Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/282

258 Movement, of the Enlightenment; as the apostle of clearness of expression, who states everything that he has to say explicitly and without bombast. His language was so much admired in the generations after his death that it is spoilt for us. It strikes us as hackneyed and undistinguished, because we are familiar with all the commonplace fellows who imitated it, from Isocrates to Theodore Prodromus. He probably showed even in the Daughters of Pelias* his power to see poetry everywhere. His philosophical bent was certainly foreshadowed in lines like "in God there is no injustice" (frag. 606); his quick sympathy with passion of every sort, in the choice of the woman Medea for his chief figure.

But the most typical of the early plays, and the one which most impressed his contemporaries, was the Têlephus* (438 ). It has a great number of the late characteristics in a half-developed state, overlaid with a certain externality and youthfulness. It is worth while to keep the Têlephus* constantly in view in tracing the gradual progress of Euripides's character and method. The wounded king of Mysia knows that nothing but the spear of Achilles, which wounded him, can cure him; the Greeks are all his enemies; he travels through Greece, lame from his wound, and disguised as a beggar; speaks in the gathering of hostile generals, is struck for his insolence, but carries his point; finally, he is admitted as a suppliant by Clytæmestra, snatches up the baby Orestes, reveals himself, threatens to dash out the baby's brains if any of the enemies who surround him move a step, makes his terms, and is healed. The extraordinarily cool and resourceful hero—he recalls those whom we meet in Hugo and