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EURIPIDES (48o–4o6 B.C.)
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See also:EURIPIDES (48o–4o6 B.C.) , the See also:great See also:Greek dramatic poet, was See also:born in 48o B.C., on the very See also:day, according to the See also:legend, of the Greek victory at See also:Salamis, where his Athenian parents had taken See also:refuge; and a whimsical See also:fancy has even suggested that his name—son of Euripus—was meant to commemorate the first check of the See also:Persian See also:fleet at Artemisium. His See also:father Mnesarchus was at least able to give him a liberal See also:education; it was a favourite taunt with the comic poets that his See also:mother Clito had been a See also:herb-seller—a See also:quaint instance of the See also:tone which public See also:satire could then adopt with plausible effect. At first he was intended, we are told, for the profession of an See also:athlete, a calling of which he has recorded his See also:opinion with something like the courage of See also:Xenophanes. He seems also to have essayed See also:painting; but at five-and-twenty he brought out his first See also:play, the Peliades, and thenceforth he was a tragic poet. At See also:thirty-nine he gained the first See also:prize, and in his career of about fifty years he gained it only five times in all. This fact is perfectly consistent with his unquestionably great and growing popularity in his own day. Throughout See also:life he had to compete with See also:Sophocles, and with other poets who represented tragedy of the type consecrated by tradition. The hostile See also:criticism of See also:Aristophanes was witty; and, moreover, it was true, granting the premise from which Aristophanes starts, that the tragedy of See also:Aeschylus and Sophocles is the only right See also:model. Its unfairness, often extreme, consists in ignoring the changing conditions of public feeling and See also:taste, and the possibilities, changed accordingly, of an See also:art which could exist only by continuing to please large audiences. It has usually been supposed that the unsparing derision of the comic poets contributed not a little to make the life of Euripides at See also:Athens uncomfortable; and there is certainly one passage in a fragment of the Melanippe (See also:Nauck, Frag., 495), which would apply well enough to his persecutors: L.r6p@r & 7roXAOl roU yEXwro OUVEKR See also:Ito Kmiec xapLras KEpebaovs• E'yt Si 7rws /2LQW 'ycXoLou1, OLTLLES oo4 ip rim. AxciXty' g'ouet aroµara. (To raise vain See also:laughter, many exercise The arts of satire; but my spirit loathes These mockers whose unbridled mockery Invades See also:grave themes.) The infidelity of two wives in See also:succession is alleged to explain the poet's tone in reference to the See also:majority of their See also:sex, and to See also:complete the picture of an uneasy private life. He appears to have been repelled by the Athenian See also:democracy, as it tended to become less the See also:rule of the See also:people than of the See also:mob. Thoroughly the son of his day in intellectual matters, he shrank from the coarser aspects of its See also:political and social life. His best word Is for the small See also:farmer (airroupyos), who does not often come to See also:town, or See also:soil his rustic honesty by contact with the See also:crowd of the See also:market-See also:place.
About 409 B.C. Euripides See also:left Athens, and after a See also:residence in the Thessalian See also:Magnesia repaired, on the invitation of See also: He has made his See also:Medea speak of those who, through following quiet paths, have incurred the reproach of apathy (p¢Bvµiav). Undoubtedly enough of the old feeling for civic life remained to create a See also:prejudice against one who held aloof from the affairs of the See also:city. Quietness (a7rpayµoa'Gv71), in this sense, was still regarded as akin to indolence (apyi,a). Yet here we see how truly Euripides was the precursor of that near future which, at Athens, saw the more complete divergence of society from the See also:state. In an See also:age which is not yet ripe for reflection or for the subtle See also:analysis of See also:character, people are content to See also:express in See also:general types those See also:primary facts of human nature which strike every one. See also:Achilles will stand well enough for the See also:young chivalrous See also:warrior, See also:Odysseus for the See also:man of resource and endurance. In the case of the Greeks, these types had not merely an See also:artistic and a moral interest; they had, further, a religious interest, because the Greeks believed that the epic heroes, sprung from the gods, were their own ancestors. Greek tragedy arose when the choral See also:worship of See also:Dionysus, the See also:god of See also:physical rapture, had engrafted upon it a See also:dialogue between actors who represented some persons of the legends consecrated by this faith. The dramatist was accordingly obliged to refrain from multiplying those See also:minute touches which, by individualizing the characters too highly, would detract from their general value as types in which all Hellenic humanity could recognize its own See also:image glorified and raised a step nearer to the immortal gods. This See also:necessity was further enforced by the existence of the See also:chorus, the See also:original See also:element of the See also:drama, and the very essence of its nature as an See also:act of Dionysiac worship. Those utterances of the chorus, which to the See also:modern sense are so often platitudes, were not so to the Greeks, just because the moral issues of tragedy were See also:felt to have the same typical generality as these comments themselves. An unerring See also:instinct keeps both Aeschylus and Sophocles within the limits imposed by this See also:law. Euripides was only fifteen years younger than Sophocles. But, when Euripides began to write, it must have been clear to any man of his See also:genius and culture that, though an established See also:prestige might be maintained, a new poet who sought to construct tragedy on the old basis would be See also:building on See also:sand. For, first, the popular See also:religion itself—the very See also:foundation of tragedy—had been undermined. Secondly, See also:scepticism had begun to be busy with" the legends which that religion consecrated. Neither gods nor heroes commanded all the old unquestioning faith. Lastly, an increasing number of the See also:audience in the See also:theatre began to be destitute of the training, musical and poetical, which had prepared an earliergeneration to enjoy the chaste and placid grandeur of ideal tragedy. Euripides made a splendid effort to maintain the place of tragedy in the spiritual life of Athens by modifying its interests in the sense which his own See also:generation required. Could not the heroic persons still excite interest if they were made more real,—if, in them, the passions and sorrows of every-day life were portrayed with greater vividness and directness? And might not the less cultivated See also:part of the audience at least enjoy a thrilling See also:plot, especially if taken from the See also:home-legends of See also:Attica ? Euripides became the virtual founder of the romantic drama. In so far as his See also:work fails, the failure is one which probably no artistic tact could then have wholly avoided. The See also:frame within which he had to work was one which could not be stretched to his See also:plan. The chorus, the masks, the narrow See also:stage, the conventional costumes, the slender opportunities for See also:change of scenery, were so many fixed obstacles to the See also:free development of tragedy in the new direction. But no man of his time could have broken free from these traditions; in attempting to do so he must have wrecked either his fame or his art. It is not the See also:fault of Euripides if in so much of his work we feel the want of See also:harmony between See also:matter and See also:form. Art abhors See also:compromise; and it was the misfortune of Attic tragedy in his generation that nothing but a compromise could See also:save it. Two devices have become See also:common phrases of reproach against him—the See also:prologue and the See also:deus ex machina. Doubtless the prologue is a slipshod and sometimes ludicrous expedient. But the audiences of his days were far from being so well versed as their fathers in the mythic See also:lore, and, on the other See also:hand, a dramatist who wished to avoid trite themes had now to go into the byways of See also:mythology. A prologue was often perhaps desirable or necessary for the instruction of the audience. As regards the deus ex machina, a distinction should be observed between those cases ii. which the See also:solution is really See also:mechanical, as in the See also:Andromache and perhaps the See also:Orestes, and those in which it is warranted or required by the plot, as in the See also:Hippolytus and the Bacchae. The choral songs in Euripides, it may be granted, have often nothing to do with the action. But the chorus was the greatest of difficulties for a poet who was seeking to See also:present drama of romantic tendency in the plastic form consecrated by tradition. So far from censuring Euripides on this See also:score, we should be disposed to regard his management of the chorus as a See also:signal See also:proof of his genius, originality and skill. Euripides is said to have written 92 dramas, including 8 satyr-plays. The best critics of antiquity allowed 75 as genuine. Nauck has collected 1117 Euripidean fragments. Among these, See also:Works. See also:numbers 1092-1117 are doubtful or See also:spurious; numbers 842-to9t are from plays of uncertain See also:title; numbers 1-841 represent fifty-five lost pieces, among which some of the best known are the 'See also:Andromeda, See also:Antiope,1 See also:Bellerophon, Cresphontes, See also:Erechtheus, See also:Oedipus, See also:Phaethon, and Telephus. 1. The See also:Alcestis, as the didascaliae tell us, was brought out in 01. 85. 2, i.e. at the See also:Dionysia in the See also:spring of 438 B.C., as the See also:fourth play of a tetralogy comprising the Cretan See also:Women, the See also:Alcmaeon at Psophis, and the Telephus. The Alcestis is altogether removed from the character, essentially See also:grotesque, of a See also:mere satyric drama On the other hand, it has features which distinctly See also:separate it from a Greek tragedy of the normal type. First, the subject belongs to none of the great cycles, but to a byway of mythology, and involves such See also:strange elements as the See also:servitude of See also:Apollo in a mortal See also:household, the See also:decree of the fates that See also:Admetus must See also:die on a fixed day, and the restoration of the dead Alcestis to life. Secondly, the treatment of the subject is romantic and even fantastic,—strikingly so in the passage where Apollo is directly confronted with the daemonic figure of Thanatos. Lastly, the boisterous, remorseful, and generous Heracles makes, not, indeed, a satyric drama, but a distinctly satyric scene—a See also:scene which, in the See also:frank original, hardly bears the subtle See also:interpretation which in Balaustion is hinted by the genius of See also:Browning that Heracles got drunk in See also:order to keep up other people's See also:spirits. When the happy ending is taken into See also:account, it is not surprising that some should have called the Alcestis a tragi-comedy. But we cannot so regard it. The slight and purely incidental See also:strain of comedy is but a moment of See also:relief between the tragic sorrow and 1 A considerable fragment of the Anliope was discovered in See also:Egypt in the latter part of the 19th See also:century; ed. J. P. See also:Mahaffy in vol. viii. of the See also:Cunningham See also:Memoirs (See also:Dublin, 1891); and quite recently fragments, probably from the Hypsipyle, the Phaethon, and the Cretans (see Berliner Klassikerlexle, v. 2, 1907), terror of the opening and the joy, no less See also:solemn, of the conclusion. In this respect the Alcestis might more truly be compared to such a drama as the See also:Winter's See also:Tale; the loss and recovery of~Hermione by Leontes do not form a tragi-comedy because we are amused between-whiles by See also:Autolycus and the See also:clown. It does not seem improbable that the Alcestis—the earliest of the extant plays—may represent an See also:attempt to substitute for the old satyric drama an after-piece of a See also:kind which, while preserving a satyric element, should stand nearer to tragedy. The taste and See also:manners of the day were perhaps tiring of the merely grotesque entertainment that old usage appended to the tragedies; just as, in the See also:sphere of comedy, we know from Aristophanes that they were tiring of broad buffoonery. An original dramatist may have seen an opportunity here. However that may be, the Alcestis has a See also:peculiar interest for the See also:history of the drama. It marks in the most signal manner, and perhaps at the earliest moment, that great See also:movement which began with Euripides,—the movement of transition from the purely Hellenic drama to the romantic.
2. The Medea was brought out in 431 B.C. with the See also:Philoctetes, the Dictys, and a lost satyr-play called the Reapers (Theristae). Euripides gained the third prize, the first falling to See also:Euphorion, the son of Aeschylus, and the second to Sophocles. If it is true that Euripides modelled his Medea on the work of an obscure predecessor, Neophron, at least he made the subject thoroughly his own. Hardly any play was more popular in antiquity with readers and spectators, with actors, or with sculptors. See also:Ennius is said to have translated and adopted it. We do not know how far it may have been used by See also:Ovid in his lost tragedy of the same name; but it certainly inspired the rhetorical performance of See also:Seneca, which may be regarded as bridging the See also:interval between Euripides and modern adaptations. We may See also: The extant Hippolytus (429 B.C.)—sometimes called Stephanephoros, the " See also:wreath-See also:bearer," from the See also:garland of See also:flowers which, in the opening scene, the See also:hero offers to Artemis—was not the first drama of Euripides on this theme. In an earlier play of the same name, we are told, he had shocked both the moral and the aesthetic sense of Athens. In this earlier Hippolytus, See also:Phaedra herself had confessed her love to her step-son, and, when repulsed, had falsely accused him to See also:Theseus, who doomed him to death; at the sight of the See also:corpse, she had been moved to confess her See also:crime, and had atoned for it. by a voluntary death. This first Hippolytus is cited as Hippolytus the Veiled (KaMnrrbuEVOS), either, as See also:Toup and See also:Welcker thought, from Hippolytus covering his See also:face in horror, or, as See also:Bentley with more likelihood suggested, because the youth's shrouded corpse was brought upon the scene. It can scarcely be doubted that the See also:chief dramatic defect of our Hippolytus is connected with the unfavourable reception of its predecessor. Euripides had been warned that limits must be observed in the dramatic portrayal of a morally repulsive theme.. In the later play, accordingly, the whole action is made to turn on the jealous See also:feud between See also:Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and See also:Artemis, the goddess of chastity. Phaedra not only shrinks from breathing her See also:secret to Hippolytus, but destroys herself when she learns that she is rejected. But the natural agency of human See also:passion is now replaced by a supernatural machinery; the slain son and the bereaved father are no longer the martyrs of See also:sin, the tragic witnesses of an inexorable law; rather they and Phaedra are alike the puppets of a divine caprice, the scapegoats of an Olympian See also:quarrel in which they have no concern. But if the dramatic effect of the whole is thus weakened, the character of Phaedra is a See also:fine psychological study; and, as regards form, the play is one of the most brilliant. Boeckh (De tragoediae Graecae principiis, p. 18o f.) is perhaps too ingenious in finding an allusion to the See also:plague at Athens (430 B.C.) in the OJ See also:Kasai Ov r&,v ert yepat re vbeot of v. 177, and in v. 209 f.; but it can scarcely be doubted that he is right in suggesting that the closing words of Theseus (v. 146o) [:7 KXely"AO,1vwv IlaXXhIos 0' bptetsara, olov erepiteee0' bvhpbs, and the reply of the chorus, Koevbv rb5' Exec, &c., contain a reference to the See also:recent death of See also:Pericles (429 B.C.). 4. The See also:Hecuba may be placed about 425 B.C. See also:Thucydides (iii. 104) notices the See also:purification of See also:Delos by the Athenians, and the restoration of the Panionic festival there, in 426 B.c.—an event to which the choral passage, v. 462 f., probably refers. It appears more hazardous to take v. 65o f. as an allusion to the Spartan mishap at See also:Pylos. The subject of the play is the revenge of Hecuba, the widowed See also:queen of See also:Priam, on Polymestor, king of See also:Thrace, who had murdered her youngest son Polydorus, after her daughter Polyzena had already been sacrificed by the Greeks to the shade of Achilles. The two calamities which befall Hecuba have no See also:direct connexion with each other. In this sense the play lacks unity of See also:design. On the other hand, both events serve the same end—viz. to heighten the tragic pathos with which the poet seeks to surround the central figure of903 Hecuba. The drama illustrates the skill with which Euripides, while failing to satisfy the requirements of artistic drama, could sustain interest by an ingeniously See also:woven plot. It is a representative Intriguenstuck, and well exemplifies the peculiar power which recommended Euripides to the poets of the New Comedy. 5. The Andromache, according to a See also:notice in the scholia Veneta (446), was not acted at Athens, at least in the author's life-time; though some take the words in the Greek See also:argument (rb bpap.a rwv SEUTipW V) to mean that it was among those which gained a second prize. The invective on the Spartan character which is put into the mouth of Andromache contains the words, alai's EUTVXEIT' av''EXaiSa, and this, with other indications, points to the Peloponnesian successes of the years 424–422 B.C. Andromache, the widow of See also:Hector, has become the See also:captive and concubine of See also:Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. During his See also:absence, her son Molossus is taken from her, with the aid of See also:Menelaus, by her jealous rival Hermione. Mother and son are rescued from death by See also:Peleus; but meanwhile Neoptolemus is slain at See also:Delphi through the intrigues of Orestes. The goddess See also:Thetis now appears, ordains that Andromache shall marry See also:Helenus, and declares that Molossus shall found a See also:line of Epirote See also:kings, while Peleus shall become immortal among the gods of the See also:sea. The Andromache is a poor play. The contrasts, though striking, are harsh and coarse, and the compensations dealt out by the deus ex machina leave the moral sense wholly unsatisfied. Technically the piece is noteworthy as bringing on the scene four characters at once—Andromache, Molossus, Peleus and Menelaus (v. 545 f.). 6. The See also:Ion is an admirable drama, the finest of those plays which See also:deal with legends specially illustrating the traditional glories of Attica. It is also the most perfect example of the poet's skill in the structure of dramatic intrigue. For its place in the See also:chronological order there are no data except those of See also:style and See also:metre. Judging by these, See also:Hermann would place it " neither after 01. 89, nor much before "—i.e. somewhere between 424 and 421 B.C.; and this may be taken as approximately correct. The scene is laid throughout at the See also:temple of Delphi. The young Ion is a See also:priest in the temple of Delphi when Xuthus and his wife Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, come to inquire of the god concerning their childlessness; and it is discovered that Ion is the son of Creusa by the god Apollo. See also:Athena herself appears, and commands that Ion shall be placed on the See also:throne of Athens, foretelling that from him shall spring the four Attic tribes, the Teleontes (priests), Hopletes (fighting-men), Argadeis (husbandmen) and Aigikoreis (herdsmen). The play must have been peculiarly effective on the Athenian stage, not only by its situations, but through its See also:appeal to Attic sympathies. 7. The Suppliants who give their name to the play are Argive women, the mothers of Argive warriors slain before the walls of See also:Thebes, who, led by Adrastus, king of See also:Argos; come as suppliants to the See also:altar of See also:Demeter at See also:Eleusis. See also:Creon, king of Thebes, has refused See also:burial to their dead sons. The Athenian king Theseus demands of Creon that he shall grant the funeral See also:rites; the refusal is followed by a See also:battle in which the Thebans are vanquished, and the bodies of the Argive dead are then brought to Eleusis. At the See also:close the goddess Athena appears, and ordains that a close See also:alliance shall be formed between Athens and Argos. Some refer the play to 417 B.C., when the democratic party at Athens See also:rose against the oligarchs. But a more probable date is 420 B.C., when, through the agency of See also:Alcibiades, Athens and Argos concluded a defensive alliance. The play has a strongly marked rhetorical character, and is, in fact, a See also:panegyric, with an immediate political aim, on Athens as the See also:champion of humanity against Thebes. 8. The Heracleidae—a See also:companion piece to the Suppliants, and of the same period—is decidedly inferior in merit. Here, too, there are direct references to contemporary history. The defeat of Argos by the Spartans in 418 B.C. strengthened the Argive party who were in favour of discarding the Athenian for the Spartan alliance (Thug. v. 76). In the Heracleidae, the sons of the dead Heracles, persecuted by the Argive Eurystheus, are received and sheltered at Athens. Thus, while Athens is glorified, See also:Sparta, whose kings are descendants of the Heracleidae, is reminded how unnatural would be an alliance between herself and Argos. 9. The Heracles Mainomenosl (See also:Hercules Furens), which, on grounds of style, tan scarcely be put later than 420-417 B.C., shares with the two last plays the purpose of exalting Athens in the See also:person of Theseus. Heracles returns from Hades—whither, at the command of Eurystheus, he went to bring back Cerberus—just in time to save his wife See also:Megara and his children from being put to death by Lycus of Thebes, whom he slays. As he is offering lustral See also:sacrifice after the deed, he is suddenly stricken with madness by Lyssa (Fury), the daemonic See also:agent of his enemy the goddess See also:Hera, and in his frenzy he slays his wife and children. Theseus finds him, in his agony of despair, about to kill himself, and persuades him to come to Athens, there to seek See also:grace and See also:pardon from the gods. The unity of the plot may be partly vindicated by observing that the slaughter of Lycus entitled Heracles to the gratitude of Thebes, whereas the slaughter of his own kinsfolk made it unlawful that he should remain there; thus, having found a refuge only to lose it, Heracles has no See also:hope left but in Athens, whose praise is the true theme of the entire drama. ' (Originally simply Heracles, the addition Mainomenos being due to the Aldine ed.) to. Iphigenia among the See also:Tauri, which metre and• dittion See also:mark as one of the later plays, is also one of the best-excellent both in the management of a romantic plot and in the delineation;of character. The scene is laid at the temple of Artemis in the Tauric See also:Chersonese (the See also:Crimea)—on the site of the modern See also:Balaklava. Iphigenia, who had been doomed to die at See also:Aulis for the Greeks, had been snatched from that death by Artemis, and had become priestess of the goddess at the Tauric See also:shrine, where human victims were immolated. Two strangers, who had landed among the Tauri, have been sentenced to die at the altar. She discovers in them her See also:brother Orestes and his friend Pylades. They plan an See also:escape, are recaptured, and are finally delivered by the goddess Athena, who commands Thoas, king of the land, to permit their departure. Iphigenia, Orestes and Pylades return to See also:Greece, and establish, the worship of the Tauric Artemis at Brauron and Halae in Attica. The drama of Euripides necessarily suggests a comparison with that of See also:Goethe; and many readers will probably also feel that, while Goethe is certainly not inferior in fineness of ethical See also:portraiture, he has the See also:advantage in his management of the See also:catastrophe. But it is only just to Euripides to remember that, while his competitor had free See also:scope of treatment, he, a Greek dramatist, was See also:bound to the motive of the Greek legend, and was obliged to conclude with the foundation of the Attic worship.
ti. The Troades appeared in 415 B.C. along with the See also: The piece is less a drama than a pathetic spectacle, closing with the See also:crash of the Trojan towers in See also:flame and ruin. The Troades is indeed remarkable among Greek tragedies for its near approach to the character of See also:melodrama. It must be observed that there is no ground for the inference—sometimes made an See also:accusation against the poet—that the choral passage, v. 794 f., was intended to encourage the Sicilian expedition, sent forth in the same See also:year (415 B.c.). The mention of the " land of Aetna over against See also:Carthage " (v. 22o) speaks of it as "renowned, for the trophies of prowess "—a topic, surely, not of encouragement but of warning. 12. The Helena—produced, as we learn from the Aristophanic scholia, in 412 B.C., the year of the lost Andromeda—is not one of its author's happier efforts. It is founded on a strange, variation of the Trojan myth, first adopted by See also:Stesichorus in his Palinode—that only a See also:wraith of See also:Helen passed to Troy, while the real Helen was detained in Egypt. In this play she is rescued from the See also:Egyptian king, Theoclymenus, by a ruse of her See also:husband Menelaus, who brings her safely back to Greece. The romantic element thus engrafted on the Greek myth is more than fantastic: it is well-nigh grotesque. The comic poets—notably Aristophanes in the Thesmopheriezusaefelt this; nor can we blame them if they ridiculed a piece in which the mode of treatment was so discordant with the spirit of Greek tradition, and so irreconcilable with all that constituted the higher. meaning of Greek tragedy. 13. The Phoenissae was brought out, with the See also:Oenomaus and the See also:Chrysippus, in 411 B.C., the year in which the recall of Alcibiades was decreed by the See also:army at See also:Samos, and, after the fall of the Four See also:Hundred, ratified by the See also:Assembly at Athens (Thus. viii. 81, 97). The dialogue between Iocaste and Polynices on the griefs of banishment (ri eb uripar8ai irarpiSos, v. 388 f.) has a certain emphasis which certainly looks like an allusion to the pardon of the famous See also:exile. The subject of the play is the same as that of the Aeschylean Seven against Thebes—the See also:war of succession in which Argos supported Polynices against his brother See also:Eteocles. The Phoenician maidens who form the chorus are imagined to have been on their way from See also:Tyre to Delphi, where they were destined for service in the temple, when they were detained at Thebes by the outbreak of the war--a See also:device which affords a contrast to the Aeschylean chorus of Theban elders, and which has also a certain fitness in view of the legends connecting Thebes with See also:Phoenicia. But Euripides has hardly been successful in the rivalry—which he has even pointed by direct allusions—with Aeschylus. The Phoenissae is full of brilliant pass-ages, but it is rather a See also:series of effective scenes than an impressive drama. 14. See also:Plutarch (Lys. 15) says that, when Athens had surrendered to See also:Lysander (404 B.c.) and when the fate of the city was doubtful, a Phocian officer happened to sing at a banquet of the leaders the first See also:song of the chorus in the See also:Electra of Euripides 'AyaMi. Povos w Kbpa,
3)XuOov, 'HMEKrpa, iroei crhv dyporipav ad~av;
and that " when they heard it, all were touched, so that it seemed a cruel deed to destroy for ever the city so famous once, the mother of such men." The character of the Electra, in metre and in diction, seems to show that it belongs to the poet's latest years. If See also: 15. The Orestes, acted in 408, bears the mark of the age in the prominence which Euripides gives to the assembly of Argos—which has to decide the fate of Orestes and Electra-and to rhetorical See also:pleading. The plot proceeds with sufficient clearness to the point at which Orestes and Electra have been condemned to death. But the later portion of the play, containing the intrigues for their See also:rescue and the final achievement of their deliverance, is both too involved and too inconsequent for a really tragic effect. Just as in the Electra, the heroic persons of the drama are reduced to the level of common-place: There is not a little which See also:borders on the ludicrous, and it can be seen how easy would have been the passage from such tragedy as this to the restrained See also:parody in which the See also:Middle Comedy de-lighted. It is, however, inconceivable that, as some have supposed, the Orestes can have been a deliberate compromise between tragedy and See also:farce. It cannot have been meant to be played, as a fourth piece, instead of a See also:regular satyric drama. Rather it indicates the level to which the heroic tragedy itself had descended under the treatment of a school which was at least logical. The celebrity of the play in the See also:ancient world—as See also:Paley observes, there are more ancient quotations from the Orestes than from all the extant plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles together—is perhaps partly explained • by the 'unusually frequent See also:combination in this piece of striking sentiment with effective situation. r6. The Iphigenia at Aulis, like the Bacchae, was brought out only after the death of Euripides. It is'a very brilliant and beautiful play,—probably left by' the author in an unfinished state,—and has suffered from See also:interpolation more largely, perhaps, than any other of his works. As regards its subject, it forms a prelude to the Iphigenia in Tauris. Iphigenia has been doomed by her father See also:Agamemnon to die at Aulie, as See also:Calchas declares that Artemis claims such a sacrifice before the adverse winds can fall. The genuine play, as we have it, breaks off at v. 15o8, when Iphigenia has been led to the sacrificial altar. A spurious, See also:epilogue, of wretched workmanship (v. •1509-1628), relates; in the speech of a messenger, how Artemis saved the See also:maiden. 17. The Bacchae, unlike the preceding play, appears to have been finished by its author, although it is said not to have been acted, on the Athenian stage at least, till after his death. It was composed, or completed, -during the residence . of Euripides with Archelaus, and in all probability was originally designed for See also:representation in Macedonia—a region with whose traditions of orgiastic worship the Dionysus myth was so congenial. The play is sometimes quoted as the See also:Pentheus. It has been justly observed that Euripides seldom named a piece from the chorus, unless the chorus See also:bore an important part in the action or the leading action was divided between several persons. Possibly, however, in this instance he may designedly have chosen a title which would at once interest the Macedonian public: Pentheus would suggest a Greek legend about which they might know or care little. The Bacchae would at once announce a theme connected with rites See also:familiar to the See also:northern land. It is a magnificent play, alone among extant Greek tragedies in picturesque splendour, and in that 'sustained glow of Dionysiac See also:enthusiasm to which the keen See also:irony' lends the strength of contrast. If Euripides had left nothing else, the Bacchae would place him in the first See also:rank of poets, and would prove his See also:possession of a sense rarely manifested by Greek poets,—perhaps by no one of his own contemporaries in equal measure except Aristophanes,—a feeling for natural beauty lit up by the play of fancy. R. Y. See also:Tyrrell, in his editibn of the Bacchae, has given the true See also:answer to the theory that the Bacchae is a recantation. Euripides had never rejected the facts which formed the basis of the popular religion. ; He had rather sought to interpret them in a manner consistent with belief in a benevolent See also:Providence. The really striking thing in the Bacchae is the spirit of contentment and, of composure which it breathes,—as if the poet had ceased to be vexed by the seeming contradictions which had troubled him before. Nor should it be forgotten that, for the Greek mind of his age, the victory of Dionysus in the Bacchae carried a moral even more direct than the victory of Aphrodite in the Hippolytus.' The great nature-See also:powers who give refreshment to mortals cannot be robbed of their due See also:tribute without provoking a See also:nemesis. The refusal of such a See also:homage is not, so the Greeks deemed, a virtue in itself: in the sight of the gods it may be only a See also:cold form, of 615'pis, overweening self-reliance—the quality personified in Pentheus. Introduction to the Electra of Sophocles, p. xiii., in GatenaClassicorum, 2nd ed. The Bacchae was always an exceptionally popular play--partly because its opportunities as a spectacle fltted•it for 'gorgeous representation, and so recommended it for performance at courts 'and on great public occasions. "See also:Demetrius the Cynic (says Lucian, Adv. Indoctum, 19) " saw an illiterate person at Corinth See also:reading a very beautiful poem--the Bacchae of Euripides, I =think it was; he was at the place where the messenger narrates the See also:doom of Pentheus and the deed of See also:Agave. Demetrius' snatched the See also:book from him and tore it up, saying, ` It is •better for Pentheus tb be torn up at once by me than to be mangled over and over again by you.' '? 18. The Cyclops, of uncertain date, is the only extant example of a satyric drama. The plot is taken mainly from the See also:story of Odysseus and See also:Polyphemus in the 9th book of the Odyssey. Lnorder to be really successfulin farce of this kind; a poet sho'ld•,have a fresh feeling for the nature of the art parodied. It is because Euripides was not in See also:accord 'with the spirit of the heroic myths that he is not strong in mythic See also:travesty. His own tragedies--such as+the Helen, the Electra and the Orestes—had, in their several - ays,contributed to destroy the meaning of satyric drama. They. had donegraively very much what satyric drama aimed at doing grotesquely. They had made the heroic persons act and talk like See also:ordinary men and women. The finer See also:side of .such parody 'had: lost its edge; only broad comedy remained. 1 19. The Rhesus is still held by some to be what the didascaliae and the grammarians See also:call it—a work of Euripides; and Palley. has ably supported' this view. But the scepticism first declared by Valcknaer has gained ground, and the Rhesus is now almost universally recognized as spurious. The art and the style, still more evi+ dently the feeling and the mind, of Euripides are absent. ° If it cannot be ascribed to a See also:disciple of his matured school, it is still less like the work of an Alexandrian. The most probable view seems to be that which assigns it to a versifier of small dramatic po*er in the latest days of Attic tragedy. It has this See also:literary interest, that it is the only extant play of which the subject is directly taken from our Iliad, of which the tenth book—the See also:dole seta—has been followed by the playwright with a closeness which is sometimes mechanical. When the first protests of the comic poets were over, Euripides was secure. of a' wide and lasting renown. As the old life of Athens passed away, as the old faiths lost their meaning Literary and 'the' peculiarly Greek instincts in art lost their history of B0,10mm truth and freshness; Aeschylus and Sophocles might cease to be fully enjoyed save by a few; but Euripides could still See also:charm by qualities more readily and more universally recognized. 'The See also:comparative nearness of his diction to the See also:idiom of ordinary life rendered him less attractive to the grammarians of See also:Alexandria than authors whose erudite form afforded a better scope for the display of learning or the exercise of ins genuity. But there were two aspects in which he engaged their See also:attention. They loved to trace the See also:variations which` he had introduced into the See also:standard'legends. And, they sought to free his See also:text from the numerous interpolations which then had resulted from his popularity on the stage. ' See also:Philochorus (about 306-260 B.C.), best known for hisAtthis, dealt, in his See also:treatise on Euripides, especially with . the mythology of the plays. ,From 300- B.C. to the age of See also:Augustus a See also:long series of critics • busied themselves with this' poet. The first systematic arrangement of his reputed works is ascribed to Dicaearclius. and See also:Callimachus in the See also:early part of the 3rd century B.C. Among those who furthered the exact study of his text, and of whose work some traces remain in the extant scholia, were Aristophanes of See also:Byzantium, See also:Callistratus, See also:Apollodorus of See also:Tarsus, Timachidas, and pre-eminently See also:Didymus; probably also See also:Crates of See also:Pergamum and See also:Aristarchus. At See also:Rome Euripides was early made known through the See also:translations of Ennius and the' freer adaptations of See also:Pacuvius. When Hellenic See also:civilization was spread through` the See also:East, the mixed populations of the new settlements welcomed a dramatic poet whose taste and whose sentiment, were not too severely or exclusively Attic. The See also:Parthian`See also:Orodes' and his court were witnessing the Bacchae of Euripides when the 'Agave of the See also:hour was suddenly enabled to lend' a ghastly reality to the terrible scene of frenzied See also:triumph by displaying the gory head of the See also:Roman See also:Crassus. Moinmsen has noted the moment as one in which the power of Rome and the genius of Greece, were simultaneously abased in the presence of sultanism. ` b 'fa,n as Euripides is concerned, the incident may suggest another and a more pleasing reflection; it may remind us how the charm of his humane genius had penetrated the recesses of the barbarian East, and had brought to See also:rude and fierce peoples at least sonid dim and distant See also:apprehension of that gracious See also:world in which thegreat spirits of ancient Hellas had moved: A quaintly significant testimony to, the popularity of Euripides is afforded by the Byzantine Xpurrr s iriw v. This drama, narrating the events which preceded and attended the Passion, is a See also:cento of no less than into verses, taken from the plays of Euripides, principally from the See also:Bass/tat, the Treacles and the Rhesus. The traditional ascription of the authorship to See also:Gregory of Nazianzus is now generally rejected; another conjecture assigns it to See also:Apollinaris of See also:Laodicea, and places the date of See also:composition at about A.D. 330.' Although the text used by the author of the cento ,may not have lbeen a See also:good one, the value of the piece for the See also:diplomatic criticism of Euripides is necessarily very considerable; and it was diligently used both by Valcknaer and by See also:Poison.
See also:Dante, who does not mention-Aeschylus or Sophocles, places Euripides, with the tragic poets See also:Antiphon and See also:Agathon, and the lyrist See also:Simonides, in the first circle of See also:Purgatory (xxii, 1o6), among those'
See also:pine
Greci, the gia di lauro ornar la fronte."
See also:Casaubon, in. a See also:letter to See also:Scaliger,salutes that See also:scholar as worthy to have lived at Athens with Aristophanes and Euripides—a compliment which certainly implies respect for his correspondent's powers as a peacemaker. ' In popular, literature, too, where Aeschylus and Sophocles were as yet little known, the 16th and 17th centuries testify to the favour bestowed upon Euripides. G. See also:Gascoigne's and See also:Francis Kinwelmersh's See also:Jocasta, played at See also: In the second See also:half of the 18th century such men as J. J. See also:Winckelmann (1717-1768) and G. E. See also:Lessing (1729-1781) gave a new life to the study of the See also:antique. Hitherto the art of the old world had been better known through Roman than through Greek interpreters. The basis of the revived classical taste had been Latin. But now men gained a finer See also:perception of those characteristics which belong to the Greek work of the great time, a See also:fuller sense of the difference between the Greek and the Roman genius where each is et its best, and generally a clearer recognition of the qualities which distinguish ancient art in its highest purity from modern romantic types. Euripides now became the See also:object of criticism from a new point of view. , He was compared with Aeschylus and Sophocles as representatives of that ideal Greek tragedy which ranges with the purest type of See also:sculpture. Thus tried, he was found wanting; and he was condemned with all the rigour of a newly illuminated zeal. B. G. See also:Niebuhr (1776-1831) judged him harshly; but no critic approached A. W. Schlegel (1767-1845) in severity of one-sided censure. Schlegel, in fact, will scarcely allow that Euripides is'tolerable except by comparison with Racine. L. See also:Tieck (1773-1853) showed truer appreciation fora brother artist when he "(According to Karl See also:Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Lit., it is an 1 ith-century See also:production of unknown authorship.) described the work of Euripides as the See also:dawn of a romantic See also:poetry haunted . by dim yearnings and forebodings. Goethe—who, according to See also:Bernhardt', knew Euripides only " at a great distance "—certainly admired him highly, and left an interesting memorial of Euripidean study in his attempted reconstruction of the lost Phaethon. There are some passages in Goethe's conversations with See also:Eckermann which form effective quotations against the Greek poet's real or supposed detractors. " To feel and respect a great See also:personality, one must be something oneself. All those who denied the See also:sublime to Euripides were either poor wretches incapable of comprehending such sublimity or shame-less charlatans who, in their presumption, wished to make more of themselves than they were." " A poet whom See also:Socrates called his friend, whom See also:Aristotle lauded, whom Alexander admired, and for whom Sophocles and the city of Athens put on See also:mourning on See also:hearing of his death, must certainly have been some one. If a modern man like Schlegel must pick out faults in so great an ancient, he ought only to do it upon his knees " (J. A. See also:Symonds, Greek Poets, i. 230). We yield to no one in admiration of Goethe; but we cannot think that these rather bullying utterances are favourable examples of his method in aesthetic discussion; nor have they any logical force except as against those—if there be any such—who deny that Euripides is a great poet. One of the most striking of modern criticisms on Euripides is the See also:sketch by See also:Mommsen in his history of Rome (bk. iii. ch. 14). It is, in our opinion, less than just to Euripides as an artist. But it indicates, with true historical insight, his place in the development of his art, the operation of those external conditions which made him what he was, and the nature of his See also:influence on succeeding ages. The See also:manuscript tradition of Euripides has a very curious and instructive history. It throws a suggestive See also:light on the capricious nature of the See also:process by which some, of the greatest See also:Mona- literary treasures have been saved or lost. Nine plays script of Euripides were selected, probably in early Byzantine tradition times, for popular and educational use. These were of Alcestis, Andromache, Hecuba, Hippolytus, Medea, Orestes, Euripides. Phoenissae, Rhesus, Troades. This' See also:list includes at least two plays, the Andromache and the Troades, which, even in the small number of the extant dramas, are universally allowed to be of very inferior merit—to say nothing of the Rhesus, which is generally allowed to be spurious. On the other hand, the list omits at least three plays of first-rate beauty and excellence, the very See also:flower, indeed, of the extant collection—the Ion, the Iphigenia in Tauris, and the Bacchae—the last certainly, in its own kind, by far the most splendid work of Euripides that we possess. Had these three plays been lost, it is not too much to say that the modern estimate of Euripides must have been decidedly See also:lower. But all the ten plays not included in the select list had a narrow escape of being lost, and, as it is, have come to us in a much less satisfactory See also:condition. A. See also:Kirchhoff was the first, in his See also:editions, thoroughly to investigate the history and the See also:affinities of the Euripidean See also:manuscripts.' All our See also:MSS. are, he thinks, derived from a lost archetype of the 9th or loth century, which contained the nineteen plays (counting the Rhesus) now extant. From this archetype a copy, also lost, was made about A.D. 1100, containing only the nine select plays. This copy became the source of all our best MSS. for those plays. They are—(I) Matcianus 471, in the library of St Mark at See also:Venice (12th century) : Andromache, Hecuba, Hippolytus (to v. 1234), Orestes, Phoenissae; (2) Vaticanus 909, 12th century, nine plays; (3) Parisinus 2712, 13th century, 7 plays (all but Troades and Rhesus). Of the same stock, but inferior, are (4) Marcianns 468, 13th century: Hecuba, Orestes, Medea (v. 1-42), Orestes, Phoenissae; (5) Havniensis (from Hafnia, See also:Copenhagen, according to Paley), a See also:late transcript from a MS. resembling Vat. 909, nine plays. A second See also:family of MSS. for the nine plays, sprung from the same copy, but modified by a Byzantine recension of the 13th century, is greatly inferior. The other ten plays have come to us only through the preservation of two MSS., both of the 14th century, and both ultimately derived, as Kirchhoff thinks, from the archetype of the 9th or loth century. These are (I) Palatinus 287, Kirchhoff's B, usually called Rom. C., thirteen plays, viz. six of the select plays (Androm., Med., Rhes., Hipp., Alc., See also:Troad.), and seven others—Bacchae, Cyclops, Heracleidae, Supplices, Ion, Iphigenia in Aulide, Iphigenia in Tauris; and (2) See also:Flor. 2, See also:Elmsley's C., eighteen plays, viz. all but the Troades. This MS. is thus the only one for the See also:Helena, the Electra, and the Hercules Furens. By far the greatest number of Euripidean MSS. contain ' See also a clear account in the preface to vol. iii. of Paley's edition.only three plays,—the Hecuba, Orestes and Phoenissae,—these having been chosen out of the select nine for school use—probably in the 14th century. It is to be remembered that, as a selection, the nine chosen plays of Euripides correspond to those seven of Aeschylus and those seven of Sophocles which alone remain to us. If, then, these nine did not include the Iphigenia in Tauris, the Ion Or the Bacchae, may we not fairly infer that the lost plays of the other two dramatists comprised works at least equal to any that have been preserved? May we not even reasonably doubt whether we have received those masterpieces by which their highest excellence should have been judged? The extant scholia on Euripides are for the nine select plays only. The first edition of the scholia on seven of these plays (all but the Troades and Rhesus) was published by Arsenius—a scholia. Cretan whom the Venetians had named as See also:bishop of Monemvasia, but whom the Greeks had refused to recognize—at Venice in 1534. The scholia on the Troades and Rhesus were first published by. L. See also:Dindorf, from Vat. 9o9, in 1821. The best complete edition is that of W. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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