In the art of iambic verse Sophocles stands beyond all other Greeks unrivalled. Beside him Æschylus sounds almost clumsy, Euripides glib, Aristophanes vulgar. Only Shakespeare has that complete mastery over every shade of emphasis, every possibility of grandeur and simple ease alike. The iambic line in Sophocles’ hands can at will display a haunting romantic loveliness, the profoundest dignity, the sharpest edges of emotion, or the quiet prose of every day. Consider the following lines,[401] which begin near the end of Electra’s long speech of complaint to the chorus:— ΗΛ. ἐγὼ δ’ Ὀρέστην τῶνδε προσμένουσ’ ἀεὶ παυστῆρ’ ἐφήξειν ἡ τάλαιν’ ἀπόλλυμαι. μέλλων γὰρ ἀεὶ δρᾶν τι τὰς οὔσας τέ μου καὶ τὰς ἀπούσας ἐλπίδας διέφθορεν. ἐν οὖν τοιούτοις οὔτε σωφρονεῖν, φίλαι, οὔτ’ εὐσεβεῖν πάρεστιν· ἀλλ’ ἔν τοι κακοῖς πολλή ’στ’ ἀνάγκη κἀπιτηδεύειν κακά. ΧΟ. φέρ’ εἰπέ, πότερον ὄντος Αἰγίσθου πέλας λέγεις τάδ’ ἡμῖν, ἢ βεβῶτος ἐκ δόμων; ΗΛ. ἦ κάρτα μὴ δόκει μ’ ἄν, εἴπερ ἦν πέλας, θυραῖον οἰχνεῖν· νῦν δ’ ἀγροῖσι τυγχάνει. ΧΟ. ἦ κἂν ἐγὼ θαρσοῦσα μᾶλλον ἐς λόγους τοὺς σοὺς ἱκοίμην, εἴπερ ὧδε ταῦτ’ ἔχει; ΗΛ. ὡς νῦν ἀπόντος ἱστόρει τί σοι φίλον. Electra’s speech is solemn poetry. The large number of spondees[402] (there are three in the last line), the slow elaboration of the ideas—an elaboration admirably pointed by τοι, which brings the rhythm almost to a standstill—make a strong contrast with the following conversation. There the relaxation of the rhythm is unmistakable; φέρ’ εἰπέ is almost casual in its lightness, and it is at once followed by a tribrach. The rather odd use of the bare dative ἀγροῖσι is a delightfully neat tinge of colloquialism, supported by τυγχάνει. The _Philoctetes_ will repay special study from this point of view. There is a remarkable tendency to divide[403] lines between speakers in order to express excitement; this device is elsewhere very uncommon. From this play we may select one example[404] of amazing skill in rhythm. Philoctetes is explaining how he contrives to crawl to and fro in quest of food and the like:— γαστρὶ μὲν τὰ σύμφορα τόξον τόδ’ ἐξηύρισκε, τὰς ὑποπτέρους βάλλον πελείας· πρὸς δὲ τοῦθ’, ὅ μοι βάλοι νευροσπαδὴς ἄτρακτος, αὐτὸς ἂν τάλας εἰλυόμην δύστηνος ἐξέλκων πόδα πρὸς τοῦτ’ ἄν. The dull repetition of πρὸς τοῦτο and of ἄν; the extremely slow movement of the penultimate line with its three spondees and the word-ending at the close of the second foot; above all, the manner in which the whole dragging sentence leads up to the monosyllable ἄν, so rare at the end of a sentence, and there stops dead, is a marvellous suggestion of the lame man’s painful progress and of the way in which at the end of his endurance he falls prone and spent upon the object of his endeavour.