Page:Measuring Euripides.djvu/9

 whose sermon and prayer intermingled with hymn and anthem and scriptural reading and responses, somewhat resemble the choral odes, the regular dialog of alternate lines between two actors or one principal and the chorus, and the longer set speeches of a Euripidean tragedy. The Greek drama originated as a feature of popular religious festivals and it retained this religious character in Euripides' day and his plays are full of prayers to the gods and of sermonizing. Music, dancing, and elaborateness of costume and scenic effect, were important features, however, whereas the acting, and especially character acting, was comparatively unimportant. Since only two or three speaking characters were ever on the stage at the same time, all the "parts" were taken by a few men who filled more than one role each. The three great Greek tragedians, although masters in their own way, were mere tyros and novices in many matters of stagecraft and psychological finesse. They made their characters say things of themselves that would better be said about them, or were guilty of anachronisms and other incongruities and improbabilities. These, however, are minor flaws which do not seriously affect our investigation. Moreover, the particular circumstances under which each play was written, while they may account for this or that particular utterance, need not be taken into account in our rough general measurement of the contents of Euripides' plays as a whole. In any case most of his plays cannot be dated with any approach to certainty so that it is hopeless to speculate as to the particular situation prevailing when each was composed. What is certain is that Euripides' plays as a whole were affected by the age in which he lived and that they doubtless reflect many of its features.

We should remember therefore that he wrote his tragedies during the last half or third of the fifth century before our era. He wrote as the age of Pericles was closing, while Socrates and the sophists were teaching in the streets of Athens, and during the bitter trials and experiences of the Peloponnesian War. Among the chief influences to which he must have been subject were: first, the literary traditions from Homer on, and especially those of the earlier tragedians. Here would be a danger that he might copy the past instead of conforming his contents to the present. Second, he was bound by the religious teaching of the past, by the holy atmosphere of the festivals at which his plays were produced, and by the old stories or myths which he had to use as plots, just as preachers today have to take their texts from the Bible. Third, he lived in a Greek city state and had been brought up under its peculiar political, social, and intellectual conditions. Fourth, he could not but have felt the effects of the disastrous Peloponnesian war, which marked the end of Athens' political and commercial supremacy. But fifth and finally, he seems to have been more powerfully influenced by the great development that went on at this time in rhetoric and public speak-