Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/175

 COMPAKISON OF THE THREE PLAYS. 157 before her mirror, and studied her toilette too much while Agamemnon was away. Clytaemnestra is not angry, although Electra plainly declares her purpose of putting her to death if ever she should have the power ; she inquires about her daughter's confinement, and goes into the cottage to perform the ceremonies of purification. Electra accompanies her with a sarcastic speech. Then w^e have a choral ode upon retribution, the cry of the murdered woman within the house, and the brother and sister return stained with blood. They are full of remorse and despair at what they have done, afflict themselves by repeating to each other their mother's lamentable speeches and gestures; Orestes will flee into foreign lands, Electra asks ''who will marry me now ? " The Dioscuri, their uncles, appear in the air, vituperate Apollo for his oracle, command Orestes, in order to secure himself from the Furies, to go and have himself tried by the Areopagus ; they also prophesy his further destinies. They then ordain a marriage between Electra and Py lades, her first husband to be taken with them to Phocis and handsomely provided for. After reiterated wailings, the brother and sister take a life-long farewell of each other, and the play comes to an end. It is easy to perceive, that ^schylus has grasped the subject on its most terrific side, and borne it back into the domain of the gloomy deities, in which he so much delights to take up his abode. Agamemnon's grave is the murky centre, whence the avenging retribution emanates ; his gloomy ghost, the soul of the whole poem. The very obvious exterior imperfection, of the play's dwelling too long on one point without perceptible progress, becomes in fact a true interior perfection : it is the hollow stillness of expectation before a storm or earthquake. It is true there is much repetition in the prayers, but their very accumulation gives the impression of a great unheard-of purjDOse, to which human powers and motives alone are inadequate. In the murdering of ClytEemnestra and in her heartrending speeches, the poet, without disguising her crimes, has gone to the utmost verge of all that he had a right to demand of our feelings. The crime which is to be punished is kept in view from the very first by the tomb, and at the conclusion is brought still nearer to the eye of memory by the unfolding of the fatal garment : thus Agamemnon, even after full revenge, is murdered, as it were, afresh before the mental eye. Orestes' betaking himself to flight betrays no undignified remorse or weakness ; it is only the inevitable tribute which he must pay to offended Nature. How admirably Sophocles has managed the subject I need only remark in general terms. What a beautiful preface he has made, in those introductory scenes to that mission of Clytsemnestra's to the tomb with which JEschylus begins at once ! With what polished ornament he has invested the whole, for example in the story of the games ! How skilfully he husbands the pathos of Electra — first, general expressions of woe, then, hopes derived from the dream, their annihilation by the intelligence of Orestes' death, new hopes suggested by Chrysothemis only to be rejected, and, last of all, the mourning over the urn ! The noble spirit of Electra is finely set off" by the contrast with her tamer sister. Indeed the poet has given quite a new turn to the subject by directing the interest principally to Electra. A noble pair he has made of this brother and sister; allotting to the female character invincible constancy and devotedness, the heroism of endurance ; to the male, the beautiful vigour of a hero's youthful prime. To this the old man in his turn opposes thoughtfulness and expe- rience : the circumstance that both poets leave Py lades silent^ is an instance how greatly ancient art disdained all useless redundancy. 1 [Pylades speaks in the Clioeph. 900 sqq.— ]