Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/32

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xxviii

EURIPIDES AND HIS WORK.

ages in every play. As the dress in which they appeared was magnificent, with no attempt at historical correctness or scenic illusion, and as their attitudes and groupings were rather statuesque than histrionic, so it had come to be the custom to maintain a certain "grand style" in their diction. Their humanity must be of the heroic type; by "calm sorrows and majestic pains" they must stir pity and awe, and whatever lesson or warning the spectator drew from their triumph or their defeat, its application to himself was not based on the reflection, "These are of like passions with me: out of even such weakness as mine they are made strong." They were beings of a far-off world, superhuman in fortitude, Titanic in crime, magnificent in overthrow. They were compassed with nets of Fate and Necessity: their steps were dogged by Nemesis, and Divine Retribution was ever at the door. It was for them to show how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong, with what grace and majesty a Laocoon can agonize in toils of despair. This is what is implied by what scholars call the ideal as distinguished from the realistic treatment; and, though Sophocles has certain notable lapses from it,^[1] on the whole he and Aeschylus adhered to it. An excellent type it is, so long as it is considered sufficient that a Tragedy shall be a fragment of an epic poem dramatized.^[2] But when some five or six

↑ "The Atreidae (in the Ajax) are drawn as vulgar tyrants, and without a single redeeming feature." (Mahaffy—History of Greek Classical Literature, p. 84.)
"Agamemnon, arguing like an astute lawyer or an ingenious demagogue, may be a more familiar type of person, but the illusion that we are listening to the king of Mycenæ is ruined." (Prof. Jebb, Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, p. 221.)
It is, we must suppose, to the Ajax that the foregoing remark refers, since it is applicable to no scene in any other extant Greek play.
"In none of his plays has Euripides depicted such a thorough-going scoundrel as the Sophoclean Odysseus in the Philoctetes." (Donne—Ancient Classics for English Readers, p. 68.)
↑ Aeschylus described his own plays as "mere fragments from the banquet of Homer."

[1] "The Atreidae (in the Ajax) are drawn as vulgar tyrants, and without a single redeeming feature." (Mahaffy—History of Greek Classical Literature, p. 84.)
"Agamemnon, arguing like an astute lawyer or an ingenious demagogue, may be a more familiar type of person, but the illusion that we are listening to the king of Mycenæ is ruined." (Prof. Jebb, Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, p. 221.)
It is, we must suppose, to the Ajax that the foregoing remark refers, since it is applicable to no scene in any other extant Greek play.
"In none of his plays has Euripides depicted such a thorough-going scoundrel as the Sophoclean Odysseus in the Philoctetes." (Donne—Ancient Classics for English Readers, p. 68.)

[2] Aeschylus described his own plays as "mere fragments from the banquet of Homer."

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