Wilson, Vol. I. p. xxvi.
Twining; but the meaning of the Greek is disputed.
“ἡ μελοποίια, μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων.”—Poetics, c. vi. The success of the modern Italian opera in England, proves this in a style of which Aristotle could have had no conception.
The position of the old Theban senators, who form the Chorus in this play, has called forth not a little learned gladiatorship lately; Böckh (whose opinion on all such matters is entitled to the profoundest respect) maintaining that the Chorus is the impersonated wisdom of the play as conceived in the poet’s mind, while some of his critics (Dyer in Class. Mus. Vol. II. p. 69) represent them as a pack of cowardly sneaking Thebans, whom it was the express object of the poet to make ridiculous. This latter opinion is no more tenable than it would be to say that it was the object of Æschylus to make his Chorus of old men in that noted scene of the Agamemnon ridiculous; but so much truth there certainly is in it, that from the inherent defect of structure in the Greek tragedy, consisting in the constant presence of the Chorus in the double capacity of impartial moralizers and actors after a sort, there could not but arise this awkwardness to the poet that, while he always contrived to make them speak wisely, he sometimes could not prevent them from acting weakly, and even contemptibly.
On the dramatic imbecility of Euripides, see my article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XLVIII. His success as a dramatist is the strongest possible proof of the undramatic nature of the stage for which he wrote.