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George Gilbert Aimé Murray. Euripides and His Age
Euripides and His Age
Table of Contents
Introductory. CHAPTER I
Sources for a Life of Euripides: Memories remaining in the Fourth Century: Youth: Athens after the Persian War: the great Sophists
CHAPTER II
What is a Greek Tragedy? Euripides' early Plays up to 438 b.c., "Alcestis" and "Telephus"
CHAPTER III
Beginning of the War: the Plays of Maturity from "Medea" to "Heracles"
CHAPTER IV
Full Expression: the Embittering of the War: Alcibiades and the Demagogues: the "Ion": the "Trojan Women"
CHAPTER V
After 415: Euripides' last years in Athens: from "Andromeda" and "Iphigenia" to "Electra" and "Orestes"
CHAPTER VI
After 408: Macedonia: "Iphigenia in Aulis": "Bacchae"
CHAPTER VII
The Art of Euripides: Traditional Form and Living Spirit: the Prologue, the Messenger, the "God from the Machine"
CHAPTER VIII
The Art of Euripides, continued: The Chorus: Conclusion
CHAPTER IX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK NAMES
INDEX
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George Gilbert Aimé Murray
Published by Good Press, 2020
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In any case this is the kind of picture we have of Euripides in his last years; a figure solitary, austere, with a few close intimates, wrapped up in living for what he would call "the service of the Muses," in music, poetry and speculation; capable still of thrilling his audiences with an intensity of tragic emotion such as no other poet had ever reached; but bowed with age, somewhat friendless, and like other solitaries a little strange in his habits; uncomprehendingly admired and hated, and moving always through a mist of half-envious, half-derisive laughter. Calvus et calvinisia—one is reminded, amid many differences, of the quaint words in which William the Silent describes his own passage from youth to age, till the brilliant Catholic prince, leader of courts and tourneys, sate at last in his lonely council chamber "bald and a Calvinist." Let us try to trace the path of life which led him to this end.
He was the son of Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides—such names often have alternative forms—who is said to have been a merchant. His mother, Cleito, the supposed greengrocer, was, according to Philochorus, "of very high birth." He was born at Phlya, a village in the centre of Attica. The neighbourhood is celebrated still for its pleasant trees and streams in the midst of a sunburnt land. In Euripides' time it was more famous for its temples. It was the seat of Demeter Anesidora (Earth, Upsender of Gifts), of Dionysus of the Blossom, and the Dread Virgins, old-world and mysterious names, not like the prevailing gods of the Homeric mythology. Most famous of all, it possessed the mystery temple of Erôs, or Love. Owing to the researches of recent years, these mysteries can now be in their general nature understood. They are survivals of an old tribal society, in which all the boys as they reached maturity were made to pass through certain ordeals and initiations. They were connected both with vegetation and with re-birth after death, because they dated from a remote age in which the fruitfulness of the tribal fields was not differentiated from the fruitfulness of the flocks and the human families, and the new members born into the community were normally supposed to be the old ancestors returning to their homes. By Euripides' day such beliefs had faded into mystical doctrines, to be handled with speechless reverence, not to be questioned or understood, but they had their influence upon his mind. There were other temples too, belonging to the more aristocratic gods of heroic mythology, as embodied in Homer. Euripides was in his youth cup-bearer to a certain guild of Dancers—dancing in ancient times had always religious associations about it—who were chosen from the "first families in Athens" and danced round the altar of the Delian Apollo. He was also Fire-bearer to the Apollo of Cape Zôstêr; that is, it was his office to carry a torch in the procession which on a certain night of each year met the Delian Apollo at Cape Zôstêr, and escorted him on his mystic path from Delos to Athens.
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