Piety has various shades of meaning, including the concepts of being dutiful to orthodox religious beliefs or ôfidelity to natural obligations (as to parents)ö (Merriam-Webster 1999: 880). Comparing ShakespeareÆs and AeschylusÆs take on these ideas is a fascinating exercise. Both were great playrights who plumbed the deepest recesses of the human soul. Their differences are inevitable, separated as they are by more than 2000 years of history, and huge gaps in language, customs, and notions of morality. But they both were ethically aware as few human beings have ever been, and if they did not come up with solutions for the evil that lurks potentially in every human breast, at least they outlined its extent, described it accurately, and suggested more moral alternatives.
The idea of piety to ancient beliefs was present in the origins of Greek drama (Gill 2003). Begun as a religious observance in honour of Dionysus, Greek tragedy reflected the central values of the culture that was at its peak of greatness in the short but historically influential reign of Pericles in the 5th century B.C. when Aeschylus wrote the trilogy known as the Oresteia.
The Greek drama started as choral singing by performers and audience, with a chorus of fifty people or more who reacted to the speeches of one or two actors. Gradually the chorus received less emphasis. It was Aeschylus who is credited with added a third actor. Wearing masks with open mouths and strange high-heeled shoes, the actors and chorus would declaim or sing their lines about gods and ancient heroes to thousands of spectators sitting in an open-air amphitheatre next to the Acropolis.
Whereas by ShakespeareÆs time the horrible deeds acted out in the tragedy were leavened by subsequent comic scenes,
in the early years of Greek drama comedy was considered unsuitable for such a serious religious purpose. Instead the chorus would respond with appropriate emotion to the event...