APPENDIX VII.

THE DRAMA.

THE reader of Demosthenes should certainly know something about that drama which formed a part of the Orator's own education, and which we can see he had deeply studied; from which he and his competitors drew illustrations of their arguments not unfrequently, quoting the verses of Sophocles and Euripides (even more than we quote Shakspeare) before hearers to whom they were as household words. If Demosthenes ridicules Eschines for his murdering Attic tragedies at Colyttus, it is the bad performance and not the profession of an actor which he attacks. We know that this profession was held in esteem at Athens; Satyrus was the friend of Demosthenes himself; Neoptolemus and Aristodemus were employed as diplomatists, and were received even in foreign countries as men of distinction. We find also in the Orators numerous references to the Attic theatre and its performances. I say therefore, independently of other advantages attending a knowledge of the subject, it is far from being unimportant with reference to these Orations only. The drama is in fact a part of the history of Athens, which the reader ought to be acquainted with.

No subject indeed has been more copiously treated than that of the Greek theatre, or with a greater profusion of critical learning, beginning with Bentley and ending with Donaldson. Recommending the student to seek fuller information, if he needs it, in works of more profound research, I here propose only to give a brief account of the origin of the Attic drama, the mode of bringing out and per forming plays at Athens, and a few particulars respecting the theatre itself.

That the sublime composition, which we now call tragedy, should have been derived from the rude songs chanted round the altar of Bacchus, must appear strange to those who have no knowledge of ancient history; and yet no fact in history is more certain. Upon that altar the goat was sacrificed; the singers, disguising themselves as Satyrs, presented the appearance of goats. Whether the name of tragedy was derived from either of these causes, or, as Bentley and others lay it down, from the circumstance that a goat was the prize of the best poet in the time of Thespis, I will not undertake to determine. Certain it is that tragedy signified goat-song.

Out of the rude singing of the Bacchanalians first came the Dithy.

ramb, a choral hymn accompanied by the flute or the lyre. The chorus, which usually consisted of fifty men, danced in a ring round the altar, and hence it received the name of Cyclic chorus. It came soon to be composed by poets, or professional persons, who to the merriment of the old extemporal effusions added a wild poetical enthusiasm, which greatly delighted their hearers. The Dithyramb became highly popular in Greek cities; the prize of a bull was given to the best composer, and great competition was excited. Strictly it denoted a hymn in honour of Bacchus only, though Lasus of Hermione applied it in later time to subjects unconnected with Bacchus. During the course of the seventh century before Christ, from the time of Archilochus to that of Arion, the Dithyramb received divers improvements. Arion, the famous poet of Lesbos, is said to have given it the tragic style, meaning that he first composed dithyrambs of a serious and solemn kind, whereas before his time they had been always of a jovial character. He is said also to have introduced Satyrs speaking metrically, perhaps a sort of recitative, to vary the monotony of the choral music. Here however were the elements of yet further changes.

For the next thing was to introduce a solo; and the leader of the chorus was brought forward, during the intervals of the choral singing, to recite or speak something in verse to the audience, to tell them some story of Bacchus, his birth and his travels, his sufferings, miracles, and triumphs. The transition from this to a dialogue was natural and easy. An actor was brought on the scene, who conversed with the leader of the chorus: their dialogue was all about Bacchus and his adventures; but the different parts of it had at first no connexion with each other. Afterwards it was woven into a connected whole, and formed what we call a plot. Thus gradually rose the drama.

The first person who brought the actor upon the stage was Thespis, and therefore the invention of tragedy has been with some justice ascribed to him. He was a native of Icaria, one of the Attic townships, from very early times devoted to the worship of Bacchus. Here, in the last half of the sixth century before Christ, he first exhibited his plays upon a wooden scaffolding erected for the occasion at the Dionysian festival. The plays were little better than extemporaneous effusions, of a rude and chiefly ludicrous descrip

(1) Aristophanes, Ranæ, 351.—

κυκλίοισι χοροῖσιν ὑπάδων, which refers to the teaching of the chorus by the poet.

(2) As in the verses of Dioscorides, cited and amended by Bentley (On Phalaris) in his discourse on the Age of Tragedy :

Θέσπιδος εὕρεμα τοῦτο, τάδ' ἀγροιῶτιν ἂν ὕλαν
Παίγνια, καὶ κώμους τούσδε τελειοτέρους

Αἰσχύλος ἐξύψωσε, νεοσμίλευτα χαράξας
Γράμματα, χειμάῤῥῳ δ' οἷα καταρδόμενα

Καὶ τὰ κατὰ σκηνὴν μετεκαίνισεν· ὦ στόμα πάντων
Δέξιον, ἀρχαίων ἦθά τις ημιθέων.

tion, Bacchus being the subject of the plot, and the chorus a band of Satyrs. None of them were ever committed to writing. Bentley has shown, that those which have come down to us under the name of Thespis were forgeries of Heraclides, a scholar of Aristotle.

Thespis was followed by Cheerilus and Phrynichus, who were indeed partly his contemporaries, and the latter his pupil. Phrynichus is said to have been the first composer of dramas having no relation to Bacchus. The audience were displeased at the novelty, and cried out, "What has this to do with Bacchus ?" But they soon became reconciled to it, and found that fables about Hercules or the Centaurs could afford as much delight as those about Silenus and his Master. The chorus of Satyrs was preserved for some time, as a relic of the ancient custom but when plays of a serious cast were exhibited, it was felt that the old-fashioned chorus was quite out of place, more especially when it had nothing to do with the plot. The poet accordingly adapted his chorus to the drama, whatever the subject might be, while, as a compensation to the God of the festival, who was not to be deprived entirely of his ancient honours, a purely Satyric drama, in which both the dialogue and the choral parts related to the history of Bacchus, was added to the performance; and it became the rule for the poet to exhibit one such piece together with three tragic, the four being called a tetralogy. Chorilus excelled in the composition of these Satyric dramas, and Pratinas of Phlyus is said to have been their inventor: yet, as it would appear, they could hardly have differed much from the drama of Thespis. Their characteristic was the burlesque. We have but one extant specimen of them, the Cyclops of Euripides.

Phrynichus was a poet of a higher order than any who preceded him. He was not only famous for the sweetness of his choral melodies, but for the dramatic power which touched the feelings and roused the passions. Viewed with reference to these qualities, he better deserves to be called the father of tragedy than Thespis.

He

(1)"The Athenians possessed another kind of ludicrous drama called the Satyrical, which was totally distinct from their comedy in its form and its object. It had been introduced in compliance with ancient usage for the sake of those, who in the improved state of the drama were still unwilling to lose the chorus of Satyrs, which once formed a main part of the Dionysiac entertainments: and it exhibited the highest persons of tragedy thus attended, and under circumstances which were humorously contrasted with the solemnity of their character. But this kind of burlesque could scarcely be said to have any other end than that of unbending the spectator, after his mind had been kept on the stretch by scenes of heroic action or suffering, with the sportive sallies of a mere animal nature. One of these exhibitions commonly followed each tragic performance, and it was always furnished by the tragic poet himself. It is remarkable that Eschylus was accounted no less a master of the light than of the serious drama: an effect perhaps of the very grandeur and severity of his tragic style. But there does not appear to have been any instance in which a tragic poet tried his powers in comedy." Thirlwall, History of Greece,

iii. 79.

(2) To which Aristophanes alludes in the Wasps, 220.

καὶ μινυρίζοντες μέλη ἀρχαιομελησιδωνοφρυνιχήρατα.

won his first prize in the year B. c. 511. About seventeen years later he ventured to dramatise an event of the day, and brought out a piece called "The Fall of Miletus," which melted the whole audience into tears; but they fined him a thousand drachms for having reminded them of a national misfortune, and forbade the play to be ever acted again. (Herodotus, VI. 21.) Its fate may have suggested to Eschylus the writing of his Perse, which celebrated the victories of his country over the barbarians. In general however the tragedians did not choose for their subjects the occurrences of the day, but confined themselves to the ancient legends, such as those of Troy and Thebes, Hercules, Prometheus, and the house of Pelops.

Much however remained to be done before tragedy arrived at its maturity. Phrynichus had brought women into the scene, and invented a female mask; but he carried on the whole of his dialogue, as Thespis had done, between the single actor and the chorus; and the choral songs, with their accompaniment of music and dancing, formed much the larger portion of his plays. It was reserved for Eschylus to remedy these defects, and give to tragedy a more purely dramatic character-first, by the introduction of a second actor; secondly, by shortening the part of the chorus, and making it subservient to the plot. To him also the stage was indebted for sundry improvements in dress and decoration; as, for example, the painting of the scenes, in which he had the aid of the painter Agatharchus the buskin, or high-heeled boot, which gave elevation and dignity to the actor-and a more expressive sort of mask, which in a large theatre was a point of considerable importance. The last grand innovation was made by Sophocles, and, after him, adopted by Aschylus; viz. the third actor: and this was thought by the best critics to fulfil all the requirements of the Greek drama, which turning always upon a simple story, brief in duration, and not overburdened with incidents, a greater number of players would have impeded rather than have assisted the development of the action. The fifty choristers of the Dithyramb had in the tragic chorus in the time of Eschylus, and perhaps before, been reduced to twelve. Sophocles raised them to fifteen; and that continued to be the regular number. He, like Eschylus, made improvements in scenery and dress. How by the genius of these two men tragedy was exalted in its essential characteristics as a work of art— what were the peculiar merits of each as a dramatist, and how they are to be judged either in comparison with one another, or with their rival in fame, Euripides-these and the like matters are not intended to be discussed here.

The Iambic1 metre, brought to such perfection by these Attic

(1) Archilochus the Parian, who flourished in the early part of the seventh century before Christ, is said to have invented Iambic verse, and employed it for those bitter lampoons and libels with which he lashed his personal enemies: one of which caused Lycambes, who refused to give him his daughter in marriage according to promise, to hang himself. The metre received its name from lambe, the servant of Celeus,

tragedians, has the same fitness for dialogue as our own Shakspearian verse, and was doubtless chosen for that purpose. The earlier poets, as Aristotle tells us, (Rhet. iii. 1; Poet. iv.) had employed the Trochaic tetrameter, as being a more suitable measure for their dancing Satyrs; and it is occasionally used by the great masters for quick or abrupt speeches. The Doric dialect was adopted for the songs of the chorus, on account of the celebrity which Dorian poets had acquired as the composers of Pæans and other choral hymns.1

The ancient history of the Satyric and Tragic drama is referred to, but not with perfect accuracy, by Horace in the well-known verses of his Ars Poetica, 220-233:

Carmine qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum,
Mox etiam agrestes Satyros nudavit, et asper
Incolumi gravitate jocum tentavit, eo quod
Illecebris erat et gratâ novitate morandus
Spectator, functusque sacris, et potus, et exlex.
Verum ita risores, ita commendare dicaces
Conveniet Satyros, ita vertere seria ludo;

Ne quicumque deus, quicumque adhibebitur heros,
Regali conspectus in auro nuper et ostro,
Migret in obscuras humili sermone tabernas,

Aut, dum vitat humum, nubes et inania captet.
Effutire leves indigna tragoedia versus,

Ut festis matrona moveri jussa diebus,

Intererit Satyris paulum pudibunda protervis.

whose jesting with Ceres led to the raillery of the Eleusinia. It was applied by Solon and Theognis to gnomic poetry, for which also, like our blank verse, it is highly suitable. See Horace, Epist. i. 19, 23.

Parios ego primus Iambos
Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque.secutus
Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycambem.

De Arte Poeticâ, 79.

Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo:
Hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni,
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares
Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.

(1) Aleman the Lydian was one of the earliest of these. He went shortly before the beginning of the seventh century to Sparta, where he composed music and hymns to be sung by the people. For anciently the chorus, including dance and song, was a part of the divine service, performed by the whole of the assembled people, or at least a considerable number of them. Both the dance and the song were then very simple. In process of time the performance became elaborate, and then it fell into the hands of a small body of persons expressly trained for the purpose, the mass of the people being spectators. A great number of poets, composing for these trained bands, sprang up in Argos, Sicyon, and other parts of Peloponnesus, all of whom wrote in the Doric dialect. Before the time of Stesichorus the chorus consisted of a uniform stanza. That poet however, who was born at Himera in Sicily, and flourished in the early part of the sixth century, invented the triple division of Strophe, Antistrophe, and Epode, which made the chorus more complicated and more difficult of execution. He is reported to have acquired the name of Stesichorus from the innovation which he introduced, his original name having been Tisias. Pindar and Simonides, who were contemporaries of Eschylus, carried lyric poetry to the highest degree of perfection. See Grote's History of Greece, vol. iv. chap. 29.