Adelaide, The Tuscan (Sordello), was the second wife of Eccelino da Romano, of the party of the Ghibellines.
Admetus (Balaustion’s Adventure). King of Pheræ, in Thessaly. Apollo tended his flocks for one year, and obtained the favour that Admetus should never die if another person could be found to lay down his life for him: his wife, Alcestis, in consequence cheerfully devoted herself to death for him.
Æschylus. The Greek tragic poet who wrote the Agamemnon translated by Mr. Browning. Æschylus was born in the year 525 before Christ, at Eleusis, a town of Attica opposite the island of Salamis. When thirty-five years old Æschylus not only fought at Marathon, but distinguished himself for his valour. He was fifty-three years old when he gained the prize at Athens, B.C. 472, for his trilogy or set of three connected plays. He wrote some seventy pieces, but only seven have come down to our times: they are Prometheus Chained, The Suppliants, The Seven Chiefs against Thebes, Agamemnon, The Choëphoræ, The Furies, and The Persians. The Agamemnon, which Mr. Browning has translated, is one of the plays of the Oresteia, the Choëphoræ and the Eumenides or Furies completing the trilogy. The poet died at Gela, in Sicily, B.C. 456. Æschylus both in order of time and power was the first of the three great tragic poets of ancient Greece. Euripides and Sophocles were the other two.
After. See [Before and After].
Agamemnon of Æschylus, The. A translation published in London, 1877. The scene of the play is laid by Æschylus at Argos, before the palace of Agamemnon, Mycenæ, however, really being his seat. Agamemnon was a son of Atreus according to Homer, and was the brother of Menelaus. In a later account he is described as the son of Pleisthenes, who was the son of Atreus. He was king over Argolis, Corinth, Achaia, and many islands. He married Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, by whom he had three daughters Chrysothemis, Iphigenia and Electra, and one son Orestes. When Helen was carried off by Paris, Agamemnon was chosen to be commander-in-chief of the expedition sent against Troy by the Greeks, as he was the mightiest prince in Greece. He contributed one hundred ships manned with warriors, besides lending sixty more to the Arcadians. The fleet being detained at Aulis by a storm, it was declared that Agamemnon had offended Diana by slaying a deer sacred to her, and by boasting that he was a better hunter than the goddess; and he was compelled to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease her anger. Diana is said by some to have accepted a stag in her place. Homer describes Agamemnon as one of the bravest warriors before Troy, but having received Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, as a prize of war, he arrogantly refused to allow her father to ransom her. This brought a plague on the Grecian host, and their ruin was almost completed by his carrying off Briseis, who was the prize of Achilles—who refused in consequence to fight, remaining sulking in his tent. After the fall of Troy the beautiful princess Cassandra fell to Agamemnon as his share of the spoils. She was endowed with the gift of prophecy, and warned him not to return home. The warning, however, was disregarded, although he was assured that his wife would put him to death. During the absence of Agamemnon Clytemnestra had formed an adulterous connection with Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes and Pelopia; and when he returned, the watchman having announced his approach to his palace, Clytemnestra killed Cassandra, and her lover murdered Agamemnon and his comrades. The tragic poets, however, make Clytemnestra throw a net over her husband while he was in his bath, and kill him with the assistance of Ægisthus, in revenge for the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia. In the introduction to the translation of the Agamemnon in Morley’s Universal Library we have an excellent description of the great play. “In this tragedy the reader will find the strongest traces of the genius of Æschylus, and the most distinguishing proofs of his skill. Great in his conceptions, bold and daring in his metaphors, strong in his passion, he here touches the heart with uncommon emotions. The odes are particularly sublime, and the oracular spirit that breathes through them adds a wonderful elevation and dignity to them. Short as the part of Agamemnon is, the poet has the address to throw such an amiable dignity around him that we soon become interested in his favour, and are predisposed to lament his fate. The character of Clytemnestra is finely marked—a high-spirited, artful, close, determined, dangerous woman. But the poet has nowhere exerted such efforts of his genius as in the scene where Cassandra appears: as a prophetess, she gives every mark of the divine inspiration, from the dark and distant hint, through all the noble imagery of the prophetic enthusiasm; till, as the catastrophe advances, she more and more plainly declares it; as a suffering princess, her grief is plaintive, lively, and piercing; yet she goes to meet her death, which she clearly foretells, with a firmness worthy the daughter of Priam and the sister of Hector; nothing can be more animated or more interesting than this scene. The conduct of the poet through this play is exquisitely judicious: every scene gives us some obscure hint or ominous presage, enough to keep our attention always raised, and to prepare us for the event; even the studied caution of Clytemnestra is finely managed to produce that effect; whilst the secrecy with which she conducts her design keeps us in suspense, and prevents a discovery till we hear the dying groans of her murdered husband.” As Mr. Browning announces in his preface to his translation of the tragedy, he has aimed at being literal at every cost, and has everywhere reproduced the peculiarities of the original. He has also made an attempt to reproduce the Greek spelling in English, which has made the poem more difficult than some other translations to the non-classical reader. We have ample recompense for this peculiarity by the way in which he has imbibed the spirit of his author, and so faithfully reproduced, not alone his phraseology, but his mind. It required a rugged poet to interpret for us correctly the ruggedness of an Æschylus. Line for line and word for word we have the tragedy in English as the Greeks had it in their own tongue. If there are obscurities, we must not in the present instance blame Mr. Browning: a reference to the original, so authorities tell us, will prove that Greek poets were at times obscure. The Agamemnon is part of the Oresteian Trilogy or group of three plays; this trilogy of Æschylus is our only example extant, and it is necessary to say something of the other parts. Atreus, the son of Pelops, was king of Mycenæ. By his wife Ærope were born to him Pleisthenes, Menelaus, and Agamemnon. Thyestes, the brother of Atreus, had followed him to Argos, and there seduced his wife, by whom he had two, or according to some, three children. Thyestes was banished from court on account of this, but was soon afterwards recalled by his brother that he might be revenged upon him. He prepared a banquet where Thyestes was served with the flesh of the children who were the offspring of his incestuous connection with his sister-in-law the queen. When the feast was concluded, the heads of the murdered children were produced, that Thyestes might see of what he had been partaking. It was fabled that the sun in horror shrank back in his course at the horrible sight. Thyestes fled. The crime brought the most terrible evils upon the family of which Agamemnon was a member. When this hero was murdered by his wife and her paramour, young Orestes was saved from his mother’s dagger by his sister Electra. When he reached the years of manhood, he visited his ancestral home, and assassinated both his mother and her lover Ægisthus. In consequence of this he was tormented by the Furies, and he exiled himself to Athens, where Apollo purified him. The murder of Clytemnestra by her son is described in the second play of the Trilogy, called the Choëphoræ or the Libation Pourers. The Furies is the title of the third and concluding play of the Trilogy. (For an account of Æschylus see [p. 8].)
Notes.—[N.B. The references here are to the pages of the poem in the last edition of the complete works in sixteen vols.]—P. 269, Atreidai, a patronymic given by Homer to Agamemnon and Menelaus, as being the sons of Atreus; Troia, the capital of Troas == Troy. p. 270, Ilion, a citadel of Troy; Menelaos, a king of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon. p. 271, Argives, the inhabitants of Argos and surrounding country; Alexandros, the name of Paris in the Iliad: Atreus, son of Pelops, was king of Mycenæ; Danaoi, a name given to the people of Argos and to all the Greeks; Troes == Trojans. p. 272, Tundareus, king of Lacedæmon, who married Leda; Klutaimnestra == Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus by Leda. p. 273, Teukris land, the land of the Trojans—from Teucer, their king; “Achaians’ two-throned empery”: the brother kings Agamemnon and Menelaos. p. 274, Linos, the personification of a dirge or lamentation; Priamos, the last king of Troy, made prisoner by Hercules when he took the city. p. 275, Icïos Paian, an epithet of Apollo; Kalchas, a soothsayer who accompanied the Greeks to Troy. p. 277, Kalchis, the chief city of Eubœa, founded by an Athenian colony; Aulis, a town of Bœotia, near Kalchis; Strumon, a river which separates Thrace from Macedonia. p. 282, Hephaistos, the god of fire, according to Homer the son of Zeus and Hera. The Romans called the Greek Hephaistos Vulcan, though Vulcan was an Italian deity. The news of the fall of Troy was brought to Mycenæ by means of beacon fires, so fire was the messenger. Ide == Mount Ida; of Lemnos, an island in the Ægean Sea. p. 283, Athoan, of Mount Athos; Makistos == Macistos, a city of Tryphylia; Euripos, a narrow strait separating Eubœa from Bœotia; Messapios, a name of Bœotia; Asopos, a river of Thessaly; Mount Kitharion, sacred to the Muses and Jupiter. Hercules killed the great lion there; Mount Aigiplanktos was in Megaris; Strait Saronic: Saronicus Sinus was a bay of the Ægean Sea; Mount Arachnaios, in Argolis. p. 286, Ate, the goddess of revenge; Ares, the Greek name of the war-god Mars. p. 288, Aphrodite, a name of Venus. p. 290, Erinues == the Furies. p. 292, Puthian == Delphic; Skamandros, a river of Troas. p. 293, Priamidai, the patronymic of the descendants of Priam. p. 300, Threkian breezes == Thracian breezes; Aigaian Sea, the Ægean Sea; Achaian, pertaining to Achaia, in Greece. p. 301, Meneleos, son of Atreus, brother to Agamemnon and husband of Helen; water-Haides, the engulfing sea. p. 302, Zephuros, the west wind; Simois, a river in Troas which rises in Mount Ida and falls into the Xanthus. p. 304, Erinus, an avenging deity. p. 307, the Argeian monster == the company of Argives concealed in the wooden horse; Pleiads, a name given to seven of the daughters of Atlas by Pleione, one of the Oceanides. They became a constellation in the heavens after death. p. 309, “triple-bodied Geruon the Second,” Geryon, king of the Balearic Isles, fabled to have three bodies and three heads: Hercules slew him; Strophios the Phokian, at whose house Orestes was brought up with Pylades son of Strophios. p. 316, Kassandra, daughter of Priam, slain by Clytemnestra. p. 317, “Alkmene’s child”—Hercules was the son of Alkmene. p. 319, Ototoi—alas!; Loxias, a surname of Apollo. p. 322, papai, papai == O strange! wonderful! p. 324, Itus, or Itys, son of Tereus, killed by his mother. p. 325, “Orthian style,” in a shrill tone. p. 332, Lukeion Apollon—Lyceus was a surname of Apollo. p. 335, Surian == Syrian. p. 343, Chruseids, the patronymic of the descendants of Astynome, the daughter of Chryses. p. 348, Iphigeneia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; her father offered to sacrifice her to appease the wrath of Diana. p. 350, The Daimon of the Pleisthenidai, the genius of Agamemnon’s family. p. 351, Thuestes, son of Pelops, brother of Atreus; Pelopidai, descendants of Pelops, son of Tantalus.
Agricola, Johannes, (Johannes Agricola in Meditation,) was one of the foremost of the German Reformers. He was born at Eisleben, April 20th, 1492. He met Luther whilst a student at Wittenberg, and became attached to him, accompanying him to the Leipsic Assembly of Divines, where he acted as recording secretary. He established the reformed religion at Frankfort. In 1536 he was called to fill a professorial chair at Wittenberg. Here he first taught the views which Luther termed Antinomian. He held that Christians were entirely free from the Divine law, being under the Gospel alone. He denied that Christians were under any obligations to keep the ten commandments. Mr. Browning has quite accurately, though unsparingly, exposed his impious teaching in his poem Johannes Agricola in Meditation (q.v.).
Agrippa, Henry Cornelius, the mediæval doctor and magician, was born at Cologne in 1486, and was educated at the university of that city. He was denounced in 1509 by the monks, who called him an “impious cabalist”; in 1531 he published his treatise De Occulta Philosophia, written by the advice and with the assistance of the Abbot Trithemius of Wurzburg, the preceptor of Paracelsus. In 1510 he came to London on a diplomatic mission, and was the guest of Dean Colet at Stepney. He afterwards fought at the battle of Ravenna. In 1511 he attended the schismatic council of Pisa as a theologian. In 1515 he lectured at the university of Pavia. We afterwards find him at Metz, Geneva, and Freiburg, where he practised as a physician. In 1529 he was appointed historiographer to Charles V. He died at Grenoble in 1535. A man of such vast and varied learning could hardly in those days have avoided being accused of diabolical practices and heretical opinions; the only wonder is that he was not burned alive for his scientific attainments, which were looked upon as dangerous in the highest degree. (Pauline in the Latin prefatory note.)
“A King lived long ago.” Song in Pippa Passes, which is sung by the girl as she passes the house of Luigi. Mr. Browning first published the song in the Monthly Repository, in 1835 (vol ix., N.S., pp. 707-8), it was reprinted with added lines, and was revised throughout, in Pippa Passes 1841.
Alberic (Sordello). Son of Eccelino the monk, described in the poem as “many-muscled, big-boned Alberic.”