To which Orestes answers:
Ay, and not even Gods, whom men call wise,
Are less deceitful than be fleeting dreams.
Utter confusion is in things divine
And human. Wise men grieve at this alone
When—rashness?—no, but faith in oracles
Brings ruin—how deep, they that prove it know.[177]
The condemnation of the interpreter of signs given by birds is made the
more effective in the Phoenissae by putting it into the mouth of the
seer Tirisias:
Who useth the diviner’s art
Is foolish. If he heraldeth ill things,
He is loathed of those to whom he prophesies.
If pitying them that seek to him, he lie,
He wrongs the Gods.[178]
In the Iphigenia at Aulis Achilles bitterly asks, “What is a seer?”
and answers his own question, “A man who speaks few truths and many
lies.”[179] Even prayer is sometimes regarded as of doubtful aid,
although naturally Euripides’ characters often appeal to the Gods.
At times, too, the poet is more openly atheistic or agnostic with
reference to the popular religion. The most striking illustration is
found in the prayer which he puts into the mouth of Hecuba, the Trojan
queen:
O Earth’s Upbearer, thou whose throne is Earth,
Whoe’er thou be, O past our finding out,
Zeus, be thou Nature’s Law, or Mind of Man,
To thee I pray; for treading soundless paths,
In justice dost thou guide all mortal things.[180]
You will observe that although this prayer rejects all current
polytheism, it is far from denying the existence of a divine
power—rather it maintains in poetic language the existence of such a
principle—the reason of the universe which shows itself in nature as
law and in the mind of man as reason. This pantheism finds expression
elsewhere in his poetry. In illustration I will quote two fragments.
The first identifies divinity with all embracing ether:
Seest thou the boundless ether there on high,
That folds the earth around with dewy arms?
This deem thou Zeus, this reckon one with God.[181]
The second identifies god with the intelligence which pervades the
world:
Thee, self-begotten, who in ether rolled
Ceaselessly round, by mystic links dost blend
The nature of all things, whom veils enfold
Of light, of dark night flecked with gleams of gold,
Of star-hosts dancing round thee without end.[182]
The last three passages show how the poet’s mind was filled with the
philosophic thought of the day. In identifying divinity with the
ether he was apparently giving poetic expression to the views of his
contemporary, the philosopher Diogenes of Apollonia, whom he must have
known at Athens. Diogenes followed Anaximenes in making “Air” (or
the “Ether”) the basic element of the world, but advanced beyond his
predecessor in attributing to “Air” intelligence and movement—indeed
he held that it could only be conceived as intelligent; and he further
said that this intelligent “Air,” which was the cause and, by virtue
of its intelligence, the director of all things, seemed to him to be
god. In the mind of man therefore the divine principle shows itself
as intellect, in nature it is law. But in Hecuba’s prayer there is a
higher conception of god than even this—the divine reason is also
world-ruling Justice: Justice and God are one. This identification
in a sense is as old as Hesiod, but Euripides conceives of Justice
not as the daughter of Zeus but as identical with the cosmic reason,
immanent in all things, forming and directing all things. When the
poet speaks of Justice in ways more natural to the ordinary man, he
combats the current notion that Justice dwells in heaven where men’s
sins are recorded in a book; rather, he says, she is here on earth
with men, unseen but seeing all.[183] Yet he never carried out this idea
and reconciled it with the actual moral condition of the world and
the undeserved sufferings of mankind. The problem of evil and doubt
constantly vexed him; neither faith nor reason gave him rest:
When faith overfloweth my mind, God’s providence all-embracing
Banisheth griefs: but when doubt whispereth ‘Ah but to _know_!’
No clue through the tangle I find of fate and of life for my tracing:
There is ever a change and many a change,
And the mutable fortune of men evermore sways to and fro
Over limitless range.[184]
On death and the possibility of a future life Euripides again gives us
no consistent views. He thought that men fear the great transition from
inexperience with it; but he found some comfort in the fact that death
comes in obedience to nature’s universal law, and therefore should
cause no alarm.[185] Still he felt that the possibility of life beyond
the grave gave no certainty of joy, for many, like Macaria in the
Heraclidae, might say:
If in the grave aught be:
But ah that naught might be!—for if there too
We mortals who must die shall yet have cares,
I know not whither one shall turn; since death
For sorrow is accounted chiefest balm.[186]
Sometimes he expresses or hints at the view that our souls return to
the air or ether from which they sprang.[187] Again he uses the Homeric
pictures of a cheerless other world. Once he refers to the Orphic
doctrine in the cryptic utterance, “Who knows but life be death,
and death be reckoned life below?”—verses which Plato and other
philosophers were to interpret after him.
If space allowed, we might gladly dwell on Euripides’ sympathy with
human poverty and suffering, on the hints he gives that he perceived
the common brotherhood of man. In his noble ideals of womanhood he
surpasses his contemporaries. Above all these matters it is important
for us with our present interest to note that more than once the
tragedian seems to wish to inculcate the truth that the standard
of morality among men was far superior to that of the traditional
pantheon. No other poet of his age sets forth the true nobility of man
so perfectly as Euripides.
The last play of the long list he wrote was the Bacchae. Composed in
Macedonia, it was first produced at Athens after the poet’s death. As
was fitting for a tragedy written in the home of Dionysus, the drama
deals with the Dionysiac possession, enthusiasm, the “divine madness,”
on which the Greeks ever set high store. No play has so baffled
interpretation. Some scholars think it a recantation; others vigorously
deny it. Personally I am inclined to hold with Adam that Dionysus
in the play “stands for the spirit of enthusiasm in the ancient
Greek meaning of the word,” and that the principal lesson of the
drama is to be found in the verse, “Not with knowledge is wisdom
bought”[188]—that is, reason is not all in man, but there is something
greater—enthusiasm, inspiration.[189]
From what we have been considering thus far, it is evident that
Euripides’ spirit was primarily iconoclastic; there can be no question
that he contributed to the decay of the ancient beliefs and that he
helped drive the Olympians from their thrones in the minds of thinking
men. For fifty years he openly uttered his criticisms in the theater
at the high festival of Dionysus before the quick-witted Athenians.
The effect must have been great, for no poet enjoyed more widespread
popularity.
On the positive side Euripides offers no system of religion or of
morals. Indeed, he seems never to have arrived at any complete
unity in his thought. But he is stimulating now, and in his own day
unquestionably goaded men to reflection, just because he raises so
often fundamental questions—the questions which reflecting men were
asking then and have been asking ever since—questions which are never
wholly answered, but which always demand an answer. The stimulating
character of his dramas makes him indeed one of the great religious
poets of the world.