Page:Euripides and his age.djvu/15

his plays being performed with popular success six hundred years after they were written, and in countries far removed from Greece. He influenced all the higher forms of Greek writing, both in prose and poetry. He is more quoted by subsequent writers than any other Greek tragedian; nay, if we leave out of count mere dictionary references to rare words, he is more quoted than all the other tragedians together. And nineteen of his plays have survived to our own day as against seven each of Aeschylus and Sophocles. This seems enough glory for any man. Yet the fate that grudged him prizes in his lifetime contrived afterwards to spread a veneer of commonplaceness over the success which it could not prevent. To a great extent Euripides was read because he was, or seemed, easy; the older poets were neglected because they were difficult. Attic Greek in his hands had begun to assume the form in which it remained for a thousand years as the recognized literary language of the east of Europe and the great instrument and symbol of civilization. He was a treasure-house of Attic style and ancient maxims, and eminently useful to orators who liked quotations. Meantime the melody and meaning of his lyrics