Doris, Dionysius’ spouse, has passed away,
and the astonishing remark:—
Alas! alas! a useful wife I’ve lost.
But one may be misjudging him. Perhaps by “useful” (χρησίμην) he meant “good” (χρηστήν); Dionysius had a curious fad for using words, not in their accepted sense, but according to real or fancied etymology.[96]
Ancient critics set great store by Carcinus, the most distinguished of a family long connected with the theatre. One hundred and sixty plays are attributed to him, and eleven victories. He spent some time at the court of the younger Dionysius, the Syracusan tyrant, and his longest fragment deals with the Sicilian worship of Demeter and Persephone. We possess certain interesting facts about his plots. Aristotle[97] as an instance of the first type of Recognition—that by signs—mentions among those which are congenital “the stars introduced by Carcinus in his Thyestes” (evidently birthmarks). More striking is a later paragraph:[98] “In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes.... The need of such a rule is shown by the fault found in Carcinus. Amphiaraus was on his way from the temple. This fact escaped the observation of one who did not see the situation. On the stage, however, the piece failed, the audience being offended at the oversight.” This shows incidentally how little assistance an ancient dramatist obtained from that now vital collaborator, the rehearsal. In the Medea[99] of Carcinus the heroine, unlike the Euripidean, did not slay her children but sent them away. Their disappearance caused the Corinthians to accuse her of their murder, and she defended herself by an ingenious piece of rhetorical logic: “Suppose that I had killed them. Then it would have been a blunder not to slay their father Jason also. This you know I have not done. Hence I have not murdered my children either.” Just as Carcinus there smoothed away what was felt to be too dreadful in Euripides, so in Œdipus he appears[100] to have dealt with the improbabilities which cling to Œdipus Tyrannus. He excelled, moreover, in the portrayal of passion: Cercyon, struggling with horrified grief in Carcinus’ Alope, is cited by Aristotle.[101] The Ærope too had sensational success. That bloodthirsty savage Alexander, tyrant of Pheræ, was so moved by the emotion wherewith the actor Theodorus performed his part, that he burst into tears.[102]
Two points in his actual fragments strike a modern reader. The first is a curious flatness of style noticeable in the one fairly long passage; every word seems to be a second-best. The opening lines will be sufficient:—
λέγουσι Δήμητρός ποτ’ ἄρρητον κόρην
Πλούτωνα κρυφίοις ἁρπάσαι βουλεύμασι,
δῦναί τε γαίας εἰς μελαμφαεῖς μυχούς.
πόθῳ δὲ μητέρ’ ἠφανισμένης κόρης