Note 886 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES.

The curse of Œdipus is the determining force in the Sept. ad Thêb., Ἀρά τ᾽, Ἐριννὺς πατρὸς ἡ μεγασθενής (v. 70); it reappears several times in the course of the drama, with particular solemnity in the mouth of Eteoklês (695-709, 725, 785, etc.); he yields to it as an irresistible force, as carrying the family to ruin:—

So again at the opening of the Agamemnôn, the μνάμων μῆνις τεκνόποινος (v. 155) and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia are dwelt upon as leaving behind them an avenging doom upon Agamemnôn, though he took precautions for gagging her mouth during the sacrifice and thus preventing her from giving utterance to imprecations—Φθόγγον ἀραῖον οἴκοις, Βίᾳ χαλινῶν τ᾽ ἀναύδῳ μένει (κατασχεῖν), v. 346. The Erinnys awaits Agamemnôn even at the moment of his victorious consummation at Troy (467; compare 762-990, 1336-1433): she is most to be dreaded after great good fortune: she enforces the curse which ancestral crimes have brought upon the house of Atreus—πρώταρχος ἄτη—παλαιαὶ ἁμαρτίαι δόμων (1185-1197, Choëph. 692)—the curse imprecated by the outraged Thyestês (1601). In the Choëphoræ, Apollo menaces Orestês with the wrath of his deceased father, and all the direful visitations of the Erinnyes, unless he undertakes to revenge the murder (271-296). Αἶσα and Ἐριννὺς bring on blood for blood (647). But the moment that Orestês, placed between these conflicting obligations (925), has achieved it, he becomes himself the victim of the Erinnyes, who drive him mad even at the end of the Choëphoræ (ἕως δ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἔμφρων εἰμὶ, 1026), and who make their appearance bodily, and pursue him throughout the third drama of this fearful trilogy. The Eidôlon of Klytæmnêstra impels them to vengeance (Eumenid. 96) and even spurs them on when they appear to relax. Apollo conveys Orestês to Athens, whither the Erinnyes pursue him, and prosecute him before the judgment-seat of the goddess Athênê, to whom they submit the award; Apollo appearing as his defender. The debate between “the daughters of Night” and the god, accusing and defending, is eminently curious (576-730): the Erinnyes are deeply mortified at the humiliation put upon them when Orestês is acquitted, but Athênê at length reconciles them, and a covenant is made whereby they become protectresses of Attica, accepting of a permanent abode and solemn worship (1006): Orestês returns to Argos, and promises that even in his tomb he will watch that none of his descendants shall ever injure the land of Attica (770). The solemn trial and acquittal of Orestês formed the consecrating legend of the Hill and Judicature of Areiopagus.

This is the only complete trilogy of Æschylus which we possess, and the avenging Erinnyes (416) are the movers throughout the whole—unseen in the first two dramas, visible and appalling in the third. And the appearance of Cassandra under the actual prophetic fever in the first, contributes still farther to impart to it a coloring different from common humanity.

The general view of the movement of the Oresteia given in Welcker (Æschyl. Trilogie, p. 445) appears to me more conformable to Hellenic ideas than that of Klausen (Theologumena Æschyli, pp. 157-169), whose valuable collection and comparison of passages is too much affected, both here and elsewhere, by the desire to bring the agencies of the Greek mythical world into harmony with what a religious mind of the present day would approve. Moreover, he sinks the personality of Athênê too much in the supreme authority of Zeus (p. 158-168).