Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/47

 The second special form in which Sophocles shows his power of drawing character consists in exhibiting the action upon each other of natures broadly or at least distinctly different. He loved to display this mutual action in an interview at which the two speakers exchange arguments. The sisters Electra and Chrysothemis, the sisters Antigone and Ismene, hold conversations of this kind. It might be objected that in these cases the influence can scarcely be called mutual; and that, while Electra makes Chrysothemis angry and Antigone makes Ismene feel ashamed, Chrysothemis produces no impression upon Electra nor Ismene upon Antigone. But it should be observed that in each case the weak sister had this important influence upon the strong sister;—she made her feel alone. The selfishness of Chrysothemis isolates Electra in the task of avenging their father, as the feminine timidity of Ismene isolates Antigone in the task of burying their brother. In each case, the heroine agitates the less courageous sister, and on the other hand the defection of a natural ally braces the heroine.

But the finest examples of such juxtaposition are to be found in the "Philoctetes": a tragedy which for artistic finish has often, and perhaps justly been ranked as its author's masterpiece; and in which the absence of much incident permitted or exacted the utmost exercise of skill in delineating character. From many good passages in the play one may be chosen as a specimen—the opening scene between Odysseus and Neoptolemus. Odysseus,