The Eumenides of Aeschylus, however, was not well-named, for the Eumenides do not suffer. More satisfactory is the title Orestes, employed by Euripides. Thus it appears that to plays with the same subject-matter different names have been given. All arts are rude at the start, and are refined by time. So I suppose that Thespis, the inventor of tragedy, used very simple action. Laertius says tragedies were originally acted by the chorus alone. After Thespis came Phrynichus, whose characters were called stupid by Aristophanes. Aeschylus followed with a more pompous style, but with little variety of plot, and little, if any, novelty; he showed simply one manner, tenor, and treatment. But the tragedy that can fill the spectator, and send him away satisfied, allows of more than one issue. Aristotle uses in this connection the expression TeрITÉтEα (reversal of fortune), the change or reversal being either in the fortune or in the plans of men. Thus persons or places are often accidentally recognized either by signs, or by omens, as in the case of Virgil's fated cakes, or by oracles. The whole sum of these fated events Aristotle calls ovoraσis (plot, inner structure); the confusion of affairs, déos (complication), for there is much complication; the dénouement, λvois (loosing); and the tie by which these two parts are joined Tapáßaois (deviation, digression).1 The outcome is either calamitous or associated with misfortune: joy of bad men turned to sorrow, grief of good men to joy, but with peril or injury from exile, judgment, carnage, or revenge. Let us now take note of the nature and technique of the chorus. If it is true, as said, that in the early plays the chorus was used instead of the flute to indicate the acts-and that it is true we have satisfactorily demonstrated in the First Book-then it is clear that plays were not then, as now, divided into five acts. In the Prometheus of Aeschylus the chorus certainly seems to be introduced two or three times, 1 Probably a misprint for μeráßaois, change or reverse, turning-point. though if you care to consider Io and Oceanus as a chorus, there are then five choric parts, as in the Agamemnon of the same author, the Hecuba of Euripides, the Philoctetes, Electra, and Oedipus at Colonos of Sophocles, and the Oedipus of Seneca. Now if there are five choruses there will be six acts, for each chorus follows its own act, and after the fifth chorus there will still be the sixth act, or the catastrophe. The Greeks customarily closed a play with a choric part, and Seneca closed one in that manner, but these were not regarded as choruses proper. Here let it be said that Seneca has no chorus in The Phoenician Women, and in six of his other plays four choruses only, which would give us the five acts. The closing chorus always points out, as a judge, what has been done, and adds its own judgment thereto. In the Philoctetes of Sophocles this part is so light as better to befit comedy; it is simply an exhortation to depart. In his Maidens of Trachis Sophocles has six choruses, in his Ajax only four properly so called, and in the Hippolytus Euripides seems actually to have introduced eight, and these so unequal that the first recited only nine lines; the second, eight; the third, many, intermingled with Phaedra's address; the fourth, many, with no interruption; the fifth, few; the sixth, many; the seventh, not many; the eighth, many. In the Alcestis there are also eight, not very unlike those just mentioned; in the Iphigenia in Tauris, apparently six; and in The Trojan Women it is hard to tell how many. Now the choral parts should be of suitable length: observe that the first chorus of Iphigenia in Tauris carries more than a hundred and fifty verses, and in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus you will find more than two hundred. Nor is one to forget that the subject-matter of the chorus is to be derived from the nature of the plot, either of the play as a whole, or of the circumstances of place, person, and the like, in the immediate context. This rule is best observed by Euripides, but is neglected by Sophocles. The chorus does not always sing, but sometimes speaks, either in con cert or through an individual. Thus we see them speak in iambics and engage in dialogues. So, on the other hand, we see the actors holding converse with the chorus and with each other in the kind of lines usually assigned to choruses. The dramatist may assign any measure that he pleases to the chorus. Sophocles preferred the anapaest, for in his extant works the trochee is rare, though you find it in Oedipus the King, where he uses it to close his play. Euripides and Aeschylus use the trochee more commonly. It is a custom of the chorus not yet mentioned to bring in two iambic verses after any long address. At the end of a play the anapaestic, acatalectic, tetrameters are most often used. The last trimeter is for the most part hypercatalectic, though this is not an invariable practice, as appears in the Iphigenia in Aulis. One poet very facetiously brought several of his plays to a close with the same sentiment in the same little verses: Τῶν δ ̓ ἀδυνάτων πόρον εὗρε θεὸς, 'But the god hath brought impossible things to pass. Such hath been the outcome of this affair.' You find these lines in his Alcestis, Andromache, Bacchae, and Helen. Again, the function of the chorus is manifold. Sometimes the chorus ministers comfort, sometimes it bewails; it also blames, 'predicts, expresses wonder, passes judgment, admonishes, learns that it may teach, makes choices, hopes, and doubts. In a word, its special function is to delineate character and express emotion. Aristotle denied the use of antistrophes to the tragic choruses because their office was not simple narration, but imitation. Hence those rules which we called nomes he refused to recognize as applying to them. Singing he conceded, but not the hypodorian and hypophrygian modes, because he held that harmonies of that sort did not well comport with the rules of song, which is the properest medium for the chorus. But because, as we said above, the peculiar function of the chorus is to delineate character, he thought the so-called phrygian mode, as most perfectly fitted for the representation of character, to be preëminently suited to the chorus. Again, Aristotle denied to the chorus the use of the hypodorian, because, as we remark in its own proper place, this was lofty and tranquil, and neither loftiness nor tranquility befits choruses. The citharists, on the other hand, preferred this mode to all others. To stage-action, as having to do with kings and heroes, he thought the hypodorian mode especially appropriate. But the phrygian suited more lowly persons, of whom choruses are made up. Their lowly station explains why their spirits stooped to sorrowful bewailings in songs which are averse to passionate agitation. The hypophrygian, on the contrary, went well with Bacchanalian bouts and brawls. Since, then, the chorus was an indifferent guardian-for so I interpret his kηdevτn's аπрактоs of the events and their results, a mode that is full of bustle, or, as the vulgar dolts have it, a killing mode, such as the hypodorian or hypophrygian, Aristotle thought not suited to it. You see a chorus professes only feelings of good-will toward all with whom it has to do. In short, Aristotle's precaution was that the song itself, by its very nature soft and gentle, should not be made harsh and stormy. That which was stated in our First Book as to the prologue, does not hold of a prologue in tragedy, for tragedy has not a separate prologue as has comedy, but it does hold of the part called protasis, a part of which we have an illustration in the Andria, a play of Terence. They say that Euripides was very particular to have this part and the argument recited, and it is certain that you do find such a prologue in many of his plays. However, in the Rhesusif indeed the Rhesus is his-there is no prologue. So much for the parts and the law and technique of tragedy, which, as we said, ought not to be simple, nor, on the other hand, unnatural. Aeschylus is blamed for the latter fault. For example, in a certain scene he has Achilles remain seated, and in another has Niobe concealed, without giving either anything to say. This was a mere trick, his rivals claim, to keep the spectators in suspense, and to keep them guessing what in the world was going to happen, or what would be said when once the silence was broken. Thus, as they add, the play would be kept going, though at the expense of an unpleasant disappointment. Here some one may object that the idea of pleasure is embodied in the definition of poetry, but that in tragedy are sorrow, grief, wailing, and misery, which cannot please. But to this it is to be said that pleasure does not reside in joy alone, but in everything fitted to instruct, and that the spectator does receive instruction. Thus a picture may contain ugly faces, but none the less do we look at it and enjoy it. Comedies were not all of one character, for provided they amused, nothing more was wanted. We have proof of this in Epicharmus, of whom, according to Horace, Plautus was a diligent imitator. If Apollodorus and Menander were like their imitator Terence, they certainly were too tame; hence the statement that in the judgment of the people Menander was often surpassed by Philemon is not improbable. In fact there were judges by whose decision the palm was given to the victor in those public contests where several poets competed. Hesiod says that he won in such a contest, and in the parabasis and epirrhema Aristophanes often expresses the hope of victory. In the annotations to the Peace of Aristophanes it is stated that the judges were called ῥαβδούχοι. Elsewhere we have stated that the judges in these contests were called aiovμvîrai,1 and I incline to the opinion of those who say that the former were a class of magistrates similar to the aediles or to the apparitors of the aediles, and that their business was to take care that nothing out of the way should occur among the spectators, 1I. 24. |