Another episode, and one not even indirectly
connected with the labors of Hercules, is the story of Semele, handled
with the same simple and straightforward skill of dramatic exposition,
the same purity and fluency of blameless and spontaneous verse, that
distinguish all parts alike of this dramatic chronicle. The second of
the five plays composing it closes with the rescue of Proserpine by
Hercules, and the judgment of Jupiter on "the Arraignment of the Moon."
In "The Brazen Age" there is somewhat more of dramatic unity or
coherence than in the two bright easy-going desultory plays which
preceded it: it closes at least with a more effective catastrophe than
either of them in the death of Hercules. However far inferior to the
haughty and daring protest or appeal in which Sophocles, speaking
through the lips of the virtuous Hyllus, impeaches and denounces the
iniquity of heaven with a steadfast and earnest vehemence unsurpassed in
its outspoken rebellion by any modern questioner or blasphemer of divine
providence, the simple and humble sincerity of the English playwright
has given a not unimpressive or inharmonious conclusion to the same
superhuman tragedy.
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