Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/40
Aphroditê,[1] he did not call in question; but he more than hinted that our conceptions of them must not be degrading. He was very far from being either atheist or sceptic, as some have hastily called him. He believed earnestly, passionately, in a Divinity, in a watching Providence, in the revelation of his will by oracles,[2] in his vindication of the right, in his regard for human suffering:—
"There is, howe'er ye gibe thereat,
A Zeus, and Gods who look on woes of men."
(Fragment 981).
"I, whensoe'er I see the wicked man
Cast down, aver that there are Gods indeed."
(Frag. Oenomaus).
With the fashionable scepticism of the sophists and philosophers, reckless as it was in speculation, audacious in negation, he had no sympathy. It was one thing to say that our conception of the Gods must be cleansed of what, if we be right-minded, we must recognise as impiety, nay, blasphemy; another to deny the being of Gods, to dogmatize on the unseen. Thus he says:—
"Slowly on-sweepeth, but unerringly,
The might of Heaven, with sternest lessoning
For men who in their own mad fantasy
Exalt their unbelief, and crown it king—
Mortals who dare belittle things divine!
Ah, but the Gods in subtle ambush wait:
On treads the foot of time; but their design
Is unrelinquished, and the ruthless fate
- ↑ His saying (Daughters of Troy, 989) "Thine heart became thy Kypris. All folly is for men their Aphroditê," no more expresses a disbelief in Aphrodite than St. James's "Whose god is their belly" expresses a disbelief in God.
- ↑ We must distinguish his unshaken faith in the oracles (see Helen, l. 1150) from his contempt for the soothsayers, prophets, diviners, and all the tribe whose lies misled the Athenians to their ruin.