Aeschylus (Part 3)

(Pictured: Aeschylus.) We here present the brief Part 3 of the Introduction written by P. E. More for his translation of the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, published in 1899. We have returned to our category Poetry and the Classical Tradition after having completed 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

Production of the Play

The theatre at Athens was entirely under the control of the state, and plays were given as part of the religious pomp connected with the celebration of certain festivals. Tragedy was seen in Athens only twice during the year, and this infrequency no doubt added to its impressiveness. Most of the new tragedies were brought out at the festival of the city Dionysia, whose celebration, lasting some five days, occurred about the 1st of April, when the sun shining on the southern slope of the Acropolis would give a pleasant warmth to the open-air audience.

Let us suppose Aeschylus has composed the Prometheus: some time then before the festival he would offer it to the Archon of the year whose duty it was to select the plays to be given. The contest lasted three days and called for a corresponding number of tragic and comic contestants, three tragedies with a satyr drama, followed by a comedy, being given on each day. Aeschylus was already a famous poet, and the Archon would hardly refuse his group of plays including the Prometheus Bound. The next step was to assign Aeschylus to the proper choregus, a man chosen by turn from among the richer citizens whose duty it was to pay the cost of stage production. At first the playwright was himself the actor, but when two persons were required, a class of professional actors sprang up, and the poet and choregus had then to choose their performers. The chorus had also to he selected, twelve for each play in the time of Aeschylus, later fifteen. The poet now had a busy season before him in training his chorus and making everything ready for the final contest.

It is easy to imagine the bustling scene of the first day of the performance. Early in the morning the audience began to assemble. Needy citizens were given a special donation by the state to pay for admission, so that practically all the freemen of the community were brought together. The poorer citizens carried with them cushions to sit on, while the richer class sent their slaves before them to deposit their cushions and retain their seats. Parcels of luncheon too might be seen under the arm of many a good citizen, for the performance was to last all day, with a proper intermission at noon. And then figs and olives and other superfluous edibles were extremely handy as missiles against an unpopular actor. Indeed, we gather that a Greek audience was anything but moderate in expressions of favor and dislike. For applause they made a clattering noise with their sandals, and their storm of abuse when displeased was sometimes far from decorous. It is well known how Demosthenes ridiculed his rival Aeschines for calamities of this sort. “You hired yourself out,” he says, “to a set of howling players . . . taking the third part yourself; and gathered a stock of figs and grapes and olives, like a costermonger getting his goods from the farms, receiving more wounds from these, I think, than ever from any conflict in battle; for there was an implacable and unceasing war between you and the spectators.”

When the Prometheus was acted, the theatre was a very simple affair. A circular orchestra with earthen floor was leveled for the chorus in the sacred enclosure of Dionysus south of the Acropolis; and behind this, partly surrounding the orchestra and extending thence up the hillside, seats were prepared by hewing the solid rock and where necessary building up wooden benches. In the next century a great theatre of stone was erected; but as has happened in other countries, this increase in external splendor only came after the creative genius of literature had spent its force.

Let us suppose the audience assembled and that the public herald has proclaimed the contestants and the plays. The magistrates are sitting in the front row reserved to them; the ten judges who are to award the prizes have been chosen; the sacrifice to Dionysus performed; there is a moment of expectant silence, and the drama of Prometheus begins. To a man interested in noble forms of literature, the world could hardly offer a rarer treat or a stranger experience than the privilege of assisting at such a spectacle. Much would appear to him grotesque after the realism of the modern theatre; indeed, to enjoy the scene he would be required to put himself into a state of naive religious enthusiasm and unquestioning idealism such as might seem impossible to our sophisticated minds.

First of all enter two allegorical beings, Power and Force, clad in some such fashion as to symbolize their office. With them came the god Hephaestus [god of blacksmiths, metalworking, artisans, sculptors, and fire] bearing the implements of his trade. The two first dragged or carried into the arena Prometheus. Force is mute throughout the scene. It will be observed also that Prometheus is silent until these three have departed and he is left alone, and at once a difficult question is presented for solution. Was the figure thus dragged into the scene and chained on the rocks a living actor or a mere artificial dummy? At the time when this play was produced, everything leads us to believe that only two actors, apart from mutes, were employed at once; now if Prometheus was a living actor, it will be seen that three persons are required in the same scene. The only objection to the theory that a dummy was nailed on the rocks is the evident absurdity of the device. But such an objection is drawn from our modern point of view. Abundant evidence is forthcoming to show that a Greek audience accepted such contrivances without any thought of their absurdity; and in this very drama the appearance of Io partly disguised as a heifer, the Oceanides entering on a huge winged car, and Oceanus astride a flying horse, would sufficiently elicit the laughter of modern spectators.

[To be continued.]