Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/332

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amused with captivating shows and agreeable novelty. But it will be expedient so to recommend the bantering, so the rallying satyrs, so to turn earnest into jest; that none who shall be exhibited as a god, none who is introduced as a hero lately^[1] conspicuous in regal purple and gold, may deviate into the low style of obscure, mechanical shops; or, [on the contrary,] while he avoids the ground, effect cloudy mist and empty jargon. Tragedy^[2] disdaining to prate forth trivial verses, like a matron commanded to dance on the festival

↑ This proves that the same actor, as M. Dacier observes, who had been an Orestes or Ulysses in the tragic part, played the same character in the comic, or, Atellanæ. Thus Plautus in the prologue to his Menechmes, “this town, during this play, shall be Epidamnum, and when it has been acted, it may be any other city. As in a company of players, the same person shall, at different times, be a pander, a youth, an old man, a beggar, a king, a parasite, a soothsayer.” St. Jerome hath finely imitated this passage ; “our vices oblige us to play many characters, for every vice wears a different mask. Thus in a theater, the same person plays a robust and nervous Hercules, a dissolute Venus, and a furious Cyclops.” Fran.
↑ Indigna tragædia versus. Horace means the Atellanæ, which were in so much esteem, that the persons, who acted in them, were not ranked with the comedians, nor were obliged to unmask on the stage when they played ill, as others were ; and, as a peculiar honor, they were allowed to enlist in the army. Therefore low and trivial veraca were beneath the dignity of the Atellanæ. Dag.

[1] This proves that the same actor, as M. Dacier observes, who had been an Orestes or Ulysses in the tragic part, played the same character in the comic, or, Atellanæ. Thus Plautus in the prologue to his Menechmes, “this town, during this play, shall be Epidamnum, and when it has been acted, it may be any other city. As in a company of players, the same person shall, at different times, be a pander, a youth, an old man, a beggar, a king, a parasite, a soothsayer.” St. Jerome hath finely imitated this passage ; “our vices oblige us to play many characters, for every vice wears a different mask. Thus in a theater, the same person plays a robust and nervous Hercules, a dissolute Venus, and a furious Cyclops.” Fran.

[2] Indigna tragædia versus. Horace means the Atellanæ, which were in so much esteem, that the persons, who acted in them, were not ranked with the comedians, nor were obliged to unmask on the stage when they played ill, as others were ; and, as a peculiar honor, they were allowed to enlist in the army. Therefore low and trivial veraca were beneath the dignity of the Atellanæ. Dag.

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