SOPHOCLES
earth; when he saw her already dead, a revulsion came.
P. 76, ll. 1305 ff.]—Observe how a climax of physical horror is immediately veiled and made beautiful by lyrical poetry. Sophocles does not, however, carry this plan of simply flooding the scene with sudden beauty nearly so far as Euripides does. See Hipp., p. 39; Trojan Women, p. 51.
P. 83, ll. 1450 ff., Set me to live on the wild hills.]—These lines serve to explain the conception, existing in the poet’s own time, of Oedipus as a daemon or ghost haunting Mount Kithairon.
P. 86, l. 1520, Creon.]—Amid all Creon’s whole-hearted forgiveness of Oedipus and his ready kindness there are one or two lines of his which strike a modern reader as tactless if not harsh. Yet I do not think that Sophocles meant to produce that effect. At the present day it is not in the best manners to moralise over a man who is down, any more than it is the part of a comforter to expound and insist upon his friend’s misfortunes. But it looks as if ancient manners expected, and even demanded, both. Cf. the attitude of Theseus to Adrastus in Eur., Suppliants.
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