Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/38

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EURIPIDES AND HIS WORK.

Whose pestilent tongue flings random dreams abroad
Of the Unseen, whom wisdom makes not wise."[1]

(Fragment 905.)

He took the legendary stories of amorous or revengeful deities and used them as artistic material, accepting, for artistic purposes, the popular view of them as irresponsible powers, not subject to earthly laws of justice and right, who made human beings their playthings and their victims. But ever and anon flashes through the romance the passionate cry of a Kreusa's outraged heart, the stern reprobation of one who tells of Apollo's revenge upon a hero's son, a Herakles' indignant rejection of the doctrine of Gods at feud with Gods. A chorus wails that faith is without knowledge: a votary bids his God in might remember righteousness: a God charges his fellow-god with folly. It behoves us, indeed, to exercise extreme caution in assuming that in the expression of this or that opinion by one of his characters we find a self-revelation of the poet: it is a principle of interpretation the adoption of which will in the great majority of cases mislead us, and involve us in contradictory conclusions. We might more safely lay it down as a rule, that, wherever there is manifest dramatic propriety in the sentiment put into the mouth of a particular character, there the poet was not making that person the mouthpiece of his own views:[2] the sentiment may indeed in certain cases coincide with his own; but, in a wide range of character and incident, that was inevitable. But to many of these references to mythical

  1. ↑ Of the illustrative extracts which follow, I have purposely taken none from any of the twelve plays which my readers may now consult for themselves; and have also thought it unnecessary to give more than a very few references to passages in them. The numerical references to fragments are to Nauck's edition of 1885.
  2. ↑ Typical examples are Hippolytus' tirade against women (Hipp. 616—668); the Theban herald's recommendation of peace—an inglorious peace in this case—(Suppl. 479—493); Kassandra's sneer at heralds (Daughters of Troy, 424—426).
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