Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/336

314 314 HISTORY OF THE songs exclusively in connexion with commi, and bring forward only a few single voices out of the whole chorus* When the chorus enters the orchestra, not with a song of many voices, sung in regular rows, hut in broken ranks, with a song executed in different parts, the choral ode consists of two portions ; first, one resembling a commos, which accompanies this irregular entrance ; and, secondly, one like a stasimon, which the chorus does not execute till it has fallen into its regular order. Examples are to be found in the Eumenides of iEschylus and the CEdipus Coloneus of Sophocles.t The tragedians have also inter- spersed separate smaller choral songs, which the ancients expressly dis- tinguish from the stasima,J and which are properly designated by the word Hyporchemes ; § songs which depict an enthusiastic state of feel- ing, and were united with expressive animated dances, of a kind very different from the ordinary grave Emmeleia. They are frequently used by Sophocles in suitable places, to mark a strong but transitory sentiment.H On the other hand, lyrical parts were sometimes allotted to the persons of the drama : these were in general called ano aKrjyiJQ, and were either distributed into dialogues or delivered by single per- formers. Long airs of this sort, called Monodies, in which one person, generally the protagonist of the drama, abandons himself, without restraint, to his emotions, form a principal feature in the tragedies of Euripides. 1 ^ As the regular return of fixed musical modes and rhythms was not reconcileable with the free utterance and almost uncon- trollable current of such passionate outpourings, the antistrophe gra- dually disappeared, and the almost infinitely irregular rhythmical struc- tures (called cnroXeXvuh'a), in the style of the later dithyrambics, came into use. The artificial system of regular forms, to which Greek art (and more particularly that of the earlier periods) completely subjected the expression of feeling and passion, was here completely swept away by the torrent of human affections and desires, and a kind of natural freedom was established. As to what regards the detail of rhythmical forms, it is sufficient for ■f In the Eumenides of iEschylus, the expression xooov a^cafii.iv,v. 307, denotes this regular disposition of the chorus. X Schol. Soph. Trach. 205. Similar odes in Aj. 693. Phil. 391. 827. § "Which occurs in Tzetzes, ss-sji r^uyturi; Kotiffiuis, in Cramer Anecd. Vol. iii. p. 346. bling the commos, since in the latter the entire chorus could hardly have joined in the song and dance. In the commatic odes in the Seven against Thebes of iEschylus, especially in the first, v. 78 — 181, a dancer named Tekstes (probably as leader of the chorus) represented, by means of mimic dances, the scenes of war described in the poetry, Atheu. 1. p. 22. A. ^[ Aristophanes says of him, that he unr^iQiv (thv rgoi.yo?b'ia.v) ^ovuhlais, V^n^mo^utToi. piyw; ; Cephisophon being his chief actor. Ran. 944. cf. 874.
 * As in Soph. (Ed. Col. 117, sqq. Eurip. Ion. 184, sqq.
 * The hyporchemes, however, can scarcely he distinguished from the songs resem-