8. Feb. Domenica. 1829.
[4458,1]
Alla p. 4359.
Niebuhr (loc. cit. p.
4431. fin.) sezione intitolata The Beginning
of the Republic and the Treaty with Carthage, not. 1078. p. 456 -
7. Τhis play
*
(the Brutus
of L. Attius) was a praetextata, the noblest
among the three kinds of the Roman national drama; all which assuredly,
and not merely the Atellana, might be represented by well-born Romans
without risking their franchise.
4459 The
praetextata merely bore an analogy to a tragedy: it exhibited the deeds
of Roman Κings and generals (Diomedes III. p.
487. Putsch.); and
hence it is self-evident, that at least it wanted the unity of time of
the Greek tragedy; that it was a history, like Shakspeare's. I have referred above (p. 431.) to
a dialogue between the Κing
*
(Tarquinio superbo) and his
dream-interpreters in the Brutus
*
(dialogo citato da
Cic.
de Divinat. I. 22.), the scene
of which must have lain before Ardea: the
establishment of the new government
*
(del governo repubblicano a
Roma), which must have been
{the} occasion of the speech, qui recte consulat, consul siet
*
(nel
Brutus: parlata citata da Varrone
de L. L. IV. 14. p. 24.), occurs at Rome: so that the unity of place is
just as little observed. The Destruction of
Miletus by Phrynichus and the
Persians of Æschylus were plays that drew forth all the manly feelings of
bleeding or exulting hearts, and not tragedies: for the latter the
Greeks, before the Alexandrian age, took their plots solely out of
mythical story. It was essential that their contents should be known
beforehand: the stories of Hamlet and Macbeth were unknown to the spectators: at present parts of
them might be moulded into tragedies like the Greek; if a Sophocles were to rise
up.
*
(8. Feb. Domenica. 1829.).
