Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/358

 50 Asimts m TegtiHs.

magic, as we have already seen. Nevertheless, there are a certain number of indications, some of the most remarkable- being from Tragedy.

The deus ex fnachina is a familiar and well-worn device, particularly in Euripides, and we know too httle of the stage-setting in his age to say exactly where the gods appeared. But the text of two plays {Andromache, 1228;: Rhesos, 886) tells us that they were supposed to float in the air, from which it is not unreasonable to conclude that they appeared in this way in those plays whose text does not guide us (as Soph. Phil., where see Jebb's note on 1409,. Eur. Suppl.). In two pieces, the Ion and Elektra of Euri- pides, the god is described as being over the building,, palace or temple, which formed the backscene.^ So far we may be dealing with no more than a stage convention, a piece of machinery fastened near the top of the skene. But two passages show us something which smacks rather of popular belief, splendidly used by the dramatist. Aes- chylus 2 rnakes Kassandra have a vision of the murdered children of Thyestes sitting on the roof of the palace of Atreus their slayer. Here we have ghosts pure and simple,, and, what is of some importance, subjective phantoms,, seen by none but Kassandra, and therefore not represented to the audience. This is the poet's free imagination, not a convention imposed upon him by the stage-mechanic. Euripides takes us a step further, hi The Madness of Herakles, the chorus not only see the form of Lyssa, the demon of insanity, escorted by Iris, above the house, but hear the fiend say, " All unseen I stoop and plunge me into Herakles' abode " [H.F. 875, e? S6jui.ovg ijiueh acpai'TOi Svcrofxea-O' 'Hpa/cAe'of?). We gather, then, that through the roof was a recognised way for a hostile spiritual

1 Ion. 1550, El. 1233.

^ Agam. 1217, bpoLTe TovaSe Toi'i 86fxoit erptj/jLeyovs \ veovs, ovflpwv irpoacpepels /iop<pwfiaffi, " Lo, mark ye there upon the palace-roof ? | young children, dim as visions of a dream."