Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/49

Rh and in the Agamemnon she is represented as taking under her especial care—

While thus gracious to the lower animals, towards humanity, on the contrary, she, like the Homeric Apollo, wears the aspect of a destroying rather than of a benignant power. Thus she is represented as made by Zeus, "a lion unto women, to whom he hath granted might to slay whomso she willeth" (xxi. 484). Accordingly, in her anger she slew Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophontes (vi. 205), and wrathful, on account of her neglected rites, she sends the savage, white-tusked boar—

Andromache, too, in her address to Hector, alludes to her mother slain by "arrow-pouring Artemis." (vi. 428.)

In the Agamemnon she appears under the same dark aspect, as the goddess for whose propitiation the sacrifice of Iphigenia was consummated, a tragedy which, by calling down upon her husband the vengeance of Clytemnestra, forms the groundwork of the drama.

Far more prominent, however, is the position assigned to the Maiden Goddess, Pallas Athena, who may be justly regarded as the bright, consummate flower