Part 17 (2/2)

P. 81, l. 50, Should this Theban town essay with wrath and battle, &c.]--This suggestion of a possibility which is never realised or approached is perhaps a mark of the unrevised condition of the play. The same may be said of the repet.i.tions in the Prologue.

Pp. 82-86, ll. 64-169.--This first song of the Chorus covers a great deal of Bacchic doctrine and myth. The first strophe, ”Oh blessed he in all wise,” &c., describes the bliss of Bacchic purity; the antistrophe gives the two births of Dionysus, from Semele and from the body of Zeus, mentioning his mystic epiphanies as Bull and as Serpent. The next strophe is an appeal to Thebes, the birthplace or ”nurse” of the G.o.d's mother, Semele; the antistrophe, an appeal to the cavern in Crete, the birthplace of Zeus, the G.o.d's father, and the original home of the mystic Timbrel. The Epode, or closing song, is full, not of doctrine, but of the pure poetry of the wors.h.i.+p.

Pp. 86-95, ll. 170-369, Teiresias and Cadmus.]--Teiresias seems to be not a spokesman of the poet's own views--far from it--but a type of the more cultured sort of Dionysiac priest, not very enlightened, but ready to abate some of the extreme dogmas of his creed if he may keep the rest. Cadmus, quite a different character, takes a very human and earthly point of view: the G.o.d is probably a true G.o.d; but even if he is false, there is no great harm done, and the wors.h.i.+p will bring renown to Thebes and the royal family. It is noteworthy how full of pity Cadmus is--the sympathetic kindliness of the sons of this world as contrasted with the pitilessness of G.o.ds and their devotees. See especially the last scenes of the play. Even his final outburst of despair at not dying like other men (p. 152), shows the same sympathetic humanity.

Pp. 89 ff., ll. 215-262.--Pentheus, though his case against the new wors.h.i.+p is so good, and he might so easily have been made into a fine martyr, like Hippolytus, is left harsh and unpleasant, and very close in type to the ordinary ”tyrant” of Greek tragedy (cf. p. 118). It is also noteworthy, I think, that he is, as it were, out of tone with the other characters. He belongs to a different atmosphere, like, to take a recent instance, Golaud in _Pelleas et Melisande_.

P. 91, l. 263, Injurious King, &c.]--It is a mark of a certain yielding to stage convention in Euripides' later style, that he allows the Chorus Leader to make remarks which are not ”asides,” but are yet not heard or noticed by anybody.

P. 91, l. 264, Sower of the Giants' sod.]--Cadmus, by divine guidance, slew a dragon and sowed the teeth of it like seed in the ”Field of Ares.” From the teeth rose a harvest of Earth-born, or ”Giant” warriors, of whom Echion was one.

P. 92, l. 287, Learn the truth of it, cleared from the false.]--This timid essay in rationalism reminds one of similar efforts in Pindar (e.g. _Ol._ i.). It is the product of a religious and unspeculative mind, not feeling difficulties itself, but troubled by other people's questions and objections. (See above on Teiresias.)

P. 92, l. 292, The world-encircling Fire.]--This fire, or ether, was the ordinary material of which phantoms or apparitions were made.

Pp. 93-95, ll. 330-369.--These three speeches are very clearly contrasted. Cadmus, thoroughly human, thinking of sympathy and expediency, and vividly remembering the fate of his other grandson, Actaeon; Pentheus, angry and ”tyrannical”; Teiresias speaking like a Christian priest of the Middle Ages, almost like Tennyson's Becket.

P. 95, l. 370.--The G.o.ddess [Greek: Hosia], ”Purity,” seems to be one of the many abstractions which were half personified by philosophy and by Orphism. It is possible that the word is really adjectival, ”Immaculate One,” and originally an epithet of some more definite G.o.ddess, _e.g._ as Miss Harrison suggests, of Nemesis.

In this and other choruses it is very uncertain how the lines should be distributed between the whole chorus, the two semi-choruses, and the various individual ch.o.r.eutae.

Pp. 97-98, ll. 402-430.--For the meaning of these lines, see Introduction, pp. lxi, lxii.

P. 100, l. 471, These emblems.]--There were generally a.s.sociated with mysteries, or special forms of wors.h.i.+p, certain relics or sacred implements, without which the rites could not be performed. Cf. Hdt.

vii. 153, where Telines of Gela stole the sacred implements or emblems of the nether G.o.ds, so that no wors.h.i.+p could be performed, and the town was, as it were, excommunicated.

P. 103, ll. 493 ff., _The soldiers cut off the tress._]--The stage directions here are difficult. It is conceivable that none of Pentheus'

threats are carried out at all; that the G.o.d mysteriously paralyses the hand that is lifted to take his rod without Pentheus himself knowing it.

But I think it more likely that the humiliation of Dionysus is made, as far as externals go, complete, and that it is not till later that he begins to show his superhuman powers.

P. 104, l. 508, So let it be.]--The name Pentheus suggests 'mourner,'

from _penthos_, 'mourning.'

P. 105, l. 519, Achelous' roaming daughter.]--Achelous was the Father of all Rivers.

P. 107, l. 556, In thine own Nysa.]--An unknown divine mountain, formed apparently to account for the second part of the name Dionysus.

P. 107, l. 571, Cross the Lydias, &c.]--These are rivers of Thrace which Dionysus must cross in his pa.s.sage from the East, the Lydias, the Axios, and some other, perhaps the Haliacmon, which is called ”the father-stream of story.”

P. 108, l. 579, A Voice, a Voice.]--Bromios, the G.o.d of Many Voices--for, whatever the real derivation, the fifth-century Greeks certainly a.s.sociated the name with [Greek: bremo], 'to roar'--manifests himself as a voice here and below (p. 136).

Pp. 109-112, ll. 602-641, Ye Damsels of the Morning Hills, &c.]--This scene in longer metre always strikes me as a little unlike the style of Euripides, and inferior. It may mark one of the parts left unfinished by the poet, and written in by his son. But it may be that I have not understood it.

P. 118, ll. 781 ff., Call all who spur the charger, &c.]--The typical 'Ercles vein' of the tragic tyrant.

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