THE GREEK CHORUS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1180, 15 July 1911, Page 9

THE GREEK CHORUS.

Professor. Gilbert-Murray lectured the other day at tho Koyal Institution on "Tho Greek Chorus as au Art l'orm." He traccd the Greek Chorus to the aauces by which rudo and primitive peoples were, apt to indicate emotions which they were unable to express in more lucid form. In primeval times women danced while the men went forth to battle, and dancing was the accompaniment of certain religious or tribal celebrations. Within our own time the tribe of North American Indians, of which the famous Chief Sitting Bull was the head, gave out that they were going to dance without stopping for three months, at the end of which time their Messiah was to appear: Aii argument ensued between the Chief 'and the United- States authorities, wherein all the pathos and all the-logic were on the side of Sitting Bull and his people, but not all tho power, aiid therefore, instead of dancing, they had to sit out. Drama began when in the middle of an unrhetorical dance there carno some more rhetorical expression of emotion, and then tho reciter or actor appealed. The actor related the deeds and fate of tho hero, and tho chorus in the meantime expressed the emotion to. which the, sribjecl gave rise. In Greek tragedy the" evolution to drama was complete, but in it was still the Chorus, which bore curious traces of the rock-out of which it had been formed. That Chorus wa3 neither actor nor spectator. He did not think that tho description of it as an idle spectator was quite right. It was a special instrument for expressing in the first place appreciation of great deeds and events which the doer cbuld not express, and, secondly, the emotion which could not quite be conveyed in ordinary words. The function it performed was to express and also to translate the crude, raw material of tragedj in terms of poetry end mystery.

To "illustrate, the "aim'.of.the. Chorus the lecturer asked his audience to imagine the death of Nelson' occurriug in n'GrOck tragedy. Nelson's was, of course, tho sort of d'jath that would have appealed very strongly to the imagination of the ancient Greeks. lu such a sceno as he supposed, a messenger would come.ou and tell the story of the Battle of Trafalgar, and the dying Admiral would then appear and say.something' liks what ho said on board the Victory, that ho had done his duty and that ho hoped his country would not forget Lady. Hamilton. It would then be for the Chorus to comment of the hero's achievements and to bemoan the misarabb future in prospect for the woman 110 had loved, sentiments which would sound intolerably egotistical in the mouth of Nelson himself. Somelimes, as in "Medea," those who composed the. Ch,orns crashed through into the v.-orlrl of tho str.se and bccamo for a while like human beings, but the Greek dramatists always felt that it was dangerous lo break the convention, which was that the Chorus should bo mere abstractions- or ideal beings who reflected on such subjects ns the vicissitudes of life, !he vanitv of revenge, or tho eternal.question whether the world was governed.by righteousness or not, while (it the saint! time thev cast a lyrical splendour over the .whole work. ! Attempts in modern times to employ a Chorus while connecting it more" closely with the action had not been successful. If in the Nelson tragedy he had imagined they. had 'a Chorus apostrophising the audience on the mysteries of fate, he thought that audience would b every much inclined to say (hat the author had better go back to mermaids and angels.