Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/19

Rh first choral ode (436–441), the special relevance being therefore to the character of the chorus, who cannot but feel that it is their own impotence, the infirmity of age, which has denied to them all share in the great deliverance, and that all they can now do is to extol him who has achieved it.

The relevance of the three foregoing odes, it will be seen, is not so much to the immediate context, as to some idea, or leit-motif, which dominates the whole play.

It will have been perceived that II, III, and IV are not mutually exclusive.

There are, again, a few choral odes which, though relevant to their own dramatic context, yet admit of more general application; and to these some writers have applied the stricture of Aristotle, that "they are no more relevant to the particular plays in which they occur, than to any other tragedy." Such are, the ode in the Medea on the perils of parentage (1081–1113), that in the Hippolytus on the despotic tyranny of Love (1268–1282), and the strophe and antistrophe (543–573) in Iphigeneia at Aulis, deprecating unbridled passion, the baleful effects of which have been seen in the sin of Paris. But, in the first place, we have already seen that Aristotle himself did not regard these, or any odes whatever of Euripides, as meriting that censure, which he reserved for later poets; and no wonder, for in three plays of Sophocles there are no fewer than six choral odes against which the same objection could as reasonably be urged. Secondly, to admit such a contention would be to lay down as a literary canon the absurd rule that the perfect dramatist may not descant on the emotions, experiences, and aims, which are the master-springs of action and passion in human life, except with exclusive reference to the particular persons or situations which illustrate them in each case.