Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/355

333 LITEItATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 333 and, visible to the spectators, though unseen by the chorus, torture him with their horrid forms till he rushes away and hastens to beg for atonement and purification from Apollo, who has urged him to the deed. We here perceive that, according to the views of iEschylus and other Greeks, the furies do not properly betoken the degree of moral guilt or the power of an evil conscience (in which case they must have appeared in a more terrible shape to Clytaemnestra than to Orestes) ; but they exhibit the fearful nature of the deed itself, of a mother's murder as such; for this, from whatever motive it may be committed, is a violation of the ordinances of nature which cannot fail to torture and perplex the human mind. § 13. This character of the Erinnyes is more definitely developed in the concluding play of the trilogy, in the chorus of which ./Eschylus, combining the artist with the poet, gives an exhibition of these beings, of whom the Greeks had hitherto but a glimmering idea. He bestows upon them a form taken partly from their spiritual qualities and partly from the analogy of the Gorgons. They avenge the matricidal act as a crime in itself, without inquiring into motives or circumstances, and it is therefore pursued with all the inflexibility of a law of nature, and by all the horror and torments as well of the upper as of the lower world. Even the expiation granted by Apollo to Orestes at Delphi has no influence upon them ; for all that Apollo can accomplish is to throw them for a short period into a deep sleep, from which they are awakened by the appearance of the ghost of Clytaemnestra, condemned for her crime to wander about the lower world; and this apparition must have pro- duced the greatest effect upon the stage. After the scene in Delphi, we are transported to the sanctuary of Pallas Athena, on the Acropolis, whither Orestes has repaired by the advice of Apollo, and where, in a very regular manner, and with many allusions to the actual usages of the Athenian law, the court of the Areopagus is established by Pallas, who recognizes the claims of both parties, but is unwilling to arrogate to herself the power of arbitrarily deciding the questions between them. Before this court of justice the dispute between Orestes and his advocate Apollo on the one side, and the furies on the other, is formally dis- cussed. In these discussions, it must be owned, there occur many points which belong to the main question, and these are, as it were, summed up ; for instance, the command of Apollo, the vengeance for blood which is imposed as a duty upon the son by the ghost of his father; the revolting manner in which Agamemnon was murdered; nevertheless, the intrinsic difference between the act of Orestes and that of Clytaemnestra is not marked as we should have expected it to be. It is manifest that /Eschylus distinctly perceived this difference in feel- ing, without quite working it out. Apollo concludes his apology with rather a subtle argument, showing why the father is more worthy of honour than the mother, by which he makes interest with Pallas, who