Page:House of Atreus 2nd ed (1889).djvu/21

Rh "The anvil-block of Justice is planted firm: Fate the sword-smith hammers the steel of her design: the mighty Fury from her dark depth of counsel requites to the uttermost at last the guilt of blood shed forth of old."—The Libation-Bearers, l. 647.

"There is a law that blood-drops shed upon the ground demand other bloodshed in requital: Murder calls aloud, summoning a Fury, who brings a further woe, sent up in vengeance from those who were slain before.—Ibid, l. 400.

.—"One said of old that the gods have no heed to punish him who tramples down the grace of things holy: 'twas impiously said! their vengeance is manifested upon the children of all who breathe forth rebellion overmuch, what time their houses teem with weal too great for man."—Agamemnon, l. 369.

"There is an ancient saying, that human bliss, if it reach its summit, doth not die childless; that from prosperity springs up a bane, a woe insatiable. I hold not so: 'tis impious act that bears those many children, all like the race from which they sprang: but the house of the upright hath a blessed fate, a progeny of good."—Agamemnon, l. 750.

These excerpts, few out of many passages bearing on the same subject, may perhaps be a help towards grasping the import of these dramas as a whole. Not the least of Æschylus' claims to honour in his divergence, in some points, from the traditional and accepted views of the time, with respect to hereditary guilt and responsibility. A belief in a jealous and vindictive Power,—in children suffering for their fathers' sins,—in families lying under a curse for generations—was not only familiar to the Athenians of this epoch, but approached the condition of an accepted tenet: it was even, at times, a political force: as, in the case of Pericles, his membership of the Alcmæonid family (which lay under a curse for the perfidious and impious murder of