Euripides and His Age

by Gilbert Murray

At Apollo's first sudden cry "Menelaus, be still!" (line 1625) we know that Orestes is supporting Hermione in one arm while with the other hand he is holding the knife at her throat. He is in exactly the same position at line 1653; he only moves from it at 1671. That is the conduct of a man in a trance, suddenly, as it were, struck rigid. And we shall find that the words spoken by both Menelaus and Orestes when Apollo has finished his charge, are like nothing but the words of men emerging from a trance; a trance, too, of some supernatural kind, like that for instance which falls on the raging world in Mr. Wells's book, In the Days of the Comet. Here, too, a raging world wakes to find itself at peace and its past hatreds unintelligible. And the first thought that comes to the surface is, in each case, the great guiding preoccupation of each man's life; with Menelaus it is Helen; with Orestes the oracle that made him sin. Nay more; when Orestes wakens, half-conscious, to find Hermione lying in his arms, his natural movement, as experiments on hypnotized persons have shown, is to accept the suggestion and draw her to him in love. Greek legend knew well that, as a matter of history, Hermione became Orestes' bride. There is daring, perhaps excessive daring, in making it occur this way; but the psychology of something like hypnotism had a fascination for both Aeschylus and Euripides. For the rest, Apollo has spoken the word of forgiveness and reconciliation. He concludes:

Depart now, each upon his destined way, Your hates dead and forgotten.

Men.I obey.

Or.I too; mine heart is as a wine of peace Poured with the past and thy dark mysteries.

ApolloGo now your ways: and without cease Give honour in your hearts to one, Of spirits all beneath the sun Most beautiful; her name is Peace.

I rise with Helen Zeus-ward, past The orb of many a shining star; Where Heracles and Hebe are And Hera, she shall reign at last,

A goddess in men's prayers to be For ever, with her Brethren twain Enthronèd, a great help in pain And queen of the eternal sea.

"Helen a goddess!" say some critics; "the notion is impossible. We have seen her in this same play, a heartless ordinary woman." Yet I think Euripides was serious enough. I do not say he believed either this or any other particular bit of the mythology. But he was writing seriously and aiming at beauty, not at satire. All legend said that Helen was made a goddess; and Euripides was always curiously haunted by the thought of Helen and by the mysterious and deadly power of mere superlative beauty. As Apollo had said to Menelaus (1638):

Thy bride shall be another: none may know Her. For the Gods, to work much death and woe, Devised this loveliness all dreams above, That men in Greece and Troy for thirst thereof Should strive and die, and so the old Earth win Peace from mankind's great multitude and sin.