Page images
PDF
EPUB

This is the utmoft verge and boundary of a flave's virtue. An important truth, which, among many greater, and more momentous instructions, furnishes this to the dramatic poet, "That, if "he would apply the chorus to the ufes of a "found and useful moral, he must take his fubjects, not from the annals of defpotic tyranny, "but from the great events, which occur in the "records of free and equal commonwealths."

[ocr errors]

200. ILLE TEGAT COMMISSA.] This important advice is not always easy to be followed, Much indeed will depend on the choice of the fubject, and the artful conftitution of the fable. Yet, with all his care, the ableft writer will foinetimes find himself embarrassed by the chorus. I would here be understood to speak chiefly of the moderns. For the antients, though it has not been attended to, had fome peculiar advantages over us in this refpect, refulting from the principles and practices of those times. For, as it hath been obferved of the ancient epic mufe, that she borrowed much of her state and dignity from the falfe theology of the pagan world, so, I think, it may be juftly faid of the ancient tragic, that she has derived great advantages of probability from its miftaken moral. If there be truth in this reflection, it will help to justify fome of the ancient choirs, that have been moft objected

I

objected to by the moderns. To give an inftance or two, and leave the curious reader to extend the obfervation at his leifure.

I. In the Hippolytus of Euripides, the chorus, which is let into Phædra's defign of killing hèrfelf, fuffers this rash attempt to take effect, rather than divulge the entrusted secret. This, to a modern reader, feems ftrange; and we are ready to arraign the poet of having allotted a very unfit and unbecoming part to his chorus, which, in order to observe a critical, is thus made, to violate a moral precept, or at least to facrifice the more effential part of its character to a punctilio of honour. But the cafe was quite otherwife. This fuicide of Phædra, which, on our ftrict moral plan, is repugnant to the plain rules of duty, was, in the circumstances suppofed, fully juftified on the pagan fyftem. Phædra had confeffed the fecret of her criminal paffion. By the forward zeal of her confident, her disgrace is made known to Hippolytus; and thereby, as fhe conceives, rendered notorious to the public. In this diftress, she had only one way to vindicate her honour, and that was at the expence of her life.. Rather than bear the insupportable load of public infamy, fhe kills herself. That this was a juftifiable cause of selfmurder in the eye of the chorus is clear from the reason, there affigned, of her conduct, manifeftly L2

in

in approbation of it. "Phædra," fays the chorus, "oppreffed and borne down by her afflictions, ❝has recourse to this expedient of suicide,

τάν τ' εὔδοξον ἀνθαιρεμένα Φάμαν, ἀπαλλάσσεσά

Τ' ἀλγειὸν φρενῶν ἔρωτα.

"for the fake of her good fame, and in order "to free herself from the tortures of a cruel "paffion." And how agreeable this was to the pagan fyftem, in general, let the reader collect from the following teftimonies in Cicero: Si omnia fugienda turpitudinis adipifcendæque honeftatis caufâ faciemus, non modo flimulos doloris, fed etiam fulmina fortuna contemnamus licebit : præfertim cum paratum fit illud ex hefsternâ disputatione perfugium. Ut enim, fi, cui naviganti prædones infequantur, Deus quis dixerit, Ejice te navi; præfto eft, qui excipiat, &c. omnem omittas timorem; fic, urgentibus afperis et odiofis doloribus, fi tanti non fint, ut ferendi fint, quo fit confugiendum vides. [Tufc. Difp. 1. ii. 26.] And, again, in the close of the Vth difputation, Mihi quidem in vita fervanda videtur illa lex, quæ in Græcorum conviviis obtinet: Aut bibat, inquit, aut abeat. Et recte. Aut enim fruatur aliquis pariter cum aliis voluptate potandi; aut, ne fobrius in violentiam vinolentorum incidat, ante difcedat: fic INJURIAS FORTUNE,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

FORTUNE, QUAS FERRE NEQUEAS, DEFUGIENDO RELINQUAS.

II. Another example may, I think, be fetched from the Medea. Scarcely any thing has been more the fubject of modern cenfure, than the part, which the chorus is made to act in this tragedy. Whence comes it, fays M. Dacier, that the chorus, which confifts of Corinthian women, is faithful to a franger against their fovereign [e]?

[e] See alfo to the fame purpose P. Corneille's Exam, fur la Medée. If the objection, made by these critics, to the part of the chorus, be, the improbability, as was explained at large in the preceding note, of a flave's taking the fide of virtue against the pleasure of his tyrant, the manifeft difference of the two cafes will Thew it to be without the least foundation. For, i. the chorus in the Medea confists of women, whom compaffion and a fecret jealousy and indignation at so flagrant an instance of the violated faith of marriage, attach, by the most natural connexion of interests, to the caufe and perfon of the injured queen. In the Antigone, it is compofed of old courtiers, devoted, by an habitude of flavery, to the will of a master, affembled, by his exprefs appointment, as creatures of his tyranny, and prompted, by no strong movements of felf-love, to take part against him. 2. In the Antigone, the part of Creon is principal. Every step, in the progrefs of the play, depends fo immediately upon him, that he is almoft conftantly upon the ftage. No reflexions could therefore be made by the chorus, nor any part against him be undertaken, but directly in

[blocks in formation]

This good Frenchman, it feems, thought it a kind of treafon, even on the ftage, and where a moral character was to be fuftained, to take part against a tyrant. But he will further fay, that the moral character of the chorus was forfeited in thus concealing, and, in effect, abetting the impious cruelties of Medea. The laws of nature and of God were tranfgreffed in rendering this fervice to her. All which is very true, fuppofing the reader to judge of this matter by the purer chriftian moral. But how will he prove this to be the cafe on the received notions and practices of paganifm? It appears, this critic did not apprehend, what a moderate attention to ancient history and manners might have taught him, that the violation of conjugal fidelity was a crime of that high nature, as to deserve his prefence, and at their own manifest hazard. The very reverse of this is the cafe in the Medea. Creon is there but a fubaltern perfon-has a very fmall part affigned him in the conduct of the play-is, in fact, introduced upon the stage but in one fingle fcene. The different fituation of the chorus, refulting from hence, gives occafion for the wideft difference in their conduct. They may speak their refentments freely. Unawed by the frowns and menaces of their tyrant, they are left at liberty to follow the fuggestions of virtue. Nothing here offends against the law of probą. bility, or, in the leaft, contradicts the reasoning about the chorus in the Antigone.

« PreviousContinue »