1 Before the chorus began (or in pauses between their songs) the leader of the performance would improvise some appropriate tale or state the theme which they were to elaborate. Thus he was called ὁ ἐξάρχων or "the starter," and became in time the first "actor."
2 A Satyr play was an interlude performed by a troupe of actors dressed as the goat-like followers of Dionysus. Hence τραγῳδία, "goat-song." Aristotle seems so clear about this that he does not trouble to give a full explanation. But we can see from this passage that the Satyr plays were short, jocose and in the trochaic metre which suited their dances, and that in Aristotle's view tragedy was evolved from these. No example of a primitive Satyr play survives, but we can make inferences from the later, more sophisticated Cyclops of Euripides and the fragments of Sophocles' Ἰχνευταί, The Trackers. We cannot be certain that Aristotle's theory is historically correct; the balance of evidence is against it.
3 Masks, costumes, etc.
4 "Ugly" was to a Greek an equivalent of "bad." The persons in Comedy are "inferior" (see chapter 2.), but have only one of the many qualities which make up Ugliness or Badness, viz. the quality of being ludicrous and therefore in some degree contemptible.
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