Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/127

 ^SCHYLUS. 109 hibits Prometheus fettered to the mountain side, but still defying the power of Jove and refusing to divulge the oracle of Themis, on which the continuance of that power depended, was preceded bj Prometheus the fire-hringer. in which the labours of Prometheus on behalf of mankind were fully exhibited, and was followed by Prometheus unbound, in which Prometheus is released by Hercules and reconciled to Jove, to whom he now discloses the prophecy that Thetis would give birth to a son more powerful than his father, and so releases him from the consequences of his intended marriage with that sea-goddess. The remaining single play, the Suj^pUants, belonged to a tri- logy, which some have called the Danais, and which undoubtedly related to the wholesale murder of 49 of the oO sons of ^gyptus on their marriage-night. The first play, which is supposed to have been the Egyptians, represented of course the circumstances which led to the flight of Danaus and his 50 daughters from Egypt. The Suppliants exhibits the exiles seated before a group of altars at Argos, and shows how they were received by King Pelasgus and his people, and how the attempt of the Egyptian herald, to carry them back to Egypt by force, was resisted by the hospitable Greeks. In the last play, called the Danaides, ^schylus must have detailed the feigned reconciliation of the two brothers, the marriage of their two progenies, and its fatal consequences ^ There is reason to believe that the piece ended, like the Eumenides, with a fonnal trial, or rather with two trials. On the one hand, it seems clear that the 49 homicidal daughters, together with their father who instigated the deed, were publicly tried at the suit of ^gyp- tus^; and the feeling, with which the poet regards their case in the Suppliants^, leaves it hardly doubtful that they were acquitted on the ground that they had no other means of escaping the incestuous marriage forced upon them by ^Egyptus-^. But if they were justi- fied, Hypermnestra must have been culpable, and there seem to be good grounds for the inference that she was rescued from the dilemma by the intervention of Venus, who is known to have 1 See Hermann's paper, de ^schyli Danaldibus, Opusc. II. pp. 319 sqq. 2 Eui'ip. Orcsf. 862 : ov (pad irpQiTOV Aavabv Al-yvvTU} 5i/cas didovr' ddpoTcrat Xabu is kolvcls edpas. ^ Suppl. 3S : irp'ii/ TTore XeKrpuv uu Qep-LS eipyei ov iraTpabe(pdav Trjvd' deKOVTWv e-mSrjvaL.
 * Hermann, Opusr. ii. p. 330.