ver. t 11. the et goʻ * Athens bi. dent fat རྫོང་ སྐ aned Pets at di at once the He se ured at d only tee times 1 after his death, his a cheat Greek lands, was un 3 ars of Esebylus, seven of I uripides, have been preserved for us. Ex ripi- 4ot buess an independent and complete ank EURIPIDES (480-406 B. C.) BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON URIPIDES, latest in age and perhaps least in rank among the three surviving tragic poets of Athens, was said to have been born on Salamis, during the decisive battle for freedom, when his mother, like the homeless folk of Attica generally, was in temporary exile upon the little island. This legend was at least an artistic invention, since Eschylus shared in the sea fight, and Sophocles, as a beautiful stripling, led the band of boys who danced about the trophy of victory. The supreme rank of these three is no accident of survival. When news of Euripides's death reached Athens, Sophocles bade his chorus appear in mourning for him; and a few months later, when both were in the underworld, Aristophanes, in his comedy The Frogs,' makes the god Dionysos follow them thither, and beg Pluto to restore to earth one dramatist worthy to grace the annual contest at his festival. This testimony from the lifelong enemy and ridiculer of Euripides is borne out by all the evidence we have. He was probably of good Attic stock, the stories of his parents' poverty being inventions of the comic poets. He was one of the first to collect a large library. He was carefully educated, at first as an athlete, from a misunderstanding of an oracle to the effect that he was to "win prizes in contests." He also developed youthful skill, like his friend Socrates, as an artist. At twenty-five he first obtained the honor of competing as one of the three chosen tragic poets at the Dionysia. All these facts point to good social rank. He did not, however, like the youthful Sophocles, win at once the popular heart. At his first venture he was placed last. He secured highest honors not once until fourteen years later, and only five times altogether. Yet toward the end of his life, and after his death, his influence, not merely in Athens but throughout Greek lands, was unrivaled. It is no accident that seven dramas of Eschylus, seven of Sophocles, nineteen of Euripides, have been preserved for us. Euripides is said to have composed twenty-three tetralogies, ninety-two dramas! Each play was doubtless an independent and complete work of art, so that the number is indeed surprising. 5570 No worthy successors to this brief line ever arose. The three and their forgotten rivals filled the fifth century B. C. with their splendor. The likeness of them all should strike a modern student, before their differences. All their plays graced the greatest State festival and were a part of the popular religious ceremonial. All save Æschylus's 'Persians—no real exception in its spirit-aim to represent a remote heroic age. The characters are chiefly gods or the immediate offspring of gods. The vain struggle of man against Fate is always a motive, usually the chief thread of the tale. As to outward form, also, the chorus remains to the end the central feature, though its importance is somewhat lessened. The small number of actors, the stiffness of mask and buskin, the simple stage setting, the avoidance of violent or confused action, continued apparently little modified. Still, there has been a very general conviction in ancient and modern times, first uttered effectively by Aristophanes, that Euripides was a radical innovator, both in art and in religion. Of course this is necessarily true in some degree of any original creative artist. But the question goes much deeper. That wonderful fifth century falls inevitably into three periods. The generation that saw the terrific invading host of Xerxes melt away like a dream, and Athens arise from her ashes to become queen of the Ægean and the foremost State in the Greek world, could hardly escape a fervent belief in divine guidance of all earthly affairs. Æschylus, himself a Marathonian warrior, probably stamped upon tragedy much of his own intensely religious nature. His human characters seem almost helpless in the grip of stern but just Fate. In Sophocles the gods are rarely seen on the stage. Man is subject indeed to their rule, but he usually works out his own doom of ill or happiness by ways not inscrutable. In the prosperous period of Kimon and Pericles which formed his early maturity, Athens doubtless felt herself quite capable of accomplishing her own destiny. Pericles and the enlightened circle about him probably troubled themselves very little- beyond judicious outward conformity - with the traditional mythology. To many admiring readers, Sophocles seems cold. His 'Electra' best illustrates what we cannot here discuss. His conformity to Eschylean theology seems usually a mere artistic utterance of his own rather vague optimism. Euripides lived through the same period also. But he was not so harmonious and happy a nature. The pathos of human life, the capriciousness of destiny, the seemingly unjust distribution of lots, distressed and perplexed him. This may not have been so largely true of his earlier work. We have only one play (the 'Alcestis') previous to his fiftieth year. At that very time began the great national tragedy of the Thirty Years' War, destined to end in the utter 5571 humiliation and downfall of imperial Athens. The plague, and the death of Pericles, made even the beginnings of the great strife seem tragic. The appalling disaster in Sicily foreshadowed the end, and indeed made it inevitable, long years before it came. It is not strange if the favorite, the popular Athenian poet of that darkening day, often doubted the Divine wisdom, felt a strife, which his art could not reconcile, between man and Providence. Whatever the reason, the gods do take again a prominent share in Euripidean as in Eschylean drama; but they often, perhaps usually, act from less noble motives than the human characters. It has been maintained, even,- especially by a living English scholar, Professor Verrall, that Euripides made it his lifelong purpose to undermine and destroy any belief in the real existence of Zeus and Apollo, Pallas Athene, and all their kin; that he was an aggressive agnostic, using the forms of the traditional gods only to show their helplessness, their imbecility, their impossibility. But surely the generation that slew Socrates for "introducing strange gods and not honoring those of the State," would have detected and resented any such flagrant misuse of the holy place and day. Moreover, any such lifelong cynicism would have corroded the artistic powers themselves. Lucian, Voltaire, Swift, illustrate this truth. Many of the pessimistic outbursts often cited as Euripides's own are uttered in character by his sufferers and sinners, and are mere half-conscious cries of distress or protest. His dramatic power was not always sufficient to recast the old myths in an ethical form which satisfied him. He knew men and women thoroughly, loved them, found them heroic, generous, noble,—and he so painted them. The gods, whom he did not know, fared worse at his hands. Often one is introduced in spectacular fashion at the close, to cut the knot which the poet had failed to untie in the natural course of his plot. (Even Sophocles, once at least, - in the Philoctetes,' — does very much the same thing.) In general, Euripides seems distinctly inferior to his two masters, at their best, in construction, in plot. The world of scholarship is still laughing, with Aristophanes, at Euripides's long narrative prologues. (See Mr. Shorey's translation of the scene in the 'Frogs,' Vol. ii. of this work, pages 786–7.) His long messengers' speeches, fine as they are, seem almost epic in their broad descriptions of what we have not seen. (Again, as Professor Mahaffy himself remarks, Sophocles's 'Electra' is the most unfortunate perversion of this indulgence.) On the other hand, in romantic lyric, in connected picturesque description, in pathos, in sympathy with elemental human feeling, Euripides has no Attic rival whatever. His women, his slaves, his humbler characters generally, are evidently drawn with especial tenderness. He is perhaps so far a "realist" in his art, that he should |