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THE
WESTMINSTER
AND
FOREIGN
QUARTERLY
REVIEW.
JANUARY 1, 1873.
Art. I.—Sophokles.
1. Sophokles, erlddrt wnF. W. Schneid ewin. Sechste Avflage,
besorgt von A..HKUGK., Berlin. 1871.
2. The Tragedies of Sophocles, with a Biographical Essay.
By E. H. Plumptre, M.A. London. 1867.
3. Die Religosen und Sittlichen Vorstellungen des Aeschylos
und Sopholdes. Von Gustav Dronke. Leipzig. 1861.
4. Sopholdes und seine Tragodien. Von 0. Ribbeck. Heft
83 in der Sammlung gemeinverstdndlicher wissenschaftlicher Vortrdge. Berlin. 1869.
ENGLISH scholarship has not done much for the better
J’j understanding of Sophokles. He is not a poet who has
taken close hold of the English mind. His works are studied of
course in the general university curriculum ; but he has not become
a poet often read and oftener quoted as have some of the classic
writers. Those who really find in him a source of intellectual
delight read his works in a German edition. But of what classical
writer may not this be said ? It is very seldom that an English
editor has the patience to make a complete presentation of a
classical author—to do for him what Professor Munro has done for
Lucretius—with that loving study and exhaustive research which
characterize the labours of the German editor. So far the case
of Sophokles is not single. But perhaps there is no instance of
an author of such renown as Sophokles, with so general a con
sensus of people willing to admit his claims, who has made so
little impression upon the majority of cultivated minds. The
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
B
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Sophokles.
reason is that the majority of cultivated people never bring them
selves under his influence. The English scholar is for the
most part satisfied with a textual or critical knowledge: the
whole field of classical literature must be hurried through rather
than any part explored. And the result of this is scholarship
rather than knowledge.
Now with many authors this may be sufficient; it cannot be
so with all. Homer, for instance, will give up his. beauties in
broad and easily taken bands of continuous narrative. . Apart
from the necessities of philological studies, which are beside the
present question, Homer, like Chaucer, is easy reading. Those
that run may read the alto rilievo of the Iliad or Odyssey. But
before a group of statuary you must stand. And the difficulty
is that the intellectual life of the present day does not admit of
long standing. The progress of science and the march of new
ideas are continually urging on the student mind. And to almost
all the doubt must occasionally present itself, Is it worth while
to spend this time before these works of ancient art? . Now,
whatever the answer to this question may be, it is certain that
the. secret of Sophokles cannot be won without loving and
leisurely study. For in his works exists the highest form of one
species of art; and that an art which will yield its essence to no
hurried student. It is a significant circumstance that few English
translations of the works of Sophokles have been attempted.
The version of Mr. Plumptre is the fourth of its kind. Those
that have preceded it are of little importance. It is true that no
author suffers more from translation than Sophokles : but that
is the least element in the unpopularity of his dramas amongst
English readers. The reader unacquainted with the Greek
language may yet be fascinated by the “ tale of Troy divine
in the musical and monotonous lines of Pope, or the inadequate
interpretations of Cowper and Lord Derby : he may even, if.he
be a Keats, find his vision dazzled by the misty prospect which
he catches of the vast Homeric continent; but he is not at all
likely to be charmed with Sophokles. To understand Sophokles
one must place oneself in the intellectual position of ^n average
Athenian of the time of Perikles. Mr. Galton says : “ The
*
average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible
estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own—that is,
about as much as our race is above that of the African negro?
The average English reader, therefore, whose knowledge of
Sophokles is derived from Mr. Plumptre’s very creditable version,
will probably lay down the book without any extraordinary
interest in the subject. He will miss the plaintive clink and
Hereditary Genius,” p. 3&2.
�Sophokles.
- 3
jingle of subjective sentimentality which he has been accustomed
to associate with poetry, and he will probably wonder at the
renown of the poet. But the earnest student of Sophokles will
find in the original enough to reward him. His mind will be
strengthened by the contemplation of perfect types of character,
bold, severe, and beautiful. He will pass .into a gallery of
statuary where he will see sights that can never leave his inner
eye. Serene faces, familiar, yet unusual in their lofty humanity,
will look down upon him •, voices, more divine than human,
though rising from the depths of the human heart, will speak to
him, and his ears will be filled with a holy and awful music.
The best guides to the higher knowledge of Sophokles are the
German works whose titles are given at the head of the present
*
paper. Schneidewin’s edition is known to students of Sophokles ;
so ought also to be the essay by G. Dronke, snatched from his
friends and from literature by an all too early death. Dr. Bib
beck’s paper, though short, is a concise estimate of the extant
dramas, and is written in a genial and scholarly style. The
present essay is an attempt to connect the works of Sophokles
with the periods of the poet’s life, and to point out the chief
dramatic characteristics of the several plays.
It was in the year 469 before our era, at the spring festival
of the greater Dionysia, that Athens saw the first trilogy of
Sophokles. The city was then full of new life ; it was the charmed
period when future greatness lay in bud, and not yet in blossom.
The terror of the Persian had been changed into an immortal
memory, and Athens was winning for herself the hegemony of
more than the Grecian race. This spring festival had drawn
many strangers to the city. The islands had not yet learned to
dread her power or doubt her justice, and sent their loyal visitors
to join in her rejoicing.
Two days of the festival had already passed, and a trilogy or
rather tetralogy had been presented each day. One was the
work of Aeschylus, for fourteen years the master of the Athenian
stage. Upon the third day a trilogy by a new poet was presented.
What thi^work really was is uncertain; it has, however, been
inferred from a passage in Pliny, that one drama was the Triptolemus. It was a subject that had never before been chosen for
the stage, but it was well adapted to win favour at Athens at the
present time. Already the city had conceived the design of
* No writer upon the life of Sophokles can forget the obligation which he
is under to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—Mr. Plumptre most unaccountably
(p. xxii.) calls him Gottfried Lessing—whose splendid fragment of a ‘‘Life ot
Sophokles ” remains to show later writers what the great German critic might
have done in this direction.
B 2
�4
Sophokles.
uniting under a central power the scattered members of the Ionian
race, and the confederacy of Delos was in part a realization of
her desire. In the subject which he chose, Sophokles would
have an opportunity of idealizing the national aspiration.
Triptolemus was the youthful hero of Eleusis, the herald of
agriculture and peace, the friend and host of Demeter. He was
a traveller too, and where he lighted from his winged car, he
left a blessing of corn and wheat behind him. Thus Sophokles
was enabled to depict, as we know from Pliny he did depict, far
lands and foreign places, gladdened by the gifts that came from
Attica.
Whether he fully indicated such a mission for the new Attica
we cannot know; he was certainly too wise to miss the op
portunity altogether. It may well be that this power of repre
senting the national feeling, formed the distinctive characteristic of
the first trilogy of Sophokles; it is at least easier to believe this,
than that he surpassed the veteran JEschylus in technical ex
cellence. There was, however, a large section of the audience,
who preferred the JEschylean trilogy. Never, perhaps, in such
a cause, had party-feeling run so high. JEschylus was himself from
Eleusis; the new writer had won the suffrages of the elder poet’s
own townsmen. But the victory was not to be adjudged by
popular acclamation. The custom was that ten judges should be
elected by lot, one from each tribe. Why the ordinary mode of
decision was not retained, it is not easy to ascertain. At any
rate the presiding archon Aphepsion did not venture, in the
excited state of popular feeling, to follow the ordinary practice,
and this accident inaugurated a change in the method of electing
the tragic judges.
Kimon and his nine colleagues representing the Attic tribes
were at this moment the popular heroes. They had but newly
returned from their victorious contest with the Persians atEurymedon, and they had brought back from Skyros the bones of
Theseus to be laid in Attic soil. Moreover, they had been absent
during the preparation of the competing choruses, and, if any,
they were free from bias and prejudice Whatever their decision
might be, it would be accepted by the Athenians. With happy
tact, Aphepsion chose them as judges, and they were at once
sworn into the office. Their verdict was for Sophokles. Erom the
fact that henceforth only those who had seen service were allowed
to adjudge the tragic prizes, we may infer that the decision was
both memorable and satisfactory. Such at least seems to be the
sentiment with which Plutarch speaks of it : “ eOevto c’ dp
fj.v/]jur]v avrov Kai tt)v to>v rpaywcMv Kpiatv ovopacrrrjv ytvoplvriv.”
Whether it was the subject, the poetical handling, or the grace
and beauty of the principal actor, Sophokles himself, that turned
�Sophokles.
5
the scale in favour of the Triptoleinus, we miss the play with
regret. The result of the decision was that for many years
Sophokles became the favourite actor of the Athenian stage. There
is greater importance to be attached to this fact than at first sight
appears. It means not only that the successful dramatist was able,
to present his views cf art and ethics to the Athenian people ; but
that he was able to mould and perfect the form of presentation.
Nor must we forget the rival interests of the several tribes as an
element of success. The Choragus who had assisted in the pro
duction of a successful trilogy was rewarded even more than the
author. The actors were chosen for the same places in the
representations of the ensuing year, and we know that Sophokles
not only established a society of the best actors, but also wrote
his plays with special reference to their powers and capacities.
One success, therefore, was earnest of farther renown, and a
stepping-stone to it. The Choragus naturally granted to his
successful author more liberty than would be conceded to an
untried competitor, and it was this feeling of confidence in the
poet, which enabled Sophokles, as it had already enabled
.zEschylus, to achieve his ideal of dramatic art upon the stage.
But before we pass on to relate the gradual growth of the drama
in the hands of Sophokles, it will be well to speak of the young
poet in his personal relations to the Athenian people, who had
just crowned him with the ivy-chaplet.
If tradition is to be believed, he was not unknown to them. He
was not born of low or ignoble parents, for in this case the comic
stage would have rung with jesting allusions to his parentage.
His father, Sophillus, was undoubtedly a man of respectable rank,
a knight it may be. Plutarch speaks of Sophokles as a person
of good birth, and other writers attribute to him an excellent and
complete education. Probably with truth, for it is undoubted
that he possessed in a high degree those elegant personal accom
plishments which were deemed necessary accessories to an
Athenian gentleman. As the promising son of a well-known
citizen, he would be a youth who claimed attention ; and the
story of Athenaeus, which speaks of his surpassing beauty, is a'
record of the influence of his boyish grace upon his contem
poraries. It declares that he of all the Athenian youths, was
chosen to lead the choir of boys who danced round the trophies
in Salamis, after the defeat of the Persians. Aftertimes gladly
recalled the happy coincidence which linked the three great
names of Attic tragedy around the memorable victory of Salamis,
for Aeschylus fought in the battle, Sophokles led the paean, and
Euripides was born on the day of victory, within the fortunate
isle. The years which immediately followed the victory formed a
bright era in the history of the Athenians. They feared no more
�Sophokles.
6
for the barbarian invader, nor, by the prudence of Themistokles,
for the treachery of the selfish Spartans. At home there was room
in every sphere for the development of genius, and genius was
not absent. Under the hands of ./Eschylus the drama was
growing towards perfection, and the people built the great stone
theatre of Dionysus. A tradition says that ZEschylus was the
teacher of Sophokles in the dramatic art: it is most likely he
was his teacher only as he was the teacher of every Athenian
who had the right to hear his dramas. In this sense, each one
of his audience was his pupil, and not with regard to art alone.
It was his province to bring the minds of men from the dim
religious darkness of old theogonies into a fuller light, though a
light by no means so full as it was hereafter to be. Great
questions had been asked, and there was none to answer them ;
men’s minds were troubled with the inconsequence of virtue and
sorrow, and the polytheistic heaven of Homer was dark and
silent above them. The leading ideas of the tragedies of Adschylus
were the supremacy of Zeus, and the moral order of the Universe.
By chains, not always of gold, the world is bound about the
throne of Zeus. Vice leads to punishment in this generation,
and the next, and the third. Yet no voluntarily pure man can
come to ruin :
3’ avdyicaQ arep
(Action tiv ovk avoXfioQ
ekmv
carat.
H>vp.
550.
The contest of Destiny and Free-will is a mystery which finds
its solution only in this moral order. ’ wQpoavvir or moderation is
S
a conscious voluntary submission to the moral order. Any trans
gression of the line between Bight and Wrong is vfiptQ, and leads
to ruin. It is a disorder of the mind, a disease, a distemper,
without expiation and without cure. ZEschylus does not repre
sent the gods as leading man into the commission of guilt. In
the choice between good and evil, man is free. A good deed
must be, as an evil one is, dvdyaa^ drtp. No one is punished by
the Divine hand without fault of his own. But sin once com
mitted is followed by a judicial blindness which leads to other
and greater guilt. This dangerous downfall is accelerated by
means of a divine power known simply as “ Daimon,” or as
“ Alastor,” or sometimes “ Ate/’ whose influence may extend to a
whole race. This brings us to the subject of “family guilt,”
which is frequently a motive in the Greek dramas. The idea
that guilt was hereditary sprang from the notion that it was
inexpiable. Hence a house fell from one crime to another,
until the anger of the gods swept it away root and branch. It
is an extension of the primitive “ lex talionis murder brings
murder, rvppa TvppaTL rival, and guilt gives birth to guilt. And
�Sophokles.
7
what Ate or Alastor is to the individual, that Erinnys is to the
family, working it madness and blindness, and involving it
deeper and deeper in the slough of crime.
/3oct yap Xotyog ILpivvv
7rapa tGjv Trporspov (pQtpevwv drrjv
tTEpcw iTrayovaav £7r' dry.—Cho. 402.
Yet the individual is free. If he belongs to a doomed raise,
then it is true there is in him an hereditary tendency which
shall lead him to guilt and ruin, but the decision rests with him
self. He is not given over to Ate until he has himself been
guilty of sin (vj3ptc). In much of this ethical system 2Eschylus
has taken and arranged prevailing popular beliefs. By his
monotheism, which made Zeus supreme, he attained to the idea
of order in the universe. His conception of sin is one which
is not alien from some forms of modern thought, and his belief
in free-will and individual responsibility, exercised considerable
influence upon later philosophy.
Sophokles did not remain unaffected by the teaching of his
contemporary, though his nature was essentially different. His
works are to the works of Aeschylus, as the clear light succeeding
to a thunderstorm. He took the gain and added to it. We
shall see in what way.
Whatever had been the progress made by JEschylus, Sophokles
at once perceived that the mechanical and technical appliances
of the art, of which he now held supreme command, were by no
means perfect. It would be strange if they had been, while the
art itself was so young. The old monologue with the chorus as
interlocutor, gave place to the drama, when the earlier poet
introduced a second actor, and made dialogue possible. But
this, it is clear, left room for farther changes. Sophokles
availed himself of the opportunity. His first change was the
separation of the functions of author and actor. It is said that
he took this course for a personal reason, the weakness of his
own voice, which could not fill the vast space occupied by his
audience. But there was probably another reason also, the feeling
namely, that each character would more readily attain to its ade
quate excellence if separated from the other. He himself did
not take any leading character after the appearance of the
Triptolemus, but the care with which he trained his actors,
testifies to the importance which he attached to this branch of
the art. A more significant change was the introduction of a
third actor upon the stage. That this improvement was made
by Sophokles we have the testimony of Aristotle. It is possible
that even earlier, AEschylus may have used three actors, and it is
difficult to understand how some of the scenes of his earlier plays
�8
Sophokles.
could have been represented by two actors only, but the adoption
of this number as a permanent feature of each play, is due to
Sophokles. Besides these greater changes, no matter of detail
escaped him; we learn from the same source that he carefully
directed the arrangement of the scenery and the stage. The
palace of 2Eschylus, with doors central, right and left, gave place
to a more elaborate stage, and much art must have been required
in fitting the theatre for the scenery of the (Edipus at Kolonus.
Yet the greatest innovation was the mode which Sophokles
adopted in treating a subject itself. 2Eschylus wrote his dramas,
and treated the subject in the form of a trilogy. When Sophokles
abandoned this form of composition, and chose to develop his
subject in a single play, it is certain he risked much. But his
artistic sense could not err. What the poetical material lost in
breadth and depth, it gained in concentration and intensity. It
followed, that in the plays of Sophokles first was seen the real
spirit of Greek dramatic art, the perfect statuesque poise of form
and expression which we have learnt to look upon as the chief
characteristic of the Athenian drama.
We return to the year of the first victory of Sophokles, from
which these improvements have led us. It was a year marked
by an event of more importance for mankind than the supremacy
of Sophokles, the birth of Sokrates. Herodotus was then a boy
of sixteen years, Thukydides an infant of three, and Euripides a
child of twelve. Seven years later Perikles rose to the height
of his power, and Athens of her glory. This is the date of the
appearance of the Oresteian trilogy, a trilogy worthy of JEschylus
and of Athens, and the only one we possess. But it unquestion
ably exhibits marks of the influence of Sophokles. A third actor
appears in every play. Three years later fiEschylus died in Sicily,
and for the next fifteen years we know nothing of the personal
history of Sophokles. History has not much to say even about
the silent growth and development of the city under the govern
ing hands of Perikles, nor is it necessary that much should be
said when the memorials are imperishable. At the end of this
period, by some caprice of popular taste Euripides was allowed to
gain the first prize.
The next year Sophokles exhibited his Antigone.
It is almost as fatal to an author’s reputation to write too
much as it is to write too little. We learn that Sophokles had
written one-and-thirty dramas before he composed the Antigone;
yet if any of these lost dramas approached at all in majesty or
power the thirty-second, which remains to us, we may well
lament the irreparable theft of time. Perhaps they, as well as
the Antigone, aided in securing the election of Sophokles to a
general’s rank. The time at which it was exhibited has not
�Sophokles.
9
been fully illustrated by the luminous pen of Thukydides, but
some rays of historical light allow us to see the internal political
activity of the city. The establishment of a complete democracy
by Perikles and Ephialtes was not accomplished without much
resistance, and it was difficult to keep aloof from party strife.
The conservative or stationary faction, under the leadership of
Kimon, drew around them the wealthy Athenians, who saw
their oligarchical power passing away with the old order of
things. The centre of their union was the Council of the
Areopagus, and any change in that institution appeared to them
as sacrilege and profanity. But the victorious cause was with
their opponents. The Areopagites were stripped of their timehallowed privileges, which were certainly not in Accordance with
the spirit of a pure democracy. 2Eschylus had been a vigorous
partisan of the conservative party, and took occasion in his
Oresteian trilogy to inculcate popular respect for that court and
the other decaying institutions whose power Perikles and
Ephialtes sought to banish or curtail. And the artistic effect of
the poem is lessened by the zeal of the partisan. Muller says
with truth, that JEschylus seems almost to forget Orestes in the
establishment of the Areopagus and the religion of the Erinnys.
Sophokles never forgot that his first duty was to his art. And
so far is the
above the atmosphere of controversy
and dispute which blurred the Eumenides of ^Eschylus, that it
was actually claimed by both parties as a witness to their views,
and was received by both with un mixed applause. We cannot
wonder at it. No play of Sophokles seizes with such over
mastering power the human heart, no play is so full of noble
thought, and in no play is the lyric element so harmoniously
blended with the maich of events, accompanying it as with the
sound of serene and divine music.
The plot is as follows :—Eteokles and Polyneikes have fallen
at the gates of Thebes in contest: Eteokles fighting for the
Thebans, Polyneikes, with seven great princes, against them.
Both brothers perish, and Kreon is made king in the place of
Eteokles. At- once he issues a decree that Eteokles shall be
buried with due honours, and that the body of Polyneikes shall
be left unburied and exposed. When the drama opens, Antigone
has just heard of the proclamation of the decree. She therefore
suggests to her sister, Ismene, that they should bury the body of
their brother. Ismene shrinks from the attempt, and is met by
the full scorn of Antigone, who goes forth, daring “ a holy crime.”
Shortly the news is brought to Kreon that his authority has
been defied, and that rites of sepulture have been performed
upon the body. As yet the offender is unknown. But this is
soon revealed, and Antigone appears, led in by the guard. A
�10
Sophokles.
great scene follows, when Antigone appeals to > the divine
unwritten laws against human ordinances. Kreon pronounces
her doom ; she is to be buried in a living sepulchre—a bloodless
but horrible fate, not unknown of old. The action is, however,
delayed by the entrance of Hremon, Kreon’s son and Antigone’s
affianced husband, who pleads for her. Yet it is not to Kreon’s
paternal affection that he appeals, but to the principle which
the new king has set before himself—the safety and unanimity
of the state. There are already murmurs, indistinct but deep,
heard in the city against the severity of the king’s decree.
Kreon’s passion and blindness grow more intense as he listens to
his son, and before the king’s fiery words Hee mon is driven away,
crying that his father shall see his face no more. From the
depths of this-darkness the audience are lifted by the strains of
the Chorus, who sing, “ Love, ever victor in war and as their
music dies away, Antigone is led across the stage to her lingering
doom. Again the Chorus waken to music, but it is music in the
minor key, and can no longer lighten or delay the growing
terror. Teiresias, the blind but infallible prophet, appears, and
describes the imminence of the divine anger for Kreon’s crime.
His prophetic utterances terrify the king, who hurries to undo
the wrong he has committed. In vain. Upon reaching the tomb
of Antigone, he finds her hanging dead by her girdle to the
vaulted roof, and is in time only to receive the passionate curse
of his son, and to witness his self-inflicted death. When Kreon
reaches home, bearing the corpse of Haemon, he finds that
Rumour, swifter than his laden steps, has already told all to the
ears of his wife, and that she has slain herself in anguish and
despair. So all the fountains of feeling, young love and parental
affection, which can never be long pent up, have broken loose,
and are all the more terrible for the unholy obstructions which
they have swept away.
The character of the chief person, Antigone, stands forth
in just and magnificent proportions. All that is beautiful
in womanly nature—nay, rather in human nature—shine
forth from that supreme ideal, a mind that sees the right,
and a soul that dares to do it in the face of death. Never had
love and strength been so combined upon the Athenian stage,
and the Athenian spectators must have experienced the same
feeling in gazing upon that representation as pilgrims did when
they were ushered into the presence of the Olympian Zeus of
Phidias. We have lost the one? we can still be taught by the
other. The heart of man has not ceased to be shaken by the
contest which is waged between temporary expediency and selfish
interests on the one side, and on the other the unchanging
laws of higher duty, for these laws “ are not of to-day, nor of
�Sophokles.
11
yesterday, but they live always, and their footsteps are not
known.”
The secondary characters throw the figure of Antigone into
bolder relief. Ismene, who knows what is right, follows the way
which leads to personal security. The grandeur of Antigone dwarfs
even the natural nobility of her sister when she seeks to share the
death she has not earned. Kreon errs through insolence. He is
wanting in the vision which has made the path of Antigone clear ;
he has forgotten the rights of the gods, and his own way leads
to ruin. Only when this ruin is full in view does he perceive
that he has gone astray, and discover that there is something
higher than love to the state and to his country—loyalty to the
great unwritten laws. Nor does the character of Hsemon, noble as
it is, disturb the unity of the impression which we receive from
Antigone. She stands the central commanding figure of the
group. And as she thus stands alone, so in her the one promi
nent feature is her heroic allegiance to duty. Other traits there
are, but they serve to bring out this one characteristic. She is
no unwomanly person, portrayed in rough masculine lines. Her
language to Ismene, if it seems harsh, is forgotten when she says
to Kreon :
ou rot tnwEyOetv dXXd avp,^>iXAv tcpuv,
for we know that these words come from the depth of her nature.
Then, when the work which she has set herself has been accom
plished, when the expression of her natural feelings can no longer
mar or render equivocal her devotion to the dead, she breaks
into lamentations like those of the Hebrew daughter, which show
how tender and womanly alife is about to be sacrificed. Once only
before has she shown any indication of the mental struggle
through w’hich she has passed, and that is when strung by Kreon’s
unconcern she breathes forth the sighing complaint, “ 0 dearest
Hsemon, how thy sire dishonours thee !”* The delicacy with
which Sophokles has treated the ove of Hsemon and Antigone
secures still farther the predominant effect. It is hard to imagine
such restraint in modern art.
The Chorus, of whose surpassing melody mention has already
been made, had certain peculiarities in this play. It did not, like
most choruses, consist of persons of the same age and sex as the
principal actor, but of Theban elders. Nor did it at once take
part with Antigone. Even here she is left alone. But by its
submission to Kreon it serves to deepen the impression of the
* The MSS. gives this line (572) to Ismene. Schneidewin has rightly,
and for unanswerable reasons, assigned it to Antigone.
Dindorf and
Ribbeck agree with him.
�12
Sophokles.
monarch’s irresistible power : and by not participating at once in
the action, it is enabled to rise to a higher atmosphere of wisdom,
which culminates in the choric song,
7roXXa ra Seiva k.t.X.
So, too, in its last songs, the painful instances of suffering which
are recalled added to the darkness of Antigone’s fate.
The effect of this perfect drama upon the Athenians was great,
and as has been said, universal. Although Sophokles had hitherto
taken only that share in public life which was the duty of
every Athenian citizen, they now elected him as one of the
college of generals, at whose head was Perikles. It happened to
be the time of the war with Samos, which had revolted from
Athens, and the ten generals with sixty triremes sailed for that
island. Sophokles took sixteen of these ships and proceeded to
Chios and Lesbos, to procure a further contingent. At the former
island we hear of him through Athenreus, who records the opinion
of Ion, that he was not able nor energetic in political affairs, but
behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.
(Ath. xiii. 81.) This assertion probably had its origin in the
playful self-depreciation with which Sophokles spoke of his own
strategic power ; and it is quite possible that Perikles treated his
poet-colleague with a good-humoured irony, which he accepted in
the same spirit. This view is borne out by the story which
Atnenseus tells of Sophokles : that, having snatched a kiss from
a fair face at Chios, he exclaimed amidst the laughter of the
company, “ Perikles says that I know how to compose poetry,
but have no strategic power; now, my friends, did not my
stratagem succeed ?” It is certain, however, that, whatever his
power as a general, he did not lose the confidence and affection
of his fellow citizens ; for, five years later, he was treasurer of the
common fund of the Greek Confederacy. Afterwards for nearly
thirty years we do not hear of his taking any part in public life.
But it was no time to him of intellectual inactivity. During this
period he wrote eighty-one plays, which is almost at the rate of a
trilogy a year. If we remember all that this includes—the com
position and the instruction of actors for so many and so fre
quently successfuldramas—we shall cease to wonder that Sophokles
did not seek to meddle with statesmanship. And once more we
shall regret that so little has come down to us of that abundant
intellectual wealth.
The commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and the
death of Perikles, turned one page of Athenian history ; but
Sophokles to the end of his long life continued to live in the
spirit of the Periklean age. Ten year after the appearance of the
Antigone he published the (Edipus Rex. The general outlines
of the story are easily told. Laius, King of Thebes, and J okasta
�Sophokles.
13
his wife, were told by the God at Delphi, that should they have
a son, Laius would be slain by his hand, and Jokasta would
become his wife. Therefore, when their son CEdipus was born,
they determined to destroy him, and gave him to a herdsman
that he might be cast out upon Mount Kithoeron. This herds
man, however, smitten with pity, gave the child to a comrade
shepherd, who carried him to Corinth, where the boy was adopted
as son by the king of that city. Many years afterwards, CEdipus
at Corinth heard the oracle which had been delivered concerning
him ; but he was still in ignorance as to his parentage. Think
ing, however, that he was the son of the king of Corinth, he left
Corinth lest the oracle should come true, and travelled towards
Thebes. Upon his way he met his real father, and a quarrel
having arisen, a contest ensued in which his father fell and all
those who accompanied him save one. (Edipus then arrived at
the kingless city of Thebes, which was ravaged by the murderous
Sphinx. He freed the city from the Sphinx and accepted the prof
fered throne, and with it the hand of the widowed queen, little
dreaming that she was his own mother. For years the city was
prosperous, and four children were born to him. Then a plague
fell upon the people. All this was before the action of the play
begins. An oracle now declares that the pestilence is sent because
Laius has been forgotten. His murderer must be ejected.
(Edipus pronounces a curse upon the unknown assassin, and
sends for Teiresias the blind seer, if peradventure he may be
able to declare the man. Teiresias, enlightened by his art,
scarce dares to tell what he knows, and is evilly treated by
CEdipus. Then Jokasta complicates the confusion. She openly
asserts her disbelief in oracles ; for her own son had been destined
by these lying witnesses to marry her; whereas he was slain, and
she was wedded to GEdipus. Yet out of this security
“ Surgit amari aliquid,”
Laius was slain at a “triple way
terrible words that
set sounding a sullen chord in the breast of (Edipus, for
long ago he slew a man upon a triple way. One witness there
was, and he is now summoned. Meanwhile a messenger
arrives to say that the king of Thebes, the reputed father of
(Edipus, is dead. This is a gleam of light upon the eyes of
CEdipus, for the oracle has been proved false.
The mes
senger has still farther comfort. CEdipus need not dread the
fulfilment of the oracle at all, since he is not the son of the king
and queen of Corinth, a fact dimly hinted before, but now for
the first time clearly told. Then whose son is he ? A new pas
sion seizes the king, and he is determined to unravel the mystery
of his birth. The messenger is able to aid him in this, for he
received the king as a foundling at the hands of a servant of
�14
Sophokles.
Laius. All is now ready for the catastrophe, which Jokasta, more
quickwitted than her son, at once foresees. The witness of his
murder of Laius, who at this moment comes up, is no other than
the herdsman who had given him as an infant to the Corinthians.
The electric circle is completed, the spark shatters the divine
edifice of royal prosperity and the hearts of the audience, and the
oracles of the gods are evidently true. Jokasta has already
ended her existence; and (Edipus. unable to endure the sight of
his own misery and that of his family, puts out his eyes.
There are several reasons why this drama should be assigned
to this period, notwithstanding the absence of authoritative data.
The vivid description of a pestilence was probably written by one
who had witnessed the virulence of the Athenian scourge. Some
commentators have believed the chorus tt poi
k.t.X. to have
reference to the mutilation of the Hermse. If this be true, the play
must necessarily be of later date than that supposed above. It
probably refers to the reckless spirit of licence w’hich exhibiteditself
in Athens as a reaction against the popular superstitions of the
earlier period, and which eventually led to the profanation. The
drama is in fact a protest against the disregard of religion, and a
magnificent exhibition of the vanity of human attempts to cross the
decrees of fate. In this respect it stands alone amongst the plays
of Sophokles. It depicts the contest of an honourable and noble
character with a foregone destiny. To add to the interest of the
picture, the man who is unable to solve the riddle of his own
history, is the one who alone was able to unravel the enigma
of human life proposed by the Sphinx, and it is only when the
eyes of his corporal vision are darkened for ever that the organs
of his spiritual sight are unclosed. At first his house is the only
one spared in the pestilence, and all eyes are directed to him as the
saviour of the state ; yet it is his house which is the cause of the
plague. Then his own blind eagerness to discover the regicide,
the curse which he unwittingly imprecates upon himself, 'the
gradual lifting of the curtain fold by fold till he breaks into the
exclamation,
lov, toil, ra navr av
<ra<p7j,
are terrible instances of the irony which Sophokles is accustomed
to ascribe to destiny, but nowhere so powerfully as in this play.
Surely but slowly the end approaches. Now the progress of
events is delayed by some joyous choric song like the imp tyii>
ptavriQ dpi, k.t.X. ; now there falls upon the play some beam of
hope which makes us believe that the gathering thunderstorm
will be dispersed or break up into sunny tears and the dewy
delight of averted calamity. But the vain hopes and the vanish
ing glory serve only as preludes to the complete darkness of the
catastrophe, which, at last, suddenly envelopes the w'hole heaven.
�Sophokles.
15
It is not only modern admiration which the play has won.
Aristotle has taken it as the model of a drama, and its effect
upon contemporary minds must have been great. It is equally
admirable as a whole and in single passages. The choruses are
generally like the atmosphere of the play, of a lurid and broken
colour, so that we know not whether light or darkness will
prevail. The earlier choruses approach in thought and expression
to the language of Milton, or of modern poetry. Thus the description of the rapid deaths in time of pestilence, so different as
it is from the picture given by Homer (II. 1) has that touch
about it which belonged later to Dante.
aXXor
av aXXp irpoffibote airep
kv7TTEpOV bpvcv,
Kpei&aoy apatpaKerov irupoQ Sp/ievoy
Q.KTCLV WpQQ ECTTTEpOU .&EOIK
“ And one soul after another might be discerned flitting like
strong-winged bird with greater force than invincible fire, to the
shore of the Western God.”
It recalls, too, the half-mediseval, wholly beautiful lines of Mr.
Rossetti in his poem of the “ Blessed Damozel.”
i
“ Heard hardly, some of her new friends
Amid their loving games
Spake evermore among themselves
Their virginal chaste names ;
And the souls mounting up to God,
Went big her like thinflames”
Another passage (lines 476 et seq.) is more Hebrew than
Greek in its description of the Cain-like homicide.
ipoird yap vir aypiciv
vXav, ava r ayrpa Kai
vrerpas are ravpos,
peXeo^ peXeip ~6ct ygripeviav,
ra. petropipaXa yaQ dirovoapiliiav
pavreia' rd 8’ dec
ZUvra irepcrrordrai.
"For sullenly turning his sullen step, he wanders moodily
under the wildwood, or amid caves and rocks, like a bull, and
avoids the divine voices that rise from the central oracle of the
land. But they live, and are whispered around him.”
Yet this incomparable poem won only the second prize; the
first was gained by the work of Philokles. Time, in preserving
this alone, has reversed the decision of the judges. The reason
of that decision may lie in the nature of the play itself. To the
Athenians, who after the taking of Miletus could not endure
�16
Sophokles.
the scenic shadow of their loss, the unsoftened representation of
their sufferings in the Theban plague, and the direct promulgation
of the doctrine of irresistible destiny may have seemed unwelcome
and ill-timed. And the conclusion of the play is less relieved
than that of any other. It is not broken up into those short
cries and natural lamentations, with which many tragedies
close, but solemnly and sadly to the beat of throbbing trochaics
the figures pass from the stage like the muffled pomp of a
funeral procession, and the curtain rises upon a silent- and awe
struck audience.
It is far otherwise with the (Edipus at Kolonus. Like the
Rhiloktetes, it has a plot which depends upon divine interven
tion, and one in which the sequence of the episodes is not
absolutely perfect in connexion, though each episode is perfect in
its own characteristic beauty. After the events depicted in
(Edipus Rex, the blind king with his daughters remained at
Thebes, until he and Antigone were thrust forth by Kreon. For
many long months they wandered through Greece, whilst Eteokles,
the younger son of CEdipus, drove out from Thebes Polyneikes
the elder, who betook himself to Argos and gathered an army to
make him king again. At last CEdipus and Antigone came to
the plain of Kolonus, near Athens. Here, beneath the shade of
an olive-grove, the aged king sits down to rest, and here an inward
confidence tells him that he is approaching the term of his suffer
ings. This olive-grove is sacred to the Furies, and it is sacrilege
for ordinary men to approach it. The news reaches Theseus that
stranger has set foot within the lioly precincts, and he hastens
to the place. Before his arrival Ismene comes in haste to tell
her father of the fratricidal war upon which her brothers have
entered, and that Kreon is hurrying to carry back CEdipus, since
an oracle has declared that his presence will bring victory on
either side. CEdipus pronounces a curse upon his son, and reveals
his intention of blessing Athens by remaining within her territory.
Theseus now arrives, and not ignorant of the responsibility he is
incurring, assures CEdipus of a courteous and secure hospitality.
CEdipus in return acquaints him with the benefits which his
presence will confer upon Athens, and the calamity which will
ensue to Thebes. Theseus accepts with confidence the divine
privilege which CEdipus offers, and once more assures him of his
protection. If ever a situation made a supreme demand upon
an Athenian chorus, it is the present. We have come to the
middle point between the beginning and the end of the action.
The Acropolis of Athens, though as yet unblessed by the works
of Phidias, rises within sight of the beholder. Kephissus draws
her silvery threads through the foreground, and the hero-prince
of Athens, in accepting the charge of CEdipus, unites the new and
�Sophokles.
17
the old, and links historic to heroic times. The music which
shall not mar the harmonious suspense of this situation must be
subtie indeed. But the music of Sophokles is never of a nega
tive kind. It increases and enhances the dramatic feeling.
Accordingly it is here that we find the greatest choric ode of the
Greek drama. The undying chords of the poem which follows
raise the mind of the hearer to a level with the exaltation of
CEdipus himself.
Pahttttov, Rve, raffle ^(ijpag.
“ Guest, thou art come to the noblest spot
Of all this chivalrous land.”
But this lofty tranquillity is broken by the entrance of Kreon,
who endeavours to persuade CEdipus to return to Thebes. Upon
his refusal, Kreon has recourse to violence, and carries off Anti
gone, Ismene having been previously secured. Theseus however
restores his daughters to the blind king. The next scene brings
upon the stage Polyneikes, who seeks reconciliation with his
father. This he does not succeed in obtaining, and he leaves
the stage begging for the kind offices of Antigone in his burial.
The play now draws to a close. The euthanasia of CEdipus is all
that remains. The hour of destiny has come, and the Passing
of CEdipus—no man knows where or whither—completes the
purpose of the gods.
A question so debated as the date of this play can scarcely be
Answered satisfactorily here. Critics both ancient and modern have
connected it with the latest period of the author’s life; but there
are portions of the drama which seem to belong to an earlier date,
and. to have reference to that period of reactionary licence which
was marked by the mutilation of the Hermse. By its subject it is
closely connected with the CEdipus Rex, and there is nothing im
probable in the supposition that even if it were first produced after
the author’s death, it was begun whilst the subject of CEdipus was
fresh in his mind. And if any parallelism is to be drawn
between Sophokles and the great German poet, this work may
well be compared with the “Faust,” from which the summa
manus was so long withheld. The allusions in the poem itself
do not fix it to any definite date. ' All that can be said with
certainty is that it is subsequent to the Antigone; for while
both plays that have CEdipus for their subject contain references
to the Antigone, that drama has not a single allusion to the
action of the other two. Whether, however, we are to credit it
with an earlier or later origin, we sh^ild be doing an injustice to
the spirit of Sophoklean poetry if we were to Suppose that
political allusions brought down the drama into a realistic atmo
sphere.’ It is idle to attempt to connect the Theban and Athenian
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
C
�18
Sophokles.
struggle which the poet mentions, with any special date.
*
It is
more profitable to win the freedom of that ideal land in which
are brought together the blind old king and the hero of Athens.
In some respects the (Edipus at Kolonus differs from the
other dramas. There is in it a perplexing mixture of manner
which suggests both a return to the style of Aeschylus and a
concession to the growing influence of Euripides. The self
completion and perfection of outline, which marked the Antigone
and the (Edipus Rex are wanting here. The drama is the
fragment of a trilogy of Aeschylean breadth ; it is rhetorical and
lyric in the style of Euripides. The real Sophoklean charac
teristics are not, however, absent, sweetness and power of
expression, lofty and graceful sentiment, and a perfection of
rhythm and vivid delineation. But it is a series of linked
scenes rather than a drama proper. Of scenes that begin with
the peaceful olive grove, and end in the euthanasia of the
world-worn (Edipus. Nothing could be finer or more effective
than that touch of the pen of Sophokles which paints, not
indeed the death of (Edipus, but Theseus, who alone saw it,
with his face shaded by his hand, as though to shut out some
stupendous revelation. To this history of (Edipus Sophokles
has given the only satisfactory and worthy conclusion which
was possible. In his life he was a contradiction to the laws that
regulate human affairs ; he remained a contradiction in his
death. Others passed by the grove of the Eumenides with
bated breath and averted faces—he found there rest and a
conclusion of his toils. The grove trodden by Bacchus, nymphtraversed and nightingale-haunted, was to him, upon whom all
tempestuous airs had broken, a haven “ windless of all storms.”
And here the troubled life at length ceases, and peace is found
at last. In the choruses of this play the poet’s love of Athens
finds expression. Many poets had spoken with enthusiasm of
the “ violet-crowned city,” but never with such beauty and
exalted passion as does Sophokles in the ode, zviirirov,
k.t.X.
The legends connected with it are probably false, but they bear
witness to the opinion of the ancients concerning'it. Sophokles,
unlike his rivals in the dramatic art, remained true to his native
city. No offer of foreign patronage could tempt him to leave
Athens. Aeschylus died in Sicily, Euripides in Macedonia.
There were many princes who would gladly have welcomed
Sophokles to their courts—indeed, there were many who invited
him thither; but he remained unmoved by their offers, and
never left his city except to do her service and to further
* Schneidewin suggests the i7F7ro/xa^ta rts Bpax/ia ev Qpvpois, mentioned
Thukyd. ii. 22, as a possible occasion.
�Sophokles.
19
aer interests. The anonymous biographer says that he was
^adrivaioTaTOQ, (t most enamoured, of Athens.
And the city
repaid his affection. The same biographer says, “In a word,
such was the grace of his nature that he was beloved by all.
It is unfortunate—it is more than unfortunate—that of the
personal history of the poet we know so little. Few and far
between are the dates that we can assign to the events of his
life. The seventeenth year after the supposed date of the
(Edipus Rex saw the calamitous termination of the Sicilian
expedition. Amongst the names of the ten elderly men elected
Probuli to meet the emergency of the crisis, we find that ot
Sophokles. If this be indeed our poet, we have here another
instance of the confidence and love which the city felt towards
the tragedian, who was now eighty years old. The seventeen
years to which reference has been made are important in the
history of Greek literature. They include the birth of Plato, the
exhibition by Aristophanes of the Knights, the Clouds, and the
Peace, but they cannot definitely be connected with any play of
Sophokles. Possibly the Elektra falls within this period. It is
at any rate marked by the best characteristics of the poet. It
.dispenses with the breadth of treatment which a trilogy allows,
and concentrates the interest upon the action of a single play.
In the trilogy upon the same subject which AEschylus exhibited,
probably thirty years earlier, the death of Klytemnestra forms
an episode of the middle drama, and the ethical problem of
filial duty in antagonism to divinely-directed justice is sketched
only in outlines which leave much to be filled in.
Sophokles treated the subject as follows :—During the absence
of Agamemnon in the Trojan campaign, his wife Klytemnestra
formed an adulterous union with AEgisthus, and upon the return
of Agamemnon, slew her husband and wedded with AEgisthus.
Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, fearing foul treatment for
her brother Orestes, then a child, sent him out of the country,
whilst she herself remained, together with her sister Chrysothenis,
at Argos, waiting for the manhood and return of Orestes to
claim his hereditary throne. When due time arrives, Orestes,
under the direction of Apollo, comes back to Argos unheralded
and unknown. He is accompanied by his faithful attendant the
Peedagogus, who brings to Klytemnestra an account of the death
of Orestes at the Pythean chariot contest. The play opens with
the arrival of Orestes and his attendant at Argos. Elektra comes
forth to bewail the death of her father and the delay of Orestes,
and is comforted by such consolation Us the chorus can offer her.
Next, Klytemnestra, who has been terrified by a dream, appears,
and
angry altercation takes place between her and Elektra.
When this is concluded, the Psedagogus enters and announces the
c 2
�20
Sophokles.
death of Orestes. The grief of Elektra occupies the attention of
the spectators until the entrance of the disguised Orestes and
Pylades his friend, bearing an urn which contains the pretended
ashes of Orestes. In the interview between Orestes and Elektra
which, follows, a recognition takes place, and nothing remains
to be done but to effect the revenge. Orestes therefore enters
the house and slays his mother, and ffEgisthus, upon his arrival,
shares the same fate.
The work of Sophokles is finer and fuller of artistic power
than the work of 2Eschylus. The character of Elektra is un
borrowed, and forms a contrast to that of the Aeschylean Elektra.
She, and not Orestes, is the centre of the action, and though
not the actual avenger, is really the prompter and promoter of
the deed. In the Choephorce we are perpetually reminded that
the death of Klytemnestra was the work of the gods; Elektra
falls into the background, a weak, suffering woman, whose
strongest trait is love for her brother, and he, a mere tool in the
hands of the deity, after numerous hesitations and delays in
accomplishing the divine purpose, becomes a victim of madness
and terror. The Sophoklean drama is more valuable than the
Aeschylean trilogy. In the Elektra we have, as in the Antigone,
a distinct and noble type of character set in full light and drawn
in clear lines of power. Elektra is the personification of justice
and fidelity, as Antigone is of love and strength. Like justice,
she never wavers from her purpose. When all hope of the
return of Orestes has ceased and his death seems certain, she
herself undertakes the work which should have been his, for
vengeance must be done, and the house of Agamemnon must
be freed from the accursed and abiding crime. And when
Orestes reveals himself as her brother, she does not leave the
central position of the group. One short burst of natural joy,
and she is ready to take any measures which may bring about
the punishment of the murderess. Nay, she stands on guard
while the deed is being done, and to the prayers of Klytemnestra
her answers are stern and inexorable as destiny. With subtle
words of double meaning she leads AEgisthus into the prepared
snare, and then forbids parley or delay—dXX’ wq rax^ra ktzivs,
she says—and the house of Athens is freed from its long and
intolerable servitude.
The character of Elektra, as we see it in its final manifestion, is
as terrible as it is grand. Klytemnestra endeavours to justify her
owm conduct, and to represent it as righteous; but Elektra strikes
the key-note in her long nightingale lament, when she says,
ooXoc r/i' 6 (ppaaac, tpoc o tcrtlvac.
Chrysothenis, weak and vacillating, ready to condone the past
�Sophokles.
21
and enjoy the present, serves as a foil to the stronger character
of her sister. The same may be said of the Chorus,, which
although sympathetic, does not rise to the same heights of
sublimity or lyric sweetness as in the other plays of Sophokles.
Dr. Ribbeck sees here a reason for believing the Elektra to be
an early work. Yet it is not the lyric element which we should
expect to see failing in a younger work, and the conception and
delineation of character in the Elektra is of the highest kind.
The balance of proportion between the brother and sister is
admirably kept. Orestes is not the instrument of the gods,
though under their protection, but of Elektra. By her side he
must not waver, he must proceed at once to vengeance.
That portion of the ethical question which yEschylus has
indicated in the Eumenides does not come into the drama of
Sophokles.
The description of the chariot race has always been regarded
with justice as a masterpiece of art, and there is scarcely any
thing more touching in literature than the scene which describes
the recognition of brother and sister, and the rapid change of
mood, which, in broken iambics, passes from hopeless sorrow into
Overpowering joy.
In the Elektra, Sophokles presents before us a character,
which, as it were, wrestles with destiny, and conquers ; in the
Ajax we have a character ennobled by its very defeat.
Ajax was the most distinguished of the Greek generals in the
Trojan war, next to Achilles, and upon the death of Achilles a
dispute arose for the arms of that hero. The claimants were
Ajax and Ulysses, and the arms were adjudged to the latter. Full
of anger at this decision, Ajax determined to slay both Ulysses
and the Atridse, who had acted as arbitrators; but as he was
going by night to accomplish his revenge, he was inspired with
madness by Athene, whose aid he had previously rejected. In
this madness he fell upon the flocks of cattle around the camp,
and slew some and carried others to his tent, thinking he had
captured in them his rival and his enemies. When day dawns
his right mind returns, and he is overwhelmed with the ignominy
of his position and resolves to put an end to his life. This he
accomplishes by falling upon his sword. The Atridee command
that his body should be left unburied, but Teucer resists
them, and he is honourably buried. This drama is placed
here, not because it certainly belongs to this period, but
because its date is undetermined and undeterminable. Schneidewin and others assign it to an earlier period, make it indeed
nearly contemporary with the Antigone, both on account
of its resemblance in lyric measures to the 2Eschylean dramas,
and on. account of the rarity with which a third actor is brought
�22
Sophokles.
forward. But the Antigone sufficiently shows that Sophokles
had passed this stage. Others see in the speeches which follow
the suicide of Ajax an approximation to the rhetorical style of
Euripides. Those who adopt a middle course, will place it rather
in the long undated period, when the literary activity of
Sophokles was at its height. It is a poem in which the national
feeling of Athens was likely to find especial gratification. Of all the
heroes celebrated in the Iliad, Ajax was the only one that Athens
could claim as connected with herself. Salamis had been in
close union with Athens from immemorial time, and one Athenian
tribe took its name from Ajax. Herodotus tells us (viii. 64), that
before the battle of Salamis, the Athenians prayed to all the
gods, and to Ajax and Telamon. This connexion gives rise to
the beautiful ode
<j) tcXeiva 'SiaXap.tQ k.t.X.
The drama opens with a scene which breathes the frenzy of fierce
hatred and lust for murder that mark Northern poetry rather
than Greek. Yet it serves to set a stamp upon the character of
Ajax, and to indicate his disposition, not without a warning note
of admonition. The degradation into which Ajax has fallen is a
punishment for the excess of that self-reliance which forms a
heroic character, the first sin which he commits is insolence
(w/3pic). When setting out to battle, he rejected the pious prayer
of his father, that he might wish to be victorious by the help of
the gods, and added the vaunt, “With a god’s help, even a
man of nought may win the victory; but I, I trust, without
God’s help shall be victorious.” And in the battle itself, when
Athene proffered aid, he bade her go elsewhere, for he would
none of it. Such is the disposition of the man who finds too late
that he is powerless against the gods. But against disgrace his
unyielding mind still contends. The real interest of the drama
lies in the moral conflict between heroic independence and the
necessity of submission to higher authority. The motives for
submission are forcibly brought out, the agony of disgrace, and
the strength of domestic affection. The turning point is reached
when Ajax says—“ I, once as strong as steel, have now been
softened by the words of this woman as steel is softened by the
bath, and I shrink from leaving amongst my enemies, her a
widow, and my son fatherless.” Yet from the shame there is
now but one escape, and from that he does not shrink—death.
But ere he goes to the baths of ocean and the sea-marge, where
he may appease the wrath of the goddess by his death, he freely
acknowledges his error. Honour and authorrty are worthy of
submission. Snowfooted winter yields to blooming spring, and
dark-tiaraed night gives place to bright-crowned day. Life is full
of change, so he too bends to authority, fears God and honours
�Sophokles.
23
the Atridse. Another scene reveals Ajax about to put an end
to the life he can no longer honourably cherish. His last prayer
is earnest and simple—That Teucer' may first raise his body,
and give it rites of sepulture; that Hermes may grant him
funeral escort; and that Helios may rein in his golden car, and
tell the sad news to his aged father and mother. Then follows
the farewell of the Greek to the bright sun, a long adieu to
Salamis and illustrious Athens, and all the plains and crystal
founts of Troy.
It is perhaps worth pointing out that this drama has severa
Shaksperian peculiarities. As in the works of our own drama
tist, overflowing sorrow finds relief in a play upon words.
aiai, r/c av ~or we0’ wi’ £7rwrvjuor
TOVjJ.OV
OVO/J-Cl TOIQ EpLOLQ KCLKOLQ j
The speech already referred to (line 646), which describes in the
form of a soliloquy a moral crisis, is in the manner of the English
writer, and the final monologue of Ajax recalls the meditation
of Hamlet.
Minuter resemblances might be noted. The cry of the sailors
in their search for their lost chief—ttovoq Trouw ttovov <pep&c—may
almost be translated by the “ Double, double toil and trouble
of the Witches in. Macbeth.
But a more characteristic peculiarity of the drama is the sea
air which blows through it, and the number of nautical allusions
which must have been grateful to a seafaring people. Sophokles
never forgets the mariners of Athens in his eulogies of the city.
In the great choric song of the (Edipus at Kolonus, the crowning
glory of the land is “ the well-used oar fitted to skilful hands,
that leaps through the sea in the train of the hundred-footed
Nereids,” and here from the first we are thrown into sailor
company. It is to the “ shipmates of Ajax, from over the sea/’
that Tecmessa turns in her trouble, and it is they who search
for their lost leader at the last, though Sophokles with poetic
propriety reserves the discovery of his body for Tecmessa herself.
And to the sea the thoughts of Ajax turn in his despair :
“ 0 ye paths of the watery reach,
O ye caves of the sea,
O ye groves of the Ocean beach,
Where my steps were wont to be.”
By the death of the hero atonement for all his sins is made,
and his body is honourably buried by' the sea he loved.
It is a real satisfaction to arrive at a period when we can
attach a date to a play of Sophokles. In B. C. 409 appeared the
Philoktetes. Before this time Athens had passed through
�24
Sophokles.
the conspiracy of the Four Hundred, and had seen the recall
of Alkibiades. In the measures of the oligarchical body we are
told Sophokles concurred, not because they were good, but
because they were expedient. “ ov yap vjv aXXa /BeXn'w/’ are
the words attributed to him. The anecdote, however, may
possibly refer to another Sophokles. It is possible also that
Sophokles had little sympathy with the later democracy, which
may have alienated amongst others the mind of the poet. But
his poetry retained the astonishing energy and freshness of his
younger days. The Philoktetes shows no sign of the, decay of in
tellectual power. It is worthy of the first prize which it received.
The subject was not a new one upon the Attic stage. kEschylus
and Euripides had handled it before, and other tragedians
had aided in making it familiar to an Athenian audience.
Sophokles, while adopting the well' known mythical outlines
as the groundwork, succeeded in lending the drama a new
and powerful motive. These outlines are to be found in
Homer. (II. 2. 716). Philoktetes, carrying the arrows of Her
cules, joined the expedition against Troy, but being wounded
in the foot by a serpent, he was left in the island of Lemnos.
In the tenth year of the war it was predicted by a Trojan
prophet that Troy could only be taken by the arrows of
Hercules, then in the possession of Philoktetes. Accordingly
Ulysses and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, were sent to Lemnos
to bring Philoktetes with his arrows to Troy. The play opens
with the landing of these messengers upon the island of Lemnos.
Ulysses tutors Neoptolemus in deceit, and urges him to gain
possession of the arrows by falsehood. Neoptolemus obeys, and
having persuaded the suffering Philoktetes that he is about to
take him home is entrusted with the arrows. When Philoktetes
discovers the treachery that has been practised upon him, he
endeavours to commit suicide, but is prevented. Feelings of pity
and compassion now come upon Neoptolemus, and he restores
the arrows in spite of the angry remonstrances of Ulysses. The
mission has thus nearly failed of its object, when Hercules de
scends from heaven, and bids Philoktetes proceed to Troy, where
he shall win renown and be healed of his sore disease. The
interest of the play does not centre in the person whose name
it bears, but in the person of Neoptolemus. It is his character
that Sophokles has brought out from the massive block of
tradition in proportions of exceeding beauty. Between Philok
tetes hardened by suffering, and Ulysses wily and wise, the openhearted son of Achilles stands forth a contrast to both. This
contrast of character, together with the dramatic development of
natural nobility in the person of Neoptolemus, is the work of
Sophokles alone, and bears his stamp. The minor characters
�Sophokles.
25
are powerfully drawn. Philoktetes is immovable in his love to
his friends and in his hatred to his enemies. The extreme
agonies of physical suffering which wring from him cries and
groans, leave him still tears for the misfortunes of his friends
and imprecations for his foes. He is, in the words of Lessing,
a rock of a man,”* a hero still, though life has lost all that is
worth living for, except constancy and submission to the gods.
The Ulysses of this drama is differently portrayed from the
Ulysses of the Ajax, and the Ulysses of Homer. He is brought
forward in an ungracious part, and one more in accordance
with the role he takes in the plays of Euripides. He counsels
deceit and is willing to attain his end by means honourable or
dishonourable. We must not however forget that this end is
the well-being of the Greeks, and that the means are poetically
justified by his knowledge that neither persuasion nor violence
will avail to shake the firmness of Philoktetes. The psycholo
gical interest lies then in the struggle through which the mind
of Neoptolemus has to pass. On the one hand, with the bow of
Philoktetes he may win undying renown by the taking of Troy,
but he must desert and deceive his father’s friend, leaving him
doubly desolate and deprived of the means of supporting his
piteous existence. On the other hand he must bear the bitter
reproaches of Ulysses, the loss of the promised glory, and the
failure of the Achaean arms, but he will have respected the
rights of a suppliant and his plighted word. How will the
struggle end ? The sincerity of a noble nature prevails. Already
the treachery inspired by Ulysses has been successful; the bow
of Philoktetes is in his hand, but he can no longer endure the
part he has been compelled to play: he leaves the path of deceit
into which he has been misled, and assumes the character which
he has already shown to be his. The intervention of the “ deus
ex xnachina ” serves only to j ustify what has happened, it neither
diminishes the interest nor interferes with the action of the play.
The psychological question has been already answered.
The Trachinice is to be considered a later work than the
Philoktetes. Otherwise it is probable that Sophokles would
have used the connexion that lies in their subjects. For the bow
of Philoktetes was none other than that bequeathed him by
Hercules at his death. The Trachinice tells the story how
the death of Hercules was unwittingly brought about by his wife
Deianeira. Many years before the opening of the play, Hercules
had slain the Centaur Nessus by means of his unerring and
poisoned arrows. As he was dying, the Centaur bade Deianeira
take of the blood of his wound and the poison of the arrow, and
* “Laokoon,” ch. iv. p. 34.
�26
Sophokles.
preserve it, for it would prove an unfailing philtre to recover her
husband’s affection if he ever forsook her for another woman.
When the play opens, Hercules has been long absent, but is now
returning with captives, the reward of his victorious arms.
Amongst these captives, who arrive at Trachis before Hercules,
is the beautiful Iole, and Deianeira is not long in learning that
she it is who now possesses the affections of her husband. There
fore she imbues a garment with the philtre she had received
from Nessus, and sends it to Hercules, bidding him wear it whilst
transacting the sacred rites of Zeus. The venom of the mixture
does not fail in its efficacy. It seizes at once upon the body of
Hercules, who is consumed with intolerable burnings. In the
agony of death he orders himself to be borne home, but the news
flies before, and Deianeira ends her life with her own hand. Upon
his arrival, Hercules bids his son Hyllus erect a funeral pile for
him on Mount Oeta, and after his father’s death marry Iole.
The drama concludes with the promise of Hyllus to obey his
father.
The opinions as to the value of the drama have been
various. A. W. Schlegel deemed it of far inferior merit to that
of the other plays, and many modern readers have agreed with
him. Schneidewin, a critic of weightier authority, places it ex
ceedingly high amongst the works of ancient art. In looking at
it, however, we must regard it as a diptych rather than a single
picture. From this circumstance it suffers perhaps when compared
with the other works by the same author. Nevertheless each
part has its own merit. In the first part the figure of Deianeira
forms the centre; in the second, the half-divine half-savage cha
racter of Hercules exercises a strange imperious fascination upon
the spectator. Nothing can be more delicately and finely
represented than the amiable character of Deianeira, the faithful
and forgiving wife. It is in the true colour of Sophoklean irony
that the sympathy of a tender nature which leads her to express
pity for the captive woman, draws her most closely to Iole, who
is the cause of her misfortune. And it is the very strength of her
love for Hercules which brings about his ruin and her own. The
first part of the Trachinice may indeed be ranked with the best
dramatic exhibitions of character. Nor is it deficient in those
cross lights and special excellences in which the best abound. The
self-devotion and feminine dignity of Deianeira reaches its climax
when she implores Lichas to tell her the whole truth :—
ph 'ttvQegQu.i tovto p aXyovsiEV av‘
c’ EtSevat tI Seivov ; ov^l ^ciTEpas
teXelcetciq dv^p eiq HpaKXrjg EyypE c)/;;
kovttii) tlq avT(Sv ek y Epov Xoyov KOKOV
TJVEyKa.T' ovZ' ovelZoq.
to
to
�27
Sophokles.
This is in the very spirit of mediaeval devotion, and almost
in the words of the “ Nut-browne Mayde
“ Though in the wode I understode
Ye had a paramour,
All this may nought remove my thought
But that I will be your.
And she shall find me soft and kynde,
And courteys every hour.”
*
For vigorous word-painting, the passage which describes the
virulent corruption of the poisoned wool rotting away into nothing
ness, is unsurpassed. (Lines 695 et seq.)
The second portion of the diptych is less agreeable to modern
feeling, since the character of Hercules seems little fitted for the
tragic stage. By his semi-divinity he is above humanity, by his
semi-brutality he is below it. Hercules suffering is most likely
to gain our sympathy ; for the picture of excessive suffering is
redeemed from the peril of awaking horror or disgust by the
consistency and firmness of Hercules. He meets death with his
spiritual strength still unbroken, and his self-possession when he
recognises his real position changes the grief of the spectator into
admiration of his undaunted fortitude.
The marriage which he is represented as proposing between
Hyllus and Iole, however repugnant to modern, feeling, was too
firmly an article of popular belief rooted in popular tradition to
be neglected in the drama.
Nor does Herodotus (vi. 52) deem the tradition unworthy of
notice, since it was from Hyllus that he traced the descent of the
Dorian invaders of the Peloponnese.
The link which binds together the two portions of the drama
and preserves the unity of the action is the magic poison of the
Centaur. In the first part we have the motives which lead up
to its use; in the second we see its effects. The same protagonist
took the parts both of Deianeira and of Hercules.
The long and illustrious life of Sophokles was now drawing to
a close—a life more enviable, perhaps, than that of any man
who has lived so long. He had seen the growth of the Athenian
state ; he was spared the sight of her last declining days. He
was the contemporary of all the great men who had made Athens
glorious ; and he was the personal friend of many of them. Ten
years older than Euripides, he yet survived him, and lived to see
his own son Iophon wearing the ivy crown. One pleasing anec
dote is told of the last year of the poet’s life. When the news of
the death of Euripides in Macedonia reached Athens, Sophokles
was preparing a tragedy for exhibition. As a last tribute of
respect to the memory of his rival, he himself appeared in
mourning at the head of his chorus, and the choral company
�28
Sophokles.
were without the wreaths which they were accustomed to
wear. The wife of Sophokles was a native of Athens and was named
Nikostrate. By her he had one son, Iophon, already mentioned.
By Theoria of Sikyon he was the father of Ariston, whose son,
Sophokles, reproduced the (Edipus ad Kolonus two years after
the death of his grandfather. A story related by Cicero, and
often repeated, asserts that Iophon brought his father before the
Phratores on the ground of mental incapacity to manage his own
affairs. There is much improbability in the story and we may
well discredit any tradition of dissension in the family of
Sophokles. Hardly, if the story be true, could the comic writer
Phrynikus have written, as he did, a few months after the poet’s
death, a lament with the concluding words—
KaXwg
eteXeudjct’
inrop-EivaQ micov.
The immediate occasion of his death is unknown, and various
accounts are extant. One tradition asserts that it was joyous
excitement at again winning the tragic prize. Beit so. kuXwq
S’ EreXEurr/crEv. In the year B.C. 406, the year of the battle of
Arginusse, Athens lost her two great tragic writers, Sophokles
and Euripides.
Our consideration of the plays will be more than imperfect
unless we examine briefly the religious views with which they
are interpenetrated and coloured. What was the religious
position of the mind that conceived and brought them forth?
Art and religion have often been combined, but never more
intimately than in the dramas of Sophokles. rsyovs Ss koI
Oeo([>lXt)G o
wc
ovk. aXXoq,
says the anonymous
biographer: “ Sophokles was beloved of the gods as no other.”
And the attitude of the poet’s mind was one of reverent, almost
superstitious, adoration of the gods. ZEschylus, no less than
Sophokles, believed in the nothingness of human nature and the
omnipotence of Zeus. For man he marked out a narrow path
beyond which he could not go without offending those unsleeping
powers which punish the insolence of men to the third and fourth
generation of them that transgress. This narrow path he named
crw^poo-vvz/; Sophokles called it tvKpjtta, reverence.
In the Elektra the chorus says to Elektra (1093)
“ Thus have I found thee not in prosperous case
Advancing, but of all the highest laws
Wearing the crown by reverence (suth/SEta) of Zeus.”
And in the same play, commending her language, the chorus
says (464)
“ The maiden speaks with reverence.”
�Sopholdes.
29
In the chorus of the (Edipus Rex (863) the doctrine of
tvatflua is laid down at length. And in the praise which CEdipus
gives to Athens ((Ed. Koi. 1125) the highest is that she is the city
where Reverence dwells:—
E7TEI TO y EVffefjEC
povotQ irap vpiv -qvpov avOpuiruv Eya>.
How comes it then, if this be a chief article in the religion of
Sophokles, that so many of his characters are found speaking
against the gods ? The number of characters who so speak is
not very great. Tecmessa accuses Pallas of working the bane of
Ajax (Ag. 652). Philoktetes doubts the justice of the gods
(Phil. 447), and again (1035). Hyllus (Trach. 1266) speaks
Still more harshly of their unkindness, and reproaches (1272)
Zeus himself. But it is to be remembered that Sophokles him
self does not always speak by the mouth of his characters. Their
verisimilitude lends a force and warmth to the personification
which is absent from the poems of ZEschylus. It is quite in keep
ing with the Sophoklean stage that his dramatispersonce should
not be without a tinge of popular superstition. Instances may be
selected. Thus, Teucer is persuaded that the sword of Hector
was fabricated by the Erinnys ; Hercules calls the fatal robe
which takes away his life a web of the Erinnys ; Deianeira is
the victim of a popular superstition when she sets her hopes upon
a love-charm ; and the guardians of the corpse of Polyneikes are
instances of a similar delusion, when they believe that the unseen
burial was supernatural.
But Sophokles, as he bad received from the hands of ZEschylus
the drama already formed, so, too, he accepted from him a body
of religious doctrines already in advance of popular belief. Nor
was the progress which he inaugurated in this line of thought
less striking than his development of the dramatic art—as far
as the liberation of human thought is concerned it was more
important. ZEschylus, as we have seen, attributed the misfortunes
of mortals to a judicial blindness, the consequence of previous
guilt whereby a man falls into greater sin and supreme destruc
tion. His teaching is the teaching of Eliphaz the Temanite ;
* Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent ? or
when were the righteous cut off?” (Job iv. 7.) Sophokles dis
tinguished between the guilty blindness and involuntary crime.
With regard to the former he held the same position as did
ZEschylus. When a mortal willingly, and with full intent, com
mits a crime, the Deity punishes him with moral madness ; he
is delivered over to Alastor. Yet for all the actions committed
in this madness, he, and none other, is responsible. It is so with
Ajax. He deliberately rejects the aid of Athene, and falls into
a madness from which there is no escape. It is so with Kreon.
�Sophokles.
30
He designedly neglects the honour due to the gods below, and
pursues a course which is the result of madness. The chorus
recognise the chastisement of a divine hand when -ne.y speak
Kreon as—
ayfjp ettiirppov c/,a ytipoc
<■ idspiQ enrEiv, ovic aXXoTplav
li-ry aXX avrOQ anaorcov.
and he himse acknowledges it (1272),
paQibv cdXacoc. ev 3’ ejjm
Kapa
Oeoq tot apa tote piya fodpoc p
£7raicrEr.
But from this frenzy, involuntary guilt is separated by a wide
interval. As Ajax is a striking instance of the one condition, so
CEdipus is of the other. The contrast between the two is sharp
and complete. CEdipus is presented to us as a righteous prince,
wise above the common standard of humanity, for he alone could
solve the riddle of the Sphinx—as god-fearing, for he never doubts
the oracles of the gods. When he hears of the death of his sup
posed father, Polybus, there is mingled with his first cry of
wonder a note of distress for the credit of the oracle.
(pEu' (p£i>, ri cfjT ay w yvvat., <tkotto~it6 tiq
Trjv HvdopayTtv EGTiav ((Ed. R. 966.)
The sins which he committed were all involuntary, and he
repeatedly asserts it.
TTEirovdor
egti
ra y spya pov
paXXoy 7/ CECpaKOTa.
Yet upon him descend the heaviest misfortunes. What is the
conception which Sophokles designs to express by this ? There
is n'o answer in the CEdipus Rex ; it is found in the CEdipus at
Kolonus. It is this answer withheld that so closely unites the
former and the latter dramas. In the latter, CEdipus comes
before us under the guidance and protection of the gods. They
have used him for their purpose, a divine one, an unknown and
mysterious one, but a just one ; and now, having drunk the cup
of sorrow to the dregs, he is their sacred and especial care. He
himself says (287)
77/cw yap tpoc ev'teI'ji'iq te Kai (bepivv
OV'fjO’lV aOTOlQ TO~l(TC)E.
And therefore his passage from life is gentle and kindly. He
is not, for God takes him. As his life has been beyond all others
wretched though morally guiltless, so his death has beyond all
others a fuller promise of happiness.
If we gather up the teaching of Sophokles upon this point, we
find —That the gods have a great progressive plan of the
�Sophokles.
31
Universe, which they carry out in spite of, or sometimes by
means of individual suffering. That every man who seeks to do
right is, notwithstanding his misfortunes, under their protection,
and will finally be rewarded according to his merit. That volun
tary guilt tends to worse, and lastly to ruin. This advance from
the religious position of JUschylus is great, but it leads to results
no less important. It leads, firstly, to the possibility of making
a consciousness of right and justice an acting moral power. Thus
CEdipus sets before his daughters (Gild. K. 1613) as a recompense
for their laboursand sufferings on his behalf, the consciousness
that they had done their duty and won his love. Elektra and
Antigone are penetrated with this feeling. Elektra says (352)
“ Be it my only reward that 1 am conscious of doing my hard
duty?’ The sentiment of Antigone is the same (460) :
“ That I shall die I know without thy words,
And if before my time ’tis gain to me.”
This teaching of Sophokles is a herald of the truth declared
by Plato, that the moral consciousness of right in a man’s own
heart is the measure of his happiness.
Secondly, and here we must touch upon the mystic side of the
religion of Sophokles, it imbues his dramas with a lofty spiritual
ism. It stands in opposition to the religion of rite and profession.
It calls for the spirit and not the letter. CEdipus (CEd. K. 498)
declares that the sacrifice of one pure soul rightly offered, avails
more than ten thousand which are not so given. It adds a sig
nificance to the sincere unspoken prayer, for the god hears it
before it is said. Klytemnestra will not utter her prayer (El. 637)
for the god knows her desire, though she may not put it into
words. And the voice of the god speaks within the breast of
man to guide and direct him. This inward voice brought
CEdipus to the grove of the Eumenides, as he himself says (CEd.
K. 96) and led him—adtKrov riyprripo^—to his last restingplace.
°
And thirdly, it finds a place in the religion of Sophokles for
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
This doctrine was only dimly present to the popular mind ; it
was no active moral power. The motive to justice and righteous
ness lay in the fear of punishment in this life—of punishment at
the hands of the civil magistrate or the offended deity. True, in
Hades the unholy were unholy still, and suffered a shadowy
retribution for their crimes, but the real punishment was in this
life. Sophokles recognised a purer motive for human action, the
love of right for its own sake, and for the sake of the divine
approval. Antigone can look forward to a long and joyous
Existence with the dead (Ant. 73-76), for with them she will
*
�32
Sophokles.
dwell for ever. And so the highest duty is the duty of living
in accordance with the will of the gods, careless of praise or blame,
reward or punishment, from any but Their hands, and with eyes
directed to that other life, where wrongs are righted and where
j ustice is done.
ETTEl TtXeI(i)V XPOVOQ,
ov c?t p apEffKELV toIq Kara tojv oEvdai>E,
ekei yap asi KEi.trop.ai.
The monologue of Ajax sets this point of view rstill farther in
contrast with that of fiEschylus. 2Eschylus has exemplified the
terrors of conscience with appalling power in the persons of
Klytemnestra and Orestes, but the passion which he represents
is rather that of remorse than that of penitence. The fear of
punishment is the moving cause of terror. In the ethics of
Sophokles, conscience leads to a penitent recognition of personal
guilt and a desire of amendment—
ypsle ce irait; ov yvcvaopsaOa triotppovsiv;
is the cry of Ajax when he seeks to atone for his crimes by a
voluntary death. And the same moral revolution is exhibited
in the case of Kreon. (Ant. 1319.)
Thus in the hands of Sophokles, religion passed from a nega
tive to a positive phase. It was no longer sufficient as in the
time of AEschylus to live a quiet life with no overweening self
exaltation or insolent rivalry of the gods, but heart and hand
must be alike pure, and both devoted to the service of the gods.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in his essay upon the “ Education
of Humanity,” has traced the process by which a single nation
rose stage by stage to fuller knowledge. The nation which he
selected was the Hebrew nation, but it is not the only one which
submitted to the divine education. In the works of Sophokles
we see the Greek mind passing to a higher stage. It is not a
final stage ; that can never be reached as long as humanity
endures, but it is one that could give strength and confidence to
minds that loved the truth. That it did so to the mind of
Sophokles himself we may learn from his works. The per
fection of restraint and repose which reigns like a summer
atmosphere in his compositions, is the result not only of a mastery
of diction and a supreme command of art. The knowledge of
the sorrows of humanity and a co-existing capacity of beholding
above alia ruling order, which recompenses and atones for all,
are the characteristics which give an immortal interest to the
dramas of Sophokles.
They reveal to us a man who was
indeed OeoQiXpq “ beloved of God.”
And however dimly his contemporaries may have understood
the humane theology which pervaded his works, they understood
�Sophokles.
33
time of his death the Lacedaemonians were threatening Athens
from Deceleia. The family burial-place of Sophokles lay eleven
stades from Athens, upon the road to Deceleia. When Lysander
the Spartan heard that Sophokles was dead, he granted a free
pass to the funeral procession, and the body of the great
tragedian was laid to rest under the protection of the Lacedae
monians. Nor were there wanting due tokens of respect at the
hands of his fellow-citizens. As a hero they honoured him with
a' yearly sacrifice. A siren was sculptured upon his tomb, to
indicate the entrancing sweetness of his strains, and Simmias the
pupil of Sokrates wrote his epitaph. Forty years after his
death, his bust was placed in the Athenian theatre, and the state
took in charge the text of his works.
And yet against the life of Sophokles there are those who
bring the charge of impurity and immorality. Such a charge
we can but dismiss with indignation. A few anecdotes retailed
*
by that prurient collector of slander, Atheneeus, form the body
of the charge. They are not worth the time that would be spent
in contradicting them. There is nothing in Plato, there is nothing
in Plutarch that can sully the pure lustre of the name of
Sophokles. Plutarch indeed relates (Perikles, viii.) that upon
one occasion Perikles bade Sophokles remember that a man
must not only keep his hands pure, but his eyes from beholding
evil. If there is in this anything more than a commonplace
application of a moral maxim, it is a testimony that at least the
hands of the poet were pure. Of his thoughts as mirrored in
his writings we can ourselves judge. Aristophanes amidst all
his baseless attacks upon his contemporaries, never brought this
charge against Sophokles; modern writers with less knowledge,
have had greater audacity. This, however, matters but little to
him or to us.
In looking back upon the life of Sophokles as a whole, perfect
and radiant, it is difficult to find in the range of literature another
like it. From his boyhood to his death, there seems to be
nothing to mar the beauty of his career. Germans find an
analogous instance in the life of Gothe, but the analogy does not
go far. Both Sophokles and Gothe lived long, and won that
favour from their countrymen which is generally given to the
illustrious dead alone. Each of them possessed the highest
culture of his time, and aided the diffusion of that culture. The
comparison cannot in reality go much farther. The life of Gothe
is open to us in its minutest details : we are compelled to be
satisfied with the merest outline of the life of Sophokles.
Gothe has dissected for us (not without vanity) his own
sentiments, emotions, and passions. Only behind the works of
Sophokles can we discern the calm and majestic figure of the
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.]—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
D
�34
Sophokles.
Greek poet. Yet the dimmer personality is not the less
impressive. To something of the calm which belongs to the
works of Sophokles, Gotbe could, and did attain ; but it is the
same with a difference. Gothe by a sublime selfishness, and his
progress marked with the sorrows which he caused, rose into a
clear intellectual ether. Sophokles brought down the wisdom of
another sphere to brighten the ways of men. The one was a
child of earth who made a path for himself to the serene heights ;
the other was a son of Olympus, about whom the inextinguish
able glory of his birthplace shone for the delight and instruction
of the world.
P.S.—Two editions of Sophokles, at present only published in
part, will go some way towards familiarizing English students with
the spirit of Sophokles. The one is by Mr. Jebb, Public Orator of
Cambridge, the other is by Professor Campbell of St. Andrews.
As a portion only of each edition is before the public, it has
been deemed better to exclude them from comment in the body
of this paper, but this much may be said, that we can hope every
thing from the complete edition by Professor Campbell. His
essay on “ the Language of Sophokles ” is admirable and
exhaustive, and the notes and introductions to the plays already
published are full of refined and suggestive enthusiasm.
Mr. Jebb has set forth his views upon the genius of Sophokles
in a lecture recently delivered at Dublin, and since published in
Macmillan’s Magazine (Nov. 1872). This lecture is clear,
scholarly, and critical, but both the points selected and the views
expressed seem scarcely adequate to the subject. The four
manifestations of the genius of Sophokles 'which he chooses are :
First, the blending of a divine with a human characteristic in the
heroes of Sophokles. Secondly, the effort to reconcile progress
with tradition. Thirdly, dramatic irony ; and lastly, the por
trayal of character. The first of these manifestations is illustrated
by the cases of Ajax, of GEdipus, and of Herakles. Ajax, we are
told, is human by his natural anguish on his return to sanity; he is
divine by his remorse and the sense that dishonour must be effaced
by death. But surely his remorse and repentance are human
too. His mere cries of distress, apart from the higher feelings, are
ludicrous, and insufficient to link Ajax to human nature. Nor
does his nearness to Athene, as one who had spoken with her
face to face, suffice to give him a divine character. The heroes of
Euripides also speak with the gods face to face. The lecturer has
not here brought out a real manifestation of the genius of
Sophokles; he has united accidents and imagined them to be
the essence. The intense suffering of (Edipus the King, and the
marvellous death of GEdipus at Colonus are two conditions
�Sophokles.
35
through which the character of CEdipus passes, and are not
more especially characteristic than are the sufferings of Medea,
who is finally carried away by the dragon-chariot of the sun.
The genius of Sophokles is certainly not revealed in the union of
the superhuman and the commonplace; it is manifested by its
power of idealizing humanity. The superhuman element which
Sophokles introduces, forms no part of the essence of any
character, it belongs to the cycle of popular beliefs, which as we
have seen, he used for the purpose of verisimilitude.
Secondly.—The idea that Sophokles preserved the balance
between superstition and free thought, that he endeavoured to
graft progress upon tradition is misleading. In religious matters
we have seen that the advance which he made was both definite
and important; in politics he was the disciple, as he was the
colleague, of Perikles. If he shrank from the extreme measures
of a later democracy, it was because he clung to a system which
had raised Athens to her highest political efficiency, and because
he distrusted a variation which exaggerated and distorted the true
democratic principles. Moreover, he was justified by the results.
Thirdly.—The lecturer’s canon upon dramatic irony is only
partially true. “ The practical irony of drama depends on the
principle that the dramatic poet stands aloof from the world
which he has created.” In fact the question of dramatic irony
cannot be so summarily dealt with. The manner of Professor
Campbell in treating of this characteristic (pp. 112-118) is far
more diffident and satisfactory. Irony, as he says, is always
accompanied with the consciousness of superiority. But the
exhibition of this consciousness must be destructive of artistic
effect. It is better to refer the irony to fate than to ascribe it to
the author; it may, perhaps, be best not to use the word at all,
but to refer the effect which every one feels, to an artistic and
legitimate application of dramatic elements such as contrast and
pathos, which reach their highest power only when used by the
most skilful hands. .Mr. Jebb thinks that Sophokles delineates
broadly, and with a “ deliberate avoidance of fine shading,” the
characters of his primary persons, and seeks for the more delicate
touches of portraiture in the subordinate persons. The persons,
however, to whom he refers as illustrations must be spoken of as
secondary with caution. Thus Deianeira is of equal importance
with Hercules in the Trachinice; the same protagonist took
both characters. The real interest of the Philoldetes centres in
Neoptolemus. But perhaps the chief inadequacy of Mr. Jebb’s
view of Sophokles, a view which, as has been said before, is set
forth with the charm of a scholarly and balanced style, results from
his notion of the religion of Sophokles. In his opinion, Sophokles
is the highest type of a votary of Greek polytheism, and no more.
D2
�36
Parliamentary Eloquence.
He does not see in his hand that torch which was to be passed
on to Plato, and through him to other times. His religion had,
he says, shed upon it the greatest strength of intellectual light
which it could bear without fading. His art was indeed the
highest of its kind, and remained his own ; but the impulse which
he gave to a freer and more enlightened reverence may be traced
in the best of Greek literature, the works of Plato. It is
probable, therefore, that the edition by Professor Campbell will
be a truer guide to the appreciation of Sophokles, for the editor
has already acknowledged his obligation to Professor Jowett.
Art. II.—Parliamentary Eloquence.
1. A Book of Parliamentary Anecdote. Compiled from
Authentic Sources. By G. H. Jennings and W. S. John
stone.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin : London, Paris, and
New York. 1872.
2. The Orator : a Treasury of English Eloquence, containing
Selections from the most Celebrated Speeches of the Past
and Present. Edited, with Short Explanatory Notes and
References, by a Barrister. London : S. 0. Beeton.
3. Select British Eloquence, embracing the best Speeches entire
of the most Eminent Orators of Great Britain for the last
Two Centuries : with Sketches of their Lives, an estimate
of their Genius, and Notes Critical and Explanatory.
By Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Professor in Yale Col
lege, New Haven, Conn., U.S. London : Sampson Low
and Co.
4. Parliamentary Logic : to which are subjoined Two Speeches
delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, and
other pieces. By the Right Hon. William Gerard
Hamilton. London. 1798.
5. Hansard. New Series.
ANY have been the writers on the theory of Government,
and the framers of model governments and paper constitu
tions. None of these, however, devised Parliamentary Govern
ment as it actually exists amongst us, or foresaw its rise. Yet to
all appearances it is the form of government which will
universally prevail. The English tongue bids fair to become
the speech of the greater part of the globe, and wherever an
English-speaking race is to be found, English parliamentary
M
�
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Sophokles
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Lester, Joseph Dunn [1841/2-1875]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 36 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, January 1, 1873. Includes bibliography (p.1). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author attribution: The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900.
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Sophocles
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Text
Association for the
Harmonious Development of Faculties.
CONFUCIUS
Ibis 'life anb bis HJoctrine
BY
MARIUS DESHUMBERT
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
CAPTAIN E. M. PERCEVAL, R.A.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH
and 7, BROAD STREET, OXFORD
1897
PRICE
SIXPENCE
�Association for the
Harmonious Development of Faculties.
COMMON-SENSE ETHICS.
BY
“ THE COMMITTEE ”
Copies of the above Pamphlet will be forwarded by
PROF. DESHUMBERT, Hon. Secretary,
Camberley, Surrey
(on application).
CONFUCIUS:
HIS LIFE AND DOCTRINE.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
To be had from the Publishers,
Messrs. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,
London,
Or from the Hon. Secretary,
�B 23?21^2-
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CONFUCIUS.
HIS LIFE.
ONFUCIUS was born in the year 550
or 551 B.c. at Shan-ping, in the province
now known as Shan-tung, the ancient
province of Lu, bathed on the east by
the Yellow Sea, and on the north by the Gulf of
Pechili.
Confucius counted among his ancestors the em
peror Hoang-ti, whose reign is placed by historians
of the Celestial Empire 2637 years before the
Christian era.
The name of his clan was Kung, and missionaries,
in calling him Confucius, have merely latinized his
real name, “ Kung-Fu-tze,” which means “ the
philosopher Kung.”
Confucius was only three
years old when he lost his father, who was Governor
�2
of Tse-u. According to tradition, at the age of six
he showed signs which gave promise of extraordinary
wisdom. He despised games familiar to childhood,
and preferred to offer sacrifices to the gods with his
little comrades, on whom he already exercised a
marked influence.
He would not eat without offering part of his food
to heaven, according to the custom of the ancients.
This custom he practised during the whole of his
life, even though the repast might only consist of rice.
He was married at the age of nineteen, as was
then usual.
At about this time, the fame of his intelligence
and virtues having reached the Prime Minister of
the kingdom of Lu, his native land, the latter en
trusted him first with the superintendence of the
granaries, and later with that of cattle and parks, or
public markets. He accepted these offices on account
of his poverty, but without any thought of becoming
rich.
At the age of twenty-two he commenced to teach.
He wished to revive ancient usages, which, in his
opinion, contained all the moral, social, and political
virtues. He made it his mission to re-establish the
rites, customs, beliefs and institutions which time
had made sacred.
�3
To gain his end, it was not sufficient to teach
only by example; he required disciples, who should
receive from him careful instruction, should go forth
to spread it throughout the empire, and should
succeed him after his death.
The intelligent young men, who wished to learn
to rule justly, soon crowded to him in numbers. He
accepted the honorariums which his disciples offered
him, being, however, always content with what was
given to him, no matter how insignificant the amount
might be. On the other hand, he sent away imme
diately those who did not show sufficient ardour for
study, or such as were not sufficiently intelligent to
understand him.
“ When,” said he, “ I have shown a pupil one
corner of the subject, and he is unable to discover
the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.”
At the age of twenty-four he lost his mother. To
obey the ancient law, he withdrew from the public
life of superintendent in order to mourn the custom
ary period of twenty-seven months, then considered
the equivalent of “ three years.”
We now come to a gap, for we hardly know any
thing of the life of Confucius for several years after
this date. Let us consider here the political state
of China at this time.
�4
China was then but a sixth part of the present
empire.
The population was only ten to fifteen
millions. The nobility was divided into six orders,
which corresponded in many respects to those of
feudal Europe.
The governors of provinces succeeded from father
to son. They are often called by historians “kings,”
and their provinces “kingdoms,” and in fact they
were almost independent. In theory the governors
received from each new emperor a new investiture.
They were bound, in theory, to present themselves
at court, at certain times, to show their submission.
They also paid to the sovereign fixed tributes, and
had to supply him with soldiers when they were
required for the security of the empire.
When, in a feudal state, the sovereign is not
sufficiently energetic or sufficiently powerful to make
his rights respected, the nobles are not slow to show
their independence and to make efforts to extend
the frontiers of their states at the expense of others.
F
At the time of which we speak, the dynasty of
Chow, which lasted from 1122 to 256 B.C., had passed
its zenith. The independence of the sub-kingdoms
was complete. From this it results that the history
of China during the seventh, sixth, and fifth cen
turies B.c. is an unbroken account of great battles,
�5
of hard-fought actions, of heroism, of tried friend
ships, and of atrocious crimes.
This reminds us of the state of England and of
France in the Middle Ages, but China 600 years B.c.
was far more civilized than was Europe during
the time of the Plantagenets, that is to say during
the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
(a.d. 1154-1399). Numerous schools existed then in
China. Each nobleman had collected around him
historians, musicians and other men of learning.
The savants expounded ancient history and com
mented on ancient poems and laws.
Instruction then was carried on brilliantly, but
justice and probity, in a word morality in all its
forms, was trampled under foot. Mencius, the
grandson and continuer of the teaching of Confucius,
tells us that decadence was complete. Justice had
disappeared. One only heard discourse that was
debasing and only saw acts of violence. Ministers
murdered the princes who had called them to power,
and children took the life of those who had given
them birth. Confucius, terrified with what he saw,
resolved to reform the world; a grand ideal to which
he consecrated his whole life.
At the age of thirty-three Confucius visited the
capital of the empire, where he admired the treasures
�6
of the imperial library. He also studied music,
which was held in great honour at Court. He had
also several interviews with Lao-tze, the father of
Taoism. On his return the same year to Lu, the
prince of that State was forced by his ministers to
flee to the neighbouring province of Tse. Confucius
accompanied him, not wishing to appear to support,
by his presence, the rebels who had driven out their
legitimate sovereign. But the king of Tse did not
treat Confucius with the honour his wisdom, virtue
and renown merited. The latter soon returned to
his native land, where during fifteen years he con
tinued his studies. During this period the number
of his disciples increased considerably. It is said
that there were as many as three thousand, and of
these seventy or eighty were distinguished for their
great intelligence. Several became statesmen of
mark. The disciples were young men of all classes,
but the majority were mandarins, public officials, or
governors of towns. All these men of letters showed
the greatest admiration and sincere respect for
Confucius, a fact which goes to prove the moral and
intellectual value of his philosophy.
At the age of fifty-two Confucius was appointed
first magistrate of Chung-too. Immediately, so the
historians assure us, a marvellous change appeared
�7
in the behaviour of the inhabitants. He was ap
pointed Minister of Justice, and crimes disappeared.
He showed his energy and his wisdom in awarding
punishment without distinction of rank, and in start
ing negotiations with the neighbouring State of Tse.
He strengthened the authority of his prince, the
king of Ln, while he weakened that of the nobles.
In order to do this he dismantled the fortified towns
where the chiefs of the principal clans could resist
the king’s authority, as did the barons of feudal
Europe.
Finally he became the idol of the people, whose
welfare was his chief interest. In them he saw the
source of the wealth and prosperity of the State.
He improved their W'ell-being by all means in his
power, especially by putting down the aristocracy,
who were everywhere hostile to those institutions
which he wished to found. He accomplished many
excellent reforms during the two years he was in
power.
The king of Tse, however, saw that if Confucius
were permitted to continue his reforms, the influence
of the king of Lu would soon make itself felt
throughout the whole empire. He determined,
therefore, to deprive this king of his minister. He
�8
showed a profound knowledge of the human heart
by sending to the king of Lu eighty dancing girls of
great beauty, and one hundred and twenty-five mag
nificent horses. These gifts were joyfully accepted
by the prince, who now not only neglected Confucius
completely, but was greatly annoyed at his remon
strances. The philosopher felt that it was not
compatible with his dignity to remain at this Court,
where his counsel was no longer accepted. He
withdrew with slow steps and with regret, hoping
that his sovereign would repent and would send a
messenger to pray him to return. Alas ! no messen
ger appeared, so Confucius sadly continued his way.
The philosopher was then fifty-six.
During thirteen years he went from province to
province, and was everywhere received with great
honour, but no prince would take counsel of him.
He saw that although men have always good
maxims on their lips still they are slow to practise
virtue.
“ Alas,” he cried, “ virtue is not cherished, and
study is not pursued with care. Though one hears
the principles of justice and equity professed, they
are not followed. The wicked and wrong-doers do
not wish to mend their ways. It is this which is
�9
the cause of my sadness.” He knew also what it
was to suffer from ingratitude, but he said, “ What
matters to me the ingratitude of men. It will not
prevent me doing them all the good that may be in
my power. If my teaching remains fruitless, I shall
at least have the consolation of having faithfully
fulfilled my task.”
Thirteen years later he returned for good to his
native land. The king was dead and his son
occupied the throne. The philosopher refused to
accept of him honours and power. He had only a
few years to live, and these he wished to consecrate
to his literary work and to the teaching of his
doctrine in the midst of his numerous disciples.
The year after his return, Confucius was then
seventy, his only son died. This left only one
offspring to perpetuate the race of the philosopher.
But what he felt still more was the loss of his two
favourite disciples, Yen-Hue, who died a year
before this, and Tze-lu, who died some months later.
The end of the philosopher was now approaching
rapidly, hastened no doubt by sorrows.
Early one morning, not being able to sleep, he got
up, and with his hands behind his back he dragged
his stick along as he walked towards the door,
�10
saying, “ The great mountain must crumble away,
the strong pillar must break, the sage must wither
and disappeai’ like a blade of grass.” He then went
back to his bed, and eight days later he died at the
age of seventy-two or seventy-three, in the year
478 b.c.
The funeral rites were performed with great
ceremony by his disciples. A great number of
them built huts close to his tomb and stayed there
twenty-seven months, wearing such mourning as
they would for a father.
His third favourite disciple, Tze-Kung, remained
five years close to the tomb mourning the sage.
The news of the death of the philosopher spread
throughout the empire with marvellous rapidity.
He who, during his lifetime, had been neglected,
became immediately after his death the object of
unbounded admiration; and this admiration has
lasted nearly 2400 years.
The tomb of Confucius is situated on a vast
rectangle outside the town of Kiuh-fow. On
passing through a magnificent gateway, one finds
before one a long avenue of cypress trees which
leads to the enormous tumulus which has been
raised over the tomb. A little in front to the right
�Il
and. left are two smaller hillocks which mark the
tombs of the son and grandson of the philosopher.
Finally to the right of the last one sees a small
house which is said to stand on the ground once
occupied by the hut of Tze-Kung, in which he
passed his five years of mourning. On all sides are
to be seen tablets on which the emperors have had
engraved enthusiastic eulogies of the defunct.
The neighbouring town is still the home of the
Kung family, and it is asserted that from forty to
fifty thousand descendants of the sage inhabit it at
the present time. The chief of the family is the
head of the seventy-fifth generation. He possesses
vast domains, given by the emperor, as well as a
title which corresponds to that of duke.
The dynasty of Chow disappeared 225 years after
the death of the philosopher, and was replaced by
that of Ts’in. The first emperor of the new dynasty
wished to lay the foundations of that despotic
government which still exists. The numerous men
of learning who acknowledged Confucius as their
teacher opposed this innovation. The emperor
was therefore anxious to destroy the posthumous
influence of the sage, and burned all the ancient
books to which Confucius had referred and from
which he had drawn his rules and examples.
�12
Finally he buried alive hundreds of men of
learning who regarded Confucius as their master.
But no persecution could destroy or even diminish
the influence exercised by the philosopher after his
death. All the sovereigns who reigned after the
Ts’in dynasty lost no opportunity of honouring his
memory. At the present time there are tablets
bearing his name in every school and in all
examination halls, and before them the pupils and
candidates bow as they enter.
No prayers are said to Confucius, but great
honour is rendered to him.
�HIS DOCTRINE.
Let us pass now to the study of the philosopher’s
teaching.
His moral and political doctrines are intimately
connected, but, to make our task more simple, we
shall examine them separately.
Confucius collected and placed in order all the
religious, philosophic, moral and political documents
which existed at his time. Of these he and his
disciples formed a set of doctrines under the follow
ing titles :
Yi-King (the sacred book of changes).
Shu-King (the book of historical documents).
Shi-King (the book of verses).
Li-Ki (the book of rites).
Tze-Shu (the four classic books).
Space will not permit of a complete study of all
of these. It will be sufficient for our purpose to
�14
examine briefly the first three of “ the four classic
books.”
The quotations are taken from the excellent
French translation by Pauthier.
*
The sixth phrase of the first classic book gives
the key of the whole philosophy of Confucius. The
sage wrote these words : “ From the man of highest
rank down to the most humble and obscure of men,
each has the same duty to perform : to correct and
better himself. The perfecting of oneself is the
fundamental base of all progress and of all moral
development.”
Confucius returns continually to this great duty
of perfecting oneself. He says, that “he (the sage)
develops to the highest degree the lofty and pure
faculties of his intelligence and makes it a rule to
follow always the principles of right judgment.”
Later on we find, “ Make yourselves complete
masters of that which you have learnt, and always
continue to learn. You then may become a teacher
of men.”
“ The superior man should apply his whole energy
to educate himself, to acquire knowledge.” Lastly :
* Confucius et Mencius : Les quatre livres, &c. Traduit du
chinois par M. G. Pauthier. (Charpentier, Paris.)
�15
“ He who endeavours constantly to perfect himself
is the sage, who knows how to distinguish good
from bad, who chooses the good and holds firmly to
it, never letting it go.”
“He should strive hard to learn all that is good.
He should question others with discernment, seeking
to enlighten himself in all that is good. He should
guard carefully all that is good lest he should lose
it, and should meditate on it in his heart. He
should always try to discern what is good, taking
care to distinguish it from what is bad. He should
then steadfastly and constantly practise that which
is good.” But the perfecting of oneself is not
sufficient, one must also think of the perfecting of
others.
“ The perfect man does not limit himself to his
own perfection, then to rest. He strives to perfect
others also. The perfecting of oneself is undoubtedly
a virtue, but to improve others is a high science.”
Confucius does not forget that the perfect state
must include purity, and so we find this maxim,
“ Be watchful of yourself, even in your own home.
Take care, even in the most secret place, to do
nothing which could make you blush.” Elsewhere
he says : “ The meaning of the three hundred odes
�16
of the book of verses is contained in one of its
phrases :—Do not let your thoughts be wicked.”
His altruism shows itself continually.
The philosopher having said one day, “ My
doctrine is simple and easy to comprehend,” one of
his disciples, Tsen-Tze, replied “ that is certain.”
The philosopher having gone out, the other disciples
asked what the master meant. Tsen-Tze replied,
“ The doctrine of our master consists solely in
having uprightness of heart and in loving one’s
neighbour as oneself.”
Elsewhere Confucius says : “ I would procure for
the aged, quiet rest, for friends and those among
whom one is thrown, constant fidelity, for children
and the weak, motherly care.”
“ The superior man in his dealings with men is
deferential as becomes him. He is polite and kindly
mannered, regarding as brothers all men who live
within the boundaries of the four seas.” By which
he meant the whole universe. “ Reflect carefully
and do not ever tire of doing good nor of being just
in all your actions.”
One day a disciple asked a question in these
�17
words : “ Can one express in a single word all that
one should practise steadfastly throughout one’s
life ? ” The philosopher said: “ There is one word,
‘ Shu,’ the meaning of which is ‘ Do not do unto
others what you would not like them to do unto
you.’ ”
We may perhaps translate this by the single word
reciprocity or altruism.
Confucius returns continually to the importance
of this doctrine of reciprocity, which we wrongly
call “ charity,” for it is not so much charity as
justice.
He persistently 'repeats this doctrine, in order
that all who hear him may become impregnated
with it.
The philosopher often spoke of the “ virtue of
humanity.” One of his disciples having asked what
he meant by this, he replied: “ He who is able to
accomplish five things on earth, is endowed with the
virtue of humanity: respect for himself and for
others, generosity, fidelity or sincerity, diligence in
doing good, and love of all men.” Later on, he adds :
“ Have sufficient self-control, even to judge of others
in comparison with yourself, and to act towards
them as you would wish them to act to you. This
�18
is what one may call “the doctrine of humanity,
and there is nothing beyond this.”
After the perfecting of oneself and of others,
after the love of humanity, that which should be
cultivated is justice.
Here are two maxims on this subject.
“The superior man, in all the circumstances of
life, is exempt from prejudice and stubbornness.
Justice alone is his guide. He employs all his power
to do that which is just and proper and for the good
of mankind.”
His justice extended even to animals. He used
to fish with hooks, but not with nets, he shot birds
with bow and arrow, but would not use a snare.
Practical moral counsels abound in his works, but
it is only necessary to quote some of them.
“ That which you condemn in those who are above
you, do not practise towards those below you. That
which you condemn in your inferiors do not practise
towards your superiors.”
“ If there are people who do not study, or, if they
do study, do not profit by it, let them not be
�19
discouraged, and let them, not desist. If there are
people who do not distinguish good from bad, or, if
they do distinguish it, have not a clear and distinct
perception of it, let them not be discouraged ! If
there are people who do not practise what is right,
or who, if they practise it, cannot devote all their
powers to it, let them not be discouraged ! That
which others may do at the first attempt, they may
do at the tenth. That which others may do at the
hundredth, they may do at the thousandth. He
who will truly follow this rule of perseverance,
however ignorant he may be, he will certainly
become enlightened; however weak he may be, he
will certainly become strong.”
“ When you see a wise man, think whether you
have the same virtues as he. When you see a
wicked man, look to yourself and examine attentively
your own conduct.”
“ If we are three who travel together, I shall
certainly find two teachers (in my companions). I
shall choose the good man to imitate, and use the
wicked man to correct myself.”
“ In your dealings with men, be true and faithful
to your engagements ! Let your words be sincere
and true ! Let your acts be always honourable and
�20
worthy ! Even if you were in the land of barbarians
of the south, or of the north, your conduct should
be faultless.”
“ Be true to yourself and indulgent to others and
so prevent feelings of resentment.”
He did not forget to give children his counsel.
“ Children should have filial piety in their father’s
house and brotherly love outside it. They should
be careful in their actions, sincere and truthful in
their speech to all men, whom they should love
with all their heart, attaching themselves particu
larly to the virtuous. If after having accomplished
their duties they still have energy left, they should
try to improve their minds by study and by acquiring
knowledge and wisdom.”
The advice which Confucius gives to sovereigns
is admirable. “ A prince should select his ministers
according to the promptings of his conscience,
having always the public good in view.
“ He must conform to the great law of duty, and
this great law of duty must be sought for in the
‘virtue of humanity,’ which is the source of love
for all men. This is why even a prince cannot
�21
dispense with the duty of correcting and perfecting
himself.”
“ All who govern empires or kingdoms have nine
invariable rules to know and to follow: to control
or perfect themselves, to revere the wise, to love
their parents, to honour the leading officials or
ministers of the State, to be in perfect harmony
with all other officials and magistrates, to treat and
protect the people as their children, to collect about
them the wise and skilful, to receive kindly those
who come from distant lands, and to treat as friends
all rulers under them.”
Confucius realized the power of doing good which
riches give. He says, however, “ Riches and honour
are the desires of men. Tf one cannot obtain them
by honest and fair means, they must be renounced.
Poverty and humble positions are what men hate
and despise. If one cannot escape these by honest
and fair means, one must submit to them.”
The expressions “the superior man” and “the
common man” occur repeatedly in the four classic
books. The definitions of them which Confucius
gives are clear,
“ The superior man is he who has equal goodwill
�22
towards all, and who is without egotism and
prejudice.
“ The common man is he who has only feelings of
egotism and is without a disposition kindly to all
men.
“ The superior man has equanimity and tranquility
of soul. The common man experiences continually
trouble and anxiety.
“ The superior man raises himself continually in
intelligence and in power of judgment, the man
without merit descends continually into further
ignorance and vice.
“ The superior man is influenced by a sense of
justice ; the common man by the love of gain.
“The superior man places equity and justice
above all else.”
As to the opinion which Confucius had of
himself, this is what he said on the subject. “If
I think of a man who unites saintliness to the
virtue of humanity, how can I dare to compare
myself with him 1 I only know that I strive to
practise these virtues without being disheartened
�23
and to teach, them to others without being dis
couraged or despondent.”
And elsewhere: “ The straight ways or principal
virtues of the superior man are three in number, and
these I have not yet been able to attain completely ;
the virtue of humanity which drives away sadness,
science which clears all doubts from the mind, and
manly courage which drives away fear.”
His disciples affirm that Confucius was completely
exempt from four things. He was without selfconceit, without prejudice, without obstinacy, and
without egotism.
Confucius, in spite of his profound love of
humanity, did not show towards the wicked that
excessive kindness which was taught by Lao-Tze,
his contemporary. The latter recommended the
doing of kindness to the good and to the wicked
without distinction. The good man, he said, should
be always the good man, no matter what the cir
cumstances may be.
Apropos of this, someone, remembering the
doctrine of Lao-Tze, said to Confucius, “What
should one think of a man who returns kindness for
injuries ? ” The philosopher replied, “ If one acts
�24
thus, how can one repay kindness itself ? One must
repay hatred and injuries by equity; and kindness
by kindness.” This reply appeals certainly to our
sense of justice.
Confucius, as a thoroughly practical man, only
occupied himself with what human intelligence is
capable of understanding, and always refused to
discuss metaphysics.
Still, he approved of rendering homage to Heaven,
but, perhaps, only because this was an ancient
custom.
One of his disciples asked one day how one should
serve the spirits and genii.
The philosopher replied, “ When one is not yet in
a fit state to serve men, how should one be able
to serve the spirits and genii ? ”
“ Let me ask you,” continued the disciple, “what
is death ?”
Confucius replied, “When one does not yet know
what life is, how should one know what death is ?”
Let us now make a rapid examination of the
political doctrines of Confucius, of which there is a
�25
form of resume in the Hiao-King (the sacred book
of filial piety), as translated by Leon de Rosny.
In the Hiao-King the predominant idea is the
omnipotence of the father. It requires the emperor
to give to his people an example of submission to
his mother, before whom he kneels publicly on
certain dates fixed by sacred rites.
However low and obscure may be the condition
of the father of a family, the son, even if promoted
to the highest office in the empire, is required to
show to him the respect due to a superior. A
simple peasant should be able without fear of the
slightest reprimand to box the ears of his son, even
if the latter should occupy the highest legal position,
if he should neglect to prostrate himself on meeting
him.
A great mandarin so punished should also suffer
the penalty of being degraded.
At the present time it happens every day that the
son of a peasant fills important offices, for State
employment is to be obtained by examinations in
which everyone may compete.
A son who has deserved well of his country may
obtain honorary titles for his ancestors.
�26
The fulfilment of the duties of filial piety is so
indispensable that in a family where all the sons
have been condemned to death, the youngest is
allowed to live in order that someone may be left to
tend the parents of the criminals.
Confucius said, “ Filial piety is the foundation of
virtue, from which springs all knowledge.” And
elsewhere, “ Do not fail to think of your ancestors,
and strive to copy their virtues.”
The legislation of China has always had as its
foundation the Confucian doctrine of filial pity.
One may add that the whole Chinese social life
since the time of the great moralist has had but this
one pervading sentiment.
To recapitulate, then, according to the political
doctrine of Confucius, the State is one great family,
of which the emperor is the head. The sovereign
claims the same rights from, and performs the same
duties towards the people as a father in regard to
his children.
This conception has given to China a political
stability, the equal of which one would search for in
vain elsewhere. That China has sometimes forgot
ten the words of its great teacher has been the cause
of the greatest part of its troubles.
�27
It happens in China, as elsewhere, that people do
not always conform strictly in practice to the
philosophic teaching or religion they accept. There,
as indeed everywhere, beautiful maxims are more
often on the lips than in the heart. It must be
remembered also that Buddhism and Taoism, both
much degenerated and full of superstitious practices,
unfortunately exercise great influence.
This is
especially the case with the ignorant, and they are
numerous. The pure philosophy of Confucius does
not satisfy them because they are incapable of
understanding all its beauty.
The extent to which the Chinese venerate their
ancestors is generally considered absurd by other
nations. But this sentiment is to be found more or
less developed in all nations, and it is well that this
should be so.
The comforts we enjoy, as well as our most pure and
keen intellectual pleasures, we owe, almost entirely,
to those who have preceded us. It is not we who
have thought of building houses, of making clothes,
of extracting from the hidden depths of the earth
coals and minerals. All, even to the fruits which
we eat, to the flowers which we admire, has been
invented, discovered, or perfected by our ancestors
more or less distant. Without the persistent work
�28
of generations who have preceded, us, we should
still live in a savage state, for our entire covering
we should have but hideous tattooing. If famine
should make itself felt we should offer to fiendish
gods disgusting human sacrifices, if, indeed, we did
not devour open-mouthed the still palpitating flesh
of vanquished enemies.
As regards things purely intellectual, for example,
the eternal principles of truth, of beauty, of good
ness, it is still to the philosophers of antiquity that
we owe the knowledge of them. It is then but
right that we should experience for these bygone
generations respect and gratitude.
Lastly, let us observe the complete difference
which exists between the doctrines of Confucius and
those of Buddha.
The degenerate Buddhism invites us to repose in
an eternal state of unconsciousness.
Confucius tells us to think above all of the
present life, and to minimize its sorrows and misery
by family respect and affection.
The following quotation is from Pauthier:—
“ If one may judge of the quality of a man and of
�29
the power of his doctrines by the influence they
have exercised on humanity, then one may, with the
Chinese, call Confucius the greatest teacher of men
which time has ever produced. In fact, never has
human reason been more worthily represented.
One is truly astonished to find in the writings of
Confucius the expression of such a high and virtuous
intelligence, and at the same time that of a civiliza
tion so advanced.”
We have seen that the political system of
Confucius is very simple. It rests entirely on filial
piety, and the State is but a great family whose
head is the sovereign.
We know also that his moral doctrine consisted
solely in perfecting oneself, in perfecting others, in
uprightness, in treating one’s enemies with justice,
and in loving all men as oneself.
This doctrine he did not expound as new, but as
the traditional opinion of the sages of antiquity,
which he had made it his mission to transmit to
posterity.
This mission he accomplished with
resolution, dignity, and perseverance, but not without
experiencing profound discouragement and sadness
beyond endurance.
“ This mission of teacher of the human race the
�Chinese philosopher accomplished, we say, to its full
extent, and in a manner very different from that of
any other philosopher of classic antiquity. His
philosophy did not consist in speculations more or
less vain, but was a philosophy above all things
practical, which extended to all conditions of life, to
all phases of social existence.
“ There is no doubt that one of the most noble and
gentle impressions of the soul is to be got from the
contemplation of this teaching, so distant in time
and yet so pure, of which humanity, whatever may
be its boasted civilization, may justly be proud.
“One cannot read the works of the two first
Chinese philosophers (Confucius and Mencius) with
out feeling oneself better, or at least strengthened
in the principles of truth and the practice of good,
without having a higher idea of the dignity of our
nature.”
�Association For The Harmonious
Development of Faculties.
The Committee will be pleased to receive
Subscriptions and Donations to help the Association
to carry out the objects for which it was founded,
i.e. to spread (by means of Pamphlets, Reviews,
Lectures, &c.), the principles of Ethics explained in
“ Common-Sense Ethics.”
The Annual Report and Balance Sheet will
be sent to all Subscribers, who are requested to
state whether their full names or initials are to
appear in it.
Cheques and Postal Orders to be made
payable to Prof. M. Deshumbert (Hon. Treasurer
and Secretary), Camberley, Surrey.
Copies of “ Common-Sense Ethics ” will be
forwarded by the Hon. Secretary, on application.
����
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Victorian Blogging
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Confucius : his life and doctrine
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Deshumbert, Marius
Perceval, E.M. (tr)
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Place of publication: London; Edinburgh; Oxford
Collation: 30 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Translated from the French. At head of title: Association for the Harmonious Development of Faculties. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Williams and Norgate
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1897
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N192
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Confucianism
Philosophy
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English
Ancient Chinese
Confucianism
Confucius
NSS
Philosophers
Philosophy