ί^' Mii^i^e^ni^e^i '4/U^ ί (!3^^^/^^λΐ^α^' if^WP^ I THE ATHENIAN DRAMA A Series of Verse Translations from the Greek Dramatic Poets, with Commentaries and Explanatory- Essays, for English Readers VOL. Ill EURIPIDES THE ATHENIAN DRAMA FOR ENGLISH READERS Λ- Series of Verse Translations of the Greek Dramatic Poets, with Commentaries and Explanatory Notes. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 7s. 6d. each net. Each Volume Illustrated from ancient Sculptures and Vase-Painting. AESCHYLUS : The Orestean Trilogy. By Prof. G. C. Warr. With an Introduction on The Rise of Greek Tragedy, and 1 3 Illustrations. SOPHOCLES: (Edipus Tyrannus and Coloneus, and Antigone. By Prof. J. S. Phillimore. With an Introduction on Sophocles and his Treatment of Tragedy, and 16 Illustrations. EURIPIDES: Hippolytus ; Bacchae ; Aristo- phanes' * Frogs. ^ By Prof. Gilbert Murray. With an Appendix on The Lost Tragedies of Euripides, and an Introduction on The Signi- ficance of the Bacchae in Athenian History, and 1 2 Illustrations. \_Ffth Edition. ALSO UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE THE HOMERIC HYMNS. A New Prose Rendering by Andrew Lang, with Essays Critical and Explanatory, and 14 Illustrations. THE PLAYS OF EURIPIDES Translated into English Rhyming Verse, with Explanatory Notes, by Prof. Gilbert Murray. Hippolytus. 14th Thousand. Bacchae. 1 0th Thousand. The Trojan Women. 9th Th. Electra, nth Thousand. Medea. 8th Thousand. }- Iphigenia in Tauris. 4th Th. The Frogs of Aristophanes. 8th Thousand. QLdipusTyrannus of Sophocles . ^ Paper Covers, Impl. i6mo, IS. each net. Also crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 2s. each net. KTJRIPIDES EURIPIDES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE BY / GILBERT MURRAY, M.A., LLD emeritus professor of greek in the university of Glasgow; fellow of new college, oxford WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FIFTH EDITION NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD. 1912 [All rights reserved] Printed ^n Great Britain Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &= Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh PREFACE ? Β 3^75 THE object of this book is in the first place to put before English readers a transla- tion of some very beautiful poetry, and in the second place to give some description of a remarkable artist and thinker. This double purpose explains the somewhat unusual com- position of the volume. I have taken first two plays of Euripides — the Hippolytus and The Bacchae — chosen partly for their beauty, partly because they are very characteristic of their author. Different as they are, both are peculiarly imbued with his special atmosphere, an atmosphere of creativeness steeped in critical meditation, of Fiction that exists for the sake of Truth — sometimes to ex- press Truth, sometimes consciously to fly from Truth, but always in some way intimately conditioned by the search for it. Next, I have selected the chief ancient criticism of Euripides, a satire penetrating, brilliant, and, though preposterously unfair, still exceedingly helpful to any student who y^j vi PREFACE does not choose to put himself at its mercy. To some readers there may appear to be some- thing irreverent in allowing two noble tragedies to be so closely followed by a hostile burlesque. I personally feel a kind of satisfaction in the juxtaposition. What is said of Euripides in The Frogs^ so far as it is serious, is after all part of the truth, and a part not to be ignored. And to me the figure of the great philosopher and poet seems even more august and more undoubtedly beautiful when I have heard and digested what his enemies said of him. Euri- pides would be the last man to wish for an admiration based on the suppression of evi- dence. My only regret is for the necessity of inserting the irrelevant and rather poor fooling of the first few scenes of The Frogs. Lastly, I have added an Appendix which, I venture to hope, may be of some interest both to students and to other readers. In trying to understand the work of Euripides, one ought certainly to take some account of the many plays — fifty-six for certain — which are " lost '* or represented by "fragments," that is, by quotations or descriptions or allusions in late authors. 1 have tried, following chiefly Welcker {Die Griechischen Tragodien) and Hartung {Euripides Restitutus)^ to reconstruct the main lines of many of these lost dramas, PREFACE vii and have translated a few typical fragments of each. It seemed most convenient to choose for this purpose those plays which happen to be referred to in The Frogs. On points of ancient religion I have had the great advantage of frequent consultation with Miss J. E. Harrison. As to questions of text, I have in the Hippolytus followed my own critical edition published by the Clarendon Press ; in The Bacchae 1 have acted on the same plan, though the volume containing that play has not yet been published. In places where my own mind was not yet made up I have nearly always followed Ewald Bruhn. In The Frogs I used Van Leeuwen's edition, but have been led by the Oxford editors. Hall and Geldart, to reconsider several passages. In the fragments I have made no emendations, but followed either Nauck or some MS Once or twice, for convenience' sake, I have joined two fragments together. As to the method of this translation, which may, I fear, seem odd and even illegitimate to many scholars, a word of explanation is neces- sary. My aim has been to build up some- thing as like the original as I possibly could, in form and in what one calls " spirit." To do this, the first thing needed was a work of painstaking scholarship, a work in which there viii PREFACE should be no neglect of the letter in an attempt to snatch at the spirit, but, on the contrary, close study of the letter and careful tracking of the spirit by means of its subtleties. This to the best of my power I tried to accomplish many years ago in prose translations, very full and often verging towards commentary or para- phrase, which I used as the basis of lectures in my classes at the University of Glasgow. Such a translation, so far as it was correct, would give what one loosely calls the " mean- ing '* of the original ; but it would be prose, stilted and long-winded prose, and the original is gleaming poetry. The remaining task, then — so great a task that I shrink somewhat from even admitting that I have contemplated it — was that of a poet. Of course, in such an attempt, the attempt of an ordinary man of letters to reproduce the essential poetry of a great far-off poet, failure is certain, and failure generally more profound than the translator himself realises. But of that more presently. I am bound to confess that, the groundwork of careful translation once laid, I have thought no more about anything but the poetry. I have often laboured long to express a slight shade of meaning or of beauty which I felt lurking in some particular word or cadence ; and, on the other hand, I have often changed PREFACE IX metaphors, altered the shapes of sentences, and the like. On one occasion (^Hip. 385) I have even omitted a line and a half, because, though apparently needed in the Greek to make clear a rather difficult thought, they were not needed in English, where the thought in question was quite familiar. I have added, of course by conjecture, a few stage directions. There are pitfalls innumerable in this course. Who is to say what the " spirit " of Euripides really was ^ My version of it will differ greatly from that of many men of far greater learning. Some good scholars, again (and innumerable bad ones !), have a rigidly fixed conception of what is in the limits of " an- cient thought," and what is '* Christian " or *' modern," and may consider that I ought to have shut my ears and refused to listen when Euripides seemed to transgress these limits. It may also be felt that I have walked some- what rashly in places of uncertain text or meaning, and consequently made some definite mistranslations where a more cautious scholar would have avoided committing himself. My answer is that, if in a matter of scholar- ship it is well to be " safe " or even to *' hedge," in a matter of Art any such cowar- dice is fatal. I have in my own mind a fairly clear conception of what I take to be the χ PREFACE *' spirit " of Euripides, and I have kept my hands very free in trying to get near it. Some of the means employed are indirect and even paradoxical. Euripides has, of course, no rhyme ; yet a rhymed version seems to me, after many experiments, to produce the effect of his style much more nearly than blank verse. I have often used more elaborate diction than he, because I found that, Greek being a very simple and austere language and modern English an ornate one, a direct transla- tion produced an effect of baldness which was quite unlike the original. A strictly literal translation has the advan- tage that it can be definitely attacked and defended on scientific grounds. It has a possi- bility of being " right." And a translation like mine cannot be " right." Its failure, indeed, must, as I said above, be more pro- found than the writer realises. First, because a man generally does not see his own mistakes or realise his own interrupting mannerisms ; and, secondly, because a translator cannot help seeing his own work through the medium of that greater thing which he studies and loves. The light of the original shines through it, and the music of the original echoes round it. Creech's versions of Horace and Theocritus may possess as little ** art of speech" as their PREFACE xi famous critic implies — I speak without pre- judice, never having seen them. They may be to us unreadable ; bad verse in themselves, and full of Creech's tiresome personality, the Horace no Horace of ours, and the Theocritus utterly unlike Theocritus. But to Creech himself, how different it all was ! He did not know how bad his lines were. He did not feel any veil of intervening Creech. To him the Theocritus was not Creech, but pure Theo- critus, or, if not quite that, at least something haunted by all the magic of Theocritus. When he read his baldest lines his voice, no doubt, trembled with emotion. But it was the original that caused the emotion. The original was always there present to him in a kind of symbol, its beauty perhaps even increased by that idealisation and endearment which naturally attend the long and loving service of one human mind to another. G. M. Churt, Surrey, Oct. 30, 1903. V \ ) cvl^J^^ ^ ' CONTENTS Preface . List of Illustrations Introductory Essay . Translation — -^ HiPPOLYTUS The Bacchae . Notes on the Hippolytus Notes on the Bacchae Translation — The Frogs / Commentary on the Frogs Appendix on the Lost Plays . Index ..... PAGE V XV xix I 77 155 165 177 285 313 353 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait Bust of Euripides Photogravure Frontispiece From the Naples Museum. A copy of the authoritative portrait set up in the Theatre at Athens in the 4th century, on the motion of the orator Lycurgus. Dionysus with Worshipping Attendants . Page xix From a Hellenistic (4th century ?) bas-relief in the Naples Museum, The God, beardless, according to the later conception, is pre- ceded by a Maenad and a Satyr. The beardless type appears, perhaps for the first time, in The Bacchae, where, however, there are no Satyrs. The Sailing of Dionysus . . . . „ Ixviii From a black-figured cylix by Exekias in the Pinakothek, Munich, 6th century. The painting is damaged in the centre of the design. The bearded God, ivy-crowned and holding a horn, lies in a magic ship in full sail. From the mast spring two vine branches, bearing seven clusters. The sea is indicated by seven dolphins. (Harrison and MacCoU, Greek Vase Paintings^ pi. i.) Eros Armed ....... I 5th century. Design on an amphora discovered at Nola, and now in the Cabinet des MedaUles, B'thl. Nat., Paris, No. 366. It is published in Lenormant et de Witte, Monuments Ceramo- graph'iques, vol. iv., pi. li. The God is of the early and austere type. Inscribed Χαρμίδψ καλό$. xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Artemis with Drawn Bow . . . Page 75 A figure taken from the group of the Slaying of the Children of Niobe on a Crater from Orvieto, now in the Louvre. 5th century. (Roscher, Lexicon iir Mythologie^ 8.V. Niob'iden.'^ Bacchanals on a Mountain . . • » 79 From a vase of the SabourofF Collection, now at Berlin: late 5th century or early 4th. The figures are taken from a larger group, including Sileni and Dionysus himself. The figures have fanciful names attached to them (Kisso, Makaria, and the like). (Rayet et CoUignon, Ceramique Gr., pi. 92.) A Maenad . ..... j> 1 54 5th century. From the Museo Gregoriano of the Vatican. The end figure of a group of moving Maenads, she stands as though pensive or weary, leaning upon her thyrsus, (Roscher, ut supra, s.v. Mainaden, p. 2269.) Eos WITH THE Body of Memnon . . . » 16^ From a cylix by Duris in the Campana Collection of the Louvre. 5th century. The winged Dawn-Goddess stoops to uplift the body of her slain son. (Harrison and MacCoU, pi. xviii.) Dance of Maenads . . . . . »> 17^ From a cylix by Hieron in the Berlin Museum, 5th century. "Eleven Maenads dance in a ring round the ancient Xoanon of Dionysos. Some hold thyrsi, one plays the crotala, another holds a crater decorated with ivy wreath and black-figured satyr, another holds a fawn. The image of Dionysos is a draped post ; the head is ivy-crowned, on the breast is a necklace of strung dried figs, from the shoulders branch out great ivy and vine branches, and honeycombs threaded on by ivy sprays. In front of the God is his altar ... its acroterion is decorated with a figure of himself seated." (Harrison and MacColl, pi. xxi.) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii A HlPPALECTOR, OR HoRSE-CoCK, RIDDEN BY A Boy ....... Page 284 From the Museo Greco-Etrusco, Florence. 5th century. The mane and tail are painted purple ; the stripes of the boy's mantle green. (Harrison and MacColl, pi. viii.) Eros with a Lyre . . . . . » 313 From a lekythos from Gela. 5th century. Published in Benndorf, Griech. und Sicil. Vasenbilder, 48, 2. The early and austere type. The lines of and about the lower part of the legs are much blurred upon the vase ; Dr. Benndorf considers that they do not represent wings. The Heavenly Aphrodite, riding on a Swan AND holding a Flower [Photogravure) . n 352 From a vase by Euphronios or one of his school ; early 5th century. Found at Camirus in Rhodes, and now in the British Museum. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY THE BACCHAE IN RELATION TO CERTAIN CURRENTS OF THOUGHT IN THE FIFTH CENTURY Of the two dramas that make up the main part of this volume, the Hippolytus can be left to speak for itself. Its two thousand five hundred years have left little mark upon it. It has something of the stateliness of age, no doubt, but none of the staleness or lack of sympathy. With all the severe lines of its beauty, it is tender, subtle, quick with human feeling. Even its religious conceptions, if we will but take them simply, forgetting the false mythology we have learned from handbooks, are easily understood and full of truth. One of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of love XX EURIPIDES tragedies, it deals with a theme that might easily be made ugly. It is made ugly by later writers, especially by the commentators whom we can see always at work from the times of the ancient scholia down to our own days. Even Racine, who wished to be kind to his Phedre, has let her suffer by contact with certain deadly and misleading suggestions. But the Phaedra of Euripides was quite another woman, and the quality of her love, apart from its circumstances, is entirely fragrant and clear. The Hippolytus^ like most works that come from a strong personality, has its mannerisms and, no doubt, its flaws. But in the main it is a singularly satisfying and com- plete work of art, a thing of beauty, to con- template and give thanks for, surrounded by an atmosphere of haunting purity. If we turn to The Bacchae^ we find a curious difference. As an effort of genius it is perhaps greater than the Hippolytus, at any rate more unusual and rare in quality. But it is un- satisfying, inhuman. There is an impression of coldness and even of prolixity amid its amazing thrill, a strange unearthliness, some- thing that bewilders. Most readers, I believe, tend to ask what it means, and to feel, by im- plication, that it means something. Now this problem, what The Bacchae means and how Euripides came to write it, is not ^ INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxi only of real interest in itself; it is also, I think, of importance with regard to cer- tain movements in fifth-century Athens, and certain currents of thought in later Greek philosophy. The remark has been made, that, if Aristotle could have seen through some magic glass the course of human development and decay for the thousand years following his death, the disappointment would have broken his heart. A disappointment of the same sort, but more sharp and stinging, inasmuch as men^s hopes were both higher and cruder, did, as a matter of fact, break the hearts of many men two or three generations earlier. It is the reflection of that disappointment on the work of Euripides, the first hopefulness, the embitterment, the despair, followed at last by a final half-prophetic vision of the truths or possibilities beyond that despair, that w^ll, I think, supply us with an explanation of a large part of The Bacchae^ and with a clue to a great deal of the poet's other work. There has been, perhaps, no period in the world's history, not even the openings of the French Revolution, when the prospects of the human race can have appeared so brilliant as they did to the highest minds of Eastern Greece about the years 470-445 B.C. To us, looking critically back upon that time, it is xxii EURIPIDES as though the tree of human life had burst suddenly into flower, into that exquisite and short-lived bloom which seems so disturbing among the ordinary processes of historical growth. One wonders how it must have felt to the men who lived in it. We have but little direct testimony. There is the tone of solemn exaltation that pervades most of Aeschylus, the high confidence of the Persae, the Prometheus^ the Eumenides. There is the harassed and half-reluctant splendour of certain parts of Pindar, like the Dithyramb to Athens and the fourth Nemean Ode. But in the main the men of that day were too busy, one would fain think too happy, to write books. There is an interesting witness, however, of a rather younger generation. Herodotus finished his Histories when the glory was already gone, and the future seemed about equally balanced between good and evil. But he had lived as a boy in the great time. And the peculiar charm of his work often seems to lie mainly in a certain strong and kindly joyous- ness, persistent even amid his most horrifying stories, which must be the spirit of the first Athenian Confederation not yet strangled by the spirit of the Peloponnesian war. What was the object of this enthusiasm, the ground of this high hopefulness ^ It would, of course, take us far beyond our limits to INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxiii attempt any full answer to such a question. But for one thing, there was the extraordi- nary swiftness of the advances made ; and, for another, there was a circumstance that has rarely been repeated in history — the fact that all the different advances appeared to help one another. The ideals of freedom, law, and progress ; of truth and beauty, of knowledge and virtue, of humanity and religion ; high things, the conflicts between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondencies of human societies, seemed for a generation or two at this time to lie all in the same direction. And in that direction, on the whole, a great part of Greece was with extraordinary swift- ness moving. Of course, there were backwaters and reactionary forces. There was Sparta and even Aetolia ; Pythagoras and the Oracle at Delphi. But in the main, all good things went hand in hand. The poets and the men of science, the moral teachers and the hardy speculators, the great traders and the political reformers — all found their centre of life and aspiration in the same * School of Hellas/ Athens. The final seal of success was set upon the movement by the defeat of the Persian inva- sion and the formation of the Athenian League. The higher hopes and ideals had clashed against * A magnificent text for such a discussion would be found in the great lyric on the Rise of Man in Sophocles' Antigone (v. 332 ff. ). xxiv EURIPIDES the lower under conditions in which the victory of the lower seemed beforehand certain ; and somehow, miraculously, ununderstandably, that which was high had shown that it was also strong. Athens stood out as the chief power of the Mediterranean. Let us recall briefly a few well-known pas- sages of Herodotus to illustrate the tone of the time. Athens represented Hellenism (Hdt. i. 60). " The Greek race was distinguished of old from the barbarian as nimbler of intellect and further removed from primitive savagery (or stupidity). . . . And of all Greeks the Athenians were counted the first for wisdom." She represented the triumph of Democracy (Hdt. v. 78). "So Athens grew. It is clear not in one thing alone, but wherever you test it, what a good thing is equality among men. Even in war, Athens, when under the tyrants, was no better than her neighbours ; when freed from the tyrants, she was far the first of all." And Democracy was at this time a thing which stirred enthusiasm. A speaker says in Herodotus (iii. 80) : " A tyrant disturbs ancient laws, violates women, kills men without trial. But a people ruling — first, the very name of it is so beautiful, Isonomie (Equality in law) ; and, secondly, a people does none of these things." INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxv " The very name of it is so beautiful ! " It was some twenty-five years later that an Athenian statesman, of moderate or rather popular antecedents, said in a speech at Sparta (Thuc. vi. 89): "Of course, all sen- sible men know what Democracy is, and I better than most, having suffered ; but there is nothing new to be said about acknowledged insanity ! '* That, however, is looking ahead. We must note that this Democracy, this Freedom, repre- sented by Greece, and especially by Athens, was always the Rule of Law. There is a story told by Aeschylus of the Athenians, by Hero- dotus of the Spartans, contrasting either with the barbarians and their lawless absolute mon- archies. Xerxes, learning the small numbers of his Greek adversaries, asks, " How can they possibly stand against us, espc-ially when, as you tell me, they are all free, ^nd there is no one to compel them ? " And the Spartan Demaratus answers (Hdt. vii. 104): "Free are they, Ο King, yet not free to do everything ; for there is a master over them, even Law, whom they fear more than thy servants fear thee. At least they obey what- ever he commands, and his voice is always the same." In Aeschylus [Persae, 241 se(^<^.) the speakers present are both Persians, so the point χχνί EURIPIDES about Law cannot be explained. It is left a mystery, how and why the free Greeks face their death. It would be easy to assemble many passages to show that Athens represented freedom (e.g. Hdt. viii. 142) and the enfranchisement of the oppressed ; but what is even more characteristic than the insistence on Freedom is the insistence on Arete, Virtue — the demand made upon each Greek, and especially each Athenian, to be a better man than the ordinary. It comes out markedly from a quarter where we should scarcely expect it. Herodotus gives an abstract of the words spoken by the much- maligned Themistocles before the battle of Salamis — a brief, grudging resume of a speech so celebrated that it could not in decency be entirely passed over (Hdt. viii. 83) : " The argu- ment of it was that in all things that are possible to man's nature and situation, there is always a higher and a lower ; " and that ihey must stand for the higher. We should have liked to hear more of that speech. It certainly achieved its end. There was insistence on Arete in another sense, the sense of generosity and kindliness. A true Athenian must know how to give way. When the various states were contending for the leadership before the battle of Artemisium, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxvii the Athenians, contributing much the largest and finest fighting force, " thought," we are told (Hdt. viii. 3), *' that the great thing was that Greece should be saved, and gave up their claims." In the similar dispute for the post of honour and danger before the battle of Plataea, the Athenians did plead their cause, and easily won it (Hdt. ix. 27). But we may notice not only the moderate and disciplined spirit in which they promise to abide by Sparta's deci- sion, and to show no resentment if their claim is rejected, but also the grounds upon which they claim honour — beyond certain obvious points, such as the size of their contingent. Their claims are that in recent years they alone have met the Persians single-handed on behalf of all Greece ; that in old times it was they who gave refuge to the Children of Heracles when hunted through Greece by the overmaster- ing tyrant, Eurystheus ; it was they who championed the wives and mothers of the Argives slain at Thebes, and made war upon that conquering power to prevent wrong-doing against the helpless dead. These passages, which could easily be re- inforced by a score of others,, illustrate, not of course what Athens as a matter of hard fact was — no state has ever been one compact mass of noble qualities — but the kind of ideal that xxviii EURIPIDES Athens in her own mind had formed of herself. They help us to see what she appeared to the imaginations of Aeschylus and young Euri- pides, and that * Band of Lovers ' which Pericles gathered to adore his Princess of Cities. She represented Freedom and Law, Hellenism and Intellect, Humanity, Chivalry, the championship of the helpless and oppressed. Did Euripides feel all this? one may ask. The answer to that doubt is best to be found, perhaps, in the two plays which he wrote upon the two traditional feats of generosity mentioned above — the reception of the Children of Hera- cles, and the championing of the Argive Sup- liants. The former is unfortunately mutilated, and perhaps interpolated as well, so the Sup- pliants will suit our purpose best. It is, I think, an early play rewritten at the time of the Peace of Nicias (b.c. 421), about the beginning of the poet's middle period,^ a poor play in many respects, youthful, obvious, and crude, but all aflame with this chivalrous and confident spirit. The situation is as follows : Adrastus, King of Argos, has led the ill-fated expedition of the ^ Some critics consider that it was first written at this time. If so, we must attribute the apparent marks of earliness to deliberate archaism. There is no doubt that the reception of Suppliants was a very old stage subject, and had acquired a certain traditional stiff- ness of form, seen at its acme in the Suppliants of Aeschylus. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxix Seven Chieftains against Thebes, and been utterly defeated. The Thebans have brutally refused to allow the Argives to bury their dead. The bodies are lying upon the field. Adrastus, accompanied by the mothers and wives of the slain chieftains, has come to Attica, and ap- pealed to Theseus for intercession. That hero, like his son Demophon in The Children of Heracles, like his ancestor Cecrops in certain older poetry, is a sort of personification of Athens. He explains that he always disapproved of Adrastus's expedition ; that he can take no re- sponsibility, and certainly not risk a war on the Argives' account. He is turning away when one of the be- reaved women, lifting her suppliant wreaths and branches, cries out to him : — What is this thing thou doest ? Wilt despise All these, and cast us from thee beggar- wise, Grey women, with not one thing of all we crave ? Nay, the wild beast for refuge hath his cave, The slave God's altar ; surely in the deep Of fortune City may call to City, and creep, A wounded thing, to shelter. Observe the conception of the duty of one state to protect and help another. — Theseus is still obdurate. He has responsibilities. The recklessness of Athens in foreign policy has XXX EURIPIDES become a reproach. At last Aethra, his mother, can keep silence no more. Can he really allow such things to be done ? Can Athens really put considerations of prudence before generosity and religion ? Thou shalt not suffer it, thou being my child ! Thou hast heard men scorn thy city, call her wild Of counsel, mad ; thou hast seen the fire of morn Flash from her eyes in answer to their scorn ! Come toil on toil, 'tis this that makes her grand, Peril on peril ! And common states that stand In caution, twilight cities, dimly wise — Ye know them ; for no light is in their eyes ! Go forth, my son, and help. — My fear is fled Now. Women in sorrow call thee and men dead ! To help the helpless was a necessary part of what we call chivalry, what the Greeks called religion. Theseus agrees to consult the people on the matter. Meantime there arrives a Theban herald, asking arrogantly, "Who is Master of the land ? " Theseus, although a king, is too thorough a personification of de- mocratic Athens to let such an expression pass — Nay, peace, Sir Stranger ! Ill hast thou begun, Seeking a Master here. No will of one Holdeth this land ; it is a city and free. The whole folk year by year, in parity Of service, is our King. Nor yet to gold Give we high seats, but in one honour hold The poor man and the rich. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxxi The herald replies that he is delighted to hear that Athens has such a silly constitution, and warns Theseus not to interfere with Thebes for the sake of a beaten cause. Eventually Theseus gives his ultimatum : — Let the slain be given To us, who seek to obey the will of Heaven. Else, know for sure, I come to seek these dead Myself, for burial. — It shall not be said An ancient ordinance of God, that cried To Athens and her King, was cast aside ! A clear issue comes in the conversation that follows : — Herald. Art thou so strong ? Wilt stand against all Greece ? Theseus. Against all tyrants ! With the rest be peace. Herald. She takes too much upon her, this thy state ! Theseus. Takes, aye, and bears it ; therefore is she great ! We know that spirit elsewhere in the history of the world. How delightful it is, and green and fresh and thrilling ; and how often it has paid in blood and ashes the penalty of dream- ing and of TO μη θνητά (ppovelv. There is one other small point that calls for notice before we leave this curious play. Theseus represents not only chivalry and xxxii EURIPIDES freedom and law, but also a certain delicacy of feeling. He is the civilised man as contrasted with the less civilised. It was a custom in many parts of Greece to make the very most of mourning and burial rites, to feel the wounds of the slain, and vow vengeance with wild outbursts of grief. Athenian feeling dis- approved of this. Theseus. This task Is mine. Advance the burden of the dead ! \ΎΙ)ε attendants bring for^vard the bodies. Adrastus. Up, ye sad mothers, where your sons are laid ! Theseus. Nay, call them not, Adrastus. Adrastus. That were strange ! Shall they not touch their children's wounds ? Theseus. The change In that dead flesh would torture them. Adrastus. 'Tis pain Alway, to count the gashes of the slain. Theseus. And wouldst thou add pain to the pain of these ? Adrastus {^after a pause^. So be it ! — Ye women, wait in your degrees : Theseus says well. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxxiii This particular trait, this civilisation or delicacy of feeling, is wonderfully illustrated in a much finer drama, the Heracles. The hero of that tragedy, the rudely noble Dorian — or perhaps Pelasgian — chief, has in a fit of madness killed his own children. In the scene to be cited he has recovered his senses and is sitting dumb and motionless, veiled by his mantle. He is, by all ordinary notions, accursed. The sight of his face will pollute the sun. A touch from him or even a spoken word will spread the curse, the contagion of his horrible blood-stainedness, to another. To him comes his old comrade Theseus (Heracles^ i\ 1 2 14 if.):— ^ Theseus. Ο thou that sittest in the shadow of Death, Unveil thy brow 1 'Tis a friend summoneth, And never darkness bore so black a cloud In all this world, as from mine eyes could shroud The wreck of thee. . . . What wouldst thou with that arm That shakes, and shows me blood ? Dost fear to harm Me with thy words' contagion ? Have no fear ; What is it if I suffer with thee here ? I have rejoiced in many lands. — Back now To when the Dead had hold of me, and how Thou camest conquering ! Can that joy grow old, Or friends once linked in sunshine, when the cold Storm falleth, not together meet the sea? — Oh, rise, and bare thy brow, and turn to me Thine eyes ! A brave man faces his own fall And takes it to him, as God sends withal. Q xxxiv EURIPIDES Heracles. Theseus, thou seest my children ? Theseus. Surely 1 see All, and I knew it ere I came to thee. Heracles. Oh, why hast bared to the Sun this head of mine ? Theseus. How can thy human sin stain things divine ? Heracles. Leave me ! I am all blood. The curse thereof Crawls. . . . Theseus. No curse cometh between love and love ! Heracles. I thank thee. . . . Yes ; I served thee long ago. Heracles is calmed and his self-respect par- tially restored. But he still cannot bear to live. Notice the attitude of Theseus towards his suicide — an attitude more striking in ancient literature than it would be in modern. Heracles. Therefore is all made ready for my death. Theseus. Thinkest thou God feareth what thy fury saith ? Heracles (^rising). Oh, God is hard ; and I hard against God ! INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xxxv Theseus What wilt thou ? And whither on thine angry road ? Heracles. Back to the darkness whence my race began ! Theseus. These be the words of any common man ! Heracles {taken aback). Aye, thou art scathless. Chide me at thine ease ! Theseus. Is this He of the Labours, Heracles ? Heracles. Of none like this, if measure there is in pain ! Theseus. The Helper of the World, the Friend of Man .^ Heracles {