ho invented the
drama. It was, remember, an age of transition: things were
passing out from the inner planes: the Mysteries were losing
their virtue. The Egyptian Mysteries had been dramatic in
character; the Eleusinian, which were very likely borrowed or
copied or introduced from Egypt, were no doubt dramatic too.
Then there had been festivals among the rustics, chiefly in
honor of Dionysos not altogether in his higher aspects, with
rudimentary plays of a coarse buffoonish character. By 499, in
Athens, these had grown to something more important; in that
year the wooden scaffolding of the theater in which they were
given broke down under the spectators; and this led to the
building of a new theater in stone. It was in 499 Aeschylus first
competed; the show was still very rudimentary in character. Then
he went off to Sicily; and came back with the idea conceived of
Greek Tragedy as an artistic vehicle or expression--and something
more. He taught the men who had at first defeated him, how to do
their later and better work; and opened the way for all who came
after, from Sophocles to Racine. He took to sailing this new ship
of the drama as near as he might to the shore-line of the
Mysteries themselves;--indeed, he did much more than this; for he
infused into his plays that wine of divine life then to be found
in its purity and vigor only or chiefly in the Pythagorean
Brotherhood.--And now as to this new art-form of his.

De Quincey, accepting the common idea that the Dionysian Theater
was built to seat between thirty and forty thousand spectators
(every free Athenian citizen), argues that the formative elements
that made Greek Tragedy what it was were derived from these huge
dimensions. In such a vast building (he asks) how could you
produce such a play as _Hamlet?_--where the art of the actor
shows itself in momentary changes of expression, small byplay
that would be lost, and the like. The figures would be dwarfed by
the distances; stage whispers and the common inflexions of the
speaking voice would be lost. So none of these things belonged to
Greek Tragedy. The mere physical scale necessitated a different
theory of art. The stature of the actors had to be increased, or
they would have looked like pygmies; their figures had to be
draped and muffled, to hide the unnatural proportions thus
given them. A mask had to be worn, if only to make the head
proportionate to the body; and the mask had to contain an
arrange