Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/28

xxvi Athens, the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the Areopagos, the Peiræos, Œgina, Argolis, were distinctly visible. The spot was one to which the mind of the poet in his old age turned back with a love and tenderness that shows how it must have told upon his childhood. No ideal picture of a poet's birthplace could be fairer than that which he has drawn in the wonderful chorus which describes it. The glittering whiteness of the limestone rock cropping out, here and there, from the thin herbage, the hills purple with the vine, the thick groves of laurels and of olive, the pure clear stream of the Kephisos, that never failed even in the hottest drought, the warbling of the nightingale in the summer evenings, these were the first impressions of his childhood. Small as the deme might be, too, it had its local sanctuaries. The burghers prided themselves upon their breed of horses, their skill in training, and the guardian deities of Attica, Athena, and Poseidon, were worshipped there, as giving the strength and the skill which were needed to bring the fiery strength of the brute creation under the control of man. It was a true discernment which led people, as well as poet, to recognise in the power which curbs the winds something analogous to that which subdues with bit and bridle, in the sailor's daring on the sea, a proof of man's supremacy as