is displayed by Macaria in the _Heracleidæ_ and by Iphigenia in the
last scene of her tragedy at Aulis. Iphigenia in this play ranks justly
as the most beautiful of Euripidean characters, and as the most truly
feminine among the heroines of the Greek drama. Her first appearance
on the stage enlists our sympathy, when she seems to welcome her
father--the father whom we know to be ignobly and deceitfully planning
her death--with the tenderest words of girlish greeting. Landor, in
his celebrated dialogue between Agamemnon and his daughter, on the
shores of Lethe, was mindful of this passage. But in that masterly
study of Greek style he added a new element of pathos. Iphigenia has
already drunk the waters of oblivion, and all the anguish of the
past, her father's treachery, and the bending of his will in base
compliance with a barbarous superstition, has been forgotten. Meanwhile
Agamemnon has not only his daughter's wrongs upon his conscience, but
Clytemnestra's adultery and vengeance, the price he paid for his old
crime, are still hot in his memory. Therefore the situation is more
complex in the modern poem. At Aulis, Iphigenia is but the loved child
of a weak man, who has to return her pretty speeches and caresses with
constrained phrases hiding a hideous meaning. When the truth is at
last made known to her she pleads passionately for life. "Had I the
tongue of Orpheus," she cries in her agony, "I would melt your heart to
pity, father, with my words. But now my only eloquence is tears. I was
the first who called you father, the first you called your child; the
first who sat upon your knees and took and gave a daughter's kisses."
She reminds him of his promises, the happy life she was to lead, the
comfort she meant to bring to his old age. She asks what Helen and
Paris have to do with her, or she with them, that she should perish in
their quarrel. She makes the little Orestes kneel and clasp his hands
in speechless prayer. At last the whole energy of her grief finds vent
in words more thrilling even than Claudio's when he thinks of death:
"Of all the joys that men can have, the sweetest is to live and see
the light. The dead are nothing; only madmen pray for death; it is
better to live miserably than to die gloriously." The effect of these
passionate entreaties and of the lyrical outburst of anguish which
follows is to make us feel the price of Iphigenia's sacrifice. She is
no forlorn captive like Polyxena, but a princess in the very bloom and
promise of her prime, affianced to Achilles, just entering upon the
sweetness of new life divined "in rich foreshadowings of the world."
How can she leave it all and go forth to dust and endless darkness? Yet
her father has dropped one word which in her first passion of grief
seems to be unheeded. "Hellas requires this of us both, my daughter--of
you as far as in you lies, and of me also, in order that she should be
free." When we next behold Iphigenia, his words had borne noble fruit.
Clytemnestra and Achilles are devising how to save her. She enters,
firm and resolute, but with the rapid utterance of exalted enthusiasm.
Her determination has been taken. The duty laid upon her, the greatness
of the glory, the grandeur of the part she has to play, had reconciled
her to death. "Mother, listen to my words! The whole of mighty Hellas
looks to me for her salvation and her freedom. How, then, should I be
so life-loving as to shrink? And you, you did not bear me for yourself
alone, but for all Greece. I give this my body for our land. Slay me;
destroy the towers of Ilion. This shall be my everlasting monument,
and this my children and my marriage and my fame." What follows in her
dialogue with Clytemnestra and Achilles, Clytemnestra vainly seeking
to overthrow her resolution, and Achilles blending his admiration of
her heroism with regret that he should lose this flower of royalty,
raises the unselfish passion of the girl to still sublimer height. She
is not only firm, but exquisitely gentle. She thinks of her brother,
whom she leaves behind. She entreats her mother to forgive Agamemnon.
And even when she breaks into lamentation, her one sustaining thought
remains, that she, she only, will overwhelm Troy, and bring the light
of safety and of freedom upon Hellas. Here, then, in the #eupsychia#
of Iphigenia, the antique thirst for glory is the determining motive;
and her final resolution contradicts that first outcry of simple nature
uttered to her father. The spiritual element, aflame with hope of
everlasting honor, discards the cruder instincts that make men cling to
life for life's sake only.
Another shade of the same virtue gives a peculiar attraction to
the self-devotion of Alcestis in her death, and of Electra in her
attendance on the brain-sick Orestes. Blending with the despair of
the captive princess and the frenzy of the inspired Pythia, this
sublime unselfishness renders Cassandra's attitude in the _Troades_
heroically tragic. She goes, a bondwoman, an unwilling concubine, with
Agamemnon to Mycenæ. Insult and slavery and a horrible death, clearly
discerned by her prophetic vision, are before her. And yet she triumphs
gloriously; her voice rings like a clarion when she proclaims that
the guerdon of her suffering is the ruin of the house of Atreus. It
is noticeable that Euripides, the so-called woman-hater, has alone
of the Greek poets subsequent to Homer, with the single exception of
Sophocles, devoted his genius to the delineation of female characters.
It is impossible to weigh occasional sententious sarcasms against
such careful studies of heroic virtue in woman as the Iphigenia, the
Electra, the Polyxena, the Alcestis of our poet. Aristophanes, who
was himself the worst enemy Athenian ladies ever met with, describes
Euripides as a foe to women, apparently because he thought fit to treat
them, not as automata, but as active, passionate, and powerful agents
in the play of human life.[8]
But to return to our illustrations of #eupsychia#. In the _Medea_ and
the _Hippolytus_ Euripides again displays this virtue of stern stoicism
in two women. But here the heroines are guilty: their Spartan endurance
of anguish to the death is tempered with crime. These tragedies are
the masterpieces of the poet; in each of them the single passion of
an individual forms the subject of the drama. Separated from all
antecedents of ancestral doom, Medea and Phædra work out the dreadful
consequences of their own tempestuous will. Not _Othello_, and not
_Faust_, have a more complete internal unity of motive. No modern
play has an equal external harmony of form. Medea was one of the
most romantic figures of Greek story. Daughter of the sun-god in the
Colchian land of mystery and magic, she unfolded like some poisonous
flower, gorgeous to look upon, with flaunting petals and intoxicating
scent, but deadly. Terrible indeed in wiles, she learned to love
Jason. By a series of crimes, in which the hero participated as her
accomplice, and of which he reaped the benefits--by the betrayal of
her father's trust, by the murder of her brother, by the butchery of
Pelias--she placed her lover on the throne of Thessaly. Then Jason, at
the height of his prosperity, forgetting the love, as of some tigress,
that the sorceress bore him, forgetting, too, her fatal power of life
and death, cast his eyes on Glauke, the king's daughter of Corinth, and
bade Medea go forth with her sons, a pariah--a dishonored wife. Whither
should she turn? To Colchis, and the father whose son she slew? To
Thessaly, where the friends of Pelias still live? Jason does not care.
His passion for Medea has vanished like a mist. Their common trials
common crimes--trials which should have endeared them to each other;
crimes which were as strong as hell to bind them--have melted from his
mind like dew. He only wishes to be rid of the fell woman, and to live
a peaceful life with innocent home-keeping folk. But on one thing Jason
has not reckoned--on the awful fury of his old love; he forgets how she
wrought by magic and by poison in his need, and how in her own need she
may do things terrible and strange. In the same way we often think that
we will lightly leave some ancient, strong, habitual sin, of old time
passionately cherished, of late grown burdensome; but not so easily may
the new pure life be won. Between our souls and it there stands the
fury of the past.
Medea in her house, like a lioness in her den, has crouched sleepless,
without food, not to be touched or spoken to, since the first news
of Glauke's projected bridal was told. No one knows what she is
meditating. Only the nurse of her children mistrusts her fiery eyes
and thunderous silence, her viperish loose hair and throbbing skin.
The moment is finely prepared. Some Corinthian ladies visit her, and
she, though loath to rise, does so at their prayer, excusing her
reluctance by illness, and by a foreigner's want of familiarity with
their customs. Pale, calm, and terrible, she stands before them. From
this first appearance of Medea to the end of the play, her one figure
occupies the whole space of the theatre. Her spirit is in the air,
and the progress of the action only dilates the impression which she
has produced. The altercations with Creon and with Jason are artfully
conducted so as to arouse our sympathy and make us feel that such a
nature is being driven by the intemperance and selfishness of others
into a _cul-de-sac_ of crime. The facility with which she disposes in
thought of her chief foes, as if they were so many flies that have to
be caught and killed, is eminently impressive. "Many are the ways
of death: I will stretch three corpses in the palace--Creon's, the
bride's, my husband's. My only thought is now of means--whether to burn
them or to cut their throats--perchance the old tried way of poison
were the best. They are dead." #Kai dê tethnasi.# Medea knows _they_
cannot escape her. For the rest, she will consider her own plans. In
the scene with Jason she rises to an appalling altitude. Her words
are winged snakes and the breath of furnaces. There is no querulous
recrimination, no impotence of anger; but her spirit glows and flickers
dragon-like against him, as she stands above him on the pedestal of his
ingratitude. But when he has gone, and she sits down to reconsider her
last act of vengeance--the murder of his sons and hers--then begins the
tragic agony of her own soul. These lines reveal the contest between a
mother's love and the pride of an injured woman, the #eupsychia# of one
who must steel her heart in order to preserve her fame for fortitude
and power:
O Zeus, and justice of high Jove, and light
Of Sun, all seeing! Now victorious
Over my foes shall I pace forth, sweet friends,
To triumph!
I shudder at the deed that will be done
Hereafter: for my children I shall slay--
Mine; there is none shall snatch them from me now.
Let no one deem me timid, weak of hand,
Placidly tame; but of the other temper,
Harsh to my foes and kindly to my friends.
Then when Glauke, arrayed in the robe Medea sent her, is smouldering
to ashes with her father in slow phosphorescent flame, Medea sends for
her children and makes that last speech which is the very triumph of
Euripidean rhetoric:
O children, children! you have still a city,
A home, where, lost to me and all my woe,
You will live out your lives without a mother!
But I--lo! I am for another land,
Leaving the joy of you:--to see you happy,
To deck your marriage-bed, to greet your bride,
To light your wedding-torch shall not be mine!
O me, thrice wretched in my own self-will!
In vain, then, dear my children! did I rear you;
In vain I travailed, and with wearing sorrow
Bore bitter anguish in the hour of childbirth!
Yea, of a sooth, I had great hope of you,
That you should cherish my old age, and deck
My corpse with loving hands, and make me blessed
'Mid women in my death. But now, ah me!
Hath perished that sweet dream. For long without you
I shall drag out a dreary doleful age.
And you shall never see your mother more
With your dear eyes: for all your life is changed.
Woe, woe!
Why gaze you at me with your eyes, my children?
Why smile your last sweet smile? Ah! me; ah! me!
What shall I do? My heart dissolves within me,
Friends, when I see the glad eyes of my sons!
I cannot. No: my will that was so steady,
Farewell to it. They too shall go with me:
Why should I wound their sire with what wounds them,
Heaping tenfold his woes on my own head?
No, no, I shall not. Perish my proud will.
Yet whence this weakness? Do I wish to reap
The scorn that springs from enemies unpunished?
Dare it I must. What craven fool am I,
To let soft thoughts flow trickling from my soul!
Go, boys, into the house: and he who may not
Be present at my solemn sacrifice--
Let him see to it. My hand shall not falter.
Ah! ah!
Nay, do not, O my heart! do not this thing!
Suffer them, O poor fool; yea, spare thy children!
There in thy exile they will gladden thee.
Not so: by all the plagues of nethermost hell
It shall not be that I, that I should suffer
My foes to triumph and insult my sons!
Die must they: this must be, and since it must,
I, I myself will slay them, I who bore them.
So it is fixed, and there is no escape.
Even as I speak, the crown is on her head,
The bride is dying in her robes, I know it.
But since this path most piteous I tread,
Sending them forth on paths more piteous far,
I will embrace my children. Oh, my sons,
Give, give your mother your dear hands to kiss!
Oh, dearest hands, and mouths most dear to me,
And forms and noble faces of my sons!
Be happy even there: what here was yours,
Your father robs you of. Oh, loved embrace!
Oh, tender touch and sweet breath of my boys!
Go, go, go, leave me! Lo, I cannot bear
To look on you: my woes have overwhelmed me!
Now know I all the ill I have to do:
But rage is stronger than my better mind,
Rage, cause of greatest crimes and griefs to mortals.[9]
Phædra, the heroine of the _Hippolytus_, supplies us with a new
conception of the same thirst for #eukleia#--the same #eupsychia,
gennaiotês#, indifference to life when honor is at stake. The pride of
her good name drives Phædra to a crime more detestable than Medea's,
because her victim, Hippolytus, is eminently innocent. I do not want to
dwell upon the pining sickness of Phædra, which Euripides has wrought
with exquisitely painful details, but rather to call attention to
Hippolytus. Side by side with the fever of Phædra is the pure fresh
health of the hunter-hero. The scent of forest-glades, where he pursues
the deer with Artemis, surrounds him; the sea-breeze from the sands,
where he trains his horses, moves his curls. His piety is as untainted
as his purity; it is the maiden-service of a maiden-saint. In his
observance of the oath extorted from him by Phædra's nurse, in his
obedience to his father's will, in his kindness to his servants, in
his gentle endurance of a painful death, and in the joy with which he
greets the virgin huntress when she comes to visit him, Euripides has
firmly traced the ideal of a guileless, tranquil manhood. Hippolytus
among the ancients was the Paladin of chastity, the Percival of their
romance. Nor is any knight of mediæval legend more true and pure than
he. Hippolytus first comes upon the stage with a garland of wild
flowers for Artemis:
Lady, for thee this garland have I woven
Of wilding flowers plucked from an unshorn meadow,
Where neither shepherd dares to feed his flock,
Nor ever scythe hath swept, but through the mead
Unshorn in spring the bee pursues her labors,
And maiden modesty with running rills
Waters the garden. Sweet queen, take my crown
To deck thy golden hair: my hand is holy.
To me alone of men belongs this honor,
To be with thee and answer when thou speakest;
Yea, for I hear thy voice but do not see thee.
So may I end my life as I began.
Even in this bald translation some of the fresh morning feeling,
as of cool fields and living waters, and pure companionship and a
heart at peace, transpires. Throughout the play, in spite of the
usual Euripidean blemishes of smart logic-chopping and pragmatical
sententiousness, this impression is maintained. Hippolytus moves
through it with the athletic charm that belongs to such statues as
that of Meleager and his dog in the Vatican. At the end the young hero
is carried from the sea-beach, mangled, and panting out his life amid
intolerable pain and fever-thirst. His lamentations are loud and deep
as he calls on Death the healer. Then suddenly is he aware of the
presence of Artemis:
Oh, breath and perfume of the goddess! Lo,
I feel thee even in torment, and am eased!
Here in this place is Artemis the queen.
The scent of the forest coolness has been blown upon him. His death
will now be calm.
_A._ Poor man! she is; the goddess thou most loved.
_H._ Seest thou me, lady, in what plight I lie?
_A._ I see thee; but I may not drop a tear.
_H._ Thou hast no huntsman and no servant now.
_A._ Nay, truly, since thou diest, dear my friend.
_H._ No groom, no guardian of thy sculptured shrine.
_A._ 'Twas Kupris, the arch-fiend, who wrought this woe.
_H._ Ah, me! Now know I what god made me die.
_A._ Shorn of her honor, vexed with thy chaste life.
_H._ Three of us her one spite--behold! hath slain.
_A._ Thy father, and his wife, and thirdly thee.
_H._ Yea, and I therefore mourn my sire's ill hap.
_A._ Snared was he by a goddess's deceit.
_H._ Oh! for your sorrow in this woe, my father!
_T._ Son! I have perished: life has now no joy.
_H._ I mourn this error more for you than me.
_T._ Would, son, I were a corpse instead of you.
_A._ Stay! for though earth and gloom encircle thee,
Not even thus the anger unavenged
Of Kupris shall devour at will thy body:
For I, with my own hand, to pay for thee,
Will pierce of men him whom she mostly dotes on,
With these inevitable shafts. But thou,
As guerdon for thine anguish, shalt henceforth
Gain highest honors in Troezenian land,
My gift. Unwedded maids before their bridals
Shall shear their locks for thee, and thou forever
Shalt reap the harvest of unnumbered tears.
Yea, and for aye, with lyre and song the virgins
Shall keep thy memory; nor shall Phædra's love
For thee unnamed fall in oblivious silence.
But thou, O son of aged Ægeus, take
Thy child within thy arms and cherish him;
For without guile thou slewest him, and men,
When the gods lead, may well lapse into error.
Thee too I counsel; hate not thy own father,
Hippolytus: 'twas fate that ruined thee.
Thus Artemis reconciles father and son. Hippolytus dies slowly in the
arms of Theseus, and the play ends. The appearance of the goddess,
as a lady of transcendent power more than as a divine being--her
vindictive hatred of Aphrodite, and the moral that she draws about the
fate by which Hippolytus died and Theseus sinned, are all thoroughly
Euripidean. Not so would Æschylus the theologian, or Sophocles the
moralist, have dealt with the conclusion of the play. But neither would
have drawn a more touching picture.
The following scene from the opening of the _Orestes_ may be taken as
a complete specimen of the manner of Euripides when working pathos to
its highest pitch, and when desirous of introducing into mythic history
the realities of common life. Electra appears as the devoted sister;
Orestes as the invalid brother; the Chorus are somewhat importunate,
but, at the same time, sympathetic visitors. This extract also serves
to illustrate the Euripidean habit of mingling lyrical dialogue with
the more regular Iambic in passages which do not exactly correspond to
the Commos of the elder tragedians, but which require highly wrought
expression. Helen has just left Electra. As the wife of Menelaus walks
away, the daughter of Agamemnon follows her with her eyes, and speaks
thus:
_El._ O nature! what a curse art thou 'mid men--
Yea, and a safeguard to the nobly-tempered!
[_Points her finger at Helen._
See how she snipped the tips of her long hair,
Saving its beauty! She's the same woman still.--
May the gods hate thee for the ruin wrought
On me, on him, on Hellas! Woe is me!
[_Sees the Chorus advancing._
Here come my friends again with lamentations,
To join their wails with mine: they'll drive him far
From placid slumber, and will waste mine eyes
With weeping when I see my brother mad.
[_Speaking to the Chorus._
O dearest maidens, tread with feet of wool;
Come softly, make no rustling, raise no cry:
For though your kindness be right dear to me,
Yet to wake him will work me double mischief.
[_The Chorus enters._
_Ch._ Softly, softly! let your tread
Fall upon the ground like snow!
Every sound be dumb and dead:
Breathe and speak in murmurs low!
_El._ Further from the couch, I pray you; further yet, and yet away!
_Ch._ Even so, dear maid, you see that I obey.
_El._ Ah, my friend, speak softly, slowly,
Like the sighing of a rush.
_Ch._ See I speak and answer lowly
With a stealthy smothered hush.
_El._ That is right: come hither now; come boldly forward to my side;
Come, and say what need hath brought you: for at length
with watching tried,
Lo, he sleeps, and on the pillow spreads his limbs and
tresses wide.
_Ch._ How is he? Dear lady, say:
Let us hear your tale, and know
Whether you have joy to-day,
Whether sorrow brings you low.
_El._ He is breathing still, but slightly groaning in his sleep alway.
_Ch._ O poor man! but tell us plainer what you say.
_El._ Hush! or you will scare the pleasant
Sleep that to his eyelid brings
Brief oblivion of the present.
_Ch._ Ah, thrice wretched race that springs
Burdened with the god-sent curses of abhorrèd deeds!
_El._ Ah, me:
Guilty was the voice of Phoebus, when enthroned for prophecy,
He decreed my mother's murder--mother murdered guiltily!
_Ch._ Look you, lady, on his bed,
How he gently stirs and sighs!
_El._ Woe is me! His sleep hath fled,
Frightened by your noisy cries!
_Ch._ Nay; I thought he sleeping lay.
_El._ Hence, I bid you, hence away
From the bedside, from the house!
Cease your noise;
Subdue your voice;
Stay not here to trouble us!
_Ch._ He is sleeping, and you rightly caution us.
_El._ Holy mother, mother Night!
Thou who sheddest sleep on every wearied wight!
Arise from Erebus, arise
With plumy pinions light:
Hover o'er the house of Atreus; and upon our aching eyes,
Wearied with woe,
With grief brought low,
Solace bring 'mid miseries.
Silence! Hush! what noise was this?
Can you ne'er your tongue restrain,
And allow soft slumber's kiss
To refresh his fevered brain?
_Ch._ Tell me, lady, what the close
Of his grief is like to be?
_El._ Death. Nought else will end his woes.
Lo, he fasts continually.
_Ch._ Alas! Alas! his fate is sure.
_El._ By the promise to make pure
Hands a mother's life-blood stained,
Phoebus brought
Woe, and wrought
All the grief that we have gained.
_Ch._ Just it was to slay the slayer; yet the deed with
crime was fraught.
_El._ Thou art dead: oh, thou art dead,
Mother, who didst bear me! mother, who didst shed
A father's blood, and slay
The children of thy bed!
We are dying, we are dying, like the dead, and weak as they:
For thou art gone,
And I am wan,
Weeping, sighing night and day!
Look upon me, friends, behold
How my withered life must run,
Childless, homeless, sad and cold,
Comfortless beneath the sun.
_Ch._ Come hither, maid Electra, to the couch:
Lest haply he should breathe his life away
Unheeded: I like not this deep dead languor.
[_Orestes wakes up._
_Or._ O soothing sleep! dear friend! best nurse of sickness!
How sweetly came you in my hour of need.
Blest Lethe of all woes, how wise you are,
How worthy of the prayers of wretched men!
Whence came I to this place? How journeyed I?
I cannot think: my former mind is vanished.
_El._ O dearest, how hath your sleep gladdened me!
Say, can I help to soothe or raise your body?
_Or._ Yes, take me, take me: with your kind hands wipe
The foam of fever from my lips and eyes.
_El._ Sweet is this service to me; I am glad
To soothe my brother with a sister's hand.
_Or._ Support me with your breast, and fan my forehead;
Brush the loose hair: I scarce can see for sickness.
_El._ Poor head! How rough and tangled are the curls,
How haggard is your face with long neglect!
_Or._ Now lay me back upon the bed again:
When the fit leaves me, I am weak and helpless.
_El._ Yea; and the couch is some relief in sickness,
A sorry friend, but one that must be borne with.
_Or._ Raise me once more upright, and turn my body:
Sick men are hard to please, through wayward weakness.
_El._ How would you like to put your feet to earth?
'Tis long since you stood up; and change is pleasant.
_Or._ True: for it gives a show of seeming health;
And shows are good, although there be no substance.
[_Orestes changes his posture and sits at ease._
_El._ Now listen to me, dearest brother mine,
While the dread Furies leave you space to think.
_Or._ What have you new to say? Good news will cheer me;
But of what's bad I have enough already.
_El._ Menelaus is here, your father's brother:
His ships are safely moored in Nauplia.
_Or._ What! Has he come to end your woes and mine?
He is our kinsman and our father's debtor.
_El._ He has: and this is surety for my words--
Helen hath come with him from Troy, is here.
_Or._ If heaven had saved but him, he'd now be happier:
But with his wife, he brings a huge curse home.
_El._ Yea: Tyndareus begat a brood of daughters
Marked out for obloquy, a shame through Hellas.
_Or._ Be you, then, other than the bad; you can:
Make not fine speeches, but be rightly minded!
[_As he speaks, he becomes excited._
_El._ Ah me, my brother! your eyes roll and tremble--
One moment sane, and now swift frenzy fires you!
[_Orestes speaks to phantoms in the air._
_Or._ Mother, I sue to thee: nay, mother, hound not
Those blood-faced, snake-encircled women on me!
There! There! See there--close by they bound upon me!
_El._ Stay, wretched brother; start not from the bed!
For nought you see of what seems clear and certain.
_Or._ O Phoebus! They will slay me, those dog-faced,
Fierce-eyed, infernal ministers, dread goddesses!
_El._ I will not leave you! but with woven arms
Will stay you from the direful spasm-throes.
[_Orestes hurls Electra, from him._
_Or._ Let go! Of my damned Furies thou art one,
That with thy grip wouldst hale me down to hell!
_El._ Ah, woe is me! what succor shall I find,
Seeing the very gods conspire against us?
_Or._ Give me my bow and arrows, Phoebus' gift,
Wherewith Apollo bade me fight the fiends,
If they should scare me with wild-eyed delirium.
Some god shall feel the fury of man's hand,
Unless ye vanish forth from out my sight!
[_He threatens the phantoms._
Hear ye not! See ye not the feathery wings
Of swift, sure-striking shafts, ready to flutter?
Ha! Ha!
Why linger here? Go, sweep with outspread pinions
The windy sky! Hence, and complain of Phoebus!
Woe's me!
[_Recovering his reason again._
Why waste I breath, wearying my lungs in vain?
Where am I? From my bed how leaped I--when?
'Midmost the waves once more I see fair weather.
Sister, why weep you? Wherefore veil your head?
I blush to see you partner of my woe,
Blush that a girl should suffer in my sickness.
Nay, do not pine thus, bowed beneath my burden--
All mine;--you said but yea, 'twas I who shed
Our mother's blood: but Loxias I blame,
Who urging me to most unholy deeds
Helped me with words, in act availed me nothing.
Yea, and I think my sire, if, face to face,
I asked him--is it right to slay my mother?
Would lengthen many prayers, beseeching me
Never to draw my sword on her who bare me,
Seeing he might not see the sun again,
And I am doomed to bear this weight of horrors.--
But now unveil your face again, dear sister,
And cease from weeping--even though we be
Ringed round with sorrows. When you see me downcast,
Soothe you my terror and my frenzied soul--
Soothe and caress me; yea, and when you moan,
'Tis mine to stay and comfort as I can:
For these kind services of friends are fair,
But, dear, sad sister, go into the house,
And give your watchful eyes to sleep, and rest;
Take food, and with fair water bathe yourself.
For think, if you should fail me, if by watching
You take some sickness, then we're lost: 'tis you,
You only, are my help; all else is vanished.
_El._ Not so. With you to die I choose, with you
To live: it is all one; for if you perish,
What shall I do--a woman? How shall I,
Brotherless, friendless, fatherless, alone,
Live on? Nay, if you ask it, I will do
Your will: but, brother, rest you on your bed;
Nor take the terror and the startling fear
For more than phantoms: stay upon the couch.
For though one is not sick, and only seems,
Yet is this pain and weariness to mortals.
This scene, for variety of motive and effect, is not excelled by any
passage in ancient tragedy. The scope which it afforded for impressive
acting must have been immense, though it is difficult to understand how
the fixed masks and conventional dresses of the Greek stage could have
been adapted to the violent and frequent changes of mood exhibited
by Orestes. Adequately to render the effect of the lyrical dialogue
between Electra and the Chorus is very difficult. I have attempted to
maintain in some degree the antistrophic pauses, and by the use of
rhyme to hint how very near the tragedy of the Greeks approached, in
scenes like this, to the Italian opera. The entrance of the Chorus
singing "Silence" can only be paralleled by passages in which the spies
or conspirators of Rossini or Mozart appear upon the stage, whispering
"Zitto! Zitto!" to the sound of subdued music. In the same way
Electra's impassioned apostrophe to Night must have been the subject of
an elaborate aria.
The scene which I have translated from the _Orestes_ suggests the
remark that many Euripidean plays were in fact melodramas. This is
true, in a special sense, of the _Troades_, which must have owed its
interest as an acted drama to the music and the _mise en scène_. It is
also worthy of notice that a fair proportion of our extant tragedies
are what the Germans call _Lustspiele_. That is to say, they have no
proper tragic ending, and the element of tragedy contained in them
consists of perils escaped by the chief actors. Thus the _Helena_
and the _Iphigenia in Tauris_ have a joyful climax. The _Orestes_
closes with a reconciliation of all parties, hurriedly effected, that
reminds us of a modern comedy. The _Ion_ is brought to a satisfactory
conclusion. The apotheosis of Iphigenia in her play at Aulis eliminates
the tragic element, though, regarded as the first part of an eminently
tragic series and read by the light of the _Electra_, this play may be
regarded as the prologue to a mighty drama of crime and retribution.
The _Alcestis_ is now universally and rightly classed among the
plays of a semi-satyric character; and the _Andromache_ is not a
genuine tragedy, since the death of Neoptolemus is episodical and
has little to do with the previous action. In all these plays the
key-note is struck by the Greek phrase #metabolê#, which signified a
revolution brought about within the limits of a certain situation.
This probably attracted Euripides to the class of drama in question,
since it enabled him to deal freely with character and to concentrate
his attention upon the working out of striking incidents. From this
point of view the _Andromache_ is so important that it deserves more
than a passing notice. The peculiar faculty and the prevailing faults
of the poet are alike illustrated in its scenes--his fine and sharp
character-making in the chief personages, his powerful rhetoric and
subtle special-pleading, his acute remarks on politics and domestic
relations, no less than his wilful neglect of dramatic unity and wanton
carelessness of construction. Viewed in one light, the _Andromache_
is a bitter satire upon the Spartan type of character, exemplified
in the cruel Hermione and the treacherous Menelaus. From yet another
standpoint of criticism it may be regarded as a dramatic essay on the
choice of wives and the economy of the household. Thus the political
and social theorist overlays the artist proper in this play; and yet
the language is so brilliant, the pathos is so telling, and the
lyrical episodes are so musical that we understand its popularity among
the ancients. At the opening of the drama, Andromache, who has taken
sanctuary at Phthia in the shrine of Thetis, describes the misery
of her situation as bondwoman and concubine to Neoptolemus. Though
warmly attached to herself and the father of her son Molossus, he has
recently married Hermione, the Spartan princess. Thus the true subject
of the play is set before us; for if the _Andromache_ has any unity of
conception, we must find it in the "nuptial choice" of Neoptolemus,
who, after bringing discord into his household by the jealousy of two
women, eventually meets his death as an indirect consequence of this
domestic folly. The elegiac lamentations of the Trojan princess and
the tender remonstrances of the Chorus, which follow the prologue, are
among the most melodious passages of poetry in Euripides. Then the
action begins. Neoptolemus is away at Delphi. Hermione and her father,
Menelaus, remain at home, and use the opportunity for persecuting
Andromache. In a long and agitating scene with Hermione, the heroine
shows that she remains a noble lady, of untamed and royal soul, in
spite of slavery. She disregards all threats, and maintains her station
at the altar, whither she has fled for safety. One menace only makes
her flinch. It is that violence may be done to her child Molossus,
if she will not move. Now Menelaus enters, and the altercations are
repeated, all tending to the same point of proving the odiousness of
the Spartan character and the dignity of Andromache. Meanwhile our
interest in her misfortunes is gradually heightened; and we tremble
for her when at last Menelaus persuades her to leave the sanctuary
by assuring her that the only way of saving Molossus is to sacrifice
her own life. At this point the pathos of the situation becomes
truly Euripidean. We have the spectacle of a tender and helpless
mother in the power of a merciless tyrant, obliged to give her own
life for her son, not shrinking from the sacrifice, but dreading to
leave him unprotected to his future fate amid unkindly aliens. She
rises from the altar; and no sooner is she in the hands of Menelaus,
than he tells her that his promises were fraudulent. Molossus will
be butchered after all. Then follows a great scene of high-wrought
feeling. Andromache and Molossus are kneeling before Menelaus praying
for their lives, when Peleus, the aged grandfather of Neoptolemus,
appears and stays the execution. Euripides has drawn the character
of Peleus with something of the heat and fury of the Sophoclean
Teiresias. The old king does not spare Menelaus, but makes his tongue
a scourge to flay him with invective. The end of the struggle is that
Peleus conveys Andromache and the boy safely away; and during the
rest of the drama we hear nothing of them. Meantime Hermione, who, in
contrast to Andromache's noble firmness and womanhood, is the type of
_impotentia_, as quick to self-abandonment as she was blind in selfish
cruelty, begins to reflect upon her husband's anger. What will he
say and do if he returns and hears of her intention with regard to
Andromache? She is only just prevented from committing suicide, and
lies sunk in contemptible remorse, when a new actor appears upon the
scene. It is Orestes, to whom Hermione had been affianced at Argos.
The treacherous Menelaus preferred to give her to a more fortunate and
respectable husband; but Orestes has a mind to wed her still, and has
resolved to murder Neoptolemus at Delphi because of the insult put upon
himself. He therefore removes Hermione from the palace, and departs
for Delphi. Peleus is now left alone upon the stage, to hear of the
murder of his grandson from a messenger, and to receive instructions
from Thetis as to the future of the realm of Phthia. It will be seen
that the construction of this drama is defective, and that it has two
separate plots, the one relating to Andromache, the other to Hermione
and Orestes, which are only brought into artificial connection by the
death of Neoptolemus. The speedy disappearance of Andromache from the
scene, followed by the flight of Hermione and the escape of Menelaus to
Sparta, leaves Peleus, who is only an accessory character, to bear the
whole burden of the climax. Thus the _Andromache_ lacks both internal
and external unity, the unity of subject and form. Of material it
has plenty, whether we regard the resolutions of fortune effected for
the chief actors, or the variety of incidents, or the richness of
reflective sentences, or the introduction of new "business" to sustain
the flagging interest of the spectators. As a drama, it is second-rate.
As a machine for the exhibition of specifically Euripidean qualities,
it must rank high among the extant tragedies.
The _Iphigenia in Aulide_, the _Electra_, the _Orestes_, and the
_Iphigenia in Tauris_ might be called the Euripidean Oresteia,
since each of these plays treats that portion of the Atridan story
which Æschylus had handled in his three dramas. We miss the final
purification of the hero, and have to infer the climax from the
allusions of the _Andromache_, where, it may be said in passing, the
noble type of his character, maintained without interruption in the
_Electra_, the _Orestes_, and the _Tauric Iphigenia_, is deformed by
a savagery and guile that must have been repellent even to a Greek
audience. In the _Electra_ Euripides comes immediately and without
doubt consciously into competition with both Æschylus and Sophocles.
Like Sophocles, he has painted Electra as of harder nature than her
brother. When Orestes, before engaging in his mother's murder, shows
signs of yielding to his filial feeling and expresses a doubt about
the oracle, she, like Lady Macbeth, reanimates his wavering courage
with argument and taunt. But Euripides seems to have felt that it
was unnatural in the Sophoclean drama to represent both brother and
sister as unterrified by conscience after the successful issue of
their plot. The lyrical dialogue between Orestes and Electra, when
he returns with their mother's blood upon his hands and sword, is
both terribly true to nature and dramatically striking. It needs the
appearance of the Dioscuri to confirm them in the faith that they had
done a righteous, heaven-appointed deed of justice. By this touch
Euripides proved his determination to bring even the most mysterious of
legends within the pale of ordinary human experience. The situation in
which he places Electra at the opening of the play, outcast from her
father's palace and wedded to a farmer, ragged in attire and obliged
to do the hard work of her household, is another and perhaps a less
justifiable instance of his realism. The stirring of compassion by the
exhibition of material misery was one of the points urged against him
by Aristophanes; nor is it possible to feel that Electra's squalor adds
anything essential to her tragedy. We may, however, be thankful to
the poet for the democratic ideal of good manners and true chivalry,
irrespective of blood and accidental breeding, which he has painted
in his portrait of Electra's husband.[10] Not contented with thus
varying the earlier outlines of the legend, Euripides in more than one
passage directs a covert criticism against his predecessors. He shows
that the tests of his identity offered by Orestes to Electra in the
plays of Æschylus and Sophocles were insufficient, and that the murder
of Clytemnestra in her palace, surrounded by the guard of a royal
household, was improbable. The new motives invented by him for the
recognition of Orestes and for the withdrawing of the queen to a place
where she could be conveniently despatched are highly ingenious. Yet in
the latter circumstance, what he gained in realism he lost in dramatic
effect; for it was an incident of appalling terror that Clytemnestra
and her paramour should be smitten in those very recesses of the palace
where they had slaughtered Agamemnon, beneath the influence of those
domestic Furies who, like an infernal revel, occupied the house of
Atreus until all the guilty blood was shed. Throughout the _Electra_
we feel that we are in the presence of a critical, realistic, and at
the same time romantic, poet, who has embroidered the old material of
heroic story with modern casuistry, and has been working less with
a view to producing a masterpiece of art than with the object of
asserting his ingenuity within the narrow field of an exhausted legend.
Had we not the _Choëphoroe_ and the Sophoclean _Electra_ for standards
of comparison, it is possible that we might do simpler justice to the
creative power of "sad Electra's poet" in this drama. As it is, we can
hardly refrain from treating it as a triumph of skill and reflective
ability, rather than as a potent work of original genius.
The _Orestes_ lies open to even more stringent criticism. The whole
conclusion, consisting of the burning of the palace at Argos, the
apotheosis of Helen, the lamentations of the Phrygian slave, and the
betrothal of direst enemies above the ruins of their ancestral home, is
more comic than tragic, and almost justifies the theory that Euripides
intended it to be a parody of some contemporary drama. This portion
of the play, moreover, is a melodrama, and joins on to the first part
by a merely formal link. Such interest as the _Orestes_ possesses,
after the beautiful opening scene, centres in the heroic friendship
of Pylades, who sustains the hero in his suffering and defends him
from the angry folk of Argos. It is far otherwise with the _Tauric
Iphigenia_. Here Euripides comes into no competition with Æschylus or
Sophocles; for he has handled a legend outside the sphere of their
known plays. It is one eminently suited to his powers, involving the
description of romantic scenery, the recognition of brother by sister
in circumstances of deep pathos and extreme improbability, the contest
of the most powerful natural feelings, and in the last place, the
exhibition of dangers impending upon all the chief personages and only
avoided by a thoroughly Euripidean fraud. None of the plots invented
by Euripides are so nicely finished or so rich in incident as this;
and yet there is nothing mechanical in its construction. Few of his
plays have choral passages to match the yearnings of the captive
maidens for their home in Hellas or the praise of young Apollo throned
by Zeus for prophecy beneath Parnassus. Few again are richer or more
truthful in their presentation of emotions--the exquisite delicacy
of a sister's affection, the loyalty of friends, and the passionate
outpouring of a brother's love. Something in the savage circumstances
of the play, the sombre Tauric scenery, the dreadful rites of Artemis,
to whom Iphigenia has been bound, and the watchful jealousy of her
barbarian king, enhances the beautiful humanity of those three Greeks,
burdened with such weight of sorrow on a foreign shore, haunted by
memories of a father's cruelty, a mother's infidelity, pursued by
the Furies of a righteous but abominable deed, yet none the less
enjoying for one moment in the midst of pain and peril the pure
pleasures of companionship. The chorus of Hellenic captives maintains
an undercurrent of sad music that still further helps to heighten
and interpret the situation. It is only at the last, when the knot
of the situation has to be cut, that our sympathy begins to fail us.
Thoas, though a barbarian, had been generous and kind. Yet Iphigenia
employs a heartless device for escaping from his hands with the sacred
image of the Tauri in her possession; nor does she feel a moment's
pang of remorse for the pain she is inflicting or for the lies she
has employed to serve her purpose. It may indeed be said generally
that Euripides justified the Aristophanic reproach of meanness by
his too frequent employment of tricks and subterfuges. These are so
distasteful to modern feeling that we are glad to know that even a
Greek critic regarded them as faulty. With Iphigenia's treason against
Thoas we might compare Helen's plot for deceiving Theoclymenus, the
insidious attack of Orestes upon Neoptolemus at Delphi, the capture of
Helen and Hermione by Orestes and Pylades at Argos, and Agamemnon's
incredibly base lure to Clytemnestra and Iphigenia before Aulis. It
is scarcely a defence of Euripides to urge that the gods themselves,
as in the case of the Tauric Iphigenia, sanction these deceptions.
This only makes the matter worse, and forces us to choose between two
hypotheses--either that Euripides sought to bring the old religion into
contempt, or that he used its morality for merely theatrical purposes
to justify the romantic crimes of his heroes. The latter seems the more
probable theory; for it is clear in some most eminent examples that
he has treated a deeply immoral legend for the sake of its admirable
artistic capabilities. This is undoubtedly the case with the _Ion_,
which presents a marvellous tale of human suffering, adventure, crime,
and final felicity, dependent in all its details upon the fraud of a
deity. Without doing justice to the masterly construction of the plot,
the beautiful poetry, and the sustained interest of the _Ion_, it may
be allowed me here to dwell for one moment on its morality. Phoebus
begets the boy Ion by a rape upon Creusa, and steals the boy away from
Athens to Delphi. The mother is left to bewail not her shame only,
but the loss of her son. In course of time she marries Xuthus and is
childless. They go together to Delphi to inquire of the oracle; and
here Xuthus is lyingly informed that Ion is the son of his youthful
years. Rage and jealousy impel Creusa, on hearing this news, to poison
Ion. She fails, and Ion in revenge attempts to murder her. The danger
of Creusa at last forces Phoebus to reveal the truth through the mouth
of Athene, who tells the queen that Ion is really her lost son, the
offspring of Apollo's crime. Xuthus happens to be absent during this
disclosure, and the goddess advises Creusa to keep the real truth
to herself, since the good man already supposes Ion to be his own
child, and will consequently treat him like a son. Stripped of its
dramatic ornaments, its wonderful scene-painting, pathetic situations,
unexpected recognitions, sudden catastrophes, accidents and dangers and
adventures, this is the plain legend of the _Ion_; and a less ethical
story of the gods could scarcely be found among those which Plato
criticised in the _Republic_.
It is time to return from this digression once more to the plays
which deal with Orestes. In them Euripides painted a virtue dear
in its heroic aspect to the Greeks and celebrated in many of their
legends, but which had not frequently been made the subject of dramatic
presentation. The character of Pylades as the perfect comrade, fierce
as a tiger and cunning as a fox against his foes, but tender as a
woman to his suffering friend, willing to face all dangers in common
with Orestes, enduring for his sake the obloquy of the world and the
mysterious taint of religious impurity, refusing to live in his death
and contending with him for the right to die, must be accepted as a
masterpiece of creative power. There is nothing in common between
Pylades and the confidant of modern tragedy--that _alter ego_ or shadow
of the hero's self, who dogs his path and reflects his sentiments.
Pylades has a distinctly separate personality; in the _Orestes_, when
Electra and her brother have abandoned hope, he takes the initiative
and suggests the scheme that saves them. Yet none the less is sympathy
the main point in his character. Euripides wrote nothing more touching
than the description of his help afforded to Orestes in the council
of the Argives, nothing more sublime than the contest between the two
comrades in the _Tauric Iphigenia_, when it is a question which of
them should stay and by his own death save his friend for Hellas. Had
the Athenians thus always thought of friendship, or had they learned
the enthusiasm of its ideal from Euripides, they might indeed have
bequeathed a new chivalry to the world. The three tragedies in which
Pylades plays a prominent part, the _Electra_, _Orestes_, and _Tauric
Iphigenia_, are storehouses of the noblest sentiments and deepest
truths about heroic friendship.
It is hard, while still beneath the overshadowing presence of so great
a master as Euripides, to have patience with the critics and the
scholars who scorn him--critics who cannot comprehend him, scholars
who have not read him since they were at school. Decadence! is their
cry. Yet what would they have? Would they ask for a second Sophocles,
or a revived Æschylus? That being clearly impossible, beyond all scope
of wish, why will they not be satisfied with beauty as luminous as
that of a Greek statue or a Greek landscape, with feeling as profound
as humanity itself, and with wisdom "musical as is Apollo's lute?"
These are the qualities of a great poet, and we contend that Euripides
possesses them in an eminent degree. It is false criticism, surely,
to do as Schlegel, Müller, and Bunsen have successively done[11]--to
measure Euripides by the standard of the success of his predecessors,
or to ransack his plays for illustrations of pet dramatic theories, and
then, because he will not bear these tests, to refuse to see his own
distinguished merits. It would sometimes seem as if our nature were
exhausted by its admiration of a Sophocles or a Shakespeare. There is
no enthusiasm left for Euripides and Fletcher.
Euripides, after all is said, incontestably displays the quality of
radiancy. On this I should be willing to base a portion of his claim to
rank as a great poet. An admirer of Æschylus or Sophocles might affirm
that neither Æschylus nor Sophocles chose to use their art for the
display of thrilling splendor. However that may be, Euripides, alone
of Greeks, with the exception of Aristophanes, entered the fairyland
of dazzling fancy which Calderon and Shakespeare and Fletcher trod.
The _Bacchæ_, like the _Birds_, proves what otherwise we might have
hardly known, that there lacked not Greeks for whom the _Tempest_ and
_A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ would have been intelligible. Meanwhile,
in making any estimate of the merits of Euripides, it would be unfair
to omit mention of the enthusiasm felt for him by contemporaries
and posterity. Mr. Browning, in the beautiful monument which he has
erected to the fame of Euripides, has chosen for poetical treatment
the well-known story of Athenians rescued from captivity by recitation
of the verses of their poet.[12] There is no reason to doubt a story
which attests so strongly to the acceptation in which Euripides was
held at large among the Greeks. Socrates, again, visited the theatre
on the occasion of any representation of his favorite's plays. By the
new comedians, Menander and Philemon, Euripides was regarded as a
divine miracle. Tragedy and comedy, so dissimilar in their origins,
had approximated to a coalition; tragedy losing its religious dignity,
comedy quitting its obscene though splendid personalities; both meeting
on the common ground of daily life. In the decadence of Greece it was
not Æschylus and Aristophanes, but Euripides and Menander, who were
learned and read and quoted. The colossal theosophemes of Æschylus
called for profound reflection; the Titanic jokes of Aristophanes taxed
the imagination to its utmost stretch. But Euripides "the human, with
his droppings of warm tears," gently touched and soothed the heart.
Menander with his facile wisdom flattered the intellect of worldly
men. The sentences of both were quotable at large and fit for all
occasions. They were not too great, too lofty, too profound for the
paths of common life. We have lost Menander, alas! but we still possess
Euripides. It seems a strange neglect of good gifts to shut our ears
to his pathetic melodies and ringing eloquence--because, forsooth,
Æschylus and Sophocles had the advantage of preceding him, and were
superior artists in the bloom and heyday of the young world's prime.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The terrific lessons of the Persian war seem to have quickened in
the Greeks a spiritual sense beyond what was natural to their genius,
and from the influence of which they speedily recovered.
[2] This pedigree of the House of Tantalus--a family
Upas-tree--illustrates the descent of crime from generation to
generation:
TANTALUS [Insolence of immense riches.
| Steals the nectar and ambrosia
| of the gods and gives
| to them Pelops to eat.]
+------+-------------------------------+
| |
+----------------PELOPS = HIPPODAMEIA. NIOBE.
| Slays Myrsilus, |
| the son of |
| Hermes. |
| +----+--------------------+
| | |
CHRYSIPPUS, ATREUS = ÆROPE. THYESTES.
a bastard son, In revenge upon | Incestuous with Ærope
whom Atreus Thyestes for his | and with his own daughter
and Thyestes adultery, serves | Pelopia, by whom he
kill. up the children | has a son.
of Thyestes to | |
him at a banquet.| ÆGISTHUS.
|
+--------+---------------------+
| |
AGAMEMNON = CLYTEMNESTRA. MENELAUS.
|
+------------+------------+
| | |
ORESTES. IPHIGENIA. ELECTRA.
[3] Line 375; compare _Choëph._ 631, _Eum._ 510-514.
[4] Very notable in this respect is his consistent degradation of
Ulysses.
[5] Exception must be made in favor of the _Hippolytus_ and the
_Bacchæ_, where the whole action of the play and the conduct of the
persons are determined by the influences of Aphrodite and Dionysus.
The same exception, but for other reasons, may be made in favor of the
_Ion_.
[6] Hecuba, for example, in her play; Electra in hers; Menelaus in the
_Helena_.
[7] It may be questioned whether a Dorian type of character was not
in the mind of Euripides when he constructed his ideal of feminine
heroism. What Plutarch in the life of Cleomenes says of Cratesiclea
and the wife of Panteus reads like a commentary on the tragedies of
_Macaria_, _Polyxena_, and _Iphigenia_. Xenophon's partiality for the
Spartans indicates the same current of sympathy. Philosophical analysis
was leading up to an eclectic Hellenism, yet the Euripidean study of
Hermione seems intended as a satire on the Lacedæmonian women.
[8] The real cause of offence was the prominence given by Euripides to
the passion of unholy love in some of his heroines; to the interest and
sympathy he created for Phædra, Sthenoboea, and others.
[9] The whole of this splendid speech should be compared with the
fragment of Neophron's _Medea_, on which it is obviously modelled. See,
below, the chapter on the Tragic Fragments.
[10] Notice especially the speech of Orestes, line 367.
[11] Goethe was very severe on the critics who could not appreciate
Euripides: "To feel and respect a great personality, one must be
something one's self. All those who denied the sublime to Euripides
were either poor wretches incapable of comprehending such sublimity,
or shameless charlatans, who, by their presumption, wished to make
more of themselves, and really did make more of themselves, than they
were" (Eckermann's _Conversations of Goethe_, English ed., vol. ii. p.
377). In another place he indicates the spirit in which any adverse
criticism of Euripides should be attempted: "A poet whom Socrates
called his friend, whom Aristotle lauded, whom Menander admired, and
for whom Sophocles and the city of Athens put on mourning on hearing
of his death, must certainly have been something. If a modern man like
Schlegel must pick out faults in so great an ancient, he ought only to
do it upon his knees" (_ib._, vol. i. p. 378). Again (_ib._, vol. i. p.
260), he energetically combats the opinion that Euripides had caused
the decline of Greek tragedy.
[12] See Balaustion's _Adventure_. Since this chapter was first
published, Mr. Browning has still further enforced his advocacy of
Euripides by Aristophanes' _Apology_, and a version of the _Hercules
Furens_, while the great tragic poet has found a stanch defender from
the carping criticasters of the Schlegel school in Mr. Mahaffy. That
excellent scholar and accomplished student of antiquity has recently
published a little book on Euripides (_Classical Writers_, edited by J.
R. Green, "Euripides." Macmillan. 1879).