“Perhaps not,” he answers, “but still I wish you to try; for I should very much prefer, if possible, that my name should be kept out of the business altogether.”
“What you say does you credit,” she answers. “I will do my best to obey you.”
For the modern reader who studies this scene, and then leans back and thinks a little what he would have done or thought in Achilles’ place, comment is, I imagine, superfluous.[116]
Or look at Andromache’s speech in the Andromache. (l. 184 seqq.) She is accused of occupying too high a place in the favour of Neoptolemus. “Tell me,” she answers to Hermione, “what reason could I possibly have for wishing to stand well with your husband? Do I wish to reign in your place, or to have more children, or to make my children kings? Or what reason could he possibly have for preferring me? Is my native city so powerful? Have I such influential friends?” &c. &c. As in the Hippolytus, the idea that there may be love on either side is dismissed without discussion.
Or look at the character of the Autourgos in the Electra. He has married Electra, but refuses to touch her, and why?
αἰσχύνομαι γὰρ ὀλβίων ἀνδρῶν τέκνα
λαβὼν ὑβρίζειν, οὐ κατάξιος γεγώς. (l. 45.)
He is distressed that the daughter of such wealthy parents should have made so poor a match. It is pity for the house of Agamemnon that affects him, not pity for Electra.[117]
Hecuba again, in the play that bears her name, does not think that it is much use to appeal to the “romantic” feelings of Agamemnon.
καὶ μὴν ἴσως μὲν τοῦ λόγου κενὸν τόδε,