Studies in the Poetry of Italy, I. Roman Part 5

I hear the writhing lash of serpents huge resound.

Whom seeks Magaera with her deadly torch?--Whose shade Comes gibbering there with scattered limbs?--It is my brother!

Revenge he seeks; and we will grant his quest. Then come, Within my heart plunge all your torches--rend me--burn!

For lo, my bosom open to your fury's stroke.

O brother, bid those vengeful G.o.ddesses depart And go in peace down to the lowest shades of h.e.l.l.

And do thou leave me to myself, and let this hand That slew thee with the sword now offer sacrifice Unto thy shade.

Roused to the point of action by this vision, and still at the very pitch of frenzy, she plunges her dagger into the first of her sons. (The poet thus violates the canons of the cla.s.sical drama in representing deeds of blood upon the stage.)

But now hoa.r.s.e shouts and the quick tramping of many feet are heard; and well does Medea know their meaning.

What sudden uproar meets my ear?

'Tis Corinth's citizens on my destruction bent.

Unto the palace roof I'll mount, and there complete This b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.

[_To her other son._] Do thou come hence with me; But thee, poor senseless corse, within mine arms I'll bear.

Now gird thyself, my heart, with strength. Nor must this deed Lose all its just renown because in secret done; But to the public eye my hand must be approved.

Medea disappears within, leading one son, terrified and reluctant, and bearing the body of her other child in her arms. Jason and a crowd of Corinthian citizens rush upon the stage. Stopping in front of his own palace, he shouts:

Ho, all ye loyal sons who mourn the death of kings!

Come, let us seize the worker of this hideous crime.

Now ply your arms and raze her palace to the ground.

At this moment, though as yet unseen by those below, Medea emerges upon the palace roof.

_Medea._ Now, now have I regained my regal power, my sire, My brother! Once again the Colchians hold the spoil Of precious gold, and by the magic of this hour I am a maid once more! O heavenly powers appeased At length! O festal hour! O nuptial day! On! on!

Accomplished is the guilt, but not the recompense.

Complete the task while yet thy hands are strong to act.

Why dost thou linger still? Why dost thou hesitate Upon the threshold of the deed? Thou canst perform it.

Now wrath has died within me, and my soul is filled With shame and deep remorse. Ah me, what have I done, Wretch that I am? Wretch that thou art, well mayest thou mourn, For thou hast done it!--At that thought delirious joy O'ermasters me and fills my heart which fain would grieve.

And yet, methinks, the act was almost meaningless, Since Jason saw it not; for naught has been performed If to his grief be added not the woe of sight.

_Jason._ [_discovering her._] Lo, there she stands upon the lofty battlements!

Bring torches! Fire the house! That she may fall ensnared By those devices she herself hath planned.

_Medea._ [_derisively._] Not so; But rather build a lofty pyre for these thy sons; Their funeral rites prepare. Already for thy bride And father have I done the service due the dead; For in their ruined palace have I buried them.

One son of thine has met his doom; and this shall die Before his father's face.--

_Jason._ By all the G.o.ds, and by the perils of our flight, And by our marriage bond which I have ne'er betrayed, I pray thee spare the boy, for he is innocent.

If aught of sin there be, 'tis mine. Myself I give To be the victim. Take my guilty soul for his.

_Medea._ 'Tis for thy prayers and tears I draw, not sheathe the sword.

Go now, and take thee maids for wives, thou faithless one; Abandon and betray the mother of thy sons.

_Jason._ And yet, I pray thee, let one sacrifice atone.

_Medea._ If in the blood of one my pa.s.sion could be quenched, No vengeance had it sought. Though both my sons I slay, The number still is all too small to satisfy My boundless grief.

_Jason._ Then finish what thou hast begun-- I ask no more--and grant at least that no delay Prolong my helpless agony.

_Medea._ Now hasten not, Relentless pa.s.sion, but enjoy a slow revenge.

This day is in thy hands; its fertile hours employ.

_Jason._ O take my life, thou heartless one.

_Medea._ Thou bidst me pity-- Well--[_She slays the second child_]--'Tis done!

No more atonement, pa.s.sion, can I offer thee.

Now hither lift thy tearful eyes, ungrateful one.

Dost recognize thy wife? 'Twas thus of old I fled.

The heavens themselves provide me with a safe retreat.

Twin serpents bow their heads submissive to the yoke.

For there suddenly appears in the air a chariot drawn by dragons.

Now, father, take thy sons; while I, upon my car, With winged speed am borne aloft through realms of air.

_Jason._ [_calling after as she vanishes_].

Speed on through realms of air that mortals never see: But heaven bear witness, whither thou art gone, no G.o.ds can be.

3. ROMAN COMEDY

We have already said that the natural mimicry of the Italian peasantry no doubt for ages indulged itself in uncouth performances of a dramatic nature, which developed later into those mimes and farces, the forerunners of Roman comedy and the old Medley-Satura. We have also shown how powerfully Rome came under the influence of Greek literature and Greek art; and how the first actual invasion of Rome by Greek literature was made under Livius Andronicus, who, in 240 B. C., produced the first play before a Roman audience translated from the Greek into the Roman tongue. What the history of native comedy would have been, had it been allowed to develop entirely apart from Greek influence, we shall never know, since it did come powerfully under this influence, and retained permanently the form and character which it then acquired.

When Rome turned to Greece for comedy, there were three models from which to choose: the Old Athenian Comedy of Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, full of criticism boldly aimed at public men and policies, breathing the most independent republican spirit; the Middle Comedy, which was still critical, directed, however, more at cla.s.ses of men and schools of thought than at individuals; and New Comedy, the product of the political decadence of Greece, written during a period (340-260 B. C.) when the independence which had made the trenchant satire of the Old Comedy possible had gone out of Greece. These plays aimed at amus.e.m.e.nt and not at reform. Every vestige of politics was squeezed out of them, and they were merely society plays, supposed to reflect the amusing and entertaining incidents of the social life of Athens. The best known writers of New Comedy were Philemon, Apollodorus, and Menander, only fragments of whose works have come down to us.

Which of these models did the Romans follow? There is some evidence in the fragments of the plays of Naevius, a younger contemporary of Andronicus, and who produced his first play in 235 B. C., that he wrote in the bold spirit of the Old Comedy, and criticized the party policies and leaders of his time. But he soon discovered that the stern Roman character was quite incapable of appreciating a joke, especially when its point was directed against that ineffably sacred thing, the Roman dignity. For presuming to voice his criticisms from the stage the poet was imprisoned and afterward banished from Rome.

Perhaps warned by the experience of Naevius, Roman comic poets turned to the perfectly colorless and safe society plays of the New Comedy for translation and imitation. They not only kept within the limitations of these plays as to spirit and plot, but even confined the scene itself and characters to some foreign city, generally Athens, and for the most part were careful to exclude everything Roman or suggestive of Rome from their plays.

Judging from the remaining fragments, there must have been many writers of comedy during this period of first impulse; but of all these, the works of only two are preserved to us. These are t.i.tus Maccius Plautus, who died in 184 B. C., and Publius Terentius Afer, commonly known as Terence, who was born in 195 B. C., and died in 159 B. C. These two writers have much in common, but there are also many important points of difference. Plautus displays a rougher, more vigorous strength and a broader humor; and, within the necessary limitations of which we have spoken, he is more national in his spirit, more popular in his appeal.

Terence, on the other hand, no doubt because he was privileged to a.s.sociate with the select and literary circle of which Scipio and Laelius were the center, was more polished and correct in style and diction. But while he thus gains in elegance as compared with Plautus, he loses the breezy vigor of the older poet.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the society play of the New Comedy, we are giving with some abridgment the _Phormio_ of Terence, which we have taken the liberty of translating into somewhat free modern vernacular. This is perhaps the best of the six plays of Terence which we have, and was modeled by him after a Greek play of Apollodorus. It is named _Phormio_ from the saucy parasite who takes the princ.i.p.al role. The other characters are two older men, brothers, Demipho and Chremes; two young men, sons of these, Antipho and Phaedria; a smart slave, Geta; a villainous slave-driver, Dorio; Nausistrata, wife of Chremes, and Sophrona, an old nurse. The scene, which does not change throughout the play, is laid in Athens. As for the plot, it will develop itself as we read.

A shock-headed slave comes lounging in from the direction of the Forum and stops in front of Demipho's house. He carries in his hand a purse of money which, it appears, he has brought in payment of a debt:

Friend Geta paid me a call yesterday; I've been owing him a beggarly balance on a little account some time back, and he wanted me to pay it. So I've got it here. It seems that his young master has gone and got married; and this money, I'm thinking, is being sc.r.a.ped together as a present for the bride. Things have come to a pretty pa.s.s, to be sure, when the poor must all the time be handing over to the rich. What my poor gossip has saved up out of his allowance, a penny at a time, almost starving himself to do it, this precious bride will gobble up at one fell swoop, little thinking how hard Geta had to work to get it. Pretty soon he will be struck for another present when a child is born; for another when its birthday comes around, and so on, and so on. The mother will get it all; the child will be only an excuse. But here comes Geta himself.

The private marriage of the young man Antipho, mentioned in this slave's soliloquy, is one of the important issues of the play. The real situation is revealed in the following conversation between the two slaves. After the payment of the money and an interchange of civilities, says the friend:

_Davus._ But what's the matter with you?

_Geta._ Me? Oh, you don't know in what a fix we are.

_Da._ How's that? _Ge._ Well, I'll tell you if you won't say anything about it. _Da._ O, come off, you dunce, you have just trusted money with me; are you afraid to lend me words? Besides, what good would it do me to give you away? _Ge._ Well, listen then. You know our old man's brother Chremes? _Da._ Well, I should say. _Ge._ And his son Phaedria? _Da._ As well as I do you. _Ge._ Both the old men went away, Chremes to Lemnos, and his brother to Cilicia, and left me here to take care of their two sons. My guardian spirit must have had it in for me. At first I began to oppose the boys; but there--my faithfulness to the old men I paid for with my bones. Then I just gave it up and let them do as they pleased. At first, my young master Antipho was all right; but his cousin Phaedria lost no time in getting into trouble. He fell in love with a little lute-player--desperately in love. She was a slave, and owned by a most villainous fellow.

Phaedria had no money to buy her freedom with--his father had looked out for that; so the poor boy could only feast his eyes upon her, tag her around and walk back and forth to school with her. Antipho and I had nothing else to do, so we watched Phaedria. Well, one day when we were all sitting in the barber-shop across the street from the little slave-girl's schoolhouse, a fellow came in crying like a baby. When we asked him what the trouble was, he said: "Poverty never seemed to me so dreadful before. Just now I saw a poor girl here in the neighborhood crying over her dead mother. And there wasn't a single soul around, not an acquaintance or a relative or any one at all to help at the funeral, except one little old woman, her nurse. I did feel sorry for the girl. She was a beauty, too." Well, he stirred us all up. Then Antipho speaks up and says: "Let's go and see her; you lead the way." So we went and saw her. She _was_ a beauty. And she wasn't fixed up a bit either: her hair was all hanging loose, she was bare-footed, unkempt, eyes red with weeping, dress travel-stained.

So she must have been an all-round beauty, or she couldn't have seemed so then. Phaedria says: "She'll do pretty well." But Antipho-- _Da._ O yes, I know, he fell in love with her. _Ge._ But do you know how much? Wait and see how it came out. Next day he went straight to the nurse and begged her to let him see the girl; but the old woman wouldn't allow it. She said he wasn't acting on the square; that the girl was a well-born citizen of Athens, and that if he wanted to marry her he might do so in the legal way. If he had any other object it was no use. Our young man didn't know what to do. He wanted to marry her fast enough, but he was afraid of his absent father. _Da._ Why, wouldn't his father have forgiven him when he came back? _Ge._ What, he allow his son to marry a poor girl that n.o.body knew anything about? Not much! _Da._ Well, what came next? _Ge._ What next? There is a certain parasite named Phormio, a bold fellow--curse his impudence! _Da._ What did he do? _Ge._ He gave this precious piece of advice. Says he: "There is a law in Athens that orphan girls shall marry their next of kin, and the same law requires the next of kin to marry them. Now I'll say that you are related to this girl, and will bring suit against you to compel you to marry her. I'll pretend that I am her guardian. We'll go before the judges; who her father was, who her mother, how she is related to you--all this I'll make up on the spur of the moment. You won't attempt any defense and of course I shall win the suit. I'll be in for a row when your father gets back, but what of that? You will be safely married to the girl by that time." _Da._ Well, that _was_ a jolly bluff. _Ge._ So the youth was persuaded, the thing was done, they went to court, our side lost the suit, and Antipho married the girl. _Da._ What's that? _Ge._ Just what I say. _Da._ O Geta, what will become of you? _Ge._ I'll be blessed if I know. I'm sure of one thing, though: whatever happens, I'll bear it with equanimity. _Da._ That's the talk! You've got the spirit of a man! But what about the pedagogue, the little lute-player's young man? How is he getting on? _Ge._ Only so so.

_Da._ He hasn't much to pay for her, I suppose? _Ge._ Not a red; only his hopes. _Da._ Has Antipho's father come back yet? _Ge._ No. _Da._ When do you expect him? _Ge._ I'm not sure, but I have just heard that a letter has been received from him down at the custom-house, and I'm going for it now. _Da._ Well, Geta, can I do anything more for you? _Ge._ No. Be good to yourself. Good-by.