"David Hume - Of Tragedy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

pitch as converts it into a pleasure. We weep for the
misfortune of a hero, to whom we are attached. In the same
instant we comfort ourselves, by reflecting, that it is
nothing but a fiction: And it is precisely that mixture of
sentiments, which composes an agreeable sorrow, and tears that
delight us. But as that affliction, which is caused by
exterior and sensible objects, is stronger than the
consolation which arises from an internal reflection, they are
the effects and symptoms of sorrow, that ought to predominate
in the composition.'

This solution seems just and convincing; but perhaps it wants
still some new addition, in order to make it answer fully the
phaenomenon, which we here examine. All the passions, excited
by eloquence, are agreeable in the highest degree, as well as
those which are moved by painting and the theatre. The
epilogues of Cicero are, on this account chiefly, the delight
of every reader of taste; and it is difficult to read some of
them without the deepest sympathy and sorrow. His merit as an
orator, no doubt, depends much on his success in this
particular. When he had raised tears in his judges and all his
audience, they were then the most highly delighted, and
expressed the greatest satisfaction with the pleader. The
pathetic description of the butchery, made by Verres of the
Sicilian captains, is a masterpiece of this kind: But I
believe none will affirm, that the being present at a
melancholy scene of that nature would afford any
entertainment. Neither is the sorrow here softened by fiction:
For the audience were convinced of the reality of every
circumstance. What is it then, which in this case raises a
pleasure from the bosom of uneasiness, so to speak; and a
pleasure, which still retains all the features and outward
symptoms of distress and sorrow?

I answer: This extraordinary effect proceeds from that very
eloquence, with which the melancholy scene is represented. The
genius required to paint objects in a lively manner, the art
employed in collecting all the pathetic circumstances, the
judgment displayed in disposing them: the exercise, I say, of
these noble talents, together with the force of expression,
and beauty of oratorial numbers, diffuse the highest
satisfaction on the audience, and excite the most delightful
movements. By this means, the uneasiness of the melancholy
passions is not only overpowered and effaced by something
stronger of an opposite kind; but the whole impulse of those
passions is converted into pleasure, and swells the delight
which the eloquence raises in us. The same force of oratory,
employed on an uninteresting subject, would not please half so
much, or rather would appear altogether ridiculous; and the
mind, being left in absolute calmness and indifference, would