Yet Melantius persists, till Amintor is provoked to draw his Sword, and then Melantius puts up. Harlequin and Scaramouttio might do these things. Tragedy suffers 'em not; here is no place for Cowards, nor for giddy fellows and Bullies with their squabbles. When a Sword is once 5 drawn in Tragedy, the Scabbard may be thrown away; there is no leaving what is once design'd till it be thoroughly Leffected. Iphigenia Taurica went to sacrifice Orestes, and she desisted; why? she discover'd him to be her Brother. None here are such Fools as by words to begin a quarrel, 10 nor of so little resolution to be talkt agen from it without some new emergent cause that diverts them. No1simple alteration of mind ought to produce or hinder any action in a Tragedy. Yet far more faulty is what follows; the counter-turn 15 has no shadow of sense or sobriety. Melantius has swaggered away his fury, and now Amintor is all agog to be afighting; for what? but to get his secret back again. Am.-Give it me again, Or I will find it wheresoe're it lies, Hid in the mortall'st part; invent a way to get it back. Thou art mad, Amintor, Bedlam is the only place for thee; if thou comest here with thy madness, Tragedy expects 2 ut cum ratione insanias. 20 Hercules was mad, and kill'd his Wife and Children, yet 25 there was reason in his madness; a mist was cast before his eyes, he mistook them for their enemies, and believ'd he was revenging their quarrel whilst he beat their brains out. That was a madness might move pity; but this of Amintor is meerly bruitish, and can move nothing but 30 our aversion. Here is a bluster begun without provocation, and ended without any thing of satisfaction. But that I may never find a fault without shewing some thing better,-For a quarrel betwixt two friends, with the turn and counter-turn, let me commend that Scene in the Iphigenia in Aulide: Where Agamemnon having consented that his Daughter should be sacrific'd, and (that 5 her Mother might let her come the more willingly) sent for her with a pretence that she was to be marri'd to Achilles, yet in a fit of Fatherly tenderness he privately despatches Letters to hinder her coming. Menelaus meets the Messenger going from Agamemnon, suspects the 10 business, takes the Letters from him before Agamemnon's face, and read(s) them; and now arose the contest: Menelaus was zealous for the publick good, the more because it agreed so much with his own interest, and Agamemnon had cause enough to stand up for his Daughter; but yet, at 15 length, with weeping eyes and shame for his weakness and partiality, he yielded up the cause. But Menelaus now seeing the conflict of Agamemnon, the tears rowling down his cheeks, and his repentance, this sight melted the heart of him, and now he turns Advocate for Iphigenia: He 20 will have Hellen and the concerns of Greece left to the mercy of Heaven rather than that his Brother, Agamemnon, should do so much violence to himself, and that so vertuous a young Princess be trapan'd to lose her life. Here all the motions arise from occasions great and 25 just, and this is matter for a Scene truly passionate and Tragical. We may remember (how-ever we find this Scene of Melanthius and Amintor written in the Book) that at the Theater we have a good Scene Acted; there is work cut 30 out, and both our Æsopus and Roscius are on the Stage together. Whatever defect may be in Amintor and Melanthius, Mr. Hart and Mr. Mohun are wanting in nothing. To these we owe for what is pleasing in the Scene; and to this Scene we may impute the success of 35 the Maids Tragedy. The Drolls in this Play make not so much noise as in the two former, but are less excusable here. In the former they keep some distance, and make a sort of interlude; but here they thrust into the principal places, when we should give our full attention to what is Tragedy. When we 5 would listen to a Lute, our ears are rapt with the tintamar and twang of the Tongs and Jewstrumps. A man may be free to make a jest of his own misfortunes, but surely 'tis unnatural and barbarous to laugh when we see another on the Scaffold. Some would laugh to find me mentioning 10 Sacrifices, Oracles, and Goddesses: old Superstitions, say they, not practicable, but more than ridiculous on our Stage. These have not observ'd with what Art Virgil has manag'd the Gods of Homer, nor with what judgment Tasso and Cowley employ the heavenly powers in a Christian Poem. The like hints from Sophocles and Euripides might also be improv'd by modern Tragedians, and something thence devis'd suitable to our Faith and Customes. 'Tis the general reason I contend for: Nor would I more have Oracles or Goddesses on the Stage then hear the 20 persons speak Greek; they are Apes and not men that imitate with so little discretion. Some would blame me for insisting and examining only what is apt to please, without a word of what might profit. I. I believe the end of all Poetry is to please. 2. Some sorts of Poetry please without profiting. 3. I am confident whoever writes a Tragedy cannot please but must also profit; 'tis the Physick of the mind that he makes palatable. 15 25 And besides the purging of the passions, something must 30 stick by observing that constant order, that harmony and beauty of Providence, that necessary relation and chain, whereby the causes and the effects, the vertues and rewards, the vices and their punishments are proportion'd and link'd together, how deep and dark soever are laid 35 the Springs and however intricate and involv'd are their operations. But these enquiries I leave to men of more flegm and consideration. 5 Othello comes next to hand, but laying my Papers together without more scribling I find a volumn, and a greater burthen then I dare well obtrude upon you. If I blindly wander in erroneous paths, 'tis more then time, Mr. Shepheard, that you set me right; and if I am 10 not so much out of the way, then most of the main faults in these other Tragedies cannot be far from our view, if we tread not on their skirts already. 15 I will wait your direction e're I advance farther, and be sure of your pardon for what is past. Many seeming contradictions I rather chose to slip over then to be ever casting in your way some parenthesis or some distinction. Many other slips and mistakes too you meet withall, but the fortune of Greece depends not on them. Nor, I know, could you, that read Hebrew without the 20 pricks, be at a loss for the sense, where you found not a period truly pointed. If the Characters I have examin'd are the same I take them for, I send you Monsters enough for one Bartholmewfair; but what would vex a Christian, these are shown us 25 for our own likenesses, these are the Duch Pictures of humane kind. I have thought our Poetry of the last Age as rude as our Architecture; one cause thereof might be that Aristotle's treatise of Poetry has been so little studied amongst us; it 30 was perhaps Commented upon by all the great men in Italy before we well knew, on this side of the Alps, that there was such a Book in being. And though Horace comprizes all in that small Epistle of his, yet few will think long enough together to be Masters, and to under35 stand the reason, of what is deliver'd so in short. With the remaining Tragedies I shall also send you some reflections on that Paradise lost of Miltons which some are pleas'd to call a Poem, and assert Rime against the slender Sophistry wherewith he attacques it; and also a Narrative of Petrarch's Coronation in the Capitol, with 5 all the Pontificalibus on that occasion, which seems wanting in Selden where he treats on that subject. Let me only anticipate a little in behalf of the Cataline, and now tell my thoughts, that though the contrivance and œconomy is faulty enough, yet we there find (besides what is borrow'd 10 from others) more of Poetry and of good thought, more of Nature and of Tragedy, then peradventure can be scrap't together from all those other Plays. Nor can I be displeas'd with honest Ben, when he rather chooses to borrow a Melon of his Neighbour than to treat 15 us with a Pumpion of his own growth. But all is submitted to you Men of better sense by, SIR, Your most obliged, humble Servant, T. RYMER. III. FROM A SHORT VIEW OF TRAGEDY, ITS ORIGINAL, EXCELLENCY, AND CORRUPTION, WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEAR AND OTHER PRACTITIONERS FOR THE 20 STAGE 1693 CHAP. I THE CONTENTS. The Chorus keeps the Poet to Rules. A show to the Spectators. |