Apollo was at Delos, his rocky isle with the “orbèd mere” in it, when he heard of the gift made to him, and set off to take possession of Delphi. ↩
Literally: “Loxias is the forth-shower (prophêtês) of Zeus the Father”: Loxias is the special title of Phoebus Apollo as prophet: the line is important for the understanding of the play. ↩
Bromios and Pentheus: the story is given in the Bacchae of Euripides. ↩
“Blood on his hand, etc.”: as if he had come straight from the murder. To inquire why the blood is still wet, and to explain that it is only the blood of swine killed in purification (ll. 284, 450), is to treat the matter too realistically. ↩
This account prepares the audience for the appearance of the Erinyes, who had apparently not been represented on the stage before. They are not exactly like the Gorgons, nor yet like the winged Harpies who swept away Phineus’ food. ↩
Stage Direction. We do not know how the inner shrine was shown, whether by wide doors or by the drawing of a curtain. ↩
“Born for wickedness and sorrow”: i.e. they exist for the punishment of sin, and nothing else. But see Introduction, paragraph. ↩
The City of Pallas is Athens, her Rock the Acropolis. ↩
Hermes: he is not present, but is invoked as the regular Guide of the Wanderer. “Zeus pitieth, etc.”: this is the essential doctrine of the play. ↩
The Ghost. The Ghost is a Dream, and vanishes as the Furies wake. This does not mean that to an ancient poet the Ghost was unreal, but that a Dream was real. In the Iliad (Book II, 6 ff.) the Dream behaves like any other messenger of Zeus. ↩
Leader of Furies. Homer speaks indifferently of “the Erinys” (singular) and “the Erinyes” (plural). Greek theology felt the difference between singular and plural far less than we do.
The Furies argue that Apollo has (1) broken the Law by stealing his favourite away from justice, and (2) defiled his own altar by bringing thither a man polluted with blood. ↩
Apollo speaks here, not as “forth-shower of Zeus,” but in his own person as a Hellenic God, hating this lust for punishment which the Furies show: if torture is what they want, let them go to Persia and the lands of the barbarians, where they can get it, but keep away from Hellas and Delphi. ↩
“And revilest us who guide his feet?” A quibble, which Apollo answers by another. ↩
“ ’Twas not one blood”: It is the Furies who first raise this sophism about the “common blood.” In reality such a plea on behalf of a wife who had murdered her husband would no more be admitted in ancient law than in modern. But the Erinyes are supposed by the poet to represent (1) the primitive “matriarchal” society which preceded the introduction of marriage and civic life, and (2) a blind law based on purely physical considerations: hence Apollo’s answer: “Your insistence on the physical blood-tie destroys all moral values. It is love and trust, not mere blood, that matter.” He has also a physiological argument with which to meet their quibble in the trial scene (here). ↩
“Thou hast thy greatness by the Throne of God”: i.e. You have a Portion of your own, which you value as we value ours. ↩
Orestes has been hunted over the face of the world for years and has at last made his way, bleeding, to Athena’s Image in Athens. The Furies are only a short way behind, tracking him by the blood.
The question has been raised what Image of Athena this is, and whether the scene is on the Acropolis or the Areopagus, or elsewhere. To ask such a question is to press too hard the ideal geography of ancient poetry. The scene is Athens, though sometimes we may have to think of one part of Athens rather than another. Similarly, in the Helena the scene is Egypt, though we are sometimes on the banks of the Nile, sometimes on the seashore, sometimes at the Isle of Pharos; so in the Agamemnon the beacon from Troy to Argos starts from Mount Ida. The real Mount Ida was about thirty miles in the wrong direction, but the ideal Ida was simply the mountain of Troy. ↩
“Parent or guest or god”: These are the three classes of persons towards whom primitive man has duties: (1) the gods; (2) the kindred, in which the parents take the chief place; (3) those aliens to whom he had specially bound himself by the tie of hospitality. ↩
Orestes calls Athena to come to his aid, and explains that his touch does not defile her Image, and that he is at liberty to speak.—The reasons are: first, it is so long ago and he has suffered so much. Even such a defilement as his does not last forever. Secondly, he was fully purified at Delphi in the regular way, new blood (of swine) being poured upon him to cover the old blood, and then both washed off together. Thirdly, he has, as a matter of fact, spoken to many
