Thefpis is faid to have invented an unknown kind of tragic poetry, and to have carried his plays with all their apparatus about in a cart, which were to be afted by ftrolers, whofe faces were daubed with the lees of wine. Horace does not say the tragic muse had no existence, in any shape whatever, before Thefpis; but only that he invented a new kind, unknown before: for he first made his stories entirely dramatic, and brought them on the ftage. "AFTER tragedy, the old comedy fucceeded which took it's firft hint from an obfcene 86 strict sense, on purpose to make way for his emendation. Quale tamen obfecro illud eft, vexiffe plauftris poemata ? hoc eft ut enarrat Acron, tam multa fcripfiffe quae poffet "plauftris advehere. Mirum hoc profecto, &c." The Dr. however faw the true meaning, but that he hurries over, and corrects, Et plauftris vexiffe poemata Thefpis Qui canerent agerentque perun&ti faecibus ora. id eft, vexiffe plauftris eos qui canerent, &c. But that Horace is to be understood in this expreffion, [poemata] according to its utmost latitude, I have a witness beyond all exception, the learned author of the differtation upon the epiftles of Phalaris, to oppose to the editor of Horace; who citing thefe words, p. 207. plauftris vexiffe poemata Thefpis, thus tranflates them, That in the beginning the PLAYS were carried about the villages in carts. 12 Hor. art. poet. 281. Succefit vetus his Comoedia. Marc. Anton, XI, 6. Milà dì rŵr realwdiar ǹ apxała κωμωδία fcene fong, which they fung in the feftivals of Bacchus, called hence the 13 Phallic. Comedy lay neglected, and remained, according to its κωμωδία παρήχθη, παιδα[ωδικὴν παρρησίαν ἔχεσα, καὶ τῆς ετυφίας ἐκ αχρήτως δι' αὐτῆς τῆς εὐθυῤῥημοσύνης ὑπομιμνήσκέσα. After tragedy the old comedy fucceeded, ufing an inftructive liberty of inveighing against personal vices, and by this direct freedom of speech was of great use to humble pride and arrogance. What Ariftotle fays, is worth our notice : Ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία, διὰ τὸ μὴ σπεδάζεσθαι ἐξ ἀρχῆς, ἔλαθεν· καὶ γὰρ χορὸν κωμῳδῶν ὀψέ ποτε ὁ ἄρχων ἔδωκεν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐθελονταὶ ἦσαν. We don't know the feveral changes of comedy Jo well, because it has not been improved fince it's beginning as much as tragedy. For 'twas late e're the archon gave the comic chorus : but the alors played voluntarily. Arift. κεφ. ε. 'Tis to be observed that the Archon at Athens defray'd the charges of the play, as the Ediles did at Rome: which they term'd χορὸν διδόναι. There is the fame expreffion at the latter end of Plato's Repub. L. II. which the interpreters feem to be ignorant of. Ὅταν τὶς τοιαῦτα λέγῃ περὶ θεῶν χαλπαν μέν τε, καὶ ΧΟΡΟΝ ΟΥ ΔΩΣΟΜΕΝ. 13 Ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ φαλλικά, ἃ ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐν πολλαῖς τῶν πόλεων διαμένει νομιζόμενα. Arift. κεφ. δ'. And Ariftophanes, Acarn. γ. 260. Ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἀκολυθῶν ἄσομαι τὸ φαλλικόν. Schol. άσματα λέγονται φαλλικά, τὰ ἐπὶ τῷ φαλλῷ αδόμενα μέλη ἔτι δὲ εἰς Διόνυσον, ἢ ἄλλοτε εἰς Πρίαπον. See the fchol. on the fame play, *. 242. where the flory there told has a near refemblance to what the priests and diviners advised the Philistines, being afflicted with emerods: viz. to make them images. And they accordingly made them images. of the emerods. : Sam. vi. 4 & 17. But another word fhould be ufed, not emerods. etymology, etymology, a fong in country towns, when tragedy was publicly acted at the expence of the magiftrate. Thefe village fongs were either abufive and fcurrilous, expofing the follies and failings of the neighbourhood; or they were of the obfcene kind, as more agreeable to the ridiculous figure carried in the proceffions of the feftival. It had another name, rguldía, the winefong; as realwdia, is the goat-fong: a veffel of wine being the prize of comedy, and a goat of tragedy. Ariftophanes calls the old comedians 14 *gufodaimoves, in that paffage, rather from their diabolical faces bedaubed with the lees of wine, [lege οἱ κωμικοὶ ποιηταί· Τ γνώριμοι γένωνται, ὅτω του ἀμάξης ἐπικαθήμενοι. διὰ ἤγεν αναισχύλως ὑβρίζει. 14 Ariftoph. nub. †. 298. ¿ μn oxw↓ns, undè woinons, ἅπερ οἱ τρυ[οδαίμονες ἔτοι. Schol. οἱ τρυ[οδαίμονες, οἱ ποιηταί· ἐπειδὴ τὴν τρύδα χριόμενοι, ἵνα μὴ αὐτῶν ἦδον ποιήματα κατὰ τὰς ὁδὸς καὶ παροιμία, ὡς ἐξ ἀμάξης λαλεῖς τῦτο δὲ ἐποιον οἱ κωμικοί ποιηταί. From this paffage of Ariftophanes and the fcholiaft, a most certain correction offers itself, of a corrupted place in Xenophon's memoirs of Socrates, where the young man complains to his father of his mother Xanthippe's crofs temper, "What, (fays Socrates) do you think it more difficult for you to hear "what your mother fays, than fo. the players when they * abufe one another ἐν ταῖς του[ῳδίαις.” So I would un doubtedly read, not realdiais, as the prefent copies have it. Xen. amou. 6.C. C'. xsQ. C'. than 15 than from their prize. Such "s Epicharmus found comedy, when he preferved its original name, but altered the form and nature of it and took, for the fubject of his 16 imitation, those follies and vices of mankind, which render 15 Τὸ δὲ μύθος ποιεῖν, Επίχαρμα καὶ Φόρμις ἦρξαν. Ερίpharmus and Phormis were the first who made a fable or plot in their comedies. Phormis, not Phormus, as he is wrongly called, in the introduction to Every Man out of his Humour, by Johnson. 16 Ariftot. chap. 2. fpeaking of the subjects of imitation obferves, that men must be reprefented, either as they are, or better, or worse; and inftances of painters, then of poets. Homer, he fays, has made men better, other poets worse, others again as they are. In this very thing lies the difference between tragedy and comedy; for comedy endeavours to reprefent men worse, and tragedy better than they are. Ἐν αὐτῇ [leg. Ἐν ταυτῇ] δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ, καὶ ἡ τραίῳδία πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν διέςηκεν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ χείρας, ἡ δὲ βελτίες μιμεῖς σθαι βέλεται τῶν νῦν. Again in chap. v. Ηδὲ κωμῳδία ἐσὶν, ὥσπερ εἴπομεν, μίμησις φαυλοτέρων μὲν, ὦ μένιοι καλὰ πᾶσαν κακίαν, ἀλλὰ τὸ αἰσχρᾶ ἐςὶ τὸ γελοῖον μόριον· τὸ γὰς γελοῖον, ἐσὶν ἁμάρτημά τι καὶ αἴσχα ανώδυνον καὶ ἐφθαρτικόν· οἷον εὐθὺς, τὸ γελοῖον πρόσωπον αἴσχρόν τι καὶ διεσραμμένον ἄνευ ὀδύνης. Comedy is, as I have faid, an imitation of the worst, but not worft in all fort of vice, [for fome vices raise indignation, horror, or pity, which are tragic paffions] but only what has a ridiculous fhare of what is base: for the ridiculous is a fort of defect and baseness, neither caufing pain nor deftruction to the fubject in which it exifts. As for example [subus, ex. gr] a 2 der them ridiculou's. Theocritus fays of his 1? countryman, "Α τε φωνὰ Δώριο, χωνὴρ ὁ τῶν κωμῳδίαν And presently after, Πολλὰ γὰρ ποτὰν ζωἂν τοῖς ΠΑΙΣΙΝ εἶχε χρήσιμα. Μεγάλα χάρις αὐτῷ. There is a fmall corruption in the last line but one, ПAIZIN, children, inftead of ПAZIN, all mankind. The philofophic comedian spoke what was useful for all mankind to know, and fitting for gr.] a deformed and distorted countenance, without any pain to the perfon, is a ridiculous countenance. Proper subjects of comic mirth are the vices which make men mean, contemptible, and ridiculous; fuch are lovers, drunkards, the vain-glorious, the covetous, the coward, fops, fine ladies, and fine gentlemen, &c. These have no feeling of their own baseness ; their deformity is áráduvor, as the philofopher fays; and they are therefore ridiculous cha racters. 17 He came to Sicily when an infant from the ifland Cos, and is therefore called a Sicilian. Laert. VIII, 78. Cicero in epift. ad Attic. I. 19. Ut crebro mihi vafer illè Siculus infufurrat Epicharmus cantilenam illam fuam, Νάφι καὶ μέμνασ' απισεῖν· ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρονῶν. |