the deed is done. She is everywhere represented as a strong character, whose hate has been kept alive by constant oppression and the continual presence of her mother's sin, while Orestes comes from abroad, and has not these daily annoyances to chafe his galled spirit.
74. The Clytemnestra of the two plays (Iphigenia in Aulis and Electra) is not quite the same. As the good and anxious mother, coming to her daughter's marriage, she is a stronger and more decided person than she appears in her later life, and were we authorised to hold that the poet meant her for the same character, ingenious reflections might be multiplied upon his art in softening her fierceness under the influence of dark memories and the stings of remorse. But this maturer picture is in the earlier play. It is, however, in itself a masterly sketch, and well-nigh the reverse of Æschylus', perhaps still more of Alfieri's, conception, who represents the guilty queen and her paramour as reaping no happiness from their crime, but growing old in mutual dissension and increasing estrangement. Euripides represents Clytemnestra indeed as still the stronger spirit, and Ægisthus as a mere worthless and vulgar paramour; but though she is ready to argue with the bitter Electra, and justify her crime as a retaliation for her husband's injustices, she submits with patience to fierce reproaches, and expresses sorrow and pity that her daughter should incur harsh treatment on account of her violence.[1] She confesses that her past life is a burden to her conscience, and would if possible so far reconcile Electra with Ægisthus, as to live in peace with both. These softer lines make her punishment more affecting and tragic, though not the less just. She bears, in fact, the strongest family likeness to the queen in Hamlet—not the only stray coincidence between Euripides and Shakspere. But this gentler side of her character is a mere fugitive touch, for it was no part of the Greek legend to represent her
- ↑ Electra, vv. 1102–1110.
