The almost circular orchestra, or pit, between the benches and the stage, was empty of what we call spectators—­because it was destined for the true and ideal spectators—­the representatives of humanity; in its centre was a round platform, the [Greek]—­originally the altar of Bacchus—­from which the leader of these representatives, the leader of the Chorus, could converse with the actors on the stage and take his part in the drama; and round this thymele the Chorus ranged with measured dance and song, chanting, to the sound of a simple flute, odes such as the world had never heard before or since, save perhaps in the temple-worship at Jerusalem.  A chorus now, as you know, merely any number of persons singing in full harmony on any subject.  The Chorus was then in tragedy, and indeed in the higher comedy, what Schlegel well calls “the ideal spectator”—­a personified reflection on the action going on, the incorporation into the representation itself of the sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human race.  He goes on to say (and I think truly), “that the Chorus always retained among the Greeks a peculiar national signification, publicity being, according to their republican notions, essential to the completeness of every important transaction.”  Thus the Chorus represented idealised public opinion; not, of course, the shifting hasty public opinion of the moment—­to that it was a conservative check, and it calmed it to soberness and charity—­for it was the matured public opinion of centuries; the experience, and usually the sad experience, of many generations; the very spirit of the Greek race.

The Chorus might be composed of what the poet would.  Of ancient citizens, waiting for their sons to come back from the war, as in the “Agamemnon” of AEschylus; of sea-nymphs, as in his “Prometheus Bound;” even of the very Furies who hunt the matricide, as in his “Eumenides;” of senators, as in the “Antigone” of Sophocles; or of village farmers, as in his “OEdipus at Colonos”—­and now I have named five of the greatest poems, as I hold, written by mortal man till Dante rose.  Or it may be the Chorus was composed—­as in the comedies of Aristophanes, the greatest humorist the world has ever seen—­of birds, or of frogs, or even of clouds.  It may rise to the level of Don Quixote, or sink to that of Sancho Panza; for it is always the incarnation of such wisdom, heavenly or earthly, as the poet wishes the people to bring to bear on the subject-matter.

But let the poets themselves, rather than me, speak awhile.  Allow me to give you a few specimens of these choruses—­the first as an example of that practical and yet surely not un-divine wisdom, by which they supplied the place of our modern preacher, or essayist, or didactic poet.

Listen to this of the old men’s chorus in the “Agamemnon,” in the spirited translation of my friend Professor Blackie: