Strophe

The etymology of the word means “return”, and in Greek tragedy the strophe is indeed a return to the place of the chorus, i.e. the dancers around the circular area, the orchestra. The first turn is followed by a turn in the opposite direction, then comes the epode, sung without movement. It thus signals the repetition as being essential. But whereas the refrain repeats both the music and the text, the strophe in principle repeats only the music, as in the verses of songs. I have suggested that this separation between speech and music, now subject to independent periodicities, somehow restores both a confusion and an original separation between language and music.