The work of Euripides still retains the power of arousing strong likes and dislikes. He has had sturdy supporters and fanatical detractors. The truth is that if the tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles are looked upon as models for all Greek tragedy, Euripides falls far short of his models. Euripides, however, though he died shortly before Sophocles, belonged to a younger and quite different generation, and held different views about art, morality, religion, and almost everything of importance. His aim was rather different from that of the earlier poets, and he must be judged, not by their standards, but on his own merits. His own merits are amply sufficient to justify the high opinion held of him in the ancient world, and supported by many of the greatest of the moderns. The dethroning of Euripides was the result of a German conspiracy, carried out with much energy by Niebuhr, and with even more by Schlegel. They enjoyed themselves while pulling Euripides to pieces much as schoolboys who have detected a flaw in the armour of their master. Many proofs can be adduced that Euripides was not a sophistical trifler; but one glance at his bust is enough to assure anyone of unbiased judgment that he was a man of remarkable breadth of mind and intellectual gifts. The fact remains, however, that the extant plays of Euripides are of very unequal
merit. The Helena is not a good play; it was ridiculed by Aristophanes, but he did not succeed in making it much more absurd than it was already. The Hecuba and the Heracleidæ are not well constructed, and the Electra and Orestes challenge too directly the masterpieces of the earlier tragedians. In his greatest plays, however, Euripides can bear comparison with any poet. The Medea is a play which still never fails to please; the Hippolytus and the Ion are admirable dramas and admirably constructed; above all, the Bacchæ is a masterpiece, more picturesque than any other Greek tragedy, a play not unworthy to be set near The Tempest and Cymbeline.
Euripides has been accused by his detractors of degrading his art, because he opened his plays with a prologue and ended them with the intervention of a god. Both devices, if not desirable, are quite pardonable. Possible plots were becoming more and more scarce; Euripides did not wish to adopt trite themes, and so went into the by-ways of mythology, or adopted a less well-known alternative version of a well-known legend. He could not count on his audience already possessing enough knowledge of the story to enable them to understand his plays without a prologue. The deus ex machina, as the god who ends some of the plays is called, was often warranted or required by the plot which called for a conventional ending. Euripides has also been accused, by Aristophanes and by many less entertaining writers, of taking away all the dignity of tragedy. It is quite true that he is a realist. Sophocles represented men as they ought to be, Euripides represented them as they were. This was an unforgiveable offence in the eyes of the 'men of Marathon' at Athens. The tragic heroes were not mere stage characters, they considered; they were often ancestors or national heroes, and it was impious to represent them as speaking ordinary language, or sharing the weaknesses of ordinary men. Euripides did do this, did it intentionally, and did it excellently. He came at an awkward transition period, and the lack of success of some of his work is owing to the impossibility of pouring new wine into old bottles. The old tragedy was too tightly bound by convention to suit Euripides, who wished to portray living men and women, and to have an exciting plot. The new comedy—the romantic comedy of Menander—had not yet been invented. Had it been, Euripides would surely have written comedies. The comic poets of the next century turned to him for a model, and it was one of them, Philemon, who said that if he were quite sure that dead men retained their perception he would hang himself to see Euripides. Euripides is, in fact, the earliest writer of romantic plays, a fact well illustrated by his Alcestis, which is one of his best plays. In it tragedy and comedy are harmoniously blended, and it has a happy ending.
For better and for worse Euripides is a very modern poet, and makes a special appeal to the present generation. But his pathos, his wide sympathies, and his wonderful poetry have appealed to the best judges in all ages. Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Milton, and Browning have been among his admirers; his detractors include a few Teutonic professors, and a few who honour the memory of Æschylus and Sophocles on the other side idolatry.—Bibliography: A. W. Verrall, Euripides the Rationalist; G. G. A. Murray, Euripides and his Age (Home University Library); W. B. Donne, Euripides (Ancient Classics for English Readers); Sir J. P. Mahaffy, Euripides: an Account of his Life and Works; N. J. Patin, Étude sur Euripide; P. Masqueray, Euripide et ses idées. There is a complete verse translation by A. S. Way, and verse translations of several plays by G. G. A. Murray. There is a 'transcript' of the Alcestis in Browning's Balaustion's Adventure, and of the Hercules Furens in his Aristophanes' Apology.
Euripus (ū-rī´pus), in ancient geography, the strait between the Island of Eubœa and Bœotia in Greece.
Euroc´lydon, a tempestuous wind of the Levant, which was the occasion of the shipwreck of the vessel in which St. Paul sailed, as narrated in Acts, XXVII, 14-44. The north-east wind is the wind evidently meant in the narrative; and an alternative reading adopted in the revised version is euraculon (euraquilo) or north-easter.
Euro´pa, in Greek mythology, the daughter of Agēnor, King of the Phœnicians, and the sister of Cadmus. The fable relates that she was abducted by Jupiter, who for that occasion had assumed the form of a white bull, and swam with his prize to the Island of Crete. Here Europa bore to him Minos, Sarpēdon, and Rhadamanthus.
Europe, the smallest of the great continents, but the most important in the history of civilization for the last two thousand years. It forms a huge peninsula projecting from Asia, and is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean; on the west by the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus Range; on the east by the Caspian Sea, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains. The most northerly point on the mainland is Cape Nordkyn, in Lapland, in lat. 71° 6´; the most southerly points are Punta da Tarifa, lat. 36° N., in the Strait of Gibraltar, and Cape Matapan, lat. 36° 17´, which terminates
Greece. The most westerly point is Cape Roca in Portugal, in long. 9° 28´ W., while Ekaterinburg is in long. 60° 36´ E. From Cape Matapan to North Cape is a direct distance of 2400 miles, from Cape St. Vincent to Ekaterinburg, north-east by east, 3400 miles; area of the continent, about 3,865,000 sq. miles. Great Britain and Ireland, Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Crete, the Ionian and the Balearic Islands are the chief islands of Europe. The shores are very much indented, giving Europe an immense length of coast-line (estimated at nearly 50,000 miles). The chief seas or arms of the sea are: the White Sea on the north; the North Sea on the west, from which branches off the great gulf or inland sea known as the Baltic; the English Channel, between England and France; the Mediterranean, communicating with the Atlantic by the Strait of Gibraltar (at one point only 19 miles wide); the Adriatic and Archipelago, branching off from the Mediterranean: and the Black Sea, connected with the Archipelago through the Hellespont, Sea of Marmora, and Bosporus.
