James Augustus St. John

“ His art required him to enter deeply into the spirit of the poetry he recited, to suit to the passion brought into play the modulations and inflexions of his voice, his tone, his looks, his gesture, so as vividly to paint to the imagination the picture designed by the poet, and sway the whole theatre by the powerful wand of sympathy through all the gradations of sorrow, indignation, and joy. ”

“ It would have been more satisfactory to find them preserving, in every period of their history, the stern and lofty simplicity of republican manners, far outshining in the eyes of the philosopher the palaces of Oriental kings glittering with gold and ivory and jewels, insomuch that the cottage of Socrates, erected in the humblest style of Athenian domestic architecture, would be an object, were it still in existence, of far deeper interest to the genuine lover of antiquity than the mansions of Meidias or Callias, or even than the imperial abodes of Semiramis, Darius, and Artaxerxes. ”

“ In tragedy, such as it existed in the polished ages of Greece, the movements were slow and solemn, and, no doubt, full of dignity. The spirit of comedy required brisk and lively, and frequently tolerated, audaciously wanton dances; while the Chorus of the Satyric Drama would appear to have been rude and clownish rather than indecent, indulging in grotesque movements, ludicrous and extravagant gestures, and that rustic and farcical style of mimicry which may be supposed to have prevailed among the rough peasantry of Hellas. ”

“ No doubt, the fancy of imaginative men, thirsting for a degree of simplicity and happiness greater than they find around them in cities or villages, is apt to kindle and shed too glorious a light on approaching the tranquil solitudes, the pine forests, the mountain glens, the hidden lakes, the umbrageous streams that leap and frolic down the wild rocks of a country so rife with beauty as Greece. ”

“ The sheep of Miletos were, in fact, the Merinos of antiquity; and their wool being celebrated for its fineness and softness, it was not only employed in manufacturing the best cloths, but also in stuffing the mattresses of kings and other great personages who thought much of their ease. And as the vulgar imagine they become great by habiting themselves in garments similar to those of their princes, like the honest man who sought wisdom through reading by Epictetus’ lamp, the stuffs, couches, and coverlets of Miletos got into great vogue among the ancients. ”

“ Dionysos, who has been dining with Zeus, comes flushed with Olympian nectar into the harem to the sound of the Bacchic flute, while the nymph who has heard his approaching footsteps makes it manifest by her behaviour that her soul is filled with joy, though she neither advances nor rises to meet him, but restrains her feelings with difficulty, and remains apparently tranquil. The god, drawing near with impassioned looks, and dancing all the while, now seats himself, and places the fair one on his knee. ”

“ This illustrious woman, endowed by nature with a mind still more beautiful than her beautiful form, exercised over the fortunes of Athens an influence beyond the reach of the greatest queen. Her genius, unobserved for some time, by degrees drew around her all those whom the love of letters or ambition induced to cultivate their minds. ”

“ Our review of female society at Athens would be incomplete were we to overlook the Hetairæ who exerted so powerful an influence over the morals and destinies of the state. They occupied much the same position which the same class of females still do in modern communities, cultivated in mind, polished and elegant in manners, but scarcely deserving as a body to be viewed in the light in which a very distinguished historian has placed them. ”

“ At first, and perhaps always, their lays were rude; but nature, their only teacher, infused into them originality and passion, such as we find in the only poet of antiquity, save Homer, in whose verses the fragrance of the woods still breathes. Whether like Paris and Anchises they kept their own flocks or undertook the care for others, they were still on the mountains perfectly free. ”

“ But the Levantines have always been enamoured of variety in cookery. Lady Wortley Montague counted fifty dishes served up in succession at the Sultana Hafiten’s table; and this she-barbarian, with all her wealth, could never rival the variety of invention of an ancient Eleian or Sicilian cook, who usually closed the list of his dainties with hare, chickens roasted to the gold-colour celebrated by Aristophanes, partridges, pheasants, wood-pigeons or turtle-doves, which your true gourmand should eat in the Thebaid, immediately after the close of harvest. ”

“ The Greeks, however, were not content with one set of traditions, or upon the whole inclined to give currency to the most gloomy. On the contrary, their poets casting backward the light of their imagination, and kindling up the landscapes of the far past, called up the vision of the golden age, when neither the domestic hearth [525] nor the altars of the gods were stained with blood, and the fruits of the field,—milk, honey, cheese, and butter sufficed to sustain life. But we must escape from these shadowy times, and come down to the age of beef and mutton. ”

“ This, likewise, was the conviction of the ancient Greeks, [1241] in whose literature we everywhere discover vestiges of a passion for that voluptuous solitude which men taste in artificial and secluded plantations, amid flower-beds and arbours and hanging vines and fountains and smooth shady walks. No full description, however, of an Hellenic garden has survived; even the poets have contented themselves with affording us glimpses of their “studious walks and shades.” ”

“ He then adds, addressing himself to his correspondent Lynceus, “Meanwhile you, my friend, remaining all alone at Athens, enjoy the lectures of Theophrastus with your thyme, rocket and delicate twists, mingling in the revels of the Linnean and Chytrean festivals. For our own part we are looking out, some for houses, others for estates, others for slaves, to be purchased by the riches which dropped into our baskets at the supper of Caranos.” ”

“ His devotion to his art did not, however, carry him so far as that of the comic poets, Philemon and Alexis, who breathed their last upon the stage at the moment that the crown of victory was placed upon their heads, and so were literally dismissed for the last time from the scene amidst the shouts and acclamations of the admiring multitude. [949] But the passion of the Greeks for the arts of imitation did not confine itself to the enacting of human character and human feelings. Every species of mimicry found its patrons among them. ”

“ The young maiden, like a rustic Hebe, pours out the wine, dark and fragrant, while the youths served up the dishes and then laid out a table for themselves and dined together. And the sophist, versed in the courts of satraps and kings, conceived these rude hunters of the mountains the happiest and most enviable of mankind. ”

“ At first, it has been conjectured, when manners were rude, and the language still in its infancy, singing, like dancing, required no great art, and was little more than those wild bursts of melody still common among the improvisatori of Arabia and other Eastern countries, but that from these humble beginnings lyrical poetry took its rise, preserving still the freedom of its original state, and rising, unshackled by the rigid laws of metre, to heights of sublimity and grandeur beyond which no human composition ever soared. ”

“ They understand well how to act their part in a dialogue. For every bolt shot at them they can return another as keen. Each bower and bosky bourne seems redolent of their smiles; their laughter awakens the echoes; their ruddy lips and pearly teeth hang like a vision over every bubbling spring and love-hiding thicket which they were wont to frequent. Hence the charm of Theocritus. ”

“ History has preserved the memory of more than one act of heroism performed by an Hetaira, to show that woman doth not always put off her other virtues, though habitually trampling on the one which constitutes for her the boundary between honour and infamy.
Ptolemy, son of Philadelphos, while commanding the garrison of Ephesos, had along with him the courtezan, Irene, who, when his Thracian mercenaries rose in revolt, fled along with him to the temple of Artemis, where they fell together, sprinkling the altar with their blood. ”

“ We shall now pass from the primitive aliments of the heroic times to those almost infinite varieties of good things which the ingenuity of later ages brought into use. The reader, not already familiar with the gastronomic fragments of ancient literature, will probably be surprised at the omniverous character of the Greeks, to whom nothing seems to have come amiss, from the nettle-top to the peach, from the sow’s metra to the most delicate bird, from the shark to the small semi-transparent aphyæ, caught along the shores of Attica. ”

“ But they moved for the most part in an atmosphere of superstition, had ceremonies of their own, a mythology of their own, and of the whole the pervading spirit was love. In communities highly civilised, this passion commonly degenerates into a plaything, despised when weak, and mischievous when strong. It is otherwise in the early stages of society. There, in proportion to their freedom from the aspirations and anxieties of ambition, men seek happiness in the cultivation of the affections. The society of women is to them all in all. ”

“ Every man would, doubtless, know in what seasons of the year he must plough and sow and reap, that lands exhausted by cultivation must be suffered to lie fallow, that change of crops is beneficial to the soil, and so on. But the great art consists in nicely adapting each operation to the varying march of the seasons, in converting accidents to use, in rendering the winds, the showers, the sunshine, subservient to your purposes, in mastering the signs of the weather, and guarding as far as possible against the injuries sustained from storms of rain or hail. ”

“ In the East, a greater affront could scarcely be offered a man than to inquire about his female establishment. The most an old friend does is to say, “Is your house well?”—whereas at Athens, women formed a never-failing theme in all companies; which proves them to have been there contemplated in a different light. In fact, the sentiments of Ischomachos, every way worthy the most chivalrous people of antiquity, could only have sprung up in a society where just and exalted notions of female virtue prevailed ”

“ And a slave warmed by thee as a lion is bold.” Nectar, the poetical drink of the gods, was a sort of wine made near Olympos in Lydia, by mingling with the juice of the grape a little pure honey and flowers of delicate fragrance. ”

“ GARDEN AND ORCHARD. Lord Bacon, who loved to be surrounded by plants and trees and flowers, delivers it as his opinion, that the scientific culture of gardens affords a surer mark of the advance of civilisation than any improvement in the science of architecture, since men, he observes, enjoyed the luxury of magnificent palaces before that of picturesque and well-ordered garden-grounds. ”

“ It appears to be agreed on all hands, that the primitive races of men were mere water-drinkers. Accordingly they had neither poets nor inn-keepers, nor excisemen,—three classes of persons who never flourish but where wine, or at least beer, is found. Homer more than once alludes to this vicious habit of the old world, where, with a sly insinuation of contempt,—for he was himself partial to the blood-red wine,—he tells us that this or that nation drank, like so many oxen or crocodiles, of the waters of such or such a river. ”

“ The above synopsis of the machinery and decorations employed by the Greeks in their theatrical shows may, possibly, from its imperfection, suggest the idea of a rude and clumsy apparatus. But, as the arts of poetry, sculpture, painting, and architecture reached in Greece the highest perfection, and, as this perfection was coëtaneous with the flourishing state of the drama, it is impossible to escape the conviction, that the art of scene-painting and the manufacturing of stage machinery, likewise, underwent all the improvements of which by their nature they are susceptible. ”