The rest will I say to those below in Hades. Τὰ δ ̓ ἄλλ ̓ ἐν Αιδου τοῖς κάτω μυθήσομαι.! The lamentation of Teucer over the dead body, is worthy of notice as expressive of his full belief in an overruling Providence, in contrast with the scepticism which is implied as more or less prevailing in the minds of others. Did not the Furies forge that slaughtering sword,' Always assigned. To these, whose mind dissents? Let him enjoy his thoughts: But these are mine.—(1034 seq.) Herein; doubtless, the poet expresses his own believing, and at the same time tolerant, spirit; and both in opposition to a spirit which he saw widely prevalent around him. The higher classes were inclined to scepticism, while the masses at Athens were believing, but intolerant of any departure from the religion of the state. Sophocles has a settled faith in the providence and government of the gods; but is willing that others should enjoy, with equal freedom, their own religious opinions. After the death of Ajax, which is the natural catastrophe of the drama, the piece is still prolonged through some four hundred verses (from one quarter to one third of the whole), in a strife between Teucer on the one hand, and the sons of Atreus on the other, touching the burial of the body; which is finally terminated in favor of his burial, by the intervention of Ulysses, who is too politic to sanction any gratuitous or unprofit able crime. Menelaus charges Ajax with treason, and The reader will not fail to observe how the expectation of a conscious existence after death is constantly implied, as in Aeschylus, so in Sophocles. Philoctetes wishes to go and see his departed father; and here Ajax expects soon to converse with the inhabitants of the unseen world. 2 The sword which Hector gave Ajax, and the belt which Ajax gave Hector; the former of which Ajax plunged into his own breast, and the latter bound Hector to the car of Achilles, 1027 seqq., cf. Hom. Il. 7, 363. See also 665, where Ajax himself, in view of the same fact, says: ¿x&pŵv ădwpa dŵpa k oùê ὀνήσιμα. argues at some length the necessity, to the state, and to the maintenance of law and order, that he should be made an example. Teucer denies, in the first place, that Ajax was ever subject to the Atridae, and then pleads the higher law of Heaven: Conscious of right, The soul may proudly soar. Men. Is it, then, right Το grace As Menelaus retires, and Teucer, with the wife and child, hasten to effect the interment, Agamemnon appears to enter his imperial prohibition, repeats his brother's reasoning, and heaps threats and abuses on the head of Teucer; and Ulysses interposes to plead, not so much the cause of Ajax and Teucer, as the welfare of the army, the honor of the commander, and the eternal laws of Heaven : Thus to degrade the chief, would shame thyself. The brave in death, though most abhorred in life.-(1343 seq.) Ulysses prevails. Teucer thanks him, though still imprecating dire curses on the head of the sons of Atreus from the revered fathers of Olympus, unforgetting Erinys, and unfailing (literally, fulfilling) Dike : Τοιγάρ σφ' Ὀλύμπου τοῦδ ̓ ὁ πρεσβεύων πατὴρ, Κακοὺς κακῶς φθείρειαν, κ. τ. λ. - (1389 seq.) 1 Evilly destroy those evil men. Cf. Mat. 21, 41: κακοὺς κακῶς ἀπολέσει αὐτούς. This formula, so frequent in classical and sacred Greek, is not mere paronomasia, but an apt expression of the great law of justice and fitness. Campbell well renders it he will bring those wretches to a wretched death. Preparations are made for the burial; the hollow trench (κοίλην κάπετον), the ablution of holy water (λουτρῶν ὁσίων), the arms which cover the body, and which are to be buried with it; and the scene closes, where all earthly scenes, sooner or later, close upon all of mortal race, with those honors which friends pay to friends gathered around their graves. The voice of nature, which is the voice of God, has taught men, in all ages and nations however rude, to render certain offices, rights, duties, dues,' to their departed friends; and these have almost always been such as not only to honor their memories, but such as imply, more or less clearly, a belief in their continued existence after death, with the same essential nature and character, if not also with the same identical wants, and in the very same pursuits, as during the present life. The Greeks and Romans deemed these rites essential to the repose of the soul; nay, to its very entrance into the world. of spirits. Hence the burial of the dead was esteemed the most sacred duty of surviving friends. The stranger even was pronounced inhuman, who would not throw earth upon a dead body, which he might chance to find unburied; and, though it was the keenest vengeance which an enemy could inflict upon a fallen foe, not to suffer him to be buried; yet for an enemy to carry this vengeance too far, were to provoke the vengeance of Heaven. When Paul preached the doctrine of the resurrection on Mars' Hill, the Athenians mocked. Yet in their own view there was a mysterious connection between the burial of the body and the repose of the soul; and in this idea, as well as in the care with which they, in common with all nations, preserved the entire body or the ashes of the dead, we see an "unconscious prophecy" of the resurrection. Do no evil to the dead (1154); speak no evil of the departed, for they are with the gods, and under their special protection: these sentiments are written, everywhere, in Greek literature; in the laws of legislators, in the maxims of philosophers, in the writings of 1 Τὰ δίκαια, νομιζόμενα, προσήκοντα, κτεριζόμενα, funera justa, etc., are among the expressions used by the Greeks and Romans to denote these dues. scholars, and in the hearts of the people. The Iliad of Homer and the Ajax of Sophocles could not come to an end till the minds of the readers or hearers were put to rest respecting the burial of those whose right of interment had been called in question. And this question is the central point and subject matter of that drama of Sophocles (Antigone), which won for him the highest honors in the gift of the Athenian people. Certain criminals, who had been put to death by the state, were deprived of the right of burial, as an additional punishment. Suicide did not incur this dreaded penalty, though sometimes the hand, which had done the deed, was cut off and buried by itself, as it were, in unconsecrated ground. Indeed, the frequency of suicide is one of the striking features of the Greek drama,1 and a marked characteristic of Grecian and Roman as compared with Christian civilization. If not more frequent among the masses, it was less condemned, nay more approved, in the higher classes. It was not only celebrated by poets, but justified by moralists, and it was expected of heroes, if they could not live honorably, to die honorably by their own hand. Christianity inspires its genuine disciples with a higher appreciation of the sacredness of life, a deeper reverence for the authority of God, a more awful dread of appearing, unbidden, before his judg ment seat; and, above all, a more submissive, humble, cheerful, childlike trust in the all-wise, all-good providence of a heavenly Father. Defective as are the morality and the theology of Ajaxburlesque as it almost seems to be, on heroism and on divinity - still it teaches, forcibly, one great lesson, which is most sedulously inculcated in the scriptures: and that is, the helplessness, the littleness, the nothingness of great men, when they set themselves in opposition to the laws and government of God; and the folly of wise men, when they imag There are suicides in more than half the extant dramas of Sophocles, and in some of them repeated instances. 2 Even Plato's authority was claimed for, as well as against, suicide by different disciples, though it seems to us to be clear and decisive against it. ine they can be anything, or do anything, independent of the blessing of Heaven. Nothing, short of the arrogant selfconceit and daring impiety of Ajax, could have reconciled the taste or the moral feelings of an Athenian audience, or of modern readers, to see him tossed about in the hands, and blown about by the breath, of Athena, like the feeblest prey in the paws of a sporting lion. cus. Electra. The four remaining tragedies are all upon those fruitful themes of tragic interest, the houses of Pelops and of LabdaAnd here we come upon ground occupied in common by the three masters of Greek tragedy. The Choëphoroe of Aeschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, and the Electra of Euripides, are all on the same subject: the vengeance of Heaven on Clytemnestra and Aegistheus, for the murder of Agamemnon, of which Orestes was the appointed instrument, and for which Electra had waited, till impatience had changed almost to despair. Their different methods of treating the same high theme, afford a fine opportunity for comparing these great masters. Euripides, partly from the necessity of avoiding the track of his predecessors, and partly from faults inherent in his nature, has failed in his Electra. There are not wanting, in it, lofty sentiments and single passages of great power. But, on the whole, he has almost burlesqued this grandest of tragic themes by his unbefitting trivialities. Aeschylus, by introducing the tomb of Agamemnon on the stage, and carrying the purposed vengeance into speedy execution, has given a sublime exhibition of the irresistible decree of destiny and the overwhelming march of divine justice; though in the scarcely less grand portrait which he has drawn of Clytemnestra, justifying her murderous deed and claiming to be, herself, also the executioner of justice, as well as in the appearance of the Furies to Orestes, and the bewildering madness which comes over him, he represents Loxias and the Furies, wisdom and vengeance, as, for the time, in conflict. Sophocles transfers |