Life Without and Life Within Part 4

The mortal race is much too weak Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights.

He was not ign.o.ble, neither a traitor, But for a servant too great, and as a companion Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was His fault also that of a man, its penalty Severe, and poets sing--Presumption And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove, Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus; Ah, and all his race bore their hate.

THOAS.

Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own?

IPHIGENIA.

Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the t.i.tan Were the a.s.sured inheritance of son and grandchild; But the G.o.ds bound their brows with a brazen band, Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance, Each desire grew to fury, And limitless ranged their pa.s.sionate thoughts.

Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to grat.i.tude what was not due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make her feel it, orders that the old, barbarous custom be renewed, and two strangers just arrived be immolated at Diana's altar.

Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by this piece of tyranny.

She trusts her heavenly protectress will find some way for her to save these unfortunates without violating her truth.

The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the oracle of Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring back "The Sister;" thus shall the heaven-ordained parricide of Orestes be expiated, and the Furies cease to pursue him.

The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's sister; but Iphigenia, sister to Orestes, is really meant.

The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, first between the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far n.o.bler, indeed heroic nature, but less fit for the day and more for the ages. In the first scene the characters of both are brought out with great skill, and the nature of the bond between "the b.u.t.terfly and the dark flower,"

distinctly shown in few words.

The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pylades, though he truly answers the questions of the priestess about the fate of Troy and the house of Agamemnon, does not hesitate to conceal from her who Orestes really is, and manufactures a tissue of useless falsehoods with the same readiness that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his ingenuity on similar occasions.

It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks are Ulyssean in this respect, never telling straightforward truth, when deceit will answer the purpose; and if they tell any truth, practising the economy of the King of Ithaca, in always reserving a part for their own use. The character which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later scene.

Bless, ye G.o.ds, our Pylades, And whatever he may undertake; He is the arm of the youth in battle, The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council.

For his soul is still; it preserves The holy possession of Repose unexhausted, And from its depths still reaches Help and advice to those tossed to and fro.

Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed of the death of Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place Orestes, whom she had not before seen, and draws from him by her artless questions the sequel to this terrible drama wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his narrative, in the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries,--

Immortals, you who through your bright days Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed, Only for this have you all these years Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves, Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires on your altars, That my soul might, in like pious clearness, Be ever aspiring towards your abodes, That only later and deeper I might feel The anguish and horror that have darkened my house.

O Stranger, Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes.

ORESTES.

O, might I speak of his death!

Vehement flew up from the reeking blood His Mother's Soul!

And called to the ancient daughters of Night, Let not the parricide escape; Pursue that man of crime; he is yours!

They obey, their hollow eyes Darting about with vulture eagerness; They stir themselves in their black dens, From corners their companions Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them.

Before them roll the mists of Acheron; In its cloudy volumes rolls The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread The beautiful fields of a G.o.d-planted earth, From which they had long been banished by an early curse, Their swift feet follow the fugitive, They pause never except to gather more power to dismay.

IPHIGENIA.

Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured, And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers!

ORESTES.

What sayest thou? what meanest by "like manner"?

IPHIGENIA.

Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth; the tale I had from thy younger brother.

ORESTES.

I cannot suffer that thou, great soul, Shouldst be deceived by a false tale; A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft, Guarding his feet against a trap.

But between us Be Truth;-- I am Orestes,--and this guilty head Bent downward to the grave seeks death; In any shape were he welcome.

Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved, Thou and my friend; for myself I wish it not.

Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain; Invent a way to fly and leave me here.

Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by the slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that the English words give an idea of the heroic dignity expressed in the cadence of the original, by the words

"Twischen uns Seg Wahrheit!

Ich bin Orest!"

where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the full strength of cla.s.sic manhood, prepared for worst and best, not like a cold Stoic, but a hero, who can feel all, know all, and endure all. The name of two syllables in the German is much more forcible for the pause, than the three-syllable Orestes.

"Between us Be Truth,"

is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with a large dignity.

The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. The lovely joy of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with which the religiously educated mind perpetually draws the inference from the most agitating events, impress us more and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She is to keep off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes has received to his heart the sister long lost, divinely restored, and in the embrace the curse falls from him, he is well, and Pylades more than happy. The ship waits to carry her to the palace home she is to free from a century's weight of pollution; and already the blue heavens of her adored Greece gleam before her fancy.

But, O, the step before all this can be obtained;--to deceive Thoas, a savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her protector,--in his barbarous fashion, her benefactor! How can she buy life, happiness, or even the safety of those dear ones at such a price?

"Woe, O Woe upon the lie! It frees not the breast, Like the true-spoken word; it comforts not, but tortures Him who devised it, and returns, An arrow once let fly, G.o.d-repelled, back, On the bosom of the Archer!"

O, must I then resign the silent hope Which gave a beauty to my loneliness?

Must the curse dwell forever, and our race Never be raised to life by a new blessing?

All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient, The powers most full of life grow faint at last; And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life?

Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure, So strangely severed from my kindred's lot, I was designed to come at the right moment, And with pure hand and heart to expiate The many sins that stain my native home.

To lie, to steal the sacred image!

Olympians, let not these vulture talons Seize on the tender breast. O, save me, And save your image in my soul!

Within my ears resounds the ancient lay,-- I had forgotten it, and would so gladly,-- The lay of the Parcae, which they awful sung; As Tantalus fell from his golden seat They suffered with the n.o.ble friend. Wrathful Was their heart, and fearful was the song.

In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well.

Then follows the sublime song of the Parcae, well known through translations.

But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to the G.o.d in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys her own heart, tells all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is cleared by the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespa.s.s of Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her innocent soul.

If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, yet Goethe has unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown elsewhere in the records of literature. The character of the priestess, the full beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as becomes the chosen servant of G.o.d, each gesture and word of deep and delicate significance,--where else is such a picture to be found?

It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but Goethe, in his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Goethe, designed to be the brightest star in a new constellation. Let us not, in surveying his works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, thank him for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise "Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many such, he will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are nothing in the sight of G.o.d.