This article aims at exploring the traces of the choral lyric genres in tragic choruses, with special regard to the allusive presence of the paian, the epinikion, the partheneion, the hymenaios, and the threnos. The retracing in a dramatic context of elements belonging to these traditional genres and to their correspondent ritual occurrences brings about an intriguing web of correspondences in which these lyric patterns are developed, combined or even radically refashioned depending on the peculiarities of the single tragic plots. The investigation of the choral-lyrical passages is conducted by means of a close reading of the interactions between the pragmatic dimension of what we may define as ‘lyric paradigms’ that underlie ritual performances, and the individual choral songs in order to show how the tragic choruses may mirror and possibly perpetuate pre-existent lyric genres. [http://www.skenejournal.it/index.php/JTDS/article/view/21]