A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)

by Mrs. Sutherland Orr

"Nor, even so, had boldness nerved my tongue,

But that the other king stands suddenly

In all the grand investiture of death,

Bowing your knee beside my lowly head—

Equals one moment!" (vol. xiii. p. 144.)

Then she bids him "arise and go." Both have done homage to Euripides.

"Not so," he replies; "their discussion is not at an end. She has defended Euripides obliquely by attacking himself. Let her do it in a more direct fashion." This leads up to what seems to her the best defence possible: that reading of the "Herakles" which the entrance of Aristophanes had suspended. Its closing lines set Aristophanes musing. The chorus has said:

"The greatest of all our friends of yore,

We have lost for evermore!" (p. 231.)