Recollecting such traditions of the theatre, we cannot
wonder if Tragedy was somewhat shy of Heracles. At the best, the legend was difficult to manage,—even more difficult for tragic drama than for epic narrative. And the difficulty was greatly increased, now that the essential difference between this hero and the ordinary persons of tragedy had been brought into relief by frequent burlesques.
Aeschylus, indeed, in the
Prometheus Unbound, introduced Heracles, who loosed the bonds of Prometheus; and then Prometheus described the route by which his deliverer must journey from the Caucasus to the Hesperides
1. It was a harder matter to take the legend of Heracles as the basis of a tragedy. There are only two such experiments of which we have any clear or definite knowledge. One is the
Mad Heracles of Euripides. The other is the
Trachiniae of Sophocles.
The Mad Heracles of Euripides. |
Euripides has taken his subject from the Boeotian legend. Heracles, visited with madness by Hera, slays his children,—in whose fate the Attic poet involves Megara, probably because, with his plot, it was not easy to dispose of her in any other way. Now, as we saw, this Theban story was framed to explain why Heracles, in early manhood, forsook Thebes for Argolis. The murder is discordant with the general tenour of the Heracles myth, and the discord is but thinly concealed by the resort to Hera's agency. For Euripides, however, this very discord was an attraction. It allowed him, by a bold change of detail, to put a new complexion on the whole story. That change consisted in placing the terrible deed of Heracles not before, but after, his labours for Eurystheus.
The plot is briefly as follows. Heracles has long been absent from Thebes, toiling for Eurystheus; and it is known that he is now engaged in the supreme ordeal,—the quest of Cerberus. Meanwhile a certain Lycus from Euboea becomes master of Thebes, and slays Creon. Megara, her three sons, and the aged Amphitryon, are also doomed by him. They are about to die, when Heracles suddenly returns from the nether world, and kills Lycus. He then holds a sacrifice, to purify the house. While engaged in it, he is stricken with madness. He slays Megara and his children. On recovering his senses, he resolves to commit suicide. But Theseus appears,—the king of Athens whom Heracles has just delivered from Hades. Theseus combats his resolve, offering him an honourable refuge in Attica. Heracles at last accepts the offer, and departs with his friend.
This, then, is the goal of the great career; this is the result of the strength given by a divine sire, and spent in benefiting men. The evil goddess of Heracles triumphs utterly; at the very moment when his labours are finished, and when, as the old faith taught, his reward was near, he is plunged into an abyss of misery. He passes from our sight, to hide the remainder of his days in the seclusion of a land not his own. Yet, even in this extremity, he has given a proof of strength; he has had the courage to live. He has taught us that, though the mightiest human efforts may end in outward failure, yet no man, if he be true to himself, need suffer moral defeat. Zeus has been faithless to his human son, and Hera's infra-human malevolence has prevailed; but one consolation for humanity remains.
Such is the new reading of the Heracles myth which Euripides has propounded; with admirable power and subtlety, though scarcely with complete artistic success. His interpretation, though full of a deep suggestiveness, is, in fact, too modern for the fable on which it is embroidered.
