Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/239

Rh though the two plays are in a sense complete in themselves, yet if we would learn the maturest views of Sophocles upon this subject, we must study the "Œdipus Tyrannus" in the light of the sequel. Œdipus is not, indeed, a perfect character; he has flaws of temper and judgment; but not in these must we seek the explanation of his history. The poet indicates clearly that his calamities are to be traced to the inherent feebleness and short-sightedness of man, the obverse side of which is the divine foreknowledge; that his sufferings are in truth unmerited, and for that very reason have no power to subdue the soul. Œdipus has, of his own free-will, committed deeds which would be the most heinous of crimes, had they not been done unconsciously. Popular sentiment would have ascribed them to a divine infatuation, which though inflicted arbitrarily and not judicially, yet was supposed to leave the agent personally responsible for his acts. Sophocles here, as in other plays, fixes our attention on the difference between crime and involuntary error, which contracts no stain of guilt. When we meet Œdipus towards the close of his life, in the "Œdipus Coloneus," we hardly recognize him as the man from whom we parted in the "Œdipus Tyrannus" in the first transport of horror and remorse. Suffering has wrought on him far otherwise than on Lear, whose weak and passionate nature it unhinged, and with whom the thought that he himself was mainly to blame embittered his anger and turned grief into despair. Œdipus has disencumbered himself of a past which is not truly part of himself. In the school of suffering his inborn nobleness of character has come out. He is now at peace with himself and reconciled to heaven. In spite of troubled memories he is conscious of innocence at last, and bears himself with the calm and dignity of one who knows that he has a high destiny to fulfil, and is obeying the express summons of the gods. The unconscious sin is expiated; and he who was the victim of divine anger, the accursed thing that polluted the city, is now the vehicle of blessing to the land that receives him: — Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail, Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble. Both Æschylus and Sophocles attained to the conception of a righteous order of the world under the sovereign rule of Zeus. Sophocles had not, indeed, the speculative insight of Æschylus, nor did he grapple so fearlessly with the deepest problems of existence. Yet he did not yield the ground won by Æschylus, nor renounce the moral gains that had been bequeathed by him. In one religious idea, as we have seen, — in his interpretation of human suffering, — he even advanced beyond his predecessor. Æschylus believed in an unseen and guiding power, that dispenses rewards and punishments to individuals and communities, on principles of unerring justice. In Sophocles the divine righteousness asserts itself not in the award of happiness or misery to the individual, but in the providential wisdom which assigns to each individual his place and function in a universal moral order. Unmerited suffering here receives at least a partial explanation. S. H. Butcher. From Blackwood's Magazine. MAGDA'S COW. CHAPTER VI. PRINCESS RASCALINSKA. "Une princesse! O Dieu! ma fille, une princesse." . The following Sunday at church brought a surprise to the villagers of Rudniki. This surprise was not in any way connected with the handsome Danelo, though he certainly attracted a considerable portion of attention during the service. Upright as a young fir-tree in his soldier's dress, which he had not yet laid aside, he made a conspicuous figure among the linen shirts and rough sheep-skins of the other peasants, and the villagers felt proud of him as one of themselves. Even the more serious members of the community, who were inclined to regard him as a sort of black sheep, pleasant enough but hardly respectable, could not deny that at least he was highly ornamental. Besides, there was always the hope that a man who had travelled so far and seen so much, might have returned with his head somewhat less empty than when he started. During the past week Danelo's stories had been the great point of interest at the village meetings in the tavern. He had even been as far as Lwóv (Lemberg), the capital, and had once actually seen an archduke. No wonder that he became an important person all at once.

But the village gossips were about to