LITERARY PAPERS 
398 
justice, and a crop of sycophants at Athens made their liv¬ 
ing by levying blackmail, which their victims were afraid to 
refuse. 
From the dramatic writers passages bearing on Truth in 
its relations with practical life may be culled. Many of these 
passages refer specifically to Truth. In the words of Poly- 
nices, “The speech of Truth is simple and those things which 
are just need not wily interpretation; for they have energy 
themselves; but the unjust speech, unsound in itself, re¬ 
quires cunning preparation to gloze it.” The writings of the 
dramatists besides are replete with passages containing the 
truths of Truth in sympathy with much present-day thought. 
Imperfect though words be to express the full purport of the 
idea, nevertheless, in the mouth of Eteocles Euripides shows 
what power he thought they might possess uttered in Truth’s 
cause. Eteocles addressed his mother Jocasta thus: “But 
he ought to effect a reconciliation not by arms, for speech 
does everything which even the sword of the enemy could 
do.” 
Many other passages might be pointed out in which occur 
beautiful eulogies to Truth, showing the dawn in the Greek 
mind of the idea of universal Truth. 
But too often a feeling that truth is inexpedient is manifested, 
where revenge, hostility, or the relations of the sexes are con¬ 
cerned. Falsehood and deception have full play to gain some 
other end considered good in itself. Again, some truths were not 
considered decorous to tell. Electra pleads with Orestes that 
it is not becoming a virgin to tell why her most unholy mother 
slew her husband Agamemnon. 
Deception and falsehood are often practiced in Greek drama 
in connection with the preservation of the life or the prestige 
of an individual; apparently untruthfulness in such a cause 
was not opposed to the ethics of the time. Iphigenia by the arts 
of Ulysses, under pretense of being wedded to Achilles, was 
drawn to Aulis. Later on, her escape from Tauris was ef¬ 
fected by a plot against her preserver. Even Pylades in the 
Greek play concealed the identity of himself and companion. 
It is interesting to note just here what an advance Goethe has 
