Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/28

xxii him, the great fact remains that he was by far the most popular of all the tragedians. He appealed directly to men's hearts; as Aristotle said of him, he represented men as they are, not as they ought to be; and if he thereby lost in dignity, he yet gained by being able to extend a wider sympathy to the sufferings of his fellow-men. And this no doubt will explain much that has been most bitterly blamed in his method; it is said that he vulgarized tragedy, bringing it down to the level of melodrama with his excessive love of pathos, his reliance on striking scenery and novelties in music to create an effect, his rhetorical subtlety and exaggerated patriotism; but an unerring insight had taught how he could best reach his audience, and this was enough for him. The sentiment expressed by Terence many years later might very well have issued from the lips of Euripides: "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."