12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-12
NOTE 12.
2.2
P. 68. POLYGNOTUS—PAUSON—DIONYSIUS.
Polygnotus and Pauson are also mentioned by Aristotle in his
8th book De Rep. cap. v.
where, speaking of Painting with a view to education, he says, that
"young men should not be permitted to contemplate the works of PAUSON, but those only of POLYGNOTUS, and of other artists who excelled in moral expression."
1
It seems probable, from this passage, that the pictures of Pauson were not only of a ludicrous, but also of a licentiousness cast. To what a degree the abuse of this art was carried in Aristotle's time, appears from another passage, [
Rep. lib. vii. cap. xvii.
] in which he says, the magistrate should suffer no
"licentious and indecent paintings or statues,"
such as would endanger the morals of youth: but the exception that follows is curious;—
"Unless,"
he adds,
"in the temples of some DEITIES OF THAT CHARACTER, whose legal and established worship consists in ludicrous and wanton rites."
2
While I am upon this subject, I cannot forbear adding a singular passage of
Euripides
, where
Hippolytus
, vindicating himself, and asserting his chastity, says, with a naïveté that, I fear, would hardly be received with decent gravity by a modern audience;—
Λεχους γαρ, ἐις τοδ᾽ ἡμερας, ἁγνον δεμας. Ουκ οἰδα ΠΡΑΞΙΝ ΤΗΝΔΕ, πλην λόγῳ κλύων, ΓΡΑΦΗΙ ΤΕ ΛΕΥΣΣΩΝ· οὐδε ταυτα γαρ σκοπειν Προθυμα ειμι, ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΝ ΨΥΧΗΝ ἐχων
Hippol. v. 1003.
I am a stranger to the couch of love;
Nor know I of its rites more than the tale
May have informed me, or the Painter's pencil
Presented to mine eye; yet on such picture
Dwells not mine eye delighted, for my mind
[Mr. Potter's Translation, v. 1060.]
The Pauson mentioned by Aristotle was probably the same painter, whose poverty only is recorded by
Suidas
, and of whose wit we have a curious specimen in
Ælian
.
3
OF DIONYSIUs, too, very little is known. That he excelled in natural representation and exact resemblance—in exhibiting men, such as he saw them, without ideal grace on the one hand, or exaggerated deformity on the other is known, I believe, only from this passage of Aristotle. Dacier says this account is confirmed by
Ælian
; but I think he is mistaken. It appears to me, that the
μεγεθα
of which
Ælian
speaks, as the only difference between the paintings of Polygnotus and those of Dionysius, is literal, not figurative, magnitude.
4
He says only, that the pictures of Dionysius, except, that they were on a small scale, were exact imitations of Polygnotus, in the expression of passions and manners, the attitudes of the figures, the lightness and transparency of the draperies, and every other circumstance.
5
It is not easy to see how Dionysius could copy so exactly,
ἐἰς ἀκριβειαν
, the expre-
sion, and the forms, or attitudes, of Polygnotus, without copying, at the same time, his greatness of manner, and his improvement of that nature which he imitated;
6
for these seem entirely to depend upon those two circumstances, the expression of the countenance, and the airs and attitudes of the figures.
It seems, therefore, doubtful, whether Aristotle and
Ælian
speak of the same person. There must, in all probability, have been more painters than one, of that name; which was so common, that the writers so called, alone, furnished
Meursius
with matter for a whole book.—The pictures of Dionysius the Colophonion are mentioned by
Plutarch
as being painted with considerable strength of pencil, [
ίσχυν ἐχοντα και τονον
,] but in a manner which appeared forced and laboured, [
εκβεβιασμενον
,] and which he opposes to the freedom and facility of
Nicomachus
, who seems to have been the
Fà Presto of the ancient painters.
7
This fault, so likely to be that of the artist who aims at an exact and scrupulous resemblance of the nature that is before his eyes, may, perhaps, afford some presumption, that
Plutarch
and Aristotle speak of the same painter.
What Aristotle says of these three styles of picturesque imitation, is easily applied to modern times. The productions, indeed, of these ancient artists, were perishable and of short duration;—
At "genus immortale manet:"
these specific characters have subsisted, and probably will subsist, in every period of the art. For the name of
Polygnotus
, it is obvious enough to substitute that of
RAPHAEL
, or other masters of the higher Italian schools.
"When a man,"
says
Mr. Richardson
, with that simplicity of enthusiasm,
which gives so amusing a singularity to his writings
8
—
"When a man enters into that awful gallery at Hampton-court,
9
he finds himself amongst a sort of people superior to what he has ever seen, and very probably to what those really were."
This is exactly the
βελτιονας καθ ἡμας
of Aristotle.
"Michael Angelo,"
says the same author,
"no where saw such living figures as he cut in marble."
—The Flemish and Dutch schools will supply plenty of substitutes for the Dionysii of ancient painting—those, who, like
Protogenes
,
"in picturâ verum esse, non verisimile, volunt."
11
Rembrandt
must occur to every body. Even
Rubens
"took his figures too much from the people before him."
12
As for the Pausons, the buffoons of the art, they are to be seen in the windows of every print-shop. We must not, however, confound with these
"Tom Browns of the mob,"
as
Mr. Walpole
calls them, the moral humour of
Hogarth
, or the sportive, but harmless, exaggerations of
Mr. Bunbury
.
Hogarth
, indeed, in general, and in his greatest works, seems rather to belong to the highest class of the exact imitators of vulgar nature—
των ΦΑΥΛΩΝ
. His
Country-dance, however, may be mentioned as an example, and an admirable one, of exaggerated comic imitation, in which men are made, in some degree at least,
"worse than they are"
—
XEΙΡΟΥΣ ἐκαζε
. And if any man can look at this
print, or at the
Family-piece, the
Coffee-house Patriots, or the
Long Story, of
Mr. Bunbury
, without feeling a high degree of that pleasure which arises from the perception of strong humour, he must, I think, be still more unprovided with a sense of the ridiculous, than even that
Crassus
, who is recorded to have laughed once, though once only, in his life.
13
13.
mvp-aristotle-comment-13
NOTE 13.
2.4
P. 68. WITH THE MUSIC OF THE FLUTE AND OF THE LYRE.
Thus
PLATO
, in the very language of Aristotle,—
τα περι της ρυθμες και πασαν μεσικην ἐσι τροπων μιμηματα ΒΕΛΤΙΟΝΩΝ και ΧΕΙΡΟΝΩΝ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΩΝ
. A modern reader, that is, a person who reads an antient author with modern ideas, might be inclined to to ask, how men are to be represented as better, or worse, than they are, or how, indeed, represented at all, in a harpsichord lesson, or a solo for a German flute? But the same reader, supposing him in any degree conversant with music, would surely be at no loss to conceive, that it admits of the difference of serious and comic expression; and admits of it in various degrees, from the highest elevation and dignity of style, down to the coarse and vulgar jollity of the gavot, or the hornpipe. Now the meaning of Aristotle, put into modern musical language, amounts, I apprehend, to no more than that. Suppose, then, the music, in these different styles, to be accompanied by words, relating the actions, or imitating the speech, of low, or elevated characters; we might say, that the music was expressive of such actions, or characters; the antients would have said, that it imitated them. On the contrary, suppose this music merely instrumental, we should, in general, only say, that it was grand, and sublime, or comic, mean, vulgar, &c. But the antients, from the close, and almost inseparable connection of
their Music with Poetry, and particularly with the most imitative sort of Poetry, the Dramatic
14
; and partly, also, from the nature of their Music itself, would, in this case likewise, have retained much the same language, and would have considered this Music as imitative of the manners and passions of exalted, or vulgar characters, or even as representing those characters themselves.—But the different ideas, or rather, the different language, of the antients and the moderns on this subject, I have considered more fully, and endeavoured to account for, in the
Second Dissertation
.
15
14.
mvp-aristotle-comment-14
NOTE 14.
2.5
P. 68. CLEOPHON, AS THEY ARE.—
It may be worth while to remark, that the character Aristotle gives of the diction of Cleophon—that it was of the common and familiar kind, without Poetic elevation
16
—corresponds with the account here given of the general object of his Poetry, the exact delineation of common nature and common life. He who means to represent men as they are, will also, of course, represent their language nearly as it is.
The only Poet of this name, of whom, I believe, any account is given, is recorded as a Tragic Poet
17
: but Aristotle undoubtedly alludes here to a Poem of the narrative kind. In another part of his works he mentions a Poem of Cleophon, called
MANDRABULUS.
18
From the proverbial expression—
ἐπι Μανδραβέλε χωρει το πραγμα
(
"worse and worse, like the affairs of Mandrabulus"—
)
in
Lucian
,
19
and the account of its origin in
Suidas
,
20
and
Hesychius
, it seems very improbable that the Poem was a Tragedy. We may rather conclude it to have been of a comic cast; and it seems no unreasonable conjecture, to suppose, that it might be of the narrative kind; modelled, perhaps, in some respects, upon the
MARGITES of
Homer
. At least, the two heroes seem to have been of kindred characters.
15.
mvp-aristotle-comment-15
NOTE 15.
2.5
P. 68. HEGEMON INVENTOR OF PARODIES.
See
Athenæus, p. 698, 699
, and
406, 407
. And
Fabric. Biblioth. Gr. lib. ii. cap. vii.
—The Athenians were delighted with this sort of fun—of all expedients to raise a laugh, the cheapest, and, at the same time, the most infallible.
HOMER
was the great and inexhaustible resource of these Parodists. The best and most considerable specimen remaining, of this kind of Poem, seems to be the Homeric description of an Attic supper by Matron, a great Parodist, and a great eater, in
Athenæus, lib. iv. cap. v.
Isaac Casaubon calls it,
"Carmen ingeniosum, et leporis ac venustatis plenissimum."
The first three lines may serve as a specimen:—
Δείπνα μοι ἐννεπε, Μεσα, πολυτροφα και μάλα πολλα
21
, Ἃ Ξενοκλης ῥητωρ ἐν Αθηναις δενπνισεν ἡμας, Ηλθον γαρ κέμκεισε, πολυς δε μοι ἐσπετο λιμα.
22
The Poem, it must be confessed, has some pleasantry, and much dexterity of comical perversion. We cannot wonder at its effect
upon a people, who had all
Homer
in their memories. It is easy to conceive the roar of the Athenian upper gallery, when, in the description of the cook, bringing in the supper, they heard this line:
Τῳ δ' αρα τεσσερακοντα μελαιναι ΧΥΤΡΑΙ ἑποντος.
23
Sometimes the Parody depended on a pun; of which
Athenæus
gives, with great complacence, a curious example, in a scrap from a Parody of
Eubæus
, describing a quarrel between a barber and a potter. The barber, whose wife, it seems, the other attempts to force from him, addresses the potter in the language of Nestor:—
Μητε συ τονδ , ἀγαθα περ ἐων, ἀποαιρεο ΚΟΥΡΗΝ, Μητε συ, ΠΗΛΕΙΔΗ.
See IL. L. 275, &c.
—where the joke depends on the allusion to
ΠΗΛΟΣ
, mud, or clay; and, probably, to the trade of the speaker, in the word
κερην
; or, perhaps, to the instrument of his art, which we may suppose the actor of the Parody to have brandished at his adversary.—But I do not mean to take to myself the honour of this illustration of an Attic joke. It is to be found in the
Poetics of J. C. Scaliger
.—See
Athen. p. 699. B.
16.
mvp-aristotle-comment-16
NOTE 16.
The conjecture of
Castelvetro
,
την ΔΕΙλιαδα
, (which might be rendered,
The Poltroniad
,) was certainly ingenious, but, I think, unnecessary.
Dacier's
account is probably right; and both his idea, and the common reading, seem to receive some support from the similar national titles that are preserved of other pieces of this Poet; such as,
Κρητες
,
Λάκωνες
,
Λημνιαι
.—See
Suidas
and
Fabricius
.
17.
mvp-aristotle-comment-17
NOTE 17.
2.6
P. 68. SO, AGAIN, WITH RESPECT TO DITHYRAMBICS AND NOMES.
The expression, in this passage, is too general, and too little is known of the examples mentioned in it, to admit of perfect satisfaction, with respect to any thing farther than its general meaning; i. e. that both Dithyrambic and Nomic Poetry admitted the same differences in the objects of their imitation. For so, I think, the sense requires us to understand
24
; not, that the imitation of heroic characters was appropriated to the one, and that of light characters to the other. Both these species of Poetry were hymns; and though the Dithyrambic, or hymn to Bacchus, might, indeed, from its wild and free character, be privileged with a greater latitude and variety of imitation, yet I know of no authority that will warrant our going so far, as to suppose, that they were essentially distinguished from each other in this respect, like Tragedy and Comedy.
The construction of the Greek I understand to be this:—
μιμησαιτο ἂν τις, ὡς Τιμοθεού και Φιλοξενο [sc. ἐμιμησαντο] Περσας και Κυκλωπας
. I am astonished, that any commentators should have taken either of the compositions here mentioned for dramas; an idea totally repugnant to the plain sense of the whole passage, and to the evident purpose for which these examples are cited. With respect to the
Περσαι
, the passage of
Pausanias
may be regarded as decisive;—
Πυλαδε ἀδοντο Τιμόθεει ΝΟΜΟΝ, τε Μιλησία, ΠΕΡΣΑΣ
Paus. Arcad.
—And the Poem began with an hexameter verse which is there quoted. Yet
Fabricius
calls it a Tragedy.
The Poem of
Philoxenus
here meant must, clearly, have been either a Nome, or a Dithyrambic Poem; most probably, the latter.
Philoxenus
is recorded as a Dithyrambic Poet; and Aristotle's illustration will be more complete, if we understand him to exemplify in each of the kinds of Poetry in question. It is by no means certain, that the
Cyclops of
Philoxenus
mentioned by
Athenæus
,
Ælian
, and others, is the piece here alluded to: and, if it were, which, undoubtedly, appears rather probable, I know of no sufficient proof that it was a Drama, as it has been repeatedly called. If
Ælian
is to be regarded, it certainly was not; for he calls it
μελος
—a term appropriated to Lyric Poetry.—
του ΚΥΚΛΩΠΑ ἐργασατο, των ἑαυτε ΜΕΛΩΝ το καλλισον
.
25
I mentioned, in the conclusion of
NOTE 1
. a problem of Aristotle, from which it appears, that the Dithyrambic Poetry was not originally imitative, but became so by degrees. It is the 15th of the Harmonic Problems, Sect. 19. It is there said, that the Dithyrambs, after they became imitative, laid aside the antistrophical form, (i. e. the division into corresponding stanzas
26
,) in which, before, they had been composed.
27
And the reason assigned for this is, that, originally, these Dithyrambic hymns were performed by chorusses of gentlemen, [
ἐλευθερο
] who could not sing in the style of artists, and professors: [
ἀγωνιστικως οἶδειν
:] the words were, therefore, set to the simplest kind of melody,
28
such as that, in which the same air is repeated to similar
stanzas, as in our ballads.
29
But afterwards, it seems, the performance of these hymns, like that of the Nomes, was left to professed musicians, the
ἀγωνισαι
, or masters of the art, who contended with each other in trials of skill, and who were, of course, to exert all their imitative powers. The symmetry of strophe and antistrophe, and the simplicity of air regularly repeated, were ill adapted to this purpose, which required length, variety, and frequent changes of metre, melody, rhythm, mode, genus, &c.
30
in conformity to the various subjects of imitation, and transitions of expression.
31
This account, which affords some little glimpse of curious information, with respect both to the Nomic and Dithyrambic hymn, is confirmed, as far as the latter is concerned, by
Dionysius Halicarn. De Structura Orat. Sect. 19
. He there traces the progress of all this Lyric corruption, and names
TIMOTHEUS
and
PHILOXENUS
as the principal authors of these licentious and wicked innovations—
"for, in the time of the old Poets,"
he says,
"the Dithyrambic ode was an orderly and regular composition."
32
Plutarch
, too, in the Dialogue
Περι Μεσικης
, speaks exactly the same language.
Timotheus
and
Philoxenus
are there repeatedly stigmatized as corrupters of the good old music; and the
ладаρειο
and
Σιμονίδειο τροπο
, is opposed to the
Φιλοξενεις
,
33
with a zeal similar to that, with which, in modern music, we sometimes hear the style of
Corelli
and
Geminiani
opposed and preferred to the heterodox novelties of
Haydn
and
Boccherini
.
34
The manner, in which Aristotle, in this Problem, speaks of the Nomes, when compared with his expressions relative to the Dithyrambics, rather leads one to suppose, that the former were not, even originally, composed in the antistrophic form
35
: the least, however, that can be inferred from it, is, that they discarded that form, and, consequently, became complicated, artificial, and imitative, long before a similar revolution took place in the Dithyrambic Poetry and Music. I may, also, observe that the variety of imitation, and changes of expression, clearly attributed by Aristotle to the Nomes, seem to confirm what I said above—that they did not exclude the same variety, in the objects of their imitation, which the Dithyrambic Poem confessedly admitted.
I will just add, that this Problem of Aristotle throws light upon a passage in his
Rhetoric
, which has embarrassed his commentators. He there [
lib. iii. cap. 9.
] compares the diction that is divided into periods, to the Antistrophic Odes
"of the old Poets:"
but, the
λεξις ειρομενη
, in which the sentence has no other unity than that which copulatives give it
36
, nor any other measure than the completion of the sense, and the necessity of taking breath
37
, or, as
Cicero
, in few words, so admirably describes it,
"illa sine intervallis loquacitas perennis et profluens"
38
—this Aristotle compares to what he calls the
αναβολαι
in Dithyrambic Poetry; meaning, I think, evidently, the long, irregular, protracted Odes of the more modern Dithyrambic Poets; such as those, of which he speaks in the Problem. For the word,
Αναβολη
, here, does not, I believe, signify exordium, proæmium, as usually understood, but was, probably, the name by which these
ὠδαι μακραι και πολυειδεις
were distinguished, and opposed to the old and simple Dithyrambic in stanzas.
