11 MAY 1912, Page 16

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Here is a

line of Euripides (Iph. in Aul. 1394): A'S 'y' avbp mpetecon, yuvatmeZv pvphav dpiiv Odor, " Worthier than ten thousand women is one man to see the light." By a sudden revulsion of feeling Iphigeneia has ceased to deplore her fate : she now is ready to die for Greece, and her lover Achilles shall not risk his precious life in the attempt to rescue her. This attitude is held up as noble, so that the line cannot be regarded as an expression of the poet's alleged hatred of women. It is true that the one man's life hero valued at so much higher a rate than the speaker's own is that of the great Achilles ; but no modern poet, I think, could have made her express that estimate in such language.—I am, Sir,