Art & MusicGreek → English
Exodos
/ˈɛksədɑs/noun
The closing section of a Greek tragedy or comedy, after the last choral ode, ending with the chorus leaving the stage.
The Greek roots
ἐξ
ex
out of
ὁδός
hodós
road, way
Literally: “the way out”
The story of the word
Aristotle defines it flatly in the Poetics as the part of a tragedy after which there is no more choral song. The word is an ordinary one for a marching-out, used of armies and processions before it was used of a play, and the Septuagint translators picked it for the book of Israel's departure from Egypt. So Exodus and the last five minutes of Oedipus are the same word wearing different clothes.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
exodusmethodperiodsynododometer
In a sentence
In the exodos the chorus files out chanting a few flat lines about how no man should be called happy until he is dead.