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Arezzo. A city of Tuscany, the residence of Count Guido Franceschini, the husband of Pompilia and her murderer. It is now a clean, well-built, well-paved, and flourishing town of ten thousand inhabitants. It is celebrated in connection with many remarkable men, as Mæcenas, Guido the musician, Guittone the poet, Cesalpini the botanist, Vasari, the author of the “Lives of the Painters,” and many others. (The Ring and the Book.)

Art Poems. The great poems dealing with painting are “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Andrea del Sarto,” “Old Pictures in Florence,” “Pictor Ignotus,” and “The Guardian Angel.”

Artemis Prologizes. (Dramatic Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, No. III. 1842.) Theseus became enamoured of Hippolyta when he attended Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons. Before she accepted him as her lover, he had to vanquish her in single combat, which difficult and dangerous task he accomplished. She accompanied him to Athens, and bore him a son, Hippolytus. The young prince excelled in every manly virtue, but he was averse to the female sex, and grievously offended Venus by neglecting her and devoting himself entirely to the worship of Diana, called by the Greeks Artemis. Venus was enraged, and determined to ruin him. Hippolyta in process of time died, and Theseus married Phædra, the daughter of Minos, the king of Crete. Unhappily, as soon as Phædra saw the young and accomplished Hippolytus, she conceived for him a guilty passion – which, however, she did her utmost to conceal. It was Venus who inspired her with this insane love, out of revenge to Hippolytus, whom she intended to ruin by this means. Phædra’s nurse discovered the secret, and told it to the youth, notwithstanding the commands of her mistress to conceal it. The chaste young man was horrified at the declaration, and indignantly resented it. The disgraced and betrayed Phædra determined to take her own life; but dying with a letter in her hand which accused Hippolytus of attempts upon her virtue, the angry father, without asking his son for explanations, banished him from the kingdom, having first claimed the performance from Neptune of his promise to grant three of his requests. As Hippolytus fled from Athens, his horses were terrified by a sea monster sent on shore by Neptune. The frightened horses upset the chariot, and the young man was dragged over rocks and precipices and mangled by the wheels of his chariot. In the tragedy, as left by Euripides, Diana appears by the young man’s dying bed and comforts him, telling him also that to perish thus was his fate: —

 
“But now
Farewell: to see the dying or the dead
Is not permitted me: it would pollute
Mine eyes; and thou art near this fatal ill.”
 

The tragedy ends with the dying words of Hippolytus: —

 
“No longer I retain my strength: I die;
But veil my face, now veil it with my vests.”
 

So far Euripides. Mr. Browning, however, carries the idea further, and makes Diana try to save the life of her worshipper, by handing him over to the care of Æsculapius, to restore to life and health by the wisest pharmacies of the god of healing. Mr. Browning’s poem closes with the chaste goddess watching and waiting for the result of the attempt to save his life. The poet has adopted the Greek spelling in place of that to which we are more accustomed. The Greek names require their Latin equivalents for non-classical scholars. Artemis is the Greek name for Diana; Asclepios is Æsculapius; Aphrodite, the Greek name of Venus; Poseidon is Neptune; and Phoibus or Phœbus is Apollo, the Sun. Heré == Hera or Juno, Queen of Heaven. Athenai == Minerva. Phaidra, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, who married Theseus. Theseus, king of Athens. Hippolutos, son of Theseus and Hippolyte. Henetian horses, or Enetian, of a district near Paphlagonia.

Artemisia Genteleschi (Beatrice Signorini, Asolando), “the consummate Artemisia” of the poem, was a celebrated artist (1590-1642). See Beatrice Signorini.

“Ask not the least word of praise,” the first line of the lyric at the end of “A Pillar at Sebzevah,” No. 11 of Ferishtah’s Fancies.

Asolando: Fancies and Facts. Published in London, December 12th, 1889, on the day on which Mr. Browning died in Venice. Contents: Prologue; Rosny; Dubiety; Now; Humility; Poetics; Summum Bonum; A Pearl, A Girl; Speculative; White Witchcraft; Bad Dreams, I., II., III., IV.; Inapprehensiveness; Which? The Cardinal and the Dog; The Pope and the Net; The Bean-Feast; Muckle-mouth Meg; Arcades Ambo; The Lady and the Painter; Ponte dell’ Angelo, Venice; Beatrice Signorini; Flute Music, with an Accompaniment; “Imperante Augusto, Natus est – ”; Development; Rephan; Reverie; Epilogue. The volume is dedicated to the poet’s friend, Mrs. Arthur Bronson. In the dedication the poet explains the title Asolando: it was a “title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro, whose palace-tower still overlooks us.” Asolare – “to disport in the open air, amuse oneself at random.” “The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important. Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with; but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in requital of your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first attracted you thither; where and elsewhere, at La Mura as Cà Alvisi, may all happiness attend you! – Gratefully and affectionately yours, R. B.” – Asolo, Oct. 5th, 1889.

Asolo (Pippa Passes – Sordello – Asolando), the ancient Acelum: a very picturesque mediæval fortified town, in the province of Treviso, in Venetia, Italy, 5500 inhabitants, at the foot of a hill surmounted by the ruins of a castle, from which one of the most extensive panoramas of the great plain of the Brenta and the Piave, with the encircling Alps, and the distant insulated group of the Euganean hills, opens before the traveller. On a fine summer evening the two silver lines of the Piave and the Brenta may be followed from their Alpine valleys to the sea, in the midst of the green alluvial plain in which Treviso, Vicenza and Padua are easily recognised. Venice, with its cupolas and steeples, is seen near the extreme east horizon, which is terminated by the blue line of the Adriatic; whilst behind, to the north, the snow-capped peaks of the Alps rise in majestic grandeur. The village of Asolo is surrounded by a wall with mediæval turrets, and several of its houses present curiously sculptured façades. – The castle, a quadrangular building with a high tower, is an interesting monument of the thirteenth century. It was the residence of the beautiful Caterina Cornaro, the last queen of Cyprus, after the forced resignation of her kingdom to the Venetians in 1489. Here this lady of elegant tastes and refined education closed her days in comparative obscurity, in the enjoyment of an empty title and a splendid income, and surrounded by a small court and several literary characters. Of these, one of the most celebrated was Pietro Bembo, the historian of Venice, afterwards Cardinal, whose celebrated philosophical dialogues on the nature of love, the Asolani, have derived their name from this locality. Mr. Browning visited Asolo first when a young man; it was here that he gathered ideas for Pippa Passes and Sordello, and in the last year of his life his loving footsteps found their way to the little hill-town of that Italy whose name was graven on his heart. Here, as Mr. Sharp reminds us in his Life of Browning, the poet heard again the echo of Pippa’s song —

 
“God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the world!”
 

He heard it as a young man, he hears it as he nears the dark river, the conviction had never left his soul for a moment in all the length of intervening years. Asolo will be a pilgrim spot for Browning lovers. The Catherine Cornaro referred to was the wife of King James II., of Cyprus; his marriage with this Venetian lady of rank was designed to secure the support of the Republic of Venice. After his death, and that of his son James III., Queen Catherine felt she was unable to withstand the attacks of the Turks, and was induced to abdicate in favour of the Republic of Venice, which in 1487 took possession of the island. Catherine was assigned a palace and court at Asolo, as already mentioned. Her palace was the resort of the learned and accomplished men and women of Venice, famous amongst whom was her secretary, Cardinal Pietro Bembo, the celebrated author of the History of Venice, from 1487 to 1513, and a number of essays, dialogues, and poems. His dialogue on Platonic love is entitled Gli Asolani. He died in 1547. When Queen Catherine settled in her beautiful castle of Asolo, she could have found little cause to regret the circumstances which led her from her troubled kingdom of Cyprus to the idyllic sweetness of her later life. Surrounded by her twelve maids of honour and her eighty serving-men, her favourite negress, her parrots, apes, peacocks, and hounds, her peaceful life passed in ideal pleasantness. But the wealth and luxury of her surroundings did not make her selfish, or unconcerned for the welfare of her little kingdom. In all that concerned the happiness and well-being of her people she was as deeply interested as the monarchs of more important states. She opened a pawnbroking bank for the poor, imported corn from Cyprus and distributed it, and appointed competent officials to settle the complaints and difficulties of her subjects. She lived for her people’s welfare, and won their affections by her goodness and grace. For twenty years she lived at Asolo, leaving it on only three occasions: to visit her brother in Brescia; to walk to Venice across the frozen lagoon; and once when troops occupied her little town. She died then, at Venice, on July 10th, 1510, and was buried by the republic of the city in the sea, with its utmost magnificence. The fate could scarcely have been called cruel which gave a royal residence amid scenery such as Asolo can boast, under such conditions as blessed the later years of good Queen Catherine.

At the Mermaid. The Mermaid Tavern, in Cheapside, was the favourite resort of the great Elizabethan dramatists and poets. Raleigh’s Club at the Mermaid was the meeting-place of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, where he feasted with Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, Donne, Drayton, Camden, Selden, and the rest. “At this meeting-place of the gods,” says Heywood, in his Hierarchy of Angels: —

 
“Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will,
And famous Jonson, tho’ his learned pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.”
 

Mr. Browning introduces us to Shakespeare protesting that he makes no claim and has no desire to be the leader of a new school of poetry. In the person of Shakespeare Mr. Browning tells the world that if they want to know anything about him they must take his ideas as they are expressed in his works, not seek to pry into his life and opinions behind them. His works are the world’s, his rest is his own. He protests, too, that when he utters opinions and expresses ideas dramatically they are not to be snatched at by leaders of sects and parties, and bottled as specimens for their museums, or used to give authority to their own pet principles. He does not set open the door of his bard’s breast: on the contrary, he bars his portal, and leaves his work and his inquisitive visitors alike “outside.” Notwithstanding this emphatic declaration, it is probable that few great poets have opened their hearts to the world more completely than Mr. Browning: it is as easy to construct his personality from his works as it is to reconstruct an old Greek temple from the sculptured stones which are scattered on its site. All Mr. Browning’s characters talk the Browning tongue, and are as little given to barring their portals as he to closing the door of his breast. This fact must not, of course, be unduly pressed. The utterances of Caliban are not to be put on the same level as the thoughts, expressed a hundred times, which justify the ways of God to man. Having declared himself as determined to let the public have no glimpse inside his breast, in Stanza 10 be proceeds to admit us to his innermost soul, in its joy of life and golden optimism. It is as perfect a picture of the poet’s healthy mind as he could possibly have given us, and is an earnest deprecation of the idea that a poet must necessarily be more or less insane. Notes. —Oreichalch (7), a mixed metal resembling brass – bronze. “Threw Venus” (15): in dice the best cast (three sixes) was called “Venus.” Ben Jonson tells us that his own wife was “a shrew, yet honest.”

Austin Tresham. Gwendolen Tresham’s betrothed, in A Blot in the ’Scutcheon. He is next heir to the earldom.

Azoth (Paracelsus). The universal remedy of Paracelsus, in alchemy. The term was applied to mercury, which was supposed to exist in every metallic body, and constitute its basis. The Azoth of Paracelsus, according to Mr. Browning, was simply the laudanum which he had discovered. The alchemists by Azoth sometimes meant to express the creative principle of nature. As “he was commonly believed to possess the double tincture, the power of curing diseases and transmuting metals,” as Mr. Browning explains in a note to the poem, the expression is often difficult to define precisely, as indeed are many of the terms used by alchemists.

Azzo. Lords of Este (Sordello): Guelf leaders. The poem is concerned with Azzo VI. (1170-1212), who became the head of the Guelf party. During the whole lifetime of Azzo VI. a civil war raged almost without interruption in the streets of Ferrara, each party, it is said, being ten times driven from the city. Azzo VII. (1205-64) was constantly at war with Eccelino III. da Romano, who leagued himself with Salinguerra. Azzo married Adelaide, niece of Eccelino, and died 1264. (Encyc. Brit.)

Bad Dreams. (Asolando.) I. In the first dream the lover sees that the face of the loved one has changed: love has died out of the eyes, and the charm of the look has gone. Love is estranged, for faith has gone. With a breaking heart the lover can say love is still the same for him. II. A weird dream of a strange ball, a dance of death and hell, where, notwithstanding harmony of feet and hands, “man’s sneer met woman’s curse.” The dreamer creeps to the wall side, avoiding the dance of haters, and steps into a chapel where is performed a strange worship by a priest unknown. The dreamer sees a worshipper – his wife – enter, to palliate or expurgate her soul of some ugly stain. How contracted? “A mere dream” is an insufficient excuse. The soul in sleep, free from the disguises of the day, wanders at will. Perhaps it may indeed be that our suppressed evil thoughts – thoughts that, kept down by custom, conventionality, and respect for public opinion, never become incarnate in act – walk at night and revel in unfettered freedom, as foul gases rise from vaults and basements when the house is closed at night, and the purifying influences of the light and air are excluded. III. Is a dream of a primeval forest: giant trees, impenetrable tangle of enormous undergrowths, where lurks some brute-type. A lucid city of bright marbles, domes and spires, pure streets too fine for smirch of human foot, its solitary traverser the soul of the dreamer; and all at once appears a hideous sight: the beautiful city is devoured by the forest, the trees by the pavements turned to teeth. Nature is represented by the forest, Art by the city and its palaces. Each in its place is seen to be good and worthy, but when each devours the other both are accurst. The man seems to think that his wife conceals some part of her life from him; her nature is good and true, but he fears her art (or perhaps arts, we should say) destroys it. IV. A dream of infinite pathos. The wife’s tomb, its slab weather-stained, its inscription overgrown with herbage, its name all but obliterated. Her husband comes to visit the grave. Was he her lover? – rather the cold critic of her life. She had felt her poverty in all that he demanded, and she had resigned him and life too; and as she moulders under the herbage, she sees in spirit her husband’s strength and sternness gone, and he broken and praying that she were his again, with all her foibles, her faults: aye, crowned as queen of folly, he would be happy if her foot made a stepping-stone of his forehead. What had worked the miracle? Was the date on the stone the record of the day when his chance stab of scorn had killed her? There are cruel deeds and still more cruel words that no veiling herbage of balm and mint shall keep from haunting us in the time when repentance has come too late.

Badman, Mr. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, as told by John Bunyan, contains the story of “Old Tod,” which suggested to Mr. Browning the poem of Ned Bratts (q. v.).

Balaustion. The name of the Greek girl of Rhodes, who, when the Athenians were defeated at Syracuse and her countrymen had determined to side with the enemies of Athens, refused to forsake Athens, the light and life of the world. She saved her companions in the ship by which she fled from Rhodes by reciting to the people of Syracuse the Alcestis of Euripides. Her story is told in Balaustion’s Adventure, and Aristophanes’ Apology, which is its sequel. Her name means “wild pomegranate flower.”

Balaustion’s Adventure, including a transcript from Euripides. London, 1871. – The adventure of Balaustion in the harbour of Syracuse came about as follows. Nicias (or Nikias as he is called in the poem), the Athenian general, was appointed, much against his inclination, to conduct the expedition against Sicily. After a long series of ill-successes he was completely surrounded by the enemy and was compelled to surrender with all his army. He was put to death, and all his troops were sent to the great stone quarries, there to perish of disease, hard labour and privation. At Syracuse Athens was shamed, and lost her ships and men, gaining a “death without a grave.” After the disgraceful news had reached Greece the people of Rhodes rose in tumult, and, casting off their allegiance to Athens, they determined to side with Sparta. Balaustion, though only a girl, was so patriotic that she cried to all who would hear, begging them not to throw Athens off for Sparta’s sake, nor be disloyal to all that was worth calling the world at all. She begged that all who agreed with her would take ship for Athens at once; a few heard and accompanied her. They were by adverse winds driven out of their course, and, being pursued by pirates, made for the island of Crete. Balaustion, to encourage the rowers, sprang upon the altar by the mast, crying to the sons of Greeks to free their wives, their children, and the temples of the gods; so the oars “churned the black waters white,” and soon they saw to their dismay Sicily and the city of Syracuse, – they had run upon the lion from the wolf. A galley came out, demanding “if they were friends or foes?” “Kaunians,” replied the captain. “We heard all Athens in one ode just now. Back you must go, though ten pirates blocked the bay.” It was explained to the exiles that they wanted no Athenians there to spirit up the captives in the quarries. The captain prayed them by the gods they should not thrust suppliants back, but save the innocent who were not bent on traffic. In vain! And as they were about to turn and face the foe, one cried, “Wait! that was a song of Æschylus: how about Euripides? Might you know any of his verses too?” The captain shouted, “Praise the god. Here she stands – Balaustion. Strangers, greet the lyric girl!” And Balaustion said, “Save us, and I will recite that strangest, saddest, sweetest song of his – Alkestis. Take me to Herakles’ temple you have here. I come a suppliant to him; put me upon his temple steps, to tell you his achievement as I may!” And so they rowed them in to Syracuse, crying, “We bring more of Euripides!” The whole city came out to hear, came rushing to the superb temple, on the topmost step of which they placed the girl; and plainly she told the play, just as she had seen it acted in Rhodes. A wealthy Syracusan brought a whole talent, and bade her take it for herself; she offered it to the god —

 
“For had not Herakles a second time
Wrestled with death and saved devoted ones?”
 

The poor captives in the quarries, when they heard the tale, sent her a crown of wild pomegranate flower – the name (Balaustion in Greek) she always henceforth bore. But there was a young man who every day, as she recited on the temple steps, stood at the foot; and, when liberated, they set sail again for Athens. There in the ship was he: he had a hunger to see Athens, and soon they were to marry. She visited Euripides, kissed his sacred hand, and paid her homage. The Athenians loved him not, neither did they love his friend Socrates; but they were fellows, and Socrates often went to hear him read. – Such was her adventure; and the beautiful Alcestis’ story which she told is transcribed from the well-known play of Euripides in the succeeding pages of Mr. Browning’s book. Whether the story has undergone transformation in the process we must leave to the decision of authorities on the subject. A comparison between the Greek original and Mr. Browning’s translation or “transcript” certainly shows some important divergences from the classic story. We have only to compare the excellent translation of Potter in Morley’s “Universal Library,” vol. 54 (Routledge, 1s.), to discern this fact at once. As the question is one of considerable literary importance, it is necessary to call attention to it in this work. For those of my readers who may have forgotten the Alkestis tragedy, it may be well to recall its principal points. Potter, in his translation of the Alkestis of Euripides, gives the following prefatory note of the plot: – “Admetus and Alcestis were nearly related before their marriage. Æolus, the third in descent from Prometheus, was the father of Cretheus and Salmoneus; Æson, the father of Jason, and Pheres, the father of Admetus, were sons of Cretheus; Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, was by Neptune mother to Pelias, whose eldest daughter Alcestis was. The historian, who relates the arts by which Medea induced the daughters of Pelias to cut their father in pieces in expectation of seeing him restored to youth, tells us that Alcestis alone, through the tenderness of her filial piety, concurred not with her sisters in that fatal deed (Diodor. Sic.). Pheres, now grown old, had resigned his kingdom to his son, and retired to his paternal estate, as was usual in those states where the sceptre was a spear. Admetus, on his first accession to the regal power, had kindly received Apollo, who was banished from heaven, and compelled for the space of a year to be a slave to a mortal; and the god, after he was restored to his celestial honours, did not forget that friendly house, but, when Admetus lay ill of a disease from which there was no recovery, prevailed upon the Fates to spare his life, on condition that some near relation should consent to die for him. But neither his father nor his mother, nor any of his friends, was willing to pay the ransom. Alcestis, hearing this, generously devoted her own life to save her husband’s. – The design of this tragedy is to recommend the virtue of hospitality, so sacred among the Grecians, and encouraged on political grounds, as well as to keep alive a generous and social benevolence. The scene is in the vestibule of the house of Admetus. Palæphatus has given this explanation of the fable: After the death of Pelias, Acastus pursued the unhappy daughters to punish them for destroying their father. Alcestis fled to Pheræ; Acastus demanded her of Admetus, who refused to give her up; he therefore advanced towards Pheræ with a great army, laying the country waste with fire and sword. Admetus marched out of the city to check these devastations, fell into an ambush, and was taken prisoner. Acastus threatened to put him to death. When Alcestis understood that the life of Admetus was in this danger on her account, she went voluntarily and surrendered herself to Acastus, who discharged Admetus and detained her in custody. At this critical time Hercules, on his expedition to Thrace, arrives at Pheræ, is hospitably entertained by Admetus, and being informed of the distress and danger of Alcestis, immediately attacks Acastus, defeats his army, rescues the lady, and restores her to Admetus.” – At the eighty-fourth meeting of the London Browning Society (June 26th, 1891), Mr. R. G. Moulton, M.A. Camb., read a paper on Balaustion’s Adventure, which he described as “a beautiful misrepresentation of the original.” In this he said: “To those who are willing to decide literary questions upon detailed evidence, I submit that analysis shows the widest divergence between the Admetus of Euripides and the Admetus sung by Balaustion. And, in answer to those who are influenced only by authority, I claim that I have on my side of the question an authority who on this matter must rank higher than even Browning himself; and the name of my authority is Euripides.” The following extracts from Mr. Moulton’s able and scholarly criticism will explain his chief points. (The whole paper is published in the Transactions of the Browning Society, 1890-1.) Mr. Moulton says: “My position is that Browning, in common with the greater part of modern readers, has entirely misread and misrepresented Euripides’ play of Alcestis. If any one wishes to pronounce “Balaustion’s Adventure” a more beautiful poem than the Greek original, I have no wish to gainsay his estimate; but I maintain, nevertheless, that the one gives a distorted view of the other. The English poem is no mere translation of the Greek, but an interpretation with comments freely interpolated. And the poet having caught a wrong impression as to one of the main elements of the Greek story, has unconsciously let this impression colour his interpretations of words and sentences, and has used his right of commenting to present his mistaken conception with all the poetic force of a great master, until I fear that the Euripidean setting of the story is for English readers almost hopelessly lost. The point at issue is the character of Admetus. Taken in the rough, the general situation has been understood by modern readers thus: A husband having obtained from Fate the right to die by substitute, when no other substitute was forthcoming his wife Alcestis came forward, and by dying saved Admetus. And the first thought of every honest heart has been, “Oh, the selfishness of that husband to accept the sacrifice!” But my contention is, that if Euripides’ play be examined with open and unbiassed mind, it will be found that not only Admetus is not selfish, but, on the contrary, he is as eminent for unselfishness in his sphere of life as Alcestis proves in her own. If this be so, the modern readers, with Browning at their head, have been introducing into the play a disturbing element that has no place there. And they have further, I submit, missed another conception – to my thinking a much more worthy conception – which really does underlie and unify the whole play. If Admetus is in fact selfish, how comes it that no personage in the whole play catches this idea? – no one, that is, except Pheres, whose words go for nothing, since he never discovers this selfishness of Admetus until he is impelled to fasten on another the accusation which has been hurled at himself. Except Pheres, all regard Admetus as the sublime type of generosity. Apollo, as representing the gods, uses the unexpected word “holy” to describe the demeanour with which his human protector cherished him during the trouble that drove him to earth in human shape. The Chorus, who, it is well known, represent in a Greek play public opinion, and are a channel by which the author insinuates the lesson of the story, cannot restrain their admiration at one point of the action, and devote an ode to the lofty character of their king. And Hercules, so grandly represented by Browning himself as the unselfish toiler for others, feels at one moment that he has been outdone in generosity by Admetus. There can be no question, then, what Euripides thought about the character of Admetus. And will the objector seriously contend that Euripides has, without intending it, presented a character which must in fact be pronounced selfish? The suggestion that the poet who created Alcestis did not know selfishness when he saw it, seems to me an improbability far greater than the improbability that Browning and the English readers should go wrong. Browning’s suggestion of Pheres as Admetus “push’d to completion” seems to me grossly unfair: it ignores all Admetus’ connection with Apollo and Hercules, and all his world-wide fame for hospitality. There is nothing in the legend or in the play to suggest that Pheres is anything more than an ordinary Greek: certainly the gods never came down from heaven to wonder at Pheres, nor did Hercules ever recognise him as generous beyond himself. In no view can the scene be other than a painful one. But it is intelligible only when we see in it, not the son rebuking his father, but the head of the State pouring out indignation on the officer whose self-preserving instinct has shirked at once a duty and an honourable opportunity to sacrifice, and thereby lost a life more valuable than his own. In this light the situation before us wears a different aspect. It is no case of a wife dying for a husband, but it is a subject dying to save the head of the State. And nothing can be clearer than that such a sacrifice is taken for granted by the personages who appear before us in Euripides’ play. For I must warn the reader of Balaustion that there is not the shadow of a shade of foundation in the original for the scornful words of the English poet telling how the idea of a substitute for their king nowhere appears unnatural to the personages of the play; the sole surprise they express is that the substitute should be the youthful Alcestis and not the aged parents. The situation may fairly be paralleled in this respect with the crisis that arises in Sir Walter Scott’s Fair Maid of Perth, when the seven sons of Torquil go successively to certain death to shield their chief; and, while they cover themselves with glory, no one accuses Hector of selfishness for allowing the sacrifice: the sentiment of clan institutions makes it a matter of course. The hospitality of Admetus is the foundation of the story; for it is this which has led Apollo (as he tells us in the prologue) to wring out of Fate the sparing to earth of the generous king on condition of a substitute being found.”