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    ~~ " OWEN MEREDITH'S POEMS. CZytemnestra...

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    Menander And The Greek Comedy, Afenandre...

    first of Athens and then of Rome , the almost total destruction of his works £ 8 t through the bigotry of Byzantine priests and subsequently through the _dWivion of Greek literature in the middle ages , and lastly the awakened in- terest about his works on the revival of learning , when scholars , amongst whom it is interesting to know that Grotius was _* one , began to collect the fragments-the _dbjectf membra poetce . In the second chapter M . _Guizot presents all the accessible details concerning Menander ' s life P and character , _details which' may be summed up under his % arly but not unquestioned sue- cess as a dramatist , his friendship for Epicurus and Theophrastus , his _addic- tion to pleasure in general , and to the pleasure of loving Glycera in par- ticular . ' indeed , if we accept the rather dubious authority of _Phiec / rus , neither Menander ' s wisdom nor his wit saved him from being something of a fop ; for that fabulist says of him we hope calmnniousl y , Unguento dehbutus , vestitu adfluens , _,.. _,. . Vemebat _f esSU de ! lcato et lan _S uldo 5 which is as much as to say of a man in these days that he scents himself with otto of roses , is fastidious about the cut of his trousers , and walks—like a *' walking gentleman . " This description is strangely at variance with the calm , massive dignity of his fine statue in the Vatican , of which M . Guizot gives us an excellent engraving at the beginning of his volume . But then , dear reader , Menander squinted , and where relentless destiny has inflicted a personal defect of that sort , poor human nature is rarely great _enough to keep between the two extremes of an attempt to dazzle beholders into ob- livion of the defect by finery , and a despairing self-neglect . So , for our parts , we think Menander's foppery belonged to the pathos of his life ; and , indeed , what weakness of a great man is not pathetic ? . . . The third chapter discusses the Subjects of the Drama in the three periods of Greek comedy : the ancient period , when its main object was political satire , a form of comedy peculiar to Greece , and made immortal by the genius of Aristo- p hanes ; the middle period , when it ' s subjects ceased to be political , and became purely social , but when the manners were chiefly caricature and the characters conventional types , corresponding in many respects to the early comedies of Moliere ; and the new period , when it became what the highest modern comedy is , a picture of real domestic life and manners . Of this last species of comedy , Menander was , by the common consent of critics sub- sequent to his own age , the greatest master Greece ever produced ; and the simple statement of this fact is enough to indicate how great a loss is the destruction of his comedies to those who care about a knowledge of Greek life ; for Terence , while appropriating the plots and characters and poetry of Menander , threw away all that was specifically Greek and substituted what was specifically Roman . The succeeding chapters on the plot , the charac- ters , the sentiments , and the passions in the Greek drama of the three periods are really fascinating , from the skill with which M . Guizot weaves together his materials and the judgment with which he chooses his illustra- . tive extracts . The fragments of Menander—mere " dust of broken marble" as they are—afford us some interesting glimpses into the Greek interieur of his time . Amongst other things , we gather that the married woman in Greece had then ceased to be a mere piece of furniture , or live stock , too insignificant to determine in any degree a man ' s happiness or misery . The bitter invectives against women and marriage in the New Comedy are the best—or the worst—proofs of the domestic ascendancy women had acquired . Here is a fragment in which a female emancipationist of that day asserts the rig hts of woman , according to the moderate views of 300 _u . c : —' ; Above all tf a man \ % . wise , he will not keep his wife too much a prisoner in the recesses of his house . For our eyes take delight in outdoor pleasures . Let a woman have as much as she likes of these pleasures , sec everything , and go everywhere . This sight-seeing will of itself satisfy her , and keep her out of mischief ; whereas all of us , men , _women , and children alike , ardently desire what is hidden . from us . But the husband who shuts up his wife under lock and seal , fancying that he shows his prudence in this way , loses his labour , and is a wiseacre for his pains ; for if one of us has placed her heart out of the conjugal home , she flies away more swiftly than an arrow or a bird ; she would deceive the hundred eyes of Argus ! . . . " T , • l . _i _i . e iii _i t It is amusing also to see how despotic a personage the cook had become in the establishment , giving himself tbe airs common to people who are conscious of being indispensable . "He who insults one of us , said these mighty functionaries , " never escapes the punishment he deserves : so sacred is our art . " They piqued themselves immensely on their skill . Here is a story of one who seems to have been the prototype of that famous French die /" who prepared a multifarious dinner tout en _baiuf . "I was the pupil of Soterides . One day the King Nicomedes wished to eat some sardines . It was the depth of winter , and twelve clays march from the sea . Never- _theless Soterides satisfied the king so completely , that there was a general _c i ii _i _^ i * i l •> tt > +, _wj- ., _« _,, i ; _., i . _„ ., _( ;«• cry of admiration . Fray how was that possibly i He took a radish , cut , t into long thni slices , which he shaped like sardines ; then , while they were frying , he basted them with oil , sprinkled them with salt very cleverly , threw over them a dozen black poppy seeds , and p resented this ragout to the Bythinian appetite of his master . Nicomedes ute thc radish , and praised thc sardines . You see , cooks diller in . nothing from poets : the art of both is equall y an art of intelligence . " In his two last chapters , M . Guizot considers the style and the imitators of Menander , and in an appendix he presents a translation of all the frag- ments that have any other than a philological interest . Among these there are no fewer than seven hundred and fitiy-seven aphorisms , which uro pre- served to us in greater abundance than other fragments , because they were collected as " beauties" by ancient . scholars . Very grave and very melun- choly aomo of those moral sentences « re , but probably an equal number of sad and serious sayings might be culled from Molierc . We may say of the highest comedy what Demetrius said in another sense of the satiric drama— that it is _Ti-mfoucra r « ny « fl « a , " tragedy in the disguise of mirth . " indeed it may bo likened J those choicest of all fruit * , the flavour of which is so cunningly mixed " by Nature that we know not whether to call them sweet or acid , and in this wonderful _equivoque liea their very _oxquJHiteneaH . Among tho fragments of MonancW there are aomo passages of elegiac sadness ; for example U O Parmeno , I call him a happy man , nay , the

    happiest of all men who snm _™ _+,, _n _+ + 1 , i t . i . T" * ha _^ _contemtiTated _wtthnn ? _Irr a _^ wh e _nf + _u h _- e _came _^ after _m _^^ _S _^ J _^ _mS _^ K _^* 9 _^ S m f » nifi + c 1 f nce of th _™ world , the _££ -whether _^ ZJ _™ P beams the stars the ocean , the clouds and _awTbethsw- „ l ° n 7 _^ short years , this spectacle wiH a _flffwhere man arVivpIl _;^ n v _, T one more sublime Think of life as _cWe and _amSsements _i If ti _nf ! _SV _? Tfl' "Xf _**? _* _" _*?? ' _€ _* meS ° J _rSse _thou _wHt be _thl _bJLr nWrlo 1 _? " _* _??* _^ pl _?^ haltmS _^ Swito w hou _? _htint 1 J _? _1 _tt ? i £ ?! J ° urn + f _* " _^ _faUs into _iov _^ tv a w _£ _X _? _SS enemies . But he who late m the day _KwT _^ _cS _^ SnfhTi ; J _F' _^ enchanted and _ruined—^^> a Sle deadi _» g _*** _" *' a lon _£ hfe leads Dut p _£ haps we _^ dweUI a Rttle fcoQ 1 q Qn _^ g of Menander and Greek Comedy—we should rather say flitting about it a little too long . Let us hope , however , that we have dwelt enough on it to persuade the reader that he will find in M . Guizot ' s book a masterly treatment of a subjeot which has a really human and not merely a scholarly interest . '

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    ~~ " Owen Meredith's Poems. Czytemnestra...

    ~~ " OWEN MEREDITH'S POEMS . CZytemnestra _, The EarVs Return , The Artist , and other Poems . By Owen Meredith . Chapman and Hall _, It is our painful duty , in the course of every year , to express feelings not of admiration about many volumes of verse . This arises from no indiposition to admire , as we hope certain exceptions have proved ; it arises from the utter mediocrity of the verses , and from the impossibility of our accepting mediocrity in verse . In prose , mediocrity , though not agreeable , may be pardoned ; but there is absolutely no excuse for feeble verse : if it is not beautiful , it is an abortion . It is a most imperfect form of utterance when it is not the most perfect , when it does not utter that which Prose , iu its highest exaltation , is incompetent to reach : in a word , when it is not Song . As Speech it is very bad speech j only as Song is its existence vindicated . On principles thus rigid we are naturally severe in criticism . Ourseve'ity , however , gives greater seriousness to our praise ; and when we call Owen Meredith a poet—a poet in spite of many defects—we mean it to be understood that , in our judgment , he has the " something" which distinguishes him from the crowd of even the ablest versifiers : he has the gift of Song . So highly do we prize this quality , that in introducing the volume to our readers we shall , as formerly in the case of Alexander Smith , point rather to excellencies than defects , and write encouragingly rather than with Rhadamantine justice ; for , in the first place , many of these defects will fall away as the poet grows older , much of what is crude ripening into mellowness ; and , in the next place , these defects did not prevent our reading the volume with a peculiar thrill , such as Song , and Song only , communicates _, In Clytemnestra the poet has , with youthful audacity , taken up the Againemnon of _iEschylus , and rewritten it , as Racine rewrote Hippolytus , and as Goethe rewrote Iphigenia . Such audacity ( when it is not mere stupidity ) iias a charm in its very peril . The greatest praise we can give Owen Mereditli is to say that his audacity has leaped on the very back of success ; his " vaulting ambition" has not " o ' erleaped itself . " He has rewritten the old Ladacidan tale , that is to say , he lias , while following the old legend , and , indeed , the very march of the old play , made the tragedy modern , by throwi » g into it the modern passionate element . _iEschylus , grand as he is , gives us but a tragic Myth : it stands there gnarled , rugged , sublime , like a secular oak ; it is not a Drama , in our modern sense of the word ; and although dealing with human passions , does not treat them passionately . Owen Meredith opens his Tragedy with a monologue from Clytemnestra : Clytemnestra . Morning at last ! at last the lingering dny Creeps o ' er the dewy side of you dark world _, O dawning light already ou the hills ! ° universal earth , and air , and thou , First freshness of the east , winch art a breath Breath d from the rapture of the gods , who bless Almost aU othcr _£ ers on earth % ut miue t Wherefore to me _ia solacing sleep denied ? And honourable rest , the right of all ? _g 0 tiiat no medioine of the slumbrous shell , Brimni'd with divinest draughts of melody , Nor silence under dreamful canopies , Nor purple cushions of the lofty couch May lull this fever for a little while _, Wherefore to me—to me , of all mankind , _f _}™ retribution for a deed undone / 1 'or many men outlive their sum ol crimes , oat , and drink , and lift up thankful hands , Aml _^ thoh . rcst ' securel _^ thc dark-Am I not innocent—or more than these ? There is no blot of murder on my brow , _Nor anv taint of blood upon my robe . —It is the thought ! it is the thought ! . . . and men Judge us by acts ! . . . _aa tho' one thunder-clap Lot all Olympus out . ( The last passage , by thc way , rings with familiar tones in our car surely Browning or Alexander Smith has said this ?) She continues her _noliloquy from which we snatch these lines : ¦—With such fierce thought .- ) for evermore at war , Vext not ' uiouo by hankering wild regrets _j } ut ft ! lir , S ) yuL Wor _« e , of that which soon muat corao _, My heart waits _unnd , andfrom the citadel Of its kujh sorrow , . sees far oil" dark shapes , And heard tho _fo » t « t « i >« of N _""' 1 _™ 1 _^ . w Tread near , and near r _, hand m and _w h Woo . The Herald of Fire " the giant board of Hamc , as _iEschylus _calJa it , has brought thc news of Uioii _' s fi . ll , nnd startled her with the tliouglit -ol _^ / _vgamcimiou ' s return . In _^ _Esi-hy lns—where dramatic representation ol n ssion a never a main object— there is no delineation of the fluctuating _icaw , Hopes ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1855, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/sldr_16061855/page/3/