V.]
DRAMAS OF CHARACTER AND SITUATION.
87
the hero, who seldom appears to such advantage in Euripides' tragedies. But Silenus, with his jovial, idle, low band of satyrs, is brought in as a captive and slave to Polyphemus, thus affording a chorus for the play as well as the buffoon who supplies its comic aspects. The cowardice and love of pleasure, as well as the joviality of the satyrs, are treated with real humour and vivacity, and the scene in which, after solemn promises, they shirk the danger of attacking the sleeping monster, is not unworthy of the best comic writer.
