Note 9 — CHAP. II. OF THE GENIUS OF COMEDY.

Οἱ μὲν σεμνότεροι τὰς καλὰς ἐμιμοῦντο πράξεις, καὶ τὰς τῶν τοιούτων τύχας· οἱ δὲ εὐτελέστεροι, τὰς τῶν φαύλων, ΠΡΩΤΟΝ ΨΟΓΟΥΣ ΠΟΙΟΥΝΤΕΣ, ΩΣΠΕΡ ἙΤΕΡΟΙ ΥΜΝΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΓΚΩΜΙΑ. [ΠΕΡ. ΠΟΙΗΤ. κδ.] This is Aristotle’s account of the origin of the different species of POETRY. They were occasioned, he says, by the different and even opposite tempers and dispositions of men: those of a loftier spirit delighting in the encomiastic poetry, while the humbler sort betook themselves to satire. But this, also, is the just account of the rise and character of the different species of the Drama. For they grew up, he tells us in this very chapter, from the Dithyrambic, and Phallic songs. And who were the men, who chaunted these, but the ΣΕΜΝΟΤΕΡΟΙ, and ΕΥΤΕΛΕΣΤΕΡΟΙ, before-mentioned? And how were they employed in them, but the former, in hymning the praises of Bacchus; the latter, in dealing about obscene jokes and taunting invectives on each other? So that the characters of the men, and their subjects, being exactly the same in both, what is said of the one is equally applicable to the other. It was proper to observe this, or the reader might, perhaps, object to the use made of this passage, here, as well as above, where it is brought to illustrate Aristotle’s notion of the natures of the tragic and comic poetry.