CHAPTER IV.
ANTIGONE.
Of all the plays of Sophocles, this has had the most long-lived popularity. Not only was it frequently acted on the Athenian stage, but it has been translated, imitated, and "adapted" by successive generations of dramatists, from Seneca to Racine. The plot has been illustrated by Alfieri, and the choruses have been set to music by Mendelssohn; and only so recently as 1845, the play was actually represented on the boards of Covent Garden Theatre, with all the accessories of classical costume and scenery, and with Helen Faucit as the heroine.
It is not hard to discover the secret of the enduring favour with which the 'Antigone' has been regarded. The heroine, who absorbs the interest of the piece, is the purest and noblest idea of womanhood that ever inspired a poet. In reading the play we have something of the same feeling as when we look at Delaroche's famous picture of Marie Antoinette. All else in the painting—whether judges, guards, or spectators—sinks into shade and insignificance before the one
