Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/292

 266 ON THE EEPRESENTATION OF according to a fixed system of representation, or to ransack the stores of illuminated missals, monumental brasses, and even Assy- rian monuments, in order to put on the stage an exact resemblance of the times to be exhibited: whether it is better to let Comedy revel in the grotesque exaggerations of our pantomimes, or to place on the stage a carpeted boudoir with all the details of modern com- fort. It is at least certain that the present method of putting plays on the stage, which seems to have reached its ultimate development under the management of Mr Macready and Mr Charles Kean, is quite a modern innovation. It began with Le Kain and Talma in France, and has been fully perfected in this country under the Kembles. But Shakspere was content _to apologize for disgracing the name of Agincourt With four or five most vile and ragged foils, Eight ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous. Garrick played ancient Romans in bag-wigs and ruffles ; until the last few years FalstafF fought at Shrewsbury with a highlander's target, and a white coat with red and gold facings of the time of George the First; and it was at the beginning of the present cen- tury that the French performer, who was arrayed for the first time in an approximation to the classic costume of Agamemnon, de- manded of Talma, with much indignation, where he was expected to carry his snuff-box. Aristotle, or the grammarian by whom his treatise on Poetry has been interpolated, informs us^ that every Greek Tragedy ad- mitted of the following subdivisions ; the prologue, the episodes, the exode, which applied to the performances of the actors, and the parodus and stasima, which belonged to the chorus. The songs from the stage {ra airb a/c7]vrj<;) and the dirges {KopufMol) are peculiar to some Tragedies only. Besides these, it seems that there was occasionally a dancing song or canzonet of a peculiar nature 2. The proper entrance of the chorus was from the parascenia by one of the parodt {nte) . The parodus was the song which the choreutos sang as they moved, probably in difi'erent parties, along these side- entrances of the orchestra^. It was generally either interspersed with anapaests, as is the case in the Antigone; or preceded by a 1 Chap. XII. below, Part ii. 2 Introd. to Antiyone, p. xxxi. ^ Ibid. p. xxx.