Page:The Golden verses of Pythagoras (IA cu31924026681076).pdf/74

 small number of sages, faithful to the true principles, regarded him always as the father of tragedy. One can admit that Sophocles was more perfect in the conduct of his plans, in the regularity of his style ; that Euripides was more natural and more tender, more skilful in arousing interest, in stirring the passions ; but these perfections, resulting from the form, had not been acquired without the very essence of drama being altered; that is to say, without the allegorical genius which had presided at the composition of the fables that the poets had always drawn from the religious mysteries, suffering many deviations, which rendered it often unrecognizable through the foreign adornments with which it was burdened. Sophocles and above all Euripides, by devoting themselves to perfecting the form, really harmed therefore the principle of the art and hastened its corruption. If the laws which had at first been promulgated against those who in treating of the tragic subjects vilified the mysterious sense had been executed, Euripides would not have been allowed to depict so many heroes degraded by adversity, so many princesses led astray by love, so many scenes of shame, of scandal, and of crime ; but the people, already degraded and bordering upon corruption, allowed themselves to be drawn along by these dangerous tableaux and hastened half-way to meet the poisoned cup which was offered to them.

It must candidly be admitted, that it is to the very charm of these tableaux, to the talent with which Euripides understood how to colour them, that the decadence of Athenian manners and the first harm done to the purity of religion must be attributed. The theatre, having become the school of the passions, and offering to the soul no spiritual nourishment, opened a door through which doubt, contempt, and derision for the mysteries, the most sacrilegious auda-*; Plutar., ''De Profect. Vitæ''.]