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luxuriance to the ancient art, and strutting backward and forward, drew a length of train over the stage; thus likewise new notes were added to the severity of the lyre, and precipitate eloquence produced an unusual language [in the theater]: and the sentiments [of the chorus, then] expert in teaching useful things and prescient of futurity, differ hardly from the oracular Delphi.[1]
The poet, who first tried his skill in tragic verse for the paltry [prize of a] goat, soon after exposed to view wild satyrs naked,[2] and attempted raillery with severity, still preserving the gravity [of tragedy]: because the spectator on festivals, when heated with wine[3] and disorderly, was to be
- ↑ Sententia Delphis. Sententia is properly an aphorism taken from life, briefly representing either what is or what ought to be the conduct of it: “Oratio sumpta de vita, quse aut quid sit aut quid esse oporteat in vita, breviter ostendit.” (Ad Herenn. Rhet. 1. iv.) These aphorisms are here mentioned, as constituting the peculiar praise and beauty of the chorus. This is finely observed, and was intended to convey an oblique censure on the practice of those poets, who stuff out every part of the drama alike with moral sentences, not considering that the only proper receptacle of them is the chorus, where indeed they have an extreme propriety, it being the peculiar office and character of the chorus to moralize. Hurd.
- ↑ There was a kind of tragic comedies among the Greeks, which they called Satyrs, because the chorus was formed of Satyrs, who sung the praises of Bacchus between the acts, and said a thousand low pleasantries. The only piece of this kind remaining to us is the Cyclops of Euripides, in which Ulysses is the principal actor. The Romans, in imitation of the Greek Satyrs, had their Atettanæ, so called from Atella, the city where they were first played. Nan.
- ↑ Potus et exlex. The lines,
“Indoctus quid enim saperet liberque laborum
Rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto ?”
were I observed, certainly misplaced. They should, I think, come in here, where their sense is extremely pertinent. The poet had been speaking of the satyric drama, which, says he, was added to the tragic,
“eò quòd
Illecebris erat, et grata novitate morandus
Spectator, functusque sacris, et potus, et exlex.”
But why, it might be asked, this compliance, in so false a taste, with a drunken, lawless rabble ? The answer is natural and to the purpose. “Because their theaters necessarily consisted of a mixed assembly, every part of which was to be considered in the public diversions.” The question then hath an extreme propriety,
“Indoctus quid enim saperet liberque laborum,
Rusticus urbano confusus, tnrpis honesto ?”
The rusticus and turpis demanded the satyric piece. It was the necessary result of this mixutre ; as, to gratify the better sort, the urbanus and honestus, the tragic drama was exhibited. It is some prejudice in favor of this conjecture, that it explains to us, what would otherwise appear very strange, that such gross ribaldry, as we know the Atellanes consisted of, could ever be endured by the politest age of Rome. But scenical representations being then intended, not as in our days, for the entertainment of the better sort, but on certain great solemnities, indifferently for the diversion of the whole city, it became necessary to consult the taste of the multitude, as well as of those, quibus esl equus et pater et res. Hurd.
