No jealousy arises. Milton preferred Ovid too, and
I dare say he admired both as a man of sensibility admires a lovely woman,
with a feeling into which jealousy or envy cannot enter. With Aeschylus or
Sophocles he might perchance have matched himself.
In Euripides you have oftentimes a very near approach to comedy, and I
hardly know any writer in whom you can find such fine models of serious and
dignified conversation.
[Footnote 1:
Greek:
Euippoy, Xege, tmsde chosas
Tchoy ta chzatista gas esaula
tdn axgaeta Kolanon'--ch. t. l. v. 668]
[Footnote 2:
Greek:
"Exos" Exos, o chat' ommatton
s tazeos pothon eisagog glycheian
Psuchae chariu ous epithtzateusei
mae moi tote sen chacho phaneiaes
maeo arruthmos elthois--x.t.l v.527]
[Footnote 3:
I take it for granted that Mr. Coleridge alluded to the chorus,--
[Greek: Su men, _o patrhis Ilias
t_on aporhth_et_on polis
ouketi lexei toion El-
lan_on nephos amphi se krhuptei,
dorhi d_e, dorhi perhsan--k. t. l.] v. 899.
Thou, then, oh, natal Troy! no more
The city of the unsack'd shalt be,
So thick from dark Achaia's shore
The cloud of war hath covered thee.
Ah! not again
I tread thy plain--
The spear--the spear hath rent thy pride;
The flame hath scarr'd thee deep and wide;
Thy coronal of towers is shorn,
And thou most piteous art--most naked and forlorn!
I perish'd at the noon of night!
When sleep had seal'd each weary eye;
When the dance was o'er,
And harps no more
Rang out in choral minstrelsy.
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