MEASURING EURIPIDES.
Convinced that a Greek letter fraternity like this should at least occasionally be regaled with a classical theme, I have chosen "Measuring Euripides" as my subject. Besides, Greek is now becoming so rare an accomplishment that anyone who has ever studied it has a feeling of aristocratic distinction, and, while he is of course careful not to cast his pearls before barbarians, still he likes to air his esoteric and exclusive knowledge upon occasion. And this is surely an appropriate occasion, for the members of this society are by no means to be classed as barbarians.
This address will not, however, be delivered in the Greek language nor even interlarded with quotations from the original. Years ago as an undergraduate I did learn by heart a few passages in both Greek and Latin, which I might innocently introduce in answering examination questions, or quote with great effect in literary and debating societies. But at least a dozen years have passed since I last heard anyone read Greek verse aloud.
Moreover, this talk will not be a literary appreciation of Euripides. In my opinion he must be read in the original for that. Mr. Carl Becker, it is true, has recently stated in The Dial that both Shakespeare and Euripides are improved by being translated into German! But as I have compared various English translations of Euripides with the Greek text, I have found that those which make any literary pretense usually add to his words and detract from his thought. His wording is far from flowery and he uses a few adjectives over and over again. But his simple and severe diction is something like those Elgin marbles from the frieze of the Parthenon, which achieve perfection with few chiselled lines and despite bare surfaces where the sculptor seems scarcely to have touched the stone. Therefore a literal English translation seems barren, awkward, and halting, while a literary or poetical translation reminds one of Minerva's helmet replaced by modern millinery. The fact is that we must divest ourselves of over 2300 years' accumulation of vocabulary, ideas, and experience before we try to translate Euripides. Really to appreciate his eighteen extant plays and numerous fragments we must see them, like some cluster of Doric columns that still stands amid the ruins of an ancient temple, against their own cloudless Attic sky.
The oldest extant critic of Euripides is his contemporary, the comic poet Aristophanes. Besides many digs at Euripides in his other farces, Aristophanes in The Frogs represents him as disputing with Aeschylus in Hades the respective merits of their
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