Volume 2 — CHAPTER XV. THE FRAGMENTS OF ÆSCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, AND EURIPIDES.
Reading edition
Alexandrian and Byzantine Anthologies.—Titles of the Lost Plays of Æschylus.—The Lycurgeia.—The Trilogy on the Story of Achilles.—The Geography of the Prometheus Unbound.—Gnomic Character of the Sophoclean Fragments.—Providence, Wealth, Love, Marriage, Mourning.—What is True of the Sophoclean is still more True of the Euripidean Fragments.—Mutilated Plays.—Phaëthon, Erechtheus, Antiope, Danaë.—Goethe's Restitution of the Phaëthon.—Passage on Greek Athletes in the Autolycus.—Love, Women, Marriage, Domestic Affection, Children.—Death.—Stoical Endurance.—Justice and the Punishment of Sin.—Wealth.—Noble Birth.—Heroism.—Miscellaneous Gnomic Fragments.—The Popularity of Euripides.
It is difficult to treat the fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides otherwise than as a golden treasury of saws and maxims compiled by Alexandrian and Byzantine Greeks, for whom poetic beauty was of less value than sententious wisdom. The tragic scope and the æsthetic handling of the fables of their lost plays can scarcely be conjectured from such slight hints as we possess. Yet some light may be cast upon the Æschylean method by observing the titles of his dramas. We have, for example, the names of a complete tetralogy upon the legend of Lycurgus. The Edonians, the Bassarids, and the Young Men constituted a connected series of plays—a Lycurgeia, with Lycurgus for the satyric supplement. Remembering that Æschylus called his own tragedies morsels picked up from the great Homeric banquet-table, we may conclude that this tetralogy set forth the Dionysian fable told by Diomede to Glaucus in the Iliad (vi. 131):
No, for not Dryas' son, Lycurgus strong, Who the divine ones fought, on earth lived long. He the nurse-nymphs of Dionysus scared Down the Nyseïan steep, and the wild throng Their ritual things cast off, and maddening fared, Torn with his goad, like kine; so vast a crime he dared. Yea, Dionysus, such a sight was there, Himself in fear sank down beneath the seas. And Thetis in her breast him quailing bare, At the man's cry such trembling shook his knees. Then angered were the gods who live at ease, And Zeus smote blind Lycurgus, and he fell Loathed ere his day.[13]
It appears that the titles of the three dramas composing the trilogy were taken from the Chorus. In the first play the Edonian Thracians, subjects of Lycurgus, formed the Chorus; in the second, the Bassarids, or nurse-nymphs of Dionysus; in the third, the youths whom the wine-god had persuaded to adopt his worship. The subject of the first play was, therefore, the advent of Dionysus and his following in Thrace, and the victory of Lycurgus over the new cult. The second set forth the captivity of the Bacchantes or Bassarids, together with the madness sent upon Lycurgus as a punishment for his resistance, whereby he was driven, according to post-Homeric versions of his legend, to the murder of his own son Dryas in a fit of fury. The third play carried on the subject by exhibiting the submission of Lycurgus to the god whom he had disowned and dishonored, and his death, at the hands of his own subjects, upon Mount Pangæus. Thus the first Chorus was hostile to Dionysus; the second was sympathetic, though captive and impotent; the third was triumphant in his cause. The artistic sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis which the trilogy required, was developed through three moments in the life-drama of Lycurgus, and was typified in the changes of the choric sympathy, according to the law whereby Æschylus varied the form of his triple dramas and, at the same time, immediately connected the Chorus with the passion of each piece. The tragic interest centred in the conflict of Lycurgus and the god, and the final solution was afforded by the submission, though too late, of the protagonist's will to destiny. It is probable that the satyric play of Lycurgus represented the divine honors paid, after his death, to the old enemy, now become the satellite and subject of Dionysus, by pastoral folk and dwellers in the woodlands. The unification of obstinate antagonistic wills in the higher will of Zeus or Fate seems in all cases to have supplied Æschylus with the Versöhnung tragedy required, and to have suggested the religious κάθαρσις without which the Greek drama would have failed to point its lesson. Seen in this light, the Lycurgeia must have been a masterpiece only less sublime, and even more full, perhaps, of picturesque incidents, than the Promethean trilogy. The emotional complexion, if that phrase may be permitted, of each member of the trilogy was determined by the Chorus; wherein we trace a signal instance of the Æschylean method.
More even to be regretted than the Lycurgeia is a colossal lost trilogy to which the name of Tragic Iliad has been given. That Æschylus should have frequently handled the subject-matter of the Iliad was natural; and many titles of tragedies, quoted singly, point to his preoccupation with the mythus of Achilles. It has, therefore, been conjectured, with fair show of reason, that the Myrmidons, the Nereids, and the Phrygians formed a triple drama. The first described the withdrawal of Achilles from the war, the arming of Patroclus, and the grief which the son of Peleus felt for his friend's death. No Greek tragedy, had it been preserved, would have been more precious than this. The second showed how Thetis comforted her child, and procured fresh armor for him from Hephæstus, and how Achilles slew Hector. In the third, Priam recovered the dead body of his son and buried it. Supposing the trilogy to have been constructed upon these outlines, it must have resembled a gigantic history-play, in which, as in the Iliad itself, the character of Achilles was sufficient to form the groundwork of a complicated poem. The theme, in other words, would have resembled those of the modern and romantic drama, rather than such as the elder Greek poets were in the habit of choosing. The Achilleis did not in any direct way illustrate the doctrine of Nemesis, or afford a tragic conflict between the human will and fate. It owed its lustre to the radiant beauty of the hero, to the pathos of his love for Patroclus, to the sudden blazing forth of irresistible energy when sorrow for the dead had driven him to revenge, and to the tranquillity succeeding tempest that dignified his generous compliance with the prayers of Priam. The trilogy composed upon it must, therefore, like a Shakespearian play, have been a drama of character. The fragments of the Myrmidones have already been pieced together in the essay on the Homeric Achilles.[14] From the Nereides nothing has survived except what may be gathered from the meagre remnants of the Latin version made of it by Attius. The Phrygians, also called Ἕκτορος λύτρα, contained a speech of pleading addressed by Priam to the hero in his tent, of which the following is a relic:
καὶ τοὺς θανόντας εἰ θέλεις εὐεργετεῖν, τὸ γοῦν κακουργεῖν ἀμφιδεξίως ἔχει καὶ μήτε χαίρειν μήτε λυπεῖσθαι πάρα. ἡμῶν γε μέντοι Νέμεσίς ἐσθ' ὑπερτέρα καὶ τοῦ θανόντος ἡ δίκη πράσσει κότον.[15]
The trilogy of which the Prometheus Bound formed probably the middle play has been sufficiently discussed in the chapter on Æschylus.[16] It remains in this place only to notice that the gigantic geography of the poet received further illustration in the lost play of the Prometheus Unbound. "Cette géographie vertigineuse," says Victor Hugo, "est mêlée à une tragédie extraordinaire où l'on entend des dialogues plus qu'humains;" and, inverting this observation, we may add that the superhuman tragedy of the Prometheis owed much of its grandeur to the soul-dilating prospect of the earth's map, outstretched before the far-seeing sufferer on the crags of Caucasus.
Two other trilogies—a Danais, composed of the Egyptians, the Suppliants, and the Danaides; and an Œdipodeia, composed of Laius, the Sphinx, and Œdipus—may be mentioned, though to recover their outlines with any certainty is now hopeless. For the rest, it must be enough to transcribe and to translate a few fragments of singular beauty. Here is an invocation uttered in his hour of anguish by Philoctetes to Death, the deliverer:
ὦ θάνατε παιὰν μή μ' ἀτιμάσῃς μολεῖν· μόνος γὰρ εἶ σὺ τῶν ἀνηκέστων κακῶν ἰατρός· ἄλγος δ' οὐδὲν ἅπτεται νεκροῦ.[17]
Another passage on Death, remarkable for the stately grandeur of its style, may be quoted from the Niobe:
μόνος θεῶν γὰρ θάνατος οὐ δώρων ἐρᾷ, οὔτ' ἄν τι θύων οὔτ' ἐπισπένδων ἄνοις, οὐ βωμός ἐστιν οὐδὲ παιωνίζεται. μόνου δὲ πειθὼ δαιμόνων ἀποστατεῖ.[18]
The sublime speech of Aphrodite in the Danaides, imitated more than once by subsequent poets, must not be omitted:
ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι χθόνα, ἔρως δὲ γαῖαν λαμβάνει γάμου τυχεῖν· ὄμβρος δ' ἀπ' εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν ἔκυσε γαῖαν· ἡ δὲ τίκτεται βροτοῖς μήλων τε βοσκὰς καὶ βίον Δημήτριον· δενδρῶτις ὥρα δ' ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου τέλειός ἐστι· τῶν δ' ἐγὼ παραίτιος.[19]
Nor, lastly, the mystic couplet ascribed to both Æschylus and his son Euphorion:
Ζεύς ἐστιν αἰθήρ, Ζεὺς δὲ γῆ, Ζεὺς δ' οὐρανός, Ζεύς τοι τὰ πάντα, χὤ τι τῶνδ' ὑπέρτερον.[20]
The fragments of Sophocles are, perhaps, in even a stricter sense than those of Æschylus, a bare anthology, and the best way of dealing with them is to select those which illustrate the beauty of his style or the ripeness of his wisdom. Few, indeed, are full enough to afford materials for reconstructing the plot of a lost play. What, for instance, can be more tantalizing to the student of Greek manners and sentiments than to know that Sophocles wrote a drama with the title Lovers of Achilles, and yet to have no means of judging of its fable better than is given in this pretty simile?
νόσημ' ἔρωτος τοῦτ' ἐφίμερον κακόν· ἔχοιμ' ἂν αὐτὸ μὴ κακῶς ἀπεικάσαι, ὅταν πάγου φανέντος αἰθρίου χεροῖν κρύσταλλον ἁρπάσωσι παῖδες ἀσταγῆ. τὰ πρῶτ' ἔχουσιν ἡδονὰς ποταινίους, τέλος δ' ὁ χυμὸς οὔθ' ὅπως ἀφῇ θέλει οὔτ' ἐν χεροῖν τὸ κτῆμα σύμφορον μένειν. οὕτω γε τοὺς ἐρῶντας αὑτὸς ἵμερος δρᾶν καὶ τὸ μὴ δρᾶν πολλάκις προΐεται.[21]
A whole series of plays were written by Sophocles on the tale of Helen, and all of them have passed, "like shapes of clouds we form, to nothing." There was, again, a drama of the Epigoni, which might, perhaps, have carried the tale of Thebes still further than the climax reached in the Antigone. Yet Stobæus has only thought fit to treat us to two excerpts from it, whereof the following, spoken by Alcmæon to Eriphyle, is the fullest:
ὦ πᾶν σὺ τολμήσασα καὶ πέρα γύναι· κάκιον ἄλλ' οὐκ ἔστιν οὔδ' ἔσται ποτὲ γυναικὸς εἴ τι πῆμα γίγνεται βροτοῖς.[22]
The sententious philosophy of life that endeared Euripides to the compilers of commonplace-books was expressed by Sophocles also, with sufficient independence of the context to make his speeches valuable as quarries for quotation. To this accident of his art is probably due the large number of fragments we possess upon general topics of morality and conduct. In the following fine passage the poet discusses the apparent injustice in the apportionment of good and evil fortune to virtuous and vicious men:
δεινόν γε τοὺς μὲν δυσσεβεῖς κακῶν τ' ἄπο βλάστοντας, εἶτα τούσδε μὲν πράσσειν καλῶς, τοὺς δ' ὄντας ἐσθλοὺς ἔκ τε γενναίων ἅμα γεγῶτας εἶτα δυστυχεῖς πεφυκέναι. οὐ χρῆν τάδ' οὕτω δαίμονας θνητῶν πέρι πράσσειν· ἐχρῆν γὰρ τοὺς μὲν εὐσεβεῖς βροτῶν ἔχειν τι κέρδος ἐμφανὲς θεῶν πάρα, τοὺς δ' ὄντας ἀδίκους τοῖσδε τὴν ἐναντίαν δίκην κακῶν τιμωρὸν ἐμφανῆ τίνειν. κοὐδεὶς ἂν οὕτως εὐτύχει κακὸς γεγώς.[23]
The same play furnished Stobæus with an excellent observation on garrulity:
ἀνὴρ γὰρ ὅστις ἥδεται λέγων ἀεὶ λέληθεν αὑτὸν τοῖς ξυνοῦσιν ὢν βαρύς.[24]
Also with a good remark upon the value of sound common-sense:
ψυχὴ γὰρ εὔνους καὶ φρονοῦσα τοὔνδικον κρείσσων σοφιστοῦ παντός ἐστιν εὑρέτις.[25]
The Aleadæ supplied this pungent diatribe upon the contrast between poverty and wealth:
τὰ χρήματ' ἀνθρώποισιν εὑρίσκει φίλους, αὖθις δὲ τιμὰς εἶτα τῆς ὑπερτάτης τυραννίδος θακοῦσιν αἰσχίστην ἕδραν. ἔπειτα δ' οὐδεὶς ἐχθρὸς οὔτε φύεται πρὸς χρήμαθ' οἵ τε φύντες ἀρνοῦνται στυγεῖν. δεινὸς γὰρ ἕρπειν πλοῦτος ἔς τε τἄβατα καὶ πρὸς βέβηλα, χὠπόθεν πένης ἀνὴρ μήδ' ἐντυχὼν δύναιτ' ἂν ὧν ἐρᾷ τυχεῖν. καὶ γὰρ δυσειδὲς σῶμα καὶ δυσώνυμον, γλώσσῃ σοφὸν τίθησιν εὔμορφόν τ' ἰδεῖν. μόνῳ δὲ χαίρειν καὶ νοσεῖν ἐξουσία πάρεστιν αὐτῷ κἀπικρύψασθαι κακά.[26]
In the Locrian Ajax we find two single lines worth preservation:
σοφοὶ τύραννοι τῶν σοφῶν ξυνουσίᾳ·[27]
and
ἄνθρωπός ἐστι πνεῦμα καὶ σκιὰ μόνον.[28]
This charming description comes from the Ægeus, recalling Athens, where the poplars grow so large and leafy:
ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν φύλλοισιν αἰγείρου μακρᾶς, κἂν ἄλλο μηδέν, ἀλλὰ τοὐκείνης κάρα αὔρα κραδαίνει κἀνακουφίζει πτέρον.[29]
Some scattered utterances upon women and love may be collected from the Phædra, in which play Sophocles broke the ground trodden by Euripides:
ἔρως γὰρ ἄνδρας οὐ μόνους ἐπέρχεται οὐδ' αὖ γυναῖκας ἀλλὰ καὶ θεῶν ἄνω ψυχὰς χαράσσει κἀπὶ πόντον ἔρχεται. καὶ τόνδ' ἀπείργειν οὐδ' ὁ παγκρατὴς σθένει Ζεὺς ἀλλ' ὑπείκει καὶ θέλων ἐγκλίνεται. οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐδὲν ἂν μεῖζον κακὸν κακῆς ἀνὴρ κτήσαιτ' ἂν οὐδὲ σώφρονος κρεῖσσον· παθὼν δ' ἕκαστος ὧν τύχῃ λέγει.[30]
The next fragment, extracted possibly from the Colchian Women, deserves to be compared with similar Euripidean passages, though in point of workmanship it is finer, and in profound suggestion more intense, than is the usual manner of Euripides:
ὦ παῖδες ἥ τοι Κύπρις οὐ Κύπρις μόνον ἀλλ' ἐστὶ πολλῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπώνυμος. ἔστιν μὲν Ἅιδης ἔστι δ' ἄφθιτος βία ἔστιν δὲ λύσσα μαινὰς ἐστὶ δ' ἵμερος ἄκρατος ἔστ' οἰμωγμός. ἐν κείνῃ τὸ πᾶν σπουδαῖον ἡσυχαῖον ἐς βίαν ἄγον. ἐντήκεται γὰρ πνευμόνων ὅσοις ἔνι ψυχή. τίς οὐχὶ τῆσδε τῆς θεοῦ βορά; εἰσέρχεται μὲν ἰχθύων πλωτῷ γένει ἔνεστι δ' ἐν χέρσου τετρασκελεῖ γονῇ· νωμᾷ δ' ἐν οἰωνοῖσι τοὐκείνης πτερὸν ἐν θηρσὶν ἐν βροτοῖσιν ἐν θεοῖς ἄνω. τίν' οὐ παλαίουσ' ἐς τρὶς ἐκβάλλει θεῶν; εἴ μοι θέμις, θέμις δὲ τἀληθῆ λέγειν, Διὸς τυραννεῖ πνευμόνων· ἄνευ δορὸς ἄνευ σιδήρου πάντα τοι συντέμνεται Κύπρις τὰ θνητῶν καὶ θεῶν βουλεύματα.[31]
While upon this topic of love and women, I may quote a considerable fragment of the Tereus, marked by more sympathy for women in the troubles of their married lives than the Greek poets commonly express:
νῦν δ' οὐδέν εἰμι χωρίς, ἀλλὰ πολλάκις ἔβλεψα ταύτῃ τὴν γυναικείαν φύσιν, ὡς οὐδέν ἐσμεν· αἳ νέαι μὲν ἐν πατρὸς ἥδιστον οἶμαι ζῶμεν ἀνθρώπων βίον· τερπνῶς γὰρ ἀεὶ πάντας ἁνοία τρέφει. ὅταν δ' ἐς ἥβην ἐξικώμεθ' εὔφρονες, ὠθούμεθ' ἔξω καὶ διεμπολώμεθα θεῶν πατρῴων τῶν τε φυσάντων ἄπο, αἱ μὲν ξένους πρὸς ἄνδρας, αἱ δὲ βαρβάρους, αἱ δ' εἰς ἀήθη δώμαθ', αἱ δ' ἐπίρροθα, καὶ ταῦτ' ἐπειδὰν εὐφρόνη ζεύξῃ μία χρεὼν ἐπαινεῖν καὶ δοκεῖν καλῶς ἔχειν.[32]
The same play contains a fine choric passage upon the equality of human souls at birth, their after inequality through fortune:
ἓν φῦλον ἀνθρώπων μί' ἔδειξε πατρὸς καὶ ματρὸς ἡμᾶς ἁμέρα τοὺς πάντας· οὐδεὶς ἔξοχος ἄλλος ἔβλαστεν ἄλλου. βόσκει δὲ τοὺς μὲν μοῖρα δυσαμερίας τοὺς δ' ὄλβος ἡμῶν τοὺς δὲ δουλείας ζυγὸν ἔσχεν ἀνάγκας.[33]
Among the fragments that deal with the commonplaces of Greek tragedy, the following, from the Tyndareus, may be cited as a brilliant expression of the Solonian proverb:
οὐ χρή ποτ' εὖ πράσσοντος ὀλβίσαι τύχας ἀνδρὸς πρὶν αὐτῷ παντελῶς ἤδη βίος διεκπερανθῇ καὶ τελευτήσῃ βίον. ἐν γὰρ βραχεῖ καθεῖλε κὠλίγῳ χρόνῳ πάμπλουτον ὄλβον δαίμονος κακοῦ δόσις, ὅταν μεταστῇ καὶ θεοῖς δοκῇ τάδε.[34]
A play called the Scyrian Women furnishes two excellent apothegmatic passages upon the misery of old age and the inutility of mourning:
οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλγος οἷον ἡ πολλὴ ζόη. πάντ' ἐμπέφυκε τῷ μακρῷ γήρᾳ κακά, νοῦς φροῦδος ἔργ' ἀχρεῖα φροντίδες κεναί. ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν ἦν κλαίουσιν ἰᾶσθαι κακὰ καὶ τὸν θανόντα δακρύοις ἀνιστάναι, ὁ χρυσὸς ἧσσον κτῆμα τοῦ κλαίειν ἂν ἦν. νῦν δ' ὦ γεραιὲ ταῦτ' ἀνηνύτως ἔχει τὸν μὲν τάφῳ κρυφθέντα πρὸς τὸ φῶς ἄγειν· κἀμοὶ γὰρ ἂν πατήρ γε δακρύων χάριν ἀνῆκτ' ἂν εἰς φῶς.[35]
Two lines from a lost play on the tale of Odysseus illustrate the celebrated pun of Ajax on his own name:
ἀρθῶς δ' Ὀδυσσεύς εἰμ' ἐπώνυμος κακοῖς· πολλοὶ γὰρ ὠδύσαντο δυσσεβεῖς ἐμοί.[36]
In conclusion, a few single lines or couplets may be strung together for their proverbial pithiness and verbal delicacy:
ἔνεστι γάρ τις καὶ λόγοισιν ἡδονὴ λήθην ὅταν ποιῶσι τῶν ὄντων κακῶν. τὸ μὴ γὰρ εἶναι κρεῖσσον ἢ τὸ ζῆν κακῶς. πόνου μεταλλαχθέντος οἱ πόνοι γλυκεῖς. εἰ σῶμα δοῦλον ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ἐλεύθερος. ὅρκους ἐγὼ γυναικὸς εἰς ὕδωρ γράφω. ὦ θνητὸν ἀνδρῶν καὶ ταλαίπωρον γένος· ὡς οὐδέν ἐσμεν, πλὴν σκιαῖς ἐοικότες, βάρος περισσὸν γῆς ἀναστρωφώμενοι. θάρσει, γύναι· τὰ πολλὰ τῶν δεινῶν ὄναρ πνεύσαντα νυκτὸς ἡμέρας μαλάσσεται. τὰ μὲν διδακτὰ μανθάνω, τὰ δ' εὑρετὰ ζητῶ, τὰ δ' εὐκτὰ παρὰ θεῶν ᾐτησάμην.[37]
Whenever we compare Euripides with his predecessors, we are led to remark that he disintegrated the drama by destroying its artistic unity and revealing the modus operandi of the scientific analyst. All the elements of a great poem were given as it were in their totality by Æschylus. Sophocles, while conscious of the effect to be gained by resolving the drama into its component parts, was careful to recombine them by his art. It is difficult with either Æschylus or Sophocles to separate a passage from its context without injuring the whole, or to understand the drift of a sentence without considering both circumstance and person. With Euripides the case is somewhat different. Though he composed dramas supremely good in the aggregate impression left upon our mind, we feel that he employed his genius with delight in perfecting each separate part regarded by itself alone. So much of time and talent might be spent on the elaboration of the plot, so much on the accentuation of the characters, so much on lyric poetry, so much on moral maxims, so much on description, and so much on artificial argument. There is something over-strained in this crude statement; yet it serves to indicate the analytic method noticeable in Euripides. It consequently happened that his plays lent themselves admirably to the scissors and paste-box method of the compilers. He was a master of gnomes and sentences, and his tragedies were ready-made repertories of quotations. The good cause and the better were pleaded in his dialogues with impartial skill, because it was the poet's aim to set forth what might be said rhetorically—because he took a lively interest in casuistry for its own sake. These qualities, combined with so much that is attractive in his fables, radiant in his fancy, tender in his human sympathy, and romantic in his conduct of a play, endeared him to the Greeks of all succeeding ages. What they wanted in dramatic poetry he supplied better than any other playwright, except perhaps Menander, who, for similar reasons, shared a similar exceptionally lucky fate. The result is that, besides possessing at least eighteen of the plays of Euripides, as against seven of Sophocles and seven of Æschylus, our anthology of Euripidean excerpts is voluminous in the same ratio. The majority of these we owe to the industry of Stobæus, who always found something to his purpose in a drama of Euripides, while collecting wise precepts and descriptive passages to illustrate the nature of a vice or virtue. We must be careful, amid the medley of sentiments expressed with equal force and equal ease, to remember that they are not the poet's own, but put into the mouth of his dramatic personages. What is peculiar is the impartiality of rhetorical treatment they display—a quality which, though it may not justify, accounts for, the Aristophanic hostility to the Euripidean school of talkers on all subjects.
In addition to fragments, there remain detached portions of the Phaëthon, the Erechtheus, and the Antiope, sufficient, if nothing else had been preserved of the Euripidean drama, to suggest a better notion of this poet and his style than of Ion or Achæus, his lost compeers in the Alexandrian Canon. From the catastrophe of the Phaëthon, for example, it appears that Euripides contrived a truly striking contrast between the reception of the dead youth's corpse into the palace by his mother, and the advent, immediately following, of his father with a Chorus chanting bridal hymns. Lycurgus the orator, quoting the Erechtheus, has transmitted a characteristic speech by Praxithea, who deserves to be added to the list of courageous women painted with the virtues of εὐψυχία by Euripides. She maintains that, just as she would gladly send forth sons in the face of death to fight for their country, so, when the State requires of her the sacrifice of a daughter, she would be ashamed to refuse this much and far more. The outlines of the Antiope are more blurred; yet enough survives of a dialectical contention between Zethus and Amphion, the one arguing for a life of study and culture, the other for a life of arms and action, to illustrate this phase of the master's manner. With regard to the Phaëthon, it should be mentioned that Goethe attempted its restitution. His essay may be studied with interest by those who seek to understand the German poet's method of approaching the antique. The reverence with which he handles the precious relics may possibly astonish scholars, who, through fastidiousness of taste, have depreciated a dramatist they imperfectly comprehend.[38] English literature, since the beginning of this year, can boast its own Erechtheus, restored by Swinburne on the model of Æschylus rather than Euripides. While referring to the mutilated dramas of Euripides, the opening to the Danaë requires a passing word of comment. It consists of a prologue in the mouth of Hermes, a chorus, and a couple of lines spoken by Acrisius. The whole, however, is pretty clearly the work of some mediæval forger, and has, so far as it goes, the same kind of interest as the Χριστὸς πάσχων, because it illustrates the ascendency of Euripides during the later ages of Greek culture.
Irksome as it may be to both writer and reader, I know no better method of dealing with the fragments of Euripides than that already adopted with regard to those of Sophocles. The fragments themselves are precious, and deserve to be presented to the modern student with loving and reverential care. Yet there is no way of centralizing the interest of their miscellaneous topics; and to treat them as an anthology of quotations, selecting the most characteristic and translating these as far as possible into equivalent lines, is all that I can do.
A peculiarly interesting fragment in its bearing on Greek life shall be chosen for the first quotation. It comes from the satyric drama of Autolycus, and expresses the contempt felt by cultivated Athenians for young men who devoted all their energies to gymnastics. It is not easy to connect the idea of vulgarity with that of the Greek athletes whose portraits in marble, no less resplendent than the immortal Apoxyomenos of the Vatican, adorned the peristyles of Altis. Yet there can be little doubt from the following fragment, taken in connection with certain hints in Plato, that these muscular heroes of an hour, for whom wreaths were woven and breaches broken in the city walls, struck some green-eyed philosophers as the incarnation of rowdyism. Euripides, if we may trust his biographers, had been educated by his father as an athlete; and it is not improbable that his early distaste for an eminently uncongenial occupation, no less than his familiarity with the manners of its professors, embittered his style in this sarcastic passage. Such splendid beings as the Autolycus, before whom the distinguished guests in Xenophon's Symposium were silenced, seemed to our poet at best but sculptor's models, walking statues, πόλεως ἀγάλματα, and at worst mere slaves of jaws and belly, περισσαὶ σαρκές. Early in Greek literature the same relentless light of moral science, like the gaze of Apollonius undoing Lamia's charm, had been cast upon the athletes by Xenophanes of Colophon. While listening to Euripides, we can fancy that the Adikos Logos from the Clouds of Aristophanes is speaking through his lips to an Athenian audience, composed of would-be orators and assiduous dikasts:
κακῶν γὰρ ὄντων μυρίων καθ' Ἑλλάδα, οὐδὲν κάκιόν ἐστιν ἀθλητῶν γένους. οἱ πρῶτα μὲν ζῆν οὔτε μανθάνουσιν εὖ, οὔτ' ἂν δύναιντο· πῶς γὰρ ὅστις ἐστ' ἀνὴρ γνάθου τε δοῦλος νηδύος θ' ἡσσημένος, κτήσαιτ' ἂν ὄλβον εἰς ὑπερβολὴν πατρός; οὐδ' αὖ πένεσθαι καὶ ξυνηρετμεῖν τύχαις οἷοί τ'· ἔθη γὰρ οὐκ ἐθισθέντες καλὰ σκληρῶς διαλλάσσουσιν εἰς τἀμήχανα. λαμπροὶ δ' ἐν ἥβῃ καὶ πόλεως ἀγάλματα φοιτῶσ'· ὅταν δὲ προσπέσῃ γῆρας πικρὸν τρίβωνες ἐκβαλόντες οἴχονται κρόκας· ἐμεμψάμην δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἑλλήνων νόμον οἳ τῶνδ' ἕκατι σύλλογον ποιούμενοι τιμῶσ' ἀχρείους ἡδονὰς δαιτὸς χάριν· τίς γὰρ παλαίσας εὖ, τίς ὠκύπους ἀνὴρ ἢ δίσκον ἄρας ἢ γνάθον παίσας καλῶς πόλει πατρῴᾳ στέφανον ἤρκεσεν λαβών; πότερα μαχοῦνται πολεμίοισιν ἐν χεροῖν δίσκους ἔχοντες ἢ δι' ἀσπίδων χερὶ θείνοντες ἐκβαλοῦσι πολεμίους πάτρας; οὐδεὶς σιδήρου ταῦτα μωραίνει πέλας στάς. ἄνδρας οὖν ἐχρῆν σοφούς τε κἀγαθοὺς φύλλοις στέφεσθαι, χὤστις ἡγεῖται πόλει κάλλιστα, σώφρων καὶ δίκαιος ὢν ἀνήρ, ὅστις τε μύθοις ἔργ' ἀπαλλάσσει κακὰ μάχας τ' ἀφαιρῶν καὶ στάσεις· τοιαῦτα γὰρ πόλει τε πάσῃ πᾶσί θ' Ἕλλησιν καλά.[39]
Passing from the athletes to a cognate subject, the following fragment from the Dictys nobly expresses the ideal of friendship. The first two lines seem to need correction; I have let them stand, though inclined to propose κεἰ for καὶ, and to conjecture the loss of a line after the second:
φίλος γὰρ ἦν μοι· καί μ' ἔρως ἕλοι ποτὲ οὐκ εἰς τὸ μῶρον οὐδέ μ' εἰς Κύπριν τρέπων. ἀλλ' ἔστι δή τις ἄλλος ἐν βροτοῖς ἔρως, ψυχῆς δικαίας σώφρονός τε κἀγαθῆς. καὶ χρῆν δὲ τοῖς βροτοῖσι τόνδ' εἶναι νόμον, τῶν εὐσεβούντων οἵτινές γε σώφρονες ἐρᾶν, Κύπριν δὲ τὴν Διὸς χαίρειν ἐᾶν.[40]
About Eros and Aphrodite the poet has supplied us with a good store of contradictory sentiments. In one long and very remarkable fragment (No. 839, ed. Dindorf) from an unknown play, Euripides, if he be indeed the author of the verses, has imitated Æschylus, taking almost word for word the famous vaunt of Kupris, quoted above from the Danaides. The three next pieces may be also cited among the praises of Love:
ἔρωτα δ' ὅστις μὴ θεὸν κρίνει μέγαν καὶ τῶν ἁπάντων δαιμόνων ὑπέρτατον, ἢ σκαιός ἐστιν ἢ καλῶν ἄπειρος ὢν οὐκ οἶδε τὸν μέγιστον ἀνθρώποις θεόν. ὅσοι γὰρ εἰς ἔρωτα πίπτουσιν βροτῶν ἐσθλῶν ὅταν τύχωσι τῶν ἐρωμένων οὐκ ἔσθ' ὁποίας λείπεται τῆς ἡδονῆς. ἔχω δὲ τόλμης καὶ θράσους διδάσκαλον, ἐν τοῖς ἀμηχάνοισιν εὐπορώτατον, ἔρωτα πάντων δυσμαχώτατον θεῶν.[41]
Here, again, remembering how much the Greeks included in the term music, is a pretty compliment:
μουσικὴν δ' ἄρα ἔρως διδάσκει κἂν ἄμουσος ᾖ τὸ πρίν.[42]
The next is a graceful expostulation on the lover's part with the god who can make or mar his happiness in life:
σὺ δ' ὦ τύραννε θεῶν τε κἀνθρώπων ἔρως ἢ μὴ δίδασκε τὰ καλὰ φαίνεσθαι καλά, ἢ τοῖς ἐρῶσιν ὧν σὺ δημιουργὸς εἶ μοχθοῦσι μόχθους εὐτυχῶς συνεκπόνει. καὶ ταῦτα μὲν δρῶν τίμιος θεοῖς ἔσει, μὴ δρῶν δ' ὑπ' αὐτοῦ τοῦ διδάσκεσθαι φιλεῖν ἀφαιρεθήσει χάριτας αἷς τιμῶσί σε.[43]
Nor is this without its tincture of respect:
ἀνδρὸς δ' ὁρῶντος εἰς κύπριν νεανίου ἀφύλακτος ἡ τήρησις· ἢν γὰρ φαῦλος ᾖ τἄλλ' εἰς ἔρωτα πᾶς ἀνὴρ σοφώτερος. ἢν δ' αὖ προσῆται Κύπρις ἥδιστον λαβεῖν.[44]
But Euripides can turn round and rate Love for his encouragement of idleness. There is a stern perception of the facts of life in the following excerpt from the Danaë:
ἔρως γὰρ ἀργὸν κἀπὶ τοῖς ἀργοῖς ἔφυ· φιλεῖ κάτοπτρα καὶ κομῆς ξανθίσματα φεύγει δὲ μόχθους. ἓν δέ μοι τεκμήριον. οὐδεὶς προσαιτῶν βίοτον ἠράσθη βροτῶν, ἐν τοῖς δ' ἔχουσιν ἡβητὴς πέφυχ' ὅδε.[45]
Concerning women he is no less impartial. However he may have chosen to paint their possibilities of heroism, and the force of their character in hours of passion or of need, no poet has certainly abused them in stronger terms. The following is an almost laughable example:
δεινὴ μὲν ἀλκὴ κυμάτων θαλασσίων δειναὶ δὲ ποταμοῦ καὶ πυρὸς θερμοῦ πνόαι δεινὸν δὲ πενία δεινὰ δ' ἄλλα μύρια· ἀλλ' οὐδὲν οὕτω δεινὸν ὡς γυνὴ κακὸν οὐδ' ἂν γένοιτο γράμμα τοιοῦτ' ἐν γραφῇ οὐδ' ἂν λόγος δείξειεν· εἰ δέ του θεῶν τόδ' ἐστι πλάσμα δημιουργὸς ὢν κακῶν μέγιστος ἴστω καὶ βροτοῖσι δυσμενής.[46]
Nor can the group which I have classed together in the following extracts be considered as complimentary:
πλὴν τῆς τεκούσης θῆλυ πᾶν μισῶ γένος. ἔνδον μένουσαν τὴν γυναῖκ' εἶναι χρεὼν ἐσθλὴν θύρασι δ' ἀξίαν τοῦ μηδενός. ἔστιν δὲ μήτηρ φιλότεκνος μᾶλλον πατρός· ἡ μὲν γὰρ αὑτῆς οἶδεν ὄνθ' ὁ δ' οἴεται. οὐκ ἔστιν οὔτε τεῖχος οὔτε χρήματα. οὔτ' ἄλλο δυσφύλακτον οὐδὲν ὡς γυνή. ἀντὶ γὰρ πυρὸς πῦρ ἄλλο μεῖζον ἠδὲ δυσμαχώτερον ἔβλαστον αἱ γυναῖκες. γαμεῖτε νῦν γαμεῖτε κᾆτα θνήσκετε ἢ φαρμάκοισιν ἐκ γυναικὸς ἢ δόλοις.[47]
On marriage many pithy sayings might be cited. The one I take first is eminent for practical brutality combined with sound sense:
ὅσοι γαμοῦσι δ' ἢ γένει κρείσσους γάμους ἢ πολλὰ χρήματ' οὐκ ἐπίστανται γαμεῖν. τὰ τῆς γυναῖκος γὰρ κρατοῦντ' ἐν δώμασιν δουλοῖ τὸν ἄνδρα κοὐκέτ' ἐστ' ἐλεύθερος. πλοῦτος δ' ἐπακτὸς ἐκ γυναικείων γάμων ἀνόνητος· αἱ γὰρ διαλύσεις οὐ ῥᾳδίαι.[48]
To the same category belongs the following, though its worldly wisdom conceals no bitterness:
κακὸν γυναῖκα πρὸς νέαν ζεῦξαι νέον· μακρὰ γὰρ ἰσχὺς μᾶλλον ἀρσένων μένει, θήλεια δ' ἥβη θᾶσσον ἐκλείπει δέμας.[49]
It answers to our own proverb: "A young man married is a young man marred."
For the sanctities of domestic life, and for the pathetic beauty of maternal love, no poet had a deeper sense than Euripides. The following lines, spoken apparently by Danaë, makes us keenly regret the loss of the tragedy that bore her name; all the tenderness of the Simonidean elegy upon her fable seems to inspire the maiden's longing for a child to fill her arms and sport upon her knee:
τάχ' ἂν πρὸς ἀγκάλαισι καὶ στέρνοις ἐμοῖς πηδῶν ἀθύροι καὶ φιλημάτων ὄχλῳ ψυχὴν ἐμὴν κτήσαιτο· ταῦτα γὰρ βροτοῖς φίλτρον μέγιστον αἱ ξυνούσιαι πάτερ.[50]
And where was the charm of children ever painted with more feeling than in these verses from the same play?
γύναι, φίλον μὲν φέγγος ἡλίου τόδε, καλὸν δὲ πόντου χεῦμ' ἰδεῖν εὐήνεμον, γῆ τ' ἠρινὸν θάλλουσα πλούσιόν θ' ὕδωρ, πολλῶν τ' ἔπαινον ἐστί μοι λέξαι καλῶν. ἀλλ' οὐδὲν οὕτω λαμπρὸν οὐδ' ἰδεῖν καλὸν ὡς τοῖς ἄπαισι καὶ πόθῳ δεδηγμένοις παίδων νεογνῶν ἐν δόμοις ἰδεῖν φάος.[51]
In the next quotation, beautiful by reason of its plainness, a young man is reminded of the sweetness of a mother's love:
οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδὲν μητρὸς ἥδιον τέκνοις. ἐρᾶτε μητρὸς παῖδες· ὡς οὐκ ἔστ' ἔρως τοιοῦτος ἄλλος οἷος ἡδίων ἐρᾶν.[52]
The sentiment here expressed seems to be contradicted by a fragment from an unknown play (No. 887), where a son tells his mother that he cannot be expected to cling to her as much as to his father. The Greeks, as we gather from the Oresteia of Æschylus, believed that the male offspring was specially related by sympathy, duty, and hereditary qualities to his father. The contrast between women and men in respect to the paternal home is well conveyed in the following four lines:
γυνὴ γὰρ ἐξελθοῦσα πατρῴων δόμων οὐ τῶν τεκόντων ἐστὶν ἀλλὰ τοῦ λέχους· τὸ δ' ἄρσεν ἕστηκ' ἐν δόμοις ἀεὶ γένος θεῶν πατρῴων καὶ τάφων τιμάορον.[53]
Some of the most remarkable excerpts from Euripides turn upon the thought of death—a doom accepted by him with magnanimous Greek stoicism. Those which appear to me the most important I have thrown together for convenience of comparison:
τίς δ' οἶδεν εἰ ζῆν τοῦθ' ὁ κέκληται θανεῖν, τὸ ζῆν δὲ θνήσκειν ἐστί; πλὴν ὅμως βροτῶν νοσοῦσιν οἱ βλέποντες οἱ δ' ὀλωλότες οὐδὲν νοσοῦσιν οὐδὲ κέκτηνται κακά. ἐχρῆν γὰρ ἡμᾶς σύλλογον ποιουμένους τὸν φύντα θρηνεῖν εἰς ὅσ' ἔρχεται κακά, τὸν δ' αὖ θανόντα καὶ πόνων πεπαυμένον χαίροντας εὐφημοῦντας ἐκπέμπειν δόμων. τοὺς ζῶντας εὖ δρᾶν· κατθανὼν δὲ πᾶς ἀνὴρ γῆ καὶ σκιά· τὸ μηδὲν εἰς οὐδὲν ῥέπει. θάνατος γὰρ ἀνθρώποισι νεικέων τέλος ἔχει· τί γὰρ τοῦδ' ἐστὶ μεῖζον ἐν βροτοῖς; τίς γὰρ πετραῖον σκόπελον οὐτίζων δορὶ ὀδύναισι δώσει; τίς δ' ἀτιμάζων νέκυς, εἰ μηδὲν αἰσθάνοιντο τῶν παθημάτων;[54]
To these should be added the magnificent words of consolation addressed by Dictys, in the tragedy that bears his name, to Danaë:
δοκεῖς τὸν Ἅιδην σῶν τι φροντίζειν γόων καὶ παῖδ' ἀνήσειν τὸν σὸν εἰ θέλοις στένειν; παῦσαι· βλέπουσα δ' εἰς τὰ τῶν πέλας κακὰ ῥᾴων γένοι' ἄν, εἰ λογίζεσθαι θέλοις ὅσοι τε δεσμοῖς ἐκμεμόχθηνται βροτῶν, ὅσοι τε γηράσκουσιν ὀρφανοὶ τέκνων, τούς τ' ἐκ μεγίστης ὀλβίας τυραννίδος τὸ μηδὲν ὄντας· ταῦτά σε σκοπεῖν χρεών.[55]
Close to the thought of death lies that of endurance; and here is a fragment from the Hypsipyle, which might be placed for a motto on the title-page of Epictetus:
ἔφυ μὲν οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐ πονεῖ βροτῶν, θάπτει τε τέκνα χἄτερ' αὖ κτᾶται νέα, αὐτός τε θνήσκει, καὶ τάδ' ἄχθονται βροτοὶ εἰς γῆν φέροντες γῆν· ἀναγκαίως δ' ἔχει βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν, καὶ τὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸν δὲ μή· τί ταῦτα δεῖ στένειν, ἅπερ δεῖ κατὰ φύσιν διεκπερᾶν; δεινὸν γὰρ οὐδὲν τῶν ἀναγκαίων βροτοῖς.[56]
On Justice and the punishment of sins we may take the following passages, expressing, with dramatic energy, the intense moral conscience of the Greek race:
δοκεῖτε πηδᾶν τἀδικήματ' εἰς θεοὺς πτεροῖσι, κἄπειτ' ἐν Διὸς δέλτου πτυχαῖς γράφειν τιν' αὐτά, Ζῆνα δ' εἰσορῶντά νιν θνητοῖς δικάζειν; οὐδ' ὁ πᾶς ἂν οὐρανὸς Διὸς γράφοντος τὰς βροτῶν ἁμαρτίας ἐξαρκέσειεν, οὐδ' ἐκεῖνος ἂν σκοπῶν πέμπειν ἑκάστῳ ζημίαν· ἀλλ' ἡ Δίκη ἐνταῦθά πού 'στιν ἐγγὺς εἰ βούλεσθ' ὁρᾶν. τήν τοι Δίκην λέγουσι παῖδ' εἶναι Διὸς ἐγγύς τε ναίειν τῆς βροτῶν ἁμαρτίας.[57]
They stand, however, in somewhat curious opposition to a fragment from Bellerophon about Divine Justice:
φησίν τις εἶναι δῆτ', ἐν οὐρανῷ θεούς; οὐκ εἰσίν, οὐκ εἴσ'. εἴ τις ἀνθρώπων λέγει, μὴ τῷ παλαιῷ μῶρος ὢν χρήσθω λόγῳ. σκέψασθε δ' αὐτὰ μὴ 'πι τοῖς ἐμοῖς λόγοις γνώμην ἔχοντες· φήμ' ἐγὼ τυραννίδα κτείνειν τε πλείστους κτημάτων τ' ἀποστερεῖν, ὅρκους τε παραβαίνοντας ἐκπορθεῖν, πόλεις, καὶ ταῦτα δρῶντες μᾶλλον εἰσ' εὐδαίμονες τῶν εὐσεβούντων ἡσυχῆ καθ' ἡμέραν· πόλεις τε μικρὰς οἶδα τιμώσας θεοὺς αἳ μειζόνων κλύουσι δυσσεβεστέρων λόγχης ἀριθμῷ πλείονος κρατούμεναι.[58]
In which of the fragments just quoted was the poet speaking in his own person? In neither, perhaps, fully; partly, perhaps, in both. About wealth he utters in like manner seemingly contradictory oracles:
βίᾳ νυν ἕλκετ' ὦ κακοὶ τιμὰς βροτοὶ καὶ κτᾶσθε πλοῦτον πάντοθεν θηρώμενοι σύμμικτα μὴ δίκαια καὶ δίκαι' ὁμοῦ· ἔπειτ' ἀμᾶσθε τῶνδε δύστηνον θέρος. ὦ χρυσέ, δεξίωμα κάλλιστον βροτοῖς, ὡς οὔτε μήτηρ ἡδονὰς τοιάσδ' ἔχει οὐ παῖδες ἀνθρώποισιν οὐ φίλος πατήρ, οἵας σὺ χοἰ σὲ δώμασιν κεκτημένοι. εἰ δ' ἡ Κύπρις τοιοῦτον ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾷ οὐ θαῦμ' ἔρωτας μυρίους αὐτὴν τρέφειν.[59]
In what he says of noble birth Euripides never wavers. The true democrat speaks through his verse, and yet no poet has spoken more emphatically of bravery and honor. We may take the following examples in their order:
εἰς δ' εὐγένειαν ὀλίγ' ἔχω φράσαι καλά· ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἐσθλὸς εὐγενὴς ἔμοιγ' ἀνὴρ ὁ δ' οὐ δίκαιος κἂν ἀμείνονος πατρὸς Ζηνὸς πεφύκῃ δυσγενὴς εἶναι δοκεῖ. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως σκοπεῖν χρεὼν τὴν εὐγένειαν· τοὺς γὰρ ἀνδρείους φύσιν καὶ τοὺς δικαίους τῶν κενῶν δοξασμάτων κἂν ὦσι δούλων εὐγενεστέρους λέγω. φεῦ τοῖσι γενναίοισιν ὡς ἁπανταχοῦ πρέπει χαρακτὴρ χρηστὸς εἰς εὐψυχίαν. ἅπας μὲν ἀὴρ αἰετῷ περάσιμος ἅπασα δὲ χθὼν ἀνδρὶ γενναίῳ πατρίς.[60]
Further to illustrate his conception of true nobility, using for this purpose in particular the fragments of the Antiope, would be easy. It appears throughout that Euripides was bent on contrasting the honor that is won by labor with the pleasures of a lazy life. Against the hedonism which lay so near at hand to pagans in the license of the flesh, the Greeks set up an ideal of glory attainable alone by toil. This morality found expression in the famous lines of Hesiod on ἀρετή, in the action of Achilles, in the proverb πάντα τὰ καλὰ χαλεπά, and in the fable of the choice of Hercules. Euripides varies the theme in his iambics by a hundred modulations:
νεανίαν γὰρ ἄνδρα χρὴ τολμᾶν ἀεί· οὐδεὶς γὰρ ὢν ῥᾴθυμος εὐκλεὴς ἀνήρ. ἀλλ' οἱ πόνοι τίκτουσι τὴν εὐδοξίαν. οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις ἡδέως ζητῶν βιοῦν εὔκλειαν εἰσεκτήσατ' ἀλλὰ χρὴ πονεῖν. ὁ δ' ἡδὺς αἰὼν ἡ κακή τ' ἀνανδρία οὔτ' οἶκον οὔτε γαῖαν ὀρθώσειεν ἄν. σὺν μυρίοισι τὰ καλὰ γίγνεται πόνοις. ἐμὲ δ' ἄρ' οὐ μοχθεῖν δίκαιον; τίς δ' ἄμοχθος εὐκλεής; τίς τῶν μεγίστων δειλὸς ὢν ὠρέξατο;[61]
The political morality deduced from this view of life is stern and noble:
γνώμῃ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς εὖ μὲν οἰκοῦνται πόλεις, εὖ δ' οἶκος, εἴς τ' αὖ πόλεμον ἰσχύει μέγα· σοφὸν γὰρ ἓν βούλευμα τὰς πολλὰς χέρας νικᾷ· σὺν ὄχλῳ δ' ἀμαθία πλεῖστον κακόν. τρεῖς εἰσὶν ἀρεταὶ τὰς χρεών σ' ἀσκεῖν, τέκνον, θεούς τε τιμᾶν τούς τε φύσαντας γονεῖς, νόμους τε κοινοὺς Ἑλλάδος· καὶ ταῦτα δρῶν κάλλιστον ἕξεις στέφανον εὐκλείας ἀεί.[62]
Nor is the condemnation of mere pleasure-seeking less severe:
ἀνὴρ γὰρ ὅστις εὖ βίον κεκτημένος τὰ μὲν κατ' οἴκους ἀμελίᾳ παρεὶς ἐᾷ, μολπαῖσι δ' ἡσθεὶς τοῦτ' ἀεὶ θηρεύεται, ἀργὸς μὲν οἴκοις καὶ πόλει γενήσεται φίλοισι δ' οὐδείς· ἡ φύσις γὰρ οἴχεται ὅταν γλυκείας ἡδονῆς ἥσσων τις ᾖ.[63]
The indifference induced by satiety is well characterized in the following lines:
κόρος δὲ πάντων· καὶ γὰρ ἐκ καλλιόνων λέκτροις ἐπ' αἰσχροῖς εἶδον ἐκπεπληγμένους. δαιτὸς δὲ πληρωθείς τις ἄσμενος πάλιν φαύλῃ διαίτῃ προσβαλὼν ἥσθη στόμα.[64]
In the foregoing specimens no selection has been made of lines remarkable for their æsthetic beauty. This omission is due to Stobæus, who was more bent on extracting moral maxims than strains of poetry comparable with the invocation of Hippolytus to Artemis. Two, however, I have marked for translation on account of their artistic charm; the first for its pretty touch of picturesqueness, the second for its sympathy with sculpture:
πολὺς δ' ἀνεῖρπε κισσὸς εὐφυὴς κλάδος χελιδόνων μουσεῖον. ἔα· τίν' ὄχθον τόνδ' ὁρῶ περίρρυτον ἄφρῳ θαλάσσης, παρθένου τ' εἰκώ τινα ἐξ αὐτομόρφων λαΐνων τειχισμάτων σοφῆς ἄγαλμα χειρός.[65]
Some passages, worthy of preservation, yet not easily classified, may wind up the series. Here is "Envy, eldest born of hell:"
τίς ἆρα μήτηρ ἢ πατὴρ κακὸν μέγα βροτοῖς ἔφυσε τὸν δυσώνυμον φθόνον; ποῦ καί ποτ' οἰκεῖ σωμάτων λαχὼν μέρος; ἐν χερσὶν ἢ σπλάγχνοισιν ἢ παρ' ὄμματα ἔσθ' ἡμίν; ὡς ἦν μόχθος ἰατροῖς μέγας τομαῖς ἀφαιρεῖν ἢ ποτοῖς ἢ φαρμάκοις πασῶν μεγίστην τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις νόσων.[66]
The next couplet is pregnant with a home-truth which most men have had occasion to feel:
ἅπαντές ἐσμεν εἰς τὸ νουθετεῖν σοφοὶ αὐτοὶ δ' ὅταν σφαλῶμεν οὐ γιγνώσκομεν.[67]
The value attached by Greek political philosophers to the ἦθος, or temperament, of states, and their dislike of demagogy, are accounted for in these four lines:
τρόπος ἐστὶ χρηστὸς ἀσφαλέστερος νόμου. τὸν μὲν γὰρ οὐδεὶς ἂν διαστρέψαι ποτὲ ῥήτωρ δύναιτο, τὸν δ' ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω λόγοις ταράσσων πολλάκις λυμαίνεται.[68]
One single line, noticeable for its weighty meaning, and Euripidean by reason of its pathos, shall end the list:
νέος πόνοις δέ γ' οὐκ ἀγύμναστος φρένας.[69]
The lasting title to fame of Euripides consists in his having dealt with the deeper problems of life in a spirit which became permanent among the Greeks, so that his poems, like those of Menander, never lost their value as expressions of current philosophy. Nothing strikes the student of later Greek literature more strongly than this prolongation of the Euripidean tone of thought and feeling. In the decline of tragic poetry the literary sceptre was transferred to comedy, and the comic playwrights may be described as the true successors of Euripides. The dialectic method, degenerating into sophistic quibbling, which he affected, was indeed dropped, and a more harmonious form of art than the Euripidean was created for comedy by Menander, when the Athenians, after passing through their disputatious period, had settled down into a tranquil acceptation of the facts of life. Yet this return to harmony of form and purity of perception did not abate the influence of Euripides. Here and there throughout his tragedies he had said once and for all, and well said, what the Greeks were bound to think and feel upon important matters, and his sensitive, susceptible temperament repeated itself over and over again among his literary successors. The exclamation of Philemon that, if he could believe in immortality, he would hang himself to see Euripides, is characteristic not only of Philemon, but also of the whole Macedonian period of Greek literature.