Euripides and His Age

by Gilbert Murray

Another note is also struck, that of pity for the suffering of humanity. Orestes and Electra, condemned to part, break, as they bid one another farewell, into a great cry, and the gods, hearing it, are shaken:

Alas! what would ye? For that cry Ourselves and all the sons of heaven Have pity; yea, our peace is riven By the strange pain of these that die.

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But hark! The far Sicilian sea Calls, and a noise of men and ships That labour sunken to the lips In bitter billows; forth go we With saving.

They speak such words of comfort and groping wisdom as they can find—no one has ever claimed that they are omniscient—and depart upon their own eternal task, which is not to punish but to save.

The appearance of the gods in the Electra is so beautiful that no critics have yet tried to explain it away as nonsense; and the lesson of it so clear that its meaning is seldom denied. But I find just the same lesson in the final scene of the Orestes, which is commonly taken as the very worst instance of Euripides' habit of closing with a "God from the machine."

The Orestes (408 b.c.) deals with the fate of Orestes some days after his mother's murder. He is mad and sick; his sister is nursing him with devotion. The people have risen against them and they are held prisoners in the palace till an assembly shall try them for murder and pronounce their fate. Meantime Menelaus—Orestes' uncle and king of Sparta—has arrived at the harbour with his wife Helen and their daughter Hermione. He has sent on his wife and daughter to the palace and is expected hourly himself. He is Agamemnon's brother; he has with him an army of Trojan veterans; he can surely be counted on to cow the Argive populace and save his dead brother's son. All our hopes hang on Menelaus, and when at last he comes he proves false. He would like to help; but it would be wrong for him, a foreigner, to dictate to the Argives; and he has only a very small force with him. However, he will reason with Orestes' enemies. One does not forget that, if Argos is left without a king, Menelaus will normally inherit. The sick man blazes into rage against him and Menelaus becomes an open enemy. Exasperation follows on exasperation: Orestes' friend Pylades breaks through the guards and enters the palace to share the prisoners' fate. The assembly hears and at length condemns them. They are given a day in which to die as they best please. Like scorpions surrounded by fire, the three, Orestes, Electra and Pylades, begin to strike blindly. A brilliant idea! They can kill Helen: that will punish Menelaus, and Helen deserves many deaths. Better still, kill Helen and then capture Hermione! Hold a dagger at her throat and then bargain with Menelaus for help even at the last hour! Murder his wife and then force him to help! Splendid! The madness of Orestes infects the whole play. Helen escapes, being half-divine; but they catch Hermione, who, as a matter of fact, has always been kind to them. Menelaus, who has heard news from an escaping slave, rushes up to save Helen, but he finds no sign of her; he finds only the palace barred and the madman on the roof, shrieking derision and holding the knife at his daughter's throat. There is a brief wild attempt at bargaining; then hate in Menelaus overcomes fear. He rejects all terms. Orestes' party sets fire to the palace; and Menelaus at the head of his soldiers beats blindly at the barred gate. "The fire of Hell," to use Dr. Verrall's phrase, has been let loose; rage, hatred, revenge, all blazing to the point of madness; what more can befall?

What does befall is strange and daring. An entry of a god not in gentleness, not with any preparation or introduction, but sudden and terrific, striking all beholders into a trance from which they awaken changed men. The point has not been generally observed, though it is, I think, clear.