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Page 28
This was the material from which Aeschylus created the
first tragedy, as we understand the term. Sophocles (495-406
B.C.) followed, increasing the number of actors, as did also
Euripides (480-406 B.C.).
Comedy (_komos_, revel, and _odos_, singer) arose from the
spring and summer worship of Bacchus, when everything was a
jest and Nature smiled again.
The dithyramb (_dithyrambos_ or Bacchic step, [- ' ' -])
brought a new step to the dance and therefore a new element
into poetry, for all dances were choric, that is to say they
were sung as well as danced.
Arion was the first to attempt to bring the dithyramb into
poetry, by teaching the dancers to use a slower movement and to
observe greater regularity in their various steps. The Lydian
flute, as may be supposed, was the instrument which accompanied
the dithyramb, associated with all kinds of harsh, clashing
instruments, such as cymbals, tambourines, castanets. These
Arion tried to replace by the more dignified Grecian lyre;
but it was long before this mad dance sobered down to regular
rhythm and form. From Corinth, where Arion first laboured,
we pass to Sicyon, where the taming of the dithyramb into an
art form was accomplished by Praxilla, a poetess who added a
new charm to the lilt of this Bacchic metre, namely, rhyme.
And this newly acquired poetic wealth was in keeping with
the increasing luxury and magnificence of the cities, for
we read in Athenaeus and Diodorus that Agrigentum sent to
the Olympic games three hundred chariots, drawn by white
horses. The citizens wore garments of cloth of gold, and even
their household ornaments were of gold and silver; in their
houses they had wine cellars which contained three hundred
vats, each holding a hundred hogsheads of wine. In Sybaris
this luxury reached its height, for the Sybarites would not
allow any trade which caused a disagreeable sound, such as
that of the blacksmith, carpenter, or mason, to be carried on
in their city limits. They dressed in garments of deep purple,
tied their hair in gold threads, and the city was famed for
its incessant banqueting and merrymaking. It was such luxury
as this that Pindar found at the court of Hiero, at Syracuse,
whither Aeschylus had retired after his defeat by Sophocles
at the Dionysian Festival at Athens.
The worship of Bacchus being at its height at that time, it may
be imagined that wine formed the principal element of their
feasts. And even as the dithyramb had been pressed into the
service of poetry, so was drinking made rhythmic by music. For
even the wine was mixed with water according to musical ratios;
for instance, the paeonic or 3 to 2, [' ' ' -] = [8 8 8 4];
the iambic or 2 to 1, [- '] = [4 8]; dactylic or 2 to 2,
[- ' '] = [4. 8 8]. The master of the feast decided the ratio,
and a flute girl played a prescribed melody while the toast
to good fortune, which commenced every banquet, was being
drunk. By the time the last note had sounded, the great cup
should have gone round the table and been returned to the
master. And then they had the game of the cottabos, which
consisted of throwing the contents of a wine cup high in the
air in such a manner that the wine would fall in a solid mass
into a metal basin. The winner was the one who produced the
clearest musical sound from the basin.
We see from all this that music was considered rather
a beautiful plaything or a mere colour. By itself it was
considered effeminate; therefore the early Greeks always had the
flute player accompanied by a singer, and the voice was always
used with the lyre to prevent the latter appealing directly
to the senses. The dance was corrected in the same manner;
for when we speak of Greek dances, we always mean _choric_
dances. Perhaps the nearest approach to the effect of what
we call music was made by Aeschylus, in the last scene of his
"Persians," when Xerxes and the chorus end the play with one
continued wail of sorrow. In this instance the words take
second place, and the actual sound is depended upon for the
dramatic effect.
The rise and fall of actual instrumental music in Greece may
be placed between 500 and 400 B.C. After the close of the
Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.), when Sparta supplanted Athens as
the leader of Greece, art declined rapidly, and at the time
of Philip of Macedon (328 B.C.) may be said to have been
practically extinct. Then, in place of the dead ashes of art,
the cold fire of science arose; for we have such men as Euclid
(300 B.C.) and his school applying mathematics to musical
sounds, and a system of cold calculation to an art that had
needed all the warmth of emotional enthusiasm to keep it alive.
Thus music became a science. Had it not been for the little
weeds of folk song which managed with difficulty to survive at
the foot of this arid dust heap, and which were destined to be
transformed and finally to bloom into such lovely flowers in
our times, we might yet have been using the art to illustrate
mathematical calculations.
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