THE GREEKS AND BROWNING 399 



made in the treatment of the same situation. In Goethe's 

 drama Iphigenia could not be false to her own ideals or un- 

 truthful to Thoas, her king and preserver. Also in Goethe's 

 version Orestes cannot deceive by uttering a false word. He 

 exclaims to Iphigenia, " Between us let there be Truth!" 



The proposal of Electra to the two friends Orestes and 

 Pylades, to entrap Hermione by falsehood, murder Helen, 

 and hold the virgin for hostage as a means of saving their own 

 lives, is not only considered a laudable stratagem worthy of 

 applause, but it brings down upon Electra the weighty mantle 

 of Orestes' words, "O thou that hast indeed the mind of a 

 man, but a form among women beautiful, to what a degree art 

 thou- more worthy of life and death ? " 



Stratagem was the keynote of the situation, and a moral 

 standard where cunning and lying were tolerated was also 

 accompanied by a lower estimate of woman. The chorus 

 laments, "Women were born always to be in the way of what 

 may happen to men to the making of things unfortunate." 

 That woman was made to feel this of herself, is mentioned 

 more than once by the old tragedians. In Ion, Creusa laments, 

 "For women's condition is a difficult one among men, and the 

 good being mixed up with the evil, we are objects of hatred. 

 So unhappy are we by nature." 



Inasmuch as the Greek notion of Truth up to this point 

 includes belief in the ethical necessity of true speaking and the 

 binding qualities of an oath and true living where the con- 

 ditions of life- motives are not complex, it also includes the set- 

 ting aside of Truth when circumstances according to the Greek 

 method of justice demand vengeance or revenge, in warfare, 

 and for other reasons, where Truth is not considered expedient. 

 Also hospitality, so strong a Greek characteristic, would take 

 precedence to Truth, as illustrated in the situation between 

 Admetus and Hercules in Euripides' "Alkestis." 



Browning nowhere approvingly considers setting Truth aside 

 for expediency. As a seeker after Truth he starts on the quest 

 with the clear understanding that he will carefully and con- 

 scientiously give to the world the details of his search and his 

 conclusions on the problems concerning life and death, and 



