CORRESPONDENCE.

APOLLO AND MARSYAS : A SUGGESTION FOR NIJIN SKY.

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."'

SIR,—In the great audience that watched Nijinsky bring Faunas and the Nymphs to Covent Garden, and saw the figures of a Grecian urn come to life beneath the all-creating touch of his genius, there must have been many men to whom there came thoughts and suggestions for further and newer developments to which the perfection of that ines- timable art might be applied. His Faun was a strange and wayward thing, a woodland creature of clumsy graces and shy and embarrassed nobilities of action. But while the master showed us that, like the Satyr in " The Faithful Shepherdess," he could come trotting across green lawns and pad his hoofs upon spongy moss as well as bound, the very creature and delight of air, beneath enraptured eyes, une longed to see him add to his appeal the emotions that centre in some high story already made famous in the arts of verse and stone. Let mo take one thought that the Faun's dance-pageant struck from me. Why should not Nijinsky interpret for us through the dance that most romantic of classic legends, the story of Apollo and Marsyas Ic'—

" That triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, That famous final victory."

This idyll of the uplands is made for the dance, and no doubt had its first interpretation on some mountain village green, " roofed by blue Ionian weather." Matthew Arnold's impassioned setting of the tale gives suggestions not only for the master of the dance, but also for the scene painter and the scene setter.

" When, from far Parnassus side, Young Apollo, all the pride

Of the Phrygian flutes to tame, To the Phrygian highlands came. Where the long green reed-beds sway In the rippled waters grey

Of that solitary lake

Where Maeander's springs are born, Where the ridg'd pine-darkened roots Of Messogis westward break,

Mounting westward, high and higher, There was held the famous strife ; There the Phrygian brought his flutes And Apollo brought his lyre, And, when now the westering sun Touched the hills, the strife was done, And the attentive Muses said, `Marsyas, thou art vanquished,'"

Why should not Apollo, like the Faun at Covent Garden, flute as well as dance P Let the first movement of the ballet show the Phrygian men and maids assembling and dancing their dance of challenge and defiance. Then let Apollo and his train sweep in to take up the challenge. The rivals would pipe as they danced and the Muses judge the contest. How exquisite would be the dance of triumph by Apollo's followers, while all the time his " minister " whetted the knife which was to flay the unhappy Faun. Then would begin the dance of the Maenads to implore mercy from Apollo for their friend. The simple emotions of woe and supplication lend themselveS to the mazes of the ballet.

" But the Maenads, who were there, LeNtheir-fiiend, and wiilifobee flowing In the'wind, and laOse dark hisir • O'er their pOlished boioniii blotting, Each her ribboned tambourine Flinging on the mountain sod, With a lovely frightened mien Came about the youthful God."

Think how the arms of the Maenads would rise and wave in an agony of imploration, and how they would

"Hush the torrent-tongued ravines With thunders of their tambourines."

Nijinsky in " The Faun" has shown us how the beauty of repose and of still motion, if one may use the phrase, can be con- veyed by the prostrate figure. Apollo would give him an even better opportunity as he dismissed the plea of the Nymphs :— " But he turned his beauteous face Haughtily another way, From the grassy sun-warmed place, Where in proud repose he lay, With one arm above his head, Watching how the whetting sped."

If this would not afford enough matter for a May evening at Covent Garden, Matthew Arnold's noem gives another suggestion. There might be a preluding movement to the main dance, in which we should see the young Olympus being taught by the Faun to dance and sing, and being encouraged to tread the measures of the Phrygian maids :—

" For the Faun had been his friend.

For he taught him how to sing, And he taught him flute-playing.

Many a morning had they gone To the glimmering mountain lakes, And had torn up by the roots The tall crested water reeds

With long plumes, and soft brown seeds,

And had carved them into flutes,

Sitting on a tabled stone Where the shoreward ripple breaks.

And he taught him how to please The red-snooded Phrygian girls,

Whom the summer evening sees

Flashing in the dance's whirls Underneath the starlit trees

In the mountain villages.

Therefore now Olympus stands, At his master's piteous cries,

Pressing fast with both his hands

His white garment to his eyes, Not to see Apollo's scorn. Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun ! Alt, poor Faun."

What happy chances the lines give a scene painter capable of imbibing the inspiration of Claude Lorrain at his beet or of some of the late Italian painters when, as sometimes happened, the truer note of classicism graced their canvases. Domenichino's picture of " Apollo and Hyacinthus," of which Pater was so fond, shows us for foreground a mountain

meadow :—

"But above the river issued From a deep and wooded gully."

It is the very setting for the ballet of " Apollo and Nampa."

But though "Apollo and Marsyas" seems to lend itself specially to the genius of Nijinsky and those of his colleagues who have so largely imbibed the spirit of the Grecian urn, there are hundreds of other classical and pseudo-classical stories upon which he could draw. One has got to go no farther than another of the scenes in "Empedocles on Etna* to find a fit subject. The song of Callicles describing the visit to the " still vale of Thisbe" of Apollo and the Muses would form an enchanting episode. Or might not the whole poem become a ballet ? As Empedocles treads the way to death, each stage might be marked by a Theocritean dance. How- ever, I must be content with my one specific suggestion that Nijinsky should subdue the story of Apollo and Mangan and the Nymphs to the art in which he works.

By the way, might he not find some suggestions in Flazman's mighty line P But unless I am mistaken there is a nearer fountain. Is there not a Greek bas-relief of the whole scene in the British Museum from which inspiration might be drawn