Drain-trap, a contrivance to prevent the escape of foul air from drains, while allowing the passage of water into them. They are of various forms. In the traps represented below it will be seen that there must always be a certain quantity of water maintained to bar the way against the escape of the gas from the drain or sewer. When additional liquid is conveyed to the trap, there is, of course, an overflow into the drain. In older types of drains the gas was prevented from escaping by a metal plate thrown obliquely over the drain mouth and dipping into the water in the vessel beyond it.
Drake, Sir Francis, an English navigator, born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1539, or according to some authorities in 1545. He served as a sailor in a coasting vessel, and afterwards joined Sir John Hawkins in his last expedition against the Spaniards (1567), losing nearly all he possessed in that unfortunate enterprise. Having gathered a number of adventurers round him, he contrived to fit out a vessel in which he made two successful cruises to the West Indies in 1570 and 1571. Next year, with two small ships, he again sailed for the Spanish Main, captured the cities of Nombre de Dios and Vera Cruz, and took a rich booty which he brought safely home. In 1577 Drake made another expedition to the Spanish Main, having this time command of five ships. On this the most famous of his voyages Drake passed the Straits of Magellan, plundered all along the coasts of Chile and Peru, sacked several ports, and captured a galleon laden with silver, gold, and jewels, to the value of perhaps £200,000. He then ran north as far as 48° N. lat., seeking a passage to the Atlantic, but was compelled to return to Port San Francisco on account of the cold. He then steered for the Moluccas, and holding straight across the Indian Ocean doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Plymouth 3rd Nov., 1580, being thus the first of the English circumnavigators. As there was no war between England and Spain, the proceedings of Drake had a somewhat dubious character, but the queen maintained that they were lawful reprisals for the action of the Spaniards, and showed her favour to Drake by knighting him on board his own ship. Five years afterwards Drake was again attacking the Spaniards in the
Cape Verde Islands and in the West Indies, and in 1588 particularly distinguished himself as vice-admiral in the conflict with the Spanish Armada. In 1593 he represented Plymouth in Parliament. His later expeditions, that in 1595 against the Spanish West Indies and that to Panama, were not so successful, and his death, which took place on 28th Jan., 1596, at sea off Porto Bello, was hastened by disappointment.—Bibliography: Sir J. S. Corbett, Sir Francis Drake (English Men of Action Series), and Drake and the Tudor Navy.
Drakenberg Mountains, a range of South Africa forming the western frontier of Natal, and rising to the height of 11,000 feet, a continuation of the Quathlamba range.
Drama (Gr. drama, action, from drān, to act or do), a form of art which imitates action by introducing real persons to represent the fictitious characters, and to carry on the story by means of action and dialogue.
Man is naturally an imitative animal, and some crude form of drama must have been in existence in very early times. We can see the origins of drama in many of the games played by children, where important events such as war, marriage, and sacrifice are represented in song and dance. In Greece, the cradle of drama as of everything that is good, there must have been in prehistoric times war-dances which formed the basis of tragedy, and rough vintage revel dances which formed the basis of comedy.
Greek Drama.—The Greek drama was religious in its origin. It arose from the dithyrambs or songs composed in honour of Dionysus, the god of all vegetation, though identified most closely with the vine. When vegetation died in winter, this was considered to be the death of Dionysus; when it bloomed anew in the spring, this was thought to be the god's resurrection. The one event was celebrated with gloomy song and dance, and the other with merry revels and crude indecency. The history of Greek drama is the history of the decline and fall of the chorus. At first the chorus was the whole play, and in the Supplices of Æschylus, the earliest extant tragedy, the chorus played a predominating part. According to tradition, Thespis (about 535 B.C.) introduced for the first time a masked actor, who carried on a dialogue with the leader of the chorus. Æschylus introduced a second actor, and Sophocles a third. It is thought that there never were more than three actors, but, of course, duplication of parts was permitted. There were also frequently mute characters (kōpha prosōpa) on the stage. Dialogue became more important in the later plays of Æschylus, and chorus became less important; Sophocles developed his dialogue in masterly style, though his choruses are among the most beautiful things in all Greek poetry; in Euripides the choruses, however lovely in themselves, are less an integral part of the drama than they were in the plays of his predecessors. In fact the chorus acted as a clog on the freedom of the dramatist, who wished to develop exciting situations and depict realistic characters. In comedy the same decline of the chorus is to be found; in the Acharnians, the earliest comedy, the chorus is very prominent; in the Plutus, the last comedy extant, it is comparatively unimportant. Sumptuary laws had something to do with this, and there is a vast difference between the magnificently apparelled chorus in the Birds, and the chorus in the Lysistrata, which represented elderly Athenian men and women in their everyday costume.
Greek tragedies were usually presented in the form of trilogies, that is, in sets of three plays all dealing with the same subject. To these was added, as a rule, a fourth play, known as a satyr-play. The Cyclops of Euripides is the only example extant of this kind of play. It is not very amusing, though it contains a certain amount of horse-play and high spirits. The satyr-play was intended to lighten the gloom of the three preceding tragedies. We have one complete trilogy preserved—the magnificent Oresteia of Æschylus, consisting of the Agamemnon, Choephorœ, and Eumenides—plays which are bracketed with Lear and Othello as the highest and most majestic of all tragedies. In later times the three plays of the trilogy dealt with different subjects. The tragedies to be performed were carefully selected by some of the Athenian magistrates, and at the festival prizes were given for the best tragedy, on the recommendation of a carefully chosen jury. Comedies were presented one at a time; prizes were offered for the best of them also. Greek tragic actors wore long flowing robes, and added to their height by means of the cothurnus or thick-soled boot; it is believed that they wore masks with some sort of speaking-trumpet in the mouth, so that their words would be audible to the vast audience which assembled in the theatre, a huge circular open-air amphitheatre.
Each of the three Greek tragic writers whose work has been preserved is supreme in his own way. Æschylus's lyric dramas are among the greatest writings of all time; the plays of Sophocles are masterpieces of deft construction, of well-woven plot, and ironic dialogue; and his choruses are lyrics of the greatest beauty. Æschylus is more titanic; Sophocles is more humane. Euripides, the latest of the three, is a great poet and a champion of the weak, such as women and slaves; moreover, he sees deeply into men's hearts. He is really the founder of romantic drama, through the Roman Seneca, who imitated him. Of Greek comic poets we
only possess one, but he is a host in himself. Aristophanes is a Gargantuan mirth-maker; he bestrides the narrow world like a Colossus. He plays with a master's hand upon every note in the whole comic gamut. His works, owing to the conditions of the old comedy, were very frequently political and highly personal in their tone. The later plays are less so. The Birds, Clouds, and Frogs are among the very greatest comic creations; only a little less great is the Lysistrata, where a serious purpose is veiled by intense indecency. The old comedy, however, was essentially the product of its own age; it did not invite, or even permit, imitation. The new comedy, of which Philemon, Menander, and Diphilus were the principal writers, gradually supplanted it. Their plays were more or less romantic comedies with carefully constructed plots. They are all lost, but we may gain some idea of them from Plautus and Terence, and from the fragments which have been found, some of them fairly recently.