18. The Numancia is divided into four jornadas or acts, each containing changes of scene, as on our own stage. The metre, by a most extraordinary choice, is the regular octave stanza, ill-adapted as that is to the drama, intermixed with the favourite redondilla. The diction, though sometimes what would seem tame and diffuse to us, who are accustomed to a bolder and more figurative strain in tragedy than the southern nations require, rises often with the subject to nervous and impressive poetry. There are, however, a few sacrifices to the times. In a finely imagined prosopopœia, where Spain, crowned with towers, appears on the scene to ask the Duero what hope there could be for Numancia, the river-god, rising with his tributary streams around him, after bidding her despair of the city, goes into a tedious consolation, in which the triumphs of Charles and Philip are specifically, and with as much tameness as adulation, brought forward as her future recompense. A much worse passage occurs in the fourth act, where Lira, her brother lying dead of famine, and her lover of his wounds before her, implores death from a soldier who passes over the stage. He replies that some other hand must perform that office; he was born only to adore her.[1257] This frigid and absurd line, in such a play by such a poet, is an almost incredible proof of the mischief which the Provençal writers, with their hyperbolical gallantry, had done to European poetry. But it is just to observe that this is the only faulty passage, and that the language of the two lovers is simple, tender, and pathetic. The material accompaniments of representation on the Spanish theatre seem to have been full as defective as on our own. The Numancia is printed with stage directions, almost sufficient to provoke a smile in the midst of its withering horrors.
Otra mano, otro hierro ha da acabaros,
Que yo solo naciò por adoraros.
French theatre; Jodelle. 19. The mysteries which had delighted the Parisians for a century and a half were suddenly forbidden by the parliament as indecent and profane in 1548. Four years only elapsed before they were replaced, though not on the same stage, by a different style of representation. Whatever obscure attempts at a regular dramatic composition may have been traced in France at an earlier period, Jodelle was acknowledged by his contemporaries to be the true father of their theatre. His tragedy of Cleopatre, and his comedy of La Rencontre, were both represented for the first time before Henry II. in 1552. Another comedy, Eugene, and a tragedy on the story of Dido, were published about the same time. Pasquier, who tells us this, was himself a witness of the representation of the two former.[1258] The Cleopatre, according to Fontenelle, is very simple, without action or stage effect, full of long speeches, and with a chorus at the end of every act. The style is often low and ludicrous, which did not prevent this tragedy, the first-fruits of a theatre which was to produce Racine, from being received with vast applause. There is in reality, amidst these raptures that frequently attend an infant literature, something of an undefined presage of the future which should hinder us from thinking them quite ridiculous. The comedy of Eugene is in verse, and, in the judgment of Fontenelle, much superior to the tragedies of Jodelle. It has more action, a dialogue better conceived, and some traits of humour and nature. This play, however, is very immoral and licentious; and it may be remarked that some of its satire falls on the vices of the clergy.[1259]
[1258] Cette comedie, et la Cleopatre furent representées devant le roy Henri à Paris en l’Hostel de Rheims, avec un grand applaudissement de toute la compagnie: et depuis encore au college de Boncourt, ou toutes les fenestres estoient tapissées d’une infinité de personnages d’honneur, et la cour si pleine d’escoliers que les portes du college en regorgeoient. Je le dis comme celuy qui y estois present, avec le grand Tornebus en une mesme chambre. Et les entreparleurs estoient tous hommes de nom. Car même Remy Belleau et Jean de la Peruse jouoient les principaux roullets. Suard tells us, that the old troop of performers, the Confrères de la Passion, whose mysteries had been interdicted, availed themselves of an exclusive privilege granted to them by Charles VI. in 1400, to prevent the representation of the Cleopatre by public actors. Jodelle was therefore forced to have it performed by his friends. See Recherches de la France, l. vii. c. 6. Fontenelle, Hist. du Theatre François (in Œuvres de Font. edit. 1776) vol. iii. p. 52. Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Theatres de France. Suard, Melanges de Literature, vol. iv. p. 59. The last writer, in what he calls Coup d’Œil sur l’Histoire de l’Ancien Theatre Français (in the same volume) has given an amusing and instructive sketch of the French drama down to Corneille.
[1259] Fontenelle, p. 61.
Garnier. 20. The Agamemnon of Toutain, published in 1557, is taken from Seneca, and several other pieces about the same time or soon afterwards, seem also to be translations.[1260] The Jules Cesar of Grevin was represented in 1560.[1261] It contains a few lines that La Harpe has extracted, as not without animation. But the first tragedian that deserves much notice after Jodelle was Robert Garnier, whose eight tragedies were collectively printed in 1580. They are chiefly taken from mythology or ancient history, and are evidently framed according to a standard of taste which has ever since prevailed on the French stage. But they retain some characteristics of the classical drama which were soon afterwards laid aside; the chorus is heard between every act, and a great portion of the events is related by messengers. Garnier makes little change in the stories he found in Seneca or Euripides; nor had love yet been thought essential to tragedy. Though his speeches are immeasurably long, and overladen with pompous epithets, though they have often much the air of bad imitations of Seneca’s manner, from whom probably, if any one should give himself the pains to make the comparison, some would be found to have been freely translated, we must acknowledge that in many of his couplets the reader perceives a more genuine tone of tragedy, and the germ of that artificial style which reached its perfection in far greater men than Garnier. In almost every line there is some fault, either against taste or the present rules of verse; yet there are many which a good poet would only have had to amend and polish. The account of Polyxena’s death in La Troade is very well translated from the Hecuba. But his best tragedy seems to be Les Juives, which is wholly his own, and displays no inconsiderable powers of poetical description. In this I am confirmed by Fontenelle, who says that this tragedy has many noble and touching passages; in which he has been aided by taking much from scripture, the natural sublimity of which cannot fail to produce an effect.[1262] We find, however, in Les Juives a good deal of that propensity to exhibit cruelty, by which the Italian and English theatres were at that time distinguished. Pasquier says, that every one gave the prize to Garnier above all who had preceded him, and after enumerating his eight plays, expresses his opinion that they would be admired by posterity.[1263]
[1260] Beauchamps. Suard.
[1261] Suard, p. 73. La Harpe, Cours de Literature. Grevin also wrote comedies which were very licentious, as those of the 16th century generally were in France and Italy, and were not in England, or, I believe, in Spain.
[1262] P. 71. Suard who dwells much longer on Garnier than either Fontenelle or La Harpe, observes, as I think, with justice: Les ouvrages de Garnier meritent de faire epoque dans l’histoire du theatre, non par la beauté de ses plans; il n’en faut chercher de bons dans aucune des tragedies du seizième siècle; mais les sentimens qu’il exprime sont nobles, son style a souvent de l’elevation sans enflure et beaucoup de sensibilité sa versification est facile et souvent harmonieuse. C’est lui qui a fixé d’une manière invariable la succession alternative des rimes masculines et feminines. Enfin c’est le premier des tragiques Français dont le lecture pût être utile à ceux qui voudraient suivre la même carriere; on a même pretendu que son Hyppolite avait beaucoup aidé Racine dans la composition de Phêdre. Mais s’il l’a aidé, c’est comme l’Hyppolite de Seneque, dont celui de Garnier n’est qu’une imitation, p. 81.