< Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

196

APPENDIX.

{|align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: smaller"

|- |“||By lot I will not die, for to such death |- | |No thanks are due, or glory—name it not. |- | |If you accept me, if my offered life |- | |Be grateful to you, willingly I give it |- | |For these, but by constraint I will not die.” |}

Very fine are her parting advice and injunctions to them all:

Farewell! revered old man, farewell! and teach
These youths in all things to be wise, like thee,
Naught will avail them more.”

Macaria has the clear Minerva eye: Antigone's is deeper, and more capable of emotion, but calm. Iphigenia's, glistening, gleaming with angel truth, or dewy as a hidden violet.

I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his “Dream of fair women,” has not of Iphigenia. Of her alone he has not made a fit picture, but only of the circumstances of the sacrifice. He can never have taken to heart this work of Euripides, yet he was so worthy to feel it. Of Jeptha's daughter, he has spoken as he would of Iphigenia, both in her beautiful song, and when

I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.
 
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
 
Moreover it is written, that my race
Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh from Arroer
Or Arnon unto Minneth. Here her face
Glow'd as I look'd on her.
 
She locked her lips; she left me where I stood;
“Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar,
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.