Character of the remaining Works of Euripides--The Satirical Drama--
Alexandrian Tragic Poets.
Of the plays of Euripides, which have come down to us in great number, we
can only give a very short and general account.
On the score of beautiful morality, there is none of them, perhaps, so
deserving of praise as the _Alcestis_. Her resolution to die, and the
farewell which she takes of her husband and children, are depicted with
the most overpowering pathos. The poet's forbearance, in not allowing the
heroine to speak on her return from the infernal world, lest he might draw
aside the mysterious veil which shrouds the condition of the dead, is
deserving of high praise. Admetus, it is true, and more especially his
father, sink too much in our esteem from their selfish love of life; and
Hercules appears, at first, blunt even to rudeness, afterwards more noble
and worthy of himself, and at last jovial, when, for the sake of the joke,
he introduces to Admetus his veiled wife as a new bride.
_Iphigenia in Aulis_ is a subject peculiarly suited to the tastes and
powers of Euripides; the object here is to excite a tender emotion for the
innocent and child-like simplicity of the heroine: but Iphigenia is still
very far from being an Antigone. Aristotle has already remarked that the
character is not well sustained throughout. "Iphigenia imploring," he
says, "has no resemblance to Iphigenia afterwards yielding herself up a
willing sacrifice."
_Ion_ is also one of his most delightful pieces, on account of the picture
of innocence and priestly sanctity in the boy whose name it bears. In the
course of the plot, it is true, there are not a few improbabilities,
makeshifts, and repetitions; and the catastrophe, produced by a falsehood,
in which both gods and men unite against Xuthus, can hardly be
satisfactory to our feelings.
As delineations of female passion, and of the aberrations of a mind
diseased, _Phaedra_ and _Medea_ have been justly praised. The play in
which the former is introduced dazzles us by the sublime and beautiful
heroism of _Hippolytus_; and it is also deserving of the highest
commendation on account of the observance of propriety and moral
strictness, in so critical a subject. This, however, is not so much the
merit of the poet himself as of the delicacy of his contemporaries; for
the _Hippolytus_ which we possess, according to the scholiast, is an
improvement upon an earlier one, in which there was much that was
offensive and reprehensible. [Footnote: The learned and acute Brunck,
without citing any authority, or the coincidence of fragments in
corroboration, says that Seneca in his _Hippolytus_, followed the plan of
the earlier play of Euripides, called the _Veiled Hippolytus_. How far
this is mere conjecture I cannot say, but at any rate I should be inclined
to doubt whether Euripides, even in the censured drama, admitted the scene
of the declaration of love, which Racine, however in his _Phaedra_. has
not hesitated to adopt from Seneca.]
The opening of the _Medea_ is admirable; her desperate situation is,
by the conversation between her nurse and the keeper of her children, and
her own wailings behind the scene, depicted with most touching effect. As
soon, however, as she makes her appearance, the poet takes care to cool
our emotion by the number of general and commonplace reflections which he
puts into her mouth. Lower does she sink in the scene with Aegeus, where,
meditating a terrible revenge on Jason, she first secures a place of
refuge, and seems almost on the point of bespeaking a new connection. This
is very unlike the daring criminal who has reduced the powers of nature to
minister to her ungovernable passions, and speeds from land to land like a
desolating meteor;--the Medea who, abandoned by all the world, was still
sufficient for herself. Nothing but a wish to humour Athenian antiquities
could have induced Euripides to adopt this cold interpolation of his
story. With this exception he has, in the most vivid colours, painted, in
one and the same person, the mighty enchantress, and the woman weak only
from the social position of her sex. As it is, we are keenly affected by
the struggles of maternal tenderness in the midst of her preparations for
the cruel deed. Moreover, she announces her deadly purpose much too soon
and too distinctly, instead of brooding awhile over the first confused,
dark suggestion of it. When she does put it in execution, her thirst of
revenge on Jason might, we should have thought, have been sufficiently
slaked by the horrible death of his young wife and her father; and the new
motive, namely, that Jason, as she pretends, would infallibly murder the
children, and therefore she must anticipate him, will by no means bear
examination. For she could as easily have saved the living children with
herself, as have carried off their dead bodies in the dragon-chariot.
Still this may, perhaps, be justified by the perturbation of mind into
which she was plunged by the crime she had perpetrated.
Perhaps it was such pictures of universal sorrow, of the fall of
flourishing families and states from the greatest glory to the lowest
misery, nay, to entire annihilation, as Euripides has sketched in the
_Troades_, that gained for him, from Aristotle, the title of _the
most tragic of poets_. The concluding scene, where the captive ladies,
allotted as slaves to different masters, leave Troy in flames behind them,
and proceed towards the ships, is truly grand. It is impossible, however,
for a piece to have less action, in the energetical sense of the word: it
is a series of situations and events, which have no other connexion than
that of a common origin in the capture of Troy, but in no respect have
they a common aim. The accumulation of helpless suffering, against which
the will and sentiment even are not allowed to revolt, at last wearies us,
and exhausts our compassion. The greater the struggle to avert a calamity,
the deeper the impression it makes when it bursts forth after all. But
when so little concern is shown, as is here the case with Astyanax, for
the speech of Talthybius prevents even the slightest attempt to save him,
the spectator soon acquiesces in the result. In this way Euripides
frequently fails. In the ceaseless demands which this play makes on our
compassion, the pathos is not duly economized and brought to a climax: for
instance, Andromache's lament over her living son is much more heart-
rending than that of Hecuba for her dead one. The effect of the latter is,
however, aided by the sight of the little corpse lying on Hector's shield.
Indeed, in the composition of this piece the poet has evidently reckoned
much on ocular effect: thus, for the sake of contrast with the captive
ladies, Helen appears splendidly dressed, Andromache is mounted on a car
laden with spoils; and I doubt not but that at the conclusion the entire
scene was in flames. The trial of Helen painfully interrupts the train of
our sympathies, by an idle altercation which ends in nothing; for in spite
of the accusations of Hecuba, Menelaus abides by the resolution which he
had previously formed. The defence of Helen is about as entertaining as
Isocrates' sophistical eulogium of her.
Euripides was not content with making Hecuba roll in the dust with covered
head, and whine a whole piece through; he has also introduced her in
another tragedy which bears her name, as the standing representative of
suffering and woe. The two actions of this piece, the sacrifice of
Polyxena, and the revenge on Polymestor, on account of the murder of
Polydorus, have nothing in common with each other but their connexion with
Hecuba. The first half possesses great beauties of that particular kind in
which Euripides is pre-eminently successful: pictures of tender youth,
female innocence, and noble resignation to an early and violent death. A
human sacrifice, that triumph of barbarian superstition, is represented as
executed, suffered, and looked upon, with that Hellenism of feeling which
so early effected the abolition of such sacrifices among the Greeks. But
the second half most revoltingly effaces these soft impressions. It is
made up of the revengeful artifices of Hecuba, the blind avarice of
Polymestor, and the paltry policy of Agamemnon, who, not daring himself to
call the Thracian king to account, nevertheless beguiles him into the
hands of the captive women. Neither is it very consistent that Hecuba,
advanced in years, bereft of strength, and overwhelmed with sorrow, should
nevertheless display so much presence of mind in the execution of revenge,
and such a command of tongue in her accusation and derision of Polymestor.
We have another example of two distinct and separate actions in the same
tragedy, the _Mad Hercules_. The first is the distress of his family
during his absence, and their deliverance by his return; the second, his
remorse at having in a sudden frenzy murdered his wife and children. The
one action follows, but by no means arises out of the other.
The _Phoenissae_ is rich in tragic incidents, in the common acceptation of
the word: the son of Creon, to save his native city, precipitates himself
from the walls; Eteocles and Polynices perish by each other's hands; over
their dead bodies Jocasta falls by her own hand; the Argives who hare made
war upon Thebes are destroyed in battle; Polynices remains uninterred; and
lastly, Oedipus and Antigone are driven into exile. After this enumeration
of the incidents, the Scholiast aptly notices the arbitrary manner in
which the poet has proceeded, "This drama," says he, "is beautiful in
theatrical effect, even because it is full of incidents totally foreign to
the proper action. Antigone looking down from the walls has nothing to do
with the action, and Polynices enters the town under the safe-conduct of a
truce, without any effect being thereby produced. After all the rest the
banished Oedipus and a wordy ode are tacked on, being equally to no
purpose." This is a severe criticism, but it is just.
Not more lenient is the Scholiast on _Orestes_: "This piece," he
says, "is one of those which produce a great effect on the stage, but with
respect to characters it is extremely bad; for, with the exception of
Pylades, all the rest are good for nothing." Moreover, "Its catastrophe is
more suitable to comedy than tragedy." This drama begins, indeed, in the
most agitating manner. Orestes, after the murder of his mother, is
represented lying on his bed, afflicted with anguish of soul and madness;
Electra sits at his feet, and she and the chorus remain in trembling
expectation of his awaking. Afterwards, however, everything takes a
perverse turn, and ends with the most violent strokes of stage effect.
The _Iphigenia in Tauris_, in which the fate of Orestes is still
further followed out, is less wild and extravagant, but in the
representation both of character or passion, it seldom rises above
mediocrity. The mutual recognition between brother and sister, after such
adventures and actions, as that Iphigenia, who had herself once trembled
before the bloody altar, was on the point of devoting her brother to a
similar fate, produces no more than a transient emotion. The flight of
Orestes and his sister is not highly calculated to excite our interest:
the artifice by which Iphigenia brings it about is readily credited by
Thoas, who does not attempt to make any opposition till both are safe, and
then he is appeased by one of the ordinary divine interpositions. This
device has been so used and abused by Euripides, that in nine out of his
eighteen tragedies, a divinity descends to unravel the complicated knot.
In _Andromache_ Orestes makes his appearance for the fourth time. The
Scholiast, in whose opinion we may, we think, generally recognize the
sentiments of the most important of ancient critics, declares this to be a
very second-rate play, in which single scenes alone are deserving of any
praise. Of those on which Racine has based his free imitations, this is
unquestionably the very worst, and therefore the French critics have an
easy game to play in their endeavours to depreciate the Grecian
predecessor, from whom Racine has in fact derived little more than the
first suggestion of his tragedy.
The _Bacchae_ represents the infectious and tumultuous enthusiasm of
the worship of Bacchus, with great sensuous power and vividness of
conception. The obstinate unbelief of Pentheus, his infatuation, and
terrible punishment by the hands of his own mother, form a bold picture.
The effect on the stage must have been extraordinary. Imagine, only, a
chorus with flying and dishevelled hair and dress, tambourines, cymbals,
&c., in their hands, like the Bacchants we see on bas-reliefs, bursting
impetuously into the orchestra, and executing their inspired dances amidst
tumultuous music,--a circumstance, altogether unusual, as the choral odes
were generally sung and danced at a solemn step, and with no other
accompaniment than a flute. Here the luxuriance of ornament, which
Euripides everywhere affects, was for once appropriate. When, therefore,
several of the modern critics assign to this piece a very low rank, they
seem to me not to know what they themselves would wish. In the composition
of this piece, I cannot help admiring a harmony and unity, which we seldom
meet with in Euripides, as well as abstinence from every foreign matter,
so that all the motives and effects flow from one source, and concur
towards a common end. After the _Hippolytus_, I should be inclined to
assign to this play the first place among all the extant works of
Euripides.
The _Heraclidae_ and the _Supplices_ are mere _occasional_ tragedies,
_i.e._, owing their existence to some temporary incident or excitement,
and they must have been indebted for their success to nothing else but
their flattery of the Athenians. They celebrate two ancient heroic deeds
of Athens, on which the panegyrists, amongst the rest Isocrates, who
always mixed up the fabulous with the historical, lay astonishing stress:
the protection they are said to have afforded to the children of Hercules,
the ancestors of the Lacedaemonian kings, from the persecution of
Eurystheus, and their going to war with Thebes on behalf of Adrastus, king
of Argos, and forcing the Thebans to give the rites of burial to the Seven
Chieftains and their host. The _Supplices_ was, as we know, represented
during the Peloponnesian war, after the conclusion of a treaty between the
Argives and the Lacedaemonians; and was intended to remind the Argives of
their ancient obligation to Athens, and to show how little they could hope
to prosper in the war against the Athenians. The _Heraclidae_ was
undoubtedly written with a similar view in respect to Lacedaemon. Of the
two pieces, however, which are both cast in the same mould, the Female
Suppliants, so called from the mothers of the fallen heroes, is by far the
richest in poetical merit; the _Heraclidae_ appears, as it were, but a
faint impression of the other. In the former piece, it is true, Theseus
appears at first in a somewhat unamiable light, upbraiding, as he does,
the unfortunate Adrastus with his errors at such great length, and perhaps
with so little justice, before he condescends to assist him; again the
disputation between Theseus and the Argive herald, as to the superiority
of a monarchical or a democratical constitution, ought in justice to be
banished from the stage to the rhetorical schools; while the moral
eulogium of Adrastus over the fallen heroes is, at least, very much out of
place. I am convinced that Euripides was here drawing the characters of
particular Athenian generals, who had fallen in some battle or other. But
even in this case the passage cannot be justified in a dramatic point of
view; however, without such an object, it would have been silly and
ridiculous in describing those heroes of the age of Hercules, (a Capaneus,
for instance, who set even heaven itself at defiance,) to have launched
out into the praise of their civic virtues. How apt Euripides was to
wander from his subject in allusions to perfectly extraneous matters, and
sometimes even to himself, we may see from a speech of Adrastus, who most
impertinently is made to say, "It is not fair that the poet, while he
delights others with his works, should himself suffer inconvenience."
However, the funeral lamentations and the swan-like song of Evadne are
affectingly beautiful, although she is so unexpectedly introduced into the
drama. Literally, indeed, may we say of her, that she jumps into the play,
for without even being mentioned before she suddenly appears first of all
on the rock, from which she throws herself on the burning pile of
Capaneus.
The _Heraclidae_ is a very poor piece; its conclusion is singularly
bald. We hear nothing more of the self-sacrifice of Macaria, after it is
over: as the determination seems to have cost herself no struggle, it
makes as little impression upon others. The Athenian king, Demophon, does
not return again; neither does Iolaus, the companion of Hercules and
guardian of his children, whose youth is so wonderfully renewed. Hyllus,
the noble-minded Heraclide, never even makes his appearance; and nobody at
last remains but Alcmene, who keeps up a bitter altercation with
Eurystheus. Euripides seems to have taken a particular pleasure in drawing
such implacable and rancorous old women: twice has he exhibited Hecuba in
this light, pitting her against Helen and Polymestor. In general, we may
observe the constant recurrence of the same artifice and motives is a sure
symptom of mannerism. We have in the works of this poet three instances of
women offered in sacrifice, which are moving from their perfect
resignation: Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Macaria; the voluntary deaths of
Alceste and Evadne belong in some sort also to this class. Suppliants are
in like manner a favourite subject with him, because they oppress the
spectator with apprehension lest they should be torn by force from the
sanctuary of the altar. I have already noticed his lavish introduction of
deities towards the conclusion.
The merriest of all tragedies is _Helen_, a marvellous drama, full of
wonderful adventures and appearances, which are evidently better suited to
comedy. The invention on which it is founded is, that Helen remained
concealed in Egypt (so far went the assertion of the Aegyptian priests),
while Paris carried off an airy phantom in her likeness, for which the
Greeks and Trojans fought for ten long years. By this contrivance the
virtue of the heroine is saved, and Menelaus, (to make good the ridicule
of Aristophanes on the beggary of Euripides' heroes,) appears in rags as a
beggar, and in nowise dissatisfied with his condition. But this manner of
improving mythology bears a resemblance to the _Tales of the Thousand
and One Nights_.
Modern philologists have dedicated voluminous treatises, to prove the
spuriousness of _Rhesus_, the subject of which is taken from the
eleventh book of the Iliad. Their opinion is, that the piece contains such
a number of improbabilities and contradictions, that it is altogether
unworthy of Euripides. But this is by no means a legitimate conclusion. Do
not the faults which they censure unavoidably follow from the selection of
an intractable subject, so very inconvenient as a nightly enterprise? The
question respecting the genuineness of any work, turns not so much on its
merits or demerits, as rather on the resemblance of its style and
peculiarities to those of the pretended author. The few words of the
Scholiast amount to a very different opinion: "Some have considered this
drama to be spurious, and not the work of Euripides, because it bears many
traces of the style of Sophocles. But it is inscribed in the _Didascaliae_
as his, and its accuracy with respect to the phenomena of the starry
heaven betrays the hand of Euripides." I think I understand what is here
meant by the style of Sophocles, but it is rather in detached scenes, than
in the general plan, that I at all discern it. Hence, if the piece is to
be taken from Euripides, I should be disposed to attribute it to some
eclectic imitator, but one of the school of Sophocles rather than of that
of Euripides, and who lived only a little later than both. This I infer
from the familiarity of many of the scenes, for tragedy at this time
was fast sinking into the domestic tragedy, whereas, at a still later
period, the Alexandrian age, it fell into an opposite error of bombast.
The _Cyclops_ is a satiric drama. This is a mixed and lower species
of tragic poetry, as we have already in passing asserted. The want of some
relaxation for the mind, after the engrossing severity of tragedy, appears
to have given rise to the satiric drama, as indeed to the after-piece in
general. The satiric drama never possessed an independent existence; it
was thrown in by way of an appendage to several tragedies, and to judge
from that we know of it, was always considerably shorter than the others.
In external form it resembled Tragedy, and the materials were in like
manner mythological. The distinctive mark was a chorus consisting of
satyrs, who accompanied with lively songs, gestures, and movements, such
heroic adventures as were of a more cheerful hue, (many in the _Odyssey_
for instance; for here, also, as in many other respects, the germ is to be
found in Homer,) or, at least, could be made to wear such an appearance.
The proximate cause of this species of drama was derived from the
festivals of Bacchus, where satyr-masks was a common disguise. In
mythological stories with which Bacchus had no concern, these constant
attendants of his were, no doubt, in some sort arbitrarily introduced, but
still not without a degree of propriety. As nature, in her original
freedom, appeared to the fancy of the Greeks to teem everywhere with
wonderful productions, they could with propriety people with these
sylvan beings the wild landscapes, remote from polished cities, where the
scene was usually laid, and enliven them with their wild animal frolics.
The composition of demi-god with demi-beast formed an amusing contrast. We
have an example in the _Cyclops_ of the manner in which the poets
proceeded in such subjects. It is not unentertaining, though the subject-
matter is for the most part contained in the _Odyssey_; only the pranks of
Silenus and his band are occasionally a little coarse. We must confess
that, in our eyes, the great merit of this piece is its rarity, being the
only extant specimen of its class which we possess. In the satiric dramas
Aeschylus must, without doubt, have displayed more boldness and meaning in
his mirth; as, for instance, when he introduced Prometheus bringing down
fire from heaven to rude and stupid man; while Sophocles, to judge from
the few fragments we have, must have been more elegant and moral, as when
he introduced the goddesses contending for the prize of beauty, or
Nausicaa offering protection to the shipwrecked Ulysses. It is a striking
feature of the easy unconstrained character of life among the Greeks, of
its gladsome joyousness of disposition, which knew nothing of a starched
and stately dignity, but artist-like admired aptness and gracefulness,
even in the most insignificant trifles, that in this drama called
_Nausicaa_, or "_The Washerwomen_," in which, after Homer, the princess at
the end of the washing, amuses herself at a game of ball with her maids,
Sophocles himself played at ball, and by his grace in this exercise
acquired much applause. The great poet, the respected Athenian citizen,
the man who had already perhaps been a General, appeared publicly in
woman's clothes, and as, on account of the feebleness of his voice, he
could not play the leading part of Nausicaa, took perhaps the mute under
part of a maid, for the sake of giving to the representation of his piece
the slight ornament of bodily agility.
The history of ancient tragedy ends with Euripides, although there were a
number of still later tragedians; Agathon, for instance, whom Aristophanes
describes as fragrant with ointment and crowned with flowers, and in whose
mouth Plato, in his _Symposium_, puts a discourse in the taste of the
sophist Gorgias, full of the most exquisite ornaments and empty
tautological antitheses. He was the first to abandon mythology, as
furnishing the natural materials of tragedy, and occasionally wrote pieces
with purely fictitious names, (this is worthy of notice, as forming a
transition towards the new comedy,) one of which was called the
_Flower_, and was probably therefore neither seriously affecting nor
terrible, but in the style of the idyl, and pleasing.
The Alexandrian scholars, among their other lucubrations, attempted also
the composition of tragedies; but if we are to judge of them from the only
piece which has come down to us, the _Alexandra_ of Lycophron, which
consists of an endless monologue, full of prophecy, and overladen with
obscure mythology, these productions of a subtle dilettantism must have
been extremely inanimate and untheatrical, and every way devoid of
interest. The creative powers of the Greeks were, in this department, so
completely exhausted, that they were forced to content themselves with the
repetition of the works of their ancient masters.