Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/358

 336 HISTORY OF GREECE. bringing it wit into conspicuous amplitude, and making it the substantive means of effect. Instead of recounting exploits achieved, or sufferings undergone by the heroes, instead of pouring out his own single-minded impressions in reference to some given event or juncture, the tragic poet produces the mythical persons themselves to talk, discuss, accuse, defend, con- fute, lament, threaten, advise, persuade, or appease ; among one another, but before the audience. In the drama, a singular mis- nomer, nothing is actually done : all is talk ; assuming what is done, as passing, or as having passed, elsewhere. The dramatic poet, speaking continually, but at each moment through a differ- ent character, carries on the purpose of each of his characters by words calculated to influence the other characters, and appro- priate to each successive juncture. Here are rhetorical exigen- cies from beginning to end : ' while, since the whole interest of the piece turns upon some contention or struggle carried on by speech ; since debate, consultation, and retort, never cease ; since every character, good or evil, temperate or violent, must be sup- plied with suitable language to defend his proceedings, to attack or repel opponents, and generally to make good the relative importance assigned to him, here again dialectical skill in no email degree is indispensable. Lastly, the strength and variety of ethical sentiment infused into the Grecian tragedy, is among the most remarkable charac- teristics which distinguish it from the anterior forms of poetry. " To do or suffer terrible things," is pronounced by Aristotle to be its proper subject-matter ; and the internal mind and motives of the doer or sufferer, on which the ethical interest fastens, are laid open by the Greek tragedians with an impressive minute- ness which neither the epic nor the lyric could possibly parallel. Moreover, the appropriate subject-matter of tragedy is pregnant not only with ethical sympathy, but also with ethical debate and speculation. Characters of mixed good and evil ; distinct rules of duty, one conflicting with the other ; wrong done, and justified to the conscience of the doer, if not to that of the spectator, by 1 Respecting the rhetorical cast of tragedy, sec Plato, Gorgias, c. 57, p. 502, D. Plato disapproves of tragedy o the same grounds as of rhetoric,