about making hopeless mischief by exposing weak places in the sordid subterfuges of others. This drama contains a figure, Hjálmar Ekdal, who claims the bad pre-eminence of being the meanest scoundrel in all drama. The Wild Duck is the darkest, the least relieved, of Ibsen’s studies of social life, and his object in composing it is not obvious. With Rosmersholm (1886) he rose to the height of his genius again; this is a mournful, but neither a pessimistic nor a cynical play. The fates which hang round the contrasted lives of Rosmer and Rebecca, the weak-willed scrupulous man and the strong-willed unshrinking woman, the old culture and the new, the sickly conscience and the robust one, create a splendid dramatic antithesis. Ibsen then began to compose a series of dramas, of a more and more symbolical and poetic character; the earliest of these was the mystical The Lady from the Sea (1888). At Christmas 1890 he brought out Hedda Gabler; two years later The Master-builder (Bygmester Solnaes), in which many critics see the highest attainment of his genius; at the close of 1894 Little Eyolf; in 1896 John Gabriel Borkman; and in 1900 When We Dead Awaken. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday (1898) Ibsen was the recipient of the highest honours from his own country and of congratulations and gifts from all parts of the world. A colossal bronze statue of him was erected outside the new National Theatre, Christiania, in September 1899. In 1901 his health began to decline, and he was ordered by the physician to abandon every species of mental effort. The evil advanced, and he became unconscious of the passage of events. After lingering in this sad condition he died, without suffering, on the 23rd of May 1906, and was accorded a public funeral, with the highest national honours.
No recent writer belonging to the smaller countries of Europe has had so widely spread a fame as that of Ibsen, and although the value of his dramatic work is still contested, it has received the compliment of vivacious discussion in every part of the world. There would, perhaps, have been less violence in this discussion if it had been perceived that the author does not pose as a moral teacher, but as an imaginative investigator. He often and with much heat insisted that he was not called upon as a poet to suggest a remedy for the diseases of society, but to diagnose them. In this he was diametrically opposed to Tolstoi, who admitted that he wrote his books for the healing of the nations. If the subjects which Ibsen treats, or some of them, are open to controversy, we are at least on firm ground in doing homage to the splendour of his art as a playwright. He reintroduced into modern dramatic literature something of the velocity and inevitability of Greek tragic intrigue. It is very rarely that any technical fault can be found with the architecture of his plots, and his dialogue is the most lifelike that the modern stage has seen. His long apprenticeship to the theatre was of immense service to him in this respect. In every country, though least perhaps in England, the influence of Ibsen has been marked in the theatrical productions of the younger school. Even in England, on the rare occasions when his dramas are acted, they awaken great interest among intelligent playgoers.
The editions of Ibsen’s works are numerous, but the final text is included in the Samlede Vaerker, with a bibliography by J. B. Halvorsen, published in Copenhagen, in 10 vols. (1898–1902). They have been translated into the principal European languages, and into Japanese. The study of Ibsen in English was begun by Mr Gosse in 1872, and continued by Mr William Archer, whose version of Ibsen’s prose dramas appeared in 5 vols. (1890, 1891; new and revised edition, 1906). Other translators have been Mr C. Herford, Mr R. A. Streatfield, Miss Frances Lord and Mr Adie. His Correspondence was edited, in 2 vols., under the supervision of his son, Sigurd Ibsen, in 1904 (Eng. trans., 1905). Critical studies on the writings and position of Ibsen are innumerable, and only those which were influential in guiding opinion, during the early part of his career, in the various countries, can be mentioned here: Georg Brandes Ästhetiske Studier (Copenhagen, 1868); Les Quesnel, Poésie scandinave (Paris 1874); Valfrid Valsenius, Henrik Ibsen (Helsingfors, 1879); Edmund Gosse, Studies in Northern Literature (London, 1879); L. Passarge, Henrik Ibsen (Leipzig, 1883); G. Brandes, Björnson och Ibsen (Stockholm, 1882); Henrik Jaeger, Henrik Ibsen 1828–1888 (Copenhagen, 1888; Eng. trans., 1890); T. Terwey, Henrik Ibsen (Amsterdam, 1882); G. Bernard Shaw, The Quintessence of Ibsen (London, 1892). In France Count Moritz Prozor carried on an ardent propaganda in favour of Ibsen from 1885, and Jules Lemaître’s articles in his Les Contemporains and Impressions de théâtre did much to encourage discussion. W. Archer forwarded the cause in England from 1878 onwards. In Germany Ibsen began to be known in 1866, when John Grieg, P. F. Siebold and Adolf Strodtmann successively drew attention to his early dramas; but his real popularity among the Germans dates from 1880. (E. G.)
IBYCUS, of Rhegium in Italy, Greek lyric poet, contemporary
of Anacreon, flourished in the 6th century B.C. Notwithstanding
his good position at home, he lived a wandering life, and spent
a considerable time at the court of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos.
The story of his death is thus related: While in the neighbourhood
of Corinth, the poet was mortally wounded by robbers.
As he lay dying he saw a flock of cranes flying overhead, and
called upon them to avenge his death. The murderers betook
themselves to Corinth, and soon after, while sitting in the theatre,
saw the cranes hovering above. One of them, either in alarm or
jest, ejaculated, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus,” and thus
gave the clue to the detection of the crime (Plutarch, De Garrulitate,
xiv.). The phrase, “the cranes of Ibycus,” passed
into a proverb among the Greeks for the discovery of crime
through divine intervention. According to Suidas, Ibycus
wrote seven books of lyrics, to some extent mythical and heroic,
but mainly erotic (Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 33), celebrating the
charms of beautiful youths and girls. F. G. Welcker suggests
that they were sung by choruses of boys at the “beauty competitions”
held at Lesbos. Although the metre and dialect are
Dorian, the poems breathe the spirit of Aeolian melic poetry.
The best editions of the fragments are by F. W. Schneidewin (1833) and Bergk, Poëtae lyrici Graeci.
ICA (Yca, or Ecca), a city of southern Peru and the capital
of a department of the same name, 170 m. S.S.E. of Lima, and
46 m. by rail S.E. of Pisco; its port on the Pacific coast. Pop.
(1906, official estimate) 6000. It lies in a valley of the foothills
of the Cordillera Occidental, which is watered by the Rio de
Ica, is made highly fertile by irrigation, and is filled with vineyards
and cotton fields; between this valley and the coast is
a desert. The original town was founded in 1563, 4 m.
E. of its present site, but it was destroyed by the earthquake
of 1571, and again by that of 1664, after which the present town
was laid out near the ruins. In 1882 a Chilean marauding
expedition inflicted great damage to private property in the
town and vicinity. These repeated disasters give the place a
partially ruined appearance, but it has considerable commercial
and industrial prosperity. It has a large cotton factory and
there are some smaller industries. Wine-making is one of the
principal industries of the valley, and much brandy, called
pisco, is exported from Pisco. A new industry is that of drying
the fruits for which this region is celebrated. Ica is the seat of
a national college.
The department of Ica lies between the Western Cordillera and the Pacific coast, and extends from the department of Lima S.E. to that of Arequipa. Pop. (1906, official estimate) 68,220; area 8721 sq. m. Ica is in the rainless region of Peru, and the greater part of its surface is barren. It is crossed by the rivers Pisco, Ica and Grande, whose tributaries drain the western slope of the Cordillera, and whose valleys are fertile and highly cultivated. The valley of the Nasca, a tributary of the Grande, is celebrated for an extensive irrigating system constructed by the natives before the discovery of America. The principal products of the department are cotton, grapes, wine, spirits, sugar and fruit. These are two good ports on the northern coast, Tambo de Mora and Pisco, the latter being connected with the capital by a railway across the desert, 46 m. long.
ICE (a word common to Teutonic languages; cf. Ger. Eis),
the solid crystalline form which water assumes when exposed
to a sufficiently low temperature. It is a colourless crystalline
substance, assuming forms belonging to the hexagonal system,
and distinguished by a well-marked habit of twinning, which
occasions the beautiful “ice flowers” displayed by hoar-frost.
It is frequently precipitated as hoar-frost, snow or hail; and
in the glaciers and snows of lofty mountain systems or of regions
