322 



SOPHOCLES SORBONNE. 



we see the highest triumph of female tenderness. 

 Antigone, the wretched daughter of the wretched 

 (Edipus, and guilty of no crime but that of attach- j 

 ing her own fate to that of her father, is the only ! 

 being in Thebes who does not submit to Creon, 

 the new sovereign. Her heroism is of the highest 

 and most feminine character. Her brother Polyni- 

 ' -. who was slain before Thebes, in a single com- 

 li.u with his brother Eteocles, in which both fell, 

 and whose burial had been prohibited by Creon, j 

 owed a grave to his sister. After performing this 

 last office of affection with the tenderness of a wo- 

 man, but an unshaken firmness, she goes her sad 

 and solitary way to the cold, stony bed prepared 

 for her. According to Solger, the point of the 

 tragedy consists, not in the elevation of the heroine, ' 

 but in the conflict of divine and human laws. The : 

 King (Edipus, and (Edipus at Colonos, are parts of 

 one story ; and the tragic points in the history of 

 (Edipus are thus exhibited in a terrific double pic- 

 ture. These tragedies are founded on the principle 

 that man cannot escape his destiny, and that the 

 profoundest wisdom only draws the cords of fate 

 more tightly, till that almighty Power is appeased 

 by voluntary penance and humiliation. In the 

 former, a dreadful mystery is suddenly revealed, 

 while the wretched victim trembles to behold the 

 unwelcome light. The unconscious patricide, and 

 husband of his mother, as one veil after another 

 falls away, hurries back to the darkness, which has 

 been removed from around him, by tearing out 

 his eyes, and flees into miserable exile. The 

 counterpart of this moving picture is drawn in 

 the Oedipus at Colonos, weighed down by guilt and 

 age. The darker lines of the horrible event are 

 now softened by time. His crime Las been expiated 

 by long sufferings. In the grove of the avenging 

 goddesses, by whom the whole dreadful tissue had 

 been woven, his wretched wanderings end. (Edi- 

 pus finds at Colonos near the walls of Athens, in the 

 solitary abode of the Furies, rest and a grave. The 

 Trachinians is founded on the history of Hercules ; 

 Dejanira, in the excess of her love, becomes the 

 murderer of the hero who is taken, as it were, in 

 the snares of fate itself, like Agamemnon, only that, 

 in the latter case, the victim is more innocent than 

 Hercules, and, in the former, the murderer is more 

 guiltless than Clytemnestra. Philoctetes, the heir 

 of the weapons of Hercules, languished for years on 

 the desolate Lemnos, where he had been deserted 

 by the ungrateful Greeks during a magic slumber, 

 which, after every attack of pain, gave him some 

 relief. But fate at length pities him, and compels 

 his enemies to search for him, as it was decreed that, 

 without the bow of Hercules, Troy could not be 

 taken. This exposes him to new sufferings. Neop- 

 tolemus, the generous and worthy son of Achilles, 

 is appointed to rob him of his quiver, and thus com- 

 pel the defenceless Philoctetes to go against Troy. I 

 But the frank and honest Neoptolemus is incapable ' 

 of carrying on such a design; and Hercules now 

 appears bringing reconciliation, promising health, 

 and persuading Philoctetes to pardon the ingrati- 

 tude of the Greeks, and to comply with their re- 

 quest. The distinguishing characteristic of the 

 Greek drama is simplicity. Thence its precision 

 and perfection of form; thence its little external 

 ornament, the accuracy with which the characters 

 are defined, the finish of the colouring, the keeping 

 of the whole, and the perfection of the versification. 

 The unities of time and place are strictly observed ; 

 <-he plot is seldom intricate, but is skilfully con- 



trived, and the diction is lofty and pure. The 

 beautiful rather than the strange and awful, as in 

 ./Eschylus, than the tender, as in Euripides, is it* 

 predominant -feature. (See Drama) In all these 

 qualities, Sophocles excelled, and was therefore the 

 finest model of Grecian poetry. The characters of 

 Sophocles are undoubtedly the most perfect, dis- 

 tinct and individual that can be drawn, and, at the 

 same time, arrayed in all the charms of ideal repre- 

 sentation. His choruses have always been cele- 

 brated as the finest productions of dramatic poetry. 

 No tragic poet, in ancient or modern days, lias 

 written with so much elevation and purity of style. 

 The versification of Sophocles stands alone in dig- 

 nity and elegance, and his iambics are acknowledged 

 to be the purest and most regular. Of the modern 

 editions of his tragedies, the best are those of 

 Brunck (Strasburg, 1786, 2 vols., 4to.,and 4 vols., 

 8vo.; 1789, 3 vols.), and Erfurdt (a small edition, 

 continued by Hermann, Leipsic, 1809 25, 7 vols., 

 and a larger, 1802, 6 vols.). The tragedies have 

 been translated into English by Franklin and Pot- 

 ter. See Lessing's Leben des Sophocles; Jacob's 

 Character of Sophocles, in the Nachtrage zu Solyer, 

 4th vol.; and Solger's Nachlass (1828). 



SOPHONISBA. See Masinissa. 



SOPRANO, in Italian (discantus, Latin; le des- 

 sus, in French), in music, denotes the highest vocal 

 part, which is only sung by boys, women and cas- 

 trates, hence the name of sopranos, or sopranists, 

 applied to the last of the three. There is a great 

 difference in the voices of these three descriptions 

 of singers. That of boys has sometimes quite u 

 peculiar and affecting charm. According to tlu> 

 compass of the tones, the descant is divided into a 

 higher and lower soprano; second descant is equi- 

 valent to alto; but the tones of descant are sharper, 

 lighter, finer. The compass of a common descant 



is from c to c, and is quite sufficient for a voice of 

 the chorus. A high descant, necessary for the 



bravura song, can reach as high as f g; the lower 

 descant, also called mezzo soprano, reaches from g 



or a to g or a. Seldom, however, will there be 

 found a complete compass, with complete equality 



of the tones from g to c. Generally, the grace of 

 the more important middle tones is lost by the 

 violent exertion to produce the higher tones. To 

 the soprano belongs the melody. It is also capable 

 of variegated ornameats and runs, since the higher 

 tones are by nature more appropriate to these. 

 Since high tones depend on quick vibrations, high 

 voices are able to speak and sing quicker than deep 

 voices. For this reason, and in this view, the 

 soprano is the chief or leading part, to which the 

 composer must pay particular attention. Hence it is 

 highly important for him to understand thoroughly 

 the nature and capacity of the soprano voice, in 

 order to know what it can perform with ease, and, 

 without unfavourable exertion, what are the natural 

 divisions of the voice, &c. The same knowledge 

 is necessary for the singer. The violin clef is now 

 almost universally used instead of the descant clef. 



SORB APPLE; the fruit of the service tree. 

 See Service Tree. 



SORBONNE ; originally a college for the edu- 

 cation of secular clergymen at the university of 

 Paris, so called after Robert of Sorbon, in Cham- 

 pagne, a theologian of Paris, who founded it dur- 



