1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-1
NOTE 1. P. 1.
1.1
DITHYRAMBICS—IMITATION.
If the senses, in which the term imitation is applied by Aristotle to Poetry, have been rightly determined in the first Dissertation, there can be no difficulty with respect to the imitative nature of the Epic and Dramatic species. That of the Dithyrambic is not quite so obvious, and has accordingly been variously explained. The little, however, that remains of what Aristotle had said upon this subject, seems sufficient to release any commentator, who is willing to be released, from the trouble of conjectural ingenuity.
In Sect. 3. Part I. where the different objects of imitation are considered, he expressly makes Dithyrambic Poetry imitative of actions, characters, and manners, as well as the Epic and Dramatic; and he, particularly, mentions the Persians and the Cyclops as imitated in the Dithyrambic and Nomic Poetry of Timotheus and Philoxenus.
1
We may conclude, then, that he regarded this kind of Poetry as imitative because, though the mythological tales, which furnished the subject of these hymns, were,
indeed, articles of Pagan faith, and depended not on the Poet's imagination, yet, in the detail of these stories, in describing the actions, and delineating the characters, of the deities themselves, and, still more, of other fabulous and heroic personages occasionally introduced, his fancy and invention must necessarily be, more or less, employed.
This, as we have seen, was, in Aristotle's view, imitation, whether the form of that imitation was partly dramatic and personative, or mere recital in the person of the Poet
2
. That the Poetry of these Dithyrambic compositions was chiefly of the latter kind, seems to be implied in the expression of Plato, who, where he explains his division of Poetry into three sorts—the purely imitative, or dramatic, the purely narrative, and the mixed—refers, for an example of the purely narrative, to Dithyrambic Poetry.
3
Yet he says only, that it is to be found chiefly there—
ἐυροις δ᾽ ἂν αυτην ΜΑΛΙΣΤΑ ΠΟΥ ἐν Διθυραμβοις
. The expression is remarkable, and leaves room for more than a conjecture, that the Dithyrambic was sometimes imitative even in the strict sense of Plato; that is, that the dramatic mixture of the Epic was occasionally admitted.
Instances of this occur in the Odes of Pindar; and many of the Odes of Horace are dramatic
4
. The embarrassment of the commentators seems to have arisen, principally, from the difficulty they found in conceiving, that fiction could be admitted into a species of Poetry addressed to the Gods, and founded on the established Theology of the age. The hymns of Callimachus, and those attributed to Homer, might have been
sufficient to remove this difficulty. These are not, like the Orphic hymns, mere invocations, and indigitamenta, consisting in a short and solemn accumulation of epithets and attributes: they are Epic, narrative hymns; in which the birth, the actions, and even the characters and manners of the deities are described at length, and the fictions of the Poet's imagination are every where engrafted upon the popular creed. The mixture of dramatic imitation, in the Dithyrambic Poetry, is also rendered more probable by the frequent examples of it in these hymns; and especially in those of Homer. From the enthusiastic, wild, audacious character
5
peculiarly attributed to the Bacchic hymns, we have, surely, no reason to suppose in them a degree of scruple and reserve, with respect to all this, which we do not find in other antient religious compositions of a more sober and regular cast.
After what has been said, the reader will hardly think it necessary to have recourse to so distant and conjectural an interpretation as that of the Abbé Batteux, who says—
"Le Dithyrambe est imitation, parceque le Poete, en le composant, exprime d'apres le vraisemblable, les sentimens, les transports, l'ivresse, qui doit regner dans le Dithyrambe."
6
This ingenious writer seems to have been forced into this solution of the matter by his desire of extending the principle of Poetic imitation beyond the limits, not only of Aristotle's meaning, but of all reasonable analogy. All Lyric Poetry he holds to be essentially imitative;
7
and defining it to be that Poetry,
"qui exprime le sentiment,"
he is reduced to the necessity of making out these sentiments, or feelings, to be, in some sort, imitations; for no other reason, than, that they are assumed and feigned—the temporary produce of that voluntary enthusiasm, which the Poet, by the force of his imagination, excites in himself during the moments of composition. But this belongs rather to the style and manner, than to the matter, of Poetry: if imitation at all, it is the imitation, not, properly, of the Poet, but of the man, in order to become the Poet.—The general character of Lyric Poetry is enthusiasm; and enthusiasm, says M. Batteux,
"n'est autre chose qu'un sentiment quel qu'il soit—amour, colere, joie, admiration, tristesse, &c.—produit par une idee."
8
But if all illusive feelings of this kind, raised in us by imagination, are imitations, then, not only every artist of genius is an imitator, when he conceives and plans his work, but even every man of sensibility, whenever he is led, by the voluntary excursions of his fancy, into warm and passionate feelings, that are not prompted by real circumstances. It is certain, indeed, that not only Dithyrambic and Lyric Poetry, but Epic also, and perhaps every other species worth regarding, has its appropriated style and tone, which every Poet adopts and imitates, when he composes in the kind to which it belongs. But the same may be said of a history, a sermon, and even of a letter: for in these also, though we may not imitate any particular writer, we naturally conform to the general style and manner that characterize the particular species of composition.
All this however has, manifestly, nothing to do with the imitation that we are considering.
The Lyric Poet is not always, and essentially, an imitator, any more than the Epic. While he is merely expressing his own sentiments, in his own person, we consider him not as imitating;—we inquire not whether they are the assumed sentiments of the Poetic character, or the real sentiments of the writer himself; we do not even think of any such distinction. He is understood to imitate, in the most general view, no otherwise than by fiction, by personation, by description, or by sound;
9
in the view of Aristotle, only by the two first of these.
I will only add, that the Dithyrambic Poetry was, it seems, not originally imitative, but became so by degrees. This fact, and the causes of it, we learn from a curious passage, in the Harmonic Problems of Aristotle, which I shall have occasion to mention in another place.
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-2
NOTE 2. P. 2.
1.4
FOR, AS MEN, SOME THROUGH ART, AND SOME THROUGH HABIT, IMITATE VARIOUS OBJECTS, &C.
I have followed the old and most authentic reading,
δια της ΦΩΝΗΣ
: which, though not unexceptionable, has been rejected, I think, without sufficient reason. The philosopher is, here, only illustrating what he had said of the different means of poetical and musical imitation, by comparing those arts, in this respect, with other arts more strictly and obviously imitative.
That he meant to confine his illustration to Painting, was a groundless fancy of Dacier, which led him into two unnecessary corrections of the text, and a very forced and improbable explication of the whole passage. The remark of Aristotle, parenthetically flung in, about art and habit, (
δι μεν δια τεχνης, δι δε δια συνηθειας
,) was by no means necessary to his illustration. Dacier extends the parenthesis by the reading he adopts, (
δι μεν δια τέχνης, οι δε δια συνηθειας, ἐτεροι δε ΔΙ' ΑΜΦΟΙΝ
,) then wonders, why Aristotle,
"qui n'ecrit pas un seul mot inutilement,"
should enter into such a detail; and then, wantonly alters the text, (from
δια τεχνής
, to
δια ΤΥΧΗΣ
,) in order to account for it in a manner, that leaves it more wonderful than he found it.
Castelvetro had before proposed a similar alteration—
ἐτεροι δε ΑΜΦΟΤΕΡΟΙΣ
; but in a sense, which, could it be supported, would be far more to the purpose than that of Dacier:
i. e. "others, again, [imitate] both by colour and by figure." This would answer to what follows, that the different means of imitation, in the Poetical and Musical arts, were used, sometimes separately, and sometimes combined. To this sense, however, an objection immediately occurs. We may imitate an object by figure without colour, but not by colour without figure.
10
But it would be a waste of discussion to enter fully into the merits of an explanation, that is founded on a reading, by no means, I think, sufficiently warranted, either by the authority of MSS. or by any necessity of alteration.
That the words
χρωματα
and
σχηματα
are very frequently joined by the Greek writers to denote painting, is certain. But Aristotle is not here speaking of the different Arts which employ these means of imitation, but of the means themselves, separately and abstractedly. The application of these, singly, or in their various combinations, to those arts, he has left to the reader. It seems probable, (as Victorius has observed,) that Sculpture, at least, was included in Aristotle's idea of
σχηματα
. Possibly, too, the word may be here used in its widest sense, of figure or form in general; which would take in the outline of Painting, the solid figure of Sculpture, and the gestures of the personal Mimic.
That, at least, the word
φωνη
is right, in the old reading, appears highly probable from the frequent mention of the voice, as a principal instrument of imitation, in antient authors. It is called by Aristotle, as Mr. Winstanley has judiciously observed,
παντων μιμητικωτατον των μοριων ημων
.
11
Farther by this reading the illustration intended is more perfect, as it comprehends more "means of different kinds"—
ΓΕΝΕΙ ἑτερα
. The same reason favours also the extension of the word
σχηματα
to Sculpture, at least.
The only objection to the reading,
δια της φωνης
, is, the improbability that Aristotle should, without any apparent reason, envelop the whole passage in embarrassment and ambiguity, by such a change of phrase : —
ΔΙΑ φωνης
; — which every reader is naturally led to join, not with the datives,
χρώμασι και σχημασι
, but with
ΔΙΑ τέχνης
, and
ΔΙΑ συνηθειας
: but the word
φωνης
opposing such a construction, has therefore, probably, been changed to
άμφοιν
. This objection has not been solidly answered, I think, either by Victorius, or any other commentator; nor can I think the change of phrase here by any means sufficiently accounted for, merely by assigning, as Victorius does, a passage of Lucian, where the phrase itself, (to which no one objects,) occurs. [See Mr. Winstanley's note.]—I am much inclined, therefore, to admit the reading said by Madius to have been found in an antient MS. and confirming the conjecture of Robortelli, —
ἐτεροι δε ΤΗ ΦΩΝΗ.
This would clearly mark the bounds of the parenthesis, and fix the construction :
και χρωμασι, και σχήμασι, πολλα μιμενται τινες —(—) ἐτεροι δε τη φωνῃ
.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-3
NOTE 3. P. 2.
1.5
AND OF ANY OTHER INSTRUMENTS CAPABLE OF A SIMILAR EFFECT, AS, THE SYRINX OR PIPE.
The word
Συριγξ
is usually understood to mean the Fistula Panis, constructed of reeds, differing in length, fastened together with wax and thread : —
καλαμων συνθηκη, λινῳ και κηρῳ συνδεθείσα
— as it is described by Jul. Pollux.
12
Tibullus has presented in two lines almost as distinct an idea of its form as can be obtained from a drawing.
Fistula cui semper decrescit arundinis ordo,
Nam calamus cerâ jungitur usque minor.
[Lib. ii. 5. 31.]
But the
Συριγξ
of Aristotle, whatever it was, is here mentioned with the Lyre, and the Flute, as having some, though an inferior, degree of the same power and effect:
τοιαυται την δυναμιν
. This is hardly applicable to so very simple and rude an instrument as the pipe of Pan; a contrivance not beyond the invention of a school-boy. Instruments of nearly the same construction are found, at this day, not only in Turkey, and Arabia, but even in the island of New Amsterdam in the South Seas; and it is a circumstance somewhat curious, that, in France, the instrument of the Arcadian deity, or something very like it, is degraded to the use of travelling tinkers, and known by the name of
sifflet de chaudronnier. The reader may see a description and a figure of it in Mersennus; as he may, also, of the South Sea instrument in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 65, Part I.—But he will not, probably, be much disposed to believe, that the wild and random sounds of this savage whistle have any thing to do with the chromatic system of the Greeks.
But the passage before us is not the only one, where the Syrinx is mentioned in a way which naturally leads one to suppose, that some instrument less simple and imperfect than the fistula Panis must be meant. It is often joined with the cithara and the flute, as an instrument of some importance and effect in concerts and choral accompaniments.
13
In Lucian's treatise
Περί Ορχήσεως
, it appears, among other curious information upon the subject, that the words of the drama, which the pantomimic dancer was to express by gesture alone, were, at the same time, sung by a chorus, accompanied by various instruments, among which the syrinx is repeatedly mentioned, together with the
Αυλος
or flute.
14
This has, certainly, the appearance of some more powerful instrument than the pastoral syrinx.—Indeed, from the passage of Pollux above referred to, there is reason to conclude, that there were two instruments of this denomination; that above described, which he calls the rude, or extemporaneous syrinx, [
αυτοσχεδι
] and another, of similar form, but more artificial construction, which he describes as consisting, not of reeds, but of a number of flutes [
αύλοι πολλοι
] arranged in the same manner. The passage is defective; but this seems to me pretty clearly to be the drift of it.
15
By flutes, he must, at least, be supposed to mean pipes of larger size, and of more solid materials, such as those of which flutes were made. It seems, on the whole, very probable, that the syrinx of Aristotle was either some such improved construction of the flute of Pan, or, as I rather incline to believe, some kind of single pipe, or flageolet. Any single pipe, modulated by the fingers, must be regarded as an instrument far superior to any kind of the fistula Panis, that could be played on only by the clumsy expedient of drawing it along the mouth;"
suprà calamos unco percurrere labro,
" as Lucretius has well described the operation.
16
I cannot indeed say, that I have met with any passage in which the word
Συριγξ
, by itself, is clearly and expressly applied to a single musical pipe or flute. But such a sense is perfectly analogous to other common applications of the word; and, on the other hand, I know of no clear authority that restrains the meaning of the word, whenever it is singly used, to the fistula Panis.
17
Athenæus speaks of the
μονοκαλαμα Συριγξ
invented by Mercury, and opposes it to the
πολυκαλαμα
; and Spanheim, whose authority, in matters of erudition, is as great as the profoundest erudition can give to any man, understands this single-reed syrinx to be meant in the hymn to Mercury attributed to Homer, where it is said of that god, that—
ΣΥΡΙΓΓΩΝ ἐνοπην ποιησατο ΤΗΛΟΘ᾽ ΑΚΟΥΣΤΗΝ.
v. 509. —a mode of characterizing the tone of the instrument, that reminds one of the "ear-piercing fife" of Shakspeare.
After all, a modern reader may be still surprised to find any degree of imitation, or expression, attributed to so trifling an instrument as a flageolet, or a common flute. But, in reading antient authors, it is frequently necessary, if we would either relish, or even understand them, properly, to lay aside modern ideas. And if this be necessary in general, it is, perhaps, peculiarly so in the subject of Music. Expression, in our musical language, usually conveys the idea of delicate and refined performance, and is almost appropriated to emotions of the tender and pathetic kind. But, with the antients, imitation, or expression (for the words appear to have been synonymous,) extended to every kind of emotion; to every effect produced, in any considerable degree, by Music upon the mind. Now very simple instruments, as well as very simple music, are capable of making impressions, and strong impressions, of the joyous kind, without any delicacy or refinement, either in the composition, or the execution. It is not, therefore, strange, that the syrinx, a shrill and lively pipe, should be ranked by Aristotle as an instrument of some expression; especially if, as it seems probable, the syrinx, of whatever kind, was considered as a pastoral instrument, and its expressions were, in consequence, aided by the association of rural and pastoral ideas. The rude syrinx of Pan was unquestionably of this kind, and appropriated to pastoral use; and, as far as it can be supposed to have affected by association, might, in the musical language of the Greeks, and by a hearer who felt that effect from it, be considered and spoken of as imitative, without impropriety. But being, as I conceive, of too simple and inconvenient a construction to admit of any expression but what it derived purely from associated ideas, it would not, I think, have been joined by Aristotle with the most expressive and refined instruments of the antients, the cithara, and the flute, and mentioned as of "similar power and effect."
