pathetic, and sharers in their plot; while in three[1] they are (by reason of their personality) simply interested spectators, stirred only to occasional sympathy. If, therefore, we apply the critic-philosopher's words, in their plain sense, to the personality of the chorus, and to their part as subordinate actors, it would seem to follow that his conclusions were based upon a survey of these two poets' dramatic works more complete than is possible to us. But this is not the sense in which they are usually applied by those who compare the merits of Euripides and Sophocles, to the disadvantage of the former. Passing by the part taken by the chorus in the ordinary and the lyrical dialogues, they fasten upon the choral odes (technically known as stasima) which divide act from act, and maintain that, whereas these were previously integral parts of every play, expanding, idealizing, or emphasizing the thought suggested by the foregoing dialogue, and so contributing to the vital unity of the play, in Euripides they became mere ornamental interludes, either wholly irrelevant to the dramatic context, or connected with it only slightly and occasionally. We will presently consider whether this view is borne out by an examination of his eighteen extant tragedies: but we remark at the outset, that it is directly opposed to the view of Aristotle, who, in the two sentences which immediately follow the somewhat ambiguous one already quoted, adds what is not ambiguous at all, viz.: "But as for the other dramatists, the choral odes are no more relevant to the particular plays in which they occur than to any other tragedy. Accordingly, these chorus-chants of theirs are mere interludes (embolima is the technical expression), the example of introducing which was first set by Agathon."
Now this testimony of Aristotle is of capital importance to
