True it is that the Drama of modern Europe contains little or no religion. This, however, is no argument against its religious origin. The element which originally constituted its whole essence has been overwhelmed and superseded by the more powerful ingredients which have been introduced into it by the continually diverging tastes of succeeding generations, till it has at length become nothing but a walking novel or a speaking jest book. The plays of Shakspeare and Calderon (with the exception, of course, of the Autos Sacramentales of the latter) are Dramatic reproductions of the prose romances of the day, with the omission of the religious element which they owed to the monks, just as the tragedies of Eschylus and Sophocles would have been mere Epic Dramas, had they broken the bonds which connected them with the elementary worship of Attica.

been given in direct terms by Müller, (Handb. der Archäol. beginn.) Die Kunst ist eine Darstellung (uíunois) d. h. eine Thätigheit durch welche ein Innerliches ausserlich wird, "Art is a representation (uiunois) i. e. an energy by means of which a subject becomes an object," (Comp. Dorians, iv. ch. 7. § 12.) is the best way of explaining the pleasure which we derive from the efforts of the fancy and imagination, which, as has been very justly observed, is always much greater when "the allusion is from the material world to the intellectual, than when it is from the intellectual world to the material." (Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, I. p. 306.)

CHAPTER II.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK DRAMA.

SECTION I.

HISTORY OF THE CHORAL ELEMENT.

Doch hurtig in dem Kreisse ging's

Sie tanzten rechts, sie tanzten links.

GÖTHE.

It appears then that Dramatic Exhibitions have always been more or less connected in their earliest form with the celebration of religious rites; but it must never be forgotten that in Greece they retained to the last the character which they originally possessed. The theatrical representations at Athens, even in the days of Sophocles and Aristophanes, were constituent parts of a religious festival; the theatre in which they were performed was sacred to Bacchus, and the worship of the God was always as much regarded as the amusement of the sovran people. This is a fact which cannot be too strongly impressed upon the student; if he does not keep this continually in view, he will be likely to confound the Athenian stage with that of his own time and country, and will misunderstand and wonder at many things which under this point of view are neither remarkable nor unintelligible. How apt we all are to look at the manners of ancient times through the false medium of our every-day associations: how difficult we find it to strip our thoughts of their modern garb, and to escape from the thick atmosphere of prejudice in which custom and habit have enveloped us! and yet, unless we take a comprehensive and extended view of the objects of archæological

speculation, unless we can look upon ancient customs with the eyes of the ancients, unless we can transport ourselves in the spirit to other lands and other times, and sun ourselves in the clear light of bygone days, all our conceptions of what was done by the men who have long ceased to be, must be dim, uncertain, and unsatisfactory, and all our reproductions as soulless and uninstructive as the scattered fragments of a broken statue.' These remarks are particularly applicable to the Greek stage. For in proportion to the perfection of the extant specimens of ancient art in any department are our misconceptions of the difference between their and our use of these excellent works. We feel the beauty of the remaining Greek Dramas, and are unwilling to believe that productions as exquisite as the most elaborate compositions of our own playwrights should not have been, as ours were, exhibited for their own sake. But this was far from being the case. The susceptible Athenian,-whose land was the dwellingplace of gods and ancestral heroes2,—to whom the clear blue sky in which he breathed, the swift-winged breezes which fanned his cheeks, the river-fountains, the Egean gay with its countless smiles, and the teeming earth3 from which he believed his ancestors were immediately created, were alike instinct with an all-pervading spirit of divinity;-the Athenian, who loved the beautiful, but loved it because it was divine,-who looked upon all that genius could invent or art execute as but the less unworthy offering to his pantheism; and considered all his festivals and all his amusements as only a means of withdrawing the soul from the world's business, and turning it to the love and worship of God1, how could he keep back from the object of his adoration the fairest and best of his works?

We shall make the permanent religious reference of the Greek Drama more clear by shewing with some minuteness how it gradually evolved itself from religious rites universally prevalent, and by pointing out by what routes its different elements converged, till they became united in one harmonious whole of "stateliest and most regal argument"."

1. Niebuhr Kleine Schriften, p. 92.

2. Hegesias ap. Strab. ix. p. 396.

3. Esch. Prom. v. 87-90.

4. Strabo, x. p. 407. "Ητε γὰρ ἄνεσις τὸν νοῦν ἀπάγει ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἀστ χολημάτων τὸν δὲ ὄντως νοῦν τρέπει τρὸς τὸ θεῖον,

5. Milton's Prose Works, p. 101.

On opening an Attic Tragedy, the first thing that strikes us is the extreme distinctness of its two parts; we find, on the one hand, a set of choral songs, written in the Doric dialect, including almost every variety of metre, and complying with every requisite of lyric poetry; and, on the other hand, dialogues written in the ordinary language of the country, confined to staid and uniform measures, and answering in most respects to the theatrical compositions of modern times. How is this to be accounted for? Is it not evident that these two different parts must have had different origins? That they sprung up in different countries, and took their rise in circumstances as different as themselves? This we shall find, on inquiry, to have been the fact. And in the first place, what was the origin of the Chorus ?

In the earliest times of Greece, it was customary for the whole population of a city to meet on stated occasions and offer up thanksgivings to the gods for any great blessings by singing hymns, and performing corresponding dances in the public places'. This custom was first practised in the Doric States. The maintenance of military discipline was the principal object of the Dorian legislators; all their civil and religious organization was subservient to this; and war or the rehearsal of war was the sole business of their lives. Under these circumstances, it was not long before the importance of music and dancing, as parts of public education, was properly appreciated: for what could be better adapted than a musical accompaniment to enable large bodies of men to keep time and act in concert? What could be more suitable than the war dance, to familiarize the young citizen with the various postures of attack and defence, and with the evolutions of an army? Music and dancing, therefore, were cultivated at a very early period by the Cretans, the Spartans, and the other Dorians, but only for the sake of these public choruses; the

1. This is the reason why according to Pausan. iii. 11. 9. the dyopa at Sparta was called xopós. We are rather inclined to believe that the Chorus of Dancers got its name from the place. Xopos is only another form of x@p-os-xwp-a; and hence the epithet Eupúxopos which is applied to Athens (Dem. Mid. p. 531.) as well as to Sparta (Athen. p. 131. c. in some anapæsts of Anaxandrides). Welcker's derivation of xopòs from xeip (Rhein. Mus. for 1834, p. 485.) is altogether inadmissible.

2. σтρатожÉdοu yap (says an Athenian to a Cretan, Plato Legg. ii. p. 666.) πολιτείαν ἔχετε ἀλλ ̓ οὐκ ἐν ἄστεσι κατῳκηκότων. All the Dorian governments were aristocracies, and therefore necessarily warlike, as Vico has satisfactorily shewn, whatever we may think of his derivation of πόλεμος from πόλις. (Scienz. Nuov. vol. II. p. 160.)

3.

“We and the Spartans,” says Clinias, “οὐκ ἄλλην ἄν τινα δυναίμεθα ᾠδὴν ἢ ἣν ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς ἐμάθομεν ξυνήθεις ᾄδειν γενόμενοι.” Plato Legg. p. 666.

preservation of military discipline and the establishment of a principle of subordination, not merely the encouragement of a taste for the fine arts, were the objects which these rude legislators had in view; and though there is no doubt that religious feelings entered largely into all their thoughts and actions, yet the god whom they worshipped was a god of war1, of music2, and of civil government; in other words, a Dorian political deity; and with these attributes his worship and the maintenance of their system were one and the same thing. This intimate connexion of religion and war among the Dorians, is shewn by a corresponding identity between the chorus which sang the praises of the national deity, and the army which marched to fight the national enemies. These two bodies were composed, in the former case inclusively, of the same persons; they were drawn up in the same order, and the different parts in each were distinguished by the same names. Good dancers and good fighters were synonymous terms; those whose station was in the rear of the battle array, or of the chorus, were in either case called λeis', and the evolutions of the one. body were known by the same name as the figures of the other". It was likewise owing to this conviction of the importance of musical harmony, that the Dorians termed the constitution of a state—an order or regulative principle (kóσμos). Thus Herodotus calls the constitution of Lycurgus, "the order now established among the Spartans,” (τὸν νῦν κατεστεῶτα κόσμον τοῖς ETаρTinτno), Clearchus speaks of the Lacedæmonians who were prostrated in consequence of their having trodden under foot the most ancient order of their civil polity (οἵ τὸν παλαιότατον τῆς πολιτικῆς κόσμον συμπατησάντες ἐξετραχηλίσθησαν), and

1. Aπówv-ATXλwv, "the defender," (Müller's Dor. ii. ch. 6. § 6.) who caused terror to the hostile army. Esch. Sept. c. Theb. 147.

2. He was particularly the inventor of the lyre-the original accompaniment of Choral Poetry. (Απόλλων) πόρεν τε κίθαριν δίδωσί τε Μοίσαν οἷς ἂν ἐθέλῃ, ἀπόλεμον ἀγαγὼν ἐς πραπίδας εὐνομίαν.

3.

"The belief in a fixed system of laws, of which Apollo was the executor, formed the foundation of all prophecy in his worship." Müller, Dor. ii. 8. § 10. The Delphian oracle was the regulator of all the Dorian law-systems, hence its injunctions were called, Déμiores, or "ordinances." See the authorities in Müller, ii. 8. § 8.

4. Müller thinks (Götting. Gel. Anz. for 1821, p. 1051.) that they were so called, because they were not so well dressed as the front-row dancers.

5. See Müller's Dorians, B. iii. c. 12. § 10; B. iv. c. 6. § 4. And add to the passages cited by him, Eurip. Troad. 2. 3.

6. I. 65.

ἔνθα Νηρήδων χοροὶ

κάλλιστον ἴχνος ἐξελίσσουσιν ποδός.

7. ap. Athen. xv. p. 681. C.