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xxxviii General Introduction
as the parabasis itself; their subject matter is just as thoroughly divorced
from the action of the play, and the epirrhetnes are delivered by
the Leader of the Chorus or the Leaders of the Semi-Choruses. Furthermore,
it is not improbable that the Chorus turned and faced the audience
on such occasions, for traces of the kommation sometimes appear. On
the formal side we find exact responsion in the epirrhetnes, which sometimes
culminate in pnige. Such syzygies may, with reference to their
contents and structure, be called hypoparabases, but in the economy of
the drama their function is that of the stasimon in tragedy; they are in
this respect quite unspecialized, since they serve to separate, not the
two halves of the play, but merely two individual scenes in it. Such
syzygies occur only in the latter halves of those comedies in which they
are found at all.
In choral interludes of this anticipated type the adaptation of the
epirrketnatic syzygy to dramatic requirements is very slight. Usually
we can observe a more elaborate adaptation, in which the functions
of two successive tragic stasima are assumed by the ode and the antode
of a syzygy; the scenes thus defined are composed in pairs, and even
though they are dialogue, with two or more speakers, and are written
in iambic trimeters, they are essentially and formally the epirrhetnes
of a syzygy which differs from those in the parabases chiefly in being
really a part of the dramatic economy of the play. As a result of this
we find that such episodic syzygies, to give them a special term, are
far less rigid in the formal features of their epirrhetnes, and exact
responsion is hardly ever observable. Really violent inequalities, however,
very seldom occur, and even a maximum adaptation to dramatic
requirements and a minimum strictness of form cannot entirely conceal
the kinship of such pairs of scenes with the highly conventional syzygies
which we find in the parabases. 4
The lack of dramatic development in the series of short scenes which
follow the parabasis makes this portion of the play ideally suited to the
composition of episodic syzygies, and they are more numerous here than
anywhere else, but the parodos also frequently contains one or more
syzygies, which are extensively adapted to the generally dramatic character
of this part of the comedy and consequently show little strictness of
form in their non-lyric elements. The chief difference between them and
the episodic variety is a matter of length; normally those in the parodos
are relatively short. 5 A further point to be noted is that the relation be-
4 The episodic syzygies are: Ach. 346-392, 393~571 1000-1068; Kn. 611-755;
Peace 819-921, 922-1038; Birds 801-902, 1118-1266, 1494-1705; Frogs 460-604.
5 The parodic syzygies are: Ach. 204-233, 284-346; Clouds 263-313; Wasps 333-
402, 403-525; Lys. 254-285.