CHAPTER XIX

EURIPIDES

Euripides, 485-406 B. C.-His life-His innovations; the prologue; the deus ex machina-His political, religious, and philosophical ideas— Hatred of women-Analysis of the extant plays-Style and composition-Popularity.

1

THE third of the great Attic tragic poets, Euripides, was born probably in 485 B. c.1 According to the common story, his father, Mnesarchus, or Mnesarchides, Euripides. was a small tradesman, and his mother, Cleito, sold vegetables. This story is, however, contradicted by the fact that Euripides, when a boy, was allowed to take part in the dance in honor of the Delian Apollo, a privilege granted only to boys of good birth. Apparently, then, the poet came of a good family. He received a careful education and was able to devote himself to study and poetry, which seems to show that his family was at least not poor. It is said that when Euripides was young his father received an oracle that his son would be honored and famous and would win crowns. Therefore the boy was trained in athletics, which some have thought may account in part for the contempt for athletes he expresses once or twice in his tragedies. He is also 1 This is the date given in the Parian Marble, a chronological inscription compiled in 264 or 263 B. C., found on the island of Paros and now in England. Another story makes his birth take place at Salamis, on the day of the battle, in 480 B. C. Eschylus fought in the battle, and Sophocles led the chorus of boys who sang the pæan of victory. The three great tragic poets are therefore brought together in a striking way. In fact, the story is too good to be accepted.

His youth and education.

said to have practised painting, but the authority for both. these statements is late, and may rest on some confusion of the poet with another man of the same name. At any rate, Euripides turned to literary pursuits at an early age, for he began to write tragedies when he was only eighteen years old, though he did not receive a chorus until 455, when he was nearly thirty. He is said to have been a pupil of Anaxagoras, and traces of that philosopher's teachings are found in his plays; but he is also said to have been taught by Protagoras, Prodicus, and Socrates, all of whom were much younger than he. In all probability Euripides, whose mind was open to receive all impressions, and whose intellect was remarkably alert, was acquainted with the doctrines of all the philosophers and sophists in Athens-in fact, some trace of nearly every doctrine known to have been taught in his day can be found in his extant plays-and he was naturally inclined to speculation on abstruse matters; but he was probably not a regular pupil of any philosophical teacher, at least not for any great length of time.

He is said to have had two wives, first Melito, and second Chorile, daughter of Mnesilochus, both of whom are said to have been unfaithful; but the stories told of them were probably invented to explain the attacks upon women which occur in his tragedies. He had three sons: Mnesarchides, a merchant; Mnesilochus, an actor; and Euripides the younger, a tragic poet who produced some of his father's plays. In his private life Euripides was quiet and retiring. He was not, like Sophocles, a popular man in society, but loved the intimate companionship of a few friends. He was the first Athenian to own a library, and spent much time among his books. It is said that he wrote some of his plays in a cave at Salamis with a view over the sea. The only part he ever took in public affairs was that of an ambassador to Syracuse. He held the office of fire-bearer to Apollo at

His private life.

Cape Zoster, but we do not know how important that office was.

His death.

Late in life he went to Macedonia, to the court of King Archelaus at Pella, where he died in 406 B. C. According to one story, he was devoured by the king's dogs, and according to another tale, he was torn in pieces by women; but neither story deserves credence. As he was seventy-nine (or, even if he was born in 480, seventy-four) years old, he probably died of illness and age. He was buried with great honor in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was erected for him at Athens, with the inscription, "The monument of Euripides is all Hellas, but the land of Macedon holds his bones; for there he met with the end of life. His native place was Athens, the Hellas of Hellas. He gave greatest delight to the Muses, and so receives from many men the meed of praise."

ries.

Few direct innovations are attributed to Euripides. He did not add to the number of actors, nor did he invent new stage machinery, nor, so far as we know, new costumes. And yet he was an original genius, and gave a new impulse to Greek tragedy, causing it to develop in a new way. We Euripides and must, however, remember that Euripides is not Sophocles the successor but the contemporary of Sophocontempora- cles, who was only twelve years his senior. The first appearance of Sophocles as a tragic poet was in 468, and Euripides competed for the first time in 455. For nearly fifty years the two poets contended side by side for the favor of the Athenian public. It is therefore not always certain to which of the poets some minor innovation may be due, nor even that it is due to either of them, since little is known of the many other tragic poets of the time; but, just as the introduction of the third actor and the increase in the number of the chorus are ascribed to Sophocles, so Euripides may be regarded as the inventor of a new kind of prologue and of the so-called deus ex machina or god from the machine.

Neither of these adds to the artistic beauty of the play, but both have their uses.

The prologue of a Greek play usually consists of a conversation between two or three of the characters, so contrived as to explain to the audience indirectly The prologue. the general situation. In several plays of Euripides this is preceded by another prologue, to which the name is especially applied when the plays of Euripides are under discussion. This Euripidean prologue is spoken by one person, frequently a god who is interested in the plot, and explains the situation directly, including the whole myth so far as it does not appear in the play. This is an easier and simpler way of making the audience understand the plot than the other, but it is not dramatic nor artistic. Euripides employs it sometimes, as in the Helena, when he is about to use a new or unfamiliar form of a well-known myth, sometimes when the myth he is employing as the basis of his plot is not very familiar, but sometimes also when the myth is familiar and appears in its usual form. In cases of the first and second sort, such a prologue is almost indispensable, but in those of the third sort it seems to be used simply because it is easier than the more dramatic prologue in dialogue form. It may be that Euripides found that the Athenian audience liked his prologues in the plays in which they were necessary, and therefore employed them in other plays, or it may be that he really found it easier to make his introductory remarks in connected form. The deus ex machina appears at the end of the play to explain to the audience what is to happen after the moment at which the action of the play ends. So at the end of the Iphigenia among the Taurians, Athena appears and decrees the voyage of Iphigenia and Orestes to Attica and the establishment of the worship of the Tauric Artemis at Brauron. Sometimes the god brings to a conclusion the action of a play which is apparently hopelessly confused.

The deus ex machina.

So in the Orestes Apollo commands the strife to cease and makes an ending of the play possible. Heracles in the Philoctetes of Sophocles serves the same purpose; and the appearance of Heracles to finish the play is a proof of the influence exerted by Euripides upon his elder contemporary. As a rule, however, the deus ex machina is not brought in merely to disentangle an otherwise hopelessly confused plot, but rather to foretell the future and serve as an epilogue, like the last chapter in many modern novels. It can not be said that this forms an artistic dramatic ending, but the appearance of a god coming into view by means of a machine which made him seem to be floating in the air must have been at any rate striking, and his prophecies concerning the later fortunes of the characters in the play, carrying with them all the weight of his divine nature, undoubtedly gave the audience a comfortable feeling of assurance. In the Medea the machine, in the shape of a winged chariot, was used to withdraw Medea herself from the attack or pursuit of Jason, but this use of the machine to remove one of the persons of the play by miraculous means does not occur elsewhere. On the whole, the deus ex machina makes an unfavorable impression, seeming to be invented merely to gather together the loose ends of the plot and show how the fortunes of the various characters are to be arranged; but we must remember that the effect upon the spectators, who saw the glorious apparition of the god in the upper air and listened to his impressively uttered words, was not the same as the effect produced by the printed page upon the reader.

The prologue and the deus ex machina are the two most tangible innovations of Euripides, and neither of them is an improvement upon previous methods. But in other ways, more important though less easily defined, Euripides shows marked originality. The dramas of Eschylus and Sophocles are religious; the actions of the characters are