Evening Star Newspaper, December 4, 1927, Page 76

. (Continued from Third Page.) or knew to build a house against | the sun vith wicketed sides, wooderaft knew, &But lived like silly ants beneath ! the ground m hollow caves unsunned. . came to them c | &%o steadfast sign of Winter or of i 3 Spring 3 Flower-perfumed, nor of Summer < full of fruit, But blindly and lawlessly they did all thin; Tntil I taught them how the stars do rise | And set in mystery, and devised | for them Number, the phies, The synthesis of letters, and be- sides, The artificer of all things, memor | That sweet musemother. 1 W first to yoke i The servile beasts in couples car- rying An heirdom of man’s burdens on their backs. 1 joined to chariots steeds that loved the bit | They champ at—the chief pomp of | golden ease. And none but I o The seaman’s chario on the brine ; With linen wings, and I—O miser- able! Who did devise for these arts, Have no device left now to save myself, : (Mrs. Browning's translation.) AT ok nor any There inducer of philoso- ated ships, . wandering mortals all | For just as in Hebrew story Eve| | The potished style | iudgment. the “Four Hundred” ruled he was made a membet of the provisional government. He came of a rich fam- ily, and could not bear ths popular incompetence of such knaves as Creon. He despised the trading cla slowly displacing the lando whom his family belonged. so evil as money,” he s grew to be current among men. This lays cities low; this drives men from | their homes; this trains and warp honest_souls till they set themselve to works of shame: this teaches folk to practice villainies and to know | every godless deed” (Antigone 296f) He could afford to despise wealth, as he had considerable of it himself. * ¥ ok &k Given riches and noble birth, Soph- ocles was marked out for the classic style, ainst the romantic | wellnigh sociali Buripides, whose mother sold veg °s in the street the daughter of te more care. aubert more Voltaire more than Rousseau, Anatole vefully than Romain Sophocles is the est of Greek dramatists in the matter of form, symmetry and sim ity of structure, pur> beauty of thought and speech. The sure in- stinet of the almost primitive - s here replaced by reflective per- | schylus did right without . said Sophocles. The fine the I serenity, the in- tensity of feelin ned within measured utterance wh plays make Sophocles the ha of Pheidias in sculptur Pericles in statesmanship, and in_philosophy. He wrote 100 plays. of which seven | remain; if these reveal his greatness, leisure: so Turgeniev w fuily than Dostoievsk carefully than Balzac, was punished for seeking knowledge, 80 Prometheus is denounced by Zeus| for bringing down to the earth the| holy fire which, in primitive belief,| belonged only to the gods, and to| expiate his crime (when s not | knowledge been a crime, and truth| a heresy?) he is chained, at Zeus'| command, to a rock on the heights of | the Caucasus. | The whole earth mourns with him:| “There is a _cry in the waves of the sea as they fall together, and a groan- | ing in the deep; a wail comes up| from the cavern realms of death, and ! the springs of the holy rivers sob with the anguish of pity.” All the| nations send their sympathy to this| political prisoner, and counsel him | to remember that suffering belongs to all: *Grief walks the earth and sits down at the foot -of each by turns.” But they do nothing. Oceanus advises him to yield: “Do not spurn against the pricks, seeing that who | reigns reigns by cruelty instead of right.” And the Chorus speaks scornfully of the humanity for whose sake he suffers. *“Nay, thine was a hopeless sacrifice, O beloved. Speak— ‘what help shall there be, and where? Didst thou not see the race of me how little in effort and energy, drea: ers bound in chains? Such fruit plucked from the love of man.” But Prometheus does not forget that he is the son of a Titan, with divinity in his veins (perhaps he is another form of the recurring myth of the crucified god?); he holds out bravely, and as one who knows the future, taunts Zeus by prophesying his death. Zeus demands to know at what hour and by what hand he is to die; unanswered and scorned, he sends an eagle to tear out Prome- theus’ heart. (So foresight and an- ticipation consume us here, as in Genesis and Ecclesiastes knowledge is evii) Then comes the herald Hermes with the last threat of Zeus: Prometheus shall be torn into pieces by the eagle, and buried in the dark- ness of the earth. And as the light- ning plays about him and the thunder crashes wildly, Prometheus stands his ground, bloody but unbowed, loving Justice more than life, and more than the greatest god. So the drama ends. This is the “grand style” par excellence; a titanic energy of imagery and phrase, a lofty nobility of design and even of de- tail. “The other productions of the Greek tragedians,” as Schlegel says, “are so many tragedies; but this is Tragedy herself.” No wonder that Aristophanes, when, in the Frogs, he tells how Eschylus and Euripides contested for supremacy in the drama, represents one phrase of the older man tipping the scales against a score by the younger man; “the very earth shakes as /Eschylus’ lines advance.” Never since has the great struggle between knowledge and su- perstition, between enlightenment and obscurantism, between genius and dogma, been pictured more power- fully or lifted to a loftier reach of symbol and utterance. The Prome- theus is one of the high places in the literature of the world. xa % Only legend can tell us of the later years of Eschylus. He seems to have reverted to the mystical religion that filled the atmosphere of Eleusis, the city of his birth; and in a play known 10 us merely in fragments, and called | Prometheus Unhound. he makes the | great hero repent at last and ask | pardon of relentless Zeus; Shelley might be forgiven for feeling that a new drama on the theme was neces- sary. Perhaps Alschylus was like Job, and doubted only to believe again; it is a pleasant denouement. Only with Euripides was drama to re. peat the development of philosophy, and dare to ask questions which no theology could answer. In his last vears the old dramatist knew the bitterness of being super- seded; the young and fortunate Sophocles won prize after prize from him. So /Eschylus left Athens and went to live in Sicily. A pitiless legend tells how an eagle, mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a tortoise on it, killing him. But it makes little dif- ference how he died; he had survived to 69, and had lived more lives than one; and he had accomplished more for Greek drama than the subtle | Euripides would do or the flawless Sophocles. * ¥ X Sophocies. “The natural gifts of Sophocles,” | said Bulwer Lytton, “were the rarest | re bestows on man—genius | Consider the good for- | tue of a man <o physically splendid | an animal as to be famed in his youth | for comeliness and strength and win- ner of the double prize so praised by Plato, for wrestling and music; and | yet mentally so gifted as to become thé most popular dramatist of his time, to triumph again and again over ZBschylus and Euripides, to write a | great and successful play at the age | of 87, and to die universa at the age of 8. Look at the remains | which time left us of the busts and statues made of Sophocles, and see, even in age, the fine vigorous body, the strongz face bespeaking the calm, clear mind. Here is Greek in- d Greek art. and perha m, too, at their summit. born in 495 B.C..at a_ pretty hamlet near Athens called Colonus; he never tired describing the beauty of his native place; amid its groves, sacred to the Eumenides, he pictured With sad pleasure the derings of the blind and fallen GEdipus. He grew up with Athens, shared in her many-sided life, made friends of Pericles and Herodotus, and plaved for a time an active part in public affairs. In the vear 440 he was made one of the ten Athenian generals chosen to lead an_expedition inst Samos; it is true that Pericles gently suggested to him. later, that he was a better poet than general; but it is remarkable enough that a poet was thought of at all in such a connection and indicates that Athenian writers differed from modern intellectuals. Like Socrates, Sophocles sided with let imagination conceive his At the age of 25 he exhibited h tragedy: at 27 he won his first prize: whereupon the defeated went off in a huff to Ni vear Sophacles was un ter in the Theater of Dionysus: was 20 times victorious, and never received less than the second award:| his last prize came to him 60 years after his first, slay his | he encounte; | which is four What str is the appea ps moralist. Sophocles merely on representing a situation, but on seeing ¢ with such inward sympathy that| every man seems right while he speaks. So in J we find no em: phasis upon mere physical deeds; what lures Sophocles is the study of mad- The goddess Athene has mnde Ajax insane in punishment for his scorn of her is not the first time in literature that we find_the gods mere inhuman | than man. Enraged by ths award of Achilles’ arm to Odysseus, Ajax goes | forth to kill Agamemnon and Mene- | laus, as responsible for the award: | but, like Quixote, he attacks instead, in | his’ delirium. a' flock of oxen ana | sheep. Defeated. he resolves on| suicide, and rejects with Hamletlike | brooding the pleadings of his wife: Thou vexest me too much. Know- est thou not. That T no more am debtor to ihe isaf hut ntent Iramatic part gods. That I should do them service?” So he goes off alone with his sword, | and wanders mad by the sea. Come and look on me, O Death, O Death—and yet yonder world I shall dwell with enough with thee: And thee I call, thou light of golden day, | Thou Sum, who drivest on thy glorious car, Thee for this last more again. O Light! O sacred land that was my home! O Salamis! where father’s heart; Thou _glorious Athens, kindred race: Ye streams and rivers here, and Troia’s plains, To you that fed my lite I bid fare- well; This last, last word does Ajax speak to you: All else I speak in Hades to the dead. 5 (Falls on his sword and dies). * ok % % in thee, speak time, never stands my with thy This is still in the romantic-heroic | mood; not till we come to Sophocles’ | masterpiece do we reach the summit of his art and thought. (Bdipus Tyran- nus ((Edipus Rex, King (Edipus the most famous of all Greek plays: imitated by Caesar, Lucullus, Seneca, Corneille, Voltaire, Dryden: and taken | with almost literal homage as the In- spiration of a currently fashionable psychology. On the stage its impres- sive opening prepares the reader for great things: a throng of citizens— men, women, boys, girls before the doors of (Edipus’ Palace in Thebes, holding boughs of laurel and olive as signs of supplication. A plague has fallen upon the city, and the people have come to implore that something be done to appease the in- | ni infants—sits |/ THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. 0. DECEMBER 4, satiable gods. Q3dipus meanwhile has sent Creon to seek guidance from the oracle at Delphi; Creon returns to say that according to the oracle the plague will leave Thebes only with the assas- | sination of Laius, its former king. This is a perfect instance of that method which Horace advised, of plunging in medias res, beginning a play or a tale with some dramatic episode, and bring in the preparatory information later on. Sophocles had the advantage that his audience knew the story; for the legend of Laius, (Bdipus and the Sphinx was part of the folk-lore of the-Greeks. An oracle had told Laius and his queen. Jocasta, that they would have a son who would father and marry his mother. For the first time in history two wrents wanted a girl: but the son me; and to avoid fulfilment of the acle he was exposed on the moun- tains after the delicate Greek fashion of controlling population. There a shepherd found him, called him (Edipus from his swollen feet, and ve him to the King and Queen of Corinth, who reared him as their son. e Edipus learns, again cle, that he is destined to kill his father and to marry his mother. He flees at once from Cor- inth, thinking so to leave his parents at a distance. meets an old man, and kills him; he does not it is his own father. N s the Sphin creature with the face of a woman, the il of a lion and the wings of a bird, and hears her famous riddle: “What is that ooted, three-footed and two-footed?” The destroved all who could not answer; and the ter- rified Thebans had made a solemn vow to have as their next king the man who could solve the riddie: for the Sphinx had agreed to commit suicide as soon as the answer came. Gsdipus replied: “Man; for 2 child he crawls on four dult he walks on two, and a man he adds a rane." There must have heen goodly eclement of merc Sphinx, for the answer wa as correct, and the Sphinx plunged ath. The Thebans hailed Qidipus and when Laius failed to veturn they made the voung man king. By’ the custom of the land the new ruler mar- ried the former quee four chil Grown up, from the o with him know that ng Thebes n old ' Antigone, Nothing could be more tragic than th> dawning upon the mind of (Edipus that he is the murderer of ather and the hushand of his mother. J a herself refuses to believe it: it is only a mad dream “It hath been the lot of many men in dreams,” she says. summarizing Freud, “to think themselves partner. of their mother's bed. But he N most easily through life to whom these things become trifles.” . 980f). When she realizes who G3dipus Kills herself; and CEdipus, horror and remorse, gouges out his own ecyes, leaves Thebes with only Antigone to help him. * * In another play—CEdipus at Co- lonus—we see the blind exile bent over his daughter 'm. living out a bitter old age by begging his br At last he enters the sacred grove, for- bidding his daughter to follow him and he does not return. What form of death He died knows no man * * * But either some one whom the gods had sent i or else the byss of earth In friendly mood had opened wide Without one pang. man was led With naught to mourn not leave the world As worn with pain and sickne but his en If any ever w: And so the for—did s, was wonderful, 1. 1622f). Here again, as in all Greek tragedy, the theme the hereditary punish- | ment of crime: the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. phocles, conservative though he — = Christmas Gift Sure to Please Give the most practical of all gifts—a wrist watch for her or for him. 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Indeed the tragedy is that man, so great, should seem =o helpless; it would be a lesser evil if man himself were nuti hegins to doubt the justice of it. and at times he speaks with a pessimism as dark as Euripides: Only to gods in heaven Comes no old age, nor death of anything; All else is turmoiled by our master, Time. The earth's strength fades and manhood’s glory fades; Faith dies, and unfaith like a flower. And who shall find in seats of men ; Or secret places of his own heart's love Goethe to Heini. In each nation the | brought his father to One wind blow true forever? road seems to go from belief to unbe-| charge of financial (Edipus at Colonus 11. 607€) |jief, from hope to wondering doubt:| Sophocles offered no Man, in this dark philosophy, is a | religion as some one | pia as chiliren, and a as for tired men. so like a god. Hence the terrible * Kk K lines at the end of G3dipus Rex—that no man should be counted happy until he is dead. Sophocles hopes these ills | will be remedied, and counsels resis- nation, like that German Sophocles Goethe to Heine. In each nation the tibule to the rebellious sm of Eurpides—as Job led E: his “old age, he hecame with the hefaira Theoris, son by her. fearing (according to an tale) that the poet would his wealth to Theoris’ blossoms the open Waskington’s Leading Furriers sent. BIRTHDAY SALE! 20 Sealine (dyed Coney),Kid Car- acul and’ Krim- mer Paw Coats 45 Calfskin, Car- acul, Sealine (dyed Coney), French Seal and Snow Flaked Weasel Coats formerly $95 to $150 50 Women’s firest quality Hudson Seal Coats. For- merly sold for $450. Sizes, 36 to 46. formerly $125 to $175 Fur Trimmed Cloth Coats at Arniversary Prices! Coats that are different, trimmed with personally selected ZIRKIN FURS and heavily interlined. LOW- EST PRICES OF THE YEAR DURING THIS SALE. 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