Whether the use of masks in Greek drama originated in the mere desire for a disguise or in some ritualistic observance has not been definitely established. At any rate their employment was peculiarly well adapted to the genius of the ancient theater. First of all they enabled a small number of actors to carry a much larger number of parts (see p. 173, above). Secondly, the mouthpiece is claimed by some to have magnified the sound of the actor’s voice, and thus helped to counteract the outstanding fact in the physical arrangement of ancient theaters, viz., their huge size (see p. 121, above). But in particular I wish to stress their bearing upon another feature of the classic drama—the hugeness of ancient theaters, together with the lack of opera glasses, made impossible an effect which modern audiences highly appreciate. I refer to the delicate play of expression on the mobile faces of the performers. In antiquity such refinements could scarcely have been seen outside of the orchestra. A partial substitute was occasionally found in a change of mask during the performance. This became possible if a character was off-stage at the time when his physical or mental state was supposed to be modified by some misfortune or accident. Thus when some one’s eyes are dashed out behind the scenes, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Euripides’ Hecabe and Cyclops, etc., the mask with which he appears after this event would naturally be different from that previously worn. Similarly in Euripides’ Hippolytus that hero, young and handsome, proudly leaves the stage at vs. 1102. At vs. 1342 he is borne back in a dying condition, battered and torn by his runaway team. It is plausible to suppose that this change is reflected by a modification of his mask and costume. Still another type is seen in Euripides’ Phoenician Maids. A seer has demanded that Creon’s son be slain to redeem the fatherland, but at vs. 990 Creon departs with the assurance that Menoeceus will seek safety in flight. When he reappears at vs. 1308 his brow is said to be clouded by the news that his son had changed his mind and immolated himself for his country’s good.

At best such a change of masks was but a clumsy and inadequate evasion of the difficulty; yet even this was out of the question whenever the catastrophe befell the character while on the scene. In these cases the dramatists sometimes try to explain the immobility of the actor’s mask. An unusually successful instance occurs in Sophocles’ Electra. Electra had believed her brother dead, and now she unexpectedly holds him in her arms, alive and well. But not a spark of joy can scintillate across her wooden features either then or later. Her subsequent passivity is motivated by Orestes’ request that she continue her lamentations and not allow their mother to read her secret in her radiant face (vss. 1296 ff.). Electra replies that ‘old hatred of her mother is too ingrained to allow her countenance to be seen wreathed in smiles, but that her tears will be tears of joy,’ which has the merit of explaining also the present unresponsiveness of her features. Sometimes the actor’s face is hidden at times when strong emotions might be expected to play thereon. For example, in Euripides’ Orestes, Electra and the chorus stand in the orchestra and look toward the palace within which Helen is being slain and from which her dying cries issue. Inasmuch as their backs are turned to the audience, the spectators are free to suppose that their faces are working with excitement and horror. This fiction will be destroyed as soon as the performers wheel around toward the front again. Accordingly Electra is made to say:

Electra’s “trouble-clouded eye” does not refer to sorrow at Helen’s death but at her brother’s evil plight, and has characterized her mask from the beginning of the play.

Being largely balked in this matter, the Greeks characteristically turned the limitation to good account. The mask-makers did not attempt to fashion a detailed portrait—that would have suffered from the same difficulty as the naked human physiognomy; like our newspaper cartoonists, they reduced each character to the fewest possible traits, which were suggested in bold strokes and were easily recognizable by even the most remote spectator. Under close inspection representations of ancient masks seem grotesque and even absurd (Figs. 4, 8, 17-21, 66, and 68 f.), but it must be remembered that distance would to a great extent obliterate this impression. Moreover, such masks were admirably adapted to, and at the same time reinforced, the Greek tendency to depict types rather than individuals (see pp. 213 and 266 f.). On the modern stage masks are practically unknown. We must not allow that fact to prejudice us against their possible effectiveness. So respectable an authority as Mr. Gordon Craig declares “the expression of the human face as used by the theaters of the last few centuries” to be “spasmodic and ridiculous,” that “the mask is the only right medium of portraying the expressions of the soul as shown through the expressions of the face,” and that they “will be used in place of the human face in the near future”; and Mr. Cornford testifies to the baffling, tantalizing effect of a similar device at the Elizabethan Stage Society’s representation of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.[309]

The size of ancient theaters exercised an influence also in another direction. In the absence of arches and domes or modern steel girders it was impossible to roof over such a structure without a multitude of supports to obstruct the view and hearing. Accordingly, the proceedings were exposed to every caprice of the weather. For example, in the time of Demetrius Poliorcetes an unseasonable cold spell and frost broke up the procession. On the other hand the lack of an adequate and easily controlled artificial illuminant such as gas or electricity would have prevented the satisfactory lighting of a roofed theater, could they have built one. Therefore, like the Elizabethans, their dramas were presented in the daytime, and the constant harmony between lighting effects and dramatic situation, which to us is a commonplace, was entirely beyond their powers. But since it was also beyond their ken, it doubtless did not bother them especially, and like much else was safely left to the well-trained imaginations of the spectators. Thus dramatic characters frequently address the heavenly constellations in broad daylight, and ostensibly the entire action of the Rhesus and much of that in Euripides’ Cyclops fall within the hours of night. Nevertheless, we know that the playwrights were sometimes self-conscious concerning this discrepancy. In Aristophanes’ Frogs most of the action is supposed to be laid in Hades, and ancient opinion was unanimous in considering that a place of gloom. Since the poet could not count upon the sun going behind a cloud to suit his convenience, he undertook to put the audience on their guard against the incongruity. Toward the beginning of the play, when Dionysus is seeking directions for his journey to the lower world and the scene is still upon earth, Heracles tells him: “Next a breathing sound of flutes will compass you about and you will see a light most fair, even as here” (vss. 154 f.). Furthermore, shortly after the action is transferred to the realm of Pluto, the matter is once more called to the spectators’ attention by the chorus of initiates singing (vss. 454 f.): “We alone have a sun and gracious light.”

So far as I have observed, the tragedians never stooped to apologize for this absurdity, but they were willing, whenever possible, to accommodate themselves to actual conditions. The dramatic exercises are said to have begun at sunrise. Consequently, it is not surprising that the action of tragedies like Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, which stood first in the series presented on the same day, should open before daybreak. I must add, however, that such scenes occur also in comedies and in tragedies which did not stand first in their series, both of which must have been presented in the full light of day. These instances of incongruity are to be explained by stating that the arrangements and physical conditions which caused the Greek playwrights usually to crowd the action of their dramas within a period of twenty-four hours (see p. 250, below) would also lead them to make the dramatic day as long as possible by beginning the action of their plays at early morning.

Lessing and others have unfavorably contrasted Voltaire’s employment of ghosts with Shakespeare’s practice. The comparison rests principally upon two points: that the ghost of Hamlet’s father complied with “recognized ghostly conditions” by appearing in the stillness of night and speaking to but one, unaccompanied person, while the ghost of Ninus in Sémiramis outraged accepted beliefs by stalking out of his tomb in broad daylight and making his appearance before a large assembly. Now it is interesting to observe that Greek practice is liable to these same criticisms. Thus in Aeschylus’ Persians (vss. 681 ff.) the ghost of Darius appears in the full light of day and before his queen and no less than twelve councilors. In Euripides’ Hecabe (vss. 1 ff.) the difficulties are somewhat obviated by placing the appearance of Polydorus’ ghost in the prologue, before any other actor or the chorus has come in; and perhaps Hecabe’s words in vss. 68 f., “O mirk of the night,” etc., are intended to suggest that the preceding scene took place in darkness. In any case, whatever make-believe the dramatists might choose to practice, the considerations just mentioned, together with the almost constant presence of the chorus, normally compelled apparitions appearing in Greek drama to violate two provisions in the standard code of ghostly etiquette.

It is well known that in the earliest extant Greek plays, viz., the Suppliants, Persians, and Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, the scene is laid in the open countryside with not a house in sight and with no scenic accessories except an altar, tomb, or rock, respectively. But that this circumstance was explicable by the character of the Athenian theater did not become evident until Dr. Dörpfeld’s excavations on that site in 1886, 1889, and 1895 (see pp. 65 ff., above, and Figs. 32 and 32a). From 499 B.C. until about 465 B.C. the theater at Athens consisted of an orchestral circle nearly eighty feet in diameter and somewhat south of the present orchestra, and an auditorium arranged partly about it on the Acropolis slope. Immediately behind the orchestra there was no scene-building or back scene, but a six-foot declivity. Only within the orchestra itself, at the center or to one side, might there be erected for temporary use some such theatrical “property” as an altar or tomb. Consequently it was inevitable that playwrights of the early fifth century in choosing an imaginary scene for their plays should react to these physical conditions and localize the dramatic action in more or less deserted spots. Even as late as Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes (467 B.C.), although the scene no longer is laid in the countryside but on the Theban Acropolis, yet this is still a place without inhabitants or houses. It should be noted that at this period the exclusive mode of ingress and egress was by the side entrances, the parodi; under normal conditions, any movement into the orchestra or out of it, at the rear, was entirely precluded by the declivity. That such a primitive theater would suffice for the needs of that or even a later period is proved by the remains of the structure at Thoricus (Figs. 70 f.),[310] which was never brought to a higher state of development (see p. 103, above), and by the fact that even at a later period dramatists sometimes voluntarily reverted to this unpretentious stage setting. For example, in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus the background represented the untrodden grove of the Eumenides, so that practically all the entrances and exits were restricted to the parodi. An exceptional rear exit is afforded by Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, and an exceptional rear entrance by the next play in the trilogy, the Prometheus Unbound. We have already seen (see pp. 166 f. and 174, above) how in the former play the hero, being represented by a dummy, cannot speak until Hephaestus leaves the scene by a side entrance and makes his way behind the rock upon which Prometheus is bound. In the absence of a scene-building, the six-foot declivity must have been utilized to conceal the second half of this movement. Now the Prometheus Bound ends as the Titan and his crag sink into the depths; at the beginning of the Prometheus Unbound this crag has emerged from the abyss. What was the reason for this maneuver? Obviously to enable an actor to be substituted for the lay figure of Prometheus. So long as the hero was fixed in his place, an actor concealed behind him experienced little difficulty in speaking his lines for him; but as the time drew near for his release a living impersonator was required. How was this substitution managed? I conceive that a wooden frame-work, rudely suggesting a rock, was propped up at the outer extremity of the orchestra. At the moment of the catastrophe the supports were removed and the structure allowed to collapse into the declivity. After an interval sufficient for the exchange had elapsed, the rocky background was once more raised into its place and braced.

About 465 B.C. an advance step in theatrical conditions was taken when a scene-building was erected immediately behind the orchestra, where the declivity had previously been (see p. 66, above). This first scene-building must have been very simple, probably of only one story, without either parascenia or proscenium (Fig. 74), and capable of being readily rebuilt so as to be accommodated to the needs of different plays. The extant dramas show that from the first the new background was pierced by at least one door and that the number was soon raised to three, though they were not all used in every production. The different doorways were conventionally thought of as leading into as many separate houses or buildings. Thus, whereas the actors had hitherto been able to enter and depart only through the two parodi, from one to three additional means of entrance were now provided. Moreover, the mere fact of having a background was no small advantage. For example, it enabled Aeschylus to introduce a distinct improvement in dramatic technique. Heretofore scenes of violence must either have been boldly enacted before the spectators’ eyes or reported by a messenger. Since the sacrosanctity of the actor while engaged in a performance and the Greeks’ aesthetic sense interfered with the first alternative (see pp. 127-32, above), doubtless the second had usually been resorted to. Now Aeschylus is said to have invented the very effective device of having a character killed behind the scenes during the play. In view of the physical conditions it will be understood that the failure of Aeschylus’ predecessors to avail themselves of this expedient was due to no lack of inventive genius on their part but simply to the entire absence in their time of a back scene to use for the purpose. It is not known just how long it took Aeschylus to discover this possibility in the new arrangements; but it was certainly not later than the Agamemnon (458 B.C.), in which the king’s agonized death cries from behind the scenes (vss. 1343 and 1345) still have power to affect even modern audiences. Further modifications of this artifice have already been mentioned on p. 128.

One of the most troublesome problems that confront a playwright is inventing plausible motives to explain the entrances and exits of his characters. The fundamental nature of this problem appears from the words of a modern dramatist, Mr. Alfred Sutro: “Before I start writing the dialogue of a play, I make sure that I shall have an absolutely free hand over the entrances and exits: in other words, that there is ample and legitimate reason for each character appearing in any particular scene, and ample motive for his leaving it.” Now in the interior scene, and especially in the box set, moderns have a marvelously flexible instrument for shifting personages on and off the scene; yet few can avoid abusing this resource and can repeat Mr. Bernard Shaw’s boast: “My people get on and off the stage without requiring four doors to a room which in real life would have only one.”[311] To the ancient writer the difficulty was still greater. Prior to 465 B.C., when some uninhabited spot was perforce chosen as the scene of action and the two parodi were the sole means of ingress, it was fairly easy to motivate a person’s first entrance and withdrawal; but a reappearance proved a more difficult matter, and each additional character complicated the problem still further. Consequently, the ancient playwrights not infrequently frankly abandoned all search for a solution and considered that to leave a character standing in idleness during a whole scene or choral ode was less awkward and improbable than any motive which they could provide for his exit and re-entrance. Thus in Aeschylus’ Suppliants, Danaus enters the orchestra with the chorus consisting of his daughters and remains at the altar, without a single word to say, during their parodus of a hundred and seventy-five lines. After a short scene the king of Argos appears, and then for over two hundred lines (vss. 234-479) Danaus is again ignored (see pp. 163 f., above). In this play the town of Argos is thought of as lying some distance away from the scene of action. Only an important errand would take Danaus there, and evidently the poet experienced difficulty in inventing as many errands as dramatic propriety required. Similarly at vss. 181 ff. of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, Eteocles rebukes the chorus for their fears and lamentations; yet apparently he has been standing there during their whole parodus (vss. 78-180) without a single word of protest! But it was not characteristic of the Greek genius tamely to submit to hindrances, and accordingly we are not surprised that Aeschylus actually secured a striking dramatic effect by leaving characters like Niobe and Achilles for considerable intervals speechless and immovable on the scene. When finally uttered, their startling cries of anguish were greatly enhanced by their previous long-continued silence. It may not be amiss to note that Molière obtained similar suspense by means quite opposite. In Tartuffe, contrary to all the accepted rules, the principal character does not appear upon the scene until after the beginning of the third act. But the conversation and disputes of the other dramatic personages have so inflamed our curiosity concerning him that we can scarcely wait to catch a glimpse of him, and his entrance finally is thrice as effective as if it had come earlier in the play.

The erection of a scene-building about 465 B.C. somewhat relieved the difficulty of the playwrights’ problem. First of all the places of entrance were increased 50 per cent or more. Secondly, the new entrances were nearer the orchestra than were the parodi and enabled an actor to come in or depart more quickly. Thirdly, the presence of buildings almost required the scene to be laid in a town or city and correspondingly multiplied the possible motives for visiting it. And finally, since the doorways often represented the homes of certain of the dramatic characters, no elaborate motivation was needed to explain their passing in and out at frequent intervals. When his work was done, the useless actor could be temporarily eliminated with neatness and dispatch. These considerations and the introduction of the third actor at about the same time (see p. 167, above) soon doubled the amount of coming and going in the plays (cf. Mooney, op. cit., p. 54). The influence of the former factor appears in Euripides’ Suppliants, the action of which takes place before a temple. It so happens, however, that the temple doors in this case are not used for entrances and exits. Consequently of all Euripides’ tragedies this one has the least passing to and fro. On the other hand the influence of the second factor is seen in the fact that this piece and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (see p. 227, above), both making practically no use of their back scene but both employing three actors, are higher in “action” than the corresponding plays of Aeschylus, which belong to the two-actor period.

Nevertheless, when all is said, the erection of a scene-building still left the ancient dramatists far behind the moderns in the easy and plausible motivation of their characters’ movements, and no further advance (from this point of view) was subsequently made in the theatrical arrangements. All the dramatic personages still had to come to the same (usually a public) place; they could not dodge in at one door and out at another at their creator’s caprice, but whether entering or leaving had to walk a considerable distance in plain view of the spectators. Consequently the silent actor is found after 465 B.C. as well as before. Thus in Euripides’ Suppliants one or more characters are being neglected at almost every point. But in my opinion this phenomenon is no longer due primarily to the inadequacy of the theatrical arrangements but to other considerations. For example, the limited number of actors often resulted in prolonged or awkward silence on the part of a character who was being impersonated by a mute (see pp. 174-82, above). Again, in the Alcestis, after Heracles has brought the queen back from her grave, she utters never a word. Euripides himself explains this on the ground that she may not speak until her consecration to the gods of the lower world be undone and the third day come (vss. 1144 ff.). This is a clever pretext but not the real reason. Nor do I think, as some do, that in this instance the limitation of actors is responsible, since only two actors speak in this scene and the play belongs to the three-actor period. Alcestis’ silence springs rather from the impossibility of placing in her mouth a message worthy of her experiences, one which “telling what it is to die had surely added praise to praise.” Still again the silence frequently arises from inability to master the technique of the trialogue (see pp. 169 f.) or from the nature of the plot. In any trial scene it is almost inevitable that both the judge and the accused should remain inactive for considerable intervals. Thus in Aeschylus’ Eumenides the silence of Athena (vss. 585-673 and 711-33) and of Orestes (vss. 244-63, 307-435, 490-585, and 614-743) is scarcely more noteworthy than that of the Duke and Antonio in Act IV of The Merchant of Venice. When his case was about to be decided, Orestes terminated a silence of one hundred and thirty lines by the thrilling ejaculation, “O Phoebus Apollo, what shall the judgment be!” (vs. 744)—another example of the dexterity with which the Greek poets could transmute base metal into pure gold.

It need not be said that the same difficulty of plausible motivation puzzled the comic as well as the tragic writers of antiquity, and they extricated themselves with no less ingenuity in their own way. For the further unfolding of the plot in Plautus’ Pseudolus it became necessary that that crafty slave should explain to his accomplices certain developments which had already been represented on the scene. Actually to repeat the facts would have been tedious to the spectators, while to motive an exit for all the parties concerned until the information could be imparted and then to motive their re-entrance might have proved difficult and certainly would have caused an awkward pause in the action. The poet therefore chose the bolder course of dropping for the moment all dramatic illusion and at the same time of slyly poking fun at the conventions of his art: “This play is being performed for the sake of these spectators. They have been here, and are aware of developments. I’ll tell you about them afterwards”(!) (vss. 720 f.).

We have already referred to the fact that topographical conditions in Athens gave rise to a convention regarding the significance of the parodi (see p. 208, above). As the spectator sat on the south slope of the Acropolis at Athens, with the orchestra and scene-buildings before him, the harbor of the Piraeus and the market place lay toward his right and the open country on his left (Fig. 29). And since the theater was roofless and the performances given in daylight, these relationships were visible and must at all times have been present to the consciousness of the audience. The matter was, therefore, one of more consequence than in the modern theater, where many spectators, being unable to see points of orientation outside, would be puzzled to indicate the points of the compass. In the Athenian theater, on the contrary, if the scene were laid locally no poet or stage manager could have allowed a character from the Piraeus to enter by the left (east) parodus without committing a patent absurdity. In such a case there was, at the beginning, no convention; the plays simply reacted to actual local conditions. But the fifth-century plays were rarely laid in Athens, and in them comparatively little is said of harbor, market place, or countryside, whether at Athens or elsewhere. Apart from a rigid convention, there would be no point in staging Aeschylus’ Suppliants, the scene of which is laid just outside the city of Argos, or Aristophanes’ Birds, whose scene is supposed to be in the clouds, in such a way as to conform to Athenian topography. In fact, incidental allusions in the fifth-century plays, the comparative infrequency in them of references to harbor, country, and market place, and minor infelicities arising from any attempt to foist this convention upon them, would all seem to indicate that these plays had been written without much regard for local geography. But with increasing frequency Athens became the imaginary scene of comedies, and the relationships which had become a fixed rule for them were transferred to tragedy also, and soon to other theaters whose setting bore little or no resemblance to that of the theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus. Certainly by the time of New Comedy the convention was firmly established, and except for characters leaving or entering the houses in the background almost every exit or entrance was oriented for the audience with reference to country, harbor, or market place. When Greek comedy was transplanted to Italian soil the convention was taken over, too, and reappears, possibly with some modification, in the plays of Plautus and Terence.

Regardless of the convention, however, and the period of its origin there is one blemish which careful stage managers nowadays seek to avoid. When a door closes upon a departing character, it should not be immediately opened again to admit another character, whom the first character must have brushed against in the hall. A slight pause is somehow provided to enable the two characters to avoid meeting and to give the sense of space beyond the room on the stage. Now in Euripides’ Alcestis a violation of this common-sense principle of stage craft seems to occur. At vs. 747 Admetus and the chorus have departed bearing the body of Alcestis to its last resting place. In the ensuing scene Heracles at last learns the identity of the deceased and at vs. 860 rushes out to wrestle with the king of the dead beside the grave. In the very next verse Admetus returns. According to the Hellenistic convention Heracles must have departed and Admetus have re-entered through the parodus at the audience’s left. But which parodus was employed does not in this case greatly matter. The point is that since Heracles was bound for the spot from which Admetus was returning, they must have used the same parodus. Nevertheless, later developments show that they did not meet; indeed, certain telling features of the dénouement would have been spoiled if they had. Yet how could they avoid doing so? The play furnishes no reply. So far as I can see the only way in which the difficulty can be obviated is by supposing that vss. 747-860 take place before a slightly different part of the palace from the rest of the play. Scholars, however, do not commonly accept a change of scene in this piece (see pp. 250 f., below).

The space between the two parodi and leading past the scene-building was usually thought of as representing a street or roadway (see p. 86, above). In the Hellenistic theater at Athens a stone proscenium ran across the front of the scene-building from one parascenium to the other (see p. 70, above) (Fig. 38), and it is likely that a wooden proscenium occupied the same space from about 430 B.C. It is true that the stone foundation of the parascenia, which were probably erected to serve as a framework for the proscenium, cannot go back of 415-421 B.C. at the earliest (see p. 67 and n. 1, above). But it is fair to assume that parascenia entirely of wood were erected as an experiment a few years before permanent foundations were provided for them, and the proscenium colonnade seems to have been employed at least as early as Euripides’ Hippolytus (428 B.C.) and Aristophanes’ Clouds (423 B.C.). Confirmation for this conclusion may be found in the fact that the crane (μηχανή) was introduced at about this same time (see p. 289, below). When the scene was laid before a private house or a palace, the colonnade was in place as signifying its prothyron (πρόθυρον) or “porch.” When the background was thought of as a temple the proscenium was its pronaos (πρόναος) or “portico.” Moreover, when a less conventional setting was required, painted panels (πίνακες) could be inserted in the intercolumniations in order to suggest the desired locality, and in some theaters the proscenium columns were shaped so as to hold such panels more firmly in place (Fig. 72).[312] Thus the action in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus takes place before a grove, and that in Plautus’ The Fisherman’s Rope, along a beach. The interruption of natural scenery by columns at regular intervals would be disturbing to us; that it did not seem so to the Greeks was due not only to their ignorance of modern scenery but also to the sketchy shorthand which they practiced in other fields of art. On ancient vases, for example, a whole forest is frequently represented by a single tree. A similar convention obtains in the drama of modern Persia, where “the desert is represented by a handful of sand on the platform, the river Tigris by a leather basin full of water.”[313] Sophocles is said to have invented scene painting during the lifetime of Aeschylus (see p. 66, above), but this must be interpreted as meaning that he had the panels applied directly to the front of the scene-building, the proscenium being not yet introduced. It has also been suggested, on the basis of certain vase paintings (Fig. 73),[314] that an actual porch (prothyron) was sometimes built extending from the center of the proscenium or taking the place of a proscenium and extending from the center of the scene-building’s front wall. But perhaps these paintings are only conventionalized representations of the proscenium colonnade itself. In any case it is important to observe that no background corresponding to the scene-building is indicated on the vases.

Now it will be noted that these theatrical arrangements made no provision for an interior scene. The dramatic action was necessarily laid in the open air, usually before a palace, private house, or temple. Though occasional plays, like Mr. Louis Parker’s Pomander Walk, show that the thing can still be managed, in general modern dramatists would be paralyzed by such a requirement. Nor is it correct to state that the classical poets “seldom had occasion to show an interior scene.” The truth is precisely the opposite: having no way in which to show an interior they were constrained to rest content with alfresco scenes. Yet the situation was not so desperate as it would seem. Corneille pointed out that Greek kings could meet and speak in public without a breach of etiquette.[315] At the French court, and consequently on the French stage, such conduct would have been intolerable. In the second place the mildness of a southern climate justified some practices which might appear strange to more northern peoples. Many things which we would consider must be kept strictly within doors would sometimes take place in the street. Semi-privacy was afforded by porches and porticoes, that is, theatrically speaking, by the colonnade of the proscenium. Our nearest parallel would be sun parlors or screened porches and even these fall short. Doubtless this difference in weather conditions has something to do with the fact that modern playwrights of the classic school, who, though freed from the material restrictions of the ancients, have yet slavishly imitated them in so much else, have not followed them in this partiality for outdoor scenes. Allowance must also be made for the fact that in comedy the characters uniformly belonged to the lower strata of society. Accordingly we need feel little surprise that in Aristophanes’ Clouds (vss. 1 ff.) Strepsiades and his son are disclosed sleeping before their home in the open air, though we have no reason to believe that they are either actual or prospective victims of tuberculosis. In Euripides’ Orestes (vss. 1 ff.) the matricide, wasted by illness, lies on his couch before the palace in Argos under his sister’s care. In Plautus’ The Churl (vss. 448 ff.), Phronesium reclines on a bed before the house, pretending that she has given birth to a child. In Plautus’ The Haunted House (vss. 248 ff.), Philematium asks her maid for a mirror, jewel box, etc., and a scene of prinking ensues in the open air. Scenes of outdoor feasting and carousing are too numerous to deserve individual mention. I cannot accept the contention that the action of such scenes takes place in an “imaginary interior.” They are frankly out of doors; in this connection such expressions as “outside the house,” “before the doors,” etc., are frequent. These scenes were enacted in the colonnade of the proscenium and are correctly copied from ancient life. Of course I concede that in real life they would take place indoors as often as out, or even more often; but they were common enough as open-air scenes to justify the playwrights in constantly transcribing them in this fashion.

But the significance of the considerations mentioned in the last paragraph must not be overestimated. The difficulty arising from physical conditions in the theater was cumulative. In other words the placing of any particular scene in the open air was generally justifiable by ancient habits of living and not difficult to motivate; but to place every scene in every play out of doors and under these conditions to invent a plausible motive for every entrance taxed the dramatists’ powers to the utmost and sometimes exceeded them.[316] No wonder, then, that occasionally they abandoned all attempts to explain their characters’ movements and coolly allowed them to leave their dwellings and to speak, without apology or excuse, of the most confidential matters in a public place. Many instances of this license, however, seem to have been conditioned by definite rules. For example, if a character leaves his house while engaged in conversation with another, no reason is given for their entrance, i.e., for their not having concluded the conversation where it was begun. Examples of this technique do not occur until about 400 B.C. (see p. 310, below, and the instances there cited). Secondly, no entrance motive is provided when a character is to take part in a dialogue with another who is already on the scene and whose own entrance has been motived. Thus in Euripides’ Alcestis, Heracles enters at vs. 476 in order to seek hospitality at Admetus’ palace; at vs. 506 the chorus announces the king’s emergence, which is entirely unmotived. Six other examples of this technique occur in Greek tragedy.

Nevertheless, in general the ancient playwrights displayed an amazing fertility of invention in explaining why their characters came out of doors and spoke in so public a place of matters which might more naturally have been reserved for greater privacy. Thus in Euripides’ Alcestis, Apollo explains his leaving Admetus’ palace on the ground of the pollution which a corpse would bring upon all within the house (vss. 22 f.) and Alcestis herself, though in a dying condition, fares forth to look for the last time upon the sun in heaven (vs. 206). Oedipus is so concerned in the afflictions of his subjects that he cannot endure the thought of making inquiries through a servant but comes forth to learn the situation in person (Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, vss. 6 f.); Carion is driven out of doors by the smoke of sacrifice upon the domestic altar (Aristophanes’ Plutus, vss. 821 f.); Polyphemus leaves his cave intending to visit his brothers for a carousal (cf. Euripides’ Cyclops, vss. 445 f. and 507 ff.). In Euripides’ Andromache, Hermione’s nurse, worn out in the attempt to save her mistress from self-destruction, hurries out and appeals to the chorus for assistance; a moment later Hermione herself escapes from the restraining clutches of her attendants and rushes upon the stage (vss. 816 ff.). Agathon cannot compose his odes in the winter time unless he bask in the sunlight (Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria, vss. 67 f.). In Plautus’ The Haunted House (vss. 1 ff.) one slave is driven out of doors by another as the result of a quarrel. The lovelorn Phaedra teases for light and air (Euripides’ Hippolytus, vss. 178 ff.). Medea’s nurse apologizes for soliloquizing before the house with the excuse that the sorrows within have stifled her and caused her to seek relief by proclaiming them to earth and sky (cf. Euripides’ Medea, vss. 56 ff. and pp. 307 f., below). And Antigone informs her sister that she has summoned her out of doors in order to speak with her alone (Sophocles’ Antigone, vss. 18 f.), as if that were the most natural place in the world for a tête-à-tête. In connection with this last instance it must be remembered that the interior of ancient houses was arranged differently than ours and was more favorable for eavesdropping (cf. Terence’s Phormio, vss. 862-69).

The difficulty inherent in the exclusive use of exterior scenes appears very strikingly in Euripides’ Cyclops. Here the action would naturally take place in Polyphemus’ cave, as it does in Homer’s Odyssey; but, theatrical conditions making that impossible, the scene is laid before the cave’s mouth. Contrary to verisimilitude, therefore, the poet is obliged to allow Odysseus to pass in and out without let or hindrance. Why, then, does he make no attempt to escape? Euripides anticipated this query and explained Odysseus’ remaining by regard for his companions’ safety (vss. 479 ff.). But why was it not equally feasible for his comrades to leave the cave and for all to be saved together? The poet can think of no better motive than that Odysseus’ pride and sense of honor caused him to desire to take vengeance on Polyphemus for having murdered some of his followers (vss. 694 f.).

Being unable actually to represent an interior scene the Greek playwrights gladly availed themselves of several substitutes. The most common of these was the messenger’s speech (see p. 164, above), by which occurrences that had taken place indoors were related to the chorus or to actors before the house. Another substitute was found in the cries of characters murdered behind the scenes (see pp. 128 and 229, above). A third method consisted in throwing open the doors in the background and revealing a scene of murder done within (see p. 128, above). We are told further that sometimes, when the doors were flung open, a platform, with a tableau mounted upon it, was pushed forward for a few moments (see the discussion of the eccylema on pp. 284-89, below). A fourth evasion of the restriction occurs in Euripides’ Hippolytus, vss. 565 ff. Phaedra from her couch in the proscenium colonnade hears the voices of her confidential slave and Hippolytus engaged in conversation within doors. She invites the chorus in the orchestra near by to join her in listening at the door—a proposal which for obvious dramatic reasons the choreutae cannot accept; but her own cries and exclamations of despair as she listens stir the audience much more profoundly than the conversation itself could have done. Thus the main portion of the dialogue between Hippolytus and the slave is supposed to take place indoors. It is concluded before the house, the two interlocutors entering the stage at vs. 600.

Still again, the dramatists of New Comedy were fond of representing a character in the act of passing through a doorway and shouting back parting injunctions to those within—an artifice which is sufficiently transparent and is justly ridiculed in Terence’s Andrian Girl. A nurse has been summoned in a confinement case and issues her final instructions while leaving the house. Simo, who thinks no child has been born and that it is all a trick to deceive him, turns fiercely upon the scheming slave at his side: “Who that knows you would not believe this to be the product of your brain? She did not tell what must be done for the mother in her presence; but after taking her departure she screams from the street to the attendants within. O Davus, do you scorn me so? Pray do I seem so suitable a victim for you to beguile with such transparent stratagems? You ought to work out the details of your plots more exactly, so that I might at least seem to be feared in case I learned the truth” (vss. 489 ff.). Be it noted, however, that such a stickler for realism as Ibsen occasionally made use of this same device (cf. Pillars of Society, Acts II and III). A close parallel occurs in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, vss. 1003 ff.

As a final illustration of the artificiality of the exterior scene I may refer to the manner in which characters are brusquely called out of their homes to meet the demands of the dramatic situation. Thus in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis a messenger enters and unceremoniously shouts to his queen within doors: