whom sighs with quite modern plaintiveness over the heavy burden of his
love for a certain κοσμία ἑταίρα:
τίς ἦν ὁ γράψας πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων ἄρα
ἢ κηροπλαστήσας Ἔρωθ’ ὑπόπτερον;
ὡς οὐδὲν ᾔδει πλὴν χελιδόνας γράφειν,
ἀλλ’ ἦν ἄπειρος τῶν τρόπων τῶν τοῦ θεοῦ.
ἔστιν γὰρ οὔτε κοῦφος οὔτε ῥᾴδιος
ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῷ φέροντι τὴν νόσον,
βαρὺς δὲ κομιδῇ· πῶς ἂν οὖν ἔχοι πτερά
τοιοῦτο πρᾶγμα; λῆρος, εἰ καὶ φησί τις.
(_Fr._ 3 _ap._ Athen. xiii. 562C.)
Through the agency of the friend, who is evidently more of a man of the
world, the lovers meet at a supper party, which was probably at least a
_partie carrée_. Here the friend gives vent to various cynical remarks on
women:—
ὦ γαῖα κεραμί, τίς σε Θηρικλῆς ποτὲ
ἔτευξε κοίλης λαγόνος εὐρύνας βάθος;
ἦ που κατειδὼς τὴν γυναικείαν φύσιν
ὡς οὐχὶ μικροῖς ἥδεται ποτηρίοις.
(_Fr._ 2 _ap._ Athen. xi. 471 E.)
and, evidently a little sceptical as to the inviolable κοσμιότης of the
lady, makes various efforts to induce her to commit herself, either by
eating or drinking to excess[257] (_Fr._ 1, 5), or by displaying her
talents in a questionable “song and dance.” (_Fr._ 6.) His efforts seem,
however, to be unsuccessful, and at the end of the evening the hero is as
hopelessly in love as ever:—
ὡς δ’ ἐδείπνει κοσμίως, he exclaims,
οὐκ ὥσπερ ἄλλαι, τῶν πράσων ποιούμεναι
τολύπας, ἔσαττον τὰς γνάθους καὶ τῶν κρεῶν
ἀπέβρυκον αἰσχρῶς, ἀλλ’ ἑκάστου μικρὸν ἂν
ἀπεγέυεθ’ ὥσπερ παρθένος Μιλησία.
(_Fr._ 4 _ap._ Athen. xiii. 571 F.)
The _dénouement_ of this interesting little story we do not know; let us
hope it was a satisfactory one.
In the _Agonis_ of Alexis again, we find a girl remonstrating with her
mother, who wishes her to accept a rich but dissolute lover in preference
to the νεανίσκος of her choice.
ὦ μῆτερ, ἱκετεύω σε, μὴ ’πίσειέ μοι
τὸν Μισγόλαν· οὐ γὰρ κιθαρῳδός εἰμ’ ἐγώ.
The mother, however, insists, in spite of the young man’s professions of
(imaginary?) wealth (_Fr._ 2), in carrying off her daughter to the rich
lover’s house, where, however, the hero also manages to turn up and make
some cutting remarks on the family portraits (_Fr._ 3).[258] He then
succeeds in making the mother drunk (_Fr._ 4), and so, we are led to
believe—for the end is again veiled in obscurity—is enabled to elude her
vigilance.[259]
Further evidence as to the character of this style of art may be obtained
by studying several of the plays of Plautus, such as the _Truculentus_,
the _Mercator_, or the _Mostellaria_, which seem to have been adapted
directly from Greek works of this class, without being in any way
influenced by the later romantic ideas.
But while the incidents which occur in the individual plays are naturally
of an endless variety, certain broad features are recognisable throughout
this literature.
Firstly, not only is love for an Hetaera enthusiastically praised, but
it is specially described as the one love in life worth loving. The
advantage of the Hetaera over the wife is such a stock subject, that
it will be unnecessary to do more than mention one or two of the most
striking passages in which the feeling finds expression, such as that
cited in Athenaeus, xiii. 559 A, from the _Athamas_ of Amphis:
εἶτ’ οὐ γυναικός ἐστιν εὐνοϊκώτερον
γαμετῆς ἑταίρα; πολύ γε καὶ μάλ’ εἰκότως.
ἡ μὲν νόμῳ γὰρ καταφρονοῦσ’ ἔνδον μένει,
ἡ δ’ οἶδεν ὅτι ἢ τοῖς τρόποις ὠνητέος
ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν ἢ πρὸς ἄλλον ἀπιτέον.
or that quoted in the same place from the _Corinthiastes_ of Philetaerus:
ὡς τακερόν, ὦ Ζεῦ, καὶ μαλακὸν τὸ βλέμμ’ ἔχει.
οὐκ ἐτὸς ἑταίρας ἱερόν ἐστι πανταχοῦ,
ἀλλ’ οὐχὶ γαμετῆς οὐδαμοῦ τῆς Ἑλλάδος.
But this is not all. The advantages of Hetaera-love over adultery are
expounded after a fashion that cannot fail to be startling to anyone who
has not formed a clear conception of what “love” meant in the Athens
of Demosthenes. A striking instance of this occurs in the _Nannion_
of Eubulus,[260] and the same idea is still further developed in the
_Pentathlus_ of Xenarchus.
As for that “love of a man for a maid,” which is, so to speak, the very
essence of the love-element in later Greek literature, it is simply
ignored in Middle Comedy. A girl that one is going to marry has all the
disadvantages of a wife, but for one thing. While the wife _in esse_ is,
as a later writer feelingly expresses it, “an immortal necessary evil,”
and, therefore, cannot be altogether escaped from, there is no need to
meet troubles halfway by drawing attention to the wife _in posse_. Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we marry; and while we do so, let us have no
Alexandrian skeleton at the feast to remind us of the fatal hour. And so,
if the question be asked, “What did the Middle Comedy writers think of
such love?” the answer is, “They did not think of it at all.”[261]
And this will serve to introduce us to a further question, in the answer
to which lies the key to the whole of this part of our subject. What
is actually meant by the “love” which we hear so often expressed for
these Hetaerae? The answer may be simple and brief: _ornari res ipsa
vetat, contenta doceri_: the love of the Middle Comedy is animal passion,
pure and simple; the Hetaera caters for the appetites of the time in
exactly the same way, even if in a different sphere, as the cook and the
fishmonger, of whom we also hear so much, both to praise and blame, in
this literature.[262] Of love in the modern sense of the word, of love as
distinct from lust, there is nowhere any suggestion in the writers of the
Middle Comedy. This fact is so patent to anyone who is familiar with the
plays of this period, that one may, perhaps, be spared the trouble of its
illustration. If anyone is inclined to doubt it, let him open the third
volume of Meineke’s _Comic Fragments_ at random, and read; he will soon
be satisfied.
When this is the case, it is not surprising that we find “Platonic” love
held up to consistent ridicule during the time of the Middle Comedy. A
sufficiently striking example of this method is the passage quoted in
Athenaeus, xiii. 563 C, from the _Dithyrambus_ of Amphis:
τί φῄς; σὺ ταυτὶ προσδοκᾷς πείθειν ἐμέ,
ὡς ἔστ’ ἐραστὴς ὅστις, ὡραῖον φιλῶν,
τρόπων ἐραστής ἐστι, τὴν ὄψιν παρείς;
ἄφρων γ’ ἀληθῶς. κ.τ.λ.
[_Fr._ 2.]
But the clearest proof of all is that furnished by the fact that Plato
himself, and Sappho, whose style of love was, as we have already had
occasion to observe,[263] recognised as similar in spirit to that
advocated by the philosopher, are, perhaps, the two favourite butts
for the wit of the Middle Comedy. That the _Plato_ of Aristophon, like
the _Hedychares_ of Theopompus, of which we have already spoken, and
the _Sapphos_ of Antiphanes, Amphis, Ephippus, and Timocles, were, at
least some of them, in part devoted to this subject, it seems only
reasonable to believe, while sporadic allusions to the matter are,
of course, sufficiently common. The one possible exception to this
general rule appears in the _Helene_ of Alexis, where a character is
introduced upholding the Platonic view of love; but it would be bold,
in the face of so much evidence on the other side, to assert that this
isolated statement in any way indicates the general tone of the comedy in
question. It is far more likely that the champion of these views (perhaps
Theseus[264]) was made to see the error of his ways and repent his lost
opportunities before the play was out.
And akin in spirit to the above is the tendency, so common that it hardly
needs special illustration, to throw ridicule on the married state and on
family life in general.[265] When the man, who is called the originator
of the erotic element in Middle Comedy, can write words like these:
ὅστις γαμεῖν βουλεύετ’, οὐ βουλεύεται
ὀρθῶς, διότι βουλεύεται χοὔτω γαμεῖ,
(Anaxandrides, _Incert._ 1.)
and mean them, there can be little doubt as to the tendency of that
erotic element which he was the first to introduce. In fact, not only
is marriage a favourite subject of ridicule, but it is one on which the
writers of this period make some of their happiest remarks. There are few
things in Antiphanes as good as the passage in the _Philopator_, where
one man, meeting another, enquires after a friend, and hears that he has
got married.
τί σὺ λέγεις; he exclaims in horror. ἀληθινῶς
γεγάμηκεν, ὃν ἐγὼ ζῶντα περιπατοῦντά τε
κατέλιπον;
Alexis is seldom as amusing as when he proclaims (_Incert._ 34) marriage
worse than disfranchisement.
εἶτ’ οὐχὶ κρεῖττόν ἐστι τῷ γ’ ἔχοντι νοῦν
ἄτιμον εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ γυναῖκ’ ἔχειν;
πολλῷ γε· τοὺς μὲν γοῦν ἀτίμους οὐκ ἐᾷ
ἀρχὴν λαχόντας ὁ νόμος ἄρχειν τῶν πέλας·
ἐπὰν δὲ γήμῃς, οὐδὲ σαυτοῦ κύριον
ἔξεστιν εἶναι.
Such, then, is the erotic element of the Middle Comedy—the praise of
sensuality and the ridicule of all that is ennobling or virtuous. Alexis
tells us all when he says:
τὰς ἡδονὰς δεῖ συλλέγειν τὸν σώφρονα.
τρεῖς δ’ εἰσὶν αἵ γε τὴν δύναμιν κεκτημέναι
τὴν ὡς ἀληθῶς συντελοῦσαν τῷ βίῳ,
τὸ πιεῖν, τὸ φαγεῖν, τὸ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης τυγχάνειν.
τὰ δ’ ἄλλα προσθήκας ἅπαντα χρὴ καλεῖν.
(_Incert._ 31.)
_Processit Vesper Olympo._ It was time the Macedonian barbarians swept
all this away and made place for cleaner things.[266]
VIII. THE NEW COMEDY.
The feeling on passing from the Middle to the New Comedy is like the
fresh air on coming out of the bar of a public-house. The Middle Comedy
is the last decaying branch of the old literature; the romantic New
Comedy is one of the earliest and most vigorous offshoots of that new
literature which sprang from the genius of Antimachus, and has continued
to the present day. In the Middle Comedy, we are still face to face with
the women of typical Athens, with the women of Aristophanes, at best with
the women of Euripides,—and with the way in which typical Athens treated
these women; in the New Comedy this is changed, and woman—the woman that
can be loved as wife and mother—steps into her true place as object of,
and partner in, the intensest and the purest passions of which humanity
is capable.
It will be remembered that the Middle Comedy treatment, of women and love
for women, had four main characteristics.
(1) The glorification of the Hetaera and of love for the Hetaera.
(2) The purely sensual nature of the love thus extolled.
(3) The ridicule of all love that was not sensual.
(4) The ridicule of family-life.
The New Comedy flatly contradicts every one of these principles. The love
of which it treats is love for a _virgin_,[267] and the consummation of
this love is _marriage_. Such love is by no means purely sensual; indeed,
at times it is almost of a “Platonic” character. And lastly, not only
is the sanctity of marriage strictly insisted upon, and the advantages
of marriage as a system strongly maintained, but the family relations,
anyhow among the younger generation, are often of a very pleasant
character.
In fact, while the action of the Middle Comedy is concerned with a love,
the consummation of which is a temporary sensual gratification, the
action of the New Comedy is supplied by the efforts of its heroes and
their adherents, to secure that the love which occupies so much of their
thoughts may be made at once legitimate and permanent. It was New Comedy
that first introduced on the stage the love of a life, as opposed to
the love of an hour. If anyone were to ask what was the chief merit of
Menander, the answer would be that he was the first to show the Athenians
that “love for ever,” with which every poetaster and novel-reader has
now been familiar for so many centuries.
But the differences between the treatment of women in the new literature,
and that to which they were exposed in the literature we have just been
studying, will be most readily made clear if we proceed at once to the
detailed examination of the former.
The first and most prominent feature of the New Comedy treatment of the
love of men for women is its insistance on marriage—that is to say,
on a definite guarantee of permanence and constancy—as the one proper
consummation of such love. In fact, as we have already had occasion to
observe in another place, the idealisation of marriage is the basis of
Greek romance.[268]
This insistance on marriage is, of course, most strikingly exemplified
in the typical New Comedy plot, which is sufficiently familiar to every
student of the Latin comedians. Thus, in five of these Latin plays, the
_Heauton Timorumenos_ (of Menander), the _Phormio_ (of Apollodorus),
the _Rudens_ (of Diphilus), the _Curculio_, and the _Poenulus_,[269]
the story is of exactly the kind that subsequently appears in the Greek
novel—a young man falls in love with a virgin, and, after various
misfortunes which threaten to separate the pair, they are eventually
married, and live happily ever afterwards.
On this class of plot it is unnecessary to dwell, except that it may be
worth while just to draw attention to the extremely passionate nature
of the love which makes these young men so anxious to marry. The modern
reader would instinctively expect that the confinement of love to these
legitimate and, as one would now consider them, commonplace channels,
would inevitably lead to a lessening of its charm, and a diminution of
its force. As a matter of fact, the result was the very reverse. Not only
has the character of man’s love for woman changed, but this love has
developed an intensity of poetry and passion which has never belonged
to it before.[270] Instances are easy to find; the most striking one
is perhaps shown us at the meeting of Phaedromus and Planesium, in the
_Curculio_ (i. 3):
PL. tene me, amplectere ergo! PH. hoc etiam est quamobrem cupiam
vivere.
quia te prohibet herus, clam hero potior. PL. prohibet, nec prohibere
quit,
nec prohibebit, nisi mors meum animum abs te abalienaverit.
PH. sibi sua habeant regna reges, sibi divitias divites,
sibi honores sibi virtutes sibi pugnas sibi proelia!
dum mi abstineant invidere, sibi quisque habeant quod suum est![271]
But there are others, almost equally forcible, in the _Rudens_ (iv.
8)—where particular enthusiasm is expressed at the prospect of marriage,
as opposed to the relation which had previously been the lover’s highest
possible ideal,—the _Poenulus_ (v. 4, 49)[272], and elsewhere.
But another and equally important type of story is that in which the man
first seduces the woman, and then subsequently marries her. Plays of
this description are the _Andria_, the _Eunuchus_, the _Adelphi_ (all by
Menander), the _Aulularia_, and the _Cistellaria_.[273]
Of these, the _Cistellaria_ is different from the rest. Here, the girl
Silenium, who, though supposed to be the daughter of a _lena_, has been
brought up as a virgin (i. 3, 24), is induced by a promise of marriage to
live with the man Alcesimarchus, a promise which is afterwards fulfilled
only after a considerable delay. (i. 1, 90-100.) In the other four cases,
however—and this is very important—the promise of marriage is subsequent
to the seduction, and takes the form, not of an inducement to, but of a
reparation for the latter. The lover regards the seduction as a crime,
for which he is willing to make amends to the utmost of his power, while
at the same time he is anxious to perpetuate and legalise his amour.
He therefore adopts what we are accustomed in modern times to call an
“honourable course,” and offers marriage to the woman whom he has loved
and still loves. The importance of this feature is twofold—firstly,
the close association thus brought about between marriage and love of
the most “romantic” and unconventional description; and secondly, the
perpetuation and legalisation of a form of love which is obviously by
nature temporary and illegitimate. And thus the love-stories of the New
Comedy may be said to begin where those of the Middle Comedy end; while
the heroes of the latter are concerned with achieving the temporary
satisfaction of their sensual desires, the heroes of the former are
occupied in striving to make permanent atonement for the indiscretions
which such desires have led them to commit.
To quote instances of what has been said: in the _Andria_ the promise
of marriage is distinctly an act of reparation, which the lover feels
himself in duty bound to make. This is evident from the argument of
Sulpicius Apollinaris,[274] and from various passages in the play.[275]
The same is the case in the _Adelphi_.[276] Here Aeschinus, as soon as
he considers what he has done, comes to the mother of Pamphila, and
begs with tears to be allowed to marry her by way of reparation.[277]
In the _Aulularia_, the petition of Lyconides to the miser Euclio is
animated by a very similar spirit.[278] In the _Eunuchus_ (which is,
it must be remembered, the love-story of a boy of sixteen)[279], there
is no opportunity for any such behaviour on the part of Chaerea, though
his sincere regret (ii. 3, 33 _seqq._), and his enthusiasm when the
possibility of marriage becomes apparent (v. 8, 1 _seqq._), show clearly
enough that he is not intended to be an exception to the general rule.
It must not, however, be supposed that the feeling, which prompts the
various characters of whom we have spoken to make reparation for their
wrongdoing, is merely a feeling of repentance, or a regard for public
opinion. It is love, and love of a most passionate kind, that makes them
so anxious to marry the women they have wronged. Of the enthusiasm of
the hero of the _Eunuchus_ at the prospect of marriage we have already
spoken; in the _Adelphi_, Aeschinus is equally elated under similar
circumstances;[280] in the _Aulularia_, the anxiety and persistency
of Lyconides are evidently inspired by the same feeling;[281] in the
_Andria_, Pamphilus protests that nothing short of death will divide him
from Glycerium.[282] That love which the Middle Comedy could not conceive
of as outliving its sensual gratification, appears in the New Comedy, not
weakened, but strengthened by time, and obstacles only serve to make the
lover more determined to perpetuate and to legalise those emotions which
had, to a previous generation, owed their chief charm to their freedom
from the restraints of constancy and propriety.
In the _Hecyra_ again, it is by marriage that, through a strange
coincidence, the hero is eventually able to repair the wrong done to the
heroine. In the _Stichus_, too, the plot turns on the constancy of two
wives to their absent husbands,[283] while, in the _Trinummus_, there
seems strong reason to believe, that it is not all love for Lesbonicus
which makes Lysiteles so anxious to marry the former’s sister.[284]
To this evidence from the plays themselves may be added some further
evidence of a more general kind. Marriage is mentioned by the anonymous
author of the epigram in the _C. I. G._ 6083, as the most characteristic
feature of Menander’s plays—
φαιδρὸν ἑταῖρον Ἔρωτος ὁρᾷς, σειρῆνα θεάτρων,
τόνδε Μένανδρον, ἀεὶ κρᾶτα πνκαζόμενον,
οὕνεκ’ ἄρ’ ἀνθρώπους ἱλαρὸν βίον ἐξεδίδαξεν,
ἡδύνας σκηνὴν δράμασι πᾶσι γάμῳ.
Still more emphatic is the testimony of Plutarch, who asserts (_Sympos._
vii. 712 C) that Menander is peculiarly suited for married men to hear
and read—
ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ παρ’ αὐτῷ καιρὸν πεπωκόσιν ἀνθρώποις καὶ
ἀναπαυσαμένοις μετὰ μικρὸν ἀπιοῦσι παρὰ τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας ...
αἵ τε φθοραὶ τῶν παρθένων εἰς γάμον ἐπιεικῶς καταστρέφουσι.
κ.τ.λ.
Indeed, the essentially “proper” character of the Menandrean drama
is emphasised by more than one ancient writer. That Comedy could be
anything but indecent was a revelation to Athens of the fourth century,
and it was a revelation for which she does not seem to have been
particularly grateful; but the fact that it was a writer whose works were
fit “pueris virginibusque legi,” who revolutionized the dramatic art, is
one that a modern student of that revolution cannot afford to forget.[285]
Two of the plays mentioned above, the _Hecyra_ and the _Stichus_, lead
naturally to the consideration of another feature of the New Comedy
treatment of marriage—a feature which, though less strongly marked than
that of which we have just been speaking, is yet, if one considers
what Greek feeling had previously been on this matter, perhaps even
more remarkable. Not only is marriage held up as the lover’s ideal,
but the actual married state is described as a state of happiness, and
married people, even those who have been married for some time, are
introduced to us as strongly attached to one another. How complete a
revolution in Greek feeling such a state as this implies, need hardly
be emphasised.[286] Yet, in the _Stichus_, we have a plot based on the
determination of two women to remain faithful to their husbands (who
have been absent for three years) in spite of the efforts of their
father to induce them to do otherwise; they insist on remaining faithful,
though their husbands are poor (Plaut. _Stich._ i. 2, 75 _seqq._), and
though they are uncertain whether their devotion is returned (i. 1, 36
_seqq._). In the _Hecyra_ again, it is the behaviour of Philumena after
marriage which wins her husband’s heart (Ter. _Hec._ i. 2, 85 _seqq._)—a
remarkably modern form of love-story.
Various fragments, too, of Menander have a similar import, such as the
famous passage from the _Misogynes_ on the advantages of marriage—
ἐλθόντ’ εἰς νόσον
τὸν ἔχοντα ταύτην ἐθεράπευσεν ἐπιμελῶς,
ἀτυχοῦντι συμπαρέμεινεν, ἀποθανόντα τε
ἔθαψε, περιέστειλεν οἰκείως. (_Fr._ 1, 9.)
or Menand. _Incert._ 73, where the husband takes up the cudgels in his
wife’s behalf. _Incert._ 101, again, dwells on the close relationship
existing between man and wife—
οἰκεῖον οὕτως οὐδέν ἐστιν, ὦ Λάχης,
ἐὰν σκοπῇ τις, ὡς ἀνήρ τε καὶ γυνή,
_Incert._ 100 points out that a wife must rule her husband by love—
ἕν ἐστ’ ἀληθὲς φίλτρον, εὐγνώμων τρόπος.
τούτῳ κατακρατεῖν ἀνδρὸς εἴωθεν γυνή,
and a careful reader will have no difficulty in finding other more or
less important examples of the same spirit, both in Menander and in the
Latin Comedians.
One important exception there is, of course, to this state of affairs,
and that is the relation between the old men and their wives. The types
of the hen-pecked husband and the Xanthippe-like wife are too familiar
to need illustration. But here it is to be observed, that the husbands
who appear in this position, are always old or elderly men, and this
fact is probably not without its significance. In describing his elderly
married men as unhappy, Menander was ridiculing, not marriage, but the
_mariages de convenance_ which had, before his time, been the regular
thing at Athens. “These men are unhappy,” says Menander, “not because
they are married, but because they have married wives whom they never
loved, and whom they chose merely because of their money, or to please
their relations. If they had married for love, the case might well
have been different.” And thus the hen-pecked husband, who belongs to
the old _régime_, is only a further argument in favour of the romantic
love-matches of which Menander approved.
Of course the matter did not stop here. It was so easy to raise a laugh
with a row between husband and wife, that Comedy was sure not to abandon
the subject, even after its _raison d’être_ had disappeared; and a modern
audience, we know, is just as ready to laugh at the husband who has lost
his latch-key as were the Athenians of the fourth century. But the point
to be remembered is, that a pair of characters like Chremes and Sostrata
in the _Heauton Timorumenus_, or Laches and Sostrata in the _Hecyra_,
furnishes no real argument against the view that Menander and his
followers of the New Comedy regarded marriage, if properly entered upon,
as a state of happiness.
Another exception, and one that is perhaps in reality a more important
one, is furnished by Menander’s _Misogynes_, a work which gained very
great popularity, doubtless owing to the way in which it appealed to the
lower instincts of the audience whom its author was trying to educate
up; but here it has to be observed that, in the first place, as the
play is lost, it is impossible to say what the actual _dénouement_ was;
while, secondly, there was no reason why a man of Menander’s versatile
genius should not for once treat the subject of married life in an
unusual manner, without in any way abandoning his general views on the
subject.[287]