But, besides the _cothurnus_, you have heard of the mask. So far as
it was fitted to swell the intonations of the voice, you are of opinion
that this mask would be a happy contrivance; for what, you say, could a
common human voice avail against the vast radiation from the actor's
centre of more than three myriads? If, indeed (like the Homeric Stentor),
an actor spoke in point of loudness, (Greek Text), as much as other fifty,
then he might become audible to the assembled Athenians without aid. But
this being impossible, art must be invoked; and well if the mask, together
with contrivances of another class, could correct it. Yet if it could,
still you think that this mask would bring along with it an overbalancing
evil. For the expression, the fluctuating expression, of the features, the
play of the muscles, the music of the eye and of the lips,--aids to acting
that, in our times, have given immortality to scores, whither would those
have vanished? Reader, it mortifies me that all which I said to you upon
the peculiar and separate grandeur investing the Greek theatre is
forgotten. For, you must consider, that where a theatre is built for
receiving upwards of thirty thousand spectators, the curve described by
what in modern times you would call the tiers of boxes, must be so vast as
to make the ordinary scale of human features almost ridiculous by
disproportion.
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