‘Man’s love when it is excessive is neither excellent nor, indeed, creditable. But still, sex is a divine thing and a gracious, if kept within bounds. A moderate temper, for that I pray: avaunt, contentious anger and the ceaseless bickering that drives a husband astray to another woman’s arms.’—(_Medea._) Sometimes the question takes a wider range as in the difficult chorus of the Iphigenia in Aulis. ‘The stuff of which men and women are made is different: their ways are different too. But what is really good, of that there is no doubt. The different methods of rearing and education have a great influence on ideas of excellence. Humble modesty is a form of wisdom; and yet it is wondrous good to use your own judgment and see your duty for yourself. Then life is honourable and your frame grows not old. It is a great thing to seek after excellence. For us women the quest is secret down the secret ways of love; for men the marshalled state and the thronging crowd make a city to increase and prosper.’ But the topic on which Euripides insists most is the scandal of literature, the unfair ideas of woman that have been created and fostered by the perversity of writers. Two quotations will suffice. One from the Ion:— ‘Ye scandal-masters of the lyre, That harping still upon the lust Of losel women never tire, Her lewdness ever, now be just. How doth her faith superior show Beside the lust of losel man! See it, and change your music. Go Another way than once ye ran, Ye lyric libels, go, and vex The faithless found, the elder sex.’—(_Ion. Verrall’s translation._) another from the Medea: ‘It is men now that are crafty in counsel, and keep not their pledges by the gods; the scandal will turn and honour come to a woman’s life. ’Tis coming—respect for womankind. No longer will pestilent scandal attack women, and women alone. The music of ancient bards will die away, harping ever on woman’s perfidy. Phœbus is the guide of melody and in my heart he never set the wondrous music of his lyre. Else I would soon have raised a song that would have stayed the brood of male singers. The long years have many a tale to tell, of men as well as of women.’ This last sentence represents Euripides’ reasoned judgment on the problems of feminism. Women are different from men, but they are not inferior: all the arguments that are used to prove woman’s weakness could be used equally well against men. So we may leave the characters and turn now to the separate plays.