KXCHANGE JUL .14 13lS THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES BY RHYS CARPENTER Submitted in Partial Fulfilment op the Requirements FOR the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University ARCHIVES OF PHILOSOPHY edited by FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE No. 7, May, 1916 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS New York: LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 West 27th Street London: HUMPHREY MILFORD Amen Corner, E.G. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES BY RHYS CARPENTER Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements FOR the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University ARCHIVES OF PHILOSOPHY edited by FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE No. 7, May, 1916 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 Copyright, 1916 By Columbia University Press Printed from type, May, 1916 C367 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES CHAPTER I TO 8e (pva KpaTLffTov aiTav. "Nature's way is ever the strongest and best," wrote Pindar in his ninth Olympian ode.^ Like much of his teaching, the aphorism has more earnestness than originaHty. Indeed, it is as a commonplace of Greek conviction that I have chosen it as my starting-point and text. If it were possible to comprise in one short sentence the essential differences of the Greek genius from that of other nations and of modern times, Pindar might claim to have come near to that achievement. For there is an entire world — an entire Greek world — of meaning in ^uS. It implies that the Greek standard, the ethical and physical sanction, is not drawn from a supra-mundane or transcendental source, but from the physical world as it is or as it tends to be. TO 5e 4)va KpcLTLCTTov awav. Hence, in logic, the Platonic theory of ideas, inasmuch as the idea can be defined as that form of any infima species which is wholly and perfectly 0i;a. The logical concept to the Greeks had always a curious concreteness. It was not an abstraction so much as a formal visualisation of the object in its complete and perfect state. Hence that curious dualism in Plato, — a world of objects, and a world of ideas which always threatened to be objects also, to be 4>va KpaTtarov a-rrav : the ideas were the objects (j)ua, and as such they liad a particular KpoLTos or dvvajjLis, a driving power directing these material counterparts toward the perfection which should be theirs by nature. In sculpture, that strange early development through a very limited number of fixed types is common to most early art, inasmuch as differ- entiation is a late acquirement. But note that the types did not stag- nate into conventions, as seems to have happened occasionally in Egypt and many Oriental countries. The sculptor was never satisfied with his heritage, because he felt very vividly, " to 0i;a KpaTiaTov airav." Fifth- century athletic art is an amazing blend of geometric formalism and reaUstic observation: the former (inherited from the archaic schema) 1 01. ix. 107. 336663 2 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES gives it the so-called classic regularity and "suppression" of unessen- tials; the realism saves it from conventionalisation. Greek art is a spiritual interpretation of the physical. But what that phrase means, only those will understand who realise that the generations of sculptors were studying the nude athlete in order to find that schema toward which Nature is striving without ever a perfect attainment. They worked toward the human form (})vq., the bodily eUos, and not toward a mere counterpart of this Olympic athlete here and now. It is the bare truth to call Greek sculpture Platonic, m spite of all Plato's strictures on art. The canonic statue of an athlete is the visible presentation of the Platonic Idea of the athlete. Both are imagi- nary, yet deduced from reality, from the multitudinous members of the species, each of which is more or less completely 0i;a. Greek sculp- ture was thus for long confined by the demands of a strict develop- ment toward a logical concept. For that reason, in comparison with modern art, it impresses the unspecialized as strangely limited in imagi- nativeness, or, better, in that particular quality of imaginative suggest- iveness which may be termed phantasy, whose stimulus is through strong emotional vagueness. Maxfield Parrish's scenes from Greek mythology, for instance, or Gilbert Murray's reimbodiments of Euripidean tragedy, are full of this modern appeal, of which Hellenic art knows so little. Compare these two versions (both of them in my judgment good poetry) : . . . Ifxe 8e TTOVTiov aKa(f)OS alaaov ivTepoLdi Tropevaei l-Kirb^OTOV " kpyos, Iva reix^a Xd'tVa Kii/cXcoTTt' ovpavia veixovraL. (Tro. 1085-8) "... and me the ships Shall bear o'er the bitter brine, Storm-birds upon angry pinions. Where the towers of the Giants shine O'er Argos cloudily. And the riders ride by the sea." In the Greek, every picture is single and concise, and refers to places and conditions actually known to the hearers. In the English, the whole effect counts upon vague pictures, indefinite plurals, unfamiliar places, and unknown men. It has been suggested to me that I am wrong in entirely denying to the Greek this sense of imaginative appeal and that, for example, we THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 3 derive a very modern emotional stimulus from the vase-painting of the morning-stars who dive through the clouds at the approach of the sun.^ I might, of course, plead that an instance so unique is eloquent of the prevalence of the opposite condition. But I am inclined rather to question the validity of the example; for, were the mythology as much a commonplace to us as to the Greeks, the illustration of the stars as youths would have no more imaginative stimulus than a statue of Apollo as a young man. I mean that there are no vague suggestions, no half- lights nor lowering shadows, such as the Romanticists and the Celt- icists have made familiar. For, all these effects are obtained by a play on Nature, a suppression, a distortion, an exaggeration, an innuendo of the unusual and mysterious, a trick of the half-seen, the imperfect. But if to the Greek to vhaLs would develop every nascent organism into a perfect exemplifica- tion of its type, its eiSoj. The type or tUos is a static conception; ^ucrts * Cf. Diog. Laert. viii. 87. 5i6irep rkXos yiperai to aKoXoWus rfj (j>v(7ei ^rjv. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 5 is dynamic, it is the complex of laws by which everything tends to attain its eldos.^ A good rose must have, let us say, its full quota of petals. The literal moth and the figurative rust must not have worked it harm. It must have had sun and rain. (f)V(ns must have had full play, that from the seed it might develop stalk and leaf and bud and perfect flow^er. Only so can it attain its full type, its d8os. A good rose is a perfect rose. It is wholly /card (f)veLv. Man is in a like position. Only, with him, development is not mere physical growth. The whole complex of mental and spiritual powers must expand and increase to their perfect form. Yet we can say of him what we said of the rose. As a good rose is a perfect rose, so a good man is a perfect man. He must be wholly Kara (f)vaLv. He must, under the unobstructed action of 0uc7ts, attain his eUos as material or- ganism, as sentient animal, and as thinking man. In so far as he exerts his powers to further this action of (f)vaLs, he is acting rightly; in so far as he thwarts (f)vais, he is acting wrongly. Back of such an attitude of the Greek mind there must have been an extraordinary sense for the community between man and the rest of the material world. The modern mind opposes itself to Nature. With our artificialities of living and thinking, our exotic scientific diver- sion of natural forces, we feel that we dominate her. The supremacy of Mind marks us out from our surroundings: we feel like powerful strangers from another planet who have seized upon this earth, thanks to our unterrestrial sagacity. The Greek could not have felt so. He was part of the natural world, as plants and animals were part of it, though with a more intimate insight because of his part in its intel- lectual aspect.^ To such a people it is not a great imaginative and poetic flight to feel that man is like the flowers of the field. It is merely a simple statement of an obvious truth. Secondly, the Greek must have had a keen eye for formal perfection and have realized that every organism under favourable conditions develops a product which has a formal, as well as a purely material^ ^ But it is also the matter upon which that d6os is formed. Burnet in his recent book, Greek Philosophy from Thales to Plato, justly emphasises this aspect of the meaning of the word in the vocabulary of a slightly earlier period. (Cf. o. c. p. 27.) ^ I do not mean that he was the care-free child of nature, the pastoral fiction of an 18th century imagination. Minds like that of Aeschylus, who was thoroughly Greek, are a sufficient contradiction to such generalities. But there is an ultimate Versohnung, not an ultimate opposition, between man and the high mysteries of Nature, drrj acts wapd 4>v(ji.v and its catastrophe is so best explained. 6 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES significance. Nature, we might say, has a love of pure form. (Not that she displays a conscious aesthetic interest: there may be very simple reasons why Nature tends toward a formal articulation. For one thing, it is probabh' mechanically easier: at least, symmetry is mathematically simpler than asymmetrJ^) Rather, I wish to empha- sise the mere empirical fact that Nature constantly strives toward a formal expression. The botanist, the zoologist, the biologist knows this. The Greek seems to have been peculiarly sensitive to it. There results a certain optimistic confidence in Nature. Unthwarted v(n$ produces, as far as form goes, superior and more perfect products. Thwart Nature, and consider the undergrown or crippled or uneven results. Formally, they are far inferior. But give the rose its proper soil and dew and sunlight, and the perfect form appears; and give to men the soil of individual freedom, the dew of material self-sufficiency, and the sunlight of good fortune, and they likewise will attain their formal and natural perfection. A gardener working in a sandy and barren soil would not be prone to emphasise this striving toward form. His flowers would all be im- perfect, with stunted stem, uneven leaf, and ill-developed blossom. So amid the misery of the ghetto, the rabble of the dusty streets of Alex- andria, or the ill-fed slave-hordes of imperial Rome, in certain more unfavorable periods, the Greek doctrine would have little meaning and make little appeal. But the Greeks of the Euripidean age were an indi- vidualistic aristocracy. From their slave-tilled soil thej^ sprang up independent and self-sufficient. Inside their city-fatherland, they had leisure and immunity enough to develop themselves physically and spir- itually. To such a people the doctrine had application, and for them its significance was self-evident. Only under such conditions can a purely individualistic code of ethics succeed. Only there can there be the be- lief — which was the Greek belief — that the best life is the life of self-development into the perfect natural norm, the life Kara 4)vaLP. It is important to realise how completely such an ethical principle would be misinterpreted by the people of to-day. Self-development is not self-aggrandisement. But many modern nations have lost the sense for form and substituted a sense for size. They have been rightly taunted with treating everythmg quantitatively, and many men to-day hold an individualistic creed which prompts them to believe that the more they have of the good things of the world, the better it is for them. Metaphorically, we have ceased to know that, though rain is good for the rose, the water-floods of Noah cannot benefit it. Nature, to THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 7 attain her end, must have her necessities in right quantities. Too much is often as disastrous as too little. To develop ourselves to the perfect norm, we need, not as much of everything as possible, but just so much as is consonant with the particular demands of our particular nature. It is easy to see that this is true of the simpler organisms such as plants and animals. Overfeeding and underfeeding are both bad be- cause both are contrary to natural requirements, — they are xapa (t>vaLv. Both produce in the affected organism a departure from the true norm, a formal distortion, and a consequent imperfect state. It is not hard to see that, in man likewise, the physical part is in a similar condition, that under-exercise or over-eating ' are detrimental. Yet we now-a-days feel our impaired state of health to be a sin against good judgment rather than against morality. But the best Greeks of the Polykleitan age, with their peculiar attitude toward athletics, would have felt it to be an offence against that formal perfection of the human body which is for man the only physical state worthy of his aspiration. Compare the Polykleitan Doryphoros with the Herakles Farnese of a later and other age. The one is physical perfection, the other is physi- cal exaggeration. The history of early Peloponnesian sculpture is little else than the gradual evolution of the completely and harmoniously developed type of the male human body. The slow-yielding stone bears record to that incessant striving of the Greek to allow Nature her formally wonderful self-expression, which prompted him to Olympian festivals wherein the victory was not merely a glorification of muscle and sinew, but also the visible triumph of human ^uais that had realized her eUosJ Because he was so sensitive to this formal perfection which is Nature's successful self-expression, it was apparently an inevitable con- sequence that the Greek applied to everything the standard of mate- rial form. He saw spiritual problems as it were from a physical point of view. Man's spiritual growth was somehow similar to that material growth whose athletic perfection the Greek so greatly loved. To one and the other, the same general laws applied. The athletic training-school reappeared as a spiritual paedeutic. Man's thinking and vohtional nature must be formed by exercise into a natural state of health and strength. The sophists and rhetors were but athletic trainers in the palaestra of thought. The Greek youth learned to wrestle intellec- tually not primarily for display or gain, but because only so was the ^ Euripides' polemic against athletes is in itself a protest against the professional vulgarisation of this high athletic ideal (and not against the ideal itself). (Fr. 284). 8 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES intellectual body, with all its sinews of reason and knowledge, brought into its proper state of health. So only could the intellectual ^uo-ts realise its tUos fully. Compare again the Polykleitan Doryphoros and the Herakles Far- nese. Think of them, however, as an allegory of man's intellectual and spiritual self. The Doryphoros gives us the classic Greek ideal : through self-denial if necessary, through constant energy, and unfailing self- attention, all the spiritual powers are developed in harmony with each other until they give the fullest expression to that balanced and per- fect type toward which Nature always strives, but which she can attain only if the individual himself will aid her. All the right conditions must be there, before the rose at last unfolds its petals and displays the per- fect flower, — a wholly natural product, this flawless plant, and yet in nature how rare ! It is a creed which is absolutely individualistic and self-centred; but it involves both devotion and painful energy. Selfishness and self- aggrandisement produce a spiritual Herakles Farnese. It needs an intense training, a deep feeling for spiritual 4)vv\aaaov TrpayixaTWV alaxp^v airo' ojs ^i' Tpa(t>fj TLS fxi] KaKcJos, aiax^veraL avi]p yepoixevos ai(rxpoi bpav v'eos 5' orav TToXX' e^afxaprri, ttjp afxapriav exft els jTJpas avTOv tols TponoLaLV eix4>vT0v.^ In the Suppliants," Adrastus lauds the great warriors who fell in battle before the gates of Thebes. After recounting their individual worth and valour, he praises the good training which set such courage in their souls : TO "yap Tpa^yivai /jltj KaKcJos aldu) 0epet" aiffx^verai 5e rayad' aanrjaas avrjp KaKos yeveaQai xas tls. 17 5' evavbpia bihaKTOs, eiirep Kal j8p€0os bibacFKtTaL Xkyeiv CLKOveLV 6' wv fj.a.dr](TLv ovk ex€t. a 5' av /xadri tls, TavTa acc^eadai 0tXet irpos yrjpas. ovtcx} Traibas ev iraibeveTe. (Hik. 911-17) Hekabe, in the play of that name, remarks that the good are ever good and the bad are ever bad, and wonders to what cause this may be due : ap' ol TeKovTes bLa(j)€pov(np r) Tpo4>a'i.; 'ix^i 76 jjikvTOL Kal TO dpe(l)9f]vaL koXus blba^LV ecrdXov' tovto b' r]v tls ev f-iadrj, olbev TO 7' alcrxpov, KavovL tov koKov fxaduv. (Hek. 599-602) 1 The extant plays are quoted from Gilbert Murray's edition, in the Oxford Classical Texts, and the Fragments from the latest Teubner text (ed. Nauck). 2 Hik. 857-917. 10 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 11 A further instance occurs in the Iphigeneia in AuUs: Klytaimestra: Who trained Achilles, Thetis or his father? Agamemnon: 'Twas Cheiron lest he learn bad tricks of mortals. Klytaimestra: Ah, wise the trainer; but the father, wiser. (I. A. 708-10) ' But though for the individual this training in the norm of nature may be practicable and to a certain extent sufficient, it of course does not solve the ethical problem raised at the beginning of this chapter. How is man to learn the norm of Nature which it is his duty and highest good to follow ? The physical norm can be learned by experience and trial. The rules of the athletic training-school are empiric in their origin. The right amount of exercise, of food, of sleep, can be ascertained by experiment. The same is true of man's spiritual activities. We may violate the norm by excess or by defect; but if we are attentive to the results, we shall learn at last the due amount. The "golden mean" is thus an empiric rule. Our reason gives us merely the rule in all its generality, telling us that, since we are natural organisms, we must fit ourselves as com- pletely as possible to Nature's requirements, and that, since we may err either by too much or by too little, our aim must be to discover the norm between excess and defect. Such advice is excellent, but not specific. In every part of conduct, in every act, we must pause and ask ourselves, " What does ^uo-is here require? Where is that balance be- tween too much and too little, which is the perfect requirement and condition of Nature? " This is the difficulty of Greek ethics. The fundamental principle must be elaborated in every part of life, in all the emotions and intel- lectual conditions, in every portion of the system of human conduct. Only if it can be shown to be true without exception, to be as infallible in practice as it is plausible in theory, only then can it be proclamied a great and necessary principle of living. It is only then that we are justified in considering it as it were the ethical spine which makes a coherent and organic articulation out of what would otherwise be merely an invertebrate mass of precepts. In the Hippolytos, Phaidra's nurse — a prosaic soul full of middle- class wisdom — appeals to the seven sages : ^ ' Cf. the chorus in the same play, 11. 561-2. * If this inference to the Wise Men may be made from the collocation of the familiar n-qbkv 0,701' and the suggestive aocjioi. 12 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES ol'tco to \iav rjaaou €7raivw Tov ^r]5ev ayaV Kai ^vy^4>ri(TovaL aocjiOi fiOL. (Hipp. 264-6) Nihil nimium (or, in Terence's phrase, ut ne quid nimis) ,^ is a corner- stone for conduct because: ^poTols TO. ixei^o) T(hv n'taoiv tIktcl voctovs. (Fragment 80) The plays, in fact, are full q/ warnings against excess.^ But it is the specific application of the general rule which Euripides never wearies of emphasising and exemplifying. And, as we saw, an empiric rule must offer precisely this proof in detail. I give, under various headings, passages in Euripides to show the poet's thoroughgoing crusade for moderation in conduct. 1 . In courage and fear, the evil of excess : ixrj TO. KLvSvvevfxaTa alveiT ' 6703 7dp ovre vavriKov 0iXco ToKfxCJVTa \lau ovre TpocrTCLTrjv x^ovos. TCLS rCiV dewv yap oaris eKfxoxdf:^ tvxo.s, Trpodvfios kcTiv, ■q Tpodvp.ia 8' a4>p(j)v. The evil of defect : 5etXot yap av8pes ovk exovcFiv kv /jlclxv apidnov, dXX' ciTretcn kolv Trapwc' ofxcos. . . . Tovs irovovs yap ayadol ToXjJLCocL, deiXol 8' elalv ov8ev ov8atxov. 6 8 ri8vs aiojv if /ca/cij r' avav8pia ovT^ OLKOv ovre toKlv avopdcoaecev av. Praise of the right amount of courage: veaviav yap av8pa XPV roXpav aei' ov8els yap o)v padv/jLos evKXeris avrjp, dXX' ol TTOVOL rlKTOvaL Tr]v tvav8piav. (Fragment 194) (H. M. 309-10) (Fragment 523) (I. T. 114-15) (Fragment 241) (Fragment 239) * Andria, 61. « E.g. Med. 127-8; Phoin. 539-42; 554; 584; Fr. 80; 628, 1. 4; 964. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 13 IXol(jl t a(X(l>aXr]s (f>iXos TToXeL t' apLCTTOS. . . .^ (From Fragment 194) ' Cf. also Fr. 304; 420; 437; 745; 1038. 8 Cf. also Fr. 241 and the almost identical lines in 366. 3 Cf. also Fr. 235; 238; 464; 477; 745; mainly praising energy. 14 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES The apparent inconsistency in these three fragments vanishes only if we recognise that the first two praise the mean as opposed to the defect, while the third praises the mean as opposed to the excess. 3. The doctrine of the mean has perhaps its greatest value in man's emotional pursuits, where pleasure and dislike are such powerful factors, apd where man is, as nowhere else, prone to rush into extremes. It is consequent Ij^ the excess rather than the defect against which man needs warning and such passages are more numerous in Euripides than those which emphasise the opposite extreme. And yet there is one entire play which has this latter function to perform. I judge that with the Hip- polytos Euripides is preaching as usual (but by an unusual example) his fundamental ethical doctrine that conduct contrary to nature must end in disaster. Hippolytos is insensible to the attraction of love, and be- cause he thereby behaves xapd vaLs which he has violated, that same power and instinct of love, reacts against him in the person of Phaidra and brings about his ruin and his violent death. In confirma- tion, there is a fragment from that other and earlier play of the Veiled Hippolytos, of which we should so gladly know more. There we read: ol yap Is-Virpiv (t)ev'yovTes avOpuiro^v ayav voaova' opLoiccs rots iiyav 6r]pcoij.evoLS. (Fragment 431) The Hippoh'tos is such a brilliant and careful exposition of Euripides' fundamental moral thesis that it is essential for me to ex- amine it at greater length. The play has been very generallj^ misappre- hended, because the author's intentions toward Hippolytos have not been understood. To a careful reader, who bears our moral thesis in mind, it must be abundantly clear that Euripides is not in sympathy with Hippolytos, but is strongly censuring an attitude which was prob- ably prevalent in his own town of Athens and which strongly recalls the aesthetic and other "literary" movements of the closing years of the nineteenth century in England. From his first appearance on the stage, a certain preciosity is noticeable in the words of Hippolytos. He talks of flowers ^^ and jewelry ^^ and maintains an attitude of odi profanum vulgus (from whom he is toto caelo distinct). ^^ He belongs to a set" oaoLs diSaKTov fi-qSev dXX' h rrj 4>vaeL. (1. 79). To the last he is exclusive, and despises the bourgeois gift of demagogic oratory : kyo) 8' aKOfx\J/os els ox^ov SovvaL \6yov, ks rfKiKas 8e K(h}\.iyovs aocpccrepos. (ib. 986-7) 1" Hipp. 73-8. " lb. 82-3. '^ 75 79-8!; 84. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 15 He is of the jeunesse doree who spend time on horses and hunting. These very horses cause his undoing. In ancient tragedy the agents of disaster are chosen with grim appropriateness. aKriparos, " unsuUied," is a favour- ite word of his.^^ It has a self-righteous ring, a note of moral arrogance, v^pLs. It turns to injured innocence in 11. 654-6 where he spurns the suggestions of the old nurse, and shows a complete lack of sympathy. He is inhuman in his avaLadrjaia. Just this quality in him spurs Phaidra to her fatal actions. Bitterly she says, "that he may learn not to be high and mighty about my misfortune" (iV el8fj nii Vt rots e/jLols KaKots v\J/r]\6s eii/at).^** From his father Theseus we have further light on Hippolytos, who is taunted with a bitter reference to his reputation as a superman of refinement (irepLaa-ds avrip)}^ aKr]paros, "unsullied," his favourite word, is hurled in his face.^^ Apparently Theseus has found his son's affec- tations (/cojUTToi) hard to endure. He has had to put up with his vege- tarianism, religious mysticism, and literary dilettanteism.^^ His whole speech is the reaction of the normal man against the abnormal. Theseus is healthy in mind and body; Hippolytos seems to be neither. It is the clash of rd Kara (j^vaiv with to. irapa (j)V(nv, and the latter must go under. Lest the spectator think that the approaching catastrophe is accidental or individual, due to casual misunderstanding or spite or sudden rage, Euripides makes Theseus declare the universality of his attitude. It is not Theseus against Hippolytos, it is the natural against the abnormal: Tovs be TOLOVTOVS e7w 4)€V'y€LV Tpocpwvoj TrScf (955-6) TOLOVTOVS and Trao-t are no longer specific or personal terms. Hippolytos defends himself against his father's charges in a speech betraying affectation and self -righteousness.^^ He is (xdocppccv,^^ without sexual interest, ^'^ a virgin.-^ OLfjLOL, TO ae/xpov COS fx' airoKTepeX to adv. Oh, how thy holy cant will murder me! cries Theseus. 22 The same to ae/jLvdv is one cause of Hippolytos' undo- ing. He was warned against it at the opening of the play by his hunts- man. ^^ But it is h Tfj (t)va€L. Even when near death, he clings to his " Hipp. 73, 76; cf. 949. ^^ 75. 945. n 75 952-4. i^ lb. 995. " lb. 729-30. 16 75. 949_ is 75. 933 ff. 20 75, 10O6. 21 adiKTos, 1002. But it must be granted that his ideal in 1016-8 is both a healthy and a good one. ^ lb. 1064. " lb. 91-5. 16 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES aefjivos eyo:.-* But the last scene is one of reconciliation. Sympathy with his father breaks his aefxvoTrjs.-'" In his last words, he becomes at last natural and human. He turns against his old life as personified in I Artemis. (In 1441-3 does he not even seem to suggest that he finds ^'] her a trifle verbose and tedious ?) ^iicts has reclaimed him, and Theseus, \ the normal man, weeps for his dying son. Of all Hippolytos' abnormalities, however, the most fatal was his complete aversion to love. Aphrodite, speaking the prologue and explaining the argument, announced the unvengeful and almost imper- sonal retribution of this slighted instinct,^^ and Phaidra is declared the unwitting \dctim of the reaction.^^ The huntsman warns Hippolytos of this force which he spurns;-* but without effect. Straightway thereafter, love asserts itself in Phaidra's unhappy struggle. With the appearance of Theseus, we realize that slighted love has fulfilled its terrible reaction. And now the other charges of abnormality are developed against Hippolytos, as explained above. But observe that after the death of Hippolytos, when Theseus and Poseidon are alone vivid in the spectator's thoughts, the chorus without a word of transi- tion harks back to Aphrodite to whom all this tragedy is ascribed. ^^ The mangled Hippolytos is brought upon the stage. He is still unre- pentant. When disaster overtook him, amid the turmoil of broken wheel and dragging rem, he called himself still "a perfect man" (avdp' apidTov, 1242). And now he ascribes his misfortune to inherited guilt. ^° But Artemis tells him the true cause, ^^ and Theseus, who closes the play, attributes all to Kypris, the power of love.^^ It is a grim spectacle, because all the characters are merely puppets playing the great but unequal game of 06(ns against to irapa (jyvaLv. But just because it is so universal, it is true tragedy and true morality. That morality is Greek to the core. The Medeia illustrates the opposite extreme. Princess of the royal blood of Kolchis, she deserted her land and slew her brother, for love of a foreign adventurer. Bitterly she exclaims to Jason, ''To my friends at home I made myself a foe, and those whom ne'er I should have wronged, for the sake of you I made my enemies!"^' Endowed with strange knowledge, a creature with the sun-god's passion in her veins and sister to the enchantress Kirke, she sacrificed everything for love. 2* Hipp. 1364. 28 75, 88-120. ^i /;,_ 1400 and 1402. 25 76. 1405-15. 29 7^, l268-8a ^2 75, 14(31 26 lb. 20-22. 30 lb. 1379 ff. 33 Med. 506-S. 2^ lb. 27-28; cf. 47-50. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 17 Outraging Nature, she falls a victim to Nature's recoil. Her wild love turns into barbaric hate. She slaughters her own children, and van- ishes. The chariot of dragons, on which she disappears, is not more strange than she to Nature's normal ways.'** 4, Passages against excess in pleasure are numerous in Euripides: ... 17 cf)V(7LS yap otx^TaL orav 7Xu«:€tas rjbovr]^ rjaaojv tls fj. (From Fragment 187) TO, XP^ot' kiriaTaneada Kal yLyv(jjaKOfjL€v, ovK eKTrovodiJ.ev 8', ol nev apyias vto, ol 5' r]8ovr]u TvpoQtVTfi o.vtI tov koKov o.Wr\v TLV'. (Hipp. 380-3) orav KttKOt irpa^ciXTLV, Si ^kvoL, /caXcos, ayoiv KpaTOvvres kov poni^ovres 8lKr]v dcoaetv edpaaav tclvt e^eires 7)8ovfj.^^ (Fragment 568) But though pleasure with its irrational power is in general a danger, it is not in itself an evil if man can only enjoy within due bounds. In this the Greek differs from much mediaeval Christian doctrine and dis- plays an attitude more akin to the modern. With our thought coloured by evolutional and biological theory, we judge pleasure as a natural appearance, valuable and necessary for man's maintenance. In just the same way the Greek saw pleasure to be "according to nature," a normal and admirable product. The ideal was not to avoid pleasure, but to learn how to use it. There is a remark made by Pylades in the Iphigeneia in Tauris which may be elevated to a general gnome of this Greek attitude toward pleasure : (TO(hv yap avbpCiv ravra, /xi] 'K^avras tvxv^j Kaipov XajSovras, rjdovas dXXas XajSeti'.^^ (I. T. 907-8) ^^ Perhaps also (as Prof. H. N. Sanders has pointed out to me) the play is a veiled protest against the legitimation and naturalisation of the children which Perikles had by Aspasia. In that case the appeal is similarly to the plea of Trapd cjiva-if, under whose ban legalised international marriage is easily made to fall. 35 Cf. also Fragments 197; 364 (11. 22-23); 849. 3^ iiWas in the Greek idiom is attracted to rjdovds. It does not mean "other pleasures," but "other things, which are pleasures." So in Hipp. 383, just above. 18 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES Similarly : TO 8' kpdv irpoKkyoi Totai vkoiaiv IxijivoTt (f)evyeLV, XP^c^ai 5' opdQis orav 'i\Oii, (From Fragment 889) which, as we have seen, is very much the moral of the entire Hippolytos. The self-control which never runs into excess of pleasure is known in Greek as sophrosyne. It does not mean abstinence or asceticism, but the ability to maintain the mean amid temptations to excess. Conse- quently it most frequently has reference to pleasure. But sophrosyne is not mere negative restraint. To understand it, we must read the Bacchae, a play of first importance for our thesis. I can see no sign that the drama is the palinode of an atheist or the apologia of a rationalist,^^ an old man in exile trying to reconcile himself with popular religion. The " orthodox " view seems obviously correct; for Euripides' own words are insistent in its favour. It is nearly the same subject as in the Hip- polj'tos: the Bacchic pleasures and prerogatives — dancing, laughter, freedom from care, wine-feasting ^^ — are natural and salutary. To treat them with austerity and suppression is therefore not virtue, but a violation of nature, and quite strictly Trapa (f)V(nv. Hence the fateful recoil of these Bacchic elements of life on Pentheus, even as love re- coiled to work the death of Hippolytos. More than this, man's 0iVts includes more than a mere life of reason. All that fine intoxication of the spirit, with which poet and votary are so familiar, is not outside of Nature's intent. Euripides would have been turning a weapon against himself, were he to admit that poetic enthusiasm is Trapa (f)vv(tlv and a moral necessity, very different from excess or licentiousness as the chorus is careful to point out.^^ Nor is it true that his rites lead necessarily to dissipation: ovx o Aiopvaos ao:(f>pove'LV avayKaaei yvvoLKas es ttjv IvvTrpiv, dXX' kv ttj (j)vaei [to (jiccppopeLP eviCFTLV ds TO. ttolvt' aei] ^ " As, among others, Sir John Sandys would have us believe in his edition of the play (Cambridge, 1900, Introd. Ixxv). ^* All these enumerated o. c. 379-85. 39 lb. 386-8. ^» lb. 314-6. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 19 The chorus states the whole matter admirably : TLfXicv re BpdfjLiov aoicjypovtis. "Give Dionysos his due, and you will be o-a)<^pwv."^^ Sophrosyne is not abstinence, but proper acquiescence in Nature's ways. The Hippolytos takes pains to illustrate the true meaning of the word. Hippolytos is fond of calling himself ac^4>po:p ^~ and Artemis agrees with his definition.'*^ But Phaidra has a different conception of sophrosyne : drdp KaKov ye x^t'^P'^ yevr]aofxaL davova , Lv eidrj ixr] ttl toTs knots KaKols v'^'rjKos tlvai. ttjs voaov 8e rijaSe jjlol KOLVTJ neraaxo^v acocppoveiv jiad-qaeTai. (Hipp. 728-31) Which definition of sophrosyne has the poet's own approval, we may read writ large through all the play. We should rememl^er that because the Greeks, like most southern races, were inclined to excess, restraint was to them an inherent part of conduct. Where northern peoples are apt to phrase the ethical alternative as " to do or not to do," and make a sheer choice between extreme poles, the southern shift the problem to the intermediary zones and make the choice one of degree. The Corcyra massacres in Thu- cydides are an instance of the excess into which the Greek was not infrequently betrayed. Alexandrianism and Byzantinism show the ultimate assertion of these fervid tendencies which, in the preceding classical age, were controlled only by the most constant application. Indeed, one may suspect that Greek art and literature show essentially the curbs and checks of a conscious formalism trying to hold in restraint the dithyrambic excess of the national temperament. By having, in general, only the formal product preserved to us, we miss the ever- present contrast with the unrestrained world with which they strug- gled.^"* Only on such a supposition can we understand why the doctrine of the Mean forms such an apparently disproportionate part of Aristotle's Ethics and why Euripides could write whole plays « 76. 329. ^2 E.g. SO, 13G5. « 76. 1402. ^ The terra cotta figurines often echo the popular temperament unrestrained by artistic formalisation. Cf. the well-known caricatures mostly found in Asia Minor, and monstrosities such as were discovered in the Demeter sanctuary at Priene, illus- trated in Wiegand-Schrader's Priene. 20 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES primarily to exemplify the value and necessity of harmonious and balanced conduct. The references have emphasized that in love, even more than else- where, the need of moderation obtains. The following passages are equally illustrative of this teaching: *'^ epooTes VTvtp p-tv ayav tkdbvTts oi'K evdo^iav ov6' aperav Tapt8(j}Kav av8pa.(nv el 8' aXts eXdot KvirpLS, ovK dXXa deos eDxapts ovtoos. (Chorus, Med. 627-31) fjiaKapes di /xerptas 6eov /xerct re coi^poavva'i fiere- cxov \k;KTpoiv 'A0po5tras, yOiKavda. xpi70'aM€»'ot p.avLb.8u:v oiarpuiv, 66l 8ri 8i8vp.' "Epcos 6 xP^coKonas t6^' kPTelverat xaptTCOJ', TO iJLev €7r' ei'aluvL ttot/xw, TO 5' eirl crvyxvc^ei (SLords. elf] 8e iJLOL iieTpla fxev Xo.pLS, TTodOL 8 oaiOL, Kal niT€XOLiJ.L rds ' A(f)po8i- ras, TToWav 8' airoddiiav. (Chorus, I. A. 543-51; 554-7) fj.€Tpioiv "KeKTpcov, perplccv 8e ydfxuv fjiera a(j:cl)poavv7]S Kvpaai 6vr]T0L(nv apLdTov. (Fragment 505) Finally there is the praise of love in a fragment of eleven lines ascribed to Euripides: TTatSeu/xa 5' "Epcos aocfyias aperrjs ir'Ke'lcrTOV VTapx^h Kal TpocroixiXeiv ovtos 6 8aLixoiv TvavTOiv rjStOTOs e^i; dvriTols. ^^ Cf. similarly, Hipp. 358; 431-2; also Fragment 449 from the earher Hippol- ytos; Fr. 507; 951; Med. 635-6. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 21 Kal yap iiKvirov rkpypiv tlv' exo}v eis eXirid' aycL. toIs 5' dreXecrrots TU}V Tovde TTOvoiv iJLTjTe avveirjv Xcopts T aypiojv valoip.!. Tpoiruv. TO 5' kpap irpoKkyoi rdtai vkoiaiv prjTTOTe 4>evyeLV, XPW^o-t- 5' dpdojs, orav 'ekdrj. (Fragment 889) 5. Similarly, the rest of man's emotions are not to be frowned upon nor treated with the unrecognising stare of a merciless self-suppression. The emotions are natural products. To deny them their due place in man's life is to attain, not a higher ethical plane, but an unhuman one. The problem of the individual is not to avoid emotion, but to avoid, now excessive emotionality, now emotional insensibility. For example, although indulgence in anger is generally injurious to men, there are instances where a lack of resentment proclaims a spiritless creature, a thing somewhat less than a man, like that Phrygian slave in the latter part of the Orestes (11. 1369 ff.) whose barbaric panic and cringing sub- mission fill us with contempt. Not to harbour just anger and desire for revenge is, in fact, characteristic of the serf; and, in Greek thought, the barbarian slave who behaves as a slave, is of a lower and different order than real man.^^ The free-born Greek had a duty toward his own self-respect. 'EXeu^epoTTjs, the conduct of individual independence, was part of his 4>^(ti.s. Not to maintain it was -Kapa (f)V(TLv and ethically wrong. With just this plea Orestes announces his vengeance against Menelaos : bpaaas rt xpfl^^ tovs eiJLOvs exdpovs davelv, 'Iv' avTavaXwaw fxev di pe Trpovboaav, CTtvoiaL 5' oiTrep Kciyu' WrjKau adXiov. ' k.yap.ep.vovbs tol ttols Trk(j)vx • • • 6v ov KaraLaxwoj 8ov\ov Trapacrxojt' davarov, dXX' eXevdepoos ^l^vxw a4>7](T(jo, Mevk\ewv 8e Telaopai. (Or. 1164-7; 1169-71) Though the evil of excessive anger is often emphasised in Euripides, — as for example in the following, TToWous 8' 6 dvpos 6 peyas uiXeaev ^pordv (Fragment 259) « Cf. Fr. 215. 22 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES bpyfi yap oans cu^ecos x^P^f^T-at KaKO)s TeXevrg.. . J' (Fragment 31) none the less, there is such a thing as justifiable anger, — ykpovTes, aivu}' tojp iplKoov yap ovveKa opyas dLKaias tovs <^tXous ex^i-v XP^<^^! (H. M. 275-6) and in the Herakleidai, when Alkmene at last holds her implacable enemy Eurystheus in her power and claims that her right of vengeance is greater than the laws of Marathon, the chorus calls her rage avyyvudTov, "com- prehensible," and so " pardonable." ^^ In another play, where Hekabe takes a hideous revenge on Poljanestor for the violation of the sanctity of hospitality and the murder of her son, Agamemnon, in true Eurip- idean fashion, holds an ethical inquest and justifies Hekabe for blind- ing Pol}anestor. The decision gains weight, because awarded by a Greek against an ally and in favour of a hereditary foe.*^ In fact, where resentment is justified, it is mere weakness to indulge the opposite emotional extreme. Forgiveness and compassion may be as wrong and disastrous as wrathful implacability. Though a Frag- ment bids: . . . fxr] aKvOpooiros tcrd^ ayav irpos TOVS KaKoJs irpaaaovTas, a.pdpo)iros yeydos, (Fragment 410) yet, in the Medeia, Kreon by yielding to his pity for the woman whose viperous hate and cunning he secretly dreads and understands, exposes himself to vengeance at her hands. He acknowledges his error even while he commits it : alSovfjLevos 5e iroXXa 5?) bL(.4>dopa' Kol vvv opco fxkv e^afxaprdvoiv, yvvaL, 6/icos 5e rev^r} rovde' (Med. 349-51) Scarcely has Kreon left the stage when Medeia speaks contemptuously of his unwise generosity toward her as "senseless folly. "^^ It is true Greek ethic (and good logic) to despise in a foe the weakness by which one profits. Right conduct, here as elsewhere, lies between the two extremes. « Cf. also Fr. 760 and 796. « Hek. 1129-1251. «« Herakl. 981. so Med. 371 ff. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 23 Anger must be justified by reason, for reason alone can divine the proper norm. Medeia, in yielding wholly to her passion and rage, realises that anger in her has exceeded its proper function and that she is morally at fault: /cat jxavdavw /jtev ola bpav ixkWw KaKa, dv/xos 8e Kpeiaaccv rdv enaiu (SovXev/jLarcop, ocFTrep fxeyiarcov atrtos KaKOJV (SpoTots. Two fragments present the same doctrine : upa ae dvp,ov Kpeiaaova yvwiJLrjv 'ex^i-v. (Med. 1078-80) (Fragment 715) xoXX kcTTLU opyrjs e^ airatdevTov KaKa. (Stob. Flor. 20, 12. Presumably from Euripides) " Not too much, yet not too little." It is this that makes right con- duct so rare and so difficult. For the doctrine of the mean applies to all conduct, and it is our moral duty to observe the limits between excess and defect in all that we do. 6. Even love of life, it would seem, can be carried to excess. As in all other phases of human conduct, there is a mean which alone is the right and adequate action. The defect is a form of cowardice. Herakles, when about to commit suicide from despair, checks himself with the reflection that the coward thinks death easier than misfortune: the brave man holds more fast to life.^^ Yet the other extreme is no less cowardly. Iphigeneia, before she makes her resolve to die for Greece, has gone to such excess. It is possible Xta^ de^ioina KaXXLairov ^poTols, (Jos ovre iJ-rjTrip ridovas TOtaad' ex^t, ov TTOLdes avOpoiiroLffLV, ov (piXos iraTrjp ... el 5' 17 Ki'Trpts TOLOVTOV 6(f)da\fxo7s 6pd{v) ®^ oil dav/j.' epcoras fivpiovs avr-qv €X^(-V, (Fragment 326) and continues, " When these verses were spoken for the first time in Euripides' tragedy, the entire audience sprang up as by a single im- pulse to eject both actor and play, until Euripides himself stood up in their midst and begged them to wait and see what happened to this person who thought so much of gold." We may believe the anecdote or not. Yet, with more of the context preserved, we well might see a similar fate overtake the characters in the five other fragments which praise the power and glory of wealth. At any rate, it is fairly obvious what Euripides thought on the subject. A fragment from the Alex- andros^^ sounds like a taunt against Paris himself: "Wealth and lux- ury are an unmanly training. Poverty, though a harsh teacher, is a good one." In other Fragments, we hear that wealth dulls the sensibili- ties,™ that the rich are dull in body and in mind,^^ and that wealth with- out intelligence is useless. '^^ Riches wrongly acquired are even worse than useless,^^ for the prosperity which they bring is transient.''^ Worst of all, wealth breeds a certain i)/3pts,^^ and therein lurks the beginning of ruin.''^ 66 Kykl. 335. " lb. 323-41. 6^ Conjecturing 6pav to be Seneca's reading. 69 Fr. 55. ra ]f)_ 163; 237; 1054. '^ /^. 441. '<> lb. 773. 73 If, 822. "6 lb. 1027. 71 76. 773; 642. ^4 75 3^4^ n u-is; 421. 26 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES The preserved plays are better evidence for Euripides' own feeling. The Hekabe is devoted to the punishment of avarice. ^ engeance comes at the hands of the helpless woman who has most been wronged. We call such a denouement "poetic" justice, implying that it scarcely could occur in the real world of prose. Euripides, I hope to show, felt otherwise about the matter. Again, in the play of the Supphant Women, Theseus characterises the march of the seven warriors against Thebes as an example of ruin brought on by greed of honour, of power, and of gain.^ Later in the play, Adrastos delivers a long eulogy on the slain seven. Concerning Tydeus he says : ({)L\6TLjjiov rjOos irXovaLov, (i>p6vr]ixa be ev Tolaiv epyoLS, ovx'l toIs \6yoLS, laov. His praise of Kapaneus is still more significant : KaTaveiis 65' karlv pvv re fxei^oo tjjs Tvxr]S eiryjpKOTa, TOVTOV Tax^^CLV v'ejxecnv eWvs irpoaboKa. (Fragment 1027) These verses sound a key-note of the histories of Herodotus and the tetralogies of the Aeschylean drama. Euripides was an innovator: he brought tragedy down from its ancient exalted severity, its aenvoTrjs, ' and filled it with clever wrangle of disputes caught from law-trials and the sophists' corner. But he never tried to rid the Attic stage of its faith in that poetic justice which overtakes the rich and the powerful when they presume on their high fortune. On the contrary, he keeps ^ displaying the power of this invisible requital; for it is a foundation- " Hik. 232-7. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 27 stone of his ethic. For him it is the one proof that in the "good things of this earth," in gold, in honour, and in power, there is a mean of right conduct, and an ever-present possibihty of excess. In the Herakleidai, lolaos, an old and feeble man, suddenly displays an inexplicable folly by demanding to be armed and led into battle. Judging him for what he seems, the audience may admire, but cannot commend, his mad ambition. But later we hear, through a messenger, of wonderful feats of arms. lolaos, the decrepit and helpless, regains his youth and strength on the field of battle ^^ and takes captive Eurys- theus, who, with implacable persecution of Heracles and all his race, has so long hounded that hero's ancient comrade. The play is entirely devoted to the fall of presumptuous evil-doing and the ultimate happi- ness of the innocent, through the liberation of the Herakleidai from the persecution of Eurystheus and their restoration to the kingship which is theirs by right. lolaos is the sudden and miraculous embodiment of this divine retribution. As if to emphasise its unearthly origin, it in- carnates itself in an outworn warrior who is unable to carry his own armour. This is perhaps the extreme case of justitia ex machina. In other plays it takes a less miraculous course; but everywhere we are made to realise that something more than human agency is at work. So, in the Hekabe, the gauntlet is thrown down in challenge to heaven. Talthybios, the Greek herald, on seeing the former queen of Troy now a slave in the Greek camp, overwhelmed with misfortune, prostrate on the ground with grief, exclaims over her : w Zed, Tt Xe^co; irdrepa a avd pi/iirovs bpaV, rj ho^av aWccs rrivde KeKTrjadaL fxaTr]v, Tvxw ^^ TraPTa rav jSpoTols eTLaKorelv, (Hek. 488-91) Still more explicitly, Hekabe herself states the challenge: ■fi/jLets fxev ovv bovKoi re Kacr^ems iccos" dXX' ol deol crdevovaL x<^ Kelvoiv Kparwv NofjLOs' vbp.(jo yap tovs deovs riyov/jLeda Kal ^cc/jLev aSiKa Kal 5t/cat' upLanevoc OS es a' av€\9(hi> el bLa4>dapy]aeTaL, Kal fjLTi 8lKr]v ddoaovaLv olrLves ^'evov^ KTeifovaLV fj deoop lepa ToKucbaLV (pepeiv, oi'K edTLV ovbev toop ev audpuiroLS 'iaov. (Hek. 798-805) ^8 Herakl. 843-63. 28 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES In the end, divine justice fulfils itself. The fatal avarice of Polymestor leads him into Hekabe's power. She herself accomplishes her revenge. In the Suppliants, Theseus punishes Thebes for insolently refusing to allow burial to the slain Argive Seven. The chorus considers this intimation of justice to be a proof of the existence of a divine ordinance in the world. "^ The plays of the Euripidean "Oresteia" are the best example of this faith in the certainty of ultimate justice. In the Aulic Iphigeneia, Agamemnon through cowardice agrees to sacrifice his daughter. Ten years later, on his return from Troy, he pays the penalty at the hands of his wife Klytaimestra. She however acted, not so much to avenge her daughter, as to cover her adultery. She has done evil, therefore, and must pay the penalty at the hands of Orestes.^° Aigisthos, too, must suffer for his adultery and his participation in Agamemnon's death. Over his dead body, Elektra speaks the splendid lines which are a summary of all that Euripides is trying to establish : fit] not TO irpcoTOV ^rjjjL^ eav Spdiirj /caXcos, VLKciv Sojcetrco ttjv AUrjv, irplv av ireXas y pafJL/Jirjs iKrjrat Kai reXos Ka.p,\l/r} fiiov. (El. 954-6) In no instance can wickedness go for ever unpunished. ^^ Appearances often point another way; but, in the end, justice through unknown ways fulfils herself on man. Euripides is never tired of emphasising this essential part of his faith. Thus we read that no unjust man ever prospered ^^ and that in vain the wicked hope to escape. ^^ The last lines of the Ion are the seal of his doctrine: ^^ es reXos yap oi fxev ead\ol rvyxo-vovaiv a^lwv, ol KaKoi 6', cbairep Tre(()VKaa\ ovttot' ev Tvpa^uav av. (Ion 1621-2) " Hik. 731-3. ^° Orestes, acting purely through vengeance, seeks to fulfil justice. The death of Klytaimestra is just, but agent and means are wrong (cf. Or. 492-506). Hence Orestes too must suffer; but, because he has intended justice, he will find ultimate acquittal. ^^ In the Andromache, Menelaos ruthlessly breaks his faith, and the helpless Andromache has no weapon save her belief that the gods punish evil and maintain justice. Curiously enough, the efficacy of divine justice is never put to the test, since Peleus intervenes. This play, however, seems to be largely a loose series of events calculated to discredit Spartan character to the Athenian audience. S2 Hel. 1030-1; cf. Fr. 646. 84 Similarly, Fr. 224 and 559. »3 Fr. 257; 832; cf. Hek. 1192-4. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 29 Time will tell; ^^ for it holds up a mirror to mankind, as to a young maiden's beauty,^^ and men's characters stand revealed. Time measures with a just rule,^^ and by it we know the good man from the wicked. ^^ Toward the close of the Ion, Athena says : det yap ovu XpovLa ixkv TO. Toov Qtwv xws, h reXos 5' ou/c aadevrj. (Ion 1614-5) And this we might almost translate with the truly Greek lines: "Though the mills of the gods grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small." With this belief that there is an unseen divine vengeance on all evil- doing, the last doubt vanishes and we understand how it is that, even when excess seems profitable to the individual, it cannot prove to be so for very long. The norm of human living is a demand of ^uo-ts, of uni- versal nature. If v(ns; and (l)vais, in one form or another, punishes rd xapd vat,s, and may fairly be considered established. CHAPTER III The connection between ethics and theology was not as manifest in Greek as it is in Christian ethics; yet to thinking minds the moral and the religious could not long remain unrelated. Socratic teaching put moral life into Ionian materialistic speculation. The atheist" helped to rehabilitate the gods. For Euripides the gods are the unseen legislators of the world, who so order the apparent caprices of events that they form a moral system of punishment and reward. Yet Euripides apparently casts discredit on the Olympians. Thus, the Ion shows Apollo taking precariously elaborate measures in order to emerge with even superficial credit from a rather disgraceful scrape. In another play, Herakles complains bitterly against Hera's persecution: Zeus was unfaithful, Hera was jealous, and unoffending Herakles must suffer. "Who would pray to such a goddess?" he exclaims.^ In the Bacchae, Dionysos takes a hideous revenge, such as mortals scarce approve.- Of all the gods, Apollo suffers most from Euripides. He is vindic- tive and unforgiving in the Andromache,^ immoral and underhanded in the lon,^ an instigator of mischief in the Suppliants.^ It may be that there was an Athenian quarrel against the Delphic oracle. It may be that Euripides disbelieved in oracles and divination. His charac- ters exclaim not infrequently against such practices.^ In the Elektra and the Orestes, the Delphic oracle prompted the murder of Klytai- mestra, and Orestes blames all his consequent misfortunes on the god,^ and Elektra joins in his censure.^ But here in the end Apollo proves himself just, as Orestes gladly acknowledges.^ The divine will was slow in accomplishment, — a signal characteristic, as Orestes himself declared. ^° In fact, it is tolovtov (f)vaei. I cannot enter in detail into the question of Euripides* religion; 1 H. M. 1307-10; cf. 1316-20 and 339-47. 2 Bacch. 1348. ^ Andr. 1161-5. ^ Ion, passim; cf. esp. Ion's own criticisms of Apollo in 436-51; 355; 367. 6 Hik. 138 and 219-22. 6 E.g. Hel. 744-8; 756-60. But cf. Hipp. 1320-4. ■' Or. 285-7; 414-20; 591-9; El. 971-3; 981; cf. 1245-6. 8 Or. 162-4. 3 Or. 1666-7. i" Or. 420. 31 32 THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES but must be content with the assertion that all the evidence seems to me to indicate quite clearly that Euripides is so severe with the gods because he beheves in them so thoroughly. From the often quoted fragment : €t Qeol TL dpuiCTLV alcxpov, ova elalp Qeoi, "If the gods do evil, then they are not gods," (From Fragment 294) we must not conclude that there are no gods, but that the gods do no evil. The quarrel with Apollo is the only serious instance to the con- trary, and this seems to be directed against the Delphic oracle for other than ethical reasons. For, if there is to be any higher ethical sanction for mankind, the forces of the universal ordinance cannot be evil or do evil. For this reason, the gods must be purged of all their traditional immoralities. The gods can do no evil, and therefore Euripides is merciless with them. But he fights for them not against them: oi'dkva yap olfiai baL}ibv(j)v elvai KaKov. (I. T. 391) Euripides openly declares that the gods must be purged of their evil reputations and estabUshed as that higher justice from which human morality derives its sanction. Therefore, the gods should be above revenge" and more wisely forgiving than mankind.^^ In a word, they can do no evil;^^ for otherwise w^e, who imitate them, would not be to blame for the evil which we perform,^^ since our actions take their sanction from the gods.^^ Thus the gods must be moral and just, for otherwise where should we turn for justice? ^^ If there are gods at all, the just man will gain a good reward^' and the wicked be destroyed,^^ but if there are no gods, all justice vanishes, and why should we strive to be moral ? ^^ Or, reversing the argument, if injustice prevails on earth, we cannot believe in the gods;-** but "when I see the wicked fallen, I say. The race of gods exists!" (Fr. 581). In one form or another, so say most of the heroes and heroines of Euripides' plays; and, presumably, so said also the Athenian audience which beheld the " Bacch. 1348. ^^ Hipp. 120. " Fr. 294 quoted above. Yet Aphrodite often works evil; hence she is not a god, but something else, something more powerful (Hipp. 358-61), who overcomes even the gods (Fr. 434). See below p. 41. " Ion 449-51. 15 Hipp. 98. 1^ I. A. 1034-5. ^^ I. A. 1035. " Ion 253. 18 Hik. 505. ^o e1. 583. THE ETHICS OF EURIPIDES 33 ultimate triumph of the good and punishment of the overbearing, of the wicked who exceeded the due measure of the norm of Hfe. In conclusion, I give the important passage from the Troiades, which openly points a finger to the place of the gods in Euripides' ethical system : ^^ oaTLS ttot' el av, dvaTOTaaros eldevaL, Zeus, €tr' avayKT] (f>vaeos elre vovs ^porojv, Trpoarjv^a^rjv ae' iravTa yap 8l' a\l/6(f)ov ^alvwv KeKeWov Kara 8iKr]v to. Ovtjt' d7€ts. (Tro. 885-8) For Euripides the gods are ceasing to be persons. They are becoming the more or less abstract forces in Nature which work for universal justice. Of human justice I can find in Euripides no clear account. He fre- quently gives it a partial definition. It involves religious observance and veneration; ~^ it is punctiliousness (drpketa) ; "^ it is respect for prop- erty;-^ it is altruistic, since it is directed toward the good of fellow- men.^^ But though naturally we find no analysis and systematic treatment such as Aristotle gives in the fifth book of the Nico- machean Ethics, there are a couple of passages in Euripides which are definite. The first is lokaste's speech to her two warring sons in the Phoinis- sai.^^ She is pleading for a divided kingship in Thebes; but appeals to more general principles: "The tyrant's rule is merely successful injustice and doomed to anxiety and misfortune. Be not over-ambi- tious; but rather, be just, and grant everyone his share. Justice is equality." The second passage -'^ is in similar vein. Theseus is disputing political theory with the Theban herald for the glorification of Athens 21 A convenient indication of the philosophic echoes in this passage may be found in J. Adam's Religioxis Teachers of Greece, p. 299 ff., where it may be of interest to note that the important phrase avayKT} (pvaeos draws a blank, so to speak: — " It is not so clear that Euripides had any definite philosophic theory in view when he sug- gested that this Zeus or Aether is perhaps to be regarded as avayK-ij