Dryden's Works Vol. 13

by John Dryden

Our brawny clowns, of old, who turned the soil,
Content with little, and inured to toil,
At harvest-home, with mirth and country cheer,
Restored their bodies for another year;
Refreshed their spirits, and renewed their hope
Of such a future feast, and future crop.
Then, with their fellow-joggers of the ploughs,
Their little children, and their faithful spouse,
A sow they slew to Vesta's deity,
And kindly milk, Silvanus, poured to thee;
With flowers, and wine, their Genius they adored;
A short life, and a merry, was the word.
From flowing cups, defaming rhymes ensue,
And at each other homely taunts they threw.

Yet since it is a hard conjecture, that so great a man as Casaubon should misapply what Horace writ concerning ancient Rome, to the ceremonies and manners of ancient Greece, I will not insist on this opinion; but rather judge in general, that since all poetry had its original from religion, that of the Grecians and Rome had the same beginning. Both were invented at festivals of thanksgiving, and both were prosecuted with mirth and raillery, and rudiments of verses: amongst the Greeks, by those who represented Satyrs; and amongst the Romans, by real clowns.

For, indeed, when I am reading Casaubon on these two subjects, methinks I hear the same story told twice over with very little alteration. Of which Dacier taking notice, in his interpretation of the Latin verses which I have translated, says plainly, that the beginning of poetry was the same, with a small variety, in both countries; and that the mother of it, in all nations, was devotion. But, what is yet more wonderful, that most learned critic takes notice also, in his illustrations on the First Epistle of the Second Book, that as the poetry of the Romans, and that of the Grecians, had the same beginning, (at feasts and thanksgiving, as it has been observed,) and the old comedy of the Greeks, which was invective, and the satire of the Romans, which was of the same nature, were begun on the very same occasion, so the fortune of both, in process of time, was just the same; the old comedy of the Grecians was forbidden, for its too much licence in exposing of particular persons; and the rude satire of the Romans was also punished by a law of the Decemviri, as Horace tells us, in these words:

Libertasque recurrentes accepta per annos
Lusit amabiliter; donec jam sævus apertam
In rabiem verti cœpit jocus, et per honestas
Ire domos impune minax: doluere cruento
Dente lacessiti; fuit intactis quoque cura
Conditione super communi: quinetiam lex,
Pœnaque lata, malo quæ nollet carmine quenquam
Describi: vertere modum, formidine fustis
Ad benedicendum delectandumque redacti.

The law of the Decemviri was this: Siquis occentassit malum carmen, sive condidisit, quod infamiam faxit, flagitiumve alteri, capital esto.—A strange likeness, and barely possible; but the critics being all of the same opinion, it becomes me to be silent, and to submit to better judgments than my own.

But, to return to the Grecians, from whose satiric dramas the elder Scaliger and Heinsius will have the Roman satire to proceed, I am to take a view of them first, and see if there be any such descent from them as those authors have pretended.

Thespis, or whoever he were that invented tragedy, (for authors differ,) mingled with them a chorus and dances of Satyrs, which had before been used in the celebration of their festivals; and there they were ever afterwards retained. The character of them was also kept, which was mirth and wantonness; and this was given, I suppose, to the folly of the common audience, who soon grow weary of good sense, and, as we daily see in our own age and country, are apt to forsake poetry, and still ready to return to buffoonery and farce. From hence it came, that, in the Olympic games, where the poets contended for four prizes, the satiric tragedy was the last of them; for, in the rest, the Satyrs were excluded from the chorus. Among the plays of Euripides which are yet remaining, there is one of these Satyrics, which is called "The Cyclops;" in which we may see the nature of those poems, and from thence conclude, what likeness they have to the Roman Satire.

The story of this Cyclops, whose name was Polyphemus, so famous in the Grecian fables, was, that Ulysses, who, with his company, was driven on the coast of Sicily, where those Cyclops inhabited, coming to ask relief from Silenus, and the Satyrs, who were herdsmen to that one-eyed giant, was kindly received by them, and entertained; till, being perceived by Polyphemus, they were made prisoners against the rites of hospitality, (for which Ulysses eloquently pleaded,) were afterwards put down into the den, and some of them devoured; after which Ulysses, having made him drunk, when he was asleep, thrust a great firebrand into his eye, and so, revenging his dead followers, escaped with the remaining party of the living; and Silenus and the Satyrs were freed from their servitude under Polyphemus, and remitted to their first liberty of attending and accompanying their patron, Bacchus.

This was the subject of the tragedy; which, being one of those that end with a happy event, is therefore, by Aristotle, judged below the other sort, whose success is unfortunate. Notwithstanding which, the Satyrs, who were part of the dramatis personæ, as well as the whole chorus, were properly introduced into the nature of the poem, which is mixed of farce and tragedy. The adventure of Ulysses was to entertain the judging part of the audience; and the uncouth persons of Silenus, and the Satyrs, to divert the common people with their gross railleries.

Your lordship has perceived by this time, that this SATIRIC tragedy, and the Roman SATIRE, have little resemblance in any of their features. The very kinds are different; for what has a pastoral tragedy to do with a paper of verses satirically written? The character and raillery of the Satyrs is the only thing that could pretend to a likeness, were Scaliger and Heinsius alive to maintain their opinion. And the first farces of the Romans, which were the rudiments of their poetry, were written before they had any communication with the Greeks, or indeed any knowledge of that people.