1 nothing without the Gods; that in the long run the good man fares well and the bad fares ill; that a modest lot is preferable to fitful greatness; that the poor man's fear of God is worth more than the ostentatious sacrifices of many a rich man ; that virtue and intelligence are better than wealth and noble birth." He discourses at length of the benefits conferred by the Gods on men; 3 he speaks right well of their righteous and almighty rule, and he even traces back human guilt to their will.5 4 However numerous such expressions may be in his writings, still they do not contain the whole of his view of the world, neither is the ethical peculiarity of his poetry to be found in them. Euripides has sufficient appreciation of what is great and morally beautiful, to be able to paint it when it comes before him in a true and telling manner. For all that, as a pupil of philosophers, as a kindred spirit 1 Bacch. 1139. Io Schl. Hippolyt. 1100. Kirchh. Fr. 77, 80, 257, 305, 355, 395, 507, 576, 621, 942, 1014, 1016, 1027 Nauck. 6 ZELLER'S Philosophie der Grie- 2 Fr. 329, 53, 254, 345, 514, TUNG'S Euripides Restitut. 109, 118, 139. Anaxagoras, CHAP. I. CHAP. to the better Sophists, he is too far removed from the older lines of thought to be able to give himself freely and with full conviction to the traditional faith and morality. His sober understanding feels the improbability and unseemliness of many legends, and the artistic spirit has not such an exclusive hold on him that he can overlook this for the sake of the ideas they embody, or for their poetic worth. The fortunes of men do not seem to him to be directly the revelation of a higher power, but rather to be proximately the result of natural causes, of calculation, of caprice, and of accident. Even moral principles appear wavering. If, on the whole, their authority is admitted, still the poet cannot conceal from himself that even an immoral course of conduct has much to say in its defence. The grand poetic way of contemplating the world, the moral and religious way of looking at human life, has given place to a sceptical tone, to a decomposing reflection, to a setting forth of plain natural facts. Æschylus brought the Eumenides, all in the uncouth guise of antiquity, yet with most fearful effect, on to the stage; whereas the Electra of Euripides says to her brother, or rather the poet himself says, that they are mere fancies of his imagination. Whilst Iphigeneia is preparing to sacrifice the captives, she reflects that the goddess herself cannot possibly require this sacrifice, and that the story of the feast of and Socrates, Euripides may have known, but cannot have 4 Tantalus is a fable.1 Likewise in the Electra 2 the tragic chorus doubts as to the wonder of the change in the course of the sun. In the Troades,3 Hecuba questions the story of the judgment of Paris, and explains the assistance of Aphrodite in carrying off Helen to mean the attractive beauty of Paris. In the Bacchæ,1 Teiresias gives an insipid, half-natural explanation of the birth of Bacchus.5 The Gods, says Euripides,6 bave no needs, and therefore the stories which impute to them human passions cannot possibly be true. Even the general notions of divine vengeance give him offence. This he will not regard as a punishment for particular acts, but rather as a universal law. In other instances, the actions and commands of the Gods are held up to blame-blame, too, for the most part, not called for by the character of the acting persons-and go unpunished in the sequel, so that it necessarily appears as the poet's own conviction; whence he concludes at one time that man need not disturb himself because of his faults, since the Gods commit the same; at another time, that the stories about the Gods cannot be true.9 8 The prophetic art is held in equally low estimation by Euripides. The opportunity is seized in the 1 Iphig. Taur. 372. 2 734. 3 963. 4 265. 5 Frag. 209. Herc. Fur. 1328. 7 Fr. 508, with which the saying (Fr. 964) is connected, that God cares only for great 8 Io 448, 1315; Elect. 1298; 9 Herc. Fur. 1301. CHAP. I. CHAP. I. 3 Helen,' to prove, on highly rationalistic grounds, that it is all a lie and deceit.2 With these legends and rites, however, belief in the Gods is most thoroughly interwoven. No wonder, therefore, that the poet often puts into the mouths of his heroes statements respecting the existence of the Gods, which would sound more natural coming from Protagoras than from men and women of the legendary past. Talthybius raises the question whether there are Gods, or whether Chance guides all things; another doubts their existence, because of the unjust distribution of good and bad fortune; Hecuba in her prayer wonders what the deity really is, whether Zeus, or natural necessity, or the spirit of mortal beings; Hercules and Clytemnestra leave it open whether there are Gods, and who Zeus is; even the Ether is explained to be Zeus. So much at least these utterances prove that Euripides had wandered far away from the ancient faith in the Gods. Allowing that he is sincere when he says that only a fool can deny the deity and give credence to the deceitful assertions of philosophy respecting what is hidden,8 still his attitude appears to have been preponderatingly sceptical and critical towards the popular faith. Probably he allowed that there was a God; 1 743. 5 2 Sophocles, Antig. 1033, makes Cleon attack the prophet, but his accusations are refuted by the sequel. Not so with Euripides. 3 Hel. 484. Fr. 288; compare Fr. 892. 5 Troad. 877. 6 6 Herc. Fur. 1250; Iph. Aul. 1034; Orestes, 410, and the fragment of Melanippe Fr. 483. 7 Fr. 935, 869. certainly he attached no value to the legendary notions respecting the Gods; holding that the essence of God could not be known, and assuming the oneness of the divine nature either by glossing over or by plainly denying the ruling Pantheism.' Nor did the popular ideas respecting the state after death fare better at his hands. Naturally enough, he makes use of them when a poet can use them, but then it is also said, that we know not how it is with another life, we only follow an unfounded opinion. In several places Euripides expresses the opinion,2 pointing partly to Orphic-Pythagorean traditions, and partly to the teaching of Anaxagoras and Archilaus, that the spirit returns at death to the ether whence it came; apparently leaving it an open question, whether at all, or to what extent, consciousness belongs to the soul when united with the ether.5 That the sphere of morals did not sciousness (γνώμη ἀθάνατος) CHAP. |