A review of the reasons here alleged for the moderation observed by the
sculptor of the Laocoon in the expression of bodily pain, shows them to
lie wholly in the peculiar object of his art and its necessary
limitations. Scarce one of them would be applicable to poetry.
Without inquiring here how far the poet can succeed in describing
physical beauty, so much at least is clear, that since the whole
infinite realm of perfection lies open for his imitation, this visible
covering under which perfection becomes beauty will be one of his least
significant means of interesting us in his characters. Indeed, he often
neglects it altogether, feeling sure that if his hero have gained our
favor, his nobler qualities will either so engross us that we shall not
think of his body, or have so won us that, if we think of it, we shall
naturally attribute to him a beautiful, or, at least, no unsightly one.
Least of all will he have reference to the eye in every detail not
especially addressed to the sense of sight. When Virgil’s Laocoon
screams, who stops to think that a scream necessitates an open mouth,
and that an open mouth is ugly? Enough that “clamores horrendos ad
sidera tollit” is fine to the ear, no matter what its effect on the eye.
Whoever requires a beautiful picture has missed the whole intention of
the poet.
Further, nothing obliges the poet to concentrate his picture into a
single moment. He can take up every action, if he will, from its origin,
and carry it through all possible changes to its issue. Every change,
which would require from the painter a separate picture, costs him but a
single touch; a touch, perhaps, which, taken by itself, might offend the
imagination, but which, anticipated, as it has been, by what preceded,
and softened and atoned for by what follows, loses its individual effect
in the admirable result of the whole. Thus were it really unbecoming in
a man to cry out in the extremity of bodily pain, how can this momentary
weakness lower in our estimation a character whose virtues have
previously won our regard? Virgil’s Laocoon cries; but this screaming
Laocoon is the same we know and love as the most far-seeing of patriots
and the tenderest of fathers. We do not attribute the cry to his
character, but solely to his intolerable sufferings. We hear in it only
those, nor could they have been made sensible to us in any other way.
Who blames the poet, then? Rather must we acknowledge that he was right
in introducing the cry, as the sculptor was in omitting it.
But Virgil’s is a narrative poem. Would the dramatic poet be included in
this justification? A very different impression is made by the mention
of a cry and the cry itself. The drama, being meant for a living picture
to the spectator, should therefore perhaps conform more strictly to the
laws of material painting. In the drama we not only fancy we see and
hear a crying Philoctetes, we actually do see and hear him. The more
nearly the actor approaches nature, the more sensibly must our eyes and
ears be offended, as in nature they undoubtedly are when we hear such
loud and violent expressions of pain. Besides, physical suffering in
general possesses in a less degree than other evils the power of
arousing sympathy. The imagination cannot take hold of it sufficiently
for the mere sight to arouse in us any corresponding emotion. Sophocles,
therefore, might easily have overstepped the bounds not only of
conventional propriety, but of a propriety grounded in the very nature
of our sensibilities, in letting Philoctetes and Hercules moan and weep,
scream and roar. The by-standers cannot possibly feel such concern for
their suffering as these excessive outbreaks seem to demand. To us
spectators the lookers-on will seem comparatively cold; and yet we
cannot but regard their sympathy as the measure of our own. Add to this
that the actor can rarely or never carry the representation of bodily
pain to the point of illusion, and perhaps the modern dramatic poets are
rather to be praised than blamed for either avoiding this danger
altogether or skirting it at a safe distance.
Much would in theory appear unanswerable if the achievements of genius
had not proved the contrary. These observations are not without good
foundation, yet in spite of them Philoctetes remains one of the
masterpieces of the stage. For a portion of our strictures do not apply
to Sophocles, and by a disregard of others he has attained to beauties
which the timid critic, but for this example, would never have dreamed
of. The following remarks will make this apparent:—
1. The poet has contrived wonderfully to intensify and ennoble the idea
of physical pain. He chose a wound,—for we may consider the details of
the story dependent upon his choice, in so far as he chose the subject
for their sake,—he chose, I say, a wound and not an inward distemper,
because the most painful sickness fails to impress us as vividly as an
outward hurt. The inward sympathetic fire which consumed Meleager when
his mother sacrificed him in the brand to her sisterly fury, would
therefore be less dramatic than a wound. This wound, moreover, was a
divine punishment. In it a fiercer than any natural poison raged
unceasingly, and at appointed intervals an access of intenser pain
occurred, always followed by a heavy sleep, wherein exhausted nature
acquired the needed strength for entering again upon the same course of
pain. Chateaubrun represents him as wounded simply by the poisoned arrow
of a Trojan. But so common an accident gives small scope for
extraordinary results. Every one was exposed to it in the old wars; why
were the consequences so terrible only in the case of Philoctetes? A
natural poison that should work for nine years without destroying life
is far more improbable than all the fabulous miraculous elements with
which the Greek decked out his tale.
2. But great and terrible as he made the physical sufferings of his
hero, he was well aware that these alone would not suffice to excite any
sensible degree of sympathy. He joined with them, therefore, other
evils, also insufficient of themselves to move us greatly, but receiving
from this connection a darker hue of tragedy, which in turn reacted upon
the bodily pain. These evils were complete loss of human companionship,
hunger, and all the discomforts attendant on exposure to an inclement
sky when thus bereft.[26] Imagine a man under these circumstances, but
in possession of health, strength, and industry, and we have a Robinson
Crusoe, who has little claim to our compassion, though we are by no
means indifferent to his fate. For we are seldom so thoroughly content
with human society as not to find a certain charm in thinking of the
repose to be enjoyed without its pale; more particularly as every one
flatters himself with the idea of being able gradually to dispense
altogether with the help of others. Again, imagine a man suffering from
the most painful of incurable maladies, but surrounded by kind friends
who let him want for nothing, who relieve his pain by all the means in
their power, and are always ready to listen to his groans and
complaints; we should pity him undoubtedly, but our compassion would
soon be exhausted. We should presently shrug our shoulders and counsel
patience. Only when all these ills unite in one person, when to solitude
is added physical infirmity, when the sick man not only cannot help
himself, but has no one to help him, and his groans die away on the
desert air,—then we see a wretch afflicted by all the ills to which
human nature is exposed, and the very thought of putting ourselves in
his place for a moment fills us with horror. We see before us despair in
its most dreadful shape, and no compassion is stronger or more melting
than that connected with the idea of despair. Such we feel for
Philoctetes, especially at the moment when, robbed of his bow, he loses
the only means left him of supporting his miserable existence. Alas for
the Frenchman who had not the sense to perceive this nor the heart to
feel it! or, if he had, was petty enough to sacrifice it all to the
pitiful taste of his nation! Chateaubrun gives Philoctetes companionship
by introducing a princess into his desert island. Neither is she alone,
but has with her a lady of honor: a thing apparently as much needed by
the poet as by the princess. All the admirable play with the bow he has
left out and introduced in its stead the play of bright eyes. The heroic
youth of France would in truth have made themselves very merry over a
bow and arrows, whereas nothing is more serious to them than the
displeasure of bright eyes. The Greek harrows us with fear lest the
wretched Philoctetes should be forced to remain on the island without
his bow, and there miserably perish. The Frenchman found a surer way to
our hearts by making us fear that the son of Achilles would have to
depart without his princess. And this is called by the Parisian critics
triumphing over the ancients. One of them even proposed to name
Chateaubrun’s piece “La difficulté vaincue.”[27]
3. Turning now from the effect of the whole, let us examine the separate
scenes wherein Philoctetes is no longer the forsaken sufferer, but has
hope of leaving the dreary island and returning to his kingdom. His ills
are therefore now confined entirely to his painful wound. He moans, he
cries, he goes through the most hideous contortions. Against this scene
objections on the score of offended propriety may with most reason be
brought. They come from an Englishman, a man, therefore, not readily to
be suspected of false delicacy. As already hinted, he supports his
objections by very good arguments. “All feelings and passions,” he says,
“with which others can have little sympathy, become offensive if too
violently expressed.”[28] “It is for the same reason that to cry out
with bodily pain, how intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and
unbecoming. There is, however, a good deal of sympathy even with bodily
pain. If I see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm
of another person, I naturally shriek and draw back my own leg or my own
arm; and when it does fall, I feel it in some measure and am hurt by it
as well as the sufferer. My hurt, however, is no doubt excessively
slight, and, upon that account, if he makes any violent outcry, as I
cannot go along with him, I never fail to despise him.”
Nothing is more deceptive than the laying down of general laws for our
emotions. Their web is so fine and intricate that the most cautious
speculation is hardly able to take up a single thread and trace it
through all its interlacings. And if it could, what should we gain?
There is in nature no single, unmixed emotion. With every one spring up
a thousand others, the most insignificant of which essentially modifies
the original one, so that exception after exception arises until our
supposed universal law shrinks into a mere personal experience in a few
individual cases. We despise a man, says the Englishman, whom we hear
crying out under bodily pain. But not always; not the first time; not
when we see that the sufferer does all in his power to suppress
expressions of pain; not when we know him to be otherwise a man of
resolution: still less when we see him giving proof of firmness in the
midst of his suffering; when we see that pain, though it extort a cry,
can extort nothing further; that he submits to a continuance of the
anguish rather than yield a jot of his opinions or resolves, although
such a concession would end his woes. All this we find in Philoctetes.
To the old Greek mind moral greatness consisted in unchanging love of
friends as well as unfaltering hatred of enemies. This greatness
Philoctetes preserves through all his tortures. His own griefs have not
so exhausted his tears that he has none to shed over the fate of his old
friends. His sufferings have not so enervated him that, to be free from
them, he would forgive his enemies and lend himself to their selfish
ends. And did this man of rock deserve to be despised by the Athenians,
because the waves, that could not shake him, wrung from him a moan?
I confess to having little taste for the philosophy of Cicero in
general, but particularly distasteful to me are his views with regard to
the endurance of bodily pain set forth in the second book of his
Tusculan Disputations. One would suppose, from his abhorrence of all
expressions of bodily pain, that he was training a gladiator. He seems
to see in such expressions only impatience, not considering that they
are often wholly involuntary, and that true courage can be shown in none
but voluntary actions. In the play of Sophocles he hears only the cries
and complaints of Philoctetes and overlooks altogether his otherwise
resolute bearing. Else what excuse for his rhetorical outbreak against
the poets? “They would make us effeminate by introducing the bravest of
their warriors as complaining.” They should complain, for the theatre is
no arena. The condemned or hired gladiator was bound to do and bear with
grace. No sound of lamentation must be heard, no painful contortion
seen. His wounds and death were to amuse the spectators, and art must
therefore teach the suppression of all feeling. The least manifestation
of it might have aroused compassion, and compassion often excited would
soon have put an end to the cruel shows. But what is to be avoided in
the arena is the very object of the tragic stage, and here, therefore,
demeanor of exactly the opposite kind is required. The heroes on the
stage must show feeling, must express their sufferings, and give free
course to nature. Any appearance of art and constraint represses
sympathy. Boxers in buskin can at most excite our admiration. This term
may fitly be applied to the so-called Senecan tragedies. I am convinced
that the gladiatorial shows were the chief reason why the Romans never
attained even to mediocrity in their tragedies. In the bloody
amphitheatre the spectators lost all acquaintance with nature. A Ctesias
might have studied his art there, never a Sophocles. The greatest tragic
genius, accustomed to these artificial death scenes, could not help
degenerating into bombast and rodomontade. But as these were incapable
of inspiring true heroism, so were the complaints of Philoctetes
incapable of producing effeminacy. The complaints are human, while the
deeds are heroic. Both together make the human hero, who is neither
effeminate nor callous, but appears first the one and then the other, as
now Nature sways him, and now principle and duty triumph. This is the
highest type that wisdom can create and art imitate.
4. Sophocles, not content with securing his suffering Philoctetes
against contempt, has even shielded him beforehand from such hostile
criticism as that employed by the Englishman. Though we may not always
despise a man who cries out under bodily pain, we certainly do not feel
that degree of sympathy with him which his cry seems to demand. How then
should those comport themselves who are about this screaming
Philoctetes? Should they appear to be greatly moved? That were contrary
to nature. Should they seem as cold and embarrassed as the by-stander on
such occasions is apt actually to be? Such a want of harmony would
offend the spectator. Sophocles, as I have said, anticipated this and
guarded against it in the following way,—he gave to each of the
by-standers a subject of personal interest. They are not solely occupied
with Philoctetes and his cries. The attention of the spectator,
therefore, is directed to the change wrought in each person’s own views
and designs by the sympathy excited in him, whether strong or weak, not
to the disproportion between the sympathy itself and its exciting cause.
Neoptolemus and the chorus have deceived the unhappy Philoctetes, and
while perceiving the despair they are bringing upon him they behold him
overpowered by one of his accesses of pain. Even should this arouse no
great degree of sympathy in them, it must at least lead them to
self-examination and prevent their increasing by treachery a misery
which they cannot but respect. This the spectator looks for; nor is his
expectation disappointed by the magnanimous Neoptolemus. Had Philoctetes
been master of his suffering, Neoptolemus would have persevered in his
deceit. Philoctetes, deprived by pain of all power of dissimulation,
necessary as that seems to prevent his future travelling companion from
repenting too soon of his promise to take him with him, Philoctetes, by
his naturalness, recalls Neoptolemus to nature. The conversion is
admirable, and all the more affecting for being brought about by unaided
human nature. The Frenchman had recourse again here to the bright eyes.
“De mes déguisements que penserait Sophie?” says the son of Achilles.
But I will think no more of this parody.
Sophocles, in “The Trachiniæ,” makes use of this same expedient of
combining in the by-standers another emotion with the compassion excited
by a cry of physical pain. The pain of Hercules has no enervating
effect, but drives him to madness. He thirsts for vengeance, and, in his
frenzy, has already seized upon Lichas and dashed him in pieces against
the rock. The chorus is composed of women who are naturally overpowered
with fear and horror. Their terror, and the doubt whether a god will
hasten to Hercules’ relief, or whether he will fall a victim to his
misfortune, make the chief interest of the piece with but a slight tinge
of compassion. As soon as the issue has been decided by the oracle,
Hercules grows calm, and all other feelings are lost in our admiration
of his final decision. But we must not forget, when comparing the
suffering Hercules with the suffering Philoctetes, that one is a
demi-god, the other but a man. The man is never ashamed to complain; but
the demi-god feels shame that his mortal part has so far triumphed over
his immortal, that he should weep and groan like a girl.[29] We moderns
do not believe in demi-gods, but require our most insignificant hero to
feel and act like one.
That an actor can imitate the cries and convulsions of pain so closely
as to produce illusion, I neither deny nor affirm. If our actors cannot,
I should want to know whether Garrick found it equally impossible; and,
if he could not succeed, I should still have the right to assume a
degree of perfection in the acting and declamation of the ancients of
which we of to-day can form no idea.