[1] See Haigh, The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, pp. 19 sq.
[2] It arose in a similar fashion to tragedy, from the phallic songs to Dionysus at his winter festival.
[3] τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον; (Plutarch, Symposiaca, 615 A).
[4] Pp. 39-41.
[5] These first paragraphs give a summary of the view almost universally held as to the origin of Greek tragedy. Of late, however, Professor Sir William Ridgeway (The Origin of Tragedy, with Special Reference to the Greek Tragedians, Cambridge, 1910) has combated current beliefs with great vigour. His belief is (p. 186) “that Tragedy arose in the worship of the dead, and that the only Dionysiac element in the Drama was the satyric play”. Aristotle’s evidence (see p. 4) he dismisses as mistaken, because “Aristotle was only interested in Tragedy as a fully developed art, and paid little heed to its early history” (p. 57). The present writer is bound to confess that, after following and estimating to the best of his ability the numerous and heterogeneous statements put forward in evidence, he cannot regard Professor Ridgeway’s contention as proved. It is undoubtedly true that many extant tragedies centre more or less vitally upon a tomb, but many do not. The mimetic ritual in honour of the slain Scephrus (p. 37) is real evidence, so far as it goes; but the utmost it proves is that Greek tragedy could have arisen from such funeral performances—it does not show that it did. The most remarkable point in the book is the discussion of the well-known passage in Herodotus (V, 67): τά τε δὴ ἄλλα οἱ Σικυώνιοι ἐτίμων τὸν Ἄδρηστον καὶ δὴ πρὸς τὰ πάθεα αὐτοῦ τραγικοῖσι χοροῖσι ἐγέραιρον, τὸν μὴν Διόνυσον οὐ τιμέωντες, τὸν δὲ Ἄδρηστον. Κλεισθένης δὲ χοροὺς μὲν τῷ Διονύσῳ ἀπέδωκε, τὴν δὲ ἄλλην θυσίην Μελανίππῳ (see Ridgeway, p. 28): “The men of Sicyon paid honours to Adrastus, and in particular they revered him with tragic choruses because of his sufferings, herein honouring not Dionysus, but Adrastus. Cleisthenes gave the choruses to Dionysus, and the rest of the offering to Melanippus.” It may well be that Professor Ridgeway is right in asserting that ἀπέδωκε means not “restored” but “gave”—that is, these tragic choruses were originally of the funereal kind which he suggests for all primitive Greek tragedy. This is excellent evidence for his contention, so far as it goes, but it only proves one example. Herodotus’ words, on the other hand, imply that he believed tragedy to be normally Dionysiac. To sum up, we cannot regard Professor Ridgeway as having succeeded in damaging the traditional view.
[6] Aristotle, Poetic, 1448a: διὸ καὶ ἀντιποιοῦνται τῆς τε τραγῳδίας καὶ τῆς κωμῳδίας οἱ Δωριεῖς.
[7] Ol., XIII, 18 sq.: ταὶ Διωνύσου πόθεν ἐξέφανεν σὺν βοηλάτᾳ χάριτες διθυράμβῳ; i.e. as the context shows, the dithyramb appeared first at Corinth.
[8] α for η, and sometimes -ᾶν as the inflexion of the feminine genitive plural.
[9] Poetic, 1449a: γενομένη δ’ οὖν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς αὐτοσχεδιαστική ... ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὸν διθύραμβον ... κατὰ μικρὸν ηὐξήθη προαγόντων ὅσον ἐγίγνετο φανερὸν αὐτῆς, καὶ πολλὰς μεταβολὰς μεταβαλοῦσα ἡ τραγῳδία ἐπαύσατο, ἐπεὶ ἔσχε τὴν αὐτῆς φύσιν. καὶ τό τε τῶν ὑποκριτῶν πλῆθος ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς δύο πρῶτος Αἰσχύλος ἤγαγε καὶ τὰ τοῦ χοροῦ ἠλάττωσε καὶ τὸν λόγον πρωταγωνιστὴν παρεσκεύασεν, τρεῖς δὲ καὶ σκηνογραφίαν Σοφοκλῆς. ἔτι δὲ τὰ μέγεθος ἐκ μικρῶν μύθων καὶ λέξεως γελοίας διὰ τὸ ἐκ σατυρικοῦ μεταβαλεῖν ὀψὲ ἀπεσεμνύνθη. τό τε μέτρον ἐκ τετραμέτρου ἰαμβεῖον ἐγένετο· τὸ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον τετραμέτρῳ ἐχρῶντο διὰ τὸ σατυρικὴν καὶ ὀρχηστικωτέραν εἶναι τὴν ποίησιν ... ἔτι δὲ ἐπεισοδίων πλήθη. καὶ τὰ ἄλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστα κοσμηθῆναι λέγεται.... Here and elsewhere, in quoting from the Poetic, I borrow Butcher’s admirable translation.
[10] These narratives and conversations were naturally regarded as interruptions in the main business, and this feeling is marked by the name always given to the “acts” of a play, ἐπεισόδια (“episodia”), i.e. “interventions” or “interruptions”.
[11] The text of the treatise is, however, incomplete. The author of the pseudo-Platonic Minos (321 A) speaks of the current belief that Thespis was the originator of tragedy.
[12] This is a mere name for a really anonymous collection of information on philosophical and other history.
[13] Ars Poetica, 275-7.
[14] Poetic, 1449a.
[15] βασιλεὺς ἦν Χοίριλος ἐν σατύροις (Plotius, De Metris, p. 2633, quoted by Haigh, Tragic Drama, p. 40).
[16] Frogs, 689: εἴ τις ἥμαρτε σφαλείς τι Φρυνίχου παλαίσμασιν. The allusion in the first instance points undoubtedly to the famous general Phrynichus; but his political machinations are jokingly referred to as a “wrestling-bout” because of the celebrated description in his namesake the playwright.
[17] Herod. VI, 21.
[18] Wasps, 220 (μέλη ἀρχαιομελισιδωνοφρυνιχήρατα).
[19] Birds, 748-51, reading ὥσπερ ἡ μέλιττα.
[20] λάμπει δ’ ἐπὶ πορφυρέαις παρῇσι φῶς ἔρωτος. Notice the exquisite alliteration. Sophocles no doubt had this line in mind when he wrote Antigone 782.
[21] The writer of the Argument to the Persæ says: Γλαῦκος ἐν τοῖς περὶ Αἰσχύλου μύθων ἐκ τῶν Φοινίσσων Φρυνίχου φησὶ τοὺς Πέρσας παραπεποιῆσθαι. The late Dr. Verrall (The Bacchantes of Euripides and Other Essays, pp. 283-308) believed that not only is the Persæ modelled on the Phœnissæ but Æschylus incorporated a large portion of Phrynichus’ play with little change (Persæ vv. 480-514 especially).
[22] By M. Croiset, Hist. de la Litt. grecque, III, p. 49.
[23] This is asserted by his epitaph:—
These verses are said to come from the pen of Æschylus himself. For once such tradition appears to be true. No forger would have had the audacity to omit all reference to the plays.
[24] This, however, is certainly stated by Aristotle (Nic. Ethics, 1111a). On the other hand, Æschylus says in the Frogs (886); Δήμητερ, ἡ θρέψασα τὴν ἐμὴν φρένα, εἶναί με τῶν σῶν ἄξιον μυστηρίων.
[25] Aristotle, Poetic, 1449a.
[26] The following plays were performed with two actors only: of Æschylus, Supplices, Prometheus, Persæ, Seven against Thebes; of Euripides, Medea, and perhaps Alcestis.
[27] By Plutarch, Life of Cimon, VIII. Haigh (The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 128²) gives good reasons for rejecting the story.
[28] One of these occasions was that on which he presented the Œdipus Tyrannus.
[29] A fragment of Ion’s Ἐπιδημίαι remarks: τὰ μέντοι πολιτικὰ οὔτε σοφὸς οὔτε ῥεκτήριος ἦν, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἄν τις εἷς τῶν χρηστῶν Ἀθηναίων.
[30] Aristophanes, too, in the Frogs (v. 82), bears witness to his charm: ὁ δ’ εὔκολος μὲν ἐνθάδ’, εὔκολος δ’ ἐκεῖ· “Sophocles, on the other hand, is gentle here (i.e. in Hades) as he was in life.”
[31] Œd. Col. 1225-8.
[32] Poetic, 1460b: Σοφοκλῆς ἔφη αὐτὸς μὲν οἵους δεῖ ποιεῖν, Εὐριπίδην δὲ οἷοι εἰσίν.
[33] Plutarch, De Profectu in Virtute, 79 B: ὁ Σοφοκλῆς ἔλεγε, τὸν Αἰσχύλου διαπεπαιχὼς ὄγκον, εἶτα τὸ πικρὸν καὶ κατάτεχνον τῆς αὐτοῦ κατασκευῆς, τρίτον ἤδη τὸ τῆς λέξεως μεταβάλλειν εἶδος ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἠθικώτατον καὶ βέλτιστον.
[34] See Haigh, Tragic Drama, p. 162.
[35] Aristotle, Poetic, 1449a.
[36] Suidas (s.v. Σοφοκλῆς): καὶ αὐτὸς ἦρξε τοῦ δρᾶμα πρὸς δρᾶμα ἀγωνίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ μὴ τετραλογίαν.
[37] In the Anonymous Life.
[38] See Haigh, Attic Tragedy, pp. 139 sq., where this excellent point is made.
[39] The most celebrated is the description of the sun as a “clod” (Orestes, 983). Alcestis, 904 sqq., may very possibly refer to the death of Anaxagoras’ son.
[40] XV, 20.
[41] A passage in his Life suggests that he was indifferent to the strictly “theatrical” side of his profession: οὐδεμίαν φιλοτιμίαν περὶ τὰ θέατρα ποιούμενος· διὸ τοσοῦτον αὐτὸν ἔβλαπτε τοῦτο ὅσον ὠφέλει τὸν Σοφοκλέα.
[42] Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. IX, pp. 124-82.
[43] Pp. 29 sq.
[44] ἀκριβῶς ὅλως περιείληφεν τὸν Ἀναξαγόρειον διάκοσμον ἐν τρισὶν περιόδοις.
[45] Aristotle, Poetic, 1452b.
[46] Not all. The elegance of his iambic style excited Aristophanes’ admiration: indeed he confessed to imitating it, and the great Cratinus invented a significant compound verb εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζειν. See Meineke, Frag. Comicorum Græcorum, II, 1142.
[47] Frogs, v. 1122: ἀσαφὴς γὰρ ἦν ἐν τῇ φράσει τῶν πραγμάτων.
[48] vv. 846-54.
[49] vv. 518-44.
[50] Frogs, 939 sqq.
[51] Ibid. 948 sqq.
[52] Ibid. 959: σύνεσμεν may recall Grant Allen’s famous sentence about taking Hedda Gabler down to dinner.
[53] Of these three points the first two come from Suidas (under the article Νεόφρων), the third from the argument to the extant Medea: τὸ δρᾶμα δοκεῖ ὑποβαλέσθαι τὰ Νεόφρονος διασκευάσας, ὡς Δικαίαρχός τε περὶ τοῦ Ἑλλάδος βίου καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν ὑπομνήμασι.
[54] vv. 1211-6.
[55] There is good reason to suppose that what we possess is a second version. The scholiast on Aristophanes mentions passages as parodies of lines in the Medea which we no longer read there.
[56] In his ὑπομνήματα, quoted by the Argument to the Medea.
[57] πρῶτος εἰς τὸ νῦν μῆκος τὰ δράματα κατέστησεν.
[58] Unless we except the Rhesus (996 lines).
[59] The original form of it seems to have been:—
[60] The name is not certain. The book is variously called ὑπομνήματα (“notes”), ἐπιδημίαι (“visits”), and συνεκδημητικός. The first is not a “name”—it merely describes the book. The second was explained by Bentley to mean “accounts of the visits to our island of Chios by distinguished strangers”. The third could mean something like “traveller’s companion”.
[61] Plutarch (De Profectu in Virtute, 79 E), no doubt quoting from Ion, tells us that at a critical moment in a boxing match Æschylus nudged Ion and said: “You see what a difference training makes? The man who has received the blow is silent, while the spectators cry aloud.”
[62] Plutarch, Pericles, Chap. V.
[63] v. 835. To the scholium on this line we owe much of our information about Ion.
[64] One of them bears the curious title “Great Play” (μέγα δρᾶμα), but nothing is known of it.
[65] Frogs, 1425.
[66] XXXIII, 5 (Prof. Rhys Roberts’ translation).
[67] Diog. Laert. II, 133.
[68] Croiset III, p. 400 (n.), thus explains the strange words of Suidas, ἐπεδείκνυτο δὲ κοινῇ σὺν καὶ Εὐριπίδῃ.
[69] Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 409.
[70] Ath. X, 451 C.
[71] Aristotle, Poetic, 1451b.
[72] Ibid. 1456a (Butcher’s translation).
[73] Plutarch, Symposiaca, 645 E.
[74] Thesm. 100: μύρμηκος ἀτραπούς.
[75] Aristotle, Poetic, 1456a.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Such a sentence as that of M. Orgon in Le jeu de l’amour et du hasard (I, ii.): “Va, dans ce monde, il faut être un peu trop bon pour l’être assez,” strikes one as thoroughly Agathonesque.
[79] Protagoras, 315 E.
[80] Symposium, 198 C. Socrates says of Agathon’s panegyric upon Eros: καὶ γάρ με Γοργίου ὁ λόγος ἀνεμίμνησκεν. The whole speech of Agathon is intended to show these characteristics. Cp., for example, 197 D: πρᾳότητα μὲν πορίζων, ἀγριότητα δ’ ἐξορίζων· φιλόδωρος εὐμενείας, ἄδωρος δυσμενείας κτἑ.
[81] Thesm. 130 sqq.
[82] Ibid. 54 sqq.
[83] It is noteworthy that Socrates’ famous “prophecy of Shakespeare” (Symposium, 223 D), “one who can write comedy can write tragedy and vice versa,” is addressed to Agathon and Aristophanes jointly.
[84] The attribution of this play to Critias is not certain, but probable; it is accepted by Wilamowitz. The new life of Euripides by Satyrus (see above, p. 18) attributes it to that poet.
[85] Eratosthenes, II.
[86] Poetic, 1453b.
[87] De Gloria Atheniensium, 349 E.
[88] Poetic, 1455a, b.
[89] Aristotle, Rhetoric, III, 12, 2: βαστάζονται δὲ οἱ ἀναγνωστικοί, οἷον Χαιρήμων· ἀκριβὴς γὰρ ὥσπερ λογογράφος.
[90] “You know how to feel contempt before you have learnt wisdom,” or, to reproduce (however badly) the play upon words, “You practise contempt before using contemplation”.
[91] Athenæus, fr. 10: δρᾶμα πολύμετρον.
[92] Poetic, 1447b.
[93] vv. 677-774.
[94] Symonds, Studies in the Greek Poets, II, p. 26.
[95] Adversus Indoctos, 15.
[96] Athenæus III, 98 D, reports, for example, that he called a javelin βαλλάντιον (properly “purse”), because “it is thrown in the face of the foe” (ἐναντίον βάλλεται).
[97] Poetic, 1454b.
[98] 1455a.
[99] Rhetoric, II, 1400b.
[100] Ibid. 1417b, but the passage is obscure.
[101] Eth. Nic. 1150b, 10.
[102] Ælian, V.H. XIV, 40.
[103] Orator, 51.
[104] Poetic, 1452a.
[105] Ibid. 1455b.
[106] “First there came a circle with a dot in the middle,” etc.
[107] θέλω τύχης σταλαγμὸν ἢ φρενῶν πίθον.
[108] That he belongs to the fourth century is not certain, though extremely probable.
[109] We have only one title (Telephus) which implies a legendary theme.
[110] Meineke suggests that the subject is an incident related by Xenophon, Hellenica, VI, iv. 33, 34.
[111] He might at least have written τοῖς ἀμείνοσιν.
[112] The meaning of this name is unknown.
[113] Athenæus XIII, 595 F.
[114] He uses the diminutive δραμάτιον.
[115] κατὰ ἰατρῶν (Stobæus, 102, 3). He was thus a precursor of Molière and Mr. Bernard Shaw.
[116] Diogenes Laertius, VII, 173.
[117] This point is made by Bernhardy, Grundriss der Gr. Litteratur II, ii. p. 72.
[118] His date is not, however, certain, and there is some reason to assign his floruit to the time of Alexander the Great.
[119] The most amazing example is that of the “Three Unities”—those of Action, Time, and Place—of which such a vast amount has been heard and which ruled tyrannically over French “classical” tragedy. It is difficult to believe that Aristotle never mentions the “Three Unities”. On the Unity of Action he has, of course, much to say; the Unity of Time is dismissed in one casual sentence. As to the Unity of Place there is not a word. (It is signally violated in the Eumenides and the Ajax.)
[120] Poetic, 1454a.
[121] Ibid.
[122] See Wilamowitz-Moellendorff’s magnificent Einleitung in die griechische Tragödie, pp. 48-51 (e.g. “nicht mehr Aristoteles der aesthetiker sondern Aristoteles der historiker ist der ausgangspunkt unserer betrachtung” and “unser fundament ist und bleibt was in der poetik steht”).
[123] Poetic, 1449b: ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι’ ἀπαγγελίας, δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.
[124] 1448a.
[125] 1451a, b.
[126] 1462a.
[127] 1462a, b. (The phrasing in the summary above is borrowed from Butcher.) See further 1449b.
[128] 1450b.
[129] 1450a.
[130] 1451a.
[131] 1451a.
[132] 1451b.
[133] 1452a.
[134] 1452a.
[135] 1452b.
[136] οἱ ἐν τῷ φανερῷ θάνατοι.
[137] 1453a.
[138] 1453b.
[139] 1454a, b.
[140] pp. 163-5.
[141] pp. 313-5.
[142] 1454b, 1460a.
[143] 1452b: ἔστιν δὲ πρόλογος μὲν μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ πρὸ χοροῦ παρόδου, ἐπεισόδιον δὲ μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ μεταξὺ ὅλων χορικῶν μελῶν, ἔξοδος δὲ μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας μεθ’ ὃ οὐκ ἔστι χοροῦ μέλος, χορικοῦ δὲ πάροδος μὲν ἡ πρώτη λέξις ὅλη χοροῦ, στάσιμον δὲ μέλος χοροῦ τὸ ἄνευ ἀναπαίστου καὶ τροχαίου, κόμμος δὲ θρῆνος κοινὸς χοροῦ καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ σκηνῆς.