Chapter XV: Part 15

Observe here the primitive practice according to which the bridegroom purchased his wife, by rich presents made to the father. In Iliad IX. 288, Agamemnon promises, as a particular favour, to give his daughter in marriage to Achilles ἀνάεδνον, that is, without any consideration in the shape of a marriage gift.

Note 38 (p. 197).

_Enter_ IO. Io is one of those mysterious characters on the borderland between history and fable, concerning which it is difficult to say whether they are to be looked on as personal realities, or as impersonated ideas. According to the historical view of ancient legends, Io is the daughter of Inachus, a primeval king of Argos; and, from this fact as a root, the extravagant legends about her, sprouting from the ever active inoculation of human fancy, branched out. Interpreted by the principles of early theological allegory, however, she is, according to the witness of Suidas, the MOON, and her wanderings the revolutions of that satellite. In either view, the immense extent of these wanderings is well explained by mythological writers (1) from the influence of Argive colonies at Byzantium and elsewhere; and (2) from the vain desire of the Greeks to connect their {398} horned virgin Io, with the horned ISIS of the Egyptians. It need scarcely be remarked that, if Io means the moon, her horns are as naturally explained as her wanderings. But, in reading Æschylus, all these considerations are most wisely left out of view, the Athenians, no doubt, who introduced this play, believing in the historical reality of the Inachian maid, as firmly as we believe in that of Adam or Methuselah. As little can I agree with BOTH. that we are called upon to rationalize away the reality of the persecuting insect, whether under the name of ᾽(ο)ιστρος or μύωψ. In popular legends the sublime is ever apt to be associated with circumstances that either are, or, to the cultivated imagination, necessarily appear to be ridiculous.

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, {399} 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.

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(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 {401} 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 {402} 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 {403} 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

{404}

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, {405} 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 {406} 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 {407} 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 {408} 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.

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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 {410} 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.

{411}

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 {412} 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. {413} 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, {414} 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 {415} 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

{416}

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.

{417}

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).