Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (77 page)

Hearing this
the Queen comes forth to prove the truth of her story. A herald at that moment
advances to confirm it, for Troy has been sacked.

  
“Altars and shrines have been demolished and
all the seed of land

  
destroyed. Thus is Agamemnon the happiest
man of mortals, most

  
worthy of honour, for Paris and his city
cannot say that their

  
crime was greater than its punishment.”

Immediately
after learning this story, Clytemnestra makes the first of a number of speeches
charged with a dreadful double meaning.

  
“When the first news came, I shouted for
joy, but now I shall hear

  
the story from the King himself. And I will
use all diligence to

  
give my lord the best of all possible
welcomes. Bid him come with

  
speed. May he find in the house a wife as
faithful as he left her!

  
I know of no wanton pleasure with another
man more than I know how

  
to dye a sword.”

The Chorus understand
well the hidden force of this sinister speech and bid the messenger speak of
Menelaus, the other beloved King of the land. In reply he tells how a dreadful
storm sent by the angry gods descended upon the Greek fleet. In it fire and
water, those ancient foes, forsook their feud, conspiring to destroy the
unhappy armament. Whether Menelaus was alive or not was uncertain; if he lived,
it was only by the will of Zeus who desired to save the royal house. The Chorus
who look at things with a deeper glance than the herald, hear his story with a
growing uneasiness.

  
“Helen, the cause of the war, at first was a
spirit ofcalm to Troy,

  
but at the latter end she was their bane,
the evil angel of ruin.

  
For one act of violence begets many others
like it, until

  
righteousness can no longer dwell within the
sinner.”

They touch a
more joyous chord of welcome and loyalty when at last they see the actual
arrival of Agamemnon himself.

The King
enters the stage accompanied by Cassandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam,
thus giving visible proof of his contempt for Apollo, the Trojan protector and
inspirer of the prophetess. He has heard the Chorus’ welcome and promises to
search out the false friends and administer healing medicine to the city.
Clytemnestra replies in a second speech of double significance.

  
“The Argive Elders well know how dearly she
loves her lord and the

  
impatience of her life while he was at Troy.
Often stories came of

  
his wounds; were they all true, he would
have more scars than a net

  
has holes. Orestes their son has been sent
away, lest he should be

  
the victim of some popular uprising in the
King’s absence. Her fount

  
of tears is dried up, not a drop being left.”

After some
words of extravagant flattery, she bids her waiting women lay down purple
carpets on which Justice may bring him to a home which he never hoped to see.
Agamemnon coldly deprecates her long speech; the honour she suggests is one for
the gods alone; his fame will speak loud enough without gaudy trappings, for a
wise heart is Heaven’s greatest gift. But the Queen, not to be denied,
overcomes his scruples. Giving orders that Cassandra is to be well treated, he
passes over the purple carpets, led by Clytemnestra who avows that she would
have given many purple carpets to get him home alive. Thus arrogating to
himself the honours of a god, he proceeds within the palace, while she lingers
behind for one brief moment to pray openly to Zeus to fulfil her prayers and to
bring his will to its appointed end. Thoroughly alarmed, the Chorus give free
utterance to the vague forebodings which shake them, the song of the avenging
Furies which cries within their hearts.

  
“Human prosperity often strikes a sunken
rock; bloodshed calls to

  
Heaven for vengeance; yet there is comfort,
for one destiny may

  
override another, and good may yet come to
pass.”

These pious
hopes are broken by the entry of the Queen who summons Cassandra within: when
the captive prophetess answers her not a word, Clytemnestra declares she has no
time to waste outside the palace: already there stands at the altar the ox
ready for sacrifice, a joy she never looked to have; if Cassandra will not
obey, she must be taught to foam out her spirit in blood.

In the
marvellous scene which follows Aeschylus reaches the pinnacle of tragic power.
Cassandra advances to the palace, but starts back in horror as a series of
visions of growing vividness comes before her eyes. These find utterance in
language of blended sanity and madness, creating a terror whose very vagueness
increases its intensity. First she sees Atreus’ cruel murder of his brother’s
children; then follows the sight of Clytemnestra’s treacherous smile and of
Agamemnon in the bath, hand after hand reaching at him; quickly she sees the
net cast about him, the murderess’ blow. In a flash she foresees her own end
and breaks out into a wild lament over the ruin of her native city. Her words
work up the Chorus into a state of confused dread and foreboding; they can
neither understand nor yet disbelieve. When their mental confusion is at its
height, relief comes in a prophecy of the greatest clearness, no longer couched
in riddling terms. The palace is peopled by a band of kindred Furies, who have
drunk their fill of human blood and cannot be cast out; they sit there singing
the story of the origin of its ruin, loathing the murder of the innocent
children. Agamemnon himself would soon pay the penalty, but his son would come
to avenge him. Foretelling her own death, she hurls away the badges of her
office, the sceptre and oracular chaplets, things which have brought her
nothing but ridicule. She prays for a peaceful end without a struggle;
comparing human life to a shadow when it is fortunate and to a picture wiped
out by a sponge when it is hapless, she moves in calmly to her fate.

There is a
momentary interval of reflection, then Agamemnon’s dying voice is heard as he
is stricken twice. Frantic with horror, the Chorus prepare to rush within but
are checked by the Queen, who throws open the door and stands glorying in the
triumph of self-confessed murder. Her real character is revealed in her speech.

  
“This feud was not unpremeditated; rather,
it proceeds from an

  
ancient quarrel, matured by time. Here I
stand where I smote him,

  
over my handiwork. So I contrived it, I
freely confess, that he

  
could neither escape his fate nor defend
himself. I cast over him

  
the endless net, and I smote him twice — in
two groans he gave up

  
the ghost — adding a third in grateful
thanksgiving to the King of

  
the dead in the nether world. As he fell he
gasped out his spirit,

  
and breathing a swift stream of gore he
smote me with a drop of

  
murderous dew, while I rejoiced even as does
the cornfield under

  
the Heavensent shimmering moisture when it
brings the ears to the

  
birth. Ye Argive Elders, rejoice if ye can,
but I exult. If it were

  
fitting to pour thank-offerings for any
death, ‘twere just, nay,

  
more than just, to offer such for him, so
mighty was the bowl of

  
curses he filled up in his home, then came
and drank them up himself

  
to the dregs.”

To their
solemn warning that she would herself be cut off, banished and hated, she
replies:

  
“He slew my child, my dearest birth-pang, to
charm the Thracian

  
winds. In the name of the perfect justice I
have exacted for my

  
daughter, in the name of Ruin and Vengeance,
to whom I have

  
sacrificed him, my hopes cannot tread the
halls of fear so long

  
as Aegisthus is true to me. There he lies,
seducer of this woman,

  
darling of many a Chryseis in Troyland. As
for this captive

  
prophetess, this babbler of oracles, she sat
on the ship’s bench

  
by his side and both have fared as they
deserved. He died as ye see;

  
but she sang her swan-song of death and lies
beside him she loved,

  
bringing me a sweet relish for the luxury of
my own love.”

A little
later she denies her very humanity.

  
“Call me not his spouse; rather the ancient
dread haunting evil

  
genius of this house has taken a woman’s
shape and punished him,

  
a full-grown man in vengeance for little
children.”

Burial he
should have, but without any dirges from his people.

  
“Let Iphigeneia, his daughter, as is most
fitting, meet her father

  
at the swift-conveying passage of woe, throw
her arms about him and

  
kiss him welcome.”

The last
scene of this splendid drama brings forward the poltroon Aegisthus who had
skulked behind in the background till the deed was done. He enters to air his
ancient grievance, reminding the Chorus how his father was outraged by Atreus,
how he himself was a banished man, yet found his arm long enough to smite the
King from far away. In contempt for the coward the Elders prepare to offer him
battle; they appeal to Orestes to avenge the murder. The quarrel was stopped by
Clytemnestra, who had had enough of bloodshed and was content to leave things
as they were, if the gods consented thereto.

Before the
sustained power of this masterpiece criticism is nearly dumb. The conception of
the inherited curse is by now familiar to us; familiar too is the teaching that
sacrilege brings its own punishment, that human pride may be flattered into
assuming the privilege of a deity. These were enough to cause Agamemnon’s
undoing. But it is the part played by Clytemnestra which fixes the dramatic
interest. She is inspired by a lust for vengeance, yet, had she known the truth
that her daughter was not dead but a priestess, she would have had no pretext
for the murder. This ignorance of essentials which originates some human action
is called Irony; it was put to dramatic uses for the first time in European
literature by Aeschylus. The horrible tragedy it may cause is clear enough in
the
Agamemnon
; its power is terrible and its value as a dramatic source
is inestimable. There is another and a far more subtle form of Irony, in which
a character uses riddling speech interpreted by another actor in a sense
different from the truth as it is known to the spectators; this too can be used
in such a manner as to charge human speech with a sinister double meaning which
bodes ruin under the mask of words of innocence. Few dramatic personages have
used this device so effectively as Clytemnestra, certainly none with a more
fiendish intent. Again, in this play the Chorus is employed with amazing skill;
their vague uneasiness takes more and more definitely the shape of actual
terror in every ode; this terror is raised to its height in the masterly
Cassandra scene — it is then abated a little, perhaps it is just beginning to
disappear, for nobody believed Cassandra, when the blow falls. This integral
connection between the Chorus and the main action is difficult to maintain;
that it exists in the
Agamemnon
is evidence of a constructive genius of
the highest order.

The
Choephori
(Libation-bearers), the second play of the trilogy, opens with the entry of
Orestes. He has just laid a lock of hair on his father’s tomb and sees a band
of maidens approaching, among them Electra, his sister. He retires with Pylades
his faithful friend to listen to their conversation. The Chorus tell how in
consequence of a dream of Clytemnestra they have been sent to offer libations
to the dead, to appease their anger and resentment against the murderers. They
give utterance to a wild hopeless song, full of a presentiment of disaster
coming on successful wickedness enthroned in power. They are captives from
Troy, obliged to look on the deeds of Aegisthus, whether just or unjust, yet
they weep for the purposeless agonies of Agamemnon’s house. When asked by
Electra what prayers she should offer to her dead father, they bid her pray for
some avenging god or mortal to requite the murderers. Returning to them from
the tomb, she tells them of a strange occurrence; a lock of hair has been laid
on the grave, and there are two sets of footprints on the ground, one of which
corresponds with her own. Orestes then comes forward to reveal himself; as a
proof of his identity, he bids her consider the garments which she wove with
her own hands; urging her to restrain her joy lest she betray his arrival, he
tells how Apollo has commanded him to avenge his father’s death, threatening
him with sickness, frenzy, nightly terrors, excommunication and a dishonoured
death if he refuses.

In a long
choral dialogue the actors tell of Clytemnestra’s insolent treatment of the
dead King; she had buried him without funeral rites or mourning, with no
subjects to follow the corpse; she even mangled his body and thrust Electra out
of the palace; thus she filled the cup of her iniquity. The Chorus remind
Orestes of his duty to act, but first he inquires why oblations have been
offered; on learning that they are the result of Clytemnestra’s dreaming that
she suckled a serpent that stung her, and that she hopes to appease the angry
dead, he interprets the dream of himself. He then unfolds his plot. He and
Pylades will imitate a Phocian dialect and will seek out and slay Aegisthus. An
ode which succeeds recounts the legends of evil women, closing with the
declaration that Justice is firmly seated in the world, that Fate prepares a
sword for a murderer and a Fury punishes him with it.