SWINBURNE S TRAGEDIES. 203 



so. The idea and the form in which it naturally embodies 

 itself, mutually sustaining and invigorating each other, 

 cannot be divided without endangering the lives of both. 

 For in all real poetry the form is not a garment, but a body. 

 Our very passion has become metaphysical, and speculates 

 upon itself. Their simple and downright way of thinking 

 loses all its savour when we assume it to ourselves by an 

 effort of thought. Human nature, it is true, remains 

 always the same, but the displays of it change ; the habits 

 which are a second nature modify it inwardly as well as 

 outwardly, and what moves it to passionate action in one 

 age may leave it indifferent in the next. Between us and 

 the Greeks lies the grave of their murdered paganism, 

 making our minds and theirs irreconcilable. Christianity 

 as steadily intensifies the self-consciousness of man as the 

 religion of the Greeks must have turned their thoughts 

 away from themselves to the events of this life and the 

 phenomena of nature. We cannot even conceive of their 

 conception of Phoibos with any plausible assurance of 

 coming near the truth. To take lesser matters, since the 

 invention of printing and the cheapening of books have 

 made the thought of all ages and nations the common pro 

 perty of educated men, we cannot so dis-saturate our minds 

 of it as to be keenly thrilled in the modern imitation with 

 those commonplaces of proverbial lore in which the chorus 

 and secondary characters are apt to indulge, though in the 

 original they may interest us as being natural and charac 

 teristic. In the German-silver of the modern we get 

 something of this kind, which does not please us the more 

 by being cut up into single lines that recall the outward 

 semblance of some pages in Sophocles. We find it cheaper 

 to make a specimen than to borrow one. 



&quot; CHORUS. Foolish who bites off nose, his face to spite. 



OTJTIS. Who fears his fate, him Fate shall one day spurn. 



CHORUS. The gods themselves are pliable to Fate. 



OUTIS. The strong self-ruler dreads no other sway. 



CHORUS. Sometimes the shortest way goes most about. 



OUTIS. Why fetch a compass, having stars within ? 



CHORUS. A shepherd once, I know that stars may set 



