NOTES
physiological argument with which to meet their quibble in the trial scene (p. 33, l. 660).
P. 11, l. 229. "Thou hast thy greatness by the Throne of God": i.e. You have a Portion of your own, which you value as we value ours.
P. 12, ll. 235 ff. Orestes has been hunted over the face of the world for years and has at last made his way, bleeding, to Athena's Image in in Athens. The Furies are only a short way behind, tracking him by the blood.
The question has been raised what Image of Athena this is, and whether the scene is on the Acropolis or the Areopagus, or elsewhere. To ask such a question is to press too hard the ideal geography of ancient poetry. The scene is Athens, though sometimes we may have to think of one part of Athens rather than another. Similarly, in the Helena the scene is Egypt, though we are sometimes on the banks of the Nile, sometimes on the sea-shore, sometimes at the Isle of Pharos; so in the Agamemnon the beacon from Troy to Argos starts from Mount Ida. The real Mount Ida was about thirty miles in the wrong direction, but the ideal Ida was simply the mountain of Troy.
P. 14, l. 270. "Parent or guest or god": These are the three classes of persons towards whom primitive man has duties: (1) the gods; (2) the kindred, in which the parents take the chief place; (3) those aliens to whom he had specially bound himself by the tie of hospitality.
P. 14, l. 276. Orestes calls Athena to come to his aid, and explains that his touch does not defile her Image, and that he is at liberty to speak.—The
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