Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/143

 sojphocles. 125 its counterpart in representing the contrast of two sisters, and so making the third actor play an important and essential character in the development of the drama. The Tracliirdce, seems to claim the third place on accomit of the difficulty of the language, and other featiu-es of strong resemblance to the Antigone. Then we should class together the (Edipus Tyrannus and the (Edipus Coloneus with their connected subjects and not dissimilar mode of treatment. And we should associate the Pliiloctetes with the ^ya^, in which also Ulysses appears as the leading instrument in the development of the plot. We will briefly characterize the separate plays considered in this order of succession. In the Antigone the main object is to show the contrast between the heroine, who insists on burying her brother against the will of the state represented by Creon, and the latter, who violates the laws of heaven by denying the rites of sepulture to Polyneices and burying Antigone alive. Both, in a certain sense, have justice on their side, and therefore both excite the sympathy of the audience ; both, in another sense, are guilty of violating the law — the princess the law of man and the king the law of God — and therefore the tragical results in botli cases assume the form of a righteous doom. The plot is rendered more interesting by the contrast of the cha- racters of the two sisters, Antigone and Ismene, and by the intro- duction of the love of H^mon, Creon's son, for his cousin An- tigone. In this latter incident the play approaches nearly to some of the characteristics of the romantic drama. And on the whole there is perhaps no Greek Tragedy which makes a stronger appeal to the feelings, and which is more exquisitely finished in all its parts, than the Antigone of Sophocles. If the Agamemnon of ^s- chylus approximates in some points to the grandeur of Macbeth, there is much in the Antigone to remind us of Romeo and Juliet^, The Elecira, which Dioscorides classes with the Antigone as exemplifying the highest perfection of the art of Sophocles 2, is in ^ The present ivriter has endeavoured to exhibit all the characteristics of this master-piece of Greek Tragedy in an edition and translation of the Antigone, published in 1848. 2 Anth. Pal. VII. 37: a. TVfj.^os 65' ear, i^vdpoiire, 'ZocpoKKios, 6v jrapa 'Movauv lp7)v Trap6eai7}P, lepos i3v, fKaxov OS fJ.e Tov e/c ^Xlovvtos, ^tl rpi^oXov irareovTa, irplvLvov, is XP^'<^^^^ cxvf^'^ fxedrjp/xoa-aro, Kai XewTrju ividvaeu aXovpyida' tov de davovTOS eiWerov 6pxv<^TW tV^' dj'^Trai/ca Troda.