It is curious that this play, which Donatus says is founded on pa.s.sions almost too high for comedy, should have given rise to the most farcical of all Moliere"s productions, _Les Fourberies de Scapin_. a celebrated, though at first, an unsuccessful play, where, contrary to his usual practice, he has burlesqued rather than added dignity to the incidents of the original from which he borrowed. The plot, indeed, is but a frame to introduce the various tricks of Scapin, who, after all, is a much less agreeable cheat than Phormio: His deceptions are too palpable, and the old men are incredible fools. As in Terence, there are two fathers, Argante and Geronte, and during the absence of the former, his son Octave falls in love with and marries a girl, whom he had accidentally seen bewailing the death of her mother. At the same time, Leandre, the son of Geronte, becomes enamoured of an Egyptian, and Scapin, the valet of Octave, is employed to excuse to the father the conduct of his son, and to fleece him of as much money as might be necessary to purchase her. The first of these objects could not well be attained by Terence"s contrivance of the law-suit; and it is therefore pretended that he had been forced into the marriage by the lady"s brother, who was a bully, (Spada.s.sin,) and to whom the father agrees to give a large sum of money, that he might consent to the marriage being dissolved. It is then discovered that the girl whom Octave had married is the daughter of Geronte, and the Egyptian is found out, by the usual expedient of a bracelet, to be the long lost child of Argante. Many of the most amusing scenes and incidents are also copied from Terence, as Scapin instructing Octave to regulate his countenance and behaviour on the approach of his father-his enumeration to the father of all the different articles for which the brother of his son"s wife will require money, and the acc.u.mulating rage of Argante at each new _item_.
Some scenes, however, have been added, as that where Leandre, thinking Scapin had betrayed him, and desiring him to confess, obtains a catalogue of all the _Fourberies_ he had committed since he entered his service, which is taken from an Italian piece ent.i.tled _Pantalone, Padre di Famiglia_. He has also introduced from the _Pedant Joue_ of Cyrano Bergerac, the device of Scapin for extorting money from Geronte, which consists in pretending that his son, having accidentally gone on board a Turkish galley, had been detained, and would be inevitably carried captive to Algiers, unless instantly ransomed. In this scene, which is the best of the play, the struggle between habitual avarice and parental tenderness, and the constant exclamation, "_Que diable alloit il faire dans cette galere du Turc_," are extremely amusing. Boileau has reproached Moliere for having
"Sans honte a Terence allie Tabarin,"
in allusion to the scene where Scapin persuades Geronte that the brother, accompanied by a set of bullies, is in search of him, and stuffs him, for concealment, into a sack, which he afterwards beats with a stick. This is compounded of two scenes in the French farces, the _Piphagne_ and the _Francisquine_ of Tabarin, and, like the originals from which it is derived, is quite farcical and extravagant:-
"Dans ce sac ridicule ou Scapin s"enveloppe, Je ne reconnois plus l"auteur du Misanthrope(320)."
The chief improvement which Moliere has made on Terence is the reservation of the discovery to the end; but the double discovery is improbable. The introduction of Hyacinthe and Zerbinette on the stage, is just as unsuccessful as the attempt of Baron to present us, in his _Andrienne_, with a lady corresponding to Glycerium. Moliere"s Hyacinthe is quite insipid and uninteresting, while Zerbinette retains too much of the Egyptian, and is too much delighted with the cheats of Scapin, to become the wife of an honest man.
From the above sketches some idea may have been formed of Terence"s plots, most of which were taken from the Greek stage, on which he knew they had already pleased. He has given proofs, however, of his taste and judgment, in the additions and alterations made on those borrowed subjects; and I doubt not, had he lived an age later, when all the arts were in full glory at Rome, and the empire at its height of power and splendour, he would have found domestic subjects sufficient to supply his scene with interest and variety, and would no longer have accounted it a greater merit-"Graecas transferre quam proprias scribere."
Terence was a more rigid observer than his Roman predecessors of the unities of time and place. Whatever difference of opinion may be entertained with regard to the preservation of these unities in tragedy, since great results are often slowly prepared, and in various quarters, there can be no doubt that they are appropriate in comedy, which, moving in a domestic circle, and having no occasion to wander, like the tragic or epic muse, through distant regions, should bring its intrigue to a rapid conclusion. Terence, however, would have done better not to have adhered so strictly to unity of place, and to have allowed the scene to change at least from the street or portico in front of a house, to the interior of the dwelling. From his apparently regarding even this slight change as inadmissible, the most sprightly and interesting parts of the action are often either absurdly represented as pa.s.sing on the street, though of a nature which must have been transacted within doors, or are altogether excluded. A striking example of the latter occurs in the _Eunuchus_, where the discovery of Chaerea by his father in the eunuch"s garb has been related, instead of being represented. Plautus, who was of bolder genius, varies the place of action, when the variation suits his great purpose of merriment and jest.
But though Terence has perhaps too rigidly observed the unities of time and place, in none of his dramas, with a single exception, has that of plot been adhered to. The simplicity and exact unity of fable in the Greek comedies would have been insipid to a people not thoroughly instructed in the genuine beauties of the drama. Such plays were of too thin contexture to satisfy the somewhat gross and lumpish taste of a Roman audience. The Latin poets, therefore, bethought themselves of combining two stories into one, and this junction, which we call the double plot, by affording the opportunity of more incidents, and a greater variety of action, best contributed to the gratification of those whom they had to please. But of all the Latin comedians, Terence appears to have practised this art the most a.s.siduously. Plautus has very frequently single plots, which he was enabled to support by the force of drollery. Terence, whose genius lay another way, or whose taste was abhorrent from all sort of buffoonery, had recourse to the other expedient of double plots; and this, I suppose, is what gained him the popular reputation of being the most artful writer for the stage. The _Hecyra_ is the only one of his comedies of the true ancient cast, and we know how unsuccessful it was in the representation(321). In managing a double plot, the great difficulty is, whether also to divide the interest. One thing, however, is clear, that the part which is episodical, and has least interest, should be unravelled first; for if the princ.i.p.al interest be exhausted, the subsidiary intrigue drags on heavily. The _Andrian_, _Self Tormentor_, and _Phormio_, are all faulty in this respect. On the whole, however, the plots of Terence are, in most respects, judiciously laid: The incidents are selected with taste, connected with inimitable art, and painted with exquisite grace and beauty.
Next to the management of the plot, the characters and manners represented are the most important points in a comedy; and in these Terence was considered by the ancients as surpa.s.sing all their comic poets.-"In argumentis," says Varro, "Caecilius palmam poscit, in ethesi Terentius." In this department of his art he shows that comprehensive knowledge of the humours and inclinations of mankind, which enabled him to delineate characters as well as manners, with a genuine and apparently unstudied simplicity. All the inferior pa.s.sions which form the range of comedy are so nicely observed, and accurately expressed, that we nowhere find a truer or more lively representation of human nature. He seems to have formed in his mind such a perfect idea both of his high and low characters, that they never for a moment forget their age or situation, whether they are to speak in the easy indifferent tone of polished society, or with the natural expression of pa.s.sion. Nor do his paintings of character consist merely of a single happy stroke unexpectedly introduced: His delineations are always in the right place, and so harmonize with the whole, that every word is just what the person might be supposed to say under the circ.u.mstances in which he is placed:-
"Contemplez de quel air un pere dans Terence, Vient d"un fils amoureux gourmander l"imprudence; De quel air cet amant ecoute ses lecons, Et court chez sa maitresse oublier ces chansons: Ce n"est pas un portrait, un image semblable; C"est un amant, un fils, un pere veritable(322)."
The characters, too, of Terence are never overstrained by ridicule, which, if too much affected, produces creatures of the fancy, which for a while may be more diverting than portraits drawn from nature, but can never be so permanently pleasing. This const.i.tutes the great difference between Plautus and Terence, as also between the new and old comedy of the Greeks.
The old comedy presented scenes of uninterrupted gaiety and raillery and ridicule, and nothing was spared which could become the object of sarcasm.
The dramatic school which succeeded it attracted applause by beauty of situation and moral sentiment. In like manner, Terence makes us almost serious by the interest and affection which he excites for his characters.
In the _Andria_ we are touched with all Pamphilus" concern, we feel all his reflections to be just, and pity his perplexity. The characters of Terence, indeed, are of the same description with those of Plautus; but his slaves and parasites and captains are not so farcical, nor his panders and courtezans so coa.r.s.e, as those of his predecessor. The slave-dealers in the _Adelphi_ and _Phormio_ are rather merchants greedy of gain than shameless agents of vice, and are not very different from Madame La Ressource, in Regnard"s elegant comedy, _Le Joueur_. His courtezans, instead of being invariably wicked and rapacious, are often represented as good and beneficent. It was a courtezan who received the dying mother of the Andrian, and, while expiring herself, affectionately intrusted the orphan to the generous protection of Pamphilus. It is a courtezan who, in the _Eunuchus_, discovers the family of the young Pamphila, and, in the _Hecyra_, brings about the understanding essential to the happiness of all. From their mode of life, and not interposing much beyond their domestic circle, the manners of modest women were not generally painted with any great taste by the ancients; but Terence may perhaps be considered as an exception. Nausistrata is an excellent picture of a matron not of the highest rank or dignity, as is also Sostrata in the _Hecyra_.
The style of wit and humour must of course correspond with that of the characters and manners. Accordingly, the plays of Terence are not much calculated to excite ludicrous emotions, and have been regarded as deficient in comic force. His muse is of the most perfect and elegant proportions, but she fails in animation, and spirit. It was for this want of the _vis comica_ that Terence was upbraided by Julius Caesar, in lines which, in other respects, bear a just tribute of applause to this elegant dramatist:-
"Tu quoque tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander, Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator: Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis Comica, ut aequato virtus polleret honore c.u.m Graecis, neque in hac despectus parte jaceres.
Unum hoc maceror, et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti."
From the prologue to the _Phormio_ we learn that a clamour had also been raised by his contemporaries against Terence, because his dialogue was insipid, and wanted that comic heightening which the taste of the age required:-
"Quas fecit fabulas, Tenui esse oratione et scriptura levi."
The plays of Terence, it must be admitted, are not calculated to excite immoderate laughter, but his pleasantries are brightened by all the charms of chaste and happy expression-thus resembling in some measure the humour with which we are so much delighted in the page of Addison, and which pleases the more in proportion as it is studied and contemplated. There are some parts of the _Eunuchus_ which I think cannot be considered as altogether deficient in the _vis comica_, as also Demea"s climax of disasters in the _Adelphi_, and a scene in the _Andria_, founded on the misconceptions of Mysis.
The beauties of style and language, I suppose, must be considered as but secondary excellences in the drama. Were they primary merits, Terence would deserve to be placed at the head of all comic poets who have written for the stage, on account of the consummate elegance and purity of his diction. It is a singular circ.u.mstance, and without example in the literary history of any other country, that the language should have received its highest perfection, in point of elegance and grace, combined with the most perfect simplicity, from the pen of a foreigner and a slave.
But it so happened, that the countryman of Hannibal, and the freedman of Terentius Luca.n.u.s, gave to the Roman tongue all those beauties, in a degree which the courtiers of the Augustan age itself did not surpa.s.s. Nor can this excellence be altogether accounted for by his intimacy with Scipio and Laelius, in whose families the Latin language was spoken with hereditary purity, since it could only have been the merit of his dramas which first attracted their regard; and indeed, from an anecdote above related, of what occurred while reading his _Andria_ to a dramatic censor, it is evident that this play must have been written ere he enjoyed the sunshine of patrician patronage. For this _Ineffabilis amnitas_, as it is called by Heinsius, he was equally admired by his own contemporaries and by the writers in the golden period of Roman literature. He is called by Caesar _puri sermonis amator_, and Cicero characterizes him as-
"Quicquid come loquens, ac omnia dulcia dicens."
Even in the last age of Latin poetry, and when his pure simplicity was so different from the style affected by the writers of the day, he continued to be regarded as the model of correct composition. Ausonius, in his beautiful poem addressed to his grandson, hails him on account of his style, as the ornament of Latium-
"Tu quoque qui Latium lecto sermone, Terenti, Comis, et adstricto percurris pulpita socco, Ad nova vix memorem diverbia coge senectam(323)."
Among all the Latin writers, indeed, from Ennius to Ausonius, we meet with nothing so simple, so full of grace and delicacy-in fine, nothing that can be compared to the comedies of Terence for elegance of dialogue-presenting a constant flow of easy, genteel, unaffected discourse, which never subsides into vulgarity or grossness, and never rises higher than the ordinary level of polite conversation. Of this, indeed, he was so careful, that when he employed any sentence which he had found in the tragic poets, he stripped it of that air of grandeur and majesty, which rendered it unsuitable for common life, and comedy. In reading the dialogue of Simo in the _Andria_, and of Micio in the _Adelphi_, we almost think we are listening to the conversation of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, and the _mitis sapientia Laeli_. The narratives, in particular, possess a beautiful and picturesque simplicity. Cicero, in his treatise _De Oratore_, has bestowed prodigious applause on that with which the _Andria_ commences. "The picture," he observes, "of the manners of Pamphilus-the death and funeral of Chrysis-and the grief of her supposed sister, are all represented in the most delightful colours."-Diderot, speaking of the style of Terence, says, "C"est une onde pure et transparente, qui coule toujours egalement, et qui ne prend de vitesse, que ce qu"elle en recoit de la pente et du terrein. Point d"esprit, nul etalage de sentiment, aucune sentence qui ait l"air epigrammatique, jamais de ces definitions qui ne seroient placees que dans Nicole ou la Rochefoucauld."
As to what may be strictly called the poetical style of Terence, it has been generally allowed that he has used very great liberties in his versification(324). Politian divided his plays (which in the MSS. resemble prose) into lines, but a separation was afterwards more correctly made by Erasmus. Priscian says, that Terence used more licenses than any other writer. Bentley, after Priscian, admitted every variety of Iambic and Trochaic measure; and such was the apparent number of irregular quant.i.ties, and mixture of different species of verse, that Westerhovius declares, that in order to reduce the lines to their original accuracy, it would be necessary to evoke Laelius and Scipio from the shades. Mr Hawkins, in his late Inquiry into the Nature of Greek and Latin poetry, has attempted to show that the whole doctrine of poetical licenses is contrary to reason and common sense; that no such deviation from the laws of prosody could ever have been introduced by Terence; and that where his verses apparently require licenses, they are either corrupt and ill-regulated, or may be reduced to the proper standard, on the system of admitting that all equivalent feet may come in room of the fundamental feet or measures. On these principles, by changing the situation of the quant.i.ties, by allowing that one long syllable may stand for two short, or _vice versa_, there will not be occasion for a single poetical license, which is in fact nothing less than a breach of the rules of prosody.
After having considered the plays of Plautus and of Terence, one is naturally led to inst.i.tute a comparison between these two celebrated dramatists. People, in general, are very apt to judge of the talents of poets by the absolute merits of their works, without at all taking into view the relative circ.u.mstances of their age and situation, or the progress of improvement during the period in which they lived. No one recollects that Ta.s.so"s _Rinaldo_ was composed in ten months, and at the age of seventeen; and, in like manner, we are apt to forget the difference between writing comedies while labouring at a mill, and basking in the Alban villa of Scipio or Laelius. The improvement, too, of the times, brought the works of Terence to perfection and maturity, as much as his own genius. It is evident, that he was chiefly desirous to recommend himself to the approbation of a select few, who were possessed of true wit and judgment, and the dread of whose censure ever kept him within the bounds of correct taste; while the sole object of Plautus, on the other hand, was to excite the merriment of an audience of little refinement. If, then, we merely consider the intrinsic merit of their productions, without reference to the circ.u.mstances or situation of the authors, still Plautus will be accounted superior in that vivacity of action, and variety of incident, which raise curiosity, and hurry on the mind to the conclusion.
We delight, on the contrary, to linger on every scene, almost on every sentence, of Terence. Sometimes there are chasms in Plautus"s fables, and the incidents do not properly adhere-in Terence, all the links of the action depend on each other. Plautus has more variety in his exhibition of characters and manners, but his pictures are often overcharged, while those of Terence are never more highly coloured than becomes the modesty of nature. Plautus"s sentences have a peculiar smartness, which conveys the thought with clearness, and strikes the imagination strongly, so that the mind is excited to attention, and retains the idea with pleasure; but they are often forced and affected, and of a description little used in the commerce of the world; whereas every word in Terence has direct relation to the business of life, and the feelings of mankind. The language of Plautus is more rich and luxuriant than that of Terence, but is far from being so equal, uniform, and chaste. It is often stained with vulgarity, and sometimes swells beyond the limits of comic dialogue, while that of Terence is _puro simillimus amni_. The verses of Plautus are, as he himself calls them, _numeri innumeri_; and Hermann declares, that, at least as now printed, _omni vitiorum genere abundant_(325). Terence attends more to elegance and delicacy in the expression of pa.s.sion-Plautus to comic expression. In fact, the great object of Plautus seems to have been to excite laughter among the audience, and in this object he completely succeeded; but for its attainment he has sacrificed many graces and beauties of the drama. There are two sorts of humour-one consisting in words and action, the other in matter. Now, Terence abounds chiefly in the last species, Plautus in the first; and the pleasantries of the older dramatist, which were so often flat, low, or extravagant, finally drew down the censure of Horace, while his successor was extolled by that poetical critic as the most consummate master of dramatic art. "In short,"
says Crusius, "Plautus is more gay, Terence more chaste-the first has more genius and fire, the latter more manners and solidity. Plautus excels in low comedy and ridicule, Terence in drawing just characters, and maintaining them to the last. The plots of both are artful, but Terence"s are more apt to languish, whilst Plautus"s spirit maintains the action with vigour. His invention was greatest; Terence"s, art and management.
Plautus gives the stronger, Terence a more elegant delight. Plautus appears the better comedian of the two, as Terence the finer poet. The former has more compa.s.s and variety, the latter more regularity and truth, in his characters. Plautus shone most on the stage; Terence pleases best in the closet. Men of refined taste would prefer Terence; Plautus diverted both patrician and plebeian(326)."
Some intimations of particular plays, both of Plautus and Terence, have already been pointed out; but independently of more obvious plagiarisms, these dramatists were the models of all comic writers in the different nations of Europe, at the first revival of the drama. Their works were the prototypes of the regular Italian comedy, as it appeared in the plays of Ariosto, Aretine, Ludovico Dolce, and Battista Porta. In these, the captain and parasite are almost constantly introduced, with addition of the _pedante_, who is usually the pedagogue of the young _innamorato_.
Such erudite plays were the only printed dramas (though the _Commedie dell" Arte_ were acted for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the vulgar,) till the beginning of the 17th century, when Flaminio Scala first _published_ his _Commedie dell" Arte_. The old Latin plays were also the models of the earliest dramas in Spain, previous to the introduction of the comedy of intrigue, which was invented by Lopez de Rueda, and perfected by Calderon.
We find the first traces of the Spanish drama in a close imitation of the _Amphitryon_, in 1515, by Villalobos, the physician of Charles V., which was immediately succeeded by a version of Terence, by Pedro de Abril, and translations of the Portuguese comedies of Vasconcellos(327), which were themselves written in the manner of Plautus. There is likewise a good deal of the spirit of Plautus and Terence in the old English comedy, particularly in the characters. A panegyrist on Randolph"s _Jealous Lovers_, which was published in 1632, says, "that it should be conserved in some great library, that if through chance or injury of time, Plautus and Terence should be lost, their united merit might be recognized. For, in this play, thou hast drawn the pander, the gull, the jealous lover, the doating father, the shark, and the crust wife."
The consideration of the servile manner in which the dramatists, as well as novelists, of one country, have copied from their predecessors in another, may be adduced in some degree as a proof of the old philosophical aphorism, _Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu_; and also of the incapacity of the most active and fertile imagination, greatly to diversify the common characters and incidents of life. One would suppose, previous to examination, that the varieties, both of character and situation, would be boundless; but on review, we find a Plautus copying from the Greek comic writers, and, in turn, even an Ariosto scarcely diverging from the track of Plautus. When we see the same characters only in new dresses, performing the same actions, and repeating the same jests, we are tempted to exclaim, that everything is weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, and are taught a lesson of melancholy, even from the Mask of Mirth.
While Plautus, Caecilius, Afranius, and Terence, raised the comic drama to high perfection and celebrity, Pacuvius and Attius attempted, with considerable success, the n.o.blest subjects of the Greek tragedies.
PACUVIUS,
who was the nephew of Ennius(328), by a sister of that poet, was born at Brundusium, in the year 534. At Rome he became intimately acquainted with Laelius, who, in Cicero"s treatise _De Amicitia_, calls Pacuvius his host and friend: He also enjoyed, like Terence, the intimacy of Scipio Africa.n.u.s; but he did not profit so much as the comic writer by his acquaintance with these ill.u.s.trious Romans for the improvement of his style. There is an idle story, that Pacuvius had three wives, all of whom successively hanged themselves on the same tree; and that lamenting this to Attius, who was married, he begged for a slip of it to plant in his own garden(329); an anecdote which has been very seriously confuted by Annibal di Leo, in his learned Memoir on Pacuvius. This poet also employed himself in painting: he was one of the first of the Romans who attained any degree of eminence in that elegant art, and particularly distinguished himself by the picture which he executed for the temple of Hercules, in the _Forum Boarium_(330). He published his last piece at the age of eighty(331); after which, being oppressed with old age, and afflicted with perpetual bodily illness, he retired, for the enjoyment of its soft air and mild winters, to Tarentum(332), where he died, having nearly completed his ninetieth year(333). An elegant epitaph, supposed to have been written by himself, is quoted, with much commendation, by Aulus Gellius, who calls it _verecundissimum et purissimum_(334). It appears to have been inscribed on a tombstone which stood by the side of a public road, according to a custom of the Romans, who placed their monuments near highways, that the spot where their remains were deposited might attract observation, and the departed spirit receive the valediction of pa.s.sing travellers:
"Adolescens, tametsi properas, hoc te saxum rogat, Uti ad se aspicias; deinde, quod scriptum est, legas.
Hic sunt poetae Marcei Pacuviei sita Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses-Vale(335)."
Though a few fragments of the tragedies of Pacuvius remain, our opinion of his dramatic merits can be formed only at second hand, from the observations of those critics who wrote while his works were yet extant.
Cicero, though he blames his style, and characterizes him as a poet _male loquutus_(336), places him on the same level for tragedy as Ennius for epic poetry, or Caecilius for comedy; and he mentions, in his treatise _De Oratore_, that his verses were by many considered as highly laboured and adorned.-"Omnes apud hunc ornati elaboratique sunt versus." It was in this laboured polish of versification, and skill in the dramatic conduct of the scene, that the excellence of Pacuvius chiefly consisted; for so the lines of Horace have been usually interpreted, where, speaking of the public opinion entertained concerning the different dramatic writers of Rome, he says,-
"Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior: aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis, Attius alti."
And the same meaning must be affixed to the pa.s.sage in Quintilian,-"Virium tamen Attio plus tribuitur; Pacuvium videri doctiorem, qui esse docti adfectant, volunt(337)." Most other Latin critics, though on the whole they seem to prefer Attius, allow Pacuvius to be the more correct writer.
The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius-_Anchises_, _Antiope_, _Armorum Judicium_, _Atalanta_, _Chryses_, _Dulorestes_, _Hermione_, _Iliona_, _Medus_, _Medea_, _Niptra_, _Orestes et Pylades_, _Paulus_, _Periba_, _Tantalus_, _Teucer_, _Thyestes_. Of these the _Antiope_ was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.-"Quis enim," says he, "tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?" Persius, however, ridicules a pa.s.sage in this tragedy, where Antiope talks of propping her melancholy heart with misfortunes, by which she means, (I suppose,) that she fortunately had so many griefs all around her heart, that it was well bolstered up, and would not break or bend so easily as it must have done, had it been supported by fewer distresses-
"Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur Antiope, aerumnis cor luctificabile fulta."
The _Armorum Judicium_ was translated from aeschylus. With regard to the _Dulorestes_, (Orestes Servus,) there has been a good deal of discussion and difficulty. Naevius, Ennius, and Attius, are all said to have written tragedies which bore the t.i.tle of _Dulorestes_; but a late German writer has attempted, at great length, to show that this is a misconception; and that all the fragments, which have been cla.s.sed with the remains of these three dramatic poets, belong to the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius, who was in truth the only Latin poet who wrote a tragedy with this appellation. What the tenor or subject of the play, however, may have been, he admits is difficult to determine, as the different pa.s.sages, still extant, refer to very different periods of the life of Orestes; which, I think, is rather adverse to his idea, that all these fragments were written by the same person, and belonged to the same tragedy, unless, indeed, Pacuvius had utterly set at defiance the observance of the celebrated unities of the ancient drama. On the whole, however, he agrees with Thomas Stanley, in his remarks on the _Chphorae_ of aeschylus, that the subject of the _Chphorae_, which is the vengeance taken by Orestes on the murderers of his father, is also that of the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius(338). Some of the fragments refer to this as an object not yet accomplished:-
"Utinam nunc maturescam ingenio, ut meum patrem Ulcisci queam." --
The _Hermione_ turned on the murder of Pyrrhus by Orestes at the instigation of Hermione. Cicero, in his Treatise _De Amicitia_, mentions, in the person of Laelius, the repeated acclamations which had recently echoed through the theatre at the representation of the _new play_ of his friend Pacuvius, in that scene where Pylades and Orestes are introduced before the king, who, being ignorant which of them is Orestes, whom he had predetermined should be put to death, each insists, in order to save the life of his friend, that he himself is the real person in question. Delrio alleges that the _new play_ here alluded to by Cicero was the _Hermione_; but that play, as well as the _Dulorestes_, related to much earlier events than the friendly contest between Pylades and Orestes, which took place at the court of Thoas, King of Tauris, and was the concluding scene in the dramatic life of Orestes, being long subsequent to the murder of his mother, his trial in presence of the Argives, or absolution at Athens before the Areopagus. Accordingly, Tiraboschi states positively that this _new play_ of Pacuvius, which obtained so much applause, was his _Pylades et Orestes_(339).
In the _Iliona_, the scene where the shade of Polydorus, who had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by the King of Thrace, appears to his sister Iliona, was long the favourite of a Roman audience, who seem to have indulged in the same partiality for such spectacles as we still entertain for the goblins in _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_.
All the plays above mentioned were imitated or translated by Pacuvius from the Greek. His _Paulus_, however, was of his own invention, and was the first Latin tragedy formed on a Roman subject. Unfortunately there are only five lines of it extant, and these do not enable us to ascertain, which Roman of the name of Paulus gave t.i.tle to the tragedy. It was probably either Paulus aemilius, who fell at Cannae, or his son, whose story was a memorable instance of the instability of human happiness, as he lost both his children at the moment when he triumphed for his victory over Perseus of Macedon.
From no one play of Pacuvius are there more than fifty lines preserved, and these are generally very much detached. The longest pa.s.sages which we have in continuation are a fragment concerning Fortune, in the _Hermione_-the exclamations of Ulysses, while writhing under the agony of a recent wound, in the _Niptra_, and the following fine description of a sea-storm introduced in the _Dulorestes_:-
"Interea, prope jam occidente sole, inhorrescit mare; Tenebrae conduplicantur, noctisque et nimb.u.m occaecat nigror; Flamma inter nubes coruscat, clum tonitru contremit, Grando, mista imbri largifluo, subita turbine praecipitans cadit; Undique omnes venti erumpunt, saevi existunt turbines, Fervet aestu Pelagus." --