It is an unimpeachable tradition that in its earliest form Greek tragedy records only the sufferings of Dionysus, and that he was the only actor.
据确实无疑的传说，雏型的希腊悲剧以酒神受难的事迹为唯一主题，而且在很长时期剧中唯一人物就是酒神狄奥尼索斯。
But it may be claimed with equal justice that, up to Euripides, Dionysus remains the sole dramatic protagonist and that all the famous characters of the Greek stage, Prometheus, Oedipus, etc., are only masks of that original hero.
然而，我们也很有把握地说，直到欧里庇德斯时代，酒神一向是悲剧英雄，其实一切有名的希腊悲剧人物，普罗密修斯，奥狄浦斯等等，不过是原来的英雄狄奥尼索斯的化装而已。
The fact that a god hides behind all these masks accounts for the much-admired "ideal" character of those celebrated figures.
这些化装后面藏着一位神，这就是为甚么那些有名人物往往具有惊人的、典型的“理想性”的主要原因。
Someone, I can't recall who, has claimed that all individuals, as individuals, are comic, and therefore untragic;
我不知谁曾说过：任何个人作为个人来说都是滑稽的，因而不是悲壮的；
which seems to suggest that the Greeks did not tolerate individuals at all on the tragic stage.
由此可见，希腊人一般不可能容忍个人出现在悲剧舞台。