16 PH Frye 
of existence on the planet—from such sources all tragedy indiffer- 
ently must draw its materials, which are much more elemental 
and simple than the comparatively artificial and complex interests 
of comedy. But it is true that the Greeks and Shakespeare are 
alike in looking at these things far more piercingly and nakedly 
than the poets of any other nation. They see the facts more 
nearly and distinctly, through fewer veils and conventions. And 
there is, in consequence, a kind of unflinching realism about their 
representation of the tragic data which carries them a long way in 
company. Parricide, matricide, suicide, infanticide, rape, incest, 
insanity, sacrilege—these formed the stock in trade of the one as 
of the other. But such a likeness is more or less superficial, 
touching the matter rather the spirit. It is the resolution, the 
accommodation between experience and conscience, which is vital. 
And here, it must be acknowledged, the Athenian takes leave of 
the Elizabethan. While the latter was content to exhibit “the 
weary weight of all this unintelligible world” with hardly more 
than a sentimental palliative for its attocities, the former boldly 
attacked the problem involved in the frustration of human hap- 
piness, and by reconciling the discrepancy at its root, succeeded 
in allaying the spectators’ apprehensions for the miscarriage of 
justice, at the same time relieving and relaxing the passions ex- 
cited by such a spectacle in a manner to suggest the Aristotelian 
metaphor of a moral catharsis. 
Specifically, his problem, as he saw the riddle of the universe re- 
flected in the legendary and heroic mischances with which he 
worked, was this: why should an act which is performed with vir- 
tuous or blameless intent and which is to all appearance good and 
meritorious in itself, work irreparable mischief for its author? 
In order to answer this question he undertook to show, or rather 
to convey the impression, that such an act, whatever its motives, 
was in reality committed in violation of moral law and that so 
far from being innocent or even indifferent, it was, as a matter of 
fact, subversive of order and discipline. In other words, it was 
not merely inexpedient but wicked and on that account properly 
liable to disaster ; while its perpetrator himself was not merely un- 
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