"Let Iphigeneia, his daughter, as is most fitting, meet her father
at the swift-conveying passage of woe, throw her arms about him and
kiss him welcome."
The last scene of this splendid drama brings forward the poltroon Aegisthus who had skulked behind in the background till the deed was done. He enters to air his ancient grievance, reminding the Chorus how his father was outraged by Atreus, how he himself was a banished man, yet found his arm long enough to smite the King from far away. In contempt for the coward the Elders prepare to offer him battle; they appeal to Orestes to avenge the murder. The quarrel was stopped by Clytemnestra, who had had enough of bloodshed and was content to leave things as they were, if the gods consented thereto.
Before the sustained power of this masterpiece criticism is nearly dumb. The conception of the inherited curse is by now familiar to us; familiar too is the teaching that sacrilege brings its own punishment, that human pride may be flattered into assuming the privilege of a deity. These were enough to cause Agamemnon's undoing. But it is the part played by Clytemnestra which fixes the dramatic interest. She is inspired by a lust for vengeance, yet, had she known the truth that her daughter was not dead but a priestess, she would have had no pretext for the murder. This ignorance of essentials which originates some human action is called Irony; it was put to dramatic uses for the first time in European literature by Aeschylus. The horrible tragedy it may cause is clear enough in the Agamemnon; its power is terrible and its value as a dramatic source is inestimable. There is another and a far more subtle form of Irony, in which a character uses riddling speech interpreted by another actor in a sense different from the truth as it is known to the spectators; this too can be used in such a manner as to charge human speech with a sinister double meaning which bodes ruin under the mask of words of innocence. Few dramatic personages have used this device so effectively as Clytemnestra, certainly none with a more fiendish intent. Again, in this play the Chorus is employed with amazing skill; their vague uneasiness takes more and more definitely the shape of actual terror in every ode; this terror is raised to its height in the masterly Cassandra scene—it is then abated a little, perhaps it is just beginning to disappear, for nobody believed Cassandra, when the blow falls. This integral connection between the Chorus and the main action is difficult to maintain; that it exists in the Agamemnon is evidence of a constructive genius of the highest order.
The Choephori (Libation-bearers), the second play of the trilogy, opens with the entry of Orestes. He has just laid a lock of hair on his father's tomb and sees a band of maidens approaching, among them Electra, his sister. He retires with Pylades his faithful friend to listen to their conversation. The Chorus tell how in consequence of a dream of Clytemnestra they have been sent to offer libations to the dead, to appease their anger and resentment against the murderers. They give utterance to a wild hopeless song, full of a presentiment of disaster coming on successful wickedness enthroned in power. They are captives from Troy, obliged to look on the deeds of Aegisthus, whether just or unjust, yet they weep for the purposeless agonies of Agamemnon's house. When asked by Electra what prayers she should offer to her dead father, they bid her pray for some avenging god or mortal to requite the murderers. Returning to them from the tomb, she tells them of a strange occurrence; a lock of hair has been laid on the grave, and there are two sets of footprints on the ground, one of which corresponds with her own. Orestes then comes forward to reveal himself; as a proof of his identity, he bids her consider the garments which she wove with her own hands; urging her to restrain her joy lest she betray his arrival, he tells how Apollo has commanded him to avenge his father's death, threatening him with sickness, frenzy, nightly terrors, excommunication and a dishonoured death if he refuses.
In a long choral dialogue the actors tell of Clytemnestra's insolent treatment of the dead King; she had buried him without funeral rites or mourning, with no subjects to follow the corpse; she even mangled his body and thrust Electra out of the palace; thus she filled the cup of her iniquity. The Chorus remind Orestes of his duty to act, but first he inquires why oblations have been offered; on learning that they are the result of Clytemnestra's dreaming that she suckled a serpent that stung her, and that she hopes to appease the angry dead, he interprets the dream of himself. He then unfolds his plot. He and Pylades will imitate a Phocian dialect and will seek out and slay Aegisthus. An ode which succeeds recounts the legends of evil women, closing with the declaration that Justice is firmly seated in the world, that Fate prepares a sword for a murderer and a Fury punishes him with it.
Approaching the palace Orestes summons the Queen and tells her that a stranger called Strophius bade him bring to Argos the news that Orestes is dead. Clytemnestra commands her servants within the house to welcome him and sends out her son's old nurse Cilissa to take the news to Aegisthus. The nurse stops to speak to the Chorus in the very language of grief for the boy she had reared, like Constance in King John. The Chorus advise her to summon Aegisthus alone without his bodyguard, for Orestes is not yet dead; when she departs they pray that the end may be speedily accomplished and the royal house cleansed of its curse. Aegisthus crosses the stage into the palace to meet a hasty end; seeing the deed, a servant rushes out to call Clytemnestra, while Orestes bursts out from the house and faces his mother. For a moment his resolution wavers; Pylades reminds him of Apollo's anger if he fails. To his mother's plea that Destiny abetted her deed he replies that Destiny intends her death likewise; before he thrusts her into the palace she warns him of the avenging Furies she will send to persecute him. She then passes to her doom.
After the Chorus have sung an ode of triumph Orestes shows the bodies of the two who loved in sin while alive and were not separated in death. He then displays the net which Clytemnestra threw around her husband's body and the robe in which she caught his feet; he holds up the garment through which Aegisthus' dagger ran. But in that very moment the cloud of more agonies to come descends upon the hapless family. In obedience to Apollo's command he takes the suppliant's branch and chaplet, and prepares to hasten to Delphi, a wanderer cut off from his native land. The dreadful shapes of the avenging Furies close in upon him: the fancies of incipient madness thicken on his mind: he is hounded out, his only hope of rest being Apollo's sacred shrine. The play ends with a note of hopelessness, of calamity without end.
After the Agamemnon this play reads weak indeed. Yet it displays two marked characteristics. It is full of vigorous action; the plot is quickly conceived and quickly consummated; the business is soon over. Further, Aeschylus has discovered yet another source of tragic power, the conflict of duties. Orestes has to choose between obedience to Apollo and reverence for his mother. That these duties are incompatible is clear; whichever he performed, punishment was bound to follow. It is in this enforced choice between two evils that the pathos of life is often to be found; that Aeschylus should have so faithfully depicted it is a great contribution to the growth of drama.
The concluding play, the Eumenides, calls for a briefer description. It opens with one of the most awe-inspiring scenes which the imagination of man has conceived. The priestess of Delphi finds a man sitting as a suppliant at the central point of the earth, his hands dripping with blood, a sword and an olive branch in his hand. Round him is slumbering a troop of dreadful forms, beings from darkness, the avengers. When the scene is disclosed, Apollo himself is seen standing at Orestes' side. He urges Hermes to convey the youth with all speed to Athens where he is to clasp the ancient image of Athena. Immediately the ghost of Clytemnestra arises; waking the sleeping forms, she bids them fly after their victim. They arise and confront Apollo, a younger deity, whom they reproach for protecting one who should be abandoned to them. Apollo replies with a charge that they are prejudiced in favour of Clytemnestra, whom, though a murderess, they had never tormented.
The scene rapidly changes to Athens, where Orestes calls upon Athena; confident in the privilege of their ancient office the Chorus awaits the issue. The goddess appears and consents to try the case, the Council of the Areopagus acting as a jury. Apollo first defends his action in saving Orestes, asserting that he obeys the will of Zeus. The main question is, which of the two parents is more to be had in honour?