Comedy, we find, as in the Messengers in Œdipus the King, and the Maidens of Trachis, and in the Guard of the Antigone,[1] traces of a sense of humour, which, but for that demarcation, and the set purpose of Sophocles to adhere to it, might have made him almost as myriad-minded as our own great dramatist.[2]
Such is the estimate we are led to form from the seven Tragedies which now remain to us. When we remember that the number which he wrote was not less than one hundred and thirteen, and that a large number of these were received with as much applause and as much success as those which are still extant, we are struck with wonder at the immense fertility which was united with such consummate art. Difficult as it is to compare writers who differ, as has been said, generically, daring as it may be to attempt to dethrone one whom so many ages have recognised as king, it seems but the natural conclusion of what has
- ↑ Antig., 223–236, 388–400.
- ↑ The criticism of the Vit. Anon. shows more discernment than might have been expected. The writer, following Plutarch, (Mor., p. 79, b) dwells on the power of Sophocles as shown in his sweetness, proportion, boldness, variety, yet more in the masterly touch which enabled him to exhibit the whole heart and life of a character in a single sentence, it might be, in half a line. In contrast with this true appreciation, is the judgment of the rhetorical critics of a later date, that he was unequal in excellence, rising to loftiest height, and then suddenly falling, (Longinus, De Sublim., 33.) This is clearly the kind of taste which would prefer Corneille to Shakespeare. The saying that he had "the help of a Molossian dog" in his representations of violent bursts of anger, (Diog. Laert., iv. 20,) indicates at once the power of expressing intense and vehement passion, and his habitual control over it.
