Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/260

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS the masterly criticism of Schlegel and Müller, or to the verdict of poets and men of letters from the earliest time. Kassandra having shared, as she had predicted, the fate of her master, the doors are opened, and Klytæmnestra and Ægisthos, with loving words to each other and defiance to the populace, retain possession of the kingdom. In the remaining portions of the Trilogy, one woe doth tread upon another's heel. The Choëphoroi recounts the vengeance of Orestes, who finds his sister offering libations at their father's tomb, disguises himself, and finally slays his mother and her paramour. In the Eumenides, haunted by the ghost of Klytæmnestra, and lashed by the Furies, he goes to Delphi and Athens for trial and expiation. These dramas are second in importance only to the Agamemnon, and afiford vivid illustrations of the poet's affection for Athens, and of the greatness of that city in his own time as the centre of culture and power.

Only one of Sophokles' plays is devoted to the theme before us. With his special refinement, and tenderness for woman, he made Elektra its heroine, and analyzed her feelings and experience. This drama, like the Choëphoroi, narrates the punishment of the Queen by Orestes; but here the accepted legends were changed again to suit the genius of the poet. As for Euripides, it is not strange that, after the theme had been already used by his great masters, he should have made a failure with his own Elektra. In Orestes he was more successful, as far as tragic power is concerned, but the piece is involved and [246]