Part 8

In the older countries of which I speak, political power and social recognition are supposed to emanate from some autocratic source, and the effort and ambition of all naturally look toward that source, and, knowing none other, feel a personal interest in maintaining its ascendency, the statu quo. In our own broad land, power and light have no such inevitable abiding-place, but may emanate from an endless variety of points and personalities.

The other mode of living may have much to recommend it for those to whom it is native and inherited, but it is not for us. And when we apologize for our needs and deficiencies, it should not be on the ground of our youth and inexperience. If the settlement of our country is recent, we have behind us all the experience of the human race, and are bound to represent its fuller and riper manhood. Our seriousness is sometimes complained of, usually by people whose jests and pleasantries fail to amuse us. Let us not apologize for this, nor envy any nation its power of trifling and of _persiflage_. We have mighty problems to solve; great questions to answer. The fate of the world's future is concerned in what we shall do or leave undone.

We are a people of workers, and we love work--shame on him who is ashamed of it! When we are found, on our own or other shores, idling our life away, careless of vital issues, ignorant of true principles, then may we apologize, then let us make haste to amend.

Aristophanes

WHEN I learned, last season, that the attention of the school[A] this year would be in a good degree given to the dramatists of ancient Greece, I was seized with a desire to speak of one of these, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. This is the great Aristophanes, the first, and the most illustrious, of comic writers for the stage,--first and best, at least, of those known to Western literature.

In the chance talk of people of culture, one hears of him all one's life long, as exceedingly amusing. From my brothers in college, I learned the "Frog Chorus" before I knew even a letter of the Greek alphabet. Many a decade after this, I walked in the theatre of Bacchus at Athens, and seeing the beauty of the marble seats, still ranged in perfect order, and feeling the glory and dignity of the whole surrounding, I seemed to guess that the comedies represented there were not desired to amuse idle clowns nor to provoke vulgar laughter.

[Note A] Read before the Concord School of Philosophy.

At the foot of the Acropolis, with the Parthenon in sight and the colossal statue of Minerva towering above the glittering temples, the poet and his audience surely had need to bethink themselves of the wisdom which lies in laughter, of the ethics of the humorous,--a topic well worth the consideration of students of philosophy. The ethics of the humorous, the laughter of the gods! "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn." Did not even the gentle Christ intend satire when, after recognizing the zeal with which an ox or an ass would be drawn out of a pit on the sacred day, he asked: "And shall not this woman, whom Satan hath bound, lo! these eighteen years, be loosed from her infirmity on the sabbath day?"

When a Greek tragedy is performed before us, we are amazed at its force, its coherence, and its simplicity. What profound study and quick sense of the heroic in nature must have characterized the man who, across the great gulf of centuries, can so sweep our heart-strings, and draw from them such responsive music! Our praise of these great works almost sounds conceited. It would be more fitting for us to sit in silence and bewail our own smallness. Comedy, too, has her grandeur; and when she walks the stage in robe and buskins, she, too, is to receive the highest crown, and her lessons are to be laid to heart.

I will venture a word here concerning the subjective side of comedy. Is it the very depth and quick of our self-love which is reached by the subtle sting which calls up a blush where no sermonizing would have that effect? Deep satire touches the heroic within us. "Miserable sinners are ye all," says the preacher, "vanity of vanities!" and we sit contentedly, and say Amen. But here comes some one who sets up our meannesses and incongruities before us so that they topple over and tumble down. And then, strange to say, we feel in ourselves this same power; and considering our follies in the same light, we are compelled to deride, and also to forsake them.

The miseries of war and the desirableness of peace were impressed strongly on the mind of Aristophanes. The Peloponnesian War dragged on from year to year with varying fortune; and though victory often crowned the arms of the Athenians, its glory was dearly paid for by the devastation which the Lacedæmonians inflicted upon the territory of Attica. "The Acharnians," "The Knights," and "Peace" deal with this topic in various forms. In the first of these is introduced, as the chief character, Dikæopolis, a country gentleman who, in consequence of the Spartan invasion, has been forced to forsake his estates, and to take shelter in the city. He naturally desires the speedy conclusion of hostilities, and to this end attends the assembly, determined, as he says:

To bawl, to abuse, to interrupt the speakers Whenever I hear a word of any kind, Except for an immediate peace.

This method reminds us of the obstructionists in the British Parliament. One man speaks of himself as loathing the city and longing to return

To my poor village and my farm That never used to cry: "Come buy my charcoal," Nor "buy my oil," nor "buy my anything," But gave me what I wanted, freely and fairly, Clear of all cost, with never a word of buying.

After various laughable adventures, Dikæopolis finds it possible to conclude a truce with the invaders on his own account, in which his neighbors, the Acharnians, are not included. He returns to his farm, and goes forth with wife and daughter to perform the sacrifice fitting for the occasion.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Silence! Move forward, the Canephora. You, Xanthias, follow close behind her there In a proper manner, with your pole and emblem.

WIFE

Set down the basket, daughter, and begin The ceremony.

DAUGHTER

Give me the cruet, mother, And let me pour it on the holy cake.

DIKÆOPOLIS

O blessed Bacchus, what a joy it is To go thus unmolested, undisturbed, My wife, my children, and my family, With our accustomed joyful ceremony, To celebrate thy festival in my farm. Well, here's success to the truce of thirty years.

WIFE

Mind your behavior, child. Carry the basket In a modest, proper manner; look demure; Mind your gold trinkets, they'll be stolen else.

Dikæopolis now intones a hymn to Bacchus, but is interrupted by the violent threats of his war-loving neighbors, the Acharnians, who break out in injurious language, and threaten the life of the miscreant who has made peace with the enemies of his country solely for his own interests. With a good deal of difficulty, he persuades the enraged crowd to allow him to argue his case before them, and this fact makes us acquainted with another leading trait in Aristophanes; viz., his polemic opposition to the poet Euripides. Dikæopolis, wishing to make a favorable impression upon the rustics, hies to the house of Euripides, whose servant parleys with him in true transcendental language.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Euripides within?

SERVANT

Within, and not within. You comprehend me?

DIKÆOPOLIS

Within and not within! What do you mean?

SERVANT

His outward man Is in the garret writing tragedy; While his essential being is abroad Pursuing whimsies in the world of fancy.

The visitor now calls aloud upon the poet:

Euripides, Euripides, come down, If ever you came down in all your life! 'Tis I, Dikæopolis, from Chollidæ.

This Chollidæ probably corresponded to the Pea Ridge often quoted in our day. Euripides declines to come down, but is presently made visible by some device of the scene-shifter. In the dialogue that follows, Aristophanes ridicules the personages and the costumes brought upon the stage by Euripides, and reflects unhandsomely upon the poet's mother, who was said to have been a vender of vegetables. Dikæopolis does not seek to borrow poetry or eloquence from Euripides, but prays him to lend him "a suit of tatters from a worn-out tragedy."

For mercy's sake, for I'm obliged to make A speech in my own defence before the chorus, A long pathetic speech, this very day, And if it fails, the doom of death betides me.

Euripides now asks what especial costume would suit the need of Dikæopolis, and calls over the most pitiful names in his tragedies: "Do you want the dress of Oineos?"--"Oh, no! something much more wretched."--"Phoenix? "--"No; much worse than Phoenix."--"Philocletes?"--"No."--"Lame Bellerophon?" Dikæopolis says:

'Twas not Bellerophon, but very like him, A kind of smooth, fine-spoken character; A beggar into the bargain, and a cripple With a grand command of words, bothering and begging.

Euripides by this description recognizes the personage intended, _viz._, Telephus, the physician, and orders his servant to go and fetch the ragged suit, which he will find "next to the tatters of Thyestes, just over Ino's." Dikæopolis exclaims, on seeing the mass of holes and patches, but asks, further, a little Mysian bonnet for his head, a beggar's staff, a dirty little basket, a broken pipkin; all of which Euripides grants, to be rid of him. All this insolence the visitor sums up in the following lines:--

I wish I may be hanged, my dear Euripides, If ever I trouble you for anything, Except one little, little, little boon, A single lettuce from your mother's stall.

This is more than Euripides can bear, and the gates are now shut upon the intruder.

Later in the play, Dikæopolis appears in company with the General Lamachus. A sudden call summons this last to muster his men and march forth to repel a party of marauders. Almost at the same moment, Dikæopolis is summoned to attend the feast of Bacchus, and to bring his best cookery with him. In the dialogue that follows, the valiant soldier and the valiant trencherman appear in humorous contrast.

LAMACHUS

Boy, boy, bring out here my haversack.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Boy, boy, hither bring my dinner service.

LAMACHUS

Bring salt flavored with thyme, boy, and onions.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Bring me a cutlet. Onions make me ill.

LAMACHUS

Bring hither pickled fish, stale.

DIKÆOPOLIS

And to me a fat pudding. I will cook it yonder.

LAMACHUS

Bring me my plumes and my helmet.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Bring me doves and thrushes.

LAMACHUS

Fair and white is the plume of the ostrich.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Fair and yellow is the flesh of the dove.

LAMACHUS

O man! leave off laughing at my weapons.

DIKÆOPOLIS

O man! don't you look at my thrushes.

LAMACHUS

Bring the case that holds my plumes.

DIKÆOPOLIS

And bring me a dish of hare.

LAMACHUS

But the moths have eaten my crest.

Dikæopolis makes some insolent rejoinder, at which the general takes fire. He calls for his lance; Dikæopolis, for the spit, which he frees from the roast meat. Lamachus raises his Gorgon-orbed shield; Dikæopolis lifts a full-orbed pancake. Lamachus then performs a mock act of divination:--

Pour oil upon the shield. What do I trace In the divining mirror? 'Tis the face Of an old coward, fortified with fear, That sees his trial for desertion near.

DIKÆOPOLIS

Pour honey on the pancake. What appears? A comely personage, advanced in years, Firmly resolved to laugh at and defy Both Lamachus and the Gorgon family.

In "The Frogs," god and demigod, Bacchus and Hercules, are put upon the stage with audacious humor. The first has borrowed the costume of the second, in which unfitting garb he knocks at Hercules' door on his way to Hades, his errand being to find and bring back Euripides. The dearth of clever poets is the reason alleged for this undertaking. Hercules suggests to him various poets who are still on earth. Bacchus condemns them as "warblers of the grove; poor, puny wretches!" He now asks Hercules for introductions to his friends in the lower regions, and for

Any communication about the country, The roads, the streets, the bridges, public houses And lodgings, free from bugs and fleas, if possible.

Hercules mentions various ways of arriving at the infernal regions: "The hanging road,--rope and noose?"--"That's too stifling."--"The pestle and mortar, then,--the beaten road?"--"No; that gives one cold feet."--"Go, then, to the tower of the Keramicus, and throw yourself headlong." No; Bacchus does not wish to have his brains dashed out. He would go by the road which Hercules took. Of this, Hercules gives an alarming account, beginning with the bottomless lake and the boat of Charon. Bacchus determines to set forth, but is detained by the recalcitrance of his servant, Xanthias, who refuses to carry his bundle any further.

A funeral now comes across the stage. Bacchus asks the dead man if he is willing to carry some bundles to Hell for him. The dead man demands two drachmas for the service. Bacchus offers him ninepence, which he angrily refuses, and is carried out of sight. Charon presently appears, and makes known, like a good ferryman, the points at which he will deliver passengers.

Who wants the ferryman? Anybody waiting to remove from the sorrows of life? A passage to Lethe's wharf? to Cerberus' Beach? To Tartarus? to Tenaros? to Perdition?

Just so, in my youth, sailing on the Hudson, one heard all night the sound of Peekskill landing! Fishkill landing! Rhinebeck landing!--with darkness and swish of steam quite infernal enough.

Charon takes Bacchus on board, but compels him to do his part of the rowing, promising him: "As soon as you begin you shall have music that will teach you to keep time."

This music is the famous "Chorus of the Frogs," beginning, "Brokekekesh, koash, koash," and running through many lines, with this occasional refrain, of which Bacchus soon tires, as he does of the oar. His servant Xanthias is obliged to make the journey by land and on foot, Charon bidding him wait for his master at the Stone of Repentance, by the Slough of Despond, beyond the Tribulations. After encountering the Empousa, a nursery hobgoblin, they meet the spirits of the initiated, singing hymns to Bacchus--whom they invoke as Jacchus--and to Ceres. This part of the play, intended, Frere says, to ridicule the Eleusinian mysteries, is curiously human in its incongruity,--a jumble of the beautiful and the trivial. I must quote from it the closing strophe:--

Let us hasten, let us fly Where the lovely meadows lie, Where the living waters flow, Where the roses bloom and blow. Heirs of immortality, Segregated safe and pure, Easy, sorrowless, secure, Since our earthly course is run, We behold a brighter sun.

Such sweet words we to-day could expect to hear from the lips of our own dear ones, gone before.

Very incongruous is certainly this picture of Bacchus, in a cowardly and ribald state of mind, listening to the hymn which celebrates his divine aspect. Jacchus, whom the spirits invoke, is the glorified Bacchus, the highest ideal of what was vital religion in those days. But the god himself is not professionally, only personally, present, and, wearing the disguise of Hercules, in no way notices or responds to the strophes which invoke him. He asks the band indeed to direct him to Pluto's house, which turns out to be near at hand.

Before its door, Bacchus is seized with such a fit of timidity that, instead of knocking, he asks his servant to tell him how the native inhabitants of the region knock at doors. Reproved by the servant, he knocks, and announces himself as the valiant Hercules. Æacus, the porter, now rushes out upon him with violent abuse, reviling him for having stolen, or attempted to steal, the watch-dog, Cerberus, and threatening him with every horror which Hell can inflict. Æacus departs, and Bacchus persuades his servant to don the borrowed garb of Hercules, while he loads himself with the baggage which the other was carrying. Proserpine, however, sends her maid to invite the supposed Hercules to a feast of dainties. Xanthias now assumes the manners befitting the hero, at which Bacchus orders him to change dresses with him once more, and assume his own costume, which he does. Hardly have they done this, when Bacchus is again set upon by two frantic women, who shriek in his ears the deeds of gluttony committed by Hercules in Hades, and not paid for.

There; that's he That came to our house, ate those nineteen loaves. Aye; sure enough. That's he, the very man; And a dozen and a half of cutlets and fried chops, At a penny ha' penny apiece. And all the garlic, And the good green cheese that he gorged at once. And then, when I called for payment, he looked fierce And stared me in the face, and grinned and roared.

The women threaten the false Hercules with the pains and penalties of swindling. He now pretends to soliloquize: "I love poor Xanthias dearly; that I do."

"Yes," says Xanthias, "I know why; but it's of no use. I won't act Hercules." Xanthias, however, allows himself to be persuaded, and when Æacus, appearing with a force, cries: "Arrest me there that fellow that stole the dog," Xanthias contrives to make an effectual resistance. Having thus gained time, he assures Æacus that he never stole so much as a hair of his dog's tail; but gives him leave to put Bacchus, his supposed slave, to the torture, in order to elicit from him the truth. Æacus, softened by this proposal, asks in which way the master would prefer to have his slave tortured. Xanthias replies:

In your own way, with the lash, with knots and screws, With the common, usual, customary tortures, With the rack, with the water torture, any sort of way, With fire and vinegar--all sorts of ways.

Bacchus, thus driven to the wall, proclaims his divinity, and claims Xanthias as his slave. The latter suggests that if Bacchus is a divinity, he may be beaten without injury, as he will not feel it. Bacchus retorts, "If you are Hercules, so may you." Æacus, to ascertain the truth, impartially belabors them both. Each, in turn, cries out, and pretends to have quoted from the poets. Æacus, unable to decide which is the god and which the impostor, brings them both before Proserpine and Pluto.

In the course of a delicious dialogue between the two servants, Æacus and Xanthias, it is mentioned that Euripides, on coming to the shades, had driven Æschylus from the seat of honor at Pluto's board, holding himself to be the worthier poet. Æschylus has objected to this, and the matter is now to be settled by a trial of skill in which Bacchus is to be the umpire.

The shades of Euripides and Æschylus appear in the next scene, with Bacchus between them. Æschylus wishes the trial had taken place elsewhere. Why? Because while his tragedies live on earth, those of Euripides are dead, and have descended with him to bear him company in Hell. The encounter of wits between the two is of the grandiose comic, each taunting the other with his faults of composition. Euripides says of Æschylus:

He never used a simple word But bulwarks and scamanders and hippogriffs and Gorgons, Bloody, remorseless phrases.

Æschylus rejoins:

Well, then, thou paltry wretch, explain What were your own devices?

Euripides says that he found the Muse

Puffed and pampered With pompous sentences, a cumbrous huge virago.

In order to bring her to a more genteel figure:

I fed her with plain household phrase and cool familiar salad, With water gruel episode, with sentimental jelly, With moral mince-meat, till at length I brought her into compass. I kept my plots distinct and clear to prevent confusion. My leading characters rehearsed their pedigrees for prologues.

"For all this," says Æschylus, "you ought to have been hanged." Æschylus now speaks of the grand old days, of the great themes and works of early poetry:

Such is the duty, the task of a poet, Fulfilling in honor his duty and trust. Look to traditional history, look; See what a blessing illustrious poets Conferred on mankind in the centuries past. Orpheus instructed mankind in religion, Reclaimed them from bloodshed and barbarous rites. Musæus delivered the doctrine of medicine, And warnings prophetic for ages to come. Next came old Hesiod, teaching us husbandry, Rural economy, rural astronomy, Homely morality, labor and thrift. Homer himself, our adorable Homer, What was his title to praise and renown? What but the worth of the lessons he taught us, Discipline, arms, and equipment of war.

And here the poet comes to speak of a question which is surely prominent to-day in the minds of thoughtful people. Æschylus, in his argument against Euripides, speaks of the noble examples which he himself has brought upon the stage, reproaches his adversary with the objectionable stories of Sthenobæus and Phædra, with which he, Euripides has corrupted the public taste.

Euripides alleges in his own defence that he did not invent those stories. "Phædra's affair was a matter of fact." Æschylus rejoins:

A fact with a vengeance, but horrible facts Should be buried in silence, not bruited abroad, Nor brought forth on the stage, nor emblazoned in poetry. Children and boys have a teacher assigned them; The bard is a master for manhood and youth, Bound to instruct them in virtue and truth Beholden and bound.

I do not know which of the plays of Aristophanes is considered the best by those who are competent to speak authoritatively upon their merits; but of those that I know, this drama of "The Frogs" seems to me to exhibit most fully the scope and extent of his comic power. Condescending in parts to what is called low comedy,--_i.e._, the farcical, based upon the sense of what all know and experience,--it rises elsewhere to the highest domain of literary criticism and expression.

The action between Bacchus and his slave forcibly reminds us of Cervantes, though master and man alike have in them more of Sancho Panza than of Quixote. In the journey to the palace of Pluto, I see the prototype of what the great mediæval poet called "The Divine Comedy." I find in both the same weird imagination, the same curious interbraiding of the ridiculous and the grandiose. This, of course, with the difference that the Greek poet affords us only a brief view of Hell, while Dante detains us long enough to give us a realizing sense of what it is, or might be. This same mingling of the awful and the grotesque suggests to me passages in our own Hawthorne, similarly at home with the supernatural, which underlies the story of "The Scarlet Letter," and flashes out in "The Celestial Railroad." But I must come back to Dante, who can amuse us with the tricks of demons, and can lift us to the music of the spheres. So Aristophanes can show us, on the one hand, the humorous relations of a coward and a clown; and, on the other, can put into the mouth of the great Æschylus such words as he might fitly have spoken.

Perhaps the very extravagance of fun is carried even further in the drama of "The Birds" than in those already quoted from. Its conceits are, at any rate, most original, and, so far as I know, it is without prototype or parallel in its matter and manner.