_THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS._
Apparent Accident in the Preservation of Greek
Poetry.--Criticism among the Ancients.--Formation of
Canons.--Libraries.--The Political Vicissitudes of
Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople.--Byzantine Scholarship
in the Ninth Century.--The Lost MS. of Menander.--Tragic
Fragments preserved by the Comic Poets and their
Scholiasts; by Athenæus, by Stobæus.--Aristotle.--Tragedy
before Æschylus.--Fragments of Aristarchus.--The _Medea_
of Neophron.--Ion.--The _Games_ of Achæus.--Agathon; his
Character for Luxurious Living.--The _Flower_.--Aristotle's
Partiality for Agathon.--The Family of Æschylus.--Meletus
and Plato among the Tragic Playwrights.--The School
of Sophocles.--Influence of Euripides.--Family of
Karkinos.--Tragedians ridiculed by Aristophanes.--The
_Sisyphus_ of Critias.--Cleophon.--Cynical Tragedies
ascribed to Diogenes.--Extraordinary Fertility of the
Attic Drama.--The Repetition of Old Plots.--Mamercus
and Dionysius.--Professional Rhetoricians appear as
Playwrights.--The School of Isocrates.--The _Centaur_ of
Chæremon.--His Style.--The _Themistocles_ of Moschion.--The
Alexandrian Pleiad.--The _Adonis_ of Ptolemy Philopator.
Among the losses in Greek literature few are so tantalizing as
the almost absolute extinction of the tragic poets who preceded
and followed the supreme Athenian triumvirate. It would have been
exceedingly interesting to trace the history of the drama from its
rude origins up to the point at which the creative genius of Æschylus
gave it an inalienable character, and again to note the deviation of
the tragic muse from heroic themes to fables of pure fiction under
the influence of Agathon. This pleasant task of analytical criticism,
concordant with the spirit of our age, which is not satisfied with
admiring masterpieces unless it can also understand the law of their
growth and mark the several stages in the process of historical
development, will fall to the lot of no student now, unless, indeed,
Pompeii render up a treasure-house of MSS. as yet undreamed of, and
Signor Fiorelli save the priceless leaflets of charred tinder from
destruction.
Why is it that out of the seventy plays of Æschylus only seven are
extant; of the Sophoclean one hundred and thirteen (allowing seventeen
others which bore his name to have been spurious) only seven; while
eighteen--or, if we admit the _Rhesus_, nineteen--are the meagre
salvage from the wreck of at least seventy-five dramas by Euripides?
Why is it that of their lost tragedies we possess but inconsiderable
fragments--just enough to prove that the compilers of commonplace books
like Stobæus might, if they had pleased, have gratified our curiosity
beyond the dreams of a Renaissance scholar's covetousness? Why, again,
is it that of Agathon, whose dramatic romance, the _Flower_, was
thought worthy of citation by Aristotle, whom Aristophanes named as
#Agathôn ho kleinos, agathos poiêtês kai potheinos tois philois#,[70]
whose thanksgiving banquet supplied a frame for Plato's dialogue on
Love, and whose style, if faithfully depicted by the philosopher,
was a very "rivulet of olive-oil noiselessly running"--why is it that
of this Agathon we know nothing but what may be inferred from the
caricature of the _Thesmophoriazusæ_, the portrait of the _Symposium_,
and a few critical strictures in the _Poetics_? Why is it that Ion,
who enjoyed a great renown (#periboêtos egeneto#) and ranked as fifth
in the muster-roll of Athenian tragic poets, is now but a mere empty
name? To these questions, which might be rhetorically multiplied _ad
infinitum_ on a hundred tones of querulous and sad expostulation with
the past, there is no satisfactory answer. Not, as Bacon asserted,
has time borne down upon his flood the froth and trash of things;
far rather may we thank fate that the flotsam and the jetsam that
have reached our shore include the best works of antiquity. Yet,
notwithstanding this, "the iniquity of oblivion," in the words of Sir
Thomas Browne, "blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory
of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity."
The students of antiquity attached less value than we do to literature
of secondary importance. It was the object of their criticism,
especially in the schools of Alexandria, to establish canons of
perfection in style. The few great authors who were deemed worthy to
rank as standards received unlimited honor, nor was it thought too
much by Aristarchus or Aristophanes to devote a lifetime to their
service. For inferior poets, whom we should prize as necessary to a
full comprehension of the history of art, they felt less respect, not
having grasped the notion that æsthetics are a branch of science, that
the topmost peaks of Parnassus tower above the plain by gradual ascent
from subordinate mountain-ranges, and that those who seek to scale
the final altitudes must tread the intermediate heights. They were
contented with representative men. Marlowe, according to their laws of
taste, would have been obscured by Shakespeare; while the multitude of
lesser playwrights, whom we honor as explaining and relieving by their
comradeship the grandeur of _the_ dramatist (#ho tragôidopoios# they
might have styled Shakespeare, as their Pindar was #ho lyrikos#), would
have sunk into oblivion, leaving him alone in splendid isolation. Much
might be said for this way of dealing with literature. By concentrating
attention on undeniable excellence, a taste for the noblest things in
art was fostered, while the danger that we run of substituting the
historical for the æsthetic method was avoided.[71] In our own century
Auguste
Comte has striven to revive the cultus of unique standards and to
re-establish the empire of selective canons.
The scholiasts of Alexandria, working in vast libraries which contained
the whole treasures of Greek literature, decided that only a few
poets were worthy of minute study. The works of these few poets,
again, they classified into masterpieces and inferior productions.
A further selection sifted those that seemed best suited for the
education of youth. Thus it happened that copies were repeated of
certain well-established favorites; and so the treasures of dramatic
poetry inherited by us represent the taste of scholiasts and teachers
rather than the likings of the Attic audience. To judge by references
in the plays of Aristophanes, the lost _Myrmidones_ of Æschylus, the
lost _Andromeda_ of Euripides, enjoyed more popularity at Athens
than even the _Agamemnon_ or the _Medea_. Alexandrian and Byzantine
pedagogues thought otherwise, and posterity was bound to be their
pensioner. The difficulty of multiplying codices must be added as a
most important cause of literary waste. It is doubtful whether we
should now possess more than a few plays of Shakespeare and Jonson out
of the whole voluminous Elizabethan literature, but for the accident
of printing. When we consider the circumstances under which the Attic
dramatists survived, taking into account the famous fraud whereby
Ptolemy Euergetes possessed himself of the MS. of Æschylus,[72] and
remembering the vicissitudes successively of Alexandria, of Rome, and
of Byzantium, perhaps we ought to be surprised that the sum total of
our inheritance is so great. What the public voice of the Athenians had
approved, the scholiasts of Alexandria winnowed. What the Alexandrians
selected found its way to Rome. What the Roman grammarians sanctioned
was carried in the dotage of culture to Byzantium. At each transition
the peril by land and sea to rare codices, sometimes probably to unique
autographs, was incalculable. Then followed the fury of iconoclasts and
fanatics, the firebrands of Omar, the remorseless crusade of Churchmen
against paganism, and the three great conflagrations of Byzantium. It
is humiliating to the nations of Western Europe to compare the wealth
of Greek books enjoyed by Photius in the ninth century, even after the
second burning, with the meagre fragments which seem to have survived
the pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. To this final
disaster we ought probably to assign the destruction of the larger
portion of Greek literature. In addition to all the ruin wrought by
fire and pillage must be reckoned the slow decay of learning during the
centuries of intellectual apathy that preceded the fall of the Eastern
Empire. What the fire and the Frank had spared was still exposed to
the tooth of the worm and to the slow corrosion of dust, damp, and
mildew.
When the passion for antiquity was rekindled in the fourteenth
century by the Italians, they eagerly demanded from Constantinople
the treasures that the capital of Greece contained; nor is there any
good reason to suppose that the Turkish troops of Mahomet II., in
1453, destroyed many books that had not previously been transferred
in copies to Florence and Venice. During at least a quarter of a
century before the downfall of the Byzantine Empire the princes of
Italy were eagerly competing with each other for the purchase of
Greek manuscripts; and throughout this period it was the immediate
interest of the palæologi to lay them under such obligations as might
enlist their sympathy and call forth a return of friendly service.
For the emperor to have closed the doors of the Byzantine libraries
against the agents of the Medici and the Venetian nobles, at the same
time that he was sending Manuel Chrysoloras as an ambassador for aid
against the Turks to Western Europe, would have been ridiculous. We
must also bear in mind how many eager Italian scholars, supported
by exhibitions from the lords of Florence, and supplied with almost
unlimited credit for the purchase of literary treasures, pursued their
studies at Constantinople, and returned, like bees, book-laden with
the honey of old learning, home; how many Levant merchants, passing to
and fro between Italian and Greek ports, discovered that parchments
were a more profitable freight than gems or spices. Taking all this
into consideration, and duly weighing Curzon's competent opinion--"so
thoroughly were these ancient libraries" (of Athos) "explored in the
fifteenth century that no unknown classic author has been discovered,
nor has any MS. been found of greater antiquity than some already
known in the British Museum and other libraries"--we have the right
to infer that what the printing-press of Aldus made imperishable, was
all, or nearly all, that the degenerate scholars of the later age of
Hellas cared to treasure. The comparative preservation of Neoplatonic
philosophy, for example, when contrasted with the loss of dramatic
literature may be referred to the theological and mystical interests
of Byzantine students. Only one codex of first-rate importance is
supposed to have perished in Italy after importation from Byzantium
and before the age of printing. That was a MS. of Menander, which
Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, mentioned among the gems of
the library of Urbino.[73] Little, however, was known about the Greek
dramatic poets at the time when Vespasiano wrote his Lives, and it is
not impossible that what he took for a collection of Menander's plays,
was really a commonplace book of such fragments as we still possess.
Yet the mere mention of this volume raises curious speculation. We know
that when Cesare Borgia possessed himself of Urbino in 1502 he carried
off from the ducal palace a booty in jewels, plate, furniture, and
books to the value of 150,000 ducats. Some of the MSS. found their way
into the Vatican collection; others were restored to Urbino, whence
they were again transferred to Rome after the extinction of the ducal
family in the seventeenth century. It is conceivable that the Menander,
if it existed, may have been lost in the hurry of forced marches and
the confusion that involved the Borgia's career. Had it been stolen,
the thief could hardly have offered it for sale in its splendid
dress of crimson velvet and silver clasps stamped with the arms of
Montefeltro. It may even now be lurking somewhere in obscurity--a
treasure of more value than the Koh-i-noor.
Putting aside the fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, it
may be broadly stated that what survives of the other tragic poets of
the Attic stage, and what we know about their lives, have been derived
in the main from four sources. The plays of Aristophanes and the
fragments of the later comic poets, who were the merciless critics of
contemporary tragedians, have, in the first place, supplied us with
some meagre quotations and with numerous insignificant caricatures.
From these questionable authorities we learn, for instance, that
Agathon was a man of effeminate manners, that Philocles was horribly
ugly, that Morsimus was an indifferent eye-doctor as well as a writer
of tame tragedies, that Meletus had no inspiration, that the whole
family of Carkinus were barbarians, that Pythangelus and Akestor were
no better than slaves, that Gnesippus mismanaged his Choruses, that
Hieronymus delighted in horrors, that Nothippus and Morychus were
gluttons, that Moschion was a parasite, and so forth. To attach very
much weight to comic squibs which dwell exclusively upon personal
defects and foibles, and repeat _ad nauseam_ the stock Athenian
calumnies of drunkenness and debauchery, would be uncritical; though
it must be borne in mind that satire in a Greek city, where all the
eminent burghers were well known to the play-goers, was pointless
unless it contained a grain of truth. Our second great authority is
Athenæus, a man of wide reading and extensive curiosity, whose heart
unhappily was set on trifles. Sauces, unguents, wreaths, the various
ways of dressing fish, the changes of fashion in wine-drinking, formed
the subjects of his profoundest investigations. Therefore the grave
and heightened tragedies of our unfortunate poets were ransacked by
him for rare citations, capable of throwing light upon a flower,
a dish, or a wine-cup. These matters were undoubtedly the veriest
_parerga_ to poets bent on moving the passions of terror and pity;
nor can we imagine a more distressing torment for their souls in
Hades than to know that what remains of a much-pondered and beloved
_Thyestes_ is a couple of lines about a carving-knife or meat-dish.
To be known to posterity through a calumny of Aristophanes and a
citation in the _Deipnosophistæ_, after having passed a long life in
composing tragedies, teaching choruses, and inventing chants, is a
caricature of immortality which might well deter a man of common-sense
from literature, and induce the vainest to go down speechless to the
grave in peace. Those poets who fell under the hands of Stobæus, our
third chief source of information, have fared better. It is more
consistent with the aims and wishes of a tragic artist to survive,
however mangled, in the commonplace book of a moralist, than in the
miscellanies of a literary _bon vivant_. The authors, therefore, of the
Euripidean school,
Teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received,
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate and chance and change in human life,
may be said to have fared better than their predecessors, whose style
rendered them less conveniently subject to the eclectic process of the
Macedonian collector. Much of the difficulty, however, which obscures
the text of these sententious fragments arises from their collector
having in all probability quoted from memory, so that bad grammar,
trivial terminations to otherwise well-worded lines, and passages
ruthlessly compressed by omissions are frequent. In the fourth place
we have to thank Aristotle for a few most precious, though, alas,
laconic, criticisms pronounced in the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetics_ upon
his contemporaries, and for occasional quotations in the _Ethics_ to
Nicomachus and Eudemus. These criticisms help us to understand the
history of the Greek drama by throwing a dim light upon the serious
art of many defunct poets, who in their day shook the Attic scene.
To Plutarch, to Pausanias, and to the scholiasts we owe similar
obligations, though the value of their critical remarks is slight
compared with that of every word which fell from Aristotle's pen.
This rapid enumeration of the resources at our command will prepare
any one familiar with such matters for spare and disappointing
entertainment. The chief interest of such a survey as that which I
propose to make consists in the variety and extent of the lost dramatic
literature that it reveals. Nothing but a detailed examination of
existing fragments suffices to impress the mind with the quantity of
plays from which malignant fortune has preserved samples, fantastically
inadequate, and, in many cases, tantalizingly uncharacteristic. The
quotations from Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, meanwhile, have
already supplied matter of more sterling and intrinsic value.
When we take up the collection of _Perditorum Tragicorum Omnium
Fragmenta_, published at Paris by the care of M. Ambroise Firmin
Didot, our first sensation, on seeking what may possibly be left of
poets before Æschylus, is one of liveliest disappointment. Thespis, to
begin with, is a name: we know that he made tragedy dramatic instead
of dithyrambic, by introducing monologue in order to support and rest
the Chorus; but that is all. Choerilus is a name: we know that he
exhibited above fifty plays, that he was reckoned worthy by the comic
poet Alexis to be cited together with Hesiod, Homer, and Epicharmus,
and that Aristotle devoted three lost books of critical discussions to
the elucidation of difficult passages in his poems as well as in those
of Archilochus and Euripides. All the rest is obscure, except that we
have reason to believe that Choerilus excelled in the satyric drama.
Pratinas, again, is a name. Dim tradition reports that he invented the
satyric drama; and it has thence been inferred with probability that
the 150 plays ascribed to him were chiefly composed in tetralogies of
one comic and three serious pieces. He was also celebrated for the
excellence of his lyrics; while a story, preserved by Suidas, relates
how an accident that happened to the wooden stage at Athens during the
exhibition of one of his tragedies led to the building of the recently
discovered theatre of Dionysus. A few unimportant fragments have
survived, in two of which Pratinas avows his preference for the Æolian
mood in music. Phrynichus, though his poems have fared no better than
those of his contemporaries, stands before us with a more distinguished
personality. Herodotus tells the famous tale of his tragedy upon the
_Taking of Miletus_, which moved the Athenian audience to tears, and so
angered them by the vivid presentation of a recent disaster that they
fined the author in a sum of 1000 drachmas, and forbade the acting of
his drama. The sweetness of the songs of Phrynichus has reached us like
the echo of a bird's voice in a traveller's narrative. Aristophanes,
who loved the good old music of his youth, delighted in it, and
invented one of his rare verbal conglomerates to express its quality:
#kai minyrizontes melê archaiomelêsidônophrynichêrata# is a phrase he
puts into the mouth of Bdelycleon in the _Wasps_, while in the _Frogs_
he describes Phrynichus as making harvest in the meadows of the Muses.
Agathon, again, in the _Thesmophoriazusæ_ is represented saying:
And Phrynichus--this surely you have heard--
Was beautiful, and beautifully dressed;
And this, we cannot doubt, was why his plays
Were beautiful; for 'tis a natural law
That like ourselves our work must ever be.
From the passage just referred to in the _Frogs_ (1298-1307) it is
clear that much of a tragic poet's reputation for originality at
Athens depended upon the invention of melodies; and that the merit of
Phrynichus consisted to some extent in the excellence and sweetness
of his tunes. No real light can now be thrown upon the dark subject
of Greek music in general, and of its relation to lyrical and tragic
poetry in particular. All we know serves to excite our inquisitiveness
without satisfying it. Thus Plutarch informs us that Phrynichus and
Æschylus preferred the harp (#kithara#) and adhered to the enharmonic
scale (#harmonia#) instead of employing chromatic modulations
(#chrôma#). The general drift of this remark is that the early tragic
poets maintained a simple and severe style of music, and avoided the
allurements of what Aristotle termed the most artificial of the Greek
scales. Collateral value is given to Plutarch's observation by the
Aristophanic criticism of the melodies in Agathon and Euripides. For
speculations on its deeper significance, it is impossible to do more
than refer the curious to Professor Donkin, General Perronet Thompson,
and Mr. Chappell, with the reiterated warning that the obscurity of the
subject is impenetrable. Phrynichus, in conclusion, was celebrated as
a ballet-master for his Pyrrhic dances, and, as a practical dramatist,
for the introduction of female characters. One line, among the few
ascribed to him, calls for quotation by reason of its beauty:
#lampei d' epi porphyreais parêisi phôs erôtos.#
The light of love burns upon crimson cheeks.
Aristias, the next in order of these lost poets, was a son of Pratinas,
who lived long enough to compete with Sophocles. The names of his
plays, _Antæus_, _Atalanta_, _Cyclops_, _Orpheus_, and _The Fates_,
show, like similar lists which might be quoted from the meagre notices
of his predecessors, that the whole material of Greek mythology was
handled and rehandled by the Attic playwrights.
The tragedians who follow can certainly not be considered older than
Æschylus, and are, all of them, most probably his juniors. Aristarchus,
a native of Tegea, calls for notice because he is reported by Suidas
to have determined the length of tragedies, whatever that may mean.
Ennius translated his drama of _Achilles_ into Latin, which proves that
he retained the fame of a first-rate poet till the beginning of the
Græco-Roman period. His fragments recall the Euripidean style; and the
two best of them have been preserved by Stobæus, the notorious admirer
of Euripides. To omit these, in the dearth of similar heirlooms from
antiquity, would be wasteful, especially as they serve to determine the
date at which he wrote, and to confirm the report of Suidas that he
was a contemporary of Euripides. Here is one that savors strongly of
agnosticism:
#kai taut' ison men eu legein ison de mê;
ison d' ereunan, ex isou de mê eidenai;
pleion gar ouden hoi sophoi tôn mê sophôn
eis tauta gignôskousin; ei d' allou legei
ameinon allos, tôi legein hyperpherei.#[74]
The second treats of love:
#erôtos hostis mê pepeiratai brotôn,
ouk oid' anankês thesmon; hôi peistheis egô
houtô kratêtheis tasd' apestalên hodous;
houtos gar ho theos kai ton asthenê sthenein
tithêsi, kai ton aporon heuriskein poron.#[75]
Next to Aristarchus of Tegea we find Neophron of Sikyon, who claims
particular attention as the author of a tragedy acknowledged by
antiquity to have been the original of the _Medea_ of Euripides. There
are few students of literature who do not recognize in the _Medea_ the
masterpiece of that poet, and who have not wondered why it only won
the third prize at Athens, in the year 431 B.C. Is it possible that
because Euripides borrowed his play from Neophron--#to drama dokei
hypobalesthai para Neophronos diaskeuasas# are the words of the Greek
argument to _Medea_, while Suidas says of Neophron #hou phasin einai
tên tou Euripidou Mêdeian#--therefore the public and the judges thought
some deduction should be made from the merit of the drama?
Stobæus has handed down a long and precious fragment from the speech in
which Neophron's Medea decides to kill her children. A comparison of
this fragment with the splendid rhesis composed for Medea by Euripides
proves the obligation owed by the younger poet to the elder, both in
style and matter.
Here, then, is the monologue of Neophron's Medea:
#eien; ti draseis thyme? bouleusai kalôs
prin ê 'xamartein kai ta prosphilestata
echthista thesthai. poi pot' exêixas talas?
katische lêma kai sthenos theostyges.
kai pros ti taut' odyromai, psychên emên
horôs' erêmon kai parêmelêmenên
pros hôn echrên hêkista? malthakoi de dê
toiauta gignomestha paschontes kaka?
ou mê prodôseis thyme sauton en kakois.
oimoi dedoktai; paides ektos ommatôn
apelthet'; êdê gar me phoinia megan
dedike lyssa thymon; ô cheres, cheres,
pros hoion ergon exoplizomestha; pheu;
talaina tolmês, hê polyn ponon brachei
diaphtherousa ton emon erchomai chronôi.#[76]
It is hardly possible not to recognize in these lines the first sketch
of the picture afterwards worked out so elaborately in detail by
Euripides.
Ion was a native of Chios, who came while still a boy (#pantapasi
meirakion#) to Athens, and enjoyed the honor of supping with Cimon in
the house of a certain Laomedon. Of his life and work very little is
known, although his reputation among the ancients was so great that
the Alexandrians placed him among the first five tragic poets. The
titles of eleven of his plays have been preserved; but these were
only a few out of many that he wrote. He was, besides, a voluminous
prose-author, and practised every kind of lyrical poetry. From the
criticism of Longinus we gather that his dramas were distinguished
for fluency and finish rather than for boldness of conception or
sublimity of style. After praising their regularity, Longinus adds
that he would not exchange the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles for all the
tragedies of Ion put together. Personally, Ion had the reputation of
a voluptuary: #philopotên kai erôtikôtaton# are the words of Athenæus
which describe him. There is also a story that he passed some portion
of his life at Corinth in love-bondage to the beautiful Chrysilla. In
short, both as a man and an artist, Ion was true to his name and race.
It is unfortunate that the few fragments we possess of Ion's tragedies
have been transmitted for the most part by Hesychius and Athenæus in
illustration of grammatical usages and convivial customs. The following
gnomic couplet, preserved by Plutarch, is both interesting in itself
and characteristic of the poet's style:
#to gnôthi sauton, tout' epos men ou mega,
ergon d', hoson Zeus monos epistatai theôn.#[77]
Another passage, quoted by Sextus Empiricus, contains an elegant
description of the power of Sparta:
#ou gar logois Lakaina pyrgoutai polis,
all' eut' Arês neochmos empesêi stratôi,
boulê men archei, cheir d' epexergazetai.#[78]
Almost less can be said about Achæus of Eretria, the fifth, with
Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Ion, in the Alexandrian #prôtê
taxis#, or first class of tragic worthies. Diogenes Laertius records
his skill in the satyric drama; Athenæus remarks that his style was
obscure, and that he filled his plays with riddles. The names of some
of his dramas--_Linus_, _The Fates_, _Philoctetes at Troy_, _Omphale_,
_Peirithous_--excite our curiosity; but the fragments are, as usual,
cited for some merely frivolous or pedantic purpose.
The following corrupt passage from a play called #Athloi# or #Athla#,
_The Games_--the loss of which is greatly to be regretted, since it
might have thrown a new light upon the feeling of the Greeks for their
public contests--presents a lively picture of the physical splendor of
trained athletes:
#gymnoi gar ôthoun phaidimous brachionas
hêbêi sphrigôntes emporeuontai, neôi
stilbontes anthei karteras epômidas;
adên d' elaiou sterna kai podôn kytos
chriousin, hôs echontes oikothen tryphên.#[79]
Another glimpse of athletes may be got from three lines torn out of the
same play:
#potera theôrois eit' agônistais legeis?
poll' esthiousin, hôs epaskountôn tropos.
podapoi gar eisin hoi xenoi? Boiôtioi.#[80]
In this portrait we recognize the young men satirically described by
Euripides in a fragment, translated above, of the lost _Autolycus_, as
roaming about the city in the radiant insolence of youth, like animated
statues.
Mourn as we may the loss of Ion and Achæus, our grief for that of
Agathon must needs be greater. Though he was not placed in the
first class by the Alexandrian critics, it is clear from the notices
of Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle that he enjoyed the widest
popularity at Athens, and was, besides, a poet of marked originality.
Personally, he was amiable, delicate, pleasure-loving, and extremely
beautiful. He is always called--even by Plutarch and Athenæus--#Agathôn
ho kalos#, Agathon the beautiful; while the passionate friendship with
which he had inspired Pausanias is celebrated by Plato in _Protagoras_,
by Xenophon in the _Symposium_. Later authors, like Maximus Tyrius,
gave him the title of #habrotatos#, while Lucian compared him to
Cinyras or Sardanapalus. Apparently he was rich enough to indulge
the most luxurious tastes. One of the best comic scenes in the
_Thesmophoriazusæ_ is that in which Aristophanes described Agathon
surrounded by all the appliances of a voluptuary, while engaged in the
composition of an effeminate play. Euripides, entering this study of a
Sybarite, implores him to put on female attire, using these arguments:
#sy d' euprosôpos, leukos, exyrêmenos,
gynaikophônos, hapalos, euprepês idein.#[81]
In poetry Agathon adopted innovations consistent with his own voluptuous
temperament. His style was distinguished by melodious sweetness and
rhetorical refinements; in particular, we are told that he affected the
flowery tropes and the antitheses of Gorgias. Sophistry was fashionable
in his youth, and Aristophanes recognized in Agathon the true companion
of Euripides. Leaving the severer music of the elder tragedians, he
invented chromatic melodies, which seem to have tickled the sensuality
of his Athenian audience.[82]
We are therefore justified in regarding Agathon as the creator of a
new tragic style combining the verbal elegances and ethical niceties
of the sophists with artistic charms of a luxurious kind. Aristotle
observes that he separated the Chorus from the action of the drama
to such an extent that his lyrics became mere musical interludes
#embolima#, equally adapted to any tragic fable.[83] He also remarks
that Agathon composed plays upon romantic subjects, inventing the
story for himself, instead of adhering to the old usage of rehandling
mythological material.[84] The title of one of these dramatic romances,
_The Flower_, has been preserved; but unhappily we are told nothing
about its subject, and have no extracts to judge from. That the form of
tragedy suffered other changes at the hands of Agathon may be inferred
from another passage in the _Poetics_, where Aristotle censures him for
having included a whole epic, _The Taking of Troy_, in one play.[85]
This play, it may be said in passing, was hissed off the stage. The
popularity of Agathon may be gathered from the fact that the first
tetralogy he exhibited was crowned in 416 B.C. Plato has chosen the
supper-party which he gave in celebration of this victory for the
scene of the _Symposium_; and it is there that we must learn to know
this brilliant man of letters and of fashion in the wittiest period of
Attic social life. It is not a little curious that the most interesting
fragments of Agathon are embedded in the _Ethics_ and the _Rhetoric_
of Aristotle, who must have made attentive study of his works. While
discussing the subject of free-will, the sage of Stageira quotes this
couplet:
#monou gar autou kai theos sterisketai,
agenêta poiein hass' an êi pepragmena.#[86]
Again, on the topic of art and chance, he cites:
#technê tychên esterxe kai tychê technên.#[87]
Speaking in the _Eudemian Ethics_ about the true and spurious kinds of
courage, he adds:
#kathaper kai Agathôn phêsi:
phauloi brotôn gar tou ponein hêssômenoi
thanein erôsi.#[88]
Another quotation, for the sake of both the poet and the philosopher,
may be adduced from the _Rhetoric_:
#kai mên ta men ge têi technêi prassein, ta de
hêmin anankêi kai tychêi prosgignetai.#[89]
One of the peculiarities to be noticed in the practice of the poetic
art among the Greeks was the formation of schools by families of
artists, in whom talent continued to be hereditary for several
generations. We observe this among the lyrists; but the tragedians
offer even more remarkable instances, proving how thoroughly the most
complicated of all the arts, the tragic drama--including, as it did,
the teaching of music and of dancing to Choruses, the arrangement
of stage effects, and the training of actors--was followed as a
profession at Athens. That Phrynichus founded a school of playwrights
distinguished for their musical rather than their dramatic ability
appears from the nineteenth section of the _Problemata_ of Aristotle;
but we do not know whether the #hoi peri Phrynichon# there mentioned
belonged to the poet's family. It is possible, on the other hand, to
draw the pedigree of Æschylus, in which every name will represent a
tragic poet. Here it is:
Euphorion.
|
|----------------------------------|
1. Æschylus. A daughter, married to Philopeithes.
|------------| |
2. Bion. 3. Euphorion. 4. Philocles the elder.
|
5. Morsimus.
|
6. Astydamas the elder.
|-----------------------------|
7. Philocles the younger. 8. Astydamas the younger.
The #hoi peri Aischylon#, therefore, of whom the scholiasts often
speak, numbered, together with Æschylus himself, eight dramatists.
Their common characteristic consisted in the adherence to the Æschylean
style, in the presentation of tetralogies, and in the privilege
successively enjoyed by them of bringing out old plays of Æschylus in
competition with the works of younger poets. The dramas of Æschylus
were in fact "a property" to his descendants. The Athenians had
publicly decreed that they might be from year to year produced upon the
scene, and Euphorion, his son, spent his time in preparing them for
exhibition. In this way he gained four prizes, taking the first crown
upon the notable occasion, in 431 B.C., when Sophocles was second,
and Euripides, with the _Medea_, third. It appears that, as time went
on, the original compositions of Æschylus suffered mutilations and
alterations at the hands of his posterity, who pretended to improve
them--after the manner of Davenant, presumably--and adapt them to the
modern taste. At last Lycurgus, about 340 B.C., decreed that after
accurate copies had been taken of the authorized text and deposited
in the public archives, the clerk of the city should collate them
with the acted plays, and see that no deviations from the original
became established. We gather from the comic poets that the family of
Æschylus also produced their own tragedies, none of which, however,
appear to have been very excellent. Philocles the elder was laughed
at by Aristophanes partly because he was an ugly, snub-nosed, little
man, with a head like a hoopoe; partly because he introduced a comic
incident into his tragedy of _Pandionis_ by exhibiting Tereus dressed
out with the feathers of a bird. The scholiasts to Aristophanes, in
like manner, inform us that Morsimus owed a certain celebrity to his
ugliness, to the tameness of his tragic style, and to his want of skill
as a professional oculist. Astydamas the elder achieved the same sad
sort of immortality through the accident of having received the honor
of a public statue before Æschylus. It is lost labor trying to form a
clear conception of poets who are only known to us in anecdotes like
these.
Frederick Wagner, the collector of the tragic fragments, reckons
Meletus, the accuser of Socrates, and Plato, the divine philosopher,
among the school of Æschylus, because it appears that both of them
composed tetralogies. From a passage in the scholiast to Aristophanes
(_Frogs_, 1302) it may be inferred that Meletus the tragedian and
Meletus the informer were one and the same person: #kômôideitai de
kai hôs psychros en têi poiêsei kai hôs ponêros ton tropon#--"he is
satirized both for want of genius as a poet and also for the badness
of his moral character." This sentence constitutes his title to
fame. He is known to have composed a series of plays with the title
_Oedipodeia_, the plot, as sketched by Hyginus,[90] offering some
notable divergences from the Sophoclean treatment of the tale of
Thebes. Plato may be numbered among the tragedians on the strength
of an anecdote in Ælian,[91] according to which he had composed a
tetralogy, and had already distributed the parts to the actors, when he
determined to abandon poetry and gave his verses to the flames.
The school of Sophocles includes two sons of the poet, Iophon and
Ariston, and his grandson Sophocles. In fact, it combines the actors
in that family drama played out before the jury of the tribe, when
the singer of Colonus silenced his accuser by the recitation of the
Chorus from his second _Oedipus_. Iophon exhibited tragedies with
distinguished success during the life of Sophocles, and even entered
into competition with his father. After the old man's death he produced
the posthumous works that formed his heirloom, completing such as
were unfinished or executing those of which the plan was sketched in
outline. He is said to have exhibited fifty plays, and that he was no
mean poet appears from the following passage of the _Frogs_:
_H._ Is not Iophon a good one?--He's alive, sure?
_B._ If he's a good one, he's our only good one;
But it's a question; I'm in doubt about him.
_H._ There's Sophocles; he's older than Euripides--
If you go so far for 'em, you'd best bring him.
_B._ No; first I'll try what Iophon can do
Without his father, Sophocles, to assist him.[92]
The drift of these lines would be obscure without some explanation to
readers who have not studied Aristophanes. All the good tragic poets
are dead, and Dionysus is journeying to Hades to fetch one back again
to rule the Attic stage. Herakles falls into conversation with him on
the subject, and reminds him that Iophon is living. The doubt expressed
by Dionysus seems to refer to a suspicion prevalent at Athens that
Sophocles helped his son in the composition of his plays. Meanwhile,
the qualified praise awarded him by Dionysus implies considerable
admiration on the part of so severe a castigator of the tragic
dramatists as Aristophanes. Only four and a half lines, and these by no
means noticeable, remain of Iophon. His half-brother Ariston has fared
better, since we possess a long and curious dialogue upon Providence,
quoted by Theophilus of Antioch from an unknown play of his. This
fragment supports the Christian belief that, though the careless seem
to prosper, while the virtuous get no benefit from their asceticism,
justice will eventually be dealt with even hand to all:
#chôris pronoias ginetai gar oude hen.#
It is right to add that the authorship of these lines must be at least
considered doubtful, and that their versification, as it now stands, is
unworthy of the Attic drama.
By the middle of the fourth century before Christ the whole dramatic
literature of the Athenians, both tragic and comic, was being
penetrated with the Euripidean spirit. It is impossible not to notice
in the style of these later playwrights either the direct influence of
Euripides or else the operation of the laws of intellectual development
he illustrated. We cannot, therefore, treat the Euripidean school
with the definiteness applicable to that of Æschylus or Sophocles. At
the same time it is certain that a son or a nephew bearing his name
continued to exhibit his posthumous dramas.
A stronger instance of histrionic and dramatic talent transmitted
through four generations is presented by the family of Carkinus, some
of whom were famous for mimetic dancing, while others contended in the
theatre as playwrights. What we know about Carkinus and his children
is chiefly derived from the satires of Aristophanes, who was never
tired of abusing them. Their very name serves as a scarecrow, and the
muse is invoked to keep them off the stage. To stir the rubbish-heap
of obscure allusions and pedantic annotations, in order to discover
which of the six Carkinidæ we know by name were poets, and which of
them were dancers, is a weary task not worth the labor it involves.
Suffice it to say that the grandson of Aristophanes's old butt, himself
called Carkinus, produced the incredible number of 160 dramas, was
three times mentioned with respect by Aristotle,[93] and has survived
in comparatively copious quotations. One passage, though not very
remarkable for poetical beauty, is interesting because it describes the
wanderings of Demeter through Sicily in search of Persephone. Diodorus,
who cites it from an unknown play, mentions that Carkinus frequently
visited Syracuse and saw the processions in honor of Demeter.
About the Attic tragedians who lived during the old age of
Aristophanes, the first thing to notice is that they may fairly be
called the Epigoni of Euripides. Æschylus was old-fashioned. The style
of Sophocles did not lend itself to easy imitation. The psychological
analyses, casuistical questions, rhetorical digressions, and pathetic
situations wherein the great poet of the _Hippolytus_ delighted were
exactly suited to the intellectual tastes and temper of incipient
decadence. A nation of philosophers and rhetoricians had arisen; and
it is noteworthy that many of the playwrights of this period were
either professed orators or statesmen. In his own lifetime Aristophanes
witnessed the triumph of the principles against which he fought
incessantly with all the weapons of the comic armory. Listen to the
complaint of Dionysus in the _Frogs_:
_H._ But have not you other ingenious youths
That are fit to out-talk Euripides ten times over--
To the amount of a thousand, at least, all writing tragedy?
_D._ They're good for nothing--"Warblers of the Grove"--
"Little, foolish, fluttering things"--poor puny wretches,
That dawdle and dangle about with the tragic muse,
Incapable of any serious meaning.[94]
To translate the Greek for modern readers is not possible. The pith of
the passage is found in this emphatic phrase, #gonimon de poiêtên an
ouk heurois eti#, "there's not a sound male poet capable of procreation
left." Accordingly he vents his venom on Pythangelus, Gnesippus,
Akestor, Hieronymus, Nothippus, Morychus, Sthenelus, Dorillus,
Spintharus, and Theognis, without mercy. Not a single fragment remains
to judge these wretched poets by. It is better to leave them in their
obscurity than to drag them forth into the dubious light of comic
ribaldry.
Critias, the son of Callæschrus, the pupil of Socrates, who figures
in so many scenes of Xenophon and Plato, and who played a memorable
part in the political crisis of 404 B.C., was a tragic poet of some
talent, if we are to accept a fragment from the _Sisyphus_ as his.
Sextus Empiricus transcribed forty lines of this drama, setting forth
the primitive conditions of humanity. First, says Critias, men began by
living like the brutes, without rewards for virtue or punishment for
vice. Mere might of hand prevailed. Then laws were framed and penalties
affixed to crime. Open violence was thus repressed; but evil-doers
flourished in secret. Fraud and hypocrisy took the place of force. To
invent the dread of gods and to create a conscience was the next step
taken by humanity. Then followed the whole scheme of religion, and
with religion entered superstition, and men began to fear the thunder
and to look with strange awe on the stars. The quotation is obviously
imperfect: yet it may advantageously be compared with the speeches of
Prometheus in Æschylus, and also with the speculations of Lucretius.
The hypothesis of deliberate invention implied in the following phrases,
#tênikauta moi
dokei pyknos tis kai sophos gnômên anêr
gnônai theon thnêtoisin,#[95]
and #to theion eisêgêsato#,[96] sufficed not only for antiquity, but
also for those modern theorists who, like Locke, imagined that language
was produced artificially by wise men in counsel, or who, like Rousseau
and the encyclopedists, maintained that religions were framed by knaves
to intimidate fools.
Cleophon demands a passing notice, because we learn from Aristotle[97]
that he tried to reduce tragedy to the plain level of common life by
using every-day language and not attempting to idealize his characters.
The total destruction of his plays may be regretted, since it is
probable that we should have observed in them the approximation of
tragedy to comedy which ended finally in the new comic style of the
Athenians. About Cleophon's contemporary, Nicomachus, of whom nothing
is known except that he produced a great many tragedies on the stock
subjects of mythology, nothing need be said. The case is somewhat
different with a certain Diogenes who, while writing seven tragedies
under the decorous titles of _Thyestes_, _Helen_, _Medea_, and so
forth, nevertheless contrived to offend against all the decencies of
civilized life. Later grammarians can hardly find language strong
enough to describe their improprieties. Here is a specimen: #arrhêtôn
arrhêtotera kai kakôn pera, kai oute hoti phô peri autôn axiôs echô....
houtô pasa men aischrotês, pasa de aponoia en ekeinais tôi andri
pephilotechnêtai#. To ascribe these impure productions to Diogenes
the Cynic, in spite of his well-known contempt for literature, was a
temptation which even the ancients, though better informed than we
are, could not wholly resist. Yet, after much sifting of evidence,
it may be fairly believed that there were two Diogeneses--the one an
Athenian, who wrote an innocuous play called _Semele_, the other a
native perhaps of Gadara, who also bore the name of Oenomaus, and who
perpetrated the seven indecent parodies. Diogenes of Sinope, meanwhile,
was never among the poets, and the plays that defended cannibalism and
blasphemed against the gods, though conceived in his spirit, belonged
probably to a later period.[98]
Time would fail to tell of Antiphon and Polyeides, of Crates and
Python, of Nearchus and Cleænetus, of the Syracusan Achæus and
of Dikaiogenes, of Apollodorus and Timesitheus and Patrocles and
Alkimenes and Apollonius and Hippotheon and Timocles and Ecdorus
and Serapion--of all of whom it may be briefly said we know a few
laborious nothings. Their names in a list serve to show how the sacred
serpent of Greek tragedy, when sick to death, continued still for many
generations drawing its slow length along. Down to the very end they
kept on handling the old themes. Timesitheus, for instance, exhibited
_Danaides_, _Ixion_, _Memnon_, _Orestes_, and the like. Meanwhile
a few pale shades emerge from the nebulous darkness demanding more
consideration than the mere recording of their names implies. We find
two tyrants, to begin with, on the catalogue--Mamercus of Catana, who
helped Timoleon, and Dionysius of Syracuse. Like Nero and Napoleon
III., Dionysius was very eager to be ranked among the authors. He
spared no expense in engaging the best rhapsodes of the day, and sent
them to recite his verses at Olympia. To deceive a Greek audience
in matters of pure æsthetics was, however, no easy matter. The men
who came together attracted by the sweet tones of the rhapsodes soon
discovered the badness of the poems and laughed them down. Some
fragments from the dramas of Dionysius have been preserved, among which
is one that proves his preaching sounder than his practice:
#hê gar tyrannis adikias mêtêr ephy.#[99]
The intrusion of professional orators into the sphere of the theatre
might have been expected in an age when public speaking was cultivated
like a fine art, and when opportunities for the display of verbal
cleverness were eagerly sought. We are not, therefore, surprised
to find Aphareus and Theodectes, distinguished rhetoricians of the
school of Isocrates, among the tragedians. Of Theodectes a sufficient
number of fragments survive to establish the general character of
his style; but it is enough in this place to notice the fusion of
forensic eloquence with dramatic poetry, against which Aristophanes had
inveighed, and which was now complete.
Chæremon and Moschion are more important in the history of the Attic
drama, since both of them attempted innovations in accordance with
the literary spirit of their age, and did not, like the rhetoricians,
follow merely in the footsteps of Euripides. Chæremon, the author of
_Achilles Thersitoctonos_ and several other pieces, was mentioned by
Aristotle for having attempted to combine a great variety of metres in
a poem called _The Centaur_,[100] which was, perhaps, a tragi-comedy
or #hilarotragôidia#. He possessed remarkable descriptive powers,
and was reckoned by the critics of antiquity as worthy of attentive
study, though his dramas failed in action on the stage. We may regard
him, in fact, as the first writer of plays to be read.[101] The
metamorphoses through which the arts have to pass in their development
repeat themselves at the most distant ages and under the most diverse
circumstances. It is, therefore, interesting to find that Chæremon
combined with this descriptive faculty a kind of euphuism which
might place him in the same rank as Marini and Calderon, or among
the most refined of modern idyllists. He shrank, apparently, from
calling things by their plain names. Water, for example, became in
his fantastic phraseology #potamou sôma#. The flowers were "children
of the spring," #earos tekna#--the roses, "nurslings of the spring,"
#earos tithênêmata#--the stars, "sights of the firmament," #aitheros
theamata#--ivy, "lover of dancers, offspring of the year," #chorôn
erastês eniautou pais#--blossoms, "children of the meadows," #leimônôn
tekna#, and so forth. In fact, Chæremon rivals Gongora, Lyly, and
Herrick on their own ground, and by his numerous surviving fragments
proves how impossible it is to conclude that the Greeks of even a good
age were free from affectations. Students who may be interested in
tracing the declensions of classic style from severity and purity will
do well to read the seventeen lines preserved by Athenæus from the
tragedy of _Oeneus_.[102] They present a picture of girls playing in a
field, too artful for successful rendering into any but insufferably
ornate English.
The claim of Moschion on our attention is different from that
of his contemporary Chæremon. He wrote a tragedy with the title
of _Themistocles_, wherein he appears to have handled the same
subject-matter as Æschylus in the _Persæ_. The hero of Salamis was,
however, conspicuous by his absence from the history-play of the elder
poet. Lapse of time, by removing the political difficulties under
which the _Persæ_ was composed, enabled Moschion to make the great
Themistocles his protagonist. Two fragments transmitted by Stobæus from
this drama, the one celebrating Athenian liberty of speech, while the
other argues that a small band may get the better of a myriad lances,
seem to be taken from the _concio ad milites_ of the hero:
#kai gar en napais brachei
polys sidêrôi keiretai peukês klados,
kai baios ochlos myrias lonchês kratei.#[103]
Another tragedy of Moschion, the _Pheræi_, is interesting when compared
with the _Antigone_ of Sophocles and the _Sisyphus_ ascribed to
Critias. Its plot seems in some way to have turned upon the duty which
the living owe the dead:
#kenon thanontos andros aikizein skian;
zôntas kolazein ou thanontas eusebes.#[104]
And, again, in all probability from the same drama:
#ti kerdos ouket' ontas aikizein nekrous?
ti tên anaudon gaian hybrizein pleon?
epên gar hê krinousa kai thêdiona
kai taniara phroudos aisthêsis phtharêi,
to sôma kôphou taxin eilêphen petrou.#[105]
A long quotation of thirty-four iambics, taken apparently in like
manner from the _Pheræi_, sets forth the primitive condition of
humanity. Men lived at first in caverns, like wild beasts. They had
not learned the use of iron; nor could they fashion houses, or wall
cities, or plough the fields, or garner fruits of earth. They were
cannibals, and preyed on one another. In course of time, whether by
the teaching of Prometheus or by the evolution of implanted instincts,
they discovered the use of corn, and learned how to press wine from the
grape. Cities arose and dwellings were roofed in, and social customs
changed from savage to humane. From that moment it became impiety
to leave the dead unburied; but tombs were dug, and dust was heaped
upon the clay-cold limbs, in order that the old abomination of human
food might be removed from memory of men. The whole of this passage,
very brilliantly written, condenses the speculations of Athenian
philosophers upon the origin of civilization, and brings them to the
point which the poet had in view--the inculcation of the sanctity of
sepulture.
Nothing more remains to be said about the Attic tragedians. At the risk
of being tedious, I have striven to include the names at least of all
the poets who filled the tragic stage from its beginning to its ending,
in order that the great number of playwrights and their variety might
be appreciated. The probable date at which Thespis began to exhibit
dramas may be fixed soon after 550 B.C. Moschion may possibly have
lived as late as 300 B.C. These, roughly calculated, are the extreme
points of time between which the tragic art of the Athenians arose
and flourished and declined. When the Alexandrian critics attempted
a general review of dramatic literature, they formed, as we have
seen already, two classes of tragedians. In the first they numbered
five Athenian worthies. The second, called the Pleiad, included seven
poets of the Court of Alexandria; nor is there adequate reason to
suppose that this inferior canon, #deutera taxis#, was formed on any
but just principles of taste. How magnificent was the revival of
art and letters, in all that pertained, at any rate, to scenic show
and pompous ritual, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, how
superbly the transplanted flowers of Greek ceremonial flourished on
the shores of ancient Nile, and how Hellenic customs borrowed both
gorgeous colors and a mystic meaning from the contact with Egyptian
rites, may be gathered from the chapters devoted by Athenæus in the
fifth book of the _Deipnosophistæ_ to these matters. The Pleiad and
the host of minor Alexandrian stars have fared, however, worse than
their Athenian models. They had not even comic satirists to keep their
names alive "immortally immerded." With the exception of Lycophron,
they offer no firm ground for modern criticism. We only know that, in
this Alexandrian Renaissance, literature, as usual, repeated itself.
Alexandria, like Athens, had its royal poets, and, what is not a little
curious, Ptolemy Philopator imitated his predecessor Dionysius to
the extent of composing a tragedy, _Adonis_, with the same title and
presumably upon the same theme.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] Agathon the famous, a good poet, and lovable to his friends.
[71] Aristophanes, the grammarian, and Aristarchus included five
tragic poets--Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ion, and Achæus--in the
first rank. In a second series they placed the works of the so-called
Pleiad, seven tragic poets who at Alexandria revived the style of the
Attic drama. Their names were Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander,
Philiscus, Sosiphanes, and Dionysiades.
[72] The story is told with wonderful vividness by Victor Hugo,
_William Shakespeare_, pp. 176-194.
[73] _Vite di Uomini Illustri_, p. 97. He catalogues "tutte l'opere di
Sofocle; tutte l'opere di Pindaro; tutte l'opere di Menandro."
[74]
Fair speech in such things and no speech are one:
Study and ignorance have equal value;
For wise men know no more than simple fools
In these dark matters; and if one by speaking
Conquer another, mere words win the day.
[75]
That man who hath not tried of love the might,
Knows not the strong rule of necessity,
Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel.
Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teaches
The craftless how to find both craft and cunning.
[76]
Well, well; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think much
Before this sin be sinned, before thy dearest
Thou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding?
Restrain thy force, thy god-detested fury.
And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my life
Laid desolate, despitefully abandoned
By those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth,
Shall I be in the midst of wrongs like these?
Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer!
Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sight
Get you away! for now bloodthirsty madness
Sinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands,
Unto what deed are we accoutred? Woe!
Undone by my own daring! In one minute
I go to blast the fruit of my long toil.
[77]
Know thou thyself--the saw is no great thing;
To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.
[78]
The town of Sparta is not walled with words;
But when young Ares falls upon her men,
Then reason rules and the hand does the deed.
[79] It is clear that #gar ôthoun# is wrong. The best suggestion seems
to be #g' anôthen#, adopting which we may render the lines thus:
Naked above, their radiant arms displaying,
In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloom
Of beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare;
Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oil
Are bathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.
[80]
Ambassadors or athletes do you mean?
Great feeders are they, like most men in training.
Of what race are the strangers, then? Boeotians.
[81]
While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven,
Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.
[82] This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of
Mnesilochus (Ar. _Thesmoph._ 130 _et seq._), which reminds one of the
first satire of Persius:
Cum carmina lumbum
Intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.
[83] _Poet._ cap. 18.
[84] _Ibid._ cap. 9.
[85] _Ibid._ cap. 18.
[86]
For from this one thing God himself is barred--
To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.
[87]
Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.
[88] Even as saith also Agathon:
Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.
[89] I have followed Grotius in transposing #tychêi# and #technêi#, and
translate:
Thus some things we can do by art, while some
Are thrust on us as fate and fortune will.
[90] _Fab._ 172.
[91] _Varia Historia_, ii. 30. Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 80.
[92] Frere's Translation, p. 229.
[93] _Poet._ cap. 17; _Rhet._ ii. 23, iii. 16.
[94] Frere, p. 229.
[95]
Then, I think,
A man of subtle counsel and keen wit
Discovered God for mortals.
[96] Introduced the notion of deity.
[97] _Poet._ capp. ii., xxii.; _Rhet._ iii. 7.
[98] The whole matter is too obscure for discussion in this place.
Suffice it to add that a certain Philiscus, the friend and follower of
Diogenes, enjoyed a portion of the notoriety attaching to the seven
obnoxious dramas.
[99] The rule of one man is of wrong the parent.
[100] _Poet._ i., xxiv.
[101] See Ar. _Rhet._ iii. 12.
[102] Athen. xiii. p. 608_a_.
[103]
In far mountain vales
See how one small axe fells innumerous firs;
So a few men can curb a myriad lances.
[104]
'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades;
God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.
[105]
What gain we by insulting mere dead men?
What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay?
For when the sense that can discern things sweet
And things offensive is corrupt and fled,
The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.