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128 the Dogs, or No-man's-Land?""You're sure you're going straight to Hell?" asks the cautious traveller. "Certainly—to oblige you." So Bacchus steps into the boat, begging Charon to be very careful, for it seems very small and crank, as Hercules had warned him. But Charon carries no slaves—Xanthias must run round and meet them on the other side. The god takes his place at the oar, at the ferryman's bidding (but in very awkward "form," as a modern oarsman would term it), to work his passage across: and an invisible Chorus of Frogs, who give their name to the piece—the "Swans of the Marsh," as Charon calls them—chant their discordant music, in which, nevertheless, occur some very graceful lines, to the time of the stroke. It must be remembered that the oldest temple of Bacchus—the Lenæan—was known as that "In the Marsh," and it was there that the festival was held at which this piece was brought forward.

The chant of the Frogs dies away in the distance, and the scene changes to the other side of the infernal lake, where Xanthias was to await the arrival of his master. It does not seem likely that any means could have been adopted for darkening a stage which was nearly five hundred feet broad, and open to the sky: but it is plain that much of the humour of the following scene depends upon its being supposed to take place more or less in the dark. Probably the darkness was conventional, and only by grace of the audience—as indeed must be the case to some extent even in a modern theatre.