[141] See Asiatic Researches, vol. vi., p. 300-308.
[142] Rama is, in Sanskrit, the name of that which is dazzling, elevated, white, sublime, protective, beautiful, excellent. This word has exactly the same sense in the Phœnician רמ (ram). Its primitive root, which is universalized by the hémantique letter מ (m), is רא (ra), which has reference to the harmonic movement of good, of light, and of sight. The name of the adversary of Rama, Rawhan, is formed from the root רע (rawh) which expresses, on the contrary, the disordered movement of evil and of fire, and which, becoming united with the augmentative syllable ון (ôn), depicts whatever ravages and ruins; this is the signification which it has in Sanskrit.
[143] From the word רמא (rama) is formed in Phœnician the word דרמא (drama) by the adjunction of the demonstrative article ד (d’); that is to say, a thing which comes from Rama: an action well ordered, beautiful, sublime, etc. Notice that the Greek verb δραεῖν, to act, whence is drawn very inappropriately the word δρᾶμα, is always attached to the same root רא (ra) which is that of harmonic movement.
[144] Athen., l. ii., c. 3; Arist., De Poët., c. 3, 4, 5.
[145] Tragedy, in Greek τραγῳδία, comes from the words τραχίς, austere, severe, lofty, and ὠδή chant.
Comedy, in Greek κωμῳδία, is derived from the words κῶμος, joyful, lascivious, and ὠδή, chant.
It is unnecessary for me to say that the etymologists who have seen in tragedy a song of the goat, because τράγος signifies a goat in Greek, have misunderstood the simplest laws of etymology. Τράγος signifies a goat only by metaphor, because of the roughness and heights which this animal loves to climb; as caper, in Latin, holds to the same root as caput; and chèvre, in French, to the same root as chef, for a similar reason.
[146] Diog. Laërt., l. i., § 59.
[147] Plutar. In Solon.
[148] Arist., De Mor., l. iii., c. 2; Ælian., Var. Hist., l. v., c. 19; Clem. Alex., Strom., l. ii., c. 14.