left empty."

We read in these plays of such unsympathetic things as a
"man-detesting host of Amazons;" of fifty virgins fleeing from
incestuous wedlock and all but one of them cutting their husbands'
throats at night with a sword; of the folly of marrying out of one's
own rank. In all Aeschylus there is on the other hand only one
noticeable reference to a genuine womanly quality--the injunction of
Danaus to his daughters to honor modesty more than life while they are
travelling among covetous men; an admonition much needed, since, as
Danaus adds--characterizing the coarseness and lack of chivalry of the
men--violence is sure to threaten them everywhere, "and on the
fair-formed beauty of virgins everyone that passes by sends forth a
melting dart from his eyes, overcome by desire." Masculine coarseness
and lack of chivalry are also revealed in such abuse of woman as
Aeschylus--in the favorite Greek manner, puts in the mouth of
Eteocles:

"O ye abominations of the wise. Neither in woes nor in
welcome prosperity may I be associated with woman-kind;
for when woman prevails, her audacity is more than one
can live with; and when affrighted she is still a
greater mischief to her home and city."

WOMAN AND LOVE IN SOPHOCLES

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_