The Theory of Greek Tragedy 17 
lucky or unhandy, but criminal as well and therefore obnoxious to 
correction and punishment. 
To take Sophocles, the maturest and clearest expression of 
Greek tragedy, as an example—his whole theatre seems to pre- 
suppose some universal and abstract principle of law and order, 
oor dyparta Kadady Oey voua, presiding over existence—a 
kind of moral police, to put it crudely—which provided automat- 
ically and of itself for the regulation of human affairs and for the 
execution and removal of disturbers, who, if suffered with im- 
punity, would unsettle the equilibrium of earthly things. Any 
deed, done in contravention of this principle or law, however 
innocent might be its motives, was essentially criminal, as involv- 
ing in fact a breach of the moral peace. Ignorance itself, like 
rectitude of intention, constituted no defense, though dramatically 
they both served to recommend the offender to the sympathies of 
the beholders—in short, to qualify him a tragic character; for 
otherwise his fate would have no particular interest—it would be a 
clear case of retribution, raising no doubt and occasioning no 
qualm. As for the remoter mystery between the law and the cul- 
prit’s conscience—with this Sophocles has little or nothing to do; 
he is content to leave such matters, as too high for him, between 
the knees of the gods. Only once, in Oedipus Coloneus, he at- 
tempts something like a vindication of their purposes. But as a 
general thing, what he is concerned for—and in this particular his 
preoccupation is sufficiently unlike ours to make its appreciation 
difficult—is to demonstrate the moral consistency of life as against 
a purely casual or mechanical coincidence and to assign to men’s 
actions specifically human and intelligible values of good and evil 
in place of the neutral and noncommittal attributions of right and 
wrong to their good or ill success— 
e 
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‘\ / > / 
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’ feed aon 
, > , / > X / 
péyas év TovTos Oeds, ode ynpdoxet. 
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