es.

We have insisted on the difference between Tragedy and Pathos, and
criticized the weakening effect of the latter upon the former. To escape
the penalty that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy
is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her _modest_
service. Sophocles puts into the mouth of Oedipus, at the moment of his
departure into blind and desolate exile, tender injunctions regarding
the care of his young daughters:

But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,
Who never had a meal apart from mine,
But ever shared my table, yea, for them
Take heedful care; and grant me, though but once,
Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,
Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well,
And weep with them our common misery.
Oh, if my arms were round them, I might seem
To have them as of old when I could see.[52]

Shakespeare, too, knew well how to kindle the soft radiance which,
fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the
sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the
famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest
scene in _Gorboduc_ is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a
momentary dimness of vision our horror at a mother's crime.

_The Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587), by Thomas Hughes, though twenty-five
years later, may be placed next to _Gorboduc_ in our discussion of the
rise of tragedy. It will serve as an illustration of the kind of tragedy
that was being evolved from Senecan models by plodding uninspired
Englishmen before Marlowe flung his flaming torch amongst them. To
understand the story a slight introduction is necessary. Igerna, the
wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, was loved by King Uther, who foully
slew her husband and so won her for himself. As a result of this union
were born Arthur and Anne, who, in their youth, perpetuated the
inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred.
Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France
on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love
of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur,
glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon
the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having
learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers,
finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her intervi