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Greek Love-Stories and Poems, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
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Woman And Love In Sophocles |
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_ Unlike his predecessor, Sophocles did not hesitate, it seems, to bring "a woman in love" on the stage. Not, it is true, in any one of the seven plays which alone remain of the one hundred and twenty-three he is said to have written. But there are in existence some fragments of his _Phaedra_, which Rohde (31) and others are inclined to look on as the "first tragedy of love." It has, however, nothing to do with what we know as either romantic or conjugal love, but is simply the story of the adulterous and incestuous infatuation of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus. It is at the same time one of the many stories illustrating the whimsical, hypocritical, and unchivalrous attitude of the early Greeks of always making woman the sinful aggressor and representing man as being coyly reserved (see Rohde, 34-35). The infatuation of Phaedra is correctly described (_fr_., 611, 607 Dind.) as a [Greek: Theaelatos nosos]--a maddening disease inflicted by an angry goddess. Among the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles there are three which throw some light on the contemporary attitude toward women and the different kinds of domestic attachment--the _Ajax_, the _Trachiniae_ and _Antigone_. When Ajax, having disgraced himself by slaughtering a flock of sheep and cattle in the mad delusion that they were his enemies, wishes he might die, Tecmessa, his concubine, declares, "Then pray for my death, too, for why should I live if you are dead?" She has, however, plenty of egotistic reasons for dreading his death, for she knows that her fate will be slavery. Moreover, instead of being edified by her expression of attachment, we are repelled when we bear in mind that Ajax slew her father when he made her his concubine. The Greeks were too indelicate in their ideas about concubines to be disturbed by such a reflection. Nor were they affected disagreeably by the utter indifference toward his concubine which Ajax displays. He tells her to attend to her own affairs and remember that silence is a woman's greatest charm, and before committing suicide he utters a monologue in which he says farewell to his parents and to his country, but has no last message for Tecmessa. She was only a woman, forsooth. Only a woman, too, was Deianira, the heroine of the _Trachiniae_, and though of exalted rank she fully realized this fact. When Hercules first took her to Tiryns, he was still sufficiently interested in her to shoot a hydra-poisoned arrow into the centaur Nessus, who attempted to assault her while carrying her across the river Evenus. But after she had borne him several children he neglected her, going off on adventures to capture other women. She weeps because of his absence, complaining that for fifteen months she has had no message from him. At last information is brought to her that Hercules, inflamed with violent love for the Princess Iole, had demanded her for a secret union, and when the king refused, had ravaged his city and carried off Iole, to be unto him more than a slave, as the messenger gives her to understand distinctly. On receiving this message; Deianira is at first greatly agitated, but soon remembers what the duty of a Greek wife is. "I am well aware," she says in substance, "that we cannot expect a man to be always content with one woman. To antagonize the god of love, or to blame my husband for succumbing to him, would be foolish. After all, what does it amount to? Has not Hercules done this sort of thing many times before? Have I ever been angry with him for so often succumbing to this malady? His concubines, too, have never received an unkind word from me, nor shall Iole; for I freely confess, resentment does not become a woman. Yet I am distressed, for I am old and Iole is young, and she will hereafter be his actual wife in place of me." At this thought jealousy sharpens her wit and she remembers that the dying centaur had advised her to save some of his blood and, if ever occasion should come for her to wish to bring back her husband's love, to anoint his garment with it. She does so, and sends it to him, without knowing that its effect will be to slowly burn the flesh off his body. Hearing of the deadly effect of her gift, she commits suicide, while Hercules spends the few remaining hours of his life cursing her who murdered him, "the best of all men," and wishing she were suffering in his place or that he might mutilate her body. Nor was his latest and "violent love" for Iole more than a passing appetite quickly appeased; for at the end he asks his son to marry her! This drama admirably illustrates the selfish view of the marital relation entertained by Greek men. Its moral may be summed up in this advice to a wife:
If we thus make Haemon practically the central figure of the tragedy, it resembles a romantic love-story; but in reality Haemon is little more than an episode. He has a quarrel with his father (who goes so far as to threaten to kill his bride in his presence), rushes off in a rage, and the tomb scene is not enacted, but merely related by a messenger, in forty lines out of a total of thirteen hundred and fifty. Much less still have we here a story of romantic love. Not one of the fourteen ingredients of love can be found in it except self-sacrifice, and that not of the right kind. I need not explain once more that suicide from grief over a lost bride does not benefit that bride; that it is not altruistic, but selfish, unmanly, and cowardly, and is therefore no test whatever of love. Moreover, if we examine the dialogue in detail we see that the motive of Haemon's suicide is not even grief over his lost bride, but rage at his father. When on first confronting Creon, he is thus accosted: "Have you heard the sentence pronounced on your bride?" He answers meekly: "I have, my father, and I yield to your superior wisdom, which no marriage can equal in excellence;" and it is only gradually that his ire is aroused by his father's abusive attitude; while at the end his first intention was to slay his father, not himself. Had Sophocles understood love as we understand it, he would have represented Haemon as drawing his sword at once and moving heaven and earth to prevent his bride from being buried alive. But it is in examining the attitude of Antigone that we realize most vividly how short this drama falls of being a love-story. She never even mentions Haemon, has no thought of him, but is entirely absorbed in the idea of benefiting the spirit of her dead brother by performing the forbidden funeral rites. As if to remove all doubt on that point, she furthermore tells us explicitly (lines 904-912) that she would have never done such a deed, in defiance of the law, to save a husband or a child, but only for a brother; and why? because she might easily find another husband, and have new children by him, but another brother she could never have, as her parents were dead.[303]
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