Pathos is repeatedly appealed to in the play. Hephaestus is one of the kindliest figures in Greek tragedy; the noble-hearted young goddesses cannot fail to hold our affection. They are the most human Chorus in all drama; their entry is admirable; in the sequel we should have found them still near Prometheus after his cycle of tortures. But the subject-matter is calculated to win the admiration of all humanity; it is the persecution of him to whom on Greek principles mankind owes all that it is of value in its civilisation. We cannot help thinking of another God, racked and tormented and nailed to a cross of shame to save the race He loved. The very power and majesty of Aeschylus' work has made it difficult for successors to imitate him; few can hope to equal his sublime grandeur; Shelley attempted it in his Prometheus Unbound, but his Prometheus becomes abstract Humanity, ceasing to be a character, while his play is really a mere poem celebrating the inevitable victory of man over the evils of his environment and picturing the return of an age of happiness.
Nearly all the characters in Greek tragedy were the heroes of well-known popular legends. In abandoning the well-trodden circle Aeschylus has here ensured an undying freshness for his work—it is novel, free and unconventional; more than that, it is dignified.
The slightest error of taste would have degraded if to the level of a comedy; throughout it maintains a uniform tone of loftiness and sincerity. The language is easy but powerful, the art with which the story is told is consummate. Finally, it is one of the few pieces in the literature of the world which are truly sublime; it ranks with Job and Dante. The great purpose of creation, the struggles of beings of terrific power, the majesty of gods, the whole universe sighing and lamenting for the agonies of a deity of wondrous foresight, saving others but not himself—such is the theme of this mighty and affecting play.
In 458 Aeschylus wrote the one trilogy which is extant. It describes the murder of Agamemnon, the revenge of Orestes and his purification from blood-guiltiness. It will be necessary to trace the history of Agamemnon's family before we can understand these plays. His great-grandfather was Tantalus, who betrayed the secrets of the gods and was subjected to unending torture in Hades. Pelops, his son, begat two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. The former killed Thyestes' son, invited the father to a banquet and served up his own son's body for him to eat. The sons of Atreus were Agamemnon and Menelaus, who married respectively Clytemnestra and Helen, daughters of Zeus and Leda, both evil women; the son of Thyestes was Aegisthus, a deadly foe of his cousins who had banished him. The "inherited curse" then had developed itself in this unhappy stock and it did not fail to ruin it.
When Helen abandoned Menelaus and went to Troy with Paris, Agamemnon led a great armament to recover the adulteress. The fleet was wind-bound at Aulis, because the Greeks had offended Artemis. Chalcas the seer informed Agamemnon that it would be impossible for him to reach Troy unless he offered his eldest daughter Iphigeneia to Artemis. Torn by patriotism and fatherly affection, Agamemnon resorted to a strategem to bring his daughter to the sacrifice. He sent a messenger to Clytemnestra saying he wished to marry their child to Achilles. When the mother and daughter arrived at Aulis they learned the bitter truth. Iphigeneia was indeed sacrificed, but Artemis spirited her away to the country now called Crimea, there to serve as her priestess. Believing that her daughter was dead, Clytemnestra returned to Argos to plot destruction for her husband, forming an illicit union with his foe Aegisthus, nursing her revenge during the ten years of the siege.
The Agamemnon, the first play of the trilogy, opens in a romantic setting. It is night. A watchman is on the wall of Argos, stationed there by the Queen. For ten years he had waited for the signal of the beacon-fire to be lit at Nauplia, the port of Argos, to announce the fall of Troy. At last the expected signal is given. He hurries to tell the news to the Queen, a woman with the resolution of a man; in his absence the Chorus of Argive Elders enter the stage, singing one of the finest odes to be found in any language. It likens Agamemnon and his brother to two avenging spirits sent to punish the sinner. The Chorus are past military age, and are come to learn from Clytemnestra why there is sacrifice throughout all Argos. They remember the woes at the beginning of the campaign, how Chalcas prophesied that in time Troy would be taken, yet hinted darkly of some blinding curse of Heaven hanging over the Greeks, his burden being
"Sing woe, sing woe, but let the good prevail."
"Yea, the law of Zeus is, wisdom by suffering, for thus soberness of
thought comes to those who wish not for it. First men are emboldened
by ill-counselling foolish frenzy which begins their troubles; even
as Agamemnon, through sin against Artemis, was compelled to slay his
daughter to save his armament. Her cries for a father's mercy, her
unuttered appeals to her slayers—these he disregarded. What is to
come of it, no man knows; yet it is useless to lament the issue before
it comes, as come it will, clear as the light of day."
Clytemnestra enters, the sternest woman figure in all literature. She reminds the Chorus that she is no child and is not known to have a slumbering wit. When they enquire how she has learned so quickly of the capture of Troy, she describes with great brilliance the long chain of beacon fires she has caused to be made, stretching from Ida in Troyland to Argos. She imagines the wretched fate of the conquered and the joy of the victors, rid for ever of their watchings beneath the open sky. Striking the same ominous note as Chalcas did, she continues:
"If they reverence the Gods of Troy and their shrines, they shall not
be caught even as they have taken the city. May no lust of plundering
fall upon the army, for it needs a safe return home. Yet even if the
army sins not against the gods, the anger of the slain may awake,
though no new ills arise. But let the right prevail, for all to see
it clearly."
This speech inspires the Chorus to sing another solemn ode. Too much prosperity leads to godlessness; Paris carried away Helen in pride and infatuation, stealing the light of Menelaus' eyes, leaving him only the torturing memories of her beauty which visited him in his dreams. But there is a spirit of discontent in every city of Greece; all had sent their young men to Troy in the glory of life, and in return they had a handful of ashes, asking why their sons should fall in murderous strife for another man's wife. At night the dark dread haunts Argos that the gods care not for men who shed much blood, who succeed by injustice, who are well spoken of overmuch. Often these are smitten full in the face by the thunderbolt; and perhaps this beacon message is mere imagining or a lie sent from heaven.