Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:
"Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach
These youths in all things to be wise, like thee,
Naught will avail them more."
Macaria has the clear Minerva eye; Antigone's is deeper and more capable of emotion, but calm; Iphigenia's glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.
I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his "Dream of fair Women," has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circumstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jephtha's daughter he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when
"I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of Ills.
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell—
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
Moreover it is written, that my race
Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh, from Arroer
Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face
Glowed as I looked on her.
She looked her lips; she left me where I stood;
'Glory to God,' she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the woods,
Toward the morning-star."
In the "Trojan dames" there are fine touches of nature with regard to Cassandra. Hecuba shows that mixture of shame and reverence that prose kindred always do, towards the inspired child, the poet, the elected sufferer for the race.
When the herald announces that she is chosen to be the mistress of Agamemnon, Hecuba answers indignant, and betraying the involuntary pride and faith she felt in this daughter.
"The virgin of Apollo, whom the God,
Radiant with golden looks, allowed to live.
In her pure vow of maiden chastity?
Tal. With love the raptured virgin smote his heart.
Hec. Cast from thee, O my daughter, cast away
Thy sacred wand; rend off the honored wreaths,
The splendid ornaments that grace thy brows."
But the moment Cassandra appears, singing wildly her inspired song, Hecuba, calls her
"My frantic child."