But by the time of New Comedy a great change had taken place. In comedies of this period, or at least in many of them, the chorus appeared only to furnish entertainment between acts, withdrawing again at the end of its performance. It bore no speaking part and from the nature of the case could exercise no influence upon the plot. Occasionally it was brought into formal relationship with one of the actors. For example, in Menander’s _Girl with the Shorn Locks_ the chorus seems to consist of Polemon’s boon companions, who took breakfast with him in the country and have now come to his house in the city to be on hand for the dinner in the evening. This is the most frequent type of chorus in New Comedy. The approach of these intermezzic choruses is often mentioned by the actors who thus motivate their own withdrawal from the scene during the choral _entr’acte_. For instance, in one case[253] ΧΟΡΟΥ is prefaced by one character remarking to another: “Let us withdraw into Charisius’ home, for a throng of tipsy youths is approaching whom it is inadvisable to provoke.” Such an introduction occurs also in a fragment of Alexis, a poet of Middle Comedy,[254] but the quotation is not long enough to determine whether Alexis resembled Aristophanes or the New Comedy in his use of embolima and of the chorus. Racine’s _Athalie_, which has been pronounced[255] the “one thoroughly satisfactory choric drama” that modern art has produced, presents several points of likeness to the later Greek chorus. The Levite maidens do not appear until just before the close of the first act and are withdrawn several times subsequently, being thus absent from the scene during long stretches of the dialogue. Their entrances, also, are sometimes alluded to by the actors. Their songs, however, are not embolima, but constituent parts of the text. We have seen that with reference to the plot these intermezzic choruses of New Comedy are irrelevant. At times they must even have been disconcerting. Notwithstanding, in the light of modern dramatic theory they are not utterly defenseless. The principle is the same as that which is used to justify intermissions between acts. “It would be no gain but a loss, if a whole two hours’ or three hours’ action could be carried through in one continuous movement, with no relaxation of the strain upon the attention of the audience, and without a single point at which the spectator might review what was past and anticipate what was to come. The act division positively enhances the amount of pleasurable emotion through which the audience passes.”[256]