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 ξάνος 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.
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.
The geography here is very confused. I shall content myself with noting the different points from Muller’s map ( Dorians )—
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 ἱερη̂ς 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. πωˆς α̂ν τις ἄλυπος [Editor: illegible character]ιη)—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.
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.
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.
Βουθόρῳ ταύρῳ. I have softened this expression a little; so modern delicacy compels. The original is quite Homeric—“συωˆν 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.
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.
I have translated this difficult passage freely, according to the note of Schutz., 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—
Pot. —
Where the real ground of objection is so darkly indicated, a translator is at liberty to smuggle a sort of commentary into the text.
i.e. Jove the protector of suppliants. See above, Note 1.
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.
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—
and concerning which, Ottfried Muller 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.
“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.
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 [Editor: illegible character]σθ ἢτις άνδρός ἐσθ’ ὲνός.” 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—
Ζεύς κτήσιος —An epithet characteristic of Jove, as the supreme disposer of human affairs. Klausen (Theolog. II. 15) compares the epithet κλαριος from κλη̂ρος, a lot, which I have paraphrased in p. 230 above.
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.
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.
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.
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—
“What thing to mortal men is completed without thee.” And in this sense Clytemnestra, in the Agamemnon (p. 69), prays—
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.
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.
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.
It is difficult to know what δυσχερὲς in the text refers. Pot. refers it to the mind of the maid—
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.
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.
Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaning far or distant (ἔκας). 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.
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.
(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.
“It is very common to represent an eye on each side of the prow of ancient ships”—Do. Do., and woodcuts there from Montfaucon. This custom, Pal. remarks, still continues in the Mediterranean.
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.
(κυανώπιδες.) The reader will call to mind the νη̂ες μέλαιναι, the black ships in Homer.—See Dict. Antiq. voce Ships.
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.
ὄυκ ἔνεστ Ἄρης, a proverbial expression for pithless, nerveless. The same expression is used in the initiatory anapæsts of the Agamemnon. Ἄρης δ ὄυκ [Editor: illegible character]νι χώρᾳ.
“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.
I have retained this phrase scrupulously—ποιμένες ναωˆν—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.
“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.
κρεμὰς. Robertellus: 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 ”
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.
“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.
“ 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
After these words I have missed out a line, of which I can make nothing satisfactory—
A few lines below, for [Editor: illegible character]υν ἐκληρώθη δορὶ, I have followed Pal. in adopting Heath’s ε[Editor: illegible character]νεκ’ ’ηρόθη ο̂ορὶ.
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.
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 Cyprean goddess preferring the love of a husband to the command of a father.
“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.
ϕυγάδεσσιν δ [Editor: illegible character]πιπλόιας. Haupt adopted by Pal. An excellent conjecture.
Eurip Phœnissae. Prolog, and Argument to the same from the Cod. Guelpherbyt. in Matthiae
πρωˆτος ’εν ’ανθρώποις τὴν ἀῤῥενοϕθορίαν ἑυρων —Compare Romans i. 27.
Μὴ σπε̂ίρε τέκνων ἅλοκα δαιμόνων βίᾳ, κ τ λ.—[Editor: illegible character] Phœnis. 19
ὀιδέω to swell, and πονˆς a foot; literally swell-foot. Welcker remarks that there is a peculiar significancy in the appellations connected with this legend; even Λάιος being connected with λαικάζω, λαιδκαπρος, and other similar words—( Trilog. p. 355)—but this is dangerous ground
The σχιστή ὸδος.—See Wordsworth’s Greece, p 21.
It is particularly mentioned in the oldest form of the legend, that he considered his sons had not sent him his due share of the flesh offered in the family sacrifice—Scholiast Soph. O C 1375 This is alluded to in the fifth antistrophe of the third great choral chaunt of this play, v 768. Well See my Note
The subject of “The Eleusinians” was the burial of the dead bodies of the chiefs who had fallen before Thebes, through the mediation of Theseus.—See Plutarch, Life of that hero, c 29
See Welcker’s Triologie, p 359, etc
Classical Museum, No XXV. p 312.
See Palky’s Note.
See Introductory Remarks.
See Note 35 to the Suppliants, p 235 above.
Chance (Τύχη), it must be recollected, was a divine power among the ancients.
See Note 60 to the Choephoræ.
The name Parthenopaus, from παρθένος, a virgin, and ὤψ, the countenance.
See Note 60 to Agamemnon.
See Note 73 to the Choephoræ.
See Papk in voce αλϕηστής.
Maritime similes are very common in Æschylus, and specially this.—Compare Agamemnon, p. 70, Strophe II
Another pun on Polynicks, see above, p 278.
i.e. Raging flood, Thyad, from θύω, to rage
See Note 67 to Agamemnon
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.
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.
“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 [Editor: illegible character]σι—mentioned so expressly, if not to make some contrast to the common method of divining by the eye?
With Mars in Homer (II IV. 440) are coupled Φόβος and Δε̂ιμος, Fear and Terror, as in this passage of Æschylus, and Ἔρις, Strife.
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 —
In our language, we have naturalized her Roman counterpart Bellona.
“Because it had been predicted that Adrastus alone should survive the war.”— Scholiast.
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.
πεδιοπλόκτυπος. Before this word, another epithet ελεδεμνας occurs, which the intelligent scholar will readily excuse me for having omitted altogether.
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 Phænissæ, 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.
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—
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Harmonia, whom Cadmus married, was the daughter of Mars and Aphrodite.”— Scholiast.
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).
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
The current traditional epithet of Thebes, whose seven gates were as famous as the seven mouths of the Nile—
And Homer, in the Odyssey XI. 263, talks of—
These may suffice from a whole host of citations in Unger. Vol. I. p. 254-6, and Pausan IX. 8. 3
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 ετερόϕωνος is only paullo gravius dictum ad miserationem —that is, only a little tragic exaggeration for hostile or foreign.
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.
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.”
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—
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.”
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.
“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 Ilaid V. From the frequency of the words βοα̂ν, 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.
“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.
A Scottish knight, in an old ballad, has these warlike bells on his horse’s mane—
And one of Southey’s Mexican heroes has them on his helmet—
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 σπαρτὁι, or the Sown. See Stan.’s note.
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
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—
So called from Neis, a son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion. Pausan. IX. 8; Unger. p 313.
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—
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 διαδρομα̂ν ο̂μαίμονες, 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.
The old Argolic shield, round as the sun—
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.
[Editor: illegible character]νθεος 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—[Editor: illegible character]χει δαιμὁνιον— 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.
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.
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.
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.
“When this tragedy was first acted, Aristides, surnamed the Just, was present. At the declamation of these words—
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.
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.
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.
λέγουσα [Editor: illegible character]έρδος 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 Schutz, and E. P. Oxon., on my side, also the simple comment of Scholiast II.—κερδο̂ς, i.e. τὸ ννˆν τεθνα̂ναι 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.—
Pot. has not grappled with the passage. If Lin.’s interpretation be preferred, I should render—
or—
It will be observed that if πρότερον be taken in the sense of τιμιώτερον, with the Scholiast, and το ννˆν τεθναναι understood to κέρδος, Wellauer’s objection falls that μαλλον or μειζον must be understood to render the rendering in my text admissible.
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 ὁυ θεοɩ̂ς δμοιοι— nothing like the gods.
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.
I read ἐπίκοτος τροϕα̂ς 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.
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.
I see no sufficient case made out for giving these words from τοια̂υτα 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.
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.
The word μοɩ̂ρα 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 μοɩ̂ρα 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,
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.
θάπτειν [Editor: illegible character]δοξε γη̂ς ϕιλαις κατασκαϕαɩ̂ς. 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 σωˆμα 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.”
I have here, by a paraphrase, endeavoured to express the remarkably pregnant expression of the original κη̂ρες Εριννύες—combining, as it does, in grammatical apposition, two terrible divine powers, that the ancient poets generally keep separate. The κη̂ρες, 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 play of Phrynichus, which celebrated the defeat of Xerxes, was called Phænissæ, from the Phœnician virgins who composed the chorus How far Æschylus may have borrowed from this work is now impossible to know Nothing certainly can be gained by pressing curiously the word παραπεποιη̂σθαι in the mouth of an old grammarian.
Chœrilus was a Samian, contemporary of Herodotus, but younger. His poem, entitled περσικά, included the expedition of Darius as well as that of Xerxes
By the praiseworthy exertions of Mr. Bohn, the English reader is now supplied with translations of this, and other Classical writers, at a very cheap rate.
Vol V p 191. Thirlwall had defended the statement of Æschylus.
Herodotus VII. 1-4.
Trilogie, p 470, Ariadne, p. 81
These plays were Phineus, the Persians, Glaucus, and Prometheus The last was a satiric piece, having no connection with the Prometheus Bound, or the trilogy to which it belonged.
See Linwood — voce βαυζω.
“The people of Susa are also called Cissians”— Strabo, p. 728.
See p 172, Note
“They who dwell in the marshes are the most warlike of the Egyptians.”—Thucyd. I. 110 Abresch
“Tmolus, a hill overhanging Sardes, from which the famous golden flooded Pactolus flows”— Strabo, p 625. “Called sacred from Bacchus worshipped there.”—Eurip. Bacch. 65 Pal
The Hellespont; so called from Helle, the daughter of Athamas, a character famous in the Argonautic legend
“They who are called by the Greeks Syrians, are called Assyrians by the Bar barians”— Herodot. VII. 63.
The bridge of boats built by Xerxes. The original ἀμϕίζευκτον αλιον πρωˆνα ἀμϕοτέρας κοινὸν ἄιας seems intelligible no other way So Blom, Pal., and Buck., and Linw. —Compare Note 34 to the Eumenides.
See Note 63 to the Choephoræ.
Attica.
θυμόμαντις.—See Note 67 to Agamemnon.
The mines of Laurium, near the Sunian promontory. On their importance to the Athenians during this great struggle with Persia, see Grote, V. p 71.
ὲπι σκηπτουχίᾳ ταχθεὶς. So the σκηπτουχοι βασιλεɩ̂ς of Homer.
Part of the shore of Salamis, called τροπάια ἄκρα.— Schol.
σκληρα̂ς μέτοικος γη̂ς: inest amara ironia.— Blom.
αλάστωρ.
ἐπέϕλεγεν.
The captain of this ship was Ameinias, brother of Æschylus.—See Grote, V. 178.
A bold expression, but used also by Euripides.—νυκτὸς ὄμμα λυγάιας—(Iphig. Taur., 110) To Polytheists such terms were the most natural things in language.
“As soon as the Persian fleet was put to flight, Aristides arrived with some Grecian hoplites at the island of Psyttaleia, overpowered the enemy, and put them to death to a man”— Grote
“Having caused the land force to be drawn up along the shore opposite to Salamis, Xerxes had erected for himself a lofty seat or throne upon one of the projecting declivities of Mount Aegaleos, near the Heracleion, immediately overhanging the sea.”— Grote
θεὸς indefinitely; a common way of talking in Homer.
Facilis descensus Averni, etc.— Virgil, Æneid VI.
[Editor: illegible character]βρις—See Note 61 to Agamemnon, and Note 41 Eumenides.
Salamis in Cyprus, from which the Grecian Salamis was a colony.
See p 172, and compare p 271
See Note 63 to the Choephoræ.
See Ezra ix. 3.
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.
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)—
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 sav 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—
where see the note.
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.
The μάχαιρα here is the acinaces, or short scimitar, of which the fashion may be seen in the Dict. Antiq. under that word.
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.
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.
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.
This purification, as Stan. has noted, was customary among the ancients, after an ill-omened dream. He quotes Aristophanes, Ran. 1338.
and other passages.
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—
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.
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.
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.
I do not think there can be any doubt as to the meaning of the original here, πλαγκτοɩ̂ς ε̂ν 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 sturmend umher sie die Planken! ”
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.
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.
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.
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 tempte is better in the present connection and to a modern ear. Lucretius (Lib. I. near the end) has “ Coeli tonitralia templa. ”
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.”— Keightlev.
The verse in the original—
—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.
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—
And, in the same book, of another victim of the same inexorable wrath it is said—
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 ξανθη̂ς, 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?
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.
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.
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.
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—
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 ἀνεɩ̂σα τρυϕα̂ς.—Eurip. Phæniss. 1491.— Matth.
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.
ναες ἄναες [Editor: illegible character]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—
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.
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 ὀυο̂αμωˆς πρόθυμος [Editor: illegible character]ν 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.
Two peculiarities in this enumeration of the early Persian kings will strike the reader. First, Two of the Median kings— Astyages and Cyaxares, according to the common account, are named before Cyrus the Great, who, as being the first native Persian sovereign, is commonly regarded as the founder of the later Persian empire. Second, Between Mardus (commonly called Smerdis ), and Darius, the father of Xerxes, two intermediate names—contrary to common account—are introduced. I do not believe our historical materials are such as entitle us curiously to scrutinize these matters.
The Maryandini were a Bithynian people, near the Greek city of Heraclea, Xenoph. Anab. vi. 2; Strabo xii. p. 542. The peasants in that quarter were famous for singing a rustic wail, which is alluded to in the text. See Pollux, Lib. iv. περὶ [Editor: illegible character]σμάτων ἐθνικωˆν. The Mysians mentioned, p. 331, below, were their next door neighbours; and the Phrygians generally, who in a large sense include the Mysians and Bithynians, were famous for their violent and passionate music, displayed principally in the worship of Cybele. So the Phrygian in Euripides (Orest. 1384) is introduced wailing ἁρμάτειον μέλος βαρβαρῳ βοᾳ. The critics who have considered this last scene of the cantata ridiculous, have not attended either to human nature or to the customs of the Persians, as Stan. quotes them from Herod. ix. 24, and Curtius iii. 12.
Leader of the Chorus. I have here adopted Lin.’s view, that the Leader of the Chorus here addresses the whole body; and, for the sake of symmetry, have repeated the couplet in the Antistrophe. No violence is thus done to the meaning of ἐκπεύθου. Another way is, with Pal., to put the line into the mouth of Xerxes—“ Cry out and ask me! ”
I have carefully retained the original phraseology here, as being characteristic of the Greek tragedians, perhaps of the maritime propensities of the Athenians. See in Seven against Thebes, p. 286 above, and Chœophoræ, p. 112, Strophe VII. Euripides, in Iphig. Aul. 131, applies the same verb to the lower extremities, making Agamemnon say to his old servant ερέσσον σὸν πόδα—as if one of our jolly tars should say in his pleasant slang, “ Come along, my boy, put the oars to your old hull, and move off! ”
I should be most happy for the sake of Æschylus, and my translation, to think there was nothing in the ἁβροβάται of this passage but the natural expression of grief so simply given in the scriptural narrative, 1 Kings xxi. 27; and in that stanza of one of Mr. Tennyson’s most beautiful poems—
But there is more in ἁβρός than mere gentleness, and to the Greek ear it would no doubt speak of the general luxuriance and effeminacy of the Persian manners. To put such an allusion into the mouth of Xerxes on the present occasion is no doubt in the worst possible taste; but the Greeks were too intensely national in their feelings to take a curious account of such matters.