FOOTNOTES:

χωρὶς προνοίας γίνεται γὰρ οὐδὲ ἕν.

It is right to add that the authorship of these lines must be at least considered doubtful, and that their versification, as it now stands, is unworthy of the Attic drama.

By the middle of the fourth century before Christ the whole dramatic literature of the Athenians, both tragic and comic, was being penetrated with the Euripidean spirit. It is impossible not to notice in the style of these later playwrights either the direct influence of Euripides or else the operation of the laws of intellectual development he illustrated. We cannot, therefore, treat the Euripidean school with the definiteness applicable to that of Æschylus or Sophocles. At the same time it is certain that a son or a nephew bearing his name continued to exhibit his posthumous dramas.

A stronger instance of histrionic and dramatic talent transmitted through four generations is presented by the family ofCarkinus, some of whom were famous for mimetic dancing, while others contended in the theatre as playwrights. What we know about Carkinus and his children is chiefly derived from the satires of Aristophanes, who was never tired of abusing them. Their very name serves as a scarecrow, and the muse is invoked to keep them off the stage. To stir the rubbish-heap of obscure allusions and pedantic annotations, in order to discover which of the six Carkinidæ we know by name were poets, and which of them were dancers, is a weary task not worth the labor it involves. Suffice it to say that the grandson of Aristophanes's old butt, himself called Carkinus, produced the incredible number of 160 dramas, was three times mentioned with respect by Aristotle,[93]and has survived in comparatively copious quotations. One passage, though not very remarkable for poetical beauty, is interesting because it describes the wanderings of Demeter through Sicily in search of Persephone. Diodorus, who cites it from an unknown play, mentions that Carkinus frequently visited Syracuse and saw the processions in honor of Demeter.

About the Attic tragedians who lived during the old age of Aristophanes, the first thing to notice is that they may fairly be called the Epigoni of Euripides. Æschylus wasold-fashioned. The style of Sophocles did not lend itself to easy imitation. The psychological analyses, casuistical questions, rhetorical digressions, and pathetic situations wherein the great poet of theHippolytusdelighted were exactly suited to the intellectual tastes and temper of incipient decadence. A nation of philosophers and rhetoricians had arisen; and it is noteworthy that many of the playwrights of this period were either professed orators or statesmen. In his own lifetime Aristophanes witnessed the triumph of the principles against which he fought incessantly with all the weapons of the comic armory. Listen to the complaint of Dionysus in theFrogs:

H.But have not you other ingenious youthsThat are fit to out-talk Euripides ten times over—To the amount of a thousand, at least, all writing tragedy?D.They're good for nothing—"Warblers of the Grove"—"Little, foolish, fluttering things"—poor puny wretches,That dawdle and dangle about with the tragic muse,Incapable of any serious meaning.[94]

H.But have not you other ingenious youthsThat are fit to out-talk Euripides ten times over—To the amount of a thousand, at least, all writing tragedy?

D.They're good for nothing—"Warblers of the Grove"—"Little, foolish, fluttering things"—poor puny wretches,That dawdle and dangle about with the tragic muse,Incapable of any serious meaning.[94]

To translate the Greek for modern readers is not possible. The pith of the passage is found in this emphatic phrase, γόνιμον δὲ ποιητὴν ἂν οὐκ εὕροις ἔτι, "there's not a sound male poet capable of procreation left." Accordingly he vents his venom on Pythangelus, Gnesippus, Akestor, Hieronymus, Nothippus, Morychus, Sthenelus, Dorillus, Spintharus, and Theognis, without mercy. Not a single fragment remains to judge these wretched poets by. It is better to leave them in their obscuritythan to drag them forth into the dubious light of comic ribaldry.

Critias, the son of Callæschrus, the pupil of Socrates, who figures in so many scenes of Xenophon and Plato, and who played a memorable part in the political crisis of 404 B.C., was a tragic poet of some talent, if we are to accept a fragment from theSisyphusas his. Sextus Empiricus transcribed forty lines of this drama, setting forth the primitive conditions of humanity. First, says Critias, men began by living like the brutes, without rewards for virtue or punishment for vice. Mere might of hand prevailed. Then laws were framed and penalties affixed to crime. Open violence was thus repressed; but evil-doers flourished in secret. Fraud and hypocrisy took the place of force. To invent the dread of gods and to create a conscience was the next step taken by humanity. Then followed the whole scheme of religion, and with religion entered superstition, and men began to fear the thunder and to look with strange awe on the stars. The quotation is obviously imperfect: yet it may advantageously be compared with the speeches of Prometheus in Æschylus, and also with the speculations of Lucretius. The hypothesis of deliberate invention implied in the following phrases,

τηνικαῦτά μοιδοκεῖ πυκνός τις καὶ σοφὸς γνώμην ἀνὴργνῶναι θέον θνητοῖσιν,[95]

and τὸ θεῖον εἰσηγήσατο,[96]sufficed not only for antiquity, but also for those modern theorists who, like Locke, imagined that language was produced artificially by wise men in counsel, or who, like Rousseau and the encyclopedists, maintained that religions were framed by knaves to intimidate fools.

Cleophon demands a passing notice, because we learn from Aristotle[97]that he tried to reduce tragedy to the plain level of common life by using every-day language and not attempting to idealize his characters. The total destruction of his plays may be regretted, since it is probable that we should have observed in them the approximation of tragedy to comedy which ended finally in the new comic style of the Athenians. About Cleophon's contemporary, Nicomachus, of whom nothing is known except that he produced a great many tragedies on the stock subjects of mythology, nothing need be said. The case is somewhat different with a certain Diogenes who, while writing seven tragedies under the decorous titles ofThyestes,Helen,Medea, and so forth, nevertheless contrived to offend against all the decencies of civilized life. Later grammarians can hardly find language strong enough to describe their improprieties. Here is a specimen: ἀρρήτων ἀρρητότερα καὶ κακῶν πέρα, καὶ οὔτε ὅτι φῶ περὶ αὐτῶν ἀξίως ἔχω.... οὕτω πᾶσα μὲν αἰσχρότης, πᾶσα δὲ ἀπόνοια ἐν ἐκείναις τῷ ἀνδρὶ πεφιλοτέχνηται. To ascribe these impure productions to Diogenes the Cynic, in spite of his well-known contempt for literature, was a temptation which even the ancients, though better informed than we are, could not wholly resist. Yet, after much sifting of evidence, it may be fairly believed that there were two Diogeneses—the one an Athenian, who wrote an innocuous play calledSemele, the other a native perhaps of Gadara, who also bore the name of Œnomaus, and who perpetrated the seven indecent parodies. Diogenes ofSinope, meanwhile, was never among the poets, and the plays that defended cannibalism and blasphemed against the gods, though conceived in his spirit, belonged probably to a later period.[98]

Time would fail to tell of Antiphon and Polyeides, of Crates and Python, of Nearchus and Cleænetus, of the Syracusan Achæus and of Dikaiogenes, of Apollodorus and Timesitheus and Patrocles and Alkimenes and Apollonius and Hippotheon and Timocles and Ecdorus and Serapion—of all of whom it may be briefly said we know a few laborious nothings. Their names in a list serve to show how the sacred serpent of Greek tragedy, when sick to death, continued still for many generations drawing its slow length along. Down to the very end they kept on handling the old themes. Timesitheus, for instance, exhibitedDanaides,Ixion,Memnon,Orestes, and the like. Meanwhile a few pale shades emerge from the nebulous darkness demanding more consideration than the mere recording of their names implies. We find two tyrants, to begin with, on the catalogue—Mamercus of Catana, who helped Timoleon, and Dionysius of Syracuse. LikeNero and Napoleon III., Dionysius was very eager to be ranked among the authors. He spared no expense in engaging the best rhapsodes of the day, and sent them to recite his verses at Olympia. To deceive a Greek audience in matters of pure æsthetics was, however, no easy matter. The men who came together attracted by the sweet tones of the rhapsodes soon discovered the badness of the poems and laughed them down. Some fragments from the dramas of Dionysius have been preserved, among which is one that proves his preaching sounder than his practice:

ἡ γὰρ τυραννὶς ἀδικίας μήτηρ ἔφυ.[99]

The intrusion of professional orators into the sphere of the theatre might have been expected in an age when public speaking was cultivated like a fine art, and when opportunities for the display of verbal cleverness were eagerly sought. We are not, therefore, surprised to find Aphareus and Theodectes, distinguished rhetoricians of the school of Isocrates, among the tragedians. Of Theodectes a sufficient number of fragments survive to establish the general character of his style; but it is enough in this place to notice the fusion of forensic eloquence with dramatic poetry, against which Aristophanes had inveighed, and which was now complete.

Chæremon and Moschion are more important in the history of the Attic drama, since both of them attempted innovations in accordance with the literary spirit of their age, and did not, like the rhetoricians, follow merely in the footsteps of Euripides. Chæremon, the author ofAchilles Thersitoctonosand several other pieces, was mentioned by Aristotle for having attempted to combine a great variety of metres in a poem calledThe Centaur,[100]which was, perhaps, a tragi-comedy or ἱλαροτραγῳδία. He possessed remarkable descriptive powers, and was reckoned by the critics of antiquity as worthy of attentive study, though his dramas failed in action on the stage. We may regard him, in fact, as the first writer of plays to be read.[101]The metamorphoses through which the arts have to pass in their development repeat themselves at the most distant ages and under the most diverse circumstances. It is, therefore, interesting to find that Chæremon combined with this descriptive faculty a kind of euphuism which might place him in the same rank as Marini and Calderon, or among the most refined of modern idyllists. He shrank, apparently, from calling things by their plain names. Water, for example, became in his fantastic phraseology ποταμοῦ σῶμα. The flowers were "children of the spring," ἔαρος τέκνα—the roses, "nurslings of the spring," ἔαρος τιθηνήματα—the stars, "sights of the firmament," αἰθέρος θεάματα—ivy, "lover of dancers, offspring of the year," χορῶν ἐραστὴς ἐνιαυτοῦ παῖς—blossoms, "children of the meadows," λειμώνων τέκνα, and so forth. In fact, Chæremon rivals Gongora, Lyly, and Herrick on their own ground, and by his numerous surviving fragments proves how impossible it is to conclude that the Greeks of even a good age were free from affectations. Students who may be interested in tracing the declensions of classic style from severity and purity will do well to read the seventeen lines preserved by Athenæus from the tragedy ofŒneus.[102]They present a picture of girls playing in a field, too artful for successful rendering into any but insufferably ornate English.

The claim of Moschion on our attention is different from that of his contemporary Chæremon. He wrote a tragedy with the title ofThemistocles, wherein he appears to have handled the same subject-matter as Æschylus in thePersæ. The hero of Salamis was, however, conspicuous by his absence from the history-play of the elder poet. Lapse of time, by removing the political difficulties under which thePersæwas composed, enabled Moschion to make the great Themistocles his protagonist. Two fragments transmitted by Stobæus from this drama, the one celebrating Athenian liberty of speech, while the other argues that a small band may get the better of a myriad lances, seem to be taken from theconcio ad militesof the hero:

καὶ γὰρ ἐν νάπαις βραχεῖπολὺς σιδήρῳ κείρεται πεύκης κλάδος,καὶ βαιὸς ὄχλος μυρίας λόγχης κρατεῖ.[103]

Another tragedy of Moschion, thePheræi, is interesting when compared with theAntigoneof Sophocles and theSisyphusascribed to Critias. Its plot seems in some way to have turned upon the duty which the living owe the dead:

κενὸν θανόντος ἀνδρὸς αἰκίζειν σκιάν·ζῶντας κολάζειν οὐ θανόντας εὐσεβές.[104]

And, again, in all probability from the same drama:

τί κέρδος οὐκέτ' ὄντας αἰκίζειν νεκρούς;τί τὴν ἄναυδον γαῖαν ὑβρίζειν πλέον;ἐπὴν γὰρ ἡ κρίνουσα καὶ θἠδίονακαὶ τἀνιαρὰ φροῦδος αἴσθησις φθαρῇ,τὸ σῶμα κωφοῦ τάξιν εἴληφεν πέτρου.[105]

A long quotation of thirty-four iambics, taken apparently in like manner from thePheræi, sets forth the primitive condition of humanity. Men lived at first in caverns, like wild beasts. They had not learned the use of iron; nor could they fashion houses, or wall cities, or plough the fields, or garner fruits of earth. They were cannibals, and preyed on one another. In course of time, whether by the teaching of Prometheus or by the evolution of implanted instincts, they discovered the use of corn, and learned how to press wine from the grape. Cities arose and dwellings were roofed in, and social customs changed from savage to humane. From that moment it became impiety to leave the dead unburied; but tombs were dug, and dust was heaped upon the clay-cold limbs, in order that the old abomination of human food might be removed from memory of men. The whole of this passage, very brilliantly written, condenses the speculations of Athenian philosophers upon the origin of civilization, and brings them to the point which the poet had in view—the inculcation of the sanctity of sepulture.

Nothing more remains to be said about the Attic tragedians. At the risk of being tedious, I have striven to include the names at least of all the poets who filled the tragic stage from its beginning to its ending, in order that the great number of playwrights and their variety might be appreciated. The probable date at which Thespis began to exhibit dramas may be fixed soon after 550 B.C. Moschion may possibly have lived aslate as 300 B.C. These, roughly calculated, are the extreme points of time between which the tragic art of the Athenians arose and flourished and declined. When the Alexandrian critics attempted a general review of dramatic literature, they formed, as we have seen already, two classes of tragedians. In the first they numbered five Athenian worthies. The second, called the Pleiad, included seven poets of the Court of Alexandria; nor is there adequate reason to suppose that this inferior canon, δευτέρα τάξις, was formed on any but just principles of taste. How magnificent was the revival of art and letters, in all that pertained, at any rate, to scenic show and pompous ritual, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, how superbly the transplanted flowers of Greek ceremonial flourished on the shores of ancient Nile, and how Hellenic customs borrowed both gorgeous colors and a mystic meaning from the contact with Egyptian rites, may be gathered from the chapters devoted by Athenæus in the fifth book of theDeipnosophistæto these matters. The Pleiad and the host of minor Alexandrian stars have fared, however, worse than their Athenian models. They had not even comic satirists to keep their names alive "immortally immerded." With the exception of Lycophron, they offer no firm ground for modern criticism. We only know that, in this Alexandrian Renaissance, literature, as usual, repeated itself. Alexandria, like Athens, had its royal poets, and, what is not a little curious, Ptolemy Philopator imitated his predecessor Dionysius to the extent of composing a tragedy,Adonis, with the same title and presumably upon the same theme.

FOOTNOTES:[70]Agathon the famous, a good poet, and lovable to his friends.[71]Aristophanes, the grammarian, and Aristarchus included five tragic poets—Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ion, and Achæus—in the first rank. In a second series they placed the works of the so-called Pleiad, seven tragic poets who at Alexandria revived the style of the Attic drama. Their names were Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander, Philiscus, Sosiphanes, and Dionysiades.[72]The story is told with wonderful vividness by Victor Hugo,William Shakespeare, pp. 176-194.[73]Vite di Uomini Illustri, p. 97. He catalogues "tutte l'opere di Sofocle; tutte l'opere di Pindaro; tutte l'opere di Menandro."[74]Fair speech in such things and no speech are one:Study and ignorance have equal value;For wise men know no more than simple foolsIn these dark matters; and if one by speakingConquer another, mere words win the day.[75]That man who hath not tried of love the might,Knows not the strong rule of necessity,Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel.Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teachesThe craftless how to find both craft and cunning.[76]Well, well; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think muchBefore this sin be sinned, before thy dearestThou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding?Restrain thy force, thy god-detested fury.And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my lifeLaid desolate, despitefully abandonedBy those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth,Shall I be in the midst of wrongs like these?Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer!Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sightGet you away! for now bloodthirsty madnessSinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands,Unto what deed are we accoutred? Woe!Undone by my own daring! In one minuteI go to blast the fruit of my long toil.[77]Know thou thyself—the saw is no great thing;To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.[78]The town of Sparta is not walled with words;But when young Ares falls upon her men,Then reason rules and the hand does the deed.[79]It is clear that γὰρ ὤθουν is wrong. The best suggestion seems to be γ' ἄνωθεν, adopting which we may render the lines thus:Naked above, their radiant arms displaying,In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloomOf beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare;Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oilAre bathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.[80]Ambassadors or athletes do you mean?Great feeders are they, like most men in training.Of what race are the strangers, then? Bœotians.[81]While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven,Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.[82]This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of Mnesilochus (Ar.Thesmoph.130et seq.), which reminds one of the first satire of Persius:Cum carmina lumbumIntrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.[83]Poet.cap. 18.[84]Ibid.cap. 9.[85]Ibid.cap. 18.[86]For from this one thing God himself is barred—To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.[87]Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.[88]Even as saith also Agathon:Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.[89]I have followed Grotius in transposing τύχῃ and τέχνῃ, and translate:Thus some things we can do by art, while someAre thrust on us as fate and fortune will.[90]Fab.172.[91]Varia Historia, ii. 30. Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 80.[92]Frere's Translation, p. 229.[93]Poet.cap. 17;Rhet.ii. 23, iii. 16.[94]Frere, p. 229.[95]Then, I think,A man of subtle counsel and keen witDiscovered God for mortals.[96]Introduced the notion of deity.[97]Poet.capp. ii., xxii.;Rhet.iii. 7.[98]The whole matter is too obscure for discussion in this place. Suffice it to add that a certain Philiscus, the friend and follower of Diogenes, enjoyed a portion of the notoriety attaching to the seven obnoxious dramas.[99]The rule of one man is of wrong the parent.[100]Poet.i., xxiv.[101]See Ar.Rhet.iii. 12.[102]Athen. xiii. p. 608a.[103]In far mountain valesSee how one small axe fells innumerous firs;So a few men can curb a myriad lances.[104]'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades;God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.[105]What gain we by insulting mere dead men?What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay?For when the sense that can discern things sweetAnd things offensive is corrupt and fled,The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.

[70]Agathon the famous, a good poet, and lovable to his friends.

[71]Aristophanes, the grammarian, and Aristarchus included five tragic poets—Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ion, and Achæus—in the first rank. In a second series they placed the works of the so-called Pleiad, seven tragic poets who at Alexandria revived the style of the Attic drama. Their names were Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander, Philiscus, Sosiphanes, and Dionysiades.

[72]The story is told with wonderful vividness by Victor Hugo,William Shakespeare, pp. 176-194.

[73]Vite di Uomini Illustri, p. 97. He catalogues "tutte l'opere di Sofocle; tutte l'opere di Pindaro; tutte l'opere di Menandro."

[74]Fair speech in such things and no speech are one:Study and ignorance have equal value;For wise men know no more than simple foolsIn these dark matters; and if one by speakingConquer another, mere words win the day.

[74]

Fair speech in such things and no speech are one:Study and ignorance have equal value;For wise men know no more than simple foolsIn these dark matters; and if one by speakingConquer another, mere words win the day.

[75]That man who hath not tried of love the might,Knows not the strong rule of necessity,Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel.Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teachesThe craftless how to find both craft and cunning.

[75]

That man who hath not tried of love the might,Knows not the strong rule of necessity,Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel.Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teachesThe craftless how to find both craft and cunning.

[76]Well, well; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think muchBefore this sin be sinned, before thy dearestThou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding?Restrain thy force, thy god-detested fury.And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my lifeLaid desolate, despitefully abandonedBy those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth,Shall I be in the midst of wrongs like these?Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer!Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sightGet you away! for now bloodthirsty madnessSinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands,Unto what deed are we accoutred? Woe!Undone by my own daring! In one minuteI go to blast the fruit of my long toil.

[76]

Well, well; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think muchBefore this sin be sinned, before thy dearestThou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding?Restrain thy force, thy god-detested fury.And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my lifeLaid desolate, despitefully abandonedBy those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth,Shall I be in the midst of wrongs like these?Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer!Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sightGet you away! for now bloodthirsty madnessSinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands,Unto what deed are we accoutred? Woe!Undone by my own daring! In one minuteI go to blast the fruit of my long toil.

[77]Know thou thyself—the saw is no great thing;To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.

[77]

Know thou thyself—the saw is no great thing;To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.

[78]The town of Sparta is not walled with words;But when young Ares falls upon her men,Then reason rules and the hand does the deed.

[78]

The town of Sparta is not walled with words;But when young Ares falls upon her men,Then reason rules and the hand does the deed.

[79]It is clear that γὰρ ὤθουν is wrong. The best suggestion seems to be γ' ἄνωθεν, adopting which we may render the lines thus:Naked above, their radiant arms displaying,In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloomOf beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare;Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oilAre bathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.

[79]It is clear that γὰρ ὤθουν is wrong. The best suggestion seems to be γ' ἄνωθεν, adopting which we may render the lines thus:

Naked above, their radiant arms displaying,In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloomOf beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare;Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oilAre bathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.

[80]Ambassadors or athletes do you mean?Great feeders are they, like most men in training.Of what race are the strangers, then? Bœotians.

[80]

Ambassadors or athletes do you mean?Great feeders are they, like most men in training.Of what race are the strangers, then? Bœotians.

[81]While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven,Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.

[81]

While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven,Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.

[82]This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of Mnesilochus (Ar.Thesmoph.130et seq.), which reminds one of the first satire of Persius:Cum carmina lumbumIntrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.

[82]This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of Mnesilochus (Ar.Thesmoph.130et seq.), which reminds one of the first satire of Persius:

Cum carmina lumbumIntrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.

[83]Poet.cap. 18.

[84]Ibid.cap. 9.

[85]Ibid.cap. 18.

[86]For from this one thing God himself is barred—To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.

[86]

For from this one thing God himself is barred—To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.

[87]Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.

[87]

Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.

[88]Even as saith also Agathon:Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.

[88]Even as saith also Agathon:

Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.

[89]I have followed Grotius in transposing τύχῃ and τέχνῃ, and translate:Thus some things we can do by art, while someAre thrust on us as fate and fortune will.

[89]I have followed Grotius in transposing τύχῃ and τέχνῃ, and translate:

Thus some things we can do by art, while someAre thrust on us as fate and fortune will.

[90]Fab.172.

[91]Varia Historia, ii. 30. Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 80.

[92]Frere's Translation, p. 229.

[93]Poet.cap. 17;Rhet.ii. 23, iii. 16.

[94]Frere, p. 229.

[95]Then, I think,A man of subtle counsel and keen witDiscovered God for mortals.

[95]

Then, I think,A man of subtle counsel and keen witDiscovered God for mortals.

[96]Introduced the notion of deity.

[97]Poet.capp. ii., xxii.;Rhet.iii. 7.

[98]The whole matter is too obscure for discussion in this place. Suffice it to add that a certain Philiscus, the friend and follower of Diogenes, enjoyed a portion of the notoriety attaching to the seven obnoxious dramas.

[99]The rule of one man is of wrong the parent.

[100]Poet.i., xxiv.

[101]See Ar.Rhet.iii. 12.

[102]Athen. xiii. p. 608a.

[103]In far mountain valesSee how one small axe fells innumerous firs;So a few men can curb a myriad lances.

[103]

In far mountain valesSee how one small axe fells innumerous firs;So a few men can curb a myriad lances.

[104]'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades;God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.

[104]

'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades;God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.

[105]What gain we by insulting mere dead men?What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay?For when the sense that can discern things sweetAnd things offensive is corrupt and fled,The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.

[105]

What gain we by insulting mere dead men?What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay?For when the sense that can discern things sweetAnd things offensive is corrupt and fled,The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.

Greek Tragedy and the Rites of Dionysus.—A Sketch of its Origin and History.—The Attic Theatre.—The Actors and their Masks.—Relation of Sculpture to the Drama in Greece.—The Legends used by the Attic Tragedians.—Modern Liberty in the Choice of Subjects.—Mystery Plays.—Nemesis.—Modern Tragedy has no Religious Idea.—Tragic Irony.—Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy.—Modern Tragedy offers no κάθαρσις of the Passions.—Destinies and Characters.—Female Characters.—The Supernatural.—French Tragedy.—Five Acts.—Bloodshed.—The Unities.—Radical Differences in the Spirit of Ancient and Modern Art.

In order to comprehend the differences between the ancient and the modern drama—between the tragedy of Sophocles and the tragedy of Shakespeare—it is necessary to enter into the details of the history of the Attic stage. In no other department of art is the character of the work produced so closely dependent upon the external form which the artist had to adopt.

Both the tragedy and comedy of the Greeks were intimately connected with the religious rites of Dionysus. Up to the very last, they formed a portion of the cultus of the vintage-god, to whom the theatre was consecrated, and at whose yearly festivals the plays were acted. The Chorus, which originally formed the chief portion of the dramatic body, took its station at the altar of Bacchus in the centre of the theatre. Now the worship of Bacchus in Greece had from the first a double aspect—joyous and sorrowful. The joyous festivals were held in celebration of the vigor and the force of nature, in the spring and summer of the year; the sorrowful commemorated the sadness of the autumn and the winter. There were, therefore, two distinct branches of musical and choral art connected with the Dionysiac rites—the one jovial, the other marked by the enthusiasm of a wild grief. From the former of these, or the revel-song, sprang Comedy; from the latter, or the dithyramb, sprang Tragedy. Arion is named as the first great poet who cultivated the dithyramb and wrote elaborate odes for recitation by the Chorus in their evolutions round the Bacchic altar. His Chorus were attired like satyrs in goat-skins, to represent the woodland comrades of the god; hence came the name of tragedy or goat-song. At first the dithyrambic odes celebrated only the mystical woes of Dionysus: then they were extended so as to embrace the mythical incidents connected with his worship; and at last the god himself was forgotten, and the tragic sufferings of any hero were chanted by the Chorus. This change is marked by an old tradition concerning Sicyon, where it is said that the woes of the hero Adrastus were sung by the Bacchic choir, and that Cleisthenes, wishing to suppress the national mythology, restored the antique Dionysiac function. It also may explain theGreek proverb: "What has this to do with Dionysus?"—a question which might reasonably have been asked when the sacred representation diverged too widely from the line of Bacchic legend.

Thus the original element of Greek tragedy was the dithyramb, as cultivated by Arion; and the first step in the progress of the dithyrambic Chorus towards the Drama was the introduction of heroic legends into the odes. The next step was the addition of the actor. It has been ingeniously conjectured that the actor was borrowed from the guild of rhapsodes. The iambics of Archilochus and other poets were recited, as we know, at the feasts of Demeter, whose cult had points of similarity with that of Bacchus. It is not improbable that when the heroic element was added to the dithyramb, and the subjects handled by the professional reciters of the Homeric and cyclic epics began to form a part of the Dionysiac celebration, a rhapsode was then introduced to help the Chorus in their office. That he declaimed iambics and not hexameters may be accounted for by the prevalence of the iambic in the sister-cult of Demeter. This, then, was the third step in the development of tragedy. To the dithyrambic chorus of Arion was added an interlocutor, who not only recited passages of narrative, but also exchanged speech with the Chorus, and who, in course of time, came to personate the hero whose history was being celebrated. Thus far had the art advanced in the age of Thespis. The Chorus stood and danced round the altar of Bacchus. The rhapsode, whom we now begin to call the actor, stood on a raised stage (λογεῖον) above them. The whole history of Greek tragedy exhibits a regular expansion of these simple elements. The function of the Chorus, the peculiar nature of the masks and dresses, and the very structure of the theatres, can only be explained by reference to this primitive constitution of the dramatic art.

To Thespis the Athenian, whose first regular exhibition of the tragic show preceded the birth of Æschylus by about ten years, belongs the credit of having brought the various elements of tragedy into harmony, and of having fixed the outlines of the tragic art. The destruction of Athens by the Persian army, like the burning of London, which inflicted so severe an injury upon our early dramatic literature, obliterated the monuments of the genuine Thespian tragedy. Some of the names of these dramas—Pentheus,Phorbas,the Funeral Games of Pelias,the Priests—have been preserved; from which we may conjecture that Thespis composed interludes with regular plots, combining choric passages and monologues uttered by the actor with elucidatory dialogues. His Chorus was the traditional band of mummers clad in goat-skins—the τράγοι of the ancient Dionysiac festival. The poet himself was the actor, and his portion of the interlude was written either in iambic or, as we may gather from a passage in thePoeticsof Aristotle, in trochaic metre. The next great name after Thespis is Phrynichus, who composed a tragic interlude on the taking of Miletus by the Persians. This fact is important, since it proves that even at this early period a dramatist felt justified not merely in departing from the myths of Dionysus, but also in treating the events of contemporary history in his choric tragedy. The Athenians, however, were indignant at so abrupt a departure from usage, and at the unæsthetical exhibition of disasters which had recently befallen their race. They fined the poet, and confirmed their tragedians in the custom of handling only ancient and religious legends. It is well known that the single exception to this custom which has been preserved to us isthe splendid triumph of Æschylus composed upon the ruin of the godless Xerxes. Phrynichus introduced one important change into the Thespian drama: he established female characters. After him came Pratinas, who altered the old form of the Chorus. Hitherto, whatever may have been the subject of the play, the Bacchic τράγοι stood in their quaint goat-skins round the thymelé, or altar of the god. Pratinas contrived that in future the Chorus should be attired to suit the action of the piece. If the play were written on the fall of Troy, for instance, they appeared as ancient Trojans; or if it had reference to the house of Laius, they came forth as senators of Thebes. At the same time special pieces for the traditional tragic chorus were retained, and these received the name of satyric dramas. Henceforth it was customary for a tragic author to produce at the same time three successive dramas on the subject he selected, together with a satyric play. The only essential changes which were afterwards made in Greek tragedy were the introduction of a second actor by Æschylus and of a third actor by Sophocles, the abandonment of the stricter rule of the tetralogy, and the gradual diminution of the importance of the Chorus. The choric element, which had been everything at the commencement, gave way to the dialogue, as the art of developing dramatic situations and characters advanced; until in the days of Euripides the Chorus formed a comparatively insignificant part of the tragic machinery. This curtailment of the function of the Chorus was a necessary consequence of progress in the art of exhibiting an imitation of human action and passion. Yet the Chorus never lost its place in Greek tragedy. It remained to mark the origin of the drama, and as a symbol of the essentially religious purpose of the tragic spectacle.

An event is said to have happened during the age of Pratinas which greatly influenced the future of the Attic drama. The Thespian interludes had been acted on a wooden scaffolding. This fell down on one occasion, and caused so much alarm that the Athenians erected a permanent stone theatre, which they constructed on the southeast side of the Acropolis. Whether this old story is a fiction, and whether the time had not naturally arrived for a more substantial building, may admit of question. At any rate the new theatre was designed as though it were destined to exist for all time, as though its architects were prescient that the Attic drama would become the wonder of the world. The spectators were seated on semicircular tiers scooped out of the rock of the Acropolis. Their faces turned towards Hymettus and the sea. The stage fronted the Acropolis; the actors had in view the cliffs upon which stood the Parthenon and the gleaming statue of Protective Pallas. The whole was open to the air. Remembering these facts, we are enabled to understand the peculiar grandeur and propriety of those addresses to the powers of the earth and sky, to the temples of the gods, to the all-seeing sun and glittering ocean-waves, which are so common in Greek tragedy. The Athenian theatre was brought into close connection with all that was most brilliant in the architecture and the sculpture of Athens, with all that is most impressive in the natural environments of the city, with the very deities of the Hellenic worship in their visible manifestations to the senses of men. This circumstance alone determined many peculiarities of the Greek drama, which make it wholly unlike our own. If the hero of a modern play, for instance, calls the sun to witness, he must point to a tissue-paper transparency in the centre of a painted scene; if he apostrophizes ocean, he must turn towards a heaving mass of agitated canvas. But Ajax or Electra could raise their hands to the actual sun, gilding the statue of Athene with living rays; Prometheus, when he described the myriad laughter of the dimpling waves, knew that the sea was within sight of the audience; and sun and sea were regarded by the nation at large, not merely as phenomena of our universe, but as beings capable of sympathizing with humanity in its distress. For the same reason nearly all the scenes of the Greek tragedies are laid in daytime and in the open air. The work of art exhibited in an unparalleled combination of æsthetical definiteness with the actual facts of nature. The imagination is scarcely more wrought upon than the senses; whereas the tragedy of Shakespeare makes a direct appeal to the inner eye and to the highly stimulated fancy of the audience. It is generally before a temple or a palace that the action of a Greek play proceeds. Nor was there anything artificial in this custom; for the Greeks lived in the air of heaven, nor could events of such magnitude as those which their tragedy represented have been appropriately enacted beneath the shadow of a private roof. Far different were the conditions which the modern dramatist undertook to illustrate. The hesitations of Hamlet, the spiritual conflict of Faustus, the domestic sufferings of the Duchess of Malfi, are evolved with peculiar propriety within the narrow walls of palace-chambers, college-cells, and prisons or madhouses. Scenery, in our sense of the word, was scarcely required by the Greeks. The name of a tragedy sufficed to determine what palace-gate was represented by the stage: the statue of a god was enough to show whose temple was intended. This simplicity of theatrical arrangement led to a corresponding simplicity of dramatic construction, to rarity of changes in the scene, and to the stationary character of Greek tragedy in general.

Hollowed out of the hillside, the seats ofthe Athenian spectators embraced rather more than a full semicircle, and this large arc was subtended by a long straight line—the σκηνή, or background of the stage. In front of this wall ran a shallow platform, not coextensive with the σκηνή, but corresponding to the middle portion of it. This platform was the stage proper. It was, in fact, a development of the Thespian λογεῖον. The stage was narrow and raised a little above the ground, to which a flight of steps led from it. On the stage, very long in proportion to its depth, all the action of the play took place: the actors entered it through three openings in the σκηνή, of which the central was larger and the two side ones smaller. When they stood upon the stage, they had not much room for grouping or for complicated action: they moved and stood like the figures in a bass-relief, turning their profiles to the audience, and so arranging their gestures that a continually harmonious series of figures was relieved upon the background of the σκηνή. The central opening had doors capable of being thrown back and exhibiting a chamber, in which, at critical moments of the action, such spectacles as the murdered body of Agamemnon, or the suicide of Jocasta, were revealed to the spectators. The Chorus had their own allotted station in the centre of the whole theatre—the semicircular pit left between the lowest tier of spectators and the staircase leading to the stage. In the middle of this pit or orchestra was placed the thymelé, or altar of Bacchus, round which the Chorus moved on its first entrance, and where it stood while witnessing the action on the stage. The Chorus entered by side passages leading from the back of the σκηνή, on a lower level than that of the stage; nor did they ever leave their orchestra to mount the stage and mingle with the actors. The dressing-rooms and offices of the theatre were concealed behind the σκηνή. Above the stage was suspended an aerial platform for the gods, while subterranean stairs were constructed for the appearance of ghosts ascending from the nether regions.

These details about the vast size of the theatre, its system of construction, and its exposure to the air, make it clear that no acting similar to that of the modern drama could have been possible on the Attic stage. Any one who has visited the Roman theatre of Orange, where the σκηνή is still in tolerable preservation, must have felt that a classical audience could not have enjoyed the subtle intonations of the voice and the delicate changes in the features, expressive of varying passions, which constitute the charm of modern acting. Our intricate and minute effects were out of the question. Everything in the Greek theatre had to be colossal, statuesque, almost stationary. The Greeks had so delicate a sense of proportion and of fitness that they adjusted their art to these necessities. The actors were raised on thick-soled and high-heeled boots: they wore masks, and used peculiar mouth-pieces, by means of which their voices were made more resonant. The dresses which they swept along the stage were the traditional costumes of the Bacchic festivals—brilliant and trailing mantles, which added volume to their persons. All their movements partook of the dignity befitting demigods and heroes. To suppose that these pompous figures were of necessity ridiculous would be a great mistake. Everything we know about Greek art makes it certain that in the theatre, no less than in sculpture and architecture, this nation of artists achieved a perfectly harmonious effect. How dignified, for example, were their masks, may be imagined from the sculptured heads of Tragedy and Comedy preserved in the Vatican—marble faces of sublime serenity, surmounted by the huge mass of curling hair, which was built up above the mask to add height to the figure. But in order to maintain the grandeur of these personages on the stage, it was necessary that they should never move abruptly or struggle violently. This is perhaps the chief reason why Greek tragedy was so calm and so processional in character, why all its vehement action took place off the stage, why some of its most impassioned expressions of emotion were cadenced in elaborate lyrics with a musical accompaniment. An actor, mounted on his buskins, and carrying the weight of the tragic mask, could never have encountered a similar gigantic being in personal combat without betraying some awkwardness of movement or exhibiting some unseemly gesture. It was, therefore, necessary to create the part of the Messenger as an artistic correlative to the peculiarly artificial conditions of the stage. We find in the same circumstance a reason why the tragic situation was sustained with such intensity, why the action was limited to a short space of time and to a single locality, and why few changes were permitted in the characters during the conduct of the same piece. For the mask depicted one fixed cast of features; and though, as in the case of Œdipus, who tears out his eyes in a play of Sophocles, the actor might appear twice upon the stage with different masks, yet he could not be constantly changing them. Therefore the strong point of the Greek dramatist lay in the construction of such plots and characters as admitted of sustained and steady passion, whereas a modern playwright aims at providing parts which shall enable a great actor to exhibit lights and shades of varying expression. It still remains a problem how such parts as the Cassandra of Æschylus and the Orestes of Euripides could have been adequately acted with a mask to hide the features;but such effects as those for which Garrick, Rachel, and Talma were celebrated would have been utterly impossible at Athens.

In attempting to form any conception of a Greek drama, we must imbue our minds with the spirit of Greek sculpture, and animate some frieze or bass-relief, supplying the accompaniment of simple and magnificent music, like that of Gluck, or like the recitatives of Porpora. Flaxman's designs for Æschylus are probably the best possible reconstruction of the scenes of a Greek tragedy, as they appeared to the eyes of the spectators, relieved upon the background of the σκηνή. Schlegel is justly indignant with those critics who affirm that the modern opera affords an exact parallel to the Greek drama. Yet the combination of music, acting, scenery, and dancing in such an opera as Gluck'sOrfeoor Cherubini'sMedeamay come nearer than anything else towards giving us a notion of one of the tragedies of Euripides. This remark must be qualified by the acknowledgment of a radical and fundamental difference between the two species of dramatic art. Music, dancing, acting, and scenery, with the Greeks, were sculptural, studied, stately; with the moderns they are picturesque, passionate, mobile. If the opera at all resembles the Greek drama, it is because of the highly artificial development of the histrionic art which it exhibits. The expression of passion in a stationary and prolonged aria, with which we are familiar in the opera, and which is far removed from nature, was of common occurrence in Greek tragedy.[106]

So far we have been occupied with those characteristics of the ancient drama which were immediately determined by the external circumstances of the Atticstage. I have tried to show that some of the most marked qualities of the work of art were necessitated by the conditions of its form. But other and not less important points of difference between the ancient and the modern drama were due to the subject-matter of the former. The Greek playwrights confined themselves to a comparatively narrow circle of mythical stories;[107]each in succession had recourse to Homer and to the poets of the epic cycle. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, not to mention their numerous forgotten rivals, handled and rehandled the same themes. We have, for example, extant three tragedies, theChoëphorœof Æschylus, theElectraof Sophocles, and theElectraof Euripides, composed upon precisely the same incident in the tale of Agamemnon's children. Modern dramatists, on the contrary, start with the whole stuff of human history; they seek out their subjects where they choose, or invent motives with a view to the exhibition of varied character, force of passion, tragic effect; nor have they any fixed basis of solid thought like the doctrine of Nemesis[108]whereon to rear their tragic superstructure. In this respect the mystery-plays of the Catholic Church offer a close parallel to the Greek drama. In these dramatic shows the whole body of Christian tradition—the Bible, the acts of the saints, and the doctrines of the Church about the Judgment and the final state of the soul—was used as the material from which to fashion sacred plays. But between the mysteries and the early Attic tragedies there was one great point of difference. The sanctity of the Christian tradition, by giving an immovable form to the legends, precluded all freedom of the fancy. There could be no inventive action of the poet's mind when he was engaged in setting forth the mysteries of the Incarnation, the Atonement, or the final Judgment. His object was to instruct the people in certain doctrines, and all he could do was to repeat over and over again the sameseries of events in which God had dealt with man. Therefore, when the true dramatic instinct awoke in modern Europe, the playwrights had to quit this narrow sphere of consecrated thoughts. Miracle-plays were succeeded by moralities, by histories, and by those unfettered creations of which Marlowe in England offered the first illustrious examples. Had the Thespian interludes been as purely didactic in their object as the early mystery-plays of the Church, we should either have possessed no Attic drama at all or else have received from the Greek poets a very different type of tragedy. As it was, the very essence of Greek religion reached its culminating point in art. Epical mythology attained to final development in the free artistic creations of Sophocles. Meanwhile the dramatists were hampered in their choice of subjects by the artificial restraints imposed upon them. They were never at liberty to invent. They were always bound to keep in view the traditional interpretation of legends to which a semi-religious importance attached.

Many distinctions between the ancient and the modern drama may be deduced from this original difference in the sources of their materials. The conception of retributive justice pervades the whole tragedy of the Greeks; and the maintenance of this one animating idea is due no doubt in a great measure to the continued treatment of a class of subjects which not only remarkably exhibited its working, but which also were traditionally interpreted in its light. The modern drama has no such central idea. Our tragedy imports no dominant religious or moral conception into the sphere of art. Even Shakespeare and Goethe, the most highly moralized of modern dramatists, have been contented with bringing close before our eyes the manifold spectacle of human existence, wonderful and brilliant, from which we draw such lessons only as can be learned from life itself. They do not undertake, like the Greek tragedians, to supply the solution as well as the problem. It is enough for them to exhibit humanity in conflict, to enlist our sympathies on the side of what is noble, or to arouse our pity by the sight of innocence in misery. The struggle of Lear with his unnatural daughters, the death of Cordelia when the very doors of hope have just been opened; Desdemona dying by her husband's hand, without one opportunity of explanation; Imogen flouted as a faithless wife; Hamlet wrestling with Laertes in the grave of Ophelia; Juliet and Romeo brought by a mistake to death in the May-time of their love; Faust inflicting by his bitter gift of selfish passion woe after woe on Margaret and her family—these are the subjects of our tragedy. We have to content ourselves as we can with this "mask and antimask of impassioned life, breathing, moving, acting, suffering, laughing," and to moralize it as we may. The case is different with Greek tragedy. There we always learn one lesson—τῷ δράσαντι παθεῖν, the guilty must suffer. It is only in a few such characters as Antigone or Polyxena that pure pathos seems to weigh down the balance of the law.

A minor consequence of the fixed nature of Attic tragedy was that the dramatists calculated on no surprise in order to enlist the interest of their audience. The name, Œdipus or Agamemnon, informed the spectators what course the action of the play would take. The art of the poet, therefore, consisted in so displaying his characters, so preparing his incidents, and so developing the tragic import of the tale, as to excite attention. From this arose a peculiar style of treatment, and in particular that ironyof which so much is spoken. The point, for example, about theŒdipus Tyrannuswas that the spectators knew his horrible story, but that he did not. Therefore, every word he uttered in his pride of prosperity was charged with sinister irony, was pregnant with doom. Every minute incident brought him nearer to the final crash, which all the while was ready waiting for him. In reading this tragedy of Sophocles we seem to be watching a boatful of careless persons gliding down a river, and gradually approaching its fall over a vast cliff. If we take interest in them, how terrible is our anxiety when they come within the irresistible current of the sliding water, how frightful is their cry of anguish when at last they see the precipice ahead, how horror-stricken is the silence with which they shoot the fall, and are submerged! Of this nature is the interest of a good Greek tragedy. But in the case of the modern drama all is different. When our Elizabethan ancestors went to the theatre to hearOthellofor the first time, very few of them knew the story: as the play proceeded, they could not be sure whether Iago would finally prevail. At every moment the outcome was doubtful. Tragic irony is, therefore, not a common element in the modern drama. The forcible exhibition of a new and striking subject, the gradual development of passions in fierce conflict, the utmost amount of pathos accumulated round the victims of malice or ill-luck, exhaust the resources of the tragedian. The ancient dramatist plays with his cards upon the table: the modern dramatist conceals his hand. Euripides prefixed a prologue descriptive of the action to his pieces. Our tragedies open only with such scenes as render the immediate conduct of the play intelligible.

Aristotle's definition of tragedy, founded upon a vast experience, we need not doubt, of the best Greek dramas, offers another point of contrast between the ancient and the modern art. "Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action that is weighty, complete, and of a proper magnitude; it proceeds by action and not by narration; and it effects through pity and terror a purgation of the like passions in the minds of the spectators." This definition, which has caused great difficulty for commentators, turns upon the meaning of the κάθαρσις,[109]or purgation, which tragedy is supposed to effect. It is quite clear thatallpoetry which stirs the feelings of pity and terror need not at the same time purge them in or from the souls of the listeners, except only in so far as true art is elevating and purifying. Therefore Aristotle must have had some special quality of the tragic art to which he was accustomed in his mind. His words seem to express that it is the function of the tragic drama to appeal to our deepest sympathies and strongest passions, to arouse them, but at the same time to pacify them, and, as it were, to draw off the dangerous stuff that lies upon our soul—to resolve the perturbation of the mind in some transcendental contemplation.[110]This is what the greatest Greek tragedies achieve. They are almost invariably closed by some sentence of the Chorus in which the unsearchableness of God's dealings is set forth, and by which we are made to feel that, after the fitful strife and fever of human wills, the eternal counsels of Zeus remain unchanged, while the moral order of the world, shaken and distorted by the passions of heroic sufferers, abides in the serenity of the ideal. Furthermore, there is in the very substance of almost all Greek tragedies a more obvious healing of wounds and restoration of harmony than this. The trilogy of Prometheus was concluded by the absorption of the Titan's vehement will in that of Zeus. The trilogy of Orestes ends with the benediction of Pallas and Phœbus upon the righteous man who had redeemed the errors of his house. Sophocles allows us a glimpse of Antigone bringing peace and joy to her father and brothers in Hades. The old Œdipus, after his life-wanderings and crimes and woes, is made a blessed dæmon through the mercy of propitiated deities. Hippolytus is reconciled to his father, and is cheered and cooled in his death-fever by the presence of the maiden Artemis. Thus the terror and pity which have been roused in each of these cases are allayed by the actual climax of the plot which has excited them: grief itself becomes a chariot for surmounting the sources of grief. But the modern drama does not offer this κάθαρσις: its passions too often remain unreconciled in their original antagonism: the note on which the symphony terminates is not unfrequently discordant or exciting. Where is the κάθαρσις inKing Lear? Are our passions purged in any definite sense by the close of the first part ofFaust? We are rather left with the sense of inexpiable guilt and unalleviated suffering, with yearnings excited which shall never be quelled. The greatest works of modern fiction—the novels of Balzac, with their philosophy of wickedness triumphant; the novels of George Eliot, with their dismal lesson of the feebleness of human effort; the tragedies of Shakespeare, with the silence of the grave for their conclusion—intensify and embitter that "struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot" which Hazlitt gives as an equivalent for life.[111]The greatest creative poet of this generation writes ἀνάγκη upon his title-page. The chief poet of the century makes his hero exclaim:

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