[NOTE 217.]
Farewell, and clap your hands.
“All the ancient copies have the Greek omega, Ω, placed before the words, ‘clap your hands,’ and before ‘Farewell, and clap your hands,’ in other plays: ‘which,’ says Eugraphius, ‘are the words of the prompter, who, at the end of the play, lifted up the curtain, and said to the audience, ‘Farewell, and clap your hands:’ thus far Faernus. Leng, at the end of every play, subscribes these words, Calliopius recensui, and says Calliopius was the prompter; and he quotes the same words of Eugraphius, which I have here quoted from Faernus. If Ω stands for any thing more than ‘Finis,’ (as some imagine to be placed there by transcribers to signify the end,) it may be designed for the first letter Ωδος, which is the Greek for Cantor: and Horace, in his art of poetry, says,
Donec cantor vos plaudite dicat.
“Bentley supposes this Cantor to have been Flaccus the musician, (mentioned in the title,) who, when the play was over, entreated the favour of the audience: but I should rather think Calliopius to have been the Cantor, if there was any foundation in antiquity for his name being at the end of the plays; but the name seems fictitious to me by the etymology thereof, and it being used in this place. It is indeed at the end of every play, in all the three manuscripts in Dr. Mead’s collection except Phormio, which is the last play in the prosaic copy; and the only reason for Calliopius recensui not being there, is, doubtless, because the play is imperfect, some few verses being out at the conclusion; ω precedes the farewell in one of the doctor’s copies, ο in another, and the largest copy has neither. What is independent of the action of the play, as the last two lines are, may be looked upon as an epilogue, and was probably spoken by the same person, whether player, prompter, or cantor.”—Cooke.
[NOTE 218.]
End of the fifth Act.
At the end of a play, the Romans closed their scenes, which, instead of falling from the roof of the theatre downwards, as among the moderns, were constructed something similarly to the blinds of a carriage; so that when the stage was to be exposed to the view of the spectators, the scene or curtain was let down, and when the piece was concluded, it was drawn up again. The ancients originally performed their plays in the open air, with no scenery but that furnished by nature. As they became more refined, they erected theatres, and introduced scenes, which they divided into three kinds: 1. tragic, 2. comic, 3. pastoral. Some very valuable information on this subject may be gathered from M. Perrault’s Notes on Vitruvius, who has described the various sorts of ancient scenes. Ovid, in the following verses, describes the original simplicity of the Roman dramatic entertainments:
“Tunc neque marmoreo pendebant vela theatro,
Nec fuerant liquido pulpita rubra croco.
Illic quas tulerant nemorosa palatia frondes
Simpliciter positæ Scena sine arte fuit.”