" And I will combat with weak Menelaus, There is a more cynical ring in the opening chapter of Herodotus. Speaking of the carrying off from her husband of this fair cause of so much sorrowthis "long-robed Helen," whom Homer calls the noblest of women"-he says: Now to carry off women by violence the Persians think is the act of wicked men; but to trouble oneself about avenging them when carried off, is the act of foolish ones; and to pay no regard to them when carried off, of wise men; for that it is clear, that if they had not been willing they would not have been carried off. Queen Elizabeth repeated the same sentiment in other words many hundreds of years after the Father of History had joined the melancholy shades below. Eschylus, in his Agamemnon, strikes a yet graver note of reprobation: "Who gave that war-wed strife-upstirring one The name of Helen, ominous of ill?" Hell of men, and hell of ships, and hell of towers," she is primarily responsible for the awful crime about to be committed by her sister; she is the source whence flows this fatal river of hot blood; though, indeed, she is but one of the fated in her own person, destined to help in carrying on the curse lying on the house of Agamemnon for the sin of Thyestes and the vengeance of Atreus. All the same, Isocrates had religion and tradition on his side when he made his Encomium. For the account of Helen in her restored home, with Menelaus of the golden hair, in the Odyssey of the temple built to her honor "in the place called Therapne," by Herodotus-of the votive cups suspended in the temple of Aphrodite, modelled on her fair breasts, show how her beauty stood in men's minds for glory, and how the multiplicity of her lovers tarnished the brightness of her fame no more than did the frank infidelities of her father Zeus or the loves of her patroness Aphro · dite. But the legend that through the time of the Trojan war, while, seeming to be in Troy she was really safe in Egypt, twining lotus-flowers in her hair and embroidering mystic loveliness on splendid robes-that all those men and heroes lost their lives for a Shadow, and that nothing was real save suffering and death-this is the saddest note of all. No sermon ever written on the vanity of human aims and the phantasmagoria we call life, approaches this pathetic satire for force or subtlety. It makes the solid earth reel beneath our feet, and things become as unreal as the cloud that Ixion embraced. We prefer the thoroughly feminine realism of the taunt made by Electra, when she sneers at the fair woman's vanity for merely snipping the " tips of her long hair, saving its beauty, where others gave long locks, and some the whole crown of glory, for their mourning. Very different from this half-divine yet sinful daughter of the gods, beloved by Aphrodite and the adored of men,, are the other Homeric women. Foremost among them stands Andromache, that tender, faithful, loving wife, with her young son, "like a beautiful star' on her breast. No portrait ever drawn by the hand of nian is more exquisite than hers. Not Imogen nor Dorothea surpasses her in that subtle charm and steadfast nobleness of womanhood which make her name fragrant and her image immortal. She even dwarfs by comparison the lovely majesty of Helen; and when Hector passes from the fair palace of Alexandros to his own "well'stablished'' house, we feel all the difference between the divine harlot and the womanly wife. Her prayer that her husband should stay in safety with her upon the tower-woman's love forgetting man's honor-and Hector's answer and mournful prophetic picture, are among the divine things in literature, deathless as the sun is deathless, and, like the sun, renewed in power and glory to each young life. Whose eyes are dry when reading the answer of this Trojan Hotspur to a nobler than was Percy Kate ?— Surely I take thought for all these things, my wife; but I have very sore shame of the Trojans and Trojan dames with trailing robes, if, like a coward, I shrink away from battle. Moreover, . mine own soul forbiddeth me, seeing I have learned ever to be valiant and fight in the forefront of the Trojans, winning my father's great glory and my own. Yea, of a surety I know this in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilios to be laid low, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. Yet doth the anguish of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither Hekabe's own, neither King Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and brave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaian shall lead thee weeping and rob thee of the light of freedom. So shalt thou abide in Argos and ply the loom at another woman's bidding, and bear water from Mount Messeis or Hypereia, being grievously entreated, and sore constraint shall be laid on thee. And then shall one say that beholdeth thee weep; This is the wife of Hector, that was foremost in battle of the horse-taming Trojans, when men fought about Ilios. Thus shall one say hereafter, and fresh grief will be thine for lack of such an husband as thou hadst to ward off the day of thraldom. But me in death may the upheaped earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into captivity.' Full, too, of pathos as warm as tears, as immeasurable as human sorrow, is Andromache's lament for her dead husband, and her prophecy of sorrow for her fatherless son-that "cruel-fated child," for whom, perhaps, the swift murder done by the Greeks was a more merciful fate than the long years of cold neglect and sharp oppression foreseen by his mother.* Thus saying, she sped through the chamber like one mad, with beating heart, and with her went her handmaid ens. But when she came to the battlements and the throng of men, she stood still upon the wall and gazed, and be * This paper naturally pretends to no kind of scholarship. Disputed passages, variorum readings, dates, doubts, accents, authenticity, are all necessarily as if they were not; and the translations which came handiest have been taken as entirely veracious. Critical accuracy, which would have been impossible to me, is fortunately not in the scheme of so slight a sketch as this, where broad effects and general outlines alone are of account. Ah, Now held him dragged before the city :-swift horses dragged him recklessly toward the hollow ships of the Achaians. Then dark night came on her eyes and shrouded her, and she fell backward and gasped forth her spirit. From off her head she shook the bright attiring thereof, frontlet and net and woven band, and veil, the veil that golden Aphrodite gave her on the day when Hector of the glancing helm led her forth of the house of Eëtion, having given bride-gifts untold. And around her thronged her husband's sisters and his brothers' wives, who held her up among them, distraught even to death. But when at last she came to herself and her soul returned into her breast, then wailing with deep sobs she spake among the women of Troy : Hector, woe is me! to one fate then were we both born, thou in Troy in the house of Priam, and I in Thebes under woody Plakos, in the house of Eëtion, who reared me from a little one-illfated sire of cruel-fated child. would he had begotten me not! thou to the house of Hades beneath the secret places of the earth departest, and me in bitter mourning thou leavest a widow in thy halls; and thy son is but an infant child-son of unhappy parents, thou and me-nor shalt thou profit him, Hector, since thou art dead, neither he thee. For even if he escape the Achaians' woful war, yet shall labor and sorrow cleave unto him hereafter, for other men shall seize his lands. The day of orphanage sundereth a child from his fellows, and his head is bowed down ever, and his cheeks are wet with tears. And in his need the child seeketh his father's friends, plucking this one by cloak and that by coat, and one of them that pity him holdeth his cup a little to his mouth and moisteneth his lips, but his palate he moisteneth not. some child unorphaned thrusteth him from the feast with blows and taunting words, 'Out with thee! no father of thine is at our board!' Then weeping to his widowed mother shall he return, even Astyanax, who erst upon his father's knee ate only marrow and fat flesh of sheep; and when sleep fell on him and he ceased from childish play, then in bed in his nurse's arms he would sleep softly nested, having satisfied his heart with good things: but now that he has And 64 lost his father he will suffer many ills. Astyanax-that name the Trojans gave him because thou only wert the defence of their gates and their long walls. But now by the beaked ships, far from thy parents, shall coiling worms devour thee when the dogs have had their fill, as thou liest naked; yet in these halls lieth raiment of thine, delicate and fair, wrought by the hands of women. But verily, all these will I consume with burning fireto thee no profit, since thou wilt never lie therein, yet that this be honor to thee from the men and the women of Troy." Nowhere is there a more beautiful, a more pathetic presentation than this of Hector's dear-won' wife. Penelope, wise in counsel, firm of purpose, astute in deed as she is, yet lacks Andromache's great charm. Where the wife of Hector has all the frank fire of virtuous love, the wife of Odysseus has blood so chastened as to creep, not flow; and her tenacity seems born rather of the mind than the heart. We can scarcely say how or where it is that she fails to touch our sympathies as do Andromache, Nausicaa, and even Arete. Perhaps it was because of her husband's frank confession when he says to Calypso: "Myself I know well, how wise Penelope is meaner to look upon than thou in comeliness and stature.' Perhaps it is because of her long hesitancy before she can be brought to acknowledge as her husband the stranger whom the old nurse Eurycleia, that ancient woman of an understanding heart," has already recognized, and at seeing whom the dog Argos has died for joy. Nevertheless, some great and subtle power she must have had; some tender strains of virginal modesty and wifely passion, as well as of the honor which clings round the life of a purposeful woman, must have mingled inextricably with her memory to have kept her husband's heart so fixed upon her that even a goddess could not sway it. 66 To be sure they are both no longer young when the much-loved wanderer returns. But Penelope is still able to charm the many suitors who throng about her; for those fair women of ancient Greece seem to have kept their beauty long after the average time, as witness Clytemnestra, Jocasta, and now Penelope. Perhaps her cautious prudence fitted in with her husband's own NEW SERIES.-VOL. XLV., No. 3 careful, doubtful, watching character, and was the quality which kept all the rest alive. Nausicaa, the sweetest ingénue that ever stood where brook and river meet'' and dreamed the dreams which repeat the waking visions of the day; Arete, honored by Alcinous as no other woman in the world is honored," walking through the city, appeasing quarrels and receiving reverence as she goes, enthroned by her husband in the golden palace, and hers the first word to which he appeals; "Calypso of the braided tresses singing with a sweet voice as she fared to and fro before the loom and wove with a shuttle of gold singing now, but soon to shudder when. Hermes delivers his message and her ardent love-story has run its course;. Circe, that awful goddess of mortal speech," who, so cruel to others, yet entreated noble Odysseus well; all the poor shadows down in Hades, those now strengthless heads who had been loved by gods and made the mothers of men; truly the galaxy of Homeric womanhood shines bright and burnished in the poetic firmament, and we cannot say that in those old times the honor paid to women was scant or the estimate of their value small. 46 The women of the dramatists are as vitalized as those of Homer, and some are as supreme. Equal to Andromache in her tenderness and to Penelope in her constancy, that child of a blind old man, Antigone," gathers up in herself some of the noblest characteristics of her sex, and is the ideal woman of her kind. Her devotion to her father during his lifetime is matched only by her devotion to her brother after his death;. and in all her actions no care for self mars the perfect wholeness of her love, no fear of consequences disturbs the strong tenacity of her purpose. Edipus. turns to her for counsel as for tender-ness, and she, always so wise and gentleto him, gives him the eye of her mind as of her body-tells him what to do and where to go-what to confess and when to refrain. She guides him by the hand, as she has 'since first her childhood's nurture ceased, and she grew strong," and for him abandons all the hopes and pleasures of her age and sex. Ismene, who comes to them just as they have left the grove of the Eumenides, "in her 27 66 broad Thessalian hat," and "mounted on a colt of Etna's breed," is a slighter character, but more essentially womanly according to our ideas. Gentle and timid, though quite faithful, she is too fearful to be heroic, and bends to the storm, as Antigone does not. Neverthe less, she stands bravely enough by her sister in her hour of peril, and would, if she might, share the punishment due to disobedience in the matter of those funeral rites to the slain Polyneikes. But Antigone nobly repudiates her, and saves her from herself. Also, she has suffered much in this journey to her father, that she may tell him of the evil that has befallen his two sons and give him the words of the oracle; and Edipus makes no difference between his daughters. His greeting to Ismene is curious on account of the opening words; corresponding as they do with our own later knowledge by the papyri of the private lives of the Egyptians. Edipus contrasts his daughters' devotion with his sons' supineness and indifference to him. My No guides, protects, counsels, and consoles him. Loving, too, and of a more heroic temper than her sweet young sister, she refuses to allow the impulse of loyalty which would have made Ismene also a martyr. Holding her brother Polyneikes dearer than her life, she urges him to the wiser course of a noble self-restraint, but afterward voluntarily sacrifices herself to the consequences of his wilfulness and indocility. Steadfast to her duty, bold against tyranny, faithful to her own, tender as love and resolute as hate, she never falters in her self-elected path, nor turns back from the martyrdom she has chosen as her fate. Yet though she is so strong, she says of herself: nature leads to love, not hate," and finds her consolation in the prospect, more sure than hope, that "Loved I shall be with him whom I have loved, Guilty of holiest crime." "I know I please the souls I ought to please," is another of her self-revelations. truckling to the living powers that can hurt, no forgetfulness of the dead love that can no longer bless, for her! Though it cost her her life, she will please the soul she ought to please, and let the rest go by. And for these two qualities of enduring love and constancy in duty, the world reverences her name, and will reverence it forever. She lives in these two plays as much as Cordelia and Juliet live. She is as real a person as our sister, our daughter. But she is so far unlike our modern women in that she prefers her brother to her lover, and chooses death through loyalty to the dead Polyneikes, rather than life and love with Hæmon. In her pathetic farewell to life she only alludes to her lover, and then, not to him personally -rather to her own lost hope of marriage and maternity-while the whole tone of her lament is full of the very passion of love for her own people. Among other things she says she would not have done this bold deed of pious disobedience had she come to be a nother with her children,' nor dared though 'twere a husband's head that mouldered there;' for she goes on to say "Am I asked what law constrained me thus ? I answer, had I lost a husband dear I might have had another: other sons But when my father and my mother sleep In Hades, then no brother more can come !" * This is exactly the same reason as that given by the wife of Intaphernes, when Darius offers her the choice of one life among all those of hers he has doomed to death, and she saves her brother to the neglect of her husband and children. It is a curiously explicit evidence of the strength of the family tie on the father's side, and the predominance of simple instinct over sentiment in the matters of marriage, and even maternity. All the same, Euripides says in the Dana "A woman, when she leaves her father's home, Belongs not to her parents, but her bed." Electra is another character of absolute vitality. As strong as Antigone, and as faithful, she, however, misses that charm which made the child of the blind old man so lovely. With her, sorrow is too much mixed up with vengeance to be pathetic. A more purposeful and a fiercer Hamlet, she never ceases to bewail her murdered father; but she does not shrink from helping to avenge him not on her mother's paramour, but on that mother herself. Like Antigone, she is contrasted with a weaker sister, the politic and reasonable Chrysothemis, who thinks it wise in foul weather" to slack my sail, and make no idle show of doing something when I cannot harm." But Electra is too full of the fire of hate to heed this sage advice; and after she has defied Clytemnestra to her face, completes her dreadful vengeance by the savage taunts and eager cries with which she shares her brother's crime, and urges its execution. Her frantic hatred to her mother is terrible; but as revolting as it is terrible. No sentiment of pity, no dread of her own incited work, no memory of the days when her mother had been her friend, softens her heart or bends the steely hardness of her purpose. She only asks: "And is she dead, vile wretch ?'' when Orestes and Pylades come, their crimsoned hands dripping with gore; and when she answers the questioning of Ægisthos, she answers *And this, too, is a disputed passage which I am told a scholar would not quote. back with bitter sneers and sarcastic taunts. Clytemnestra herself has something of the awful sublimity of Milton's Satan. She is like some heroic statue of Melpomene-the impersonation of the tragedy which is associated with crime. As she is in the Electra, Pheidias might have carved her, and she would have lived in the marble as now in the book. But, indeed, all Greek literary work is statuesque, like Michelangelo's painting. Her imperious will and jealous pride, her regal personality and ruthless purpose, her temperament at once cruel and voluptuous, stamp her image in lines of fire and blood on the page; and only the character of her retribution turns our loathing to that horror which has its other side in pity. Just one word of excuse for the murder of her husband is to be found in the mother's vengeful sorrow for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and the woman's pride insulted by the presence of Cassandra. And only one human touch redeems her passionate exaltation at his death-when she says that his child will meet him in Hades, and with greeting kind, e'en as is fit," will clasp him in by the dark stream of bitter woes," and give him a daughter's kiss. her arms, But for Iphigeneia herself all pictures. fail in beauty, all poetry in tenderness, by the side of this loveliest and most pathetic figure. The description of her at the sacrificial altar is scarcely to be read even now without tears :— |