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22 AKCIENT GREECE. [CHAP . xv,and should never depart from the gravity, which is as itwere the colouring of the world of heroes. In this consiststhe tragic part of the drama. But though the final eventwas in itself indifferent, the poets naturally preferred subjectsin which it was unfortunate for the chief personages. In suchthe tragic interest was the greatest the; catastrophe the mostfearful ;the effect least uncertain. A tragic issue suited bestthe whole character of the kind of poetry.The tragicdrama could have but few points of relationwith the state. The political world which was here exhibitedwas entirely different from the actual one of the times ; theforms of monarchy alone were introduced on the stage.The same remark, therefore, which has been made respectingthe epic,is true also of the tragic poetry of the Greeks.The violent commotions in the ancient royal families, andtheir extinction, were not represented to make them objectsof contempt or hatred, and to quicken the spirit of republicanism ;but solely because no other actions equally possessedthe sublimity of the tragic character. But the moral effectswhich were produced by these representations may havebeen politically important. Whilst the Grecian continuedto live in the heroic world, that elevation of mind could not sowell disappear, which isseen so frequently in the acts of thenation. If Homer and the epic poetsfirst raised its spiritto the sublimity belonging to it,the tragic poets did muchto preserve that elevated tone. And if this elevated spiritformed the strengthof the state, they have as stronga claimto immortality, as the military commanders and the leadersof the people.Comedy was more closely allied to the state ;as we maypresuppose from the circumstance, that it had relation to thepresent and not to the past.We have explainedit above to1be the parody of the present, that is, of the contemporarypublic condition, in the sense in which the Greeks understand this expression. Private life, as such, was never thel^A. W. Schlegel, in his work on Dramatic Literature and Art, i. p. 271, considers the characteristic of comedy to have been, that it was a parody of tragedy. It certainly was so very frequently, and thus far his remark is correct.Tragedy was a part of the public life; the parody of tragedy was therefore afit subject for the comic stage and;the relation between the tragic and comicpoets was such, that the latter were naturally fond of ridiculing the former.The readers of Aristophanes know this. Yet we must be very careful howwe thus confine the range of comedy. It was not essentially a parody.