FOOTNOTES TO ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY
There is a prevalent idea that the modern Greek language, or Romaic, as it is called, is a different language from the ancient Greek, pretty much in the same way that Italian is different from Latin. But this is a gross mistake. Greek was and is one unbroken living language, and ought to be taught as such.
Whiston, Article Tragedy in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, Second Edition; and Donaldson in the Greek Theatre, Sixth Edition. London: 1849. P. 30.
Γενομένη ἀπ ἀρχῆς ἀυτοσχεδιαστικὴ ἡ τραγῳδία ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὸν διθύραμβον κατὰ μικρον ἠυξήθη.—Aristot. poet. 4.—Compare the words of the old Iambic poet Archilochus, given by Athenaeus (XIV. p. 628)—“I know well how to dance the Dithyramb when the wine thunders dizzily through my brain!” The word Dithyramb, according to the best etymology which has come in my way (Donaldson & Hartung), means the revel of the god.
Αρίον τὸν Μηθυμναῖον πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν ποιήσαντα τε καὶ ὀνομάσαντα και διδάξαντα τὸν διθύραμβον ἐν Κορίνθῳ.—Herod. I. 23. Compare Suidas in voce Arion, and Schol. Pindar., Olymp. XIII. 25.
Διθύραμβος (ο)ς ᾖν κύκλιος χορός.—Schol., Pindar, as above.
χορὸς ᾿εστὼς κυκλικῶς.—Tzetzes. Proleg. to Lycophron.
Hartung, on the Dithyramb.—Classical Museum, No. XVIII. p. 373. Mure’s literature of ancient Greece.—Vol. III., p. 85.
The number fifty is mentioned in the Epigram of Simonides, beginning ἠρχεν Αδείμαντος, in the above-mentioned prologue of Tzetzes, and in Pollux, Lib. iv., 15, who says that this number of the Chorus was used even by Æschylus up to the time when the Eumenides was represented. The number twelve is commonly mentioned by other authorities as having been used by Æschylus, while Sophocles is said to have increased it to fifteen, which afterwards became the standard number. Müller (Eumenides) ingeniously supposes that the tragic poets, so long as the exhibition by tetralogies lasted, got the original number of fifty from the public authorities, and divided it among the different pieces of the tetralogy. Blomfield’s notion (Preface to the Persae) that the Chorus to the Eumenides consisted of only three persons, though a kind word has been said in its favour lately (Mason in Smith’s Dict. of Antiq. voce Chorus), deserves, in my opinion, not a moment’s consideration, either on philological or æsthetical grounds. I may mention here further, for the sake of those to whom these matters are strange, that the Chorus holds communication with the other characters in a Greek play generally by means of its Coryphaeus or Leader, which is the reason why it is often addressed in the singular and not in the plural number.
Vit. Philos. III. 34. It will be observed that, if a third actor appears on the stage in some parts of the Orestean trilogy, this is to be accounted for by the supposition that, in his later plays, the poet adopted the improvements which his young rival had first introduced. The number of actors here spoken of does not, of course, take into account mutes or supernumeraries, such as we find in great numbers in the Eumenides, and more or less almost in every extant piece of Æschylus.
Poetics, c. xiii.
Wilson, Vol. I. p. xxvi.
Twining; but the meaning of the Greek is disputed.
“ἡ μελοποίια, μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων.”—Poetics, c. vi. The success of the modern Italian opera in England, proves this in a style of which Aristotle could have had no conception.
The position of the old Theban senators, who form the Chorus in this play, has called forth not a little learned gladiatorship lately; Böckh (whose opinion on all such matters is entitled to the profoundest respect) maintaining that the Chorus is the impersonated wisdom of the play as conceived in the poet’s mind, while some of his critics (Dyer in Class. Mus. Vol. II. p. 69) represent them as a pack of cowardly sneaking Thebans, whom it was the express object of the poet to make ridiculous. This latter opinion is no more tenable than it would be to say that it was the object of Æschylus to make his Chorus of old men in that noted scene of the Agamemnon ridiculous; but so much truth there certainly is in it, that from the inherent defect of structure in the Greek tragedy, consisting in the constant presence of the Chorus in the double capacity of impartial moralizers and actors after a sort, there could not but arise this awkwardness to the poet that, while he always contrived to make them speak wisely, he sometimes could not prevent them from acting weakly, and even contemptibly.
On the dramatic imbecility of Euripides, see my article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XLVIII. His success as a dramatist is the strongest possible proof of the undramatic nature of the stage for which he wrote.
See the article Dionysia, by Dr. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiq.
The same doctrine, I am sorry to see, has been repeated with special reference to Æschylus, and with very little qualification, by Whiston in the article Tragædia in Dr. Smith’s Dict. Antiq., 2d Edit., p. 1146. Schlegel is quite wrong, when he says “the Greek gods are mere Naturmächte”—physical or elemental powers. Connington, however, in the preface to his Agamemnon, expresses exactly my sentiments, when he protests against a “crystallization of destiny” being set up “as the presiding genius of the national dramatic literature of the Greeks.”
See the works of Klausen and Blumner in the [List of Editions]. And our English Sewell recognizes, in the works of Æschylus, “the voice of a self-constituted Heathen Church protesting against the vices and follies that surrounded her.”—Preface to the Agamemnon, p. 15.
Cicero pro Muræna, 13.
Αισχύλος πολλὰ σχήματα ὸρχηστικὰ ἀυτος ὲξευρίσκων, ἀνεδίδου τοῖς χορευταῖς.—Lib. I. p. 22.
See Dyer, on the Choral Dancing of the Greeks,—Classical Museum, No. IX. p. 229.
Böckh and Donaldson, in their editions of the Antigone. Berlin, 1843, p. 280. London, 1848. Introduction, p. xxix.
I read ἐισόδῳ, not (ε)ξόδῳ, as it is in Matthiae, which is either a misprint, or a mistake in the writer, as the quotation immediately following proves.
This is Müller’s view in Eumenides, § 21.
It may be as well here, for the sake of some readers, to remark that the orchestra, or dancing place (for so the word means), was that part of the ancient theatre which corresponds to the modern Pit. For a minute description of the ancient stage, the reader must consult Donaldson’s Greek Theatre, c. VII.
One of the most striking proofs of this is the many instances that occur in the tragedians of that most undramatic of all mannerisms—self-description—as when a sorrowful Chorus describes the tears on its cheek, the beating on its breast, and such like. True grief never paints itself.
Bulwer, in Athens and the Athenians.
From the limited number of actors arose necessarily this evil, that the persons in a Greek dramatic fable appear not cotemporaneously, but in succession, one actor necessarily playing several parts. Now, the commonest fabricator of a novel for the circulating library knows how necessary it is to keep up a sustained interest, that the character, when once introduced, shall not be allowed to drop out of view, but be dexterously intermingled with the whole complex progress of the story, and be felt as necessary, or at least as agreeable, to the very end.
Writers on Belles Lettres, from Trapp down to Schlegel, have been very severe on the modern opera, and indignantly repudiated all comparison between it and the Greek tragedy. It is a common illusion of mental optics with the learned to magnify the defects of what is near and before their nose, while the peculiar excellencies of what is far distant in time or space are in a corresponding degree exalted. So Schlegel, in his sublime German zeal against certain shallow judgments of Voltaire and other French critics, worked himself up into an idealized enthusiasm for some of the most glaring imperfections of the Greek stage, while in the modern opera he only sees the absurdities of the real. In assuming this tone he has, of course, been imitated by certain persons of little speculation in this country, who have thought it necessary slavishly to worship the Germans in all things, merely because certain other persons of no speculation ignorantly despised them. With regard to the opera, it is plain enough that it differs from the ancient tragedy in the following points:—(1) In not being essentially of a religious character; (2) in not varying the musical with the declamatory element; (3) in dealing more in monody, and less in choral singing; (4) in using the Chorus freely, according to the nature of the action, and not being always encumbered with it; (5) in making the mere musical element so predominate that poets of the first order seldom condescend to employ their talents in writing the text for an opera. All these special differences, however, do not mar the propriety of the general comparison between an ancient “goat-song” and a modern opera, justified, as it is, plainly by the common musical element which both contain in different degrees of prominence. In point of high moral tone, high poetic diction, and noble conception, the ancient lyrical drama is no doubt vastly superior to the modern opera; but in some other points, as in the more free and adroit use of the Chorus, the opera is as much superior to the goat-song. With respect to the Chorus in particular, Schlegel has said many things that look very wise, but are simply not true. The Chorus is only half described (see above, [p. 20]), when it is called the “ideal spectator.” What he says about publicity is mere talk. There is no other reason for the presence of the Chorus than because it was originally the essential part of the performance, and could not but be to the end the most popular.