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In these three plays, then, the feminine interest has forced its way, as it were, into the plot, which in[72] its first form offered women no place. The Seven against Thebes, a 'fragment from the table of Homer,' differs chiefly from the epic in the feminine element that has been imported by the chorus; the Persians, dealing with the same events as those described by Herodotus, has for its point of difference the prominence given to the female character, Atossa; the Prometheus, which tells the story of the conflict between the fierce young god and the philanthropic old demiurge, relies for its dramatic interest largely on the episodes of the Nereides and Io; episodes which, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the main plot.
This feminism, inherent in the poet's mind, finds full expression in the remaining four plays. The Suppliant Women, for example, archaic though it seems to us, deals with a social problem and a question of law, which was hotly debated in the poet's time, and finally, in spite of his advocacy, settled against the women. The question is this---'Should a woman be compelled to marry a man she dislikes, and to hand over to him the control of her property, merely because he is the nearest male relative?' schylus answers in the negative; Athenian law decided in the affirmative.
The characters in the play are nearly all women, the fifty daughters of Danaus, accompanied by their old father, who have fled from Egypt to Greece in[73] order to escape from the violence of their cousins, the sons of gyptus, who wish to marry them by force. It is a lyric drama, and the burden of the action and the music rests with the women. The agony of the crowd of girls crouching helpless at the altar is depicted in the most entrancing melody; they are not regarded as separate individuals, but as representing women in general; their plight is that of all womankind, and the problem is presented as universal. Swarthy daughters of the South, they call upon their god to help them, the god who once found delight in the arms of their ancestress, Io; and in the play their prayer is answered. The King of Argos protects and gives them shelter, the Egyptian herald who would have taken them back is scornfully dismissed. Of the three male characters Danaus is the most interesting, and his advice to his daughters is applicable to women generally in ancient times:
Children, you must be prudent: let your utterance be attended before all by absence of boldness: a modest face and a tranquil eye: no wanton looks. Be not forward in your speech nor prolix: people here are very prone to take offence. And remember to be submissive---you are needy foreign fugitives---it is not seemly for the weak to be bold in speech.
So in his concluding words he hints at some of the difficulties of a woman's life:
I charge you, bring me not to shame, you whose youthful bloom is so attractive to men. Ripe tender fruit is never easy to protect; men are like animals, they seek only to destroy. Your gardens fair, the lady of love herself proclaims their dewy freshness, and when a virgin comes in dainty loveliness every man as he passes by falls victim to desire, and shoots a swift glance to win her fancy.... Observe, then, this your father's charge, and value chastity more than life itself.
The Suppliant Women presents one particular phase of women's subjection considered impersonally, and scarcely deals with the great question of how far force may be rightly met by force. In the legend the daughters of Danaus escape from slavery by killing their husbands on their wedding night, but of that schylus in this play tells us nothing.
The problem, however, is too vital to escape his notice, and it forms the central motive of the greatest play in world-literature, the Agamemnon. 'Is a woman ever justified in killing her husband?' The question had a special interest in Athens, as it must have in any society where women are kept enslaved, for the tyrant always walks in dread of the assassin's knife. Euripides, with his stinging irony, reveals the secret fear: 'If women are to be allowed to shed male blood,' he makes Orestes cry, 'then we men had better commit suicide at once; if it is a matter only of the will to kill, we may be sure that all[75] women have that already.' The Agamemnon deals with this problem; the sequel plays with a second question, 'Is it right for a son to kill his mother in order to avenge his father's death?'
But the trilogy of the Oresteia, besides being concerned with feminist problems, is a living gallery of woman types: Clytemnestra and Cassandra, Electra and the Nurse, the chorus of maidens in the Choephoroi, and the chorus of women furies in the Eumenides. In the Agamemnon the two women are sharply contrasted; Clytemnestra, the queen who will not submit to man's rule; Cassandra, the victim predestined by fate to suffer the caprices of a master, and to pass from the treacherous lover, Apollo, to the brutal owner, Agamemnon. No one can read the play and feel much sympathy with the murdered king. He is done to death with every circumstance of horror; returning home after many years' absence in a foreign land, where he has been fighting for his country, he finds within his house not a faithful wife, but a secret enemy; she conceals her hatred, allures him to the bath, and there, with her own hands, murders him.
And yet the dramatist, and his readers, find the wife rather than the husband the sympathetic character. It is partly the intolerable callousness and brutal pride of Agamemnon, who has sacrificed his daughter's life to help on his political schemes,[76] and now brings home with him from Troy the concubine whom he has compelled to share his bed. But there is also the feeling that Clytemnestra is really the better man of the pair: that she is naturally born to rule, and that her subjection to a man would be against the law of nature. Certainly in the play she takes the first place, and Cassandra, a part vocally the most important of any, comes next. The men, Agamemnon, the Watchman, the Herald, gisthus, and the helpless chorus of aged councillors, are merely foils to the 'manlike' queen. The contrast, indeed, between the resolute woman and the irresolute men in the closing scenes is almost comic, and the play ends with her triumph. In the sequel, The Libation Bearers, the main action is again in the hands of women, Electra and her friends, the maidens of the chorus. Orestes, it is true, does the actual killing; but there is this difference between brother and sister: Electra acts on her own initiative, and is a woman as strong-willed as Clytemnestra herself; Orestes acts only in obedience to the promptings of others. Electra feels no remorse; Orestes, as soon as he has killed his mother, is tormented by imaginary terrors. Among the characters of the second play, by far the most interesting is the old Nurse. She is obviously studied from the life, and is one of the most vivid figures of Greek Drama: her kindly temper and affection for her former[77] charge are contrasted with the fierce bitterness of Electra, and she supplies the one touch of humour that lightens the mournful music of this play.
Last comes the Eumenides, which discusses with almost embarrassing frankness the physical problems of relationship. 'Is the mother who conceives, or the father who begets the child, the nearer relative?' And again, 'Is not the murder of a husband, who is no relation by blood, less heinous than the murder of the mother who brought you into the world?' These are some of the questions that are raised but not answered, for the final reconciliation satisfies the religious rather than the practical sense. The plot may be put briefly:
