roved the
most delightful of May-month amusements--I shall seem honest,
indeed, but hardly prudent; for, how good and beautiful ought
such a poem to be!--Euripides might fear little; but I, also,
have an interest in the performance: and what wonder if I beg
you to suffer that it make, in another and far easier sense,
its nearest possible approach to those Greek qualities of
goodness and beauty, by laying itself gratefully at your
feet?--R. B., London, July 23, 1871." (_Poetical Works_,
1889, Vol. XI. pp. 1-122).]

The episode which supplies the title of _Balaustion's Adventure_ was
suggested by the familiar story told by Plutarch in his life of Nicias:
that after the ruin of the Sicilian expedition, those of the Athenian
captives who could repeat any poetry of Euripides were set at liberty,
or treated with consideration, by the Syracusans. In Browning's poem,
Balaustion tells her four girl-friends the story of her "adventure" at
Syracuse, where, shortly before, she had saved her own life and the
lives of a ship's-company of her friends by reciting the play of
_Alkestis_ to the Euripides-loving townsfolk. After a brief reminiscence
of the adventure, which has gained her (besides life, and much fame, and
the regard of Euripides) a lover whom she is shortly to marry, she
repeats, for her friends, the whole play, adding, as she speaks the
words of Euripides, such other words of her own as may serve to explain
or help to realise the conception of the poet. In other words, we have a
transcript or re-telling in monologue of the whole play, interspersed
with illustrative comments; and after this is completed Balaustion again
takes up the tale, presents us with a new version of the story of
Alkestis, refers by anticipation to a poem of Mrs. Browning and a
picture of Sir Frederick Leighton, and ends exultantly:--

"And all came--glory of the golden verse,
And passion of the picture, and that fine
Frank outgush of the human gratitude
Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,--
Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps
Away from you, friends, while I told my tale,
--It all came of the play which gained no prize!
Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"

It will thus be seen that the "Transcript from Euripides" is the real
occasion of the poem, Balaustion's adventure, though graphically
described, and even Balaustion herself, though be