Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/74

lxxii to vindicate his fame. And the evidence in this case is of the slightest and flimsiest description. An epigram of the most doubtful authorship, as unlike anything else that bears the name of Sophocles, as the epitaph on John a Combe is unlike anything else of Shakespeare's, and which, even if it were genuine, is a denial and not a confession of the charge; anecdotes, some of which, so far as they are good for anything, prove victory over sense, and outward purity of life; It is not worth while to reproduce the anecdotes in question, but their nature may be briefly stated. On one occasion, in his old age, some one asked him a foul and ribald question, and his answer was, "Hush, my friend; I have known how terrible an enemy such evil is, and am thankful to have been delivered from it," (Plato, Republ., i., p. 329, b. Athen., xii., p. 510.) On another, during the Samian expedition, Pericles, it is said, seeing him look at a face of more than usual beauty, bade him remember that one whose aims were lofty must not be content with purity of outward life, but must strive after purity of thought, (Plutarch, Pericles, viii. Cic. De Off., i. 40.) The story which Athenaeus tells, in connexion with the epigram, (Deipnos, xiii., p. 604,) is but part of the base gossip of that impure writer, and was just the kind of slander which the age that was contemporary with the later years of Sophocles was likely to invent against one whose character rose above its own. Another, (xiii. 603,) less offensive, and reported as coming from an eye-witness, indicates, if true, and measured by the social customs of his time, little more than a genial playfulness.

"Ion the poet, in his 'Reminiscences of Travel,' writes thus:—'I met Sophocles the poet in Chios, when he was sailing as general to Lesbos, and found him full of humour and geniality over his wine. It happened that Hermesilaos, who was his personal friend and Athenian consul (proxenos) there, entertained him at dinner, and the boy who poured out the wine, standing by the fire, was flushed with it. "Do you wish me to enjoy my wine?" said he. "Come slowly, and bring me the goblet, and then take it away." And when the boy blushed and grew redder than before, he said to his neighbour, "How well Phrynichos has put it—

And to this Eretrieus, who was a schoolmaster, answered, "Of course, Ο Sophocles, thy skill in poetry is beyond all question. Nevertheless,