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Hence-forth, he was more thought of as a profound poet than as the greatest of mimes, jesters, and punsters. The lyrics of the poor saved him from imminent injustice. All that we have further to say of these lyrics is to express our admiration as to the classical finish of their diction, and as to the wild, sweet, and strange music in their sadly sounding measures.
Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their condor wings Invisible Wo! That motley drama! oh, be sure It shall not be forgot!
It was scarcely noticeable at that time even among tillers of the earth. Not to put too fine a point upon it, we were a tinselled lot of mimes, greatly given to apishness, and shunning naked truth as though it were the plague.
He works far into the night, takes little or no exercise, and avoids "that dance of mimes" the life of society. By hard reading he keeps himself abreast of knowledge in almost every one of its multitudinous departments and will go a long journey to hear a scientific lecture or to take part in a philosophical discussion.
Apt nicknames and short commonplaces which were easily retained and applied were welcome; but every piece of nonsense was of itself privileged; in this preposterous world Bacchus is applied to for water and the fountain-nymph for wine. Isolated examples even of the political allusions formerly so strictly prohibited in the Roman theatre are found in these mimes.
The character of the people, too, was attuned to poetry. The Dorian settlers had kept alive the magic of rivers, of pools where the Nereids dance, and uplands haunted by Pan. This popular poetry influenced the literary verse of Sicily. The songs of Stesichorus, a minstrel of the early period, and the little rural 'mimes' or interludes of Sophron are lost, and we have only fragments of Epicharmus.
And mimes and bards and encomiasts, versed in singing and legendary lore, waited upon the kings, and chanted their praises and genealogies. And the matrons of the Matsyas of symmetrical bodies and limbs, and wearing ear-rings of pearls and gems, headed by Sudeshna, came to the place where the marriage knot was to be tied.
The latter when dictator, by an imperial request, compelled Laberius, a Roman knight, to appear publicly in his own Mimes, although the scenic employment was branded with the loss of civil rights. Laberius complained of this in a prologue, which is still extant, and in which the painful feeling of annihilated self-respect is nobly and affectingly expressed.
This unhandsome act blemished his gift so much that he seemed to reap hatred for it instead of thanks. Thus he used never to be generous to any respectable man, but to spend all his bounty upon mimes and jugglers. For so base a fellow was bound to keep friendly company with the base, and such a slough of vices to wheedle his partners in sin with pandering endearments.
It writhes! it writhes! with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. Out out are the lights out all: And over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm And the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero, the conqueror Worm.
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