Representation of a Reception of Bacchus
There was no opposition between the art of Sophocles and that of his predecessor. The former looked up reverentially to the man whose original genius had led the way to the consummation of tragic art. Envy and jealousy were foreign to his lovable disposition. But he was an independent-minded pupil of his great master, and a man of very different endowments. His genius was gentler, simpler, and more tranquil, the extremes of pathos and pomp were repugnant to his taste. Accordingly he toned down the force of the theatrical diction which Æschylus had introduced, and, without degrading his characters to the common level, tried to make them more human, so that the spectators could feel more closely akin to them. This method is intimately connected with the altered treatment of the subjects of tragedy. In the treatment of tragic legend Æschylus reached the greatest heights to which the genius of Greece ever soared; in this sphere no man could surpass him. But Sophocles realised that the legends could not always be presented to the people with the same breadth of handling without their interest being gradually exhausted. It was therefore necessary to develop more vital action within the various tragedies, to conceive the characters more definitely, and excite a more vivid psychological interest.
Æschylus had already treated the trilogy in such a manner that it was not bound to the thread of a single myth, and the combination, if not dissolved by Sophocles, was so far loosened as to make each tragedy of the three complete in itself, leading up to its appropriate close within the limits of the action and capable of being judged as a separate composition. The result was much greater freedom, the motive of each play could be treated in fuller detail and the poetic picture enhanced by the prominence given to secondary characters. Thus, in his treatment of the legend of Orestes, Sophocles suffers the act of matricide and its perpetrator to fall into the background and gives quite a new turn to the familiar subject by making Electra the leading character in place of her brother Orestes, showing the whole course of the action as reflected in her spirit, and thus securing an opportunity of creating a study of varied emotion and a type of womanly heroism to which the picture of her sister’s dissimilar temperament serves as an admirable foil.
In order to take full advantage of the resources of a more refined and advanced style of art, Sophocles introduced a third actor on the stage and thus opened the way to incomparably greater vividness of treatment no less than to much greater variety of colouring and grouping in the dramatis personæ. Moreover, Sophocles, though an adept in the song and dance, was the first poet to abandon the practice of appearing in the parts he had created. From that time the professions of poet and actor were distinct, and the art of the latter acquired greater independent value. A less active part, outside the scope of the action, was assigned to the chorus, and the dramatic element became more significantly prominent as the nucleus of the tragedy. Æschylus himself recognised the advance, for he not only adopted the improvements in the outward setting of tragedy thus effected, but spurred on by his younger rival, rose to the height of a maturer art in his dramas.
To the influence of Sophocles was due the increased fondness for Attic subjects; his Triptolemus extolled Attica as the home of a superior civilisation, which spread victoriously from that centre to distant lands, he brings the legend of Œdipus to an harmonious close on Attic soil, at Colonus, his own birth-place, and even in the Electra he manifests the Athenian point of view by taking the overthrow of unlawful dominion and the successful struggle for liberty as the purpose of the action.
His tragedies contributed more than any other works to give spiritual significance, as Pericles strove to do, to the age of Athenian might and splendour. Like Pericles, Sophocles endeavoured to maintain the ascendency of the ancient worship and customs of the country, the unwritten precepts of sacred law, while at the same time mastering every step of intellectual progress and every enlargement of the bounds of knowledge. His diction bears the stamp of a trained and powerful intellect, which often carries terseness to the verge of obscurity; but with what skill does he preserve the charm of graceful expression, what a spirit of felicitous harmony pervades all his works! He was a man after Pericles’ own heart, and his personal intimacy with the latter is proved by the gay and unaffected manner in which the statesman treats the poet as his colleague in the camp. Sophocles was never a partisan or party writer in the same sense as Æschylus, and as Phrynichus seems to have been, but his art was a mirror of the noblest tendencies of the time, a glorified version of the Athens of Pericles. We meet with his clear and sound judgment on civil affairs in every passage in which he praises prudent counsel as the safeguard of states, and the Attic people rightly appreciated him as the true poet of his age, for none ever won so many prizes or enjoyed his fame so unmolested as Sophocles, nor could Euripides (who though only fifteen or sixteen years his junior belonged to a totally different era) gain any success as his rival until the age of Pericles was past. And even to him Sophocles was never obliged to yield the palm.
COMEDY
Side by side with tragedy, and from the same germ, i.e., from the Bacchic festivities, comedy developed. It is full sister to tragedy, but grew up longer in rustic freedom and fell much later under the discipline and training of the city; and for that reason it retained more faithfully the character of its source. For its origin was the jollity of the vintage, the merry-making of country folk over the increase of another year, which is found in all wine-growing districts. Swarms of masked holiday-makers sang the praises of the genial god and in tipsy merriment played all kinds of jokes and tricks on every one who met the procession and gave an opening for pranks and raillery, the events of the day were freely exploited, and he who hit upon the merriest quips was rewarded by the hearty laughter and applause of a grateful audience.
Thus the autumnal festival was kept in Attica in its day, and more particularly in the district of Icaria, not far from Marathon. The worship of Dionysus as there celebrated made it in a manner the nursery of the whole body of Athenian drama, for Thespis came from Icaria. Thither, too, came Susarion of Megara, bringing from his native place the rude wit of Megarian farce and setting the fashion which remained in vogue for the time in Attica. From his school arose Mæson, who was very popular in the time of the Pisistratidæ. The next step was the transference of the rustic stage to the capital, where it was recognised by the government as a part of the Dionysian festival and supported out of the public funds. This took place in the time of Cimon, after the Persian wars, and the energetic temper which at that time pervaded the life of Athens proved its vigour by transforming the rude, half-foreign farce into a well-organised form of art, full of significance and thoroughly Attic in character, of which we must regard Chionides and Magnes of Icaria as the founders.
When once the Icarian drama was naturalised in the home of tragedy many of the concomitants of the tragic drama were transferred to it, public contests in comedy were instituted by the state, prizes were adjudicated and awarded, and the cost of the chorus was defrayed from the public funds; moreover it was similarly arranged in such matters as the stage, the dialogue, the chorus, and the number of actors, without, however, forfeiting its peculiar characteristics. For tragedy carried the spectators into a loftier sphere, and strove by every means at her command to present figures and conditions on a grander scale than that of ordinary life, while comedy maintained the closest relations with contemporary and common life. It remained more unaffected in dance, versification, and diction no less than in poetic design; nay, to such an extent did it retain its topical character and its adaptation to the events of the hour that the poet used the choir to interrupt the course of the action entirely in order to discuss his personal affairs or the burning questions of the time with the audience in lengthy parabases.