mind and recover the spring of hope by performing certain ceremonies and
rites. In the other case, his trouble is all inward; he feels that he is
guilty in the sight of God, and the only thing that can relieve him is
the certainty that he has been forgiven, assured him somehow or other
from within. The difference is fundamental, and important to bear in
mind, if we would form a clear conception of the Greek view of life.


Section 9. Guilt and Punishment.

It must not be supposed, however, that the popular superstition
described by Plato, however characteristic it may be of the point of
view of the Greeks, represents the highest reach of their thought on the
subject of guilt. No profounder utterances are to be found on this theme
than those of the great poets and thinkers of Greece, who, without
rejecting the common beliefs of their time, transformed them by the
insight of their genius into a new and deeper significance. Specially
striking in this connection is the poetry of the tragedian Aeschylus;
and it will be well worth our while to pause for a moment and endeavour
to realise his position.

Guilt and its punishment is the constant theme of the dramas of
Aeschylus; and he has exhausted the resources of his genius in the
attempt to depict the horror of the avenging powers, who under the name
of the Erinyes, or Furies, persecute and torment the criminal. Their
breath is foul with the blood on which they feed; from their rheumy eyes
a horrible humour drops; daughters of night and clad in black they fly
without wings; god and man and the very beasts shun them; their place is
with punishment and torture, mutilation, stoning and breaking of necks.
And into their mouth the poet has put words which seem to breathe the