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Updated: April 30, 2025
Thus the Eumenides sang, and moved in solemn cadence, while stillness like the stillness of death sat over the whole assembly as if in the presence of superhuman beings; and then in solemn march completing the circuit of the theatre, they passed out at the back of the stage.
Even in AEschylus' Eumenides it will be remembered that when Orestes, by the advice of Apollo, clasps as a suppliant the ancient image of Athena at Athens, the goddess comes flying from far away in the Troad when she hears the sound of his calling.
Then the Erinyes hastened the discovery of these dark deeds; Iokaste died in her bridal chamber; and Oidipous, having blinded himself, fled to the grove of the Eumenides, near Athens, where, amid flashing lightning and peals of thunder, he died. Oidipous is the Sun.
This idea, moreover, permitted an exposition in complete harmony with the spirit of antiquity; the latter had all the requisites for bringing it into bold relief in all its purity and strength. Consequently, every particular in the whole narrative is borrowed immediately from the ancient world, especially the appearance and the song of Eumenides.
Nor alone in these great landmarks of their dwelling have the Sphinx's children haunted Earth. Poets have sung them under myriad names; History has chronicled them in groups; Painting and Sculpture have handed down their aspect to a gazing world. From them sprung the Eumenides, pursuers and destroyers of men.
Many come again and again, for the mysterious and soothing effect she exerts upon them. They cannot talk freely about it to each other, and are seized with a sacred fear when they attempt to do so. Those who have merely heard their report without seeing her, say that these men have been in a grove of the Eumenides, or have suddenly encountered the wolf.
Of ancient citizens, waiting for their sons to come back from the war, as in the "Agamemnon" of AEschylus; of sea-nymphs, as in his "Prometheus Bound;" even of the very Furies who hunt the matricide, as in his "Eumenides;" of senators, as in the "Antigone" of Sophocles; or of village farmers, as in his "OEdipus at Colonos" and now I have named five of the greatest poems, as I hold, written by mortal man till Dante rose.
It is in this enforced choice between two evils that the pathos of life is often to be found; that Aeschylus should have so faithfully depicted it is a great contribution to the growth of drama. The concluding play, the Eumenides, calls for a briefer description. It opens with one of the most awe-inspiring scenes which the imagination of man has conceived.
Occasionally, as occurs at the singular spot named Lacus Solis, several canals converging from all points of the compass meet at a central point like the spokes of a wheel; in other cases, as, for instance, that of the long canal named Eumenides, with its continuation Orcus, a single conspicuous line is seen threading a large number of round dark spots, which present the appearance of a row of beads upon a string.
Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned the choosers of the slain. I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the Eumenides.
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