Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/69

 THE TEAGIC DIALOGUE. — THESPIS. 51 Their recitations, however, were not long confined to the Epos. All poetry was equally intended for the ear, and nothing was written but in metre: hence the Muses were appropriately called the children of Memory. Now, the Epos was soon succeeded, but not displaced, by the gnomic and didactic poetry of Hesiod, which, as has been justly observed, was an ornamental appendage of the older form of poetry These poems therefore were recited in the same way as the Epos^, and Hesiod himself was a rhapsode^. If the Margites, in its original form, belonged to the epic period of Greek poetry, it cannot be doubted that this humorous poem was also communicated to the public by means of recitation. The Epos of Homer, with not a little borrowed from the sententious poetry of Hesiod, formed the basis of the tragic dialogue ; and in the same way the Margites contained within itself the germs of Comedy. The change of metre, which alone rendered the transi- tion to the other forms more simple and easy, is universally attri- buted to the prolific genius of Archilochus, one of the greatest names in the history of ancient literature. This truly original poet formed the double rhythm of the trochee from the equal rhythm of the dactyl, and used this metre partly in combination with dactyls, and partly in dipodite of its own, which were considered as ulti- mately equivalent to the dactylic number^. He soon proved that his new verses were lighter and more varied than the old heroic hexameters, and employed them for nearly equivalent purposes. At the same ,time, he formed the inverse double rhythm of the iambic from the anapgest, or inverted dactyl, which was the natural measure of the march, and was probably used from very early days in the songs of the processional comus Here again he had an admirable vehicle for the violent satire, in which he indulged, and which found its best justification in the scurrilities and outrageous personalities that were bandied to and fro at the feasts of Demeter 1 Wachsmuth, Hellen. AltertJmmsJc. ii. 2, p, 391. 2 Plato, Legff. ii. p. 658. ^ Pausan. IX, 30, 3: Kadrjrat 5^ Kal 'Haiodos KtOdpau iirl tois ySvaaii' ^x^^> ovbh tc olKeLOv'li(ri.6daj (p'oprjfia' drjXa yap dr) Kal i^ ai/Twu tQu eirOiv otl eirl pd^dov dd^prjs ydev. Hesiod could not play on the lyre, x. 7, 2: X^yerat 8^ KafHaiodov direkadrivaL tov dyuuiafxaros are ov Kidapi^eiu 6/jlou rfj ySfj dedcdayfj-euou. ■* It is expressly testified by Aristot. lihet. in. i, § 9, that the tragic poets passed from the trochaic to the iambic verse, the former having been the original metre in dramatic poetry. ^ See Donaldson's GreeJc Grammar, 647, 651, 656. 4—2