Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/29



order to appreciate the poetry of antiquity, it is necessary to take into consideration the religious ideas which lie at its root, which also in the course of their development have determined the character alike of ancient literature and art; when we consider, moreover, the immense influence which the stream of Aryan thought, by its interfusion with Christianity, has exerted over the culture of the Western world, a new and twofold interest attaches to each of the great master-works of classical antiquity, as exhibiting not only the level which the religious thought of the age had already reached, but also as indicating the direction of its future development.

Accordingly, in offering to the public a new version of the Oresteia, the only complete trilogy which has escaped the wreck of time, it may not be altogether irrelevant if I endeavour to determine the position of Æschylus among those kindlers of the beacon-fire, through whose agency the light of ancient wisdom was transmitted from age to age before the advent of Christianity.

With this view it will be necessary to give a sketch