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1 In the earlier scenes of the comedies of Aristophanes, the chorus appear in character as charcoal-burners, cavalrymen, wasps, clouds, etc., and take part in the action of the play as such. They seem to have stripped off their outer dress for the Parabasis, or interlude, in which they address the audience on behalf of the author (Aristoph. Ach. 627,Aristoph. Peace 730). In the later scenes they tend to fall more into the position of spectators, like the chorus of tragedy; and the play usually ends with something in the nature of a triumphal procession, when purple robes (like the scarlet worn by the chorus at the end of the Eumenides of Aeschylus) would not be inappropriate, as they would be in the opening scenes. Megarian comedy is elsewhere associated with coarse buffoonery.