The golden verses of Pythagoras

If one had carefully examined this prodigious number of divinities, one would have clearly seen that they could be reduced, by elimination, to a small number and would finally end by being mingled in a sole Universal Being; but that was very difficult for people, flattered, moreover, by a system which compared the condition of the gods with theirs, and offered them thus, protectors and patrons so much the more accessible as they were less occupied and less powerful.[60] Vainly, therefore, the Egyptian colony established at Athens presented to the adoration of this people imbued with the prejudice of polytheism, the sovereign of the gods under the title of the Most-High[61]; the veneration of this people was turned wholly towards Minerva, who became its patron under the name of Athena,[62] as Juno was that of Argos,[63] Ceres, that of Eleusis, Phigalia, Methydrium,[64] etc.

Orpheus, instructed as was Moses, in the sanctuaries of Egypt, had the same ideas as the legislator of the Hebrews upon the unity of God, but the different circumstances in which he found himself placed did not permit him to divulge this dogma; he reserved this for making it the basis of his mysteries, and continued, in the meantime, to personify in his poetry the attributes of the Divinity. His institutions, drawn from the same source, founded upon the same truths, received the imprint of his character and that of the people to whom he had destined them. As those of Moses were severe and, if one must admit, harsh in form, enemies of the sciences and arts, so those of Orpheus were brilliant, fitted to seduce the minds, favourable to all the developments of the imagination. It was beneath the allurements of pleasure, of joy, and of (fêtes), that he concealed the utility of his lessons and the depth of his doctrine. Nothing was more full of pomp than the celebration of its mysteries. Whatever majesty, force, and grace, poetry, music, and painting had, was used to excite the enthusiasm of the initiate.[65] He found no pretext advantageous enough, no form beautiful enough, no charm powerful enough to interest the hearts and attract them toward the sublime truths which he proclaimed. These truths, whose force the early Christians have recognized,[66] went much further than those of which Moses had been the interpreter; they seemed to anticipate the times.

Not only did he teach of the unity of God,[67] and give the most sublime ideas of this unfathomable Being[68]; not only did he explain the birth of the Universe and the origin of things[69]; but he represented this unique God under the emblem of a mysterious Trinity endowed with three names[70]; he spoke of the dogma which Plato announced a long time after concerning the Logos, or the Divine Word; and, according to Macrobius, taught even its incarnation or its union with matter, its death or its division in the world of sense, its resurrection or its transfiguration, and finally its return to the original Unity.[71]

This inspired man, by exalting in Man the imagination, that admirable faculty which makes the charm of life, fettered the passions which trouble its serenity. Through him his disciples enjoyed the enthusiasm of the fine arts and he insisted that their customs should be pure and simple.[72] The (régime) that he prescribed for them was that which Pythagoras introduced later[73]. One of the most pleasing rewards which he offered to their endeavours, the very aim of their initiation into his mysteries, was, putting themselves in communion with the gods[74]; freeing themselves from the cycle of generations, purifying their soul, and rendering it worthy of projecting itself, after the downfall of its corporal covering toward its primal abode, to the realms of light and happiness.[75]

Despite my resolution to be brief, I cannot resist the pleasure of speaking at greater length of Orpheus, and of recalling, as is my custom, things which, appearing today wholly foreign to my subject, nevertheless, when examined from my viewpoint, belong to it. Poetry was not at all in its origin what it became later, a simple accomplishment, regarded by those who profess to be savants as even rather frivolous[76]; it was the language of the gods, (par excellence), that of the prophets, the ministers of the altars, the preceptors and the legislators of the world. I rejoice to repeat this truth, after rendering homage to Orpheus, to this admirable man, to whom Europe owes the (éclat) with which she has shone and with which she will shine a long time. Orpheus has been the real creator of poetry and of music,[77] the father of mythology, of morals, and of philosophy: it is he who has served as model for Hesiod and Homer, who has illumined the footsteps of Pythagoras and Plato.

After having wisely accommodated the outward ceremonies to the minds of the people whom he wished to instruct, Orpheus divided his doctrine into two parts, the one vulgar, and the other mysterious and secret, following in this the method of the Egyptians, whose disciple he had been[78]; then, turning his attention to poetry, and seeing into what chaos this science had fallen and the confusion that had been made of divine and profane things, he judiciously separated it into two principal branches, which he assigned, the one to theology, the other to natural philosophy. It can be said that he gave in each the precept and the example. As sublime a theosophist as he was profound as a philosopher, he composed an immense quantity of theosophical and philosophical verses upon all sorts of subjects. Time has destroyed nearly all of them; but their memory has been perpetuated. Among the works of Orpheus that were cited by the ancients and whose loss must be deplored, were found, on the subject of theosophy, The Holy Word or The Sacred Logos,[79] by which Pythagoras and Plato profited much; the Theogony, which preceded that of Hesiod more than five centuries;

The Initiations to the Mysteries of the Mother of the Gods,[80] and The Ritual of the Sacrifices, wherein he had recorded, undoubtedly, the divers parts of his doctrine[81]: on the subject of philosophy, a celebrated cosmogony was found,[82] in which an astronomical system was developed that would be an honour to our century, touching the plurality of the worlds, the station of the sun at the centre of the universe, and the habitation of the stars.[83] These extraordinary works emanated from the same genius who had written in verse upon grammar, music, natural history, upon the antiquities of the many isles of Greece, upon the interpretation of signs and prodigies, and a mass of other subjects, the details of which one can see in the commencement of the Argonautica of Onomacritus, which is attributed to him.

But at the same time that Orpheus opened thus to his successor two very distinct careers, theosophical and philosophical, he did not entirely neglect the other parts of this science: his hymns and his odes assigned him to a distinguished rank among the lyric poets; his Démétréïde presaged the beauties of Epopœia, and the representations full of pomp, that he introduced into his mysteries, gave birth to Greek Melopœia whence sprang dramatic art. He can therefore be regarded, not only as the precursor of Hesiod and Epimenides, but even as that of Homer, Æschylus, and Pindar. I do not pretend, in saying this, to take away anything from the glory of these celebrated men: the one who indicates a course, yields to the one who executes it: now this, especially, is what Homer did.

Homer was not the first epic poet in the order of time, but in the order of things. Before him many poets were skilled in Epopœia; but no one had known the nature of this kind of poetry[84]; no one had united the opposed qualities which were necessary. There existed at this epoch a multitude of allegorical fables which had emanated at divers times from different sanctuaries. These fables, committed at first to memory, had been collected in several sets of works which were called cycles.[85] There were allegorical, mythological, and epic cycles.[86] We know from certain precious texts of the ancients, that these sorts of collections opened generally with the description of Chaos, with the marriage of Heaven and Earth; contained the genealogy of the Gods and the combats of the Giants; included the expedition of the Argonauts, the famous wars of Thebes and of Troy; extended as far as the arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, and terminated with the death of this hero, caused by his son Telegonus.[87] The poets who, before Homer, had drawn from these cycles the subject of their works, not having penetrated as far as the allegorical sense, lacking inspiration, or being found incapable of rendering it, lacking talent, had produced only cold inanimate copies, deprived of movement and grace. They had not, however, omitted any of the exploits of Hercules or of Theseus, nor any of the incidents of the sieges of Thebes or Troy; and their muse, quite lifeless, fatigued the readers without interesting or instructing them.[88] Homer came.

He, in his turn, glanced over this pile of sacerdotal traditions, and raising himself by the force of his genius alone to the intellectual principle which had conceived them, he grasped the (ensemble), and felt all its possibilities. The faculties of his soul and the precious gifts which he had received from nature had made him one of those rare men who present themselves, at long intervals, upon the scene of the world to enlighten it, shining in the depths of centuries and serving as torches for mankind. In whatever clime, in whatever career destiny had placed him, he would have been the foremost. Ever the same, whether under the thatched roof or upon the throne, as great in Egypt as in Greece, in the Occident as in the Orient of Asia, everywhere he had commanded admiration. Some centuries earlier this same attribute might have been seen in Krishna or in Orpheus, some centuries later, in Pythagoras or in Cyrus. Great men are always great by their own greatness. Incidents which depend upon chance can only modify. Homer was destined to poetry by favourable circumstances. Born upon the borders of the river Meles, of an indigent mother, without shelter and without kindred, he owed, to a schoolmaster of Smyrna who adopted him, his early existence and his early instructions. He was at first called Melesigenes, from the place of his birth.[89] Pupil of Phemius, he received from his benevolent preceptor, simple but pure ideas, which the activity of his soul developed, which his genius increased, universalized, and brought to their perfection.

Greece, after having shaken off the yoke of the Phœnicians and having become the friend of Egypt rather than her subject, commenced to reap the fruits of the beautiful institutions that she had received from Orpheus. Powerful metropolises arose in the heart of this country, long regarded as a simple colony of Asia, and her native strength being progressively augmented by the habit of liberty, she had need of extending herself abroad.[90] Rich with the increase of population, she had reacted upon her ancient metropolis, had taken possession of a great number of cities on the opposite shores of Asia, and had colonized them.[91] Phœnicia humiliated, torn by internal dissensions,[92] tossed between the power of the Assyrians and that of the Egyptians,[93] saw this same Greece that she had civilized and to whom she had given her gods, her laws, and even the letters of her alphabet, ignore, deny her benefits,[94] take up arms against her, carry away her colonies from the shores of Italy and of Sicily, and becoming mistress of the islands of the Archipelago, tear from her her sole remaining hope, the empire of the sea.[95] The people of Rhodes were overpowered.

Homer, of Greek nationality although born in Asia, profited by these advantages. He set sail in a vessel, whose patron, Mentes of Leucas, was his friend, wandered over all the possessions of Greece, visited Egypt,[96] and came to settle at Tyre. This was the ancient metropolis of Greece, the source and sacred repository of her mythological traditions. It was there, in this same temple of the Master of the Universe,[97] where twelve centuries before Sanchoniathon had come to study the antiquities of the world,[98] that Homer was able to go back to the origin of Greek cult and fathom the most hidden meanings of its mysteries[99]; it was there that he chose the first and noblest subject of his chants, that which constitutes the fable of the Iliad.[100] If one must believe in the very singular accounts which time has preserved to us, thanks to the blind zeal of certain Christians who have treated them as heresies, this Helen, whose name applied to the moon signifies the resplendent, this woman whom Paris carried away from her spouse Menelaus, is nothing else than the symbol of the human soul,[101] torn by the principle of generation from that of thought, on account of which the moral and physical passions declare war. But it would be taking me too far away from my subject, examining in detail what might be the meaning of the allegories of Homer. My plan has not been to investigate this meaning in particular, but to show that it exists in general.

Upon this point I have not only the rational proof which results from the concatenation of my ideas, but also proof of the fact, which is furnished to me by the testimonials of the ancients. These testimonials are recognized at every step, in the works of the philosophers and chiefly in those of the Stoics. Only a very superficial erudition is necessary to be convinced of this.[102] But I ought to make an observation, and this observation will be somewhat novel: it is that, the poetic inspiration being once received by the poet and his soul finding itself transported into the intelligible world, all the ideas which then come to him are universal and in consequence allegorical. So that nothing true may exist outside of unity, and as everything that is true is one and homogeneous, it is found that, although the poet gives to his ideas a form determined in the sentient world, this form agrees with a multitude of things which, being distinct in their species, are not so in their genus. This is why Homer has been the man of all men, the type of all types, the faithful mirror,[103] wherein all ideas becoming reflected have appeared to be created. Lycurgus read his works, and saw there a model of his legislation.[104] Pericles and Alcibiades had need of his counsels; they had recourse to him as a model of statesmen.[105] He was for Plato the first of the philosophers, and for Alexander the greatest of kings; and what is more extraordinary still, even the sectarians, divided among themselves, were united in him.

The Stoics spoke only of this great poet as a rigid follower of the Porch[106]; at the Academy he was considered as the creator of dialectics; at the Lyceum, the disciples of Aristotle cited him as a zealous dogmatist[107]; finally, the Epicureans saw in him only a man calm and pure, who, satisfied with that tranquil life where one is wholly possessed by it, seeks nothing more.[108] The temples, which devout enthusiasm consecrated to him, were the rendezvous for mankind.[109] Such is the appanage of universal ideas: they are as the Divinity which inspires them, all in all, and all in the least parts.

If, at the distance where I am placed, I should dare, traversing the torrent of ages and opinions, draw near to Homer and read the soul of this immortal man, I would say, after having grasped in its entirety the allegorical genius which makes the essence of poetry, in seeking to give to his universal ideas a particular form, that his intention was to personify and paint the passions, and that it was from this that epopœia had birth. I have not sufficient documents to attest positively that the word by which one characterizes this kind of poetry after Homer, did not exist before him; but I have sufficient to repeat that no one had as yet recognized its real nature.[110] The poems of Corinna, of Dares, or of Dictys, were only simple extracts from the mythological cycles, rude copies from certain theosophical fragments denuded of life; Homer was the first who caused the Voice of Impulse, that is to say Epopœia, to be understood[111]: that kind of poetry which results from intellectual inspiration united to the enthusiasm of the passions.

In order to attain to the perfection of this kind of poetry, it is necessary to unite to the imaginative faculty which feeds the genius, the reason which regulates the impulse, and the enthusiasm which inflames the mind and supplies the talent. Homer united them in the most eminent degree. Thus he possessed the first inspiration and the complete science, as much in its essence as in its form; for the poetic form is always dependent upon talent.

This form was then highly favourable to genius. The Greek verse, measured by musical rhythm and filled with a happy blending of long and short syllables, had long since shaken off the servile yoke of rhyme. Now, by rhythm was understood the number and respective duration of the time of which a verse was composed.[112] A long syllable was equal to a time divided in two instants, and equivalent to two short syllables. A foot was what we name today a measure. The foot contained two times, made up of two long, or of one long and two short syllables. The verse most commonly used was the hexameter, that is, that in which the extent was measured by six rhythmic feet and of which the whole duration was twelve times. Thus poetry received only the laws of rhythm; it was a kind of music whose particular harmony, free in its course, was subject only to measure.

I have never found any authentic evidence that the Greeks had ever used the rhyme in their verse. It is stated, however, that they have not differed from other nations in this respect. Voltaire said so but without proof.[113] What is most certain is that, taking the word (epos),[114] a verse, in its most restricted acceptance, expressing a turn, a turning around again, the early poets constructed their verse in form of furrows, going from right to left and returning from left to right.[115] Happily this (bizarrerie) did not last long. If the Greek verses had thus turned one upon another, or if the rhyme had forced them to proceed in couplets bent beneath a servile yoke, Homer would not have created the Epopœia, or these frivolous obstacles would have vanished before him. His genius, incapable of enduring chains, would have refused to clothe itself in a form capable of stifling it. But this celebrated man would no doubt have changed it; one can judge by the energetic manner with which he attacked that which he found in use. The Greek language, which preserved still in his time something of the Phœnician stiffness and the Celtic roughness, obliged to adapt itself to all the movements of his imagination, became the most flexible and the most harmonious dialect of the earth.

One is astonished, in reading his works, at the boldness of his composition.[116] One sees him without the least effort, bending words at his pleasure, lengthening them, shortening them to produce something new, reviving those no longer in use, uniting them, separating them, disposing of them in an unaccustomed order, forcing them to adapt themselves everywhere to the harmony that he wishes to depict, to sentiments of elevation, of pleasure or terror, that he wishes to inspire.

Thus genius, dominating form, creates master-pieces; form, on the contrary, commanding genius, produces only works of the mind. I must say finally and no longer veil from the attention of my judges, the aim of this discourse: whenever rhyme exists in the poetic form, it renders the form inflexible, it brings upon it only the effort of talent and renders that of intellectual inspiration useless. Never will the people who rhyme their verses attain to the height of poetic perfection; never will real epopœia flourish in their breasts. They will hear neither the accents inspired by Orpheus, nor the stirring and impassioned harmonies of Homer. Far from drawing the allegorical genius at its source and receiving the first inspiration, it will not even recognize the second one. Its poets will polish painfully certain impassioned or descriptive verses, and will call beautiful the works which will only be well done. A rapid glance over the poetic condition of the earth will prove what I have advanced. But I ought to explain beforehand what I understand by first and second inspiration; the moment has arrived for holding to the promise that I made at the beginning of this discourse.

You recall, Messieurs, that wishing, with Chancellor Bacon, to distinguish the essence and the form of Poetry, I have taken my text from the works of Plato. It is again from this man, justly called divine even by his rivals, from the founder of the Academy, that I have borrowed the germ of my idea. This philosopher compares the effect which the real poets have upon those who hear them, with the magnetic stone which not only attracts rings of iron, but communicates to them also the virtue of attracting other rings.[117]

In order to appreciate well the force of this thought, and to follow all the inferences, it is necessary to state a truth de facto: namely, that the men destined by Providence to regenerate the world, in whatever manner it may be, to open any sort of a career, are extremely rare. Nature, docile to the impulse which she has received of bringing all to perfection by means of time, elaborates slowly the elements of their genius, places them at great distances upon the earth, and makes them appear at epochs very far removed one from the other. It is necessary that these events, which determine these men toward an end, should be brought about in advance; that the physical conditions in which they are born coincide with the inspiration which attends them; and therefore everything prepares, everything protects, everything serves the providential design. These men, thus scattered over the earth, come among nations to form them, to give them laws, to enlighten and to instruct them. They are the beacon-lights of mankind; these are those to whom I attribute the first inspiration. This inspiration is immediate; it emanates from the first principle of all intelligence, in the same manner, to use the comparison of Plato, that the magnetic force which animates the loadstone, emanates from its cause.

It is profoundly hidden from our eyes: it is this which fires the genius of a theosophist such as Thoth, Orpheus, and Zoroaster; the genius of a theocrat, such as Krishna, Moses, or Mohammed; the genius of a philosopher, such as Kong-Tse, Pythagoras, or Socrates; the genius of a poet, such as Homer or Valmiki; and of a triumphant hero, such as Cyrus, Alexander, or Napoleon.

Those who follow in the footprints of these primordial men, who allow themselves to be impressed by their genius, receive what I call the second inspiration. They can still be great men; for those who assist them are very great; they can also communicate the inspiration, for it acts in them with an exuberant force. Let us confine ourselves to the poetic inspiration and listen to the voice of Plato:

The Muse inspires the poets directly, and these, communicating to others their enthusiasm, form a chain of inspired men. It is by means of this chain that the Divinity attracts the souls of men, and moves them at his pleasure, causing his virtue to pass from link to link, from the first inspired poet to the last of his readers or his rhapsodists.[118]

It is by means of this magnetic chain that one can, in another sphere of movement, explain this truth so well known, that great kings make great men; it is also in this manner that one can understand how a monarch, called to found a vast empire, makes his will penetrate all hearts, take possession of all souls, and propagating his valour more and more, electrify his army and fill it with a multitude of heroes.

Homer received therefore a first inspiration; he was created to become the poetic motive of Europe, the principle of a magnetized chain which, appropriating unceasingly new links, was to cover Europe with its numberless extensions. His first conquests were in Greece. His verses, carried from city to city by actors known under the name of rhapsodists,[119] excited the keenest enthusiasm; they passed soon from mouth to mouth, fixed the attention of legislators, were the ornament of the most brilliant fêtes,[120] and became everywhere the basis of public instruction.[121] The secret flame which they concealed, becoming developed in young souls, warmed there the particular germ which they possessed, and according to their divers specie and the fertility of the soil, brought forth many talents.[122] The poets who were found endowed with a genius vast enough to receive the second inspiration in its entirety, imitated their model and raised themselves to epopœia.

Antimachus and Dicæogenes are noticeable, the one for his Thebaïs, and the other for his cyprien verses.[123] Those to whom nature had given passions more gentle than violent, more touching than vehement, inclinations more rustic than bellicose, whose souls contained more sensitiveness than elevation, were led to copy certain isolated groups of this vast tableau, and placing them, following their tastes, in the palace or in the thatched cottage, caused accents of joy or of sorrow, the plaints of heroes or the sports of shepherds to be heard, and thus created elegy, eclogue, or idyl.[124] Others, on the contrary, whose too vehement enthusiasm shortened the duration of it, whose keen fiery passions had left little empire for reason, who allowed themselves to be drawn easily toward the object of which they were momentarily captive, created the ode, dithyramb, or song, according to the nature of their genius and the object of their passion. These were more numerous than all the others together, and the women who were here distinguished, rivalled and even surpassed the men; Corinna and Myrtis did not yield either to Stesićhorus,[125] or to Pindar; Sappho and Telesilla effaced Alcæus and Anacreon.[126]

It is said that the art with which Homer had put into action gods and men, had opposed heaven and earth, and depicted the combats of the passions; this art, being joined to the manner in which the rhapsodists declaimed his poems[127] by alternately relieving one another, and covering themselves with garments of different colours adapted to the situation, had insensibly given rise to dramatic style and to theatrical representation.[128] This, true in a sense, has need of a distinction: it will serve at the same time to throw light upon what I am about to say.

One should remember that the intellectual and rational poetry, or theosophical and philosophical, illustrated by Orpheus and which Homer had united with the enthusiasm of the passions in order to constitute epopœia, although separated from the latter, existed none the less. Whereas the disciples of Homer, or the Homeridæ,[129] spread themselves abroad and took possession of the laic or profane world, the religious and learned world was always occupied by the disciples of Orpheus, called Eumolpidæ.[130] The hierophants and philosophers continued to write as formerly upon theology and natural philosophy. There appeared from time to time theogonies and cosmological systems,[131] dionysiacs, heraclides,[132] oracles, treatises on nature and moral apologues, which bore no relation to epopœia. The hymns or pæans which had emanated from the sanctuaries in honour of the Divinity, had in no wise resembled either the odes or the dithyrambs of the lyric poets[133]: as much as the former were vehement and passionate, so much the latter affected to be calm and majestic. There existed therefore, at this epoch, two kinds of poetry, equally beautiful when they had attained their respective perfection: Eumolpique Poetry and Epic Poetry: the first, intellectual and rational; the other, intellectual and passionate.

However, the divine mysteries, hidden from the profane, manifested to the initiates in the ceremonies and symbolic fables, had not as yet issued from the sanctuaries: it had been nearly a thousand years since they had been instituted by Orpheus[134] when suddenly one saw for the first time certain of these fables and these ceremonies ridiculously travestied, transpiring among the people and serving them for amusement. The fêtes of Dionysus, celebrated in the times of vintage, gave place to this sort of profanation. The grape-gatherers, besmeared with lees, giving way in the intoxication of wine to an indiscreet enthusiasm, began to utter aloud from their wagons the allegories that they had learned in their rural initiations. These allegories, which neither the actors nor the spectators had comprehended in reality, appeared, nevertheless, piquant to both through the malicious interpretations which they gave them.[135] Such were the feeble beginnings of dramatic art in Greece[136]; there was born the profanation of the Orphic mysteries, in the same manner that one sees it reborn among us, by the profanation of the Christian mysteries.[137] But this art was already old in Asia when it sprang up in Europe. I have already said that there was in the secret celebration of the mysteries, veritable dramatic representations. These mystic ceremonies, copied from those which had taken place in the celebration of the Egyptian mysteries, had been brought into Egypt by the Indian priests at a very remote epoch when the empire of Hindustan had extended over this country.

This communication, which was made from one people to another, has been demonstrated to the point of evidence by the learned researches of the academicians of Calcutta, Jones, Wilford, and Wilkin,[138] who have proved what Bacon had previously said in speaking of the Greek traditions, “that it was only a very light air which, passing by means of an ancient people into the flutes of Greece, had been modulated by them into sounds more sweet, more harmonious, and more conformable to the climate and to their brilliant imagination.”

A singular coincidence, Messieurs, which will not escape your sagacity, is that dramatic art, whose origin is lost in India in the night of time, has likewise had its birth in the mysteries of religion. It is during the Ram-Jatra, a fête celebrated annually in honour of Rama, the same as Dionysus of the Greeks, or Bacchus of the Latins, that one still sees theatrical representations which have served as models for the more regular works that have been made in the course of time.[139] These representations, which run through nearly all the exploits of Rama and through the victory that this beneficent god gained over Rawhan, the principle of evil, are mingled with chants and recitations exactly as were those of the ancient Greeks. You understand, Messieurs, that the first efforts of tragedy were to celebrate the conquests of Bacchus and his triumph, of which that of Apollo over the serpent Python, celebrated by the Pythian games, was the emblem.[140] Those of the Indians who appear to have preserved the most ancient traditions, since the sacred books were written in the Pali language, considered as anterior to the Sanskrit by some savants, the Burmans, have from time immemorial recorded the mysteries of Rama in scenic dramas which are still performed in public on the fête day of this god.[141] I do not consider it amiss to mention here that the name of Rama, which in Sanskrit signifies that which is dazzling and beautiful, that which is sublime and protective, has had the same signification in Phœnician,[142] and that it is from this same name to which is joined a

demonstrative article common to Aramaic, Chaldean, and Syriac, that the word drama[143] is formed, and which being adopted by the Greek tongue, has passed afterwards into the Latin tongue and into ours. This word has expressed an action, because, in truth, it depicts one in the mysteries and besides its primitive root refers to regular movement in general.

The spectacle of which I have spoken, effect of a Bacchic enthusiasm, and at first abandoned to the caprice of certain rustic grape-gatherers whose indiscretions did not appear formidable, struck so forcibly by its novelty and produced such a marvellous effect upon the people, that it was not long before certain men of most cultivated minds were seen desirous of taking part either from liking or from interest. Thespis and Susarion appeared at the same time and each seized, according to his character, one the noble and serious side and the other the ridiculous and amusing side of the mythological fables; dividing thus from its birth, dramatic art and distinguishing it by two kinds, tragedy and comedy: that is, the lofty and austere chant, and the joyous and lascivious chant.[144] [145]

In the meantime, the governments, until then quite indifferent to these rustic amusements, warned that certain liberties permitted by Thespis were becoming too flagrant, began to see the profanations which had resulted, and of which the Eumolpidæ had no doubt pointed out the consequences.[146] They tried to prevent them, and Solon even made a law regarding this subject[147]; but it was too late: the people attracted in crowds to these representations, all informal as they were, rendered useless the foresight of the legislator. It was necessary to yield to the torrent and, being unable to arrest it, to strive at least to restrain it within just limits. A clear field was left open for the good that it was able to do, in fertilizing the new ideas, and severe rules were opposed to check whatever dangers its invasions might have for religion and for customs. The dramatic writers were permitted to draw the subject of their pieces from the source of the mysteries, but it was forbidden them, under penalty of death, to divulge the sense.