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An Essay on Comedy-Part5_George Meredith(1818-1909)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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facts. The vapours of Unreason and Sentimentalism would be blown

away before they were productive. Where would Pessimist and



Optimist be? They would in any case have a diminished audience.

Yet possibly the change of despots, from good-natured old obtuseness



to keen-edged intelligence, which is by nature merciless, would be

more than we could bear. The rupture of the link between dull



people, consisting in the fraternalagreement that something is too

clever for them, and a shot beyond them, is not to be thought of



lightly; for, slender though the link may seem, it is equivalent to

a cement forming a concrete of dense cohesion, very desirable in the



estimation of the statesman.

A political Aristophanes, takingadvantage of his lyrical Bacchic



licence, was found too much for political Athens. I would not ask

to have him revived, but that the sharp light of such a spirit as



his might be with us to strike now and then on public affairs,

public themes, to make them spin along more briskly.



He hated with the politician's fervour the sophist who corrupted

simplicity of thought, the poet who destroyed purity of style, the



demagogue, 'the saw-toothed monster,' who, as he conceived, chicaned

the mob, and he held his own against them by strength of laughter,



until fines, the curtailing of his Comic licence in the chorus, and

ultimately the ruin of Athens, which could no longer support the



expense of the chorus, threw him altogether on dialogue, and brought

him under the law. After the catastrophe, the poet, who had ever



been gazing back at the men of Marathon and Salamis, must have felt

that he had foreseen it; and that he was wise when he pleaded for



peace, and derided military coxcombry, and the captious old creature

Demus, we can admit. He had the Comic poet's gift of common-sense--



which does not always include political intelligence; yet his

political tendency raised him above the Old Comedy turn for



uproarious farce. He abused Socrates, but Xenophon, the disciple of

Socrates, by his trained rhetoric saved the Ten Thousand.



Aristophanes might say that if his warnings had been followed there

would have been no such thing as a mercenary Greek expedition under



Cyrus. Athens, however, was on a landslip, falling; none could

arrest it. To gaze back, to uphold the old times, was a most



natural conservatism, and fruitless. The aloe had bloomed. Whether

right or wrong in his politics and his criticisms, and bearing in



mind the instruments he played on and the audience he had to win,

there is an idea in his comedies: it is the Idea of Good



Citizenship.

He is not likely to be revived. He stands, like Shakespeare, an



unapproachable. Swift says of him, with a loving chuckle:

'But as for Comic Aristophanes,



The dog too witty and too profane is.'

Aristophanes was 'profane,' under satiric direction, unlike his



rivals Cratinus, Phrynichus, Ameipsias, Eupolis, and others, if we

are to believe him, who in their extraordinary Donnybrook Fair of



the day of Comedy, thumped one another and everybody else with

absolute heartiness, as he did, but aimed at small game, and dragged



forth particular women, which he did not. He is an aggregate of

many men, all of a certain greatness. We may build up a conception



of his powers if we mount Rabelais upon Hudibras, lift him with the

songfulness of Shelley, give him a vein of Heinrich Heine, and cover






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