Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/92

xc forms of genius, of which we might almost say that they were generically different. The name which speaks of him as the "Bee of Tragedy," and the lines which place him as at an unapproachable height of excellence, in like manner do but express the admiration of a later age, without helping us to appreciate what is specially worthy to be admired. If I were to sum up, in fewest words, what constitutes this surpassing excellence, I should find it in the wonderful equilibrium of all powers, the self-control and consummate art with which all are devoted to working out a perfection deliberately foreseen and aimed at. There is power, as in the self-inflicted blindness of Œdipus, the agony of Heracles, the long woe of Philoctetes, the suicide of Aias, to paint vividly and awfully the scenes of terror which belong essentially to the true conception of Tragedy; but there is no exaggeration, as there is so often with Euripides, of the mere details of physical pain and loathsomeness. In him what the great "Master of those who know" has laid down as the end of Tragedy, is attained. Through the instrumentality of terror and pity those