Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/229

 by individual characterisation. Only one of Sophocles' extant plays derives its name from the chorus—the Trachiniæ; and here, in marked contrast with the Suppliants of Æschylus, the figures of Hercules and Deianira keep the chorus completely in the background. The dialogue, the true medium of character-drawing, was now being developed by the increased number of actors. If a third actor had been introduced in the Agamemnon, Choëphorœ, and Eumenides of Æschylus (his other extant tragedies are constructed for two actors), all the plays of Sophocles are adapted for three actors, excepting the Œdipus at Colonus, which could not be acted without the introduction of a fourth; and, with this increase of actors, dialogue was narrowing the domain of choral song. This reduction of the choral element in the Athenian drama is easily seen by comparing the proportion of the entire play assigned to the chorus in the tragedies of Sophocles with the proportion so assigned by Æschylus. In Sophocles' Œdipus Rex a little more than one fourth of the play is assigned to the chorus; in his Antigone a little less than one fourth; in his Ajax a little more than one fifth; in his Œdipus at Colonus a little less than one fifth; in his Trachiniæ one sixth; and in his Electra and Philoctetes about one seventh. Thus, using the extant plays of Sophocles as the basis of calculation and allowing for some uncertainty in the choral lines, we may say that on the average he assigned about one fifth of his play to the chorus. But, on examining the extant plays of Æschylus, we find that more than one half of the Suppliants is assigned to the chorus; that somewhat less than one half is so assigned in the Agamemnon, Seven against Thebes, Persæ, Choëphorœ, and Eumenides; and that in the Prometheus alone does the proportion sink so low