THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL CUSTOMS AND IDEAS[343]
It is unnecessary to state that the differences between ancient life in
Greece and modern life in America and Western Europe are endless. To
attempt to enumerate them all would require a separate volume. In the
present chapter I shall undertake to touch upon some of the features
which more intimately affected Greek drama.
First of all a modern can scarcely avoid a feeling of surprise that
plays were almost always brought out in competition; but no instinct
was more thoroughly imbedded in the Greek consciousness than this. From
the time of the first celebration of the Olympian games in 776 B.C. or
before, a contest of some kind formed, to their minds, the most natural
setting for the display of athletic, musical, and literary skill.
Associated with this fact was another, viz., that the prizes awarded upon
these occasions were usually more honorific than intrinsically valuable.
The victors in the Olympian games received a garland of wild olive and a
palm branch. It is true that the delighted fellow-citizens of the victors
usually supplemented the award by something more substantial, but the
fact remains that these trivial objects were the sole official reward for
many arduous months of preparation and training. In like manner we are
informed by the most ancient tradition that the original prize in tragic
contests was a goat (see p. 13 f. above); and what is more, it is said
to have been customary for the victorious poet to offer up his prize in
immediate sacrifice to the god of the festival. After the reorganization
of the City Dionysia about 501 B.C., however, it seems likely that
pecuniary awards were established for the tragic victors. Though we are
in ignorance as to their amount, some notion can be formed from the
fact that prizes of ten, eight, and six minae,[344] respectively, were
granted dithyrambic victors at the Piraeus festival toward the close
of the fourth century B.C. Three prizes seem to have been available in
tragedy at the City Dionysia also, so that every contestant was sure of
some compensation. In other words, to be chosen to compete at all was
sufficient honor to entitle even the poorest of the three to a suitable
reward. Only the winner of the first prize, however, was technically
regarded as “victor.” In comedy, according to tradition, the original
prize was a jar of wine, which likewise gave place to financial awards
after comedy came under state control at the City Dionysia of 486 B.C.
These arrangements were extended to the Lenaea, when first comedy and
then tragedy were introduced there (see p. 119, above), and to contests
between actors, as these were established at the two festivals (see p.
202, above). The successful playwrights, actors, and “choregi” (see
below) seem to have been crowned with garlands of ivy by the presiding
archon—the archon eponymus at the City Dionysia and the king archon at
the Lenaea.
In several particulars the government under which the Athenians lived
was indirect in its provisions. For example, though valuable mines
belonged to the state, they were not worked by government officials
but were leased to private parties. Accordingly, although the dramatic
festivals were under the direct control of the state, the financial
management was relegated to lessees, who agreed to keep the theater in
repair and to pay a stipulated sum into the public treasury in return for
the privilege of collecting an admission fee. During the fourth century
B.C. the lessees of the Piraeus theater paid thirty-three minae annually.
This system explains why the authorities, when they wished to enable even
the poorest citizens to attend the dramatic exhibitions, did not simply
throw open the doors to all or issue passes. Instead, toward the end of
the fifth century it was provided that any citizen might receive two
obols from the “theoric” fund in order to pay his own way into the day’s
performances (see p. 120, above).
Another instance of the indirect exercise of governmental functions is
seen in the practice of various kinds of “public service” (λειτουργία).
Thus when the Board of Generals had provided the hull of a warship
(“trireme”) they did not proceed also to rig it and to hire a commander.
Instead some rich citizen was required to contribute toward its rigging
and upkeep and to command it for one year. This obligation was laid
upon the wealthier citizens in rotation; and if anyone considered that
he was being called upon too frequently or that someone of greater
substance was escaping his just responsibilities, he could challenge
him to an exchange of property (ἀντίδοσις). According to law the man
so challenged was restricted to the two options of either assuming the
burden or trading estates. This system of liturgies applied to the
maintenance not only of the naval service but also of dramatic and
dithyrambic contests, the torch race, etc. It was provided that no one
need act as trierarch more frequently than once in three years, bear any
liturgy two successive years, or two liturgies in the same year. But
it was the glory of Athenian citizenship that they served oftener and
spent their means more generously than the law demanded. The bearers of
the theatrical liturgies were called _choregi_ (χορηγοί), and there was
no surer method of displaying one’s wealth and of currying favor with
the populace than by voluntary and lavish assumption of the choregia.
The evidence is not sufficient to establish just how the charges were
distributed. The state seems to have paid the actors, and the choregus
to have been responsible for assembling and hiring a body of choreutae,
engaging a trainer to drill them, purchasing or renting costumes for the
chorus, employing mute characters, providing showy extras of various
kinds, etc. As regards the flute-player a distinction was perhaps drawn
between the dithyrambic and dramatic contests, the state employing him in
the former and the choregus in the latter. The question of an additional
actor has already been discussed (see pp. 172-82, above). A speaker in
one of Lysias’ orations[345] claims to have spent, within a period of
seven years, thirty minae for a tragic choregia, sixteen minae for one in
comedy, fifty minae for a dithyrambic chorus of men, fifteen minae for
a chorus of boys, three hundred and sixty minae for six trierarchies,
twelve minae as gymnasiarch, etc. Since this man’s ambition led him to
do more than his share, these outlays are probably somewhat larger than
they need to have been; in fact, he declares that the law would not have
required of him one-fourth as much. But in addition to indicating how
much some were willing to spend, the figures are valuable also as showing
the comparative expense of the different events. Needless to state, a
poet’s chance of victory was considerably affected by the wealth and
disposition of his choregus. An ambitious and lavish man like Nicias, who
is declared by Plutarch[346] never to have been worsted in any of his
numerous choregias, could manifestly do much to retrieve a poor play.
But woe betide the playwright whose success was largely in the keeping
of a sponsor who would spend no more than law and public opinion could
wring from him. In 405 and 404 B.C., while Athens was experiencing a
financial stringency just before the close of the Peloponnesian War,
the number of choregi at the City Dionysia was temporarily doubled, so
that two synchoregi might divide between them the burden which normally
fell to one man. Finally about 308 B.C. the dearth of rich men caused
the abandonment of the choregic system and the annual appointment of an
_agonothete_ (ἀγωνοθέτης) or “master of contests,” whose own resources
were supplemented by a state subsidy and who assumed entire control and
financial responsibility for all the dithyrambic and dramatic contests at
the festival.
One of the most characteristic features of the Athenian democracy was
the large rôle assigned to the lot in the selection of officials. For
example, in Aristotle’s day the nine archons were chosen by lot from five
hundred men, who had themselves been previously chosen by lot, fifty from
each of the ten tribes. Whatever may have been the other objects of this
system, at least one was the prevention of bribery and manipulation;
and without a doubt this was the motive which led to the use of the lot
in theatrical matters. Thus the judges in the contests seem, though the
scheme is largely conjectural and depends upon insufficient notices, to
have been selected and to have rendered decisions somewhat as follows:
Some days before the festival a certain number of names was taken from
each tribe and deposited in ten sealed urns in the Acropolis. Just before
the contest began, these vessels were brought into the theater and the
presiding archon drew one name from each tribal urn. The men so chosen
came forward and swore to judge truly. When the performances were over,
each judge wrote down his verdict and the ten ballots were placed in
a single urn. The archon now drew out half of these, which were alone
used in arriving at the ultimate decision! So cumbersome a system can
be justified only by its results; and it must be allowed that, so far
as we can now determine, no poet suffered any great injustice from its
operation. The playwrights usually won whom later critics were unanimous
in considering the greatest. Each of the tragic triad wrote about one
hundred plays: Aeschylus, whose career fell before the admission of
tragedy to the Lenaea, gained thirteen victories at the City Dionysia;
Sophocles, eighteen City and at least two Lenaean victories; and
Euripides, fifteen (or possibly only five) victories at both festivals
(see p. 325, below). It must be remembered that several plays would be
simultaneously crowned at each victory in tragedy (see p. 198, above).
The most astounding reversal occurred when Philocles, Aeschylus’ mediocre
nephew, defeated Sophocles’ didascalic group in which was included his
_Oedipus the King_, perhaps the greatest tragedy of ancient times!
However, this apparent lapse of judgment is possibly to be explained by
the factor mentioned in the last paragraph, a parsimonious choregus.
The lot was employed also in another connection. Immediately after the
beginning of each civil year in Hecatombaeon (July), the archon eponymus
and the king archon attended to the appointment of tragic choregi for the
City Dionysia and the Lenaean festival, respectively. During the fifth
century they chose the comic choregi as well, but Aristotle informs us
that in his day their selection was managed by the tribes.[347] After
this detail had been arranged the archons proceeded to “grant a chorus”
to a suitable number of playwrights. For this purpose doubtless an
untried poet was required to submit a more or less finished copy of what
he wished to produce; from seasoned writers probably the presentation of
a scenario or even less was deemed sufficient. At any rate Dr. Ruppel has
shown that in Aristophanes’ comedies the plot was sometimes essentially
modified by or even integrally depended upon events which took place
but a few weeks before the festival. It is evident that the archons
exercised considerable discretion in selecting the playwrights; at least
we are told that no less a personage than Sophocles was once refused a
chorus when one was granted to an obscure Gnesippus.[348] When poets and
choregi had finally been chosen, the troublesome task of matching them
still confronted the officials. Naturally the important consequences
which we have seen to grow out of the assignment of a generous or
niggardly choregus to a poet served only to enhance the difficulty of
the situation. And in the light of what has just been said concerning
the Athenian fondness for the lot, it is not surprising that the problem
was met by its use. After the actors passed from private to public
management, about 449 B.C. (see p. 183, above), the lot was employed
also to distribute the protagonists among the dramatists. In the fourth
century the more equitable system became possible of permitting each
protagonist to appear in a single one of each tragedian’s three plays
(see p. 185, above).
One of the most prominent traits of the Greek, and especially of the
Athenian, character was litigiousness. Inasmuch as from the time of
Pericles citizens of Attica received a slight stipend for serving upon
juries, which ranged from 201 to 2,500 in membership and sometimes
reached an aggregate of 6,000, there was scarcely an Athenian but
was personally acquainted with courtroom procedure and not a few
practically supported themselves in this way. Moreover, this situation
was intensified by the fact that the fifth century witnessed the rise
of formal oratory at Athens and its exploitation by numerous rhetorical
and sophistic teachers. It is hardly possible that all these influences
should have allowed contemporaneous drama to escape unscathed. Their
first effect is seen in the actual introduction of a courtroom scene,
as in Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_, in which Orestes is put on trial before
the Council of the Areopagus for having murdered his mother. Athena is
the presiding judge, Apollo the attorney for the defense, and the chorus
of Furies conducts the prosecution. Aristophanes satirized the Athenian
weakness in his _Wasps_, the chorus of which appeared in the guise of
those quarrelsome insects; and that inveterate juryman, Philocleon, was
provided with a domestic court wherein one dog was duly arraigned by
another for having pilfered a round of Sicilian cheese! Again, certain
scenes in other plays, though not ostensibly placed in the courtroom, are
practically treated as if they were. For example, in Euripides’ _Trojan
Women_, Menelaus meets his truant wife for the first time since her
elopement. Will he pardon or slay her? Helen herself naturally hopes to
be forgiven and restored to her husband’s favor; but the Trojan women,
who hold her responsible for their country’s downfall, wish condign
punishment to be meted out to her. Consequently the play degenerates
into a quasi-trial in which Menelaus presides as judge, Hecabe, ex-queen
of Troy, represents the prosecution, and Helen pleads her own cause. In
the third place, when a court scene was out of the question a debate of
some kind was often dragged in. Of course “struggle” is of the essence of
drama and a formal “agon” was by derivation almost indispensable in Old
Comedy (see pp. 42-44), but I am now referring to something different.
Perhaps the most glaring instance is found in Euripides’ _Madness of
Heracles_ (vss. 158 ff.). Lycus has resolved upon Amphitryon’s speedy
death, yet they both stop to argue whether it be better to fight with
the spear or the bow! Finally, since in the law courts the addresses
of the contending parties were equalized by means of the “water-clock”
(the _clepsydra_), it is not surprising that the speeches of sharply
contrasted characters in tragedy are occasionally made of exactly the
same length. The best example occurs in Euripides’ _Hecabe_, where
Polymestor’s speech of fifty-one lines is exactly balanced by that of
the Trojan queen (cf. vss. 1132-82 and 1187-1237). In Aeschylus’ _Seven
against Thebes_ there are seven pairs of contrasted speeches, two of
which are exactly equal (cf. vss. 422-36 = 437-51, and 568-96 = 597-625,
and two others are nearly so; cf. vss. 375-96 ≠ 397-416 and 631-52 ≠
653-76). If we had before us the _ipsissima verba_ of the tragic writers
it is likely that these and some other minor inequalities would be
resolved. Thus in Euripides’ _Medea_, Jason speaks fifty-four lines in
reply to the heroine’s fifty-five (cf. vss. 465-519 ≠ 522-75); but there
is some reason for believing that vs. 468 is interpolated. Again, in
Sophocles’ _Antigone_ the speeches of Creon and Haemon would precisely
correspond (cf. vss. 639-80 and 683-723), if we suppose a verse to have
dropped out after vs. 690. In conclusion it ought to be stated that
such balancing was quite congenial to the fondness for symmetry which
characterized the Greek genius in every field of endeavor.
Perhaps the one idea which was most fixed in the popular consciousness
of ancient Greece was that of Nemesis, the goddess who punished the
overweening presumption arising from long-continued prosperity and
success. Herodotus’ history exemplifies the notion both in its main
theme, the crushing defeat which brought Persia’s long series of
victories to a close, and in numerous digressions, such as the story of
Polycrates and his ring. Accordingly, when Phrynichus in his _Phoenician
Women_ and afterward Aeschylus in his _Persians_ undertook to celebrate
the Persian rout they were careful to avoid a display of the pride
which had ruined the invading host, by laying the scene in the Orient
and exhibiting the mourning of Persia, not the triumph of Greece (see
p. 124, above). Again, in the seven pairs of contrasted speeches just
mentioned as occurring in Aeschylus’ _Seven against Thebes_, a messenger
states in turn the name of the Argive champion who is to assail each of
the seven gates of Thebes, describing his actions, words, the device
upon his shield, etc., and the king in a similar manner matches each
enemy with a warrior of his own. It is not without significance that to
a Greek mind “the boasts and blazons of the champions convict them of
presumption, and doom them beforehand to failure. The answers of Eteocles
are always right, take advantage of the enemy’s insolence, and secure
divine favour by studied moderation.”[349] Still again, in the same
playwright’s _Agamemnon_ appears an incident which to the uninitiated
modern reader seems forced and unworthy of the prominence and space
assigned to it. Clytemnestra has been untrue to her lord during his long
absence at Troy and is now prepared by her paramour’s help to murder him.
Agamemnon himself, thanks to the recent smiles of fortune, is in the sort
of position which would easily expose him to the vengeance of Nemesis.
In the play (vss. 905-57) Clytemnestra skilfully takes advantage of this
situation in order to array the powerful goddess upon her side. She urges
Agamemnon not to set his conquering foot upon the common earth but to
pass from his chariot into the palace over a purple tapestry. The king
shrinks from an act which would be more becoming to a god than a mortal,
but finally yields to his wife’s insistence. The result is that to a
Greek audience he would seem to invite and almost to deserve the doom
which his unfaithful spouse quickly brings upon him. These instances from
the many available suffice to indicate Greek feeling on the subject.
The poets of New Comedy leaned heavily upon the “long arm of
coincidence.” The young women who are the recipients of the gilded
youths’ favors are frequently found in the outcome to be free-born,
the children of respectable parents, and acceptable wives. In several
instances the victim of violence at some nocturnal festival has
unwittingly become the spouse of her ravisher. The situation is
aggravated by the unity of time. Men who have been absent from their
homes for months or years must some day return to their households,
pregnant women must at last be delivered of their offspring,
long-standing debts must finally fall due, and the escapades of spoiled
sons must at some time be brought to light and receive the attention
of “hard-hearted” parents. Coming singly, such occurrences occasion
no surprise. But when several of that sort are crowded into a period
of twenty-four hours or less in play after play, to our minds the
coincidence becomes well-nigh intolerable. It seems likely, however,
that the ancients regarded such concatenations of events with more
kindly eyes, for the reason that Chance or Fortune (Τύχη) was commonly
accepted as exercising supreme authority over the lives and fortunes of
men. This conception also helps to explain the curious immunity from
punishment which was usually enjoyed by the scheming slaves in comedy.
Of course to a race whose national characteristics were embodied in the
wily Odysseus, cleverness, however unscrupulous, always seemed to elevate
its practitioners above the rules of ordinary morality. But more. Just
as “in the days of the _Odyssey_ a man merely required to be skilful at
deceiving his fellows to become a favorite of Athena’s, so in the days of
New Comedy this quality gave him a claim to the favor of the queen of the
world—omnipotent Tyche.”[350]
It is not always realized how almost oriental was the seclusion in
which respectable women were kept at Athens during the period of its
greatness in drama. Respectable women of good family were not permitted
to leave their homes except for special reasons, nor to converse with
men other than near relatives or slaves. When it is remembered that
the physical arrangements of the Greek theaters did not readily admit
of interior scenes (see pp. 237 ff., above) it will be understood how
difficult it was for an ancient playwright to bring women of the better
class upon his stage. This applies particularly to comedy as being a more
accurate mirror of contemporaneous manners; in tragedy, as will presently
appear, it was counteracted by another factor. At weddings, funerals,
and religious festivals women, especially married women, were allowed
greater liberty than at other times. Thus, in Aristophanes’ _Women at
the Thesmophoria_ the coming of the _festa_ affords them an opportunity
of carrying on the business of the play. In the same writer’s _Women
in Council_ they act in secret and disguised as men until their coup
d’état has succeeded and the government has been voted into their hands.
The situation in Aristophanes’ _Lysistrata_ is quite as abnormal, being
nothing more or less than a “sex strike!” In more conventional plays the
speaking characters, apart from divinities, are practically restricted
to women of the demimonde, foreign residents (_metics_), female slaves,
those other virtuous but vulgar creatures whom poverty has compelled
to seek a livelihood in various business pursuits of the humbler sort,
and finally women advanced in years, shrewish in disposition, and
unattractive in person. The first and last types are especially common
in New Comedy, while Plautus’ _Persian_ is said to be unique in its
presentation of a chaste and free-born maiden in an active rôle.[351]
Even the girl who has excited the young man’s affections and whose
counterpart in modern drama would be a conspicuous figure is seldom seen
and is not always heard. The most that she seems normally capable of
doing is to ejaculate a cry of agony from behind the scenes at the moment
of childbirth. This is the more surprising since the fact of her Attic
citizenship is rarely established and sometimes is not even suspected
until the very close of the play. The poet’s consciousness of what he
intends to make of her—a free-born citizen and a legal wife—apparently
constrains him to protect her from an unconventionality of conduct which,
though suitable to her present condition, would afterward be looked back
upon with regret by herself, her husband and newly recovered relatives,
and even by the spectators themselves. Truth to tell the girls from whom
an Athenian was required to take his bride were scarcely fitted to be
his intellectual companions or to grace a dialogue in drama, while the
best of the courtesans could qualify in either capacity. According to
American notions the marriage of convenience arranged by the parents is
hardly warranted to produce domestic felicity. But the hero of Greek
comedy often selected a mistress for graces of mind and person and
afterward, when her legitimate birth was discovered, gladly made her
his wife. At least such matches ought to have resulted happily. Yet
surprisingly little is ever said of married bliss and affection arising
from any sort of union. While this social situation prevented the ancient
dramatist from introducing certain scenes which are the stock in trade
of the modern playwright, in one respect it was of service to him. Since
practically no attention was paid to the girl’s wishes in such matters
and almost none to the youth’s, the speed with which engagements could be
made and unmade or consummated in wedlock aided materially in observing
the unity of time. The plots and concentrated action of many plays in
the New Comedy (cf. for example Terence’s _Andrian Girl_) would be
quite impossible if women in such a case were not passive and helpless
instruments in the hands of others. Professor Lounsbury (_op. cit._, pp.
120 ff.) has convincingly shown what a stumbling-block the unity of time
proved to the classical dramatists of Western Europe who tried to conform
to the unities but lived in a society to which such rapidity in courtship
was repugnant.
In Greek tragedy the representation of women is strikingly different
from that in comedy. Whereas in this respect the latter reacted to the
usage of contemporaneous society, tragedy reverted to the practice of
Homer. In the _Iliad_ women like Helen and Andromache, suitably attended,
not only traverse the Trojan streets but appear on the walls and among
the men without losing caste or being regarded as immodest; and though
Helen’s elopement with his brother was the source of all Troy’s present
woes, Hector addresses her with far more consideration than he shows the
wayward Paris. In the fourth book of the _Odyssey_ she assists Menelaus
at their Spartan home in entertaining the strangers from Ithaca and
Pylus, and freely participates in the conversation without embarrassment
and as an equal. How faithful a picture these poems present of the social
situation in Homer’s own day is largely beside the question, since it is
evident that they portray the events of a bygone age, viz., the close
of that “Aegean” or “Minoan” civilization which has been unearthed by
Schliemann on the Greek mainland and more recently by Evans and others in
Crete.
It is certain that women must have lived on a footing of
greater equality with the men than in any other ancient
civilization, and we see in the frescoes of Knossos conclusive
indications of an open and easy association of men and women,
corresponding to our idea of “Society,” at the Minoan Court
unparalleled till our own day.[352]
The extant remains clearly demonstrate that Homer’s delineation was at
the least derived from a genuine tradition. In view of the fact that with
three or four exceptions (see pp. 123 f., above) the themes of tragedy
were always selected from Homeric or other mythological sources, it was
natural that the Greek tragedians should take over from him a social
system which so conveniently liberated them from the restrictions of
contemporaneous customs. It is unnecessary to cite passages to prove
that they actually did this; the women of almost every tragedy move
about with a freedom and conduct themselves with an independence such as
no respectable woman among the playwright’s contemporaries could have
asserted.
Nor is it peculiar that so artificial a pose is not consistently
maintained. Occasionally, an unconscious sense of outraged propriety
causes the dramatist to put words into a woman’s mouth which stand in
glaring contrast with the rest of the scene. In Euripides’ _Andromache_,
Hermione’s confidential slave brings their dialogue to a close by saying
to her mistress:
Nay, pass within; make not thyself a show
Before this house, lest thou shouldst get thee shame,
Before this palace seen of men, my child.
[Vss. 877 ff.; Way’s translation]
In real life these words would furnish an excellent motive for
withdrawing; how artificial they are in tragedy appears from the fact
that, though a strange-looking man is now seen approaching, Hermione
remains upon the scene! In the same author’s _Electra_ (vss. 341 ff.)
that heroine’s peasant-husband finds her conversing with her brother and
Pylades (though she recognizes neither) and exclaims:
How now? What strangers these about my doors?
... Beseemeth not
That with young men a wife should stand in talk.
[Way’s translation]
The man’s lowly birth and usually deferential attitude toward his wife
make these words seem especially incongruous, and Electra promptly
apologizes for them. Sometimes these anachronisms are intentional and
fulfill a deliberate purpose. In Euripides’ _Phoenician Maids_ (vss. 88
ff.), Antigone and a servant are about to appear on the flat roof of
the palace in order to catch a glimpse of the invading army; but for
technical reasons (see pp. 171 f., above) it is necessary that Antigone’s
entrance be slightly delayed. Accordingly, the slave comes into view
first and is made to afford an excuse for her tardy appearance which
would have been legitimate for a fifth-century princess but which to a
Homeric woman or one at the period of the dramatic time of the play would
have seemed to spring from false modesty.
Fair flower of thy sire’s house, Antigone,
Albeit thy mother suffered thee to leave
Thy maiden-bower at thine entreaty, and mount
The palace-roof to view the Argive host,
Yet stay, that I may scan the highway first,
Lest on the path some citizen appear,
And scandal light—for me, the thrall, ’twere naught,—
On thee, the princess.
[Way’s translation.]
Again, when they are ready to withdraw, the approach of the chorus
reinforces the same motive (see p. 93, n. 1, above):
Daughter, pass in....
Lo, to the royal halls a woman-throng
Comes, ...
And scandal-loving still is womankind, etc.
[Vss. 193 ff.; Way’s translation]
As intimated at the beginning it would be possible to extend this
chapter indefinitely. One more point must suffice. The belief was
widespread among the Greeks that if a man’s body failed of burial his
shade was forced to wander for a season on this side of the river Styx
and was thus cut off from association with the great majority of departed
spirits; the obligation of attending to the funeral rites rested upon
the nearest kin of the deceased. It was inevitable that a doctrine so
intimately connected with the life of the people should frequently appear
in their literature. Thus the _Iliad_ does not close with the deaths of
Patroclus and Hector, but two whole books are devoted to an account of
their funerals. Likewise in the _Odyssey_, however unsympathetic has
been his delineation of the suitors’ conduct, nevertheless Homer does
not pass by the final disposition of their bodies in silence (cf. xxiv.
417). In tragedy, which often involves the death of the hero, naturally
this matter is frequently mentioned. In Sophocles’ _Antigone_ it provides
the mainspring of the action. Because Polynices fell in arms against
his native country, Creon forbade his burial, but before the call of a
duty so sacred Antigone deemed not her life precious and performed the
formal rites for her brother’s body in defiance of the king’s command.
According to modern feeling, when the hero falls upon his sword at vs.
865 of Sophocles’ _Ajax_, the dénouement must have arrived and the
ending be close at hand; as a matter of fact, the play continues for
over five hundred verses. To the Greeks no less important than the fact
of his death was the treatment which was to be accorded his corpse, and
the honors which Ajax received in Attica as a “hero” in the technical,
religious sense of that term made this a matter of far more moment than
would have been true even in the case of an ordinary man. Aeschylus’
_Seven against Thebes_ concludes with a dirge between Antigone and Ismene
over the bodies of their two brothers, and an altercation between a
public herald and Antigone in which she declares her intention of defying
the state edict by burying Polynices. The genuineness of these scenes
has been assailed on technical grounds but in my opinion unwarrantably
(see p. 175, above). They have been charged also with carrying the play
(and the trilogy) past the natural stopping-point and to an inconclusive
close. But despite any considerations which can be urged in its support,
this objection ignores the Greek feeling concerning the paramount
importance of interment and cannot be allowed. Even modern audiences have
sometimes felt a certain sympathy with this point of view. “The typical
Elizabethan tragedy does not deal with the mistakes of a night, but with
the long—often life-long—struggles of its hero. Such a play must have an
appropriate ending. After the audience has sympathized with a Hamlet or
a Brutus through many a scene, it is not satisfied with a sudden death
and a drop of a curtain with a thud. It asks to see the body solemnly
and reverently borne off the stage as if to its last resting place. And
this was the respect which the honored dead received on the Elizabethan
stage.”[353]
I find them one and all to be merely examples of a new
artificiality—the artificiality of naturalism.—GORDON CRAIG.