Since I am wise, some people envy me, some think I'm idle, some the opposite, and some feel threatened. Yet I'm not all that wise. - Euripides

The stamp of royal birth is an unmistakable Miracle; and when those who bear a noble name Are worthy of it, the mircable is greater still.

On behalf of all those dead
who learned their hatred of women long ago,
for those who hate them now, for those unborn
who shall live to hate them yet, I now declare
my firm conviction: neither earth nor ocean
produces a creature as savage and monstrous
as woman.

So that many characters which passed as heroic, or at least presentable, in the kindly remoteness of legend, reveal some strange weakness when brought suddenly into the light. When the tradition is Satyric, as here, the same process produces almost an opposite effect. It is somewhat as though the main plot of a gross and jolly farce were pondered over and made more true to human character till it emerged as a refined and rather pathetic comedy.