the initiates in the ceremonies and symbolic fables, had not as yet
issued from the sanctuaries: it had been nearly a thousand years since
they had been instituted by Orpheus[134] when suddenly one saw for the
first time certain of these fables and these ceremonies ridiculously
travestied, transpiring among the people and serving them for
amusement. The fêtes of Dionysus, celebrated in the times of vintage,
gave place to this sort of profanation. The grape-gatherers, besmeared
with lees, giving way in the intoxication of wine to an indiscreet
enthusiasm, began to utter aloud from their wagons the allegories that
they had learned in their rural initiations. These allegories, which
neither the actors nor the spectators had comprehended in reality,
appeared, nevertheless, piquant to both through the malicious
interpretations which they gave them.[135] Such were the feeble
beginnings of dramatic art in Greece[136]; there was born the
profanation of the Orphic mysteries, in the same manner that one
see sit reborn among us, by the profanation of the Christian
mysteries.[137] But this art was already old in Asia when it sprang up
in Europe. I have already said that there was in the secret
celebration of the mysteries, veritable dramatic representations.
These mystic ceremonies, copied from those which had taken place in
the celebration of the Egyptian mysteries, had been brought into Egypt
by the Indian priests at a very remote epoch when the empire of
Hindustan had extended over this country. This communication, which
was made from one people to another, has been demonstrated to the
point of evidence by the learned researches of the academicians of
Calcutta, Jones, Wilford, and Wilkin,[138] who have proved what Bacon
had previously said in speaking of the Greek traditions, “that it was
only a very light air which, passing by means of an ancient people
into the flutes of Greece, had been modulated by them into sounds more
sweet, more harmonious, and more conformable to the climate and to
their brilliant imagination.”
A singular coincidence, _Messieurs_, which will not escape your
sagacity, is that dramatic art, whose origin is lost in India in the
night of time, has likewise had its birth in the mysteries of
religion. It is during the _Ram-Jatra_, a fête celebrated annually in
honour of Rama, the same as Dionysus of the Greeks, or Bacchus of the
Latins, that one still sees theatrical representations which have
served as models for the more regular works that have been made in the
course of time.[139] These representations, which run through nearly
all the exploits of Rama and through the victory that this beneficent
god gained over Rawhan, the principle of evil, are mingled with chants
and recitations exactly as were those of the ancient Greeks. You
understand, _Messieurs_, that the first efforts of tragedy were to
celebrate the conquests of Bacchus and his triumph, of which that of
Apollo over the serpent Python, celebrated by the Pythian games, was
the emblem.[140] Those of the Indians who appear to have preserved the
most ancient traditions, since the sacred books were written in the
Pali language, considered as anterior to the Sanskrit by some savants,
the Burmans, have from time immemorial recorded the mysteries of Rama
in scenic dramas which are still performed in public on the fête day
of this god.[141] I do not consider it amiss to mention here that the
name of Rama, which in Sanskrit signifies that which is dazzling and
beautiful, that which is sublime and protective, has had the same
signification in Phœnician,[142] and that it is from this same name to
which is joined a demonstrative article common to Aramaic, Chaldean,
and Syriac, that the word drama[143] is formed, and which being
adopted by the Greek tongue, has passed afterwards into the Latin
tongue and into ours. This word has expressed an action, because, in
truth, it depicts one in the mysteries and besides its primitive root
refers to regular movement in general.
But as my purpose is not to follow at present dramatic art in all its
ramifications and as it suffices me to have indicated clearly the
origin, I return to Greece.
The spectacle of which I have spoken, effect of a Bacchic enthusiasm,
and at first abandoned to the caprice of certain rustic grape-gatherers
whose indiscretions did not appear formidable, struck so forcibly by
its novelty and produced such a marvellous effect upon the people,
that it was not long before certain men of most cultivated minds were
seen desirous of taking part either from liking or from interest.
Thespis and Susarion appeared at the same time and each seized,
according to his character, one the noble and serious side and the
other the ridiculous and amusing side of the mythological fables;
dividing thus from its birth, dramatic art and distinguishing it by
two kinds, tragedy and comedy: that is, the lofty and austere chant,
and the joyous and lascivious chant.[144][145]
In the meantime, the governments, until then quite indifferent to
these rustic amusements, warned that certain liberties permitted by
Thespis were becoming too flagrant, began to see the profanations
which had resulted, and of which the Eumolpidæ had no doubt pointed
out the consequences.[146] They tried to prevent them, and Solon even
made a law regarding this subject[147]; but it was too late: the
people attracted in crowds to these representations, all informal as
they were, rendered useless the foresight of the legislator. It was
necessary to yield to the torrent and, being unable to arrest it, to
strive at least to restrain it within just limits. A clear field was
left open for the good that it was able to do, in fertilizing the new
ideas, and severe rules were opposed to check whatever dangers its
invasions might have for religion and for customs. The dramatic
writers were permitted to draw the subject of their pieces from the
source of the mysteries, but it was forbidden them, under penalty of
death, to divulge the sense. Æschylus, first of the dramatic poets,
having involuntarily violated this law, ran the risk of losing his
life.[148] Discriminating judges were established to pronounce upon
the excellency of the works offered in the competition, and one was
very careful not to abandon oneself at first to the passionate
acclamations of the people, and the approbations or disapprobations of
the maxims which were therein contained.[1] These judges, proficient
in the knowledge of music and of poetry, had to listen in silence
until the end, and maintain all in order and decency. Plato attributes
to the desuetude into which this law fell, and to the absolute
dominion which the people assumed over the theatre, the first
decadence of the art and its entire corruption.
Æschylus, whom I have just named, was the true creator of dramatic
art. Strong with the inspiration which he had received from
Homer,[150] he transported into tragedy the style of epopœia, and
animated it with a music grave and simple.[151] Not content with the
moral beauties with which his genius embellished it, he wished that
music, painting, and dancing might lend their aid and contribute to
the illusion of the senses. He caused a theatre to be built where the
most ingenious devices, the most magnificent decorations displayed
their magic effects.[152] One saw in the tragedy of Prometheus, the
earth trembling, clouds of dust rising in the air; one heard the
whistling of wind, the crash of thunder; one was dazzled by the
lightnings.[153] Old Ocean appeared upon the waves, and Mercury came
from the heights of heaven to announce the commands of Jupiter. In the
tragedy of the Eumenides, these infernal divinities appeared upon the
scene to the number of fifty, clothed in black robes; blood-stained,
the head bristling with serpents, holding in one hand a torch and in
the other a lash.[154] They replied to the shade of Clytemnestra, who
invoked them, by a choir of music so frightful, that a general terror
having struck the assembly, certain of the women experienced premature
pains of confinement.[155]
One feels, after this, that Greek tragedy had in its theatrical forms,
much in common with our modern operas; but what eminently
distinguishes it is that, having come forth complete from the depths
of the sanctuaries, it possessed a moral sense which the initiates
understood. This is what put it above anything that we might be able
to conceive today; what gave it an inestimable price. Whereas the
vulgar, dazzled only by the pomp of the spectacle, allured by the
beauty of the verse and the music, enjoyed merely a fleeting
gratification, the wise tasted a pleasure more pure and more durable,
by receiving the truth in their hearts even from the deceitful
delusions of the senses. This pleasure was as much greater as the
inspiration of the poet had been more perfect, and as he had succeeded
better in making the allegorical spirit felt, without betraying the
veil which covered it.
Æschylus went further in comprehension of the subject than any of his
successors. His plans were of an extreme simplicity. He deviated
little from the mythological tradition.[156] All his efforts tended
only to give light to their teachings, to penetrate into their hidden
beauties. The characters of his heroes, strongly drawn, sustained them
at heights where Homer had placed them. He caused terror to pass
before them that they might be frightened.[157] His aim was to lead
them to virtue by terror, and to inspire the soul with a force capable
of resisting alike the intoxications of prosperity and the
discouragements of poverty.
Sophocles and Euripides followed closely Æschylus and surpassed him in
certain portions of the art; the first, even triumphed over him in the
eyes of the multitude[158]; but the small number of sages, faithful to
the true principles, regarded him always as the father of
tragedy.[159] One can admit that Sophocles was more perfect in the
conduct of his plans, in the regularity of his style[160]; that
Euripides was more natural and more tender, more skilful in arousing
interest, in stirring the passions[161]; but these perfections,
resulting from the form, had not been acquired without the very
essence of drama being altered; that is to say, without the
allegorical genius which had presided at the composition of the fables
that the poets had always drawn from the religious mysteries,
suffering many deviations, which rendered it often unrecognizable
through the foreign adornments with which it was burdened. Sophocles
and above all Euripides, by devoting themselves to perfecting the
form, really harmed therefore the principle of the art and hastened
its corruption. If the laws which had at first been promulgated
against those who in treating of the tragic subjects vilified the
mysterious sense had been executed, Euripides would not have been
allowed to depict so many heroes degraded by adversity, so many
princesses led astray by love, so many scenes of shame, of scandal,
and of crime[162]; but the people, already degraded and bordering upon
corruption, allowed themselves to be drawn along by these dangerous
tableaux and hastened half-way to meet the poisoned cup which was
offered to them.
It must candidly be admitted, that it is to the very charm of these
tableaux, to the talent with which Euripides understood how to colour
them, that the decadence of Athenian manners and the first harm done
to the purity of religion must be attributed. The theatre, having
become the school of the passions, and offering to the soul no
spiritual nourishment, opened a door through which doubt, contempt,
and derision for the mysteries, the most sacrilegious audacity, and
utter forgetfulness of the Divinity, insinuated themselves even unto
the sanctuaries. Æschylus had represented in his heroes, supernatural
personages[163]; Sophocles painted simple heroes, and Euripides,
characters often less than men.[164] Now these personages were, in the
eyes of the people, either children of the gods, or the gods
themselves. What idea could be formed then of their weaknesses, of
their crimes, of their odious or ridiculous conduct, particularly when
these weaknesses or these crimes were no longer represented as
allegories from which it was necessary to seek the meaning, but as
historical events or frivolous plays of the imagination? The people,
according to the degree of their intelligence, became either impious
or superstitious; the savants professed to doubt all, and the
influential men, by feigning to believe all, regarded all parties with
an equal indifference. This is exactly what happened. The mysteries
became corrupt because one was accustomed to regard them as corrupt;
and the people became intolerant and fanatical, each one cringing with
fear, lest he be judged what he really was, namely, impious.
Such was the effect of dramatic art in Greece. This effect, at first
imperceptible, became manifest to the eyes of the sages, when the
people became the dictators of the theatre and ignored the judges
named to pronounce upon the works of the poets; When the poets,
jealous of obtaining the approval of the multitude, consulted its
taste rather than truth, its versatile passions rather than reason,
and sacrificed to its caprices the laws of honesty and excellence.[164]
As soon as tragedy, disparaging the mysteries of the fables had
transformed them into historical facts, it needed only a step to raise
historical facts to the rank of subjects of tragedy. Phrynichus was,
it is said, the first who had this audacity. He produced in the
theatre, the _Conquest of Miletus_.[166] The people of Athens, with a
whimsicality which is characteristic of them, condemned the poet to a
very heavy fine, for having disobeyed the law and crowned him because
of the tears which they shed at the representation of his work. But
this was not enough, confounding thus reality and allegory; soon,
sacred and profane things were mingled by forging without any kind of
moral aim, subjects wholly false and fantastic. The poet Agathon, who
was the author of this new profanation had been the friend of
Euripides.[167] He proved thus that he knew nothing of the essence of
dramatic poetry and makes it doubtful whether Euripides knew it any
better.
Thus, in the space of less than two centuries, tragedy, borne upon the
car of Thespis, elevated by Æschylus to a nobler theatre, carried to
the highest degree of splendour by Sophocles, had already become
weakened in the hands of Euripides, had lost the memory of its
celestial origin with Agathon, and abandoned to the caprices of a
populace as imperious as ignorant, inclined toward a rapid
degeneration.[168] Comedy less reserved did not have a happier
destiny. After having hurled its first darts upon the heroes and
demi-gods of Greece, having taken possession of certain very unguarded
allegories, to turn even the gods to ridicule[169]; after having
derided Prometheus and Triptolemus, Bacchus and the Bacchantes, after
having made sport of heaven and earth, of the golden age and the
seasons[170]; it attacked men in general and in particular, ridiculed
their absurdities, pursued their vices, real or imaginary, and
delivered them both unsparingly, without pity, to derision and
contempt.[171] Epicharmus, who gave certain rules to the indecent
farces of Susarion, was followed by Magnes, Cratinus, Eupolis, and a
crowd of other comic poets, until Aristophanes whose bitter satires no
longer finding sufficient influence in certain obscure ridicules,
applied themselves to disparaging science and virtue, and twenty years
beforehand, prepared and envenomed the hemlock by which Socrates was
poisoned. It is true that some time after, Menander tried to reform
this terrible abuse and gave to comedy a form less revolting; but he
was only able to do so by detaching it completely from its origin,
that is to say, by severing it from all that it had preserved,
intellectually and allegorically, and reducing it to the
representation of certain tableaux and certain events of the social
life.
In going back, as I have just done, to the origin of poetic science in
order to distinguish first, its essence from its form and afterwards,
to follow its diverse developments, in genus and in kind, I have
related many things and cited a great number of subjects with which
you are familiar; but you will no doubt excuse, _Messieurs_, these
numerous reminiscences and citations, in reflecting that although but
little necessary for you, they were infinitely so for me, since
presenting myself in the lists and wishing to give an added form to
this science which belongs to you, I must prove to you that I have at
least studied it profoundly.
§ V
Now, summing up what I have said, it will be found that poetry,
entirely intellectual in its origin and destined only to be the
language of the gods, owed its first developments in Greece to
Orpheus, its second to Homer, and its last to Æschylus. These three
creative men, seizing the different germs of this science still
shrouded in their formless rudiments, warmed them with the fire of
their genius and according to the particular inspiration of each, led
them to the perfection of which they were susceptible. All three of
them were the object of a first inspiration, although influenced one
by the other, and were able to communicate the magnetic power to new
disciples. Orpheus possessor of intellectual and rational poetry,
constituted that which I call _Eumolpœia_, which, being divided into
theosophy and philosophy, produces all the works which treat of the
Divinity, of the Universe, of Nature, and of Man in general.[172]
Homer, in joining to this spiritual poetry the enthusiasm of the
passions, created Epopœia, whose magnificent genus envelops a
multitude of specie, where the intellectual faculty and passion
dominate with more or less energy under the influence of imagination.
Homer rendered sentient that which was intelligible and particularized
that which Orpheus had left universal: Æschylus, trying to bring into
action what these two divine men had left with potentiality, formed
the idea of dramatic or active poetry, in which he claimed to include
whatever Eumolpœia and Epopœia had in common, that was moral,
allegorical, and passionate. He would have succeeded, perhaps, and
then would have produced the most perfect work of thought, passion,
and action possible for men, conceived by genius and executed by
talent; but Greece, exhausted by the abundant harvest obtained by
Orpheus and Homer, lacked the sap to give nourishment to this new
plant. Corrupted in its germ, this plant degenerated rapidly,
deteriorated, and put forth only a vain show of branches without
elevation and without virtue. The heroes of Thermopylæ succumbed under
the burden of their laurels. Given over to a foolish arrogance, they
covered with an unjust contempt their preceptors and their fathers;
they persecuted, they assassinated their defenders and their sages
and, base tyrants of the theatre, they prepared themselves to bow the
head beneath the yoke of the king of Macedonia.
This king, victor at Chæronea, became arbiter of Greece, and his son,
providential instrument of the ascendancy which Europe was to have
over Asia, crossing the Hellespont at the head of an army that his
genius alone rendered formidable, overthrew the empire of Cyrus and
stood for a moment upon its débris: I say for a moment, because it was
not here that the new empire was to be established: Europe had still
obeyed; she was one day to command. Rome was already, in the thought
of the future, the culminating point of the earth. A few centuries
sufficed for this city, then unknown,[173] to attain to the height of
glory. Emerging from her obscurity, conquering Pyrrhus, dominating
Italy, combating and overthrowing Carthage, conquering Greece, and
trampling under foot twenty diadems borne by the successors of
Alexander, was for this ambitious Republic the work of a few
centuries. But it is not true, although certain men whose virtue was
not enlightened by the torch of experience may have been able to say
it; it is not true that a republic, already perplexed in governing
itself, can govern the world. It requires an empire, and this empire
is created.
Cæsar laid its foundation, Augustus strengthened it. The sciences and
arts, brought to Rome from the heart of Greece, came out then from
their lethargy and flourished with a new _éclat_. Poetry, especially,
found numberless admirers. Vergil, strongly attracted by the magnetic
flame of Homer, dared to tread in his light, overthrew all the
obstacles that time had raised, and drawing near to this divine model,
received from him the second inspiration without intermediary and
without rival. Ovid, less determined, hovering between Orpheus and
Homer, succeeded, however, in uniting the second inspiration of the
one to the third inspiration of the other, and left in his book of
_Metamorphoses_ a monument not less brilliant and more inimitable than
the _Æneid_. Horace, little satisfied with succeeding Pindar, sought
and found the means of uniting to the enthusiasm of the passions the
calm of rational poetry, and, establishing himself a legislator of
Parnassus, dictated laws to the poets, or jeered at the absurdities of
men.
This poetry of reason had long since fallen into desuetude. The false
movement that dramatic poetry had taken in Greece, the contempt that
it had come to inspire for gods and men, had reacted upon it. The
philosophers, disdaining a science which, by its own admission, was
founded upon falsehood, had driven it from their writings. As much as
they searched for it, when they believed it an emanation of the
Divinity, so much had they fled from it since they had come to see in
it only the vain production of an insensate delirium. Here is an
observation, _Messieurs_, somewhat new, with which I may engage your
attention: the first comedies appeared five hundred and eighty years
before our era, which was about twenty years after Pherecydes wrote
the first work in prose.[174] This philosopher doubtless, did not
believe that a language prostituted to the burlesque parodies of
Susarion should be useful further to the meditations of the sages. It
is not, however, that at long intervals certain philosophers such as
Empedocles, Parmenides, and many others of their disciples, have not
written in verse[175]; but the remains of the ancient usage soon gave
way, especially when Plato had embellished prose with the charm of his
captivating eloquence. Before this philosopher, Herodotus had read in
the assembly of the Olympic games an history of Greece connected with
that of the greater part of the neighbouring nations.[176] This work,
written in a fluent style, clear and persuasive, had so enchanted the
Greeks, that they had given to the nine books which he composed, the
names of the nine Muses. Nevertheless, an observation which will not
be wholly foreign here, is, that the admission of prose in philosophy,
instead of rational poetry, produced a style of work hitherto unknown,
and of which the moderns made much; I am speaking of positive history.
Before this epoch, history written in verse was, as I have said,
allegorical and figurative, and was occupied only with the masses
without respect to individuals. Thus the evil which resulted on the
one side, from the degradation experienced by poetry in one of its
branches, was balanced by the good which was promised on the other,
from the purification of prose for the advancement of exact knowledge.