καὶ τοὺς θανόντας εἰ θέλεις εὐεργετεῖν,
τὸ γοῦν κακουργεῖν ἀμφιδεξίως ἔχει
καὶ μήτε χαίρειν μήτε λυπεῖσθαι πάρα.
ἡμῶν γε μέντοι Νέμεσίς ἐσθ' ὑπερτέρα
καὶ τοῦ θανόντος ἡ δίκη πράσσει κότον.[15]
The trilogy of which the Prometheus Bound formed probably the middle play has been sufficiently discussed in the chapter on Æschylus.[16] It remains in this place only to notice that the gigantic geography of the poet received further illustration in the lost play of the Prometheus Unbound. "Cette géographie vertigineuse," says Victor Hugo, "est mêlée à une tragédie extraordinaire où l'on entend des dialogues plus qu'humains;" and, inverting this observation, we may add that the superhuman tragedy of the Prometheis owed much of its grandeur to the soul-dilating prospect of the earth's map, outstretched before the far-seeing sufferer on the crags of Caucasus.
Two other trilogies—a Danais, composed of the Egyptians, the Suppliants, and the Danaides; and an Œdipodeia, composed of Laius, the Sphinx, and Œdipus—may be mentioned, though to recover their outlines with any certainty is now hopeless. For the rest, it must be enough to transcribe and to translate a few fragments of singular beauty. Here is an invocation uttered in his hour of anguish by Philoctetes to Death, the deliverer:
ὦ θάνατε παιὰν μή μ' ἀτιμάσῃς μολεῖν·
μόνος γὰρ εἶ σὺ τῶν ἀνηκέστων κακῶν
ἰατρός· ἄλγος δ' οὐδὲν ἅπτεται νεκροῦ.[17]
Another passage on Death, remarkable for the stately grandeur of its style, may be quoted from the Niobe:
μόνος θεῶν γὰρ θάνατος οὐ δώρων ἐρᾷ,
οὔτ' ἄν τι θύων οὔτ' ἐπισπένδων ἄνοις,
οὐ βωμός ἐστιν οὐδὲ παιωνίζεται.
μόνου δὲ πειθὼ δαιμόνων ἀποστατεῖ.[18]
The sublime speech of Aphrodite in the Danaides, imitated more than once by subsequent poets, must not be omitted:
ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι χθόνα,
ἔρως δὲ γαῖαν λαμβάνει γάμου τυχεῖν·
ὄμβρος δ' ἀπ' εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν
ἔκυσε γαῖαν· ἡ δὲ τίκτεται βροτοῖς
μήλων τε βοσκὰς καὶ βίον Δημήτριον·
δενδρῶτις ὥρα δ' ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου
τέλειός ἐστι· τῶν δ' ἐγὼ παραίτιος.[19]
Nor, lastly, the mystic couplet ascribed to both Æschylus and his son Euphorion: