the malignant hatred of his brother (v. 632). Eteocles, moreover, by retaining the sovereignty, violates the claims of justice; and Polyneikes, by seeking to regain it with the assistance of an invading host, is guilty of impiety towards his country: thus the death of the brothers, through mutual slaughter, is the penalty due to their respective wrongdoing, and, as such, offers no violence to our sense of justice. King Apollo, it is true, the awful Seventh, is represented as taking his station at the seventh gate, and avenging upon the sons of Œdipus the ancient transgression of Laios; at the same time the poet makes us feel that they have themselves succumbed to the evil tendencies inherent in the race, and thus it is that their father's curse has exercised its dread ascendency over their destiny.
Had the trilogy terminated with the death of the brothers such a catastrophe would have violated an essential canon of classical dramatic art, which requires the final reconciliation of the principles brought into collision during the action of the play. These principles, in the drama before us, are—duty to the family, and duty to the State; the harmonious action of which is necessary to the well-being of society. Thus it would appear that the decree of the senate respecting the burial of the royal brothers, which has been regarded as a dramatic blunder on the part of Æschylus, is in fact essential for bringing about a satisfactory dénouement. When, in spite of the prohibition of the senate, Antigone proclaims her heroic determination to inter her brother, she claims our warmest
