Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/294

 268 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF long anapsestic system, termed Trvlyo^ ("sufFocation"), or fiaKpov ("long"), from the effort which its delivery imposed upon the reciter. In the extant remains of Greek lyric poetry, those parts of the epinikia of Pindar, which allude to the professional rivalries and literary pretensions of the poet, are the nearest approximations to this function of the choral comus. The parabasis is often fol- lowed by a lyrical song in honour of some divinity, and this by a short system, properly of sixteen trochaic tetrameters, which is called the epirrhema or " supplement." The French would term it Venvoi. It contains some joking addition to the main purport of the parahasis. The lyric poem generally consisted of strophe and antistrophe; and the epirrhema had its antepirrhema. These di- visions confirm the supposition that the lyric poem was derived from the mutual XotSoplai of the Phallic singers, and the eptrrhema from the interchange of ribaldry in which the comus indulged. There were regularly never more than three actors (viroKpLTai, drycovicTTaL), who, as we have seen, were designated as respectively the Jirst, secondy and third actor [irpcora^wvLaTrj^;, SevTeparycovt(TT^<;, TpiTaycovLo-rr)';^). The third actor in Tragedy was first added by Sophocles 2; and it is said that Cratinus was the first to make this addition in Comedy 3. Any number of mutes might appear on the stage. If children were introduced as speaking or singing on the stage, the part was undertaken by one of the chorus, who stood behind the scene, and it was therefore called a irapa- (TicrjVLoVy from his position, or 7rapa')(opr)y7)[ia^ from its being some- thing beyond the proper functions of the chorus"*. It has been concluded^ that a fourth actor was indispensable to the proper performance of the CEdipus Coloneus, But we cannot admit that this innovation was necessary in the particular case^, and in all ^ Above, pp. 54, 2x6. 2 Above, p. I20. . 3 Anonym, de Comoedia, p. xxxii. ^ Pollux, IV, § 109, says that it was irapacrK-fiviov if one of the chorus said any- thing in a song instead of a fourth actor (above, p. 234), but irapaxop-nynixa el rerap- Tos viroKpLT-q^ Ti irapa^d^y^aiTo ; and he cites the Agamemnon of vEschylus for the former, and the Memnon of the same poet for the latter. See C. F. Hermann, Disput. de Distrihut. Personarum in Trag. Greeds, Marburg, 1840, pp. 39, 40, 64, 66, 5 By Miiller, Hist. Lit. Or. i, p. 305. ^ The difficulty raised by Miiller, namely, that the part of Theseus must have been divided between two actors, if there were only three in all, does not seem to be a very formidable one. The mask and the uniformity of tragic declamation would make it as easy for two actors to represent one part, as for one actor to sustain several characters.