THEATRICAL DEVICES 1
Mechane
The mechane (literally, ‘machine’) was
a crane used in fifth century drama for hoisting characters in the air
, most often to represent flight. Aristophanes made fun of this device
in his Peace, when Trygaios flies to heaven on the back of a giant
dung beetle (174-79) and in the Thesmophoriazusae (Ladies' Day),
when
the poet Euripides, dressed as Perseus (in a parody of Euripides' lost
play, Andromeda), appears suspended in the air (1098-1102).
In the' Clouds, Socrates is suspended in the air by the mechane
to
represent his close communion with the upper air and his superiority to
earth-bound mortals. The Latin term deus ex machina (‘god
from the machine’) is sometimes used for this device, because it was used
in tragedy to introduce gods from the air, although probably not before
the fourth century BC.1
Note:
1. Gods who intervene in fifth century tragedies
probably appeared through a trap-door on the roof of the skene to
address mortals from a higher level.
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