ages, are apt to take up a great deal of their owner's time. In the
end they invariably make him their slave and his hours are spent looking
after their wants, keeping them polished and brushed and painted. The
Greeks, before everything else, wanted to be "free," both in mind and
in body. That they might maintain their liberty, and be truly free in
spirit, they reduced their daily needs to the lowest possible point.

THE GREEK THEATRE

THE ORIGINS OF THE THEATRE, THE FIRST FORM OF PUBLIC AMUSEMENT

AT a very early stage of their history the Greeks had begun to collect
the poems, which had been written in honor of their brave ancestors who
had driven the Pelasgians out of Hellas and had destroyed the power of
Troy. These poems were recited in public and everybody came to listen to
them. But the theatre, the form of entertainment which has become almost
a necessary part of our own lives, did not grow out of these recited
heroic tales. It had such a curious origin that I must tell you
something about it in a separate chapter

The Greeks had always been fond of parades. Every year they held solemn
processions in honor of Dionysos the God of the wine. As everybody in
Greece drank wine (the Greeks thought water only useful for the purpose
of swimming and sailing) this particular Divinity was as popular as a
God of the Soda-Fountain would be in our own land.

And because the Wine-God was supposed to live in the vineyards, amidst a
merry mob of Satyrs (strange creatures who were half man and half goat),
the crowd that joined the procession used to wear goat-skins and to
hee-haw like real billy-goats. The Greek word for goat is "tragos" and
the Greek word for singer is "oidos." The singer who meh-mehed like a
goat therefore was called a "tragos-oidos" or goat singer, and it is
this strange name which developed into the modern word "Tragedy," which
means in the theatrical sense a piece with an unhappy ending, just as
Comedy (which really means the singing of something "comos" or gay) is
the name given to a play which ends happily.

But how, you will ask, did this noisy chorus of masqueraders, stamping
around like wild goats, ever develop into the noble tragedies which have
filled the theatres of the world for almost two thousand years?

The connecting link between the goat-singer and Hamlet is really very
simple as I shall show you in a moment.

The singing chorus was very amusing in the beginning and attracted lar