The theatre is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human
communion. All its phases require to be studied. It is in the theatre
that the public soul is formed.
We have just seen what the theatre was in the time of Shakespeare and
Molière. Shall we see what it was at the time of Æschylus?
Let us go to that spectacle.
It is no longer the cart of Thespis; it is no longer the scaffold of
Susarion; it is no longer the wooden circus of Chœrilus. Athens,
foreboding, perceiving the coming of Æschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides, has built theatres of stone. No roof, the sky for a ceiling,
the day for lighting, a long platform of stone pierced with doors and
staircases, and secured to a wall, the actors and the chorus going
and coming on this platform, which is the logeum, and performing the
play; in the centre, where in our days is the hole of the prompter,
a small altar to Bacchus, the thymele; in front of the platform a
vast hemicycle of stone steps, five or six thousand men sitting
pell-mell,--such is the laboratory. There it is that the swarming
crowd of the Piræus come to turn Athenians; there it is that the
multitude become the public, until such day when the public will become
the people. The multitude is in reality there,--all the multitude,
including the women, the children, and the slaves, and Plato, who knits
his brows.
If it is a fête-day, if we are at the Panathenæa, at the Lenæa, or at
the great Dionysia, the magistrates form part of the audience; the
proedri, the epistati, and the prytani sit in their place of honour. If
the trilogy is to be a tetralogy, if the representation is to conclude
by a piece with satyrs; if the fauns, the ægipans, the menades, the
goat-footed, and the evantes, are to come at the end to perform their
pranks; if among the comedians, almost priests, and called "the men of
Bacchus," is to appear the favourite actor who excels in the two modes
of declamation, in paralogy as well as in paracatology; if the poet
is sufficiently liked by his rivals to let the public expect to see
some celebrated men, Eupolis, Cratinus, or even Aristophanes figure
in the chorus,--"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetæ," as
Horace will one day say; if a play with women is performed, even the
old "Alcestis" of Thespis, the whole place is full; there is a crowd.
The crowd is already to Æschylus what, later on, as the prologue of the
"Bacchides" remarks, it will be to Plautus,--a swarm of men on seats,
coughing, spitting, sneezing, making grimaces and noises with the mouth
and "ore concrepario" and talking of their affairs; what a crowd is
to-day.
Students scrawl with charcoal on the wall, now in token of admiration,
now in irony, some well-known verses,--for instance, the singular
iambic a Phrynichus in a single word:--
"Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata." [1]
Of which the famous Alexandrine, in two words, of one of our tragic
poets of the sixteenth century was but a poor imitation:--
"Métamorphoserait Nabuchodonosor."
There are not only the students to make a row; there are the old men.
Trust to the old men of the "Wasps" of Aristophanes for a noise. Two
schools are in presence,--on one side Thespis, Susarion, Pratinas of
Phlius, Epigenes of Sicyon, Theomis, Auleas, Chœrilus, Phrynichus,
Minos himself; on the other, young Æschylus. Æschylus is twenty-eight
years old. He gives his trilogy of the "Promethei,"--"Prometheus
Lighting Fire;" "Prometheus Bound;" "Prometheus Delivered," followed by
some piece with satyrs,--"The Argians," perhaps, of which Macrobius has
preserved a fragment for us. The ancient quarrel of youth and old age
breaks out; gray beards against black hair. They discuss, they dispute.
The old are for the old school; the young are for Æschylus. The young
defend Æschylus against Thespis, as they will defend Corneille against
Garnier.
The old men are indignant. Listen to the Nestors grumbling. What
is tragedy? It is the song of the he-goat. Where is the he-goat in
this "Prometheus Bound"? Art is in its decline. And they repeat the
celebrated objection: "Quid pro Baccho?" (What is there for Bacchus?)
The graver men, the purists, do not even admit Thespis, and remind
each other that Solon had raised his stick against Thespis, calling
him "liar," for the sole reason that he had detached and isolated in
a play an episode in the life of Bacchus,--the history of Pentheus.
They hate this innovator, Æschylus. They blame all these inventions,
the end of which is to bring about a closer connection between the
drama and Nature, the use of the anapæst for the chorus, of the iambus
for the dialogue, and of the trochee for passion, in the same way
that, later on, Shakespeare was blamed for going from poetry to prose,
and the theatre of the nineteenth century for that which was termed
"broken verse." These are indeed unbearable novelties. And then, the
flute plays too high, and the tetrachord plays too low; and where is
now the ancient sacred division of tragedies into monodies, stasimes,
and exodes? Thespis never put on the stage but one speaking actor;
here is Æschylus putting two. Soon we shall have three. (Sophocles,
indeed, was to come.) Where will they stop? These are impieties.
And how does Æschylus dare to call Jupiter "the prytanus of the
Immortals?" Jupiter was a god, and he is now no more than a magistrate.
Where are we going? The thymele, the ancient altar of sacrifice, is
now a seat for the corypheus! The chorus ought to limit itself to
executing the strophe,--that is to say, the turn to the right; then
the antistrophe,--that is to say, the turn to the left; then the
epode,--that is to say, repose. But what is the meaning of the chorus
arriving in a winged chariot? What is the gad-fly that pursues Io? Why
does the Ocean come mounted on a dragon? This is show, not poetry.
Where is the ancient simplicity? This show is puerile. Your Æschylus
is but a painter, a decorator, a composer of brawls, a charlatan, a
machinist. All for the eyes, nothing for the mind. To the fire with
all those pieces, and let us content ourselves with a recitation of
the ancient pæans of Tynnichus! It is Chœrilus who, by his tetralogy
of the "Curetes," has begun the evil. What are the Curetes, if you
please? Gods forging metal. Well, then, he had simply to show working
on the stage their five families, the Dactyli finding the metal, the
Cabiri inventing the forge, the Corybantes forging the sword and
the plough-share, the Curetes making the shield, and the Telchines
chasing the jewelry. It was sufficiently interesting in that form;
but by allowing poets to blend in it the adventure of Plexippus and
Toxeus, all is lost. How can you expect society to resist such excess?
It is abominable. Æschylus ought to be summoned before justice, and
sentenced to drink hemlock like that old wretch Socrates. You will see
that after all, he will only be exiled. Everything degenerates.
And the young men burst with laughter. They criticise as well, but in
another fashion. What an old brute is that Solon! It is he who has
instituted the eponymous archonship. What do they want with an archon
giving his name to the year? Hoot the eponymous archon who has lately
caused a poet to be elected and crowned by ten generals, instead of
taking ten men from the people! It is true that one of the generals
was Cimon,--an attenuating circumstance in the eyes of some, for Cimon
had beaten the Phœnicians; aggravating in the eyes of others, for
it is this very Cimon who, in order to get out of a prison for debt,
sold his sister Elphinia, and his wife in the bargain, to Callias. If
Æschylus is a bold man, and deserves to be cited before the Areopagus,
has not Phrynichus also been judged and condemned for having shown
on the stage, in the "Taking of Miletus," the Greeks beaten by the
Persians? When will poets be allowed to suit their own fancy? Hurrah
for the liberty of Pericles and down with the censure of Solon! And
then what is the law that has just been promulgated by which the
chorus is reduced from fifty to fifteen? And how are they to play the
"Danaïdes"? and won't they sneer at the line of Æschylus: "Egyptus, the
father of _fifty_ sons"? The fifty will be fifteen. These magistrates
are idiots. Quarrel, uproar all round. One prefers Phrynichus, another
prefers Æschylus, another prefers wine with honey and benzoin. The
speaking-trumpets of the actors compete as well as they can with this
deafening noise, through which is heard from time to time the shrill
cry of the public vendors of phallus and the water-bearers. Such is
Athenian uproar. During that time the play is going on. It is the work
of a living man. The uproar has every reason to be. Later on, after the
death of Æschylus, or after he has been exiled, there will be silence.
It is right to be silent before a god. "Æquum est," it is Plautus who
speaks, "vos deo facere silentium."
[Footnote 1: Αρχηαιομελεσιδονοπηρυνιχηερατα.]