Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/379

357 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GRtECE. 357 CHAPTER XXV. § I. Difference between Sophocles and Euripides. The latter essentially speculative. Tragedy a subject ill-suited for his genius. § 2. Intrusion of tragedy into the interests of the private and, § 3, public life of the time. § 4. Alterations in the plan of tragedy introduced by Euripides. Prologue and, § 5, SX'us ex machma. § 6. Comparative insignificance of the chorus. Prevalence of monodies. $ 7. Style of Euripides. § 8. Outline of his plays: the Alcestis; § 9. the Medea; § 10. the Hippolytus ; § 11. the Hecuba. § 12. Epochs in the mode of treating his subject: the Heracleida?; § 13. the Suppliants; § 14. the Ion; § 15. the raging Heracles; § 16. the Andromache; § 17. the Trojan Women; § 18. the Electra ; § 19. the Helena; §20. the Iphigenia at Tauri ; §21. the Orestes; §22. the Phoenician Women ; §23. the Bacchanalians; §24. the Iphigenia at Aulis. § 25. Lost pieces: the Cyclops. § 1. The tragedies of Sophocles are a beautiful flower of Attic genius, which could only have sprung- up on the boundary line between two ages differing widely in their opinions and mode of thinking.* Sophocles possessed in perfection that free Attic training which rests upon an unprejudiced observation of human affairs ; his thoughts had entire freedom, and the power of mastering outward impressions; yet with all this, Sophocles admits a something which cannot be moved and must not be touched, which is deeply rooted in our conscience, and which a voice from within warns us not to bring into the whirlpool of specula- tion. He is, of all the Greeks, at once the most pious and most en- lightened. In treating of the positive objects of the popular religion of his country, he has hit upon the right mean between a superstitious adherence to outward forms and a sceptical opposition to the traditionary belief. He has always the skill to call attention to that side of his re- ligion, which must have produced devotional feelings even in a reflect* ing and educated mind of that time.t The position of Euripides, in reference to his own time, was totally different. Although he was only eleven years younger than Sophocles, and died about half a year before him, lie seems to belong to an entirely different generation, in which the tendencies, still united in Sophocles and presided over by the noblest perception of beauty, had become irre- t The respect which Sophocles everywhere evinces fur the prophetic art is highly worthy of remark, and to a modern reader must be part cularly bin prising. It does not, however, appear in bis dramas as nil inexplicable guessing ai accidental occur- rences, but as a thorough initiation into the great and |ust dispensations of provi- dence. In the Ajax, the Philoctetes, the Trachinian Women, the Antigoue, the two (Edipuses, the prophecies express profound ideas though enveloped occasionally in a mystical phraseology. Euripides has no sympathy with this reverence tor the prophetic art.
 * Comp. chap. XX. § 7.