Hellenica; a collection of essays on Greek poetry, philosophy, history, and religion

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

Though each of the Essays in this volume has been written independently of the rest, they are all in a certain sense connected with each other, and I have endeavoured to indicate the link of connection by the common title " HeUenica."

We have not done with the Hellenes yet. In spite of all the labour spent, and all the books written on them and their Hterature, we have not yet entered into full possession of the inheritance bequeathed to us. It has, indeed, been said that we know nearly as much about the Greeks and Romans as we shall ever know ; but this can only be true of the mass of facts, to which, without some new discoveries, we are not likely to add greatly. It is not in the least true in regard to the significance of Hellenic history and literature. Beyond and above the various interpretations placed by different ages upon the great writers of Greece, hes the meaning which longer experience and more improved methods of criticism and the test of time declare to be the true one. From this point of view much remains and will long remain to be done, whether we look to the work

PREFACE.

of the scholar or to the influence of Hellenic thought on civilisation. We have not yet found all the scattered limbs of Truth ; it may be that we are only commencing the search.

It is not likely that the great authors of Greece will ever become, like the Hebrew Scriptures, a text-book of daily life. The rapt utterance of the prophet is far mightier " to sway the soul of man " than the calmer reasoning of the philosopher, who often loses in intensity what he gains in breadth. But they may do a great deal more for us than they have hitherto done, if we will allow them. The Gorgias of Plato and the Ethics of Aristotle are more valuable than modern books on the same subjects, for the simple reason that they are nearer the beginning. They have a greater freshness, and appeal more directly to the growing mind. No age can neglect them without suffering a definite and appreciable loss, least of all the present age, for the study of the writings and the contemplation of the hves of men who sought aftfer knowledge as after hidden treasure, who found, or seemed to find, the one great Good, which all men, consciously or unconsciously, were everywhere seeking, who observed the facts of the world around them with calm judgment, and built thereon their own lofty theories of what human life might and ought to be —

" Serene creators of immortal things,"

— become more and more valuable as the course of

PREFACE.

history tends to put things material and practical in the place of things intellectual.

In many respects modern civilisation contrasts favourably with ancient ; it is, for instance, a trite thing to point out the care taken in modern times of the criminal and the idiot. On the other hand, it is possible that this gain has not been without some accompanying loss. While we are anxious to hide or reHeve the degradation to which human nature can sink, we tend to become less careful of the elevation to which it can rise ; we put feeling in the place of thought, and throw away half our birthright. But if a single generation were able to keep before it an ideal of culture which should blend aU the elements of human knowledge " into an immortal feature of perfection," if a whole country could unite in one effort to appropriate in any real manner the best that has been thought and written on the great interests of life, we should indeed make a great stride forward, but we should also find that the brightest hope of the future is not far removed from the truest interpretation of the past.

At present such an effort is impossible, partly because much of the best literature of the world is in the exclusive possession of the few. The most direct method of breaking down this exclusiveness, and bringing the great writers of Greece within the immediate reach of English readers, is no doubt to translate viii PREFACE.

them ; but it is hoped that a volume like the present, while it helps to increase the interest taken in Greek literature, will also show how that literature may be of service in the present day.

E. ABBOTT.

Balliol College, Oxford, Deoemher 1879.

Contents

PAGE

Ernest Myers, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford i

THE THEOLOGY AND ETHICS OF SOPHOCLES

I

The gods of the old Homeric mythology appear in Sophocles, but while some are little more than names,- others are represented as having a real influence on human life and action,

C and take a prominent part in the development of the dramas. For this reason we may conveniently speak of these deities of mythology imder three heads. There are, in the first place, the deities mentioned only in connection with certain places or isolated facts, local and tutelary gods, present or absent as the case may be, and having no influence beyond their own sphere ; then there are the deities which are mere personifications of human passions, Eros and Cypris — deities which obviously must take a prominent part in any representation of human life ; and thirdly, distinct from either of the foregoing, is the great triad of Greek mythology — Zeus, Apollo, and Athena. Without being of any intrinsic value in analysis, this triple division will enable us to bring out the aspects under which the gods of mythology appear in Sophocles.

Under the first head come all the gods of the Homeric Olympus, and even more, with the exception of those set apart in the other divisions. For the most part these deities are mentioned in the choruses only. Sophocles adds little or nothing to their attributes ; he speaks of them in reference to certain places or facts, as any other Greek of his time might do. Thus in the final chorus of the Antigone Bacchus is the god of Thebes. As in the myth, he is the " joy of the Cadmeian bride," " dwelling beside the seed of the fell serpent," seen by the gleaming fires on Parnassus, sent forth with loud acclamations from the vine-clad shores of Nysa. Bacchus is also the lacchus of the mysteries, and therefore, as we read, the hymn becomes more mystical in tone : " 0 leader of the fire-breathiag stars, master of the voices of night, 0 son and seed of Zeus, beam thou upon us with thy Thyiads from Naxus, mystic maidens who in nightlong dance glorify thee, their lord lacchus." Bacchus loves to wander near Colonus, which is also the haunt of the Muses, of Aphrodite, and Poseidon, and has been made famous by their gifts. In Homer, Ares is, of all the gods who dwell in Olympus, the most hateful to Zeus. He is " the twofaced deity to whom strife, war, and battle are ever dear." ^ In Sophocles, Ares is the personification of all evil powers. He

■* lii] tI hoi, iXKoTpbaaWe, Trapi^6fievos iuvipij;e ' ^X^'-'^TOS Si fwl iaffi BeQv ot "0\v/iirot> Ixovaai' aUl yip Toi Hpii re <pl\ri x4\e/ioi re /iiix<" "• — ^- V. 890.

is the pestilence which desolates Thebes (0. T. 190) ; he is the god whom the gods put far from honour (i5. 215). Ares lifts the cloud of misery from the eyes of the Salaminian mariners {Aj. 706), i.e.. it is Ares who has placed it there. -Artemis is implored to come to the aid of plague- stricken Thebes, in which city she has a temple (0. T. 1 60 ff.) ; she is also the goddess whose torches flash along the Lycian hills, the sister, that is, of the Lycian god of light, whom the Greeks identified with their own Apollo. In the Eledra, 1. 563, Artemis is said to have caused the many winds to blow at Aulis in consequence of an outrage inadvertently committed in her precincts by Agamemnon, and thus she brought about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Of Hera, the queen of heaven, there is no mention in the extant plays of Sophocles, except in one passage, Electra, 1. 8, where she is mentioned incidentally in connection with her temple at Argos. Demeter and Persephone are spoken of in reference to the holy mysteries at Eleusis (0. C. 1049 ff.), "the torch-lit shore, where the queenly goddesses cherish their rites for men on whose tongufe rests the golden key of the ministrant Eumolpids." Persephone is also the goddess of the dead, the unseen goddess (0. G. 1556), to whom Antigone goes down, the last of a sad company. In PUlodetes, 1. 391, the chorus invoke Cybele, the all-nurturing mountain-goddess, by whose bounty Pactolus flows with gold, whose chariot the lions draw. Aidoneus, " the king of the benighted," is entreated to suffer Oedipus to pass easily into his realm {0. C. 1557). Hades, the god of night and death, is of course frequently mentioned; in Ajax, 1. 1035, he is the cruel workman who wrought the baldrick by which Hector was torn to death. Prometheus, the fire-god, is one of the deities of Colonus (0. C. 56). But of none of these can it be said that they are brought before us in an aspect peculiarly Sophoclean, or that they enter in any great degree, if at all, into the action of the drama, and influence the plot. They hold here the place allotted to them in the ordinary Greek mind, which connected certain places with tutelary gods, and looked to particular deities for protection under particular circumstances.

More important than any of the deities hitherto mentioned are the Eumenides, the deities which occupy so prominent a place in the theology of Aeschylus. Yet even they, as we find them in Sophocles, must be brought under this head. They cannot be said to exercise any influence on the actions of any of the extant dramas. They are, it is true, the cause of a scene in the Oedipus at Golonus, but only in so far as they are the local representatives of higher and more universal powers, Local customs are needed to propitiate them as local goddesses ; as universal deities Oedipus claims to be reconciled to them by his long-suffering and humiliation. Nor is it the Eumenides who have brought him to ruin, but Apollo (fi. T. 1329), and from Apollo and Zeus comes his restoration. In many cases where we might expect to find the operation of these goddesses, we do not find it in Sophocles. In the case of Oedipus and Polynices it is Zeus and Apollo who undertake the work of vengeance, and demand expiation. There is no trace of the Eumenides in the Sophoclean Orestes ; and though Electra invokes them to come to her aid in avenging her father, the deed of vengeance is really accomplished under the guidance of Apollo and the auspices of Zeus.

In any deUneation of human life and action there will necessarily be a place for those deities which are the personifications of human passions. Such are Eros and Aphrodite, or Cypris, the deities of passionate love. Tradition tells us that Sophocles knew their power too well. In his poems Eros is invincible in strife; his power none can escape, whether mortal or immortal ; and he who is wise will not contend with him. Eros puts madness in the heart, and leads astray the soul of the righteous ; he stirs up strife between kindred blood, and desire sways a sceptre no less powerful than justice. Without the intervention of Eros the Antigone would have no denouement. The love of liaemon for Antigone leads to the altercation of father and son, and to the suicide of the latter on finding his betrothed dead. The death of Haemon is the direct cause of the death of his mother Eurydice. Thus it is through the operation of Eros that the vengeance of the gods overtakes Creon, and a natural passion becomes the instrument of divine justice.

In another passage the personification is less complete.

The passion is more than the deity. Love, we are told in Frag. 162 (Dindorf), is a pleasant plague, which may be figured thus : When the air is frosty, and children take the dry ice in their hands, at first the experience is something strange and sweet ; but soon the ice is frozen to the hand, and the pleasure passes into a pain, of which the child would fain be rid, — and even such is the impulse which SM'ays the lover.^

Here Eros is spoken of in a figure, but not personified. Indeed, the Greeks, however acutely sensible of the power of Eros, had not made up their minds whether he was a god or not. He is at once a human passion and a " great spirit."

Equally important is the action of Aphrodite in the Trachiniae. Cypris is triumphant ever ; she beguiled the son of Cronos, Hades, and Poseidon; from her came the famous strife of Achelous and Heracles for the hand of Dejanira ; and now she has ensnared Heracles in a new passion for lole. The fear of a rival in her husband's affections induces Dejanira to send the fatal robe ; and thus Cypris brings about the death of Heracles, and takes part in the accomplishment of the wiU of heaven. In a beautiful and well-known fragment (678) we are told that Cypris is not Cypris only, but a goddess named of many names. Death and Immortality, Frenzy, Passion, and Grief, — these are her titles. Eagerness, gentleness, violence, are blended and united in her. She enters into all living things and consumes them : hers are the fish that swim in the sea, the four-footed kind that tread the earth ; her pinion waves among the birds, in creatures of the field, in men, and heavenly gods. Even in the heart of Zeits— for the truth is blameless, though we speak it of the gods — Cypris is queen; without sword or spear she cuts down the counsels of men and gods.

In Aphrodite or Cypris the personification is more complete than in Eros. But personifications of this kind are of course no invention of Sophocles. What we can perhaps claim for him is, that he was the first to make them of importance in the progress of the dramatic action, and to point out the manner in which they assist in the development of divine purposes. The motive of love is well known to Homer: it is jjresent in

both the Iliad and Odyssey, but it can hardly be said to govern the events and assist in the catastrophe of either poem, though it is true that the love of Helen and Penelope forms the basis on which the poems are built. "None can blame the Trojans and Achaeans that their strife for such a woman is long and sore." " I too know well that Penelope is not beautiful as thou art : she is mortal, and thee nor age nor death can touch : still, even so, I yearn to visit my home and behold the day of return." These passages remind us of touching scenes, in which the charm of beauty is deeply felt, and brought into contrast with the love of home and country. But Sophocles has gone much further than Homer. He has distinctly recognised these passions as elements in a dramatic action, binding individuals together so that wrong cannot be done to one without affecting another, or as forming the weak and assailable point in some otherwise superhuman character.

Zeus, Apollo, and Athena are deities far more exalted and sublime than any hitherto mentioned. Yet even they are not always, or at least the first and greatest of them, Zeus, is not always represented by Sophocles in the same light. Zeus is at times the god of the old Olympus, at others the god of the Athenians of the age of Sophocles, while, in other passages, the poet seems to be speaking his own thoughts, and to elevate Zeus, with Apollo and Athena as his ministers, into a supreme deity of justice and truth. How such various conceptions of one and the same deity — which was also the great national god— became possible, the history of Greek religion will explain. The interval between the earliest conception and the latest was a long one, but the Greeks did not allow the mythology which stood to them in the place of doctrme to restrain them from the endeavour to bring their conception of the Supreme Being into harmony with their conceptions of justice and law. Their religious conceptions became ethical at an early period, and continued to be so to the last, ever growing higher and higher as the conception of life and duty became more elevated. To this development and progress Sophocles contributed his part, without breaking away from what was traditional in religion or imposed upon him by the limits of poetry.

As a god of the old mythology, Zeus is the son of Cronos {Tr. 127, etc.); Earth is his mother {FUl. 391), Hades his brother (TV. 1041), Apollo his son (0. 0. 623). By Semele he is the father of Bacchus {Ant. 1116) ; by Alcmene, of Heracles {Tr. 114JS, etc.). His daughters are Athena {Aj. 91) and Artemis {Aj. 172). He is the progenitor of Ajax(^y. 389); he slays Capaneus {Ant. 134 ff.), descends in a shower of gold upon Danae {Ant. 950), and punishes Ixion {Phil. 680).

Here we find Zeus mentioned as the lover of Semele, Alcmene, and Danae. These connections, so far from being regarded as out of harmony with his nature as a god and the first of gods, are rather brought into prominence as connecting certain cities or families more directly with the deity, and making them, as it were, his elect. The inconsistency of connecting immoral actions with a moral being is hardly felt. In the same way, Aeschylus in his Supplices speaks of Zeus as e(f)airrop 'loik — i.e. the sensual story is adopted to bring the daughters of Danaus under his immediate protection, — but this does not prevent the same chorus in the same ode from appealing to Zeus as the highest and most perfect of the gods.^ In the Prometheus Vinctus, on the other hand, the conduct of Zeus towards lo is spoken of as tyrannical in the extreme.

In other passages of Sophocles Zeus is addressed by epithets which express the popular contemporary feeling from a moral or religious point of view. Such are aryaivio'; {Tr. 26), aXe^Top {0. C. 143), dpaioi {Ph. 1182), ep/ceZo? {Ant. 487), i<f>eaTm {Aj. 492), t/eeo-tos {Ph. 484), waTpmo<; {Tr. 753), rpo- ■n-aio<; {Ant. 143). These epithets are interesting as showing how Zeus is brought into relation with various sides of human life and action. A path is thus prepared by which polytheism can pass into monotheism, the special spheres of human life being made special sides, as it were, of the universal providence. Zeus is stni Zeus, whether invoked as aya)vio<{ or epKeux;, but the epithets may not be interchanged, and he who invokes the god by a wrongly chosen epithet will not, such was the Greek conception, obtain a hearing.

In a similar manner, Zeus was popularly connected with certain localities, as Oeta, Athos, and Lemnos. Other passages (as 0. a. 1464, 1502, 1650; PAt^. 1198, etc.) represent him as lord of the thunder and god of the physical world. From a more elevated and ethical point of view, Zeus is almighty and all- wise — Zev? iravTap^o'i Oe&v, •jravTOTTTo^ (0. C. 1086); •jrar/KpaTi]^ {Phil. 680) ; -n-avT avdacrav (0. T. 904) ; iravff op&v (Ant. 1 84). Zeus and Apollo know the affairs of mortals {0. T. 498). But in aU these passages, and in many more which might be added to them, the poet is only reproducing the religion of his day, and using language which any pious Athenian would naturally use. Those who believed in gods at all, believed in the Power dwelling in heaven, whose eye beheld and hand guided aU things.

There is yet another point of view from which is presented to us, so far as we can tell, the poet's own conception of the Supreme Being. Zeus is the eternal ruler in heaven, the upholder of the highest laws of morality and religion, exalted beyond the reach of human pride and power. The poet has attained to the idea of an order of the world which is just and good, and this order he identifies with the empire of Zeus. In Zeus the highest laws of the family and the state have their origin and birth, and though these may clash with the appetites and ambition of men, and bring " not peace, but a sword," Zeus is nevertheless a just and righteous ruler. His kingdom is founded on law, not on caprice. " It was not Zeus," Antigone declares, when speaking of the edict of Creon, "who made thisproclamation, nor Justice, who abides with the deities of the under-world; they have established among men the laws which I obey" {Ant. 450). That is, Zeus and Justice uphold the laws of family affection and the burial of the dead. The power of Zeus is also eternal and immutable. "Thy power, 0 Zeus, what proud advance of men can repress ?— that power which sleep never overtakes, nor the divine unwearying progress of the months. Through undying time thou dwellest in the brightness of Olympus ; thy laws are all-pervading ; they have been and shall be for ever" {Ant. 605-614). Reverence for Zeus is reverence for the highest law, so that Electra in her abnegation of self in the cause of her dead father is pious towards

Zeus.^ Loftier still is the conception of Zeus in the Otdvpus Tyrannus. Here indeed the name of Zeus seems too narrow for the poet's thought : " 0 Zeus, if thou art rightly named, let it not be hidden from thee and thy everlasting rule that men are disregarding oracles, and that religion is passing away " (0. T. 902). The poet appeals to the highest of divine powers, for which he has no other name than Zeus, whether that be the right name or no.* In another passage he substitutes Olympus for Zeus, as though the highest laws were the outcome of the whole host of heaven : " May it be mine in every act and word of life to preserve the piety and purity ordained by those high laws of which Olympus is the only sire, whose birth was in the sky above,^ and nothing human gave them being. In them is a divine power, which grows not old " {0. T. 863).

Of the two deities which remain, Apollo is prominent in the Oedipus Tyrannus, the Oedipus at Colonus, and the Electra. It is however necessary to distinguish between two deities called Apollo. There is Apollo the son of Zeus, who announces and executes his father's will — Apollo Pythius, the Delphian Apollo, — and there is also Apollo Lyceius, the protector of his worshippers and destroyer of their enemies, whose temple is at Argos (El. 7), and whose shrines are found beside the palacedoors {El. 635). To this latter god oracular functions are not ascribed in Sophocles, nor is he connected with Delphi, or regarded as the prophet of Zeus.* But Apollo, the Pythian god, is the son of Zeus, and makes known by oracles his father's will. The oracle of Delphi occupies a very prominent place in the Sophoclean drama. It influences largely the development of the action in the two plays concerned with Oedipus. It was

' a Si lUyuTT^ ^jSXacTe vd/u/ia, rSvSe ipepoixivav dptara r^Z-rivds eiffefieif. — M. 1095. ^ Cf. Aesoh. Ag. 160 : Zeis, Scttis ttot' iarlv, d t6S' airQ <pi\ov KeKXri/nivip. *Cf. Bergk, Litteratur-Gesch. p. 330. The idea tliat the highest laws have their birth in the "heavenly ether " is perhaps, as Bergk suggests, an intimation that the highest law is realised in the movements of the heavenlybodies. Cf. Heraclitus, Fr. 29 : "HXios oix {iirep^iiaeTaL ixiTpa,- el Si ni, 'B/jii/iiei 110/ SUris iirlKovpoi i^evpiiaovai, and Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, " Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong." 'Aeschylus, Ag. 1080, identifies the Apollo "of the street" with the god whom Cassandra rejected,— the Delphian god of prophecy.

the oracle which induced Oedipus to fly from Corinth in the hope of avoiding the doom foretold to him — that he should slay his father and marry his mother. It was the oracle which induced Laius and Jocasta to expose their child to death. It is the oracle which gives the true reason for the plague which has visited Thebes, and requires the expulsion or death of the murderer of Laius. It is the oracle which announces to Oedipus that he shall, after many wanderings, find a place of rest and reconciliation. It is the oracle which induces the Thebans to make the attempt to recover Oedipus, so that his bones may lie in their land. In the Electra it is the oracle which supports Orestes in his attempt to avenge the death of his father, and points out the way in which vengeance is to be taken. In the Trachiniae also it is the oracle which warns Heracles, before his last venture, that he will either fail, or, if successful, enjoy rest for ever. In nearly all these cases the oracle points out what will certainly happen. No place is left, apparently, for the freewill of the doer. Oedipus is destined to slay his father ; Laius is destined to fall by his son's hand. Both Oedipus and Laius take measures to avoid the doom foretold, but in vain. Apollo therefore would seem, in some cases, to be the prophet of a harsh fatalism which has no regard for guilt or innocence, and which no one can escape. But the other side of fatalism is human weakness, and the prophetic announcement of destiny is no more than the complete foreknowledge of what will happen as the result of such weakness. Laius knows that his child is destined to slay him, but this does not prevent him from becoming the father of the chUd. Oedipus is aware of the doom in store, yet ovff opwv, oW la-TopMv he slays a man in his haste, and takes to wife the queen of Thebes. From thus announcing the suffering which will fall upon men, Apollo is sometimes regarded as the author of that suffering. Thus Oedipus (0. T. 1330) declares that it was Apollo who brought to pass upon him the miseries which the chorus behold.^

' In such passages as these something must be allowed for the supposed etymology ('AttAXXoic S.Tr6\\v/u), a play upon words for which we have distinct authority in Aesch. Ag. 1080 :

"AttoXXok, "AttoXXoc,

dTiliXejas yhp oi fibXi^ rb Beirepov,

Eebellion against the authority of Apollo, and disregard of his oracles, are regarded by Sophocles as the height of impiety, inasmuch as Apollo is the servant of Zeus, and directly conveys his will to man. This rebellion is conspicuous in Jocasta, and makes that character the darkest in the Sophoclean drama. In impiety Jocasta far surpasses Clytemnestra ; her language not only excites a certain impatience in Oedipus, but is denounced in no measured terms by the chorus, who are at once startled and shocked by her declarations. We may observe that the feeling entertained by Sophocles for the great religious institution of his time, the Delphian oracle, stands in marked contrast to the attitude of Thucydides.

If the conception of Apollo inspires awe, inasmuch as it shows how a man's weakness and want of foresight may act as an inevitable doom, the picture of Athena in the Ajax of Sophocles is perhaps more terrible still. When Ajax parted from his father Telamon to join the host for Troy, he received the wise counsels of age,—" My son, strive for victory, but with the help of God ! " Proud and impious was the answer : " With the help of the gods, 0 my sire, even a mean man may win the victory ; I, without them, trust to make this glory mine." And when, at a later time, Athena offered the hero her aid in battle, he replied with scorn, bidding her go elsewhere : " Where I stand the battle shaU not break bounds." Such words betrayed a spirit too proud for a human breast, and brought upon Ajax the anger of the goddess. She sends madness upon him, so that he slays the sheep and oxen of the spoil, believing them to be the Atreidae and Odysseus, and on his recovery he is overwhelmed by such sovereign shame that he takes his own life.

At first sight there seems to be something inhuman and cruel in the cold nature of this goddess, who punishes her victim without the least regard to his nobler qualities, and exhibits him in his degradation to the eyes of Odysseus, his greatest enemy. But a goddess is necessarily superhuman ; to speak of a want of humanity or of cruelty in Athena is as though we should complain of the cruelty or inhumanity of the laws of nature. These go on their way without regard to time and circumstance, and often cause great suffering, but this does not in the least affect their excellence and perfection as laws. In a similar way Athena is a controlling intellectual force, offences against which bring their own punishment. Ajax has rejected her, and spoken scornfully of her help ; he has presumed " beyond the goal of ordinance," and exalted human power at the expense of the gods. Hence the wrath of Athena visits him. Yet the visitation is but for a day, and could Ajax have been preserved through that day his life was safe {Aj. 756).