24 LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



the ' Choephoroi,' or the ( Eumenides.' There is nothing to 

 compare with it in the ' Antigone ' or ' Electra.' Even the 

 suffering of the blind QEdipus falls short of it. He lived years 

 after the climax of his tragedy had come and gone. In the 

 < Prometheus Bound ' the hero is too much of a god. His 

 sufferings are too unlike our own to touch us much. The 

 misery of Philoctetes is less ; his pain was not fatal, and his 

 grief was chiefly due to his abandonment by the army. The 

 grief of Ajax is great, and with good cause ; madness is a 

 heavy curse, yet his suffering under a sense of disgrace is a 

 small thing compared with this prostration of the mighty He- 

 racles. Some may think the situation in ' CEdipus King ' 

 equally tragic, but many of the incidents which fill the mind 

 of the son of Laius with horror leave our minds untouched, 

 whereas we feel every suffering of Heracles to be pain now. 

 Modern tragedies are purposely omitted from comparison, not 

 because they are too strong. 



It is clear that before Heracles can be brought on the stage, 

 dying, the audience must be strongly moved. The play could 

 not begin with this scene. Sophocles does not as a preparation 

 show us Heracles putting on the poisoned vest ; this would 

 look like a juggling trick. Heracles' actions immediately before 

 meeting his fate are not such as to awaken sympathy or any 

 tragic emotion, so that our author is well advised in not pre- 

 senting his hero until he is an object of compassion. Deianira's 

 death is made to serve as a fit prelude, and, with the scenes 

 leading to it, constitutes a great tragedy, ending where the 

 other begins. As Heracles' tragedy is that of the great men of 

 the world, a typical tragedy, so Deianira's fate shows one of 

 the typical tragedies of women one which, when seen, will 

 move all women till humanity ends. 



The hero's wife is a true woman and true wife, commanding 

 all our sympathy from first to last. She perishes through her 

 simplicity and love ; yet her simplicity is queenly, and her 

 love nobly placed. Some might say she fell through jealousy ; 

 but this feeling as shown by Sophocles is so refined, so free 

 from all anger, so just, that her jealousy is almost sweeter 

 than the love of other women. Heracles sends lole, a young 

 and beautiful captive, to his home, proposing to make her 



