opinion that the Athenians were a race of fools
with a sense of form, who wrote tedious verse to perfection, has been
ousted by a new doctrine, less false, but even more dangerous. A race of
scholars arose who assumed, reasonably enough, that plays written by
intelligent men for an intelligent public could not be quite so dull as
tradition proclaimed; and though to rob the classics of their terrors
needed much audacity and some irreverence, the new ideas won ground by
sheer force of plausibility. Unfortunately, to the modern scholar an
intelligent public meant a public of modern scholars. He peopled the
Attic theatre with an audience of cultivated liberals, and by "a good
play" meant the sort of play such a public would relish. Whence it
followed that the Athenian dramatists must have concerned themselves
with those problems which have been so acutely discussed in the plays of
Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. Shaw.

As a fact, Athenian tragedy is never, or hardly ever, concerned with
intellectual matters of any sort; its business is to express emotion,
and this it has done in the most perfect literary form ever devised by
man. The great merit of Miss E. B. Abraham's performance is that she
plays the part of Deianeira neither as if that lady were a relic of the
most insipid period of classical sculpture, nor yet as though she were
cousin-german to Hedda Gabler. When she errs, she errs on the side of
modernity; and that is as it should be. Certainly she puts too much
"psychology" into the character of the fond, gentle lady, whose simple
humanity at pathetic odds with Fate wins sympathy from the audience
without effort or emphasis; while a hankering after the latest
subtleties has led her to misunderstand completely the passage (580-95
in the acting edition) in which she supposes the queen to be justifying
herself to a reluctant chorus, whereas, in fact, she is justifying
herself to the Universe, and giving the audience a hint. The meek chorus
is only too willing to agree.

Poor is the triumph of Fate over a timid woman. Heracles is a more
splendid but not less helpless victim. Mr. G. Edwards understands the
part well. Very fine was the passionate indignation, surging up through
physical agony, in the first great speech; and this mood is made to
prevail until in the name "[Greek: Nessos]" the hero recognizes the
finger of God. From that point, though violent and dictatorial still to
his son and the respectful mortals about him, th