The choruses of these comedies had sometimes to assume very odd parts, as in the two comedies of the “Birds,” and the “Wasps,” where they represented those creatures. The masks were made to correspond to the character assumed, and in “The Wasps” each man had a short spear or sting, which they sometimes thrust out, or drew in, and the whole chorus would sometimes move about quickly with a buzzing noise. The wasps were a satire upon the swarm of Athenian magistrates.[54]
One is forcibly reminded in these plays of the recent inventions of the French Opera Bouffe.
In the later comedies, private intrigues began to form the plot, and there was no great difference between these and the plays of modern times.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DANCES OF ANCIENT GREECE.
The dances of Greece were of considerable variety, and seem to have been both refined and coarse in their character. The earliest were probable merely military manœuvres, which were performed to songs, or to accompaniment of flute or kithara: or festival dances at the Bacchanalian or Dionysian revels. The chief dances may be classed as the Pyrrhic, the Cordax, and the Emmeleia.
The chorus itself, in very early times, was, in some parts of Greece only used to heighten the effect of a solo song, by its pantomimic dancing.
In Crete, youths and maidens joined hands and danced in a circle; in the centre of such a circle sat the musician, who sang to the accompaniment of a kithara, while the chorus expressed by their actions, not by singing, the various emotions which he chanted.
The Pyrrhic, or war dance, was the pride of all Greece, and all young men studied it.
In Sparta there was a law that all parents should send their sons, above the age of five years, to the public place, to have them instructed in the armed dance; on these occasions they were led by the teachers who made them sing hymns, etc., as they danced. The Pyrrhic was in fact, a mock battle, in four parts, representing the pursuit, overtaking, combat, and capture of the enemy, and was used as drill, to make young men proficient in the use of their weapons; it was accompanied by flute, which instrument was the one which the Greeks thought aroused the energies most.
The origin of the Pyrrhic is given as follows,—When Zeus, (Jupiter) was born, his father Kronos, (Saturn) knowing that he should be dethroned by him sought his life; he was hidden by the Corybantes, who on Kronos’ coming near, fearing that the child would be discovered by its crying, began to dance about, and clashed their swords and shields, thus drowning its voice and saving its life.