And, for manner and tone, compare the
speeches of Pheres in the _Alcestis_, and Jocasta in the _Phoenissae_,
with those of Claudio in _Measure for Measure_, and Ulysses in _Troilus
and Cressida_.
The Greek dramatists were somewhat fond of a trick of words in which
there is a reduplication of sense as well as of assonance, as in the
_Electra_:--
[Greek: Alektra gaeraskousan anumenaia te].
So Shakespeare:--
"Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled";
and Milton after him, or, more likely, after the Greek:--
"Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved."[129]
I mention these trifles, in passing, because they have interested me, and
therefore may interest others. I lay no stress upon them, for, if once
the conductors of Shakespeare's intelligence had been put in connection
with those Attic brains, he would have reproduced their message in a form
of his own. They would have inspired, and not enslaved him. His
resemblance to them is that of consanguinity, more striking in expression
than in mere resemblance of feature. The likeness between the
Clytemnestra--[Greek: gunaikos androboulon elpizon kear]--of Aeschylus
and the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare was too remarkable to have escaped
notice. That between the two poets in their choice of epithets is as
great, though more difficult of proof.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279