Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/423

401 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 401 end of the scene while the characters are changing their dress : they only serve to finish off the separate scenes, without attempting to awaken that collected thought and tranquillity of mind which the tragic stasima were designed to produce. Deficiencies of this kind in its choral songs, comedy compensated in a very peculiar manner hy its jmrabasis. The parabasis, which Avas an address of the chorus in the middle of the comedy, obviously originated in those phallic traits, to which the whole entertainment was due ; it was not originally a constituent part of comedy, hut improved and worked out according to rules of art. The chorus, which up to that point had kept its place between the thymele and the stage, and had stood with its face to the stage, made an evolution, and proceeded in files towards the theatre, in the narrower sense of the word ; that is, towards the place of the spectators. This is the proper parabasis, which usually consisted of anapaestic tetrameters, occasionally mixed up with other long verses ; it began with a short opening song, (in anapaestic or trochaic verse,) which was called kommalion, and ended with a very long and protracted anapaestic system, which, from its trial of the breath, was called -pnigos (also makrori). In this parabasis the poet makes his chorus speak of his own poetical affairs, of the object and end of his productions, of his services to the state, of his relation to his rivals, and so forth. If the parabasis is complete, in the wider sense of the word, this is followed by a second piece, which is properly the main point, and to which the anapaests only serve as an introduction. The chorus, namely, sings a lyrical poem, generally a song of praise in honour of some god, and then recites, in trochaic verses, (of which there should, regularly, be sixteen,) some joking complaint, some reproach against the city, some witty sally against the people, with more or less reference to the leading subject of the play: this is called the epirrhema, or " -what is said in addition." Both pieces, the lyrical strophe and the epirrhema, are repeated antistrophically. It is clear, that the lyrical piece, with its antistrophe, arose from the phallic song ; and the epi f- rhema, with its antepirrhema, from the gibes with which the chorus of revellers assailed the first persons they met. It was natural, as the parabasis came in the middle of the whole comedy, that, instead of these jests directed against individuals, a conception more significant, and more interesting to the public at large, should be substituted for them ; while the gibes against individuals, suitable to the original nature of comedy, though without any reference to the connexion of the piece, might be put in the mouth of the chorus whenever occasion served.* As the parabasis completely interrupts the action of the comic drama, in the Bird*, 1470-1493, 1553-1565, 1694-1705. We must not trouble ourselves with seeking a connexion between th e verses and other parts. In fact, it needed but the slightest suggestion of the memory to occasion such sallies as these. 2 D
 * Sucli parts are found in the Acharnians,v. 114:5-117-1, in the Wasps, 1265-1291,