only, was brought to perfection in very early times, and before the people of Attica, to whom alone the dramatic Tragedy belongs, had appropriated the Drama to themselves: of course only romancers, like the author of the Minos, or dialogue of law, have placed the latter far above Thespis; a position against which I have expressed my opinion on a former occasion (Gr. Trag. Princip. p. 254). All that I have said is equally applicable to Comedy: in our Inscriptions, we find a lyrical Comedy before the dramatical at Orchomenus; and lower down, the dramatical Comedy is introduced, as from Attica, along with which an actor is mentioned: the former was the old peculiarity of the Dorians and Eolians, among whom lyric poetry for the most part obtained its completion. Even if we pass over Epicharmus, and the traces of a lyric Comedy in the religious usages of Epidaurus and Ægina, (Herod. v. 83.) the Dorians, and especially the Megarians, might still have had well-founded claims to the invention of Comedy, which according to Aristotle, they made good. Besides, the view which we have taken of the lyrical Comedy, sufficiently proves that the name is derived not from kun but from the merry κ@uos: such a one took place at the celebration of the victory, and consequently we find in our Inscriptions τὰ ἐπινίκια κωμαΕυδός, and τὰ ἐπινίκια κωμῳdiwr TonTns, who is certainly in this place a dramatic Comedian, Alexander of Athens. We cannot, however, call Pindar's songs of victory old Comedies: and the greater is the distinction between the lyric, and the dramatic Comedy, the less entitled are we to draw from this view, any conclusions in favour of the opinion that the Pindaric poems were represented with corresponding mimicry.” Böckh has reprinted these Inscriptions in his Corpus Inscriptionum, Tom. I. p. 763-7. with some additional remarks in defence of his view from the objections of Lobeck and Hermann. CHAPTER II. SECTION II. RISE OF THE DIALOGUE. Hoc uno præstamus feris quod conloquimur inter nos. CICERO. In addition to the choruses which, together with the accompanying lyrical poetry, we have referred to the Dorians, another species of entertainment had existed in Greece from the very earliest times, which we may consider as peculiar to the Ionian race; for it was in the Ionian colonies that it first sprung up. This was the recitation of poems by wandering minstrels, called rhapsodes (paywoo); a name probably derived from the æsacus', a staff (páßdos) or branch (epvos)" of laurel or myrtle, which was the symbol of their office. Seated in some conspicuous situation, and holding this staff in the right hand, the rhapsodes chanted in slow recitativo, and either with or without a musical accompaniment, larger 1. Hesych. αἴσακος. ὁ τῆς δάφνης κλάδος ὃν κατέχοντες ὕμνουν τοὺς θεούς. Plutarch Sympos. i. p. 615. Η δον ᾠδὴν τοῦ θεοῦἑκάστῳ μυρσίνης διδομένης ἣν Ἄσακον, οἶμαι διὰ τὸ ἄδειν τὸν δεξάμενον, ἐκάλουν, Welcker has established most clearly (Ep. Cycl. p. 364.) that payoos is another form of pariowcos=paßowoós. Comp. χρυσό-ραπεις, βραβεύς, and ῥαπ-ίζεσθαι, as applied to Homer by Diog. Laert. (ix. 1.) 2. Hence they were also called dpvwdoí, i. e. ¿pvwdoi. 3. It is difficult to determine the degree of musical accompaniment which the rhapsodes admitted; the rhapsode, as such, could hardly have accompanied himself, as one of his hands would be occupied by his rod. We think Wachsmuth is hardly justified in calling (Hellen. Alterth. ii. 2. 389.) Stesandrus, who sang the Homeric battles to the Cithara at Delphi, a rhapsode. (Athen. xiv. p. 638. A.) Terpander was the first who set the Homeric Poems to regular tunes. (See Müller's Dor. iv. 7. 11.) On the recitation of the rhapsodists in general, the reader would do well to consult Welcker. Ep. Cycl. p. 338. foll. or smaller portions of the national epic poetry, which, as is well known, took its rise in the Ionian states; and, in days when readers were few, and books fewer, were well-nigh the sole depositories of the literature of their country. Their recitations, however, were not long confined to the Epos. All poetry was equally intended for the ear, and nothing was written but in metre: hence the Muses were appropriately called the children of Memory. Now the Epos was soon succeeded, but not displaced, by the gnomic and didactic poetry of Hesiod, which, as has been justly observed, was an ornamental appendage of the older form of poetry1. These poems therefore were recited in the same way as the Epos2, and Hesiod himself was a rhapsode3. The gnomic poetry being by its nature a near approach to the common language of every day life, we have no doubt that the musical accompaniment which was sometimes adopted for the Epos, was altogether laid aside as inappropriate for this; at the same time, the old hexameter metre was dropped, and another, better adapted for the expression of moral maxims and common-place apophthegms, was formed from it. This was the iambic verse, which certainly existed in very early times, whoever may have been the inventor of it. Aristotle tells us, that Homer used this metre in his Margites, but probably, (as is stated by the grammarians) he mixed it up with dactylic verses, as is the case in the Epodes of Horace. Archilochus, to whom the invention is usually attributed, is first heard of in the year 708 B. C.; and Simonides of Amorgus, who was according to others the first iambic poet, is placed 1. Wachsmuth. Hellen. Alterthumsk. ii. 2. p. 391. 2. Plato. Legg. ii. p. 658. 3. Pausan. ix. 30, 3. καθῆται δέ καὶ Ἡσίοδος κιθάραν ἐπὶ τοῖς γόνασιν ἔχων, οὐδέν τι οἰκεῖον Ησιόδῳ φόρημα· δῆλα γὰρ δὴ καὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν ἐπῶν ὅτι ἐπὶ ράβδον δάφνης ήδεν. Hesiod could not play on the lyre, x. 7, 2. λέγεται δὲ καὶ Ησίοδου ἀπελαθῆναι τοῦ ἀγωνίσματος ἅτε οὐ κιθαρίζειν ὁμοῦ τῇ ωδῇ δεδιδαγμένον. 4. Victorin. p. 2888. E. E quo (dactylico) primum iambicum metrum per detractionem unius temporis formavit (Archilochus) adæque hexametrum, qui (versus) per dipodias trimeter efficitur. 5. Aristot. Poet. c. iv. cf. Atil. Fortunatian de Arte, p. 2692. 6. Hephaestion περὶ ποιήματος. Οἷος ἐστὶν ὁ Μαργείτης ὁ εἰς Ομηρον ἀναφερόμενος, ἐν ᾧ παρέσπαρται τοῖς ἔπεσιν ἰαμβικὰ καὶ ταῦτα οὐ κατ ̓ ἴσον σύστημα ; and Victorin. p. 2572. Homerus in Margite pluribus hexametris heroicis versus trimetros iambicos tamquam pares numero copulavit. See also p. 2524. 7. See Clinton, F. H. i. p. 175. by Suidas 490 years after the Trojan æra, (693 в. C.) Aristotle says, that the iambic verse derived its name from its being originally used for purposes of satire. The present state of our knowledge of the structure of the Greek language, forbids us to accept this derivation. The word ἰαμβίζειν, "to satirize," certainly was derived from außos, and gained its signification from the frequent employment of that species of verse for the purpose of personal invective by Archilochus. It is a great pity that we have lost Lysanias' work on the iambic poets; for if we had it before us, we might be able to establish by positive evidence much that we shall be compelled to advance as theory and conjecture. Thus much, however, appears certain; these iambic verses were, like their predecessors, written for recitation: for though we must allow, (as even the advocates of the Wolfian hypothesis are willing to admit3) that the poems of Archilochus were committed to writing, it cannot be denied that the means of multiplying manuscripts in his time must have been exceedingly scanty; and that, if his opportunities of becoming known had been limited to the number of his readers, he could hardly have acquired his great reputation as a poet. We must, therefore, conclude that his poems, and those of Simonides, were promulgated by recitation; and as such of them as were written in iambics would not be sufficiently diversified in tone and rhythm to form a musical entertainment, we may presume that the recitation of their pieces, even if they were monologues, must have been a near approach to theatric declama tion. Fortunately we are not without some evidence for this view of the case. We learn from Clearchus1, that "Simonides, the Zacynthian, recited (eppaywder) some of the poems of Archilochus, sitting on an arm chair in the theatres ;" and this is stated still more distinctly in a quotation from Lysanias which immediately follows: he tells us that "Mnasion, the rhapsode, in the public exhibitions acted some of the iambics of Simonides." (ev 1. See also Rhein. Mus. for 1835, p. 356. 2. Poet. c. iv. p. 1448. Bekker. διὸ καὶ ἰαμβεῖον καλεῖται νῦν ὅτι ἐν τῷ μέτρῳ τούτῳ ἰάμβιζον ἀλλήλους. 3. Wolf. Proleg. § 17. 4. Athen. xiv. p. 620. C. ταῖς δείξεσι τῶν Σιμωνίδου τινὰς ἰάμβων ὑποκρίνεσθαι). Solon, too, who lived many years after these two poets, and was also a gnomic poet and a writer of iambics, on one occasion committed to memory some of his own elegiacs and recited them from the herald's bema". It is exceedingly probable, though we have no evidence of the fact, that the gnomes of Theognis were also recited. The rhapsodes having many opportunities of practising their art, and being on many occasions welcome and expected guests, their calling became a trade, and probably, like that of the Persian story-tellers, a very profitable one. Consequently their numbers increased, till on great occasions many of them were sure to be present, and different parts were assigned to them which they recited alternately and with great emulation: by this means the audience were sometimes gratified by the recitation of a whole poem at a single feast. In the case of an epic poem, like the Iliad, this was at once a near approach to the theatrical dialogue; for if one rhapsode recited the speech of Achilles in the first book of that poem, and another that of Agamemnon, we may be sure they did their parts with all the action of stage-players. With regard to the old iambic poems we may remark, that they are often addressed in the second person singular. We venture from this to conjecture, and it is only a conjecture, that these fragments were taken from speeches forming parts of moral dialogues, like the mimes of Sophron, from which Plato borrowed the form of his dialogues; for on the supposition that they were recited, we have no other way of accounting for the fact. At all events, it is quite certain that these old iambic poems were the models which the Athenian tragedians proposed to 1. This word is very often used of the rhapsode. See Wolf. Prolegom. p. xcvi. Heyne Excursus. iii. 2. It is also applied to the recitation of the Ionic prose of Herodotus, which may be considered as a still more modern form of the Epos. Athen. xiv. p. 629. D. Ιάσων δ' ἐν τρίτῳ περὶ τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρου ἱερῶν ἐν Αλεξανδρείᾳ φησι ἐν τῷ μεγάλῳ θεάτρῳ ὑποκρινάσθαι Ηγησιάν τὸν κωμῳδὸν τὰ ̔Ηροδότου. 2. Plutarch Solon, viii. 82. τὰ Ομήρου ἔπη ......... 3. Plato Hipparch. p. 228. 'Inяáрx, ös · ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδούς παναθηναίοις ἐξ υπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διέναι ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι οὗτοι TOLOUGIV. Compare Diog. Laert. i. 57, and Suidas v. voẞoλń. 4. Plato is said to have had Sophron under his pillow when he died. Sophronmimorum quidem scriptor, sed quem Plato adeo probavit ut suppositos capiti libros ejus cum moreretur habuisse tradatur. Quintil. i. 10, 17. See Spalding's note. C |