The Dance in Greek Tragedy

Author(s): H. D. F. Kitto
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 75 (1955), pp. 36-41
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/629167 .
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 THE DANCE IN GREEK TRAGEDY
ON rhythm amd metre Aristoxenus always talks the plainest common sense-which is more
than one can say about certain other ancient metricians. On Time, in its rhythmical aspect, he
remarks: ' Time is articulated by each of the three uvepi36oEva, Mtis, p0os and KiVprlaot opoAtAK4 .'1.
The Greek choral lyric was a triple partnership of poetry, song, and dancing, and Aristoxenus here
points out that they share a common rhythm. (He goes on to develop the idea, but that need not
concern us here.) We could safely infer for ourselves, even if Plato and Aristotle had not told us,
that the music and the dance were far from being merely decorative or casual additions to the
poetry. The poetry may have been Queen, as Pratinas maintained, but the philosophers took the
o-ther two partners very seriously as ' imitators ' of moral ideas and the like; and there is every
reason to suppose that the dramatists did the same. But writers on Greek Tragedy have had much
to say about the M'ftsof the odes; nothing about its two partners-for the good reason that we know
nothing about them. Yet it does seem possible, here and there, to say a little about the dance.
Whether it is worth saying, the reader must judge.
The audience, sitting in the theatre, saw some kind of ordered physical movement in the
orchestra as it listened to the singing or chanting of an ode. If in any given case we were asked
what this movement was, our only answer is that we cannot possibly tell. Nevertheless, there are
moments where we can infer, with more or less probability, the sort of thing that was being done
by the dancers, and occasionally-notably in the Agamemnon-this dim and doubtful picture will
contribute something to our appreciation of the drama.
As a preliminary here are two small examples. At O.T. 1207 we read: icd KXEi6vVOii8tou
K<apa,and at the corresponding point in the antistrophe: ic~ AatEtov -rtKvov. Does it not seem
likely that at this point in the repeated dance-movement the chorus turned, faced the Palace, and
made some gesture apostrophising Oedipus ? In the Persae the three successive verses 550-2 begin
with the name of Xerxes, and the corresponding verses of the antistrophe all begin with the word
vaES. Certainly, this is a device that might be used in pure poetry, but if we reflect that Aeschylus
was not simply a dramatic poet, but also a composer and a choreographer, we may reasonably
conclude that this repetition of significant words was conceived by him not only aurally, but visually
and spatially as well.
These are two examples out of several of the kind that might be adduced. What do we gain
from them? Indeed, not very much; but at least if a teacher made such suggestions to his pupils
they might be saved from using, as they will do, the revolting phrase: ' It says, later in this book...'
And it is something, to realise that a play does not consist of print.
But we can go farther than this. In the Agamemnon,as I believe, it is possible to see what we
may call the ground-plan of an extensive dance-movement which was a very important element in
the play. We can even use it as an extra control in our interpretation of the play. In the Agamemnon,
Aeschylus does something which is not common in Greek drama-the only parallel in fact is the
Bacchae: he composes several odes on the same basic rhythm. In the Bacchae the rhythm is the
ionic a minore, and about this I can find no more to say than that it is obviously suited to the mood and
subject of the play. About the rhythm that Aeschylus uses, much more can be said. Unlike the
ionics, and certain rhythms which we will discuss later-the choriambic and anacreontic-it has
no strongly marked associations or ethos of its own, being in fact a quite straightforward iambic
rhythm, usually a trimeter, sometimes a dimeter, and once (v. I94) a single metron. It is given
flexibility by the admission of one, two, three, or four prolongations; that is, a long syllable equal
to three shorts (a dotted crotchet, so to speak) may take the place of a long and a short.2 Typical
verses are:
rract1ifK1r Xp6vov "rt0ekat "

?dn'roioa 85'ao-ro'To'av
aoa'rio-Topa~g
3po-roiouepcrao'va yaxp iaioXpOarl-rTt

With this preamble, we may consider how the choral parts of the play are laid out. The first
ode, the parodos, falls into three clearly marked sections. To begin with, there are three stanzas,
1
2
Westphal, GriechischeRhythmik(3rd edn., 1885), p. 74. than two shorts will necessarily disagree with what follows, and
Metricians who will not believe Aristoxenus and Aristeides must continue to do their best with the dochmii and other
Quintilianus when they say that a long can be much longer rhythmical irrelevancies that they find in these odes.

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 THE DANCE IN GREEK TRAGEDY 37
mainly in dactyls, which deal with the omen. Then comes what we may call the Hymn to Zeus,
and that is in trochees. The third section deals with Agamemnon's sacrificing of Iphigeneia, and
is composed in the iambic rhythm, though with dramatic excursions into other metres, such as the
choriambics of vv. 201-3. In the second ode there are seven stanzas; with the exception of the
song-like refrain appended to each of the first six, the iambic rhythm prevails throughout. The
third ode contains eight stanzas. The first pair are in trochees and anacreontics, the second pair in
glyconics. With the third pair the iambics return, giving place to more anacreontics, but the fourth
pair is entirely iambic. The fourth ode, we observe, does not use the iambic rhythm at all, but it
comes back later, at 1485-7 and 1530-6, with the responding passages. In other words, beginning
with v. 192, seventeen out of twenty-one consecutive stanzas are composed, either wholly or in part,
in this one rhythm. Aeschylus has done something quite unusual, but it is easy to see why he did it.
Let us go over the ground again, bearing in mind the remark of Aristoxenus with which we began:
what we are considering is not simply a metre-a poetic phenomenon; it is a rhythm which was
common to the A~lS, the VlhXos,and the KiVTIS acIiCT1iKl.
In the first ode this rhythm presents to us the following ideas: the adverse winds, Agamemnon's
hard choice, the mad TrapaKOTrhrrpWTo-roTr1w0v-whichswept him over the brink, the
killing of Iphigeneia, frenzy-T&•Xalva
and the foreboding of the chorus that some evil must come of it. Now, it is
surely a necessary conclusion that the sustaining of this rhythm implies that a corresponding dance-
movement also was sustained, and presumably music of a certain mode too. When the second
ode begins, in the same rhythm, we can safely assume that the same general dance-movement and
music began with it. But the second ode begins with Paris.
This is the passage I had in mind when I said that the little which we can discern of the dance
can be an extra control over dramatic interpretation. It has been said of this ode that the chorus
begins in a mood of joy and relief at the victory, but then, as it considers what the victory has cost,
changes to a mood of apprehension. This may sound plausible, but the rhythm disproves it;
Aeschylus knew enough about music and dancing to realise that joy and fear call for different
rhythms; but here he uses the same one throughout. What the chorus says about Paris cannot
be an expression of joy; the ode begins with a dance-movement which is now firmly associated
in our minds with the crime of Agamemnon, the frenzy that possessed him, and the threat of evil to
come. Therefore, when the second ode begins, with the words AlbS irrXayav EXoUalvE rEiv, the
dance of itself would link Paris with Agamemnon. He is not an enemy in whose destruction the
chorus is exulting; he is, like Agamemnon, one whom temptation has swept over the brink-
Pia'rati ' &"-rXaliva TrEtecbis in the same rhythm as ppo-rour 0pacivEi ydp acrXp~6rpTl'ri T&~aiva
lrapoKc-r a -TpcoTo1-r?pcov. But Paris is already destroyed; the parallel is no encouraging one. Then,
for the rest of the ode, we continue to watch this same dance, whatever it is; and as we do so, we
hear of Helen's sin, how it brought sorrow and death to Greece. Still the dance continues: ashes
came back in the place of living men, there is anger against the Atreidae,3 the gods do not disregard
men of blood.
So far, then, we can say that the dance put immediately and vividly before the very eyes of
the audience an idea which we, reading the text, can miss entirely. The destruction of Paris is
yet another reason to be fearful about Agamemnon.
The third ode begins with totally different dance-movements, and we shall have something to
say about them later: Helen was welcomed with songs at Troy, but the songs turned to dirges.
Then comes the simple parable of the lion's cub, in glyconics. That finished, we hear:

Trdpaxrra8"' hOEiviS 'RIou 6v iav...

It is back again, that iambic rhythm, now charged with the ideas of sin and its inevitable consequence,
ruin. It swerves aside, -rrapaKVvacua,for a moment into anacreontics; but it comes back for the
final two stanzas, which give us explicitly the doctrine of hybris and ate. Then, as this obstinate
rhythm at last subsides, Agamemnon enters the theatre, royally, with Cassandra. This is the
magnificent climax to which it has all been leading. It does not seem too much to say, that in all
this even we, peering through a glass darkly, can see how Aeschylus gave visible shape, in the
orchestra, to the conception that sin leads to more sin, and that to disaster. There is even more
evidence, some negative, some positive. In the fourth ode the chorus is utterly at a loss to under-
stand its own uneasiness; accordingly, this rhythm does not appear. But we do hear and see it
again. ' All things happen by the will of Zeus' (1485 ff.); ' Blood exacts blood ' (I5o9 ff.); 'The
house is overthrown; more slaughter will come' (I530 ff.); 'It is the law: the slayer is slain'
(1560 ff.)-all these passages, and no others, are couched in this same rhythm. Its last words are:
KEK6?rTjTal )YVOSTrpOs&Tra.
This is the only large-scale use of the dance that it seems profitable to discuss, but if we are now
persuaded that the dance could be purposeful and eloquent, no mere conventional or decorative
appendage to drama, we may spare a moment for two similar though shorter dance-passages.
3 Here there is a brief anacreontic
interlude, discussed below.

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38 H. D. F. KITTO
In early tragedy, we are told, the parodos was regularly composed in anapaests; later, in
lyric measures. The Antigone,being a transitional play, has a parodos composed partly in anapaests,
partly in lyrics.
Human ingenuity has discovered less interesting facts than this, though not very many. This
one may be true, but it obstructs the understanding--like so many quasi-historical statements in
the field of literary criticism; for when we consider the Antigone, we do not ask ourselves why
Sophocles used different kinds of KiVolcIS in the parodos, because we think that we know
the answer already: it was because he wroteClArarTlKal
the play round about 44o B.c. But if we think of drama
not as a historical process, but as a series of plays, composed by living men who had ideas to express
in the theatre, to a crowd of other living men, then it becomes a little easier to remain awake.
When Aeschylus designed the parodos of the Septem he forgot that he was still an early Attic
tragedian; he was unhistorical enough to compose it in dochmiacs, of all things, and resolved ones,
at that. Now, we know enough about the Dochmiac, and about the play, to understand why he did
it, and to form some kind of picture of what happened in the orchestra. We must think of the
dochmiac not as a difficult metre used by the tragic poets-or not only as that; we must think of it
as a rhythm common to the NE'S and 0A'os and the
KiVlcgS oawprTKyl. It is a foot, or bar, of
eight Xp6vol (as Aristoxenus would say), divided unevenly into three and eight. Whether the
dancers took two or three steps to each bar is, to me at least, not clear; if the former, they moved
on the second and fourth Xp6vos, if the latter, on the second, fourth, and seventh. In either case
it would be a very uneven method of progress, suitable, therefore to the expression of any strong
emotion. Moreover, it begins on what both Aristoxenus and Sir Thomas Beecham call an 'up-
beat ': s -r6 &vco airPEov. This makes it still more dynamic, as Aristeides knew: T~$ v 5
Vu0Av
1cuvXaiTrEpot Iv o i drr 01
T-rv 8iaCvoXav Ei CT TCOV
TrI K0poVov EWTripEOVTES 0o'Ec•v So much for the dance rhythm.
TrpoKorCTaT-rEa'ov-rES
rTETapcayEVOI.4 The dramatic
"rOcv po-Ecv Tr- ~pCOv•
situation is that the terror and disorder of the chorus are an important element in the play. Not
only do they make an effective contrast with the strong and calm figure ofEteocles; they also become
the reason why the King makes his fatal decision to take one of the gates himself. Therefore we
are probably not exaggerating Aeschylus' boldness and skill as choreographer if we
picture this
chorus swirling into the orchestra with a dance which gave visible shape to the idea of panic.
The parodos of the Antigonehas many points of interest. The broad outline is the alternation
of lyrical measures with anapaests. This must mean that something which we ourselves should call
a dance-movement alternated with something that we should call a march, and if we consider the
ode as a whole we can perhaps divine the reasons for which Sophocles laid it out on this
pattern.
For the actual entrance of the chorus he chooses the more dancing type of
movement-glyconics
-and not the anapaestic. We can see for ourselves that this makes a more
complete contrast with
what has gone before: after the dark colours of the scene in which
Antigone determines to bury her
own brother, the chorus comes in, expressing its joy and relief at their deliverance from a dire
When they do turn to anapaests, their words and (we may reasonably peril.
suppose) their movements
too, suggest the menace of the advancing army; it is as if a modern composer should write a jubilant
passage fobrstrings, and then something for drums and trumpets. They begin ' dancing ' again, and
sing, first of the peril, then of the triumph; after which the more regular anapaestic movement is
repeated; quite intelligibly, for this is a reflective passage; Zeus hates arrogance, and has destroyed
the arrogant Capaneus. The rhythms of the second strophe are more marked than those
of the first; we shall have something to say about them later: ' Down hestrongly
fell, this man of frenzy, and
all the rest of them the War-god destroyed.' Then:
Seven foemen, appointed to our seven gates,
Each fell to a Theban; and Argive arms
Shall crown our Theban temple of Zeus:-
Save two, those two of unnatural hate,
Two sons of one mother, two sons of one King;
They strove for the crown, and shared with the sword
Their estate, each slain by his brother.
This is quoted from an isometric translation of the lyrical parts of the play which the writer
once made, for the purpose of setting them to music which should at least keep Sophocles' own
rhythms as nearly as possible. This experience left no question about the eloquence of the four-
square rhythm here; the passage begins with an expression of solemn joy, and ends with something
like a funeral march.
The transition to the second antistrophe is electrifying-and incidentally very instructive.
Yet do we see in our midst, and acclaim with gladness,
Victory, glorious Victory, smiling, welcome.
Now, since danger is gone,
Thoughts of war shall pass from our minds.
'4 Westphal, p. 226.

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 THE DANCE IN GREEK TRAGEDY 39
Come! Let all thank the gods,
Dancing before temple and shrine
All through the night, following Thee,
Theban Dionysus.
The buoyancy and energy of these rhythms are astonishing; a complete contrast with what went
before, and a fine climax to the whole composition (for the last anapaestic system is clearly a prelude
to the next act rather than part of this first ode; the chorus is simply moving to its permanent
positions in the orchestra, making way for Creon and his retinue). There can surely be little
doubt that the dance also was buoyant and energetic. But what about the strophe? Presumably
Sophocles' plNhosand Kivrtlct were exactly the same there. How can the same dance-
COp•rTIKil
figure, if it has a sharply defined character, fit two passages so different in mood ? It did, if the
blundering experience of an amateur composer is any guide-but on one assumption.
The opening verses of the strophe might be rendered:
Heavily down to the earth did he fall, and lie there,
He who with torch in his hand, and possessed with frenzy
What this calls for, musically, is two six-bar phrases in a long, swinging rhythm. As we hear the
words, we shall interpret the tune pictorially: Capaneus falls and falls, right to the ground. But
the swing of the tune (if it has any) will suit the antistrophe just as well, only this time it will not
suggest anything pictorial; it will reflect rather the strong, confident happiness which the singers
are feeling. If now we stop thinking musically, and put the same idea into dance-terms, we see at
once what the assumption is that we referred to above: it is one which in any case would recommend
itself, namely that Sophocles' dances were not naturalistic: there could have been no movement
directly picturing the fall of Capaneus, since that would not have made sense in the antistrophe.
The dance could not have been a mime; it must have been the kind of pure dancing of which we
can say what we can say of music, namely that it cannot suggest a particular idea unless a clue is
given, as by a title or by accompanying words; it can suggest only a mood or an ethos, which may
be equally appropriate in several different contexts.
We will return to this later, in another connexion; meanwhile we may consider other passages
which illustrate the point, and give us half-glimpses of the chorus in action.
The first strophic system of the second ode in the Antigonebegins in glyconics and then changes
to dactyls. Why? Let us try translating:
Earth inexhaustible, ageless, he wearies, as
Backwards and forwards, from season to season, his
Ox-team drives along the plough-share.5
Why dactyls ? Looking for traditional literary associations that the metre may have will not help
us. What we have to consider is that after the comparatively plastic glyconic movement Sophocles
goes into a perfectly steady 4-4 time. Then we should ask ourselves: In that case, why dactyls
and not anapaests, which are also in 4-4 ? To answer the latter question, we may trust our ears, or
consult Aristeides, or both: Aristeides has told us that a rhythm which begins on the up-beat is
more TETapaypEVOS, more impetuous, than one which begins on the down-beat, and our own ears
concur. The dactyl has more strength, or is more stately, or calmer, than the anapaest, which has
more impetus. This answers our first question, and also enables us to form some impression of the
nature of the dance which Sophocles designed here: it was presumably one which, in association
with the words, would give an impression of monotonous perseverence. It cannot have been
mimetic, because the antistrophic passage is:
He becomes lord
Even of the beasts of the mountain; the long-haired
Horse he subdues to the yoke on his neck, and the
Hill-bred bull, of strength untiring.
Here, it is the strength and solidity of the dactylic rhythm which makes it appropriate.
There is a similar passage in the third ode (586-92 597-603):
'Tis even as the swelling sea,
When the stormy wind from Thrace
Drives blustering over the water and makes it black:
It heaves up from below
A thick, dark cloud of mud,
And groaning cliffs repel the smack of wind and angry breakers."
6 I assume that the last verse, TrrsEicp
y&I contains
El roAEICWO, 6 To judge from the verse-divisions in the Oxford text, Pear-
six feet, not four: LL,--,,-,, LL, not- ) - ,, I as,, I-) - v - v - - - -
son scanned KVfAvBEI...8Va&VEpot - -.
see no means of proving this; but the former, in this context, This obliterates one of Sophocles' most vivid rhythms:
makes an appropriate and intelligible rhythm, while the latter LLI -,-,.
would be nothing but a huddled mess. vILLI
....I ! -.

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40 H. D. F. KITTO
Nothing could be more pictorial than the scurrying resolutions of the third verse and the heaving
rhythm of the next two, and we must surely assume that they were realised in the dance too. But in
the antistrophe the poppling water becomes 'A shimmering light in the house of Oedipus'; and in
place of the billowing mud we have:
But Death strikes once again
With blood-stained axe, and hews
The sapling down . . .
Yet a musical realisation of the rhythm which is pictorially effective in the strophe is just as effective,
though in a different way, in the antistrophe; and so, surely was Sophocles' dance-movement.
There are other passages, though not very many, where one can form some tentative impression
of the choreography. One is the solitary anapaestic couplet, in a stanza of different rhythms, at
O. T. 469 f. - 479 f. In the strophe, where the anapaests occur, the unknown criminal is being
stalked by Apollo; in the antistrophe he is making his weary way along, keeping far from Delphi.
It seems fairly clear that the chorus was given some kind of march-movement at this point, and we
can see that it could have been a very dramatic reinforcement of the words.
In the iambic rhythm of the Agamemnon,neither the pure iambic line nor the resolution of a long
syllable is at all common; there are two passages, 406-8 and the responding 423-5, where both
occur together. Elsewhere, resolution is used, as a rule, on strongly emotional words: &viEpov
(220), lrapaCKO~r& (223), TrEp~rTETfl(233).7 Here, in the strophe, the resolution occurs on the not very
exciting word St&; in the antistrophe too it comes on 8t&. This does not look like accident-nor
is it; for the combination of resolution and pure iambic is explained when we consider the sense:
in the strophe, Helen slips lightly between the doors on her happy journey to Troy, and in the
antistrophe the insubstantial vision slips from between the sleeper's arms and glides away. Was the
rhythmical effect confined to the A&eS,or did a slight ripple pass across the orchestra at the word
8t&? I think it is proper to ask the question, even though there are no means of answering it.
In these passages, then, it seems possible to form some impression of the original dance, and
however uncertain the results may be, the attempt is perhaps worth while. We will now turn to a
different problem, where consideration of the dance may be helpful.
It has been established by Professor George Thomson 8 that the choriambic was regularly
associated with prophecy, and the anacreontic with the ideas of love, wine, and the like. Typical
examples of the choriambic are Agamemnon 201 ff.
-
pdavt&r KACay?EV rpoqPpcov "Ap'rEly . . .
and O. T. 483-97:
SEtvwdioE& v SE1VX aoqp ovo0'COSTa ...
rcTapadaaEl
For the anacreontic, we may cite the most dramatic use that Aeschylus makes of it in the third ode
of the Agamemnon,685-98 and 744-7, with the responsions: joyful marriage-hymns turned into cries
of despair. But in each case there is a serious difficulty.
What is the metre of this:

rr1ropat 5'' E Tliva

V
6pOVCov ' OT' ?
6rro0aO
If we do not remember where it occurs, we reply without hesitation: ionic a minore. This is a
smooth, langorous, luxurious rhythm, as we know from Plato, Thomson, and our own ears. But the
phrase quoted occurs in the stanza 8Etv&
piv oiv; the metre is choriambic, suggesting (as Thomson
says) perturbation of mind--the very opposite of languor and elegance. How can we cope with
this ?
The difficulty can be generalised thus: The ionics, - - or - - are in regular triple-time,
and presumably in a fairly slow tempo; their rhythm is like,, that of a slow
,u, waltz. The choriambus
is also in regular triple-time; in the above passage the rhythm is indistinguishable from ionics.
Why, then, was its effect entirely different? We could postulate a faster tempo, but a fast waltz-
rhythm suggests mental perturbation no more than a slow one-it is merely gayer. Was, then,
'choriambic for prophecy' only an arbitrary convention? This hardly sounds Greek.
So long as we think as metricians, paying regard only to the ?ts, we are not likely to solve
the difficulty; but the rhythm was expressed also in movement. Let us, then, put the problem in
this way: how might - ,- be danced, in order to suggest perturbation of mind? I can see
,u--, be a complete answer: the choriambus in
only one answer, and it would question is not in triple
time at all, but in duple; the dance-movement divided the bar equally, with the result that the two
halves went, in Aristeides' term, long-short being answered by short-long, a falling
Kerr'&vTi-EIV,
figure by a rising one. If the dancers took two steps to each bar, the first fell on the first of the six
7 The other instances are: (230), 413 (lect-dub.), obvious.
and the five which occur in vv.ptlh6paXot
485-6-with an effect which is 8 In his Greek
LyricMetres (Cambridge, 1929).

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 THE DANCE IN GREEK TRAGEDY 41
Xp6vot, the second on the fourth (being the second of the two short syllables).9 The visual effect
of this would be that the dance would seem to be continually cutting across the natural pattern of
the syllables-and a more direct way of expressing perturbation and strain it would not be easy to
invent. I cannot cite Aristoxenus in direct support of this, but one of his fragments gives indirect
support 10; for he does point out (what every musician knows) that there are two forms of the
ia&crIov PyE0OS; the ' iambic ', I :2 or 2: I, and the ' dactylic ' or Clov, I : i. If this interpreta-
tion of the choriambic is correct, then w'-ropca 6' Arictlv K..-A. did not look (nor probably sound) in
the least like ionics; it would be:
'WrE- 6pat 6' EAtria- iv o-r' vea6' - 6pov oT-r' 0 - wriao . . .
Naturally, there would be nothing to prevent a poet from writing the same series of syllables in triple
(ionic) rhythm; so that metricians, already a harassed tribe, are presented with yet another problem:
When is a choriambus not a choriambus ?
For that matter, when is an anacreontic not anacreontic? For here, too, there is a serious
difficulty. It will not do to say, 'This was a rhythm which had traditional literary associations
with love, wine, and the like, and was therefore used by poets later than Anacreon in that sort of
context.' Of course, it was-by Aeschylus in the Agamemnon,for instance; the awkward fact is
that it was also used in contexts where the idea of wine and love are ludicrously inappropriate.
The chorus of the Prometheususes them freely (128-35, 397-405, with the responsions)-and what have
love and wine to do with the Oceanids and Prometheus ? Indeed, when this chorus does say some-
thing about marriage (526 ff.), it begins in dactyloepitrites and continues with something else, not
anacreontics. Even more to the point is a passage in the Agamemnon,449-50: there is bitter indigna-
tion against the Atreidae-and it is expressed by Aeschylus in anacreontics !
The solution of this difficulty, too, involves the dance. It is not a matter of literary association
at all. The anacreontic is simply a rhythm-and quite a fascinating one; it is a variation of the
ionic a minore, made even more attractive by the delicious side-step in the middle, to which the
Metrici gave the voluptuous name anaclasis.12 Having this charming lilt, and being performed at
the appropriate tempo, and with appropriate music and movement, it was well suited to the
Anacreontic mood. But in itself it did not ' mean ' wine and love. In its liquid, swaying move-
ment Aeschylus found just the rhythm he wanted for the Oceanids-a rhythm which, incidentally,
makes a dramatic contrast with the stubborn hero chained to his rock. The same rhythm, per-
formed no doubt at a much faster tempo, and with a very different dance, and with a different style
of music, also commended itself to him in a context utterly unlike either of the two preceding ones:
the rising anger against the Atreidae. Literary association does not explain these things; they
become intelligible only when we take the pAoSand the KiVrl apa(crartKrlinto account.
H. D. F. KITTO
The Universityof Bristol.

9 It seems to me more probable that they took only one step,
though the point is not material here. The trochee, - , - ,, to
Aristoxenus, was - , thesis (i.e. strong part of the bar) and -
arsis (weak part). Probably therefore the choriambus was -
thesis, and arsis; in either case the physical movement
would divide,,-the bar into contrary halves.
10 Westphal, p. 159.
11 My accents indicate the moves of the dancers.
12 The simplest way of explaining the variation is to shift the
bar-line (which may offend some metricians, but makes no
practical difference at all); w ]- -, , - -, ]- v - W -one
-,
- - etc. The bars in 3-4 time are interrupted,, by
,,, 6-8 (compound-duple). It is an effect of which Brahms
in
was fond.

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