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From The Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor, Vol I No. 4, 1831:
HISTORY OF THE STAGE. CHAPTER IV.ORIGIN OF COMEDY—ARISTOPHANES—DEATH OF SOCRATES.
Though the term “tragedy” has from the first productions of Æschylus to the present time, been exclusively appropriated to actions of a serious nature and melancholy catastrophe, there is reason to believe that it originally included also exhibitions of a pleasant, or comic kind. The rude satires, and gross mummery which occupied the stage, or rather the cart, of Thespis, were certainly calculated to provoke mirth in the multitude. By what has already been shown, the reader is apprised that the word, in its original sense, bore no relation whatever to those passions and subjects, to the representations of which it is now applied; but meant simply a dramatic action performed at the feast of the goat, in honour of Bacchus. Thus the different provinces of the drama then undistinguished, were confounded under one term, and constituted the prime trunk from which sprung forth the two branches of tragedy and comedy separately—the first in point of time usurping the original title of the parent stock, and retaining it ever after.
Why human creatures should take delight in witnessing fictitious representations of the anguish and misfortunes of their fellow-beings, in tragedy, and, in comedy of those follies, foibles and imperfections which degrade their nature, is a question which many have asked, but few have been able to answer. The facts are admitted. Towards a solution of their causes, let us consider what is said on the subject of tragedy in that invaluable work “A philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful.”
“It is a common observation,” says the author, in the chapter on sympathy and its effects, “that objects which in the reality would shock, are, in tragical and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction has been commonly attributed, first to the comfort we receive in considering that so melancholy a story is no more than a fiction; and next to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we see represented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common in inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings, which merely arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and construction of our minds, to certain conclusions of the reasoning faculty on the objects presented to us: for I should imagine that the influence of reason, in producing our passions, is nothing near so extensive as is commonly believed.
“To examine this point, concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously consider how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures, in circumstances of real distress. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others; for let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us shun such objects, if, on the contrary, it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this case we must have a delight or pleasure of some species or other in contemplating objects of this kind.
“Do we not read the authentic histories of scenes of this nature with as much pleasure as romances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious? The prosperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon and the distress of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in history, as much as the destruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight in cases of this kind is very greatly heightened if the sufferer be some excellent person who sinks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters, but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great cause he adhered to, than with the deserved triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other; for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close; and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure, because it arises from love raid social affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the passion which animates us to it is attended with delight; and as our creator has designed we should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most, where our sympathy is most wanted, in the distresses of others. If this passion was simply painful we should shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a passion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the case is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity; so that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history, it always touches with delight. This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness. The delight we have in such things, hinders us from shunning scenes of misery; and the pain We feel prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer; and all this antecedent to any reasoning by an instinct that works us to its own purposes without our concurrence.”
The great author then proceeds to illustrate this position further, and after some observations says:
“The nearer tragedy approaches the reality, and the further it removes us from all ideas of fiction, the more perfect is its power. But be its power what it will, it never approaches to what it represents. Choose a day to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have; appoint the most favourite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes and decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting and music; and when you have collected your audience, just when their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the real sympathy. This notion of our having a simple pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means choose to do, from what we should be eager enough to see, if it was once done. We delight in seeing things which so far from doing, our heartiest wishes would be, to see redressed. This noble capital, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. But suppose such a fatal accident to have happened, what numbers from all parts would crowd to behold the ruins, and among them many who would have been content never to have seen London in its glory.”
So much for the causes of the pleasure experienced from tragedy. But how are we to account for the delight received from comedy? Some have imagined it to arise from a bad pride which men feel at seeing their fellow-creatures humiliated, and the frailties and follies of their neighbours exposed. The fact is indubitable, be the cause what it may. The great moral philosopher quoted above, in another part of his works, shrewdly observes, “In the disasters of their friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they are such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of pleasantry.” The falling of a person in the street, or his plunging into the gutter, excites the laughter of those who witness the accident: but let the fall be dangerous, or let a bone be broke, and then comic feelings give way to the sympathetic emotions which belong to tragedy. On a superficial consideration, the delight we feel in tragedy bears the aspect of a cruel tendency in our hearts, yet it is implanted in us for the purposes of mutual beneficence. The pleasure we feel in comedy, too, looks like a malignity in our nature; but why may not it, like the other, be resolved into an instinct working us to some useful purpose without our concurrence?
The end of comedy, like that of satire, is to correct the disorders of mankind by exhibiting their faults and follies in ridiculous and contemptible attitudes. The tendency we feel to laugh at each other’s foibles, or at those misadventures which denote weakness in us, being implanted by the hands of Providence, was no doubt given to us for special purposes of good,; and in all probability to make men without the least intervention of will or reason, moral guides and instructers to each other. It is allowed by the soundest philosophers that ridicule has a much better effect in curing the vices and imperfections of men, than the most illustrious examples of rigid virtue, whose duties are so sublimed that they rather intimidate the greater part of mankind from the trial, than allure them to walk in their steps. The following definition of comedy given by Aristotle and adopted by Horace, Quintilian, and Boileau, corresponds with these observations: “Comedy,” says the Stagyrite, “is an imitation of the worst of men; when I say worst, I don’t mean in all sorts of vices, but only in the ridiculous, which are properly deformities without pain, and which never contribute to the destruction of the subject in which they exist.”
It has been remarked that the most severe satirists have been men of exemplary goodness of heart. The giant satirist Juvenal, was a conspicuous illustration of this truth. While his superior intelligence and sagacity unfolded to him in their full size the vices and follies of his fellow-creatures, his superior philanthropy heightened his indignation at them. The same may perhaps be said of the dramatic satirists, or writers of comedy in general. We could adduce many instances to corroborate this assertion. That very man who stands unrivalled at the head of comic poetry, stands not less high in the estimation of all who know him, for generosity and benevolence. If those who have traversed the life of the author of the School for Scandal with the greatest ill will to the man, were put to the question which they thought, his good-nature or his wit were the greater, they would probably decide in favour of the former.
The most unamiable form in which comedy has ever appeared, was that it assumed at its first rise in Greece. The character of the Athenians was peculiarly favourable to it. The abbe Brumoy who has discussed the subject with vast labour and talent says, “generally speaking, the Athenians were vain, hypocritical, captious, interested, slanderous, and great lovers of novelty.” A French author of considerable note, making use of that people as an object of comparison, says, “Un peuple aussi malin et aussi railleur que celui d’ Athenes.” They were fond of liberty to distraction, idolaters of their country, selfish, and vain, and to an absurd excess scornful of every thing that was not their own. Their tragic poets laid the unction of flattery in unsparing measure upon this foible of theirs, representing kings abased as a contrast to their republican dignity; and with all their greatness, it is easy to detect through their writings, a lamentable propensity in their muse to play the parasite with the people. To their gratification of the public foible, the tragic poets no doubt owed some small part of that idolatry in which they were held by the Athenian multitude. Yet no sooner did the comic writers appear, ridiculing those very tragic poets, than they became still greater favourites with the people. Horace has transmitted to us the names of three of these comic poets, cotemporaries–Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes. If there were any before them, their names are buried in oblivion. Taking the structure of the tragedies of Æschylus for their model, these commenced the first great era of improvement in the comic drama. Of the comedies of Cratinus, Quintilian speaks in great commendation; the little of his poetry, however, that remained is not thought to justify that praise. Eupolis is related to have composed seventeen plays at the age of seventeen years. He was put to death by Alcibiades for defamation, and died unlamented except by a dog, which was so faithfully attached to him that he refused to take food and starved to death upon his master’s tomb. So that of the three, Aristophanes alone lays claim here to particular commemoration.
Perhaps there is not one character of antiquity upon which the opinions of mankind are divided, and so opposite to each other as that of Aristophanes. St. Chrysostom admired him so much that he always laid his works under his pillow when he went to bed. Scaliger maintained that no one could form a just judgment of the true Attic dialect who had not Aristophanes by heart. Of Madame Dacier’s idolatry he seems to be the god: while the venerable Plutarch objects to him that he carried all his thoughts beyond nature; that he wrote not to men of character but to the mob; that his style is at once obscure, licentious, tragical, pompous and mean—sometimes inflated and serious to bombast—sometimes ludicrous, even to puerility; that he makes none of his personages speak in any distinct character, so that in his scenes the son cannot be known from the father—the citizen from the boor—the hero from the shopkeeper, or the divine from the servant.
Whatever doubts may exist as to his talents there can be none respecting his morals. To admit all that his panegyrists have said of his genius is but to augment his depravity, since by the most wicked and wanton perversion of that genius, he made it the successful instrument of the most base and barbarous purposes. Against all that was great and wise and virtuous he with the most malevolent industry turned the shafts of his poignant wit, his brilliant imagination, and his solid knowledge. Corrupting the comic muse from her legitimate duty he seduced her from the pursuit of her fair game, vice and folly, and made her fasten like a bloodhound upon those who were most eminent for moral and intellectual excellence. His caricaturing of Sophocles and Euripides, and turning their valuable writings into ridicule for the amusement of the mob, may be forgiven—but the death of Socrates will never cease to draw upon Aristophanes the execration of every man who has the slightest pretensions to virtue or honesty.
It is here to be observed that the comedy of Greece is to be ranked under three distinct heads. The plays composed of ribaldry, defamatory licentiousness, indecency and loose jokes, which prevailed on the stage while the supreme power remained in the hands of the multitude, constitute the first of these; and it goes by the name of the old comedy. In those pieces no person whatever was spared. Though they were so modelled and represented as to deserve the name of regular comedy they were obscene, scurrilous, and defamatory. In them the most abominable falsehoods were fearlessly charged upon men and women of all conditions and characters; not under fictitious names, nor by innuendo, but directly and with the real name of the party, while the execrable calumniator, protected by the licentious multitude, boldly defied both the power of the law and the avenging arm of the abused individual. Among that licentious people, nobody, not even the chief magistrate nor the very judges themselves, by whose permission the comedians were permitted to play, received any quarter, but were exposed to public scorn by any merciless wretch of a libeller who chose to sacrifice them. Nor were the bad effects of these calumnies confined to public scorn—they often went to the pecuniary ruin of families; sometimes, as in the case of Socrates, afterwards to the death of their object. At length the miscreants proceeded to open impiety, and held up the gods, no less than men to derision.
These abuses continued to contaminate the people and disgrace the country with daily augmented profligacy till a change took place in the government, which took the administration from the multitude and vested it in a few chosen men. The corruptions of the stage were then attended to, and the poets were restrained by law from mentioning any man’s name on the stage. With this law terminated that which is called the old comedy.
So far was this law from producing the salutary effect expected from it, that it rendered the poison more mischievous by depriving it of the grossness which in some degree operated as an antidote to its baleful effects. The poets finding that certain limits were prescribed to them, had recourse to greater ingenuity, and by cunning transgressed the spirit while they obeyed the letter of the law. They fell to work upon well known real characters, concealed under fictitious names; thereby not only exciting in the multitude a keener relish for their slanders, but giving a more wide and extensive scope to the operation of their malice. When the name of the object was openly told, the calumny rested upon him alone—but when a fictitious name was held up, however well known the real object might be, the slander was applied to many, and each spectator fixed it upon that particular person whom stupidity, malice, or personal hatred first suggested to him. Thus the hearts of the people were more corrupted by the more refined malice of guessing the persons intended.
This is what has been denominated the middle comedy. In this particular era it was that Aristophanes flourished, doing more mischief by his labours than all the wit which was lavished upon the Grecian multitude in ages could counterbalance. The virulence of the canker, however, at last enforced the necessity of a resolute cure. The magistrates interdicted the poets and players not only from using real names but from representing real subjects. This admirable refinement produced correspondent effects: comedy assumed a new character, and acquired a new name. The poets being obliged to bring imaginary subjects and fictitious names upon the stage, the safety of individuals from those butcher slanderers was secured, and that safety begat tranquillity—thus the theatre was gradually purified and enriched; and shortly after Menander arose to dignify comedy and rescue the drama, and the public taste of Greece from barbarism. This is the third division alluded to, and is called the new comedy. A sad proof of the danger to a nation of allowing a false or corrupt practice to prevail for any time, arises from the sequel. The Athenians were so vitiated by the old and middle comedy that the new was disagreeable to them, so that it rose to no estimation in the world till it was transferred to Rome.
To his poignant wit, and poisonous malignity, Aristophanes joined great intrepidity of spirit. By the indefatigable exercise of his talents he proceeded, unrestrained by fear, unchecked by conscience, inaccessible to shame or pity, and alike regardless of the anger of foes and the feelings of friends, giving to the middle comedy still more force and acumen than ever belonged to the old. He cajoled the multitude by a plausible affectation of a violent love for Athens, and an inveterate hatred to all on whom he chose to fix the odium of wishing to enslave her. Though he was a Rhodian by birth, he had the address to persuade the Athenian multitude that he was a native of Athens. Wit of a much more obtuse quality than his could not fail of winning the hearts of such a people, if it were employed as his was in calumniating men of wisdom, virtue and dignity.
An instance of his intrepidity is worth relating. The very first man he attacked was a man of vast power in Athens, named Cleo: for the purpose of exposing this man he wrote his comedy of the Equites. He could not, however prevail upon any of the actors to incur the danger of personating Cleo, so much were they intimidated by the man’s power, wealth and influence. He therefore resolutely determined to play the character himself; which he did with such diabolical ability that the Athenian multitude compelled the object of his defamation to reward him with no less a sum than five talents; cast flowers upon his head; carried him through the streets, shouting applause, and made a decree that he should be honoured with a crown of the sacred olive in the citadel, as a distinction of the highest kind that could be shown to a citizen.
The greatest admirer of this mischievous man was Madame Dacier, who translated from the Greek, and read over no less than two hundred times his comedy of The Clouds. A partiality which no doubt will be allowed to reflect much credit on that lady’s taste, moral as well as critical, especially when it is considered that it was by that comedy the death of Socrates was accomplished. Socrates had expressed his disapprobation of the licentiousness of the comic poets, in their conduct as well as writings. This exasperated Aristophanes, who, to accomplish his revenge, conspired with three profligates named Melitus, Lycon, and Anytus, orators and rhetoricians, to destroy that godlike being. Defended by the reverence in which the people held him, Socrates was perpetually secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, and all their gratitude for his services, and they no longer paid the least reverence to the philosopher whom for fifty years Athens had regarded as a being of a superior order. This accomplished, the conspirators stood forth to criminate him; and the philosopher was summoned before the tribunal of five hundred, where he was accused—first, of corrupting the Athenian youth—secondly, of making innovations in religion—and thirdly, of ridiculing the gods which the Athenians worshipped. To prove these evident falsehoods, false witnesses were suborned, upon whose perjuries and the envy and malice of the judges, the accusers wholly relied. They were not disappointed. The judges expected from Socrates that abject submission, that meanness of behaviour, and that servility of defence which they were accustomed to receive from ordinary criminals. In this they were deceived; and his firmness and uncomplying integrity is supposed to have accelerated his fall.
The death of Socrates has always been considered one of the most interesting and afflicting events in history—interesting as it exhibits in that illustrious philosopher the highest dignity to which mere human nature has ever attained, and afflicting as it displays in the Athenians the lowest depth of baseness to which nations may sink. In the history of the Grecian drama it is necessarily introduced, as it serves to throw a light upon the effects produced by the dramatic poetry upon that people, and because a consideration of the manner of that philosopher’s death is inseparably connected with the character of the first of their comic poets, Aristophanes: this chapter therefore will conclude with a circumstantial relation of that event, taken from a celebrated historian:
“Lysias, one of the most celebrated orators of the age, composed an oration in the most splendid and pathetic terms, and offered it to Socrates to be delivered as his defence before the judges. Socrates read it; but after having praised the eloquence and animation of the whole, rejected it, as neither manly nor expressive of fortitude; and comparing it to Sicyonian shoes, which though fitting, were proofs of effeminacy, he observed that a philosopher ought to be conspicuous for magnanimity, and for firmness of soul. In his defence he spoke with great animation, and confessed that while others boasted they knew every thing, he himself knew nothing. The whole discourse was full of simplicity and grandeur—the energetic language of offended innocence. He modestly said, that what he possessed was applied for the service of the Athenians. It was his wish to make his fellow-citizens happy, and it was a duty he performed by the special command of the gods, “Whose authority,” said he emphatically to his judges, “I regard more than yours.” This language astonished and irritated the judges, and Socrates was condemned by a majority of only three votes. When, according to the spirit of the Athenian laws, he was called upon to pass sentence on himself, and to choose the mode of his death, he said, “For my attempts to teach the Athenian youth justice and moderation, and to make the rest of my countrymen more happy, let me be maintained at the public expense the remaining years of my life in the Pyrtaneum, an honour, O Athenians which I deserve more than the victors of the Olympic games: they make their countrymen more happy in appearance, but I have made you so in reality.” This exasperated the judges still more, and they condemned him to drink hemlock. Upon this he addressed the court and more particularly the judges who had decided in his favour, in a pathetic speech. He told them that to die was a pleasure, since he was going to hold converse with the greatest heroes of antiquity: he recommended to their paternal care his defenceless children, and as he returned to the prison, he exclaimed, “I go to die, you to live; but which is the best the divinity alone can know.”
The celebration of the Delian festivals suspended his execution for thirty days, during which he was loaded with irons; his friends, particularly his disciples, were his constant attendants, he discoursed with them with his wonted cheerfulness and serenity—one of them expressing his grief that he should suffer, though innocent, Socrates replied, “would you then have me die guilty?”—with this composure he spent his last days, instructing his pupils, and telling them his opinions in support of the immortality of the soul. And, oh what a majestic spectacle! disregarded the entreaties of his friends, and when it was in his power to make his escape from prison refused it. Crito having bribed the jailor and made his escape certain, urged Socrates to fly; “where shall I fly,” he replied, “to avoid the irrevocable doom passed on all mankind?” Christians! wonder at this heathen, and profit by his example! in his last days he enlarged upon the wicked crime of suicide, which he reprobated with an acrimony not usual with him, declaring it to be an inexpiable offence to the gods, and degrading to man because the basest cowardice.
When the hour to drink the poison came, the executioner presented him the cup, with tears in his eyes. Socrates received it with composure, and after he had made a libation to the gods, drank it with an unaltered countenance, and a few moments after expired. Thus did the villanous libeller Aristophanes occasion the death of a man whom all succeeding generations have concurred in pronouncing the wisest and best of mankind, in the seventieth year of his age.
Let justice record the sequel! Socrates was no sooner buried, than the Athenians repented of their cruelty. His accusers were despised and shunned; one was put to death; some were banished, and others with their own hands put an end to a life which their cruelty to the first of Athenians had rendered insupportable.