Under this head we include such conscious strivings for comic as are
frankly and plainly exaggerated and hyper-natural.
a. True burlesque.
This is in effect pure parody, cartooning. Patent burlesque of tragedy
appears in _Trin._ 820 ff. (_Charmides returns from abroad._)
"CHAR. To Neptune, ruler of the deep, and puissant brother unto Jove and
Nereus, do I in joy and gladness cry my praises and gratefully proclaim my
gratitude; and to the briny waves, who held me in their power, yea, even
my chattels and my very life, and from their realms restored me to the
city of my birth," etc., etc.
To tickle the ears of the groundlings, this must have been delivered in
grandiloquent mimicry with all the paraphernalia of the tragic style.
Horace notes a kindred manifestation of this tendency (to which he himself
is pleasingly addicted), in _Ep._ II. 3.93 f.:
Interdum tamen et vocem comoedia tollit
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore.
Tragic burlesque is again beautifully exemplified in _Ps._ 702 ff. The
versatile Pseudolus after a significant aside: "I'll address the fellow in
high-sounding words," says to his master Calidorus:
"Hail! Hail! Thee, thee, O mighty ruler, thee do I beseech who art lord
over Pseudolus. Thee do I seek that thou mayst obtain thrice three times
triple delights in three various ways, joys earned by three tricks and
three tricksters, cunningly won by treachery, fraud and villainy, which in
this little sealed missive have I but erstwhile brought to thee....