wor Nicholion & Watson, London.
In rationalizing the "legend of JAlcestis, "Miss Una Broadbent following in the best tradition. The vitality of the story, so we are told fon the jacket, has' attracted fresh interpreters in' every age, and now in "Perilous Grain" we have the very latest 20th "century version. The story in its elements is simple. Admetus has been marked down to die by the Fates, but Apollo persuades them to spore him on condition that he can find a substitute. Eventually his wife, Alcestis, offers to die in his stead, but is rescued from the very grave itself by Heracles, who in a struggle with Death restores' the dutiful wite to her husband. Miss Broadbent, however, oes not stop here, but, while making the Alcestis legend the central theme of her book. has woven into it other. legends concerned with the same family—the murder of Pelias, whom Medea persuaded his daughters 0 Kill in Order that she might restore hhis youth by her magic, and the murder by Medea of her children and Jason's new wife with her father Croon, King of Corinth.
'The task' is one from which even the boldest interpreter of ancient Limes "in modern "dress might have shrunk, but Miss Broadbent succeeds fairly "well on the whole. Greek legends, when we have once passed the age of the pure storytellers, have always been interpreted, not merely told as stories, and it is on the basis of these well-known legends that the great tragedians disclosed their philosophic views on man's relations to the world in which he lived. 'The story of Alcestis, too, is one Ukely to appeal to modern tastes. It was criticized. at any rate, in Eurlbides' version, on the grounds that it was purely pathetic, and possessing only what we call to-day a human Interest, and consequently unsuited for the of that great struggle between Fate and Freewill which is the theme of the greatest lof Greek tragedies. It is, however, Just this quality which makes it sult fable for treatment in modern form.
'Miss Broadbent has chosen the rationalist and scientific. approach, Hers is an interpretation based on scientific explanation of the apparently supernatural, and we search in vain in her pages for any description of Heracles' journey into Hades when he stole the cheeses from the old woman and devoured them baskets and all, or of the dragon car of 'Medea's' grandfather the Sun in which she escaped to find a refuge'
Athens. It need hardly be said that the story Under' this treatment loses much of its vigour and tresh= ness, and in. the end, though the bool il holds our attention, "the peculiar Greek favour of the whole ost, and' we might well be readin 2 story. of conjugal affection "among any primitive "people.
"The characters are not particularly vital The author has been at pains to conceal the fact that Admetus ts, Judged from any" standpoint. realy selfish coward who is quite prepared to lot Ble wife die for him. "Alcestis appears, and. of course. waa, a. mere child, Heracles has been east in the traditional"" mould, "kind-hearted, courageous, gluttonous and somewhat of a drunkard, and i on the whole the! most' real' of them all, But to dear with the immortals one must be more than mortal satura, and to ao "over again what Buripides has already done so well, isto imply that tone has something to" add. Mae Broadbent "can explain away "the wonder by selene she ana nathe tion of character—u.n. ing t0 the Greeks subtle interpreta.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.