In ancient Greek plays the chorus consisted of several performers, but in Shakespeare’s time the number is reduced to a single personage, who enters before the beginning of a play and explains or comments upon different events which are to follow in course of the narrative. In reality, he serves the same purpose as the speaker of the prologue. In other passages the word is used as synonymous with prologue, but in this quotation the word bears the original meaning as applied to Attic tragedy, in which the chorus, chanting the choral odes, passed in review the episodes which had taken place upon the stage, and also prepared the audience for scenes which were to follow. The tragic chorus of a Greek play numbered fifteen members, who entered the orchestra (dancing place) three abreast. Between the acts they recited choral odes, accompanied by a dance movement. In the dialogue between the chorus and the actors, only the coryphæus, the leader of the chorus, acted as spokesman.
MORRIS DANCE.
Therefore I say ’tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France,
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun Morris Dance.
II, 4, 25.
The Morris Dance was a popular element in the village May games, and, although with no literary associations, it may claim equal popularity with the dumb-shows and motion plays of the sixteenth century. A painted window at Betley, in Staffordshire, has a representation of these village dances, which include six Morris dancers, with a Maypole, a musician, a fool, a crowned man on a hobby horse, a crowned lady with a flower in her hand, and a friar. This window dates from the reign of Edward III. Sometimes, included amongst the dancers, was a dragon, and, no doubt, the rider of the hobby-horse personated St. George. A reference to the hobby-horse occurs in “Hamlet,” where Hamlet exclaims, “O for the hobby-horse is forgot,” referring to the omission of that living property from the show, which was fast becoming obsolete at the end of the sixteenth century. The Morris Dance proper consisted of six personages, each dancer wearing a broad garter below the knee. There are two sets of figures: in one handkerchiefs are carried, in the other short staves are swung and clashed. Sometimes the dancers sing to the air of an old country dance. There is always a fool, who carries a stick with a bladder and a cow’s tail. The music is that of a pipe and tabor, played by one man. The name is a corruption of “Moorish,” and is immediately derived from the Flemish “morriske dans.” The reason for this name is that the performers blacked their faces, but whether they derived the name because of their Moorish appearance or dressed up to represent Moors is undecided.
CUE.