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386
HISTORY OF GREECE.
The Promêtheus of Æschylus is a far more exalted conception than his keen-witted namesake in Hesiod, and the more homely details of the ancient Thêbais and Œdipodia were in like manner modified by Sophoklês.[1] The religious agencies of the old epic are constantly kept prominent, and the paternal curse,—the wrath of deceased persons against those from whom they have sustained wrong,—the judgments of theErinnys against guilty or foredoomed persons, sometimes inflicted directly, sometimes brought about through dementation of the sufferer himself (like the Homeric Atê),—are frequent in their tragedies.[2]
- ↑ See above, chap. xiv. p. 368. on the Legend of the Siege of Thêbes.
- ↑ The curse of Œdipus is the determining force in the Sept. ad Thêb.,
(
Greek characters) (v. 70); it reappears several times in
the course of the drama, with particular solemnity in the mouth of Eteoklês
(695-709, 725, 785, etc.); he yields to it as an irresistible force, as carrying
the family to ruin:
(Greek characters)
So again at the opening of the Agamemnon, the (Greek characters)
(v. 155) and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia are dwelt upon as leaving behind
them an avenging doom upon Agamemnon, though he took precautions for
gagging her mouth during the sacrifice and thus preventing her from giving
utterance to imprecations (Greek characters), v. 346. The Erinnys awaits Agamemnon even at the
moment of his victorious consummation at Troy (467 ; compare 762-990,
1336-1433) : she is most to be dreaded after great good fortune : she enforces
the curse which ancestral crimes have brought upon the house of Atreus—
(Greek characters) (1185-1197, Choeph. 692)—the
curse imprecated by the outraged Thyestês (1601). In the Choephoræ,
Apollo menaces Orestês with the wrath of his deceased father, and all the
direful visitations of the Erinnyes, unless he undertakes to revenge the murder ("271-296). (Greek characters) and (Greek characters) bring on blood for blood (647). But the
moment that Orestes, placed between these conflicting obligations (925), has
achieved it, he becomes himself the victim of the Erinnyes, who drive him
mad even at the end of the Choephoræ ((Greek characters), 1026), and
who make their appearance bodily, and pursue him throughout the third
drama of this fearful trilogy. The Eidolon of Klytæmnêstra impels them to
vengeance (Eumenid. 96) and even spurs them on when they appear to relax.
