The dress of commiseration? You are the man for beggars! I kneel down in supplication to you, Euripides. Give me the rags of one of your old plays; I have a long speech to make to the chorus, And if I do not succeed I must expect death. Euripides. What rags do you want? Those in which old neus, Dikaiopolis. No, it was not Œneus, but a person still more wretched. Euripides. Not Bellerophon. The man I mean Was lame, demanded alms, garrulous, and bold of speech. Dikaiopolis (clothing himself in them). O Jupiter, who lookest down on, and seest through everything, 415 420 425 430 435 Assist me in equipping myself most miserably. Euripides, as you have favoured me with these, Give me also the concomitants of the rags: The little Mysian cap to put upon my head; For to-day I must look like a beggar, 440 Yet still remain who I am, though I do not appear so.t The spectators must know who I am, But the chorus stand round like fools, That I may tickle them with my rhetorical flowers. * Allusion to the holes in the mantle, while he holds it up against the light. †These two lines, and line 446, are taken from the tragedy of Telephus. Euripides. I will give it to you; for your contrivance is admirable. Dikaiopolis. Hail to thee, Telephus! as far as I can perceive, It succeeds: already I feel myself filling with elegancies of expression. But I still want the beggar's staff. Euripides. Here, take it, and depart from these stone posts. Dikaiopolis. O my mind, thou seest how I am driven from this habitation In want of many little things. Become now Tough and obstinate in beggary and praying. Euripides, Give me a little basket in which a hole has been burnt by the lanthorn. Euripides. What occasion hast thou, O wretched man, for this basket? Dikaiopolis. No occasion at all, but still I wish to take it. Euripides. Begone now, leave the house, you become importunate. There take it and begone. Know that you are now troublesome. Dikaiopolis. Thou knowest not, by Zeus, the evils which thou occasionest, But O! sweetest Euripides, still one thing yet, Give me a little pot filled with fungi. 445 450 455 460 465 But what am I to do? I must still have one thing, or if I have it not, I am ruined. Hear me, O sweetest Euripides! When I have this I shall be gone, and not tease you longer.† Give me the refuse cabbage leaves in the basket.+ Euripides. You ruin me. See there! My whole play has disappeared. A poor retailer of vegetables. †This line is omitted in the German translation.-TRANS. 470 This and line 479 allude to the employment of the mother of Euripides. 130 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERAture. Dikaiopolis (appearing as if he wished to go.) May I perish miserably, but I must still beg one thing from you, Give me the chervil which you inherited from your mother. Euripides. The man is insulting me-shut the door on him. 475 (The Encyclema shuts, and Euripides and Kephisophon retire O my mind, we must proceed without the chervil, Why dost thou hesitate? hast thou not devoured Euripides? 480 485 In readiness for the block, saying what seems best to thee. LECTURE VII. Whether the middle comedy was a distinct species-Origin of the new comedy -A mixed species-Its prosaic character-Whether versification is essential to comedy-Subordinate kinds-Pieces of character, and of intrigue-The comic of observation, of self-consciousness, and arbitrary comic-Morality of comedy-Plautus and Terence as imitators of the Greeks here cited and characterized for want of the originals-Moral and social aim of the Attic comedy Statues of two comic authors. THE ancient critics mention the existence of a middle comedy, between the new and the old. Its distinctive peculiarities are variously stated: at one time in the abstinence from personal satire, and the introduction of real characters, and at another time in the dismissal of the chorus. The introduction of real persons under their true names was at no time an indispensable requisite. We find characters in many pieces, even of Aristophanes, in no respect historical, but altogether fictitious, with significant names in the manner of the new comedy, and personal satire is only occasionally resorted to. The right of personal satire was no doubt essential to the old comedy, as I have already attempted to show; and by losing this right the comic writers were no longer enabled to throw ridicule on public actions and the state. When they confined themselves to private life, the chorus ceased to have any longer a signification. An accidental circumstance contributed to accelerate its removal. The dress and instruction of the chorus required a great out-lay; but when comedy came to forfeit its political privileges, and consequently also its festal dignity, and was degraded to a mere source of amusement, the poet found no longer any rich patrons to defray the expense of the chorus. Platonius gives us still another trait of the middle comedy. On account of the danger of alluding to public affairs, the comic writers, he says, had turned all their powers of satire against serious poetry, both epic and tragic, and exposed its absurdities and contradictions; and the Eolosikon of Aristophanes, which was written at a late period of his life, was of such a kind. This description involves the idea of parody, which we included under the old comedy at our commencement. Platonius gives us the Clysses of Cratinus, a burlesque of the Odyssey, as an instance. But no play of Cratinus could, in the order of time, belong to the middle comedy; for his death is mentioned by Aristophanes in his Peace. And as to the drama of Eupolis, in which he described what is called by us a Utopia, or lubberly land, what else was it but a parody of the poetical tales of the golden age? Are not the ascent to heaven of Trygæus, and the descent to hell of Bacchus in Aristophanes, ludicrous imitations of the deeds of Bellerophon and Hercules, sung in epic and tragic poetry? Many other parodies of tragic scenes might be mentioned. In the limitation to this peculiarity, we shall in vain seek for a real and distinct line of separation. The frolicsome caprice, and allegoric signification of the composition are, poetically considered, the only essential peculiarities of the old comedy. Wherever we find them, we shall rank the work in this class, in whatever times, and under whatever circumstances, it may have been composed. As the new comedy arose merely from the interdiction of the old, that is, the depriving it of its political freedom, we may easily conceive that an interval of vacillation, and endeavours to supply its place, would take place before a new comic form could be developed and fully established. Hence there may have been several kinds of the middle comedy, several gradations between the old and the new; and in this opinion some men of learning have concurred. This is therefore a matter of historical certainty; but in a technical point of view, a transition is not a separate kind. We proceed therefore immediately to the new comedy, the species of poetry which with us receives the appellation of comedy. I imagine that we shall form a more correct notion of this species, if we consider it in connexion with the history of art, and from an examination of its various ingredients pronounce it mixed and conditional, than if we were to term it an original and pure species, as is done by those who either care nothing for the old comedy, or consider it as a mere rude commencement. Hence the infinite importance of Aristophanes, as we have in him what there is no other example of in the world. The new comedy may, in certain respects, be described as the old, in a tamed state, but in productions of genius, tameness is not generally considered as praise. The new comic writers endeavoured to supply the place of the unconditional freedom of satire and gaiety, which was lost by a mixture of seriousness borrowed from tragedy, both in the form of the representation and general developement, and in the impressions which they laboured to produce. We have seen that tragic poetry, in its last epoch, descended from its ideal elevation, and approached near to common reality, both in the characters and in the tone of the dialogue, but more especially in the endeavour after practical instruction respecting the manner in which civil and domestic life might best be regulated. This attempt at utility in Euripides was ironically praised by Aristophanes.* Euripides was the precursor of the new comedy; and the poets of this species have The Frogs, v. 971-991. |