THE Harvard Greek play is over; the labors of many months have been brought to a conclusion more successful than any one had hoped; there is everything to remember with pride, and little or nothing to regret. In looking back one recalls with pleasure the devotion of those who took charge, the enthusiasm of the performers, and the quick response of the public. An impulse has been given to classical studies, and already two Greek plays are announced from other colleges. There is no ground for fear that the event will be forgotten. To those who witnessed the play, it will remain a memorable incident; to those who made the play, it will constitute one of the privileges of life.

There is, however, a feature of the play which is of more importance than all its pleasing memories. Athenae omnium doctrinarum inventrices, said the Roman orator; and among these the most prominent is a certain doctrina vivendi, which was the mother of all the excellences of that glorious age. In the play of Oedipus the King this doctrine is presented by a master's hand, and though the labor of production was so absorbing, and though the performance was so dazzling, yet the underlying moral significance did not go unheeded.

The Oedipus is a powerful exhibition of the fact that our lives “do ride upon a dial's point.” Who could have foreseen the woes of Oedipus?