Chapter 18

This admirable drama stands quite by itself. There is a minimum of psychology; the lyrics are mostly of slight value. But the writer has not aimed at a tragedy of the usual type. Its excellence lies in the vigour and excitement of the action. Almost all the scenes, especially the debate at the opening, and the escape of the Greeks, are written by a master of vivid realism, who is less concerned with character-drawing. The unwearied Hector, the cautious Æneas, the vaunting, splendid, barbarian prince, the fiercely loyal charioteer—these are all obvious types. The only really fine stroke of psychological insight occurs where Hector, himself reckless at first, is by the absurd presumptuousness of Rhesus forced into discretion.[776]What really stirs one is the thrilling atmosphere of danger and the magical little lyric[777]which falls half-carelessly from the wearied sentries when the night begins to wane:—

Hark! Hark!That voice, as of a thousand strings!The nightingale, where Simois moves along’Mid corpses stark!Upon the listening air she flingsHer grief transfusèd into song.E’en now on Ida graze the sheep.One distant pipe through darkness criesOver the upland lawn.Now layeth velvet-footed sleepEnchantment on my drooping eyes,Sweetest at hush of dawn.

Hark! Hark!

That voice, as of a thousand strings!

The nightingale, where Simois moves along

’Mid corpses stark!

Upon the listening air she flings

Her grief transfusèd into song.

E’en now on Ida graze the sheep.

One distant pipe through darkness cries

Over the upland lawn.

Now layeth velvet-footed sleep

Enchantment on my drooping eyes,

Sweetest at hush of dawn.

Some ancient critics denied that Euripides wrote theRhesus, and the great majority of modern scholars have accepted this view.[778]The evidence for Euripidean authorship is as follows: (i) The play comes down to us in the manuscripts of that poet. (ii) That Euripides wrote aRhesusis known from theDidascaliæor Dramatic Records. (iii) Early Alexandrian writers quote passages from our text as from “theRhesusof Euripides”. On the other side are (i) a statement in theArgument:[779]“Some have suspected this drama to be spurious, and not the work of Euripides, for it reveals rather the Sophoclean manner”; (ii) various features of the work which modern critics have regarded as suggesting an inferior playwright: (a) the plot is superficial; (b) there is no prologue;[780](c) four actors are needed; (d) Æneas and Paris have practically nothing to do; (e) the chorus is employed in a manner foreign to Euripidean plays; (f) there is a lack of force and pathos; (g) there is no rhetoric; (h) there is no sententiousness; (i) we have here the beginning of historical drama, which is later than the fifth century; (j) the style is eclectic: imitations of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are to be observed.[781]

Several of these objections are plainly unfounded. Four actors are not clearly necessary, as was shownabove. Pathos, of a kind quite Euripidean, is to be found in the scene where the Muse laments her glorious son. And how deny rhetorical force to a poet who can write such brilliantly vigorous things as:—

Aye, friends in plenty shall I find, now HeavenStands firm for us, and Fortune guides my sword.I need them not! Where hid they those long yearsWhen Troy, a galleon with her canvas rent,Reeled onward through war’s shrieking hurricane?[782]

Aye, friends in plenty shall I find, now Heaven

Stands firm for us, and Fortune guides my sword.

I need them not! Where hid they those long years

When Troy, a galleon with her canvas rent,

Reeled onward through war’s shrieking hurricane?[782]

The high-hearted defence[783]of Rhesus is full of the same tingling rhetoric. Yet many critics[784]of the highest rank have denied Euripidean authorship to theRhesus. On the other side stands[785]the testimony of the almost contemporary record. One consideration, obvious yet too often ignored, may help us. The earliest work of Euripides to which we can assign a date—theAlcestis—belongs to the year 438. The poet was then at least forty-two years old. Is it beyond belief that twenty years before theAlcestisthe youthful dramatist composed a stirring tale of war and hair-breadth escape, which owed much to the manner of Æschylus, especially in his handling of the chorus? During the period for which we have evidence, he was constantly testing the possibilities of his art. Need we assume that until theAlcestishe had not advanced?

The soundest view appears to be that we have here a very early work of Euripides. This is confirmed by the critic Crates, an Academic philosopher of the second century before Christ, who asserted that Euripides was still young when he wrote theRhesus.[786]To this should be added whatever help may be drawn from contemporary history. It is natural to suppose that when this drama was composed Athenian politics were closely concerned with Thrace. An Athenian colony at Nine Ways, afterwards called Amphipolis, was destroyed bythe Thracians in 465B.C.In 436 the place was resettled under the new name by Hagnon, who brought the bones of Rhesus from the Troad back to Thrace. The later year, as connected with the hero, would seem the more suitable, were it not for the words[787]of his mother who refuses burial for her son and proclaims his strange life after death: “hidden in caverns of the silver-yielding soil he shall lie as a human spirit, still living”. Such language would rather be avoided after the bones themselves had been visibly committed to Thracian earth. On the whole, one thinks the situation more suitable to some period, anterior to Hagnon’s expedition, when Thracian politics were in the air, perhaps quite soon after the disaster of 465B.C.[788]

Of the lost plays we have about eleven hundred fragments. Few of these comprise more than three or four lines, but a fair conception of several dramas can be formed from reports of the plot, parodies by Aristophanes, and the remains themselves.

TheTelephuswas acted in 438B.C., together withThe Cretan Women,Alcmæon at Psophis, andAlcestis. Sophocles won the first prize, Euripides the second. Telephus, King of Mysia, was wounded by Achilles when the Greeks invaded Mysia in mistake for Troy. His wound would not heal, and he entered his enemies’ country disguised as a beggar, to consult the Delphic oracle, which declared that “the wounder would heal him”. Meanwhile the Greek heroes were deliberating at Argos about a second expedition. Agamemnon refused to set forth again, and uttered to Menelaus the celebrated words: Σπάρτην ἔλαχες· ταύτην κόσμει—“Sparta is thy place: make thereof the best”. While the council was in progress Telephus begged audience. His disguise was penetrated by Odysseus, and he wasabout to be slain when he snatched up the infant Orestes, threatening to kill the child if the Greeks molested him. He was given a hearing and justified his action in fighting the Greeks when they invaded his country. His hearers were won over, but it was found that Achilles had no knowledge of medicine. Odysseus suggested that the real “wounder” was Achilles’ spear. Telephus was thus healed, and in his gratitude consented to guide the Greeks to Troy.

We possess in theAcharniansof Aristophanes an elaborate and brilliant parody of the interview granted to Telephus. Dicæopolis, an Athenian farmer who has made peace on his own account with Sparta, is attacked by his fellow-citizens, the charcoal-burners of Acharnæ, and only obtains leave to plead his cause by threatening to slay their darling—a coal-basket. Then he begs from Euripides the beggar’s outfit of Telephus, and, returning, delivers a clever harangue denouncing the war. The baby-hostage idea Aristophanes used again in theThesmophoriazusæ, where Mnesilochus, in great danger from the infuriated women, seizes the infant which one of them is carrying, only to find it a concealed wine-skin.

Philocteteswas produced in 431B.C.with theMedea,Dictys, andHarvesters(Θερισταί), when both Euripides and Sophocles were defeated by Euphorion, the son of Æschylus. Our knowledge is derived almost wholly from Dio Chrysostom[789]who compares the three plays calledPhiloctetesby Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. He offers interesting comments on the differences in plot. In Euripides, as in Æschylus, the chorus consists of Lemnian men, but the later poet anticipates criticism by making his chorus apologize for not visiting the sufferer earlier. One Lemnian, by name Actor, takes part as a friend of Philoctetes. The “prologue” is spoken by Odysseus (here working with Diomedes, not Neoptolemus, as in Sophocles) who explainsthat he would not have undertaken this present task for fear of being recognized by Philoctetes, had not Athena changed his appearance. (Here, as in the apology offered by the chorus, we have implied criticism[790]on Æschylus.) The Trojans are sending an embassy in the hope of gaining Philoctetes. Later in the drama, no doubt, occurred a set dispute between the Greek and the Trojan envoys.

In theBellerophonEuripides seems to have gone to the extreme in depicting the passionate atheism inspired by the sight of prosperous wickedness. “If the gods do aught base,” he exclaims in a famous line, “they are not gods.” Another vigorous fragment begins:—

Then dare men say that there are gods in Heaven?Nay, nay! There are not. Fling the tale away,The ancient lie by human folly bred!Base not your judgment on these words of mine—Use but your eyes.

Then dare men say that there are gods in Heaven?

Nay, nay! There are not. Fling the tale away,

The ancient lie by human folly bred!

Base not your judgment on these words of mine—

Use but your eyes.

Bellerophon ascended to Heaven on his winged steed Pegasus in order to remonstrate with Zeus. This idea is used farcically in Aristophanes’Peace, where Trygæus ascends on a monstrous beetle.

Erechtheuswas a beautiful picture of patriotism. Athens being attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, King Erechtheus was told by the Delphic oracle that he could secure victory for Athens by sacrificing his daughter. His wife Praxithea, in a speech of passionate patriotism, consented to give up her child; Swinburne has used this fragment in his ownErechtheus. Another long fragment contains the advice which Erechtheus gives to his son, and which in its dry precision curiously resembles the farewell of Polonius to Laertes. While the issue of battle remains uncertain, the chorus of old Athenians sing a lyric which charmingly renders their yearning for peace:

Along my spear, at last laid by,May spiders weave their shining thread;May peace and music, ere I die,With garlands crown my whitening head.I’d deck Athene’s cloistered faneWith shields of Thracian mountaineers,And ope the well-loved page againWhere poets sing across the years.

Along my spear, at last laid by,May spiders weave their shining thread;May peace and music, ere I die,With garlands crown my whitening head.

Along my spear, at last laid by,

May spiders weave their shining thread;

May peace and music, ere I die,

With garlands crown my whitening head.

I’d deck Athene’s cloistered faneWith shields of Thracian mountaineers,And ope the well-loved page againWhere poets sing across the years.

I’d deck Athene’s cloistered fane

With shields of Thracian mountaineers,

And ope the well-loved page again

Where poets sing across the years.

Another popular play was theAntiope. It dealt with the persecution of Antiope by Lycus, King of Thebes, and his wife Dirce. She was rescued from death by her two sons, Amphion and Zethus, whom she had been compelled to abandon at birth, and who discovered the relationship in the critical hour. The chief interest of the play was the contrast between the brothers—Zethus a man of muscle, devoted to farming; Amphion, a musician and lover of the arts. Euripides developed this contrast in a long debate wherein culture was upheld against the “Philistine”. We still read one criticism of myth which recalls a blunt passage of theIon.[791]Story said that Antiope’s sons were the offspring of Zeus, but Amphion has the hardihood to express doubt to his mother herself.

With theHelen(B.C.412) was produced a work of the first importance—theAndromeda, a charming love-story full of romance and poetical loveliness. It was immensely popular; Aristophanes gives in hisThesmophoriazusæa parody as elaborate as that ofTelephusin theAcharnians, and it was a perusal of this drama which excited Dionysus in theFrogsto descend to Hades for the purpose of fetching back the dead playwright. Lucian[792]tells how Archelaus, the tragic actor, came to Abdera and performed theAndromeda. The whole town grew crazy over it. “They used to sing the solo from theAndromedaand recite Perseus’ speech from beginning to end. The town swarmed with these actorsof a week’s standing, pale and lean, shouting with all the strength of their lungs

O Love, of gods and men tyrannic Lord,

and all the rest of it. This went on for a long time, in fact till winter, when a severe frost cured them of their nonsense.” TheAndromedapoints forward to the novel, and it is interesting to note that in the best Greek novel—theÆthiopicaof Heliodorus, who wrote about eight hundred years after Euripides’ death—the heroine’s father, like Andromeda’s, was an Æthiopian king.

Scanty as are the remnants of this drama, we can still form some idea of its structure.[793]“It is the crowning virtue of all great art that, however little is left of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely.”[794]The country of Cepheus, the Ethiope king, was ravaged by a sea-monster, and the only help lay in sacrificing to the creature Andromeda, the king’s daughter, who was bound to a rock and left as his prey. At this point the action begins. It is still night and from the cliff rises the lament of the captive:—

O solemn night,How slow thy coursers trace,Amid the holy Heaven star-bedight,Their pathway through the deeps of space!

O solemn night,

How slow thy coursers trace,

Amid the holy Heaven star-bedight,

Their pathway through the deeps of space!

At each pause in her song comes the voice of Echo repeating the sad syllables, till Andromeda is joined by the maidens who form the chorus. The lyric dialogue concluded, it seems[795]that the father and mother, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, enter and that there is some talk of attacking the monster; Phineus, brother of the king and the affianced of Andromeda, shrinks from the risk. But now comes unlooked-for aid. Perseus, fresh from his slaughter of the Gorgon, arrives, borne through the airon his winged sandals. Though Zeus is his father, in this play he figures as the lowly hero familiar in our own fairy-tales. Certainly he appears to be contrasted with the rich but cowardly Phineus, and the helpless despairing king. His first words have been preserved:—

Gods! To what alien kingdom am I comeOn sandals swift, between the earth and HeavenJourneying homewards on these wingèd feet?...But soft! what crag is that by tossing foamSurrounded? Lo, the statue of a maidHewn from the living rock by patient art,Its craftsman’s master-work!

Gods! To what alien kingdom am I come

On sandals swift, between the earth and Heaven

Journeying homewards on these wingèd feet?...

But soft! what crag is that by tossing foam

Surrounded? Lo, the statue of a maid

Hewn from the living rock by patient art,

Its craftsman’s master-work!

Drawing near, he perceives that this thing of beauty is a living maiden, and at once longs to make her his bride. When she asks his name, instead of proudly claiming Zeus as his father, he mentions his own name, his journey’s end, and his achievement:—

Περσεύς, πρὸς Ἄργος ναυστολῶν, τὸ Γοργόνοςκάρα κομίζων.

Περσεύς, πρὸς Ἄργος ναυστολῶν, τὸ Γοργόνος

κάρα κομίζων.

But he is no mediæval knight; he does not forbear to state his claim before addressing himself to the task: “And if I save thee, maid, wilt give me thanks?” Andromeda, on her side, feels and speaks without subtlety:—

Stranger, have pity on my sore distress:Free me from bonds,

Stranger, have pity on my sore distress:

Free me from bonds,

and again

Take me, O stranger, for thy handmaiden,Or wife, or slave.

Take me, O stranger, for thy handmaiden,

Or wife, or slave.

Before encountering the monster Perseus comes to an understanding with Cepheus and goes forth to the conflict, calling upon Eros to aid his chosen:—

O Love, of gods and men tyrannic Lord,Either teach Beauty to unlearn her power,Or speed true lovers, through th’ adventurous mazeThat in thy name they enter, to success.So shall all men to thee pay reverence.Refuse, and lo! thy glories fade to naughtE’en through thy very boon of wakened hearts.

O Love, of gods and men tyrannic Lord,

Either teach Beauty to unlearn her power,

Or speed true lovers, through th’ adventurous maze

That in thy name they enter, to success.

So shall all men to thee pay reverence.

Refuse, and lo! thy glories fade to naught

E’en through thy very boon of wakened hearts.

Two or three lines picture the grateful crowd of rustics who surrounded the victor: “all the shepherd-folk flowedaround him, one bringing an ivy-bowl of milk for his refreshing, another the joyous grape-juice”. Phineus sought to assert his claim upon Andromeda, but was repulsed by her father. Later the maiden’s parents themselves begged her not to leave them desolate. In a thrilling[796]reply she declared that she would cleave to her husband. Then follows mention of a wedding-feast, and at the close it seems probable that Athena foretold the future.

Of thePhaethonwe are fortunate in possessing two unusually long fragments of seventy and seventy-five lines respectively. It is an exciting and romantic story—the legend of Phaethon, child of the Sun-god, who called upon his father to prove their relationship by permitting him for one day to drive the chariot of the Sun. This conception, gorgeous with the spirit of adventure and an un-Greek yearning for what transcends mortal power, seems to have filled the whole play with glow and rushing movement. A fragment of the prologue marks this at once: it tells how Clymene is wedded

To Merops, lord of this our landWhich first of all the earth the Sun-God smitesWith golden radiance of his risen car,Nam’d by black-visaged folk that dwell aroundThe gleaming stable of the Sun and Dawn.

To Merops, lord of this our land

Which first of all the earth the Sun-God smites

With golden radiance of his risen car,

Nam’d by black-visaged folk that dwell around

The gleaming stable of the Sun and Dawn.

From Strabo,[797]to whom we owe this extract, we learn that the palace of Merops is close to the abode of the Sun-god. This notion that the youth’s home is only an hour’s walk from the palace of the Sun, gives a sense of delightful verisimilitude.[798]It appears that Phaethon in this prologue tells how his father Merops plans to marry him to a goddess, but that he himself is unwilling.[799]Clymene, his mother, to persuade her son that he will not be distastefully united to one vastly his superior, reveals that he is the son not of Merops but of the Sun-god, Helios, who promised her long ago that he would grant her child one wish. Let Phaethon approach Helios with some request, and prove her story. The prince resolves to do so. The chorus of female attendants enter with a lovely song in honour of Phaethon’s wedding; they picture the whole earth awakening to daily activities. Next appears the king, who describes the brilliant future which awaits his son.[800]Phaethon views with distaste this life of easeful splendour; to him at this moment may well be attributed the vigorous words[801]

Each nook of earth that feeds me is my home.

Goethe has indicated, with splendid insight, the dramatic power which must have filled this scene: the aged king offering the easy joys of riches and a royal home to this youth already burning in secret for the high enterprise of seeking his real and divine father.

Later the interview was described between Phaethon and Helios, who after seeking to dissuade him, granted his request and added anxious instructions:—

“Let not thy steeds invade the Afric sky:Its temper hath no moistness, and thy wheelsDownward must sink....Direct thy path toward the Pleiads Seven.”Impatient of the rest, he snatched the reinsAnd smote the wingèd coursers till they flewUnchecked thro’ opening vistas of the heaven.His father, mounted on a blazing star,Rode after, warning him: “Drive thither, boy!”“Wheel yonder!”

“Let not thy steeds invade the Afric sky:

Its temper hath no moistness, and thy wheels

Downward must sink....

Direct thy path toward the Pleiads Seven.”

Impatient of the rest, he snatched the reins

And smote the wingèd coursers till they flew

Unchecked thro’ opening vistas of the heaven.

His father, mounted on a blazing star,

Rode after, warning him: “Drive thither, boy!”

“Wheel yonder!”

The messenger seems to have continued with a picture of Phaethon’s fall. The body, still giving off the smoke of destruction, is next brought in, and we possess part of Clymene’s frantic speech. Her grief is mingled with terror: the strange manner of her son’s death mayprovoke her husband Merops to inquiry and reflexion and so her long-past union with the Sun-god may come to light. She bids them hide the body in the treasure-chamber, of which she alone holds the keys. Soon the king enters amid lyric strains celebrating the marriage-day of Phaethon. He is giving orders for merry-making when a servant hurries out to inform him that the treasure-chamber is giving forth clouds of smoke. Merops hastens within, and the chorus bewail the disclosure which is imminent. In a moment the stricken father is heard returning with lamentation. The course of the last scene is not certain, but probably a god reconciled the king and his wife, giving directions for the disposal of Phaethon’s body; a beautiful but obscure fragment,[802]redolent with the charm of breezes and murmuring boughs after all this blaze and splendour, seems to point to the story of Phaethon’s sisters, who mourned him beside the western waters and were transformed into poplars. This god was probably Oceanus,[803]the father of Clymene. He alone (deity of the world-encircling water) could give unity to these two pictures, the radiant eastern land of Phaethon’s youthful enterprise, and the distant western river where his sorrows and his end are bathed in dim beauty.

This sketch allows us to realize how much we have lost in thePhaethon. The romantic events and setting recall theAndromeda. Clymene’s sorrow and shame mingle strangely with the gallant enterprise and bright charm of the whole, somewhat as Creusa’s story is contrasted with the fresh cheerfulness of Ion. Above all, the noble simplicity and high-hearted adventurousness of Phaethon, inspired by his new-found kinship with a god and chafing at the placid programme of domestic honour and luxury which his supposed father sets before him—this is a concept of boundless promise.

TheHypsipyle,[804]which was produced late[805]in Euripides’ life, is specially interesting through the discovery in 1906 of extensive fragments at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Previously it was known by scanty quotations of no great interest, though apparently much prized in ancient times.[806]The plot is now in the main clear. Hypsipyle, grand-daughter of the god Dionysus and daughter of Thoas, King of Lemnos, was exiled because she refused to join in the massacre of the Lemnian men by their women. Previously she had borne twin sons to Jason. These she lost when expelled from her home. She is now slave to Eurydice, Queen of Nemea in the north of the Peloponnese, and nurse to her infant son Opheltes. Her own sons come in quest of her, and without recognizing their mother are entertained in the palace. Hypsipyle is quieting the child with a song and a rattle when the chorus of Nemean women enter. Next certain soldiers arrive from the host which the seven chieftains are leading against Thebes. Their commander, the prince Amphiaraus, explains that the army is in need of water, and Hypsipyle consents to show them a spring. Later she returns in anguish: during her absence the child has been killed by a great serpent. Eurydice is about to slay her, when she appeals to Amphiaraus, who pleads her cause and promises Eurydice that the Greeks shall found a festival in honour of the child. (This festival is that of the famous Nemean Games.) He sees that this fatal accident is a bad omen for the enterprise of the Seven, and names the child Archemorus[807]instead of Opheltes. Eurydice is appeased. Later we find Hypsipyle and her sons made known to one another, and the god Dionysus appears, apparently to arrange future events.

Though there is one difficulty as to the plot, namely, that we do not know what function was assigned to Hypsipyle’s sons—they cannot have been introduced merely for the recognition-scene—the whole conception strikes one as simple and masterly. It has been well remarked[808]that while a modern dramatist would have omitted the Theban expedition, “nothing seemed to the Greeks worthy of contemplation in the theatre by a great people, unless it had some connexion with the exploits and the history of nations.... On the same canvas the death of one little child and the doom of the seven chieftains with their crowding battalions are depicted in a perspective which sets the former fatality in the foreground.”

The captive princess, even through the ruins of the text, shines forth with great charm. Her whole life centres round her lost children and the brief magical time of her union with Jason. The chorus reproach her with her indifference to the exciting presence of Adrastus’ great army—she will think of nothing save Argo and the Fleece. When at point to die her spirit flashes back to those old days in a few words of amazing poignancy:—

ὦ πρῷρα καὶ λευκαῖνον ἐξ ἅλμης ὕδωρἈργοῦς, ἰὼ παῖδ’....

ὦ πρῷρα καὶ λευκαῖνον ἐξ ἅλμης ὕδωρ

Ἀργοῦς, ἰὼ παῖδ’....

“Ah, prow of Argo and the brine that flashed into whiteness! ah, my two sons!” Her talk with them towards the end is a pathetic and lovely passage equal to anything Euripides ever wrote in this kind.

Melanippe the Wise[809]appears to have been a drama of unusual personal interest. Æolus espoused Hippe, whose daughter Melanippe became by Poseidon mother of twin sons. The god bade her hide them from Æolus, and they were discovered by grooms in the careof a bull and a cow. They, supposing the children miraculous offspring of these animals, reported their discovery to Æolus, who decided to expiate the portent by burning the infants alive. Melanippe was instructed to shroud them for death. In order to save her children without revealing her own secret she denied the possibility of such portentous births, but seems to have found herself forced at length to confess in order to prove the natural origin of the infants. Æolus condemned her to be blinded and imprisoned, her offspring to be exposed. Her mother Hippe appeared asdea ex machina[810]and saved her kin.

The great feature of this play was the heroine’s speech in which she sought to convince her father that such a portent was impossible. Lines from the opening of this argument are preserved: “The story is not mine—from my mother have I learned how Heaven and earth were once mingled in substance; when they separated into twain they engendered and brought into the light of day all creatures, the trees, birds, beasts, nurslings of the sea, and the race of men”. The speech was an elaborate scientific sermon to disprove the possibility of miracles. Similarly, according to a famous story, the drama opened originally with the line: “Zeus, whoever Zeus may be, for only by stories do I know of him ...”; but this open agnosticism gave such offence that Euripides produced the play again with the words: “Zeus, as Truth relates....” A different but closely-connected source of interest is the fact that here Euripides veiled his own personality less thinly than usual. That Melanippe was only his mouthpiece appears to have been a recognized fact. Dionysius of Halicarnassus[811]observes that it presents a double character, that of the poet, and that of Melanippe; and Lucian[812]selects the remark on Zeus in the prologue as a casewhere the poet is speaking his own views. The “mother” from whom “Melanippe” learned her philosophy has been identified with the great metaphysician and scientist Anaxagoras, who was banished from Athens in 430B.C.; and it is natural to suppose that thisMelanippeis not much later than that year, perhaps much earlier[813]in view of the strongly didactic manner.[814]Hartung refers to this play the splendid fragment:—

ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίαςἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶνἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ μήτ’ εἰς ἀδίκουςπράξεις ὁρμῶν,ἀλλ’ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεωςκόσμον ἀγήρω, πῇ τε συνέστηκαὶ ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως.τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ’ αἰσχρῶνἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.

ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας

ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν

ἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ μήτ’ εἰς ἀδίκους

πράξεις ὁρμῶν,

ἀλλ’ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως

κόσμον ἀγήρω, πῇ τε συνέστη

καὶ ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως.

τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ’ αἰσχρῶν

ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.

“Happy is he who hath won deep learning. He setteth himself neither to hurt his fellow-citizens nor towards works of iniquity, but fixeth his gaze upon the ageless order of immortal Nature, the laws and methods of its creation. Unto such a man never doth there cling the plotting of base deeds.” If these lines point at Anaxagoras and belong to our play, the two significant clauses which defend the moral character of the philosopher in question indicate the year 430 itself.

TheCresphonteshad immense success as a powerful melodrama. Polyphontes, having slain his brother Cresphontes, King of Messenia, seized his throne and married his widow Merope, who sent her infant son Cresphontes away to safe keeping in Ætolia. When he grew up he returned to avenge his father. At this point the action begins. Cresphontes seems to have delivered the prologue; since Polyphontes fearing his return has offered a reward to whoever shall slay him, he has determined to win the usurper’s confidence by claiming to have destroyed his enemy. Meanwhile, Merope, alarmed by the proclamation of the king, has sent an aged slave to find whether Cresphontes is well;he returns with tidings that the prince has disappeared from Ætolia. Merope gives her son over for lost, and observing the youthful stranger who is received with joy by the king, she becomes convinced that he is the murderer of her son. While he lies asleep she steals upon him with an axe, when the old slave recognizes the stranger and stops her arm. Mother and son are united, and at once plot to slay Polyphontes. Merope pretends to be reconciled to the king, who in his joy goes to sacrifice, accompanied by the youth, who takes advantage of a suitable moment to slay his enemy.

Plutarch, nearly six centuries later, testifies[815]to the sensation which the Recognition caused in the audience. Merope herself seems to have been a figure ranking with Hecuba in theTroades. The tidings of her son’s death draw from her words which in their quiet dignity of grief have something of Wordsworth:—

Children have died ere now, not mine alone,And wives been widow’d. Yea, this cup of lifeUnnumber’d women have drain’d it, as do I....... Insistent Fate,Taking in fee the lives of all I lov’d,Hath made me wise.

Children have died ere now, not mine alone,

And wives been widow’d. Yea, this cup of life

Unnumber’d women have drain’d it, as do I....

... Insistent Fate,

Taking in fee the lives of all I lov’d,

Hath made me wise.

Probably it was Merope again who uttered the famous lines which advise lament over the newly-born and a glad procession to accompany the dead. The recognition-scene is singled out for especial praise by Aristotle.[816]

The fragments of this tragedy include a perfect jewel of lyric poetry, a prayer to Peace:—

Εἰρήνα βαθύπλουτε καὶκαλλίστα μακάρων θεῶν,ζῆλός μοι σέθεν, ὡς χρονίζεις.δέδοικα δὲ μὴ πρὶν πόνοιςὑπερβάλῃ με γῆρας,πρὶν σὰν χαρίεσσαν ὥραν προσιδεῖνκαὶ καλλιχόρους ἀοιδὰςφιλοστεφάνους τε κώμους.ἴθι μοι, πότνα, πόλιν.τὰν δ’ ἐχθρὰν στάσιν εἶργ’ ἀπ’ οἴ-κων τὰν μαινομέναν τ’ ἔρινθηκτῷ τερπομέναν σιδάρῳ.

Εἰρήνα βαθύπλουτε καὶ

καλλίστα μακάρων θεῶν,

ζῆλός μοι σέθεν, ὡς χρονίζεις.

δέδοικα δὲ μὴ πρὶν πόνοις

ὑπερβάλῃ με γῆρας,

πρὶν σὰν χαρίεσσαν ὥραν προσιδεῖν

καὶ καλλιχόρους ἀοιδὰς

φιλοστεφάνους τε κώμους.

ἴθι μοι, πότνα, πόλιν.

τὰν δ’ ἐχθρὰν στάσιν εἶργ’ ἀπ’ οἴ-

κων τὰν μαινομέναν τ’ ἔριν

θηκτῷ τερπομέναν σιδάρῳ.

A paraphrase might run thus:—

O Peace, thou givest plenty as from a deep spring: there is no beauty like unto thine, no, not even among the blessed gods.My heart yearneth within me, for thou tarriest; I grow old and thou returnest not.Shall weariness overcome mine eyes before they see thy bloom and thy comeliness? When the lovely songs of the dancers are heard again, and the thronging feet of them that wear garlands, shall grey hairs and sorrow have destroyed me utterly?Return, thou Holy One, to our city: abide not far from us, thou that quenchest wrath.Strife and bitterness shall depart, if thou art with us: madness and the edge of the sword shall flee away from our doors.

O Peace, thou givest plenty as from a deep spring: there is no beauty like unto thine, no, not even among the blessed gods.

My heart yearneth within me, for thou tarriest; I grow old and thou returnest not.

Shall weariness overcome mine eyes before they see thy bloom and thy comeliness? When the lovely songs of the dancers are heard again, and the thronging feet of them that wear garlands, shall grey hairs and sorrow have destroyed me utterly?

Return, thou Holy One, to our city: abide not far from us, thou that quenchest wrath.

Strife and bitterness shall depart, if thou art with us: madness and the edge of the sword shall flee away from our doors.

Matthew Arnold’sMeropehas the same plot and includes a recognition-scene which probably resembles the lost original closely. His conception of Polyphontes is thoroughly Euripidean.

Of the other lost plays little can be said here. Still amid this faint glow of star-dust many marvellous things are to be discerned—words of tremulous tenderness from theDanaedescribing the charm of infancy; a line fromInowhich in its powerful grimness recalls Æschylus, “like a lone beast, he lurks in caves unlit”;[817]out of thePolyidusthe celebrated query,

Who knows of life that it is aught but death,And death aught else than life beyond the grave?[818]

Who knows of life that it is aught but death,

And death aught else than life beyond the grave?[818]

From an unknown drama comes a line which owes its preservation to St. Paul[819]:

φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ’ ὁμιλίαι κακαί,

“evil communications corrupt good manners”. Euripides’ cosmopolitan sympathy nowhere finds finer expression than in the distich

Where’er spreads Heaven the eagle cleaves his path;Where’er lies earth the righteous are at home.[820]

Where’er spreads Heaven the eagle cleaves his path;

Where’er lies earth the righteous are at home.[820]

But the student must at his leisure explore themarvels of these rock-pools left by the retiring ocean. One majestic passage[821]from theCretansshall suffice to close this survey. The lines are from a march sung by the Curetes or priests of the Cretan Zeus, and show that even in the Hellenic world the monastic spirit was not unknown:—

Thou whom the Tyrian princess bareTo mighty Jove, thou Lord of Crete,To whom her hundred cities bow,Lo, I draw near thy judgment-seat,Quitting my home, yon hallowed placeWhere beams of cypress roof the shrine,By far-brought axes lopped and hewn,Close knit by oxen’s blood divine.Pure is my life’s unbroken calmSince Zeus to bliss these eyes unsealed;The feast of quivering flesh I sharedWhile through the dark strange thunder pealed.The Mountain-Mother heard my vows,And saw my torch the darkness ride;The Hunter named me for his priest,A mail-clad Bacchant sanctified.Now robed in white I keep me pureFrom food that e’er has throbbed with breath;I shun the new-born infant’s cry,And gaze not on the couch of death.

Thou whom the Tyrian princess bareTo mighty Jove, thou Lord of Crete,To whom her hundred cities bow,Lo, I draw near thy judgment-seat,

Thou whom the Tyrian princess bare

To mighty Jove, thou Lord of Crete,

To whom her hundred cities bow,

Lo, I draw near thy judgment-seat,

Quitting my home, yon hallowed placeWhere beams of cypress roof the shrine,By far-brought axes lopped and hewn,Close knit by oxen’s blood divine.

Quitting my home, yon hallowed place

Where beams of cypress roof the shrine,

By far-brought axes lopped and hewn,

Close knit by oxen’s blood divine.

Pure is my life’s unbroken calmSince Zeus to bliss these eyes unsealed;The feast of quivering flesh I sharedWhile through the dark strange thunder pealed.

Pure is my life’s unbroken calm

Since Zeus to bliss these eyes unsealed;

The feast of quivering flesh I shared

While through the dark strange thunder pealed.

The Mountain-Mother heard my vows,And saw my torch the darkness ride;The Hunter named me for his priest,A mail-clad Bacchant sanctified.

The Mountain-Mother heard my vows,

And saw my torch the darkness ride;

The Hunter named me for his priest,

A mail-clad Bacchant sanctified.

Now robed in white I keep me pureFrom food that e’er has throbbed with breath;I shun the new-born infant’s cry,And gaze not on the couch of death.

Now robed in white I keep me pure

From food that e’er has throbbed with breath;

I shun the new-born infant’s cry,

And gaze not on the couch of death.

It now remains for us to attempt a synthesis—to set before ourselves as clearly as may be the whole personality of Euripides. We are studying not the programme of a politician, but the spirit and method of a great artist, the inspiration of a great teacher. An artist has other things to heed than a superficial consistency of presentation; and a teacher of permanent value shows his followers not what to think, but how to think—not opinions, but the reasoned basis of opinion. Euripides is a man not of dogmas, nor indeed of negations; he is the apostle of a spirit which blows whither it lists, setting up a healthful circulation of tingling life throughout regionswhich have languished in the heavy air of convention. His work forces us to think and feel for ourselves, not necessarily to think and feel with him.

The briefest description of his special quality is that he is in the same moment a great artist and a great rationalist—a man profoundly conscious of the beauty and value of all life, all existence, all energy, and yet an uncompromising critic of the vesture which man throws around those parts of the Universe which are subjected to him. No man has ever loved and expressed beauty with a mind less swayed by illusion. These two instincts, the instinct to study life in all its unforced manifestations, and the instinct to question all conventions, lie at the root of his work. It is in virtue of these that he has been called enigmatic. Like Renan he was ἀνὴρ δίψυχος, a man of two souls[822]; but he is no more an enigma than others. His peculiarity lies herein, that the duality of nature often found in ordinary men was by him exhibited at the heights of genius. That is why he so often seems labouring to destroy the effect he has created; he is “inconsistent” because he is equally at home in the two worlds of feeling and of thought. Precisely for this reason he created a new type of drama. Horace Walpole wrote that “Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel”; thus, when a genius of Euripides’ type addressed itself to the theatre, the result was drama which could not but shock people who, bred in the school of Æschylus, had no conception of “tragedy” which could be witty, light, modern, destructive. Menander is the successor of Euripides, not of Aristophanes.

Anyone who follows out these two strands of instinct will understand much that might seem strange, much that gave offence, in his work. It will be well therefore to bring together the faults which have been found with him in ancient and in later times. Leaving on one side, since it is by no means certainly a reproach, thecelebrated remark[823]of Sophocles, “I represent people as they should be, Euripides as they are,” we find our chief material in Aristophanes and Aristotle. TheFrogscontains an elaborate attack upon the tragedian which, whether fair or not, has aprima faciereasonableness. Euripides is twitted with moral and literary offences. In the first place, his predilection for depicting the power of love, especially the adulterous or incestuous passions of women[824]and the sophistical restlessness of mind which he inculcates,[825]mark him as a corrupter of Athens. On the technical side, his music[826]is affected and decadent, the libretto[827]of his choruses is both elaborate and jejune, the style of his iambics[828]lacks weight and dignity, his prologues[829]are tiresome and written in a mechanical fashion. Aristotle in his turn objects to certain weaknesses of characterization: Menelaus in theOrestesis particularly bad, the speech of Melanippe—no doubt that celebrated oration on miracles—is indecorous and out of character; in the AulidIphigeniathe heroine is inconsistent.[830]He gives two examples[831]of the irrational, Ægeus in theMedeaand Menelaus once more in theOrestes. Euripides’ use of thedeus ex machinais also often bad; he instances Medea’s miraculous chariot. Lastly there is the famous mixture[832]of praise and blame: “Euripides, faulty as he is in the general management of his subject, is yet felt to be the most tragic of the poets.” If we pass now to modern detractors, we find one fault overshadowing all the rest—bad construction, what Aristotle calls “episodic” plots, namely, plays the several scenes of which are more or less accidentally combined and form no organic whole.

There is truth in some of this fault-finding; whether we are to regard such features as actually blemishes is another matter. Two certainly are defects of the gravest possible description—“episodic” plots and thedeus ex machina. If a man produces plays which have no organic unity, or which at the close of the action are in such a tangle that a being of superhuman information and power is necessary to “cut the knot,” he is no “unskilful dramatist” but merely a blockhead, for he can always fling his rubbish into the fire. So hopelessly damaging are these two accusations that one really cannot believe Euripides obnoxious to them. One might as well allege that Alexander did not understand tactics, or that Pericles believed Byzantium was in Sicily. The charge of faulty construction has been considered earlier in connexion with the plays which are supposed examples thereof. But thedeus ex machinaneeds a few words. “The god out of the machine” is a phrase of two applications. It may mean a deity brought in to round off the play by giving information about the future history of the personages. Or the god may be introduced when the plot, owing to the human limitations of the characters, has become knotted and progress is impossible; then a being who miraculously knows all the facts appears and “cuts” the knot. In the first case the epiphany is practically outside the drama; in the second it is only too vital to it. Of the first case there are five[833]instances in the extant plays: to these, of course, our grave objection cannot apply. Of the second type there are seven[834]examples if we regard the miraculous car of Medea as a “deus”.Granted the story which is known to the audience, such interventions are necessary. Medea cannot escape the vengeance of Corinth, Orestes the verdict of the ArgiveState, without supernatural aid; Theseus would, it might seem, never have been persuaded by mortal witness that Hippolytus is innocent; in the TauricIphigeniaand theHelena[835]nothing but a miracle can save from death the fugitives who as a matter of “history” reached home in safety: theSuppliceswould end without the formal compact between rescuers and rescued if the goddess did not intervene; as for theIon, Euripides’ contemporaries knew that Delphi still flourished, so that the annihilating investigation of Ion must, it appeared, have been somehow arrested. For these seven plays, then, we can choose between two theories of thedeus ex machina(in that second sense of a pseudo-dramatic expedient). The first theory is that the poet wishes to end with “historical” truth, but in the course of his action has so blundered that he cannot naturally do so; therefore he puts forward a god who asserts that the actionshallcontinue as “history” asserts that it did; so might a competitor in a match of archery employ a confederate who, whenever his arrow missed the target, should pick it up and plant it in the white. The other theory is that Euripides intended to work out an interesting situation of legend as a study in natural psychology and social development. The situation according to story came to a certain end; according to Euripides that was not the natural end. And he emphasizes this legendary distortion by pointing out clearly that to square nature and the story nothing less than a miracle is required. To assert that he needed the supernatural intervention to save his play is absolutely to reverse the facts. Can we doubt which of these theories is sound?

Two further questions at once arise. Why did he select situations from misleading legends? And, is there then no pseudo-dramaticdeus ex machinaat all? The first question is of vital importance. It isincorrect to say that he was bound by convention to the traditional stories; Phrynichus, Agathon, and Moschion all defied this “convention”. Euripides was a student of human thought, of the development of belief, as well as a dramatist. Convinced that his contemporaries held false beliefs about the gods and that the myths were largely responsible for this, hypnotizing thought by their beauty and paralyzing logic by their authority, he sets himself to show, not only that they are untrue, but also how, though untrue, they ever won credence. As for thedeus ex machinathe truth is that he does not exist (save, of course, in the rôle of a non-dramatic narrator). He is, like the three unities, a figment based on uncritical and hasty reading. Outside this poet the only possible case is that of thePhiloctetes, which has been shown no genuine instance.

We may now return to the objections raised by Aristophanes and Aristotle. They are all due to the two instincts we have described—his interest in every manifestation of life, and his stern rationalism. Most of the technical flaws, for instance, alleged against him are proofs that he was attracted by the possibilities of his own art; he is constantly testing the limits to which development can go. The iambics of theOrestes, for example, are extraordinarily full of resolved feet; after that play he restrains himself more. In music too he appears to have been an explorer; at any rate the fault found with the words of his choruses points to a development like the modern, in which libretto was becoming subservient to music. The comic poet, again, fastens eagerly upon the prologues, and puts into the mouth of Æschylus a famous jest:—[836]

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