Excerpt from The Seven Against Thebes of ?schylus
Out of the old festivals of the wine-god, Dionysos, in which songs had been sung by a chorus, dealing with stories of the legendary past, there was developed at Athens, in the fifth century B.C., the drama, in which the old stories were acted. But since the Attic drama was still in theory a piece of religious ritual, carried out in honour of Dionysos, the chorus was retained as a form prescribed by tradition, though its action had somehow to be fitted into the action of the play. It was now given the role of a crowd or group of subordinate persons attached to one or other of the principal characters of the play, or belonging to the place which was the supposed scene of the play - a company of old men or sailors or maidens or slaves, or whatever the case might require. But the chorus could never take a very active part; its role was mainly that of lookers-on, making comments on the actions and speeches of the characters in the play; it might express very decided sympathies with one side or another where the play was a story of strife, and act as adviser or confidant to some person in the play.
It continued to chant songs of some length; but these were worked into the substance of the play, expressing the feelings aroused in the old men or maidens, or whoever the chorus might represent, by the situation of the moment, or calling to mind other old myths connected with the subject of the drama. These choric songs were also used to mark the divisions between the successive episodes of the drama, very much as is done by dropping the curtain in a modern play: the other actors, whilst they were being sung, remained behind the scenes, and the chorus had the orchestra all to itself. In the fifth century B.C. there seems to have been a wooden stage in the theatre of Dionysos at Athens. The tiers of marble seats rose on the hillside round a semicircular space, in the middle of which was an altar. On the other side of this space, facing the audience, was the wall which formed the background for the play.
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