# Stasimon

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{{Short description|Stationary song in Ancient Greek tragedy}}
[[File:Orestes 338-44 WDL4309.png|alt=The Orestes Papyrus, a fragment of lines 338-344 from the first stasimon of Orestes by Euritides, dated to the third century BCE|thumb|The [Orestes Papyrus](/source/Orestes_Papyrus), a fragment of lines 338-344 from the first stasimon of ''[Orestes](/source/Orestes_(play))'' by [Euripides](/source/Euripides), dated to the third century BCE]]
A '''Stasimon''' ({{Langx|grc|'''στάσιμον'''}}) in [Greek tragedy](/source/ancient_Greek_theatre) is a stationary song composed of [strophe](/source/strophe)s and [antistrophe](/source/antistrophe)s that is performed by the [chorus](/source/Greek_chorus) in the [orchestra](/source/Theatre_of_ancient_Greece) ({{Langx|grc|ὀρχήστρα}}, "place where the chorus dances").<ref>[Pierre Chantraine](/source/Pierre_Chantraine), ''[https://archive.org/details/Dictionnaire-Etymologique-Grec Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots]'' (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1968–80): 3:830.</ref>

[Aristotle](/source/Aristotle) states in the ''[Poetics](/source/Poetics_(Aristotle))'' (1452b23) that each choral song (or ''melos'') of a tragedy is divided into two parts: the ''[parodos](/source/parodos)'' ({{Langx|grc|πάροδος}}) and the ''stasimon''. He defines the latter as "a choral song without [anapaest](/source/anapaest)s or [trochaic](/source/trochaic)s".<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,034:1452b:23&lang=original Translation] by William Hamilton Fyfe, in ''Aristotle in 23 Volumes'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932).</ref> This comment about the absence of anapest and trochee has been interpreted to mean that the music was not based on the usual “walking” meters, since the chorus sings the stasimon while remaining in the orchestra.<ref>[LSJ](/source/LSJ): [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aentry%3Dsta%2Fsimos stasimos] Actively: "stopping"; Pass. "standing", "stationary".</ref> After making its entrance singing the parodos, it does not usually leave the orchestra until the end of the play.<ref>[Thomas J. Mathiesen](/source/Thomas_J._Mathiesen), ''Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages'', Publications of the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999): 97.</ref>

The ''[Suda](/source/Suda)'', an 11th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, attributes the establishment of the choral singing of a stasimon to the celebrated [kitharode](/source/Citharede) [Arion of Hermione](/source/Arion).<ref>[Thomas J. Mathiesen](/source/Thomas_J._Mathiesen), ''Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages'', Publications of the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999): 74.</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

Category:Ancient Greek songs
Category:Doric Greek
Category:Ancient Greek theatre

[fr:Tragédie grecque#Structure et langue](/source/fr%3ATrag%C3%A9die_grecque)

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