THE 'AGAMEMNON* AND *TRACHINIJB* 5 



Lofty above their brood-nests wheel in ring, 

 Now round and round with oar of either wing, 

 Lament the bedded chicks, lost labour that was love 

 Which hearing, one above 

 -Whether Apollon, Pan or Zeus that wail, 

 Sharp-piercing bird-shriek of the guests who fare 

 Housemates with gods in air 

 Suchanone sends, against who these assail, 

 What, late-sent, shall not fail 

 Of punishing Erinus. 



The man who tries to read this aloud must first master the fact 

 that l match ' means ' antagonist ; ' he must also secure an 

 audience able to understand the expression 'clamouring Ares/ 

 and he will then with some difficulty make the first eight lines 

 intelligible. ( This is the tenth year since Menelaus and Aga- 

 memnon started with an army shouting a warlike cry.' Then 

 comes the simile of the vultures, which, in both Greek and 

 English, is hard to construe, the passage being possibly corrupt, 

 the English as much so as the Greek ; but the passage which 

 begins ' Which hearing, one above,' &c., and ends with ' Erinus/ 

 could not be made intelligible to any hearer, and it owes its 

 obscurity to Mr. Browning. The words of ^Eschylus may be 

 construed as follows : ' Some one above, whether Apollo, Pan, 

 or Zeus, hearing the sharp-piercing bird-shriek of those who 

 are his guests, sends against the transgressors the sure but 

 tardy Erinus.' The construction is even more straightforward 

 than this English version, because a single Greek word expresses 

 what requires several in English. The involution of this broken 

 sentence is Browning, not ^Eschylus, and is a defect, not a 

 beauty. The Greek has no double construction answering to 

 the ' which hearing that wail ; ' the Greek says plainly and 

 simply that some one sends Erinus. The long phrase, i what, 

 late-sent, shall not fail of punishing,' is an obscure way of 

 rendering a single adjective, and is as remote from the Greek 

 construction as Johnsonian magniloquence would be. ' Who 

 these assail ' represents a single noun, so that in fine the whole 

 passage sins against the simplicity of the Greek as much as 

 Potter's old version, although in quite a different way. Those 

 who know the Greek will recognise a close adherence to the 



