ABSTRACT
The Sophocles has secured his sensitive Philoctetes against contempt; he has also wisely forestalled all the objections which otherwise might have been brought against him by the Englishman. In the tragedy of Sophocles, he hears nothing but the complaining and screaming of Philoctetes, never considering the constant manliness of his conduct in other respects. If Philoctetes had retained the mastery of his suffering, Neoptolemus would have retained the mastery of his dissimulation. In the Trachinia; Sophocles has made use of the same stroke of art, namely, of connecting with the sympathy excited by the scream of corporeal suffering another emotion in the spectator. The slightest expression of it would have awakened sympathy, and frequently sympathy excited would have made a speedy end to the cold ghastly performance. The Chorus is composed of women; it is all the more natural that fear and dread should overpower them.
