Page:Euripides and his age.djvu/168

164 of their revenges." Euripides seems first to have been almost fascinated by the enormous revenges, at least when they were the work of people who had suffered enormous wrong. He seems, in plays like the Medea, to be saying: "If you goad people beyond endurance, this is the sort of thing you must expect them to do. . . and serve you right!" In the plays after 415 the emphasis has rather changed: "You must expect to be wronged, and revenge will do good to nobody. Seek peace and forgive one another."