Part 13

A theatre was built for them: the Romans flocked to it, and saw, with surprise, a complete tragedy; all the passions painted with the most vigorous strokes of representation: the exposition, plot, catastrophe expressed in the clearest and most pathetic manner, without any other means or assistence but that of dancing, executed to the simphonies the best adapted, and far superior to any that had been before heard in Rome.

Their surprise was not to end here. To this a second entertainment succeeded; in which an ingenious action, without needing the voice or speech, presented all the characters, all the pleasant strokes, and humorous pictures of a good comedy.

And in both these kinds, the executive talents of Pilades and Bathillus corresponded to the boldness and beauty of the kind of compositions they had ventured to bring on the stage.

Pilades especially, who was at the head of this project, was the most singular man that had till then appeared on the theatre. His fertile imagination constantly supplied him with new means of perfecting his art and embellishing his entertainments. Athenæus mentions his having written a book much esteemed on the depths and principles of his art.

Before him, some flutes composed the orchestra of the Romans. He reinforced it with all the known instruments. He added choruses of dances to his representations, and took care that their steps and figures, should always have some relation or affinity to the principal action. He provided them with dresses in the highest taste of propriety, and omitted nothing towards producing, keeping up, and pushing to the highest pitch, the charm of the theatrical illusion.

The actions on the Roman theatres were tragic, comic, or satirical; these last pretty nearly answering to what we understand by grotesque or farcical.

Esopus and Roscius had been, from their excellence in declamation, the delight and admiration of Rome. But on their leaving no successors to their degree of merit; the taste for dramatic poetry which was no longer supported by actors equal to them, began to decline; and the theatrical dances under such great masters as Pilades and Bathillus, either by their novelty, or by their merit, or by both, made the Romans the less feel their loss of those incomparable actors. The gestual language took place of that which was declaimed; and produced regular pieces acted in the three kinds of tragedy, comedy, and farce or grotesque. The spectators grew pleased with such an exercise of their understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resulted from them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that people imagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alone supplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energy of speech, and of the charms of poetry.[*]

Cassiod, var. 1. 20.

Loquacissimas manus, linguosos digitos, silentium clamosum, expositionem tacitam.

Idem.]

This kind of entertainment, so new, though formed upon a ground-work already known, planned and executed by genius, and adopted with a passionate fondness by the Romans, was called the Italic dance; and in the transports of pleasures it caused them, they gave to the actors of it, the title of Pantomimes. This was no more than a lively, and not at all exagerated expression, of the truth of their action, which was one continual picture to the eyes of the spectators. Their motion, their feet, their hands, their arms, were but so many different parts of the picture; none of them were to remain idle; but all, with propriety, were to concur to the formation of that assemblage, from which result the harmony, and, with pardon for the expression, the happy all-together of the composition and performance. A dancer learned from his very name of pantomime, that he could be in no esteem in Rome, but so far as he should be all the actor.

And, in fact, this art was carried to a point of perfection hard to believe; but for such a number of concurrent and authentic testimonies.

It appears also clearly from history, that this art, in its origin, (so favored by an arbitrary prince, and who also made some use of it, towards establishing his despotism, nay even primordially introduced by Bathillus, a slave) could no longer preserve its great excellence, than the spirit of liberty was not wholly worn out in the Roman breasts; and, like its other sister arts, gradually decayed and sunk under the subsequent emperors.

Pilades gave a memorable instance of the (as yet) unextinguished spirit of liberty, when, upon his being banished Rome, for some time, by Augustus Cesar, upon account of the disturbances the pantomime parties occasioned, he told him plainly to his face, that he was ungrateful for the good his power received, by the diversion to the Romans from more serious thoughts on the loss of their liberty. "Why do not you," says he, "let the people amuse themselves with our quarrels?"

This dancer had such great powers in all his tragedies, that he could draw tears from even those of the spectators the least used to the melting mood.

But in truth, the effect of these pantomimes, in general, was prodigious. Tears and sobs interrupted often the representation of the tragedy of Glaucus, in which the pantomime Plancus played the principal character.

Bathillus, in painting the amours of Leda, never failed of exciting the utmost sensibility in the Roman ladies.

But what is more surprising yet, Memphir, a Pithagorean philosopher, as Athenæus tells us, expressed, by dancing, all the excellence of the philosophy of Pithagoras, with more elegance, more clearness and energy, than the most eloquent professor of philosophy could have done.

Upon considering all this, one is almost tempted to say, with M. Cahusac, "We have, upon the stage, excellent feet, lively legs, admirable arms: what a pity it is, that with all this we have so little of the art of dancing!"

Our tragedy and our comedy have an extent and duration which are supported by the charms of speech, by the interestingness of narration, by the variety of the sallies of wit. The action is divided into acts, each act into scenes, these scenes successively present new situations, and these situations keep up the warmth of interest and attention, form the plot, lead to the conclusion or unravelment, and prepare it.

Such must have been, or such must be, (but with more precision and markingness) tragedies or comedies represented by dancing; as gesture is something more marking and succinct than speech. There are required many words to express a thought, but one single motion may paint several thoughts, and situations.

In such compositions, then, made to be danced, the theatrical action must go forward with the utmost rapidity: there must not be one unmeaning entry, figure, or step in them. Such a piece ought to be a close crouded abstract of some excellent written dramatic piece.

Dancing, like painting, can only present situations to the eye; and every truly theatrical situation is nothing but a living picture.

If a composer of dances should undertake to represent upon the stage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin by making an extract from it, of all the most picturesque situations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan; all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras, perplex, confound, and render it cold and insipid.

Whereas, if the situations succeed one another naturally, and in great number; if their being well linked together conducts them with rapidity, from the first situation to the last, which must clearly and strikingly unravel the whole; the choice is complete, and the theatrical effect will be sure.

It is that final effect, of which, in the execution, the composer and performer must never lose sight. Successive pictures must be exhibited, and animated with all the expression that can result from the impassioned motions of the dance.

This was doubtless the great secret of the art of Pilades, who so highly excelled in his ideas of theatrical expression: this is, perhaps, too for all kinds of theatrical composition, whether to be declaimed, or to be executed by dancing, a general rule that is not to be slighted.

One instance of the regard shewn by Pilades to theatrical propriety is preserved to us, and not unworthy of attention. He had been publickly challenged by Hilas, once a pupil of his, to represent the greatness of Agamemnon: Hilas came upon the stage with buskins, which, in the nature of stilts, made him of an artificial height; in consequence of which he greatly over-topped the croud of actors who surrounded him. This passed well enough, 'till Pilades appeared with an air, stern and majestic. His serious steps, his arms a-cross, his motion sometimes slow, sometimes animated, with pauses full of meaning, his looks now fixed on the ground, now lifted to heaven, with all the attitudes of profound pensiveness, painted strongly a man taken up with great things, which he was meditating, weighing, and comparing, with all the dignity of kingly importance. The spectators, struck with the justness, with the energy and real elevation of so expressive a portraiture, unanimously adjudged the preference to Pilades, who, coolly turning to Hilas, said to him, "Young man, we had to represent a king who commanded over twenty kings: you made him tall: I showed him great."