One of the most troublesome problems that confront a playwright is inventing plausible motives to explain the entrances and exits of his characters. The fundamental nature of this problem appears from the words of a modern dramatist, Mr. Alfred Sutro: “Before I start writing the dialogue of a play, I make sure that I shall have an absolutely free hand over the entrances and exits: in other words, that there is ample and legitimate reason for each character appearing in any particular scene, and ample motive for his leaving it.” Now in the interior scene, and especially in the box set, moderns have a marvelously flexible instrument for shifting personages on and off the scene; yet few can avoid abusing this resource and can repeat Mr. Bernard Shaw’s boast: “My people get on and off the stage without requiring four doors to a room which in real life would have only one.”[311] To the ancient writer the difficulty was still greater. Prior to 465 B.C., when some uninhabited spot was perforce chosen as the scene of action and the two parodi were the sole means of ingress, it was fairly easy to motivate a person’s _first_ entrance and withdrawal; but a reappearance proved a more difficult matter, and each additional character complicated the problem still further. Consequently, the ancient playwrights not infrequently frankly abandoned all search for a solution and considered that to leave a character standing in idleness during a whole scene or choral ode was less awkward and improbable than any motive which they could provide for his exit and re-entrance. Thus in Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_, Danaus enters the orchestra with the chorus consisting of his daughters and remains at the altar, without a single word to say, during their parodus of a hundred and seventy-five lines. After a short scene the king of Argos appears, and then for over two hundred lines (vss. 234-479) Danaus is again ignored (see pp. 163 f., above). In this play the town of Argos is thought of as lying some distance away from the scene of action. Only an important errand would take Danaus there, and evidently the poet experienced difficulty in inventing as many errands as dramatic propriety required. Similarly at vss. 181 ff. of Aeschylus’ _Seven against Thebes_, Eteocles rebukes the chorus for their fears and lamentations; yet apparently he has been standing there during their whole parodus (vss. 78-180) without a single word of protest! But it was not characteristic of the Greek genius tamely to submit to hindrances, and accordingly we are not surprised that Aeschylus actually secured a striking dramatic effect by leaving characters like Niobe and Achilles for considerable intervals speechless and immovable on the scene. When finally uttered, their startling cries of anguish were greatly enhanced by their previous long-continued silence. It may not be amiss to note that Molière obtained similar suspense by means quite opposite. In _Tartuffe_, contrary to all the