The lack of a scholarly version
of Euripides was, until very recently, one of the greatest gaps in our
libraries.
of Euripides was, until very recently, one of the greatest gaps in our
libraries.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v10 - Emp to Fro
Some friends
or some inquisitive people (how know which? ) had followed
Vertua and her husband.
"We are discovered," the poet murmured sadly.
"Alas! " said Vertua; "I was afraid of it. "
"Not to be able to go where one wants or to do what one
chooses without being spied upon; to suffer everybody's follies
because one is said to have talent; to be forced to abjure calm
of spirit; charm in one's home; love in one's heart: what is it
all? »
"This," answered Vertua timidly, "is what men seek after.
It is glory. "
This man, so long pursued by misfortune, and later pursued
by glory, this Theodore Wilhelm, was Hoffmann.
## p. 5568 (#135) ###########################################
## p. 5568 (#136) ###########################################
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EURIPIDES
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## p. 5569 (#139) ###########################################
5569
EURIPIDES
(480-406 B. C. )
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
URIPIDES, latest in age and perhaps least in rank among the
three surviving tragic poets of Athens, was said to have
been born on Salamis, during the decisive battle for free-
dom, when his mother, like the homeless folk of Attica generally,
was in temporary exile upon the little island. This legend was at
least an artistic invention, since Eschylus shared in the sea fight,
and Sophocles, as a beautiful stripling, led the band of boys who
danced about the trophy of victory.
The supreme rank of these three is no accident of survival. When
news of Euripides's death reached Athens, Sophocles bade his chorus
appear in mourning for him; and a few months later, when both were
in the underworld, Aristophanes, in his comedy The Frogs,' makes
the god Dionysos follow them thither, and beg Pluto to restore to
earth one dramatist worthy to grace the annual contest at his festi-
val. This testimony from the lifelong enemy and ridiculer of Euripi-
des is borne out by all the evidence we have.
He was probably of good Attic stock, the stories of his parents'
poverty being inventions of the comic poets. He was one of the first
to collect a large library. He was carefully educated, at first as an
athlete, from a misunderstanding of an oracle to the effect that he
was to "win prizes in contests. " He also developed youthful skill,
like his friend Socrates, as an artist. At twenty-five he first obtained
the honor of competing as one of the three chosen tragic poets at
the Dionysia. All these facts point to good social rank.
He did not, however, like the youthful Sophocles, win at once the
popular heart. At his first venture he was placed last. He secured
highest honors not once until fourteen years later, and only five times
altogether. Yet toward the end of his life, and after his death, his
influence, not merely in Athens but throughout Greek lands, was un-
rivaled. It is no accident that seven dramas of Eschylus, seven of
Sophocles, nineteen of Euripides, have been preserved for us. Euripi-
des is said to have composed twenty-three tetralogies, ninety-two
dramas! Each play was doubtless an independent and complete work
of art, so that the number is indeed surprising.
X-349
## p. 5570 (#140) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5570
No worthy successors to this brief line ever arose. The three and
their forgotten rivals filled the fifth century B. C. with their splendor.
The likeness of them all should strike a modern student, before their
differences. All their plays graced the greatest State festival and
were a part of the popular religious ceremonial. All save Eschylus's
'Persians'- no real exception in its spirit-aim to represent a re-
mote heroic age. The characters are chiefly gods or the immediate
offspring of gods. The vain struggle of man against Fate is always
a motive, usually the chief thread of the tale. As to outward form,
also, the chorus remains to the end the central feature, though its
importance is somewhat lessened. The small number of actors, the
stiffness of mask and buskin, the simple stage setting, the avoidance
of violent or confused action, continued apparently little modified.
Still, there has been a very general conviction in ancient and
modern times, first uttered effectively by Aristophanes, that Euripides
was a radical innovator, both in art and in religion. Of course this
is necessarily true in some degree of any original creative artist.
But the question goes much deeper.
That wonderful fifth century falls inevitably into three periods.
The generation that saw the terrific invading host of Xerxes melt
away like a dream, and Athens arise from her ashes to become queen
of the Egean and the foremost State in the Greek world, could
hardly escape a fervent belief in divine guidance of all earthly affairs.
Eschylus, himself a Marathonian warrior, probably stamped upon
tragedy much of his own intensely religious nature. His human char-
acters seem almost helpless in the grip of stern but just Fate.
In Sophocles the gods are rarely seen on the stage. Man is sub-
ject indeed to their rule, but he usually works out his own doom of
ill or happiness by ways not inscrutable. In the prosperous period of
Kimon and Pericles which formed his early maturity, Athens doubt-
less felt herself quite capable of accomplishing her own destiny.
Pericles and the enlightened circle about him probably troubled them-
selves very little beyond judicious outward conformity with the
traditional mythology. To many admiring readers, Sophocles seems
cold. His 'Electra' best illustrates what we cannot here discuss.
His conformity to Eschylean theology seems usually a mere artistic
utterance of his own rather vague optimism.
Euripides lived through the same period also. But he was not so
harmonious and happy a nature. The pathos of human life, the
capriciousness of destiny, the seemingly unjust distribution of lots,
distressed and perplexed him. This may not have been so largely
true of his earlier work. We have only one play (the 'Alcestis')
previous to his fiftieth year. At that very time began the great na-
tional tragedy of the Thirty Years' War, destined to end in the utter
## p. 5571 (#141) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5571
humiliation and downfall of imperial Athens. The plague, and the
death of Pericles, made even the beginnings of the great strife seem
tragic. The appalling disaster in Sicily foreshadowed the end, and
indeed made it inevitable, long years before it came.
It is not strange
if the favorite, the popular Athenian poet of that darkening day, often
doubted the Divine wisdom, - felt a strife, which his art could not
reconcile, between man and Providence.
Whatever the reason, the gods do take again a prominent share
in Euripidean as in Eschylean drama; but they often, perhaps usu-
ally, act from less noble motives than the human characters. It has
been maintained, even,- especially by a living English scholar, Pro-
fessor Verrall, that Euripides made it his lifelong purpose to under-
mine and destroy any belief in the real existence of Zeus and Apollo,
Pallas Athene, and all their kin; that he was an aggressive agnostic,
using the forms of the traditional gods only to show their helpless-
ness, their imbecility, their impossibility.
But surely the generation that slew Socrates for "introducing
strange gods and not honoring those of the State," would have
detected and resented any such flagrant misuse of the holy place and
day. Moreover, any such lifelong cynicism would have corroded the
artistic powers themselves. Lucian, Voltaire, Swift, illustrate this
truth. Many of the pessimistic outbursts often cited as Euripides's
own are uttered in character by his sufferers and sinners, and are
mere half-conscious cries of distress or protest. His dramatic power
was not always sufficient to recast the old myths in an ethical form
which satisfied him. He knew men and women thoroughly, loved
them, found them heroic, generous, noble,—and he so painted them.
The gods, whom he did not know, fared worse at his hands. Often
one is introduced in spectacular fashion at the close, to cut the knot
which the poet had failed to untie in the natural course of his plot.
(Even Sophocles, once at least,-in the Philoctetes,' - does very
much the same thing. ) In general, Euripides seems distinctly inferior
to his two masters, at their best, in construction, in plot. The world
of scholarship is still laughing, with Aristophanes, at Euripides's long
narrative prologues. (See Mr. Shorey's translation of the scene in the
'Frogs, Vol. ii. of this work, pages 786-7. ) His long messengers'
speeches, fine as they are, seem almost epic in their broad descrip-
tions of what we have not seen. (Again, as Professor Mahaffy him-
self remarks, Sophocles's 'Electra' is the most unfortunate perversion
of this indulgence. )
On the other hand, in romantic lyric, in connected picturesque
description, in pathos, in sympathy with elemental human feeling,
Euripides has no Attic rival whatever. His women, his slaves, his
humbler characters generally, are evidently drawn with especial ten-
derness. He is perhaps so far a "realist" in his art, that he should
-
## p. 5572 (#142) ###########################################
5572
EURIPIDES
not have been restricted to the stately figures and famous names of
the national myths. Much of his work seems more fitted to frankly
contemporaneous drama. He is drawing men and women whom he
has known, and should be allowed to say so. His fussy old nurse in
the 'Hippolytus,' his homely rustic husband of 'Electra,' certainly
cannot be set upon a pedestal.
But should a work of art, above all of dramatic art, be set upon
any pedestal at all? Should not the dramatist, rather, hold the mir-
ror up to nature, bid living men and women walk and talk before
us? It is in part the old antagonism, actual or supposed, of Idealism,
or Classicism, against Realism, that has raged so long about the
name of Euripides. There is much to be said, and truly said, on
both sides; but certainly Euripides is, for us, by far the most import-
ant of the Attic dramatists. He influenced far more than any other
the later course of his art; hastened the fusion of tragedy and com-
edy in the society melodrama of Menander and Philemon; dominated
the Roman stage, and through it, modern dramatic art.
His claim to be a great ethical teacher cannot be successfully dis-
puted. Whatever we may think of his divinities, the world is not the
worse but better (as Mr. Browning puts it) –
"Because Euripides shrank not to teach,
If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,
May prove their match by willing to be good. "
Primarily and chiefly, however, he is a poet. His pictures are
vivid, his characters are alive; they speak usually in their own voice,
and are a part of the mimic scene. There are indeed instants when
we hear, beyond or through them, a sigh from the poet's own soul;
the cry of a perplexed truth-seeker in an age of doubt and discour-
agement. Thus, when Menelaus promises to punish Helen for her
long guilt, there is no adequate dramatic reason for Hecuba's far-
thought apostrophe:-
"O Thou
That bearest earth, thyself by earth upborne,
Whoe'er thou art, hard for our powers to guess,
Or Zeus, or Nature's law, or mind of man,-
To thee I pray, for all the things of earth
In right thou guidest on thy noiseless way. "
Such passages are not rare, especially in choral odes, where the
poet oftener seeks to utter the general belief or feeling of mankind
as it appears to himself. It is never perfectly safe to ascribe them
to Euripides the man, least of all when quoting from a lost play,
where the very sentiment preserved may have been signally refuted.
## p. 5573 (#143) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5573
As we associate Eschylus first of all with the suffering Titan
Prometheus, and Sophocles with the stately figure of an Edipus or
an Antigone, proudly facing the blows of fate with human courage,
so the pathetic, even elegiac tale of Hippolytus' is the most char-
acteristic Euripidean study. Here, for the first time, the passion of
love is made the central motive of a great poem. Here, too, every
human character is fearless in life and in death, while the gods are
quarrelsome, vindictive, and ignoble. It is the very play on which
Aristophanes lavished his biting wit and ridicule. It was performed
in 428 B. C. , and appealed to the audience as an Attic myth, centred
about their great legendary king Theseus, who is a central though
not a leading character.
A madder system of superhuman government, surely, was never
outlined, even in Aristophanes's own realm of Cloud-cuckooville. But
these divinities, after all, supply merely a spectacular tableau at the
beginning and end, and the pathetic elegiac motive.
Their appear-
ance clears Phædra, Hippolytus, even Theseus, of all fault.
The nobler tone is supplied in the splendid courage displayed by
men and women; even by the old attendants; even by the messen-
ger who tells the prince's mishaps, and faces fearlessly the unforgiv-
ing sire:-
"I am a slave within thy house, O King,
But this at least I never will believe,
That he, thy son, was guilty: not although
The whole of womankind go hang themselves,
And with their letters fill the pines that grow
On Ida! »
Throughout the play there are fresh glimpses of outdoor life, fra-
grant breezes blown from glen and sea; strange far-off visions of en-
chantment arise at the magician's call. Again, the Birds form the
only rival of scenes worthy to be mentioned with 'Midsummer Night's
Dream' itself. And yet again, Phædra's plea for death to destroy the
mad desire that horrifies her wifely heart, the youthful athlete's pit-
eous plea to his frenzied steeds as they trample upon their beloved
master, these are realism of the noblest kind. And all these varied
pictures are included in a play not fifteen hundred lines in length!
Racine's 'Phèdre' is much longer, and far less effective.
Better known, and simpler in its plot, is Euripides's earliest extant
play, the 'Alcestis. ' The dying Alcestis is one of the most noble and
pathetic figures in literature. It was popular at once, for her words
are parodied by Aristophanes. Milton felt its power, as a famous son-
net reveals. Mr. Browning has made it the centre of his great imagi-
native poem, 'Balaustion's Adventure. ' This character should alone
## p. 5574 (#144) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5574
secure Euripides from the epithet of "woman-hater," first cast at him
by the most audacious scoffer at women who ever lived.
There are cruel and wicked women in Euripides, though none
approaches Eschylus's Clytemnestra. The most terrible of them is
Medea, who murders her own children to punish their unfaithful
father, Jason the Argonaut. Even her action is adequately justified,
in a dramatic sense. It is made quite credible that a wronged woman,
with the blood of gods and savages in her veins, should do the deeds
she dares. The ethical question hardly comes up at all. The capital
fault of the play is, that we have no adequate reward at last for all
the horrors we have undergone. Indeed, Medea is promised safe
refuge in Athens, and the innocent Corinthians are bidden to atone
for her deeds. In truth, Medea is in earlier forms of the myth merely
sinned against. Euripides's love of striking contrasts often, perhaps
too often, tempted him into making a seemingly defenseless woman's
hand deal the decisive stroke of fate.
So in the 'Hecuba,' the Trojan queen, dethroned, enslaved, bereft
of all her dearest ones, strikes an unexpected and deadly blow at
the most cruel and selfish of men, the Thracian king who for love
of gold has murdered his guest, her young son Polydorus. The com-
paratively noble Agamemnon, who fights for just revenge, or slays
the innocent only at superhuman command, is made the half-willing
tool of her imperial vengeance.
This tale may remind us that more than half the extant plays, and
countless others known by titles and scanty fragments, dealt with
characters familiar from the Homeric poems. The great tragedians
wisely avoided, as a rule, the very scenes immortalized in Iliad or
Odyssey, seizing by preference on earlier or later episodes in the same
storm-lost lives.
The most curious illustration here is doubtless the 'Helena. '
After utilizing Menelaus's faithless queen as an ignoble and much-
berated character in several plays, Euripides gives her the title rôle
in a drama intended to rescue her character. It is but a wraith that
Paris has wooed and defended for twenty years. Happier than the
many heroes who perish in her defense, she herself has been living
safe and innocent all these years, under enchantment, in Egypt, the
abode of mystery. Here Menelaus, sailing homeward triumphant
with the Eidolon, is made doubly happy by receiving a stainless
Helen once more. This strange myth, if we can accept it, at least
effaces in some degree our indignant sense of injustice, aroused when
the ageless daughter of Zeus appears in the Odyssey reigning once
more happily over a contented people and an uxorious husband. But
Helen, the immortal ideal of beauty, should not be judged, I sup-
pose, by anything so narrow and puritanical as an ethical standard!
## p. 5575 (#145) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5575
Among Euripides's happiest works is the Tauric Iphigenia. The
happy outcome of this Greek play is by no means rare on the Attic
stage. A certain spirit of reconciliation, or submission at least, seems
to have been demanded for a closing scene. At the end of his life
Euripides returned to this myth, to depict the earlier scene of sacri-
fice at Aulis. The play seems to have been left unfinished, and many
lines have been added by a weaker hand. Still, the fearless prin-
cess, facing death cheerfully for the honor of her people, is a most
pathetic figure, and was used with thrilling effect in the quadri-
millennial Harvard oration of James Russell Lowell, who compared
to her the glad young martyrs of the Civil War. The return of the
et to a theme already used, as was said, in an earlier year, doubt-
less illustrated the narrow range of myths acceptable to his audience.
So all the great three wrote on Phædra and Hippolytus, on Electra
and Orestes, on Philoctetes and his bow. The courageous surrender
of life at the altar, or under similar conditions, is also repeated in a
number of plays, and may remind us of the startling truth that
human sacrifice was not absolutely unknown, even in the most en-
lightened age of historical Hellas. Polyxena, in the 'Hecuba,' is
more forlorn than Iphigenia, since she actually perishes, at a foe-
man's hand, and without the faintest hope of saving even her mother
and sisters from slavery, much less of restoring her native city from
its ashes. The poet who created such noble and inspiring types of
women deserves the eternal gratitude of all who love and honor
heroic wives and mothers.
It is not possible nor desirable to discuss here all the nineteen
Euripidean plays. We will only mention further the 'Baccha. ' It
was written near the close of the century, when the poet was living
in voluntary exile, as the honored guest of Archelaus the Macedonian
monarch. Those who regard Euripides as a heretic and a skeptic
sometimes consider this play as a sort of death-bed recantation. Cer-
tainly the divine power of Semele's child is revealed by a terrific
vengeance on those of his own kin who had denied and persecuted
him. The play is badly mutilated in the MSS. ; its ethical tone is
low, and the chief interest centres upon the splendid choral odes in
Dionysos's honor. Out of such odes, as is well known, the drama
itself took its rise. It is curious that from this one tragedy alone, at
the very close of the century of creative dramatic art, we must form
what conception we may of the early dithyramb. More perhaps than
other arts, literature as a rule survives in its maturer forms only, and
rarely affords us adequate materials for studying its development.
Here, as in other fields of Greek literature, we must say that chance,
or Providence, has preserved a mere handful out of a whole library
of scrolls; but these are, in the main, the masterpieces of the great-
est masters.
## p. 5576 (#146) ###########################################
5576
EURIPIDES
The only available edition of Euripides's plays with English notes
is the one in the Bibliotheca Classica, by the indefatigable F. A.
Paley. It is not very satisfactory, and there are many better editions
of single plays. A large part of Euripides has been excellently edited
in French by Weil. The great work upon the dramatist's art is in
the same language: Paul Decharme's 'Euripide et l'Esprit de son
Théâtre. ' One of the most readable chapters in J. A. Symonds's
'Greek Poets' is devoted to our author. Professor Jebb has a mas-
terly article in the Britannica, but his sympathies are on the whole
with the elder school.
It is much better, however, to let the poet make his own impres-
sion on us, even if only in translation.
The lack of a scholarly version
of Euripides was, until very recently, one of the greatest gaps in our
libraries. The new << Bohn" version in prose, by Coleridge, is careful
and in good taste. Moreover, we may hope that by the time this
page is printed we can welcome the third and concluding volume of
A. S. Way's brilliant translation. This will present all Euripides's
plays in English metre and rhyme. Mr. Way has made a daring
venture, and the result is at least very interesting. His rhymes are
copious and resounding; in metre he is an avowed and advanced
student of Swinburne. All the resources of English poetry are richly
lavished on the work. There is a splendor in the general effect,—
to which the classical pedant naturally objects, that it is not always
Euripidean splendor. But the present essayist is inclined to agree
that there is no secure middle ground between these two methods in
translation.
Notable English versions of single plays are the 'Cyclops' by
Shelley, the 'Hercules by Browning, the 'Medea' by Mrs. Augusta
Webster, the 'Baccha' by H. H. Milman, etc. The essayist's 'Three
Dramas of Euripides' was an attempt to combine close metrical ver-
sions of the Alcestis,' 'Medea,' and 'Hippolytus' with such literary
comment as the modern reader might feel he needed in so remote a
theatre. The transcript of 'Alcestis' in Browning's 'Balaustion' is
hardly a translation, but is incrusted with the most inspiring illustra-
tion any classical drama has yet received.
?
William Cranston Lawton.
## p. 5577 (#147) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
CHORAL SONG FROM THE BACCHÆ›
Ο
N THE mountains wild 'tis sweet
When faint with rapid dance our feet,
Our limbs on earth all careless thrown
With the sacred fawn-skins strown,
To quaff the goat's delicious blood,
A strange, a rich, a savage food.
Then off again the revel goes
O'er Phrygian, Lydian mountain brows;
Evoë! Evoë! leads the road,
Bacchus's self the maddening god!
And flows with milk the plain, and flows with wine,
Flows with the wild bees' nectar-dews divine;
And soars, like smoke, the Syrian incense pale -
The while the frantic Bacchanal
The beaconing pine torch on her wand
Whirls around with rapid hand,
And drives the wandering dance about,
Beating time with joyous shout,
And casts upon the breezy air
All her rich luxuriant hair;
Ever the burthen of her song:-
"Raging, maddening, haste along,
Bacchus's daughters, ye the pride
Of golden Tmolus's fabled side;
While your heavy cymbals ring,
Still your 'Evoë! Evoë! ' sing! "
Evoë! the Evian god rejoices
-
In Phrygian tones and Phrygian voices,
When the soft holy pipe is breathing sweet,
In notes harmonious to her feet,
5577
Who to the mountain, to the mountain speeds;
Like some young colt that by its mother feeds,
Gladsome with many a frisking bound,
The Bacchanal goes forth and treads the echoing ground.
Translation of H. H. Milman.
## p. 5578 (#148) ###########################################
5578
EURIPIDES
ION'S SONG
[The boy Ion is in charge of the temple at Delphi, and his duties include
driving away the birds. ]
B
EHOLD! behold!
Now they come, they quit the nest
On Parnassus's topmost crest.
Hence! away! I warn ye all!
Light not on our hallowed wall!
From eave and cornice keep aloof,
And from the golden gleaming roof!
Herald of Jove! of birds the king!
Fierce of talon, strong of wing. -
Hence! begone! or thou shalt know
The terrors of this deadly bow.
Lo! where rich the altar fumes,
Soars yon swan on oary plumes.
Hence, and quiver in thy flight
Thy foot that gleams with purple light,
Even though Phoebus's harp rejoice.
To mingle with thy tuneful voice;
Far away thy white wings shake
O'er the silver Delian lake.
Hence! obey! or end in blood
The music of thy sweet-voiced ode.
Away! away! another stoops!
Down his flagging pinion droops;
Shall our marble eaves be hung
With straw nests for your callow young?
Hence, or dread this twanging bow,
Hence, where Alpheus's waters flow;
Or the Isthmian groves among
Go and rear your nestling young.
Hence, nor dare pollute or stain
Phoebus's offerings, Phoebus's fane.
Yet I feel a sacred dread,
Lest your scattered plumes I shed;
Holy birds! 'tis yours to show
Heaven's auguries to men below.
Translation of H. H. Milman.
## p. 5579 (#149) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
SONGS FROM THE HIPPOLYTUS ›
From Three Dramas of Euripides: copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and
reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
I
E
ROS, Eros, thou whose eyes with longing
Overflow; who sweet delight
Bringest to the soul thou stormest,
Come not, prithee, sorrow-laden,
Nor too mighty, unto me!
Neither flaming fire is stronger,
Nor the splendor of the stars,
Than the shaft of Aphrodite,
Darting from the hands of Eros,
Who is child of Zeus supreme.
Vainly, vainly, by the stream Alpheios,
Or in Phoibos's Pythian fane,
Hellas heaps the slaughtered oxen!
Eros, of mankind the tyrant,
Holder of the key that locks
Aphrodite's dearest chambers,
Is not honored in our prayers,
Though he comes as the destroyer,
Bringing uttermost disaster
Unto mortals, when he comes.
II
Oh, for some retreat afar sequestered!
May some god into a bird
Flitting 'mid the wingèd throng transform me!
Where the Adriatic's wave
Breaks upon the shore I fain would hasten;
Or to the Eridanos,
Where into the purple tide,
Mourning over Phaeton,
Evermore the wretched maidens
Drop their amber-gleaming tears.
5579
Gladly would I seek the fertile shore-land
Of Hesperian minstrelsy,
Where the sea lord over purple waters
Bars the way of mariners;
## p. 5580 (#150) ###########################################
5580
EURIPIDES
Setting there, to be upheld by Atlas,
Heaven's holy boundary.
There ambrosial fountains flow
From the place where Zeus abides,
And the sacred land of plenty
Gives delight unto the gods.
O thou white-winged Cretan vessel,
That across the ever-smiting
Briny billow of the ocean
Hither hast conveyed my queen,
From her home of royal splendor,
Wretched in her wedded bliss!
For to both of evil omen
Surely, or at least for Crete,
Thou to glorious Athens flitted,
Where in the Munychian harbor
They unbound their twisted cables
And set foot upon the shore.
Therefore is she broken-hearted,
Cursed with an unholy passion
By the might of Aphrodite;
Wholly overwhelmed by woe;
In the chamber of her nuptials,
Fitted to her snowy neck,
She will hang the cord suspended,
Showing thus her reverence
For the god by men detested,
Eager most for reputation,
And releasing so her spirit
From the love that brought her pain.
III
Truly, the anxious attention bestowed by the gods upon mortals,
When it recurs to my mind, greatly assuages my grief:
Yet am I quickly bereft of the hope and conviction I cherished,
Pondering over the deeds, over the fortunes of men.
Change is but followed by change, in our erring mortal existence.
Oh that Heavenly Fate, responding to prayer, would accord us
Fortune to happiness joined, courage undaunted by pain!
May my repute be neither exceedingly great nor ignoble!
Still with the changing day easily changing my ways,
May I forever enjoy a life of prosperous fortune.
## p. 5581 (#151) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5581
Clear no more are my thoughts, when I see this trouble unhoped-for,
See the illustrious star of Athena
Driven before the paternal wrath to a far habitation!
O ye sands on the shore of the city!
O ye glades in which, attendant on holy Dictynna,
Once with his hounds fleet-footed he hunted!
Never again shalt thou yoke and guide thy coursers Venetian
Over the track that encircles Limna.
Sleepless once was the Muse by the lyre in the halls of thy fathers;
Now is she silent; and stript of their garlands
Lie in the long deep grass the retreats of the daughter of Leto:
Maidens contend not for thee in thy exile.
I with my tears for thy sorrows will share in thy destiny hapless.
Ah, thy mother, how wretched! in vain were the pangs of her travail!
Frenzied am I of the gods! Ye close-linked Graces, ah, wherefore
Forth from this his home and out of the land of his fathers,
Send ye a youth ill-fated, who nowise of crime has been guilty?
IV
Restive hearts of god and mortal,
Thou, O Kypris, captive leadest,
While upon his shimmering pinions
Round them swift-winged Eros flits.
Over earth he hovers ever,
And the salt resounding sea.
Eros charms the heart to madness,
Smitten by his golden arrow;
Charms the hounds upon the mountain,
Creatures of the land and wave,
Wheresoever Helios gazes;
Even man, and royal honors
Thou alone, O Kypris, hast from all!
HIPPOLYTUS RAILS AT WOMANKIND
From Three Dramas of Euripides': copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and
reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
O
ZEUS, pray why-a specious curse for men
Hast thou set women in the light of day?
For if thou wouldst engender humankind,
Through women thou shouldst not have furnished them,
But in thy fanes depositing as pay
Or gold or iron or the weighty bronze,
Men ought to buy the race of children, each
## p. 5582 (#152) ###########################################
5582
EURIPIDES
According to his worth; but in their homes
To dwell in liberty, from women free.
That woman is a grievous curse is clear;
He who begets and breeds her adds a dower
And sends her forth, to rid himself of ill;
And he who takes the bane into his house
Delights to put fair ornaments upon
This basest idol, decks it out with robes,
And squanders — wretched man! - his household joy!
It must be that, delighted to have gained
Good kinsmen, he endures a hateful wife,
Or, winning happy wedlock, useless kin,
He finds the evil overborne by good.
-
Most blest his lot within whose home is set
As wife a harmless, silly nobody!
I hate a clever woman: in my house
Be no one sager than befits her sex.
For Kypris oftener stirs up villainy
Within the clever; but the guileless wife
Is saved from folly by her slender wit!
No servant should approach the wife's abode,
But speechless animals should dwell with her,
That she may have not one to whom to speak,
Nor ever hear from them an answering voice.
But now the wicked weave their plots within
For mischief, and their servants bear them forth;
Even as thou, O evil one, hast come
To proffer me my father's sacred rights!
This I will purge away with running brooks,
Cleansing my ears. Could I be evil, then,
Who hold myself defiled to hear such words?
And woman, know, my reverence saves thy life.
Were I not, unawares, so bound by oaths,
I would have straightway told my father this:
But now, while Theseus is in other lands,
I leave his halls, and we will hold our peace;
But coming with my father, I'll behold
How thou wilt face him,—and thy mistress too!
Thy insolence I shall know, who tasted it.
Perish your sex! Nor will I ever tire
Of hating women, though men say I speak
Of nothing else: for base they always are.
Either let some one teach them self-restraint,—
Or else let me attack them evermore!
——
## p. 5583 (#153) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5583
HIPPOLYTUS'S DISASTER
From Three Dramas of Euripides: copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and re-
printed by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
WE
E, NEAR the sea-shore, where it greets the waves,
Were currying with combs our horses' manes,
Lamenting; for the message came to us
That in this land Hippolytus should set foot
No more, to wretched exile sent by thee.
He also, with the selfsame tale of tears,
Came to us on the beach, and following him,
A myriad throng of comrades marched along.
After a time he ceased to weep, and said:-
"Why am I frenzied thus? I must obey
My father: harness to the car my steeds,
O slaves; for now this city is mine no more:
And thereupon did every man make haste.
Quicker than one could speak, we set the steeds,
All fully harnessed, at their master's side.
Then from the chariot rail he seized the reins,
Upon the footboard set his booted feet;
And first, with hands upraised to heaven, he said:
"Zeus, may I live no more, if I am base!
But may my sire know how he does me wrong,
Whether I lie in death, or see the light. "
With that he took the goad in hand, and urged
The colts; and we attendants by his car
Followed, beside our lord, along the road
Toward Argos and to Epidauria.
When we had entered the deserted land,
There was a coast that lies beside this realm,
Bordering already the Saronic gulf.
There, like Zeus's thunder, from the earth a roar
Resounded deep,—a fearful thing to hear!
The horses pricked their ears, and raised their heads
Aloft; and on us boyish terror fell,
Wondering whence came the sound; but then we glanced
Toward the sea-beaten shore, and saw a wave
Divine, that rose to heaven, so that mine eye
Beheld no longer the Skironian crags;
The isthmus and Asclepios's rock were hid.
Swelling aloft, and white with bubbling foam,
With roaring sound the billow neared the spot
Where on the beach the four-horse chariot stood.
And from the mighty breaker as it fell,
-
>>>>
## p. 5584 (#154) ###########################################
5584
EURIPIDES
A bull, a furious monster, issued forth.
The land, that with his bellowings was filled,
Re-echoed fearfully, and we who gazed
Found it too grim a sight to look upon.
A dreadful panic seized at once the steeds.
Their master, fully trained in all the arts
Of horsemanship, laid hold upon the reins,
And pulled as does a sailor at the oar,
Back-leaning, all his weight upon the thongs.
But champing with their jaws the fire-wrought bit,
They burst away; nor could the pilot hand,
Nor curb, nor massive chariot hold them in.
And now, if toward a softer spot of earth
The helmsman strove to turn and guide their course,
The bull appeared in front, and drove them back,
Maddening with affright the four-horse team.
Or if with frenzied mind they neared the rocks,
He followed silent at the chariot's rim,
Until he overthrew and cast it down,
Dashing the wheel against a stone. Then all
Lay wildly mingled. High aloft were tossed
The naves, and linchpins from the axletrees.
While he, poor wretch, entangled in the reins,
Was dragged along, inextricably bound.
His gentle head was dashed upon the rock,
His flesh was bruised; and piteous were his words:
"Stand! ye who at my mangers took your food,
And crush me not! Alas! my father's curse!
Who is there here will save an upright man? »
And many would; but we were come too late,
With tardy feet. So he, released from thongs
And well-cut reins,- but how I do not know,-
Is fallen, breathing yet a little life.
The steeds and cursed bull were hid from sight,
But where I know not, in the rocky land.
[And then the messenger lifts his head defiantly to face the unrelenting
King, and adds: -]
I am a slave within thy house, O King,
But this at least I never will believe,
That he, thy son, was guilty: not although
The whole of womankind go hang themselves,
And with their letters fill the pines that grow
On Ida. For that he was noble I know!
## p. 5585 (#155) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5585
HECUBA HEARS THE STORY OF HER DAUGHTER'S DEATH
Translation of J. A. Symonds: published by Harper & Brothers
THE
HE whole vast concourse of the Achaian host
Stood round the tomb to see your daughter die.
Achilleus's son, taking her by the hand,
Placed her upon the mound, and I stayed near;
And youths, the flower of Greece, a chosen few,
With hands to check thy heifer, should she bound,
Attended. From a cup of carven gold,
Raised full of wine, Achilleus's son poured forth
Libation to his sire, and bade me sound
Silence throughout the whole Achaian host.
I, standing there, cried in the midst these words:
"Silence, Achaians! let the host be still!
Hush, hold your voices! " Breathless stayed the crowd;
But he:-"O son of Peleus, father mine,
Take these libations pleasant to thy soul,
Draughts that allure the dead: come, drink the black
Pure maiden's blood wherewith the host and I
Sue thee: be kindly to us; loose our prows,
And let our barks go free; give safe return
Homeward from Troy to all, and happy voyage. "
Such words he spake, and the crowd prayed assent.
Then from the scabbard, by its golden hilt,
He drew the sword, and to the chosen youths
Signaled that they should bring the maid; but she,
Knowing her hour was come, spake thus, and said:--
"O men of Argos, who have sacked my town,
Lo, of free will I die! Let no man touch
My body: boldly will I stretch my throat.
Nay, but I pray you set me free, then slay;
That free I thus may perish: 'mong the dead,
Being a queen, I blush to be called slave. "
The people shouted, and King Agamemnon
Bade the youths loose the maid, and set her free:
She, when she heard the order of the chiefs,
Seizing her mantle, from the shoulder down
To the soft centre of her snowy waist
Tore it, and showed her breasts and bosom fair
As in a statue. Bending then with knee
On earth, she spake a speech most piteous:
"See you this breast, O youth? If breast you will,
X-350
## p. 5586 (#156) ###########################################
5586
EURIPIDES
Strike it; take heart: or if beneath my neck,
Lo! here my throat is ready for your sword! "
He, willing not, yet willing,- pity-stirred
In sorrow for the maiden,- with his blade
Severed the channels of her breath: blood flowed;
And she, though dying, still had thought to fall
In seemly wise, hiding what eyes should see not.
But when she breathed her life out from the blow,
Then was the Argive host in divers way
Of service parted; for some, bringing leaves,
Strewed them upon the corpse; some piled a pyre,
Dragging pine trunks and boughs; and he who bore none,
Heard from the bearers many a bitter word:-
:-
"Standest thou, villain? hast thou then no robe,
No funeral honors for the maid to bring?
Wilt thou not go and get for her who died
Most nobly, bravest-souled, some gift? " Thus they
Spake of thy child in death:-"O thou most blessed
Of women in thy daughter, most undone! "
MEDEA RESOLVING TO SLAY HER CHILDREN
SONS, my sons, for you there is a home
And city where, forsaking wretched me,
Ye shall still dwell and have no mother more:
But I, an exile, seek another land,
Ere I have joyed in you and seen you glad,
Ere I have decked for you the nuptial pomp,
The bride, the bed, and held the torch aloft.
Oh me! forlorn by my untempered moods!
In vain then have I nurtured ye, my sons,
In vain have toiled and been worn down by cares,
And felt the hard child-bearing agonies.
There was a time when I, unhappy one,
Had many hopes in you, that both of you
Would cherish me in age; and that your hands,
When I am dead, would fitly lay me out-
That wish of all men: but now lost indeed
Is that sweet thought, for I must, reft of you,
Live on a piteous life and full of pain:
And ye, your dear eyes will no more behold
Your mother, gone into your new strange life.
Alas! Why do ye fix your eyes on me,
O
-
## p. 5587 (#157) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5587
My sons? Why smile ye on me that last smile?
Alas! What must I do? for my heart faints,
Thus looking on my children's happy eyes.
Women, I cannot. Farewell my past resolves:
My boys go forth with me. What boots it me
To wring their father with their cruel fates,
And earn myself a doubled misery?
or some inquisitive people (how know which? ) had followed
Vertua and her husband.
"We are discovered," the poet murmured sadly.
"Alas! " said Vertua; "I was afraid of it. "
"Not to be able to go where one wants or to do what one
chooses without being spied upon; to suffer everybody's follies
because one is said to have talent; to be forced to abjure calm
of spirit; charm in one's home; love in one's heart: what is it
all? »
"This," answered Vertua timidly, "is what men seek after.
It is glory. "
This man, so long pursued by misfortune, and later pursued
by glory, this Theodore Wilhelm, was Hoffmann.
## p. 5568 (#135) ###########################################
## p. 5568 (#136) ###########################################
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EURIPIDES
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## p. 5568 (#137) ###########################################
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## p. 5569 (#139) ###########################################
5569
EURIPIDES
(480-406 B. C. )
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
URIPIDES, latest in age and perhaps least in rank among the
three surviving tragic poets of Athens, was said to have
been born on Salamis, during the decisive battle for free-
dom, when his mother, like the homeless folk of Attica generally,
was in temporary exile upon the little island. This legend was at
least an artistic invention, since Eschylus shared in the sea fight,
and Sophocles, as a beautiful stripling, led the band of boys who
danced about the trophy of victory.
The supreme rank of these three is no accident of survival. When
news of Euripides's death reached Athens, Sophocles bade his chorus
appear in mourning for him; and a few months later, when both were
in the underworld, Aristophanes, in his comedy The Frogs,' makes
the god Dionysos follow them thither, and beg Pluto to restore to
earth one dramatist worthy to grace the annual contest at his festi-
val. This testimony from the lifelong enemy and ridiculer of Euripi-
des is borne out by all the evidence we have.
He was probably of good Attic stock, the stories of his parents'
poverty being inventions of the comic poets. He was one of the first
to collect a large library. He was carefully educated, at first as an
athlete, from a misunderstanding of an oracle to the effect that he
was to "win prizes in contests. " He also developed youthful skill,
like his friend Socrates, as an artist. At twenty-five he first obtained
the honor of competing as one of the three chosen tragic poets at
the Dionysia. All these facts point to good social rank.
He did not, however, like the youthful Sophocles, win at once the
popular heart. At his first venture he was placed last. He secured
highest honors not once until fourteen years later, and only five times
altogether. Yet toward the end of his life, and after his death, his
influence, not merely in Athens but throughout Greek lands, was un-
rivaled. It is no accident that seven dramas of Eschylus, seven of
Sophocles, nineteen of Euripides, have been preserved for us. Euripi-
des is said to have composed twenty-three tetralogies, ninety-two
dramas! Each play was doubtless an independent and complete work
of art, so that the number is indeed surprising.
X-349
## p. 5570 (#140) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5570
No worthy successors to this brief line ever arose. The three and
their forgotten rivals filled the fifth century B. C. with their splendor.
The likeness of them all should strike a modern student, before their
differences. All their plays graced the greatest State festival and
were a part of the popular religious ceremonial. All save Eschylus's
'Persians'- no real exception in its spirit-aim to represent a re-
mote heroic age. The characters are chiefly gods or the immediate
offspring of gods. The vain struggle of man against Fate is always
a motive, usually the chief thread of the tale. As to outward form,
also, the chorus remains to the end the central feature, though its
importance is somewhat lessened. The small number of actors, the
stiffness of mask and buskin, the simple stage setting, the avoidance
of violent or confused action, continued apparently little modified.
Still, there has been a very general conviction in ancient and
modern times, first uttered effectively by Aristophanes, that Euripides
was a radical innovator, both in art and in religion. Of course this
is necessarily true in some degree of any original creative artist.
But the question goes much deeper.
That wonderful fifth century falls inevitably into three periods.
The generation that saw the terrific invading host of Xerxes melt
away like a dream, and Athens arise from her ashes to become queen
of the Egean and the foremost State in the Greek world, could
hardly escape a fervent belief in divine guidance of all earthly affairs.
Eschylus, himself a Marathonian warrior, probably stamped upon
tragedy much of his own intensely religious nature. His human char-
acters seem almost helpless in the grip of stern but just Fate.
In Sophocles the gods are rarely seen on the stage. Man is sub-
ject indeed to their rule, but he usually works out his own doom of
ill or happiness by ways not inscrutable. In the prosperous period of
Kimon and Pericles which formed his early maturity, Athens doubt-
less felt herself quite capable of accomplishing her own destiny.
Pericles and the enlightened circle about him probably troubled them-
selves very little beyond judicious outward conformity with the
traditional mythology. To many admiring readers, Sophocles seems
cold. His 'Electra' best illustrates what we cannot here discuss.
His conformity to Eschylean theology seems usually a mere artistic
utterance of his own rather vague optimism.
Euripides lived through the same period also. But he was not so
harmonious and happy a nature. The pathos of human life, the
capriciousness of destiny, the seemingly unjust distribution of lots,
distressed and perplexed him. This may not have been so largely
true of his earlier work. We have only one play (the 'Alcestis')
previous to his fiftieth year. At that very time began the great na-
tional tragedy of the Thirty Years' War, destined to end in the utter
## p. 5571 (#141) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5571
humiliation and downfall of imperial Athens. The plague, and the
death of Pericles, made even the beginnings of the great strife seem
tragic. The appalling disaster in Sicily foreshadowed the end, and
indeed made it inevitable, long years before it came.
It is not strange
if the favorite, the popular Athenian poet of that darkening day, often
doubted the Divine wisdom, - felt a strife, which his art could not
reconcile, between man and Providence.
Whatever the reason, the gods do take again a prominent share
in Euripidean as in Eschylean drama; but they often, perhaps usu-
ally, act from less noble motives than the human characters. It has
been maintained, even,- especially by a living English scholar, Pro-
fessor Verrall, that Euripides made it his lifelong purpose to under-
mine and destroy any belief in the real existence of Zeus and Apollo,
Pallas Athene, and all their kin; that he was an aggressive agnostic,
using the forms of the traditional gods only to show their helpless-
ness, their imbecility, their impossibility.
But surely the generation that slew Socrates for "introducing
strange gods and not honoring those of the State," would have
detected and resented any such flagrant misuse of the holy place and
day. Moreover, any such lifelong cynicism would have corroded the
artistic powers themselves. Lucian, Voltaire, Swift, illustrate this
truth. Many of the pessimistic outbursts often cited as Euripides's
own are uttered in character by his sufferers and sinners, and are
mere half-conscious cries of distress or protest. His dramatic power
was not always sufficient to recast the old myths in an ethical form
which satisfied him. He knew men and women thoroughly, loved
them, found them heroic, generous, noble,—and he so painted them.
The gods, whom he did not know, fared worse at his hands. Often
one is introduced in spectacular fashion at the close, to cut the knot
which the poet had failed to untie in the natural course of his plot.
(Even Sophocles, once at least,-in the Philoctetes,' - does very
much the same thing. ) In general, Euripides seems distinctly inferior
to his two masters, at their best, in construction, in plot. The world
of scholarship is still laughing, with Aristophanes, at Euripides's long
narrative prologues. (See Mr. Shorey's translation of the scene in the
'Frogs, Vol. ii. of this work, pages 786-7. ) His long messengers'
speeches, fine as they are, seem almost epic in their broad descrip-
tions of what we have not seen. (Again, as Professor Mahaffy him-
self remarks, Sophocles's 'Electra' is the most unfortunate perversion
of this indulgence. )
On the other hand, in romantic lyric, in connected picturesque
description, in pathos, in sympathy with elemental human feeling,
Euripides has no Attic rival whatever. His women, his slaves, his
humbler characters generally, are evidently drawn with especial ten-
derness. He is perhaps so far a "realist" in his art, that he should
-
## p. 5572 (#142) ###########################################
5572
EURIPIDES
not have been restricted to the stately figures and famous names of
the national myths. Much of his work seems more fitted to frankly
contemporaneous drama. He is drawing men and women whom he
has known, and should be allowed to say so. His fussy old nurse in
the 'Hippolytus,' his homely rustic husband of 'Electra,' certainly
cannot be set upon a pedestal.
But should a work of art, above all of dramatic art, be set upon
any pedestal at all? Should not the dramatist, rather, hold the mir-
ror up to nature, bid living men and women walk and talk before
us? It is in part the old antagonism, actual or supposed, of Idealism,
or Classicism, against Realism, that has raged so long about the
name of Euripides. There is much to be said, and truly said, on
both sides; but certainly Euripides is, for us, by far the most import-
ant of the Attic dramatists. He influenced far more than any other
the later course of his art; hastened the fusion of tragedy and com-
edy in the society melodrama of Menander and Philemon; dominated
the Roman stage, and through it, modern dramatic art.
His claim to be a great ethical teacher cannot be successfully dis-
puted. Whatever we may think of his divinities, the world is not the
worse but better (as Mr. Browning puts it) –
"Because Euripides shrank not to teach,
If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,
May prove their match by willing to be good. "
Primarily and chiefly, however, he is a poet. His pictures are
vivid, his characters are alive; they speak usually in their own voice,
and are a part of the mimic scene. There are indeed instants when
we hear, beyond or through them, a sigh from the poet's own soul;
the cry of a perplexed truth-seeker in an age of doubt and discour-
agement. Thus, when Menelaus promises to punish Helen for her
long guilt, there is no adequate dramatic reason for Hecuba's far-
thought apostrophe:-
"O Thou
That bearest earth, thyself by earth upborne,
Whoe'er thou art, hard for our powers to guess,
Or Zeus, or Nature's law, or mind of man,-
To thee I pray, for all the things of earth
In right thou guidest on thy noiseless way. "
Such passages are not rare, especially in choral odes, where the
poet oftener seeks to utter the general belief or feeling of mankind
as it appears to himself. It is never perfectly safe to ascribe them
to Euripides the man, least of all when quoting from a lost play,
where the very sentiment preserved may have been signally refuted.
## p. 5573 (#143) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5573
As we associate Eschylus first of all with the suffering Titan
Prometheus, and Sophocles with the stately figure of an Edipus or
an Antigone, proudly facing the blows of fate with human courage,
so the pathetic, even elegiac tale of Hippolytus' is the most char-
acteristic Euripidean study. Here, for the first time, the passion of
love is made the central motive of a great poem. Here, too, every
human character is fearless in life and in death, while the gods are
quarrelsome, vindictive, and ignoble. It is the very play on which
Aristophanes lavished his biting wit and ridicule. It was performed
in 428 B. C. , and appealed to the audience as an Attic myth, centred
about their great legendary king Theseus, who is a central though
not a leading character.
A madder system of superhuman government, surely, was never
outlined, even in Aristophanes's own realm of Cloud-cuckooville. But
these divinities, after all, supply merely a spectacular tableau at the
beginning and end, and the pathetic elegiac motive.
Their appear-
ance clears Phædra, Hippolytus, even Theseus, of all fault.
The nobler tone is supplied in the splendid courage displayed by
men and women; even by the old attendants; even by the messen-
ger who tells the prince's mishaps, and faces fearlessly the unforgiv-
ing sire:-
"I am a slave within thy house, O King,
But this at least I never will believe,
That he, thy son, was guilty: not although
The whole of womankind go hang themselves,
And with their letters fill the pines that grow
On Ida! »
Throughout the play there are fresh glimpses of outdoor life, fra-
grant breezes blown from glen and sea; strange far-off visions of en-
chantment arise at the magician's call. Again, the Birds form the
only rival of scenes worthy to be mentioned with 'Midsummer Night's
Dream' itself. And yet again, Phædra's plea for death to destroy the
mad desire that horrifies her wifely heart, the youthful athlete's pit-
eous plea to his frenzied steeds as they trample upon their beloved
master, these are realism of the noblest kind. And all these varied
pictures are included in a play not fifteen hundred lines in length!
Racine's 'Phèdre' is much longer, and far less effective.
Better known, and simpler in its plot, is Euripides's earliest extant
play, the 'Alcestis. ' The dying Alcestis is one of the most noble and
pathetic figures in literature. It was popular at once, for her words
are parodied by Aristophanes. Milton felt its power, as a famous son-
net reveals. Mr. Browning has made it the centre of his great imagi-
native poem, 'Balaustion's Adventure. ' This character should alone
## p. 5574 (#144) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5574
secure Euripides from the epithet of "woman-hater," first cast at him
by the most audacious scoffer at women who ever lived.
There are cruel and wicked women in Euripides, though none
approaches Eschylus's Clytemnestra. The most terrible of them is
Medea, who murders her own children to punish their unfaithful
father, Jason the Argonaut. Even her action is adequately justified,
in a dramatic sense. It is made quite credible that a wronged woman,
with the blood of gods and savages in her veins, should do the deeds
she dares. The ethical question hardly comes up at all. The capital
fault of the play is, that we have no adequate reward at last for all
the horrors we have undergone. Indeed, Medea is promised safe
refuge in Athens, and the innocent Corinthians are bidden to atone
for her deeds. In truth, Medea is in earlier forms of the myth merely
sinned against. Euripides's love of striking contrasts often, perhaps
too often, tempted him into making a seemingly defenseless woman's
hand deal the decisive stroke of fate.
So in the 'Hecuba,' the Trojan queen, dethroned, enslaved, bereft
of all her dearest ones, strikes an unexpected and deadly blow at
the most cruel and selfish of men, the Thracian king who for love
of gold has murdered his guest, her young son Polydorus. The com-
paratively noble Agamemnon, who fights for just revenge, or slays
the innocent only at superhuman command, is made the half-willing
tool of her imperial vengeance.
This tale may remind us that more than half the extant plays, and
countless others known by titles and scanty fragments, dealt with
characters familiar from the Homeric poems. The great tragedians
wisely avoided, as a rule, the very scenes immortalized in Iliad or
Odyssey, seizing by preference on earlier or later episodes in the same
storm-lost lives.
The most curious illustration here is doubtless the 'Helena. '
After utilizing Menelaus's faithless queen as an ignoble and much-
berated character in several plays, Euripides gives her the title rôle
in a drama intended to rescue her character. It is but a wraith that
Paris has wooed and defended for twenty years. Happier than the
many heroes who perish in her defense, she herself has been living
safe and innocent all these years, under enchantment, in Egypt, the
abode of mystery. Here Menelaus, sailing homeward triumphant
with the Eidolon, is made doubly happy by receiving a stainless
Helen once more. This strange myth, if we can accept it, at least
effaces in some degree our indignant sense of injustice, aroused when
the ageless daughter of Zeus appears in the Odyssey reigning once
more happily over a contented people and an uxorious husband. But
Helen, the immortal ideal of beauty, should not be judged, I sup-
pose, by anything so narrow and puritanical as an ethical standard!
## p. 5575 (#145) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5575
Among Euripides's happiest works is the Tauric Iphigenia. The
happy outcome of this Greek play is by no means rare on the Attic
stage. A certain spirit of reconciliation, or submission at least, seems
to have been demanded for a closing scene. At the end of his life
Euripides returned to this myth, to depict the earlier scene of sacri-
fice at Aulis. The play seems to have been left unfinished, and many
lines have been added by a weaker hand. Still, the fearless prin-
cess, facing death cheerfully for the honor of her people, is a most
pathetic figure, and was used with thrilling effect in the quadri-
millennial Harvard oration of James Russell Lowell, who compared
to her the glad young martyrs of the Civil War. The return of the
et to a theme already used, as was said, in an earlier year, doubt-
less illustrated the narrow range of myths acceptable to his audience.
So all the great three wrote on Phædra and Hippolytus, on Electra
and Orestes, on Philoctetes and his bow. The courageous surrender
of life at the altar, or under similar conditions, is also repeated in a
number of plays, and may remind us of the startling truth that
human sacrifice was not absolutely unknown, even in the most en-
lightened age of historical Hellas. Polyxena, in the 'Hecuba,' is
more forlorn than Iphigenia, since she actually perishes, at a foe-
man's hand, and without the faintest hope of saving even her mother
and sisters from slavery, much less of restoring her native city from
its ashes. The poet who created such noble and inspiring types of
women deserves the eternal gratitude of all who love and honor
heroic wives and mothers.
It is not possible nor desirable to discuss here all the nineteen
Euripidean plays. We will only mention further the 'Baccha. ' It
was written near the close of the century, when the poet was living
in voluntary exile, as the honored guest of Archelaus the Macedonian
monarch. Those who regard Euripides as a heretic and a skeptic
sometimes consider this play as a sort of death-bed recantation. Cer-
tainly the divine power of Semele's child is revealed by a terrific
vengeance on those of his own kin who had denied and persecuted
him. The play is badly mutilated in the MSS. ; its ethical tone is
low, and the chief interest centres upon the splendid choral odes in
Dionysos's honor. Out of such odes, as is well known, the drama
itself took its rise. It is curious that from this one tragedy alone, at
the very close of the century of creative dramatic art, we must form
what conception we may of the early dithyramb. More perhaps than
other arts, literature as a rule survives in its maturer forms only, and
rarely affords us adequate materials for studying its development.
Here, as in other fields of Greek literature, we must say that chance,
or Providence, has preserved a mere handful out of a whole library
of scrolls; but these are, in the main, the masterpieces of the great-
est masters.
## p. 5576 (#146) ###########################################
5576
EURIPIDES
The only available edition of Euripides's plays with English notes
is the one in the Bibliotheca Classica, by the indefatigable F. A.
Paley. It is not very satisfactory, and there are many better editions
of single plays. A large part of Euripides has been excellently edited
in French by Weil. The great work upon the dramatist's art is in
the same language: Paul Decharme's 'Euripide et l'Esprit de son
Théâtre. ' One of the most readable chapters in J. A. Symonds's
'Greek Poets' is devoted to our author. Professor Jebb has a mas-
terly article in the Britannica, but his sympathies are on the whole
with the elder school.
It is much better, however, to let the poet make his own impres-
sion on us, even if only in translation.
The lack of a scholarly version
of Euripides was, until very recently, one of the greatest gaps in our
libraries. The new << Bohn" version in prose, by Coleridge, is careful
and in good taste. Moreover, we may hope that by the time this
page is printed we can welcome the third and concluding volume of
A. S. Way's brilliant translation. This will present all Euripides's
plays in English metre and rhyme. Mr. Way has made a daring
venture, and the result is at least very interesting. His rhymes are
copious and resounding; in metre he is an avowed and advanced
student of Swinburne. All the resources of English poetry are richly
lavished on the work. There is a splendor in the general effect,—
to which the classical pedant naturally objects, that it is not always
Euripidean splendor. But the present essayist is inclined to agree
that there is no secure middle ground between these two methods in
translation.
Notable English versions of single plays are the 'Cyclops' by
Shelley, the 'Hercules by Browning, the 'Medea' by Mrs. Augusta
Webster, the 'Baccha' by H. H. Milman, etc. The essayist's 'Three
Dramas of Euripides' was an attempt to combine close metrical ver-
sions of the Alcestis,' 'Medea,' and 'Hippolytus' with such literary
comment as the modern reader might feel he needed in so remote a
theatre. The transcript of 'Alcestis' in Browning's 'Balaustion' is
hardly a translation, but is incrusted with the most inspiring illustra-
tion any classical drama has yet received.
?
William Cranston Lawton.
## p. 5577 (#147) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
CHORAL SONG FROM THE BACCHÆ›
Ο
N THE mountains wild 'tis sweet
When faint with rapid dance our feet,
Our limbs on earth all careless thrown
With the sacred fawn-skins strown,
To quaff the goat's delicious blood,
A strange, a rich, a savage food.
Then off again the revel goes
O'er Phrygian, Lydian mountain brows;
Evoë! Evoë! leads the road,
Bacchus's self the maddening god!
And flows with milk the plain, and flows with wine,
Flows with the wild bees' nectar-dews divine;
And soars, like smoke, the Syrian incense pale -
The while the frantic Bacchanal
The beaconing pine torch on her wand
Whirls around with rapid hand,
And drives the wandering dance about,
Beating time with joyous shout,
And casts upon the breezy air
All her rich luxuriant hair;
Ever the burthen of her song:-
"Raging, maddening, haste along,
Bacchus's daughters, ye the pride
Of golden Tmolus's fabled side;
While your heavy cymbals ring,
Still your 'Evoë! Evoë! ' sing! "
Evoë! the Evian god rejoices
-
In Phrygian tones and Phrygian voices,
When the soft holy pipe is breathing sweet,
In notes harmonious to her feet,
5577
Who to the mountain, to the mountain speeds;
Like some young colt that by its mother feeds,
Gladsome with many a frisking bound,
The Bacchanal goes forth and treads the echoing ground.
Translation of H. H. Milman.
## p. 5578 (#148) ###########################################
5578
EURIPIDES
ION'S SONG
[The boy Ion is in charge of the temple at Delphi, and his duties include
driving away the birds. ]
B
EHOLD! behold!
Now they come, they quit the nest
On Parnassus's topmost crest.
Hence! away! I warn ye all!
Light not on our hallowed wall!
From eave and cornice keep aloof,
And from the golden gleaming roof!
Herald of Jove! of birds the king!
Fierce of talon, strong of wing. -
Hence! begone! or thou shalt know
The terrors of this deadly bow.
Lo! where rich the altar fumes,
Soars yon swan on oary plumes.
Hence, and quiver in thy flight
Thy foot that gleams with purple light,
Even though Phoebus's harp rejoice.
To mingle with thy tuneful voice;
Far away thy white wings shake
O'er the silver Delian lake.
Hence! obey! or end in blood
The music of thy sweet-voiced ode.
Away! away! another stoops!
Down his flagging pinion droops;
Shall our marble eaves be hung
With straw nests for your callow young?
Hence, or dread this twanging bow,
Hence, where Alpheus's waters flow;
Or the Isthmian groves among
Go and rear your nestling young.
Hence, nor dare pollute or stain
Phoebus's offerings, Phoebus's fane.
Yet I feel a sacred dread,
Lest your scattered plumes I shed;
Holy birds! 'tis yours to show
Heaven's auguries to men below.
Translation of H. H. Milman.
## p. 5579 (#149) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
SONGS FROM THE HIPPOLYTUS ›
From Three Dramas of Euripides: copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and
reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
I
E
ROS, Eros, thou whose eyes with longing
Overflow; who sweet delight
Bringest to the soul thou stormest,
Come not, prithee, sorrow-laden,
Nor too mighty, unto me!
Neither flaming fire is stronger,
Nor the splendor of the stars,
Than the shaft of Aphrodite,
Darting from the hands of Eros,
Who is child of Zeus supreme.
Vainly, vainly, by the stream Alpheios,
Or in Phoibos's Pythian fane,
Hellas heaps the slaughtered oxen!
Eros, of mankind the tyrant,
Holder of the key that locks
Aphrodite's dearest chambers,
Is not honored in our prayers,
Though he comes as the destroyer,
Bringing uttermost disaster
Unto mortals, when he comes.
II
Oh, for some retreat afar sequestered!
May some god into a bird
Flitting 'mid the wingèd throng transform me!
Where the Adriatic's wave
Breaks upon the shore I fain would hasten;
Or to the Eridanos,
Where into the purple tide,
Mourning over Phaeton,
Evermore the wretched maidens
Drop their amber-gleaming tears.
5579
Gladly would I seek the fertile shore-land
Of Hesperian minstrelsy,
Where the sea lord over purple waters
Bars the way of mariners;
## p. 5580 (#150) ###########################################
5580
EURIPIDES
Setting there, to be upheld by Atlas,
Heaven's holy boundary.
There ambrosial fountains flow
From the place where Zeus abides,
And the sacred land of plenty
Gives delight unto the gods.
O thou white-winged Cretan vessel,
That across the ever-smiting
Briny billow of the ocean
Hither hast conveyed my queen,
From her home of royal splendor,
Wretched in her wedded bliss!
For to both of evil omen
Surely, or at least for Crete,
Thou to glorious Athens flitted,
Where in the Munychian harbor
They unbound their twisted cables
And set foot upon the shore.
Therefore is she broken-hearted,
Cursed with an unholy passion
By the might of Aphrodite;
Wholly overwhelmed by woe;
In the chamber of her nuptials,
Fitted to her snowy neck,
She will hang the cord suspended,
Showing thus her reverence
For the god by men detested,
Eager most for reputation,
And releasing so her spirit
From the love that brought her pain.
III
Truly, the anxious attention bestowed by the gods upon mortals,
When it recurs to my mind, greatly assuages my grief:
Yet am I quickly bereft of the hope and conviction I cherished,
Pondering over the deeds, over the fortunes of men.
Change is but followed by change, in our erring mortal existence.
Oh that Heavenly Fate, responding to prayer, would accord us
Fortune to happiness joined, courage undaunted by pain!
May my repute be neither exceedingly great nor ignoble!
Still with the changing day easily changing my ways,
May I forever enjoy a life of prosperous fortune.
## p. 5581 (#151) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5581
Clear no more are my thoughts, when I see this trouble unhoped-for,
See the illustrious star of Athena
Driven before the paternal wrath to a far habitation!
O ye sands on the shore of the city!
O ye glades in which, attendant on holy Dictynna,
Once with his hounds fleet-footed he hunted!
Never again shalt thou yoke and guide thy coursers Venetian
Over the track that encircles Limna.
Sleepless once was the Muse by the lyre in the halls of thy fathers;
Now is she silent; and stript of their garlands
Lie in the long deep grass the retreats of the daughter of Leto:
Maidens contend not for thee in thy exile.
I with my tears for thy sorrows will share in thy destiny hapless.
Ah, thy mother, how wretched! in vain were the pangs of her travail!
Frenzied am I of the gods! Ye close-linked Graces, ah, wherefore
Forth from this his home and out of the land of his fathers,
Send ye a youth ill-fated, who nowise of crime has been guilty?
IV
Restive hearts of god and mortal,
Thou, O Kypris, captive leadest,
While upon his shimmering pinions
Round them swift-winged Eros flits.
Over earth he hovers ever,
And the salt resounding sea.
Eros charms the heart to madness,
Smitten by his golden arrow;
Charms the hounds upon the mountain,
Creatures of the land and wave,
Wheresoever Helios gazes;
Even man, and royal honors
Thou alone, O Kypris, hast from all!
HIPPOLYTUS RAILS AT WOMANKIND
From Three Dramas of Euripides': copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and
reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
O
ZEUS, pray why-a specious curse for men
Hast thou set women in the light of day?
For if thou wouldst engender humankind,
Through women thou shouldst not have furnished them,
But in thy fanes depositing as pay
Or gold or iron or the weighty bronze,
Men ought to buy the race of children, each
## p. 5582 (#152) ###########################################
5582
EURIPIDES
According to his worth; but in their homes
To dwell in liberty, from women free.
That woman is a grievous curse is clear;
He who begets and breeds her adds a dower
And sends her forth, to rid himself of ill;
And he who takes the bane into his house
Delights to put fair ornaments upon
This basest idol, decks it out with robes,
And squanders — wretched man! - his household joy!
It must be that, delighted to have gained
Good kinsmen, he endures a hateful wife,
Or, winning happy wedlock, useless kin,
He finds the evil overborne by good.
-
Most blest his lot within whose home is set
As wife a harmless, silly nobody!
I hate a clever woman: in my house
Be no one sager than befits her sex.
For Kypris oftener stirs up villainy
Within the clever; but the guileless wife
Is saved from folly by her slender wit!
No servant should approach the wife's abode,
But speechless animals should dwell with her,
That she may have not one to whom to speak,
Nor ever hear from them an answering voice.
But now the wicked weave their plots within
For mischief, and their servants bear them forth;
Even as thou, O evil one, hast come
To proffer me my father's sacred rights!
This I will purge away with running brooks,
Cleansing my ears. Could I be evil, then,
Who hold myself defiled to hear such words?
And woman, know, my reverence saves thy life.
Were I not, unawares, so bound by oaths,
I would have straightway told my father this:
But now, while Theseus is in other lands,
I leave his halls, and we will hold our peace;
But coming with my father, I'll behold
How thou wilt face him,—and thy mistress too!
Thy insolence I shall know, who tasted it.
Perish your sex! Nor will I ever tire
Of hating women, though men say I speak
Of nothing else: for base they always are.
Either let some one teach them self-restraint,—
Or else let me attack them evermore!
——
## p. 5583 (#153) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5583
HIPPOLYTUS'S DISASTER
From Three Dramas of Euripides: copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and re-
printed by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
WE
E, NEAR the sea-shore, where it greets the waves,
Were currying with combs our horses' manes,
Lamenting; for the message came to us
That in this land Hippolytus should set foot
No more, to wretched exile sent by thee.
He also, with the selfsame tale of tears,
Came to us on the beach, and following him,
A myriad throng of comrades marched along.
After a time he ceased to weep, and said:-
"Why am I frenzied thus? I must obey
My father: harness to the car my steeds,
O slaves; for now this city is mine no more:
And thereupon did every man make haste.
Quicker than one could speak, we set the steeds,
All fully harnessed, at their master's side.
Then from the chariot rail he seized the reins,
Upon the footboard set his booted feet;
And first, with hands upraised to heaven, he said:
"Zeus, may I live no more, if I am base!
But may my sire know how he does me wrong,
Whether I lie in death, or see the light. "
With that he took the goad in hand, and urged
The colts; and we attendants by his car
Followed, beside our lord, along the road
Toward Argos and to Epidauria.
When we had entered the deserted land,
There was a coast that lies beside this realm,
Bordering already the Saronic gulf.
There, like Zeus's thunder, from the earth a roar
Resounded deep,—a fearful thing to hear!
The horses pricked their ears, and raised their heads
Aloft; and on us boyish terror fell,
Wondering whence came the sound; but then we glanced
Toward the sea-beaten shore, and saw a wave
Divine, that rose to heaven, so that mine eye
Beheld no longer the Skironian crags;
The isthmus and Asclepios's rock were hid.
Swelling aloft, and white with bubbling foam,
With roaring sound the billow neared the spot
Where on the beach the four-horse chariot stood.
And from the mighty breaker as it fell,
-
>>>>
## p. 5584 (#154) ###########################################
5584
EURIPIDES
A bull, a furious monster, issued forth.
The land, that with his bellowings was filled,
Re-echoed fearfully, and we who gazed
Found it too grim a sight to look upon.
A dreadful panic seized at once the steeds.
Their master, fully trained in all the arts
Of horsemanship, laid hold upon the reins,
And pulled as does a sailor at the oar,
Back-leaning, all his weight upon the thongs.
But champing with their jaws the fire-wrought bit,
They burst away; nor could the pilot hand,
Nor curb, nor massive chariot hold them in.
And now, if toward a softer spot of earth
The helmsman strove to turn and guide their course,
The bull appeared in front, and drove them back,
Maddening with affright the four-horse team.
Or if with frenzied mind they neared the rocks,
He followed silent at the chariot's rim,
Until he overthrew and cast it down,
Dashing the wheel against a stone. Then all
Lay wildly mingled. High aloft were tossed
The naves, and linchpins from the axletrees.
While he, poor wretch, entangled in the reins,
Was dragged along, inextricably bound.
His gentle head was dashed upon the rock,
His flesh was bruised; and piteous were his words:
"Stand! ye who at my mangers took your food,
And crush me not! Alas! my father's curse!
Who is there here will save an upright man? »
And many would; but we were come too late,
With tardy feet. So he, released from thongs
And well-cut reins,- but how I do not know,-
Is fallen, breathing yet a little life.
The steeds and cursed bull were hid from sight,
But where I know not, in the rocky land.
[And then the messenger lifts his head defiantly to face the unrelenting
King, and adds: -]
I am a slave within thy house, O King,
But this at least I never will believe,
That he, thy son, was guilty: not although
The whole of womankind go hang themselves,
And with their letters fill the pines that grow
On Ida. For that he was noble I know!
## p. 5585 (#155) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5585
HECUBA HEARS THE STORY OF HER DAUGHTER'S DEATH
Translation of J. A. Symonds: published by Harper & Brothers
THE
HE whole vast concourse of the Achaian host
Stood round the tomb to see your daughter die.
Achilleus's son, taking her by the hand,
Placed her upon the mound, and I stayed near;
And youths, the flower of Greece, a chosen few,
With hands to check thy heifer, should she bound,
Attended. From a cup of carven gold,
Raised full of wine, Achilleus's son poured forth
Libation to his sire, and bade me sound
Silence throughout the whole Achaian host.
I, standing there, cried in the midst these words:
"Silence, Achaians! let the host be still!
Hush, hold your voices! " Breathless stayed the crowd;
But he:-"O son of Peleus, father mine,
Take these libations pleasant to thy soul,
Draughts that allure the dead: come, drink the black
Pure maiden's blood wherewith the host and I
Sue thee: be kindly to us; loose our prows,
And let our barks go free; give safe return
Homeward from Troy to all, and happy voyage. "
Such words he spake, and the crowd prayed assent.
Then from the scabbard, by its golden hilt,
He drew the sword, and to the chosen youths
Signaled that they should bring the maid; but she,
Knowing her hour was come, spake thus, and said:--
"O men of Argos, who have sacked my town,
Lo, of free will I die! Let no man touch
My body: boldly will I stretch my throat.
Nay, but I pray you set me free, then slay;
That free I thus may perish: 'mong the dead,
Being a queen, I blush to be called slave. "
The people shouted, and King Agamemnon
Bade the youths loose the maid, and set her free:
She, when she heard the order of the chiefs,
Seizing her mantle, from the shoulder down
To the soft centre of her snowy waist
Tore it, and showed her breasts and bosom fair
As in a statue. Bending then with knee
On earth, she spake a speech most piteous:
"See you this breast, O youth? If breast you will,
X-350
## p. 5586 (#156) ###########################################
5586
EURIPIDES
Strike it; take heart: or if beneath my neck,
Lo! here my throat is ready for your sword! "
He, willing not, yet willing,- pity-stirred
In sorrow for the maiden,- with his blade
Severed the channels of her breath: blood flowed;
And she, though dying, still had thought to fall
In seemly wise, hiding what eyes should see not.
But when she breathed her life out from the blow,
Then was the Argive host in divers way
Of service parted; for some, bringing leaves,
Strewed them upon the corpse; some piled a pyre,
Dragging pine trunks and boughs; and he who bore none,
Heard from the bearers many a bitter word:-
:-
"Standest thou, villain? hast thou then no robe,
No funeral honors for the maid to bring?
Wilt thou not go and get for her who died
Most nobly, bravest-souled, some gift? " Thus they
Spake of thy child in death:-"O thou most blessed
Of women in thy daughter, most undone! "
MEDEA RESOLVING TO SLAY HER CHILDREN
SONS, my sons, for you there is a home
And city where, forsaking wretched me,
Ye shall still dwell and have no mother more:
But I, an exile, seek another land,
Ere I have joyed in you and seen you glad,
Ere I have decked for you the nuptial pomp,
The bride, the bed, and held the torch aloft.
Oh me! forlorn by my untempered moods!
In vain then have I nurtured ye, my sons,
In vain have toiled and been worn down by cares,
And felt the hard child-bearing agonies.
There was a time when I, unhappy one,
Had many hopes in you, that both of you
Would cherish me in age; and that your hands,
When I am dead, would fitly lay me out-
That wish of all men: but now lost indeed
Is that sweet thought, for I must, reft of you,
Live on a piteous life and full of pain:
And ye, your dear eyes will no more behold
Your mother, gone into your new strange life.
Alas! Why do ye fix your eyes on me,
O
-
## p. 5587 (#157) ###########################################
EURIPIDES
5587
My sons? Why smile ye on me that last smile?
Alas! What must I do? for my heart faints,
Thus looking on my children's happy eyes.
Women, I cannot. Farewell my past resolves:
My boys go forth with me. What boots it me
To wring their father with their cruel fates,
And earn myself a doubled misery?
