The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-05-07
SATURDAY MORNING, MAY z.

fix as you never heard tell of and, what is
most wonderful, the more successful you shall
be, the greater will be your failure. Put that
in your pipe and smoke it." "Bosh!" said the
young Corinthian; 81 have waited on you for
the purpose of solving your ridiculous riddle,
ana thus resolving you out of this country. So,
here goes, for throne or larder! Listen;
The animal that figures in your conundrum is
Man, who i'll infancy goes Gu four legs, who iE
manhood struts on his hind legs, and who in
age carries a cane, or staff, which does duty
Tor third foot, or leg. You're done. | play
the king, and sweep the board. IT'S regular
case of high, low, jack and the game" The
Sphinx confessed that she was done for; but,
added she, " It's you, Young gentleman, who
have lost, as you'll learn some years hence,
When was last in Spain 1 heard my friend,
the King, Don Alfonso. say saying. to wit:
i ie vanquished vanquished, and the victor
undone. IL describes your predicament, ex-
actiy. You've won the battle game against
me, she continued, with sentimental sigh,
out you'v made certain your loss of the bat
tie OF life. Gocd-ey to you,-gve my COM
pliments to your father. when you meet
him on the Stygian shore, and be sure not
-Jocasta, when you've completed your desti-
ny,-he, he, hei'' Then she colloscd, her
work being done. Qdipus fastened to Thebes
and claimed the promised throne, aud also the
promised bride, both of which readily were be-
slowed upon him. Thus he had killed his ia
iiier. without knowing it; and he had married
his mother, without knowing it, and Fate was
working out the irresistible DEGREES according
to ancient precedent If Sophocles took the
correct view of the matter, Edipus had two
soDs By Jocasta, -Eteocles and Polynices; and
two daughters and Ismene. AS
Jocasta must have been woman of advanced
life at the time she became her sons wife ii
seems hardly possible that she could have four
times become mother in that marriage The
gods were so disguised with what had been
done that they laid Thebes under a pestilence
The oracle was consulted, that goes without
ssyng,-aDd the answer was that King Laius
had been killed, and that he must be avenged
King Gdipus put himself at the head of the
commission OF inquiry, he being a very good
and pious man; and, to make long story as
short as possible, the whole matter comes to
light, and O.dpus finds that, instead of being
pattern man and ruler, he has committed
parricide and incest, and that his sons are his
hali-brothers and his daughters his half sisters
he tears out his eyes, and he is expelled from
Thehes by his sons and others of his relatives
Jocasta, on learning how she had become in
nocently involved in direful tragedy com
III iird suicide. Such is sketch of that Greek
Tragedy, the NdipUS 1y9annus of Sophocles
which has been revived in this country by tho
ingenious and learned men of Cambridge, and
which will be produced in about three weeks
Sophocles, who has been called "the most ma
Jesiic OF the Greek poets," seems to have been
very partial to the story, as three of his great
est productions are made from 1.-THE Edipus
1JrdnnuS the UdipuS at Coleneus, am the
Antigone. But he is believed to have paid no
more regard to Grecian facts than Shake
speare paid to English facts in those of his his
torlc2l plays that relate to the Wars of York
and Lancaster. $50 much the worse for the
facts!" as Voltaire said on certain occasion,
would have formed the substance of their an
swers to any critic who should have objected to
their disregard of historic accuracy. They
wrote as great artists. not as historians or
chroniclers. The historian is bound to stick
to facts, and to stick them in whenever he can
hnd them, and wherever they can be made to
tell; but the poet can draw upon his imagina-
tion., The Thebin story had great attractions
for the great Greek dramatists, as H1schylus
and Enripides drew upon it, as we'll as Sopho-
Giles. This shows that the ancents were as
partial TO the sensational element as the mod
erns are, or ever were. Surely nothing could
be more sensational than story that depends
for its interest upon the foulest form of incest,
on parricide, on murder, on the DEGREES of Des-
tiny, and upon the most awful reverses of for
tune. and upon others of the most exciting in
cidents that often mark the course of human
life. Yet the Greeks are held to have had the
purest taste of anv people, and to have been
models for all later times and races. But the
cry against sensationalism is not of much &C.
count, considering that nothing can be more
sensational than the baldest truths most BADLY
stated. when existence is the theme of the
poet or the romancer.