Introduction to Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

The story of Orestes the avenger was complete in every essential particular before it came to the earliest of those three Attic dramatists, each of whom has stamped it so strongly with the impress of his own mind.

In the Iliad there is no hint that the house of Pelops lay The legend in Homer. under a curse which entailed a series of crimes. The sceptre made by Hephaestus for Zeus, and brought by Hermes to Pelops, is peacefully inherited by Atreus, Thyestes and Agamemnon Il. 2. 100 ff. . Yet the Iliad makes at least one contribution to the material which Aeschylus found ready to his hand. It is the figure of Agamemnon himself, with eyes and head like those of Zeus, in girth like Ares, in breast like Poseidon ib. 478 f. ; ‘clad in flashing bronze, all glorious, and pre-eminent amid all ib. 578 f. .’ As Helen stands with Priam on the walls of Troy, and watches the Achaean warriors moving on the battle-field, he asks who this one may be:—‘There are others even taller by a head; but never did I behold a man so comely or so majestic (γεραρόν); he is like unto one that is a king Il. 3. 168 ff. .’ This is the royal Agamemnon, ὁ παντόσεμνος Aesch. Eum. 637. , who lives in the Aeschylean drama, and whose image reappears in later poetry. For the rest, the Iliad gives us just one far-off glimpse of the king's home beyond the Aegaean, where Orestes is a child in the fortress-palace at Mycenae, with three sisters, Chrysothemis, Laodicè, and Iphianassa Il. 9. 142 ff. ; children of that Clytaemnestra to whom, in the opinion of her lord at Troy, the damsel Chryseïs was ‘in no wise inferior, in beauty or in stature, in wit or in skill Il. 1. 113 ff..’

The Odyssey tells the story as follows. Agamemnon, before going to Troy, charged a certain minstrel (ἀοιδός) to watch over εἴρυσθαι ἄκοιτιν, Od. 3. 268.Nothing could better illustrate the social consideration enjoyed by the Homeric ἀοιδός, or the reverence felt for his office. Athenaeus (p. 14 B) conceives this guardian minstrel of Clytaemnestra as a sort of cultivated domestic chaplain, whose function was not merely to keep her mind agreeably occupied, but also to edify her with examples of female excellence (ἀρετὰς γυναικῶν διερχόμενος). Clytaemnestra at Mycenae. The precaution implies a sense of possible danger, but not necessarily distrust of Clytaemnestra. Presently a tempter came to the lonely wife in the person of her husband's first-cousin, Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, who, while his kinsmen were fighting at Troy, dwelt ‘at peace, in the heart of Argos Od. 3. 263. .’ For some time Clytaemnestra ‘refused the shameful deed; for she had a good understanding ib. 265 f. ἡ δ’ ἦ τοι τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀναίνετο ἔργον ἀεικές, | δῖα Κλυταιμνήστρη· φρεσὶ γὰρ κέχρητ’ ἀγαθῇσι. .’ Meanwhile the gods themselves, by their messenger Hermes, warned Aegisthus against the course of crime upon which he was entering. But Hermes spoke in vain Od. 1. 35—43.. Aegisthus removed the minstrel to a desert island, and there left him, a prey to dogs and birds. He then took the ‘willing’ Clytaemnestra to his home; while he sought to propitiate the gods by burnt-offerings on their altars, and by hanging up in their temples ‘many gifts of embroidery and gold Od. 3. 269 ff..’

Agamemnon, after a stormy voyage from Troy, landed on the coast of Argolis at a point not far from the dwelling of Aegisthus; who, apprised by a watcher, came in his chariot, and invited the king to a banquet; after which he slew him, ‘as a man slays an ox at the manger Od. 4. 514—535..’

In this narrative (given by Menelaüs to Telemachus) Clytaemnestra is not even named; though Menelaüs had previously spoken of her ‘guile’ as aiding the crime Od. 4. 92(Aegisthus slays Agamemnon) λάθρῃ, ἀνωιστί, δόλῳ οὐλομένης ἀλόχοιο.. It is only in a part of the Odyssey which is of later origin than the ‘Telemachy’ in books I—IV,—viz., the Νέκυια in the eleventh book,—that Clytaemnestra appears as actively sharing in the horrors of the banquet, where she slays Cassandra with her own hand. And, even there, it is by the sword of Aegisthus alone that Agamemnon is slain Od. 11. 404—434 (the shade of Agamemnon tells the story to Odysseus)..

The young Orestes fled, or was conveyed, to Athens. For seven years Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra reigned at Mycenae. In the eighth, Orestes returned, and slew Aegisthus Od. 3. 304—308. Orestes returns ἂψ ἀπ’ Ἀθηνάων (v. 307). Zenodotus wished to reconcile the Odyssey with the later account by writing ἂψ ἀπὸ Φωκήων.. Clytaemnestra died at the same time, but how, we are not told; and Orestes ‘made a funeral feast,’ for both of them, ‘to the Argives ib. 309 f. ἦ τοι ὁ τὸν κτείνας δαίνυ τάφον Ἀργείοισι | μητρός τε στυγερῆς καὶ ἀνάλκιδος Αἰγίσθοιο. According to the scholia in several MSS. (M, Q, R, T) these two verses were absent from some of the ancient ἐκδόσεις. But Aristarchus, at any rate must have thought them genuine, since he remarked (as we learn from the same source) ὅτι διὰ τούτων παρυποφαίνεται ὅτι συναπώλετο Αἰγίσθῳ ἡ Κλυταιμνήστρα, τὸ δὲ εἰ καὶ ὑπὸ Ὀρέστον, ἄδηλον εἶναι. The fact that the funeral feast was given ‘to the Argives’ implies that they welcomed Orestes as a deliverer, and also that (whatever had been the manner of his mother's death) they did not regard him as resting under any defilement which incapacitated him for religious acts..’

Two points distinguish this Homeric legend from later versions. First, Aegisthus is the principal criminalThe conception of the murder (no less than the execution) is always attributed to him in the Odyssey (3. 194 Αἴγισθος ἐμήσατο: 4. 529 Αἴγ. δολίην ἐφράσσατο τέχνην: 11. 409 Αἴγ. τεύξας θάνατόν τε μόρον τε).. Clytaemnestra's part is altogether subordinate to that of her paramour. Secondly, the vengeance of Orestes is regarded as a simple act of retributive justice. It is not said that he slew his mother; the conjecture is left open that she may have died by her own hand. Nothing comes into the Epic view which can throw a shadow upon the merit of the avenger. The goddess Athena herself exhorts Telemachus to emulate the example and the renown of Orestes Od. 1. 298 ff. Cp. Nestor's comments on the good deed of Orestes, in his speech to Telemachus, Od. 3. 196 f. ὡς ἀγαθὸν καὶ παῖδα καταφθιμένοιο λιπέσθαι | ἀνδρός, κ.τ.λ. .

The influence of the Delphic priesthood rose and spread with the power of the Dorians. It did so, not merely because that power was an apt instrument for its propagation, but also because in Hellas at large the time was favourable. The religion of Apollo, as his Pythian interpreters set it forth, was suited to an age which had begun to reflect, but which retained a vivid faith in the older mythology. Here we are concerned with only one aspect of the Apolline cult, that which relates to blood-guiltiness. The Homeric man who has killed another may either pay a fine to the kinsfolk, or go into exileIn Il. 9. 632—636 the payment of the fine is indicated as the ordinary course, though Il. 24. 480 f. suffices to show that cases of exile were also frequent. In Homeric society the blood-feud is in process of being extirpated by these compromises; and, further, there is already a moral pressure of public opinion on the kinsmen of the slain man to accept the payment of the fine when tendered. See Mr Leaf's paper in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. VIII. pp. 122—132.; but in Homer there is no idea that he can be purified by a ritual. In other words, there is the notion of a debt in this respect, but hardly of a sin; of quittance, but not of absolution. It was a somewhat later stage when men began more distinctly to recognise that in cases of homicide there are kinds and degrees of moral guilt which cannot be expressed in the terms of human debtor and creditor. Clearly a man ought to do what the gods command. But what if a god tells a man to do something which most men think wrong? If the man obeys, and if his conduct is to be judged aright, the tribunal, like the instigation, must be divine. Nor is this so only when the opinion offended is that of men. A god may command a mortal to do an act by which some other god, or supernatural being, will be incensed. Suppose, for instance, that a man receives a divine mandate to slay a guilty kinsman; if he obeys, nothing can save him from angering the Erinyes, who resent every injury to kinsfolk.

For questions such as these the Pythian creed provided Purification from bloodguilt. an answer, or at least a mystic compromise. Apollo, the god of light, is the all-seeing arbiter of purity. A man who commits homicide displeases Apollo, who abhors every stain of blood. But Apollo can estimate the degree of guilt. And he has empowered his servants to administer rites by which, under certain conditions, a defiled person may be freed from the stain. In later days the critics of Apollo could object that he had encouraged crime by thus far alleviating its consequences. But in the age when the doctrine was first put forth, it must have been, on the whole, beneficent. It tempered the fear of capricious or vindictive deities by trust in a god who, as his priests taught, never swerved from equity, and who was always capable of clemency. At the same time it laid the unabsolved offender under a ban worse than mere out lawry, for it cut him off from the worship of the temple and of the hearth, and, indeed, from all intercourse with god-fearing men. It made his hope depend on submission to a religion representing the highest spiritual influence which ever became widely operative among the people of pagan Hellas.

The ritual of Apollo the Purifier had already a place in the Cyclic epic called the Aethiopis The Aethiopis took up the war of Troy where the Iliad left off. It included the death of Achilles; also the contest for his arms between Ajax and Odysseus., said to have been composed by Arctînus of Miletus, about 776 B.C. More than a century elapsed after that date before Lyric poetry was matured; and meanwhile the worship of the Pythian Apollo, with its ritual of purification from blood, was diffused throughout the Greek world. It was to be expected, therefore, that, when the story of Orestes began to receive lyric treatment, the influence of Delphi should be apparent. If, in avenging his father, Orestes killed Clytaemnestra as well as Aegisthus, the Pythian priesthood had a text than which they could desire none more impressive. For, according to the immemorial and general belief of Hellenes, Orestes did well to avenge Agamemnon. If, however, he slew his mother, the Erinyes were necessarily called into activity. Who, then, was to vindicate the avenger? Who was to assert, even against the Erinyes, that his deed was righteous? Who but Apollo, the supreme judge of purity? And then it was only another step to represent Apollo himself as having prescribed the vengeance. A Greek vase-paintingOn an amphora found in South Italy (Lucania), and now in the Naples Museum. It is reproduced by Baumeister, p. 1110 (from Rochette, Mon. inéd., pl. 37), and by Michaelis in Jahn's Electra, p. 37 (cp. ib. p. vii). portrays him in the act of doing so. The scene is in the temple at Delphi. Apollo, laurel-crowned, is sitting on the omphalos; in his left hand is a lyre; with the stem of a laurel-branch, held in his right, he is touching the sheathed sword of Orestes, who stands in a reverent attitude before him; he thus consecrates it to the work of retribution. Behind Apollo, the Pythia sits upon the tripod, holding a diadem for the brows of Orestes, when he shall have done the deedCp. Eur. El. 872, where Electra greets Orestes after his slaying of Aegisthus:— στέψω τ’ ἀδελφοῦ κρᾶτα τοῦ νικηφόρου.; and near her is Pylades.

A red-figured Attic vaseFound at Cervetri (Caere), and now in the Museum at Vienna: published in Monumenti dell' Inst., vol. VIII. pl. xv, and described by Benndorf, Annal. dell' Inst. (1865) pp. 212—216. Reproduced in O. Jahn's Electra, p. 175 (cp. the note by Michaelis, ib. p. vii). The vase has been designated as a πελίκη., belonging to the first half of Evidence from art. the fifth century B.C., depicts a scene which does not come from any extant literary source. Orestes, wearing a cuirass, has plunged his sword into the breast of Aegisthus, who is falling from his seat,—the throne that once was Agamemnon's. Meanwhile, something has startled Orestes; his face is turned away from Aegisthus; he glances over his right shoulder at a woman who hurries up behind him. This is Clytaemnestra, as an inscription certifies. She grasps the handle of an axe with both hands; she is coming to the rescue of Aegisthus. But an old man, wearing the conical hat of a herald, has overtaken her; his left hand grasps her right arm, his right, the axe; her purpose is baffled. Between her and Orestes stands a maiden whose uplifted hands express horror; this (as the artist informs us) is Chrysothemis. Vase A (as we shall call this one) must next be compared with vase B,—another red-figured Attic vaseA stamnos found on the site of Volci in Etruria, and now in the Berlin Museum (no. 1007). Published by Gerhard, Etrusk. und Campanische Vasenbilder, pl. xxiv. It may be seen in Baumeister's Denkmäler, p. 1113; and in Jahn's Electra, p. 148. of the fifth century, but of later date than the other. The subject on B is fundamentally the same as on A, but it is curiously abridged, or rather mutilated. Orestes—who here is in full armour, with helmet and greaves as well as cuirass—has dealt the mortal wound to Aegisthus, and is looking straight at him. Clytaemnestra, furiously brandishing her axe, is close behind Orestes,—so close, that nothing can now save him from her blow. Electra (the name is inscribed) stands behind the dying Aegisthus; her outstretched right hand points at Clytaemnestra, her left is raised to the back of her head with a gesture of bewilderment and terror; evidently she is uttering a cry of warning to Orestes. The painter of B was led by considerations of style or convenience to omit a vital feature of A,—viz., the old man who stops Clytaemnestra at the critical moment.

Now A and B belong, as Robert shows, to a small group of vases which must have had a common archetype; and while A has preserved the meaning of the whole scene more truly than B, the latter has preserved some details which A has lost. The scene represented by the archetype was probably as follows:—Orestes, in full armour, slays Aegisthus, who falls from his throne; Clytaemnestra rushes up behind Orestes, with an axe; Electra, standing at the back of Aegisthus, cries out to warn her brother; but already the aged herald has seized Clytaemnestra, and defeated her intent. Who is this old man, the herald, who interposes so opportunely? He appears along with Orestes in another work of art, earlier than these vases,—viz., a marble relief, in the developed archaic style, found at MelosPublished by Conze in Monum. dell' Instit. vol. VI. pl. 57. Reproduced in Roscher's Lexikon der gr. und rom. Mythologie, art. Elektra, p. 1238.. The scene there is as follows:—Electra sits in deep dejection at her father's tomb; the aged Nurse stands behind her. Three travellers have just arrived together; the foremost is the old man with the herald's hat and stave, who is accosting the Nurse; behind him a youth of noble mien (Orestes) stands beside a horse, his left hand resting on its back; a third person (Pylades, or a servant?) follows. The question is answered when it is observed that, according to a widelyspread legend, the person who saved Orestes from the murderers, by carrying him away from Mycenae, was Talthybius, the faithful herald of AgamemnonNicolaüs Damascenus (flor. circ. 20 B.C.) fr. 34 (Müller, Frag. Hist. vol. III. p. 374) τοῦτον δὲ (Orestes) ἐρρύσατο Ταλθύβιος ἐξαρπάσας, καὶ ἐκθέμενος εἰς τὴν Φωκίδα παρὰ Στρόφιον. The legend appears also in the so-called ‘Dictys Cretensis,’ bk. 6, c. 2, Talthybius Oresten Agamemnonis filium manibus Aegisthi ereptum Idomeneo, qui apud Corinthum agebat, tradidit. This work, written probably in the fourth cent. A. D. by one Septimius, purports to be translated from a history of the Trojan war by a Cretan contemporary with that war, named Dictys. See Teuffel, Hist. Rom. Lit., vol. II. § 416.. Talthybius is here returning to Mycenae with the rightful heir, and preparing the way for the recognition by speaking to the old Nurse, who will remember him. He is the original of the Paedagogus in the Electra of Sophocles, and of the Old Man (πρέσβυς) in the Electra of Euripides; he also accounts for the prominence given to the herald in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus.

The scene described above, in which Talthybius once Literary evidence. more saves Orestes by foiling the armed Clytaemnestra, must have been taken from some familiar literary source. It was essential for a vase-painter's purpose that his version of a story should be popularly known. What, then, was this source? Certainly not Aeschylus. Vase A is assigned on grounds of style to an earlier date than 458 B.C., the year of the Aeschylean Oresteia Robert, Bild und Lied, p. 160.. But, even apart from this fact, it is evident that the scene has not been suggested by anything in the Choephori. Clytaemnestra there calls, indeed, for an axe, when she hears that Orestes has slain Aegisthus (v. 889):

δοίη τις ἀνδροκμῆτα πέλεκυν ὡς τάχος· εἰδῶμεν ἢ νικῶμεν ἢ νικώμεθα.

But there is no time for her to obtain the weapon; at that moment Orestes confronts her. Her futile cry rather indicates that Aeschylus had in mind some earlier version which actually armed her with an axe at a similar crisis. And in Sophocles, too, we find that the axe is prominent. The murder of Agamemnon by the guilty pair is thus described (v. 99): σχίζουσι κάρα φονίῳ πελέκει. Still more significant is the passage in which Sophocles describes the axe itself as resenting the deed of which it was made the instrument (482 ff.):—

οὐ γάρ ποτ’ ἀμναστεῖ γ’ ὁ φύσας σ’ Ἑλλάνων ἄναξ, οὐδ’ ἁ παλαιὰ χαλκόπλακτος ἀμφάκης γένυς, ἅ νιν κατέπεφνεν αἰσχίσταις ἐν αἰκίαις.

Some Roman sarcophagi Robert, Bild und Lied, p. 177, n. 23. One of these sarcophagi, that in the Museo Pio-Clementino in the Vatican, is reproduced (from Visconti, Mus. Pio-Clem. v. 22) in Baumeister's Denkmäler, p. 1115. The three sleeping Erinyes, with the axe, occupy the left part of a relief of which the centre represents the slaying of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus. Michaelis (Arch. Zeit. 1875, p. 107) was the first to point out that these Erinyes form a separate scene., on which the story of Orestes is treated, show three Erinyes sleeping at the tomb of Agamemnon. Among them lies the axe of Clytaemnestra,—a symbol, as with Sophocles, of the crime which calls for vengeance.

The Oresteia of Stesichorus was popular at Athens in the fifth century B.C. There is a striking proof of this. Aristophanes, in the Peace(775 ff.), has adopted some verses from the beginning of that Oresteia The scholiast on Ar. Pax 775 and 800 informs us that the quotations are from Stesichorus, and in 797 refers to the Ὀρέστεια. They are fragments 31—34 in Bergk., without naming Stesichorus. He could reckon on his playful allusion to so famous a poem being at once recognised by an Athenian audience. Between the Odyssey and Aeschylus, no other handling of the subject seems to have rivalled the work of Stesichorus in celebrity. In the epic Nostoi, where the deed of Orestes was only one of many episodes, it would be treated, one may suppose, on a relatively small scale.

Now it is known that Stesichorus made Clytaemnestra kill her husband by wounds on the head,—probably, therefore, with the axe, as Sophocles describes in the passages quoted above. This appears from the nature of the dream which terrified the Clytaemnestra of Stesichorus just before the retribution. A serpent approached her with gore upon its head, and then changed into Agamemnon:—

τᾷ δὲ δράκων ἐδόκησε μολεῖν κάρα βεβροτωμένος ἄκρον· ἐκ δ’ ἄρα τοῦ βασιλεὺς Πλεισθενίδας ἐφάνη Frag. 42 (ed. Bergk), preserved by De sera Numinis vindicta, c. 10. Robert (Bild u. Lied, p. 171) thinks that these two verses give only the first part of the dream as imagined by Stesichorus, and that the rest may be inferred from Aeschylus. When the serpent changed into Agamemnon, the offspring of his renewed union with Clytaemnestra was the serpent who, as she dreams in the Choephori, drew blood in sucking her breast. It has struck me that the missing link between the Stesichorean and the Aeschylean dream—viz., the renewed conjugal union—may be traced, as a reminiscence, in the language of Sophocles, where Chrysothemis describes her mother's vision (417 f.):— λόγος τις αὐτήν ἐστιν εἰσιδεῖν πατρὸς | τοῦ σοῦ τε κἀμοῦ δευτέραν ὁμιλίαν | ἐλθόντος εἰς φῶς..

Such a dream would necessarily (according to Greek ideas) act upon her mind in the manner described by the Attic dramatists. In the Oresteia of Stesichorus, just as in the Choephori and in the Sophoclean Electra, the guilty and terrified woman must have sent propitiatory offerings to the grave of her murdered husband. But, like the dramatists again, the lyric poet would make her send them by the hands of some one else; even her hardihood could not dispense with an intermediary in this case. Whom did Stesichorus choose as her emissary? It is a notable fact that Electra, who is unknown to Homer, First mention of Electra. appears in the fifth century B.C. as a central personage of the story. And it seems that Aeschylus was not the first poet who had spoken of her. The earliest writer recorded as mentioning her is a lyric poet named Xanthus, who said that her original name was Laodicè, and that she was called Electra because she was so long unmarried (ἄλεκτρος); an etymology which points to a Dorian source (Ἀλέκτρα)Aelian Var. Hist. 4. 26 Ξάνθος ὁ ποιητὴς τῶν μελῶν, ἐγένετο γὰρ οὖτος πρεσβύτερος Στησιχόρου τοῦ Ἱμεραίου, λέγει τὴν Ἠλέκτραν τοῦ Ἀγαμέμνονος οὐ τοῦτο ἔχειν τοὔνομα πρῶτον, ἀλλὰ Λαοδίκην. ἐπεὶ γὰρ Ἀγαμέμνων ἀνῃρέθη, τὴν γὰρ Κλυταιμνήστραν ὁ Αἴγισθος ἔγημε καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν, ἄλεκτρον οὖσαν καὶ καταγηρῶσαν παρθένον Ἀργεῖοι Ἠλέκτραν ἐκάλεσαν διὰ τὸ ἀμοιρεῖν ἀνδρὸς καὶ μὴ πεπειρᾶσθαι λέκτρου.. StesiXanthus.chorus, we are told, mentioned Xanthus as a lyric predecessor, and adapted much from him. The Oresteia is especially named as a work in which Stesichorus was thus indebted to XanthusAthen. 12. p. 513 A (quoting from Megacleides, who wrote περὶ Ὁμήρου, and was, as some think, a peripatetic): καὶ Ξάνθος δ’ ὁ μελοποιός, πρεσβύτερος ὢν Στησιχόρου, ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Στησίχορος μαρτυρεῖ, ὥς φησιν ὁ Μεγακλείδης, οὐ ταύτην αὐτῷ (Heracles) περιτίθησι τὴν στολήν, ἀλλὰ τὴν Ὁμηρικήν, πολλὰ δὲ τῶν Ξάνθου παραπεποίηκεν ὁ Στησίχορος, ὥσπερ καὶ τὴν Ὀρεστείαν καλουμένην. The meaning of παραπεποίηκεν seems to be ‘adapted.’ It certainly need not mean ‘spoiled in copying,’ as Schweighäuser takes it (‘dum mutuatus est, mutavit et corrupit’). Robert, Bild und Lied, p. 174 f. thinks that Megacleides was the source of Aelian also (see last note), and thus is our sole authority for the existence of this Xanthus. That Stesichorus mentioned some one named Xanthus cannot be doubted; but whether his debt to an earlier lyric poet of that name was such as Megacleides affirms, is (the critic thinks) very questionable. It is certainly strange that, if Xanthus was so important a source to Stesichorus, absolutely nothing should have come down to us concerning him, beyond the two meagre notices above quoted.. How far, and in what sense, that statement is true, cannot now be known; but it is at least certain that Xanthus remained wholly obscure, while Stesichorus was widely popular. The introduction of Electra may be one of the points in which the Stesichorean Oresteia was indebted to Xanthus: and the fact of her figuring in that poem would fully explain her later prominence. Let us suppose, then, that Stesichorus, like Aeschylus, sent Electra with Clytaemnestra's offerings to Agamemnon's tomb. Orestes, on his return, would hasten to make his offerings there—as is assumed by all the three Attic dramatists. At the tomb the brother and sister would meet and recognise each other, as they do in Aeschylus. We know that Stesichorus brought in the nurse, whom he called LaodameiaSchol. on Aesch. Cho. 733. . Pindar makes a nurse save Orestes from the hands of Clytaemnestra, but he does not say that she carried him out of Argolis Pyth. 11. 17.. The Laodameia of Stesichorus may have done likewise—giving Orestes to the trusty Talthybius, who carried him forth, and in due time came back with himThe relief from Melos has already been noticed, in which Talthybius and Orestes find Electra and the nurse at the tomb (p. xvii). The period indicated by the style of that work is the latter part of the sixth century B.C., when the Oresteia of Stesichorus was already well-known; and nothing is more likely than that the artist of the relief was indebted to that source.. After the recognition of Orestes by Electra at the tomb, Stesichorus may have related the vengeance in the manner depicted on the Attic vases above mentioned. We know that Euripides was following Stesichorus in representing Orestes as defending himself against the Erinyes with the bow and arrows given by ApolloSchol. on Eur. Or. 268 δὸς τόξα μοι κερουλκά, δῶρα Λοξίου.. And the fact that the Stesichorean Orestes was pursued by the Erinyes shows that he slew Clytaemnestra as well as Aegisthus.

A combination of literary with artistic evidence leads, Summary. then, to the hypothesis that the Oresteia of Stesichorus was planned somewhat as follows. Clytaemnestra slew her husband by striking him on the head with an axe. The nurse Laodameia saved the young Orestes, and entrusted him to his father's faithful herald Talthybius, who carried him away,—probably to PhocisThe influence of Delphi on the poem of Stesichorus appears in the fact that Apollo provides Orestes with the means of defence against the Erinyes; and it is therefore not unlikely that the refuge of Orestes was with Strophius at Crisa. Whether Stesichorus brought in Pylades, there is nothing to show.. After some years, Clytaemnestra has the alarming dream, and sends Electra (accompanied by the nurse) with gifts to Agamemnon's tomb. Orestes arrives there with Talthybius, and is recognised by his sister. He then enters the house, while Talthybius keeps watch near the doorsAs the Paedagogus does in Sophocles ( El. 1331 f.).. Clytaemnestra, hearing the shriek of the dying Aegisthus, rushes to his aid with an axe; a cry from Electra warns Orestes of the peril; but Talthybius has already seized Clytaemnestra; who is presently slain by her son. The Erinyes then appear to Orestes, who defends himself with the bow and arrows given by ApolloThere is no clue to the manner in which Stesichorus managed the sequel. He may have followed the local Peloponnesian legend, which assigned a refuge to Orestes at the Arcadian town of Orestheion ( Thuc. 5. 64) in Parrhasia, the primitive home of the Orestes-myth. Robert (Bild und Lied, p. 181, n. 30) finds a possible trace of this in Eur. Or. 1643 ff..

Influence of Stesichorus on the dramatists.If this hypothesis be even approximately correct,—and I, at least, am persuaded that it is so,—the result is of considerable interest, not merely in relation to Stesichorus, but also in its bearing on the Attic dramatists. It would appear that Aeschylus followed the general outlines of Stesichorus pretty closely; while Sophocles, who did not do so, has retained at least one Stesichorean trait, the part of the old man. Aeschylus did not need him, since his Clytaemnestra herself sent Orestes to Strophius; on the other hand, he retains the part of the nurse, which for Sophocles was superfluous. But even if the hypothesis be rejected, there remains that fragment of the Stesichorean poem which describes Clytaemnestra's dream. This proves that Stesichorus conceived her in a manner which was much nearer to the Aeschylean than to the Homeric. And this change—whether first made by him or not—was connected with another of still larger scope. Stesichorus related in the Oresteia that Tyndareus had incurred the anger of Aphroditè, who doomed his daughters, Helen and Clytaemnestra, to evil careersFrag. 35. It was from Hesiod that Stesichorus derived this story. It is probable that the Κατάλογος of Hesiod contained references to the crimes in the house of Pelops: see Robert, Bild u. Lied, p. 189.. Here is the tendency—wholly absent from the Iliad—to bring crimes into the house of Pelops. The Dorian conquerors of Peloponnesus envied the renown which the old local lore, worked up by Ionian art in the Iliad, had shed around their Achaean predecessors, the ancient masters of Mycenae and Sparta. Under Dorian influences, the story of the Pelopidae was interwoven with those dark threads which appear in Attic Tragedy, while brighter traits were given to the legends of Heracles and the Heracleidae.

Pindar

Between Stesichorus and Aeschylus, the only poet who illustrates the story of Orestes is Pindar. In the eleventh Pythian ode (478 B.C.), he describes a victory in the Pythian games as won ‘in the rich corn-lands of Pylades, host of Laconian Orestes; whom, when his sire was murdered, the nurse Arsinoè rescued from the violent hands of Clytaemnestra and from her deadly guile.’ That ‘pitiless woman’ slew Aga memnon and Cassandra. What, asks Pindar, was her motive? Was it ‘the slaying of Iphigeneia at the Euripus’? Or was it an adulterous passion? ‘Meanwhile, Orestes, a young child, became the guest of the aged Strophius, who dwelt at the foot of Parnassus. But in time, with the help of Ares, he slew his mother, and laid Aegisthus in blood Pyth. 11. 15—37..’

Three points in this sketch are noteworthy. (1) Pindar makes Orestes ‘a Laconian’; following the tradition, adopted also by Stesichorus and SimonidesSchol. on Eur. Or. 46. , that Amyclae in Lacedaemon was the place where Agamemnon was slain Pyth. 11. 31 θάνεν μὲν αὐτὸς ἤρως Ἀτρεΐδας | ἵκων χρόνῳ κλυταῖς ἐν Ἀμύκλαις. Pausanias (3. 19. 5) saw at Amyclae memorials of Agamemnon, Clytaemnestra and Cassandra. The dominant influence of Sparta on the early development of the Dorian Choral Lyric may possibly help to explain how, in the lyric age, the local tradition of Lacedaemon could prevail over the Homeric version on a point of such importance. It is certainly a curious illustration of Dorian influence in modifying the Achaean legends of the Peloponnesus—though, in this case, the influence was not permanent, as it was in blackening the family history of the Pelopidae.. (2) The house of Strophius, ‘at the foot of Parnassus,’ is the refuge of Orestes; and Pylades is his friend. Probably the Nostoi (circ. 750 B.C.), in which Pylades figured, gave this account; but Pindar is the earliest extant source of itIn his brilliant and suggestive Introduction to the Choephori, Mr Verrall holds (p. xix, note 1) that Pindar gives no countenance to the legend followed by Euripides, that Pylades was the son of Strophius. Pindar, he thinks, suggests no connection between them. “The home of Pylades in the ‘rich fields’ of Cirrha is distinguished clearly from that of Strophius on ‘the foot (spur) of Parnassus,’ that is to say at Crisa.” Is this so? Pindar first designates the Pythian festival by the words ἀγῶνι... Κίρρας (Pyth. 11. 12), and presently adds that the victory of which he sings was won ἐν ἀφνεαῖς ἀρούραισι Πυλάδα (ib. 15). In Pyth. 10. 15 f. the Pythian festival is similarly designated as βαθυλείμων ὑπὸ Κίρρας ἀγὼν | πέτραν: where Κίρρας...πέτραν is clearly equivalent to the Κρισαῖον λόφον of Pyth. 5. 35, and the Κρισαίαις ἐνὶ πτυχαῖς of Pyth. 6. 18. It is the spur of Parnassus under which Crisa was situated: there was no such πέτρα or λόφος near the site of Cirrha on the gulf. And, by adding βαθυλείμων, Pindar interprets this large sense of Κίρρας. In his time the town of Cirrha no longer existed (see n. on Soph. El. 180 ). The plain in which the Pythian games were held extended from the site of Cirrha on the south to that of Crisa (the seat of Strophius) on the north. It was called ‘Cirrhaean’ as well as ‘Crisaean.’ Hence the festival could be called ‘the contest of Cirrha,’ and its scene could also be identified with ‘the cornlands of Pylades.’ Was Euripides (in I. T. 917 f.) the first poet, as Mr Verrall suggests, who made Strophius a brother-in-law, and Pylades a nephew, of Agamemnon? It seems hardly probable. Anaxibia, daughter of Pleisthenes by Aëropè, and sister of Agamemnon, was mentioned by Hesiod (Tzetzes, Exeg. in Iliad., p. 68, 20); and as her only mythological function was to be the wife of Strophius and the mother of Pylades, it may be supposed that Hesiod knew those relationships. As we have seen, the association of Pylades with Orestes dates at least from the Nostoi ( circ. 750 B.C.).. (3) Clytaem nestra, not Aegisthus, is in the foreground; and the speculation as to her motive reminds us that the myth had now grown into a shape which was ready for dramatic handling. Twenty years after this ode was written, Aeschylus produced his Oresteia.

Aeschylus.

A poet imbued with the ideas of Aeschylus could never have accepted the view presented in the Odyssey; that the vengeance of Orestes was a simply righteous retribution, by which the troubles of the house were closed. To the mind of Aeschylus the version which Stesichorus had followed would naturally commend itself: Orestes, the slayer of a mother, could be saved from the Erinyes only by divine aid. And the trilogy, the distinctively Aeschylean form of work, was a framework perfectly suited to such a conception. Clytaemnestra's crime is the subject of the Agamemnon; the vengeance of Orestes fills the Choephori; and the judgment upon him is given in the Eumenides.

The Agamemnon is pervaded from first to last by the thought of the hereditary curse upon the house: Clytaemnestra, indeed, identifies herself with this ‘ancient, bitter Alastor’; and the Argive Elders recognise that this dread power, though it does not excuse her, has presumably helped her Agam. 1500—1508.. She is the principal agent in the crime. Her dominant motive is not love of her paramour, but hatred of the husband who slew Iphigeneia ib. 1415 ff.: 1431—1447: 1526: 1555.. Aegisthus is a dastard, ‘the wolf mated with the lioness’ ib. 1258.; at the close he blusters, and threatens the Elders, while the strong woman treats them with a cold scorn. The shadow of the vengeance is cast before. Cassandra predicts the return of the exiled heir; ‘for the gods have sworn a great oath ib. 1280 ff..’ And the Chorus reply to the menaces of Aegisthus by reminding him that Orestes lives ib. 1646, 1667..

The Choephori begins with a scene at Agamemnon's grave, Analysis of the Choephori I. Prologue: 1—21. near the palaceMycenae is not named by Aeschylus, but is not excluded by his mention of ‘Argos’ ( Ag. 24, etc.), where it may mean the land, as in Soph. El. 4(n.). See on this point W. G. Clark, Peloponnesus, pp. 70 ff. (1858).. Orestes, who has just arrived from Phocis, enters with Pylades, and lays a lock of his own hair on the tomb. A train of women, dressed in mourning, approaches. These are fifteen Trojan captives, now domestics of the palace, who form the Chorus. They escort Electra. Orestes thinks that he recognises his sister, and draws aside, with Pylades, to observe the procession.

The Chorus chant the parodos, and we learn that they have Parodos: 22—83. come with libations to the tomb. ‘The impious woman’ has been alarmed by a dream; and the sooth-sayers declare that then dead king is wroth. But such offerings, the Chorus add, cannot atone for her deed. Agamemnon inspired reverence by his majesty; the usurpers rule by fear alone. How long will justice tarry?

Electra asks the Chorus what prayer she is to utter in pouring II. First episode: 84—584. the libationsElectra enters with the Chorus at v. 22, but it is not' till v. 84 that she speaks. Aeschylus knew the dramatic effectiveness of such silence. In the Persae, when the Messenger first announces the disaster at Salamis, he is interrupted by the Chorus, but Atossa is mute till v. 290 (σιγῶ πάλαι). In the Prometheus Vinctus it is only at v. 88 that the sufferer's voice is heard. Cassandra is long dumb before Clytaemnestra ( Ag. 1035—1071). The Aristophanic Euripides criticises this device, but the god Dionysus reproves him:—ἐγὼ δ’ ἔχαιρον τῇ σιωπῇ ( Ran. 911 ff.).. Can she ask the dead to receive these gifts from the murderess? Or shall she present them in silence? Guided by the counsel of her attendants, she prays to Hermes, and to her father's spirit,—with a special petition that Orestes may return.

In pouring the drink-offerings on the tomb, she finds the lock of hair, and turns in excitement to the Chorus. It resembles her own, and she surmises that it is the hair of Orestes,—not brought by him, of course, but sent. Presently she notices footmarks, which have a resemblance to her own. Orestes now steps forward, and, after a short dialogue, reveals himself. She at first fears an imposture, but is convinced by his appeal to the signs which she had already seen and also to a third,—a piece of work embroidered by her own hand.

She welcomes him as ‘the hope awaited with tears, the heir and the deliverer Cho. 236 δακρυτὸς ἐλπὶς σπέρματος σωτηρίου.’; to her, at once father, mother, sisterIn the Choephori no living sister of Electra is mentioned., and brother. Orestes responds with a prayer to Zeus for Electra and himself. He then declares the oracle of Apollo, commanding him, under terrible penalties, to avenge his father. ‘Must not such oracles be trusted? In any case, the deed must be done Cho. 297 f. τοιοῖσδε χρησμοῖς ἆρα χρὴ πεποιθέναι; | κεἰ μὴ πέποιθα, τοὔργον ἔστ’ ἐργαστέον..’

Kommos: 306—478.Then comes one of the most characteristic and magnificent passages of the play,—a prolonged lyric chant or dirge (kommos), in which the Chorus, Orestes, and Electra take part by turns. It is a solemn litany, addressed to the divine powers who are to aid the vengeance, and to the spirit of the dead.

After the lyric chant, Orestes and Electra continue in iambic verse the same strain of supplication. Then Orestes asks why his mother had sent gifts to the tomb? She dreamed—the Chorus reply—that she gave birth to a serpent, and was suckling it, when it drew blood from her breast. Orestes accepts the omen: the part of the serpent shall be his own.

He announces his plan. Electra is to enter the house. He and Pylades will arrive at the outer gate Cho. 561 ἑρκείους πύλας, as distinguished from those of the women's apartments mentioned in 878 (γυναικείους πύλας)., wearing the garb of travellers, and imitating the Phocian accent Cho. 563 ἄμφω δὲ φωνὴν ἥσομεν Παρνησίδα, | γλώσσης ἀϋτὴν Φωκίδος μιμουμένω.. Electra now goes within, while Orestes and Pylades withdraw to prepare for their enterprise.

First stasimon: 585—652.The Chorus, left alone, comment on the power of passion over women; Althaea wrought the death of Meleager, and Scylla, of Nisus; the Lemmian women slew their lords. And this house, too, has known such a deed. But now ‘the anvil of Justice is firmly set, and Fate is forging the sword.’

Here ends the first of the three main chapters or ‘acts’ into which the drama falls.

III. Second episode: 653—782.Orestes and Pylades are courteously received by Clytaemnestra. He describes himself as a Phocian from Daulis. With his companion, he was on his way to Argos, when a Phocian named Strophius—a stranger—asked him to carry the news that Orestes was dead, in case the youth's friends should wish to fetch the ashes home.—Clytaemnestra speaks, or rather declaims, as the afflicted mother, and then has the two visitors ushered into the guest-chambers, saying that she will break the sad news to ‘the master of the house.’

A short choral ode follows. It is time that deceiving Persua- Choral song: 719—733. sion should help the avenger, and that Hermes of the shades should be his guide.

An old slave-woman, who had been the nurse of Orestes, then comes forth, having been sent by Clytaemnestra to summon Aegisthus. She mourns for Orestes,—recalling, with quaint pathos, all the trouble that the child had given her.—It seems that the queen has ordered Aegisthus to come with armed attendants Cho. 769 <*>γειν κελεύει δορυφόρους ὀπάονας.. The Chorus prevail on the nurse not to give this part of the message, but to summon Aegisthus alone. At the same time they give her a hint that Orestes still lives, and that all may yet be well.

In the second stasimon the Chorus invoke Zeus, Apollo and Second stasimon: 783—837. Hermes. Next, apostrophising Orestes as though he were present, they exhort him to answer his mother's cry, ‘my son,’ with the name of ‘father,’ and to bear a heart like that of Perseus when he slew the Medusa Cho. 827 ff..

Aegisthus enters. The report that Orestes is dead seems to IV. Third episode: 838—854. him doubtful. Women are credulous. He must see the messenger, who will not impose on him. And so he enters the house.

A moment of suspense is marked by the short third stasimon. Third stasimon: 855—868. Now is the struggle that must bring ruin or freedom. May Orestes succeed!

The shriek of the dying Aegisthus is heard within. A slave V. Fourth episode: 875—934. runs out, crying that his master is slain; and, knocking at the door of the women's apartments, summons Clytaemnestra. She knows that she is lost; but her spirit never quails; she calls for a battle-axe—‘let us see if we are to conquer or to fall.’ But, before she can obtain a weapon, Orestes comes forth:— ‘'Tis for thee that I am looking;—with him, 'tis well enough.’ consummation? Whither shall the fury of disaster go, ere it finish its course, and be laid to rest?’

The leading characteristic of the Choephori is the tre- Supernatural agency. mendous importance of those invisible and supernatural allies who assist the vengeance. Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, Hades, the spirit of Agamemnon, are felt throughout as if they were present with the human agents. This is the significance of the prolonged scene at the tomb, which forms more than one half of the play. It is not properly a suspension of action, but rather a dramatic prelude, emphasising the greatness of the issues involved in the action to come. It brings out the heinousness of the crime which calls for retribution, the appalling nature of the divine mandate to Orestes, and the supreme need of arousing and marshalling those superhuman forces which alone can secure the victory. The human strategy, as subsequently developed, is not especially skilful. The story told to Clytaemnestra by the pretended Phocian, who mentions the death of Orestes as a bare fact casually learned from a stranger, was not well fitted to find ready credence with the astute woman whose fears had just been quickened, as the conspirators knew, by a warning dream,—even if they assumed that she had missed the meaning which her dream at once conveyed to Orestes. And that Clytaemnestra did, in fact, suspect the ‘Phocian's’ story appears from her wish that Aegisthus should bring his body-guards. But then again the old nurse of Orestes was hardly the safest person to whom a message of such critical moment could be entrusted. The gods indeed justify the maxim of Pylades; they are the worst enemies of the guilty.

From the moment when the two ‘Phocians’ enter the house, Clytaem nestra. the swiftness of the concentrated action is unchecked, save by that brief pause in which the tragic interest culminates,—the dialogue between Clytaemnestra and her son. She holds the same place in the retribution which she held in the crime. Her death is the climax; it is by her Erinyes that Orestes is driven forth to seek refuge with Apollo. The fate of Aegisthus is a subordinate incidentIn Cho. 989 .Orestes says:—Αἰγίσθου γὰρ οὐ λέγω μόρον· | ἔχει γὰρ αἰσχυντῆρος, ὡς νόμος, δίκην.. Though Clytaemnestra's longest speech is limited to twelve lines, and her whole part to forty-six, Aeschylus has been marvellously successful in continuing that sense of horror, hard to describe or to define, which she produces in the Agamemnon. When she welcomes the strangers, there is in her language a ghastly reminiscence of another welcome which she had given beneath that roof; they will find, she tells them, ‘warm baths, a couch to give rest from toil, and the presence of just eyes’; this is a house in which travellers arriving from a long journey find—‘what is fitting Cho. 668—671: 710 f..’

Orestes.The attitude of the Aeschylean Orestes is illustrated by the nature of the command which he obeys. In the play of Sophocles the oracle briefly directs that he shall take the just vengeance without the aid of an armed force. But in the Choephori he speaks of reiterated admonitions from the god, full of explicit threats as to the penalties which await him if he refuses to act. Spectral terrors shall haunt him in the night; leprous ulcers shall rise upon his flesh; his whole body shall be shrivelled and blasted with torturing disease; he shall be an outcast, under a ban cutting him off from human fellowship and from the altars of the gods. Oracles of such a tenor plainly intimate that the task prescribed was one from which even a brave man might recoil. Apollo's purpose is to make Orestes feel that disobedience is the greater of two evils. It is dreadful to shed a mother's blood, but worse to leave a father unavenged. In the Choephori Orestes is indeed resolute; not, however, because the duty before him is simple, but because the god's messages have braced him to perform it. Once—at the moment when a mother's claim to pity is presented in the most pathetic form—he does hesitate;— Πυλάδη, τί δράσω; μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν Cho. 899. ; But Pylades reminds him of the god's word. It will presently be seen how marked is the contrast here between Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Electra.The Electra of Aeschylus appears to have no sister living. She performs the errand which Sophocles assigns to Chrysothemis, by carrying her mother's gifts to the tomb; she could not refuse, for she is virtually a slave Cho. 135 ἀντίδουλος .. Turning to the real slaves, her companions, she appeals to the common hatred which unites them Cho. 101 κοινὸν γὰρ ἔχθος ἐν δόμοις νομίζομεν., and asks what prayer she is to make. The Sophoclean Electra would hardly have sought advice on that point; yet the question is in place here, since her action, if contrary to the queen's orders, might compromise her unhappy escort. The heroic fortitude and bold initiative of the Sophoclean Electra are qualities which Aeschylus, with his different plan, has not desired to portray; but he has done full justice to her steadfast and affectionate loyalty. And with regard to the actual mechanism of the plot, she is, in one sense, even more important with Aeschylus than with Sophocles. It rests with her alone to decide whether the young stranger is her brother, and, if she is convinced, to aid his plan within the house. The latter service is assigned by Sophocles to the old man, who could also have established the identity of Orestes, if there had been need. When the ‘recognition’ has been effected, and the prayers at the tomb are over, the Aeschylean Electra can be dismissed from the scene. Orestes directs her to go in, and watch events in the house. She does not speak after verse 509, and is not seen after verse 584; that is, she appears only in the first of the three ‘acts’ into which the play may be divided.

The part of Aegisthus is notably brief, even allowing for the Minor persons. indifference with which his fate is treated. He merely passes across the scene; fourteen verses are all that he has to speak. The part of the Nurse is a masterpiece in its kind. And we note the happy inspiration by which Pylades is made to break silence once—at the supreme moment—as the voice of Apollo.

Nearly a third of the play is lyric. The Chorus have their The Chorus. share in the action; at the outset they are the counsellors of Electra; they persuade the Nurse to help the plan; and they send Aegisthus forward to his doom. But their function is, above all, to interpret the sense of reliance upon divine aid. ‘Justice may delay, but it will come,’ is the burden of the choral song; ‘the sinner shall suffer’ (δράσαντι παθεῖν); ‘even now, Destiny is preparing the sword.’ And when, at the close, a dark cloud gathers over Orestes, it is with unwavering faith that the Chorus commend him to Apollo, though no human eye can pierce the gloom which rests upon the future.

The title ‘Choephori. ’No one of the three Greek plays on this subject takes its name from Orestes, though his deed forms the central interest. Aeschylus calls his play the Choephori, because that title suggests the claim of the murdered father—as Eumenides expresses that of the mother slain by a son—and therefore suits the link in the trilogy. On the other hand, if the story was to be treated in a single play, the antecedents of the vengeance became especially important. Electra, the daughter who, remaining at home, had been faithful to her father's memory throughout the interval between the flight and the return of Orestes, was the character best fitted to supply the needful background. Thus far, Sophocles and Euripides had the same motive for describing their subject by her name.

The Electra of Sophocles.

In the case of Sophocles there was a further reason. He reverts to the epic view that the deed of Orestes is simply laudable, and therefore final. It suited this aim to concentrate the sympathies of the spectators against Clytaemnestra as well as Aegisthus. And nothing could be more effective for that purpose than to show how their long oppression had failed to break down the heroic constancy of Electra.

We will now trace the plot of Sophocles.

Analysis of the play. I. Prologue: 1—120.The scene is laid before the palace of the Pelopidae at Mycenae. Three persons enter,—on the left of the spectator, for they are travellers from a distant place. These are, Orestes, who is about twenty years of age; his Phocian friend Pylades (son of Strophius, king of Crisa near Delphi—from whose home they come); and an old man, a faithful retainer of Agamemnon, who had been the paedagogus of Orestes, and had secretly carried him, as a child, away from Mycenae to Crisa, at the time when Agamemnon was slain.

The old man points out to Orestes the chief features in the landscape before them, and then exhorts the two youths to concert their plan of action without delay; already it is the hour of dawn, and the morning-song of the birds is beginning.

Orestes, in reply, states the purport of the oracle given to him at Delphi. Apollo commanded him to ‘snatch his righteous vengeance by stealth,’ without the aid of an armed force. He then sets forth his plan. The old man is to enter the palace in the guise of a messenger sent by Phanoteus, a Phocian prince friendly to Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus. He is to announce that Orestes has been killed in a chariot-race at the Pythian games. Meanwhile Orestes and Pylades will make offerings at the tomb of Agamemnon near the palace. They will then present themselves in the house, bearing a funeral urn. They, like the old man, will pretend to be Phocians, who have brought the ashes of Orestes to Mycenae.

A female voice of lament is now heard in the house (v. 77). Orestes asks if it can be Electra's, and proposes to wait and listen; but the old man dissuades him. All three now leave the scene (v. 85).

Electra comes out of the house; she is alone, for the Chorus (θρῆνος ἀπὸ σκηνῆς· 86—120.) have not yet appeared. Greeting the ‘pure sunlight and the air,’ to which her sorrow has so often been uttered at dawn, she speaks of the grief which ceases not, day or night, for her father, whom the wicked pair struck down, ‘as woodmen fell an oak.’ She invokes the Powers of the nether world to avenge him,— and to send her brother; for her own strength is well-nigh spent.

The Chorus, composed of fifteen Mycenaean women, had Parodos: 121—250. entered as Electra's lament was closing. They sympathise with her; and they do not conceal their abhorrence of the deed which she mourns. But they remind her that grief cannot restore the dead to life: they urge her to be calm, trusting in the gods, and hoping for the return of Orestes. She must not aggravate her lot by waging a fruitless strife with the rulers.

Electra replies that to abandon her grief would be disloyalty. If her father is not to be avenged, there will be an end to reverence for gods or men.

The Chorus say that they spoke only for her good; she II. First episode: 251—471. knows best, and she shall be their guide. Electra then justifies her conduct by describing what she has to see and suffer daily in the house;—Aegisthus in her father's place; her mother living with Aegisthus, and keeping the death-day of Agamem non as a festival. Hardship and insult are her own portion continually. The Chorus cautiously inquire if Aegisthus is at home; and, on learning that he is absent in the country, ask Electra whether she thinks that Orestes will return. ‘He promises,’ she answers, ‘but does not keep his promise.’ ‘Courage,’ they reply: ‘he is too noble to fail his friends.’

At this moment Chrysothemis approaches, bearing funeral offerings. She begins by sharply chiding her sister for this ‘vain indulgence of idle wrath,’—in public, too, at the palacegates. But she admits that she herself feels anger against the tyrants; were she strong enough, she would let them know it. Electra has right upon her side: only, if one is to live in freedom, one must yield to the stronger.

Electra tells her that the choice is between loyalty to the dead and worldly prudence. ‘Canst thou, the daughter of Agamemnon, wish to be only the daughter of Clytaemnestra?’ The Chorus timidly deprecate a quarrel. Chrysothemis says that she is used to Electra's vehemence. She would not have spoken, but that she had to convey a warning. As soon as Aegisthus returns, Electra is to be imprisoned in a dungeon, at a distance from Mycenae—unless she becomes more docile. Electra declares that she would welcome such a doom;—‘that I may escape,’ she says, ‘far from you,’—thus identifying her sister with the oppressors.

Chrysothemis, finding her counsels repelled, is about to proceed on her errand, when Electra asks her whither she is taking those offerings. ‘Our mother sends me,’ is the answer, ‘with libations to our father's grave.’ It then appears that Clytaemnestra has been terrified by a dream. Agamemnon returned to life; he planted his sceptre at the hearth; a branch blossomed from it, and overshadowed the land.

Electra feels a sudden joy. This dream, she believes, has been sent by the gods below, and by the spirit of the dead. ‘Dear sister,’ she cries, ‘cast those impious offerings away; take, instead of them, such gifts as we can give,—and pray at the tomb that our father's spirit may come to help us, and that Orestes may live to conquer.’

Chrysothemis is touched and subdued. She agrees to do as her sister bids; only Electra and the Chorus must keep the secret; she dreads her mother's anger.

The Chorus, encouraged by Clytaemnestra's dream, predict First stasimon: 472—515. the vengeance. Agamemnon's spirit is not forgetful. The Erinys, now lurking in ambush, will come. The curse upon the house of Pelops claims yet more victims.

Clytaemnestra enters, followed by a handmaid bearing III. Second episode: 516— 1057. (1) 1st scene: 516—659. offerings of various fruits for Apollo Lykeios, whose altar stands in front of the house. ‘At large once more, it seems!’ is her greeting to Electra;—‘since Aegisthus is not here to restrain thee.’ She defends her murder of Agamemnon. ‘Justice slew him, and not I alone.’ Had he not slain her daughter, Iphigeneia, in the cause of his brother Menelaüs?

Electra replies that her father acted therein under constraint from the goddess Artemis; but that, even if he had been a free agent, Clytaemnestra's plea would not avail. Then, passing from argument to reproach and defiance, Electra avows her wish that Orestes might come as an avenger; though she also shows the anguish which she feels at the attitude towards a mother which is forced upon her.

An angry dialogue ends by Clytaemnestra enjoining silence, in order that she may make her offerings to Apollo. She prays that the god will rule the issues of the vision for her good, and for the discomfiture of her foes. Other wishes, too, she has, but will not utter them; the god can divine them...

Here the Paedagogus enters, disguised as a Phocian mes- (2) 2nd scene: 660—803. senger from Phanoteus. He relates how the young Orestes, after wonderful feats at the Pythian games, was killed in the chariot-race. Other Phocians are on their way to Mycenae with his ashes.

Clytaemnestra hears the news with feelings in which joy is crossed by at least a touch of natural grief; but the joy quickly prevails, and she openly recognises that the news is good. At last she will be safe from Orestes—and from Electra, who has been even a worse foe.

Electra invokes Nemesis to avenge her brother; while Clytaemnestra cruelly taunts her, and then conducts the Phocian messenger into the house.

(3) 3rd scene: 804—870.Left alone with the Chorus, Electra gives free vent to her anguish and despair. She will enter that house no more, but cast herself down at the gates, and await death—which cannot come too soon.

Kommos: 823—870.In the lyric dialogue which follows, the women of Mycenae gently endeavour to suggest comfort. Was not the seer Amphiaraüs betrayed to death by a false wife? And is not his spirit now great beneath the earth? Alas, Electra answers, there was a son to avenge him, and to slay the murderess; but Agamemnon can have no such avenger. Orestes has perished, in a foreign land, without receiving the last offices of sisterly love.

(4) 4th scene: 871— 1057.Chrysothemis enters hurriedly, in a flutter of joyful excitement. On reaching the tomb, with her sister's gifts and her own, she found that unknown hands had just been honouring it. Libations of milk had been poured there; the mound was wreathed with flowers; and on the edge of it lay a lock of hair. These gifts can be from no one but Orestes!

With pitying sorrow, Electra breaks to her the news which has come from Phocis. Probably the gifts at the tomb were brought by some one in memory of the dead youth. And now, as the delusive hope vanishes from her sister's mind, Electra seeks to replace it by a heroic resolve. Will Chrysothemis aid her in the purpose which she has formed—to slay the two murderers with her own hand? Electra reminds her of the joyless lot which otherwise awaits both Chrysothemis and herself; and pictures the noble renown which such a deed would achieve.

To Chrysothemis this is sheer madness. She foresees only certain failure and a terrible death. In vain she seeks to dissuade Electra, who declares that she will make the attempt unaided. With a parting word of compassionate warning, Chrysothemis enters the house. Electra remains outside.

Second stasimon: 1058— 1097.The Chorus lament the weaker sister's failure in that natural piety which the very birds of the air teach us. A sorrowful message for Agamemnon in the shades will be this quarrel between his daughters. How noble is Electra,—all alone, yet unshaken, in her loyalty! May she yet win the reward which she has deserved!

Orestes enters, with Pylades, followed by two attendants, one IV. Third episode: 1098— 1383. (1) The recognition: 1098 —1287. of whom carries the funeral urn (v. 1123). He asks for the house of Aegisthus, and, on learning that he has reached it, requests that their arrival may be announced. The Chorus suggest that Electra should do this. A dialogue ensues between Electra and the disguised Orestes. She learns that the strangers come from Strophius, king of Crisa, with her brother's ashes; and she is allowed to take the urn into her handsThis was the scene in which the famous actor Polus , when playing the part of Electra, used an urn which contained the ashes of a son whom he had recently lost (Aulus Gellius 7. 5). See Soph. O. T., Introd., p. xxxi (3rd ed.).. She then utters a most touching lament, recalling the memories of her brother's childhood,—the close affection which bound them to each other,—her care for him, and her bright hopes, which have thus ended. ‘Therefore take me to this thy home, me, who am as nothing, to thy nothingness... When thou wast on earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that I may not be parted from thee in the grave.’

The disguised Orestes finds it hard to restrain himself. In the dialogue which follows, he gradually prepares her mind for the discovery,—leading her through surprise, conjecture, and hope, to conviction. The scene is one of exquisite art and beauty (vv. 1176—1226).

In lyrics, Electra now utters her joy,—which reaches the μέλος ἀσκηνῆς: 1232— 1287. height, when Orestes tells her that he has been sent by Apollo. He endeavours to check her transports (though he is loth to do so), lest she should be overheard.

At length he succeeds in recalling her to their scheme of The plan of action: 1288— 1383. action, and warns her against allowing Clytaemnestra to perceive her happiness. She promises obedience in all things. The old Paedagogus now comes out, and scolds them both for their imprudence. When Electra learns that the faithful servant is before her, she greets him warmly, as the preserver of their house. Then, by his advice, Orestes and Pylades enter the palace, after saluting the ancestral gods in the porch; and the old man follows them. Electra addresses a brief prayer to Apollo Lykeios, and then she also enters.

Third stasimon: 1384— 1397.The Chorus, now alone, sing a short ode. The Erinyes have passed beneath the roof; the Avenger is being led by Hermes, in secrecy, to his goal.

V. Exodos: 1398— 1510. Kommos: 1398— 1441.Electra rushes forth to tell the Chorus that Orestes and Pylades are about to do the deed Clytaemnestra is dressing the funeral urn for burial, while the two youths stand beside her. In another moment her dying shrieks are heard. Orestes, with Pylades, then comes out; and, in answer to his sister's question, says: ‘All is well in the house, if Apollo's oracle spake well.’

Aegisthus is seen approaching, and the youths quickly reenter the house. He is exultant, for he has heard the report that Orestes is dead. Electra confirms it, adding that the body has been brought to Mycenae; Aegisthus can satisfy his own eyes. The tyrant orders the palace-doors to be thrown wide, in order that his subjects may see the corpse, and know that all hope from that quarter is over.

The doors are opened; a corpse, hidden by a veil, lies on a bier; close to it stand the two Phocians who are supposed to have brought it. Aegisthus lifts the veil—and sees the dead Clytaemnestra. He knows that he is doomed, and that Orestes stands before him. Nor is he suffered to plead at length: though some bitter words pass his lips, before Orestes drives him in, to slay him in the hall where Agamemnon was slain. The Chorus rejoice that the house of Atreus has at last found peace.

General comparison with the Choephori.

When this play is compared with the Choephori, the first difference which appears is broader than any that could arise from divergent views of the particular story. It concerns the whole stamp of the drama, and illustrates the difference, in bent of genius, between the two poets. Aeschylus exhibits in grand outline the working of an eternal law, full of mystery and terror. Justice, Destiny, the Erinys, are the paramount agencies. The human agents are drawn, indeed, with a master's hand, but by a few powerful strokes rather than with subtle touches or fine shading. Nor is much care shown for probability in minor details of the plot. With Sophocles the interest depends primarily on the portraiture of human character. The opportunities for this are contrived by a series of ingenious situations, fruitful in contrasts and dramatic effects. We have seen that the Greek art of the sixth century B.C. knew a version of this legend in which Talthybius, the herald of Agamemnon, saved the young Orestes from murder,—receiving him, doubtless, from the hands of the nurse—and in due time conducted the heir home again; a version which Stesichorus had probably popularised. It suited Aeschylus to leave out Talthybius, while keeping the part of the nurse. Sophocles revives the old herald in the person of the trusty Paedagogus, who received the child, not from a nurse, but from Electra herself, and carried him to Crisa. This change is a source of large advantage to the plot. It is a weak point in the Choephori that the story told by Orestes was not likely to impose upon Clytaemnestra, and does not, in fact, disarm her suspicion. The Sophoclean stratagem is of a different order. When the old man, as an envoy from Phanoteus, gives Clytaemnestra his circumstantial account of her son's death, he plays his part to perfection. He evinces some natural feeling for the tragic death of a brilliant youth, but at the same time shows that he is disappointed when the queen hesitates whether to rejoice or to mourn. ‘Then it seems that I have come in vain,’ he says, half aggrieved; and she hastens to re-assure him. A little later the two ‘Phocians’ arrive with the urn, as envoys from Strophius, the old ally of Agamemnon. This device of two independent missions, each from an appropriate quarter, was really fitted to win belief. It also provides a keen interest for the spectator, who is in the secret. The Aeschylean Electra is from the outset the accomplice of the avengers. But here she is herself deceived by them. And from the belief that her brother is dead springs the resolve which shows her spirit at the highest—to execute the vengeance without aid. In the Choephori, again, Electra is still trembling between hope and doubt, when Orestes steps forward, and almost at once reveals himself. Here, she is convinced that his ashes are in the urn which the young Phocian permits her to handle; the irresistible pathos of her lament over it compels him to shorten her probation; and then comes the dialogue, so characteristic of Sophocles, which gently leads up to the recognition.

Like the poet of the Odyssey, Sophocles regards the venge ance as a deed of unalloyed merit, which brings the troubles of the house to an end. Clytaemnestra's part is much larger than in the Choephori; but it is the death of Aegisthus which forms the climax. Sophocles reverses the Aeschylean plan. Here it is Clytaemnestra whose dying shriek is heard; it is Aegisthus whose doom is preceded by a dialogue with Orestes.

The stain of matricide is ignored.

Throughout the play, there is not a hint that a son who slays his mother is liable to the Erinyes. This silence cannot be explained by the plea that Sophocles was concerned only with the vengeance itself. For, although the pursuit of Orestes by the Erinyes was not to be included in the plot, still the play shows him both when he was meditating the deed, and after he has done it. Yet he neither shrinks from it in prospect, nor feels the slightest uneasiness when it has been accomplished. From first to last, his confidence is as cheerful as the morning Question thus raised.sunshine in which the action commences. When he comes forth with dripping sword, this is his comment; ‘All is well in the house, if Apollo's oracle spake well.’ How could an Athenian poet of the fifth century B.C. venture thus to treat the subject before an Athenian audience, whose general sentiment would assuredly be that of the Choephori, and in the forefront of which sat priestly exponentsThe θρόνοι of Pentelic marble which form the lowest row of seats in the Dionysiac theatre are generally referred to the Roman age, and no view has made them older than the time of Lycurgus (c. 330 B.C.). The inscriptions upon them are unquestionably of the Roman age. We cannot appeal to them, then, as certain evidence for details of arrangement in the time of Sophocles. But they must embody, in the main, an old tradition: and they show a large representation of the Apolline cult. The priest of Dionysus Eleuthereus has (as in the fifth century B.C.) the central place of honour. The θρόνος on his right is inscribed Πυθοχρήστου ἐξηγητοῦ,—the interpreter of the sacred law, appointed by the Delphic oracle. Other seats are those Ἀπόλλωνος Πατρῴου, Ἀπόλλωνος Λυκήου, Ἀπόλλωνος Δηλίου. Cp. MA. üller, Lehrbuch der Griech. Bühnenalterthümer, p. 93 (1886). of the religious view which was so signally ignored? Euripides is here, at least, at one with Aeschylus. True, Sophocles has been careful to remind us, again and again, how completely Clytaemnestra had forfeited all moral claim to a son's loyalty. The question here is, however, not moral but religious; a matter, not of conduct, but of kinship. It may also be granted that the Sophoclean oracle of Apollo differs from that in the Choephori. It is a brief command to do a righteous deed; it threatens no penalties, and so implies no reason for reluctance. Still, that does not alter the fact of the matricidal stain upon Orestes. I do not know any adequate solution of this difficulty, which seems greater than has generally been recognised: I can only suggest one consideration which may help to explain it. The Homeric colouring in the Electra is strongly marked; thus the Odyssey is followed in the version of Agamemnon's murder as perpetrated at the banquet,—there are even verbal echoes of itSee commentary on v. 95, and on vv. 193—196.; the chariot-race in the Iliad (book XXIII) has furnished several traits to the narrative of the disaster at the Pythian gamesSee on vv. 712, 721 f., 748.. Sophocles seems to say to his audience, ‘I give you, modified for drama, the story that Homer tells; put yourselves at the Homeric stand-point; regard the act of Orestes under the light in which the Odyssey presents it.’ The Homeric Athena declares that Orestes has won universal praise by slaying the villainous Aegisthus. The final scene of Sophocles is designed to leave a similar impression; the tyrant is exhibited in all his baseness,—insolent and heartless; he is driven in to meet his just doom; Orestes points the moral; and the Chorus welcome the retribution. Having resolved to limit his view by the epic horizon, Sophocles has executed the plan with great skill. But his plot labours under a disadvantage which no skill could quite overcome. He could not, like his Homeric original, dispense with Apollo: the Apolline thread had long ago become so essential a part of the texture that he could not get rid of it. But, the moment that Apollo is introduced, the thought of the stain upon Orestes becomes importunate, since the very purpose for which Apollo first came into the story was that of showing how the supreme arbiter of purity could defend his emissary against the claim of the Erinyes. Stesichorus and Aeschylus had deeply impressed this on the Greek mind; and it would have been hard for Athenians, familiar with the lyric and the dramatic Oresteia, to feel that the story, as told by Sophocles, reached a true conclusion. His Chorus might, indeed, close the play by describing the house of Atreus as

τῇ νῦν ὁρμῇ τελεωθέν.

But would not many spectators have ringing in their ears the last words of the Choephori?

ποῖ δῆτα κρανεῖ, ποῖ καταλήξει μετακοιμισθὲν μένος ἄτης;

Character of Electra.

The Sophoclean Electra resembles Antigone in heroism and in loyalty to the dead, but the modes in which their characters are manifested differ as widely as the situations. Antigone is suddenly required to choose between omitting a sacred duty and incurring death; within a day she has chosen, and died. The ordeal of Electra is that of maintaining a solitary protest through years of suffering. Her timid sister's sympathy is only secret; the tyrants ill-treat her, and she witnesses their insults to her father's memory. Meanwhile there is only one feeble ray of light for her, the hope that Orestes may return; but it becomes fainter as time goes on. One of the finest traits in the delineation of Electra by Sophocles is the manner in which he suggests that inward life of the imagination into which she has shrunk back from the world around her. To her, the dead father is an ally ever watchful to aid the retribution; when she hears of Clytaemnestra's dream, it at once occurs to her that he has helped to send itVv. 459, 460.. The youthful Orestes, as her brooding fancy pictures him, is already invested with the heroic might of an avengerVv. 1220 f. Electra (to the disguised Orestes), πῶς εἶπας, ὦ παῖ; οπ.ψεῦδος οὐδὲν <*>ν λέγω. | ΗΛ. ἦ ζῇ γὰρ ἁνήρ; . There are moments when she can almost forget her misery in visions of his triumphSee on v. 814.. Like Antigone, she is contrasted with a weaker, though amiable, sister. Chrysothemis is of the same type as Ismene; her instincts are right, and respond to the appeal of Electra, whom she loves; only she is not heroic. The stronger nature, when brought into conflict with the feebler, almost inevitably assumes, at certain moments, an aspect of harshnessVv. 391; 1027 ff. Cp. Introduction to the Antigone, p. xxix.: yet the union in Electra of tenderness with strength can be felt throughout, and finds expression in more than one passage of exquisite beautySee especially the kommos, 823—870; and her lament, 1126—1170.. When she believes that Orestes is dead, and that it rests with her alone to avenge Agamemnon, she calls upon Chrysothemis to co-operate, who reproves her as forgetting that she is a woman997 γυνὴ μὲν οὐδ’ ἀνὴρ ἔφυς.. But when Orestes is restored to her, she submits herself in all things to his wishes1301 ff. 4 Electra played the chief part in another play also of Sophocles,—the Ἀλήτης, to which Attius was probably indebted in his Agamemnonidae and Erigona. A sketch of the plot is conjecturally recognised in Hyginus Fab. 122.Aletes, son of Aegisthus, sends Electra a false message to the effect that Orestes (who is in exile) is dead, and that Aletes therefore accedes to the throne at Mycenae. Electra goes to consult the oracle at Delphi. She there meets a woman who (she is told) has slain Orestes; and is about to blind her with a brand snatched from the altar, when Orestes rushes between them—reveals himself—and tells her that the woman is her sister Iphigeneia. Orestes slays Aletes, whose daughter Erigona goes to Attica; and Pylades marries Electra. (Cp. Roscher, Lex.p. 1238.) The time supposed in the Ἀλήτης was apparently just after the year of exile ( ἀπενιαυτισμός) imposed upon Orestes by the slaying of his mother. Here, then (as in the presence of Iphigeneia), would be proof that in his Aletes the poet followed a different conception of the story from that which he adopts in his Electra. . Hers is the part which Aeschylus gives to the Chorus, of speaking with Aegisthus on his way to the house. She is present almost from the beginning to the end of the play, and the series of her emotions is the thread which gives unity to the whole.

The cause which she holds sacred is elaborately ar- Clytaemnestra. raigned and defended in the scene with Clytaemnestra. Sophocles portrays the queen in a manner very distinct from that of Aeschylus; a difference due not merely to the general tendencies of the poets, but also to the dramatic setting. Aeschylus created his Clytaemnestra in the Agamemnon, where she is seen just before and just after the murder. There is a fascination in her dreadful presence of mind; what an adamantine purpose can be felt under the fluent eloquence with which she welcomes her husband Ag. 855—913.! How fearful, again, is her exultation in the deed, when she tells the Argive elders that she rejoices in the blood upon her robe ‘as a cornfield in the dews of spring ib. 1390 ff.,’ or when she imagines Iphigeneia advancing to greet Agamemnon in the shades, and kissing him ib. 1555 ff.! Sophocles had to show Clytaemnestra, not at a crisis of action, but as she lived and felt in the years which followed her crime. Electra's fortitude was to be illustrated by withstanding and denouncing her. The Clytaemnestra of Aeschylus was ill-suited to such a situation. If she had been confronted with a daughter who impugned her deed, scorn and hatred would have flashed from her; but she would not have argued her case in detail, and then listened to a reply. The almost superhuman force of that dark soul would have been fatal to the dramatic effect of any woman opposed to her. In the Choephori Aeschylus has taken care that Electra shall have no dialogue with Clytaemnestra. Sophocles clearly felt this. The Clytaemnestra whom he draws is strong and wicked, but her temperament is not one which separates her from ordinary humanity. She feels at least a pang of maternal grief when she first hears that Orestes is dead El. 766 ff. Contrast her hypocritical rhetoric at the corresponding moment in Aesch. Cho. 691 ff., even though a little later she can address heartless taunts to Electra. She has not the Aeschylean queen's cynical contempt for public opinion; thus she complains that Electra misrepresents her, and seeks to justify herself Soph. El. 520 ff.. When she meets her daughter in argument, she is forcible, but the better cause has the advantage which it deserves ib. 516—609.. A desire to avenge Iphigeneia is the plea which she puts forward, and which Electra refutes; but the women of Mycenae had already given voice to the popular belief that guilty love was the true motive of the crime ib. 197 δόλος <*>ν ὁ φράσας, ἔρος ὁ κτείνας.. Sophocles has thus avoided investing Clytaemnestra with a tragic interest which would have required that her punishment, rather than her paramour's, should form the climax.

The Chorus.The function of the Chorus is naturally to some extent the same as in the Choephori,—viz., to sympathise with Electra and to assert the moral law: but there is a difference. The Trojan slave-women of the Aeschylean Chorus hate the tyrants and are friendly to Electra's cause, but have no further interest in the vengeance. The Sophoclean Chorus consists of freeborn women, belonging to Mycenae, but external to the palace. They represent a patriotic sentiment in the realm at large, favourable to the son of Agamemnon, and hostile to the usurper. The city is sympathetic with the familyCp. the words of the Chorus in v. 1413, ὦ πόλις, ὦ γενεὰ κ.τ.λ. In v. 1227 Electra addresses them as πολίτιδες. Their feeling towards Orestes as the heir is seen in 160 ff.: cp. too 251 ff. (n.)..

Let us now see how the subject is treated by Euripides.

The scene is laid before the cottage of a husbandman, or small farmer (αὐτουργός), who lives in Argolis, but near the borders (v. 96), and far from the city of Argos (v. 246). The time is dawn.

Analysis. I. Prologue: 1— 166. (1) 1st scene, 1— 53.The play is opened by a speech of the farmer. Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra have given him Electra in marriage; fearing that, if she wedded a richerEuripides seeks to soften the strangeness of the alliance by vv. 37 f., where the αὐτουργός says that his ‘Mycenaean fathers,’ though poor, were λαμπροὶ ἐς γένος. No doubt the invention of the αὐτουργός was primarily suggested to the poet's mind by his feeling that Aeschylus had violated probability when he made Orestes adventure himself in the lion's (or wolf's) den, by going to the palace. But, if Orestes was not to do that, his meeting with Electra could be managed only by fixing her abode somewhere else, at a safe distance from the palace; and how was this to be done? spouse, he or his offspring might avenge Agamemnon. The worthy man adds that respect for the family has forbidden him to regard the union as more than formalVv. 43 ff.: ἣν οὔποθ’ ἁνὴρ ὅδε, σύνοιδέ μοι Κύπρις, | ᾔσχυνεν εὐνῇ· παρθένος δ’ ἔτ’ ἐστὶ δή. | αἰσχύνομαι γὰρ ὀλβίων ἀνδρῶν τέκνα | λαβὼν ὑβρίζειν, οὐ κατάξιος γεγώς..

(2) 2nd scene, 54 —81.Electra comes out of the cottage, poorly clad, with her hair cut short (in sign of mourning), and bearing a water-jar upon her head. She is not forced, she says, to do these menial tasks, but she wishes to show the insolence of Aegisthus to the gods (v. 58). The farmer deprecates such work for her, and she expresses her grateful esteem for him. Then she goes on her way to the spring, and he to his plough.

(3) 3rd scene, 82 —166.Orestes enters, with PyladesThough Pylades is with him, Orestes is not supposed to come, directly at least, from Crisa; he is a wandering exile (233 f.), on whose head Aegisthus has set a price (v. 33). (who is a mute person throughout). An oracle of Apollo (he says) has sent him. He does not dare to go within the walls of the city. But in the night he has secretly sacrificed at Agamemnon's tomb, and has placed a lock of hair upon it. He has now come to find Electra, of whose marriage he has heard, and to seek her co-operation. —He now sees a woman, apparently a slave, approaching, and proposes to seek information from her. This is Electra, returning with her water-jar from the spring. In a lyric lament she speaks of Agamemnon's fate and her brother's exile. Orestes, listening, soon learns who she is, for she introduces her own name.

The Chorus enters. It consists of fifteen maidens from Parodos: 167—212. the neighbourhood, who hold a lyric dialogue with Electra. They invite her to a festival of the Argive Hera, but she excuses herself, on the ground of her sorrow, and also of her poor attire. They offer to lend her better clothes, but she replies by reminding them of the unavenged wrongs which she is mourningThis Parodos has been made famous by the story in Lysander 15. After the surrender of Athens in the spring of 404 B.C., the Peloponnesian leaders were deliberating on its fate, when they chanced to hear this ode sung, and were softened towards the city which had produced such a poet. (παρὰ πότον τινὸς Φωκέως ᾄσαντος ἐκ τῆς Εὐριπίδου Ἠλέκτρας τὴν πάροδον, ἢς ἡ ἀρχὴ Ἀγαμέμνονος ὦ κόρα..., πάντας ἐπικλασθῆναι κ.τ.λ.).

Electra now perceives that two armed strangers are near her II. First episode: 213—431. (1) 1st scene, 213 —340. cottage, and is disquieted. Orestes does not reveal himself, but says that he has come to bring her news of her brother. Having heard his tidings, she speaks of her own fortunes. If Orestes returned, she would help him to slay their mother (vv. 278 f.). She describes how Aegisthus insults Agamemnon's tomb, and mocks at Orestes.

The farmer now reappears, and is somewhat disconcerted (2) 2nd scene, 341 —431. at first, but quickly recovers himself, and gracefully offers hospitality to the strangers. Orestes accepts the invitation, after moralising on the nobility of nature which may lurk under a rustic exterior. The two guests having gone in, Electra reproves her husband for having invited them, when he knew the poverty of the household. He must now go, she says, and look for a certain old man in the neighbourhood, who is capable of bringing some better fare for the visitors. This old man, it seems, had been an attendant of Agamemnon when the latter was a boy (v. 409). The farmer obeys, and goes forth—to be seen no more.

<*> staslmon: 432 —486.The Chorus sing of the voyage of the Greek heroes to Troy, and the shield of Achilles. They end with imprecations upon Clytaemnestra, who slew the leader of such a host.

III. Second episode: 487—698. (1) 1st scene, 487 —552.The old retainer of Agamemnon, for whom the farmer went, now arrives, bringing lamb, cheeses, and some good wine for the guests; but, though he can provide these comforts, he is clad, after Euripidean fashion, in rags (v. 501).

On his way he has visited Agamemnon's tomb, and has been surprised by finding recent offerings there. One of these, a lock of hair, he brings with him, and suggests that, since it is like Electra's, it may be from the head of Orestes. She ridicules his surmise; and here follows the well-known satire on the other signs used by Aeschylus for the ‘recognition Eur. El. 524—544. The fact that two locks of hair are ὁμόπτεροι—by which she means, ‘of the same colour’—is, she reminds him, no proof of kinship. When he suggests that she should go and see whether the footprints tally with her own, she observes that (1) the soil is too hard to receive a footprint, and (2) a brother's foot is likely to be larger than his sister's. When he lastly suggests that Orestes may have a garment woven for him long ago by his sister, she replies that by this time it must be much too small for him. Dr Verrall (Choephori, pp. xxxv ff.) thinks that the meaning of Aeschylus was subtler than that fixed upon him by Euripides. (1) The resemblance between the hair of Orestes and that of Electra was not in colour merely, but in some Asiatic quality by which the foreign race of Pelops could be distinguished from Achaeans. (2) So as to the footprints: the resemblance meant was not in size, but in the character of the outline. (3) The ὔφασμα was not a garment, but a small specimen of Electra's work which the brother had with him. Euripides himself seems to make a slip here. Electra reproves the old man for suggesting that Orestes would have deigned, through fear of Aegisthus, to conceal his visit to the tomb (524—526). That, however, is what Orestes had done (90). .’

(2) 2nd scene, 553 —595.Orestes and Pylades come out of the cottage. Electra introduces the old man to the strangers as one who formerly saved her brother's life. The old man recognises Orestes by a scar over one eyebrow (v. 573), caused by a fall in childhood, when he and Electra were chasing a fawn. The joy of the recognition is compressed into very narrow limits; but the Chorus sings a short ode (vv. 585—595).

(3) 3rd scene, 596 —698.Orestes now consults the old man as to a scheme of vengeance. It would be impossible (says the old man) for Orestes to enter the guarded stronghold of the usurpers (615 ff.). But Aegisthus is now in the country, about to sacrifice to the Nymphs. He has no guards with him,—only servants. Orestes must present himself at the sacrifice, and take his chance of being asked to assist. Clytaemnestra is at Argos. But Electra undertakes to send her a message which will bring her to the cottage (v. 652). It was customary that, ten days after the birth of a child, offerings should be made to Eileithyia. The old man must tell Clytaemnestra that her daughter entreats this pious office at her hands, as she herself is unacquainted with the ritual (v. 1125).

The old man promises to take this message. He will also guide Orestes to Aegisthus. The brother and sister pray to the gods. Electra then enters the house, while Orestes sets forth with his guide.

The Chorus recite the legend of the golden lamb, the cause Second stasimon: 699—746. IV. Third episode: 747— 1146. (1) 1st scene, 747 —958. of the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes.

A messenger tells Electra how Orestes has slain Aegisthus. The tyrant welcomed the youth and his comrade (Pylades), who described themselves as Thessalians going to Olympia. Orestes was asked to assist in dismembering a bull; and, while Aegisthus was stooping to scan the omens, felled him from behind. The slaves, on hearing the name of Orestes, acclaimed him as their rightful king.

The Chorus and Electra express their joy. Orestes enters (v. 880) with a ghastly trophy—the bodyM. Patin doubts this, Sophocle, p. 355. But it is proved by v. 959 (τοῦδε σῶμ)), and by 1178 ff. ἴδετε...δίγονα σώματα. of Aegisthus, carried by attendants. Electra expresses her hatred in a long speech over the corpse (vv. 907—956).

Clytaemnestra now approaches from Mycenae (v. 963), in a (2) 2nd scene, 959 —1146. chariot, with a retinue. Orestes is seized with shuddering at the thought of slaying his mother. Electra nerves him; reminds him of his duty to his father, and of Apollo's oracle. He enters the cottage—resolved to do the deed, and yet shrinking from it.

The Chorus briefly greet Clytaemnestra with pretended reverence. She bids her Trojan handmaids assist her to alight, but Electra claims the office, remarking that she herself is virtually a slave. Then follows a dispute between mother and daughter as to the fate of Iphigeneia and of Agamemnon (1011—1099). But the queen is presently touched by Electra's misery, and expresses regret for the past. Electra, however, is not softened. Then Clytaemnestra enters the house, to perform the rite on behalf of the (supposed) child. Electra bids her be careful that in the smoky cottage her robes are not soiled—and presently follows her in (v. 1146).

Kommos: 1147— 1237.The Chorus recall the death of Agamemnon, and foretell the vengeance. In the midst of their chant, Clytaemnestra's dying shriek is heard from within.

Orestes and Electra are now shown (by the eccyclema) standing by the corpse of Clytaemnestra; that of Aegisthus lies near.

Orestes is full of anguish and despair. He describes how he drew his cloak over his eyes as he slew his mother. Electra, on the contrary, is in this scene almost a Lady Macbeth. She tells how she urged her brother on, and even guided his sword when he covered his eyes1224 f. ΗΛ. ἐγὼ δέ γ’ ἐπεκέλευσά σοι, | ξίφους τ’ ἐφηψάμην ἅμα.. Then she throws a covering over her mother's body.

Exodos: 1238— 1359.At this moment the Chorus greet the apparition of two bright forms in the air. These are the Dioscuri. Clytaemnestra, they say, has been justly slain, and yet Orestes is defiled. Apollo gave him an unwise oracle; though, as that god is their superior, they will say no more1245 ἀλλ’ ἄναξ γάρ ἐστ’ ἐμός, | σιγῶ· σοφὸς δ’ ὢν οὐκ ἔχρησέ σοι σοφά.. Electra is to marry Pylades, and go to Phocis—taking with her the good farmer, who is to receive a large estate (v. 1287). Orestes is to go to Athens, where, under the presidency of Pallas, he will be tried and acquitted; he will then settle in Arcadia1273 f. σὲ δ’ Ἀρκάδων χρὴ πόλιν ἐπ’ Ἀλφειοῦ ῥοαῖς | οἰκεῖν Λυκαίου πλησίον σηκώματος. The city meant is Tegea, where there was a temple of Zeus Λυκαῖος, and where the supposed relics of Orestes were found ( Her. 1. 68).. Aegisthus will be buried by the Argives; Clytaemnestra, by Menelaüs and Helen, who have just arrived at Nauplia from Egypt.

1292— 1359.The play ends with a most curious dialogue in anapaests between the Dioscuri and the other persons. The Chorus bluntly ask the demigods why they did not avert murder from their sister Clytaemnestra? Well, they reply, the blame rests on Fate, and on the unwise utterances of Phoebus 1302 Φοίβου τ’ ἄσοφοι γλώσσης ἐνοπαί.. Electra then asks why she—to whom no oracle had been given—was involved in the guilt of matricide? The only answer which occurs to them is that she suffers through the hereditary curse upon the whole house of Pelops1305 ff. κοιναὶ πράξεις, κοινοὶ δὲ πότμοι· | μία δ’ ἀμφοτέρους | ἄτη πατέρων διέκναισεν.. Orestes changes the awkward subject by taking leave of Electra, whom he is not to see again. The Dioscuri have words of comfort for each. And then they warn Orestes to hasten away; already dark forms can be seen approaching, with snaky arms1345 χειροδράκοντες, χρῶτα κελαιναί. This description of the Erinyes is exactly illustrated by a vase-painting given in Baumeister's Denkmäler p. 1116. They grasp the snakes, which are coiled round their arms, near the head, so that snake and arm are, as it were, one.. The Dioscuri themselves ‘will go with speed to the Sicilian sea, to save the ships1347 ff. The play was probably produced at the great Dionysia of March, 413 B.C..’

It is in this closing scene, where the Dioscuri are cross- Drift of Euripides —adverse to Apollo. examined, that the drift of Euripides is most patent. The dialogue is equivalent to an epilogue by the dramatist, who, in effect, addresses the audience as follows:—‘I have now told you this story in my own way—adhering to the main lines of the tradition, but reconciling it, as far as possible, with reason. And now, having done my best with it, I feel bound to add that it remains a damning indictment against Apollo, and a scandal to the moral sense of mankind.’

Euripides could not relieve Orestes from the guilt of matri- His Orestes and Electra. cide; tradition forbad; but he has sought to modify that guilt. He has divided the responsibility between Orestes and Electra in such a manner as to make the sister appear the more coldblooded of the two. It is she who plans the snare into which her mother falls. While Orestes wavers and falters, Electra never hesitates for a moment. She unflinchingly bears her part in the murder, when her brother is fain to cover his eyes while he strikes. Yet (as is brought out in the dialogue with the Dioscuri) she had not his excuse. No oracle had been given to her. Her ruling motive appears as an inflexible hatred of her mother. The Electra of the two other dramatists has in deed that feeling, but the noble and gentle side of her character is far more prominentThe Electra of Sophocles, standing outside of the house, hears the shriek of Clytaemnestra, whom Orestes is at that moment slaying within; and exclaims, παῖσον, εἰ σθένεις, διπλῆν (v. 1415). That is, to modern feeling, the most repellent trait which Sophocles has given to her. But it is as nothing in comparison with the part which the Euripidean Electra bears in the actual deed; and it is also an isolated utterance at a moment of extreme tension.. The general result, then, is this:— Euripides gives up Apollo, who told Orestes to commit matricide, as indefensible; while, by a skilful contrast with a more odious person, he contrives to increase our commiseration for Orestes, the hapless instrument of the god.

General estimate of the play.The play was unduly depreciated by Schlegel, and a reaction has long since made itself feltAmong the earlier exponents of this reaction may be mentioned Hartung (Euripides restitutus, vol. II. pp. 305 ff.), and Halévy (Grèce Tragique, vol. I. pp. 90 ff.). See also Patin, Sophocle, p. 340.. Yet a critic who is second to none, either in appreciation for the genius of Euripides or in power of interpreting it,—Professor von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff,—has said that, when one passes from Aeschylus to the Euripidean Electra, it is like turning from Goethe to Heine, —not merely to a less elevated strain, but rather to a wholly different tone,—sordid, trivial, and (from a Greek point of view) blasphemous Hermes, vol. XVIII. p. 233. Es ist als käme man von Goethe zu Heine, als läse man nicht sowohl eine geringere Poesie, als eine Umsetzung ins Meskine Frivole Blasphemische.. We may recognise to the utmost the bold originality of Euripides, the inventive power, and the skilful execution; but his Electra, viewed as a Greek tragedy, cannot be pronounced a success.

Did it precede and influence the Electra of Sophocles?

It has hitherto been generally held that the Electra of Sophocles belongs to an earlier date than its Euripidean namesake. A contrary view is however maintained by v. Wilamowitz, who further thinks that the Electra of Euripides was the stimulus which moved Sophocles to treat the subject Hermes, vol. XVIII. pp. 214—263: Die beiden Elektren. . Certain relations (the able critic contends) exist between the two plays which show that one of them was influenced by the other, and a closer scrutiny proves that the play of Euripides was the original. I propose to examine this view.

The first resemblance to which the critic points is between The openings of the two plays compared. the openings of the two dramas. In the Euripidean prologue Orestes appears and speaks (vv. 82—111). Then Electra sings a monody (112—166); and she is presently joined by the Chorus (167). In the Sophoclean prologue also Orestes appears; then there is a monody for Electra (86—120); and she is joined by the Chorus (121). Such a coincidence, it is argued, cannot be accidental. And there is internal evidence that Euripides was the model. For, with him, the appearance of Orestes at that early moment is necessary; while, with Sophocles, there is no reason why Orestes should be seen until he is ready to enter the house. Again, the Chorus of Euripides have a motive for their visit; they invite Electra to a festival. But the Sophoclean Chorus come without any special cause. Nor has Sophocles the reason of Euripides for composing his Chorus of persons external to the palace; indeed, it is hard to see how such persons could have established such intimacy with Electra, who was almost a prisoner.

In reply to this argument I wish to point out, first, that the likeness between the two openings, in the particular points just noticed, is immeasurably less striking than the general contrast. The play of Sophocles begins with a dialogue between the old man and Orestes, after which they and Pylades leave the scene. Electra then comes forth and sings her monody. Euripides opens with a speech by the farmer, who next has a dialogue with Electra. They depart. Orestes enters with Pylades, to whom he makes a speech. Presently he sees a slave, as he thinks—i.e. Electra—approaching. He and Pylades draw aside; and Electra then sings her monody. Is it not manifest that, so far, the openings are fundamentally different? But, it will be said, the Parodos, at least, is, in each play, shared between Electra and the Chorus; is not this suspicious? Even here the contrast is stronger than the likeness. The Sophoclean Parodos is a long ode of 129 verses, containing a discussion of Electra's wrongs and hopes, and of the course which she ought to pursue. The Euripidean Parodos consists of only 35 verses. The maidens briefly invite Electra, and she declines.

It seems to me, then, that the openings of the two plays entirely fail to support the critic's major premiss, viz., that one of them must have been imitated from the other. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such imitation could be proved. Is it true that internal evidence points to Sophocles as the imitator? His Orestes, we are told, has no reason for appearing at the house before he is prepared to enter it. In defending a dramatist on such a point, it suffices, I suppose, to show that the action is natural and probable; we are not required to prove that it is necessary. Orestes and his companions have just arrived, and have hidden the urn somewhere near the house: the time is day-break. Is it strange that they should reconnoitre the ground on which they will soon have to act, or that the old man should point out the chief features of the scene? As to the poet's motive, that is evident. His invention of the double embassy from Phocis was a novelty, and he wished to give a clue to it at the outset, since the spectator, who is thus in the secret, will enjoy the play more. Again, it is said that Sophocles bewrays his model when he composes his Chorus of persons external to the house. A desire to vary from Aeschylus would account for this as easily as a desire to copy Euripides; but why should not the poet's motive have been independent of both? The free-born women of Mycenae are exponents of the public goodwill towards the rightful heir. But how, we are asked, had they become friends of Electra? Chrysothemis and Clytaemnestra tell us, it may be answered, that Electra frequently passed beyond the doors. Lastly, it is objected that the Chorus come to Electra without a definite reason. Is there not reason enough in their purpose of consoling and counselling her,—the purpose which she gratefully acknowledges?

Thus, even if the openings of the two plays could justly be regarded as showing a debt of either to the other, still there would be no presumption that Sophocles was the debtor.

Relation of Electra to Clytaemnestra.A further argument is, however, adduced in support of the view which we are discussing. Both Sophocles and Euripides bring Electra into controversy with Clytaemnestra. In the play of Euripides, the tenor of this controversy is such as to mitigate the odiousness of Clytaemnestra, and to emphasise the hardness of Electra. This was what Euripides meant to do. The aim of Sophocles was the opposite, to concentrate our sympathy upon Electra. But, says Prof. v. Wilamowitz, Sophocles has involuntarily given the advantage in dignity and self-command to Clytaemnestra; and this shows that he has (unskilfully) imitated Euripides. Is it true that the Clytaemnestra of Sophocles appears to more advantage than his Electra? Every reader must judge for himself; I should not have said so, nor, indeed, do I find it easy to understand how any one could receive that impression. But, even if this were granted, the inference of an imitation would still be unwarranted, since the controversies in the two plays respectively differ both in topics and in style.

Finally, let us consider the more general ground upon which Argument from general probability. it is argued that Sophocles was stimulated to write his Electra by the work of Euripides. The Euripidean Electra is certainly a play which Sophocles would have viewed with repugnance. He would have thought that both the divine and the human persons were degraded. The earlier scenes, with their homely realism, approximate, in fact, to the stamp of the Middle Comedy. The whole treatment is a negation of that ideal art to which Sophocles had devoted his life. It is perfectly conceivable that such a piece should have roused him to make a protest,—to show how the theme could once more be nobly treated, as Aeschylus long ago had treated it, and yet without raising the moral and religious problem of the Choephori. But is such a hypothesis more probable than the converse? Suppose that the Sophoclean Electra was the earlier of the two. Is it not equally conceivable that Euripides should have been stirred to protest against the calm condonation of matricide? Might he not have wished to show how the subject could be handled without ignoring, as Sophocles does, this aspect of the vengeance, and also without refraining from criticism on the solution propounded by Aeschylus? This, in my belief, is what Euripides actually did wish to do. But assume for a moment that the other theory is right, and that the Euripidean Electra was the earlier. Then, surely, when Euripides had just been renewing the impression left by Aeschylus,—that matricide, though enjoined by a god, brings a fearful stain,—Sophocles would have chosen a peculiarly unfortunate moment for inviting Athenians to admire the unruffled equanimity of his Orestes.

Conclusion.I cannot, then, see any valid reason for supposing that Euripides preceded Sophocles in treating this subject. On the other hand, the new line taken by Euripides is the more intelligible if he had before him the pieces of both the elder dramatists Eur. El. 883 f. (ἥκεις γὰρ οὐκ ἀχρεῖον ἕκπλεθρον δραμὼν | ἀγῶν’ ἐς οἴκους) seems to glance at Soph. El. 680—763..

The Electra of Sophocles is one of his later plays.

There are, however, strong grounds of internal coincidence for believing that the Electra is among the later plays of Sophocles. It cannot, on any view, be placed more than a few years before the Euripidean Electra, of which the probable date is 413 B.C. The traits which warrant this conclusion are the Internal evidence.following. (1) The frequency of ἀντιλαβή, i.e. the partition of an iambic trimeter between two speakers. The ordinary form of such partition is when each person speaks once, so that the trimeter falls into two parts (a, b). Taking the two latest plays, we find 22 such examples in the Philoctetes, and 52 in the Oedipus Coloneus. The Electra ranks between them, with 25. Next comes the Oedipus Tyrannus, with only 10. Further, verse 1502 of Electra is so divided between two persons that it falls into three parts (a, b, a). The other Sophoclean instances of this are confined to the Philoctetes (810, 814, 816) Ph. 753 is unique in being similarly divided so that it falls into four parts., and the Oedipus Coloneus (832).

(2) Anapaestic verses (1160—1162) are inserted in a series of iambic trimeters. The only parallel for this occurs in the Trachiniae (v. 1081, vv. 1085 f.), a piece which may be placed somewhere between 420 and 410 B.C. (Introd. to Trach., p. xxiii). It was an innovation due to the melodramatic tendency which marked the last two decades of the century. In the earlier practice, a series of iambic trimeters could be broken only by shorter iambic measures, or by mere interjections.

(3) The ‘free’ or ‘melic’ anapaests in El. 86—120Vv. 88 f. are two successive paroemiacs. are of a type which can be strictly matched only in plays of a date later than circ. 420 B.C., such as the Troades, the Ion, and the Iphigeneia in Tauris.

(4) The actors have a notably large share in the lyric element of the play. ( a) Thus the anapaests just mentioned are delivered by Electra as a μονῳδία. Such a monody can be paralleled only from the later plays of Euripides. It is characteristic of the new music—satirised by Aristophanes in the Frogs—which came into vogue circ. 420 B.C. (b) Again, the Parodos of the Electra is in the form of a lyric dialogue (κομμός) between the heroine and the Chorus. Here, too, it is only in the latest plays that we find parallels. A ‘kommatic’ parodos occurs also in the Oedipus Coloneus. That of the Philoctetes has something of the same general character, although there Neoptolemus replies to the Chorus only in anapaests. (c) Another illustration of the same tendency is the lyric duet between Electra and the coryphaeus in vv. 823—870, which may be compared with similar duets in the Philoctetes (e.g. 1170 ff.), and the Oedipus Coloneus (178 ff., 1677 ff.). (d) In the μέλος ἀπὸ σκηνῆς between Electra and Orestes (1232—1287), the Chorus take no part. On the other hand, the songs given to the Chorus alone are of relatively small compass (472—515; 1058—1097; 1384—1397).

(5) The Parodos shows different classes of metre (the γένος ἴσον and the γένος διπλάσιον) combined within the same strophe; and, at the close, the epode re-echoes them all. This πολυμετρία is a further sign of a late periodSee Metrical Analysis, p. lxxiii. These lyric criteria for the date are searchingly examined by Prof. v. Wilamowitz in Hermes, vol. XVIII. pp. 242 ff..

When all these indications are considered, there seems to be Conclusio at least a very strong probability that the Electra was written not earlier than 420 B.C. There is only one point that might seem to favour an earlier date. The long syllables of the trimeter are here resolved more rarely than in any other of the seven extant playsThe statistics are given in G. Wolff's Elektra (3rd ed., revised by L. Bellermann), p. 123, n. 1. The ratio of the number of resolved feet to the whole number of trimeters in each play is stated as follows:— 1. Electra, 1 to 30 1/2. 2. Antigone, 1 to 26. 3. Trachiniae, 1 to 18 1/2. 4. Ajax, 1 to 18. 5. Oedipus Coloneus, 1 to 18. 6. Oedipus Tyrannus, 1 to 14 1/2. 7. Philoctetes, 1 to 9 1/2. The extraordinarily high proportion in the Philoctetes (409 B.C.) must be considered as indicative of the poet's latest period, and showing the influence of Euripides. But the danger of inference from a comparison of lower ratios is evident. The ratio in the Oedipus Coloneus is lower than in the earlier Tyrannus, and only the same as in the Ajax, which is the oldest play after the Antigone. . But, though a very great frequency of such resolution (as in the Philoctetes) has a clear significance, a negative application of the test would be, as the statistics show, most unsafe; and, in this instance, all the other internal evidence is on the opposite side. Those, then, who hold (as I do) that the play was produced before the Electra of Euripides (413 B.C.), will conclude that the years 420 and 414 B.C. mark the limits of the period to which it may be referred.

Ancient repute of the play. Translation by Atilius.

Two modern plays on the subject,—the Oreste of The Oreste of Voltaire. Voltaire and the Oreste of Alfieri,—so directly invite a comparison with the Greek dramatists, and especially with Sophocles, that they claim a brief notice here. Each is, in its own way, the work of one who has endeavoured to seize the spirit of antiquity; who appreciates the charms of the Greek treatment; and who wishes to preserve the beauty of Greek outline, while telling the story in a new manner, such as he deems more effective for the modern theatre. Each play thus becomes a suggestive criticism on the antique.

Voltaire was not the first French dramatist who had handled this theme. Crébillon, whose Électre appeared in 1708, had followed the precedent set in the Œdipe of Corneille (1657), by interweaving love-affairs with the tragic action: the son of Aegisthus has won the heart of Electra, and his daughter is beloved by Orestes. Longepierre, whose Électre was acted in 1719, failed for a different reason; he preserved the classical simplicity, but lacked knowledge of the stage and charm of style. Voltaire's Oreste was produced in 1750. In the letter of dedication prefixed to it, he says that his aim is to restore a purer taste; and he thus describes the relation of his work to the Sophoclean. ‘I have not copied the Electra of Sophocles,— far from it; but I have reproduced, as well as I could, its spirit and its substance‘Je n'ai point copié l' Électre de Sophocle, il s'en faut beaucoup; j'en ai pris, autant que j'ai pu, tout l'esprit et toute la substance.’ Épître à la Duchesse du Maine, in Beuchot's Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. VI. p. 157..’ This is true; it is only in general outline that his plot resembles the other; the details are his own. The scene is laid near the tomb of Agamemnon, on the shore of the Argolic Gulf. Thither, from Argos, come Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, to hold a festivalA touch borrowed from Soph. El. 278 ff.; bringing with them Electra, their slave, with fetters on her wrists. On the same day, Orestes and Pylades are driven ashore at a neighbouring spot, and fall in with PammèneAs Pammène answers to the Sophoclean Paedagogus, the Sophoclean Chrysothemis has a counterpart in Iphise, who has been allowed to dwell apart, in an old palace near the tomb., a faithful old retainer of the house, who becomes their accomplice. The disguised Orestes, with Pylades, presents himself to Aegisthus, bearing a funeral urn. It contains, he says, the ashes of Orestes, whom he has slain at Epidaurus. There are, in fact, human ashes in the urn; but they are those of Plistène, the son of Aegisthus, whom his father had sent to kill Orestes. Presently Aegisthus learns by a message that his son is dead. He promptly arrests the two young strangers, and Pammène also. Meanwhile Orestes has met Electra at the tomb, and, overcome by affection and pity, has made himself known to her; though the oracle of Delphi had strictly forbidden him to do so. Electra now appeals to Clytaemnestra—tells her the secret—and persuades her to intercede with Aegisthus, but without divulging her son's identity. Clytaemnestra complies. Aegisthus—now certain that Orestes is in his hands—spurns her prayer, and sends the two youths to instant death. They are saved by a popular rising at Argos. The people acclaim Orestes as their king. He then takes vengeance. Electra hears Clytaemnestra's cry of supplication (behind the scenes), and, believing that her mother is pleading for Aegisthus, cries to her brother, ‘Strike!’ Act V, Sc. 8. The trait is borrowed from Soph. El. 1415, ΚΛ. ὤμοι πέπληγμαι. ΗΛ. παῖσον, εἰ σθένεις, διπλῆν: but the new setting given to it by the French dramatist is admirably ingenious. The next moment Clytaemnestra is heard crying, ‘My son, I die by thy hand!’ Electra is overwhelmed with horror; and the play ends with the anguish of Orestes, who prepares to go forth into exile.

The feature which Voltaire himself regarded as most distinctive of his work is the character of Clytaemnestra. He has caught up the hint given by Sophocles (vv. 766 ff.), and carried further by Euripides, that the murderess of Agamemnon may remain capable of tenderness for Orestes and Electra. The Clytaemnestra of Voltaire can be touched by the entreaties of her children, though she replies to their taunts with anger and scorn Épître (prefixed to the Oreste), p. 157. ‘Rien n'est en effet plus dans la nature qu'une femme criminelle envers son époux, et qui se laisse attendrir par ses enfants, qui reçoit la pitié dans son cœur altier et farouche, qui s'irrite, qui reprend la dureté de son caractère quand on lui fait des reproches trop violents, et qui s'apaise ensuite par les soumissions et par les larmes.’. ‘The germ of this personage,’ he says, ‘was in Sophocles and Euripides, and I have developed it.’ In doing so, he has gone a little too far; the ‘cri du sang’ is somewhat too obtrusive and theatrical. Greek Tragedy, with its severe sanity, would have felt that there was extravagance in making Clytaemnestra intercede with Aegisthus for the life of one who could return only as an avenger. Nevertheless, the French dramatist has derived many touches of real beauty and pathos from this motiveAs in the scene between Clytaemnestra, Electra, and Iphise (the Chrysothemis of the play), Act 1, Sc. 3; and in the scenes where Clytaemnestra pleads with Aegisthus for Orestes (Act 1, Sc. 5; Act V, Sc. 3).. His other chief innovation consists in rendering the course of the stratagem less smooth. Orestes and Pylades are placed in deadly peril. Our hopes and fears alternate almost to the end. The demand for this kind of interest is modern. An old Greek audience, familiar beforehand with the main lines of the story, could feel no anxiety for the safety of the hero. Voltaire's treatment of the urn-scene is noteworthy. He saw that here it was impossible to reproduce the Sophoclean pathos; that was only for people who had this custom in respect to the relics of the dead,—a custom surrounded with sacred and tender associations. Voltaire substituted an interest of a different kind, —the thrill felt by the spectators who know that the urn presented to Aegisthus contains the ashes of his son‘Il a fallu suppléer au pathétique qu'ils [i.e. les anciens] y trouvaient par la terreur que doit inspirer la vue des cendres de Plistène, première victime de la vengeance d'Oreste.’ This remark occurs in an essay published in the same year as Voltaire's play (1750),—Dissertation sur les principales Tragédies anciennes et modernes, qui ont paru sur le sujet d'Électre, et en particulier sur celle de Sophocle. It appeared under the name of M. Dumolard, a critic of the day; but it clearly reveals the mind, if not the pen, of Voltaire, among whose works it has long been included: see Beuchot, Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. VI. p. 255. The words quoted above are on p. 279.. The device is ingenious, but reduces the incident to a lower level; it is no longer a dramatic beauty, but rather a stroke of theatrical effect. A more serious departure from the ancient model is involved in his attempt to vindicate the gods. He refuses to conceive that they could have commanded an innocent man to slay his mother, however guilty she might be. In his version, they ultimately doom Orestes to do so; but only as a punishment. And for what? For having failed, through love and pity, to persevere in obedience to their arbitrary command against revealing him self to his sister Dissertation, etc. p. 281: ‘Oreste est certainement plus à plaindre dans l'auteur français que dans l'athénien, et la divinité y est plus ménagée. ’ The Orestes of Voltaire is indeed to be pitied; but precisely because the divine caprice is so frightful.. This surely does not exhibit their justice in a more favourable light. So perilous is it to tamper with Greek Tragedy on this side,—as Euripides, indeed, was the first to show. The inscrutable destiny interwoven with the legend is a thread which cannot be removed without marring the whole texture.

The Oreste of Alfieri.

A lesson of a different kind is taught by the Oreste of AlfieriIt was published in 1783, when the poet was thirty-four years of age.. More rigorous than the ancients themselves in limiting the number of the characters, he employs only five persons,— Aegisthus, Orestes, Pylades, Clytaemnestra, and Electra. Sophocles is the classical poet who has chiefly influenced him in detail; but he owes still more to Voltaire. His Clytaemnestra is a woman broken down by misery and remorse; despised by Aegisthus; upbraided by Electra; vacillating between hysterical tenderness for her children and returns of the old passion for her paramour. Orestes arrives, with Pylades, and is recognised by Electra merely through the emotions which he manifests at the tomb of Agamemnon. The youths then announce, first to Clytaemnestra and afterwards to Aegisthus, the news that Orestes has been killed in a Cretan chariot-race. Aegisthus detects the fiction owing to the folly of Orestes, who, throughout the play, is incapable of self-control; he is perpetually reproved, or helped out of difficulties, by the more prudent Pylades. Aegisthus orders the young men to be executed, and dooms Electra to the same fate. They are saved, as with Voltaire, by an insurrection of the Argives. Orestes then takes the righteous vengeance. He slays Aegisthus, and at the same moment, in his blind fury, unconsciously deals a death-wound to Clytaemnestra, who is endeavouring to protect the tyrant. The play closes with his incipient madness, when he learns from Electra and Pylades that he has shed a mother's blood.

Alfieri has a genuine, though limited, sympathy with the classical spirit, and, unlike most of his modern predecessors in the treatment of such themes, avoids everything that is positively incongruous with that spirit. It is the more instructive to observe the reason why he fails, in this Oreste, to be truly classical. An Attic tragedy, though severely simple in outline, owes much of its artistic charm to those minor incidents which diversify the plot, and to those secondary persons who serve as foils or contrasts to the chief actors. The part of the Nurse in the Choephori is a small one, and yet how much the play would lose if it were omitted! In the Electra of Sophocles, the Old Man is not merely a link in a chain of agency, but a source of dramatic interest: and the portraiture of the heroine herself is the more vivid because Chrysothemis is placed at her side. It is this variety and relief, this skilful use of undertones, that we miss in the work of the Italian dramatist. He has cut out everything that is not indispensable. Without deviation or pause, the action pursues its direct, but somewhat monotonous courseCharles Lloyd, in the preface to his English translation of Alfieri's Tragedies (vol. I. p. xxvii, Lond. 1815), quotes some remarks of Madame de Stael (in Corinne): —‘Alfieri, par un hasard singulier, était, pour ainsi dire, transplanté de l'antiquité dans les temps modernes; il était né pour agir, et il n'a pu qu'écrire... Il a voulu donner à ses tragédies le caractère le plus austère. Il en a retranché les confidens, les coups de théâtre, tout, hors l'intérêt du dialogue.’ ‘Austerity’ is indeed the word which best describes the general stamp of his tragedies. He represents a reaction from the extravagance of Italian drama in the seventeenth century; but his endeavour after classical form is that of a mind which had more force and passion than sensibility or imagination.. There are occasional beautiesConspicuous among these is the scene at the tomb, where Electra divines the identity of Orestes by overhearing his outburst of grief and vows of vengeance, while Pylades (fearing a recognition) pretends to her that his friend is of unsound mind (Act II, Sc. 2). A few verses, which immediately precede the discovery, will serve to give some idea of the style:— ELETTRA. Gli sguardi Fissi ei tien sulla tomba, immoti, ardenti; È terribile in atto...—O tu, chi sei, Che generoso ardisci?... ORESTE. A me la cura Lasciane, a me. PILADE. Già più non t' ode. O donna, Scusa i trasporti insani: ai detti suoi Non badar punto: è fuor di se.—Scoprirti Vuoi dunque a forza? ORESTE. Immergerò; il mio brando Nel traditor tante fiate e tante, Quante versasti dalla orribil piaga Stille di sangue. ELETTRA. Ei non vaneggia. Un padre... ORESTE. Sì, mi fu tolto un padre. Oh rabbia! E inulto Rimane ancora? ELETTRA. E chi sarai tu dunque, Se Oreste non sei tu? PILADE. Che ascolto? ORESTE. Oreste! Chi, chi mi appella? PILADE. Or sei perduto. ELETTRA. Elettra Ti appella; Elettra io son, che al sen ti stringo Fra le mie braccia., but the general effect is not that of a Greek drama; it is rather that of an abridgement from such a work. Thus both Voltaire and Alfieri—the two moderns who, in treating the story of Electra, have been most closely studious of the classical models—have, in their different ways, something to teach us with regard to those qualities which distinguish the Greek masterpiecesM. Patin (Études sur les Tragiques grecs, vol. II. pp. 382 ff.) notices, among other plays on this subject, two which present certain points of interest. One is the Clytemnestre of SoumetAlex. , produced in 1822, when the part of Orestes was acted by Talma. The influence of the Greek dramatists is mingled with that of Alfieri. Unlike his modern predecessors, the author makes use of Clytaemnestra's dream, to which he gives a new and striking form. From the Orestie of Dumas Alex. (produced in 1856) is cited a beautiful lament of Electra (Act II, Sc. 6), an echo of several passages in Sophocles..

Traces in art of the Aeschylean and Sophoclean plays.

We have already seen how the lyric Oresteia of Stesichorus is related to certain works of Greek art. It may be interesting, in conclusion, to observe how far the dramatic versions of the story can be traced in that province. As might have been expected, the Aeschylean trilogy has been the most influential. Thus the Choephori has helped to inspire a vase-paintingThe vase is from Lower Italy, and is now at Naples: Rochette, Mon. inédit. pl. 34. It is reproduced in Baumeister's Denkmäler, p. 1111, with Overbeck's interpretation of it. in which Electra, Orestes and Pylades, with some other figures, are seen at the grave of Agamemnon,—the god Hermes (whom Orestes invokes at the beginning of that play) being also present. The passage of the Eumenides which alludes to the purification of Orestes by the blood of swine (καθαρμοὶ χοιροκτόνοι, v. 283) is illustrated by another vaseFrom Apulia, published in Mon. Inst. IV. 48: Baumeister, Denkm. p. 1117.; Apollo, at Delphi, is holding a slain sucking-pig over the head of Orestes, while the ghost of Clytaemnestra seeks to arouse the slumbering Furies. In a third vase-pictureMillin, Peintures de Vases, II. 68: Baumeister, Denkm. p. 1118., also indebted to the Eumenides (187—223), we see the Furies now awake, and about to resume their chase of Orestes; Apollo, at his side, sternly reproves them; while the benign figure of Athena, to whom Orestes looks up, typifies his approaching acquittal at Athens. Lastly, the crisis in the trial on the hill of Ares, when the goddess places her pebble in the urn, is depicted on a vaseFound at Kertsch: Baumeister, Denkm. p. 1119, where Stephani's explanation of it is given. of the later Roman age. The Electra of Sophocles has suggested the subject represented on an Apulian vaseReproduced by Prof. Michaelis A. at the head of the Preface to his revision of Otto Jahn's Sophoclis Electra (3rd ed., p. iii, Bonn, 1892). He refers (p. vii) to the publications and interpretations of the vase by Laborde (Vases Lamberg I, pl. 8), J. de Witte and C. Lenormant (Élite céramogr. II. pl. 79), and Overbeck (Bildwerke pl. 29, 61).; Orestes, wearing a chlamys, and carrying a spear in his left hand, shows a funeral urn to Electra; Pylades, also with chlamys and spear, follows him. The moment is that at which the two youths, disguised as Phocian messengers from Strophius, arrive before the gates of the palace, and inform Electra of their errand (1113 f.):—

φέροντες αὐτοῦ σμικρὰ λείψαν’ ἐν βραχεῖ τεύχει θανόντος, ὡς ὁρᾷς, κομίζομεν.

A marble groupReproduced in Baumeister's Denkm. p. 1192; and by Michaelis in Jahn's Electra, p. 31., now in the Museum at Naples, represents a youth standing at the right side of a maiden whose outstretched right arm encircles his neck, the hand resting on his right shoulder. This work, remarkable for a grave and chastened beauty, is suggestive of an elder sister with her brother; and, according to a probable interpretationThis view is accepted by Prof. Michaelis (op. cit. p. vii). According to others, the persons are Merope and her son Cresphontes (from the Cresphontes of Euripides); or Deianeira exhorting her son Hyllus to go in search of Heracles ( Soph. Tr. 82 ff.); or Penelope and Telemachus. The group is the work of Stephanus, a pupil of Menelaüs, himself the pupil of Pasiteles, a sculptor and versatile artist of Lower Italy, who lived in the earlier half of the first century B.C. See Dr C. Waldstein's article on Pasiteles in Baumeister's Denkmäler, p. 1190., the persons are Electra and Orestes. We are reminded of the sequel to the recognition in the play of Sophocles, where the sister says, ἔχω δε χερσίν; and Orestes answers, ὡς τὰ λοίπ’ ἔχοις ἀεί (v. 1226); though the moment imagined by the sculptor is one when the first transport of joy has subsided into a calmer happiness. It remains to notice a slight but significant testimony to Sophoclean influence on the treatment of this subject in the art of the Imperial age. Lucian describes a picture in which Orestes and Pylades are slaying Aegisthus, while Clytaemnestra, already slain, is seen on a couchLucian Περὶ τοῦ οἴκου, § 23.. He commends the skill which fixes attention on the doom of a wicked man, but leaves in the background the vengeance taken on a mother by a son ιβ.σεμνὸν δέ τι ὁ γραφεὺς ἐπενόησεν, τὸ μὲν ἀσεβὲς τῆς ἐπιχειρήσεως δείξας μόνον καὶ ὡς ἤδη πεπραγμένον παραδραμών, ἐμβραδύνοντας δὲ τοὺς νεανίσκους ἐργασάμενος τῷ τοῦ μοιχοῦ φόνῳ.. Now, among the extant literary sources for the story, the Electra of Sophocles is the only one in which the death of Clytaemnestra precedes that of AegisthusWith regard to the authority followed by the painter, Lucian remarks, τὸ ἀρχέτυπον ὁ γραφεὺς παρ’ Εὐριπίδου ἢ Σοφοκλέους δοκεῖ μοι λαβεῖν, forgetting that no situation even distantly similar occurs in the play of the younger dramatist. Indeed, so far as I can discover, the Euripidean Electra is nowhere traceable in ancient art, to which it offered no specially suitable material. It will be observed that the picture described above does not agree in detail with the closing scene in the play of Sophocles; it is the order of the retributive acts, and the prominence given to them respectively, which unmistakably shows his influence.; and the effect for which Lucian gives credit to the painter is the same which is obtained, in a subtler form, by the dramatic perspective of the poet.