in Sophocles, but to us a very jarring interruption in many a splendid scene. Lastly, among the ephemeral features—or at least the features which are not for all time—is an almost vulgar patriotism, which makes the national heroes paragons of perfection, the action of Athens the noble feature of the play, and the heroes of Sparta or of Thebes mean and disgusting. One whole play, the Andromache, is thus devoted to blackening the characters of Hermione and Menelaus, and of their country—a cheap highroad to popularity with an audience at hitter enmity and to deadly conflict with Sparta.
23. These curious anomalies and contradictions make Euripides the most difficult of all the ancients to understand. It is very easy to draw distinct sketches of his life and art, which without being untrue are yet broadly inconsistent. We may follow the reckless and brilliant vituperation of Aristophanes, sometimes among many brazen falsehoods hitting the truth with perfect aim; or we may follow the enthusiastic admiration of the genteel comedy in the next century, which regarded him as very perfection. We may side with August Schlegel, who anxiously detracts from Euripides lest the Iphigenia of Goethe might suffer by comparison; or with Hartung, who finds in him every moral, social, and civic virtue which is drawn in any of his characters. But we must combine all these portraits with all their contradictions, to obtain an adequate idea of that infinitely various, unequal, suggestive mind, which was at the same time practically shrewd and mystically vague, clear in expression but doubtful in thought, morose in intercourse and yet a profound lover of mankind, drawing ideal women and yet perpetually sneering at the sex, doubting the gods and yet reverencing their providence, above his age and yet not above it, stooping to the interests of the moment and yet missing the reward of momentary fame, despairing of future life and yet revolving problems which owe all their interest to the fact that they are perpetual.
