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AESCHYLUS (525–456 B.c.)
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See also:AESCHYLUS (525–456 B.c.) , See also:Greek poet, the first of the only three See also:Attic Tragedians of whose See also:work entire plays survive, and in a very real sense (as we shall see) the founder of the Greek See also:drama, was See also:born at See also:Eleusis in the See also:year 525 B.C. His See also:father, See also:Euphorion, belonged to the " See also:Eupatridae " or old See also:nobility of See also:Athens, as we know on the authority of the See also:short See also:Life of the Life. poet given in the Medicean See also:Manuscript (see See also:note on " authorities " at the end). According to the same tradition he took See also:part as a soldier in the See also:great struggle of See also:Greece against See also:Persia; and was See also:present at the battles of See also:Marathon, Artemisium, See also:Salamis and See also:Plataea, in the years 490-479. At least one of his See also:brothers, Cynaegirus, fought with him at Marathon, and was killefil in attempting a conspicuous See also:act of bravery; and the brothers' portraits found a See also:place in the See also:national picture of the See also:battle which the Athenians set up as a memorial in the See also:Stoa Poecile (or " Pictured See also:Porch ") at Athens. The vigour and loftiness of See also:tone which See also:mark Aeschylus' poetic work was not only due, we may be sure, to his native See also:genius and gifts, powerful as they were, but were partly in-spired by the See also:personal See also:share he took in the great actions of a heroic national uprising. In the same way, the poet's brooding thoughtfulness on deep questions—the See also:power of the gods, their dealings with See also:man, the dark mysteries of See also:fate, the future life in Hades—though largely due to his turn of mind and temperament, was doubtless connected with the place where his childhood was passed. Eleusis was the centre of the most famous See also:worship of See also:Demeter, with its processions, its ceremonies, its mysteries, its impressive See also:spectacles and nocturnal See also:rites; and these were intimately connected with the Greek beliefs about the human soul, and the underworld. His dramatic career began See also:early, and was continued for more than See also:forty years. In 499, his 26th year, he first exhibited at Athens; and his last work, acted during his lifetime at Athens, was the trilogy of the Oresteia, exhibited in 458. The See also:total number of his plays is stated by Suidas to have been ninety; and the seven extant plays, with the dramas named or nameable which survive only in fragments, amount to over eighty, so that Suidas' figure is probably based on reliable tradition. It is well known that in the 5th See also:century each exhibitor at the tragic See also:con-tests produced four plays; and Aeschylus must therefore have competed (between 499 and 458) more than twenty times, or once in two years. His first victory is recorded in 484, fifteen years after his earliest See also:appearance on the See also:stage; but in the remaining twenty-six years of his dramatic activity at Athens he was successful at least twelve times. This clearly shows that he was the most commanding figure among the tragedians of 500-458; and for more than See also:half that See also:time was usually the See also:victor in the contests. Perhaps the most striking See also:evidence of his exceptional position among his contemporaries is the well-known See also:decree passed shortly after his See also:death that whosoever desired to exhibit a See also:play of Aeschylus should " receive a See also:chorus," i.e. be officially allowed to produce the drama at the See also:Dionysia. The existence of this decree, mentioned in the Life, is strongly confirmed by two passages in See also:Aristophanes: first in the See also:prologue of the Acharnians (which was acted in 425, See also:thirty-one years after the poet's death), where the See also:citizen, grumbling about his griefs and troubles, relates his great disappointment, when he took his seat in the See also:theatre " expecting Aeschylus," to find that when the play came on it was Theognis; and secondly in a See also:scene of the Frogs (acted 405 B.C.), where the See also:throne of See also:poetry is contestedin Hades between Aeschylus and See also:Euripides, the former complains (Fr. 866) that " the battle is not See also:fair, because my own poetry has not died with me, while Euripides' has died, and therefore he will have it with him to recite "—a clear reference, as the scholiast points out, to the continued See also:production at Athens of Aeschylus' plays after his death.
Apart from fables, guesses and blunders, of which a word is said below, the only other incidents recorded of the poet's life that deserve mention are connected with his Sicilian visits, and the See also:charge preferred against him of revealing the " secrets of Demeter." This See also:tale is briefly mentioned by See also:Aristotle (See also:Elk iii. 2), and a See also:late commentator (Eustratius, 12th .century) quotes from one Heraclides Pontius the version which may be briefly given as follows:
The poet was acting a part in one of his own plays, where there was a reference to Demeter. The See also:audience suspected him of revealing the inviolable secrets, and See also:rose in fury; the poet fled to the See also:altar of See also:Dionysus in the See also:orchestra and so saved his life for the moment; for even an angry Athenian See also:crowd respected the inviolable See also:sanctuary. He was afterwards charged with the See also:crime before the See also:Areopagus; and his plea " that he did not know that what he said was See also:secret " was accepted by the See also:court and secured his acquittal. The commentator adds that the prowess of the poet (and his See also:brother) at Marathon was the real cause of the leniency- of his See also:judges. The See also:story was afterwards See also:developed, and embellished by additions; but in the above shape it See also:dates back to the 4th century; and as the See also:main fact seems accepted by Aristotle, it is probably See also:authentic.
As to his See also:foreign travel, the See also:suggestion has been made that certain descriptions in the Persae, and the known facts that he wrote a trilogy on the story of the Thracian See also: For his repeated visits to See also:Sicily, on the other See also:hand, there is conclusive See also:ancient evidence. See also:Hiero the First, See also:tyrant of See also:Syracuse, who reigned about twelve years (478-467), and amongst other efforts after magnificence invited to his court famous poets and men of letters, had founded a new See also:town, Aetna, on the site of Catana which he captured, expelling the inhabitants. Among his guests were Aeschylus, See also:Pindar, See also:Bacchylides and See also:Simonides. About 476 Aeschylus; was entertained by him, and at his See also:request wrote and exhibited a play called The See also:Women of Aetna in See also:honour of the new town. He paid a second visit about 472, the year in which he had produced the Persae at Athens; and the play is said to have been repeated at Syracuse at his See also:patron's request. Hiero died in 467, the year of the Seven against -See also:Thebes; but after 458, when the Oresteia was exhibited at Athens, we find the poet again in Sicily for the last time. In 456 he died, and was buried at See also:Gela; and on his See also:tomb was placed an See also:epitaph in two elegiac couplets saying: "Beneath this See also: In passing from Aeschylus' life to his work, we have obviously far more trustworthy data, in the seven extant plays (with work the fragments of more than seventy others), and See also:par- ticularly in the invaluable help of Aristotle's Poetics. The real importance of our poet in the development of the drama (see DRAMA: Greek) as compared with any of his three or four known predecessors—who are at best hardly more than names to us—is shown by the fact that Aristotle, in his brief See also:review of the rise of tragedy (Poet. iv. 13), names no one before Aeschylus. He recognizes, it is true, a long See also:process of growth, with several stages, from the dithyramb to the drama; and it is not difficult to see what these stages were. , The first step was the addition to the old choric See also:song of an interlude spoken, and in early days improvised, by the See also:leader of the chorus (Poet. iv. 12). The next was the introduction of an actor (uzroKptrits or " answerer "), to reply to the leader; and thus we get See also:dialogue added to recitation. The " answerer " was at first the poet himself (Ar. Rhet. iii. I). This See also:change is. traditionally attributed to See also:Thespis (536 B.C.), who is, however, not mentioned by Aristotle. The See also:mask, to enable the actor to assume different parts, by whomsoever invented, was in See also:regular use before Aeschylus' See also:day. The third change was the enlarged range of subjects. The lyric dithyramb-tales were necessarily about Dionysus, and the interludes had, of course, to follow suit. Nothing in the See also:world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony; and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then, as ever, eager for " some new thing ") nevertheless opposed at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators won; or other-See also:wise there would have been no Attic drama. In this way, then, to the See also:original lyric song and dances in honour of Dionysus was added a spoken (but still metrical) interlude by the chorus-leader, and later a dialogue with one actor (at first the poet), whom the mask enabled to appear in more than one part. But everything points to the fact that in the development of the drama Aeschylus was the decisive innovator. The two things that were important, when the 5th century began, if tragedy was to realize its possibilities, were (r) the disentanglement of the dialogue from its position as an interlude in an See also:artistic and religious See also:pageant that was primarily lyric; and (2) its See also:general See also:elevation of tone. Aeschylus, as we know on the See also:express authority of Aristotle (Poet. iv. 13), achieved the first by the introduction of the second actor; and though he did not begin the second, he gave it the decisive impulse and con-summation by the overwhelming effect of his serious thought, the stately splendour of his See also:style, his high dramatic purpose, and the artistic grandeur and impressiveness of the construction and presentment of his tragedies. As to the importance of the second actor no See also:argument is needed. The essence of a play is dialogue; and a colloquy between the See also:coryphaeus and a messenger (or, by aid of the mask, a See also:series of messengers), as must have been the See also:case when Aeschylus began, is in reality not dialogue in the dramatic sense at all, but rather narrative. The discussion, the persuasion, the ir}-struction, the See also:pleading, the contention—in short, the interacting personal influences of different characters on each other—are indispensable to anything that can be called a play, as we understand the word; and, without two "personae dramatis" at the least, the drama in the strict sense is clearly impossible. The number of actors was afterwards increased; but to Aeschylus are due the See also:perception and the See also:adoption of the essential step; and therefore, as was said above, he deserves in a very real sense to be called the founder of Athenian tragedy. Of the seven extant plays, Supplices, Persae, Septem contra Thebas, See also:Prometheus, See also:Agamemnon, Choephoroe and See also:Eumenides, five can fortunately be dated with certainty, as the See also:archon's nameis preserved in the Arguments; and the other two approximately. The dates See also:rest, in the last resort, on the S&bavKaXiae, or the See also:official records of the contests, of which we know that Aristotle (and others) compiled catalogues; and some actual fragments have been recovered. The See also:order of the plays is probably that given above; and certainly the Persae was acted in 472, Septem in 467, and the last three, the trilogy, in 458. The Supplices is generally, though not unanimously, regarded as the See also:oldest; and the best authorities tend to place it not far from 490. The early date is strongly confirmed by three things: the extreme simplicity of the See also:plot, the choric (instead of dramatic) opening, and the fact that the percentage of lyric passages is 54, or the highest of all the seven plays. The See also:chief doubt is in regard to Prometheus, which is variously placed by See also:good authorities; but the very See also:low percentage of lyrics (only 27, or roughly a See also:quarter of the whole), and still more the strong characterization, a marked advance on anything in the first three plays, point to its being later than any except the trilogy, and suggest a date somewhere about 460, or perhaps a little earlier. A few comments on the extant plays will help to indicate the main points of Aeschylus' work. Supplices.—The exceptional See also:interest of the Supplices is due to its date. Being nearly twenty years earlier than any other extant play, it furnishes evidence of a stage in the See also:evolution of Attic drama which would otherwise have been unrepresented. Genius, as Patin says, is a " puissance libre," and none more so than that of Aeschylus; but with all See also:allowance for the " uncontrolled power " of this poet, we may feel confident that we have in the Supplices something resembling in general structure the lost See also:works of See also:Choerilus, Phrynichus, See also:Pratinas and the 6th-century pioneers of drama. The plot is briefly as follows: the fifty daughters of See also:Danaus (who are the chorus), betrothed by the fiat of Aegyptus (their father's brother) to his fifty sons, flee with Danaus to See also:Argos, to See also:escape the See also:marriage which they abhor. They claim the See also:protection of the Argive king, Pelasgus, who is See also:kind but timid; and he (by a pleasing See also:anachronism) refers the See also:matter to the people, who agree to protect the fugitives. The pursuing See also:fleet of suitors is seen approaching;, the See also:herald arrives (with a See also:company of followers), blusters, threatens, orders off the cowering Danaids to the See also:ships and finally attempts to See also:drag them away. Pelasgus interposes with a force, drives off the Egyptians and saves the suppliants. Danaus urges them to See also:prayer, thanksgiving and maidenly modesty, and the grateful chorus pass away to the shelter offered by their protectors. It is clear that we have here the drama in its nascent stage, just developing out of the lyric pageant from which it sprang. The interest still centres round the chorus, who are in fact the " protagonists " of the play. See also:Character and plot—the two essentials of drama, in the view of all critics from Aristotle downwards—are both here rudimentary. There are some fluctuations of See also:hope and fear; but the play is a single situation. The stages are: the See also:appeal; the hesitation of the king, the re-solve of the people; the defeat of insolent violence; and the See also:rescue. It should not be forgotten, indeed, that the play is one of a trilogy—an act, therefore, rather than a See also:complete drama. But we have only to compare it with those later plays of which the same is true, to see the difference. Even in a trilogy, each play is a complete whole in itself, though also a portion of a larger whole. Persae.—The next play that has survived is the Persae, which has again a special interest, viz. that it is the only extant Greek historical drama. We know that Aeschylus' predecessor, Phrynichus, had already twice tried this experiment, with the See also:Capture of See also:Miletus and the Phoenician Women; that the latter play dealt with the same subject as the Persae, and the handling of its opening scene was imitated by the younger poet. The plot of the Persae is still severely See also:simple, though more developed than that of the Suppliants. The opening is still lyric, and the first quarter of the play brings out, by song and speech, the anxiety of the people and See also:queen as to the fate of See also:Xerxes' huge See also:army. Then comes the messenger with the See also:news of Salamis, including a description of the See also:sea-fight itself which can only be called magnificent. We realize what it must have been for the vast audience—3o,o00, according to Plato (Symp. 195 E)—to hear, eight years only after the event, from the supreme poet of Athens, who was himself a distinguished actor in the See also:war, this thrilling narrative of the great battle. But this reflexion at once suggests another; it is not a tragedy in the true Greek sense, according to the practice of the 5th-century poets. It may be called in one point of view a tragedy, since the scene is laid in Persia, and the drama forcibly depicts the downfall of the Persian See also:pride. But its real aim is not the "pity and terror" of the developed drama; it is the triumphant glorification of Athens, the exultation of the whole nation gathered in one place, over the ruin of their foe. This is best shown by the praise of Aeschylus' great admirer and defender Aristophanes, who (Frogs, 1026-1027) puts into the poet's mouth the boast that in the Persae he had " glorified a noble exploit, and taught men to be eager to conquer their foe." Thus, both as an historic drama and in its real effect, the Persae was an experiment; and, as far as we know, the experiment was not repeated either by the author or his successors. One further point may be. noted. Aeschylus always has a See also:taste for the unseen and the supernatural; and one effective incident here is the raising of See also:Darius's See also:ghost, and his prophecy of the disastrous battle of Plataea. But in the ghost's revelations there is a mixture of audacity and naivete, characteristic at once of the poet and the early youth of the drama. The dead Darius prophesies Plataea, but has not heard of Salamis; he gives a brief (and inaccurate) See also:list of the Persian See also:kings, which the queen and chorus, whom he addresses, presumably know; and his only See also:practical suggestion, that the Persians should not again invade Greece, seems attainable without the aid of super-human foresight. Septem contra Thebas.—Five years later came the Theban Tragedy. It is not only, as Aristophanes says (Frogs, 1024), " a play full of the See also:martial spirit," but is (like the Supplices) one of a connected series, dealing with the evil fate of the Theban See also:House. But instead of being three acts of a single story like the Supplices, these three plays trace the fate through three generations, Laius, See also:Oedipus and the two sons who See also:die by each other's hands in the fight for the Theban See also:sovereignty. This See also:family fate, where one evil See also:deed leads to another after many years, is a larger conception, strikingly suited to Aeschylus' genius, and constitutes a notable stage in the development of the Aeschylean drama. And just as here we have the tragedy of the Theban house, so in the last extant work, the Oresteia, the poet traces the tragedy of the Pelopid family, from Agamemnon's first See also:sin to See also:Orestes' vengeance and See also:purification. And the names of several lost plays point to similar handling of the tragic trilogy. The Seven against Thebes is the last play of its series; and again the plot is severely simple, not only in outline, but in detail. Father and grandfather have both perished miserably; and the two princes have quarrelled, both claiming the See also:kingdom. See also:Eteocles has driven out Polynices, who fled to Argos, gathered a See also:host under seven leaders (himself being one), and when the play opens has begun the See also:siege of his own See also:city. The king appears, warns the people,chides the clamour of women,appoints seven Thebans, including himself, to defend the seven See also:gates, departs to his See also:post, meets his brother in battle and both are killed. The other six chieftains are all slain, and the enemy beaten off. The two dead princes are buried by their two sisters, who alone are left of the royal house. Various signs of the early drama are here See also:manifest. Half the play is lyric; there is no complication of plot; the whole See also:action is recited by messengers; and the fatality whereby the predicted mutual slaughter of the princes is brought about is no accidental stroke of destiny, but the choice of the king Eteocles himself. On the other hand, the opening is no longer lyric (like the two earlier plays) but dramatic; the main scene, where the messenger reports at length the names of the seven assailants, and the king appoints the seven defenders, each man going off in silence to his post, must have been an impressive spectacle. One novelty should not be overlooked. There is here the first passage of Stavoi.a, or general reflexion of life, which later became a regular feature of tragedy. Eteocles See also:muses on the fate which involves an See also:innocent mayn in the company of the wicked so that he shares unjustly their deserved fate. The passage (Theb. 599-608) is interesting; and the whole part of Eteocles shows a new effort of the poet to draw character, which may have some-thing to do with the rise of Sophocles, who in the year before (468) won with his first play, now lost, the prize of tragedy.. There remain only the Prometheus and the Oresteia, which show such marked advance that (it may almost be said) when we think of Aeschylus it is these four plays we have in mind. Prometheus.—The Prometheus-trilogy consisted of three plays: Prometheus the See also:Fire-bringer, Prometheus See also:Bound, Prometheus Unbound. The two last necessarily came in that order; the Fire-bringer is probably the first, though recently it has been held by some scholars to be the last, of the trilogy. That Prometheus sinned against See also:Zeus, by stealing fire from See also:heaven; that he was punished by fearful tortures for ages; that he finally was reconciled to Zeus and set See also:free,—all this was the ancient tale indisputably. Those who hold the Fire-bringer (IIupcbopos) to be the final play, conjecture that it dealt with the See also:establishment of the worship of Prometheus under that See also:title, which is known to have existed at Athens. But the other order is on all grounds more probable; it keeps the natural sequence—crime, See also:punishment, reconciliation, which is also the sequence in the Oresteia. And if the reconciliation was achieved in the second play, no See also:scheme of action sufficing for the third drama seems even plausible.' However that may be, the play that survives is a poem of unsurpassed force and impressiveness. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the development of drama, there seems at first sight little See also:scope in the story for the normal human interest of a tragedy, since the act-ors are all divine, except Io, who is a distracted wanderer, victim of Zeus' See also:cruelty; and between the opening where Prometheus is nailed to the Scythian See also:rock, and the See also:close where the See also:earthquake engulfs the rock, the See also:hero and the chorus, action in the See also:ordinary sense is ipso facto impossible. This is just the opportunity for the poet's bold inventiveness and See also:fine See also:imagination. The tortured sufferer is visited by the Oceanic See also:Nymphs, who See also:float in, See also:borne by an (imaginary) winged See also:car, to See also:console; See also:Oceanus (See also:riding a ,See also:griffin, doubtless also imaginary) follows, kind but timid, to advise submission; then appears Io, victim of Zeus' love and See also:Hera's See also:jealousy, to whom Prometheus prophesies her future wanderings and his own fate; lastly See also:Hermes, insolent messenger of the gods, who tries in vain to extort Prometheus' secret knowledge of the future. Oceanus, the well-meaning palavering old See also:mentor, and Hermes, the blustering and futile See also:jack-in-See also:office, gods though they be, are vigorous, audacious and very human character-sketches; the soft entrance of the consoling nymphs is unspeakably beautiful; and the prophecy of Io's wanderings is a striking example of that new keen interest in the world outside which was See also:felt by the Greeks of the 5th century, as it was felt by the Elizabethan See also:English in a very similar See also:epoch of national spirit and enterprise two thousand years later. Thus, though dramatic action is by the nature of the case impossible for the hero, the visitors provide real drama. Another important point in the development of tragedy is what we may See also:call the " balanced issue." The question in Suppliants is the protection of the threatened fugitives; in Persae the humiliation of overweening pride. So far the sympathy of the audience is not doubtful or divided. Irr the Septem there is an approach to conflict of feeling; the banished brother has a personal grievance, though guilty of the impious crime of attacking his own See also:country. The sympathy must be for the de-See also:fender Eteocles; but it is at least somewhat qualified by his injustice to his brother. In Prometheus the issue is more nearly 1 The Eumenides is quoted as a parallel, because there the establishment of this worship at Athens concludes the whole trilogy; but it is forgotten that in Eumenides there is much besides—the pursuit of Orestes, the See also:refuge at Athens, the trial, the acquittal, the conciliation by See also:Athena of the See also:Furies; while here the story would be finished before the last play began. balanced. The hero is both a victim and a See also:rebel. He is punished for his benefits to man; but though Zeus is tyrannous and ungrateful, the hero's reckless See also:defiance is shocking to Greek feeling. As the play goes on, this is subtly and delicately indicated by the attitude of the chorus. They enter overflowing with pity. They are slowly chilled and alienated by the hero's violence and impiety; but they nobly decline, at the last crisis, the mean See also:advice of Hermes to See also:desert Prometheus and See also:save themselves; and in the final See also:crash they share his fate. Oresteia.—The last and greatest work of Aeschylus is the Oresteia, which also has the interest of being the only complete trilogy preserved to us. It is a three-act drama of family fate, like the Oedipus-trilogy; and the acts are the sin, the revenge, the reconciliation, as in the Prometheus-trilogy. Again, as in Prometheus, the plot, at first sight, is such that the conditions of drama seem to exclude much development in character-See also:drawing. The gods are everywhere at the See also:root of the action. The inspired See also:prophet, See also:Calchas, has demanded the See also:sacrifice of the king's daughter Iphigenia, to appease the offended See also:Artemis. The in-spired See also:Cassandra, brought in as a See also:spear-won slave from conquered See also:Troy, reveals the murderous past of the Pelopid house, and the imminent slaughter of the king by his wife. Apollo orders the son, Orestes, to avenge his father by killing the murderess, and protects him when after the deed he takes sanctuary at See also:Delphi. The Erinnyes (" Furies ") pursue him over land and sea; and at last Athena give§ him shelter at Athens, See also:summons an Athenian See also:council to See also:judge his See also:guilt, and when the court is equally divided gives her casting See also:vote for See also:mercy. The last act ends with the reconciliation of Athena and the Furies; and the latter receive a See also:shrine and worship at Athens, and promise favour and prosperity to the great city. The scope for human drama seems deliberately restricted, if not closed, by such a story so handled. Nevertheless, as a fact, the growth of characterization is, in spite of all, not only visible but remarkable. Clytemnestra is one of the most powerfully presented characters of the Greek drama. Her manly courage, her vindictive and unshaken purpose, her hardly hidden contempt for her See also:tool and See also:accomplice, See also:Aegisthus, her See also:cold scorn for the feebly vacillating elders, and her unflinching See also:acceptance (in the second play) of inevitable fate, when she faces at last the avowed avenger, are all portrayed with matchless force—her very See also:craft being scornfully assumed, as needful to her purpose, and contemptuously dropped when the purpose is served. And there is one other noticeable point. In this trilogy Aeschylus, for the first time, has attempted some touches of character in two of the humbler parts, the Watchman in Agamemnon, and the See also:Nurse in the Choephoroe. The See also:Watch-man opens the play, and the vivid and almost humorous sententiousness of his See also:language, his dark hints, his pregnant metaphors See also:drawn from See also:common speech, at once give a striking See also:touch of See also:realism, and See also:form a pointed contrast to the terrible drama that impends. A very similar effect is produced at the crisis of the Choephoroe by the speech of the Nurse, who coming on a See also:message to Aegisthus pours out to the chorus her sorrow at the reported death of Orestes and her fond memories of his babyhood—with the most homely details; and the most striking realistic touch is perhaps the broken structure and almost inconsequent utterance of the old faithful slave's speech. These two are veritable figures drawn from contemporary life; and though both appear only once, and are quite unimportant in the drama, the innovation is most significant, and especially as adopted by Aeschylus. It remains to say a word on two more points, the religious ideas of Aeschylus and some of the main characteristics of his poetry. Cnerao- The religious aspect of the drama in one sense was terisucs. prominent from the first, owing to its evolution from the choral celebration of the See also:god Dionysus. But the new spirit imported by the genius of Aeschylus into the early drama was religious in a profounder meaning of the See also:term. The sadness of human See also:lot, the power and mysterious dealings of the gods, their terrible and inscrutable wrath and jealousy (aya and c8bvos), their certain vengeance upon sinners, all the more fearful it delayed,—such are the poet's See also:constant themes; delivered with See also:strange See also:solemn: :':.y and impressiveness in the lyric songs, i time. are very numerous, and the See also:text has been further continuously especially in the Oresteia. And at times, particularly in the Trilogy, in his reference to the divine power of Zeus, he almost approaches a stern and sombre monotheism. " One God above all, who directs all, who is the cause of all" (Ag. 163, 1485); the watchfulness of this Power over human action (363-367), especially over the punishment of their sins; and the mysterious See also:law whereby sin always begets new sin (Ag. 758-76o):—these are ideas on which Aeschylus dwells in the Agamemnon with See also:peculiar force, in a See also:strain at once lofty and sombre. One specially noteworthy point in that play is his explicit repudiation of the common Hellenic view that prosperity brings ruin. In other places he seems to share the feeling; but here (Ag. 730) he goes deeper, and declares that it is not L Xlos but always wickedness that brings about men's fall. All through there is a recurring note of fear in his view of man's destiny, expressed in vivid images—the " death that lurks behind the See also:wall " (Ag. 1004), the " hidden See also:reef which wrecks the bark, unable to See also:weather the headland " (Eum. 561-565). In one remarkable passage of the Eumenides (517-525) this fear is extolled as a moral power which ought to be enthroned in men's See also:hearts, to deter them from impious or violent acts, or from the pride that impels them to such sins. Of the poetic qualities of Aeschylus' drama and diction, both in the lyrics and the dialogue, no adequate account can be attempted; the briefest word must here suffice. He is everywhere distinguished by grandeur and power of conception, presentation and expression, and most of all in the latest works, the Prometheus and the Trilogy. He is pre-eminent in depicting the slow approach of fear, as in the Persae; the imminent horror of impending fate, as in the broken cries and visions of Cassandra in the Agamemnon (1072-1177), the long lament and prayers to the nether See also:powers in the Choephoroe (315-478), and the See also:gradual rousing of the slumbering Furies in the Eumenides (117-139). The fatal end in these tragedies is foreseen; but the effect is due to its measured advance, to the slowly darkening suspense which no poet has more powerfully rendered. Again, he is a See also:master of contrasts, especially of the Beautiful with the Tragic: as when the floating See also:vision of consoling nymphs appears to the tortured Prometheus (115-135); or the unmatched lyrics which tell (in the Agamemnon, 228-247) of the death of Iphigenia; or the vision of his lost love that the See also:night brings to See also:Menelaus (410-426). And not least noticeable is the extra-ordinary range, force and imaginativeness of his diction. One example of his lyrics may be given which will illustrate more than one of these points. It is taken from the long lament in the Septem, sung by the chorus and the two sisters, while following the funeral procession of the two princes. These laments may at times be wearisome to the See also:modern reader, who does not see, and imperfectly imagines, the stately and pathetic spectacle; but to the ancient feeling they were as solemn and impressive as they were ceremonially indispensable. The solemnity is here heightened by the following lines sung by one of the chorus of Theban women (See also:Sept. 854-86o): See also:Nay, with the wafting See also:gale of your sighs, my sisters, See also:Beat on your heads with your hands the stroke as of oars, The stroke that passes ever across See also:Acheron, Speeding on its way the See also:black-robed sacred bark,—The bark Apollo comes not near, The bark that is hidden from the sunlight To the See also:shore of darkness that welcomes all ! AUTHORITIES.—The chief authority for the text is a single MS. at See also:Florence, of the early 11th century, known as the Medicean or M., written by a professional See also:scribe and revised by a contemporary See also:scholar, who corrected the copyist's mistakes, added the scholia, the arguments and the dramatis personae of three plays (Theb., Again ., Eum.), and at the end the Life of Aeschylus and the See also:Catalogue of his Dramas. The MS. has also been further corrected by later hands. In 1896 the See also:Italian See also:Ministry of Public Instruction publishd the MS. in photographic facsimile, with an instructive See also:preface by Signor Rostagno. Besides M. there are some eight later See also:MSS. (13th to 15th century), and numerous copies of the three select plays (Sept., Per.;., Prom.) which were most read in the later See also:Byzantine See also:period, when Greek literature was reduced to gradually diminishing excerpts. These later MSS. are of little value or authority. The See also:editions, from the beginning of the 15th century to the present
improved by isolated suggestions from a host of scholars. The three first printed copies (Aldine, 1518; See also:Turnebus and Robortello, 1552) give only those parts of Agamemnon found in M., from which 1VIS. some leaves were lost; in 1557 the full text was restored by Vettori (Victorius) from later MSS. After these four, the chief editions of the seven plays were those of Schutz, See also:Porson, See also: See also:Browning; Oresteia, Suppliants, Persae, Seven against Thebes, Prometheus Vinctus, by E. D. A. Morshead; Prometheus, E. B. Browning; the whole seven plays, See also:Lewis See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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