Pope has imitated and illustrated this passage.
Be Homer's works your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upwards to their spring.
Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse!
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse!
_Essay on Criticism._
404.--A KIND OF TRAGICK ODE, UNKNOWN BEFORE,
THESPIS, 'TIS SAID, INVENTED FIRST.
IGNOTUM _Tragicae_ GENUS INVENISSE _Camaenae_
_Dicitur, &c._
It is surprising that Dacier, who, in a controversial note, in
refutation of Heinsius, has so properly remarked Horace's adherence to
Aristotle, should not have observed that his history of the Drama opens
and proceeds nearly in the same order. Aristotle indeed does not name
Thespis, but we cannot but include his improvements among the changes,
to which the Critick refers, before Tragedy acquired a permanent form
under _AEschylus_. Thespis seems not only to have embodied _the_ CHORUS,
but to have provided a theatrical apparatus for an itinerant exhibition;
to have furnished disguises for his performers, and to have broken the
continuity of _the_ CHORUS by an _Interlocutor_; to whom AEschylus
adding another personage, thereby first created Dramatick Dialogue;
while at the same time by a _further diminution of the_ CHORUS, by
improving the dresses of the actors, and drawing them from their
travelling waggon to a fixt stage, he created _a regular theatre_.
It appears then that neither Horace, nor Aristotle, ascribe _the origin_
of Tragedy to Thespis. the Poet first mentions the rude beginning of
Tragedy, (_carmen tragicum_) _the_ Goat-song; he then speaks of _the
Satyrick Chorus_, soon after interwoven with it; and then proceeds
to the _improvements_ of these Bacchic Festivities, by Thespis, and
AEschylus; though their perfection and final establishment is ascribed
by Aristotle to Sophocles. Dacier very properly renders this passage,
_On dit que Thespis fut le premier jui inventa une especi de tragedie
auparavant inconnue aux Grecs._ Thespis is said to be the first inventor
of a species of Tragedy, before unknown to the Greeks.
Boileau seems to have considered this part of the Epistle in the same
light, that I have endeavoured to place it.
La Tragedie informe & grossiere au naissant
n'etoit qu'un simple Choeur, ou chacun en danfant,
et du Dieu des Raisins entonnant les louanges,
s'essorçoit d'attirer de fertiles vendanges.
la le vin et la joie eveillant les esprits,
_du plus habile chantre un Bouc étoit le prix._
Thespis sut le premier, qui barbouillé de lie,
promena par les bourgs cette heureuse folie;
et d'acteurs mal ornés chargeant un tombereau,
amusa les passans d'un spectacle nouveau.
aeschyle dans le Choeur jetta les personages;
d'un masque plus honnéte habilla les visages:
sur les ais d'un Theatre en public exhaussé,
fit paroitre l'acteur d'un brodequin chaussé.