The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I | Page 3

have experienced in hearing a
bad cause so cleverly defended. Whether the orators and dikasts
followed the example of the stage in those days, can scarcely be
ascertained, but it is more than certain that they practically illustrated
its principles. At least, the Sicilians were so fond of our author, that a
few of the unfortunate survivors of the Syracusan disaster, were
enabled to pick up a living by quoting such passages of our author as
they had learned by heart. A compliment paid to few living dramatists
in our days!
In dramatic conduct, Euripides is at an even greater disadvantage with
Æschylus and Sophocles. The best characters of the piece are often the
least employed, as in the instance of Macaria in the "Heraclidæ," while
the play is dwindled away with dull, heavy dirges, and the complaints
of senile childishness. The chorus, as Aristotle[4] has remarked, is most
unfortunately independent of the plot, although the finest poetry is
generally to be found in the lyric portions of our author's plays. In fact,

Euripides rather wanted management in employing his resources, than
the resources themselves. An ear well attuned to the harmony of verse,
a delicate perception of the graceful points of language, and a finished
subtilty in touching the more minute feelings and impulses of the mind,
were all thrown away either upon bad subjects or worse principles.
There is no true tragedy in Euripides, He is a melodramatist, but not
according to the modern acceptation. His plays might end either
happily or the reverse. A deity conveniently brought in, the arrival of a
messenger, however unexpectedly, together with a liberal allowance for
a cowardly revenge upon the vanquished--these are the Euripidean
elements for giving a tragic end to a play. Nay, so great is the
prodigality of slaughter throughout his dramas, that we can but imagine
morbid cruelty to have formed a considerable ingredient in the
disposition of Euripides. Even his pathos is somewhat tinctured with
this taste for painful images. As we have beheld in our own times a
barbarian alternately glut his sight with executions, and then shed
floods of tears, and sink into idiot despondency; so the poetry of
Euripides in turn disgusts us with outrageous cruelty, and depresses us
with the most painful demands upon our compassion.
In the lyric portions of his dramas, our poet has been far more
successful. The description of the capture of Troy by night,[5] is a
splendid specimen of animation blended with true pathos. But taken as
a whole. Euripides is a most unequal author. We may commence a play
with pleasure (but O for the prologues!), we may proceed with
satisfaction, but the feeling rarely lasts to the end. If I may venture an
opinion upon so uncertain a subject, I should name the Hippolytus, Ion,
Troades, Bacchæ, and Iphigenia in Aulis as his best plays, placing the
Phoenissæ, Alcestis, Medea, Hecuba, and Orestes in a lower rank. The
Helena is an amusing heap of absurdities, and reads much better in the
burlesque of Aristophanes; the Electra is utterly beneath criticism; the
Cyclops a weak, but humorous imitation of Homer. The other plays
appear to be neither bad nor good.
The style of Euripides is, generally speaking, easy; and I can mention
no author from whom a taste for elegant Greek and a facility in
composition can more easily be derived. Some of his plays have

suffered severely from the ravages of time, the ignorance of copyists,
and the more dangerous officiousness of grammarians. Some passages
of the Bacchæ, Rhesus, Troades, and the two Iphigenias, despite the
ingenuity and erudition of such scholars as Porson, Elmsley, Monk,
Burges, and a host of others, must still remain mere matter for guessing.
Hermann's Euripides is, as a whole, sadly unworthy the abilities of the
Humboldt of Greek literature.
The present volume contains the most popular of our author's works,
according to present usage. But the spirit which is gradually infusing
itself into the minds of those who are most actively engaged in the
educational system of England, fully warrants a hope that Porson's
"four plays" will shortly cease to be the boundaries of the student's
acquaintance with Euripides.
I need scarcely observe, that the study of Aristophanes is indissolubly
connected with that of our author. If the reader discover the painful fact
that the burlesque writer is greater than the tragedian, he will perhaps
also recollect that such a literary relation is, unfortunately, by no means
confined to the days of Aristophanes.
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Notes on the Introduction
[1] See Theatre of the Greeks, p. 92. sqq.
[2] Bacch. 200. This play was written during his sojourn with
Archelaus.
[3] [Greek: toioutoni ti parakekindeumenon]. Aristoph. Ran. 99.
[4] Poet. § xviii.
[5] Hec. 905 sqq.
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