[Illustration: Comic Actors dressed as Ostriches] 204. The production of a Play.—The crowds are hushed and expectant. The herald, ere the play begins, proclaims the award of a golden crown to some civic benefactor: a moment of ineffable joy to the recipient; for when is a true Greek happier than when held up for public glorification? Then comes the summons to the first competing poet. “Lead on your chorus.”[*] The intellectual feast of the Dionysia has begun. [*] In the fourth century B.C. when the creation of original tragedies was in decline, a considerable part of the Dionysia productions seem to have been devoted to the works of the earlier masters, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. To analyze the Attic drama is the task of the philosopher and the literary expert. We observe only the superficialities. There are never more than _three_ speaking actors before the audience at once. They wear huge masques, shaped to fit their parts. The wide mouthpieces make the trained elocution carry to the most remote parts of the theater. The actors wear long trailing robes and are mounted on high shoes to give them sufficient stature before the distant audience. When a new part is needed in the play, an actor retires to the booth, and soon comes forth with a changed masque and costume—an entirely new character. In such a costume and masque, play of feature and easy gesture is impossible; but the actors carry themselves with a stately dignity and recite their often ponderous lines with a grace which redeems them from all bombast. An essential part of the play is the chorus; indeed the chorus was once the main feature of the drama, the actors insignificant innovations. With fifteen members for the tragedy, twenty-four for the comedy,[*] old men of Thebes, Trojan dames, Athenian charcoal burners, as the case may demand—they sympathize with the hard-pressed hero, sing lusty choral odes, and occupy the time with song and dance while the actors are changing costume. [*] In the “Middle” and “Later” comedy, so called, the chorus entirely disappears. The actors do everything. [Illustration: Actor in Costume as a Fury]