Is Polite Society Polite? and Other Essays

by Julia Ward Howe

I am very doubtful whether good Greek scholars will think my selections given here at all the best that could be made. I will remind them of an Eastern tale in which a party of travellers were led, in the dark, through an enchanted region in which showers of some unknown substance fell around them, while a voice cried: "They that do not gather any will grieve, and they who do gather will grieve that they did not gather more, for these that fall are diamonds." So, of these bright diamonds of matchless Greek wit, I have tried to gather some, but may well say I grieve that I have not gathered more, and more wisely.

These works are to us exquisite pieces of humoristic extravagance, but to the people of the time they were far more than this; viz., the lesson of ridicule for what was tasteless and ridiculous in Athenian society, and the punishment of scathing satire for what was unworthy. Annotators tell us that the plays are full of allusions to prominent characters of the day. Some of these, as is well known, the poet sets upon the stage in masquerades which reveal, more than they conceal, their true personality. For the demagogue Cleon, and for the playwright Euripides, he has no mercy.

The patient student of Aristophanes and his commentators will acquire a very competent knowledge of the politics of the wise little city at the time of which he treats, also of its literary personages, pedants or sophists. The works give us, I think, a very favorable impression of the public to whose apprehension they were presented,—a quick-witted people, surely, able to follow the sudden turns and doublings of the poet's fancy; not to be surprised into stupidity by any ambush sprung upon them out of obscurity.

Compare with this the difficulty of commending anything worth thinking of to the attention of a modern theatre audience. It is true that much of this Greek wit must needs have been caviare to the multitude, but its seasoning, no doubt, penetrated the body politic. I remember, a score or more of years ago, that a friend said that it was good and useful to have some public characters Beecherized, alluding to the broad and bold presentment of them given from time to time by our great clerical humorist, Henry Ward Beecher. Very efficacious, one thinks, must have been this scourge which the Greek comic muse wielded so merrily, but so unmercifully.

Although Aristophanes is very severe upon individuals, he does not, I think, foster any class enmities, except, perhaps, against the sophists. Although a city man, he treats the rustic population with great tenderness, and the glimpses he gives us of country life are sweet and genial. In this, he contrasts with the French playwrights of our time, to whom city life is everything, and the province synonymous with all that is dull and empty of interest.

How can I dismiss the comedy of that day without one word concerning its immortal tragedy,—Socrates, the divine man, compared and comparable to Christ, chained in his dungeon and condemned to die? The most blameless life could not save that sacred head. Its illumination, in which we sit here to-day, drew to it the shafts of superstition, malice, and wickedness. The comic poet might present on the stage such pictures of the popular deities as would make the welkin ring with the roar of laughter. This was not impiety. But Socrates, showing no disrespect to these idols of the current persuasion, only daring to discern beyond them God in his divineness, truth in her awful beauty,—he must die the death of the profane.

It is a bitter story, surely, but "it must needs be that offences come." Where should we be to-day if no one in human history had loved high doctrine well enough to die for it? At such cost were these great lessons given us. How can we thank God or man enough for them?

The athletics of human thought are the true Olympian games. Human error is wise and logical in its way. It confronts its antagonist with terrific weapons; it seizes and sways him with a Titanic will force. It knows where to attack, and how. It knows the spirit that would be death to it, could that spirit prevail. It closes in the death grapple; the arena is red with the blood of its victim, but from that blood immortal springs a new world, a new society.

One word, in conclusion, about the Greek language. Valuable as translations are, they can never, to the student, take the place of originals. I have stumbled through these works with the lamest knowledge of Greek, and with no one to help me. I have quoted from admirable renderings of them into English. Yet, even in such delicate handling as that of Frere, the racy quality of the Greek phrase evaporates, like some subtle perfume; while the music of the grand rhythm, which the ear seems able to get through the eye, is lost.

The Greek tongue belongs to the history of thought. The language that gives us such distinctions as nous and logos, as gy and kosmos, has been the great pedagogue of our race, has laid the foundations of modern thought. Let us, by all means, help ourselves with Frere, with Jowett, and a multitude of other literary benefactors. But let us all get a little Greek on our own account, for the sake of our Socrates and of our Christ. And as the great but intolerant Agassiz had it for his motto that "species do not transmute," let this school have among its mottoes this one: "True learning does not de-Hellenize."