Was truly happy, but the present hour

Hath groaning, death, disaster, shame, all ill

Without exemption, that hath e'er been named.

"A hateful sight, yet one thou needs must pity," is the form of announcement with which the second messenger, having closed his story, ushers now the blinded Edipus upon the stage. The chorus exclaim at sight of him, with mingled pity and horror. Edipus himself bursts out (we use for this next extract the extraordinarily fine rendering of Mr. Whitelaw):

O thou thick cloud of darkness,

That on my life hast settled
Abominable, unutterable,

Indomitable,

By pitiless winds swept hitherward on me ;
Alas!

And yet again, alas, and woe is me!

Such maddening pain

Of those sharp daggers at my eyes,

Blent with remembrance of my misery,

Pierces my inmost soul.

The chorus reply with non-committal sympathy (Mr. Whitelaw for translator this once again):

No marvel if, in such extremity,

Thy grief is twofold, as thy suffering is.

Edipus, nevertheless, is touched with even such a token of kindness, and answers gratefully. To the inquiry what power impelled him to put out his own eyes, "Apollo, O my friends, Apollo," is his answer. It is but lukewarm friendliness that the chorus show the king, in the dialogue which follows. Poor Edipus, however, in his low estate, is fain to be thankful for scant measure of human sympathy now.

The crisis of the tragic interest past, it is, henceforward' to the close of the poem, the poet's problem to let down the high-wrought emotions of the spectators, by smooth and easy

cadence, to a calm mood of suitable ethic or religious awe. With what skill the tension is gradually relaxed! Bad art it would have been in Sophocles either to close at the climax or to permit a sudden violent descent.

The just limits of our space forbid us to display all this at full. We plunge into the prolonged lamentations of Edipus, at the point where he refers to his children:

Thou Creon, shalt provide. As for my sons,

I pray thee burden not thyself with them.
They ne'er will lack subsistence-they are men.
But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,
Who never had a meal apart from mine,
But ever shared my table, yea, for them
Take heedful care; and grant me, though but once,
Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,
Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well.
And weep with them our common misery.
O, if my arms were round them, I might seem
To have them as of old when I could see.-
What? Am I fooled once more, or do I hear
My dear ones weeping? And hath Creon sent,
Pitying my sorrows, mine own children to me
Whom most I love? Can this be truth I utter?
For I knew the joy

Creon. Yea, I have done it.

Thou ever hadst in this, thy comfort now.
Ed. Fair be thy fortune, and, for this last deed,

May Heaven protect thee better far than me!
Where are ye, O my children? Come, draw near
To these my hands of brother blood with you,
Hands that have made so piteous to your sight
The spectacle of his once brilliant eyes,
Who all in blindness, with no thought of ill,
Became your father at that fount of life,
Where he himself had being! O! for you
I weep, not seeing you, when I take thought
Of all the bitter passages of fate

That must attend you among men. For where
Can ye find fellowship, what civic throng
Shall ye resort unto, what festival,

From whence, instead of sights or sounds enjoyed,
Ye will not come in tears unto your home?
And when ye reach the marriageable bloom,
My daughters, who will be the man to cast
His lot with the unfortunate, and take

All those reproaches on his name, which press

So sorely on my parents and on you?

And who will marry you? No man, my daughters;
But ye must wither, childless and unwed.

But look with pity upon their youth, thus left
Forlorn of all protection save from thee.
Noble one, seal this promise with thy hand!
For you, my children, were ye of an age
To ponder speech, I would have counseled you
Full carefully. Now I would have you pray
To dwell where 'tis convenient, that your life
May find more blessing than your father knew.

Cr. Thou hast had enough of weeping. Close thee in thy
chamber walls.

Ed. I must yield, though sore against me.

Cr. 'Tis not my wont to venture promises too soon.

Ed. Lead me now within the palace.

Come, but leave thy children.

Cr.

Ed.

Nay!

Tear not these from my embraces !

Cr.

Think not all things to command.

Ed. Of the good thou hadst beforetime much hath fleeted from

thy hand.

CHORUS.

Dwellers in our native Thebe, fix on Edipus your eyes,

Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise.

Glorious, like a sun he mounted, envied of the popular throng;
Now he sinks in seas of anguish, plunged the lashing waves among.
Therefore, with the old-world sages, waiting for the final day,
I will call no mortal happy, while he holds his house of clay,
Till without one pang of sorrow, all his hours have passed away.

Sophocles himself almost fulfilled, in the happy closing of his long career, the hard requirement that his chorus, "with the old-world sages," here repeats.

IX.

EURIPIDES.

THE third member of the great tragical triumvirate of Greece was Euripides. The great tragical triumvirate, we say-but it ought not to be forgotten that, besides Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who alone survive to us in their productions, there flourished in Athens, at the same time. with these, other tragedians then scarcely less famous than they.

Euripides was born, an Athenian (480 B. C.), in the year, perhaps on the day, of the battle of Salamis. He had a long career; but, though born some years after, he died a few months before, his generous, more prosperous, but not more popular rival-Sophocles. It was one of those graceful acts which so well became the genius and the character of the latter, that he signalized his sorrow over the death of his peer, by causing the actors in his own next play to appear in mourning for the loss of Euripides. Aristophanes, on the contrary, persecuted Euripides, even in his grave.

Of one play of Euripides we are fortunate in possessing a version from no less a master than Mr. Robert Browning. It happily chances, too, that this play is precisely the one which, of all the extant works of Euripides, we should in any case have wished to present to our readers. It is the Alcestis.

Mr. Browning's Alcestis must be looked for under the title of "Balaustion's Adventure." Balaustion (wild pomegranate flower) is the pet name, invented by Mr. Browning, of a Greek girl, also invented by Mr. Browning, who, at the time of the Sicilian Expedition, escaped from the island of Rhodes (on the point then of revolting from Athens to Sparta) and fled in a small vessel-she and with her a number of likeminded companions bent on making their way to the Peiræus. They were pursued by pirates, and, mistaking Sicily for Crete, rowed hard to land near Syracuse, where, detected as Athenian in sympathy by a song with which they had cheered themselves in rowing, they were met with a repulse, which, however, changed to a welcome, when it was found out that Balaustion could recite a play of Euripides. The Alcestis was the play. Such is the plot of Mr. Browning's poem. The plot has a foundation in fact, or, at least, in tradition. It is said that Athenian captives in Syracuse that knew snatches of Euripides could earn for themselves substantial advantages by reciting these for the gratification of their kindred Greek-speaking masters.

The story of the Alcestis of Euripides is very simple. Alcestis was wife and queen to Admetus, king of Pheræ, in Thessaly. Admetus was, by grace from Apollo, granted the privilege of not dying, on condition of his being able to find some one who would agree to die in his stead when his turn should come. Alcestis became the required substitute and died, but was brought back to life by Heracles, and restored to her husband.

The play opens with a prologue from Apollo, who, after explaining the situation for the enlightenment of spectators (compare the prologue to Milton's Mask of Comus), has a fruitless colloquy with Death, come now for his prey, Alcestis having reached the day of her doom. With this colloquy we begin our citations from the play. A. curious passage it is. Some critics pronounce it very fine, and some critics pronounce it very foolish.