Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/285

Rh "Oh, much, much wretcheder than Phœnix!" "Possibly you mean Philoctêtes the beggarman?" "No, a far worse beggar than Philoctêtes." "The cripple Bellerophon?" "No, not Bellerophon; though my man was a cripple too, and a beggar and a great speaker." "I know; Têlephus of Mysia!—Boy, fetch Têlephus's beggar-clothes; they are just above Thyestes's rags, between them and Ino's."

It is difficult, too, to make out any subtlety or delicacy of situation in the Têlephus,* such as we have ten years after, for instance, in the Hippolytus (ll. 900–1100), when Hippolytus returns to find his father standing over Phædra's body, and reading the tablet which contains her accusation against him. He does not know the contents of the tablet, but he can guess well enough why Phædra died. He is inevitably unnatural in manner, and his constraint inevitably looks like guilt. That is one subtlety; and there is another a moment afterwards, where Hippolytus is on his defence, and has sworn not to tell the one thing that will save him. His speeches get lamer and more difficult. At least twice it seems as if he is at the point of giving way—why should he not? The oath was forced from him by a trick, and he had rejected it at the time: "My tongue hath sworn; there is no bond upon my heart." Nevertheless he keeps silence, as he promised; appeals desperately to the gods, and goes forth convicted.

There is another subtlety of Euripidean technique in the Hippolytus, and one which is generally misunderstood. The main difficulty to the playwright is to carry