Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/330

308 308 HISTORY OF THE tragedy is most intimately bound up. The action which forms the basis of every tragedy of those times is internal and spiritual; the reflections, resolutions, feelings, the mental or moral phenomena, which can be expressed in speech, are developed on the stage. For outward action, which is generally mute, or, at all events, cannot be adequately repre- sented by words, the epic form — narration — is the only appropriate vehicle. Battles, single combats, murders, sacrifices, funerals, and the like, whatever in mythology is accomplished by strength of hand, passes behind the scenes; even when it might, without any considerable diffi- culty, be performed in front of them. Exceptions, such as the chaining of Prometheus, and the suicide of Ajax, are rather apparent than real, and indeed serve to confirm the general rule ; since it is only on account of the peculiar psychological state of Prometheus when bound, and of Ajax at the time of his suicide, that the outward acts are brought on the stage. Moreover, the costume of tragic actors was calculated for impressive declamation, and not for action. The lengthened and stuffed out figures of the tragic actors would have had an awkward, not to say a ludicrous effect, in combat or other violent action.* Prom the sublime to the ridiculous would here have been but one step, which antique tragedy carefully avoided risking. Thus it was leather from reasons inherent in its nature, than from obedience to prescribed rules, that Greek tragedy observed, with few exceptions, unity of plan ; and hence it required no arrangement for a complete change of scenic decorations, which was first introduced in the Roman theatre. f In Athens all the necessary changes were effected by means of the Periactcc, erected in the corners of the stage. These were machines of the form of a triangular prism, which turned round rapidly and presented three different surfaces. On the side which was supposed to represent foreign parts, it afforded at each turn a different perspective view, while, on the home side, some single near object alone was changed. For example, the transition from the temple of Delphi to the temple of Pallas on the Acropolis of Athens, in the Eumenides of yEschylus, was effected in this manner. No greater change of scene than this takes place in any extant Greek tragedy. Where different but neighbouring places are represented, the great length of the stage sufficed to contain them all, especially as the Greeks required no exact and elaborate imitation of reality: a slight indication was sufficient to set in activity their quick and mobile ima- ginations. In the Ajax of Sophocles, the half of the stage on the left hand represents the Grecian camp; the tent of Ajax, which must be in the centre, terminates the right wing of this camp ; on the right, is person fall with the cothurnus. f The scena ductilis and versilis.
 * According to Lucian, Somnium sive Gallus, c. '26, it was ludicrous to see a