kind relieves us for a moment from those oppressions of alarm, and prepares us, at the same time, for encountering still more violent emotions. It is where Clytemnestra is represented as addressing the captive princess in an easy and kindly manner, in which she is supported by the friendly exhortations of the Chorus ; and although the obstinate silence of Cassandra makes her go out in bad humour-yet there is a quiet and homely character in this whole passage, which certainly affords a fine contrast to the preceding and following scenes of the tragedy. The silence of Cassandra to the address of the queen, is one of those instances formerly alluded to, of the effect which Eschylus has been remarked by Mr Cumberland, and some other critics, as producing, by the happy use of this instrument. The scene opens in the following manner: Cl. This way Cassandra; nay, object not thou To enter, where great Jove has cast thy lot, This house, where harshness is unknown, and join The other female slaves, thy comrades, getting Thy portion of the household work and diet. Alight thee from the litter, be not haughty! Believe me, 'tis no slight alleviation ever Acquires wealth suddenly, forgets himself; Ch. These words are plain, give heed to them; the net Of fate is o'er thee; nothing but obedience Will stand thee in stead; yet something in thee seems Averse and obstinate! Is it so ? Cl. Perhaps, leave Impression;—that is, if she understands 1s crowded with our victims, sheep to be offered Before its fires; and meet, since unex- This day's great boon. If thou wilt come, Ch. Such as they are, her motions much Interpreter-like new caught beast she struggles. Cl. Nay she is mad, I think; the spec- Of ravage in her city, and the thought She must foam off her rage and bloody Clytemnestra then returns into the house, and the Chorus proceed with their entreaties to the captive, who now breaks her silence, and unveils the black mystery of the queen's contrivances. For the full understanding of the allusions in this powerful scene, it may be proper to remind our readers of one of the great stains of the house of Atreus, the circumstance of the murder of the children of Thyestes, by Atreus himself, the brother of Thyestes, and father of Agamemnon. This incident, with all its horrible concomitants, enters into the visions of the prophetess, and the bloody catastrophe to which we are fast advancing, is indeed meant to be represented as in some sort a retribution for that ancient crime, no less than for the later atrocity of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Ch. I pity her, and know no touch of And yield to what necessity imposes, Ca. Why invoke Ch. Ca. Ch. Out, out, alas! Cries ill-omened! That god will never listen to complaints. Ch. Her own woes phecies! Ca Ah! what new thing hard to bear Does this horrid house prepare Not to be remedied ;-no friend is near. Ch. I know thy first allusions; they are public, And known to all ;-these last are in the dark! Ca. Canst thou do it, bloody wretch? Whom dost thou fetch, All smooth smiles, to the bath-thy husband! O! She goes, she goes; she is not slow; Ch. These are wild words; riddles not to be read! Ca. O horrible, what vision now appears? Is it the net of hell? A net she bears, A murderous net,-that wicked woman! Call Down curses on her treacherous head; on all Her race worthy to fall! Tho' little skilled in what soothsaying teaches ! Ah! when was good to man in its dark speeches Conveyed? However by the cloud of years Hallowed, evil alone, no good in them appears! Ca. Woe, woe,-my own black doom is now advancing, Before my mind's eye glancing! Was it to die with thee thou broughtst me here? For nothing else I fear! Ch. O thou perturbed spirit, borne along By divine impulse in prophetic song, Now thine own misery singing,Like nightingale, redoubling her complaint Each night, and all night long, With voice that will not faint, The ceaseless changes of her sorrows ringing. Ca. Ah! wherefore liken me to her, Sweet songstress of the wood? The air gives passage to her feathered wings, And soothing to herself the notes she sings: Ch. Whence is thy soul beset with these Seemingly vain, yet uttered as decisions A sudden shrieking on these forbidden Of prophecy? was it thine own seeking? Ca. Sad was the hour when Paris brought his bride! Native Scamander, where thy waters glide, In that dark hour fell the prophetic beam Upon my soul; soon by another stream Destined to glow,-yea, where thy waters moan Cocytus, and along the banks of Acheron ! Ch. The meaning of these words even a child Ch. Of what domestic Fury dost thou Might well interpret; but my soul is wild tell? With horror, when thy strains of murderous sound, Thy words are hard to spell! But such their import, that my blood runs Foreboding blood, inflict their cutting cold To my heart, as though I fell Struck by a spear, upon the battle mold, Ca. Ah! see, see-guard the lordly bull Ch. I hear, and that some evil they I can see well, wound, Ah me! what wrathful god upon thee weighing, Throws from thy stormy soul each deadly saying? Words musical, but horrible to hear, No longer shy like a new married bride; And toss their foam in light; each as it breaks, More terrible than that which went before. It presses on me ;-the prophetic toil Writhing and whirling ine! Horrible prelude! See ye these children perched above the gate ? Shadowy like shapes seen in a dream, all dead, Murdered by the hands that dandled them; their hands, O hideous spectacle! are filled with picces Of their own flesh-entrails and bowels! foh! The very bits which their own father ate of! O yes! their vengeance sits upon this house; And they have stirred that coward lion up Who goes not to the field, hides in his den, Rolls him in an adulterous bed,-have stirred him To plot the death of my returning master, (The fates of war have given to me a master,) And he the leader of a thousand ships,Who saw proud Troy in ashes; led along By the smooth-filed tongue, and open brows Of a most hateful whore, (0 words there are not Shocking enough to mark her) does not see The narrowing of the snare drawing him in! O cannot fancy that a female mind gon, A Scylla lurking in her caves to suck Do ye remember it? that look of triumph, That smothered shout, as she had won the battle! O these were only marks of joy, forsooth, For his return in safety! Were they so? And so ye may believe, and so my words May fall unheeded! Be it so; what comes Will nevertheless come; ah! shortly too; And when it is too late, your tears and cries Will name me but too true a prophetess. Ch. I understood thy picture (and 'twas horrible) Of the banquet of Thyestes, and the flesh Of his children fed upon; here no deception. Therefore my shuddering had a cause! the rest Left me, I own, behind-missing my way. Ca. I say then, in plain words, thou soon wilt see The murder of Agamemnon! Ch. Wretched woman! What hast thou said? O luil to rest again These sounds. Ca. No, they cannot be quietedThey have gone forth, and must have way! Ch. I grant you If they are true, I pray they may be otherwise! Ca. Thou prayest-others are at workthey slay! Ch. What man can dare attempt so bold a crime ! Ca. Poh! how my oracle has missed it mark,How little understood! Ch. Who was to do it. Thou didst not mention Death is his boon. O not in my city Upon a kitchen board, while I am mangled Will yet be mine ;-he comes, the great avenger, The glorious matricide:-tho' wandering now Ca. Such as it is, I enter in Think me not like a bird that flutters round When comes the day of vengeance, as that day Will come, when for a woman's blood, a woman's Blood must be shed, and for a man's a man's ; An exile from his land, soon as he hears spirit! Is this a time for tears? Have I not seen Now to be prostrated; and shall I flinch There is an oath in heaven among the gods Ye palace gates, to me the gates of hell,- May find these dark eyes difficult to close! Many have been thy words; yet, if in truth heifer With unresisting patience, to the altar Ch. Yet time gained is a gain! The day is come! traitor's, Bear witness to me then, that I died bravely, I utter ! Would my pity O sun, whose beams I see for the last time, Face to face, to my foes, who in their folly Over them, and their record is erazed Destined for me, as others, hath its pain! This noble scene requires no comment. One singular beauty, however, may be remarked in it, which, though it could scarcely be imitated in other circumstances, does much honour to the genius and skill of Eschylus. The representation of a murder on the stage is commonly avoided in the Greek theatre, and, it must be owned, that, in most cases, a stage murder is both an ugly and absurd spectacle. It is often shocking, but oftener perhaps ridiculous. The long narratives, on the other hand, which are given in place of the real exhibition, although frequently fine pieces of description, have yet but little of a dramatic character. What then can be more admirably conceived, than the lively repreCa. There is a smell as if the house sentation of a murder not yet execut Yet fearlessly to die Thou wilt not so Ca. I come, my father, Ah! Ch. What is it now, what sudden terror seized thee? were steaming With one wide slaughter! Ch. ed, and, therefore, much more inter From the victims, doubtless, esting, as there may seem a possibility Before the central hearth! of its being prevented,-given too not in the coldness of a narrative, but in the wild starts of prophetic inspiration? (To be concluded in our next.) ON THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. We are indebted for the following communication to a fair correspondent, who seems to have imbibed the spirit of oriental literature which she has so successfully cultivated.] THE mystical language of flowers had its rise in those sunny regions where the rose springs spontaneously from its native soil, and the jasmine and the tuberose in wild profusion, scent alike the garden and the wilderness. The influence of the "land of the sun" has been felt by the pilgrims from our colder climes, and they have presented to us a pleasing fable in the language of flowers, as they have described and interpreted it, which our imaginations have received with such delight, that we can hardly bring ourselves to tell the plain unvarnished truth concerning it. We have dwelt on, till we have become enamoured of, the delicate mode of expressing the rise and progress of love by the gift of the tender rosebud, or the full-blown flower. We have pitied the despair indicated by a present of myrtle, interwoven with cypress and poppies, and we believe that these emblems will never cease to convey some similar sentiments, wherever poetry is cultivated or delicacy understood. But we fear that the Turkish language of flowers, which Lady M. W. Montagu first made popular in this country, has little claim to so refined an origin as either poetry or the delicacy of passion. We had been taught to believe that it served as a means of communication between the prisoners of the harem and their friends or lovers without; but how could it be thus used when the emblematical nosegay must convey as much intelligence to the guardians and fellow prisoners of one of the parties, as to the party herself? The truth appears to be, as M. Hummer, in his sensible essay on the subject assures us, that the language of flowers and other inanimate objects has arisen in the idleness of the harem, from that desire of amusement and variety which the ladies shut up there, without employment and without culture, must feel. It answers the purpose of enigmas, the solution of which amuses the vaeant hours of the Turkish ladies, and is founded on a sort of crambo or bout rimé, of which M. Hummer has given not less than an lundred specimens. From these we shall copy a few, after having explained the principle of the association on which this language is founded. There is neither herb, tree, fruit, nor flower, colour, gem, nor plume, which may not convey a meaning unintelligible to such as are not initiated into its mystery, but that meaning is very arbitrary, for it depends on the sound of such words as will rhyme with the object named. Thus, In the Turkish, Armoude.—Wer bana bir Omoude. In the English, Pear.-Make me not despair. Jonquil.-To cure me you only have skill. Hair.-Carry me off if you dare. A piece of stone.-Two heads on the couch of one. old friend A piece of clay.-Turn your Tea, You are both sun and moon to me, The op'ning rose-bud shews how pure, The difficulty, however, of finding rhymes for such words as orange, cotton, hyacinth, cinnamon, as we are by no means gifted with the talent of the very ingenious authors of the Rejected Addresses, deters us |