Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/399

377 lite;(atu;ie of ancient greece. 377 the pressing entreaties of his friend, partly because the arguments of Orestes actually convince him, partly because, as having more faith in the Delphic Apollo, he still retains the hope that the oracle of the god will in the end deliver them both ; whereas we desire, even in such cases, an enthusiastic resignation of all thoughts to the one idea, in which no thought can arise except the deliverance of our friend. The feelings of the people of antiquity, however, were made of sterner stuff; their hardihood and simplicity of character would not allow them to be so easily thrown off their balance, and while they preserved the truth of friendship, they could keep their eyes open for all the other duties and advantages of life. § 21. We have a remarkable contrast to the Iphigenia at Tauri in the Orestes, which was produced Olymp. 92. 4. b. c. 408, and conse- quently was not far removed in point of time from the last-mentioned drama. The old grammarians remark that the piece produced a great effect on the stage, though all the characters in it are bad, with the ex- ception of Pylades ;* and that the catastrophe inclines to the comic. It seems to have been the design of Euripides to represent a wild chaos of selfish passions, from which there is absolutely no means of escape. Orestes is about to be put to death for matricide by virtue of the decree of an Argive tribunal, while Menelaus, on whom he had placed his dependence, deserts him out of pure cowardice and selfishness. En- raged at this abandonment, he determines not to die till he has taken vengeance on Helen, the cause of all the mischief, who has hidden herself in the palace through fear of the Argives; and when she, in a surprising manner, vanishes to heaven, he threatens to slay her daughter Hermione, unless Menelaus will pardon and rescue him. Upon this the Dioscuri appear, bid him take to wife the damsel at whose throat he is holding the drawn sword, and promise him deliverance from the curse of the matricidal act. In this manner the knot is out- wardly untied, or rather cut asunder, without any attempt or hint at unravelling the real intricacies, the moral questions to which the tragedy leads, or purifying the passions by means of themselves, which is the object of tragedy, in the proper sense of the word. So far from attaining to this object, the only impression produced by such a drama as the Orestes is a feeling of the comfortless confusion of human exer- tions and relations. § 22. The Phosnissce, or Phoenician Women, was not much later than the Orestes. We know on sure testimony that it was one of the last the time in the character of Menelaus, who may be considered as a representative of the vacillating and uncertain policy of Sparta at that period. See Sehol. on v. 371.772, <J03.
 * The old critics have also remarked upon the references to the state of affairs at