Whereupon he takes her by the hand. Aphrodite, with face turned away and downcast eyes, moves to the couch, whereon are spread skins of bears and lions Anchises has killed on the mountain. He first takes off all her beautiful jewelry, then loosens her girdle and strips off her bright garments, folds them carefully, and lays them down on a silver-studded chair that stands nearby. “And then by the will of the Gods and destiny he lies with her,” says Hesiod, “a mortal man with an immortal Goddess, not clearly knowing what he does.”
In the evening, Aphrodite rises and clothes herself again and stands by the couch. Her head reaches to the roof-tree and a radiance shines within the room. Arousing Anchises, she says to him: “Up, son of Dardanus—and tell me whether I look as I did when you first saw me!”
Anchises cannot look at her. Trembling, he speaks: “As soon as I saw you, Goddess, I knew you were divine but you did not tell me the truth. I beseech you now, have pity on me, for he who lies with a deathless Goddess is no whole man after.”
Aphrodite does take pity on him, saying he should fear no harm from her or any of the Gods for he is dear to her and to them. And she tells him she will bear a son that she will care for until he is five years old, when she will bring the boy to Anchises, who must say that his mother was one of the Nymphs that live on the mountain. “But if you foolishly boast that you lay with Aphrodite of the rich crown,” she warns him, “Zeus will strike you in his anger. Take heed! And name me not!”
The boy’s name is Aeneas. He is fated to reign among the Trojans and their children and children’s children, time without end. However, years later, Anchises is playing at a game with some other men and, having drunk too much, boasts that he once lay with the Goddess of Love. Of course they don’t believe him; nevertheless, Zeus strikes him blind.
AESCHYLUS
523?–456 BCE
The Oresteia
Little is known about Aeschylus. An Athenian, he was the son of Euphorion: he had a son named Euphorion, who also became a dramatist. Aeschylus was born at some time during the last quarter of the sixth century BCE, but the traditional date of 525 or 524 may be too early. Perhaps he was born in 5l3 or 512, which would have made him about twenty-two when he fought in the victory over the invading Persians on the plain of Marathon (490 BCE). He may also have fought a second time at Plataea when the Persians invaded again and were defeated a second time (480).
Aeschylus won his first drama prize in 484 when he was probably not yet thirty, and he continued to win, often in competition against other dramatists, until the end of his life. (Sophocles sometimes beat him but Euripides never did.) The death of Aeschylus occurred in 456 or 455 BCE. In Sicily, the rich western colonial empire of Greece, a monument was set up by his Sicilian hosts. They were not democrats like the Athenians, but tyrants, and the monument glorified his military service but made no mention of his plays. The titles of some eighty plays are known and fragments of a fairly large number survive. But only seven plays of Aeschylus have come down to us complete.
Drama was probably invented by the Athenians when Aeschylus was a boy. The legendary Thespis, who was honored as the inventor of tragedy, is said to have produced the first true plays shortly before 500 BCE. Those first plays were relatively primitive dramas; they had evolved only slightly from the poetic rituals that had been celebrated in Greek cities throughout the sixth century. Usually they consisted of exchanges on religious themes between a masked actor—often the poet himself representing a god—and a chorus that danced as well as sang. Aeschylus is said to have introduced the device of a second actor, which was an immense change. Henceforth the action of the drama was played out between individual (masked) actors, while the role of the chorus became more and more that of a commentator on the action. Aeschylus may also have been the first to address political issues instead of, or in addition to, religious themes. But of this we actually know very little. What we have is seven stunning plays, which are extraordinarily different from one another.
The Athenian playwright who desired to compete in the annual dramatic competitions in honor of the god Dionysus was usually required to present four plays, not just one, for the judgment of the audience, which consisted of all the male citizens of Athens. Three of those could deal with a single story, often drawn from a body of religious writings centering on the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, or could treat separate mythical occurrences. The fourth, a satyr play or farce, provided comic (i.e., Dionysian) relief. Only one trilogy on a single theme survives: the Oresteia (story of Orestes). It was produced in 458 and won first prize in the competition that year. The satyr play that must have followed the trilogy is lost.
The Oresteia of Aeschylus is based on one of the most famous, bloody, and terrible Greek myths, the story of the House of Atreus. Many surviving Greek plays and even a few Roman dramatic works (as well as some modern plays, by Eugene O’Neill, for example) were written about this myth. The story cannot be told quickly, but it’s necessary to know something about it before reading the trilogy, as there are many oblique and glancing references to various aspects of the myth that are not dealt with explicitly.
Agamemnon is the king of Mycenae when Helen, his brother Menelaus’s wife, is seduced by Paris, prince of Troy, who takes her home to his city. After years of ineffectual raids against the Trojans, Agamemnon gathers a large army to help Menelaus retrieve his bride. A flotilla of ships sails to Aulis, but the winds die and the army chafes under the enforced delay. A seer tells Agamemnon the expedition can proceed only if he will sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. By a trick he succeeds in getting his wife, Clytemnestra, to bring their child to him at Aulis. There he kills her. The wind springs up, and the army sails on to Troy and finally conquers it. Agamemnon returns to his kingdom to find his wife living with his cousin, Aegisthus. The guilty lovers murder Agamemnon in his bath. This is the subject of the first part of the trilogy.
Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had three other children, notably a son, Orestes, and a daughter, Electra. Orestes returns home from his travels to find his father dead and his mother ruling his kingdom with her paramour. With the help of Electra, Orestes murders his mother in revenge. This is the subject of the second part of the trilogy.
At the end of the second part (The Libation Bearers), Orestes flees the stage pursued by Furies who will avenge the death of his mother. Most of the action of the third play of the trilogy, Eumenides, consists of a trial on the hill called the Areopagus, in Athens. Orestes is charged by the Furies with murder most foul; he is defended by the god Apollo, on the grounds that the murder of a father is more serious than that of a mother. The jury of Athenian elders—the Chorus in the play—is evenly divided, and Athene appears in all her splendor and casts the deciding vote for acquittal. Feuds must end, she declares, and all must be forgiven. The Furies are changed from hideous hags to gentle, beneficent Eumenides who inhabit the world underground and are propitiated by a promise of respect and honor from the Athenians forever.