[480]. Here also we have a reference to a familiar subject of early Greek art, probably to some painting familiar to an Athenian audience. The name of Phineus indicates that the monstrous forms spoken of are those of the Harpies, birds with women's faces, or women with birds' wings, who were sent to vex the blind seer for his cruelty to the children of his first marriage. Comp. Soph. Antig., v. 973. In the Æneid they appear (iii. 225) as dwelling in the Strophades, and harassing Æneas and his companions.
[481]. The old image of Pallas, carved in olive-wood, as distinguished from later sculpture.
[482]. The early code of hospitality bound the host, who as such had once received a guest under the shelter of his roof, not to desert him, even though he might discover afterwards that he had been guilty of great crimes, but to escort him safely to the boundary of his territory. Thus Apollo, as the host with whom Orestes had taken refuge, sends Hermes, the escort God, to guide and defend him on his way to Athens.
[483]. The thought that the highest wisdom came to men rather in “visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,” than through the waking senses, which we have already met with in Agam., v. 173, is traceable to the mysticism of Pythagoras, more distinctly perhaps to that of Epimenides.
[484]. Wine, as in Soph. Œd. Col., vv. 100, 481, was rigidly excluded from the cultus of the Eumenides, and to them only as daughters of Night were midnight sacrifices offered. We must not lose sight of the thought thus implied, that Clytæmnestra had herself lived, after her deed of guilt, in perpetual terror of the Erinnyes, seeking to soothe them by her sacrifices.
[485]. The common rendering “in a dream” gives a sufficient meaning, and is, of course, tenable enough. But there is a force in the repetition of the same word, as in v. 116, which is thus lost, and which I have endeavoured to preserve. The Erinnyes, thus impotent in their rage, are as much mere dreamlike spectres as is the ghost of Clytæmnestra.
[486]. Here, as throughout Æschylos, the Olympian divinities are thought of as new comers, thrusting from their thrones the whole Chthonian and Titanic dynasty, Gods of the conquering Hellenes superseding those of the Pelasgi.
[487]. The accumulation of horrid forms of cruelty had, probably, a special significance for the Athenians. These punishments belonged to their enemies, the Persians, not to the Hellenic race, and the poet's purpose was to rekindle patriotic feeling by dwelling on their barbarity, as in Agam., v. 894, he points in like manner to their haughtiness and luxury.
[488]. The argument of the Erinnyes is, to some extent, like that of the Antigone of Sophocles (Antig., 909-913), and the wife of Intaphernes (Herod. iii. 119). The tie which binds the husband to the wife is less sacred than that between the mother and the son. This, therefore, brings on the slayer the guilt of blood of kin, while murder in the other case is reduced to simple homicide. Orestes therefore was not justified in perpetrating the greater crime as a retribution for the less. Apollo, in meeting this plea, asserts the sacredness of the marriage bond as standing on the same level as that of consanguinity.
[489]. The ideal interval of time between the two parts of the drama is left undefined, but it would seem from vv. 230, 274-6, and 429, to have been long enough to have allowed of many wanderings to sacred places, Orestes does not go straight from Delphi to Athens. He appears now, not as before dripping and besmeared with blood, but with hands and garments purified.