CHAPTER III

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF TRAGEDY 1

WITHOUT Some reference to the rise of tragedy in Attica, any theory of the nature of tragedy is after all unmeaning. We can hardly speak of tragedy in the abstract" apart from Attic tragedy. For tragedy was made by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and their predecessors. All modern tragedy is really a continuation of the Greek, as with a very slight exaggeration all modern literature may be said to be a continuation or imitation of Greek literature. We do but resolve Greek tragedy into its elements in the attempt to analyse the notion of tragedy generally. Aristotle's outline, however wonderful in its general truth, must in this aspect be pronounced defective. Besides the confusion between imitation and creation, his account lacks depth of

1 Books to consult : Bentley's Phalaris; Donaldson's Greek Theatre; Müller's History of Greek Literature; Jebb's Primer of Greek Literature; Jevons's History of Greek Literature; Ency. Brit. art. "Drama." See also Monier Williams' Sakuntalá.

historical background. He has to a great extent lost sight of the religious basis of tragedy, and regards it simply, after his manner, as an art having a definite end. Even so regarded, his

definition will bear to be amended in the light of subsequent developments. Dryden1 well observes that, if Aristotle had known Shakespeare, he might in some respects have modified his theory. The so-called "classical" dramas of France and Italy, as well as that of Spain, which was more distinctly rooted in popular favour, reflect some illustration-even through the fact that they are less original-on the true nature of their Greek archetypes.

And the comparison of the beginnings of tragedy in other races, however rudimentary in their development,-the Hindu theatre, more allied to romantic melodrama than to the Hellenic stage; the heroic extravaganza of China and Japan; the rare imaginary dialogues of Hebrew literature, so sublime in spiritual conception, so naïve and crude in dramatic form,3-may at least help to assure us that this plant, which blooms so rarely-scarcely once anywhere in 2000 years—

1 Answer to Rymer. Cp. Aristoph. Poet. c. iv. § 2: Tò μèv ovv ἐπισκοπεῖν ἆρ ̓ ἔχει ἤδη ἡ τραγῳδία τοῖς εἴδεσιν ἱκανῶς ἢ οὔ, . . ἄλλος λόγος.

2 "Nenn' ich Sakuntalá dich, und so ist alles gesagt."Goethe. The existence of a regular drama in India appears to be subsequent to the conquests of Alexander.

3 Song of Solomon, Job, Isaiah (c. xiv.)

is yet the outcome and natural exponent of a widespread human tendency. For our present purpose, however, we may confine our attention to the rise of tragedy in Hellas and in Attica, the cradle of the art.

According to a view long entertained by many persons, tragedy was supposed to have arisen from some chance meeting and amalgamation of previously existing literary tendencies, epic poetry being conjoined with lyric, the love of recitation mingling with the love of song. And it is quite true that in the earliest form actually known to us tragic poetry has already borrowed much from epic, lyric, gnomic, and iambic literature. But the principle of life which has assimilated all these extraneous elements is essentially different from all of them. The art had a separate and independent origin. Like every feature of Greek life it had religion at the root, and its birth was due to the worship of the Theban Dionysus, which was brought at some unknown period, by way of Eleutherae, into Attica. Dionysus is more commonly known as Bacchus, the god of wine. But wine is only a symbol of all that is enlivening, cheering, invigorating of the reawakening of vital energies in man, as in nature, of every access of new life that seems unaccountable, and is therefore attributed by early imagination to the direct inspiration of the

god. There is no need to lose oneself in the mazes
of the great Dionysiac myth, or in speculations
like those of the author of the Golden Bough.
Whatever may have been the remote origin of
Bacchic rites, it is manifest how inevitably a
mythological logic must have extended their
significance. It is important to observe that it
was not an autumn festival of grape-ingathering
or of the winepress that gave birth to the drama,
but an early spring celebration, connected partly
with the broaching of last year's wine and partly
with the preparation of the vines for the season
to come. How readily the thoughts natural to
such a time may lend themselves to mythological
personification is manifest from many indications
in comparatively modern literature. Witness the
black-letter ballad, of which
of which Burns' "John
Barleycorn" is an adaptation, and even Fal-
staff's rhapsody on "sherris-sack," which reads
like a paraphrase of the speech of Demosthenes,
the Athenian general, in the Knights of Aristo-
phanes. It was a spring festival, and therefore
the rising of the sap, the bourgeoning of trees, the
prodigality of the earth teeming with flowers,
were all associated with the ideas of gladness,
of rejuvenescence and of trembling hope, which
Bacchus was known to inspire. The ivy with
its evergreen shoots, purple-flushed veins, and
2 Aristoph. Eq. 89-96.

1

2 Hen. IV. Act iv. Sc. 3.

clustering berries had a fancied resemblance to the vine, and therefore, being available in springtime, which the vine was not, it was consecrated to the service of the god. The goat is dangerous to the vineyard and a lover of the vine, and when "full of the god" he behaves wantonly; hence he is sacred to Bacchus, who is accompanied by a troop of goat-footed beings, led by Silenus as their head-man "-these are called satyrs, and bear some resemblance to Arcadian Pan. The "tragic dance" was originally a dance of satyrs. Dionysus is also accompanied by women, either those who nursed his childhood, Thyiades, or those whom he had drawn from civic life to sport with him as Bacchanals over the hills. This does not mean that women of old were specially addicted to wine, but that there is something feminine in those irrational or unaccountable impulses which were attributed to Bacchic inspiration-whether regarded as a wild uncontrollable passion or as "divine madness." An analogous idea is latent in the worship which our Teutonic forefathers paid to women as having the gift of prophecy. The Bacchic rout leaves public haunts for the wild wood; hence the pine-tree is sacred to the god, whose peculiar wand, the thyrsus, wound with ivy, is tipped with a pine-cone. Dionysus is said by Herodotus to

1 Tacitus, Germania.