Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/34

20 mount upon a small platform, and carry on a dialogue with the other members of the chorus. Hence we may fairly conclude that the speeches inserted by Arion consisted of short conversations in verse between the leader and his fellow-performers. The subject of these dialogues would be the adventures of Dionysus; their purpose would be to explain and amplify the narrative contained in the choral songs. They appear to have been composed in the lively rhythm of the trochaic tetrameter, and to have been accompanied by explanatory pantomime on the part of the chorus. Whether they were really the invention of Arion, or merely an old custom which he adopted and modified, may be regarded as doubtful. But there can be no question as to their influence on the history of the drama, since it was out of these apparently unimportant interludes that the dialogue of tragedy was eventually developed. The dithyramb then, as fashioned by Arion and the Dorians, was a choral ode in honour of Dionysus, set to a brisk kind of music, and sung by a troop of fifty satyrs as they danced and gesticulated round the sacrificial altar. Whether its general tone was serious or comic is a point which has been much debated. Many critics find it impossible to believe that a performance which was destined to become the parent of tragedy should have been anything but pathetic in its original character. Hence they are led to assume that the dithyramb, at this time, was concerned mainly with the 'sorrows of Dionysus,' that its key-note was impassioned sympathy and self-devotion, and that the feeling which was supposed to actuate the satyrs was an 'intense desire to fight, to conquer, and to suffer in common with the god .' This description, however, appears to have