Chapter V · THE WORKS OF EURIPIDES

Of nearly one hundred dramas composed by Euripides nineteen[411] have survived. These are now discussed in the approximate chronological order; the precise date of production is, however, known in but few cases.

The Alcestis[412] (Ἄλκηστις), acted in 438 B.C., when the poet was already forty-two years old, is the earliest. It formed the fourth play of a tetralogy which contained the lost works Women of Crete, Alcmæon at Psophis, and Telephus. Euripides obtained the second prize, being vanquished by Sophocles—with what play is not known. The scene is laid at Pheræ and presents the palace of Admetus, King of Thessaly. The god Apollo relates how he has induced the Fates to allow Admetus to escape death on his destined day, if he can find some one to die in his stead. All refused save his wife, Alcestis, whose death therefore is to happen this very day. Thanatos (Death) enters and Apollo in vain asks him to spare the queen; a quarrel follows, and Apollo departs with threats. The chorus of Pheræan elders enter and hear, from a servant, of Alcestis’ courageous leave-takings. Next the queen is borne forth and dies amid the lamentations of her husband and little son. All save the chorus retire to prepare for the funeral, when Heracles enters. Admetus comes forth and insists on making the hero his guest, pretending that it is a stranger who has died. Heracles is taken to the guest-chamber and the elders reproach Admetus for his unseasonable hospitality. The funeral procession is moving forward when Pheres, father of Admetus, enters to pay his respects to the dead. His son with cold fury repels him: why did he, an aged man, not consent to die, and so save Alcestis? A vigorous and coarse altercation follows. When all have gone the butler enters, complaining of Heracles’ drunken feasting; the latter soon follows, and is quickly sobered by learning the truth. He proclaims his intention of rescuing Alcestis from Thanatos, and hurries away. Admetus returns followed by the chorus, expressing his utter grief and desolation. Heracles arrives with a veiled woman, whom he says he has won as a prize at some athletic contest; he must now depart to fulfil his next “labour”—the capture of Diomedes’ man-eating steeds—and requests Admetus to take care of the woman till his return. The king reluctantly consents, and Heracles unveils her, whereupon Admetus recognizes his wife. She does not speak, being (as Heracles explains) for three days yet subject to the infernal deities.[413] The play ends with the joy of Admetus, a dry remark of Heracles on true hospitality, and a few lines[414] from the chorus expressing wonder at the mysterious ways of Heaven.

The Greek introductions to this play contain interesting criticisms: “the close of the drama is somewhat comic”; “the drama is more or less satyric, because it ends in joy and pleasure”. These remarks, coupled with the fact that the Alcestis (as the last play of the tetralogy) occupied the place of the customary satyric drama, have caused much discussion. It is enough to say here: first, that the Alcestis is in no sense a satyric play;[415] second, that it undoubtedly presents comic features; third, that none the less the work belongs to the sphere of tragedy. It is sometimes difficult, and often undesirable, to label dramatic poems too definitely; but we must certainly avoid the impression that this play is a comedy. It deals poignantly with the most solemn interests of humanity; the comic scenes merely show, what is almost as obvious elsewhere, that Euripides imitates actual life more closely than his two great rivals. Nothing is gained, however, by ignoring the comic element. The altercation between Apollo and Thanatos contains much that surprises us—the wit[416] and the eager, wrangling, bargaining tone of the dispute. Again the quarrel between Pheres and his son, admirable in its skilful revelation of character, jars terribly when enacted over the body of Alcestis. Heracles’ half-tipsy lecture to the slave shocks us in a demigod about to wrestle with Death himself. But the whole situation as between Alcestis and Admetus, Admetus and Heracles, is handled with dignity and extraordinary pathos. The death scene, especially Admetus’ despairing address to his wife; the even finer passage when the king returns but shrinks from the cold aspect of his widowed house; the magnificent and lovely odes, above all the song which describes the wild beasts of Othrys’ side sporting to the music of Apollo—these are thoroughly suited to tragedy.

The plot is apparently[417] quite simple, but one fact should be mentioned. The rescue of Alcestis is due directly to the drunkenness of Heracles. He is prevented from learning the facts in an ordinary way by Admetus; had he behaved normally, he would have left Pheræ still unenlightened, since Admetus has forbidden[418] his slave to speak. It is his intoxication alone which goads the butler to explain.

The character-drawing is skilful, often subtle. Heracles, good-hearted but somewhat dense, sensual and coarse-fibred, is half-way between the demigod of the Heracles Furens and the boisterous glutton of comedy. Capable of splendid impulses, he is yet a masterpiece of breezy tactlessness, as when with hideous slyness he suggests to Admetus (in the presence of the restored wife) that the king may console himself by a new marriage. Pheres and Admetus are an admirable pair. Both are selfish, Admetus with pathetic unconsciousness, his father with cynical candour. Pheres is quite willing to give elaborate honour to the dead woman so long as it costs little; Admetus—is it true of him that he is ready to utter splendid heroic speeches so long as the sacrifice is made to save him? Not so; he feels terribly. But the comparison between father and son reminds us how easily sentiment can become aged into etiquette. At present, however, he is a man of generous instincts—“spoiled”. He needs a salutary upheaval of his home: from afar he prophesies of Thorvald Helmer in A Doll’s House. Alcestis herself is a curious study. Innumerable readers have extolled her as one of the noblest figures in Euripides’ great gallery of heroines; this in spite of the fact that she is frigid and unimaginative, ungenerous and basely narrow, in her spiritual and social outlook. One great and noble deed stands to her credit—she is voluntarily dying to preserve Admetus’ life. Our profound respect Alcestis can certainly claim, but the love and pity of which so much is said are scarcely due to her. They are extorted, if at all, by the elaborate exertions of the other characters, who vie with one another in painting a picture of the tenderness which has illumined the Pheræan palace like quiet sunshine. But a dramatist cannot build up a great character by a series of testimonies from friends. He has undoubtedly portrayed an interesting personality, as he always does, but to put her beside creations like Medea and Phædra is merely absurd. From the beginning of her first intolerable speech[419] we know her for that frightful figure, the thoroughly good woman with no imagination, no humour, no insight. One hears much of the failures of Euripides; this is perhaps a real failure. For we are not to suppose that the rigidity and coldness of Alcestis are a dexterous stroke of art; it is not his intention to give a novel, true, and unflattering portrait of a traditional stage favourite, as he so often delighted to do. Everything indicates that he wished to make Alcestis sublime and lovable. But there is a fatal difference between her and the later women. Euripides has realized her from the outside. He has given us in the mouths of the other characters warm descriptions of her charm, but he has not succeeded in drawing a charming woman. She has not “come alive” in his hands.

The plot of the Alcestis has been studied by the late Dr. Verrall in an essay[420] of extraordinary skill and interest. He lays special emphasis on certain peculiar features in the treatment. First, Heracles is represented as in no way the sublime demigod who ought to have been depicted, in view of the amazing exploit which awaits him; the only heroic language put into his mouth is uttered when he is intoxicated, and the account—if it can be called such—which he gives later of Alcestis’ deliverance shows a studied lack of impressiveness. Second, Alcestis is interred with unheard-of speed; Admetus, seeing her expire, instantly makes ready to convey her body to the tomb. From these facts in chief and from many details Dr. Verrall deduces his theory that Alcestis never dies at all. Her expectation of death (founded on the story about Apollo’s bargain) and the atmosphere of mourning which hangs over Admetus’ house and capital on the fatal day, have so wrought upon the queen that she finally swoons. Later Heracles visits the tomb, finds Alcestis recovering, and restores her to the king. His annoyance with Admetus, which leads him to allow his host to “think what he pleases,” coupled with his own rodomontade at the palace gate, gave rise to the legend that Heracles fought with Death for a woman who had actually quitted life. Finally, the quasi-theological prologue, in which Apollo and Thanatos appear and give warrant to the orthodox rendering of the story, is a mere figment, revealed as such to the discreet by its utterly ungodlike tone, and only tacked on to a quite human drama in order to save the poet from legal indictment as an enemy of current theology.

This superb essay has met with wide-spread admiration, some adhesion, much opposition, but no refutation. If we are to judge of the existing plays as one mass, the examination of outstanding specimens of rationalism such as the Ion will convince us that the Alcestis is what Dr. Verrall thought it. But this play does stand apart from the rest, as do the Rhesus and the Cyclops. However close it may lie to the Medea in date, it is very early in manner; a capital instance of this, the character of Alcestis, has already been mentioned. The best view is, perhaps, that curious features which in other works might appear so bad as to be evidently intended for some other than the ostensible purpose, are in this case due to inexpertness.[421] For example, the extraordinary fact that Alcestis’ rescue is due to nothing but the drunkenness of Heracles, is perhaps a mere oversight on the poet’s part. Similarly the poorness of the last scene may be no cunning device, but comparative poverty of inspiration. It is a tenable view that Euripides intended to write a quite orthodox treatment of the story, but has only partially succeeded in reaching the sureness and brilliance of his later compositions.[422]

The Medea (Μήδεια) was produced in 431 B.C. as the first play of a tetralogy containing also Philoctetes, Dictys, and the satyric play The Harvesters (Θερισταί). Euripides obtained only the third prize, and even Sophocles was second to Euphorion, son of Æschylus. The scene represents the house of Medea at Corinth. She has come there with her two young sons, and her husband Jason, whom she helped to gain the Golden Fleece in Colchis. Jason has become estranged from Medea, owing to his projected marriage with Glauce, the daughter of King Creon. At this point the play opens. The aged nurse of Medea comes forth and, in one of the most celebrated speeches in Euripides, laments her mistress’ flight from Colchis and her subsequent troubles; she fears that Medea will seek revenge. The two boys return from play, attended by their old “pædagogus,” who informs his fellow-servant that King Creon intends to banish Medea and her children. The nurse sends them within. The chorus of Corinthian women enter and inquire after Medea, who comes from the house in the deepest distress. She speaks with deep feeling about the sorrows and restraints which society puts upon women,[423] and after a pathetic description of her own forlorn state, begs her visitors to aid by silence if she finds any means of revenge. They have just consented, when Creon appears and orders her to leave the land on the instant, with her children. When she expostulates, he explains that he fears her: she is well known as a magician; moreover, she has uttered threats against himself, his daughter, and Jason. Medea in vain seeks to escape her reputation for “wisdom”; in spite of her offer to live quietly in Corinth, Creon repeats his behest. By urgent pleading, she obtains from him one day’s grace. When the king has departed, Medea addresses the chorus with fierce triumph: she now has opportunity for revenge. After considering possible methods, she decides on poison. But first, what refuge is she to find when her plot has succeeded? she will wait a little, and if no chance of safe retirement shows itself, she will attack her foes sword in hand. The chorus, impressed by her spirit, declare that after all the centuries during which poets have covered women with infamy, now at last honour is coming to their sex. They lament the decay of truth and honour, as shown in Jason’s desertion. Jason enters, reproaching Medea for her folly in alienating the king, but offering help to lighten her banishment. Medea falls upon him in a terrible speech, relating all the benefits she has conferred and the crime she has committed in his cause. Jason replies that it was the Love-God which constrained her to help him, nor is he ungrateful. But she has her reward—a reputation among the Greeks for wisdom. He is contracting this new marriage to provide for his children; Medea’s complaints are due to short-sighted jealousy. After a bitter debate, in which Medea scornfully refuses his aid, he retires. The chorus sing the dread power of Love, and lament the wreck which it has made of Medea’s life. A stranger enters—Ægeus, King of Athens, who has been to Delphi for an oracle which shall remove his childlessness. Medea begs him to give her shelter in Athens whenever she comes thither from Corinth; in return for this, she will by her art remove his childlessness. He consents, and withdraws. Sure of her future, Medea now triumphantly expounds her plan. She will make a pretended reconciliation with Jason and beg that her children be allowed to remain. They are to seek Jason’s bride, bearing presents in order to win this favour. These gifts will be poisoned; the princess and all who touch her will perish. Then she will slay her children to complete the misery of Jason. The chorus in vain protest; she turns from them and despatches a slave to summon Jason. The choric ode which follows extols, in lines of amazing loveliness, the glory of Attica—its atmosphere of wisdom, poetry, and love. But how shall such a land harbour a murderess? Jason returns, and is greeted by Medea with a speech of contrition by which he is entirely deceived. She calls her children forth, and there is a pathetic scene which affects her, for all her guilty purpose, with genuine emotion. She puts her pretended plan before Jason, and watches the father depart with the two boys and their pædagogus carrying the presents. The ode which follows laments the fatal step that has now been taken. The pædagogus brings the boys back with news that their sentence of exile has been remitted, and that the princess has accepted the gifts. Medea addresses herself to the next task. Now that her plot against Glauce is in train, the children must die. The famous soliloquy which follows exhibits the sway alternately exerted over her by maternal love and the thirst for revenge; after a dreadful struggle she determines to obey her “passion” and embrace vengeance. The children are sent within. The next ode is a most painfully real and intimate revelation of a parent’s anxiety and sorrows. A messenger hurries up, crying to Medea that she must flee; Creon and his daughter are both dead. Medea greets his news with cool delight, braces herself for her last deed, and enters the house. The chorus utter a desperate prayer to the Sun-god to save his descendants; but at once the children’s cries are heard. Scarcely have they died away when Jason furiously enters, followed by henchmen. His chief thought is to save his children from the vengeance of Creon’s kinsmen. The chorus at once tell him they are dead, and how. In frenzy he flings himself upon the door. But he suddenly recoils as the voice of Medea, clear and contemptuous, descends from the air. She is seen on high, driving a magic chariot given to her by the Sun-god. There breaks out a frightful wounding altercation, Jason begging wildly to be allowed to see and to bury his children’s bodies, Medea sternly refusing; she will herself bury them beyond the borders of Corinth. She departs through the air, leaving Jason utterly broken.

The literary history of this play is extremely interesting, though obscure. First, is it later, or earlier, than the Trachiniæ? One general idea is common to the two tragedies; but the treatment is utterly dissimilar, and one may not unreasonably believe that Sophocles has sought to reprove Euripides, to paint his own conception of a noble wronged wife, and to show how a woman so placed should demean herself. Secondly, there is some reason[424] to believe that two editions of the Medea where for a time in existence. Euripides almost certainly himself remodelled the work, presumably for a second “production,” but to what extent it is hard to say. Thirdly, and above all, there is the question of his originality. The longer Greek “argument” asserts that he appears to have borrowed the drama from Neophron and to have introduced alterations. This interesting problem has been discussed elsewhere.[425] Neophron’s play, if one is to judge by the style and versification of his brief fragments, should be regarded as written early in the second half of the fifth century.

The dramatic structure of the Medea calls for the closest attention. In Sophocles we have observed how that collision of wills and emotions, which is always the soul of drama, arises from the confrontation of two persons. In the present drama that collision takes place in the bosom of a single person. Sophocles would probably have given us a Jason whose claim upon our sympathy was hardly less than that of Medea. Complication, with him, is to be found in his plots, not in his characters. But here we have a subject which has since proved so rich a mine of tragic and romantic interest—the study of a soul divided against itself. Medea’s wrongs, her passionate resentment, and her plans of revenge do not merely dominate the play, they are the play from the first line to the close. Certain real or alleged structural defects should be noted. First, we observe the incredible part taken by the chorus; they raise not a finger to stay the designs of Medea upon the king and his daughter; and we are given no reason to suppose that they are unfriendly to the royal house. The episode of Ægeus, moreover, is puzzling. Though quite necessary in view of Medea’s helpless condition and prepared for by her remarks as to a “tower of refuge,”[426] it is quite unneeded by one who can command a magic flying chariot. Moreover, this chariot itself has been often censured, notably by Aristotle,[427] who regards it as to all intents and purposes a deus ex machina, and on this ground very properly objects to it.

Dr. Verrall’s[428] theory meets all these difficulties. He supposes that several of Euripides’ plays were originally written for private performance. The Medea, so acted, had no obtrusive chorus, and no miraculous escape of the murderess. To the episode of Ægeus corresponded a finale in which Medea, by allowing her husband to bury the bodies of his children, and by instituting the religious rites referred to in our present text,[429] induced both Jason and the Corinthians to allow her safe passage to Athens. This view, or a view essentially resembling it, must be accepted, not so much because of the absurdity involved (as it appears to us) by the presence of the chorus, as the utter futility of the Ægeus-scene in the present state of the text.

The characterization shows Euripides at his best. In the heroine he gives us the first and possibly the finest of his marvellous studies in feminine human nature. Alcestis he viewed and described from without; Medea he has imagined from within. Her passionate love, which is so easily perverted by brutality into murderous hate, her pride, will-power, ferocity, and dæmonic energy, are all depicted with flawless mastery and sympathy. Desperate and cruel as this woman shows herself, she is no cold-blooded plotter. Creon has heard of her unguarded threats, and his knowledge wellnigh ruins her project. Her first words to Jason, “thou utter villain,” followed by a complete and appalling indictment of his cynicism[430] and ingratitude, are not calculated to lull suspicion. But however passionate, she owns a splendid intellect. She faces facts[431] and understands her weaknesses. When seeking an advantage, she can hold herself magnificently in hand. The pretended reconciliation with Jason is a scene of weird thrill for the spectators. Her archness in discussing his influence over the young princess is almost hideous; and while she weeps in his arms we remember with sick horror her scornful words after practising successfully the same arts on the king. Above all, there is here no petulant railing at “unjust gods,” or “blind fate”. Her undoing in the past has come from “trust in the words of a man that is a Greek”;[432] her present murderous rage springs from no Até but from her own passion (θυμός). The dramatist has set himself to express human life in terms of humanity.

Jason is a superb study—a compound of brilliant manner, stupidity, and cynicism. If only his own desires, interests, and comforts are safe, he is prepared to confer all kinds of benefits. The kindly, breezy words which he addresses to his little sons must have made hundreds of excellent fathers in the audience feel for a moment a touch of personal baseness—“am I not something like this?” That is the moral of Jason and countless personages of Euripides: they are so detestable and yet so like ourselves. Jason indeed dupes himself as well as others. He really thinks he is kind and gentle, when he is only surrendering to an emotional atmosphere. His great weakness is the mere perfection of his own egotism; he has no power at all to realize another’s point of view. Throughout the play he simply refuses to believe that Medea feels his desertion as she asserts. For him her complaints are “empty words”.[433] To the very end his self-centred stupidity is almost pathetic: “didst thou in truth determine on their death for the sake of wifely honour?”[434] One of the most deadly things in the play hangs on this blindness. Medea has just asked him, with whatever smile she can summon up, to induce “your wife” to procure pardon for the children. Jason, instead of destroying himself on the spot in self-contempt, replies courteously: “By all means; and I imagine that I shall persuade her, if she is like the rest of women”.[435] Considering all the circumstances, this is perhaps unsurpassed for shameless brutality. Medea, however, with a gleam in her eye which one may imagine, answers with equal urbanity, even with quiet raillery. She has perhaps no reason to complain; it is precisely this portentous insensibility which will secure her success.

The minor characters are, in their degree, excellently drawn—Creon above all. His short scene is unforgettable; it is that familiar sight—a weak man encouraging himself to firmness by exaggerating his own severity. His delicious little grumble, “my chivalrous instincts have got me into trouble more often than I like to think of,”[436] stamps him as the peer of Dogberry and Justice Shallow.

As a piece of Greek, the Medea is perhaps the finest work of Euripides. The iambics have a simple brilliance and flexible ease which had been unknown hitherto, and which indeed were never rivalled afterwards. Such things as

in Medea’s appeal to Creon, or Jason’s rebuke to her:

or the expression of her “melting mood”:

are in their unobtrusive way masterpieces of language. But it is in vain to quote specimens; the whole work is as novel and as great in linguistic skill as in dramatic art. In particular the speeches of the nurse at the opening, of Medea when rebuking and again when conciliating Jason—above all, her fearful soliloquy and address to her children, touch the summit of dramatic eloquence. The lyric passages are on the whole less remarkable, but the mystic loveliness of the ode[440] celebrating the glories of Attica, and the anapæsts[441] which give so haunting an expression to a parent’s yearning over his children, are among the most precious things this tender as well as terrible poet has bequeathed to us.

The Heracleidæ[442] (Ἡρακλεῖδαι) or Children of Heracles, is a short[443] play of uncertain date, usually referred to the early years of the Peloponnesian War (431-404) and by some to the date 422 B.C. Nothing is known as to the companion plays, or the success obtained by the tetralogy.

The scene is laid before the temple of Zeus at Marathon in Attica. The young sons of Heracles are discovered with the aged Iolaus, their father’s comrade, who explains how, after Heracles departed to Heaven, Eurystheus of Argos has hunted the hero’s family through Greece. They have taken refuge in Attica; Alcmena, mother of Heracles, and the daughters are now within the temple; Hyllus, the eldest son, has gone to seek another refuge in case Athens fails them. Copreus,[444] a herald from Argos, enters and is dragging the suppliants away when the chorus of aged Athenians enter. Copreus disregards their remonstrances, but is confronted by the king, Demophon, and his brother Acamas. He insists that the Heracleidæ are Argive subjects: let not Demophon risk war with Argos. Iolaus appeals for protection, and is granted it; Copreus retires with threats of instant war. After an ode of defiance by the chorus, Demophon returns with news that a noble virgin must be sacrificed to Persephone, and he will not slay an Athenian girl. Iolaus is in despair, when Macaria, one of Heracles’ daughters, comes forth and offers herself. After a proud but melancholy farewell she goes. A serf of Hyllus arrives, bringing, he says, good news. At this Iolaus joyfully summons Alcmena, who imagines that another herald is assaulting him; but he announces that Hyllus has returned with a large host of allies. Iolaus, despite the serf’s rueful gibes, insists on going to the fray and, dressed in ancient arms from the temple, totters off. The chorus proclaim the justice of their cause, invoking Zeus and Athena. The attendant returns with news of complete victory. Iolaus was taken into Hyllus’ chariot and being (by favour of Heracles and Hebe) miraculously restored for a while to his youthful vigour, captured Eurystheus. The chorus celebrate the glory of Athens and acclaim Heracles, who is now proved (despite report) to be dwelling in Heaven. Eurystheus is led in and Alcmena gloats over him, promising him death. The messenger intervenes: Athenians do not kill prisoners. She insists. Then Eurystheus breaks silence: it was Hera who forced him to these persecutions, and if he is now slain in cold blood, a curse will fall on the slayer. The chorus at length accept Alcmena’s evasion that he be killed and his corpse be given to his friends. Eurystheus presents Athens with an oracle which declares that his spirit shall be hostile to the Heracleidæ, when, forgetting this kindness, they invade Attica.[445] Alcmena bids her attendants convey Eurystheus within and destroy him. The chorus[446] briefly express satisfaction at being free from this guilt, and the play ends.

The Heracleidæ is one of the least popular[447] among Euripides’ works. It has indeed unmistakable beauties. The heroic daughter of Heracles and her proud insistence on no rivalry in her sacrifice have always moved admiration. The Greek style, moreover, though not equal to that of the Medea, has all the Euripidean limpidity and ease. Such lines as

in Iolaus’ conversations with Hyllus’ thrall, and the lyric phrase

haunt the ear. Moreover, the chivalry with which Demophon and his citizens champion the helpless must have stirred Athenian hearts. But our pleasure is repeatedly checked by incidents grotesque, horrible, or inexplicable. To the first category belongs the absurd scene in which Iolaus totters away amid badinage to do battle with Argos. There is a comic note, again, in the scene where Alcmena for the first time appears and supposes that Hyllus’ messenger is another hostile herald from Argos. As we know who he is, her attack on him shows that painful mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous which so often marks Euripides’ work; here the comic prevails over the touching. Secondly, the interview in which Eurystheus is presented to Alcmena, who gloats at her ease over him, is horrible, however natural. And finally the inexplicable or at least puzzling features are perhaps the most striking of all.

The first difficulty concerns the personality which forms the background of the whole; the apotheosis of Heracles is treated in equivocal fashion throughout. Iolaus[450] alone seems entirely convinced. Alcmena, after news of the victory to which her son has given miraculous aid, utters the candid words:—[451]

And her faith is echoed in less prosaic language[452] by the chorus, who proclaim the falsehood of the story that Heracles after his passing by fire went down to the abode of Hades; in truth he dwells in Heaven and in the golden court lives as the spouse of Hebe. But these confessions are due to the marvels on the battle-field, marvels upon which the narrator himself takes pains to throw grave doubt.[453] Macaria, though she has every reason[454] to dilate on the glories of her father, speaks of him but briefly and with only the normal filial respect.[455] Of the others, Copreus ignores him; from the man’s character we expect sneers and refutations of the miraculous stories such as are put by our poet in the mouth of Lycus.[456] Eurystheus speaks of him generously, but in terms which imply that he has never heard, much less accepted, the marvellous accounts of his enemy: “I knew thy son was no mere cypher, but in good sooth a man; for even though he was mine enemy, yet will I speak well of him, that man of worth”.[457] Demophon himself, the champion of Heracles’ children, even when he has been reminded (by Iolaus) how the hero rescued Theseus, father of Demophon, from Hades itself, in his reply treats this overwhelming claim ambiguously and with nothing more than politeness.[458] All this seems to show the dramatist’s belief that Heracles was simply a “noble man”—an ἐσθλὸς ἀνήρ—whose divine traits are the offspring of minds like those of Iolaus and Alcmena, whose sagacity throughout the drama is painfully low.

Macaria’s fate, also, at first sight causes perplexity. After she leaves the scene, nothing[459] more is heard of her. When and where she dies we are not told; the promise[460] of Iolaus that she shall be honoured by him in death, as in life, above all women, produces no effect—for we are told nothing about her burial; whether the advent of Hyllus’ reinforcements should or does make any difference to the necessity for the sacrifice is not discussed. But there is good reason to suppose that a whole episode, on Macaria’s death, has been lost.

The army of Hyllus is the most astonishing feature in the play. All the action and all the pathos depend upon the helplessness which involves the Heracleidæ. Every other city has rejected them; if Athens fails all is lost—so we are told repeatedly.[461] Yet at the last moment Hyllus returns with a positive army. Whence has it come? How can Iolaus have been ignorant that such aid was possible? We are told nothing. The Athenian leaders apparently, Iolaus and Alcmena[462] certainly, receive these incredible tidings with no feeling save placid satisfaction.

Finally, if this drama is composed in order to extol the nobility of Athens in espousing the cause of the weak, it is extraordinary that so dubious an example should be selected. The suppliants are ancestors of those very Spartans who, when the drama was produced, were the bitter and dangerous enemies of Athens. Was not her ancient kindness in saving the first generation of these foes a piece of folly? Eurystheus points this moral at the close.[463] Alcmena herself, in her cold ferocity[464] and her quibbling[465] over the dues of piety, is a clear prophecy of what fifth-century Athenians most detested in the Spartan character. Moreover, the plea of Copreus is perfectly just: Argos has a right to punish her own people if condemned; whether they were wrongly so condemned is no concern of Athens.

The upshot seems to be that Eurystheus has a bitter quarrel with a powerful noble, so bitter that when his enemy dies the king dares not leave his children at large. Through the sentimental weakness of her ruler Athens is drawn into the dispute, and history shows that she made a frightful mistake.

The Hippolytus[466] (Ἱππόλυτος Στεφανίας[467] or Στεφανηφόρος) was produced in 428 B.C. and obtained the first prize. The scene is laid in Trœzen before a house belonging to Theseus, King of Athens. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, speaks the prologue, explaining how Hippolytus, son of Theseus, scorns her and consorts always with Artemis, the virgin huntress-deity. Aphrodite therefore has caused Phædra, the wife of Theseus, to fall in love with her stepson. The king in his wrath shall bring about the death of his son. The prince enters followed by his huntsmen, and turning to the statue of Artemis with a beautiful prayer places garlands upon it, but disregards the image of Aphrodite. After the hunters have entered the palace, the chorus of Trœzenian women come to inquire after the ailing Phædra. She is borne forth, attended by her nurse, who seeks to calm the feverishness of her mistress and her passionate longing for the wild regions of the chase. She gradually learns that the queen is consumed by passion for Hippolytus. Phædra, now quite calm, describes her fight with temptation; when she saw that victory was impossible she chose death, and for this reason has refused food. The nurse offers very different counsel. Why should Phædra strive against her instincts? Even the gods have erred through love; she will cure her mistress. The remedy, she soon hints, is nothing but surrender. At this Phædra is so indignant that the other again takes refuge in ambiguity; she retires to fetch certain charms. The ode which follows proclaims the irresistible sway of love. The queen, in the meantime, has been standing near the palace-door and now recoils in horror—she has heard Hippolytus reviling the nurse; nothing, she cries, is now left to her but speedy death. Hippolytus enters in fury, followed by the nurse. After an altercation in which he threatens to break his oath of secrecy, he breaks forth into a lengthy and bitter tirade against women, but finally promises to keep his oath. When the prince has retired Phædra proclaims her resolve to avoid shame for her family and herself by death, obtaining from the chorus a promise not to divulge what has occurred; at the same time she obscurely threatens Hippolytus. After she has gone, the chorus voice their yearning to be free from this world of sin and woe; surely this trouble is a curse brought by Phædra from her house in Crete, a curse which is even now forcing her neck into the noose. A messenger rushes forth crying out that the queen has hanged herself. Theseus returns home and is speedily apprised of his loss. Suddenly he sees a letter clutched in his dead wife’s hand; on reading it he announces in fury that Hippolytus has violated his connubial rights. He appeals to his father Poseidon, god of the sea, who has promised to grant him any three prayers, to destroy Hippolytus. The prince returns, and Theseus, after a stinging attack on his son’s pretensions, banishes him. Hippolytus is prevented by his oath from defending himself effectually, and sorrowfully turns away. The chorus ponder upon the mysterious ways of Heaven and lament the downfall of the brilliant prince. One of Hippolytus’ attendants returns and informs Theseus that his son is on the point of death. A gigantic bull, sent by Poseidon out of the sea, terrified Hippolytus’ horses, which bolted and mangled their master. Theseus receives these tidings with grim satisfaction, but the goddess Artemis appears and reveals all the facts. Theseus is utterly prostrated. Hippolytus is carried in, lamenting his agony and unmerited fate. Artemis converses with him affectionately and there follows between the two men a few words lamenting the curse fulfilled by Poseidon. Artemis consoles her favourite and disappears. Hippolytus gives his father full forgiveness, and dies in his embrace.

The main impression left by a repeated study of this magnificent drama is a sense of the loveliness and delight which the transfusing genius of a poet can throw around the ruin worked by blind instinct and hate, even around a whole world tortured by belief in gods whose supreme intelligence, will, and power, are quick to punish, but never pardon. No poem in the world conveys more pungently the aroma of life’s inextinguishable beauty and preciousness. Life does not become ugly because full of sin or pain. It can only become ugly by growing unintelligible. So long as it can be understood, it remains to man, whose joys are all founded upon perception, a thing that can be loved; this is the one and sufficient reason why tragic drama is beautiful.

For the writer of the Hippolytus, then, life is something profoundly sorrowful yet profoundly dear. Hippolytus’ address to Artemis on his return from the chase is compact of that mystic loveliness which fills remote glades with a visible presentment of the beauty of holiness:—

This passion for natural beauty as the background of emotional life recurs throughout. The Trœzenian women as they enter tell of their informant—not “some one talking near the place where men play draughts,” as in the Medea, but a woman in a picture:—

Phædra in her delirium sees visions of unfettered life “beneath the poplars, amid the deep grass,” she fancies herself cheering on the hunting hounds through the pine-glades, and yearns to feel in her grasp “the iron-pointed shaft”—words to which we come back with deeper pain when in almost the same language Hippolytus, now himself delirious, longs to let out his tortured life with a “two-edged spear”.[470] When she enters the house to seek death, the chorus pour forth their yearning for escape from the sin and sorrow of this life to romantic regions where all is grace and unstained peace:—[471]

Theseus himself expresses this sense of the fragile beauty of life in lines[472] which recall the unearthly charm of Sophocles:—

Even Artemis the unloving can tell of life’s charm surviving death itself in some wise, an immortality of beautiful remembrance.[473] Throughout, the poet has used all his power to invest the theme with loveliness of phrasing. Elsewhere, skilful as his writing is, he often gives us what is practically prose; the Hippolytus is his nearest approach to the manner of Sophocles.

Nor is the likeness confined to verbal expression. The theology is, or claims to be, the theology of Sophocles. The traditional Olympians are accepted as persons, with the powers and purposes which current belief attributed to them. This is the view which Sophocles accepts and expounds. Euripides who certainly did not accept it, here expounds it—in his own way and with deadly results. Many times Euripides questions the very existence of these deities, but now he sees fit to accept them for a moment, and depicts life as lived under such rulers. Men and women can feel and recreate the beauty of this world, but these gods time and again dash all into pitiful fragments. “The world is ruled by stupid fiends, who spend eternity thwarting one another. Do we dwell in a universe or a grinning chaos?”

Is this all? Very far from it. Almost all the action of the tragedy could be accounted for—had we not this disconcerting divine explanation—on purely “human” lines, though what “human” means is, as the poet plainly perceives, no less difficult a question than that of theology. But at least the sorrows of Trœzen scarcely need the baneful persons of Olympus. For the three sufferers are, after all, not blameless. They share that casual sinfulness—for we cannot avoid the use of question-begging words—which is the lot of man. Hippolytus errs (in Greek eyes) by his complete aversion from sexual passion; he errs in all eyes by the arrogance with which he proclaims it. His famous speech[474] is too long for a spontaneous burst of resentment; it becomes a frigid piece of self-glorification. It is precisely this arrogance which stings Phædra to the thought of revenge.[475] Theseus, in spite of the pathetic blindness with which he imputes[476] his misery to some ancestor’s sin, is the original cause of it. Hippolytus is the offspring of his youthful incontinence.[477] Then, when he has “settled down,” it is precisely his respectable marriage which brings the consequence of his early amour to fruition; his son and his young wife are of nearly the same age. As for Phædra herself, the passion which she feels need not be attributed to a personal goddess. Lawlessness is in her veins; her mother and sister have both sinned:[478] Crete, “the Isle of Awful Love,”[479] brands its name upon line after line of the play. For this predisposition to unchastity many of Euripides’ contemporaries, as of our own, would have blamed her heartily. The poet himself does not, as his splendidly sympathetic treatment of her shows; but neither does he feel any need to lay the blame upon Aphrodite. Phædra’s offence, her contribution to disaster, lies in her early toying with her passion, when she founded a shrine of the love-goddess in Hippolytus’ name;[480] in her accompanying Theseus (apparently without a struggle) to Trœzen and the society of the prince; in her determination to punish Hippolytus for his bitter pride.

To banish “the gods” and attribute sin to “heredity,” is that not merely to substitute one word for another? Yes, but the poet herein has his eye fixed on formal theology. Well aware that the glib invocation of “heredity” or “environment” is no more conclusive than “the will of the gods,” he yet insists that sin is a matter of psychology. We must study human nature if we mean to understand and conquer sin. If we regard Aphrodite or Artemis as persons external to ourselves and of superhuman power we lose all hope of moral improvement in our own hearts. But if we accept these devastating powers as forces in human nature, we may hope by study and self-discipline in some degree to control them.

Thus the drama is full of subtly wise psychology: it is an interesting comment on much that has been written about “realist” play-writing that the Hippolytus, which contains some of the most romantic poetry in Greek literature, is also as sincere and profound in characterization as the work of Ibsen himself. Theseus and his son we have already considered; Phædra and her nurse require deeper study. The latter is a masterpiece among the “minor” characters of Euripides. Her tenderness for the young queen and passionate desire at all costs to win her peace; the dignity which life and its contemplation can give even to coarse-fibred[481] natures; her feeling for the deepest pathos of life—these things constitute a great dramatic figure. It is to her that the poet gives his most poignant expression of that mingled pain and beauty which we discussed a moment ago:—

She, too, it is who in words[483] of almost equal beauty urges Phædra to yield to her passion:—

The nurse makes moral weakness into a very religion,[484] and Phædra’s heart, one would suppose, is finally broken when, to this appeal that the gods themselves are against her, is added proof that man is utterly unable to understand. “If thy life had not been in such danger,” says the nurse, “and thou hadst happened to be a chaste woman, I should not thus lead thee on,”[485] and again: “Thy duty, to be sure, forbids sin; but, as things are, be advised by me”.[486] This hideous purring is perhaps Phædra’s bitterest shame. No one can understand, except the prince who seems so utterly remote. Hippolytus, after her death, can say[487]

What does Phædra herself say? Is there any reply to the dreadful eloquence of her old attendant? There is only one reply conceivable, and she offers it: “Whatever gods may do, or men think, I must so act as to be able to respect myself”.[488] Euripides insists that the centre of ethics lies in man himself. For Phædra there is no soul on which she can rely but her own; the conflict must be fought out within herself. The great speech[489] in which she tells her spiritual history to the chorus without any reserve or faltering, is the kernel of the tragedy. We realize how empty of all comfort life can be for those who resolutely reject outworn creeds and turn to seek for a better. Here is no thought, no hint, of a saviour; the puny soul must struggle alone with an uncomprehended universe. Æschylus had found a saviour in Zeus;[490] Euripides can see no comfort in gods who are less virtuous than men. In this speech, too, we note for the first time a portrayal of moral temptation and a clear conception of conscience. Sophocles understands well how duty can brace the soul to heroic life or death, but for him the sanction of duty lies in the will of external deities. For Euripides conscience is sufficient as a rule of conduct.

Phædra is a masterpiece of characterization. Whatever we are to guess of the earlier[491] picture, she is here a noble and spirited woman, who cannot help her instincts but who can and will dispute their power over her life. She is, of course, not perfect—if she were she would be no fit subject for drama—and the manner in which Euripides has caused the action to hinge precisely upon her weaknesses, without lessening our respect and affection, is one of the most improving studies provided by dramatic art. The little crevices of circumstance by which wrong-doing—the destruction of Hippolytus—creeps into her soul are beautifully indicated. She is wasted by fasting,[492] a state conducive to keener perception and weaker will. She has been brought—without any attempt on her part, so surely she may indulge in the disastrous joy[493]—from Athens to the little town where the prince lives. Her husband, as it chances,[494] is from home and her life is left empty for “long, long thoughts”.[495] When she dwells upon her passion the recollection of her mother’s and her sister’s fate half attracts while it half repels.[496] Her passionate nature insists on revealing some part of her distress to the keen eyes of the nurse, who forthwith joins the claims of old affection[497] to this new secret pain. So it is that she is half-conquered by what she will not do:—

But the nurse will not forbear, and the comforting promise of a charm which shall “still this disease,”[499] as Phædra perhaps half-suspects,[500] is an undertaking to win Hippolytus. The dread strain of illness, passion, and shame have turned the woman for a moment into a nervous child.[501] Thus it comes about that without disgrace, without forfeiture of her conscience, Phædra moves towards the dread moment[502] at which she hears the outcry of Hippolytus. Then after all the anguish, she listens to his intolerable endless speech! Such is the situation in which murder is conceived. In this way Hippolytus’ σωφροσύνη has certainly been his undoing.[503]

We are told[504] that this play is a second version of the theme, and that it was called The Crowned Hippolytus (from the lovely address to Artemis) to distinguish it from the first, called The Veiled Hippolytus. This version (now lost) is said to have contained “improprieties” which the poet afterwards removed. This refers to the attitude of Phædra, who showed less reserve in her passion than in the later play. She invoked the moon-goddess, perhaps to aid her in winning Hippolytus, and boldly pointed to the infidelities of Theseus as an excuse for her own passion.[505] The reproaches[506] which Aristophanes lays upon Phædra refer perhaps only to this earlier version, but his most famous gibe[507] is upon a line[508] of our text,

“My tongue hath sworn; my soul abides unsworn.” This seems to give us the measure of the comic poet’s criticism; he blames Euripides for this sentiment, and yet Hippolytus even in his most desperate trouble will not clear himself by breaking his oath. One cannot, however, refrain from pointing out that even if he had broken it, Theseus would not have believed him,[509] and that Hippolytus realizes this.[510]

The Hecuba (Ἑκάβη) is the next play in order of date; it was performed about 425 B.C.[511] This tragedy was enormously popular throughout antiquity, as the great volume of the scholia proves. It was one of the three plays—the others were Phœnissæ and Orestes—used as an Euripidean reading-book in the Byzantine schools.

The scene is laid in Thrace, where the Greeks are encamped after the fall of Troy; the background is a tent wherein captive Trojan women are quartered. The ghost of Polydorus, Priam’s youngest son, tells how he has been murdered by the Thracian king, Polymestor; he has appeared in a dream to his mother Hecuba. On his departure, Hecuba enters, and soon learns that her daughter Polyxena is to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles. Odysseus comes to fetch the maiden, who welcomes death as a relief from slavery. Soon Talthybius enters, summoning Hecuba to bury Polyxena, whose noble death has filled the Greeks with admiration. Hecuba sends a woman to fetch sea-water for the obsequies, and this messenger returns with the body of Polydorus. Hecuba exclaims that the murderer is Polymestor: her dream has told her. Agamemnon enters, and she induces him to connive at her taking vengeance upon the Thracian, his ally. Next she sends for Polymestor and his children, and (after a beautiful ode on the last hours of Troy), they arrive. Polymestor is induced to go with his little sons within the tent, where they are slaughtered and he himself blinded. His cries bring back Agamemnon, who rejects the pleas of Polymestor. The Thracian, in his despair, prophesies the strange end both of Agamemnon and of Hecuba. He is dragged away, and the drama ends with preparations for the voyage to Greece.

This tragedy, let it be said plainly, is on the whole poor and uninteresting.[512] It has been frequently noted, for example, that the plot is “episodic,” that it falls into two divisions, the story of Polyxena and the vengeance upon Polymestor, which are really two small dramas with no genuine connexion. To this it has been replied that the spiritual history of Hecuba supplies unity to the whole; that these episodes bring out her development from a victim into a fiend.[513] But this is scarcely satisfactory. For the two parts are developed so completely along their several lines, they have so little dependence upon one another, that they could stand apart; and that is the real test. Further, the poet himself is uneasy. He is anxious to make some sort of connexion, but it is curiously adventitious. His device, that the corpse of Polydorus is discovered by the woman sent for water wherewith to bathe the body of Polyxena, has won too high praise. An attempt to strengthen it, or rather to draw attention to its neatness, is supplied in the conversation between Hecuba and Agamemnon:[514] “How did he die?” “By the hands of his Thracian host.” ... “Who brought his body hither?” ... “This woman. She found it upon the sea-shore.” “Was she looking for it, or busied with some other task?” The last question is absurd; Agamemnon has no reason to ask it. Other little hooks,[515] less obtrusive than this, are provided here and there to connect the two parts. If the play were an unity they would not be needed.

Again, the favourite charge against Euripides, that he delights in quasi-judicial disputes, is brought in here also. The accusation is generally unfair. Critics have been so eager to condemn this poet that they forget the trial scene of the Eumenides, the altercation between Œdipus and Creon in the Œdipus at Colonus and various other passages in the earlier tragedians. If a dispute occurs at all, it is in accordance with the genius of Greek tragedy to set it out in formally opposed speeches. One might as well complain of Hamlet’s soliloquies. But in the Hecuba there is more than this. The queen has a gusto not merely for eloquent appeals or invective, but for self-conscious rhetoric, “Filled with lament, not destitute of tears,”[516] is abominable. One is not surprised to learn that the queen is interested in professional teachers of rhetoric,[517] and one remembers that Gorgias, the greatest of them, paid his first visit to Athens a year or two[518] before this play was produced.

The whole piece in its tone and method is far below the best of Euripides’ work. Certain things are undoubtedly excellent—the famous chorus[519] already mentioned, and above all the speech[520] of Polyxena and the narrative of her death.[521] The whole work has not enough calibre. The pathos has no subtlety; the characterization is machine-made; the style, though clear and even elegant—one must allow that the first speech[522] of Polymestor, as a piece of conversational Greek, is unobtrusively perfect—has remarkably few of those feats[523] of idiom which delight us elsewhere.

Polyxena is charming, but a slight sketch only compared with the Medea and the Phædra who have preceded her. Agamemnon the cautious prince, Odysseus the opportunist, Polymestor the brutally wicked barbarian, are characters whom dozens of Euripides’ contemporaries could have produced with ease. Talthybius the herald, still more shadowy, claims remembrance by his naïve conceit.[524] Hecuba herself is hardly better. True, the poet has shown admirably how she progresses from weakness to frightful strength under the pressure of injustice, but without any very sympathetic psychology we fall short of genuine tragedy and touch only melodrama. And she is more than a little grotesque. Her strange passion for rhetorical studies we have already noted. She has, moreover, a taste for inopportune theorizing,[525] even concerning theology.[526] Her griefs themselves command our respect, and she can in one or two flashes of inspiration speak of them in language[527] not unworthy of Shakespeare himself; but there is too much repetition of merely melancholy adjectives, and though there should be only one emotion in us towards a woman who has lost all her children, we can hardly retain it when she reminds us that they were fifty in number.[528]

The apparition of the murdered Polydorus is an interesting element in the action. First, we view the early part of the drama with greater sympathy for the queen, knowing as we do the new horror which awaits her. Secondly, it is necessary that Hecuba should know how Polydorus died. Though but vaguely affected by the vision at first,[529] when parts of it are fulfilled, she remembers and believes definitely in the rest, and knows that Polymestor is the murderer.[530]

The Andromache (Ἀνδρομάχη) is perhaps the next[531] extant play in the order of time. It was not originally brought out at Athens.[532]

The action takes place before the house of Neoptolemus, prince of Phthia in Thessaly; at one side of the orchestra is the shrine of Thetis. Andromache delivers the prologue. After the fall of Troy she became the prize of Neoptolemus to whom she has borne a son, Molottus. Later the prince married Hermione, daughter of the Spartan king Menelaus. Andromache has hidden the child and herself taken sanctuary in the shrine of Thetis; the boy’s father is from home, having gone to Delphi to ask Apollo’s pardon for demanding reparation for Achilles’ death. Andromache now sends a fellow-slave to ask the aid of Peleus, king of Phthia and her master’s grandfather. Soon she is joined by the chorus, a company of Phthian women who sympathize but urge submission. Hermione enters, and after a spiteful altercation, in which she tries in vain to make the captive leave her sanctuary, departs with threats. Menelaus enters, leading Molottus; he offers Andromache her choice: will she submit to death, or see the boy slain? Andromache gives herself up, whereupon Menelaus announces that, while she must die, Molottus lies at the mercy of Hermione. By this treachery Andromache is goaded into the most bitter invective to be found in Euripides. The chorus dwell upon the folly of domestic irregularities such as those of Neoptolemus. Next Menelaus leads forth Andromache and Molottus for death, when Peleus hurries in and releases them. After a violent quarrel Menelaus throws up his daughter’s cause and departs. Peleus leads the captives away while the chorus sing his youthful exploits. From the palace comes Hermione’s nurse: deserted by her father and dreading her husband’s vengeance the princess is seeking to destroy herself. Next moment Hermione rushes out in distraction and the nurse is attempting to calm her when Orestes enters, explaining that he has called to inquire after his cousin Hermione. She begs him to take her away to Menelaus before her husband returns. Orestes agrees, reminding her that she has in the past been betrothed to him; now Neoptolemus shall pay for his insults by death at Delphi. After their departure the chorus sing of the gods who built but abandoned Troy, and of Orestes’ vengeance upon Clytæmnestra. Peleus returns, having heard of Hermione’s flight. In a moment arrives a messenger who tells how Neoptolemus has been murdered by Delphians at the instigation of Orestes. The body is borne in, and Peleus laments over it until interrupted by the goddess Thetis, his bride of long ago. She comforts him with a promise of immortality. Andromache is to marry Helenus, king of Molossia,[533] and her son is to be ancestor of a dynasty in that land.

Certain remarkable difficulties in the plot must be faced.

First is the breakdown of Menelaus in the presence of Peleus. The first half of the play has exhibited his unswerving resolve to destroy Andromache and her child. Every conceivable argument save one has been addressed to him in vain. That one argument is physical compulsion, and Peleus certainly does not offer it.[534] After a storm of mutual abuse the Spartan withdraws from the whole situation, muttering an excuse which is scarcely meant to be taken seriously: he is in a hurry to chastise an unfriendly state.[535] He goes just far enough to embitter his enemies to the utmost and not far enough to redeem his threats; and he retires without a word to his daughter after committing her to a deeply dangerous project. Menelaus has faults, but crass stupidity is not one of them; on the contrary he is reviled as the type of base cunning. Why, then, does he act with such utter futility at a crisis which anyone could have foreseen?

In the second place, when was Neoptolemus murdered? Orestes declares that the prince will be slain at Delphi, and at once departs with Hermione. After a choric song Peleus comes back, and almost at once receives the news of his grandson’s death. When Orestes utters his prophecy the messenger from Delphi can hardly be more than a mile from the house. Has he already committed the murder as a prelude to an innocent and irrelevant pilgrimage to Dodona? And, if so, why does he reveal, or rather not reveal, the fact? And why has he risked himself in Phthia when the news of his crime may at any moment be revealed?[536]

Thirdly, there is a grave difficulty in the structure, independent of Menelaus’ conduct and the dating of Orestes’ crime. The play seems to fall into two halves with but a slight connexion—the plight of Andromache and the woes of Neoptolemus’ house.

The late Dr. Verrall’s theory[537] of the play explains all these things together. Menelaus has come to see that it is to his interest that his daughter should be the wife of the Argive rather than of the Phthiote prince. He and Orestes therefore concoct a plan to this end. Two things must be achieved: Neoptolemus must be removed, and Hermione, passionately as she loves her lord, must be induced to accept his assassin. The cunning of Menelaus fastens upon the failings of his son-in-law as the path to success. First, he has offended the Delphians, and thus Orestes finds it easy to compass his death. Second, he has caused bitterness in his own house by his connexion with Andromache. Menelaus, while Orestes is at Delphi, urges Hermione into action which her jealousy approves but which her intellect (when it is allowed to speak) must and does condemn. The Spartan has no intention of killing the captives, but he sees to it that Hermione is, in the eyes of Peleus and his subjects, irretrievably committed to such an intention, which will beyond doubt incense Neoptolemus most bitterly—or would, were he still alive as Hermione supposes. Then, when she has committed herself, he calmly bows to the outburst of Peleus and leaves her ready to snatch at any hope in her hysterical despair. At this moment, carefully awaited by the plotters, Orestes appears. He has already murdered Neoptolemus, and is now ready to take Hermione away. But this is not enough. She must appear to come by her own suggestion, and it must appear that she has known at the moment of her elopement what has happened at Delphi. As she hurries from the scene he utters, apparently in consolation of her (though really she is out of hearing), so that it may lodge in the minds of the chorus, a prophecy of Neoptolemus’ fate. Later, she is to be reminded by her father and her new suitor how completely she is involved in suspicion of complicity. Thus she will be thrown into the arms of Orestes, and whatever blame there is will be laid upon Delphi.[538]

This view should in its essentials be adopted. Every dramatist commits faults; but these apparent faults in the Andromache prove too much. They tend to show not that Euripides is here inferior in construction and psychology to Sophocles, but that he is insane. Few readers could compose a speech like that of Andromache beginning ὦ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχθιστοι βροτῶν, or like the messenger’s narrative. But we could all manage the exit of Menelaus better. There is one great general objection to Verrall’s theory. Is it not much too subtle? If readers have always missed the point, would not spectators do so even more certainly? Verrall, in answer, points to a passage in the Greek Argument: τὸ δὲ δρᾶμα τῶν δευτέρων, which he takes to mean “this play is one of the sequels”.[539] He believes that the audience had a sufficient knowledge of the earlier part of the story to follow the Andromache with no perplexity. Whether this knowledge was given by an earlier play of Euripides is not of course certain, but may be regarded as likely.

We next note a feature of equal importance—the atmosphere. Every reader observes strange anachronisms of sentiment and allusion—Hermione’s outburst[540] against women who destroy the confidence between husband and wife, Peleus’ comments on Lacedæmonian society,[541] and the like, which have no relevance to the “Homeric age” of the Trojan war. But the whole tone of the play is unheroic; even if these special features were removed it would remain quite unlike a Sophoclean drama. Euripides has, in fact, written a play about his own generation with a definite purpose. He takes stories from myths as the foundation of his plays, but his interest is in his own time. In spite of “thy mother Helen” and “the hapless town of the Phrygians,” his work concerns essentially fifth-century Athenians. Hence the almost complete absence of poetic colour, which is only found in the conventional lyrics and the goddess of the epilogue, who is no more in tune with the rest of the piece than a fairy-queen would be at the close of A Doll’s House. His chief concern is the danger to family life involved in the practice of slave-holding. Neoptolemus loses his life, and Hermione consents to the wreck of her own happiness, simply because of Andromache’s position in the home. She is the fulcrum which the astute villains employ; without her Hermione would never have been manageable.

In harmony with this realistic spirit is the character-drawing. None of the personages is of heroic stature, but all are amazingly real, however disagreeable. The two conspirators, Menelaus and Orestes, of course, do not reveal their natures plainly. The latter, as far as this incident alone is concerned, might strike one as almost featureless; but there cling to him significant little fragments from the earlier history of Hermione. A sinister faithfulness actuates him. In spite of his repulse he has not forgotten his affection for Hermione, not even her last words of renunciation.[542] Nor has he ceased to brood on the insults of Neoptolemus—perhaps nothing in the play is more effective than the gloomy triumph with which he flings back the hated word: “and the matricide shall teach thee”.... Menelaus, as a study in successful villainy combined with the domestic virtues, is quite perfect in his kind; ces pères de famille sont capables de tout. But it is upon the three victims, Hermione, Andromache, and Peleus, that the poet has lavished his skill most notably. Each has precisely the virtues and the failings which are fit to make them answer with the precision of machinery to each string pulled by the Spartan diplomatist. Peleus may be relied upon to provide Menelaus with an excuse for retiring when he wishes, and to utter wild language which can be used to prove that he is responsible for Hermione’s flight.[543] Andromache, earning and receiving our pity for her past woes and her present anguish, yet alienates us by her arrogance and a certain metallic brutality in repartee and invective which again are invaluable to the men whose puppet she is. That she should not cower before Hermione or her father is natural, but that is not the point; her trampling tactlessness[544] is a positive disease. She is indeed (except in her love for Molottus) as callous as Menelaus. This is a point of absolutely fundamental import. That interview early in the play, which might have been priceless to both women, ends only in the hopeless embitterment of Hermione. The latter is the best-drawn character of all. Swayed by strong primitive impulses, jealousy and fear, without any balance of mind or emotion, curiously liable to accept the domination of a stronger personality, she is fatally suited to the machinations of her father. When she first appears, it is fairly plain that she has come to suggest a compromise to Andromache.[545] What she wishes is not blood, but servility. Spiteful and vulgar, she cannot forgive the captive for the effortless dignity which she has inherited from Trojan kings. Hers is no vision of a murdered rival: how petty yet how horribly natural it is—she wishes to see Andromache scrubbing the floor![546] But vulgar and spiteful as she is, the princess can be wrought upon, as the later part of the action shows, and if only to self-respect Andromache had added tact and sympathy Hermione would have been her passionate friend before thirty lines had been spoken. The pathos of the scene lies above all in the misunderstanding which pits the two women against one another, where they should have combined against the callous craft which was using them both for the ends of politics.

The deities whom we find in this play need detain us only a moment. Thetis is no more than sweetening for the popular taste. Soothing and beautiful as are her consolations to the aged sufferer, such a personage has no real concern with a drama so utterly secular. As for Apollo, it is here plainer than usual that his name is nothing but a convenient short term for the great priestly organization at Delphi. That there is a genuine divine person who has aided Orestes and punished Neoptolemus we cannot believe. The only touch of religious awe to be found lies in the messenger’s report. When the assassins are fleeing before their courageous victim, “from the midst of the shrine some one raised an awful voice whereat the hair stood up, and rallied the host again to fight”.[547] It is this same speaker, however, who thus sums up his account of the whole event: “And thus hath he that gives oracles to others, he who for all mankind is the judge of righteousness, thus hath he entreated the son of Achilles who offered him amends. Like a man that is base hath he remembered an ancient grudge. How, then, can he be wise?” To the simple Thessalian confronted for the first time with doubts of Olympian justice, such phrasing is natural. For Euripides the conclusion is that Apollo does not exist at all. “Apollo” does not take vengeance upon the blasphemer at the time of his offence, but waits unaccountably till his second visit, when he comes to make amends and when by an accident, fortunate for the god, a conspiracy of villainous men happens to make his enemy their victim.[548]

In keeping with all this is the literary tone of the work. The lyrics are of little interest to a reader, though one[549] of them markedly sums up the situation and forces home the moral. For the rest, the dialogue is utterly unheroic and unpoetical but splendidly vigorous, terse, and idiomatic; in this respect the Andromache is equal to the best work of Euripides. Could anything of its kind be more perfect than the first speech of Hermione[550]—this mixture of pathetic heart-hunger, of childish snobbery and petulance, this terribly familiar instinct to cast in the teeth of the unfortunate precisely those things for which one formerly envied them, these scraps of ludicrously inaccurate slander against “barbarians” picked up from the tattle of gossiping slaves, and the heavy preachments about “the marriage-question” which cry aloud their origin from the lips of Menelaus? In

the last phrase is marvellous. The very sound and fall of the words, with the two long monosyllables, can only be described as a verbal box on the ears. Observe too the great speech[552] of Andromache. In the lines

one can hear the words gurgling in her throat before they issue in speech; at the end she is positively hissing. Peleus, too, ineffectual as he may be in argument, is a master of pungent rhetoric.[553]

For readers who admire exclusively the Sophoclean type of play, the Andromache is a painful experience to be forgotten as soon as possible. For any who find interest in the behaviour of ordinary beings at a great testing moment, this work is an endless delight.

The Hercules Furens[554] or Mad Heracles (Ἡρακλῆς Μαινόμενος) is perhaps the next play in order of time. Most critics place it about the year 420 B.C. or a little earlier; the chief reason for this is the celebrated chorus about old age—it is natural supposition that the poet had recently passed beyond the military age, and so would now be just over sixty.

The scene is laid before the house of Heracles at Thebes. Amphitryon, reputed father of the hero, explains the situation. Heracles, leaving his wife Megara and his three sons with Amphitryon, has departed to Hades in quest of Cerberus. In his absence one Lycus has seized the throne and intends to murder Heracles’ family. Megara would submit, but Amphitryon still hopes for Heracles’ return. Certain aged Thebans, who form the chorus, arrive, followed by Lycus who, after sneers at Heracles, orders his henchmen to burn his victims in their house. Megara begs of Lycus that they be given time to array themselves for death. He consents, and the sufferers retire. Lycus departs, and soon the sad procession returns. Suddenly Heracles himself enters. He tells that he has brought back Cerberus and released Theseus, King of Athens, from the lower world; he promises to destroy Lycus and goes within. A splendid ode laments the weakness of old age but glorifies the Muses. Lycus returns, enters the house, and is slain; the chorus greet his yells with delight and hail Heracles as now proved the son of Zeus. Suddenly Iris and Frenzy sweep down from the sky, sent by Hera to drive Heracles mad. Frenzy herself is reluctant, but enters the house, and the chorus raise cries of horror, amid which the house totters in ruin. A messenger relates how Heracles, after slaying Lycus, has been seized with madness and destroyed his wife and children. The eccyclema shows the hero sunk in stupor. He awakes and, realizing his situation, meditates suicide, but Theseus arrives and wins him back to courage; after terrible outbursts against Heaven he departs to live with Theseus in Athens.

After a cursory reading of this play one’s impressions are doubtful. Many features excite warm admiration, such as the superb lyric[555] on old age, the speeches[556] of Megara about her fatherless boys, Heracles’ replies[557] to Theseus; even the wrangle between Lycus and Amphitryon is full of idiomatic vigour.[558] But to be blunt, what is the play about? It works up to a climax in the deliverance of Amphitryon and his kin, and then begins again. Long before the close we have forgotten Lycus. We feel that the play is structureless, or (which is worse) that it falls so clearly into two dramas that we cannot view it as a single piece of art. But if we seriously seek for unity, we naturally look for it in the fortunes of Heracles himself. This granted, we shall expect to find that the incident which in a bare summary seems to disjoint the whole is specially treated. Looking then at the incursion of Lycus, we find that at every moment the events are considered from the point of view of Heracles, in terms of his actions, and the sentiments which cling to his personality. We are only prevented from seeing this at first by the modern supposition that the culmination of a tragedy is the death of a leading person, not a spiritual crisis. The discussion between Amphitryon and Megara about instant submission is dominated by despair of the hero’s return in the latter’s mind and by hope of it in the former’s. As soon as Lycus arrives, he asks: “What hope, what defence find ye against death? Believe ye that the father of these lads, he who lies in Hades, will return?” Whereupon he proceeds to a long tirade in abuse of the hero, and Amphitryon’s even more garrulous response deals almost solely with his son’s achievements and the gratitude which he merits from Thebes and Greece. As the doomed party go indoors the old man reminds Heaven itself of the help it owes to Heracles, and the following lyrics are an elaborate chronicle of his marvellous exploits. Finally, when at point to die, Megara in a beautifully natural manner turns her farewell to her sons into a painful memory of the plans which their father used to make for them. In this way the danger of his family is considered as a test of Heracles’ powers and greatness. Will he make good the promise of his past glories? Will he return and free them from Lycus?

Dr. Verrall[559] follows this line of thought, giving to it far greater precision and colour. He believes that the subject of this play is the miraculous tone investing the traditional stories about Heracles. According to popular belief in the poet’s day, Heracles was a son of Zeus; he performed many exploits which were definitely superhuman, culminating in a descent to Hades and return therefrom. These stories are untrue. The play indicates this simply and directly, giving, however, most attention to the method by which they won credence. In a primitive civilization, when men had not yet attained to clear thinking, remarkable but human feats like those of Heracles were extolled as miraculous by the uncritical. Such are Amphitryon and the chorus, who when challenged by Lycus are capable only of violent reiteration of their belief, but offer, and can offer, no proof that the miracles happened. It is a curious symptom of the former’s vague credulity that while loving and defending Heracles as his own son, he yet claims[560] the help of Zeus on the ground that the god is himself Heracles’ father. The Theban elders join[561] in this irrational belief—as soon as it appears that the divine parentage is established by the return from Hades, which even if true would of course have nothing to do with the question. It is in such minds as this that belief in the miraculous life of Heracles first sprang up. But this belief rests largely upon the accounts of his adventures given by Heracles himself; thus we come to the heart of the tragedy, the mental condition of the hero.

Near the end he exclaims against the consolations of Theseus: “Alas! such words as thine are too trivial for my sorrows. I think not that the gods love unlawful unions, and that they put chains upon one another is a belief I never held nor will I ever. God, if he be God, in truth needs naught. These are but poets’ wretched tales.”[562] Plainly, the sober and reasonable speech which begins thus repudiates the highly-coloured but pernicious stories of tradition to which Theseus has just appealed. Heracles believes in one God utterly above human weaknesses. Then what of Zeus’ love of Alcmena, the jealousy of Hera, the whole basis of his suffering as conceived by the orthodox? And what of his own semi-divine nature, the foundation again of his superhuman deeds? They are delusions. Heracles is no demi-god; his exploits, however great and valuable, are in no sense miraculous. This view, moreover, is precisely that which we ought to gain from the early part of the drama. Lycus is no doubt an insolent bully, but would certainly not brave annihilation (whether at the hands of Zeus or of his son) by slaughtering a demi-god’s family. That he acts so proves that he does not believe in the divine parentage of Heracles; and the support so readily given by Thebes to his policy shows as plainly that to the mass of citizens no real proofs of superhuman nature have been offered. In brief, the actions and language of every one in the play except Heracles himself, Amphitryon, and the chorus—of every one, including Theseus and even Megara, imply that in this play Heracles is indeed a person of note, but an “eminent man” of no very startling eminence.

But the hero himself long before this repudiation of “poets’ wretched tales” has himself given them authority. He tells his father that in truth he has visited Hades, dragged Cerberus thence, and rescued Theseus. At many places[563] in the drama he refers without misgiving or query to legendary monsters which he has quelled, and to his safe return from Hades. This inconsistency, according to Dr. Verrall, is the root of the drama. Heracles suffers from a growing tendency to madness; in his sane moods he knows that all his story is human, all the nobler for its humanity, but in his dark hours he accepts the vulgar splendours which rumour throws round his adventures, at such times lending nascent myth the support of his own false witness. The tragedy of his life has been this mental distemper, which has finally caused him to destroy his wife and children. It appears in dreadful paroxysms throughout the first speech which he addresses to Theseus—first an attempt to account for his murderous outbreak by an account of purely human events; then inconsistently a reference to Zeus’ fatherhood and the attempt of Hera upon his infant life, followed by a splendidly vigorous catalogue of legendary deeds, Typhos, the giants, and the rest, culminating with despairing comments on his hopeless guilt and on the complete victory of Hera; then he suddenly rends the goddess with his scorn: “to such a deity who would pray?—for a jealous quarrel she has destroyed the guiltless benefactor of Greece”.

Two important details should be noted in connexion with this theory. First the apparition[564] of Iris and Frenzy seems to overthrow it utterly by a demonstration in presence of the audience that Heracles’ afflictions are caused by Hera. But the past scene, before ever Frenzy arrives, has shown the hero, if not mad, yet not in full possession of his senses.[565] Moreover, she is not seen by him at the moment when he goes mad, yet, if the chorus see her, a fortiori she should be visible when attacking her victim himself; again the scene in which the fiend herself shows kind-hearted scruples, is ludicrous. These personages (Verrall suggests) are a dream beheld by a member of the chorus who has been impressed by what he has already seen of Heracles’ malady. This is proved by an absence of allusion to the event afterwards when the fatal incident is discussed, and when silence is incredible. The aged man (or men) will gradually remember the dream afterwards; this is another way in which stories like that of Hera’s vengeance obtain currency.

The second point arises from the conversation between Theseus and his friend when clearly sane. Does he confirm the story of the visit to Hades? Now, Heracles and he several times refer to his rescue “from below,” but never do they use language which necessarily refers to Hades. “Thou didst bring me back safe to the light from the dead (or corpses)”[566]—such is the style of allusion. Undoubtedly the language can be applied to Hades; undoubtedly also it could fit some natural event like a disaster in a cave or mine which may actually have been suggested[567] by rationalists of the day as an explanation of the myth—a suggestion which the poet is inclined to adopt and for which therefore he leaves room in his phraseology.

Theseus, amiable as he is, yet presents little of interest; it is his function to voice the opinions of the normal unimaginative man. Megara, however, of whom little has been said, deserves sympathetic study. She does not share Amphitryon’s extraordinary beliefs about his son,[568] but loves and admires him with an affection beautifully expressed throughout the too brief portion of the drama in which she appears; it is she who long before the other realizes his mental state.[569] In her, too, poetical imagination shines forth with a radiance which surpasses the charm of the lyrics and Heracles’ impetuous eloquence. It is she who utters the Sophoclean description[570] of sovereignty:—

and that expression[571] of her yearning grief which in its strange felicity of pathos suggests Shakespeare’s Constance:—

The Supplices[572] (Ἱκετίδες), or Suppliant Women, is generally supposed on internal evidence[573] to have been produced about 420 B.C.

The Suppliants, who form the chorus, are the mothers of the Seven who attacked Thebes and their attendants. They surround Æthra, mother of Theseus, the Athenian king, and beg her to win his aid for them, since the Thebans have refused burial to the slain. Theseus at first refuses, but Æthra persuades him. A Theban herald enters to forbid Theseus, in the name of the Theban king Creon, to aid the Suppliants. Theseus rejects this behest and prepares for war. After an ode, news comes of the Athenian victory. The remains of five heroes are brought in (of the other two, Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth and Polynices is supposed still at Thebes). Adrastus delivers funeral speeches over them. The obsequies now take place. The body of Capaneus is burned separately, and Evadne his wife throws herself upon his pyre despite the entreaties of her father Iphis. The young sons of the chieftains bear in the funeral urns, and Adrastus promises that Argos will cherish undying gratitude towards Athens. The goddess Athena appears and bids Theseus exact an oath to this effect; she comforts the fatherless boys with a promise of vengeance.

This drama is perhaps the least popular and the least studied of all Greek plays, which is not surprising when one considers that, in spite of the praise merited by certain parts, the whole work considered by really dramatic standards is astonishingly bad. There is no character-drawing worth the name, and though it may be said that the real heroine of the drama is Athens,[574] it is still strange to find Euripides contented with such colourless persons as Theseus, Æthra, and indeed all the characters. Still more striking are the irrelevancies. Theseus’ address[575] to Adrastus and the assembly at large concerning the blessings conferred by Heaven upon man, have hardly a semblance of connexion with the urgent and painful subject of debate. Even more otiose, and far longer, is the dispute[576] between Theseus and the herald on the claims of monarchy and democracy. The scene of Evadne’s suttee, however striking, is dramatically unjustifiable; it is an episode in the bad sense meant by Aristotle—no integral part of the action. The last scene is spoiled by the intervention of Athena, who merely causes the Argives to give an oath instead of a simple promise that they will ever be loyal friends of Athens. That this intervention corresponds to very definite historical fact (the league between the two states in 420 B.C. brought about by Alcibiades) makes no difference to the æsthetic fact. None the less one notes in the Supplices certain excellent features. The appeal[577] of Æthra to her son, and the lyric dirge of Evadne over her husband’s pyre, are admirably composed. Several parts of the work are magnificent as spectacle—the opening in which the sorrowing mothers, Adrastus, and the fatherless boys are grouped about the aged queen, the return of Theseus and his troops with the dead bodies, the episode of Evadne as it struck the eye,[578] and the procession of boys carrying the funeral urns.

The Ion[579] (Ἴων) is a play of uncertain date, but was probably produced late in Euripides’ life; some would place it as low as 413 B.C.

The scene is laid before the temple at Delphi. Hermes tells how the Athenian princess Creusa, owing to the violence of Apollo, bore a child, which Hermes brought to Delphi, where the boy grew up as a temple-attendant. Later Creusa married Xuthus, and to-day they will come to ask the oracle some remedy for their childlessness. Apollo will give Ion to Xuthus as the latter’s son; later he is to be made known to Creusa as her own. Ion enters, and in a beautiful song expresses his joy in the service of Apollo. The chorus (attendants of Creusa) draw near; they converse with Ion and admire the temple façade. Creusa arrives; she and Ion are mutually attracted, and she tells how “a friend,” having borne a child to Apollo and exposed it, wishes to know whether it still lives. Ion rejects the story, and urges her not to put such a question to the oracle. Xuthus now appears, and goes within to consult the god; Creusa retires, while Ion muses on the immorality of gods. After a choric ode Xuthus returns and greets Ion as his son: the oracle has declared that the first man to meet him will be his offspring. Ion asks who is his mother; they agree that she must be some Delphian Bacchante. The youth is dismayed at the prospect of quitting Delphi for Athens, but Xuthus genially bids him prepare a farewell banquet for his friends, and departs to offer sacrifice upon Parnassus. The Athenian women express their consternation: Athens is to have an alien ruler and Creusa must remain childless. When she returns they tell her the news, and in bitter disappointment she breaks into an agonized recital of her old sorrow. An aged male attendant undertakes to murder Ion by poison at the banquet. Creusa consents. After an ode praying for vengeance, a messenger brings news that the plot has failed and Creusa has been condemned to death. The queen hurries in, pursued by Ion and a mob; she takes refuge on the altar. Bitter reproaches pass between the two till the Pythian prophetess appears; giving Ion the basket in which he was discovered as a babe, and which still contains the articles then found with him, she bids him seek his mother. Creusa greets him as her son and names the three objects. They embrace with joy, but Ion, learning that not Xuthus but Apollo is his father, determines to ask the oracle which account is true. Athena, however, appears and explains that Apollo has been compelled to change his plans; Xuthus must continue to believe Ion his own son.

This drama suggests a rich tasselled robe of gorgeous embroidery; were it not that the basis of the story is so painfully sexual, the Ion would be perhaps the most popular of Greek plays. The sudden changes of situation, the emotional crises, the sheer thrill of many passages, the lovely study of the Greek Samuel at his holy tasks—all these things make a glorious play. But our delight is blurred by a recurrent perplexity. Theology is obtruded throughout, and such a theology as never was.

Apollo ravishes Creusa and by help of Hermes brings her child to Delphi, where he lives happily up to manhood, but Creusa is allowed to suppose her child destroyed by wild beasts. The god, however, intends to secure Ion his rights as prince of Athens. Xuthus is to accept the lad as his son, while Creusa and Ion are to be made secretly known to each other. But this plan is disturbed by the Athenian women, and the god, revising his intention, sends the doves to save Ion, and the prophetess to save Creusa. All would now be well, since both Xuthus and the queen accept Ion as a son. But Ion wishes to know whether the oracle speaks truth or lies.[580] Apollo therefore sends Athena to prevent him from taxing the oracle with inconsistency. She explains the various activities of Apollo, prophesies concerning the Athenian race, and bids Creusa keep Xuthus in ignorance.

Apollo is as much fool[581] as knave.[582] Athena may say that “Apollo hath done all things well,”[583] but mortals will not endorse her sisterly admiration. Even the revised plan cannot succeed. How long will Xuthus remain ignorant of facts which are being proclaimed, not only to Creusa and her son, but also to the crowd of Delphians and the Athenian women? Even if this could be secured, things are no better: Apollo has said both that he himself, and that Xuthus, is the father of Ion. Which of these statements is true matters comparatively little. One of them must be a lie. The god who gives oracles to Greece is a trickster, and no celestial consolations or Athenian throne can compensate the youth for the loss of what filled his heart only this morning.