Page images
PDF
EPUB

all women in general, as if coquetry were inseparable from them.

The Athenians affected to give Euripides the title of woman-hater. Suidas and Moschopulus assure us that it was given him on account of his austere and indifferent temper. Some Greek verses quoted by Aulus Gellius observe that "He was extremely grave and serious, and industriously declined the pleasures of gallantry, for which reasons he was named the woman-hater." He neither laughed, nor cared for the pleasures that are enjoyed with the fair sex. Such was the cause of that epithet. If after this he is seen pointing a hundred common places in his tragedies against women, and taking a pleasure to discover the ill qualities of some of them under general characters, this did but confirm the title to him, and there is no question but his stars having engaged him in an unhappy marriage, that personal and domestic reason fed his ill humour, and furnished him with satirical thoughts. "He is said to have conceived a violent aversion to most of the female sex, either from a natural antipathy to their company, or because he had two wives at the same time (such practices being allowed by a decree of the Athenians) and was thoroughly weary of his consorts." But otherwise, nothing is more false than to maintain, that having quitted his own country because of the disorderly lives of his two wives, he conceived a general hatred against the whole sex, and endeavoured to expose them all for the faults of some among them. This is confuted without a reply, by shewing that he did not leave his country till a few years before his death, and after the stage of Athens had echoed a hundred and a hundred times with his invectives against the women. Euripides, stung with this ignominious treatment, is said to have withdrawn himself into Macedonia, and from a resentment of the leud practices of his wives, conceived a perpetual hatred of the

whole sex; but by the leave of these would-be critics, let me say what I shall prove; namely, that the origin of this name was owing to another cause. For Euripides was not so much distinguished by the name of woman-hater, for introducing so many vicious women, so many sorceresses, adultresses, murderers of husbands, and incestuous characters of that sex, as for those severe reflexions wherewith he had so frequently lashed the whole female part of the creation. Besides, a great number, if not all of his Tragedies, wherein he treats them with so much severity, were acted before he ever thought of going into Macedonia. It must be remembered that if Euripides has brought some very wicked women upon the stage, he has also brought heroines upon it, making an honourable mention of the fair sex upon many occasions but this did not efface the character he had obtained, the remembrance of an injury destroying that of a benefit. Let it be remembered also, that Aristophanes, by seeming to defend the fair sex against Euripides, has abused them more than Euripides did. I speak of the comedy wherein Aristophanes supposes the women to bring their action against Euripides. It must be allowed, that in the "Thesmophoriazusæ," the poet does not seem so much to lash Euripides, against whom the plot of that piece is thought to be laid, as the whole female sex, indulging his peculiar fondness for finding fault, and forwarded therein by the strength of his fancy. For, at the same time that he supposes Euripides was condemned by the ladies for speaking disrespectfully of them in his tragedies, he publishes more enormities of that sex in that single comedy than Euripides had ever mentioned in all his tragedies. Thus, by arraigning Euripides, he acquits him, and by seeming to declare himself an advocate for the women, he blackens their characters the more. But would you see a man, who has said more against the fair sex in three words than ever Euripides had done in fifty

tragedies, consider this answer of Sophocles. Being one day asked why the women he brought upon the stage were good and honest women, whereas Euripides introduced none but what were very bad,-he answered," Euripides represents them as they really are, and I as they ought to be."

Arts. EvE & EURIPIDES.

WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER.

(Identity of.)

JAMES LE FEVRE maintained that the woman that was a sinner, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the sister of Lazarus, are three different women; when he published a book upon this subject, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the unlearned and the learned, the populace and the doctors, agreed in saying that Mary, the sister to Martha and Lazarus, did not differ from the woman who was a sinner, mentioned in the seventh chapter of St Luke, nor from her out of whom Jesus Christ cast seven devils. The hymns and office of St Mary Magdalen, in the Roman breviary, are agreeable to this opinion. This did not hinder our Le Fevre from combatting it, whose book was reprinted in 1518 and 1519. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester wrote against Le Fevre in defence of the common opinion concerning the unity of those three women, a book which was printed at Paris in 1519. This dispute caused a great deal of heat, both because the least innovations alarmed the Catholics in the beginning of Lutheranism, and because they were but little satisfied of James Le Fevre's orthodoxy; but when these personal animosities ceased, they began to relish his sentiment, so that at the end of the sixteenth century, and long after, it was looked upon as consistent with reason and faith. It was allowed to be publicly maintained in the Sorbonne, provided a small distinction was added to it, which really destroyed the whole decree in favour of which it was invented.

They were obliged to say that they did not acknowledge a triple woman, which would have been to affirm what the decree of the faculty had condemned; but three different women, one of whom was named Magdalen. The thing went so far that the most learned men would have been ashamed to have continued in the common opinion, and the correctors of the breviaries of Paris, Orleans, and Vienna, put a distinction between Lazarus's sister, the sinner, and Mary Magdalen. Things being in this state, some doctors took pity of the doctrine they saw forsaken, and which had been led in triumph by what appeared so false, when James Le Fevre ventured to swim against the stream. Father Alexander, who afterwards published the reformation of the office of Paris, after having weighed the authorities and reasons of both parties, has concluded in favor of the opinion which makes them but one single person. After this, father Lamy, priest of the Oratory, not content with having endeavoured to re-establish this opinion in his new Evangelical Concord, which he wrote in Latin in 1689, has published a particular dissertation upon it in a French treatise, by way of letter, printed in 1691; since which, father Mauduit, also a priest of the Oratory, and Dom Pezron, have each of them written a dissertation in a work they published in French upon the gospel, wherein they defend the common opinion. M. Du Hamel, of the Academy of Sciences, retains the same opinion. I borrow this from a book printed at Roan in 1699, by M. Anquetin, curate of Lyons, under the title of a "Dissertation upon St Mary Magdalen, to prove that Mary Magdalen, Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the woman who was a sinner, are three different women." Observe, that Erasmus wrote to the bishop of Rochester, that all the world gave the latter the victory; but that there were some people who were sorry he had treated so severely a person who had done so much service to the sciences as James Le Fevre.-Art. LE FEVRE.

END OF VOL. III.

« PreviousContinue »