This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. It was adapted by the Observatory from a version produced by Wikisource contributors.
APPENDIX.
Apparition of the goddess Isis to her votary, from Apuleius.
“Scarcely had I closed my eyes, when behold (I saw in a dream) a divine form emerging from the middle of the sea, and raising a countenance venerable, even to the gods themselves. Afterwards, the whole of the most splendid image seemed to stand before me, having gradually shaken off the sea. I will endeavor to explain to you its admirable form, if the poverty of human language will but afford me the power of an appropriate narration; or if the divinity itself, of the most luminous form, will supply me with a liberal abundance of fluent diction. In the first place, then, her most copious and long hairs, being gradually intorted, and promiscuously scattered on her divine neck, were softly defluous. A multiform crown, consisting of various flowers, bound the sublime summit of her head. And in the middle of the crown, just on her forehead, there was a smooth orb resembling a mirror, or rather a white refulgent light, which indicated that she was the moon. Vipers rising up after the manner of furrows, environed the crown on the right hand and on the left, and Cerealian ears of corn were also extended from above. Her garment was of many colors, and woven from the finest flax, and was at one time lucid with a white splendor, at another yellow from the flower of crocus, and at another flaming with a rosy redness. But that which most excessively dazzled my sight, was a very black robe, fulgid with a dark splendor, and which, spreading round and passing under her right side, and ascending to her left shoulder, there rose protuberant, like the centre of a shield, the dependent part of her robe falling in many folds, and having small knots of fringe, gracefully flowing in its extremities. Glittering stars were dispersed through the embroidered border of the robe, and through the whole of its surface, and the full moon, shining in the middle of the stars, breathed forth flaming fires. A crown, wholly consisting of flowers and fruits of every kind, adhered with indivisible connexion to the border of conspicuous robe, in all its undulating motions.
“What she carried in her hands also consisted of things of a very different nature. Her right hand bore a brazen rattle, through the narrow lamina of which, bent like a belt, certain rods passing, produced a sharp triple sound through the vibrating motion of her arm. An oblong vessel, in the shape of a boat, depended from her left hand, on the handle of which, in that part which was conspicuous, an asp raised its erect head and largely swelling neck. And shoes, woven from the leaves of the victorious palm tree, covered her immortal feet. Such, and so great a goddess, breathing the fragrant odour of the shores of Arabia the happy, deigned thus to address me.”
The foreign English of the translator, Thomas Taylor, gives the description the air of being, itself, a part of the Mysteries. But its majestic beauty requires no formal initiation to be enjoyed.
I give this, in the original, as it does not bear translation. Those who read Italian will judge whether it is not a perfect description of a perfect woman.
Vergine bella che di sol vestita,
Coronata di stelle, al sommo Sole
Piacesti si, che n te sua luce ascose ;
Amor mi spinge a dir di te parole:
Ma non so 'ncominciar senza tu' aita,
E di Colui che amando in te si pose.
Invoco lei che ben sempre rispose,
Chi la chiamò con fede.
Vergine, s'a mercede
Miseria extrema dell' smane cose
Giammai ti volse, al mio prego t'inchina:
Soccorri alla mia guerra;
Bench' i' sia terra, e tu del ciel Regina.
Vergine saggia, e del bel numero una
Delle beate vergini prudenti;
Anzi la prima, e con più chiara lampa;
O saldo scudo dell' afflitte gente
Contra colpi di Morte e di Fortuna,
Sotto' qual si trionfa, non pur scampa:
O refrigerio alcieco ardor ch' avvampa
Qui fra mortali sciocchi,
Vergine, que' begli occhi
Che vider tristi la spietata stampa
Ne' dolci membri del tuo caro figlio,
Volgi al raio dnbbio stato;
Che sconsigliato a te vien per consiglio.
Vergine pura, d'ogni parte intera,
Del tuo parto gentil figliuola e madre;
Che allumi questa vita, e l'altra adorni;
Per te il tuo Figlio e quel del sommo Padre,
O finestra del ciel lucente altera,
Venne a salvarne in su gli estremi giorni,
E fra tutt' i terreni altri soggiorni
Sola tu fusti eletta,
Vergine benedetta;
Che 'l pianto d'Eva in allegrezza torni';
Fammi; che puoi; della sua grazia degno,
Senza fine o beata,
Già coronata nel superno regno.
Vergine santa d'ogni grazia piena;
Che per vera e altissima umiltate
Salisti al ciel, onde miei preghi ascolti;
Tu partoristi il fonte di pietate,
E di giustizia il Sol, che rasserena
Il secol pien d'errori oscuri e folti:
Tre dolci e eari nomi ha' in te raccolti,
Madre, Figliuola, e Sposa;
Vergine gloriosa,
Donna del Re che nostri lacci ha sciolti,
E fatto 'l mondo libero e felice;
Nelle cui sante piaghe
Prego ch'appaghe il cor, vera beatrice.
Vergine sola al mondo senza esempio,
Che 'l ciel di tue bellezze innamorasti,
Cui nè prima fu simil, nè seconda;
Santi pensieri, atti pietosi e casti
Al vero Dio sacrato, e vivo tempio
Fecero in tua virginita feconda.
Per te può la mia vita esser gioconda,
S' a' tuoi preghi, o Maria
Vergine dolce, e pia,
Ove 'l fallo abbondò,la grazia abbonda,
Con le ginocchia della mente inchine
Prego che sia mia scorta;
E la mia torta via drizzi a buon fine.
Vergine chiara, e stabile in eterno,
Di questo tempestoso mare stella;
D'ogni fedel nocchier fidata guida;
Pon mente in che terribile procella
I mi ritrovo sol senza governo,
Ed ho gia' da vicin l'ultime strida:
Ma pur' in te l'anima mia si fida;
Peccatrice; i' nol nego,
Vergine: ma te prego
Che'l tuo nemico del mia mal non rida:
Ricorditi che fece il peccar nostro
Prender Dio, per scamparne,
Umana carne al tuo virginal christro.
Vergine, quante lagrime ho già sparte,
Quante lusinghe, e quanti preghi indarno,
Pur per mia pena, e per mio grave danno!
Da poi ch'i nacqui in su la riva d' Arno;
Cercando or questa ed or quell altra parte,
Non è stata mia vita altro ch' affanno.
Mortal bellezza, atti, e parole m' hanno
Tutta ingombrata l alma.
Vergine sacra, ed alma,
Non tardar; ch' i' non forse all' ultim'ann,
I di miei piu correnti che saetta,
Fra miserie e peccati
Sonsen andati, e sol Morte n'aspetta.
Vergine, tale è terra, e posto ha in doglia
Lo mio cor; che vivendo in pianto il tenne;
E di mille miei mali un non sapea;
E per saperlo, pur quel che n'avvenne,
Fora avvenuto: ch' ogni altra sua voglia
Era a me morte, ed a lei fama rea
Or tu, donna del ciel, tu nostra Dea,
Se dir lice, e conviensi;
Vergine d'alti sensi,
Tu vedi il tutto; e quel che non potea
Far altri, è nulla a e la tua gran virtute;
Pon fine al mio dolore;
Ch'a te onore ed a me fia salute.
Vergine, in cui ho tutta mia speranza
Che possi e vogli al gran bisogno aitarme;
Non mi lasciare in su l'estremo passo.
Non guardar me, ma chi dègno crearme;
No'l mio valor, ma l'alta sua sembianza;
Che in me ti mova a curar d'uorm si basso.
Medusa, e l'error mio io han fatto un sasso
D'umor vano stillante;
Vergine, tu di sante
Lagrime, e pie adempi'l mio cor lasso;
Ch' almea l'ultimo pianto sia divoto,
Senza terrestro limo;
Come fu'l primo non d'insania voto.
Vergine umana, e nemica d'orgoglio,
Del comune principio amor t'induca;
Miserere d'un cor contrite umile;
Che se poca mortal terra caduca
Amar con si mirabil fede soglio;
Che devro far di te cosa gentile?
Se dal mio stato assai misero, e vile
Per le tue man resurgo,
Vergine; è' sacro, e purgo
Al tuo nome e pens ieri e'ngegno, e stile;
La lingua, e'l cor, le lagrime, e i sospiri,
Scorgimial miglior guado;
E prendi in grado i cangiati desiri.
Il di s'appressa, e non pote esser lunge;
Si corre il tempo, e vola,
Vergine uuica, e sola;
E'l cor' or conscienza, or morte punge.
Raccommandami al tuo Figliuol, verace
Uomo, e verace Dio;
Ch accolga l mio spirto ultimo in pace.
As the Scandinavian represented Frigga the Earth, or World mother, knowing all things, yet never herself revealing them, though ready to be called to counsel by the gods. It represents her in action, decked with jewels and gorgeously attended. But, says the Mythos, when she ascended the throne of Odin, her consort (Haaven) she left with mortals, her friend, the Goddess of Sympathy, to protect them in her absence.
Since, Sympathy goes about to do good. Especially she devotes herself to the most valiant and the most oppressed. She consoled the Gods in some degree even for the death of their darling Baldur. Among the heavenly powers she has no consort.
FROM LOCKHART'S SPANISH BALLADS.
“'Twas when the fifth Alphonso in Leon held his sway,
King Abdulla of Toledo an embassy did send;
He asked his sister for a wife, and in an evil day
Alphonso sent her, for he feared Abdalla to offend;
He feared to move his anger, for many times before
He had received in danger much succor from the Moor.
Sad heart had fair Theresa, when she their paction knew;
With streaming tears she heard them tell she 'mong the Moors must go;
That she, a Christian damsel, a Christian firm and true,
Must wed a Moorish husband, it well might cause her wo;
But all her tears and all her prayers they are of small avail;
At length she for her fate prepares, a victim sad and pale.
The king hath sent his sister to fair Toledo town,
Where then the Moor Abdalla his royal state did keep;
When she drew near, the Moslem from his golden throne came down,
And courteously received her, and bade her cease to weep;
With loving words he pressed her to come his bower within;
With kisses he caressed her, but still she feared the sin.
“Sir King, Sir King, I pray thee,”—'twas thus Theresa spake,
“I pray thee, have compassion, and do to me no wrong;
For sleep with thee I may not, unless the vows I break,
Whereby I to the holy church of Christ my Lord belong;
For thou hast sworn to serve Mahoun, and if this thing should be,
The curse of God it must bring down upon thy realm and thee,
“The angel of Christ Jesu, to whom my heavenly Lord
Hath given my soul in keeping, is ever by my side;
If thou dost me dishonor, he will unsheath his sword,
And smite thy bcdy fiercely, at the crying of thy bride;
Invisible he standeth; his sword like fiery flame,
Will penetrate thy bosom, the hour that sees my shame.”
The Moslem heard her with a smile; the earnest words she said,
He took for bashful maiden's wile, and drew her to his bower:
In vain Theresa prayed and strove,—she pressed Abdalla's bed,
Perforce received his kiss of love, and lost her maiden flower.
A woful woman there she lay, a loving lord beside,
And earnestly to God did pray, her succor to provide.
The angel of Christ Jesu her sore complaint did hear,
And plucked his heavenly weapon from out his sheath unseen,
He waved the brand in his right hand, and to the King came near,
And drew the point o'er limb and joint, beside the weeping Queen:
A mortal weakness from the stroke upon the King did fall;
He could not stand when daylight broke, but on his knees must crawl.
Abdalla shuddered inly, when he this sickness felt,
And called upon his barons, his pillow to come nigh;
“Rise up,” he said “my liegemen,” as round his bed they knelt,
“And take this Christian lady, else certainly I die;
Let gold be in your girdles, and precious stones beside,
And swiftly ride to Leon, and render up my bride.”
When they were come to Leon, Theresa would not go
Into her brother's dwelling, where her maiden years were spent;
But o'er her downcast visage a white veil she did throw,
And to the ancient nunnery of Las Huelgas went.
There, long, from worldly eyes retired, a holy life she led;
There she, an aged saint, expired; there sleeps she with the dead.”
D.
The following extract from Spinoza is worthy of attention, as expressing the view which a man of the largest intellectual scope may take of woman, if that part of his life to which her influence appeals, has been left unawakened.
He was a man of the largest intellect, of unsurpassed reasoning powers, yet he makes a statement false to history, for we well know how often men and women have ruled together without difficulty, and one in which very few men even at the present day, I mean men who are thinkers, like him, would acquiesce.
I have put in contrast with it three expressions of the latest literature.
1st. From the poems of W. E. Channing, a poem called “Reverence,” equally remarkable for the deep wisdom of its thought and the beauty of its utterance, and containing as fine a description of one class of women as exists in literature.
In contrast with this picture of woman, the happy Goddess of Beauty, the wife, the friend, “the summer queen,” I add one by the author of “Festus,” of a woman of the muse, the sybil kind, which seems painted from living experience.
And thirdly, I subjoin Eugene Sue's description of a wicked, but able woman of the practical sort, and appeal to all readers whether a species that admits of three such varieties is so easily to be classed away, or kept within prescribed limits, as Spinoza, and those who think like him, believe.
“Perhaps some one will here ask, whether the supremacy of man over woman is attributable to nature or custom? For if it be human institutions alone to which this fact is owing, there is no reason why we should exclude women from a share in government. Experience, however, most plainly teaches that it is woman's weakness which places her under the authority of man. Since it has nowhere happened that men and women ruled together; but wherever men and women are found the world over, there we see the men ruling and the women ruled, and in this order of things men and women live together in peace and harmony. The Amazons, it is true, are reputed formerly to have held the reins of government, but they drove men from their dominions; the male of their offspring they invariably destroyed, permitting their daughters alone to live. Now if women were by nature upon an equality with men, if they equalled men in fortitude, in genius (qualities which give to men might, and consequently, right) it surely would be the case, that among the numerous and diverse nations of the earth, some would be found where both sexes ruled conjointly, and others where the men were ruled by the women, and so educated as to be mentally inferior: since this state of things no where exists, it is perfectly fair to infer that the rights of women are not equal to those of men; but that women must be subordinate, and therefore cannot have an equal, far less a superior place in the government. If, too, we consider the passions of men—how the love men feel towards women is seldom any thing but lust and impulse, and much less a reverence for qualities of soul than an admiration of physical beauty, observing, too, how men are afflicted when their sweethearts favor other wooers, and other things of the same character,—we shall see at a glance that it would be, in the highest degree, detrimental to peace and harmony, for men and women to possess an equal share in government.”
“REVERENCE.”
“As an ancestral heritage revere
All learning, and all thought. The painter's fame
Is thine, whate'er thy lot, who honorest grace.
And need enough in this low time, when they,
Who seek to captivate the fleeting notes
Of heaven's sweet beauty, must despair almost,
So heavy and obdurate show the hearts
Of their companions. Honor kindly then
Those who bear up in their so generous arms
The beautiful ideas of matchless forms;
For were these not portrayed, our human fate, —
Which is to be all high, majestical,
To grow to goodness with each coming age,
Till virtue leap and sing for joy to see
So noble, virtuous men, — would brief decay;
And the green, festering slime, oblivious, haunt
About our common fate. Oh honor them!
But what to all true eyes has chiefest charm,
And what to every breast where beats a heart
Framed to one beautiful emotion,—to
One sweet and natural feeling, lends a grace
To all the tedious walks of common life,
This is fair woman,—woman, whose applause
Each poet sings,—woman the beautiful.
Not that her fairest brow, or gentlest form
Charm us to tears; not that the smoothest check,
Where ever rosy tints have made their home,
So rivet us on her; but that she is
The subtle, delicate grace,—the inward grace,
For words too excellent; the noble, true,
The majesty of earth; the summer queen;
In whose conceptions nothing but what's great
Has any right. And, O! her love for him,
Who does but his small part in honoring her;
Discharging a sweet office, sweeter none,
Mother and child, friend, counsel and repose;—
Nought matches with her, nought has leave with her
To highest human praise. Farewell to him
Who reverences not with an excess
Of faith the beauteous sex; all barren he
Shall live a living death of mockery.
Ah! had but words the power, what could we say
Of woman! We, rude men, of violent phrase,
Harsh action, even in repose inwardly harsh;
Whose lives walk blustering on high stilts, removed
From all the purely gracious influence
Of mother earth. To single from the host
Of angel forms one only, and to her
Devote our deepest heart and deepest mind
Seems almost contradiction. Unto her
We owe our greatest blessings, hours of cheer,
Gay smiles, and sudden tears, and more than these
A sure perpetual love. Regard her as
She walks along the vast still earth; and see!
Before her flies a laughing troop of joys,
And by her side treads old experience,
With never-failing voice admonitory;
The gentle, though infallible, kind advice,
The watchful care, the fine regardfulness,
Whatever mates with what we hope to find,
All consummate in her the summer queen.
To call past ages better than what now
Man is enacting on life's crowded stage,
Cannot improve our worth; and for the world
Blue is the sky as ever, and the stars
Kindle their crystal flames at soft-fallen eve
With the same purest lustre that the east
Worshipped. The river gently flows through fields
Where the broad-leaved corn spreads out, and loads
Its ear as when the Indian tilled the soil.
The dark green pine,—green in the winter's cold,
Still whispers meaning emblems, as of old;
The cricket chirps, and the sweet, eager birds
In the sad woods crowd their thick melodies;
But yet, to common eyes, life's poetry
Something has faded, and the cause of this
May be that man, no longer at the shrine
Of woman, kneeling with true reverence,
In spite of field, wood, river, stars and sea
Goes most disconsolate. A babble now,
A huge and wind-swelled babble, fills the place
Of that great adoration which of old
Man had for woman. In these days no more
Is love the pith and marrow of man's fate.
Thou who in early years feelest awake
To finest impulses from nature's breath,
And in thy walk hearest such sounds of truth
As on the common ear strike without heed,
Beware of men around thee. Men are foul,
With avarice, ambition and deceit;
The worst of all, ambition. This is life
Spent in a feverish chase for selfish ends,
Which has no virtue to redeem its toil
But one long, stagnant hope to raise the self.
The miser's life to this seems sweet and fair;
Better to pile the glittering coin, than seek
To overtop our brothers and our loves.
Merit in this? Where lies it, though thy name
Ring over distant lands, meeting the wind
Even on the extremest verge of the wide world.
Merit in this? Better be hurled abroad
On the vast whirling tide, than in thyself
Concentred, feed upon thy own applause.
Thee shall the good man yield no reverence;
But, while the idle, dissolute crowd are loud
In voice to send thee flattery, shall rejoice
That he has scaped thy fatal doom, and known
How humble faith in the good soul of things
Provides amplest enjoyment. O my brother,
If the Past's counsel any honor claim
From thee, go read the history of those
Who a like path have trod, and see a fate
Wretched with fears, changing like leaves at noon,
When the new wind sings in the white birch wood.
Learn from the simple child the rule of life,
And from the movements of the unconscious tribes
Of animal nature, those that bend the wing
Or cleave the azure tide, content to be,
What the great frame provides,—freedom and grace.
Thee, simple child, do the swift winds obey,
And the white waterfalls with their bold leaps
Follow thy movements. Tenderly the light
Thee watches, girding with a zone of radiance,
And all the swinging herbs love thy soft steps.”
DESCRIPTION OF ANGELA, FROM “FESTUS.”
“I loved her for that she was beautiful,
And that to me she seemed to bo all nature
And all varieties of things in one;
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances,
But think what others only dreamed about;
And say what others did but think; and do
What others would but say; and glory in
What others dared but do; it was these which won me;
And that she never schooled within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she told me all her woes
And wrongs and ills; and so she made them mine
In the communion of love; and we
Grew like each other, for we loved each other;
She, mild and generous as the sun in spring;
And I, like earth, all budding out with love.
The beautiful are never desolate:
For some one alway loves them; God or man;
If man abandons, God Himself takes them:
And thus it was. She whom I once loved died,
The lightning loathes its cloud; the soul its clay.
Can I forget that hand I took in mine,
Pale as pale violets; that eye, where mind
And matter met alike divine? ah, no!
May God that moment judge me when I do!
Oh! she was fair; her nature once all spring
And deadly beauty, like a maiden sword,
Startlingly beautiful. I see her now!
Wherever thou art thy soul is in my mind;
Thy shadow hourly lengthens o'er my brain
And peoples all its pictures with thyself;
Gone, not forgotten; passed, not lost; thou wilt shine
In heaven like a bright spot in the sun!
She said she wished to die, and so she died,
For, cloudlike, she poured out her love, which was
Her life, to freshen this parched heart. It was thus;
I said we were to part, but she said nothing;
There was no discord; it was music ceased,
Life's thrilling, bursting, bounding joy. She sate,
Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee,
And her dark hair lay loose and long behind her,
Through which her wild bright eye flashed like a flint;
She spake not, moved not, but she looked the more,
As if her eye were action, speech, and feeling.
I felt it all, and came and knelt beside her,
The electric touch solved both our souls together;
Then came the feeling which unmakes, undoes;
Which tears the sealike soul up by the roots,
And lashes it in scorn against the skies.
It is the saddest and the sorest sight,
One's own love weeping. But why call on God?
But that the feeling of the boundless bounds
All feeling; as the welkin does the world;
It is this which ones us with the whole and God.
Then first we wept; then closed and clung together;
And my heart shook this building of my breast
Like a live engine booming up and down:
She fell upon me like a snow-wreath thawing.
Never were bliss and beauty, love and wo,
Ravelled and twined together into madness,
As in that one wild hour to which all else
The past, is but a picture. That alone
Is real, and forever there in front.
***After that I left her,
And only saw her once again alive.”
“Mother Saint Perpetua, the superior of the convent, was a tall woman, of about forty years, dressed in dark gray serge, with a long rosary hanging at her girdle; a white mob cap, with a long black veil, surrounded her thin wan face with its narrow hooded border. A great number of deep transverse wrinkles plowed her brow, which resembled yellowish ivory in color and substance. Her keen and prominent nose was curved like the hooked beak of a bird of prey; her black eye was piercing and sagacious; her face was at once intelligent, firm, and cold.
“For comprehending and managing the material interests of the society, Mother Saint Perpetua could have vied with the shrewdest and most wily lawyer. When women are possessed of what is called business talent, and when they apply thereto the sharpness of perception, the indefatigable perseverance, the prudent dissimulation, and above all, the correctness and rapidity of judgment at first sight, which are peculiar to them, they arrive at prodigious results.
“To mother Saint Perpetua, a woman of a strong and solid head, the vast monied business of the society was but child's play. None better than she understood how to buy depreciated properties, to raise them to their original value, and sell them to advantage; the average purchase of rents, the fluctuations of exchange, and the current prices of shares in all the leading speculations, were perfectly familiar to her. Never had she directed her agents to make a single false speculation, when it had been the question how to invest funds, with which good souls were constantly endowing the society of Saint Mary. She had established in the house a degree of order, of discipline, and, above all, of economy, that were indeed remarkable; the constant aim of all her exertions being, not to enrich herself, but the community over which she presided; for the spirit of association, when it is directed to an object of collective selfishness, gives to corporations all the faults and vices of individuals.”
The following is an extract from a letter addressed to me by one of the monks of the 19th century. A part I have omitted, because it does not express my own view, unless with qualifications which I could not make, except by full discussion of the subject.
“Woman in the 19th century should be a pure, chaste, holy being.
This state of being in woman is no more attained by the expansion of her intellectual capacity, than by the augmentation of her physical force.
Neither is it attained by the increase or refinement of her love for man, or for any object whatever, or for all objects collectively; but
This state of being is attained by the reference of all her powers and all her actions to the source of Universal Love, whose constant requisition is a pure, chaste and holy life.
So long as woman looks to man (or to society) for that which she needs, she will remain in an indigent state, for he himself is indigent of it, and as much needs it as she does.
So long as this indigence continues, all unions or relations constructed between man and woman are constructed in indigence, and can produce only indigent results or unhappy consequences.
The unions now constructing, as well as those in which the parties constructing them were generated, being based on self-delight, or lust, can lead to no more happiness in the 20th, than is found in the 19th century.
It is not amended institutions, it is not improved education, it is not another selection of individuals for union, that can meliorate the sad result, but the basis of the union must be changed.
If in the natural order Woman and Man would adhere strictly to physiological or natural laws, in physical chastity, a most beautiful amendment of the human race, and human condition, would in a few generations adorn the world.
Still, it belongs to Woman in the spiritual order, to devote herself wholly to her eternal husband, and become the Free Bride of the One who alone can elevate her to her true position, and reconstruct her a pure, chaste, and holy being.”
I have mislaid an extract from “The Memoirs of an American Lady” which I wished to use on this subject, but its import is, briefly, this:
Observing of how little consequence the Indian women are in youth, and how much in age, because in that trying life, good counsel and sagacity are more prized than charms, Mrs. Grant expresses a wish that Reformers would take a hint from observation of this circumstance.
In another place she says: “The misfortune of our sex is, that young women are not regarded as the material from which old women must be made.”
I quote from memory, but believe the weight of the remark is retained.
As many allusions are made in the foregoing pages to characters of women drawn by the Greek dramatists, which may not be familiar to the majority of readers, I have borrowed from the papers of Miranda, some notes upon them. I trust the girlish tone of apostrophizing rapture may be excused. Miranda was very young at the time of writing, compared with her present mental age. Now, she would express the same feelings, but in a worthier garb—if she expressed them at all.
“Iphigenia! Antigone! you were worthy to live! We are fallen on evil times, my sisters! our feelings have been checked; our thoughts questioned; our forms dwarfed and defaced by a bad nurture. Yet hearts, like yours, are in our breasts, living, if unawakened; and our minds are capable of the same resolves. You, we understand at once, those who stare upon us pertly in the street, we cannot—could never understand.
You knew heroes, maidens, and your fathers were kings of men. You believed in your country, and the gods of your country. A great occasion was given to each, whereby to test her character.
You did not love on earth; for the poets wished to show us the force of woman's nature, virgin and unbiassed. You were women; not wives, or lovers, or mothers. Those are great names, but we are glad to see you in untouched flower.
Were brothers so dear, then, Antigone? We have no brothers. We see no men into whose lives we dare look steadfastly, or to whose destinies we look forward confidently. We care not for their urns; what inscription could we put upon them? They live for petty successes; or to win daily the bread of the day. No spark of kingly fire flashes from their eyes.
None! are there none?
It is a base speech to say it. Yes! there are some such; we have sometimes caught their glances. But rarely have they been rocked in the same cradle as we, and they do not look upon us much; for the time is not yet come.
Thou art so grand and simple! we need not follow thee; thou dost not need our love.
But, sweetest Iphigenia; who knew thee, as to me thou art known. I was not born in vain, if only for the heavenly tears I have shed with thee. She will be grateful for them. I have understood her wholly; as a friend should, better than she understood herself.
With what artless art the narrative rises to the crisis. The conflicts in Agamemnon's mind, and the imputations of Menelaus give us, at once, the full image of him, strong in will and pride, weak in virtue, weak in the noble powers of the mind that depend on imagination. He suffers, yet it requires the presence of his daughter to make him feel the full horror of what he is to do.
“Ah me! that breast, those cheeks, those golden tresses!”
It is her beauty, not her misery, that makes the pathos. This is noble. And then, too, the injustice of the gods, that she, this creature of unblemished loveliness, must perish for the sake of a worthless woman. Even Menelaus feels it, the moment he recovers from his wrath.
“What hath she to do,
The virgin daughter, with my Helena!
**Its former reasonings now
My soul foregoes. ****
For it is not just
That thou shouldst groan, but my affairs go pleasantly,
That those of thy house should die, and mine see the light.”
Indeed the overwhelmed aspect of the king of men might well move him.
Men. “Brother, give me to take thy right hand,
Aga. I give it, for the victory is thine, and I am wretched.
I am, indeed, ashamed to drop the tear,
And not to drop the tear I am ashamed.”
How beautifully is Iphigenia introduced; beaming more and more softly on us with every touch of description. After Clytemnestra has given Orestes (then an infant,) out of the chariot, she says:
“Ye females, in your arms,
Receive her, for she is of tender age.
Sit here by my feet, my child,
By thy mother, Iphigenia, and show
These strangers how I am blessed in thee,
And here address thee to thy father.
Iphi. Oh mother, should I run, wouldst thou be angry?
And embrace my father breast to breast?”
With the same sweet timid trust she prefers the request to himself, and as he holds her in his arms, he seems as noble as Guido's Archangel; as if he never could sink below the trust of such a being!
The Achilles, in the first scene, is fine. A true Greek hero; not too good; all flushed with the pride of youth; but capable of god-like impulses. At first, he thinks only of his own wounded pride, (when he finds Iphigenia has been decoyed to Anlis under the pretext of becoming his wife;) but the grief of the queen soon makes him superior to his arrogant chafings. How well he says:—
“Far as a young man may, I will repress
So great a wrong.”
By seeing him here, we understand why he, not Hector, was the hero of the Iliad. The beautiful moral nature of Hector was early developed by close domestic ties, and the cause of his country. Except in a purer simplicity of speech and manner, he might be a modern and a Christian. But Achilles is cast in the largest and most vigorous mould of the earlier day: his nature is one of the richest capabilities, and therefore less quickly unfolds its meaning. The impression it makes at the early period is only of power and pride; running as fleetly with his armor on, as with it off; but sparks of pure lustre are struck, at moments, from the mass of ore. Of this sort is his refusal to see the beautiful virgin he has promised to protect. None of the Grecians must have the right to doubt his motives. How wise and prudent, too, the advice he gives as to the queen's conduct! He will not show himself, unless needed. His pride is the farthest possible remote from vanity. His thoughts are as free as any in our own time.
“The prophet? what is he? a man
Who speaks 'mong many falsehoods, but few truths,
Whene'er chance leads him to speak true; when false,
The prophet is no more.”
Had Agamemnon possessed like clearness of sight, the virgin would not have perished, but also, Greece would have had no religion and no national existence.
When, in the interview with Agamemnon, the Queen begins her speech, in the true matrimonial style, dignified though her gesture be, and true all she says, we feel that truth, thus sauced with taunts, will not touch his heart, nor turn him from his purpose. But when Iphigenia begins her exquisite speech, as with the breathings of a lute,
“Had I, my father, the persuasive voice
Of Orpheus, &c.
Compel me not
What is beneath to view. I was the first
To call thee father; me thou first didst call
Thy child: I was the first that on thy knees
Fondly caressed thee, and from thee received
The fond caress: this was thy speech to me:—
‘Shall I, my child, e'er see thee in some house
Of splendor, happy in thy husband, live
And flourish, as becomes my dignity?’
My speech to thee was, leaning 'gainst thy cheek,
(Which with my hand I now caress:) ‘And what
Shall I then do for thee? shall I receive
My father when grown old, and in my house
Cheer him with each fond office, to repay
The careful nurture which he gave my youth?’
These words are in my memory deep impressed,
Thou hast forgot them and will kill thy child.”
Then she adjures him by all the sacred ties, and dwells pathetically on the circumstance which had struck even Menelaus.
“If Paris be enamored of his bride,
His Helen, what concerns it me? and how
Comes he to my destruction?
Look upon me;
Give me a smile, give me a kiss, my father;
That if my words persuade thee not, in death
I may have this memorial of thy love.”
Never have the names of father and daughter been uttered with a holier tenderness than by Euripides, as in this most lovely passage, or in the “Supplicants,” after the voluntary death of Evadne; Iphis says
“What shall this wretch now do? Should I return
To my own house? — sad desolation there
I shall behold, to sink my soul with grief.
Or go I to the house of Capaneus?
That was delightful to me, when I found
My daughter there; but she is there no more:
Oft would she kiss my cheek, with fond caress
Oft toothe me. To a father, waxing old,
Nothing is dearer than a daughter! sons
Have spirits of higher pitch, but less inclined
To sweet endearing fondness. Lead me then,
Instantly lead me to my house, consign
My wretched age to darkness, there to pine
And waste away.
Old age,
Struggling with many griefs, O how I hate thee!”
But to return to Iphigenia,—how infinitely melting is her appeal to Orestes, whom she holds in her robe.
“My brother, small assistance canst thou give
Thy friends; yet for thy sister with thy tears
Implore thy father that she may not die:
Even infants have a sense of ills; and see,
My father! silent though he be, he sues
To thee: be gentle to me; on my life
Have pity: thy two children by this beard
Entreat thee, thy dear children: one is yet
An infant, one to riper years arrived.”
The mention of Orestes, then an infant, all through, though slight, is of a domestic charm that prepares the mind to feel the tragedy of his after lot. When the Queen says
“Dost thou sleep,
My son? The rolling chariot hath subdued thee;
Wake to thy sister's marriage happily.”
We understand the horror of the doom which makes this cherished child a parricide. And so when Iphigenia takes leave of him after her fate is by herself accepted.
Iphi. “To manhood train Orestes,
Cly. Embrace him, for thou ne'er shall see him more.
Iphi. (To Orestes.) Far as thou couldst, thou didst assist thy friends.”
We know not how to blame the guilt of the maddened wife and mother. In her last meeting with Agamemnon, as in her previous expostulations and anguish, we see that a straw may turn the balance, and make her his deadliest foe. Just then, came the the suit of Ægisthus, then, when every feeling was uprooted or lacerated in her heart.
Iphigenia's moving address has no further effect than to make her father turn at bay and brave this terrible crisis. He goes out, firm in resolve; and she and her mother abandon themselves to a natural grief.
Hitherto nothing has been seen in Iphigenia, except the young girl, weak, delicate, full of feeling and beautiful as a sunbeam on the full green tree. But, in the next scene, the first impulse of that passion which makes and unmakes us, though unconfessed even to herself, though hopeless and unreturned, raises her at once into the heroic woman, worthy of the goddess who demands her.
Achilles appears to defend her, whom all others clamorously seek to deliver to the murderous knife. She sees him, and fired with thoughts, unknown before, devotes herself at once for the country which has given birth to such a man.
“To be too fond of life
Becomes not me; nor for myself alone,
But to all Greece, a blessing didst thou bear me.
Shall thousands, when their country's injured, lift
Their shields; shall thousands grasp the oar, and dare,
Advancing bravely 'gainst the foe, to die
For Greece? And shall my life, my single life,
Obstruct all this? Would this be just? What word
Can we reply? Nay more, it is not right
That he with all the Grecians should contest
In fight, should die, and for a woman. No:
More than a thousand women is one man
Worthy to see the light of day.
***for Greece I give my life.
Slay me; demolish Troy: for these shall be
Long time my monuments, my children these,
My nuptials and my glory.”
This sentiment marks woman, when she loves enough to feel what a creature of glory and beauty a true man would be, as much in our own time as that of Euripides. Cooper makes the weak Hetty say to her beautiful sister:
“Of course, I don't compare you with Harry. A handsome man is always far handsomer than any woman.” True, it was the sentiment of the age. but it was the first time Iphigenia had felt it. In Agamemnon she saw her father, to him she could prefer her claim. In Achilles she saw a man, the crown of creation, enough to fill the world with his presence, were all other beings blotted from its spaces.[1]
The reply of Achilles is as noble. Here is his bride, he feels it now, and all his vain vauntings are hushed.
“Daughter of Agamemnon, highly blessed
Some god would make me, if I might attain
Thy nuptials. Greece in thee I happy deem,
And thee in Greece.**
- in thy thought
- in thy thought
Revolve this well; death is a dreadful thing.”
How sweet is her reply, and then the tender modesty with which she addresses him here and elsewhere as “stranger.”
“Reflecting not on any, thus I speak:
Enough of wars and slaughters from the charms
Of Helen rise; but die not thou for me,
O Stranger, nor distain thy sword with blood,
But let me save my country if I may.”
Achilles. “O glorious spirit! nought have I 'gainst this
To urge, since such thy will, for what thou sayst
Is generous. Why should not the truth be spoken?”
But feeling that human weakness may conquer yet, he goes to wait at the altar, resolved to keep his promise of protection thoroughly.
In the next beautiful scene she shows that a few tears might overwhelm her in his absence. She raises her mother beyond weeping them, yet her soft purity she cannot impart.
Iphi. “My father, and thy husband do not hate:
Cly. For thy dear sake fierce contests must he bear.
Iphi. For Greece reluctant me to death he yields;
Cly. Basely, with guile unworthy Atreus son.”
This is truth incapable of an answer and Iphigenia attempts none.
She begins the hymn which is to sustain her,
“Lead me; mine the glorious fate,
To o'erturn the Phrygian state.”
After the sublime flow of lyric heroism, she suddenly sinks back into the tenderer feeling of her dreadful fate.
“O my country, where these eyes
Opened on Pelasgic skies!
O ye virgins, once my pride,
In Mycenæ who abide!
Chorus.
Why of Perseus name the town,
Which Cyclopean ramparts crown?
Iphigenia.
Me you rear'd a beam of light,
Freely now I sink in night.”
Freely; as the messenger afterwards recounts it.
“Imperial Agamemnon, when he saw
His daughter, as a victim to the grave,
Advancing, groan'd, and bursting into tears,
Turned from the sight his head, before his eyes,
Holding his robe. The virgin near him stood,
And thus addressed him: ‘Father, I to thee
Am present; for my country, and for all
The land of Greece, I freely give myself
A victim: to the altar let them lead me,
Since such the oracle. If aught on me
Depends, be happy, and obtain the prize
Of glorious conquest, and revisit safe
Your country. Of the Grecians, for this cause,
Let no one touch me; with intrepid spirit
Silent will I present my neck.’ She spoke,
And all that heard revered the noble soul
And virtue of the virgin.”
How quickly had the fair bud bloomed up into its perfection. Had she lived a thousand years, she could not have surpassed this. Goethe's Iphigenia, the mature woman, with its myriad delicate traits, never surpasses, scarcely equals what we know of her in Euripides.
Can I appreciate this work in a translation? I think so, impossible as it may seem to one who can enjoy the thousand melodies, and words in exactly the right place and cadence of the original. They say you can see the Apollo Belvidere in a plaster cast, and I cannot doubt it, so great the benefit conferred on my mind, by a transcript thus imperfect. And so with these translations from the Greek. I can divine the original through this veil, as I can see the movements of a spirited horse by those of his coarse grasscloth muffler. Beside, every translator who feels his subject is inspired, and the divine Aura informs even his stammering lips.
Iphigenia is more like one of the women Shakspeare loved than the others; she is a tender virgin, ennobled and strengthened by sentiment more than intellect, what they call a woman par excellence.
Macaria is more like one of Massinger's women. She advances boldly, though with the decorum of her sex and nation:
Macaria. “Impute not boldness to me that I come
Before you, strangers; this my first request
I urge; for silence and a chaste reserve
Is woman's genuine praise, and to remain
Quiet within the house. But I come forth,
Hearing thy lamentations, Iolaus:
Though charged with no commission, yet perhaps,
I may be useful.”**
Her speech when she offers herself as the victim, is reasonable, as one might speak to-day. She counts the cost all through. Iphigenia is too timid and delicate to dwell upon the loss of earthly bliss, and the due experience of life, even as much as Jeptha's daughter did, but Macaria is explicit, as well befits the daughter of Hercules.
“Should these die, myself
Preserved, of prosperous future could I form
One cheerful hope?
A poor forsaken virgin who would deign
To take in marriage? Who would wish for sons
From one so wretched? Better then to die,
Than bear such undeserved miseries:
One less illustrious this might more beseem.
I have a soul that unreluctantly
Presents itself, and I proclaim aloud
That for my brothers and myself I die.
I am not fond of life, but think I gain
An honorable prize to die with glory.”
Still nobler when Iolaus proposes rather that she shall draw lots with her sisters.
“By lot I will not die, for to such death
No thanks are due, or glory—name it not.
If you accept me, if my offered life
Be grateful to you, willingly I give it
For these, but by constraint I will not die.”
Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:
“Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach
These youths in all things to be wise, like thee,
Naught will avail them more.”
Macaria has the clear Minerva eye: Antigone's is deeper, and more capable of emotion, but calm. Iphigenia's, glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.
I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his “Dream of fair women,” has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circumstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jeptha's daughter, he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when
“I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
Moreover it is written, that my race
Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh from Arroer
Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face
Glow'd as I look'd on her.
She locked her lips; she left me where I stood;
“Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the woods,
Toward the morning-star.”
In the “Trojan dames” there are fine touches of nature with regard to Cassandra. Hecuba shows that mixture of shame and reverence, that prose kindred always do, towards the inspired child, the poet, the elected sufferer for the race.
When the herald announces that she is chosen to be the mistress of Agamemnon, Hecuba answers indignant, and betraying the involuntary pride and faith she felt in this daughter.
“The virgin of Apollo, whom the God,
Radiant with golden locks, allowed to live
In her pure vow of maiden chastity?
Tal. With love the raptured virgin smote his heart.
Hec. Cast from thee, O my daughter, cast away
Thy sacred wand, rend off the honored wreaths,
The splendid ornaments that grace thy brows.”
Yet the moment Cassandra appears, singing wildly her inspired song, Hecuba calls her
“My frantic child.”
Yet how graceful she is in her tragic phrenzy, the chorus shows—
“How sweetly at thy house's ills thou smil'st,
Chanting what haply thou wilt not show true?”
But if Hecuba dares not trust her highest instinct about her daughter, still less can the vulgar mind of the herald (a man not without tenderness of heart, but with no princely, no poetic blood,) abide the wild prophetic mood which insults his prejudices both as to country and decorums of the sex. Yet Agamemnon, though not a noble man, is of large mould and could admire this strange beauty which excited distaste in common minds.
Tal. "What commands respect, and is held high
As wise, is nothing better than the mean
Of no repute: for this most potent king
Of all the Grecians, the much honored son
Of Atreus, is enamored with his prize,
This frantic raver. I am a poor man,
Yet would I not receive her to my bed."
Cassandra answers with a careless disdain,
"This is a busy slave."
With all the lofty decorum of manners among the ancients, how free was their intercourse, man to man, how full the mutual understanding between prince and "busy slave!" Not here in adversity only, but in the pomp of power, it was so. Kings were approached with ceremonious obeisance, but not hedged round with etiquette, they could see and know their fellows.
The Andromache here is just as lovely as that of the Iliad.
To her child whom they are about to murder, the same that was frightened at the "glittering plume."
"Dost thou weep,
My son? Hast thou a sense of thy ill fate?
Why dost thou clasp me with thy hands, why hold
My robes, and shelter thee beneath my wings,
Like a young bird? No more my Hector comes,
Returning from the tomb; he grasps no more
His glittering spear, bringing protection to thee."
***
**"O soft embrace,
And to thy mother dear. O fragrant breath!
In vain I swathed thy infant limbs, in vain
I gave thee nurture at this breast, and toiled,
Wasted with care. If ever, now embrace,
Now clasp thy mother; throw thine arms around
My neck and join thy cheek, thy lips to mine."
As I look up I meet the eyes of Beatrice Cenci. Beautiful one, these woes, even, were less than thine, yet thou seemest to understand them all. Thy clear melancholy gaze says, they, at least, had known moments of bliss, and the tender relations of nature had not been broken and polluted from the very first. Yes! the gradations of wo are all but infinite: only good can be infinite.
Certainly the Greeks knew more of real home intercourse, and more of woman than the Americans. It is in vain to tell me of outward observances. The poets, the sculptors always tell the truth. In proportion as a nation is refined, women must have an ascendancy, it is the law of nature.
Beatrice! thou wert not "fond of life," either, more than those princesses. Thou wert able to cut it down in the full flower of beauty, as an offering to the best known to thee. Thou wert not so happy as to die for thy country or thy brethren, but thou wert worthy of such an occasion.
In the days of chivalry woman was habitually viewed more as an ideal, but I do not know that she inspired a deeper and more home-felt reverence than Iphigenia in the breast of Achilles, or Macaria in that of her old guardian, Iolaus.
We may, with satisfaction, add to these notes the words to which Haydn has adapted his magnificent music in "The Creation."
"In native worth and honor clad, with beauty, courage, strength adorned, erect to heaven, and tall, he stands, a Man!—the lord and king of all! The large and arched front sublime of wisdom deep declares the seat, and in his eyes with brightness shines the soul, the breath and image of his God. With fondness leans upon his breast the partner for him formed, a woman fair, and graceful spouse. Her softly smiling virgin looks, of flowery spring the mirror, bespeak him love, and joy and bliss.”
Whoever has heard this music must have a mental standard as to what man and woman should be. Such was marriage in Eden, when "erect to heaven he stood," but since, like other institutions, this must be not only reformed, but revived, may be offered as a picture of something intermediate,—the seed of the future growth,—
And has another's life as large a scope?
It may give due fulfilment to thy hope,
And every portal to the unknown may ope.
If, near this other life, thy inmost feeling
Trembles with fateful prescience of revealing
The future Deity, time is still concealing.
If thou feel thy whole force drawn more and more
To launch that other bark on seas without a shore;
And no still secret must be kept in store;
If meannesses that dim each temporal deed,
The dull decay that mars the fleshly weed,
And flower of love that seems to fall and leave no seed—
Hide never the full presence from thy sight
Of mutual aims and tasks, ideals bright,
Which feed their roots to-day on all this seeming blight.
Twin stars that mutual circle in the heaven,
Two parts for spiritual concord given,
Twin Sabbaths that inlock the Sacred Seven;
Still looking to the centre for the cause,
Mutual light giving to draw out the powers,
And learning all the other groups by cognizance of one another's laws:
The parent love the wedded love includes,
The one permits the two their mutual moods,
The two each other know mid myriad multitudes;
With child-like intellect discerning love,
And mutual action energizing love,
In myriad forms affiliating love.
A world whose seasons bloom from pole to pole,
A force which knows both starting-point and goal,
A Home in Heaven,—the Union in the Soul.
Author’s Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Men do not often reciprocate this pure love.
“Her prentice han' she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses o',”Is a fancy, not a feeling, in their more frequently passionate and strong, than noble or tender natures.
