Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/161

 EURIPIDES. 14S superseded her. It lias been well remarked^ that " the scene which paints the struggle in Medea's breast between her plans of revenge and her love for her children, will always be one of the most touch- ing and impressive ever represented on the stage." Its dramatic value is proved by the success of the modern plays and operas in which the injured wife murders, or intends to murder her children, as an appropriate punishment of a faithless husband^. Euripides obtained the first prize with his Hippolytus Crowned in the archonship oi Ameinoii or Epameinon B.C. 428^. This play, like the Medea, has been revived with great success on the modern stage ^, and, in spite of great faults, it produces a considerable effect on the reader. The plot turns on the criminal love of Phaedra for her step-son Hippolytus, the Joseph of classical mythology. As in the similar cases of Bellerophon and Peleus, the scorned and passionate woman seeks the ruin of the chaste young man, but in this instance she also commits suicide. The father, Theseus, is induced to believe in his son's guilt. And the innocent hero is torn to death by his own steeds, who are frightened by sea-monsters sent against them by Neptune, and his death having been thus effected by the malice of Aphrodite and the blind compliance of the sea-god, the chaste goddess Artemis appears ex machina to do poetic justice to the innocent victim. It has been conjectured that the Cyclops, our only remaining satyrical drama, belonged to the same Tetralogy as the Hipjpoly- tus, which also, it is supposed, contained the Bellerophontes and the Antigone^, The Bellerophontes is recommended for this juxta- position by its similarity of subject, with of course a difference of treatment. The Antigone of Euripides had a fortunate termina- tion, as far as Hsemon and the heroine were concerned^, and the fragments seem to point to a tyranny of love, which is quite at 1 Miiller, Hist. Lit. Gr. i. p. 485 {new ed.). 2 It is only necessary to mention the Tragedy Medee and the operas Medea and Norma. 3 Argum. IIippol. ^ In Racine's Pliedi'e. The great French dramatist says, in the preface to his play: "Je ne suis point ^tonnd que ce caract^re (de Ph^dre) ait eu un succfes si heureux du temps d'Euripide, et qu'il ait encore si bien r^ussi dans notre sifecle, puisqu'il a toutes les qualitds qu'Aristote ddmande dans le h^ros de la trag^die, et qui sont propres k exciter la compassion et la terreur." •^ Hartung, i. pp. 385 S(][q. " Aristoph. Byz. in Arr/um. Antig. Soph.; KelraL Be ij fivOoTroua Kal irap' EyptTriS?; ev 'ApTtyouri' irXijv e/cet (pcopadetcra /xera tov A'ifMouos didorai irpbs yd/xou KOivuviau Kal TLKTeL TOV Mai/jLoua.