17　古希腊戏剧

戏剧是最早的公众娱乐形式，它是如何起源的

在希腊历史的早期，古希腊人就开始收集诗歌。他们创作诗歌，是为了颂扬勇敢的祖先把佩拉斯吉人赶出古希腊，并毁灭了特洛伊。这些诗歌在公共场合诵读，每个人都来聆听。但戏剧这种艺术形式，作为我们现代生活中不可或缺的重要组成部分，却并不是为传颂这些英雄故事而产生的。它有着不可思议的起源，为此我会专门用一章的篇幅讲给你们。

古希腊人一直喜欢游行。他们每年都会举行庄严的游行活动，纪念酒神狄奥尼索斯。人人都要喝酒（古希腊人认为水只是用来游泳和航行的），所以你可以想象这位特殊的神是如何大受欢迎的。

由于大家认为酒神应该住在葡萄园，和一群快乐的萨梯（半人半羊的怪物）在一起，所以参加游行的人群通常披羊皮，学羊叫。在希腊语中，羊读成“tragos”，歌手读成“oidos”。因此，像羊一样咩咩叫的歌手是羊歌手“tragos-oidos”。就是这个奇怪的名字，演变成了今天的“悲剧”一词。从戏剧角度来说，

sense a piece with an unhappy ending, just as Comedy（which really means the singing of something “comos” or gay）is the name given to a play which ends happily.

But how, you will ask, did this noisy chorus of masqueraders, stamping around like wild goats, ever develop into the noble tragedies which have filled the theatres of the world for almost two thousand years?

The connecting link between the goat-singer and Hamlet is really very simple as I shall show you in a moment.

The singing chorus was very amusing in the beginning and attracted large crowds of spectators who stood along the side of the road and laughed. But soon this business of hee-hawing grew tiresome and the Greeks thought dullness an evil only comparable to ugliness or sickness. They asked for something more entertaining. Then an inventive young poet from the village of Icaria in Attica hit upon a new idea which proved a tremendous success. He made one of the members of the goat-chorus step forward and engage in conversation with the leader of the musicians who marched at the head of the parade playing upon their pipes of Pan. This individual was allowed to step out of line. He waved his arms and gesticulated while he spoke（that is to say he “acted” while the others merely stood by and sang）and he asked a lot of questions, which the bandmaster answered according to the roll of papyrus upon which the poet had written down these answers before the show began.

This rough and ready conversation—the dialogue—which told the story of Dionysos or one of the other Gods, became at once popular with the crowd. Henceforth every Dionysian procession had an “acted scene” and very soon the “acting” was considered more important than the procession and the meh-mehing.

Æschylus, the most successful of all “tragedians” who wrote no less than eighty plays

这个词指的是有悲惨结尾的戏剧。就好比喜剧（它的真正含义是为高兴的事情而歌唱），因戏剧有快乐的结局而得名。

你或许会问，化装成羊那样又跳又叫的嘈杂的合唱，是怎么发展成为占据世界舞台近2000年的高尚悲剧的呢？

接下来，我要告诉你，羊歌手和《哈姆雷特》之间的联系其实非常简单。

合唱刚开始很有趣，吸引了路边的观众，并让他们开怀大笑。但不久，学羊叫的绝活就令人厌烦了。古希腊人把乏味看成一种邪恶，仅次于丑陋和疾病。他们希望合唱更有趣一些。这时，阿提卡地区的伊卡里亚村诞生了一位富有创造力的年轻诗人。他想出了一个新主意，并取得了巨大成功。他让羊合唱队走在游行队伍的前面，吹着潘神的笛子，再派一个队员到前面去与队长交谈。派出的队员可以走出队列，边说话，边挥动臂膀，摆出各种姿势（那就是说，当别人只是站着唱歌时，这个队员还要“表演”），而且还要问许多问题。队长会根据这位诗人事先写在莎草纸卷上的答案来回答。

这种简单的交谈——对话，讲的是狄奥尼索斯或其他神的故事。这种表演很快受到群众的欢迎。此后，每场狄奥尼索斯游行都有“表演”。没多久，“表演”就变得比游行和学羊叫更重要了。

埃斯库罗斯是最优秀的“悲剧作家”之一，他一生中（主要是公元前526～前455年）写了至少80个剧本。他勇敢地把戏剧向前推进了一步，把演员从一个变成两个。后来，索福克勒斯又把演员增加到三个。公元前5世纪中期，欧里庇得斯开

during his long life（from 526 to 455）made a bold step forward when he introduced two “actors” instead of one. A generation later Sophocles increased the number of actors to three. When Euripides began to write his terrible tragedies in the middle of the fifth century B.C, he was allowed as many actors as he liked and when Aristophanes wrote those famous comedies in which he poked fun at everybody and everything, including the Gods of Mount Olympus, the chorus had been reduced to the rôle of mere bystanders who were lined up behind the principal performers and who sang “this is a terrible world” while the hero in the foreground committed a crime against the will of the Gods.

This new form of dramatic entertainment demanded a proper setting, and soon every Greek city owned a theatre, cut out of the rock of a nearby hill. The spectators sat upon wooden benches and faced a wide circle（our present orchestra where you pay three dollars and thirty cents for a seat）.Upon this half-circle, which was the stage, the actors and the chorus took their stand. Behind them there was a tent where they made up with large clay masks which hid their faces and which showed the spectators whether the actors were supposed to be happy and smiling or unhappy and weeping. The Greek word for tent is “skene” and that is the reason why we talk of the “scenery” of the stage.

When once the tragedy had become part of Greek life, the people took it very seriously and never went to the theatre to give their minds a vacation. A new play became as important an event as an election and a successful playwright was received with greater honors than those bestowed upon a general who had just returned from a famous victory.

始创作他那震撼人心的悲剧时，他想用多少演员都可以。之后的阿里斯托芬创作了一些著名的喜剧，在剧中嘲笑很多人和事，包括奥林匹斯山的神灵。这时，合唱队已沦落到旁观者的位置，被安排在主要演员的后面，当前台主角“犯下罪行、亵渎神的意愿”时，由他们唱“这是一个可怕的世界”。

这种新的戏剧娱乐形式需要一个适当的场地。不久，每个古希腊城邦都拥有一个剧院。剧院是从附近山岩中开凿出来的。观众坐在木椅上，前面是一个宽大的圆圈（就是我们现在的乐队席，你可以付3美元30美分得到一个座位）。这个半圆形的场地就是舞台，演员与合唱队就在这里表演。他们后面有一个帐篷，是用来化装的地方。演员戴上很大的泥面具，以便告诉观众，角色是在高兴、微笑，还是忧愁、哭泣。在古希腊语中，帐篷读作“skene”，那就是为什么我们把舞台布景称为“scenery”的原因。

一旦古希腊人把悲剧看成生活的一部分，他们就会把它看得很严肃，去剧院也就不再是放松和娱乐了。一部新剧的上演如同选举一样，是重要的大事。与凯旋的将军相比，成功的剧作家会得到更多的荣耀。