s and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance
scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means
"goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty.
Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man)
conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the
strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of
a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was
celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either
continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features.

[Sidenote: _Mimicry and dress._]

The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them,
manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the
actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with
wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered
themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs,
fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and
half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality
untrammelled by conventionality.

[Sidenote: _Melodrama._]

Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story
or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we
find the germ of what musicians--not newspaper writers--call
melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's development.
Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the
poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects,
branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men,
the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of
dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration,
and love.

[Sidenote: _Factors in ancient tragedy._]

The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are
these:

1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose.

2. Recitation and dialogue.

3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures--pantomime, that
is--and dress.

4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action.

[Sidenote: _Operatic elements._]

[Sidenote: _Words and music united._]

All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to
differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more
independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our
study that the importance and independence achiev