announces the arrival of Agamemnon. The chorus continue their former strain on the Trojan war, when Agamemnon enters, and is welcomed with a show of affection by his wife, who at last persuades him, though unwillingly, to enter his palace on purple carpets. A Nemesis attended on this act; and here again the action of destiny reveals itself, forcing the victorious hero on to destruction; and the obsequious mildness of Clytemnestra, like the calm before the tempest, together with the doubtful termination of her speech(v. 947. ed. Blomf.)- μέλοι δέ τοι σοὶ τῶνπερ ἂν μέλλης τελεῖν are all auguries of evils, though the definite shape in which the impending calamity will exhibit itself, is as yet uncertain. Hitherto this internal machinery of Eschylus's drama has been but hinted at; and obscure intimations have been thrown out by the chorus, and Clytæm phia, Vol. ii. p. 436, comes forward as a champion of the old reading, for the following reasons: that äXX' åλoíèopoç sounds like prose in the heart of a chorus-"De gustibus," &c.; and secondly, that apeμévav means let go," and not "gone away." Where so many eminent critics have tried their skill, with little success, it may seem presumptuous in us to make an attempt; yet as we believe that Eschylus will suffer no great injury from it, in all due deference to great names, we would propose the following emendation of the second line; retaining the first, according to Scholefield: ἄπιστος ἀφεμέναν ἰδὼν. Incredulous, seeing that she has forsaken him. J. Franz reads the passage thus : πάρεστι σιγὰς ἀτίμους ἀλοιδόρους αἰσχρῶς ἀφειμένων ἰδεῖν; the merit of which we confess ourselves unable to appreciate. nestra: we are now to see it develope itself in a clearer light, by means of the predictions of the ill-omened Cassandra. Though a slave and a captive, yet she was once a princess, and Apollo himself has been swayed by her charms; and the recollection of this sustains her in dignified silence during the insults of Clytemnestra. No sooner, however, has the queen departed to the sacrifice, than the prophetic spirit manifests itself in broken exclamations of terror at something prospective, visible only to her own mind; parts which bear the same relation to the clear and terrible denunciation of misery and retribution which immediately succeeds them, that the intimations we have already spoken of in the prior portion of the drama bear to the various scenes after the introduction of Cassandra. The former parts of either are, as it were, the outlines of a picture indistinctly shadowed out at first, and afterwards filled up by the catastrophe itself. The prophecy of Cassandra is complete per se; the three speeches* she utters almost consecutively, are the filling up and embodiment of the picture, of which the incoherent ejaculations and ravings she previously makes use of are the outlines; and in like manner as regards the entire drama, the design is sketched out, as it were, in the portion of the play which extends from the opening to Agamemnon's exit. When Cassandra appears, the different parts begin to appear in stronger relief, till at last the death of Agamemnon consummates all in the most powerful manner. This is preceded, as in the Choephora, by a short song of equivocal import, when * Verses 1149-1301. +1039-1148. ↑ 947. § 1313. suddenly Agamemnon's death-cry is heard from the interior of the house; and, shortly afterwards, Clytemnestra appears with bloody hands, and exults in the terrible repayment of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. In the alternation of speech and song which she maintains with the chorus from this entrance to that of Ægisthus, the scheme of the whole play is more clearly revealed : the operations of destiny, in all the successive members of the house of Tantalus, are declared: Clytemnestra justifies herself from the murder, on the plea of retaliation, when Ægisthus enters, and recites the awful tragedy of the "cona Thyestæ ;" and thus, after a few words of recrimination and mutual defiance between him and the chorus, the drama ends. It is impossible to view this noble work in the light in which we have placed it, and yet not be struck with the alteration that seems to have taken place in the religious feelings of the Greeks since the Homeric times. We allude to the belief of an universally controlling power of Fate, from which not even the Gods themselves were exempt, and which is nowhere apparent in either the Iliad or Odyssey. That such passages as μοίρα κραταίη, πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ, and others, form no valid exception to this rule, may be seen from Mr. Henry Coleridge's Introduction to Homer, pp. 184, 185. This, however, does not immediately concern us now, nor the question at what period of their intervening history this fatalistic belief took its rise; its full extent is exhibited in the Oresteia. With Eschylus the popular divinities, like upstart creations of a later creed, are mere Di ex machinis, obedient to the all powerful will of Destiny, which he ever contrives to keep in view, and make us sensible of. Without a thorough participation in this idea, half the merit of the Oresteia will be passed over unperceived; by this, what was before only a dramatic arrangement of a story, a legend set to conversation, if we may be allowed the phrases, becomes infused with a new life and a new interest; and it is through the lack of this informing spirit, that not one of the extant productions of Sophocles and Euripides can be said to compete with this grand conception of the Father of Tragedy. In a following number, we intend to offer our readers a short analysis of the Choephora and Eumenides, with reference to the same subject. D. S. [This poem, as well as Hor. 1. Sat. ix., and Translation from Gray, are by foreign correspondents.] "TYRE." I SAT upon a bleak and barren height, Of Nature in her wildest guise, Where mountains hang between the wave and air, Below me, gladdened by the rosy smile Of morn, a lovely valley lay, Where palm trees wav'd their dusky plumes awhile, As floating breezes swept away The dewy pearls, that from Aurora's feet Had fallen as she tript along, And wakened Bulbuls issued forth to greet A sea of orient azure lay beyond, I heard the whispers of the wave and air But did not ask whose awful voice was there; I know not, and I ask not; for I love And from that wide expanse of watery blue Exposed her wanton charms to mortal view, Seemed bursting into busy life, And anxious crowds were congregated there |