But see, Admetus, to thy house I ween,
Alcmena's son bends his returning steps.

By this time Heracles has come back with a genuine surprise prepared for Admetus. But there is considerable suspense of the agreeable shock. This provides for a prolonged enjoyment, on the part of spectators, who watch the scene between Heracles and Admetus with the delicious interest of persons admitted to the secret of a gracious plot in process of unfolding before their eyes. First, Heracles. upbraids Admetus for not having been frank with him about the death of Alcestis. He then mysteriously adverts to the woman he has brought with him. In a contest just waged by him, he had won her for prize. Would Admetus be good enough to take charge of her while he (Heracles) should be absent on his next adventure? But Admetus demurs. He urges various reasons why it were not meet. Glancing at the woman's form, he exclaims at her resemblance to Alcestis. Then to Heracles he says, entreating:

Admetos.

Ah, me !
Take-by the gods !—this woman from my sight,
Lest thou undo me, the undone before!

Since I seem-seeing her—as if I saw

My own wife! And confusions cloud my heart,
And from my eyes the springs break forth! Ah me,
Unhappy!-How I taste, for the first time,

My misery in all its bitterness !

The chorus venture to advise in favor of taking the woman. The interchange following of short, generally one-line, remarks between Heracles and Admetus must be given our readers. This brisk back-and-forth is a favorite form of dialogue with the Greek tragedians. Readers may see it imitated in Milton's Mask of Comus. Also, in Milton's Samson Agonistes-which is almost Greek tragedy itself reproduced, alike in form and in power, though, by the Hebrew spirit of the author and of the subject, the English poem is unavoid

ably qualified and heightened with a characteristic difference. The "Atalanta in Calydon" of Mr. Swinburne is another modern antique worthy to be studied and-herein unlike many of this gifted but not scrupulous poet's productionsmorally not unfit to be studied. Now the dialogue of approach to the final disclosure. We choose for this the rendering of Potter, which reproduces better the effect of the single lines in the original Greek :

Hercules. O that from Jove I had the power to bring
Back from the mansions of the dead thy wife

To heaven's fair light, that grace achieving for thee!
Admetus. I know thy friendly will: but how can this

Be done? The dead return not to this light!

Her. Check, then, thy swelling griefs; with reason rule them.
Adm. How easy to advise, but hard to bear!

Her. What would it profit shouldst thou always groan?

Adm. I know it; but I am in love with grief.

Her. Love to the dead calls forth the ceaseless tear.

Adm. O, I am wretched more than words can speak.

Her. A good wife hast thou lost: who can gainsay it?

Adm. Never can life be pleasant to me more.

Her. Thy sorrow now is new; time will abate it.

Adm. Time, say'st thou? Yes, the time that brings me death.

Her. Some young and lovely bride will bid it cease.

Adm. No more; what sayest thou? Never would I think

Her. Wilt thou still lead a lonely, widow'd life?

Adm. Never shall other woman share my bed.

Her. And think'st thou this will aught avail the dead?
Adm. This honor is her due where'er she be.

Her. This hath my praise, though near allied to frenzy.
Adm. Praise me or not, I ne'er will wed again.

Her. I praise thee that thou art faithful to thy wife.
Adm. Though dead, if I betray her, may I die!
Her. Well, take this noble lady to thy house.
Adm. No, by thy father Jove let me entreat thee.
Her. Not to do this would be the greatest wrong.
Adm. To do it would with anguish rend my heart.
Her. Let me prevail; this grace may find its meed.
Adm. O that thou never hadst received this prize!

Her. Yet in my victory thou art victor with me.
Adm. 'Tis nobly said! yet let this woman go.
Her. If she must go, she shall; but must she go?
Adm. She must, if I incur not thy displeasure.

Her. There is a cause that prompts my earnestness.
Adm. Thou hast prevail'd, but much against my will.
Her. The time will come when thou wilt thank me for it.
Adm. Well, if I must receive her, lead her in.

Her. Charge servants with her! No, that must not be.
Adm. Lead her thyself then, if thy will incline thee.
Her. No, to thy hand alone will I commit her.
Adm. I touch her not; but she hath leave to enter.
Her. I shall intrust her only to thy hand.

Adm. Thou dost constrain me, king, against my will.

Her. Venture to stretch thy hand, and touch the stranger's. Adm. I touch her as I would the headless Gorgon.

Her. Hast thou her hand?

Adm.

Her.

I have.

Then hold her safe;

Hereafter thou wilt say the son of Jove
Hath been a generous guest. View now her face :
See if she bears resemblance to thy wife;
And thus made happy, bid farewell to grief.
Adm. O gods, what shall I say? 'Tis marvelous,
Exceeding hope. See I my wife indeed,

Or doth some god distract me with false joy?
Her. In very deed dost thou behold thy wife.

Adm. See that it be no phantom from beneath.

Her. Make not thy friend one that evokes the shades.
Adm. And do I see my wife, whom I entomb'd?
Her. I marvel not that thou art diffident.

Adm. I touch her; may I speak to her as living?
Her. Speak to her, thou hast all thy heart could wish.
Adm. Dearest of women, do I see again

That face, that person? This exceeds all hope.
I never thought that I should see thee more.
Her. Thou hast her; may no god be envious to thee!
Adm. O be thou bless'd, thou generous son of Jove!
Thy fathers might protect thee! Thou alone
Hast raised her to me: from the realms below

How hast thou brought her to the light of life?

Her. I fought with him that lords it o'er the shades.
Adm. Where with the gloomy tyrant didst thou fight?
Her. I lay in wait, and seized him at the tomb.
Adm. But wherefore doth my wife thus speechless stand?
Her. It is not yet permitted that thou hear

Her voice addressing thee, till from the gods
That rule beneath she be unsanctified

With hallow'd rites, and the third morn return.
But lead her in; and, as thou art just in all
Besides, Admetus, see thou reverence strangers.
Farewell: I go to achieve the destined toil
For the imperial son of Sthenelus.

Adm. Abide with us, and share my friendly hearth.
Her. That time will come again: this demands speed.
Adm. Success attend thee: safe mayest thou return
Now to my citizens I give in charge.

And to each chief, that for this bless'd event
They institute the dance, let the steer bleed,
And the rich altars, as they pay their vows,
Breathe incense to the gods; for now I rise
To better life, and grateful own the blessing.

The chorus have the last word and moralize the action, thus:

Cho. With various hand the gods dispense our fates :
Now showering various blessings, which our hopes
Dared not aspire to; now controlling ills

We deem'd inevitable: thus the god,

To these hath given an end exceeding thought.
Such is the fortune of this happy day.

There is a wide, and even violent, difference of opinion among good authorities on the merits of Euripides. Some critics consider him essentially melodramatic in quality, rather than truly tragic. But, in the face of whatever criticism, he has constantly persisted a popular poet.

X.

ARISTOPHANES.

ARISTOPHANES stands alone as representative to us of Greek comedy. There were many other comic poets in Greece; but Aristophanes enjoys the fortune of surviving in a number (eleven) of his productions, while all his peers and rivals have vanished from human memory in every thing but perhaps a name surrounded with its vain tradition of pristine

renown.

We could hardly let this volume appear without a chapter inscribed by title to Aristophanes. But we shall feel it necessary to make this our monument to his genius hardly more than a cenotaph in his honor. A handful, nay, a pinch, of dust is all that will here be collected to suggest the literary remains of Aristophanes. Comedy is in its nature one of the most fugacious of all literary forms. Incredible archæological learning and pains have been expended in the endeavor to revive the knowledge of history and of manners needful to the intelligent appreciation of Aristophanes. But the truth is, that the spirit of the Aristophanic comedy was an excessively volatile spirit. Long ago it escaped hopelessly, hopelessly evanished, into the illimitable air. Nobody will ever gather it thence again and restore it to the body of literature which once it made quick with a sparkle of vivacity as brilliant as it was evanescent, but which it, fleeing away, left for the most part irredeemably stale, flat, and unprofitable. The feature that strikes one most is probably the enormous indulgence of the grotesque and fantastic that Aristophanes displays. Verisimilitude, probability, is violated with the utmost conceivable license. Indeed, it seems to be a law of the Aristophanic comedy to let fancy run absolutely riot. There is something of the spirit of the carnival pres