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34

LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME

XV

suited to his heroic themes: as when he says of his "Seven against Thebes"—

"Seven mighty men, and valiant captains, slew
Over an iron-bound shield a bull, then dipped
Their fingers in the blood, and all invoked
Ares, Enyo, and death-dealing Flight
In witness of their oaths,"[1]

and describes how they all mutually pledged themselves without flinching to die. Sometimes, however, his thoughts are unshapen, and as it were rough-hewn and rugged. Not observing this, Euripides, from too blind a rivalry, sometimes falls under the same censure. 6Aeschylus with a strange violence of language represents the palace of Lycurgus as possessed at the appearance of Dionysus—

"The halls with rapture thrill, the roof's inspired."[2]

Here Euripides, in borrowing the image, softens its extravagance[3]—

"And all the mountain felt the god."[4]

7Sophocles has also shown himself a great master of the imagination in the scene in which the dying Oedipus prepares himself for burial in the midst of a tempest,[5] and where he tells how Achilles appeared to the Greeks over his tomb just as they were
  1. ↑ Sept. c. Th. 42.
  2. ↑ Aesch. Lycurgus.
  3. ↑ Lit. "Giving it a different flavour," as Arist. Poet. ήδνσμένῳ λόγῳ χώρις ἑκάσιῳ τῶν, ii. 10.
  4. ↑ Bacch. 726.
  5. ↑ Oed. Col. 1586
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