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STUDIES
OF
THE GREEK POETS
SECOND SERIES
13302
.

.
-
T ;
.
STUDIES
mann
OF THE
GREEK POETS
SECOND SERIES
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
AUTHOR OF 'SKETCHES IN ITALY AND GRERCE
' RENAISSANCE IN ITALY' ETC.
Im Ganzen, Guten:Schönen.
Resolut zu leben
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1876
Lid til
All rights reserved}
ficcat, 011-8340 V.A.
PREFACE.
THIS new series of Studies of Greek Poets, like that
: which preceded it, has been composed at different
times during the last ten years. Some of the chapters
have already appeared in the 'Westminster' and 'Fort-
nightly' Reviews and in the Cornhill’ Magazine ; it
should also be remarked that a few sentences in the
seventh chapter are repeated from the former volume.
Those who may care to read the two series together
will find the order of the Studies to be as follows:--.
1. The Periods of Greek Literature ; 2. Mythology;
3. Achilles ; 4. The Women of Homer; 5. Hesiod ;
6. Parmenides ; 7. Empedocles; 8. The Gnomic Poets ;
9. The Satirists; 10. The Lyric Poets ; 11. Pindar ;
12. Æschylus ; 13. Sophocles; 14. Greek Tragedy and
Euripides ; 15. The Fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides ; 16. The Fragments of the Lost Tragic
Poets; 17. Ancient and Modern Tragedy ; 18. Aris-
PREFACE.
tophanes; 19. The Fragments of the Comic Poets;
20. The Idyllists ; 21. The Anthology ; 22. Hero and
Leander; 23. The Genius of Greek Art; 24. Con-
clusion.
In referring to the texts of Æschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, and their fragments, I have followed Dindorf's
Poetæ Scenici. For the Fragments of the Lost Tragic
Poets I have used vol. xxv. of Didot's Scriptorum
Græcorum Bibliotheca. For the Comic Fragments I
have availed myself of Meineke's text re-edited by Bothe
in the same collection. I may add that I have adopted
the plan of printing the fragments, without alteration or
remark, from the texts above cited, even where they
seemed to call for emendation.
In conclusion I must express hearty thanks to Mr.
T. C. SNOW, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, for
the valuable assistance he has rendered in looking over
the proof-sheets of this volume..
GENOA : April, 1876.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1.
MYTHOLOGY.
PAGE
The Notion of a Systematic Pantheon.-Homer and Hesiod.-Mytho-
logy before Homer.-Supposed Conditions of the Mythopæic
Age. — Vico.—The Childhood of the World.—Goethe's Boyhood.
--Mythology is a Body of Rudimentary Thought, penetrated
with the Spirit of the Nation. -Different Views of the Greek
Myths.-Grote. --Relics of a Primitive Revelation. --The Sym-
bolic Hypothesis. —Rationalism and Euhemerus. -Fetishism.-
Poetic Theory. - The Linguistic Theory.—Comparative Philo-
logy.-Solar Theory.--The Myth of Herakles-Its Solar Inter-
pretation-Its Ethical Significance. -Summary of the Points
suggested with regard to Mythology.—Mediaeval Myths.—The
Action of the Greek Intelligence upon Mythology-In Art-In
Philosophy. -Persistence of the National Polytheism.-Homer
allegorised at Alexandria.—Triumph of Christianity. - The Greek
Pantheon in the Middle Ages.—Greek Mythology recovers Poetic
and Artistic Value in the Renaissance ....
CHAPTER II.
ACHILLES.
Unity of Iliad.— Character of Achilles.--Structure of the whole Poem.
--Comparison with other Epics.-Energy Dividing into Anger
and Love.- Personality of Achilles.—The Quarrel with Agamem-
non.-Pallas Athene. — The Embassy. -Achilles' Foreknowledge
of his Death.-The Message of Antilochus-Interview with
viii
ZY
CONTENTS
PAGE
Thetis. –The Shouting in the Trench.—The Speech of Xanthus.
- The Paan over Hector's Corpse. — The Ghost of Patroclus. -
The Funeral Obsequies of Patroclus.-Achilles and Priam.--
Achilles in Hades. --Achilles considered as a Greek Ideal.--
Friendship among the Greeks. – Heroism and Knighthood :
Ancient and Modern Chivalry.—The Myrmidones of Æschylus.
--Achilles and Hector. — Alexander the Great.-The Dæmonic
Nature of Achilles ...........
40
CHAPTER III.
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
Helen of Troy-Her Eternal Youth-Variety of Legends connected
with her. -Stesichorus. -Helen in the Iliad.—Helen in the
Odyssey.—The Treatment of Helen by Æschylus.—Euripidean
Handling of her Romance. ---Helen in Greek Art. —Quintus
Smyrnæus.—Apollonius of Tyana and the Ghost of Achilles. -
Helen in the Faust Legend.—Marlowe and Goethe. -Penelope.
Homeric and the Modern Circe. -Nausicaa-Her Perfect Girlish-
ness.-Briseis and Andromache. — The Sense of Proportion and
of Relative Distance in Homer's Pictures. --Andromache and
Astyanax.—The Cult of Heroes and Heroines in Greece.--
Artistic Presentation of Homeric Persons.---Philostratus............ 72
CHAPTER IV.
HESIOD.
The Difference between the Homeric and the Hesiodic Spirit. -
The Personality of Hesiod more distinct than that of Homer.-
What we know about his Life.—Perses.-The Hesiodic Rhap-
sodes. --Theogony and Works and Days.-- Didactic Poetry. - The
Story of Prometheus. -Greek and Hebrew Myths of the Fall. —
-The Canto of the Four Ages.--Hesiodic Ethics. -The Golden
Age.--Flaxman's Illustrations. — Justice and Virtue. --Labour..
-Bourgeois Tone of Hesiod.-Marriage and Women. The
Gnomic Importance of Hesiod for the Early Greeks ............... 107
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
PARMENIDES.
PAGE
Greek Philosophical Poetry.—The Emergence of Philosophy from
Mythology. -The Ionian Sages. — The Pythagoreans. ---Anaxa-
goras. – Democritus.--The Eleatics.—Heraclitus.—Xenophanes
of Colophon. His Critique of the Myths.--Assertion of Mono-
theism. – Fragments of his Poem on Nature.- Parmenides of
Elea.-His Political Importance. -Parmenides in the Dialogues
of Plato. —His Metaphysic of Being.–His Natural Philosophy.
-The Logic deduced from him by Zeno and Melissus.-- Trans-
lation of the Fragments of his Poem.-- The Dualism of Truth
and Opinion. -- Impossibility of Obtaining Absolute Know-
ledge ........
.......... 131
CHAPTER VI.
ÆSCHYLUS.
Liſe of Æschylus-Nature of his Inspiration. — The Theory of Art
in the Ion of Pla'o.-- Æschylus and Sophocles. - What Eschylus
accomplished for the Attic Drama. His Demiurgic Genius-
Colossal Scale of his Work.-Marlowe. -Oriental Imagery. -
Absence of Love as a Motive in his Plays.—The Organic Vitality
of his Art--Opening Scenes. -Messenger.—Chorus. — His Theo-
logy.-Destiny in Æschylus. — The Domestic Curse— His Cha-
racter-drawing–Clytemnestra.—Difficulty of Dealing with the
Prometheus.--What was his Fault ?-How was Zeus justified ?-
Shelley's Opinión.---The Lost Trilogy of Prometheus.—Middle
Plays in Trilogies. —Attempt to reconstruct a Promethcis.—The
Part of Herakles.--Obscurity of the Promethean Legend. --The
Free Handling of Myths permitted to the Dramatist: -The Oresteia
-Its Subject. -- The Structure of the Tlıree Plays. --The Aga-
memilon—Its Imagery.-Cassandra. - The Cry of the King. -
: The Chorus.—Iphigeneia at the Altar. -Menelaus abandoned
by Helen. —The Dead Soldiers on the Plains of Troy.--The
Perse.--The Crime of Xerxes. — Irony of the Situation. The
Description of the Battle of Salamis. — The Style of Æschylus
-His Religious Feeling .....
............ 152
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
SOPHOCLES.
PAGE
The Personal Beauty of Sophocles—His Life · Stories about Him.-
Athens in the Age of Pericles. --Antique Criticism on his Style
Its Perfect Harmony.-Aristotle's Respect for Sophocles.-Cha-
racter in Greek Tragedy. -Sophocles and Æschylus. — The Re-
ligious Feeling of Sophocles. —His Ethics.—Exquisite Proportion
observed in his Treatment of the Dramatis Persone. - Power of
using Motives.— The Philoctetes.-Comparison of the Choëphora
and the Electra.—Climax of the Edipus Coloneis.—How
Sophocles led onward to Euripides. — The Trachiniæ.—Goethe's
Remarks on the Antigone. — The Tale of Thebes.-Edipus Tyran-
nus, Edipus Coloneüs, and Antigone do not make up a Trilogy.com
--Story of Laius --The Philosophy of Fate contained in it.--The
Oracle. —Analysis of Edipus Tyrannus. --Masterly Treatment of
the Character of Edipus.—Change of Situation in the Coloneüs.
- Emergence of Antigone into Prominence. —Analysis of the
Antigone. - The Character of Antigone, Its Beauty.—Contrast
afforded by Ismene and by Creon.-Fault in the Climax of the
Antigone. - The Final Solution of the Laian Curse. ---Antigone is
not subject to Nemesis. ...
........... 214
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FRAGMENTS OF ÆSCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES,
EURIPIDES.
Alexandrian and Byzantine Anthologies. --Titles of the Lost Plays of .
Æschylus.—The Lycurgeia. - The Trilogy on the Story of an
Achilles.--The Geography of the Prometheus Unbound.—Gnomic
Character of the Sophoclean Fragments. -- Providence, Wealth,
Love, Marriage, Mourning.–What is true of the Sophoclean is
still more true of the Euripidean Fragments. --Mutilated Plays. -
Phaëthon, Erechtheus, Antiope, Danaë.--Goethe's Restitution of
the Phaëthon. --Passage on Greek Athletes in the Autolycus.-
Love, Women, Marriage, Domestic Affection, Children. -Death.
--Stoical Endurance.—Justice and the Punishment of Sin.--
Wealth. —Noble Birth.-Heroism.-Miscellaneous Gnomic Frag-
ments. — The Popularity of Euripides .........
...: 266
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC
POETS.
I'AGE
Apparent Accident in the Preservation of Greek Poetry.-Criticism
among the Ancients.—Formation of Canons.—Libraries. The
Political Vicissitudes of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople.-By-
zantine Scholarship in the Ninth Century.-- The Lost MS. of
Menander. --Tragic Fragments preserved by the Comic Poets
and their Scholiasts; by Athenæus, by Stobæus. —Aristotle.--
Tragedy before Æschylus.-- Fragments of Aristarchus.- The
Medea of Neophron. -Ion.—The Games of Achæus. — Agathon.
-His Character for luxurious Living.-The Flower.--Aristotle's
Partiality for Agathon.—The Family of Æschylus. --Meletus and
Plato among the Tragic Playwrights.—The School of Sophocles.
-Influence of Euripides. —Family of Carkinus.-Tragedians
ridiculed by Aristophanes. - The Sisyphus of Critias.-Cleophon.
Cynical Tragedies ascribed to Diogenes.--Extraordinary Fertility
of the Attic Drama.-The Repetition of old Plots. --Mamercus
and Dionysius. — Professional Rhetoricians appear as Playwrights.
--The School of Isocrates.—The Centaur of Chæremon.-His
Style.--The Themistocles of Moschion.-The Alexandrian Pleiad.
– The Adonis of Ptolemy Philopator ........... ............. 301
CHAPTER X.
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
Three Periods in Attic History. - The Three Kinds of Comedy: Old,
Middle, New.-Approximation of Comedy to the Type of
Tragedy.-Athenæus as the Source of Comic Fragments.--Frag-
ments of the Old Comedy.-Satire on Women.—Parasites. --
Fragments of the Middle Comedy.-Critique of Plato and the
Academic Philosophers.--Literary Criticism.-Passages on Sleep
and Death. --Attic Slang.–The Demi-Monde. — Theophrastus
and the Later Rhetoricians. -Cooks and Cookery Books.-Diffi-
culty of Defining the Middle from the New Comedy.-Menander.
-Sophocles and Menander.--Epicureanism.-Menander's Sober
CONTEVIS.
PAGE
Philosophy of Life. ---Goethe on Menander.-Philemon.—The
Comedy of Manners culininated in Menander. - What we mean
by Modernism.-Points of Similarity and Difference between
Ancient and Modern Comedy.— The Freedom of Modern
Art .........
......... 332
CHAPTER XI.
HERO AND LEANDER.
Virgil's mention of this Tale.---Ovid and Statius.--Autumnal Poetry.
-Confusion between the Mythical Musæus and the Grammarian.
-The Introduction of the Poem. —Analysis of the Story, —
Hallam's Judgment on Marlowe's Hero and Leander.--Compari-
· son of Marlowe and Musæus. -Classic and Romantic Art ....... 355
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
Sculpture, the Greek Art par excellence. ---Plastic Character of the
Greek Genius.--Sterner Aspects of Greek Art.-Subordination
of Pain and Discord to Harmony.-Stoic-Epicurean Acceptance ---
of Life.—Sadness of Achilles in the Odyssey.-Endurance of
Odysseus.-Myth of Prometheus. —Sir H. S. Maine on Progress.
~The Essential Relation of all Spiritual Movement to Greek
Culture --Value of the Moral Attitude of the Greeks for us:--
Three Points of Greek Ethical Inferiority.—The Conception of
Nature. -- The System of Marcus Aurelius.—Contrast with the
Imitatio Christi. — The Modern Scientific Spirit. —Indestructible
Elemenis in the Philosophy of Nature ................................... 373
THE GREEK POETS.
SECOND SERIE S.
CHAPTER I.
MYTHOLOGY.
The Notion of a Systematic Pantheon. -Homer and Hesiod. -Mythology
before Homer.-Supposed Conditions of the Mythopæic Age. – Vico.
-The Childhood of the World, Goethe's Boyhood.-Mythology is
a Body of Rudimentary Thought, penetrated with the Spirit of the
Nation.- Different Views of the Greek Myths.-Grote.-Relics of a
Primitive Revelation. The Symbolic Hypothesis. — Rationalism and
Euhemerus.-Fetishism.—Poetic Theory.—The Linguistic Theory.“
Comparative Philology.--Solar Theory.-—The Myth of Herakles-
Its Solar Interpretation-Its Ethical Significance. -Summary of the
Points suggested with regard to Mythology.-Mediæval Myths.
The Action of the Greek Intelligence upon Mythology-In Art-In
Philosophy.—Persistence of the National Polytheism.--Homer alle.
gorised at Alexandria.—Triumph of Christianity.--The Greek Pan-
theon in the Middle Ages.-Greek Mythology recovers Poetic and
Artistic Value in the Renaissance.
It has been remarked with justice that, when we use the
word Mythology, we are too apt to think of a Pantheon, of a
well-defined hierarchy of gods, and demigods, and heroes, all
fabulous indeed, but all arranged in one coherent system.
This conception of Greek Mythology arises partly from the
fact that we learn to know it in dictionaries, compiled from
the works of authors who lived long after the age in which
myths were produced, and partly from the fact that the conditions
under which myth-making was a possibility are so far removed
II.
THE GREEK POETS.
from us as to be almost unintelligible. Yet there is some truth
in what, upon the whole, is an erroneous view. Although the
Greek myths, in their origin, were not a well-digested system,
still they formed a complete body of national thought, on which
the intelligence of the Greek race, in its art and its religion,
was continually working, until it took the final form in which
we have it in our dictionaries. What remained in the Pantheon
of Apollodorus and Hyginus, remained there by no freak of
accident. What was omitted by Homer and by Hesiod was
omitted by no operation of blind chance. The spirit of the
Greeks was concerned in the purification and the preservation
of their myths, and the unity of that spirit constitutes the unity
of their mythology.
Two great poets gave to Greek mythology the form which
it maintained in the historic period. Herodotus says that
“ Homer and Hesiod named the gods, and settled their gene-
alogies for the Hellenes.” What this means is, that at a certain
prehistoric epoch, the epoch of Epic poetry, mythology had
passed from the primitive and fluid state, and had become the
-subject matter of the arts. Between the mythopoic liberty of
creation and the collections of the grammarians was interposed
the poetry, the sculpture, and the religious ritual of the historic
Greeks. What we have to deal with at the present moment is,
not mythology as it appears in art, but the genesis of the myths
conceived as a body of Greek thought and fancy in their infan-
tine or rudimentary stages.
What was mythology before Homer? How did it come
into existence? How were the Greeks brought to believe that
there was a supreme father of gods and men called Zeus, a
wise patroness of arts and sciences called Pallas, a pure and
glorious and far-darting deity called Phobus? There is no one
who does not acknowledge something sublime and beautiful in
this part of the Greek mythology. Even those who do not care
to comprehend the growth of these conceptions, admit that the
MYTHOLOGY.
genius of the race shone with splendour peculiar to itself in their
To this question must be counterpoised another. What are
we to think about the many repulsive, grotesque, and hideous
elements of Greek mythology—the incest and adultery of Zeus,
the cannibalism of Cronos, the profligacy of Aphrodite, the
cruelty of Phoebus? When thought began to be conscious
of itself in Greece these abominations moved the anger
of the philosophers. Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras,
Pindar, and Plato, in succession, recognised that the mythical
fables were incompatible with the notion of deity, and rejected
them forthwith. Modern students have been so disgusted by
the same indecencies that some of them have abandoned Greek
mythology as hopeless, while others have taken refuge in the
extraordinary paradox that myths are a disease of language.
These methods of dealing with the problem are alike unphilo-
sophical. It is impossible for the historian to reject what
formed the groundwork of religious and artistic thought in
Greece. It is childish to represent the human mind as a sort
of bound Mazeppa, stretched helpless on the wild horse, Lan-
guage, which carries it away into the wilderness.
In order to understand the two questions which have been
propounded, we must make a demand upon our imagination,
and endeavour to return, in thought at least, to the conditions
of a people in the mythopoic age—the age, that is to say, in
which not only were myths naturally made, but all the thinking
of a nation took the form of myths. We must go back to a
time when there were no written records, when there were no
systems of thought, when language had not been subjected 10
analysis of any kind, when abstract notions were unknown,
when science had not begun to exist, when history was impos-
sible, and when the whole world was a land of miracles. There
was no check then laid upon ſancy, because nothing as yet was
conceived as thought, but everything existed as sensation. In
S
B 2
THE GREEK POETS.
this infancy the nation told itself stories, and believed in them.
The same faculties of the mind which afterwards gave birth to
poetry and theology, philosophy and statecraft, science and
history, were now so ill-defined and merely germinal that they
produced but fables. Yet these faculties were vigorous and vivid.
The fables they produced were infinite in number and variety,
beautiful, and so pregnant with thought under the guise of fancy
that long centuries scarcely sufficed for disengaging all that they
contained. In dealing with Greek mythology it must be re-
membered that the nation with whose mythopoic imagination we
are concerned, was the Greek nation.* It had already in itself
all Hellas, as the seed enfolds the plant.
may here be paraphrased, in order to make the conditions
under which we must imagine myths to have arisen more in-
telligible : + “Poetry, which was the first form of wisdon, began
with a system of thought, not reasoned or abstract, as ours is
now, but felt and imagined, as was natural in the case of those
primitive human beings who had developed no reasoning facul-
ties, but were all made up of senses in the highest physical per-
fection, and of the most vigorous imaginations. In their total
ignorance of causes they wondered at everything; and their
poetry was all divine, because they ascribed to gods the objects
of their wonder, and thought that beings like themselves but
greater could alone have caused them. Thus they were like
children, whom we notice taking into their hands inanimate
things, and playing and talking with them as though they were
* For this reason the analogy of existing barbarous races will not help
is much, inasmuch as they are not Greeks nor destined to be Greeks.
This consideration ought to weigh with those who, struck by the depth
and beauty of some Greek myths, theorise a corruption of primitive
revelation or pure theology to explain them. They ought to remember
that they are dealing with the myths of Greeks, our masters in philosophy
and poetry and art.
+ The original is quoted in the notes to Grote, vol. i. p. 474.
MYTHOLOGY.
i
living persons. When thunder terrified them, they attributed
their own nature to the phenomenon; and, being apt to express
their most violent passions by howls and roarings, they con-
ceived heaven as a vast body, which gave notice of its anger by
lightnings and thunderings. The whole of nature, in like
manner, they imagined to be a vast animated body, capable
of feeling and passion.” Vico then proceeds to point out how
difficult it is for us who, through long centuries, have removed
ourselves as far as possible from the life of the instincts, senses,
and imagination, whose language has become full of abstract
terms, whose conception of the universe has been formed by
science, whose thought is critical and reflective, and who have
been educated in a rational theology, to comprehend the attitude
of primitive humanity in its personifying stage of thought.
In this childhood of the world, when the Greek myths came
into existence, the sun was called a shepherd, and the clouds
were his sheep; or an archer, and the sunbeams were his
arrows. It was easier then to think of the sea as a husky-
voiced and turbulent old man, whose true form none might
clearly know, because he changed so often and was so secret
in his ways, who shook the earth in his anger, and had the
white-maned billows of the deep for horses, than to form a
theory of the tides. The spring of the year became a beautiful
youth, beloved by the whole earth, or beloved like Hyacinthus
by the sun, or like Adonis by the queen of beauty, over whom
the fate of death was suspended, and for whose loss annual
mourning was made. Such tales the Greeks told themselves in
their youth; and it would be wrong to suppose that deliberate
fiction played any part in their creation. To conceive of the
world thus was natural to the whole race; and the tales that
sprang up formed the substance of their intellectual activity.
Here, then, if anywhere, we watch the process of a people in its
entirety contributing to form a body of imaginative thought,
projecting itself in a common and unconscious work of art.
THE GREEK POETS.
Nor will it avail to demur that behind the Greeks there stretched
a dim and distant past, that many of their myths had already
taken shape to some extent before the separation of the Aryan
families. That is now an ascertained fact, the bearings of which
moment it is enough to reply that, not the similarities, but the
differences, brought to light by the study of comparative my-
thology, are important for the historian of each several race.
The raw material of silk may interest the merchant or the man
of science; the artist cares for the manufactured fabric, with its
curious patterns and refulgent hues.
In order further to illustrate the conditions of the mytho-
poic age, a passage from the Dichtung und Wahrheit of Goethe
might be quoted. If it is not a mere fancy to suppose that the
individual lives, to some extent at least, in his own self the life
of humanity, and therefore to conclude that the childhood of the
world can be mirrored in the childhood of a man, a poet like
Goethe is precisely fitted, by the record of his own boyhood, to
throw light upon the early operations of the human mind. For,
in one sense of the term, the mythopæic faculty never dies with
poets; in their own persons they prolong the youth and adoles-
cence of the race, retaining the faculty, now lost to nearly all,
of looking on the universe as living. Goethe, then, relates that,
when he was at school at Frankfort, he used to invent stories
about himself and the places he frequented, half consciously,
and half by a spontaneous working of his fancy. These stories
he told to his schoolfellows so vividly that they accepted them
as fact. “It greatly rejoiced them,” he says, “to know that such
wonderful things could befall one of their own playmates ; nor
was it any harm that they did not understand how I could find
time and space for such adventures, as they must have been
pretty well aware of all my comings and goings, and how I was
occupied the whole day." He goes on to recount one of these
marvellous narratives. The scene of it was laid in Frankfort,
S
MYTHOLOGY.
7
in a street familiar to his schoolfellows. Down this street, which
had a long blank wall surmounted by trees, he supposed him-
self to have been walking one day, and to have found a door in
the wall, not noticed by him on any previous occasion. His
curiosity being aroused, he knocked at the door, and after some
delay was admitted. Inside he found a garden full of wonders,
fountains, and fair nymphs, exotic shrubs, and quaint old men,
magicians, knights, sylphs, and all the proper furniture of a
romance. Goethe's comrades, the first time that they heard
him describe this enchanted pleasure-ground in glowing terms,
already more than half believed in its existence ; “and,” says
the poet,“ each of them visited alone the place, without confiding
it to me or to the others, and discovered the nut-trees,” but
none found the door. Still, they did not disbelieve what Goethe
told them, but preferred to imagine that the magic door had
once at least been seen by him, and opened for him only,
though it remained invisible and closed for them. And herein
they were literally right, for Goethe trod an enchanted ground
fascinating that he had to tell it over and over again, always
repeating the same order of events, until, he says, “ by the uni-
formity of the narrative I converted the fable into truth in the
minds of my hearers.”
This, then, may be used as an illustration of the mythopoic
faculty. All that was needed for the growth of myths was crea-
tive mind on the one side and receptive and believing mind on
the other. It did not, probably, require a Goethe to make a
myth, though we may still believe that the greatest and best
myths owed their form to the intervention at some period of
unknown and unacknowledged Goethes. When the logical
faculty was in abeyance, when the critical faculty had not
been aroused, when sympathy was quick, language fertile, fancy
exuberant, and belief sincere, there was nothing to check
mythopoetry. The nation had to make the step from boyhood
THE GREEK POETS.
to adolescence before the impulse ceased ; nor was there any
education from without in a fixed body of systematized know-
ledge to coerce its freedom. Forming the first activity of the
intellect, it held in solution, as it were, the rudiments of reli-
gion and morality, of psychological reflection, of politics,
geography, and history. Had there been anyone to ask the
myth-maker : Who told you this strange tale ? what is your
authority for imposing it upon us? he would have answered :
The goddess told me, the divine daughter of memory, as I
walked alone. And this he would sincerely and conscientiously
have believed; and those who heard him would have given
credence to his words : and thus his intuitions became their
intuitions. Creative faculty and credence, insight and sym-
pathy, two forms of the same as yet scarcely divided operation
of the mind, gave permanence to myths. What the fathers
received they transmitted to their sons. Successive genera-
tions dealt freely with them, moulding and re-modelling, within
the limits set upon the genius of the race. Hundreds may have
been produced simultaneously, and among them must have
raged a fierce struggle for existence, so that multitudes perished
or were hopelessly defaced, just as in the animal and vegetable
kingdom whole species disappear or survive only in fragments
and fossils.
It cannot be too often repeated that the power which
presided over the transmission of the myths was the spirit of
the people : an inherent selective instinct in the nation deter-
mined which of them should ultimately survive ; and thus a
body of legend, truly national, was formed, in which the nation
saw itself reflected. When, therefore, we say that Greek
Mythology is Hellenic and original, we are admitting this
unconscious, silent, steady, irresistible faculty of the mind to
fashion gods in its own image, to come to a knowledge of itself
în its divinities, to create a glorified likeness of all that it ad-
mires in its own nature, to deify its truest and its best, and to
MYTHOLOGY4
9.
.
invest its thought in an imperishable form of art. Nor will it
here again avail to demur that Zeus was originally the open
sky, Pallas the dawn, Phoebus and Artemis the sun and moon.
The student of the Greeks accepts this information placidly
and gratefully from the philologer ; but he passes immedi-
ately beyond it. For him Zeus, Pallas, Phæbus, Artemis are
no longer any more the sky and dawn, the sun and moon.
Whatever their origin may have been, the very mythopoic
process placed them in quite a different and more important
relation to Greek thought when it handed them over to
Hesiod and Homer, to Pindar and Æschylus, to Pheidias and
To discuss the bearings of the linguistic and solar theories
of mythology may be reserved for another part of this essay.
It is enough, at this point, to bear in mind that there was
nothing in the consciousness of the prehistoric Greeks which
did not take the form of myth. Consequently their mythology,
instead of being a compact system of polytheism, is really a
whole mass of thought, belonging to a particular period of
human history, when it was impossible to think except by
pictures, or to record impressions of the world except in stories.
That all these tales are religious or semi-religious-concerned,
that is to say, with deities-must be explained by the tendency
of mankind at an early period of culture to conceive the powers
of nature as persons, and to dignify them with superhuman
attributes. To the apprehension of infantine humanity every-
thing is a god. Viewed even as a Pantheon, reduced to rule
and order by subsequent reflection, Greek Mythology is, there-
fore, a mass of the most heterogeneous materials. Side by
side with some of the sublimest and most beautiful conceptions
surd and trivial and revolting. Different ages and conditions
of thought have left their products embedded in its strange
conglomerate. While it contains fragments of fossilized stories,
10.
THE GREEK POETS.
7
the meaning of which has either been misunderstood or can only
be explained by reference to barbaric customs, it also contains,
emergent from the rest and towering above the rubbish, the
serene forms of the Olympians. Those furnish the vital and
important elements of Greek mythology. To perfect them was
the work of poets and sculptors in the brief, bright, blooming
time of Hellas : yet, when we pay these deities homage in the
temple of the human spirit, let us not forget that they first
received form in the mythopoic age—the age of “the disease
of language," as Max Müller whimsically states it.
In order to comprehend a problem so complex as that
which is offered by mythology we must not be satisfied with
approaching it from one point of view, but must sift opinion,
submit our theory to the crucible in more than one experi-
ment, and, after all our labour, be content to find that much
remains still unexplained. Therefore, it will not do to accept
without further enquiry the general description of the mytho-
pæic faculty which has just been advanced. After examining
the various methods which may be adopted for dealing with
the myths, and welcoming the light which can be thrown upon
the subject from different quarters, it will, perhaps, be possible
to return to the original position with a fuller understanding
of the problem. If nothing else be gained by this process,
it is, at least, useful to be reminded that intricate historical
questions cannot be settled by one answer alone ; that a
variety of agencies must be admitted; and that the domination
of a favourite hypothesis is prejudicial to the end which serious
enquiry has in view.
Regarding the Greek myths in their totality as a thickly-
tufted jungle of inexplicable stories, and presupposing the
activity of the mythopoic faculty to be a play of irrational
fancy, it is possible for the political historian to state them
as he finds them, and then to pass on and to disregard them.
This is, practically speaking, what Grote has done, though
MYTHOLOGY.
L
the luminous and exhaustive treatment of mythology in his six-
teenth chapter proves his complete mastery of the subject
from the philosophic point of view.* Solely occupied with
history, and especially interested in political history, when
he has once recognised " the uselessness of digging for a
supposed basis of truth” in legends which relate to “a
past which was never present,” he is justified in leaving
them alone. The strong political bias which concentrates
attention upon the development of constitutions and the
history of States, while it throws the æsthetic activity of the
race into the background, sufficiently accounts for this negative
relation to the myths. Its value for our purpose consists
in the recognition that mythology must not be confounded
with history. .
Another method of dealing with mythology requires a
passing notice, and a brief dismissal. It has not unfrequently
been suggested at uncritical periods of culture, and by un-
critical minds in our own age, that the Greek myths are the
degradation of primitive truth revealed to mankind by God. As
they are Christians who advance this view, the essential
dogmas of Christianity are sought for in the Greek Pantheon.
The three persons of the Trinity, the personality of the devil,
the Divine Redeemer, and so forth, are read into the sagas of
Kronos, and Prometheus, and Phoebus. To bring arguments
against a theory so visionary, and so devoid of real historical
imagination, would be superfluous. Otherwise, it might be
questioned how a primitive revelation, after undergoing such
complete disintegration and debasement, blossomed forth
again into the aesthetical beauty which no one can deny to be
the special property of the Greek race. According to the
terms of the hypothesis, a primal truth was first degraded, so
as to lose its spiritual character; and then, from this corrup-
* The view of mythology which I have attempted to express in this
essay is contained in Grote.
12
THE GREEK POETS.
tion of decay, arose a polytheism eminently artistic, which
produced works of beauty in their kind unsurpassable, but in
their essence diverse from the starting-point of revelation.
Moreover, the very dogmas which these visionaries detect in
the formation of the Greek Olympus. It was, for instance,
the Greek genius in its old age which gave the substantiality
of thought to the doctrine of the Trinity. The only good to
be got from the consideration of this vain method is the con-
viction that a problem like that of Greek mythology must be
studied in itself and for itself. Whatever its antecedents may
have been, its outgrowth in poetry, philosophy, and sculpture-
in other words, its realised or permanent manifestation—is not
Christian, and has nothing but general human elements in
common with Christianity.
A third hypothesis for the explanation of Greek myths,
which used to find much favour with the learned, may be
stated thus. Myths were originally invented by priests and
sages, in order to convey to the popular mind weighty truths
and doctrines which could not be communicated in abstract
terms to weak intelligences. Thus, each myth was a dark
speech uttered in parables. The first fatal objection to this
theory is that it does not fulfil its own conditions. To
extract a body of doctrine from the vast majority of the
myths is not possible. Moreover, it is an inversion of the
natural order to assume that priests and sages in a very
early age of culture should have been able to arrive at pro-
found truth, and clever enough to clothe it in parable, and
yet that, as the nation grew in mental power, the truths should
have been forgotten, and the symbols which expressed them
have been taken as truth in and for itself. Without, however,
enough to point out that it implies the same incapacity for
realising the early conditions of society which is involved in
MYTHOLOGY.
13
Locke's and Adam Smith's theory of the Origin of Language.
It presupposes fully-developed intelligence, whereas we are
concerned precisely with the first and germinal commencement
of intelligence. At the same time there is a certain founda-
tion for the symbolic theory. Just in the same way as all
language is unconsciously metaphorical, so all myths are para-
bolical, inasmuch as they involve the operation of thought
seeking to express itself externally. The mistake lies in
maintaining that the parabolic form was deliberately used in
be confined to the age of self-conscious thinking. Thus the
myths by which Plato illustrated his philosophy, the Empe-
doclean parable of Love and Hate, the Choice of Herakles
invented by the sophist Prodicus, are purposely symbolical.
It is also worth noticing that, among genuine myths, those
which seem to justify this hypothesis are of comparatively late
origin, or are immediately concerned with psychological ques-
tions—such, for example, as the myths of Cupid and Psyche
and of Pandora and Epimetheus.
A fourth way of dealing with mythology is to rationalize it,
by assuming that all the marvellous stories told about the gods
and heroes had historical foundation in the past. Myths,
according to this method, become the reminiscences of actual
facts, the biographies of persons, which in course of time have
lost their positive truth. In order to recover and reconstitute
that truth it is necessary to reduce them to prose. Thus
Hecatæus, who was one of the earliest among the Greeks to
attempt this interpretation, declared that Geryon was a king of
Epirus, and that Cerberus was a serpent haunting the caverns
of Cape Tænarus. Herodotus, in like manner, explained the
sacred black dove of Dodona by saying that she was a woman,
cult of Zeus into Hellas. After the same fashion, Python,
slain by Phoebus, was supposed to have been a troublesome
14
THE GREEK POETS.
freebooter. Æolus was changed into a weather-wise seaman,
the Centaurs into horsemen, Atlas into an astronomer, Hera-
kles into a strong-limbed knight-errant. It was when the old
feeling for the myths had died out among the learned, when
physical hypotheses were adopted for the explanation of the
heavens and the earth instead of the religious belief in nature-
deities, and when prose had usurped on poetry, that this theory
was worked into a system. Euhemerus, the contemporary of
the Macedonian Cassander, wrote a kind of novel in which he
made out that all the gods and heroes had once been men.
Ennius translated this work into Latin, and the rationalizing
method was called Euhemerism. The hold which it has re-
tained upon the minds of succeeding ages is sufficient to show
that it readily approves itself to the understanding. It seems
to make everything quite smooth and easy. When, for instance,
we read the revolting legend of Pasiphaë we like to fancy that
after all she only fell in love with a captain called Taurus, and
that Daedalus was an artful go-between. Unfortunately, how-
ever, there is no guide more delusive than Euhemerism. It
destroys the true value of mythology, considered as the ex-
pression of primitive thought and fancy, reducing it to a mere
decayed and weed-grown ruin of prosaic fact. Plato was right
when he refused to rationalize the myths, and when, by his own
use of myths, he showed their proper nature as the vehicle for
thoughts as yet incapable of more exact expression. At the
same time it would be unphilosophical to deny that real
persons and actual events have supplied in some cases the
subject-matter of mythology. The wanderings of Odysseus,
the Trojan War, the voyage of the Argonauts, the kingdom of
Minos, the achievements of Herakles, have, all of them, the
appearance of dimly-preserved or poetized history. Yet to
seek to reconstruct history from them, “ to dig for a supposed
basis of truth” in them, is idle. The real thing to bear in mind
is that great men and stirring events must have been remem-
MYTHOLOGY.
15
bered even in the mythopoic age, and that to eliminate them
from the national consciousness would have been impossible.
A nucleus of fact may, therefore, have formed the basis of certain
myths, just as a wire immersed in a solution of salts will cause
the fluid to condense in crystals round it. But, as in the case
just used by way of illustration, we do not see the wire but the
crystals after the process has been finished, so in mythology it
is not the fact but the fancy which attracts our attention and
calls for our consideration. This illustration might be extended
so as to apply to any substratum, linguistic, solar, symbolical, or
other, that may be supposed to underlie the fancy-fabric of
mythology. The truth to be looked for in myths is psycho-
logical, not historical, ästhetic rather than positive.
In order to make the relation of actuality to imagination in
the mythopæic process still more intelligible, another illustra-
tion can be drawn from nature. Pearls are said to be the
result of a secretion effused from the pearl-oyster round a piece
of grit or thorn inserted between its flesh and the shell in which
it lives. To the production of the pearl this extraneous object
and the irritation which it causes, are both necessary; yet the
pearl is something in itself quite independent of the stimulating
substance. Just so the myth, which corresponds to the pearl,
is a secretion of the national imagination which has been
roused into activity by something accidental and exterior.
It is possible to take a fifth line and to refer. mythology to
fetishism. Strictly speaking, fetishism can never explain the
problem of the mythopæic faculty, except in so far as we may
assume it to have formed a necessary stage of human develop-
ment anterior to polytheism. Greek mythology, together with
Greek nature-worship, would, according to this fifth method of
interpretation, have to be regarded as a refinement on the
savage dread of fetishes. Beginning with a servile prostration
before the powers of nature, this attitude of simple awe would
have been gradually elevated to the height which it attained in
16
THE GREEK POETS.
Homer and Hesiod. In the progressive amelioration of the
race myths would thus have occupied a middle place between
the fetish and the free divinities of art. Putting aside all the
difficulties which involve the question whether fetishism is
rightly regarded as the first attitude of man towards nature, it is
clear that the fetishistic hypothesis cannot cover the whole
field of our enquiry. What it does do is to offer an explanation
of the origin of nature-worship, and to account for the fact that
external objects are regarded as living, sentient beings in the
myths. Long before the philosophers of Ionia conjectured
that the stars are fiery vapours, people fancied they were gods.
It has been well observed that the Greeks never speak of a god
of the sun, or a goddess of the moon. They worshipped the
sun as a god in Helios, the moon as a goddess in Selene.
This direct reference of the mind to natural things as objects
of adoration may, possibly, be a purified form of fetishism:
But, taken by itself alone, fetishism is not adequate to account
for the many-sided, many-featured product of the mythical
imagination, which continued active long after the age of
savagery. Nor, indeed, have the historians, who attribute great
importance to this stage of religious feeling, claimed for it so
much.
According to yet a sixth view the myths are to be considered
as nothing more or less than poems. This theory is not, at first
sight, very different from that which is involved in the first ac-
count given of the mythopæic faculty. It is clear that the
stories of Galatea, of Pan and Pitys, of Hesperus and Hyme-
næus, and, in a deeper sense, perhaps, of Prometheus and
Pandora, are pure poems. That is to say, the power which
produced them was analogous to the power which we observe
in poetic creation at the present day, and which has continued
the mythopæic age into the nineteenth century. Yet we should
lose a great deal in exactitude and fulness of conception if we
identified mythology with poetry. Poetry is conscious of its
MYTHOLOGY.
V
aim; it demands a fixed form; it knows itself to be an art, and,
as an art, to be different from religion and distinguished from
history. Now, mythology in its origin was antecedent to all
such distinctions, and to all the conscious adaptations of means
to ends. Behind the oldest poetry which we possess there
looms a background of mythology, substantially existing, already
expressed in language, nebulous, potential, containing in itself
the germs of all the several productions of the human intellect.
The whole intellect is there in embryo ; and behind mythology
nothing is discoverable but thought and language in the same
sphere. Therefore we lose rather than gain by a too strict
adherence to what may be termed the poetical hypothesis,
although the analogy of poetry, and of poetry alone, places us
at the right point of view for comprehending the exercise of the
myth-making faculty.
Before completing the circle of enquiry by a return with
fuller knowledge to the point from which we started, it is neces-
sary to discuss a seventh way of dealing with the problem, which
professes to be alone the truly scientific method. It may be
called the Linguistic theory, since it rests upon analysis of lan-
guage, and maintains that mythology is not so much an inde-
pendent product of the human mind, expressed in words, as a
morbid phase of language, considered as a thing apart. Max
Müller, who has given currency to this view in England, states
expressly that “Mythology, which was the bane of the ancient
world, is in truth a disease of language. A mythe means a word,
but a word which, from being a name or an attribute, has been
allowed to assume a more substantial existence : ” and again,
under mythology “I include every case in which language
assumes an independent power, and reacts on the mind,
instead of being, as it was intended to be, the mere realisation
and outward embodiment of the mind." The first thing which
strikes a student accustomed to regard mythology as a necessary
and important phase in the evolution of thought, when he reads
II.
18
THE GREEK POETS.
these definitions, is the assumption that uūdog is synonymous
with what we mean by word, instead of including the wider
content of a story told in words. He is thus led to suspect a
theory which contrives to make the problem of mythology pass
for a branch of philology. Nor can he comprehend in what
sense mythology may be called “a disease of language,” rather
than a disease of the mind which uses language. Does Max
Müller mean that language suffered, or that the thinking subject
suffered through the action of the bane? He probably means
the former ; but, if so, language must be supposed to live a life
apart from thought, triumphing over the freedom of the human
mind, and imposing its figments on the intellect. Such a be-
lief might seem due partly to a too exclusive study of language
in itself, in the course of which the philologer comes to regard
it as disconnected from thought, and partly to the neglect of
the fact that it is the same human subject which produces lan-
guage and myths, that language and thought in their origin are
inseparable, but that when language has once been started, it
has to serve the various purposes of thought, and lend itself
to myth and poem, philosophical analysis and religious dogma.
Another point to criticise is the inevitable corollary that the
soul of a great nation, like the Greeks, for instance, in the
course of its advance to the maturity of art and freedom,
passes through a period of derangement and disease, by
which its civilisation is vitiated, its vitality poisoned at the
root, and all its subsequent achievements tainted ; and that
this spiritual phthisis can be traced to a sickly state of lan-
guage, at a very remote historical period, when as yet the
nation was scarcely constituted. Seriously to entertain this
view is tantamount to maintaining that corruption and disease
may be the direct efficient causes of the highest art on which
humanity can pride itself, since it is indubitable that the
poems of Homer and the sculptures of Pheidias are the
direct outgrowth of that “ bane of the ancient world,” which, to
MYTHOLOGY.
19
A
quote another pithy saying of Max Müller, converted nomina
into nzumina. It is hardly necessary to point out the curious
want of faith in the Welt-Geist (or God) which this implies; the
unimaginative habit of mind we should encourage if we failed
to discern the excellence of a civilisation that owed its specific
character to mythology ; the unphilosophical conclusions to
which we might be brought if we denied that the intelligence is
free while following the fixed laws of its evolution, and that
the essential feature in this evolution is the advance from
rudimentary to more developed thought. Language, however
potent in reaction upon thought, is after all the vehicle
and instrument of thought, and not its master. This leads to
yet a further criticism ; granting that language was “intended
to be the mere realisation and outward embodiment of the
mind”_though this is a wide begging of the most difficult of
all questions—it does not follow that in mythology language is
not pursuing its appointed function. If the mythological phase
of thought is less apparent among the Semitic than among the
Aryan nations, are we to say that this is so because the Semitic
languages escaped the whooping-cough of mythology, or not far
rather because the mind of the Aryan races had a greater apti-
tude for mythology, a greater aptitude for art? In the fifth
place, the definition of mythology is too wide for the special
purpose of the problem. Bacon long ago pointed out that one
of the chief sources of error arises from our tendency to mistake
words for realities. Tliis imperfect adjustment of language to
the purposes of thought is not peculiar to the mythopoic age.
When we use such phrases as “vital force," we are designating
the results of observation and experience by a word which ought
not to be regarded as more than a sign. Yet, because “ vital
force” has sometimes been recognised as something positive and
substantially existent, we cannot on that account call it a myth
without impoverishing the resources of language, and making
one word do the work of two. The truth, therefore, is, that in
C 2
20
THE GREEK POETS.
the mythopaic, as in every other age, words have done violence
to thought, nor need it be contested that the eidola fori were
more potent in the infancy than in the maturity of intelligence.
While concerned with this branch of our critique, it is curious
to observe the satisfaction with which the advocates of the
linguistic theory use it as the means of rehabilitating the moral
character of the ancient Greeks, by trying to make out that the
tales of Edipus, Pelops, and Kronos owe their repulsive ele-
ments to verbal mistakes. To the student it is undoubtedly a
relief to fancy that the incest of Jocasta was originally no more
than a figurative way of speaking about the alternations of day
and night. He derives, indeed, the same sort of contentment
by this method as the rationalist who explains the legend of
Pasiphaë upon Euhemeristic principles. Yet it is surely a poor
way of whitewashing the imagination of the ancients to have
recourse to a theory which sees in myths nothing better than a
mange or distemper breaking out in language, and tormenting
the human mind for a season. Nor can the theory be stretched
so far as to exonerate the nation from its share of interest in
these stories. The people who made the supposed linguistic
mistakes; delighted in the grotesque and fantastic legends which
were produced. Even if words deluded them, their wills were
free and their brains at work while under the pernicious in-
fluence. The real way of exculpating the conscience of the
Greeks, indicated both by philosophy and common sense, is to
point out that, in the age of reflection, the tragic poets moralised
these very myths, and made them the subject-matter of the
gravest art, while the sages instituted a polemic against the
confusion of fabulous mythology with the pure notion of God-
head obtained by reflection.
The theory of development which seems to underlie
the linguistic doctrine, is that thought in its earliest stage is
positive and clear and adequate. . The first savage who thinks,
sees the sun, for example, and calls it the sun ; but in talking
MYTHOLOGY.
25
about the sun he begins to use figurative language, and so con-
verts his simple propositions into myths. At this point, argues
the philologer, he goes wrong and becomes the victim of delu-
sions. The fallacy in this view appears to lie in attributing to
the simple and sensuous apprehension of the savage the same
sort of simplicity as that which we have gained by a process of
abstraction, and consequently inferring that the importation of
fancy into the thinking process implies a species of degeneracy.
The truth seems rather to be quite the contrary. If we grant,
for the sake of argument, that the first thoughts are in a certain
sense simple, they have nothing in common with the generalisa-
tions of the understanding. Except in relation to immediate
perceptions, their generality is empty until it has been filled up
with the varied matter of the senses and the imagination. Mytho-
logy and poetry are, therefore, an advance upon the primitive
prose of simple apprehension. What was a mere round ball
becomes a dædal world ; and it is not till the full cycle of the
myth-creating fancy has been exhausted, that the understanding
can return upon a higher level by abstraction to intellectual
simplicity. The same is true about theology. The first dim
sense of the divine in nature as an unity may, possibly, have
been prior to the many deities of folytheism : men may have
looked upon the open sky and called that god. Yet it was
not a retrogression but an advance from that first perception
to the mythological fulness and variety which gave concreteness to
the notion of the deity. In this way the whole content of human
nature-feeling, sense, activity, and so forth—was imported
into the original and hollow notion ; or, to state the process
with greater accuracy, the germ of thought, by unfoiding its
potentiality, showed that what had seemed a barren unit was a
complicated organism with a multiplicity of parts. It remained
for a further stage of thought, by reflection and abstraction, to
return at a higher level to the conception of intellectual unity.
What we have to guard against is the temptation to attri-
CD
22
THE GREEK POETS.
VI
bute our own abstractedness, the definiteness of positivism, the
purity of monotheism, to the first stage of thought. Ours
is the triumph of the understanding in its vigour over bewil-
dering fulness; theirs was the poverty and nakedness of
a first awakening of intelligence. The same critique might
be applied to the theory that language starts with universals.
Here, again, all turns upon the question, what sort of uni-
versals ? Unless we are cautious, we run the risk of ending
in a view almost identical with the theory of primitive reve-
lation, by following which to its conclusions we are forced to
regard the history of the human race, not as a process of
development, but as a series of disastrous errors and of gradual
decline.
What remains the solid outcome of the linguistic theory is
that in the mythopoic age, when there was no criticism and
no reflection possible, the idola fori were far more powerful
than now, and consequently many legends were invented to
account for words of which the true meaning had been for-
gotten. Accordingly philology is one of the keys by which
the door of mythology may be unlocked. At the same time,
considering the complex relations of thought to language,
especially in their commencement, it is wrong to concentrate
attention upon language. In like manner, it will be admitted
that the genders of the nouns contributed their quota to the
personification of female and male deities; but it would be
wrong to argue that the numina were divided into male and
female because the nomina were so distinguished. In order to
appreciate the personifying instinct, we must go back in im-
agination to a point beyond the divergence of thought and
language ; and we shall find that if priority can be assigned to
either, it will be to thought as that by which alone the human
subject can be said to be. Language has sex because sex is
a property of the talking being. The deities are male and
female, not because their names have genders, but because the
MYTHOLOGY.
23
chinking being, for whom sex is all-important, thinks its own
conditions into the world outside it.
· The linguistic theory for the interpretation of mythology is
based upon comparative philology, which has proved beyond
all contest that the Aryan races had not only their grammar
but a certain number of their myths in common before the
separation of the Hindhu, Hellenic, and Teutonic stocks.
The Vedic literature exhibits the mythological material in rudi-
ment, and its style approximates to that of poetry. Hence it
has been assumed that the disease of language was less virulent
in the oldest Aryan writings than it afterwards became in
Hesiod and Homer. The nomina had not as yet been so utterly
deformed and corrupted into numina. The inefficiency of argu-
ments like this is that they have no value except in relation to
a previously adopted view. To the opponent of the linguistic
as the only scientific method for the explanation of myths, it is
left to answer : What you regard as corruption of language I re-
gard as development of thought. What interests me in Greek
mythology is precisely this: that the Aryan poems have passed
into complicated stories, illustrative of pure Hellenic modes of
thought and feeling, which in their turn will give occasion for
epics, dramas, statues, and philosophies. In the same way,
the amount of similarity which comparative mythology has
demonstrated in the myths of all the members of the Aryan
family is, from the Greek historian's point of view, far less
important than their differences. The similarity belongs to
the stock as it existed in pre-historic times. The differences
mark the external conditions and internal qualities of the nations
as they played their part in the world's history. The “ disease
of language” which severally afflicted the Hindhus, the Persians,
the Greeks, and the Scandinavians, turns out to be a faithful
mirror of their concrete life. Anyone, by way of illustration,
can work out the problem of national pyschology offered by
the nature-worship of the sun in Ormuzd, in Phoebus, and
THE GREEK POETS.
YY
LII.
VV
in Balder. The pale and beautiful Balder, who must perish
and whose death involves the world in wailing; the radiant
and conquering Phoebus, the healing deity, the purifier, the voice
of prophecy and poetry and music; Crmuzd, the antagonist of
darkness and of evil, the object of desire and adoration to the
virtuous and pure; these sun-gods answer to the races, as
their geographical conditions and their spirit made them. Nor
is this all. The mythology of each nation has a physiognomy
and character of its own that of the Greeks being clearness and
articulation in opposition to the formlessness and misty vague-
ness of the Hindhus. To mistake a Greek tale of deity or hero
for a Hindhu tale of deity or hero is impossible. While the
student of pre-historical antiquities will, therefore, direct atten-
tion to the likeness revealed by comparative mythology, the histo-
rian of nations will rather be attracted by those differences which
express themselves in mature art, literature, and religion.*
One of the most salient points of similarity between the
several families of Aryan myths concerns those which are called
solar legends. In all of these we read of children fated to slay
their fathers, of strong giants condemned to obey the rule
of feeble princes, of heroic young men forced to quit their first
love for another woman. The heroes of these stories are
marked out in their cradle by miraculous signs and wonders,
or are suckled by wild beasts in the absence of their parents;
in their youth they slay serpents sent to destroy them ; in their
manhood they shine forth as conquerors. Their death is not
* The dissimilarity between Greek and Roman religion has often been
observed, and will be touched upon below. Supposing it to be proved
that the Romans can produce one relic of an Aryan myth in Romulus, we
find that their most native deities -- Saturnus, Ops, Bellona, Janus, Ter-
minus, Concordia, Fides, Bonus Eventus, and so forth-are abstractions
which have nothing in common with Greek or other Aryan legends. They
are the characteristic product of the Roman mind, and indicate its habit
of thought. In like manner it is only by a crasis amounting to confusion
that Mercurius can be identified with Hermes, or Hercules with Herakles.
MYTHOLOGY.
25
unfrequently caused by slight and unforeseen, though, fated,
occurrences—by a weapon that strikes the only vulnerable part
of their body, in the case of Achilles and Siegfried ; by a twig
of mistletoe, in the case of Balder; by a thorn, in the case of
Isfendiyar; by an envenomed mantle, in the case of Herakles.
One great mythus fascinated the imagination of Norsemen and
itself with their history ; gave a form to their poetry ; and as-
sumed a prominent place in their religion. So far, it may be
said that comparative philology has established something solid,
which is at the same time of vast importance for the student or
pre-historical antiquity. It is also not improbable that these
legends referred originally to the vicissitudes of the sun in his
yearly and daily journeys through the heavens. Thus much may
be conceded to the solar theorists, remembering always that
this primitive astronomical significance, if it existed, was for-
gotten by the races for whom the myths became the material
been strained beyond its proper limits by students who com-
bine a solar theory with the linguistic in their interpretation
of mythology. In their hands all the myths are made to
refer to the sun and the moon, to dawn and evening. “ The
difficulty,” says Max Müller, “which I myself have most keenly
felt is the monotonous character of the dawn and sun legends.
Is everything the dawn? is everything the sun? This question
I had asked myself many times before it was addressed me
by others.” How consistently Professor Max Müller found
himself obliged to answer this question in the affirmative is
known to every student of his works, not to mention those of
Mr. Cox. The handbooks of mythology which are now in
vogue in England, expound this solar theory so persistently that
it is probable a race is growing up who fancy that the early
Greeks talked with most “ damnable iteration” of nothing but
the weather, and that their conversation on that fruitful topic
26
THE GREEK POETS.
fell sick of some disease breeding the tales of Thebes and
Achilles and Pelops' line, as a child breeds measles. . It is
therefore necessary to subject it to criticism.
The first point for notice is that mythology lends itself
almost as well to meteorological as to solar theories. Kuhn
and Schwartz, as Professor Müller himself informs us, arrived
at the conclusion that "originally the sun was conceived im-
plicitly as a mere accident in the heavenly scenery.” Instead,
therefore, of finding the sun and the dawn in all the myths,
they are always stumbling upon clouds and winds and
thunder. This differing of the doctors is, after all, no great
matter. Yet it warns us to be careful in adopting so exclu-
sively as is the present fashion either the solar or the
meteorological hypothesis. A second consideration which
inclines to caution is the facility of adapting the solar theory
to every story, whether fabulous or historical. In this sense
the famous tract which proved that Napoleon the Great only
existed in the mythical imagination may be taken as a
reductio ad absurdum of the method. A third ground for sus-
pension of judgment lies in the very elaborate manipulation
which the etymologies of such words as Erôs, Erinnys, and
the Charites have undergone before they yielded up their
solar content. But the multiplication of general objections is
not to the present purpose. It is enough to bear in mind that,
however important the sun was to the ancient Aryans, he
could not have been everything : he was, after all, but one
among many objects of interest; and what requires to be
still more remembered, is that the Greeks themselves, in deal-
ing with the tales of Achilles, or of Kephalos and Prokris, did
not know that they were handling solar stories. It is, there-
fore, misleading to base handbooks which serve as introduc-
tions to Greek literature and art, upon speculation about the
solar groundwork of the myths. In the works of Homer and
Hesiod, of Æschylus and Sophocles, the myths were ani-
MYTHOLOGY.
mated with spiritual, intellectual, and moral life. To draw
the lessons from them which those poets drew, to demonstrate
the grandeur of the imagination which could deal with those
primæval tragic tales, should be the object of the educator;
not to fill his pages with extremely doubtful matter about sun
and dawn ad infinitum. The true relation of the solar theory
to a Greek myth may be illustrated by the tale of Herakles, whom
the Greeks themselves may perhaps have recognised as a solar
deity, since Herodotus identified him with a Phænician god. *
We are therefore justified in dealing with this hero as a per-
sonification of the sun. Herakles is the child of Zeus. He
strangles in his cradle the serpents of the night. He loves
Iole, or the violet-coloured clouds of dawn. He performs
twelve labours, corresponding to the twelve months of the
solar year. He dies of a poisoned robe amid flames that
may be taken for the blood-red sunset clouds. The maiden
Iole, now evening and not morning, visits him again in death;
and he ascends from his funeral pyre of empurpled mountain
peaks to heaven. Let all this be granted. So far the solar
theory carries us. But is this all? In other words, is this,
which the current handbooks tell us about Herakles, the pith
of the matter as it appeared to the Greeks? When we turn to
the Philosophy of History of Hegel, who worked by another
than the solar method, and was more anxious to discover
thoughts than etymologies, we read : “Hercules is among
the Hellenes that spiritual humanity which, by native energy,
attains Olympus through the twelve far-famed labours; but
the foreign idea that lies at the basis, is the sun completing
its revolution through the twelve signs of the Zodiac." Here
we touch the truth. The solar foundation of the mythus is
wholly valueless and unimportant—in other words, is alien to
its essence, when compared with the moral import it acquired
among the Greeks. It is the conception of life-long service
* ii. 44.
28
THE GREEK POETS.
514
LV
to duty, of strength combined with patience, of glory followed
at the cost of ease, of godhead achieved by manhood through
arduous endeavour-it is this that is really vital in the myth
of Herakles. By right of this the legend entered the sphere
of religion and of art. In this spirit the sophist enlarged
upon it, when he told how Herakles in his youth chose virtue
with toil rather than pleasure, incorporating thus the high
morality of Hesiod with the mythical element. If myths like
these are in any sense diseased words about the sun, we
must go further and call them immortalised words, words that
have attained eternal significance by dying of the disease
that afflicted them. The same remarks apply to all the solar
and lunar stories—to Achilles, Endymion, Kephalos, and all
the rest. As solar myths these tales had died to the Greeks.
As poems, highly capable of artistic treatment, in sculpture, or
in verse, pregnant with humanity, fit to form the subject of
dramatic presentation or ethical debate, they retained incal-
culable value. The soul of the nation was in them. And
that is their value for us.
To deny the important part which the sun, like the earth or
the sea, played in early mythology would be absurd. To dis-
pute the illumination which comparative philology has thrown,
not only upon the problem of the myths, but also upon
the early unity of races until recently divided in our thought,
would be still more ridiculous. The point at issue is simply
this, that in Greek mythology there is far more than linguistic and
solar theories can explain, and that more is precisely the Greek
genius. The philologer from his point of view is justified in
directing attention to the verbal husk of myths ; but the
student of art and literature must keep steadily in view the
kernel of thought and feeling which the myths contain. It is
only by so doing that the poetry and art which sprang from them
can be intelligently studied. Thus the modern text-books of
mythology are misleading, in so far as they draw the learner's
2
MYTHOLOGYTT 7
29
.
U
mind away from subjects of historical importance to bare
archæology.
As the result of analysis, the following propositions may
be advanced. In the earliest ages the races to whom we owe
languages and literature and art, possessed a faculty which
may be called the mythopoic, now almost wholly extinct, or
rather superseded by the exercise of other faculties which it
contained in embryo. The operation of this faculty was ana-
logous to that of the poetic; that is to say, it was guided by
the imagination more than by the dry light of the understand-
ing, and its creative energy varied in proportion to the imagi-
native vigour of the race which exercised it. The distinction
here introduced is all-important; for only thus can we explain
the very different nature of the Greek and Roman religions.
The tendency to personification which distinguishes mythology
was due to the instinct of uncivilized humanity to impute to
external objects a consciousness similar to that by which men
are governed-in other words, to regard them as living agents
with wills and passions like our own. If fetishism be the
rudiinentary phase of this instinct, polytheism indicates an
advance by which the mind has passed from the mere recogni-
tion of spiritual power in nature to the investment of that
power with personal and corporeal qualities. But just as the
imagination varies in degree and force in different races, so will
this power of carrying the personifying instinct onward into art
be found to vary. The Romans stopped short at allegories ;
in other words, they did not carry their personification beyond
the first stage. The Greeks created divine personalities.
Many myths contain moral and philosophical ideas conveyed
in parables, and some of them have indubitable reference to real
events and persons. But in no case of a primitive and genuine
mythus are we to expect deliberate fiction or conscious symbol-
ism, or, again, to seek for a discoverable substratum of solid fact.
Entering the sphere of mythology, facts become etherialized
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THE GREEK POETS.
into fancies, the actual value of which lies in the expression of
respect synonymous. To use a metaphor, a myth is a
Brocken-spectre of the thought which produced it, and owes
the features by which we can distinguish it to the specific cha-
racter of the people among whom it sprang into existence.
The analysis of language shows that the whole Aryan family
legends are stories told to account for words and phrases which
had lost their original significance, and that in these stories
the alternations of night and day and the procession of the
seasons played a very important part. Philology can, however,
furnish no more than the prolegomena to mythology. After
hearing its report, the student of Greek art and literature
must take the Greek myths at a Greek valuation—must con-
sider what they were for the Athenians, for example, and not
what they had once been. Finally, it may be remembered
that to hope for a complete elucidation of a problem so far
removed from observation and experiment, would be vain.
The conditions of the mythopæic age cannot be reconstituted ;
and were they to reappear through the destruction of civiliza-
tions, the reflective understanding would not be present to
examine and record them.
The difficulty which besets the problem of mythology owing
to the remote antiquity of the myth-making age, is to some
extent removed by observing the operation of the mythopoic
faculty in the historic period. Given social circumstances
similar, if even only in a limited degree, to those of the pre-
historic age; given a defect of the critical and reflective faculty,
an absence of fixed records, and a susceptible condition of the
popular imagination, myths have always sprung up. While it
is not, therefore, possible to find exact analogies to the con-
ditions under which the Greek mythology originated, something
may be gained by directing attention to mediæval romance.
MYTHOLOGY.
The legends which in Italy converted Virgil into a magician,
the epic cycles of Charles the Great and Arthur, the Lives of
the Saints, the fable of Tannhäuser and the Venusberg, the
Spanish tale of Don Juan, and the German tale of Faust, are
essentially mythical. What is instructive about mediæval
romance for the student of mythology in general, is that here
the mythopæic imagination has been either dealing with dim
recollections of past history, or else has been constructing for
itself a story to express a doctrine. After excluding the
hypothesis of conscious working to a prefixed end, we, there-
fore, find in these legends an illustration of the sense in which
the symbolical and rationalistic theories can be said to be
justified. In the case of Virgil, the poetry of Rome's greatest
singer never ceased to be studied during the darkest years of the
dark ages, and his name was familiar even to people who could not
read his verse. He was known to have been a Pagan, and at the
same time possessed with what then seemed like superhuman
knowledge. It followed that he must have been a wizard, and
have gained his power and wisdom by compelling fiends.
Having formed this notion of Virgil, the popular fancy ascribed
to him all the vast works of architecture and engineering which
remained at Rome and Naples, inventing the most curious
stories to explain why he had made them. When we turn to
the Carlovingian cycle, we discover that the great name of
the Frankish Emperor, the memory of his wars, and the
fame of his generals have survived and been connected with
the crusading enthusiasm which pervaded Europe at a later
period. Border-warfare between France and Spain plays a
prominent part in this epic, and gradually the figure of Roland
usurps upon the more historically important personages. To
“ dig for a supposed basis of truth” in the Carlovingian cycle
would be vain ; yet the view is forced upon us that without
some historical basis the cycle would not have sprung into
existence, or have formed a framework for the thought and
THE GREEK POETS.
U
feeling of one period of the Middle Ages. The achievements
of Arthur must be regarded as still more wholly mythological.
The more we enquire into his personality the less we find of
real historical subsistence. A Celtic hero, how created it is
impossible to say, becomes the central figure of the most
refined romance which occupied the attention of German,
French, and British poets in the Middle Ages. Round the
fictitious incidents of his biography gathers all that chivalry,
with its high sense of humanity and its profound religious
mysticism, conceived of purest and most noble ; while, at the
same time, certain dark and disagreeable details, especially the
incestuous union from which Mordred sprang, remind us of
the savage and unmoralised origin of the fable. We therefore
find in the Arthurian cycle something very much analogous to
the Tale of Troy. The dim memory of a national struggle, an
astronomical myth, perchance, and many incidents of merely
story. This spiritual content gives its value to the epic.
Mediæval hagiography furnishes abundant examples of the way
in which facts transform themselves into fables, and mytho-
logical material is moulded into shape around some well-
remembered name, the religious consciousness externalising
itself in acts which it attributes to its heroes. When we read
the Fioretti di San Francesco, we are well aware that the saint
lived—his life is one of the chief realities of the thirteenth cen-
tury; but we perceive that the signs and wonders wrought
by him proceed from the imagination of disciples ascribing to
St. Francis what belongs partly to the ideal of his own cha-
racter and partly to that of monastic sanctity in general. In
the fable of Tannhäuser we meet with another kind of
reminiscence. There is less of fact and more of pure invention.
The Pagan past, existent as a sort of dæmonic survival, is
localised at Hörsel. The interest, however, consists here wholly
MYTHOLOGY.
33
in the parabolic meaning-whether Tannhäuser ever existed
does not signify. . His legend is a poem of the Christian
knight ensnared by sin, aroused to a sense of guilt, condemned
by the supreme tribunal of the Church, and pardoned by the
grace of God. In like manner, the lust for knowledge, for
power, and for pleasure, withheld by God and nature, finds
expression in the Faust legend ; while inordinate carnal ap-
petite is treated tragically in Don Juan. These three legends
deserve to be called myths rather than poems in the stricter
sense of the word, because they appear at many points and
cannot be traced up to three definite artistic sources, while it
is clear from their wide acceptance that they embodied
thoughts which were held to be of great importance. In them,
therefore, we find illustrated the theory which explains mytho-
logy by the analogy of poetry. That the mediæval myths which
have been mentioned, never attained the importance of Greek
mythology, is immediately accounted for by the fact that they
sprang up, as it were, under the shadow of philosophy, re-
ligion, and history. They belonged to the popular conscious-
ness; and this popular consciousness had no need or opportunity
of converting its creatures into a body of beliefs, because both
science and orthodoxy existed. In the historic period mytho-
logy musty alyvays, occupy this subordinate position ; and,
perhaps, this fact - might be reflected back as a further argu-
ment, if such were needed, against the theories that the Greek
myths, while leading onward to the Greek Pantheon and Greek
art, originated as an undergrowth beneath the decaying fabric
of revealed truth or firmly-apprehended philosophical ideas.
At all events, both the positive and negative circumstances
which we observe in them, confirm the general view of mytho-
logy that has been advanced.
The Homeric and Hesiodic poems were interposed between
the reflective consciousness of the Greeks in the historic age
and the mass of myths already existent in Hellas at the time of
Y
II.
D
THE GREEK POETS.
their composition, and thus mythology passed into the more
advanced stage of art. It did not, however, cease on that ac-
count to retain some portion of its original plasticity and fluidity.
It is clear from Pindar and the fragments of the minor lyric
poets, from the works of the dramatists, from Plato, and from
other sources, that what Herodotus reports about Homer and
Hesiod having fixed the genealogies of the gods, cannot be taken
too literally. Non-Homeric and non-Hesiodic versions of the
same tales were current in various parts of Greece. The same
deities in different places received different attributes and dif-
ferent forms of worship; and the same legends were localised
in widely-separated spots. Each division of the Hellenic family
selected its own patron deities, expressing in their cult and
ritual the specific characteristics which distinguished Dorian,
Æolian, and Ionian Hellas. At the same time certain head-
quarters of worship, like the shrine of Delphi and the temple of
Olympian Zeus, were strictly Panhellenic. In this way it is
clear that while Greek mythology acquired the consistence of a
national religion, it retained its free poetic character in a great
measure. The nation never regarded their myths as a body of
fixed dogma, to alter which was impious. Great liberty conse-
that the Greeks arrived through sculpture at a consciousness of
their gods. A new statue was, in a certain sense, a new deity,
although the whole aim of the sculptor must, undoubtedly, have
been to render visible the thoughts contained in myths and
purified by poetry, and so to pass onward step-wise to a fuller
and fuller realisation of the spiritual type. It is this unity
combined with difference that makes the study of Greek sculp-
ture fascinating in itself, and fruitful for the understanding of
the Greek religion.
It lies beyond the scope of this chapter to consider how the
Greek intelligence was first employed upon the articulation of
its mythologj”, and next upon its criticism. The tradition of a
MYTHOLOGY.
Titanomachy, or contest between nature powers and deities of
reason, marks the first step in the former process. The cosmo-
gonical forces personified in the Titans gave place to the pre-
siding deities of political life and organised society, in whom
the human reason recognised itself as superior to mere nature.
Olympus was reserved for gods of intellectual order, and thus
the Greeks worshipped what was best and noblest in themselves.
At the same time the cosmogonical divinities were not excluded
from the Greek Pantheon, and so there grew up a kind of
hierarchy of greater and lesser deities. Oceanus, Poseidon,
Proteus, the Tritons and the Nereids, Amphitrite and Thetis,
for example, are all powers of the sea. They are the sea, con-
ceived under different aspects, its divine personality being
multitudinously divided and delicately characterised in each
case 10 accord with the changes in the element. The same
kind of articulation is observable in the worship of deities under
several attributes. Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pan-
demos are one as well as two; Erôs and Himeros and Pothos
are not so much three separate Loves, as Love regarded from
three different points of view. Here the hierarchy is psycho-
logical, and represents an advance made in reflection upon
moral qualities ; whereas in the former case it was based on
the observation of external nature. To this enquiry, again,
belongs the question of imported myths and foreign cults. The
worship of Corinthian Aphrodite, for example, was originally
Asiatic. Yet, on entering Greek thought, Mylitta ceased to be
Oriental and assumed Hellenic form and character. Sensuality
was recognised as pertaining to the goddess whose domain
included love and beauty and the natural desires.
More than the vaguest outlines of such subjects of interest
cannot be indicated here. It is enough to have pointed out
that, as Greek mythology was eminently imaginative, fertile in
fancy and prolific in dramatic incident, so it found its full
development in poetry and art. Only through art can it be
D
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THE GREEK POETS.
the groundwork was itself a kind of art. It is just this artistic
quality which distinguished the Greeks from the Romans. As
Mommsen well observes, “ there was no formation of legend in
the strict sense in Italy.” The Italian gods were in their
origin more matter-of-fact than Greek gods. They contained
from the first a prosaic element which they never threw aside,
nor did they give occasion to the growth of fable with its varied
fabric of human action and passion. Thus the legal and poli-
tical genius of the Latin race worshipped its own qualities in
these allegorical beings.
The process hitherto described has been the passage of
mythology into religion and the expression of religion by art.
When the Greek intelligence became reflective in the first
dawn of philosophy, it recognised that the notion of divinity,
Tù delov, was independent and in some sense separable from
nition led to a criticism of the myths by the standard of ideal
godhead. Just as the Olympic deities, as representative of
pure intellect or spirit, had superseded the bare nature forces,
so now the philosophers sought to distil a refined conception
of God from the myths in general. Their polemic was directed
against Homer, in whom, like Herodotus, they recognised the
founder of the current mythological theology. Both Pythagoras
and Heraclitus are reported to have said that Homer ought to
be publicly thrust from the assembly and scourged. Xeno-
phanes plainly asserted that the Greek anthropomorphism was
no better than a worship of humanity with all its vices, illustrat-
ing his critique by adding that just in the same way might lions
adore lions and horses horses. His own conception of the
deity was monotheistic, to this extent at least that he abstracted
from the universe a notion of divine power and wisdom, and
ascribed to it the only reality. Plato, in the Republic, unified
these points of view, severely criticising Homer for the immo-
MYTHOLOGY.
37
rality of his fictions, and attributing to his own demiurgic deity
those qualities of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty which are the
highest ideals of the human spirit. In connection with this
polemic against poetical theology, we have to notice the attempts
of physical philosophers to explain the universe by natural causes,
and the great saying of Anaxagoras that reason rules the world.
Thus the speculative understanding, following various lines of
mythology and to corrode the ancient fabric of Greek poly-
theism. In the course of this disintegrating process a new and
higher religion was developed, which Plato expressed by saying
that we ought“ to become like God, as far as this is possible ;
and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise."
At the same time those who felt the force of the critique, but
could not place themselves at the new scientific point of view,
remained sceptical; and against this kind of scepticism, which
implied personal lawlessness, Aristophanes directed his satire.
Whatever may have been the attitude of philosophers in their
schools, mythology meanwhile retained its hold upon the
popular mind. It was bound up with the political traditions,
the gentile customs, the ritual, and the arts of the whole race.
To displace it by a reasoned system of theology, enforced by
nothing stronger than the theories of the sages, was impossible.
The extent to which philosophy permanently affected the creed
of thinking and religious men in Greece by substituting theism
for the fabulous theology of the poets has been well expressed in
Plutarch's Life of Pericles. “So dispassionate a temper,” he
observes, “a life so pure and unblemished in authority, might
well be called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of
the divine beings to whom, as the natural authors of all good
and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the
world—not as the poets represent, who, while confounding us
with their ignorant fancies, are themselves confuted by their
own poems and fictions, and call the place, indeed, where they
THE GREEK POETS.
say the gods make their abode 'a secure and quiet seat, un-
troubled with winds or clouds,' and ' equally through all time
illumined with a soft serenity and a pure light,' as though such
were a home most agreeable for a blessed and immortal nature;
and yet, in the meanwhile, affirm that the gods themselves are
full of trouble and enmity and anger, and other passions, which
no way become or belong to even men that have any under-
standing." It is clear that when the religious consciousness
had reached this point of purified clairvoyance, the race was
ready for a more spiritual theology, which philosophers like
Marcus Aurelius found in natural religion, while the common
folk accepted Christianity.
After flowing side by side for many centuries, the currents
of mythological belief and of philosophical speculation reunited
at Alexandria, where a final attempt was made to animate the
Homeric Pantheon with the spirit of metaphysical mysticism.
Homer became a priest as well as poet, and the Iliad was made
to furnish allegories for an age grown old in intellectual subtlety.
This was the last period of mythology. While Hypatia was
lecturing on Homer the Christians were converting the world.
To keep the gods of Greece alive was no longer possible. Re-
garded from the beginning as persons with a body correspond-
ing to their spiritual substance, they had in them the certainty
of dissolution. Though removed ideally beyond the sphere of
human chance and change, they remained men and women
with passions like our own. Pure spirit had not been realised
in them; and blind fate had from the first been held to be
supreme above them. Unlike the incarnate God of Christi-
anity, they had not passed forth from the spiritual world to
abide here for a season and return to it again. Therefore they
perished. During the domination of mediæval Christianity the
utmost they could do was ta haunt the memory like wraiths and
phantoms, to linger in neglected and unholy places like malig-
nant powers of evil. But when the force of ascetic Christianity
MYTHOLOGY.
declined, and the spirit of humane culture reawoke in Europe,
these old gods reasserted their ascendancy-no longer as divi-
nities indeed, but as poems forming an essential element of the
imagination. The painters and sculptors of Italy gave once
more in breathing marble and fair colour form to those immortal
thoughts. The poets sang the old songs of Hellas in new lan-
guage to new measures. Even the churchmen invoked God
from Roman pulpits as Summus Jupiter, and dignified Madonna
with the attributes of Artemis and Pallas.
Such is the marvellous vitality of this mythology. Such is
its indissoluble connection with the art and culture which sprang
from it, of which it was the first essential phase, and to which
we owe so much. Long after it has died as religion, it lives on
as poetry, retaining its original quality, though the theology
contained in it has been for ever superseded or absorbed into
more spiritual creeds.
NOTE.—I wish to qualify what I have said upon pp. 17–30 by stating
that my critique of the linguistic and solar theories is not, as I hope, directed
in any impertinent spirit against the illustrious teacher to whom, in common
with most Englishmen, I owe nearly all my knowledge of comparative
mythology, but rather against notions which have gained currency through
a too exclusive attention to the origin of Greek mythology. I want to re-
mind students of Greek literature that, after all they may have learned from
Sanskrit, they are still upon the threshold of mythology as it was deter-
mined by the genius of the Greek race. There is a danger oſ diverting the
mind from questions of thoughts to questions of words, and leading people
to fancy that etymological solutions are final.
THE GREEK POETS.
CHAPTER II.
ACHILLES
Unity of Iliad. - Character of Achilles.—Structure of the whole Poem.-
Comparison with other Epics.—Energy dividing into Anger and
Love.—Personality of Achilles.— The Quarrel with Agamemnon.
Death.--The Message of Antilochus-Interview with Thetis.—The
Shouting in the Trench.-The Speech of Xanthus.--The Pæan over
Hector's Corpse. — The Ghost of Patroclus.—The Funeral Obsequies
of Patroclus.-Achilles and Priam.—Achilles in Hades.--Achilles
considered as a Greek Ideal.-Friendship among the Greeks. —
Heroism and Knighthood : Ancient and Modern Chivalry.— The
Myrmidones of Æschylus.--Achilles and Hector. - Alexander the
Great.-The Daemonic Nature of Achilles.
It is the sign of a return to healthy criticism that scholars are
beginning to acknowledge that the Iliad may be one poem-
that is to say, no mere patchwork of ballads and minor epics
put together by some diaskeuast in the age of Pisistratus, but
the work of a single poet, who surveyed his creation as an
artist, and was satisfied with its unity. We are not bound to
pronounce an opinion as to whether this poet was named
Homer, whether Homer ever existed, and, if so, at what period
of the world's history he lived. We are not bound to put
forward a complete view concerning the college of Home-
ridæ, from which the poet must have arisen, if he did not
found it. Nor, again, need we deny that the Iliad itself
presents unmistakeable signs of having been constructed in a
great measure out of material already existing in songs and
ACHILLESTTT
41
.
romances, dear to the Greek nation in their youth, and
familiar to the poet. The æsthetic critic finds no difficulty in
conceding, nay, is eager to claim, a long genealogy through
antecedent, now forgotten, poems for the Iliad. But about
this, of one thing, at any rate, he will be sure, after due ex-
perience of the tests applied by Wolf and his followers, that a
great artist gave its present form to the Iliad, that he chose
from the whole Trojan tale a central subject for development,
and that all the episodes and collateral matter with which he
enriched his epic were arranged by him with a view to the
effect that he had calculated.
What, then, was this central subject, which gives the unity of
the character of Achilles. It is not fanciful to say, with the old
grammarians of Alexandria, that the first line of the poem sets
forth the whole of its action.
The wrath of Achilles and the consequences of that wrath in
the misery of the Greeks, left alone to fight without their fated
hero; the death of Patroclus, caused by his sullen anger; the
energy of Achilles, reawakened by his remorse for his friend's
death ; and the consequent slaughter of Hector ; form the whole
of the simple structure of the Iliad. \ This seems clear enough
when we analyse the conduct of the poem.
The first book describes the quarrel of Achilles with Aga-
memnon and his secession from the war. The next seven
books and a half, from the second to the middle of the ninth,
are.occupied with the fortunes of the Greeks and Trojans in
the field, the exploits of Diomede and Ajax, and Hector's
attack upon the camp. In the middle of the ninth book
Achilles reappears upon the scene. Agamemnon sends Ulysses
and Phoenix to entreat liim to relax" his wrath and save the
Greeks; but the hero remains obdurate. He has resolved
T
42
THE GREEK PUETS.
that his countrymen shall pay the uttermost penalty for the
offence of their King. The poet having foredetermined that
Achilles shall only consent to fight in order to revenge Patroclus,
is obliged to show the inefficacy of the strongest motives from
without; and this he has effected by the episode of the embassy.
The tenth book relates the night attack upon the camp of the
Trojan allies and the theft of the horses of Rhesus. The next
five books contain a further account of the warfare carried on
among the ships between the Achaians and their foes. It is
in the course of these events that Patroclus comes into promi-
nence. We find him attending on the wounded Eurypylus
and warning Achilles of the imminent peril of the fleet. At
last, in the sixteenth book, when Hector has carried fire to the
ship of Protesilaus, Achilles commands Patroclus to assume the
armour of Peleus and lead his Myrmidons to war. The same
book describes the repulse of Hector and the death of Patroclus,
while the seventeenth is taken up with the fight for the body
of Achilles' friend. But from the eighteenth onward the true
hero assumes his rank as protagonist, making us feel that what
has gone before has only been a preface to his action. His
seclusion from the war has not only enabled the poet to vary
the interest by displaying other characters, but has also proved
the final intervention of Achilles to be absolutely necessary for
the success of the Greek army. All the threads of interest are
gathered together and converge on him. Whatever we have
learned concerning the situation of the war, the characters of the
chiefs, and the jealousies of the gods, now serves to dignify his
single person and to augment the terror he inspires. With his
mere shout he dislodges the Trojans from the camp. The
divine arms of Hephaestus are fashioned for him, and forth he
goes to drive the foe like mice before him. Then he contends
with Simoeis and Scamander, the river-gods. Lastly, he slays
Hector. What follows in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth
books seems to be intended as a repose from the vehement
I
ACHILLES.
43
action and high-wrought passion of the preceding five. Patro-
clus is buried, and his funeral games are celebrated. Then,
at the very end, Achilles appears before us in the inter-
view with Priam, no longer as a petulant spoilt child or fiery
barbarian chief, but as a hero, capable of sacrificing his still
fierce passion for revenge to the nobler emotion of reverence
for the age and sorrow of the sonless king. 1
The centralization of interest in the character of Achilles,
constitutes the grandeur of the Iliad. It is also by this that the
Iliad is distinguished from all the narrative epics of the world.
In the case of all the rest there is one main event, one deed
which has to be accomplished, one series of actions with
a definite beginning and ending. In none else are the pas-
sions of the hero made the main points of the movement.
This may be observed at once by comparing the Iliad with the
chief epical poems of European literatııre. To begin with the
Odyssey. The restoration, after many wanderings, of Odysseus
to his wife and kingdom forms the subject of this romance.
When that has been accomplished, the Odyssey is completed.
In the same way the subject of the Æneid is the foundation of
the Trojan kingdom in Italy. Æneas is conducted from Troy
to Carthage, from Carthage to Latium. He flies from Dido,
because fate has decreed that his empire should not take root in
Africa. He conquers Turnus because it is destined that he, and
not the Latin prince, should be the ancestor of Roman kings.
As soon as Turnus has been killed and Lavinia has been wedded
to Æneas, the action of the poem is accomplished and the
Æneid is completed. When we pass to modern epics, the first
that meets us is the Niebelungen Lied. Here the action turns
upon the murder of Sigfrit by Hagen, and the vengeance of his
bride Chriemhilt. As soon as Chriemhilt has assembled her
husband's murderers in the halls of King Etzel, and there has
compassed their destruction, the subject is complete, the
Niebelungen is at an end. The British epic of the Round
4
THE GREEK POETS.
Table, if we may regard Sir Thomas Mallory's Morte d'Arthur
as a poem, centres in the life and predestined death of King
Arthur. Upon the fate of Arthur hangs the whole complex
series of events which compose the romance. His death is its
natural climax, for with him expires the Round Table he had
framed to keep the Pagans in awe. After that event nothing
remains for the epic poet to relate. Next in date and impor-
tance is the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. The action of this
poem is bound up with the destinies of Ruggiero and Brada-
mante. Their separations and wanderings supply the main
fabric of the plot. When these are finally ended, and their
marriage has been consummated, nothing remains to be related.
The theme of the Gerusalemme Liberata, again, is the conquest
of the Holy City from the Saracens. When this has been
described, there is nothing left for Tasso to tell. The Paradise
Lost, in spite of its more stationary character, does not differ
from this type. It sets forth the single event of the Fall.
After Adam and Eve have disobeyed the commands of their
Maker and have been expelled from Eden, the subject is
exhausted, the epic is at an end.
Thus each of these great epic poems has one principal event,
on which the whole action hinges and which leaves nothing
more to be narrated. But with the Iliad it is different. At
the end of the Iliad we leave Achilles with his fate still un-
accomplished, the Trojan war still undecided. The Iliad has
no one great external event or series of events to narrate. It
is an episode in the war of Troy, a chapter in the life of Peleus'
son. But it does set forth, with the vivid and absorbing interest
that attaches to true ästhetic unity, the character of its hero,
selecting for that purpose the group of incidents which best
display it. !
(The Iliad, therefore, has for its whole subject the Passion of
Achilles that ardent energy or MHNIE of the hero, which dis-
played itself first as anger against Agamemnon, and afterwards
ACHILLES.
45
as love for the lost Patroclus. The truth of this was perceived
by one of the greatest poets and profoundest critics of the
modern world, Dante. When Dante, in the Inferno, wished
to describe Achilles he wrote, with characteristic brevity:
Achille
Che per amore al fine combatteo.
Achilles
Who at the last was brought to fight by love.
In this pregnant sentence Dante sounded the whole depth of
the Iliad. The wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon, which
prevented him at first from fighting ; the love of Achilles, passing
the love of women, for Patroclus, which induced him to forego
his anger and to fight at last ; these are the two poles on which
the Iliad turns. Two passions—heroic anger and measureless
love-in the breast of the chief actor, are the motive forces of
the poem. It is this simplicity in the structure of the Iliad
which constitutes its nobleness. There is no double plot, no
attempt to keep our interest alive by misunderstandings, or
treacheries, or thwartings of the hero in his aims. These subtle-
ties and resources of art the poet, whom we will call Homer, for
the sake of brevity, discards. He trusts to the magnitude of his
chief actor, to the sublime central figure of Achilles, for the
whole effect of his epic. It is hardly necessary to insist upon
the highly tragic value of this subject. The destinies of two
great nations hang trembling in the balance. Kings on the
earth below, gods in the heavens above, are moved to turn this
way or that the scale of war. Meanwhile the whole must wait
upon the passions of one man. Nowhere else, in any work of
art, has the relation of a single heroic character to the history of
the world been set forth with more of tragic pomp and splendid
incident. Across the scene on which gods and men are con-
tending in fierce rivalry, moves the lustrous figure of Achilles,
ever potent, ever young, but with the ash-white aureole of coming
So
THE GREEK POETS.
death around his forehead. He too is in the clutch of destiny.
As the price of his decisive action, he must lay his life down and
retire with sorrow to the shades. It is thus that in the very
dawn of civilisation the Greek poet divined the pathos and.
expounded the philosophy of human life, showing how the fate
of nations may depend upon the passions of a man, who in his
turn is but the creature of a day, a ripple on the stream of time.)
Nothing need be said by the æsthetic critic about the solar
theory, which pretends to explain the tale of Troy. The Mythus
of Achilles may possibly in very distant ages have expressed
some simple astronomical idea. But for a man to think of
this with the actual Iliad before his eyes would be about as
bad as botanising on his mother's grave. Homer was not think-
ing of the sun when he composed the Iliad. He wove, as in a web,
all elements of tragic pity and fear, pathos and passion, and
fateful energy which constitute the dramas of nations and
of men.
In the two passions, anger and love, which form the promi-
nent features of the character of Achilles, there is nothing small
or mean. Anger has scarcely less right than ambition to be
styled the last infirmity of noble minds. And love, when it
gives the motive force to great action, is sublime. The love of
Achilles had no softness or effeminacy. The wrath of Achilles
never degenerated into savagery. Both of these passions, in-
stead of weakening the hero, add force to his activity. Homer
has traced the outlines of the portrait of Achilles so largely that
criticism can scarcely avoid dwarfing them. In looking closely
at the picture, there is a danger lest, while we examine the parts,
we should fail to seize the greatness of the whole. It is better
to bring together in rapid succession those passages of the Iliad
which display the character of Achilles under the double
aspect of anger and love. The first scene (i. 148–246) shows
us Agamemnon surrounded by the captains of the Greek
host, holding the same position among them as Charlemagne
...
.
.
(
ACHILLES.
among his peers, or King John among the English Barons.
They recognise his heaven-descended right of monarchy ; but
their allegiance holds by a slight thread. They are not afraid
of bearding him, browbeating him with threats, and roundly
accusing him of his faults. This turbulent feudal society has
been admirably sketched by Marlowe in Edward II., and by
Shakspeare in Richard II. And it must be remembered that
between Agamemnon and the Hellenic Baoilεīç, there was
not even so much as a feudal bond of fealty. Calchas has
just told Agamemnon that, in order to avert the plague,
Chryseis must be restored to her father. The king has
answered that if he is forced to relinquish her, the Greeks
must indemnify him richly. Then the anger of Achilles boils
over :-
“Ah, clothed upon with impudence and greedy-souled! How, thinkest
thou, can man of the Achaians with glad heart follow at thy word to take
the field or fight the foe? Not for the quarrel of the warlike Trojans did I
come unto these shores, for they had wronged me not. They never drove
my cattle nor my steeds, nor ever, in rich, populous Phthia, did they waste
the corn ; since far between us lie both shadowy mountains and a sounding
sea : but following thee, thou shameless king, we came to gladden thee,
for Menelaus and for thee, thou hound, to win you fame from Troy. Of
this thou reckest not and hast no care. Yea, and behold thou threatenest
even from me to wrest my guerdon with thy hands, for which I sorely
strove, and which the sons of the Achaians gave to me. Never, in sooth,
do I take equally with thee, when Achaians sack a well-walled Trojan
town. My hands do all the work of furious war ; but when division
comes, thy guerdon is far greater, and I go back with small but well-loved
treasure to the ships, tired out with fighting. Now, lo! I am again for
Phthia ; for better far, I ween, it is homeward to sail with beaked ships: nor
do I think that if I stay unhonoured wilt thou get much wealth and gain.
“Him, then, in answer, Agamemnon, king of men, bespake :-
“Away ! fly, if thy soul is set on flying. I beg thee not to stay for
me. With me are many who will honour me, and most of all, the Coun-
sellor Zeus. Most hateful to me of the Zeus-born kings art thou. For
ever dost thou love strife, warfare, wrangling. If very stout of limb thou
art, that did God give thee. Go home, then, with thy ships and friends.
Go, rule the Myrmidones. I care not for thee, nor regard thy wrath, but
this will I threaten-since Phæbus robs me of Chryseis, her with my ship
and with my followers will I send; but I will take fair-cheeked Briseis, thy
48
THE GREEK POETS.
own prize, and fetch her from thy tent, that thou mayest know how far
thy better I am, and that others too may dread to call themselves my
equal, and to paragon themselves with me.
"So spake he. And Peleides was filled with grief; and his heart
within his shaggy bosom was cut in twain with thought, whether to draw
his sharp sword from his thigh, and, breaking through the heroes, kill
the king, or to stay his anger and refrain his soul. While thus he raged
within his heart and mind, and from its scabbard was in act to draw the
Inighty sword, came Athene from heaven ; for Here, white-armed goddess,
sent her forth, loving both heroes in her soul, and caring for them. She
stood behind, and took Peleides by the yellow hair, seen by him only, but
of the rest none saw her. Achilles marvelled, and turned back ; and
suddenly he knew Pallas Athene, and awful seemed her eyes to him ; and,
speaking winged words, he thus addressed her :-
" Why, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, art thou come hither? Say,
is it to behold the violence of Agamemnon, Atreus' son ? But I will tell
to thee, what verily I think shall be accomplished, that by his own pride
he soon shall slay his soul.
"Him then the grey-eyed goddess Athene bespake :-
“I came to stay thy might, if thou wilt hear me, from Heaven ; for
Here, white-armed goddess, sent me forth, loving you both alike, and
caring for you. But come, give up strife, nor draw thy sword ! But, lo,
I bid thee taunt him with sharp words, as verily shall be. For this I say
to thee, and it shall be accomplished : the time shall come when thou
shalt have thrice-fold as many splendid gifts, because of his violence.
Only restrain thyself; obey me.
"To her, in turn, spake swift-footed Achilles :-
“Needs must I, goddess, keep thy word and hers, though sorely grieved
in soul; for thus is it best. He who obeys the gods, him have they listened
to in time of need.
"He spake, and on the silver handle pressed a heavy hand, and back
into the scabbard thrust the mighty sword, nor swerved from Athene's
counsel. But she back to Olympus fared, to the house of aegis-bearing
Zeus unto the other gods.
" Then Peleides again with bitter words bespake Atrides, and not yet
awhile surceased from wrath :-
- Wine-weighted, with a dog's eyes and a heart of deer ! Never hadst
thou spirit to harness thee for the battle with the folk, nor yet to join the
ambush with the best of the Achaians. This to thee seems certain death.
Far better is it, verily, throughout the broad camp of Achaians to filch
giſts when a man stands up to speak against thee-thou folk-consuming
king, that swayest men of nought. Lo, of a sooth, Atrides, now for the
last time wilt thou have dealt knavishly. But I declare unto thee, and
will swear thereon a mighty oath ; yea, by this sceptre, which shall never
put forth leaf nor twig since that day that it left the stock upon the moun-
ACHILLES.
tains; nor again shall bud or bloom, for of its leafage and its bark the ironi
stripped it bare ; and sons of the Achaians hold it in their palms for judg-
ment, they who guard the laws by ordinance of Zeus; and this shall be to
thee a mighty oath. Verily, and of a truth, the day shall be when sore
desire for Achilles shall come upon Achaians one and all. Then shalt
thou, though grieved in soul, have no power to help, while in multitudes
they fall and die at Hector's murderous hands ; but thou shalt tear thy
heart within thy breast for rage, seeing thou honouredst not the best of the
Achaians aught.
"So spake Peleides ; and on the earth cast down the sceptre studded
with nails of gold ; and he sat down upon his seat."
What is chiefly noticeable in this passage is the grand scale
upon which the anger of Achilles is displayed. He is not con-
tent with taunting Agamemnon, but he includes all the princes
in his scorn : 1
. Onuoſópos Badlaeùs, étel oŮtidavolo lv åvároels.
of the Iliad is a different goddess from the Athene of the Par-
thenon. In strength she is more than a match for Ares : her
cunning she subordinates to great and masculine ends, not to
the arts of beauty or to study. She is the saint of the valiant
and wary soldier. While checking Achilles, she does not advise
him to avoid strife in any meek and gentle spirit. She simply
reminds him that, if he gets to blows with Agamemnon, he will
put himself in the wrong ; whereas, by contenting himself with
sharp words and with secession from the war, he will reduce the
haughty king to sue him with gifts and submission. Athene in
this place acts like all the other deities in Homer when they come
into direct contact with the heroes. She is exterior to Achilles,
and at the same time a part of his soul. She is the expression
force of his own character developed by circuinstance, the god
within his breast externalised and rendered visible to him alone.
What Athene is to the son of Peleus, Ate is to Agamemnon.
The next passage in which Achilles appears in the forefront
II.
50
THE GREEK POETS.
of the scene is in the Ninth Book (307-429). Worn out with
the losses of the war, Agamemnon has at last humbled his pride,
and sent the wisest of the chiefs, silver-tongued Odysseus, and
Phoenix, the old guardian of the son of Peleus, to beg Achilles
to receive back Briseis and to take great gifts if only he will
relax his wrath. 11 But Achilles remains inflexible. In order to
maintain the firmness of his character, to justify the righteous-
ness of his indignation, Homer cannot suffer him to abandon his
resentment at the first entreaty. Some more potent influence
must break his resolution than the mere offer to restore Briseis.
Homer has the death of Patroclus in the background. He
means to show the iron heart of Peleides at last softened by his
sorrow and his love. Therefore, for the time, he must protract
the situation in which Achilles is still haughty, still implacable
toward his repentant injurer. In this interview with the am-
bassadors we have to observe how confident Achilles abides in
the justice of his cause and in his own prowess. It is he with
his valiant bands who has sacked the Trojan cities; it is he
who kept Hector from the ships ; and now in his absence the
Achaians have had to build a wall in self-defence. And for
whom has he done this ? For the sons of Atreus and for Helen.
And what has he received as guerdon ? Nothing but dishonour.
These arguments might seem to savour too much of egotism
and want of feeling for the dangers of the host. But at the
end come those great lines upon the vanity of gifts and pos-
sessions in comparison with life, and upon the doom which
hangs above the hero :-
- You may make oxen and sheep your prey; you may gather together
return by theft or craft when once it has escaped. As for me,” he resumes,
“my goddess mother, silver-footed Thetis, warns me that fate lays two
paths to bear me deathward. If I abide and fight before the walls of Troy,
my return to Hellas is undone, but ſame imperishable remains for me. If
I return to my dear country then my good glory dies, but long life awaits
me, nor will the term of death be hastened."
ACHILLES.
This foreknowledge of Achilles that he has to choose be-
tween a long, inglorious life, and a swift-coming, but splendid
death, illuminates his ultimate action with a fateful radiance.
In the passage before us it lends dignity to his obstinate and
obdurate endurance. He says: I am sick at heart for the
insults thrust on me. I am wounded in my pride. Toiling
for others I get no reward. And behold, if I begin to act
again, swift death is before me. Shall I, to please Agamem-
non, hasten on my own end?
inactivity by his own noblest passion, then, and not till then,
does he fling aside the thought of death, and trample on a
long reposeful life. He is conscious that his glory can only
be achieved by the sacrifice of ease and happiness and life
itself; but he holds honour dearer than these good things.
Yet at the same time he is not eager to throw away his life for
It requires another motive, the strong pressure of sorrow and
remorse, to quicken his resolution ; but when once quickened
nothing can retard it. Achilles at this point might be com-
pared to a mass of ice and snow hanging at the jagged edge
of a glacier, suspended on a mountain brow. We have seen
such avalanches brooding upon Monte Rosa, or the Jungfrau,
beaten by storms, loosened, perchance, by summer sun, but
motionless. In a moment a lightning-flash strikes the mass,
and it roars crumbling to the deep.
This lightning-flash in the case of Achilles was the death
of Patroclus (xviii. 15). Patroclus has gone forth to aid the
Achaians and has fallen beneath Hector's sword. Antilochus
sent to bear the news to Achilles, finds him standing before the
ships, already anxious about the long delay of his comrade.
Antilochus does not break the news gently. His tears betray
the import of his message, and he begins :-
E
2
52
THE GREEK PUETS.
.
CCTIT
"Woe is me, son of brave Peleus! Verily thou shalt hear right
sorrowful tidings : Patroclus lies slain ; round his corpse they are fighting ;
stripped it lies, but plumed Hector hath his armour.
“So he spake. But a black cloud of woe covered the hero. With
both hands he took the dust of ashes and flung them down upon his head,
and disfigured his fair face, and on his fragrant tunic lay the black cinders.
But he, huge in his hugeness, stretched upon the dust lay, and with his
hands he tore and ravaged his hair."
Thus Achilles receives the first shock of grief. When his
mother rises from the sea to comfort him, he refuses consolation,
and cries :-
“My mother, the Olympian hath done all these things ; but of what
pleasure is this to me, now that my dear friend is dead, Patroclus, whom
above all my comrades I honoured, even as myself? Him have I slain ! ”
This is the pith and marrow of his anguish. I slew Patro-
clus: it was I who sent him forth to fight. “Now," he resumes
a few lines lower down,"“Now my soul bids me no longer live
or be with men, save only I strike Hector first and slay him
with my spear, and make him pay the fine of Patroclus.”
Thetis reminds him that, if he slay Hector, his own life will
be short. This only serves to turn his anguish into desperate
resolve :-)
“Straight let me die, seeing I might not come to the aid of my comrade
when he was dying. Far from his fatherland he perished. He looked for
me that I should have been his helper. But now, since never to my home
shall I return, nor was I a light in trouble to Patroclus, nor to my other
comrades who are slain by hundreds by the god-like Hector—while I here
sit beside the ships, a useless load upon the earth–I who am such as
there is none else like me among brazen-coated Achaians in the war-
others may be better perchance in council—now let strife perish from
among gods and men, with anger which stirs up the prudent even to ſury.”
| Thus he foregoes his wrath, and flings resentment from him
like a mantle. Then he rises ready for the fight. “If death
come, let death be welcome. Death came to Herakles. In
his due time he comes to me. Meanwhile I thirst to make
Dardan ladies widows in the land." ]
ACHILLES.
53
VIII
When he next appears, his very form and outward semblance
are transfigured. He stands alone and unarmed in the trench.
A fire surrounds his head and flames upon his curls. His voice
thrills the armies like the blare of a victorious trumpet. This
is how Homer has described him shouting in the trench (xviii.
203) :-
“But Achilles, dear to Zeus, arose, and around his mighty shoulders
Athene cast her tasselled ægis; and about his head the queenly goddess
set a crown of golden mist, and from it she made blaze a dazzling flame.
As when smoke rises to the clear sky from a town, afar from an island
which foemen beleaguer, who all day long contend in grisly war, issuing
from their own town ; but at sundown beacons blaže in rows, and on high
the glare goes up, and soars for neighbouring men to see, if haply warders
off of woe may come to them with ships--so from the head of Achilles the
flame went up to heaven. He stood at the trench, away from the wall,
nor joined the Achaians, for he honoured his mother's wise command.
There he stood and shouted; and beside him Pallas Athene cried ; but
among the Trojans he raised infinite tumult. As when a mighty voice,
so was the mighty voice of the son of Æacus. They then, when they
heard the brazen cry of Æacides, in the breasts of all of them the heart was
troubled ; but the fair-maned horses turned the cars backward ; for in
their heart they knew the sorrows that were to be. And the charioteers
were stricken when they saw the tireless flame terrible above the head of
big-hearted Peleus' son blazing. The grey-eyed goddess Athene kindled
it. Thrice above the trench shouted the god-like Achilles in his might :
thrice were the Trojans and their noble allies troubled."
From this moment the action of the Iliad advances rapidly.
The body of Patroclus is brought home to him; he mourns over
it, and promises to bury it, when he shall have slain Hector,
and slaughtered twelve sons of the Trojans on the pyre. Then
he reconciles himself with Agamemnon, and formally renounces
anger. / Lastly, when he has put on the divine armour made for
him by Hephæstus, he ascends his car, and hastens into the
fight. But again at this point, when Achilles is at the very
pitch and summit of his glory, the voice of fate is heard. It is
THE GREEK POETS.
with the promise of the tomb that he enters the battle. Turn
to Book xix. 399. Achilles has just mounted his chariot :-
"Fiercely did he cheer the horses of his sire :-Xanthus and Balius,
far-famed children of Podargé, take other heed, I warn ye, how to save
your master, and to bring him to the Danaan host, returning of war satis-
fied ; nor leave him, like Patroclus, dead there on the field.
"To him then from beneath the yoke spake the fleet-footed horsa
Xanthus, and straightway drooped his head ; and all his mane, escaping
from the collar by the yoke, fell earthward. Goddess Here, of the white
arms, gave him speech :-
“Verily shall we save thee yet this time, fierce Achilles ; but close at
hand is thy doom's day. Nor of this are we the cause, but great God in
heaven and resistless fate. For neither was it by our sloth or sluggish-
ness that Trojans stripped the arms from Patroclus his shoulders ; but of
Gods the best, whom fair-haired Leto bare, slew him among the foremost,
and gave to Hector glory of the deed. We, though we should run apace
with Zephyr's breath, the fleetest, as 'tis said, yet for thee it is decreed to
perish by the might of God and man.
“When he had thus spoken the Erinnyes stayed his voice ; and, high
in wrath, fleet-foot Achilles answered him :-
66 Xanthus ! why prophesy my death? Thou hast no call. Right well
know I, too, that it is my fate to perish here, far from dear sire and
mother ; yet for all this will I not surcease before I satiate the Trojans
with war.
“He spoke, and vanward held his steeds with mighty yell.”
This dialogue between Achilles and Xanthus is not without
great importance. Homer is about to show the hero raging in
carnage, exulting over suppliants and slain foes, terrible in his
ferocity. It is consistent with the whole character of Achilles,
who is fiery, of indomitable fury, that he should act thus. Stung
as he is by remorse and by the sorrow for Patroclus, which does
not unnerve him, but rather kindles his whole spirit to a flame,
we are prepared to see him fierce even to cruelty. But when
we know that in the midst of the“carnage he is himself moving
a dying man, when we remember that he is sending his slain
foes like messengers before his face to Hades, when we keep
the warning words of Thetis and of Xanthus in our minds, then
the grim frenzy of Achilles hecomes dignified. The world is
ACHILLES.
55
in a manner over for him, and he appears the incarnation of
disdainful anger and revengeful love, the conscious scourge of
God and instrument of destiny.) We need not go through the
details of the battle, in which Achilles drives the Trojans before
him, and is only withheld by the direct interposition of the gods
from carrying Ilium by assault. To borrow a simile from Dante,
his foes are like frogs scurrying away from the approach of their
great foe, the water-snake. Then follow the episode of Lycaon's
slaughter, the fight with the river-gods, and the death of Hector.
To the assembled Greeks Achilles cries (xxii. 386) :-
“By the ships, a corpse, unburied, unbewailed, lies Patroclus : but
of him I will not be unmindful so long as I abide among the living and
my knees have movement. Nay, should there be oblivion of the dead in
Hades, yet I even there will remember my loved comrade. But rise, ye
youths of Achaia, and singing Pæan, let us hasten to the ships, and take
this slain man with us. Great glory have we got. Divine Hector have
we slain, to whom the Trojans in their city prayed as to a god.”
So the Pæan rings. But Achilles by the ships, after the
hateful banquet, as he calls it in the sorrowful loathing of all
comfort, has been finished, lays himself to sleep (xxiii. 59) :-
“The son of Peleus by the shore of the roaring sea lay, heavily groan-
ing, surrounded by his Myrmidons; on a fair space of sand he lay, where
the waves lapped the beach. Then slumber took him, loosing the cares
of his heart, and mantling softly around him, for sorely wearied were his
radiant limbs with driving Hector on by windy Troy. There to him came
the soul of poor Patroclus, in all things like himself, in stature, and in the
beauty of his eyes and voice, and on his form was raiment like his own.
He stood above the hero's head, and spake to him :-
"Sleepest thou, and me hast thou forgotten, Achilles ? Not in my
life wert thou neglectful of me, but in death. Bury me soon, that I may
pass the gates of Hades. Far off the souls, the shadows of the dead,
repel me, nor suffer me to join them on the river bank ; but, as it is, thus
I roam around the wide-doored house of Hades. But stretch to me thy
hand, I entreat ; for never again shall I return from Hades when once ye
shall have given me the meed of funeral fire. Nay, never shall we sit in
liſe apart from our dear comrades, and take counsel together. But me
hath hateſul fate enveloped -fate that was mine at the moment of my
birth. And for thyself, divine Achilles, it is doomed to die beneath the
noble Trojans' wall. Another thing I will say to thee, and bid thee do
THE GREEK POETS.
it if thou wilt obey me :-Lay not my bones apart from thine, Achilles,
but lay them together ; for we were brought up together in your house,
when Mencetius brought me, a child, from Opus to your house, because of
woeful bloodshed on the day in which I slew the son of Amphidamas,
myself a child, not willing it, but in anger at our games. Then did the
horseman, Peleus, take me, and rear me in his house, and cause me to be
called thy squire. So then let one grave also hide the bones of both of us,
the golden urn thy goddess-mother gave to thee.
“ Him answered swift-footed Achilles :-
"Why, dearest and most honoured, hast thou hither come, to lay on
me this thy behest? All things most certainly will I perform, and bow to
what thou biddest. But stand thou near : even for one moment let us
throw our arms upon each other's neck, and take our fill of sorrowful
wailing.
"So spake he, and with his outstretched hands he clasped, but could
not seize. The spirit, earthward, like smoke, vanished with a shriek.
Then all astonished arose Achilles, and beat his palms together, and spoke
a piteous word :-
“ Heavens! is there then among the dead soul and the shade of life,
but thought is theirs no more at all? For through the night the soul of
poor Patroclus stood above my head, wailing and sorrowing loud, and
"So spake he, and in the hearts of all of them he raised desire of
lamentation; and while they were yet mourning, to them appeared rose-
fingered dawn about the piteous corpse.”
There is surely nothing more thrilling in its pathos through-
out the whole range of poetry than this scene, in which the
iron-hearted conqueror of Hector holds ineffectual communing
in dreams with his dear, lost, never-to-be-forgotten friend. But
now the pyre is ready to be heaped, and the obsequies of
Patroclus are on the point of being celebrated. Thereupon
Achilles cuts his tawny curls, which he wore clustering for
Spercheius, and places them in the hand of dead Patroclus.
At the sight of this token that Achilles will return no more to
Hellas, but that he must die and lie beside his friend, all the
people fall to lamentation. Agamemnon has to arouse them to
prepare the pyre. A hundred feet each way is it built up; oxen
and sheep are slaughtered and placed upon the wood, with jars
of honey and olive oil. Horses, too, and dogs are slain to serve
ACHILLES.
the dead man on his journey; and twelve sons of the great-
souled Trojans are sacrificed to the disconsolate ghost. Then
Achilles cast fire upon the wood, and wailed, and called on his
loved friend by name :-
“Hail, Patroclus ! I greet thee even in the tomb : for now I am per-
forming all that erst I promised. Twelve valiant sons of the great-souled
Trojans with thee the fire devours ; but Hector, son of Priam, I will give
to no fire to feed on, but to dogs."
Meanwhile the pyre of Patroclus refused 10 burn, and
Achilles summoned the two winds, Boreas and Zephyrus, to
help him. They at this time were feasting in the house of
Zephyrus, and Iris had to fetch them from their cups. They
rose and drove the clouds before them, and furrowed up the
sea, and passed to fertile Troy, and fell upon the pyre, and the
great flame crackled, hugely blazing :
" All night they around the pyre together cast a flame, blowing with
shrill breath, and all night swiſt Achilles, from a golden bowl, holding a
double goblet, drew wine, and poured it on the ground, and soaked the
earth, calling upon the soul of poor Patroclus. As when a father wails
who burns the bones of his son unwed, so wailed Achilles, burning his
friend's bones, pacing slowly round the fire, and uttering groan on groan.
“But when the star of dawn came to herald light upon the earth,
whom following morn, with saffron robe, spread across the sea, then the
pyre languished and the flame was stayed.
- The winds again went homeward, back across the Thracian deep.
It groaned beneath them, raging with the billow's swell. But the son of
Peleus turned from the pyre, and lay down weary, and sweet sleep came
upon him."
After this manner was the burning of Patroclus. And here
the action of the Iliad may be said to end.) What follows in
the last two books is, however, of the greatest importance in
adding dignity to the character of Achilles, and in producing
that sense of repose, that pacification of the more violent emo-
tions, which we require in the highest works of tragic art] First
come the games around the barrow of Patroclus. Presiding
over them is Achilles, who opens his treasure-house to the
58
THE GREEK POETS.
combatants with royal generosity, for ever mindful that in
honouring them, he is paying honour to the great sad ghost
of his dead friend. The bitterness of his sorrow is past; his
thirst for vengeance is assuaged. Radiant and tranquil he
appears among the chiefs of the Achaians; and to Agamemnon
he displays marked courtesy.
But it is not enough to show us Achilles serene in the ac-
complishment of his last service to Patroclus. As the crowning
scene in the whole Iliad, Homer has contrived to make us feel
that, after all, Achilles is a man./ The wrathful and revengeful
hero, who bearded Agamemnon on his throne, and who slew
the unarmed suppliant Lycaon, relents in pity at a father's
prayer. Priam, in the tent of Achilles, presents one of the
most touching pictures to be found in poetry. We know the
leonine fierceness of Achilles ; we know how he has cherished
the thought of insult to dead Hector as a final tribute to his
friend : even now he is brooding in his lair over the Trojan
corpse. Into this lion's den the old king ventures. Instead of
springing on him, as we might have feared, Achilles is found
sublime in generosity of soul. Begging Patroclus to forgive him
for robbing his ghost of this last satisfaction, he relinquishes to
Priam the body of his son. Yet herein there is nothing senti-
mental. Achilles is still the same-swift to anger and haughty
—but human withal, and tender-hearted to the tears of an
enemy at his mercy.
This is the last mention made of Achilles in the Iliad. The
hero, whom we have seen so noble in his interview with Priam,
was destined within a few days to die before the walls of Troy,
slain by the arrow of Paris.* His ashes were mingled with
those of Patroclus. In their death they were not divided.
Once again in the Homeric poems does Achilles appear.
* That the poet of the Iliad in its present form had this legend before'
him is clear froin Books xxi. 297, xxii. 355-360.
ACHILLES.
59
But this time he is a ghost among the pale shadows of Elysium.
(Od. xi. 466):-
"Thereupon came the soul of Achilles, son of Peleus, and of Patroclus,
and of brave Antilochus, and of Ajax, who was first in form and stature
among the Achaians after great Peleides. The soul of fleet Æacides knew
Zeus-born son of Laertes, wily Ulysses, why in thy heart, unhappy
man, dost thou design a deed too great for mortals? How darest thou
descend to Hades, where dwell the thoughtless dead, the phantoms of
men whose life is done ?
“So he spake? but I in turn addressed him :-
" Achilles, son of Peleus, greatest by far of Achaians, I am come to
learn of Teiresias concerning my return to Ithaca. But none of men in
elder days, or of those to be, is more blessed than thou art, Achilles ;
for in life the Argives honoured thee like a god, and now again in thy
greatness thou rulest the dead here where thou art. Therefore be not
grieved at death, Achilles.
“So spake I, and he straightway made answer :-
Console not me in death, noble Odysseus ! Would rather that I
were a bondsman of the glebe, the servant of a master, of some poor man,
whose living were but scanty, than thus to be the king of all the nations of
the dead."
T
Some apology may be needed for these numerous quotations
from a poem which is hardly less widely known and read than
Shakspeare or the Bible. By no other method, however, would
it have been possible to bring out into prominence the chief
features of the hero whom Homer thought sufficient for the sub-
ject of the greatest epic of the world. For us Achilles
has yet another interest. He, more than any character of
fiction, reflects the qualities of the Greek race in its
heroic age. His vices of passion and ungovernable pride, his
virtue of splendid human heroism, his free individuality asserted
in the scorn of fate, are representative of that Hellas which
afterwards, at Marathon and Salamis, was destined to inaugurate
a new era of spiritual freedom for mankind. It is impossible
for us to sympathise with him wholly, or to admire him other-
wise than as we admire a supreme work of art; so far.is
60
THE GREEK POETS.
n
feeling. But we can study in him the type of a bygone, infinitely
valuable period of the world's life, of that age in which the human
spirit was emerging from the confused passions and sordid needs
of barbarizm into the higher emotions and more refined aspira-
tions of civilisation. Of this dawn, this boyhood of humanity,
Achilles is the fierce and fiery hero. He is the ideal of a race
not essentially moral or political, of a nation which subordinated
mora's to art, and politics to personality; and even of that race
he idealises the youth rather than the manhood. In some
respects Odysseus is a truer representative of the delicate and
subtle spirit which survived all changes in the Greeks. But
Achilles, far more than Odysseus, is an impersonation of the
Hellenic genius, superb in its youthfulness, doomed to immature
decay, yet brilliant at every stage of its brief career.
To exaggerate the importance of Achilles in the education
of the Greeks, who used the Iliad as their Bible, and were
keenly sensitive to all artistic influences, would be difficult.
He was the incarnation of their chivalry, the fountain of their ,
sense of honour. The full development of this subject would
require more space than I can here give to it. It will be
enough to touch upon the friendship of Achilles for Patroclus
as the central point of Hellenic chivalry; and to advert to the
reappearance of his type of character in Alexander at the
very moment when the force of Hellas seemed to be ex-
hausted.
Nearly all the historians of Greece have failed to insist
upon the fact that fraternity in arms played for the Greek race
the same part as the idealization of women for the knighthood
of feudal Europe. Greek mythology and history are full of
tales of friendship, which can only be paralleled by the story of
David and Jonathan in our Bible. The legends of Herakles
and Hylas, of Theseus and Peirithous, of Apollo and Hyacinth,
of Orestes and Pylades, occur immediately to the mind.
Among the noblest patriots, tyrannicides, lawgivers, and self-
ACHILLES.
61
devoted heroes in the early times of Greece, we always find the
names of friends and comrades recorded with peculiar honour.
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew the despot Hipparchus
at Athens ; Diocles and Philolaus, who gave laws to Thebes ;
Chariton and Melanippus, who resisted the sway of Phalaris in
Sicily ; Cratinus and Aristodemus, who devoted their lives to
propitiate offended deities when a plague had fallen upon
Athens; these comrades, staunch to each other in their love,
and elevated by friendship to the pitch of noblest enthusiasm,
were among the favourite saints of Greek legendary history.
In a word, the chivalry of Hellas found its motive force in
friendship rather than in the love of women; and the motive
force of all chivalry is a generous, soul-exalting, unselfish
passion. The fruit which friendship bore among the Greeks
was courage in the face of danger, indifference to life when
honour was at stake, patriotic ardour, the love of liberty, and
lion-hearted rivalry in battle. “Tyrants," said Plato, “stand
in awe of friends."
It may seem at first sight paradoxical to speak at all of
Greek chivalry, since this word, by its very etymology, is appro-
priated to a mediæval institution. Yet when we enquire what
chivalry means, we find that it implies a permanent state of
personal emotion, which raises human life above the realities
of every-day experience, and inspires men with unselfish im-
pulses. Furthermore, this passionate condition of the soul in
chivalry is connected with a powerful military enthusiasm, sever-
ing the knight from all vile things, impelling him to the achieve-
ment of great deeds, and breeding in his soul a self-regardless
temper. Both the ancient and the mediæval forms of chivalry
included love and arms. The heroes and the knights alike
were lovers and warriors. The passion, which Plato called
Madness in the Phædrus, and which the Provençal Troubadours
knew by the name of Joie, was excited in the heroes by their
friends, and in the knights by their ladies. But the emotion
THE GREEK POETS.
was substantially the same; nor, with the tale of Patroclus and
with the whole of Greek history before us, can we allow our
modern inaptitude for devoted friendship to blind us to the
seriousness of this passion among the Greeks. Beside war
and love, chivalry implies a third enthusiasm. In the case of
the Greek heroes this was patriotic. In the case of the
mediaval knights it was religious. Thus, antique chivalry
may be described as a compound of military, amatory, and
patriotic passions meeting in one enthusiastic habit of the
soul; mediaval chivalry as a compound of military, amatory,
and religious passions meeting in a similar enthusiastic habit
of soul. It is hardly necessary to point out the differences
between Hellenic heroism and Teutonic knighthood, or to
show how far the former failed to influence society as favour-
ably as the latter. The Christian chivalry of mercy, forgive-
ness, gentleness, and longsuffering, which claims the title of
charity in armour, was a post-Hellenic ideal. Greeks could
not have comprehended the oath which Arthur imposed upon
his knights, and which ran in the following words : “He
charged them never to do outrage nor murder, and alway to
flee treason, also by no means to be cruel, but to give mercy
unto him that asked mercy, and alway to do ladies, damosels,
and gentlewomen succour upon pain of death.” The murder of
Lycaon by Achilles, the butchery of Dolon by Diomedes, and
the treachery practised upon Philoctetes by Odysseus are suffi-
ciently at variance with the spirit of this oath'; nor do any of
the heroic legends tell a tale of courtesy towards women.
Thus much about the unchivalrous aspects of Greek heroism
I have thought it right to say, before returning to the view
which I first stated, that military friendship among the Greeks
played for Hellenic civilisation a part not wholly dissimilar to
thať of chivalrous love among the nations of medieval Europe.
Regarded as an institution, with ethics of its own, and with
peculiar social and political regulations, this Greek chivalry was
ACHILLES.
63
specially Dorian* Yet it spread through all the states of
Hellas. In Athens it allied itself with philosophy, as afterwards
at Florence did the chivalry of knighthood ; and in Thebes,
during the last struggle for Hellenic freedom, it blazed forth
in the splendid heroism of the Three Hundred, who fell
together face-forward to the Macedonian lances at Chæronea. +
Meanwhile, Achilles remained for all Greece the eponym of
passionate friendship ; and even in the later periods of Greek
poetry the most appropriate title for a pair of noble comrades
was “Achilleian.” Concerning the abuse and debasement of
such passion among the historic Greeks this is not the place
to speak. Achilles and Patroclus cannot be charged with
having sanctioned by example any vice, however much posterity
may have read its own moods of thought and feeling into
Homer.
Æschylus wrote a tragedy entitled the Myrmidones, in
commemoration of the love of Achilles ; and, perhaps, few
things among the lost treasures of Greek literature are so much
to be regretted as this play, which would have cast clear light
upon the most romantic of Greek legends. It may also be
mentioned in passing that we possess fragments of a play of
Sophocles which bears the name 'Axelléwç špaoral, or Lovers
of Achilles ; but what its subject was, and whether the drama
was Satyric, as seems probable, or not, we do not know. The
beautiful passage in which love is compared to a piece of
glittering ice held in the hand of children, has been preserved
from it by Stobæus.
Enough, fortunately, has survived the ruin of time to enable
us to conjecture how Æschylus, in the Myrmidones, handled
the materials afforded him by Homer. The play, as was
frequent, took its name from the Chorus, who represented
* See Müller's Dorians, vol. ii. pp. 306-313.
+ Sections 18 and 19 of Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas contain the best
account of the Sacred Band, and place the Greek chivalrous sentiment in
the clearest light.
THE GREEK POETS.
the contingent of Thessalian warriors led by Peleus' son against
Troy. It opened, if we may trust the scholiast to the Frogs of
Aristophanes, with a reproach uttered by the Chorus against
Achilles for his inactivity :
τάδε μέν λεύσσεις, φαίδιμ’ 'Αχιλλεύ,
δοριλυμάντους Δαναών μόχθους
ods * * exow kaiolas.
“Seest thou these things, glorious Achilles—the sufferings of
the Danaans beneath victorious spears ? Whom thou within thy
tent— " here the fragment breaks off ; but enough has been
said to strike the keynote of the tragedy. The next fragment,
according to Dindort's arrangement, formed, probably, part of
famous simile of the eagle stricken to death by an arrow fledged
with his own feather. Like that eagle, argues the hero, have
we Greeks been smitten by our own ill-counsel. After the
drama has thus been opened, the first great incident seems to
have been the arrival of the embassy of Phenix at Achilles'
tent. One corrupt, but precious fragment, put by Aristophanes
as a quotation into the mouth of Euripides in the Frogs, in-
dicates the line of argument taken by the ambassadors :-
$81@T' 'Axirell, TÍ TOT' åvopodáïktov årcover
inKotov oŮ TELCELS ÊT' åpwyáv;
Though the Greek as it stands is untranslateable, the
meaning is pretty clearly this : Achilles of Phthia, how can you
bear to hear of these woes nor lend a helping hand ? The
next fragment must be received with caution. It occurs in
the Frogs as a quotation :--
Βέβληκ' 'Αχιλλεύς δύο κύβω και τέτταρα.
Achilles has cast two dice, and four :
On which the scholiast makes the following remark : “ This
is from the Myrmidones ; for the poet feigned them playing dice;
* It may be questioned whether this fragment ought not to be referred
-to-the scene with the embassy later on in the play.
ACIIILLES.
65
and it is the custom of gamesters to cry thus : 'two, four, three,
five. Dionysus says this to show that Æschylus has won.”
Another scholiast puts it in doubt whether the verse be taken
from the Telephus of Euripides or some other source. The
foundation is, therefore, too slender to build upon securely ;
else we might imagine that, after the departure of the ambas-
sadors, and perhaps after the equipment of Patroclus for the
war, Achilles was represented by Æschylus as wiling away
the time with his companions at a game of hazard. Then
enters Antilochus, the messenger of bad news. He recites
the death of Patroclus, and lifts up his voice in lamentation.
Our next fragment brings the whole scene vividly before us :-
. AvrAox, ToyuaỆdv ie Toũ TE0vnk Tos
Toy Swyta pârnov.
wail thou for me rather than for the dead—for me who live.” It is
again from a comedy of Aristophanes, the Ecclesiazuse, that this
frequent citations from this single play of Æschylus by a comic
poet prove its popularity at Athens. Between the narration of
Antilochus and the bringing in of the dead body of Patroclus
there must have been a solemn pause in the dramatic action,
which Æschylus, no doubt, filled up with one of his great choric
passages. Then followed the crowning scene in the tragedy.
Achilles, front to front with the corpse of his friend, uttered a
lamentation, which the ancients seem to have regarded as the
very ecstasy of grief and love and passionate remembrance.
Lucian, quoting one of the lines of this lament, introduces it
with words that prove the strong impression it produced :-
“Achilles, when he bemoaned Patroclus' death, in his unhus-
banded passion burst forth into the very truth." To quote and
comment upon the three lines which have been preserved from
this unique Threnos, would be here impossible. To understand
them at all is difficult, and to recompose from them the hero's
II.
THE GREEK POETS.
D
speech is beyond our power. The value of the meagre and
conflicting citations given by Plutarch, Athenæus, and Lucian,
lies in the impression they convey of the deep effect wrought
upon Greek sympathy by the passion of the soliloquy. When
we call to mind the lamentation uttered by Teucer over the
corpse of Ajax in the tragedy of Sophocles, we may imagine:
how the genius of Æschylus rose to the height of this oc-
casion in his Myrmidones. In what way the drama ended is no!
known. We may, however, hazard a conjecture that the poet:
did not leave the hero without some outlook into the future,
and that the solemn note of reconciliation upon which the tragedy
closed responded to the first querulous interrogation of the
Chorus at its commencement. The situation was a grand one
for working out that purification of the passions which Greek
tragedy required. The sullen and selfish wrath of Achilles had
brought its bitter consequence of suffering and sorrow for the
hero, as well as of disaster for the host. Out of that deadly
suffering of Achilles—out of the paroxysm of grief beside the
body of his friend-has grown a nobler form of anger, which will
bring salvation to his country at the certain loss of his own life.
Can we doubt that Æschylus availed himself of this so solemn
and sublime a cadence? The dead march and the funeral
lamentations for Patroclus mingle with the neighing of war-
horses and the braying of the trumpets that shall lead the
Myrmidons to war. And over and above all sounds of the grief
that is passed and of the triumph that is to follow, is heard the
voice of fate pronouncing the death-doom of the hero, on
whose åpapria the tragic movement has depended.
Thus, in the prime of Athens, the poet-warrior of Marathon,
the prophet of the highest Hellenic inspiration, handled a legend
which was dear to his people, and which to them spoke more,
perhaps, than it can do to us. Plato, discussing the Myrmi-
doncs of Æschylus, remarks in the Symposium that the tragic.
poet was wrong to make Achilles the lover of Patroclus, seeing
ACHILLES.
67
(D
that Patroclus was the elder of the two, and that Achilles was.
the youngest and most beautiful of all the Greeks. The fact,
however, is that Homer himself raises no question in our
minds about the relations of lover and beloved. Achilles and
Patroclus are comrades. Their friendship is equal. It was
only the reflective activity of the Greek mind, working upon
the Homeric legend by the light of subsequent custom, which
introduced these distinctions. The humanity of Homer was
purer, larger, and more sane than that of his posterity among
the Hellenes. Still, it may be worth while suggesting that
Homer, perhaps, intended in Hector and Achilles to contrast
domestic love with the love of comrades. The tenderness of
Hector for Andromache, side by side with the fierce passion
of Achilles, seems to account, at least in some measure,
for the preference felt for Hector in the Middle Ages.
Achilles controlled the Greek imagination. Hector attracted
the sympathies of mediæval chivalry, and took his place upon
the list of knightly worthies.* Masculine love was Hellenic.
The love of idealised womanhood was romantic. Homer, the
sovereign poet, understood both passions of the human heart,
delin eating the one in Achilles without effeminacy, the other
in Hector without sickly sentiment. At the same time, Hector's.
connection with the destinies of Rome and his appearance in
the Æneid, if only as a ghost, must not be forgotten when we
estimate the reasons why he eclipsed Achilles in the Middle
Ages.
It is not till we reach Alexander the Great that we find
how truly Achilles was the type of the Greek people, and to
what extent he had controlled their growth. Alexander ex-
pressed in real life that ideal which in Homer's poetry had been
displayed by Achilles. Alexander set himself to imitate
Achilles. His tutor, Lysimachus, found favour in the eyes of
it See Caxton's Preface to the Mort d'Arthur.
F 2
THE GREEK POETS.
N
the royal family of Macedon, by comparing Philip to Peleus,
his son to Achilles, and himself to Phonix. On all his ex-
peditions Alexander carried with him a copy of the Iliad, calling
it“ a perfect portable treasure of military virtue." It was in
the spirit of the Homeric age that he went forth to conquer
Asia. And when he reached the plain of Troy, it was to the
tomb of Achilles that he paid special homage. There he
poured libations to the mighty ghost, anointed his grave, and,
as Plutarch says, “ran naked about his tomb, and crowned it
with garlands, declaring how happy he esteemed him in having,
while he lived, so faithful a friend, and, when he was dead, so
famous a poet to proclaim his actions." We have seen that
the two chief passions of Achilles were his anger and his love.
In both of these Alexander followed him. The passage just
quoted from Plutarch hints at the envy with which Alexander
regarded the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus. In his own
life he entertained for Hephæstion a like passion. When
Hephæstion died of fever at Ecbatana, Alexander exaggerated
the fury and the anguish of the son of Peleus. He went
forth and slew a whole tribe—the Cosseans—as a sacrifice
to the soul of his comrade. He threw down the battlements of
neighbouring cities, and forbade all signs of merry-making in his
camp. Meanwhile he refused food and comfort, till an oracle
from Ammon ordained that divine honours should be paid
Hephæstion. Then Alexander raised a pyre, like that of
Patroclus in the Iliad, except that the pyre of Hephaestion cost
10,000 talents, and was adorned with all the splendour of Greek
art in its prime. Here the Homeric ceremonies were performed.
Games and races took place ; then, like Achilles, having paid
this homage to his friend, of bloodshed, costly gifts, and obsequies,
Alexander at last rested from his grief. In this extravagance of
love for a friend we see the direct working of the Iliad on the
mind of the Macedonian king. But the realities of life fall far
ACHILLES.
69
Alexander for Hephæstion is so touching as the love and
sorrow of Achilles for Patroclus.
In his wrath, again, Alexander imitated and went beyond his
model. When he slew Clitus in a drunken brawl, there was no
Athene at his side to stay his arm and put the sword back in
the scabbard. Yet his remorse was some atonement for his vio-
lence. “All that night,” says Plutarch, "and the next day he
wept bitterly, till, being quite spent with lamenting and exclaim-
ing, he lay, as it were, speechless, only fetching deep sighs.” It
is noticeable that Alexander, here also like Achilles, conqueror
and hero though he was, scorned not to show his tears, and to
grovel on the ground in anguish. His fiery temper added
indomitable energy to all he did or felt. In a few years he
swept Asia, destroying kingdoms, and founding cities that still
bear his name; and though his rage betrayed him now and
then into insane acts, he, like Achilles, was not wholly without
the guidance of Athene. In both we have the spectacle of a
gigantic nature moved by passions; yet both are controlled by
reason, not so much by the reflective understanding, as by an
innate sense of what is great and noble. Alexander was
Aristotle's pupil. In his best moments, in his fairest and most
solid actions, the spirit of Aristotle's teaching ruled him and
attended him, as Achilles was ruled and attended by Pallas.
Again, in generosity, Alexander recalls Achilles. His treatment
of the wife and daughters of Darius reminds us of the reception
of Priam by the son of Peleus. Grote, indeed, points out that
good policy prompted him to spare the life of the Persian queen.
That may be true ; but it would have been quite consistent
with the Greek standard of honour to treat her with indignity
while he preserved her life. This Alexander refrained from
doing. His entertainment of Stateira was not unworthy of a
queen; and if he did not exhibit the refined courtesy of the
Black Prince, he came as near to this ideal of modern chivalry
as a Greek could do. In the last place Alexander, like Achilles,
mo
THE GREEK POETS.
was always young. Like Achilles, he died young, and exists
for us as an immortal youth. This youthfulness is one of the
peculiar attributes of a Greek hero, one of the distinguishing
features of Greek sculpture-in a word, the special mark of
Egypt, “ you Greeks are always boys !” Achilles and Alex-
ander, as Hegel has most eloquently demonstrated, are for
ever adolescent. Yet, after all is said, Alexander fell far below
his prototype in beauty and sublimity. He was nothing more
than a heroic man. Achilles was the creature of a poet's brain,
of a nation's mythology. The one was the ideal in its freshness
and its freedom. The other was the real, dragged in the mire
of the world, and enthralled by the necessities of human life.
It is very difficult, -by any process of criticism, to define the
impression of splendour and of glory which the character of
Achilles leaves upon the mind. There is in him a kind of mag-
netic fascination, something incommensurable and indescribable,
a quality like that which Goethe defined as dæmonic. They
are not always the most noble or the most admirable natures
which exert this influence over their fellow-creatures. The
Emperor Napoleon and our own Byron had each, perhaps, a
portion of this Achilleian personality. Men of their stamp
sway the soul by their prestige, by their personal beauty and
grandeur, by the concentrated intensity of their character, and
by the fatality which seems to follow them. To Achilles, to
Alexander, to Napoleon, we cannot apply the rules of our
morality. It is, therefore, impossible for us, who must aim first
at being good citizens, careful in our generation, and sub-
ordinate to the laws of society around us, to admire them
without a reservation. Yet, after all is said, a great and terrible
glory does rest upon their heads; and though our sentiments
of propriety may be offended by some of their actions, our
sense of what is awful and sublime is satisfied by the contem-
plation of them. No one should delude us into thinking that
ACHILLES.
71
true culture does not come from the impassioned study of
everything, however eccentric and at variance with our own
mode of life, that is truly great. Greatness, of whatever species
it may be, is always elevating and spirit-stirring. When we
listen to the Eroica Symphony, anà remember that that master-
work of music was produced by the genius of Beethoven,
brooding over the thoughts of Achilles in the Iliad, and of
Napoleon upon the battle-fields of Lombardy, we may feel
how abyss cries to abyss, and how all forms of human majesty
meet and sustain each other.
THIE GREEK POETS.
CHAPTER III.
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
Helen of Troy--Her Eternal Youth– Variety of Legends connected with:
her.—Stesichorus. -Helen in the Iliad.—Helen in the Odyssey.-
The Treatment of Helen by Æschylus. —Euripidean Handling of
her Romance.—Helen in Greek Art.—Quintus Smyrnæus.- Apol-
lonius of Tyana and the Ghost of Achilles.—Helen in the Faust
Legend.-Marlowe and Goethe. —Penelope.—Her Home-love.--
Calypso and the Isle Ogygia. - Circe.-The Homeric and the
in Homer's Pictures.---Andrcmache and Astyanax.—- The Cult of
Heroes and Heroines in Greece.--Artistic Presentation of Homeric:
Persons. -Philostratus.
« For first of all the spherèd signs whereby
Love severs light from darkness, and most high
In the white front of January there glows
The rose-red sign of Helen like a rose.”
Prelude to Tristram and Iscult, lines 91-94.
HELEN Or Troy is one of those ideal creatures of the fancy over
which time, space, and circumstance, and moral probability,
exert no sway. It would be impossible to conceive of her:
except as inviolably beautiful and young, in spite of all her
wanderings and all she suffered at the hands of Aphrodite and
of men. She moves through Greek heroic legend as the
desired of all men and the possessed of many. Theseus bore.
her away while yet a girl from Sparta. Her brethren, Castor
and Polydeukes, recovered her from Athens by force, and gave:
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
73:
to her Æthra, the mother of Theseus, for bondwoman. Then,
all the youths of Hellas wooed her in the young world's prime.
She was at last assigned in wedlock to Menelaus, by whom she
conceived her only earthly child, Hermione. Paris, by aid of
Aphrodite, won her love and fled with her to Egypt and to:
Troy. In Troy she abode more than twenty years, and was.
the mate of Deiphobus after the death of Paris. When the
strife raised for her sake was ended, Menelaus restored her
with honour to his home in Lacedæmon. There she received.
Telemachus, and saw her daughter mated to Neoptolemus.
But even after death she rested not from the service of love..
The great Achilles, who in life had loved her by hearsay, but
had never seen her, clasped her among the shades upon the
island Leuké, and begat Euphorion. Through all these ad-.
ventures Helen maintains an ideal freshness, a mysterious.
virginity of soul. She is not touched by the passion she in-
spires, or by the wreck of empires ruined in her cause. , Fate
deflowers her not, nor do years impair the magic of her charm.
Like beauty, she belongs alike to all and none. She is not.
judged as wives or mothers are, though she is both ; to her
belong soul-wounding blossoms of inexorable love, as well as
pain-healing poppy-heads of oblivion ; all eyes are blinded by-
the adorable, incomparable grace which Aphrodite sheds around
her form.*
Whether Helen was the slave or the beloved of Aphrodite,
or whether, as Herodotus hinted, she was herself a kind of
Aphrodite, we are hardly told. At one time she appears tlie.
willing servant of the goddess; at another she groans beneath
her bondage. But always and on all occasions she owes every-
thing to the Cyprian queen. Her very body-gear preserved the
powerful charm with which she was invested at her birth. When
the Phocians robbed the Delphian treasure-house, the wife of
* I take this occasion of calling attention to the essay on Helen consi-
dered as an allegory of Greek Beauty by Paul de St. Victor in his Hommes-
et Dieux.
74
THE GREEK POETS.
one of their captains took and wore Helen's necklace, where-
upon she doted on a young Epirot soldier and eloped with him.
Whose daughter was Helen? The oldest legend calls her
the child of Leda and of Zeus. We have all read the tale of
the Swan who was her father amid the rushes of Eurotas—the
tale which Leonardo and Buonarroti and Correggio thought
worthy of their loveliest illustration. Another story gives her
for the offspring of Oceanus and Tethys, as though, in fact,
she were an Aphrodite risen from the waves. In yet a third,
Zeus is her sire and Nemesis her mother; and thus the lesson
of the tale of Troy was allegorised in Helen's pedigree. She
is always god-begotten and divinely fair. Was it possible that
-anything so exquisite should have endured rough ravishment
and borne the travail of the siege of Troy? This doubt pos-
sessed the later poets of the legendary age. They spun a myth
according to which Helen reached the shore of Egypt on the
ship of Paris ; but Paris had to leave her there in cedar-scented
chambers by the stream of Nile, when he went forth to plough
the foam, uncomforted save by her phantom. And for a phantom
the Greeks strove with the Trojans on the windy plains of
Ilium. For a phantom's sake brave Hector died, and the
leonine swiftness of Achilles was tamed, and Zeus bewailed
Sarpedon, and Priam's towers were levelled with the ground.
Helen, meanwhile—the beautiful, the inviolable-sat all day
long among the palm-groves, twining lotus-flowers for her hair,
and learning how to weave rare Eastern patterns in the loom.
This legend hides a delicate satire upon human strife. For what
do men disquiet themselves in warfare to the death, and tossing
on sea-waves ? Even for a phantom-for the shadow of their
desire, the which remains secluded in some unapproachable, far,
sacred land. A wide application may thus be given to Augus-
tine's passionate outcry : “Quo vobis adhuc et adhuc ambulare
vias difficiles et laboriosas ? Non est requies ubi quæritis eam.
Quærite quod quæritis ; sed ibi non est ubi quæritis. Beatam
11
THE WOMEN. OF HOMER.
75
vitam quæritis in regione mortis ; non est illic." Those who
spake ill of Helen suffered. Stesichorus had ventured in the
'Ilíou lépois to lay upon her shoulders all the guilt and suffer-
ing of Hellas and of Troy. Whereupon he was smitten with
blindness, nor could he recover his sight till he had written
the palinode which begins-
ουκ έστ' έτυμος λόγος ούτος,
ουδ' έβας εν ναυσιν ευσέλμοις,
của Lice0 TépYqua Tpoias.*
Even Homer, as Plato hints, knew not that blindness had
fallen on him for like reason. To assail Helen with reproach
was not less dangerous than to touch the Ark of the Covenant,
for with the Greeks beauty was a holy thing. How perfectly
beautiful she was, we know from the legend of the cups
modelled upon her breasts suspended in the shrine of Aphro-
dite. When Troy was taken, and the hungry soldiers of Odys-
seus roamed through the burning palaces of Priam and his
sons, their swords fell beneath the vision of her loveliness.
She had wrought all the ruin, yet Menelaus could not touch
her, when she sailed forth, swanlike, fluttering white raiment,
with the imperturbable sweet smile of a goddess on her lips.
It remained for a Roman poet to describe her vile and
:shrinking-
Illa sibi inſestos eversa ob Pergama Teucros,
Et pænas Danaûm et deserti conjugis iras
Permetuens, Troiie et patriæ communis Erinnys,
Abdiderat sese atque aris invisa sedebat. +
<
<
* "Not true is that tale; nor didst thou journey in benched ships, or
come to towers of Troy."
- She, shrinking from the Trojans' hate,
Made frantic by their city's fate,
Nor dreading less the Danaan sword,
The vengeance of her injured lord :
She, Troy's and Argos' common fiend,
Sat cowering, by the altar screened.”— Coningtone.
THE GREEK POETS.
The morality of these lines belongs to a later age of reflection
upon Greek romance. In Homer there are no such epigrams.
Between the Helen of the Iliad, reverenced by the elders in
the Scæan gate, and the Helen of the Odyssey, queenlike
among her Spartan maidens, there has passed no agony of fear.
The shame which she has truly felt, has been tempered to a.
silent sorrow, and she has poured her grief forth beside Andro-
mache over the corpse of Hector.
If we would fain see the ideal beauty of the early Greek
imagination in a form of flesh-and-blood' reality, we must follow
Helen through the Homeric poems. She first appears when
Husband and lover are to fight beneath the walls of Troy.
She, meanwhile, is weaving a purple peplus with the deeds of
war done and the woes endured for her sake far and wide :-
She in a moment round her shoulders flings
Robe of white lawn, and from the threshold springs,
Yearning and pale, with many a tender tear.
Also two women in her train she brings,
The large-eyed Clymené and Æthra fair,
And at the western gates right speedily they were. *
English eyes know well how Helen looked as she left her
chamber and hastened to the gate ; for has not Leighton
painted her with just so much of far-off sorrow in her gaze as
may become a daughter of the gods? In the gate sat Priam
rose to their lips, but reverential admiration filled them, to-
gether with an awful sense of the dread fate attending her :-
These, seeing Helen at the tower arrive,
One to another winged words addressed :
"Well may the Trojans and Achæans strive,
And a long time bear sorrow and unrest,
* Worsley's Iliad, iii. 17.
version.
The other quotations are from the same
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
77
For such a woman, in her cause and quest,
Who like immortal goddesses in face
Appeareth ; yet 'twere even thus far best
In ships to send her back to her own place,
Lest a long curse she leave to us and all our race."
It is thus simply, and by no mythological suggestion of
which protected Helen among the people she had brought to
sore straits.
Priam accosts her tenderly; not hers the blame that the
gods scourge him in his old age with war. Then he bids her
sit beside him and name the Greek heroes as they march
beneath. She obeys, and points out Agamemnon, Odysseus,
and Ajax, describing each, as she knew them of old. But for
her twin brothers she looks in vain ; and the thought of them
touches her with the sorrow of her isolation and her shame. In
the same book, after Paris has been withdrawn, not without
by her liege-mistress to his bed. Helen was standing on the
walls, and the goddess, disguised as an old spinning-woman,
took her by the skirt, bidding her hie back to her lover, whom
she would find in his bedchamber, not as one arrayed for war,
but as a fair youth resting haply from the dance. Homer gives
no hint that Aphrodite is here the personified wish of Helen's
own heart going forth to Paris. On the contrary, the Cyprian
queen appears in the interests of the Phrygian youth, whom
she would fain see comforted. Under her disguise Helen
recognised Aphrodite, the terrible queen, whose bondwoman
she was forced to be. For a moment she struggled against her
fate. “Art thou come again,” she cried, “ to bear me to some
son of earth beloved of thee, that I may serve his pleasure to
my own shame? Nay, rather, put off divinity and be thyself
his odalisque.”
TIIE GREEK POETS..
With him remain, .
Him sit with, and from heaven thy feet refrain ;
Weep, till his wiſe he make thee, or fond slave,
I go to him no more, to win new stain,
And scorn of Trojan women again outbrave,
Whelmed even now with grief's illimitable wave.
But go she must. Aphrodite is a hard taskmistress, and the
mysterious bond of beauty which chains Helen to her cannot
be broken. It is in vain, too, that Helen taunts Paris : he
reminds her of the first fruition of their love in the island
Cranaë; and at the last she has to lay her down at his side,
not uncomplying, conquered as it were by the reflex of the
passion she herself excites. It is in the chamber of Paris that
Hector finds her. She has vainly striven to send Paris forth
to battle ; and the sense of her own degradation, condemned.
to love a man love-worthy only for the beauty of his limbs,
overcomes her when she sees the noble Hector clothed in
panoply for war. Her passionate outbreak of self-pity and
self-reproach is, perhaps, the strongest indication given in the
Iliad of a moral estimate of Helen's crime. The most con-
summate art is shown by the poet in thus quickening the
conscience of Helen by contact with the nobility of Hector.
Like Guinevere, she for a moment seems to say: “ Thou art the
highest, and most human too !" casting from her as worthless.
the allurements of the baser love for whose sake she had left
her home. In like manner, it was not without the most ex-
quisite artistic intention that Homer made the parting scene
between Andromache and Hector follow immediately upon
this meeting. For Andromache in the future there remained
only sorrow and servitude. Helen was destined to be tossed
from man to man, always desirable and always delicate, like
the sea-foam that floats upon the crests of waves. But there
is no woman who, reading the Iliad, would not choose to weep
with Andromache in Hector's arms, rather than to smile like
Helen in the laps of lovers for whom she little cared. Helen
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
79.
and Andromache meet together before Hector's corpse, and
it is here that we learn to love best what is womanly in Leda's.
daughter. The mother and the wife have bewailed him in
high thrilling threni. Then Helen advances to the bier and
cries :
Hector, of brethren clearest to my heart,
For I in sooth am Alexander's bride,
Who brought me hither : would I first had died !
For 'tis the twentieth year of doom cleferred
Since Troyward from my fatherland I hiec ;
Yet never in those years mine car hath heard
From thy most gracious lips one sharp accusing word ;
Nay, if by other I haply were reviled,
Brother, or sister fair, or brother's bride,
With gentle words, and mien like summer-tide.
Wherefore I mourn for thee and mine own ill,
Grieving at heart : for in Troy town so wide
Friend have I none, nor harbourer of goodwill,
But from my touch all shrink with deadly shuddering chill.
It would have been impossible to enhance more worthily
than thus the spirit of courtesy and knightly kindness which
was in Hector-qualities, in truth, which, together with his.
loyalty to Andromache, endeared the champion of the Trojans
to chivalry, and placed Hector upon the list of worthies beside:
King Arthur and Godfrey of Boulogne.
The character of Helen loses much of its charm and
becomes more conventional in the Odyssey. It is difficult to:
believe that the poet who put into her lips the last lines,
of that threnos, could have ventured to display the same woman,
calm and innocent and queenlike in the home of Menelaus ::
While in his mind he sat revolving this,
Forth from her fragrant bower came Helen fair,
Bright as the golden-spindled Artemis.
Adraste set the couch; Alcippe there
The fine-spun carpet spread; and Phylo bare
The silver basket which Alcandra gave,
So
TIIE GREEK POETS.
Consort of Polybus, who dwelt whilere
In Thebes of Egypt, whose great houses save
Wealth in their walls, large store, and pomp of treasure brave.
Helen shows her prudence and insight by at once declaring
the stranger guest to be Telemachus ; busy with housewifely
kindness, she prepares for him'a comfortable couch at night;
nor does she shrink from telling again the tales of Troy, and
the craft which helped Odysseus in the Wooden Horse. The
blame of her elopement with Paris she throws on Aphrodite,
who had carried her across the sea :
Leaving my child an orphan far away,
And couch, and husband who had known no peer,
First in all grace of soul and beauty shining clear.
Such words, no doubt, fell with honey-sweet flattery from
the lips of Helen on the ears of Menelaus. Yet how could he
forget the grief of his bereavement, the taunts of Achilles and
"Thersites, and the ten years' toil at Troy endured for her?
Perhaps he remembered the promise of Proteus, who had said,
““ Thee will the immortals send to the Elysian plains and
“Furthest verge of earth ; where dwells yellow-haired Rhada-
manthus, and where the ways of life are easiest for men ; snow
falls not there, nor storm, nor any rain, but Ocean ever breathes
"forth delicate zephyr breezes to gladden men; since thou hast
Helen for thine own, and art the son-in-law of Zeus.” Such
future was full recompense for sorrow in the past. Besides,
Helen, as Homer tells, had charms to soothe the soul and
drown the memory of the saddest things. Even at this time,
when thought is troublesome, she mixes Egyptian nepenthé
with the wine-nepenthé “which, whoso drinks thereof when
it is mingled in the bowl, begets for him oblivion of all woe;
through a whole day he drops no tear adown his cheek, not
even should his sire or mother die, nay, should they slay his
brother or dear son before his face, and he behold it with his
eyes. Such virtuous juices had the child of Zeus, of potent
THE WOMEN OF HONER.
87
charm, which Polydamna, wife of Thon, gave to her, the
Egyptian woman, where earth yields many medicines, some of
weal and some of bane.” This nepenthé was the secret of
Helen's power. In the fifteenth book of the Odyssey we have
yet another glimpse of Helen in the palace of Menelaus. She
interprets an omen in favour of Odysseus, which had puzzled
Menelaus, and gives to Telemachus a costly mantle, star-bright,
the weft of her own loom, produced from the very bottom of
the chest in which she stored her treasures. The only shadow
cast upon Helen in the Odyssey is to be found lurking in the
ominous name of Megapenthes, Menelaus' son by a slave-
woman, who was destined after his sire's death to expel hec
from fair Lacedæmon. We may remember that it was on the
occasion of the spousal of this son to Alector's daughter, and
of the sending of Hermione to be the bride of Neoptolemus,
that Telemachus first appeared before the eyes of Helen.
The charm of Helen in the Homeric poems is due in a
great measure to the naïveté of the poet's art. The situations
in which she appears are never strained, nor is the ethical
feeling, though indicated, suffered to disturb the calm influence
of her beauty. This is not the case with Æschylus. Already,
as before hinted, Stesichorus in his lyric interludes had ventured
to assail the character of Helen, applying to her conduct the
moral standard which Homer kept carefully out of sight.
Æschylus goes further. His object was to use Hellenic
romance as the subject-matter for a series of dramatic studies
which should set forth his conception of the divine government
of the world. A genius for tragedy which has never been
surpassed, was subordinated by him to a sublime philosophy
of human life. It was no longer possible for Helen to escape
judgment. Her very name supplied the keynote of reproach.
Rightly was she called Helen—évaluc, flavdpos, Réttolica
a hell of ships, hell of men, hell of cities,' she sailed forth to
Troy, and the heedless Trojans sang marriage songs in her
II.
82
· THE GREEK POETS,
praisė, which soon were turned to songs of mourning for her
sake. She, whom they welcomed as “a spirit of unruffled calm,
a gentle ornament of wealth, a darter of soft glances, a soul-
wounding love-blossom,” was found to be no less a source of
mischief than is a young lion nurtured in the palace for the
ruin of its heirs. Soon had the Trojans reason to revile her
as a “ Fury bringing woe on wives.” The choruses of the
Agamemnon are weighted with the burden of her sin. “'Iwice
7 apárous 'Eléva," it breaks forth : “ thine is the blood-guilt of
incarnate Até, the soul-seducing, crime-engendering, woe-
begetting curse of two great nations. Zeus, through her sin,
wrought ruin for the house of Priam, wanton in its wealth.
In the dark came blinded Paris and stole her forth, and she
went lightly through her husband's doors, and dared a hateful
deed. Menelaus, meanwhile, gazed on the desecrated
and the sight of beauteous statues grew distasteful to his eyes,
and he yearned for her across the sea in dreams. Nought was
left, when morning came, but, vain forth-stretchings of eager
hands after the shapes that follow on the paths of sleep. Then
war awoke, and Ares, who barters the bodies of men for gold,
kept sending home to Hellas from Troy a little white dust
stored in brazen urns. It is thus that Æschylus places in the
foreground, not the witchery of Helen and the charms of
Aphrodite, but her lightness and her sin, the woe it wrought
for her husband, and the heavy griefs that through her fell on
Troy and Hellas. It would be impossible to moralise the
consequences of the woman's crime with greater sternness.
Unfortunately we have no means of stating how Sophocles
dealt with the romance of Helen. Judging by analogy, how-
ever, we may feel sure that in this, as in other instances, he
advanced beyond the ethical stand-point of Æschylus, by
treating the child of Leda, no longer as an incarnation of
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
831
dæmonic Até, but as a woman whose character deserved the most
profound analysis. Euripides, as usual, went a step further. The
bloom of unconscious innocence had been brushed by Æschylus
from the flower of Greek romance. It was impossible for any
subsequent cramatist to avoid in some way moralising the
character of Helen. The way selected by Euripides was to
bring her down to the level of common life. The scene in the:
Troades in which Helen stands up to plead for her life against
Hecuba before the angry Menelaus is one of the most com-
plete instances of the Euripidean sophistry. The tragic.
circumstances of Troy in ruins and of injured husband face to
face with guilty wife are all forgotten, while Helen develops
1
oration. The theatre is turned into a law-court, and forensic
eloquence is substituted for dramatic poetry. Hecuba replies
with an elaborate description of the lewdness, vanity, and guile
of Helen, which we may take to be a fair statement of the
poet's own conception of her character, since in the Orestes he:
puts similar charges into the mouth of Agamemnon's daughter.
There is no doubt that Hecuba has the best of the argument.
She paints the beauty of her son Paris and the barbaric pomp
oods idúv viv volls étoiñon icúmpus
τα μωρα γάρ πάντ' έστιν 'Αφροδίτη βροτοίς,
και τούνομ’ ορθώς αφροσύνης άρχει θεάς.*
Sententious epigrams like this, by which the myths were
philosophised to suit the occasions of daily life, exactly suited
the temper of the Athenian audience in the age of Euripides.
But Hecuba proceeds : “You played your husband off against
your lover, and your lover against your husband, hoping always.
to keep the one or the other by your artifice ; and when Troy
fell, no one found you tying the halter or sharpening the knife
* "Thy own soul, gazing at him, became Kupris : for Aphrodite, as
her name denotes, is all the folly of mortals."
G 2
THE GREEK 2
.
POETS.
against your own throat, as any decent woman in your position
would have done.” At the end of her speech she seems to
have convinced Menelaus, who orders the attendants to carry
off Helen to the ships, in order that she may be taken to Argos
and killed there. Hecuba begs him not to embark her on the
same boat with himself. “Why?” he asks. “Is she heavier
than she used to be?” The answer is significant :
ouk čor' éparths OOTiS ovie del direi.
“Once a lover, always a lover.” And so it turns out; for, at
the opening of the Orestes, Helen arrives in comfort at the side
of Menelaus. He now is afraid lest she should be seized and
stoned by the Argives, whose children had been slain for her
sake in Troy. Nor is the fear vain. Orestes and Pylades lay
hold of her, and already the knife is at her throat, when Phæbus
descends and declares that Helen has been caught up to heaven
to reign with her brothers Castor and Polydeukes. A more un-
ethical termination to her adventures can hardly be imagined ;
for Euripides, following hitherto upon the lines of the Homeric
story, has been at great pains to analyse her legend into a
common tale of adultery and female fascination. He now
suddenly shifts his ground and deifies the woman he had sedu-
lously vilified before. His true feeling about Helen is expressed
in the lines spoken by Electra to Clytemnestra (Electra, 1,062):
το μέν γάρ είδος αίνον άξιον φέρει
'Elévns te kal goû, dúo ô' Oute o vyrów,
άμφω ματαίω Κάστορός τ' ουκ αξίω.
ή μέν γαρ αρπασθείσ' εκούσ’ απώλετο,
Où gávdpă plotov 'Eládos dicórecas.
“You and your sister are a proper pair, and your beauty has
brought you the credit you deserve : both are light women and
unworthy of Castor ; for Helen allowed herself to be ravished
and undone, while you killed the best man in Greece.” Further
illustrations of the Euripidean conception of Helen as a worth-
less woman, who had the art to reconquer a weak husband's
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
85
affection, might be drawn from the tirade of Peleus against
Menelaus in the Andromache (590, etc.).*
This Euripidean reading of the character of Helen was
natural to a sceptical and sophistical age, when the dimly
moralised myths of ancient Hellas had become the raw material
for a poet's casuistry. Yet, in the heart of the Greek people,
Homer had still a deeper, firmer place than even Euripides;
and the thought of Helen, ever beautiful and ever young, sur-
vived the rude analysis of the Athenian drama. Her romance
recovered from the prosaic rationalism to which it had been
subjected—thanks, no doubt, to the many sculptors and painters
who immortalised her beauty, without suggesting the woes that
she had brought upon the world. Those very woes, perhaps,
may have added pathos to her charm : for had not she too
suffered in the strife of men ? How the artists dealt with the
myth of Helen we only know by scattered hints and fragments.
One bas-relief, engraved by Millingen, reveals her standing calm
beneath the sword of Menelaus. That sword is lifted, but it
will not fall. Beauty, breathed around her like a spell, creates
a magic atmosphere through which no steel can pierce. In
another bas-relief, from the Campana Museum, she is entering
Sparta on a chariot, side by side with Menelaus, not like a
captive, but with head erect and haughty mien, and proud hand
placed upon the horse's reins. Philostratus, in his Lives of the
Sophists, describes an exceedingly beautiful young philosopher,
whose mother bore a close resemblance to the picture of Helen
by Eumelus. If the lineaments of the mother were repeated in
the youth, the eyes of Helen in her picture must have been large
and voluptuous, her hair curled in clusters, and her teeth of
dazzling whiteness. It is probable that the later artists, in their
illustrations of the romance of Helen, used the poems of Lesches
* Quite another view of Helen's character is developed in the Helent,
where Euripides has followed the Stesichorean version of her legend with
singular disregard for consistency. Much might be said on this point about
the licence in handling mythical material the Attic dramatists allowed
themselves.
1
36
THE GREEK POETS.
and Arctinus, now lost, but of which the Posthomerica of Quintus
Smyrnæus preserve to us a feeble reflection. This poet of the
fourth century after Christ does all in his power to rehabilitate
the character of Helen by laying the fault of her crime on Paris,
and by describing at length the charm which Venus shed around
her sacred person. It was only by thus insisting upon the
dæmonic influence which controlled the fate of Helen, that the
conclusions reached by the rationalising process of the dramatists
could be avoided. The Cyclic poems thus preserved the heroic
character of Helen and her husband at the expense of Aphro-
dite, while Euripides had said plainly : “What you call Aphro-
Helen hidden in the palace of Deiphobus ; astonishment takes
possession of his soul before the shining of her beauty, so that
he stands immovable, like a dead tree, which neither north nor
south wind shakes. When the Greek heroes leave Troy town,
Agamemnon leads Cassandra captive, Neoptolemus is followed
by Andromache, and Hecuba. weeps torrents of tears in the
strong grasp of Odysseus. A crowd of Trojan women fill the
air with shrill laments, tearing their tresses and strewing dust
upon their heads. Meanwhile, Helen is delayed by no desire
to wail or weep; but a comely shame sits on her black eyes and
glowing cheeks. Her heart leaps, and her whole form is as
lovely as Aphrodite was when the gods discovered her with Ares
in the net of Hephæstus. Down to the ships she comes with
Menelaus hand in hand; and the people," gazing on the glory
and the winning grace of the faultless woman, were astonished;
nor could they dare by whispers or aloud to humble her with
to all what each desired.” This is the apotheosis of Helen ;
and this reading of her romance is far more true to the general
current of Greek feeling than that suggested by Euripides.
Theocritus, in his exquisite marriage song of Helen, has not a
word to say by hint or inuendo that she will bring a curse upon
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
87
her husband. Like dawn is the beauty of her face ; like the
moon in the heaven of night, or the spring when winter is
ended, or like a cypress in the meadow, so is Helen among
Spartan maids. When Apollonius of Tyana, the most famous
inedium of antiquity, evoked the spirit of Achilles by the pillar
on his barrow in the Troad, the great ghost consented to answer
five questions. One of these concerned Helen : Did she
really go to Troy? Achilles indignantly repudiated the notion.
She remained in Egypt; and this the heroes of Achaia soon
knew well; “but we fought for fame and Priam's wealth.”
It is curious at the point of transition in the Roman world
from Paganism to Christianity to find the name of Helen pro-
minent. Helena, the mother of Constantine, was famous with
the early Church as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, where she discovered
the true cross, and destroyed the temple of Venus. For one
Helen, East and West had warred together on the plains of
Troy. Following the steps of another Helen, West and East
now disputed the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. Such
historical parallels are, however, little better than puns. It is
far more to the purpose to notice how the romance of Helen of
Troy, after lying dormant during the Middle Ages, blazed forth
again in the pregnant myth of Faustus. The final achievement
of Faust's magic was to evoke Helen from the dead and hold
.her as his paramour. To the beauty of Greek art the mediæval
spirit stretched forth with yearning and begot the inodern world.
Marlowe, than whom no poet of the North throbbed more
mightily with the passion of the Renaissance, makes his Faust
exclaim :
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss !
Her lips suck forth my soul : see where it flies !
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and, for love of thee,
· THE GREEK POETS.
Instead of Troy shall Wertenberg be sacked;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumèd crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele ;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.
Marlowe, às was natural, contented himself with an external
handling of the Faust legend. Goethe allegorised the whole, and
turned the episode of Helen into a parable of modern poetry..
When Lynkeus, the warder, is reprimanded for not having duly
asked Helen into the feudal castle, he defends himself thus :
Harrend auf des Morgens Wonne,
Oestlich spähend ihren Lauf,
Ging auf einmal mir die Sonne
Wunderbar im Süden auf.
Zog den Blick nach jener Seite,
Statt der Schluchten, statt der Höh'n,
Statt der Erd und Himmelsweite,
Sie, die Einzige, zu spähn. *
The new light that rose upon the Middle Ages came not:
from the East, but from the South, no longer from Galilee, but
from Greece.
Thus, after living her long life in Hellas as the ideal of
beauty, unqualified by moral attributes, Helen passed into,
66 Eastward was my glance directed,
Watching for the sun's first rays ;
In the south-oh, sight of wonder !
Rose the bright orb's sudden blaze.
Thither was my eye attracted ;
Vanished bay and mountain height,
Earth and heaven unseen and all things,
All but that enchanted light."-Anster.
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
898
modern mythology as the ideal of the beauty of the Pagan
world. True to her old character, she arrives to us across the:
waters of oblivion with the cestus of the goddess round her-
waist, and the divine smile upon her lips. Age has not im-
paired her charm, nor has she learned the lesson of the Fall..
Ever virginal and ever fair, she is still the slave of Aphrodite.
In Helen we welcome the indestructible Hellenic spirit.
PENELOPE is the exact opposite to Helen. The central point:
in her character is intense love of her home, an almost cat-like
attachment to the house where she first enjoyed her husband's.
love, and which is still full of all the things that make her life.
worth having. Therefore, when at last she thinks that she will
have to yield to the suitors and leave it, these words are always,
on her lips;
δωμα
κουρίδιον μάλα καλόν ενίπλειον βιότοιο,
του ποτε μεμνήσεσθαι δύομαι ένπερ ονείρω. *
We can scarcely think of Penelope except in the palace of
Ithaca, so firmly has this home-loving instinct been embedded
in her by her maker. Were it not that the passion for her
home is controlled and determined by a higher and more sacred
feeling, this Haushälterischness of Penelope would be prosaic..
Not only, however, has Homer made it evident in the Odyssey
that the love of Ithaca is subordinate in her soul to the love:
of Odysseus; but a beautiful Greek legend teaches how in
girlhood she sacrificed the dearest ties that can bind a woman
to her love for the hero who had wooed and won her. Pau.
sanias says that when Odysseus was carrying her upon his.
chariot forth to his own land, her father Icarius followed in
their path and besought her to stay with him. The young man
was ready, busked for the long journey. The old man pointed.
to the hearth she had known from childhood. Penelope
** The home of my wedded years, exceeding fair, filled with all the:
goods of life, which even in dreams methinks I shall remember."
*90
THE GREEK POETS.
between them answered not a word, but covered her face with
her veil ; this action Odysseus interpreted rightly, and led his
bride away, willing to go where he would go, yet unwilling to
abandon what she dearly loved. No second Odysseus could
cross the woman's path. Among the suitors there was not one
like him. Therefore she clung to her house-tree in Ithaca, the
olive round which Odysseus had built the nuptial chamber;
and none, till he appeared, by force or guile might win her
thence. It is precisely this tenacity in the character of Penelope
which distinguishes her from Helen, the daughter of adventure
and the child of change, to whom migration was no less
natural than to the swan that gave her life. Another character-
istic of Penelope is her prudence. Having to deal with the
uproarious suitors camped in her son's halls, she deceives them
with fair words, and promises to choose a husband from their
.number when she has woven a winding-sheet for Laertes.
Three years pass, and the work is still not finished. At last
a maiden tells the suitors that every night Penelope undoes by
lamplight what she had woven in the daytime. This ruse of
the defenceless woman has passed into a proverb; and has be-
come so familiar that we forget, perhaps, how true a parable it
is of those who in their weakness do and undo daily what they
would fain never do at all, trifling and procrastinating with tyran-
nous passions which they are unable to expel from the palace of
their souls. The prudence of Penelope sometimes assumes a
form which reminds us of the heroines of Hebrew story; as
when, for example, she spoils the suitors of rich gifts by subtle
promises and engagements carefully guarded. Odysseus, seated
in disguise near the hall-door, watches her success and secretly
"approves. The same quality of mind makes her cautious in
the reception of the husband she has waited for in widowhood
through twenty years. The dog Argus has no doubt. He
-sees his master through the beggar's rags, and dies of joy.
The handmaid Eurycleia is convinced as soon as she has touched
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
او
the wound upon the hero's foot and felt the well-remembered
scar. Not so Penelope. Though the great bow has been bent
and the suitors have been slain, and though Eurycleia comes
to tell her the whole truth, the queen has yet the heart to seat
herself opposite Odysseus by the fire, and to prove him with
cunningly-devised tests. There is something provocative of
ánger against Penelope in this cross-questioning. But our
D
husband and none other is there verily before her eyes, she
flings her arms around him in that long and close embrace.
Homer even in this supreme moment has sustained her cha-
racter by a trait, which, however delicate, can hardly escape
notice. Her lord is weary and would fain seek the solace of
his couch. But he has dropped a hint that still more labours
are in store for him. Then Penelope replies that his couch is
ready at all times and whensoever he may need; no hurry
about that ; meanwhile she would like to hear the prophecy of
Teiresias. Helen, the bondwoman of dame Aphrodite, would
not have waited thus upon the verge of love's delight, long
looked for with strained widow's eyes. Yet it would be unfair
to Penelope to dwell only on this prudent and somewhat frigid
aspect of her character. She is, perhaps, most amiable when
she descends among the suitors and prays Phemius to cease
from singing of the heroes who returned from Troy. It is more
than she can bear to sit weaving in the silent chamber mid her
damsels, listening to the shrill sound of the lyre and hearing
how other men have reached their homes, while on the waves
Odysseus still wanders, and none knows whether he be alive
or dead. It may be noticed that just as Helen is a mate
meet for easily-persuaded Menelaus and luxurious Paris, so
Penelope matches the temper of the astute, enduring, perse-
vering Odysseus. As a creature of the fancy she is far less
fascinating than Helen ; and this the poet seems to have felt,
for side by side with Penelope in the Odyssey he has placed
III
92
THE GREEK POETS.
the attractive forms of Circe, Calypso, and Nausicaa. The
gain is double; not only are the hearers of the romance
gladdened by the contrast of these graceful women with the
somewhat elegiac figure of Penelope ; but the character of
Odysseus for constancy is greatly enhanced. How fervent
must the love of home have been in the man who could quit:
Calypso, after seven years' sojourn, for the sake of a wife grown
grey with twenty widowed years ! Odysseus tells Calypso.
to her face that she is far fairer than his wife : *
οίδα και αυτός
πάντα μάλ', oύνεκα σείο περίφρων Πηνελόπεια
είδος ακιδνοτέρη, μέγεθός τ', εις όμμα ιδέσθαι.
" As far as looks go, Penelope is nothing beside thee.” But
what Odysseus leaves unsaid—the grace of the first woman
who possessed his soul-constrains him with a deeper, ten-
derer power than any of Calypso's charms. Penelope, mean-
while, is pleading that her beauty in the absence of her lord
has perished :
ξείν' ήτοι μέν εμήν αρετήν είδός τε δέμας τε
ώλεσαν αθάνατοι ότε "Ιλιον είσανέβαιναν
'Apyelou.
These two meet at last together, he after his long wanderings,
and she having suffered the insistance of the suitors in her
palace ; and this is the pathos of the Odyssey. The woman, in
spite of her withered youth and tearful years of widowhood,
is still expectant of her lord. He, unconquered by the pleasures
cast across his path, unterrified by all the dangers he en-
dures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led forth, a
blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O just, subtle, and.
mighty Homer! There is nothing of Greek here more than
of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity.
* "I know well that Penelope is inferior to thee in form and stature,
to the eyes of men.”
of « Of a truth my goodliness and beauty of person the gods destroyed
what time the Argives went up into Troy town.”
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
93
Calypso is not a woman, but a goddess. She feeds upon
ambrosia and nectar, while her maidens spread before Odysseus
the food of mortals. Between her and Hermes there is
recognition at first sight ; for god knows god, however far apart
their paths may lie. Yet the love that Calypso bears Odysseus
brings this daughter of Atlas down to earth : and we may
reckon her among the women of Homer. How mysterious, as
the Greek genius apprehended mystery, is her cavern, hidden
far away in the isle Ogygia, with the grove of forest-trees
before it and the thick vine flourishing around its mouth.
Meadows of snowflake and close-flowering selinus gird it round;
and on the branches brood all kinds of birds. It is an island such
as the Italian painters bring before us in their rarest moments of
artistic divination, where the blue-green of the twilight mingles
with the green-blue sea, and the overarching verdure of deep
empurpled forest-shade. Under those trees, gazing across the
ocean, in the still light of the evening star, Odysseus wept for
his far distant home. Then, heavy at heart, he gathered up his
raiment, and clomb into Calypso's bed at night :*
επεί ουκέτι ήνδανε νύμφη.
άλλ' ήτοι νύκτας μέν ιαύεσκεν και ανάγκη
εν σπέσσι γλαφυροίσι παρ' ουκ εθέλων εθελούση.
"To him the message of Hermes recalling him to labour on the
waves was joy. But to the nymph herself it brought mere
0
grudge that goddesses should couch thus openly with mortal
men, if one should make a dear bedfellow for herself. For so
the rosy-fingered morning chose Orion, till ye gods that lead
an easy life grew jealous, and in Ogygia him the golden-throned
maid Artemis slew with her kind arrows." This wail of the
years has a strange pathos in it. It seems to pass across the
* "For the nymph pleased him no longer. Nathless, as need was, he
slept the night in hollow caverns, beside her loving him who loved her not.”
9:4
THE GREEK POETS..
sea like a sigh of winds awakened, none knows how, in summer
midnight, that swells and dies far off upon moon-silvered
waves. The clear human activity of Odysseus cuts the ever-
lasting calm of Calypso like a knife, shredding the veil that
hides her from the eyes of mortals; then he fares onward to
resume the toils of real existence in a land whereof she nothing
knows. There is a fragment of his last speech to Penelope,
which sounds like an echo of Calypso's lamentation. “Death,"
he says, “shall some day rise for me, tranquil from the tranquil
deep, and I shall die in delicate old age.” We seem to feel that in
his last trance Odysseus might have heard the far-off divine sweet
voice of Calypso calling him and have hastened to her cry. ;
Circe is by no means so mysterious as Calypso. Yet she
belongs to one of the most interesting families in Greek ro-
mance: her mother was Perse, daughter of Oceanus ; her father
was Helios ; she is own sister, therefore, to the Colchian Æetes,
and aunt of the redoubtable Medea. She lives in the isle of
Ææa, not, like Calypso, deep embowered in groves, but in a
fair open valley sweeping downward to the sea, whence her:
hearth-smoke may be clearly descried. Nor is her home an
ivy-curtained cavern of the rocks, but a house well built of
polished stone, protected from the sea-winds by oak-woods.
Here she dwells in grand style, with nymphs of the streams and
forests to attend upon her, and herds of wild beasts, human-
hearted, roaming through her park. Odysseus always speaks
of her with respect as tútvia Kipkn . . . . @ia Deáw ....
Κίρκη εύπλόκαμος δεινή θεός αυδήεσσα. Like Calypso, she has a.
fair shrill voice that goes across the waters, and as her fingers.
ply the shuttle, she keeps singing through the summer air. By
virtue of her birthright, as a daughter of the sun, she under-
stands the properties of plant and drug. Poppy and henbane.
and mandragora, all herbs of subtle juice that draw soul-quelling,
poison from the fat earth and the burning sun, are hers to use
as she thinks fit. And the use she makes of them is malicious;
0
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
95;
for, fairy-like and wanton, she will have the men who visit her
across the seas, submit their reason to her lure. Therefore she-
turns them to swine; and the lions and wolves of the mountain.
she tames in like manner, so that they fawn and curl their long
tails and have no heart to ravin any more. This is how she-
treats the comrades of Odysseus : “She drew them in and set:
them on benches and on chairs, and put before them cheese
and meat and yellow honey, mixing therewith Pramnian wine :
but with the food she mingled baleful drugs, to make them quite
forget their fatherland. But when she had given them thereof
and they had drunk, straightway she smote them with a rod and.
shut them up in styes. Of swine they had the head, the voice,
the form, the bristles; but their mind stayed firm as it had been
before. So they then were penned up, weeping bitter tears ;
but Circe threw before them acorns of the oak and ilex and
cornel-berries, food that the forest-ranging swine are wont to eat.”'
What is admirable in this description is its gravity. Circe is
not made out particularly wicked or malignant. She is acting
only, after her kind, like some beautiful but baleful plant-a.
wreath, for instance, of red briony berries, whereof if children,
eat, they perish. Nor, again, is there a touch of the burlesque
in the narration. Therefore, in the charming picture which
Rivière has painted of Circe, we trace a vein of modern feeling.
Clasping her knees with girlish glee, she sits upon the ground.
beneath a tangle of wild vine, and watches the clumsy hogs that
tumble with half-comic, half-pathetic humanity expressed in
their pink eyes and grunting snouts before her. So, too, the:
solemn picture by Burne Jones, a masterpiece of colouring,
adds something mediaval to the Homeric Circe. The tall.
sunflowers that remind us of her father, the cringing panthers,
black and lithe, the bending figure of the saffron-vested witch,
the jars of potent juices, and the distant glimpse of sea and.
shore, suggest more of malignant intention than belongs to the
Trútvia Kinrr, the Kipin mollvoápiakos of Homer's tale. It was,
96
THE GREEK POETS.
inevitable that modern art should infuse a deeper meaning into
the allegory. The world has lived long and suffered much and
grown greatly since the age of Homer. We cannot be so naïf
and childlike any longer. Yet the true charm of Circe in the
Odyssey, the spirit that distinguishes her from Tannhauser's
Venus and Orlando's Fata Morgana and Ruggiero's Alcina and
Tancred's Armida, lies just in this, that the poet has passed so
lightly over all the dark and perilous places of his subject. This
delicacy of touch can never be regained by art. It belonged to
the conditions of the first Hellenic bloom of fancy, to suggest
without insistance and to realise without emphasis. Impatient
readers may complain of want of depth and character: they
would fain see the Circe of the Odyssey as strongly moralised
as the Medea of Euripides. But in Homer only what is human
attains to real intensity. The marvellous falls off and shades
away into soft air-tints and delightful dreams. Still, it requires
"the interposition of the gods to save Odysseus from the charms
of the malicious maid. As Hermes came to Priam on the path
between Troy town and the Achaian ships, so now he meets the
hero: *
νεηνίη ανδρί εοικώς
πρώτον υπηνήτη τουπερ χαριεστάτη ήβη.
1
A plant of moly is in his hand; and this will be the antidote
to Circe's philtre. Odysseus' sword and strong will must do
the rest. When Circe has once found her match, we are as-
"tonished at the bonhomie which she displays. The game is
over : there remains nothing but graceful hospitality on her
part_elegant banquets, delicious baths, soft beds, the restora-
tion of the ship's crew to their proper shape, and a store of
useful advice for the future. “There all the days, for a whole
year, we sat feasting and drinking honeyed wine; but when the
year was full, and the seasons had gone round, moon waning
* “Like to a young man when his beard has just begun to grow, whose
bloom is then most lovely.??
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
97
after moon, and the long days were finished, my dear comrades
called on me by name, and spake once more of home.”
One more female figure from the Odyssey remains as yet
S
S
no legendary charm; she is neither mystic goddess nor weird
woman, nor is hers the dignity of wifehood.' She is simply the
most perfect maiden, the purest, freshest, lightest-hearted girl
of Greek romance. Odysseus passes straight from the solitary
island of Ogygia, where elm and poplar and cypress overshadow
Calypso's cavern, into the company of this real woman. It is
like coming from a land of dreams into a dewy garden when the
sun has risen : the waves through which he has fared upon his
Taft have wrought for him, as it were, a rough re-incarnation
into the realities of human life. For the sea brine is the source
of vigour; and into the deep he has cast, together with
Calypso's raiment, all memory of her.
Nausicaa was asleep in her Phæacian chamber when Athene,
mindful of Odysseus' need, came down and warned her in a
dream that she should bestir herself and wash her clothes
against her marriage day. When the damsel woke, she went
straight to her father, Alcinous, and begged him to provide a
horse and mules. Like a prudent girl, she said nothing of her
marriage, but spoke of the cares of the household. Her five
brothers, she said, the two wedded and the other three in the
bloom of youth, want shining raiment for the dance, and her
duty it is to see that the clothes are always ready. Alcinous
knew in his heart what she really meant, but he answered her
with no unseemly jest. Only he promised a cart and a pair of
mules ; and her mother gave her food to eat, and wine in a
skin, and a golden cruse of oil, that she and her maidens might
spend a pleasant morning by the sea-beach, and bathe and
anoint themselves, when their clothes-washing was finished.
A prettier picture cannot be conceived than that drawn by
Homer of Nausicaa, with her handmaidens thronging together
H
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CD
in the cart, which jogs downward through the olive-gardens to
the sea. The princess holds the whip and drives; and when
she reaches the stream's mouth by the beach, she loosens the
mules from the shafts, and turns them out to graze in the deep
meadow. Then the clothes are washed, and the luncheon is.
taken from the basket, and the game of ball begins. How the
ball flew aside and fell into the water, and how the shrill cries
of the damsels woke Odysseus from his sleep, everyone re--
members. The girls are fluttered by the sight of the great
naked man, rugged with brine and bruised with shipwreck.
Nausicaa alone, as becomes a princess, stands her ground and
questions him. The simple delicacy with which this situation
is treated, makes the whole episode one of the most charming
in Homer. Nothing can be prettier than the change from pity
to admiration, expressed by the damsel, when Odysseus has.
bathed in running water and rubbed himself with oil and put on
goodly raiment given him by the girls. Pallas sheds treble graće
upon his form, and makes his hair to fall in clusters like
hyacinth-blossoms, so that an artist who moulds figures of gilt
silver, could not shape a comelier statue. · The princess, with
yesternight's dream still in her soul, wishes he would stay and
be her husband. The girlish simplicity of Nausicaa is all the
more attractive because the Phæacians are the most luxurious.
race described by Homer. The palace in which she dwells
with her father is all of bronze and silver and gold; it shines
like the sun, and a blue line marks the brazen cornice of the
walls. Dogs of silver and gold, Hephæstus' work, which never
can grow old through length of days, protect the entrance.
Richly-woven robes are cast upon the couches in the hall, and
light is shed upon the banquet-tables from blazing torches in
the hands of golden boys. Outside the palace grows the garden,
with well-divided orchard-rows, where pears and figs and pome-
granates and burnished apples and olives flourish all year long.
The seasons change not in Phæacian land for winter or for
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
inggris
summer. The west wind is always blowing. Pear follows after
pear, and apple after apple, and grape bunch after grape bunch,
in a never-ending autumn dance. Vintage, too, is there; and
there are the trim flower-beds; and through the garden flow
two fountains. The whole pleasure-ground seems to have
been laid out with geometrical Greek taste. It is a Paradise of
neatness, sunbright, clear to take in at a glance. In this delight-
ful palace dwells Alcinous, a kind old man, among his sons ;
and much delight they take in dance and song and games of
strength. The young men, whose beards are but just growing,
leap in rhythmic movement to the flute; the elder and more
muscular run or wrestle, and much contempt do these goodly
fellows, like English lads, reserve for men who are not athletes.
Odysseus has to rebuke one of them, Euryalus, by reminding
him that faultlessly fair bodies are not always the temples of a
godlike soul. Zeus gives not all of his good gifts to all ; for
some men owe grace and favour to eloquence, others to beauty,
and a man may be like to the immortals in face and form, and
yet a fool. Alcinous well describes the temper of his people
when he says: “We are not faultless boxers, nor yet wrestlers ;
but with our feet we race swiftly, and none can beat us in row-
ing; and we aye love the banquet, and the lyre, and dancing,
and gay raiment, and warm baths, and joys of love." It is
therefore not without propriety that Demodocus, their blind
bard, “whom the Muse loved much, and gave him good and
evil ; for she reft him of his sight and gave him honeyed song,"
sings of Aphrodite tangled with Ares in the net of Hephaestus.
From this soft, luxurious, comely, pleasure-loving folk Nausicaa
springs up like a pure blossom-anemone or lily of the moun-
tains. She has all the sweetness of temper which distinguishes
Alcinous; but the voluptuous living of her people has not .
spoiled her. The maidenly reserve which she displays in her
first reception of Odysseus, her prudent avoidance of being seen
with him in the streets of the town while he is yet a stranger,
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2
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THE GREEK POETS.
.
and the care she takes that he shall suffer nothing by not coming
with her to the palace, complete the portrait of a girl who is as
free from coquetry as she is from prudishness. Perhaps she
strikes our fancy with most clearness when, after bathing and
dressing, Odysseus passes her on his way through the hall to
the banquet. She leaned against the pillar of the roof and
gazed upon Odysseus, and said : “Hail, guest, and be thou
mindful of me when perchance thou art in thine own land again,
for to me the first thou dost owe the price of life.” This is the
last word spoken by Nausicaa in the Odyssey. She is not
mentioned among the Phæacians who took leave of the hero
the day he passed to Ithaca.
Before quitting the women of Homer, we must return to
the Iliad; for without Briseis and Andronache their company
would be incomplete. As the figures in a bas-relief are variously
wrought, some projecting like independent statues in sharp
light and shadow, while others are but half detached, and a
third sort offer mere outlined profiles scarcely embossed upon
the marble background: even so the poet has obeyed a law
of relative proportion in his treatment of character. The
subordinate heroes, for example, in the Iliad fall away from
the central figure of Achilles into more or less of slightness.
This does not mean that we can trace the least indecision in
Homer's touch, or that he has slurred his work by haste or
incapacity. On the contrary, there is no poet from whom
deeper lessons in the art of subordinating accessories to the
main subject without impairing their real value can be learned.
A sculptor like Pheidias knows how to give significance to the
least indication of a form which he has placed upon the second
plane in his bas-relief. Just so Homer inspires his minor
characters with personality. To detach this personality in each
case is the task of the critic: yet his labour is no light one;
for the Homeric characters draw their life from incidents,
motives, action. To the singer's fancy they appeared, not as
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
IOI
products of the self-conscious imagination, but as living
creatures ; and to separate them from their environment of
circumstance is almost to destroy them. This is the specific
beauty of the art of Homer. In its origin it must have been
the outcome, not of reflection, but of inspired instinct ; for in
the Homeric age psychological analysis was unknown, and the
very nomenclature of criticism had yet to be invented. We
can draw inexhaustible lessons in practical wisdom from the
Homeric poems; but we cannot with impunity subject those
delicate creations to the critical crucible. They delight
both intellect and senses with a many-toned harmony of ex-
quisitely modulated parts : but the instant we begin to dissect
and theorise, we run a risk of attributing far more method and
deliberation than was natural to a poet in the early age of
Hellas. It is almost impossible to set forth the persons of
Homer except in his own way, and in close connection with
the incidents through which they are revealed; whereas the
characters of a more self-conscious artist—the Medea, for
example, or the Phædra of Euripides--can be described without
much repetition of their speeches or reconstruction of the dramas
in which they play their parts.
Andromache offers a not inapt illustration to these remarks.
She is beautiful, as all heroic women are; and Homer tells us
she is “white-armed.” We know no more about her person
than this ; and her character is exhibited only in the famous
parting scene and in the two lamentations which she pours
forth for her husband. Yet who has read the Iliad without
carrying away a distinct conception of this, the most loveable
among the women of Homer? She owes her character far less
to what she does and what she says, than to how she looks in
that ideal picture painted on our memory by Homer's verse.
The affection of Hector for his wife, no less distinguished than
the passion of Achilles for his friend, has made the Trojan
prince rather than his Greek rival the hero of modern romance.
IOŻ
: THE GREEK POETS.
When he leaves Ilion to enter on the long combat which ends in
the death of Patroclus, the last thought of Hector is for
Andromache. He finds her, not in their home, but on the wall,
attended by her nurse, who carries in her arms his only son : *
Εκτορίδην αγαπητόν αλίγκιον αστέρι καλώ.
S
Her first words, after she has wept and clasped him, are :
“Love, thy stout heart will be thy death, nor hast thou pity of
thy child or me, who soon shall be a widow. My father and
my mother and my brothers are all slain : but, Hector, thou art
father to me and mother and brother, and thou too art the
husband of my youth. Have pity, then, and stay here in the
tower, lest thy son be orphaned and thy wife a widow.” The
answer is worthy of the hero. “Full well,” he says, “know
I that Troy will fall, and I foresee the sorrow of my brethren
and the king: but for these I grieve not: to think of thee, a
slave in Argos, unmans me almost : yet even so I will not flinch
or shirk the fight. My duty calls, and I must away." He
stretches out his mailed arms to Astyanax : but the child is
frightened by his nodding plumes. So he lays aside his helmet,
and takes the baby to his breast, and prays for him. Andro-
mache smiles through her tears, and down the clanging cause-
way strides the prince. Poor Andromache has nothing left
to do but to return home and raise the dirge for a husband as
good as dead. When we see her again in the 22nd Iliad, she
is weaving, and her damsels are heating a bath against Hector's
return from the fight. Then suddenly the cry of Hecuba's
anguish thrills her cars. Shuttle and thread drop from her
hands ; she gathers up her skirts, and like a Mänad flies forth
to the wall. She arrives in time to see her husband's body
dragged through dust at Achilles' chariot-wheels away from
Troy. She faints, and when she wakes, it is to utter the most
* “Hector's only son, like unto a fair star.”
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103
or for herself, as for Astyanax. He who was reared upon
à father's knees and fed with marrow and the fat of lambs, and
when play tired him, slept in soft beds among nursing-women,
will now roam, an orphan, wronged and unbefriended, hunted
from the company of happier men, or fed by charity with scanty
Scraps. The picture of an orphan's misery among cold friends
and hard oppressors is wrought with the pathos of exquisite
.simplicity. And to the same theme Andromache returns in
the vocero which she pours forth over the body of Hector. “I
shall be a widow and a slave, and Astyanax will either be
slaughtered by Greek soldiers or set to base service in like
bondage.” Then the sight of the corpse reminds her that the
last words of her sorrow must be paid to Hector himself.
What touches her most deeply is the thought of death in
battle : *
ου γάρ μοι θνήσκων λεχέων εκ χείρας όρεξας:
ουδέ τί μοι είπες πυκινόν έπος, ούτε κεν αιει
μεμνήμην νύκτας τε και ήματα δακρυχέουσα.
-
As far as studied delineation of character goes, Briseis is still
more a silhouette than Andromache. We know her as the
fair-cheeked damsel who was fain to stay with Achilles, and
who loved Patroclus because he kept for her a soothing word.
In her threnos for Patroclus she exclaims, “How one woe after
another takes me! I saw my husband slain before our city,
and my three brethren ; but you, Patroclus, then comforted
me, and said I should be Achilles' wife : you were ever gentle.”
This is really all we know about her. Yet Briseis lives in our
memory by virtue of the great passions gathered round her,
and the weighty actions in which she plays her part.
In course of years the heroes of the Homeric romances
came to be worshipped, not exactly like gods with Quoial, but
- For, dying, thou didst not reach to me thy hand from the bed, nor say
to me words of wisdom, the which I might have aye remembered night
and day with tears.”
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like the more than mortal dead with évayimuara. They had
their chapels and their hearths, distinct from the temples and
the altars of the deities. These were generally raised upon:
the supposed spot of their sepulture, or in places which owed
them special reverence as cekists or as ancestors. In the case.
of Edipus, the translation of the hero to the company of gods
secured for him a cultus in Colonos. It was supposed that:
heroes exercised a kindly influence over the people among
whom they dwelt ; haunting the neighbourhood in semi-.
corporeal visitations, conferring benefits upon the folk, and
exhibiting signs of anger when neglected. Thus Philostratus.
remarks that .Protesilaus had a fane in Thessaly, “ and many
humane and favourable dealings doth he show the men of
Thessaly, yea, and angerly also if he be neglected.”*. The
same Philostratus, whose works are a treasure-house of informa-
tion respecting the latest forms of Hellenic Paganism, reports
the actual form of prayer used by Apollonius of Tyana at the
tomb of Palamedes, † and makes the ghost of Achilles com-
plain : “The Thessalians for a long time have remitted my
offerings ; still I am not yet minded to display my wrath
against them.” Achilles, who has been evoked above his:
tomb in the Troad by the prayers of Apollonius, proceeds to
remark that even the Trojans revere him more than his own:
people, but that he cannot restore the town of Troy to its old.
prosperity. He hints, however, pretty broadly, that if the
Thessalians do not pay him more attention, he will reduce them.
to the same state of misery as the Trojans. The dæmon,
it may be said in passing, vanishes, like a mediæval ghost, at:
cockcrow. I
This cultus of the Homeric heroes was, of course, insepar--
able from a corresponding growth of artistic associations : and
here it is not a little curious to compare our own indefinite:
* 'Hpwürós, 680.
+ Life of Apollonius, 150.
# Ibid. 153, 154..
THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
105;
conceptions of the outward form of the heroic personages with
the very concrete incarnation they received from Greek sculptors:
and painters. The first memorable attempt to express the
heroes of Homer in marble was upon the pediment at Ægina ;.
the first elaborate pictorial representation was that of Poly-
gnotus on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi. A Greek Lesche
was not unlike an Italian or Oriental café, extended to suffice:
for the requirements of a whole city. What has been dis-
covered at Pompeii, in addition to the full description of the
Delphian Lesche by Pausanias, inclines us to believe that the
walls of these public places of resort were not unfrequently
decorated with Homeric pictures. The beautiful frescoes of
Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes, of Achilles bathed
by Thetis in the Styx, of Briseis led forth by Patroclus into.
the company of the Achaian chiefs, and of Penelope questioning
the disguised Odysseus about her husband, which have been
discovered in various parts of Pompeii, sufficiently illustrate to
modern minds the style of this wall-painting. The treatise:
surnamed Elkóves of Philostratus is an elaborate critical cata-
logue of a picture gallery of this sort; and from many indica-
tions contained in it we learn how thoroughly the heroes of
Homer had acquired a fixed corporeal personality. In de-
scribing, for example, a picture of the lamentation for Anti-
lochus, he says : “These things are Homer's paintings, but the
painter's action.” Then he goes on to point out the chief
persons : “You can distinguish Odysseus at once by his severe
and wideawake appearance, Menelaus by his gentleness,
Agamemnon by his inspired look ; while Tydeus is indicated
by his freedom, the Telamonian Ajax by his grimness, and
the Locrian by his activity."* In another place he tells us:
that Patroclus was of an olive-pale complexion (ueligrwpos),
with black eyes and rather thick eyebrows ; his head was erect.
* Eicóves, 820. (By Kayser, Zurich, 2nd ed.)
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: THE GREEK POETS.
upon the neck, like that of a man who excels in athletic ex-
.ercises, his nose straight, with wide nostrils, like an eager horse.
These descriptions occur in the Heroic Dialogue. They are
supposed to have been communicated by the dæmon, Protesi-
laus, to a vine-dresser who frequented his tomb. Achilles,
on the other hand, had abundant hair, more pleasant to the
sight in hue than gold, with a nose inclining to the aquiline,
angry brows, and eyes so bright and lively that the soul seemed
leaping from them in fire. Hector, again, had a terrible look
about him, and scorned to dress his hair, and his ears were
crushed, not indeed by wrestling, for barbarians do not wrestle,
but by the habit of struggling for mastery with wild bulls.*
Some of the women of Homeric story, Helen for example,
and Iphigenia, received divine honours, together with suitable
artistic personification. But women were not closely con-
nected with the genealogical and gentile foundations of the
Greek cultus; only a few, therefore, were thus distinguished.
What has here been said about the superstition that gave form
and distinctness to the creatures of Homeric fancy, may be
taken as applying in general to the attitude assumed by ancient
art. The persons of a poem or a mythus were not subjected
to critical analysis as we dissect the characters of Hamlet or
of Faust. But they were not on that account the less vividly
-apprehended. They tended more and more to become external
realities-beings with a definite form and a fixed character. In
a word, through sculpture, painting, and superstition, they
underwent the same personifying process as the saints of
mediæval Italy. To what extent the Attic drama exercised a
disturbing influence and interrupted this process has been
touched upon with reference to the Euripidean Helen.
* 'Hpwärós, 736, 733, 722. For the curious detail about Hector's ears
compare Theocr. 22, 45, where athletes are described tednayuévou oŭata
Tuyuais. Statues of Hercules show this.
107
CHAPTER IV.
HESIOD.
The Difference between the Homeric and the Hesiodic Spirit. --The
: Personality of Hesiod more distinct than that of Hoiner. - What we
know about his Life.-- Perses.--The Hesiodic Rhapsodes.-Theo-
theus.—Greek and Hebrew Myths of the Fall. --The Allegorical
Element in the Promethean Legend.—The Titans. -The Canto of
the Four Ages.--Hesiodic Ethics.—The Golden Age.—Flaxman's
Illustrations.—Justice and Virtue.—Labour. — Bourgeois Tone of
Hesiod.-Marriage and Women.--The Gnomic Importance of Hesiod
for the Early Greeks.
HESIOD, though he belongs to the first age of Greek literature,
and ranks among the earliest of Hellenic poets, marks the
transition from the Heroic period to that of the Despots, when
ethical enquiry began in Greece. Like Homer, Hesiod is
inspired by the Muses : alone, upon Mount Helicon, he re-
ceived from them the gift of inspiration. But the message
which he communicates to men does not concern the deeds of
demigods and warriors. It offers no material for tragedies
upon the theme of.
Thebes or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.
On the contrary, Hesiod introduces us to the domestic life of
shepherds, husbandmen, and merchants. Homely precepts for
the conduct of affairs and proverbs on the utility of virtue
replace the glittering pictures of human passions and heroic
strife which the Homeric poems present. A new element is
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THE GREEK POETS.
introduced into literature, the element of man reflecting on
himself, questioning the divine laws under which he is obliged
to live, and determining the balance of good and evil which
the days of youth and age bring with them in his earthly course.
The individual is now occupied with his own cares and sorrows
dating his imagination to the prose of human existence, he
has forgotten to dream any longer of the past, or to reconstruct
in fancy the poetic charm of visionary heroism. It was just:
this difference between Homer and Hesiod which led the
aristocratic Greeks of a later age to despise the poet of Ascra.
Cleomenes, the king of Sparta, chief of that proud military
oligarchy which had controlled the destinies of decaying
Hellas, is reported by Plutarch to have said that, while Homer
was the bard of warriors and noble men, Hesiod was the
singer of the Helots. In this saying the contempt of the
martial class for the peaceable workers of the world is forcibly
cratic critics of the modern age. They can trace in its brief
utterance the contempt which has been felt in all periods-
especially among the historic Greeks, who regarded labour as.
ignoble, and among the feudal races, with whom martial
prowess was the mainstay of society—for the unrecorded and
unhonoured earners of the bread whereby the brilliant and the
well-born live.
Hesiod, therefore, may be taken as the type and first ex-'
pression of a spirit in Greek literature alien from that which
Homer represents. The wrath and love of Achilles, the charm
of Helen and the constancy of Penelope, the councils of the
gods, the pathos of the death of Hector, the sorrows of King
Priam and the labours of Odysseus, are exchanged for dim:
and doleful ponderings upon the destiny of man, for the
shadowy mythus of Prometheus and the vision of the ages ever
growing worse as they advance in time. All the rich and:
HESIOD.
109
manifold arras-work of suffering and action which the Odyssey
and the Iliad display, yields to such sombre meditation as a
sad soul in the childhood of the world may pour forth, brooding
on its own wrongs and on the woes of men around. The
climax of the whole, after the justice of God has been
querulously arraigned, and the violence of princes has been
appealed against with pitiful vain iteration, is a series of
practical rules for daily conduct, and a calendar of simple
ethics.
Very little is known about Hesiod himself; nor can the
date at which the poems ascribed to him were composed be
fixed with any certainty. Something of the same semi-mythical
obscurity which surrounds Homer envelops Hesiod. Just as
Homer was the eponymous hero of the school of epic poets
in Asia Minor and the islands, so Hesiod may be regarded as
the titular president of a rival school of poets localised near
Mount Helicon in Bæotia. That is to say, it is probable that
the Hesiodic, like the Homeric, poems did not emanate from
their supposed author, as we read them now; but we may
assume that they underwent changes and received additions
from followers who imbibed his spirit and attempted to preserve
his style. And, further, the poems ascribed to Hesiod became,
as years went by, a receptacle for gnomic verses dear to the
Greeks. Like the elegies of Theognis, the ethical hexameters
of Hesiod were, practically, an anthology of anonymous com-
positions. Still Hesiod has a more distinct historic personality
than Homer. In the first place, the majority of ancient critics
regarded him as later in date and more removed from the
heroic age. Then again, he speaks in his own person, re-
cording many details of his life, and mentioning his father and
his brother. Homer remains for ever lost, like Shakspeare, in
the creatures of his own imagination. Instead of the man
Homer, we have the Achilles and Odysseus whom he made
immortal. Hesiod tells us much about himself. A vein of
IIO
THE GREEK POETS.
personal reflection, a certain tone of peevish melancholy.,
peculiar to the individual, runs through his poems. He is far
less the mouthpiece of the heavenly Muse than a man like
ourselves, touching his lyre at times with a divine grace, and
then again sweeping the chords with a fretfulness that draws.
some jarring notes.
We learn from the hexameters of Hesiod that he was born
at Ascra in Boeotia (Works and Days, 640). His father was.
an emigrant from Æolian Kumé, whence he came to Ascra in
search of better fortune, “forsaking not plenty nor yet wealth
and happiness, but evil poverty which Zeus gives to men : near
Helicon he dwelt in a sorry village, Ascra, bad in winter,
rigorous in summer heat, at no time genial.” From the exor-
dium of the Theogony (line 23) it appears that Hesiod kept
sheep upon the slopes of Helicon ; for it was there that the
Muse descended to visit him, and, after rebuking the shepherds
for their idleness and grossness, gave him her sacred laurel-
branch and taught him song. On this spot, as he tells us in
the Works and Days (line 656), he offered the first prize of
victory which he obtained at Chalkis. It would seem clear
from these passages that poetry had been recognised as an
inspiration, cultivated as an art, and encouraged by public
contests, long before the date of Hesiod.
Husbandry was despised in Boeotia, and the pastoral poet
led a monotonous and depressing life. The great event which
changed its even tenor was a lawsuit between himself and his
brother Perses concerning the division of their inheritance.*
Perses, who was an idle fellow, after spending his own patri-
mony, tried to get that of Hesiod into his hands, and took his
cause before judges whom he bribed. Hesiod was forced to
relinquish his property, whereupon he retired from Ascra to
Orchomenos. At Orchomenos he probably passed the re-
* Works and Days, 219, 261, 637.
HESIOD.
III
mainder of his days. This incident explains why Hesiod:
dwelt so much upon the subject of justice in his poem of the
Works and Days, addressed to Perses. Méya víale IIépon.
he always calls this brother, as though, while heaping the coals:
of good counsel upon his head, he wished to humble his.
oppressor by the parade of moral and intellectual superiority.
Some of Hesiod's finest passages, his most intense and
passionate utterances, are wrung from him by the injustice he.
had suffered ; so true is the famous saying that poets
“Learn in suffering what they teach in song."
One parable will for the moment serve as a specimen of the
poetry which the wrong-dealing of Perses drew from him.
“ Thus spake the hawk to the nightingale of changeful throat,
as he bore her far aloft among the clouds, the prey of his:
talons : she, poor wretch, wailed piteously in the grip of his.
crooked claws; but he insultingly addressed her : Wretch,
why criest thou? Thou art now the prey of one that is the
stronger : and thou shalt go whither I choose to take thee,
song-bird as thou art. Yea, if I see fit, I will make my supper.
of thee, or else let thee go. A fool is he who kicks against
his betters : of victory is he robbed, and suffers injury as
well as insult.”” Hesiod himself is, of course, meant by the
nightingale, and the hawk stands for violence triumphing over
justice.
In verse and dialect the Hesiodic poems are not dissimilar
from the Homeric, which, supposing their date to have been
later, proves that the Iliad had determined the style and
standard of Epic composition, or, supposing a contemporary
origin, would show that the Greeks of the so-called heroic age
had agreed upon a common literary language. We may refer
the Theogony and the Works and Days, after the deduction.
of numerous interpolations, to Hesiod, but only in the same
sense and with the same reservation as we assign the Iliad and
112
TIIE GREEK POETS.
the Odyssey to Homer.* Unlike the heroic epos, they were
recited, not to the accompaniment of the cithara, but by the
poet standing with a laurel staf, called ράβδος Or σκήπτρον, in
his hand. Hesiod, at the opening of the Theogony, tells us how
he had received a staff of this kind from the Muse upon Mount
Helicon. Either, then, the laurel páßdos had already been
recognised in that part of Greece as the symbol of the poet's
office, or else, from the respect which the followers of Hesiod
paid to the details of his poem, they adopted it as their badge.
Of the two poems ascribed to Hesiod, the Theogony and the
Works and Days, the former-though its genuineness as a Hesio-
dic production seems to have been disputed from a very early
period—was, perhaps, on the whole, of greater value than the
latter to the Greeks. It contained an authorised version of the
genealogy of their gods and heroes, an inspired dictionary of
mythology, from which to deviate was hazardous. Just as families
in England try to prove their Norman descent by an appeal to
the Roll of Battle Abbey, so the canon of the Theogony decided
the claims of god or demigod to rank among celestials. In this
sense, Herodotus should be interpreted, when he says that Hesiod
joined with Homerin making their Theogonia for the Greeks. But
though this poem had thus an unique value for the ancients, it is
hardly so interesting in the light of modern criticism as the Works
and Days. The Works and Days, while for all practical pur-
poses we may regard it as contemporaneous with the Iliad, marks
the transition from the heroic epic to the moral poetry of the suc-
ceeding age, and forms the basis of direct ethical philosophy in
Hellas. Hesiod is thus not only the mouthpiece of obscure
handworkers in the earliest centuries of Greek history, the poet
of their daily labours, sufferings, and wrongs, the singer of
i * There are probably few scholars who would now venture to maintain
confidently that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by one and the
same poet. The name Homer must be used like the x of algebra for an
unknown power.
HESIOD.
113
their doubts and infantine reflections on the world in which
they had to toil; he is also the immediate parent of gnomic
verse, and the ancestor of those deep thinkers who speculated
in the Attic age upon the mysteries of human life.
The first ten verses of the Works and Days are spurious-bor-
rowed, probably, from some Orphic hymn to Zeus, and recognised
as not the work of Hesiod by critics as ancient as Pausanias. The
poem begins with these words: “Not, as I thought, is there only
one kind of strife ; but on the earth there are two, the one praise-
worthy, the other to be blamed.” It has been conjectured that
Hesiod is referring to that passage of the Theogony* in which
Eris, daughter of Night, is said to have had no sister. We are,
therefore, justified in assuming that much of his mythology is
consciously etymological ; and this should be borne in mind
while dealing with the legend of Prometheus. The strife where-
of he speaks in his exordium is what we should now call com-
petition. It rouses the idle man to labour; it stirs up envy in
the heart of the poor man, making him eager to possess the
advantages of wealth ; it sets neighbour against neighbour,
craftsman against craftsman, in commendable emulation. Very
different, says the poet, is this sort of strife from that which
sways the law-courts ; and at this point he begins to address his
brother Perses, who had litigiously deprived him of his heritage.
The form of didactic poetry, as it has since been practised by the
followers of Hesiod, was fixed by the appeal to Perses. Empe-
docles, it will be remembered, addressed his poem on Nature
to the physician Pausanias; Lucretius invoked the attention of
Memmius, and Virgil that of Mæcenas ; the gnomes of Theognis
were uttered to the Megarian Cyrnus ; Poliziano dedicated his
Silva to Lorenzo de' Medici, Vida his Poetics to the Dauphin,
Fracastorio his medical poem to Bembo, and Pope the Essay
01 Man to Bolingbroke. After this preface on competition
as the inducement to labour, and on strife as the basis of
* Line 225.
II.
I
114
THE GREEK POETS.
injustice, the poet proceeds to the mythus of Prometheus, which
is so artificially introduced as to justify the opinion that it may
be an interpolation by some later craftsman of the Hesiodic.
school. Work, he says, is necessary for men, because Zeus.
has concealed and hidden far away our means of livelihood ; so
that we are forced to toil and suffer in the search for susten-
ance. This grudge Zeus owed mankind because of the sin of
Prometheus. In the Works and Days the account given of
the trick played upon Zeus is brief : Hesiod only says, “ seeing
that Prometheus of crooked counsel deceived him.” We may,
however, supplement the story from the Theogony.* In old days.
the human race had fire, and offered burned sacrifice to heaven ;
but Prometheus by his craft deceived the gods of their just.
portion of the victims, making Zeus take the bones and fat:
for his share. Whereupon Zeus deprived men of the use of
fire. Prometheus then stole fire from heaven, and gave
D
Zeus full wroth of heart, and he devised a great woe for all
mankind.” He determined to punish the whole race by giving,
them Pandora. He bade Hephæstus mix earth and water, and
infuse into the plastic form a human voice and human powers,
and liken it in all points to a heavenly goddess. Athene was:
told to teach the woman, thus made, household work and skill in
weaving. Aphrodite poured upon her head the charm of beauty,
with terrible desire, and flesh-consuming thoughts of love. But
Zeus commanded Hermes to give to her the mind of a dog
and wily temper. After this fashion was the making of
Pandora. And when she had been shaped, Athene girded and
adorned her; the Graces and divine Persuasion hung golden
chains about her flesh, and the Hours crowned her with spring.
blossoms. Zeus called her Pandora, because each dweller on
Olympus had bestowed on her a gift. Then Pandora was.
sent under the charge of Hermes to Epimetheus, who remem-
* Line 535.
HESIOD.
115
bered not his brother's words, how he had said : “Receive no
gift from Zeus, but send it back again, lest evil should befall the
race of men.” But as soon as Epimetheus had housed her, he
recognised his error. Before this time men had lived upon the
earth apart from evils, apart from painful toil, and weariful
diseases which bring death on mortals. The woman with her
hands lifted the lid of the great jar where all these bad things.
were shut up, and let them loose into the air. Hope alone
remained behind for the lot of humanity is hopeless; but a
hundred thousand woes abode at large to plague the race of
men. Earth is full of them; the sea is full ; and sickness
roams abroad by night and day, where it listeth, bearing ills
to mortals in silence, for Zeus in his deep craft took away its
voice that men might have no warning. Thus not in any way
is it possible to avoid the will of God.
. Such is the mythus of the Fall, as imagined by the early
Greeks. Man in rebellion against heaven, pitted in his weak-
ness at a game of mutual deception against almighty force, is
beaten and is punished. Woman, the instrument of his chas-
tisement, is thrust upon him by offended and malignant deity ;
the folly of man receives her, and repents too late. Both his
wisdom and his foolishness conspire to man's undoing-wis-
dom which he cannot use aright, and foolishness which makes
him fall into the trap prepared for him. We are irresistibly
led to compare this legend with the Hebrew tradition of the
Fall. In both there is an act of transgression on the part of
man. Woman in both brings woe into the world. That is to
say, the conscience of the Greeks and Jews, intent on solving
the mystery of pain and death, convicted them alike of sin ;
while the social prejudices of both races made them throw the
blame upon the weaker but more fascinating sex, by whom they
felt their sterner nature softened and their passions quickened
to work foolishness. So far the two myths have strong points
of agreement. But in that of the Greeks there is no Mani-
D
I
2
016
THE GREEK POETS.
cheism. The sin of Prometheus is not, like the sin of Adam,
the error of weak human beings tempted by the power of
evil to transgress the law of good. It is rather a knavish trick
played off upon the sire of gods and men by a wily gamester ;
and herein it seems to symbolise that tendency to overreach,
which formed a marked characteristic of the Hellenes in all
ages. The Greek of Hesiod's time conceived of the relations
between man and god as involving mutual mistrust and guile ;
his ideal of intellectual superiority both in Prometheus and in
Zeus implied capacity for getting the upper hand by craft.
Again, the Greek god takes a diabolical revenge, punishing the
whole human race, with laughter on his lips and self-congratula-
tion for superior cunning in his heart. We lack the solemn
moment when God calls Adam at the close of day, and tells
him of the curse, but also promises a Saviour. The legend of
Prometheus has, for its part also, the prophecy of a redeemer ;
but the redeemer of men from the anger of God does not pro-
ceed from the mercy of the deity himself, who has been wronged,
but from the iron will of Fate, who stands above both god and
man, and from the invincible fortitude of the soul which first
had sinned, now stiffening itself against the might of Zeus,
refusing his promises, rejecting his offers of reconciliation,
biding in pain and patience till Herakles appears and cuts the
Gordian knot. This is the spectacle presented by Æschylus
in his Prometheus Bound. To deny its grandeur would be
ridiculous; to contend that it offers some features of sublimity
superior to anything contained in the Hebrew legend, would be
no difficult task. In the person of Prometheus, chained on
Caucasus, pierced by fiery arrows in the noonday and by frosty
arrows in the night, humanity wavers not, but endures with
scorn and patience and stoical acceptance. Unfortunately the
outlines of this great tragic allegory have been blurred by time
and travestied by feeble copyists. What we know about the
tale of Prometheus is but a faint echo of the mythus appre-
HESIOD.
117
hended by the Greeks anterior to Hesiod, and handled after-
wards by Æschylus. Enough, however, remains to make it
certain that it was the creation of a race profoundly convinced
of present injustice in the divine government of the world.
If the soul of man is raised by the attribution of stern heroism,
God is lowered to the infamy of a tyrant. But neither is the
Hebrew legend on its side theologically flawless. Greek and
Jew fail alike to offer a satisfactory solution of the origin of evil.
While in the Greek mythus Zeus plays with mankind like a cat
with a mouse, the Hebrew story does not explain the justice of
that omnipotent Being who created man with capacity for error,
and exposed him to temptation. The true critique of the second
and third chapters of Genesis has been admirably expressed
by Omar Khayyam in the following stanzas :-
"O Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my fall to sin ?
"O Thou, who man of baser earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the snake,
For all the sin wherewith the face of man
Is blackened, man's forgiveness give-and take !”
Both tales are but crude and early attempts to set forth the
primitive mystery of conscience, and to account for the
prevalence of pain and death. The ästhetic superiority of the
Hebrew conception lies in its idealisation of the deity at all
costs. God is at least grand and consistent, justified by his
own august counsels ; and at the very moment of punishing his
creatures, He promises deliverance through their own seed.
Moreover, a vast antagonistic agency of evil is brought into
the field to account for the fall of man; and we are not pre-
cluded from even extending our compassion to the deity, who
has been thwarted in his schemes for good.
Before quitting the discussion of this ancient tale of human
IIS
THE GREEK POETS.
suffering and sin, it would be well to notice that Hesiod iden-
tifies Prometheus with the human race. His hero is the son of
the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, daughter of the Titan Oceanus ;
and his brethren are Atlas, Menoitios, and Epimetheus. These
names are significant. Just as Prometheus signifies the fore-
casting reason of humanity, * so Epimetheus indicates the
overhasty judgment foredoomed to be wise too late. These
are intellectual qualities. Atlas, in like manner, typifies the
endurance of man, who bears all to the very end, and holds
upon his back the bulk of heaven. In Menoitios is shadowed
forth the insolence and rebellious spirit for which a penalty
of pain and death is meted. These, then, are moral qualities.
In the children of Iapetus and Clymene we consequently
trace the first rude attempt at psychological analysis. The
scientific import of the mythus was never wholly forgotten
by the Greeks. Pindar calls Prophasis, or excuse, the daughter
of Epimetheus, or back-thought as opposed to fore-thought.
Plato makes the folly of Epimetheus to have consisted in his
giving away the natural powers of self-preservation to the
beasts; whereupon Prometheus was driven to supplement with
fire the unprotected impotence of man. Lucian, again, says of
Epimetheus that repentance is his business ; while Synesius
adds that he provides not for the future, but deplores the past.
The Titans, it should further be remarked, are demiurgic
powers-elemental forces of air, fire, earth, water-conditions
of existence implied by space and time—distributors of dark-
ness and of light-parents, lastly, of the human race. Though
some later Greek authors identified Prometheus with the Titans,
and made him the benefactor of humanity, this was not the
conception of Hesiod. Prometheus is stated, both in the
. Theogony and the Works and Days, to have been the son of
Titans, the protagonist of men, who strove in vain to cope with
* That Prometheus was Pramanthas, the fire-lighting stick, has been
ascertained by modem philology, but was not known by Hesiod.
HESIOD.
119
Zeus. Zeus himself belongs in like manner to a secondary
order of existences. Begotten by the Titan Cronos, he seems
to typify the reason as distinguished from the brute powers
of the universe, mind emergent from matter, and overcoming
it by contest. Prometheus is connected, by his parentage, witli
the old material order of the world ; but he represents that por-
tion of it which is human, and which, quà human, has affinity
to Zeus. Herein we trace the mystery of the divine in man,
though man has been placed in antagonism to the deity. The
same notion is further symbolized by the theft of fire, and by
the fiction of Prometheus breathing a particle of the divine
spirit into the clay figures whereof he made men. In the
decaying age of Greek mythology this aspect of the legend
absorbed attention to the exclusion of the elder Hesiodic
romance, as students of Horace will remember, and as appears
abundantly from Græco-Roman bas-reliefs. To reconcile man
and Zeus, cognate in their origin, yet hostile owing to their
ancient feud, it was needful that a deliverer, Herakles, should
be born of god and woman, of Zeus and Alcmene, who sets
free the elementary principle of humanity typified in Prometheus,
and for the first time establishes a harmony between the
children of earth and the dwellers on Olympus. So far I have
remained within the limits of the Hesiodic legend, only hint-
ing at such divergences as were adopted by the later handlers
of the tale. The new aspect given to the whole myth by
Æschylus deserves separate consideration in connection with
the tragedy of Prometheus. It is to be regretted that we
only possess so important a relique of Greek religious specu-
lation in fragments; and these fragments are so tantalisingly
incomplete that it is impossible to say exactly how much may
be the débris of original tradition, or where the free fancy
of later poets has been remoulding and recasting the material
of the antique myth to suit more modern allegory.
The tale of Prometheus may be called the first canto of the
120
THE GREEK POETS.
TV
IVorks and Days. The second consists of the vision of the
four ages of man. Hesiod, in common with all early poets,
imagined a state of primæval bliss, which he called the Age of
Gold. Then Cronos reigned upon the earth, and men lived
without care or pain or old age. Their death was like the
coming on of sleep, and the soil bore them fruits untilled.
When this race came to an end, Zeus made them genii of
good-will, haunting the world and protecting mortals. Theirs.
it is to watch the decrees of justice, and to mark wrong-doing,
wrapped around with mist, going up and down upon the earth,,
the givers of wealth; such is the royal honour which is theirs.
The next age he calls the silver, for it was inferior to the first ;
and Zeus speedily swept it away, seeing that the men of this
generation waxed insolent, and paid no honour to the gods.
The third age is the brazen. A terrible and mighty brood of
men possessed the land, who delighted in nought but violence
and warfare. They first ate flesh. Their houses and their
armour and their mattocks were of brass. In strife they
slew themselves, and perished without a name. After them
came the heroes of romance, whom Zeus made most just and.
worthy. They fell fighting before seven-gated Thebes and
Troy; but after death Father Zeus transferred them to the
utmost limits of the world, where they live without care in
islands of the blest, by ocean waves, blest heroes, for whom
thrice yearly the soil bears blooming fruitage honey-sweet.
Then cries Hesiod, and the cry is wrenched from him with
agony, Would that I had never been born in the fifth generation
of men, but rather that I had died before or had lived after-
wards ; for now the age is of iron ! On the face of the world
there is nought but violence and wrong ; division is set between
father and son, brother and brother, friend and friend ; there
is no fear of God, no sense of justice, no fidelity, no truth; the
better man is subject to the worse, and jealousy corrupts the.
world. Soon, very soon, will wing their way to heaven again-
HESIOD.
I2L
1
leaving the earth with her broad ways, robed in white raiment,
joining the immortal choir, deserting men—both modest shame.
and righteous indignation. But dismal woes will stay and
harbour here, and against evil there shall be no aid. This ends.
the second canto of the Works and Days, and brings us down.
to the two hundredth line of the poem. The remainder consists:
for the most part of precepts adapted to the doleful state in
which mortals of the present have to suffer.
What may be called the third canto is occupied with
justice, the advantages of which, from a purely utilitarian point
of view, as well as asthetically conceived, are urged in verse.
It begins with the apologue of the hawk and nightingale already
quoted. Then the condition of a city where justice is honoured,
where the people multiply in peace, and there is fullness and
prosperity, where pestilence and calamity keep far away, is:
contrasted with the plagues, wars, famines, wasting away of
population, and perpetual discomforts that beset the unjust
nation. For the innocent and righteous folk, says the poet,
the earth bears plenty, and in the mountains the oak-tree at the
top yields acorns, and in the middle bees, and the woolly sheep.
are weighed down with their fleeces. The women give birth to
children like their fathers. With blessings do men always.
flourish, nor need they tempt the sea in ships, but earth abun-
dantly supplies their wants.
It is worth while to pause for a moment and contemplate
the pastoral ideal of perfect happiness and pure simplicity
which, first set forth by Hesiod in these passages, found
afterwards an echo in Plato, in Empedocles, in Lucretius, in
Virgil, in Poliziano, and in Tasso; all of whom have lingered
lovingly upon the bell'età dell'oro. The Hesiodic conception
of felicity is neither stirring nor heroic. Like the early Christian
notion of heaven, expressed by the pathetic iteration of in pace
on the sepulchral tablets of the catacombs, it owes its beauty
to a sense of contrast between tranquillity imagined and woe
-I 22
THE GREEK POETS.
and warfare actually experienced. We comprehend why the
Spartan king called Hesiod the poet of the Helots, when, in the
age that idealised Achilles and Odysseus, the all-daring, all-
affronting heroes of a radiant romance, we find that his sole
aspiration was to live in peace, decorously fulfilling social
duties, and growing old in the routine of moderate labour.
It is a commonplace, and what the French would call a bourgeois,
aspiration. Just this lot in life Achilles rejected with disdain,
in exchange for the dazzling prospect of victory and death,
that fascinated the noblest of the Greeks, and produced their
Alexander. Still we must remember that Hesiod was not, like
Homer, singing in the halls of fiery and high-fed chieftains,
:who stood above the laws. His plaintive note was uttered
to the watchers of the seasons and the tillers of the soil, whose
very livelihood depended on the will and pleasure of owpopáyou
Baotlɛīs. In the semi-barbarous state of society which Homer
and Hesiod represent from different points of view, when
violence prevails, and when life and property alike are insecure,
justice may well be selected as the prime of virtues, and peace
be idealised as heaven on earth. In one sense, as the Greek
philosophers argued, justice does include all the excellences
of a social being. The man who is perfectly just will be
unimpeachable in all his conduct; and the simpler the state
of society, the more outrageous the wrongs inflicted by one
màn on another, the more apparent will this be.
Putting aside, however, for further consideration, the ethical
-aspect of Hesiod's ideal, we find in it an exquisite and perma-
nently attractive æsthetic beauty. Compared with the fierce
heroism of Achilles, the calm happiness of Hesiod's pastoral folk
soothes our fancy, like the rising of the moon in twilight above
harvest sheaves at the end of a long intolerable day. Therefore
great poets and artists, through all the resonant and gorgeous
ages of the world, have turned their eyes with sympathy and
yearning to these lines ; and the best that either Virgil or
HESIOD.
123
Poliziano could achieve, was to catch an echo of Hesiod's
· melody, to reproduce a portion of his charm. Perhaps the
most complete homage to the poetry of Hesiod on this point
has been rendered by Flaxman. Nature, so prodigal to the
English race in men of genius untutored, singular, and solitary,
tion, can be compared with Flaxman. For pure conceptive
faculty, controlled by unerring sense of beauty, we have to think
of Pheidias or Raphael before we find his equal. His powers
were often employed on uncongenial subjects ; nor had he, per-
haps, a true notion of the limitations of his art; else he would
not have attempted to give sculpturesque form even in outline
to many scenes from the Divine Comedy. The conditions,
again, of modern life were adverse to his working out his thought
in marble, and precluded him from gaining a complete mastery
over the material of sculpture. It may also be conceded that,
to a large extent, his imagination, like a parasite flower, was
obliged to bloom upon the branches of Greek art. What Flax-
man would have been without the bas-reliefs, the vases, and the
· hand-mirrors of the ancients, it is difficult to conceive. Herein,
however, he did no more than obey the law which has con-
strained the greatest modern minds by indissoluble bondage to
the service of the Greek spirit. Allowing for all this, the fact
remains that within a certain circle, the radius of which exceeds
the farthest reach of many far more frequently belauded artists,
Flaxman was supreme. Whatever could be expressed accord-
ing to the laws of bas-relief, embossed in metal, or hewn out of
stone, or indicated in pure outline, he conveyed with a truth to
nature, a grace of feeling, and an originality of conception, ab-
solutely incomparable. . Moreover, in this kind his genius was
charming as in the illustrations of the Works and Days. The
ninth plate, in which the Age of Gold is symbolised by a mother
stretching out her infant to receive his father's kiss, might be
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THE GREEK POETS.
D
selected as a perfect idyll, conveyed within the strictest and
severest bounds of sculptural relief. The man and his girl-wife
are beautiful and young: age, we feel, will never touch them,
by whitening her forehead or spoiling his smooth chin with hair.
Both are naked, seated on the ground; their outstretched arms
enfold as in a living cradle the robust and laughing boy. On
one side shoots a heavy shcaf of barley; on the other stands an
altar, smoking with bloodless offerings to heaven ; above, the
strong vine hangs its clusters and its wealth of lusty leaves.
More elaborate, but scarcely more beautiful—like a double rose
beside a wilding blossom from the hedge of June—is the seven-
teenth plate, which sets forth the felicity of godfearing folk who
honour justice. These, too, are seated on the ground, young
men and girls, with comely children, pledges of their joy : one
child is suckled at her mother's breast; another lies folded in his
father's arms; a girl and boy are kissing on their parents' knees;
while a beardless youth pipes ditties on the double reed. Above
the group vine-branches flourish, and the veiled Hours, givers of
all goodly things, weave choric dance with song, scattering from
their immortal fingers flowers upon the men beneath. In order
to comprehend the purity of Flaxman's inspiration, the deep and
inborn sympathy that made him in this nineteenth century a
Greek, we ought to compare these illustrations with the picture of
the Golden Age by Ingres. For perfection of scientific drawing
from the nude, this masterpiece of the great French painter has
never been excelled. It is a treasure-house of varied attitude and
rhythmically-studied line. Yet the whole resembles a theatrical.
tableau vivant, which an enlightened choreograph, in combi-
nation with an enterprising manager, might design to represent:
the Garden of Eden on a grand scale. The power displayed
by Flaxman is of a very different order. There is no effort, no
mise en scène, no parade of science, no suggestion of voluptuous-
ness. His outlines are as simple and as pure as Hesiod's verse.
We feel that, whereas Ingres is using the old vision as a schema.
Y
HESIOD.
125
for the exhibition of his skill, Flaxman has felt its poetry and
given form to its imagination. This is not the occasion to
linger over these illustrations ; yet, before closing the volume
that contains them, I cannot forbear from turning a page,
and pointing to the pictures of the Pleiads. Seven beautiful
interwoven female shapes are rising in the one plate, like a
wreath of light or vapour moulded into human form, above the
reapers ; in the other are descending, with equal grace of now
inverted movement, over the ploughman at his toil. By no
other artist's hand have the constellations elsewhere been con-
verted, with so much feeling for their form, into the melodies of
rhythmically moving luman shapes. Flaxman's outlines of
the Pleiads might be described as a new celestial imagery, a
hitherto unapprehended astronomical mythology.
Continuing what I have called the third canto of the Works
and Days, Hesiod addresses himself in the next place to the
Basileis, or judges of the people : “Kings in judgment, do ye
also ponder this divine justice; for the immortals, dwelling near
and among men, behold who waste their fellows by wrong judg-
ment, scorning the wrath of God. Verily, upon earth are thrice
ten thousand immortals of the host of Zeus, guardians of mortal
man. They watch both justice and injustice, robed in mist,
roaming abroad upon the earth.” Again he reminds them that
Justice, virgin child of Zeus, is ever ready with ear open to
observe the injury to right and fair dealing done against her
honour. She complains of the wrongful judge ; but it is the
people who suffer for his sin. Therefore let the princes so
greedy of bribes take heed, forego their crooked sentences, and
bear in mind that the man who works evil for another, works it
for himself, that bad intentions harm those who have conceived
them, and that Zeus sees all and knows all. This period is
concluded with a bitterly ironical repudiation of the poet's own
precepts-May neither I nor my son be just; for now the wrong-
ful man has by far the best of it upon the earth! It will be
126
THE GREEK POETS.
observed that Zeus throughout this tirade on justice is a dif-
ferent being from the Zeus in the mythus of Prometheus. The
dramatic personage of the legend, whose guile inflicts so much
misery on men, has been supplanted by a moral idea personified.
It is not that a new mythology has been superinduced upon the
old one, or that we are now in the track of esoteric religious.
teaching: the poet is only expressing his internal certainty that,
though fraud and violence prevail on earth, yet somewhere in.
the eternal and ideal world justice still abides. It is not a little
singular, considering his querulous and hopeless tone in other
passages, that Hesiod should here assert the cognisance which
Zeus takes of unfair dealing, and the continued action of pro-
tective and retributive dæmons. We could scarcely find stronger
faith in the superiority of justice among the moral writings of
the Jews. Furthermore, Hesiod reminds Perses that justice is
human, violence bestial, and that in the long run honesty will
be found to be the best policy. Then follows the sublimest
passage of the whole poem-one of great celebrity among the
Greeks, who quoted it, and worked it up in poems, parables, and.
essays: “Behold, thou mayest choose badness easily, even in
heaps ; for the path is plain, and she dwells very near. But
before excellence the immortal gods have placed toil and labour :
afar and steep is the road that leads to her, and rough it is at.
first; but when you reach the height, then truly is it easy, though
so hard before.” *
The subject of Justice being now exhausted, Hesiod passes,
in the fourth canto of the Works and Days, to the eulogy of
labour, regarded as the source of all good. The unheroic
nature of his life-philosophy is very apparent in this section.
He thinks and speaks like a peasant, whose one idea it is to
add pence to pence, and to cut a good figure in his parish.
A man must work, in order to avoid hunger and grow rich :
gods and men hate the idle, who are like.drones in the hive :
* Works and Days, line 286.
HESIOD.
127
if you work, you will get flocks and herds, and folk will envy
you: to grow rich from dishonest gains brings no profit, for
they are unlucky: the great aim for a good man is to live a.
respectable life, to work soberly, to fulfil righteousness, to be
punctual in paying homage to the gods-to go to church, in
fact—with this end in view, that he may buy the estates of
his neighbour, instead of having to sell his own. Such is the
bathos of Hesiod's ethical ideal: Do right and abstain from
wrong, in order that you may be richer than the tenant of the
adjacent farm. Many other precepts of like tenor might be
quoted: Call your friend to your banquet, and leave your
enemy alone ; invite him most who lives nearest, for he will
be most useful in time of need ; love him who loves you,
and cleave to him who cleaves to you; give to him who gives,
and give not to him who gives not, for to a giver gifts are
given, but to him who gives not no man hath given. Of such
sort are the Hesiodic rules of conduct. They reveal the spirit
of a prudent clown, the practical and calculating selfishness,
which the doleful conditions of the early age of Hellenic civi-
lisation intensified. The social life of great political centres,
and the patriotism of the Persian war, helped at a later period to
raise the Greeks above these low and sordid aims in life. It:
was only in a century when justice could be bought, and
penury meant starving, unheeded or derided, by the roadside,
that a poet of Hesiod's temper could write, * Money is a man's
soul :
χρήματα γάρ ψυχή πέλεται δείλoισι βρότοισι.
In criticising the Solonian reforms at Athens, we should never
forget the dismal picture of Hellenic misery revealed to us by:
Hesiod.
Thus ends the first part of the Works and Days. The:
A
* Works and Days, 686. It must here again be repeated that, though:
it is convenient to talk of Hesiod as a poet and a person, the miscellaneous.
ethical precepts of the Works and Days are derived from a variety of sources.
I28
THE GREEK POETS.
“second half of the poem consists of rules for husbandry.
Hesiod goes through the seasons of the year, detailing the
operations of the several months, and adorning his homely
subject with sober but graceful poetry. It is an elegant
farmer's calendar, upon which Virgil founded his Georgics,
translating into Augustan Latin the rude phrases of the bard
of Ascra, and turning all he touched to gold. Scattered among
precepts relating to the proper seasons and successions of
agricultural labour, are descriptive passages and moral reflec-
tions. One picture of winter is so long and elaborate as to
justify the notion that it is a separate interpolated poem. The
episode upon procrastination (line 408), and the rules for the
choice of a wife (line 693), might be selected as offering special
topics for comment. The latter passage deserves particular
attention ; since, if the condition of the working man was
wretched in this early age of Greece, far more miserable, may
we argue, was that of his helpmate. A man, according to
Hesiod, ought to be about thirty when he marries, and his
wife about nineteen. He should be very careful, in choosing
her, to insure that she will not bring him into contempt among
his neighbours ; and he must remember that if a good wife be
a prize, it is not possible to get a worse plague than a bad one.
What his general notion about women was, we gather from
the long invective against the female sex in the Theogony. *
Pandora was the greatest curse imaginable to the human race,
for from her sprang women; and now, if a man refrains from
marriage, he must endure a wretched old age, and leave his
money to indifferent kindred ; or if he marries and gets a good
wife, curses and blessings are mingled in his lot ; if his wife be
of the bad sort, his whole life is ruined. So utterly im-
possible is it to avoid the misery devised for the human race
by Zeus.
The whole argument of Hesiod in this passage, taken in
* Theogony, 587-612.
HESIOD.
Í 29
.connection with his few lines on the choice of a wife in the
Works and Days, and with his grim silence upon the subject
of women as the companions of men, proves that he regarded
them as a necessary deduction from the happiness of life-
the rift within the lute that spoils its music—the plague
invented by the malice of an all-wise god in vengeance for
a man's deceit. This appreciation of women is substantially
consistent with the curious poem by Simonides of Amorgos ;
with the treatment of the female sex at Athens; with the opinion
of Pindar and Plato that to be a woman-lover as compared with
a boy-lover was sensual and vile ; with the disdainful silence
of Thucydides ; with the caricatures of society presented by
the comic poets; with the famous epigram of Pericles ; with
the portrait of Xanthippe ; and with the remarkable description
of female habits. in Lucian's Amores. Thus, running through
the whole literature of the Greeks, we can trace a vein of
contempt for women, which may fairly be indicated as the
greatest social blot upon their brilliant but imperfect civili-
sation. Exceptions can, of course, be found. In the age of
the despots women rose into far more importance than they
afterwards enjoyed in democratic Athens. At Sparta their
right to engross property (severely criticised by Aristotle) gave
them a social status which they had in no other Greek State.
At Lesbos, during the brief blooming period of Æolian culture,
in freedom of action and in mental training they were at least
the equals of the male sex. The fact, however, remains that in:
Athens, the real centre of Hellenic life, women occupied a
distinctly inferior rank. It is significant that in the Lives of
Plutarch, whereas we read of many noble Lacedæmonian
ladies, comparatively little account is taken of the wives or
mothers of Athenian worthies. ·
Some scattered proverbs about the conduct of the tongue
and the choice of friends, followed by an enumeration of lucky
and unlucky days, and by a list of truly rustic rules of personal
II.
к
130
THE GREEK POETS.
behaviour, conclude the poem of the Works and Days. How
far these' saws and maxims belong to the original work of
Hesiod it is quite impossible to say. The book became.
popular in education, and consequently suffered, like the gnomes
of Theognis and Phocylides, from frequent interpolations at a.
later period. As it stands, the whole is chiefly valuable for the
concrete picture which it offers of early peasant liſe in Hellas.
As the Epics of Homer present us with the ideal toward which
the princes and great nobles raised their souls amid the plenty
and the splendour of their palaces, so, in the lines of Hesiod,
we learn how the Thetes, whom Achilles envied in Elysium,
toiled and suffered in their struggle for their only source of
comfort, gold.
D
131
CHAPTER V.
PARMENIDES,
Greek Philosophical Poetry. --The Emergence of Philosophy from Mytho-
logy.—The Ionian Sages.—The Pythagoreans. —Anaxagoras.—Demo-
critus.--The Eleatics.--Heraclitus. -Xenophanes of Colophon.
His Critique of the Myths. ---Assertion of Monotheism. -- Fragments,
of his Poem on Nature.- Parmenides of Elea.- His Political Im-
portance. -Parmenides in the Dialogues of Plato.--His Metaphysic
of Being. - His Natural Philosophy.--The Logic deduced from him
by Zeno and Melissus. --Translation of the Fragments of his Poem.-
The Dualism of Truth and Opinion, --Impossibility of obtaining
Absolute Knowledge.
It might well be questioned whether the founders of the Eleatic
School deserve to rank among Greek poets ; for though they
wrote hexameters, composing what the Greeks call čan, yet it
is clear that they did this with no artistic impulse, but only
because in the dawn of thought it was easier to use verse than
prose for fixed and meditated exposition. The moment in the
development of human thought when abstractions were being
wrung for the first time with toil from language, and when as
yet the vehicle of rhythmic utterance seemed indispensable, is
so interesting that a point in favour of Xenophanes and Par-
menides may be fairly stretched, and a place may be given them
between Hesiod, the creator of didactic poetry, and Empedocles,
the inspired predecessor of Lucretius.
The problem which lay before the earliest philosophers of
Greece, was how to emerge from mythological conceptions con-
cerning the origin and nature of the world into a region of more
K2
132
THE GREEK POETS.
exact and abstract thought. They had their list of demiurgic
agencies, Titans and deities, some of them dramatically per-
sonified in the poems of Homer and the legends of Olympus,
others but vaguely indicated by the names of Earth and Ocean,
Heaven and Time. The polytheistic and mythologising instincts
of the race at large tended to individualise these primal powers
with more and more distinctness, collecting legends around the
more popular among them, and attributing moral sympathies
and passions to those who were supposed to have relations with
humanity. But there remained a background of dimly-descried
and cloudy forces upon which the mythopæic imagination had
taken little hold ; and these supplied a starting-point for scientific
speculation. It was in this field that the logical faculty of the
Greek mind, no less powerful and active than its poetic fancy,
came first into play. Thus we find Thales brooding in thought
upon the mythus of Oceanus, and arriving at the conception of
water as the elementary principle of the universe ; while Gaia,
or earth, in like manner is said to have stimulated Pherecydes.
Anaximenes is reported to have chosen air as the groundwork
of his cosmogony, and Heraclitus developed the material world
from fire.
It must not be supposed that any of these early speculators
invented a complete hypothesis for deducing phenomena from
earth, air, fire, or water as apprehended by the senses. Their
elements or apxuí are rather to be regarded in the light of
symbols—metaphors adopted from experience for shadowing
forth an extremely subtle and pervasive substance, a material
of supersensible fluidity and elasticity, capable of infinite modi-
fication by rarefaction and condensation. At the same time
they were seeking after intellectual abstractions, but the
problems of philosophy as yet presented themselves in crude
and concrete form to their intellects.
A further step in the direction of the abstract was taken by
Anaximander, the Milesian astronomer, who is reported to have
PARMENIDES.
133
made a sun-dial, to have calculated the recurrence of the equi-
noxes and the solstices, and to have projected geographical
charts for the first time in Greece. This practical mathematician
derived the universe from the unlimited, rò ütelpov, hurling
thought thus at a venture, as it were, into the realm of meta-
physical conceptions. It would appear from the dim and hazy
tradition which we have received about Anaximander, that he
instituted a palemic against the so-called physicists, arguing that
to the elements of fire or water there can be attributed a begin-
ning and an ending, but that the abstract indefinite, as uncreate
and indestructible, takes precedence of all else. His thought,
however, though fruitful of future consequences, was in itself
barren; nor have we any reason to conclude that by the änelpov
he meant more than a primordial substance, or Grund, without
quality and without limitation-avoid and hollow form contain-
ing in itself potentialities of all things. It is characteristic of this
early age of Greek speculation that Simplicius found it neces-
sary to criticise even Anaximander for using poetic phraseology,
TOINTIKWTÉpous ovópaol. In his polemic, however, he started one
of the great puzzles, the contrast between birth and death, and
the difficulty of discovering an element subject to neither, which
agitated the schools of Greece throughout their long activity.
While the thinkers of Ionia were endeavouring to discover.
terms of infinite subtlety, through which to symbolise the uniform
and unchangeable substance underlying the multiplicity of phe-
nomena, the Pythagoreans in Italy turned their attention to the
abstract relations of which numbers are the simplest expression.
Numbers, they saw, are both thoughts and also at the same time
universally applicable to things of sense. There is nothing
tangible which can escape the formula of arithmetic. Mistaking
a power of the mind for a power inherent in the universe, they
imagined that the figures of the multiplication table were the
essential realities of things, the authentic inner essence of the
sensible world; and to number they attributed a mystic potency.
THE GREEK POETS.
Speculation was still so immature that they failed to observe the
sterility of the conception. This much, however, they effected :-
and by apprehending the whole universe as number, they took
the first important step in the direction of pure metaphysic.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ, following another path, pro-
nounced that the really efficient agency in the universe is Mind.
For this utterance he has been justly eulogised by the meta-
physicians of all succeeding centuries. It was, in fact, the
starting-point of what in German phraseology is called Begriffs-
philosophie. Anaxagoras insisted on a point which had been
neglected by his contemporaries—the form-giving activity of
mind, as known to us immediately in the human reason—and
asserted the impossibility of leaving this out of the account of
the universe. But, as Socrates complained, he stopped here,
and diverged into material explanations, talking about attraction
and repulsion and homogeneous particles, without attempting
to connect them with the action of his Noūç.
Democritus of Abdera, a little later in time than the thinkers
who have hitherto been mentioned, was so attracted by the in-
definite divisibility of matter that he explained the universe by
the theory of a Void in which an infinity of Atoms moved and
met in varied combination. It is well known that this hypo-
thesis, the parent of the Epicurean and the Lucretian systems,
has been the mainstay of materialism in all ages, and that it
has lately been received into favour by some of the most
advanced physicists. Yet it must not be imagined that the
Atomism of Democritus was in any true sense scientific accord-
ing to our acceptation of the term. Like the Infinite of Anaxi-
mander, the Mind of Anaxagoras, the Numbers of Pythagoras,
the Fire of Heraclitus, his Plenum and Vacụum was a conjec-
tural hypothesis founded upon no experiment or observation
properly so called. All these early systems were freaks of
fancy, shrewd guesses, poetic thoughts, in which abstractions
PARMENIDES.
1
135
1
from language, elementary refinements upon mythology, to-
gether with crude speculations about natural objects, were made
the groundwork of dogmatism. At the same time thought at
this period was both active and creative; nearly all the perma-
nent problems which occur to human ignorance—the antitheses
of a beginning and an ending, of being and not being, of rest
and motion, of the continuous and the discrete, of the one and
the many—the criterion of knowledge and opinion, the an-
tagonism of the senses and the reason, the relation of the vital
principle to inanimate existence—were posed in the course of
animated controversy. Logic had not been formulated as a
method. Philosophical terminology had not as yet been settled.
But the logical faculty was working in full vigour, and language
was being made to yield abstractions hitherto unapprehended.
This brief survey of the origin of Greek philosophy will
enable us to understand the position of the Eleatics. Regarded
collectively, and as a school developing a body of doctrine, they
advanced in abstraction beyond any of their predecessors or
contemporaries. Whereas other philosophers had sought for
the abstract in phenomenal elements, the Eleatics went straight
through language to the notion of pure being : even the numbers
of Pythagoras were not sufficient for the exigencies of their logic.
The unity of being, as the one reality, and the absolute impos-
sibility of not-being, revealed by the consciousness and demon-
-strated by language in the copula čori, forms the groundwork of
their dogmatism. How important was the principle thus intro-
duced into the fabric of European thought, is evident to every
student of the history of philosophy. It is enough in this place
to point out to what extent it has influenced our language
through such words as entity, existence, essence. The Eleatics
may claim as their own coinage the title of all metaphysics-
Ontology, or the Science of Being.
In order to make the attitude of these earliest Greek thinkers
:still more clear, we must return for a moment to Heraclitus,
136 :
THE GREEK POETS.
who instituted a polemic against the Eleatic doctrine of Being:
He asserted that Being is no more than not-Being. Regarded
in itself as an abstraction, Being turns out to be identical
with nothing. The relation of Being to not-Being in Becoming:
formed the central point of his metaphysic, and was enunciated
in the axiom, All is flowing, návra pɛī. Though the Hera-
clitean polemic was directed against the school at large, it would.
be in the last clegree inaccurate to treat the Eleatic doctrine,
as maintained by Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus,
from the point of view of one consistent system. By so doing
not only would the truth of history be violated, but one of
the most valuable examples of the growth of thought in Greece:
would be lost.
Xenophanes, who is regarded as the founder of the school,
was a native of Colophon. He left his fatherland, and spent
the greater portion of his life in Sicily and Magna Græcia..
We hear of him first at Messana, then at Catana ; and there is
good reason to believe that he visited the Phocæan colony of
Elea (afterwards Velia) on the western coast of Calabria, a
little to the south of Pæstum. At all events, antiquity spoke
of him as the father of philosophy at Elea, and Diogenes
Laertius mentions a poem of two thousand hexameters which,
he composed in joint praise of this city and Colophon. Xeno-
phanes lived to a great age. In a couplet preserved from one
of his elegies he speaks of having wandered, absorbed in thought.
and contemplation, for sixty-seven years through Hellas, and.
fixes twenty-five years as the age at which he began his travels..
He, was celebrated, like his fellow-countryman, Mimnermus,
for his elegiac poetry, some fragments of which are among the
most valuable relics we possess of that species of composition..
About 538 B.C. is the date usually assigned to him.
The starting-point of philosophy for Xenophanes was found
in theology. “Looking up to universal heaven,” says Aristotle,
“he proclaimed that unity is God.” The largest fragment of
PARMENIDES.
137
his metaphysical poem consists of a polemic against Polytheism,
both as regards the anthropomorphic conception of deity pre-
valent in Greece, and also as regards the immorality attributed
by Homer and Hesiod to the gods. His own God is a high
abstraction of mind, one and indivisible, without motion, with-
out beginning or ending, in no way like to man. To the
divine unity he attributed thought and volition ; but he does.
not appear to have attempted to connect God with the uni-
verse. Like the other speculators of his age and nation, he
theoretically deduced the world from simple elements, choosing-
earth and water, as we gather from some fragments of his poem,
for the primordial constituents. At the same time he held a
doctrine which afterwards became the central point of Eleatic
science. This was a disbelief in the evidence of the senses, a.
despair of empirical knowledge, which contrasts singularly
with his own vehement dogmatism upon the nature of the:
Divine Being. Thus the originality of Xenophanes consisted
regarded as an unity, and that this unity is the Divine Exis-
tence, all human mythology being but dreams and delusions.
Of his philosophical poem only inconsiderable portions have
been preserved. These, however, are sufficient to make clear
the line he took, both in his assertion of monotheism and his
polemic against the anthropomorphic theology of the Greeks..
Such as they are, I have translated them as follows :*
"One god there is, among gods and men the greatest, neither in body.
like to mortals, nor in mind.
“ With the whole of him he sees, with the whole of him he thinks,
with the whole of him he hears.
* In my translations of the fragments of Xenophanes and Parmenides.
I have jollowed the text of their most recent editor, W. A. Mullach, not
without reference, however, to that of Karsten, some of whose emendations
seem almost necessary to the sense. The meaning of many Parmenidean
sentences may, however, be fairly said to be now irrecoverable, owing to.
the uncertainty of readings and the lack of context.
:138
THE GREEK POETS.
- Without exertion, by energy of mind he sways the universe of things,
"That he abides for ever in the same state, without movement, or
change from place to place, is evident.
" But mortals fancy that gods come into being like themselves, and
have their senses, voice, and body. But, of a truth, if oxen or lions had
hands, and could draw with their hands, and make what men make, then
horses like unto horses, and oxen like unto oxen, would both paint the
images of gods, and shape their bodies also after the similitude of their
own limbs.
“Homer and Hesiod attributed to gods everything that is disgraceful
and blameworthy among men, and very many lawless deeds of gods they
recorded--theft, adultery, and mutual deceit.'
Another set of scattered fragments, small in number and
meagre in their information, from the poem by Xenophanes on
púols, show that he held the views afterwards developed by
Parmenides concerning the uncertainty of human opinion, and
that the elemental substances which he favoured in his cos-
mogonical theory were earth and water. These also I have
translated :-
“For all of us from earth and water sprang.
“ Larth and water are all things that come into being and have birth.
"The spring of water is the sea.
" This upper surface of the earth beneath our feet is open to the sight,
and borders on the air; but the lower parts reach down into infinity.
“What we call Iris, that also is a cloud, purple-dark, scarlet-bright,
yellow-pale to look upon.
“The very truth itself no man who hath been or will be can know
concerning gods and all whereof I speak ; for though he publish the most
-absolute, yet even so he does not know : opinion is supreme o'er all things.
“These things are matters of opinion, shadows of the truth. .
“Not from the beginning did gods reveal all things to mortals ; but in
course of time by seeking they make progress in discovery."
-
1
The essential weakness of the Eleatic way of thinking was not
glaringly apparent, though implicit, in the utterance of Xeno-
phanes. This consisted in the unreconciled antithesis between
the world of unity, of true being, of rational thought, and the
world of multiplicity, of phenomenal appearance, of opinion.
By pushing the tenets of his master to their logical conclusions,
• PARMENIDES.
139
and by exchanging theological for metaphysical phraseology,
Parmenides, the greatest teacher of the school, exposed the
fatal insufficiency of Eleatic dualism. At the same time he
achieved an ever-memorable triumph in philosophy by forcing
the problem of essential reality upon the earliest Greek
speculators, and by defining the battle-ground of future
ontological controversy.
Parmenides, a native of Elea, who flourished about the
year 503, enjoyed a reputation in his native city scarcely in-
ferior to that of Pythagoras at Crotona, of Empedocles at
Acragas, or of Solon at Athens. Speusippus, quoted by Diogenes
Laertius, asserts that the magistrates of Elea were yearly sworn
to observe the laws enacted by Parmenides. Cebes talks about
à “ Pythagorean or Parmenidean mode of life," as if the austere
ascesis of the Samian philosopher had been adopted or imitated
by the Eleatic. Indeed, there is good reason to suppose that
Parmenides held intercourse with members of the Pythagorean
sect, his neighbours in the south of Italy. Diogenes Laertius
relates that he was united in the bonds of closest friendship to
Ameinias and Diochætes, two Pythagoreans. Of these the
latter was a poor man, but excellent in breeding and in cha-
racter; Parmenides so loved him and respected him that, when
lie died, he dedicated a hero's chapel to his memory. The
philosophers of this period in Greece, as might be proved
abundantly, were no mere students, but men of action and
political importance. Their reputation for superior wisdom
caused them to be consulted in affairs of state, and to be
deferred to in matters of constitutional legislation. Some of
them, like Thales, Anaximander, and Empedocles, were em-
ployed on works of public utility. Others, like Pythagoras,
remodelled the society of cities, or, like Anaxagoras, through
their influence with public men like Pericles, raised the tone of
politics around them. All of them devoted a large portion of
their time and attention to the study of public questions. It
CL
140.
THE GREEK POETS.
was this kind of prestige, we may conjecture, which, in the
next phase of Greek thought, threw so much power into the
hands of sophists, and which finally encouraged Plato in his
theory that those states would be best governed where the
sages were the rulers.
Of Parmenides himself some precious notices have been
preserved by Plato. It appears that the great Eleatic teacher
visited Athens in his old age. Socrates was a young man at
the period of this visit ; and Plato, whether inventing an oc-
casion for their meeting or relying on actual tradition, brings
them into conversation. In the prelude to the dialogue Par-
menides we read :*_
“He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of
Parmenides and Zeno ; they came to Athens, he said, at the great Pan-
athenaa ; the former was, at the time of his visit, about sixty-five years old,
very white with age, but well-favoured. Zeno was nearly forty years of
age, of a noble figure and fair aspect; and in the days of his youth he was
reported to have been beloved of Parmenides. He said that they lodged
with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither Socrates and
others came to see them; they wanted to hear some writings of Zeno,
which had been brought to Athens by them for the first time. He saick
that Socrates was then very young, and that Zeno read them to him in the
absence of Parmenides, and had nearly finished when Pythodorus entered,
and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was afterwards one of the
Thirty ; there was not much more to hear, and Pythodorus had heard Zeno
repeat them before."
The Theatetus contains another allusion to Parmenides, which
proves in what reverence the old philosopher was held by
Socrates :-
“My reason is that I have a kind of reverence, not so much for
Melissus and the others, who say that all is one and at rest,' as for the
great leader himself, Parmenides, venerable and awful, as in Homeric
language he may be called him I should be ashamed to approach in a
spirit unworthy of him. I met him when he was an old man and I was a.
mere youth, and he appeared to me to have a glorious depth of mind.
* This and the two following translations from
Jowett's.
Plato are Professor
PARMENIDES.
141
And I am afraid that we may not understand his language, and may fall
Finally, in the Sophistes a passing allusion to the same event is put
into the mouth of Socrates : “I remember hearing Parmenides
use the latter of the two methods, when I was a young man,
and he was far advanced in years, in a very noble discussion.”
"These notices of the Eleatic sage, we feel, are not in any sense
accidental. Plato has introduced them in important moments
which occupied the mind of Parmenides, and by the elaboration
of which he made his greatest contribution to philosophy. The
problems of knowledge and of the relation of the phenomenal
universe to real existence were for the first time methodi-
cally treated in the school of Elea. Their solution in the
theory of Ideas was the main object of Plato's philosophical
activity.
The unity asserted by Xenophanes gave its motto to the
Eleatic school; Êr tà marta became their watchword. Par-
menides, however, abstracted from this unity all theological
attributes. Plain existence, obtained apparently by divesting
thought of all qualifications derived from sensation and im-
agination, and regarding it in primitive and abstract nakedness
or nothingness, was the only positive condition which he left
to the principle of Being; and though he seems to have identi-
fied this Being with Thought, we must be careful not to be
misled by modern analogies into fancying that his ápxú in-
volved a purely intellectual idealism. Nor, again, can we
regard it as the totality of things presented to the senses; the
most earnest polemic of the philosopher is directed against this
view. The Unity, the Being, of Parmenides, was in truth the
barest metaphysical abstraction, deduced, we are tempted to
believe, in the first instance from a simple observation of
language, and yet, when formed, not wholly purged from cor-
poreity. Being is proved by the word ori. The singular
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THE GREEK POETS.
number indicates the unity of the subject; the present tense
proves its eternity, for it neither asserts a has been nor a will
be, but an everlasting is. Its antithesis Not-Being is impos-
sible and inconceivable ; our éorí. Completing his conception
of Being as the sole reality, and carrying out the arguments.
attributed by Aristotle to his master," Parmenides shows that
the eternal One is indivisible, immoveable, continuous, homo-
geneous, absolutely self-identical, beyond the reach of birth, or
change, or dissolution. Furthermore it is finite and spheroid,
In rounding and completing his notion of the Unity of Being,
Parmenides seems at this point to have passed into the region
of geometrical abstractions. The sphere of mathematics requires
to be circumscribed by a superficies equidistant at all points.
from the centre. These conditions of perfection Parmenides
attributed to Being, forgetting that the finite sphere thus con-
ceived by him implied, by a necessity of human thought, a be-
yond against which it should be defined. At the same time, this.
geometrical analogy prevents us from assuming that the further
identification of Being with Thought excluded a concrete and.
almost material conception of the Ens.
As opposed to this unique ápxú, the sole and universal
reality, which can only be apprehended by the reason, and
which is eternally and continuously One, Parmenides places.
the totality of phenomena, multiplex, diverse, subject to birth,
change, division, dissolution, motion. These, he asserts, are
non-existent, the illusions of the senses, mere names, the vague
and unreal dream-world of impotent mortals. Not having
advanced in his analysis of thought beyond the first category of
Being, he felt obliged to abandon the multiplicity of things as
hopeless and unthinkable. Yet he cannot deny their phenomenal
existence; there they are, deceiving the sage and the simple
man alike : experience asserts them; language and the opinion
* See the treatise, De Xenophane, Zenone, et Gorgia.
PARMENIDES.
143:
of humanity take them for granted as realities. Parmenides.
feels bound to offer an explanation of this cosmos of illusion,
this many-formed and many-coloured mirage. His teaching
consequently contains a paradox deeply embedded in its very
substance. Having first expounded the law of absolute truth,
he proceeds to render a grave and meditated account of error.
Having demonstrated the sole existence of abstract Being, he.
turns a page and begins to discourse, like any physicist of his..
age in Greece, concerning Light and Night, Hot and Cold,
Fire and Earth, Active and Passive, Male and Female, Rare.
and Dense. By a singular irony of fate it was precisely for
this portion of his teaching that he received the praise of Bacon
in the Novum Organum. To connect the doctrine of Being, tà
piis ilhõelav, and the doctrine of Appearance, Tè apog dóžav,.
was beyond his power. It was what Plato afterwards attempted
in his theory of ideas, and Aristotle in the theory of forms and
matter, ciên and íàn. Parmenides himself seems to have
regarded man as a part of the cosmos, subject to its phantas-
magoric changes and illusions, yet capable of comprehending:
that, while the substratum of Being is alone immutable, real,
and one, all else is shifting, non-existent, and many. Neglect,
he says, the object of sense, the plurality of things obedient to
change, and you will arrive at the object of reason, the unity
that alters not and can be only apprehended by thought. Yet,
while on the one hand he did not disdain to theorize the
universe of sense, so, on the other hand, as already hinted, he
had not arrived at the point of abstracting corporeity from Being.
To do this from his point of view was indeed impossible..
Having posited pure being as the sole reality, he was obliged
to form a figurative presentation of it to his mind. A new stage
had to be accomplished by human thought before the intellect:
could fairly grapple with the problems nakedly and paradoxically-
propounded by the sage of Elea.
From the immense importance attached by Parmenides to
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THE GREEK POETS.
10
the verb tori, and from his assertion that men deal with names
and not with realities, it followed that to his metaphysical
teaching a logical set of corollaries had to be appended. TO
'construct these was the task of Zeno, his beloved pupil and
-authorised successor. Zeno undertook to maintain the Par-
menidean Unity, both against the vulgar evidence of the senses
and also against philosophers who, like Heraclitus, directed
their attention to the flux and multiplicity of things. His
method was, not to prove the necessity of unity at rest, but to
demonstrate the contradictions involved in the ideas of plu-
rality and motion. The intellectual difficulties implied in the
divisibility of time and space and matter were developed by
Zeno with a force and subtlety that justified Aristotle in calling
him the founder of dialectic. His logic, however, was but the
expansion of positions implicit in Xenophanes and clearly
indicated by Parmenides. How the Eleatic arguments, as
further handled by Melissus, helped the Sophists, and influenced
the school of Megara, who went so far as to refuse any but
identical propositions, are matters that belong to another
chapter of Greek history. So, too, is Plato's attempt to resolve
the antinomies revealed in human thought by the polemic
of his predecessors. Enough has now been said to serve
as preface to the following version of the fragments of Par-
'menides.
His poem-for, strange as it must always seem, Parmenides
committed the exposition of his austerely abstract and argumen-
tative doctrine to hexameters-begins with an epical allegory.
He feigns to have been drawn by horses on a chariot to the
house of Truth : the horses may, perhaps, be taken, as in
Plato's vision of the Phædrus, to symbolise faculties of the soul;
and the gates of Truth open upon two roads-one called the
way of night, or error; the other of light, or real knowledge.
The goddess who dwells here, divine Sophia, instructs him
equally in the lore of truth and of opinion, and makes no
PARMËNIDES.
. 145
attempt, as will be seen from her own words, to conceal the
futility of the second part of her discourse. From a literary
point of view the poem has no merit. Even the exordium is
stiff and tame. It begins thus :
- The steeds which bear me, and have brought me to the bounds of my
desire, since they drew and carried me into the way renowned of Her who
leads the wise man to all knowledge-on that road I journeyed, on that
road they bore me, those steeds of thought that whirl the car along. But
maidens showed the way, sun-born maids, who left the halls of gloom and
brought us to the light, withdrawing with their fingers from their brows the
veils. And the axle in the socket made a whistling sound, glowing as by
two round wheels on either side it ran, while the steeds drove the car
swiftly on. There are the gates which open on the paths of Night and
Day. A lintel shuts them in above, and a floor of stone beneath; hut the
airy space they close is fastened with huge doors, which Justice the
avenger locks or unlocks by the key she holds. Her did the maidens sue
with gentle words, and wisely won her to draw for them the bolted barrier
from the gates. The gates flew open, and the doors yawned wide, back
rolling in the sockets their brazen hinges wrought with clasps and nails.
Straight through the portal drove the maidens car and horses on the broad
highway. And me the goddess graciously received ; she took my right
hand in her hand, and spoke these words, addressing me: Child of man,
companion of immortal charioteers, that comest drawn by horses to our
home, welcome ! for thee no evil fate sent forth to travel on this path-far
from the track of men indeed it lies—but Right and Justice were thy guides.
Thy lot it is all things to learn ; both the sure heart of truth that wins
assent, and the vain fancies of mortals which have no real ground of faith.
Yet these, too, shalt thou learn, since it behoves thee to know all opinions,
testing them, and travelling every field of thought.'”
Here the exordium, as we possess it, ends, and we start upon
the fragments of the lecture addressed by divine Sophia to the
mortal sage. The order and the connection of these fragments
are more than doubtful. So much, however, is clear, that they
fall into two sections—the first treating of scientific truth, the
second of popular opinion. The instrument of knowledge in
the one case is the reason ; in the other the senses bear con-
fused and untrustworthy witness to phenomena.
“Come now, for I will tell, and do thou hear and keep my words,
what are the only ways of inquiry that lead to knowledge. The one which
II.
146
THE GREEK POETS.
certifies that being is, and that not-being is not, is the pathway of per:
suasion, for truth follows it. The other which declares that being is not,
and that not-being must be, that I affirm is wholly unpersuasive ; for
neither couldst thou know not-being, since it cannot be got at, nor couldst
thou utter it in words, seeing that thought and being are the same.
"To me it is indifferent where I begin, for again to the same point I
shall return. It must be that speech and thought are being, for being is,
and that not-being is nothing : which things I bid thee ponder. First,
keep thy mind from that path of inquiry, then, too, from that on which
mortals who know nothing wander in doubt; helplessness sways in their
breasts the erring mind; hither and thither are they borne, deaf, yea and
blind, in wonderment, confused crowds who fancy being and not-being are
the same and not the same; the way of all of them leads backwards."
Some light is thrown upon these fragments by a passage in
the Sophistes of Plato, where the Eleatic stranger is made to
say : “In the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides
protested against this (i.e. against asserting the existence of not-
being), and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the
same lesson—always repeating, both in verse and out of verse,
Keep your mind from this way of inquiry, for never will you
show that not-being is.” The fragment which immediately
follows, if we are right in assuming the continuity and order
of its verses, forms the longest portion of the poem extant.
“Never do thou learn to fancy that things that are not, are; but keep thy
mind from this path of inquiry; nor leț custom force thee to pursue that beaten
way, to use blind eyes and sounding ear and tongue, but judge by reason
the knotty argument which I declare. One only way of reasoning is left--
that being is. Wherein are many signs that it is uncreate and indestructible,
whole in itself, unique in kind, immoveable and everlasting. It never was,
nor will be, since it exists as a simultaneous present, a continuous unity.
What origin shall we seek of it? Where and how did it grow? That it
arose from not-being I will not suffer thee to say or think, for it cannot be
thought or said that being is not. Then, too, what necessity could have
forced it to the birth at an earlier or later moment? for neither birth nor
beginning belongs to being. Wherefore either to be or not to be, is the
unconditioned alternative. Nor will the might of proof allow us to believe
that anything can spring from being but itself. Therefore the law of truth
permits no birth or dissolution in it, no remission of its chains, but holds
it firm. This, then, is the point for decision : it is, or it is not. Now we
have settled, as necessity obliged, to leave the one path, inconceivable,
PARMENIDES.
147
unnamed, for it is not the true way; but to affirm, as sure, that being is.
How then could being have a future or a past? If it began to be, or if it
is going to be, then it is not: wherefore birth and death are alike put aside
as inconceivable. Nor is it divisible, since it is all homogeneous, in no
part more itself than in another, which would prevent its coherence, nor in
any part less ; but all is full of being. Wherefore it is one continuous
whole, for being draws to being. Immoveable within the bounds of its
great chains it is, without beginning, without end, since birth and dissolu-
tion have moved far away, whom certainty repelled. Eternally the same,
in the same state, for and by itself, it abides ; thus fixed and firm it stays,
for strong necessity holds it in the chains of limit and clenches it around.
Wherefore being cannot be infinite, seeing it lacks nothing; and if it were,
it would lack all.
“Look now at things which, though absent, are present to the mind.
For never shall being from being be sundered so as to lose its continuity
by dispersion or recombination.
“Thought and the object of thought are the same, for without being, in
which is affirmation, thou wilt not find thought. For nothing is or will be
besides being, since fate hath bound it to remain alone and unmoved, which
is named the universe -all things that mortal men held fixed, believing in
variety of colour.
“Now since the extreme limit of being is defined, the whole is like a
well-rounded sphere, of equal radius in all directions, for it may not be less
or greater in one part or another. For neither is there not-being to pre-
vent its attaining to equality, nor is it possible that being should in one
place be more and in another less than being, since all is inviolably one.
For this is certain, that it abides, an equal whole all round, within its limits.
“Here then I conclude my true discourse and meditation upon Truth.
Turn now and learn the opinions of men, listening to the deceptive order
of my words.”
The divine Sophia calls the speech which she is about to utter
deceptive (émarnaór), because it has to do no longer with the
immutable and imperturbable laws of entity, but only with the
delusions to which the human mind is exposed by the evi-
dence of the senses. If Parmenides had been in any true
sense of the word a poet, he would not have subjected Sophia
to the ridicule of condemning her own observations, when he
might have invented some other machinery for the conveyance
artistically monstrous than to put lies into the mouth of Truth
L 2
148
THE GREEK POETS.
personified. The fragments of this portion of his poem may,
in spite of their scientific worthlessness, be translated, if only
for the sake of completeness. We must suppose, therefore,
that wisdom has resumed her parable, and is speaking as
follows :-
"Two forms have they determined by their minds to name, for those
are wrong who take but one of these. Corporeally and by signs they have
distinguished them, setting on the one side fire, ethereal, gentle, very subtle,
everywhere identical, but different from the other element. That, too, is
self-identical, diverse from fire, dark night, a thick and weighty body. Of
these I will reveal to you the whole disposition, as it appears, so that no
thought of mortals may ever elude you.
“Now, seeing that all things are called by the name of light and night,
and the qualities that severally pertain to them, the universe is full of light
and murky night, rivals equally balanced, since neither partakes of the
other.
“For the narrower spheres have been fashioned of impure fire ; those
next of night, interpenetrated by a portion of flame; and in the midst of all
is the goddess who controls the whole. For everywhere she is the cause of
dire parturition and procreation, making female mix with male, and male
: At this point in the murky exposition there shines forth a
single line, which, seized upon by poets and poetic souls in
after years, traverses the dismal waste of false physics and im-
perfect metaphysics like a streak of inspiration –-“fair as a
star when only one is shining in the sky."
"Love, first of all the gods, she formed.”
“Thou, too, shalt know the nature of ether, and in ether all the signs,
and the hidden acts of the bright sun's pure lamp, and whence they sprang;
and thou shalt learn the revolutions of the round-eyed moon, and whence
she is ; and thou shalt understand the all-surrounding heaven, whence it
arose, and how fate ruling it bound it to keep the limits of the stars. .
" How earth and sun and moon and ether shared by all, and the
galaxy and farthest Olympus, and the hot might of stars sprang into being.
“Another light that shines in revolution round the earth by night.
“For ever gazing at the radiant sun.
“For as the elements are mixed in the jointed framework of our limbs,
so are the minds of men made up. For the nature of the members is the
same as that which thinks in the case of all and each ; it is mind that
rules.
PARMENIDES.
149
“ From the right side boys, from the left girls.
“ Thus, according to opinion, were born and now are these things.:
and afterwards, when they have grown to the full, will perish: whereto
men have affixed, unto each, a name."
It is only by a complete translation of the extant fragments
of Parmenides that any notion can be formed of the hiatus
between what he chose to call truth, and what he termed
opinion. As a thinker, he revealed both the weakness of his
metaphysical system and the sincerity of his intention by pro-
claiming this abrupt division between the realm of the pure
reason and the field of the senses, without attempting a
synthesis. No other speculator has betrayed the vanity of
dogmatism about the Absolute more conclusively by the
simultaneous presentation of lame guesses in the region of the
Relative. The impartial student of his verse is forced to the
conclusion that the titles τα προς αλήθειαν and τα προς δόξαν,
which have been given to the two departments of his exposi-
tion, are both arbitrary ; for what warrant have we that his
intuitions into the nature of pure Being are more certain than
his guesses about the conditions of phenomenal existence?
Parmenides might indeed be selected as a parable of the human
mind pretending to a knowledge of the unconditioned truth,
and after all arriving at nothing more cogent than opinion.
The innumerable ontological assertions, which in the pride of
the speculative reason have been made by men, are dóžai, and
the epigrain pointed by Parmenides against the common folk,
is equally applicable to his own sect-
Κωφοι όμως τυφλοί τε, τεθηπότες, άκριτα φύλα.
As soon as men begin to dogmatise, whether the supposed
truth to which they pin their faith be the barest metaphysical
abstraction, or some assumed intuition into the Divine nature,
they create a schism between the multiplicity of the universe
and the unity which they proclaim. In other words, they
distinguish, like Parmenides, between what they arbitrarily
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THE GREEK POETS.
denote as truth and what they cannot account for as pheno-
mena. To quit the sphere of our own mind is impossible;
and therefore nothing can be discovered which is not some
mode of the mind. The utmost the metaphysician can do is
to describe the operations of the human intellect without ex-
plaining its existence, and all systematised knowledge is but a
classification of the categories of consciousness. Thus the
sophistic position that man is for man the measure of all things
is irrefutable. But when he attempts to hypostasise his own
thoughts as realities, to argue outward from his conceptions to
the universe, this is the same as taking a leap in the dark
across an undefined abyss from the only ascertained standing-
ground to a hypothetical beyond.
During the two-and-twenty centuries which have elapsed
since the days of Parmenides, the philosophers have learned
wisdom. They are now too wary to parade the distinction
between two kinds of opinion, and to construct one system of
truth, another of illusion. They either content themselves
with omitting what they regard as the insoluble ; or they
endeavour to invent an all-embracing schema, which shall
supersede the cruder distinctions between subject and object,
mind and nature, ego and non-ego. Yet nothing in the realm
of absolute knowledge has been gained in all this space of
time.
The owl of Minerva, to quote one of Hegel's most lu-
minous epigrams, still starts upon its flight when the evening
twilight, succeeding the day of work, has fallen. Metaphysic,
the plaything of youth and the pastime of senility, the measur-
ing-rod applied to action and achievement by those who achieve
nothing and who do not act, goes on shaping from the human
consciousness a fabric which it calls reality. Science has
magnified and multiplied phenomena until, instead of one, we
have in every case a million problems to employ intelligence.
Social conditions grow more complex, and more and more is
VILL!

ALANANLklvo
.
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PARMENIDES.
ascertained about the inner life of man. But the fact remains
that, while theologian, logician, physicist, and moralist, each
from his own standing-point, may cry“Eureka !” we can know
nothing in itself. The most complicated system, created by
the Aristotle of the modern world, involves at the outset
an assumption. From reflection on the laws of human
thought, on the varied acquisitions of the human mind,
and on the successive phases of human history, it carries
over the synthetic statement of its conclusions to the account
of the universe. In other words it postulates the identity
of the human and the Divine mind, and ends by asserting
that thought is the only reality. Does not a fallacy lie in
this, that while the mind possesses the faculty of reflecting
upon itself, everything which it knows is of necessity expressed
in terms of itself, and therefore in pretending to give an account
of the universe it is only giving an account of its own opera-
tions? The philosophy of the Idee is thus a way of looking at
things; to explain them or deduce them is beyond its reach.
How, for example, except by exercise of faith, by dogma-
tism and initial begging of the question, can we be assured
that an intelligence differently constituted from the human
mind should not cognise a different kóquos vontós or intelli-
gible world, and be equally justified in claiming to have arrived
at Truth? It is comparatively easy to acquire encyclopædic
knowledge, to construct a system, to call the keystone of the
system the Idee, and to assert that the Idee is God. But is all
this of any value except as a machine for arranging and formu-
lating thoughts and opinions ? At the end of philosophies one
feels tempted to exclaim :
" I heard what was said of the universe,
Heard it and heard it of several thousand years :
It is middling well as far as it goes, — But is that all ?”
1:52
THE GREEK POETS.
CHAPTER VI.
ÆSCHYLUS.
.
Life of Æschylus-Nature of his Inspiration. —The Theory of Art in the
Ion of Plato.—Æschylus and Sophocles. --What Æschylus accom-
plished for the Attic Drama.—His Demiurgic Genius-Colossal Scale
of his Work.–Marlowe. -Oriental Imagery.—Absence of Love as a
Motive in his Plays.—The Organic Vitality of his Art--Opening
Scenes. -Messenger.—Chorus. — His Theology.—Destiny in Æschylus.
-The Domestic Curse—His Character-drawing-Clytemnestra.--Diffi-
culty of Dealing with the Prometheus.-What was his Fault ?- How.
was Zeus justified ? - Shelley's Opinion. -- The Lost Trilogy of
Prometheus.--Middle Plays in Trilogies. — Attempt to reconstruct
a Promethëis.—The Part of Herakles.-Obscurity of the Promethean
Legend. --The Free Handling of Myths permitted to the Dramatist.“
The Oresteia-Its Subject. - The Structure of the Three Plays. “The
Agamemnon—Its Imagery.--Cassandra.--The Cry of the King. -
The Chorus.- Iphigeneia at the Altar.—Menelaus abandoned by
Helen. —The Dead Soldiers on the Plains of Troy.-The Persæ.
- The Crime of Xerxes. -Irony of the Situation.--The Description
of the Battle of Salamis. — The Style of Æschylus--His Religious
Feeling.
ÆSCHYLUS, son of Euphorion, was born at Eleusis, in 525- B.C.
When he was thirty-five years of age, just ten years after the
production of his first tragedy, he fought at Marathon. This
fact is significant in its bearings on his art and on his life.
Æschylus belonged to a family distinguished during the decisive
actions of the Persian war by their personal bravery: Ameinias,
his brother, gained the aristeia, or reward for valour, at the
battle of Salamis; and there was an old picture in the theatre
of Dionysus at Athens which represented the great deeds of
ÆSCHYLUS.
153
the poet and his brother Cynægeirus at Marathon. Of his
military achievements he was more proud than of his poetical
success ; for he mentions the former and is silent about the
latter in the epitaph he wrote for his own tomb. Of his actual
life at Athens, we only know this much, that he sided with the
old aristocratic party. His retirement to Sicily after his defeat
by Sophocles in 468 B.C. arose probably from the fact that
Cimon, who adjudged the prize, was leader of the democratic
opposition, and was felt to have allowed his political leanings
to influence his decision. His second retirement to Sicily in
453 B.C., after the production of the Oresteia, in which he un-
successfully supported the Areiopagus against Pericles, was due,
perhaps, in like manner to his disagreement with the rising
powers in the State. That at some period of his career he was
publicly accused of impiety, because he had either divulged
the mysteries of Demeter, or had offended popular taste by
his presentation of the Furies on the stage, rests upon sufficient
antique testimony. Such charges were not uncommon at
Athens, as might be proved by the biographies of Anaxagoras
and Socrates. But the exact nature of the prosecution directed
against Æschylus is not known; we cannot connect it with
any of his extant works for certain, or determine how far it
affected his action. He died at Gela, in 456 B.C., aged sixty-
nine, having spent his life partly at Athens and partly at the
court of Hiero, pursuing in both places his profession of tragic
poet and chorus-master.
Pausanias tells a story of his early vocation to dramatic
art :-“When he was a boy he was set to watch grapes in the
country, and there fell asleep. In his slumber Dionysus ap-
peared to him, and ordered him to apply himself to tragedy. At
daybreak he made the attempt, and succeeded very easily."
There is no reason that this legend should not have been based
on truth. It was the general opinion of antiquity that Æschylus
was a poet possessed by the deity, working less by artistic
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THE GREEK POETS.
method than by immediate inspiration. Athenæus asserts
crudely that he composed his tragedies while drunk with wine :
Melówv yoőv šypapề tàs opayądías : and Sophocles is reported
to have told him that “He did what he ought to do, but did
it without knowing.” Zonginus, in like manner, after praising
Æschylus for the audacity of his imagination and the heroic
grandeur of his conceptions, adds that his plays were frequently
unpolished, unrefined, ill-digested, and rough in style. Similar
expressions of opinion might be quoted from Quintilian, who
describes his style as "sublime and weighty, and grandiloquent
often to a fault, but in most of his compositions rude and
wanting in order.” He adds, that "the Athenians allowed
later poets to correct his dramas and to bring them into com-
petition under new forms, when many of them gained prizes.”
Æschylus seems, therefore, to have impressed critics of an-
tiquity with the god-intoxicated passion of his genius rather
than with the perfection of his style or the consummate beauty
of his art. It is possible that he received less justice from his
fellow-countrymen than we, who have been educated by the
Shakspearean drama, can now pay him.
Æschylus might be selected to illustrate the artistic psycho-
logy of Plato. In the Phædrus Plato lays down the doctrine
that poetic inspiration is akin to madness—an efflation from
the Muses, a divine mania analogous to love. In the Ion he
further develops this position, and asserts that “all good poets
compose their beautiful poems not as works of art, but because
they are inspired and possessed." The analogy which he
selects is drawn from the behaviour of Bacchantes under the
influence of Dionysus. He wishes to distinguish between the
mental operations of the poet and the philosopher, to show
that the regions of poetry and science are separate, and to
prove that rule and method are less sure guides than instinct
when the work to be produced is a poem. “The poet is a'
light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in
ÆSCHYLUS.
155
0
him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and
the mind is no longer in him ; when he has not attained to
this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.”
The final dictum of the Ion is, “inspiration, not art,” Helov äri
un texvikór. It is curious to find a Greek of the best age,
himself in early days a poet, and throughout distinguished by
genius allied to the poetic, thus boldly and roundly stating a
theory which corresponds to the vulgar notion that poetry
comes by nature, untutored and untaught, and which seems to
contradict the practice and opinion of supreme authorities
like Sophocles and Goethe. The truth is, that among artists
we find two broadly differentiated types. The one kind pro-
duce their best work when all their faculties are simultaneously
excited, and when the generative impulse takes possession of
them. They seem to obey the dictates of a power superior to
their ordinary faculties. The other kind are always conscious
of their methods and their aims; they do nothing, as it were,
by accident; they avoid improvisation, and subordinate their
creative faculty to reason. The laws of art may be just as fully
appreciated by the more instinctive artists, and may have equally
determined their choice of form and their calculation of effects ;
but at the moment of production these rules are thrust into
the background, whereas they are continually present to the
minds of the deliberate workers. It may be said in passing,
that this distinction enables us to understand some phrases
which the Italians, acutely sensitive to artistic conditions, have
reserved for passionate and highly-inspired workers; they
speak, for instance, of painting a picture or blocking out a
statue con furia, when the artist is a Tintoretto or a Michael
Angelo. If there is any truth at all in this analysis, we are
justified in believing that Æschylus belonged to the former,
and Sophocles to the latter class of poets, and that this is the
secret of the criticism passed by Sophocles upon his prede-
cessor. The account which Æschylus himself gave of his
156
THE GREEK POETS.
tragedies throws no light upon his method ; he is reported to
have said that they were “fragments picked up from the mighty
feasts of Homer.” The value he attached to them is proved
by his saying that he dedicated what he wrote to Time.
Though the ancients may have been right in regarding
Æschylus as an enthusiastic writer, obeying the impulse of the
god within him rather than the rules of reason, no dramatic
poet ever had a higher sense of the æsthetic unity which tragedy
demands. Each of his masterpieces presents to the imagination
a coherent and completely organised whole; every part is
penetrated with the dominant thought and passion that inspired
it. He had, moreover, the strongest sense of the formal re-
quirements of his art. Tragedy had scarcely passed beyond
the dithyrambic stage when he received it from the hands of
Phrynichus. Æschylus gave it the form which, with com-
paratively unimportant alterations, it maintained throughout
the brilliant period of Attic culture. It was he who curtailed
the function of the Chorus and developed dialogue, thus ex-
panding the old Thespian elements of tragedy in accordance
with the true spirit of the drama. By adding a second actor,
by attending diligently to the choric songs and dances, by
inventing the cothurnus and the tragic mask, and by devising
machinery and scenes adapted to the large scale of the Athenian :
stâge, he gave its permanent form to the dramatic art of the
Greeks. However god-possessed he may have been during
the act of composition, he was therefore a wise critic and a
potent founder in all matters pertaining to the theatre. Yet
though Æschylus in this way made the drama, the style in
which he worked went out of date in his own lifetime. So
rapid was the evolution of intelligence at Athens that during a
single generation his tragedies became, we will not say old-
fashioned, but archaic. They were duly put upon the stage;
a chorus at the public expense was provided for their repre-
sentation, and the MS. which authorised their canon and their
ÆSCHYLUS.
151
text was regarded as a public treasure. Yet the Athenians
already had come to love and respect them in the same way as the 1
English race love and respect the Oratorios of Handel. They
praised them for their unapproachable magnificence ; they knew
that no man of the latter days could match them in their own
kind; but they criticised their antique form and obsolete embel-
lishments. The poet who in his youth had played the part of
innovator, and who had shocked the public by his realistic
presentation of the Furies, depended in the heyday of the fame
of Aristophanes upon conservative support and favour.
Æschylus was essentially the demiurge of ancient art. The
purely creative faculty has never been exhibited upon a greater
scale, or applied to material more utterly beyond the range of
feebler poets. He possessed in the highest degree the power
of giving life and form to the vast, the incorporeal, and the ideal.
In his dramas, mountains were made to speak; Oceanus re-
ceived shape, conversing face to face with the Titan Prome-
theus, while his daughters, nurslings of the waves and winds,
were gathered on the Scythian crags in groups to listen to their
argument. The old intangible, half-mystical, half-superstitious,
fears of the Greek conscience became substantial realities in his
mind. Justice and Insolence and Até no longer floated,
dream-like, in the background of religious thought : he gave
them a pedigree, connected them in a terrible series, and.esta-
blished them as ministers of supreme Zeus. The Eumenides,
whom the Greeks before him had not dared to figure to their
fancy, assumed a form more hideous than that of Gorgons or
Harpies. Their symbolic torches, their snake-entwined tresses,
their dreadful eyes, and nostrils snorting fiery breath, were
shown for the first time visibly in the trilogy of Orestes. It
mwen
the imagination of Æschylus added new deities to the Athenian
Pantheon. The same creative faculty enabled him to informi
elemental substances, fire, water, air, with personal vitality.
158
THE GREEK POETS.
The heaven, in his verse, yearns to wound the earth with love-
embraces; the falling rain impregnates the rich soil. The
throes of Ætna are a Titan's groaning. The fire that leaps
from Ida to the Hermæan crags of Lemnos, from Ægiplanctus
to the Arachnæan height, has life within it. There is nothing
i dead, devoid of soul, in the world of this arch-mythopoet. Even
. the ghosts and phantoms, dreams and omens, on which he
loves to dwell, are substantial. Their reality exists outside the
soul they dominate.
As befits a demiurgic nature, Æschylus conceived and
executed upon a stupendous scale. His outlines are huge ;
his figures are colossal ; his style is broad and sweeping-like
a river in its fulness and its might. Each of his plays might
.
.
walil-
taken separately, are beautiful, while the whole is put together
with majestic harmony. But as the sculptor, in modelling a
a colossus, cannot afford to introduce the details which would
grace a chimney ornament, so Æschylus was forced to sacri-
fice the working-out of minor motives. His imagination,
penetrated through and through with the spirit of his subject as
a whole, was more employed in presenting a series of great
situations, wrought together and combined into a single action,
than in elaborating the minutiæ of characters and plots. The
result has been that those students who delight in detail, have
complained of a certain disproportion between his huge design
and his insufficient execution. It has too frequently been im-
plied that he could rough-hew like a Cyclops, but that he
could not finish like a Praxiteles; that he was more capable of
sketching in an outline than of filling up its parts. Fortunately
we possess the means of laying bare the misconception upon
which these complaints are founded. There still remains one,
but only one, of his colossal works entire. The Oresteia is
i sufficient to prove that we gain no insight into his method as
an artist if we consider only single plays. He thought and
ÆSCHYLUS.
159
11 wrote in Trilogies. Sophocles, with whom it is usual to com-
pare Æschylus, somewhat to the disadvantage of the latter,
abandoned the large scale, the uncial letters, of the trilogy.
Each separate Sophoclean drama is a studied whole. In order
to do Æschylus the very barest justice, we ought therefore to
contrast, not the Agamemnon alone, but the entire Oresteia with
the Edipus or the Antigone. It will then be seen that the one
poet, designing colossi, gave to then the style and finish and
the unity which suit a statue larger than life-size : the other,
restricting himself within more narrow limits, was free to lavish
labour on the slightest details of his model. Such elaboration,
on the scale adopted by Æschylus, would have produced a
bewildering and painful effect of complexity. The vast design
which it was the artist's object to throw into the utmost possible
relief, would inevitably have suffered from excess of finish.
Few dramatists have ventured, like Æschylus, to wield the
chisel of a Titan, or to knead whole mountains into statues -
corresponding to the superhuman grandeur of their thought.
Few indeed can have felt that this was their true province, that
to this they had the thews and sinews adequate. He stands
alone in his triumphant use of the large manner, and this solitude
is prejudicial to his fame with students whose taste has been
formed in the school of Sophocles. Surveying the long roll of
illustrious tragedians, there is but one, until we come to Victor
Hugo, in whom the Æschylean spirit found fresh incarnation :
and he had fallen upon days disadvantageous to his full develop-
ment ; his life was cut short in its earliest bloom, and the con-
ditions under which he had to work, obscure and outcast from
society, were adverse to the highest production. This poet is
our own Christopher Marlowe. Like Æschylus, Marlowe's
imagination was at home in the illimitable ; like Æschylus, he
apprehended immaterial and elemental forces-lusts, ambitions,
and audacities of soul-as though they were substantial entities,
and gave them shape and form ; like Æschylus, he was the
1
160
THE GREEK POETS.
X
master of a “mighty line," the maker of a new celestial music
for his race, the founder and creator of an art which ruled his
century, the mystagogue of pomps and pageants and things
terrible and things superb in shrines unvisited by earlier poets
of his age and clime ; like Æschylus, he stands arraigned of
emptiness, extravagance, and “sound and fury,” because the
scale on which he wrought was vast, because he set no verbal
limit to the presentation of the passion or the thought in view.
Comparing Æschylus to Marlowe is comparing the monarch of
the pine forest to the sapling fir, the full-grown lion to the
lion's whelp, the achievement of the hero to the promise of the
stripling. Yet Herakles in his cradle, when he strangled Hera's
serpents, already revealed the firm hand and unflinching nerve
of him who plucked the golden fruit of the Hesperides. Even
so Marlowe's work betrays the style and spirit of a youthful
Titan; it is the labour of a beardless Æschylus, the first-fruit
of Apollo's laurel-bough untimely burned, the libation of a con-
secrated priest who, while a boy, already stood “chin-deep in
the Pierian flood.” If we contrast the Supplices, which Æschylus
can hardly have written before the age at which Marlowe died,
with Tamburlaine, which was certainly produced before Marlowe
was twenty-six, the most immature work of the Greek with the
most immature work of the English dramatist, we obtain a
standard for estimating the height to which the author of Faustus
might have grown if he had lived to write his Oresteia in the
fulness of a vigorous maturity.*
Much that has been described as Asiatic in the genius of
Æschylus may be referred to what I have called his demiurgic
: force. No mere citation of Oriental similes will account for
the impression of hugeness left upon our memory, for the images
* I am courteously reminded by the Examiner that in the creation of
character Marlowe showed but little promise of mastery. Yet it may be
remembered that the power of delineating character is not always developed
carly, and that even in the case of Æschylus it is strongest in his latest
ļ dramas.
ESCHYLUS.
161
enormous as those of farthest Ind, yet shaped with true Hellenic
symmetry, for the visions vast as those of Ezekiel, yet conveyed
withal in rich and radiant Greek. The so-called Asiatic element
in Æschylus was something which he held in common with the
poets and prophets of the East-a sense of life more mystic and
more deep, a power to seize it and discover it more real and
plastic than is often given to the nations of the West. This
determination towards the hitherto invisible, unshaped, and un-
believed, to which he must give form, and for which he would
fain win credence, may possibly help to explain the absence of
human love as a main motive in his tragedies. There is plenty
of Ares—too much, indeed, unless we recollect that the poet
was a man of Marathon—but of Aphrodite nothing in his in-
spiration. It would seem that this passion, which formed the
theme of Euripides' best work, and which Sophocles in the
Antigone used to enhance the tragic situation brought about
through the self-will of the heroine, had no attraction for
Æschylus. Among the fragments of his plays there is, indeed,
one passage in which he speaks of Love as a cosmical force,
controlling the elemental powers of heaven and earth, and pro-
ducing the flocks and fruits which sustain mortal life. The lines
in question are put into the mouth of Aphrodite. The lost
Myrmidones, again, described the love of Achilles for Patroclus,
which Æschylus seems to have portrayed with a strength of
passion that riveted the attention of antiquity. The plot of the
Supplices, in like manner, implies the lawless desire of the sons
of Ægyptus for the daughters of Danaus ; and the adultery of
Clytemnestra with Ægisthus lies in the background of the
Agamemnon. But of love, in the more romantic modern sense
of the word, we find no trace either in the complete plays or in
the fragments of Æschylus. It lay, perhaps, too close at hand
for him to care to choose it as the theme of tragic poetry ; and,
had he so selected it, he could hardly have avoided dwelling
on its aberrations. The general feeling of the Greeks about
II.
M
162
THE GREEK POETS.
love, as well as his own temper, would have made this neces-
sary. It did not occur to the Greeks to separate love in its
healthy and simple manifestations by any sharp line of demar-
cation from the other emotions of humanity. The brotherly,
filial, and wifely feelings—those which owe their ascendancy to
use and to the sanctities of domestic life-appeared in their eyes
more important than the affection of youth for maid unwedded.
When love ceased to be the expression on the one side of a
physical need, and on the other the binding tie that kept the
family together, the Greeks regarded it as a disease, a madness.
Plato, who treated it with seriousness, classed it among the
mávial. Euripides portrayed it as a god-sent curse on Phædra.
Viewed irr this light, it may be urged that the love of Zeus for
Io, in the Prometheus, is an example of a passion which became
an unbearable burden and source of misery to its victim ; but
of what we understand by love there is here in reality no ques-
tion. The tale of Io rather resembles the survival of some
mystic Oriental myth of incarnation.
The organic vitality which Æschylus, by the exercise of his
creative power, communicated to the structure of his tragedies,
is further noticeable in his power of conducting a drama without
prologue and without narration. In Æschylus, the information
that is necessary in order to place the spectators at the proper
point of view is conveyed as part of the action. He does not,
like Euripides, compose a formal and preliminary speech, or,
like Shakspeare, introduce two or three superfluous characters
in conversation. In this respect the openings of the Prometheus,
the Agamemnon, and the Eumenides are masterpieces of the
most consummate art. Not only are we plunged in medias res,
withouť the slightest sacrifice of clearness ; but the spectacle
presented to our imagination is stirring in the highest degree.
The fire has leapt from mountain peak to peak until at last it
blazes on the watchman's eyes; Hephaestus and his satellites
are actually engaged in nailing down the Tiion :0 his bed of
ÆSCHYLUS.
163
pain ; the Furies are slumbering within the sacred Delphian
shrine, and the ghost of Clytemnestra moves among them,
rousing each in turn from her deep trance. Euripides, proceeding
less by immediate vision than by patient thought, prefixed a
monologue, which contained a programme of preceding events,
and prepared the spectator for what would follow in the play.
These narratives are often frigid, and not unfrequently are placed,'
without propriety, in the mouth of one of the actors. We feel
that a wholly detached prologue would have been more artistic.
The same is true about the speeches of the Messenger. The
art of Æschylus was far too highly organised to be obliged to
have recourse to such rude methods. It is true that, when he
pleased, as in the Persce, he gave the principal part to the Mes-
senger. The actors in that play are little better than specta-
tors; and the same may be said about the Seven against Thebes.
But the Messenger, though employed as here for special pur-
poses, was no integral part of his dramatic machinery; nor did
he ever commit the decisive event of the drama to narration.
His masterstroke as a dramatic poet-the cry of Agamemnon,
following close upon the prophecies of Cassandra, and breaking
the silence like a clap of doom, in that awful moment when the
scene is left empty and the Chorus tremble with the apprehen-
sion of a coming woe-would probably have yielded in the
hands of Euripides to the speech of a servant. It was not that
the later poet would not willingly have employed every means
in his power for stirring the emotions of his audience ; but he
had not the creative imagination of his predecessor ; he could
not grasp his subject as a whole so perfectly as to dispense with
artificial and mechanical devices. He fell back, therefore, upon -
narrative, in which he was a supreme master.
Equally remarkable from this point of view is the Æschylean
treatment of the Chorus. It is never really separated from the
action of the play. In the Prometheus, for example, the
Oceanidæ actually share the doom of the protagonist. In the
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2
164
THE GREEK POETS.
Supplices the daughters of Danaus may be termed the pro-
tagonist; for upon them converges the whole interest of the
drama. In the Seven against Thebes the participation of the
Chorus in the fate of the chief actors is proved by half of them
siding with Ismene and the other half with Antigone at the con-
clusion. In the Perse they represent the nation which has
suffered through the folly of Xerxes. In the Agamemnon the
elders of Mycenæ assume an attitude directly hostile to Ægis-
thus and Clytemnestra. In the Choëphorce the women who
sympathise with Electra, further the scheme of Orestes by putting
Ægisthus off the track of danger and sending him unarmed to
meet his murderers. In the Eumenides the Furies play a part
at least equal in importance to that of Orestes. They, like the
protagonist, stand before the judgment-seat of Pallas and accept
the verdict of the Areiopagus. Thus, in each of the extant plays
of Æschylus, even the Chorus, which was subsequently so far
separated from the action as to become a mere commentator
and spectator, is vitally important in the conduct of the drama.
Euripides, by formalising the several elements of the tragic art,
by detaching the Chorus, introducing a prologue, and expanding
the functions of the Messenger, sacrificed that higher kind of
unity which we admire in the harmonious working of complex
parts. What he gained was the opportunity of concentrating
, attention upon the conflict of motives, occasions for the psycho-
logical analysis of character, and scope for ethical reflection
and rhetorical description.
I have hitherto been occupied by what appear to me the
essential features of the genius of Æschylus—its demiurgic
faculty of creativeness, and its capacity of dealing with heroic
, rather than merely human forms. To pass to the consideration
of his theology would at this point be natural and easy. I do
not, however, wish to dwell on what is called the prophetic
aspect of his tragedy at present. It is enough to say that, here,
as in the sphere of pure art, he was in the truest sense creative.
S
ÆSCHYLUS.
165.
Without exactly removing the old landmarks, he elevated the
current conception of Zeus regarded as the supreme deity,
and introduced a novel life and depth of meaning into the
moral fabric of the Greek religion. Much as he rejoiced in
the delineation of Titanic and primæval powers, he paid but
slight attention to the minor gods of the Pantheon; his creed
was monotheism detached upon a pantheistic background, toli
which the forms of polytheism gave variety and colour. Zeus
was all in all for Æschylus far more than for his predecessors,
Homer and Hesiod. The most remarkable point about the
Æschylean theology is that, in spite of its originality, it seems to
have but little affected the substance of serious Greek thought.
Plato, for example, talks of Prometheus in the Protagoras as if
no new conception of his character had been revealed to him
by Æschylus. We are not, therefore, justified in regarding the :
dramatic poet as in any strict sense a prophet, and the oracles
he uttered are chiefly valuable as indications of his own
peculiar ways of thinking ; nor ought we, even so, perhaps,
to demand from Æschylus too much consistency. The Sup-
plices, for instance, cannot without due reservation be used to
illustrate the Prometheus ; since the dramatic situation in the
two tragedies is so different as to account for any apparent
divergence of opinion.
There is, however, one point in the morality of Æschylus
concerning fate and freewill which calls for special comment,
since we run a danger here of doing real violence to his
art by overstating some one theory about his supposed philo-
sophical intention. I allude, of course, to his conception of
Destiny. If we adopt the fatalistic explanation of Greek
tragedy propounded by Schlegel, we can hardly avoid coarsen-
ing and demoralising fables which owe their interest not
to the asphyxiating force of destiny, but to the action and
passion of human beings. If, on the other hand, we overstrain
the theological doctrine of Nemesis, we run a risk of trying to
D
166
THE GREEK POETS.
.
find sermons in works of art, and of exaggerating the impor-
tance of details which support our favourite hypothesis. It
should never be forgotten that whatever view we take of the
moral and religious purpose of Greek tragedy has been gained
by subsequent analysis. It was not in any case present to the
consciousness of the poet as a necessary condition of his art as
art. His first business was to provide for the dramatic presenta-
tion of his subject : his philosophy, whether ethical or theo-
logical, transpired in the heat and stress of production, not
because he sought to give it deliberate expression, but because
it formed an integral part of the fabric of his mind. Æschylus,
in common with the Greeks of his age, firmly believed in the
indissoluble connection between acts and consequences, and in
the continuation of these consequences through successive
generations. “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
reap,” “the fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's
teeth are set on edge,” formed the groundwork of his view of
human life. This sort of fatalism he coloured with religious
theories adopted from the antique theology of his race, but
strongly moralised, and developed in the light of his own reason.
The importance attributed by the Greeks to hereditary curses
even in the common affairs of life, is proved by the familiar
example of the proclamation by the Spartans against Pericles
in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Much of elder
superstition, therefore, clings about his ethics, and an awful
sense of guilt and doom attaches to acts in themselves ap-
parently indifferent; nor can we fail to recognise a belief in
fate as fate, TÒ TETT PWéror, superior to all besides. The realm
of tragic terror lies precisely in this border-land between
inexorable reason and unreasoned fear. It has nothing to do
with pure science or pure religion : they speak each for them-
selves, with their own voice; but it is not the voice of the
dramatist. On the one hand, logical fatalism offers no freedom
for the play of character, no turning-points of choice, no
ÆSCHYLUS.
167
revolutions which may rouse our sympathy and stir us with the
sense of self-determined ruin. On the other hand, theology,
in its methodic form, supplies, indeed, the text of sermons,
admonitions, and commandments, but not the subject-matter
for a work of art. Where the necessity of circumstance or the
will of the Deity is paramount, human action sinks into insigni-
ficance ; the canons of inevitable sequence and of obedience
under pain of penalty supersede the casuistry of balanced
motives, and the poet is swallowed up in the divine or the
logician. Somewhere between the two, in the intermediate
darkness, or jetai xulos aróros, where all the ways of life are
perilous, and where no clear light reveals the pitfalls of fate
and the gins of religious duty, lies the track of the tragedian.
His men and women are free ; yet their action is overruled by
destiny. They err against the law of heaven and flourish for a
season ; but the law pursues them and enacts its penalty.".
While terror and pity are stirred by the pervading sense of
human helplessness, scope is still left for the exercise of the
moral judgment; nor is the poet precluded from teaching his
audience by precept and example. These remarks apply to
the domestic' curse which played so prominent a part in all
Greek tragedy, and especially in the dramas of Æschylus. It
was no mere avalanche of doom falling from above and crush-
ing the innocent and the criminal alike; nor, again, can it
justly be paralleled by what it most resembles, the taint of
hereditary disease. It partook of the blind force of fate; it
was propagated from generation to generation by laws analogous
to those which govern madness; yet it contained another
element, inasmuch as the transgression of each successive
victim was a necessary condition of its prolongation. Sin alone,
however, was not sufficient to establish its mysterious power ;
for all men are liable to offend against the divine law, and yet
all families are not afflicted with a curse. In order to appre-
ciate its nature, all these factors must be taken into account;
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THE GREEK POETS.
their sum total, notwithstanding the exactitude of our calcula-
tion, remains within the realm of mystery. The undiscovered
residuum, or rather the resolution of all these elements in a
power which is all of them and more than all, is fate. Students
who are curious to appreciate the value attached by the Greeks
themselves to the several elements implicit in the notion of
domestic Até, should attentively peruse the longer of the two
arguments to the Seven against Thebes, while the play itself sets
forth more energetically than any other the terrible lesson of
the Æschylean Nemesis. The protagonist Eteocles is a curse-
intoxicated man, driven by the doom of his race and by the
imprecations of his father on a dreadful shoal of fate. He
walks open-eyed to meet his destiny-to slay his brother and
be slain. Still, helpless as he seems, he is not innocent. His
own rebellious and selfish nature, by rousing the fury of Edipus,
kindles afresh the smouldering flame of the ancestral Até.
Thus the fate which overwhelms him is compounded of here-
ditary guilt, personal transgression, and the courage-quelling
terror of a father's curse. But it is more than all this : it is an
irresistible compelling force. He cannot avoid it, since action
has been thrust upon him by the strength of circumstance.
The tragic horror of his situation arises from the necessity
under which he labours of going forward, though he knows
that the next step leads to a bottomless abyss.
In estimating the characters of Æschylus what has already
been said about his art in general must be taken into account.
He was occupied with the task of exhibiting a great action,
a dpāja in the strictest sense of the Greek phrase.; and this
action was frequently so colossal in its relations as to preclude
the niceties of merely personal character. Persons had to
become types in order to play their part efficiently. The
underlying moral and religious idea was blent with the æsthetic
purpose of the poet, and penetrated with the interest pertain-
ing to the clash of conflicting principles : the total effect pro-
ÆSCHYLUS.
169
duced sometimes seems to defy analysis of character in detail.
The psychology of his chief characters is, therefore, inherent in;
their action, and is only calculable in connection with their mo-
mentary environments. We have to infer their specific quality
less from what they say than from their bearing and their
conduct in the crises of the drama Only after profound study
of the situation of each tragedy, after steeping our imagination
in the elementary conditions selected by the poet, can we
realise the fulness of their individuality. In this respect
Æschylus resembles Homer. Like Homer, he repeats the work
of nature, and creates men and women entire. He does not
strive to lay bare the conscious workings of the mind piecemeal.
He has none of the long speeches on which Euripides relied for
setting forth the flux and reflux of contending motives, or for
making clear the attitude adopted by his dramatis persone. There
is no revelation of the anatomical method in his art; nor, again,
can we detect the ars celandi artem to which poets of a morė
reflective age are forced to have recourse. Everything with /
Æschylus is organic ; each part is subordinated to the whole
which pre-existed in his mind, and which has been evolved in
its essential unity from his imagination. Even the weighty
sentences and gnomic judgments upon human affairs, rittered
by his actors, are necessitated by the straits in which they
find themselves. Severed from their context, they lose half
their value ; whereas the similar reflections in Euripides may be
detached without injury, and read like extracts from a common-
place-book. Perhaps sufficient stress has not been laid by
critics upon this quality of absolute creativeness, which distin-
guishes the Homeric, Æschylean, and Shakspearean poets
from those who proceed from mental analysis to artistic
presentation. It is easy to render an account of characters
that have first been thought out as ethical specimens and
then provided with a suitable exterior. It is very difficult to
dissect those which started into being by an act of intuitive
-
-
-
-
170
THE GREEK POETS.
invention, and which, dissociated from
the texture of circum-
intellectual grasp. Yet the latter are found in the long run
to be cast in the more vital mould. Once apprehended, they
haunt the memory like real persons, and we may fancy, if we
choose, innumerable series of events through which they would
maintain their individuality intact. They are, in fact, living
creatures, and not puppets of the poet's brain.
Of the characters of Æschylus, those which have been
wrought with the greatest care, and which leave the most pro-
found impression on the memory, are Clytemnestra and Pro-
metheus. Considering how slight were the outlines of the
Homeric picture of Clytemnestra, it may be said that Æschylus
created her. What is still more remarkable than his creation
of Clytemnestra, is that he should have realised her far more
vividly than any of the men whom he has drawn. This proves
that Æschylus at least among the Attic Greeks gave a full
share to women in the affairs of the great world of public
action. As a woman, she stands outside the decencies and
duties of womanhood, supporting herself by the sole strength
of her powerful nature and indomitable will. The self-suffi-
cingness of Clytemnestra is the main point in her portrait.
Her force of character is revealed by the sustained repression
of her real feelings and the concealment of her murderous
purpose, which enable her to compass Agamemnon's death.
During the critical moments when she receives her husband in
state, and leads him to the bath within the palace, she remains
calm and collected. The deed that she has plotted must, if
ever, be done at once. A single word from the Chorus, who
are aware of her relations to Ægisthus, would spoil all her
preparations. Yet she shows no fear, and can command the
fairest flowers of rhetoric to greet the king with feigned con-
gratulations. The same strength is displayed in her treatment
of Cassandra, on whom she wastes no words, expends no
ÆSCHYLUS.
171
irritable energy, although she hates and has the mind to murder
her. Studied craft and cold disdain mark her bearing at the
supreme crisis. When the death-blow has been given to
exhilaration of one who expands his lungs and opens wide his
nostrils to snuff the elastic air of liberty. The blood upon her
raiment is as pleasant to her as a shower of rain on thirsty corn-
fields ; she shouts like soldiers when the foemen turn to fly.
Æschylus has sustained the impression of her force of character
by the radiant speech with which he gifts her. This splendour
of rhetoric belongs by nature to the magnificent and lawless
woman, who rejoices in her shame. It is like the superb
colours of a venomous lily. The contrast between the serpent-
coils of her sophistic speech to Agamemnon at the palace-gate
and the short sentences in which she describes his murder-
true tiger-leaps of utterance--is a triumph of dramatic art. As
regards her motive for killing the king, I see no reason to
suppose that Æschylus intended to diverge from the Homeric
tradition. Clytemnestra has lived in adultery with Ægisthus;
she dares not face a public discovery of her fault, nor is she
willing to forego her paramour. The passage in the Choë-
phora, where she argues with Orestes before her own murder,
proves that she has no other valid reason to set forth. Her
son tells her she shall be slain and laid by the side of
Ægisthus, seeing that in life she preferred him to her lord.
All her answer is : “Child, in your father's absence I was sorely
tried.” The same is clear from the allusions in the Agamemnon
to the nerveless lion, who tumbles in the royal couch, and is a
sorry housekeeper for the departed king. Æschylus, however,
with the instinct of a great poet, has not suffered our minds to
dwell wholly upon this adulterous motive. He makes Clytem-
nestra put forth other pleas, and intends us to believe in their
validity, as lending her self-confidence in the commission of
her crime, and as suggesting reasons for our sympathy. Revenge
172
THE GREEK POETS.
for Iphigeneia's sacrifice, the superstitious sense of the Erinnys
of the house of Atreus, jealousy of Chryseis and Cassandra,
mingle with the master impulse in her mind, and furnish her
i with specious arguments. The solidity of Clytemnestra's
character is impressed upon us with a force and a reality of
presentation that have never been surpassed. She maintains
the same aplomb, the same cold glittering energy of speech, the
same presence of mind and unswerving firmness of nerve,
whether she bandies words of bitter irony with the Chorus, or
ceremoniously receives the king, or curls the lip of scorn at
Cassandra, or defies the Argives after Agamemnon's death,
She loves power, and despises show. When the deed is done,
and fair words are no longer needed, her hypocrisy is cast
aside. At the same time she defends herself with a moral
impudence which is only equalled by her intellectual skill, and
rises at last to the sublimity of arrogance when she asserts her
right to be regarded as the incarnate demon of the house.
Clytemnestra has been frequently compared to Lady Macbeth ;
nor is it easy to think of the one without being reminded of the
other. Clytemnestra, however, is a less elastic character than
Lady Macbeth : she is cast in metal of a tougher temper, and
the springs which move her are more simple. Lady Macbeth
has not in reality so much force and fibre : she does not design
Duncan's death many months beforehand ; she acts from over-
mastering impulse under the teinptation of opportunity, and
when her husband and herself are sunk chin-deep in blood she
cannot bear the load of guilt upon her conscience. Shakspeare
has conceived and analysed a woman more sensitive, and
therefore more liable to nervous failure, than Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra never breaks down. Her sin feeds and
nourishes her nature, instead of starving and palsying it; her
soul grows fat and prospers, nor does she know what con-
science means. She is never more imposing in her pride of
intellectual strength than when she receives the feigned news
ÆSCHYLUS..
173
of Orestes' death. Just as the superior nature of Lady
Macbeth is enhanced by contrast with her weaker husband,
so Clytemnestra appears to the greatest advantage by the side
of Ægisthus. Ægisthus in the last scene of the Agamemnon
brags and blusters : Clytemnestra utters no superfluous syllable.
Ægisthus insults the corpse of the king; Clytemnestra is
satisfied with having slain him. Nothing shakes her courage or
weakens her determination. When Orestes turns his sword
against her in the Choëphorce her first impulse is to call aloud:
“Reach me with all speed an axe of weight to tire a man, that
we may know at once the issue of this combat.” She will
measure weapons with her son. And when his blade is
already at her breasts, she has the nerve to bare them and
exclaim : “My son, behold where thou didst lie ; these nipples
gave thee milk.” There is no groaning in her last life-struggle.
She dies, as she lived, self-sustained and equal to all emer-
gencies. This terrible personality endures even in the grave.
When she rises in the Eumenides, a ghost from Hades, it is
with bitter taunts and a most biting tongue that she stirs up
the Furies to revenge. If we are to seek a parallel for Clytem-,
nestra in our own dramatic literature, I should be inclined to
look for it in the Vittoria Corrombona of Webster. The
modern poet has not developed his “white devil of Italy”
with the care that Æschylus bestowed on Clytemnestra. Her
portrait remains a sketch rather than a finished picture ; and
the circumstances of her tragedy are infinitely less impressive
than those which place the Queen of Mycenæ on so eminent
a pinnacle of crime. But Vittoria is cast in the same mould.
Like Clytemnestra, she has the fascination and the force of
sin, self-satisfied and self-contained to face the world with
brazen arrogance, and browbeat truth before the judgment-
seat of gods or men.
Of all the masterpieces of Greek tragedy which have been
preserved to us, the Prometheus of Æschylus presents by far
CD
174
THE GREEK POETS.
the greatest difficulty, and involves at the same time by far the
most enticing problems. Its paramount interest lies in the
fact that the dramatic action is removed beyond and above the
sphere of humanity, and that the poet, who was also the chief
prophet of Hellas in the very prime of Athenian culture, is
dealing with the mystery of God's relation to the world and
| man. In the trilogy of the Oresteia he is concerned with
heroes ; in the Prometheus with gods, Titans, and demigods.
The dramatis personce are Prometheus, Hephæstus and his
comrade Force, Hermes, the herald of Zeus, Io, the victim of
the love of Zeus, and Oceanus, the ruler of the streams and
seas. The Chorus is composed of Oceanides, the maiden
daughters of the deep, cloud-bearing dews and mists, who
gather round the Scythian crags, where Prometheus lies, chainéd,
and exposed to fiery heat by day and freezing cold by night.
The only mortal who visits him is Io; and she bears within
her the child of Zeus. Thus everything in the tragedy is con-
ceived upon a vast and visionary scale. It is no episode of
real or legendary history which forms the subject-matter of the
play. The powers of heaven and earth are in action. The
destinies of Olympian Zeus and of the whole human race are
at stake. In this lofty region of the imagination the genius of
Æschylus moves freely. The scenery of his drama is in har-
mony with its stupendous subject. Barren mountain summits,
the sea outspread beneath, the sky with all its stars above,
silently falling snowflakes and tempestuous winds, thunder, and
earthquake, and riven precipices, are the images which crowd
upon the mind. In like manner the duration of time is inde-
finitely extended. Not years, but centuries, measure the con-
tinuance of the struggle between the sovereign will of Zeus
and the stubborn resistance of the Titan.
At the opening of the play Prometheus appears in the
midst of the desert which is destined for his prison-home.
Hephaestus and his satellites chain him down with adamantine
ÆSCHÝLUST
175
.
0
rivets, so that he may neither bend the knee nor rest in slumber,
but must cling, crucified in wakeful torment, to the unyielding
rock. While they are at their work, Prometheus utters not a
word or groan. He is gifted with unerring foresight, and
knows surely that his doom must be borne, and also that his
doom must have an end. He defies the power of Zeus in
frigid silence—not sullenly, because, when sympathy has loosed
his lips, he proves that a warm heart beats within his breast-
but proudly and indignantly. Hepliæstus and Titanic Force
leave him alone in his misery, when their task is finished. Then
at last he speaks. It is to the kindred powers of elemental
nature, to the Sun and Sea and nourishing Earth, his brethren
and his mother, that he addresses his complaint : “See you
how I, a god, suffer at the hands of God; and for what crime?
---for having given fire to mortal man.”
2
abject and forsaken by the gods. Zeus, who had recently
seized upon the empire of the universe, designed to extirpate
men from the world, and to create a new race after his own
heart. Prometheus took pity upon them, saved them from
destruction, gifted them with fire, the mother of all arts, taught
them carpentry and husbandry, revealed to them the stars,
whereby they knew the order of the seasons and recurrences of
crops, instructed them in letters, showed them how to tame the
horse and ox, and how to plough the sea with ships, then
taught them medicine and the cure of wounds, then divination
and the sacrifice of victims to propitiate the gods, and lastly
how to smelt the ore contained within the bowels of the earth.
All these good things Prometheus gave to men. And here, in
passing, we may notice how accurately Æschylus has sketched
the primitive conditions of mankind in its emergence from the
state of savagery. The picture is indeed poetical; but subse-
quent knowledge has only strengthened the outlines and filled
them in with details, not altered or erased them.
176
THE GREEK POETS.
Now, however, we ask, In what true sense was Prometheus
criminal ? What right had Zeus, who is invariably represented
by Æschylus in all his other dramas as a just and wise ruler,
Æschylus, in this play, clearly desires to rouse our sympathy
for Prometheus. He makes all the principal actors speak of
Zeus as a forceful tyrant, newly come to power, which he abuses
for his selfish ends, subverting the old order of the world, op-
pressing the old powers, who are his kindred, yet substituting
nothing but his own ill-regulated and capricious will. On the
other hand, Æschylus has indicated that Prometheus is in the
wrong ; that he regards his disobedience to Zeus as the cause
asserting, in spite of their tender feeling for the Titan, that they
only are sane and righteous who bow to necessity and accept
the law of their superior. Oceanus in like manner advises his
kinsman to submit ; and reminds him that, though the rule of
Zeus is a novelty, it is not intolerable, and that acquiescence is
always prudent.
• The chief difficulty of the play consists, therefore, in under-
standing the error of the protagonist, and in reconciling the
character of Zeus, as here depicted, with the theology elsewhere
expressed by Æschylus. The most probable solution of the
problem is suggested by the ideal to which Greek tragedy
aspired. It was the object of the Athenian dramatists not to
represent a simple study of character, or to set forth a merely
stirring action, but to depict a hero worthy of all respect and
admirable, exposed to suffering or ruin by some fault of tem-
perament. We are probably meant to look upon Prometheus
as having erred, though nobly, through self-will, because he
would not obey the ruler of the world for the time being, nor
abide the working out of the law of fate in patience, but tried
to take that law into his own hands, and to anticipate the evo-
lution of events. At the same time the play seems to convict
ÆSCHYLUS.
177
supreme Zeus himself of a tyrannical exercise of a forcefully
acquired power ; he also, through a like self-will, appears to be
kicking against the pricks of immutable destiny; and it is pro-
phesied that in his turn he will be superseded by a more
righteous ruler. The secret of the revolution in Olympus,
whereby Zeus will be deposed, is possessed by Prometheus,
and withheld by him from his tormentor. Thus the know-
ledge of the future enables the hero of the drama to endure,
while Zeus upon his throne suffers through the consciousness
that fate cannot be resisted. Therefore the Prometheus, as
we possess it, presents the spectacle of two stubborn wills in
conflict. The action is suspended. The conclusion cannot
be foreseen. Owing to its very excellence as a work of art, it
contains no indication of the ultimate solution ; we are only
told by Prometheus that, after he has been liberated, and
not till then, he may reveal the means by which the ruin of
Zeus shall be averted. We are left to conjecture that Æschylus
intended to harmonise the wills of the Titan and his oppressor
through the final submission of both alike to the laws of destiny
which are supreme. Prometheus, when once his pride has
given way, will reveal the secret which he holds, and Zeus,
made acquiescent by the lapse of time, will accept it.
The chief obstacle to the satisfactory interpretation of the
Prometheus springs, as I have hinted, from the difficulty of under-
standing how Prometheus was guilty and Zeus justified. The
transgression of the hero, if it deserves the name at all, was
eminently noble. His punishment appears extravagant in its
severity. At first sight we can hardly avoid the conclusion that
the final alliance between the two conflicting actors in this
drama was a kind of political compromise, unworthy of the pro-
tagonist. To this judgment Shelley was led by his hatred of
despotism, and by his inability to imagine a dignified termina-
tion to the dispute that enlisted his sympathies so strongly on
the side of the disinterested hero. “I was averse,” he says in
II.
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178
THE GREEK POETS.
the Preface to Prometheus Unbound, “from a catastrophe so
feeble as that of reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor
of mankind. The moral interest of the fable, which is so
powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of Pro-
metheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as
unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful
and perfidious adversary." Those, however, who have learned
to respect the lofty theosophy of Æschylus, no less than to
admire his imperial artistic faculty, will be slow to accept the
conclusion of Shelley, or to believe that the catastrophe pre-
pared by the Greek poet was feeble. They will rather mistrust
their powers of judgment, or suspect that the key to the riddle
has been lost. The truth is, that we have no means of settling
what the catastrophe really was; and at this point it is neces-
sary to give some account of the relation of this drama to the
entire scheme of Æschylus.
The Prometheus Bound (dequárns) was probably the second
of a trilogy, or series of three tragedies, of which the first was
called Prometheus the Fire-bearer (Tuppópos), and the third Pro-
metheus Unbound (Avóferos). Prometheus the Fire-bearer and
Prometheus Unbound have disappeared ; it seems that they
were not even known to the Greek scholiast, for he does not
mention them in his argument to the Prometheus Bound. At
the same time the argument prefixed to the Persæ informs us
that that play was the second in a series, of which the Phineus
was first, the Glaucus Potnieus third, and a so-called Prometheus
fourth. It has been conjectured that the Prometheus, which
formed the fourth or satyric drama in this tetralogy, was dis-
tinguished by the title Fire-kindler (ovpracúc), a name which is
quently four plays altogether by Æschylus bore the title of
Prometheus. It cannot, however, be proved beyond doubt that
the Fire-kindler existed independent of the Fire-bearer ; or, if
so, that the former was the last play in the tetralogy of the Persee,
ÆSCIIYLUS.
179
the latter the first in the trilogy of the Prometheus Bound. Both
arguments to the only Prometheus we possess entire are un-
fortunately silent about the plays which accompanied it; and it
is only from allusions to a lost tragedy called Prometheus Un-
bound that we are at all justified in assuming the disappearance of
the first drama of the series, and in calling it the Fire-bearer.
It should be added that the learned editor of the Greek
Scenic Poets is inclined to identify the Fire-bearer and the Fire-
kindler, and to regard this play as the satyric drama attached
to the tetralogy of the Perse. By so doing he leaves the
Prometheus Bound and Unbound without a proper dramatic
introduction.
In spite of the uncertainty which surrounds the criticism of
this play, no students familiar with the style of Æschylus will
fail to recognise in the Prometheus Unbound the second drama
of a trilogy. It has the stationary character which belongs to
the Choëphore, the Perse, and the Supplices. The dramatic
action is not helped forward in these second pieces ; they
develop the situation to which affairs have been brought by
the events of a previous drama, and which in its turn must
lead to the conclusive action of the third piece. It was only
in this way that a series of three dramas on the same subject
could be connected into true artistic unity. The catastrophe
of the first play produced a combination of events, which re-
quired such expansion in a second that a new action, involving
a final catastrophe, should be unfolded in the third, and the
whole series should in the end be seen to have coherence. Now
the Prometheus Unbound is unintelligible, except as the result
of a preceding action, while its conclusion leaves the fate of the
hero still undetermined : the events which brought the hero to
his dreadful doom, and the events which will deliver him, are
alluded to as things of the past and of the future ; in the pre-
sent there is no drama, no doing, but only a development of
the intermediate and transitional situation. We have, therefore,
N 2
180
THE GREEK POETS.
the right to assume the antecedence of a play which must, ac-
cording to the data given in our extant tragedy, have turned
upon the hero's theft of fire. *
We may now attempt to reconstruct the whole trilogy, and
see if, having done so, any new conditions are supplied for
the solution of the difficulty as originally stated. In the
Fire-bearer, for the subject-matter of which we have to rely
on the allusions of the Bound, Zeus has recently acquired
the empire of the universe by imprisoning his father Cronos,
and by defeating the giants who rose up in arms against
him. Prometheus, knowing, through the inspiration of his
mother Earth, or Themis, that Zeus will prevail, has taken his
side, and has materially helped him in the conflict. But. the
sympathies of Prometheus are less with Zeus than with the
race of men who, at that primitive period of the world's history,
existed in the lowest state of wretchedness. Zeus, intent on
getting his new kingdom into order, entertains the notion of
destroying mankind, and planting a better stock of mortal
beings on the earth. Prometheus opposes this design, and
enables men to raise themselves above their savage condition
into comparative power and comfort. It is just at this point
that the lost drama would probably have revealed the true
nature of his offence, or å papria. In the Hesiodic legend he
is punished for having taught men to deceive the powers of
heaven ; and though it is clear that Æschylus did not closely:
follow that version of the myth, we may conjecture that he
represented the benefactor of humanity as a rebel against the
ruler of Olympus. Against the express command of Zeus
Prometheus gave men fire; and though this act seems innocent
enough, we must remember that, according to Genesis, Adam
lost Eden by merely plucking an apple. Satisfied with his
own sense of justice, and hardened in his pride by the fore-
* See line 107.
ÆSCHYLUS,
181
knowledge of the future, Prometheus resisted a power that he
regarded as tyrannical, and had to be treated by Zeus with
the same severity as Atlas or Typhæus.
In the Prometheus Bound we see the beginning of his pun-
ishment. The Titan, in whose person, as it were, the whole
race of mortals suffer, is crucified on a barren cliff of Scythia.
Meanwhile he makes two prophecies—first, that a descendant
of Io is destined to deliver him ; and, secondly, that Zeus will
marry and beget a son, who shall sway the universe in his
place. At the same time he declares that he knows how Zeus
may avoid this danger. Zeus, anxious to possess this secret,
sends down Hermes, and endeavours to wrest it from his
prisoner with threats ; but Prometheus abides, scornful and
unyielding ; his pain may be increased, yet it cannot last for
ever; he is immortal, and Zeus will in the end be humiliated.
To requite his contumacy, Zeus rends the mountains, hell is
opened, and Prometheus descends to the lowest pit of Tartarus.
It is clear that, whatever may have been the fault of Pro-
metheus in the Fire-bearer, the poet has done all in his power
to excite our sympathy for him in the second drama of the
trilogy. He draws the character of Oceanus as a trimmer and
time-server, who inspires contempt. He introduces lo suffer-
ing as a wretched victim of the selfish love of her almighty
master. He makes the Oceanides willing in the end to share
the doom of the Titan ; while all the human sympathies of the
audience are powerfully affected by the spectacle of a martyr-
dom incurred for their sake. This play is, therefore, the
triumph of the protagonist; his offence is hidden; his heroic
resistance is idealised ; we are made to feel sure that, when at
· last he is reconciled with Zeus, it will be through no unworthy
weakness on his part.
In the third drama of the trilogy, parts of which, translated
into Latin by Cicero, have been preserved to us, Prometheus
has been raised from Tartarus, and is again crucified on
IULI
182
THE GREEK POETS.
Caucasus. A vulture sent by Zeus daily gnaws his liver,
which, daily growing, supplies continually fresh food for the
tormentor. The tension of the situation is still protracted.
Prometheus has not given way. Zeus has not relented.
Meanwhile the seasons have revolved through thirteen genera-
tions of the race of men, and the deliverer appears. It is
Herakles who cuts the Gordian knot. He destroys the vulture,
and persuades his father Zeus to suffer Cheiron, the Centaur,
whom he had smitten with a poisoned arrow, and who is
weary of continued life, to take the place of the Titan in
Hades. Then Prometheus is liberated. He declares that
Zeus, if he would avoid the coming doom, must refrain from
marriage with Thetis. He binds the willow of repentance _
round his forehead, and places the iron ring of necessity upon
his finger. His will is made at last concordant with that of
his enemy: Thetis is given in wedlock to the mortal Peleus,
and Achilles is born.*
. From this last drama of the trilogy it would appear that
the honours of the whole series were reserved for Herakles.
Herakles is the offspring of Zeus by a mortal woman. He
occupies, therefore, a middle place between the two contending
parties, and is able to effect their reconciliation. We may
fairly conclude that herein lay the solution designed by Æschy-
lus. In order to mediate between Zeus and Prometheus, a.
third agency was imperatively demanded. The heroic demi-
god, who is the son of the Olympian, and at the same time a
scion of oppressed humanity, prompted by no decree of his
father, but following the instincts of his generous humanity,
will not allow the torments of Prometheus to continue. By
killing the vulture, he resolves the justice of Zeus in an act of
mercy; at the same time, he touches the heart of the Titan,
* It should be said that the subject-matter of the Prometheus Unbound
has to be gathered partly from fragments of the play, partly from prophecies
in the Prometheus Bound, and partly from later versions of the legend.
ÆSCHYLUS.
183
and draws his secret from him, working a revolution in the
stubborn nature of Prometheus similar to that which Neoptole-
mus effected in Philoctetes by his humane uprightness. It is
thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of Greek tragedy that
the scales should thus have fallen from the eyes of Prome-
theus. He saw at last that Zeus, though severe, was really
justified ; and, as a makepeace-offering, he rendered up the
secret which brought the ruler into harmony with the immu-
table laws of fate. According to this solution of the plot the
final concession of Prometheus would have been as noble as his
intermediate resistance; the TEPLTÉTELA, or revolution, which
was imperatively required before the drama could have been
conducted to an issue, would have taken place within the
protagonist's soul, while Herakles, by introducing a new element
into the action, furnished the efficient cause of its conclusion. It
may be argued on the other hand that Prometheus foreknew the
advent of Herakles, and prophesied of him to Io in the second
drama of the trilogy. To this I should answer that he could
not then have calculated on the change which would be
wrought in his own character by the deliverer.
How Æschylus handled the subject-matter of the Prometheus
Unbound we cannot say. It seems, however, certain that,
unless he falsified his otherwise consistent conception of Zeus,
as the just and wise, though stern, lord of the universe, and
unless he satisfied himself with a catastrophe which Shelley
would have been justified in calling “ feeble,” he must, through
Herakles, have introduced a factor capable of solving the
problem, by revealing to Prometheus the nature of his
original å papria, and thus rendering it dignified for him to
bow to Zeus.
If this reading of the Prometheus be accepted, it will be
seen that the whole trilogy involved the deepest interests, the
mightiest collision of wills, the most pathetic situations, and
the most sublime of reconciliations. Zeus, in the second drama
184
THE GREEK POETS.
of the series, is purposely exposed to misrepresentation in
order that his true character in the climax as
τον φρονείν βρoτους δδώσαντα, τον πάθη μάθος
θέντα κυρίως έχειν *
may be established. The divine justice personified in Zeus
is displayed irreconcilably opposed to the natural will personi-
fied in Prometheus, until the hero who partakes of both, the
active and unselfish Herakles, atones them. We are even
justified in conjecturing that, as Prometheus occupied the
foreground of the second drama, so Zeus must have been para-
mount in the first, and that the two antithetical propositions
having thus been stated, the chief part of the third play was
assigned to Herakles. What strengthens the interpretation
now advanced is the peculiar nature of the punishment of
Prometheus. The liver, according to antique psychology, was
the seat of the passions; consequently Frometheus suffered
through the organ of his sin.
That Æschylus intended to describe the protagonist of his
trilogy as a transgressor, though offending in a noble cause,
while Zeus was acting in accordance with real justice, however
hard to comprehend, is further indicated by the series of events
which are supposed to have taken place between the termina-
tion of the Fire-bearer and the climax of the Unbound. Ali
this while Prometheus in his obstinacy is suffering on Caucasus
and in the depth of Tartarus; but the way of salvation is
meantime being wrought out on earth. By the commerce of
the Olympian deities with the daughters of men the heroic
race is generated ; and not only is the deliverer and recon-
ciler, Herakles, sent forth to purge the world of monstrous
wrong, but the better age of equity and justice, foreseen by
the Titan and ordained by the Fates, is being prepared. The
* “ Him who leads men in the ways of wisdom, who has ordained that
suffering should teach."
ÆSCHYLUS.
185
marriage of Thetis to Peleus is the proper inauguration of
the heroic age ; it not only confirms Zeus in his sovereignty,
but it also provides for humanity the greatest actor in
the drama of the Trojan war—the first historical event of
Hellas.
If the character ascribed to Zeus in the Prometheus Cound
still seems to offer difficulties ; if, in other words, we are not
satisfied with assuming that his conduct must have been
justified by the evolution of events in the Prometheus Unbound,
the following considerations may be adduced by way of further
explanation. In the first place, at the supposed time of the
Prometheus Bound, Zeus was but just seated on his throne,
and had to deal with unruly and insurgent powers. The
punishment of Prometheus was an episode in the Titanomachy.
It was the business, therefore, of Æschylus to exhibit the
firmness and force of government of the new ruler, not to draw
the picture of a kind paternal monarch. In the second place,
the speakers who describe Zeus as despotic, belonged by kin-
ship to the old order of the Titans, or were closely related
through friendship to Prometheus. Dramatic propriety re-
quired that they should calumniate the new king, or at least
misunderstand his motives. In the third place, Io, whose
fate appeared so hard, became the mother of a mighty nation,
and received tenfold for all her sufferings at the hand of Zeus.*
Here, therefore, his inscrutable ways were in the end proved
righteous; nor is it probable that if Æschylus justified Zeus in
his dealings with the unoffending Io, he would leave his treat-
ment of Prometheus unexplained. In the fourth place, the
theology of the Greeks was not absolute, like that to which we
are accustomed through Christianity. The power ascribed to
their deities was political and economical. Fate and neces-
sity determined the action of even Zeus, who was himself an
A
* See Supplices, 524-599.
186
THE GREEK POETS.
outgrowth from an earlier and ruder order. They also im-
agined a gradual development in the moral order of the
universe. The intellectual powers of Olympus had superseded
the old nature-forces of the Titanic cosmogony. There was,
therefore, nothing ridiculous to the Greek mind in the notion
that Zeus might be conceived as growing in wisdom and in
righteousness. In the fifth place, we must remember that the
Athenian audience, familiar with the Hesiodic legend of
Prometheus, were better prepared than we are, after listening
to the invectives against Zeus in the second drama of the
trilogy, to accept his triumphant justification in the third.
Not only is the trilogy of Æschylus—if, indeed, he com-
posed a Promethean trilogy at all—now irrecoverable except
by hazardous conjecture, but, what is more unfortunate, the
whole mythus on which it was based has descended to us in
hopelessly mutilated fragments. We can clearly perceive that
it enshrined the deepest speculations of the Greeks concerning
the origin of humanity, the relation of deified intelligence to
material nature and to abstract necessity, the kinship between
the human soul and the divine spirit, and the consciousness of
sin, which implies a division between the will and the reason.
Furthermore, there are hints implied in it of purification through
punishment, of ultimate reconciliation, and of vicarious suf-
fering. But the fabric of the legend is so ruined that to re-
construct these elements of a theological morality is now
impossible. Moreover, the very conditions under which the
mythus flourished, tended to divert the minds of the Greeks
themselves away from the underlying meaning to the romantic
presentation. The story could not fail to usurp upon the
doctrine. Like the Glaucus of Greek mythology, whom Plato
used as a parable in the Republic, the idea which takes shape
in a legend during the first ages of human speculation, gathers
an accretion of the sea-weeds and the shells of fancy round it,
lying at the bottom of the ocean of the human mind through
1
LLI
ÆSCHYLUS.
187
centuries, so that, when it emerges into the light of critical
enquiry, the original lineaments of the conception are deformed
and overgrown, and to strip it bare and see it clearly is no easy
matter. Far more difficult is the task when only the maimed
fragments, the disjecta membra, of the myth remain to us.
However freely Æschylus may have dealt with the tale of
Prometheus, however he may have employed it as a vehicle
for rational theology, he cannot have wholly eliminated those
qualities which belonged to it as a Saga rather than a chapter
of religious tradition. Indeed, by dramatising, he was pro-
bably impelled to accentuate the legendary outline at the
expense of philosophical coherence. This consideration may
explain some of the apparent incongruities in his fable, to which
attention has not been yet directed in this essay. One of these
concerns the position of the human race between Zeus, their
apparent oppressor, and Prometheus, their avowed champion.
It was for the sake of mankind that Prometheus disobeyed
Zeus; it was through severity towards mankind that Zeus
placed himself at variance with justice. Yet we find Zeus
seeking a mortal bride among the daughters of the men he had
sought to destroy ; nor is there any reason why, when he could
crucify their champion, he should not have annihilated the
whole race outright. Perhaps, however, we ought to conjec-
ture that, at this point, the episode of Deucalion and his re-
storation of mankind after the deluge was understood to have
intervened.
Other discrepancies may be stated briefly. In the elder
version of the fable presented by Hesiod, Prometheus is almost
identified with humanity, while some later fragments of the
legend make him the father of Deucalion. In Æschylus he is
an immortal god, whose sympathy with men proceeds from
generosity and pity. Hesiod describes him as the son of the
Titan Iapetos by Asia. Æschylus places him in the first rank
of Titanic agencies, by making him the son of Earth or Themis ;
188
THE GRËEK POETS.
he is married to Hesione, daughter of Oceanus. Hesiod names
his brother Epimetheus; and herein we trace the remnants of
an antique psychological analysis, whereof Æschylus has made
no use. It is clear, therefore, that the Attic poet dealt freely
with the mythus, selecting for artistic purposes only such
points in the Hellenic fable as would fit the framework of his
drama.
The only sure ground, amid so much that is both shifting
and uncertain, is that the race of men had sinned against God,
and that Prometheus was a responsible co-agent in their crime.
This in itself is a strong argument in favour of the view which
has been urged throughout this essay. This view may be
resumed in the following positions. First, it is probable that
the Prometheus Bound is only the second drama of a trilogy.
Secondly, the vilification of Zeus as a despot must be under-
stood in a dramatic sense; it was appropriate to the situation
of the actors, and intended to enhance the pathos of the pro-
tagonist's suffering. Thirdly, if we possessed the trilogy entire,
we should see that Prometheus had been really and gravely
in the wrong, and that his obstinacy was in the highest sense
tragic according to the Greek conception, inasmuch as it
displayed the aberration of a sublime character. Fourthly, the
occasion of a worthy reconciliation between Zeus and Prome-
theus, wherein the former should forego his anger and the latter
bend the proud neck of his will, was furnished by Herakles,
who held an intermediate position between God and men, and
who was recognised as the redresser of wrongs and saviour by
the Greeks at large.
The Trilogy of the Oresteia is at the same time the master-
piece of Æschylus as a dramatic poet, and also the surest
source that we possess for forming a theory of his theo-
logical opinions. I do not propose to consider it from the
second of these points of view, but rather to concentrate
attention upon its greatness as a connected poem in three
ÆSCHYLUS.
189
stupendous parts—as “the majestic image of a high and
stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn
scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and
harping symphonies.” In the Oresteia Æschylus has plucked
the last fruit upon the Upas-tree of crime which flourished
in the palace of Mycenæ. The murder of Agamemnon, after
his return in pomp and power from Troy, forms the subject
of the first play. By selecting this point for the overture to
the series, the poet was able to allude in choric songs to the
ancestral curse of the house, and also to the special crimes
of Agamemnon, in his sacrifice of Iphigeneia, in the protracted
sufferings of the Argives before Troy, and in his fatal pride.
The vaticinations of Cassandra opened a terrific vista of the
horrors accumulated upon the family of Thyestes. Thus the
past was connected with the present, and the intolerable
account of guilt which Orestes, the chief actor, was destined in
the end, by the help of Heaven, to discharge, was vividly pre-
sented to the minds of the audience. Agamemnon is murdered,
and defiance. She glories in her act, pretending that she has
duly revenged the death of Iphigeneia, and suppressing her
own adultery with Ægisthus--a criminal motive more than
enough to vitiate its character of retributive justice.
The Chorus, who are hostile to her and her paramour, call
upon her, if she really slew her husband for Iphigeneia's sake,
to leave the palace and seek purification. This was her duty
according to Greek etiquette. But she refuses ; and no Furies
haunt her for her crime, seeing that the Furies take account
of none but kindred blood, and Clytemnestra killed a man
who was no relative by birth, but only by marriage. Such
is the strange doctrine which the Eumenides themselves, in
the third play of the series, propound before the judgment-
seat of Pallas. In a deeper sense it was artistically fitting
that Clytemnestra should remain unvisited by the dread god-
190
THE GREEK POETS.
1
17
desses. They were the deities of remorse, and she had steeled
her soul against the stings of conscience. Neither from the
blood of a slain husband could they rise ; nor was there in
her own heart harbourage for their grim choir. But though
Clytemnestra escaped the spiritual visitings of the Erinnyes,
she knew what fear was. Orestes, as the Chorus told her, was
still living.
The Choëphoræ continues the tale of blood and vengeance.
Orestes returns to Mycenæ. He recognises his sister Electra
by their father's tomb, deludes Clytemnestra with a false tale
of his own death, and then succeeds in killing her together
with Ægisthus on the spot where they had murdered Aga-
memnon. Once more the palace is thrown open ; instead of
Agamemnon and Cassandra, Clytemnestra and Ægisthus lie
prostrate before the desecrated altars, and Orestes exhibits
to the Argives the robe in which his father had been caught
and tangled ere the axe descended on his head. Then, when
the song of joy is rising from Electra and the Chorus, while
they are crying that the ancient Fury of the house has been
appeased, at that very moment the eyes of Orestes dilate with
, horror, his hair bristles, and he trembles with madness. He
sees what none around him may discern. The Erinnyes of
his mother are upon him, and he flies. Like all the middle
plays of a trilogy, the Choëphoræ is somewhat stationary in its
action. But this closing scene is tremendous. It powerfully
affected the imagination of the Greeks, and continued,
through the period of Græco-Roman art, to form a favourite
subject for sepulchral bas-reliefs. Some of these have
been preserved to us, the finest being one in the Capitoline
Museum.
By the termination of the Choëphoræ we are prepared for
yet another tragedy, the last of the series. The Eumenides
opens with a scene which represents the temple of Phæbus at
Delphi. Orestes has taken refuge with the god who bade him
ÆSCHYLUS.
191
slay his mother, and who must now purify him. He lies
breathless at the altar-steps, with the branch of suppliant wool-
enwoven olive in his hand. Not far away are stretched the
Furies, hideous, and snorting in their slumber. Phoebus,
while they yet sleep, bids his client rise and speed to Athens,
to await the verdict of Pallas in his case. So much we learn,
partly from the speech of the Pythia, and partly from the lips
of the god himself. Then, when Orestes has started on his
way, the phantom of Clytemnestra appears and bids the sleep-
ing Furies rise. One by one they start, and groan like hounds
disturbed in the midst of dreamings of the chase. When they
see their prey has escaped, they break into full cry—a brazen-
throated chorus, accompanied by brazen-footed tramplings.
Phoebus, however, drives them forth with scorn from his sun-
bright shrine. Why linger they in those hypæthral temple-
chambers, resonant with song, and gladdened by the feet of
youths and maidens bearing bays ? Their haunts should
rather be the charnel-house, the shambles, the gallows, the
torture-chamber of barbarians. The scene is now changed to
Athens, where Pallas presides over the court of the Areiopagus
assembled to decide between the Furies who prosecute Orestes,
and Phoebus who defends his suppliant. There is no doubt
about the deed : Clytemnestra was slain by her own son ;
the question to settle is, whether circumstance could justify
so unnatural an act. The Furies represent the blind instinct
of repulsion for the shedding of maternal blood, which no
primâ facie argument can excuse, and which cannot be covered.
Phoebus is the holy and pure power, who will not suffer moral
abominations, like the unpunished insolence of the murderess
Clytemnestra, to abide. Pallas stands for reason, capable of
weighing motives, of disengaging a necessary act of retributive
justice from brute murder. In the breasts of the human
judges, these three faculties—the instinct which condemns
matricide, the instinct which sanctions under any circumstance
N
192
TIJE GREEK POETS.
the punishment of crime, and the reason which holds the
balance of impulses--are active. After much angry pleading
by the advocates on both sides, the votes are taken. Half
decide against Orestes; half acquit him. Pallas, by her cast-
ing vote, determines the verdict in his favour.' The Eumenides,
disappointed of their prey, threaten vengeance against Athens ;
but Pallas appeases them, and assigns them a place of honour
in her city for ever.
It is clear that the three plays of this trilogy are closely
bound together, and that their connection is that of thesis,
antithesis, and synthesis. The Agamemnon sets forth the crime
of Clytemnestra; the Choëphoræ exhibits the exceptional con-
duct of Orestes with regard to that crime; the Eumenides
contains his exculpation. The third play offers a reconciliation
of the agencies at warfare in the first and second; the curse
of the house of Atreus is worked out and set at rest by the
hero whose awful duty it was to revenge a father's murder on
a mother. His justification lay in his submission to the divine
will. Had he taken the matricidal office on himself in haste
or anger, he must have added another link to the chain of
crime that hitherto had bound his family through generations.
What he did, however, was done with a clear conscience;
and, though he suffered the maddening anguish of so terrible
an act, he found rest and peace for his soul at last. Thus a
new power, unrealised in the Agamemnon and the Choëphoru,
was needed for the solution presented in the Eumenides.
Passing from the internal structure of these dramas to
their form, we may notice llow Æschylus provided theatrical
variety consistent with the varying subject. It was requisite
that the action of the two first should take place at Mycena;
so the scene was not altered, but the Chorus was changed,
in order that the pathos of Electra's situation might be
made more clear in the Choëphoræ. The Eumenides admitted
not only of a new Chorus, but also of a total change
Y
ÆSCHYLUS.
193
of scene; it may be added that this third drama violates the
unities alike of place and time.
tionably the noblest. It is the masterpiece of Æschylus, and
to one who has conquered its difficulties and imbibed its spirit
it offers a spectacle of tragic grandeur not to be surpassed,
hardly to be equalled, by) anything which even Shakspeare pro-
the lengthy choric passages, abstract in their thought, though
splendid in their imagery—the concentration of the poet's
powers on one terrific climax-for every word that Agamemnon,
Clytemnestra, and Cassandra utter, leads up to the death-cry
of the King-contribute to the excellence of a drama of this,
style. If we lack the variety and subtlety that charm us in a
work like Hamlet; if, after reading the play over and over again,
and testing it in many crucibles of critical analysis, we do not,
as in the case of Shakspeare's tragedies, discover new and
delicate beauties in the minor parts, but learn each time, and by
each process, to admire the vigour of the poet's main concep-
tion, the god-like energy with which he has developed it; that
may be taken as the strongest proof of its perfection as a
monument of classic art.
There is, in the Agamennon, an oppressive sense of
multitudinous crimes, of sins gathering and swelling to produce
a tempest. The air we breathe is loaded with them. No
escape is possible. The marshalled thunderclouds roll ever
onward, nearer and more near, and far more swiftly than the
foot can flee. At last the accumulated storm bursts in the
murder of Agamemnon, the majestic and unconscious victim
felled like a steer at the stall; in the murder of Cassandra, who
foresees her fate, and goes to meet it with the shrinking of
some dumb creature, and with the helplessness of one who !
knows that doom may not be shunned; in the lightning-flash
of Clytemnestra's arrogance, who hitherto has been a glittering
II.
194
THE GREEK POETS.
hypocrite, but now proclaims herself a fiend incarnate. As the
Chorus cries, the rain of blood, that hitherto has fallen drop by
| drop, descends in torrents on the house of Atreus : but the end
is not yet. The whole tragedy becomes yet more sinister when
we regard it as the prelude to ensuing tragedies, as the overture
to fresh symphonies and similar catastrophes. Wave after wave
of passion gathers and breaks in these stupendous scenes; the
ninth wave mightier than all, with a crest whereof the spray is
blood, falls foaming; over the outspread surf of gore and ruin
The imagery of the Agamemnon most powerfully contri-
butes to heighten the tragic impression of the plot. At one
time the ancestral fury of the doomed house is likened to a
demon leaping on it from above, by a metaphor which vividly
suggests Blake's design of Satan pouring flame upon the
dwelling of Job's sons. At another it is compared to a
cormorant brooding upon its battlements; and yet again, by a
stroke of irony peculiarly impressive to the Greeks, it is
likened to a band of revellers. The repetition of the same
class of metaphors, the frequent references to the net in which
Agamemnon was to be caught, to the axe with which he
and Cassandra were to be slaughtered, to the smoke and scent
of blood which was to bathe the altar of the household Zeus
with sacrifice unhallowed, assail the imagination with portentous
Of all the terrors in this tragedy none is so awful in itself, or
so artistically heightened, as Cassandra's prophecy. Accom-
panying her lord and master, she has approached the palace
of Mycena. Clytemnestra has greeted the King with a set
oration, admirable for its rhetoric, covering by dark inuendoes
her foul thought. Spreading upon the threshold purple raiment
and mantles suited to the service of the gods-such embroidered
garments, we may fancy, as Athenian ladies wrought for Pallas
-she exclaims : " Descend from this thy chariot; nor set on
ÆSCHYLUSTY
195
.
earth, dread monarch, thy foot that trampled upon Troy.” It
is as though a mediæval wife should bid her lord, returning
from the East, to tread on altar-cloths and sacerdotal vestments.
Agamemnon shrinks from the sacrilege, but she overrules his
scruples, and he complies. All this while Cassandra is seated,
patient, in her car. Like a statue sculptured in monumental
alabaster, with hands upon her knees, and head bowed on
her breast, she waits unmoved. Then the conqueror is led in
to his doom-a doom which the Chorus, in one of their wild
eddying hymns of woe, seem almost to anticipate. Still
Cassandra tarries; and now Clytemnestra comes again, with
taunts and dreadful irony: “Happy are you, princess though
you be, to have such rich and prosperous masters; enter the
palace, the sacrifice is ready at the altar, and to this, as a slave
of the house, you too are bidden.” But Cassandra will not
move. In her soul, where, though a slave, she still retains
the gift of oracular vision, she foresees her doom. She knows
what the riches of the house of Atreus mean, what the
prosperity of Agamemnon really is, what the sacrifice to which
she too is bidden will be. Clytemnestra leaves her, half in
scorn and half in anger. Then, at length, Cassandra lifts her
head, and stirs herself, and groans. The first word she utters
'is“ Apollo ! oh! Apollo !” This rouses the Chorus, and they
ask : “What cry of wailing hast thou shrieked about Apollo?
He is not a god to be greeted with dirges.” Phoebus was, in -
truth, the deity of brightness and music, not of the funeral
groan or death lament. Still Cassandra, with the same ill-
omened utterance, reverberates the name : “Apollo ! ah,
Apollo! lo, a second time hast thou undone me!" To
Phoebus she had promised her virginity; the promise was not
kept, and he requited her with prophecy that none might
heed or understand. No tragic portion is more piteous than
this of her who was the clear-eyed seer of coming woes, the
0.2
196
THE GREEK POETS.
knowledge worse than ignorance, and to the scorn that falls on
idle babblers. Now, once again, descending on her with the
might of prophecy, the god compels her to predict her own
swift-coming fate. Little by little, at the intercession of the
Chorus, Cassandra becomes more articulate. She calls the
house before her the shambles of a man, a pavement blood-
bedabbled." There stands the stately palace-front; its marble
steps are covered with tapestry, the statues of its protective
gods are crowned with flowers; while the lonely prophetess
is shuddering at so fair a frontispiece to a tragedy within so
frightful, now to be accomplished on her master and herself.
Meantime the Chorus also wait, involved in their own anxiety;
the mysterious anguish of the weird woman, whom they
know to have the hand of God laid heavily upon her, makes
them tremble. “What mean you,” they exclaim,“ by scenting
like a dog for blood upon this royal threshold ?" Cassandra
only answers : “Are not these children wailing for their death
enough? Is not their flesh, tasted by their father at their
uncle's board, my witness ?” She points to phantoms which
the Chorus cannot see, the ghosts of the children of Thyestes.
They reply sullenly, for they know the story of the house : “We
want no soothsayers.” Then Cassandra breaks forth afresh,
this time vaticinating imminent calamity : “What is she plot-
ting, what doom unbearable ? and there is none to aid !” The
Chorus take up their strain : “Here indeed you are a riddler ;
what you meant before was common talk.” But Cassandra
heeds them not. Her second-sight pierces the palace-walls,
and she shrieks: “Mad woman, are you decking your husband
for the bath? The end draws near. Hand stretches forth
to hand. Is it a net of Hell? Keep the ox from the heifer !
she hath caught him in her robe and slays him. I tell you
he is falling, falling in the trough of death.” The Chorus
are puzzled by these hurried and ecstatic exclamations; but
their very fear seems to keep them from the apprehension
ÆSCHYLUS.
197
of the truth. Then Cassandra changes her tone, and bewails-
her own misfortunes, her coming death, and the crime of Paris
which brought her to this doom, employing throughout these
prophecies a lyric metre suited to their pregnant brevity. At
last, when she has well-nigh worn out the patience of the
Chorus, she assumes the regular iambic of common speech :
“Now, then, at length shall the oracle gaze upon you free from
veils like a bride. The Furies are in this house; blood-surfeited,
but not assuaged, they hold perpetual revel here. It is the
crime of Atreus and of Thyestes which they hunt, and woe
will fall on woe.” The Chorus can only wonder that she, a
foreign princess, should know the secrets of the fated race; but
she tells them the story of Apollo's love, and how she deceived
him, and what he wrought to punish her. Then, even as she
speaks, the pang of inspiration thrills her. Perhaps the speech
that follows, through its ghastly blending of visions evoked
from the past with insight piercing into the immediate future,
affects the imagination more intensely than any other piece of
tragic declamation. Even the sleep-mutterings of Lady Macbeth,
though they form a curious modern counterpart to the broken
exclamations of Cassandra, are less appalling; for hers reveal a
guilty conscience maddened by one crime, while Cassandra's
outcry sums up the history of a whole accursed race, and
expresses at the same time the agony of an innocent victim :
Woe, woe! Ah, ah ! what pain !
Again the dreadful pangs oracular
Shoot through me, tempesting my soul with preludes.
See you those children seated on the house-roof?
Babes are they, like unto the shapes of dreams;
Vea, children seem they, slaughtered by their kin,
Whose hands are filled with meat of their own flesh;
Their very hearts and entrails, piteous load,
I see them bear, whereof their father tasted !
Wherefore I say, vengeance for this is plotting.
A lion, thewless, amid pillows lapped,
House-guard, alas ! for my returning master-
Mine : for I needs must bear the yoke, a slave.
198
THE GREEK POETS.
But he, the admiral, Ilion's overthrower,
Knows not what things the tongue of that lewd bitch
With speeches and with long-drawn fawning fairness, like
A lurking Até, by ill-luck will do.
Thus, then, she dares : she, woman, slays a man ;
Yea, slays. What loathsome reptile can I name her,
Nor miss my mark ?-foul amphisbæna, Scylla
That dwells in rocks, the ship-borne seaman's bane,
Raging mother of Hell, a truceless strife
Belching on friend and kindred ! How she shouted
With daring swollen, as when the foemen scatter!
Now of these things I care not if I gain
No credence. What ? What will be, comes; and thou
Wilt stand and pity and call me too true prophet.
No translation can do justice to the appalling fury of the
-original, since it is only in Greek-a language usually sedate and
harmonised by sense of beauty—that such phrases as Oúovoar
'Aidov intép' have their full value. The Chorus are shaken
froni their incredulity, as much by the intensity of Cassandra's
conviction as by the desperate calm of her last words. Is
Agamemnon really to be slain? Yes, she answers, and, pray or
not as you may choose, they there inside the house are slaying.
Then once more the rage of divination seizes her, and the scene
of her own death, like that of Agamemnon's, flames upon her
soul. The second speech has more of pathos than the first,
less of fury ; but it is scarcely less' awful :
Ah, ah! the fire ! lo, how it comes upon me !
Phoebus Lycæan, ho! Ah, woe is me !
She, too, this two-foot lioness that couches
With the wolf, what time the lion is away,
Will slay me, slay me! Like a poison-brewer
She'll mix my death-wage with her broth of hell ;
Yea, and she swears, sharpening the knife to slay him,
Her lord shall pay with blood for bringing me.
Why wear I, then, these gauds to laugh me down-
This rod, these necklace-wreaths oracular?
You, ere my death, at least I will destroy :-
Go ; fall ; away, and perish : I shall follow.
Make rich some other curse of men than me.
Lo, you! Apollo's self is stripping me
TIL
ILL
ÆSCHYLUS.
199
Of this propbetic raiment-he who saw me
Even in these robes jeered at mid friends by foemen,
Who scorned in chorus with one voice of vain scorn.
Yea, when I was called beggar, vagabond,
Poor, wretched, starveling, speechless, I endured :
Now he who made me prophetess, the prophet,
Himself hath brought me to these straits of death.
No altar of my fathers waits for me,
But that red block where I must reeking wallow.
Nay, but not unavenged of heaven we perish!
For yet another in our cause shall come,
Avenger, matricide, his father's champion :
Though exiled, wandering from this land a stranger,
He shall return to crown the curse of kindred :
For gods in heaven have sworn a mighty oath
That the sire's prostrate corse shall bring him home.
Why wait I, then, lamenting thus, an alien ?-
I, who beheld of old proud Ilion
Fare as she fared, and they who dwelt therein
Receive such measure from the gods of judgment,
I, too, will rise and dare, myself, to perish.
Therefore I greet these gates as gates of Hades,
Praying a full fair stroke may be my due,
That thus with blood that gently flows to waste,
Torn by no death-pangs, I these eyes may close.
· The draught of prophecy is now drained to the very dregs.
Nothing remains but for Cassandra to enter the palace-doors
of Hades. She approaches them step by step, bewailing, after
the fashion of Greek tragedy, her own woes, and those of
Priam's family. Suddenly she starts. The scent of blood
assails her nostrils, and, like a steer that shivers at the gory
shambles, she draws back. The Chorus say, “ It is only the
smell of sacrifice upon the hearth.” But the weird woman
discovers a very different odour of coming slaughter : “ To me
the reek is like the breath of charnels." Still forward, though
shrinking from the unseen, unavoidable doom, she must advance,
invoking the avenger of herself and Agamemnon, and calling,
on the all-seeing sun. Her last words are uttered in the same
spirit as Macbeth's soliloquy upon the point of battle ; they
200
THE GREEK POETS.
intensify and elevate the tragic moment by drawing the whole
destiny of mortals into harmony with her own doom :
Ah, lives of men ! When prosperous, they glitter
Like a fair picture ; when misfortune comes,
A wet sponge at one blow hath blurred the painting.
Thus, at the last, tranquil and stately, she touches the door,
enters, and it shuts behind her. For a while the Chorus stand
alone, and sing a low, brief chant of terror. The scene is
empty, and the palace-front towers up into calm light.
Then, when our nerves have been strained to the cracking-
point of expectation by Cassandra's prophecy and by the
silence that succeeds it, from within the house is heard the
deep-chested cry of Agamemnon: “O me, I am stricken with
a stroke of death !” This shriek is the most terrible incident
in all tragedy, owing to its absolute and awful timeliness, its
adequacy to the situation. The whole dramatic apparatus of
the play has been, as it were, constructed with a view to it ;
yet, though we expect it, our heart stops when at last it comes.
The stillness, apparently of home repose, but really of death,
which broods upon the house during those last moments, while
every second brings the hero nearer to his fate, has in it a
concentrated awfulness that surpasses even the knocking at
the gate in Macbeth. Then comes the cry of Agamemnon,
and the whole structure of terror descends upon us. It is
as though an avalanche had been gathering above our heads
and gradually loosening-loosening with fearfully accelerated
ratio of movement as the minutes fly—until a single word will
be enough to make it crumble. That word, uttered from
behind the stately palace-walls, startling the guilty and op-
pressive silence, intimating that the workers have done working,
that the victim has been taken in their toils, is nothing less
than the shriek of the smitten King. It sounds once for the
death-blow given : and once again it sounds, to mark a second
stroke.' Then shriek and silence are alike forgotten in the
ÆSCHYLUS201
TITY
.
downfall of the mass of dread. The Chorus are torn asunder
by hurried and conflicting counsels, eddying like dead leaves
caught and tossed in the clutches of a tempest. Horror huddles
upon horror, as the spectacle of slaughter is itself revealed-
the King's corpse smoking in the silver bath, Cassandra
motionless in death beside him. Above them stands Clytem-
nestra, shouldering her murderous axe, with open nostrils and
dilated eyes, glorying in her deed, cherishing the blood-drops
on her arms and dress and sprinkled bosom; while, invisible
to mortal eyes, the blood-swilled demon of the house sits eyeing
her as its next victim. Ægisthus-craven, but spiteful-—slinks
forth, hyena-like, after the accomplished act, to trample on the
hero and insult his grave.
Some such spectacle as this was revealed to the Athenians
by the rolling back of the eccyclema at the end of the Agamem-
non. The triumph of adulterous Clytemnestra and cowardly
Ægisthus would, however, have been far from tragic in its
utter moral baseness, did we not know that this drama was
to be succeeded by another which should right the balance.
Perhaps this is the reason why the Oresteia is the only extant
trilogy. Its three parts are so closely interlinked that to
separate them was impossible. The preservers of the Agamem-
1101 were forced to preserve the Choëphoræ ; the preservers of
the Choëphoræ could not dispense with the Eumenides.
The Chorus of the Agamennon demands separate criti-
cism. The Chorus in all Greek tragedy performs, it has been
often said, the part of an ideal spectator. It comments on the
plot, not daring so much actively to interfere, as uttering re-
flections on the conduct of the dramatis persona, and referring
all obscure events to the arbitrament of heaven. Thus the
Chorus is a mirror of the poet's mind, an index to the moral
which he inculcates, an inspired critic of each movement in
the play. The choric odes, introduced at turning-points in
the main action, are lyrical interbreathings that connect the
S
YA
202
THE GREEK POETS.
past and future with the present. In the plays of Æschylus
the Chorus, as I have already shown, is, moreover, personally
interested in the drama. In the case of the Agamemnon the
fortunes of the burghers of Mycenæ are engaged in the
success or failure of Clytemnestra's scheme. At the same
time, knowing the whole dark history of the house of Atreus,
they foresee the perils which their master, as a member of
that family, must run. It follows that their songs embody
the moral teaching of the tragedy itself without lapsing into
mere sententiousness. Their sympathies, antipathies, and
interests add a vital importance to their utterance. The burden
of all these odes is that punishment for crime, however long
delayed or tortuous in its operation, is inevitable. The gran-
deur of the whole work depends in a great measure on the force
with which this idea is wrought out lyrically, sometimes by
bold images, sometimes by dark inuendoes, repeated like a
mystic rede, or tossed upon the eddies of a wizard chaunt.
From beginning to ending these ancient men are adverse to the
sons of Atreus, gloomily conscious that they cannot prosper.
While recognising the justice of their cause against Paris, who
had trangressed the laws of hospitable Zeus, they yet remember
Agamemnon's swiftness to shed his daughter's blood, the old
Erinnys which pursues the race, the wholesale slaughter of
Achaian citizens before Troy's walls. These recollections
inspire them with uneasiness before the Messenger appears.
Their doubts are confirmed by his news that the altars of the
Trojans had been dishonoured, while their mistrust of
Clytemnestra adds yet a deeper hue to their alarm. Then
comes the scene with Cassandra. No more doubt remains;
and the only question is how to act. Even at the last moment
the Chorus do not lose their faith. They defy Clytemnestra,
telling her to her face that her crime must be avenged, that
the curse must be worked out to the full, and that justice can-
not fail to triumph. At the very end they rise to prophecy :
ÆSCHYLUS.
203
t
LII
you, yourself, unfriended in the end shall fall; the doer, when
Zeus wills, shall suffer for his deed ; remember, therefore, that?
Orestes lives.
The Choric interludes of the Agamemnon, though burdened
with the mystery of sin and fate, and tuned to music stern
and lofty, abound in strains of pathetic and of tender poetry,
deep-reaching to the very fount of tears, unmatched by
aught else in the Greek language. The demiurge who gave
a shape to Titans and to Furies, mingled tears with the clay
of the men he wrought, and star-fire with the beauty of his
women, and even for the birds of the air and the wild
creatures of the woods he felt a sympathy half human, half
divine. In the first Chorus, Æschylus compares the Atreidæ
to eagles robbed of their young, whose cries are answered by
Zeus, Phobus, or Pan. “Hearing the shrill clamour of these
airy citizens, he sendeth after-vengeance on the robbers.”
And, again, Artemis exacts penalty for the hare whom the
eagles bore off to their nests, a prey. “So kindly disposed is
the fair goddess to the tender young of fierce lions, and to the
suckling brood of all beasts that range the field and forest."
Thus the large philosophy of the poet includes justice for all
living things, and even dumb creatures have their rights, which
men may not infringe.
The depth of his human pathos no mere plummet-line of
scholarship or criticism can fathom. Before the vision of
Iphigeneia at the altar we must needs be silent : “ Letting fall
her saffron-coloured skirts to earth, she smote each slayer with
a piteous arrow from her eyes, eloquent as in a picture, desiring
speech, since oftentimes beside the well-spread board within
her father's hall she sang, and maidenly, with chaste voice,
honoured the pæan raised in happy times at festal sacrifice
of her dear sire.” We do not need the sententious moral of
Lucretius uttered four centuries later, tantum relligio potuit
suadere malorum, to point the pathos which Æschylus, with
Y1
S
S
x
204
THE GREEK POETS.
a profounder instinct, draws by one touch from the contrast
between then and now. In the same strain is the description
of Menelaus abandoned in his home by Helen : “She, leaving
to her fellow-citizens the din of shielded hosts, and armings of
the fleet with spears, bringing to Ilion destruction for a dower,
went lightly through the doors, dishonourably brave; and many
a sigh was uttered by the bards of the palace, while they sang
-O house ! O house, and rulers ! O marriage-bed, and
pressure on the pillows of her head who loved her lord !—He
stands by in silence, dishonoured, but without reproaches,
noting with anguish of soul that she is fled. Yea, in his longing
after her who is beyond the sea, a phantom will seem to rule
his house. The grace of goodly statues hath grown irksome
to his gaze, and in his widowhood of weary eyes all beauty fades
away. But dreams that glide in sleep with sorrow, visit him,
conveying a vain joy ; for vain it is, when one hath seemed
to see good things, and lo, escaping through his hands, the
vision flies apace on wings that follow on the paths of sleep."
TI
centrated in its imagery, and so direct in its conveyance of the
very soul of passion, is no light task ; but far more difficult it
is to render it into another language. Yet, even thus, we feel
of vain out-goings of the spirit after vanished joy, is written,
not merely for Menelaus and the Greeks, but for all who
stretch forth empty hands to clasp the dreams of dear ones, and
then turn away, face-downward on the pillow, from the dawn,
to weep or strain hot eyes that shed no tears. Touched by the
same truth of feeling, which includes all human nature in its
sympathy, is the lament, shortly after uttered by the Chorus,
for the numberless fair men who died before Troy town.
Ares, the grim gold-exchanger, who barters the bodies of men,
sends home a little dust shut up within a narrow urn, and wife
and father water this with tears, and cry-behold, he perished
ÆSCHYLUS.
205
nobly in a far land, fighting for a woman, for another's wife.
And others there are who come not even thus again to their old
home; but barrows on Troy plain enclose their fair young flesh,
and an alien soil is their sepulchre. This picture of beautiful dead
men, warriors and horsemen, in the prime of manhood, lying
stark and cold, with the dishonour of the grave upon their
comely hair, and with the bruises of the battle on limbs made
for love, is not meant merely for Achaians, but for all—for us,
perchance, whose dearest moulder on Crimean shores or
Indian plains, for whom the glorious faces shine no more ; but
at best some tokens, locks of hair, or books, or letters, come
to stay our hunger unassuaged. How truly and how faithfully
the Greek poet sang for all ages, and for all manner of men,
may be seen by comparing the strophes of this Chorus with the
last rhapsody but one of the chaunts outpoured in America
different in aim and sentiment, is deep as nature, real as life ;
but from this common root of feeling springs in the one verse
a spotless lily of pure Hellenic form, in the other a mystical
thick growth of fancy, where thoughts brood and nestle amid
tuſted branches ; for the powers of classic and of modern
singers upon the same substance of humanity are diverse.
The Persæ is certainly one of the earliest among the extant
tragedies of Æschylus, since it was produced upon the stage
in 473 B.C., seven years after the battle of Salamis. This drama
can scarcely be called a tragedy in the common sense of the
word. It is rather a tragic show, designed to grace a national
festival and to preserve the memory of a great victory. That
purpose it fulfilled effectively ; the events it celebrates were
still recent; the author of the play had fought himself at
Salamis, and the whole Athenian people were glowing with the
patriotic impulse that had placed them first among the States
of Hellas. Æschylus was, however, too deeply conscious of
206
THE GREEK POETS.
L
the spirit of his art to let the Persæ sink into the rank of
pageantry or triumph. The defeat of Xerxes and his host
supplied him with a splendid tragic instance of pride humbled,
and greatness brought to nothing, through one man's impiety
and pride. The moral that the poet wished to draw is put
into the mouth of Darius, whose ghost, evoked by Atossa and
the Chorus, completes the tale of Persian disasters by predicting
the battle of Platæa. “Swiftly are the oracles accomplished.
I looked for length of days; but when a man hastes, God helps
to urge him on. It was my son's insolence, in chaining the
holy Hellespont, and thinking he could stay the Bosporus,
the stream divine, from flowing, which brought these woes.
He thought to make a path for his ariny, to hold Poseidon and
the powers of Heaven in bondage—he a mortal, and they gods!
Few of his great host shall come again to Susa. In Hellas
they must pay the penalty of arrogance and godless hearts.
Coming to that land, they thought it no shame to rob the
statues of the gods and burn the shrines; the altars were cast
down, the temples overthrown. Therefore, as they did evil,
evil shall they suffer. Heaps of dead upon Platæa's plain shall
tell to the third generation, by speechless signs appealing to the
eyes of men, that no man mortal may dare raise his heart
too high. For insolence blooms forth and bears the crop of
disaster, whence one reaps a harvest of tears. Seeing which
payment for these crimes, remember Hellas and Athens. Nor
let a man, in scorn of his own lot, desire another's good, and
spill much wealth; for Zeus, in sooth, stands high above, a
grievous schoolmaster, to tame excessive lifting-up of hearts."
Nowhere else, it may be said, has Æschylus thought fit so
decidedly to moralise his dramatic motive, or so clearly to state
in simple words his philosophy of Nemesis. The ghost of
Darius, as may be conjectured from this address, does not
belong to the same race as the Banquos and Hamlets of our
stage. He is a political phantom, a monarch evoked from
ÆSCHYLUS.
207
his mausoleum to give sage counsel, and well informed about
the affairs of his empire.
. By laying the scene of this drama at Susa, the ancient
capital of the Persian kings, Æschylus was enabled to adopt a
style of treatment peculiarly flattering to his Greek audience.
The Persians are made to bewail their own misfortunes, to
betray the rottenness of their vast empire, and to lament the
wretchedness of nations subject to the caprice of irresponsible
and selfish princes. Inured to slavery, they hug their chains ;
and, though in rags, Xerxes is still to them a demigod. The
servility of Oriental courtiers, the pomp and pride of Oriental
princes, the obsequious ceremonies and the inflated flatteries of
barbarians, are translated for Greek ears and eyes into gorgeous
forms by the poet, whose own genius had something Asiatic in
its tone and temper. Many occasions for grim irony are
afforded by this mode of handling ; whereof the famous speech
of Atossa on the clothes of Xerxes, if that, indeed, be genuine,
and the inability of the Chorus, through servile shyness, to
address the ghost of Darius, furnish the most obvious exam-
ples. A finer and subtler note is struck in the dialogue between
Atossa and the Chorus just before the news of the defeat at
Salamis arrives. She asks where Athens may be found :
keiva d'ékpaleiv déaw,
pinol, Toll Tàs ’Abývas paolv idpūodai xoovós ;
This offers the poet an opportunity for putting into the
mouth of the Persian coryphæus a flattering account of his own
nation : No monarch have they, few are they, but all men of
might, and strong enough to rout the myriad bowmen of the
Persian host with spear and shield. The naïveté of the de-
scription-in itself highly complimentary to the Athenians,
must have made it effective on the stage. We may fancy
how the cheering of the men of Marathon re-echoed from
the Dionysian theatre, and filled Athene's hill “song-wise"
208
THE GREEK POETS.
with sound, as each triumphant trochaic leapt forth from the
Persian lips. At the same time the tragic irony is terrible, for
the queen is on the point of hearing fçom the Messenger that
this mere handful of spearmen crushed her son's host, countless
as the stars, in one day upon sea and shore. The real point
of that fierce duel of two nations, which decided the future
of the human race—the contrast between barbarians and
men in whom the spirit was alive, between slaves driven to the
fight like sheep and freemen acting consciously as their own
will determined, between the brute force of multitudes and the
inspired courage of a few heroes--has never been expressed
more radiantly than in this play. No language of criticism can
do justice to the incomparable brilliancy and vigour with which
the tale of Salamis is told. We must remember, in reading the
speeches of the Messenger, that this is absolutely the first page
of Greek history. It came before Herodotus, and the soldier-
poet, who had seen what he narrated, was no less conscious
than we are, after all our study, of the real issues, of the
momentous interests at stake. Never elsewhere has contem-
porary history been written thus. In these triumphant rheseis
Æschylus did not choose to maintain a bare dramatic propriety.
The herald is relating disaster after disaster ; yet the elation of
the poet pulses through his speech, and he cannot be sad. We
feel that, while he is dinning into the ears of the barbarian
empress and her courtiers this panegyric of Hellenic heroism,
he is really speaking to an Attic audience. The situation is,
however, sufficiently sustained for theatrical purposes by the
dignity wherewith Atossa meets her ruin. She shows herself
a queen in spite of all, and the front she presents to "the
şea of troubles” (kakū v mélayos) breaking over the whole
Asian empire, is fully adequate to the magnitude of the calamity.
It is difficult to believe that the speech written for her by
Æschylus, when she returns with the libations for Darius, was
not intended, by its grandly decorative style, to convey the
AESCHYLUS:
209
impression of calmness in the midst of sorrow. Atossa is great
enough to be self-possessed, and to dwell with tender thought-
fulness upon the gifts of nature beloved by the powers of dark-
ness. The lines are se :
.
.'
βοός τ' αφ' αγνής λευκόν εύποτον γάλα,
της τ’ άνθεμουργού στάγμα, παμφαές μέλι,
λιβάσιν υδρηλαίς παρθένου πηγής μέτα
ακήρατον τε μητρός αγρίας απο
ποτόν παλαιάς αμπέλου γάνος τόδε:
της δ' αιέν εν φύλλoισι θαλλούσης ίσον
ξανθής ελαίας καρπός ευώδης πάρα,
άνθη τε πλεκτά παμφόρου γαίας τέκνα.
This passage is a fair example of the “mighty line” o
Æschylus, employed for purposes of pure adornment. The
pomp and circumstance of tragic style, which he so well knew
how to use, gave unrivalled dignity to his narration. Yet this.
style, even in the days of Aristophanes, had come to sound
extravagant, while its occasional bombast, as in the famous:
periphrasis for dust,
κάσις
πηλού ξύνουρος διψία κόνις,
reminds a modern reader too much of the padding of the actors”
chests, the cothurnus, brazen mouthpiece, and heightened mask
required by the huge size of the Athenian theatre. The phrases
invented in the Frogs to express the peculiarities of the Æschy-
lean exaggeration, κομποφακελορρήμονα, οι ιππολόφων λόγων
κορυδαίολα νείκη, or, again,
φρίξας δ' αυτοκόμου λοφιάς λασιαυχενα χαίταν
δεινόν επισκύνιον ξυνάγων βρυχώμενος ήσει
ρήματα γομφοπαγή πινακηδόν αποσπών
γηγενεί φυσήματι
very cleverly parody the effect of the more tumid passages.
Yet when Æschylus chose to be simple he combined majesty //
with grace, strength with beauty, and speed with volume, in a'
II.
210
THE GREEK PUETS.
style which soars higher and reaches farther than the polished
perfection of Sophocles or the artistic elegance of Euripides.
The descriptions of Ionia and Doria arawing Xerxes' chariot
in Atossa's dream, and of the education of mankind in the
Prometheus, belong to his more pure and chastened manner.
The famous speech in which Clytemnestra tells of the leaping
up of watchfire after watchfire from Troy to Mycenæ, of Ida
flashing the flame to the Hermæan cliff of Lemnos, of Athos
taking it up and sending it with joy across the gulf to far
Makistus, of the Messapian warders lighting their dry heath
and speeding the herald-blaze in brightness like the moon
to Citharon, and thence, by peak and promontory, over
fen and plain and flickering armlet of the sea, onward to
Agamemnon's palace-tower—this brilliant picture, glittering
with the rarest jewels of imaginative insight, can only be couplėd
with the Salaminian speeches of the Persa. They stand in a
place apart. Purity, lucidity, rapidity, energy, elevation, and
fiery intensity of style are here divinely mingled. There is no
language and no metre equal to the Greek and the iambic for
such resonant, elastic, leaping periods as these. The firm grasp
upon reality preserved by Æschylus, even in his most pas-
sionate and most imaginative moments, adds force unrivalled
to these descriptive passages.
At the same time he surpassed all the poets of his nation in
a certain Shaksperian concentration of phrase. The invectives
uttered by Cassandra against Clytemnestra, and her broken
exclamations, abound in examples of energétic, almost gro-
tesque, imagery, not to be paralleled in Greek literature. The
whole of the Seven against Thebes, and in particular that choric
ode which describes the capture and sack of a town, might
be cited with a similar intention. But perhaps the strongest
instance of this more than Greek vehemence of expression is
the denunciation hurled by Phoebus at the Furies in his
Delphian shrine :
ÆSCHYLUS.
2) 1
Away, I bid you ! Leave my palace halls :
Quit these pure shrines oracular with speed!
Lest haply some winged glistening serpent sent
From the gold-twisted bow-wire bite your flesh,
And ye, pain-stricken, vomit gory froth,
The clotted spidth of man's blood ye have supped.
Nay, these gates are not yours! There is your dwelling,
Where heads are chopped, eyes gouged in savage justice,
Throats cut, and bloom of boys unnameably
Is mangled; there where nose and ears are slithered,
With stonings, and the piteous smothered moan
Of slaves impaled. Hence! Hear ye not whereby,
Loving like ghouls these banquets, ye’re become
To gods abominable? Lo, your shape
Bewrays your spirit. Blood-swilled lions' dens
Are fit for you to live in, not the seat
Of sooth oracular, which you pollute.
Go, heiſers grazing without herdsman, go !
To herd like yours no face of god is kindly.
Another Shaksperian quality in the Æschylean use of lan-
guage and of imagery might be illustrated from his metaphors.
He calls the ocean a forest—Tóvrlov čloos or ålippurov dlouç
-as though he would remind us of the great sea-beasts that
roam like wolves or lions down beneath the waves. The
vultures are okúorouoc Zyvos úkpayłīs kúreç. The eagle is Aus
ainvòs kówv dapolvós. The Furies of Clytemnestra are unspor
ŠYKOTOL Kúveç. The Argives who poured forth from the Wooden
Horse to plunder Troy are called 'Apyłžov dákos, ir Tov vEOOOÙS,
đo lònpópos lɛúc. The flame of the thunder-bolt becomes
TT upòs aupukins Bóorpuxos. The beacon-flame on Ægiplanctus is
a huge beard, φλογός μέγαν πώγωνα. In all these metaphors
we trace an imaginative energy which the Greek poets usually
sought to curb. When we speak of the mighty line of Æschylus,
we naturally remember verses like these :
αλλ' ου καρανιστήρες οφθαλμωρύχοι,
and
φαιοχίτωνες και πεπλεκτανημέναι
πυκνοις δράκουσιν,
1 2
212
THE .
GREEK POETS.
which carry with them a massive weight, not only of sound and
words, but also of meaning and of imagery. No wonder that
Aristophanes jestingly compared the gravity of the style of
Æschylus with that of Euripides in balances. A single phrase
of the former's causes a score of the latter's to kick the beam ;
and as the sonorous nouns, flanked by their polysyllabic
epithets, advance, the earth is seen to shake as though batta-
lions were hurrying to the charge, and squadrons of cavalry
with thundering horses' hoofs and waving plumes were prancing
on the plain.
The difficulty of Æschylus, when it is not clue, as in the
Suppliants and in the choric odes of the Agamemnon, to a
ruined text, may be ascribed to the rapidity of his transition
from one thought to another, to the piling up of images
and metaphors, and to the remote and mystic nature of the
ideas he is seeking for the first time to express in language.
Where even simple prose could scarcely convey his meaning,
he presents a cloud of highly poetic figures to our mind. This
kind of difficulty, however, like that which the student has to
meet in Pindar, is straightforward. You know when you are at
fault, and why, and how alone you can arrive at a solution of
the problem. The difficulty of Sophocles is more insidious.
It is possible to think you understand him, when you really do
not; to feel his drift, and yet to find it hard to construe his
language. In this case the difficulty arises from the poet's
desire to convey his meaning in a subtle, many-sided, pregnant,
and yet smooth style. The more you think over it, the more
you get from it. Euripides belonged to an age of facile speech,
fixed phraseology, and critical analysis : it therefore follows:
that he presents fewer obvious difficulties to the reader; and
this, perhaps, was one reason for his popularity among the early
scholars of the modern age. At any rate, he does not share
with Æschylus the difficulty that arose when a poet of intense
feeling and sublime imagination strove to grapple with deep
LUI
0
ÆSCIIYLUS.
213
and intricate thoughts before language had become a scientific
instrument.
In conclusion I would once again return to that doctrine of
madhuara patíquara, connected with a definite conception of
the divine government, and based upon a well-considered
theory of human responsibility, which may be traced through-
out the plays of Æschylus. To this morality his drama owes
its unity and vigour, inasmuch as all the plots constructed by
the poet both presuppose and illustrate it. The conviction
that what a man sows he will reap, and that the world is not
ruled by blind chance, is, in one sense or another, the most solid
ethical acquisition of humanity. Amid so much else that seems
to shift in morals and in religion, it affords firm ground for
action. This vital moral faith the Greeks held as securely,
.at least, as we do ; and the theology with which their highest
teachers—men like Æschylus, Pindar, Plato-sought to connect
it, tended to weaken its effect far less than any other systems
of divinity have done. We are too apt to forget this, while we
fix our attention upon the unrivalled beauty of Greek art.
In reality there are few nations whose fine literature combines so
much asthetic splendour with direct, sound, moral doctrine ;
and this, not because the poets strove to preach, but because
their minds were healthily imbued with human wisdom. Except
in the works of Milton, we English, for example, can show no
poetical exposition of a moral theory at all equal to that of ;
Æschylus. But while Milton sets forth his doctrine as a
portion of divine revelation, and vitiates it with the dross of
dogmatism, Æschylus shows the law implicit in the history of
men and heroes : it is inferred by him intuitively from the facts
of spiritual life, as apprehended by the consciousness of the
Greeks in their best age.
214
THE GREEK POL 7'S.
CHAPTER VII.
SOPHOCLES.
The Personal Beauty of Sophocles-His Liſe-Stories aboni Hün....
Athens in the Age of Pericles.— Antique Criticism on his Style-Its:
perfect Harmony.--Aristotle's Respect for Sophocles.-Character in
Greek Tragedy. -Sophocles and Æschylus.---The Religious Feeling
of Sophocles.-His Ethics.--Exquisite Proportion observed in his
Treatment of the Dramatis Perso110.- Power of using Motives.--The
Philoctetos. —Comparison of the Choëphorm and the Electra.-Climax
of the Edipus Coloneiis.--How Sophocles led onward to Euripides.---
The Trachinie. Goethe's Remarks on the Antigone.---The Tale of
Thebes.- dipus Tyrannus, (Edipus Colonciis, and Antigone do not
make up a Trilogy.--Story of Laius.-The Philosophy of Fate con-
tained in it.—The Oracle. --Analysis of Edipus Tymnus.—Masterly
Treatment of the Character of @dipus.-Change of Situation in the
Coloncës.-Emergence of Antigone into Prominencc.-Analysis of
the Antigone. --The Character of Antigone.--Its Beauty.-Contrast
afforded by Ismene and by Creon.-Fault in the Climax of the
Antigone. The Final Solution of the Laian Curse. --Antigone is not
subject to Nemesis.
SOPHOCLES, the son of Sophilus, was born at Colonus, a village
about one mile to the north-west of Athens, in the year 495 B.C.
This date makes him thirty years younger than Æschylus, and
fifteen older than Euripides. His father was a man of sub-
stance, capable of giving the best education, intellectual and
physical, to his son ; and the education in vogue at Athens
when Sophocles was a boy was that which Aristophanes
praised so glowingly in the speeches of the Dikaios Logos.
Therefore, in the case of this most perfect poet, the best
conditions of training (Tpogiú) were added to the advantages
D
1121
SOPIIOCLES.
215
of nature (púois), and these two essential elements of a noble
manhood, upon which the theorists of Greece loved to
speculate, were realised by him conjointly in felicitous com-
pleteness. Early in life Sophocles showed that nature had
endowed him with personal qualities peculiarly capable of con-
ferring lustre on a Greek artist of the highest type. He was
exceedingly beautiful and well-formed, and so accomplished in
music and gymnastics that he gained public prizes in both
these branches of a Greek boy's education. His physical
grace and skill in dancing caused him to be chosen, in his
sixteenth year, to lead the choir in celebration of the victory
of Salamis. According to Athenian custom, he appeared
on this occasion naked, crowned, and holding in his hand a
lyre :-.
είθε λύρα καλή γενοίμην ελεφαντίνη,
και με καλοί παίδες φέρoιεν Διονύσιον ές χορόν.*
These facts are not unimportant, for no Greek poet was more
thoroughly, consistently, and practically cúpuns, according to
the comprehensive meaning of that term, which denotes
physical, as well as moral and intellectual, distinction. The
art of Sophocles is distinguished above all things by its faultless
symmetry, its grace and rhythm, and harmonious equipoise of
strength and beauty. In his own person the poet realised the
ideal combination of varied excellences which his tragedies
exhibit. The artist and the man were one in Sophocles. In
his healthful youth and sober manhood, no less than in his
serene poetry, he exhibited the pure and tempered virtues of
ɛuovia. We cannot but think of him as specially created to
represent Greek art in its most refined and exquisitely
balanced perfection. It is impossible to imagine a more plastic
nature, a genius more adapted to its special function, more
fittingly provided with all things needful to its full develop-
*"Fain would I be a fair lyre of ivory, and fair boys carrying me to
Dionysus' choir.”
1
ILI
216
THE GREEK POETS.
iment, born at a happier moment in the history of the world,
and more nobly endowed with physical qualities suited to its
intellectual capacity.
In 468 B.C. Sophocles first appeared as a tragic poet in
contest with Æschylus. The advent of the consummate artist
was both auspicious and dramatic. His fame, as a gloriously
endowed youth, had been spread far and wide. The supre-
macy of his mighty predecessor remained as yet unchallenged.
Therefore the day on which they met in rivalry was a great
national occasion. Party feeling ran so high that Apsephion,
the Archon Eponymus, who had to name the judges, chose
no meaner umpires than the general Cimon and his colleagues,
just returned from Scyros, bringing with them the bones of the
Attic hero, Theseus. Their dignity and their recent absence
from the city were supposed to render them fair critics in a
matter of such moment. Cimon awarded the victory to
Sophocles. It is greatly to be regretted that we have lost the
tragedies which were exhibited on this occasion ; we do not
know, indeed, with any certainty, their titles. As Welcker
has remarked, the judges were called to decide, not so much
between two poets as between two styles of tragedy; and if
Plutarch's assertion, that Æschylus retired to Sicily in con-
sequence of the verdict given against him, be well founded, we
may also believe that two rival policies in the city were opposed',
two types of national character in collision. Æschylus be-
longed to the old order. Sophocles was essentially a man of the
new age, of the age of Pericles, and Pheidias, and Thucydides.
The incomparable intellectual qualities of the Athenians of
that brief blossom-time have so far dazzled modern critics that
we have come to identify their spirit with the spirit itself of the
Greek race. Undoubtedly the glories of Hellas, her special
geist in art, and thought, and statecraft, attained at that
moment to maturity through the felicitous combination of ex-
ternal circumstances, and through the prodigious mental
U
SOPHOCLES.
217
greatness of the men who made Athens so splendid and so
powerful. Yet we must not forget that Themistocles preceded
Pericles, while Cleon followed after ; that Herodotus came
before Thucydides, and that Aristotle, at a later date, philo-
sophised on history; that Æschylus and Euripides have each
X
men, whose names are notes of differences deep and wide,
were Greeks, almost contemporaneous. The latter and the
earlier groups in this triple series are, perhaps, even more
illustrative of Greece at large ; while the Periclean trio re-
present Athenian society in a special and narrow sense at its
most luminous and brilliant, most isolated and artificial, most
self-centred and consummate point of avtapreia, or internal
adequacy. Sophocles was the poet of this transient phase of
Attic culture, unexampled in the history of the world for its
clear and flawless character, its purity of intellectual type, its
absolute clairvoyance, and its plenitude of powers matured,
but unimpaired, by use.
From the date 468 to the year of his death, at the age of
ninety, Sophocles composed one hundred and thirteen plays.
In twenty contests he gained the first prize ; he never fell below
the second place. After Æschylus he only met one formidable
rival, Euripides. What we know about his life is closely con-
nected with the history of his works. In 440 B.C., after the
production of the Antigone, he was chosen, on account of his
political wisdom, as one of the generals associated with Pericles
in. the expedition to Samos. But Sophocles was not,' like
Æschylus, a soldier; nor was he in any sense a man of action.
The stories told about his military service turn wholly upon
his genial temperament, serene spirits, unaffectedrmodesty, and
pleasure loving personality. So great, however, was the
esteem in which his character for wisdom and moderation was
held by his fellow-citizens that they'elected him in 413 B.C.
one of the ten commissioners of Public Safety, or apóßoulot,
TY
S
218
THE GREEK POETS.
after the failure of the Syracusan expedition. In this capacity
he gave his assent to the formation of the governing council
of the Four Hundred two years later, thus voting away the con-
stitutional liberties of Athens. It is recorded that he said this
measure was not a good one, but the best under bad circum-
stances. It should, however, be said that doubt has been
that the Sophocles in question was in truth the author of
One of the best-authenticated and best-known episodes in
the life of Sophocles is connected with the Edipus Colorzeüs.
As an old man, he had to meet a law-suit brought against
him by his legitimate son Iophon, who accused him of wishing
to alienate his property to the child of his natural son Ariston.
This boy, called Sophocles, was the darling of his later years.
The poet was arraigned before a jury of his tribe, and the plea
set up by Iophon consisted of an accusation of senile incapa-
city. The poet, preserving his habitual calmness, recited the
famous chorus which contains the praises of Colonus. Where-
upon the judges rose and conducted him with honour to his
house, refusing for a moment to consider so frivolous and
unwarranted a charge.
Personally Sophocles was renowned for his geniality and
equability of temper και εύκολος μεν ενθάδ' εύκολος δ' εκεί is the
terse and emphatic description of his character by Aristo-
phanes. That he was not averse to pleasures of the sense,
and that he indulged his inclinations in accordance with Greek
custom, is proved by evidence as good as that on which such
biographical details of the ancients generally rest. To slur
these stories over because they offend modern notions of pro-
priety is feeble, though, of course, it is always open to the critic
to call in question the authorities; and in this particular
instance the witnesses are far from clear. The point, however,
to be remembered is that, supposing them true to fact,
SOPHOCLES.
219
Sophocles would himself have smiled at such unphilosophical
partisanship as seeks to overthrow them in the interest of his
y reputation. That a poet, distinguished for his physical beauty,
should refrain from sensual enjoyments in the flower of his age,
is not a Greek, but a Christian notion. Such abstinence would
have indicated in Sophocles mere want of inclination. The
words of Pindar are here much to the purpose-
χρήν μέν κατά καιρόν ερώτων δρέπεσθαι, θυμέ, συν άλικία.*
All turned upon the katà barpov, and no one had surely a better
sense of the Kaipòs, the proper time and season for all things,
than Sophocles. He showed his moderation—which quality,
not total abstinence, was virtue in such matters for the Greeks
-by knowing how to use his passions, and when to refrain from
their indulgence. The whole matter is summed up in this
passage from the Republic of Plato : "How well I remember
the aged poet Sophocles, when, in answer to the question,
How does love suit with age, Sophocles—are you still the
man you were?' 'Peace,' he replied ; 'most gladly have I
escaped from that, and I feel as if I had escaped from a mad
and furious master.?”
A more serious defect in the character of Sophocles is im-
plied in the hint given by Aristophanes, that he was too fond
of money. The same charge was brought against many Greek
creased splendour of Athenian life, and the luxuriously refined
tastes of the tragedian, must have tempted him to do what the
Greeks very much disliked-make profit by the offspring of
his brain. To modern notions nothing can sound stranger than
the invectives of the philosophers against sophists who sold
their wisdom; it can only be paralleled by their deeply rooted
* “ Soul of inine, in due season it is meet to gather love, when life is
young.”
220
THE GREEK POETS.
misconceptions about interest on capital, which even Aristotle
regarded as unnatural and criminal. That Sophocles was in
any deeper sense avaricious or miserly we cannot believe : it
would contradict the whole tenor of the tales about his geniality
and kindness.
Unlike Æschylus and Euripides, Sophocles never quitted
Athens, except on military service. He lived and wrote there
through his long career of laborious devotion to the highest art.
We have, therefore, every right, on this count also, to accept his
tragedies as the purest mirror of the Athenian mind at its most
brilliant period. Athens, in the age of Pericles, was adequate
to the social and intellectual requirements of her greatest sons;
and a poet whose earliest memories were connected with
Salamis may well have felt that even the hardships of the
Peloponnesian war were easier to bear within the sacred walls
of the city than exile under the inost favourable conditions.
No other centre of so much social and political activity existed.
Athens was the Paris of Greece, and Sophocles and Socrates
were the Parisians of Athens. At the same time the stirring
events of his own lifetime do not appear to have disturbed the
tranquillity of Sophocles. True to his destiny, he remained an
artist; and to this immersion in his special work he owed the
happiness which Phrynichus recorded in these famous lines :-
μάκαρ Σοφοκλεής ος πολύν χρόνον βιους
απέθανεν ευδαίμων ανήρ και δεξιός:
πολλάς ποιήσας και καλάς τραγωδίας
καλώς ετελεύτησ' ουδέν υπομείνας κακόν.
Thrice happy Sophocles ! in good old age,
Blessed as a man, and as a craftsman blessed,
He died : his many tragedies were fair,
And fair his end, nor knew he any sorrow.
The change effected by Sophocles in tragedy tended to
mature the drama as a work of pure art, and to free it further
from the Dionysiac traditions. He broke up the Trilogy into
SOPIIOCLES.
• 221
separate plays, exhibiting three tragedies and a satyric drama,
like Æschylus before him, but undoing the link by which they
were connected, so that he was able to make each an indepen-
dent poem. He added a third actor, and enlarged the number
of the Chorus, while he limited its function as a motive force in
the drama. These innovations had the effect of reducing the
scale upon which Æschylus had planned his tragedies, and
afforded opportunities for the elaboration of detail. It was
more easy for Sophocles than it had been for Æschylus to ex-
hibit play of character through the interaction of the dramatis
persond. Tragedy left the remote and mystic sphere of Æschy-
lean theosophy, and confined herself to purely human argu-
ments. Attention was concentrated on the dialogue, in which
the passions of men in action were displayed. The dithyrambic
element was lost; the choric odes providing a relief from
violent excitement, instead of embodying the very soul and
spirit of the poet's teaching. While limiting the activity of the
Chorus, Sophocles did not, like Euripides, proceed to discon-
nect it from the tragic interest, or pay less attention than his
predecessors to its songs. On the contrary, his choric inter-
ludes are models of perfection in this style of lyric poetry, while
their subject-matter is invariably connected with the chief
concerns and moral lessons of the drama.
The extant plays of Sophocles are all later than the year
440 B.C. They may safely be said to belong to the period of
his finished style ; or, in the language of art criticism, to his
third manner. What this means will appear from a valuable
passage in Plutarch: “Sophocles used to say that, when he
had put aside the tragic pomp of Æschylus, and then the harsh
and artificial manner of his own elaborate style, he arrived in
the third place at a form of speech which is best suited to por-
tray the characters of men, and is the most excellent.” Thus
it would appear that Sophocles had begun his career as a
dramatist by the study of the language of Æschylus ; finding
Il
THE GREEK POETS.
that too turgid and emphatic, he had fallen into affectation and
refinement, and finally had struck the just medium between the
rugged majesty of his master and the mannered elegance which
was in vogue among the sophists. The result was that
peculiar mixture of grace, dignity, and natural eloquence which
scholars know as Sophoclean. It is interesting to notice that
the first among the extant tragedies of Sophocles, the Antigone,
is more remarkable for studied phrase and verbal subtleties.
than his later plays. The Edipus Coloneiis, which is the last
of the whole series, exhibits the style of the poet in its perfect
purity and freedom. A curious critical passage in Plutarch
seems to indicate that the ancients themselves observed the
occasional euphuism of the Sophoclean style as a blemish. It
runs thus: jéjufalto ' Ü V tis 'Apxelóxou jèn thy imóteowy. ..
Espiriĉov èề this daliúr, Logone ouç dê tiv drwualiav.* “One
might censure the garrulity of Euripides and the inequality of
Sophocles.” I am not, however, certain whether this or "lin-
guistic irregularity” is the right meaning of the word åvwqalía.
Another censure, passed by Longinus upon Sophocles, points
out a defect which is the very last to be observed in any of the
extant tragedies :—“Pindar and Sophocles at one time burn
everything before them in their fiery flight, but often strangely.
lack the flame of inspiration, and fall most grievously to earth."of
Then he adds : "Certainly no wise critic would value all the
plays of Ion pụt together at the same rate as the single tragedy
of Edipus.” The importance of these critiques is to prove
that the ancients regarded Sophocles as an unequal, and in
some respects a censurable poet, whence we may infer that
only masterpieces belonging to his later style have been pre-
served to us, since nothing, to a modern student, is more
obvious than the uniform sustained perfection of our seven
inestimably precious tragedies. A certain tameness in the
* D: Aud. Poet. p. 16C.
+ De Subl. xxxiii. 5.
SOPHOCLES.
223
Trachinia, and a relaxation of dramatic interest in the last act of
the Ajax, are all the faults it is possible to find with Sophocles.
What Sophocles is reported to have said about his style
will apply to his whole art. The great achievement of Sopho-
cles was to introduce regularity of proportion, moderation of
tone, and proper balance into tragedy. The Greek phrases
oupiperpia, owppooven, uerpiotns-proportion of parts, self-re-
straint, and moderation-sum up the qualities of his drama when
compared with that of Æschylus. Æschylus rough-hewed like
a Cyclops, but he could not at the same time finish like Praxi-
teles. What the truth of this saying is, I have already tried to
show.* Sophocles attempted neither Cyclopean nor Praxitelean
work. He attained to the perfection of Pheidias. Thus we
miss in his tragedies the colossal scale and terrible effects of
Æschylean art. His plays are not so striking at first sight,
because it was his aim to put all the parts of his composition in
their proper places, and to produce a harmony which should
not agitate or startle, but which upon due meditation should be
found complete. The owoposúvn, or moderation, exhibited
in all his work, implies by its very nature the sacrifice of some-
thing—the sacrifice of passion and impetuosity to higher
laws of equability and temper. So perfect is the beauty of
Sophocles, that, as in the case of Raphael or Mozart, it seems
to conceal the strength and fire which animate his art.
Aristotle, in the Poetics, observes that “ Poetry is the proper
affair of either enthusiastic or artistic natures,” ευφυούς ή μα νικού.
Now Æschylus exactly answers to the notion of the parinós, while
Sophocles corresponds to that of the εüguns. To this distinc-
tion between the two types of genius we may refer the partiality
of Aristotle for the younger dramatist. The work of the artistic
poet is more instructive and offers more matter for profitable
analysis, for precept and example, than that of the divinely in-
spired enthusiast. Where creative intelligence has been used
* See above, p. 158.
224
THE GREEK POETS.
consciously and effectively to a certain end, critical intelligence
can follow. It is clear that in the Poetics, which we may
regard as a practical text-book for students, the philosopher is
using the tragedy of Sophocles, and in particular the Edipus
Tyrannus, as the standard of perfection. Whatever he has to
say about the handling of character, the treatment of the fable,
the ethics of the drama, the catastrophes and recognitions
(περιπέτειαι and αναγνωρίσεις), that absorbed so large a part
of his dramatic analysis, he points by references to Edipus.
In Sophocles Aristotle found the jegórns, or intermediate
quality, between two extremes, which, in æsthetics as in
morals, seemed to his Greek mind most excellent. Conse-
quently he notes all deflections from the Sophoclean norm as
faulty; and, since in his day Euripides led the taste of the
Athenians, he frequently shows how tragic art had suffered by
a deviation from the principles Sophocles illustrated. The
chief point on which he insists is the morality of the drama.
“The tragedies of the younger poets for the most part
are unethical.” With his use of the word tans we must be
careful not to confound the modern notion of morality : 1005
means, indeed, with Aristotle as with us, the determination of
the character to goodness or badness; but it also includes
considerations of what is appropriate to sex and quality and
circumstance in the persons of a work of fiction. The best
modern equivalent for 150c, therefore, is character. Since
tragedy is an imitation of men acting according to their cha-
racter, 180c, in this wide sense, is the whole stuff of the
dramatist, and a proper command of nos implies real know-
ledge of mankind. Therefore, when Aristotle accuses the
tragedies of Euripides and his school of being “unethical,” he
does not merely mean that they were prejudicial to good
manners, but also that they were false to human nature,
unscientific, and therefore inartistic; exceptional or morbid,
wavering in their conception and unequal in their execution.
The truly great poet, Sophocles, shows his artistic tact and
t
SOPHOCLES.
225
taste by only selecting such characters as are suitable to
tragedy. He depicts men, but men of heroic mould, men as !
they ought to be.* When Sophocles, said that he portrayed
men as tragedy required them to be, whereas Euripides drew
them just as they are, he indicated the real solution of the
tragic problem.f The point here raised by Aristotle has
an intimate connection with its whole theory of tragedy.
Tragic poetry must purify the passions of fear and pity; in
other words, it must teach men not to fear when fear is vile, or
to pity where pity would be thrown away. By exhibiting a
spectacle that may excite the fear of really dreadful calamity,
and compassion for truly terrible misfortune, tragedy exalts the
soul above the ordinary miseries of life, and nerves it to face
the darker evils to which humanity in its blindness, sin, and self-
pride is exposed. Now this lesson cannot be taught by drawing
men as they exist around us. That method drags the mind
back to the trivialities of every day.
What Aristotle says about the ion of tragedy may be
applied to point the differences between Sophocles and
Æschylus. He has not himself drawn the comparison ; but
it is clear that, as Euripides deflects on the one hand from the
purely ethical standard, so also does Æschylus upon the other.
Æschylus keeps us in the high and mystic region of religious
fatalism. Sophocles transports us into the more human region
of morality. His problem is to exhibit the complexities of
life—“whatsoever has passion or admiration in all the changes
of that which is called fortune from without; or the wily
subtleties and reflexes of man's thoughts from within ”—and to
set forth men of noble mental stature acting in subjection to
the laws appointed for the order of the world. His men and
Y
* Notice the phrases Beatióves in Poet., Cap. ii., as compared with kao?
quâs, and again duoious TNLOûvtes, karrious ypápovoi in Cap. xv., together
with the whole analogy of painting in both of these places.
+ Cap. xxvi.
II.
226
THE GREEK POETS.
women are like ourselves, only larger and better in so far as
they are simpler and more beautiful. Like the characters of
Æschylus, they suffer for their sins ; but we feel that the
justice that condemns them is less mystic in its operation,
more capable of philosophical analysis and scientific demon-
stration.
It must not be, therefore, thought that Sophocles is less
religious than Æschylus. On the contrary, he shows how the
will and passion of men are inevitably and invariably related
to divine justice. Human affairs can only be understood by
reference to the deity; for the decrees of Zeus, or of that power
which is above Zeus, and which he also obeys, give their moral
complexion to the motives and the acts of men. Yet, while
Æschylus brings his theosophy in detail prominently forward,
Sophocles prefers to maintain a sense of the divine background.
He spiritualises religion, while he makes it more indefinite. By
the same process it is rendered more impregnable within its
stronghold of the human heart and reason, less exposed to the
attacks of logic or the changes of opinion. The keynote to his
tragic morality is found in these two passages : * - .
“Oh! that my lot may lead me in the path of holy innocence of word
and deed, the path which august laws ordain, laws that in the highest
empyrean had their birth, of which heaven is the father alone, neither did
the race of mortal men beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them to
sleep. The power of God is mighty in them, and groweth not old.”
.
The second is like unto the first in spirit :--
“It was no Zeus who thus commanded me,
Nor Justice, dread mate of the nether powers, ---
For they, too, gave these rules to govern men.
Nor did I fondly deem thy proclamations
Might overleap the sure unwritten laws
The first muuslain is borrowed from
* Ed. T gur. 863; Art. 450.
Mr. M. Arnold.
SOPHOCLES.
227
Of gods. These neither now nor yesterday,
Nay, but from everlasting without end,
Live on, and no man knows when they were issued.”
The religious instinct in Sophocles has made a long step
toward independence since the days of Æschylus. No more
upon Olympus or at Delphi alone will the Greek poet worship.
He has learned that “God is a spirit, and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The voice that
speaks within him is the deity he recognises. At the same
time the Chorus of the Edipus, part of which has just been
quoted, and that of the Antigone, which bewails the old doom
of the house of Labdacus, might, but for their greater calmness,
have been written by Æschylus. The moral doctrine of
Greek tragedy has not been changed, but humanised. We
have got rid in a great measure of ancient demons, and brass-
ſooted Furies, and the greed of earth for blood in recompense
for blood. We have passed, as it were, from the shadow cast
by the sun, into the sunlight itself. And, in consequence of
this transfiguration, the morality of Sophocles is imperishable.
“Not of to-day nor of yesterday, but fixed from everlasting,"
are his laws. We may all learn of him now, as when Antigone
first stood before the throne of Creon on the Attic stage. The
deep insight into human life, that most precious gift of the
Greek genius, which produced their greatest contributions to
the education of the world, is in Sophocles obscured no longer
by mystical mythology and local superstition. His wisdom is
the common heritage of human nature.
The moral judgments of Æschylus were severe. Those of
Sophocles, implicit in his tragic situations rather than expressed,
are not less firm ; but he seems to feel a more tender pity for
humanity in its weakness and its blindness. The philosophy
of life, profoundly sad upon the one side, but cheerful on the
other, which draws lessons of sobriety and tempered joy from
the consideration of human impotence and ignorance, is truly
Q2
228
THE GREEK POETS.
.
1
Greek. We find it nowhere more strongly set forth than by
Sophocles and Aristophanes—by the comic poet in the Para-
basis of the Birds, and in the songs.of the Mystæ in the Frogs,
by the tragic poet in his choruses, and also in what is called
his irony.
All that has been said about the art of Sophocles up to this
point has tended to establish one position. His innate and
unerring tact, his sense of harmony and measure, produced at
Athens a new style of drama, distinguished for finish of language,
for careful elaboration of motives, for sharp and delicate cha-
racter-drawing, and for balance of parts. If we do not find
in Sophocles anything to match the passion of Cassandra,
the cry of Agamemnon, or the opening of the Eumenides,
there is yet in his plays a combination of quite sufficient
boldness and inventiveness with more exquisite workmanship
than Æschylus could give. The breadth of the whole is not
lost through the minuteness of the details. Unlike Æschylus,
Sophocles opens very quietly, with conversations, for the
most part, which reveal the characters of the chief persons
or explain the situation. The passion grows with the de-
velopment of the plot, and it is only when the play is finished
that justice can be done to any separate part. Each of the
seven tragedies presents one person, who dominates the drama,
and in whom its interest is principally concentrated. Edipus.
in his two plays, Antigone in hers, Philoctetes in his, Deianeira
in the Trachinie, Electra in her play, and Ajax in his, stand
forth in powerful and prominent relief. Then come figures on
the second plane, no less accurately conceived and conscien-
tiously delineated, but used with a view to supporting the chief
personages, and educing their decisive action.* A rôle of this
kind is given to Orestes in the Electra, to Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes, to Teucer in the Ajax, to Creon in the Antigone, to
* See what Goethe says about the importance of Creon and Ismene in
the Antigone. (Eckermann, vol. i.)
SOPHOCLES.
229
"Teiresias in the Edipus. Clyteninestra and Tecmessa,
Odysseus and Theseus, play similar parts. Again, there is a
third plane for characters still more subordinate, but no less
artistically important, such as Jocasta, Ismene, Chrysothemis,
Ægisthus, Hyllus. Then follow the numerous accessory per-
sons-instrumenta dramatis—the guardian of the corpse of
Polyneices, the shepherd of Laius, the tutor of Orestes, mes-
sengers and servants, all of whom receive their special physio-
gnomy from the great master. In this way Sophocles made true
aesthetic use of the three agonistæ, The principle on which
these parts were distributed in his tragedies will be found to
have deep and subtle analogies with the laws of bas-relief in
sculpture. Poetry, however, being a far more independent art
than sculpture, may employ a greater multiplicity of parts, and
produce a far more complex effect than can be realised in bas-
relief.
The Philocietes might be selected as an example of the
power in handling motives possessed by Sophocles. The
amount of interest he has concentrated by a careful manipul-
lation of one point--the contest for the bow of Herakles--
upon so slight and stationary a plot, is truly wonderful. Not
less admirable is the contrast between the youthful generosity
of Neoptolemus and the worldly wisdom of Odysseus—the
young man pliant at first to the crafty persuasions of the elder,
but restored to his sense of honour by the compassion which
Philoctetes stirs, and by the trust he places in him. Nothing
more beautiful can be conceived than this moral revolution in
the character of Neoptolemus. It suited the fine taste and
exquisite skill of Sophocles not only to exhibit changes in
circumstance and character, but also to compel a change of
sympathy and of opinion in his audience. Thus, in the Ajax,
he contrives to reverse the whole situation, by showing in the
end Ajax sublime and Odysseus generous, though at first the
one seemed sunk below humanity, and the other hateful in his
230
THE GREEK POETS.
:
LL.LT 11.
II
vulgar scorn of a fallen iival. The art which works out psycho-
logical problems of this subtle kind, and which invests a plot
like that of the Philoctetes with intense interest, is very far
removed from the method of Æschylus. The difference:
between the two styles may, however, be appreciated best by a
comparison of the Electra with the Choëphora. In these twa
tragedies very nearly the same motives are employed; but
what was simple and straightforward in Æschylus, becomes.
complex and involved in Sophocles. Instead of Orestes telling
the tale of his own death, we have the narrative of his tutor,
confirmed and ratified by himself in person. Instead of Electra
at once recognising her brother, she is brought at first to the
verge of despair by hearing of his death. Then Chrysothemis
informs her of the lock of hair. This, however, cannot reassure
Electra in the face of the tutor's message. So the situation is
admirably protracted. Æschylus misses all that is gained for
the development of character by the resolve of Electra, stung
to desperation by her brother's death, to murder Ægisthus, and
by the contrast between her single-hearted daring and the
feebler acquiescent temper of Chrysothemis. Also the peri-
peteia whereby Electra is made to bewail the urn of Orestes,
and then to discover him alive before her, is a stroke of supreme
art which was missed in the Choëphoræ. The pathos of the
situation is almost too heart-rending; at one moment its in-
tensity verges upon discord; but the resolution of the discord
comes in that long cadence of triumphant harmony when the
anagnorisis at length arrives. Nor is the ingenuity of Sopho-
cles, in continuing and sustaining the interest of this one set of
motives, yet exhausted. While the brother and sister are
rejoicing together, the action waits, and every moment becomes
more critical, until at last the tutor reappears and warns them
of their perilous imprudence. To take another point : the
dream of Clytemnestra is more mysterious and doubtful in the
Electra than in the Choëphor@'; while her appearance on the
SOPHOCLES.
231
stage at the beginning of the play, her arguments with Electra,
her guarded prayers to Phoebus and her reception of the tutor's
message, enable Sophocles fully to develop his conception of
her character. On the other hand, Sophocles has sacrificed the
most brilliant features of the Choëphorce--the dreadful scene of
Clytemnestra's death, than which there is nothing more passion-
ately piteous and spirit-quelling in all tragedy, and the descent
of his mother's furies on the murderer. It was the object of
Sophocles not so much to dwell upon the action of Orestes, as
to exhibit the character of Electra ; therefore, at the supreme
moment, when the cry of the queen is heard within the palace,
he shows his heroine tremendous in her righteous hatred and
implacable desire for vengeance. Such complete and ex-
haustive elaboration of motives, characters, and situations, as
forms the chief artistic merit of the Electra, would, perhaps,
have been out of place in the Choëphora, which was only the
second play in a trilogy, and had therefore to be simple and
stationary, according to the principles of Æschylean art. The
character of Clytemnestra, for example, needed no development,
seeing that she had taken the first part in the Agamemnon.
Again, it was necessary for Æschylus to insist upon the action
of Orestes more than Sophocles was forced to do, in order that
the climax of the Choëphoræ might produce the subject of the
Eumenides. In comparing Sophocles with his predecessor, we
must never forget that we are comparing single plays with
trilogies. This does not, however, make the Sophoclean
mastery of motives and of plots the less admirable; it only fixes
our attention on the real nature of the innovations adopted by
the younger dramatist. .
Another instance of the art wherewith Sophocles prepared a
tragic situation, and graduated ail the motives which should
conduct the action to a final point, may be selected froni the
Edipus Coloneüs. It was necessary to describe the death of
Edipus, since the fable selected for treatment precluded
232
THE GREEK POETS.
anything approaching to a presentation on the stage of this
supreme event. Edipus is bound to die alone mysteriously,
delivering his secret first in solitude to Theseus. A Messenger's
speech was therefore imperatively demanded, and to render
that the climax of the drama taxed all the resources of the poet.
First comes thunder, the acknowledged signal of the end. Then
the speech of dipus, who says that now, though blind, he will
direct his steps unhelped. Theseus is to follow and to learn.
Edipus rises from his seat; his daughters and the king attend
him. They quit the stage, and the Chorus is left alone to sing.
Then comes the Messenger, and gives the sublime narration of
his disappearance. We hear the voice that called-
ώ ούτος ούτος Οιδίπους τί μέλλομεν
χωρείν και πάλαι δή τάπό σου βραδύνεται.
We see the old man descending the mysterious stairs, Antigone
and Ismene grouped above, and last, the kneeling king, who
shrouds his eyes before a sight intolerable. All this, as in a
picture, passes before our imagination. To convey the desired
effect otherwise than by a narrative would have been im-
possible, and the narrative, owing to the expectation previously
raised, is adequate.
To compare Sophocles with Euripides, after having said so
much about the points of contrast between him and Aischylus,
and to determine how much he inay have owed in his later
plays to the influence of the younger poet, would be an interest-
ing exercise of criticism. That, however, belongs rather to an
essay dealing directly with the third Greek dramatist in detail.
It is sufficient here to notice a few points in which Sophocles
seems to have prepared the way for Euripides. In the first
place he developed the part of the Messenger, and made far
more of picturesque description than Æschylus had done.
Then, again, his openings suggested the device of the prologue
by their abandonment of the eminently scenic effects with which
Æschylus preferred to introduce a draina. The separation of
the Chorus from the action was another point in which Sopho-
X
SOPIIOCLES.
233
cles led onward to Euripides. So also was the device of the
deus ex machinâ in the Philoctetes, unless, indeed, we are to regard
this as an invention adopted from Euripides.* Nor, in this con-
nection, is it insignificant that Aristotle credits Sophocles with
the invention of ornvoypapia, or scene-painting. The abuse of
scenical resources to the detriment of real dramatic unity and
solidity was one of the chief defects of Euripidean art.
It may here be noticed that Sophocles in the Trachiniæ
took up the theme of love as a main motive for a drama. By
doing so he broke ground in a region that had been avoided,
as far as we can judge from extant plays, by Æschylus, and in
which Euripides was destined to achieve his greatest triumphs.
It is, indeed, difficult to decide the question of precedence be-
tween Sophocles and Euripides in the matter. Except on this
account the Trachiniæ is the least interesting of his tragedies.
The whole play seems like a somewhat dull, though con-
scientious, handling of a fable, in which the poet took but a
slight interest. Compared with Medea or with Phædra,
Deianeira is tame and lifeless. She makes one fatal and
foolish mistake through jealousy, and all is over. Hyllus, too,
is a mere silhouette, while the contention between him and
Herakles about the marriage with Iole, at the end, is frigid.
Here, if anywhere, we detect the force of the critique quoted -
above from Longinus. At the same time the Trachiniæ offers
many points of interest to the student of Greek sentiment.
The phrase ταύτης και δεινός ίμερος is significant, as expressing
the pain and forceful energy which the Greeks attributed to
passion : nor is the contrast drawn by Deianeira between Tócis
and arup without value. The motive used by Sophocles in this
tragedy was developed by Euripides, with a comprehension so
far deeper, and with a fulness so far more satisfactory, that the
Hippolytus and the Medea must always take rank above it.
* Our imperfect knowledge of the Attic drama prevents our forming
any opinion as the employment of the deus ex machind by the earlier
tragedians.
234
THE GREEK POETS.
The deepest and most decisive quality in which the tragic
art of Sophocles resembled that of Euripides is rhetoric. Sopho-
cles was the first to give its full value to dramatic casuistry, to
introduce sophistic altercations, and to set forth all that could
be well said in support of a poor argument. A passage on this
subject may be quoted from " Eckermann's Conversations with
Goethe" :* —
" That is the very thing," said Goethe, w in which Sophocles is a
master ; and in which consists the very liſe of the dramatic in general.
His characters all possess this gift of eloquence, and know how to explain
the motives for their action so convincingly that the hearer is almost
always on the side of the last speaker. One can see that in his youth he
enjoyed an excellent rhetorical education, by which he became trained to
look for all the reasons and seeming reasons of things. Still his great
talent in this respect betrayed him into faults, as he sometimes went too far."
The special point selected by Goethe for criticism is the
celebrated last speech of Antigone :-
"At last, when she is led to death, she brings forward a motive which
is quite unworthy, and almost borders on the comic. She says that if she
had been a mother she would not have done either for her dead children
or for her dead husband what she has done for her brother. For,' says
she, “if my husband died I could have had another, and if my children
died I could have had others by my new husband. But with my brother
and father are dead there is none to beget one. This is at least the bare
sense of the passage, which, in my opinion, when placed in the mouth of a
heroine going to her death, disturbs the tragic tone, and appears to me
very far-fetched—to savour too much of dialectical calculation. As I said,
I should like a philologist to show us that the passage is spurious.”
.
In truth this last speech of Antigone is exactly what the severer
critics of Euripides would have selected in a play of his for
condemnation. It exhibits, after all allowance for peculiar
Greek sentiments, the rhetorical development of a sophistic
thesis. In the simple thought there is pathos. But its elabo-
ration makes it frigid.
* English Translation, vol. i. p. 371.
SOFHOCLES.
235
Sophocles, though he made the subsequent method of
Euripides not only possible but natural by the law of progressive
evolution, was very far indeed from disintegrating the tràgic,
structure as Euripides was destined to do. The deus ex machina
of the Philoctetes, for example, was only employed because
there was absolutely no other way to solve the situation. Rhe-
toric and wrangling matches were never introduced for their
own sake. The choric odes did not degenerate into mere
musical interludes. Description and narration in no case took
the place of action, by substituting pictures to the ear under
conditions where true art required dramatic presentation. It
remains the everlasting glory of Sophocles that he realised the
mean between Æschylus and Euripides, sacrificing for the sake
of his ideal the passionate and enthusiastic extremities of the
older dramatist, without imperilling the fabric of Greek tragedy
by the suicidal innovations of Euripides. He and he alone
knew how to use all forms of art, to express all motives, and to
hazard all varieties, with the single purpose of maintaining
artistic unity.
What remains to be said about Sophocles, and in particular
about his delineation of character, may be introduced in
the course of an analysis of his tragedies upon the tale of
Thebes.
These three plays do not, like the three plays of Æschylus
upon the tale of the Atridæ, form a trilogy. That is to say, they
are not so connected in subject as to form one continued series.
A drama, for example, similar to the Seven against Thebes might
be interpolated between the Edipus. Coloneiis and Antigone ;
while the Edipus Tyrannus might have been followed by a
tragedy upon the subject of the king's expulsion from Thebes.
Nor, again, are they artistically designed as a trilogy. There is
no change of form, suggesting the beginning, middle, and ending
of a calculated work of art, like that which we notice in the
Oresteia. Moreover, the protagonist is absent from the Antigone,
236
THE GREEK POETS.
and therefore to call the three plays an Edipodeia is impossible.
Finally, they were composed at different periods : the Antigone
is the first extant tragedy of Sophocles; the Edipus Colonciis
is the last.
So much it was necessary to premise in order to avoid the
imputation of having treated the three masterpieces of Sophocles
as in any true sense a trilogy. The temptation to do so is at
first sight almost irresistible ; for they are written on the same
legend, and the same characters are throughout sustained with
firmness, proving that, though Sophocles composed the last
play of the series first and the second last of all, he had
conceived them in his brain before he undertook to work them
out in detail. Or, if this assumption seem unwarranted, we
may at least affirm with certainty that at some point of time
anterior to the production of the Antigone he had subjected
the whole legend of the house of Laius to his plastic imagina-
tion, and had given it coherence in his mind. In other
words, it was impossible for him to change his point of view
about this mythus in the same way as Euripides when he
handled that of Helen according to two different versions. It
so happens, moreover, that the climax of the Edipus. Tyrannis
prepares us, by the revolution in the character of the protagonist,
for the Edipus Coloneüs, while the last act of the second
tragedy, by the prominence given to Antigone, serves as a prelude
to the third and final play.
The house of Laius was scarcely less famous among the
Greeks than the house of Atreus for its overwhelming disasters,
the consequences of an awful curse which rested on the family.
Laius, the son of Labdacus, was supposed to have introduced
an unnatural vice into Hellas ; and from this first crime sprang
all the subsequent disasters of his progeny. He took in mar-
riage Jocasta, the sister of Prince Creon, and swayed the State
of Thebes. To him an oracle was given that a son of his by
Jocasta should kill him. Yet he did not therefore, in obedience
SOPHOCLES.
237
to the divine warning, put away his wife or live in chastity. A
boy was born to the royal pair, who gave him to one of their
shepherds, after piercing his feet and tying them together, and
bound the hind to expose him on Cithæron. Thus they hoped
to defeat the will of heaven. The shepherd, moved by pity,
saved the baby's life and handed him over to a friend of his,
who used to feed his master's sheep upon the same hill-pastures.
This man carried the infant, named Edipus because of his
wounded and swollen feet, to Polybus of Corinth, a childless
king, who brought him up as his own son. · Edipus, when he
had grown to manhood, was taunted with his obscure birth by
his comrades in Corinth. Thereupon he journeyed alone to
Delphi to make enquiry concerning his parentage from Phoebus.
Phoebus told him nought thereof, but bade him take heed lest
he slay his father and wed his mother. dipus, deeming that
Polybus was his father and Merope his mother, determined to
return to Corinth no more. At that time Thebes was troubled
with the visitation of the Sphinx, and no man might rede her
riddle. Edipus, passing through the Theban land, was met in
a narrow path, where three roads joined, by an old man on a
chariot attended by servants. The old man spoke rudely to
him, commanding him to make way for his horses, and one of
the servants struck him. Whereupon dipus slew the master,
knowing not that he was his own father Laius, and the men
too, all but one, who fled. Thereafter he passed on to Thebes,
and solved that riddle of the Sphinx, and the Thebans made
him their king, and gave him the lady Jocasta to be his wife.
Thus were both the oracles accomplished, and yet Edipus and
Jocasta remained ignorant of their doom. For many years
Cdipus ruled Thebes like a great and warlike prince; and to
him and Jocasta in wedlock were born two daughters and two
sons—Antigone and Ismene, Polyneices and Eteocles. These
grew to youth, and a seeming calm of fair weather and pro-
sperity abode upon their house. Yet the gods were mindful of
238
THE GREEK POETS.
the abomination, and in course of time a plague was sent, which
ravaged the people of Thebes. Sorely pressed by calamity,
Edipus sent his brother-in-law Creon to enquire at Delphi of
the causes of the plague and of the means of staying it. This
brings us to the opening of Edipus the King. At this point
something should be said about the mythus itself and about
the position of the several persons at the commencement of
the tragedy.
The fable is obviously one of those which Max Müller and
his school describe as solar. Edipus, who slays his father and
weds his mother, may stand for the sun, who slays the night
and is married to the dawn. We know how all legends can
fall into this mould, and how easy it is to clap the Dawn on
to the end of every Greek tale, like the imaúdcov úrúleger
of the Frogs. This, however, is nothing to our purpose ;
for Sophocles had never heard of solar myths. The tale of
Thebes supplied him with the subject of three dramas ; he used
it as a story well suited for displaying passions in their strongest
and most tragic workings. As usual, he was not contented with
merely following the traditional version of the legend, nor did
he insist upon its superstitious elements. That the gods had
a grudge against the Labdacidæ, that the oracles given to
Laius and Edipus were not warnings so much as sinister
predictions of a doom inevitable, that the very powers who
uttered them were bent on blinding the victims of fate to their
true import, were thoroughly Greek notions, consistent with
the divine poóroor envy of Herodotus, and not wholly
inconsistent with the gloomy theology of Æschylus. But it
was no part of the method of Sophocles to emphasize this
horrible doctrine of destiny. On the contrary, he moralised it.
While preserving all the essential features of the myth, he
made it clear that the characters of men constitute their
fatality.
SOPHOCLES.
239
As our own Fletcher has nobly written :-
Man is his own star, and the soul, that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate ;
Nothing to him falls early or too late ;
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
What to the vulgar apprehension appears like doom, and
to the theologian like the direct interposition of the deity,
is to the tragic poet but the natural consequence of moral, !
physical, and intellectual qualities. These it is his function
to set forth in high and stately scenes, commingling with his
psychological analysis and forcible dramatic presentation
somewhat of the old religious awe.
It may be urged that this is only shifting the burden
of necessity, not removing it. It is, perhaps, impossible
scientifically to avoid a fatalistic theory of some sort, since in
one sense it is true that
A fish-wiſe hath a ſate, and so have I-
But far above your finding.
Yet practically we do not act upon such theories, and, from
the point of view of ethics, there is all the difference in the
world between showing how the faults and sins of men must
lead them to fearful ends, and painting them in the grip of a
remorseless and malignant deity.
Laius was warned that his son by Jocasta would kill him.
Yet he begat a son; and in his presumptuous disregard of heaven,
thinking, forsooth, that by mere barbarity a man may cheat
the omnipotent, and that the all-seeing cannot save a child of
prophecy and doom, he exposed this son upon Cithæron. The
boy lived. Thus the crime of Laius is want of self-restraint in
the first instance, contempt of God in the second, and cruelty
in the third. After this, Edipus appears upon the theatre of
events. He, too, receives oracular warning—that he will slay
his sire and wed his mother. Yet, though well aware of the
240
THE GREEK PUETS.
N
1
doubt which rests upon his own birth—for it was just on this
account that he went to Delphi-he is satisfied with avoiding
his supposed parents. The first man whom he meets, while the
words of the oracle are still ringing in his ears, he slays ; the
first woman who is offered to him in marriage, though old
enough to be his mother, he weds. His crime is haste of
temper, heat of blood, blind carelessness of the divine decrees.
Jocasta shows her guilty infatuation in another form. Not
only does she participate in the first sin of Laius ; but she
forgets the oracle which announced that Laius should be slain
by his own son. She makes no enquiry into the causes of
his death. She does not investigate the previous history of
Edipus, or observe the marks upon his feet, but weds him
heedlessly. Here, indeed, the legend itself involves monstrous
improbabilities—as, for instance, that Jocasta, while a widow
of a few days, should have been thus wedded to a stranger
young enough to be her son, that the Thebans should have
made no strict search for the murderer of their king, that
dipus himself should have heard nothing about the death
and funeral of Laius, but should have stepped incuriously into
his place and sat upon his throne without asking further
questions either of his wife or of his subjects. Previous to
the opening of Edipus the King there is, therefore, a whole
tissue of absurdities; and to these Aristotle is probably refer-
ring when he says : äloyov čè undèv čiva tv rois apáyuasir, ki
δε μή, έξω της τραγωδίας, οίον τα εν τω Οιδίποδι το Σοφοκλέους.
Granting this, the vigorous logic wherewith the conclusions
are wrought out by Sophocles leaves nothing to be desired
on the score of truth to nature. There is, indeed, no work of
tragic art which can be compared with the Edipus for the
closeness and consistency of the plot. To use the critical
terms of the Poetics, it would rank first among tragedies for
its μύθος and for the σύστασης πραγμάτων, even were its ήθη far
less firmly traced. The triumph of Sophocles has been,
SOPHOCLES.
241
however, so to connect the ion of his persons with the pay-
uara, characters with plot, as to make the latter depend upon
the former ; and in this kind of ethical causality lies the chief
force of his tragic art.
If questioned concerning the situation of events previous to
the play of Edipus, it is possible that Sophocles would have
pointed out that the åpapría or error common to all the dra-
matis persona was an unwarrantable self-confidence. One and
all they consult the oracle, and then are satisfied with taking the
affairs they had referred to Phoebus into their own hands.
Unlike the Orestes of Æschylus, they do not endeavour to act
up to the divine commands, and, having done so, place them-
selves once more beneath the guidance of the god. The oracle
is all-important in the three plays on the tale of Thebes, and
Sophocles seems to have intended to inculcate a special lesson
with regard to the submission of the human will. Those .who
inquire of a god, and who attempt to thwart his decrees by
human skill and foresight, will not prosper. The apparent
success of their shifty schemes may cause them to exclaim: “The
oracle was false; how weak are those who look for its accom-
plishment!” Thus they are lured by their self-conceit into
impiety. In the end, too, the oracle is found to be fearfully
exact. Those, therefore, who take the step of consulting
Phoebus, must hold themselves responsible to him, must expect
the fulfilment of his prophecy; or if they seek to avert the
promised evils, they must, at all events, not do so by criminal
contrivances and petty lawlessness, such as man thinks that he
may practise upon man. It was thus that Sophocles conceived
of the relation of human beings to the deity. He delights in
exhibiting the blindness of arrogance and self-confidence, and in
showing that characters determined by these qualities rush
recklessly to their own doom. At the same time he draws a
clear distinction between the man who is hardened in godless
folly and one who errs through simple haste. The impiety of
II.
242
THE GREEK POETS.
Jocasta ends in suicide. Edipus, who has been impetuous
and self-willed, finds a place for repentance, and survives his
worst calamities, to die a god-protected and god-honoured
hero.
The opening scene of the Edipus serves a double purpose.
While it places the spectators at the exact point in the legend
selected by the poet for treatment, it impresses them with the
greatness and the majesty of the King. Thebes is worn out
with plague. The hand of heaven lies heavily upon the
citizens. Therefore the priest of Zeus approaches the hero
who once before had saved them from the Sphinx, and who may
now-fit representative of God on earth—find out a remedy for
this intolerable evil. Edipus appears upon the stage, a
confident and careful ruler, sublime in the strength of man-
hood and the consciousness of vast capacity, tender for the
afflictions of his people, yet undismayed by their calamity.
He is just the man to sustain a commonwealth by his firm
character and favouring fortune. Flawless in force of will
and singleness of purpose, he seems incapable of failure. To
connect the notions of disgrace or guilt or shame with such
a king is utterly impossible. Yet, 'even so, Sophocles has
hinted in the speech of Edipus a something overmuch of
confidence and courage :
Well I know
That ye all suffer, yet, thus suffering, I
More than you all in overmeasure suffer :
For that which wounds you strikes at each man singly,
At each and not another ; while my soul
For Thebes, for me, for you, feels one huge sorrow.
Even here the irony, for which the play is famous, begins
to transpire. Edipus believes that his grief is sympathy for
a vexed people committed to his charge. Little does he know
that, while he is pluming himself upon his watchful care for
others, he himself is the head and front of all offending. In
the word kúpè, almost negligently uttered, lies the kernel of
SOPHOCLES.
243
that Creon has gone to Delphi for advice, the prince arrives.
A garland of good augury is on his brow; and in this sign of
an auspicious embassy we discern another stroke of tragic
irony. Phoebus has declared that the presence in Thebes of
the hitherto unpunished, unregarded, murderer of Laius is the
cause of the plague. Cdipus, when he fully understands the
matter, swears to discover the offender. The curse which
he pronounces on this guilty man is terrible—terrible in its
energy of interdiction and excommunication from all rites of
hospitality, from human sympathy, from earth and air and
water and the fruits of the field—but still more terrible through
the fact that all these maledictions are uttered on his own
head. The irony of the situation—if we are justified in giving
this word to the contrast between what seems and what really
is—between Edipus as he appears to the burghers and dipus
as he is known to us-rises in the emphatic eloquence of
his denunciation to a truly awful height. At the same time
his obvious sincerity enlists our sympathy upon his side. We
feel beforehand that the man who speaks thus will, when
his eyes are opened, submit to his self-imprecated doom.
It now remains to detect the murderer. Thinking that his
faculty of divination may be useful, Edipus has already sent
for the blind seer Teiresias. Teiresias is one of the great
creations of Sophocles. Twice he appears, once in this play,
once in the Antigone, each time in conflict with infatuated
kings. He is so aged, and the soul within him is so fixed on
things invisible, that he seems scarcely human. We think of him
as of one who dwells apart, not communing in ordinary social
ways with men, but listening to the unspoken words of God,
and uttering his wisdom in dark parable to those who heedi
him not. The Greek poets frequently exhibited the indiffer-
ence of prosperous persons to divine monitions. Cassandra's
prophecies were not attended to ; the Delphic oracle spoke in
R
2
244
TIIE GREEK POTS.
vain ; and Teiresias is only honoured when it is too late.
Sophocles, while maintaining the mysterious fascination of the
soothsayer, has marked his character by some strong touches
of humanity. He is proud and irritable to excess. His
power of sarcasm is appalling, and his indignation is inexorable.
Between two stubborn and unyielding natures like the seer
and king sparks of anger could not fail to be struck ; the
explosion that follows on their meeting serves to display the
choleric temper of Edipus, which formed the main trait of his
character, the pith of his åpapria.
Edipus greets Teiresias courteously, telling him that he,
the King, is doing all he can to find the murderer of Laius, and
that the soothsayer must spare no pains. To this generous
patronage and protective welcome Teiresias, upon whose
sightless soul the truth has suddenly flashed, answers with deep
sighs, and requests to be led home again. This naturally
nettles Edipus. The hastiness that drew him into his first
fault, renders him now ungovernable. Teiresias keeps saying
it will be better for the King to remain ignorant, and the King
retorts that he is only a blind dotard; were he not blind, he,
and no other, might be suspected of the murder. This pro-
Ay! Is it so? I bid thee, then, abide
By thy first ordinance, and from this day
Join not in converse with these men or me,
Being thyself this land's impure defiler. .
Thus the real state of affairs is suddenly disclosed; and
were Edipus of a submissive temper he would immediately
have proceeded to the discovery of the truth. This would,
however, have destroyed the drama, and have prevented the
unfolding of the character of the King. Instead, therefore,
of heeding the seer's words, Edipus rushes at once to the
conclusion that Creon and Teiresias are plotting to overthrow
him in his tyranny. The quarrel waxes hot. Each word
10
SOPHOCLES.
· 245
uttered by Teiresias is pregnant with terrific revelation. The
whole context of events, past, present, and future, is painted
with intense lucidity in speech that has the trenchant force of
oracular conviction ; yet Edipus remains so firmly rooted in
his own integrity and in the belief which he has suddenly
assumed of Creon's treason, that he turns deaf ears and a blind
soul to the truth. At last the seer leaves him with this de-
nunciation :
I tell thee this: the man whom thou so long
Seekest with threats and mandates for the murder
Of Laius, that very man is here,
By name an alien, but in season due
He shall be shown true Theban, and small joy
Shall have therein; for, blind, instead of seeing,
And poor, who once was rich, he shall go forth,
Staff-guided, groping, o'er a foreign land.
He shall be shown to be with his own children
Brother and sire in one, of her who bore him
Husband at once and offspring, of his father
Bedmate and murderer. Go; take now these words
Within, and weigh them; if thou find me false,
Say then that divination taught me nothing.
The next scene is one of altercation between Edipus and
Creon. Edipus, full of rage, still haunted by the suspicion of
treason, yet stung to the quick by some of the dark speeches of
the prophet, vehemently assails the prince, and condemns him
to exile. Creon—who, of course, is innocent, but who is not
meant to have a generous or lofty soul-defends himself in a
dry and argumentative manner, until Jocasta comes forth from
the palace and seeks to quell their conflict. (Edipus tells her
haughtily that he is accused of being the murderer of Laius.
She begins her answer with a frivolous and impious assertion
that all oracles are nonsense. The oracle uttered against Laius
came to nothing, for his son died on Mount Citharon, and
robbers slew him near Thebes long afterwards, where three
ways meet. These words, ev tpialais åpagitoiç, stir suspicion
in the mind of Edipus. He asks at once : “Where was the
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T'HE GREEK POETS.
spot?” “In Phokis, where one goes to Delphi and to Daulia.”
“What was Laius like?” “Not unlike you in shape,” says.
Jocasta, “but white-haired.” “Who were with him?” “Five:
men, and he rode a chariot.” Who told you all this?
“One who escaped, and who begged me afterwards to send
him from the palace, and who now keeps a farm of ours in the:
country." Each answer adds to the certainty in the mind of
dipus that it was Laius whom he slew. The only hope left
is to send for the servant, and to find out whether he adheres.
to his story of there having been more robbers than one. If
he remains firm upon this point, and does not confess that it
was one solitary man who slew his master and his comrades, then
there is a chance that he, the King, may not be guilty. Jocastag,
with her usual levity, comforts him by insisting that he spoke of
robbers, in the plural, and that he must not be suffered to
retract his words.
While they are waiting for the servant, a messenger arrives
from Corinth with good news. Polybus, the king, is dead, and
Edipus is proclaimed his successor. “Where now," shouts
impious Jocasta, "are your oracles--that you should slay your
father? See you not how foolish it is to trust to Phoebus and
to auguries of birds ? Chance is the lord of all. Let us, there-
fore, live our lives as best we can.” Awful is the irony of these
short-sighted jubilations; and awful, as Aristotle has pointed
out,* is the irony which makes this messenger of apparently
good tidings add the last link to the chain of evidence that will
overwhelm Edipus with ruin. Edipus exclaims : “Though
my father is dead, I may not return to Corinth : Merope still
lives.” “What,” says the messenger,“ do you fear her because.
she is your mother? Set your mind at ease. She is no
them as a gift, when you were yet an infant.” “Where did you
* Poetics, xi.
· SOPIIOCLES.
247
find me?” cries the King. “Upon Cithæron, a shepherd of
the house of Laius gave you to me; your feet were pierced,
and I believe that you were born in the royal household.”
Terrible word, Cithæron! It echoes through this tragedy with
horror-its scaurs and pastures, the scene of the first crime:
And now those two hinds, who had met there once, apparently
by chance, with the child of doom between them, are being
of doom between them, in order to make good the words of
Teiresias :
βοης δε της σής ποίος ουκ έσται λιμήν,
ποίος Κιθαιρών ουχί σύμφωνος τάχα και
Jocasta is struck dumb by the answers of the messen-
ger. She, and she alone, knows now at last the whole truth ;
but she does not speak, while Edipus continues asking who
the shepherd of the house of Laius was. Then she utters
words of fearful import, praying the King to go no further, nor
to seek what, found, will plunge his soul into despair like hers.
After this, finding her suit ineffectual, she retires into the
palace. The Chorus are struck by the wildness of her gestures,
and hint their dread that she is going to her doom of suicide.
But Edipus, not yet fully enlightened, and preoccupied with
the problem which interests himself so deeply, only imagines
that she shrinks from the possible proof of his base birth. As
yet, he does not suspect that he is the own son of Laius; and
here, it may be said in passing, the sole weakness of the plot
transpires. Neither the oracle first given to him at Delphi,
nor the plain speech of Teiresias, nor the news of the Corin-
thian messenger, nor the pleadings of Jocasta, are sufficient
to suggest the real truth to his mind. Such profundity of
blindness is dramatically improbable. He is, however, soon
destined to receive illumination. The servant of Laius, who
gave Jocasta intelligence cf the manner of her husband's
death, is now brought upon the stage ; and in him the Corin-
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TIIE GREEK POETS.
thian messenger recognises the same shepherd who had given
him the infant on Cithæron. Though reluctant to confess the
truth so long concealed, the shepherd is at last forced to reveal
all he knows; and in this supreme moment Edipus discovers
that he is not only the murderer of his own father, but also
that Jocasta is his mother. In the madness of this revelation
he rushes to the palace. The Chorus are left alone to moralise
upon these terrible events. Then another messenger arrives.
Jocasta has hanged herself within her bedchamber. Edipus,
breaking bars and bolts in the fire of his despair, has followed
her. Around him were the servants, drawn together by the
tumult. None, however, dared approach him. Led by an
inner impulse, he found the place where his wife and mother
hung, released the corpse, and tearing from her dress the golden
buckles, cut out both his eyes, crying aloud that no longer
should they look upon the light or be witness to his woe, seeing
that when they might have aided him they were as good as
blind. Thus one day turned the prosperity of Edipus to
" wailing, woe, death, disgrace, all evils that have name—not
one is absent.” The speech of the messenger narrating these
events is a splendid instance of the energy of Sophocles, when
he chooses to describe a terrible event appallingly. It does
not convey the Æschylean mystery of brooding horror ; but
the scene is realised in all its incidents, briefly, vividly, with
ghastly clearness. Meanwhile, the voice of Edipus himself is
Thebes may see the parricide, the monster of unhallowed in-
and there lies dead Jocasta ; and sightless Edipus, with bloody
cheeks and beard, stands over her, and the halls are filled with
wailing women and woe-stricken men.
Here, if this had been a modern tragedy, the play of
Edipus Tyrannus might have ended ; but so abrupt and
scenical a conclusion did not suit the art of Sophocles. He
SOPHOCLES.
249
had still further to develop the character of Edipus, and to offer
the prospect of that future reconciliation between the fate and
the passions of his hero which he had in store. For this pur-
pose the last two hundred lines of the drama, though they do
not continue the plot, but rather suggest a new and secondary
subject of interest, are invaluable. Hitherto we have seen
Edipus in the pride of monarchy and manhood, hasty, arrogant,
yet withal a just and able ruler. He is now, through a
TEPLTÉTELA, or revolution of circumstances, more complete than
any other in Greek tragedy, revealed in the very depth of his
calamity, still dignified. There is no resistance left in the
once so strong and stubborn man. The hand of God, weighing
heavily upon him, has bowed his head, and he is humble as a
little child. Yet the vehemence that marked his former phase
persists. It finds vent in the passionate lucidity wherewith he
examines all the details of the pollution he has unwittingly
incurred, and in the rage with which he demands to have his
own curse carried out against him. Let him be cast from the
city, sent forth to wander on the fells of Cithæron-oyuòs
Κιθαιρων ούτος. It was the highest achievement of tragic art
to exhibit so suddenly, and by so sharp a transition, this
new development of the king's nature. Saul of Tarsus, when
blinded by the vision, was not more immediately converted
from one mood into another, more contrite in profound sin-
cerity of sorrow. Still in the altered dipus we see the same
man, the same temperament; though all internal and external
circumstances have been changed, so that henceforward he will
never tread the paths of life as once he did. The completeness
of his self-abandonment appears most vividly in the dialogue
with Creon, upon whose will his immediate fate depends.
When Creon, whom he had lately misjudged and treated with
violent harshness, comes and greets him kindly, the wretched
King tastes the very bitterness of degradation, yet he is not
abject. He only prays once more, with intensest urgency of
YA
250
THE GREEK POETS.
pleading, to have the uttermost of the excommunication he had
vowed; executed upon his head. Thinking less of himself
than of the miserable beings associated with him in disaster, he
beseeches Creon to inter the Queen, and, for his boys, to give
them only a fair chance in life—they will be men, and may carve:
out their own fortunes in the world ; but for his two poor girls,
left desolate, a scorn and mockery to all men, he can only
pray that they may come to him, be near him, bear the burden
of their misery by their father's side. The tenderness of
(Edipus for Ismene and Antigone, his yearning to clasp them,
is terribly--almost painfully-touching, when we remember
who they were, how born, the children of what curses. The
words with which the King addresses them are even hazardous
in their directness. Yet it was needful that humanity should
by some such strain of passion be made to emerge from this
tempest of soul-shattering woes; and thus, too, a glimpse of
that future is provided which remained for Edipus, if sorrowful,
assuaged at least by filial love. In reply to all his eloquent
supplications Creon answers that he will not take upon himself
the responsibility of dealing with his case. Nothing can be.
done without consulting the oracle at Delphi. Edipus has,
therefore, to be patient and endure. The strong hero; who
saved Thebes from the Sphinx and swayed the city, is now in
the hands of tutors and governors awaiting his doom. He
submits quietly, and the tragedy is ended.
The effect of such a tragedy as (Edipus the King is to make
men feel that the earth is shaken underneath them, and that the
heavens above are big with thunder. Compassion and fear are
agitated in the highest degree ; old landmarks seem to vanish;
the mightiest have fallen, and the most impious, convinced of
God, have been goaded to self-murder. Great indeed is the
tragic poet's genius who can make the one sure point amid this
confusion the firmness of its principal foredestined victim. That
is the triumph of Sophocles. Out of the chaos of the Edipus
TO
SOPHOCLES.
251
**. Tyrannus springs the new order of the Edipus Coloneiis : and
here it may be said that perhaps the most valid argument in
favour of the Æschylean trilogy as a supreme work of dramatic art
is this that such a tragedy as the first Edipus demanded such
another as the second. The new motives suggested in the last
act were not sufficiently worked out to their conclusion ; much
that happened in the climax of the Tyrannus seemed to neces-
sitate the Colonciis.
The interest of the Edipus Tyrannus centres in its plot, and
that is my only excuse for having dwelt so long on the structure
of a play familiar to every student. That of the Edipus Coloneüis
is different. It has, roughly speaking, no plot. It owes its
perfect, falmost superhuman, beauty to the atmosphere which
bathes it, as with peace after tempest, with the lucid splendours
of sunset succeeding to a storm-vexed and tumultuous day.
The scene is laid, as the name indicates, in the village birth-
place of the poet. Years are supposed to have elapsed since
the conclusion of the former tragedy ; Edipus, after being
detained in Thebes against his will at first, has now been driven
forth by Creon, and has wandered many miles in blindness, led
by his daughter's hand. The ethical interest of the play, so far
as it is not absorbed by Edipus himself, centres principally in
Antigone, whereby we are prepared for her emergence into fullest
prominence in the tragedy which bears her name. Always
keeping in mind that these three plays are not a trilogy, I can-
not but insist again that much is lost, especially in all that
concerns the unfolding of Antigone's character, by not reading
them in the order suggested by the fable. At the same time,
though Antigone engrosses our sympathy and attention, So-
of persons. The generous energy of Theseus forms a fine
contrast to the inactivity forced upon Edipus by the con-
ditions of the subject, and also to the meanness of Creon;
while the episodes of Ismene's arrival, of Antigone's abduction,
252
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TIIE GREEK POETS.
and of the visit of Polyneices, add movement to what might else
have been too stationary. It should also be said that all these
subsidiary sources of interest are used with subtle art by Sopho-
cles for enhancing the dignity of Edipus, for arousing our
sympathy with him, and for bringing into prominence the chief
features of his character. None can, therefore, be regarded
as superfluous, though, strictly speaking, they might have been
detached without absolute destruction of the drama, which is
more than can be said about the slightest incidents of Edipus
Tyrannus. As regards Edipus himself, that modification of his
fiery temperament which Sophocles revealed at the end of the
first tragedy, has now become permanent. He is schooled into
submission; yet he has not lost the old impetuosity that formed
the groundwork of his nature. He is still quick to anger and
vehement in speech, but both his anger and his vehemence are
justified by the occasion. Something, moreover, of fateful and
mysterious, severing him from the common race of men and
shrouding him within the seclusion of his dread calamity, has
been added. The terror of his dreadful past, and the prospect
of his august future environ him with more than kingly dignity.
The skill of Sophocles as a dramatic poet is displayed in all its
splendour by the new light thrown upon the central figure of
Edipus. The effect of unity is not destroyed: those painful
shocks to our sense of probability so frequent when inferior dra-
matists-poets of the rank of Fletcher or of Jonson-attempt to
depict a nature altered by internal reformation or by force of
circumstance, do not occur. The Edipus of both the tragedies
remains one man ; we understand the change that has been
wrought in him; and while we feel that it is adequate and natural,
we marvel at the wisdom of the poet who could vary his design
with so much firmness. :
The oracle, which continues to play an important part in
this tale of Thebes, has warned (Edipus that he will end his
days within the precincts of the Semnai Theai, or august god-
SOPHOCLES
.253
desses of retribution. In his new phase the man of haste
and wrath is no longer heedless of oracles; nor does he let
their words lie idle in his mind. It is, therefore, with a strong
presentiment of approaching death that he discovers early in
this play that his feet, led by Antigone, have rested in the grove
of the Furies at Colonus. The place itself is fair. There are
here no Harpy-Gorgons with bloodshot eyes, and vipers twining
in their matted hair. The meadows are dewy, with crocus-
flowers and narcissus; in the thickets of olive and laurel
the midst of summer's heat. The whole wood is hushed, and
very fresh, and wild. A solemn stillness broods there; for
the feet of the profane keep far away, and none may tread
the valley-lawns but those who have been purified. The
ransomed of the Lord walk there. This solemnity of peace
pervades the whole play, forming, to borrow a phrase from
painting, the silver-grey harmony of the picture. In thus
bringing Edipus to die among the unshowered meadows of
those Dread Ladies, whom in his troubled life he found so
terrible, but whom in his sublime passage from the world he is
about to greet resignedly, we may trace peculiar depth of
every scene in the drama. We are in the presence of one whose
life is ended, who is about to merge the fever of existence in the
tranquillity beyond. This impression of solemnity is heightened
when we remember that the poet wrote the Coloneiis in extreme
old age. Over him too the genius of everlasting repose already
spread wings in the twilight, and the mysteries of the grave
were nearer to him and more daily present than to other men.
. A country fellow, who perceives Edipus seated by his
daughter on a marble bench within the sacred precinct, bids
them quit the spot; for it is hallowed. Edipus, however,
knowing that his doom shall be fulfilled, asks that he may be con-
fronted with the elders of the place. They come and gaze with
254
THE GREEK POETS.
desolation. Before they can converse with him, Edipus has to
quit the recesses of the grove, and gain a spot where speech and
traffic are permitted. Then, in answer to their questions, he
informs them who he is-Edipus. At that name they start
hack in horror, demanding that he shall carry the abomination
of his presence from their land. This affords the occasion for a
splendid speech from the old man, one of the most telling
pasages of eloquence in Sophocles, in which he appeals to the
time-long hospitality and fame for generosity of Athens. Athens
was never known to spurn the suppliant or expel the stranger,
and the deeds of Edipus they so much dread, are sufferings
rather :
έπει τά γ' έργα μου
πεπονθότ' έστι μάλλον ή δεδρακότα.
The Chorus, moved by the mingled impetuosity and sound
reasoning of their suitor, peiseive that the case is too grave
for them to decide. Accordingly, they send a messenger for
Theseus ; but, before he can be summoned, Ismene arrives on
horseback with the news that her brothers are quarrelling about
the throne of Thebes. Eteocles, the younger, has usurped the
sovereignty, while Polyneices has fled to Argos to engage the
chiefs of the Achaians in his cause. Both parties, meantime,
are eager to secure the person of Edipus, since an oracle has

these tidings, bursts into a strain of passionate denunciation,
which proves that the old fire of his temper is smouldering
still unquenched. When he was forlorn and in misery, his un-
natural sons took no thought of him. They sent him forth to
roam, a pariah upon the earth, leaving to his daughters the
care and burden of supporting him. Now, basely anxious for
their selfish profit, they come to claim possession of his old,
world-wearied flesh. Instead of blessings, they shall meet
with curses. Instead of the fair land of Thebes to lord it over,
SOPHOCLES.
255
they shall barely get enough ground to die and be buried in.
He, meanwhile, will abide at Athens, and bequeath a heritage
of help and honour to her soil.
The Chorus now call upon (Edipus to perform the rites of
purification required by the Eumenides-rites which Sophocles
has described with the loving minuteness of one to whom
the customs of Colonus were from boyhood sacred.) Ismene
goes to carry out their instructions, and in her absence Theses
arrives upon the scene. Theseus, throughout the drama,
plays toward Edipus the part of a good-hearted hospitable
friend. His generosity is ethically contrasted with the mean-
ness of Creon and the selfishness of Polyneices, while, artisti
cally, the practical energy of his character serves før a foil
to the stationary dignity of the chief actor. Schocles has
thus contrived to give weight and importance to a personage
who might, in weaker hands, have been degraded into mere
instrument. Edipus assures the Attic king that he will
prove no useless and unserviceable denizen. The children of
Erechtheus, whose interests rank first in the mind of Theseus,
will find him in the future a powerful and god-protected
sojourner within their borders. His natural sympathy for the
persecuted and oppressed having been thus strengthened by
the prospect of reciprocal advantage, Theseus formally accepts
Edipus as a suppliant, and promises him full protection. At
this point, forming as it were a halting-place in the action
of the play, Sophocles introduced that famous song about
Colonus, which no one has yet succeeded in translating, but
which, for modern ears, has received new value from the music
of Mendelssohn.
What follows, before the final climax of the drama, consists
of the efforts made by Creon, on the part of Eteocles, and by
Polyneices, to enlist Edipus respectively upon their sides in
the war of succession to the 'Theban throne. Creon displays
his heartless, cunning, impudent, sophistical, and forceful


256
THE GREEK POETS.
character, while Edipus opposes indignation and contempt,
unmasking his hypocrisy, and stripping his specious arguments
of all that hides their naked selfishness. In this scene we feel
that Sophocles is verging upon the Euripidean manner. A
little more would make the altercation between Creon and
@dipus pass over into a forensic wrangling match. As it is,
the chief dramatic value of the episode is to exhibit the gran-
deur of the wrath of Edipus in its righteous heat when
contrasted with the wretched shifts of a mere rhetorical
sophist.
After Creon, by the help of Theseus, has been thwarted
in his attempt to carry off Antigone, Polyneices approaches
with crocodile tears, fawning intercessions, and fictitious
sorrow for his father's desolation. Edipus flashes upon his
covert egotism the same light of clear unclouded insight which
had unmasked Creon. “What,” he asks, “is the value of
tears now, of prayers now? Dry were your eyes, hard as
stone your heart, dumb your lips, when I went forth from
Thebes unfriended. Here is your guerdon: before Thebes'
walls you shall die, pierced by your brother's hand, and your
would be unnatural, were it not for the son's falseness, who
behaved like a Regan to Edipus in his calainity, and who
now, when the old man has become a mysteriously important
personage, seeks to make the most of him for his own uses.
The protracted dialogues with Creon and Polyneices serve
to enhance the sublimity of Cedipus. He, all the while,
is seated, a blind, travel-stained, neglected mendicant, upon
the marble bench of the Eumenides. There is horror in his
very aspect. Hellas rings with the abominations connected
with his name. Yet, to this poor pariah, to this apparent
object of pity and loathing, come princes and warriors capable
of stirring all the States of Greece in conflict. He rejects
them, firm in his consciousness of heaven-appointed destiny.
SOFHOCLES.
257
Sophocles seems bent on showing how the wrath of God may
be turned aside from its most signal and notorious victims
by real purity of heart and nobleness of soul; how, from the
depths of degradation and affliction, the spirit of man may
rise; and how the lot of demigods may be reserved for those
whom the world ignorantly judges worthy of its scorn.
dipus of late stood like the lightning-blasted tree that
trávellers dread—the evitandum bidental of Roman superstition.
His withered limbs have now more health and healing in them
than the leaf-embowered forest oak.
The treatment of Polyneices in the Edipus Coloneis
supplies a good example of the Sophoclean tendency to
humanise the ancient myths of Hellas. The curse pronounced
by Edipus formed an integral element of that portion of the
legend which suggested to Æschylus the Seven against Thebes.
By its force, the whole weight of the doom that overhangs
the house of Laius is brought to bear upon the suicidal
brethren, both of whom rush helplessly, with eyes open, to
meet inevitable fate.
& Ζεύ τε και Γη και πολισσούχοι θεοί,
'Αρά τ' 'Ερινύς πατρός η μεγασθενής
are the opening words of the prayer of Eteocles in that
tragedy; while phrases like these, ώ πόνοι δόμων νέοι παλαιοίσι
συμμιγείς κακούς and ώ μέλαινα και τελεία γένεος Οιδίπου τ'
ápá, form the burden of the choric songs. Sophocles does
not seek to make the wrath of Edipus less terrible ; he
adheres to the old outline of the story, and heightens the
tragic horror of the curse by framing for it words intense by
reason of their very calculated calmness (1383–1396). At the
same time he shows how the obstinate temper of Polyneices,
and his sense of honour, are necessary to its operation. After
the dreadful sentence, dooming him to self-murder by his
brother's spear, has been pronounced, Polyneices stands before
his father and his sister like one stunned. Antigone, with a
II
258
THE GREEK POETS.
woman's instinct, entreats him to choose the only way still
left of safety. He may disband the army, and retire from the
adventure against Thebes. To this her brother answers :
αλλ' ουχ οίόν τε, πώς γαρ αύθις αν πάλιν
στράτευμ’ άγοιμι ταυτόν εισάπαξ τρέσας ;
When she persists, he repeats peis ' å un det. Thus, instead
of bringing into strong relief the operation of blind fate,
Sophocles places in the foreground the human agencies which
contribute to the undoing of Polyneices. His crime of un-
filial egotism, his dread of being thought a coward, and his
honour rooted in dishonour, drive him through the tempest of
his father's curse upon the rock of doom. The part played
by Antigone in this awful scene of altercation between her
father and her brother, first interceding for mercy, and then
striving to break the stubborn will of the rebellious youth, *
prepares our minds for the tragedy in which she will appear as
protagonist. Hitherto she has been remarkable for filial love.
She now shows herself a gentle and tender sister to one who
had deeply wronged her. The absolute unselfishness, which
gives to her the beauty as of some clear flawless jewel, shines
forth by anticipation in the Coloneiis, enlisting our warmest
sympathies upon her side and tempering the impression of
hardness that might be produced by a simple study of the
Antigone.
When Polyneices, with the curse still ringing in his ears, has
fled forth, Cain-like, from the presence of his father, thunder is
heard, and the end approaches. The chief actors, led by the
blind hero, move from the stage in order suited to the proces-
sional gravity of the Greek theatre, while the speech of the
Messenger, conveying to the Chorus the news of the last minutes
in the life of Edipus, prepares the spectators for the reappear-
ance of his daughters on the scene. As in the Edipus Tyran-
* See especially 1181-1203, 1414-1443.
SOPHOCLES.
259
gius, so now a new motive of interest is introduced in the last
act of the drama. The Antigone is imperatively demanded as a
sequel. Our attention is riveted upon Antigone, who in losing
her father has lost all. Her first thought is that he died nobly,
peacefully, at one with God. Her next thought is that she shall
never see him again, never more bear the sweet burden of
anxiety and pain for him, never even have access to his hidden
tomb. Her third thought is a longing to be dead with him,
enfolded in oblivion of the fate which persecutes her kith and
kin. Life stretches before her boundless, homeless, comfort-
less, nor has she now a single memory for him whose love
might have consoled a woman of less stubborn soul, for Hæmon.
It is characteristic of his whole conception of Antigone that
Sophocles introduced no allusion to that underplot of love
at this point. When Theseus reproves her for despair, she
awakes to fresh unselfishness : “Send me to Thebes,” she cries,
· that I may stay, if possible, my brothers' strife.” Throughout
this final scene the single-hearted heat and firm will of Antigone,
her desire for action, and her readiness to accept responsibility
are contrasted with Ismene's yielding temper and passivity. We
are thus prepared for the opening of the third drama, which,
though written first by Sophocles, is the artistic close and climax
of the tale of Thebes. .
The most perfect female character in Greek poetry is Anti-
gone. She is purely Greek, unlike any woman of modern
fiction, except perhaps the Fedalma of George Eliot. In her
filial piety, in her intercession for Polyneices at the knees of
Cdipus, in her grief when her father is taken from her, she does
indeed resemble the women whom most men among us have
learned to honour in their sisters or their daughters or their
mother. Of such women the Greek maiden, with her pure calm
face and virginal straight lines of classic drapery, is still the saint
and patroness. But what shall we say of the Antigone of this
last drama, of the sister who is willing, lest her brother lie
S 2
260
THE GREEK POETS.
unburied on the Theban plain, to lay her own life down, dis-.
obeying the law of her sovereign, defying Creon to the face,
appealing against unjust tribunals to the judgment-seat of powers
more ancient than the throne of Zeus himself, and marching to
her living tomb with dauntless strength in order that the curse-
attainted ghost of Polyneices shall have rest in Hades? To the
modern mind she appears a being from another sphere. A
strain of unearthly music seems to announce her entrance and
her exit on the stage. That the sacrifice of the sister's very
life, the breaking of her plighted troth to Hæmon, should
follow upon the sprinkling of those few handfuls of dust—thať
she should give that life up smilingly, nor ever in her last hours
breathe her lover's name—is a tragic circumstance for which
minds of the fixed modern prejudice that the first duty of a.
woman is to her husband, nor can we fully enter into the.
antique superstition of defrauded sepulture. Yet it is necessary
to do both of these things, to sequester Antigone from the
sphere of modern obligations, and to enter hand in hand with
her the inner sanctuary of antique piety, in order to do justice
to the conception of Sophocles. This effort of the imagination
may be facilitated by remembering first, that Antigone inherited
her father's proud self-will-
δηλοί τό γέννημ’ ώμον εξ ώμου πατρός
της παιδός: είκειν δ' ουκ επίσταται κακοίς-
and secondly, that disaster after disaster, the loss of @dipus,
the death of her two brothers, has come huddling upon her in
a storm of fate, so that life is in a manner over for her, and
she feels isolated in a cold and cruel world. This combination
of her character and her circumstances renders her action in
the Antigone. conceivable. Without the hardness she inherited.
from Edipus, she could not have gone through her tragic part.
Without the vow she registered above her father's grave, to.
bring help to her brethren, seeing that they alone were left, the:
TTT
SOPHOCLES.
261
sentiment of her last speech would sound rhetorical. More-
over, the poet who breathed into her form a breath of life so
fiery, has himself justified us in regarding her act as one
removed from the plain path of virtue.. Antigone was no
Hindhu widow to die upon a husband's pyre. Her heroism,
her resistance offered to the will of Creon, had in it a splendid
criminality. It was just the casuistry of the conflict between
public and private obligations, between the dictates of her
conscience and the commands of her sovereign, that enabled
Sophocles to render the peculiar stoicism of her character
pathetic. In spite of all these considerations, it is probable
that she will strike a modern reader at the first as frigid.
Especially if he have failed to observe the nuances of her
portrait in the Edipus Coloneiis, he will be inclined to wish
that Sophocles had softened here and there the outlines of her
adamantine statue. Yet, after long contemplation of those per-
fect lineaments, we come to recognise in her a purity of passion,
a fixity of purpose, a loyalty of kinship, a sublime enthusiasm
for duty, simply conceived and self-justified in spite of all
conventions to the contrary, which soar above the strain of
modern tragic sentiment. Even Alfieri, in the noble drawing
he has sketched from the Sophoclean picture, could not ab-
stain from violating its perfection by this sentimental touch
of common feeling :-
Emone, ah ! tutto io sento,
Tutto l'amor, che a te portava : io sento
Il dolor tutto, a cui ti lascio.
No such words are to be found in Sophocles upon the lips of
the dying Antigone. She is all for her father and her brothers.
The tragedy of Hæmon belongs to Creon, not to her. Her
furthest concessions to the sympathies which might have swayed
a weaker woman, are found in this line,
à diatað? Aſuov, ós o åtiuáčel natúp,
and in the passage of the Kommos where she bewails her
S
262
THE GREEK POETS.
luckless lot of maidenhood. For the rest, Sophocles has sus--
tained her character as that of one “whom, like sparkling
steel, the strokes of chance made hard and firm.” This steely
durability, this crystalline sparkle, divide her not only from the
ideal raised by romance for womanhood, but distinguish her as
the daughter of Edipus from the general sisterhood even of
Greek heroines.
The peculiar qualities of Antigone are brought into sharp
relief by the milder virtues of Ismene, who thinks it right to
obey Creon, and who has no spirit for the deed of daring, but
who is afterwards eager to share the punishment of her sister.
Antigone repels her very sternly, herein displaying the force of
her nature under its less amiable aspect : “Have courage !
Thou livest, but my soul long since liath died.” The glory of
the act is hers alone. Ismene has no right to share it when the
risks are past, the penalty is paid. Antigone's repulsion of her
sister seems to supply the key to her own heroism. “Edipus,"
she says, “is dead; my brethren are dead : for them I lived,
and in their death I died to life ; but you—your heart is not:
shut up within your father's and your brother's grave; it is still
warm, still eager for love and the joys of this world. Live,
then. For me it would be no more possible to live such life
as yours, than for the clay-cold corpse upon the bier.”
The character of Creon, darkened in its tone and shadow
to the utmost with a view to affording a foil of another species
for Antigone, was thought worthy of minute and careful treat-
ment by Sophocles. In the Edipus Tyraniius he is wronged
rather than wronging. While suffering from the unjust suspicion
and hasty language of the King, he pleads his cause with decent
gravity and shows no sign of either arrogance or cowardice.
At the end, when Edipus has fallen, his own behaviour is
such as would not disgrace a generous as well as prudent
prince. The neutrality for good or evil which distinguishes
Creon in this play, marking him out in contrast with the fiery
.
SOPHOCLES.
263
Q
"
heat of Edipus, the impious irony of Jocasta, is,' to say the
least, respectable. In the Edipus Coloneiis he plays a con-
sistently mean and odious part; his pragmatical display of
rhetoric before the burghers of Colonus, when tested by his
violent and cruel conduct toward Antigone, proves him
to be a hollow-hearted and specious hypocrite. The light here
reflected back upon his respectability in the Tyrannus is deci-
dedly unfavourable. In the Antigone Creon becomes, if pos-
sible, still more odious; only our animosity against him is
tempered by contempt. To the faults of egotisın, hardness, and
hypocritical prating, are now added the infatuation of self-will
and the godless hatred of a dead foe. There is, indeed, a show
of right in the decree published concerning the two brothers;
one of whom had brought a foreign army against Thebes; but
it would be sophistry to maintain that Creon was actuated by
patriotic motives. The defeat and death of Polyneices were
punishment enough. By pursuing his personalspite beyond
the grave Creon insults the common instincts of laumanity, the
sympathies of the people, and the supposedielings of the gods,
who cannot bear to gaze upon abomina The pathetic
self-devotion of Antigone, the voice of
t wy, the remon-
strances of Hæmon, and the warnings of Teiresias are all thrown
away upon his stubborn and conceited obstinacy. He shows
himself, in short, to be a tyrant of the orthodox sort. Like a
tyrant, he is moreover absurdly suspicious: the guardian has,
he thinks, been bought; Ismene must be hatching treason;
Hæmon prefers a woman to his duty; Teiresias is plotting for
the sake of gain against him. When it is just too late, he gives
way helplessly and feebly, moved to terror by the dark words
of the seer. Creon is, therefore, a mixed character, great neither
for good nor for evil, weak through wilfulness, plausible in words
and wavering in his determinations, a man who might have
passed for excellent if he had never had to wield a kingdom's
power. His own description of himself-uáralov ävòpa-suits
.
.
264
THE GREEK POETS.
him not only in the utter collapse of his character and ruin of.
his fortunes, but also in the height of his prosperity and fulness
of his seeming strength.
. Sophocles might fairly be censured for having made the
misery of Creon the climax of a drama which ought to have had
its whole interest centred in Antigone. Our sympathies have
not been sufficiently enlisted on the side of Hæmon to make
us care much about his death. For Eurydice it is impossible
to rouse more than a languid pity. Creon, we feel, gets no more
than he deserves; instead of being sorry for him, we are only
angry that he was not swept away into the dustheap of oblivion
sooner. It was surely a mistake to divert the attention of the
audience, at the very end of the tragedy, from its heroine to a
character which, like that of Creon, rouses inpatient scorn as
well as antipathy. That Sophocles had artistic reasons for not
concluding this play with the death of Antigone, may be readily
granted by those who have made the crises of the Ajax, the
Edipus Tyrannus, and the Edipus Coloneżis the subject of
special study. He preferred, it seems, to relax the strained
sympathies of his audience by a prolongation of the drama on
an altered theme. Yet this scarcely justifies the shifting of
the centre of interest attempted in the Antigone. We have to
imagine that the inculcation of a moral lesson upon the crime
of coébela was the poet's paramount object.* If so, he sacri-
ficed dramatic effect to ethics.
It should be noticed that Antigone, in whom the fate of the
family of Laius is finally accomplished, falls an innocent victim.
Her tragedy is no immediate consequence of the Edipodean
curse. While her brethren were wilfully involved in the doom
* The last six lines spoken by the Chorus seem to justify this view. A
couplet from the Pherci of Moschion might be inscribed as a motto upon
the Antigone :-
κενόν θανόντος ανδρος αϊκίζειν σκιάν:
ζώντας κολάζειν ου θανόντας ευσεβές.
SOPHOCLES.
265
of their house, she perished in the cause of divine charity.
Finding that the immutable ordinances of heaven clashed with
the arbitrary volition of a ruler, she preferred to obey the law
of conscience and to die at the behest of a pride-maddened
tyrant. She is technically disobedient, morally most duteous.
Thus the Antigone carries us beyond the region of hereditary
disaster into the more universal sphere of ethical casuistry. Its
tragic interest depends less upon the evolution of the law of
ancestral guilt than on the conflict of two duties. By suggesting
the casuistical question to his audience, while he freed his
heroine from all doubt upon the subject, Sophocles maintained
the sublime simplicity which distinguishes Antigoné above all
women of romance. The retribution that falls on Creon,
furnishes a powerful example of the Greek doctrine of Nemesis ;
but over Antigone herself Nemesis exerts no sway. In her
action there was nothing unconsidered ; in her doom there was
.nothing unforeseen.
266
THE GREEK POETS.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FRAGMENTS OF ÆSCHYLUS,
SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES.
Alexandrian and Byzantine Anthologies. -Titles of the Lost Plays of
Æschylus.-The Lycurgiia.---The Trilogy on the Story of Achilles.-
The Geography of the Prometheus Unbound.-Gnomic Character of
the Sophoclean Fragments.-Providence, Wealth, Love, Marriage,
Mourning. What is true of the Sophoclean is still more true of the
Euripidean Fragments. --Mutilated Plays.—Phaëthon, Erechtheus,
Antiope, Danai.—Goethe's Restitution of the Phaëthon.—Passage on
Greek Athletes in the Autolycus.---Love, Women, Marriage, Domestic
Affection, Children.- Death.–Stoical Endurance. - Justice and the
Punishment of Sin.-Wealth. - Noble Birth. - Heroism. --- Miscel-
laneous Gnomic Fragments. —The Popularity of Euripides.
It is difficult to treat the fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides otherwise than as a golden treasury of saws and
maxims, compiled by Alexandrian and Byzantine Greeks, for
whom poetic beauty was of less value than sententious wisdom..
The tragic scope and the æsthetic handling of the fables of
their lost plays can scarcely be conjectured from such slight hints
as we possess. Yet some light may be cast'upon the Æschy-
lean method by observing the titles of his dramas. We have,
for example, the names of a complete tetralogy upon the legend
of Lycurgus. The Edonians, the Bassarids, and the Young
Men, constituted a connected series of plays, a Lycurgeia,
with Lycurgus for the satyric supplement. Remembering that
Æschylus called his own tragedies morsels picked up from the
great Homeric banquet-table, we may conclude that this
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES. 267
tetralogy set forth the Dionysian fable told by Diomede to
Glaucus in the Iliad (vi. 131).*
No, for not Dryas' son, Lycurgus strong,
Who the divine ones fought, on earth lived long.
He the nurse-nymphs of Dionysus scared
Down the Nyseïan steep, and the wild throng
Their ritual things cast off, and maddening fared,
Torn with his goad, like kine; so vast a crime he dared.
Yea, Dionysus, such a sight was there,
Himself in fear sank down beneath the seas.
And Thetis in lier breast him quailing bare,
At the man's cry such trembling shook his knees.
Then angered were the gods who live at ease,
And Zeus smote blind Lycurgus, and he fell
Loathed ere his day.
It appears that the titles of the three dramas composing
the trilogy were taken from the Chorus. In the first play the
Edonian Thracians, subjects of Lycurgus, formed the Chorus; in
the second, the Bassarids, or nurse-nymphs of Dionysus ; in the
third, the youths whom the wine-god had persuaded to adopt his
worship. The subject of the first play was, therefore, the advent of
Dionysus and his following in Thrace, and the victory of Lycurgus
over the new cult. The second set forth the captivity of the
Bacchantes or Bassarids, together with the madness sent upon
Lycurgus as a punishment for his resistance, whereby he was
driven, according to post-Homeric versions of his legend, to
the murder of his own son Dryas in a fit of fury. The third
play carried on the subject by exhibiting the submission of
Lycurgus to the god whom he had disowned and dishonoured,
and his death, at the hands of his own subjects, upon Mount
Pangæus. Thus the first Chorus was hostile to Dionysus;
the second was sympathetic, though captive and impotent; the
third was triumphant in his cause. The artistic sequence of
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis which the trilogy required,
.
* Worsley's translation, Tlied, vol. i. p. 154.
-268
THE GREEK POETS.
was developed through three moments in the life-drama of
Lycurgus, and was typified in the changes of the choric
sympathy, according to the law whereby Æschylus varied
the form of his triple dramas and at the same time immedi-
ately connected the Chorus with the passion of each piece.
The tragic interest centred in the conflict of Lycurgus and the
god, and the final solution was afforded by the submission, though
too late, of the protagonist's will to destiny. It is probable
that the satyric play of Lycurgus represented the divine honours
paid, after his death, to the old enemy, now become the satel-
lite and subject of Dionysus, by pastoral folk and dwellers
in the woodlands. The unification of obstinate antagonistic
wills in the higher will of Zeus or Fate seems in all cases to
have supplied Æschylus with the Versöhnung tragedy re-
quired, and to have suggested the religious kádapols without
which the Greek drama would have failed to point its lesson.
Seen in this light, the Lycurgcia must have been a masterpiece
only less sublime, and even more full, perhaps, of picturesque
incidents, than the Promethean trilogy. The emotional com-
plexion, if that phrase may be permitted, of each member of
the trilogy was determined by the Chorus ; wherein we trace a
signal instance of the Æschylean method.
. More even to be regretted than the Lycurgeia is a colossal
lost trilogy to which the name of Tragic Iliad has been given.
That Æschylus should have frequently handled the subject-
matter of the Iliad was natural ; and many titles of tragedies,
quoted singly, point to his preoccupation with the mythus of
Achilles. It has therefore been conjectured, with fair show of
reason, that the Myrmidons, the Nereids, and the Phrygians
formed a triple drama. The first described the withdrawal of
Achilles from the war, the arming of Patroclus, and the grief
which the son of Peleus felt for his friend's death. No Greek
tragedy, had it been preserved, would have been more pre-
cious than this. The second showed how Thetis comforted
ÆSCII YLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES. 269.
1
her child, and procured fresh armour for him from Hephaestus,
and how Achilles slew Hector. In the third, Priam recovered
the dead body of his son and buried it. Supposing the trilogy
to have been constructed upon these outlines, it must have
resembled a gigantic history-play, in which, as in the Iliad
itself, the character of Achilles was sufficient to form the
groundwork of a complicated poem. The theme, in other
words, would have resembled those of the modern and ro-
mantic drama, rather than such as the elder Greek poets
were in the habit of choosing. The Achilleis did not in
any direct way illustrate the doctrine of Nemesis, or afford:
a tragic conflict between the human will and fate. It owed
its lustre to the radiant beauty of the hero, to the pathos of
his love for Patroclus, to the sudden blazing forth of irre-
sistible energy when sorrow for the dead had driven him to
revenge, and to the tranquillity succeeding tempest that dig-
nified his generous compliance with the prayers of Priam. The
trilogy composed upon it must therefore, like a Shakspearean
play, have been a drama of character. The fragments of the
Myrmidones have already been pieced together in the essay on
the Homeric Achilles. From the Nereides nothing has sur-
vived except what may be gathered from the meagre remnants
of the Latin version made of it by Attius. The Phrygians,
also called "Ektopos lúrpa, contained a speech of pleading
addressed by Priam to the hero in his tent, of which the.
following is a relic:t
και τους θανόντας ει θέλεις ευεργετείν,
το γούν κακουργείν αμφιδεξίως έχει
IN
* See above pp. 63-66.
of Lo, if thou fain wouldst benefit the dead,
Or if thou seek to harm them, 'tis all one;
For they can feel no joy nor suffer pain,
Nathless high Nemesis is throned above us,
And Justice doth exact the dead inan's due.
270
THE GREEK POETS.
.
και μήτε χαίρειν μήτε λυπείσθαι πάρα.
ημών γε μέντοι Νέμεσίς εσθ' υπερτέρα
και του θανόντος η δίκη πράσσει κότον.
The trilogy of which the Prometheus Bound formed probably
the middle play has been sufficiently discussed in the chapter
on Æschylus.* It remains in this place only to notice that
the gigantic geography of the poet received further illustration
in the lost play of the Prometheus Bound. “Cette géographie
vertigineuse,” says Victor Hugo, “est mêlée à une tragédie
extraordinaire où l'on entend des dialogues plus qu'humains ;"
and, inverting this observation, we may add that the super-
human tragedy of the Prometheis owed much of its grandeur to
the soul-dilating prospect of the earth's map, outstretched
before the far-seeing sufferer on the crags of Caucasus.
Two other trilogies—a Danais, composed of the Egyptians,
the Suppliants, and the Danaides; and an Edipodeia, composed
of Laius, the Sphinx, and Edipus—may be mentioned, though
to recover their outlines with any certainty is now hopeless.
For the rest, it must be enough to transcribe and to translate a
few fragments of singular beauty. Here is an invocation
uttered in his hour of anguish by Philoctetes to death, the
deliverer : of
ο θάνατε παιάν μή μ' ατιμάσης μολεϊν:
μόνος γάρ ει συ των ανηκέστων κακών
ιατρός • άλγος δ' ουδέν άπτεται νεκρού.
Another passage on Death, remarkable for the stately grandeur
of its style, may be quoted from the Niobe :
μόνος θεών γάρ θάνατος του δώρων έρα,
ούτ' άν τι θύων ούτ' επισπένδων άνοις,
* See above, pp. 173–188.
+ O Death, the saviour, spurn me not, but ccme !
For thou alone of ills incurable
Art healer : no pain preyeth on the dead.
| Alone of gods Death loves not giſts ; with him
Nor sacrifice nor incense aught avails ;
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
271
ου βωμός εστιν ουδέ παιωνίζεται.
μόνου δε πειθώ δαιμόνων απoστατεί.
The sublime speech of Aphrodite in the Danaides, imitated
more than once by subsequent poets, must not be omitted : *
ερα μεν αγνός ουρανός τρώσαι χθόνα,
έρως δε γαίαν λαμβάνει γάμου τυχεϊν:
όμβρος δ' απ' ευνάεντος ουρανού πεσών
έκυσε γαίαν ή δε τίκτεται βροτοίς
μήλων τε βοσκάς και βίον Δημήτριον:
τέλειός έστι: των δ' εγώ παραίτιος.
Nor, lastly, the mystic couplet ascribed to both Æschylus and
his son Euphorion : t
Ζεύς έστιν αιθήρ, Ζεύς δε γη, Ζεύς δ' ουρανός,
Ζεύς τοι τα πάντα, χώ τι τώνδ' υπέρτερον.
The fragments of Sophocles are, perhaps, in even a stricter
sense than those of Æschylus, a bare anthology, and the best
way of dealing with them is to select those which illustrate the
beauty of his style or the ripeness of his wisdom. Few indeed
are full enough to afford materials for reconstructing the plot
of a lost play. What, for instance, can be more tantalising to
the student of Greek manners and sentiments than to know
that Sophocles wrote a drama with the title Lovers of Achilles,
He hath no altar and no hymns of gladness;
Prayer stands aloof from him, Persuasion fails.
Love throbs in holy heaven to wound the earth;
And love still prompts the land to yearn for bridals ;
The rain that falls in rivers from the sky,
Impregnates earth, and she brings forth for men
The flocks and herds and life of teeming Ceres ;
The bloom of forests by dews hymeneal
Is perfected : in all which things I rule,
+ Zeus is the air, Zeus earth, and Zeus wide heaven :
Yea, Zeus is all things, and the power above them.
272
THE GREEK POETS.
and yet to have no means of judging of its fable better than is
given in this pretty simile ? * _
νόσημο έρωτος τούτ' έφίμερον κακόν:
έχoιμ’ αν αυτό μη κακώς απεικάσαι,
όταν πάγου φανέντος αιθρίου χερούν
κρύσταλλον αρπάσωσι παίδες ασταγή.
τα πρώτ’ έχουσιν ηδονάς ποταινίους,
τέλος δ' ο χυμός ούθ' όπως αφή θέλει
ούτ' εν χερούν το κτήμα σύμφορον μένειν.
ούτω γε τους ερώντας αυτός ίμερος
δραν και το μή δραν πολλάκις προΐεται.
A whole series of plays were written by Sophocles on the
tale of Helen, and all of them have passed “like shapes of
clouds we form, to nothing." There was, again, a drama of
the Epigoni, which might perhaps have carried the tale of
Thebes still further than the climax reached in the Antigone.
Yet Stobæus has only thought fit to treat us to two excerpts
from it, whereof the following, spoken by Alcmæon to Eriphyle,
is the fullest :p
& παν συ τολμήσασα και πέρα γύναι:
κάκιον άλλ' ουκ έστιν ούδ' έσται ποτέ
γυναικός εί τι πήμα γίγνεται βροτοίς.
1.
* This love-disease is a delightful trouble ;
Well might I shadow forth its power as thus :
When the clear eager frost has fallen, boys
Seize with their fingers the firm frozen ice,
And first they feel an unaccustomed pleasure,
But in the end it melts, and they to leave it
Or in their hands to hold it know not how;
Even so the same desire drives wilful lovers
To do and not to do by frequent changes.
+ Woman, that hast dared all, and more than all !
There is not anything, nor will be ever,
Than woman worse, let what will fall on men.
It is right to observe that Welcker and Ahrens have conjecturally
pieced together this and many other scattered fragments, and connected
them in such a way as to reconstitute a tragedy with Argos for its scene,
nor Thebes.
ESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES. 273
The sententious philosophy of life that endeared Euripides
to the compilers of commonplace-books was expressed by
Sophocles also, with sufficient independence of the context to
make his speeches valuable as quarries for quotation. To this
accident of his art is probably due the large number cf
fragments we possess upon general topics of morality and
apparent injustice in the apportionment of good and evil
fortune to virtuous and vicious men : *
δεινόν γε τους μεν δυσσεβείς κακών τ’ άπο
βλάστoντας, είτα τούσδε μέν πράσσειν καλώς,
τους δ' όντας εσθλους έκ τε γενναίων άμα
γεγώτας είτα δυστυχείς πεφυκέναι.
ου χρήν τάδ' ούτω δαίμονας θνητών πέρι .
πράσσειν' έχρήν γάρ τους μεν ευσεβείς βροτών
έχειν τι κέρδος εμφανές θεών πάρα,
τους δ' όντας αδίκους τοίσδε την εναντίαν
δίκην κακών τιμωρόν εμφανή τίνειν.
κουδείς αν ούτως ευτύχει κακός γεγώς.
The same play furnished Stobæus with an excellent observation
on garrulity :+
ανήρ γαρ όστις ήδεται λέγων αει
λέληθεν αυτόν τοις ξυνουσιν ών βαρύς.
* 'Tis terrible that impious men, the sons
Of sinners, even such should thrive and prosper,
While men by virtue moulded, sprung from sires
Complete in goodness, should be born to suffer.
Nay, but the gods do ill in dealing thus
With mortals ! It were well that pious men
Should take some signal guerdon at their hands;
But evil-doers, on their heads should fall
Conspicuous punishment for deeds ill-done.
Then should no wicked man fare well and flourish.
From the Aletes.
+ The man who takes delight in always talking
Is irksome to his friends and does not know it:
II.
274.
THE GREEK POETS. .
Also with a good remark upon the value of sound common-
sense : *
ψυχή γάρ εύνους και φρονούσα τούνδικον
κρείσσων σοφιστου παντός εστιν ευρέτις.
The Alcada supplied this pungent diatribe upon the contrast
between poverty and wealth : +
τα χρήματ’ ανθρώποισιν ευρίσκει φίλους,
αύθις δε τιμάς είτα της υπερτάτης
τυραννίδος θακούσιν αισχίστην έδραν."
έπειτα δ' ουδείς εχθρός ούτε φύεται
προς χρήμαθ’ οί τε φύντες αρνούνται στυγείν.
δεινός γάρ έρπειν πλούτος ές τε τάβατα
και προς βέβηλα, χωπόθεν πένης ανήρ
μήδ' εντυχών δύναιτ' άν ών έρα τυχεϊν.
και γάρ δυσειδές σώμα και δυσώνυμον,
γλώσση σοφόν τίθησιν εύμορφόν τ' ιδείν.
μόνο δε χαίρειν και νοσείν εξουσία
πάρεστιν αυτώ κάπικρύψασθαι κακά.
In the Locrian Ajax we find two single lines worth preserva-
tion :
σοφοι τύραννοι των σοφών ξυνουσία:
and : $
άνθρωπός έστι πνεύμα και σκιά μόνον.
* A reasonable soul, by just perception,
Better than sophists may discover truth.
of Money makes friends for men, and heaps up honours,
And sets them on the tyrant's hated throne :
Wealth finds no foes, or none but covert foes,
Climbs pathless ways, and treads where tracks are beaten,
While poor men, what luck gives them may not use :
A mis-shaped body, an ill-sounding name,
Wealth turns by words to beauty, gifts with wisdom;
For wealth alone hath privilege of freedom
In joy and sickness, and can hide its sorrow.
Tyrants are wise by wise society.
$ Man is but wind and shadow, nought besides.
ESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
275
A
*This charming description comes from the Ægeus, recalling
Athens, where the poplars grow so large and leafy : *
ώσπερ γάρ έν φύλλοισιν αιγείρου μακράς,
καν άλλο μηδέν, αλλά τούκείνης κάρα
αύρα κραδαίνει κανακουφίζει πτέρον.
Some scattered utterances upon women and love may be
collected from the Phædra, in which play Sophocles broke
the ground trodden by Euripides : +
έρως γαρ άνδρας ου μόνους επέρχεται
ουδ' αυ γυναίκας αλλά και θεών άνω
ψυχάς χαράσσει κάπί πόντον έρχεται.
και τόνδ' απείργειν ουδ' ο παγκρατής σθένει
Ζεύς αλλ' υπείκει και θέλων έγκλίνεται.
ούτω γυναικός ουδέν αν μείζον κακόν
κακής ανήρ κτήσαισ’ αν ουδέ σώφρονος
κρείσσον· παθών δ' έκαστος ών τύχη λέγει.
The next fragment, extracted possibly from the Colchian Women,
deserves to be compared with similar Euripidean passages,
though in point of workmanship it is finer, and in profound
suggestion more intense, than is the usual manner of Euri-
pides ::
και παιδες και του Κύπρις ου Κύπρις μόνον
αλλ' έστι πολλών ονομάτων επώνυμος.
* As in the houghs of a tall poplar-tree,
If nothing else, at least her shivering top
Moves 'neath the breeze and waves her leafy pinions.
f Love falls not only on the hearts of men
Or women, but the souls of gods above
He furrows, and makes onslaught on the sea :
Against his force Zeus the all-powerful
Is inmpotent-he yields and bends with pleasure.
· Than a bad wiſe a man can have no greater
Curse, and no greater blessing than a good one.
Each after trial speaks by his experience.
I Girls, look you, Kupris is not Kupris only :
In her one name names manifold are blended ;
Τ 2
276
THE GREEK POETS.
έστιν μεν "Αιδης έστι δ'. άφθιτος βία
έστιν δε λύσσα μαινάς έστι δ' ίμερος
άκρατος έστ’ οίμωγμός. εν κείνη το παν
σπουδαίον ήσυχαιον ές βίαν άγον.
εντήκεται γάρ πνευμόνων όσοις ένι
ψυχή. τις ουχί τήσδε της θεου βορά και
εισέρχεται μεν ιχθύων πλωτώ γένει
ένεστι δ' εν χέρσου τετρασκελεί γονή:
νωμα δ' εν οιωνοίσι τουκείνης πτερόν
έν θηρσίν εν βροτοίσιν εν θεοίς άνω.
τίν' ού παλαίουσ' ες τρις εκβάλλει θεών και
εί μoι θέμις, θέμις δε ταληθή λέγειν,
Διδς τυραννεί πνευμόνων άνευ δορός
άνευ σιδήρου πάντα του συντέμνεται
Κύπρις τα θνητών και θεών βουλεύματα.
While upon this topic of love and women, I may quote a.
considerable fragment of the Tereus, marked by more sympathy
for women in the troubles of their married lives than the Greek.
poets commonly express : *
νύν δ' ουδέν είμι χωρίς, αλλά πολλάκις
έβλεψα ταύτη την γυναικείαν φύσιν,
ως ουδέν έσμεν· αι νέαι μεν έν πατρός
TTA
For she is Death, imperishable power,
Frenetic fury, irresistible longing,
Wailing and groaning. Her one force includes
All energy, all languor, and all violence.
Into the vitals of whatever thing
Hath breath of life, she sinks. Who feeds her not ?
She creeps into the fishes of the sea
And the four-footed creatures of dry land,
Shakes mid the birds her own aërial plumes,
Sways beasts and mortal men and gods above.
Which of the gods hath she not thrown in wrestling ?
If right allow, and to speak truth is right,
She rules the heart of Zeus. Without or spear
Or sword, I therefore bid you know, Dame Kupris
Fells at a blow of gods and men the counsels.
* Now am I nought-abandoned : oftentimes
I've noticed how to this we women fall,
How we are nought. In girlhood and at home
ESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
277
ήδιστον οίμαι ζώμεν ανθρώπων βίον:
τερπνώς γαρ αεί πάντας ανοία τρέφει.
όταν δ' ες ήβην εξιχώμεθ' εύφρονες,
ώθούμεθ' έξω και διεμπολώμεθα
θεών πατρώων τών τε φυσάντων άπο,
αι μέν ξένους προς άνδρας, αι δε βαρβάρους,
αι δ' εις αήθη δώμαθ’, αι δ' επίρροθα,
και ταυτ' επειδάν ευφρόνη ζεύξη μία
χρεών επαινείν και δοκείν καλώς έχειν.
"The same play contains a fine choric passage upon the
equality of human souls at birth, their after inequality through
fortune : *
εν φύλον ανθρώπων μί’ έδειξε πατρός και ματρός ημάς
αμέρα τους πάντας: ουδείς έξοχος άλλος έβλαστεν άλλου.
βόσκει δε τους μεν μοίρα δυσαμερίας τους δ' ύλβος ημών
τους δε δουλείας ζυγόν έσχεν ανάγκας.
|
Among the fragments that deal with the commonplaces of
Greek tragedy, the following, from the Zyndareus, may be cited
as a brilliant expression of the Solonian proverb : †
ου χρή ποτ' ευ πράσσοντας όλβίσαι τύχας
ανδρος πριν αυτώ παντελώς ήδη βίος
διεκπερανθή και τελευτήση βίον.
Our life's the sweetest life men ever know,
For careless joy is a glad nurse to all :
But when we come to youth, gleeful and gay,
Forth are we thrust, and bought and sold and bartered,
Far from our household gods, from parents far,
Some to strange husbands, to barbarians some,
To homes uncouth, to houses foul with shame.
Yea, let but one night yoke us, all these things
Must needs forthwith be praised and held for fair.
* Of one race and common lineage all men at the hour of birth
From the womb are issued equal, sons alike of mother earth;
But our lots how diverse! Some are nursed by fortune harsh anel ruide,
Some by gentle ease, while others bare their necks to servitude.
of To call that man who prospers truly happy
Were vain before his life be wholly done ;
278
THE GREEK POETS.
εν γαρ βραχεί καθείλε κώλίγο χρόνο
πάμπλουτον όλβον δαίμονος κακού δόσεις,
όταν μεταστή και θεοίς δοκή τάδε.
A play called the Scyrian Women furnishes two excellent.
apophthegmatic passages upon the misery of old age and the:
inutility of mourning : *
ουδέν γάρ άλγος οίον η πολλή ζόη.
πάντ' εμπέφυκε το μακρώ γήρα καικά,
νούς φρούδος έργ' αχρεία φροντίδες κεναι.
αλλ' ει μεν ην κλαίουσιν ίασθαι καικά
και τον θανόντα δακρύοις ανιστάναι,
ο χρυσός ήσσον κτήμα του κλαίειν αν ήν.
νύν δ' ώ γεραιέ ταύτ' ανηνύτως έχει
τον μεν τάφω κρυφθέντα προς το φώς άγειν·
κάμοι γαρ αν πατήρ γε δακρύων χάριν
ανήκτ’ αν είς φως.
Two lines from a lost play on the tale of Odysseus illustrate:
the celebrated pun of Ajax on his own name : f
ορθώς δ' 'Οδυσσεύς είμ' επώνυμους καιρούς :
πολλοί γάρ ώδύσαντο δυσσεβείς εμοί.
For in short time and swift great power and riches
Have fallen by the dower of fate malign,
When fortune veers and thus the gods decree.
* There is no trouble worse than length of life.
Old age hath all the ills that flesh is heir to-
Vain thoughts and powerless deeds and vanished mind.
If mourners by their cries could cure our misery,
If tears could raise the dead to life again,
Gold would be valueless compared with crying.
But now, old man, these sorrows nought avail
To bring to light him whom the grave hath covered ;
Else had my father, too, by grace of tears,
The day revisited.
The second of these extracts finds a close echo in some beautiful lince
on the inutility of tears by Philemon [Sardius fr. i.).
* Rightly do bad men call my name Odysseus,
For ill folk odious insults heap upon me.
AESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
279
In conclusion, a few single lines or couplets may be strung
together for their proverbial pithiness and verbal delicacy : *
ένεστι γάρ τις και λόγοισιν ηδονή
λήθην όταν πoιώσι των όντων κακών.
το μή γάρ είναι κρείσσον ή το ζήν κακώς.
πόνου μεταλλαχθέντος οι πόνοι γλυκείς.
ει σώμα δούλον αλλ' ο νους ελεύθερος.
όρκους εγώ γυναικός εις ύδωρ γράφω.
& θνητον ανδρών και ταλαίπωρον γένος:
ως ουδέν εσμεν, πλήν σκιαϊς έoικότες,
βάρος περισσόν γης αναστροφώμενοι.
θάρσει, γύναι τα πολλά των δεινών όναρ
πνεύσαντα νυκτός ημέρας μαλάσσεται.
τα μέν διδακτά μανθάνω, τα δ' εύρετά
ζητώ, τα δ' ευκτά παρά θεών ήτησάμην.
.
Whenever we compare Euripides with his predecessors, we
are led to remark that he disintegrated the drama by destroying ;
its artistic unity and revealing the modus operandi of the ;
scientific analyst. All the elements of a great poem were given
as it were in their totality by Æschylus. Sophocles, while
*
-
•-. .- -
* Even in words there is a pleasure, when
They bring forgetfulness of present woes.
'Tis better not to be than to live badly.
When toil has been well finished, toils are sweet.
Enslave the body-still the soul is free.
The oaths of women I on water write. .
O mortals, wretched creatures of a day,
How truly are we nought but like to shadows
Rolling superfluous weight of earth around !
Take courage, lady: many fearful things
That breathed dark dreams in night, by day are solaced.
What may be taught, I learn ; what may be found,
I seek ; from heaven I ask what may be prayed for.
280
THE GREEK POET'S.
| conscious of the effect to be gained by resolving the drama
| into its component parts, was careful to recombine them by
his art. It is difficult with either Æschylus or Sophocles
to separate a passage from its context without injuring the
whole, or to understand the drift of a sentence without con-
sidering both circumstance and person. With Euripides the
case is somewhat different. Though he composed dramas
supremely good in the aggregate impression left upon our
mind, we feel that he employed his genius with delight in
perfecting each separate part regarded by itself alone. So
much of time and talent might be spent on the elaboration
of the plot, so much on the accentuation of the characters, so
much on lyric poetry, so much on moral maxims, so much on
description, and so much on artificial argument. There is
something over-strained in this crude statement; yet it serves
to indicate the analytic method noticeable in Euripides.
It consequently happened that his plays lent themselves ad-
mirably to the scissors and pastebox method of the compilers.
He was a master of gnomes and sentences, and his tragedies
were ready-made repertories of quotations. The good cause
and the better were pleaded in his dialogues with impartial
skill, because it was the poet's aim to set forth what might be
said rhetorically, because he took a lively interest in casuistry
for its own sake. These qualities, combined with so much that
is attractive in his fables, radiant in his fancy, tender in his
human sympathy, and romantic in his conduct of a play,
endeared him to the Greeks of all succeeding ages. What
they wanted in dramatic poetry he supplied better than any
other playwright, except perhaps Menander, who, for similar
reasons, shared a similar exceptionally lucky fate. The result
is that, besides possessing at least eighteen of the plays of
Euripides, as against seven of Sophocles and seven of Æschylus,
our anthology of Euripidean excerpts is voluminous in the same
ratio. The majority of these we owe to the industry of Sto-
ÆSCHYLUS281
1
-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
bæus, who always found something to his purpose in a drama
of Euripides, while collecting wise precepts and descriptive
passages to illustrate the nature of a vice or virtue. We must
be careful, amid the medley of sentiments expressed with equal
force and equal ease, to remember that they are not the poet's ·
T
What is peculiar is the impartiality of rhetorical treatment
they display—a quality which, though it may not justify,
accounts for the Aristophanic hostility to the Euripidean
school of talkers on all subjects.
• In addition to fragments, there remain detached portions of
the Phaëthon, the Erechtheus, and the Antiope, sufficient, if
nothing else had been preserved of the Euripidean drama, to
suggest a better notion of this poet and his style than of Ion or
Achæus, his lost compeers in the Alexandrian Canon. From
the catastrophe of the Phaëthon, for example, it appears that
Euripides contrived a truly striking contrast between the recep-
tion of the dead youth's corpse into the palace by his mother,
and the advent, immediately following, of his father with a
Chorus chanting bridal hymns. Lycurgus the orator, quoting
the Erechtheus, has transmitted a characteristic speech by
Praxithea, who deserves to be added to the list of courageous
women painted with the virtues of eufuxia by Euripides. She
maintains that, just as she would gladly send forth sons in the
face of death to fight for their country, so, when the State re-
quires of her the sacrifice of a daughter, she would be ashamed
to refuse this much and far more. The outlines of the Antiope
are more blurred; yet enough survives of a dialectical conten-
tion between Zethus and Amphion, the one arguing for a life
of study and culture, the other for a life of arms and action, to
illustrate this phase of the master's manner. With regard to
the Phaëthon, it should be mentioned that Goethe attempted
its restitution. His essay may be studied with interest by
those who seek to understand the German poet's method of
282
THE GREEK POETS.
approaching the antique. The reverence with which he
handles the precious relics may possibly astonish scholars,
+
matist they imperfectly comprehend.* English literature, since
the beginning of this year, can boast its own Erechtheus, re-
stored by Swinburne on the model of Æschylus rather than
Euripides. While referring to the mutilated dramas of Euri-
pides, the opening to the Danaë requires a passing word of
comment. It consists of a prologue in the mouth of Hermes,
a Chorus, and a couple of lines spoken by Acrisius. The
whole, however, is pretty clearly the work of some mediæval
forger, and has, so far as it goes, the same kind of interest as
the Xploròs Táoxwv, because it illustrates the ascendancy of
Euripides during the later ages of Greek culture.
Irksome as it may be to both writer and reader, I know no
better method of dealing with the fragments of Euripides than
that already adopted with regard to those of Sophocles. The
fragments themselves are precious, and deserve to be presented.
to the modern student with loving and reverential care. Yet
there is no way of centralizing the interest of their miscel-
laneous topics; and to treat them as an anthology of quota-
tions, selecting the most characteristic and translating these as
far as possible into equivalent lines, is all that I can do.
A peculiarly interesting fragment in its bearing on Greek
life shall be chosen for the first quotation. It comes from
the satyric drama of Autolycus, and expresses the contempt.
felt by cultivated Athenians for young men who devoted
all their energies to gymnastics. It is not easy to connect
the idea of vulgarity with that of the Greek athletes whose
portraits in marble, no less resplendent than the immortal
Apoxyomenos of the Vatican, adorned the peristyles of Altis.
Yet there can be little doubt from the following fragments,
* See Goethe, Sämmtliche Werke, 1840, vol. xxxiii. pp. 22-43.
ESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLESΟΙ
Α
-EURIPIDES. 283
taken in connection with certain hints in Plato, that these
muscular heroes of an hour, for whom wreathes were woven and
breaches broken in the city walls, struck some green-eyed
philosophers as the incarnation of rowdyism. Such splendid
beings as the Autolycus, before whom the distinguished guests.
in Xenophon's Symposium were silenced, seemed to our poet
at best but sculptor's models, walking statues, πόλεως αγάλματα,
and at worst mere slaves of jaws and belly, περισσαι σαρκές.
Early in Greek literature the same relentless light of moral
science, like the gaze of Apollonius undoing Lamia's charm,
had been cast upon the athletes by Xenophanes of Colophon.
While listening to Euripides, we can fancy that the Adikos.
Logos from the Clouds of Aristophanes is speaking through
his lips to an Athenian audience, composed of would-be orators.
and assiduous dikasts :t
καικών γάρ όντων μυρίων καθ’ Ελλάδα,
ουδέν κάικιόν έστιν αθλητών γένους.
οι πρώτα μέν ζήν ούτε μανθάνουσιν ευ,
ούτ' άν δύναιντο: πώς γαρ όστις έστ' ανήρ
γνάθου τε δούλος νηδύος θ' ήσσημένος,
κτήσαιτ' άν όλβον είς υπερβολήν πατρός και
ουδ' αυ πένεσθαι και ξυνηρετμεϊν τύχαις
οποί τ' έθη γάρ ουκ έθισθέντες καλά
σκληρώς διαλλάσσουσιν είς ταμήχανα.
λαμπροί δ' εν ήβη και πόλεως αγάλματα
φοιτώσ'· όταν δε προσπέση γήρας πικρόν
τρίβωνες εκβαλόντες οίχονται κρόκας.
of Of all the thousand ills that prey on Hellas
Not one is greater than the tribe of athletes ;
For, first, they never learn how to live well,
Nor, indeed, could they ; seeing that a man,
Slave to his jaws and belly, cannot hope
To heap up wealth superior to his sire's.
How to be poor and row in fortune's boat
They know no better; for they have not learned
Manners that make men proof against ill luck.
Lustrous in youth, they lounge like living statues
Decking the streets ; but when sad old age comes,
284
THE GREEK POETS.
έμεμψάμην δε και τον Ελλήνων νόμον
οι τώνδ' έκατι σύλλογον ποιούμενοι
τιμώσ' αχρείους ηδονάς δαιτος χάριν.
τις γαρ παλαίσας εύ, τις ώκύπους ανήρ
ή δίσκον άρας ή γνάθον παίσας καλώς
πόλει πατρώα στέφανον ήρκεσεν λαβών και
πότερα μαχούνται πολεμίοισιν εν χερούν
δίσκους έχοντες ή δι' ασπίδων χερι
θείνοντες εκβαλούσι πολεμίους πάτρας και
ουδείς σιδήρου ταυτα μωραίνει πέλας
στάς. άνδρας ούν έχρήν σοφούς τε κάγαθούς
φύλλοις στέφεσθαι, χώστις ηγείται πόλει
κάλλιστα, σώφρων και δίκαιος ών ανήρ,
όστις τε μύθοις έργ’ απαλλάσσει καικά
μάχας τ' αφαιρών και στάσεις: τοιαύτα γαρ
πόλει τε πάση πασί θ' "Ελλησιν καλά.
Passing from the athletes to a cognate subject, the follow-
ing fragment from the Dictys nobly expresses the ideal of
friendship. The first two lines seem to need correction ; I
have let them stand, though inclined to propose κεί for και, and
to conjecture the loss of a line after the second : *
φίλος γαρ ήν μοι • και μ' έρως έλoι ποτέ
ουκ εις το μωρον ουδέ μ' εις Κύπριν τρέπων.
They fall and perish like a threadbare coat.
I've often blamed the customs of us Hellenes,
Who for the sake of such men meet together
To honour idle sport and feed our fill;
For who, I pray you, by his skill in wrestling,
Swiftness of foot, good boxing, strength at quoits,
Has served his city by the crown he gains ?
Will they meet men in fight with quoits in hand,
Or in the press of shields drive forth the foeman
By force of fisticuffs from hearth and liome?
Such follies are forgotten face to face
With steel. We therefore ought to crown with wreathes
Men wise and good, and him who guides the State,
A man well-tempered, just, and sound in counsel,
Or one who by his words averts ill-deeds,
Warding off strife and warfare ; for such things
Bring honour on the city and all Hellenes.
* He was my friend; and may love lead me never
Aside to folly or to sensual joy !
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
285,
αλλ' έστι δή τις άλλος έν βροτοίς έρως,
ψυχής δικαίας σώφρονός τε κάγαθής.
και χρήν δε τοις βροτοίσι τόνδ' είναι νόμον,
των ευσεβούντων οίτινές γε σώφρονες
έραν, Κύπριν δε την Διός χαίρειν εαν.
· About Erôs and Aphrodite the poet has supplied us with a
good store of contradictory sentiments. In one long and very
remarkable fragment (no. 839, ed. Dindorf) from an unknown
play, Euripides, if he be indeed the author of the verses, has
imitated Æschylus, taking almost word for word the famous.
vaunt of Kupris, quoted above from the Danaides. The three
next pieces may be also cited among the praises of Love : *
έρωτα δ' όστις μη θεόν κρίνει μέγαν
και των απάντων δαιμόνων υπέρτατον,
ή σκαιός έστιν ή καλών άπειρος ών
ουκ οίδε τον μέγιστον ανθρώποις θεόν.
όσοι γαρ εις έρωτα πίπτουσιν βροτών
εσθλών όταν τύχωσι των ερωμένων
ουκ έσθ' οποίας λείπεται της ηδονής.
Surely there is another sort of love
For a soul, just, well-tempered, strong, and good.
And there should be this law for mortal men,
To love the pure and temperate, and to leave
Kupris, the daughter of high Zeus, alone.
We find a witty contradiction to the sentiment of these lines in a fragment.
of Amphis [Dithyrambus, fr. 2] :
τι φής και συ ταυτί προσδοκάς πείσειν έμ’ ως
έρως τις εστίν όστις ωραιον φιλών
τρόπων εραστής έστι την ύψιν παρείς;
άφρων γ' αληθώς.
* Whoso pretends that Love is no great god,
The lord and master of all deities,
Is either dull of soul, or, dead to beauty,
Knows not the greatest god that governs men.
Aut, 269.. 2"
When it befalls poor mortal men to love,
Should they find worthy objects for their loving,
Then is there nothing left of joy to long for.
Andromeda, 147. 16:2
286
THE GREEK POETS.
έχω δε τόλμης και θράσους διδάσκαλον,
εν τοις αμηχάνοισιν εύπορώτατον,
έρωτα πάντων δυσμαχώτατον θεών.
Here again, remembering how much the Greeks included
in the term Music, is a pretty compliment :*
μουσικήν δ' άρα
έρως διδάσκει καν άμουσος ή το πρίν.
The next is a graceful expostulation on the lover's part with
the god who can make or mar his happiness in life : † ;
συ δ' ο τύραννε θεών τε ικανθρώπων έρως
ή μη δίδασκε τα καλά φαίνεσθαι καλά,
και τους έρωσιν ών συ δημιουργός εί
μοχθούσι μόχθους ευτυχώς συνεκπόνει.
και ταύτα μεν δρών τίμιος θεοίς έσει,
μή δρων δ' υπ' αυτού του διδάσκεσθαι φιλείς
αφαιρεθήσει χάριτας αfs τιμώσι σε.
Nor is this without its tincture of respect : $
ανδρος δ' δρώντος εις κύπριν νεανίου
αφύλακτος ή τήρησις: ήν γάρ φαύλος ή
Mine is a master of resolve and daring,
Filled with all craft to do impossible things,
Love, among gods the most unconquerable.
Hippolytus, 431.
* Music, at least,
Love teaches men, unmusical before.
Sthenebæa, 664..
* O Love, our lord, of gods and men the king,
Either teach not how beauteous beauty is,
Or help poor lovers, whom like clay thou mouldest,
Through toil and labour to a happy end.
Thus shalt thou gain high honour : otherwise
The loving lessons that men learn of thee,
Will rob thee of their worship and goodwill.
Androme:ta, 135-
A young man with eyes turned to follow beauty
May not be governed : yea, though he be weak,
ÆSCHYLUSΥ ΣΤΙΣ
LES-.
-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDESEURIPIDES. 287
τάλλ' εις έρωτα πας ανήρ σοφώτερος.
ήν δ' αυ προσήται Κύπρις ήδιστον λαβείν.
But Euripides can turn round and rate Love for his encou-
ragement of idleness. There is a stern perception of the facts
of life in the following excerpt from the Danaë : *
έρως γαρ αργόν κάπι τοις αργούς έφυ·
φιλεί κάτοπτρα και κομής ξανθίσματα
φεύγει δε μόχθους. εν δέ μοι τεκμήριον.
ουδείς προσαιτών βίοτον ήράσθη βροτών,
εν τοις δ' έχουσιν ήβητής πέφυχ’ όδε.
Concerning women he is no less impartial. However he
may have chosen to paint their possibilities of heroism, and the
force of their character in hours of passion or of need, no poet
has certainly abused them in stronger terms. The following is
an almost laughable example : +
δεινή μεν αλκή κυμάτων θαλασσίων
δειναι δέ ποταμού και πυρός θερμού πνόαι
δεινόν δε πενία δεινά δ' άλλα μύρια
αλλ' ουδέν ούτω δεινόν ως γυνή κακών
ουδ' άν γένοιτο γράμμα τοιούτ' έν γραφή
ουδ' αν λόγος δείξειεν· ει δέ του θεών
τόδ' έστι πλάσμα δημιουργός ών κακών
μέγιστος έστω και βροτοίσι δυσμενής.
Yet is he wise and masterful for loving;
And when Love smiles, what boon surpasseth love ?
Antigone, 161.
* Love is a sluggard, and of sloth the twin :
Mirrors and hair-dyes are his favourite toys;
Labour he shuns. I take this truth to witness :
No beggar for his bread was known to love,
But with rich men his beauty-bloom abounds.
of Dire is the violence of ocean waves,
And dire the blast of rivers and hot fire,
And dire is want, and dire are countless things;
But nothing is so dire and dread as woman.
No painting could express her dreadfulness,
No words describe it. If a god made woman,
And fashioned her, he was for men the artist
Of woes unnumbered, and their deadly foe.
Incert. Fab., 880.
288
, THE GREEK POETS.
Nor can the group which I have classed together in the
following extracts be considered as complimentary : *
πλήν της τεκούσης θήλυ παν μισώ γένος.
ένδον μένουσαν την γυναίκ' είναι χρεών
εσθλήν θύρασι δ' αξίαν του μηδενός..
έστιν δε μήτηρ φιλότεκνος μάλλον πατρός:
ή μέν γάρ αυτής οίδεν όνθ' και δ' οίεται.
ουκ έστιν ούτε τείχος ούτε χρήματα.
ούτ' άλλο δυσφύλακτον ουδέν ως γυνή.
αντί γάρ πυρός
πυρ άλλο μείζον ήδε δυσμαχώτερον
έβλαστον αι γυναίκες.
γαμείτε νύν γαμείτε κατα θνήσκετε
ή φαρμάκοισιν εκ γυναικός ή δόλοις.
On marriage many pithy sayings might be cited. The one
I take first is eminent for practical brutality combined with
sound sense :
* Saving my mother, I hate womankind.
Melanippide, 507.
Good women must abide within the house :
Those whom we meet abroad are nothing worth.
Meleager, 527."
Mothers are fonder of their sons than fathers :
For mothers know they're theirs, while fathers think it.
Incert. Fab., 883-
There is no fort, there is no money-box, .
Nor aught besides, so hard to guard as woman.
Dana, 323.
Instead of fire,
Another fire mightier and more invincible
Is woman.
Hippolytus, 430.
Marry, go to, yea, marry—and then die
By poison at a woman's hand or wiles.
Cretan Women, 467.
AESCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
289
όσοι γαμούσι δ' ή γένει κρείσσους γάμους
και πολλά χρήματ’ ουκ επίστανται γαμείν.
τα της γυναικος γάρ κρατούντ' εν δώμασιν
δουλοι τον άνδρα κουκέτ' έστ’ ελεύθερος.
πλούτος δ' έπακτος εκ γυναικείων γάμων
ανόνητος· αι γάρ διαλύσεις ου ραδίαι.*
To the same category belongs the following, though its
worldly wisdom conceals no bitterness :$
κακόν γυναίκα προς νέαν ζεύξαι νέον:
μακρά γαρ ισχύς μάλλον άρσένων μένει,
θήλεια δ' ήβη θασσον εκλείπει δέμας.
It answers to our own proverb: “A young man married is a
young man marred.”
For the sanctities of domestic life, and for the pathetic
beauty of maternal love, no poet had a deeper sense than
Euripides. The following lines, spoken apparently by Danaë,
make us keenly regret the loss of the tragedy that bore her
name; all the tenderness of the Simonidean elegy upon her
fable seems to inspire the maiden's longing for a child to fill
her arms and sport upon her knee : *
τάχ' άν προς αγκάλαισι και στέρνοις έμοις
πηδών αθύροι και φιλημάτων όχλω
ψυχήν εμήν κτήσαιτο· ταύτα γαρ βροτοίς
φίλτρον μέγιστον αι ξυνούσιαι πάτερ.
* Those men who mate with women better born
Or wed great riches, know not how to wed;
For when the woman's part doth rule the house,
The man's a slave ; large dowers are worse than none,
Seeing they make divorce more difficult. --Melanippide, 513.
+ To mate a youth with a young wife is ill ;
Seeing a man's strength lasteth, while the bloom
Of beauty quickly leaves a woman's form.-Æolus, 22.
# He, leaping to my arms and in my bosom,
Might haply sport, and with a crowd of kisses
Might win my soul forth; for there is no greater
Love-charm than close companionship, my father.
Data, 325.
U
290
THE GREEK POETS.
And where was the charm of children ever painted with
more feeling than in these verses from the same play?*
γύναι, φίλον μεν φέγγος ηλίου τόδε,
καλόν δε πόντου χεύμ’ ιδείν εύήνεμον,
yîi a np.vdy dátovoa aoúolov O' Udwp,
πολλών τ’ έπαινον εστί μοι λέξαι καλών.
άλλ' ουδέν ούτω λαμπρόν ουδ' ιδείν καλών
ως τοις άπαισι και πόθω δεδηγμένοις
παίδων νεογνών εν δόμοις ιδείν φάος.
In the next quotation, beautiful by reason of its plainness,
a young man is reminded of the sweetness of a mother's
love:t
ουκ έστιν ουδέν μητρός ήδιον τέκνοις.
έρατε μητρός παίδες: ως ουκ έστ' έρως
τοιούτος άλλος οδος ήδίων έραν.
.
The sentiment here expressed seems to be contradicted by
a fragment from an unknown play (No. 887), where a son tells
his mother that he cannot be expected to cling to her as
much as to his father. The Greeks, as we gather from the
Oresteia of Æschylus, believed that the male offspring was
specially related by sympathy, duty, and hereditary qualities to
his father. The contrast between women and men in respect
to the paternal home is well conveyed in the following four
lines :
* Lady, the sun's light to our eyes is dear,
And fair the tranquil reaches of the sea,
And flowery earth in May, and bounding waters;
And so right many fair things I might praise ;
Yet nothing is so radiant and so fair
As for souls childless, with desire sore-smitten,
To see the light of babes about the house.
Danaë, 327.
of Nought is more dear to children than their mother.
Sons, love your mother; for there is no love
Sweeter than this that can be loved by men.
Erechtheus, 370.
..
ÆSCHYLUSΗ
291
-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
γυνή γαρ εξελθούσα πατρώων δόμων
ου των τεκόντων έστιν αλλά του λέχους :
το δ' άρσεν έστηκ' εν δόμοις αεί γένος
θεών πατρώων και τάφων τιμάορον.*
Some of the most remarkable excerpts from Euripides turn
upon the thought of death—a doom accepted by him with
magnanimous Greek stoicism. Those which appear to me
the most important I have thrown together for convenience of
comparison : +
τίς δ' οίδεν εί ζην τούθ' ο κέκληται θανείν,
το ζήν δε θνήσκειν εστί ; πλην όμως βροτών
νοσουσιν οι βλέποντες οι δ' ολωλότες
ουδέν νοσούσιν ουδε κέκτηνται κακά.
εχρήν γάρ ημάς σύλλογον ποιουμένους
τον φύντα θρηνείν εις όσ’ έρχεται κακά,
τον δ' αυ θανόντα και πόνων πεπαυμένον
χαίροντας ευφημούντας εκπέμπειν δόμων.
τους ζώντας εν δράν· κατθανόν δε πας ανήρ
γη και σκιά • το μηδέν εις ουδέν ρέπει.
* A woman, when she leaves her father's home,
Belongs not to her parents, but her bed ;
Men stay within the house, and stand for aye
Avengeſul guardians of its shrines and graves.
Danaë, 330.
+ Who knows if that be life which we call death,
And life be dying ?-save alone that men
Living bear grief, but when they yield their breath
They grieve no more and have no sorrow then.
Incert. Fab. 821.
'Twere well for men, when first a babe draws breath,
To meet and wail the woes that he must bear ;
But to salute the soul that rests from care
With songs and pæans on the path of death.
Crysphontes, 454.
Let those who live do right ere death descendeth ;
The dead are dust; mere nought to nothing tendeth.
Meleager, 537-
U 2
292:
THE GREEK POETS.
θάνατος γάρ ανθρώποισι νεικέων τέλος
έχει τί γάρ τούδ' έστι μείζον εν βροτοίς ;
τίς γάρ πετραιον σκόπελον ούτίζων δορί
οδύναισι δώσει ; τίς δ' ατιμάζων νέκυς,
ει μηδεν αισθάνοιντο των παθημάτων και
To these should be added the magnificent words of consola-
tion addressed by Dictys, in the tragedy that bears his name, to
Danaë : *
δοκείς τον "Αιδην σων τι φροντίζειν γόων
και παϊδ' ανήσεις τον σον εί θέλοις στέγειν και
παύσαι· βλέπουσα δ' εις τα των πέλας κακά
δάων γένοι' άν, ει λογίζεσθαι θέλοις
όσοι τε δεσμοίς εκμεμόχθηνται βροτών,
όσοι τε γηράσκουσιν ορφανοί τέκνων,
τούς τ’ εκ μεγίστης Ολβίας τυραννίδος
το μηδέν όντας • ταυτά σε σκοπεϊν χρεών.
Close to the thought of death lies that of endurance; and
here is a fragment from the Hypsipyle, which might be placed
for a motto on the title-page of Epictetus : +
έφυ μεν ουδείς όστις ου πονεί βροτών,
θάπτει τα τέκνα χάτερ' αυ κτάται νέα,
In death there dwells the end of human strife ;
For what mid men than death is mightier ?
Who can inflict pain on the stony scaur
By wounding it with spear-point? Who can hurt
The dead, when dead men have no sense of suffering ?
Antigone, 160.
* Think'st thou that Death will heed thy tears at all,
Or send thy son back if thou wilt but groan?
Nay, cease; and, gazing at thy neighbour's grief,
Grow calm : if thou wilt take the pains to reckon
How many have toiled out their lives in bonds,
How many wear to old age, robbed of children,
And all who from the tyrant's height of glory
Have sunk to nothing. These things shouldst thou heed.
Dictys, 334.
† No man was ever born who did not suffer.
He buries children, then begets new sons,
ÆSCHYLUS--SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
293
αυτός τε θνήσκει, και τάδ' άχθονται βροτοί
εις γην φέροντες γην αναγκαίως δ' έχει
βίον θερίζειν ώστε κάρπιμον στάχυν,
και τον μέν είναι τον δε μή τι ταύτα δεί
στένειν, άπερ δεί κατά φύσιν διεκπεραν;
δεινόν γαρ ουδέν των αναγκαίων βροτοίς.
On Justice and the punishment of sins we may take the fol-
lowing passages, expressing, with dramatic energy, the intense
moral conscience of the Greek race : *
δοκείτε πηδαν ταδικήματ’ εις θεούς
πτεροίσι, κάπειτ' εν Διός δέλτου πτυχαίς
γράφειν τιν' αυτά, Ζηνα δ' εισορώντά νιν
θνητοίς δικάζειν ; ουδ' ο πας αν ουρανός
Διδς γράφοντος τάς βροτών αμαρτίας
εξαρκέσειεν, ουδ' εκείνος αν σκοπών
πέμπειν εκάστω ζημίαν· αλλ' η Δίκη
ενταύθα πού 'στιν εγγύς εί βούλεσθ' οράν.
την τοι Δίκην λέγουσι παιδ' είναι Διός
εγγύς τε καίειν της βροτών αμαρτίας.
They stand, however, in somewhat curious opposition to a
fragment from Bellerophon about Divine Justice :
Then dies himself : and men forsooth are grieved,
Consigning dust to cust. Yet needs must be
Lives should be garnered like ripe harvest-sheaves,
And one man live, another perish. Why
Mourn over that which nature puts upon us?
Nought that must be is terrible to inortals.
. Ηypsipyle, 752.
** Think you that sins leap up to heaven aloft
On wings, and then that on Jove's red-leaved tablets
Someone doth write them, and Jove looks at them
In judging mortals ? Not the whole broad heaven,
If Jove should write our sins, would be enough,
Nor he suffice to punish them. But Justice
Is here, is somewhere near us; do but look.
MTeianippidi, 488.
Justice, they say, is daughter of high Jove,
And dwells hard by to human sinfulness.;
Αλοφό, 149.
2G4
THE GREEK POETS.
φησίν τις είναι δήτ', εν ουρανώ θεούς ;
ουκ εισίν, ουκ είσ'. εί τις ανθρώπων λέγει,
μή τα παλαιά μώρος ών χρήσθω λόγω.
σκέψασθε δ' αυτά μή πι τοις έμοις λόγοις
γνώμην έχοντες· φήμ' εγώ τυραννίδα
κτείνειν τε πλείστους κτημάτων τ' αποστερείν,
όρκους τε παραβαίνοντας εκπορθείν πόλεις,
και ταυτα δρώντες μάλλον είσ' ευδαίμονες
των ευσεβούντων ήσυχη καθ' ημέραν
πόλεις τε μικράς οίδα τιμώσας θεούς
αι μειζόνων κλύουσι δυσσεβεστέρων
λόγχης αριθμό πλείονος κρατούμεναι.*
In which of the fragments just quoted was the poet speaking
in his own person? In neither, perhaps, fully; partly, perhaps,
in both. About wealth he utters in like manner seemingly
contradictory oracles : po
βία νυν έλκετ’ & κακοί τιμάς βροτοί
και κτάσθε πλούτον πάντοθεν θηρώμενοι
σύμμικτα μη δίκαια και δίκαι’ διού:
έπειτ' αμάσθε τώνδε δύστηνον θέρος.
& χρυσέ, δεξίωμα κάλλιστον βροτοίς,
ως ούτε μήτηρ ηδονάς τοιάσδ' έχει
* Doth someone say that there be gods above ?
There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool,
Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you.
Look at the facts themselves, yielding my words
No undue credence : for I say that kings
Kill, rob, break oaths, lay cities waste by fraud,
And doing thus are happier than those
Who live calm pious lives day after day.
How many little States that serve the gods
Are subject to the godless but more strong,
Made slaves by might of a superior army!
Bellerophontes, 293..
Go to now, O ye bad men, heap up honours
By force, get wealth, hunting it whence ye can,
By indiscriminate armfuls, right and wrong ;
Then reap of all these things the wretched harvest.
Ino, 420...
Gold! of all welcome blessings thou'rt the best !
lor never had a mother's smile for men,
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
295
ου παίδες ανθρώποισιν ου φίλος πατήρ,
οίας συ χοί σε δώμασιν κεκτημένοι.
είδ' ή Κύπρις τοιούτον οφθαλμοίς ορα
ου θαύμ' έρωτας μυρίους αυτήν τρέφειν.
In what he says of noble birth Euripides never wavers.
The true democrat speaks through his verse, and yet no poet
has spoken more emphatically of bravery and honour. We
may take the following examples in their order : *
είς δ' ευγένειαν ολίγ' έχω φράσαι καλά
και μέν γάρ έσθλός ευγενής έμοιγ' ανήρ
ο δ' ού δίκαιος καν αμείνονος πατρός
Ζηνός πεφύκη δυσγενής είναι δοκεί.
εγώ μέν ούν ουκ οίδ' όπως σκοπεϊν χρεών
την ευγένειαν τους γαρ ανδρείους φύσιν
και τους δικαίους των κενών δοξασμάτων
κάν ώσι δούλων ευγενεστέρους λέγω.
φεύ τοίσι γενναίοισιν ώς απανταχού
πρέπει χαρακτήρ χρηστος εις ευψυχίαν.
Ι
ΣΤΟ
Nor son, nor father dear, such perfect charm,
As thou and they who hold thee for their guest.
If Kupris darts such glamour from her gaze,
No wonder that she breeds a myriad loves !
Bellerophontes, 288.
* For mere high birth I have small meed of praise :
The good man in my sight is nobly born;
While lie who is not righteous, though his sire
Than Zeus be loftier, seems to me but base.
Dictys, 34r.
I know not how to think of noble blood :
For men of courage and of virtuous soul,
Though born of slaves, are far above vain titles.
Melanippidi, 496.
Lo, in all places how the nobly born
Show their good breed and spirit by brave bearing !
Data, 328.
296
THE GREEK POETS.
ΞΥ ΤΥ
άπας μεν αήρ αιετω περάσιμος
άπασα δε χθών ανδρί γενναία πατρίς.
Further to illustrate his conception of true nobility, using
for this purpose in particular the fragments of the Antiope,
would be easy. It appears throughout that Euripides was bent
on contrasting the honour that is won by labour with the
pleasures of a lazy life. Against the hedonism which lay so
near at hand to pagans in the licence of the flesh, the Greeks
set up an ideal of glory attainable alone by toil. This morality
found expression in the famous lines of Hesiod on αρετή,
in the action of Achilles, in the proverb πάντα τα καλά
χαλεπά, and in the table of the choice of Hercules. Euripides
varies the theme in his iambics by a hundred modulations : *
νεανίαν γάρ άνδρα χρή τολμάν αεί·
ουδείς γαρ ών ράθυμος ευκλεής ανήρ.
αλλ' οι πόνοι τίκτουσι την ευδοξίαν.
ουκ έστιν ύστις ήδέως ζητων βιούν
εύκλειαν είσεικτήσατ' άλλα χρή πονείν.
ούτ' οίκον ούτε γαίαν ορθώσειεν άν.
συν μυρίοισι τα καλά γίγνεται πόνοις.
The whole wide ether is the eagle's way:
The whole earth is a brave man's fatherland.
Incert. Frag., 866.
* A young man should be always doing, daring ;
For no slack heart or hand was ever famous.
'Tis toil and danger that beget fair fame.
. Archelaus, 233.
Who seeks to lead a life of unstirred pleasure
Cannot win fame : fame is the meed of travail.
Ibid. 234.
A life of pleasure and unmanly sloth
Could never raise a house or State to honour.
Ibid. 235.
Fair honour is the child of countless toils.
Ibid. 236.
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDES.
297
εμέ δ' άρ' ου
μοχθείν δίκαιον; τίς δ' άμοχθος ευκλεής ;
τίς των μεγίστων δειλός ών ωρέξατο;
The political morality deduced from this view of life is stern
and noble : *
γνώμη γαρ ανδρός εν μέν οικούνται πόλεις,
ευ δ' οίκος, είς τ' αι πόλεμον ισχύει μέγα:
σοφόν γαρ εν βούλευμα τας πολλάς χέρας
νικά: συν όχλω δ' άμαθία πλείστον κακόν.
τρεις εισίν αρεται τας χρεών σ’ άσκειν, τέκνον,
θεούς τε τιμάν τούς τε φύσαντας γονείς,
νόμους τε κοινούς Ελλάδος και ταυτα δρών
κάλλιστον έξεις στέφανον ευκλείας αεί.
Nor is the condemnation of mere pleasure-seeking less
.severe :
ανήρ γάρ όστις εν βίον κεκτημένος
τα μέν κατ' οίκους αμελία παρεις εα,
μολπαισι δ' ησθείς τούτ' αεί θηρεύεται,
αργός μέν οίκους και πόλει γενήσεται
Is it not right that I
Should toil? Without toil who was ever famous ?
What slothſul soul ever desired the highest ?
Archelaus, 238.
* 'Tis judgment that administers the State,
The household, and in war of force is found ;
For one wise word in season hath more strength
Than many hands. Crowds and no brains breed ruin.
Antiope, 205.
There are three virtues to observe, my son :
Honour the gods, the parents that begot you,
The laws that govern Hellas. Follow these,
And you will win the fairest crown of honour.
Ibid. 221.
* The man wlho, when the goods of life abound,
Casts to the winds economy, and spends
His days in seeking after feast and song,
At home and in the State will be a drone,
1
1
1
ΟΤΑ
298
THE GREEK POETS.
φίλοισι δ' ουδείς· η φύσις γάρ οίχεται :
όταν γλυκείας ηδονής ήσσων τις ή.
The indifference induced by satiety is well characterised in
the following lines : *
κόρος δε πάντων και γάρ εκ καλλιόνων
λέκτρoις επ’ αισχροΐς είδον εκπεπληγμένους.
δαιτος δε πληρωθείς τις άσμενος πάλιν
φαύλη διαίτη προσβαλών ήσθη στόμα.
In the foregoing specimens no selection has been made of
lines remarkable for their æsthetic beauty. This omission is
due to Stobæus, who was more bent on extracting moral
maxims than strains of poetry comparable with the invocation
of Hippolytus to Artemis. Two, however, I have marked for
translation on account of their artistic charm; the first for its
pretty touch of picturesqueness, the second for its sympathy
with sculpture : t
πολύς δ' ανείρπε κισσός ευφυής κλάδος
χελιδόνων μουσείον.
έα· τίν' όχθον τόνδ' ορώ περίρρυτον
άφρω θαλάσσης, παρθένου τ' εικώ τινα
εξ αυτομόρφων λαΐνων τειχισμάτων
σοφής άγαλμα χειρός.
And to his friends be nothing. Character
Is, for the slaves of honeyed pleasure, gone.
Antiope, 196.
* There is satiety of all things. Men
Desert fair wives to dote on ugly women;
With rich meat surfeited, they gladly turn
To humble fare, and find fresh appetite.
Ibid. 187.
+ Much ivy crept around, a comely growth,
The tuneful haunt of swallows.
Alcmene, 91.
What ! Do I see a roclk with salt sea-foam
Surrounded, and the image of a maiden
Carved from the stony bastions nature-wrought
By some wise workman's craft?
Andromeda, 127.
ÆSCHYLUS-SOPHOCLES-EURIPIDESΥ
. 299.
Some passages, worthy of preservation, yet not easily
classified, may wind up the series. Here is “Envy, eldest.
born of hell:"*
τίς άρα μήτηρ ή πατήρ κακόν μέγα
βροτοίς έφυσε τον δυσώνυμον φθόνον;
πού και ποτ' οικεί σωμάτων λαχών μέρος ;
έν χερσίν ή σπλάγχνοισιν ή παρ' ύμματα
έσθ' ημίν, ώς ήν μόχθος ιατρούς μέγας
τομείς αφαιρείν ή ποτοίς και φαρμάκοις
πασων μεγίστης των εν ανθρώποις νόσων.
The next couplet is pregnant with a home-truth which
1host men have had occasion to feel it
άπαντές εσμεν εις το νουθετείν σοφοί
αυτοι δ' δταν σφαλώμεν ου γιγνώσκομεν.
The value attached by Greek political philosophers to the 1180c,
or temperament, of States, and their dislike of demagogy, are
accounted for in these four lines : *
τρόπος εστί χρηστος ασφαλέστερος νόμου.
τον μέν γάρ ουδείς αν διαστρέψαι ποτέ
ρήτωρ δύναιτο, τον δ' άνω τε και κάτω
λόγοις ταράσσων πολλάκις λυμαίνεται.
* What mother or what father got for men
That curse unutterable, odious envy?
Where dwells it? In what member lies its lair ?
Is it our hands, our entrails, or our eyes
That harbour it? Full ill would fare the leech
Who with the kniſe, or potions, or strong drugs,
Should seek to clear away this worst disease.
Ino, 418.
► We all are wise for giving good advice,
But when we fail we have no wisdom left.
Incert. Fab. 862..
* Good ways of feeling are more safe than law :
No rhetorician can upset the one ;
The other he may tumble upside down
With words, and do it often grievous wrong.
Feirithous, 598..
300
. . THE GREEK POETȘ.
One single line, noticeable for its weighty meaning, and
Euripidean by reason of its pathos, shall end the list : *
νέος πόνοις δε γ ουκ αγύμναστος φρένας.
The lasting title to fame of Euripides consists in his having
dealt with the deeper problems of life in a spirit which became
permanent among the Greeks, so that his poems, like those of
Menander, never lost their value as expressions of current
ture more strongly than this prolongation of the Euripidean
tone of thought and feeling. In the decline of tragic poetry
the literary sceptre was transferred to comedy, and the comic
playwrights may be described as the true successors of Euripides.
The dialectic method, degenerating into sophistic quibbling,
which he affected, was indeed dropped, and a more harmonious
form of art than the Euripidean was created for comedy by
Menander, when the Athenians, after passing through their
disputatious period, had settled down into a tranquil accepta-
tion of the facts of life. Yet this return to harmony of form
and purity of perception did not abate the influence of Euri-
pides. Here and there throughout his tragedies he had said
once and for all, and well said, what the Greeks were bound to
think and feel upon important matters, and his sensitive, sus-
·ceptible temperament repeated itself over and over again
among his literary successors. The exclamation of Philemon
that, if he could believe in immortality, he would hang himself
to see Euripides, is characteristic not only of Philemon but
also of the whole Macedonian period of Greek literature.
* Young, but in spirit not untrained by trouble.
Dictys, 332.
301
CHAPTER IX.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC
POETS.
Apparent Accident in the Preservation of Greek Poetry. —Criticism
among the Ancients.—Formation of Canons.---Libraries.—The Po-
litical Vicissitudes of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople. --Byzantine
Scholarship in the Ninth Century.—The Lost MS. of Menander. -
Tragic Fragments preserved by the Comic Poets and their Scholiasts;
by Athenæus, by Stobaeus.-Aristotle. — Tragedy before Æschylus. —
Fragments of Aristarchus.--The Media of Neophron.-Ion. - The
Games of Achæus.--Agathon.— His Character for luxurious Living.-
The Flower.--Aristotle's Partiality for Agathon.— The Family of
Æschylus.—Meletus and Plato among the Tragic Playwrights. — The
School of Sophocles.-Influence of Euripides. - Family of Karkinos.
-Tragedians ridiculed by Aristophanes. - The Sisyphus of Critias. -
Cleophon.-Cynical Tragedies ascribed to Diogenes.—Extraordinary
Fertility of the Attic Drama.—The Repetition of old Plots.—Mamer-
cus and Dionysius. - Professional Rhetoricians appear as Playwrights.
-The School of Isocrates. --The Centaur of Charemon.--His Style.
- The Themistocles of Moschion. -The Alexandrian Pleiad.—The
Adonis of Ptolemy Philopator.
.
AMONG the losses in Greek literature few are so tantalizing.
as the almost absolute extinction of the tragic poets who
preceded and followed the supreme Athenian triumvirate. It
would have been exceedingly interesting to trace the history
of the Drama from its rude origins up to the point at which
the creative genius of Æschylus gave it an inalienable cha-
racter, and again to note the deviation of the tragic muse.
from heroic themes to fables of pure fiction under the influ-
ence of Agathon. This pleasant task of analytical criticism,
302
THE GREEK POETS.
concordant with the spirit of our age, which is not satisfied
with admiring masterpieces unless it can also understand the
law of their growth and mark the several stages in the process
of historical development, will fall to the lot of no student
now, unless, indeed, Pompeii render up a treasure-house of
MSS. as yet undreamed of, and Signor Fiorelli save the price-
less leaflets of charred tinder from destruction.
Why is it that out of the seventy plays of Æschylus only seven
are extant; of the Sophoclean one hundred and thirteen (allowing
seventeen others which bore his name to have been spurious)
only seven ; while eighteen-or, if we admit the Rhesus, nineteen
-- are the meagre salvage from the wreck of at least seventy-five
dramas by Euripides? Why is it that of their lost tragedies
we possess but inconsiderable fragments-just enough to prove
that the compilers of commonplace books like Stobæus might,
if they had pleased, have gratified our curiosity beyond the
dreams of a Renaissance scholar's covetousness? Why, again,
is it that of-Agathon, whose dramatic romance The Flower was
thought worthy of citation by Aristotle, whom Aristophanes
named as ’Ayálwv ó kdelvós, åyatòs crointùs kui trobelvòs tots
Díloc,* whose thanksgiving banquet supplied a frame for
Plato's dialogue on Love, and whose style, if faithfully depicted
by the philosopher, was a very “rivulet of olive oil noiselessly.
running”—why is it that of this Agathon we know nothing but
what may be inferred from the caricature of the Thesmophoria-
zusa, the portrait of the Symposium, and a few critical strictures
in the Poetics? Why is it that Ion, who enjoyed a great renown
(Tepiſóntos éyévero) and ranked as fifth in the muster-roll of
Athenian tragic poets, is now but a mere empty name ? To
these questions, which might be rhetorically multiplied ad infini-
tum on a hundred tones of querulous and sad expostulation with
the past, there is no satisfactory answer. Not, as Bacon asserted,
has time borne down upon his flood the froth and trash of things;
* Agathon the famous, a good poet, and loveable to his friends.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 303
far rather may we thank fate that the flotsam and the jetsam
that have reached our shore include the best works of antiquity.
Yet, notwithstanding this,“ the iniquity of oblivion,” in the words
of Sir Thomas Browne, “blindly scattereth her poppy, and
deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of
perpetuity."
The students of antiquity attached less value than we do
to literature of secondary importance. It was the object of
their criticism, especially in the schools of Alexandria, to es-
tablish canons of perfection in style. The few great authors
who were deemed worthy to rank as standards received un-
limited honour, nor was it thought too much by Aristarchus
or Aristophanes to devote a lifetime to their service. For
inferior poets, whom we should prize as necessary to a full
comprehension of the history of art, they felt less respect,
not having grasped the notion that æsthetics are a branch of
science, that the topmost peaks of Parnassus tower above
the plain by gradual ascent from subordinate mountain-ranges,
and that those who seek to scale the final altitudes must
tread the intermediate heights. They were contented with re-
presentative men. Marlowe, according to their laws of taste,
would have been obscured by Shakspeare; while the multi-
tude of lesser playwrights, whom we honour as explaining and
relieving by their comradeship the grandeur of the dramatist
(ó tpaywoonològ they might have styled Shakspeare, as their
Pindar was ó lupukós), would have sunk into oblivion, leaving
him alone in splendid isolation. Much might be said for this
way of dealing with literature. By concentrating attention on
undeniable excellence, a taste for the noblest things in art was
fostered, while the danger that we run of substituting the
historical for the esthetic method was avoided.* In our own
* Aristophanes, the grammarian, and Aristarchus included five tragic.
poets- Aschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ion, and Achæus-in the first
rank. In a second series they placed the works of the so-called Pleiad,
304
THE GREEK POETS.
century Auguste Comte has striven to revive the cultus of
unique standards and to re-establish the empire of selective
canons.
The scholiasts of Alexandria, working in vast libraries
cided that only a few poets were worthy of minute study. The
works of these few poets, again, they classified into masterpieces
and inferior productions. A further selection sifted those
that seemed best suited for the education of youth. Thus
it happened that copies were repeated of certain well-
established favourites; and so the treasures of dramatic poetry
inherited by us represent the taste of scholiasts and teachers
rather than the likings of the Attic audience. To judge by.
references in the plays of Aristophanes, the lost Myrmidones of
Æschylus, the lost Andromeda of Euripides, enjoyed more
popularity at Athens than even the Agamemnon or the Medea.
Alexandrian and Byzantine pedagogues thought otherwise, and
multiplying codices must be added as a most important cause
of literary waste. It is doubtful whether we should now
possess more than a few plays of Shakspeare and Jonson out of
the whole voluminous Elizabethan literature, but for the acci-
dent of printing. When we consider the circumstances under
which the Attic dramatists survived, taking into account the
famous fraud whereby Ptolemy Euergetes possessed himself
of the MS. of Æschylus,* and remembering the vicissitudes
successively of Alexandria, of Rome, and of Byzantium,
perhaps we ought to be surprised that the sum total of our
inheritance is so great. What the public voice of the Athenians
seven tragic poets who at Alexandria revived the style of the Attic
drama. Their names were Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander,
Philiscus, Sosiphanes, and Dionysiades.
* The story is told with wonderſul vividness by Victor Hugo, Willian
Shakespeare, pp. 176-194.
.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 305
had approved, the scholiasts of Alexandria winnowed. What
the Alexandrians selected, found its way to Rome. What the
Roman grammarians sanctioned, was carried in the dotage of
culture to Byzantium. At each transition the peril by land and
sea to rare codices, sometimes probably to unique autographs;
was incalculable." Then followed the fury of iconoclasts and
fanatics, the fire-brands of Omar, the remorseless crusade of
churchmen against paganism, and the three great conflagrations
of Byzantium. It is humiliating to the nations of Western
Europe to compare the wealth of Greek books enjoyed by
Photiùs in the ninth century, even after the second burning,
with the meagre fragments which seem to have survived the
pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. To this
final disaster we ought probably to assign the destruction of the
S
wrought by fire and pillage must be reckoned the slow decay
of learning during the centuries of intellectual apathy that pre-
ceded the fall of the Eastern Empire. What the fire and the
Frank had spared, was still exposed to the tooth of the worm
and to the slow corrosion of dust, damp, and mildew.
When the passion for antiquity was rekindled in the four-
teenth century by the Italians, they eagerly demanded from
Constantinople the treasures that the capital of Greece con-
tained : nor is there any good reason to suppose that the Turke
ish troops of Mahomet II. in 1453 destroyed many books that
had not previously been transferred in copies to Florence and
Venice. During at least a quarter of a century before the
downfall of the Byzantine Empire the princes of Italy were
eagerly competing with each other for the purchase of Greek
manuscripts; and throughout this period it was the immediate
interest of the Palæologi to lay them under such obligations as
might enlist their sympathy and call forth a return of friendly
service. For the Emperor to have closed the doors of the
Byzantine libraries against the agents of the Medici and the
t
II.
306
THE GREEK POETS.
Venetian nobles, at the same time that he was sending Manuel
Chrysoloras as an ambassador for aid against the Turks to
Western Europe, would have been ridiculous. We must also
bear in mind how many eager Italian scholars, supported by
exhibitions from the lords of Florence, and supplied with
almost unlimited credit for the purchase of literary treasures,
pursued their studies at Constantinople and returned, like
bees, book-laden with the honey of old learning, home; how
many Levant merchants, passing to and fro between Italian
and Greek ports, discovered that parchments were a more
profitable freight than gems or spices. Taking all this into
consideration, and duly weighing Curzon's competent opinion
— “so thoroughly were these ancient libraries (of Athos)
explored in the fifteenth century that no unknown classic
author has been discovered, nor has any MS. been found of
greater antiquity than some already known in the British
Museum and other libraries ”—we have the right to infer that
what the printing-press of Aldus made imperishable, was all or
nearly all that the degenerate scholars of the later age of Hellas
cared to treasure. The comparative preservation of Neoplatonic
philosophy, for example, when contrasted with the loss of
dramatic literature, may be referred to the theological and
mystical interests of Byzantine students. Only one codex of
first-rate importance is supposed to have perished in Italy after
importation from Byzantium and before the age of printing.
That was a MS. of Menander, which Vespasiano, the Florentine
bookseller, mentioned among the gems of the library of
Urbino.* Little, however, was known about the Greek dra-
matic poets at the time when Vespasiano wrote his Lives, and it
is not impossible that what he took for a collection of Me-
nander's plays, was really a commonplace book of such frag-
ments as we still possess. Yet the mere mention of this volume
* Vite di Uomini Illustri, p. 97. He catalogues “tutte l'opere di
Sofocle; tutte l'opere di Pindaro ; tutte l'opere di Menandro.”
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 307
raises curious speculation. We know that when Cesare Borgia
possessed himself of Urbino in 1502 he carried off from the
ducal palace a booty in jewels, plate, furniture, and books to
the value of 150,000 ducats. Some of the MSS. found their
way into the Vatican collection ; others were restored to
Urbino. It is conceivable that the Menander, if it existed,
may have been lost in the hurry of forced marches and the
confusion that involved the Borgia's career. Had it been
stolen, the thief could hardly have offered it for sale in its
splendid dress of crimson velvet and silver clasps stamped
with the arms of Montefeltro. It may even now be lurking
somewhere in obscurity--a treasure of more value than the
Koh-i-noor.
Putting aside the fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides, it may be broadly stated that what survives of the
other tragic poets of the Attic stage, and what we know about
their lives, have been derived in the main from four sources.
The plays of Aristophanes and the fragments of the later comic
poets, who were the merciless critics of contemporary trage-
dians, have, in the first place, supplied us with some meagre
quotations and with numerous insignificant caricatures. From
these questionable authorities we learn, for instance, that Aga-
thon was a man of effeminate manners, that Philocles was
horribly ugly, that Morsimus was an indifferent eye-doctor as
well as a writer of tame tragedies, that Meletus had no inspira-
tion, that the whole family of Carkinus were barbarians, that
Pythangelus and Akestor were no better than slaves, that
Gnesippusmismanaged his Choruses, that Hieronymus delighted
in horrors, that Nothippus and Morychus were gluttons, that
Moschion was a parasite, and so forth. To attach very much
weight to comic squibs which dwell exclusively upon personal
defects and foibles, and repeat ad nauseam the stock Athenian
calumnies of drunkenness and debauchery, would be uncritical;
though it must be borne in mind that satire in a Greek city,
X2
308
THE GREEK POETS.
where all the eminent burghers were well known to the play-
goers, was pointless unless it contained a grain of truth. Our
second great authority is Athenæus, a man of wide reading and
extensive curiosity, whose heart unhappily was set on trifles,
Sauces, unguents, wreaths, the various ways of dressing fish,
the changes of fashion in wine-drinking, formed the subjects
of his profoundest investigations. Therefore the grave and
heightened tragedies of our unfortunate poets were ransacked
by him for rare citations, capable of throwing light upon a flower,
a dish, or a wine-cup. These matters were undoubtedly the
veriest parerga to poets bent on moving the passions of terror
and pity; nor can we imagine a more distressing torment for
their souls in Hades than to know that what remains of a
much-pondered and beloved Thyestes, is a couple of lines about
a carving-knife or meat-dish. To be known to posterity
through a calumny of Aristophanes and a citation in the Deipno-
sophista, after having passed a long life in composing tragedies,
teaching choruses, and inventing chants, is a caricature of im-
mortality which might well deter a man of common-sense from
literature, and induce the vainest to go down speechless to
the grave in peace. Those poets who fell under the hands
of Stobæus, our third chief source of information, have
fared better. It is more consistent with the aims and wishes
of a tragic artist to survive, however mangled, in the com-
monplace book of a moralist, than in the miscellanies of a
literary bon vivant. The authors, therefore, of the Euripidean
school,
1
Teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received,
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
may be said to have fared better than their predecessors, whose
process of the Macedonian collector. Much of the difficulty,
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE .
LOST TRAGIC POETS. 309
however, which obscures the text of these sententious fragments
arises from their collector having in all probability quoted
from memory, so that bad grammar, trivial terminations to
otherwise well-worded lines, and passages ruthlessly com-
pressed by omissions are frequent. In the fourth place we have
to thank Aristotle for a few most precious, though, alas, laconic,
criticisms pronounced in the Rhetoric and the Poetics upon his
contemporaries, and for occasional quotations in the Ethics to
Nicomachus and Eudemus. These criticisms help us to
understand the history of the Greek drama by throwing a dim
light upon the serious art of many defunct poets, who in their
day shook the Attic Scene. To Plutarch, to Pausanias, and to
the Scholiasts we owe similar obligations, though the value of
their critical remarks is slight compared with that of every word
which fell from Aristotle's pen.
· This rapid enumeration of the resources at our command
will prepare anyone familiar with such matters for spare and
disappointing entertainment. The chief interest of such a sur-
vey as that which I propose to make, consists in the variety
and extent of the lost dramatic literature that it reveals.
Nothing but a detailed examination of existing fragments
suffices to impress the mind with the quantity of plays from
which malignant fortune has preserved samples, fantastically
inadequate, and, in many cases, tantalisingly uncharacteristic.
The quotations from Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,
meanwhile, have already supplied matter of more sterling and
intrinsic value.
When we take up the collection of Perditorum Tragicorum
Omnium Fragmenta published at Paris by the care of M.
Ambroise Firmin Didot, our first sensation, on seeking what
may possibly be left of poets before Æschylus, is one of live-
liest disappointment. Thespis, to begin with, is a name: we know
that he made tragedy dramatic instead of dithyrambic, by intro-
ducing monologue in order to support and rest the Chorus ;
310
THE GREEK POETS.
but that is all. Cheerilus is a name : we know that he exhibited
above fifty plays, that he was reckoned worthy by the comic
poet Alexis to be cited together with Hesiod, Homer, and
Epicharmus, and that Aristotle devoted three lost books of
critical discussions to the elucidation of difficult passages in his
poems as well as in those of Archilochus and Euripides. All
the rest is obscure, except that we have reason to believe that
Chcerilus excelled in the satyric drama. Pratinas, again, is a
name. Dim tradition reports that he invented the satyric drama;
and it has thence been inferred with probability that the 150 plays
ascribed to him were chiefly composed in tetralogies of one comic
and three serious pieces. He was also celebrated for the excel-
lence of his lyrics ; while a story, preserved by Suidas, relates
how an accident that happened to the wooden stage at Athens
during the exhibition of one of his tragedies, led to the build-
ing of the recently discovered theatre of Dionysus. A few un-
important fragments have survived, in two of which Pratinas
avows his preference for the Æolian mood in music. Phryni-
chus, though his poems have fared no better than those of his
contemporaries, stands before us with a more distinguished
personality. Herodotus tells the famous tale of his tragedy
upon the Taking of Miletus, which moved the Athenian
audience to tears, and so angered them by the vivid presenta-
tion of a recent disaster that they fined the author in a sum of
1,000 drachmas, and forbade the acting of his drama. The
sweetness of the songs of Phrynichus has reached us like the
echo of a bird's voice in a traveller's narrative. Aristophanes,
who loved the good old music of his youth, delighted in it,
and invented one of his rare verbal conglomerates to express
its quality : kai ulr'upi5outes Méin ápxacouelnoidwroppuvexýpara
is a phrase he puts into the mouth of Bdelycleon in the Wasps,
while in the Frogs he describes Phrynichus as making harvest
in the meadows of the Muses. Agathon, again, in the Thesmo-
phoriazusæ is represented saying :
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 311
And Phrynichus—this surely you have heard-
Was beautiful, and beautifully dressed ;
And this, we cannot doubt, was why his plays
Were beautiful ; for 'tis a natural law
That like ourselves our work must ever be.
From the passage just referred to in the Frogs (1298-1307)
at Athens depended upon the invention of melodies; and that
the merit of Phrynichus consisted to some extent in the ex-
cellence and sweetness of his tunes. No real light can now be
thrown upon the dark subject of Greek music in general, and
of its relation to lyrical and tragic poetry in particular. All we
know serves to excite our inquisitiveness without satisfying it.
Thus Plutarch informs us that Phrynichus and Æschylus pre-
ferred the harp (kiðupu) and adhered to the enharmonic scale
(αρμονία) instead of employing chromatic modulations (χρώμα).
The general drift of this remark is that the early tragic poets
maintained a simple and severe style of music, and avoided the
allurements of what Aristotle termed the most artificial of the
Greek scales. Collateral value is given to Plutarch’s observation
by the Aristophanic criticism of the melodies in Agathon and
Euripides. For speculations on its deeper significance, it is im-
possible to do more than refer the curious to Professor Donkin,
General Perronet Thompson, and Mr. Chappell, with the reite-
rated warning that the obscurity of the subject is impenetrable.
Phrynichus, in conclusion, was celebrated as a ballet-master
for his Pyrrhic dances, and as a practical dramatist for the in-
troduction of female characters. One line, among the few
ascribed to him, calls for quotation by reason of its beauty :
, λάμπει δ' επί πορφυρέαις παρήσι φώς έρωτος,
The light of love burns upon crimson cheeks.
Aristias, the next in order of these lost poets, was a son of
Pratinas, who lived long enough to compete with Sophocles.
The names of his plays, Antæus, Atalanta, Cyclops, Orpheus,
and The Fates, show, like similar lists which might be quoted
312 .
THĖ GREEK POETS.
from the meagre notices of his predecessors, that the whole
material of Greek mythology was handled and rehandled by the
Attic playwrights.
The tragedians who follow can certainly not be considered
older than Æschylus, and are, all of them, most probably his
juniors. Aristarchus, a native of Tegea, calls for notice be-
cause he is reported by Suidas to have determined the length
of tragedies, whatever that may mean. Ennius translated his
drama of Achilles into Latin, which proves that he retained
the fame of a first-rate poet till the beginning of the Græco-
Roman period. His fragments recall the Euripidean style;
and the two best of them have been preserved by Stobæus, the
notorious admirer of Euripides. . To omit these, in the dearth
of similar heirlooms from antiquity, would be wasteful, espe-
cially as they serve to determine the date at which he wrote,
and to confirm the report of Suidas that he was a contem-
porary of Euripides. Here is one that savours strongly of
agnosticism : *
και ταυτ' ίσον μεν εύ λέγειν ίσον δε μή:
loov do ¿peuvâv, z Yoou de un cidéval'
πλείον γάρ ουδέν οι σοφοί των μή σοφών
Eis tauta yeyváo kovoLV. eido árnou déyer
άμεινον άλλος, τώ λέγειν υπερφέρει.
The second treats of love : $
OV
έρωτος όστις μη πεπείραται βροτών,
oŮle ol8° åvázans Deruóv. Elobels éryds
ούτω κρατηθείς τάσδ' απεστάλης οδούς:
* Fair speech in such things and no speech are one :
Study and ignorance have equal value : : .
For wise men know no more than simple fools
In these dark matters ; and if one by speaking
Conquer another, mere words win the day.
+ That man who hath not tried of love the might,
Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 313
ούτος γάρ ο θεός και τον ασθενή σθένειν
τίθησι, και τον άπορον ευρίσκειν πόρον.
Next to Aristarchus of Tegea we find Neophron of Sikyon,
who claims particular attention as the author of a tragedy ac-
knowledged by antiquity to have been the original of the
Medea of Euripides. There are few students of literature who
do not recognise in the Medea the masterpiece of that poet, and
who have not wondered why it only won the third prize at
Athens, in the year 431 B.C. Is it possible that because Euri-
pides borrowed his play from Neophron--το δράμα δοκεί υπο-
Baléobal mapà Neoppovos dlackeváoas are the words of the
Greek argument to Medea, while Suidas says of Neophron o ở
páolv elvai TIV TOū Espiridov Mødelav~therefore the public and
the judges thought some deduction should be made from the
merit of the drama ?
Stobæus has handed down a long and precious frag-
ment from the speech in which Neophron's Medea decides to
kill her children. A comparison of this fragment with the
splendid rhesis composed for Medea by Euripides proves the
obligation owed by the younger poet to the elder, both in style
and matter.
Here, then, is the monologue of Neophron's Medea : *
1
ελεν' τί δράσεις θυμέ ; βούλευσαι καλώς
πρίν η 'ξαμαρτείν και τα προσφιλέστατα
έχθιστα θέσθαι. που ποτ' εξηξας τάλας ;
κάτι σχε λημα και σθένος θεοστυγές.
και προς τί ταύτ' οδύρομαι, ψυχήν εμήν
Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teaches
The craftless how to find both craft and cunning.
* Well, well ; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think much
Before this sin be sinned, before thy dearest
Thou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding?
Restrain thy force, thy god detested fury.
And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my life
314
THE GREEK POETS.
δρώσ’ έρημον και παραμελημένην
προς ών έχρήν ήκιστα και μαλθακοί δε δή
τοιαύτα γιγνόμεσθα πάσχοντες κακά;
ου μή προδώσεις θυμό σαυτόν εν κακοίς.
οιμοι δέδοκται: παίδες εκτός όμμάτων
å ÉRBET': non ráp de poula péyar
dédike nuora Avuóv. xépes, xépes,
προς οδον έργον εξοπλιζόμεσθα· φεύ:
τάλαινα τόλμης, και πολύν πόνον βραχεί
διαφθερούσα τον εμόν έρχομαι χρόνω.
It is hardly possible not to recognise in these lines the first
sketch of the picture afterwards worked out so elaborately in
detail by Euripides.
Ion was a native of Chios, who came while still a boy
(TartánaOL MELPáklon) to Athens, and enjoyed the honour of
11
his life and work very little is known, although his reputation
among the ancients was so great that the Alexandrians placed
him among the first five tragic poets. The titles of eleven of
his plays have been preserved ; but these were only few out of
many that he wrote. He was, besides, a voluminous prose-
author, and practised every kind of lyrical poetry. From the
tinguished for fluency and finish rather than for boldness of
conception or sublimity of style. After praising their regularity,
Longinus adds that he would not exchange the dipus of
Sophocles for all the tragedies of Ion put together. Personally,
Laid desolate, despitefully abandoned
By those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth,
Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer !
Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sight
Get you away! for now bloodthirsty madness
Sinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands,
Unto what deed are we accoutred ? Woe!
Undone by my own daring! In one minute
I go to blast the fruit of my long toil.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 315
Ion had the reputation of a voluptuary : φιλοπότης και ερωτικώ-
tatov are the words of Athenæus which describe him. There
is also a story that he passed some portion of his life at Corinth
in love-bondage to the beautiful Chrysilla. In short, both as a
man and as an artist, Ion was true to his name and race. It is
unfortunate that the few fragments we possess of Ion's tragedies
have been transmitted for the most part by Hesychius and
Athenæus in illustration of grammatical usages and convivial
customs. The following gnomic couplet, preserved by
Plutarch, is both interesting in itself and characteristic of the
poet's style : *
το γνώθι σαυτόν, τούτ' έπος μεν ου μέγα,
έργον δ', όσον Ζεύς μόνος επίσταται θεών.
Another passage, quoted by Sextus Empiricus, contains an
elegant description of the power of Sparta :t
ου γαρ λόγοις Λάκαινα πυργουται πόλις,
åm' eủT'Apns veoxuds funéon otpatą,
βουλή μέν άρχει, χείρ δ' επεξεργάζεται.
Almost less can be said about Achæus of Eretria, the fifth,
with Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Ion, in the Alexan-
drian mpúrn táčış or first class of tragic worthies. Diogenes
Laertius records his skill in the satyric drama ; Athenæus re-
marks that his style was obscure, and that he filled his plays
with riddles. The names of some of his dramas-Linus, The
Fates, Philoctetes at Troy, Omphale, Peirithous-excite our
curiosity; but the fragments are, as usual, cited for some
merely frivolous or pedantic purpose.
The following corrupt passage from a play called 'Alou or
Adla, The Games—the loss of which is greatly to be regretted,
* Know thou thyself the saw is no great thing ;
To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.
+ The town of Sparta is not walled with words;
But when young Ares falls upon her men,
Then reason rules and the hand does the deed,
316
THE GREEK POETS.
:
since it might have thrown å new light upon the feeling of the
Greeks for their public contests---presents a lively picture of the
physical splendour of trained athletes : *
γυμνοί γάρ ώθουν φαιδίμους βραχίονας
ήβη σφριγώντες εμπορεύονται, νέω
στίλβοντες άνθει καρτεράς επωμίδας:
άδην δ' ελαίου στέρνα και ποδών κύτος
χρίουσιν, ώς έχοντες οίκοθεν τρυφήν.
Another glimpse of athletes may be got from three lines
torn out of the same play :t
πότερα θεωροΐs είτ’ αγωνισταίς λέγεις; .
πόλλ' εσθίουσιν, ώς έπασκούντων τρόπος.
ποδαποί γάρ εισιν οι ξένοι ; Βοιώτιοι.
In this portrait we recognise the young men satirically
described by Euripides in a fragment, translated above, of the
lost Autolycus as roaming about the city in the radiant insolence
of youth, like animated statues.
Mourn as we may the loss of Ion and Achæus, our grief
for that of Agathon must needs be greater. Though he was
not placed in the first class by the Alexandrian critics, it is
clear from the notices of Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle,
that he enjoyed the widest popularity at Athens, and was,
besides, a poet of marked originality. Personally, he was
amiable, delicate, pleasure-loving, and extremely beautiful.
He is always called-even by Plutarch and Athenæus—’Ayátwv
* It is clear that ydp slovv is wrong. The best suggestion seems to
be y' &vwdev, adopting which we may render the lines thus :
Naked above, their radiant arms displaying,
In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloom
Of beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare ;
Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oil
Are hathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.
† Ambassadors or athletes do you mean?
Great feeders are they, like most men in training.
Of what race are the strangers, then? Beotians.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 317
ó kalóc, Agathon the beautiful ; while the passionate friendship
with which he had inspired Pausanias is celebrated by Plato
in Protagoras, by Xenophon in the Symposium. Later authors,
like Maximus Tyrius, gave him the title of appóraroc, while
Lucian compared him to Cinyras or Sardanapalus. Appa-
rently he was rich enough to indulge the most luxurious tastes.
One of the best comic scenes in the Thesmophoriazusce is that
in which Aristophanes described Agathon surrounded by all
the appliances of a voluptuary, while engaged in the com-
position of an effeminate play. Euripides, entering this study
of a Sybarite, implores him to put on female attire, using these
arguments : *
Où 8 eunpo wios, levicos, é upnuévos,
yuvalkó qwvos, åtands, eúmpet`s ideiv.
In poetry Agathon adopted innovations consistent with his.
own voluptuous temperament. His style was distinguished by
melodious sweetness and rhetorical refinements; in particular,
we are told that he affected the flowery tropes and the anti-
theses of Gorgias. Sophistry was fashionable in his youth,
and Aristophanes recognised in Agathon the true companion
of Euripides. Leaving the severer music of the elder tragedians,
he invented chromatic melodies, which seem to have tickled
the sensuality of his Athenian audience. +
We are therefore justified in regarding Agathon as the
creator of a new tragic style combining the verbal elegances
and ethical niceties of the sophists with artistic charins
of a luxurious kind. Aristotle observes that he separated
* While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven,
Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.
to This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of Mnesilochus
(Ar. Thesnoph. 130 et seq.) which reminds one of the first satire of
Persius :
Cuin carmina lumbum
Intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.
318
THE GREEK POETS.
the Chorus from the action of the drama to such an ex-
tent that his lyrics became mere musical interludes (éußólewa).
equally adapted to any tragic fable.* He also remarks that
Agathon composed plays upon romantic subjects, inventing the
story for himself, instead of adhering to the old usage of re-
handling mythological material.f The title of one of these
dramatic romances, The Flower, has been preserved ; but
unhappily we are told nothing about its subject, and have no
extracts to judge from. That the form of tragedy suffered
other changes at the hands of Agathon, may be inferred from
another passage in the Poetics, where Aristotle censures him
for having included a whole epic, The Taking of Troy, in one
play. * This play, it may be said in passing, was hissed off
the stage. The popularity of Agathon may be gathered from
the fact that the first tetralogy he exhibited was crowned in
416 B.C. Plato has chosen the supper-party which he gave in
celebration of this victory for the scene of the Symposium;
and it is there that we must learn to know this brilliant
man of letters and of fashion in the wittiest period of Attic
social life. It is not a little curious that the most interesting
fragments of Agathon are embedded in the Ethics and the
Rhetoric of Aristotle, who must have made attentive study
of his works. While discussing the subject of free-will, the
sage of Stageira quotes this couplet : $
μόνου γάρ αυτού και θεός στερίσκεται,
αγένητα ποιείν άσσ’ αν η πεπραγμένα.
Again, on the topic of art and chance, he cites : ||
τέχνη τύχην έστερξε και τύχη τέχνην.
* Poet. cap. 18. † Ibid. cap. 9.
Ibid. cap. 18.
§ For from this one thing God himself is barred
To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.
|| Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 319
Speaking in the Eudemian Ethics about the true and spurious
kinds of courage, he adds : *
καθάπερ και Αγάθων φησί •
φαύλοι βροτών γάρ του πονείν ήσσόμενοι
θανείν έρωσι.
Another quotation, for the sake of both the poet and the philo-
sopher, may be adduced from the Rhetoric : +
και μην τα μέν γε τη τέχνη πράσσειν, τα δε
ημίν ανάγκη και τύχη προσγίγνεται.
One of the peculiarities to be noticed in the practice of the
poetic art among the Greeks was the formation of schools by
families of artists, in whom talent continued to be hereditary
for several generations. We observe this among the lyrists ;
but the tragedians offer even more remarkable instances,
proving how thoroughly the most complicated of all the arts,
the tragic drama—including, as it did, the teaching of music
and of dancing to Choruses, the arrangement of stage effects,
and the training of actors—was followed as a profession at
Athens. That Phrynichus founded a school of playwrights
distinguished for their musical rather than their dramatic
ability, appears from the nineteenth section of the Problemata
of Aristotle; but we do not know whether the oi Tepi Qpúviyor
there mentioned belonged to the poet's family. It is possible,
on the other hand, to draw the pedigree of Æschylus, in which
every name will represent a tragic poet. Here it is :
* Even as saith also Agathon :
Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.
+ I have followed Grotius in transposing Túxy and téxvn, and trans-
late:
Thus some things we can do by art, while some
Are thrust on us as fate and fortune will.
320
THE GREEK POETS. :
Euphorion.
1. Æschylus.
A daughter, married to Philopeithes.
2. Bion. 3. Euphorion. 4. Philocles the elder.
5. Morsimus.
6. Astydamas the elder.
7. Philocles the younger.
8. Astydamas the younger.
The oι περί Αίσχυλον, therefore, of whom the Scholiasts often
speak, numbered, together with Æschylus himself, eight drama-
tists. Their common characteristic consisted in the adherence
to the Æschylean style, in the presentation of tetralogies, and
in the privilege successively enjoyed by them of bringing out
old plays of Æsclıylus in competition with the works of younger
poets. The dramas of Æschylus were in fact “a property” to
his descendants. The Athenians had publicly decreed that they
might be from year to year produced upon the scene, and
Euphorion, his son, spent his time in preparing them for exhi-
bition. In this way he gained four prizes, taking the first crown
upon the notable occasion in 43 1 B.C., when Sophocles was
second, and Euripides, with the Medea, third, It appears that,
as time went on, the original compositions of Æschylus suffered
mutilations and alterations at the hands of his posterity, who
pretended to improve them-after the manner of Davenant,
presumably--and adapt them to the modern taste. At last
Lycurgus, about 340 B.C., decreed that after accurate copies had
been taken of the authorised text and deposited in the public
archives, the clerk of the city should collate them with the
acted plays, and see that no deviations from the original
became established. We gather from the comic poets that the
family of Æschylus also produced their own tragedies, none of
which, however, appear to have been very excellent. Philocles
the elder was laughed at by Aristophanes partly because he was
an ugly, snub-nosed, little man, with a head like a hoopoe, partly
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 321
because he introduced a comic incident into his tragedy of
Pandionis by exhibiting Tereus dressed out with the feathers of
a bird. The Scholiasts to Aristophanes, in like manner, inform
us that Morsimus owed a certain celebrity to his ugliness, to
the tameness of his tragic style, and to his want of skill as a
professional oculist. Astydamas the elder achieved the same
sad sort of immortality through the accident of having received
the honour of a public statue before Æschylus. It is lost
labour trying to form a clear conception of poets who are only
known to us in anecdotes like these.
Frederick Wagner, the collector of the tragic fragments,
reckons Meletus, the accuser of Socrates, and Plato, the divine
philosopher, among the school of Æschylus, because it appears
that both of them composed tetralogies. From a passage in
the Scholiast to Aristophanes (Frogs, 1302) it may be inferred
that Meletus, the tragedian, and Meletus, the informer, were one
and the same person : Kwuwdęital dê kui ús Yuxpos Év T1 TOLVOEL
και ως πονηρός τον τρόπον-«he is satirised both for want of
genius as a poet and also for the badness of his moral
character.” This sentence constitutes his title to fame. He is
known to have composed a series of plays with the title
Edipodeia, the plot, as sketched by Hyginus, * offering some
notable divergences from the Sophoclean treatment of the
tale of Thebes. Plato may be numbered among the trage-
dians on the strength of an anecdote in Ælian, † according to
which he had composed a tetralogy, and had already distributed
the parts to the actors, when he determined to abandon poetry
and gave his verses to the flames.
The school of Sophocles includes two sons of the poet,
Iophon and Ariston, and his grandson Sophocles. In fact,
it combines the actors in that family drama played out before
the jury of the tribe, when the singer of Colonus silenced
S
* Fab. 172.
+ Varia Historia, ii. 30.
.
e
Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 80.
v
II.
322
THE GREEK POETS.
his accuser by the recitation of the Chorus from his second
Edipus. Iophon exhibited tragedies with distinguished suc-
cess during the life of Sophocles, and even entered into com-
petition with his father. After the old man’s death he produced
the posthumous works that formed his heirloom, completing
such as were unfinished or executing those of which the plan was
sketched in outline. He is said to have exhibited fifty plays,
and that he was no mean poet appears from the following
passage of the Frogs : *
H.
B.
H.
Is not Iophon a good one ?-He's alive, sure ?
If he's a good one, he's our only good one ;
But it's a question ; I'm in doubt about him.
There's Sophocles ; he's older than Euripides —
If you go so far for 'em, you'd best bring him.
No; first I'll try what Iophon can do,
Without his father, Sophocles, to assist him.
B.
The drift of these lines would be obscure without some
explanation to readers who have not studied Aristophanes.
All the good tragic poets are dead, and Dionysus is journeying
to Hades to fetch one back again to rule the Attic stage.
Herakles falls into conversation with him on the subject, and
reminds him that Iophon is living. The doubt expressed by
Dionysus seems to refer to a suspicion prevalent at Athens that
Sophocles helped his son in the composition of his plays.
Meanwhile, the qualified praise awarded him by Dionysus im-
plies considerable admiration on the part of so severe a casti-
gator of the tragic dramatists as Aristophanes. Only four and
a half lines, and these by no means noticeable, remain of
Iophon. His half-brother Ariston has fared better, since we
possess a long and curious dialogue upon Providence, quoted
by Theophilus of Antioch from an unknown play of his. This
seem to prosper, while the virtuous get no benefit from their
* Frere's Translation, p. 229.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 323
asceticism, justice will eventually be dealt with even hand
to all :
χωρίς προνοίας γίνεται γάρ ουδέ έν.
It is right to add that the authorship of these lines must be
at least considered doubtful, and that their versification, as it'
now stands, is unworthy of the Attic drama.
By the middle of the fourth century before Christ the whole
dramatic literature of the Athenians, both tragic and comic,
was being penetrated with the Euripidean spirit. It is im-
possible noť to notice in the style of these later playwrights
either the direct influence of Euripides or else the operation of
the laws of intellectual development he illustrated. We cannot,
therefore, treat the Euripidean school with the definiteness
applicable to that of Æschylus or Sophocles. At the same
time it is certain that a son or a nephew bearing his name
continued to exhibit his posthumous dramas.
A stronger instance of histrionic and dramatic talent trans-
mitted through four generations is presented by the family of
Carkinus, some of whom were famous for mimetic dancing,
while others contended in the theatre as playwrights. What
we know about Carkinus and his children is chiefly derived
from the satires of Aristophanes, who was never tired of abusing
them. Their very name serves as a scarecrow, and the Muse
is invoked to keep them off the stage. To stir the rubbish-
heap of obscure allusions and pedantic annotations, in order to
discover which of the six Carkinidæ we know by name were
poets, and which of them were dancers, is a weary task not
worth the labour it involves. Suffice it to say that the grand-
son of Aristophanes' old butt, himself called Carkinus, pro-
duced the incredible number of 160 drarnas, was three times
mentioned with respect by Aristotle, * and has survived in
comparatively copious quotations. One passage, though not
* Poet. cap. 17; Rhet, ij. 23, iii. 16.
Y 2
324
very remarkable for poetical beauty, is interesting because it
of Persephone. Diodorus, who cites it from an unknown play,
mentions that Carkinus frequently visited Syracuse and saw
the processions in honour of Demeter.
About the Attic tragedians who lived during the old age of
Aristophanes, the first thing to notice is that they may fairly be
called the Epigoni of Euripides. Æschylus was old-fashioned.
The style of Sophocles did not lend itself to easy imitation.
The psychological analyses, casuistical questions, rhetorical
digressions, and pathetic situations, wherein the great poet of
the Hippolytus delighted, were exactly suited to the intellectual
tastes and temper of incipient decadence. A nation of philo-
sophers and rhetoricians had arisen ; and it is noteworthy that
many of the playwrights of this period were either professed
orators or statesmen. In his own life-time Aristophanes wit-
nessed the triumph of the principles against which he fought
incessantly with all the weapons of the comic armoury. Listen
to the complaint of Dionysus in the Frogs : *
S
H. But have not you other ingenious youths
That are fit to out-talk Euripides ten times over-
To the amount of a thousand, at least, all writing tragedy?
D. They're good for nothing—'Warblers of the Grove'-
Little, foolish, fluttering things'-poor puny wretches,
That dawdle and dangle about with the tragic muse,
Incapable of any serious meaning.
To translate the Greek for modern readers is not possible.
The pith of the passage is found in this emphatic phrase,
yóvipov &è mountain à v oùk súpols ĚTL, " there's not a sound male
poet capable of procreation left.” Accordingly he vents his
venom on Pythangelus, Gnesippus, Akestor, Hieronymus,
Nothippus, Morychus, Sthenelus, Dorillus, Spintharus, and
Theognis, without mercy. Not a single fragment remains to
* Frere, p. 229.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 325
.
judge these wretched poets by. It is better to leave them in
their obscurity than to drag them forth into the dubious light
of comic ribaldry.
Critias, the son of Callæschrus, the pupil of Socrates, who
figures in so many scenes of Xenophon and Plato, and who
played a memorable part in the political crisis of 404 B.C., was
a tragic poet of some talent, if we are to accept a fragment from
the Sisyphus as his. Sextus Empiricus transcribed forty lines of
this drama, setting forth the primitive conditions of humanity.
First, says Critias, men began by living like the brutes, without
rewards for virtue or punishment for vice. Mere might of hand
prevailed. Then laws were framed and penalties affixed to
crime. Open violence was thus représsed ; but evil doers
flourished in secret. Fraud and hypocrisy took the place of
force. To invent the dread of gods and to create a conscience
was the next step taken by humanity. Then followed the
whole scheme of religion, and with religion entered superstition,
and men began to fear the thunder and to look with strange
awe on the stars. The quotation is obviously imperfect : yet
it may advantageously be compared with the speeches of Pro-
metheus in Æschylus, and also with the speculations of
Lucretius. The hypothesis of deliberate invention implied in
the following phrases, *
τηνικαυτά μοι
δοκεί πυκνός τις και σοφός γνώμην ανήρ
γνώναι θέον θνητοίσιν,
and το θείον εισηγήσατο,ή sufficed not only for antiquity but also
for those modern theorists who, like Locke, imagined that
language was produced artificially by wise men in counsel, or
who, like Rousseau and the Encyclopædists, maintained that
religions were framed by knaves to intimidate fools.
Then, I think,
A man of subtle counsel and keen wit
Discovered God for mortals.
+ Introduced the notion of deity.
*
.
$26
THE GREEK POETS.
Cleophon demands a passing notice, because we learn from
Aristotle * that he tried to reduce tragedy to the plain level of
common life by using everyday language and not attempting to
idealise his characters. The total destruction of his plays may
be regretted, since it is probable that we should have observed
in them the approximation of tragedy to comedy which ended
finally in the new comic style of the Athenians. About Cleo-
phon’s contemporary, Nicomachus, of whom nothing is known
except that he produced a great many tragedies on the stock
subjects of mythology, nothing need be said. The case is some-
what different with a certain Diogenes who while writing seven
tragedies under the decorous titles of Thyestes, Helen, Medea,
and so forth, nevertheless contrived to offend against all the
decencies of civilised life. Later grammarians can hardly find
language strong enough to describe their improprieties. Here
is a specimen : αρρήτων άρρητότερα και κακών πέρα, και ούτε ότι
φώ περί αυτών αξίως έχω .... ούτω πάσα μεν αισχρότης, πάσα
δε άπόνοια εν εκείναις των ανδρί πεφιλοτέχνηται. Το ascribe these
impure productions to Diogenes the Cynic, in spite of his well-
known contempt for literature, was a temptation which even
the ancients, though better informed than we are, could not
wholly resist. Yet, after much sifting of evidence, it may be
fairly believed that there were two Diogenes—the one an
Athenian, who wrote an innocuous play called Semele, the
Enomaus, and who perpetrated the seven indecent parodies.
Diogenes of Sinope, meanwhile, was never among the poets,
and the plays that defended cannibalism and blasphemed
against the gods, though conceived in his spirit, belonged pro-
bably to a later period. +
* Poet. caps. ii., xxii. ; Rhet. iii. 7.
of The whole matter is too obscure for discussion in this place. Suf-
fice it to add that a certain Philiscus, the friend and follower of Diogenes,
enjoyed a portion of the notoriety attaching to the seven obnoxious
dramas.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 327
Time would fail to tell of Antiphon and Polyeides, of
Crates and Python, of Nearchus and Cleanetus, of the Syra-
cusan Achæus and of Dikaiogenes, of Apollodorus and Time-
sitheus and Patrocles and Alkimenes and Apollonius and
Hippotheon and Timocles and Ecdôrus and Serapion--of all
of whom it may be briefly said we know a few laborious no-
things. Their names in a list serve to show how the sacred
serpent of Greek tragedy, when sick to death, continued still
for many generations drawing its slow length along. Down to
the very end they kept on handling the old themes. Timesi-
theus, for instance, exhibited Danaides, Ixion, Memnon, Orestes,
and the like. Meanwhile a few pale shades emerge from the
nebulous darkness demanding more consideration than the
mere recording of their names implies. We find two tyrants, to
begin with, on the catalogue-Mamercus of Catana, who
helped Timoleon, and Dionysius of Syracuse. Like Nero and
17
the authors. He spared no expense in engaging the best rhap-
sodes of the day, and sent them to recite his verses at Olympia.
To deceive a Greek audience in matters of pure ästhetics was,
however, no easy matter. The men who came together at-
tracted by the sweet tones of the rhapsodes, soon discovered
the badness of the poems and laughed them down. Some
fragments from the dramas of Dionysius have been preserved,
among which is one that proves his preaching sounder than
his practice : *
ή γάρ τυραννίς αδικίας μήτηρ έφυ.
The intrusion of professional orators into the sphere of the
theatre might have been expected in an age when public speak-
ing was cultivated like a fine art, and when opportunities for
the display of verbal cleverness were eagerly sought. We are
tinguished rhetoricians of the school of Isocrates, among the
* The rule of one man is of wrong the parent.
323
THE GREEK POETS.
S
tragedians. Of Theodectes a sufficient number of fragments
survive to establish the general character of his style ; but it is
enough in this place to notice the fusion of forensic eloquence
with dramatic poetry, against which Aristophanes had in-
veighed, and which was now complete.
Chærêmon and Moschion are more important in the
history of the Attic drama, since both of them attempted in-
novations in accordance with the literary spirit of their age,
and did not, like the rhetoricians, follow merely in the foot-
steps of Euripides. Chærêmon, the author of Achilles
Thersitoctonos and several other pieces, was mentioned by
Aristotle for having attempted to combine a great variety of
metres in a poem called The Centaur, * which was, perhaps, a
tragi-comedy or inapotpayodia. He possessed remarkable
descriptive powers, and was reckoned by the critics of anti-
quity as worthy of attentive study, though his dramas failed in
action on the stage. We may regard him, in fact, as the first
writer of plays to be read.t The metamorphoses through
which the arts have to pass in their development, repeat
themselves at the most distant ages and under the most
diverse circumstances. It is, therefore, interesting to find that
Chærêmon combined with this descriptive faculty a kind of
euphuism which might place him in the same rank as Marini
and Calderon, or among the most refined of modern Idyllists.
He shrank, apparently, from calling things by their plain names.
Water, for example, became in his fantastic phraseology Tora poū
owua. The flowers were “children of the spring,” čapoç térva
-the roses, “nurslings of the spring,” čapos ribnvýuceta-the
stars, “sights of the firmament,” aidépos de aparaivy, “ lover
of dancers, offspring of the year,” xopūv épaori's éviavtoŨ tałs
-blossoms, “ children of the meadows,” letuú vwv tékva, and so
forth. In fact, Chærêmon rivals Gongora, Lyly, and Herrick
on their own ground, and by his numerous surviving fragments
* Poet. i., xxiv. See Ar. Rhet, iii. 12.
1
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 329
proves how impossible it is to conclude that the Greeks of even
a good age were free from affectations. Students, who may be
interested in tracing the declensions of classic style from
severity and purity, will do well to read the seventeen lines
preserved by Athenæus from the tragedy of Eneus.* They
present a picture of girls playing in a field, too artful for suc-
cessful rendering into any but insufferably ornate English.
The claim of Moschion on our attention is different from
that of his contemporary Chærêmon. He wrote a tragedy with
the title of Themistocles, wherein he appears to have handled
the same subject-matter as Æschylus in the Pers&. The hero
of Salamis was, however, conspicuous by his absence from the
history play of the elder poet. Lapse of time, by removing the
political difficulties under which the Perse was composed,
enabled Moschion to make the great Themistocles his prota-
gonist. Two fragments transmitted by Stobæus from this
drama, the one celebrating Athenian liberty of speech, while
the other argues that a small band may get the better of a
myriad lances, seem to be taken from the concio ad milites
of the hero : +
και γαρ εν νάπαις βραχεί
πολύς σιδήρω κείρεται πεύκης κλάδος,
και βαιος όχλος μυρίας λόγχης κρατεί.
Another tragedy of Moschion, the Pheræi, is interesting
when compared with the Antigone of Sophocles and the
Sisyphus ascribed to Critias. Its plot seems in some way to
have turned upon the duty which the living owe the dead : *
κενόν θανόντος ανδρός αικίζειν σκιάν:
ζώντας κολάζειν ου θανόντας ευσεβές.
.
* Athen. xiii. p. 608a.
In far mountain vales
See how one small axe ſells innumerous firs;
So a few men can curb a myriad lances.
I 'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades;
God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.
330
THE GREEK POETS.
And, again, in all probability from the same drama : *
τί την αναιδον γαίαν υβρίζειν πλέον;
επήν γάρ ή κρίνουσα και θηρίονα
και τανιαρά φρούδος αίσθησις φθαρή,
το σώμα κωφού τάξιν είληφεν πέτρου.
A long quotation of thirty-four iambics, taken apparently in
like manner from the Pheræi, sets forth the primitive condition
of humanity. Men lived at first in caverns, like wild beasts.
They had not learned the use of iron; nor could they fashion
houses, or wall cities, or plough the fields, or garner fruits of
earth. They were cannibals and preyed on one another. In
course of time, whether by the teaching of Prometheus or by
the evolution of implanted instincts, they discovered the use
of corn, and learned how to press wine from the grape.
Cities arose and dwellings were roofed in, and social customs
changed from savage to humane. From that moment it be-
7
and dust was heaped upon the clay-cold limbs, in order that
the old abomination of human food might be removed from
memory of men. The whole of this passage, very brilliantly
written, condenses the speculations of Athenian philosophers
upon the origin of civilisation, and brings them to the point
which the poet had in view—the inculcation of the sanctity of
sepulture.
Nothing more remains to be said about the Attic trage-
dians. At the risk of being tedious, I have striven to include
the names at least of all the poets who filled the tragic stage
from its beginning to its ending, in order that the great number
* What gain we by insulting mere dead men ?
What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay?
For when the sense that can discern things sweet
And things offensive is corrupt and fled,
The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS. 331
of playwrights and their variety might be appreciated. The
probable date at which Thespis began to exhibit dramas may
be fixed soon after 550 B.C. Moschion may possibly have
lived as late as 300 B.C. These, roughly calculated, are the
extreme points of time between which the tragic art of the
Athenians arose and flourished and declined. When the
Alexandrian critics attempted a general review of dramatic
literature, they formed, as we have seen already, two classes of
tragedians. In the first they numbered five Athenian worthies.
The second, called the Pleiad, included seven poets of the
Court of Alexandria; nor is there adequate reason to suppose
that this inferior canon, devrépre rágcs, was formed on any but
just principles of taste. How magnificent was the revival of art
and letters, in all that pertained, at any rate, to scenic show
and pompous ritual, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus ;
how superbly the transplanted flowers of Greek ceremonial
flourished on the shores of ancient Nile, and how Hellenic
customs borrowed both gorgeous colours and a mystic mean-
ing from the contact with Egyptian rites, may be gathered from
the chapters devoted by Athenæus in the fifth book of the
Deipnosophistæ to these matters. The Pleiad and the host of
minor Alexandrian stars have fared, however, worse than their
Athenian models. They had not even comic satirists to keep
their names alive “ immortally immerded.” With the exception
of Lycophron, they offer no firm ground for modern criticism.
We only know that, in this Alexandrian Renaissance, literature,
as usual, repeated itself. Alexandria, like Athens, had its royal
poets, and, what is not a little curious, Ptolemy Philopator
imitated his predecessor Dionysius to the extent of composing
a tragedy, Adonis, with the same title and presumably upon
the same theme.
TY.
-
332
THE GREEK POETS.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
Three Periods in Attic History.—The three Kinds of Comedy: Old,
Middle, New.—Approximation of Comedy to the Type of Tragedy.--
Athenaeus as the Source of Comic Fragments.-Fragments of the
Old Comedy.--Satire on Women. -- Parasites.—Fragments of the
Middle Comedy.- Critique of Plato and the Academic Philosophers. —
Literary Criticism.- Passages on Sleep and Death.–Attic Slang.-
The Demi-Monde.—Theophrastus and the Later Rhetoricians.-
Cooks and Cookery Books. — Difficulty of Defining the Middle from
the New Comedy.—Menander. -Sophocles and Menander.—Epicu-
reanism.—Menander's Sober Philosophy of Life. - Goethe on Me-
nander. — Philemon.–The Comedy of Manners culminated in Me-
nander.—What we mean by Modernism.—Points of Similarity and
Difference between Ancient and Modern Comeciy.—The Freedom of
Modern Art.
THE two centuries during which comedy flourished at Athens
may be divided into three marked periods of national and
political existence. Between 448 and 404 B.C., under the
Periclean administration and until the end of the Peloponnesian
war, the Demos continued through all vicissitudes conscious of
sovereignty and capable of indefinite expansion. Then came
the dismantlement of Athens by Lysander and the dismember-
ment of the old democracy. From 404 to 338 B.C. Athens,
though humbled to the rank of a second-class State, and con-
fused in foreign and domestic policy, retained her freedom, and
exercised an important influence over the affairs of Hellas.
She no longer, however, felt within herself the force of youth,
the ambition of conquest, or the pride of popular autocracy.
THE COMIC FRAGMENT'S.
333
Her intellectual activity was turned from political and constitu-
tional questions inwards to philosophy and literature. From
338 to about 260 B.C. this metamorphosis of the nation was
carried further and accomplished. Athens ceased to be a city
of statesmen and orators, and became the capital of learning.
She was no longer in any true sense free or powerful, though
populous and wealthy and frequented by cultivated men of
all nations. Not only had public interest declined, but the
first fervour for philosophy was past. A modus rivendi suited
to a tranquil, easy, pleasure-loving people, who rejoiced in leisure
and combined refined amusements with luxury, had been syste-
matised in the Epicurean view of life. To accept the conditions
of existence and to make the best of them, to look on like
spectators at the game of the world, and to raise no trouble-
some insoluble questions, was the ideal of this period. Fifty
years after the last date mentioned, the Romans set their foot
on Hellas, and Greek culture began to propagate itself with
altered forms in Italy.
To these three periods in the national existence of Athens,
the three phases through which comedy passed, correspond
with almost absolute accuracy. Emerging from the coarse
Megarian farces and the phallic pageants of the Dionysian
Kômos, the old comedy, as illustrated by Aristophanes, al-
lowed itself the utmost licence. It incarnated the freedom of
democracy, caricaturing individuals, criticising constitutional
changes, and, through all its extravagances of burlesque and
fancy, maintaining a direct relation to politics. Only a nation
in the plenitude of self-contentment, conscious of vigour and
satisfied with its own energy, could have tolerated the kind of
censorship these comic poets dared to exercise. The glaring
light cast by Aristophanes upon abuses in the State reminded
his audience of the greatness and the goodness that subsisted
with so much of mean and bad. From their high standpoint
of security they could afford, as they imagined, to laugh,
334
THE GREEK POETS.
(
VLLO
11
and to enjoy a spectacle that travestied their imperfections.
At the same time an under-current of antagonism to the
Aristophanic comedy made itself felt from time to time. Laws
were passed prohibiting this species of the drama in general
(un Kwuwdęīv), or restricting its personality. (uni Kwuqdɛīv
dropaori), or prohibiting the graver functionaries of the State
from exhibiting comic plays. These laws, passed, abrogated,
and repassed, between 440 and 404 B.C., mark the ebb and
flow of democratic liberty. After the humiliation of Athens at
the close of the Peloponnesian war, the political subject-matter
of the old comedy was withdrawn, and the attitude of the
audience was so altered as to render its peculiar censorship
intolerable. Meanwhile, the speculative pursuits to which the
Athenians since the days of the sophists had addicted
themselves, began to tell upon the character of the nation,
now ripe for the second or literary stage of comedy. The poets
of this period had not yet arrived at the comedy of manners
which presents a close and faithful picture of domestic life.
They directed their wit and humour against classes rather than
characters. Philosophers and poets, parasites and hetæræ,
took the place of the politicians. Nor did they abandon the old
art-form of Attic comedy, for it is clear that the Chorus still
played an important part in their plays. At the same time, in
comedy as in tragedy, the Chorus came to be less and less an
integral part of the drama; and while more attention was paid
to plot and story, the grotesque allegories of the first period
were dropped. The transition from the old to the middle
comedy is signalised by the Frogs of Aristophanes, which,
maintaining the peculiar character of the elder form of art,
relinquished politics for literature. The new comedy, known
to us through the fragments of Menander and the Latin imita-
tions, abandoned the Chorus altogether, and produced a form
of art corresponding to what we know as the comedy of
character and manners in the modern world. Interest was
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS335
TV
.
concentrated on the fable, and the skill of the poet was dis-
played in accurate delineations of domestic scenes. The plot
seems to have almost invariably turned on love-adventures.
Certain fixed types of character—the parasite, the pimp, the
roguish servant, the severe father, the professional captain, the
spendthrift son, the unfortunate heroine, and the wily prostitute
-appeared over and over again. To vary the presentation of
these familiar persons taxed the ingenuity of the playwright, as
afterwards in Italy and France, during the tyranny of pantaloon
and matamore, Leandre and prima amorosa.
Tragedy and comedy, though they began so differently, had
been gradually approximating to one type, so that between Me-
nander and the latest followers of Euripides there was scarcely
any distinction of form and but little difference of subject-matter.
The same sententious reflection upon life seasoned both species
of the drama. The religious content of the elder tragedy and the
broad burlesque of the elder comedy alike gave place to equable
philosophy. The tragic climax was sad ; the comic climax
gay: more licence was allowed in the comic than in the tragic
iambic: comedy remained nearer to real life and therefore
more interesting than tragedy. Such, broadly speaking, were
the limits of their differences now. In this approximation
toward artistic similarity comedy rather than tragedy was a
have become permanent. To dissociate it from the peculiar
conditions of the Athenian democracy was impossible. T
fore the process by which the old comedy passed into the
middle, and the middle into the new, must be regarded as a
progression from the local and the accidental to the necessary
and the universal. The splendour that may seem to have been
sacrificed, belonged less to the old comedy itself than to the
genius of Aristophanes, who succeeded in engrafting the most
brilliant poetry upon the rough stock of the Attic farce.
Tragedy, on the contrary, lost all when she descended from.
336
THE GREEK POETS.
D
the vantage-ground of Æschylus. It must not, however, be
imagined that the change in either case depended upon chance.
It was necessitated by the internal transmutation of the Athe-
nians into a nation of students, and by the corresponding loss
of spontaneity in art. For the full development of the comedy
of manners a critical temper in the poet and the audience, com-
plexity of social customs, and inclination to reflect upon them,
together with maturity of judgment, were required. These
conditions, favourable to art which seeks its inotives in a spirit.
of tolerant, if somewhat cynical, philosophy, but prejudicial to
the highest serious poetry, account for the decline of tragedy
and the contemporaneous ascent of comedy in the fourth cen-
tury B.C. The comedy of Menander must therefore be con-
sidered as an advance upon that of Cratinus, though it is true
that this comedy is the art of refined and senescent, rather than
of vigorous and adolescent, civilisation, and though it flourished
in the age of tragic dissolution. In the Vatican may be seen
two busts, of equal size and beauty, wrought apparently by the
same hand, and finished to the point of absolute perfection.
One of these is Tragedy, the other Comedy. The two faces
differ chiefly in the subtle smile that plays about the lips of
Comedy, and in the slight contraction of the brows of Tragedy.
They are twin sisters, born alike to royalty, distinguished by
such traits of character as tend to disappear beneath the polish
of the world. There is no suggestion of the Cordax in the one
or of the Furies in the other. Both are self-restrained and
dignified in ideality. It was thus that the two species of the
drama appeared to the artists of the later ages of Hellenic
culture.
The student of Greek fragments may not inaptly be com-
IL
Walking along the border of the unsearchable ocean, he keeps
his eyes fixed upon the pools uncovered at low tide, and with
his foot turns up the heaps of rubbish cast upon the shore.
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
337
Here and there a rare specimen of coloured coralline or
delicately fibred alga attracts his attention. He stoops, and
places the precious fragment in his wallet, regretting that all his
wealth is but the alms of chance, tossed negligently to him by
gardens where these weeds and blossoms flourish, is denied him.
Even so the scholar can do no more than skirt the abysses of
the past, the unsearchable sea of oblivion, garnering the waifs
and strays offered him by accident.
As Stobæus provides the most extensive repertory of extracts
from the later Greek tragedians, so it is to Athenæus we must turn
for comic fragments. This helluo librorum boasted that he had
read eight hundred plays of the middle comedy, and it is obvious
that he was familiar with the whole dramatic literature of
Athens. Yet the use he made of this vast knowledge was com-
paratively childish. Interested for the most part in Deipno-
sophy, or the wisdom of the dinner-table, he displayed his
erudition by accumulating passages about cooks, wines, dishes,
and the Attic inarket. From an exclusive study, therefore, of
the extracts he transmitted, we might be led to imagine
that the Greek comedians exaggerated the importance of eating
and drinking to a ridiculous extent. This, however, would
be a false inference. The ingenuity of the Deipnosophist
was shown in bringing his reading to bear upon a single point,
and in adorning the philosophy of the kitchen with purple
patches torn from poetry. We ought, in truth, rather to conclude
that Attic comedy was an almost inexhaustible mine of informa-
tion on Attic life in general, and that illustrations, infinitely
various, of the manners, feelings, prejudices, literature, and ways
of thinking of the ancient Greeks might have been as liberally
granted to us as the culinary details which amused the mind of
Athenæus.
When so much remains intact of Aristophanes, it is not
worth while to do more than mention a few of the fragments
II.
338
THE GREEK POET'S.
preserved from the other playwrights of the old comedy.
The first of these in Meineke's collection may be translated,
since it stands, like a motto, on the title-page of all Greek
comedy : * “ Hear, 0 ye people ! Susarion says this, the son
of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus: Women are an evil ;
and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without
evil ; for to be married or not to be married is alike bad.”
In turning over the pages of Meineke, t we feel inclined to
call attention to the beauty of some lines on flowers written
by Pherecrates [Metalles, fr. 2, and Persai, fr. 2], and to a
curious passage on the changes wrought by Melanippides,
Kinesias, and Timotheus in Attic music Cheiron, fr. 1). The
comic description of the Age of Gold by Telecleides [Amphic-
tyones, fr. 1] might be paralleled by Heine's picture of heaven,
where the geese flew about ready roasted with ladles of sweet
sauce in their bills. What Hermippus says about the Attic
market (Phormophoroi, fr. 1] is interesting for a different reason,
since it throws real light upon the imports into Attica. The
second fragment from the same comedy yields curious informa-
tion about Greek wines. After mentioning the peculiar excel-
lences of several sorts, the poet gives the palm to Saprias, so
called because of its old, mellow, richly scented ripeness.
“When the jar is opened, a perfume goes abroad of violets and
roses and hyacinths, a wonderful scent that fills the house. This
nectar is ambrosia and nectar in one. Keep it for my friends,
but to my enemies give Peparethian.” Eupolis supplies a de-
scription of parasites [Kolakes, fr. I]: the first detailed picture
of a class that played a prominent part in Attic social life. I
We may also mention, in passing, the fragment of a para-
13
* Compare Anaxandrides [Incert. Fab. fr. 1]; Eubulus [Chrysilla,
fr. 2, Nannion, fr. 1]; Alexis (Manteis, fr. i., Incert. Fab. fr. 34, 39];
and the anonymous fragments on p. 756 of Didot's Cornici Græci.
+ I shall use the edition of Didot, one vol., 1855, for reference.
Compare Antiphanes [Didumoi, fr. 2, Progonoi, fr. 1]; Alexis
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
339
basis (Incert. Fab. fr. 1] which censures the Athenian audience
for preferring foreign to native poets, and contains a reference
to Aristophanes. Phrynichus yields the beautiful epitaph on
Sophocles [Mousai, fr. 1] already quoted ;* nor must his
amusing caricature of a bad musician be passed over [Incert.
Fab. fr. 1), for the sake of this line :
Movo w o KERETÒs, ånsóvwv ymiaros, Guvos "Aidov,
“Mummy of Muses, ague of nightingales, hymn of Hades."
Those who are curious about Greek games will do well to study
the description of the cottabos in Plato [Zeus Kakoumenos, fr. 1]
and to compare with it a fuller passage from Antiphanes to
[Aphroditës Gonai). Plato, again, presents us with a lively
picture of a Greek symposium [Lacones, fr. 1), as well as a very
absurd extract from a cookery-book, whereof the title was
Ølložérov kalvý tiç 'Ovaprusia, “A new Sauce-science by Phi-
loxenus” [Phaon, fr. 1]. From Ameipsias might be selected
for passing notice an allusion to Socrates (Konnos, fr. 1] and a
scolion in two lines upon life and pleasure, sung to the flute at
a drinking-party [Incert. Fab. fr. 1]. Finally, Lysippus has
spoken the praises of Athens in three burlesque iambics &
[Incert. Fab. fr. 1]: “If you have never seen Athens, you are a
stock; if you have seen her, and not been taken captive, a
donkey; if you are charmed and leave her, a pack-ass.”
[Kubernetes, fr. 1] ; Diodorus [Epikleros, fr. 1]; Timocles [Drakontion, fr. 1];
the long passage from an uncertain play of Nicolaus. The invention of
the part of the Parasite is usually ascribed to Alexis, but this is clearly a
mistake. That he developed it and made it a fixed character of comedy
is probable enough. The Symposium of Xenophon furnishes curious
matter on the professional joker and diner-out, as he existed at Athens.
* See above, p. 220.
+ The following anonymous line (Didot's Comici Græci, p. 732),
OUVETivojlév Te Kal OUVEKOTTABI Couev, "together we drank, and played at
cottabos together," seems to point to the good fellowship of the game.
I Compare the praises of Athens quoted from anonymous comic poets by
Athenæus, i. 20, B., and by Dio Chrysost., 64, p. 334, Reisk (Didot's
Comici Græci, pp. 723, 729).
22
340
THE GREEK POETS.
On quitting the old for the middle comedy we find ourselves
in a different intellectual atmosphere. The wit is more fine-
spun, the humour more allusive; language, metre, and senten-
tious reflections begin alike to be Euripidean. The fertility of
the playwrights of this period was astounding. Antiphanes,
one of the earliest, produced, according to some authorities,
260, and Alexis, one of the latest, 245 comedies on a great
variety of subjects. It is doubtful, however, whether the
authorship of these plays was accurately known by the Byzan-
tine Greeks, from whom our information is derived. The frag-
ments show that a strong similarity of style marked the whole
school of poets, and that the younger did 110° scruple to pilfer
freely from the elder. On the whole, the question of author-
ship is of less interest than the matters brought to light by such
extracts as we possess. It has been remarked above that
ridicule of the philosophers and parodies of the tragic poets
were standing dishes in the middle comedy. Antiphanes has
a fling at the elegant attire of the academic sages (Antaios),
while Ephippus describes a philosophical dandy of the
same school [Nauagos, fr. I, p. 493]. Their doctrines are
assailed with mild sarcasm. A man, when asked if he has
a soul, replies : “ Plato would tell me I don't know, but I
rather think I have" (Cratimus, Pseudupobolimaios, p. 516). In
another play someone is gently reminded that he is talking of
things about which he knows nothing—like Plato (Alexis,
Ankylion, p. 518]. Again Plato is informed that his philosophy
ends in knowing how to frown * [Amphis, Dexidemides, p. 482).
In another place it is discovered that his summum bonum consists
in refraining from marriage and enjoying life [Philippides,
Anancosis, fr. 2, p. 670) Other philosophers, the Pythagoreans
{Alexis, Tarantini, ſrs. 1, 2, 3, PP. 565, 566], and Aristippus
[Galatca, fr. 1, p. 526), for example, come in for their share of
* Compare Alexis (Hippers, p. 536 ; Meropis, p. 550 ; Olympiodorus,
P. 552 ; Parasitus, fr. 3, P. 558].
THE CÓMIC FRAGMENTS.
341
ridicule. The playwrights not unfrequently express their own
philosophy, sad enough beneath the mask of mirth. Very
gloomy, for example, is the view of immortality recorded
by Antiphanes (Aphrodisios, fr. 2, p. 358]; while the com-
parison by Alexis of human life to a mad pastime enjoyed be-
tween two darknesses (p. 566] has something in it that reminds
one of a dance of death. Very seldom has the insecurity of all
1
elegantly expressed than by Antiphanes [Stratiotes, fr. 1, p.
397]. Anaxandrides, for his part, formulates theological agnos-
ticism in words memorable for their pithy brevity (Canephorus,
P. 422]
άπαντές εσμεν προς τα θεί αβέλτεροι
κουκίσμεν ουδέν
We're all mere dullards in divinity
And know just nothing.
One thing is clear in all such utterances, that the deeper
speculations of Plato and Aristotle had taken no hold on the
minds of the people at large, and that such philosophy as had
penetrated Athenian society, was a kind of hedonistic scepticism.
Epicurus, in the next age, had nothing to do but to give ex-
pression to popular convictions. Take, for one instance more,
these lines from Amphis (Gynæcocratia, p. 481]:
πινε, παίζε· θνητός ο βίος• ολίγος ουπι γη χρόνος.
αθάνατος δ' ο θάνατός έστιν, άν άπαξ τις αποθάνη.
Drink and play, for life is fleeting; short our time beneath the sky :
But for death, he's everlasting, when we once have come to die.
Occasionally, the same keen Attic wit is exercised upon
old-fashioned Greek proverbs. Simonides had said that
health, beauty, and inoderate wealth, were the three best
blessings. Anaxandrides demurs (Thesaurus, fr. 1, p. 421]: the
poet was most certainly mad; for a handsome man, if he he
poor, is but an ugly beast.
342
THE .
C
CD
Y
S
GREEK POETS.
A few of the fragments. throw some light upon dramatic
literature. Antiphanes [Poesis, fr. 1, P. 392] compares tragedy
and comedy with covert irony : Blest indeed is the lot of a
tragic play, for, to begin with, the spectators know the whole
legend by the name it bears, and then, when the poet gets tired,
he has only to lift the machine like his finger, and, hocus-pocus,
all is ended ; but in a comedy everything · must be made from
the beginning and explicitly set forth-persons, previous cir-
cumstances, plot, catastrophe, and episode- and if a jot or
tittle is overlooked, Tom or Jerry in the pit will hiss us off
the stage. The cathartic power of tragedy is described by
Timocles [ Dionysiazusa, p. 614], in lines that sound like a
common-sense version of Aristotle : Man is born to suffer, and
there are many painful things in life ; accordingly he has dis-
covered consolation for his sad thoughts in tragedies, which
lure the mind away to think of greater woes, and send the
hearer soothed, and at the same time lessoned, home--the poor
man, for example, finds that Telephus was still more poor, the
sick man sees ·Alcmæon mad, the lame man pities Philoctetes
and forgets himself; if one has lost a son, Niobe is enough to
teach him resignation; and so on through all the calamities of
life : gazing at sufferings worse than our own, we are forced to
be contented.
Some of the most charming of the comic fragments are
descriptions of sleep. A comedy, variously ascribed to Anti-
phanes and Alexis, bears the name of. Sleep, and contains a
dialogue [p. 570), of which the following is a version :
A. Not mortal, nor immortal, but of both
Blent in his being, so that gods nor men
Canclaim him for their own; but ever fresh
He grows, and then dies off again to nothing,
Unseen by any, but well known to all.
B. Lady, you always charm me thus with riddles.
A. Yet what I say is clear and plain enough.
B. What boy is this that has so strange a nature ?
A. Sleep, my daughter, he that cures our ills.
.
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
343
Scarcely less delicate are the two following lines (pp. 749,
607] :
και τι προίκα μόνον έδωκαν ημίν οι θεοί,
τον ύπνον,
and
ύπνος τα μικρά του θανάτου μυστήρια. *
In this connection I may quote a beautiful fragment from
Diphilus (Incert. Fab, fr. 5, p. 647] on Death and Sleep :
There is no life without its share of evil,
Griefs, persecutions, torments, cares, diseases :
Of these death comes to cure us, a physician
Who gives heart's ease by filling us with slumber.
Before engaging in a group of fragments more illustrative of
common Greek life, I will call attention to the examples of
Attic slang furnished by Anaxandrides [Odysseus, fr. 2, p. 424].
To translate them into equivalent English would tax the in-
genuity of Frere ; but it is worth noticing that this argot, like
that of our universities or public schools, is made up of the
most miscellaneous material. Religious ritual, the theatre,
personal peculiarities, the dust that is the plague of Athens,
articles of dress, and current fables all supply their quota. It
is, in fact, the slang of cultivated social life.
Next to cooks, parasites, and fishwives, the demi-monde
of Athens plays the most prominent part in comedy of the
middle period. The following couplet from a play of
Philetärus (Kunegis, fr. 3, p. 477] might be chosen as a motto
for an essay on this subject :
ουκ έτος εταίρας Γερόν έστι πανταχού,
αλλ' ουχί γαμετης ουδαμού της Ελλάδος.
This pithily expresses the pernicious relation in which the
3
TT
TL
* The only free gift which the gods gave men,
To sleep.
Sleep, that prepares our souls for endless night.
New Comedy. See below pp. 345-347.
344
THE GREEK POETS.
.
mistress, (lignified by the name of companion, stood in Attic
Hellas toward the married wife. The superiority of the former
over the latter in popular appreciation is set forth with cynical
directness by Amphis (Athamas, fr. 1, p. 480).
The Greeks had no sort of shame about intersexual rela-
tions; and of this perfect freedom of speech the comic poets
furnish ample illustration in their dealing with the subject of
adultery. There is not here the faintest trace of French
romance. Sentiment of some kind is required to season the
modern breaches of the seventh commandment. To the
Greeks, who felt the minimum of romance in intersexual love,
adultery appeared both dangerous and silly, when the laws of
Solon had so well provided safety-valves for vice.* At the
same time, the pages of the comic poets abound in violent ,
invectives against licentious and avaricious women who were
the ruin of young men. Anaxilas (Neottis, fr. 1, p. 501), in a
voluble invective against “companions” of this sort, can find
no language strong enough. They are serpents, fire-breathing
chimæras, Charybdis and Scylla, sea-dogs, sphinxes, hydras,
winged harpies, and so forth. Alexis describes the arts whereby
they make the most of mean attractions, and suit their style
to the current fashion [Isostasion, fr. 1, p. 537). Epicrates
paints the sordid old age of once-worshipped Lais in language
that might serve as a classic pendent to Villon's Regrets de la
belle Héaulimiere (Antilaïs, fr. 2, p. 510). In no point does the
civilised society of great cities reinain so constant as in the
characteristics of Bohemian life. In this respect Athens seems
to have been much the same as Venice in the sixteenth, and
Paris in the nineteenth century.
What these playwrights say of love in general scarcely differs
from the opinions already quoted from the tragic poets.
III
* The passages alluded to above are Eubulus [Nannion, fr. 1, p. 4491
Xenarchus [Pentathlos, fr. I, p. 624), and Philemon [Adelphoi, fi. 1].
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
345
Amphis (Dithyrambus, fr. 2, p. 482], and Alexis (Helené, p. 532 ;
Traumatias, fr. 2, p. 569 ; Phædrus, fr. 1, p. 571 ; Incert. Fab.
fr. 38, p. 582] may be referred to by the curious. It is
worth while at this point to mention that some valuable
illustrations of the later Attic comedy are to be drawn from
the collectors of characteristics like Theophrastus, and from
rhetoricians who condensed the matter of the comic drama
in their prose. The dialogues of Lucian, the letters of Alci-
phron, the moral treatises of Plutarch and Maximus Tyrius,
in this respect. Much that we have lost in its integrity is
filtered for us through the medium of scholastic literature,
performing for the middle comedy imperfectly that which
Latin literature has done more completely for the new.
In dealing with the old comedy, one reference has been
already made to cooks and cookery-books. In the middle
comedy they assume still more importance, and in the secondary
authors of the new comedy they occupy the foreground of the
picture, thanks to Athenæus. Cooks at Athens formed a class
apart. They had their stations in the market, their schools,
their libraries of culinary lore, their pedantries and pride and
special forms of knavery. The Roman custom of keeping
slaves to cook at home, had not yet penetrated into Greece.
If a man wanted to entertain his guests at a dinner-party, or to
prepare a wedding feast, he had to seek the assistance of a pro-
fessional cordon bleu, and the great chef ensconced himself for
the day, with his subordinates, in the house of his employer.
It is clear that these customs offered situations of rare comic
humour to the playwright. Everybody had at some time felt the
need of the professional cook, and everybody had suffered
under him. In an age, moreover, which was nothing if it was
not literary, the cooks caught the prevailing tone, and professed
their art according to the rules of rhetoric.
346
THE GREEK POETS.
εις τους σοφιστάς τον μάγειρον εγγράφω. *
exclaims one of the characters of Alexis [Milesia, fr. I, p. 551],
after a scientific demonstration of the sin of letting sauces cool.
A paterfamilias in a play of Strato [Phænikides, p. 703] com-
plains that he has brought a “male sphinx” in the shape of a
cook into his house. The fellow will not condescend to use
any but Homeric language, and the master is quite puzzled.
It is in vain that he takes down the Homeric glossary of
Philetas. Even this does not mend matters. The cook is a
more recondite scholar than the grammarian. A professor of
the culinary art in a play of Nicomachus [Eileithuia, p. 717]
explains to his employer the broad scientific basis upon which
the art of cooking rests. Astrology, geometry, medicine, and
natural history are all necessary. Another in Damoxenus
[Syntrophi, p. 697] discusses various schools of philosophy from
the culinary point of view. He begins by saying that he
has spent four talents and nearly three years in the school of
Epicurus, and has learned that a cook who has not mastered
metaphysic is worthless. He must have Democritus and
Epicurus at his finger's ends, understand the elements of fire
and water, comprehend the laws of harmony, and arrive at a
profuund contempt for Stoical self-discipline.t. The study of
cookery books employs as much time and demands as much
enthusiasm as the study of the sages. A cook in Baton
[Euergeta, p. 685] shakes off sleep and trims the midnight oil
that he may meditate the weighty precépts of his masters in
the art. *. Another in Euphron (Ailelphi, p. 679] expounds the
various virtues of his predecessors, and remarks that his own
* Mid the philosophers I count the cook.
+ Compare Sosipater (Katapseudomenos, p. 677] for a similar display
of science ; Euphron [Incert. Fab. fr. 1, p. 682], for a comparison of cooks
with poets ; Hegesippus [Adelphi, p. 676.) for an egregious display of
culinary tall-talk.
I Pollux mentions a list of celebrated authors on cookery.
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
347
.
peculiar merit consists in clever larceny. The same author
makes a cook explain to his pupil the distinctions he
ought to observe in catering for a club and for a wedding-
party (Synephebi, p. 682]. One of the fragments of Menander
turns, finally, upon the art of treating guests of different
nationalities to different dishes [Trophonius, p. 46). In this
passage Menander seems to have had in mind some lines of
Diphilus (Apolipousa, fr. 1, p. 633]. Another curious extract
from the latter poet [Zograplus, fr. 2, p. 638] consists of a long
harangue delivered by a master cook to his protégé, a waiter,
concerning the advantages and disadvantages of various houses
into which he gains admittance by his art. A merchant just
returned from sea, a spendthrift heir, and a leader of the
demi-monde are good customers because of their prodigality.
On the whole, the impression left upon our minds is that, what
with democracy, all-pervading pedantry, and professional pride,
high life below stairs in Athens was even more difficult to
tolerate than it is in England.
To draw a firm line of demarcation between the middle
and the new comedy would be impossible. I have already
expressed my opinion that the comic drama culminated, within
the limits determined for it by antique society, in the art of
Menander. The modulations through which it passed before
attaining to this final stage were numerous, and there are indi-
cations that the types invented for the middle comedy persisted
in the new. What really created the third manner, and carried
the comic art to its perfection, was the appearance of a truly
original genius in the person of Menander. The playwrights
who succeeded, could not fail to feel his influence, and plied
their craft within the sphere he had traced.
Menander was the nephew of Alexis, the pupil of Theo-
phrastus, the exact contemporary and intimate friend of
Epicurus. From his uncle he received the traditions of
dramatic art ; from his master he learned the peripatetic method
348
THE GREEK POETS.
of analysis ; together with his friend he put in practice the
philosophy of drapačia which passes by the name of Epicurean-
ism. His adequacy to the spirit of his own age can only be
paralleled by that which we observe in Sophocles. As Sopho-
cles exactly represents the period of Attic perfection, so the
sadder and more sober years of disillusionment and premature
decay find full expression in Menander. His personal beauty,
the love of refined pleasure that distinguished him in life,
the serene and genial temper of his wisdom, the polish of
his verse, and the harmony of parts he observed in com-
position, justify us in calling Menander the Sophocles of
comedy. Like Sophocles, he showed the originality of his
genius by defining the limits of his art. He perfected the
comic drama by restricting it more closely to real life. The
love-tales—Šptes kai tapoévw goopai—which Anaxandrides is
said to have introduced, became the fixed material of the new
comedy. Menander, however, used this subject-matter less
for sensational effect or sentimental pathos than for the expres-
sion of a deep and tranquil wisdom. If we were to judge by
the fragments transmitted to us, we should have to say that
Menander's comedy was ethical philosophy in verse; so
mature is their wisdom, so weighty their language, and so
grave their tone. The brightness of the beautiful Greek
spirit is sobered down in him almost to sadness. Middle age,
with its maturity, has been substituted for youth with its pas-
sionate intensity. Taking Menander for our guide, we cannot
cry : “ You Greeks are always children." Yet the fact that
Stobæus found him a fruitful source of sententious quotations,
and that alphabetical anthologies were made of his proverbial
sayings, ought not to obscure his fame for drollery and humour.
The highest praise awarded by the Romans to Terence is con-
tained in the apostrophe diinidiate Menander; and it appears
that what the Latin critics thought their poet wanted, was the
salt of Attic wit, the playful ease and lively sparkle of his
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
349
master. It is certain that well-constructed plots, profound
analysis of character, refined humour, and ripe philosophy
were blent and subordinated to the harmony of beauty by
Menander. If old men appreciated his genial or pungent
worldly wisdom, boys and girls read him, we are told, for his
love-stories. One thing at least he never could have been-
loud or vulgar. And for this reason, perhaps, we learn less
from Menander about parasites and cooks than from his fellow
dramatists.
Speaking broadly, the philosophy in vogue at Athens during
the period of the new comedy was what in modern days
is known as Epicureanism. This is proved by the frequent
references made by playwrights to pleasure as the summum
bonum, * as well as by their view of life in general. Yet it would
be unjust to confound the grave and genial wisdom of Menander
with so trivial (a philosophy as that which may be summed up
in the sentence "eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”+ A
fragment from an unknown play of his expresses the pathos of
human existence with a depth of feeling that is inconsistent
with mere pleasure-seeking (p. 56]:
When thou would'st know thyself, what man thou art,
Look at the tombstones as thou passest by :
Within those monuments lie bones and dust
Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride
Rose high because of wealth, or noble blood,
Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb;
Yet none of these things strove for them 'gainst time :
One common death hath ta'en all mortal men.
See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.
Such moralising sounds commonplace to us, who have been
lessoned by the meinento mori of the middle ages. Yet it
* See in particular Hegesippus (Philetæri, p. 676] ; Baton [Andro-
phonus, fr. 1, p. 684, and Synexapaton, fr. 1, p. 686), and Damoxenus
[Syntrophi, pp. 697, 698].
+ The fragment from the 'Alleis, p. 3 of Didot's Menander, is clearly
dramatic, and cannot be taken as an expression of the poet's mind.
350
THE GREEK POETS.
1
should be remembered that, coming from a Greek of Menander's
age, it claims originality of insight, and even now a ring of
freshness as well as of truth marks its absolute sincerity. The
following fragment [p. 58] again expresses Stoical, rather than
Epicurean, philosophy o life :
Being a man, ask not release from pain,
But strength to bear pain, from the gods above ;
If thou wouldst fain escape all woe for aye,
Thou must become god, or, if not, a corpse.
The exquisite lines in which the life of man is compared to
a fair, wherefrom, when he has once seen the shows, he should
be glad to pass away again in quiet, might be adduced to
prove, if it were necessary, that Menander was no mere hedonist.
To the same end might be quoted the passage upon destiny,
which explains that chance and providence are only two names
for one controlling power, face to face with which human fore-
thought is but smoke and nonsense.* There is something
even almost awful in the placid acquiescence of Menander.
He has come to the end of passions and pleasures ; he expects
pain and is prepared to endure it; his happiness consists in
tranquil contemplation of life, from which he no longer hopes
for more than what Balzac calls the à peu près of felicity. +
This tranquillity does not diminish but rather increases his
power of enjoyment and the clearness of his vision. He com-
bines the exact knowledge of the scientific analyst with judicial
impartiality; and yet his worldly wisdom is not cold or dry.
To make selections from fragments, every word whereof is
golden, would be weary work ; nor is it possible to preserve in
translation the peculiar savour of this Attic salt. Menander
should be spared this profanation. Before we leave him, let us
remember what Goethe, a man as like Menander as a modern
man can be, has said of him : “He is thoroughly pure, noble,
* These fragments are from the 'Troßoriuatos, pp. 48, 49.
+ Compare Bowria, fr. 2, p. 9; Mccoyóvns, fr. 1, p. 32; Tinóklov, fr. 8,
P. 42.
D
A
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
351
II
great, and cheerful, and his grace is unattainable. It is to be
lamented that we possess so little of him, but that little is in-
valuable."
The name of Philemon will always be coupled with that of
Menander. In their lifetime they were competitors, and the
Athenian audience preferred Philemon to his rival. Posterity in
ancient days reversed this judgment—with justice, if our scanty
fragments may be taken as sufficient basis for comparison.
The lines in which Philemon praises peace as the Good vainly
sought by sages, and declares that no painter or statuary can
compete with truth, are fair examples of his fluent and at the
same time polished style. * So are the comparison of men with
animals to the disadvantage of the former, and the invective
against Prometheus for dividing human nature into complex
varieties of character.t Yet there is an element of sophistry in
these examples, placing them below the pithy sayings of
Menander. If I were to choose one fragment as illustrative
of Philemon, and at the same time favourable to his reputation,
it should be the following : *
Have faith in God and fear ; seek not to know him ;
For thou wilt gain nought else beyond thy search :
Whether he is or is not, shun to ask :
As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him.
The comedy of Menander determined the form of the
drama in Rome, and, through the influence of Plautus and
Terence upon the renascent culture of the sixteenth century,
fixed the type of comedy in modern Europe. We are often
struck, in reading his fragments, with their modern tone of
thought and feeling. We recognise that here, as in the case of
Molière, is a man who “chastised men by drawing them as
they are,” and that the men whom he chastised, the social
follies he ridiculed, are among us at the present day. This
(
t
* Pp. 114, 115.
* Pp. IIS, 119.
I Incert. Fab. fr. 26, p. 122. Cf. do. fr. 86.
352
THE GREEK POETS.
observation leads us to consider what we mean by modernism,
when we say we find it in ancient literature. Sometimes
the phrase is loosely used to indicate the permanent and
invariable qualities of human nature emergent from local and
temporary conditions. The Chorus in the Agamemnon upon
the beautiful dead warriors in the Trojan war is called modern
because it comes home directly to our own experience.
Not their special mode of sepulture, or the lamentation of
captive women over their heaped-up mounds, or the slaughter
of human victims, or the trophies raised upon their graves, are
touched upon. Such circumstances would dissociate them, if
only accidentally, from our sympathies. It is the grief of those
who stay at home and mourn, the pathos of youth and beauty
wasted, that Æschylus has chosen for his threnos. This
grief and this pathos are imperishable, and are therefore
modern, inasmuch as they are not specifically ancient. Yet
such use of the phrase is inaccurate. We come closer to the
true meaning through the etymology of the word modern,
derived perhaps from modo, or just now; so that what is
modern, is, strictly speaking, that which belongs to the present
moment. From this point of view modernism must continually
be changing, for the moment now is in perpetual flux. Still,
there is one characteristic of the now which comprehends the
modern world, that does not and cannot alter : we are never
free from the consciousness of a long past. Nous vieillards niés
d'hier is essentially true of us; and to this characteristic may
be referred what we mean to express by modernism. When
nations have reached a certain growth and pitch of culture,
certain sentiments, affectations, ways of thinking, modes of
self-expression, habits of life, fashions, and the like, appear as
the outcome of complex and long-established social conditions.
(1
W
existence, the phase in question is sure to manifest itself, if
only the nation lasts for a sufficient length of time. We, who
THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.
353
S
have assuredly arrived at the climacteric in question, when we
recognise the signs of it elsewhere, call them modern; and
nowhere can we find them more emphatically marked than in
the age of Attic ripeness that produced Menander. "O
Menander and life," said the grammarian of Alexandria, “which
of you is the imitator of the other?” This apostrophe might
also have been addressed to Homer; but what made it more
specially applicable to Menander was that, while Homer
invested the profound truths of passion and action with heroic
dignity, Menander drew a no less faithful picture of human life
together with the accidents of civilised and social circumstance.
His delicate delineation of Attic society seemed nearer to the
Alexandrian scholar, because it reproduced, not the remote
conditions of the prehistoric age, but those which are common
to periods of advanced culture. For a like reason he seems to
us more obviously modern than Homer. He contemplates the
drama of human life with eyes and mind not very differently
trained from ours, and from a point of view close to ours.
We must not, however, be blinded by the modernism of
Menander to the fact that ancient comedy differed in many
most important respects from the comedy of modern Europe.
If we only regard dramas of intrigue and manners, such as the
Mandragola of Machiavelli, the Volpone of Ben Jonson, or the
Fourberies de Scapin of Molière, we are indeed dealing with a
type of comedy derived directly through the Latin from the
Greek. But modern comedy does not remain within these
narrow limits. Its highest products are either works of
pure creative fancy, like Shakspeare's Midsuminer Night's
Dream and Fletcher's Pilgrim, or are so closely allied to
tragedy, as in the case of Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old
Debts and Molière's Avare, that only a nominal difference
divides the two species. Nothing remains, either in fragments
or in critical notices, to justify us in believing that the ancients
developed either the serious comedy, essentially tragic in its
A A
1
II.
354
THE GREEK POETS.
ruthless revelation of a hell of evil passion, or the comedy
of pure imagination. Their strict sense of the requirements of
external form excluded the former kind of drama, while for the
creation of the latter the free play of the romantic fancy was
absolutely necessary. The total loss of Agathon, Chæremon,
and other tragic poets of the post-Euripidean period, forces
us to speak with reservation on this topic. There are many
indications of a confusion of types at Athens during the fourth
century B.C. analogous to that which characterises modern
dramatic poetry. Yet it may be asserted with tolerable confi-
dence that, while the Greeks understood by comedy a form of
art that aimed at exciting mirth and was confined within
the limits of domestic life, modern comedy has not unfre-
quently in her higher flights excited the passions of terror
and pity and has quitted the region of diurnal prose for the
dream-world of fairyland. An ancient critic would have pro-
bably observed that Molière's Avare was too seriously sinister
to be rightly called comic, and that the absence of parody or
burlesque in Shakspeare's Tempest excluded that play from
comparison with the Birds of Aristophanes. Here, then, as
elsewhere, we have to notice the greater freedom demanded by
the modern fancy in dealing with the forms of art, together with
the absence of those firmly-traced critical canons to which the
antique genius willingly submitted. Modern art in general,
when it is not directly and consciously imitative of antique
models, demands a more complete liberation of the spiritual
element. We cannot avoid les défauts de nos qualités. This
superior freedom involves a bewildering complexity and inter-
mixture of the serious and the ludicrous, the lyrical and the
dramatic, the positive and the fanciful, defying classifica-
tion, and in its very caprice approximating to the realities
of existence.
355
CHAPTER XI.
HERO AND LEANDER.
Virgil's Mention of this Tale.-Ovid and Statius. --Autumnal Poetry.
Confusion between the Mythical Musæus and the Grammarian.—The
Introduction of the Poem.-Analysis of the Story.—Hallam's Judg-
ment on Marlowe's Hero and Leander.—Comparison of Marlowe and
Musæus. —Classic and Romantic Art.
Quid juvenis, magnum cui versat in ossibus ignem
Durus amor? Nempe abruptis turbata procellis
Nocte natat cæca serus freta ; quem super ingens
Porta tonat cæli, et scopulis inlisa reclamant
Æquora ; nec miseri possunt revocare parentes,
Nec moritura super crudeli funere virgo.*
This is the first allusion to a story, rather Roman than Greek,
which was destined to play an important part in literature.
The introduction of the fable without names into a poem like
the third Georgic shows, however, that the pathetic tale of
Hero and Leander's love had already found familiar represen-
tation in song or sculpture or wall-painting before Virgil
touched it with the genius that turned all it touched to gold.
Ovid went further, and placed the maiden of Sestos among the
heroines for whom he wrote rhetorical epistles in elegiac verse.
AT1
* - What of the youth, whose marrow the fierceness of Love has
turned to flame? Late in the dark night he swims o’er seas boiling with
bursting storms; and over his head the huge gates of the sky thunder ;
and the seas, dashing on the rocks, call to him to return : nor can the
thought of his parents' agony entice him back, nor of the maiden doomed
to a'cruel death upon his corpse."-Virg. Georg. iii. 258. Translated by
an Oxford Graduate.
A A 2
356
THE GREEK POETS.
·
In Statius, again, we get a glimpse of the story translated from
the sphere of romance into the region of antique mythology.
To the hero Admetus Adrastus gives a mantle dyed with Tyrian
purple, and embroidered with Leander's death. There flows
the Hellespont; the youth is vainly struggling with the swollen
waves ; and there stands Hero on her tower; and the lamp
already flickers in the blast that will destroy both light and
lives at once. It still remained for a grammarian of the fifth
century, Musæus, of whom nothing but the name is known, to
give the final form to this poem of love and death. The spring-
tide of the epic and the idyll was over. When Musæus
entered the Heliconian meadows to pluck this last pure rose of
Greek summer, autumn had already set its silent finger on
“bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." His
little poem of three hundred and forty hexameters is both an
epic and an idyll. While maintaining the old heroic style of
Theocritus in studied descriptions, dactylic cadences, and brief
reflective sayings, that reveal the poet's mind. ' Like some
engraved gems, the latest products of the glyphic art, this
poem adjusts the breadth of the grand manner to the small
scale required by jewellery, treating a full subject in a narrow
space, and in return endowing slight motives with dignity by
nobleness of handling.
Calm mornings of sunshine visit us at times in early
November, appearing like glimpses of departed spring amid
the wilderness of wet and wirdy days that lead to winter.
It is pleasant, when these interludes of silvery light occur,
to ride into the woods and see how wonderful are all the
colours of decay. Overhead, the elms and chestnuts hang
their wealth of golden leaves, while the beeches darken into
russet tones, and the wild cherry glows like blood-red wine.
In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet hips are wreathed with
hoary clematis or necklaces of coral briony berries; the
HERO AND LEANDER,
357
brambles burn with many coloured flames; the dog-wood is
bronzed to purple ; and here and there the spindle-wood puts
forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds, on delicate frail twigs.
Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the brown brake rises to our
knees as we thread the forest paths. Everything is beautiful
with beauty born of over-ripeness and decay. Green summer
comes no more this year, at any rate. In front are death and
bareness and the winter's frost.
Such a day of sunlight in the November of Greek poetry is
granted to us by Hero and Leander. The grace of the poem is
soul-compelling - indescribable for sweetness. Yet every
epithet, each exquisite conceit, and all the studied phrases that
yield charm, remind us that the end has come. There is pecu-
liar pathos in this autumnal loveliness of literature upon the
wane. In order to appreciate it fully, we must compare the
mellow tints of Musæus with the morning glory of Homer or
of Pindar. We then find that, in spite of so much loss, in spite
of warmth and full light taken from us, and promise of the
future exchanged for musings on the past, a type of beauty
unattainable by happier poets of the spring has been re-
vealed. Not to accept this grace with thanksgiving, because,
forsooth, December, that takes all away, is close at hand, would
be ungrateful.*
Yet, though. clearly perceptible by the æsthetic sense, it is
far less easy to define its quality than to niiss it altogether.
* It is not only in Musaus that we trace a fascination comparable to
that of autumn tints in trees. The description by Ausonius of Love caught
and crucified in the garden of Proserpine, which contains the two following
lines ;
Inter arundineasque comas gravidumque papaver
Et tacitos sine labe lacus sine murmure rivos :
might be quoted as an instance of the charm. Indeed, it pervades the
best Latin poetry of the silver age, the Epistles of Philostratus, many of
the later Greek epigrams, and all the Greek romances, with Daphnis and
Chloe at their head.
358
· THE GREEK POETS.
We do not gain much, for example, by pointing to the re-
ininiscences of bygone phraseology curiously blended with new
forms of language, to the artificial subtleties of rhythm wrung
from well-worn metres, to the richness of effect produced by
conscious use of telling images, to the iridescent shimmer of
mixed metaphors, compound epithets, and daring tropes, con-
trasted with the undertone of sadness which betrays the idle
singer of an empty day," although these elements are all com-
bined in the autumnal style. Nor will it profit us to distinguish
this kind of beauty from the beauté maladive of morbid art. So
difficult, indeed, is it to seize its character with any certainty,
that in the case of Hero and Leander the uncritical scholars of the
Greek Renaissance mistook the evening for the morning star of
Greek poetry, confounding Musæus the grammarian with the
semi-mythic bard of the Orphean age. When Aldus Manutius
conceived his great idea of issuing Greek literature entire from
the Venetian press, he put forth Hero and Leander first of all in
1498, with a preface that ran as follows :—“I was desirous
that Musæus, the most ancient poet, should form a prelude to
Aristotle and the other sages who will shortly be imprinted at
the elder Scaliger saw no reason to suspect that the gram-
marian's studied verse was not the first clear wood-note of the
Eleusinian singer. What renders this mistake pardonable is
the fact that, however autumnal may be the poem's charm, no
point of the genuine Greek youthfulness of fancy has been
lost. Through conceits, confusions of diction, and over-sweet-
ness of style, emerges the clear outline which characterised
Greek art in all its periods. Both persons and situations are
plastically treated subjected, that is to say, to the conditions
best fulfilled by sculpture. The emotional element is adequate
to the imaginative presentation ; the feeling penetrates the
form and gives it life, without exceeding the just limits
which the form imposes. The importance of this observation
HERÒ AND LEANDER.
*359
II
will appear when we examine the same poem romantically
handled by our own Marlowe. If nothing but the Hero
and Leander of Musæus had survived the ruin of Greek litera-
ture, we should still be able to distinguish how Greek poets
dealt with their material, and to point the difference between
the classic and the modern styles.
What is truly admirable in this poem, marking it as
genuinely Greek, -is the simplicity of structure, clearness of
motives, and unaffected purity of natural feeling. The first
fifteen lines set forth, by way of proem, the whole subject :-
είπε, θεά, κρυφίων επιμάρτυρα λύχνον ερώτων,
και νύχιον πλωτήρα θαλασσοπόρων υμεναίων,
και γάμον αχλυόεντα, τον ουκ ίδεν άφθιτος Ηώς,
και Σηστών και 'Αβυδον όπη γάμος έννυχος Ηρούς.*
Here, perhaps, a modern poet might have stayed his hand :
not so Musæus ; he has still to say that he will tell of Leander's
death, and, in propounding this part of his theme, to speak
once more about the lamp :-
λύχνον, έρωτος άγαλμα, τον ώφελεν αιθέριος Ζεύς
έννύχιον μετ' άεθλον άγειν ες ομήγυριν άστρων
και μιν επικλήσαι νυμφοστόλον άστρον ερώτων.ή
Seven lines were enough for Homer while explaining the
subject of the Iliad. Musæus, though his poem is so short,
wants more than twice as many. He cannot resist the tempta-
tion to introduce decorative passages like the three lines just
quoted, which are, moreover, appropriate in a poem that aims
at combining the idyllic and epic styles.
After the proem we enter on the story. Sestos and Abydos
* Tell, goddess, of the lamp, the confidant of secret love, and of the
youth who swam by night to find his bridal-bed beyond the sea, and of the
darkened marriage on which immortal morning never shone, and of Sestos
and Abydos, where was the midnight wedding of Hero.
Love's ornament, which Zeus in heaven, after the midnight contest,
should have brought into the company of stars, and called it the bride-
adorning star of love.
360 :
THE GREEK POETS.
are divided by the sea, but Love has joined them with an arrow
from his bow :-
ήίθεον φλέξας και παρθένον· ούνομα δ' αυτών
εμερόεις τε Λέανδρος έην και παρθένος Ηρώ.*
Hero dwelt at Sestos ; Leander lived at Abydos; and both
were “exceeding fair stars of the two cities.” By the sea, out-
side the town of Sestos, Hero had a tower, where she abode in
solitude with one old servant, paying her daily orisons to Dame
Kupris, whose maiden votary she was, and sprinkling the
altars of Love with incense to propitiate his powerful deity.
“Still even thus she did not shun his fire-breathing shafts ;”
for so it happened that when the festival of Adonis came
round, and the women flocked into the town to worship, and
the youths to gaze upon the maidens, Hero passed forth that
day to Venus' temple, and all the men beheld her beauty, and
praised her for a goddess, and desired her for a bride. Leander,
too, was there; and Leander could not content himself, like the
rest, with distant admiration :-
Ele dé uly tóre báußos, åvaideln, Tpóuos, aidós.
έτρεμε μέν κραδιήν, αιδώς δέ μιν είχεν αλώναι:
Báußee eldos á plotov, špws 8' å tevOO0lo ev aidá.
θαρσαλέως δ' υπ' έρωτος αναιδείην αγαπάζων
ηρέμα ποσσίν έβαινε και αντίoν ίστατο κούρης.
He met the maiden face to face, and his eyes betrayed his
passion; and she too felt the power of love in secret, and re-
pelled him not, but by her silence and tranquillity encouraged
him to hope :-
* By setting on fire a youth and a maiden, of whom the names were
love-inspiring Leander and virgin Hero.
of Then came upon him astonishment, audacity, trembling, shame; in
his heart he trembled, and shame seized him at having been made captive :
yet he marvelled at the faultiess form, and love kept shame away; then
manfully by love's guidance he embraced audacity, and gently stepped
and stood before the girl.
HERO AND LEANDER.
361
8 8ěvdo. Quudy isyon,
όττι πόθον συνέηκε και ουκ άπεσείσατο κούρη.*
So far one hundred and nine lines of the poem have
carried us. The following one hundred and eleven lines,
nearly a third of the whole, are devoted to the scene in the
temple between Hero and her lover. This forms by far the
most beautiful section of the tale ; for the attention is concen-
trated on the boy and girl between whom love at first sight has
just been born. In the twilight of early evening, in the re-
cesses of the shrine, they stand together, like fair forms carved
upon a bas-relief. Leander pleads and Hero listens. The
man's wooing, he maiden's shrinking; his passionate insis-
tance, her gradual yielding ; are described in a series of ex-
quisite and artful scenes, wherein the truth of a natural situa-
tion is enhanced by rare and curious touches. With genuine
Greek instinct the poet has throughout been mindful to present
both lovers clearly to the eye, so that a succession of pictures
support and illustrate the dialogue, which rises at the climax to
a love-duet. The descriptive lines are very simple, like
these :
ηρέμα μέν θλίβων ροδοειδέα δάκτυλα κούρης
Boo Gödev •ơnovax: 6v 10éợparov. * Bề TLT7,
οιά τε χωομένη, ροδέην εξέσπασε χείρα.f
or again:-
Trapdevikas 8 eŭoduoy èűxpoov aŭx éva kúras.I
or yet again :
όφρα μέν ούν ποτί γαίαν έχεν νεύουσαν οπωπήν,
τόφρα δε και Λείανδρος έρωμανέεσσι προσώποις
ου κάμεν εισορόων απαλόχρουν αυχένα κούρης.
* And he within himself was glad at heart, because the maiden under-
stood his love, and cast it not from her.
+ Gently pressing the rosy fingers of the maiden, from the depths of
his breast he sighed ; but she, in silence, as though angered, drew her rosy
I Kissing the fair perfumed maiden's neck.
$ The while she bent her glance upon the ground, Leander tired not
with impassioned eyes of gazing at the maiden's neck.
362
· THE GREEK POETS.
We do not want more than this : it is enough to animate
the plastic figures presented to our fancy. Meanwhile Hero
cannot resist the pleadings of Leander, and her yielding is
described with beautiful avoidance of superfluous sentiment :-
ήδη και γλυκύπικρον εδέξατο κέντρον ερώτων,
θέρμετο δε κραδίην γλυκερω πυρί παρθένος Ηρώ
κάλλεϊ δ' ίμερό εντος ανεπτοίητο Λεάνδρου.*
A modern poet would have sought to spiritualise the
situation : in the hands of the Greek artist it remains quite.
natural ; it is the beauty of Leander that persuades and
subdues Hero to love, and the agitations of her soul are ex-
pressed in language which suggests a power that comes upon
her from without. At the same time there is no suspicion of
levity or sensuality. Hero cannot be mistaken for a light of
love. When the times comes, she will break her heart upon
the dead body of the youth who wins her by his passion and his
beauty. Leander has hitherto been only anxious to possess her
the fight, bethinks her with a woman's wisdom of ways and
herself in wedlock; and what does he know about her; and
how can they meet? Therefore she tells him her name and
describes her dwelling :-
πύργος δ' άμφιβόητος εμάς δόμος ουρανομήκης
και ένι ναιετάουσα συν αμφιπόλω τινι μούνη
Σηστιάδος προ πόληος υπέρ βαθυκύμονας όχθας
γείτονα πόντον έχω στυγεραις βουλήσι τοκήων.
ουδέ μοι εγγύς έασιν ομήλικες, ουδέ χορείαι
vidéon Tapeantv' đem sº avù vócTa cai mô
εξ αλός ήνεμοέντος επιβρέμει ούασιν ήχή.t
* Now she, too, received into her soul the bitter-sweet sting of love, and
the heart of maiden Hero was warmed with delicious fire, and before the
beauty of love-inspiring Leander she quailed.
of A tower, beset with noises of the sea, and high as heaven, is my
home : there I dwell, together with one only servant, before the city-walls
HERO AND LEANDER.
363
Having said so much, shame overtakes her; she hides her
face, and blames her over-hasty tongue. But Leander, pon-
dering how he shall win the stakes of love proposed to him—Tūs
kɛv špwros deɛúpelev årūvais helped at last by Love him-
self, the wounder and the healer of the heart in one. He bursts
into a passionate protestation : “ Maiden, for the love of thee
I will cross the stormy waves; yea, though the waters blaze
with fire, and the sea be unsailed by ships. Only do thou light
a lamp upon thy tower to guide me through the gloom :-
όφρα νοήσας
έσσομαι ολκάς "Έρωτος έχων σέθεν αστέρα λύχνον.*
Seeing its spark, I shall not need the north star or Orion. And
now, if thou wouldst have my name, know that I am Leander,
husband of the fair-crowned Hero."
and seasons of their future meeting. Then Hero retires to her
tower, and Leander returns to Abydos by the Hellespont:-
παννυχίων δ' οάρων κρυφίους ποθέοντες αέθλους
πολλάκις ηρήσαντο μολεϊν θαλαμηπόλον όρφνην.
It may be said in passing that this parting-scene, though
briefly narrated, is no less well conducted, wohl motivirt, as
Goethe would have phrased it, than are all the other incidents
of the poem (lines 221–231). The interpretation of the passage
turns upon the word Tayvvxíðas, in line 225, which must here
be taken to mean the vigil before marriage.
At this point the action turns. Musæus, having to work
of Sestos, above the deep-waved shore, with ocean for my neighbour :
such is the stern will of my parents. Nor are there maidens of my age to
keep me company, nor dances of young men close by ; but everlastingly
at night and morn a roaring from the windy sea assails my ears.
* Minding it, I shall be a ship of love, having thy lamp for star.
+ In their desire for the hidden lists of midnight converse, they often-
times prayed that darkness should descend and lead them to the bridal-bed.
364
THE GREEK POETS.
within a narrow space, has made the meeting and the dialogue
between the lovers disproportionate to the length of the whole
piece. In this way he secures our sympathy for the youth and
maid, whom we learn to know as living persons. He can now
afford to drop superfluous links, and to compress the tale
within strict limits. The cunning of his art is shown by
the boldness of the transition to the next important incident.
The night and the day are supposed to have passed. We hear
as though the old thread had been broken, and another had
been spun ; and yet there is no sense of interruption :-
ήδη κυανόπεπλος ανέδραμε νυκτός ομίχλη
ανδράσιν ύπνον άγουσα και ου ποθέοντι Λεάνδρω.*
The lover's attitude of suspense, waiting at nightfall on the
beach for Hero's lamp to burn, is so strongly emphasised in
the following lines that we are made to feel how anxiously and
yearningly the hours of daylight had been spent by him. No
sooner does the spark shine forth than Leander darts forward
to the waves, and, having prayed to Love, leaps lively in :-
&ς είπών μελέων έρατών απεδύσατο πέπλον
å upotépals tandumo lv, êm děoply$e kapýva,
nïóvos d@pto, déjas děpølve Bandoon,
λαμπoμένου δ' έσπευδεν αεί κατεναντία λύχνου
αυτος εων ερέτης αυτόστολος αυτόματος νηυς.
Hero meanwhile is on the watch, and when her bridegroom
gains the shore, breathless and panting, he finds himself within
her arms:-
* Now the dark-mantled gloom of night rose over earth, bringing
to mortals sleep, but not to longing Leander.
p So having said, he withdrew from his lovely limbs the mantle with
both hands, and bound it on his head, and leapt from the shore, and cast
his body on the sea, and ever fared face-forward to the burning lamp,
himself the oarsman, self-impelled, a self-directed ship,
HERO AND LEANDER.
365
εκ δε θυράων
νυμφίον ασθμαίνοντα περιπτύξασα σιωπή
αφροκόμους ραθέμιγγας έτι στάζοντα θαλάσσης
ήγαγε νυμφοκόμοιο μυχούς επί παρθενεώνος. *
There she washes the stain and saltness of the sea from his
body, and anoints him with perfumed oil, and leads him with
tender words of welcome to the marriage-bed. The classic poet
feels no need of apologising for the situation, nor does he care to
emphasise it. The whole is narrated with Homeric directness,
contrasting curiously with the romantic handling of the same
incident by Marlowe. Yet the point and pathos of clan-
destine marriage had to be expressed; and to a Greek the
characteristic circumstance was the absence of customary
ritual. This defect, while it isolated the lovers from domestic
sympathies and troops of friends, attracted attention to them-
selves, and gave occasion to some of the best verses in the
poem :- . .
ήν γάμος αλλ' αχόρευτος· έην λέχος αλλ' άτερ ύμνων:
ου Ζυγίην "Ηρην τις επευφήμησεν αοιδος:
ου δαίδων ήστραπτέ σέλας θαλαμηπόλον ευνών:
ουδέ πολυσκάρθμω τις επεσκίρτησε χορείη,
ουχ υμέναιον άεισε πατήρ και πότνια μήτηρ
αλλά λέχος στoρέσασα τελεσσιγάμοισιν εν ώραις
σιγή παστόν έπηξεν, ενυμφοκόμησε δ' ομίχλη,
και γάμος ήν απάνευθεν αειδομένων υπεμαίων.
νύξ μέν έην κείνοισι γαμοστόλος, ουδέ ποτ' ήώς
νύμφιον είδε Λεάνδρον αριγνώτοις ένι λέκρτοις·
νήχετο δ' αντιπόροιo πάλιν ποτί δήμον 'Αβύδου
έννυχίων ακόρητος έτι πνείων υμεναίων.
“Ηρώ δ' έλκεσίπεπλος, εους λήθουσα τοκας,
παρθένος ηματίη νυχίη γυνή. 'Αμφότεροι δε
πολλάκις ήρήσαντο κατελθέμεν ες δύσιν ήώ.f
* From the door she passed, and silently embraced her panting
bridegroom, dripping with the foamy sprinklings of the sea, and led him
to the bride-adorning chamber of her maiden hours.
+ There was wedding, but without the ball; there was bedding but
without the hymn : no singer invoked bridal Hera ; no blaze of torches lit
366
THE GREEK POETS.
So the night passed, and through many summer nights they
tasted the sweets of love, xảoepolow ialvóuevol jelésoolv. But
soon came winter, and with winter the sea grew stormy, and
ships were drawn up on the beach, and the winds battled with
each other in the Hellespontine Straits ; and now Hero should
have refrained from lighting her lanmp, μινυώριον αστέρα
Téktpww: but love and fate compelled her, and the night of
tempest and of destiny arrived. Manfully Leander wrestled
with the waves; yet the storm grew stronger ; his strength
ebbed away; an envious gust blew out the guiding lamp ; and
so he perished in the waters. The picture of his death-struggle
is painted with brief incisive touches. The last two lines have
a strange unconscious pathos in them, as though the life and
love of a man were no better than a candle :
και δή λύχνον άπιστον απέσβεσε πικρός αήτης
και ψυχήν και έρωτα πολυτλήτοιο Λεάνδρου.*
What remains to be told is but little. The cold grey dawn
went forth upon the sea; how grey and comfortless they know
who, after lonely watching through night hours, have seen dis-
coloured breakers beat upon a rainy shore. Hero from her
turret gazed through the twilight; and there at her feet lay
dead Leander, bruised by the rocks and buffeted by slapping
waves. She uttered no cry; but tore the embroidered raiment
on her breast, and flung herself, face-downward, from the lofty
the nuptial couch, nor did the youths and maicens move in myriad mazes
of the dance : father and mother sang no marriage chant. But silence
spread the bed and strewed the couch, and darkness decked the bride ;
without hymns of Hymen was the wedding. Night was their bridesmaid,
nor did dawning see Leander in the husband's room. He swam again
across the straits to Abydos, still breathing of bridal in his soul unsatisfied
of joy. Hero, meanwhile, by day a maid, at night a wife, escaped her
parents' eyes : both bride and bridegroom oftentimes desired that day
should set.
* And so the bitter blast extinguished the faithless lamp and the life and
love of suffering Leander.
HERO AND LEANDER.
- 367
tower. In their death, says the poet after his own fashion, they
were not divided :-
αλλήλων δ' απόναντο και εν πυμάτω περ ολέθρω.*
This line ends the poem.
This is but a simple story. Yet for that very reason it is one
of those stories which can never grow old. As Leigh Hunt,
after some unnecessary girding at scholars and sculptors,
has sung :-
I never think of poor Leander's fate,
And watched the dreadful dawning of the light,
But as I would of two that died last night.
So might they now have lived, and so have died ;
The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side.
· What makes it doubly touching is, that this poem of young love
and untimely fate was born, like a soul “ beneath the ribs of
death,” in the dotage and decay of Greek art. I do not know
whether it has often been noticed that the qualities of romantic
grace and pathos were chiefly appreciated by the Greeks in
their decline. It is this circumstance, perhaps, which caused
the tales of Hero and Leander and Daphnis and Chloe to attract
so much attention at the time of the Renaissance. Modern
students found something akin to their own modes of feeling
in the later classics. Are not the colours of the autumn in
harmony with the tints of spring ?
The judicious Hallam, in a famous passage of the History
of Literature, records his opinion that “it is impossible not to
wish that Shakespeare had never written” the Sonnets dedicated
to Mr. W. H. With the same astounding åretpokalía, or
insensibility to beauty, he ventures to dismiss the Hero and
Leander of Marlowe as “a paraphrase, in every sense of the
epithet, of the most licentious kind.” Yet this severe high-
* They enjoyed each other even thus in the last straits of doom.
368
THE GREEK POETS.
priest of decorum has devoted three pages and a half to the
remarks with justice, “ more than in any other tragedy, the
mere passion of love; love, in all its vernal promise, full of
hope and innocence, ardent beyond all restraint of reason, but
tender as it is warm.” What can be said of the critical percep-
tions of one who finds so strongly marked a moral separa-
tion between the motives of Marlowe's poem and Shakespeare's
play?
The truth is that the words used by Hallam to characterise
the subject of Romeo and Juliet are almost exactly applicable
to Hero and Leander, after due allowance made for the dis-
tinction between the styles of presentation proper to a tragedy
in the one case, and in the other to a narrative poem. Re-
flecting upon this, it is probable that the impartial student will
side with Swinburne when he writes : “I must avow that I
want and am well content to want the sense, whatever it be,
which would enable me to discern more offence in that lovely
picture of the union of two lovers in body as in soul than I
can discern in the parting of Romeo and Juliet.”
To discuss the morality of Marlowe’s Muse is, however,
alien to the present purpose. What has to be brought plainly
forward is the artistic difference between the methods of
Marlowe and Musæus. Hallam in calling the English Hero
and Leander a "paraphrase " was hardly less wrong than
Warton, who called it a “translation.” It is in fact a free and
independent reproduction of the story first told by Musæus.
Without the poem of Musæus the poem of Marlowe would not
have existed; but though the incidents remain unchanged, the
whole manner of presenting then, of selecting characteristic
details, and of guiding the sympathy and imagination of the
reader is altered. In other words, the artistic consciousness
had shifted its point of gravity between the ages of Musæus
and Marlowe, and a new poem was produced to satisfy the
HERO AND LEANDER.
369
new requirements of the æsthetic ideal. Musæus, as we have
already seen, thought it essential to set forth the whole of his
subject at the opening in its minutest details : Sestos and
Abydos, the marriage bed on which the morning never shone,
the swimming feat of Leander, and the lamp, which was the
star of love, till envious fate blew out both love and light and
life itself together, all find their proper place in the proemium.
In conducting the narrative he is careful to preserit each
motive, as it were, from the outside, to cast the light of his
imagination upon forms rendered as distinct as possible in
their plasticity, just as the sun's light falls upon and renders
visible a statue. There is no attempt to spiritualise the
subject, to flood it with emotion, thought, and passion, to
pierce into its inmost substance, to find the analogue to its
implicit feeling in the depth of his own soul, and, by expressing
that, to place his readers at the point of view from which he
his personality, leaving the animated figures he has put upon
the stage of fancy, the carefully-prepared situations that
display their activity, and the words invented for them, to tell
the tale. He can therefore afford to be both simple and
direct, brief in descriptive passages, and free from psychological
digressions. A few gnomic sentences, here and there intro-
duced, suffice to maintain the reflective character of a medi-
tated work of art. All this is in perfect concord with the
Greek conception of art, the sculpturesque ideal.
Marlowe takes another course. The three hundred and
forty lines, which were enough for Musæus, are expanded
into six sestiads or cantos, each longer than the whole
Greek poem.* Yet to this lengthy narrative no prelude is
prefixed. Unlike Musæus, Marlowe rushes at once into the
story. He does not wait to propound it, or to talk about the
* Marlowe lived to write only the two first sestiads.
II.
BB
370
THE GREEK POETS.
fatal lamp, or to describe Hero's tower. That Hero lived in
a tower at all, we only discover by accident on the occasion
of her visit to the shrine of Venus, and Leander makes
his first appearance there, guided by no lamp, but by his
own audacity. On the other hand, all descriptions that set
free the poet's feeling, are enormously extended. The one
epithet inspóels, or love-inspiring, for instance, which satisfied
Musæus, is amplified by Marlowe through forty lines throbbing
with his own deep sense of adolescent beauty. The temple
of Venus, briefly alluded to by Musæus, is painted in detail
by Marlowe, with a luminous account of its frescoes, bas-reliefs,
and pavements. The first impassioned speech of Leander
runs at one breath over ninety-six verses, while mythological
episodes and moral reflections are freely interpolated. All the
situations, however delicate, so long as they have raised the
poet's sense of beauty to enthusiasm, are treated with elaborate
and loving sympathy. In presenting them with their fulness
of emotion to the reader, Marlowe taxes his inexhaustible
invention to the utmost, and permits the luxuriance of his
and air up to the empyrean, where it moves at ease, sometimes
betrays him into what we know as faults of taste. It is as
though the love-ache, grown intense, had passed over for a
moment into pain, as though the music, seeking for subtler
and still more subtle harmonies, had touched at times on
discord.
Compared with the Greek poem, this Hero and Leander
of Marlowe is like some radiant double rose placed side by
side with the wild briar whence it sprang by cultivation.
The petals have been multiplied, the perfume deepened and
intensified, the colours varied in their inodulations of a single
tint. At the same time something in point of simple form has
been sacrificed. The first thing, then, that strikes us in
turning from Musæus to Marlowe is that what the Greek poet
HERO AND LEANDER.
371
considered all-important in the presentation of his subject, has
been dropped or negligently handled by the English, while the
English poet has been prodigal in places where the Greek
displayed his parsimony. On looking further, we discover that
the modern poet, in all these differences, aims at effects not
realised by ancient art. The life and play and actual pulsa-
tions of emotion have to be revealed, both as they exist in
the subject of the poem and as the poet finds them in his own
soul. Everything that will contribute to this main achieve-
ment is welcomed by the poet, and the rest rejected. All the
motives which had an external statuesque significance for the
Greek must palpitate with passion for the English. Those
that cannot clothe themselves with spirit as with a garment
are abandoned. He wants to inake his readers feel, not see :
if they see at all, they must see through their emotion; whereas
the emotion of the Greek was stirred in him through sight.
We do not get very far into the matter, but we gain something,
perhaps, by adding that, as sculpture is to painting and music,
so is the poetry of Musæus to that of Marlowe. In the former,
feeling is subordinate or at most but adequate to form : in the
latter, Gefühl ist alles.
What has just been advanced is stated broadly, and is
therefore only accurate in a general sense. For while the
**
.
so the English Leander offers fully perfected pictures of Titian-
esque beauty. Still, this does not impair the strength of the
position : what is really instructive in the comparative study
of the two tales of Hero and Leander will always be that the
elder poem, in spite of its autumnal quality, is classical, the
younger, in spite of its most utter Paganism, is romantic. To
enter into minute criticism of Marlowe's poem would be out
of place here; and, were it included in my programme, I
should shrink from this task as a kind of profanation. Those
who have the true sense of ideal beauty, and who can rise by
в в 2
372
THE GREEK POETS.
sympathy above the commonplaces of everyday life, into the free
atmosphere of art, which is nature permeated with emotion, will
never forget the prolonged, recurring, complex cadences of that
divinest dithyramb poured forth from a young man's soul.
Every form and kind of beauty is included in his adoration, and
the whole is spiritualised with imagination, ardent and passionate
beyond all words.
e
:
373
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
Sculpture, the Greek Art par excellence. — Plastic Character of the Greek
Genius.—Sterner Aspects of Greek Art.-Subordination of Pain and
Discord to Harmony. - Stoic-Epicurean Acceptance of Life. --Sad-
ness of Achilles in the Odyssey,—Endurance of Odysseus. -Myth of
Prometheus.—Sir H. S. Maine on Progress. - The Essential Relation
of all Spiritual Movement to Greek Culture. — Value of the Moral
Attitude of the Greeks for us. - Three Points of Greek Ethical Inferi-
urity.—The Conception of Nature.-—The System of Marcus Aurélius.
-Contrast with the Imitatio Christi. — The Modern Scientific Spirit. -
Indestructible Elements in the Philosophy of Nature.
I MAY, perhaps, be allowed in this last chapter to quit the im-
personal style of the Essayist and to refer to some strictures
passed upon the earlier series of my studies of Greek Poets.
Critics, for whose opinion I feel respect, have observed that,
in what I wrote about the genius of Greek Art at the end of
that volume, I neglected to notice the sterner and more serious.
qualities of the Greek spirit, that I exaggerated the importance
of sculpture as the characteristic Hellenic art, and that I did
not make my meaning clear about the value of the study of
Greek modes of thought and feeling for men living in our
scientific age. To take up these topics in detail, and to.
answer some of these indictments, is my purpose in the present
chapter. They are so varied that I may fairly be excused for
adopting a less methodical and connected development of
ideas than ought to be demanded from a man who is not
answering objections, but preferring opinions.
Boirsveinn
THE GREEK POETS.
. To take the least important of these questions first : why is
sculpture selected as the most eminent and characteristic art
of the Hellenic race, when so much remains of their poetry,
and of prose work in the highest sense artistic? To my mind
the answer is simple enough. One modern nation has pro-
duced a drama which can compete with that of Athens.
Another has carried painting to a perfection we have. little
reason to believe it ever reached in Greece. A third has
satisfied the deepest and the widest needs of our emotional
nature, by such music as no Greek, in all probability, had any
opportunity of hearing. In the last place, Gothic architecture,
the common heritage of all the European nations of the modern
world, is at least as noble as the architecture of the ancients.
survives of Pheidias and Praxiteles, of Polycletus and Scopas,
and of their schools, transcends in beauty and in power, in
freedom of handling and in purity of form, the very highest
work of Donatello, Della Quercia, and Michael Angelo. We
have, therefore, a primâ facie right to lay great stress on sculp-
ture as a Greek art, just as we have the primâ facie right to
select painting as an Italian art. The first step taken from
this position leads to the reflection that, within the sphere of
art at any rate, the one art which a nation has developed as its
own, to which it has succeeded in giving unique perfection,
and upon which it has impressed the mark of its peculiar
character, will lend the key for the interpretation of its whole
æsthetic temperament. The Italians cannot have been singu-
· larly and pre-eminently successful in painting without display-
ing some of the painter's qualities in all their artistic products.
The Greeks cannot have made sculpture unapproachably
complete without possessing a genius wherein the sculptor's
bent of mind was specially predominant; and thus infusing
somewhat of the sculpturesque into the sister arts. Painting
for Italy and sculpture for Greece may be fairly taken as the
CONCLUSION.
375
fully-formed and flawless crystals in a matrix of congenial, but
not equally developed, matter. The ideal to which either race
aspired instinctively in all its art was realised to the fullest,
by the one in sculpture, by the other in painting. So we are
justified in testing the whole of their æsthetic products by the
laws of painting and of sculpture respectively. This, broadly
stated, without economy of phrase or cautious reservation, is
the reason why a student who has tried, however imperfectly,
to assimilate to himself the spirit displayed in the surviving
monuments of Greek art, is brought back at every turn to
sculpture as the norm and canon of them all.
Whatever knowledge he may gain about the circumstances
of Greek life and the peculiar temper of Greek thought,
will only strengthen his conviction. The national games, the
religious pageants, the theatrical shows, and the gymnastic
exercises of the Greeks were sculpturesque. The conditions of
their speculative thought in the first dawn of civilised self-
consciousness, when spiritual energy was still conceived as
incarnate only in a form of flesh, and the soul was inseparable
from the body except by an unfamiliar process of analysis,
harmonised with the art which interprets the mind in all its
movements by the features and the limbs. Their careful
choice of distinct motives in poetry, their appeal in all imagi-,
native work to the inner eye that sees, no less than to the
sympathies that thrill, their abstinence from descriptions of
landscape and analyses of emotion, their clear and massive
character-delineation, point to the same conclusion. Every-
thing tends to confirm the original perception that the sim-
plicity of form, the purity of design, the self-restraint, and the
parsimony both of expression and material, imposed by sculpture
on the artist, were observed as laws by the Greeks in their
mental activity, and more especially in their arts. It is - this
which differentiates them from the romantic nations. When,
therefore, we undertake to speak of the genius of Greek art,
TI

1
'1',
1.
376
THE GREEK POETS.
we are justified in giving the first place to sculpture and
in assuming that sculpture strikes the key.note of the whole
music.
To take a far more serious objection next. It is true that,
while gazing intently upon the luminous qualities of the Greek
spirit, we are tempted to neglect its sterner and more sombre
aspect. Not, indeed, that the shadows are not there, patent to
superficial observers, and necessary even to the sublimity of
the ideal we admire in its serene beauty ; but they are so con-
sistently subordinated to light and lustre that he who merely
seeks to seize predominant characteristics may find it difficult
to appreciate them duly without missing what is even more
essential. A writer on the arts of the Greeks is not bound to
take into consideration the defects of their civil and domestic life,
the discords and disturbance of their politics, the pains they felt
and suffered in common with humanity at large, the incomplete
morality of a race defined by no sharp line but that of culture
from barbarians. It is rather his duty to note how carefully
these things, which we discern as discords, were excluded by
them from the sphere of beauty ; since it is precisely this that
distinguishes the Greeks most decidedly from the modern
nations, who have used pain, perplexity, and apparent failure
as subjects for the noblest asthetic handling. The Welt-
schmerz of our latter years was felt, as a young man may feel
it, by the Greeks of the best age; but their artists did not, like
Shakspeare and Michael Angelo, Goethe and Beethoven,
make this the substance of their mightiest works. Ancient
Hellas contained nothing analogous tw Hamlet, or the Tombs
of the Medici, to Faust, or the C minor Symphony. The
desolation of humanity adrift upon a sea of chance and change
finds expression here and there in a threnos of Simonides or
an epigram of Callimachus. The tragic poets are never tired
of dwelling upon destiny, inherent partly in the transmitted
doom of ancestors, and partly in the moral character of indivi-
CONCLUSION.
377
duals. The depth of Pindar's soul is stirred by the question
that has tried all ages: “Creatures of a day! What are we
and what are we not?” Such strains, however, are, as it were,
occasional and accidental in Greek poetry. The Greek artist,
not having a background of Christian hope and expectation
against which he could relieve the trials and afflictions of this
life, aimed at keeping them in a strictly subordinate place : he
sought to produce a harmony in his work which should corre-
spond to health in the body and to temperance in the soul, to
present a picture of human destiny, not darkened by the
It was his purpose, as indeed it is of all good craftsmen, not to
weaken, but to fortify, not to dispirit and depress, but to exalt
and animate. The very imperfect conceptions he had formed
of immortality determined the course he pursued. He had no
hell to fear, no heaven to hope for. It was in no sense his duty!
to cast a gloom over the only world he knew by painting it
in sombre colours, but rather to assist the freedom of the
spirit, and to confirm the energies of men by bringing what
is glad and beautiful into prominence. In this way, the
Greeks, after their own fashion, asserted that faith in the good-
ness of the universe, and in the dignity of the human race,
without which progress would be impossible. Though the life
of man may be hard and troublous, though diseases and tur-
bulent passions assail his peace, though the history of nations
be but a tale that is told, and the days of heroes but a dream
vapours of the earth into a clearer atmosphere. The real
way of achieving a triumph over chance and of defying fate,
is to turn to good account all fair and wholesome things
beneath the sun, and to maintain for an ideal the beauty,
strength, and splendour of the body, mind, and will of
man. The mighty may win fame, immortal on the lips of
poets and in the marble of the sculptor. The meanest may
378
THE GREEK POETS.
possess themselves in patience and enjoy. Thus the Greeks
adopted for their philosophy of life what Clough described as a
“Stoic-Epicurean acceptance" of the world. They practised a
genial accommodation of their natures to the facts which must
perforce regulate the existence of humanity. To ascertain the
conditions of φύσις, and to adapt themselves thereto by τροφή,
was the object of their most serious schemes of education.
Later on, when the bloom began to pass from poetry and art,
and the vigour of national life declined, this attitude of simple
manliness diverged into hedonism and asceticism. Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die, said one section of the thinkers.
Let us bear all hardness, lest we become the slaves of chance
and self, said the other. But neither proposition expressed the
full mind of the Greeks of the best age. They clearly saw that,
in spite of disaster and disease, life was a good thing for those
who maintained the balance of moral and physical health.
Without asceticism they strove after well-ordered conduct.
Without hedonism they took their share of the delightful
things furnished by the boon earth in prodigal abundance. The
mental condition of such men, expectant, grateful, and serenely
acquiescent, has been well expressed by Goethe in lines like
these :-
That nought belongs to me I know
Save thoughts that never cease to flow
From founts that cannot perish,
And every fleeting shape of bliss
That kindly fortune lets me kiss
And in my bosom cherish.
While it is easy, therefore, to omit the darker shadows from our
picture of Greek life, because, although they are there, they are
almost swallowed up in brightness, it is not easy to exaggerate
the tranquil and manly spirit with which the Greeks faced the
evils of the world and rose above them. Owing to this faculty
for absorbing all sad things and presenting, through art, only
the splendour of accomplished strength and beauty, the Greeks
CONCLUSION.
379
.
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12
i
have left for the world a unique treasure of radiant forms in
sculpture, of lustrous thoughts in poetry, of calm wisdom in
philosophy and history. Their power upon all arts and
sciences is the power of a harmonising and health-giving spirit.
This it is which, in spite of their perception of the sterner
problems of the world, obliges us to describe their genius as
adolescent; for adolescence has of strength, and sorrow, and
reflection so much only as is compatible with beauty.
At the same time, while insisting upon the truth of all this,
many of the chapters in the present volume have forced upon
our minds what is severe and awful in the genius of the Greeks.
.The Chthonian deities form a counterpart to the dwellers on
Olympus. The voice of the people in the Hesiodic poems
rises like the cry of Israel from Pharaoh's brickfields rather
than the song-like shout of Salaminian oarsmen. Who, again,
in reading the Iliad, has not felt that the splendour of Achilles,
coruscating like a star new-washed in ocean waves, detaches
itself from a background of impenetrable gloom? He blazes
in his god-like youth for one moment only above the mists of
Styx, the waters of Lethe ; and it is due to the triumphant
imagination of his poet that the consciousness of impending
fate adds lustre to his heroism instead of dooming him to the
pathetic pallor of the Scandinavian Balder. When we meet
Achilles in Hades, and hear him sigh,
Rather would I in the sun's warmth divine
Serve a poor churl who drags his days in grief,
Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine,
we touch the deepest sorrow of the Greek heart, a sorrow
lulled to rest in vain by anodynes of Eleusinian mysteries and
Samothracian rites, a sorrow kept manfully in check by resolute
wills and passionate enthusiasms, but which recurred con-
tinuaily, converting their dream of a future life into a night-
mare of unsubstantial ennui. If the story of Achilles involves
a dreary insight into the end of merely human activity, that of
380
THE GREEK POETS.
Odysseus turns immediately upon the troubles of our pilgrimage
through life. Exquisitely beautiful as are all the outlines,
surface touches, and colours in the Odyssey, as of some
Mediterranean landscape crowded with delicate human forms,
yet beneath the whole there lies an undertone of sombreness.
The energy of the hero is inseparable from endurance.
τέτλαθι δη κραδίης και κύντερον άλλο ποτ' έτλης.
That is the exclamation of no light-hearted youngling, but of
one who has sounded all the deeps and shallows of the river
of experience. And if we have to speak thus of the heroes,
what shall we say about the countless common people following
their lords to Troy in the cause of a strange woman, those
beautiful dead warriors over whom the Æschylean Chorus
poured forth the most pathetic of lamentations ? To pretend
that the Greeks felt not the passion and the pain of human
agony and striſe, would be a paradox implying idiocy in him
who put it forth. Still, it were scarcely less feeble to forget
that their strength lay in restraining the expression of this
feeling, and in subduing its vehemence. . The wounded
heroes.on the Æginetan pediment are dying with smiles upon
their lips ; and this may serve as a symbol for the mode of
treatment reserved by the Greek artists for what is dark and
terrible.
| Enough has been already said while dealing with the
dramatists about the profound morality and the stern philo-
sophy of the Greek tragic poets. It is not necessary again to
traverse that ground. Yet for a moment we may once more
remember here what depths of pity and of pathos lie hidden in
the legend of Prometheus, whether we think of him as the divine
champion of erring men at war with envious deities, or as
personified humanity struggling against the forces of niggardly
nature. Prometheus and Epimetheus and Pandora dramatise
a legend of life supremely sad—so sad, indeed, that the calm
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381
genius of the Greeks regarded it with half-averted eyes, and
chose rather to blur its outlines than to define what it con-
tained enough of sorrow to unman the stoutest. Poets of a
northern race would have brooded over this mythus until it
became for then the form of all the anguish and revolt and
aspiration of the soul of man. Not so the Greeks. Hesiod
leaves the Saga in obscurity. Æschylus employs it to exhibit
the spirit unperturbed by menaces of mere brute force, and
wisely pliant in the end to unavoidable fate. Subsequent
poets and philosophers remember Prometheus together with
Orpheus only as the founders of the arts and sciences that
make men happy. To eliminate the mysterious and the
terrible, to accentuate the joyous and the profitable for humane
uses, was the truest instinct of the Greeks. Even the tale of
Herakles, who chose the hard paths of life, and ascended at
last only through flames to clasp Hebe, eternal youth, upon
Olympus, “ with joy and bliss in over-measure for ever," in spite
of its severe lesson of morality, is a poem of beautiful human
heroism from which the discordant elements are purged away.
To recover, if that be possible, this “Stoic-Epicurean
acceptance,” and to face the problems of the world in which
we live, with Greek serenity, concerns us at the present time.
Having said thus much, I am brought to touch upon the third
topic mentioned at the outset of this chapter. Owing to
insufficient exposition, I did not in my first series of Studies
of Greek Poets make it clear in what way I thought the
Greeks could teach those of us for whom the growth of
rationalism and the discoveries of science have tended to
remove old landmarks. What we have to win for ourselves is
a theory of conduct which shall be human, and which shall be
based upon our knowledge of nature. Greek morality was
distinguished by precisely these two qualities. It therefore
contained that vital element we now require.
A remarkable passage in Sir H. S. Maine's Rede Lecture
-
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382
THE GREEK POETS.
that there are still lessons to be learned from the Greeks by
men of the nineteenth century. “Whatever may be the nature
and value of that bundle of influences which we call Progress,"
'he writes, "nothing can be more certain than that, when a
society is once touched by it, it spreads like a contagion.
Yet, so far as our knowledge extends, there was only one
society in which it was endemic; and putting that aside, no
race or nationality, left entirely to itself, appears to have de-
veloped any very great intellectual result, except, perhaps,
Poetry. Not one of those intellectual excellencies which we
regard as characteristic of the great progressive races of the
world—not the law of the Romans, not the philosophy and
sagacity of the Germans, not the luminous order of the French,
not the political aptitude of the English, not that insight into
physical nature to which all races have contributed--would
apparently have come into existence if those races had been
left to themselves. To one small people, covering in its
original seat no more than a handsbreadth of territory, it was
given to create the principle of Progress, of movement on-
wards and not backwards or downwards, of destruction tending
to construction. That people was the Greek. Except the
blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is !
not Greek in its origin. A ferment spreading from that 1
source has vitalised all the great progressive races of mankind,
penetrating from one to another, and producing results ac-
cordant with its hidden and latent genius, and results of course
often far greater than any exhibited in Greece itself.”
It may be difficult to form an accurate notion of what the
eloquent lecturer meant by Progress : it may be easy to object
that the secret of progressive growth in politics at least was
not possessed by the Greeks themselves, and that Christianity,
which has certainly moved in this world, was as certainly
neither one of the blind forces of Nature, nor yet Hellenic in
IT
CONCLUSION.
383
0
D
its origin. Still, the force of the passage remains unimpaired.
It expresses largely, and without due reservation, perhaps,
what the students of the Greeks in relation to the universal
history of civilisation must feel to be a sweeping truth. The 7
advance of the human intellect is measured by successive
points of contact with the Greek spirit-in Rome before the
birth of Christ, in Islam during the exhaustion of the Roman
Empire, in the schools of Paris and Seville during the Middle
Ages, when Averrhoes and Aristotle kept alive the lamp of
science, in Italy at the period of the Renaissance, when Greek
philosophy and poetry and art restored life to the senses,
confidence to the reason, and freedom to the soul of man.
All civilised nations, in all that concerns the activity of the
intellect, are colonies of Hellas. The flame that lives within
our Prytaneia was first kindled on Athene's hearth in Attica ;
and should it burn dim or be extinguished, we must needs
travel back to the sacred home of the virgin goddess for fresh!
fire. This we are continually doing. It is this which has
made Greek indispensable in modern education. And at the
present moment we may return with profit to the moralists of
Greece.
At this point I feel that my former critics will exclaim
against me : “ This is the very same offence repeated-ignoring
the moral inferiority of the Greeks, he holds them up as an
example to nations improved by Christianity." I reply that I
am far from forgetting the substantial advance made by the
world in morality during the last eighteen centuries. The divine
life and the precepts of Christ are as luminous as ever ; and I,
for one, have no desire to replant pseudo-paganism on the
modern soil. It is not the morality, but the moral attitude, of
the Greeks that seems to my nind worthy of our imitation.
In order to make this distinction clear, and to save myself, if
that may be, from seeming to advocate a retrograde movement,
through sentimental sympathy with impossible anachronisms,
Un
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THE GREEK POETS.
or through blind hostility to all that makes our modern life
most beautiful, I must be permitted to embark upon a some-
what lengthy exposition of my meaning. With no desire to be
aggressive or polemical, I want to show what, in my judgment,
even Christians have still to learn from Greeks.
The three points in which the morality of the Greeks was
decidedly inferior to that of the modern races were slavery, the
social degradation of women, and paiderastia. No panegyrist
of the Greeks can attempt to justify any one of these customs,
which, it may be said in passing, were closely connected and
interdependent in Hellenic civilisation. An apologist might,
indeed, argue that slavery, as recognised by the Athenians, was
superior to many forms of the same evil till lately tolerated by
the Christian nations. Mediaeval villeinage and Russian serf-
the American slave-trade flourished in spite of the theoretical
opposition of Christianity, and have only succumbed to the
advance of rational humanity. The same advocate could show,
as Mr. Mahaffy has already done, that in Greece there existed a
high ideal of womanhood, and that even paiderastia had its
honourable aspects. Admitting, however, that, in relation to
the three most important points above mentioned, the Greeks
were comparatively barbarous, it may still be urged that no
great race can be judged by any but its own moral standard.
Our vices and our virtues differ from those of the Greeks, four
centuries before the Christian era. It does not, therefore, follow
that we have not some vices from which they were free, and
that they had not virtues in which we are deficient. The real
point to ascertain, with regard to ourselves and to them, is the
basis upon which the conceptions of morality in either period
have rested. Modern morality has hitherto been theological :
it has implied the will of a divine governor. Greek morality
was radically scientific : the faith on which it eventually leaned
was a belief in puois, in the order of the universe, wherein gods,
CONCLUSION.
385
human societies, and individual human beings had their proper
places. The conception of morality as the law for man, re-
garded as a social being forming part and parcel of the
Cosmos, was implicit in the whole Greek view of life : it
received poetical expression from the tragedians; it transpired
in the conversations of Socrates, in the speculations of Plato,
and in the more organised system of Aristotle. ζην κατά φύσιν
could be written for a motto on the title-page of a collected
corpus of Greek moralists. It may be objected that “to live
according to nature” is a vague command, and also that it is
easier said than done, or, again, that the conception of nature
does not essentially differ from that of God who made nature.
All that is true; but the ethics whereof that maxim is the sum
have this advantage, that they do not place between us and
the world in which we have to live and die the will of a
hypothetical ruler, to whom we may ascribe our passions and
our fancies, enslaving ourselves to the delusions of our own
soul. Evil and sin are recognised, just as fevers and serpents
are recognised; but while the latter are not referred to a vindic-
tive Creator, so the former are not ascribed to the wilful
wickedness of his creatures. In so far as we gain any knowledge
of nature, that knowledge is something solid : the whole
bearing of a man who feels that his highest duty consists
in conforming himself to laws he may gradually but surely
ascertain, is certainly different from that of one who obeys the
formulæ invented by dead or living priests and prophets to
describe the nature of a God whom no man has either seen or
heard. It makes no difference that the highest religious systems
are concordant with the best-established principles of natural
science, that the Mosaic ordinances, for example, are based on
excellent hygienic rules. That the ažolnous of the great Nomo-
thetæ should be verified is both intelligible and, à priori, highly
probable. The superiority of scientific over theological morality
II.
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386
THE GREEK POETS.
consists meanwhile in its indestructibility. It is not involved
with any theistic fancies liable to change.
The ethics of man, regarded as a member of the universe
and answerable only to its order for his conduct, though they
underlay the whole thought of the Greeks on moral subjects,
did not receive their final exposition till the age of the Roman
Stoics. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius have, therefore, a
peculiar retrospective value, owing to the light they cast upon
the ethical vioonous of the Greek race, while at the same time
they illustrate that which is unalterable and indestructible in the
spirit of Greek morality. What Marcus Aurelius enunciated
as an intuition, is what must daily become more binding upon
us in proportion as we advance in scientific knowledge. It
his system in a separate paragraph, keeping always in mind
after prolonged contact with the Romans. Marcus Aurelius
forces to the very utmost a view of human life and duty which
could have been but unconsciously implicit in the minds of
men of the Periclean age. Yet this view was but the theory
logically abstracted from the conduct and the perceptions of a
race which started with refined nature-worship, which recognised
the duty to the State as paramount, and which put to philo-
sophy the question, What is the té os of man?
The central notion of Marcus Aurelius is Nature. He
regards the universe as a Swor, or living creature, animated
by a principle of life to which he sometimes gives the title of
Osóc, or the deity. It is a body with a lóxoc, or reason, at-
taining to consciousness in human beings. Every man partici-
pates in the Koivos Nóyos, or common reason of the Cosmos,
a portion of whose wisdom forms his intellect. In other words
our consciousness reflects the order of the universe, and
enables us to become more than automatically partakers in its
movement. To obey this reason is the end of all philosophy,
the fulfilment of the purpose for which man exists. By doing
CONCLUSION.
387
so we are in harmony with the world, and take our proper
place in the scale of beings. Nothing can happen to us inde-
pendent of this order ; and therefore nothing, rightly under-
stood, can happen to cur hurt. If disease and affliction fall
upon us, we must remember that we are the limbs and organs
of the whole, and that our suffering is necessary for its well-
being. We are thus the citizens of a vast State, members of
the universal economy. What affects the whole for good is
good for us, and even when it seems to be evil, we must hold
fast to the faith that it is good beyond our ken. Our selfish-
ness is swallowed up in the complete and total interest. Our
virtues are social and not personal. Our happiness is relative
to the general welfare, not contained in any private pleasure or
indulgence of an individual caprice.
The motto of this large philosophy is Goethe's often-quoted
distich :-
Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen
Resolut zu leben.
If we seek a motto for the Imitatio Christi, which may be
accepted here as the Christian encheiridion, we find it in the
text : “ For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” The
author of that manual of conduct regarded the universe not as
a coherent whole, good and sound in all its parts, to live in
harmony with the laws wherof is the duty of man, but as a
machine created out of nothing by the will of God, made fair
at first, but changed to foul by sin, wherein men live an evil
life, to escape from which brings happiness, to confound the
existing laws of which is virtue, and a remedy against the
anarchy and tyranny of which can only be found in the Cross
and death of Christ. To the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, man
was not merely a citizen of the dear city of God, but a member,
not merely a pépos, but a péìoc of the divine life of the universe.
To the Christianity of the Imitatio, man was an exile from his
home, a wanderer and out of place. It is not my present
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THE GREEK POETSTA
2
.
purpose to push to their ultimate and logical conclusions the
divergences between the Stoicism of the Meditations and the
Christianity of the Imitatio, but rather to recall attention to the
philosophy developed by Marcus Aurelius from his concep-
tion of man's place in nature, and to show that the ethics
resulting from it are specially adapted to an age in which the
scientific habit of mind is the strongest. When the whole mass
of new knowledge we are continually accumulating forces upon
our consciousness the conviction that humanity is a part of
the universal whole, it is impossible to cling to dogmas that
start from the assumption of original sin and creation vitiated
at the very moment of its commencement. So much of the
Christian programme, whatever else is left as indestructible,
must be abandoned. Nature, with all its imperfections in the
physical and moral orders, both of them to be as far as can be
conquered and eradicated, must be accepted as the best
possible, as that which was intended so to be. Nor need we
adopt the obsolete tactics of the French Deists, or depreciate
the essence of Christianity, because a great part of its mytho-
logy and metaphysic seems untenable. On the contrary, we
may reasonably hold that the most perfect man would live the
life of Christ in obedience to the maxims of the Roman.
Emperor, and that Christianity provides us with precisely what
was wanting in the Aurelian system. Stoicism stood in need.
of a criterion. What is reason ? what is the true character of
truth and goodness ? Christianity appears with a criterion
which approves itself to our intuitive apprehension. The life
of Christ is the perfect life. Learn that, and follow that, and
you will reach the height of human nature. To live in harmony
with the universe is to live as Christ lived. It is the wrong
done in the name of Christ, the figments falsely.stamped with
Christ's superscription, the follies of Bibliolatry and dogmatic
orthodoxy, that must be abjured ; and I maintain that in our
present mood the best hope of not casting away the wheat
CONCLUSION.
389
together with the chaff, of retaining what is fit for human use in
Christianity, consists in first assuming the scientific standpoint
of Aurelius.
. From this digression on the Aurelian system, regarded as
the final word of Græco-Roman morality, I pass to a considera-
tion of those urgent needs of modern thought which have to
be met in the spirit and with the courage of Mark Antonine.
Not his theism, nor his metaphysic, nor his detailed maxims
for conduct, but his attitude and temper have to be adopted.
And here it must be said once more, by way of preface, that
however human progress is ruled by thesis and antithesis, by
antagonism and repulsion in its several moments, still nothing
can be lost that has been clearly gained. Each synthesis,
though itself destined to apparent contradiction, combines the
indestructible, the natural and truly human, elements of the
momenta which preceded it, excluding only that in them which
was the accident of time and place and circumstance. Thus
the Greek conception of life was posed; the Christian conception
was counterposed ; the synthesis, crudely attempted in the age
of the Renaissance, awaits mature accomplishment in the im-
mediate future. The very ground-thought of Science is to treat
man as part of the natural order--not, assuredly, on that account
excluding from its calculation the most eminent portion of man,
his reason and his moral being—and to return from the study of
nature with profit to the study of man. It does not annihilato
or neutralise what man has gained from Christianity; on the
contrary, the new points of morality developed by the Christian
discipline are of necessity accepted as data by the scientific
mind. Our object is to combine both the Hellenic and the
Christian conceptions in a third, which shall be more solid and
. more rational than either, superior to the Hellenic as it is no
longer a mere intuition, superior to the ecclesiastical inas-
much as it relies on no mythology, but seeks to ascertain the
law.
390
THE GREEK POETS.
The positive knowledge about the world possessed at any
and metaphysic. Theology, while philosophising the immediate
data of faith, professes to embrace and account for all known
facts in a comprehensive system, which includes the hypo-
theses of revelation ; while popular religion rests upon opinions
and figurative conceptions formed concerning the first cause of
the phenomena observed around us and within us. The systems
of theology and the opinions of popular religion must, therefore,
from time to time in the world's history, vary according as more
or less is actually known, and according as the mind has greater
or lesser power of analysing and co-ordinating its stores of
knowledge. Metaphysic is the critical examination and con-
struction into a connected scheme of the results obtained by
experience—mental, moral, and physical—subjected to reflec-
tion, and regarded in their most abstract form as thoughts. It
follows of necessity that any revolution in the method of ob-
servation and analysis, like that which has been going on during
the last three centuries, whereby our conception of the world
as a whole is altered, must supply metaphysic with new sub-
ject matter and new methods, and force it to the reconsideration
of important problems. Meanwhile, the faculty of thought
itself undergoes no essential transformation ; our mental and
moral nature remains substantially the same. What has always
happened, and what alone can happen, is that fresh pabulum is
offered to the thinking being, which has to be assimilated to
its organism and digested for its nourishment. Consequently
we cannot expect to have a sudden and illuminating revolution
in psychology and ethics. But, while we learn fresh facts
about the universe, our notions concerning the nature of the
first Cause and the relation of man to his environments,
whether expressed in systems by theology and philosophy, or
in opinions by popular religion, must of necessity be exposed
to alteration. To adjust ourselves to this change without
U
CONCLUSIONT
391
.
LUI
sacrificing what is vitally important in religion as the basis of
morality is our difficulty.
Physical science, to begin with, has destroyed that old con-
ception of the universe which made this globe central, and of
paramount importance. The discoveries of Galileo and
Newton first led to a right theory of the planetary movements.
The chemists of the last hundred years have substituted an
accurate analysis of primitive substances for rough guesses at
the four elements. The establishment of the law of the con-
servation of force has demonstrated the unity of all cosmical
operations from the most gigantic to the most minute. Geo-
logy, together with the speculations of comparative anatomists
and naturalists, has altered all our notions with regard to the
age of the world, and to the antecedents and early history of
the human race. The results gathered during the last three
centuries in these and other fields of investigation render it
certain that mankind has occupied but a brief moment in the
long life of our globe, and tend to prove that our duration here
will, at an enormously, but not incalculably distant, period, be
rendered impossible by the action of those very forces which
called us into being. The years of humanity are therefore “a
scape in oblivion.” Man, for whom, according to the author of
Genesis, the sun and moon and stars were made, is shown to
be among the less important products of the cosmical system.
We are no permanent owners, but the brief tenants of our tiny
globe. Nor need this terrify or startle us. Each man expects
the certainty of his own dissolution. The race must learn that
it also is ephemeral. For this our religions have already pre-
pared us. But what is new in the prospect revealed by science
is that, not by a sudden tempest of vindictive fire from heaven,
but in the tranquil course of the long life of nature, such
euthanasia is prepared for men. As the universe subsisted
countless æons before our birth, so will it survive our loss, and
scarcely keep a trace of our existence.
392
THE GREEK POETS.
At the same time the spiritual conditions of humanity
remain unaltered. Men we are ; men we must be: to find
out what is truly human, essential to the highest type and
utmost happiness of man, is still our most absorbing interest.
Nor need we abandon that noblest of all formulas : “ To fear
God and to keep His commands is the whole duty of man ;”
provided we are careful to accept the word God as the name
of a hitherto unapprehended energy, the symbol of that which
is the life and motion of the universe whereof we are a part.
Science, which consists in the determination of laws, * compels
us to believe that, as in the physical world invariable sequences
are observed, so also in the moral nature of man must compre-
hensive rules and explanations of phenomena be observable.
It is but the refusal to apply to moral problems the scientific
method with unflinching logic which leads certain otherwise
positive thinkers to recognise “the freedom of human volition"
as an incalculable element, and thus to withdraw human conduct
from the sphere of exact investigation. To know God in the
physical order is to know what has been, and what is, and
what will be in the economy of primæval forces. To know
God in the moral order is to know what has been, and what
is, and what will be within the region of the human conscious-
ness. To obey God in the physical order is to control those
forces for our own use as far as our constitution will permit;
for thus we energise in harmony with the universe. To obey
God in the moral order is to act in accordance with those
hitherto discovered laws which have carried the race onward
from barbarism to self-knowledge and self-control, and with
all our might and main to strive for further precision in their
determination. But even here is the debateable ground ; here
is the point at issue ; here confessedly is the region that has
never yet been subjected to science.
* " General conceptions in which a series of similarly recurring
natural processes may be embraced."--Helmholtz.
CONCLUSION.
393
The analogy of scientific discovery forces us to look no
longer for the actual fiats of a divine voice on Sinai, but to
expect that by interrogating humanity itself we shall ultimately
demonstrate those unchangeable decrees by conforming to
which our race may pass from strength to strength. We must
cease to be clairvoyants and become analysts, verifying our
intuitions by positive investigation. For the old term Com-
mandment, which implies the will of a sovereign, our present
condition of knowledge leads us to substitute the new term
Law as defined above.* This, although the subject-matter and
tion. It implies a new notion, both popular and scientific, of
the divine in nature, a new criterion of what is right and wrong,
and in the last resort a new metaphysic.
But with a view to this end we have to introduce a more
stringent and painstaking method into ethics. We must be
content to abandon dogmatism upon insoluble questions, how-
ever fascinating and imperious; we must above all things quit
delusions, however sanctioned by ancient reverence. And
here both faith and courage are needed. To believe that the
moral laws are within us, requiring to be disentangled, without
the aid of an authentic revelation, from the mass of phenomena,
in the same way as physical laws have been abstracted from
facts by scientific reasoning, demands a virile and firm con-
fidence in the order of the universe and in the intellectual
faculty of man.
Hitherto in ethics we have proceeded on the à priori road;
we have assumed certain hypotheses, or supposed fixed starting-
points, concerning the origin and the destiny of mankind, about
both of which things we know absolutely nothing for sure.
Starting with a theological system, which accounted for the
creation of man and the nature of evil in close connection with
a definite but delusive cosmogony, taking a future state of
* P. 392, note.
1
394
THE GREEK POETS.
happiness or misery for granted, we have brought our dreams to
bear upon the springs of conduct. It is precisely at this point
that science, partly by the revolution effected in cosmical theory,
partly by the exhibition of the true method of analysis, helps
to free us from what is fanciful, and to indicate the right way
an advance toward truth must not be expected from systems
gradual and patient exploration of the phenomena themselves.
Not matter, but the qualities of what we call matter as subject
to our senses, are the object of physical science. Not God, but
human conduct, must be the object of moral science. Nor will it
here avail to demur that the human will is essentially free, and
therefore not subject to law in the strictly scientific sense.
Each step we make in the investigation of heredity, and all the
other conditions to which man is subject, forces us more and
Inore plainly to the conclusion that the very seat of our
supposed liberty, our desires and personal peculiarities, dis-
tinctive tastes and special predilections, are determined for
us in great measure by circumstances beyond our own control.
The force of these circumstances separately and in combina-
tion could be estimated if we possessed but the complete data
for forming such a calculation. What is really incalculable is
not the will of the individual, but the source of energy in the
universe, in vital connection with which we live both physically
and mentally. We are what we are, each of us, by no freak
of chance, by no self-determining spontaneity, however re-
stricted ; and our prayers must take the form dictated by
Cleanthes :
Lead Thou me, God, Law, Reason, Motion, Life !
All names alike for Thee are vain and hollow.
Lead me; for I will follow without strife;
Or if I strive, still must I blindly follow.
For many centuries physical science itself suffered from the
CONCLUSION.
395
1
dead weight of abstract notions accepted as data, and was
inert for want of a true method. Its recent successes are an
index to the advance which moral science might make if it
could adopt the right way of investigation, comparison, and
reflective reasoning. At the same time it must be confessed
that for moral science this method has not as yet been made
either easy of application or fruitful of results. Our subject-
matter is so complex, and so apparently distinct from sensible
existence, as to seem intangible. Both thought and language
are the heritage of countless generations, wherein a medley of
guesses and confused conceptions are stored. Of general laws
in ethics we have as yet but instinctive, and as it were æsthetic,
perceptions, fortified and enforced by theological beliefs, or
converted into intellectual notions by philosophy. Still, this
need not disturb us, when we reflect how long it was before
the true method of scientific discovery in the analysis of
matter was brought to light, and what a continuous progress
from one determination to another followed upon the single
law established in explanation of terrestrial gravity. The
scientific solution of one ethical problem, whether that be
ultimately effected through physiology by the establishment
of correspondences between the physical and moral functions
of humanity, or through comparative history and the study of
evolution, may prove as fruitful for ethics as the discovery of
Galileo was for physics. It is impossible to utter dogmatic
predictions at this point of our knowledge. Yet we may
indulge in hopes that are of the nature of dreams. Can we
not in this way venture to anticipate that the men of the future
may obtain demonstrated certainty with regard to Man con-
sidered as an integral portion of the universe—that they may
understand the conditions of his conduct as clearly as we now
apprehend the behaviour of certain gases—and that their
problem will be, not how to check appetites, but how to
multiply and fortify faculties? Can we not dream that morality
1
396
THE GREEK POETS.
will be one branch of the study of the world as a whole, a
department of τα φυσικά, when φύσις, regarded as a total unity,
that suffers no crude radical distinction of Mind and Body,
has absorbed our scientific attention ?
We need not fear that either the new notion of Deity forced
upon us by the extension of our knowledge, even should this
destroy the last vestige of anthropomorphism, or the involved
is dreaded as Materialism. If Materialism be not a mere
name, it is feared because it is thought to imply egotism,
immersion in sensuality, and indifference to ideas. But what
is the prospect unrolled before us by Science ?* What is, in
effect, the new intellectual atmosphere to which we must
most sublime, the most ideally imaginative, which it has ever
been given to man to contemplate. The spectacle of the
infinitely great and the infinitely small, alike of the mental and
the physical, the natural and the supersensible, subordinated
to unchangeable laws, and permeated by one single energy,
revealed to us by Science, contains nothing that need drive us
to a stolid Atheism, but rather such considerations as give the
value of positive certainty to Christ's words about the sparrow.
We know now that the whole past history of the universe is
involved in the blood-beats of the smallest animalcule dis-
cernible by the microscope, that the furthest fixed star to
which our telescopes have any access obeys the laws that de-
termine the action of our muscles, that our thought holds in
solution the experience of all preceding ages. If the religion
of the future is to be founded on scientific bases of this nature,
* By Science here and elsewhere, when used without a qualifying
epithet, I mean to include what is also known as philosophy. In Science,
thus understood, thought embraces the whole field of knowledge in a
survey that has less in common with the metaphysics of the schoolmen
than with the analytic method of the natural sciences.
CONCLUSION.
397
there is surely here less room for the extravagances of egoism
and sensuality than there was in the Catholic system, from
which emerged a Sixtus IV. and an Alexander VI. What
St. Paul conceived but dimly, the physicist declares to us : we
business of Science not to make God nowhere in the universe,
but everywhere, and to prove, what previous moralists have
guessed, that the happiness and the freedom of man consists
in his self-subordination to the laws of the world, whereof he
is an essential, though an insignificant part. Against the
decrees of God conceived as a sovereign subject to like fluctua-
tions of emotion with ourselves, it was possible to offend again
and again without losing the hope that at some facile moment,
some mollia tempora fandi, he might be propitiated. The laws
equity the maxim Tý dpúrarti tabɛīv.
Instead of Materialism it might be more reasonable, perhaps,
to dread Fatalism; but Fatalism is a rock on which all systems,
philosophical and religious, when carried to abstract conclu-
sions, have tended to drift. Science cannot be more fatalistic
than Calvinism; yet the instinctive belief in the liberty of the
individual has survived all logic, and is likely still to do so till
such time as the prevailing intuition shall be positively proved.
And even were the conviction that we are not free agents in
the old sense of the phrase to be forced upon us, the sting of
fatalism would be extracted together with the belief in an
omnipotent personality, framing men of set purpose for honour
and dishonour. It was the clash of the human and the divine
wills, both equally finite, though the latter was isolated by
abstraction and ticketed with the epithet of infinity-in other
words, the fiction of a despot ruling over slaves—that gave its
terror to necessity.
Before the latest discoveries of physical science, as before
the highest philosophical analysis, the cruder distinctions of
398
THE GREEK POETS.
A
soul and body, spirit and matter, tend to disappear. The
nature of the universe is proved too subtle for this dichotomy.
Only a coarse intelligence will, therefore, run to the conclusion
that so-called Matter, with its supposed finality, is absolute; or
that so-called Thought, with its supposed infinity, is universal.
The finer intelligence; convinced of the correlation between these
apparently antagonistic moments, must pause to contemplate
the everlasting sequences of time past extended into time to
come, and in the end must feel persuaded of its own indis-
soluble connection with that, whatever it may be, which is
permanent in the universe. The moment Now is a potential
eternity. That we are, is a sufficient proof that we have been,
and that we shall be. Each act, as it has had immeasurable
and necessary antecedents, will be fruitful of immeasurable
and necessary consequents ; for the web of the world is ever
weaving, and to drop a thread in it is utterly impossible. That
we are such or such is, again, the proof that our qualities have
in them something significant, both for that which has been,
and for that which will be for everlasting. We have been, we
are, we shall be, a part of the eternal complex. Not therefore,
are we at liberty to assume definite propositions concerning
what is called the Immortality of the Soul. To do so in the
present state of knowledge would be as much a begging of the
question as tu dogmatise upon the so-called Personality of
God. Suspension of judgment is as imperatively required of
us by Science as faith in the unintelligible was demanded by
the Catholic Church. As then trial of the faith wrought
patience, so now wise abstinence from dogmatism is the
attitude of faith.
Following this course of thought into particulars, we have
no reason to apprehend that personal licence should result
from a system of purely positive ethics based upon that con-
ception of our relation to the universe which Science is reveal-
ing. On the contrary, we may expect from the establishment
CONCLUSION.
of such a system a code of conduct more stringent in all that
can concern the well-being of the individual than any that has
yet been conceived. In the future, sensual excess will surely
be reckoned a form of madness, and what we now dignify by
the name of vice will be relegated, shorn of Satanic lustre, to
the lazar-house. Nor need we fear that purely mental problems
should lose their value or become less interesting. No amount
of demonstration that the mind is dependent on the brain can
so confuse the reason of a lucid thinker as to make him con-
clude that therefore there is no mind. Reduce all our emotions,
our habits, our thoughts, to modes of cell-existence-prove
that thinking and feeling are functions of nerve-centres--the
mystery has only shifted its centre of gravity; we are still
ourselves for better or for worse; thought and feeling are still
the essential part of us; man remains, in spite of all, the only
known being to whom the command yrūti geavtòr has been
given, together with the faculty of obeying this command.
Physical Science does not exclude her elder sisters Philosophy
and Religion, though she may compel religion to abandon
mythology, and supply philosophy with new worlds for analysis.
What she does is to substitute solid, if slowly-discovered,
knowledge for guesses, and a patient but progressive method
for the systems which ontologist after ontologist has built and
pulled to pieces. Will not the men of the future look back
with wonder on the ages in which religion, philosophy, and the
science of nature were supposed to be at war, instead of being,
as they will be then, one system?
11
LONDON : PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMEXT STREET
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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
AUG 29 1997
APR 2 5 2002
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