Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/144

 126 SOPHOCLES. many respects the counterpart of that play. The strongest emotion displayed is the sisterly love of the heroine for her brother Orestes, whom she supposes to have perished ; and the contrast between Electra and Chrysothemis corresponds exactly to that between An- tigone and Ismene. There is another strong sentiment in Electra's sorrow for her murdered father, and in the heroic resolve of the lonely and persecuted maiden to slay ^gisthus with her own hand. The highest point of tragic interest is reached when Electra, having uttered her beautiful address to the urn, which, as she supposes, contains the ashes of her brother, is raised from despair to over- powering joy by recognizing liim in the stranger who had himself given her the simulated remains of Orestes. The matricidal cata- strophe at the end is terrible without being extravagant, and the manner in which ^Egisthus, who had come home confidently hoping to hear that Orestes was dead, is obliged to lift the covering from the corpse of Clyt^emnestra, produces a striking effect, without falling into melo-dramatic vulgarity. If the Electra resembles the Antigone in the prominence which it gives to sisterly affection, and in the contrast between the pairs of sisters in each play, the TracMnice is not without very striking indications of a similarity of manner and conception which refers it to the same period in the poet's literary activity. Characters and descriptions in both plays seem to have a certain resemblance ^ Both plays have an 6p')(7jaTiK6v or dancing song instead of a stasi- mon^. The exaltation of the power of love is similarly expressed in both^. And figures of speech^, and even phraseology^ in the one play, sound like echoes of something similar in the other. But while the Antigone is perhaps the most vigorous and perfect of the plays of Sophocles, the TracMnice is undoubtedly his feeblest effort. )S, oX/Sios cIjs dyadrjv ^Xaxes ardcriv ij 6' evl x^P^'-^ KovpLfxos, e/c TToiTjs rj8e dtbacTKaXiris ; a. etre ctol 'AvTiy6v)]v direlv (p'Ckov, ovk clv dpApToi^, eire Kal 'H.XeKTpav' dficpoTepat. ydp dKpov. 1 Lichas reminds us of the Sentinel in the Antigone, and Hyllus pleading with his father for Deianeira is the counterpart of Haemon, as the advocate of his bride. The silence of Deianeira on hearing of her husband's fate is paralleled by that of Eurydice, and the descriptive speeches are framed on the same model. 2 Cf. Antig. 1115 sqq. ; Track. 205 sqq. 3 Cf. Antig. 781 sqq.; Track. 497 sqq. ^ Cf. Antig. 586 sqq, ; Track. 112 sqq. ° As in the almost unique examples of the tertiary predicate ddaKpvTos (Antig. 881 ; Track. 106) for uia-Tf ov daKpvovcriv (Greelc Graminar, art. 498).