f ancient times. In that
society, all is simple, all is epic. Poetry is religion, religion is
law. The virginity of the earlier age is succeeded by the chastity
of the later. A sort of solemn gravity is everywhere noticeable, in
private manners no less than in public. The nations have retained
nothing of the wandering life of the earlier time, save respect
for the stranger and the traveller. The family has a fatherland;
everything is connected therewith; it has the cult of the house and
the cult of the tomb.

We say again, such a civilization can find its one expression only in
the epic. The epic will assume diverse forms, but will never lose its
specific character. Pindar is more priestlike than patriarchal, more
epic than lyrical. If the chroniclers, the necessary accompaniments
of this second age of the world, set about collecting traditions and
begin to reckon by centuries, they labour to no purpose--chronology
cannot expel poesy; history remains an epic. Herodotus is a Homer.

But it is in the ancient tragedy, above all, that the epic breaks out
at every turn. It mounts the Greek stage without losing aught, so to
speak, of its immeasurable, gigantic proportions. Its characters
are still heroes, demigods, gods; its themes are visions, oracles,
fatality; its scenes are battles, funeral rites, catalogues. That
which the rhapsodists formerly sang, the actors declaim--that is the
whole difference.

There is something more. When the whole plot, the whole spectacle
of the epic poem have passed to the stage, the Chorus takes all that
remains. The Chorus annotates the tragedy, encourages the heroes,
gives descriptions, summons and expels the daylight, rejoices,
laments, sometimes furnishes the scenery, explains the moral bearing
of the subject, flatters the listening assemblage. Now, what is the
Chorus, this anomalous character standing between the spectacle and
the spectator, if it be not the poet completing his epic?

The theatre of the ancients is, like their dramas, huge, pontifical,
epic. It is capable of holding thirty thousand spectators; the plays
are given in the open air, in bright sunlight; the performances last
all day. The actors disguise their voices, wear masks, increase their
stature; they make themselves gigantic, like their roles. The stage is
immense. It may represent at the same moment both the interior and
the exterior of a temple, a palace, a camp, a city. Upon it,
vast spectacles are displayed. T