Page:Euripides and his age.djvu/240

236 to treat freely scenes of horror and yet never lose the prevailing atmosphere of high beauty. Look at the Salamis Chorus in the Trojan Women immediately following the child's death; the lyrics between Oedipus and the Chorus when he has just entered with his bleeding eyes; or, in particular, the song sung by the Chorus in Hippolytus just after Phaedra has rushed off to kill herself. We have had a scene of high tension and almost intolerable pain, and the Chorus, left alone, make certainly no relevant remarks. I can think of no relevant remark that would not be an absurd bathos. They simply break out (732 ff.):

Could I take me to some cavern for mine hiding, In the hill-tops, where the sun scarce hath trod, Or a cloud make the home of mine abiding, As a bird among the bird-droves of God. . ..

It is just the emotion that was in our own hearts; the cry for escape to some place, however sad, that is still beautiful: to the poplar grove by the Adriatic where his sisters weep for Phaethon; or, at last, as the song continues and grows bolder, to some place that has happiness as well as beauty; to that "strand of the Daughters of the Sunset,"