On the other hand, though tragedy, comedy, and satyric dramas were juxtaposed at the festivals, they were not intermingled. The lines of demarcation were kept distinct. With very rare exceptions, like the _Alcestis_, the audience always knew what kind of a play it was about to hear, and (what was even more important) the poet always knew what kind of a play he was supposed to write. Of course, this is not the same as saying that all Greek tragedies were alike or that all Greek comedies seemed to be poured from the same mold. Within the type there was room for the greatest diversity, but the types did not overlap or borrow much from one another. This practice was a natural outgrowth of the Greek love for schematizing which displayed itself in the formulation and observance of rigid laws in every branch of art and especially in literature; in the field of drama this tendency was strengthened by the festival arrangements. Contrast with this the modern confusion of all the arts and all the literary genres which, in the sphere of drama, results in plays harder to classify than Polonius’ “tragical-comical-historical-pastorals.” This is one of the things that Voltaire had in mind when he declared that Shakespeare wrote like “a drunken savage.” The simplicity of the Greek effect is aptly characterized by Mr. Clayton Hamilton:[297] “Although the ancient drama frequently violated the three unities of action, time, and place, it always preserved a fourth unity, which we may call unity of mood.” Possibly regard for this fourth unity caused Euripides to employ the _deus ex machina_ at the conclusion of his _Iphigenia among the Taurians_. It is well known that this is the play that lends least support to the frequent charge that Euripides used the _deus_ to cut the inextricable tangle of his plots. Here the final, insurmountable difficulty is of the poet’s own choosing. Orestes and his party have at last got their vessel free of the shore, and all the playwright needed to do was to allow them to sail on in safety and thus bring his play to a close. But arbitrarily he causes a contrary wind and sea to drive their ship back to land, making divine intervention indispensable. Of course this device enabled him to overleap the unity of time and bring events far in the future within the limits of his dramatic day, and frequently that was all that Euripides had in mind in having recourse to this artifice (see p. 295, below). But in the present instance I think he had an additional motive, one which has a place in this discussion. The gist of the matter is well expressed by Mr. Prickard:[298] “If the fugitives had simply escaped, snapping their fingers at Thoas, the ending would have been essentially comic: perhaps, after the grave and pathetic scenes which have gone before, we should rather call it burlesque. But the appearance of the _deus ex machina_, a device not itself to be praised, enables the piece to be finished after