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advice, and regulate the passionate, and love to appease those who swell [with rage]:[1] let them praise the repast of a short meal, and salutary effects of justice, laws, and peace with her open gates; let them conceal what is told to them in confidence,[2] and supplicate and implore the gods that prosperity may return to the wretched, and abandon the haughty. The flute,[3] (not as now, begirt with brass and emulous of
- ↑ I read “pacare tumentes,” with Bentley, Orelli, and others.
- ↑ The Choriphæus was present through the whole play, and was often necessarily intrusted with the secrets of the persons of the drama. To preserve the probability, the poets chose a chorus, that was obliged by their own interest to keep those secrets, and without acting contrary to their duty. Euripides hath greatly offended against this precept. Dac.
- ↑ Tibia non ut nunc orichalco, etc. (From v. 202 to v. 220.) This is one of those many passages in the epistle about which the critics have said a great deal, without explaining any thing. In support of what I mean to offer, as the true interpretation, I observe,
I. That the poet’s intention certainly was, not to censure the false refinements of their stage music; but, in a short digressive history (such as the didactic form will sometimes require), to describe the rise and progress of the true. This I collect, 1. From the expression itself, which can not, without violence, be understood in any other way. For, as to the words licentia and præceps, which have occasioned much of the difficulty, the first means a freer use, not a licentiousness properly so-called; and the other only expresses a vehemence and rapidity of language, naturally productive of a quicker elocution, such as must of course attend the more numerous harmony of the lyre: not, as M. Dacier translates it, “une eloquence temeraire et outree,” an extravagant straining and affectation of style. 2. From the reason of the thing, which makes it incredible that the music of the theater should then be most complete, when the times were barbarous, and entertainments of this kind little encouraged or understood. 3. From the character of that music itself; for the rudeness of which, Horace, in effect, apologizes, in defending it only on the score of the imperfect state of the stage, and the simplicity of its judges. This then being clear, I observe,
II That those two verses,
“Indoctus quid enim saperet liberque laborum,
Rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto ?”
are, as they now stand, utterly inexplicable. This hath appeared long since, from the fruitless labors of the critics, and, above all, of Lambin, one of the best of them, who, after several repeated efforts to elucidate this place, leaves it just as dark and unintelligible as ho found it. The interpretation, without them, stands thus: “The tibia,” says the poet, “was at first low and simple. The first, as best agreeing to the then state of the stage, which required only a soft music to go along with and assist the chorus, there being no large and crowded theaters to fill in those days. And the latter, as suiting best to the then state of the times, whose simplicity and frugal manners exacted the severest temperance, as in every thing else, so in their dramatic ornaments and decorations. But, when conquest had enlarged the territory and widened the walls of Rome, and, in consequence thereof, a social spirit had dispelled that severity of manners, by the introduction of frequent festival solemnities, then, as was natural to expect, a freer and more varied harmony took place. And thus it was, that the tibicen, the musician who played to the declamation in the acts, instead of the rude and simpler strain of the old times, gave a richness and variety of tone; and instead of the old inactive posture, added the grace of motion to his art. Just in the same manner,” continues he, “it happened to the lyre, i. e. the music in the chorus, which originally, as that of the tibia, was severe and simple; but, by degrees, acquired a quicker and more expressive modulation, such as corresponded to the more elevated and passionate turn of the poet’s style, and the diviner enthusiasm of his sentiment.” Hurd.
