Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/424

402 402 HISTORY OF THE it could only be introduced at some especial pause ; Ave find that Aris- tophanes is fond of introducing it at the point where the action, after all sorts of hindrances and delays, has got so far that the crisis must ensue, and it must be determined whether the end desired will be attained or not. Such, however, is the laxity with which comedy treats all these forms, that the parabasis may even be divided into two parts, and the anapsestical introduction be separated from the choral song;* there may even be a second parabasis, (but without the anapsestic march,) in order to mark a second transition in the action of the piece.f Finally, the parabasis may be omitted altogether, as Aristophanes, in his Lysis- trata, (in which a double chorus, one part consisting of women, the other of old men, sing so many singularly clever odes,) has entirely dis- pensed with this address to the public. | § 7. It is a sufficient definition of the comic style of dancing to men tion that it was the Jcordax, i. e. a species of dance which no Athenian could practise sober and unmasked without incurring a character for the greatest shamelessness.§ Aristophanes takes great credit to himself in his Clouds (whieh7-w4tlLalLits burlesque scenes, strives after a nobler sort of comedy than his other pieces) for omitting the kordax in this play, and for having laid aside some indecencies of costume. || Every thing shows that comedy, in its outward appearance, had quite the character of a farce, in which the sensual, or rather bestial, nature of man was unreservedly brought forward, not by way of permission only, but as a laiv and ride. So much the more astonishing, then, is the high spirituality, the moral worth, with which the great comedians have been able to inspire this wild pastime, without thereby subverting its fundamental characteristics. Nay, if we compare with this old comedy the later conformation of the middle and new comedy, with the latter of which we are better acquainted, and which, with a more decent exterior, nevertheless preaches a far laxer morality, and if we reflect on the cor- responding productions of modern literature, we shall almost be in- duced to believe that the old rude comedy, which concealed nothing, and was, in the representation of vulgar life, itself vulgar and bestial, was better suited to an age which meant well to morality and religion, and was more truly based on piety, than the more refined comedy, as it coalesced with the parodos and the Iacchus-song, (of which see above, § 2.) As Iacchus has been already praised in this first part, the lyrical strophes of the second part (v. 675 foil.) do not contain any invocation of gods, and such like, but are full of sarcasms about the demagogues Cleophon and Cleigenes. "We find the same deviation, and from the same reasons, in the second parabasis of the Knights. f As in the Knights. % The parabasis is wanting in the Ecclesiazusce and the Plutus, for reasons which are stated in chap. XXVIII. § 11. § Theophras-t. Charact. 6. comp. Casaubon.
 * Thus in the Peace, and in the Frogs, where the first half of the parabasis has
 * Aristophanes, Clouds, 537 foil.