Two aspects of this play are unmistakable and apparently incompatible. The plot closely resembles that of theIphigenia 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? TheHelenis 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 centraldatum, 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 awayhappy (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 andposeurswho 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 graveThe mind, though life be gone, is conscious yetEternal, with th’ eternal Heav’n at one.[667]
Aye, all that lie in death must meet their bond,And they that live; yea, all. Beyond the graveThe mind, though life be gone, is conscious yetEternal, with th’ eternal Heav’n at one.[667]
Aye, all that lie in death must meet their bond,And they that live; yea, all. Beyond the graveThe mind, though life be gone, is conscious yetEternal, with th’ eternal Heav’n at one.[667]
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 theTrojan 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 hisCelebrants of the Thesmophoria, wherein Euripides is accused of profaning that festival, it is inferred thatHelenwas 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 escapethat of Iphigenia and her friends. The news of thistour de forcespread, and at last, owing to public curiosity, it was exhibited at the Dionysia.
There is no doubt (i) that theHelenis 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 suchnaïveté, 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 elaboratelyexpounded 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.
ThePhœnissæ[676](Φοίνισσαι), orPhœnician Women, was produced about the year 410B.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 theSphinx, 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 theHecubaand theOrestesit 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 ofobscurities 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,
ὦ πάτρας κλεινῆς πολῖται, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ἔγνω καὶ μέγιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,
ὦ πάτρας κλεινῆς πολῖται, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ἔγνω καὶ μέγιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,
ὦ πάτρας κλεινῆς πολῖται, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,
ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ἔγνω καὶ μέγιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,
unmistakably recalls part of the finale inŒdipus Tyrannus:[685]
ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ.
ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ.
ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ’, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,ὃς τὰ κλείν’ αἰνίγματ’ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ.
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 (405B.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 theAntigone, the maiden remained in Thebes after the battle and buried Polynices; according to theŒdipus Coloneusshe 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’sSpanish 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.
TheOrestes[695](Ὀρέστης) was produced in 408B.C.and again in 341.[696]It was extremely popular, and formed with thePhœnissæand theHecubathe 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. Oresteshas 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 seesOrestes 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 theChoephorœ, 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 commandwhich 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.Butas the first-fruits of my plight, I touchThy knees, a suppliant,tying prayerthe whileTo thyunleafèd lips....[701]
Freely will I divulge my woes to thee.Butas the first-fruits of my plight, I touchThy knees, a suppliant,tying prayerthe whileTo thyunleafèd lips....[701]
Freely will I divulge my woes to thee.Butas the first-fruits of my plight, I touchThy knees, a suppliant,tying prayerthe whileTo thyunleafèd lips....[701]
Freely will I divulge my woes to thee.
Butas the first-fruits of my plight, I touch
Thy knees, a suppliant,tying prayerthe while
To thyunleafèd 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 againPure am I, for my sire I did avenge.Therefore let thy great age be set asideFrom this our conference, for it puts me out;And let me on—’tis but thy hair I dread.[705]
True, matricide doth taint me, yet againPure am I, for my sire I did avenge.Therefore let thy great age be set asideFrom this our conference, for it puts me out;And let me on—’tis but thy hair I dread.[705]
True, matricide doth taint me, yet againPure am I, for my sire I did avenge.Therefore let thy great age be set asideFrom this our conference, for it puts me out;And let me on—’tis but thy hair I dread.[705]
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 thebattlement 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 brotheror 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!
Ah, Nature!...Saw ye how tiny was that tress she cut,Sparing her beauty? ’Tis the old Helen still!
Ah, Nature!...Saw ye how tiny was that tress she cut,Sparing her beauty? ’Tis the old Helen still!
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 fallOf me, and this my brother, and of Greece.
Heaven’s hatred seize thee! Thou hast wrought the fallOf me, and this my brother, and of Greece.
Heaven’s hatred seize thee! Thou hast wrought the fallOf me, and this my brother, and of Greece.
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 orstolen 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 theIon. 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-eminentfor magnificent situations. The sick-bed scene is unforgettable, especially that marvellous hushed song[739]of Electra beside her sleeping brother:—
Holy night, outpouring everSlumber’s boon on souls that mourn,From thy midmost deep dominionHither bend thy sweeping pinion,Where, ’neath woes that leave it neverLies a princely house forlorn.
Holy night, outpouring everSlumber’s boon on souls that mourn,From thy midmost deep dominionHither bend thy sweeping pinion,Where, ’neath woes that leave it neverLies a princely house forlorn.
Holy night, outpouring everSlumber’s boon on souls that mourn,From thy midmost deep dominionHither bend thy sweeping pinion,Where, ’neath woes that leave it neverLies a princely house forlorn.
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.
TheBacchæ[740](Βάκχαι), orBacchantes(female votaries of the god Bacchus or Dionysus), was produced in 405B.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 theBacchæimpress us less by their subtle truth to nature than by the situation in which they stand. In this sense theBacchæis the most Æschylean work of Euripides. Like his predecessor when he composed theChoephorœ, 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 theMedea[744]and the song ofescape in theHippolytus.[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 theBacchæsomething 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 beanarchy. We conclude that however enigmatic is theBacchæ, 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.
There is, then, a secret to be discovered. Is it lost for ever, or not? It appears to some[748]that the drama contains evidence, unmistakable but long overlooked, which conveys Euripides’ opinion concerning Dionysus. The chief, the only certain, clue is contained in the “Palace-Miracle”. The facts are, that the chorus cry aloud at the tottering of the building; that Dionysus a moment later when relating what has happened within, adds, “And this further evil hath Bacchus wrought upon him: he hath flung his dwelling to the ground, where it lies all in ruin”;[749]that, finally, the palace is as a fact uninjured. This latter point is proved by the complete silence of all the personages, except Dionysus and the chorus. Neither Cadmus nor Agave, nor the two messengers, at their several entrances make the least remark about it. Above all, Pentheus, who waswithin the house when the overthrow is alleged to have occurred, says nothing about it. Later the prince and his enemy enter the palace before proceeding to Cithæron, again with no hint that the building has been destroyed. It follows that the statements made by the chorus and by Dionysus are untrue.[750]The women believe what their leader cries out from within and what he tells them later. That is, they accept what their own eyes tell them is false. Only one power can work this marvel of belief—hypnotism, or, as earlier ages would call it, magic. The Dionysus of this play is precisely what Pentheus calls him, a “foreign wizard,”[751]no god at all, but a human hierophant of the new religion. Brought up in Western Asia, he combines a profound feeling for natural religion with an un-Greek leaning to orgiastic ecstasy and an instinct for fiendish cruelty; so that in spreading the gospel of joy and simple surrender to the mystic loveliness of Nature he crushes those who reject him, not destroying them in passion, but working their misery with a horrible cold relish: he is Shakespeare’s Richard the Third with religious instead of political ambitions. As for the Dionysiac religion itself, the poet feels its vast emotional appeal—feels it so strongly that he has drawn the most wonderful picture of ecstatic religion to be found in literature; but if it is proposed to him as “a way of life” for civilized men he condemns it as firmly as unwillingly. To give free rein to passions and instincts hitherto unconscious or starved, this is a path, perhaps the only path, towards strangelybeautiful experience, the thrill of communion with non-human life; but it is not the path for man. Here Euripides stands at one with the great European tradition. If man is to attain the height of his destiny he will seek not the gold of joy but the silver of happiness, not the blazing rapture of absorption in strange beauty, but the calm glow of self-understanding and self-expression. He will not seek to destroy the instinct for ecstasy, but will harness it, and work it into the fabric of a sound coherent life. He may be a spectator, it is true, if not of all time, yet of all existence; his eyes will shrink from nothing, but his heart is not to be reft from him. He must prove all things, but hold fast only that which is good—a moral being, not the slave of sound and colour. In this drama, where Euripides seems to voice like some pagan archangel the glory of a non-moral absorption in the torrent of raw life, he is fundamentally as moral as at any moment in life. As Tannhäuser after his sojourn in the Venusberg is at length won back by the urgency of his own soul into the Roman Church, so does Euripides unflinchingly present, to an audience still breathing hard after the glories of Cithæron, Agave and Cadmus bowed over Pentheus’ mangled body, and the rejection of a god whose unmitigated demands imply the wreckage of sound human life.
What, then, are we to believe of Dionysus? If we refuse him we are liable like Pentheus to be destroyed; if we surrender ourselves, what of Agave? Here is a dilemma which Euripides himself did not foresee. By θεός (“god”) he often means something widely different from the concept of an ordinary Athenian, but he never intends all the associations of our word “God”. For us belief in “God” implies that the universe holds a personal Governor, all-powerful and all-wise, who stands to us in a relation emotional as well as metaphysical. To accept Him is to believe that His purpose embraces the existence and history of the universe and of the humblest creature therein, andbecause of that belief to merit His love by loving service of our own. These thoughts are to us tremendous commonplaces; they would have bewildered any fifth-century Greek save Æschylus.[752]θεός means a power, usually but not necessarily personal, which is outside ourselves and affects our life in a manner which cannot be affected by any wish or act of ours, save possibly to a small degree by ritual submission. Dionysus, like the other “gods,” is a permanent fact of life personified. We must give him respect, take account of him in our conduct and judgment of others. To ignore him is not so much sin as utter blindness. If we insist on the personality of Dionysus we find him attractive but deadly, a deity who employs his might to entangle the threads of life, crushing hearts better than his own. In so far as he is a person he is unthinkable. But as a fact of life, with no more purpose or will than the force of gravitation, he is neither good nor bad, simply a profound reality, one of the elements we must consider in building our lives. Cadmus expresses this lesson: “If anyone despises the supernatural powers, let him look on the death of this man and believe in the gods”.[753]
Then why does the poet dwell on the personal existence of Dionysus? Even if we refuse to believe the theory outlined already, that this person is a human hierophant, we can still answer the question. Euripides is concerned not merely to tell us the truth about ethics, but to discuss the current theology of his day. The majority of his fellows believed in a personal Zeus, a personal Athena and Dionysus. He wishes to convince them of the falsity, the pernicious falsity, of such a creed. Take this play in its superficial meaning and you find a person who is detestable—a god who does wrong, and who is, therefore, no god at all.[754]Awaywith him; purify your theology. And when this is done, we find, not that the drama has fallen to pieces, but that now it is coherent and forcible. There is in the human soul an instinct for ecstasy, for a relinquishment of self in order to feel and bathe in the non-human glory of Nature. Trample this instinct ruthlessly down as did Pentheus, and your life is maimed and shrivelled.
Iphigenia at Aulis[755](Ἰφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Αὐλίδι) was produced soon after the poet’s death in 406B.C.by his son, together withAlcmæon at Corinthand theBacchæ.
The scene shows Agamemnon’s tent at Aulis, where the Greeks are encamped ready to sail for Troy, but delayed by contrary winds. Before they can set out Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia must be sacrificed to Artemis. The king has written to his wife bidding her send the maiden—to marry Achilles. We now see him in agony beneath the night-sky and entrusting to an aged slave a letter revoking the first. The chorus (women of Colchis) enter and describe the pastimes of various heroes. Menelaus intercepts the letter and reproaches his brother with treachery. After a vigorous dispute they learn that Clytæmnestra and Iphigenia are approaching. Menelaus relents, but they realize that the sacrifice must proceed. The chorus sing Aphrodite’s power and the judgment of Paris. Agamemnon greets his family with half-concealed distress, and in vain attempts to send his wife back forthwith. A choric ode describes the impending doom of Troy. Achilles, seeking Agamemnon, meets Clytæmnestra, who to his amazement greets him as a son-in-law. In the midst of their embarrassment the old slave comes forward and reveals Agamemnon’s purpose. The queen in agony appeals to Achilles, who promises to defend Iphigenia. The chorus sing the bridals ofPeleus and Thetis, Achilles’ parents. Then mother and daughter piteously beg Agamemnon to relent; he is heart-broken but determined. Iphigenia utters a lyric lament, after which Achilles tells how the army maltreated him for championing Iphigenia. He and the queen are excitedly debating, when Iphigenia proclaims her readiness to die for the cause of Greece, and departs, singing her farewell to life. A messenger brings a description of the sacrifice: at the last moment the princess miraculously disappeared, and a hind was substituted for her by the goddess. Agamemnon returns and takes leave of Clytæmnestra.
The text of this drama presents curious features.[756]There are two prologues, and the last fifty or sixty lines of the whole are corrupt. It seems that Euripides died before the work was finished; the gaps were filled by his son Euripides who produced the trilogy (Iphigenia,Alcmæon,Bacchæ) soon after 406B.C.The original prologue, of the ordinary narrative kind, delivered by Agamemnon in iambic metre, is embedded in the later prologue, which takes the form of a dialogue in anapæsts between the king and his aged retainer. This later work is extremely charming, filled with the quiet beauty of night overhanging the feverish ambition and misery of men. But though the younger Euripides probably wrote an ending also, this has been displaced by extremely bad[757]work of a much later time. It is not easy to understand why such inferior matter was allowed to eject the composition of the younger Euripides. Perhaps the explanation is that the concluding lines were known from the first not to be by the master, that the play was often produced, and that for these two reasons rival endings were very early before the public. They would destroy one another’s prestige, so that in later centuries none survived, and some scribe filled up the gap as best he could.
A noteworthy contrast exists between theIphigeniaand theBacchæ, though they were no doubt composed at almost the same time. In this play the chorus has practically no concern with the action, whereas the Asiatic women form the soul of theBacchæ. Instead of the wild loveliness or serene spirituality which thrill us in the lyrics of that drama, we find here nothing more profound than graceful complications of phrase and facile emotion. In compensation, while theBacchæis primitive in psychology, its companion is superior to many Greek tragedies in the masterly freedom and subtlety of its character-drawing.
The play is a study of five ordinary characters under the stress of an extraordinary crisis. This common-place quality of the personages conveys the whole purport, giving it a momentous position even among such works as we have been discussing. In this latest tragedy no sincere reader can fail to detect himself under the thin disguise of names. Many men were pointed at as the original of Meredith’s Sir Willoughby Patterne, and for the same good reason most Athenian husbands must have stirred a little on their benches in the presence of this unheroic Agamemnon. There is nothing heroic in any of the persons. Menelaus is an ordinary man—artlessly selfish at one moment, artlessly and uselessly kind-hearted at another, and a master of fluent invective which reveals his own failings. Clytæmnestra is an ordinary woman, showing indeed a queenly dignity in the normal relations of life, but when puzzled or alarmed revealing herself a thoroughbourgeoise, and when confronted by the doom which threatens her daughter forgetting all her pride, clutching at even the most pitiful means[758]of gaining a respite, and utterly broken when her hope dies away. Agamemnon is an ordinary man, thrown by circumstances into a position where both generalship and statesmanship are needed, attempting to rule his army by diplomacy and his family by military discipline, with ruin as the result. Fatally opento suggestion, he makes and remakes subterfuges, seeking to spare every one’s feelings until at last he drifts into the necessity of slaying his own child. Even Iphigenia is an ordinary girl. It is precisely because she is a common type that we grieve for her anguish and triumph in her exaltation. Macaria in theHeracleidæis almost unknown save to professed students of Euripides. She knows no fear or hesitation and lives on the heights; we recognize in ourselves no kinship with her. But Iphigenia we meet every day. She is no heroine, but a child. Her delight at seeing her father again shows all a child’s amiable abandon; her pitiful cries and shrinking at the prospect of death are those of the ordinary happiness-loving girl. When finally the agony of her father, the empty clamour of Achilles, her mother’s undignified tremors, nerve her to trample her own dread under foot, we rejoice precisely because what we witness is the triumph of common human nature. Even Achilles, son of a goddess as story reported him, is a common-place person too. This is not the hero who flames through theIliad, but a young noble led into the extreme of folly by this very legend that his origin is divine. Perhaps nothing even in the deadly Euripides is quite so fatal to the traditional halo than the incredible speech[759]wherewith Achilles comforts Clytæmnestra. Of vast length, full of spurious, jerky rhetoric and contradictory comments on the situation—which, however frightful, appeals to him mostly as an atmosphere in which he can pose—this oration reveals him as a sham. Fortunately for him, he is never undeceived. This man is not the Achilles of tradition; he is spiritual brother of the mad prince in theOrestesand the ancestor of Mr. Shaw’s Sergius Saranoff.
In his last work, then, Euripides, so far from showing any exhaustion of power, appears on the verge of new developments.[760]He has drawn still nearer to thenew comedy of Menander. The suddenness with which, after the quarrel between Agamemnon and Menelaus, the crisis is precipitated by the entrance of the messenger announcing Iphigenia’s arrival—the man breaks into the middle of a line[761]—is a remarkable novelty. The altercation itself shows a brilliant freedom of idiom which even this poet has hardly reached hitherto. There is at least one unprecedented license of metre.[762]And the complete change of spirit which comes upon Iphigenia was novel enough to offend Aristotle.[763]
TheCyclops[764](Κύκλωψ) is the only complete[765]satyric play now extant. No indications of date[766]seem available.
The background is a cave on Mount Etna, wherein dwells the Cyclops, or one-eyed giant, Polyphemus. Silenus tells how he and the satyrs have become the ogre’s slaves. He is sweeping out the cavern when the chorus of satyrs drive in their flocks. Odysseus and his men arrive, seeking provisions, which Silenus eagerly sells for a skin of wine. The conversation is interrupted by Polyphemus who decides to devour the intruders. Odysseus eloquently appeals to him, but receives a brutal and blasphemous reply. The giant drives the Greeks within, and the chorus express their disgust at his cannibalism. Odysseus tells how two of his men have been eaten; he himself has gained favour by the gift of wine, and proposes that they all escape, after blinding Polyphemus with a red-hot stake. The chorus joyfully assent. Polyphemus comes forth drunk and intending to visit his brethren, but Odysseus dissuades him. The Cyclops asks Odysseus his name and is told “Noman”; he promises to eat his benefactor last. The revel proceeds until Polyphemus retires, whereuponOdysseus calls for action, but the chorus all offer ridiculous excuses. The hero goes within to perform the task with his comrades. Soon the giant reappears, blind and bellowing with pain, while the satyrs joke about “Noman,” and give him false directions so that the Greeks escape from the cave. Odysseus reveals himself, and Polyphemus recognizes the fulfilment of an oracle. He threatens to wreck the ship, but the others depart unconcernedly to the beach.
This brief play—it has hardly more than seven hundred lines—is invaluable as being the only complete work of the satyric type which we now possess. Considered in itself, it is of small value,[767]though it must have formed an agreeable light entertainment. The lyrics are short and trifling. Of characterization there is little, and that little traditional and obvious—Odysseus is pious, valiant, resourceful; Polyphemus brutally sensual, the satyrs cowardly and frivolous. Though there are passages of tension, the audience can never have felt any marked excitement, as the whole story, except that the satyrs are imported by the dramatist, is taken from a well-known episode in Homer[768]; even such things as the joke on the name Outis[769](“Noman”) and the comparison[770]between the spit which blinds Polyphemus and the auger of a shipwright, are borrowed from the epic. The nature of satyric drama in general is discussed elsewhere.[771]Here it will be enough to note that there are “tragic” features in this play; Odysseus throughout speaks and acts in a manner as dignified, perhaps more dignified, than in certain tragedies of our poet. The farcical scenes provided by the rascally Silenus, the obscene jests and cowardice of the chorus, and a certain approximation[772]to comedy in the iambic metreused by them or by Polyphemus, are marks of a satyric play. It should be noted, however, that even without them, theCyclopswould be no tragedy. Polyphemus is no tragic antagonist of the hero. His exposition of his philosophy of life,[773]such as it is, must not persuade us that there is here any valid moral antagonism as foundation of the drama. Odysseus contends with him and eludes him as one might escape the violence of a ravening animal.
TheRhesus[774](Ῥῆσος) is a drama of uncertain date and authorship. The action is founded on the Tenth Book of theIliad, and takes place at night in the Trojan camp. Hector has defeated the Greeks and hopes to destroy them at dawn. The drama opens with a song by the chorus of sentinels, come to warn Hector that the Greeks are astir. He is ordering instant attack when Æneas urges that a spy be first sent. Dolon volunteers, and sets forth disguised as a wolf, followed by the admiration and prayers of the chorus. A herdsman announces the approach of the Thracian prince, Rhesus, with an army to aid Troy, but Hector is displeased with his tardiness, and, despite the joyful ode of the chorus, greets his ally with reproaches. Rhesus offers excuses, promising to destroy the Greeks without Trojan help, and to invade Greece; Hector takes him away to bivouac. The chorus depart to rouse the Lycians, whose watch comes next. Odysseus and Diomedes steal in, intending to slay Hector. They have met Dolon and learned from him the position of Hector’s tent and the watchword, “Phœbus”. Athena appears, bidding them slay Rhesus and take his wondrous steeds. They depart, and, seeing Paris draw near, she calms his suspicions under the guise of his protectress Aphrodite. Next she recalls the Greeks, who have slainRhesus. An exciting scene follows, in which the chorus seize Odysseus, who escapes by using the pass-word. The chorus sing the daring of Odysseus. A wounded charioteer of Rhesus staggers in, proclaiming his master’s death, of which he accuses Hector, who sends him away for tendance. As the chorus lament, a Muse appears in the sky, bearing the body of her son Rhesus. She sings a dirge and curses Odysseus and Diomedes. Next she tells of her union with the river-god, father of Rhesus, and upbraids Athena. Hector promises glorious obsequies, but she declares that her son shall live on in the Thracian mountains as a spirit half-divine.[775]Hector orders an assault upon the Greeks, and the chorus sing a few courageous words.