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V.] voice from the gods to urge him in the direction of his inclinations. The chorus, which consists of Corinthian women, also comes under the censure of the critics, inasmuch as it coolly receives the confidences of Medea, and sees a terrible plot formed and carried out against the king of the land, without offering any resistance or objection. The famous ode (vv. 824–845) on the glories of Athens, is really irrelevant in its place, being merely suggested by the fact that the Athenian Ægeus has undertaken to harbour a sorceress and wholesale murderess in his city. It is this very episode of Ægeus, who is introduced in order that the omnipotent sorceress, with her winged chariot, may not be a homeless outcast, which Aristotle censures in his Poetics. It is an otiose excrescence in the play, not without offensive details. There is no interest in the characters of the unfortunate king of Corinth and his daughter, who perish by the poisoned robe.

Thus if this play be strictly judged as a play, in which all the characters should have some interest, and contribute to the development, in which moreover good and evil should be balanced, so as to excite pity as well as terror, we must endorse the verdict of the Athenian audience. It must also be remembered, that in the days of the production of these great tragedies, as in other ages of great production, acting was not a developed and lucrative profession, so that although Euripides had his favourite actor, and no longer appeared, like older poets, on the stage, the impersonation of character and of passion had not yet become a study and an art. But in the next generation, when poetic genius had died away, actors became of importance, people began to frequent the theatre, not to see a great play, but a great actor, and then it was that the Medea sprang at once from the third to the first place as an acting piece. For one actor was sufficient to bring out all the power of the play, and nowhere could a great actor find a more grateful subject for