Back to your stations step with quiet look,
With hue that gives no token of deeds done:
And I will wear a trouble-clouded eye,
As who of deeds accomplished knoweth nought.
[Vss. 1313 ff.; Way’s translation]
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.