"The cease of Majesty
Dies not alone; but like a gulf, doth, draw
What's near it with it; it is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with, a general groan."[1]
And the death of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus is a tremendous act of vengeance. A similar act forms the plot of one of Shakespeare's greatest plays; for Orestes is a Greek Hamlet, as Clytemnestra is the Greek Lady Macbeth. And in the last of the three plays the actions are important indeed. The solemn foundation of the Areopagus to be for ever a high court in Athens, the establishment of the Eumenides as guardians of the city, and the conducting of them with solemn pomp to their temple, were events, at least to an Athenian, of overpowering interest. But this is only the outside. The real plot consists in the course of divine providence, the working out of moral laws; and the unity of the whole Trilogy is best seen when we trace this plot throughout it. The veil is drawn aside which hides the dark forms of Erinnys and Atè from men's eyes as they scowl upon the sinner and dog his steps; as they stir up the powers that punish, or in their anger rear the fell brood of arrogance and impiety in their victim's home. And we are admitted, too, to see the conflict
- ↑ "Hamlet," Act iii. sc. 3.
