Woman in the Nineteenth Century Part 36

This is truth incapable of an answer, and Iphigenia attempts none.

She begins the hymn which is to sustain her:

"Lead me; mine the glorious fate, To o'erturn the Phrygian state."

After the sublime flow of lyric heroism, she suddenly sinks back into the tenderer feeling of her dreadful fate.

"O my country, where these eyes Opened on Pelasgic skies!

O ye virgins, once my pride, In Mycenae who abide!

CHORUS.

Why of Perseus, name the town, Which Cyclopean ramparts crown?

IPHIGENIA

Me you reared a beam of light, Freely now I sink in night."

_Freely_; as the messenger afterwards recounts it.

"Imperial Agamemnon, when he saw His daughter, as a victim to the grave, Advancing, groaned, and, bursting into tears, Turned from the sight his head, before his eyes, Holding his robe. The virgin near him stood, And thus addressed him: 'Father, I to thee Am present; for my country, and for all The land of Greece, I freely give myself A victim: to the altar let them lead me, Since such the oracle. If aught on me Depends, be happy, and obtain the prize Of glorious conquest, and revisit safe Your country. Of the Grecians, for this cause, Let no one touch me; with intrepid spirit Silent will I present my neck.' She spoke, And all that heard revered the n.o.ble soul And virtue of the virgin."

How quickly had the fair bud bloomed up into its perfection! Had she lived a thousand years, she could not have surpa.s.sed this. Goethe's Iphigenia, the mature Woman, with its myriad delicate traits, never surpa.s.ses, scarcely equals, what we know of her in Euripides.

Can I appreciate this work in a translation? I think so, impossible as it may seem to one who can enjoy the thousand melodies, and words in exactly the right place, and cadence of the original. They say you can see the Apollo Belvidere in a plaster cast, and I cannot doubt it, so great the benefit conferred on my mind by a transcript thus imperfect.

And so with these translations from the Greek. I can divine the original through this veil, as I can see the movements of a spirited horse by those of his coa.r.s.e gra.s.scloth m.u.f.fler. Besides, every translator who feels his subject is inspired, and the divine Aura informs even his stammering lips.

Iphigenia is more like one of the women Shakspeare loved than the others; she is a tender virgin, enn.o.bled and strengthened by sentiment more than intellect; what they call a Woman _par excellence_.

Macaria is more like one of Ma.s.singer's women. She advances boldly, though with the decorum of her s.e.x and nation:

"_Macaria_. Impute not boldness to me that I come Before you, strangers; this my first request I urge; for silence and a chaste reserve Is Woman's genuine praise, and to remain Quiet within the house. But I come forth, Hearing thy lamentations, Iolaus; Though charged with no commission, yet perhaps I may be useful." * *

Her speech when she offers herself as the victim is reasonable, as one might speak to-day. She counts the cost all through. Iphigenia is too timid and delicate to dwell upon the loss of earthly bliss and the due experience of life, even as much as Jephtha'a daughter did; but Macaria is explicit, as well befits the daughter of Hercules.

"Should _these_ die, myself Preserved, of prosperous future could I form One cheerful hope?

A poor forsaken virgin who would deign To take in marriage? Who would wish for sons From one so wretched? Better then to die, Than bear such undeserved miseries; One less ill.u.s.trious this might more beseem.

I have a soul that unreluctantly Presents itself, and I proclaim aloud That for my brothers and myself I die.

I am not fond of life, but think I gain An honorable prize to die with glory."

Still n.o.bler when Iolaus proposes rather that she shall draw lots with her sisters.

"By _lot_ I will not die, for to such death No thanks are due, or glory--name it not.

If you accept me, if my offered life Be grateful to you, willingly I give it For these; but by constraint I will not die."

Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:

"Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach These youths in all things to be wise, like thee, Naught will avail them more."

Macaria has the clear Minerva eye; Antigone's is deeper and more capable of emotion, but calm; Iphigenia's glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.

I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his "Dream of fair Women," has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circ.u.mstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jephtha's daughter he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when

"I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became A solemn scorn of Ills.

It comforts me in this one thought to dwell-- That I subdued me to my father's will; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still.

Moreover it is written, that my race Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh, from Arroer Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face Glowed as I looked on her.

She looked her lips; she left me where I stood; 'Glory to G.o.d,' she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the woods, Toward the morning-star."

In the "Trojan dames" there are fine touches of nature with regard to Ca.s.sandra. Hecuba shows that mixture of shame and reverence that prose kindred always do, towards the inspired child, the poet, the elected sufferer for the race.

When the herald announces that she is chosen to be the mistress of Agamemnon, Hecuba answers indignant, and betraying the involuntary pride and faith she felt in this daughter.

"The virgin of Apollo, whom the G.o.d, Radiant with golden looks, allowed to live.

In her pure vow of maiden chast.i.ty?

_Tal_. With love the raptured virgin smote his heart.

_Hec_. Cast from thee, O my daughter, cast away Thy sacred wand; rend off the honored wreaths, The splendid ornaments that grace thy brows."

But the moment Ca.s.sandra appears, singing wildly her inspired song, Hecuba, calls her

"My _frantic_ child."

Yet how graceful she is in her tragic phrenzy, the chorus shows--

"How sweetly at thy house's ills thou smilest, Chanting what haply thou wilt not show true!"

But if Hecuba dares not trust her highest instinct about her daughter, still less can the vulgar mind of the herald (a man not without tenderness of heart, but with no princely, no poetic blood) abide the wild, prophetic mood which insults his prejudices both as to country and decorums of the s.e.x. Yet Agamemnon, though not a n.o.ble man, is of large mould, and could admire this strange beauty which excited distaste in common minds.

"_Tal_. What commands respect, and is held high As wise, is nothing better than the mean Of no repute; for this most potent king Of all the Grecians, the much-honored son Of Atreus, is enamored with his prize, This frantic raver. I am a poor man, Yet would I not receive her to my bed."