The cause which she holds sacred is elaborately ar-
raigned and defended in the scene with Clytaemnestra. Sophocles
portrays the queen in a manner very distinct from that of Aeschylus;
a difference due not merely to the general tendencies of the poets,
but also to the dramatic setting. Aeschylus created his
Clytaemnestra in the
Agamemnon, where she is seen
just before and just after the murder. There is a fascination in her
dreadful presence of mind; what an adamantine purpose can be felt
under the fluent eloquence with which she welcomes her husband
1! How
fearful, again, is her exultation in the deed, when she tells the
Argive elders that she rejoices in the blood upon her robe
‘as a cornfield in the dews of spring
2,’ or when she imagines Iphigeneia
advancing to greet Agamemnon in the shades, and kissing him
3! Sophocles had to show
Clytaemnestra, not at a crisis of action, but as she lived and felt
in the years which followed her crime. Electra's fortitude was to be
illustrated by withstanding and denouncing her. The Clytaemnestra of
Aeschylus was ill-suited to such a situation. If she had been
confronted with a daughter who impugned her deed, scorn and hatred
would have flashed from her; but she would not have argued her case
in detail, and then listened to a reply. The almost superhuman force
of that dark soul would have been fatal to the dramatic effect of
any woman opposed to her. In the
Choephori Aeschylus
has taken care that Electra shall have no dialogue with
Clytaemnestra. Sophocles clearly felt this. The Clytaemnestra whom
he draws is strong and wicked, but her temperament is not one which
separates her from ordinary humanity. She feels at least a pang of
maternal grief when she first hears that Orestes is dead
4, even though a little later she can address heartless
taunts to Electra. She has not the Aeschylean queen's cynical
contempt for public opinion; thus she complains that Electra
misrepresents her, and seeks to justify herself
5. When she meets her daughter in argument, she is
forcible, but the better cause has the advantage which it
deserves
6.
A desire to avenge Iphigeneia is the plea which she puts forward,
and which Electra refutes; but the women of Mycenae had already
given voice to the popular belief that guilty love was the true
motive of the crime
7. Sophocles has thus avoided
investing Clytaemnestra with a tragic interest which would have
required that her punishment, rather than her paramour's, should
form the climax.
The
function of the Chorus is naturally to some extent the same as in
the
Choephori,—viz., to sympathise with
Electra and to assert the moral law: but there is a difference. The
Trojan slave-women of the Aeschylean Chorus hate the tyrants and are
friendly to Electra's cause, but have no further interest in the
vengeance. The Sophoclean Chorus consists of freeborn women,
belonging to Mycenae, but external to the palace. They represent a
patriotic sentiment in the realm at large, favourable to the son of
Agamemnon, and hostile to the usurper. The city is sympathetic with
the family
8.
