Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/163

 EURIPIDES. 145 -pidce, and the satyrical drama called Theseus^ the latter of which must have been of similar import to the Sciroii of the immediately previous Tetralog}'. The Hecuba, which has always been one of the most popular plays of Eui'ipides, introduces the aged queen of Troy as a marked and vigorous character. After her daughter Polyxena has been torn from her to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, the corpse of her only remaining son Polydorus is cast up by the waves, and she learns that he has been murdered by the treacherous king of Thrace, Polymestor, to whom he had been intrusted along with some trea- sure. She entices the perfidious wretch and his children into her tent, and there slays them and puts out his eyes ; and she then suc- cessfully defends her act when called to an account before Aga- memnon. Besides the character of Hecuba, who appears as a sort of philosopher of the Euripidean school, the noble resignation of Polyxena is made to interest the spectators by a display similar to that which we find in the Heradeidce and the Ipliigenia at Aidi's. Some allusions to the inconveniences of old age^ place the Her- cules Furens among the later compositions of Euripides, and certain references to his wish for peace with Thebes and Sparta ^ strengthen the hypothesis that the play was acted about B.C. 422. It is con- jectured^ that the other plays of the Tetralogy were the Tememdes, the CrespJiontes^, and a satyrical drama called Cercyon. In many parts the Hercules is singularly vigorous and efi'ective, but its dra- matic merits are seriously compromised by its want of unity in the subject and action. The first part of the play is occupied with the liberation of the family of Hercules from the persecutions of Lycus ; and then Lyssa or madness appears as the only explanation of the frenzy, in which Hercules slays his wife and children. The reference, which the chorus of the Iphigenia at Tauri, sup- posed to consist of Delian women, makes to the island of Delos and ^ See V. 639 sqq., especially v. 678: Irt rot yepcoi/ dotSos KeXabel ixvafxoavvav, which may be compared with yEschylus, Agam. v. 104. 2 vv. 471, 1 1 35, 1303. ^ Hartung, ii. p. 21 sqq. ^ The Cresphonfes refers in one of the choral fragments both to the advancing age of the poet and his longing for peace {Fmgvi. xv) : elpdva ^aOvirXovre S^doiKa de jxt] Trplu ttouols vwep^aXrj fxe yyjpas TTplv aav Trpoaiddu xaplecrcrav Lcpav k. t., D. T. G. 10