Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/397



combat between the Titans and the Olympian Gods, issuing in the triumph of the latter, constitutes, as Hegel remarks, the central fact of Hellenic mythology. This hoary legend may be regarded as symbolizing in the physical universe the emergence of order out of chaos, while in the history of religious thought it marks a period of transition, characterized mainly by the metamorphosis of the nature-powers, the objects of men's earlier worship, into the humanized divinities of Hellas, involving the recognized supremacy of the higher over the lower elements of being.

One phase of this struggle is treated by Æschylus in the drama of the Eumenides; there the hoary goddesses, the dark vengeance-powers of the primeval world, are brought into harmonious subordination to Pallas Athena, the impersonation of the wisdom and benignity of Zeus. Another aspect of the conflict formed the subject of the Promethean trilogy, which set forth the relation between the finite and the supreme will, in their antagonism and their reconciliation.

Among the grand ideals bequeathed to the world by Hellenic genius there is none, perhaps, which has more deeply impressed the poetic imagination than the