62. There are, in the extant tragedies, only two really disagreeable women—Medea and Hermione (in the Andromache)—for the savage feelings of revenge in Alcmene (Heracleidæ) and in Hecuba are, so to speak, extorted from them by dreadful trials, and the injustice of fate. But Medea is no Greek, she is a foreigner from a wild and gloomy race, who is moreover deeply wronged in her ungovernable but therefore strong affections. She may be a human tigress, but she is a tigress with a mother's heart, and all her violence does not destroy our sympathy with her afflictions. Hermione again is an occasional picture, not meant for a general portrait, but as a special attack on the Spartan women, who were much lauded and admired, against the poet's convictions, throughout Greece. As for his Phædra, I have already explained (§ 49) that she is in no sense drawn as a wicked or sensual woman, but rather as a noble and honourable queen, distracted by an incurable passion sent upon her through the special act of a malignant deity. Let us now turn to the other side, and examine his drawing of female virtues.
63. The ancients long since noticed the prominence of εὐψυχία, courage or fearlessness, in his principal heroines. This is specially shown in four notable instances, by the voluntary choice of death, or fearless submission to it when suddenly announced as impending. But ancient critics were not likely to lay stress on the point of greater interest to modern readers, for which indeed ancient criticism had not even a name—I mean the unselfishness which prompts and accompanies these instances of female heroism. There is no nobler phase of human character, and none on which Euripides has bestowed more minute and careful attention, nor do I think that I need fear contradiction, when I say that it is peculiarly the virtue of women, who show it far oftener than men. Hence, no doubt, we find it in the poet's heroines. We have in the extant plays four characters of this kind, all of whom face death with firm resolve, but each of whom shows
