Comedy.— Comedy was twin-born with tragedy, for it sprang from the same worship of Dionysus; but it was longer in reaching a high stage of development, so as to be recog nized as a distinct branch of literature. From early times Dionysus was celebrated by revel ers, who sang impromptu songs at his festivals. Such a band was called a comas, and the song was called a *comedy.° This was first developed by Susarion of Megara. He in troduced his performances into Attica, first at Icaria, the birth-place of tragedy. But the real founder of comedy was Epicharmus of Sicily. He it was that introduced the plot, or at least developed the rude series of burlesques into a kind of artistic form. The next step was taken at Athens, and the principal poets were Magnes and Chionides. The number of actors was re stricted to three, while the chorus consisted of 24 members —just double the number in early tragedy. The three greatest comic poets were Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes. Comedy, transplanted to Attica, and here developed, formed after 465 a.c., a component part of the Dionysiac festival. Its chief object was to provoke mirth and laughter, but it had also an earnest patriotic purpose. As Jebb says, *Comedy is a public commentary on the every day life of Athens, in great things and small. Politics and society, statesmen and private per sons, are criticised with unsparing freedom. The satire is unscrupulously personal . . the poet had, as it were, a public charter to speak his whole mind to the citizens. . . .
The special weapon of old Attic comedy was its power of holding up a man or a "Bey to admiration or ridicule before some 20,11 r legis lators." At some point in the play — usually toward the middle — the chorus faced the spec tators. This was their parabasis, or coming forward to the house. The leader then ad dressed the audience in the name of the poet, who set forth his views on public affairs or his merits or grievances. In Aristophanes, the greatest comic poet of the ancient world, there is "a play of fancy as extravagant as in a mod ern burlesque; the whole world is turned topsy turvy; gods and mortals alike are whirled through the motley riot of one great carnival.5 More and more comedy turned its attention from ridicule of public men (the license for which was more than once restricted by legal enactment) to a description of private affairs. So arose the so-called New Comedy. The Middle (390 to 320 a.c.) marked the period of transition from political to purely social comedy. In this the element of choral music disappears. The New Comedy (320 to 250 a.c.) was somewhat like our comedy of man ners, or the German Lustspiel. (See DRAMA). Consult Donaldson, 'The Theatre of the Greeks> (8th ed., London 1875) ; Flickinger, 'The Greek Theatre and the Drama)(1918); Haig, 'The Tragic Drama of the Greeks' (Oxford 1896); Hastings, 'The Theatre: a History of its Greek and Latin Origins' (London 1901).
Josant E. HARRY.