Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/385

363 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 363 circumstances which had brought them to that point, in order that he might be able, as soon as the piece actually began, to paint the parti- cular passion in all its strength.* Besides, so complicated are the situations into which he brings his characters, in order to have an op- portunity of thoroughly developing a varied play of affections and pas- sions, that it would be difficult to make them intelligible to the specta- tors otherwise than by a circumstantial narration, especially when Euripides, in his arbitrary treatment of the old stories, ventures to give a different turn to the incidents from that with which the Athenians were already familiar from their traditions and poetry. f § 5. With regard to the deus ex machina, it is much the same sort of contrivance for the end of a play of Euripides that the monologues we have mentioned are for the beginning. It is a symptom that dra- matic action had already lost the principle of its natural developement, and was no longer capahle of producing, in a satisfactory manner, from its own resources, a connexion of beginning, middle, and end. When the poet had by means of the prologue pointed out the situation, from which resulted an effect on the passions of the chief character and a contest with opposing exertions, he introduced all sorts of complica- tions, which rendered the contest hotter and hotter, and the play of pas- sions more and more involved, till at last he can hardly find any side on which he may bring the impassioned actions of the characters to a definite end, whether it be a decided victory of one of the parties, or peace and a reconciliation of the contending interests. Upon this, some divinity appears in the sky, supported by machinery, announces the decrees of fate, and makes a just and peaceable arrangement of the affair. Euripides, however, by degrees only, became bolder in em- ploying this sort of denouement. He winds up his earliest plays without any deus ex machina ; then follow pieces in which the action is brought to its proper end by the persons themselves, the deity being introduced only to remove any remaining doubt and to complete the work of tranquillizing the minds of those who might be discontented ; and it was not till the end of his career that Euripides ventured to lay all the weight on the deus ex machina, so that it is left to this power alone, not to undo, but to cut asunder the complicated knot of human passions, which otherwise would be inextricable.} The poet attempted to make up for any want of satisfaction which this might occasion to the mind, by endeavouring to gratify the bodily eye : he often intro- f Examples confirmatory of these views may be derived from the Orestes, the Helena, and the Electra. t This applies to the Orestes. Besides this, we find the Deus ex machina in the Hippolytus, rhe Ion. the Iphigenia at Tauri, the Suppliants, the Andromache, the Helena, the Electra, and the Bacclue.
 * As in the Medea, the Hippolytus, and other plays.