As she stood thus, deep in meditation, the captives were led in. She sent the attendants into the temple to make ready for them, and when the three were alone together she spoke to the young men. Where was their home, she asked, the home which they would never see again? She could not keep her tears back and they wondered to see her so compassionate. Orestes told her gently not to grieve for them. When they came to the land they had faced what might befall them. But she continued questioning. Were they brothers? Yes, in love, Orestes replied, but not by birth. What were their names? “Why ask that of a man about to die?” Orestes said.
“Will you not even tell me what your city is?” she asked.
“I come from Mycenae,” Orestes answered, “That city once so prosperous.”
“The King of it was certainly prosperous,” Iphigenia said. “His name was Agamemnon.”
“I do not know about him,” Orestes said abruptly. “Let us end this talk.”
“No—no. Tell me of him,” she begged.
“Dead,” said Orestes. “His own wife killed him. Ask me no more.”
“One thing more,” she cried. “Is she—the wife—alive?”
“No,” Orestes told her. “Her son killed her.”
The three looked at each other in silence.
“It was just,” Iphigenia whispered shuddering; “just—yet evil, horrible.” She tried to collect herself. Then she asked, “Do they ever speak of the daughter who was sacrificed?”
“Only as one speaks of the dead,” Orestes said. Iphigenia’s face changed. She looked eager, alert.
“I have thought of a plan to help both you and me,” she said. “Would you be willing to carry a letter to my friends in Mycenae if I can save you?”
“No, not I,” Orestes said. “But my friend will. He came here only for my sake. Give him your letter and kill me.”
“So be it,” Iphigenia answered. “Wait while I fetch the letter.” She hurried away and Pylades turned to Orestes.
“I will not leave you here to die alone,” he told him. “All will call me a coward if I do so. No. I love you—and I fear what men may say.”
“I gave my sister to you to protect,” Orestes said. “Electra is your wife. You cannot abandon her. As for me—it is no misfortune for me to die.” As they spoke to each other in hurried whispers, Iphigenia entered with a letter in her hand. “I will persuade the King. He will let my messenger go, I am sure. But first—” she turned to Pylades—“I will tell you what is in the letter so that even if through some mischance you lose your belongings, you will carry my message in your memory and bear it to my friends.”
“A good plan,” Pylades said. “To whom am I to bear it?”
“To Orestes,” Iphigenia said. “Agamemnon’s son.”
She was looking away, her thoughts were in Mycenae. She did not see the startled gaze the two men fixed on her.
“You must say to him,” she went on, “that she who was sacrificed at Aulis sends this message. She is not dead—”
“Can the dead return to life?” Orestes cried.
“Be still,” Iphigenia said with anger. “The time is short. Say to him, ‘Brother, bring me back home. Free me from this murderous priesthood, this barbarous land.’ Mark well, young man, the name is Orestes.”
“Oh God, God,” Orestes groaned. “It is not credible.”
“I am speaking to you, not to him,” Iphigenia said to Pylades. “You will remember the name?”
“Yes,” Pylades answered, “but it will not take me long to deliver your message. Orestes, here is a letter. I bring it from your sister.”
“And I accept it,” Orestes said, “with a happiness words cannot utter.”
The next moment he held Iphigenia in his arms. But she freed herself.
“I do not know,” she cried. “How can I know? What proof is there?”
“Do you remember the last bit of embroidery you did before you went to Aulis?” Orestes asked. “I will describe it to you. Do you remember your chamber in the palace? I will tell you what was there.”
He convinced her and she threw herself into his arms. She sobbed out, “Dearest! You are my dearest, my darling, my dear one. A baby, a little baby, when I left you. More than marvelous is this thing that has come to me.”
“Poor girl,” Orestes said, “mated to sorrow, as I have been. And you might have killed your own brother.”
“Oh, horrible,” Iphigenia cried. “But I have brought myself to do horrible things. These hands might have slain you. And even now—how can I save you? What god, what man, will help us?” Pylades had been waiting in silence, sympathetic, but impatient. He thought the hour for action had emphatically arrived. “We can talk,” he reminded the brother and sister, “when once we are out of this dreadful place.”
“Suppose we kill the King,” Orestes proposed eagerly, but Iphigenia rejected the idea with indignation. King Thoas had been kind to her. She would not harm him. At that moment a plan flashed into her mind, perfect, down to the last detail. Hurriedly she explained it and the young men agreed at once. All three then entered the temple.
After a few moments Iphigenia came out bearing an image in her arms. A man was just stepping across the threshold of the temple enclosure. Iphigenia cried out, “O King, halt. Stay where you are.” In astonishment he asked her what was happening. She told him that the two men he had sent her for the goddess were not pure. They were tainted, vile; they had killed their mother, and Artemis was angry.
“I am taking the image to the seashore to purify it,” she said. “And there too I will cleanse the men from their pollution. Only after that can the sacrifice be made. All that I do must be done in solitude. Let the captives be brought forth and proclaim to the city that no one may draw near to me.”
“Do as you wish,” Thoas answered, “and take all the time you need.” He watched the procession move off, Iphigenia leading with the image, Orestes and Pylades following, and attendants carrying vessels for the purifying rite. Iphigenia was praying aloud: “Maiden and Queen, daughter of Zeus and Leto, you shall dwell where purity is, and we shall be happy.” They passed out of sight on their way to the inlet where Orestes’ ship lay. It seemed as if Iphigenia’s plan could not fail.
And yet it did. She was able indeed to make the attendants leave her alone with her brother and Pylades before they reached the sea. They stood in awe of her and they did just what she bade them. Then the three made all haste and boarded the ship and the crew pushed it off. But at the mouth of the harbor where it opened out to the sea a heavy wind blowing landward struck them and they could make no headway against it. They were driven back in spite of all they could do. The vessel seemed rushing on the rocks. The men of the country by now were aroused to what was being done. Some watched to seize the ship when it was stranded; others ran with the news to King Thoas. Furious with anger, he was hurrying from the temple to capture and put to death the impious strangers and the treacherous priestess, when suddenly above him in the air a radiant form appeared—manifestly a goddess. The King started back and awe checked his steps.
“Stop, O King,” the Presence said. “I am Athena. This is my word to you. Let the ship go. Even now Poseidon is calming the winds and waves to give it safe passage. Iphigenia and the others are acting under divine guidance. Dismiss your anger.”
Thoas answered submissively, “Whatever is your pleasure, Goddess, shall be done.” And the watchers on the shore saw the wind shift, the waves subside, and the Greek ship leave the harbor, flying under full sail to the sea beyond.
CHAPTER II
The Royal House of Thebes
The story of the Theban family rivals that of the House of Atreus in fame and for the same reason. Just as the greatest plays of Aeschylus, in the fifth century, are about Atreus’ descendants, so the greatest plays of his contemporary Sophocles are about Oedipus and his children.
CADMUS AND HIS CHILDREN
The tale of Cadmus and his daughters is only a prologue to the greater stor
y. It was popular in classical days, and several writers told it in whole or part. I have preferred the account of Apollodorus, who wrote in the first or second century A.D. He tells it simply and clearly.
WHEN Europa was carried away by the bull, her father sent her brothers to search for her, bidding them not to return until they had found her. One of them, Cadmus, instead of looking vaguely here and there, went very sensibly to Delphi to ask Apollo where she was. The god told him not to trouble further about her or his father’s determination not to receive him without her, but to found a city of his own. He would come upon a heifer when he left Delphi, Apollo said; he was to follow her and build his city at the spot where she lay down to rest. In this way Thebes was founded and the country round about got the name of the heifer’s land, Boeotia. First, however, Cadmus had to fight and kill a terrible dragon which guarded a spring near by and slew all his companions when they went to get water. Alone he could never have built the city, but when the dragon was dead Athena appeared to him and told him to sow the earth with the dragon’s teeth. He obeyed with no idea what was to happen, and to his terror saw armed men spring up from the furrows. However, they paid no attention to him, but turned upon each other until all were killed except five whom Cadmus induced to become his helpers.
With the aid of the five Cadmus made Thebes a glorious city and ruled over it in great prosperity and with great wisdom. Herodotus says that he introduced the alphabet into Greece. His wife was Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. The gods graced their marriage with their presence and Aphrodite gave Harmonia a wondrous necklace which had been made by Hephaestus, the workman of Olympus, but which for all its divine origin was to bring disaster in a later generation.
They had four daughters and one son, and they learned through their children that the wind of the gods’ favor never blows steadily for long. All of their daughters were visited by great misfortunes. One of them was Semele, mother of Dionysus, who perished before the unveiled glory of Zeus. Ino was another. She was the wicked stepmother of Phrixus, the boy who was saved from death by the ram of the Golden Fleece. Her husband was struck with madness and killed their son, Melicertes. With his dead body in her arms she leaped into the sea. The gods saved them both, however. She became a sea-goddess, the one who saved Odysseus from drowning when his raft was shattered, and her son became a sea-god. In the Odyssey she is still called Ino, but later her name was changed to Leucothea and her son was called Palaemon. Like her sister Semele she was fortunate in the end. The two others were not. Both suffered through their sons. Agave was the most wretched of all mothers, driven mad by Dionysus so that she believed her son Pentheus was a lion and killed him with her own hands. Autonoe’s son was Actaeon, a great hunter. Autonoe was less wretched than Agave, in that she did not herself kill her son, but she had to endure his dying a terrible death in the strength of his young manhood, a death, too, completely undeserved; he had done no wrong.
He was out hunting and hot and thirsty entered a grotto where a little stream widened into a pool. He wanted only to cool himself in the crystal water. But all unknowing he had chanced upon the favorite bathing place of Artemis—and at the very moment when the goddess had let fall her garments and stood in her naked beauty on the water’s edge. The offended divinity gave not a thought to whether the youth had purposely insulted her or had come there in all innocence. She flung into his face drops from her wet hand and as they fell upon him he was changed into a stag. Not only outwardly. His heart became a deer’s heart and he who had never known fear before was afraid and fled. His dogs saw him running and chased him. Even his agony of terror could not make him swift enough to outstrip the keen-scented pack. They fell upon him, his own faithful hounds, and killed him.
Thus great sorrows for their children and grandchildren came upon Cadmus and Harmonia in old age after great prosperity. After Pentheus died they fled from Thebes as if trying to flee also from misfortune. But misfortune followed them. When they reached far-distant Illyria the gods changed them into serpents, not as a punishment, for they had done no wrong. Their fate indeed was a proof that suffering was not a punishment for wrongdoing; the innocent suffered as often as the guilty.
Of all that unfortunate race no one was more innocent of wrongdoing than Oedipus, a great-great-grandson of Cadmus, and no one suffered so greatly.
OEDIPUS
I have taken this story entirely from Sophocles’ play of that name except for the riddle of the Sphinx which Sophocles merely alludes to. It is given by many writers, always in substantially the same form.
King Laius of Thebes was the third in descent from Cadmus. He married a distant cousin, Jocasta. With their reign Apollo’s oracle at Delphi began to play a leading part in the family’s fortunes.
Apollo was the God of Truth. Whatever the priestess at Delphi said would happen infallibly came to pass. To attempt to act in such a way that the prophecy would be made void was as futile as to set oneself against the decrees of fate. Nevertheless, when the oracle warned Laius that he would die at the hands of his son he determined that this should not be. When the child was born he bound its feet together and had it exposed on a lonely mountain where it must soon die. He felt no more fear; he was sure that on this point he could foretell the future better than the god. His folly was not brought home to him. He was killed, indeed, but he thought the man who attacked him was a stranger. He never knew that in his death he had proved Apollo’s truth.
When he died he was away from home and many years had passed since the baby had been left on the mountain. It was reported that a band of robbers had slain him together with his attendants, all except one, who brought the news home. The matter was not carefully investigated because Thebes was in sore straits at the time. The country around was beset by a frightful monster, the Sphinx, a creature shaped like a winged lion, but with the breast and face of a woman. She lay in wait for the wayfarers along the roads to the city and whomever she seized she put a riddle to, telling him if he could answer it, she would let him go. No one could, and the horrible creature devoured man after man until the city was in a state of siege. The seven great gates which were the Thebans’ pride remained closed, and famine drew near to the citizens.
So matters stood when there came into the stricken country a stranger, a man of great courage and great intelligence, whose name was Oedipus. He had left his home, Corinth, where he was held to be the son of the King, Polybus, and the reason for his self-exile was another Delphic oracle. Apollo had declared that he was fated to kill his father. He, too, like Laius, thought to make it impossible for the oracle to come true; he resolved never to see Polybus again. In his lonely wanderings he came into the country around Thebes and he heard what was happening there. He was a homeless, friendless man to whom life meant little and he determined to seek the Sphinx out and try to solve the riddle. “What creature,” the Sphinx asked him, “goes on four feet in the morning, on two at noonday, on three in the evening?” “Man,” answered Oedipus. “In childhood he creeps on hands and feet; in manhood he walks erect; in old age he helps himself with a staff.” It was the right answer. The Sphinx, inexplicably, but most fortunately, killed herself; the Thebans were saved. Oedipus gained all and more than he had left. The grateful citizens made him their King and he married the dead King’s wife, Jocasta. For many years they lived happily. It seemed that in this case Apollo’s words had been proved to be false.
But when their two sons had grown to manhood Thebes was visited by a terrible plague. A blight fell upon everything. Not only were men dying throughout the country, the flocks and herds and the fruits of the field were blasted as well. Those who were spared death by disease faced death by famine. No one suffered more than Oedipus. He regarded himself as the father of the whole state; the people in it were his children; the misery of each one was his too. He dispatched Jocasta’s brother Creon to Delphi to implore the god’s help.
Creon returned with good news. Apollo had declared that the plague would be stay
ed upon one condition: whoever had murdered King Laius must be punished. Oedipus was enormously relieved. Surely the men or the man could be found even after all these years, and they would know well how to punish him. He proclaimed to the people gathered to hear the message Creon brought back:—
… Let no one of this land
Give shelter to him. Bar him from your homes,
As one defiled, companioned by pollution.
And solemnly I pray, may he who killed
Wear out his life in evil, being evil.
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Oedipus took the matter in hand with energy. He sent for Teiresias, the old blind prophet, the most revered of Thebans. Had he any means of finding out, he asked him, who the guilty were? To his amazement and indignation the seer at first refused to answer. “For the love of God,” Oedipus implored him. “If you have knowledge—” “Fools,” Teiresias said. “Fools all of you. I will not answer.” But when Oedipus went so far as to accuse him of keeping silence because he had himself taken part in the murder, the prophet in his turn was angered and words he had meant never to speak fell heavily from his lips: “You are yourself the murderer you seek.” To Oedipus the old man’s mind was wandering; what he said was sheer madness. He ordered him out of his sight and never again to appear before him.
Jocasta too treated the assertion with scorn. “Neither prophets nor oracles have any knowledge,” she said. She told her husband how the priestess at Delphi had prophesied that Laius should die at the hand of his son and how he and she together had seen to it that this should not happen by having the child killed. “And Laius was murdered by robbers, where three roads meet on the way to Delphi,” she concluded triumphantly. Oedipus gave her a strange look. “When did this happen?” he asked slowly. “Just before you came to Thebes,” she said.