Two important details should be noted in connexion with this theory.

First the apparition[564] of Iris and Frenzy seems to overthrow it

utterly by a demonstration in presence of the audience that Heracles’

afflictions are caused by Hera. But the past scene, before ever Frenzy

arrives, has shown the hero, if not mad, yet not in full possession of

his senses.[565] Moreover, she is not seen by him at the moment when he

goes mad, yet, if the chorus see her, _a fortiori_ she should be visible

when attacking her victim himself; again the scene in which the fiend

herself shows kind-hearted scruples, is ludicrous. These personages

(Verrall suggests) are a dream beheld by a member of the chorus who has

been impressed by what he has already seen of Heracles’ malady. This is

proved by an absence of allusion to the event afterwards when the fatal

incident is discussed, and when silence is incredible. The aged man (or

men) will gradually remember the dream afterwards; this is another way in

which stories like that of Hera’s vengeance obtain currency.

The second point arises from the conversation between Theseus and his

friend when clearly sane. Does he confirm the story of the visit to

Hades? Now, Heracles and he several times refer to his rescue “from

below,” but never do they use language which necessarily refers to

Hades. “Thou didst bring me back safe to the light from the dead (or

corpses)”[566]—such is the style of allusion. Undoubtedly the language

can be applied to Hades; undoubtedly also it could fit some natural

event like a disaster in a cave or mine which may actually have been

suggested[567] by rationalists of the day as an explanation of the myth—a

suggestion which the poet is inclined to adopt and for which therefore

he leaves room in his phraseology.

Theseus, amiable as he is, yet presents little of interest; it is his

function to voice the opinions of the normal unimaginative man. Megara,

however, of whom little has been said, deserves sympathetic study. She

does not share Amphitryon’s extraordinary beliefs about his son,[568] but

loves and admires him with an affection beautifully expressed throughout

the too brief portion of the drama in which she appears; it is she who

long before the other realizes his mental state.[569] In her, too,

poetical imagination shines forth with a radiance which surpasses the

charm of the lyrics and Heracles’ impetuous eloquence. It is she who

utters the Sophoclean description[570] of sovereignty:—

ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέρι

πηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα,

and that expression[571] of her yearning grief which in its strange

felicity of pathos suggests Shakespeare’s Constance:—

πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτερος

μέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους,

εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ;

The SUPPLICES[572] (Ἱκετίδες), or _Suppliant Women_, is generally

supposed on internal evidence[573] to have been produced about 420 B.C.

The Suppliants, who form the chorus, are the mothers of the Seven who

attacked Thebes and their attendants. They surround Æthra, mother of

Theseus, the Athenian king, and beg her to win his aid for them, since

the Thebans have refused burial to the slain. Theseus at first refuses,

but Æthra persuades him. A Theban herald enters to forbid Theseus, in

the name of the Theban king Creon, to aid the Suppliants. Theseus

rejects this behest and prepares for war. After an ode, news comes of

the Athenian victory. The remains of five heroes are brought in (of the

other two, Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth and Polynices is

supposed still at Thebes). Adrastus delivers funeral speeches over them.

The obsequies now take place. The body of Capaneus is burned separately,

and Evadne his wife throws herself upon his pyre despite the entreaties

of her father Iphis. The young sons of the chieftains bear in the funeral

urns, and Adrastus promises that Argos will cherish undying gratitude

towards Athens. The goddess Athena appears and bids Theseus exact an

oath to this effect; she comforts the fatherless boys with a promise of

vengeance.

This drama is perhaps the least popular and the least studied of all

Greek plays, which is not surprising when one considers that, in spite

of the praise merited by certain parts, the whole work considered

by really dramatic standards is astonishingly bad. There is no

character-drawing worth the name, and though it may be said that the

real heroine of the drama is Athens,[574] it is still strange to find

Euripides contented with such colourless persons as Theseus, Æthra, and

indeed all the characters. Still more striking are the irrelevancies.

Theseus’ address[575] to Adrastus and the assembly at large concerning

the blessings conferred by Heaven upon man, have hardly a semblance

of connexion with the urgent and painful subject of debate. Even more

otiose, and far longer, is the dispute[576] between Theseus and the

herald on the claims of monarchy and democracy. The scene of Evadne’s

_suttee_, however striking, is dramatically unjustifiable; it is an

episode in the bad sense meant by Aristotle—no integral part of the

action. The last scene is spoiled by the intervention of Athena, who

merely causes the Argives to give an oath instead of a simple promise

that they will ever be loyal friends of Athens. That this intervention

corresponds to very definite historical fact (the league between the two

states in 420 B.C. brought about by Alcibiades) makes no difference to

the æsthetic fact. None the less one notes in the _Supplices_ certain

excellent features. The appeal[577] of Æthra to her son, and the lyric

dirge of Evadne over her husband’s pyre, are admirably composed. Several

parts of the work are magnificent as spectacle—the opening in which

the sorrowing mothers, Adrastus, and the fatherless boys are grouped

about the aged queen, the return of Theseus and his troops with the

dead bodies, the episode of Evadne as it struck the eye,[578] and the

procession of boys carrying the funeral urns.

The ION[579] (Ἴων) is a play of uncertain date, but was probably produced

late in Euripides’ life; some would place it as low as 413 B.C.

The scene is laid before the temple at Delphi. Hermes tells how the

Athenian princess Creusa, owing to the violence of Apollo, bore a

child, which Hermes brought to Delphi, where the boy grew up as a

temple-attendant. Later Creusa married Xuthus, and to-day they will

come to ask the oracle some remedy for their childlessness. Apollo will

give Ion to Xuthus as the latter’s son; later he is to be made known to

Creusa as her own. Ion enters, and in a beautiful song expresses his joy

in the service of Apollo. The chorus (attendants of Creusa) draw near;

they converse with Ion and admire the temple façade. Creusa arrives; she

and Ion are mutually attracted, and she tells how “a friend,” having

borne a child to Apollo and exposed it, wishes to know whether it still

lives. Ion rejects the story, and urges her not to put such a question

to the oracle. Xuthus now appears, and goes within to consult the god;

Creusa retires, while Ion muses on the immorality of gods. After a choric

ode Xuthus returns and greets Ion as his son: the oracle has declared

that the first man to meet him will be his offspring. Ion asks who is

his mother; they agree that she must be some Delphian Bacchante. The

youth is dismayed at the prospect of quitting Delphi for Athens, but

Xuthus genially bids him prepare a farewell banquet for his friends, and

departs to offer sacrifice upon Parnassus. The Athenian women express

their consternation: Athens is to have an alien ruler and Creusa must

remain childless. When she returns they tell her the news, and in bitter

disappointment she breaks into an agonized recital of her old sorrow. An

aged male attendant undertakes to murder Ion by poison at the banquet.

Creusa consents. After an ode praying for vengeance, a messenger brings

news that the plot has failed and Creusa has been condemned to death.

The queen hurries in, pursued by Ion and a mob; she takes refuge on the

altar. Bitter reproaches pass between the two till the Pythian prophetess

appears; giving Ion the basket in which he was discovered as a babe, and

which still contains the articles then found with him, she bids him seek

his mother. Creusa greets him as her son and names the three objects.

They embrace with joy, but Ion, learning that not Xuthus but Apollo is

his father, determines to ask the oracle which account is true. Athena,

however, appears and explains that Apollo has been compelled to change

his plans; Xuthus must continue to believe Ion his own son.

This drama suggests a rich tasselled robe of gorgeous embroidery; were

it not that the basis of the story is so painfully sexual, the _Ion_

would be perhaps the most popular of Greek plays. The sudden changes of

situation, the emotional crises, the sheer thrill of many passages, the

lovely study of the Greek Samuel at his holy tasks—all these things make

a glorious play. But our delight is blurred by a recurrent perplexity.

Theology is obtruded throughout, and such a theology as never was.

Apollo ravishes Creusa and by help of Hermes brings her child to Delphi,

where he lives happily up to manhood, but Creusa is allowed to suppose

her child destroyed by wild beasts. The god, however, intends to secure

Ion his rights as prince of Athens. Xuthus is to accept the lad as his

son, while Creusa and Ion are to be made secretly known to each other.

But this plan is disturbed by the Athenian women, and the god, revising

his intention, sends the doves to save Ion, and the prophetess to save

Creusa. All would now be well, since both Xuthus and the queen accept

Ion as a son. But Ion wishes to know whether the oracle speaks truth or

lies.[580] Apollo therefore sends Athena to prevent him from taxing the

oracle with inconsistency. She explains the various activities of Apollo,

prophesies concerning the Athenian race, and bids Creusa keep Xuthus in

ignorance.

Apollo is as much fool[581] as knave.[582] Athena may say that “Apollo

hath done all things well,”[583] but mortals will not endorse her

sisterly admiration. Even the revised plan cannot succeed. How long will

Xuthus remain ignorant of facts which are being proclaimed, not only to

Creusa and her son, but also to the crowd of Delphians and the Athenian

women? Even if this could be secured, things are no better: Apollo has

said both that he himself, and that Xuthus, is the father of Ion. Which

of these statements is true matters comparatively little. One of them

must be a lie. The god who gives oracles to Greece is a trickster, and no

celestial consolations or Athenian throne can compensate the youth for

the loss of what filled his heart only this morning.

The _Ion_ is the one play in which Euripides attacks the Olympian

theology beyond all conceivable doubt. It is certain (i) that he does

not believe in the existence of Apollo and Hermes; (ii) that the Delphic

oracle is a human institution making impossible pretensions; and (iii)

that his method of attack is by innuendo and implication. Verrall’s

theory of the poet’s method is here on absolutely unassailable ground.

The story is purely human, and the theological story is a mere addendum

designed to suit the religious occasion and many of the spectators. What,

then, is this human story? Verrall explains that Creusa was wronged by

some man unknown, and that her child perished. The Pythian priestess

bore[584] a child which she reared with a natural tenderness.[585]

This child was Ion, whom the managers of the shrine determined to

place in a station which could assist their influence. Then occurs the

deadly scene in which the youth is about to kill Creusa. To save the

Delphians from the responsibility of murdering a foreign queen in the

open street, and the boy from conduct which would make his admission to

Athens impossible, a plot is hastily concocted. It will prevent war with

Athens, it will destroy Creusa’s hatred for Ion, and secure his future

throne. The priests have already heard, even if Apollo has not, the story

shrieked[586] out at him by Creusa. By an impudent master-stroke they

determine that Ion shall be the queen’s long-lost child. To this end the

history of the two persons supplies most of the means; all that is needed

is something tangible to tie the knot. Hurriedly the clues are provided.

The necklace exposed long ago upon the babe is an easy matter; its fellow

was found upon the person of the Pædagogus.[587] The ever-blooming olive

of the Acropolis can be equalled in freshness by sprays plucked to-day

in Delphi; and for the embroidery, it is fairly certain that some such

covering must have been wrapped round the child, and its pattern is

sufficiently vague.[588] The queen in her heart-hunger and peril snatches

at these clues, and in a moment the two fall into one another’s arms.

Finally, the clear-headed persistence of Ion is met by what may in truth

be called a _dea ex machina_.[589] Over the temple façade is protruded

the gigantic head[590] of a figure, through which some one offers

such fumbling “explanations” as are possible. All this is enough for

Creusa—she has a son. As for Ion, whose life has been in his faith, he

commits himself to nothing; in one day he has grown to the full stature

of a man, but one hardly supposes that he visited Delphi again. Thus may

Verrall’s theory be summarized. It has never been answered, nor does it

seem possible to make any answer, except that the alleged real story is

“far-fetched”—of course; for any rationalistic explanation of a supposed

miracle must be strange, otherwise no one would have hitherto believed

the miracle in order to account for the facts.

The “theological background” then being merely theatrical gauze and

canvas, what of the human action? Though it forms an extraordinarily

brilliant, powerful, fascinating spectacle, is it a tragedy?—the story

ends with the appearance at any rate of joy and contentment. Yet tragedy

is found not only in the death of the body but in the death of ideals;

and the destruction of Ion’s faith in his all-knowing unerring father is

a fate from which, when we remember his happy carolling upon the dawn-lit

temple-steps, we could wish to see him saved even by the Gorgon’s venom.

Any out-cry wherewith he might have challenged Creusa’s is checked by

the cold disgust which fills him at the sound of Athena’s bland periods;

but one knows the kind of man Athens will receive to-morrow—one who will

agree with Xuthus that “these things don’t happen,”[591] who will be

an admirable connoisseur of party politics,[592] but who has lost his

vision. This, then, is spiritually, though not technically, a tragedy.

Further, it is technically a melodrama. That is, the external form and

texture is calculated to produce not as in tragedy simple, profound,

and enduring exaltation, but more superficial, violent, and transitory

emotion. The Pædagogus is pure melodrama, witness his change from

senile helplessness[593] to ruthless vigour,[594] the wildness of his

suggestions—“burn down the temple” ... “murder your husband”; the utter

absence of remorse and secondary interests, characteristic of villainous

subordinates in melodrama; his complete breakdown when it is demanded by

the plot.[595] Such also is the confrontation of Ion and Creusa with the

terrified women and scowling Delphians as a background. But the finest

thrill, and the touch least justified by any standards save those of

melodrama, occurs in the speech of Ion as he stands with the fateful

basket in his arms and determines not to open it but to dedicate it to

Apollo. The next moment he reflects that he must carry out the god’s will

and discover his origin. The genuine plot halts so as to cause theatrical

sensation.

It is natural in such a play that the characterization should be simple.

Xuthus, the Pædagogus, and the Prophetess, are scarcely more than foils

to the two chief persons. Creusa attracts us rather because the poet has

so well portrayed woman than because he has created a particular woman.

More than this can be said of Ion. He is marked out from all the other

persons of this play by sheer intelligence, by the power of facing facts,

and of constantly readjusting his perspective.[596] He is a figure of

somewhat quaint pathos. The happy child who sings to the birds on the

temple-steps and thinks of nothing but his tranquil existence of pious

routine, turns in a moment to the discreet adviser who can imagine

incredible things: “There is no man who will transmit to thee response to

such a question. For were he in his own house proved a villain, Phœbus

would justly wreak mishap upon him that gave thee such reply.”[597] As

he moves to and fro, filling the holy-water stoups, we can hear him

murmuring to himself serene blasphemies. “But I must blame Phœbus. Such

conduct! Use violence upon maidens, and betray them? Beget children in

secret and leave them to die? Come, come! Since you have the power,

remember its responsibility. You punish mankind for wrong-doing” ...[598]

and so forth, including the suggestion that if Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo

were compelled to pay damages for their lustful offences, their temples

would become bankrupt. In politics, as in religion, Ion observes and

deduces for himself. Athenian public life he well understands before

entering it;[599] he has views about the influence of perverted religious

feelings upon public opinion and the execution of the law.[600] All

this prepares us for the splendid moment[601] when forgetting his own

rule[602] he insists on bearding the oracle, and for the reception he

gives to the patching-up of Apollo’s infallibility.

For the rest, the work is a study of emotions deeply conceived and

wonderfully expressed. Creusa is induced to tell her story, though

disguised, to Ion largely by her sudden feeling for the youth

himself.[603] The revelation which she makes to the Pædagogus and the

chorus is wrung from her after all these years by the sudden loneliness

which the gift of a son to her husband brings upon her heart. And the

gloriously successful climax[604] where she suddenly addresses her

executioner as her son is purely emotional also. Even the intellectual

revolt of Ion is introduced by a sudden turn of the feelings in the

recognition-scene: “Mother, let my father, too, share in our joy”.[605]

The TROADES[606] (Τρῳάδες), or _Trojan Women_, was produced in 415 B.C.

together with _Alexander_, _Palamedes_, and _Sisyphus_ as satyric play.

This group obtained the second prize, being defeated by the work of

Xenocles “whoever he is”.[607]

The action takes place outside Troy after its capture; in the background

is a tent wherein are captive Trojan women. Before the tent lies

Hecuba in a stupor of grief. The deities Poseidon and Athena explain

in a dialogue that they are quitting Troy with reluctance; Poseidon

will destroy the Greek fleet on its way home. When they have departed,

Hecuba stirs and laments; soon she is joined by the chorus of Trojan

women. Talthybius tells her that Cassandra is to become the concubine of

Agamemnon; concerning Polyxena he speaks evasively; Andromache is given

to Neoptolemus, Hecuba herself to Odysseus, whom she detests above all

Greeks. Cassandra rushes forward uttering in frenzy a horrible parody of

a marriage-song in her own honour; she prophesies the woes of Agamemnon

and Odysseus. Hecuba ponders her former greatness and present misery;

the chorus sing the fatal day when Troy welcomed the Wooden Horse.

Andromache and her infant Astyanax are brought in, and from her Hecuba

hears Polyxena’s death. Though prostrated by grief she urges Andromache

to please her new lord, that perchance his son may revive something of

Troy’s greatness. Talthybius returns with tidings that Astyanax is to be

hurled from the battlements. After an ode on the first siege of Troy,

Menelaus enters rejoicing in his long-deferred opportunity of slaying

Helen. Hecuba bursts into rapturous thanks to the Power which rules

mankind, and when Helen pleads innocence refutes her bitterly. Talthybius

brings in the mangled body of Astyanax over which Hecuba utters a speech

of reproachful lament. The play ends with the burning of Troy.

In structure archaic, this play is in spirit something quite new to the

Attic stage. On the one hand there is little unfolding of a plot; we are

reminded strongly of the _Prometheus_ by the portrayal of a situation

which changes with extreme slowness. It is the manner of this portrayal

which is new and terrible. The _Troades_ was performed after the sack

of Melos and before the departure of the Sicilian expedition; it is a

statement, by a member of the nation which annihilated Melos, of the

horrors wherewith the vanquished are overwhelmed. The glory won by the

Greeks who overthrew Troy was the best-known and most cherished gift

of tradition. Now a Greek writer reveals the other side of conquest.

After the crime of Melos, Euripides never felt as he had felt towards

Athens or Greece. His intellect and his heart were appalled by the cold

ferocity of which his fellows showed themselves every year more capable.

Hitherto he has attacked the evils of human nature; now he impeaches one

definite nation, and that his own. No spectator could doubt that “Troy”

is Melos, “the Greeks” Athens. Such uncompromising hostility must have

produced deep effects on so impressionable an assembly. For it is not

merely a denunciation; it is a threat. The poet takes the whole picture

of misery and stupid tyranny, and puts it into sinister perspective in

his prologue. All the cruelties of the play are committed by the Greeks

under shadow of the calamity denounced against them by the deities of

the prologue, whereof we are again and again reminded by the sentences

casually dropped by Talthybius and others, that the host is eager to

embark. And this when the great Athenian armament was itself thronging

the Peiræus in preparation for the voyage to Sicily.[608]

Of characterization, therefore, little is to be found. Cassandra,

though her pathos is less deep and wide than that of her namesake in

the _Agamemnon_, is yet valuable, as aiding in that perspective which

is given mainly by the prologue. Talthybius and Andromache are ably

sketched, but Menelaus and Helen are introduced merely for the sake of

the elaborate dispute between Hecuba and Helen. It is upon Hecuba that

the whole poem hangs—not upon her action or even her character, but upon

her capacity for suffering. With the progress of the play she changes

from the Queen of Troy to a figure summing up in herself all the sorrows

of humanity. As each woe is faced, lamented, and at last assimilated

into an ennobling experience, another disaster flings her back into

the primitive outcry to begin once more the task of resignation. She

is a pagan _mater dolorosa_. As each billow of grief descends upon

her, leaving her still sentient, nay, filled with eager sympathy for

others, the Greeks who oppress her become strangely puny and unreal

like the legionaries in some mediæval picture of martyrdom. Even when

she confesses to complete despair she yet the next moment begins to

fashion within the abyss a tiny abode for hope: Astyanax may grow to

manhood, “so that—if chance is kind—sons of thy blood may dwell again

in Ilium, and there might yet be a city”.[609] Next moment the child is

torn away to be flung from the battlements. Even so, Hecuba recovers her

balance in the end and can deliver, as she stands over the little body,

the stinging reproach[610] of a “barbarian” revolted by the crimes of

“civilization”.[611] It is to this endless capacity for facing sorrow

and transmuting it into rich experience that we owe one of the most

beautiful and definite philosophic _dicta_ to be found in Euripides:—

ὦ γῆς ὄχημα, κἀπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδραν

ὅστις ποτ’ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,

Ζεύς, εἴτ’ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,

προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι’ ἀψόφου

βαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ’ ἄγεις.[612]

“O Throne of earth, by earth upheld, whosoe’er Thou art, beyond

conjecture of our knowledge—Zeus, or the law of Nature, or the mind of

Man, to Thee do I address my prayer; for moving along Thy soundless path

Thou dost guide all mortal life with justice.” As for the Olympian gods,

they are scarcely attacked; there is little more than a jaded recognition

that belief in them is no help or inspiration.[613] To this plaintive

agnosticism there is here no alternative but fierce pessimism, as when in

the frightful eloquence of Hecuba we are told that Fate is “a capering

idiot”.[614]

Most mournful of all Greek tragedies, this is yet beautiful, and full

of splendid spectacular effects: Cassandra bounding wildly forth with

her bridal torches; the entry of Andromache seated in the waggon among

the spoils of Troy; Hecuba bending over Astyanax’ body within the great

buckler of his father; the little procession which carries the shield to

burial, princely robes hanging therefrom; and the aged queen addressing

her farewell to the blazing city.

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS[615] (Ἰφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Ταύροις) or _Iphigenia among

the Taurians_, is a work of uncertain date.[616] Nothing is known of its

success when produced, and the absence of scholia suggests that it was

not popular in later times.

Iphigenia, before the temple of Artemis among the Taurians (in South

Russia), relates that she was not slain at Aulis, but brought by Artemis

to serve as her priestess here, close to the city of King Thoas, where

she is compelled to sacrifice all strangers. A dream has suggested to her

that her brother Orestes is dead; she goes within to prepare offerings to

his shade. Orestes and Pylades enter; they have been sent by the Delphian

oracle to steal the image of Artemis; in this way Orestes will be freed

from the Furies. They postpone their attempt till nightfall, and retire.

The chorus of Greek captive maidens enter in attendance upon Iphigenia,

and a cowherd brings news that two Greeks have been captured and are

being brought for sacrifice. After a choric ode, the rustics enter with

their prisoners. A conversation follows, in which neither Iphigenia’s

name nor that of Orestes is revealed, and she offers to spare his life

if he will take a letter to Argos. He insists that Pylades shall go, and

the latter asks that the message be read. It proves to be an appeal to

Orestes, and, exclaiming that he will at once perform his task, Pylades

hands it to his friend. Brother and sister thus become known to one

another, and all three agree to escape, taking the image with them. They

enter the temple, after Iphigenia has enjoined secrecy upon the chorus,

who sing their yearning for home. King Thoas enters and is tricked by

Iphigenia into aiding the escape. The chorus sing Apollo’s conquest

of Delphi. A messenger rushes in, seeking Thoas; the chorus misdirect

him, but in vain. Thoas learns how his people have been beguiled into

allowing the Greeks to embark. However, a contrary wind is even now

driving them back. Thoas is preparing to hunt the fugitives down when

Athena appears and stops him; he is, moreover, commanded to send the

Greek maidens home. He consents, and the play ends with the joy of the

chorus.

This drama is one of the finest among Euripides’ works. It provides a

marked contrast with the _Troades_; there is bitterness here indeed, but

it is the bitterness of Voltaire rather than that of Swift. And whereas

in the former play plot is almost non-existent, here it is vital. Perhaps

the most brilliant piece of construction in Euripides is the celebrated

Recognition-scene of this drama. Indeed the whole tragedy is the story of

a plot, skilful and breathless. Iphigenia’s method—to deceive by telling

the truth (about Orestes’ matricide)—was particularly dear to Greeks,

connoisseurs of falsehood both in life and in literature; so beautifully

does she succeed that (partly for her own amusement) she tells the king

further the news she has just heard concerning her brother’s welfare. But

the poet is no more the slave of his wit than of his sympathies, and we

are brought to realization of the facts—namely, that the three Greeks are

thieves and Iphigenia a traitress—by her own self-mockery: “Falsehood,

thy name is Hellas,”[617] and by the simple generosity with which the

prince accepts her suggestions.

The second feature of importance is the atmosphere of adventure. A

strange grim glamour lies upon this story of breathless dangers in a

region which is itself a mystery and a menace. We must forget modern

notions about South Russia, lines of steamboats, and Odessa as civilized

as Hull. This kingdom of Thoas is as remote from Athens as Thibet or the

Upper Congo from us; indeed at many points we recall the African stories

of Sir Rider Haggard. Amid these ghastly altars, the secret fire and the

cleft of death,[618] deserted seas and bloodthirsty savages, there is an

infinite painful sweetness in Orestes’ reminder of a dusty heirloom in

his sister’s bedchamber at home.[619] The poem is filled with suggestions

of remoteness, the heaving of strange billows, legendary landing-places.

Flowing from this is the home-sickness which breaks out again and again,

in Pylades’ recollection, during his worst agony, of the winding Phocian

glens,[620] and in the lyric songs where the Greek captives long to fly

homeward with the halcyon to the hallowed places of Greece.[621]

But not only does religion as a radiant emotion setting a glow around

“the hill of Cynthus” and the “circling mere” mark the play. Euripides

here, as so often, treats religion intellectually as well as emotionally.

By the lips of Orestes he passes judgment upon Olympian religion as a

guide of conduct. Taking the story of Æschylus, he acts not as a lesser

unbeliever would have acted; he does not dub the reconciliation of the

_Eumenides_ a delusion. With a studiously bungling air he explains

that one section of the Furies was appeased, and the other not.[622]

If the manner of this revision is delightfully impudent, the intention

is deadly. Orestes has been sent away by the Delphian priests to _do_

something, to seek and undergo, if possible, a physiological effect

simply through the excitement of a far journey. We are very near to

the “long holiday and change of air”. The Furies exist nowhere but in

his own brain. On the Athenian Areopagus he went through a climax of

hallucination. Surrounded by stray animals,[623] he saw in imagination

all the tremendous events imagined by Æschylus as objective reality. His

mind only partly cleared by this paroxysm, he fled back to Delphi for

complete healing. The “oracle” sent him to the remotest region known to

Greeks, to a land, moreover, where the natives are wont to murder all

strangers. Phœbus is ashamed of his “former responses” and seeks to be

rid of his too obedient, too persistent devotee.[624] Such is the opinion

of Orestes himself when at last in the “toils,”[625] and the whole

work (with an exception presently to be noticed) is pervaded by this

unflinching rationalism. The pious herdsmen who see marine deities in the

Greek visitors are laughed to scorn by a companion who, though dubbed “a

fool reckless and irreverent,”[626] is entirely justified. Iphigenia’s

reflections[627] on the human sacrifices of the Tauri lead her to acquit

the goddess of “such folly” and to attribute this practice to ferocious

savages who make gods in their own image. At one point indeed simple

faith is justified. Orestes when faced by death is comforted by his

friend: “The god’s oracle hath not yet destroyed thee, close as thou dost

stand to slaughter”.[628] In a moment Orestes is free from peril at the

priestess’ hands. But no one, least of all Euripides, expects even the

“gods” to blunder always. Finally, the ode on Apollo’s conquest of Delphi

is a delicate but pungent satire: the “oracle” is a magnificent trade

connexion.[629]

This cynical clearness is a guide in studying the exceptional passage

above mentioned: in the last scene orthodox piety is upheld by the

apparition of Athena. Does then the _Iphigenia_ in the end refute the

rationalism impressed on it almost everywhere? We can take our choice,

accepting Athena, Apollo’s divinity, and all the other traditional

garnishments, but stultifying many passages, and the tone of nine-tenths

of the play; or we can accept the latter as a thrilling and pathetic

study in human superstition and intrepidity, but reject Athena as a

conventional phantom. In this latter case we shall, with Dr. Verrall,

consider that the play, for all artistic and intelligible purposes, ends

at v. 1434, leaving Thoas to capture and destroy the Greeks. Many will

find such a choice difficult. The _Iphigenia_ is certainly not as clear a

case as the _Orestes_, to say nothing of the _Ion_. But it is difficult

to believe that here he has composed a magnificent play to bolster up

theology which elsewhere he strenuously attacks. Nevertheless, the speech

of Athena is not in itself contradictory or ludicrous.

The mental pathology—it can hardly be called the character—of Orestes,

deserves close study. He provides an admirable instance of that skill in

portraying madness for which Euripides was famed.[630] A man of strong

simple instincts, he is shaken terribly by the murderous events of his

childhood. His brain is overthrown by the sway of the hierarchy and by

the deeds to which he was impelled. From this overthrow he never quite

recovered, as the dramatist himself carefully indicates.[631] Throughout

the _Iphigenia_ we discern, drawn with extraordinary skill and tact, the

struggle between the old obsession and an intellect originally clear and

acute. The prologue, when he explores the ground with Pylades, shows him

(in spite of a ghastly brilliance of thought fit only for frenzy or the

nightmare[632]) possessed of shrewdness which, if consistently applied,

would have saved him from the expedition altogether. Later he is seen

hurled by the excitement of his quest into complete, though temporary,

insanity[633]—a fit which throws back strange light upon his “trial” at

Athens and provides a comment upon the later scene,[634] where, though at

the moment sane, he yet believes in the delusive experience. Everywhere

we find this superstructure of sanity on an insane foundation. Though

he can see through the “oracle” as clearly as any man with regard to

its past deceptions, he is pathetically enthusiastic for the latest

nostrum.[635] The long account[636] of his sorrows which he gives his

sister is full of such sinister meaning. He essays to describe the origin

of the court which tried him: “There is a holy ... _vote_,[637] which

long ago Zeus founded for Ares owing to some blood-guiltiness, whatever

it was....” He has forgotten half the facts, and bungles the rest. This

speech, full of obscurity, irrelevancy, and disconnected thought, is

practically ignored by his sister, who realizes his condition both from

the report of the herdsman and from the occasional lunacy he manifests in

conversation.[638] Orestes, too, knows[639] how it is with him, and the

complete absence of lament on his part when faced with death is one of

the grimmest things in the drama.

The ELECTRA[640] (Ἠλέκτρα) was probably acted in 413 B.C.[641] The scene

is laid before the cottage of a peasant, who explains that he is the

husband of Electra, but in name only; she comes forth and they depart

to their several tasks. Orestes and Pylades arrive; Orestes has come

at Apollo’s bidding to avenge his father, at whose tomb he has offered

sacrifice. Seeing Electra they retire. She is invited to a festival by

the chorus of Argive women, but refuses, urging her sorrow and poverty.

The two strangers approach, Orestes pretending that he has been sent

by her brother for tidings of her; she gives him a passionate message

begging Orestes to exact vengeance. The peasant returns and sends the

strangers within as his guests; the chorus sing the expedition to Troy.

An aged shepherd enters with the provisions for which Electra sent,

and tells her that he has seen upon Agamemnon’s tomb a sacrifice and

a votive lock of hair. He in vain seeks to convince Electra that her

brother must be in Argos, but later recognizes Orestes by a scar. Brother

and sister embrace with joy; after passionate prayers to Agamemnon’s

shade he departs to seek Ægisthus. The chorus sing the crime of Thyestes

which caused sun and stars to change their course. A messenger relates

how Ægisthus has been cut down by Orestes in the midst of a religious

service; the avengers return with the body, over which Electra gloats.

Clytæmnestra is seen approaching, lured by a story that Electra has given

birth to a child. Orestes feels remorse, but is hardened by his sister,

who awaits her mother alone. A dispute follows about the queen’s past,

but Clytæmnestra refuses to quarrel, and goes within to perform the

birth-ritual. Soon her cries are heard, and Orestes and Electra re-enter,

filled with grief and shame. In the sky appear Castor and Polydeuces

(Pollux), brothers of Clytæmnestra, who blame the matricide, which

they attribute to Apollo; then they depart to the Sicilian sea to save

mariners who are righteous and unperjured.

Special interest clings to this play, because here only can we see

Euripides traversing precisely the same ground as Æschylus (in the

_Choephorœ_) and Sophocles (in the _Electra_), This similarity of subject

long damaged Euripides’ play in the eyes of critics. It was assumed that

the youngest poet was imitating his forerunners, and it needed small

acumen to observe that the imitation was bad. Whereupon, instead of

wondering whether perhaps Euripides was after all not copying others,

critics proceeded to write cheerful nonsense about “frivolity” and “a

profound falling off in art and taste”.[642] The fact simply is that

each of these three tragedians discussed the story from a different

viewpoint. Æschylus treated it as a religious fact, Sophocles as an

emotional fact, Euripides as an ethical fact. Æschylus is on the side of

Apollo, Sophocles on the side of Electra, Euripides on the side of no

one. He asks himself what circumstances, what perversions of character,

can result in this matricide.

Hence his careful study of Clytæmnestra, Electra, and Orestes, so careful

that a reader at first supposes the poet a partisan of Clytæmnestra.

Not so; he has merely tried to understand her. A placid woman of quick

but shallow affections, she was abandoned by her husband for ten years

to the memory of a murdered daughter. Delightfully characteristic is

her argument: “Suppose Menelaus had been stolen from home; would it

have been right for me to slay Orestes that Helen might regain her

husband?”[643] Vigorous and damaging, this is yet tinged with comedy by

its raw novelty and precision. One almost overhears the _commèrages_ of

the street-corner. When Agamemnon brought back openly a concubine to his

home, Clytæmnestra assisted[644] her lover in anticipating the king’s

revenge by murdering him. From this act she has drifted into condoning

cruelty against her unoffending children; throughout she has acted

wickedly and acquiesced in worse conduct by others. Nevertheless, she is

no figure of tragedy; she only suggests tragedy because she is the mother

of her executioners. Her chief love is placid domesticity; if this can be

obtained only by murdering those who threaten it, that is very terrible,

but the world is notoriously imperfect. Clytæmnestra cannot, and will

not, meet Electra on the tragic plane. Her daughter’s great outburst and

threat of murderous vengeance she meets in this comfortable fashion: “My

child, it was always your nature to love your father. It often happens

so. Some favour the male side, while others love their mother rather

than their father. I forgive you: for in truth I rejoice not greatly,

child, in the acts that I have done.... But you!—unwashed and shabby in

attire!” ... And so forth. Clytæmnestra is almost as ill-tuned to the

atmosphere which Electra constantly and deliberately creates as Sancho

Panza to the high converse of his master. The queen has been summoned to

her daughter’s cottage by report of a newly-born infant. She shows her

natural goodness of heart by hurrying thither at once (though of course

she has not the taste to leave her gorgeous retinue behind) and doing

all she can to comfort and help her daughter. By this time she has all

unconsciously “taken the wind out of the sails” of the avengers. But

Electra can maintain her grimness and actually utter black hints of a

wedding-bed in the grave![645] We turn next to her; what manner of woman

can this be?

Electra is one of Euripides’ most vivid and successful female characters.

She has strong claims on our pity and sympathy, but fails to win them.

Her mother is a ready victim of any emotion which breathes upon her;

Electra has settled her position emotionally, intellectually, morally,

years ago. Nothing can alter her; she is the victim and the apostle of

an _idée fixe_. The crimes of love are no less frightful than the crimes

of hate; in Electra affection for Agamemnon has become the basis of

cold ferocity against Clytæmnestra. It is Orestes who shrinks when the

deed is to be done, Electra who braces his resolution. She has borne no

child. Instead of beginning a new life in her children, looking to the

future, she has fed morbidly upon memories, stiffening natural grief and

resentment into permanent inhuman morosity. Clytæmnestra has blandly

outlived two murders in her own family, and remains neither unamiable nor

uninteresting; but it is impossible to imagine what Electra will do, say,

or think, after the events of to-day. This unnatural self-concentration,

which means not only her mother’s death but her own spiritual suicide,

is mainly the result of her childlessness. And it is on this that

Euripides lays his finger. “Announce that I have given birth to a male

child.... Then, when she has come, of course it is her death.”[646]

This plot of Electra is possibly the most brilliantly skilful and most

terrible stroke in all the poet’s work. It indicates the source of her

heartlessness, it provides an excellent dramatic motive for the queen’s

arrival, and it shows, as nothing else could show, the fiendishness of

a woman who can use just this pretext to the very woman who gave her

birth. She relies upon the sanctity of motherhood to aid her in trampling

upon it. Her first words, as she slips forth to join her husband beneath

the star-lit sky, show how the heavens themselves remind her that she

has had no infant at her breast during the night-watches: “Black Night,

thou _Nurse_ of golden stars”.[647] Moreover, not only does she feel her

sorrows, she enjoys the sense of martyrdom. Her wrongs and present trials

she is capable of exaggerating;[648] at every opportunity she exploits

them for purposes of self-pity, as her husband hints more than once.[649]

Orestes, living in exile, has escaped the blight of Electra only to

become a criminal with no illusions, proud of his worldly experience,

witness the blundering disquisition on “the true gentleman,”[650] and his

cynical comments on his humble brother-in-law.[651] His onslaught upon

Ægisthus from behind proves him at the best deficient in gallantry, and

on the matricide itself nothing need be said. We can pity Orestes for his

fearful position, but he is a poor creature. The _Electra_, in fact, is

a clear-sighted attack upon the morality of blood-feuds. The poet feels

that Ægisthus and Clytæmnestra, left so long unmolested, should have

been left alone still; if Apollo at Delphi, and the peasant in his Argive

cottage, had estimated human nature more wisely, this horror would have

been escaped, and no harm done. To punish the guilty is not always a

virtue; often it is a debauch of self-glory, and sometimes the worst of

villainies.

As always, the poet regards the “oracle,” which commanded matricide, as

an offence to civilization. But there is novelty in the extreme candour

with which this is put forward. The Dioscuri repeatedly stigmatize its

murderous command as “foolishness” or worse.[652] Equally outspoken

are the chorus, who devote the last stanza of their lovely song on

the Golden Lamb and Thyestes’ crime to a brilliant denial of its

truth.... “But legends that fill men with dread are profitable to divine

worship”[653]—it is admirably put, and may rank with the epigrams of

Ovid[654] and Voltaire.[655] As for the Dioscuri, it is impossible to

speak without affection of such quaint and charming figures. Their

converse with Electra and the chorus is an irresistible combination of

dignity and a breezy contempt for official reticence. In his first long

_ex cathedra_ speech Castor is on the verge of saying what he really

thinks of Phœbus Apollo, remembers himself just in time, and then—gives a

broad hint after all.[656] In the less formal talk which follows, these

bluff naval deities show a soundness of heart and a simplicity as to

the meaning of great affairs which recall delightfully the traditional

nautical character of modern literature. The anguish of brother and

sister who after long years meet for a few frightful hours only to part

for ever awakes their instant deep sympathy.[657] On the other side these

subordinate deities are assuredly in a maze as to the theological problem

into which they have strayed. “How was it,” ask the Argive women, very

pertinently, “that you, being gods and brothers of the woman that hath

perished, did not repel destruction from the house?” Electra, too, would

know why she was involved in the matricide. In answer the Brethren offer

a bundle of reasons some one of which ought surely to be right: “the

fate of necessity,” “the guidance of doom,” “the foolish utterances of

Phœbus’ tongue,” “a partnership in act and in destiny,” “the ancestral

curse”.[658] Even if traditional phrases could solve the problem of human

sin, these simple souls are not qualified to use or expound them.

One incident in the _Electra_ is of particular interest to the historian

of literature. The pædagogus seeks to convince Electra that the

mysterious visitor to Agamemnon’s tomb is her brother. He offers certain

evidences which she contemptuously rejects. There can be no doubt that

this scene is a criticism of the Recognition in Æschylus’ _Choephorœ_.

The severed lock of hair, the footprint, and the embroidered cloth,

appear in both scenes. Electra rejects all these clues. How can the hair

of an athletic man resemble the soft tresses of a woman? Is not a man’s

foot larger than a woman’s? Will the full-grown Orestes wear the same

garment as an infant? But Euripides’ attack is probably mistaken.[659]

We may suppose that Æschylus could have seen these objections; and it

is quite possible that tradition told of physical peculiarities in the

Pelopid family. As for the embroidered garment, Æschylus does not call it

so. It may well have been a cloth preserved by Orestes. However this may

be, we have here the most distinct example of Euripides’ criticism of an

earlier poet.

HELEN[660] (Ἑλένη), or _Helena_, was produced in 412 B.C. The scene

represents the palace of Theoclymenus, the young Egyptian king, with the

tomb of his father Proteus. Helen relates that Hera gave Paris a phantom

in place of the true Helen. While Greeks and Trojans fought for a wraith,

she herself has lived in Egypt, waiting for Menelaus. Theoclymenus now

seeks her hand; she has taken sanctuary in Proteus’ tomb. Teucer enters

to consult Theonoe, the king’s prophetess-sister. On seeing Helen he

barely refrains from shooting her, but realizing his “mistake” talks

with the stranger, revealing that Menelaus and “Helen” have apparently

been lost at sea. Helen sends him off and breaks into lamentation for

Menelaus, but is advised by the chorus of captive Greek maidens to

consult the omniscient Theonoe. She agrees, and they accompany her into

the palace. Menelaus enters, a pitiable shipwrecked figure. He has left

“Helen” and his comrades in hiding, and is looking for help. When he

knocks at the palace-door the portress repels him with the warning that

the king is hostile to Greeks because Helen is within his house. Menelaus

is thunderstruck, but determines to await Theoclymenus. The chorus and

Helen return in joy, for Menelaus, they learn, still lives. Menelaus

comes forward; after a moment his wife recognizes and would embrace him,

but he repels the stranger. One of his companions arrives announcing

that “Helen” has vanished. As he ends his tale he sees the true Helen,

who he supposes has played a practical joke; but Menelaus falls into her

arms. They plot escape, but realize that all depends upon the omniscient

Theonoe; she comes forth, and, explaining that she has a casting-vote in

a dispute which to-day takes place in Heaven between Hera and Aphrodite,

decides to aid the suppliants. When she has withdrawn it is arranged

that Menelaus shall pretend he is the sole survivor, Menelaus being

drowned; Helen is to gain permission to offer funeral-rites at sea. The

chorus raise a beautiful song concerning Helen’s woes and the Trojan war.

Theoclymenus enters and is easily hoodwinked. After an ode on Demeter’s

search for Persephone, the plotters are sent on their way by the king.

The chorus sing of Helen’s voyage and pray the Dioscuri to convoy their

sister. A messenger hurries in and tells of the escape; the Egyptian

crew has been massacred by Menelaus’ followers. Theoclymenus would take

vengeance upon his sister, but is checked by the Dioscuri, who explain

that all has occurred by the will of Zeus.

Two aspects of this play are unmistakable and apparently incompatible.

The plot closely resembles that of the _Iphigenia in Tauris_; the

style and manner of treatment are curiously light. What can have been

Euripides’ purpose in repeating, after so short an interval, a copy of

that grim masterpiece, and to execute it in this light-hearted fashion?

The _Helen_ is in no possible sense a tragedy. At the point where the

audience should be spell-bound by suspense and dread—the cajoling of the

king—we are relieved from all oppression by the facility with which the

captives succeed. Theoclymenus is an imbecile who gives them all they

need with his eyes shut. The earlier action is robbed of all power by

the superhuman attributes of Theonoe. How can, or need, Helen have any

doubts concerning her husband with an all-knowing friend at hand? The

central _datum_, that only a phantom fled to Troy and returned therefrom

with Menelaus, is utterly destructive of tragic atmosphere. In the

Recognition-scene the possibility of pathos is drowned in absurdity: the

messenger suddenly turns to find his mistress smiling at his elbow and

greets her with relief: “Ah, hail, daughter of Leda, here you are after

all!”[661] Teucer’s scene, besides providing a palmary instance of bad

construction (for his function is merely to cause Helen anxiety about her

husband’s fate, which one might have expected to arouse her curiosity

earlier in the course of these seventeen years), is in itself absurd.

After coming all this distance to consult Theonoe about his route, he is

sent away happy (without seeing the prophetess) by Helen’s suggestion,

“You will pick out your way as you go along”.[662] Equally curious is

the diction. Brilliantly idiomatic as are the iambics, they are almost

everywhere light, loose in texture, almost colloquial. Such things[663]

as φέρ’ ἦν δὲ δὴ νῷν μὴ ἀποδέξηται λόγους;—ἣν γὰρ εἴχομεν θάλασσ’

ἔχει—εἷς γὰρ ὅ γε κατ’ οὐρανόν, and the silly jingle on λόγῳ θανεῖν, are

typical of the whole atmosphere. Even the lyrics glow with prettiness

rather than beauty; lovely as are the Naiad[664] and the Nightingale[665]

they mitigate in no degree the flimsiness of the whole.

Theonoe herself, in an outrageous passage,[666] brings the mockery

to a climax: “This very day among the gods there is to be strife and

conference concerning thee before the throne of Zeus. Hera, who was thine

enemy before, is kindly to thee now, and would bring thee safe to thy

home-country with this thy wife, so that Greece may learn how Paris’

love, the gift of Cypris, was but a mockery. But Cypris would fain deny

thee thy home-return, that it may never come to light how in Helen’s case

she bought the prize of beauty with bridals that were naught. _And the

decision lies with me_, whether, as Cypris wishes, I shall destroy thee

by revealing thy presence to my brother, or whether I shall join Hera

and save thy life.” We should be ill-advised to take this in all earnest

as a ludicrous blasphemy. It is graceful trifling. But what is Theonoe—a

dread goddess to whom the queen of Heaven sues for aid, or a kind-hearted

woman whose strong common-sense might, perhaps, in a circle like that of

the dolts and _poseurs_ who fill the stage, raise her to the repute of

superhuman wisdom? She is not all playful. When the honour of her dead

father is in question, she stirs the heart by her passionate solemnity:—

Aye, all that lie in death must meet their bond,

And they that live; yea, all. Beyond the grave

The mind, though life be gone, is conscious yet

Eternal, with th’ eternal Heav’n at one.[667]

This stands, together with Hecuba’s outburst[668] in the _Trojan Women_,

as the most explicit statement of personal religion in the extant plays

of Euripides. In the midst of this farrago of fairy-tale and false

sentiment, it is doubly startling. The drama is neither tragedy, nor

melodrama, nor comedy, nor farce. What are we to think of it?

Dr. Verrall[669] would regard it as a burlesque, that is, as a playful

imitation of serious work, with exaggeration of weak features or

tendencies. From the facts that one ode[670] has nothing whatever to do

with the plot, but with the Mother and the Maid, and that Aristophanes

parodies the play in his _Celebrants of the Thesmophoria_, wherein

Euripides is accused of profaning that festival, it is inferred that

_Helen_ was not written for public presentation, but for private

performance at a house on the island of Helene belonging to an Athenian

lady. The occasion was a gathering of women who had been celebrating

the Thesmophoria, and forms Euripides’ playful answer to the charge

that he had never depicted a good woman. To prove his zeal, he chooses

Helen (the least reputable of her sex) and completely rehabilitates her

character.[671] At the same time he amuses his audience with a parody

of his own work. The sanctuary of Helen recalls that of Andromache, and

the escape that of Iphigenia and her friends. The news of this _tour de

force_ spread, and at last, owing to public curiosity, it was exhibited

at the Dionysia.

There is no doubt (i) that the _Helen_ is not serious either in intention

or execution; (ii) that there is good evidence for supposing a connexion

between the play and the festival of the Mother and the Maid, the

Thesmophoria; (iii) that Aristophanes’ jokes about Proteus-Proteas and

the rest do support the view that Euripides has in his mind the history

of a family who have nothing to do with Menelaus and Helen; (iv) that in

the play there are points, such as “Eido” (the baby-name of Theonoe),

which are irrelevant to the story. Are we, then, to accept Verrall’s

account? The sound view would appear to be that Euripides offered to

the Archon a work which for once was a burlesque. So sincere a thinker

as Euripides was certain sooner or later to attack himself, at any rate

to examine his position and methods with humorous detachment. So far we

may, we must, go with Verrall; the elaborate and delightfully detailed

development we can hardly accept—the evidence is not sufficiently strong.

But the poet is making fun not only of himself. The false Helen and her

disappearance at a crisis in the action, are not merely miracles of a

type in which he utterly disbelieves; they are features which even a

believer would remove as far as possible into the background. In handling

this fairy-tale with such _naïveté_, he is possibly laughing at some

indiscreet fellow-dramatist;[672] certainly he is ridiculing the popular

belief in such legends. Helen herself cannot credit the tale of Leda

and the Swan.[673] When given the choice between two accounts of her

brothers’ fate, she prefers the non-miraculous version.[674] Even the

dramatist’s own dislike of soothsayers is elaborately expounded by the

Greek messenger and sympathetically echoed by the chorus,[675] absurdly

enough in a play which contains Theonoe, whom the chorus themselves have

induced Helen to consult, and with success; although of course Theonoe

knows only what could be learned by listening to the talk of Menelaus.

The PHŒNISSÆ[676] (Φοίνισσαι), or _Phœnician Women_, was produced about

the year 410 B.C. The action takes place before the palace of Thebes.

Jocasta explains that the blind Œdipus is kept prisoner there by his sons

Eteocles and Polynices, whom he has therefore cursed with a prayer that

they may divide their inheritance with the sword. They have arranged

to rule for a year by turns; but Eteocles, at the end of his term, has

refused to retire and Polynices has brought an army against Thebes.

Jocasta has arranged that the brothers shall meet. When she has gone,

a pædagogus shows the Argive host to Antigone from the roof. Next the

chorus appear, a band of Phœnician maidens who sing of their voyage

and of Delphi, their destination. Polynices stealthily enters and is

greeted rapturously by his mother; Eteocles follows, and the brothers

quarrel bitterly and finally. The chorus sing of Cadmus and the harvest

of warriors. Eteocles comes forth and is advised by Creon to post a

champion at each of the seven gates. He agrees, ratifies the betrothal

of Antigone to Hæmon, and bids Creon consult Tiresias as to the hope of

victory; if Polynices falls he is not to be buried in Theban ground.

The chorus sing to Ares who has filled the land with war in place of

the delightful Dionysiac worship; they celebrate the wondrous history

of Thebes. Tiresias enters with Creon’s son Menœceus, and declares that

victory can be won only if the youth is sacrificed. Creon arranges to

send his son away, but Menœceus resolves to slay himself. The next ode

celebrates the Sphinx, the tale of Œdipus, and Menœceus’ nobility. A

messenger brings to Jocasta tidings that her sons are about to engage

in single combat; she hurries to the spot with Antigone. After a brief

ode of suspense, Creon returns mourning for his dead son, and another

messenger tells at length how Polynices, Eteocles, and Jocasta have died.

Thebes has won complete victory. The corpses are brought in, followed by

Antigone, who summons the aged Œdipus. Together they bewail the dead till

Creon breaks in and decrees that Antigone must marry Hæmon, Œdipus go

into exile, and Polynices remain unburied. Antigone defies him: she will

bury her brother, she will not marry Hæmon, but will share her father’s

exile. Œdipus as they depart asserts his greatness as the Conqueror of

the Sphinx.

This work was immensely popular in antiquity.[677] It was repeatedly

“revived”; ancient authors quote from it often; together with the

_Hecuba_ and the _Orestes_ it formed the final selection of Euripides’

work made in Byzantine times; and the scholia are extremely copious.

Because of its popularity, the play was considerably expanded by

interpolation. It is no mere question of isolated lines inserted by

actors or copyists, though such appear to be numerous; considerable

masses are due to a later poet or poets.

The following passages[678] are generally suspected:

(i) vv. 88-201, the scene of Antigone and her attendant upon the

roof-terrace. To this it has been objected[679] that the entrance of

Polynices should occur as the first event of the play after the closing

words of the prologue which mention his expected arrival. This passage

contains, moreover, a number of words otherwise unknown which is enormous

considering the length of the scene, and several awkward or strained

expressions.

(ii) vv. 1104-40, the description of the seven chieftains as they advance

upon the gates. It is “full of obscurities and difficulties,”[680]

particularly two elaborate yet frivolous descriptions of shields.

Moreover, it practically repeats the terrace-scene; both passages can

hardly be genuine.

(iii) 1223-58 (or 1282), the messenger’s account of preparations for

the single combat, followed by the dialogue in which Jocasta calls

Antigone to accompany her to the field. Not only are there marked faults

of style;[681] it is impossible, considering the urgency[682] of the

news, that the queen should stay for this tedious narrative. Jocasta’s

conversation with Antigone is by no means so objectionable. It is very

short, and the style is not unworthy[683] of Euripides. Nevertheless, it

is strange that the queen should wait for her daughter at so urgent a

time.

(iv) the end of the drama, though at what point the addition begins is

not agreed. The last address of Œdipus which opens thus[684]:

ὦ πάτρας κλεινῆς πολῖται, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,

ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ἔγνω καὶ μέγιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,

unmistakably recalls part of the finale in _Œdipus Tyrannus_:[685]

ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,

ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ.

If we accept the customary date of Sophocles’ play (405 B.C.), it was

produced after Euripides’ death. Further, the whole scene of Œdipus,

Antigone, and Creon has evidently been expanded and distorted. According

to one version, that followed by Sophocles in the _Antigone_, the maiden

remained in Thebes after the battle and buried Polynices; according to

the _Œdipus Coloneus_ she accompanied her father into exile. Here the

two versions are combined. Moreover, from the entrance of Œdipus onwards

the play abounds once more in unnatural or unusual turns of speech. And

it may be thought a serious mistake to bring the aged sufferer forth

at all,[686] thus creating a new interest at the last moment of a play

crowded with incident. But though this portion contains much unauthentic

work, it appears to be intermingled with the genuine.

Certain other passages are open to suspicion, especially Jocasta’s

prologue and the remainder—hitherto unmentioned—of the first messenger’s

speech.[687] We appear to have Euripides’ prologue, padded out by

another hand. The same kind of recurrent weakness and flatness marks

the messenger’s speech. Above all, when the speaker seeks to rise to

the occasion, his efforts result in this:[688] “From the scaling-ladder

his limbs were hurled asunder like sling-stones—his hair to Heaven, his

blood to earth; his arms and legs whirled round like Ixion’s wheel”. This

imbecile bombast is fortunately without parallel in Attic tragedy.

It seems likely that Euripides’ work was in quite early times (probably

the fourth century) expanded by another poet, whose main contribution

was a large addition to the messengers’ speeches at a date when Æschylus

was little enough known to allow such things as the description of the

hostile champions a good degree of novelty. The new text was in its turn

enlarged by accretions due to actors.[689]

Euripides’ own work is vigorous and interesting,[690] a stirring scene of

warfare, patriotism, and strong passions, which, in its present expanded

form, reminds one by its spirit and its popularity of Kyd’s _Spanish

Tragedy_, the first favourite of Elizabethan audiences.[691] The two

brothers are well distinguished, Polynices by his pathetic sense that

intolerable wrong is urging him against his will into crime, Eteocles by

a dark fervour of ambition which has grown upon his soul like religion;

and their terrible altercation in the sweeping trochaic metre is equal to

anything of the kind in Euripides for terse idiomatic vigour. Jocasta’s

passionate joy when she sees her exiled son,[692] joy which stirs her

aged feet to trip in a dance of fond rapture,[693] provides the one

light-hearted moment. And her noble speech of reconciliation[694] is the

single great achievement of the drama.

The ORESTES[695] (Ὀρέστης) was produced in 408 B.C. and again in

341.[696] It was extremely popular, and formed with the _Phœnissæ_ and

the _Hecuba_ the final selection of Euripides’ work made in Byzantine

times; but the later interpolations are probably few. The scene is

laid before the palace at Argos. Orestes and Electra, having slain

Clytæmnestra and Ægisthus, are imprisoned in their own house by the

Argive state, which will to-day decide whether they are to be stoned to

death. Orestes has been tormented by madness and is now seen asleep,

watched by Electra; she hopes that they may yet be saved by Menelaus,

who has come home with Helen. The latter enters and requests Electra to

go for her to Clytæmnestra’s tomb with drink-offerings; she is persuaded

to send her daughter Hermione instead. The chorus of Argive ladies now

enter, and their voices awaken Orestes. Then follows a wonderful scene of

affectionate tendance and a sudden paroxysm of the sufferer; the chorus

sing of the Furies and the agony through which the house is passing.

Menelaus enters and Orestes passionately implores his aid. Tyndareus

(father of Helen and Clytæmnestra) arrives and denounces the cowering

Orestes: why did he not invoke the law against his mother? The youth’s

long speech of exculpation further incenses Tyndareus. When he has

departed, Orestes again appeals to Menelaus, who points out that the only

hope lies in the Argive Assembly. Orestes watches him go with contempt,

but is cheered by the arrival of Pylades, who throws in his lot with his

friend, and the two walk off to the Assembly. The chorus sing the story

of the house and lament the matricide. A messenger brings to Electra an

account of the debate, which ended with permission to the criminals to

die by their own hand. Electra pours forth a lyric of painful beauty

until the two youths return. Pylades declares that he too will die, but

suggests vengeance on Menelaus: let them slay Helen. Electra proposes

that Hermione be held as a hostage whereby Menelaus may be induced

to save them. The two men go within to despatch Helen, whose shrieks

are soon heard. Meanwhile Electra receives Hermione, who is dragged

within. A Phrygian slave flings himself in terror from a hole high up

in the house-front; in a strange lyric narrative, he tells how amid the

confusion Helen has vanished. Orestes rushes forth in pursuit, but he

is now insane and the slave contrives to escape. Orestes goes back, and

in a moment the house is on fire. Menelaus rushes in distraught, and

sees Orestes on the battlements with his sword at Hermione’s throat. A

frantic altercation arises, until Menelaus cries to the citizens for a

rescue. Apollo appears and bids the quarrel cease. Helen is to become a

sea-goddess; Electra shall marry Pylades, and Hermione Orestes, who is to

stand his trial at Athens; Apollo will reconcile him to the Argive state.

To appreciate this masterpiece, we must realize that Euripides, who so

often insists on considering tradition in the light of his own day, has

here insisted on that principle even more definitely than elsewhere.

Certain legendary data are, to be sure, retained. Troy has fallen but

a few years ago; Iphigenia was offered by her father as a sacrifice

at Aulis. Otherwise the events described might have occurred in the

fifth century. Agamemnon, though a noble of great eminence, was not a

king[697]; Argos is ruled by an Assembly not distinguishable from the

Athenian Ecclesia. The youth who exacts vengeance with his own hand is

told in language which might have been employed by Pericles, that the

vendetta is an outrage upon law and society; punishment for crime rests

with the State alone.[698] The behest of Apollo, all-important in the

_Choephorœ_, is not even mentioned in the discussion which decides the

fate of Orestes. The oracle is indeed treated with scant courtesy even

by those most concerned to uphold it; Electra complains of the god’s

“wickedness,”[699] and her brother “blames Loxias” for urging him to a

villainous deed and then giving no aid.[700] The atmosphere is one in

which the slaughter of Clytæmnestra must be regarded with horror and the

traditional defence of Orestes as unthinkable. This is not a theological

study, but a dramatic essay in criminal psychology.

In Orestes the playwright has given us one of his most terrible

portraits. Highly sensitive, weak-minded, over-educated in a bad school,

he is unbalanced by the horror of his father’s death and by the oracular

command which has blasted his life. In the magnificent sick-bed scene

he, like his sister, fills us with nothing but pity. But the calmer he

becomes the more are we filled with loathing for this pedant of eighteen,

with his syllogisms justifying murder, his parade of rhetoric, his

hopeless inability to grasp a situation. Rich as is the world’s drama

in villains, Orestes occupies a place conspicuous. He has little heart

and no sense. Both failings are common. But that both heart and brain

should be replaced by a factitious perverse cleverness, an incredibly

superficial passion for scoring logical points against opponents who have

in hand urgent interests of real life—this grips us irresistibly. He is

an example of the wreck produced by a highly specialized mental training

which has ignored character. His first address to Menelaus strikes the

note:—

Freely will I divulge my woes to thee.

But _as the first-fruits of my plight_, I touch

Thy knees, a suppliant, _tying prayer_ the while

To thy _unleafèd lips_....[701]

This affected and obscure exordium is followed by verbal subtleties

at every opportunity: “through my sorrows I live not, yet see the

light”[702]—“my deeds, not my appearance, ravage me”[703]—“my body’s

gone, my name alone remains”.[704] But all this is nothing to the

detestable exhibition wherewith he answers the aged Tyndareus. To the

vital point—that Clytæmnestra should have been brought before a legal

tribunal—he makes no reply whatever. His only difficulties are that

Tyndareus is wounded to the soul by his daughter’s death, and that he is

far older than Orestes. What is to be done? Simply to “contract out of”

natural feelings so that the way may be clear for pure logic:—

True, matricide doth taint me, yet again

Pure am I, for my sire I did avenge.

Therefore let thy great age be set aside

From this our conference, for it puts me out;

And let me on—’tis but thy hair I dread.[705]

There follows a frigid “statement”—“balance two against two”[706]—of

his father’s claim and his mother’s offences, and of his own glorious

achievement in purifying social life. The original sinner is Tyndareus

himself who begot so vile a daughter! He ends by an appeal to Apollo’s

behest, and a pompous comment on the importance of marriage.

The aged Spartan having given his grandson over to justice as

irreclaimable, the youth turns to Menelaus, whom he insists on regarding

as his real hope, in spite of Menelaus’ plain reluctance and extreme

unpopularity in Argos. He is, moreover, unwilling to endure another

display: “Let me be; I am reflecting....”[707] At all times he is

impatient of subtleties; in the first moments of their meeting he

asks his accomplished nephew: “What mean you? Wisdom is shown not by

obscurity, but by plain speech.”[708] But now that Orestes has his

chance, he refuses to suffer Menelaus’ “reflections,” and with a warning

that “a long address is better than a short one, and easier for the

auditor to follow”[709] produces a masterpiece of metallic cleverness

which presses Seneca himself very hard; perhaps the finest gem is the

offer of Hermione as a kind of discount.[710] Before the Assembly he

succeeds in combining several insanely tactless insults to the Argives:

they are “possessors,” not original citizens, of the land; they were

Pelasgians at first, but later “Danaidæ,” descendants of the women who

slew their husbands; and he has killed his mother as much for their sake

as his father’s.[711] But Euripides’ most frightful satire on “advanced

education” is reserved for the nightmare of the close, where the raving

Orestes leans down over the battlement to the grief-maddened Menelaus

and begins by a lunatic reminiscence of the “Socratic method”: “will you

be the questioner or the respondent?”[712]

Prig as he is, Orestes has nevertheless some elements of nobility at the

first. He can tell his uncle plainly that his disease is “conscience,

which convicts me for a criminal”;[713] he shows real regard for Electra;

the splendidly selfless friendship between him and Pylades stirs every

one. As the play advances, however, we are lost in the loathing and

breathless wonder wherewith we gaze upon the increasing insanity of the

wretched prince.[714] Each moment he becomes more vigorous and more lost

to sense of right; when Electra suggests the vilest part of the plot—the

seizure of Hermione—he breaks forth into a cry like Macbeth’s: “Bring

forth men-children only!”[715]

Electra has been the chief definite cause of Orestes’ fall. Amazingly

vivid, she fills the whole drama with a thin acrid fume of malice. Her

ruling passion is not mere hatred against Clytæmnestra. That bitterness

has spread until (saving her tenderness for Orestes) there is nothing in

her but a narrow viperishness. When an innocent like Hermione draws near,

the fang strikes by instinct. Her intensity of feeling and her years have

made her Orestes’ monitor long before he returned home, and it is she

to whom Tyndareus points, in searing language, as the more guilty.[716]

Another influence has soured her, that lack of husband and children on

which Helen, with the brutality so frequent in shallow natures, insists

at their first meeting.[717] But Electra has vastly more common-sense

than her brother or Pylades, and it is to her that the delightful

comment on Helen is given:[718]

Ah, Nature!...

Saw ye how tiny was that tress she cut,

Sparing her beauty? ’Tis the old Helen still!

But her sense of humour cannot sustain her heart long:

Heaven’s hatred seize thee! Thou hast wrought the fall

Of me, and this my brother, and of Greece.

These two women, so pungently contrasted in one brief scene, share,

however, one attribute—that nerveless theology which Euripides detested

as rotting the moral fibre. Electra muses upon “suffering and disaster

sent by Heaven”.[719] Helen attributes her elopement with Paris to

the “maddening doom of Heaven,”[720] which has also “destroyed this

hapless pair”[721]—her nephew and niece. The latter in her lyric outcry

explores[722] all the legends of her line to discover the cause of the

present disaster, a method which the chorus, for all their sympathy,

indeed complicity,[723] seem to parody by the ludicrous baldness of their

reflection that this horror of fiends and bloodshed has fallen upon the

house “because Myrtilus fell out of the chariot”![724]

All the minor characters are skilfully drawn—Pylades, the warm-hearted

scatter-brained ruffian who conceives the murder of Helen as soon[725] as

he learns that she is in his friend’s house; Tyndareus, the hot-tempered,

affectionate old king; Menelaus, the vulgar and successful, who has no

other ambition than to let bygones be bygones[726] and who has actually

expected to find Orestes and Clytæmnestra sharing the same home, quite

comfortable after the death of Agamemnon;[727] Helen, that faded, facile

creature, who cannot abstain from conversation, even with murderesses

if there is no one else. Hermione, minute as is her part, commands our

affection, not only because of the vile complot which centres round her,

but for the shy graciousness of the little she does say, ἥκω λαβοῦσα

πρευμένειαν[728] and the rest; she seems to have strayed from some sunlit

lost drama by Sophocles.

The religious sanction which for Sophocles had been the background of

Orestes’ story and which for Æschylus provided the most vital part of

the action, has in Euripides’ hands become, as it were, a small, rather

shabby stage-property hung upon the back-scene. Those Avenging Spirits

who hunt the matricide are now called “frenzies”[729] by his sister,

and in the anxiously precise account[730] which Menelaus elicits from

his nephew, it becomes plain that the three “maidens like night” are an

hallucination; any unfettered intercourse between them and ordinary men

is out of the question. Traditional belief itself tells rather against

their divinity than for it.[731] Another stage property is the incidental

miracle. Menelaus at Malea was addressed by the “prophet of Nereus,

Glaucus, truthful god,” who told him of his brother’s death.[732] When

we learn that at Nauplia he heard of Clytæmnestra’s death but from “some

mariner,”[733] we surmise that “Glaucus” too was human.[734] The second

miracle is that related[735] by the Phrygian slave; Helen vanished,

“either by spells or the tricks of wizards or stolen by Heaven”. Helen

has only hidden herself; the Phrygian is crazed by excitement and terror.

But the miracle of Helen is vouched for by a more august witness, Apollo,

who asserts that he has saved her from Orestes’ sword. Thus we arrive

at the final triumph of orthodox religion, the epilogue in which the

Delphian god stays at a word the vengeance of Argos and the quarrel

between Menelaus and Orestes. In the reality of this epilogue we shall

believe according as we find it credible that Euripides could destroy all

the effect of his own play. All the action, all the atmosphere, which the

dramatist has created, are rent by an utter breach. The objection is not

so much that Apollo and his speeches are in themselves absurd, though the

consolation offered to Menelaus, that Helen throughout their married life

has given him endless trouble,[736] is (however true) distasteful. What

jars hopelessly is the monstrous discontinuity of event and emotion. As

elsewhere, this orthodox Olympian and his epilogue are a sham, devised to

suit the demands of an audience which “knew” how Orestes went forth from

Argos to Athens. The real drama ends with the wild breakdown of Menelaus,

and for the three criminals and their victim the doom falls which sin and

bitter madness have made inevitable.[737]

But the Orestes is not remarkable as a study in scepticism, like the

_Ion_. Even the psychology, superb as it is, cannot be regarded as the

cause of the immense popularity which the play won in antiquity.[738]

It is pre-eminent for magnificent situations. The sick-bed scene is

unforgettable, especially that marvellous hushed song[739] of Electra

beside her sleeping brother:—

Holy night, outpouring ever

Slumber’s boon on souls that mourn,

From thy midmost deep dominion

Hither bend thy sweeping pinion,

Where, ’neath woes that leave it never

Lies a princely house forlorn.

The whole progress of the later scenes is splendidly exciting, and in

the midst Euripides has set the audacious scene of the Phrygian slave

who replaces the conventional messenger’s speech with his wild lyrical

narrative, incoherent and baffling. Equally brilliant is the finale in

which actual lunacy confronts the delirium of despair and grief, with the

frail victim flung upon the parapet, the knife brandished in the madman’s

grasp, and the flames which are to end the horror already rising behind.

The BACCHÆ[740] (Βάκχαι), or _Bacchantes_ (female votaries of the god

Bacchus or Dionysus), was produced in 405 B.C., soon after the poet’s

death in Macedonia, and with its companion-plays obtained the first prize.

Dionysus, standing before the palace of Thebes, tells how, disguised

as a prophet, he has brought his religion into Greece. His purpose in

Thebes is to punish the sisters of his mother Semele for declaring that

their sister had united herself not with Zeus but with some mortal, and

to crush the young king Pentheus, who opposes his worship. Already the

Theban women are revelling upon Mount Cithæron, filled with the Bacchic

ecstasy. He departs to join them, and the chorus of Phrygian votaresses

throng in uttering a rapturous eulogy of their religion. Tiresias and

Cadmus are next seen preparing to join the revels, when Pentheus enters

and reproaches them. Their answers enrage him further and he orders the

arrest of the stranger-prophet. The chorus appeal to Holiness against the

oppressor, reciting the blessings of Dionysus and the doom of pride;

they yearn to revel unchecked. The Stranger is brought in; Pentheus

questions and insults him, finally haling him away to the stables. The

chorus sing their indignation and desire for the aid of Dionysus in

person when the prophet is heard summoning fire and earthquake; the women

in frenzy greet the overthrow of the palace. Their leader comes forth

and relates how Pentheus in vain sought to bind him and how the god has

thrown the house into utter ruin. Pentheus rushes out in fury, but is

met by a rustic who relates the revels and miracles performed by the

Theban votaresses. This excites the king still further, but the Stranger

dissuades him from the use of armed force; let him go disguised as a

woman to witness the revels. Pentheus retires into the palace with the

prophet, who reveals the king’s coming doom to the chorus; they rejoice

in their future freedom and the fate of the ungodly. Pentheus re-appears,

dressed as a female reveller and utterly under the Stranger’s influence.

The two depart for the mountains, the king being now practically

imbecile. The chorus fiercely call for bloody vengeance, then praise

the humble endeavour after all that is beautiful in life. A messenger

returns with the story of Pentheus’ death: he has been torn to pieces by

his mother Agave and her companions. Agave enters in mad triumph with

her son’s head, followed by Cadmus, who bears the mangled remains of his

grandson and gradually brings Agave back to her senses. He laments[741]

the prince who was the comfort of his old age.[742] Dionysus appears

in the sky, foretells the future of Cadmus and his wife, and explains

that the present sorrows are due to the will of Zeus. Agave turns away,

repudiating the new religion.

Intoxicatingly beautiful, coldly sordid, at one moment baffling the

brain, at the next thrilling us with the mystic charm of wood and

hillside, this drama stands unique among Euripides’ works. Its wonderful

effect flows from three sources: primitive dramaturgy, lyrical beauty,

the enigma of its theological import. As for the first of these, there

is a marked simplicity both of plot and characters. A god brings a

strange worship into the land of his birth; the king rejects and scorns

him; whereupon the god turns his people to madness so that they avenge

him upon the king. It is the simplest possible dramatic concept. If we

consider the personages, comparing Agave with Phædra or Medea, Pentheus

with Ion or Hippolytus, we find an equal simplicity. The characters of

the _Bacchæ_ impress us less by their subtle truth to nature than by

the situation in which they stand. In this sense the _Bacchæ_ is the

most Æschylean work of Euripides. Like his predecessor when he composed

the _Choephorœ_, he is studying directly a great religious fact, which

submerges the refinements of individual psychology, leaving somewhat

stark figures, the God, the Old Man, the King, the Prophet, and the

Woman.[743] In technique we are not far from that primitive stage of

modern drama which exhibits the interplay of Avarice, Lovingkindness,

and the rest. This imparts an even greater attractiveness to the amazing

literary excellence of the whole. This excellence is of two distinct

kinds. The episodes are not filled with romantic beauty—only a few

splendid passages in the long narratives of messengers exhibit this;

they show the same mastery of a brilliant half-prosaic idiom which is

familiar elsewhere. But the lyrics are the poet’s finest achievement in

this field. Nothing that he had created hitherto can be compared with

them, save the praises of Attica in the _Medea_[744] and the song of

escape in the _Hippolytus_.[745] The profound beauty of their musings on

the life of serene piety, the startling vividness wherewith they express

the secluded loveliness which haunts bare peaks or remote woodlands,

the superb torrent of glowing song[746] which celebrates the religious

ecstasy of Dionysiac votaries, where the glorious diction is swept along

by a tempest of ever more tumultuous rhythm—all these contribute to make

the _Bacchæ_ something precious and alone.

It is with regard to the third feature, the theological purport, that

disagreement begins among critics. Is the playwright commending the

Bacchic religion to his fellow-countrymen or is he not? If not, why this

magnificent and intense proclamation of the glory conferred by belief?

But if he supports it, why this dreary aching scene at the end, when

Dionysus hears no voice raised in loyalty, only the despairing accents

of the woman who repudiates his worship? It may be objected that perhaps

we should not hope for definite interpretation, that since “like a

live thing it seems to move and show new faces every time that, with

imagination fully working, one reads the play,”[747] perhaps there is

no core of central fact to find. Here lurks a dangerous confusion of

thought. Every work of art springs from a definite concept held by the

artist, some piece of reality clearly understood and sincerely felt,

insisting on expression at his hands precisely because it affects him

emotionally. The elusiveness of the final expression is not in the least

degree any proof that no definite doctrine, or experience, or passionate

wish, was its origin; a fern has a physical centre of gravity as truly as

an apple, though more difficult to locate. Rather, the luxuriant freedom

is the proof that there is deep down something definite, else the freedom

would be anarchy. We conclude that however enigmatic is the _Bacchæ_,

yet Euripides had a definite opinion about the two questions: Does the

god Dionysus exist? Is his religion a blessing to humanity? His opinion

could have been written down in a few lucid sentences. Had this not been

so, he would have postponed beginning his play until it was. This clear

concept may itself indicate “doubt” (if we insist on the word) or rather

a bifurcation of truth, as may be observed in the dramaturgy of Sophocles.