natural or supernatural agency. While the poet's materials were thus prescribed for him, it was scarcely possible that he should infuse his spirit equally into all, and so mould and organize them, as never to betray the coarseness of their original texture. Duly to estimate the art of Sophocles, and rightly to understand his designs, we must take into account the resistance of the elements which he had to transform and fashion to his purposes. When we consider their nature we shall not perhaps be surprized to find that he sometimes contents himself with slight indications of his meaning, and that everything does not appear exactly to harmonize with it. We shall rather admire the unity that pervades works framed out of such a chaos, and the genius which could stamp the ancient legends with a character so foreign to their original import.
The irony in which Sophocles appears to us to have displayed the highest powers of his art, is not equally conspicuous in all his remaining plays, though we believe the perception of it to be indispensable for the full enjoyment of every one of them. We shall for this reason be led to dwell less upon some of his greatest masterpieces, than upon works which are commonly deemed of inferior value. But we shall begin with those in which the poet's intention is most apparent, and shall thus perhaps be enabled to find a clue to it where it is less clearly disclosed. We are thus led in the first place to consider two of those founded on the Theban legends.
Though it is not certain whether Œdipus King and Œdipus at Colonus were parts of one original design, it is at least probable that the contrast by which the effect of each is so much heightened entered into the poet's plan. Each indeed is complete in itself, and contains every thing requisite for the full understanding and enjoyment of it; and yet each acquires a new force and beauty from a comparison with the other. We shall therefore consider them successively.
The opening scene of the first Œdipus exhibits the people of Cadmus bowed down under the weight of a terrible calamity. A devouring pestilence is ravaging its fields, and desolating its city. The art of man has hitherto availed nothing to check its progress: the aid of the gods has been implored in vain.
