SPECIMENS OF GREEK TRAGEDY

Translated By

GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L.



AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES



1893



PREFACE.

Greek drama, forerunner of ours, had its origin in the festival of
Dionysus, god of wine, which was celebrated with dance, song, and
recitative. The recitative, being in character, was improved into the
Drama, the chief author of the improvement, tradition says, being
Thespis. But the dance and song were retained, and became the Chorus,
that peculiar feature of the Greek play. This seems to be the general
account of the matter, and especially of the combination of the lyric
with the dramatic element, so far as we can see through the mist of an
unrecorded age.

Thirlwall, still perhaps the soundest and most judicious, though not
the most vivid or enthusiastic, historian of Greece, traces the origin