DRAM A. 



89 



Drama, 



General 

 character of 

 the (.reek 

 tragedy. 



rythm is here meant regular time, and by harmony mu- 

 sic or song. In dithyrambics and noines, tlie verse was 

 always accompanied by melody, rythm, and dance ; and 

 in tragedy and comedy, the verse was only recited du- 

 ring the acts, (we should rather say in all the parts not 

 choral,) but in the choruses it was accompanied by sing. 

 ing and dancing. The custom of dividing the action 

 from the declamation, ascribed very absurdly by some 

 modern writers to the ancient stage, is quite incredible, 

 and without authority. It is mentioned by Livy, as ha- 

 ving been done by Livius Andronicus, an old Roman 

 poet, in order to save himself the fatigue of singing in his 

 own piece. The passage of Livy, however, according to 

 the suggestion of M. Duclos, may be understood with 

 more probability to imply, that the old poet, who at first 

 sung his canticum, and afterwards danced in the inter- 

 ludes, alternately having sung till he was hoarse, trans- 

 ferred the singing to another performer, in order to dance 

 with more force and activity ; and that thence came the 

 custom of making singing and dancing two different pro- 

 fessions. The story, when applied to the separation of 

 speaking and acting, becomes absurd and incredible. 

 To speak generally of theGreek tragedy, the works of it 



^i^ j, ave reac hed us, certainly present most interesting 

 . . ...... ' *l , - , c 



an " beautiful relics of human genius. As an order of dra- 



matic architecture, if we may so speak, it was simple, stu- 

 pendous, and severely regular in its proportions ; though 

 some of the wandering plots of Euripides may be deem- 

 ed an exception to this rule. It was, however, rather 

 the show oi events, than of characters or passions ; and 

 to one accustomed to the full developement of the heart 

 in modern tragedy, the reserved and concentrated expres- 

 sion of ancient heroes on the stage, will sometimes ap- 

 pear as unnatural as the masks which they wore. In one 

 respect, modern opinion seems to have done them too 

 much justice. The Greek tragedies were simple, but not 

 vo free from tragi-comedy, as may be generally imagi- 

 ned. If that be tragi-comedy which is partly serious 

 and partly comical, we need not scruple to say, that th* 

 A Icestcs of Euripides is, to all intents and purposes, a 

 tragi-comedy. There can be little doubt that it had, 

 upon an Athenian audience, the proper effect of tragi- 

 comedy ; that is, that in some places it made them crv, 

 in others laugh. And the best thing we have to hope 

 for the credit of Euripides, is, that he intended to pro- 

 duce this effect ; for, though he may be an unskilful poet 

 who purposes to write a tragi-comedy, he is surclv still 

 more unskilful, who writes it without knowing it. We 

 particularly allude to the scene in which the domestic in 

 Alccstes describes the behaviour of Hercules, and to the 

 speech of Hercules himself which follows. The servant 

 describes the hero as the most greedy and ill-mannered 

 guest be had ever attended under his master's hospitable 

 roof, calling about him, eating, drinking, and singing in 

 a room by himself. While the master and all the rest 

 of the family are in the height of funereal lamentation, 

 lie was not contented with such refreshments as had 

 been set before him, but drinks, crowns himself with 

 myrtles, ai,d sings AMOTX YAAKmN, and all this alone. 

 " Cette description (says Fontenelle) est si burlesque 

 qu'on diroit d'un erocheteur qui est de confrairie." A 

 (ensure somewhat justified by Euripides himself; who 

 makes tlic servant take Hercules for a thief. The speech 

 "f Hercules philosophizing in his cups, is still more cu- 

 rious. It is indeed full of the <p*o| OHV, and completely 

 ':es the attendant'* description. It is a true drink- 

 VOL. T:H. HART i. 



ing song, recommending the servant to uneloud his Drama, 

 brow, enjoy the present hour, think nothing of to-mor- x> *"" "Y"""' 

 row, and drown his cares in love and wine. In another 

 tragedy of the grave Euripides, of which only some 

 fragments remain, entitled Mcnalippe the Wise, there 

 must have been tragi-comic matter of a still more cu- 

 rious kind. Menalippe was delivered of two children, 

 the fruits of a stolen amour with Neptune. To conceal 

 her shame, she hid them in her father's cow-house, 

 where he found them ; and being less of a philosopher 

 than his daughter, took them for a monstrous produc- 

 tion of some of his cows, and ordered them to be burned. 

 His daughter, in order to save them without exposing 

 herself, enters into a long physical argument to cure her 

 father of his unphilosophical prejudices about monsters, 

 and portentous births ; and to convince him that these 

 children might be the natural offspring of his cows. 

 The truth is, that we may plainly trace in the Greek 

 tragedy, with all its improvements, and all its beauties, 

 pretty strong marks of its popular and tragi-comic origin ; 

 for though the festival of Bacchus was a religious cere- 

 mony, we must not attach to the religion of antiquity, 

 especially to the worship of Bacchus, the ideas of purity 

 and serious devotion, with which Christianity is invested. 

 Tragodia, or the Song of the Goat, we are told, was ori- 

 ginally the only dramatic appellation; and when after- 

 wards the ludicrous was separated from the serious, and 

 distinguished by its appropriate name of comedy, the se- 

 paration seems to have been imperfectly made, and tra- 

 gedy, distinctively so called, seems still to have retained 

 a tincture of its original merriment. Nor will this ap- 

 pear strange, when we consider the popular nature of the 

 Greek spectacles. Even comedy among the Greeks, in 

 its broadest and most farcical state under Aristophanes, 

 partook visibly, on some occasions, of the magnificence, 

 though not of the pathos, of the serious drama. Every 

 one who recollects the choruses of Aristophanes in his 

 " Clouds," will acknowledge that the poet often writes 

 most beautiful and serious lyric poetry; not indeed tra- 

 gic, or moving, but splendid, fanciful, and metaphorical, 

 above the tone of comedy. 



The comic drama was not at first cultivated in Greece Greek c# 

 with the same care as tragedy ; but the gaiety of medy. 

 Athens gave it also its reign, and although the man- 

 ners of Greece never seem to have favoured its true 

 polish and refinement, yet this was. not for want of 

 comic writers, since from their earliest one, Crater, 

 to the rise of the Roman stage with Naevius, an in- 

 terval of two ages, there are reckoned fifty comic poets. 

 Of these, Aristophanes composed fifty comedies, and 

 Menandcr and Cratinus one hundred each. Of none 

 but of Aristophanes has any entire play come down to 

 posterity. The Greek comedy has been divided into 

 three epochs ; the old comedy, the middle, and the new. 

 The old comedy was mere scandal in the shape of dia- 

 logue, which launched individuals by their proper name 

 upon tl.e stage. Aristophanes flourished in what was 

 called the period of the old comedy. In the old comedy, 

 the individual object of ridicule was named by his pro- 

 per name; in the middle comedy, the dramatist was 

 obliged to give a fictitious name to his characters ; in the 

 new and civilized comedy, general and purely fictitious 

 characters were substituted for the former scandalous 

 species of satire, before the comic art had aspired to 

 that generalization of character and refinement of spirit, 

 which gives it dignity to rank as the counterpart of tr* 



