Ευριπίδης
Euripides
The
Glasgow Herald October 1924
Αρχαιογνωσία
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
Euripides
“Sophocles painted
men as they ought to be; Euripides painted them as the are.” So Aristotle, and
posterity confirms the verdict.
Criticism has
found fault with his innovations: his prologues, his deux ex machina, his
romanticism, his neglect of traditional convention; though it cannot denny that
the Medea is as great a tragedy, the Bacchae as splendid poetry, as the
Attic, or any stage, can show.
But it is not
for this that Euripides is a force in the twentieth century A.D., as he was a
force in the fifth century B.C. Aeschylus and Sophocles, absorbed, one in
speculative thought, the other in the perfection of his art, stand aloof from
us, as remote, as unrelated to our lives as the mountains of the stars. Their
themes and characters scarcely concern us.
Euripides
speaks our speech, he thinks our thoughts, has our griefs, our difficulties and
our doubts. Mutatis mutandis, when he wrote 24 centuries ago is true for us
today. Save for certain peculiarly Greek ideas – e.g., on slavery, on
friendship, on the place of women, on the φθόνος θεών, the jealousy of the gods –
his thought affects the opinions and the conduct of mankind. He speaks of life
and death, of age and youth, of marriage and divorce, of heredity and
education, of the individual, the family, and the community, of riches an
poverty, of peace and war, of women, of religion.
He can
exchange phronesis (φρόνησις)
for fantasy. For the individual he has one ideal, to be brave. His heroines,
Alcestis, Iphigenia, Polyxena, Macaria, have the same spirit.
In politics
he was an Athenian Democrat. His analysis of citizenship: “There are three classes of citizens; one, always grasping, always covetous
of more; a second, those who have nothing, not even the necessaries of life, a
menace to the State, envying the fortunate, threatening the wealthy, beguiled
by the tongues of evil demagogues; and the third, the middle class, save their
country, obeying the orders which the State ordains.”
On wealth and
war he has our own vain and saddening knowledge. He knows that “unrighteous riches should be let alone”
but he knows also that “wealth is a deity,
the most honoured, the most powerful among men.” He tells us “We all know how much better for men is peace than war; peace which is
dear to the Muses, and an enemy to woe, delighting in populous cities and
prosperity; but alighting these, we choose accursed war.”
In religion
Euripides was rationalistic and agnostic. He had not broken with the gods. With
the externals of the traditional creed he was out of sympathy.
In literature
Euripides is unmistakably a living voice. Dante heard it and Petrarch. Goethe
heard it, and his Iphigenia is his
tribute to the great Athenian. Racine heard it and made him his master, with
what success those who have seen Bernhardt in Phedre can justify. In England it came to Marlowe. It came to
Shakespeare in motif, figure, language. It came to Shelley, who translated his Cyclops. It came to Browning, who
translated his Alcestis, and put a “chorus
ending of Euripides” among the immortal things.
We revere
Aeschylus, we admire Sophocles, but we love Euripides. To the travelers of the
via tenebrosa vitae, he is no mountain-peak, no shining, distant star, but a
comrade’s face, a comrade’s voice upon the way – a great and friendly human
heart.
(αποσπάσματα
από ανυπόγραφο άρθρο)
The Glasgow Herald,
Saturday, October 18, 1924, [section: The Week-End Page], p.4.
( o τίτλος της εφημερίδος )
ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ
[ ανάρτηση 25 Δεκεμβρίου 2024 :
Ευριπίδης
Euripides
The Glasgow Herald
October 1924
Αρχαιογνωσία
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ
ΣΚΕΨΗ
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