His own wild team destroyed him, and the dire Curse of thy lips. . . . The boon of the great Sire Is granted thee, O King, and thy son slain. Will Theseus turn in fury on the speaker? Or will he even now soften? Neither. THESEUS Ye Gods! . . . And thou, Poseidon, not in vain I called thee Father. Thou hast heard my prayer. The shock is heavy but he recovers his calm, and with it comes the horrible conviction that his curse was just and the gods have struck dead a guilty man. How did he die? Speak on. How closed the snare Of Heaven to slay the shamer of my blood? Then the Messenger begins his story. Such preparations are regular in Euripides. In the _Electra_, Orestes has gone forth to find King Aegisthus, and if possible slay him. Electra is waiting in her hut, a drawn sword across her knees, sworn to die if Orestes fails. How is the Messenger brought on? First the Leader of the Chorus thinks she hears a noise in the distance; she is not sure. . . . Yes; a noise of fighting! She calls Electra, who comes, the sword in her hand. The noise increases; a cry; cheering. Something has happened, but what? The cheers sound like Argive voices; "Aegisthus's men!" cries Electra; "then let me die!" The Chorus restrain her. "There is no Messenger; Orestes would have sent a Messenger." "Wait, wait!" cries the Leader, holding her arm: and a man rushes in, shouting, "Victory! Orestes has slain Aegisthus, and we are free" (747-773). That seems enough, but even now Euripides has not extracted his full effect from the situation. Electra, steeped to the lips in fears and suspicions, recoils from the man. "Who are you? . . . It is a plot!" She must get the sword. . . . The Man bids her look at him again; he is her brother's servant; she saw him with Orestes an hour ago. She looks, remembers, and throws her arms round the man's neck. "Tell me again. Tell me all that happened." And so the Messenger begins. * * * * * This art of preparation belongs, of course, to the modern stage as much as to the ancient, or more. So do the similar arts of making the right juncture between scenes, of arranging the contrasts and clashes, and especially of so ending each scene as to make the spectator look eagerly for the next move. He must be given just enough notion of the future to whet his appetite; not enough to satisfy it. These are general rules that apply to all good drama. They can all be studied in Mr. Archer's book, _Play-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship_. In ancient times they were more developed by Euripides than by his predecessors, but that is all we need say. * * * * * Prologue; Set Speech; Messenger; there still remain two stumbling-blocks to a modern reader of Greek tragedies, the _Deus ex Mâchinâ_, (or "God from the Machine") and the Chorus.