and the latter generates matter, or an object having form (see Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky, vol. ii., p. 320). “Pile him a palace.” Goethe called architecture “petrified music.” “The ineffable Name”: the unspeakable name of God. Jehovah is the European transcription of the sacred tetragrammaton יהוה. The later Jews substituted the word Adonai in reading the ineffable Name in their law and prayers. Mysterious names of the Deity are common in other religions than the Jewish. In the Egyptian Funeral Ritual, and in a hymn of the Soul, the Word and the Name are referred to in connection with hidden secrets. The Jewish enemies of Christ said that the miracles were wrought by the power of the ineffable Name, which had been stolen from the Sanctuary. (See Isis Unveiled, vol. ii, p. 387.) – Stanza III. Rampired: an old form of ramparted. “The Illumination of Rome’s Dome.” One of the great sights of Rome used to be the illumination of the dome of St. Peter’s on great festivals, such as that of Easter. Since the occupation of Rome by the Italian Government such spectacles, if not wholly discontinued, have been shorn of most of their splendour. – Stanza IV. “No more near nor far.” Hegel says that “Music frees us from the phenomena of time and space,” and shows that they are not essentials, but accidents of our condition here. – Stanza V. “Protoplast.” The thing first formed, as a copy to be imitated. – Stanza VII. “That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.” “A star is perfect and beautiful, and rays of light come from it.” Stanza XII. “Common chord.” A chord consisting of the fundamental tone with its third and fifth. “Blunt it into a ninth.” A ninth is (a) An interval containing an octave and a second; (b) a chord consisting of the common chord, with the eighth advanced one note. “C Major of this life.” Miss Helen Ormerod, in a paper read to the Browning Society of London, November 30th, 1888, has explained these musical terms and expressions. “C Major is what may be called the natural scale, having no sharps or flats in its signature. A Minor, with A (a third below C) for its keynote, has the same signature, but sharps are introduced for the formation of correct intervals. Pauer says that minor keys are chosen for expressing ‘intense seriousness, soft melancholy, longing, sadness, and passionate grief’; whilst major keys with sharps and flats in their signatures are said to have distinctive qualities; – perhaps Browning chose C major for the key, as the one most allied to matters of everyday life, including rest and sleep. The common chord, as it is called, the keynote with its third and fifth, contains the rudiments of all music.”
Adam, Lilith, and Eve (Jocoseria, 1883). The Talmudists, in their fanciful commentaries on the Old Testament, say that Adam had a wife before he married Eve, who was called Lilith; she was the mother of demons, and flew away from Adam, and the Lord then created Eve from one of his ribs. Lilith had been formed of clay, and was sensual and disobedient; the more spiritual Eve became his saviour from the snares of his first wife. Mr. Browning in this poem merely uses the names, and makes no reference to the Talmudic or Gnostic legends connected with them. Under the terror inspired by a thunderstorm, two women begin a confession of which they make light when the danger has passed away. The man says he saw through the joke, and the episode was over. It is a powerful and suggestive story of falsehood, fear, and a forgiveness too readily accorded by a man who makes a joke of guilt when he has lost nothing by it.
Adelaide, The Tuscan (Sordello), was the second wife of Eccelino da Romano, of the party of the Ghibellines.
Admetus (Balaustion’s Adventure). King of Pheræ, in Thessaly. Apollo tended his flocks for one year, and obtained the favour that Admetus should never die if another person could be found to lay down his life for him: his wife, Alcestis, in consequence cheerfully devoted herself to death for him.
Æschylus. The Greek tragic poet who wrote the Agamemnon translated by Mr. Browning. Æschylus was born in the year 525 before Christ, at Eleusis, a town of Attica opposite the island of Salamis. When thirty-five years old Æschylus not only fought at Marathon, but distinguished himself for his valour. He was fifty-three years old when he gained the prize at Athens, B.C. 472, for his trilogy or set of three connected plays. He wrote some seventy pieces, but only seven have come down to our times: they are Prometheus Chained, The Suppliants, The Seven Chiefs against Thebes, Agamemnon, The Choëphoræ, The Furies, and The Persians. The Agamemnon, which Mr. Browning has translated, is one of the plays of the Oresteia, the Choëphoræ and the Eumenides or Furies completing the trilogy. The poet died at Gela, in Sicily, B.C. 456. Æschylus both in order of time and power was the first of the three great tragic poets of ancient Greece. Euripides and Sophocles were the other two.
After. See Before and After.
Agamemnon of Æschylus, The. A translation published in London, 1877. The scene of the play is laid by Æschylus at Argos, before the palace of Agamemnon, Mycenæ, however, really being his seat. Agamemnon was a son of Atreus according to Homer, and was the brother of Menelaus. In a later account he is described as the son of Pleisthenes, who was the son of Atreus. He was king over Argolis, Corinth, Achaia, and many islands. He married Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, by whom he had three daughters Chrysothemis, Iphigenia and Electra, and one son Orestes. When Helen was carried off by Paris, Agamemnon was chosen to be commander-in-chief of the expedition sent against Troy by the Greeks, as he was the mightiest prince in Greece. He contributed one hundred ships manned with warriors, besides lending sixty more to the Arcadians. The fleet being detained at Aulis by a storm, it was declared that Agamemnon had offended Diana by slaying a deer sacred to her, and by boasting that he was a better hunter than the goddess; and he was compelled to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease her anger. Diana is said by some to have accepted a stag in her place. Homer describes Agamemnon as one of the bravest warriors before Troy, but having received Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, as a prize of war, he arrogantly refused to allow her father to ransom her. This brought a plague on the Grecian host, and their ruin was almost completed by his carrying off Briseis, who was the prize of Achilles – who refused in consequence to fight, remaining sulking in his tent. After the fall of Troy the beautiful princess Cassandra fell to Agamemnon as his share of the spoils. She was endowed with the gift of prophecy, and warned him not to return home. The warning, however, was disregarded, although he was assured that his wife would put him to death. During the absence of Agamemnon Clytemnestra had formed an adulterous connection with Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes and Pelopia; and when he returned, the watchman having announced his approach to his palace, Clytemnestra killed Cassandra, and her lover murdered Agamemnon and his comrades. The tragic poets, however, make Clytemnestra throw a net over her husband while he was in his bath, and kill him with the assistance of Ægisthus, in revenge for the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia. In the introduction to the translation of the Agamemnon in Morley’s Universal Library we have an excellent description of the great play. “In this tragedy the reader will find the strongest traces of the genius of Æschylus, and the most distinguishing proofs of his skill. Great in his conceptions, bold and daring in his metaphors, strong in his passion, he here touches the heart with uncommon emotions. The odes are particularly sublime, and the oracular spirit that breathes through them adds a wonderful elevation and dignity to them. Short as the part of Agamemnon is, the poet has the address to throw such an amiable dignity around him that we soon become interested in his favour, and are predisposed to lament his fate. The character of Clytemnestra is finely marked – a high-spirited, artful, close, determined, dangerous woman. But the poet has nowhere exerted such efforts of his genius as in the scene where Cassandra appears: as a prophetess, she gives every mark of the divine inspiration, from the dark and distant hint, through all the noble imagery of the prophetic enthusiasm; till, as the catastrophe advances, she more and more plainly declares it; as a suffering princess, her grief is plaintive, lively, and piercing; yet she goes to meet her death, which she clearly foretells, with a firmness worthy the daughter of Priam and the sister of Hector; nothing can be more animated or more interesting than this scene. The conduct of the poet through this play is exquisitely judicious: every scene gives us some obscure hint or ominous presage, enough to keep our attention always raised, and to prepare us for the event; even the studied caution of Clytemnestra is finely
