"Hath she gone away in flight?

For now must she or hide beneath the earth

Or lift herself with wings into wide air,
Not to pay forfeit to the royal house."

"Seeks she to kill me too?" he demands of the chorus. "Nay," they reply, "you know not the worst":

"The boys have perished by their mother's hand;
Open these gates, thou'lt see thy murdered sons.

Jason. Undo the bolt on the instant, servants there;
Loose the clamps, that I may see my grief and bane;
May see them dead, and guerdon her with death.”

But the enchantress has escaped him. She hovers over the palace, taunts him with her wrongs, mocks at his newborn love for the children he had consented to banish, and triumphs alike over her living and dead foes:

"Twas not for thee, having spurned my love,
To lead a merry life, flouting at me,
Nor for the princess; neither was it his
Who gave her thee to wed, Creon, unscathed
To cast me out of his realm. And now,

If it so like thee, call me lioness,

And Scylla, dweller on Tursenian plains;

For as right bade me, have I clutched thy heart."

-Mrs. Webster.

From the Hec'uba we extract the story of the death of Polyx'ena, who is sacrificed to the Gods that the Grecian host may obtain fair winds home from Troy; as Iphigeni'a was sacrificed for the same reason on their way thither. It is one of the most beautiful and pathetic pictures in the Athenian drama.

Pyr'rhus, the son of Achilles, dedicates the "pure crimson stream of virgin blood" to the shades of his father, prays for "swift passage homeward to the Grecian host," and draws his golden sword for the sacrifice.

"At his nod

The noble youths stepped forth to hold the maiden,

Which she perceiving, with these words addressed them: 'Willing I die; let no hand touch me; boldly

To the uplifted sword I hold my neck.

You give me to the gods, then give me free.'

Loud the applause, then Agamemnon cried:

'Let no man touch her;' and the youths drew back.
Soon as she heard the royal words, she clasped
Her robe, and from the shoulder rent it down,
And bared her snow-white bosom, beauteous
Beyond the deftest sculptor's nicest art.
Then bending to the earth her knee, she said –
Earth never yet has heard more mournful words –
If 'tis thy will, young man, to strike this breast,
Strike; or my throat dost thou prefer, behold
It stretched to meet thy sword.'"

-Potter.

Even the rugged Pyrrhus is touched with pity, pauses, and at last reluctantly,

“Deep in her bosom plunged the shining steel.

Her life-blood gushed in streams; yet e'en in death,
Studious of modesty, her beauteous limbs

She covered with her robe."

-Potter.

THE COMIC POETS OF GREECE.

THE Comedy of Greece had much the same origin as its Tragedy. As the latter grew out of the dithyrambic chorus, so the former developed from the phallic songs.

We, with our subdued habits, can scarcely imagine the intense delight and the wild spirit of mirth with which the country-loving Greeks enjoyed their rural festivals. Living in the boyhood of the world, as it were, they had all the exuberance of the boyish spirit, and were not tamed into sobriety by our weight of years and civilization.

At the harvest-home festival, after the harvest or vintage was over, a band of jolly revellers marched in wild procession, bearing merrily aloft the emblems of fertility, the leader singing a broad convivial song, while the rest joined in a boisterous chorus.

In this rustic rejoicing is visible the first gleam of the ancient comedy, the dramatic and choral portions being respectively represented by the song of the reveler and the accompanying dance and chorus.

The first development of the comic spirit, like that of the tragic, was in Attica. The songs of the wild processions were entirely extempore, and after shouting their jubilant hymns to Bacchus, they jeered the admiring crowd. with rude and biting jests, with a license and immunity which would scarcely have been accorded them under other circumstances.

At a later period, as an ancient chronicle relates, Susa'rion, a native of Meg'ara, was in the habit of carrying from

place to place, on carts, his company of buffoons, their faces being smeared with the lees of wine, instead of being concealed by masks, as in the tragic performance. To Susarion also is given the credit of organizing the rude buffooneries. of the country revelers into something approaching the dramatic form, and of originating Comedy, properly so called. To what extent, however, he deserved this credit, or what was the nature of his subjects, we are quite ignorant, though there is reason to believe that he adopted the metrical form of language, and, of course, a more orderly composition.

Eighty years passed before comedy made any further visible progress. Athens was then under the long tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons, who were little likely to permit a comic chorus to utter its free satires before the assembled people of Athens.

But Athens became once more free, and the comic spirit immediately revived. Nor had it remained quite unchanged in the hands of the rural Bacchanalians, to whom it had been confined. For when it again appeared its dramatic form was fully developed.

We are given the names of Myl'lus, Chion'ides, Mag'nes, and several others, as the revivers of the long-restrained art. At the same period Epichar'mus, Phor'mis and Dinol'ochus, of Sicily, commenced their career as comic poets in their native island, and, according to Aristotle, so far surpassed the writers of Attica as to be considered by all antiquity the founders of the regular Greek comic drama. We possess the titles of about thirty-five of the comedies of Epicharmus, which bore such names as The Banditti, The Chatterlings, The Pedagogues, The Potters, etc.

While these Sicilian writers were thus giving form to the Dorian comic drama, the old Attic comedy was rapidly developing in Athens, and in the hands of three successive

dramatists, Crati'nus, Eu' polis and Aristophanes, it reached its height of perfection.

Of this first school of comedy the characteristic feature is personality. It is totally unlike modern comedy, being loose in structure and incomplete in plot; and depending for its effect on ludicrous situations, satirical attacks on the vices, and witty allusions to the follies of the day. Much of the humor depends on practical jokes, and of the wit on representation and ridicule of real personages. From these virulent attacks no one was safe. Not only public characters were assailed, but private as well. Alike the secrets

of domestic life, and the faults of the public administration, were fair game for these unsparing critics. No man, however virtuous and patriotic, no law, however time-honored, no leader, however popular and powerful, was secure from the biting sarcasm, the abuse and slander of these selfconstituted censors.

Fostered as the free spirit of comedy was by the delight it afforded, and the patronage it received from a sovereign people, who were keenly alive to every witty allusion and stroke of satire, it neither spared the vices nor flattered the follies of its patrons. Like those of the court fool in the Middle Ages, its most biting jests were received with good humor, and welcomed by its supporters, even though themselves might feel the sting of these satires.

Yet, despite this popular favor, its extreme personality eventually provoked the interference of the law. But during the reign of the Old Comedy, the poet's will was a law unto himself, and, to a great extent, a controlling force with the people.

Crati'nus, the first of these three dramatists, was born in Athens, 519 B.C. Of his personal history we only know that he was past sixty-five years of age before he commenced writing comedies, and that out of twenty-one plays offered, he gained nine prizes. Otherwise he was noted for