βροτῷ Note 82, page 354. original: epsilon with circumflex

τίς ἀν ἔυξαιτο βροτῶν ἀσιν(ε)ι Note 85, page 354. original: epsilon with circumflex

Τὰ μὲν ποδήρη και χ(ε)ρων ἄκρους κτένας Note 97, page 357. original: epsilon with circumflex

CHOEPHORÆ

το ἐυτυχ(ε)ίν Note 5, page 358. original: epsilon with circumflex

Δ(ο)υλε δεσποτῶν ἄκουε καὶ δίκαια καὶ αδικα. Note 7, page 359. original: omicron with circumflex

ὑφ (ε)ιμάτων Note 8, page 359. original: epsilon with circumflex

῏Ευ γὰρ πρὸς ἐυ φαν(ε)ισι προσθήκη πελοι. Note 19, page 361. original: epsilon with circumflex

ὑπερ τοῦ δυσεντεύκτους ἀυτάς (ἐ)ιναι Note 61, page 370. original: smooth epsilon with circumflex

χρονισθ(ε)ισαυ Note 66, page 370. original: epsilon with circumflex

Ἄλλοις ἄν ἐι δή. τουτ᾽ ἂρ (ο)ιδ ὃπη τελ(ε)ι. Note 71, page 371. first: smooth omicron with circumflex second: epsilon with circumflex

(ε)᾽ σται καθαρμός Note 74, page 371. original: epsilon with circumflex

THE EUMENIDES

κακοῦ τε χλ(ο)υνις Note 21, page 378. original: omicron with circumflex

τίθησιν (ο)ρθὸν πόδα Note 27, page 378. original: omicron with circumflex

αλα(ο)ισι και δεδορκόσι Note 30, page 379. original: omicron with circumflex

Μάλα γὰρ (ὀ)υν Note 32, page 380. original: smooth omicron with circumflex

(ε)πιφθόνοις ποδός Note 32, page 380. original: epsilon with circumflex

into ἐμ(ο)ις. . . Note 37, page 381. original: omicron with circumflex

μη ὐπερφρον(ε)ιν παρ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν Note 41, page 382. original: epsilon with circumflex

PROMETHEUS BOUND

(ο) λωφήσων γὰρ ὀυ πέφυκέ πω Note 5, page 387. original: omicron with circumflex

Ἅπαντ ἐπράχθη πλὴν θε(ο)ισι κοιρανεῖν Note 7, page 388. original: omicron with circumflex

ἢ χρημάτων γαρ δ(ο)υλος ἐστιν ἡ τύχης Note 7, page 388. original: omicron with circumflex

μηδάμ θ(ε)ιτ᾽ εμᾀ γνώμᾶ κράτος ἀντίπαλον Note 36, page 397. original: epsilon with circumflex

᾽(ο)ιστρος or μύωψ. Note 38, page 398. original: omicron with circumflex

φλ(ο)ισβος Note 45, page 400. original: omicron with circumflex

THE SUPPLIANTS

ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειος Note 40, page 411. original: omicron with circumflex

for (ὀ)υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ Note 54, page 414 original: smooth omicron with circumflex

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Μὴ σπ(ε)ίρε τέκνων ἄλοκα. . . Footnote 3, page 259. original: epsilon with circumflex

φόβος and Δ(ε)ιμος Note 3, page 416. original: epsilon with circumflex

διαδρομᾶν (ο)μαίμονες Note 29, page 421. original: omicron with circumflex

ὀυ γὰρ δοκ(ε)ιν ἄριστος ἀλλ᾽ (ἐ)ίναι θέλει Note 35, page 422. first: epsilon with circumflex second: smooth epsilon with circumflex

κερδ(ο)ς, i.e. τὸ νῦν τεθνᾶναι πρότερον, Note 38, page 423. original: omicron with circumflex

THE PERSIANS

πλαγκτοῖς (ε)ν διπλάκεσσιν Note 12, page 429. original: epsilon with circumflex

ναες ἄναες (α)ναες Note 26, page 432. original: alpha with dialytika and varia

Ἠ τάχα ῏Ιρος (α)Ιρος ἐπίσπαστον κακον ἔξει Note 26, page 432. original: alpha with diaeresis

[End of Greek Textual Notes]

[End of Book]