The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

city, and utter forgetfulness of the Divinity, insinuated themselves even unto the sanctuaries. ^Eschylus had represented in his heroes, supernatural personages'; Sophocles painted simple heroes, and Euripides, characters often less than men. ^ Now these personages were, in the eyes of the people, either children of the gods, or the gods themselves. What idea could be formed then of their weaknesses, of their crimes, of their odious or ridiculous conduct, particularly when these weaknesses or these crimes were no longer represented as allegories from which it was necessary to seek the meaning, but as historical events or frivolous plays of the imagination? The people, according to the degree of their intelligence, became either impious or superstitious; the savants professed to doubt all, and the influential men, by feigning to believe all, regarded all parties with an equal indifference. This is exactly what happened. The mysteries became corrupt because one was accustomed to regard them as corrupt; and the people became intolerant and fanatical, each one cringing with fear, lest he be judged what he really was, namely, impious.

Such was the effect of dramatic art in Greece. This effect, at first imperceptible, became manifest to the eyes of the sages, when the people became the dictators of the theatre and ignored the judges named to pronounce upon the works of the poets; When the poets, jealous of obtaining the approval of the multitude, consulted its taste rather than truth, its versatile passions rather than reason, and sacrificed to its caprices the laws of honesty and excellence. '

As soon as tragedy, disparaging the mysteries of the fables had transformed them into historical facts, it needed only a step to raise historical facts to the rank of subjects of tragedy. Phrynichus was, it is said, the first who had

'Philostr., VitdApoU.,l.ii.,c.2; 1. iv., c. i6; 1. vi., c. ii; Vitd iSschyl. apud, Robort., p. ii.

» Aristoph., In Ran.; Aristot., De Poet, c. 25. 3 Plato, De Legib., 1. ii. et iii.

56 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras this audacity. He produced in the theatre, the Conquest of Miletus.' The people of Athens, with a whimsicality which is characteristic of them, condemned the poet to a very heavy fine, for having disobeyed the law and crowned him because of the tears which they shed at the representation of his work. But this was not enough, confoimding thus reality and allegory; soon, sacred and profane things were mingled by forging without any kind of moral aim, subjects wholly false and fantastic. The poet Agathon, who was the author of this new profanation had been the friend of Euripides. ^ He proved thus that he knew nothing of the essence of dramatic poetry and makes it doubtful whether Euripides knew it any better.

Thus, in the space of less than two centuries, tragedy, borne upon the car of Thespis, elevated by .^schylus to a nobler theatre, carried to the highest degree of splendour by Sophocles, had already become weakened in the hands of Euripides, had lost the memory of its celestial origin with Agathon, and abandoned to the caprices of a populace as imperious as ignorant, incHned toward a rapid degeneration.* Comedy less reserved did not have a happier destiny. After having hurled its first darts upon the heroes and demigods of Greece, having taken possession of certain very unguarded allegories, to turn even the gods to ridicule*; after having derided Prometheus and Triptolemus, Bacchus and the Bacchantes, after having made sport of heaven and earth, of the golden age and the seasons*; it attacked

'H^rodot., 1. vi., 21; Corsin., Fast, attic, t. iii., p. 172; Aristot., DePoet., c. 9.

' Aristot., De Poet., c. 9.

* Susarion appeared 580 B.C., and Thespis some years after. The latter produced his tragedy of Alcestis in 536 B.C.; and the condemnation of Socrates occurred in 399 B.C. So that only 181 years elapsed between the initial presentation of comedy and the death of this philosopher.

3 Aristot., De Poet., c. 3.

<Aristoph, In Pac, v. 740; Schol., ibid.; Epicharm., In Nupi. Heb. apud Athen., 1. iii., p. 85.

The Essence and Form of Poetry 57