idea which lies at the basis of what we now call the philosophy of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Hecuba, when she happens to meet the body of Polypus on the sea-shore, the lastborn and the last-dead of her fifty children, the only one whom she believed she had saved from the ruins of Troy, she is no longer a woman and a queen. Do you hear those melancholy and furious howlings? Poetry has at once expressed and concealed in this metamorphosis the despair of Hecuba.* As soon as a passion exceeded the strength or capacity of the human heart, ancient poetry had recourse to prodigy; it preferred a miracle to exaggeration. She changed Biblis into a fountain, because she despaired of ever being able to express the anguish of incestuous and abominable love; she changed Halcyon into a bird, because she did not believe that words could adequately express the despair of the widow of Ceyx. In fine, whoever was carried by passion beyond the limits of humanity, lost in the ancient fable the countenance and features of a man. The antique art, whether it be that with admirable propriety it selects the moment which precedes the excess of passion, or going beyond this moment and not stopping there, it reaches the marvellous, which envelopes all under its shadow; the antique art had a greater influence on the imagination than modern art, which is compelled to express the extravagance of the passions. The pretension of modern art is to say every thing. What would then remain for the imagination of the public to exercise itself upon? It is often best to leave it to the spectator to complete the idea of the poet or the sculptor. Sophocles in Philoctetes did not fear to represent physical pain; but it would be a great error to believe that he has chosen this subject from his taste for the ugly, which has been for some time past one of the manias of modern literature. He has found in the tradition, Philoctetes wounded by a serpent, abandoned by the Greeks in the Isle of Lemnos, and making the rocks re-echo with the cries which his pain extort Priameia conjux Perdidit infelix hominis, post omnia, formam; -Veterum que diu memor illa malorum, Tum quoque Sithonios ululavit mæsta per agros. [OVID. Met., b. xiii. ed from him; and he respected the tradition. Cicero censures Sophocles not for having permitted his hero to utter some feeble complaints, but for having terrified the whole island with his groans.* Suppressed groans do not produce What we admire, on the contrary, much effect on the stage. in the drama, is the art of the poet who has left to the hero his wound, his cries, and the mournful accompaniments of physical suffering, but who has also given to his hero the moral passions which counterbalance the emotions which the sight of his sufferings creates. This wounded man does not only think of his wounds; he hates Ulysses and the Atrides who have abandoned him on this desert isle; and were he even to obtain his cure under the walls of Troy, he would not carry the victorious arrows of Hercules to the Atrides. His hatred does not only give evidence of the energy which his soul has preserved in spite of his sufferings: he regrets his father, his country, and the pleasant banks of the Sperchius; he bewails the death of Achilles and Ajax, and Neop. tolemus is astonished that Philoctetes, in pain and exile, should still have tears for the misfortunes of another. At last, when he leaves his isle and his cavern, so long the witnesses of his grief, he does not leave them with hatred and impatience as the sick man leaves his bed; he bids adieu to the rocks which afforded him shelter, to the fountains which quenched his thirst, and to the sea whose waves came to grieve as if in sympathy at the base of his rock. Thus we see that so far from the soul of this sick man being insensible, so far from physical suffering detracting from his moral emotion, Philoctetes feels acutely, anger, hatred, regret, affection, all the sentiments in short which fill the human heart. Physical pain does not constitute the dramatic interest of Philoctetes; on the contrary, the ascendant which his moral nature has over his material is the distinguishing trait in his character. This ascendant, it is true, is not employed in subduing pas sion as a philosopher would do; but what proves best that Philoctetes has preserved his moral energy, are these words: "Come," said Neoptolemus, "come to those who will cure you.' "Never," replied Philoctetes, never will I go to those who have abandoned me." Propose to a sick man, and * Quamobrem turpe putandum est, non dico dolore, (nam quid interdum est necesse), sed saxum illud lemnium clamore Philoctetæ funestare.-CICERO. De finibus, b. ii. especially to one who has suffered for a long time, to cure him on condition that he will forgive his enemies, and you will see with what willingness he will accept the offer which Philoctetes refuses. Philosophy blames with reason the use or rather the abuse of so much firmness for the support of hatred, but the Theatre excuses it. See with what courage Philoctetes resists the attacks of the malady which is killing him. Neoptolemus.-Why do you remain silent and stupefied? Neop. What ails you ? Ph.-Nothing, my son; go, I will follow you. Ah! alas! the gods in groaning thus ? Ph.-I beg them to be propitious to us. Neop.-What ails you? You say nothing. Why do you keep silent? You seem to suffer. Ph.-Ah! my son, I am lost; I can no longer conceal from you my disease. O what torture! It glides into my veins ! I feel it! I am wretched! I am dying! It is devouring me. His sufferings have overcome him in spite of his struggles; he falls down exhausted and is about to sleep. But, before sleeping, he requests Neoptolemus and the chorus not to abandon him. The unfortunate man always remembers that it is thus that the Greeks abandoned him. Then the chorus approach him with Neoptolemus, and demand of the gods to send the sick man sleep to alleviate his pains, by chanting these words: "Sleep, soother of our pains, come with thy sweetest breath! God of calmness and peace, close his eyes to the brilliant rays of the sun! Come, O sleep, remedy of our evils!" Philoctetes soon wakes up. This waking up of the sick man, relieved from his pains and recognizing the cares which he has received, is full of affectionate and tender sentiments. "Sweet sleep, faithful guests! no, my son, I would never have believed that you had enough pity and courage to support my pains, to assist and succor me!" This alternation of pleasant and painful emotions— this mixture of the effects of moral and material nature, constitutes the irresistible charm of this masterpiece of Sophocles. Let us not forget the admirable simplicity of the Greek poet-simplicity in the subject. A vessel which arrives at the deserted shores of Lemnos; Neoptolemus seeking the cavern in which Philoctetes lives abandoned since ten years; the meeting between Neoptolemus and Philoctetes; Philoctetes entreating Neoptolemus to take him with him to Scyros; the fit of the malady which overwhelms him; the embarrassment of Neoptolemus, who does not dare to tell Philoctetes that he wishes to convey him, not to Seyros, but to Troy; the anger and the hatred of the hero, who refuses to hear the advice of Ulysses; the entreaties of Neoptolemus, who yields only to the divine orders of Hercules. This is the whole subject of the tragedy of Sophocles, of which the action is clear and rapid, and of which the incidents arise only from the sentiments of the personages. There is no less simplicity in the expression than in the action. Hear Philoctetes relate how he has lived since the day the Greeks abandoned him in this desert isle. "In order to live, I killed with my arrows the doves which flew near my cavern, and when I killed a bird, I dragged myself, with my lame foot, to go to pick up my prey. If I wanted water, or to gather wood, when the frosts of winter arrived, I had to crawl to get it. When my fire gave out, I was compelled to strike two pieces of stone against each other, and the fire alone has preserved me. We see no circumlocution in this narrative, no affected ornaments, as in La Harpe, who has translated Philoctetes as simply as he could, but who was not able to forget entirely the style and taste of his time. Thus, for instance, in Sophocles, the doves fly near the cavern of Philoctetes, and it is there that the unfortunate man, who cannot go farther, kills them. In La Harpe, he shoots a swift arrow, Which causes the timid bird to fall from a great height. In Sophocles, Philoctetes drags himself near a spring in order to drink; he drags himself in order to pick up wood. In La Harpe, instead of picking up wood, he breaks the branches; and instead of drinking the running water at its source, he extracts an unpleasant beverage from the icicles which whiten the shore. Such is the Philoctetes of Sophocles, in which the moral and material emotions are combined with wonderful art, and create an equilibrium between each other. This pity which we feel for his physical sufferings is relieved by a still more noble and elevated feeling, the pity of the soul, which inspires us with emotions of joy and gratitude, and even of anger and hatred. With this art of causing the passions to temper each other, excess, and consequently moral or physical contortion, becomes impossible. Thus the Greeks did not fear to express physical suffering, but they subjected it to the laws of the beautiful. Philosophy and the arts combined to make moral nature prevail over material nature; the arts, by the worship of the beautiful, which exists only in repose, and the repose of the body proceeds from that of the soul; philosophy, by instilling the idea that the mind is superior to the body. This progressive ascendency of the mind over the body prepared the world for the reception of Christianity, and by an admirable harmony the worship of the beautiful led men to the worship of the good. Since the promulgation of the Gospel, we believe in the superiority of the soul over the body; but the struggle between them did not cease. In antiquity, literature, notwithstanding the materialism which constituted the basis of religion, had succeeded, under the influence of philosophy, to give the preference to the mind over the body. In our days literature seems to have taken a contrary direction: not that in France modern literature has often sought to represent material suffering on the stage. When by chance we introduce a malady, we prefer those which are more closely connected with moral pain, whether they proceed from it, or whether they imitate it; as, for instance, madness, the spleen, &c. In the infirmities we follow the same process: we represent deafness or dumbness, which seem to excite the understanding by the very obstacles which they create for it. The present literature is spiritual in the choice of its subjects; but it is material in its expression. Formerly the expression of the feelings was derived from the sentiments of nature. It had something pure and elevated; often it was even too abstract. Each sentiment of the soul had, if we may so speak, a corresponding sensation. But never did the word which was employed to express the sensation, ever take the place of the word which expressed the sentiment; in short, it was the human soul, and not the body, which literature strove to place in relief. Nowadays |