ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν ἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ μήτ’ εἰς ἀδίκους πράξεις ὁρμῶν, ἀλλ’ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως κόσμον ἀγήρω, πῇ τε συνέστη καὶ ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως. τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ’ αἰσχρῶν ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει. “Happy is he who hath won deep learning. He setteth himself neither to hurt his fellow-citizens nor towards works of iniquity, but fixeth his gaze upon the ageless order of immortal Nature, the laws and methods of its creation. Unto such a man never doth there cling the plotting of base deeds.” If these lines point at Anaxagoras and belong to our play, the two significant clauses which defend the moral character of the philosopher in question indicate the year 430 itself. The CRESPHONTES had immense success as a powerful melodrama. Polyphontes, having slain his brother Cresphontes, King of Messenia, seized his throne and married his widow Merope, who sent her infant son Cresphontes away to safe keeping in Ætolia. When he grew up he returned to avenge his father. At this point the action begins. Cresphontes seems to have delivered the prologue; since Polyphontes fearing his return has offered a reward to whoever shall slay him, he has determined to win the usurper’s confidence by claiming to have destroyed his enemy. Meanwhile, Merope, alarmed by the proclamation of the king, has sent an aged slave to find whether Cresphontes is well; he returns with tidings that the prince has disappeared from Ætolia. Merope gives her son over for lost, and observing the youthful stranger who is received with joy by the king, she becomes convinced that he is the murderer of her son. While he lies asleep she steals upon him with an axe, when the old slave recognizes the stranger and stops her arm. Mother and son are united, and at once plot to slay Polyphontes. Merope pretends to be reconciled to the king, who in his joy goes to sacrifice, accompanied by the youth, who takes advantage of a suitable moment to slay his enemy. Plutarch, nearly six centuries later, testifies[815] to the sensation which the Recognition caused in the audience. Merope herself seems to have been a figure ranking with Hecuba in the _Troades_. The tidings of her son’s death draw from her words which in their quiet dignity of grief have something of Wordsworth:— Children have died ere now, not mine alone, And wives been widow’d. Yea, this cup of life Unnumber’d women have drain’d it, as do I.... ... Insistent Fate, Taking in fee the lives of all I lov’d, Hath made me wise. Probably it was Merope again who uttered the famous lines which advise lament over the newly-born and a glad procession to accompany the dead. The recognition-scene is singled out for especial praise by Aristotle.[816] The fragments of this tragedy include a perfect jewel of lyric poetry, a prayer to Peace:—