[Footnote A: Kuno Francke. See the notes of Philip Hale in the programme
book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra of April 3-4, 1908.]
For another word on the point of symbolism, it must be remembered that
the whole plot is one of supernatural legend where somehow human acts
and motives need not conform to conventional rule, and where symbolic
meaning, as common reality disappears, is mainly eminent. It is in this
same spirit that the leading virtues of the race, of war or of peace,
are typified by feminine figures.
The Tragedy is not divided into acts; it has merely four and twenty
scenes--upon the battle-field of Troy. The characters are Penthesilea,
Queen of the Amazons; her chief leaders, Prothoe, Meroe and Asteria, and
the high priestess of Diana. Of the Greeks there are Achilles, Odysseus,
Diomede and Antilochus. Much of the fighting and other action is not
seen, but is reported either by messengers or by present witnesses of a
distant scene.
The play begins with the battle raging between Greeks and Amazons.
Penthesilea with her hosts amazes the Greeks by attacking equally the
Trojans, her reputed allies. She mows down the ranks of the Trojans, and
yet refuses all proffers of the Greeks.
Thus early we have the direct, uncompromising spirit,--a kind of
feminine Prometheus. The first picture of the heroine is of a Minerva in
full array, stony of gaze and of expression until--she sees Achilles.
Here early comes the conflict of two elemental passions.
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