THE INFLUENCE OF THEATRICAL MACHINERY AND DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS[354]
We have already noted that the Greek theater had no facilities for the
direct representation of interior scenes (see pp. 237-42, above). Of the
many subterfuges there mentioned as available for or utilized by the
ancient playwrights it is now in place to elaborate upon one. I refer to
the _eccyclema_, one of the strangest and most conventional pieces of
machinery that any theater has ever seen.
If it were desired to disclose to the audience the corpse of someone who
has just been done to death behind the scenes, perhaps with the murderers
still gloating over their crime, or to set any similar interior view
before the faithful eyes of the spectators, the simplest device was to
fling open the appropriate door of the scene-building and thus to display
the desired objects or persons close behind the opening. Whatever may be
said for such a method under other conditions, in the Greek theater it
ran afoul of certain practical considerations. For example, the wings of
the auditorium extended around so far (Fig. 22) that spectators seated
there could have obtained no satisfactory view through the opened doors
of the scene-building. Nevertheless, during the last quarter-century
not a few scholars have maintained that this was the sole means which
the Greek playwrights employed for such a purpose. But the ancient
commentators often speak of a contrivance which was used to bring a
supposedly interior scene out of the opened doors and more fully into the
view of the audience. This device is sometimes described as “turning”
or “revolving” (στρέφειν)[355] and sometimes as being “rolled out” (ἐκ,
“out” + κυκλεῖν, to “wheel”). And though eccyclema (ἐκκύκλημα) was used
as the generic term I am persuaded that there were in fact two types of
machine corresponding to different conditions in the Athenian theater.
When the first scene-building was erected, about 465 B.C., it must have
been simple and unpretentious, having neither parascenia nor proscenium.
Probably it consisted also of but a single story, though in Fig. 74[356]
I have given it a low clerestory with small windows for the admission
of light into the scene-building. The roof would thus have been better
suited for the occasional appearance of actors upon the housetop, as in
Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_ (458 B.C.). In addition to the usual doors in the
front of the scene-building (_A_, _C_, and _E_ in Fig. 74), I believe
that a butterfly valve, to the base of which a semicircular platform
was attached, was used to close one or more other openings. In Fig. 74
one of these is shown closed and not in use at _B_ and another open
and in action at _D_. The size of the semicircular platform would be
limited only by the depth of the scene-building and the space between
the front doors, and there would be ample room for several persons upon
the eccyclema at a time. Therefore when a deed of violence had been
committed indoors it was possible, by revolving one of the valves after a
tableau had been posed upon its platform, to place a quasi-interior scene
before the spectators. This is Mr. Exon’s theory of the eccyclema, and it
admirably fits the conditions in the Athenian theater at an early date.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.—The Athenian Theater of About 460 B.C., Showing
the Earlier Type of Eccyclema.
See p. 285, n. 2]
Thus, Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_, which belongs to this period (458 B.C.),
opens with a monologue of the Pythian priestess (see p. 305, below).
At vs. 33 she enters the temple, but immediately returns, so shaken
by the sight within that she cannot walk, but crawls. She has seen a
blood-stained man (Orestes) at the omphalus and before him a sleeping
band of hideous Furies (vss. 34-63). At vs. 64 we must suppose that the
eccyclema revolves with Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes mounted upon it.
The first named bids the matricide to leave Delphi and speed to Athens
and Hermes to guard him on his journey. Whereupon the two step from
the platform and flee through one of the parodi, and the eccyclema,
with Apollo still upon it, is revolved back into its original position
(vs. 93). Here we may note a curious incongruity; the platform of the
eccyclema is actually out of doors; nominally it is indoors. If the
latter fact were kept steadfastly in mind, a character could not step
directly from the eccyclema into the orchestra (as Orestes does here) but
could only pass out through one of the doors after the eccyclema had been
closed again. It is of a piece with this that the characters are not only
spoken of as being indoors but sometimes as being out of doors. At vs. 94
the ghost of Clytemnestra appears in the orchestra (or perhaps is merely
heard from within the scene-building) calling upon the Furies to waken
and pursue their escaping prey. Beginning at vs. 117 their cries and
ejaculations are heard at intervals, and at vs. 143 they burst into the
orchestra for their entrance song (the parodus). At its conclusion (vs.
178) Apollo comes out and drives them from his precinct.
Sometimes the opening and shutting of the back scene is distinctly
referred to. Thus in Sophocles’ _Ajax_,[357] vs. 344, the coryphaeus
cries to the attendants: “Open there; perhaps even by looking upon me he
may acquire a more sober mood”; and as Tecmessa replies “Lo! I open,” the
door of the hero’s tent is opened and Ajax is seen amid the slaughtered
cattle, the victims of his misdirected vengeance. After playing a
prominent lyrical and speaking part in the scene which follows, Ajax
orders the door to be closed with all speed and disappears from view (vs.
593).
But the eccyclema was also described as a low, trundle platform,[358]
large enough to accommodate several persons and narrow enough to be
pushed through the doors of the scene-building, and this type would
be more suitable for the conditions which obtained in the Athenian
theater from about 430 B.C. (see pp. 235 and 292). At this period the
scene-building was raised to a second story and embellished with wooden
proscenium and parascenia, a crane came into use, etc. Under these
conditions the earlier type of eccyclema could no longer be so large nor
so easily seen, being hampered in both particulars by the proscenium. On
the other hand the new type could be made as long as the scene-building
was deep and could be pushed forward as far as might be necessary.[359]
Thus in Aristophanes’ _Acharnians_ (425 B.C.), Dicaeopolis appears
before the house of Euripides, who is lounging within doors. In response
to the former’s knock and summons “to be wheeled out” Euripides says
“I will be wheeled out,” and is pushed upon the stage (ἐκκυκλήθητι ...
ἐκκυκλήσομαι, vs. 408). The conversation which ensues between Dicaeopolis
outdoors and Euripides supposedly indoors does not conclude until vs.
479, when the latter exclaims: “The fellow is insolent; shut the doors.”
Perhaps in this instance, for parodic effect, a trundle couch itself is
shoved through the door instead of a stationary couch upon a trundle
platform.[360] Very similar is the scene in Aristophanes’ _Women at the
Thesmophoria_ (about 411 B.C.), where Agathon is wheeled out before
Euripides and Mnesilochus. Here again the verbs ἐκκυκλούμενος in vs. 96
and εἰσκυκλησάτω at the conclusion of the scene in vs. 265 do not permit
me to doubt that the eccyclema, or a comic substitute, was employed. It
is probably no accident that Euripides figures in both of these scenes.
He is “hoist with his own petar” as having invented, or been a frequent
user of, this mechanism.
The passage of tragedy in which most authorities concede the
employment of the eccyclema is Euripides’ _The Madness of Heracles_
(vss. 1029-1402). Chronologically this play falls somewhere between the
_Acharnians_ and the _Women at the Thesmophoria_. In his madness Heracles
has slain his wife and three children within the palace and at last has
fallen into a dazed torpor; whereupon his friends have bound him to a
broken column. As the chorus chant “Alas! Behold the doors of the stately
palace fall asunder” (vss. 1029 f.), the hero bound to a pillar amid
the slain is pushed forward on the eccyclema. At vs. 1089 he recovers
consciousness and begins to speak; at vs. 1123 Amphitryon loosens him;
and at vs. 1163 Theseus enters and finally (vs. 1402) persuades him to
descend into the orchestra.
Still another theatrical contrivance was called the μηχανή (“machine”),
which about 430 B.C. came to be used to bring divinities before the
ancient audiences. This was a crane and pulley arrangement, mounted in
one of the side wings (parascenia), whereby persons or objects could be
brought from behind the second story (the episcenium) and held suspended
in the air or let down upon the roof of the scene-building or into the
orchestra, or could be lifted in an opposite direction. This development
is of interest also from the structural standpoint as indicating that
whatever the situation may have been earlier, at least from this time on
the scene-building was provided with an episcenium (see pp. 67 f., above).
Before considering the use of the _machina_ further, it will be worth
while to trace briefly how gods played their parts in the Greek theater.
Prior to the erection of a scene-building, about 465 B.C., the scene
was perforce laid in the open countryside (see p. 226, above) and
the playwrights had no option but to place divinities and mortals in
immediate juxtaposition, after the Homeric fashion, in the orchestra.
For the same reason, however these characters might be thought of as
traveling before they entered the theater, they rested under the prosaic
necessity, as soon as they were seen by the spectators, of moving upon
the solid earth. Thus in Aeschylus’ _Prometheus Bound_, Oceanus enters at
vs. 284 with the words:
From my distant caves cerulean
This fleet-pinioned bird hath borne me;
Needed neither bit nor bridle,
Thought instinctive reined the creature.
[Blackie’s translation]
As a preliminary to his departure at vs. 397, he says:
I go, and quickly. My four-footed bird
Brushes the broad path of the limpid air
With forward wing: right gladly will he bend
The wearied knee on his familiar stall.
[Blackie’s translation]
It will be noted that there is nothing here which requires or implies
flight through the air within sight of the audience. Evidently Oceanus
rides upon a fantastic creature which is rolled along by hidden power or
which walks on disguised human legs. A similar interpretation must be set
upon the lines which refer to the chorus’ mode of entrance in the same
play. At vs. 124 Prometheus cries out:
Hark again! I hear the whirring
As of wingèd birds approaching;
With the light strokes of their pinions
Ether pipes ill-boding whispers:—
Alas! Alas! that I should fear
Each breath that nears me.
To which the Oceanides, as they come into view, reply:
Fear nothing; for a friendly band approaches;
Fleet rivalry of wings
Oared us to this far height.
[Blackie’s translation]
They remain upon their winged car until the Titan invites them, at vs.
272, to step upon the earth. They accept in the following language:
Not to sluggish ears, Prometheus,
Hast thou spoken thy desire;
From our breeze-borne seat descending,
With light foot we greet the ground.
Leaving ether chaste, smooth pathway
Of the gently winnowing wing,
On this craggy rock I stand.
[Blackie’s translation]
Here again there is no need of supposing that the choral car does not
rest solidly upon the ground. Its aërial motion is entirely off-scene.
Even at a later period, when more sophisticated devices were available,
the gods still continued on occasion to use strictly terrestrial means
of locomotion and to stand in the orchestra on a level with purely human
characters. For example, in Sophocles’ _Ajax_, Athena appears before the
tent of that hero and converses first with Odysseus and then with Ajax.
In Euripides’ posthumous _Bacchanals_, Dionysus is seen _in propria
persona_ before the house of Pentheus and afterward (in disguise) enters
and departs from its portals. Still again, in the pseudo-Euripidean
_Rhesus_, which is usually regarded as a fourth-century production,
Athena comes before Hector’s tent to advise and encourage Odysseus and
then to deceive Paris (cf. especially vss. 627 f.). On the contrary,
the words of the chorus in vss. 885 f. of this play show that the Muse
appears above their heads. Thus it is an error to think that the more
primitive methods of presenting divinities were entirely superseded by
later ones; the different methods existed side by side and might even be
used in the same play.
After the erection of a scene-building, about 465 B.C., it became
possible to employ the roof as a higher stage for certain scenes. At
the beginning of Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_ the guard is found posted upon
the palace roof, on watch for the last in the series of beacon lights
from Troy. In Euripides’ _Phoenician Maids_, Antigone and an old servant
appear on top of the royal palace in order to view the hostile army (cf.
vss. 88 ff.). In these and other instances the roof of the scene-building
(or at a later period the top of the proscenium) was pressed into
service. Moreover, although this spot was of course not the exclusive
place of speaking, yet, since it was never used for dancing but only for
speaking, it came to be called the logium (λογεῖον) or “speaking-place”
_par excellence_ (see p. 59, above). This arrangement was especially
useful when a scene was to be thought of as taking place in heaven.
So in Aeschylus’ lost play entitled _The Weighing of Souls_, Zeus was
represented as placing the fates of Achilles and Memnon into the scales,
while Thetis and Eos prayed for their sons. The same meaning is assigned
the logium also in Aristophanes’ _Peace_, in which Trygaeus on the back
of his beetle mounts from earth to heaven, i.e., from the orchestra to
the top of the proscenium. The dramatists were not slow to perceive that
no other part of the theater was so well adapted for the awe-compelling
theophanies with which the Greeks were so fond of terminating their
tragedies. There is no doubt that this method of introducing divinities
was employed in several of our extant plays, but the absence of stage
directions makes it difficult to differentiate the instances sharply.
Finally about 430 B.C. the machine (μηχανή) came into use. Possibly this
is employed in Euripides’ _Medea_ (431 B.C.) in order to carry away that
heroine and the bodies of her children in the chariot of the sun-god, but
the situation is doubtful. It is almost certainly a mistake, however,
to attribute the machine, as some do, to the time of Aeschylus. Whether
Euripides was its inventor or not, he was extraordinarily fond of using
it. Indeed it has been remarked that “in almost every play of Euripides
something flies through the air.” At any rate the earliest sure instance
of the machine occurs in Euripides’ lost _Bellerophon_, which was brought
out some time before 425 B.C. By its means the hero in this play was
enabled to mount from earth to heaven, i.e., from the orchestra to the
top of the proscenium, upon the winged steed, Pegasus. This scene is
parodied in Aristophanes’ _Peace_ (421 B.C.), in which Trygaeus makes a
similar flight on the back of a beetle. Somewhat later the same device
enabled Perseus in Euripides’ lost _Andromeda_ to fly to the rocks
upon which that heroine had been bound. In Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ (423
B.C.) it was employed to suspend Socrates in a basket, whence he could
look down upon the troubles of mortals and survey the heavenly bodies.
Especially important is the situation in Euripides’ _Orestes_ (408 B.C.).
Orestes and Pylades have fled to the palace roof, dragging Hermione with
them. Menelaus is outside the bolted door below. Suddenly Apollo appears
(vs. 1625) with Helen at his side. The divinity begins to speak as
follows:
Menelaus, peace to thine infuriate mood:
I, Phoebus, Leto’s son, here call on thee.
Peace thou, Orestes, too, whose sword doth guard
Yon maid, that thou mayst hear the words I bear.
Helen, whose death thou hast essayed, to sting
The heart of Menelaus, yet hast missed,
Is here,—whom _wrapped in folds of air ye see_ (ἐv αἰθέρος πτυχαῖς),—
From death delivered, and not slain of thee, etc.
[Way’s translation]
The italicized words show that Apollo and Helen stand above all the other
actors in the drama, who are themselves standing on two different levels;
and it is evident that the machine was utilized for this purpose.
The last example is typical of a large class of instances in which a
divinity appears as a splendid climax to the events of the play. It is
plain that in all or practically all of these the god is raised above
the other performers, as would be only appropriate for an effective
close; but whether the deity merely came forward upon the logium or was
brought into view by means of a machine is not always an easy matter to
determine. By a natural extension of meaning, however, such an apparition
at the close of a play came to be called a “god from the machine” (θεὸς
ἀπὸ μηχανῆς; _deus ex machina_) regardless of the method used for
his appearance. By a further extension of meaning μηχανή was used to
designate any mechanical artifice, such as the “long arm of coincidence,”
for example. Thus Aristotle criticized the μηχανή in Euripides’ _Medea_,
but from another passage it becomes clear that he was referring, not
to the use of an actual machine at the dénouement, but only to the
improbability involved in the appearance of King Aegeus in the course of
the play.[361]
There are several ancient notices which refer to the use that inexpert
playwrights made of the deus ex machina in order to extricate their
characters when the plot had become complicated beyond the possibility of
disentanglement by purely natural means. It would seem that in the hands
of second-rate poets the deus was frequently so employed. In particular
it has often been charged that Euripides was guilty of this practice,
but in my opinion without due warrant. It is true that he concluded
fully half of his eighteen extant plays in this manner, besides several
other instances in the plays now lost; but with only one exception his
principal motive was never to relieve himself of the embarrassment into
which the confusion of his plot had involved him. The truth of this
statement appears most clearly in the _Iphigenia among the Taurians_
(see pp. 201 f., above). At vs. 1392 all the immediate requirements of
the drama have been met: Orestes, Iphigenia, and Pylades have made good
their escape, bearing the image of Artemis. The poet could have stopped
here without requiring the aid of a divinity. Instead he preferred to
plunge himself into such a plight as only a deity could rescue him from,
for in the succeeding verses a messenger reports that contrary wind and
wave are driving the refugees back to land. King Thoas just has time to
issue quick commands when Athena appears (vs. 1435) and bids him cease
his efforts. Surely the playwright’s difficulties here are self-imposed
and must be regarded as having furnished the excuse rather than the
reason for the use of the deus ex machina. What other objects might he
have had in mind? It has already been suggested (p. 202, above) that this
device enabled him to bring the melodramatic course of the action to a
more dignified and truly tragic close. Also he thus found it possible to
rescue the chorus, who had been promised a safe return to Greece but had
been left behind. But the fact that the chorus in the same poet’s _Helen_
is irremediably left in the lurch after the same fashion (see pp. 160
f., above) implies that this was a lesser consideration. Again, toward
the close of Euripides’ _Suppliants_, Adrastus has vowed the eternal
gratitude of Argos to Athens for having secured the return of her slain.
But the appearance of Athena at vs. 1183 makes her a witness to this, and
her demand that Adrastus’ promise be ratified by an oath converts it into
a sacred obligation.
But after all these are only occasional motives, while a more important
result is obtained again and again. In the _Iphigenia_, Euripides took
advantage of Athena’s presence to have her foretell the heroine’s later
career and final decease in Attica. It is unnecessary to point out that
the presence of a divinity was highly serviceable and appropriate for
such a purpose. We have already seen (p. 259, above) that exactly the
same situation obtains in the _Andromache_. In this way the poet was
enabled to burst through the restricting influences which caused the
normal observance of the unities of time and place and to include other
days and other places within the purview of his play. Frequently there is
included in this an aetiological explanation of rites which were observed
in the dramatist’s own day. Thus in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ (vss. 1423
ff.), Artemis promises that the maidens of Troezen will perform certain
ceremonies in honor of the hero’s sufferings, and in the _Iphigenia among
the Taurians_ (vss. 1446 ff.), Athena enjoins upon Orestes to establish
the temple and worship of Artemis Tauropolos at Brauron in Attica.
It would take too long to examine here every instance of the deus ex
machina in Euripides. For that I must refer the reader to Professor
Decharme’s interesting discussion.[362] Suffice it to state that in every
case the element of prediction is brought into play. This appears even
in the _Orestes_, the only piece in which the theophany is frankly and
undisguisedly employed to provide Euripides with a dénouement. Orestes
and Electra stand condemned to death for having murdered their mother.
Being disappointed in the hope of receiving succor from their uncle,
Menelaus, they determine to punish him for his recreancy by slaying Helen
and to hold his daughter Hermione as a hostage in order to force him to
secure the recall of the decree against them. Helen has now supposedly
been slain, Menelaus stands angry and baffled before the bolted doors,
Orestes with his sword at Hermione’s throat taunts him from the palace
roof. If any regard is to be paid to verisimilitude or human psychology,
no reconciliation between these conflicting elements is possible; but
at this moment Apollo appears, and his fiat (see p. 293) resolves every
feud. The god goes beyond this, however, and in typical fashion predicts
(or ordains) the later career of each character.
It is but fair to Euripides to state that even Sophocles, that master
of dramatic writing, found the deus ex machina as indispensable in his
_Philoctetes_ as did the former in his _Orestes_. Philoctetes had come
into possession of the bow of Heracles, and having been abandoned on the
island of Lemnos by the leaders of the Greek expedition against Troy he
cherished an implacable hatred against his former associates. But now the
Greeks have received an oracle to the effect that the person and weapons
of Philoctetes are necessary for the capture of Ilium. In Sophocles’ play
the task of meeting these conditions has been laid upon the wily Odysseus
and the noble Neoptolemus. By a trick they succeed in gaining possession
of the bow and by another trick are in a fair way of enticing the
inexorable hero on board a ship bound for Troy, when the generous son of
Achilles refuses to proceed further with so infamous a scheme and finally
returns his weapons to Philoctetes. This development was inevitable if
the character of Neoptolemus is to be maintained consistently; but it
leaves the characters in a hopeless deadlock. At this juncture (vs.
1408) the deified Heracles appears to reveal the purposes of Zeus, and
Philoctetes abandons his resentment. Here again the element of prophecy
is associated with the deus ex machina, Heracles foretelling the healing
of Philoctetes’ wound and his future career of glory at Troy and
elsewhere.
Much nonsense has been indulged in by modern authorities in ridiculing
this contrivance of the Greek theater. This has sprung partly from a
misapprehension of the real situation and partly from a failure to
realize that devices fully as forced and artificial have been employed
by the supreme masters of dramatic art in modern times. Of course I do
not mean that an actual μηχανή has often been brought to view in modern
theaters or that divinities have frequently trod the stage. Nevertheless
a close equivalent of the deus ex machina, in the broader sense, has
not rarely been resorted to. For example, at the close of Shakespeare’s
_Cymbeline_ the king declares, _as the result of an oracle_:
_Although the victor_, we submit to Caesar
And to the Roman empire, promising
To pay our wonted tribute.
Again, in _As You Like It_ everything has been satisfactorily settled
except one point: the spectators would hardly rest content to think of
the characters as spending the remainder of their lives in the Forest of
Arden. This detail is adjusted by means of a messenger, who reports that
the usurping duke had addressed a mighty power with which to capture his
brother and put him to the sword:
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
Where _meeting with an old religious man_,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world;
His crown bequeathing to his banish’d brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled.
Finally, not to extend this list unduly, in Molière’s _Tartuffe_ by the
time that Orgon has at length unmasked the hypocrite he had played into
his hand to such an extent, by deeding him his property and by intrusting
him with incriminating papers, that it is impossible to conceive how he
can be extricated. But at this crisis an officer of police in the name of
the French king (almost a divine figure in those days) rescues him from
his troubles:
Monsieur, dismiss all anxious fears. We live beneath a prince
the foe of fraud,—a prince whose eyes can penetrate all hearts;
whose mind the art of no impostor can deceive.... This one
was powerless to mislead him; those wily schemes he instantly
detected, discerning with his keen sagacity the inmost folds
of that most treacherous heart. Coming to denounce you, the
wretch betrayed himself; and by the stroke of some high justice
the prince discovered him, by his own words, to be a great
impostor, ... In a word, the monarch ... ordered me to follow
him here and see to what lengths his impudence would go, and
then to do justice on him for your sake. Yes, I am ordered to
take from his person the papers which he boasts of holding, and
place them in your hands. The king, of his sovereign power,
annuls the deed you made him of your property; and he forgives
you for the secret to which your friendship for an exile led
you.
[Wormeley’s translation.]
Who, with such examples of artificial and mechanical dénouements before
him, will cast the first stone at the deus ex machina of the Greeks?[363]
In a technical sense “prologue” came to denote the histrionic passage
before the entrance song of the chorus (the parodus) (see p. 192, above).
Such prologues are not found in Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_ and _Persians_,
which begin with the choral parodus. The earliest prologue of which we
have knowledge occurred in Phrynichus’ lost play, the _Phoenician Women_
(476 B.C.), in which a eunuch opens the action by spreading places in the
orchestra for the counselors of the Persian empire and at the same time
announcing the defeat of Xerxes in Greece. On the other hand, according
to a late authority, prologues were the invention of Thespis.[364] In
my opinion this contradiction is to be explained as a confusion between
the technical and non-technical uses of the term. There is every reason
for believing that prologues in the technical sense just mentioned did
not go back to the time of Thespis. But the fully developed prologue
was naturally employed as a vehicle for the exposition, and the task
of acquainting his audience with data preliminary to the action and
necessary for comprehending the plot of course confronted Thespis no
less than later playwrights. Now it is evident that he could accomplish
this in any one of three ways: (1) He could utilize the choral parodus
for this purpose, as Aeschylus partially did in his _Agamemnon_. Though
this play has a prologue, the parodus is employed to rehearse the story
of Iphigenia’s sacrifice and other pertinent events. Somewhat similar is
the parodus of Aeschylus’ _Persians_, which in the absence of a regular
prologue opens the play. Accordingly, the ancient argument to this play
remarks: “A chorus of elders ‘speaks the prologue’” (προλογίζει), using
the word in a popular sense. (2) The drama might begin with a dialogue
or duet between the chorus and an actor, somewhat in the manner of the
pseudo-Euripidean _Rhesus_. It is perhaps unlikely that this technique
was employed as early as Thespis. (3) The exposition might be intrusted
to the character who speaks first after the choral parodus. Since
the drama was then in the one-actor stage, such a “prologue” would
necessarily be monologic. Some justification for this nomenclature may be
found in the ancient argument to Sophocles’ _Oedipus at Colonus_, where
it is stated that Oedipus προλογίζει. Since Antigone and a stranger take
part in this prologue as well as Oedipus, the verb must here mean that
Oedipus “makes the first speech.” Now whatever may be true about Thespis
having employed (1) or (2), he certainly must have employed the third
type of exposition, and a “prologue” of this non-technical sort he can
truthfully be said to have invented.
It is a peculiarity of Euripides that he oftentimes combined startling
innovations with a reversion to archaic, or at least much earlier,
technique. Therefore, it is not surprising that he preferred prologues
which smack somewhat of this primitive type. Of course this statement is
not to be taken so literally as to imply that he placed his prologues
after the parodus. It means that instead of retailing the essential
antecedents of the action piecemeal in the manner of Sophocles and Ibsen,
he regularly set the whole body of data before the spectators at once in
an opening soliloquy. This is normally succeeded by a dialogue with which
the dramatic action really begins. In other words there is a prologue
within a prologue: the histrionic passage before the choral parodus (the
prologue in the technical sense) opens with a sharply differentiated
monologue (a prologue in the old, nontechnical sense). In my opinion the
latter must be regarded as consciously harking back to Thespian practice.
An excellent example of this technique is afforded by the _Alcestis_.
Here Apollo apostrophizes the palace of Admetus, thus revealing the
location of the scene (see p. 206). He then proceeds to relate in
detail how he had been forced to serve in the house of a mortal, how
considerately Admetus had treated him, how in gratitude he had tricked
the Fates into permitting Admetus to present a voluntary substitute
when premature death threatened him, how Queen Alcestis is the only one
found willing to die for the king, that this is the day appointed for
her vicarious act, etc. It is noticeable that scant regard is here paid
to dramatic illusion: Apollo tells what the spectators need to know and
because they need to know it. He explains his leaving the palace on the
ground of the pollution which the death of Alcestis would bring upon all
indoors at the time (vs. 22). But no excuse is provided for his long
soliloquy. We have seen that the apostrophe to the palace served another
purpose; and in any case, since (unlike the elements) houses were never
regarded by the Greeks as either divine or even animate, it would be no
adequate motivation for the monologue. The prologue concludes and the
action proper is set in motion by a quarrel between Apollo and Death, who
is now seen approaching.
This prologue is one of Euripides’ best. They are often interminable and
marred by long genealogies and other jejune matter. Some of them are not
undeserving of the strictures which critics, both ancient and modern,
have heaped upon them. Yet they served many useful purposes, too, and
there is no warrant for utterly condemning the type as a whole. We have
already seen (p. 258, above) that such a device enabled a dramatist to
circumvent the conditions which caused the conventional observance of the
unities of time and place and to bring earlier events more explicitly
within the scope of his play. The fact that Euripides more often chose
different themes for the plays in each group instead of writing trilogies
or tetralogies made brevity of exposition a desideratum. Again, a desire
for novelty and the fact that Aeschylus and Sophocles had anticipated
him in so many of his subjects caused him to depart widely from the
traditional accounts. Unless some warning of this were given, it would
sometimes be almost impossible for the ordinary spectator to comprehend
the action, and no other place was so appropriate for such an explanation
as the prologue. For example, in the _Helen_, Euripides abandoned the
account given by Homer and most others in favor of the version invented
by Stesichorus. The audience had to comprehend not only that Helen had
been the chaste and loyal wife of Menelaus throughout but also that there
were two Helens—one the true Helen who spent the years of the Trojan War
in Egypt, and the other a cloud-image Helen who eloped with Paris and was
recovered by Menelaus at the capture of the city. Surely a very clear
statement was required to render such a revamping of the legend clear to
everyone. Even the genealogical table was not without its utility in this
prologue, for the Egyptian king Theoclymenus and his sister would mean
nothing to most spectators until their lineage was traced to the familiar
names of Proteus and Nereus.
Quite apart from these considerations, however, there is still something
to be said for the Euripidean type of prologue. Knowing that the
spectators had no playbill, whatever the dramatist wished to tell them
concerning the antecedents of the dramatic action he had to tell them
in the play itself. And though the plots of most tragedies were based
upon oft-told myths, yet we have the authority of Aristotle[365] for
the statement that even the best-known tales were known to but a few.
Furthermore, the Greek practice of attacking the series of dramatic
incidents, not at the beginning or in the middle, but only at the end,
of excluding everything but the culmination or fifth act (see pp. 266
f., above), prevented the earlier events from actually being represented
upon the stage. There was, therefore, a considerable body of facts which
the poet had either to relate frankly and succinctly in a mass at the
beginning or to attempt to weave into the play and disclose gradually
as they were needed. Euripides preferred the former method, which he
employed in all of his extant plays except possibly the _Iphigenia at
Aulis_. It was borrowed by Sophocles in his _Maidens of Trachis_, was
extensively imitated by Aristophanes despite his caustic criticisms, and
was exceedingly popular among the writers of New Comedy. Even in modern
times, notwithstanding all that has been said against it both by ancients
and moderns, there have always been playwrights to whom this manner of
approach has made the stronger appeal. The principle involved is well
stated by a contemporaneous student of dramatic technique:[366] “It may
not unreasonably be contended, I think, that, when an exposition cannot
be thoroughly dramatized—that is, wrung out, in the stress of the action,
from the characters primarily concerned—it may best be dismissed, rapidly
and even conventionally, by any not too improbable device.”
Frequently the opening soliloquy of the prologue was spoken by a
divinity, and in Euripides’ _Hecabe_ it is spoken by a ghost! Their
prophetic powers enabled such personages to predict the course of the
action. Thus in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ (vss. 42 ff.), Aphrodite declares
that Phaedra’s love for her stepson will be made known to his father,
whose curses will bring Hippolytus to destruction, and that Phaedra
herself will die, though with name untarnished; and these things actually
come to pass in the play. Indeed, an outstanding difference between
ancient and modern tragedy, doubtless arising from the fact that the
former dealt with traditional material whose outlines were fairly well
known to at least some and could be modified only within certain limits,
consists in this, that the Greek tragedians usually made little or no
attempt to keep their audiences in the dark as to the outcome. It is true
that there are occasional exceptions. For example, in Euripides’ _Ion_,
Hermes explains in the prologue that Apollo is Ion’s father by a secret
union, but expressly states that the Delphian deity will bring the youth
into his just deserts without letting his own misdeed become known.
Consequently when Ion’s very life seems to depend upon his parentage
transpiring, the hearts of the spectators are harried with fear for his
safety until Athena appears in her brother’s stead as deus ex machina and
unexpectedly reveals his secret after all. Euripides’ _Orestes_ provides
another instance of an attempt to baffle the spectators. The contrast
of a few such cases, however, serve only to call attention to the more
usual procedure. Here again the Greek practice has not lacked defenders.
Lessing wrote:[367] “I am far removed from believing with the majority
of those who have written on the dramatic art that the dénouement should
be hid from the spectator. I rather think it would not exceed my powers
to rouse the very strongest interest in the spectator even if I resolved
to make a work where the dénouement was revealed in the first scene.
Everything must be clear for the spectator, he is the confidant of each
person, he knows everything that occurs, everything that has occurred,
and there are hundreds of instances when we cannot do better than to
tell him straight out what is going to occur.” A somewhat different
point of view is presented by Professor Murray:[368] “But why does the
prologue let out the secret of what is coming? Why does it spoil the
excitement beforehand? Because, we must answer, there is no secret, and
the poet does not aim at that sort of excitement. A certain amount of
plot-interest there certainly is: we are never told exactly what will
happen but only what sort of thing; or we are told what will happen but
not how it will happen. But the enjoyment which the poet aims at is not
the enjoyment of reading a detective story for the first time; it is that
of reading _Hamlet_ or _Paradise Lost_ for the second or fifth or tenth.”
But the prologue was not always spoken by a divinity; oftentimes a
mortal appeared in this capacity. Sometimes this mortal took no further
part in the dramatic action, and sometimes he did. In the latter case he
occasionally displayed as prologist a greater knowledge of the situation
and of what was going to happen than he afterward seemed to possess as an
acting character. This difficulty occurs in Plautus’ _Braggart Captain_.
At vss. 145 ff. (in the prologue) Palaestrio boasts how he will cause
his fellow-slave “not to see what he has seen” and even explains the
trick which will be used for this purpose. But in the scene following the
prologue, when he must make good his braggadocio, he seems as perplexed
and confounded as would one who had not foreseen this emergency.
In later times the soliloquy of the prologist was sometimes deferred
until after an introductory scene or two. Such “internal” prologues
occur in the _Casket_ and the _Braggart Captain_ of Plautus. The meager
beginnings of this system can be traced in Aristophanes and Euripides,
but there is no evidence for its full development prior to the time of
Alexis, a poet of Middle Comedy. His nephew, Menander, who belonged to
the New Comedy, employed it in his _Hero_ and _Girl with Shorn Locks_. In
Plautus’ _Amphitruo_, Mercury speaks an opening prologue (vss. 1-152),
then engages in a dialogue with Sosia (vss. 153-462), after which he
continues the prologue for some thirty additional verses!
The six comedies of Terence all begin with “dissociated” prologues.
These give the name and Greek authorship of the Latin play and bespeak
the friendly consideration of the audience. They devote no attention,
however, to the dramatic situation in the comedy or to future
complications therein, but are employed for polemical purposes against
the poet’s detractors. It used to be supposed that this was an absolutely
new departure on Terence’s part, but it is now found to be only the last
in a series of developments which began in Greek comedy.[369]
Of course monologues were not the invention of the playwrights, being
found as early as Homer. Yet true soliloquies, as seen in Shakespeare,
are a late development in Greek drama. The epic hero, when alone, may
appeal to some divinity or the elements, or he may address his own soul;
he never simply thinks his thoughts out loud. So long as the tragedies
began with a parodus the choreutae would nearly always be present; and
a character who was otherwise alone could address his remarks to them.
Consequently no monologues occur in either the _Suppliants_ or the
_Persians_ of Aeschylus. But with the introduction of a prologue the
way was opened up. It would be interesting to know how the words of the
eunuch at the beginning of Phrynichus’ _Phoenician Women_ were motivated,
but no evidence is available. In the extant plays of Aeschylus only
three soliloquies are found—in the _Prometheus Bound_ (vss. 88 ff.),
_Agamemnon_ (vss. 1 ff.), and _Eumenides_ (vss. 1 ff.). The first is
addressed to the elements (ether, breezes, rivers, ocean, earth, and sun)
and the other two begin with prayer. There are also some other speeches
which are delivered in the presence of the chorus or of another character
but with little or no reference thereto. If completely detached, however,
they are addressed to divinities as before. It must be added that though
monologues in Aeschylus and other tragedians may be thus motivated at
the beginning, they frequently trail off into expressions which are not
strictly appropriate. It is noticeable, then, that of the two types
of motivation found in Homer only the first occurs in Aeschylus. In
Sophocles the situation is practically the same.
But already in the oldest of Euripides’ extant tragedies, the _Alcestis_,
a development may be detected. Apollo’s monologue at the beginning of
this play has just been discussed. It is apparent that when a divinity
utters a soliloquy he would rarely address his words to some absent deity
or to the elements, as mortal personages did in Aeschylus and Sophocles.
This factor helps to account for the fact that dramatic illusion suffers
here. For all practical purposes Apollo might just as well have frankly
addressed himself to the spectators, as the comic poets sometimes allowed
their characters to do. Such prologizing deities are careful to explain
the reason for their presence in the place where we find them; but they
are absolved from the necessity of accounting for their soliloquizing.
Their speeches sometimes degenerate into business-like notices which
are almost brusque in their abruptness. For example, Posidon begins
Euripides’ _Trojan Women_:
I come, Posidon I, from briny depths
Of the Aegean Sea, where Nereids dance, etc.
[Way’s translation]
This new freedom, which thus came first to divine prologists, was soon
extended also to mortals. Thus the heroine in Euripides’ _Andromache_
exclaims (vss. 1 ff.):
O town of Thebes, beauty of Asian land,
Whence, decked with gold of costly bride-array,
To Priam’s royal hearth long since I came, ...
Here on the marshes ’twixt Pharsalia’s town
And Phthia’s plains I dwell.
[Way’s translation]
The artificiality of Euripides’ opening soliloquies strikingly appears in
his _Orestes_. Referring to Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband, Electra
says (vss. 26 f.):
Wherefore she slew,—a shame for maid to speak!—
I leave untold, for whoso will to guess.
[Way’s translation]
These words, together with certain other phrases, show clearly that the
speaker is conscious of an audience.
It will be worth our while to note and comment also upon the other
monologues in the _Alcestis_ and the first one in the _Medea_, these
being the oldest of Euripides’ extant tragedies. At vss. 243 ff. the
dying Alcestis, in the presence of her husband and the chorus and
interrupted by the former at regular intervals, bids a final farewell
to sun, earth, palace, etc. This belongs to the type found in Homer
and Aeschylus and is paralleled by Sophocles’ _Antigone_ (vss. 806
ff.) and _Ajax_ (vss. 372 ff.). At vs. 746 of the _Alcestis_ occurs
one of the few instances of a chorus retiring during the course of a
Greek play. Advantage is at once taken of this circumstance. A reason
for the servant’s leaving the palace at this point can readily be
imagined but none is expressly mentioned. Nor is the bluntness of his
monologue softened by any motivation. At vs. 773 Heracles appears and a
dialogue ensues between them. At vs. 837 the servant withdraws; Heracles
tarries and bursts forth as follows (incidentally obviating in this
way the necessity of their departures in opposite directions exactly
synchronizing):
O much-enduring heart and hand of mine, etc.
It will be observed that such an introduction for the following
soliloquy is a reversion to the second Homeric type, which now makes
its first appearance in tragedy. At vs. 861 Admetus re-enters with the
chorus and apostrophizes his bereaved palace. His speech at vs. 934
begins with the words “my friends,” referring to the chorus, and closes
in the same way at vs. 961. Except for these artificial sutures his words
constitute in effect a soliloquy. This play is especially valuable for
our present purpose as indicating what a hindrance the chorus was to the
unhampered use of monologues outside of the prologue, and how quickly
and freely they were called into requisition during its withdrawal.
The same deduction may be drawn also from comedy. In the Old Comedy of
Aristophanes, the chorus still being active and vigorous, soliloquies
were employed hardly more freely than in Aeschylus or Sophocles. But by
the time of New Comedy, when the chorus had so far lost its functions as
to appear only for _entr’actes_ and when Euripides’ innovations had had
time to work their full effect, monologues occur with great frequency
and are usually unmotived. In fact, Professor Leo endeavored to use them
in the plays of Plautus and Terence, which are taken from originals of
the Greek New Comedy, as a criterion to determine the position of act
divisions.
From the _Medea_ I wish to cite only the opening monologue, which is
spoken by the Colchian’s nurse:
Would God that Argo’s hull had never flown
Through those blue Clashing Rocks to Colchis-land,
... My mistress then,
Medea, ne’er had sailed to Iolcos’ towers
With love for Jason thrilled through all her soul.
[Way’s translation]
An admirable quality here is the passionate emotion which does not always
dominate Greek soliloquies. A little later (vs. 49) a man slave enters
and inquires:
O ancient chattel of my mistress’ home,
Why at the gates thus lonely standest thou,
Thyself unto thyself discoursing ills?
How wills Medea to be left of thee?
[Way’s translation]
She replies:
... For I have sunk to such a depth of grief,
That yearning took me hitherward to come
And tell to earth and heaven my lady’s plight.
[Way’s translation]
It is noteworthy, however, that despite this statement her opening
monologue had not in fact been addressed to earth or sky. Since Ibsen the
soliloquy has been tabooed on the modern stage. Yet inasmuch as people
do at times talk aloud, when alone, it would seem that the present-day
reaction had gone too far and that monologues, under proper psychological
conditions, might sometimes be allowed. Furthermore it must be supposed
that among impulsive southern races, like the Greeks and Romans,
soliloquizing would be more common than with us, and in consequence it
would naturally claim a larger part in their drama. Nevertheless, we
have seen that, until Euripides, the playwrights restricted its use to
such instances as could be motivated with some degree of naturalness.
Of these motives it must be allowed that the least satisfactory was
that founded on an appeal to the elements. Of course most commentators
have refused to recognize this as a mere expository convention and have
expatiated upon the innate feeling for and sympathy with nature among the
Greeks. But as for myself I fear that this explanation has been pressed
unduly. Euripides, I am sure, felt self-conscious in utilizing a device
so threadbare and patent. My conviction is based on the retroactive way
in which he employed the motive here in the _Medea_, on the fact that he
often preferred to introduce monologues without any motive than to resort
to one so bald and artificial as this, and especially on the guilty
phrase which he slips into the heroine’s soliloquy in his _Iphigenia
among the Taurians_ (vss. 42 f.):
What visions strange the night hath brought to me
I’ll tell to ether, _if doing so brings help_.
Though it is unsafe to set too much value upon the jibes of the comic
poets, yet it is not without interest to observe their attitude in this
matter. Philemon placed a close parody of this _Medea_ passage in the
mouth of a boastful cook:[370]
For yearning took me hitherward to come
And tell to earth and heaven—my cuisinerie!
And Plautus in his _Merchant_ (vss. 3 ff.) preserved a more explicit
passage from the same poet of New Comedy:
I do not do as I’ve seen others do
In comedies, who through the power of love
Tell night, day, sun, or moon their miseries.
The foregoing statement of Euripidean usage is far from exhaustive. Yet
it is necessary to hasten on. Quite apart from the effects which may be
secured from monologues in choral drama, there are no less than three
additional uses to which they can easily be put in chorusless plays. In
terms of classical drama, therefore, they will appear most frequently in
Greek New Comedy and in Plautus and Terence.
In the first place when two characters meet on the stage and talk it is
necessary for them either to appear simultaneously at the two entrances
(and it is self-evident that this method cannot be employed very often
without seeming ridiculous) or for one of them to enter first and fill up
a slight interval before the other’s arrival by soliloquizing. Such an
entrance monologue occurs at the beginning of Aristophanes’ _Lysistrata_,
where the bearer of the title-rôle complains:
Now were they summoned to some shrine of Bacchus,
Pan, Colias, or Genetyllis, there had been
No room to stir, so thick the crowd of timbrels.
And now!—there’s not one woman to be seen.
Stay, here comes one, my neighbor Calonice.
Good morning, friend.
[Rogers’ translation]
Perhaps I may be pardoned for digressing here a moment in order to
discuss what happens when two characters make a simultaneous introit
through the same entrance. In most cases it is natural to suppose
that they have been together for some little while and that some talk
has already been carried on between them. On the contrary in the
fifth-century plays the conversation regularly does not begin until after
they have entered the stage. Two instances of this have already been
noted on pages 259 f., above, Orestes coming all the way from Phocis to
Argos before he acquaints his associates with the Delphian oracle or
formulates a plan of action with them, and Iris accompanying Madness from
Olympus but reserving her instructions until Thebes has been reached. Of
course it is easy to see why this convention was employed, but a little
thinking enabled the playwrights to secure the same results without
violating verisimilitude quite so patently. Only twice in fifth-century
drama do characters enter with words which indicate that they have
already been engaged in conversation. In Aristophanes’ _Frogs_ (405 B.C.)
(vs. 830), Euripides says to Dionysus, as they emerge with Pluto from the
latter’s palace: “I would not yield the throne of tragedy to Aeschylus;
do not urge me to.” Again in Euripides’ posthumous _Iphigenia at Aulis_
(vss. 303 ff.), Agamemnon’s slave enters in expostulation: “Menelaus,
outrageous is your boldness.... You ought not to have unsealed the tablet
which I bore.” The former of these quotations clearly implies words off
scene, and the latter implies action and presumably words as well. But in
New Comedy and the Latin comedies this technique has, not unnaturally,
pre-empted the field. Two instances must suffice. In Terence’s version
of Menander’s _Andrian Girl_ (vss. 820 f.), Chremes enters complaining:
“My friendship for you, Simo, has already been put sufficiently to the
test; I have run enough risk. Now make an end of coaxing me.” Again,
in Terence’s _Brothers_ (vs. 517), Ctesipho and Syrus enter together,
the former saying: “You say my father has gone to the country?” It is
characteristic of this technique that the very first words make plain the
fact that the stage conversation is a continuation of one already begun
off stage and likewise disclose the topic under discussion. It will be
remembered that simultaneous entrances of this sort, when made from the
abode of one of the characters involved, are generally left unmotivated
(see p. 239, above).
After this digression we may return to the second use which New Comedy
made of monologues, viz., as exit speeches. Since there was no drop
curtain in the Greek theater, all characters had to go off as well as
come on; no tableau effects to terminate a scene were possible. Moreover,
in order to avoid the simultaneous exit of all the persons in a scene,
it often seemed best to detain one of them beyond the rest and allow him
to fill a brief interval with a soliloquy. As already mentioned this
technique occurs so frequently in Plautus and Terence that an attempt
has been made to utilize it as a criterion for a division of the Roman
comedies into acts. Such an exit soliloquy has already been noted in
Euripides’ _Alcestis_, vss. 837 ff. (p. 306, above).
In the third place, unless a new character is to enter the stage at
the very instant that an old one leaves it, the actor who engages in
successive dialogue with each of them must cause a slight pause by
soliloquizing. Such a soliloquy is technically known as a “link.” One is
found in the monologue which Strepsiades utters between the withdrawal of
his son and the entrance of Socrates’ pupil (Aristophanes’ _Clouds_, vss.
126 ff.). Links are often extremely short, sometimes being no more than a
cough or hem; they are frequently employed to cover the condensation of
time, especially when they occur between the exit and re-entrance of the
same character. Furthermore, they occur in playwrights who reject other
forms of soliloquy, no less than five instances appearing in Ibsen’s
_Pillars of Society_ alone.
So long as the chorus retained its vigor, dramatists found it easier,
except in the prologue or during occasional withdrawals of the chorus
in the course of the action, to fill gaps by remarks addressed to the
coryphaeus than by entrance soliloquies, exit soliloquies, or links. Yet
they do occur in choral drama, and I have cited one instance illustrative
of each type from fifth-century plays. In comedies of subsequent date, in
which the chorus was greatly curtailed or nonexistent, they may be found
by the score.
It still remains to speak of another kind of soliloquy, viz., the aside
or, more accurately speaking, the apart, by which the grim ghastliness
of modern tragedy has often been enhanced. The vastness of Greek
theaters and the almost constant presence of from twelve to twenty-four
choreutae rendered this artifice an awkward one for ancient playwrights.
Nevertheless, asides are occasionally found in Greek drama. In Euripides’
_Hippolytus_ (vss. 1060 ff.), that hero, unable to clear himself of false
accusations except by violating his oath of secrecy, exclaims to himself:
O Gods, why can I not unlock my lips,
Who am destroyed by you whom I revere?
No!—whom I need persuade, I should not so,
And all for nought should break the oaths I swore.
[Way’s translation],
entirely unheard by his father and the chorus close at hand. Half-asides
occur in Euripides’ _Hecabe_ (vss. 736-51), where the Trojan queen utters
no less than four aparts, an aggregate of ten verses, in an effort to
decide whether to appeal to Agamemnon for aid. His interruptions indicate
that he is aware that she is speaking but does not catch the drift of her
words. It should be noted, however, that these passages do not contain
the ironic values which have usually inhered in the use of aparts upon
the modern stage. The obstacles hampering the employment of asides in
fifth-century times appear most plainly from scenes like Euripides’ _Ion_
(vss. 1520 ff.), where two actors wish to speak to one another privately.
Their confidences must be uttered loud enough to be heard by the
seventeen thousand spectators, but the nearby chorus catches not a word.
With the virtual disappearance of the chorus in New Comedy the apart, not
unnaturally, came into more frequent use and was employed more as it has
been in modern times.
For the absence of ironic aparts, however, Greek tragedy was richly
compensated by the frequent occurrence of dramatic irony. Irony of
course is a mode of speech by means of which is conveyed a meaning
contrary to the literal sense of the words, and may be divided into two
classes—“verbal” and “practical” (to use Bishop Thirlwall’s term) or
“dramatic.” In the former the dissimulation is manifest to all concerned,
else the sarcasm, passing unrecognized, would fail of its effect and
recoil upon the speaker, while in the latter (which alone interests us
here) concealment of the hinted truth is essential. It may be the speaker
himself who fails to perceive the inner meaning of his own words (and
then we call it “objective” irony), or he may employ “subjective” irony,
i.e., consciously use his superior knowledge, to gloat over his victim or
inveigle him to doom by an ambiguous utterance. In either case, however,
the _double entente_ is usually known to the audience, a considerable
part of whose pleasure consists in viewing with prophetic insight the
abortive efforts of the dramatic characters to escape the impending
catastrophe.
An excellent instance of conscious irony occurs in Middleton and Rowley’s
_Changeling_, Act III, scene 2. There De Flores is guiding Alonzo about
the castle where he intends to murder him, and significantly says:
All this is nothing; you shall see anon
A place you little dream on.
The unconscious irony, however, is likely to be more tragic in its tone.
So when Iago first conceives his groundless suspicions of his wife and
Othello he vows that he will be
evened with him, wife for wife.
[_Othello_, Act II, scene 2],
and these words are fulfilled in a sense far different than he intended,
by the death of both wives. For this sort of irony Sophocles was
especially renowned, and his _Oedipus the King_ abounds in instances.
One must suffice. Oedipus has slain his own father, the reigning king,
though these facts are unknown to him. Being now directed by an oracle
to investigate his predecessor’s death, he declares, with more meaning
than he realized: “I will fight this battle for him as for mine own sire”
(vss. 264).
It is possible to draw still one more distinction. Dramatic irony
consists, not only in the contrast between the outer, apparent meaning
and the real, inner meaning of an ambiguous phrase, but also in the
contrast between the real and the supposed situation. Thus a man whose
ruin is impending often mistakes the position of his affairs so utterly
as to indulge in entirely unjustified expressions, feelings, gestures, or
acts of rejoicing and triumph. The difference between these two varieties
of dramatic irony may be seen in Sophocles’ _Maidens of Trachis_. In
the first place we have the contradiction between the real meaning of
the oracle that Heracles’ “release from toils will be accomplished” and
Heracles’ own mistaken interpretation thereof (vss. 167 f. and 1170
ff.); and in the second place there is the “irony of situation” in that
Deianira sends him a gift which she hopes will woo back his love but
which actually results in his death. Euripides’ _Bacchanals_ offers other
examples in the boastful and confident attitude of Pentheus, whom the
spectators know to be doomed to a frightful end, and in the mock humility
of Dionysus, whose intended vengeance they foresee. Again, in Sophocles’
_Oedipus the King_ (vss. 1014 ff.) there is a striking contrast between
the intended and the actual effect when the Corinthian messenger informs
Oedipus that Polybus was not his father. This irony of situation often
consists in the clash or shock of conflicting intrigues, as may be seen
in Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_.
But dramatic irony was not confined to tragedy, as a brief analysis of
one of Terence’s plays will disclose. In comedy, however, the effect
was naturally somewhat different, being more humorous than tragic.
In the _Andrian Girl_, Simo intrigues to test his son’s obedience,
pretending that he has arranged an immediate marriage for him with
Chremes’ daughter. Accordingly there is irony of situation in the
consternation which this false announcement causes (vss. 236 ff. and 301
ff.). Pamphilus’ slave (Davus), however, soon sees through the trick and
persuades him to turn back the intrigue (and, consequently, the irony)
upon his father by apparent compliance (vss. 420 ff.). But Simo at once
proceeds to get Chremes’ consent in fact, so that the dramatic situation
is again reversed, as the too clever slave discovers to his surprise when
he facetiously inquires why the wedding is being delayed (vss. 581 ff.).
Especially galling are Simo’s words (said without a full comprehension
of how true they are): “Now I beseech you, Davus, since you alone have
brought about this marriage ... exert yourself further that my son be
brought into line” (vss. 595 f.). There is also irony in the conduct of
Charinus, who is a suitor for Chremes’ daughter and is naturally (though
needlessly) disturbed at the thought of Pamphilus’ marrying her (vss. 301
ff., 625 ff., and 957 ff.). Of course there is always irony involved when
a man leads himself astray or allows another so to lead him; but as these
are the standard themes of comedy, one need not cite every such instance.
The best instance in this play, however, can be appreciated only on
second reading or as the memory of the spectator recalls its real
significance. Simo wishes his son to marry Chremes’ daughter, but
Pamphilus’ affections are already pledged elsewhere. Now unknown to all
the parties concerned this sweetheart is also Chremes’ daughter. There
is, therefore, more meaning than he intends or perceives in Pamphilus’
despairing question: “Can I in no way avoid relationship with Chremes?”
(vs. 247).
This is similar to Admetus’ words in Euripides’ _Alcestis_ (vs. 1102)
when Heracles insists that he receive into his home a veiled woman
(really Admetus’ own wife restored to life): “Would you had never won
her in a wrestling bout!” But in the present instance the identity of
Pamphilus’ mistress does not transpire until later, so that, as I have
stated, the irony is not at first apparent. There is here a point of
difference between tragedy and comedy in antiquity: the themes of tragedy
were almost invariably drawn from mythology and the outlines of the story
would therefore be known to practically everyone of consequence in the
audience; furthermore, the not infrequent practice of foretelling the
dénouement in the prologue would put even the ignorant in a position to
recognize subtleties in the language of the characters. That the ancient
playwrights themselves appreciated this difference appears from the words
of the comic poet, Antiphanes, already quoted on page 127, above. As a
result, in ancient tragedy the irony of a situation or ambiguous phrase
would be recognized at once without any preparation for it whatsoever,
while in ancient comedy and in modern plays, whether tragic or comic,
these effects usually have to be led up to. Two other considerations
ought also to be mentioned, however. First, audiences exercise a sort of
clairvoyance in looking beneath the bare words and divining the course
of events, so that (paradoxical at it sounds) the surprises of the stage
usually are long foreseen by the spectators and only the expected events
happen. Secondly, the dénouement here in question, the discovery that
Pamphilus’ sweetheart is the daughter of free parents and, in particular,
of someone among the dramatis personae, was so hackneyed in New Comedy,
occurring in no less than five of Terence’s six plays, that any frequent
theatergoer would have been on the lookout for it and might easily have
recognized any subtle effects dependent thereon.
In conclusion, we have to consider the dramatic purpose of tragic irony
and its effect upon the audience. Bishop Thirlwall (_op. cit._, p. 489)
pointed out:
There is always a slight cast of irony in the grave, calm,
respectful attention impartially bestowed by an intelligent
judge on two contending parties, who are pleading their causes
before him with all the earnestness of deep conviction, and
of excited feeling. What makes the contrast interesting is,
that the right and the truth lie on neither side exclusively:
that there is no fraudulent purpose, no gross imbecility of
intellect, on either: but both have plausible claims and
specious reasons to allege, though each is too much blinded
by prejudice or passion to do justice to the views of his
adversary. For here the irony lies not in the demeanor of the
judge, but is deeply seated in the case itself, which seems to
favor both of the litigants, but really eludes them both.
This analogy is especially true when the irony arises from clashing
intrigues, and the audience, admitted to the author’s confidence and
sitting at his side, as it were, joins with him in awarding praise
here and condemnation there. Again the playwright is the omnipotent
creator and ruler of the little world that moves upon the stage. And
the spectator, beholding the dramatic characters’ fruitless toil and
plotting, baseless exultation, and needless despondency seems to be
admitted behind the scenes of this world’s tragedy and to view the
spectacle through the great dramatist’s eyes, learning that man must be
content with little, humble ever, distrustful of fortune, and fearful of
the powers above. Thus the slighter themes and less important reverses of
comedy bring a purification (κάθαρσις) in their train no less truly than
the more somber catastrophes of tragedy.[371]
Footprints on the sands of time.—H. W. LONGFELLOW.