Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/75

Rh these are surely slender grounds for thinking of the character of the man as out of harmony with the character of the writer. They cannot be admitted to outweigh the negative evidence in his favour, that the rough satire of the older comedy, unflinching and unsparing, never even dared to connect his name with evil of this nature, the positive evidence of his own Phrynichos has not been happy in his language when he speaks of the cheeks of a beautiful person as purple; for if an artist were to paint this boy's cheek with purple he would no longer be good-looking. And he ought not to have compared what is beautiful with what is not so." And Sophocles smiled at Eretrieus, and said, "Well then, my good friend, art thou not satisfied with this passage of Simonides, which most Hellenes look upon as admirable—

nor with the poet when he speaks of 'golden-haired Apollo;' for if the artist were to make the hair of the God golden and not black, the painting would be the worse for it. Or, again, take him who talked of 'rosy-fingered;' for if one were to dip one's fingers into rose-coloured paint, they would be like a dyer's, and not like a fair woman's." And when they laughed, and Eretrieus was mortified at the retort, he again spoke to the boy, and asked him, as he was trying to remove a particle of dust from the cup with his little finger, if he saw it clearly. And when he said that he did see it—"Blow it then, so that thy finger may not get wetted." And as the boy moved his head closer to the cup, so he brought the cup nearer to his own lips, that their heads might be close together. And when they were on the point of meeting, he put his arm round his neck and kissed him. And when they all burst out laughing and shouting at the trick he had played the boy—"You see, my friends," he said, "that I am practising generalship; for Pericles says that I know how to write poetry, but not what generalship is. And hasn't my strategy turned out well in this instance?" And many such like sportive things he said and did, when he sat at his wine and jested. But as to matters of state he was not conspicuous either for wisdom or activity, but just like any other worthy, well-to-do Athenian.