Aeschylus (Part 1)

(Pictured: Aeschylus.) The following is the Introduction written by P. E. More for his translation of the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, published in 1899. We are therefore returning to Poetry and the Classical Tradition after completing our presentation of More’s essay on one of the most subjective and unclassical of authors, James Joyce. Paul Elmer More (1864-1937) was an American journalist, critic, essayist, and Christian apologist. He collaborated with Irving Babbitt from before 1900 in the project later called the New Humanism. His conservative literary criticism was published in the eleven-volume Shelburne Essays (1904-1921) and the three-volume New Shelburne Essays (1928). He also published several books on Plato and Greek philosophy, including the Greek Tradition. Late in his life he undertook Christian apologetics, notably in The Christ of the Testament. On Being Human was published in 1936.

The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus
By Paul Elmer More

Introduction

I. Origin of Greek Tragedy

One of the peculiar features of Greek literature is its regular and harmonious development. First comes the rise of the epic; when this form has been thoroughly worked over, lyric poetry expands and becomes predominant; out of the lyric grows the drama; and last of all comes the splendid harvest of prose. Yet in one sense the lyric is in Greece, as elsewhere, the mother of all poetical forms. The epos [epic] is but a development and interknitting of the old songs of the minstrels celebrating the deeds of heroes and ancestors; the drama grew directly from the chants, now passionate and now ribald, sung in honor of Dionysus [god of wine]. And in both cases the genius of a single man was so predominant as to establish once and forever the model which all were to follow. What Homer did for epic, Aeschylus accomplished for tragic poetry.

This lyric origin of tragedy, together with its persistent religious character, must always be held in mind. Unfortunately we know less about the dithyramb, from which tragedy sprang, than almost any other form of Greek lyric poetry. Even the meaning of the name is involved in complete obscurity. It arose apparently from the wild singing and dancing at the season of harvesting the grapes. Dionysus, or Bacchus, to whom the revellers naturally addressed their praises, lent his double character to the occasion. He was the god of riotous joy; he was also the leader of the enthusiasts who found in intoxication a symbol of their spiritual frenzy when seized by the indwelling deity, and in this capacity, under the name of Iacchus, he was associated with the mystic rites of the Great Goddesses at Eleusis [Demeter, goddess of Earth, and Persephone, her daughter abducted by Hades]. From the graver side of the revels tragedy was born, from the riot and noise and scoffing were developed the satyr drama and comedy.

One name must be mentioned in connection with the growth of the dithyramb itself,—Arion, a half-fabulous poet the story of whose rescue on a dolphin is so graphically recounted by Herodotus. In some way Arion changed the rude dithyrambic revel into a regular literary production. Did he reduce the number of the chorus to fifty and institute a prescribed circular dance? did he disguise the revellers as satyrs, tragoi, whence the name tragic chorus? Did he introduce set dialogue into the chant? It is impossible to say; but whatever his achievement, the innovation was so important that he was styled the creator of the dithyramb, and is reckoned a true herald of Aeschylus.

To Thespis, however, is due the change which made tragedy something distinct from its dithyrambic source. The verses of Horace are often quoted: “Thespis is said to have discovered the unknown form of the tragic muse and to have carried about in carts his poems, which they sung and acted with faces smeared with winelees.” This hardly sounds promising for the creator of a great art, but then his position was not so very unlike the young Moliere’s.

Thespis was born in the village of Icaria, near Marathon, where the worship of Dionysus was especially prominent. After some experience in leading the Dionysiac revels in the country towns he came up to Athens, some time about the year 560 b. c., and began to exhibit his minstrelsy in the market-place. We may suppose that his innovations were gradual. The all-important step was taken when he set apart one person as an actor, who should appear at different intervals during the choral song, and by rehearsing or reporting some event give a sense of reality to the emotions of the dancers. With more experience no doubt he wove these speeches and songs into a closer plot, made the dialogue between actor and chorus more dramatic, and departed further and further from the traditional orgiastic subject for his theme. It is interesting to hear from Plutarch the tradition that Solon, then full of years, being fond of novelties, went to see Thespis acting one of his dramas. The old man apparently disapproved of the mimetic art, which seemed to him something like too irreverent a tampering with the truth. Plato two centuries later still held very grave doubts in regard to the stage, for he too thought that a man could not well play the serious part of life and be an imitator of other parts at the same time. The very words of the philosopher might have been spoken by the ancient lawgiver; and they are besides a curious example of Plato’s distrust of art in general. Jowett has paraphrased them with his usual vigor: “And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet creature, and a holy and wonderful being; he shall be anointed with myrrh and have a garland of wool set upon his head—but then we shall bid him turn about and go to the next city, for we are patrons of the rough honest poet, and will not depart from the primitive model.”

The most important date for the drama in these early years is 535, or thereabout, when Peisistratus established dramatic contests. Rivals of Thespis had already arisen, and henceforth the excitement of contest for a prize was added to the legitimate interest of the spectacle. Several names, unfortunately little more than names to us, bridge over the gap between Thespis and Aeschylus. One of these, Phrynichus, the son of Polyphradmon, may be recorded here for the praise bestowed by Aristophanes on his sweet lyric vein, and for an anecdote related of him by Herodotus. In 495 b. c. the city of Miletus was taken by the Persians and pitilessly sacked. The emotion aroused by this disaster in Greece, and particularly in Athens, was profound; and when Phrynichus represented the capture of the city in a drama the Athenian audience, we are told, “burst into tears, and fined the poet a thousand drachmas for reminding them of their own misfortune, decreeing that no one hereafter should ever produce the play.” It is a memorable instance of popular sympathy; but is evidence also, I think, of the distaste felt by the Greeks for any drama which appealed too strongly to the emotion of relaxing pity. Tragedy was to be, in these early days at least, sublime and exalting, but not lacrymose. It was to purge the emotions, and not harass them. At another time Phrynichus, as well as Aeschylus, made the battle of Salamis the theme of a tragedy, and here the play, brought out at the expense of Themistocles, himself the hero of that victory, won the first prize for its author.

The date of Salamis brings us well into the age of Aeschylus ; but before turning to this second creator of tragedy, a word in respect to certain moral ideas involved in the new literary [form]. [Text missing.]

II. Moral Aspect of Greek Tragedy

Greek literature is preeminently ethical throughout: from Homer to Aristotle its great works are more permeated with moral ideas and with reflections on human conduct and fortune than those perhaps of any other language. Yet in tragedy we feel at once that we have been brought into a new and in some respects higher moral atmosphere. In Homer and the later narrative writers there is withal a certain calmness of judgment, a lack of spiritual fervor giving to these authors a peculiar sanity of tone which is, it may be, when all detractions have been made, the surest mode of reaching the universal human heart. The lyric poets for the most part display the same classic quality; but were the works of these writers more fully preserved, especially the dithyrambic bards, we should probably find in a few of them that religious passion and exaltation, separated from purely moral ideas, which mark so much of Oriental literature as to be properly called Oriental without qualification.
Now the union of this religious passion with the more judicial and more distinctly Greek ethical reflection has given us the rare spirit of Athenian tragedy. There is, with the exception of Plato and Lucretius, nothing else of the sort in classic literature, and, if we examine the matter, surprisingly little of the sort in the libraries of the world. It is not common even in the bibles of the race, and I believe cannot be found, except sporadically perhaps, in any dramatic literature outside of Greece. The Spanish drama approaches it most nearly; but even there mediaeval notions of honor have taken the place of rational morality, and something fantastic in their religious ideas places Calderon and his contemporaries in this respect, also, below the Greek theatre. The romantic charm of the Spanish drama depends on a lyric strain of quite a different kind.

This new character in the drama was the result of several causes. Emerson has somewhere said that Plato had the excellence of Europe and Asia in his brain. The saying might properly be extended to the whole race, for it was the peculiar mission of Greece to separate Europe physically and mentally from the absorbing forces of the Orient and at the same time to be the medium of intellectual communication between the two. In general the part of Greek art and literature that has been preserved shows so strongly the qualities which we distinguish as Occidental, is so predominated by form, proportion, precision, sobriety, individual energy, rationalism,—that we are apt to overlook the strong undercurrent of Oriental mysticism and extravagance that tinctured the popular mind. Now for some reason not easy to explain there was a great upheaval and rising to the surface of these Eastern traits throughout the sixth century before Christ, when tragedy was forming. The Bacchic revels are more widely diffused; the mysteries gain ever greater influence; Orphic brotherhoods spring up, whose members wear white robes, assume vows of abstinence, and have strange charms to deliver the soul from its burden of guilt; long mystical poems are written, full of wild theories of the gods and the world; mountebanks, soothsayers, diviners of all sorts, go about from city to city selling magic formulae that will heal disease and propitiate angry deities. Through it all runs the worship of Dionysus, the youngest of the gods according to Herodotus,—a worship that seems to contravene in its morbid inspiration all that we hold most distinctly Greek. Yet this enthusiasm, when added to the culture and genius and self-restraint of the trained Athenian writers, was the source of a new and marvellous creation.

To the influence of this religious zeal must be added the patriotic exaltation which came with the Persian war. The little handful of free citizens suddenly found themselves called upon to face the invading torrent of the despotic East. From the conflict Athens in particular came out with glory, for she had endured the most, and to her were due the greatest victories. With this feeling of expanding physical power, came, as usually happens, a corresponding expansion of inner spirit and creative power.

In the very fulness of time the man was born without whom Greek tragedy might have continued to develop, but certainly would have been something quite different from what we now possess. Aeschylus added so much to tragedy, both formally and substantially, that he may be called its second creator. He developed the plot, established the costumes, added greater scenic effect, and above all made use of a second actor. With this last change the action of the plot could to a certain extent be carried out on the stage instead of being merely recited. The only essential advance after this was when Sophocles added a third actor, and so made room for still greater complication and interaction of parts.

[Section III to follow.]