Page:Euripides and his age.djvu/213

Rh persist: "the prologue is rather dull. It does not arrest the attention, like, for instance, the opening scenes of Macbeth or Julius Caesar or Romeo and Juliet." No; it does not. Shakespeare, one may suppose, had a somewhat noisy audience, all talking among themselves and not disposed to listen till their attention was captured by force. The Greek audience was, as far as we can make out, sitting in a religious silence. A prayer had been offered and incense burnt on the altar of Dionysus, and during such a ritual the rule enjoined silence. It was not necessary for the Greek poet to capture his audience by a scene of bustle or excitement. And this left him free to do two things, both eminently characteristic of Greek art. He could make his atmosphere and he could build up his drama from the ground.

Let us take the question of building first. If you study a number of modern plays, you will probably find that their main "effects" are produced in very different places, though especially of course at the fall of each curtain. A good Greek play moves almost always in a curve of steadily increasing tension—increasing up to the last scene but one and then, as a rule, sinking into a note of solemn calm. It often admits a quiet scene about the middle