It was
formerly
the last sweet echo of his waning powers.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v23 - Sha to Sta
Suddenly comes the news of her husband's return; and the spoils
are brought in, among whom a fair captive (lole) excites Dejanira's
interest, especially as she can learn nothing concerning her, from
the herald Lichas who has escorted her, or from the girl herself
who maintains an obstinate silence. Of course it very soon comes
out that this is the new flame for whom the truant hero has sacked
Echalia, and that she has come no ordinary captive to the house.
Dejanira's speech charging the herald Lichas to tell her the whole
truth, is full of pathos.
Dejanira-
Mad indeed were I myself
To blame this maiden, cause with him of that
Which causes me no shame, does me no wrong.
I cannot blame. But now, if taught of him
You lie, no noble lesson have you learned;
## p. 13659 (#481) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13659
Chorus
Or if you school yourself, take heed lest then
You be found cruel when you would be kind.
Nay, tell me all the truth: to be called false
Is for free men no honorable lot.
That you should 'scape discovery cannot be :
Many are they who heard you, and will speak.
And if you are afraid, you fear amiss:
For not to know - this would afflict me; but
Fear not my knowing: hath not Heracles
Loved many another-most of all men he?
And never any of them bore from me
Harsh word or gibe: nor shall, howe'er she be
Consumed with love, this maiden; nay, for her
Most of them all I pity, having seen
That 'twas her beauty that made waste her life,-
Poor soul, who sacked, unwitting, and enslaved,
The city of her home. But now I charge thee,
Heed not what winds blow whither: but be false
To others if thou wilt; to me speak truth.
When considering this largeness of heart regarding her husband's
new passion, we must remember we are reading of Greek heroic
times and manners, when such license, though censured as bringing
discord into a household, was in no way regarded as the violation of
a moral law. The chorus in a very fine ode recalls the desperate
struggle of Heracles for the possession of this very Dejanira, whom
he has now slighted and forgotten. But her charms are fading, while
Iole is in the first flush of youth. Then comes her hasty resolve to
send him as a present, which she had been preparing for his return,
the "shirt of Nessus» anointed with the deadly poison of the Cen-
taur's wound. She has been unaware of its fatal power; but the wool
she had used to anoint the present takes fire when heated by the
sun, and before the news comes back she has anticipated the whole
catastrophe. Then follows the terrible narrative of Hyllus, and his
fierce accusation of his mother, who rushes in the silence of desper-
ate resolve from the stage. After an interrupting chorus, her death-
scene is affectingly told by her nurse.
Remorse, or what fierce fit
Of madness was it,- the fatal thrust
So murderously dealt? How compassed she
Death piled on death,-
Wild work for one weak hand to do?
## p. 13660 (#482) ##########################################
13660
SOPHOCLES
Nurse
Chorus
-
___________
Near as I stand to you, I stood and saw.
Nurse
Chorus-
How was it? The manner? Tell me all.
Nurse Herself, and of herself, she did this thing.
Chorus-
What do you tell me?
Nurse
Chorus
――――――――
―――
Nurse-
Plain, the truth.
Stranger, not thy fair face alone.
Thou bringest, but born, yea born of thee,
A dire Erinys to this house!
Too true; but more, had you been there to see
The things she did,- much more your tears had flowed.
Chorus - And daunted not such work a woman's hand?
__________________
――
One plunge of cursed steel: 'twas done.
What, babbler, were you there?
Saw you the wanton deed?
-
Nurse A marvel, truly: hear and testify.
She came alone in the house, and saw her son
In the great chamber spreading forth a couch,
Deep-pillowed, ere he went to meet his sire
Back; but she crept away out of his sight,
And at the altars falling, moaned that she
Was desolate, and each chattel of the house,
That once she used, fingered, poor soul, and wept;
Then hither and thither roaming, room to room,
Each face she saw of servants that she loved,
Unhappy lady, looked and wept again,
Upon her own hard lot exclaiming still,
And how her children were her own no more.
And when she ceased from this, I saw her pass
Suddenly to the chamber of my lord.
I, screened by the dark, seeing, myself unseen,
Watched and I saw my mistress fling, lay smooth,
Couch-coverings on the couch of Heracles,
Till all were laid; then from the ground she sprang
And sat there in the midst upon the couch,
And loosed the flood of scorching tears, and spake: -
"O marriage bed and marriage chamber mine,
Farewell now and forever; never more
This head upon this pillow shall be laid. "
No more she said; but with a violent hand
Did doff her robe, clasped by the brooch that lay,
Gold-wrought, upon her bosom, and made bare
All her left arm and whiteness of her side.
Then I made haste and ran with all my strength,
And told her son what way her thoughts were bent.
## p. 13661 (#483) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13661
But lo, whilst I was gone, just there and back,
The deed was done; the two-edged sword, we saw,
Quite through her side, midriff, and heart had pierced.
Oh, but he groaned to see it! For he knew
This deed, alas! his rashness had entailed,-
Taught all too late by those o' the house that her
The Centaur lured to do she knew not what.
And now the boy-piteous! —of groans and tears
He knew no end, lamenting over her:
He knelt and kissed her lips; his side by hers
He laid along, and lay, complaining sore
That he had slain her with his random blame;
And weeping, his would be a double loss,
Bereaved of both his parents at one stroke.
Here the main interest of the play ends for modern readers. But
among the ancients, the official catastrophe; the lyrical wailing of
Heracles, his wrestling with his agony, and final victory; his calm
review of his life,- all this was far more celebrated. Such lyrical
dialogues, in which the actor and chorus sang alternately, were
highly prized on the Greek stage, and are an almost universal feature
in tragedy. To us the tragic irony of the earlier catastrophe is much
more affecting. The oracle must be fulfilled; Heracles must die,
but by the hands of his most loving wife: and the wretched author-
ess of the catastrophe wanders through the house amazed, aimless,
heart-broken, bursting into tears at every familiar object; then with
sudden resolve she bares her side, and strikes the sword into her
heart.
(
If this noble play has in my opinion been underrated, we cannot
complain of the esteem in which the next play of our series is held,
-the Edipus Rex': which is cited in Aristotle's 'Poetics' as a sort
of ideal or canon play; which modern critics have been, I think,
unanimous in placing at the very summit of Greek tragic art. Yet
when first performed, the audience only awarded it the second prize.
Can we find any reason for this curious variance of judgments? It
is of course easy to say that momentary passions or prejudices may
have misled the Athenians; that such a work could not be appre-
ciated at first hearing; that we know not what undue favor towards
a competitor, or momentary jealousy of Sophocles's fame, may have
swayed a public as notoriously sensitive and fickle in temper as it
was educated in taste. Such causes are possible, but must not be
assumed in contradiction of all the traditions we possess, which
assert Sophocles to have been the darling of the Attic public. Ad-
mitting on the other hand that the critical taste of the public was
## p. 13662 (#484) ##########################################
13662
SOPHOCLES
very sensitive, and easily offended, we can find some reasons why in
the present case Sophocles failed to win the first place. We are
arguing without knowledge of the remaining plays of the group, and
it is possible that these pieces were weak, so that the group as a
whole was inferior in average to the group presented by Philocles.
This again is but a hypothesis.
But there are in the conditions presupposed in the opening scene
more serious and actual objections. In order to create for himself
a situation of exceptional horror, the poet has piled up antecedent
improbabilities in the strangest way. Edipus, a grown-up man,
flying from the prophetic warning that he would slay his father and
marry his mother, travels to Delphi. Though he had been led to
doubt whether Polybus of Corinth was indeed his father, he meets
and slays an old man who treated him roughly in a narrow road, and
four attendants with him. When the oracle had just threatened him,
it should have been his first precaution not to kill men freely, seeing
that his putative father's relation to him had been questioned. He
comes to Thebes, which he finds in mourning; the king (Laius) hav-
ing been murdered on his way to Delphi by a band of robbers, and
the dreadful Sphinx with her riddles still persecuting the country.
He gets rid of the Sphinx, and marries the widowed queen, without
making any search for the murderers of his predecessor; though the
very spot was known where he had been slain, and he remembers
the spot twenty years later. Moreover, the oracle which threatened
him seems to take no notice of the hideous mistake: he is prosperous
and untouched by any presentiment of woe, until the four children
which his mother bears are grown up. Then suddenly comes a great
pestilence; and in consequence of this pestilence the oracle commands
him to seek out by all means the murderers of Laius. esias the
seer, living at Thebes, is represented as knowing the truth from
the beginning, and yet never attempting to prevent the marriage.
Here then is a truly impossible combination of circumstances, and
its absurdities make themselves felt all through the play.
Yet the manner in which the poet has worked out the catastrophe
is indeed beyond all praise. Granted an earnest, able man in such a
position as Edipus, and setting himself to unravel it, we may grant
that his moral blindness is such that he will not see the plainest
indications of his own guilt; and that he first with zeal, then with
obstinacy, follows out the threads of the evidence, which closes round
him and at last produces the awful catastrophe. The splendor of the
dialogue is matched by the splendor of the lyrical parts; and the
chorus assumes a dignified and independent as well as sympathetic
attitude.
## p. 13663 (#485) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13663
Chorus-
STROPHE I
Oh, may my constant feet not fail,
Walking in paths of righteousness,
Sinless in word and deed,-
True to those eternal laws
That scale forever the high steep
Of heaven's pure ether, whence they sprang;·
For only in Olympus is their home,
Nor mortal wisdom gave them birth:
And howsoe'er men may forget,
They will not sleep;
For the might of the god within them grows not old.
.
ANTISTROPHE I
Rooted in pride, the tyrant grows;
But pride that with its own too-much
Is rashly surfeited,
Heeding not the prudent mean,
Down the inevitable gulf
From its high pinnacle is hurled,
Where use of feet or foothold there is none.
But, O kind gods, the noble strength
That struggles for the State's behoof
Unbend not yet:
In the gods have I put my trust; I will not fear.
STROPHE II
But whoso walks disdainfully
In act or word,
And fears not Justice, nor reveres
The throned gods,-
Him let misfortune slay
For his ill-starred wantoning,
Should he heap unrighteous gains,
Nor from unhallowed paths withhold his feet,
Or reach rash hands to pluck forbidden fruit.
Who shall do this, and boast
That yet his soul is proof
Against the arrows of offended Heaven?
If honor crowns such deeds as these,
Not song but silence, then, for me!
-
## p. 13664 (#486) ##########################################
13664
SOPHOCLES
ANTISTROPHE II
To earth's dread centre, unprofaned
By mortal touch,
No more with awe will I repair,
Nor Abæ's shrine,
Nor the Olympian plain,
If the truth stands not confessed,
Pointed at by all the world.
O Zeus supreme, if rightly thou art called
Lord over all, let not these things escape
Thee and thy timeless sway!
For now men set at naught
Apollo's word, and cry, "Behold, it fails! "
His praise is darkened with a doubt;
And faith is sapped, and Heaven defied.
is a cruel one. There is no reason in the
But the Providence who lies behind the whole action of the play
character of Edipus why
He is throughout repre-
best, and ruined by the
he should be the victim of such miseries.
sented as a right-thinking man, doing his
mere force of circumstances. The slaying of a stranger who insulted
him and smote him on the head could not be, and is not by the poet,
considered as any crime that deserved extreme punishment. It was
the mere retaliation which any heroic Greek would think perfectly
justifiable. How far we are thus removed from the tragic problem
of Hamlet, or even of Antigone, the reader will easily perceive. Per-
haps the poet may have desired to teach the moral lesson much
needed at skeptical Athens in his day,- that the warnings of the
gods are accomplished, and that the neglect of them is a crime which
brings upon men punishments very disproportionate to the apparent
guilt of negligence. But is this a proper subject for a Greek tragedy?
And is the iron grasp of fate, which mocks all human effort, a moral
subject for the stage?
Sweeter and more human in many respects is the 'Edipus at
Colonus,' which ancient tradition and ancient critics unanimously
placed at the end of the poet's life; nor will the arguments of the
learned in Germany regarding its perfect diction and structure have
much weight against the current belief, supported by the strong feel-
ing of every literary reader from Cicero to our day, that its mild-
ness, sadness, and weariness of life, speak the long experience and
sober resignation of an old man at the close of his days.
The whole action turns round the figure of Edipus, who comes
old, beggared, and blind, supported by his daughters only, an exile
## p. 13665 (#487) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13665
from Thebes, into the grove of the dread Eumenides (Furies) at
Colonus. The gentle and affectionate Antigone in this play is a
different character from herself in the title play we have already
discussed. It is but one of several instances which show that these
tragic poets aimed at no consistency when using the figures of Greek
legend for various plays. The Attic audience were not expected to
compare this Antigone with the other produced many years before.
I have elsewhere suggested that this may be one reason why the
subjects of these tragedies were so seldom taken from Homer,-
whose characters, as they appear in the Iliad and Odyssey, were too
familiar to the audience to admit of any variation being tolerated on
the tragic stage. Edipus himself is now worn and mellowed with
suffering; he has recovered a certain dignity not only from his un-
deserved suffering, but from his person being declared by oracles
to be of great value to those that possess it. Hence Creon, who had
exiled him, comes to carry him home by force; his son Polynices
comes to pray for his support to insure victory against the younger
brother, who now holds the Theban throne. But the old man resists
all attempts to persuade him. Theseus saves him from the vio-
lence of Creon, and rescues his daughters, who had been seized by
Creon's attendants; and in gratitude to the King of Athens, Edipus
tells him the secret by which the throne of Athens is to be forever
safe. Finally, in a splendid scene heralded by thunder and light-
ning, Edipus passes into the grove to his mysterious death. The lam-
entations of the bereaved daughters, with responses from the chorus,
occupy a long musical scene at the close of the play. This conclus-
ion, though somewhat lame if judged by modern taste, has the indi-
cation of Antigone's resolve to return to Thebes and strive to stay
her brothers' criminal war; thus pointing at the tragic sequel which
Sophocles had already brought upon the stage.
•
If he had thought fit to rearrange his plays in trilogies after the
manner of Eschylus, the three dramas on the legend of Edipus and
his children have a very striking artistic connection. To me the
later Edipus' seems the finest of all the extant plays; nor can we
imagine, if it had indeed been composed in the poet's middle age,
why its production should have been delayed till four years after his
death, though we hear this on good authority. There is not only
fine character-drawing in the play,-dipus, Creon, Theseus, all
very living and distinct, but there are tragic contrasts of the great-
est subtlety. Thus the episode of Polynices, who turns aside from
the invasion of his native land to entreat the support of Edipus, is
manifestly intended for such a contrast. Both father and son are
approaching their fate: but the father, an innocent offender, shines
out in the majesty of a glorious sunset; while the son, unfilial, selfish,
XXIII-855
-
## p. 13666 (#488) ##########################################
13666
SOPHOCLES
and vindictive, only uses his punishment of exile to devise further
crimes,―his repentance for his unfilial conduct to his father is not
genuine, and his heart is still poisoned with ambition and revenge,
so that when stricken by his father's awful curse, he rushes in de-
spair upon his doom. The scene is not without harshness: the old
man's curses are like those of Lear, violent from his feeling of long
impotence; but this flaw, if flaw it be, is redeemed by the majesty of
his solemn translation to the nether world.
The treatment of the chorus is marked by a curious inconsistency;
or rather, by the clear assertion that while they act and think as
common old men of Colonus, their choral odes are those of the poet
speaking for himself. In their conduct, the chorus of this play show
the vulgarities of common life: they treat Edipus, when they find
him in the sacred grove, with cowardice, rudeness, want of faith,
unmannerly disgust, and indecent curiosity. They are only courteous
and kind to him in the presence of Theseus, or when they have
learned that it is their interest to have him there. But when they
sing their great interludes, the choral odes, they abandon all this
poor personality, and philosophize upon the action with a depth and
beauty hardly equaled by any other lyrics in the Greek language.
Chorus-
-
STROPHE
Beyond the common lot who lusts to live,
Nor sets a limit to desire,
Of me no doubtful word shall win-
A fool in love with foolishness.
Since long life hath in store for him to know
Full many things drawn nearer unto grief,
And gone from sight all pleasant things that were:
Till fallen on overmuch
Fulfillment of desire,
One only friend he sees can help —
A friend who shall come when dawns at last
The day that knows not bridal song
Nor lyre nor dance that fatal day
Whose equal doom we all abide;
Shall come kind Death, and make an end!
ANTISTROPHE
-
Not to be born is past disputing best:
And after this, his lot transcends,
Who, seen on earth for briefest while,
Thither returns from whence he came.
For with its fluttering follies all aswarm,
## p. 13667 (#489) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13667
Who needs, while youth abides, go far afield
To heap vexation? What's the missing plague ?
Slaughters are here, and strife,
Factions, and wars, and spite;
And still life's crowning ill's to bear,-
Last scene of all, of all condemned:
Unfriended, uncompanioned Age,
When strength is gone, but grief remains,
And every evil that is named,-
Evil of evil, grief of grief.
As now this man, not wretched I alone,-
Lo, like some promontory northward set,
Wave-buffeted by all fierce winds that rave,
So buffet him, nor cease,
Poured on his helpless head,
All shattering billows of outrageous fate;
Some from the setting sun,
And from the rising some,
Some with the mid-noon beam,
Some from the starry shimmerings of the night.
-
We now come to a play which shows many contrasts to either
'Edipus. ' The 'Ajax' is perhaps the simplest in structure of all the
extant dramas; but is not therefore to be assumed the earliest, as
some critics have done. To me it shows so much of the influence of
Euripides, or perhaps we should rather say of the dicastic (litigious)
habit of the Athenians of post-Periclean days, that I should place its
production late in the poet's life. If a modern dramatist were asked
to compose a play on such a subject,- the madness of his hero
from disappointed ambition, the carnage of flocks of sheep in mis-
take for his rivals and umpires, his return to sanity, his consequent
despair and suicide, and a quarrel about his funeral,- he would prob-
ably feel no small perplexity. Yet Sophocles has composed a justly
famous character play upon the story, which he found in the so-
called 'Little Iliad' of Lesches. There is no finer psychological pict-
ure than the awakening of Ajax from his lunacy, his intense shame,
his firm resolve to endure life no longer, his harsh treatment of the
tender and loving Tecmessa,- the slave-mother of his boy,— and yet
his deep love for her and for his child. Even his suicide is brought
upon the stage,- contrary to the habit of the Greeks, who avoided
such scenes, and put the recital of them in the mouth of a messenger;
but then his dying speech is one of the most remarkable in all Greek
tragedy. Not less splendid is that in which he gives his directions
before going to meet his death.
## p. 13668 (#490) ##########################################
13668
SOPHOCLES
Ajax-The long march of the innumerable hours
Brings from the darkness all things to the birth,
And all things born envelops in the night.
What is there that it cannot? Strongest oaths
Of men, and the untempered will, it bends:
As I, who lately seemed so wondrous firm,
See by this woman now my keen edge made-
As steel by dipping — womanish and weak;
So that it pities me among my foes
To leave her widowed, fatherless my child.
Now to the seaside meadows and the baths
I go to purge away my stains, if so
Athene's grievous wrath I may escape.
And I must go and find some spot untrodden,
And hide away this hated sword of mine,
Burying it in the earth where none may see;
Let night and Hades keep it underground.
For from the day I took it in my hand,
From Hector, from my enemy, a gift,
Of Greeks I gat no honor any more;
But soothly says the proverb that men use,
Foes' gifts are no gifts,-no, nor profitable.
Well I shall know henceforth to bow to Heaven,
And the Atreidæ study to revere:
Men must obey their rulers. Nay, how else?
Things most august and mightiest upon earth
Bow to authority: the winter's storms,
Dense with their driven snow, give place at last
To fruitful summer; and night's weary round
Passes, and dawn's white steeds light up the day:
And blasts of angry winds let sleep again
The groaning sea; and tyrannous sleep withal
Holds not his prey, but looses whom he binds.
Then shall not we learn wisdom, and submit?
And I this lesson I have learnt to-day:
To hate my enemies so much and no more,
As who shall yet be friends; and of a friend
I'll bound my love and service with the thought,
He's not my friend forever. For most men find
A treacherous haven this of fellowship.
But for these things it shall suffice; and thou,
Woman, go in, and pray the gods that all
My heart's desire may be fulfilled in full.
And you, my comrades, honor me with her
## p. 13669 (#491) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13669
Thus praying, and bid Teucer when he comes
Have care of me and all good-will to you.
For I go hence whither I needs must go.
Do ye my bidding; so shall ye hear perchance,
That after all my troubles I am safe.
Then follows a brilliant hyporcheme or dancing ode, to Pan, in
delight that Ajax has recovered his senses:—
Chorus
I tremble, I thrill with longing!
With joy transported, I soar aloft!
O Pan, Pan, Pan, appear!
Come hither, tossed by the sea, O Pan,
From Cyllene's rock-ridge, scourged with snow-
The master in heaven of those that dance!
And unpremeditated measures here,
Nysian or Gnosian, fling with me!
For now on dancing my heart is set,
And far across the Icarian waters,
Lord of Delos, Apollo, come;
Come, plain to see, and partake my mirth -
Gracious and kind to the end as now!
Lo, Ares the cloud has lifted;
Despair and dread from our eyes are gone!
Now, now, O Zeus, again
May stainless light of a gracious day
To our swift sea-cleaving ships come nigh;
When Ajax his sorrow again forgets,
And serves the gods with perfect piety,
Pays them their rites and leaves out none.
For all things ever the strong hours quench;
And naught, I'll say, is too hard for saying;
Now when Ajax, so past all hope,
Against the Atreidæ unbends his pride-
Rage and defiance outbreathes no more.
He is for one day, we hear presently from his brother, under the
anger of Athene; and if he can weather that day he will be safe.
This gives a peculiar pathos to the play, when we reflect how nearly
a noble life was saved. But the anger of Athene is hardly justified,
beyond the consideration that the gods rule as they please; and here
the goddess is shown with those hard and cruel features which we
find in Homer's picture. * The Ajax of Sophocles, on the other hand,
* On this I have already commented in my Social Life in Greece. '
## p. 13670 (#492) ##########################################
13670
SOPHOCLES
A
is far more refined than the Homeric prototype. He feels himself
unjustly treated, and carries the spectator's sympathy wholly with
him. The wrangle about his funeral honors between his brother
Teucer, who arrives but a moment too late to save him, and the
vulgar and heartless Agamemnon and Menelaus, is so disagreeable
that we have constantly to remind ourselves of the Attic love of
argument, of dispute, of casuistry, to tolerate this part of the drama.
Odysseus (Ulysses) for once comes in as the peacemaker; the gener-
ous foe, who can respect and honor his fallen enemy. But then he
has obtained all his desire, - the easiest moment to be generous.
word must be reserved for Tecmessa; one of the most attractive
women in Sophocles, as we possess him. She is one of those slave
wives whom the heroes of the Iliad kept in camp to solace their long
absence from home. She had passed from the estate of a princess to
be the slave mistress of her lord. But she fulfills all her enforced
duties with loyalty and tenderness, and with great and womanly
affection for both Ajax and his child. She is indeed in many respects
as tragic a figure as Ajax; for her disasters have all come upon her
without any fault of her own, and in spite of her innocence and
loyalty.
Tecmessa - O my lord Ajax, of all things most hard,
Hardest is slavery for men to bear.
And I was daughter of a sire freeborn,-
-
No Phrygian mightier, wealthier none than he;
But now I am a slave. For so the gods,
And so thine arm, had willed it. Therefore now
For I am thine, thy wife, and wish thee well-
I charge thee now by Zeus who guards thy hearth,
And by that couch of thine which I have shared,—
Condemn me not, given over to their hands,
To bear the cruel gibes thy foes shall fling.
Bethink thee, on that day when thou shalt die,
And by that death divorce me, violent hands
On me the Greeks will lay, and we shall live
Henceforth the life of slaves, thy child and I.
And then at me shall some one of my lords
Shoot out sharp words, "Lo ye, the concubine
Of Ajax, who was strongest of the Greeks-
Fallen from what pride, unto what service bound! "
So they will talk. And me such fate will plague;
But shame such talk imports to thee and thine.
Nay, but have pity, and leave not thou thy sire,
So old, so grieved; pity thy mother too,
## p. 13671 (#493) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13671
Portioned with many years, who night and day
Prays to the gods to bring thee home alive;
And have compassion on thy boy, O prince! —
Think, should he live, poor child, forlorn of thee,
By unkind guardians of kind care deprived,
What wrong thy death will do to him and me:
Nothing have I to look to any more,
When thou art gone. Thy spear laid waste my home;
My mother too and father, Fate withal
Brought low, in the dark house of death to dwell.
What home then shall I find instead of thee-
What wealth? My life hangs utterly on thee.
The Philoctetes' is the last of our series, till some fortunate
chance, in Egypt or elsewhere, restores to us another of these master-
pieces. We know it to have been composed very late in the poet's
life, perhaps the very last of his works; and yet, though it shows
everywhere the influence of his great rival Euripides, in this remark-
able play there is no evidence of any decadence, of any weakening
of Sophocles's genius, though some critics pretend to see it. The
habit of asserting subjective opinions upon such points is so universal
in Germany that it is necessary to cite examples of their worth.
Some trivial fact is generally at the basis of these theories; because
the Philoctetes' is now accepted as late, the Edipus at Colonus,'
long criticized as the dying song of the old man, is now attributed to
a far earlier period, and is called the product of the poet's strongest
maturity.
It was formerly the last sweet echo of his waning powers.
At all events, the Philoctetes' is a very remarkable and distinct-
ive specimen of the work of Sophocles. It is essentially a character
play, in which the action of the gods only comes in to thwart and
spoil a plot made great by human suffering and human constancy;
and yet though a character play, it is the solitary example we have,
among the extant remains of the poet, in which there is no woman
brought on the stage. Ingenious people may here find, if they like,
a mute antagonism to, a recoil from, the habit of Euripides, who never
draws a great man, but sets all the sympathies of the audience upon
the grandeur of his heroines. In the play now before us, the princi-
pal character is ennobled partly by his long and miserable suffering,
partly by his strong will and determination that he will in no way
yield to his enemies, or help them in their designs.
He had been abandoned at Lemnos by the sons of Atreus and by
Ulysses, on their way to Troy, because of his loathsome wound and
his constant and wearisome lamentations. Now they find through an
oracle that after ten years' war and waste of life, the city cannot be
## p. 13672 (#494) ##########################################
13672
SOPHOCLES
taken unless the wounded hero of his own accord accompanies them,
bringing with him the famous bow and arrow of Heracles, which
he possesses. The plots of Ulysses to obtain this result, and their
repeated failure, till Heracles actually descends from heaven and
commands Philoctetes to change his resolve,- these are moments of
the play. The appearance of Heracles as a deus ex machina is how-
ever a mere appendix, thrown in to satisfy the requirements of the
popular legend which held that the hero did go to Troy, and so cause
the oracles to be positively accomplished.
Ulysses, the principal agent, though not the chief actor in the
play, sets in motion those subtle plots which to the Greek were per-
fectly lawful and even admirable, while to us they savor of mean-
ness and fraud. He suborns the young and gallant Neoptolemus to
land at the island, and pretend that he too had been summoned to
Troy and then insulted by the leaders of the host; that he is there-
fore on his way home in anger and disgust.
This leads to sympa-
thetic discourse with Philoctetes, who entreats Neoptolemus to bring
him home, and intrusts him with the precious bow and arrows when
seized with one of his paroxysms which ends in a deep sleep. The
chorus of sailors, who as usual represent the mean side of Greek
character, propose that now Neoptolemus should decamp with the
bow and arrows. The fact that the hero's own presence and consent
were necessary is kept in the background; and the first difficulty
arises from the loyal nature of Neoptolemus, who has misgivings
from the beginning, and has been persuaded too easily to adopt the
crooked policy of Ulysses, but who will not now desert his suffering
friend, and who will not take him on board by fraud. So when he
discloses his real intentions to Philoctetes, he meets with a storm of
protest, of adjuration and appeal from the outcast hero, but not a
sign of submission. Ulysses, who comes in, threatens force; he pro-
poses to carry off the bow and leave the wretched man helpless and
defenseless on the island; he makes all preparations for departure:
when Neoptolemus tries the only remaining argument. He returns
conscience-smitten with the bow and arrows and restores them to
their owner, in spite of the anxious protest of Ulysses, who knows
that his own life now hangs upon a thread. But Neoptolemus holds
the hand that would draw the bow and slay his enemy, and appeals
on the ground of friendship and of generosity to Philoctetes now to
yield and return with him as ally to Troy. But here he meets with
an equally stubborn resistance; and, vanquished by the vanquished
man, he has submitted, and is going to bring Philoctetes to his home
at Trachis, when the divine command of Heracles prevents this vio-
lation of the current story, and the conflict is ended by the submis-
sion of Philoctetes.
## p. 13673 (#495) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13673
Such is the skeleton of the drama; but this skeleton is enriched
by the accessories which a true poet adds to his argument. The
picturesque features of the lonely island, the voice of nature which
threatened and which solaced the lonely man, the birds and beasts
that were his companions and his prey,- these are ever present to
the hero in his lamentations and his prayers. No doubt the poet
knew well this island, which was, like Imbros, a peculiar property of
the Athenians for a great part of its history. It lies not far from the
Trojan coast, surrounded by splendid historic lands: the giant Samo-
thrace, the still more gigantic Athos, from whose peak I have looked
upon Lemnos and thought of the many legends that cluster about that
rugged island. And now, after long centuries of cultivation, centu-
ries of piracy and of misgovernment have reduced it again to the
very condition described by Sophocles: lonely uplands, windy hills,
waste and thicket replacing the labors of men.
It is remarkable that the rival plays on the subject those of
Eschylus and Euripides-did not make the island an absolute wil-
derness. The chorus, instead of representing the sailors who came
with Neoptolemus, as it is in Sophocles's play, did visit him; and one
of them, Actor, appeared as his friend. These facts we owe to an
interesting little oration of Dio Chrysostom, who compares the three
plays then extant and known to him.
-
But I will not extend this commentary unduly. Those who desire
to appreciate Sophocles must not attempt to do so at second hand,
through this essay or through any modern translation; they must
learn Greek, and read him in the original: for no version in any
European language can give any notion of the strength, the grace,
the suppleness of his dialogue. Not that he was absolutely without
faults in style. He himself, in a curious sentence reported by Plu-
tarch, says that he had three styles: first, the grand eloquence of
Eschylus, which he had shaken off early; then the harsh and artifi-
cial style of his next epoch, - features well known to us in contem-
porary writers, such as Thucydides; lastly he had adopted the style
which was best for painting character, and therefore the fittest for
his purpose.
We can still trace some of the harshness of which he
speaks in the earlier extant plays. The opening speech in the
'Antigone,' for example, is contorted and difficult in style, and is by
no means exceptional in this quality. Some of the choral odes seem
to us to use constructions which we can hardly call Greek; and if it
be urged that in these cases corruption of the text has altered the
poet's words, it must have been a very early corruption, and such is
not likely unless the original was really obscure. We know also
from the great number of strange words cited from his lost plays by
early grammarians that his vocabulary must have been not easy and
## p. 13674 (#496) ##########################################
13674
SOPHOCLES
natural, like that of Euripides, but artificial and recondite. This love
of erudite words seems to have been as strong in Sophocles as it
was in Shakespeare.
But if he was licentious in his vocabulary and sometimes daring in
his syntax, no great poet was ever more conservative in his art. It
is to us an ever-recurring source of wonder, how a great poet, born
in a particular generation, writing for a special public, hampered
by all the conventionalities of his age, nevertheless not only rises
above all these transitory circumstances and seizes the great and
permanent features of human nature, but even frequently turns his
shackles into a new source of beauty. Some of the greatest felici-
ties in poetry have been the direct result of the curbs of metre or
of rhyme. Nothing has more evidently determined the beauties of
Greek or mediæval sculpture than its position as the handmaid of
architecture. There are many more such instances, but none more
signal than that supplied by the work of Sophocles.
Nothing can be imagined more artificial than the Greek stage,
nothing upon that stage more artificial than tragedy as determined
by his predecessors. The subjects to be treated were limited to the
Greek legends; legends familiar to the audience, and not admitting
of any great liberties in treatment. The actors were padded out and
masked, so that all delicate acting was impossible, and slow declama-
tion was the law of the stage. The importance of the chorus and
its traditional primacy in the earliest plays determined the musical
character of Greek tragedy; which may best be compared to a mod-
ern oratorio, acted on the stage. Thus the poet must not only write
dramatic verse, he must be a lyric poet; nay more, we are told that
he must compose the music for his odes. Even these set pieces, like
our musical interludes, were not enough for the requirements of the
drama: there were lyrical monodies, or dialogues between the actor
and the chorus, which required in the actor-in early days the poet
himself - proficiency in singing. It was in fact the "music-drama "
of Wagner, out-Wagnered. All these conditions were satisfied by
Sophocles in his day. But what marks his world-position is this:
though the music is lost; though the stage as he knew it is gone
forever; though nothing remains to us but the text, in metres which
had their musical accompaniments and which do not speak easily to
modern ears,-still these plays, stripped of all the accessories which
made them splendid in their day of performance, transcribed with
ignorance and defaced by time, the widowed and forlorn remnant
of a bygone age and an extinct society, move every modern heart;
stimulate every modern poet; stand forth in their imperishable maj-
esty, like the ruined Parthenon, unapproachable in their essential per-
fection.
## p. 13675 (#497) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13675
1
What an age was this, when the builders of the Parthenon and
the authors of tragedy met and discussed the principles of their art!
The lofty Pericles was there, the genial Herodotus, the brilliant Aris-
tophanes, the homely Socrates, all contributing to form an atmo-
sphere in which no poor or unreal art could last for a day. But
artificial they all were, except Socrates; though the artifice was only
the vehicle for great ideas, for the deepest nature, for the loftiest
ideals. Hence the changes of custom, and even of traditions, have
not marred the eternal greatness of Sophocles's tragedies. Sufferers
such as Ajax, Philoctetes, Œdipus, will ever command the deepest
human pity; martyrs such as Antigone, the purest admiration. To
paraphrase the words of Aristotle, Sophocles purifies the affections of
pity and awe in the hearts of his audience by representing to them
ideal men and women suffering huge misfortunes; broken it may be
on the wheel of fortune, but not vanquished, because their heroic will
is invincible.
This is the great moral lesson which the poet has taught the
world; and it constitutes his first and greatest claim to rank among
the stars of the first magnitude in the literature of nations. In the-
ology he was a conservative; he did not venture, like Euripides, to
quarrel with the current myths and to question the morality of the
current creeds. But even as every sound modern moralist holds
that in this world, the ideal of life and conduct is far higher than
the average specimens we meet in ordinary society,—so Sophocles
was convinced that there was a Divine morality, a Divine justice, far
higher and purer than the lives and characters of the several gods as
represented in Homer and the Epic Cycle. While therefore he does
not alter the hard features of the Greek gods, or justify their jealousy
and vindictiveness, he frequently asserts a very different and a far
higher government of the world.
Such being the highest feature in the poet's philosophy, we may
place next to it his admirable knowledge and portraiture of human
character. The gallery of his heroes and heroines is like the gallery
of a great painter's works, which gives us impressive and imperisha-
ble types. He takes but little care about his villains: his tyrants
were not drawn from life, and his only erring queen - Clytemnestra
-is not very interesting when we compare her to the Clytemnestra
of Eschylus. But his heroines are as great as those of Euripides;
his heroes are far greater; and his whole stage is more human than
that of Eschylus.
Apart from the matter is the style; and in artistic work the style
or form is of equal if not of greater importance. It is through style.
that any writer or age of writers becomes a model, or an ideal, for
succeeding generations to pursue. But as I am debarred in this
## p. 13676 (#498) ##########################################
13676
SOPHOCLES
essay from quoting from the original, and am addressing a public not
intimate with Greek, I am precluded from discussing this question
with any further detail; and can only repeat my previous warning
that Greek of the Attic age, used by its greatest masters, is a vehicle
of expression so perfect both in its strength and its delicacy, that all
versions in other tongues seem tame and bald to those who can read
the poet's own words. It is this peerless perfection in Greek style,
not only in the art of composition, but in the plastic arts, which has
kept Greek studies alive as the very essence of any thorough modern
culture. Nor is it likely that a time will ever come when future
generations will have made such advances in art that the Edipus
of Sophocles, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the nameless tomb of the
King of Sidon, the temples on the Acropolis at Athens, will be super-
seded by greater models.
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## p. 13676 (#499) ##########################################
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13677
ROBERT SOUTHEY
(1774-1843)
F IT were possible to earn a place among the immortals by
the force of unremitting toil, no man of letters could have a
clearer claim to the distinction than Robert Southey. The
vast labors of his life, seconding talents of no mean order, did indeed
build for him a reputation which cannot be destroyed by time. What
the author of Thalaba' and the Life of Nelson' accomplished, has
a definite and solid value. Within his limits he did his life's work
well. He was a good and faithful servant of literature: had he had
more of the mastery of genius, he would have been less in bondage
to his conceptions. As it was, he was fettered by the schemes for
his vast epics and interminable histories. The element of drudgery
dulls even the greatest of his works. He is among English men of
letters as one that serveth.
His life touched at many points the lives of other noted men; yet
it was ever self-contained, closed in against all passions but the one
devouring passion for culture. There was a Southey who, feeling the
electric currents of the revolution, dreamed of brotherhood and free-
dom in the forests of America: but the Southey of literary history
spent his life among his thousands of beloved books in the quiet
rooms of Greta Hall, content with the use and wont of the Old
World; content to perform, year in and year out, the daily tasks of
composition, proof-reading, and letter-writing. The poet had become
the sober writer of prose; the revolutionist had become the conserv-
ative.
Robert Southey was born on the 12th of August, 1774. His father,
a linen draper, being unsuccessful in his business, the care and sup-
port of the boy was partly assumed by his mother's maiden aunt,
Miss Tyler, an eccentric woman, who was wise enough however
to feed her charge's mind with such tales as 'Goody Two-Shoes'
and the History of the Seven Champions of England'; she further
trained the future poet in the way he should go, by taking him to
the theatre, and by allowing him to enter into the enchanted world
of Beaumont and Fletcher, and to wander along the broad human
highways of Shakespeare.
He was early taken from these most beautiful and tender nurses
of genius, and delivered over to schoolmasters to be "regularly"
## p. 13678 (#504) ##########################################
13678
ROBERT SOUTHEY
educated. Great institutions of learning do not always know how
to conduct the education of a poet. Westminster School rejected
Southey after four years of nurture, because the boy wrote a sarcas-
tic article on flogging, for the paper published by the pupils. Two
enduring friendships, however, were formed at Westminster: one with
Grosvenor Bedford, the other with C. W. Wynn. It was through the
liberality of the latter that an annuity of £160 was for many years
settled upon Southey. Through provision made by his uncle, the
Rev. Mr. Hill, chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, Southey was
enabled to go to Oxford. Christ Church rejected him because of
the Westminster episode, but he was received at Balliol.
In 1794 occurred an event of much importance in his life: he met
Coleridge. With the mystical poet, "voyaging on strange seas of
thought alone," the young Southey had much in common. They
were both under the domination of the republican spirit; they had
both looked to France for the dawn of the social millennium, and had
beheld only the terrors of the midnight tempest. They both dreamed
of a world made over nearer to the heart's desire. Coleridge had
already formulated his dreams. They should go to America: there in
the virgin forests they could free themselves forever from the perni-
cious social system of the Old World. They would live as brothers.
Each would till the soil, living by the work of his own hands. Each
would take with him a wife who should share the toil and the bless-
ings. They would rear their children in innocence and peace. They
would live the ideal life of study and of manual labor in the bosom
of nature. Their community would be a "pantisocracy. " Coleridge
and Southey had friends ready and willing to make the venture,-
Robert Lovell, a young Quaker; Robert Allen, and George Burnett.
Lovell's wife had four sisters, - Edith, Sarah, Martha, and Elizabeth
Fricker. An idea prevailed among the pantisocrats that these ladies
might be married off-hand, the only inducement necessary being a
glowing description of the land of promise. Southey, however, had
another object in marrying than the good of the new community.
He loved Edith Fricker, and she returned his affection.
Nothing was lacking now to the perfect success of the scheme but
money. The young enthusiasts were rich in dreams, but poor in
pocket. Coleridge never had money in his life. The others, being
also of the poetical temperament, could never have much of it.
Southey and Coleridge began a series of lectures, the one on history,
the other on ethics and politics, for the sake of raising the necessary
funds. About this time Southey met Joseph Cottle, a Bristol book-
seller, whose sincere friendship manifested itself in substantial forms.
Two years before, in 1794, Southey had written an epic, 'Joan of Arc,'
in which he had embodied his democratic fervor. Cottle bought this
## p. 13679 (#505) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13679
of him for fifty guineas, and published it in 1796. The assistance.
was timely; for the young poet was in disgrace with Miss Tyler,
who had cast him out on the news of his intended marriage with
Miss Fricker.
Soon after the publication of Joan of Arc,' Southey's uncle, Mr.
Hill, arrived from Lisbon; having heard of his nephew's vagaries,
and believing that a change of scene would bring about a change of
mind, he induced him to return with him. On the day of his depart-
ure he was secretly married to Edith. He returned, cured of pan-
tisocracy, but with his mind full of poetical schemes: epics galore,
tragedies and comedies and romances, which were to be wrought out
one by one. Among the first of these to be completed was 'Madoc,'
a narrative poem of the adventures of a Welsh prince of the twelfth
century in the wilderness of America. He had been meanwhile for a
year in London crucifying his spirit over law-books. After leaving
London and the law, he wandered through England for a time, finally
settling at Norwich, where he spent twelve months.
The breaking
down of his health led to a second visit to Portugal, on which his
wife accompanied him. On his return he was offered the position
of private secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for
Ireland. He accepted it; but the post not proving a congenial one,
he soon returned to England, and not long afterwards took up his
abode in Greta Hall, Keswick, in the English Lake region, where he
was to spend the remainder of his life,-supporting himself, his fam-
ily, and Coleridge's family, by his incessant literary labors.
It is in the household of Greta Hall that the greater Southey,
Southey the man, comes into clear view; he is seen here as the lov-
ing father and husband, as the kind kinsman of the Coleridge child-
ren, as the friend ever ready with words of sympathy, advice, and
encouragement. A remarkable family of children was gathered under
his roof. There were his own brilliant, beautiful Herbert, Edith May,
Bertha, Kate, and Isabel; there was the marvelous child, the elfish
Hartley Coleridge; there were also his brother Derwent, and Sara
Coleridge, who had inherited not a small share of her father's genius.
There was besides a large colony of cats, whose high-sounding names
Southey has recorded in his 'Chronicle History of the Cattery of
Cat's Eden. '
In 1813 Southey was appointed to the office of Poet Laureate,
made vacant by the death of Pye. At that date his more important
works included his metrical romance of Thalaba the Destroyer,' the
romance of 'Amadis de Gaul' from a Spanish version, 'The Chronicle
of the Cid, 'The Curse of Kehama,' 'Espriella's Letters,' and the
'History of Portugal' begun but not finished. In 1807 he had pro-
duced Specimens of the Later English Poets,' and 'Palmerin of
## p. 13680 (#506) ##########################################
13680
ROBERT SOUTHEY
His Poet-Laureateship
Southey seems to have
Portugal,' a translation from the Portuguese.
was the recognition of his youthful work.
renounced poetry with his republicanism. The odes which he wrote
in his official character are forced in tone, and with exception of the
'Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte,' commonplace. After tak-
ing up his abode in Greta Hall, Southey devoted himself chiefly to
prose composition. He wrote there his 'History of Brazil,' his 'His-
tory of Portugal,' his lives of Wesley, of Cowper, and of Nelson, his
commonplace books, his History of the Peninsular War,' and that
charming book of gossip, 'The Doctor. ' His prose is masterly, direct,
and even. His claim to be numbered among the foremost English
men of letters rests indeed upon his prose.
The events of his life at Keswick are chiefly those of a student
and a scholar. For many years it was necessary that he should
write incessantly, performing his day-labor like a workman in the
fields. After this necessity was removed, he still toiled on, finding
his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his books, and of his
friends, among whom were Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, and Landor.
His reputation attracted to him men of the highest intellectual rank;
even one man as far removed from him in thought and feeling as
the poet Shelley. Southey was never slow to recognize genius and
to befriend it; but with certain literary movements in England he
had little sympathy. His designation of Byron and his coterie as
the "Satanic School" was not the least just, as it was the most un-
friendly, of his criticisms. For the work of Wordsworth, of Landor,
and of Lamb, he had unqualified admiration.
In 1816 Southey was offered a baronetcy through the influence of
Sir Robert Peel; but he declined the honor. In 1826 he was offered a
seat in Parliament, and an estate to qualify him for the office; but this
he also declined. Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. ;
he refused a similar honor from Cambridge.
His later years were darkened by domestic afflictions. The light of
his life went out when his son Herbert, a child of the rarest promise,
passed away. His second marriage in 1839, to the writer Caroline
Anne Bowles, was one of convenience. For a year or two before his
death the vigor of his faculties was almost wholly departed. He died
on the 21st of March, 1843, literally worn out by brain labor.
As Mr. Dowden, in his life of Southey, points out, the literary
career of the poet falls into two periods: a period during which he
devoted himself chiefly to poetry, and a later period during which
prose occupied the first place.
Southey's poetry is not of the first rank. It is too intentional and
well-ordered. He had not the imagination to cope with the subject-
matter of his epics,- which, as in 'Thalaba' and 'Kehama,' is taken
## p. 13681 (#507) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13681
from wild Arabian legends, or as in "Roderick,' from the dim rich
pages of mediæval chronicle. His simple, serious spirit expresses
itself most adequately in his ballads, and in such poems as 'The
Battle of Blenheim,' 'The Complaints of the Poor,' and in the quiet,
measured verse of the 'Inscriptions. ' His prose has more of the
light of inspiration. Its sustained, sober excellence is well adapted to
the long-drawn-out impersonal narratives which Southey could handle
with so much skill and ease. He united the patience of the media-
val chronicler with the culture of the modern historian. He wrote,
in the sober temper of the scholar, of "old, unhappy, far-off things,
and battles long ago. " For him the fever had departed from them.
He was not a dramatist in his conception of history. What had been
done had been done, and he recorded it impassionately. Yet he was
not without keen sympathies, as his Life of Cowper' and his 'Life
of Nelson' show. Southey as a biographer reveals his own high
standards of life, his love of equity, his appreciation of noble achieve-
ment wherever found, his belief in character as the basis of well-
being. He himself was altogether true-hearted. The manliness which
pervades all his works makes large compensation for the lack of the
divine spark of genius.
