ramatic output. Under the auspices of neither will the great
leavening middle mass of our people be put in touch with the stage to
the mutual advantage of the community and the drama.

* * * * *

THE PLAY READER
BY HELEN A. CLARKE

I

We are told by many critics that Euripides is not so great as AEschylus
or Sophocles, yet he seems to be on the whole the most beloved of the
Greek dramatists. As Porson said of him, 'We approve Sophocles more than
Euripides, but we love Euripides more than Sophocles.'

There are two reasons why he has been loved. First, among his countrymen
and the rest of the world, because, as a master of pathos, he has no
equal among the dramatists of his nation, and, as some declare, no
superior in the literature of the world. Second, by the moderns,
especially the English, because they see in him the promise of the
future. He is now regarded as anticipating in many ways the Elizabethan
drama. Churton Collins has well said, 'But in nothing does he come so
nearly home to the modern world as in his studies and presentation of
women. In Shakespeare and in Shakespeare alone have we a gallery of
female portraits comparable in range and elaboration to what he has left
us. He has painted them under almost all conditions which can elicit and
develop the expression of natural character: under the infatuation of
illicit and consuming passion at war with the better self, as in Phaedra;
under the provocation of such wrongs and outrages as transform Medea
into a tigress and Hecuba into a fiend; under all the appeals to
their proper heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-abnegating
devotion, as in Macaria, Polyxena, Iphigenia, and Alcestis.'

He was, however, not popular in Athens. Why? Because he was ahead of
the phase of civilization and culture represented at that time in a city
which was on the verge of its ruin. He denounced cruelty and oppression,
he disliked war, he dwelt upon the virtues of slaves and menials, he was
sympathetic with the innocence and helplessness of young children, and
with all that the gentler affections can inspire or achieve.

In reading the 'Alcestis' several important points should be borne in
mind in regard to the play:

1. Its production. It is the earliest of the extant plays of Euripides
and was brought out B.C. 439 in the Archonship of Glaucinus. It was,
according to the custom of the Greeks, entered for competition in the
p