24 Prosser Hall Frye 



which he spares the honour of Phedre and allows himself to be 

 abused without accusing her. I call an infirmity the passion 

 which he suffers, in spite of himself, for Aricie, the daughter and 

 sister of his father's mortal enemies." 



Need I call attention, in passing, to the use of the terms in- 

 firmity and passion as confirming in themselves that view of the 

 Racinean tragedy which I have been developing, a view which 

 in so far I think to be consistent with the Greek? But this matter 

 apart, it is well nigh impossible to misinterpret Euripides' inten- 

 tion more egregiously than does this quotation. Hippolytus, " a 

 philosopher exempt from every imperfection " ! His own maker 

 would never recognize him. For if one thing is certain, from a 

 study not merely of Greek tragedy but of Greek thought in gen- 

 eral, it is that Euripides and every member of his audience must 

 have recognized the protagonist of Hippolytus as criminal — not 

 in the old elemental .^schylean sense, or yet in the majestic, 

 civic Sophoclean wise, but criminal, nevertheless, with respect to 

 one of the most fundamental laws for private man, to, irepl av- 

 OpoiTTov^ vo/jLL/xa, ouc gravc enough to be inscribed above the tem- 

 ple of the god at Delphi, the law of fit^hev a'yav or temperance, 

 which seems almost to cover and include the two other great 

 maxims of Greek wisdom, 'yvcodi aavrov and /car' avOpwirov 

 (^povel, Know thyself and Think as a mortal. A philosopher 

 without aco^poavvT} or prudence. What Greek would have called 

 such a mere mortal blameless? 



Now, this difference of sentiment is decisive, not only for the 

 two plays under discussion, but also for the ancient and modern 

 point of view at large. And the difference involves a double 

 change of feeling — one with regard to personal responsibility in 

 general and the other with regard to the virtue of temperance 

 more particularly. The fact is that the moderns have pretty 

 well lost the sense for the moral qualities of acts as such. Super- 

 Hcially it seems curious that with our brutal Hegelian worship 

 of the fait accom-pli it should be so. But this is the very point. 

 If we are willing to forgive success its most heinous crimes, it is 

 so because the deed itself appears to us without decisive moral 



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