Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/265

Rh famous verdict of despair which he pronounces upon Life in the second Œdipus there is a certain depth of cahm feeling, unfretted by any movement of mere intellect, which at times makes the subtlest and boldest work of Euripides seem 'young man's poetry' by comparison.

Utterly dissimilar as the two dramatists are, the construction of the Œdipus Tyrannus reminds one strongly of Ibsen's later plays. From the very first scene the action moves straight and undistracted towards the catastrophe. The interest turns, not on what the characters do, but on their finding out what they have done. And one of the strongest scenes is made by the husband and wife deliberately and painfully confessing to one another certain dark passages of their lives, which they had hitherto kept concealed. The plot has the immense advantage of providing a deed in the past—the involuntary parricide and incest—which explains the hero's self-horror without making him lose our sympathies. And, as a matter of fact, the character of Œdipus, his determination to have truth at any cost, his utter disregard of his own sufferings, is heroic in itself, and comes naturally from the plot. Iocasta was difficult to treat: the mere fact of her being twice as old as her husband was an awkwardness; but there is a stately sadness, a power of quiet authority, and a certain stern grey outlook on life, which seem to belong to a woman of hard experiences. Of course there are gross improbabilities about the original saga, but, as Aristotle observes, they fall outside the action of the play. In the action everything is natural except the very end. Why did Œdipus put out his eyes? Iocasta realised