the choreutae for a moment and says: “If you would hear while these are near, I am ready to speak; or else to go within.” In real life the second alternative probably would have been adopted; on the Greek stage it was impossible (cf. pp. 237-41, below). Accordingly, Oedipus makes answer as follows: “Speak before all, for I bear more sorrow for these than for my own life” (vss. 91-94). In Sophocles’ _Electra_, Orestes discovers himself and his design to his sister in the presence of the chorus, “so that he entrusts a secret, upon which his empire and life depends, in the hands of sixteen women.”[267] The implication is that a body of women cannot keep a secret under any circumstances. Yet Sophocles has done what he could. At vs. 1202 Orestes’ identity is not yet revealed, but his sympathy has begun to make Electra suspicious. She inquires: “Can it be that you are some unknown kinsman?” And when Orestes, glancing at the chorus, replies: “I would answer, if these as friends were present,” she reassures him by saying: “But they are friends, so that you can speak without mistrust.” This device was borrowed by Euripides in his _Orestes_, vss. 1103 f. Pylades says: “Silence now, for I put small trust in women,” meaning the chorus; but Orestes replies: “Fear not, for these are friends to us.” In general, the constant presence of the chorus bore more heavily upon Euripides than upon either Aeschylus or Sophocles, since his plots were more complicated than theirs. Usually the Euripidean choruses are bound to secrecy by an oath or promise. But this is only to shift the problem, not to solve it. In real life groups of people do not take such oaths without an adequate reason. In his _Hippolytus_, vss. 710-14, the chorus swear by Artemis to conceal their knowledge of Phaedra’s guilt, and they remain true to their oath, though by their so doing the innocent Hippolytus is brought to ruin and death before their eyes. But their willingness to take such an oath is without motive except as one is implied in their kindly feeling toward the heroine. In Euripides’ _Iphigenia among the Taurians_ and _Helen_ the choruses consist of Greek slaves, who would naturally, because of racial ties, plot against their barbarian masters in order to help their fellow-countrywomen. Other reasons, however, are cited. In both plays the actors promise to rescue the chorus as well as themselves (vss. 1067 f. and 1387 ff., respectively). In the _Iphigenia_ an additional motive for choral secrecy is found in an appeal to sex loyalty: “We are women,” says Iphigenia, “a sex most staunch to one another, most trustworthy in keeping common counsel” (vss. 1061 f.). The same plea recurs, in an intensified form, in Euripides’ _Medea_. Theatrical conditions compelled Medea to take the chorus into her confidence, and she bases her request for their silence not only upon the ground of their common womanhood but also upon the fact that she is alone, sadly wronged, and in distress (vss. 230-66).