1849.] Contrivances for Theatrical Exhibitions. 111 of the tenets of his philosophy, if the open sky of Attica had not been over his head, and the soil of Attica under his feet. Many other passages might be given from the tragedians, illustrative of this influence of the construction and locality of the Greek theatre. I will, however, refer to but one more. In Sophocles' Electra, when the daughter of Agamemnon came upon the stage, she, undoubtedly, made her invocation to the open heaven above her, beginning with the lines: ὦ φάος ἁγνὸν, καὶ γῆς πολλὰς, μὲν, κ. τ. λ. In the comedies of Aristophanes, many of the imaginative flights would be extravagant and unmeaning in the close theatre of modern days, without a view of the hills of Athens around, a part of the city below, and the infinite blue of the sky above. Passages almost innumerable, did our limits allow it, might be cited from the "Clouds," for example, illustrative of this fact. One must suffice: O air despotic king, whose boundless chain Girds the suspended earth, and thou, bright aether, Who breed the thunder and the lightning's bolt, There were several contrivances used by the ancients for giving effect to their theatrical exhibitions, which deserve a passing notice. In the first place the size of the theatre rendered some device necessary for aiding the eye and ear, by increasing the power of the voice and the size of the features, aside from the desire to represent gods and godlike heroes as of a stature and bearing far above mortals. The mask (oyxos) first deserves mention. When originally invented, perhaps it was merely intended to enable one person to appear in several characters, but it was subsequently employed, together with the well known cothurnus, to give a height to the actor, corresponding to the size of the theatre. Proper proportion was preserved by padding and stuffing the arms, chest and other parts, to a size corresponding to the height. But these were not the only uses of the mask. It was not sufficient for the actor (vnoxoit's) that he dieted 1 line 267 sq. Wheelwright's Translation. Similar invocations to the clouds, air, etc. occur on almost every page. Donaldson's Greek Theatre, p. 142, says: If as we are assured 30,000 persons could be seated on its benches, the length of the dpóuos could not have been less than 400 feet, and a spectator in the central point of the topmost range, must have been 300 feet from the actor in the Aoyeiov. and used much bodily exercise, in order that his voice might be strong and clear. He was aided by his mask of bronze or copper, in throwing his voice to the extremities of his audience. "This was effected, says Donaldson,1 by connecting it with a tire or periwig (7ηvíxŋ, qɛvázŋ), that covered the head and left only one passage for the voice, which was generally circular (the os rotundum), so that the voice might be said to sound through it-hence the Latin name for a maskpersona a personando." How much aid was furnished to the voice by cavities and receptacles for sound about the building, mentioned by Vitruvius, it seems difficult to determine. The intercourse between heaven and earth in the Greek tragedy is so frequent, that we should naturally expect much stage machinery for facilitating it. In this respect, the open theatre would furnish considerable aid, by allowing free motion and view upward. Thus to exhibit the gods in converse aloft, a platform surrounded and concealed by clouds, called Oɛoloyɛior, was employed, and ropes, Alcoa, aided in supporting or conveying the celestial being aloft, or facilitating his descent. The Mnyarn, a sort of crane turning upon a pivot on the right or country side of the theatre, when occasion required, snatched up a god or hero before the eyes of the auditors, and held him hovering in the air, until his part was performed, and the Tégavos,3 of a somewhat similar construction, caught up persons from the earth and whirled them into the circle of the scenic clouds. Thus a dead body might be conveyed from the stage. They also had means of representing artificial lightning playing among clouds, and thunder was produced under the stage, scarcely distinguishable to an Atherian ear from the genuine Vulcanian. There were also other pieces of frame-work, to represent action taking place merely on the earth, as the Exo, a look-out, Taiyos, a fortress wall, Пlúgyos, a tower, Douxzogior, a beacon, and several others. In the opening scene of the Agamemnon, where the watchman complains that he is Fix'd as a dog on Agamemon's roof To watch the live-long year, and when he after the appearance of the signal fire, exclaims: 1 Greek Theatre, p. 147. Great care was taken in the construction of the mask. There were, for example, twenty-six kinds of tragic masks, and those for comedy were still more numerous. * Ε μηχανή δὲ θεοὺς δείκνυσι, καὶ ἥρωας τοὺς ἐν ἀέρι. It was called κράδη. Pollux, IV. 19. 3 Ἡ δὲ γέρανος, μηχάνημά τι ἐστὶν ἐκ μετεώρου καταφερόμενον, ἐφ' ἁρπαγῇ σώ ματος ᾧ κέχρηται ἡ Ἡὼς ἀρπάζουσι τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Μέμνονος.-Pollux IV. 19. 1849.] Manner of preparing Dramatic Representations. 113 Hail thou auspicious flame, That streaming through the night denouncest joy, it is not improbable, that both the Exon and the Dovxrootor were brought into requisition upon the stage. Perhaps also the was used, when in that same play Clytemnestra exclaims: A Herald from the shore I see; branches of olive shade his brows, etc. It has been said, that the back ground of the Proscenium represented frequently the exterior of a palace, but not the interior. They had a device, however, for changing the scene to the interior, by making the front wall of a temporary house to turn on hinges, so as, when drawn back, to expose the proceedings within an apartment of the house. Some such device would naturally be used in the Electra of Sophocles, when the dead body of Clytemnestra is exposed to view, and the discovery of her murder is revealed to Aegistheus by removing the veil from the corpse, supposed by him to be that of Orestes; and also when Orestes compels Aegistheus "to go to the place where his own dear father fell, and perish there." So, near the beginning of the "Furies" of Aeschylus, where the temple of Apollo is opened to view. We have spoken of stage devices that relate to human and superhuman personages. But as Tartarus and the regions below furnished its representatives on the stage, means were sought for their convenient approach. A door under the stairs leading from the orchestra to the lowest range of seats, was reached from a vault below, by means of a flight of stairs called Xagorioi xhipazes, "Charon's stairs." By these the shades of the departed arose and disappeared. A little distance in front of these steps was a trap-door, communicating with the vault below, called 'Avaníɛoμa, “by means of which any sudden appearance, like that of the furies, was effected." From another similar door, on the right or country side of the Agyɛtov, marine and river gods and the like, presented themselves when the occasion demanded. The manner of preparing dramatic representations, deserves a few words of explanation. We have already spoken of the dissimilarity of the parts of the Attic drama. A distinction corresponding to the nature of the parts was also retained in preparing for the exhibition. The chorus was collected, the teacher (xopodidάoxalos) procured, and the whole provision, equipage (often splendid) and pay of the singers furnished by the choragus, who was appointed by the people. But the actors belonged to the poet and not to the people, and conse quently came not within the jurisdiction of the choragus, either in respect to training or pay. When the author of a play proposed to bring it upon the stage, he applied to the archon, and if this dignitary approved the piece, a chorus was assigned (Xogov didóval) and immediately put under training, whilst actors designated by lot, and exercised by the poet, were ready on the appointed day. Thus the prize was striven for by a union of the best taught actors with the most sumptuously dressed and most diligently trained chorus. And it should seem that the acting had no little influence upon the judges, who were appointed by lot, and generally fivel in number, since the best dramatists were so often unsuccessful. The fortunate competitor chose his own actors for the following year.2 The victorious poet was crowned, and his actors adorned with ivy, and the choragus generally received a tripod as a reward for superior excellence. ARTICLE VI. THE SPIRIT OF A SCHOLAR. By Professor S. G. Brown, Dartmouth College. THE term scholar has a broad and somewhat varied meaning. We apply it to him who learns with readiness, who performs his intellectual tasks with rapidity and beauty. In a higher sense, we mean by it one who invents or discovers, who makes original and independent investigation, who enlarges the boundaries of knowledge. Most liberally, however, we use the term with reference to all whose attention is devoted to science or letters. Homer and Dante and Chaucer were scholars. In this grandest sense, the calling is among the noblest that the earth affords. We venture no comparison between great thinkers and great actors, the Shakspeares and the Cromwells, the Goethes and the Napoleons. The question of supremacy between them we are willing to let remain in abeyance; but, without controversy, the eye of the world fixes not last on those whose investigations have determined the laws of its action; who, priests of nature, have Boeckh's Public Econ. of Athens, p. 454 sq. In the first contest of Sophocles with Aeschylus, the judges were Cimon with his nine colleagues, who happened to appear in the theatre and were impressed into the service by the archon.-Donaldson's Gr. Theatre, p. 73. 2 Donaldson's Gr. Theatre, p. 136. 1849.] Scholar must cherish a Meditative Spirit. 115 revealed her mysteries; have adorned the world with structures of beauty and magnificence; have evoked from the marble and the canvass lovelier and grander forms than our eyes ever saw before; who have interpreted for us the manifold voices of experience, and made the past our teacher; without whom there were no history, no poetry, no philosophy, no art; and of humanity itself, nothing left but its dust and ashes. There are few among us who can boast of a literary leisure. We come up to the annual festivals of our colleges, from the hard toil and strifes of the year, with the dust of the forum and the market still clinging to us. We have labored for our daily bread. Still it is none the less a duty and a privilege to cherish a scholar's hopes and tastes. Nor is this hard lot of educated men, if it be called such, so adverse to literature even, as it might at first seem. With certain exceptions, this too is as it should be. The scholar is not a hermit nor a monk. Like other men he is connected with the family, with society, the State, the church; one whose learning is enveloped and permeated with sentiments and affections. Literature is the expressed thought of a people; and as such, cannot be forced, and probably will not be much retarded by apparent infelicities in the condition of its votaries. Even for better interpreting the problems of life, for the better understanding of history, for the surer expression of common sympathies and wide-spread sentiments, of the stronger sorrows and joys,-the terrible excitements of passion, the awful thoughts which sometimes hover about the way of the most prosperous,-all the experiences which make up the varied life of humanity, it is well for the historian, the philosopher, the poet, to share the troubles of the common lot, to become part of that which they describe or portray. There was a Providence which drove Dante into exile, and bid Milton live in blindness and disappointment and penury. The scholar is bound to cherish a profoundly meditative and thoughtful spirit, as the basis of both a vigorous independence and a wide and genial sympathy, and indeed, we may say, of almost every scholarly virtue. A reflecting mind alone can become creative. The true student is a teacher of men; a thinker, not with the multitude, but for them; a thinker, not a dreamer. His eye must be ever open, his mind ever active. They will be so if he habitually see causes in the effects, the essential in the accidental. Thus to the philosopher and the poet, the outward is an evidence, a symbol of the inward, and we seem to approach the domain of spirit in recognizing the existence of powers the most terrible, whose substance is yet too subtle to reveal itself to the acutest sense. By the very direction of his energies, the |
