ur
and better success than any other branch of poetry. The mime originated
out of the dances in character to the flute, which had long been usual,
and which were performed sometimes on other occasions, e. g.
for the entertainment of the guests during dinner, but more especially
in the pit of the theatre during the intervals between the acts.
It was not difficult to form out of these dances--in which the aid
of speech had doubtless long since been occasionally employed--
by means of the introduction of a more organized plot and a regular
dialogue little comedies, which were yet essentially distinguished
from the earlier comedy and even from the farce by the facts,
that the dance and the lasciviousness inseparable from such dancing
continued in this case to play a chief part, and that the mime,
as belonging properly not to the boards but to the pit, threw aside
all ideal scenic effects, such as masks for the face and theatrical
buskins, and--what was specially important--admitted of the female
characters being represented by women. This new mime, which first
seems to have come on the stage of the capital about 672,
soon swallowed up the national harlequinade, with which it indeed
in the most essential respects coincided, and was employed
as the usual interlude and especially as afterpiece along with
the other dramatic performances.(9) The plot was of course
still more indifferent, loose, and absurd than in the harlequinade;
if it was only sufficiently chequered, the public did not ask
why it laughed, and did not remonstrate with the poet, who instead
of untying the knot cut it to pieces. The subjects were chiefly
of an amorous nature, mostly of the licentious sort; for example,
poet and public without exception took part against the husband,
and poetical justice consisted in the derision of good morals.
The artistic charm depended wholly, as in the Atellana,
on the portraiture of the manners of common and low life;
in which rural pictures are laid aside for those of the life
and doings of the capital, and the sweet rabble of Rome--
just as in the similar Greek pieces the rabble of Alexandria--
is summoned to applaud its own likeness. Many subjects
are taken from the life of tradesmen; there appear the--
here also inevitable--"Fuller," then the "Ropemaker," the "Dyer,"
the "Salt-man," the "Female Weavers," the "Rascal"; other pieces
give sketches of character, as the "Forgetful," the "Braggart,"
the "Man of 100,000