The Male Characters Of Euripides

The Male Characters Of Euripides by
E M Blaiklock MA

Proceeding from p. 96

Why, at this point, does Euripides make Menelaus change his language, urge Agamemnon to dismiss the host, and save his child?
There may be something in Grube's point that Agamemnon's concern about proper behaviour at this crisis 'goes far to justify Menelaus' accusation and to deepen our impression of Agamemnon as a man not sure of himselt or his motives.... In spite of the weak sorrow of his last words the whole speech is horribly self-centred (The Drama of Euripides, P. 426.) The question which lacks decision is how much of the speech is to be attributed to Euripides' sententiousness. He is not incapable of intruding thus on his most careful characterisation.
Lo on thy place I stand:
And I exhort thee, neither slay thy child, Nor choose my good for thine. Unjust it were
That thou shouldst groan, and all my cup be sweet

Mad was I and raw-witted, till I viewed Things near and saw what slaying children means.
Yea, also, pity for the hapless maid
Doomed to be slaughtered for my bridal's sake,
Stole o'er me on our kinship when I thought.
For what with Helen has thy child to do?
From Aulis let the host disbanded go!
For thou, forbear to drown thine eyes with tears,
O brother mine, nor challenge me to weep.
If thou hast part in oracles touching her,
No part be mine!—my share I yield to thee.
'Swift change is here,' thou'lt say, 'from those grim words!'
Nay but most meet. ...
(I. in A. 480-483, 489-501. Way)

What are we to think of this change of face on Menelaus' part? The answer will depend somewhat upon the degree of sincerity we allow Agamemnon's last utterance. His conduct in the rest of the play suggests that its words of anguish were at best a passing phase. Love of place and power is soon to reassert itself in the King of Men. His brother, sure of this, might make swift capital out of the situation, and by the appeal he makes secure a personal exemption from the moral guilt of Agamemnon's sacrifice, while at the same time remaining assured of all its material advantages. This is the commonly accepted view.
'The proposal, says Professor Grubes, 'is completely insincere.’ He point to Ll. 498-499 as specific illustration. His tone would have been more grudging if the renunciation had been genuine.
' Kitto, in a rather tendentious
review of the play, seems to suggest that Menelaus is sincere.
He 'changes what we have to call his mind. And later he remarks that even Menelaus has seen that Helen is not worth fetching back, and that Iphigenia has nothing to do with the affair.’ And again, 'He enjoys his repentance (502 f.)- but what has brought it about?... Euripides could easily have kept his Menelaus consistently brutal and yet dramatically interesting by not allowing Odysseus to have cognisance of the prophecy and making Menelaus tell him of it. The point is simply the sudden reversal of situation, Menelaus "No don't kill her," and Agamemnon "Yes I must." We may look for deeper significance, but we shall not find it.' It is possible, and probably better criticism, to take the play a little more seriously than this. There are melodramatic, if not comic elements in it, but one cannot help feeling that there is serious intention in the characterisation of the two brothers, and some significance in the scene under review. England agrees substantially with Grube. 'It is open to doubt, but I think his renunciation of his claim at vv. 471 ff. is meant by the poet to be only a simulated one. The suddenness with which he admits the force of the arguments he had just been combating, and the artful suggestion at v. 495... of the consequences of the abandonment of the pursuit, and at v. 498 of Agamemnon's interest in the expedition... all point to the one conclusion that he sees his brother is but half-hearted in his protest, and that all that is needed to decide him to sacrifice his daughter is that he should be brought face to face with the alternative.
Such a character is consistent with the picture of Menelaus which Euripides gives of him in the Andromache and the Orestes.
Is it possible to accept Kitto's suggestion that the play was begun in Athens, 'under the influence of an audience which no longer wanted tragedy pure and strong', and to see in the treatment of Menelaus a concession to that craving for novelty which was showing itself in the old home of drama? A genuine and impulsive repentance on the part of Menclaus would not be without its psychological subtlety. It is possible to read his speech, and it would also be possible to declaim it, as an utterance of sincerity, and to allow the tattered Menelaus of Euripides to retire from ancient literature with this measure of redemption. Euripides was writing a very human drama.
Iphigenia's own change of mood which annoyed Aristotle, 40 and in which, at the climax of the play, she faces martyrdom with high words of patriotism, is just as sudden, just as subtle, and just as true to life. Achilles' danger is an element in her
decision. Does Euripides mean that she is in love with him?
She has had every possible psychological preparation tor such a state of mind. She imagines, perhaps, that she is dying for him. The sublimation of her motive would be natural and adds pathos to her fate. Imagine then a similar subtlety of characterisation in the case of Menelaus. Faced with the sudden prospect of meeting his brother's wife and child, he regains with a struggle his true manhood. Headlam,* who believes that the revulsion of feeling is intended to be genuine, maintains that Menelaus' selfishness 'is not the egoism of a cold and
calculating nature. It is not until his brother breaks down in complete despair that he fully realises the odious part he has been playing.' This explanation is doubtful. It is rather that the old spell of Helen has been on him. He has wandered, sleepless, along the road to Argos, waiting, red-eyed, the coming of the innocent victim. He is greedy for the winds, for Troy, for Helen. He has assaulted a loyal old slave, and disputed bitterly with his brother. With Iphigenia innocence and purity come to the mad camp. It has been filled over the long weeks with all the vices of great and idle hosts. The tents of the leaders have seethed with jealousy and intrigue. A psychopathic epidemic has raged among the rank and file. It was no climate at Aulis for goodness or any noble sentiment. A breath from a sweeter world was coming with Agamemnon's child. It touched Menelaus, and for a season saved him. It is, of course, impossible to state dogmatically that this must have been
Euripides' intention. It would be possible for sensitive acting to give Menelaus the colour of sincerity, or its opposite, from the words of the existing text. It must, however, be remembered that the characterisation of the play is subtle in the extreme, and a repentant Spartan would not be an incredible product of some Voltairian mood on the part of the self-exiled Euripides.