A Greek I worked for once would always say <br />that tragedies which still appall and thrill <br />happen daily on a village scale. <br />Except that he put it the other way: <br />dark doings in the sleepiest small town <br />loom dire and histrionic as a play. <br />Cosmic? Perhaps. Unprecedented? Not <br />to the old women sitting in the sun, <br />the old men planted in cafes till noon <br />or midnight taking in the human scene, <br />connoisseurs of past-passing-and-to-come. <br />These watchers locate in their repertory <br />mythic fragments of some kindred story <br />and draw them dripping out of memory's well. <br />Incest and adultery; exile <br />and murder; divine punishment; disgrace: <br />the trick is to locate the right-sized piece <br />of the vast puzzle-patterned tapestry <br />from which one ripped-out patch makes tragedy. <br />This highly skilled and patient process—find <br />a larger context, match and patch and mend— <br />is what the chorus in Greek tragedy <br />has always done. And to this very day <br />spectators comb the tangles of a tale, <br />compare, remember, comment—not ideal, <br />but middle-aged or older, and alert. <br />Beyond the hero's rashness or the hurt <br />heart of the heroine, they've reached the age <br />when only stars still lust for center stage. <br />The chorus, at a point midway between <br />the limelight and the audience, is seen <br />and unseen. Lady chaperones at balls <br />once sat on brittle chairs against the walls. <br />"My dancing days are over," they'd both sigh <br />and smile. Or take the case of poetry. <br />Mine used to play the heroine—me me me— <br />but lately, having had its fill of "I," <br />tries to discern, despite its vision's flaws, <br />a shape. A piece of myth. A pattern. Laws.<br /><br />Rachel Hadas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-chorus-3/
