Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature by August Wilhelm Schlegel (classic books to read TXT) 📖

and in the mild tone which prevails throughout, we may trace an approximation to the Middle Comedy. The Old Comedy indeed had not yet received its death-blow from a formal enactment, but even at this date Aristophanes may have deemed it prudent to avoid a full exercise of the democratic privilege of comedy. It has even been said (perhaps without any foundation, as the circumstance has been denied by others) that Alcibiades ordered Eupolis to be drowned on account of a piece which he had aimed at him. Dangers of this description would repress the most ardent zeal of authorship: it is but fair that those who seek to afford pleasure to their fellow-citizens should at least be secure of their life.


APPENDIX TO THE TWELFTH LECTURE.

As we do not, so far as I know, possess as yet a satisfactory poetical translation of Aristophanes, and as the whole works of this author must, for many reasons, ever remain untranslatable, I have been induced to lay before my readers the scene in the Acharnians where Euripides makes his appearance; not that this play does not contain many other scenes of equal, if not superior merit, but because it relates to the character of this tragedian as an artist, and is both free from indecency, and, moreover, easily understood.

The Acharnians, country-people of Attica, who have greatly suffered from the enemy, are highly enraged at Dikaiopolis for concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle of the back scene.

DIKAIOPOLIS. 'Tis time I pluck up all my courage then, And pay a visit to Euripides. Boy, boy!

CEPHISOPHON.
Who's there?

DIKAIOPOLIS.
Is Euripides within?

CEPHISOPHON. Within, and not within: Can'st fathom that?

DIKAIOPOLIS. How within, yet not within?

CEPHISOPHON.
'Tis true, old fellow. His mind is out collecting dainty verses, [1] And not within. But he's himself aloft Writing a tragedy.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
Happy Euripides, Whose servant here can give such witty answers. Call him.

CEPHISOPHON.
It may not be.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
I say, you must though - For hence I will not budge, but knock the door down. Euripides, Euripides, my darling! [2] Hear me, at least, if deaf to all besides. 'Tis Dikaiopolis of Chollis calls you.

EURIPIDES.
I have not time.

DIKAIOPOLIS. At least roll round. [3]

EURIPIDES.
I can't. [4]

DIKAIOPOLIS.
You must.

EURIPIDES. Well, I'll roll round. Come down I can't; I'm busy.

DIKAIOPOLIS. Euripides!

EURIPIDES.
What would'st thou with thy bawling.

DIKAIOPOLIS What! you compose aloft and not below. No wonder if your muse's bantlings halt. Again, those rags and cloak right tragical, The very garb for sketching beggars in! But sweet Euripides, a boon, I pray thee. Give me the moving rags of some old play; I've a long speech to make before the Chorus, And if I falter, why the forfeit's death.

EURIPIDES. What rags will suit you? Those in which old Oeneus, That hapless wight, went through his bitter conflict?

DIKAIOPOLIS. Not Oeneus, no, - but one still sorrier.

EURIPIDES. Those of blind Phoenix?

DIKAIOPOLIS.
No, not Phoenix either; But another, more wretched still than Phoenix

EURIPIDES. Whose sorry tatters can the fellow want? 'Tis Philoctetes' sure! You mean that beggar.

DIKAIOPOLIS. No; but a person still more beggarly.

EURIPIDES. I have it. You want the sorry garments Bellerophon, the lame man, used to wear.

DIKAIOPOLIS. No, - not Bellerophon. Though the man I mean Was lame, importunate, and bold of speech.

EURIPIDES. I know, 'Tis Telephus the Mysian.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
Right. Yes, Telephus: lend me his rags I pray you.

EURIPIDES. Ho, boy! Give him the rags of Telephus. There lie they; just upon Thyestes' rags, And under those of Ino.

CEPHISOPHON.
Here! take them.

DIKAIOPOLIS ( putting them on ). Now Jove! who lookest on, and see'st through all, [5] Your blessing, while thus wretchedly I garb me. Pr'ythee, Euripides, a further boon, It goes, I think, together with these rags: The little Mysian bonnet for my head; "For sooth to-day I must put on the beggar, And be still what I am, and yet not seem so." [6] The audience here may know me who I am, But like poor fools the chorus stand unwitting, While I trick them with my flowers of rhetoric.

EURIPIDES. A rare device, i'faith! Take it and welcome.

DIKAIOPOLIS. "For thee. my blessing; for Telephus, my thoughts." [7] 'Tis well; already, words flow thick and fast. Oh! I had near forgot - A beggar's staff, I pray.

EURIPIDES. Here, take one, and thyself too from these doors.

DIKAIOPOLIS. ( Aside .) See'st thou, my soul, - he'd drive thee from his door Still lacking many things. Become at once A supple, oily beggar. ( Aloud .) Good Euripides, Lend me a basket, pray; - though the bottom's Scorch'd, 'twill do.

EURIPIDES.
Poor wretch! A basket? What's thy need on't?

DIKAIOPOLIS. No need beyond the simple wish to have it.

EURIPIDES. You're getting troublesome. Come pack - be off.

DIKAIOPOLIS. ( Aside .) Faugh! Faugh! ( Aloud .) May heaven prosper thee as - thy good mother. [8]

EURIPIDES. Be off, I say!

DIKAIOPOLIS.
Not till thou grant'st my prayer. Only a little cup with broken rim.

EURIPIDES. Take it and go; for know you're quite a plague.

DIKAIOPOLIS. ( Aside .) Knows he how great a pest he is himself? ( Aloud .) But, my Euripides! my sweet! one thing more: Give me a cracked pipkin stopped with sponge.

EURIPIDES. The man would rob me of a tragedy complete. There - take it, and begone.

DIKAIOPOLIS. Well! I am going. Yet what to do? One thing I lack, whose want Undoes me. Good, sweet Euripides! Grant me but this, I'll ask no more, but go - Some cabbage-leaves - a few just in my basket!

EURIPIDES. You'll ruin me. See there! A whole play's gone!

DIKAIOPOLIS ( seemingly going off ). Nothing more now. I'm really off. I am, I own, A bore, wanting in tact to please the great. Woe's me! Was ever such a wretch? Alas! I have forgot the very chiefest thing of all. Hear me, Euripides, my dear! my darling. Choicest ills betide me! if e'er I ask Aught more than this; but one - this one alone: Throw me a pot-herb from thy mother's stock.

EURIPIDES. The fellow would insult me - shut the door. ( The Encyclema revolves, and Euripides and Cephisophon retire .)

DIKAIOPOLIS. Soul of me, thou must go without a pot-herb! Wist thou what conflict thou must soon contend in To proffer speech and full defence for Sparta? Forward, my soul! the barriers are before thee. What, dost loiter? hast not imbibed Euripides? And yet I blame thee not. Courage, sad heart! And forward, though it be to lay thy head Upon the block. Rouse thee, and speak thy mind. Forward there! forward again! bravely heart, bravely.


NOTES

[1] The Greek diminutive epullia is here correctly expressed by the German verschen , but versicle would not be tolerated in English. - TRANS.

[2] Euripidion - in the German Euripidelein. - TRANS.

[3] A technical expression from the Encyclema, which was thrust out.

[4] Euripides appears in the upper story; but as in an altana, or sitting to an open gallery.

[5] Alluding to the holes in the mantle which he holds up to the light.

[6] These lines are from Euripides' tragedy of Telephus .

[7] An allusion (which a few lines lower is again repeated) to his mother as a poor retailer of vegetables.

[8] See previous footnote.


LECTURE XIII.

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 characterised for want of the Originals - Moral and social aim of the Attic Comedy - Statues of two Comic Authors.


Ancient critics assume the existence of a Middle Comedy , between the Old and the New . Its distinguishing characteristics are variously described: by some its peculiarity is made to consist in the abstinence from personal satire and introduction of real characters, and by others in the abolition of the chorus. But the introduction of real persons under their true names was never an indispensable requisite. Indeed, in several, even of Aristophanes' plays, we find characters in no respect historical, but altogether fictitious, but bearing significant names, after the manner of the New Comedy; while personal satire is only occasionally employed. This right of personal satire was no doubt, as I have already shown, essential to the Old Comedy, and the loss of it incapacitated the poets from throwing ridicule on public actions and affairs of state. When accordingly they