A Stasimon () in Greek tragedy is a stationary song composed of strophes and antistrophes that is performed by the chorus in the orchestra (, "place where the chorus dances").Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1968–80): 3:830.
Aristotle states in the Poetics (1452b23) that each choral song (or melos) of a tragedy is divided into two parts: the parodos () and the stasimon. He defines the latter as "a choral song without anapaests or trochaics".Translation by William Hamilton Fyfe, in Aristotle in 23 Volumes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932). This comment about the absence of anapest and trochee has been interpreted to mean that the music was not based on the usual “walking” meters, since the chorus sings the stasimon while remaining in the orchestra.LSJ: stasimos Actively: "stopping"; Pass. "standing", "stationary". After making its entrance singing the parodos, it does not usually leave the orchestra until the end of the play.Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Publications of the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999): 97.
The Suda, an 11th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, attributes the establishment of the choral singing of a stasimon to the celebrated kitharode Arion of Hermione.Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Publications of the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999): 74.
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fr:Tragédie grecque#Structure et langue