Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/402

380 380 HISTORY OK THE tion of Menelaus, the pride and courage with which Achilles offers him- self for the rescue of his affianced bride and for her defence against the whole army, that the willingness of Iphigenia to sacrifice herself ap- pears as the solution of a very complicated knot, such as generally re- quires a deus ex machina in Euripides, and shines with the brightest lustre as an act of the highest sublimity. Unfortunately, however, this admirable work is disfigured by the interpolation of a number of pas- sages, poor and paltry both in matter and in form.* We know not if we judge too harshly of the younger Euripides, when we regard these as additions by which he sought to complete the piece for representa- tion ; if so, we must conclude that the art of tragedy sunk altogether soon after the death of the great poets. The question is the more dif- ficult to answer from the fact that in ancient times there was a totally different epilogue to the Iphigenia at Aulis.f It is possible, or rather probable, that this was the ending added by the younger Euripides, while in other copies tlie genuine parts alone were transcribed, and that at a later period, after the decline of poetry, these copies were com- pleted as we have them now § 25. The still extant dramas of Euripides are^so numerous and varied that we have not found it necessary to our judgment of his works to take into account his lost pieces, though, if we are to believe the hostile criticisms in Aristophanes and the remarks of other ancient writers, there were several of these pieces which presented even more glaring specimens of the poet's faulty mannerism than those which we still have ; for instance, he attempted in the beggar-hero Telephus to produce a touching effect by the outward appearance, by ragged clothes, and so forth; J the Andromeda abounded in showy fooleries in the lyrical parts ; and the wise Melanippe was full of the enlightened reasonings of the new philosophy. The Ckrysippus and the Peirithous were especially rich in speculations about nature and the soul, the Sisyphus in sophistical arguments about the origin of religions ; the two last pieces, however, were more correctly ascribed to Critias, the pupil of Socrates and the sophists, and well known as one of the Thirty Tyrants. § strong suspicions. The prologue, together with the ananests, differs from the cus- tomary style of Euripides ; but it has beauties of its own, and, moreover, this part of the play has been imitated by Ennius. t According to the well-known passage in jElian's Hist. Animal, vii. 39. X Euripides subsequently introduced many alterations into this piece, but not on account of the jokes in the Frogs of Aristophanes, as we might infer from Eustath. on the Iliad, xvi. p. 1084 ; for it is well known that he was not living when that comedy was produced. In general, Euripides frequently altered his plays to suit the public taste, as we are told he did the Hippolytus. In the first edition of this play, Phaedra was a much more importunate lover. § We have entirely passed over the Rhesus; for although there was a play of Euripides with this name, which Attius seems to have imitated in the Nyctrgersis,
 * The worst addition is the epilogue ; the parodos of the chorus is also liable to