Born at Salamis, B.C. 480. Died in Macedonia, B.C. 406. Aged 74.]
The father of Euripides, putting his own interpretation upon the oracle
which promised that his son should be crowned with “sacred garlands,”
had him carefully trained in gymnastic exercises, and whilst yet a boy
Euripides won the prize at the Eleusinian and Thesean games. But the lad
was soon allured from physical sports, by the fascinations of philosophy
and literature. He became the ardent pupil and friend of the philosopher
Anaxagoras, and the instruction thus derived is visible in many of his
productions. At the age of 18, Euripides wrote his first tragedy. He
gained the first prize B.C. 441, and continued to exhibit his plays
until within two years of his death. He died in Macedonia, and is said
to have been torn in pieces by the dogs of the Macedonian king. Twenty
of his plays are extant. Like Anaxagoras, Euripides was of a serious
temper, and averse to mirth. He was intimate with Socrates, and the
contemporary of Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Pindar, Aristophanes,
Æschylus, and Sophocles. To assign him his poetical rank we must look
back. In the three great Attic tragedians we trace a natural progress of
their theatre. In Æschylus, the stage appears attracted with predominant
force to the high mythological ideas which it arose to embody: the muse
stalks sublimely above the heads of men. In Sophocles, the art tempers
and adjusts, with admirable equipoise, the superhuman and the human
element; the spirits and hearts of men are more closely approached by
the poet, still overshadowed by the heroic and the divine. In Euripides,
although the story which he represents is still drawn from the same
source of divine and heroic fable, the sympathy with passions, events,
interests, and sufferings, incident to humanity, prevails in excess.
With him, amidst strewings of beautiful poetry, and whilst penetrated
with strokes of singular pathos, we too much feel that we step on our
own daily and common earth. We miss the elevation of an art which
should, in reflecting ourselves, lift us above ourselves: as we have
experience in our own Shakspeare. Sophocles said that “he himself
represented men as they ought to be, but Euripides as they are.”
[This bust is verified by another in the Louvre, and one in the Naples
Museum, which has the name of Euripides engraved on the breast. There
is also a cameo of exceeding beauty in the Louvre, on which we find
the same head. Portraits of Euripides were common at Athens, and even
as late as the 5th century his statues were to be seen at
Constantinople. A small seated statue of Euripides will be found in
the Bas-relief Gallery, No. 215. It is inscribed with his name, and
has a list of his plays, upon the slab which supports the statue. See
Handbook to Greek Court, No. 215.]