INTRODUCTION TO THE TRILOGY.
In order to appreciate the poetry of antiquity, it is necessary to take into consideration the religious ideas which lie at its root, which also in the course of their development have determined the character alike of ancient literature and art; when we consider, moreover, the immense influence which the stream of Aryan thought, by its interfusion with Christianity, has exerted over the culture of the Western world, a new and twofold interest attaches to each of the great master-works of classical antiquity, as exhibiting not only the level which the religious thought of the age had already reached, but also as indicating the direction of its future development.
Accordingly, in offering to the public a new version of the Oresteia, the only complete trilogy which has escaped the wreck of time, it may not be altogether irrelevant if I endeavour to determine the position of Æschylus among those kindlers of the beacon-fire, through whose agency the light of ancient wisdom was transmitted from age to age before the advent of Christianity.
With this view it will be necessary to give a sketch (necessarily very meagre and imperfect) of the progress of religious thought, both before and after his appearance on the stage of history, and as art has its root in the religious nature of man, we shall thus obtain a key to the three great epochs which mark the artistic development of humanity, which have been characterized as the Symbolical, the Classical, and the Romantic eras.
When the rays of tradition first dawn upon our planet, we discover the primeval ancestors of the Aryan race, before their dispersion from their common home, still gazing with awe and wonder upon the working of the vast nature-powers by which they were environed. While led through the religious instincts implanted in human nature to recognize the existence of a Being or Beings who hear and answer prayer, they were unable to separate the idea of mind, as a causal power, from the aspects of external nature. Accordingly, the shadowy divinities of the Vedic Pantheon, Indra, Agni, Varuna, can hardly be regarded as distinct personalities, holding definite relations to each other, or to their worshippers. As in the fluctuating scenery of the diurnal drama the sun is obscured by clouds, which in their turn are scattered and anon collected again, so these deified impersonations of physical phenomena loom dimly before our mental vision, each supreme and absolute in turn; nor is it easy to determine whether behind these innumerable divinities, the conception of One infinite Spirit had yet dawned upon the Aryan mind.
The deities of the Vedas vanish from our gaze, lost
"In the deep backward and abysm of time."
After the lapse of ages they reappear upon the stage, so modified, however, that it is difficult to recognize their identity: on the southern side of the Himalayahs they assume the form of the great Brahminical trinity, Vishnu, Brahma, and Siva, emerging from a background of Pantheism; while in Greece we behold them metamorphosed into the hierarchy of the Olympian gods. So striking is the contrast between the deities apostrophized by the Vedic bards, and the grand impersonations of Grecian poetry and art, that without conclusive evidence the connection between them could hardly be recognized. This evidence is twofold;—in the first place, comparative philology reveals the fact that the sacred names of the Greek Pantheon are in the Vedas intelligible words, expressive of natural phenomena; while in the Iliad we are introduced to the Olympian deities during the process of transformation; we detect their forms gradually disengaging themselves from the physical phenomena with which they were associated, of which also they may be regarded as the spiritual but almost impalpable essence.
This transformation of physical into humanized deities has been compared by Welcker to the mysterious process by which the chrysalis passes into its more perfect form. "The Nature-god," he says, "became enveloped in a web of mythical fable, and emerged as a divine, humanized personality." For the principle which lies at the root of this metamorphosis, he points to the gradual development of human nature, to the growing consciousness of free-will, accompanied by the recognition of mind as a higher manifestation of deity than any material phenomena, and consequently of man as the true Shekinah.
As, however, in the earlier Vedic worship men were unable to separate the idea of mind, as a causal power, from the varied aspects of external nature, so, when they began to direct their thoughts within, they were equally embarrassed to distinguish between the divine and human elements in the soul of man. Every inward movement which appeared at all exceptional was ascribed to the prompting of a deity; not only were the nobler emotions of courage and self-restraint referred to divine inspiration (of which in the Iliad we find innumerable examples), but the gods are also represented as the authors of delusion (ii. 8, xxii. 24) and treachery (iv. 93), as when Zeus sends the deceitful dream to Agamemnon, and Athena prompts Pandarus to violate the treaty. One of the most noteworthy instances to this perplexity is found in Agamemnon's exculpation of himself touching the outrage upon Achilles (xix. 85):
"I am not guilty, Jove and Fate | and the dusk-roaming Fury—
'Tis these who in assembly fir'd | my breast with savage frenzy."[1]
A plea, the justice of which is admitted by Achilles, who echoes the sentiment of Agamemnon:
"Father Jove, great frenesies | to men thou truly sendest."
Moreover, on the first transference of human passion and emotion, together with the conditions of human existence, to the super-mundane sphere, the very conception of divine existence, as absolved from restraint, would lead to the deification of human infirmity together with the higher attributes of humanity: of this we have a memorable example in the character of the Homeric Zeus. This tendency would doubtless be accelerated by the phenomena expounded by Prof. Max Müller, in his "Lectures on Language." As the several branches of the Aryan stock dispersed, migrating from their common home in Central Asia, the original signification of words was forgotten or obscured; and thus, language originally descriptive of natural phenomena became transferred to the conditions of human life—a translation which totally metamorphosed the character of the occurrence.
The transference of human faith and worship from the vague nature-powers of the Vedas to the humanized deities of Olympus, together with the association of the latter into a celestial hierarchy, under the supremacy of Zeus, assumed in Grecian mythology the form of a revolution, and was symbolized under the grand old allegory of the battle between the Titans and the Olympian gods. This revolution, involving a variety of complex phenomena, especially the fusion of the mythology of different tribes or nations into one, was doubtless accomplished in its main features in the ages anterior to Homer.
However, as we have no Grecian literature to illustrate this period, we are unable to trace the history of the transition, nor can we determine how far the current mythology of his age was modified by the individual genius of the great epic bard, whose immortal work, while inaugurating a new epoch in the history of civilization, at the same time exhibits, as has been truly said, the last lingering traces of the primeval age. A superficial acquaintance with the Iliad suffices to reveal the original elemental character of the Homeric divinities, a fact which would be more generally recognized, were we not accustomed to carry to the perusal of the earlier poet the conceptions derived from the artistic impersonations of a later age. This transitional character of the Homeric mythology will be more apparent if we carry back to their original root in natural phenomena a few of the Olympian divinities, and then follow the process of their development, as they appear successively in the Iliad and in the Oresteia. The connection between Jupiter and the sky, familiar to Greek and Latin scholars, may be traced down to the latest period of classical poetry; so Horace—"Manet sub Jove frigido venator." It was reserved, however, for the science of comparative philology to point out the origin of this connection. Thus we learn that "Zeus, the most sacred name in Greek mythology is the same word as Dyaus in Sanscrit, which means the sky; and that originally Dyu was the bright heavenly deity in India, as well as in Greece."
It is remarked by Welcker, that "the greatest fact, when we go back to the highest Grecian antiquity, is the idea of God, as the Supreme Being, associated with a nature-worship, never entirely suppressed, together with the conception of a divine family derived from Zeus."
Accordingly, we recognize in the Homeric Zeus three distinct elements, the divine, the physical, and the human, welded together into an artificial unity, and exhibiting a character of marvellous incongruity, endowed with attributes the most inconsistent and contradictory. Thus, in not a few passages, he is represented as the supreme deity—
"Who reigneth mighty over all, both mortals and immortals." (Il. xii. 242.) "Whose decree, once sanctioned by the nod, is neither deceptive, nor revokable." (Il. i. 527.) "The Counsellor, greatest and best; Father of gods and men; the Guardian of the oath." (iv. 235.) "The Vindicator of righteous law." (xxi. 387.) "The High Arbiter of war." (xix. 224.) His superiority over the other gods is forcibly brought out in the beginning of the 8th book (18–27,) where the other dwellers in Olympus are invited to grasp the golden chain dropped from Heaven's heights, and held immovably in the hand of Zeus:
"Lay hold, and throw your force on it, all gods both male and female,
Yet never shall ye down to earth, drag from the lofty heaven
Zeus the supreme deviser."[2]
It is as the god of compassion that the diviner aspect of his character is the most conspicuous (ix. 502): when we consider the savagery of an age in which human victims were sacrificed to appease the Manes of the dead, and where tendencies to cannibalism may perhaps be detected (iv. 35), (xxii. 345), (xxiv. 212), the prominence given to compassion as an attribute of the supreme Deity is very remarkable.
Notwithstanding these high attributes, no exercise of providential power is ever assigned to the Homeric Zeus; he is beguiled by Hera, yet swayed by her counsel (xvi. 460), and though desirous to save Ilium, yet, at her entreaty, he surrenders it to destruction (iv. 43). Like the heavens, now bright with sunshine, and anon dark with storm, he exhibits all the capricious fluctuations of an elemental power, being alternately malignant and benign, without any apparent motive beyond his own caprice, uninfluenced by moral considerations. Then, again, with regard to his supremacy, not only is it questioned by Poseidon (xv. 185), it is actually imperilled by that deity, in conjunction with Hera and Athena (i. 396–400), and is only rescued from their machinations by the intervention of Briareus.
These legends probably symbolize convulsions of the elements, which threaten to blot out the sky, of which Zeus is the impersonation. In this character, as an elemental god, he is not only the father of rivers, he also presides over all meteorological phenomena.
Thus with his Ægis, the dark storm-cloud, he veils the summit of Mount Ida (xvii. 593), and even ocean shudders at his dreadful bolt. He rains (xii. 5). He snows (xii. 280). He deviseth hail and piercing sleet, and rainy flood (x. 5). He uproots the sturdy oak (xiv. 415), and he snaps the bow-string of Teucer (xv. 469). Occasionally the moral and physical elements are most curiously blended, as in the elaborate description of the rain deluge with which he punishes the crooked verdict of the unjust judge (xvi. 385). Many other passages of a similar character might be cited.
But it is in his relation with Hera, and the various heroines who are represented as the objects of his love, that the human element in the conception of the Homeric Zeus appears under its most revolting aspect.
His character has accordingly been described as the most repulsive in the whole circle of Olympian life, exhibiting the very temper of the most advanced depravity.[3] "It is the Jupiter of Homer in whom we see first the most complete surrender of personal morality and self-government to mere appetite, and the most thoroughly selfish groundwork of character. Abandonment to gross passion, ungovernable self-indulgence rises to its climax in him."
We seem to inhale a purer atmosphere when, by the aid of comparative philology, we are enabled to translate back into natural phenomena occurrences which, when transferred to the sphere of human life, are repulsive and revolting. Thus it is not difficult to recognize the physical idea which underlies the conception of Hera, whose name—derived, according to Welcker, from ἔρα,[4] the earth—sufficiently indicates the original conception symbolized by her marriage with Zeus, the sky. Ge, the earth, is invoked in the Iliad, with Zeus and other divinities (ii. 277; xix. 258). Of the three goddesses, Hera, Dione, and Demeter, in whom the primeval goddess reappears mythically metamorphosed (who also originally held the same relation to Zeus as seen on ancient coins), Hera is alone distinguished in the Iliad as the Queen of Heaven, while Demeter, without Divine significance, is alluded to in connection with agricultural pursuits (xiii. 322; v. 500), and Dione appears as the mother of Aphrodite (v. 370).
It was through the Archæan race that Hera acquired her high position in the Olympian theogony: among a warlike people, who abandoned agriculture to their dependants, the physical attributes of the goddess were gradually obscured, and accordingly we find her in the Iliad as the peculiar patroness of Achilles, chief of the battle-loving myrmidons (i. 208; ix. 254). Though the physical attributes of Hera are almost entirely suppressed in the Iliad, we trace a curious lingering of the nature element in the Theogamia, described with such luxuriance of imagery in the 14th book (345–351): "As the story of the Olympian Father descending as golden rain into the prison of Danaï was meant for the bright sky, delivering earth from the bonds of winter;" so the union of Zeus and Hera, shrouded in golden mist, doubtless typified the same natural phenomenon, followed as it was by a new outgrowth of tender herbage, "the lotus, the crocus, and the hyacinth." A similar remnant of natural symbolism might probably be detected in other Homeric legends, which in their human aspect are puerile and revolting: as when the refractory spouse of Zeus hangs suspended by a golden chain, a pair of anvils attached to her ankles (xv. 19). How far Homer recognized the original significance of these legends is an interesting but still unsettled question.—Müller (Prol. 279).
If from the thundering, cloud-compelling Zeus of the Iliad, we turn to the Zeus of the Oresteia, the contrast is so remarkable, that it would almost appear as if the great dramatist, by the very emphasis with which he brings out the providential character of the Supreme Ruler, desired, like his contemporary, Pindar, to enter his protest against the unworthy conception of the Epic bard. This hypothesis seems the more plausible when we consider that the age of Æschylus immediately succeeded that of Pisistratus, who had given his sanction to the enactments of Solon, "by which the Iliad was raised into a liturgy, periodically rehearsed by law at the greatest of the Athenian festivals;""exhibiting for the first and last time in the history of the world the preservation of a poet's compositions made an object of permanent public policy."
Accordingly, in the opening chorus of the Agamemnon, Zeus is represented as conducting in person the grand judicial retribution which, in consequence of the crime of Paris, involves Ilium in ruin. In the second chorus this providential action of Zeus is brought out with even stronger emphasis; he is there represented as having with prescient might foreordained the blow which fell at length in accomplishment of his decree. The mighty net of Divine retribution is cast over the devoted city, and the character of Zeus is vindicated as the righteous governor of men. So again in the third chorus, it is Zeus, protector of the guest, who sends Helen, a fury fraught with destruction, to avenge on the sons of Priam the violated rights of hospitality; and whereas, in the Iliad, there is division in heaven, the deities, swayed by motives purely personal, and often of the lowest character (xxiv. 30; iv. 48), take part in the quarrel, and appear arrayed against one another in the hostile ranks;—in the Oresteia, on the contrary, they are represented as leagued with Zeus in carrying out the great ends of justice. Thus, when the cause is brought before the celestial tribunal, "without dissentient voice they cast their votes into the bloody urn, sealing the doom of Troy." (Ag. 789.) Zeus is not only represented as exercising supreme authority in the moral government of mankind—
"In will, in deed,
Sole cause, sole fashioner" (Ag. 1462);
he also acts inwardly on the souls of men: it is Zeus whose highest gift is an untainted mind (Ag. 900); who leads men to wisdom through suffering (Ag. 169); a function in which he is aided by the subordinate deities (Ag. 175), who are represented as the exponents of his will. (Eum. 588.)
In the Suppliants, together with a curious lingering of the mythological element; we find the grandest ascriptions of omnipotence to the Olympian king. Thus, he is invoked as "King of kings, most blessed of the blest, among the Perfect, Power most perfect, Zeus, supreme in bliss!" (Sup. 518.) He is characterized as "Mighty Zeus, Protector of the guest, the Highest, who directs Destiny by hoary law." (Sup. 655.) "Zeus, Lord of ceaseless time" (Sup. 567), "almighty Ruler of the earth." (Sup. 795.) He is likewise apostrophized as the great Artificer, supreme Ruler, who knows no superior, whose deed is prompt as his word to execute the designs of his deep-counselling mind. (Sup. 587.) Thus the mythological vesture, woven of Nature and Humanity, which had well-nigh shrouded the grander features of the Homeric Zeus, is partially withdrawn in Æschlylus, and we behold a Being whom men could worship without degradation, till in the fullness of time the light of celestial Truth burst with clear effulgence on the heathen world. We can hardly imagine that the capricious elemental deity of the Iliad should have been metamorphosed into the venerable deity of the Oresteia by the slow process of spiritual development alone, without the action of external agency: if we consider the affinity between the Hellenic and the Persian races, and the close contact into which they were brought in Asia Minor, the modification of Grecian thought by the interfusion of Persian elements will not appear remarkable. In support of this hypothesis, I might appeal not only to the high spiritual character attributed to Ahura-Mazda, the Zeus of the Zend-Avesta, but also to the sharp contrast there exhibited between the principles of Good and Evil, a feature which strikingly distinguishes the theogony of Æschylus from that of Homer.
The relics of ancient sun-worship which are discovered in various localities of Greece bear witness to the vast influence exerted by the celestial luminary over the imaginations and the religious emotions of the primeval world, an influence which is also attested by the numerous divinities in whom the Sun-god reappears, mythically metamorphosed. Helios, in the Iliad, is characterized as "the Unweariable;""the Bringer of light;" like Mithra, who has a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes, "He overseeth all, and hearkeneth to all things" (iii. 277). On the reconciliation of Agamemnon and Achilles, a boar is sacrificed to Helios and to Zeus (xix. 197). The Trojans sacrifice to the Earth and to Helios, the Achæans to Zeus (iii. 104).
In the opening chorus of the Agamemnon, the ancient Arcadian Sun-god, Pan,[5] whose name is not mentioned in the Iliad, is associated with Zeus and Apollo, as sending the Fury to punish crime. The original character of this divinity, who with Zeus and Apollo shares the epithet Lykeios, is betrayed by many significant symbols, associated with his effigies and his worship. Among the various impersonations of the Sun, however, there is none which can compare in interest and significance with Dionysos and Apollo, both solar divinities, whose worship, nevertheless, offers many remarkable points of opposition and contact.
The celestial luminary was imagined to sleep during the winter and to awake to consciousness in spring; accordingly Dionysos, rising from the sea at the vernal equinox to inaugurate the new solar year, was hailed with transports of joy by his enthusiastic votaries. The fluctuating character of Dionysos reminds us of the nature deities of the Vedas; Proteus-like, he assumes every variety of form and age; he is the god of summer and of winter, of darkness and of light; he holds in his hand the inebriating chalice, together with the cosmical mirror, exhibiting the images of all things. His worship is of peculiar interest, from its association with the Greek drama. Grecian tragedy, as is well known, was an expansion of the choruses chanted at the Dionysic festivals, which rehearsed the vicissitudes of the solar god, in his progress through the heavenly signs. This circumstance exerted "an overruling effect upon the quality of the Athenian drama;""from this early cradle of tragedy arose a sanctity which compelled all things to modulate into the same religious key."[6]
Peculiar interest moreover attaches to Dionysos, from his association with the mysteries which exerted so powerful an influence over the Grecian mind.
The story of Dionysos, embodying some of the main features of his worship, appears in the Iliad (vi. 132), invested, however, with ethical, not religious significance. "It is a remarkable circumstance that precisely those divinities, Demeter and Dionysos, whose truly religious influence was most profound and pervading in Greece, are all but unmentioned in Homer, and may be said, in fact, to be excluded from his scheme of the divine community."[7] An interesting question arises as to the cause of this omission on the part of the great epic bard. Are we to imagine that the peculiar sanctity which attached to these divinities induced him deliberately to avoid the subject; or must we conclude that in the Homeric age their worship had not yet assumed that mysterious and impressive character which subsequently distinguished it? I confess I am unable to decide the question, but incline to the latter hypothesis.
The original solar signification of Apollo is maintained among other eminent scholars by Creuzer, Welcker, and Gerhard, who appeal alike to ancient monuments and coins, and to vestiges of ancient Sun-worship found in various localities in Greece. "If we desire," says Creuzer, "in studying Greek mythology, to reach its ultimate roots, we must explore the ancient literatures of Persia and India. If from this point of view we investigate the original identity of the Sun-god and Apollo, we shall find in the figurative language of the Vedas the primitive occasion of the transition from the former to the latter."
One of the most striking features of the ancient Sun-worship was its dualistic character, founded upon the twofold aspect of the solar luminary, as at the same time a beneficent and a destroying power, as conquering and conquered, as dying, yet endowed with ever-renovated life; a conception which explains the enigma said to be uttered by the oracle of Apollo at Claros, in Ionia, "I am Jupiter Ammon in Spring, and black Pluto in Winter." In order to understand the more terrible aspects of the ancient Sun-god, we have only to remember the annual fevers occasioned by his scorching rays, and the danger of famine from failure of the crops: after the lightning of Zeus, there was no natural agent so destructive as the arrow of Helios; as calamity, moreover, was regarded in ancient times as the expression of Divine anger, expiatory and penitential rites formed an essential element of the ancient Sun-worship. This twofold aspect of Helios finds expression also in the name of the latter Sun-god, Apollo, which, in the ancient Doric Æolian form, was not Ἀπόλλον, the Destroyer, but Ἀπέλλων, the Averter. It is under his darker aspect "as the Minister of Vengeance, and the Chastiser of Arrogance," that he appears for the most part in the poetry of Homer. "His punishments are pestilence and death;""Achilles, to whom he is particularly hostile, calls him the most pernicious of all the gods."[8]
While the Homeric Apollo, in his relation with mortals, appears thus in the light of a malevolent and destroying power, among the Olympians he is introduced in association with the Muses, as the god of Music, charming the assembled deities with his harp (i. 603). The notion that the stars and the other heavenly bodies accomplished their revolutions to the sound of music is expressed in the ancient poetry of India, and also in that of the Persians. As the rhythm of the cosmical movements depended upon the solar luminary, the great orderer of times and seasons, it is not surprising that from the most remote antiquity the Sun god was represented as playing on the cithara; in this character he is portrayed on the oldest Archaic vases, encircled by the dancing hours.
Although in the Oresteia Apollo is introduced incidentally as a destroying and avenging deity, as in the passage already quoted in the 1st Chorus of the Agamemnon, and also where he is invoked by Cassandra as her destroyer (1047), he nevertheless wears, for the most part, a more benignant aspect. He is emphatically the Healer, the Prophet-leech, who purifies from all defilement (Eum. 62); the god of joy, whom it befits not to invoke with words of sorrow (Ag. 1056): the most striking point of divergence from the Homeric conception of Apollo is to be found in his relation to Zeus, with whom he appears in the most intimate association. As the god of prophecy, the guardian of the sacred oracles, he declares most emphatically that he is simply the expounder of his father's will, and consequently that he cannot lie. (Eum. 585, 588.) It is under this aspect, as the god of Truth, that a deep significance attaches to the function which he assumes in the court of Areopagus as Exegetes, or expounder of the unwritten law. "At Athens, the Exegetæ, who presided over the purification of blood-guilty persons, were elected, or at least their election was ratified, by the Delphic Oracle."[9] In this character, Apollo appears before the Areopagites, to expound the law in relation to homicide, and thus the deep-thoughted poet enforces the important principle that the judicial proceedings of human tribunals must be under the presidency of Truth.
According to Welcker, however, the Moon appears of all natural objects to have been the most universally adored. Several tribes in Africa and America are said at the present day to worship the moon without the sun, while no nation has been known to whom the sun is sacred without the moon. In primeval ages the computations of time were based upon the changes of the moon, which accordingly in the Indo-Germanic languages is known as "The Measurer;" and so deeply did the lunar phenomena appeal to the religious emotions of humanity, that among all early nations, as well as among the Jews, the new-moon festivals were celebrated with peculiar solemnity. In warm climates, moreover, vegetation is nourished almost entirely by the dew, which falls most copiously when the moon is full; hence Selene was early characterized as the mother of Herse, the Bringer of the Dew. It would be very interesting to trace the various media of transition by which the bright nocturnal luminary was gradually metamorphosed into the Huntress Diana—
"Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste,
Who set at nought the frivolous bolts of Cupid."
So great, however, is the diversity of form under which the Moon-goddess has been conceived, exhibiting a different physiognomy in every different locality, according to the varied aspect under which she has been regarded, that I must content myself with a brief notice of her characteristics, as she appears in the Iliad and the Oresteia.
To the goddess of the green-wood and the glade belonged of right all animals both tame and wild; accordingly she is characterized in the Iliad as (πότνια θηρῶν), "Queen of all Venison" (xxi. 470), and in the Agamemnon she is represented as taking under her especial care—
"The tender whelps, new-dropped, of creatures rude,
Sparing the udder-loving brood
Of every beast through field or wood that roves,"—(Ag. 139.)
While thus gracious to the lower animals, towards humanity, on the contrary, she, like the Homeric Apollo, wears the aspect of a destroying rather than of a benignant power. Thus she is represented as made by Zeus (λέοντα γύναιξι), "a lion unto women, to whom he hath granted might to slay whomso she willeth" (xxi. 484). Accordingly, in her anger she slew Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophontes (vi. 205), and wrathful, on account of her neglected rites, she sends the savage, white-tusked boar—
"Who visited with dire annoy | the orchard-grounds of Œneus." (ix. 540.)
Andromache, too, in her address to Hector, alludes to her mother slain by "arrow-pouring Artemis." (vi. 428.)
In the Agamemnon she appears under the same dark aspect, as the goddess for whose propitiation the sacrifice of Iphigenia was consummated, a tragedy which, by calling down upon her husband the vengeance of Clytemnestra, forms the groundwork of the drama.
Far more prominent, however, is the position assigned to the Maiden Goddess, Pallas Athena, who may be justly regarded as the bright, consummate flower of Grecian mythology; and most interesting it is to trace the history of her growth from her rise in the land of the Aryans to her culmination in the majestic goddess of the Eumenides.
The elemental character of the Homeric Zeus suggests the idea of some natural phenomenon underlying the extraordinary birth of his brilliant offspring, "from no mother born." Accordingly her name has been regarded as corresponding to the Sanscrit Aháná, a recognised appellation of the dawn in the Veda; and thus her miraculous birth from the head of Zeus, translated back into Sanscrit, implies that Ushas, the Dawn, sprang from the East, the forehead of the sky.[10] Welcker gives a different interpretation of her name. "The Grecians," he says, "brought with them from their distant home the conception of an element of light and warmth above the atmosphere, independent of the sun." He derives her name from αιθ, to burn, with the ancient suffix ηνη, and regards her as the impersonation of the pure Ether, the abode of Zeus.
The peculiar rites with which her worship was celebrated in different localities, together with the symbolism associated with her effigy on ancient vases and coins, attest, according to Welcker, the original elemental character of the goddess. This deified impersonation of a nature-power, whether identified with the Ether or the Dawn, became gradually invested with a variety of attributes, human and superhuman; accordingly, the Athena of the Iliad, though more sharply defined than the Olympian Zeus, nevertheless exhibits the same transitional character which marks the other deities of the Homeric theogony. In her divine capacity she is the goddess of war and of industrial art, the representative of practical sagacity as opposed to poetic inspiration, which was assigned to Apollo. She hears and answers prayer; she acts inwardly on the minds of the Hellenic heroes; she restrains the wrath of Achilles (i. 198); she imparts aid to Tydeus (iv. 390). Many similar examples might be adduced. Nevertheless she is not above the practice of deceit, as when she persuades Pandarus to violate the treaty (iv. 94), and also where she lures Hector with guile. Moreover, the intimate connection between the bright, heaven-sprung goddess and her father, which in the later mythology forms one of her most striking characteristics, is only slightly indicated in the Iliad (viii. 38, 373). In general, her relation to the Thunderer is one of hostility; she is represented as leagued with Hera and Poseidon in their attempt to shackle Zeus, for whom she expresses her contempt in no measured terms, while with Hera she appears most intimately associated:
"Close sat they, side by side, and woes against the Trojans plotted,
Truly Athena dumb abode before her proper Father,
Though wounded by his argument, and seized with fierce displeasure. (viii. 458; iv. 21.)
Traces of meteoric symbolism in connection with the virgin goddess may, I think, be traced in the Iliad. Thus, in girding herself for battle, she lets fall upon the starry pavement of her father the brilliant robe—
"Whose tissue she herself had wrought, and with her hand embroidered;"
her Ægis is the terrible storm-cloud; her casque, all golden, measured to contain a hundred cities' footmen, recalls the vaulted sky. She descends from heaven like a meteor (iv. 70), or like a rainbow wrapped in purple cloud (xvii. 551). Thus, too, she is described as blowing with gentle breath the spear of Hector (xx. 440), and as becoming invisible by assuming the casque of Aïdes (v. 845).
The flaming chariot, with its golden-trapped steeds, in which she descends with Hera to the assistance of the Greeks (v. 720, 748), while suggesting to the imagination the bright rays of light, which spring with the speed of lightning through the portals of the east, recalls also the Vedic invocation to Ushas (the dawn) to come in her ample and beautiful chariot, dispersing the darkness; or we think of the Golden chariot of Savitri, or of Indra, decorated with golden ornaments, his white-footed coursers harnessed to his car with a golden yoke.
The function assigned to birds in the Iliad seems also like an echo of the Vedas, Thus, when Athena is despatched by Zeus to distil nectar and ambrosia into Achilles—
"She plunged in semblance of a bird, the lengthy-feather'd osprey,
Shrill screaming down from upper sky." (xix. 349.)
It is interesting to remember in this connection the Aryan myth according to which the gods allowed the heavenly soma-drink, the Vedic prototype of the Grecian nectar, to be brought down to earth by a falcon. In illustration of this subject Kuhn quotes two Vedic hymns (R. iv. 26), (R. iv. 27), in the first of which occurs the following passage:—"The speeding falcon, the strong bird, allied to the gods, brought the quickening, invigorating soma from afar, stealing it from highest heaven."
When Athena and Apollo
"Over the armies take their seats, in guise of plumèd vultures,
Upon the lofty beech of Zeus, the Ægis-holding Father,"
they remind us of the two birds who sit in friendly fashion upon the summit of the soma-bearing tree of the Vedas. Thus, too, she sends a heron to greet Ulysses and Diomede; they recognized the cry, and rejoiced in the divine message (x. 275). Welcker detects a figurative allusion to meteoric fact in the epithets γλαυκῶπις and τριτογένεια, by which the Homeric Athena is distinguished.
If we turn now to the Athena of Æschylus, the grand impersonation of the wisdom, benignity, and might of her father, we recognise, as before, the emergence of the classic ideal from the symbolizing tendencies of the earlier nature-worship. Seldom has the imagination of poet been haunted by a more majestic image than the Athena of the Eumenides; and as we picture her "like an orator on the Βῆμα," organizing the court of the Areopagus, she recalls the grand vision of Divine Wisdom recorded in the book of Proverbs (viii.). She, too, standeth in the top of high places, and her voice is heard, unfolding the great truth that human laws and institutions are entitled to reverence only in so far as they are based upon the strong foundations of eternal justice and morality.
"By me kings reign and princes decree justice;
By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth."
Most emphatically does the Grecian poet proclaim through the lips of Athena, that righteousness must be based upon reverence and holy fear, thus coinciding with the highest utterance of Hebrew wisdom; "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil" (Prov. viii. 13), (Eum. 661, 669). Thus, too, wisdom is represented by the Grecian as by the Hebrew bard, as presiding over the phenomena of external nature (Prov. viii. 27), (Eum. 792). Yet while Athena alone unlocks the sealed thunder-halls of Zeus, she, like her Hebrew prototype, "rejoiceth in the habitable parts of the earth," and as a gardener cherishes his saplings, so "she loves the race of righteous men, exempt from suffering" (Eum. 872). This recognition of moral distinctions as the ground of divine favour forms, perhaps, the most striking point of divergence between Homer and Æschylus, and forcibly recalls the high moral tone of the religion of Ahura-Mazda.
Truly it may be said of the Virgin Goddess that, like the golden dawn, which she is thought to impersonate, she brightens more and more, still heralding by her effulgent but imperfect light the advent of the perfect day. In following the history of the Virgin Goddess, it is interesting to remember that the disappearance of her colossal statue from the Parthenon in the fifth century was coincident with the hymn addressed to her by her passionate worshipper, the neo-Platonist, Proclus; thus at the last "she makes a swan-like end, fading in music," and vanishes from history, after commanding, for upwards of a thousand years, the love and veneration of her votaries.
In connection with the study of ancient poetry, as recording the religious life of humanity, it is interesting to consider the history of plastic art, which may be regarded as its sensible expression, and as manifesting, through the medium of ideal forms, the successive stages of its development. Thus if we revert to that phase of the religious life which is embodied in the earliest literary relics of the Aryan race, we shall recognize the impossibility of embodying in harmonious forms beings so impalpable as the deities apostrophized by the Vedic bards. In the poetry of those early times we discern the working of the untutored mind struggling to body forth, through the imagery of external nature, its religious yearnings and aspirations; embarrassed by the complexity of unintelligible phenomena, and destitute of any principle of selection, the imagination runs riot, blends together images the most incongruous, and exhibits that tendency to symbolism which subsequently blossomed out into the colossal systems of India and Eleusis.
The transference of human faith and worship from vague nature-powers, dimly recognized as personal agencies, to veritable personalities, endowed with consciousness and will, and distinguished by diversity of attribute, moral and intellectual, constitutes, as we have seen, the second great stage in the history of human progress. This emancipation of the divine idea from its association with natural phenomena would lead to the recognition of the human form as affording the sole adequate medium for the manifestation of spiritual existence, a discovery which lies at the root of classic art, and inaugurates the second epoch in the artistic development of humanity. We have only to pass from the Hall of Egyptian Antiquities, in the British Museum, to the gallery of the Elgin Marbles, in order to appreciate the importance of the transition.
The Greeks thus realizing the idea that their divinities manifested themselves through the human form, and striving to glorify the temple hallowed by the presence of Deity, were led to discover the essential characteristics of the human organism as a vehicle of superior intelligence. In reproducing their impressions through the medium of art, they have given birth to models of ideal beauty, which show us how fair is the tabernacle of the immortal soul, when the lower propensities are subjected to higher needs. They detected the Divine idea with reference to the human form, and accordingly, in contemplating these glorious creations we experience that indescribable content which invariably comes over the soul, when, by any agency, we are lifted above the limitations of the finite and phenomenal into the region of eternal truth.
Grand and beautiful as are the classic gods, they nevertheless fail to touch the deepest springs of human feeling. Though invested with the attributes of humanity, we feel that in their emancipation from the sorrows and sufferings incident to our mortal life they are not true exponents of human nature, while as symbols of Deity they are inadequate to shadow forth the one infinite and eternal mind. From their cold though perfect beauty, the heart of suffering humanity turns to the thorn-crowned figure of the Son of Man, and recognizes in the man of sorrows its true type and representative.
By revealing God as a spirit immanent in the human soul, imparting authority to the oracles of conscience, and sanctity to the inner life, Christianity has dispersed the crowd of heathen divinities, and exalted to the throne of the universe a Heavenly Father whose glory is reflected in the Son of Man. Christ's realization of conscious union between the divine and human spirit, wrought out through the discipline of sorrow, and issuing in perfect love, has revealed a depth of spiritual life of which in the profoundest myths of classical antiquity we see only a dim but most wonderful foreshadowing.
The transition from the classical to the romantic era finds its explanation in these grand central truths of Christianity, which have left their impress alike on art and on literature. Thus, in the head of our Saviour in the Cena of Leonardo da Vinci, we see that marvellous union of sublimity and pathos, which, while lifting the soul into a higher atmosphere, at the same time appeals to the deepest sympathies of the human heart. Thus, too, the grand figures of the Sistine Chapel, the prophets and sibyls of Michael Angelo, while exhibiting the human form cast in the majestic mould of the Olympian gods, bear traces, at the same time, of those inner life-struggles which impart to every noteworthy countenance so deep and often so tragic an interest. The literary productions of the romantic era also bear witness to the deeper significance which attaches to human nature since the advent of Christianity—a phenomenon the recognition of which is essential to the true appreciation of classical literature.
The fundamental distinction between the ancient and modern drama will be more fully recognized if we bring into closer comparison the two great fathers of dramatic art, Æschylus and Shakespeare, who, though separated from one another by an interval of nearly twenty centuries, yet offer some remarkable points both of analogy and contrast.
In studying the dramas of Æschylus, when we penetrate below the surface, we find that the solution of problems, ethical and religious, bearing upon man's nature and destiny, constitutes their essence, an object to which the delineation of character is made subservient; whereas in the dramas of Shakespeare the development of character constitutes the primary aim, to which he subordinates the underlying idea of the whole; accordingly we should vainly seek in the impersonations of the ancient bard that marvellous insight into the more subtle phenomena of human nature which imparts so intense an interest to the productions of Shakespeare. In Æschylus the collision between moral principles, whose harmonious action is essential to the moral order of the world, is set forth by personages, human and superhuman, whose characters are drawn in bold relief, without exhibiting that delicate shading which charms us in the delineation of the modern bard. These personages are led in obedience to one moral principle to violate another, which in its turn finds advocates and champions. The collision between these opposing interests and the various passions evoked in the struggle sustain the interest of the drama, while the dénouement exhibits the vindication of eternal order by the triumph of that principle which is of primary obligation. If we apply these principles to the Oresteia, we find that while the several members of the trilogy are linked together by a chain of ethical sequence, which resolves itself into the great doctrine of retribution, each drama is at the same time devoted to the solution of a particular problem, and constitutes accordingly a complete and independent whole.
The collision of duties set forth in the Agamemnon is of peculiar interest, as illustrating a struggle which has its counterpart in the most touching narrative of Jewish, history. Agamemnon, as king and army chief, receives what he believes to be a divine command to propitiate Artemis by the sacrifice of his daughter; an ordeal, the terrible reality of which can only be appreciated when we consider the proneness to human sacrifice which characterized the early ages of society. Abraham, when subjected to a like trial or temptation, after manifesting his perfect submission to what appeared to him to be a divine monition, was led to recognize the true voice of God as harmonizing with the most sacred intuitions of the human heart, and accordingly forbore to slay his child.[11] Agamemnon, on the contrary, yields to the suggestion of Calchas, and by the sacrifice of Iphigenia violates his obligations to his daughter and his wife. Clytemnestra appears as the avenger of her child, and in vindication of nature's violated rights, prepares for her husband an ignominious death. The stern reprobation of Agamemnon expressed by the Chorus may be compared to the sublime protest of Micah, and other Hebrew prophets, against such deeds of blood. Thus the cruel perversion of religion which found expression in human sacrifice was condemned by the Grecian poet no less than by the Hebrew sage, a consideration which invests the Æschylean drama with profound significance.
In order to appreciate the fundamental idea which underlies the drama of the Choephori we must take into consideration the sacred duty of avenging blood, "recognized by the earliest customs and national laws of the East as well as of the West."[12] On the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, it was the bounden duty of his son Orestes to avenge his death; the ghost of his murdered father and the Delphic god demand it of him. The collision, therefore, which forms the groundwork of the drama is between the duty of Orestes as the avenger of his father, and his instinctive recognition of the reverence due to his mother, which tends to withhold him from the commission of the deed. With admirable skill the poet makes us feel the terrible nature of the struggle, and the religious motives which decide the issue. When Orestes, almost overcome by his mother's agonizing entreaties, hesitates to commit the bloody act, Pylades, who has accompanied him as a representative of the god, admonishes him of his duty, exclaiming—
"Choose all for foemen rather than the Gods."
A profound thought underlies the greater heinousness attached to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, than to the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes. The bond which unites the mother and the son, which Orestes is required to violate, is instinctive, resting upon a law of nature; the tie which unites the husband and the wife is of a different order, involving intelligent volition and reciprocal engagement. The institution of marriage, morever, lies at the root of all law and order, and with the consequent permanence and sanctity of the domestic relations is the sole guarantee for the healthy development of society; hence the conjugal tie requires to be placed under the special guardianship of the gods and of eternal justice. Hera, who in the Iliad plays so prominent and often so undignified a part, is introduced in the Oresteia in her grand matronly character, her union with Zeus being alluded to as imparting sanctity to the marriage tie. A comparison between the Choephori of Æschylus and the Hamlet of Shakespeare may serve to exhibit more strikingly the fundamental difference between the ancient and modern drama. In both tragedies the father of the hero has been murdered, and the mother has married the murderer; in both, the son is urged by supernatural visitations to avenge the crime, and both are prompted by the same motives of disappointed ambition. In the ancient drama, however, the death of Agamemnon is represented as the vindication of a moral principle, violated in the person of Clytemnestra. Accordingly, when pleading for her life, she not only appeals to the filial reverence of her son, but also represents herself as having, by the death of her husband, accomplished the ends of divine justice. In the modern drama the murder of the king is represented as an act of pure wickedness; hence when Hamlet is summoned to avenge his father's death, no external object which claims his reverence intervenes to check his purpose. The hesitancy must therefore come from within; accordingly the collision is found not in opposing moral principles, but in the personal character of Hamlet. His soul is not organized to perpetrate this deed of horror; consequently, wavering in his resolution, and overwhelmed with disgust at the world and at life, he perishes in the consummation of his revenge. So marvellous is the skill with which the character of Hamlet is drawn, so absorbing the interest which it awakens, that in studying it we are apt to forget the fundamental idea which underlies the drama, the dénouement of which, like that of the several members of the Oresteia, sets forth the great law of retribution, and vindicates the moral order of the Divine government.
In the third member of the trilogy, the poet, while making his drama subservient to objects connected with the political state of Athens, nevertheless subordinates these local interests to the exposition of higher truth. Among these political objects the most important was the defence of the Areopagus, the existence of which was threatened by the growing ascendency of the democracy. It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive means of recommending this tribunal to the reverence of the Athenians than thus to introduce the celestial powers as assisting at its inauguration. Of far higher significance, however, is the ethical conception which underlies the drama. The word Erinys in Greek has been defined to mean "the feeling of deep offence, of bitter displeasure, when sacred rights belonging to us are impiously violated by persons who ought most to have respected them." These vengeance-prompting feelings, personified as active, ever-wakeful spirits, became associated with the great nature-power, Demeter, under her more malignant aspect, and hence arose the worship of the dread goddess, Demeter Erinys. Both these names have been traced back to the Sanscrit; the Greek Demeter being identified with Dyâvâ Mâtar, the Mother, corresponding to Dyaus Pitar, the Father, and the Erinyes being identified with the Sanscrit Saranyû. Thus it appears that the venerable goddesses, like Zeus and Athena, have their root in the Vedas, "In early Greek mythology they were attributed more especially to the Father, the Mother, and the Elder Brother, whenever their sacred rights had been impiously violated." They are thus introduced in the Iliad (ix. 449; ix. 572; xv. 204), where they are represented as avenging any violation of the natural order.
In this character they also appear at the conclusion of the Choephori, and in the opening scenes of the Eumenides, where, like blood-thirsty hounds, they pursue Orestes for the murder of his mother: they take cognizance only of the outward act, and exercise their functions with the inflexibility of natural law. They would not the less have claimed him as their prey had he left unavenged the murder of his father (Choeph. 283, 911). In this fatal collision Athena appears as umpire: by establishing the court of Areopagus she proclaims the great principle, "that the highest tribunal upon earth is the collective conscience of humanity."[13] The cause is tried before this august assembly; righteous regard is had for the special circumstances of the deed; Orestes is acquitted, the sanctity of the primeval goddesses is recognized; their wrath is appeased, and thus the intuitive thirst for revenge is transmuted into the principle of eternal justice. Thus the drama of the Eumenides exhibits, under one of its grandest phases, the contest between the Titans and the Olympian gods, issuing in the triumph of free will and moral power over blind instinct and necessity, while the transmutation of the Erinyes into the Eumenides symbolizes the profound thought that even the instinctive tendencies in human nature are implanted there by its Divine Author, and consequently that man's highest well-being demands, not their suppression or annihilation, but their harmonious subordination to the higher faculties of the soul.
Classical poetry affords the true key to classic art; it is, therefore, interesting to turn from the study of Æschylus to the contemplation of the Parthenon, where the Athenians beheld translated into marble the same profound ideas which the great dramatist has embodied in his immortal works. Thus the sculptures of the eastern pediment, having reference to the birth of Athena, indicate, by the presence of the Fates and other divine personages, the deep significance attached by the sculptor to the manifestation of Divine Wisdom in the person of the Virgin Goddess; while in the grand composition of the western pediment, which set forth the contention of Poseidon and Athena for supremacy over the country of Attica, we trace, as in the Eumenides, the association of interests purely local and national with truths of higher significance. Thus the contending divinities have been regarded as typifying the antagonism between agricultural and maritime pursuits, which formed one main feature of Athenian life; and also as reflecting the conflicting powers of land and sea, as exhibited in the topography of the interior and the coast.[14] I doubt not, however, that there rose also before the mental vision of Phidias the grand old allegory of the battle between the Titans and the Gods, which may be regarded as the mythical expression of that eternal struggle between the lower and higher elements of being, of which the drama of the Eumenides affords so impressive and magnificent a symbol: this hypothesis appears the more plausible when we consider the intimate mythological connection which obtained between Poseidon and Demeter-Erinys.
Another most interesting illustration of the intimate association which, in classical times, existed between Poetry and her sister arts is to be found in the paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi, of which a minute description is given by Pausanias, and which have been admirably restored by Fr. and Joh. Riepenhausen.[15] The first picture exhibits the capture of Ilion, the desecration of her sanctuaries, and brings before the mental eye the outrage committed against Athena in the person of Cassandra, thus setting forth the origin of the disasters which befell the returning armament of the Greeks: it would be impossible for the beholders of this picture not to recall the speech of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon (320), in which she forcibly describes the contrast between the state of victors and vanquished in the captured city, the desolation of which is touchingly symbolized in the painting by the empty cuirass that lies on the altar to which a child is clinging. The exhibition of the very crimes so earnestly deprecated by the poet (330), prepares the mind for the second picture, exhibiting the descent of Ulysses to Hades, to learn from the prophet the means by which a safe return might be secured. The punishment of the sacrilegious Tityus, and the retaliation on the undutiful son, could not fail to suggest to the mind of the spectator those passages of the Eumenides in which the poet, with terrible earnestness, describes the direful fate which in the lower regions is the sure award of filial impiety and sacrilege (260).
The schools of design which are springing up throughout the length and breadth of the land bear witness to the importance which is now attached to artistic culture in England.
It must not be forgotten, however, that imagination constitutes the vital principle of art; that the practised eye and well-trained hand are powerless except as instruments to embody the conceptions of the creative mind. Hence the study of poetry acquires new significance, not only as throwing light upon the master-works of classical antiquity, the recognized models of ideal form, but also as enriching the imagination, while at the same time it opens both eye and soul to discern the familiar beauty of common life.
What Joubert has said of Plato may be applied with equal truth to poetry:—"Platon ne fait rien voir, mais il éclaire, il met de la lumière dans nos yeux, et place en nous une clarté, dont tous les objets deviennent ensuite illuminés. Comme l'air des montagnes sa lecture aiguise les organes, et donne le goût des bons aliments."
"Of imagination, fancy, taste, of the highest cultivation in all its forms, this great nation has abundance; of industry, skill, perseverance, mechanical contrivance, it has a yet larger stock, which overflows our narrow bounds and floods the world. The one great want is to bring these two groups of qualities harmoniously together."[16] I believe that in poetry will be found one of the missing links through whose agency this alliance between the spheres of beauty and utility is to be consummated. Milton speaks of "the glorious, the magnificent, uses which may be made of poetry both in divine and human things;" while Shelley characterized it as "a fountain for ever flowing with the waters of wisdom and delight." It becomes, therefore, a question of deep national interest to consider by what agencies these renovating and purifying influences may be diffused, and brought home to the heart of this great nation. From Greece, "the fountain of all instruction in matters of art," we may perhaps take a hint as to one large and important department of national education.
In this connection I am tempted to quote a passage from Grote's History of Greece, where, after alluding to the abundance in the productions of the tragic muse, at Athens, he proceeds:—"All this abundance founds its way to the minds of the great body of the citizens, not excepting even the poorest. So powerful a body of poetic influence has probably never been brought to act upon the emotions of any other population; and when we consider the extraordinary beauty of these immortal compositions, which first stamped tragedy as a separate department of poetry, and gave to it a dignity never since reached, we shall be satisfied that the tastes, the sentiments, and the intellectual standard of the Athenian multitude must have been sensibly improved and exalted by such lessons. The reception of such pleasures through the eye and ear, as well as amidst a sympathizing crowd, was a fact of no small importance in the mental history of Athens. It contributed to exalt their imagination, like the grand edifices and ornaments added during the same period to the Acropolis."
The designs of Flaxman from Homer and Æschylus are wrought into our damask and engraved upon our glass; it is time that the thoughts of the great poets, from whom he drew his inspiration, should be brought home, with all their rich treasure of imagery to the hearts and minds of our people. What noble entertainment might not be drawn from "Heroic poems and Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal ornament," if, appealing as they do to the feelings of our common humanity, they were made appreciable to the popular understanding by illustrations drawn from history and art!
With reference to the moral influence of poetry, Joubert says, "Voulez-vous connaître la morale? Lisez les poëtes; ce qui vous plaît chez eux, approfondissez-le; c'est le vrai; ils doivent être la grande étude du philosophe qui veut connaître l'homme."
Believing that Æschylus strikingly corroborates this utterance, in all humility I offer to the public this version of his greatest work.
- ↑ I have availed myself here and in subsequent quotations of Professor Newman's translation.
- ↑ Creuzer has pointed out the same image in a passage of the Bhagavat-gîta.
- ↑ Gladstone's Homer.
- ↑ Prof. Max Müller and other Sanskrit scholars, while recognizing that in many of her traits Hera is the Earth, maintain that the derivation of her name from ἔρα is impossible. They consider that it may be safely derived from Svaryâ, an adjective of Svar, sky. Hera became ὁμιοθρονος with Zeus, and it is suggested by Prof. Max Müller that in that capacity one of her many cognomina may have become her nomen.
- ↑ In my revised version I have followed Prof. Newman's reading of this passage, which omits the name of "Pan" in this connection.
- ↑ Theory of Greek Tragedy. De Quincey.
- ↑ Homer, his Art and his Age. W. Watkiss Lloyd, Classical Museum, XXII.
- ↑ C. O. Müller's History of the Dorians.
- ↑ Dissertations on the Eumenides. C. O. Müller.
- ↑ Max Müller. Lectures on Language. 2nd Series.
- ↑ I have followed Dean Stanley's interpretation of this narrative.
- ↑ Dissertations on the Eumenides. C. O. Müller.
- ↑ 'Gott in der Geschichte.' Bunsen.
- ↑ Explanation of the Groups in the Western Pediment of the Parthenon. 'Classical Museum.' W. Watkiss Lloyd.
- ↑ On the paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi, 'Classical Museum,' vol. i, W. Watkiss Lloyd.
- ↑ Wedgewood, an address by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.