I.

The chief and universal characteristic of the Greek masterpieces in

painting and sculpture consists, according to Winkelmann, in a noble

simplicity and quiet grandeur, both of attitude and expression. “As the

depths of the sea,” he says,[1] “remain always at rest, however the

surface may be agitated, so the expression in the figures of the Greeks

reveals in the midst of passion a great and steadfast soul.”

“Such a soul is depicted in the countenance of the Laocoon, under

sufferings the most intense. Nor is it depicted in the countenance only:

the agony betrayed in every nerve and muscle,—we almost fancy we could

detect it in the painful contraction of the abdomen alone, without

looking at the face and other parts of the body,—this agony, I say, is

yet expressed with no violence in the face and attitude. He raises no

terrible cry, as Virgil sings of his Laocoon. This would not be

possible, from the opening of the mouth, which denotes rather an anxious

and oppressed sigh, as described by Sadolet. Bodily anguish and moral

greatness are diffused in equal measure through the whole structure of

the figure; being, as it were, balanced against each other. Laocoon

suffers, but he suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles. His

sufferings pierce us to the soul, but we are tempted to envy the great

man his power of endurance.”

“To express so noble a soul far outruns the constructive art of natural

beauty. The artist must have felt within himself the mental greatness

which he has impressed upon his marble. Greece united in one person

artist and philosopher, and had more than one Metrodorus. Wisdom joined

hands with art and inspired its figures with more than ordinary souls.”

The remark which lies at the root of this criticism—that suffering is

not expressed in the countenance of Laocoon with the intensity which its

violence would lead us to expect—is perfectly just. That this very

point, where a shallow observer would judge the artist to have fallen

short of nature and not to have attained the true pathos of suffering,

furnishes the clearest proof of his wisdom, is also unquestionable. But

in the reason which Winkelmann assigns for this wisdom, and the

universality of the rule which he deduces from it, I venture to differ

from him.

His depreciatory allusion to Virgil was, I confess, the first thing that

aroused my doubts, and the second was his comparison of Laocoon with

Philoctetes. Using these as my starting-points, I shall proceed to write

down my thoughts in the order in which they have occurred to me.

“Laocoon suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles.” How does

Philoctetes suffer? Strange that his sufferings have left such different

impressions upon our minds. The complaints, the screams, the wild

imprecations with which his pain filled the camp, interrupting the

sacrifices and all offices of religion, resounded not less terribly

through the desert island to which they had been the cause of his

banishment. Nor did the poet hesitate to make the theatre ring with the

imitation of these tones of rage, pain, and despair.

The third act of this play has been regarded as much shorter than the

others. A proof, say the critics,[2] that the ancients attached little

importance to the equal length of the acts. I agree with their

conclusion, but should choose some other example in support of it. The

cries of pain, the moans, the broken exclamations, ἆ, ἆ! φεῦ! ἀτταταῖ! ὢ

μοὶ, μοί! the παπαῖ, παπαῖ! filling whole lines, of which this act is

made up, would naturally require to be prolonged in the delivery and

interrupted by more frequent pauses than a connected discourse. In the

representation, therefore, this third act must have occupied about as

much time as the others. It seems shorter on paper to the reader than it

did to the spectator in the theatre.

A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer’s wounded heroes

not infrequently fall with a cry to the ground. Venus screams aloud[3]

at a scratch, not as being the tender goddess of love, but because

suffering nature will have its rights. Even the iron Mars, on feeling

the lance of Diomedes, bellows as frightfully as if ten thousand raging

warriors were roaring at once, and fills both armies with terror.[4]

High as Homer exalts his heroes in other respects above human nature,

they yet remain true to it in their sensitiveness to pain and injuries

and in the expression of their feelings by cries or tears or revilings.

Judged by their deeds they are creatures of a higher order; in their

feelings they are genuine human beings.

We finer Europeans of a wiser posterity have, I know, more control over

our lips and eyes. Courtesy and decency forbid cries and tears. We have

exchanged the active bravery of the first rude ages for a passive

courage. Yet even our ancestors were greater in the latter than the

former. But our ancestors were barbarians. To stifle all signs of pain,

to meet the stroke of death with unaverted eye, to die laughing under

the adder’s sting, to weep neither over our own sins nor at the loss of

the dearest of friends, are traits of the old northern heroism.[5] The

law given by Palnatoko to the Jomsburghers was to fear nothing, nor even

to name the word fear.

Not so the Greek. He felt and feared. He expressed his pain and his

grief. He was ashamed of no human weakness, yet allowed none to hold him

back from the pursuit of honor or the performance of a duty. Principle

wrought in him what savageness and hardness developed in the barbarian.

Greek heroism was like the spark hidden in the pebble, which sleeps till

roused by some outward force, and takes from the stone neither clearness

nor coldness. The heroism of the barbarian was a bright, devouring

flame, ever raging, and blackening, if not consuming, every other good

quality.

When Homer makes the Trojans advance to battle with wild cries, while

the Greeks march in resolute silence, the commentators very justly

observe that the poet means by this distinction to characterize the one

as an army of barbarians, the other of civilized men. I am surprised

they have not perceived a similar characteristic difference in another

passage.[6]

The opposing armies have agreed upon an armistice, and are occupied, not

without hot tears on both sides (δάκρυα θερμὰ χέοντες), with the burning

of their dead. But Priam forbids his Trojans to weep (οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν

Πρίαμος μέγας), “and for this reason,” says Madame Dacier; “he feared

they might become too tender-hearted, and return with less spirit to the

morrow’s fight.” Good; but I would ask why Priam alone should apprehend

this. Why does not Agamemnon issue the same command to his Greeks? The

poet has a deeper meaning. He would show us that only the civilized

Greek can weep and yet be brave, while the uncivilized Trojan, to be

brave, must stifle all humanity. I am in no wise ashamed to weep

(Νεμεσσῶμαί γε μὲν οὐδὲν κλαίειν), he elsewhere[7] makes the prudent son

of wise Nestor say.

It is worthy of notice that, among the few tragedies which have come

down to us from antiquity, there should be two in which bodily pain

constitutes not the least part of the hero’s misfortunes. Besides

Philoctetes we have the dying Hercules, whom also Sophocles represents

as wailing, moaning, weeping, and screaming. Thanks to our well-mannered

neighbors, those masters of propriety, a whimpering Philoctetes or a

screaming Hercules would now be ridiculous and not tolerated upon the

stage. One of their latest poets,[8] indeed, has ventured upon a

Philoctetes, but he seems not to have dared to show him in his true

character.

Among the lost works of Sophocles was a Laocoon. If fate had but spared

it to us! From the slight references to the piece in some of the old

grammarians, we cannot determine how the poet treated his subject. Of

one thing I am convinced,—that he would not have made his Laocoon more

of a Stoic than Philoctetes and Hercules. Every thing stoical is

untheatrical. Our sympathy is always proportionate with the suffering

expressed by the object of our interest. If we behold him bearing his

misery with magnanimity, our admiration is excited; but admiration is a

cold sentiment, wherein barren wonder excludes not only every warmer

emotion, but all vivid personal conception of the suffering.

I come now to my conclusion. If it be true that a cry, as an expression

of bodily pain, is not inconsistent with nobility of soul, especially

according to the views of the ancient Greeks, then the desire to

represent such a soul cannot be the reason why the artist has refused to

imitate this cry in his marble. He must have had some other reason for

deviating in this respect from his rival, the poet, who expresses it

with deliberate intention.