So much for the idea behind the objections. The particular charges seem hardly to hold. What is forced off the stage of Greek drama, or of any drama? Surely nothing that the dramatist wishes to have on-stage, or his art is imperfect. That the frequent murders are only heard, not seen, is due not to any exigencies of form, but to social convention and to the idea that dying is less tragic than death. For the rest, to put shifting human life on a fixed stage, even with liberty to represent more than one place and time, always involves foreshortening. Art cannot have the diffuseness of life. It works by selection. The Greek tragic artists chose to carry selection to the highest degree. That this event or that of the tragic story is reported by a messenger, not enacted before our eyes, is not a hindrance to the tragic march, not the makeshift conceded to an intractable form. Let the speech of a Greek messenger be read aloud, or better, let it be acted; and it will no longer be called undramatic.[16] Add its dramatic value in context, its relation to the scene that it enters; and no doubt will remain. The possibilities of narrative on the stage, though they seem to have been forgotten by many English playwrights, are clear. But the Greek dramatist did make a virtue of necessity. He sometimes used a messenger, dramatically indeed, but perforce. What we hear from a messenger we could not see without change of scene. This was the dramatist’s sacrifice, not to formalism, but to continuity. To that end he would have made even greater sacrifice. The speeding of the action beyond the normal pace of life is not confined to this form. It is a condition of all drama. Nor does Greek drama seem either crowded or hurried. Though events may follow thick and fast, the Greek movement is typically unhurried. It has steadiness from careful preparation; it gains momentum as it advances; it culminates swiftly; it diminishes to a slow and quiet close.