_ Orestes, Orestes--miserable brother!
He hears us not! ah, he is mad! Forever,
Pylades, we must go beside him.
_Pyl._ Hard,
Inevitable law of ruthless Fate!
IV
Alfieri himself wrote a critical comment on each of his tragedies,
discussing their qualities and the question of their failure or
success dispassionately enough. For example, he frankly says of his
Maria Stuarda that it is the worst tragedy he ever wrote, and the only
one that he could wish not to have written; of his Agamennone, that
all the good in it came from the author and all the bad from the
subject; of his Fillippo II., that it may make a very terrible
impression indeed of mingled pity and horror, or that it may disgust,
through the cold atrocity of Philip, even to the point of nausea. On
the Orestes, we may very well consult him more at length. He declares:
"This tragic action has no other motive or development, nor admits any
other passion, than an implacable revenge; but the passion of revenge
(though very strong by nature), having become greatly enfeebled among
civilized peoples, is regarded as a vile passion, and its effects are
wont to be blamed and looked upon with loathing. Nevertheless, when it
is just, when the offense received is very atrocious, when the persons
and the circumstances are such that no human law can indemnify the
aggrieved and punish the aggressor, then revenge, under the names of
war, invasion, conspiracy, the duel, and the like, ennobles itself,
and so works upon our minds as not only to be endured but to be
admirable and sublime.
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