Page:Measuring Euripides.djvu/22

 dread beasts of the sea and makes earth and air his pupils." Ideas, affirms a sixth, are the foundation of the welfare of the city and of the home; and the worst evil is the ignorant crowd.

Euripides even questions whether an intelligent coward is not to be preferred to a brave ignoramus and in the Children of Heracles says that wise men ought to pray to have a wise man rather than a fool as an enemy. Indeed wisdom is in many passages almost identified with virtue and morality, and we are constantly being told what the wise man would or would not do. Yet Decharme in his book on Euripides questions whether the great Socratic principle that morality is inseparable from knowledge is found anywhere in the poet's works.

Certainly we find already forecast there in several passages the Stoic ideal of the virtuous sage who has steeled himself to bear whatever fortune brings, to remain moderate and free from passion himself, and to regulate his transient life by "looking at the undecaying cosmos of immortal nature." "And in addition to these things," reads another fragment, "let whatever must be, be devised, and let everything be contrived against me. For it shall be well with me; and Right shall be my ally, and I shall not be caught doing evil."

Despite his praise of intellect Euripides recognizes that it does not do to be too clever in this practical unthinking world of ours. "Swiftness and light-footedness of mind has often brought mortals to woe." "Alas, alas," says Medea, "not now for the first time, but often, Croesus, has opinion injured me and worked me great harm. Whoever is a prudent man ought not to educate his children too deeply. For, aside from any other charge against them, they incur the unfavorable envy of their fellows. Moreover, if you offer fools some new found truth, you will be thought to do no service and to have no sense. But if you are considered superior to those who seem to have some vague knowledge, you appear obnoxious in the city."

This passage may apply to the philosopher, Anaxagorus from Asia Minor, who was in Athens from about 462-432 B. C. but was fined and banished on a charge of atheism, or possibly it may refer to Socrates.

In the fragments are two others of similar purport. The first, from Alexander, "Alack I die through using my mind, which to others is a means of safety." The second: from Palamedes, "Kill, kill the all-wise, O ye Greeks, the nightingale, the unoffending muse." This last Diogenes Laertius believed to be an allusion to the execution of Socrates but it would have to be prophetic, since Euripides died before "the pagan Christ."

After having heard so much of the high intelligence of the average Athenian in the age of Pericles it has been interesting