34 LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



Mark with what skill our interest is conciliated for him 

 before he comes. His misdeeds lie in the background, although 

 the very cause of the tragedy. We hear of him as a young man 

 winning Deianira, as her protector against the centaur and for 

 many years her kind husband. The chorus sings of him as the 

 mighty conqueror. In their youthful minds his exploits are 

 all glorious. Even if in this matter of GEchalia and lole he be 

 to blame, the power of that unmatched deity, Cypris, excuses 

 him both to the herald and to the bevy of girls. Now, when 

 he comes he is in agony, and we feel that he is more sinned 

 against than sinning. It is left to Heracles himself io make the 

 claim that his labours had the conscious end of freeing Hellas 

 from every monstrous thing, that living he ' gave punishment to 

 wrong,' that he had ' cleansed the world from harms.' 



Assuredly this is one of the greatest tragedies of the world. 

 If this be not universally acknowledged, the cause lies in the 

 fact that it is more a play and less a poem than such works as 

 the ' Agamemnon ' or the l QEdipus at Colonus.' In reading a 

 play we are all apt to miss the proper point of view. If we 

 read the speech of Hyllus as intended to exhibit his suffering in 

 consequence of his father's death, we shall perhaps think it 

 frigid. If, as we read it, we think of Deianira listening, we 

 shall see that no more terrible torture could be inflicted than 

 this slow speech, missing no detail of fact. Sophocles cares 

 little what we think of Hyllus, but through Hyllus' speech he 

 wrings our soul for Deianira, the most lovable woman of Greece. 



One object of this article has been to draw attention to the 

 extraordinary merits of some Greek plays as dramas fit for 

 representation on the stage, and to insist that while read they 

 should be conceived as actions occurring before us. Surely 

 the object of a translator should be the same as that of his 

 author. ./Eschylus and Sophocles meant, above all, to write good 

 plays fit to be heard and understood by multitudes. Style and 

 philosophy, religious teaching and lyric art were all means to 

 this one end. Their object was to depict by these means 

 heroic men and women, so as to move a large audience. 

 We think that no English translator of zEschylus has as yet 

 given a version fit for this purpose, also that the task is a 

 worthy one and not impossible. 



