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At this time the future Emperor's favourite subjects were history and literature, and he was fond of displaying his rhetorical talent before the class. The classical authors of his choice were Homer, Sophocles, and Horace. Homer particularly attracted him; it is easy to imagine the conviction with which, as a Hohenzollern, he would deliver the declaration of King Agamemnon to Achilles:
Thus one man, who had sued his neighbor in the courts, became worried over the outcome of the matter and came to consult the wise man. "Tell me, O Sophocles!" he said, as he dropped a piece of money upon a plate, "shall I win my lawsuit or not?" Sophocles appeared to ponder for a moment, and then he looked at his questioner with his one eye and replied,
But really, if you come to think of it, it's only in Sophocles you get the tragedy of Fate. There isn't any such thing in Æschylus, you know." He had gone up to acquaint Miss Harden with his decision and had been led off into this hopeful track by the seductions that still lurked in the Euripides. "There's Nemesis, which is the same thing," said she. "Not at all the same thing.
Instead of concentrating his attention on the task in hand, he could only in later days look back with amazement 'at the fatuity of his arrangements and the snail-like progress with which he seemed to be satisfied. He was content if, on his final review of Thucydides, he got through twenty or thirty chapters a day, and he reread Sophocles 'at the lazy rate of a hundred and fifty lines a day, instead of going over the difficult places only, which might have been done in a week.
He knew at least enough of Greek to enjoy old Homer; and if he could have come but ill through a college examination into Aeschylus and Sophocles, he had dwelt with fresh delight on the rushing storm of spears in the "Seven before Thebes," and wept over the heroic calamities of Antigone.
All the great, from Æschylus and Sophocles to Channing and Webster, have emphasized man's conscience as the oracle divine. Let the witnesses speak. Here is the Judge, famous in English history: It became his duty to sentence a servant for murdering his master. Suddenly, before the astounded onlookers, the Judge arose and took his place in the dock beside the prisoner.
During the last thirteen months I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon's works; almost all Plato; Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch's Lives; about half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero.
That there was sometimes a fire ordeal to sanctify the oath, we learn from the Antig'o-ne of SOPHOCLES. The Messenger who brought tidings of the burial of Polyni'ces says, "Ready were we to grasp the burning steel, To pass through fire, and by the gods to swear The deed was none of ours, nor aught we knew Of living man by whom 'twas planned or done."
This one short poem contains, perhaps, a greater number of happy single expressions which one could quote than all the extant tragedies of Sophocles. But the action, the story? The action in itself is an excellent one; but so feebly is it conceived by the poet, so loosely constructed, that the effect produced by it, in and for itself, is absolutely null.
Among many texts take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered Athens, all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although assured that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds: Valerius. Bid thy wife farewell. Soph.
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