Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the Seven Against Thebes Part 9

ANT. Alas! ye most miserable of all men.

ISM. Alas! ye possessed by Ate.

ANT. Alas! alas! where in the land shall we place them both? Alas! in the spot that is most honorable. Alas! alas! a woe fit to sleep beside my father.[177]

_Enter_ HERALD.

'Tis my duty to announce the good pleasure and the decree of the senators of the people of this city of Cadmus. It is resolved to bury this body of Eteocles for his attachment to his country, with the dear interment in earth! for in repelling our foes he met death in the city, and being pure in respect to the sacred rites of his country, blameless hath he fallen where 'tis glorious for the young to fall; thus, indeed, hath it been commissioned me to announce concerning this corpse: But [it has been decreed] to cast out unburied, a prey for dogs, this the corpse of his brother Polynices, inasmuch as he would have been the overturner of the land of Cadmus, if some one of the G.o.ds had not stood in opposition to his spear: and even now that he is dead, he will lie under the guilt of pollution with the G.o.ds of his country, whom he having dishonored was for taking the city by bringing against it a foreign host. So it is resolved that he, having been buried dishonorably by winged fowls, should receive his recompense, and that neither piling up by hands of the mound over his tomb should follow, nor any one honor him with shrill-voiced wailings, but that he be ungraced with a funeral at the hands of his friends. Such is the decree of the magistracy of the Cadmaeans.

ANT. But I say to the rulers of the Cadmaeans, if not another single person is willing to take part with me in burying him, I will bury him, and will expose myself[178] to peril by burying my brother. And I feel no shame at being guilty of this disobedient insubordination against the city. Powerful is the tie of the common womb from which we sprung, from a wretched mother and a hapless sire. Wherefore, my soul, do thou, willing with the willing share in his woes, with the dead, thou living, with sisterly feeling--and nought shall lean-bellied wolves tear his flesh--let no one suppose it. All woman though I be, I will contrive a tomb and a deep-dug grave for him, bearing earth in the bosom-fold of my fine linen robe, and I myself will cover him; let none imagine the contrary: an effective scheme shall aid my boldness.

HER. I bid thee not to act despite the state in this matter.

ANT. I bid thee not announce to me superfluous things.

HER. Yet stern is a people that has just escaped troubles.

ANT. Ay, call it stern[179]--yet this [corpse] shall not lie unburied.

HER. What! wilt thou honor with a tomb him whom our state abhors?[180]

HER. ANT. Heretofore he has not been honored by the G.o.ds.[181]

HER. Not so, at least before he put this realm in jeopardy.

ANT. Having suffered injuriously he repaid with injury.

HER. Ay, but this deed of his fell on all instead of one.

ANT. Contention is the last of the G.o.ds to finish a dispute,[182] and I will bury him; make no more words.

HER. Well, take thine own way--yet I forbid thee.

[Exit_ HERALD.

CH. Alas! alas! O ye fatal Furies, proudly triumphant, and destructive to this race, ye that have ruined the family of OEdipus from its root.

What will become of me? What shall I do? What can I devise? How shall I have the heart neither to bewail thee nor to escort thee to the tomb?

But I dread and shrink from the terror of the citizens. Thou, at all events, shalt in sooth have many mourners; but he, wretched one, departs unsighed for, having the solitary-wailing dirge of his sister. Who will agree to this?

SEM. Let the state do or not do aught to those who bewail Polynices. We, on this side will go and join to escort his funeral procession; for both this sorrow is common to the race, and the state at different times sanctions different maxims of justice.

SEM. But we will go with this corpse, as both the city and justice join to sanction. For next to the Immortals and the might of Jove, this man prevented the city of the Cadmaeans from being destroyed, and thoroughly overwhelmed by the surge of foreign enemies.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Lucian, in his dialogue ent.i.tled "Prometheus," or "Caucasus," has given occasional imitations of pa.s.sages in this play, not, however, sufficient to amount to a paraphrase, as Dr. Blomfield a.s.serted. Besides, as Lucian lays the scene at Caucasus, he would rather seem to have had the "Prometheus solutus" in mind. (See Schutz, Argum.) But the ancients commonly made Caucasus the seat of the punishment of Prometheus, and, as aeschylus is not over particular in his geography, it is possible that he may be not altogether consistent with himself. Lucian makes no mention of Strength and Force, but brings in Mercury at the beginning of the dialogue. Moreover, Mercury is represented in an excellent humor, and rallies Prometheus good-naturedly upon his tortures. Thus, -6, he says, [Greek: eu echei. kataptesetai de ede kai ho aetos apokeron to hepar, hos panta echois anti tes kales kai eumechanou plastikes.] In regard to the place where Prometheus was bound, the scene doubtless represented a ravine between two precipices rent from each other, with a distant prospect of some of the places mentioned in the wanderings of Io. (See Schutz, _ibid._) But as the whole mention of Scythia is an anachronism, the less said on this point the better. Compare, however, the following remarks of Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 140, "The legend of Prometheus, and the unbinding of the chains of the fire-bringing t.i.tan on the Caucasus by Hercules in journeying eastward--the ascent of Io from the valley of the Hybrites--[See Griffiths' note on v. 717, on [Greek: hybristes potamos], which _must_ be a proper name]--toward the Caucasus; and the myth of Phryxus and h.e.l.le--all point to the same path on which Phoenician navigators had earlier adventured."

[2] Dindorf, in his note, rightly approves the elegant reading [Greek: abroton (=apanthropon)] in lieu of the frigid [Greek: abaton]. See Blomf. and Burges. As far as this play is concerned, the tract was not actually _impa.s.sable_, but it was so to _mortals_.

[3] [Greek: leorgos = rhadiourgos, panourgos, kakourgos].

Cf. Liddell and Linwood, s. v. The interpretation and derivation of the etym. magn. [Greek: ho ton anthropon plastes], is justly rejected by Dindorf, who remarks that aeschylus paid no attention to the fable respecting Prometheus being the maker of mankind.

[4] The epithet [Greek: pantechnou], which might perhaps be rendered "art-full," is explained by v. 110 and 254.

[5] See Jelf. Gk. Gr. -720, 2d.

[6] There seems little doubt that [Greek: euoriazein] is the right reading. Its ironical force answers to Terence's "probe curasti."

[7] I have spelled Sire in all places with a capital letter, as Jove is evidently meant. See my note on v. 49.

[8] This is not a mere zeugma, but is derived from the supposition that sight was the chief of the senses, and in a manner included the rest. (Cf. Plato Tim. p. 533, C. D.) See the examples adduced by the commentators. Schrader on Musaeus 5, and Boyes, Ill.u.s.trations to Sept. c. Th. 98.

Shakespeare has burlesqued this idea in his exquisite buffoonery, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. sc. 1.

_Pyramus._ I see a voice: now will I to the c.h.i.n.k, To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.

[9] Claudian de rapt. Pros. II. 363. "Stellantes nox picta sinus." See on Soph. Trach. 94.

[10] _I.e._, having no rest. Soph. OEd. Col. 19. [Greek: kola kampson toud' ep' axestou petrou].

[11] The difficulties of this pa.s.sage have been increased by no one of the commentators perceiving the evident opposition between [Greek: Theoi] and [Greek: Zeus]. As in the formula [Greek: o Zeu kai Theoi] (cf. Plato Protag.

p. 193, E.; Aristoph. Plut. I. with Bergler's note; Julian Caes. p. 51, 59, 76; Dionys. Hal. A. R. II. p. 80, 32-81, 20, ed. Sylb.) so, from the time of Homer downward, we find [Greek: Zeus] constantly mentioned apart from the other G.o.ds (cf. Il. I. 423, 494), and so also with his epithet [Greek: pater], as in v. 4, 17, 20, etc.

(Eustath, on Il. T. I., p. 111, 30, [Greek: hoti Zeus allachou men haplos pater elechthe]). There is evidently, therefore, the opposition expressed in the text: "'Tis not for the other G.o.ds (_i.e._ [Greek: tois allois theois]) to rule, but for Jove alone." This view was approved, but not confirmed, by Paley.

[12] See Dindorf.

[13] Paley well observes that there is no objection to this interpretation, for if Prometheus could endure the daily gnawing of his entrails by the vulture, the rivets wouldn't put him to much trouble. Lucian, - 6, is content with fastening his hands to the two sides of the chasm.

[14] [Greek: tyches] is retained by Dindorf, but [Greek: technes] is defended by Griffiths and Paley. I think, with Burges, that it is a gloss upon [Greek: Prometheos].

[15] So Milton, P. L. iv. 165.

Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean _smiles_.

Lord Byron (opening of the Giaour):

There mildly _dimpling_ Ocean's cheek Reflects the tints of many a peak, Caught by the _laughing_ tides that lave Those Edens of the eastern wave.

[16] Literally "filling a rod," [Greek: plerotos] here being active. Cf. Agam. 361, [Greek: ates pa.n.a.lotou].

Choeph. 296, [Greek: pamphtharto moro]. Pers. 105, [Greek: polemous pyrG.o.daktous]. See also Blomfield, and Porson on Hes. 1117, [Greek: narthex] is "ferula" or "fennel-giant,"

the pith of which makes excellent fuel. Blomfield quotes Proclus on Hesiod, Op. 1, 52, "the [Greek: narthex]

preserves flame excellently, having a soft pith inside, that nourishes, but can not extinguish the flame." For a strange fable connected with this theft, see aelian Hist.

An. VI. 51.

[17] On the preternatural scent supposed to attend the presence of a deity, cf Eur. Hippol. 1391, with Monk's note, Virg. aen. I. 403, and La Cerda. See also Boyes's Ill.u.s.trations.

[18] On [Greek: de] cf. Jelf, Gk. Gr. - 723, 2.