Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/312

 286 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF CERTAIN torial mountain could speak tlirougli the mask. No protagonist could have been expected to submit to the restraint of such an at- titude throughout the whole of the play, to say nothing of the catastrophe at the end, when the rocks fall asunder, and Prome- theus is dashed down into Tartarus ^ Vulcan and his attendants leave the balcony by one of the doors in the SicrTeyia which lead to it (v. 87), and Prometheus is left alone till the entrance of the chorus indicated by the anapaests recited by him (vv. 120 sqq.). A question arises, whether the chorus, which comes through the air, borne on clouds, like Minerva in the Eumemdes (cf. v. 135 with Eumen. 405), and which must have appeared at first on the balcony, remains there throughout the play 2, or descends to its proper place in the orchestra at v. 277, where their anapaests indicate a movement on their part. We have no hesitation in adopting the latter view of the case, for the fol- lowing reasons. (1) The balcony would not suffice for the regular evolutions of a chorus, which in this, as in other plays, has to per- form antistrophic songs. (2) As Oceanus appears in the same way and from the same side as the chorus, there would be no room for both of the machines on the balcony. (3) A Greek play in which the chorus never entered the orchestra would be an unparalleled soloecism. If it is urged on the contrary that Prometheus on the top of the rock would be too distant to converse with the chorus at the thymele, it may be answered that the audience are still more distant, and yet they are supposed to hear all his words. And if reference is made to the warning of Mercury (v. 1060), lieTo. irov X'^P^'^T^ ^i^ rujude tSttcjv flT] (ppivas V/J.WV 7]L9lU}(Tri ^pOJ^TTJS fJLiJKTJfM'' cLTepafxyou, as showing that they must have been near Prometheus, we reply that it indicates, on the contrary, that they were not within the immediate sphere of the danger, for he would not have used the plural TOTTcov in that case, and he would have indicated even a worse risk than that of losing their senses owing to the crash of the thunder. But although the chorus must be placed in the orchestra, all the 1 Schomann, des ^sckylos gefesselter Prometheus, p. 87, believes that Pz'ometheus was represented by an actor throughout the play. 2 This is Schonborn's opinion, p. 292.