eare's, is not less noble. It is indeed a 'rough'
generalization that ranks the Agamemnon with the Adoniazusae as a
religious composition.

II. This spiritual side of tragic poetry deserves to be emphasized
both as the most essential aspect of it, and as giving it the most
permanent claim to lasting recognition. And yet, apart from this,
merely as dramas, the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
will never cease to be admired. These poets are teachers, but they
teach through art. To ask simply, as Carlyle once did, 'What did they
think?' is not the way to understand or learn from them.

Considered simply as works of art, the plays of Sophocles stand alone
amongst dramatic writings in their degree of concentration and complex
unity.

1. The interest of a Sophoclean drama is always intensely personal,
and is almost always centred in an individual destiny. In other words,
it is not historical or mythical, but ethical. Single persons stand
out magnificently in Aeschylus. But the action is always larger than
any single life. Each tragedy or trilogy resembles the fragment of a
sublime Epic poem. Mighty issues revolve about the scene, whether this
is laid on Earth or amongst the Gods, issues far transcending the fate
of Orestes or even of Prometheus. In the perspective painting of
Sophocles, these vast surroundings fall into the background, and the
feelings of the spectator are absorbed in sympathy with the chief
figure on the stage, round whom the other characters--the members of
the chorus being included--are grouped with the minutest care.

2. In this grouping of the persons, as well as in the conduct of the
action, Sophocles is masterly in his use of pathetic contrast. This
motive must of course enter into all tragedy--nothing can be finer
than the contrast of Cassandra to Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon,--but
in Sophocles it is all-pervading, and some of the minor effects of it
are so subtle that although inevitably felt by the spectator they are
often lost upon the mere reader or student. And every touch, however
transient, is made to contribute to the main effect.

To recur once more to the much-abused analogy of statuary:--the work
of Aeschylus may be compared to a colossal frieze, while that of
Sophocles resembles the pediment of a smaller temple. Or if, as in
considering the Orestean trilogy, the arrangement of the pediment
affords the more fitting parallel even for Aeschylus, yet the forms
are so giganti