Of Timomachus’ treatment of the raving Ajax, we can judge by what Philostratus tells us.[[25]] Ajax was not represented at the moment when, raging among the herds, he captures and slays goats and oxen, mistaking them for men. The master showed him sitting weary after these crazy deeds of heroism, and meditating self-destruction. That was really the raving Ajax, not because he is raving at the moment, but because we see that he has been raving, and with what violence his present reaction of shame and despair vividly portrays. We see the force of the tempest in the wrecks and corpses with which it has strewn the beach.
IV.
A review of the reasons here alleged for the moderation observed by the sculptor of the Laocoon in the expression of bodily pain, shows them to lie wholly in the peculiar object of his art and its necessary limitations. Scarce one of them would be applicable to poetry.
Without inquiring here how far the poet can succeed in describing physical beauty, so much at least is clear, that since the whole infinite realm of perfection lies open for his imitation, this visible covering under which perfection becomes beauty will be one of his least significant means of interesting us in his characters. Indeed, he often neglects it altogether, feeling sure that if his hero have gained our favor, his nobler qualities will either so engross us that we shall not think of his body, or have so won us that, if we think of it, we shall naturally attribute to him a beautiful, or, at least, no unsightly one. Least of all will he have reference to the eye in every detail not especially addressed to the sense of sight. When Virgil’s Laocoon screams, who stops to think that a scream necessitates an open mouth, and that an open mouth is ugly? Enough that “clamores horrendos ad sidera tollit” is fine to the ear, no matter what its effect on the eye. Whoever requires a beautiful picture has missed the whole intention of the poet.
Further, nothing obliges the poet to concentrate his picture into a single moment. He can take up every action, if he will, from its origin, and carry it through all possible changes to its issue. Every change, which would require from the painter a separate picture, costs him but a single touch; a touch, perhaps, which, taken by itself, might offend the imagination, but which, anticipated, as it has been, by what preceded, and softened and atoned for by what follows, loses its individual effect in the admirable result of the whole. Thus were it really unbecoming in a man to cry out in the extremity of bodily pain, how can this momentary weakness lower in our estimation a character whose virtues have previously won our regard? Virgil’s Laocoon cries; but this screaming Laocoon is the same we know and love as the most far-seeing of patriots and the tenderest of fathers. We do not attribute the cry to his character, but solely to his intolerable sufferings. We hear in it only those, nor could they have been made sensible to us in any other way.
Who blames the poet, then? Rather must we acknowledge that he was right in introducing the cry, as the sculptor was in omitting it.
But Virgil’s is a narrative poem. Would the dramatic poet be included in this justification? A very different impression is made by the mention of a cry and the cry itself. The drama, being meant for a living picture to the spectator, should therefore perhaps conform more strictly to the laws of material painting. In the drama we not only fancy we see and hear a crying Philoctetes, we actually do see and hear him. The more nearly the actor approaches nature, the more sensibly must our eyes and ears be offended, as in nature they undoubtedly are when we hear such loud and violent expressions of pain. Besides, physical suffering in general possesses in a less degree than other evils the power of arousing sympathy. The imagination cannot take hold of it sufficiently for the mere sight to arouse in us any corresponding emotion. Sophocles, therefore, might easily have overstepped the bounds not only of conventional propriety, but of a propriety grounded in the very nature of our sensibilities, in letting Philoctetes and Hercules moan and weep, scream and roar. The by-standers cannot possibly feel such concern for their suffering as these excessive outbreaks seem to demand. To us spectators the lookers-on will seem comparatively cold; and yet we cannot but regard their sympathy as the measure of our own. Add to this that the actor can rarely or never carry the representation of bodily pain to the point of illusion, and perhaps the modern dramatic poets are rather to be praised than blamed for either avoiding this danger altogether or skirting it at a safe distance.
Much would in theory appear unanswerable if the achievements of genius had not proved the contrary. These observations are not without good foundation, yet in spite of them Philoctetes remains one of the masterpieces of the stage. For a portion of our strictures do not apply to Sophocles, and by a disregard of others he has attained to beauties which the timid critic, but for this example, would never have dreamed of. The following remarks will make this apparent:—
1. The poet has contrived wonderfully to intensify and ennoble the idea of physical pain. He chose a wound,—for we may consider the details of the story dependent upon his choice, in so far as he chose the subject for their sake,—he chose, I say, a wound and not an inward distemper, because the most painful sickness fails to impress us as vividly as an outward hurt. The inward sympathetic fire which consumed Meleager when his mother sacrificed him in the brand to her sisterly fury, would therefore be less dramatic than a wound. This wound, moreover, was a divine punishment. In it a fiercer than any natural poison raged unceasingly, and at appointed intervals an access of intenser pain occurred, always followed by a heavy sleep, wherein exhausted nature acquired the needed strength for entering again upon the same course of pain. Chateaubrun represents him as wounded simply by the poisoned arrow of a Trojan. But so common an accident gives small scope for extraordinary results. Every one was exposed to it in the old wars; why were the consequences so terrible only in the case of Philoctetes? A natural poison that should work for nine years without destroying life is far more improbable than all the fabulous miraculous elements with which the Greek decked out his tale.
2. But great and terrible as he made the physical sufferings of his hero, he was well aware that these alone would not suffice to excite any sensible degree of sympathy. He joined with them, therefore, other evils, also insufficient of themselves to move us greatly, but receiving from this connection a darker hue of tragedy, which in turn reacted upon the bodily pain. These evils were complete loss of human companionship, hunger, and all the discomforts attendant on exposure to an inclement sky when thus bereft.[[26]] Imagine a man under these circumstances, but in possession of health, strength, and industry, and we have a Robinson Crusoe, who has little claim to our compassion, though we are by no means indifferent to his fate. For we are seldom so thoroughly content with human society as not to find a certain charm in thinking of the repose to be enjoyed without its pale; more particularly as every one flatters himself with the idea of being able gradually to dispense altogether with the help of others. Again, imagine a man suffering from the most painful of incurable maladies, but surrounded by kind friends who let him want for nothing, who relieve his pain by all the means in their power, and are always ready to listen to his groans and complaints; we should pity him undoubtedly, but our compassion would soon be exhausted. We should presently shrug our shoulders and counsel patience. Only when all these ills unite in one person, when to solitude is added physical infirmity, when the sick man not only cannot help himself, but has no one to help him, and his groans die away on the desert air,—then we see a wretch afflicted by all the ills to which human nature is exposed, and the very thought of putting ourselves in his place for a moment fills us with horror. We see before us despair in its most dreadful shape, and no compassion is stronger or more melting than that connected with the idea of despair. Such we feel for Philoctetes, especially at the moment when, robbed of his bow, he loses the only means left him of supporting his miserable existence. Alas for the Frenchman who had not the sense to perceive this nor the heart to feel it! or, if he had, was petty enough to sacrifice it all to the pitiful taste of his nation! Chateaubrun gives Philoctetes companionship by introducing a princess into his desert island. Neither is she alone, but has with her a lady of honor: a thing apparently as much needed by the poet as by the princess. All the admirable play with the bow he has left out and introduced in its stead the play of bright eyes. The heroic youth of France would in truth have made themselves very merry over a bow and arrows, whereas nothing is more serious to them than the displeasure of bright eyes. The Greek harrows us with fear lest the wretched Philoctetes should be forced to remain on the island without his bow, and there miserably perish. The Frenchman found a surer way to our hearts by making us fear that the son of Achilles would have to depart without his princess. And this is called by the Parisian critics triumphing over the ancients. One of them even proposed to name Chateaubrun’s piece “La difficulté vaincue.”[[27]]