Beyond the normal lucid beauty of lyrics and dialogue, and beyond the frequent outpourings of splendid eloquence in long speeches, there is a still higher level of poetry which should be noted. Now and again his pages are filled with an unearthly splendour. Reference has been made before to certain isolated lines which combine utter simplicity with bewildering charm.[407] But here and there the poet has given us whole speeches in this divine manner. They are always a comment on the matter in hand, but they are conceived in the spirit of one who “contemplates all time and all existence,” who stands apart from man and sees him in his place amid the workings of the universe. One of these ethereal utterances is the speech[408] of Œdipus to Theseus who has expressed his doubt whether Thebes will ever desert the friendship of Athens; it begins:— Fair Aigeus’ son, only to gods in heaven Comes no old age nor death of anything; All else is turmoiled by our master Time. The earth’s strength fades and manhood’s glory fades, Faith dies, and unfaith blossoms like a flower. And who shall find in the open streets of men Or secret places of his own heart’s love One wind blow true for ever? More personal, but instinct with the same glow of imaginative beauty is the soliloquy[409] of Ajax when at the point of death. It is in passages like these that one realizes the value of the restraint which obtains elsewhere; when the author gives his voice full scope the effect is heartshaking. Ajax’ appeal to the sun-god to “check his gold-embossed rein” fills with splendour at a word the heavens which were lowering with horror. It recalls Marlowe’s lines of the same type and effect though in different application, which suffuse the agony of Faust with bitter glory:— Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven That time may cease, and midnight never come! The greatest achievement of Sophocles was, however, reserved till the close of his life. The messenger’s speech,[410] narrating the last moments of Œdipus, is the culmination in Greek of whatever miracles human language can compass in exciting awe and delight. The poet has bent all his mastery of tense idiom, of varied and haunting rhythm, all his instinct for the pathos of life and the mystery of fate, to produce one mighty uplifting of the hearer into the region where emotion and intellect are no longer opposed but mingle into something for which we have no name but “Life”. CHAPTER V THE WORKS OF EURIPIDES Of nearly one hundred dramas composed by Euripides nineteen[411] have survived. These are now discussed in the approximate chronological order; the precise date of production is, however, known in but few cases.