Chapter 26

The use of intrigue is certainly well calculated to effect the all-desired short duration of an important action. For the intriguer is ever expeditious, and loses no time in attaining to his object. But the mighty course of human destinies proceeds, like the change of seasons, with measured pace: great designs ripen slowly; stealthily and hesitatingly the dark suggestions of deadly malice quit the abysses of the mind for the light of day; and, as Horace, with equal truth and beauty observes, "the flying criminal is only limpingly followed by penal retribution." [Footnote: Rarò antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede paena claudo.--TRANS.] Let only the attempt be made, for instance, to bring within the narrow frame of the Unity of Time Shakspeare's gigantic picture of Macbeth's murder of Duncan, his tyrannical usurpation and final fall; let as many as may be of the events which the great dramatist successively exhibits before us in such dread array be placed anterior to the opening of the piece, and made the subject of an after recital, and it will be seen how thereby the story loses all its sublime significance. This drama does, it is true, embrace a considerable period of time: but does its rapid progress leave us leisure to calculate this? We see, as it were, the Fates weaving their dark web on the whistling loom of time; and we are drawn irresistibly on by the storm and whirlwind of events, which hurries on the hero to the first atrocious deed, and from it to innumerable crimes to secure its fruits with fluctuating fortunes and perils, to his final fall on the field of battle. Such a tragic exhibition resembles a comet's course, which, hardly visible at first, and revealing itself only to the astronomic eye, appears at a nebulous distance in the heavens, but soon soars with unheard-of and accelerating rapidity towards the central point of our system, scattering dismay among the nations of the earth, till, in a moment, when least expected, with its portentous tail it overspreads the half of the firmament with resplendent flame.

For the sake of the prescribed Unity of Time the French poets must fain renounce all those artistic effects which proceed from the gradually accelerated growth of any object in the mind, or in the external world, through the march of time, while of all that in a drama is calculated to fascinate the eye they were through their wretched arrangement of stage- scenery deprived in a great measure by the Unity of Place. Accidental circumstances might in truth enforce a closer observance of this rule, or even render it indispensable. From a remark of Corneille's [Footnote: In his _Premier Discours sur la Poésie Dramatique_ he says: "Une chanson a quelquefois bonne grâce; et dans les pièces de machines cet ornement est redevenu nécessaire pour remplir les oreilles du spectateur, _pendant que les machines descendent_."] we are led to conjecture that stage- machinery in France was in his time extremely clumsy and imperfect. It was moreover the general custom for a number of distinguished spectators to have seats on both sides of the stage itself, which hardly left a breadth of ten paces for the free movements of the actors. Regnard, in _Le Distrait_, gives us an amusing description of the noise and disorder these fashionable _petit-maîtres_ in his day kept up in this privileged place, how chattering and laughing behind the backs of the actors they disturbed the spectators, and drew away attention from the play to themselves as the prominent objects of the stage. This evil practice continued even down to Voltaire's time, who has the merit of having by his zealous opposition to it obtained at last its complete abolition, on the appearance of his _Semiramis_. How could they have ventured to make a change of scene in presence of such an unpoetical chorus as this, totally unconnected with the piece, and yet thrust into the very middle of the representation? In the _Cid_, the scene of the action manifestly changes several times in the course of the same act, and yet in the representation the material scene was never changed. In the English and Spanish plays of the same date the case was generally the same; certain signs, however, were agreed on which served to denote the change of place, and the docile imagination of the spectators followed the poet whithersoever he chose. But in France, the young men of quality who sat on the stage lay in wait to discover something to laugh at; and as all theatrical effect requires a certain distance, and when viewed too closely appears ludicrous, all attempt at it was, in such a state of things, necessarily abandoned, and the poet confined himself principally to the dialogue between a few characters, the stage being subjected to all the formalities of an antechamber.

And in truth, for the most part, the scene did actually represent an antechamber, or at least a hall in the interior of a palace. As the action of the Greek tragedies is always carried on in open places surrounded by the abode or symbols of majesty, so the French poets have modified their mythological materials, from a consideration of the scene, to the manners of modern courts. In a princely palace no strong emotion, no breach of social etiquette is allowable; and as in a tragedy affairs cannot always proceed with pure courtesy, every bolder deed, therefore, every act of violence, every thing startling and calculated strongly to impress the senses, as transacted behind the scenes, and related merely by confidants or other messengers. And yet as Horace, centuries ago remarked, whatever is communicated to the ear excites the mind far more feebly than what is exhibited to the trusty eye, and the spectator informs himself of. What he recommends to be withdrawn from observation is only the incredible and the revoltingly cruel. The dramatic effect of the visible may, it is true, be liable to great abuse; and it is possible for a theatre to degenerate into a noisy arena of mere bodily events, to which words and gestures may be but superfluous appendages. But surely the opposite extreme of allowing to the eye no conviction of its own, and always referring to something absent, is deserving of equal reprobation. In many French tragedies the spectator might well entertain a feeling that great actions were actually taking place, but that he had chosen a bad place to be witness of them. It is certain that the obvious impression of a drama is greatly impaired when the effects, which the spectators behold, proceed from invisible and distant causes. The converse procedure of this is preferable,--to exhibit the cause itself, and to allow the effect to be simply recounted. Voltaire was aware of the injury which theatrical effect sustained from the established practice of the tragic stage in France; he frequently insisted on the necessity of richer scenical decorations; and he himself in his pieces, and others after his example, have ventured to represent many things to the eye, which before would have been considered as unsuitable, not to say, ridiculous. But notwithstanding this attempt, and the still earlier one of Racine in his _Athalie_, the eye is now more out of favour than ever with the fashionable critics. Wherever any thing is allowed to be seen, or an action is performed bodily before them, they scent a melodrama; and the idea that Tragedy, if its purity, or rather its bald insipidity, was not watchfully guarded, would be gradually amalgamated with this species of play, (of which a word hereafter,) haunts them as a horrible phantom.

Voltaire himself has indulged in various infractions of the Unity of Time; nevertheless he has not dared directly to attack the rule itself as unessential. He did but wish to see a greater latitude given to its interpretation. It would, he thought, be sufficient if the action took place within the circuit of a palace or even of a town, though in a different part of them. In order however, to avoid a change of scene, he would have it so contrived as at once to comprise the several localities. Here he betrays very confused ideas, both of architecture and perspective. He refers to Palladio's theatre at Vicenza, which he could hardly have ever seen: for his account of this theatre, which, as we have already observed, is itself a misconception of the structure of the ancient stage, appears to be altogether founded on descriptions which clearly he did not understand. In the _Semiramis_, the play in which he first attempted to carry into practice his principles on this subject, he has fallen into a singular error. Instead of allowing the persons to proceed to various places, he has actually brought the places to the persons. The scene in the third act is a cabinet; this cabinet, to use Voltaire's own words, gives way (without--let it be remembered--the queen leaving it), to a grand saloon magnificently furnished. The Mausoleum of Ninus too, which stood at first in an open place before the palace, and opposite to the temple of the Magi, has also found means to steal to the side of the throne in the centre of this hall. After yielding his spirit to the light of day, to the terror of many beholders, and again receiving it back, it repairs in the following act to its old place, where it probably had left its obelisks behind. In the fifth act we see that the tomb is extremely spacious, and provided with subterraneous passages. What a noise would the French critics make were a foreigner to commit such ridiculous blunders. In _Brutus_ we have another example of this running about of the scene with the persons. Before the opening of the first act we have a long and particular description of the scenic arrangement: the Senate is assembled between the Capitoline temple and the house of the Consuls, in the open air. Afterwards, on the rising of the assembly, Arons and Albin alone remain behind, and of them it is now said: _qui sont supposés être entrés de la salle d'audience dans un autre appartement de la maison de Brutus_. What is the poet's meaning here? Is the scene changed without being empty, or does he trust so far to the imagination of his spectators, as to require them against the evidence of their senses, to take for a chamber a scene which is ornamented in quite a different style? And how does that which in the first description is a public place become afterwards a hall of audience? In this scenic arrangement there must be either legerdemain or a bad memory.

With respect to the Unity of Place, we may in general observe that it is often very unsatisfactorily observed, even in comedy, by the French poets, as well as by all who follow the same system of rules. The scene is not, it is true, changed, but things which do not usually happen in the same place are made to follow each other. What can be more improbable than that people should confide their secrets to one another in a place where they know their enemies are close at hand? or that plots against a sovereign should be hatched in his own antechamber? Great importance is attached to the principle that the stage should never in the course of an act remain empty. This is called binding the scenes. But frequently the rule is observed in appearance only, since the personages of the preceding scene go out at one door the very moment that those of the next enter at another. Moreover, they must not make their entrance or exit without a motive distinctly announced: to ensure this particular pains are taken; the confidants are despatched on missions, and equals also are expressly, and sometimes not even courteously, told to go out of the way. With all these endeavours, the determinations of the places where things take place are often so vague and contradictory, that in many pieces, as a German writer [Footnote: Joh. Elias Schlegel, in his _Gedanken zur Aufnahme des Dänischen Theatres_.] has well said, we ought to insert under the list of the _dramatis personae_--"The scene is on the theatre."

These inconveniences arise almost inevitably from an anxious observance of the Greek rules, under a total change of circumstances. To avoid the pretended improbability which would lie in springing from one time and one place to another, they have often involved themselves in real and grave improbabilities. A thousand times have we reason to repeat the observation of the Academy, in their criticism on the _Cid_, respecting the crowding together so many events in the period of twenty-four hours: "From the fear of sinning against the rules of art, the poet has rather chosen to sin against the rules of nature." But this imaginary contradiction between art and nature could only be suggested by a low and narrow range of artistic ideas.

I come now to a more important point, namely, to the handling of the subject-matter unsuitably to its nature and quality. The Greek tragedians, with a few exceptions, selected their subjects from the national mythology. The French tragedians borrow theirs sometimes from the ancient mythology, but much more frequently from the history of almost every age and nation, and their mode of treating mythological and historical subjects respectively, is but too often not properly mythological, and not properly historical. I will explain myself more distinctly. The poet who selects an ancient mythological fable, that is, a fable connected by hallowing tradition with the religious belief of the Greeks, should transport both himself and his spectators into the spirit of antiquity; he should keep ever before our minds the simple manners of the heroic ages, with which alone such violent passions and actions are consistent and credible; his personages should preserve that near resemblance to the gods which, from their descent, and the frequency of their immediate intercourse with them, the ancients believed them to possess; the marvellous in the Greek religion should not be purposely avoided or understated, but the imagination of the spectators should be required to surrender itself fully to the belief of it. Instead of this, however, the French poets have given to their mythological heroes and heroines the refinement of the fashionable world, and the court manners of the present day; they have, because those heroes were princes ("shepherds of the people," Homer calls them), accounted for their situations and views by the motives of a calculating policy, and violated, in every point, not merely archaeological costume, but all the costume of character. In _Phaedra_, this princess is, upon the supposed death of Theseus, to be declared regent during the minority of her son. How was this compatible with the relations of the Grecian women of that day? It brings us down to the times of a Cleopatra. Hermione remains alone, without the protection of a brother or a father, at the court of Pyrrhus, nay, even in his palace, and yet she is not married to him. With the ancients, and not merely in the Homeric age, marriage consisted simply in the bride being received into the bridegroom's house. But whatever justification of Hermione's situation may be found in the practice of European courts, it is not the less repugnant to female dignity, and the more indecorous, as Hermione is in love with the unwilling Pyrrhus, and uses every influence to incline him to marriage. What would the Greeks have thought of this bold and indecent courtship? No doubt it would appear equally offensive to a French audience, if Andromache were exhibited to them in the situation in which she appears in Euripides, where, as a captive, her person is enjoyed by the conqueror of her country. But when the ways of thinking of two nations are so totally different, why should there be so painful an effort to polish a subject founded on the manners of the one, with the manners of the other? What is allowed to remain after this polishing process will always exhibit a striking incongruity with that which is new- modelled, and to change the whole is either impossible, or in nowise preferable to a new invention. The Grecian tragedians certainly allowed themselves a great latitude in changing the circumstances of their myths, but the alterations were always consistent with the general and prevalent notions of the heroic age. On the other hand, they always left the characters as they received them from tradition and an earlier fiction, by means of which the cunning of Ulysses, the wisdom of Nestor, and the wrath of Achilles, had almost become proverbial. Horace particularly insists on the rule. But how unlike is the Achilles of Racine's _Iphigenia_ to the Achilles of Homer! The gallantry ascribed to him is not merely a sin against Homer, but it renders the whole story improbable. Are human sacrifices conceivable among a people whose chiefs and heroes are so susceptible of the tenderest emotions? In vain recourse is had to the powerful influences of religion: history teaches that a cruel religion invariably becomes milder with the softening manners of a people.

In these new exhibitions of ancient fables, the marvellous has been studiously rejected as alien to our belief. But when we are once brought from a world in which it was a part of the very order of things, into a world entirely prosaical and historically settled, then whatever marvel the poet may exhibit must, from the insulated state in which it stands, appear only so much the more incredible. In Homer, and in the Greek tragedians, everything takes place in the presence of the gods, and when they become visible, or manifest themselves in some wonderful operation, we are in no degree astonished. On the other hand, all the labour and art of the modern poets, all the eloquence of their narratives, cannot reconcile our minds to these exhibitions. Examples are superfluous, the thing is so universally known. Yet I cannot help cursorily remarking how singularly Racine, cautious as he generally is, has on an occasion of this kind involved himself in an inconsistency. Respecting the origin of the fable of Theseus descending into the world below to carry off Proserpine for his friend Pirithöus, he adopts the historical explanation of Plutarch, that he was the prisoner of a Thracian king, whose wife he endeavoured to carry off for his friend. On this he grounds the report of the death of Theseus, which, at the opening of the play, was current. And yet he allows Phaedra [Footnote: Je l'aime, non point tel que l'ont vu les enfers, Volage adorateur de mille objets divers, Qui va du dieu des morts déshonorer la couche.] to mention the fabulous tradition as an earlier achievement of the hero. How many women then did Theseus wish to carry off for Pirithöus? Pradon manages this much better: when Theseus is asked by a confidant if he really had been in the world below, he answers, how could any sensible man possibly believe so silly a tale! he merely availed himself of the credulity of the people, and gave out this report from political motives.

So much with respect to the manner of handling mythological materials. With respect to the historical, in the first place, the same objection applies, namely, that the French manners of the day are substituted to those which properly belong to the several persons, and that the characters do not sufficiently bear the colour of their age and nation. But to this we must add another detrimental circumstance. A mythological subject is in its nature poetical, and ever ready to take a new poetical shape. In the French Tragedy, as in the Greek, an equable and pervading dignity is required, and the French language is even much more fastidious in this respect, as very many things cannot be at all mentioned in French poetry. But in history we are on a prosaic domain, and the truth of the picture requires conditions, circumstances, and features, which cannot be given without a greater or less descent from the elevation of the tragical cothurnus; such as has been made without hesitation by Shakspeare, the most perfect of historical dramatists. The French tragedians, however, could not bring their minds to submit to this, and hence their works are frequently deficient in those circumstances which give life and truth to a picture; and when an obstinate prosaical circumstance must after all be mentioned, they avail themselves of laboured and artificial circumlocutions.