12 Hartley Burr Alexander 



Protagoras proclaiming " Man is the measure of all " but gives us 

 the obverse inscription, diminishing the world to mortal compass 

 rather than expanding the human to the Titanic. 



And so we get, through restraint and repression and the mastery 

 of self which these imply, that intense concern for " the things 

 of mortals " which has crowned with radiance the lyrics of the 

 Hellenes and given to their drama its immortal poignancy. Light 

 and power: and the light is the light of a wholly human love for 

 things human ; and the power is the power of a clear-seeing and 

 clear-choosing denial of what is below and what is above mortal 

 need. 



To bring the characterization to focus, I cannot do better than 

 quote two passages that seem somehow wonderfully to illustrate 

 this complex mode. And the first is to be the beautiful phrase 

 in the Ion of Euripides where Creusa even in her agonized out- 

 cry against divine injustice finds need to recognize the bright sun- 

 glory of the world : 



ffKOis p.01 xP va V X aLTav 

 fiapfiaipwi', e5r els k6\ttov$ 

 KpbKea TreraXa <pdpe<nv edpeirov 

 avdifciv xP vffavTav yy- 



Thou earnest to me, thy hair ablaze with gold, while I plucked into 

 my bosom yellow flowers, to bloom on my robes like golden mirrors. . . . 



And the second is to be the Aeschylean fragment from the Niobe: 



pAvos de&v yap ddvaros ov duipuv tpq., 

 oi/8 &v tl 6vwv ovS ixKnrevSwv &vots, 

 ov8' effTi flu/lbs oiide iraiwvlfeTai • 

 *p.bvov 5e Heida) daifidvwv airo<TTa.T€i l — 



which Murray has translated : 



Lo, one god craves no gift. Thou shalt not bend him 

 By much drink-offering and burnt sacrifice. 

 He hath no altar, hearkeneth to no song, 

 And fair Persuasion standeth far from Death. 



In the phrase from Euripides is poetic light, in this from 

 Aeschylus is poetic power. Neither quality is without parallel — 

 constant parallels — in other literatures. I have already given, as 



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