Excerpt from Odes From the Greek Dramatists: Translated Into Lyric Metres by English Poets and SholarsTo the average school-boy the Chorus of a Greek Tragedy is an Object of mingled hatred and derision - of derision, because at any call for action the attitude of the Chorus is generally characterized by helpless indecision - Of hatred, because it was its wont to sing particularly hard Greek. Of the two feelings the hatred arising from the increased labour of preparation is probably the stronger, and in some cases it survives so long, that I have heard one of the most successful headmasters Of modern times Spitefully describe the great Ode at the beginning of the A gamemnon, as that chorus Of Red Indians. Yet, all difficulties of text or interpretation notwithstanding, it may well be that the choral odes from'which the Greek drama took its rise may prove in the end one of its most enduring claims to our admiration. The loss of the greater and, as we may conjecture, the better, part Of the works Qof Pindar has raised these choral odes from the Greek dramatists to a position of greatly increased interest and importance, and there is a whole realm of Greek thought and of Greek religion to which they are our only guide. To print a collection of these Odes apart from their contexts may at first sight seem a literary offence, but I would plead that the contexts are likely to be well known to most of my readers, and that in case this littlevolume should fall into any less learned hands I have in my Notes endeavoured briefly to indicate the relation of each chorus to the drama in which it occurs. TO the Objection that nobody ever has translated a Greek chorus and nobody ever will, an answer is more difficult. Probably, those of my kind helpers who have approached most nearly to success would be the readiest to confess their failure but there are failures and failures, and where entire success, as in the great choruses of/eschylus, is manifestly impossible, to have failed splendidly establishes a claim to gratitude, which only ignorance or hyper criticism will refuse to allow.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.