AESCHY LUS. THOU rock-bound and undying sacrifice,- Ye furies, thro' the fearful darkness seen Glaring with horrid eye and spectral mien,— Appear, appear-for him, whose magic spell From the dim void of intellectual night Gave ye dread being, terribly to tell The shuddering world a masterspirit's might: Yet thus alone not worthily nor well Nor equal to a patriot-poet's praise In black procession stalks gigantic crime; To thee, great bard, their holier worship raise Deep thoughts, high hopes, and symphonies sublime. F The chief remaining tragedies of Eschylus are lightly touched in the foregoing sonnet. That of them, which to us has the most enduring interest, is the Prometheus Desmotes, from the circumstance that there is in the structure of the story a vague similitude to the scheme of salvation. Indeed, the notion of a god-descended man suffering the penalties of justice for man, and filling him with benefits is so explicit, that some ludicrously stolid infidels have gone to the extremity of supposing that Christianity owed its doctrines to Eschylus! However, it is credible enough that a traditionary exposition of the bruising of the serpent's head may have reached the borders of Greece: indeed we see the same just ideas in the mythologies both of Egypt and India. The choruses of Eschylus, though often corrupt and much mistaken, are by many acknowledged to be the headstone of the pyramid of sublime poetry; but we ought always to bear in mind the great disadvantages under which, in our day, we review the fame of ancient dramatists: in the present case, for example, out of ninety tragedies, forty of which received public prizes, only seven have survived to us; and even with these the ignorance of scribes, and otherwise the gnawing tooth of time have made great havoc in fact, we are scarcely fair judges of a genius so remote, and, since it blazed of old, so shorn of its coruscations; of those eighty-three lost dramas, lost for ever to the poet's fame, and the world's delight, we can but loosely guess the aggregate power, learning, elegance, and intellect; we can but faintly imagine their popular influence, and intrinsic grandeur; we can, to be fair upon Æschylus, only ask ourselves, where would be a Shakspeare, a Moliere, a Tasso, or a Schiller, with eleven twelfths of their fame-commanding labours utterly destroyed, as the "baseless fabric of a vision ?”— and the same considerations are applicable to Sophocles, Euripides, and others their brethren: truly, there were giants in those days. The following literal extract from the Prometheus Bound, 88-108, illustrates the remarks ventured above relative to a vicarious sacrifice for man. Thou glorious heaven, and ye swift-winged breezes, I must wrestle! such a prison Woe, woe! agonies present and oncoming Yet can I neither leave untold, nor tell Aright my wrongs; for upon Man bestowing The next translation offered is a chorus from the 66 Persians," word for word, and in the same metres as the Greek; it is an invocation of the ghost of Darius, and addressed in the first instance to Atossa. O royal lady, grace of the Persians, Down to earth's inner-halls send thy drink-offerings, Propitious to be from beneath. Ye then, inviolate demons of burial, Does then my liege, blesséd in death e'en as a god, listen to me, Uttering distinctly Dirges of varied sorrowful note All wretched wailings I will shriek aloud. Doth from the dead he hear me? Now do thou, Earth, and ye the dark lords of the dead, rulers of hell Suffer the great spirit Your dread palace to leave awhile; Susa's child and all Asia's god, Send him up unto us, Him, such as never Persian soil hath covered yet: Dear is the mound to us, dear is the hero; King of Hades, send him up again—release him, Send up Darius, mighty king Darius! Did he send by toils of battle: Wise as a god was he nam'd by the Persians, He was, for he guided his armament well. Of the king's tiara: Inviolate, father, Darius, come! That thou may'st hear the new, the last evils, |