CHORUS (Gr. xop6s), properly a dance, and especially the sacred dance, accompanied by song, of ancient Greece at the f es tivals of the gods. The word xopos seems originally to have referred to a dance in an enclosure, and is therefore usually con nected with the root appearing in Gr. xbp'os , hedge, enclosure, Lat. hortus, garden, and in the Eng. "yard," "garden" and "garth." In the chorus sung in honour of Dionysus the ancient Greek drama had its birth. From that of the winter festival, consisting of the KWµos or band of revellers, chanting the "phallic songs," with ribald dialogue between the leader and his band, sprang "comedy," while from the dithyrambic chorus of the spring festival came "tragedy." (For the history of the chorus in Greek drama see DRAMA : Greek Drama.) The chorus as a factor in drama survived only in the various imitations or revivals of the ancient Greek theatre in other lan guages. A chorus is found in Milton's Samson Agonistes. The Elizabethan dramatists applied the name to a single character employed for the recitation of prologues or epilogues. Apart from the uses of the term in drama, the word "chorus" has been em ployed chiefly in music. It is used of any organized body of singers, in opera. oratorio, cantata, etc., and, in the form "choir," of the trained body of singers of the musical portions of a religious service in a cathedral or church. As applied to musical compositions, a "chorus" is a composition written in parts, each to be sung by groups of voices in a large body of singers. The word is also used of that part of a song repeated at the close of each verse, in which the audience or a body of singers may join with the soloist.
In the early middle ages the name chorus was given to a prim itive bagpipe without a drone. Giraldus Cambrensis in his Topo graphia Hiberniae mentions it as one of the three instruments of Wales and Scotland, though there is some reason to believe that he may have been confusing it with the crot or crwth, an entirely different instrument. It is further recorded that King James I. of Scotland was renowned for his skill as a performer on various musical instruments, one of which was the chorus.