In addition to fragments, there remain detached portions of the Phaëthon, the Erechtheus, and the Antiope, sufficient, if nothing else had been preserved of the Euripidean drama, to suggest a better notion of this poet and his style than of Ion or Achæus, his lost compeers in the Alexandrian Canon. From the catastrophe of the Phaëthon, for example, it appears that Euripides contrived a truly striking contrast between the reception of the dead youth's corpse into the palace by his mother, and the advent, immediately following, of his father with a Chorus chanting bridal hymns. Lycurgus the orator, quoting the Erechtheus, has transmitted a characteristic speech by Praxithea, who deserves to be added to the list of courageous women painted with the virtues of εὐψυχία by Euripides. She maintains that, just as she would gladly send forth sons in the face of death to fight for their country, so, when the State requires of her the sacrifice of a daughter, she would be ashamed to refuse this much and far more. The outlines of the Antiope are more blurred; yet enough survives of a dialectical contention between Zethus and Amphion, the one arguing for a life of study and culture, the other for a life of arms and action, to illustrate this phase of the master's manner. With regard to the Phaëthon, it should be mentioned that Goethe attempted its restitution. His essay may be studied with interest by those who seek to understand the German poet's method of approaching the antique. The reverence with which he handles the precious relics may possibly astonish scholars, who, through fastidiousness of taste, have depreciated a dramatist they imperfectly comprehend.[38] English literature, since the beginning of this year, can boast its own Erechtheus, restored by Swinburne on the model of Æschylus rather than Euripides. While referring to the mutilated dramas of Euripides, the opening to the Danaë requires a passing word of comment. It consists of a prologue in the mouth of Hermes, a chorus, and a couple of lines spoken by Acrisius. The whole, however, is pretty clearly the work of some mediæval forger, and has, so far as it goes, the same kind of interest as the Χριστὸς πάσχων, because it illustrates the ascendency of Euripides during the later ages of Greek culture.
Irksome as it may be to both writer and reader, I know no better method of dealing with the fragments of Euripides than that already adopted with regard to those of Sophocles. The fragments themselves are precious, and deserve to be presented to the modern student with loving and reverential care. Yet there is no way of centralizing the interest of their miscellaneous topics; and to treat them as an anthology of quotations, selecting the most characteristic and translating these as far as possible into equivalent lines, is all that I can do.
A peculiarly interesting fragment in its bearing on Greek life shall be chosen for the first quotation. It comes from the satyric drama of Autolycus, and expresses the contempt felt by cultivated Athenians for young men who devoted all their energies to gymnastics. It is not easy to connect the idea of vulgarity with that of the Greek athletes whose portraits in marble, no less resplendent than the immortal Apoxyomenos of the Vatican, adorned the peristyles of Altis. Yet there can be little doubt from the following fragment, taken in connection with certain hints in Plato, that these muscular heroes of an hour, for whom wreaths were woven and breaches broken in the city walls, struck some green-eyed philosophers as the incarnation of rowdyism. Euripides, if we may trust his biographers, had been educated by his father as an athlete; and it is not improbable that his early distaste for an eminently uncongenial occupation, no less than his familiarity with the manners of its professors, embittered his style in this sarcastic passage. Such splendid beings as the Autolycus, before whom the distinguished guests in Xenophon's Symposium were silenced, seemed to our poet at best but sculptor's models, walking statues, πόλεως ἀγάλματα, and at worst mere slaves of jaws and belly, περισσαὶ σαρκές. Early in Greek literature the same relentless light of moral science, like the gaze of Apollonius undoing Lamia's charm, had been cast upon the athletes by Xenophanes of Colophon. While listening to Euripides, we can fancy that the Adikos Logos from the Clouds of Aristophanes is speaking through his lips to an Athenian audience, composed of would-be orators and assiduous dikasts:
κακῶν γὰρ ὄντων μυρίων καθ' Ἑλλάδα,
οὐδὲν κάκιόν ἐστιν ἀθλητῶν γένους.
οἱ πρῶτα μὲν ζῆν οὔτε μανθάνουσιν εὖ,
οὔτ' ἂν δύναιντο· πῶς γὰρ ὅστις ἐστ' ἀνὴρ
γνάθου τε δοῦλος νηδύος θ' ἡσσημένος,
κτήσαιτ' ἂν ὄλβον εἰς ὑπερβολὴν πατρός;
οὐδ' αὖ πένεσθαι καὶ ξυνηρετμεῖν τύχαις
οἷοί τ'· ἔθη γὰρ οὐκ ἐθισθέντες καλὰ
σκληρῶς διαλλάσσουσιν εἰς τἀμήχανα.
λαμπροὶ δ' ἐν ἥβῃ καὶ πόλεως ἀγάλματα
φοιτῶσ'· ὅταν δὲ προσπέσῃ γῆρας πικρὸν
τρίβωνες ἐκβαλόντες οἴχονται κρόκας·
ἐμεμψάμην δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἑλλήνων νόμον
οἳ τῶνδ' ἕκατι σύλλογον ποιούμενοι
τιμῶσ' ἀχρείους ἡδονὰς δαιτὸς χάριν·
τίς γὰρ παλαίσας εὖ, τίς ὠκύπους ἀνὴρ
ἢ δίσκον ἄρας ἢ γνάθον παίσας καλῶς
πόλει πατρῴᾳ στέφανον ἤρκεσεν λαβών;
πότερα μαχοῦνται πολεμίοισιν ἐν χεροῖν
δίσκους ἔχοντες ἢ δι' ἀσπίδων χερὶ
θείνοντες ἐκβαλοῦσι πολεμίους πάτρας;
οὐδεὶς σιδήρου ταῦτα μωραίνει πέλας
στάς. ἄνδρας οὖν ἐχρῆν σοφούς τε κἀγαθοὺς
φύλλοις στέφεσθαι, χὤστις ἡγεῖται πόλει
κάλλιστα, σώφρων καὶ δίκαιος ὢν ἀνήρ,
ὅστις τε μύθοις ἔργ' ἀπαλλάσσει κακὰ
μάχας τ' ἀφαιρῶν καὶ στάσεις· τοιαῦτα γὰρ
πόλει τε πάσῃ πᾶσί θ' Ἕλλησιν καλά.[39]
Passing from the athletes to a cognate subject, the following fragment from the Dictys nobly expresses the ideal of friendship. The first two lines seem to need correction; I have let them stand, though inclined to propose κεἰ for καὶ, and to conjecture the loss of a line after the second:
φίλος γὰρ ἦν μοι· καί μ' ἔρως ἕλοι ποτὲ
οὐκ εἰς τὸ μῶρον οὐδέ μ' εἰς Κύπριν τρέπων.
ἀλλ' ἔστι δή τις ἄλλος ἐν βροτοῖς ἔρως,
ψυχῆς δικαίας σώφρονός τε κἀγαθῆς.
καὶ χρῆν δὲ τοῖς βροτοῖσι τόνδ' εἶναι νόμον,
τῶν εὐσεβούντων οἵτινές γε σώφρονες
ἐρᾶν, Κύπριν δὲ τὴν Διὸς χαίρειν ἐᾶν.[40]
About Eros and Aphrodite the poet has supplied us with a good store of contradictory sentiments. In one long and very remarkable fragment (No. 839, ed. Dindorf) from an unknown play, Euripides, if he be indeed the author of the verses, has imitated Æschylus, taking almost word for word the famous vaunt of Kupris, quoted above from the Danaides. The three next pieces may be also cited among the praises of Love:
ἔρωτα δ' ὅστις μὴ θεὸν κρίνει μέγαν
καὶ τῶν ἁπάντων δαιμόνων ὑπέρτατον,
ἢ σκαιός ἐστιν ἢ καλῶν ἄπειρος ὢν
οὐκ οἶδε τὸν μέγιστον ἀνθρώποις θεόν.
ὅσοι γὰρ εἰς ἔρωτα πίπτουσιν βροτῶν
ἐσθλῶν ὅταν τύχωσι τῶν ἐρωμένων
οὐκ ἔσθ' ὁποίας λείπεται τῆς ἡδονῆς.
ἔχω δὲ τόλμης καὶ θράσους διδάσκαλον,
ἐν τοῖς ἀμηχάνοισιν εὐπορώτατον,
ἔρωτα πάντων δυσμαχώτατον θεῶν.[41]