Part 19

She asks about Troy, and the fate of Helen: of Calchas, that evil prophet who had bidden her father slay his child: of Achilles, her promised bridegroom, dead long since outside the walls of Troy. And Orestes in his turn begins to wonder who may be this searching questioner, who asks so feelingly of the things that lie closest to his heart. She tells him that she is Greek; and that explains a good deal. But when she comes nearer home, and asks for news of Agamemnon, it is only her evident emotion that wins a reply. Bit by bit she learns that Agamemnon is dead by the hand of Clytemnestra; and a cry escapes her which is full of the sense of the tragedy from the woman’s standpoint:

“_O God! I pity her that slew ... and him that slew!_“[33]

Orestes, too, is moved, and begs her, shrinking from further questions which he sees are coming, to desist. One word more, she entreats—what of Clytemnestra? And when the youth, in slow words that seem wrung from him in pain, tells that the great queen was slain by her son in vengeance for his father’s death, it is again the woman’s judgment that springs to utterance:

“_Alas! A bad false duty bravely hath he wrought._“[33]

So little by little the tragic events that have filled the years of her exile are related in this wonderful dialogue, where every sentence that each speaker utters carries a significance to which the other has no clue. All through the scene the underlying dramatic irony is profoundly felt—the ignorance of each of the other’s identity; and at moments one holds the breath in suspense. At one time the unknown priestess speaks of the Greek king’s daughter who was slain at Aulis; and when the stranger answers that of course nothing more was heard of her, she having died at Aulis, Iphigenia sighs:

“_Poor child! Poor father, too, who killed and lied!_“[33]

Again, remembering her ominous dream, she asks what has become of Agamemnon’s son, and receives the reply:

“_He lives, now here, now nowhere, bent with ill._“[33]

So her dream was a lie, she muses, thankfully; and falls silent while the stranger, whose reserve has vanished now, breaks into bitter railing against the gods who have brought him to this pass. Iphigenia scarcely hears him. Relief and gratitude for the fact that Orestes is living: renewed pity for the strangers’ doom and some wistful tenderness for him to whom she has spoken, fill her mind and prompt her to rapid thought.

Suppose she were to rescue them, she ponders, or one of them? And suppose, in doing so, she could bring help to herself from the brother in Argos who believes her dead? Suddenly she turns upon Orestes and begins rapidly to unfold a plan. She knows a way to save him; and she will undertake to give him life in return for a promise. He must pledge himself to carry a letter which she will give him to her friends in Mycenæ.

So her proposal runs to the amazed and grateful youths; but a difficulty instantly arises. Orestes will not by any means consent that Pylades shall be left behind to die. His friend is very dear to him, he says: let Pylades go free and bear the message. The priestess agrees, with a word of admiration for his generous love; and goes into the temple to fetch the tablet, which had been written for her long ago, by a prisoner taken by king Thoas.

While Iphigenia is gone, the friends take a tender farewell of each other. Pylades entreats Orestes to let him stay and die in his stead: he will have no more joy in life, he says, when he returns without his comrade; and men will scorn him for a coward. But the other puts his pleading resolutely on one side, and when the priestess returns with the tablet, both are composed and ready. She has one misgiving, however. She fears that Pylades will forget his trust once he is free of Tauris; and she requires of him an oath that her letter will be delivered. But when the oath is solemnly given, Pylades perceives a difficulty in his turn. Suppose the tablet should be lost, how could he fulfil his promise? Iphigenia sees that there is only one thing to do—she must repeat the contents of the letter, and the messenger must commit them to memory. So, speaking slowly and impressively, she begins:

IPHIGENIA. _Say: “To Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, She that was slain in Aulis, dead to Greece, Yet quick, Iphigenia sendeth peace.”_

ORESTES. _Iphigenia! Where? Back from the dead?_

IPHIGENIA. _’Tis I. But speak not, lest thou break my thread._[33]

Orestes and Pylades, after a wild exclamation each to the other, stand listening in bewildered joy as Iphigenia proceeds, relating the story of her rescue by Artemis, and calling upon her brother to come and save her from captivity. During the recital, they have had time to grasp the wonder of the things they have heard; but no ray of the truth has come to Iphigenia. And when Orestes, receiving the letter from the hand of Pylades, turns eagerly to embrace the sister so marvellously saved, she recoils in horror.

ORESTES. _O Sister mine, O my dead father’s child, Agamemnon’s child; take me and have no fear, Beyond all dreams ‘tis I thy brother here._[33]

Iphigenia, incredulous, thinks he is mocking her. She has been so long dead to love and happiness that she cannot believe that they have come to her at last, and that this is really the brother for whom, a little while before, she had performed the funeral rite. She insists on proof of his identity; and as he tells over the little homely signs by which she may know him, her doubt slips away and she clasps him in her arms.

“_Is this the babe I knew, The little babe, light lifted like a bird?... O Argos land, O hearth and holy flame That old Cyclôpes lit, I bless ye that he lives, that he is grown, A light and strength, my brother and mine own._“[33]

They cling to each other, Iphigenia oblivious of everything but her joy, and Orestes loth to recall her to a sense of their danger. Presently her thoughts come painfully back to it, fluttering wildly round each possibility of escape together, and seeing no way clear. But when Orestes tells her of his mission to carry off the statue of the goddess, the very magnitude of its daring clarifies her mind. She sees one way, and though it is not the way that she had hoped, she is ready for the sacrifice. She must secure the statue, and Orestes must escape with it to Attica, as the god commands. For herself, her part will be to stay, and by every means prevent her brother from being followed. She is sure of success in this, and though it mean death for her, it will be sweet to give herself for the peace of one so dear.

“_Thou shalt walk free in Argolis again, And all life smile on thee.... Dearest, we need Not shrink from that._“[33]

But Orestes absolutely refuses to accept his life at such a price; and they strain every nerve to contrive a scheme which will carry them to safety together. There is a suggestion to kill Thoas, but the woman who has been sheltered and protected by him will not hear of it. Again, they think of hiding in the temple until nightfall; but that is impracticable, because the guards would see and capture them. And at last Iphigenia, beating backward and forward over all the possible chances, sees a gleam of hope. Slowly and carefully she unfolds her plan. She will give out that the victims for the altar have come from Greece polluted with a mother’s blood, and that they may not be offered to the goddess until they have been cleansed in the sea. The statue, she will say, is unclean too, since one of the captives has touched it; and she will prevail upon the king to allow her to take it, with the victims, down to the seashore. The rest will be Orestes’ task; and as his ship with fifty rowers lies waiting for them in the little bay, they should be able to get away before Thoas can follow.

The scheme is at once subtle and daring, but it is their only hope of escape from awful peril; and it is hastily resolved upon. Iphigenia claims a promise of loyalty from her women, sends the prisoners away in charge of attendants, and goes into the temple for the statue. As she comes out again, bearing it in her hands, the king himself arrives. To his astonished questions, she answers as has been arranged, and no point is overlooked by her ingenuity. A herald should be sent before her, to clear the streets, and proclaim that no one must look out, or leave his house, for fear of pollution. Thoas himself, and his attendants, must veil their eyes when her procession passes; and while she is gone, the king is to purge the temple with fire in preparation for her return. Lastly, if she be a long time away, the king need not be anxious, and she must not be disturbed: the cleansing must be thoroughly performed.

The king consents without a shadow of suspicion, impressed by her piety and forethought. The prisoners are led out, and as the procession moves away, Iphigenia utters a prayer for help in her strategy and pardon for the deceit that she has practised on the king. As Thoas returns to the temple to carry out Iphigenia’s injunctions, the Chorus break into an ode in honour of Apollo and Artemis; and for a while there is no sound but the sweet rise and fall of their voices. As time slips by, bringing we know not what fortune to the fugitives, we know that the women of the Chorus, who are in the secret, are tortured by suspense. Then there is a sudden shout; and a messenger comes running from the shore and cries for entrance to the temple. The women try to turn him aside; but he batters upon the gates until Thoas throws them open, angry at the clamour.

In rapid and excited speech the man tells his errand. Let the king come at once, for he has been befooled. The cleansing was a fraud: the statue has been stolen; and the Greek princess and the two young men who were destined for the altar are even now rowing away in a boat which was awaiting them. But if the king will hasten, they may yet be caught; for at this moment they are battling with an adverse wind, and they have no knowledge of the currents of that treacherous shore.

Thoas, furious at the trap into which he has fallen, gives rapid orders: a company of herdsmen is to go to the headlands, and boats are to be put off immediately from the shore. So these crafty Greeks will be overtaken, either by sea or land; and then let them beware of a barbarian’s anger!

But suddenly, through the shouting and confusion, there is a roll of thunder and a lightning-flash; and descending through the air the goddess Athena is seen. Her voice rings out imperiously, commanding Thoas to stay his haste. Then, in the awed hush that falls she makes known the will of the gods that Orestes and his sister shall not be pursued. Fate has ordained their escape, and Thoas may not strive against it.

“_No death from thee May snare Orestes between earth and sea._“[33]

As for Orestes himself, Athena declares that it is laid on him to carry the rescued image of Artemis to Halæ, on the bounds of Attica; and there it will be worshipped with curious rites designed to recall the old barbarity while condemning it. These poor Greek women must be restored to their homes; and, for that fleeing priestess, Destiny has given to her to end her days in peace and gentleness.

“_And thou, Iphigenia, by the stair Of Brauron in the rocks, the Key shalt bear. Of Artemis. There shalt thou live and die, And there have burial._“[33]

Footnote 33:

From Professor Gilbert Murray’s translation of the _Iphigenia in Tauris_ (George Allen & Co. Ltd.).

_Virgil: Dido_

Nineteen years before the birth of Christ the great Roman poet Virgil died, leaving amongst his papers an epic poem which had been the work of many years. Both in life and art this poet of the Augustan Age had a very high ideal; and because he was conscious of defects in his work: because his last illness came before he was able to put the finishing touches upon it, he begged that it should be burned. But the emperor Augustus interposed. Some parts of the poem were already known and loved in the circle of Virgil’s friends, of whom the emperor was one. They knew its fine theme—the founding of the Roman State by its legendary ancestor Æneas; and having already some foretaste of its beauty and charm and strong patriotic appeal, it seemed that the destruction of the poem would mean an immense and irreparable loss. So the Emperor decided that it should be preserved, and directed Virgil’s executors to edit it.

The poem is of course the _Æneid_, and Dido is its heroine. Like the Greek epics, it is an authentic voice of the ancient world; but of an Age, a Race and a Civilization vastly different from theirs. It is quite frankly fashioned in the Homeric form, and its hero is one of the Trojan chiefs who fled overseas to Italy, to re-establish his race there at the command of the gods. It actually brings Æneas at one point of his wanderings within three months’ time of an incident in the _Odyssey_: it shows us Andromache still mourning for Hector, and the gods still at enmity over the old feud between Greek and Trojan. But all these links with the earlier epics, and many others, subtler or more obvious, are merely formal. In spirit there is as wide a severance as we know to exist in actual time. The _Æneid_, with its humane, philosophic and cultured poet, belongs to a state of society many hundreds of years later than the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. And although it is a mistake to regard the earlier poems as really ‘primitive,’ they represent an age which, because it was relatively simpler and less self-conscious, seems youthful and buoyant by comparison.

The outward similarity and the fundamental contrast between Homer and Virgil make a fascinating subject on which to linger; and one aspect at least we must just glance at, because of its bearing on Dido’s story. It is that added element of purpose in the _Æneid_ which perhaps includes in itself or is the ultimate cause of all the other points of difference from the Greek poems. The _Æneid_ was conceived with a deep and serious aim, and composed with infinite care. It did not originate, as perhaps the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ may have done, in the almost spontaneous lays of wandering minstrels, for the delight and honour of princely hosts. It was designed from the first to represent the divine birth of the Latin race, the gradual uprising of the Roman state, its long struggle with barbarism and its mission to civilize the Western world—all as the ordinance of the supreme deity.

From the very beginning of the poem its purpose is clear upon the face of it; and one of the most important results is the creation of a new type of hero. Æneas is not an ardent young soldier like Achilles, nor an acute and hardy sailor like Odysseus, with their zest and naïveté. He is a much more complex character, with a deeper estimate of life and some civic virtues which had not been evolved when the earlier heroes were created. He is a pioneer and adventurer who loves above all things home and a settled order; an invader who does not enjoy warfare in the least; a prince who rules by gentleness; a tender son and husband and father who is capable of the deepest cruelty to the woman who loves him; a man sadly conscious of human weakness, but conscious too of the divine within himself and of the high destiny to which he is called.

The character of Æneas is the primary element in the tragedy of Dido. Because he was such a man, their love for each other was bound to end as it did. Of course there was the external cause, too; also arising out of the design of the poem. For Dido was the founder and queen of Carthage, the hereditary foe of Rome. And the poet desired to dramatize, as it were, the first clash of the two races in their infancy; to show the origin of the long feud; and to prefigure by a sort of allegory the eventual triumph of Rome. We do not think of the allegory, however, as we read the story of Dido in the First and Fourth Books of the _Æneid_. We are caught in the onward sweep of the poet’s imagination, and moved by the intense human interest of the theme. It is only when the catastrophe comes, when Æneas, fleeing from Carthage in the cold dawn, sees the light of the queen’s funeral pyre reddening the sky, that we begin to reflect on the meaning of it. Even then, so complete is the victory of the poet’s art, our last thought is one of pity—for the indignant spirit of Dido that has fled to the House of Shadows; and for the miserable man no less, whom fate is driving to the coast of Italy.

* * * * *

When Troy was sacked, Æneas sailed away with twenty ships, and all that remained dear to him of home. His wife Creusa was killed as they were escaping from the burning city; but his household gods were preserved, and these he carried with him in his flight, with his aged father and his little son Iulus.

Misfortune followed him, however. Juno, still unrelenting in her anger against the race of Paris, buffeted him to and fro upon the seas for seven years, and cast him at length upon the shore of Libya. The greater part of his fleet was scattered, and perhaps lost for ever: his own crew was broken by the long struggle; and he himself, under the cheery manner which he assumed to encourage his men, was heart-sick with despair. What this strange land was he did not know. It seemed wild and desolate: it was most probably inhabited by barbarians, and at any moment a savage horde might fall upon them.

But the country was not hostile, as Æneas’ goddess-mother Venus took care to assure him, meeting him in the guise of a mountain nymph. It was the new land of Dido, the Tyrian princess who had fled from her native country and the evil rule of her brother Pygmalion. The late king of Tyre, her father, had given her in marriage to one she dearly loved, Sichæus, a priest of Heracles, and the wealthiest man of all the wealthy East. But a little later the king had died. Pygmalion succeeded to the throne, and in greed for Sichæus’ wealth he secretly slew him at his own altar.

_Blinded with lust of gold, And heedless of his sister’s passionate love, Pygmalion on his brother crept by stealth, And slew him at the very altar’s foot._[34]

For some time he hid his guilt and tried to win from Dido, in her grief, the immense treasures of Sichæus. But her intelligence, and her love for her murdered husband, could not be long deceived. She discovered her brother’s guilt, and realizing that to remain in Tyre would mean her death too, she instantly laid plans to leave the country. It was to be no timid surrender, however. She gathered about her all those who hated Pygmalion’s tyranny, and proposed that they should join her. Ships were seized and rapidly manned: Sichæus’ wealth was stored in them, and Dido sailed to found a new city on the coast of Africa.

At the moment when Æneas landed there, the building of the city was in eager progress; and Dido, the brain of the enterprise, was beginning to forget her sorrow in the joy of achievement. When Æneas climbed the hill above the bay, he saw the city stretched beneath, and the Tyrians busy upon it ‘like bees in summer fields.’ Walls were rising, trenches were being dug and foundations laid: houses and streets were already finished: great blocks were being hewn for the citadel and columns for the theatre; while in the centre of the town, complete in every detail of ornament, a magnificent temple stood. Here Æneas made his way, passing invisibly through the crowded street by the spells of Venus. As he stood gazing at the walls, marvelling to see that they were carved with the history of his Troy, a shout arose. The great queen was coming.

_Queen Dido, beautiful beyond compare, Enters the temple, by a mighty train Of youths attended. Like Diana she, When on Eurotas’ banks, or on the heights Of Cynthus, she the dances leads ... A quiver on her shoulders, as she moves._[34]

Dido took her seat upon a throne raised high beneath the central dome, surrounded by her guards. Before her thronged the captains of her great work, merchants, emissaries from distant states, and many of her own folk who had come to petition her for justice. She was the ruling spirit, and by no mere accident. Æneas stood in amazement at the scene, as she allotted to each his task, and adjudged every difficult question, and dispensed the law.

Suddenly there was a tumult outside the gate, and a noisy interruption, as a band of foreigners approached the temple and claimed audience of the queen. The strangers were brought in, and Æneas, in joyful astonishment, recognized in them the comrades who he had thought were lost. He longed to rush forward to greet them, but Venus’ spell was on him still; and he stood invisible while the Trojans threw themselves on the mercy of the queen and implored her help. She answered kindly, and with modest dignity. Long ago she had heard and pitied the fate of Troy, she said; and though she is bound to guard her infant state against invasion, she has no quarrel with a peaceful folk, and least of all with fugitives from Troy. She will, if they so desire, send them away in safety, with provision from her ample store.

“_But should you wish to settle here with me, This city I am building, it is yours. Draw up your ships. Without distinction both Trojan and Tyrian I alike will treat. Oh, would that driven by the same South Wind, Tour king Æneas self were here!_“[34]

Æneas could keep silence no longer. Breaking the spell of darkness that was shrouding him, he gained the throne and stood before the astonished queen.

“_I, whom thou seekest, here before thee stand— Trojan Æneas._“[34]

It is a great moment, fraught with significance of which the two chief actors seem to have a perception. To Dido, this handsome prince whose fame has reached her, and whose melancholy history is so like her own, seems to have flashed upon her as the fulfilment of her wish. And to Æneas, who has just learned that she can be kind as well as brave, she seems peerless among women. While from each to each is passed the silent intuitive sense that here is a nature great and good. Æneas, touched by her generosity to his comrades, tries to thank her. But he feels that only the gods can reward her adequately.

“_If powers divine There be, who look with reverence on the good, If anywhere be justice, or a soul Conscious of inward worth, oh, may the Gods Confer on thee commensurate reward!... So long as rivers to the ocean run, So long as shadows hang on mountain sides, Long as the firmament is gemmed with stars, Thy name and fame and praise with me shall live, Whatever lands may claim me._“[34]

In the warmth of his words there is a hint of coming passion; and thinking of the tragic end, there is something ominous in them too. Æneas will indeed remember Dido in far-off lands, but otherwise than he imagines. And she, as she invites the Trojans to banquet in her palace and hospitably begs them to make their home in Carthage, is serenely unconscious of the pitiful entreaties that she will one day make to Æneas.