Poetics. Aristotle. ed. Henry James Pye. London. 1792.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Henry James Pye, revised 1792) (OCR draft) (English) (Henry James Pye's revised 1792 English translation, corrected against the 1788 first edition, aligned to the Kassel reference edition, and supplied with a selective apparatus of substantive 1788 readings.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-485
τὸ τερατῶδες.
The reference here is to the appearance of certain of the more monstrous creations of Greek mythology.
Such abnormal personages required on the stage a peculiar make-up and special masks:
Pollux 4. 141
τὰ δὲ ἔκσκευα πρόσωπα Ἀκταίων ἐστὶ κερασφόρος .. ἢ Ἄργος πολυόφθαλμος, Εὐίππη ἡ Χείρωνος ὑπαλλαττομένη εἰς ἵππον παρ᾿ Εὐριπίδη (comp.
Sommerbrodt,
Scaenica p. 204). In existing plays we have a clear instance of a personage of this kind in the
βούκερως παρθένος,
Io, in
Prom. 588
(comp. 674), and in the
Furies in the
Eumenides, who are said to look more like
Gorgons than women (
Eum. 48
). The prominence of such figures in the dramas of
Aeschylus was noted by the ancients:
Vita Aeschyli (p. 2 Dind.)
ταῖς τε γὰρ ὄψεσι καὶ τοῖς μύθοις πρὸς ἔκπληξιν τερατώδη μᾶλλον ἢ πρὸς ἀπάτην κέχρηται..
τὸ τερατώδες on the stage may be
φοβερόν, and thus a means—though an illegitimate one (supra b 7)—of producing a tragic effect (
φόβος). When it does not serve this dramatic purpose (
τὸ τερατῶδες μόνον), however, it is out of place in Tragedy, since the pleasure it gives us is not the true tragic pleasure, which depends on the excitement of pity and fear (
τὴν ἀπ᾿ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου ἡδονήν b 12), and on that alone.
Aristotle does not stop to explain our pleasure in
τὸ τερατώδες, but it is easy to supply the omission, if one remembers that anything of the nature of a
τέρας is marvellous (
θαυμαστόν; comp.
Herodotus 4. 28
and
Plato Hipp. mai. 283 c
), and that the marvellous is recognized by
Aristotle (
τὸ θαυμαστὸν ἡδύ, 24, 1460 a 17) as one of the great causes of human pleasure (see on 9, 1452 a 4).
κοινωνοῦσιν =
κοινὸν ἔχουσιν (
Bon.
Ind. 400 a 39).
1453b 18
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-329
14.4
Ceux qui ne cherchent pas le terrible par la decoration, mais qui cherchent le monstrueux, s'éloignent encore beaucoup du but de la Tragedie.]
1
101.
mvp-aristotle-comment-101
NOTE 101. P. 89.
14.4
WHO MAKE USE OF THE DECORATION TO PRODUCE, NOT THE TERRIBLE, BUT THE MARVELLOUS ONLY-.
One would think, that commentators on Aristotle might find enough in this work to satisfy the keenest appetite for difficulties, without any assistance from their own invention. Yet here, they have contrived to perplex one of the plainest passages that can be found. Nothing can well be clearer than Aristotle's expression:
—οἱ δε ΜΗ ΤΟ ΦΟΒΕΡΟΝ, δια της όψεως, άλλα ΤΟ ΤΕΡΑΤΩΔΕΣ ΜΟΝΟΝ, παρασκευαζοντες. — He is not, as some critics have supposed, examining here three different ways of raising terror, but two only; by the plot itself, which he justly pronounces to be the best way, and by the
ὄψις, the spectacle, scenes, dresses, &c. As for those Poets, he continues, who make use of the
ὄψις, for the purpose of exciting, not terror, but wonder only, they are out of the question; this "has nothing to do with Tragedy," &c. If Aristotle, by
τερατωδες, had meant only, as has been understood, a monstrous degree of the terrible "mostruoso, soprano spavento," as Castelvetro calls it, he surely would not have used so strong an expression as—
ΟΥΔΕΝ τῇ Τραγῳδίᾳ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΟΥΣΙΝ. He does not here exclude even the
τερατωδες, absolutely, and in general; but the mere
τερατωδες;
τερατωδες ΜΟΝΟΝ—"only the wonderful;" and that,
δια της όψεως. The marvellous and supernatural, may, we know, in the hands of a Poet of genius, be made a powerful instrument of Tragic terror. Aristotle would hardly, I imagine, have censured a drama like that of
Macbeth, as having "nothing in common with Tragedy".
The difficulty, indeed, of managing the visible
τερατωδες, so as to produce any serious effect, is sufficiently great. We have, I think, but one dramatic Poet who could walk, though others may have dared to walk, "within that circle". The decoration of the
Eumenides of Æschylus, and his chorus of fifty furies, with their
μυγμοι, and their
ὠγμοι, their snorings, their screams, and their torches, may very well be conceived to have put women and children in a real fright; but whether it produced any sympathetic, illusive, and pleasurable, terror—the only terror in question—I should much doubt. Yet Dacier, very gravely, produces this story of children fainting away, and women miscarrying, with the fright, as an example of Tragic terror excited by the
ὄψις. According to Dacier's account, the allegorical personage of
Λυσσα, or Madness, in the
Hercules Furens of Euripides, appears in her aerial car, "with a hundred heads, round which hiss a thousand serpents". It is rather difficult to conceive how this could have been managed. These hundred heads, in the passage of the chorus alluded to, v. 884, certainly belong to the serpents, not to
Λυσσα herself; and the emendation of Reiske seems probable; —
ἑκατογκεφαλοις ὄφεων ἰαχημασι. "centicipitibus serpentum sibilis". Even so, I can scarce imagine an Athenian audience to have received this exhibition with countenances perfectly Tragic. The arrival of old
OCEAN mounted upon his Griffin, in the
Prometheus of Æschylus, must, one would suppose, have had as ridiculous an effect, as I remember the entrance of the Minotaur to have had upon the audience, some years ago, in the opera of
Teseo.
If such a dramatic entertainment as our
Pantomime had existed in the days of Aristotle, he would probably have represented the Tragic Poets, whom he here censures, as encroaching on that province: for, indeed, the
τερατωδες μονον δια της όψεως παρασκευαζομενον, would accurately enough express the
ἡδονην οἰκειαν of the pantomime. But, what would the philosopher have said to a species of the drama, of which the
ὄψις, which he places at the very bottom of his scale [cap. vi.], is the very soul—
ἀρχη και οἷον ψυχη: and where the
σκεύοποιος, or the carpenter, takes the lead of the Poet? —To do it justice, however, it has its
Μυθος, its fable, such as it is, with its beginning, its middle, and its end; though a spectator may be often puzzled to make, as we commonly say, head or tail of its plot. It has also its
δεσεις and its
λυσεις, its
nœuds and its
denouemens, in great abundance; being, indeed, from beginning to end, a continued series of knots, tied by love, and cut by magic. Here are also
περιπετειαι and
ἀναγνωρισεις, revolutions, and discove- ries, in plenty; though the chief revolution, indeed, be in the scenery; —
ἡ εἰς το ἐναντιον των ὉΡΩΜΕΝΩΝ μεταβολη. And with respect to discoveries, the pantomime may be characterized as Aristotle characterizes the Odyssey, —
ἀναγνωρισεις γαρ διολου — "it abounds throughout with discoveries"; for the poor hero is perpetually discovered, and very seldom
εἰς φιλίαν. Then there are
Παθη too, disasters — the
πραξεις ὀδυνηραι at least, which, to the upper gallery, make the merriest part of the entertainment. An essential character, the clown, is even appropriated to this purpose of suffering, and his clothes well wadded for the reception of blows, kicks, and falls. But Aristotle little foresaw, I suppose, when he wrote his first chapter, that a species of drama without words would one day be invented: still less, probably, could he have imagined, what to the antients would have appeared the strangest part of this business, that, though accompanied throughout by
MUSIC, yet it would not imitate "by gesticulated rhythm" —
δια σχηματιζομενων ΡΥΘΜΩΝ; the gestures of the actors in pantomime, being not at all regulated by the measures of the music, or only occasionally, and accidentally, according to the ear, and inclination, of the performer.
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-96
Ritter, cap. 14 § 2
τὸ δὲ διὰ τῆς ὄψεως τοῦτο παρασκευά - ζειν ἀτεχνότερον καὶ χορηγίας δεόμενόν ἐστιν: non dedit
ἀγῶνος καὶ ὑποκριτῶν, neque dare id potuit, quia fabulam legendam et spectandam secum componere non voluit, sed eam quae molesto ac pretioso apparatu indiget coniunxit cum ea quae illo adeo non eget, ut audire res eius argumento consertas sufficiat. itaque posuit
χορηγίας δεό μενον, non
ἀγῶνος καὶ ὑποκριτῶν: choragia enim cum in fabula agenda magni pretii constaret, cumque a chorago ad orchestram condecorandam et ad chorum conducendum, instituendum, ornandum multo maiores impensae faciendae essent, quam a civitate ad scenam instruendam et actores conducendos,
χορηγίαν generatim pro pretioso et operoso apparatu et apte dici posse et eo intellectu h. 1. accipiendam esse manifestum est. - ceterum lectori animum attendenti liquebit scriptorem personatum, quem c. 6, 19. deprehendimus, ex hoc loco sapientiam suam hausisse, sed eundem auctoris sui sententiam non recte accepisse. Aristoteles enim dicit, si quis ad excitandam miserationem et timorem nimium miserando quodam personarum agentium habitu tristique condicione oculis exposita utatur, id esse
ἀτεχνότερον καὶ χορηγίας δεόμενον. hoc sane prudenter et modice dictum. quid inde imitator fecit? is omnem modum excedens, ut solent imitatores exaggerare, pronuntiavit (c. 6, 19) totam
ὄψιν, h. e. totam actionem oculis excipiendam,
ἀτεχνότατον esse ac minime propriam artis poeticae, et hoc dicere sustinuit, quamvis verus Aristoteles paulo ante (c. 6, 4) monuisset
ὄψιν esse necessariam tragoediae partem.
ἀλλὰ τὸ τερατῶδες μόνον: qui nonnisi miras imagines, ad praestringendos scilicet spectantium oculos, con sectantur, veluti Gigantes et Titanes et Cyclopes, vel insolitos casus, ut sereno caelo fulminum fulgores et tonitruum fragores, illi ad delectandos spectatores non tragoediae vi utuntur, sed artificia quaedam adhibent quae ab arte tragica plane aliena videntur. ex eiusmodi fabulis licet voluptatem aliquam percipiamus, ea tamen non ex ipsa tragoedia manavit: delectatio enim tragoediae propria proficiscitur a miseratione et timore.