The Male Characters of Euripides
By Professor
E.M. Blaiklock MA
Continuing from page66
It is the first great tableau of the play,
Sic transit gloria (Latin phrase that translates to "thus passes the glory.) A messenger, says Aethra, is gone to Athens to fetch Theseus.
Her woman's heart is won by woman's sufferings, and she is fain to persuade her son to grant the suppliants' prayer and, by force of arms, compel Thebes to obey the common decencies of Hellenism and bury the dead. In this, of course, as is commonly noted, there is topical reference to the atrocity of 421 B.C. when the Boeotians refused burial at first to Athenians who fell in a raid at Delium.
While Theseus delays, the stricken women sing an ode, a poignant prayer of supplication. The audience is to feel the force of that constraint upon the heart which has already won the mother of Theseus. Theseus himself, coming unprepared upon the scene, is conscious of wider issues. The sanity of sound leadership is to speak with his voice. 'Such are the achievements of war,' he remarks with bitter truth, when Adrastus complains of his hard fate. 'Is this your wish, or that of all your state? he asks, like a good Athenian, when the woeful king implores his help against the Theban wrong.
Then, in a passage of stichomythia which reads like a cross-examination by Socrates, Theseus proceeds to uncover the
frivolous beginnings of Adrastus' disaster, to show the chain of action leading back to his own superstition, folly, and passion. It is a stripped and naked Adrastus who clasps Athenian knees at line 160. He has no excuse, no claim, no merit. Let Athens act in grace:
Perchance thou askest, 'Why pass by the land Of Pelops, and on Athens lay this charge?
Sooth, right it is that I should answer this ——Sparta is heartless, subtle in her ways;
The rest be small and weak: but this thy burg Alone can stand beneath the mighty strain.
Twas ever pitiful.
(Supp. 184-190. Way)
In answer Theseus goes back to the beginnings of civilisation.
'Monseigneur, passons au Déluge,' we almost expect Adrastus to say. The speech is however, not quite irrelevant. God, Theseus means, equipped man with certain simple blessings.
On such creation He might look and find it good:
Are we not arrogant then, when all life'sneeds God giveth, therewith not to be content?
…………………………………..,
…….we have gotten overweening hearts
And dream that we be wiser than the Gods.
(Supp. 214, 215, 217, 218. Way)
Flouting God, indeed making God's command the occasion of self-seeking, Adrastus plunged into war. Shall he, Theseus, commit like folly, 'unequally yoked with such unrighteous-ness?
Shall I then make me ally unto thee,
How to my nation should I make defence?
Depart in peace: if thou hast ill devised,
Face fortune's blows thyself; drag us not down.
(Supp. 246-249. Way)
If the Argive alliance was in the offing, the passage may suggest that scruples were abroad in Athenian minds over the moral responsibilities attendant on the partnership. The spiritual implications of political and military alliance were a live enough issue in Hebrew history.
Woe to the rebellious
children,
cries Isaiah under the shadow of Sennacherib's
invasion,
'woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not with me; that weave a web but not of my Spirit!... They set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked of my mouth; to take refuge in the refuge of the Pharaoh, and to hide in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore the refuge of the Pharaoh be your shame? Hosea, eighty years before, had plucked the same string of warning. Athens, increasingly conscious of her calling and of her unique enlightenment, might very naturally fåll into the same circle of ideas as those which arose from Hebrew doctrines of exclusive-ness. Like Laocoon, Theseus sensed evil in the thing. The Theban atrocity had come about through the Argive folly.
Was it the business of Athens' healthy mind to interfere? There is evil in excess.
Thus many Athenians were thinking with
abundant illustration derived from ten years of more real and intimate war than that which raged in the myth.
Athens is wise, but Athens is humane. If Theseus is to be a true Athenian portrait, he must bend to persuasion. The softness of humanity must be in him. The spectacle of the departing suppliants, and the words of his mother's passionate sympathy, move him. There is, indeed, truth in what she says.
There is an excess of caution. That most subtle of all virtues, owopoon, sets its limits even here. Blessing sometimes comes with a bold essay. While, as for Cadmus *God bringeth low the proud." Theseus answers in the language of his usual sanity. The challenge of the wrong that lacked resistance was one which he could not find in his spirit to disregard, but, like Demophon, he must act with his people's will:
Yet I require all Athens' sanction here.
My wish should win their sanction; yet, if I Show cause withal, the loyaller shall they be, For I have made the land one single realm, A free state with an equal vote for all.
(Supp. 349-353. Way)
SONS OF ERECHTHBUS
Continues from page 69
This is the old language of Periclean pride. Words and reason are first to be tried. If reason fails the sword can be taken in clean hands. Theseus' herald is about to carry the ultimatum to Thebes, when the Theban herald enters with loud calling for the tyrant of the land. Euripides is seeking occasion for the debate his countrymen welcomed at the appropriate point in the drama. Its theme, appropriate to the occasion, is democracy and dictatorship. The Theban has a shrewd word to say about mob rule, the dominance of the loud voice, and the well-hung tongue in the counsels of democracy. Rule is for the wise. It is a science. Such was the conclusion to which Plato was coming. So thought Xenophon. The efficiency of one man's rule has ever seduced the war-weary. It filled Isocrates dreams of benevolent dictatorship. It prepared the way for the Roman Principate. Of modern instances there is no lack. The fallacy, as both Euripides and Demosthenes saw, lies in the imperfection of human nature.
Power corrupts.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So said Theseus in reply, or with illustration to that effect. The herald, a doughty opponent, and unabashed by the democratic king, counters with words of warning on the folly of war—words both true and solemn, which found many an echo in the high curve of seats-and Theseus, in final answer, speaks of the Theban impiety, and delivers an exposition of Panhellenic law.
It is all fine morality and sturdy patriotism:
Never to Greeks shall it be said that when it fell to me and Athens to uphold Heaven's ancient law, that law was set at naught.
(Supp. S61-563. Way)
Athens goes forth to battle. The Chorus mark the lapse of time with lamentation, and the messenger arrives with news of victory, and a brave tale of a well-fought fight. Terrified Thebes was crowding temple and fane with supplication, and the way to total triumph lay before the king of Athens, when in wisdom he stayed the fight. Euripides was speaking to his countrymen, speaking for a dying ideal. Generosity and moderation in victory had long since perished, casualties of war. After ten years of conflict only the saints of a nation retain balance, and health of soul.
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