Note 689 — Chapter V · THE WORKS OF EURIPIDES (continued 2)

Verrall (Eur. the Rationalist, pp. 231-60) believed that those parts which introduce Antigone are un-Euripidean. The terrace-scene has already been discussed. In the body of the play, as he argues with much point, wherever mention of Antigone occurs, it is obtrusive and embarrassing. Her lament with Œdipus at the close contains many inappropriate features. He concludes that Œdipus is an allegory of Euripides himself, leaving Athens in sorrow at the end of his life, and that Antigone represents his literary offspring, the plays. The Sphinx is “the spirit of mystery and darkness,” which the poet has fought and quelled. All this was composed by a poet of the Euripidean circle to commemorate the master; it includes a compliment—the quotation from the Œdipus Tyrannus—to Sophocles, who had shown public respect to his rival when the news of his death reached Athens.