Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/455

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styled Nata, literally 'dancer.' Etymology thus points to the fact that the drama has developed out of dancing, which was probably accompanied, at first with music and song only, but in course of time also with pantomimic representations, processions, and dialogue."

And though, himself offering another interpretation, he quotes Lassen to the effect that

"The Indian drama, after having acquitted itself brilliantly in the most varied fields—notably too as a drama of civil life—finally reverted in its closing phases to essentially the same class of subjects with which it had started—to representations from the story of the gods."

Greek history yields various facts of like meaning. In Sparta

"The singing chorus danced around it ['the sacrifice. . . burning on the altar'] in the customary ring; while others represented the subject of the song by mimic gesture."

That the drama had a religious origin is shown by the fact that it continued always to have a religious character. Says Moulton—"the performance of every drama was regarded by the ancients as an act of worship to Dionysus." And to like effect is the statement of Mahaffy that—"the old Greek went to the theater to honor and serve his god." The dramatic element of religious ceremonies was at first mingled with the other elements, as is implied by Grote, who speaks of the importance of the united religious celebrants—

"in the 'ancient' world, and especially in the earlier periods of its career—the bards and rhapsodes for the epic, the singers for the lyric, the actors and singers jointly with the dancers for the chorus and drama. The lyric and dramatic poets taught with their own lips the delivery of their compositions."

The process of differentiation by which the drama arose is well shown by the following extracts from Moulton:—

"Only one of these Ballad-Dances was destined to develop into drama. This was the Dithyramb, the dance used in the festival worship of the god Dionysus.

". . . the 'mysteries' of ancient religion were mystic dramas in which the divine story was conveyed."

"The chorus started from the altar in the center of the orchestra, and their evolutions took them to the right. This would constitute a Strophe, whereupon (as the word 'Strophe' implies) they turned round and in the Antistrophe worked their way back to the altar again."

In lyric tragedy "the Chorus appears as Satyrs in honor of Dionysus, to whose glory the legend is a tribute; they maintain throughout the combination of chant, music, and dance."

"The work of Thespis was to introduce an 'actor,' separate altogether from the chorus."

That along with differentiation of the drama from other social products there went differentiation of the dramatist and the actor from other persons and from one another, may fairly be inferred, however little able we may be to trace the process. Already, by