Part 9

_... For one so slain Sees clearly, though his brows in darkness move!— The darkling arrow of the dead, that flies From kindred souls abominably slain ... Should harass and unman me ..._

_... I should have no share Of wine or dear libation, but, unseen, My father’s wrath should drive me from all altars._[16]

Thus the command of Apollo was clear, definite, and imperative; and the oracular utterance carried with it terrible penalties, should these two children of the murdered king dare to disobey. Yet we feel, all through Orestes’ speech, that the conflict is warring within him too. He cannot accept the mandate implicitly. In the emphasis that he lays on his authority, in the precise repetition of the very words of the oracle, in the horror with which he enumerates the threatened punishments, we know that he is trying to fortify himself against fear and horror at the deed. Now that he comes close to his actual purpose, a strange new questioning spirit arises which he strives to appease—a shuddering reluctance which compels him to throw himself back upon the divine mandate. “Was not this a word to be obeyed?” he asks; and then, “Yea! Were it not, the deed must yet be done.”

But struggle as Orestes may, the doubt will not be quelled. The crime of mother-murder which they contemplate starts up before them in all its hideous barbarity; and the burden imposed on Orestes is more than he can bear. As we know, it will lead him ultimately to madness. All through the _kommos_ which follows, a long and sublimely mournful hymn chanted alternately by Orestes, Electra and the Chorus, the brother and sister seem to be battling with this question of the righteousness of their action. They appeal to Zeus and to the powers of the nether world: they cry to the spirit of their father: they remind each other of the cruelty and shamelessness of Clytemnestra: they recall the greatness of Agamemnon, and contrast it with his ignominious end: they dwell upon the wrongs done to Electra, and the sin of Egisthus, and the curse upon their house. The wave of emotion rises and falls. At one moment a solemn confidence reassures them that the vengeance is righteous; at another, the doubt sweeps back and shatters their assurance, and again they are driven to bewail their wrongs and invoke the name of Justice.

ORES. _Father, no word of mine, no deed may bring Light to the darkness where thou liest below:_ _Yet shall the dirge lament thy matchless woe, And grace the tomb of Argos’ noblest king...._

ELEC. _Hear me, too, father, mourning in my turn; Both thine afflicted ones towards thee yearn. Both outcasts, both sad suppliants at thy tomb. What dawn may pierce this overwhelming gloom?..._

ORES. _Where is your power to save, Lords of the grave? Oh curse, of endless might, From lips long lost to light, We, last of Atreus’ race Implore thy dreadful grace, Reft of our halls, and outlawed from our right, Zeus, whither should we turn?_[16]

At this point is felt most strongly the undercurrent of doubt and horror. It brims and rushes, overwhelming for a time the confident sense of justice and trust in the oracle of the god. And here the Chorus, expressing, as its function is, the brooding meditation of an onlooker, echoes their inmost thought in sympathetic strains:

CHOR. _Again ye make my changeful heart to yearn, Listening your plaintive cry. One while I feel My soul with dark misgivings shake and reel, But by and by the clouds are rolled away And courage heightens with new hopes of day._

ELEC. _Oh mother! Oh enemy! Oh hard soul! Like a foe, unhonoured by funeral bowl, Though a prince, unfollowed by mean or high, Thou didst bury thy husband without one sigh._

ORES. _Ah! ah! every word there hath stung. But shall she not pay For each shame she then flung On my sire?_

ELEC. _Thou hearest our father’s death; but I was driven To grieve apart beneath the dews of heaven; Chased from the chambers like a thievish hound, To pour my grief in tears upon the ground, They came more readily than smiles.... Write this in thy soul ..._

ORES. _Father, assist thy children in their deed!_

ELEC. _Thy daughter’s tears implore thee in deep need!..._

ORES. _The cause is set. The battle doth begin!_

ELEC. _Oh gods, be just; and make the righteous win!_[16]

The resolution is taken at last. It remains now only to ask their father’s blessing, before putting it into effect. Orestes begs for power to rule well in Agamemnon’s stead, and promises rich sacrifices to his shade.

ELEC. _And I will bring Choice offerings from all my patrimony In day of marriage, and will honour first My father’s tomb from the paternal hall...._

ORES. _Either send justice fighting on our side, If thou wouldst gain requital for thy fall, Or grant us to catch them as they caught thee._

ELEC. _Hear this last cry, my father! Look with pity On these thy young ones sitting at thy grave, And feel for both, the maiden and the man._[16]

The real crisis of the tragedy is in this wonderful ode, although the action has all to follow. Doubts and fears are now subdued: Orestes and Electra have risen to a height of stern conviction which will carry them to the fulfilment of their purpose, although neither it nor the sanction of Apollo will save them from remorse. The action moves rapidly now, as though the revenge must be accomplished at once, in the heat of this terrible purpose. Orestes is told of Clytemnestra’s dream—that she had borne a serpent which had turned and rent her breast. He welcomes it gladly, as an auspicious omen for him; and forms a hasty plan of action. He and Pylades will apply for entrance at the palace gates, with a feigned story of Orestes’ death. Electra must make ready for them within, and secure their admittance. They will kill Egisthus first, and afterward complete the revenge by the murder of Clytemnestra.

It is not a very skilful plot, but it succeeds. Clytemnestra receives Orestes and his friend, believing them to be strangers from Phokis. She is grieved and shocked at their story of Orestes’ death; and goes out to apprise Egisthus of it. Presently Egisthus passes across the stage alone, on his way to give an audience to the guests and, though he does not know it, to pay the penalty for his crime. He goes into the palace, and an instant afterward he is heard to utter a dreadful cry. Attendants rush forth, calling upon the name of the queen.

CLYTEM. _What cry is here? What dost thou by the gate?_

ATTEN. _I say, the dead have slain the living there._

CLYTEM. _Ay me! I read thy riddle! Oh! undone! By guile, even as we slew! Give me an axe, A strong one; quickly too! I’ll dare the issue, Be it for me or against me! I am come To the utterance in this fight with Fate and Doom._[16]

Then there follows an awful scene between Orestes and Clytemnestra, as she grieves over the body of Egisthus.

ORES. _Was he so dear to thee? Then thou shalt lie In the same grave with blameless constancy._

CLYTEM. _Oh son, forbear! O child, respect and pity This breast, whereat thou often, soothed to slumber, Drainèdst with baby mouth the bounteous milk._[16]

For an instant these poignant words make Orestes waver; and he half turns to Pylades with an appeal for counsel. But the answer is a stern reminder of the oracular command; and the pitying moment passes.

ORES. _How should I live with her who killed my sire?_

CLYTEM. _The destinies wrought there. My son! my son!_

ORES. _Destiny works a different doom to-day...._

CLYTEM. _Oh! Wilt thou kill thy mother? O my son!_

ORES. _I kill thee not. Thy sin destroyeth thee...._

CLYTEM. _Ah!_

_I have borne and reared a serpent for my son._

ORES. _Then is fulfilled the terror of thy dream!_[16]

So Clytemnestra falls at the hands of Orestes; but the vengeance has no joy for him. Before his mother’s mighty spirit has taken its way along the road to Hades, a torture of remorse has fallen upon her son. Even while he stands above the murdered body, her avenging Furies come thronging about him “with Gorgon faces and thick serpent hair” and he feels his reason totter.

ORES. _Hear me declare:—How this will end I know not. I feel the chariot of my spirit borne Far wide. My soul, like an ill-managed courser, Is carrying me away, while my poor heart To her own music dances in wild fear._[16]

He cries in anguish to Apollo to justify him; but there comes no answer from the god; and faster and faster crowd those grizzly spectre forms, rushing upon him in hideous multitudes, and menacing him with ghastly torments. And as the tragedy closes, we see Orestes fleeing before the rout of the Furies to find sanctuary at the shrine of Apollo, while the Chorus wails:

“_When shall cease Dread, Atè’s fury? When be lulled to peace?_”[16]

We hear no more of Electra from Æschylus. Measured by action, or even by language, the part she plays in his trilogy is quite a small one. It is significant, too, that this her first appearance in Attic Tragedy is not called by her name, but the _Libation-bearers_. Such a title, while it serves to remind us of a stage of Greek Drama when the Chorus was the whole play, indicates also the poet’s conception of the theme. To Æschylus, the religious act at Agamemnon’s tomb, with all that it implies, was of much greater import than the figure of the great king’s daughter. The force of destiny, the amazing mandate of the god and its conflict with filial love and duty, and the pursuit of the matricide by the Furies, constitute for him the essence of the tragedy. The spiritual aspect of the story transcends for him the human interest of it. Hence his characters, though sublimely great, are great in outline only; and hence the brief appearance of Electra.

But when we find that Sophocles and Euripides, who wrote about Electra afterward, have boldly made her the protagonist, and have called their plays by her name, we are prepared for a change of attitude. The story is now viewed from a more human standpoint. The protagonist is no longer a chorus, but a woman: the ruling passion is now not so much a principle, a moral, a duty, or any idea in the abstract; but strong human will, intense human love, and mortal hatred. The motive of the Drama is no longer a religious ceremonial, but the enactment of a tragic story. And the final result is not now that of a grand moral lesson conveyed through the lips of shadowy demi-gods, but a really dramatic drama.

It follows, therefore, that with this change the character of Electra has taken on a stronger and more complete individuality. In the version of Sophocles, she rises to her greatest height. She is a creature who can endure to the end and dare the uttermost: of absorbing love and strenuous hatred: tender and strong. Unbending and uncompromising, she is in conflict not only with the mother whom she loathes, but with the weakness of a sister whom she loves. Implacable to her enemies, she is capable of absolute devotion to the memory of her father and to the absent Orestes; and in these contrasted qualities Sophocles has made of his Electra a tremendously dramatic figure. For the finest drama, and for the most enthralling story we must go to him. But his purpose seems to have been merely artistic. He takes a hint from the old legend, and developing its possibilities to the utmost he evolves a play which is perhaps more powerful as drama and certainly more perfect as art than that of Æschylus or Euripides. But it has hardly any other significance. His conception of Electra, while finely complete and harmonious, is of a being untroubled by ethical considerations, and casting no fearful glance ‘before and after.’

With Euripides, on the other hand, the character of the protagonist becomes more deeply significant than even Æschylus had made her. For Euripides, the mandate of the god was false, and the vengeance taken was a stupendous crime against humanity. When Orestes and Electra, wrought up by passion, have accomplished it, Euripides makes reaction come to them as to any other mortal being. They are not pursued by visible Furies, from which they may flee to the sanctuary of Apollo, but by remorse and cankering doubt of their own motives. For him they are simply human creatures; and the touch of realism, animated as it is by a daring sceptical spirit, has laid a blight on much that was beautiful in the earlier conception of Electra’s character. To recover that, we must go back to the _Libation-bearers_ of Æschylus.

Footnote 16:

From Professor Lewis Campbell’s translation of the _Choephorœ_ (Clarendon Press).

_Æschylus: Cassandra_

For the beginning of Cassandra’s story we must go back to the epic theme. The first word which Homer tells of her is in the Thirteenth Book of the _Iliad_, where she is called “the fairest of Priam’s daughters.” But that is late in the Siege; and there is a legend which gives her an earlier connection with the tale of Troy. Indeed, we find that she was a link in the chain of events which led Helen and the Greek army to her native city. When she was still a young girl she had, in some mysterious way, been beloved by the god Apollo. The god gave her the gift of prophecy; but because she refused his love he angrily confounded the gift that he could not recall by decreeing that her prophetic utterances should never be believed. This is the central point round which our thought about Cassandra must revolve. She is the virgin priestess who holds herself inviolate even from the embraces of a divine lover; and she is an oracle of clear vision and stainless truth, whose divination is cursed with futility.

The events of her career show blacker and more hideous against the clear light of her spirit. All through the long agony of the Trojan war we have a sense of Cassandra at the altar, lifting pure hands in supplication for her dear city. The fighting raged outside the walls like an angry sea, while inside the town and away in the Greek encampment all the passions let loose by war raged no less fiercely than the battle itself. But Cassandra, withdrawn from sight and sound of the conflict, continued to pray and sacrifice. Her life was consecrated. And although the gods themselves seemed sometimes leagued against her; although she had a perception of what the end must be, nothing could weaken her endurance nor shake her will. The Trojan princes wooed her in vain: the love of the great Sun-god himself could not make her swerve. The glory of her beauty: her gift of vision: her lofty impassioned soul, were vowed irrevocably to the service of her country and her home.

Yet this idealist and mystic was destined to suffer the worst brutalities of war in the hour of Troy’s destruction. She was made captive at her own altar; and was carried away by Agamemnon to be his slave-wife and the rival of his queen. The mind revolts at the thought: it is too awful to contemplate, and will not shape itself in cold reflection. The poets seem to have felt this; and we find that Æschylus and Euripides, who have both dwelt upon the story of Cassandra’s downfall, rise to stormy heights of emotion when they tell about it.

Euripides has placed Cassandra in the group of royal women in his _Troades_. The time of the drama is the morning which follows the overthrow of Troy; and the action represents the carrying-off of the princesses by their captors. It is, one would think, a time and a scene quite unfitted for dramatic presentation. The immense excitement—of victory on the one hand and defeat upon the other—has ebbed away; and all that remains to the Trojan women is misery so profound and hopeless as almost to be beyond the power of expression. The measure of their pain seems to claim a reverent silence; and we feel that the _Troades_ does need the sanction of the ethical purpose which Professor Murray has found in it. But once we realize the deep and humane thought behind it: that the poet has chosen this part of the story expressly to reveal the hideous suffering which war entails upon women, the tragedy is fraught with significance.

The final act of Cassandra’s life is given by Æschylus in the _Agamemnon_. He, no less than Euripides, feels the appalling tragedy of her story; and both poets have put into her lips lyrics of wild and haunting beauty. But Æschylus, by removing the action to Mycenæ and by bringing Cassandra into conflict with Clytemnestra, has wrought a climax of extraordinary power.

* * * * *

If there be any truth in the legend, it was Cassandra who first recognized the shepherd Paris for the son of Priam. The stripling who descended from the glens of Mt. Ida to compete in the games outside the city was unknown and unloved by the Trojans whom he defeated. They were jealous of the handsome stranger who carried off the prizes from them; and he soon found himself embroiled with Priam’s athletic sons. He was hard beset. The odds were heavy against him; and like a hunted animal he flung himself before the altar of Apollo for protection.

_And lo! Apollo’s priestess with a train Of holy maidens came into that place, And jar did she outshine the rest in grace, But in her eyes such dread was frozen then As glares eternal from the gorgon’s face Wherewith Athene quells the ranks of men._[17]

It was of course Cassandra. She had never before seen this young suppliant who was clinging to the altar; but as she looked on him now there came upon her a revelation of his identity. She knew of the old ring which had been placed about her baby brother’s neck when he was exposed to death upon the mountain; and taking Paris by the hand, she touched the chain he wore and slowly drew to light the talisman.

_This sign Cassandra showed to Priam straight. The king waxed pale and asked what this might be? And she made answer, “Sir, and King, thy fate That comes on all men horn hath come on thee; This shepherd is thine own child verily.”_[17]

Here, then, is the real beginning of the story of Cassandra. For the old king would not be warned against his fate. He welcomed his boy as one returned from death. A great festival was made in his honour; and of all the many sons of Priam there was not one so dearly loved. Joy and merriment filled the city. All the warning oracles which had spoken at the birth of Paris were forgotten. Nothing but thanksgiving was heard for the restoration of the fair young prince; and amid it all, Cassandra knew that when she placed his hand in the hand of Priam, Destiny had wrought for the fall of Troy.

The years passed speedily at first, untouched by care; and then more slowly, big with events. First the sailing of Paris. Then, after Helen came back with him to Troy, an interval when the Trojans waited, wondering how the Greeks would repay the insult. Finally, the arrival of the Greek fleet and the beginning of the Siege.

Priam was not unsupported in his long ordeal. Neighbouring princes joined him against the hostile Greeks, some in the hope of reward and some for the sake of friendship. There was one warrior, Othryoneus, who came because he loved Cassandra. He brought no ‘gifts of wooing,’ but made a promise to the king “of a mighty deed, namely, that he would drive perforce out of Troy-land the sons of the Achaians.” Priam consented to his suit; but we are not told what Cassandra thought of it. Probably she was not consulted. It is conceivable, so tender was her love of home and country, that to reward the hero who would save them, she would even consent to lay aside her holy office; to recall her soaring spirit to dwell beside the hearth. But the eye which saw so far knew that it need not consider the present problem. Before the end, Cassandra saw the valiant man who loved her lying pierced by the spear of Idomeneus.

That was toward the end of the war; and in the penultimate scene of it, the bringing-in of Hector’s body, Cassandra appears again. She had watched all that fearful night, when the old king went out to the Greek camp to beg of Achilles for the body of his great son. And in the cold light of dawn, straining her eyes from Pergamos and weary with her vigil, she was the first to see the mournful procession. “Then beheld she him that lay upon the bier behind the mules, and thereat she wailed and cried aloud throughout all the town.” The people wakened at her terrible cry, and coming out of their houses, they followed her down to the gate to meet the unhappy king.

Hector’s death was the beginning of the end. Troy fell. Its brave men were slaughtered, its palaces burnt, its altars dishonoured; and worst of all, its women and children were carried off as slaves. Of this the _Iliad_ does not speak; but it was an event which seized and held fast the imagination of the Attic dramatists. The glory of war, which throws a glamour over the fighting in the epic, gives place in the later poets to the pain and horror of it. Not because they were less brave: Æschylus fought at the great Greek victory of Marathon; but because an advancing civilization had brought a more reflective mind, a more humane temper, and the birth of sacred pity.

The _Troades_, to which we come next for the story of Cassandra, breathes throughout the pitiful spirit of the poet Euripides. It relates what befell the women of the royal household after the sack of the city. As grey daylight comes we see the figure of the aged queen, prostrate before the charred walls of the town. She rises feebly, moaning in a bewilderment of grief and physical weakness. To her approach, one after another, furtively, the frightened Trojan women who form the Chorus of the play. Her crying has wakened them, and they steal out to try to discover what fate is in store for them. Even while they ask, a messenger Talthybius, arrives from the Greek ships. In curt phrases he replies to the queen’s anguished inquiries about her daughters. They have been assigned to certain of the Greek chiefs, he says: Andromache to Neoptolemus, she herself to Odysseus, and Polyxena (he speaks ambiguously, to hide a grimmer fact) to serve at the tomb of Achilles. The stricken queen asks about each in turn.

HECUBA. _Say how Cassandra’s portion lies._

TALTHYBIUS. _Chosen from all for Agamemnon’s prize!_

HECUBA. _How, ... The sainted of Apollo? And her own Prize that God promisèd, Out of the golden clouds, her virgin crown?_

TALTHYBIUS. _He loved her for that same strange holiness._[18]