I WOULD HAVE APPLIED FOR A POSITION IN THE CHORUS MYSELF
But the chorus! Why, the very words "Greek Chorus" have something in them that rouses and thrills, and I know, now, the reason why. In movement, in voice, in costume it was pure poetry. I would have applied for a position in the chorus myself, but Laura suddenly announced that the show was over and that everybody but us had gone long ago.
If I had lived in that elder day I should have gone mainly to the plays of Aristophanes. They were gay and full of good things, and they were rare, too, and poetic, even though they were not always more than skin deep. That was deep enough for some of his contemporaries. Deep enough for the popocrat Cleon, who tried to deprive Aristophanes of his citizenship, in revenge.
Aristophanes wrote a play that acted like a mustard-plaster on Cleon. It made him howl and caper and sweat and bring libel suits. Whereupon Aristophanes wrote another, and when he could get no actor to take the leading part—that of Cleon—he took it himself, and Cleon went to see it and wore out his teeth on tenpenny nails during the performance. Yes, I should have had a weakness for Aristophanes in those days, though I wish he might have omitted that tragic satire which twenty years later was to send Socrates the hemlock cup.
We climbed the hill a little way to a grotto and drank of the spring of Æsculapius and all our diseases passed away. It only cost a penny or two, and was the cheapest doctor bill I ever paid. I never saw a healthier lot than our party when they came out of the grotto and started for the Odeon—the little theatre which Herodes Atticus built in memory of his wife.
Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote home from Athens: "Wherever we walk is history." We realize that here at the base of the Acropolis. From the Theatre of Dionysus to the Spring of Æsculapius is only a step. From the Spring to the Sanctuary of Isis is another step; from the Sanctuary to the Odeon of Herodes is a moment's walk; the Pnyx—the people's forum—is a stone's-throw away, and the Hill of Mars. All about, and everywhere, great events have trod one upon the other; mighty mobs have been aroused by oratory; mighty armies have rallied to the assault; a hundred battles have drenched the place with blood. And above all this rises the Acropolis, the crowning glory.
We postponed the Acropolis until after luncheon. There would have been further riot and bloodshed on this consecrated ground had our conductor proposed to attempt it then. Our Argonauts are a fairly well-behaved lot and fond of antiquities, even though they giggle at the guide now and then, but they are human, too, and have the best appetites I ever saw. They would leave the Acropolis for luncheon, even though they knew an earthquake would destroy it before they could get back.
We did stop briefly at the Pnyx hill—the gathering-place of the Athenians—and stood on the rostrum cut from the living rock—the "Bema" from which Demosthenes harangued the populace.