Produced by Al Haines BOOK OF ILLUSTRATIONS ANCIENT TRAGEDY RICHARD G. MOULTON CHICAGO The University of Chicago Press 1904 ILLUSTRATIONS THE ANCIENT DRAMA (TRAGEDY) CONTENTS STORY OF ORESTES [_Oresteia_], A TRILOGY BY Aeschylus AGAMEMNON THE SEPULCHRAL RITES [_Choephori_] THE GENTLE GODDESSES [_Eumenides_] ELECTRA, by Sophocles ELECTRA, by Euripides ALCESTIS, by Euripides THE CYCLOPS, by Euripides THE BACCHANALS, by Euripides MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES REFERENCES _In the case of Aeschylus and Sophocles the numbering of lines agrees with that in the translations of Plumptre and in the original. In the plays from Euripides the numbering is that of the lines in the cheap translation (Routledge's Universal Library)._ [Transcriber's note: In the original book, the line numbers mentioned above were right-justified. In this e-book, they are enclosed in curly braces, and placed immediately after their associated line of text, e.g. ". . . a line of text {123}".] A CONDENSATION OF THE TRILOGY STORY OF ORESTES [_ORESTEIA_] BEING THE ONLY GREEK TRILOGY, OR THREE-PLAY DRAMA, WHICH HAS COME DOWN TO US COMPLETE CONSISTING OF MORNING PLAY: AGAMEMNON MIDDAY PLAY: THE SEPULCHRAL RITES [_CHOEPHORI_] AFTERNOON PLAY: THE GENTLE GODDESSES [_EUMENIDES_] COMPOSED BY AESCHYLUS, AND BROUGHT ON THE STAGE AT ATHENS AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE 'GREATER DIONYSIA,' IN MARCH OF 458 B. C., DURING THE POLITICAL EXCITEMENT OCCASIONED BY THE POPULAR ATTACK ON THE ARISTOCRATIC COURT OF MARS' HILL, OR AREOPAGUS The passages quoted are from Plumptre's Translation MEMORANDUM The Sacred Legends touched by this Trilogy would be familiar, in outline, to the Auditors: e. g.: The woes of the House of Atreus: the foundation of them laid by Atreus when, to take vengeance on his brother Thyestes, he served up to him at a banquet the flesh of his own sons; His grandsons were Agamemnon and Menelaus: Menelaus' wife, Helen, was stolen by a guest, Paris of Troy, which caused the great Trojan war. Agamemnon, who commanded the Greek nations in that war, fretting at the contrary winds which delayed the setting out of the fleet, was persuaded by the Seers to slay his own daughter Iphigenia, to appease the Deities; Her mother Clytaemnestra treasured up this wrong all through the ten years' war, and slew Agamemnon on his return, in the moment of victory, slew him while in his bath by casting a net over him and smiting him to death with her own arm; Then she reigned in triumph with Aegisthus her paramour (himself one of the fatal house), till Orestes her son, who had escaped as an infant when his father was slaughtered, returned at last, and slew the guilty pair; For this act of matricide, though done by the command of Apollo, Orestes was given up to the Furies, and driven over the earth, a madman, till in Athens, on Mars' Hill they say, he was cleansed and healed.