threats that her child will be at once put to death, and when she does, Menelaus breaks his word and sends them both to execution. The pathetic laments of mother and child are interrupted by the sudden advent of the aged Peleus, who protects them stoutly, in a long altercation with Menelaus. But then, without any sufficient reason, Hermione comes in agitated at the vengeance which her husband will take when he hears of her doings, and her paroxysms are only allayed by the arrival of Orestes, with whom she arranges to fly. Then follows a long messenger's narrative how her former husband has been slain at Delphi by the arts of Orestes. The lamentations of Peleus conclude the play.
Though justly called a second-rate play by the scholiasts, it was popular enough to be quoted at Alexander's table by Cleitus on the undue share of glory obtained by the general of an army (vv. 639 sqq.)—a quotation which cost him his life at the hands of the intoxicated monarch. It was evidently in Virgil's mind when composing his fifth Æneid, but the Andromaque of Racine is considerably altered, as the relations of the heroine to Neoptolemus are not suited to the modern stage, nor could such a character be treated with tragic dignity nowadays.
57. The Mad Heracles.—The other specimen is the Hercules Furens, which every English reader can now study in Mr. Browning's admirable version (in his Aristophanes' Apology), and which is so striking in its combination of two subjects that it almost deserves to be called a drama of plot. The action opens with the hopeless condition of Heracles' children and their imminent death at the hands of the tyrant Lycus. The hero, returning from Hades, actually intercepts them on their way to execution, and amid the congratulations of the chorus, and the just vengeance on Lycus, the play seems (like Mendelssohn's overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream) to conclude. But as the chorus are singing their ode of feasting and joy, the figure of Madness (Lytta) appears aloft, sent
