The ‘escape fantasy’ is a typical feature of Euripidean choruses. In response to thenterrible events of the play, the Chorus envisage an alternative location of peace andnbeauty.n1 These passages have an obvious function in manipulating the mood of thenaudience: the sense of impending doom is heightened by contrasting the unfoldingnhorror on stage with an idyllic fantasy world. As such, they are similar to thentechnique Sophocles uses of preceding disaster with a wildly optimistic ode.n2 To ceasenour analysis of the escape ode at this level, however, is to reduce its role to annessentially decorative one. If the purpose of these passages is simply to set up annattractive fantasy, their details become irrelevant: at most, they provide a generalncontrast with the tone of the onstage action.
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