I have here paraphrased a little the two lines—
βιᾶται δ᾽ἁ τάλαινα πειθὼ
προβουλόπαις ἄφερτος Ἄτας—
in which two evil powers are personified—Ate, destruction, and Peitho, persuasion, which here must be understood of that evil self-persuasion, by which, in the pride of self-will and vain confidence, a man justifies his worst deeds to himself, and is driven recklessly on to destruction. The case of Napoleon, in his Russian expedition, is in point. What follows shows that Paris is meant. As to the strange, truly Æschylean compound, προβουλόπαις, Con. says well, that the simple πρόβουλος means “one who joins in a preliminary vote,” and, of course, the compound is, as Lin. has it, a “forecounselling child.”
“Even as a boy in wanton sport.”
There is a great upheaping of incongruous images in this passage for which, perhaps, the poet may be blamed; as the one prevents the other from coming with a vivid and distinct impression on the mind. This image of the boy chasing the butterfly is, however, the one which places the inconsiderate love of Paris and Helen most distinctly before us; and it comes, therefore, with peculiar propriety, preceded by the more general and vague images, and immediately before the mention of the offender.
“The prophets of the house loud wailing.”
δόμων προφῆται. I have retained the original word here, because it appears most appropriate to the passage; but the reader must be warned, by a reference to the familiar example in Epist. Tit. I. 12, that with the ancients the characters of poet and prophet were confounded in a way that belongs not at all to our modern usage of the same words. Epimenides of Crete, in fact, to whom the Apostle Paul alludes, was not only a prophet, but also a physician, like Apollo (ἱατρόμαντις, Eumen. v. 62). In the same way the Hebrew word Nabah, prophetess, is applied to Miriam, Exod. xv. 20; and it may well be, that Æschylus, in the true spirit of these old times, and also following the deep religious inspiration of his Muse, alludes here to a character more sacred than the Homeric ἀοιδὸς, Minstrel or Bard, and this distinction should, of course, be preserved in the translation. Sew. with great happiness, in my opinion, has given “the bards of fate;” but it were useless to press any such nice matter in this passage, especially when we call to mind the high estimation in which the Homeric ἀοιδὸς stands in the Odyss., and the remarkable passage, III. 267, where a minstrel is represented as appointed by Agamemnon to counsel and control Clytemnestra in his absence, pretty much as a family confessor would do in a modern Roman Catholic family.