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The passion of Jephthah,
the horror, the piteous pleading of his wife and daughter, and the final
submission of the latter to her doom, are elaborated with a careful and
tender hand. From the opening to the closing line, the reader is lifted
to the level of the tragic theme, and inspired, as in the Greek tragedy,
with a pity which makes lovely the element of terror. The central
sentiment of the poem, through all its touching and sorrowful changes,
is that of repose. Observe the grave harmony of the opening lines:--
"'Twas in the olden days of Israel,
When from her people rose up mighty men
To judge and to defend her: ere she knew,
Or clamored for, her coming line of kings,
A father, rashly vowing, sacrificed
His daughter on the altar of the Lord;--
'Twas in those ancient days, coeval deemed
With the song-famous and heroic ones,
When Agamemnon, taught divinely, doomed
_His_ daughter to expire at Dian's shrine,--
So doomed, to free the chivalry of Greece,
In Aulis lingering for a favoring wind
To waft them to the fated walls of Troy.


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