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294 ™E GREAT GOD PAN
explosives. They had the power to turn the people against the Emperor, and they were known to be afraid of nothing. Two clowns were executed by the Emperor Tiberius for mimicking him, and so bringing his rule into jeopardy. The court jesters of the middle ages were sometimes roped to the throne by little golden chairs, perhaps for fear they might escape and jest before the people. Dimly, it was recognised that they possessed powers denied to the Emperor. They were closer to the sources of life. They spoke when they spoke at all— for mostly they claimed a prodigious indifference, and were silent for long periods— only at moments of illumination, and so they were cousins to the sybils, who lived mysteriously in caves and uttered prophecies over braziers. The Emperor was thought to have absolute power over the empire, but he knew with one word, with one laugh pitched to the exact pitch, the clown could destroy the kingdom, as a singer will destroy a wineglass. It has never happened, of course, but it is conceivable that it might happen: in the totalitarian states comedians may never approach a live microphone. The dangers and triumphs of comedy are very real, and they are especially real in totalitarian times. The opposite of the dictator is the clown. Between them there can be no peace; hence Chaplin's dilemma when he attempted to play both roles. Because he is the opposite of the dictator the clown is dedicated to playing a heroic role, perhaps the most heroic of all, for since his moral function is to remind us of our common humanity and take delight in it, he is the enemy of bureaucracy equally, of all the pigeonholes into which governments, acknowledging their incompetence to deal with human beings, attempt to squeeze us. Secretly the clown rules. More than the poet he is the unacknowledged legislator of our lives, and we may thank God that this is so. Out of the nettle danger he plucks a sense of our real humanity each for the other. There was a time when this was called morality.
The achievement of Chaplin was a singularly moral