NOTES TO THE PLAYS (continued 3)

Note 39 (p. 198).

“. . . save me, O Earth!”

I have here given the received traditionary rendering of Αλεῦ ὦ δᾶ; but I must confess the appeal to Earth here in this passage always appeared to me something unexpected; and it is, accordingly, with pleasure that I submit the following observations of Schoe. to the consideration of the scholar—“Δᾶ is generally looked on as a dialectic variation of γᾶ; and, in conformity with this opinion, Theocritus has used the accusation Δᾶν. I consider this erroneous, and am of opinion that in Δημητηρ we are rather to understand Δεαμητηρ than Γημητηρ; and δᾶ is to be taken only as an interjection. This is not the place to discuss this matter fully; but, in the meantime, I may mention that Ahrens de dialecta Doricâ, p. 80, has refuted the traditionary notion with regard to δᾶ.

Note 40 (p. 198).

Chorus. With Well., and Schoe., and the MSS., I give this verse to the Chorus, though certainly it is not to be denied that the continuation of the lyrical metre of the Strophe pleads strongly in favour of giving it to Io. It is also certain that, for the sake of symmetry, the last line of the Antistrophe must also be given to the Chorus, as Schoe. has done.

Note 41 (p. 199).

“. . . the sisters of thy father, Io.”

Inachus, the Argive river, was, like all other rivers, the son of Ocean, and, of course, the brother of the Ocean-maids, the Chorus of the present play. Afterwards, according to the historical method of conception, characteristic of the early legends, the elementary god became a human person—the river was metamorphosed into a king.

Note 42 (p. 200).

“. . . Lerne’s bosomed mead.”

We most commonly read of the water or fountain of Lerne; this implies a meadow—and this, again, implies high overhanging grounds, or cliffs, of which mention is made in the twenty-third line below. In that place, however, the reading ἄκρην is not at all certain; and, were I editing the text, I should have no objection to follow Pal. in reading Λέρνης τε κρήνην, with Canter. In fixing this point, something will depend upon the actual landscape.

Note 43 (p. 201).

“First to the east.”

Here begins the narration of the mythical wanderings of Io—a strange matter, and of a piece with the whole fable, which, however, with all its perplexities, Æschylus, no doubt, and his audience, following the old minstrels, took very lightly. In such matters, the less curious a man is, the greater chance is there of his not going far wrong; and to be superficial is safer than to be profound. The following causes may be stated as presumptive grounds why we ought not to be surprised at any startling inaccuracy in geographical detail in legends of this kind:—(1) The Greeks, as stated above, even in their most scientific days, had the vaguest possible ideas of the geography of the extreme circumference of the habitable globe and the parts nearest to it which are spoken of in the passage. (2) The geographical ideas of Æschylus must be assumed as more kindred to those of Homer than of the best informed later Greeks. (3) Even supposing Æschylus to have had the most accurate geographical ideas, he had no reasons in handling a Titanic myth to make his geographical scenery particularly tangible; on the contrary, as a skilful artist, the more misty and indefinite he could keep it the better. (4) He may have taken the wanderings of Io, as Welcker still suggests (Trilog. 137), literally from the old Epic poem “Aigimius,” or some other traditionary lay as old as Homer, leaving to himself no more discretion in the matter, and caring as little to do so as Shakespere did about the geographical localities in Macbeth, which he borrowed from Hollinshed. For all these reasons I am of opinion that any attempt to explain the geographical difficulties of the following wanderings would be labour lost to myself no less than to the reader; and shall, therefore, content myself with noting seriatim the different points of the progress, and explaining, for the sake of the general reader, what is or is not known in the learned world about the matter:—

(1) The starting-point is not from Mount Caucasus, according to the common representation, but from some indefinite point in the northern parts of Europe. So the Scholiast on v. 1, arguing from the present passage, clearly concludes; and with him agree Her. and Schoe.; Welcker whimsically, I think, maintaining a contrary opinion.

(2) The Scythian nomads, vid. note on v. 2, supra.; their particular customs alluded to here are well known, presenting a familiar ancient analogy to the gipsy life of the present day. The reader of Horace will recall the lines—

“Campestres melius Scythae

Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos.”

—Ode III. 24-9.

and the same poet (III. 4-35) mentions the “quiver-bearing Geloni”; for the bow is the most convenient weapon to all wandering and semi-civilized warriors.

(3) The Chalybs, or Chaldaei, are properly a people in Pontus, at the north-east corner of Asia Minor; but Æschylus, in his primeval Titanic geography, takes the liberty of planting them to the north of the Euxine.

(4) The river Hubristes. The Araxes, says the Scholiast; the Tanais, say others; or the Cuban (Dr. Schmitz in Smith’s Dict.). The word means boisterous or outrageous, and recalls the Virgilian “pontem indignatus Araxes.”

(5) The Caucasus, as in modern geography.

(6) The Amazons; placed here in the country about Colchis to the northward of their final settlement in Themiscyre, on the Thermodon, in Pontus, east of the Halys.

(7) Salmydessus, on the Euxine, west of the Symplegades and the Thracian Bosphorus; of course a violent jump in the geography.

(8) The Cimmerian Bosphorus, between the Euxine and the Sea of Azof. Puzzling enough that this should come in here, and no mention be made of the Thracian Bosphorus in the whole flight! The word Bosporus means in Greek the passage of the Cow.

(9) The Asian continent; from the beginning a strange wheel! For the rest see below.

Note 44 (p. 203).

“When generations ten have passed, the third.”

This mythical genealogy is thus given by Schütz from Apollodorus. 1. Epaphus; 2. Libya; 3. Belus (see Suppliants, p. 228, above); 4. Danaus; 5. Hypermnestra; 6. Abas; 7. Proetus; 8. Acrisias; 9. Danae; 10. Perseus; 11. Electryon; 12. Alcmena; 13. Heracles.

Note 45 (p. 203).

“When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts.”

I now proceed with the mythical wanderings of the “ox-horned maid,” naming the different points, and continuing the numbers, from the former Note—

(10) The Sounding Ocean.—Before these words, something seems to have dropt out of the text; what the “sounding sea” (πόντου φλ(ο)ισβος) is, no man can say; but, as a southward direction is clearly indicated in what follows, we may suppose the Caspian, with Her.; or the Persian Gulf, with Schoe.

(11) The Gorgonian Plains.—“The Gorgons are conceived by Hesiod to live in the Western Ocean, in the neighbourhood of Night, and the Hesperides; but later traditions place them in Libya.”—Dr. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dict.: but Schoe., in his note, quotes a scholiast to Pindar, Pyth. X. 72, which places them near the Red Sea, and in Ethiopia. This latter habitation, of course, agrees best with the present passage of Æschylus.

With regard to Cisthene, the same writer (Schoe.) has an ingenious conjecture, that it may be a mistake of the old copyists, for the Cissians, a Persian people, mentioned in the opening chorus to the play of the Persians.

(12) The country of the Griffins, the Arimaspi, and the river Pluto. The Griffins and the Arimaspi are well known from Herodotus and Strabo, which latter, we have seen above (Note 1), places them to the north of the Euxine Sea, as a sub-division of the Scythians. Æschylus, however, either meant to confound all geographical distinctions, or followed a different tradition, which placed the Arimaspi in the south, as to which see Schoe. “The river Pluto is easily explained, from the accounts of golden-sanded rivers in the East which had reached Greece.”—Schoe.

(13) The river Aethiops seems altogether fabulous.

(14) The “Bybline Heights,” meaning the κατάδουπα (Herod. II. 17), or place where the Nile falls from the mountains.—Lin. in voce καταβασμός, which is translated pass. No such place as Byblus is mentioned here by the geographers, in want of which Pot. has allowed himself to be led, by the Scholiast, into rather a curious error. The old annotator, having nothing geographical to say about this Byblus, thought he might try what etymology could do; so he tells us that the Bybline Mountains were so called from the Byblos or Papyrus that grew on them. This Potter took up and gave—

“Where from the mountains with papyrus crowned

The venerable Nile impetuous pours,”

overlooking the fact that the papyrus is a sedge, and grows in flat, moist places.

Note 46 (p. 204).

“. . . the sacred Nile

Pours his salubrious flood.”

ἔυποτον ρέος, literally, good for drinking. The medicinal qualities of the Nile were famous in ancient times. In the Suppliants, v. 556, our poet calls the Nile water, νόσοις ἄθικτον, not to be reached by diseases; and in v. 835, the nurturing river that makes the blood flow more buoyantly. On this subject, the celebrated Venetian physician, Prosper Alpin, in his Rerum Ægyptiarum, Lib. IV. (Lugd. Bat. 1735) writes as follows: “Nili aqua merito omnibus aliis præfertur quod ipsa alvum subducat, menses pellat ut propterea raro mensium suppressio in Ægypti mulieribus reperiatur. Potui suavis est, et dulcis; sitim promptissime extinguit; frigida tuto bibitur, concoctionem juvat, ac distributioni auxilio est, minime hypochondriis gravis corpus firmum et coloratum reddit,” etc.—Lib. I. c. 3. If the water of the Nile really be not only pleasant to drink, but, strictly speaking, of medicinal virtue, it has a companion in the Ness, at Inverness, the waters of which are said to possess such a drastic power, that they cannot be drunk with safety by strangers.

Note 47 (p. 204).

“. . . thence with mazy course

Tossed hither.”

I quite agree with Schoe. that, in the word παλιμπλάγκτος, in this passage, we must understand πάλιν to mean to and fro, not backwards. With a backward or reverted course from the Adriatic, Io could never have been brought northward to Scythia. The maziness of Io’s course arises naturally from the fitful attacks of the persecuting insect of which she was the victim. A direct course is followed by sane reason, a zigzag course by insane impulse.

Note 48 (p. 204).

“. . . Epaphus, whose name shall tell

The wonder of his birth.”

As Io was identified with Isis, so Epaphus seems merely a Greek term for the famous bull-god Apis.—(Herod. III. 27, and Müller’s Prolegom. myth.) The etymology, like many others given by the ancients, is ridiculous enough; ἐπαφή, touch. This derivation is often alluded to in the next play, The Suppliants. With regard to the idea of a virgin mother so prominent in this legend of Io, Prow. has remarked that it occurs in the Hindoo and in the Mexican mythology; but nothing can be more puerile than the attempt which he mentions as made by Faber to connect this idea with the “promise respecting the seed of the woman made to man at the fall.” Sound philosophy will never seek a distant reason for a phenomenon, when a near one is ready. When an object of worship or admiration is once acknowledged as superhuman, it is the most natural thing in the world for the imagination to supply a superhuman birth. A miraculous life flows most fitly from a miraculous generation. The mother of the great type of Roman warriors is a vestal, and his father is the god of war. Romans and Greeks will wisely be left to settle such matters for themselves, without the aid of “patriarchal traditions” or “the prophecy of Isaiah.” The ancient Hellenes were not so barren, either of fancy or feeling, as that they required to borrow matters of this kind from the Hebrews. On the idea of “generation by a god” generally, see the admirable note in Grote’s History of Greece, P. I. c. 16 (Vol. I. p. 471).

Note 49 (p. 207).

“. . . they are wise who worship Adrastéa.”

“A surname of Nemesis, derived by some writers from Adrastus, who is said to have built the first sanctuary of Nemesis on the river Asopus (Strabo XIII. p. 588), and by others from the verb διδράσκειν, according to which it would signify the goddess whom none could escape.”—Dr. Schmitz. On this subject, Stan. has a long note, where the student will find various illustrative references.

Note 50 (p. 209).

“For wilful strength that hath no wisdom in it

Is less than nothing.”

The word in the original, ἀυθαδιά, literally “self-pleasing,” expresses a state of mind which the Greeks, with no shallow ethical discernment, were accustomed to denounce as the great source of all those sins whose consequences are the most fearful to the individual and to society. St. Paul, in his epistle to Titus (i. 7), uses the same word emphatically to express what a Christian bishop should not be (ἀυθὰδη, self-willed). The same word is used by the blind old soothsayer Tiresias in the Antigone, when preaching repentance to the passionate and self-willed tyrant of Thebes, ἀυθαδιά τοι σκαιότητ ὀφλισκάνει, where Donaldson gives the whole passage as follows:—

“Then take these things to heart, my son; for error

Is as the universal lot of man;

But, whensoe’er he errs, that man no longer

Is witless, or unblest, who, having fallen

Into misfortune, seeks to mend his ways,

And is not obstinate: the stiff-necked temper

Must oft plead guilty to the charge of folly.”

Sophocles, Antig. v. 1028.

Note 51 (p. 209).

“. . . unless some god endure

Vicarious thy tortures.”

The idea of vicarious sacrifice, or punishment by substitution of one person for another, does not seem to have been very familiar to the Greek mind; at least, I do not trace it in Homer. It occurs, however, most distinctly in the well-known case of Menœceus, in Euripides’ play of the Phœnissæ. In this passage, also, it is plainly implied, though the word διάδοχος, strictly translated, means only a successor, and not a substitute. Welck. (Trilog. p. 47) has pointed out that the person here alluded to is the centaur Chiron, of whom Apollodorus (II. 5-11-12) says that “Hercules, after freeing Prometheus, who had assumed the olive chaplet (Welck. reads ἑλόμένον), delivered up Chiron to Jove willing, though immortal, to die in his room (θνήσκειν ὰντ᾽ ἁυτου). This is literally the Christian idea of vicarious death. The Druids, according to Cæsar (b.c. VI. 16), held the doctrine strictly—“pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur non posse aliter deorum immortalium numen placari.” Of existing heathens practising human sacrifice, the religious rites of the Khonds in Orissa present the idea of vicarious sacrifice in the most distinct outline. See the interesting memoir of Captain Macpherson in Blackwood’s Magazine for August, 1842.

Note 52 (p. 210).

“Seems he not a willing madman,

Let him reap the fruits he sowed.”

I have translated these lines quite freely, as the text is corrupt, and the emendations proposed do not contain any idea worth the translator’s adopting. Schoe. reads—

Τί γὰρ ἐλλείπει μὴ παραπάιειν

Ἐι τάδ ἐπαυχεῖ τί χαλᾷ μανιῶν;

and translates

Was fehlet ihm noch wahnwitzig zo seyn,

Wenn also er pocht? Wie zahmt er die Wuth?

Prow. from a different reading, has

To thee, if this resolve seems good,

Why shouldst thou check thy frenzied mood?

NOTES TO THE SUPPLIANTS

Note 1 (p. 219).

“Jove the suppliant’s high protector.”

Ζεὺς ἀφίκτωρ, literally suppliant Jove, the epithet which properly belongs to the worshipper being transferred to the object of worship. The reader will note here another instance of the monotheistic element in Polytheism, so often alluded to in these Notes. Jove, as the supreme moral governor of the universe, has a general supervision of the whole social system of gods and men; and specially where there is no inferior protector, as in the case of fugitives and suppliants—there he presses with all the weight of his high authority. In such cases, religion presents a generous and truly humanizing aspect, and the “primus in orbe Deos fecit timor” of the philosophers loses its sting.

Note 2 (p. 219).

“Of the fat fine-sanded Nile!”

Wellauer, in his usual over-cautious way, has not received Pauw’s emendation λεπτοψαμάθων into his text, though he calls it certissimum in his notes. Pal., whom I follow, acts in these matters with a more manly decision. Even without the authority of Pliny (XXXV. 13), I should adopt so natural an emendation, where the text is plainly corrupt.

Note 3 (p. 219).

“Gently thrilled the brize-stung heifer

With his procreant touch.”

See p. 204 above, and Note 48 to Prometheus. There prevails throughout this play a constant allusion to the divine significance of the name Epaphus, meaning, as it does, touch. To the Greeks, as already remarked (p. 388), this was no mere punning; and the names of the gods (Note 17, p. 391 above) were one of the strongest instruments of Heathen devotion. That there is an allusion to this in Matthew vi. 7, I have no doubt.

Note 4 (p. 219).

“Ye blissful gods supremely swaying.”

I see no necessity here, with Pal., for changing ὧν πολις into ὦ πολις—but it is a matter of small importance to the translator. Jove, the third, is a method of designating the supreme power of which we have frequent examples in Æschylus—see the Eumenides, p. 164, where Jove the Saviour all-perfecting is mentioned after Pallas and Loxias, as it were, to crown the invocation with the greatest of all names. In that passage τρίτου occurs in the original, which I was wrong to omit.

Note 5 (p. 220).

“Marriage beds which right refuses.”

In what countries are first cousins forbidden to marry? Welcker does not know. “Das Eherecht worauf diese Weigerung beruht ist nicht bekannt.”—Welcker (Trilog. 391).

Note 6 (p. 221).

“With Ionian wailings unstinted.”

“Perhaps Ionian is put in this place antithetically to Νειλοθερῆ, from the Nile, in the next line, and the sense is, ‘though coming from Egypt, yet, being of Greek extraction, I speak Greek.’”—Paley. This appears to me the simplest and most satisfactory comment on the passage.

Note 7 (p. 221).

“From the far misty land.”

That is Egypt. So called according to the Etymol. M. quoted by Stan., from the cloudy appearance which the low-lying Delta district presents to the stranger approaching it from the sea.

Note 8 (p. 222).

“All godlike power is calm.”

It would be unfair not to advertise the English reader that this fine sentiment is a translation from a conjectural reading, πᾶν ἄπονον δαιμονιων, of Well., which, however, is in beautiful harmony with the context. The text generally in this part of the play is extremely corrupt. In the present stanza, Well.’s correction of δε ἀπιδων into ἐλπίδων deserves to be celebrated as one of the few grand triumphs of verbal criticism that have a genuine poetical value.

Note 9 (p. 222).

“Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!”

The reader must imagine here a complete change in the style of the music—say from the major to the minor key. In the whole Chorus, the mind of the singer sways fitfully between a hopeful confidence and a dark despair. The faith in the counsel of Jove, and in the sure destruction of the wicked, so finely expressed in the preceding stanzas, supports the sinking soul but weakly in this closing part of the hymn. These alterations of feeling exhibited under such circumstances will appear strange to no one who is acquainted with the human, and especially with the female heart.

Note 10 (p. 223).

“Ye Apian hills.”

“Apia, an old name for Peloponnesus, which remains still a mystery, even after the attempt of Butmann to throw light upon it.”—Grote, Hist, of Greece, Part I. c. 4. Æschylus’ own account of Apis, the supposed originator of the name Apia, will be found in this play a few lines below. I have consulted Butmann, and find nothing but a conglomeration of vague and slippery etymologies.

Note 11 (p. 225).

“. . . rounded cars.”

καμπύλος, with a bend or sweep; alluding to the form of the rim of the ancient chariot, between the charioteer and the horses. See the figure in Smith’s Dict. Antiq., Articles ἄντυξ and currus.

Note 12 (p. 225).

“. . . the Agonian gods.”

The common meaning that a Greek scholar would naturally give to the phrase θεοῖ ἀγωνιοι is that given by Hesych, viz., gods that preside over public games, or, as I have rendered it in the Agamemnon (p. 57 above), gods that rule the chance of combat. For persons who, like the Herald in that play, had just escaped from a great struggle, or, like the fugitive Virgins in this piece, were going through one, there does not appear to be any great impropriety (notwithstanding Pal.’s. inepte) in an appeal to the gods of combat. Opposed to this interpretation, however, we have the common practice of Homer, with whom the substantive ἀγών generally means an assembly; and the testimony of Eustathius, who, in his notes to that poet, Iliad, Ω 1335, 58, says “παρ Αισχύλῳ ἀγώνιοι θεοὶ ὁι ἀγορᾶιοι;” i.e. gods that preside over assemblies.

Note 13 (p. 225).

“. . . your sistered hands.”

διὰ χερων συνωνύμων. I am inclined to think with Pal. that ἐυωνύμων may be the true reading; i.e. in your left hands. And yet, so fond is Æschylus of quaint phrases that I do not think myself at liberty to reject the vulgate, so long as it is susceptible of the very appropriate meaning given in the text. “Hands of the same name” may very well be tolerated for “hands of the same race”—“hands of sisters.”

Note 14 (p. 225).

“Even so; and with benignant eye look down!”

I have here departed from Well.’s arrangement of this short colloquy between Danaus and his daughters, and adopted Pal.’s, which appears to me to satisfy the demands both of sense and metrical symmetry. That there is something wrong in the received text Well. admits.

Note 15 (p. 226).

“There where his bird the altar decorates.”

I have here incorporated into the text the natural and unembarrassed meaning of this passage given by Pal. The bird of Jove, of course, is the eagle. What the Scholiast and Stan. say about the cock appears to be pure nonsense, which would never have been invented but for the confused order of the dialogue in the received text.

Note 16 (p. 226).

“Apollo, too, the pure, the exiled once.”

“They invoke Apollo to help them, strangers and fugitives, because that god himself had once been banished from heaven by Jove, and kept the herds of Admetus.

‘Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.’”—Stan.

Note 17 (p. 226).

“Here, Hermes likewise, as Greece knows the god.”

This plainly points out a distinction between the Greek and the famous Egyptian Hermes. So the Scholiast, and Stan. who quotes Cic., Nat. Deor. III. 22.

Note 18 (p. 226).

“Can bird eat bird and be an holy thing?”

This seems to have been a common-place among the ancients. Pliny, in the following passage, draws a contrast between man and the inferior animals, not much to the honor of the former:—“Cætera animalia in suo genere probe degunt; congregari videmus et stare contra dissimilia; leonum feritas inter se non dimicat; serpentum morsus non petit serpentes; ne maris quidem belluæ ac pisces nisi in diversa genera sæviunt. At hercule homini plarima ex homine sunt mala.”—Nat. Hist. VII. proem. This custom of blackening human nature (which is bad enough, without being made worse) has been common enough also in modern times, especially among a certain school of theologians, very far, indeed, in other respects, from claiming kindred with the Roman polyhistor; but the fact is, one great general law over-rides both man and the brute, viz. this—Like herds with like—the only difference being that human beings, with a great outward similarity, are characterized by a more various inward diversity than the lower animals. There are, in fact, men of all various kinds represented in the moral world—all those varieties which different races and species exhibit in the physical. There are lamb-men, tiger-men, serpent-men, pigeon-men, and hawk-men. That such discordant natures should sometimes, nay always in a certain sense, strive, is a necessary consequence of their existing.

Note 19 (p. 226).

“And of no host the acknowledged guest, unfearing

Ye tread this land.”

ἀπρόξενος, without a πρόξενος, or a public host or entertainer—one who occupied the same position on the part of the state towards a stranger that a ξένος or landlord, did to his private guest. In some respects “the office of proxenus bears great resemblance to that of a modern consul or minister resident.”—Dr. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dict., article Hospitium. Compare Southey, Notes to Madoc. I. 5, The Stranger’s House.

Note 20 (p. 227).

“Of old earth-born Palæcthon am the son,

My name Pelasgus.”

Here we have an example of those names of the earliest progenitors of an ancient race that seem to bear fiction on their face; Palaecthon meaning merely the ancient son of the land, and Pelasgus being the name-father of the famous ante-Homeric wandering Greeks, whom we call Pelasgi.

Note 21 (p. 227).

“All the land where Algos flows, and Strymon.”

The geography here is very confused. I shall content myself with noting the different points from Müller’s map (Dorians)—

(1) Algos; unknown.

(2) Strymon; a well-known river in Thrace.

(3) Perrhæbians; in Thessaly, North of the Peneus (Homer, Il. II. 749).

(4) Pindus; the well-known mountain ridge in the centre of Northern Greece, separating the great rivers which descend on the one hand through Epirus into the Ionian sea and the Adriatic, on the other, into the Ægean.

(5) Pæonia; in the North of Macedonia (Iliad II. 848).

(6) Dodona; in Epirus.

Note 22 (p. 227).

“Apollo’s son, by double right, physician

And prophet both.”

This is somewhat of a circumlocution for the single Greek phrase, ἱατρόμαντις, physician-prophet; a name applied to Apollo himself by the Pythoness, in the prologue to the Eumenides (p. 142 above). The original conjunction of the two offices of prophet and leech in the person of Melampus, Apis, Chiron, etc. and their patron Apollo, is a remarkable fact in the history of civilization. The multiplication and isolation of professions originally combined and confounded is a natural enough consequence of the progress of society, of which examples occur in every sphere of human activity; but there is, besides, a peculiar fitness in the conjunction of medicine and theology, arising from the intimate connexion of mind with bodily ailment, too much neglected by some modern drug-minglers, and also, from the fact that, in ancient times, nothing was more common than to refer diseases, especially those of a striking kind, to the immediate interference of the Divine chastiser—(see Hippocrates περὶ ἱερῆς νόσου init.). Men are never more disposed to acknowledge divine power than when under the influence of severe affliction; and accordingly we find that, in some savage or semi-savage tribes, the “medicine-man” is the only priest. It would be well, indeed, if, in the present state of advanced science, professional men would more frequently attempt to restore the original oneness of the healing science—(see Max. Tyr. πῶς ᾶν τις ἄλυπος ἒιη)—if all medical men would, like the late Dr. Abercrombie, bear in mind that man has a soul as well as a body, and all theologians more distinctly know that human bodies enclose a stomach as well as a conscience, with which latter the operations of the former are often strangely confounded.

Note 23 (p. 228).

“. . . Io, on this Argive ground,

Erst bore the keys to Hera.”

i.e. was priestess of the Argive goddess. The keys are the sign of custodiary authority in modern as in ancient times. See various instances in Stan.

Note 24 (p. 228).

“So runs the general rumour.”

After this, Well. supposes something has fallen out of the text; but to me a break in the narration of the Chorus, caused by the eagerness of the royal questioner, seems sufficiently to explain the state of the text. Pal. agrees.

Note 25 (p. 228).

“Like a leaping bull,

Transformed he came.”

Βουθόρῳ ταύρῳ. I have softened this expression a little; so modern delicacy compels. The original is quite Homeric—“συῶν ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον.”—Odyssey XI. 131. Homer and the author of the Book of Genesis agree in expressing natural things in a natural way, equally remote (as healthy nature always is) from fastidiousness and from prudery.

Note 26 (p. 228).

King. A question has evidently dropt here; but it is of no consequence. The answer supplies the first link in the genealogical chain deducing the Danaides from Io and Epaphus. See above, p. 400, Note 44.

Note 27 (p. 229).

“Both this and that.”

I have translated this difficult passage freely, according to the note of Schütz., as being most comprehensive, and excluding neither the one ground of objection nor the other, both of which seem to have occupied the mind of the virgins. I am not, however, by any means sure what the passage really means. E. P. Oxon. has—

“Who would seek to obtain kindred as masters?”

Pot.—

“And who would wish to make their friends their lord.”

Where the real ground of objection is so darkly indicated, a translator is at liberty to smuggle a sort of commentary into the text.

Note 28 (p. 229).

“The wrath of suppliant Jove.”

i.e. Jove the protector of suppliants. See above, Note 1.

Note 29 (p. 230).

“Like a heifer young by the wolf pursued.”

The scholar will recognize here a deviation from Well.’s text λευκόστικτον, and the adoption of Hermann’s admirable emendation, λυκοδίωκτον. Pal. has received this into his text, and Lin., generally a severe censor, approves.—Class. Museum, No. VII. p. 31. Both on metrical and philological grounds, the reading demands reception.

Note 30 (p. 230).

“Thou art the state, and the people art thou.”

This is a very interesting passage in reference to the political constitution—if the term constitution be here allowable—of the loose political aggregates of the heroic ages. The Chorus, of course, speak only their own feelings; but their feelings, in this case, are in remarkable consistency with the usages of the ancient Greeks, as described by Homer. The government of the heroic ages, as it appears in the Iliad, was a monarchy, on common occasions absolute, but liable to be limited by a circumambient atmosphere of oligarchy, and the prospective possibility of resistance on the part of a people habitually passive. Another remarkable circumstance, is the identity of church and state, well indicated by Virgil, in that line—

Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.

Æneid III.

and concerning which, Ottfried Müller says—“In ancient Greece it may be said, with almost equal truth, that the kings were priests, as that the priests were kings” (Mythology, Leitch, p. 187). On this identity of church and state were founded those laws against the worship of strange gods, which formed so remarkable an exception to the comprehensive spirit of toleration that Hume and Gibbon have not unjustly lauded as one of the advantageous concomitants of Polytheism. The intolerance, which is the necessary consequence of such an identity, has found its thorough and consistent champions only among the Mahommedan and Christian monotheists of modern times. Even the large-hearted and liberal-minded Dr. Arnold was so far possessed by the ancient doctrine of the identity of church and state, that he could not conceive of the possibility of admitting Jews to deliberate in the senate of a Christian state. In modern times, also, we have witnessed with wonder the full development of a doctrine most characteristically Homeric, that the absolute power of kings, whether in civil or in ecclesiastical matters, is equally of divine right.

Τιμὴ τ´ ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.

Il. II. 197.

“For from Jove the honor cometh, him the counsellor Jove doth love.”

On this very interesting subject every page of Homer is pregnant with instruction; but those who are not familiar with that bible of classical scholars will find a bright reflection of the most important truths in Grote, Hist. Greece, P. I. c. XX.

Note 31 (p. 231).

“Without the people

I cannot do this thing.”

Æschylus makes the monarch of the heroic ages speak here with a strong tincture of the democracy of the latter times of Greece, no doubt securing to himself thereby immense billows of applause from his Athenian auditors, as the tragedians were fond of doing, by giving utterance to liberal sentiments like that of Æmon in Sophocles—“πόλις γὰρ ὀυκ ἒσθ ἣτις ἀνδρός ἐσθ᾽ ἑνός.” But how little the people had to say in the government of the heroic ages appears strikingly in that most dramatic scene described in the second book of the Iliad, which Grote (II. 94) has, with admirable judgment, brought prominently forward in his remarks on the power of the ἀγορά, or popular assembly, in the heroic ages. Ulysses holds forth the orthodox doctrine in these terms—

“Sit thee down, and cease thy murmurings: sit, and hear thy betters speak,

Thou unwarlike, not in battle known, in council all unheard!

Soothly all who are Achæans are not kings, and cannot be;

Evil is the sway of many; only one may bear the rule,

One be king, to whom the deep-designing Kronos’ mighty son

Gave the sceptre and the right.”—Il. II. 200.

Note 32 (p. 233).

“. . . possessory Jove.”

Ζεύς κτήσιος.—An epithet characteristic of Jove, as the supreme disposer of human affairs. Klausen (Theolog. II. 15) compares the epithet κλαριος from κλῆρος, a lot, which I have paraphrased in p. 230 above.

“The Jove that allotteth their lot to all.”

Klausen quotes Pausanias (I. 31-4) to the effect that Ζευς κτησιος was worshipped in Attica along with Ceres, Minerva, Cora, and the awful Maids or Furies.

Note 33 (p. 234).

“The pillar-compassed seats divine.”

From a conjecture of Pal., περιστύλους; the πυλισσόυχων being evidently repeated by a wandering of the eye or ear of the transcriber. Sophocles, I recollect, in the Antigone, has ἀμφικίονας ναοὺς. Of course, in the case of such blunders, where the true reading cannot be restored, the best that can be done is to substitute an appropriate one.

Note 34 (p. 235).

“. . . the assembly of the people.”

The word ἀγορά, popular assembly, does not occur here; but it is plainly implied. It is to be distinguished from the βουλή, or council of the chiefs.—See Grote as above, and Homer passim.

Note 35 (p. 235).

“All crowning Consummator.”

As the opening words of this prayer generally are one of the finest testimonies to the sovereignty of Jove to be found in the poet, so the conjunction of words τελέων τελειὸτατον, κράτος is particularly to be noted. The adjectives τέλειος, τελεος, παντελής, and the verb τελέω, are often applied with a peculiar significancy to the king of the gods, as he who alone can conduct to a happy end every undertaking, under whatever auspices commenced. This doctrine is most reverently announced by the Chorus of this play towards the end (p. 244), in these comprehensive terms—

τι δε ἄνευ σέθεν

θνατοισι τελειον εστι.

“What thing to mortal men is completed without thee.” And in this sense Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 69), prays—

Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε τὰς εμὰς ἐυχὰς τὲλει.

On the over-ruling special providence of Jove generally the scholar should read Klausen, Theol. II., 15, and Class. Mus. No. XXVI. pp. 429-433.

Note 36 (p. 236).

“. . . hence by the brize.”

The reader will observe that the course of Io’s wanderings here sketched is something very different from that given in the Prometheus, and much more intelligible. The geography is so familiar to the general reader from the Acts of the Apostles, that comment is unnecessary.

Note 37 (p. 236).

“Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies.”

The partiality of Æschylus for sea-phrases has been often observed. Here, however, Paley for the ἐρεσσομένα, of the vulgate has proposed ἐρεθομένα, aptly for the sense and the metre; but Lin. (Class. Mus. No. VII. 30) seems right in allowing the text to remain. I have taken up both readings into my rendering.

Note 38 (p. 236).

“Nor dared to approach this thing of human face.”

It is difficult to know what δυσχερὲς in the text refers. Pot. refers it to the mind of the maid—

“Disdaining to be touched.”

To me it seems more natural to refer the difficulty of touching to the superstitious fears of the Egyptians; and to translate “not safely to be meddled with.” This is the feeling that my translation has attempted to bring out.

Note 39 (p. 237).

“Jove’s decided will.”

I adopt Heath’s emendation Βούλιος for δούλιος. Well., with superstitious reverence for the most corrupt text extant, retaining the δούλίος, is forced to explain δούλιος φρην, “dictum videtur de hominibus qui Jovis auxilium imploraverunt;” but this will never do. The reader is requested to observe what a pious interpretation is, in this passage, given to the connection of Jove and Io—how different from that given by Prometheus, p. 202 above. We may be assured that the orthodox Heathen view of this and other such matters lies in the present beautifully-toned hymn, and not in the hostile taunts which the poet, for purely dramatic purposes, puts into the mouth of the enemy of Jove.

Note 40 (p. 240).

“Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee.”

Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaning far or distant (ἕκας). According to the prevalent opinion among mythologists, both ancient and modern, this goddess is merely an impersonation of the Moon, as Phoebus of the Sun. The term “far-darting” applies to both equally; the rays of the great luminaries being fitly represented as arrows of a far-shooting deity. In the Strophe which follows, Phoebus, under the name of Λυκειος, is called upon to be gracious to the youth of Argos.

ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειος

ἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,

and in the translation I have taken the liberty, pro hac vice, as the lawyers say, to suppose that this epithet, as some modern scholars suggest, has nothing to do etymologically with λύκος, a wolf, but rather with the root λυκ, which we find in the substantive λυκάβας, and in the Latin luceo. Æschylus, however, in the Seven against Thebes (p. 266 above), adopts the derivation from λύκος, as will be seen from my version. I have only to add that, if Artemis be the Moon, her function as the patroness of parturition, alluded to in the present passage, is the most natural thing in the world. On this whole subject, Keightley, c. viii. is very sensible.

Note 41 (p. 241).

“The bulging fence-work on each side.”

(παράῤῥυσεις, more commonly παραῤῥύματα.) “The ancients, as early as the time of Homer, had various preparations raised above the edge of a vessel, made of skins and wicker-work, which were intended as a protection against high waves, and also to serve as a kind of breast-work behind which the men might be safe from the attacks of the enemy.”—Dict. Antiq. voce Ships.

Note 42 (p. 241).

“. . . the prow

Fronted with eyes to track its watery way.”

“It is very common to represent an eye on each side of the prow of ancient ships.”—Do., and woodcuts there from Montfaucon. This custom, Pal. remarks, still continues in the Mediterranean.

Note 43 (p. 241).

“To champion our need.”

Wellauer says that the “sense demands” a distribution of the concluding part of this speech between Danaus and the Chorus; but I can see no reason for disturbing the ancient order, which is retained by But., though not by Pal. That the sense requires no change, the translation should make evident.

Note 44 (p. 242).

“. . . their ships dark-fronted.”

(κυανώπιδες.) The reader will call to mind the νῆες μέλαιναι, the black ships in Homer.—See Dict. Antiq. voce Ships.

Note 45 (p. 242).

“A strong-limbed race with noon-day sweats well hardened.”

This sentiment must have awakened a hearty response in the minds of the Greeks, who were superior to the moderns in nothing so much as in the prominency which they gave to gymnastic exercises, and their contempt for all sorts of σκιοτροφία—rearing in the shade—which our modern bookish system tends to foster.

Note 46 (p. 242).

“No Mars is in her.”

ὄυκ ἔνεστ Ἄρης, a proverbial expression for pithless, nerveless. The same expression is used in the initiatory anapæsts of the Agamemnon. Ἄρης δ ὄυκ ἔνι χώρᾳ.

Note 47 (p. 242).

“Good Greek corn is better than papyrus.”

“Præter alios plurimos usus etiam in cibis recepta fuit papyrus”—Abul. Fadi—“radix ejus pulcis est; quapropter eam masticant et sugunt Ægyptii.” —Olaus Celsius, Hierozoicon, Upsal, 1745. I consulted this valuable work myself, but owe the original reference to an excellent “Essay on the Papyrus of the Ancients, by W. H. de Vriese,” translated from the Dutch by W. B. Macdonald, Esq. of Rammerscales, in the Class. Mus. No. XVI. p. 202, In that article it is stated that “when Guilandinus was in Egypt in the year 1559-60, the pith was then used as food.” Herodotus (Euterp. 92) says that they eat the lower part, roasting it in an oven (κλιβάνῳ πνίξαντες). Pliny (XIII. 11) says, “mandunt quoque, crudum decoctumque succum tantum devorantes.” In the text, of course, the allusion is a sort of proverbial ground of superiority, on the part of the Greeks, over the sons of the Nile, pretty much in the spirit of Dr. Johnston’s famous definition of oats—“food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland.” I have only further to add, that the papyrus belongs to the natural family of the Cyperaceæ or Sedges, and, though not now common in Egypt, is a well-known plant, and to be seen in most of our botanical gardens.

Note 48 (p. 242).

“The shepherds of the ships.”

I have retained this phrase scrupulously—ποιμένες ναῶν—as an interesting relique of the patriarchal age. So in the opening choral chaunt of the Persians, Xerxes is “shepherd of many sheep,” and a little farther on in the same play, Atossa asks the Chorus, “who is shepherd of this (the Athenian) people?” It is in such small peculiarities that the whole character and expression of a language lies.

Note 49 (p. 242).

“. . . on this coast

Harbours are few.”

“Nauplia was almost the only harbour on the coast of Argolis.”—Pal., from Both. I am not topographer enough to be able to confirm this.

Note 50 (p. 243).

“On a hanging cliff where lone winds sigh.”

κρεμὰς. Robortellus: which Well. might surely have adopted. The description of wild mountain loneliness is here very fine. Let the reader imagine such a region as that of Ben-Macdhui in Aberdeenshire, so well described in Blackwood’s Magazine, August, 1847. ὀιόφρων is more than ὄιος; and I have ventured on a periphrasis. Hermann’s Latin translation given by Pal. is—“saxum praeruptum, capris inaccessum, incommonstrabile, solitudine vastum, propendens, vulturibus habitatum.”

Note 51 (p. 244).

Chorus (in separate voices, and short hurried exclamations). I most cordially agree with Well. in attaching the ten verses 805-15 to what follows, rather than making it stand as an Epode to what precedes. A change of style is distinctly felt at the conclusion of the third Antistrophe; the dim apprehension of approaching harm becomes a distinct perception, and the choral music more turbid, sudden, and exclamatory. This I have indicated by breaking up the general chaunt into individual voices.—See p. 377, Note 19.

Note 52 (p. 245).

“Hence to the ships! to the good ships fare ye!”

“What follows is most corrupt, but so made up of short sentences, commands, and exclamations, that if the whole passage were wanting, it would not be much missed. It is very tasteless, and full of turgid phraseology.”—Paley. All this is very true, if we look on the Suppliants as a play written to be read; but, being an opera composed for music, what appears to us tasteless and extravagant, without that stimulating emotional atmosphere, might have been, to the Athenians who heard it, the grand floodtide and tempestuous triumph of the piece. Compare, especially, the passionate Oriental coronach with which “The Persians” concludes. We must never forget that we possess only the skeleton of the sacred opera of the Greeks.

Note 53 (p. 248).

“To find stray goods the world all over, Hermes

Is prince of patrons.”

“Rei furtivae,” as the civil law says, “acterna est auctoritas”; and the Herald, being sent out on a mission to reclaim what was abstracted, requires no credentials but the fact of the heraldship, which he exercises under the patronage of the herald-god Hermes. It may be also, as the commentators suggest—though I recollect no passage to prove it—that Hermes, being a thief himself, and the patron of thieves, was the most apt deity to whose intervention might be referred the recovery of stolen goods. Something of this kind seems implied in the epithet μαστηριῳ, the searcher, here given to Hermes.

Note 54 (p. 250).

“In the general view, and publishes their praise.”

After these words I have missed out a line, of which I can make nothing satisfactory—

κἄλωρα κωλύουσαν ὡς μένειν ἐρῶ.

A few lines below, for (ὀ)υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ, I have followed Pal. in adopting Heath’s εἵνεκ᾽ ἠρόθη δορὶ.

Note 55 (p. 251).

Choral Hymn. This final Chorus of the Suppliants and the opening one of the Persians are remarkable for the use of that peculiar rhythm, technically called the Ionic a minore, of which a familiar example exists in Horace, Ode III. 12. What the æsthetical or moral effect of this measure was on an Athenian ear it is perhaps impossible for us, at the present day, to know; but I have thought it right, in both cases, when it occurs, to mark the peculiarity by the adoption of an English rhythm, in some similar degree removed from the vulgar use, and not without a certain cognate character. In modern music, at least, the Ionic of the Greek text and the measure used in my translation are mere varieties of the same rhythmical genus marked musically by ¾. As for the structure of the Chorus, its division into two semi-choruses is anticipative of the division of feeling among the sisters, which afterwards arose when the conduct of their stern father forced them to choose between filial and connubial duty. One thing also is plain, that there is nothing of a real moral finale in this Chorus. Regarded as a concluding ode, it were a most weak and impotent performance. The tone of grateful jubilee with which it sets out, is, after the second Strophe, suddenly changed into the original note of apprehension, evil-foreboding, doubt, and anxiety, plainly pointing to the terrible catastrophe to be unveiled in the immediately succeeding play.

Note 56 (p. 251).

“Yet, mighty praise be thine,

Cyprian queen divine!”

The Chorus here are evidently moved by a religious apprehension that, in placing themselves under the patronage of the goddess of chastity, they may have treated lightly the power and the functions of the great goddess of love. To reconcile the claims of opposing deities was a great problem of practical piety with all devout polytheists. The introduction of Aphrodite here, as has been remarked, is also plainly prophetic of the part which Hypermnestra is to play in the subsequent piece, under the influence of the great Cyprian goddess preferring the love of a husband to the command of a father.

Note 57 (p. 252).

“Lovely Harmonia.”

“Hesiod says that Harmonia (ἁρμονία—order or arrangement) was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the appearance of a physical myth; for from love and strife—i.e. attraction and repulsion—arises the order or harmony of the universe.”—Keightley.

Note 58 (p. 252).

“Yet must I fear the chase.”

φυγάδεσσιν δ ἒπιπλόιας. Haupt adopted by Pal. An excellent conjecture.

NOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Note 1 (p. 263).

“Which may averting Jove from me avert.”

The epithet ἀλεξητηριος or ἀλεξίκακος (Pausan. Att. III.) or the averter, applied to the gods (see Odys. III. 346, is to be noted), as characteristic of the grand fact in the history of mind, that with rude nations the fear of evil is the dominant religious motive; so much so, that in the accounts which we read of some savage, or semi-savage nations, religion seems to consist altogether in a vague, dim fear of some unknown power, either without moral attributes altogether, or even positively malignant. In this historical sense, the famous maxim, primus in orbe deos fecit timor—however insufficient as a principle of general theology—is quite true. In the present passage, the phraseology is remarkable.

ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριος

Ἐπώνυμος γένοιτο—

literally, of which evils may Jove be the averter, and in being so, answer to his name. This allusion to the names and epithets of the gods occurs in Æschylus with a frequency which marks it as a point of devotional propriety in the worship of the Greeks. I have expressed the same thing in the text by the repetition of avert. So in the Choephoræ, p. 103, Herald Hermes, herald me in this, &c.

Note 2 (p. 263).

“In his ear and inward sense deep-pondered truths,

By no false art, though without help from fire.”

“Tiresias, the Theban seer, was blind, and could not divine by fire or other visible signs; but he had received from Pallas a remarkably acute hearing, and the faculty of understanding the voices of birds.”—Apollodor. III. 6.—Stan. Well. objects to this, but surely without good reason. Why are the ears—εν ὦσι—mentioned so expressly, if not to make some contrast to the common method of divining by the eye?

Note 3 (p. 264).

“By Mars, Enýo, and blood-loving Terror.”

With Mars in Homer (Il. IV. 440) are coupled φόβος and Δ(ε)ιμος, Fear and Terror, as in this passage of Æschylus, and Ἔρις, Strife.

“Fear and Terror went with him, and Strife that rages without bound,

Strife of Mars the man-destroyer, sister and companion dear.”

And in Livy (I. 27), Tullus Hostilius being pressed in battle, “duodecim vovit Salios, fanaque Pallori et Pavori.”—Compare Cic. de Nat. Deor. III. c. 25. Enýo is coupled in Homer as a war-goddess with Athena—

“Well Tydides knew that Venus was no goddess made for war,

Not Athena, not Eýno city-sacking.”

In our language, we have naturalized her Roman counterpart Bellona.

Note 4 (p. 264).

“. . . the chariot of Adrastus.”

“Because it had been predicted that Adrastus alone should survive the war.”—Scholiast.

Note 5 (p. 265).

Chorus. This Chorus, Schneider remarks, naturally divides itself into four, or, as I think, rather into five distinct parts, (1) The Chorus enter the stage in great hurry and agitation, indicated by the Dochmiac verse—σποράδην, according to the analogy of the Eumenides—(see the βιος Αισχύλου)—in scattered array, and, perhaps in the person of their Coryphæus, describe generally the arrival of the Theban host, and their march against the walls of Thebes. (2) But as the agitation increases, continuity of description becomes impossible, and a series of broken and irregular exclamations and invocations by individual voices follows. (3) Then a more regular prayer, or the chaunting of the Theban litany begins, in which we must suppose the whole band to join. (4) This is interrupted, however, by the near terror of the assault, and the chaunt is again broken into hurried exclamations of individual voices. (5) The litany is then wound up by the whole band. Of course no absolute external proof of matters of this kind can be offered; but the internal evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the translator in marking the peculiar character of the Chorus in some such manner as I have done. For dramatic effect, this is of the utmost consequence. Nothing has more hurt the dramatic character of Æschylus, than the practice of throwing into the form of a continuous ode what was written for a series of well-arranged individual voices. Whoever he was among more recent scholars that first analyzed the Choruses with a special view to separate the exclamatory parts from the continuous chaunt deserves my best thanks.—See Note 19 to the Eumenides, p. 377.

Note 6 (p. 265).

“With clattering hoofs, on and on still they ride.”

πεδιοπλόκτυπος. Before this word, another epithet ελεδεμνας occurs, which the intelligent scholar will readily excuse me for having omitted altogether.

Note 7 (p. 265).

“. . . the white-shielded host.”

The epithet λεύκασπις seems characteristic of the Argive host in the Bœotian legend. Sophocles, in the beautiful opening Chorus of the Antigone, and Euripides in the Phœnissæ, has it. Such traits were of course adopted by the tragedians from the old local legends always with conscientious fidelity. Stan. refers it to the general white or shining aspect of the shields of the common soldiers, distinguished by no various-coloured blazonry; which may be the true explanation.

Note 8 (p. 265).

“With chaplet and stole.”

In modern times, the mightiest monarchs have not thought it beneath their dignity to present, and sometimes, even, to work a petticoat to the Virgin Mary. In ancient times, the presentation of a πέπλος to the maiden goddess of Athens was no less famous—

“Take the largest and the finest robe that in thy chamber lies—

Take the robe to thee so dear, and place it duly on the knees

Of the beautiful-haired Athena.”—Il. VI. 273.

Virgil has not forgotten this—Æneid I. 480. The peplos was a large upper dress, often reaching to the feet. Yates, in the Dict. Antiq., translates it “shawl,” which may be the most accurate word, but, from its modern associations, of course, unsuitable for poetry.—See the article.

Note 9 (p. 265).

“O Ares, that shines in the helmet of gold.”

Mars was one of the native ὲπιχώριοι gods of Thebes, as the old legend of the dragon and the sown-teeth sufficiently testifies. The dragon was the offspring of Mars; and the fountain which it guarded, when it was slain by the Phœnician wanderer, was sacred to that god. Apollodor. III. 4; Unger. de fonte Aret. p. 103.

Note 10 (p. 266)

“And their steeds with ringing bridles.”

Bells were often used on the harness of horses, and on different parts of the armour, to increase the war-alarm—the κλαγγή τε ἐνοπή τε (Il. III. 2), which is so essential a part of the instinct of assault. See the description of Tydeus below, and Dict. Antiq. tintinnabulum, where is represented a fragment of ancient sculpture, showing the manner in which bells were attached to the collars of war-horses. Dio Cassius (Lib. LXXVI. 12) mentions that “the arms of the Britons are a shield and short spear, in the upper part whereof is an apple of brass, which, being shaken, terrifies the enemy with the sound.” Compare κωδωνο, φαλαραπωλους. Aristoph. Ran. 963.

Note 11 (p. 266).

“God of pawing steeds, Poseidon.”

Neptune is called equestrian or ἱππίος, no doubt, from the analogy of the swift waves, over which his car rides, to the fleet ambling of horses. In the mythical contest with Pallas, accordingly, while the Athenian maid produces the olive tree, the god of waves sends forth a war-horse.

Note 12 (p. 266).

“Save us, Cypris, mother of Thebans.”

“Harmonia, whom Cadmus married, was the daughter of Mars and Aphrodite.”—Scholiast.

Note 13 (p. 266).

“Save us, save us, Wolf-Apollo.”

Here is one of those pious puns upon the epithets of the gods, which were alluded to in Note 1 above. With regard to this epithet of Apollo, who, in the Electra of Sophocles, v. 6, is called distinctly wolf-slayer (λυκοκτόνος), there seems to me little doubt that the Scholiast on that passage is right in referring this function to Apollo, as the god of a pastoral people (νὸμιος). Passow (Dict. in voce), compare Pausan. (Cor. II. 19).

Note 14 (p. 267).

“O Onca, blest Onca.”

Onca, says the Scholiast, was a name of Athena, a Phœnician epithet, brought by Cadmus from his native country. The Oncan gate was the same as the Ogygian gate of Thebes mentioned by other writers, and the most ancient of all the seven.—Unger. p. 267; Pausan. IX. 8.

Note 15 (p. 267).

“The seven-gated city deliver, deliver.”

The current traditional epithet of Thebes, whose seven gates were as famous as the seven mouths of the Nile—

“Rari quippe boni: numerus vix est totidem quot

Thebarum portæ vel divitis ostia Nili.”—Juv. Sat. XIII. 26.

And Homer, in the Odyssey XI. 263, talks of—

“Amphion and Zethus,

First who founded and uptowered the seat of seven-gated Thebes.”

These may suffice from a whole host of citations in Unger. Vol. I. p. 254-6, and Pausan. IX. 8. 3.

Note 16 (p. 267).

“. . . a foreign-speaking foe!”

This appears strange, as both besieged and besiegers were Greeks, differing no more in dialect than the Prussians and the Austrians, or we Scotch from our English neighbours. I agree with E. P. that it is better not to be over-curious in such matters, and that Butler is right when he says that ἐτερόφωνος is only paullo gravius dictum ad miserationem—that is, only a little tragic exaggeration for hostile or foreign.

Note 17 (p. 268).

“. . . the painted gods upon the prow.”

The general practice was, that the tutelary gods were on the poop, and only the figure-head on the prow (Dict. Antiq., Ships and Insigne), but, as there was nothing to prevent the figure-head being itself a god, the case alluded to by Æschylus might often occur.—See the long note in Stan.

Note 18 (p 268).

“Who knows not

That, when a city falls, they pass to the Victor”

The Roman custom of evoking the gods of a conquered city to come out of the subject shrines, and take up their dwelling with the conqueror, is well known. In Livy, V. 21, there is a remarkable instance of this in the case of Veii—“Tuo ductu,” says Camillus, “Pythice Apollo, tuoque numine instinctus pergo ad delendam urbem Veios: tibique hinc decumam partem prædæ voveo. Te simul, Juno regina, quæ nunc Veios colis, precor ut nos victores in nostram tuamque mox futuram urbem sequare; ubi te dignum amplitudine tua templum accipiat.”

Note 19 (p. 269).

“For blood of mortals is the common food.”

I read φόνῳ, not φόβῳ, principally for the sake of the sentiment, as the other idea which φοβῳ gives, has been already expressed. Certainly Well. is too positive in saying that φόβῳ is “prorsus necessarium.” Both readings give an equally appropriate sense: that in the text, which Pot. also gives; or this other—

“Your fear but heaps the fuel of hot war

I’ the hearts o’ the foe.”

Note 20 (p. 270).

“Dirce and Ismenus’ sacred stream.”

These were waters in Theban legend no less famous than Inachus and Erasinus in that of Argos. The waters of Dirce, in particular, were famous for their clearness and pleasantness to drink. “Dirce, flowing with a pure and sweet stream,” says Aelian, Var. Hist. XII. 57, quoted by Unger. p. 187, and Æschylus in the Chorus immediately following, equals its praise to that of the Nile, sung so magnificently in the Suppliants.”

Note 21 (p. 271).

“From Poseidon earth-embracing,

And from Tethys’ winding sons.”

Γαιήοχος—the “Earth-holder” or “Earth-embracer,” is a designation of Poseidon, stamped to the Greek ear with the familiar authority of Homer. According to Hesiod, and the Greek mythology generally, the fountains were the sons of Ocean either directly or indirectly, through the rivers, who owned the same fatherhood. Tethys is the primeval Amphitrite.—See Note 13 to Prometheus, p. 390 above.

Note 22 (p. 273).

“. . . at the Prœtian portal Tydeus stands.”

“A gate of doubtful parentage, from which the road went out from Thebes direct to Chalcis in Eubœa.”—Unger. p. 297. “Here, by the wayside, was the tomb of Melanippus, the champion of this gate, who slew his adversary Tydeus.”—Pausan. IX. 8. This Tydeus is the father of Diomedes, whose exploits against men and gods are so nobly sung in Iliad V. From the frequency of the words βοᾶν, βοὴν, βρέμειν, etc. in this fine description, one might almost think that Æschylus had wished to paint the father after the Homeric likeness of the son, who, like Menelaus, was βοὴν ἀγαθός. In the heroic ages, a pair of brazen lungs was not the least useful accomplishment of a warrior. The great fame of the father of Diomedes as a warrior appears strikingly from that passage of the Iliad (IV. 370), where Agamemnon uses it as a strong goad to prick the valorous purpose of the son.

Note 23 (p. 273).

“. . . the wise Oiclidan seer.”

“Amphiaraus, the son of Oicles, being a prophet, and foreseeing that all who should join in the expedition against Thebes would perish, refused to go himself, and dissuaded others. Polynices, however, coming to Iphis, the son of Alector, inquired how Amphiaraus might be forced to join the expedition, and was told that this would take place if his wife Eriphyle should obtain the necklace of Harmonia. This, accordingly, Polynices gave her, she receiving the gift in the face of an interdict in that matter laid on her by her husband. Induced by this bribe, she persuaded her husband to march against his will, he having beforehand promised to refer any matter in dispute between him and Adrastus to the decision of his wife.—Apollodor. III. 6; Confr. Hor. III. 16, 11.

Note 24 (p. 273).

“The brazen bells ring fear.”

A Scottish knight, in an old ballad, has these warlike bells on his horse’s mane—

“At ilk tail o’ his horse’s mane,

There hung a siller bell:

The wind was loud, the steed was proud,

And they gied a sindry knell.”—Young Waters.

And one of Southey’s Mexican heroes has them on his helmet—

“Bells of gold

Embossed his glittering helmet, and where’er

Their sound was heard, there lay the press of war,

And Death was busiest there.”—Madoc. II. 18.

Note 25 (p. 274).

“His race from those whom Ares spared he draws.”

That is to say, he belonged to one of the oldest originally Theban families—was one of the children of the soil, sprung from the teeth of the old Theban dragon, which Cadmus, by the advice of Athena, sowed in the Earth; and from that act, the old race of Thebans were called σπαρτόι, or the Sown. See Stan.’s note.

Note 26 (p. 274).

“Proud Capaneus before the Electran gate.”

This gate was so called from Electra, the sister of Cadmus. Pausan. IX. 8-3. And was the gate which led to Platæa and Athens. Unger. p. 274.

Note 27 (p. 275).

“. . . The third lot to Eteocles

Leapt from the upturned brazen helm.”

The custom of using the helmet, for the situla or urn, when lots were taken in war, must have been noted by the most superficial student of Homer. Stan. has collected many instances, of which one may suffice—

“Quickly, in the brazen helm, we shake the lot; and first of all,

Of Eurylochus, mighty-hearted, leapt the lot.”—Odyssey X. 206.

Note 28 (p. 275).

“At the Netaean gate.”

So called from Neis, a son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion. Pausan. IX. 8; Unger. p. 313.

Note 29 (p. 276).

“Black smoke, the volumed sister of the flame.”

Just as Homer, in a familiar passage, calls “sleep the mother of death” (Il. XIV. 231), adopted by Shelley in the exquisite exordium of Queen Mab—

“How beautiful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!”

Mitchell, in a note on the metaphors of Æschylus (Aristoph. Ran. 871), mentions this as being one of those tropes, where the high-vaulting tragedian has jerked himself over from the sublime into the closely-bordering territory of the ridiculous; but neither here nor in διαδρομᾶν (ο)μαίμονες, which he quarrels with, is there anything offensive to the laws of good taste. It sounds, indeed, a little queer to translate literally, Rapine near akin to running hither and thither; but, as a matter of plain fact, it is true that, when in the confusion of the taking of a city, men run hither and thither, rapine is the result. In my version, Plunder, daughter of Confusion (p. 272 above), expresses the idea intelligibly enough, I hope, to an English ear.

Note 30 (p. 276).

“Round its hollow belly was embossed

A ring of knotted snakes.”

The old Argolic shield, round as the sun—

“Argolici clypei aut Phœbæœ lampadis instar.”

See Dict. Antiq. Clypeus. The kind described in the text finds its modern counterpart in those hollow Burmese shields often found in our museums, only larger.

Note 31 (p. 276).

“. . . by the god of war

Indwelt.”

ἔνθεος δ᾽ Αρει, literally, “ingodded by Mars,” or having the god of war dwelling in him. This phrase shows the meaning of that reproach cast by the Pharisees in the teeth of Christ—ἔχει δαιμόνιον—he hath a devil, or, as the Greeks would have said, a god—i.e. he is possessed by a moral power so far removed from the common, that we must attribute it to the indwelling might of a god or devil.

Note 32 (p. 276).

“. . . a hostile pair

Well matched by Hermes.”

The Greeks ascribed to Hermes every thing that they met with on the road, and every thing accidentally found, and whatever happens by chance—and so two adversaries well matched in battle were said to have been brought together by the happy contrivance of that god.”—Schol.; and see Note 59 to the Eumenides, p. 386.

Note 33 (p. 278).

“The sixth a sober man, a seer of might,

Before the Homoloidian gate stands forth.”

i.e. Amphiaraus—see above, Note 23, p. 420. Homer (Odys. XV. 244) speaks of him as beloved by Jove and Apollo. The Homoloidian gates were so called either from mount Homole in Thessaly (Pausan. IX. 8), or from Homolois, a daughter of Niobe and Amphion.—Unger. p. 324.

Note 34 (p. 278).

“With bitter taunts his evil-omened name,

Making it spell his ugly sin that owns it.”

The name Polynices means literally much strife; and there can be no question that the prophet in this place is described as taunting the Son of Oedipus with the evil omen of his name after the fashion so familiar with the Greek writers. See Prometheus, Note 8, p. 388. The text, however, is in more places than one extremely corrupt; and, in present circumstances, I quite agree with Well. and Lin. that we are not warranted in introducing the conjectural reading of ὄμμα for ὄνομα, though there can be no question that the reading ὄμμα admits of a sufficiently appropriate sense.—See Dunbar, Class. Museum, No. XII. p. 206.

Note 35 (p. 278).

“The wise man is what fools but seem to be.”

“When this tragedy was first acted, Aristides, surnamed the Just, was present. At the declamation of these words—

ὀυ γὰρ δοκ(ε)ιν ἄριστος ἀλλ᾽ (ἐ)ίναι θέλει,

the whole audience, by an instantaneous instinct, directed their eyes to him.”—Plutarch, Apoth. Reg. et duc. Sallust describes Cato in the same language—“Esse quam videri bonus malebat.”—Stan.

Note 36 (p. 280).

“O god-detested! god-bemadded race!”

In modern theological language we are not accustomed to impute mental infatuation, insanity, or desperate impulses of any kind to the Supreme Being; but in the olden time such language as that of the text was familiarly in the mouth of Jew and Gentile. “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” is a sentence which we all remember, perhaps with a strange sensation of mysterious terror, from our juvenile lessons; and “quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat,” is a common maxim in our mouths, though we scarcely half believe it. In Homer and the tragedians instances of this kind occur everywhere; and in the Persians of our author the gods are addressed in a style of the most unmitigated accusation. In such cases, modern translators are often inclined to soften down the apparent impiety of the expression into some polite modern generality; but I have scrupulously retained the original phraseology. I leave it to the intelligent reader to work out the philosophy of this matter for himself.

Note 37 (p. 281).

“. . . the god will have it so.”

This is one of the cases so frequent in the ancient poets (Note 76 to Choephoræ, p. 372) where θεός is used in the singular without the article. In the present case the translators seem agreed in supplying the definite particle, as Phœbus, mentioned in the next line, may naturally be understood. In modern language, where a man is urged on to his destruction by a violent unreasoning passion, reference is generally made to an overruling decree or destiny, rather than directly to the author of all destiny. “But my ill-fate pushed me on with an obstinacy that nothing could resist; and, though I had several times loud calls from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon as with our eyes open. Certainly nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery attending, and which it was impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts.”—Robinson Crusoe. On this subject see my Homeric Theology. Class. Mus. No. XXVI. Propositions 5, 12, and 18 compared.

Note 38 (p. 281).

“Death is thy only gain, and death to-day

Is better than to-morrow!”

λέγουσα κέρδος πρότερον ὑστερου μόρου—mentioning to me an advantage (viz., in my dying now) preferable to a death at a later period; as his good genius might have whispered to Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. In translating thus a confessedly difficult passage I have Welcker (Trilog. 363), Butler, Blom., and Schütz., and E. P. Oxon., on my side, also the simple comment of Scholiast II.—κερδ(ο)ς, i.e. τὸ νῦν τεθνᾶναι πρότερον, i.e. τιμιώτερον. Lin. agreeing with Well. translates “urging the glory of the victory which precedes the death which follows after it.” Conz. is singular, and certainly not to be imitated in translating with Schol. I.—

“Wer der erste tödlet gewinnt den Sieg.”

“He who inflicts the first lethal blow gains the victory.”

Pot. has not grappled with the passage. If Lin.’s interpretation be preferred, I should render—

“Beside me sits

The Fury with dry tearless eye, and points to

One glimpse of glory heralding black death.”

or—

“The glorious gain that shall precede the death.”

It will be observed that if πρότερον be taken in the sense of τιμιώτερον, with the Scholiast, and το νῦν τεθναναι understood to κέρδος, Wellauer’s objection falls that μαλλον or μειζον must be understood to render the rendering in my text admissible.

Note 39 (p. 282).

“. . . goddess most ungodlike.”

I have remarked, in a Note above, that the Greeks, so far from having any objection to the idea that the gods were the authors of evil, rather encouraged it; and accordingly, in their theology, they had no need for a devil or devils in any shape. This truth, however, must be received with the qualification, arising from the general preponderating character of the Greek deities, which was unquestionably benign, and coloured more from the sunshine than the cloud; in reference to which general character, it might well be said that certain deities, whose function was purely to induce misery, were ὀυ θεοῖς ὅμοιοι—nothing like the gods.

Note 40 (p. 282).

“O son of Scythia, must we ask thine aid?

Chalybian stranger thine.”

We see here how loosely the ancients used Certain geographical terms, and especially this word Scythia; for the Chalybes or Chaldaei, as they were afterwards called, were a people of Pontus. Their country produced, in the most ancient times, silver also; but, in the days of Strabo, iron only.—Strabo, Lib. XII. p. 549.

Note. 41 (p. 284).

“. . . for sorry tendance wrathful.”

I read ἐπίκοτος τροφᾶς with Heath., Blom., and Pal. For the common reading, ἐπικότους τροφάς, Well., with his usual conservative ingenuity, finds a sort of meaning; but the change which the new reading requires is very slight, and gives a much more obvious sense; besides that it enables us to understand the allusion to Æschylus in Schol. Oedip. Col. 1375.—See Introductory Remarks, Welcker’s Trilogie, p. 358, and Pal.’s Note.

Note 42 (p. 284).

“. . . (for still in four and three

The god delights).”

These words are a sort of comment on the epithet ἑβδομαγέτας given to Apollo in the text, of which Pape, in his Dictionary, gives the following account: “Surname of Apollo, because sacrifice was offered to him on the seventh day of every month, or as Lobeck says (Aglaoph. p. 434), because seven boys and seven girls led the procession at his feasts.—Herod. VI. 57. The ancients were not agreed in the interpretation of this epithet.” It is not necessary, however, I must admit with Schneider, to suppose any reference to this religious arithmetic here. Phœbus receives the seventh gate, because, as the prophet of the doom, it was his special business to see it fulfilled; and this he could do only there, where the devoted heads of Eteocles and Polynices stood.

Note 43 (P. 285).

“And I for plaints no less than pæans bring thee.”

I see no sufficient case made out for giving these words from τοιᾶυτα down to φορουμενοι to the Chorus. The Messenger, surely, may be allowed his moral reflections without stint in the first place, as the Chorus is to enlarge on the same theme in the chaunt which immediately follows. It strikes me also, that the tone of the passage is not sufficiently passionate for the Chorus.

Note 44 (p. 289).

“Ay, drenched in gore, in brothered gore.”

In the old editions, and in Pot. and Glasg. these words are given to Ismene; but never was a scenic change made with greater propriety than that of Brunck, when he continued these speeches down to the end of Antistrophe IV. to the Chorus. Nothing could be more unnatural than that the afflicted sisters, under such a load of woe, should open their mouths with long speeches—long, assuredly, in comparison of what they afterwards say. They are properly silent, till the Chorus has finished the wail; and then they speak only in short exclamations—articulated sobs—nothing more. For the same reason, deserting Well., I have given the repeated burden Ἰὼ Μοιρα, etc. to the Chorus. The principal mourners in this dirge should sing only in short and broken cries.

Note 45 (p. 290).

“Moera, baneful gifts dispensing.”

The word μοῖρα originally means lot, portion, part, that which is dealt or divided out to one. In this sense it occurs frequently in Homer, and is there regarded as proceeding from the gods, and specially from Jove. But with an inconsistency natural enough in popular poetry, we sometimes find μοῖρα in Homer, like ἀτη, elevated to the rank of a separate divine personage. “Not I,” says Agamemnon, in the Iliad (XIX. 86), “was to blame for the quarrel with Achilles,

But Jove and Moera and the Fury, walking through the darkness dread.”

The three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, like the three Furies, were a post-Homeric birth. We thus see how, under the influence of the Polytheistic system, new gods were continually created from what were originally mere functions of the divine mind, or results of the divine activity.

Note 46 (p. 292).

“Due burial in its friendly bosom.”

θάπτειν ἔδοξε γῆς φιλαις κατασκφαῖς. The words here used seem to imply interment in the modern fashion, without burning, but they may also refer to the depositing of the urns in subterranean chambers. Ancient remains, as well as the testimony of classical authors, prove that both practices existed among the ancients, though cremation was latterly the more common. The reader will be instructed by the following extract on this subject from Dr. Smith’s admirable Dictionary of Antiquities, article Funus: “The body was either buried or burnt. Lucian, de luctu, says that the Greeks burn, and the Persians bury, their dead; but modern writers are greatly divided in opinion as to which was the usual practice. Wachsmuth (Hell. Alt. II. 2, p. 79) says that, in historical times, the dead were always buried; but this statement is not strictly correct. Thus we find that Socrates (Plut. Phædon) speaks of his body being either burnt or buried; the body of Timoleon was burnt; and so was that of Philopæmon (Plutarch). The word θάπτειν is used in connection with either mode; it is applied to the collection of the ashes after burning; and accordingly we find the words κάιειν and θάπτειν used together (Dionys. Archæolog. Rom. V. 48). The proper expression for interment in the earth is κατορύττειν; whereas we find Socrates speaking of το σῶμα η καόμενον, ἠ κατορυττόμενον. In Homer, the bodies of the dead are burnt; but interment was also used in very ancient times. Cicero (de leg. II. 25) says that the dead were buried at Athens in the time of Cecrops; and we also read of the bones of Orestes being found in a coffin at Tegea (Herod. I. 68). The dead were commonly buried among the Spartans (Plut. Lycurg. 27) and the Sicyonians (Paus. II. 7); and the prevalence of this practice is proved by the great number of skeletons found in coffins in modern times, which have evidently not been exposed to the action of fire. Both burning and burying appear to have been always used, to a greater or less extent, at different periods; till the spread of Christianity at length put an end to the former practice.”

Note 47 (p. 293).

“Mighty Furies that triumphant

Ride on ruin’s baleful wings.”

I have here, by a paraphrase, endeavoured to express the remarkably pregnant expression of the original κῆρες Εριννύες—combining, as it does, in grammatical apposition, two terrible divine powers, that the ancient poets generally keep separate. The κῆρες, or goddesses of destruction and violent death, occur frequently in Homer. Strictly speaking, they represent only one of the methods by which the retributive Furies may operate; but, in a loose way of talking, they are sometimes identified with them. Schoemann, in a note to the Eumenides, p. 62, has quoted to this effect, Hesiod v. 217, and Eurip. Elect, v. 1252:—

“The terrible Kerés, blushless persecutors,

Will chase thee wandering frenzied o’er the earth.”

NOTES TO THE PERSIANS

Note 1 (p. 301).

“Forth they went with arrow and bow.”

The bow was as characteristic of Persian as the spear of Hellenic warfare; and, accordingly, they are contrasted below, p. 305. The Persian Darics bore the figure of an archer. Dict. Antiq. voci Daric. “The army of Xerxes, generally,” says Grote, “was armed with missile weapons, and light shields, or no shield at all; not properly equipped either for fighting in regular order, or for resisting the line of spears and shields which the Grecian heavy-armed infantry brought to bear upon them.”—Vol. V. p. 43. This was seen with striking evidence when an engagement took place on confined ground as at Thermopylæ, Do. p. 117.

Note 2 (p. 302).

“. . . golden Sardes.”

So Creon, in the Antigone of Sophocles, in wrathful suspicion that Tiresias is in conspiracy to prophesy against him for filthy lucre, is made to exclaim (v. 1037)—

“Traffic as ye will

In the amber-ore that opulent Sardes sends,

And Indian gold.”

So also, “golden Babylon,” below; which will recall to the Christian reader the famous words, “Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased!”—Isaiah xiv. 4. In the same way Xerxes is called “the god-like son of a golden race,” in the choral hymn which immediately follows the present introductory chaunt. Southey, the most learned of our poets, has not forgotten this orientalism when he says—

“Hark! at the golden palaces

The Brahmin strikes the hour.”

—Curse of Kehama V.

where see the note.

Note 3 (p. 302).

“The well-poised dart.”

The Mysians had on their heads a peculiar sort of helmet belonging to the country, small shields, and javelins burnt at the point.—Herodot. VII. 74.—Stan.

Note 4 (p. 302).

“The Asian tribes that wear the sword.”

The μάχαιρα here is the acinaces, or short scimitar, of which the fashion may be seen in the Dict. Antiq. under that word.

Note 5 (p. 303).

“Shepherd of many sheep.”

A phraseology inherited from the times when “Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with the wool.”—2 Kings iii. 4. So Agamemnon, in Homer (Od. III. 156), is called ποιμήν λάων—the shepherd of the people. See above, p. 413, Note 48.

Note 6 (p. 304).

“But, when the gods deceive.”

The sudden change of tone here from unlimited confidence in the strength of their own armament, to a pious doubt arising from the consideration that the gods often disappoint “the best laid schemes of men and mice,” and that “the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong”; this is at once extremely characteristic of ancient Hellenic piety (see the Note on ὕβρις, p. 348), and serves here the dramatic purpose of making the over-weening pride of Xerxes, by contrast, appear more sinful. With regard to the style of religious conception here, and the general doctrine that the gods deceive mortal men, especially at moments of extraordinary prosperity and on the point of some sudden reversal, the student will read Grote’s Greece, Vol. V. p. 13.

Note 7 (p. 306).

“Let us fall down before her with humble prostration.”

This very humble way of expressing respect was quite oriental, and altogether abhorrent to the feelings of the erect Greek, boasting of his liberty. The reader of history may call to mind how this was one of the points of oriental court state, the mooting of which in his later years caused a breach between Alexander the Great and his captains. For references, see Stan.

Note 8 (p. 307).

“And dipped my hands in the fair-flowing fount.”

This purification, as Stan. has noted, was customary among the ancients, after an ill-omened dream. He quotes Aristophanes, Ran. 1338.

“But come, attendants, light a lamp

And take a pail, and from the stream

Water bring, and warm it well,

To wash away the god-sent dream”—

and other passages.

Note 9 (p. 307).

“I saw an eagle flying to the altar.”

The sight in reality, or in vision, of one bird plucking another under various modifications, was familiar to the ancient divination, as the natural expression of conquest and subjugation. So in the Odyssey shortly before the opening of the catastrophe—

“Thus as he spake, on his right hand a bird of omen flew,

A hawk, Apollo’s messenger swift, and held within its claws

A pigeon, which it rudely plucked, and scattered on the ground

Its feathery plumes, between the skies and where Telemachus stood.”

—XV. 525.

In such matters, the ancients did not strain after originality, as a modern would do, but held closely by the most natural, obvious, and most significant types.

Note 10 (p. 308).

“Where, O friends, is famous Athens on the broad face of the earth?”

Here commences a series of questions with regard to Attic geography, topography, and statistics, which to the most inexperienced reader will appear to come in here not in the most natural way. That the mother of Xerxes should have actually been so ignorant of the state of Athens, as she is here dramatically represented, seems scarcely supposable. But that she and the mighty persons of the East generally were grossly ignorant of, and greatly underrated the resources of the small state that was rising in the West, is plain, both from the general habit of the oriental mind, and from what Herodotus (V. 105, quoted by Pal.) narrates of Darius, that, when he heard of the burning of Sardes by the Athenians and the Ionians, he asked “who the Athenians were.” On this foundation, a dramatic poet, willing “to pay a pleasant compliment to Athenian vanity” (Buck.), might well erect such a series of interrogatories as we have in the text, though it may be doubted whether he has done it with that tact which a more perfect master of the dramatic art—Shakespere, for instance—would have displayed. There are not a few other passages in the Greek drama where this formal style of questioning ab ovo assumes somewhat of a ludicrous aspect.

Note 11 (p. 309).

“Slaves are they to no man living, subject to no earthly name.”

As in the quickness of their spirits, the sharpness of their wits, and their love of glory, so particularly in the forward boast of freedom, the ancient Hellenes were very like the modern French. ’Twere a curious parallel to carry out; and that other one also, which would prove even more fertile in curious results, between the ancient Romans and the modern English.

Note 12 (p. 310).

“The sundered planks, and the drifted dead.”

I do not think there can be any doubt as to the meaning of the original here, πλαγκτοῖς (ε)ν διπλάκεσσιν—among the wandering planks—δίπλαξ can mean nothing but a double or very strong plank, plate, or (if applied to a dress, as in Homer) fold. There is no need of supposing any “clinging to the planks,” as Lin., following Butler, does. Nevertheless, I have given, likewise, in my translation, the full force of Blom.’s idea that δίπλαξ means the ebb and flow of the sea. This, indeed, lies already in φέρεσθαι. Conz. agrees with my version. “Wie treiben stürmend umher sie die Planken!”

Note 13 (p. 311).

“. . . There Amestris.”

Pal. asserts confidently that the three following verses are corrupt. One of them sins against Porson’s canon of the Cretic ending, and (what is of much more consequence) connects the name of Ariomardus with Sardes, which we found above (p. 302), connected with Thebes. For the sake of consistency, I have taken Porson’s hint, and introduced Metragathus here, from v. 43.

Note 14 (p. 312).

“. . . Pallas saves her city.”

The apportionment of the last clause of this, and the whole of the following lines, I give according to Well. and Pal., which Buck. also approves in his note. The translation, in such a case, is its own best vindication.

Note 15 (p. 312).

“There came a Greek.”

The sending of this person was a device of Themistocles, to hasten on a battle, and keep the Greeks from quarrelling amongst themselves. The person sent was Sicinnus his slave, “seemingly an Asiatic Greek, who understood Persian, and had perhaps been sold during the late Ionic revolt, but whose superior qualities are marked by the fact, that he had the care and teaching of the children of his master.”—Grote.

Note 16 (p. 312).

“And darkness filled the temple of the sky.”

The word τέμενος, says Passow, in the post-Homeric writers of the classical age was used almost exclusively in reference to sacred, or, as we should say, consecrated property. I do not think, therefore, that Lin. does full justice to this word when he translates it merely “the region of the air”; as little can I be content with Conz.’s “Hallen.” Droysen preserves the religious association to well-instructed readers, by using the word Hain; but surely temple is better in the present connection and to a modern ear. Lucretius (Lib. I. near the end) has “Coeli tonitralia templa.”

Note 17 (p. 314).

“. . . dance-loving Pan.”

Pan, “the simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring god” (Wordsworth, Exc. IV.), was in the mind of the Athenians intimately associated with the glory of the Persian wars, and regarded as one of their chief patrons at Marathon (Herod. VI. 105). This god was the natural patron of all wild and solitary places, such as are seldom disturbed by any human foot save that of the Arcadian shepherds, whose imagination first produced this half-solemn half-freakish creation; and in this view no place could be more appropriate to him than “the barren and rocky Psyttaleia” (Strabo, 395). That he was actually worshipped there, we have, besides the present passage of our poet, the express testimony of Pausanias (I. 36)—“What are called Panic terrors were ascribed to Pan; for loud noises whose cause could not be easily traced were not unfrequently heard in mountainous regions; and the gloom and loneliness of forests and mountains fill the mind with a secret horror, and dispose it to superstitious apprehensions.”—Keightley.

Note 18 (p. 315).

“. . . slowly with much hard toil.”

The verse in the original—

Θρῄκην περάσαντες μόγις πολλῷ πονῳ

—is remarkable for being divided into two equal halves, in violation of the common cæsuras, the laws of which Porson has pointed out so curiously. Whether there was a special cause for this in the present case—the wish, namely, on the part of the poet to make a harsh line suit a harsh subject, I shall not assert, as the line does not fall particularly harsh on my ear; I have at least done something, by the help of rough consonants and monosyllables, to make my English line come up to the great metrician’s idea of the Greek.

Note 19 (p. 317).

“By the mute sea-monsters riven.”

It needs hardly be mentioned here that the restless state of the dead body in death by drowning, implied, according to the sensuous metaphysics of the vulgar Greeks, an equally restless condition of the soul in Hades. Hence the point of Achilles’ wrath against Lycaon, in Iliad XXI. 122—

“Go, and with the fishes lay thee; they shall lick thy bloody wound

With a greedy unconcern; thy mother shall not weep for thee

There, nor dew thy bier with sorrow; but Scamander’s whirling flood

To the bosom deep shall bear thee of the broad and briny sea.”

And, in the same book, of another victim of the same inexorable wrath it is said—

“To the eels and to the fishes, occupation meet he gave,

As they gnawed his flesh, and nicely picked the fat from off his bones.”

—v. 203.

Note 20 (p. 318).

“Of the pale green olive, ever leafy-fair.”

I think it right so to translate, because such is actually the colour of the olive; but I must state, at the same time, that the word in the original is ξανθῆς, which has been imitated by Virgil, Æn. V. 309. How the same word should mean both yellow and green, I cannot understand. No doubt the light green of many trees, when the leafage first comes out in spring, has a yellowish appearance; but the ever-green olive is always γλαυκός, as Sophocles has it (O. C. 701). What we call olive-coloured is a mixture of green and yellow; does this come from the colour of the fruit or the oil?

Note 21 (p. 318).

“The god Darius.”

The word δαίμονα here used is that by which both Homer and Æschylus designate the highest celestial beings, from which practice we see what an easy transition there was in the minds of the early Christians to the deification of the martyrs, and the canonization of the saints. Compare Æn. V. v. 47. There is nothing in Popery which is not seated in the deepest roots of human nature.

Note 22 (p. 319).

“O Aïdóneus, thy charge release.”

i.e. Pluto. The reader must not be surprised to see Æschylus putting the names of Greek gods and Greek feelings and ideas generally into the mouths of Persian characters. His excuse lies partly in the fact, that these divine powers and human feelings, though in a Greek form, belonged to the universal heart of man, and partly in the extreme nationality of the old Hellenic culture, which was not apt to go abroad with curiously inquiring eyes into the regions of the barbarian. A national poet, moreover, addressing the masses, must beware of being too learned. Shakespere, in his foreign dramas, though less erudite, is much more effective than Southey in his Epics.

Note 23 (p. 319).

“Come, dread lord!”

The word in the original here is βαλὴν, a Phœnician word, the same as Baal and Belus, meaning lord.—See Gesenius, voce Baal. This root appears significantly in some Carthaginian names, as Hannibal, Hasdrubal, etc.

Note 24 (p. 319).

“The disc of thy regal tiara showing.”

This word belongs as characteristically to the ancient kings of the East, in respect of their head-gear, as the triregno or triple crown, in modern language, belongs to the Pope, and the iron crown to the sovereigns of Lombardy. Accordingly we find Virgil giving it to Priam—

“Sceptrumque sacerque tiaras.”—Æneid VII. 247.

See further, Dr. Smith’s Dict. Antiq. in voce tiara, and also φάλαρον, which I translate disc. As for the sandals, the reader will observe that saffron is a colour, like purple, peculiarly regal and luxurious—στολίδα κροκόεσσαν ἀνεῖσα τρυφᾶς.—Eurip. Phœniss. 1491.—Matth.

Note 25 (p. 320).

“Why should’st thou die, and leave the land,

Thou master of the mighty hand?

Why should thy son with foolish venture

Shake thy sure Empire to its centre?”

Here I may say with Buck., “I have given the best sense I can to the text, but nothing is here certain but the uncertainty of the reading.” For a translator, δι ἄνοιαν, proposed by Blom., is convenient enough.

Note 26 (p. 320).

“Triremes no more?”

ναες ἄναες (α)ναες—A phraseology of which we have found many instances, and of which the Greeks are very fond. So in Homer, before the fight between Ulysses and Irus, one of the spectators foreseeing the discomfiture of the latter, says—

Ἠ τάχα ῏Ιρος (α)Ιρος ἐπίσπαστον κακον ἔξει

ὁιην ἐκ ρακέων ὁ γέρων ἐπιγουνίδα φαινει.

“Irus soon shall be no Irus, crushed by such dire weight of woes,

Self-incurred; beneath his tatters what a thigh the old man shows!”

Note 27 (p. 322).

“But when man to run is eager, swift is the god to add a spur.”

This is sound morality and orthodox theology, even at the present hour. Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat. Observe here how high Æschylus rises in moral tone above Herodotus, who, in the style that offends us so much in Homer, represents Xerxes, after yielding to the sensible advice of his father’s counsellor Artabanus, as urged on to his ruin by a god-sent vision thrice repeated (VII. 12-18). The whole expedition, according to the historian, is as much a matter of divine planning as the death of Hector by Athena’s cruel deceit in Iliad XXII. 299. Even Artabanus is carried along by the stream of evil counsel, confessing that δαιμονίη τις γίνεται ὁρμὴ, there is an impulse from the gods in the matter which a man may not resist.—See Grote.

Note 28 (p. 323).

“Converse with the sons of folly taught thy eager son to err.”

The original word for eager here is the same as that translated above impetuous—θούριος, and had a peculiar significancy to a Greek ear, as being that epithet by which Mars is constantly designated in the Iliad; and this god, as the readers of that poem well know, signifies only the wild, unreasoning hurricane power of battle, as distinguished from the calmly-calculated, surely-guided hostility of the wise Athena. With regard to the matter of fact asserted in this line, it is literally true that the son of Darius was not of himself originally much inclined to the Greek expedition (ὲπὶ μεν τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὀυδαμῶς πρόθυμος ᾖν κατ ἀρχὰς στρατέυεσθαι.—Herod. VII. 5), but, like all weaklings in high places, was wrought upon by others; in this case, specially, by his cousin Mardonius, according to the account of Herodotus.—See Grote, Vol. V. p. 4.