EURIPIDEAN PARACOMEDY
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Craig Timothy Jendza, M.A
Graduate Program in Greek and Latin
The Ohio State University
2013
Dissertation Committee:
Thomas Hawkins, Advisor
Fritz Graf
Dana Munteanu
Copyright by
Craig Timothy Jendza
2013
Abstract
This dissertation explores the relationships between the dramatic genres of Greek comedy, tragedy and satyr drama in the 5th century BCE. I propose that Athenian tragedians had the freedom to appropriate elements and tropes drawn from comedy into their plays, a process that I call ‘paracomedy’. While most scholars do not admit the possibility of paracomedy, I suggest that there are numerous examples of paracomedy to be found in all three tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides), though I focus on providing examples between Euripides and Aristophanes. In Chapter 1, I demonstrate the extent of paracomedy in tragedy, explore the theoretical background behind the interplay of genres and intertextuality, and provide a methodology for determining paracomedy based on distinctive correspondences, the priority of the comedic element, and the motivation for adopting features from outside the genre. In Chapter 2, I explore the rivalry between
Euripides and Aristophanes concerning plots and scenes involving ‘sword-bearing’ and
‘razor-bearing’ men, arguing that the numerous references to ‘sword-bearing’ men in
Euripides’ Orestes respond to Aristophanes’ parody of a ‘razor-bearing’ man in
Thesmophoriazusae. In Chapter 3, I suggest that the parodos to Euripides’ Orestes is modeled on the parodos of Aristophanes’ Peace, due to the adoption of the comedic element ‘varying levels of choral volume in a madness scene’. Furthermore, I analyze the evidence from satyr drama, ultimately proposing the possibility of a two-pronged response to Aristophanes in 408 BCE in Euripides’ Orestes and Cyclops. In Chapter 4, I analyze the tragedic and comedic traditions of ‘hostage scenes’ developing from Euripides’ Telephus, ii arguing that Aristophanes innovated the addition of a ‘incineration plot’ to the hostage scene tradition, which Euripides subsequently adopted into the hostage scene at the conclusion of Orestes. In Chapter 5, I treat the paratragic and paracomic use of costume dealing with rags and cross-dressing, proposing a back-and-forth rivalry between
Aristophanes’ Acharnians, Euripides’ Helen, Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, and
Euripides’ Bacchae.
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For my wife Chelsea, who has helped me in more ways than she knows
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful for all the support I have received in the writing of this dissertation. I am above all indebted to Tom Hawkins, who has been a constant source of inspiration and extraordinary feedback and who encouraged me to keep striving and pushing further.
I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Fritz Graf and Dana
Munteanu, for their intellectual and moral support. I am grateful for the support of all the faculty in the Classics Department, and I would like to especially thank Sarah Iles
Johnston, Brian Joseph, and Will Batstone, who have broadened my knowledge greatly in their respective fields. I am grateful to the Graduate School of The Ohio State University for their generous fellowship support, the Classics Department for supporting me as a
Graduate Teaching Associate, and to the Arts and Humanities Graduate Research Small
Grants Program as well as the Classics Department for providing the financial support that allowed me to present my research at various conferences. Last but not least, I can never thank enough my family, especially my wife Chelsea for her support and encouragement especially over the last year with its numerous trials and sudden deadlines.
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Vita
2002 ...... Agawam High School, Agawam MA
2007 ...... B.A. Classical Civilization, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst
2007 ...... B.B.A. Management, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst
2010 ...... M.A. Greek and Latin, The Ohio State
University
2010 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department
of Classics, The Ohio State University
Fields of Study
Major Field: Greek and Latin
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Table of Contents
Abstract...... ii
Dedication...... iv
Acknowledgments ...... v
Vita ...... vi
Table of Contents...... vii
List of Tables...... viii
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Euripidean Paracomedy...... 1
Chapter 2: Bearing Razors and Swords: Rivalry Between Aristophanes and Euripides ... 55
Chapter 3: Tragedic and Comedic Madness in Euripides’ Orestes ...... 78
Chapter 4: Hostages and Incineration in Euripides and Aristophanes...... 114
Chapter 5: From Rags to Drag: Paracomic Costuming in Euripides and Aristophanes . 140
Conclusion ...... 177
Bibliography...... 181
Appendix A: Dates of Relevant 5th Century Dramas ...... 195
Appendix B: Proposed Examples of Paracomedy...... 196
Appendix C: Further Potential Connections Between Acharnians and Helen ...... 198
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List of Tables
Table 1. My Methodology for Arguments Involving Paracomedy...... 33
Table 2. Herington’s Correspondences Between Eumenides and Comedy...... 38
Table 3. Verbal Correspondences Between Aristophanes' Birds 209-216 and Euripides'
Helen 1107-1113 ...... 41
Table 4. Process of Typicalization in Aristophanes' Coinage...... 57
Table 5. Predicaments, Escape Attempts and Resolutions in Thesmophoriazusae...... 68
Table 6. Characteristics of Sleep-Scenes in Sophocles and Euripides ...... 87
Table 7. Verbal Correspondences between Heracles 1042-1087 and Orestes 132-210.... 88
Table 8. Characteristics of Tragedic and Comedic Madness ...... 95
Table 9. Summary of Madness Scenes ...... 112
Table 10. Summary of Hostage Scenes ...... 115
Table 11. Increasing Levels of Menelaus' Wretchedness in Euripides' Helen ...... 158
Table 12. Proposed Examples of Paracomedy...... 196
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Chapter 1: An Introduction to Euripidean Paracomedy
This dissertation explores the muddy interfaces between 5th century Athenian tragedy and comedy, and to a lesser extent, satyr drama. My primary contention is that
Athenian tragedians had the freedom to incorporate elements drawn from comedy into their plays, pushing beyond the widespread view among classicists and scholars of Greek drama that any allusive relationships between 5th century BCE tragedy and comedy were limited to comedy poaching from tragedy and not the other way around. Most scholars entirely ignore the issue of tragedy appropriating elements from contemporary and previous comedy; what follows summarizes some views of scholars who do address it. In a discussion of influences within and across dramatic genres, Silk writes: “it makes sense to discuss, for example, Aeschylus’ influence on Euripides, or epic influence on tragedy or tragic influence on Aristophanes’ Clouds, or the question of possible comic influence on tragedy, or Menandrian New Comedy as a convergence of Old Comedy and Euripides’
‘romantic melodrama’.”1 Whereas the other options are presented as certainties, the idea of comic influence on tragedy gets removed to the realm of theoretically possible, though unproven, through Silk’s use of the words “the question of possible comic influence on tragedy [my emphasis]”. Even though Silk goes on to suggest that “the kind of example one might choose to argue for specific influence from κωµῳδία would be Pentheus’ cross- dressing at Bacch. 913-44, in comparison with Ar. Thesm. 213-268,” he describes this in
1 Silk 2013, 30. 1 hypothetical terms.2 Similarly, in the same volume on genres and Greek comedy as Silk,
Wright adds, “Whether the genres [sc. of tragedy and comedy] are interdependent or whether we should talk in terms of a one-way process (of comedy’s dependence on tragedy) is a somewhat separate problem,” thus avoiding the issue of tragedy’s dependence on comedy, while acknowledging it as a possibility.3 Mastronarde sidesteps the issue as well, writing, “The more delicate question is whether the influence and rivalry operated in the opposite direction, with tragic poets taking their cue from comedy,” concluding that
“there is still ample room for disagreement among scholars” and that “Euripides is a precursor in respect to the relevant points of comparison [sc. the Western tradition of a comic genre] and not a borrower from a contemporary comic tradition.”4 Seidensticker notes that “possible influences of comedy on tragedy are not easy to determine” and later suggests that “with a few exceptions, however, the comic character of the numerous comic elements [sc. in tragedy] is as un-Aristophanic as is its function,” thus distancing tragedy from contemporary comedy.5 In a chapter titled “Tragedy, Comedy, and Euripides”,
Torrance devotes three sentences to the possibility of Euripides being influenced by
Aristophanes.6 Dobrov, in his investigation across tragedy and comedy, notes an example of “rare but incontrovertible evidence that tragedy could ‘talk back’”, but his remark indicates how scarce this evidence seems to be.7
Given that the comic technique of appropriating plots and tropes from tragedy is called ‘paratragedy’, the term I use for tragedy’s appropriation of plots and tropes from
2 Silk 2013, 32 n. 62. In Chapter 5, I analyze this example as a part of a cross-generic series of dramatic appropriations concerning costuming. 3 Wright 2013, 210 n. 22. 4 Mastronarde 2010, 58. 5 Seidensticker 2005, 51-53. 6 Torrance 2013, 298. 7 Dobrov 2001, 105. 2 comedy is ‘paracomedy’, following the terminology of Scharffenberger (as opposed to that of Sidwell).8 My dissertation seeks to demonstrate that paracomedy not only existed but also was quite prevalent in 5th century BCE tragedy, spanning our extant corpus of dramatic texts. I believe that paracomedy can offer sound, and in many cases, more preferable explanations of certain scenes or elements in tragedy that scholars have often found perplexing. As paracomedy has been suggested as a possible interpretation only for a few scattered episodes in tragedy, my dissertation seeks to provide a proper methodology for detecting and analyzing paracomedy, to present further evidence for and examples of paracomedy, and to treat the topic thoroughly and comprehensively, as no book-length investigation has yet been written.9 Whereas Seidensticker’s book Palintonos Harmonia explores humorous elements in tragedy, my work examines elements drawn from comedy and incorporated into tragedy, and thus our approaches differ greatly.10 Dobrov’s Figures of Play is the closest to my approach in exploring connections between tragedy and comedy, though he only provides a few examples of paracomedy, focusing more on metatheatricality and metafiction.11 While paracomic relationships are certainly possible with all 5th century drama, I will focus on the connections between Euripides and
Aristophanes, partly due to the fact that these are the two representatives of tragedy and comedy with the largest corpora of analyzable texts, and partly due to the fact that they
8 Scharffenberger 1996, 65-72. What I mean by the term ‘paracomedy’ differs from Sidwell 1995, 65 who uses ‘paracomedy’ for a comic poet’s ventriloquial technique of satirizing other comic poets by “presenting his plays as though by another poet.” See Storey 2003, 299 and Rosen 2000, 36-37 n. 13, 17 for a response to Sidwell’s concept of paracomedy. 9 Examples of scholarship dealing with paracomedy are Dover 1972, 148-149, Scharffenberger 1995a and 1996, Marshall 2001 and 2009, Sommerstein 2002, Kirkpatrick and Dunn 2002, Foley 2003, 349-351 and 2008 and Diamantakou-Agathou 2012, 15-29. 10 Seidensticker 1982. 11 His examples of what I call paracomedy are located at Dobrov 2001, 23, 77-82, 126- 132. 3 seem to have a distinctive relationship between them.12 Cratinus coins the word
“Euripidaristophanizing” (εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζειν, fr. 342 PCG), which at the very least shows that he saw some sort of connection notable enough that the creation of such a compound made sense to him and the audience.13 I submit that the relationship between
Aristophanes and Euripides was one of cross-generic literary rivalry (a subject which I will discuss in depth below), much in the same vein as the back-and-forth rivalry within the genre of comedy between Aristophanes and Cratinus, as Biles discusses.14 Considering that an investigation of Euripidean paracomedy works on the boundaries of the genres of
12 Comedy was instituted in 486 BCE in Athens at the City Dionysia, and therefore this date might serve as the terminus ante quem for paracomedy. However, it is certainly possible that tragedy engaged in some sort of interaction with proto-comic material such as the genre of iambos, phallic dances, or Athenian rituals such as the gephyrismos during the Eleusinian Mysteries involving personal abuse. 13 Interpretations of this unique word range broadly. The compound εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζειν offers a number of linguistic interpretations based on the way one interprets the relationship between the two elements of the compound. Thus, Sidwell 2009, 88-89 treats it as an exocentric (‘bahuvrihi’) compound with an unexpressed head ‘poet’, suggesting that the compound ‘Euripidaristophanizing’ represents a poet who mixes Euripides and Aristophanes, in Sidwell’s view, Eupolis. The LSJ entry treats it as a copulative (‘dvandva’) compound, “to write in the style of Euripides and Aristophanes”. Nesselrath 1993, 185 treats it as an endocentric (‘tatpuruṣa’) compound ‘to parody Euripides in the style of Aristophanes’, or perhaps more literally, ‘to Aristophanize (pull an Aristophanes on) Euripides’. One might even think of an endocentric compound where the first element of the compound is the head, ‘to Euripidize Aristophanes’, based off comparisons with forms like Cratinus’ title Dionysalexandros, where it is clear that Dionysus is the head, since Dionysus is acting like Alexander (Paris) in the play. A similar type of compounding is ‘Choerilecphantides’, comprised of the elements Ecphantides (an early comic poet) and Choerilus (an early tragic poet) in Hesychius ε 1439, which perhaps suggests the same type of relationship as ‘Euripidaristophanizing’. The meaning of the word εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζειν varies depending on whether editors choose to place ‘Euripidaristophanizing’ in quotation marks or not as Wright 2012, 7-9 notes. The scholiast from whom we possess this fragment claims that Cratinus is criticizing Aristophanes for mocking Euripides while at the same time imitating him, an interpretation accepted by Foley 1988, 47 and Luppe 2000, 19. Miles 2009, 31-33 believes Cratinus is attacking Aristophanes’ and Euripides’ shared sophistic tendencies, and Bakola 2010, 24-29 suggests that this fragment attests to Cratinus portraying a relationship between himself and Aeschylus in the same vein as the one he attributes to Aristophanes and Euripides. 14 See Biles 2002, 169-204, and his revised version at Biles 2011, 134-166. 4 tragedy and comedy, an explanation of the theoretical frameworks regarding genre and methodology I will use is in order. After exploring the relevant theories pertaining to genre,
I will examine the various types of poetic appropriation possible in 5th century drama and will conclude with my methodology regarding paracomedy, which I will use to review an illustrative variety of other scholars’ proposals.
THEORIES OF GENRE
Tragedy and comedy were certainly distinct entities in 5th century Athens with different poetic conventions and different sets of competitions in which the plays could be performed before an audience.15 A tragedian could not compete against a comedian for a prize in a festival, only against other tragedians. Tragedians wrote only tragedies and satyr plays, and comedians wrote only comedies, as there are no examples drawn from the 5th century BCE of a dramatist composing a play in the opposite genre.16
Yet there were areas of overlap between the two genres: both were performed in the same theatrical space during the same festivals, and both were subject to the same conditions of production. Both used similar dramaturgy involving painted backdrops, trap doors, the eccyclema, ‘outroller’, and the mechane, ‘crane’. Both had actors who generally spoke in iambic trimeters, and both had choruses who sang songs using the same lyric meters and danced to the music of an aulos ‘reed-pipe’.17 Tragedians and comedians were members of the same intellectual circle and probably knew each other quite well, especially
15 On the distinctions and similarities between tragedy and comedy see Seidensticker 2005, 39-43. 16 Contrast a writer like Ion of Chios who wrote in a myriad of genres, such as tragedy, elegy, history, biography, mythography and philosophy, on whom see Jennings and Katsaros 2007. 17 On the aulos, see Kovacs 2013, 477-99. 5 given the small size of Athens. At the very least, we can say that they knew each other’s plays very well.
At the same time, distinctive contextual differences between tragedy and comedy allow us to clearly determine the genre to which a play belonged. Both tragedies and comedies were performed in different slots during the Greater and Lesser Dionysia, and only comedies occurred at the Lenaia. Some shared features actually served as marks of distinction between tragedy and comedy. Whereas both genres used masks and costuming, vase painting shows clear differences between comic and tragic masks, and contrary to tragic actors, comic actors were equipped with padded stomachs and buttocks and wore a detachable leather phallus.
Beyond visual and performative cues such as these, which clearly designate a particular play as a tragedy or a comedy, it is difficult to furnish an absolute list of characteristics that define tragedy or comedy from the text itself. Some characteristics are at least partially diagnostic for us: if a play features obscenity, then it is certainly not a tragedy (as explicit obscenity of the type βινεῖν ‘fuck’ does not occur in tragedy),18 and must be either a comedy or satyr drama (which both allow varying degrees of obscenity).
Similarly, if a play features a chorus of satyrs, then one might believe that the play necessarily is a satyr drama. However, the picture is more complicated than this, as a number of comedies had choruses of satyrs as well, surely nodding in some way toward satyr drama. In this example, we at least can discern that the play certainly was not a tragedy, as there are no extant examples for a chorus of satyrs occurring in a tragedy. We may even be able to fine-tune our arguments concerning choruses of satyrs and which genre they belong to, since according to vase painting, the satyr-choruses that appeared in
18 Though even for this rule see Sommerstein 2002, 154-157 for several cases of sexual innuendo in Aeschylus’ Eumenides. 6 comedy were visually different that those in satyr drama, almost a ‘comedified’ chorus of satyrs.19 Even if we cannot tell the difference between a comic chorus of satyrs and a satyric chorus of satyrs in our texts, in antiquity, the performative cues would dictate which type of satyr-chorus it is. From our perspective, limited to texts and without the contextual cues of a performance, even a feature such as a chorus of satyrs, normally thought to be a diagnostic element of satyr drama, cannot determine without question that the play in fact was a satyr drama.
This discussion calls into question the assumption that one can classify a text into a genre using a list of characteristics. No matter how finely-tuned and specific we make the mass of characteristics we use to define a genre, this taxonomical approach, ultimately derived from the categorical method originated by Aristotle, is always problematic due to the presence of counter-examples.20 For example, if one sets as a defining characteristic of tragedy the feature ‘the primary character’s prosperity is reduced to suffering’, then one would have to discount the plays where this does not occur, say Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, Ion or Helen (as some earlier scholars have done, designating them as lesser or un-tragic tragedies).21 Yet this cannot be true, since the Greeks actually conceived of Ion and Helen as tragedies (τραγῳδίαι), if only because they were performed as such. Aristotle’s praise at Poetics 1454a4-7 and 1455b1-13 of Iphigenia among the Taurians, a play at times regarded in this category of lesser tragedies by modern scholars, certainly signifies that for Aristotle, Iphigenia among the Taurians was a tragedy, and an exemplary one at that, despite the play not featuring ‘prosperity reduced
19 See especially Revermann 2006, 153-154 on the “Cleveland Dionysus” crater, where Papposilenus wears attire distinctive to comedy, a comic mask and a long phallus. 20 For a summary of various ways of categorizing genre, and some finely-tuned distinctions about genre, see Genette 1992. 21 On this problem in general see Wright 2005, 6-13. 7 to suffering’.22 On the other hand, one can make a generalization so broad that it also is not diagnostic, as in Hall’s working definition of tragedy as “the dramatic expression of an enquiry into suffering”.23 Even if an inquiry into suffering did occur in every single tragedy, by this criteria, additional dramatic texts that inquire into suffering from comedy and satyr drama might be classified as tragedies as well.
A further concern is if a tragedy seems to feature an element that does not belong to the genre. Does that mean we should discharge the text from the genre? To take a hypothetical example, what would scholars do if a text had all the features of a tragedy but additionally had a chorus of satyrs instead of a chorus of humans? Would we cease to call it a tragedy? Would it become a satyr drama? A tragedy under the influence of satyr drama? A ‘bad’ tragedy? A hybrid satyritragedy? A tragisatyric drama? Such an example would problematize the taxonomical categorizations normally used for tragedy. An informative parallel situation can be seen in Aristotle when he says that while most tragedies adhere to the standard mythological families, some plays have only one or two familiar characters, and some plays have entirely new characters, as in Agathon’s Antheus
(Poet. 1451b.15-23).24 It is important that Aristotle does not remove Antheus from the corpus of tragedies. Under the taxonomical view, the tendencies of a genre, such as tragedy containing characters drawn from mythology, cannot diagnose a genre.25
22 See Belfiore 1992, 359-378. 23 Hall 2010, 6. 24 Additionally, other tragedies have historical characters, as in Aeschylus’ Persians and Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus. 25 Choruses of satyrs, accounts of historical events (Aeschylus’ Persians and Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus), and non-mythological characters, also act as ‘black swans’ in tragedy. Swans were always presumed to be white, as no black swans had ever been discovered, and had even become a proverbial expression at least since Juvenal 6.165 ‘a rare bird in the lands, like a black swan (nigro simillima cygno)’. When black swans were first discovered in Australia, the definition of a swan had to be re-written to include the possibility of black swans. For tragedy, historical events and non-mythological characters are attested black 8
Another approach to genre lies in Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblance’ model.26
This view uses the analogy of family members, who all have some features in common with each other, but do not necessarily have a set of traits that are common to all. Applied to texts, this model calls for a genre comprising a ‘family’, whereby the individual members are related in various ways, but there is no unifying trait present in all members.
Since any given text tends not to have all of the characteristics of the genre, this model can account for a broader range of features in a genre without needing to worry about the generic status of a particular text if it omits an element or adds one that does not belong.
This allows for tendencies within a genre to become diagnostic elements.27 If a play depicts
‘prosperity reduced to suffering’, then it supplies information towards defining that play as a tragedy, without needing every single tragedy to have that trait. Of course, this notion is quite fuzzy – how many traits are needed to verify that a play is a tragedy and not, for example, a comedy? Are all traits weighed equally or do some traits count more than others? For example, under the family resemblance model, would a hypothetical chorus of satyrs in a play immediately remove it from tragic status? How many tragedies would need to have a chorus of satyrs before that characteristic would be recognized as a trait of tragedy? An additional problem is that such an analysis is not replicable, as different scholars could come to different conclusions about a text’s generic status in the course of
swans, and therefore included in the definitions of tragedy, yet it is possible that it is only an accident of history that no extant evidence exists for choruses of satyrs in tragedy. 26 On the application of the family resemblance model to genre, see Fowler 1982, 41-42. For family resemblance models and ancient genres, see Swift 2010, 11-17 on lyric genres and Scodel 2010, 13 on tragedy. Rotstein 2010 provides a more extensive demonstration of this approach for iambic poetry. 27 This also allows for the inclusion within the genre of what may at first seem like very odd exceptions to the genre. 9 weighing different qualities of the text.28 One attempt to come to terms with such fuzziness assigns differing levels of prototypicality to traits. Under this view, the trait in tragedy
‘prosperity reduced to suffering’ would be regarded as having a high degree of proto- typicality, as it occurs frequently in extant Greek tragedy, whereas the trait ‘varying degrees of choral volume’ (discussed in Chapter 3) would have a low degree of prototypicality, as it occurs only once in extant tragedy, in the parodos to Orestes. While different scholars may vary in terms of how many extant examples of a trait in the genre correspond to what level of prototypicality, as a general rule, features that occur once or twice can be designated as having low prototypicality, and features that occur frequently can be designated as having high prototypicality. Prototypicality, then, provides a better framework for applying the family resemblance model to genres (see below for how prototypicality can be used to detect paracomedy).
Another problematic issue is the fact that genres change over time. Since genres are communicative ways of instilling expectations in the audience, every instantiation of a new member of the genre redefines the genre by broadening or transforming those expectations. The first time a third actor was brought onstage in a tragedy, it changed the way tragedies work, and subsequent tragedians, recognizing the effectiveness of this
28 However, the taxonomical approach can lead to vastly more conclusions. Euripides’ Orestes, for example, has been labeled as a tragicomedy (Dunn 1996, 158-179), a melodrama (Verrall 1905, 210, and Kitto 1961, 279-312, first edition published 1939), and pro-satyric (Müller 1984, 66-69). For criticism of the application of the terms ‘tragicomedy’, ‘melodrama’ and ‘romance’ to tragedy, see Mastronarde 1999-2000, 36- 38, Mastronarde 2010, 58-62 and Wright 2005, 9-11. All are anachronistic terminology retrojected back to an earlier time – ‘tragicomedy’ comes from Plautus’ Amphitryo 59, where it represents a play with a blend of gods and mortals; ‘melodrama’ as a term was not used before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries CE; ‘romance’ stems from the subsequent Hellenistic romances. For differing views of Orestes as pro-satyric, see Porter 1994, 291-297. 10 innovation, used a third actor as well.29 Generic innovations occur in every tragedy, however, they range in their level of adoption by others. The innovation of adding a third actor had a high level of adoption, whereas the innovation of using non-mythological characters, as evidenced in Agathon’s Antheus, seems to have been utilized rarely, if ever again. It is impossible to predict whether any given trait will catch on and become incorporated into a genre. There is some question as to the extent to which genres can truly change, as members of the genre both respond to and vary recurrent tropes, but also re-affirm them.
Genre theorists dealing with modern literary works add further complications when they accept the flexibility of the family resemblance model. Texts on the periphery of a genre (in that they contain more traits with a low degree of prototypicality or fewer traits with a high degree of prototypicality) may show affinities with more than one genre.
Indeed, for some theorists, post-classical works may belong to two or more genres at the same time. For our purposes, when considering Greek tragedy and comedy, we have the advantage of historical performance context, knowing how the Greeks labeled plays due to their performance.30 Sophocles’ Antigone is a τραγῳδία ‘tragedy’ due to the fact that it was billed as such at the festival, whereas Cratinus’ Pytine is a κωµῳδία ‘comedy’ for the same reason. Using the emic terminology of the Greeks, while potentially misleading due to the fact that the ancients can misapply terminology or use terms in different senses (as
Swift notes for lyric genres) or due to diachronic changes in the genre (as Silk notes for
29 Given the lack of historical evidence and context Aristotle provides in his narrative when he says that Aeschylus added a second actor and Sophocles a third actor at Poetics 1449a15-19, it is equally possible that this was an external regulation imposed on tragedy by Athenian officials. 30 For an excellent analysis of context as opposed to genre, see Silk 2013, 19-30. 11
κωµῳδία), it is still preferable to the etic attempts of applying modern terms such as tragicomedy or melodrama.31
Some of these broad questions dealing with the taxonomical approach or the family resemblance model can be avoided by thinking concretely of the differences between tragedy and comedy (and one could do the same with satyr drama). One influential approach is that of Oliver Taplin, who, in a response to the Zeitlin’s and Segal’s analyses of certain tragic scenes as metatheatrical, and in line with ancient theorists such as
Aristotle, argued that tragedy and comedy were diametrically opposed with regard to certain traits.32 These five traits were: 1) explicit audience address and explicit reference to audience, 2) explicit reference to the writing of texts, 3) explicit metatheatricality, 4) explicit meta-references to costuming, and 5) explicit parody of other texts. For the most part, Taplin’s assessments are true; whatever of these five elements that can be detected in tragedy are implicit, not explicit.33
It may be illustrative to more carefully examine one of his criteria, metatheatricality, to determine how permeable Taplin's lines between tragedy and comedy are. Metatheater comprises those self-conscious aspects of a theatrical production that afford audience reflection on the methods by which dramatists create and produce drama.34 While most scholars of drama define metatheater in similar ways, some scholars, such as Rosenmeyer, argue for maintaining a more restricted definition of metatheater drawn from its original development in the study of Shakespeare, under which a “play within a play” must actually present a play within a play, as for example when Hamlet has
31 Swift 2010, 6-26. Silk 2013, 24. 32 Taplin 1986, 163-174. See Zeitlin 2003, 309-341 (originally published in 1980) for metatheater in Orestes and Segal 1982, 215-270 for metatheater in Bacchae. 33 Torrance 2013, 268, 300. 34 For a discussion of the various definions that have been applied to metatheater see Witt 2013, 1-18, Slater 2002, 1-22, Slater 2000, 10-12, and Ringer 1998, 1-19. 12 actors depict his father’s murder in a play to gauge Claudius’ reaction (Hamlet Act III.
Scene ii.), and not simply what he calls a dramatic situation within a play.35 Rosenmeyer's definition would disallow examples from tragedy such as the escape scene in Euripides'
Helen (discussed in Chapter 5), in which Menelaus and Helen change costumes, feign new identities, and act out a scene for various internal audiences. Metatheater in Greek tragedy is certainly more implicit than the metatheatrical reflection that can appear in other drama, such as Elizabethan drama and Athenian Old Comedy, but it is still metatheater, since the scene in Helen, for example, comments on the creative process of dramatic composition and involves the adoption of not only new costumes but new identities, a far cry from general scenes of role-playing that Rosenmeyer rightly excludes, such as the pretense that Clytemnestra is a faithful wife in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.36 Taplin's overall distinction between explicit and implicit metatheater is certainly valid, and his boundaries between tragedy and comedy that cannot be crossed might be seen as a form of mutual exclusion, but the implicit gestures in tragedy towards these boundaries suggest that while they technically still stood, the boundaries in effect were more permeable than Taplin indicates.37
In addition to these five traits, for which Taplin sees the genres as entirely conflicting in their usage, there are other elements that completely overlap and are prevalent in both genres.38 I will draw on two articles to illustrate how slightly different formulations theorize some of the overlapping features in tragedy and comedy. One conception is to treat a feature that appears prominently in both tragedy and comedy as
35 Rosenmeyer 2002, 99-100. 36 On the implicitness of Athenian tragic metatheater and metapoetics, see Torrance 2013, 268, 300. For Clytemnestra and role-playing, see Rosenmeyer 2002, 104. 37 Foley 2008, 28-33. 38 Silk 2000a, 54-97 presents the view that tragedy and comedy should not be truly conceived of as opposites. 13 genre-neutral. In a discussion of the door-keeper scenes in tragedy, Peter Brown determines that while there are minor differences between such scene in tragedy and comedy, overall, door-keeper scenes do not belong to one genre or the other, but rather, tragedy and comedy can utilize door-keeper scenes equally.39 While this example may account for many scenes at the door in drama, it may not be a suitable answer for some, as for example, between the doorkeeper scenes at Euripides’ Helen 430-482 and
Aristophanes’ Acharnians 393-479 (discussed in Appendix C). In line with Brown’s approach of genre-neutrality is an article by Daniel Levine, who studies similarities between the plots of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Euripides’ Bacchae, in which rebellious groups of women obey a strong and persuasive leader, retreat to a holy mountain, resist imprisonment, expel invading groups of men, and finally defeat the main male antagonist, who is dressed in women’s clothes.40 Levine attributes such similarities to “the use by both
Aristophanes and Euripides of the same literary tropes” and concludes that “this role- reversal theme had a basic expression which allowed comedian and tragedian to adapt it to meet their individual needs”, an idea which makes sense in a culture that had rituals involving role-reversal.41 Levine, therefore, unlocks an ‘underlying representation’ (a term
I borrow from generative linguistics) from which different manifestations occur in each genre.42 In addition to the ‘women on top’ trope, the ‘underlying representation’ model adequately explains the different generic materializations for broad themes such as war:
Aristophanes’ personification of war as an ogre figure in Peace contrasts greatly with the
39 Brown 2000, 1-3 on scenes at the door in tragedy and 2008, 349-373 which discusses scenes at the door in Aristophanes. Also see Revermann 2006, 183-185. 40 Levine 1987, 29. 41 Levine 1987, 30, 36. On role-reversal rituals, see for example Burkert 1985, 230 on the Skira, where women are on top, or Burkert 1985, 231-2 on the Kronia, where slaves are on top. 42 Chomsky and Halle 1968, 6-12. 14 serious treatment of war throughout tragedy, and as such, the underlying theme of war is depicted differently in each genre. As a whole, the approach whereby a cross-generic similarity is described as genre-neutral or a literary trope that can be used equally by either genre can explain a number of shared features between the genres, but not all.
INTERTEXTUALITY
Genre-neutrality cannot account for every feature that is present in both tragedy and comedy, as another major explanation consists of an author’s appropriation of a feature, at times from a different genre, and consciously inserting it into the text. Often such appropriations are tied to notions of intertextuality, the idea that texts exist in relation to other texts beyond the conventional groupings of genre.43 Kristeva originally introduced this theory: “Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another”, and Barthes further refined the theoretical underpinnings of intertextuality, conceiving of a text that is “woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages (what language is not?) antecedent or contemporary, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony.”44 For Kristeva and Barthes, intertextuality at its heart problematized the concept of authorship, given that communication (whether through writing or speech) must utilize existing language and conventions, and out of this, Barthes declared the “death of the author”.45 Yet in the hands of their successor, Genette, intertextuality became transformed more towards a complex of conscious allusions, and his understanding and codification of intertextuality became more prominent, such that when scholars use the term ‘intertextuality’, they often refer more
43 For an overview of the history of intertextuality, see Allen 2000. 44 Kristeva 1980, 66. Barthes 1977, 160. 45 Barthes 1977, 142-148 (originally published in 1967 in Aspen 5-6, ed. Brian O’Doherty). 15 towards the idea of an author’s conscious allusions than to the concept that all literature is unconsciously reworking previous literature.46 Using the overarching term ‘transtextuality’ instead of the Kristeva’s and Barthes’ ‘intertextuality’, Genette subdivides transtextuality into five parts: intertextuality (not to be confused with the overarching category used by
Kristeva and Barthes), paratextuality, architextuality, metatextuality, and hypertextuality
(or hypotextuality). For Genette, intertextuality contains only quotation, plagiarism and allusion; paratextuality comprises all the elements on the threshold of a text which guide the reader, such as titles, headings or reviews; architextuality marks the designation of a text as part of a genre; metatextuality is the process of a text engaging in a commentary upon another text; and hypertextuality is “any relationship uniting a text B (which I shall call the hypertext) to an earlier text A (I shall, of course, call it the hypotext) upon which it is grafted in a manner that is not that of commentary.”47 Examples of a hypertextual relationship are those texts that transform, modify, or elaborate the model (hypotext), for example, a parody, a sequel, or a translation. Genette’s categories are heuristic and not mutually exclusive. When Aristophanes’ Frogs 1471 quotes a memorable half-line from
Euripides’ Hippolytus 612 “My tongue swore...”, it is difficult to accurately specify whether this is a form of Genette’s 1) intertextuality, since it is a quotation; 2) metatextuality, since it may engage in a form of commentary upon the line; or 3) hypertextuality, since it may present a parodic view of Euripides’ original line. Though far from perfect, Genette’s codification does allow more precision in discussing intertextuality
(a term which I will henceforth use in the common scholarly sense of ‘system of conscious allusions’ and not in Genette’s restricted sense).
46 Genette 1997. 47 Genette 1997, 5. 16
Genette’s terms ‘hypotext’ and ‘hypertext’ provide some advantages for the scholar. In addition to the fact that they are clearer and easier to use than other terminology, they also immediately characterize an allusion as having a certain type of relationship. Genette himself deals primarily with hypertextuality in which “the shift from hypotext to hypertext is both massive (an entire work B deriving from an entire work A) and more or less officially stated,” though he notes the obvious existence of other kinds that are not necessarily massive and not necessarily officially stated, which he avoids discussing, placing an arbitrary limit on his book.48 I adapt Genette’s use of hypertextuality in order to apply the concept to the study of Greek drama, as in Greek drama there are no examples of an “entire work B deriving from an entire work A” and very few examples that are officially stated (the three titles of Euripides’ plays cited in Aristophanes’
Thesmophoriazusae notwithstanding). In the context of Greek drama, a “massive” allusive relationship is better understood in terms of scenes, with scene B deriving from scene A, and instead of relying on Genette’s criterion of “more or less officially stated” which occurs rarely in comedy and never in tragedy, I suggest that the criterion for the existence of a hypertextual relationship consists of demonstrating distinctive correspondences between the two scenes (on distinctive correspondences, see below). As a number of my examples of paracomedy concern allusions to entire scenes or plotlines,
Genette’s hypertextuality, with its varying effects and motivations, can provide a good model for certain examples of paracomedy.
Any given intertext will achieve different effects through its position on a variety of continuums: explicitness of the reference (Is the hypotext named or is it obvious through some other means? Would only a portion of the audience catch the reference?), extent of
48 Genette 1997, 9. 17 the reference (Does it last for two lines or the entire play?), and distance of the reference
(how great is the size of the gap between the hypotext and the hypertext?). They can also vary in the tone of the appropriation: a positive homage, a neutral reference, or a negative parody. For example, Euripides’ satyr drama Cyclops responds intertextually to Book 9 of
Homer’s Odyssey. Though the reference is never explicitly mentioned, it is nevertheless recognizable and obvious, extending throughout the entire play, and the gap between the two texts is quite large (Homer’s serious episode contains different characters, plots, personifications, and scenes than those in Euripides’ version). Many scholars would consider Euripides’ Cyclops to be negatively parodic, since it reduces Homer’s serious epic to a ludic satyr-play.49 Yet a note of caution is in order, since for any given intertext, scholars may quibble over the passage’s tone. Unfortunately, this is largely a matter of the individual scholar’s taste and in many cases, tone cannot be proven by any scholarly means.
When considering these forms of appropriation in the closed-system context of
Greek dramatic literature, one might expect scholars to equally uncover every permutation of intertextuality possible. In principle, comedy could reference tragedy, satyr drama or other comedy; tragedy could reference comedy, satyr drama and other tragedy; and satyr drama could reference tragedy, comedy, and other satyr drama. Yet as a whole, scholars do not accept many of these options, or at least, have not uncovered many good examples of them. As my investigation concerns tragedy’s appropriation of comedy, a brief
49 While many scholars would count this as an example of negative parody, not all parody need be negative. As Genette 1997, 27 writes in a discussion of ‘serious parody’: “Parody does not actually subject the hypotext to a degrading stylistic treatment but only takes it as a model or template for the construction of a new text, which once produced, is no longer concerned with the model.” 18 summary of each of these intertextual possibilities is in order, to better provide context for the claims I am making.50
Comedy appropriating comedy
A good place to begin is with comedy, as it continually and overtly references other plays. Comedy constantly positions itself against other comedy, as theorized, for example, in the scholarship of Hubbard, Biles, and Wright. Hubbard gives examples and case studies for Aristophanic auto-allusion in many of his parabases, whereby Aristophanes responds to his own earlier work.51 Biles, on the other hand, extends the analysis to include comedians responding to other comedians, by presenting the evidence for an intertextual relationship between Aristophanes and Cratinus.52 According to Biles, Cratinus had developed a stage persona of an indulgent drinker, which Aristophanes mocked in
Knights.53 Later, Cratinus responded to Aristophanes’ caricature in Pytine, and subsequently, Aristophanes responded back in Wasps. The back-and-forth intertextuality
(or, perhaps more accurately, inter-performativity, since we are dealing with performances responding to performances) signals a competitive rivalry between the two comedians.
This sort of rivalry is not limited to Aristophanes and Cratinus, as comparisons with one’s competitors occur frequently in comedy.54 In the parabasis from Clouds (revised version dating to c. 417 BCE), for example, Aristophanes attacks fellow comic poets Eupolis,
50 Seidensticker 2005, 49-53 also examines the possibilities of mutual influence between the dramatic genres, including dithyramb. 51 Hubbard 1991, 33-35, 88-139. 52 Biles 2011, 134-166, a revision of Biles 2002, 169-204. 53 Bakola 2008, 1-29 suggests that each of the big three comic playwrights had a recognizable persona: Eupolis the poet-teacher, Cratinus the inspired drunk and Aristophanes the innovative and clever reformer. 54 Silk 2000b, 299-315. Competitive rivalry extends beyond comedy, for example, in the fragments of Archilochus, Hawkins 2008, 93-114 detects the presence of a rivalry between Archilochus and Lycambes, either in actuality or created to suit the needs of Archilochus’ poetry. 19
Phrynichus, Hermippus and Plato, and in Frogs (405 BCE), Aristophanes insults
Phrynichus, Lykis and Ameipsias, reflecting a changing body of comic rivals.55 For Wright, the intra-generic literary criticism of comedians on comedians can be seen through their claims of novelty and cleverness, and their use of a body of metaphors to assert claims about each other.56 I suggest that the rivalries between comic poets can serve as a model for the cross-generic rivalry between comic and tragic poets.
Comedy appropriating tragedy
The gold standard for dramatic appropriation is paratragedy, broadly and generally defined as comedy’s reference to and appropriation of lines, scenes, and dramaturgy from tragedy, at times with clear parodic intent. Aristophanes, for example, often brings tragedians onstage in his comedies and humorously exaggerates their tragic characters, scenes and methods of composition.57 Scholars generally accept the notion of paratragedy, since at times the paratragedy is explicit, citing tragedies or tragic characters by name.58 More than that, a comic playwright’s motives for co-opting elements from tragedy are easily understood. Foley lists a wide variety of manifestations of and motivations for paratragedy: “incongruous juxtapositions, ironic inversions, repetition to create critical distance, pointed contradictions and illogicalities, satire and mockery, avoidance of censorship, subversion of hierarchy, more neutral forms of intertextuality, or
55 Biles 2011, 181-187. 56 Wright 2012. 57 For example, Agathon appears as a character at Thesmophoriazusae 95-265. Aeschylus appears alongside Euripides in Frogs 830-1533, and Euripides appears by himself at Acharnians 394-488 and throughout Thesmophoriazusae. 58 Aristophanes mentions specific tragedies at Thesmophoriazusae 770 and 848 (Euripides’ Palamedes); Thesmophoriazusae 850 (Euripides’ Helen); and Thesmophoriazusae 1012 (Euripides’ Andromeda). The rag costumes from specific characters from Euripidean tragedies (Oineus, Phoenix, Philoctetes, Bellerophon, Telephus, Thyestes, and Ino) are mentioned at Acharnians 418-434. 20 examinations of the role of imitation and representation”.59 Much of the time the comedian is parodying tragedy in a negative way for some kind of humorous effect in an attempt to earn the favor of the judges and win the dramatic contest.60 However, at times, the borrowing is neutral, or even positive, as occurs when Dicaeopolis takes on the tragic pose of Telephus in Aristophanes’ Acharnians.61 Even being the target of a substantial
Aristophanic parody could serve as a mark of prestige, as the truly bad poets were ignored or dismissed with a comment. It is possible for paratragedy to target both specific tragedies as well as a more general tragic mode, as for example Aristophanes’ Clouds 1452-1462, which has been described as having a “generalized tragic coloration”.62
In many ways, Rau’s comprehensive study Paratragodia marks the beginning of serious investigation into paratragedy.63 In addition to analyzing scenes in comedy that are modeled on specific tragic models (Aristophanes’ Acharnians and Thesmophoriazusae on
Euripides’ Telephus; Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae on Euripides’ Palamedes, Helen and Andromeda; Aristophanes’ Peace on Euripides’ Bellerophon; Aristophanes’ Frogs on the playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides and Thesmophoriazusae on Agathon), Rau provides a database, with hundreds of examples, of tragic lines that Aristophanes parodies.64 While Rau focused primarily on Aristophanes, further studies demonstrated that other comic poets engaged in paratragedy as well. Bakola suggests that Cratinus was
59 Foley 2008, 21. 60 Biles 2011, 97-133, though see Wright 2012, 31-69 for the view that festival prizes were not a primary goal of comic competition. 61 Foley 1988, 33-47. See Platter 2008, 153-156 for a view on how the scene trivializes Euripides’ play. 62 Silk 2000a, 352-356. The generally tragic nature of the passage is also noted by Zimmermann 2006, 327-335. 63 Rau 1967. 64 Rau 1967, 185-212. For further source material on comic quotations of Aeschylus, see Olson 2007, 175; for Sophocles, see Olson 2007, 176; and for Euripides, see Olson 2007, 178-179. 21 actively involved in paratragedy, primarily directed at the plays of Aeschylus, as when
Cratinus’ Plutoi responds to Aeschylus’ Prometheus plays and the Oresteia.65 Miles enlarges the scope of paratragedy by discussing numerous examples of non-Aristophanic comedy, culminating with a close dissection of paratragedy in Strattis, a comic poet who flourished in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE.66 Scholarship on discovering new examples of paratragedy and the interpretation thereof has been growing steadily for the past fifty years, and increasingly so in the last fifteen.67
Comedy appropriating satyr drama
Comedy’s appropriation of satyr drama is less clear due to the scarcity of evidence for satyr drama.68 Dobrov has argued that “for some reason, comic drama, while committed to an explicit and creative rivalry with tragedy, eschews the satyr-play entirely,”69 while Bakola claims the exact opposite: “just as comedy was constantly interested in tragedy, so it maintained a consistent interest in satyr play as well.”70 Largely at stake is Cratinus’ comedy Dionysalexandros, in which Dobrov sees less and Bakola sees more appropriations of satyric elements, and to my mind, Cratinus’ play does seem to appropriate enough tropes from satyr drama to speak of intertextuality. Other examples of the appropriation of satyric elements exist in comedy. As Bakola notes, two Aristophanic passages also seem modeled on scenes from satyr play, Birds 1196-1261 and Peace 459-
519, which are enough to prove that comedy has the potential to appropriate satyr
65 Bakola 2010, 118-179. Cratinus’ narrow focus on Aeschylus suggests that paratragedy may work best when the target playwright is famous and easily recognizable by the audience. 66 Miles 2009. 67 See also Rosen 2005, Silk 2000a, Dobrov 2001, Bowie 2000, 322-324. 68 Bakola 2010, 102-104. 69 Dobrov 2007, 259. 70 Bakola 2010, 102. 22 drama.71 There are a number of comedies entitled Satyroi, and a number of vase paintings depicting comedies with a “comedified” chorus of satyrs, but we know little about either of these.72 Given the scarcity of evidence for satyr drama, it is a reasonable extrapolation that these few detectable examples of comedy appropriating satyr drama are only the tip of the iceberg, and that undoubtedly more examples would be found if our evidence were less fragmentary.
Satyr drama appropriating satyr drama, comedy and tragedy
The same paucity of data causes only a few opportunities for us to detect cases of intertextuality in satyr drama. While there are plenty of examples of shared tropes across satyr drama, to my knowledge there are no examples of a satyr drama intertextually alluding to another satyr drama.73 This may be due to the fact that we only have one complete satyr drama, Euripides’ Cyclops, though in principle, there is no reason to doubt the possibility that a satyr drama could allude to another satyr drama. There are, however, a few cases where a satyr drama intertextually refers to comedy or tragedy. Zagagi has argued that Sophocles’ satyr drama Trackers adopts a number of general comedic motifs, not all of which are convincing.74 One of Zagagi’s better examples is the argument that
Trackers 93-123, in which the chorus searches for lost cattle, is modeled on certain pursuit scenes from comedy, such as Acharnians 204-236 and Thesmophoriazusae 655-687.
Another example of a satyr drama adopting elements from comedy comes from
71 For Birds 1196-1261, see Bakola 2010, 104-108 and Scharffenberger 1995b. For Peace 459-519, see Bakola 2010, 108-112, Dobrov 2007, 261-265, and Hall 2006, 340-341. 72 See Storey 2005, 201-218 on the evidence for comedies that had a satyr chorus. 73 On the standard tropes of satyr drama, see Sutton 1980, 145-159 and Seaford 1984, 33- 44. 74 Zagagi 1999, 191-196. By drawing parallels to New Comedy (late 4th-3rd centuries BCE) and Roman Comedy (3rd -2nd centuries BCE), Zagagi ignores chronological explanations for the correspondences, on which see the section on the priority of the comedic element below. 23
Astydamas, a 4th century BCE tragedian who allegedly incorporated a parabasis into his
Heracles, a satyr play.75 More importantly, if Euripides’ Cyclops dates to 408 BCE, then it has two examples of intertextual quotations from comedy and tragedy:76
1) Euripides’ Cyclops 222: ἔα: τίν᾽ ὄχλον τόνδ᾽ ὁρῶ πρὸς αὐλίοις; “Ah, what is this crowd I see here near my cave?” responding to Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae
1105, dated to 411 BCE: ἔα· τίν᾽ ὄχθον τόνδ᾽ ὁρῶ καὶ παρθένον... “Ah, what is this rock I see here and what maiden...?”
2) Euripides’ Cyclops 707: δι᾽ ἀµφιτρῆτος τῆσδε “through this pierced-through thing” responding to Sophocles’ Philoctetes 19, dated to 409 BCE: δι᾽ ἀµφιτρῆτος
αὐλίου “through this pierced-through cave.”
Even though there are only a few attested examples in satyr drama, to my mind, they are enough to prove that the genre did, at least on some occasions, allude to tragedy and comedy. However, the fact that there are only a few examples have led some scholars to doubt the whole construct, and they argue against such evidence as the two allusions from Cyclops cited above.77
Tragedy appropriating tragedy
Scholars have long noted commonalities between lines appearing in different tragedies. Little significance was attached to these potential allusions, and some simply attributed the similarity to a common tragic language. The first sustained catalogue of allusions in tragedy was that of Garner, who analyzed a vast number of tragic allusions, though many of them were to previous lyric and epic poetry.78 When the conception of
75 Revermann 2006, 279-80. 76 Marshall 2001, 226-238. For the particular arguments regarding the date of Cyclops, see below. 77 See for example Wright 2006, 23-27. 78 Garner 1990. 24 tragic intertexts expanded to include plots and scenes responding to previous plots and scenes, scholars took opposing sides. To take one example, a number of scholars have asserted that Euripides’ recognition scene at Electra 518-544 alludes to the recognition scene in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers 205-228, and an equal number have argued that it does not, with some attempting to excise some or all of the scene in Electra, partially on syntactical grounds and partially on the preconception that tragedy cannot (or perhaps should not) refer to other tragedy in such an obvious vein.79 The most recent scholarly treatments, however, to my mind settle the issue by demonstrating the necessity of the lines in Electra.80
Furthermore, such heated debates were more common when scholars were originally confronted only with the passage from Electra. Torrance, for example, detects an extended set of Euripidean responses to Aeschylus’ Oresteia beyond the allusion in
Electra.81 She exposes a series of inversions and responses to the Oresteia in Iphigenia among the Taurians and a reversal of the ordering of the plots of Oresteia in Orestes: an opening and recurrent response to Eumenides, a triple re-working of Libation Bearers, a remake of Agamemnon, and finally a replay of Aeschylus’ Oresteia in miniature in the exodos.82 Previously, when it seemed that only one scene was interacting with another tragedy (Electra 518-544), it was easy to attack and excise it, since this would remove the only counterexample to the apparent rule that scenes in tragedy do not allude to other
79 Fraenkel 1950, Vol. 3, Appendix D, 815-826, Bain 1977, 104-116, West 1980 and Kovacs 1989, 67-78 have tried to show that the scene is an interpolation. For those in favor of keeping the lines, see the footnote immediately below. 80 Davies 1998, 389-403, Gallagher 2003, 401-415, and Torrance 2011, 177-204 and Torrance 2013, 13-33. 81 Torrance 2011, 13-62. 82 Torrance 2011, 45-57. 25 scenes in tragedy.83 Yet as scholars have discovered more and more examples, it has become a better practice to revise the rule and conclude that generic constraints do not preclude tragedy from appropriating tragedy.
Tragedy appropriating satyr drama
Discussions of the interactions between tragedy and satyr drama are generally limited to Euripides’ so-called ‘pro-satyric’ play Alcestis, which was performed as the fourth play in the tetralogy of 438 BCE. Based on the fact that Alcestis was staged as the last play in its tetralogy and given the contextual norm that satyr dramas occur in the last slot of a tetralogy, we (as well as the audience in the theater) are expecting Alcestis to be a satyr drama, and consequently, the audience would be torn and twisted as they gazed upon a play that countered their contextual expectations.84 There is no direct referent to a specific satyr drama for the satyric tropes that appear in Alcestis, thus whatever reference to satyr drama that appears is on a general level. Based on a taxonomical approach of assigning a genre to the text, we might label it primarily as a tragedy, albeit with a number of affinities with standard motifs from satyr drama, but such a statement depends on the validity of the taxonomical approach, and it is unclear in what way Alcestis is a tragedy at all. Still, this ‘prosatyric’ play is the best candidate for a generalized appropriation of satyr drama into tragedy, as the other candidates (Bacchae, Ion, Helen, Iphigenia among the
Taurians) that have been put forth are less than compelling, partially due to the vagueness of satyr drama motifs and their omnipresence in tragedy as well as satyr drama.85
However, there are distinctive differences between the appropriation of satyr drama in
83 The modeling of the scene in Euripides’ Electra on the scene in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers is an excellent example for demonstrating how Genette’s concept of hypertextuality can be applied to drama. 84 Slater 2005, 83-101. 85 On Alcestis as ‘prosatyric’, see Sutton 1980, 180-181. For the difficulties in attempting to detect satyric elements in tragedies, see Sansone 1978, 40-46. 26
Alcestis, which depends on withholding the element of the highest prototypicality in satyr drama (the chorus of satyrs) from an audience who is expecting to see a satyr drama due to the play’s position in the tetralogy, and the appropriation of satyr drama in a tragedy which was presented in the first three spots of a tetralogy (thereby contextually determining it as a tragedy), which depends on including prototypical elements of satyr drama in the play. To my knowledge, there are no examples of intertexts with satyr drama cited in the literature on tragedy (though Chapter 3 presents arguments for one example of tragedy appropriating elements from satyr drama). As is always the case with satyr drama, this overview is problematized by the fact that our only complete satyr drama (Cyclops) dates to 408 BCE, and there are very few tragedies that post-date this, leaving little opportunity for allusions to arise.
Tragedy appropriating comedy
Before continuing onto my primary investigation of tragedy’s appropriation of comedy, it is necessary to make a few broad points about how tragedy fits in with the general state of scholarship on drama that I just described. Comedy, with its
“carnivalesque” background, is conceived of as able to consume other genres.86 Indeed, some scholars have argued that genre-consumption and a constant positioning against other texts are primary traits of comedy.87 Satyr drama, seen as a midpoint between the two genres of comedy and tragedy, could possess the ability to appropriate other genres, but unfortunately we cannot detect enough evidence to confirm this. Tragedy, on the other hand, is seen almost as sacrosanct, and the inherent inappropriateness of comedic or
86 Platter 2007, 1-41. 87 See for example the new compilation of Bakola, Prauscello, and Telò 2013. 27 satyric elements in tragedy is enough to disqualify those traits from being present.88 To quote Croally: “In Euripides, then, it is not merely the presence of inappropriate elements
(bad taste, the grotesque) which makes Euripidean tragedy self-referential, but the appearance of elements not only inappropriate to tragedy but strictly appropriate to another genre, namely comedy.”89 Such conceptions inevitably go back to the idea of an inherent quality of tragedy, sometimes labeled ‘the Tragic’, which comprises a bleak worldview supported by a certain level of decorum and grandeur. Yet ‘the Tragic’ is a concept dating at its earliest to Aristotle’s Poetics, written about seventy-five years after
Euripides and Sophocles died. The Poetics represents one man’s views about tragedy, which do not necessarily conform to the realities of fifth century drama or to later notions of ‘the Tragic’. While the Poetics’ reliability as testimony to 5th century BCE drama can always be questioned due to its posteriority, the real problem lies not with Aristotle’s text, which does not make extensive claims about ‘the Tragic’, but rather with the long- perpetuated views of later scholars who misread, exaggerated and extrapolated from
Aristotle’s text.90 Rather than reading Greek drama through these lenses, it is better to let the plays speak for themselves.
88 On the ‘inappropriateness’ of comedy, see Taplin 1986 and Croally 1994, 235-247. On the ‘sacrosanct’ status of tragedy, see Silk 2000a, 79-82. 89 Croally 1994, 241. 90 Allen 2008, 66. Most 2000, 23 writes, “In ancient philosophy and literary criticism, there seems to have been nothing whatsoever corresponding to the modern philosophical notion of ‘the Tragic’ as a fundamental dimension of human experience; there were instead only theories of ‘tragedy’ as a specific genre.” Yet as Silk 2013, 27 suggests, Aristotle gestures towards a distinction between ‘tragedies’ and a quality associated with them that Aristotle calls ‘tragic’. By claiming that Euripides is the ‘most tragic’ (τραγικώτατος, Poetics 13) of the poets, Aristotle is asserting that Euripides’ plays have more of a certain quality to them than the plays of others, as this word cannot mean ‘most tragedic’, a concept that cannot exist in different degrees (i.e. a play cannot be ‘more performed in the tragedy lineup of a festival’ than another play). It is unclear what Aristotle thought this ‘tragic’ quality was and consequently, it is unclear whether it was similar at all to later conceptions of ‘the Tragic’. Whatever this quality was, it must not 28
When scholars think of tragedy appropriating comedy, they often think of ‘comic’ elements in tragedy, that is to say, light-hearted or funny passages appearing in tragedy that seem to differ in tone from the rest of the ‘tragic’ play. The main proponent of this view is Seidensticker, whose examples include Trojan Women 1050, an alleged ‘fat joke’ towards Helen; Heracleidae 630-747, in which the elderly Iolaus arms himself for battle;
Bacchae 170-369, in which the elderly Tiresias and Cadmus dress as Bacchants; Bacchae
912-970, in which Pentheus is dressed in women’s clothes; and Orestes 1369-1536, in which the Phrygian slave engages in outrageous discourse with Orestes.91 Yet for these examples, the criteria for establishing them as comic are subjective, and based largely on our modern understanding of comedy. It is our culture, not that of the Greeks, that thinks that a woman putting on weight or male cross-dressing is funny. If a passage in tragedy makes a particular scholar laugh, then he may deem the passage comic; at best, this is an anachronistic means of defining ancient laughter. There are no valid means for establishing whether a passage in Euripides was thought of as humorous at the time of its performance or even more broadly in antiquity, and it may be that some examples that have been proposed are actually not meant as jokes at all. Let us examine the alleged joke about Helen’s weight (Trojan Women 1049-1050):
Hecuba: µή νυν νεὼς σοὶ ταὐτὸν ἐσβήτω σκάφος.
Menelaus: τί δ' ἔστι; µεῖζον βρῖθος ἢ πάροιθ' ἔχει;
Hecuba: Well, then do not let her embark on the same vessel as you.
Menelaus: What is wrong? Is she heavier than she was?
have been impeded or nullified by the paracomedic issues I am raising in this dissertation. One could be highly paracomedic and still be τραγικώτατος. 91 Seidensticker 1982, 89-128. 29
Regarding this passage, Gregory has noted the problems inherent in ascertaining ancient humor, and furthermore, notes that for the Greeks, having extra weight is more likely a sign of attractiveness, contrary to our cultural views.92 However, the ‘joke’ may have a different referent entirely. One possibility is that the concern about Helen being heavier than she was may indicate that Menelaus’ fear that she is pregnant, perhaps better translated as "Does she have a heavier load than before?".93 This proposal may have some linguistic support, since there may be a connection between βρῖθος, the word used for
Helen’s weight at Trojan Women 1050, and Latin gravis, which means both ‘heavy’ and
‘pregnant’.94 If this proposal is true, this ‘joke’ actually raises serious questions about
Helen’s potential adultery.
Attempts to uncover comic passages in tragedy import later (and even modern) conceptions of comedy, and therefore utilize an idea of ‘the Comic’, a universal source of humor which transcends genre, crosses cultures and is uniform throughout time. It is clear that ‘the Comic’ suffers from the same problems as those afflicting ‘the Tragic’, discussed above. No matter how much certain of Euripides’ plays or scenes look like the New
Comedy of Menander, or Roman comedy, or Shakespeare, or modern films such as Some
Like it Hot, such comparanda cannot be used to determine the tone of a particular scene or line in Euripides.95 Rather than treating trans-historical and cross-cultural concepts of
‘the Tragic’ or tragedy as a whole, or ‘the Comic’ or comedy as a whole, I will focus
92 See Gregory 1999-2000, 59-74. 93 Torrance 2013, 284, who cites an unfortunately uncredited student of Matthew Wright’s for this idea. 94 Both words may come from the same Indo-European root *gwrH- ‘heavy, pregnant’, though there are some problems with the Greek outcome, since through a regular sound change in Greek *gwrH- should give an unattested form βαριθος* (cf. βαρύς ‘heavy’). 95 Seidensticker 1978, 317, Knox 2001, 18-22, and Segal 2001, 133-134, 151-152 all use evidence from other genres, time periods, and cultures to establish ‘the Comic’. 30 strictly on the historical arena of 5th century Greek drama, specifically on intertextual appropriations drawn from contemporary Greek comedy.
PARACOMEDY
While the scholarly focus has been on paratragedy, recently a number of scholars have been open to the possibility of paracomedy. Even if one admits the possibility of a tragedian appropriating elements drawn from comedy into a tragedy, problems still arise which must be overcome before paracomedy is accepted as the relationship between a
‘tragedic element’ and a ‘comedic element’.96 By a ‘tragedic element’ or ‘comedic element’,
I mean a particular word, line, manner of expression, motif, theme, character type, scene, plot, pattern, staging, costuming, or delivery etc. that specifically belongs to tragedy or comedy. I use the term ‘tragedic element’ instead of ‘tragic element’ and ‘comedic element’ instead of ‘comic element’ because I do not wish to make any claims regarding the tragic seriousness or comic humor of these elements in the vein of Seidensticker.97 A comedic element may or may not be comic (in the modern sense of humorous or funny), and a tragedic element may or may not be tragic (in the modern sense of grave or serious, which ultimately derives from later interpretations of an Aristotelian view of tragedy). When referring to elements drawn from satyr drama, I will use the term ‘satyric’, which does not
96 Sometimes scholars develop elaborate scenarios involving re-productions or revisions of plays in order to allow an explanation for paratragedy, when an explanation through paracomedy could have provided a (possibly) more straightforward option. See Beta 1999, 135-157. 97 For the distinction between ‘comedic elements’ and ‘comic elements’ see Seidensticker 1978, 305-306, who rejects investigation into ‘comedic elements’ in favor of ‘comic elements’, defining the two as follows: “Euripides makes extensive use of structural forms, characters, dramatic situations, motifs, themes, and story patterns which were already or were soon to become typical elements of comedy. These I shall call comedy elements. Comic elements, on the other hand, – and the adjective comic – will be used as a general term for the ‘laughable’ (τὸ γέλοιον) in its various manifestations and tones.” Seidensticker 1982, 44 uses the terms ‘komische Elemente’ and ‘Komödienelemente’. 31 suffer from confusion with modern meanings as ‘tragic’ and ‘comic’ do (as modern
‘satyric’ signifying ‘possessing strong sexual desires’ is not likely to confuse anyone).
Distinguishing between a ‘comedic element’ and a ‘comic element’ can be difficult to do.
When Diamatakou-Agathou suggests that Euripides’ Ion appropriates a scene from
Aristophanes’ Birds, she argues that it is primarily a comedic element that is being appropriated (a sequence of various birds arriving), yet uses this to confirm “one more comic trace” in Ion, where the “comic and the serious or tragic are conceived not in isolation but as components of the same theatrical experience”, drawing one of her conclusions close to Seidensticker’s understanding of ‘the Comic’.98
I propose that one should fulfill three criteria in developing an argument for paracomedy: distinctive correspondences between the two elements, the priority of comedic element, and a suitable motivation for adopting the comedic element. To help illustrate this process of reasoning, I will apply these criteria to what I consider to be a successful demonstration of paracomedy in Sommerstein’s “Comic Elements in Tragic
Language: the Case of Aeschylus’ Oresteia”, in addition to various other arguments which can serve as examples.99 To briefly summarize the article: Sommerstein tabulates a number of lexical items (comprising sexual innuendos and vulgar bodily functions such as vomiting and belching) in Aeschylus’ Oresteia that he establishes as being foreign to tragedy and prevalent in comedy. He then goes on to demonstrate that this intrusion from the language of comedy is used to characterize the hideous and horrifying Erinyes in the
Oresteia, concluding that Aeschylus purposefully drew upon comedic language for a specific purpose in tragedy, namely to “heighten the blackness and bleakness of the vicious
98 Diamantakou-Agathou 2012, 23, 25. 99 Sommerstein 2002, 151-168. 32 cycle of retaliatory violence.”100 I draw upon Sommerstein’s well-reasoned arguments as a model of sound methodology in determining paracomedy.
Distinctive A parallel should be unique, rare, or marked (exhibit a low degree of Correspondences prototypicality) within the genre of tragedy, and conversely, be frequent (exhibit a high degree of prototypicality) or prominent in the genre of comedy. Priority of Comedic The comedic element should precede the tragedic element, obtained Element either by secure dates or if dates are unknown, through inference based on which ordering (paratragedy or paracomedy) makes more sense. Motivation An explanation should be provided as to why the tragedian would desire to adopt an element from comedy. Table 1. My Methodology for Arguments Involving Paracomedy
Distinctive Correspondences
Sommerstein shows distinctive correspondences that are sufficiently strengthened through specific and marked parallels in language so as to diminish the likelihood of all other explanations. One could extend this criterion beyond language to include elements of plots, scenes, motifs and the like. But immediately, one must deal with a methodological problem: how does one determine a tragedic, comedic or satyric element present in another genre? Regarding the incorporation of general features of comedy into tragedy, a good starting point is Wright’s reaction to Seidensticker’ comic elements in tragedy:
It is clear that there are certain features in comedy and satyr-play (use of less
elevated or colloquial language, certain plot features, etc.) which are also to be
found in tragedies of various dates. These features are sometimes used to ‘prove’
that certain tragedies – including the escape-plays – are not properly, or purely,
tragic. But if certain elements appear in two or three genres, then they cannot be
said to be defining characteristics of only one genre – cannot be said, for example,
100 Sommerstein 2002, 163. 33
to be ‘comic elements incorporated into tragedy’ – but must rather be seen as cross-
generic features which tragedies, comedies or satyr-dramas may include without
sacrificing their respective natures. It is what remains apart from these cross-
generic features that defines comedy or tragedy.101
In an attempt to defend the tragic status of the escape plays of Helen, Iphigenia among the
Taurians and Andromeda, often accused of being less than tragic, Wright elides the distinction between features that are allowed in a genre and features that are common to the genre. Here, the principle of prototypicality from genre studies may again be adduced to elucidate the problem. Audiences generally feel that features with high-prototypicality
(‘prosperity reduced to suffering’ in tragedy) “belong” to the genre whereas features with low-prototypicality (‘characters drawn not from mythology’ in tragedy) do not. This is not to say that they cannot exist in the genre – Agathon’s Antheus contains characters not drawn from mythology and was still a tragedy, and Aristophanes’ Clouds (1452-1462) contains a protagonist, Strepsiades, who discovers his own responsibility in causing his downfall (in a passage clearly modeled on the highly prototypical theme in tragedy) and was still a comedy.102 However, a strict taxonomical definition utilizing only the bare attestation of a feature in a genre cannot be sufficient. If one labeled ‘prosperity reduced to suffering’ as a feature of comedy or ‘characters not drawn from mythology’ as a feature of tragedy, it would run counter to the expectations of every audience member who had seen comedies and tragedies. Considering that genre is a theoretical construct composed primarily of audience expectation, using the concept of prototypicality seems a more accurate way to model features borrowed from another genre. However, we do not have
101 Wright 2005, 23. 102 See Silk 2000a, 352-356. The passage at Clouds 1452-1462 prefigures Aristotle’s conceptions of anagnorisis ‘recognition, discovery’ and peripeteia ‘reversal of fortune’ in Poetics 1452a14-1452b13. 34 direct access to the audience’ opinions regarding certain features and whether they are conceived of as belonging to a certain genre or not, as these would ideally be obtained through interviewing a representative sample of the audience, an impossibility for the ancient world. Since we cannot directly ascertain the responses of the audience, I believe that assigning a feature along a spectrum of high-prototypicality to low-prototypicality can be used to approximate audience viewpoints. Under this view, highly prototypical features of comedy would be designated as comedic, and features with low-prototypicality would not.
In attempting to determine a case of paracomedy, that is, if a comedic element has been appropriated into tragedy, the element in tragedy must meet the following criteria: 1) low-prototypicality in tragedy and 2) either high-prototypicality or high ‘prominence’ in comedy.103 By ‘prominence’, I mean a notable or memorable element from a specific play that (at least a portion of) the audience would recognize (for example, the hauling of the statue of Peace in Aristophanes’ Peace or Euripides’ shop of rags in Acharnians). Here I invoke a distinction used in the methodology of paratragedy, which differentiates between
1) the appropriation of general features of a genre (for example, ‘obscenity’ in comedy or
‘prosperity reduced to downfall’ in tragedy) and 2) the appropriation of a specific model, or in the terms of Genette, the relationship between a hypertext and a hypotext (for example, the allusion to Euripides’ Bellerophon in the beginning of Aristophanes’ Peace).
Both options are possible for paratragedy – in addition to the hundreds of examples that target a specific tragedic line, scene or plot, there are examples for which no clear model can be detected, and while it is possible that some of these may have referents that are no
103 Kirkpatrick and Dunn 2002 admirably demonstrate low prototypicality for tragedy and high prototypicality for comedy with regards to their element ‘talking object’ at Heracles 1380-1381. 35 longer extant, most seem to be a pastiche of general features of tragedy. Considering that what is being invoked is the audience’s reception of a feature from a different genre, the same effect can occur equally from tragedy’s allusion to a specific target in comedy or from a trope that appears frequently in the genre.
This aligns with the view expressed by Sommerstein in a discussion of comedic language: “a comic figure of language, for this purpose, is a feature that is common in comedy (and/or in other low-register forms of verse, such as iambus) but very rare or unknown in tragedy.”104 Though he does not use the framework of prototypicality, the same methodology is present. It should be noted that this model applies in all respects to satyr drama as well, and one could easily substitute ‘satyr drama’ for either ‘tragedy’ or
‘comedy’ in the above discussion. In fact, the scholarly discussion should incorporate the ability for all dramatic genres to appropriate all other genres.
A case study may suffice to illuminate the issue of distinctive correspondences.
Castellani has argued that Sophocles’ Oedipus in Colonus responds to Aristophanes’ Birds in characters, themes and plot.105 He provides many correspondences between the two plays in his article, from which I have extracted the following list:
1) Play begins with a pair in exile
2) Non-architectural setting with vegetation
3) The pair meets an inhabitant of the land
4) The chorus is unwelcome
5) Prophecies occur
6) A character brings secret information
7) Poseidon is mentioned
104 Sommerstein 2002, 153. 105 Castellani 2010, 47-58. 36
8) The visitors must convince the locals that they will be beneficial
9) Physical violence occurs
10) Someone is arrested
11) Theme of doubling
12) Conclusion with an apotheosis
13) Colonus described as “well-nightingaled”
14) Birds mentions the city of Colonus
Unfortunately, none of these correspondences is distinctive. Often, the common ground between the two elements elides over the important differences between them, and thus is too vague to mark paracomedy. For point 1 (the play begins with a pair in exile),
Peisetairos and Euelpides have voluntarily left Athens, whereas Oedipus and Antigone have been expelled. For point 4 (the chorus is unwelcome), the chorus of Birds actually attacks the pair physically, whereas the chorus of Oedipus at Colonus just does not receive the pair hospitably. Such differences detract from the commonalities between the plays, and it seems unlikely that an audience would detect a corresponding theme of ‘pair in exile’ or ‘unwelcome chorus’ between the two plays. These two elements could equally point to the Oresteia, as Orestes and Pylades enter as a ‘pair in exile’ in Libation Bearers and the chorus is hostile towards Orestes in Eumenides, showing that the relationship between Oedipus at Colonus and Birds may not have been as meaningful as the author claims. Other correspondences are quite frequent in tragedy and are not diagnostic since they have high prototypicality, for example, the theme of doubling (point 11) or the mention of nightingales (point 13). The fact that both plays end with an apotheosis, even though these scenes have a low level of prototypicality within their genres and are therefore marked, is simply not distinctive enough to provide a persuasive account that
Sophocles is responding to Aristophanes’ Birds in Oedipus at Colonus. 37
Priority of the comedic element
The second issue at stake for paracomedy is the priority of the comedic element.
While acknowledging that we have little evidence of the comedy of the 460s BCE,
Sommerstein states that, “it is reasonable to suppose that the typical linguistic register of comedy at that time was at any rate no higher than that of comedy in Aristophanes’ time.”106 This assumption is likely to be true, based on what we can determine from comedic fragments from the time. Due to the lack of evidence of complete plots of comedies from the 460s BCE, it is harder to make such assumptions for plot types or scenes, as Herington did, when he attempted to show that the structure of Aeschylus’
Oresteia was influenced by Athenian Old Comedy.107
Eumenides Comedy
Chorus of supernatural females (Erinyes) Chorus of supernatural females: Phrynichus’ Muses, Hermippus’ Fates, Cratinus’ and Aristophanes’ Hours Chorus characterized as animals (Erinyes as Chorus characterized as animals: Aristophanes’ beasts) Wasps, Frogs, Birds, Eupolis’ Goats Chorus antagonistic towards a main character, Antagonism then conversion: Aristophanes’ but then converted to character’s point of view Acharnians, Wasps, Birds, Thesmophoriazusae Reference to contemporary political concerns Contemporary political concerns: Aristophanes’ (Areopagus reforms) Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Peace, Birds, Lysistrata, Ecclesiazusae Prologue consists of three scenes (speech by Prologue consists of three scenes: Acharnians priestess, dialogue between Apollo and Orestes, (monologue of Dicaeopolis, meeting of the dialogue between Clytemnestra’s ghost and ecclesia, and dialogue between Dicaeopolis and sleeping Furies) Amphitheus) Change of scene from Delphi to Athens Change of scene: Aristophanes’ Acharnians, Knights, Peace, Birds, Thesmophoriazusae, Frogs, Eupolis’ Demoi Torchlight procession in the conclusion Torchlight procession: Aristophanes’ Peace, Wasps, Clouds, Lysistrata, Frogs, Ecclesiazusae, Wealth Table 2. Herington’s Correspondences Between Eumenides and Comedy
106 Sommerstein 2002, 153. 107 Herington 1963, 113-125. 38
The parallels he adduced for Eumenides could be persuasive in and of themselves, since they have low levels of prototypicality in tragedy and high levels of prototypicality in comedy. Despite such convincing parallels, two aspects detract from Herington’s argument: the fact that the Oresteia (458 BCE) was performed well before our earliest attested complete play of Old Comedy (Aristophanes’ Acharnians, 425 BCE), and the fact that we have little knowledge of full comedic plots before those of Aristophanes. While it may be the case that Old Comedy that was contemporary to Eumenides had these features, causing this to be an example of paracomedy, it is also possible that they were absent completely. If they were absent, a possible explanation for how features from
Eumenides ended up as commonplace generic features of comedy after 425 BCE would parallel the route Nesselrath proposed for how elements of the ‘light-hearted’ tragedies such as Electra, Ion, Helen, and Orestes ended up as generic features of Middle Comedy, whereby a certain comedy parodied the elements from the notable tragedy (Eumenides;
Helen or Ion) and then from that comedy the traits diffused to other comedies, and eventually became associated with the genre of comedy as a whole.108
The best scenario for establishing the priority of the comedic element is when both plays are securely dated and the comedy precedes the tragedy. This is the case for the allusion between Aristophanes’ Birds 209-216 (414 BCE) and Euripides’ Helen 1107-
1113 (412 BCE).109
Aristophanes’ Birds 209-216:
Tereus: Ἄγε σύννοµέ µοι, παῦσαι µὲν ὕπνου,
λῦσον δὲ νόµους ἱερῶν ὕµνων,
108 Nesselrath 1993, 181-195. Alternatively, the presence of ‘torchlight processions’ may have been due to comedy’s influence from rustic komos rituals which included a procession, on which see Csapo 2013, 69. 109 Dover 1972, 148-149. 39
οὓς διὰ θείου στόµατος θρηνεῖς
τὸν ἐµὸν καὶ σὸν πολύδακρυν Ἴτυν,
ἐλελιζοµένη διεροῖς µέλεσιν
γένυος ξουθῆς. Καθαρὰ χωρεῖ
διὰ φυλλοκόµου µίλακος ἠχὼ
πρὸς Διὸς ἕδρας,
Tereus: Come, my songmate, leave your sleep, and loosen the strains of sacred songs, that from your divine lips bewail deeply mourned Itys, your child and mine, trilling forth fluid melodies from your vibrant throat. Pure the sound that ascends through green-tressed bryony to Zeus’ abode… (Trans. Henderson)
Euripides’ Helen 1107-1113:
Chorus: σὲ τὰν ἐναύλοις ὑπὸ δενδροκόµοις
µουσεῖα καὶ θάκους ἐνί-
ζουσαν ἀναβοάσω,
τὰν ἀοιδοτάταν
ὄρνιθα µελωιδὸν
ἀηδόνα δακρυόεσσαν,
ἔλθ' ὦ διὰ ξουθᾶν γενύων ἐλελιζοµένα
θρήνων ἐµοὶ ξυνεργός,
Ἑλένας µελέους πόνους
Chorus: You that in your steading among the leaves keep your house of song, I call aloud to you, most gifted in music, bird of song, nightingale of tears: come, you that through your tawny throat trill your lay of woe, share in my lamentation as I sing of Helen’s grievous troubles… (Trans. Kovacs) 40
A large number of lexical words correspond between the two passages, especially the rare middle-voice usage of the verb ἐλελίζοµαι ‘trill’, which occurs only in these two passages in extant Greek literature.
Aristophanes’ Birds 209-216 Euripides’ Helen 1107-1113
σύννοµέ (209) ξυνεργός (1112)
θρηνεῖς (211) θρήνων (1112)
πολύδακρυν (212) δακρυόεσσαν (1110)
ἐλελιζοµένη (213) ἐλελιζοµένα (1111)
γένυος ξουθῆς (214) ξουθᾶν γενύων (1111)
φυλλοκόµου (215) δενδροκόµοις (1106)
Table 3. Verbal Correspondences Between Aristophanes' Birds 209-216 and Euripides' Helen 1107-1113
Alongside these distinctive correspondences comes the knowledge that Aristophanes’ comedy precedes Euripides’ tragedy, and thus the priority of the comedic element is established.
However, in a case where the chronology is unclear, one must rely on whether paratragedy or paracomedy makes the most sense in terms of ordering. The arguments that Marshall makes regarding the order of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (458 BCE),
Aristophanes’ Birds (414 BCE) and Sophocles’ Chryses (undated) are worth noting in detail.110 The question is whether Chryses was performed before or after Birds. At the heart of the problem are three intertwined lines, and it is up to the scholar to detect which ordering is preferable:
110 Marshall 2009, 145-149. 41
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 525-526:
Τροίαν κατασκάψαντα τοῦ δικηφόρου
Διὸς µακέλληι
“[Agamemnon] has leveled Troy with the mattock of justice-bringing Zeus.”
Aristophanes Birds 1239-1240:
ὅπως µή σου γένος πανώλεθρον
Διὸς µακέλλῃ πᾶν ἀναστρέφῃ Δίκη
“lest Justice, with the mattock of Zeus, overthrow thy whole race.”
Sophocles Chryses fr. 727:
< x - > µακέλλῃ Ζηνὸς ἐξαναστραφῇ
“... may be utterly overthrown by the mattock of Zeus.”
With the passages set up in this order, the linguistic connections between the passages are linear, since one can point to the repetitions and changes from Aeschylus to Aristophanes, and then from Aristophanes to Sophocles. Aeschylus’ phrase Διὸς µακέλληι ‘with the mattock of Zeus’ is repeated in Aristophanes, and though the general semantics of destruction are similar in both passages, Aristophanes uses the word ἀναστρέφῃ instead of
κατασκάψαντα, and thus we can see Aristophanes’ modification of Aeschylus’ line.
Sophocles continues the same verb Aristophanes uses and intensifies it with the prefix ἐξ-
(ἐξαναστραφῇ instead of ἀναστρέφῃ), and modifies the phrase Διὸς µακέλλῃ by substituting a variant genitive of Zeus’ name (µακέλλῃ Ζηνὸς). This linear progression of successive appropriations is clear and reasonable. If we hypothesize the alternate order, where Chryses precedes Birds, it would result in Aristophanes needing to collate and integrate two allusions: 1) an allusion to Agamemnon (Birds’ Διὸς µακέλληι responding to 42
Agamemnon’s Διὸς µακέλλῃ) and 2) an allusion to Chryses (Birds’ ἐξαναστραφῇ responding to Chryses’ ἀναστρέφῃ). The situation is further complicated by the fact that
Chryses itself might be considered an allusion to Agamemnon, although perhaps a bit looser as the only thing in common is the word µακέλλῃ and a genitive form of Zeus
(though with different variant forms). This complicated scenario of synthesizing two allusions between which an allusion already exists seems unlikely (and at the very least, undetectable by the audience), and thus the preferable interpretation is an example of
Sophoclean paracomedy.
A similar process of reasoning occurs with contrasting views on three intertwined passages from Euripides’ Andromeda (412 BCE), Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (411
BCE) and Euripides’ Cyclops (likely 408 BCE). The relationship between Andromeda and
Thesmophoriazusae is well known, as Aristophanes parodies the entire play of
Andromeda, artfully condensed and rearranged into a single scene at Thesmophoriazusae
1010-1132.111 As in the previous circumstances with Agamemnon, Birds, and Chryses, the question is where Cyclops falls. The passages run as follows:
Euripides’ Andromeda (fr. 125):
ἔα· τίν᾽ ὄχθον τόνδ᾽ ὁρῶ περίρρυτον...;
“Ah, what is this rock I see here, washed around...”
Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae 1105:
ἔα· τίν᾽ ὄχθον τόνδ᾽ ὁρῶ καὶ παρθένον...
“Ah, what is this rock I see here and what maiden...?”
111 On Aristophanes’ rearrangement of the scenes he is parodying from Helen in Thesmophoriazusae, see Nieddu 2004, 349. The same methods probably applied to Aristophanes’ staging of Andromeda. 43
Euripides’ Cyclops 222:
ἔα: τίν᾽ ὄχλον τόνδ᾽ ὁρῶ πρὸς αὐλίοις;
“Ah, what is this crowd I see here near my cave?”
One interpretation was briefly suggested by Parry, and more fully explained by Seaford and Marshall.112 The resonance revolves around the similarity in sound between ὄχθον
(Andromeda fr. 125 and Thesmophoriazusae 1105) and ὄχλον (Cyclops 222), a trademark of parody.113 Parry suggested that Euripides was “answering Aristophanes’ mockery by mocking himself”, a view that accords with my conception of a literary rivalry between Aristophanes and Euripides, discussed below.114 Under Parry’s, Seaford’s, and
Marshall’s views, Cyclops should be dated to 408 BCE. Austin and Olson briefly noted a second view, which Wright more fully developed, that Cyclops was performed at the same time as Andromeda in 412 BCE, allowing for a more pointed and direct allusion to the play.115 Yet there seem to be no other examples of such self-parody in Euripides, and while typological grounds do not exclude the possibility of it occurring here (as in this dissertation I am attempting to remove such typological grounds for excluding the possibility of paracomedy), I fail to see the motivation for Euripides to do so, whereas a response to Aristophanes’ parodic portrayal of Andromeda would accord with theories of
112 Parry 1930, 140-2 = Parry 1971, 319-20. Seaford 1982, 163-172 and 1984, 48-51. Marshall 2001, 226-228. 113 On parody based on similarities ‘of the same sound’, see the Tractatus Coislinianus, a 10th century manuscript which follows a Peripatetic tradition derived from Aristotle’s Poetics, analyzed by Janko 1984, 30-33, 183-186. For another example based on similarities ‘of the same sound’ and ‘of the same genus’, see ξυροφορεῖς modeled on ξιφηφόρος in Chapter 2. 114 Parry 1930, 140-2 = Parry 1971, 319-20. 115 Austin and Olson 2004, lxiii - lxiv. Wright 2006. 44 literary rivalry (discussed below).116 Despite Wright’s attempts to forge thematic links with the ‘escape-tragedy’ trilogy of Helen, Andromeda, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, it is not enough to conclude that it was performed in a tetralogy alongside them.117
One last example comes from Diamantakou-Agathou’s analysis of the relationship between Aristophanes’ Birds (414 BCE) and Euripides’ Ion, whose date is unknown but estimates range from 419 BCE to 411 BCE.118 The lack of secure date for Ion means that the relationship between Birds and Ion might be one of paracomedy or paratragedy. As
Diamantakou-Agathou notes, “it is far more plausible to envisage this particular sequence of scenes in Ion citing the Birds with no explicit reference to its sub-textual source, rather than a typical ancient comedy of the 5th century, such as the Birds, citing more or less parodically a recently performed tragedy with no direct or indirect indication interfering in its textual field.”119 While I take issue with the idea that Old Comedy always indicates paratragedy (either directly or indirectly) and believe that it sometimes leaves the identification of paratragedy for the audience to determine at times, Diamantakou-
116 As far as I can tell, apparent examples of Euripidean self-parody can be reinterpreted as reclamations of an Aristophanic attack. I have not found a true example of auto-allusion in Euripides without a specific Aristophanic parody that targets the first text between them. 117 On the escape-tragedy trilogy, see Wright 2005, especially 6-55. Wright is correct to emphasize that tetralogies could be focused thematically instead of continuing the mythological storyline (see also Seaford 1984, 21-26 who points out how tetralogies tend to be connected via shared themes, not by continuing the storyline after the third tragedy in a somehow satyric mode). As evidence for his position, Wright 2006, 27-30 adds the shared feature of displaying ‘metamythology’, a narrative technique whereby mythological characters show awareness of their own myths beyond what they should know during the plot itself, thus emphasizing the fictionality of myth (on metamythology, see also Wright 2005, 133-57). Yet Wright 2006, 32 n. 42 also readily admits that Orestes too is metamythological, though he explains this away due to Orestes’ relationship as a sequel to Helen. By the same metamythological reasoning that links Cyclops to the escape- tragedies of 412 BCE, Cyclops is linked to Orestes of 408 BCE, and thus using common themes to date the play is inconclusive. 118 Diamantakou-Agathou 2012, 21-22. 119 Diamantakou-Agathou 2012, 22. 45
Agathou’s process of reasoning and evaluating both options is sound, and should be used when dates are insecure. At all times when investigating allusions and potential cases of paratragedy or paracomedy, we should be aware of the fact that we only have a small fraction of plays from classical Athens, and that any given aspect of a play may allude to something which is no longer extant, or allude to nothing at all.
Motivation
Finally, one must explain the motivation behind the particular instance of paracomedy, and there may be a wide variety of reasons, which can broadly be divided into 1) the tragedian attempting to achieve a certain effect in the tragedy, and 2) the tragedian displaying a concern for poetics and the construction of literature. These categories are not mutually exclusive, as the tragedian may wish to achieve a certain affect while similarly contemplating dramaturgy. For the effect, I distinguish three separate types: ‘light-heartedness’, ‘disquieting confusion’, and ‘ugliness’. For the concern for poetics, I distinguish two types: ‘appreciation of another’s poetics’ and ‘literary rivalry’.
There always is the possibility that we cannot tell what sort of effect the comedic element would produce in a tragedy, or for what other reason a tragedian would decide to include a comedic element, due to the limits of our knowledge of authorial intent. Due to this state of aporia, we should regard all attempts to ascertain motivation as educated guesses on the part of the scholar.
When a comedic element appears in tragedy, one possibility is that it confers a light-hearted or comic feeling imported from the original comedy it was drawn from. This provides a sort of comic relief, which can act as a foil for the production of tragic emotions such as pity and fear. An example of this type is Seidensticker’s analysis of the Cadmus and Teiresias scene at Bacchae 170-369, whereby the light-hearted scene provides a
46 diversion that sets the stage for the future horror of the play.120 This technique relies on the principle that emotional responses are relative, and that horror arising from an original state of light-heartedness creates a deeper effect on the audience member than horror arising from a state of neutrality. Ultimately, this can increase the emotional effects of the tragedy on the audience.
A second effect that can occur from a comedy element appearing in tragedy is a sense of disquieting confusion. The audience member’s recognition of the comedic element in tragedy causes a sense of confusion, due to the mismatch between the generic expectations arising from the fact that he is viewing a tragedy and the comedy element before him. This can result in the feeling that something ‘feels off’ or is ‘not right’ with the scene, creating a sense of disturbance. Disquieting confusion may produce laughter in the audience, but it is the sort of uncomfortable laughter that erupts when something is wrong and beyond one’s understanding. This sort of effect accounts for the scene in Euripides’
Heracles, when Heracles has been afflicted with madness and believes he is riding a chariot to Mycenae to kill Eurystheus. Heracles’ attendants, seeing the odd spectacle, are torn between mirth and fear (γέλως φόβος θ᾽ ὁµοῦ, 950). As Kirkpatrick and Dunn say when analyzing this scene, “When events exceed our implicit rules for comprehending them, the generic categories of comedy and tragedy can no longer be kept discrete.”121 The concept of disquieting confusion, which simultaneously blends the emotions of light-heartedness and horror, must be distinguished from the concept of comic relief, which presents light- heartedness and then horror. Disquieting confusion may be behind the scene where
Pentheus cross-dresses as a maenad at Bacchae 912-970, where the audience may be laughing, but uneasily, since Pentheus’ ultimate destiny has already been foreshadowed.
120 Seidensticker 1982, 122. 121 Kirkpatrick and Dunn 2002, 47. 47
The third type of imported effect that can arise when dealing with paracomedy is ugliness. As Revermann notes, “ugliness is a pervasive and ubiquitous feature of Old
Comedy.”122 Ugliness (αἰσχρότης or τὸ αἰσχρόν) was perceived as funny and was a point of distinction between comedy and tragedy. Yet Sommerstein demonstrates that when Aeschylus uses comedic language in the Oresteia, he draws primarily on stock comedic vocabulary dealing with bodily functions (vomiting, belching, shitting, sexual innuendo, bleeding, digesting), that is to say, words associated with ugliness. By using this vocabulary, Aeschylus characterizes the Erinyes as disgusting and horrifying figures. There is no comic relief at all in these descriptions, and though it does create a sense of discord, the source of the emotion differs from that associated with the disquieting confusion effect.
All three of these effects (light-heartedness, disquieting confusion, and ugliness) should be seen as working alongside tragic tropes to create an overall sense of seriousness and gravity.
The first type of concern for poetics deals with an author’s appreciation of another’s use of dramaturgy. A tragedian may come to the realization that a comedian used an element that was simply effective drama, and may wish to model his play in some way off the excellent craftsmanship of another. This is the explanation offered by
Scharffenberger when she argues that Euripides modeled the staging and dramaturgy of
Phoenician Women off elements from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata: “It seems entirely credible that Euripides, upon finding something intriguing and important in Lysistrata, may have been moved and inspired to appropriate and adapt it, a year or two later, into his
Phoenician Women,” something which “indicates the tragedian’s admiration for and appreciation of what the comedic poet presents.”123 This view would treat comedy no differently than any other poetic source of inspiration for a tragedian. Just as Euripides
122 Revermann 2006, 147. 123 Scharffenberger 1995a, 315. 48 could model an aspect of a play on (or in response to) previous tragedy, epic, or lyric poetry, so could he utilize the genre of comedy. However, the appropriation of an exemplary scene of comedy would suppress any other aspects of comedy such as humor or ugliness that came along with it, and thus the outcome in tragedy would be a version of the comedic element, whitewashed of all comic effects.
LITERARY RIVALRY
While the above four explanations can account for some cases of paracomedy, I believe that other cases warrant a different approach, namely, understanding paracomedy as part of a system of literary rivalry. I believe that rivalry extends beyond the definition of
‘competition for prizes at a festival’, which limits the concept so that dramatists can only be rivals with other dramatists within the same genre.124 For rivalry, I have in mind the definition of van Wees, who argues that four primary elements are likely to be present in rivalries: escalation of the competition between rivals, regulation by an external force if it poses a threat, exclusion of others from competition to make themselves unassailable, and rejection of the winners’ claims by the loser.125 More can be gained by considering van
Wees’ definition of rivalry as a contest for social superiority, as opposed to competition, which is the act of striving to gain something under conditions of scarcity.126 Consequently,
Euripides engaged in competition with a tragedian such as Sophocles because they are competing for the same scarce resource (a prize in a festival), but Euripides engaged in rivalry with Aristophanes, via a struggle for a limitless and uncountable resource (social and cultural superiority pertaining to artistic and dramatic skill). Both can co-exist in
124 Revermann 2006, 19-24 focuses solely on the institutionalized festival competition within genres. 125 van Wees 2011, 3. 126 van Wees 2011, 1-36. 49 different ways within the same play – Aristophanes’ Frogs portrays a literary competition between Aeschylus and Euripides with a scarce resource as a prize, in that only one can return from the underworld, and at the same time offers a forum for Aristophanes to engage in rivalry between his own work and those of the tragedians Aeschylus and
Euripides.127 Competition demands one clear winner and clear losers, whereas rivalry has more vaguely defined aspirations since there is no clear objective that marks one’s superiority over the other (as opposed to procuring the prize in a festival, which designates a clear winner). As an outcome of this difference between competition and rivalry, competition can lead to a high degree of antagonism between participants due to the scarcity of the resources, whereas rivalry, at least potentially, is more collaborative, because both participants are not limited by the prize one earns in a competition but rather can gain prestige through their rivalry. These diverging outcomes may account for the differences between ‘comedy vs. comedy’ rivalry and ‘tragedy vs. comedy/comedy vs. tragedy’ rivalry. This may accord with what Dobrov calls an ‘imaginary rivalry’ between
Aristophanes and Euripides, since for Dobrov, ‘comedy vs. tragedy’ rivalry is a strictly mimetic form of rivalry with no stakes, whereas what he terms ‘actual rivalry’ with other comedic poets is ‘deadly serious’.128 But under Dobrov’s conception, the ‘imaginary rivalry’ is a one-sided vehicle for Aristophanic self-definition, with tragedy unaware of the rivalry’s existence, and without any true stakes in the ‘tragedy vs. comedy rivalry’, it feels frivolous and inconsequential. However, there is some evidence that for Aristophanes, poetic rivalry was not limited to other comedians, but also tragedians, making the rivalry more than an imaginary one. Olson has shown that the evidence more likely supports the
127 For Aristophanes staging a literary competition to critique to the Athenian prize- awarding system, see Wright 2012, 54-55. 128 Dobrov 2001, 89-90, 102-3, 159-160. 50 idea that the playwright Carcinus composed tragedies, not comedies, and when
Aristophanes describes Carcinus and his sons as rivals for the gifts of the Muses (Peace
782-795), the implication is that poetic rivalry in comedy extends across the generic divide to tragedy.129 The social prestige obtained by cross-generic rivalry may have been equally as serious as the formalized competition was.
The “culture war” between Aristophanes and Euripides was waged on the battlefields of motifs, plots, scenes, phrases, and words. Any and all of these could be appropriated by a dramatist to one-up his rival. At times we can see a triangle of appropriation – first, a tragedic motif appears which is noticeable enough to be parodied; second, a comedic appropriation of the motif, and third, a tragedic re-appropriation of the motif (for applications of the triangle of appropriation, see Chapter 2, Chapter 4 and
Chapter 5). In its essence, this is the same viewpoint expressed by Biles in his intertextual biographies of Aristophanes and Cratinus, with each comedian responding in turn to the other’s challenges. In principle, this back-and-forth relationship between dramatists of any genre could continue ad infinitum. The application of the concept of a literary rivalry makes sense because one playwright may wish to reclaim what was parodied by the other.
However, it is impossible for a modern scholar to determine whether this rivalry was positive or negative. Dobrov’s term ‘contrafact’ is useful precisely for the reason that it does not connote anything positive or negative, only that an intertextual reference is being made from one text to the other.130
Perhaps this sort of literary rivalry was what Cratinus had in mind when he coined the word “Euripidaristophanize’ (fr. 342).
“τίς δὲ σύ;” κοµψός τις ἔροιτο θεατής.
129 Olson 2000, 65-74. 130 Dobrov 2001, 16. 51
“ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωµιδιώτης, εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων.”
“Who are you?” some clever spectator might ask,
“a quibbler of words, a maker of maxims, a Euripidaristophaniser?”
Euripides and Aristophanes are joined together by shared intellectualism and a preference for subtle ideas, but more important is the simple fact that Cratinus saw something similar in both of them. Euripides and Aristophanes can be doing the same thing, but in the different modes of tragedy and comedy. The different genres generate different outcomes, in that Aristophanes can be directly funny, putting Euripides in his comedies and explicitly saying that he will put on parodies of Euripides’ plays. Due to the constraints of the genre,
Euripides can only respond indirectly, working on the lexical and plot level to respond to
Aristophanes’ claims. This corresponds to Taplin’s views regarding the explicit metatheatricality of comedy versus the implicit metatheatricality of tragedy.131
It is necessary to re-evaluate the generic boundaries between comedy, tragedy, and satyr play. Part of the problem that critics have with the concept of paracomedy is the idea that the audience would be watching the play and suddenly, a moment of comic relief would intrude and ruin the tragedy. Taplin believes that “it was essential for tragedy, if it was to succeed, that the audience should not interrupt,” and laughter would break the spell that overcomes an audience member in the middle of viewing a performance.132 In my opinion, the adoption of a comedic element into tragedy need not transport the humor from its model any more than the adoption of a tragedic element into comedy need transport the gravity of its model. Sometimes when engaging in paratragedy, comedy may desire to appropriate the gravity associated with tragedy, as is the case when Dicaeopolis
131 Taplin 1986. 132 Taplin 1986, 172-173. 52 assumes the guise of Telephus from Euripides’ Telephus.133 Likewise, tragedy may at times wish to appropriate a sense of light-heartedness associated with comedy, as Seidensticker claims for, say, the cross-dressing of Pentheus in Bacchae. Yet in both of these examples, the goal is still the primary aim of the genre – in Acharnians, tragedic costuming is ultimately used in part because it makes the audience laugh, and in Bacchae, comedic costuming is used ultimately to evoke a serious result, the murder of Pentheus by his mother. Most often paratragedy naturalizes the tragedic element into comedy, creating a uniform comic mood. To take one example, the appropriation of Euripides’ Bellerophon in Aristophanes’ Peace contains little seriousness, rather, the scene is filled with jokes, and presumably, audience laughter throughout the appropriation, as one would expect for a comedy. Paracomedy as well naturalizes the comedic element and internalizes it thoroughly into tragedy, a process which makes it more difficult for scholars to detect examples of paracomedy. Often there are no explicit markers, as can occur in comedy, which at times names tragedians and tragedies outright. Often there is not a significant departure in tone or mood along the lines that Seidensticker, Knox, and Segal ascribe to the tragedies they analyze.134 Paratragedy and paracomedy work along the same lines and achieve similar goals. The methodology for paracomedy and paratragedy should be to establish distinctive correspondences between tragedy and comedy, establish the priority of either the comedy or tragedy, and determine the most likely motivation for adopting the foreign trope. Consequently, we should consider paratragedy and paracomedy as opportunities for dramatic criticism that are available to all dramatists, including authors of comedy, tragedy and satyr-drama, rather than primarily belonging to authors of comedies.
133 Foley 1988, 33-47. 134 Seidensticker 1978, Seidensticker 1982, Knox 2001, and Segal 2001. 53
In a 2008 article, Foley described a ‘loosening’ of generic boundaries as the fifth century drew to a close.135 Certainly, more examples exist from the later plays of
Euripides, but these also come at the end of almost a century of drama to use as models. In the Orestes of 408 BCE, Euripides had more plays to allude to than Aeschylus did in 468
BCE in the Oresteia. This could account for why more examples of paracomedy are detected in plays dating from the end of Euripides’ career (see Appendix B): Heracles (c.
416 BCE), Helen (412 BCE), Antiope (possibly 409 BCE), Phoenician Women (409
BCE), Orestes (408 BCE), Cyclops (408 BCE likely), and Bacchae (405 BCE). Yet it must be made clear that there is not an elimination of generic codes at the end of the century.
Taplin’s views about the mutually exclusiveness of comedy and tragedy are correct insofar as tragedy’s examples of metatheater are implicit, not explicit.136 Some generic rules could not be broken, for example, while tragedies could deal with historical concerns, such as in
Aeschylus’ Persians or Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus, there seems to have been a rule that
Euripides could not have a character named Aristophanes appear in a tragedy. Other generic rules can be bent, such as adopting a comedic trope either from features of high prototypicality or from a notable comedic model. The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that tragedy is able to incorporate elements from comedy (and satyr drama) into it, to establish that the practice is more widespread than many scholars admit, and to provide a methodology for use in determining examples of paracomedy.
135 Foley 2008. 136 Taplin 1986. See also Torrance 2013, 285-286. 54
Chapter 2: Bearing Razors and Swords: Rivalry Between Aristophanes and Euripides
This chapter will demonstrate that Aristophanes’ use of a seemingly trivial word reveals a dialogue between tragedy and comedy, involving an unnoticed verbal and plot parody in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (411 BCE) based off his coinage ξυροφορεῖς
‘razor-bearing’ (Thesmophoriazusae 218), which I argue skewers Euripides’ recent usage of ξιφηφόρος ‘sword-bearing’. Furthermore, I will suggest that Euripides responds to the
Aristophanic parody in his subsequent tragedy Orestes (408 BCE) through a re- appropriation of the ‘razor-bearing’ parody in Thesmophoriazusae. From these lexical details I will draw larger-scale arguments, ultimately illustrating that these correspondences can best be interpreted through the lens of an escalating literary rivalry between
Aristophanes and Euripides that comprises both paratragedy and paracomedy.
Aristophanes begins Thesmophoriazusae with the character Euripides in trouble, as the women at the Thesmophoria have decided that he should die due to the treatment of women in his plays. Euripides and his Kinsman try to convince the playwright Agathon to infiltrate the woman’s festival. Agathon refuses, despite being a prime candidate for such a task due to his effeminacy, and Euripides’ hyper-masculine Kinsman is sent instead.
In order to make the Kinsman pass for a woman, Euripides needs to shave him, and he asks Agathon (Thesmophoriazusae 218-220):
Euripides: Ἀγάθων, σὺ µέντοι ξυροφορεῖς ἑκάστοτε,
χρῆσόν τί νυν ἡµῖν ξυρόν.
Agathon: Αὐτὸς λάµβανε ἐντεῦθεν ἐκ τῆς ξυροδόκης.
55
Euripides: Agathon, you’ve always got razors with you.
How about lending us one?
Agathon: Take one yourself from my razor case.
A lexical parody is present in the hapax legomenon ξυροφορεῖς, and I argue that the word has a meaning different from standard translations, which tend to render it along the lines of “you have razors”. The verb ξυροφορέω is easily derived from the two elements ξυρόν ‘razor’ and φέρω ‘bear’. These elements can be productively compounded to create an ο-grade denominative adjective ξυροφόρος ‘razor-bearing’, which can in turn be used as a substantive noun, meaning ‘a razor-bearing man’.
Along with any nominalization comes a process called ‘typicalization’, which Willi describes as the generalization that happens when, for example, a verb that possesses person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect loses some or all of these specifications in the process of becoming a noun.137 The verb describes a specific action located in a certain place and time, performed by a certain person, while the noun simply describes the person as being the agent of the verb. That is, a phrase such as Σωκράτης γράφει, which specifies when the writing is taking place, is not the same as Σωκράτης γράφευς, which simply says that Socrates was a writer (but we do not know when). Σωκράτης γράφευς imbues the relationship between ‘Socrates’ and ‘writing’ with a general, typical, or habitual meaning, and characterizes Socrates as someone who generally, typically or habitually writes. This can be contrasted with Σωκράτης γράφει, which indicates that
Socrates is writing at the present moment and no further claim is made about his typical tendencies towards writing. The substantive noun ξυροφόρος ‘a razor-bearing man’, being derived from ξυρόν φέρω ‘I carry a razor’, provides the same sort of typicalized
137 Willi 2003, 121. 56 relationship as between Σωκράτης γράφευς and Σωκράτης γράφει. Since the verb
ξυροφορέω is derived from ξυροφόρος, it typicalizes as well (as is the case for all compound epsilon-contract verbs), and the verb therefore is not the equivalent of ξυρόν
φέρω ‘I carry a razor’, but rather ξυροφόρος εἰµί ‘I am a razor-bearer’. Using the untypicalized phrase ξυρόν φέρω ‘I carry a razor’ would imply that the subject currently has a razor, with no further indication about his general tendencies towards carrying razors. On the other hand, using the typicalized verb ξυροφορέω ‘I am a razor-bearer’ suggests that the speaker regularly carries razors, whether he is currently carrying one now or not.
Greek Form Meaning Grammatical Category Implication 1. ξυρὸν φέρω ‘I bear a razor’ Verb and object Untypicalized; no general or habitual tendency 2. ξυροφόρος ‘Razor-bearing’ (‘razor- Adjective Typicalized; general bearer’) (substantive noun) or habitual 3. ξυροφορέω ‘I am a razor-bearer’ Verb Typicalized; general or habitual Table 4. Process of Typicalization in Aristophanes' Coinage
Aristophanes coined this typicalized word ξυροφορεῖς on purpose, especially considering that he could have used the metrically correct ξυρόν ἔχεις if he desired to mean ‘you have a razor’ without any implication on his razor-bearing habits in general. I would suggest that Aristophanes created the word ξυροφορεῖς for two reasons. On one level, the audience may have found it funny when the character Euripides speaks in ostentatious tragedic compounds. But more than that, I propose that Aristophanes parodied a specific Euripidean word, ξιφηφόρος ‘sword-bearing’. The word ξιφηφόρος
57 appears only in tragedy, once in Aeschylus and seven times in Euripides.138 There are no other attestations from the 5th century BCE, though the word does reappear in later authors and commentators, who most likely based their usage on the tragedians.139
This connection between ξυροφορεῖς and ξιφηφόρος is a prototypical example of how puns and parodies work in comedy. According to an ancient view expressed in the
Tractatus Coislinianus, a 10th century manuscript which analyzes comedy in a manner following Aristotle’s Poetics, a punning metaphor only works if it draws from the ‘same species’ or the ‘same sound’.140 Aristophanes’ pun works on both levels, since in terms of species, both belong to the category of ‘metal blades’, and in terms of sound, both have a -
φορος ending, a disyllabic first element of the compound, and an initial ξ-, which is comparatively rare at word-initial position.
I argue that Aristophanes parodies ξιφηφόρος due to Euripides’ innovative treatment of the word, which deviates markedly from the earlier abstract usage of
Aeschylus. In Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers (468 BCE), Orestes invokes a deity to ensure a favorable outcome in his imminent struggles (583-584):
Orestes: τὰ δ' ἄλλα τούτῳ δεῦρ' ἐποπτεῦσαι λέγω,
ξιφηφόρους ἀγῶνας ὀρθώσαντί µοι.
Orestes: I charge this one here [the deity] to watch over the rest and see that all
138 Attestations of ξιφηφόρος in tragedy: Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers 583-4, Euripides’ Heracles 728-731, 809-814, Ion 980, Helen 1072, Orestes 1504, Bacchae 991-996 = 1011-1016. 139 The earliest post-5th century BCE attestations of ξιφηφόρος appear in the 4th century BCE comic poet Antiphanes fr. 217.19, where it modifies the hands (χέρσιν) of a squid and in the Hellenistic poet Lycophron’s Alexandra 143, where it is an obscure cult epithet of Demeter. The related verb ξιφηφορέω is late with the earliest attestation in Philo’s On the Unchangeableness of God 60, dating to the 1st century CE. 140 Tractatus Coislinianus V. 4-6, in Janko 1984, 30-33, 183-186. 58
goes right in the contest into which I take my sword.141
Sommerstein’s translation grapples with Aeschylus’ abstract phrase, literally
‘sword-bearing contests’ (ξιφηφόρους ἀγῶνας). What this means precisely is a matter of debate. Contests cannot literally carry swords, and thus translators render it in various ways: ‘direct the contest of the sword’ (Smyth), ‘guide the actions of my sword’
(Lattimore), and ‘guide my sword through struggle’ (Fagles). Aeschylus deliberately uses language that is metaphorical and abstract.
Euripides was well aware of this Aeschylean usage; indeed, he pilfered the entire phrase in Heracles (c. 416 BCE), his first play that uses the word ξιφηφόρος (809-814):
Chorus: κρείσσων µοι τύραννος ἔφυς
ἢ δυσγένει' ἀνάκτων,
ἃ νῦν ἐσορῶντι φαίνει
ξιφηφόρων ἐς ἀγώνων
ἅµιλλαν εἰ τὸ δίκαιον
θεοῖς ἔτ' ἀρέσκει.
Chorus: You are more kingly in my eyes
than the ignoble tyrant.
His fate makes plain, to anyone who looks
at this sword-bearing contest of arms,
whether the gods still
take pleasure in righteous conduct.
Euripides uses identical vocabulary as Aeschylus in his phrase ‘sword-bearing contests’
(ξιφηφόρων ἀγώνων), signaling that he is continuing the tragedic diction inherited from
141 Translation from Sommerstein 2008. 59
Aeschylus. Euripides’ abstract usage of ξιφηφόρος persists in another passage from
Heracles (728-731):
Amphitryon: ὦ γέροντες, ἐς καλὸν
στείχει, βρόχοισι δ' ἀρκύων κεκλήισεται
ξιφηφόροισι, τοὺς πέλας δοκῶν κτενεῖν
ὁ παγκάκιστος.
Amphitryon: Old friends, his going is most opportune,
and he will be caught fast in the trap, a trap of cold steel,
the knave who thought he would kill others.
In this passage, Euripides’ phrase, literally ‘sword-bearing snares of nets’ (βρόχοισι
ἀρκύων ξιφηφόροισι), reflects a metaphorical usage similar to that of Aeschylus. Not only is the metaphorical usage of ξιφηφόρος the same as in Aeschylus, but the imagery of swords, snares and nets is perpetuated from the Oresteia as well. Swords and nets are inextricably linked at the death of Agamemnon, for example in the passage when Orestes wonders whether Clytemnestra actually killed Agamemnon (Libation Bearers 1010-
1011):142
ἔδρασεν ἢ οὐκ ἔδρασε; µαρτυρεῖ δέ µοι
φᾶρος τόδ᾽, ὡς ἔβαψεν Αἰγίσθου ξίφος.
Did she do it or did she not? My witness is this
great robe. It was thus she stained Aegisthus’ sword.
142 Other relevant passages regarding nets and the death of Agamemnon in the Oresteia are Agamemnon 1382-1384, 1492-1496 = 1516-1520, Libation Bearers 980-984, 997-1004, Eumenides 634-635. On net imagery in general in Aeschylus’ Oresteia see Lattimore 1953, 15-18. There is some scholarly debate whether Clytemnestra was killed with a sword or an axe, on which see Davies 1987, 65-75. While some evidence argues for the axe, other passages such as Libation Bearers 1010-1011, Agamemnon 1262-1263, 1525-1529 mention swords, and these are the passages that Euripides forms connections with. 60
Euripides uses ξιφηφόρος structurally in Heracles, in that the two passages containing
ξιφηφόρος work as a framing device to connect the two halves of the play, much in the same way as the oft-cited example ἐφολκίδες, ‘towed vessels’, which appears at 631 and again at 1424.143 At 728-731, ξιφηφόρος marks the conclusion of the first half of the play when Amphitryon sends Lycus off to be killed, whereas ξιφηφόρος at 809-814 serves to introduce the second half of the play, immediately before the arrival of Lyssa and Iris. In
Heracles, Euripides uses ξιφηφόρος both as a structural device and as a signal that he is drawing upon the tragedic tradition inherited from Aeschylus.
After so clearly and precisely preserving Aeschylean usage in Heracles, Euripides breaks away from this tradition in Ion (c. 414 BCE), the next extant play that contains
ξιφηφόρος. In this passage, Euripides implements two innovations: 1) he concretizes the meaning to modify human agents rather than abstractions, and 2) he presents sword- bearing men as a plot device designating a solution to a character’s current crisis. Creusa has just told the Old Man that she had been raped by Apollo in a cave (939-941), and the
Old Man urges her to take revenge on someone, suggesting Apollo himself, then her husband Xuthus, then her son Ion (972-978). At this point, the Old Man suggests a plot device to solve her problem (978-980):
Creusa: πῶς; εἰ γὰρ εἴη δυνατόν· ὡς θέλοιµί γ' ἄν.
Old Man: ξιφηφόρους σοὺς ὁπλίσασ' ὀπάονας.
Creusa: How? May it be possible! How much I wish to!
Old Man: Arm your servants with weapons.
143 Mastronarde 2010, 69-71, discusses the links and connections between two halves of the double structure of Heracles: the etymological connection between Lycus (< *luk-os) and Lyssa (< *luk-ya), scenic motifs such as the uncovering of one’s head (562-564, 1214- 1217), thematic links such as friendship and loyalty (φιλία), and connections in the imagery of a race with two legs (δίαυλος) at 662 and 1102. 61
The “sword-bearing attendants” (ξιφηφόρους ὀπάονας) represent Euripides’ shift to human agency instead of the previously abstract “sword-bearing contests”. Considering that Aeschylus used ξιφηφόρος in such a way as to resist a literal interpretation, it is significant that Euripides abandons the metaphorical use in favor of a discussion about putting real swords into human hands. Creusa swiftly rejects the idea on the grounds that murder is difficult to hide, and instead decides upon a plot to poison Ion with blood from the Gorgon. While an alternate plan is ultimately accepted, Euripides presents the sword- bearing attendants as a viable plot device.
In Helen (412 BCE), produced in the year prior to the performance of
Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, Euripides offers his most notable plot device involving sword-bearing men. Helen and Menelaus need to escape from the Egyptian king
Theoclymenus, and after rejecting Menelaus’ proposals to flee on a chariot or to kill the king, Helen hits upon a master escape plan. They will pretend that Menelaus is dead, disguise him as the messenger reporting his own death, and escape with a ship captured by sword-bearing men (1069-1072):
Helen: σὲ καὶ παρεῖναι δεῖ µάλιστα τούς τε σοὺς
πλωτῆρας οἵπερ ἔφυγον ἐκ ναυαγίας.
Menelaus: καὶ µὴν ἐάνπερ ναῦν ἐπ' ἀγκύρας λάβω,
ἀνὴρ παρ' ἄνδρα στήσεται ξιφηφόρος.
Helen: Yes, it is most important that you be there, and also those of your sailors
who have escaped from the shipwreck.
Menelaus: If I am provided with a ship at anchor, my men will stand by each other
with ready swords.
The catalyst of the entire escape that Euripides orchestrates is the word ξιφηφόρος, without which the attempt would have failed. Rather than toying with the idea of literal 62 sword-bearing men as he did in Ion, Euripides actually stages men with swords in their hands, which shows the furthest extent of his deviation from Aeschylus’ metaphorical usage. In Helen, Euripides’ literalization of ξιφηφόρος is not only present, but almost flaunted, since sword-bearing men are used as a major escape plot device to drive the action of the play.
Aristophanes surely noticed these Euripidean developments in language and plot.
Throughout his dramas, the comedic playwright shows a constant and in-depth knowledge of Euripidean usage and plot constructions. Indeed, the sheer complexity of the way in which Aristophanes parodies Euripides’ Helen in Thesmophoriazusae led Nieddu to argue that Aristophanes had access to a written script of Euripides’ play from which he was able to contrive an elaborate comic scene involving some lines of Helen replicated exactly, other lines replicated but with parodic variations, and further lines composed in a generally
Euripidean style.144 From such a complex Aristophanic reinterpretation of Euripides, we can conclude that Aristophanes read Euripides closely and was not solely relying on his memory of the performance of the dramas.145 As such, Aristophanes certainly had the means to notice the development in Euripidean language and plot structure I am describing.
Furthermore, in a passage from Frogs, Aristophanes mocked Euripides’ diction and relationship to his predecessor Aeschylus in the exact way that I have outlined for his adoption and adaption of ξιφηφόρος. In the middle of the agon between Aeschylus and
Euripides, Aeschylus asks Euripides what sort of things Euripides wrote about in his dramas. Euripides replies (937-943):
144 Nieddu 2004, 351. 145 One may compare Dionysus reading Euripides at Aristophanes’ Frogs 52-54, on which see Sfyroeras 2008, 299-317. 63
Euripides: Οὐχ ἱππαλεκτρυόνας µὰ Δί' οὐδὲ τραγελάφους, ἅπερ σύ,
ἃν τοῖσι παραπετάσµασιν τοῖς Μηδικοῖς γράφουσιν·
ἀλλ' ὡς παρέλαβον τὴν τέχνην παρὰ σοῦ τὸ πρῶτον εὐθὺς
οἰδοῦσαν ὑπὸ κοµπασµάτων καὶ ῥηµάτων ἐπαχθῶν,
ἴσχνανα µὲν πρώτιστον αὐτὴν καὶ τὸ βάρος ἀφεῖλον
ἐπυλλίοις καὶ περιπάτοις καὶ τευτλίοισι λευκοῖς,
χυλὸν διδοὺς στωµυλµάτων ἀπὸ βιβλίων ἀπηθῶν.
Euripides: Certainly not horsecocks or goatstags, like you,
the sort of things they embroider on Persian tapestries.
No, as soon as I first inherited the art from you,
bloated with bombast and obese vocabulary,
I immediately put it on a diet and took off the weight
with a regimen of wordlets and strolls and little white beets,
administering chatter-juice pressed from books.
First, Aristophanes recognizes that Euripides is following Aeschylus within an established tragedic tradition, since Euripides says ‘as soon as I inherited the art from you’
(ὡς παρέλαβον τὴν τέχνην παρὰ σοῦ τὸ πρῶτον, 939). This artistic inheritance corresponds to the first citation of ξιφηφόρος in Euripides, which explicitly follows the
Aeschylean tradition by modifying abstractions, especially in the phrase ‘sword-bearing contests’, seen in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers and replicated in Euripides’ Heracles.
Second, Aristophanes discerns a method that Euripides uses to differentiate his language from the received diction of Aeschylus, which Aristophanes describes as ‘bloated with bombast and obese vocabulary’. Aristophanes’ observation can be verified in
Aeschylus’ bloated verbosity present in the phrase ‘sword-bearing contests’. I would argue that the difficulty of modern translators in rendering the expression is the same difficulty 64 that an ancient Greek would have had in comprehending it. After all, what does ‘sword- bearing contests’ even mean?
Aristophanes next claims that Euripides put Aeschylus’ bloated language on a diet and took the weight off of it. I believe that Aristophanes must be commenting on a process like the one Euripides uses with ξιφηφόρος, which makes the abstract and abstruse expression of Aeschylus more easily understood by the audience through the modification of human agents. The phrase ‘sword-bearing men’ is transparent, a Euripidean literalization, whereas ‘sword-bearing contests’ is opaque. Considering that Aristophanes noticed and mocked this relationship between Aeschylean and Euripidean language usage in Frogs, there is no reason to doubt that he parodied the same process with his coinage
ξυροφορεῖς in Thesmophoriazusae.
Yet how is ξυροφορεῖς utilized in the comedy? Aristophanes constructs the plot of
Thesmophoriazusae so that the character Euripides is in the same sort of trouble that
Euripides’ own characters are plagued with, and consequently Aristophanes stages
Euripides as a character playing a role in one of his own plays. Due to Euripides’ recent and notable excursus into the realm of escape-tragedies (Iphigenia Among the Taurians,
Andromeda, and Helen), quite naturally, Euripides develops a plot to escape his situation in Thesmophoriazusae.146 Aristophanes even uses tragic terms for escape plots (µηχανή
‘plot, trick, strategy’, τέχνη ‘art, craft, contrivance’ and their respective cognates) throughout Thesmophoriazusae, especially at the beginning of the play when the plot is established.147 When Euripides informs his Kinsman that the women of the Thesmophoria are plotting his destruction, the Kinsman asks what strategy (µηχανή) he has against the women (Thesmophoriazusae 87). After Euripides explains that he will persuade Agathon
146 On the escape tragedies, see Wright 2005. 147 For further examples where Euripides uses µηχανή, see Mastronarde 2010, 274. 65 to infiltrate their festival, the Kinsman exclaims (Thesmophoriazusae 94): “A pretty cute bit, and just your style. We take the cake for craftiness (τοῦ τεχνάζειν)!”
Aristophanes is not basing the escape plots in Thesmophoriazusae on general
Euripidean tendencies. Rather, Aristophanes is targeting a specific play, Helen, by replicating the two main escape plots that Euripides used in that play: first, an attempt through supplication, and second, an attempt through ‘sword-bearing men’.148 In Helen,
Helen realizes that they must deal with the omniscient Theonoe, who, she fears, will report their plans to king Theoclymenus. Helen removes the threat that Theonoe represents by entreating her through supplication (825, 831, 894, 939). Once Theonoe agrees not to disclose their plans to Theoclymenus, Helen and Menelaus can commence with their second plan revolving around the sword-bearing men (ἀνὴρ παρ' ἄνδρα...ξιφηφόρος at
1072), which comes to fruition in the messenger speech (1526-1612).149
Aristophanes utilizes the same two plot devices from Helen in Thesmophoriazusae, constructing Euripides’ first attempt to escape his situation through approaching Agathon as a tragedic suppliant and subsequently engaging in a ‘razor-bearing’ plotline to replace
Euripides’ ‘sword-bearing’ plot. In Thesmophoriazusae, Euripides addresses Agathon
(178-179): “Smitten by fresh misfortune (καινῇ ξυµφορᾷ), I am come a suppliant
(ἱκέτης) to thy door.” This suppliant speech uses the tragedic register with vocabulary such as καινῇ ξυµφορᾷ, with the meaning of ξυµφορά as ‘misfortune’, as is often the case in tragedy, as opposed to the meaning of ‘event’ in prose. The tragedic aspect of the scene is bolstered since the line appears immediately after a quotation from Euripides’ Aeolus
(Thesmophoriazusae 177-178 = Euripides’ Aeolus fr. 28). The scene also evokes what
148 Euripidean characters often go through numerous ideas before hitting the best option, as in Iphigenia among the Taurians 1017-1028, Ion 971-983, and Helen 802-1048. 149 The phrasing of the plan at Helen 1072 (ἀνὴρ παρ' ἄνδρα…ξιφηφόρος) is repeated when the plan actually occurs at Helen 1574 (ἀνὴρ παρ' ἄνδρ’…ξίφη). 66
Bakola calls a suppliant ‘story-pattern’, which contains a vulnerable suppliant who seeks protection and is received by a virtuous foreign ruler.150 By calling upon the suppliant motif, Aristophanes is suggesting that Euripides flees to Agathon in the manner of Helen to
Theonoe. Yet Agathon is not taken in by Euripides’ tricks, and says that he has heard this plot before, in Euripides’ Alcestis (Thesmophoriazusae 194 = Alcestis 691). Just as
Admetus’ father Pheres refuses the suppliant’s request, so does Agathon, and Euripides’ attempt to escape his situation as a tragedic suppliant falls apart. Aristophanes even makes
Agathon recognize that Euripides is undertaking a tragedic plot, using the tragedic code word τέχνασµα ‘trick, contrivance’, when Agathon says that it is “just to bear one’s difficulties not with contrivances (τεχνάσµασιν) but with a spirit of suffering”
(Thesmophoriazusae 198-199).
Aristophanes next moves onto the second tragedic escape plot Euripides had used a year earlier in Helen. However, instead of having Euripides engage in the typically
Euripidean escape plot involving ‘sword-bearing men’, Aristophanes has Euripides use the comedic word and plot device ‘razor-bearer’. The use of a razor where there should be a sword is funny on a number of levels. First, comedy’s use of a little razor for a tragedic sword flattens the high register of tragedy, in that the hero wielding a sword is exchanged for a trip to the barber. Second, it pokes fun at effeminate Agathon who does not have a sword lying around, but who does have enough razors to need a ξυροδόκη ‘razor-rack’, an Aristophanic hapax legomenon coined off Odysseus’ δουροδόκη ‘spear-rack’ at
Odyssey 1.128.151
150 Bakola 2009, 150-151. 151 The epic use of the –δόκη suffix meaning ‘carrying case for multiple weapons’ is not only attested by δουροδόκη ‘spear-rack’ (Odyssey 1.128), but also later on in Apollonius of Rhodes by ὀϊστοδόκη (1.1194) and ἰοδόκη (2.679, 3.156, 3.279) ‘quiver’, a case for 67
Unfortunately for him, Euripides’ escape plot does not go according to the tragedic plan, and Aristophanes constructs a complex series of predicaments, escape attempts, and resolutions. I’ve summarized these in the following table.
Predicament 1 Euripides must escape the women of the Thesmophoria, who want to kill him due to the mistreatment of women in his plays (82-85). Attempt 1 Euripides attempts the suppliant plot device on Agathon (87-92, 177-208). Attempt 2 Euripides implements the razor-bearing plot device on his Kinsman (209- 279). Predicament 2 The Kinsman is caught and must escape from the women of the Thesmophoria (650-654). Attempt 3 The Kinsman holds a ‘baby’ hostage in a scene from Euripides’ Telephus to compel the women to let him go (655-764) Attempt 4 Kinsman tries to communicate with Euripides by using the communication method of oar-blades from Euripides’ Palamedes (769-784, 846-848). Attempt 5 Kinsman and Euripides stage Euripides’ Helen (849-928). Predicament 3 Euripides must free his Kinsman from the Scythian archer (929-946). Attempt 6 Kinsman and Euripides stage the rescue of Andromeda from Euripides’ Andromeda (1009-1132). Resolution of Euripides enacts a permanent peace treaty with the women, promising to Predicament 1 never again slander women, and threatening to disclose their secrets to their and 2 husbands (1160-1171). Resolution of Euripides implements a comedic plot device, involving a naked dancing girl Predicament 3 and an aulete playing a Persian dance song (1172-1225). Table 5. Predicaments, Escape Attempts and Resolutions in Thesmophoriazusae
Euripides’ and the Kinsman’s adoption of the ‘razor-bearing’ plot device motivates the action of the entire play. Euripides ultimately resolves Predicament 1 and 2 with a quick promise and a threat, though this resolution is predicated upon the razor-bearing plot and the Kinsman’s infiltration of the Thesmophoria. The comedic ‘razor-bearing’ device resolved Euripides’ predicament in a way that the tragedic ‘sword-bearing men’ could not, much like the way in which the comedic device of the naked dancing girl and the aulete solved problems that the tragedic escape plots from Palamedes, Helen, and Andromeda multiple arrows. The closest lexical form for swords is ξιφηθήκη, only attested in the lexicographers and the scholiasts, and thus cannot serve as a model for ξυροδόκη. 68 could not.
One of the primary concerns of Thesmophoriazusae is the construction of dramatic plots, which both comedic and tragedic playwrights targeted through their use of two forms of literary criticism. One revolved around concepts of ‘clever’ (σοφός, δεξιός,
κοµψός) and the other around concepts of ‘new, novel’ (καινός) and its opposite ‘old, old- fashioned’ (παλαίος).152 Aristophanes uses these terms to describe both his own works
(Wasps 65-66, 1044, 1049-50, 1052-59, Clouds 520, 547-548, Acharnians 628-630) as well as those of the tragedians, as he calls both Euripides and Aeschylus σοφός (Frogs 896) and δεξιός (Frogs 1075). On the one hand, Euripides and Aeschylus are clever because, for Aristophanes, all tragedic poets are by definition clever. However, throughout the comedic corpus, Euripides is the tragedian who is the cleverest, as Aristophanes himself states, “There is no poet cleverer (σοφώτερος) than Euripides” (Lysistrata 378). In
Frogs, Dionysus is searching for Euripides because he is a δεξιός ποιητής (72) and
γόνιµος ‘creative’ (96); in Clouds, Euripides is described as σοφώτατος (1377); and in
Thesmophoriazusae, Euripides’ plots are both δεξιός (9) and κοµψός (93). Other comedic playwrights recognized this as well, as Strattis, a comedic playwright who began his career in the late fifth-century BCE, labeled Orestes as the ‘cleverest play of Euripides’
(Εὐριπίδου δρᾶµα δεξιώτατον, fr. 1). Euripides even is contrasted with other tragedic playwrights in terms of novelty, as Aristophanes implicitly makes Euripides the proponent of ‘the novel’ (τὰ καινά, Frogs 1107) and Aeschylus the proponent of ‘the old-fashioned’
(τὰ παλαιά, Frogs 1107).
While comedic poets can use these terms explicitly, tragedic poets must use them
152 On these concepts in comedy and tragedy, see Wright 2008, 115-137, Bakola 2008, 8- 10, Silk 2002, 45-48, Dover 1993, 12-14, 19, and Winnington-Ingram 1969, 127-142. On comedy’s use of cleverness and novelty deemed as ironic and ambivalent see Wright 2012, 25-30, 70-102. 69 more subtly due to the generic constraints of tragedy, which do not allow for direct reference to another comedic or tragedic poet. Torrance has shown the extent to which
Euripides uses καινός ‘novel’ and καινότης ‘novelty’ to mark his own innovations in plot over previous authors’ renditions, with examples drawn from Hecuba, Suppliants, Ion,
Orestes, Medea, Heacles, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Electra, Alcestis, Hippolytus,
Iphigenia at Aulis, and Trojan Women.153 Conversely, Euripides can implicitly label other playwrights’ plots as ‘old-fashioned’ (παλαιότης). In Helen, Menelaus comments on the escape plot that Helen proposes (1049-1056):
Helen: ἄκουσον, ἤν τι καὶ γυνὴ λέξηι σοφόν.
βούληι λέγεσθαι µὴ θανὼν λόγωι θανεῖν;
Menelaus: κακὸς µὲν ὄρνις· εἰ δὲ κερδανῶ, λέγε.
ἕτοιµός εἰµι µὴ θανὼν λόγωι θανεῖν.
Helen: καὶ µὴν γυναικείοις <σ'> ἂν οἰκτισαίµεθα
κουραῖσι καὶ θρήνοισι πρὸς τὸν ἀνόσιον.
Menelaus: σωτηρίας δὲ τοῦτ' ἔχει τί νῶιν ἄκος;
παλαιότης γὰρ τῶι λόγωι γ' ἔνεστί τις.
Helen: Listen, in case a woman, too, might have something clever to say. Are you
willing to be said to have died - in word only, since you are not dead?
Menelaus: A bad omen, but if I stand to gain, say it. I am ready to die - in word
only, since I am not dead.
Helen: In that case, I shall mourn you with a woman’s shorn head and dirges in
front of that unholy man.
153 Torrance 2013, 295-316. 70
Menelaus: What saving remedy is there for us in that? There is something old
fashioned about your suggestion.154
This scene can be read as a paratragic allusion to the extant examples of Aeschylus’
Libation Bearers (680-687) where Orestes reports that he is dead and Sophocles’ Electra
(670-764) where the Tutor reports that Orestes is dead.155 Additionally, the language of
‘dying in word’ has a parallel at Sophocles’ Electra 62-63.156 Euripides draws attention to the traditional, and even old-fashioned nature of others’ plots, and though he begins Helen on a similar path involving a feigned death, Euripides deviates from this course and concludes by highlighting his ingenuity with his addition of the ‘sword-bearing’ plotline discussed above.157
These forms of literary criticism targeting previous tragedic plots occur often in
Orestes. One example creates a two-level attack, layering a new jab on top of Euripides’ earlier criticism of Aeschylus’ plots in Electra (518-544). In the Electra scene, Electra explicitly rejects the likelihood of siblings having the same footprint, which responds to
Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers (205-228), the famous recognition scene where Electra identifies Orestes by his footprints.158 In Orestes (233-234) Euripides takes the allusions to
154 Kovacs’ Loeb text accepts Cobet’s emendation of παλαιότης (Manuscript L) to µαταιότης ‘foolishness’, yet there is no reason to emend a word that makes perfect sense within the play and has a strong pedigree in the manuscripts. 155 The relative dating of Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Helen is impossible to determine, and therefore we do not know which poet is alluding to the other. On the connection between these passages, see Dale 1967, 133-134 note on Helen 1050 and Allan 2008, 259-260 note on Helen 1050-6. 156 Ringer 1998, 141-142. 157 See Chapter 5 for a similar example of how Euripides’ Helen begins with traditional rags in the style of Euripides’ Telephus, and then adapts the trope as the play progresses. 158 Some scholars, such as Fraenkel 1950, 815-826, Bain 1977, 104-116 and Kovacs 1989, 67-78 have tried to show that the scene is an interpolation. Others, such as Davies 1998, 71 another level by making a metapoetic statement that draws attention to both the
Aeschylean recognition scene and his own earlier response in Electra: “Would you like me to place your feet on the ground? It has been a long time since you made a footprint
(ἴχνος). A change (µεταβολή) of all things is sweet.”159 Orestes and Electra discussing footprints recalls the other two recognition scenes in Libation Bearers and Electra, and the word µεταβολή ‘change’ highlights Orestes’ reversal of the earlier plots. This is not out of character for Euripides, as Torrance has shown that Euripides utilizes µεταβολή ‘change’ to signal metapoetically a new direction the plot has taken (Bacchae 1266-1267, Iphigenia among the Taurians 719-722, Iphigenia at Aulis 500 and 1101, Trojan Women 615,
Heracles 735, Orestes 233-234, Auge fr.272a).160 Zeitlin has described Orestes as
‘palimpsestic’ in its allusions, whereby “one layer can be deciphered under another; each one makes its own contribution, but the total effect is one of a bewildering and cumulative complexity...”161 The allusion at Orestes 233-234 about footprints joins a long list of other references in Orestes to tragedy that Zeitlin cites (Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Sophocles’
Philoctetes, Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, Medea, Helen, Andromache,
Electra, Heracles etc.).162
Yet Orestes has been shown to allude to comedy as well by altering and reclaiming
Aristophanes’ attacks at Euripides. When the Kinsman stages a play to make his escape at
Thesmophoriazusae 850, he calls Euripides’ Helen καινός, referring not only to the fact that it was performed recently, but also that it was innovative, “I’ve got it! I’ll do a take-off
389-403, Gallagher 2003, 401-415, and Torrance 2011, 177-204 argue for its authenticity, successfully in my mind. 159 Wright 2008, 121-122. 160 Torrance 2013, 58-61. See Chapter 4 for Aristophanes’ metapoetic use of the related verb µεταβάλλω. 161 Zeitlin 2003, 314. 162 Zeitlin 2003, 313. 72 on his new-fangled (καινός) Helen.” The Helen was novel for all sorts of reasons: the overturning of expectations about which mythic variants to use, the unusual staging of the play in Egypt, and the philosophical themes that pervade the work.163 Wright has argued that Euripides responded to Aristophanes’ ‘new-fangled’ Helen by asserting in Orestes that
Helen is ‘old-fashioned’ (πάλαι) instead.164 After Helen leaves, sending Hermione to bring libations and hair clippings to the tomb of Clytemnestra, Electra describes Helen as still having long hair (Orestes 128-129):
ἴδετε γὰρ ἄκρας ὡς ἀπέθρισεν τρίχας,
σώιζουσα κάλλος· ἔστι δ' ἡ πάλαι γυνή.
See how she cut off just the ends of her hair,
trying to keep her beauty unchanged! She is the old Helen still.
Wright argues that this recalls the earlier portrayal in Helen, when Helen (whom
Aristophanes deemed καινός) cut off her hair in feigned mourning for Menelaus’ death
(Helen 1186-1190), using the same verb for ‘shear, cut off’ (ἀπέθρισεν in Helen,
ἀπέθρισας in Orestes).
Despite having Orestes include an ‘old-fashioned’ long-haired Helen, the play exceeds the earlier play Helen in terms of novelty. In Orestes, Euripides overturns myths, he brings them into contact with other mythic cycles, and he further implements philosophical thought.165 In addition, he uses the same ‘sword-bearing men’ that
Aristophanes had parodied, except this time Euripides does so to a much greater extent.
In Orestes, Euripides’ characters Orestes, Electra, and Pylades are in a jam, facing a death sentence, much as was Aristophanes’ character Euripides in Thesmophoriazusae.
163 See Wright 2005, 82-113, 163-167, 260-337, and Allan 2008, 18-28. 164 Wright 2006, 36-37. 165 On Orestes’ interaction with philosophy, see Wright 2008, 133-137, Egli 2003, 258- 272, Hall 1993, 263-285, and Scodel 1984, 13-24. 73
Instead of Aristophanes using the comedic ‘razor-bearing’ device to escape death,
Euripides uses ‘sword-bearing men’ and adds them to the traditional feigned death plot in the same way he had in the Helen. Pylades, traditionally a silent character, breaks his silence and explains the escape plot: “We will enter the house as if about to die (ὡς
θανούµενοι, 1119).”166 So far, the plot runs along traditional lines, in that it involves false claims about death. But soon after, Euripides adds the element of sword-bearing men:
“We’ll have swords (ἕξοµεν ξίφη, 1125) hidden in these garments of ours.” The plan is implemented, and the Phrygian slave reports what happened to the chorus in an amazing aria of New Music. Immediately following this novel messenger speech, the chorus says
(1503-1505):
καὶ µὴν ἀµείβει καινὸν ἐκ καινῶν τόδε·
ξιφηφόρον γὰρ εἰσορῶ πρὸ δωµάτων
βαίνοντ' Ὀρέστην ἐπτοηµένωι ποδί.
But see, one novel thing succeeds another:
I see Orestes, armed with a sword, coming out
in front of the house with agitation in his step.
I suggest that the words “one novel thing succeeds another” (ἀµείβει καινὸν ἐκ καινῶν) can be read metapoetically. The first novelty is the aria of the Phrygian slave, and the second is Orestes being ‘sword-bearing’, marked in emphatic first position in line 1504, even before the audience realizes the identity of the sword-bearing man rushing onstage.
This, then, is Euripides’ response. After Aristophanes had mocked both the novelty of the Helen and its innovation in plot devices, Euripides responded by increasing both
166 On Pylades’ speaking and silence in Orestes, see Davies 1999, 227-230. 74 aspects in Orestes. Scholars have long noted the extreme novelty of the play.167 Yet what has not been noticed is the sheer amount of ‘sword-bearing’ that occurs in the play.
Euripides uses forms with ξιφ- (the root for ‘sword’) a solid 23 times in play, compared to
5 in Ion and 12 in Helen, the other two Euripidean plays which presented ξιφηφόρος as a plot device.168 φάσγανον appears 13 times, and σιδήρον and its cognates appear 5 times in Orestes.169 Almost all of the occurrences of swords appear in the second half of the play after Orestes, Electra and Pylades are sentenced to death and are in need of their escape plot. Euripides amps up the quantity of swords to an extreme level just at the point where the predicament of the characters in Orestes corresponds to the predicament of Euripides in Thesmophoriazusae.
I argue that the complex development of 5th century dramatic usages of sword- and razor-bearers shows a back-and-forth literary rivalry between Euripides and
Aristophanes. The escalation of a certain trope, for example, the amount of sword-bearing men used in an escape plot in a tragedy, conforms to van Wees’ conceptions of literary rivalry.170 We can see a triangle of appropriation – first, a notable tragedic motif (an escape plot enacted by sword-bearing men in Helen); second, a comedic appropriation of the motif (an escape plot enacted by a razor-bearing man in Thesmophoriazusae), and third, a tragedic re-appropriation of the motif (Orestes, with an escape plot enacted by men whose sword-bearing is emphasized). A further hallmark of Euripidean paracomedy is that it is not limited to responses to comedy involving the same word, rather, Euripides
167 Wright 2008, 115-137. See Arnott 1983, 13-28, and Arnott 1973, 56-60, for Euripides’ novel dramatic techniques in Orestes. 168 ξιφ- in Orestes: 291, 822, 1036, 1041, 1052, 1125, 1133, 1193, 1235, 1272, 1287, 1369, 1346, 1398, 1457, 1472, 1478, 1504, 1506, 1531, 1575, 1627, 1656. 169 φάσγανον in Orestes: 51, 953, 1063, 1101, 1148, 1223, 1305, 1349, 1482, 1519, 1608, 1633, 1653. σιδήρον and its cognates in Orestes: 864, 966, 1309, 1399, 1518. 170 van Wees 2011, 3. 75 could also use the opposite word as well to allude to comedy. This was shown above when
Euripides responds to Aristophanes by calling Helen ‘old-fashioned’ (πάλαι) instead of using the same term Aristophanes uses in Thesmophoriazusae, ‘new-fangled’ (καινός).
Euripides’ increase of sword-bearing men (ξιφηφόρος) responds to Aristophanes’ ‘you are a razor-bearer’ (ξυροφορεῖς) through corresponding opposites in much the same way.
While this practice makes detecting the allusion more difficult for the scholar, in that one must examine parallelism not only using the same words but also their opposites and related words, it makes more sense in terms of a literary rivalry, since Euripides’ increased use of swords reclaims Aristophanes’ use of razors. Tragedy and comedy present differing outcomes, as Aristophanes can be explicitly funny by putting Euripides in his comedies, making Agathon have an epic rack of itty-bitty razors, and forcing the Kinsman to get dressed in drag, but Euripides can only respond implicitly by exceeding Aristophanes’ and the audience’s expectations in the amount of sword-bearing occurring in his plays.
However, it is impossible to ascertain whether the escalation of the ‘sword-bearing’ trope in Orestes indicates a negative rivalry (in which the historical Euripides actually despised
Aristophanes) or a positive one (which was marked by mutual appreciation).
The connections in language, scenes, and plot between ξυροφορεῖς and
ξιφηφόρος seem distinctive enough to discount other explanations and support the idea that the two playwrights are in dialogue with each other. The priority of the comedy is assured because the dates of the plays are securely known, with Aristophanes’
Thesmophoriazusae performed in 411 BCE and Euripides’ Orestes in 408 BCE. As for the tragedian’s motivation for including paracomedy, I have suggested that Euripides does so in Orestes to re-appropriate the very thing that Aristophanes parodied in
Thesmophoriazusae, and on a broader level, this chapter marks the first piece of evidence
76 for a back-and-forth literary rivalry between the two dramatists (on which see further arguments in Chapter 5 concerning costuming).
77
Chapter 3: Tragedic and Comedic Madness in Euripides’ Orestes
Madness was omnipresent in 5th-century Greek drama. Both tragedians and comedians incorporated recent developments in medicine, such as those of the Hippocratic movement, into their plots and scenes, yet dramatists could use the theme of madness, much like they could use any other literary motif, to interact with other texts and engage in poetic rivalry with other dramatists, poets, and even themselves through reference to earlier work.171 While the characteristics that mark the madness of Euripides’ character
Orestes in Orestes (408 BCE) are traditional and highly prototypical of tragedy, other aspects of the madness scene are of very low prototypicality in tragedy. More specifically, I argue that the parodos (132-210) of Orestes, in which the chorus enters loudly and must be shushed by Electra, serves as an intertextual paracomic allusion to the parodos (292-
360) of Aristophanes’ Peace (421 BCE), in which the chorus enters loudly and must be shushed by Trygaeus, who is suffering from madness himself. The case for intertextuality may be made due to the confluence of certain distinctive traits: a mad character connected with a chorus who undergoes an ebb and flow of silence and loudness. To demonstrate this, I will analyze the madness scene in Euripides’ Orestes, elucidating both the highly prototypical aspects of its tragedic madness and the low prototypicality of a chorus with varying levels of loudness. Second, I will investigate comedic madness, drawing broad
171 On madness as depicted in Greek drama, see Holmes 2010, Papadopoulou 2005, 58- 128, Kosak 2004, and Padel 1995. On madness more generally, see Padel 1992. On the background of the Erinyes who afflict Orestes throughout Greek tragedy, see Sewell- Rutter 2007, 78-109. 78 comparisons between madness as it appears in tragedy and madness as it appears in comedy, commenting on specific examples of comedic madness and illustrating the distinctive parallels between the parodos of Aristophanes’ Peace and that of Euripides’
Orestes. Third, I will argue that the trope of a loud chorus with varying levels of volume may be a generic feature of satyr drama, as shown by passages from Sophocles’ Trackers and Euripides’ Cyclops, and that the satyric trope was appropriated by Aristophanes and subsequently Euripides. This chapter, then, presents evidence that Euripides is poaching elements from outside the genre of tragedy, by drawing upon a satyric motif presented in a notable scene in Aristophanes’ Peace. On a broader level, this investigation will serve to demonstrate one way that Euripides and Aristophanes engage in cross-generic literary rivalry, and provide further evidence for poetic appropriations across all dramatic genres.
THE MADNESS SCENE IN EURIPIDES’ ORESTES
In the prologue of Orestes, Orestes is characterized in terms of his madness.
Electra, distraught over her brother’s affliction, offers a brief description of Orestes’ madness (Orestes 35-45): Orestes is “wasting away with a cruel disease” (ἀγρίᾳ
συντακεὶς νόσῳ νοσεῖ);172 he has “taken to his bed”; he is “whirled in madness
(τροχηλατεῖ µανίαισιν) by the blood of his mother”;173 he has not eaten nor bathed; he lies under a blanket; at times he is “sane and weeps”, and at times he “runs around like an
172 The pleonastic νόσῳ νοσεῖ need not be emended to δέµας, as Kovacs’ Loeb does (following Hermann 1841), as the phrase is quite common in Greek. In addition to the citations in Willink 1986, 86 on Orestes 34, add Aristophanes’ Birds 31 νόσον νοσοῦµεν τὴν ἐναντίαν Σάκᾳ, “We’re sick with the opposite sickness of Sakas.” 173 The plural form µανίαισιν may be colloquial. See the comment of Olson 1998, 80 on Peace 65. 79 unyoked colt” (πῶλος ὣς ὑπὸ ζυγοῦ).174 While Orestes is already in a sorry state, to make matters worse, Argos has decreed that no one is allowed to help Electra and Orestes because they have murdered their mother. Their only possible source of aid is Menelaus, who has recently arrived from Troy. In a typically Euripidean reversal, it is Helen who appears rather than Menelaus, whom we were led to expect, and in her conversation with
Helen, Electra describes Orestes as a “luckless corpse (ἄθλιος νεκρός, 83-84)”, further characterizing Orestes as incapacitated due to his madness.175 Helen sends her daughter
Hermione to bring libations and a hair offering to the tomb of Clytemnestra, and both exit
(125), setting the stage for the parodos (132-210) and the scene depicting Orestes’ mad fit onstage (211-315).
The arrival of the chorus of Argive women in the parodos contains a feature unique in all of extant Greek tragedy, in that the chorus enters loudly while being repeatedly shushed by a main character, Electra.176 Scholars have tended to see this scene in one of two ways: 1) as metatheater, using an impossible demand for silence to illustrate the dramatic absurdity of placing fifteen singing dancers in the role of unobtrusive
174 Euripides’ description connecting illnesses with horses accords with contemporary beliefs regarding medicine, and is paralleled in the Hippocratic text On the Sacred Disease, which claims that charlatans observe their patients’ symptoms and compare them to traits of a certain animal. In section 1 of the text, we read: “But if they speak in a sharper and more intense tone, they resemble this state to a horse, and say that Poseidon is the cause.” One can also compare Aristophanes’ Clouds which portrays Pheidippides as suffering from ἵππερόν ‘galloping trots’ (Clouds 74), a coinage formed on the medical term ἵκτερος ‘jaundice’ (on which see the comment of Dover 1968, 103 on Clouds 74), and a νόσος ἱππική ‘horsy sickness’ (Clouds 243). For a similar comparison of a madness-afflicted tragedic hero with an animal, see Euripides’ Heracles 869 ταῦρος ὣς ἐς ἐµβολὴν ‘like a bull about to charge’. For a similar grammatical construction, though more elliptical, see Aeschylus 1316 θάµνον ὡς ὄρνις ‘like a bird (in a) bush’. 175 On Euripides setting up and reversing expectations, see the work of Geoffrey Arnott: Arnott 1973, 55-64 with examples from Electra, Orestes, Medea, and Helen; Arnott 1978 1-24 on Heracles; Arnott 1982, 35-43 on off-stage cries; and Arnott 1983, 13-28 on Orestes. On this passage in particular, see Arnott 1983, 19-20. 176 On Euripides exploiting the conventions of dramaturgy, see Arnott 1973, 49-54. 80 commentators; 177 or 2) as creating tension by avoiding a formal introduction of the characters, so that the audience is unsure who these people are (Electra identifies herself at
23 and Orestes at 35), where the setting is staged (Argos is not mentioned until 46), and what circumstances they are in (Orestes’ madness is revealed in 34-5). In support of the second interpretation, Orestes is silent for the first 210 lines of the play, and the chorus constantly discusses whether he is living or dead, leaving the audience to wonder whether
Euripides will allow his main character to succumb to a disease at the beginning of the play.178 For the play to get off the ground, Orestes needs to wake up, and therefore the chorus needs to rouse him. Electra’s attempts to thwart the chorus from entering and awakening Orestes are doomed to fail.
The silence of the chorus is unusual enough in tragedy, but what is truly unique about the passage is its apparent ebb and flow of choral silence and loudness.179 The first wave of noise occurs when the chorus enters loudly (Orestes 132-135), and Electra commands them to be quiet and not make a clatter (136-143). The chorus tries to be silent, “There, I am doing as you say (ἰδού, πείθοµαι)” (144). Electra attempts another time: “Please speak no louder than the breath of a panpipe’s slender reed, my friends”
(145-6), to which the chorus replies, “See how gentle is the voice I bring indoors” (147).
They do become silent, since Electra says, “Yes, that’s the way!” (148). They remain quiet for a while, but increase in volume enough for Electra to say: “You’ll destroy me (ὀλεῖς) if you disturb his closed eyes while he enjoys the sweet gift of sleep” (157-8). The chorus is
177 On the metatheatricality of this scene, see Chong-Gossard 2008, 121-4 and Kosak 2004, 137 n. 15. On metatheater in both Greek comedy and tragedy, see Dobrov 2001, and in Sophocles, see Ringer 1998. 178 Arnott 1983, 22. The lengthy initial silence of a main character makes Orestes appear surprisingly like Aeschylus’ Niobe, whose title character sat covered up without speaking for the beginning of the play, at least according to Aristophanes’ Frogs 911-920. 179 On the broader theme of silence and noise, see Dunn 1996, 161-169. 81 briefly quiet, then shouts: “Look! He stirs in his blankets!” (166), followed by Electra’s accusation that they drove him from sleep by their shouting (167-8). They are still noisy at
170-2, as evidenced by the fact that Electra tells them to, “ply your steps backwards and stop this clattering”. Following this, they must quiet momentarily, since in the middle of
Electra’s speech, she suddenly bursts out with, “Ah, you made a clatter! Won’t you guard your tongues in silence, silence, my friends, making no noise, far from his bed, and grant him the boon of quiet sleep?” (182-6). No further comment is made on their volume until
Orestes wakes up and the main plot of the play can commence in earnest.
THE TRAGEDIC TRADITION
The symptoms of the madness that Orestes suffers correspond closely to other tragedic characters that suffer from madness and sickness – Cassandra, Io, Heracles, Ajax,
Bellerophon, Phaedra, Medea, Philoctetes, and Agave.180 Orestes foams at the mouth at
Orestes 219-220, a symptom of epileptic madness also afflicting Heracles (Heracles 934),
Agave (Bacchae 1122), and Orestes elsewhere in tragedy (Iphigenia among the Taurians
308-311). Orestes’ panting at Orestes 277 is similar to Heracles’ irregular breathing at
Heracles 1092-1093. The wild agitated movements of Orestes as he rushes around shooting arrows at the Furies (Orestes 268-272) correspond to the frenzies of Heracles
(Heracles 953), Cassandra (Trojan Women 307), and Agave and the maenads (Bacchae
1088-1152). Orestes’ hallucinations and delusions (Orestes 255-277) can be compared with many other depictions of madness in tragedy: previous presentations of Orestes, who sees the Furies though the chorus cannot (Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers 1048-1062) and
180 For the standards of tragedic madness, though with a focus on how they relate to Heracles, see Papadopoulou 2005, 58-70. See also Holmes 2010, 246-252 specifically on Orestes. For a comparison between the symptoms and scenes of Heracles and Orestes see Theodorou 1993, 32-46. 82 believes he is attacking the Furies but actually strikes cattle (Iphigenia among the Taurians
285-300); Ajax, who similarly strikes cattle instead of his enemies (Sophocles’ Ajax 51-58);
Heracles, who thinks he is riding a chariot to Mycenae and killing the family of Eurystheus instead of his own (Heracles 936-1000); and Agave, who thinks she is killing a beast instead of her son (Bacchae 1174, 1182, 1185-1191, 1196, 1204, 1210).181
While the madness scene as a whole (Orestes 132- 315) decidedly works within the conventions of tragedy, I submit that the parodos differs from norms in Greek tragedy in a number of ways, and should be regarded as having a low level of prototypicality for the genre of tragedy. This is due to three reasons, and each will be discussed in turn: Orestes
132-210 differs from the highly prototypical tragedic standards of 1) choruses that are complicit with the character hushing them, 2) choruses engaging in ‘choral projection’, and 3) sleep-scenes containing a mad character.
First, the parodos does not follow the standard typology of scenes wherein a named character hushes the chorus so that they will keep his or her secret, becoming complicit with the character’s actions.182 Numerous examples of this trope exist: Orestes asks that the chorus be silent about his plan to kill Aegisthus (Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers 581-2);
Phaedra demands that the chorus be silent about her plan to kill herself (Euripides’
Hippolytus 710-2 and presumably Sophocles’ Phaedra fr. 679);183 Medea obtains the goodwill of the female chorus and asks them to be silent about her plan to punish Jason
(Euripides’ Medea 260-3); Electra needs the chorus to wait in silence about the upcoming
181 Not all aspects of Orestes’ madness are entirely traditional, however. Rather than displaying a divine agency for the madness, Orestes presents a new model of causation involving a psychological understanding (σύνεσις, 396) of the wrongs committed, perhaps best conceived of as a ‘guilty conscience’. See Porter 1994, 298-313. 182 On the complicity of the silent chorus, see Chong-Gossard 2008, esp. 155-204. 183 Sophocles fr. 679: “Be sympathetic and maintain silence (σύγγνωτε κἀνάσχεσθε σιγῶσαι)! For a woman should cover up what brings shame on women.” 83 murder of Clytemnestra (Sophocles’ Electra 1398); Iphigenia desires complicity in her escape with Orestes and Pylades (Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians 1063-76);
Xuthus asks the chorus to remain silent about the fact that Ion is his son (Euripides’ Ion
666-7);184 Helen wants the chorus to be silent about the plot to escape from Egypt
(Euripides’ Helen 1387-9); and Agamemnon orders the chorus to remain silent about his plan to sacrifice Iphigenia (Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis 542). The madness scene in
Euripides’ Orestes is markedly unusual since the command for silence reveals the character’s desire to control the volume of the chorus rather than to safeguard his or her secrets, a highly prototypical element in tragedy.185
Second, despite the fact that the chorus refers to its own singing and dancing, it differs from other self-referential choruses that call attention to their own choral actions, in the way that Henrichs has proposed for many choral passages from tragedy.186 When choruses refer metatheatrically to their own singing and dancing, Henrichs argues, they temporarily expand their dramatic role by assuming a ritual performance that crosses over into the imaginary cultic world of the tragedy.187 That is to say that when the chorus is dancing onstage in Athens, it can transcend the stage and ‘project’ into some other
184 In this play the chorus ignores his wishes because they are loyal to his wife Creusa more than to him. 185 One other request for the chorus to be silent is in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes 233- 263, when the chorus of women is terrified and in hysterics about the war outside the gates. Eteocles demands (262): “Be silent, you poor fool, and don’t terrify your own side (σίγησον, ὦ τάλαινα, µὴ φίλους φόβει).” The chorus responds (263): “I’ll be silent; along with the rest I will endure what fate may bring (σιγῶ: σὺν ἄλλοις πείσοµαι τὸ µόρσιµον).” Although he demands silence, there is no secret nor complicity. Due to their fear, the chorus of women is constantly loud, similarly to Heracles, on which see below. 186 Henrichs was preceded by Davidson 1986, 38-46, who isolates at least two distinct types of choral dancing – 1) the chorus referring to their own dancing while they execute it, and 2) the chorus referring to dancing that is happening or which has already happened. 187 Henrichs 1995, 58-60 and 68-70. 84 religious world, such as Delos. Henrichs’ term is ‘choral projection’, 188 and the three criteria he notes are 1) divine invocation, 2) Dionysiac cult, and 3) extra-dramatic khoreia on a ritual occasion.189 Henrichs, Easterling, Kaimio and Nikolaidou-Arabatzi have applied this model to a large number of passages from tragedy.190 Henrichs even goes so far as to say that “the entire range of ritual performance, as dramatized by the tragedians, functions as the common denominator that underlies all [my italics] instances of choral self-reference in extant tragedy.”191 Yet in the madness scene in Orestes, there is no link to
Dionysus, nor any choral projection into an imaginary ritual setting. Henrichs is correct in his assertion that choral projection seems to be the rule in tragedy, but the scene in the parodos of Orestes violates that rule. This pattern is particularly marked for Euripides, who uses choral projection at least thirty-eight times in his extant tragedies, certainly making ‘choral projection’ a highly prototypical feature of Euripidean tragedy.192 The only
188 Henrichs 1996, 49. 189 Henrichs 1995, 58. 190 Henrichs 1995, 56-111 and Henrichs 1996, 48-62. Easterling 1997a, 42-44 and Kaimio et alii 2001, 35-45 apply the model to satyr-play. Nikolaidou-Arabatzi 2010, 1-32 discusses the examples in Euripides not mentioned by Henrichs, and Davidson 1986, 38- 46 provides a few examples as well. 191 Henrichs 1995, 69. 192 The following passages have been proposed in conjunction with the model of ‘choral projection’, and there may be others that scholars have not discussed. Satyr drama Aeschylus (3 times) Prometheus the Fire-Kindler fr. 204b; Theoroi or Isthmiastai fr. 78a, 32-4 and fr. 78c, 37-8. Sophocles (1 time) Trackers 217-20 Euripides (5 times) Cyclops 36-40, 63-81, 94, 156, 204 Comedy Aristophanes (4 times) Clouds 264-313; Lysistrata 1279-1321; Thesmophoriazusae 947- 1000; Frogs 324-415 Tragedy Aeschylus (1 time) Eumenides 307-11 Sophocles (8 times) Oedipus Tyrannus 895-6, 1086-97; Ajax 693-705; Antigone 152-4, 963-5, 1146-52; Trachiniae 205-21, 640-3 Euripides (38 times) Heracleidae 358, 777-83, 892-3; Hecuba 455-474; Electra 167-80, 434-37, 467, 712-18, 859-79; Heracles 348-402, 673-695, 761-89, 85 passages I have found that are self-referential and do not contain choral projection are
Orestes 132-210 and Heracles 1042-1087 (on which see below). With only two examples in extant tragedy of a self-referential chorus without choral projection, and thirty-eight examples of self-referential choruses with choral projection in Euripidean tragedy, it seems safe to say that this feature is of low prototypicality.
Third, while the structure of the passage corresponds closely to the ‘sleep-scenes’ in tragedy (labeled in this way by Dieterich and Jouanna), in which the sleep of a dangerous character provides a reprieve from his threat to others, Orestes 132-210 differs substantially from all other sleep-scenes.193 The corpus of extant ‘sleep-scenes’ contains scenes from four plays, Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Philoctetes, and Euripides’ Heracles and Orestes, with one considerably different predecessor in Aeschylus’ Eumenides (64-
142), in which the dangerous but sleeping Furies afford Orestes the opportunity to escape.
Jouanna detects a chronological progression of the sleep-scene topos from Aeschylus’
Eumenides to Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Heracles (the next sleep-scenes chronologically), and then to Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Euripides’ Orestes (the final sleep- scenes chronologically).194 For Trachiniae and Heracles, the sleep overwhelms a hero
(Heracles) after a crisis, whereas in Aeschylus, sleep overpowers a chorus (Furies) with no crisis directly preceding.195 The final stage, according to Jouanna’s course of development,
871-98, 925-7, 1025-28, 1303-4; Trojan Women 325-42, 544-59, 1071-6; Iphigenia in Tauris 218-228, 427-9, 1089-1152 (esp.1143- 52); Ion 463, 492-502, 1074-86; Helen 381-3, 1312-14, 1338-68, 1451-70; Phoenician Women 226-38, 649-56, 784-92; Bacchae 105-119, 402-8, 409-16, 556-75, 862-876; Iphigenia in Aulis 1036- 97 193 Jouanna 1983, 49-62 and Dieterich 1891, 25-46. See also Kosak 2004, 135-141. 194 Jouanna 1983. 195 Though in the trilogy as a whole, a crisis certainly precedes in terms of Orestes’ and the Furies’ harrowing race to Delphi. 86 occurs in Philoctetes and Orestes where the audience sees the entire episode onstage instead of through reported action.196
While the chronological development of sleep-scenes among various tragedians is certainly valid, I’d like to highlight another distinction between the ways that Sophocles and Euripides treat the sleep scene. Two differences set apart Sophocles’ scenes from those of Euripides: 1) whether the character tells the chorus or another character to be silent, and
2) whether or not there is a focus on metatheater. Uniquely among sleep-scenes, Euripides’
Orestes has a character tell the chorus to be silent, while focusing on metatheater and presenting a chorus with varying levels of volume.
Trachiniae Philoctetes Heracles Orestes
Mad character Yes Yes Yes Yes sleeping Chorus told to be No Yes Yes Yes silent Metatheater No No Yes Yes
Ebb and flow of No No No Yes choral silence and loudness Table 6. Characteristics of Sleep-Scenes in Sophocles and Euripides
The short and straightforward scene in Sophocles’ Trachiniae (964-982) differs from the sleep-scene in Orestes in two important ways: first, the recipient of the order to be quiet is not the chorus, but another character, as it is the Doctor who tells Hyllus to be silent (971-982). Second, there is no focus on metatheatricality, since Sophocles does not refer to the impossibility of a silent chorus, as Euripides does in Orestes.
196 Jouanna 1983, 55-7. 87
Sophocles’ Philoctetes (821-866) depicts a character telling the chorus, instead of another character, to be silent, a feature which aligns with Euripides’ Orestes. Right before
Philoctetes wakes up again, Neoptolemus (865) tells the chorus to be quiet (σιγᾶν
κελεύω). Still, there is nothing overtly metatheatrical about the scene. Sophocles’ portrayals of sleeping characters are quite different from the scene in Euripides’ Orestes, since the only similarity is that a potentially dangerous character is sleeping and that there is a command for silence. In the specifics of each scene, the circumstances differ as to who receives the command to be silent and whether metatheater is present.
The closest parallel to the madness scene in Orestes is Euripides’ Heracles (1042-
1087), despite the fact that the scene in Heracles is not a parodos. There are numerous verbal correspondences between the scenes.197
1) Heracles 1043 τὸν ὕπνῳ παρειµένον Orestes 210 τῷ λίαν παρειµένῳ 2) Heracles 1047 πρόβατε Orestes 142 ἀποπρὸ βᾶτ᾽ 3) Heracles 1047 µὴ κτυπεῖτε Orestes 137 µηδ᾽ ἔστω κτύπος Orestes 141 µὴ κτυπεῖτ᾽ Orestes 172 µεθεµένα κτύπου Orestes 182 κτύπον ἠγάγετ’ 4) Heracles 1052 διά µ᾽ ὀλεῖτε Orestes 157 ὀλεῖς 5) Heracles 1054 οὐκ ἀτρεµαῖα θρῆνον Orestes 147 ἴδ᾽, ἀτρεµαῖον ὡς ὑπόροφον αἰ άξετ’ φέρω βοάν, Orestes 149 κάταγε κάταγε, πρόσιθ' ἀτρέµας, ἀτρέµας ἴθι·
6) Heracles 1059, 1068 σῖγα σῖγα Orestes 140 σῖγα σῖγα Orestes 182-3 σῖγα σῖγα Table 7. Verbal Correspondences between Heracles 1042-1087 and Orestes 132-210
Both scenes feature a sleeping character, whose body is slack (#1 in Figure 2). This person must not be woken up, because he is conceived of as dangerous; both plays feature
197 These correspondences are modeled on those found in Bond 1981, 332-333 on Heracles 1042-1087. 88 a phrase “you’ll destroy me (sc. if you wake him up)” (#4 in Figure 2).198 The methods for not awakening the dangerous figure are the same – go away from him (#2), don’t clatter
(#3), be gentle (#5), and be silent (#6).
By drawing attention to the impossibility of a silent chorus, both scenes are distinctly metatheatrical in a way that Sophocles’ scenes are not, as in Sophocles’ plays the audience is not extended the opportunity to reflect upon the dramatist’s methods of theater production. Many of the preventative methods seen in Heracles and Orestes could occur if just one person were involved. For example, at Orestes 71-125, immediately prior to the entry of the large chorus, Electra has a conversation with just one person, Helen, while Orestes is sleeping onstage. With only Helen walking and talking, Electra is not afraid that Orestes will awaken. Yet when the chorus enters, with its fifteen members and its tradition of song and dance, it is impossible for them to remain quiet. Due to these similarities, Bond argues in his commentary that Euripides based the Orestes scene on his earlier Heracles scene.199
While this may be true, there is an important distinction to be made between the two scenes. In the madness scene in Heracles, the chorus makes no attempt to be silent, despite Amphitryon’s frequent requests. They simply comment on the impossibility of being silent, since they are, after all, a chorus of fifteen members. After Amphitryon asks them to be quiet, the chorus responds: ‘It’s impossible, impossible for me (ἀδύνατ᾽
ἀδύνατά µοι, Heracles 1057).” This is the only comment the chorus makes about their loudness. It is also important to note that almost everything Amphitryon says in this scene
198 The two phrases Heracles 1052 διά µ᾽ ὀλεῖτε and Orestes 157 ὀλεῖς are equivalent, as Willink 1986, 110 on Orestes 158-9 notes. The gapped µε is standard for colloquial Greek, as an expression such as ἀπολεῖς µε and ἀπολεῖς are used with the same sense. See Stevens 1976, 11-2 and Willink 1986, 110 on Orestes 158-9 for more parallels. 199 Bond 1981, 332-333 on lines 1042-87. 89 includes a command for the chorus to be silent: “Won’t you in silence, silence, allow the man relaxed in sleep to forget his woes?” (1042-4); “Come further away, make no sound, do not shout, do not awaken from his bed one in the peace of sleep” (1047-51); “Stop!
You’ll destroy me!” (1052); “Make your lament softly, old sirs!” (1053-4); “Hush! Let me hear his breathing” (1060); “Hush, hush! He turns about and stirs to wakefulness!
(1068).” This would imply that the chorus is constantly loud and does not attempt to be quiet at all. In comparison to this, the chorus in the Orestes madness scene makes numerous attempts to be quiet, and the scene ebbs and flows with silence and loudness.
To conclude: in the parodos of Orestes, the chorus is constantly asked to be quiet to avoid waking a character suffering from madness. The chorus attempts to do so, but then continues to raise a ruckus in repeated waves. This pattern is an element of the sleep-scene that is unique to Orestes, and has no parallel in Greek tragedy. To find a parallel, we must look beyond tragedy to comedy and satyr drama.
THE COMEDIC TRADITION
As the primary concern of the first several hundred lines of Orestes (and the main comparandum for my argument) is madness, an examination of the relevant Aristophanic passages is in order, showing the various ways that comedic madness appears onstage, ranging from short references to madness to forms of madness that are more fully integrated into the structure of the play. At Birds 31-5, Euelpides and Peisetairos describe themselves in the expository prologue as being “sick with the opposite of Sacas’ sickness
(νόσον νοσοῦµεν): he’s a non-citizen trying to force his way in, while we...have up and left our country with both feet flying.” This brief mention couches the main characters’
90 problem in medical terms, as if they were suffering from an ailment, using the same word
(νόσος) that appears so often in Euripides and tragedy in general to describe madness.200
Clouds also features two main characters suffering from sickness and madness, though different ailments appear for each. Pheidippides suffers from ἱππερός ‘horsy disease’ (Clouds 74), a coinage, as noted above, formed from the medical term ἵκτερος
‘jaundice’.201 At a later point in the play, Pheidippides’ father Strepsiades informs Socrates that he fell into debt due to a ‘horsy sickness’ (νόσος ἱππική, 243), referring to his son’s gambling on horses.202 While Pheidippides’ horsy sickness is the setup for the play, the truly mad character turns out to be Strepsiades, who becomes crazy once he is educated at the
Thinkery, at least according to his son.203 Pheidippides refers to him as crazy in four different ways throughout his confrontation with him in lines 814-868: οὐκ εὖ φρονεῖς
“you’re mentally ill” (817); µανιῶν (833) and µανίαν “madness” (846);
παραφρονοῦντος “off his rocker” (844); παρανοίας “insane” (845). This continues in their final argument when in 1475 Pheidippides again calls him “off his rocker”
(παραφρόνει), and even Strepsiades admits that he went crazy while under Socrates’ spell:
οἴµοι παρανοίας: ὡς ἐµαινόµην “What lunacy – how crazy I was” (1476). Despite the fact that both main characters are sometimes described as mad, the role of madness is comparatively small in the play and does not permeate the structure of the play, as it does
200 Nosos and its cognates appear frequently in Euripides, for example, 24 times in Hippolytus and 45 times in Orestes. See Mitchell-Boyask 2008, 29. 201 See the comment of Dover 1968, 103 at Clouds 74. 202 On comedy’s tendency to literalize metaphors for comic effect, see Hunter 2009, 4-5, who adds the examples of ‘weighing of lines’ in the Frogs, off the metaphor of a line having a heavy quality to it, as well as the King’s Eye in Acharnians. For another example, see Chapter 2, for Euripides’ literalization of ‘sword-bearing’. 203 Strepsiades’ madness at the Thinkery is an obvious commentary on the practices and teachings of the Sophists, to whom Socrates is assimilated. See Clouds 1478-80, when Strepsiades asks Hermes for forgiveness for “taking leave of his senses because of their [Socrates and the others at the Thinkery] idle talk (ἀδολεσχίᾳ)”. 91 for Wasps and Peace (discussed below). For the passages from Birds and Clouds, comedic madness is closely tied to contemporary ideas about medicine and uses medical vocabulary for comic effect.
Two other Aristophanic plays, Wasps and Peace, display a form of comedic madness that is explicitly measured against the standard of tragedic madness. In Wasps, the view of comedic madness provides the structure and setup of the entire play. The slave
Xanthias reveals the upcoming plot to the spectators (Wasps 54-5): “It’s time I let the audience in on the plot. But first I’ll give them the following short preface.” After Xanthias uses a priamel (56-63) to explain all of the things that will not appear - nothing grand, no
Megarian jokes, no slaves throwing nuts to the audience, no Heracles cheated of his dinner, no Euripides getting abused, no attacks on Cleon - he states at 64-6 that “ours is a simple plot with a point, no brainier that you are yourselves, but more artistic than lowbrow comedy.” He then explicates the plot: their master (Bdelycleon) is asleep on the roof, while
“his father (Philocleon), you see, suffers from a bizarre sickness, which no one here will be able to recognize or diagnose unless we tell you” (71-3).204 After a series of staged attempts by the audience at diagnosis, all involving φιλο- ‘addicted to’: φιλόκυβον ‘addiction to gambling’ (75), φιλοπότην ‘addiction to drink’ (79), φιλοθύτην ‘addiction to sacrificing’
(82), φιλόξενον ‘addiction to entertaining guests’ (82), Xanthias finally announces that the illness is φιληλιαστής ‘addiction to jury service’ (88). Philocleon is described as having a νόσος often (71, 87, 114), and his symptoms are comedic replacements for the list of symptoms present for tragedic madness. His sleep is disrupted (91-2); he has physical
204 The inability of the audience in Wasps to diagnose Philocleon’s madness may be a parody of the chorus’ inability to diagnose Phaedra’s madness in Hippolytus 269, “It is unclear (ἄσηµα) to us what is wrong with her.” See also Hippolytus 173-5, 236, 346, and more broadly 270-303 for further desires and the inability to ascertain what is wrong with Phaedra. On the madness of Phaedra see Holmes 2010, 252-60. On the comic madness in Wasps parodying Hippolytus, see Harvey 1971, 362-5. 92 abnormalities such as his three fingers pressed together, so as to hold a voting pebble (94-
6); he has erratic behavior, such as claiming the rooster had been bribed not to crow (100-
2); and he has obsessive fears, like keeping a whole beach of voting pebbles at his house so as to avoid running out (109-110). His son has tried a variety of healing methods – soothing words (115), immersion (117), and trips to Asclepius’ temple (122-3), but to no avail. The sickness is indeed the driving force of the play, and the audience understands it only if they already have tragedic descriptions of madness in mind.
With this exposition, Aristophanes positions his play between two extremes.205 The plot will be clever, but not too clever, and therefore he bifurcates his audience and targets both halves – the clever and well-educated members of the audience who would understand Aristophanes’ clever positioning, and the remaining portion who would appreciate the lowbrow comedy and wouldn’t grasp the more subtle jokes.206 Aristophanes targets both audiences, and the plot involving a jury-crazy Philocleon could simply be a funny and satirical portrayal of the old men who frequented the courts; however, for the in-crowd, it could also be an appropriation and reversal of the tragedic motif of madness.
205 Platter 2007, 84-107 shows how Aristophanes positions Wasps between two poles: The ‘Megarian jokes’ (Wasps 57) are lowbrow comedy, much like the double entendres on χοῖρος ‘piglet, vagina’ in the Megarian farmer scene at Acharnians 729-835, whereas ‘anything grand’ (Wasps 56) refers to Aristophanes’ ‘wisest’ comedy Clouds, self-described as such at Clouds 522. Platter argues that the classification of Wasps as a moderate play ‘functions as a rhetorical tool to position Wasps as the kind of play an audience, even a rather dull one, should like’ (Platter 2007, 106). Despite the claim that Wasps is moderate, Aristophanes attempts to surpass both extremes in its use of vulgarity and intellectual aspirations, by subtly aligning its values with those of Clouds. 206 An audience divided upon intellectual capacity is how Aristophanes, at least, does it. The bifurcated audience that Aristophanes presents is in reality a sliding scale, as well- educated people might also like lowbrow comedy and less-educated people would catch at least some of the clever jokes. Some portion of the audience would grasp any given joke or allusion, and the members of this in-crowd would be different for each joke, since each person in the audience, both highbrow and lowbrow, could understand it if they had the right background and competence to understand it. Since different jokes require different types of competence from the audience, the in-crowd would constantly be shifting for each joke. 93
As a result of Philocleon’s madness, his son imprisons him inside the house (112-
113). Philocleon tries to escape from the sleeping Bdelycleon, who immediately wakes up, catches him and puts him in prison (198-202). The attempted escape from a sleeping character is repeated a second time. The chorus enters, singing, “I think we should pause here and sing him out of the house. Maybe when he hears my song he’ll be happy to hobble outside (270-2).” The chorus sings loudly to wake up Philocleon, who, they believe, has not yet gotten up for the morning. Philocleon tells the chorus not to shout (µὴ
βοᾶτε, 336-337), since his son, who had imprisoned him, is sleeping in front of the house.
The command to be silent is repeated later on in the scene: “But absolutely no cheering
(µὴ βοᾶτε µηδαµῶς), let’s see that we don’t alert Bdelycleon (371-2).” Philocleon adopts the staging of a sleep-scene from tragedy, telling the chorus to be silent to avoid awakening a dangerous enemy, in this case his son.207
While Wasps provides an example of a comedic appropriation of tragedic madness, there are, however, aspects that differ between the madness of comedy and the madness of tragedy. Tragedic madness scenes always show the sick or crazy hero sleeping, while others avoid waking him up out of fear, as in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Philoctetes and Euripides’ Heracles and Orestes. Such scenes tend to provoke in the audience certain emotions that the playwright finds desirable, such as pity and fear.208 In comedy, it is the exact opposite: in Aristophanes’ Wasps, the crazy person (Philocleon) is very much awake
(and trying to escape) whereas the sane person (Bdelycleon) is asleep. As in tragedy, the sleeping character in Wasps is still dangerous, at least to Philocleon, who is prevented from indulging his addiction by the sleeping Bdelycleon.
207 Compare Heracles 1049 µὴ βοᾶτε ‘don’t shout’. 208 See Munteanu 2012 for a thorough discussion of the emotions of pity and fear in Greek tragedy, especially 208-237 where she portrays Orestes is very unusual exception regarding the two emotions. 94
There are generic differences in the tone of the madness. In order for a mad hero in comedy to move the plot forward, often with the “Great Idea”, they must be zany and quirky at the very least.209 Whereas tragedic madness is languished and depressed, comedic madness is frenetic and manic. The ‘underlying representation’ of the theme ‘madness’ can produce different outcomes in tragedy and comedy due to the effects and constraints of the genre.210 Underlying representations can coincide with poetic appropriation, as a comedian can appropriate a sleep-scene motif from tragedy while ‘naturalizing’ the scene into the generic needs and conventions of comedy. A manic character offers plenty of comedic potential, whereas a depressed one does not.
Tone of Madness Asleep or Awake? Dangerous Enemy
Tragedic Madness Languid, depressed Asleep Mad character is the dangerous enemy Comedic Madness Frenetic, manic Awake Mad character escapes (Wasps, Peace) dangerous enemy Table 8. Characteristics of Tragedic and Comedic Madness
At the end of the Wasps, Philocleon remains mad, despite the chorus’ insistence that the old man has changed (µετέστη) from his previous ways (1449-1460). This inverts a standard tragedic madness motif, which uses the verb µεθίσταµαι ‘change’ to mark the crazy person coming to his or her senses, for example, Agave at Bacchae 1270, “I’ve abandoned (µετασταθεῖσα) my former frame of mind.” Rather than coming to his senses as a tragedic hero would, the comedic mad hero Philocleon increases his madness by dancing frenetically (a sign of Corybantic and maenadic madness) and Xanthias declares
209 On the “Great Idea”, see most recently Given 2009, 107-127 with bibliography. 210 On ‘underlying representations’ see my introductory chapter and the example of Levine 1987, 30, 36. 95 that it is the onset of ‘madness’ (µανία, 1486) and suggests that he drink hellebore (1489) and be pelted with stones (1491), both actions associated with curing madness. Philocleon keeps dancing, and Xanthias calls it ‘crazy business’ (µανικὰ πράγµατα, 1496). The dancing continues to the end of the play, with the Sons of Carcinus invited onstage to have a dance-off with him. The last lines of the play call for the chorus to be led offstage dancing, something that the chorus says has never happened before in comedy (1535-7).211
In this exodos, madness becomes closely connected with continuous dancing, in a portrayal of madness augmented beyond the point that a tragedic character would return to sanity.212
211 The validity of this claim is impossible to prove. Macdowell 1971, 332 on Wasps 1537 suggests that Acharnians ended with a song, but not necessarily a dance, and adds that a scholiast on Clouds claims that there was a dance called the κόρδαξ used in Wasps. Perhaps it was used in this scene. 212 Beta 2001, 135-7 sees parallels between the mad characters Philocleon in Aristophanes’ Wasps (422 BCE) and Heracles in Euripides’ Heracles (c. 416 BCE), yet rather than entertain the idea of paracomedy, the author posits an earlier version of the play, Heracles II, which was, he theorizes, produced before Wasps. This would allow Aristophanes’ Wasps to engage in paratragedy of the first Heracles play (which would account for the similarities between the two plays), and Euripides’ later revision of Heracles would account for the standard dating of the play to c. 416 BCE by metrics. There is, potentially, independent confirmation of a Heracles II, attested by the papyrus fragments contained in P. Hibeh 179, however it is unclear when this version was staged in relation to Aristophanes’ Wasps and our extant Heracles, and what the content of the play was. In such a situation where the chronological relationship between dramas is uncertain due to a lack of secure dates for the plays and possible re-performances or revisions, the criteria for determining whether a set of correspondences is paratragedy or paracomedy must rest with the ways in which the similarities are expressed. Unfortunately, the evidence for Wasps and Heracles is ambiguous. Some elements could be either paracomedy or paratragedy: both feature a mad character who dances continuously (at Heracles 867-71, Lyssa describes how soon she will make Heracles dance still more [τάχα...µᾶλλον], and in the exodos of Wasps, Philocleon dances nonstop). Some evidence seems to be irrelevant, such as the reference in the parabasis of Wasps to the ὀργή ‘anger, courage’ of Heracles, which rather than pointing to the play Heracles Mainomenos points to the hero as Heracles Kallinikos, with its elements of epic monster-slaying (compare the parody a few lines later of Homer’s description of the Chimera at Iliad 6.181). Other evidence seems to have a common origin in society and reference general customs related to madness, as the pelting of the madman with stones (Heracles 1004-6, Wasps 1491) does not seem specific enough to argue for any form of paradrama, but rather points towards general treatment 96
In Peace, much like in Wasps, Aristophanes presents comedic madness that permeates the entire character of Trygaeus.213 The slave Xanthias provides ‘a list of symptoms of his madness’ (τὸ γὰρ παράδειγµα τῶν µανιῶν, Peace 65):214 Trygaeus rants at Zeus and has tried to reach him by scaling ladders to Olympus. Xanthias suggests that this is due to Trygaeus’ excessive bile (χολή, 66), a standard medical cause for madness,215 and further claims that Trygaeus is deranged (παραπαίεις, 90) and unhealthy
(οὐχ ὑγιαίνεις, 95). Yet these attributions of madness to Trygaeus are based on tragedic madness, as evinced when Xanthias remarks (54-55): “My master is mad in a novel way
(µαίνεται καινὸν τρόπον); not the way you all are, but another, quite novel way.” Here, the words for ‘to be mad’ and ‘novel’ are particularly marked. The verb µαίνοµαι ‘to be
of madmen. One element seems to argue for paratragedy, if it is strong enough of a connection: Aristophanes’ few quick jokes about a statue of Lycus are more likely to be parodying Euripides’ innovative figure of Lycus rather than the other way around, i.e. having Euripides insert a new character named Lycus into the story on the basis of a few jokes in Aristophanes. One element seems to argue for paracomedy (here my analysis differs from those of Beta and Rau 1967, 192): the relationship between Pindar fr. 189 Sn.-M. (πανδείµαντοι µὲν ὑπὲρ πόντιον Ἕλλας πόρον ἱερον), Heracles 80-1 (νῦν οὖν τίν᾽ ἐλπίδ᾽ ἤ πόρον σωτηρίας ἐξευµαρίζῃ, πρέσβυ;), and Wasps 306-8 (ἔχεις ἐλπίδα χρηστήν τινα νῷν ἤ πόρον Ἕλλας ἱερόν;). Pindar’s fragment is clearly the earliest, and the most logical ordering of the lines is that Wasps is the first drama of the two, and it parodies Pindar, with its clear appropriation of three words (Ἕλλας, πόρον, and ἱερον) from Pindar. Heracles must be the second drama, which lifts the combination of ἐλπίδ᾽ ἤ πόρον from Wasps. Rau’s contention that there was a contamination or blending of the two phrases in Wasps is improbable. For parallels to this process, see the examples from my Chapter 1 on 1) Andromeda fr. 125, Thesmophoriazusae 1105 and Cyclops 222, and 2) Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 525-6, Aristophanes’ Birds 1239-40, and Sophocles’ Chryses fr. 727. In the case of Wasps and Heracles, it is impossible to evaluate the evidence in favor of paratragedy or paracomedy, and instead one wonders if there is any interplay at all between the two plays. However, it is not outside the realm of possibility that tragedic portrayals of Heracles at times evoked portrayals of Heracles from comedy and satyr drama, on which see Kirkpatrick and Dunn 2002, 39-42. 213 On the madness of Trygaeus, see Hall 2006, 334. 214 Compare the comedic list of symptoms at Wasps 89-111, discussed above. 215 The fact that Trygeus suffers from χολή ‘bile’ serves to deepen the overtly paratragic scene, which parodies Euripides’ Bellerophon, whose titular hero suffered from melancholia ‘melancholy’, on which see Dobrov 2001, 92-101. For a broader view of melancholy, see Padel 1995, 47-57, and for χολή ‘bile’ see Padel 1992, 23-4. 97 mad’, which comes from the same Greek root as µανία, is the same word used of numerous heroes from tragedy who suffer from madness.216 The adjective καινός ‘novel’ is a coded metapoetic word, with which an author draws attention to the fact that he is innovating upon an expressed or implied standard pattern, as Torrance demonstrates for
Euripides.217 In addition to his joke about the audience being crazy, Aristophanes is highlighting his own literary creativity by using the trigger word καινός ‘novel’. On the metapoetic level, Aristophanes’ use of καινός shows that he is modeling his literary portrayal of madness on something else, and the use of µαίνοµαι shows that, as occurs so often in Greek comedy, the source material for his innovation is the madness from tragedy.218
The basic idea that comedic madness is modeled on tragedic madness was first, albeit briefly, explicated by Harvey in a three-page article.219 He gathers a number of passages where the hero of comedy suffers from madness (from Wasps, Birds, Clouds, and
Peace) and then suggests that Aristophanes is slyly parodying Euripides’ Medea,
Hippolytus (and perhaps other plays) where the tragedic hero suffers from µάνια
‘madness’ or νόσος ‘sickness’.220 Harvey argues that the slave’s speech in Peace is
216 Euripides uses forms of µαίνοµαι 38 times in his plays, and forms of µάνια 13 times. Here, the words occur primarily in the plays that feature a mad character – Medea, Hippolytus, Heracles, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Iphigenia at Aulis, Bacchae, and Orestes. 217 Torrance 2013, 222-245, especially 222-227. 218 See for example the posing of Acharnians 500 - τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον οἶδε καὶ τρυγῳδία. “For even comedy knows about justice.” The καὶ ‘even’ shows that comedy is being positioned against tragedy. See the comment in Olson 2002, 201 on Acharnians 500, Revermann 2006, 95-106, Platter 2007, 35-37 and Silk 2000a, 42-97. 219 Harvey 1971, 362-5. 220 While µάνια and νόσος are two distinct concepts, they are equivalent enough in their use for a comedian such as Aristophanes to lump them together into a concept of tragedic madness. See for example Sophocles’ Ajax 59 µανιάσιν νόσοις, or, outside of drama, Plato’s Laws 864d2, which argues for an equivalence between the two concepts: “a man 98 interrupted by Trygaeus’ cry from offstage, displaying the same staging that Euripides puts on in the Medea, a plausible enough suggestion.221 Harvey closes by noting that
Euripides must not have noticed Aristophanes’ parodies, because in Orestes, another character suffers from a similar madness, marked by the same words µάνια and νόσος. I will argue exactly the opposite, namely, that Euripides did notice the parodies, and that in
Orestes Euripides is responding directly to the madness scene in Aristophanes’ Peace.
In Peace, the mad Trygaeus, in a parody of Euripides’ Bellerophon, mounts his dung-beetle and flies to Olympus. Upon arriving, Hermes informs him that the gods have disappeared and their homes are inhabited by War, who has thrown Peace into a deep cavern (223). Trygaeus hides while War and Hubbub arrive onstage, about to grind all the cities of Greece with a mortar and pestle. When they depart, Trygaeus emerges from concealment, the chorus enters in the parodos, and they prepare to haul Peace out of the cavern. After the chorus speaks their first lines, Trygaeus responds with “Won’t you be quiet? Don’t be so overjoyful about our business that you fire up War with your shouting
(309-10).” He further cautions them to beware of “Cerberus below ground” (313) – a reference to Cleon, a sure obstacle to obtaining Peace.222 Soon after, he continues (318-9),
“You’ll be my undoing (ἐξολεῖτέ µ᾽), men, if you don’t abate your shouting (εἰ µὴ τῆς
βοῆς ἀνήσετε). He’ll rush out and trample everything underfoot.” The chorus responds to this by stating that they will not stop rejoicing, and they begin to dance. Trygaeus
who commits one of these crimes might be suffering from insanity (µανείς), or be as good as insane because of disease (νόσος).” 221 Harvey further argues that Wasps 751 ‘What I yearn for is over there. There is where I want to be (κείνων ἔραµαι, κεῖθι γενοίµαν)’ parodies Hippolytus 219 ἔραµαι ... 230 εἴθε γενοίµαν. The fact that the target in the Hippolytus is spread out across 11 lines argues against treating the lines as a unit, and therefore, a distinctive correspondence between the texts is unlikely. 222 On Cleon as Cerberus, see Knights 1030, and as the ‘watchdog of the people’ see Wasps 894-994. 99 commands them to stop, but they respond that their legs are dancing on their own (325).
Trygaeus tells them to stop again (326), and the chorus says (327): “There then, look, I have stopped” (ἢν ἰδοὺ καὶ δὴ πέπαυµαι). Yet the chorus continues to dance despite having said they had stopped, as Trygaeus points out. The back-and-forth happens once again, with Trygaeus commanding them to stop, the chorus agreeing to stop, and the chorus still continuing to dance (329-331).
Aristophanes’ parodos from Peace has strong similarities to the parodos in Orestes, granting the differences in the underlying representations of tragedic and comedic madness discussed earlier. First, a character (Trygaeus, Electra) needs to avoid alerting another dangerous figure (War, Orestes). Second, there is a direct order to the chorus to be silent during the parodos (Peace 309-310 ~ Orestes 136-9). Third, the character expresses a fear, using a second person form of the verb ὄλλυµι, that if the chorus is not silent they will destroy the character (Peace 318 - ἐξολεῖτέ µ᾽ ~ Orestes 157 ὀλεῖς, cf. Heracles 1052
διά µ᾽ ὀλεῖτε). Fourth, the chorus does not stop shouting and dancing, but continues even after stating that they have stopped, using similar vocabulary in both passages (Peace 327 -
ἢν ἰδοὺ καὶ δὴ πέπαυµαι “There, then, look I have stopped.” ~ Orestes 144 - ἰδού,
πείθοµαι “Look, I’m obeying.”).
These comparisons are too strong and specific to ignore. Given that the role of the chorus in the madness scene in Orestes is unique in extant tragedy, I argue that in the
Orestes, Euripides appropriated and utilized this scene featuring a mad character and a loud chorus from Aristophanes’ Peace. The dating of the plays is secure: Aristophanes put on Peace at the Dionysia in 421 BCE, and Euripides staged Orestes in 408 BCE, and therefore, this serves as an example of paracomedy.223 It is always possible that another
223 See Henderson 1998, 419 and Kovacs 2002, 400 for the dates of these plays. 100 drama (or dramas), which is now fragmentary or lost, existed that served as a model for some or all of the scenes discussed here (in my next section, I examine the potential evidence for just such a model taken from satyr drama).
When contemplating a case of paracomedy between Peace and Orestes, one might object that Peace was performed thirteen years prior to Orestes, which might inhibit audience recognition of the scene. If the target of the allusion looms large enough in cultural memory, however, virtually any length of time between the target and the allusion is feasible.224 For example, Euripides’ Telephus was performed in 438 BCE, parodied in
Aristophanes’ Acharnians of 425 BCE, and re-parodied in Thesmophoriazusae in 411
BCE. The innovative staging of the hostage scene in Telephus was certainly notable, so much so that Aristophanes did not even need to name the play, performed 27 years earlier, in the allusion in Thesmophoriazusae.225 He simply assumed that (at least part of) the audience would catch the reference. Platter has argued that the scene in
Thesmophoriazusae needs to be read in response to the parody in Acharnians.226 If this is true, perhaps the audience only needed think back to Aristophanes’ earlier parody in
Acharnians, and not all the way back to the original production of Telephus.
Much like the hostage scene in Telephus, the hauling scene in Peace was eminently notable in its staging. A scholiast on Plato’s Apology 19c states that the comedic poet
Eupolis in Autolycus (420 BCE, with a later re-performance sometime before Eupolis’
224 To cite a modern comparison from film, allusions to the 1939 films Gone with the Wind or Wizard of Oz are likely to be well-received by the audience, whereas allusions to the winner of “Best Picture” and the highest-grossing film in 1938 (You Can’t Take It With You) will likely flop, due to the simple fact that Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz have continued relevance for Americans despite having premiered many years ago. 225 See for example the scene’s popularity in vase painting, in Taplin 2007, 205-10. 226 Platter 2007, 162-175. 101 probable death in 411 BCE)227 and Plato Comicus in Victories (likely early 410s BCE) mocked Aristophanes’ staging of the scene, because he “lifted up a κολοσσικὸν ἄγαλµα of Peace”.228 The adjective κολοσσικὸν might mean ‘colossal’, as it tends to in later Greek, but at the time the word could refer to a statue of any size. Thus the problem that Eupolis and Plato Comicus saw in the staging might have something to do with the large size of the statue, the type of statue Aristophanes used (perhaps a crude and archaic wooden one), or the manner in which the statue was lifted.229 The fact that Peace was performed thirteen years earlier need not concern us, especially in light of the re-performance of Peace II, with a date certainly subsequent to Peace, and according to Olson, possibly after 413 BCE, which would allow the audience to have a better recall of the play.230
Yet what motivation might Euripides have had in appropriating this scene from
Peace? I would argue that the intrusion of this element from comedy into Orestes falls under the category of ‘disquieting confusion’.231 When the audience entered the theater to see a tragedy by Euripides called Orestes, certain expectations arose from knowing these paratexts, Genette’s term for external guides for the audience (the title and author of a play being some of the few paratexts available to an ancient Greek audience). Orestes lies onstage, suffering from madness, a ‘luckless corpse’, not speaking for 210 lines. Some audience members might have felt unsure as to whether Euripides was going to kill off the title character. Given Euripides’ penchant for subverting audience expectation, this may have seemed possible. In this context, Orestes’ parodos, with its appropriation of the scene from Peace, intensifies the horror of the scene, by juxtaposing its typical tragedic elements
227 For a brief biography of Eupolis, see Storey 2011b, 26-29. 228 Eupolis fr. 62 (Autolycus) in Storey 2011b, 76-7; Plato Comicus fr. 86 (Victories) in Storey 2011c, 130-1. See Olson 1998, xliii-xliv for further discussion of the statue. 229 For the different possibilities on how this scene was staged, see Olson 1998, xliii-xlvi. 230 Olson 1998, xlviii-li. On issues of re-performance, see Revermann 2006, 66-94. 231 On this category, see Chapter 1. 102 with something markedly foreign to the genre. Due to this generic confusion, the audience would feel unsettled and have a sense of imminent dread, feeling that something was deeply wrong.232 In this scene, then, Euripides appropriates elements from comedy to increase certain emotions of horror in the audience, all with the goal of achieving victory in dramatic competitions. Perhaps paradoxically, the inclusion of a comedic element in this tragedy actually increased the emotions pertaining to modern ideas of ‘the Tragic’.233
We can see a triangle of appropriation – first, a tragedic motif appears which is noticeable enough to be parodied (a tragedic mad hero); second, a comedic appropriation of the motif (a comedic mad hero in Wasps and Peace), and third, a tragedic re- appropriation of the motif (Orestes, with an excessively tragedic mad hero in a scene utilizing elements from comedy). The back-and-forth rivalry is marked by escalation – the word nosos and its cognates appear forty-five times in Orestes, the highest in any drama.234
Quite the contrary to Harvey’s proposition that Euripides was “not in the least affected by
Aristophanes’ sly allusions” since he subsequently staged Orestes which featured an opening scene with an insane hero, Euripides directly responded to Aristophanes’ portrayal
232 A modern parallel lies in the South Korean short horror film “Cut” (directed by Chan- Wook Park), seen in the 2004 film Three Extremes. A film director and his wife have been taken hostage on a movie set that looks exactly like their own house. The director cannot remember who the villain is until he puts on a number of silly costumes, such as flippers and goggles, which remind the director that the man was an extra who appeared in five of his films. Amidst the horror of the torture of the director and his wife, scenes straight out of comedy appear with a marked shift in tone. In one example, the villain says he will let them go if the director makes him laugh, and the director lets out a slow, loud fart. Objectively, this is funny and could belong to comedy, especially if one saw the scene in isolation (much as we might think that the parodos of Orestes might be from a comedy if we had it in isolation in fragmentary form without the context of its place in a tragedy). In the context of a horror movie, however, the goofy costuming and farts do not provoke laughter from the audience. Rather, the audience feels unsettled and horrified, and the horrific mood continues uninterrupted throughout the film. 233 For another example of a comedic element increasing tragic emotions, see Sommerstein 2002. 234 Mitchell-Boyask 2008, 29. 103 of the crazy, sick hero Trygaeus by including a component of Aristophanes’ madness scene into the depiction of his own excessively mad tragedic hero.235
THE SATYRIC TRADITION
One must always be open to the possibility that any allusion may have resonances beyond the relationship between hypertext and the hypotext, no matter how obvious that relationship may be. For example, Thesmophoriazusae’s parody of Euripides’ Telephus also alludes to Aristophanes’ previous parody in Acharnians, and thus the web of allusions becomes more intricate, with three texts engaging in intertextuality.236 We are fortunate in this case to have all three texts extant, and consequently we are able to investigate the ways that the texts respond to one another. Yet fragmentary or lost plays in all likelihood participated in paradrama (paratragedy, paracomedy, parasatyr drama) as much as our extant plays. While these lost plays must be kept in mind, often the evidence they offer may be misleading and can provide uncertain results. Still, with regard to the passages from Peace and Orestes, one avenue of exploration, a connection with satyr drama, affords enough solid evidence to suggest that the intertextuality may not be limited to a relationship between hypertext (Orestes) and hypotext (Peace).
Some scholars have suggested that elements of the broader scene that contains the parodos, Peace 301-519, evoke satyr drama.237 Hall argues that Aristophanes organizes the internal structural order of Peace in such a way that it corresponds to the order of the performances at the Dionysia: tragedy, satyr drama, and comedy.238 Under this model, the parody of Euripides’ Bellerophon at the beginning of Peace corresponds to tragedy, the
235 Harvey 1971, 365. 236 Platter 2007, 162-175. 237 Bakola 2010, 108-110 and Hall 2006, 340-1. 238 Hall 2006, 338-41. 104 scene where the chorus hauls out the statue of Peace corresponds to satyr-play, and the rousing finale corresponds to comedy. Among the myriad of genres Aristophanes refers to in Peace, the comedian appropriates lyric and epic between the satyr drama and the comedy sections of Peace.
One piece of evidence to support Hall’s designation of Peace 301-519 as modeling satyr drama is that the summons to the chorus in Peace alludes to a similar summons from
Aeschylus’ satyr drama Net-Fishers:
Peace 296-8:
ἀλλ᾽ ὦ γεωργοὶ κἄµποροι καὶ τέκτονες
καὶ δηµιουργοὶ καὶ µέτοικοι καὶ ξένοι
καὶ νησιῶται, δεῦρ᾽ ἴτ᾽ ὦ πάντες λεῴ
“You farmers and merchants and carpenters
and craftsmen and immigrants and foreigners
and islanders, come here, all you people...”
Net-Fishers fr. 46a, 18-20:
]π̣άντες γεωργοὶ δϵῦτε | κ̣ἀµπελοσκάφοι
]ε ποιµήν τ εἴ τίς ἐστ᾽|[ἐ]γχώριος
]ο̣ι τε κα̣ὶ ̣µ̣α̣|[ριλ]ε̣υτῶν ἔθνο̣ς
“Come here, all you farmers and vine-diggers,
[and] any [goatherd or oxherd] or shepherd there is in these parts,
and [...]s and you tribe of charcoal-burners!”
The structures of both passages are very similar. Both passages call for the chorus’ help in lifting an object, and both begin by mustering γεωργοὶ ‘farmers’ and go on to summon a long list of available people. This topos is not confined to Net-Fishers but extends to other 105 satyr drama (Sophocles’ Trackers 39-42, and to some extent Aeschylus’ Theoroi or
Isthmiastai 18-9 and 72-4).
Another area of overlap between Peace 301-519 and satyr drama is the trope of hauling an object. One example occurs in Aeschylus’ satyr drama Net-Fishers, when a chorus of satyrs hauls the chest containing Danae out of the sea. A more specific parallel of
‘hauling’ is shown in the passages known as anodos scenes, which feature the emergence of a divinity, usually a goddess, from the earth, accompanied by fertility and increased agricultural production.239 Anodos scenes were not limited to the hauling of the statue of
Peace in Aristophanes’ play. While anodos scenes were widespread throughout Greek literature and myth (for example, Persephone, Semele, Pandora, Aphrodite,240 and
Dionysus on the “Cleveland Dionysus” vase all have anodos scenes), three pieces of evidence point to a connection between anodos scenes with satyr play.241 First, the
“Cleveland Dionysus” vase, a 4th century Apulian bell crater, features a gigantic head of a statue of Dionysus rising out of the ground in the center, a comedic slave on the left, and a
Papposilenus on the right in a scene from a comedy featuring satyrs. Second, in vase painting, unnamed goddesses (though one is labeled Aphrodite) often appear in anodos scenes surrounded by satyrs.242 The hauling of the goddess Peace would fit in with such scenes from vase painting, whereby a divinity, often a goddess, rises from the earth surrounded by a chorus of satyrs. Third, Dobrov has argued for a specific connection with
Sophocles’ satyr drama Pandora or Sphyrokopoi ‘Hammer-wielders’, which, though
239 On anodos dramas in Greek tragedy, defined as dramas that adopt the mythical plot of Persephone’s descent to and ascent from the underworld (Alcestis, Helen, and Iphigenia among the Taurians), see Foley 2001, 301-332. 240 Olson 1998, xxxv-xxxviii. 241 Bérard 1974, 1-181. 242 See Olson 1998, xxxvii on anodos scenes in general. 106 promising, is not provable, as no substantial fragments of the play survive.243 Dobrov’s evidence consists of 1) a number of vase paintings of anodos scenes with satyrs holding hammers, mesmerized by the goddess arising from the earth (though we cannot tell if these reflect Sophocles’ lost satyr drama because the play is so fragmentary), 2) the mention of sphyra ‘hammers’ at Peace 566 (sphyra is an unusual word which certainly may allude to
Sophocles’ lost satyr drama, as the play is called Sphyrokopoi), and 3) the description of the goddess as smelling of ‘Sophoclean song’ at Peace 531 (though ‘Sophoclean song’ could refer to tragedy as well).244 It is difficult to ascertain if there was one satyr-play in particular which served as the model for Aristophanes’ scene. In fact, the evidence for a direct model is ambiguous, pointing variously to Aeschylus’ Net-Fishers, Sophocles’
Pandora or Sphyrokopoi ‘Hammer-wielders’, Sophocles’ Trackers and Euripides’ Cyclops,
243 Dobrov 2007, 263-5 suggests that Aristophanes’ motivation would be to appropriate the primordial realm of the satyr-play utopia, with the discovery of a Pandora-like goddess who can confer political benefits instead of the evils that she traditionally brings. 244 In my mind, the ‘Sophoclean song’ at Peace 531 more likely refers to tragedy, not satyr drama. The full passage reads that the goddess smells of ‘harvest time, parties, festivals for Dionysus, pipes, tragedians, songs by Sophocles, thrush meat, Euripides’ verselets...ivy, a wine strainer, bleating flocks, the bosoms of women scampering to the fields, a drunken slave girl, an upturned jug, and a host of other fine things’ (528-32, 535-8). Seen as a whole, a number of potentially metapoetic themes appear: links to tragedies (tragedians, songs by Sophocles, Euripides’ verselets), links to satyr play (ivy, a wine strainer, bleating flocks) and links to comedy (bosoms of women scampering to the fields, drunken slave girl, an upturned jug), ordered in such a way as to follow the overarching pattern Hall has described for the play (tragedy, satyr play, comedy). There is a large amount of blending between these categories, as certain elements apply to more than one genre – for example, ‘songs by Sophocles’ could refer to tragedy or satyr play, and the elements of drinking could refer to both comedy and satyr play. If my analysis is correct, the blending of genres in the list would correspond to Hall’s blending of generic elements (including lyric and epic) in the play as a whole. The metapoetic argument may be further strengthened by adding the potential metapoetics of Peace 694-97, when Trygaeus tells Peace that Sophocles is turning into Simonides. Trygaeus explains that Sophocles is now making a profit, the joke turning on Simonides’ reputation to be the first to compose poetry for a fee. Yet if read metapoetically, Sophocles turning into Simonides could signal the play’s turn from satyr-play (Sophocles) to lyric (Simonides), and indeed this is right before the section which marks the transformation to lyric (775-817), part of which (775-780) parodies Stesichorus’ lyric poem Oresteia. 107 leading one to conclude that Aristophanes was poaching generalized satyric motifs without alluding to a specific hypotext, or at least, such a hypotext is not extant.
Aristophanes’ Peace is not unique in its borrowing from satyr drama, since other precedents exist for comedy appropriating satyr drama. 245 The main comparison is with
Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros, which featured a chorus of satyrs.246 Other comedians wrote comedies titled Satyroi ‘Satyrs’ (Cratinus, Callias, Ecphantides, Phrynicus, Timocles and perhaps Ophelio), which must also have involved choruses of satyrs.247 Birds 1196-1261 shows the birds molesting Iris, which the audience may have registered as reminiscent of satyr-play, considering that there are a number of vases depicting Iris being assaulted by theatrical satyrs, though no extant plays show this theme.248 On the Cleveland Dionysus vase, the Papposilenus is wearing a comedic mask and phallus, so the result is a
‘comedified’ character from a satyr play.249 There is also some evidence that satyr drama could appropriate elements from comedy, as Astydamas, likely a 4th century tragedian, incorporated a parabasis into his Heracles, a satyr play.250
All in all, it is quite likely that Aristophanes’ Peace (301-519), which contains the parodos in question, evoked images of satyr drama for the audience. Following this line of reasoning, it may be the case that one distinctive element in the comparison I made between Peace and Orestes, namely, the chorus with varying degrees of volume, may have been in its origin a trope from satyr drama. The generalized loudness of the satyrs, often connected with dance, was a popular motif of satyr drama, for example, Cyclops 37-40
245 Bakola 2010, 81-88. 246 See especially Bakola 2010, 81-117. 247 Bakola 2010, 102-12 and Revermann 2006, 103. 248 Bakola 2010, 107-8 and Dunbar 1995, 612-614 on Birds 1196-1261. 249 See Bakola 2010, 110-2, Revermann 2006, 103-4, 153-4, and Green 1995, 93-120. 250 Revermann 2006, 279-80 suggests that Athenaeus, from whom we have Astydamas’ potentially parabatic passage (TrGF 60 F4), may have misidentified the fragment as belonging to a satyr drama when it actually belonged to a comedy. 108 mentions the loud dance of the satyrs called the sikinnis; Cyclops 220-2 displays
Polyphemus’ fear that if he swallowed the satyrs, they would be the death of him due to their dancing in his belly; and Sophocles’ Trackers 217-220, 222, 227, 237, 251-7 highlight the shouting, dancing, and general noise of the chorus.
However, two passages (Euripides’ Cyclops 608-662 and Sophocles’ Trackers 217-
257) hint at the idea that it was not simply a constant torrent of noise emanating from the satyr chorus, but rather, their volume was used as metatheatrical commentary and could increase or decrease based on the needs of the scene. Euripides’ Cyclops 608-662 presents some evidence for a partial ebb and flow of choral volume. At this point in the play, the chorus is singing a joyful ode about the imminent blinding of Polyphemus (608-624), and presumably is doing so loudly, since Odysseus bursts in and orders the chorus of satyrs to be silent (625-9):
Odysseus: σιγᾶτε πρὸς θεῶν, θῆρες, ἡσυχάζετε,
συνθέντες ἄρθρα στόµατος: οὐδὲ πνεῖν ἐῶ,
οὐ σκαρδαµύσσειν οὐδὲ χρέµπτεσθαί τινα,
ὡς µὴ 'ξεγερθῇ τὸ κακόν, ἔστ᾽ ἂν ὄµµατος
ὄψις Κύκλωπος ἐξαµιλληθῇ πυρί.
Chorus: σιγῶµεν ἐγκάψαντες αἰθέρα γνάθοις.
Odysseus: Silence, you savages, for heaven’s sake quiet! Let your lips be shut fast! I
forbid anyone even to breathe or to blink or to clear his throat lest the monster
wake up before the Cyclops’ eye can have its contest with the fire.
Chorus: We hold our peace, gulping down the air with our mouths.
In 629, the chorus says that they will be silent, and we have no reason to doubt their claim.
Odysseus does not rebuke them any further for their loudness, which lends credence to the idea that they are in fact silent, as one might otherwise expect the staging seen in the 109 constant shushing of Amphitryon in Heracles 1042-70. Finally, in 652, Odysseus asks the chorus to cheer, which the chorus agrees to do (654). Following this is a loud choral ode filled with hurrahs (656-662). The evidence points to a loud chorus becoming silent and then loud again. While this is not quite the same, since the chorus does not say they will be silent and then continue to be loud, this offers an example of a chorus of satyrs with an increase and decrease of choral volume.
The second relevant passage comes from Sophocles’ Trackers. The chorus of satyrs loudly threatens an unknown person (actually an offstage Hermes making noise on his invention of the lyre), “...But I’ll quickly make the ground ring with swift jumps and kicks, and force him to hear me, however deaf he may be (217-20).” Cyllene bursts in and chastises them (221-242), and the chorus apologizes (243-250). The chorus must decrease their volume, since Cyllene says (251-257), “That’s better, you sound gentler now...I won’t put up with your loud, quarrelsome words. But calm down (ἥσυχος πρόφαινε) and tell me what it is you need.” Here, Cyllene makes the loud satyrs become silent, but it is unclear whether they become loud again afterwards.
While neither Euripides’ Cyclops 608-662 nor Sophocles’ Trackers 217-257 exploits the ebb and flow of choral volume to the extent that Peace or Orestes does, there is some evidence to show that choral volume was a metatheatrical technique used by satyr dramas, at least twice. There may have been a satyr drama, or many satyr dramas, which contained an ebb and flow of choral volume. We must be careful in suggesting this was a prototypical trope of satyr drama, because the fragments of satyr drama provide a very small sample size with which to establish prototypicality. Consequently, this demonstration that satyr dramas featured varying levels of choral volume is valid only as far as our evidence will allow. The advent of new texts in the satyric corpus would undoubtedly alter this argument (as it would alter all scholarship involving satyr drama). 110
The best way to understand the layers of poetic appropriation between satyr drama, comedy, and tragedy in all the passages discussed in this chapter is to claim first, that Aristophanes adopted a general trope of satyr play (chorus with an ebb and flow of volume, or at least, a chorus who metatheatrically had the ability to vary their volume) into Peace and melded it with a parody of tragedic madness and second, that Euripides adopted elements from the parodos in Aristophanes’ Peace wholesale into Orestes. A second option is to claim that both Aristophanes’ Peace and Euripides’ Orestes were responding to a no longer extant satyr drama that contained a number of these themes: a mad character in a sleep scene with varying levels of choral volume. If such a play came to light, it would of course clarify the situation immensely, but without it one can only raise that possibility. A third hypothesis emerges, namely that both Euripides’ tragedy Orestes and his satyr drama Cyclops respond to Aristophanes’ Peace. Both Orestes and Cyclops were likely produced in the same tetralogy in 408 BCE, and it would afford a two-pronged response to Aristophanes’ Peace, possibly re-initiated by the re-production (or re-working) of Peace II, perhaps performed soon after 413 BCE.251 In addition to a possible ebb and flow of choral volume, Cyclops contains other parallels with the scenes from Peace and
Orestes. Polyphemus is a dangerous character that appears to be suffering from madness
(µαινοµένου, 618).252 There is a focus on metatheatricality, when the chorus says that they have become lame and sprained their feet while standing (637-40). Odysseus commands the chorus to be silent (σιγᾶτε, 625) lest the dangerous Cyclops awaken (µὴ
'ξεγερθῇ τὸ κακόν, 628). The chorus says that they will be silent (σιγῶµεν ἐγκάψαντες
αἰθέρα γνάθοις, 630), and it is unclear if they continue their loudness or if they become
251 On Peace II, see Olson 1998, xlviii-li. 252 Lucian (Dialogues of the Sea Gods 2.4) may continue the tradition that the Cyclops was mad, since the Cyclops complains to Poseidon about how the other Cyclopes did not help him when he called for help because they thought he suffered from melancholy. 111 silent. The one word reference to madness (µαινοµένου, 618), the metatheatrics, and the command to be silent addressed to the chorus may have been enough to evoke the parodos of Peace, especially with Orestes recalling the scene directly before Cyclops in the same tetralogy. This hypothesis is somewhat speculative, but the possibilities are intriguing, as it would provide an example of two cases of paracomedy within a tetralogy responding to a single target, and would provide a hint of a unifying theme in a late-Euripidean tetralogy.253
Trachiniae Philoctetes Heracles Orestes Peace Cyclops
Madness/Sickness Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Chorus told to be No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes silent Metatheater No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ebb and flow of No No No Yes Yes Perhaps choral silence and loudness Table 9. Summary of Madness Scenes
The parodos of Euripides’ Orestes (132-210) contains an element that is of very low prototypicality, occurring only once in extant tragedy. The closest parallel is the parodos of Aristophanes’ Peace, which similarly features a mad character, a command to
253 Arnott 1983, 21 briefly compares Orestes 131-210 and Cyclops 624-9 with Heracles 1042-1087 but not Aristophanes’ Peace. Arnott recognizes Euripides’ ‘calculated intent’, and says his objective was to cause surprise and admiration at the novel treatment of choral song. Furthermore, he adds, “Humour must have been far from the poet’s mind in the Orestes and Heracles examples.” In another article, Arnott 1972, 224-26, the author analyzes Cyclops 624-9 as burlesquing the conventions of ancient drama and engaging in self-parody, though he does not name a direct target of the parody. Arnott is interested primarily in Euripides’ interaction with dramatic conventions, drawing parallels in the scene from Orestes and Hippolytus 575-580, in which the chorus refuses Phaedra’s request to leave stage due to the convention that the chorus remains onstage the entire play once it arrives in the parados. 112 be silent, prominent metatheater, and an ebb and flow of choral volume while pretending to stop. A further layer of borrowing from satyr drama is plausible, but ultimately unprovable due to the nature of our evidence. Despite the complications that can arise when contemplating the degrees to which these elements are comedic or satyric (and some scholars may favor one option more than the other), the conclusion remains that Euripides is adopting elements which derive from comedy, satyr drama, or both. The disquieting confusion that arises from juxtaposing the comedo-satyric element with tragedy increases the horror of the madness scene, and Euripides’ incorporation of a trope foreign to the genre highlights the presence, and indeed the complexity, of the cross-generic appropriation occurring within 5th century drama.
113
Chapter 4: Hostages and Incineration in Euripides and Aristophanes
In the final scene (1567-1624) of Euripides’ Orestes, the protagonist Orestes, along with Electra and Pylades, puts a sword to the neck of Hermione, the daughter of
Menelaus, on the roof of the skene. Orestes warns Menelaus that he will kill Hermione if
Menelaus does not allow them to escape. When this ploy fails, he threatens to incinerate the building, killing everyone inside, an act that Apollo prevents at the last possible moment. I propose that the combination of the tense hostage scene and the threat of incineration can be read as Euripides drawing upon and fusing two interconnected literary traditions of hostage scenes: one from tragedy, and the other from comedy. First I will discuss the tragedic tradition of Euripidean hostage scenes, which we can first discern in
Telephus (438 BCE) and which reappear in Andromache (c. 425 BCE) and Orestes (408
BCE), by highlighting the ways in which Euripides repeatedly draws upon and reuses set hostage and kidnapper character types taken from the mythology related to Menelaus and his family.254 Second I’ll examine the comedic treatment of hostage scenes, from the parody of Euripides’ Telephus in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (425 BCE) to the contrasting parody of the same play in Thesmophoriazusae (411 BCE), showing ultimately how
Euripides appropriated comedic elements of the hostage scene in Thesmophoriazusae into
Orestes (408 BCE).255
254 The three tragic hostage scenes are mentioned without much analysis by Stevens 1971, 134-135 note at 309-463, and by Porter 1994, 87-8. 255 Platter 2007, 143-175 analyzes the two Aristophanic hostage scenes in conjunction with Telephus. 114
Date Title Kidnapper Hostage Threatened Person 438 Euripides’ Telephus Telephus Baby Orestes Agamemnon, BCE Clytemnestra, Menelaus c. 425 Euripides’ Andromache Menelaus Andromache’s Son Andromache BCE 425 Aristophanes’ Acharnians Dicaeopolis Charcoal Bucket Chorus of BCE Acharnians 411 Aristophanes’ Kinsman Mica’s “Baby”, the Mica, chorus of BCE Thesmophoriazusae winesack Women at the Thesmophoria 408 Euripides’ Orestes Orestes, Hermione, daughter of Menelaus BCE Electra, Menelaus Pylades Table 10. Summary of Hostage Scenes
Both tragedic and comedic practices evolved, from what we can tell, from one formative play – Euripides’ Telephus, which narrated the tale of Telephus, the king of the
Mysians, who was wounded in the thigh by Achilles’ spear in a battle preceding the Trojan
War.256 According to an oracle, the wound could only be cured by the weapon that inflicted it, so Telephus traveled to Argos to request help from Achilles. Telephus begins the play disguised in rags, enters the palace of Argos, and participates in a quarrel between
Agamemnon and Menelaus about whether the Greeks should re-invade Troy.257 The
Greeks realize that there is an intruder in their midst, begin a search for him, and
Telephus’ identity is uncovered. At this point in the play, the hostage scene occurs –
Telephus grabs baby Orestes (perhaps with the help of Clytemnestra), holds him hostage,
256 On Euripides’ Telephus, see Handley and Rea 1956, Heath 1987, Collard and Cropp 2008, 185-191 and Dobrov 2001, 37-43. For the myth of Telephus before and including 5th century BCE tragedy, see Gantz 1993, 428-431, 576-580. A recent fragment of Archilochus (P.Oxy LXIX 4708) stresses Telephus’ martial exploits, on which most recently see Swift 2012, 139-155. 257 On Telephus’ rags, see Chapter 5. 115 and uses Orestes to compel the Greeks to listen to him. Finally, Telephus acquires the help that he needs from Achilles, and the rust from Achilles’ spear cures his wound.
The hostage scene was the memorable highlight of Telephus, as we can tell from the numerous vase paintings depicting the scene and the fact that Aristophanes staged two elaborate parodies of it in Acharnians and Thesmophoriazusae.258 According to Csapo, the scene where Telephus holds Orestes hostage using a short sword or a knife was a
Euripidean innovation, and did not appear in the earlier portrayals of the myth, including
Aeschylus’ Telephus, likely performed some twenty-odd years before.259 Csapo’s evidence is drawn from vase painting, of which only two examples depict Telephus at the altar before 438 BCE, the date of Euripides’ Telephus. The first (c. 470 BCE) is an Attic red- figured cup in Boston signed by Hieron (MFA 98.931) showing Telephus holding a spear at the altar, and the second (c. 450 BCE) is an Attic red-figured pelike in the British
Museum (London E 382) showing Telephus at the altar calmly holding the baby Orestes as well as his spear. All the vases that postdate Euripides’ Telephus (about thirty vases) show Telephus with baby Orestes at the altar wielding a short sword, a weapon necessary for taking the baby hostage, as the spear that was previously used was too long and unwieldy for the task. As far as we can tell, Euripides’ Telephus was the first to introduce the element of ‘a child held hostage with a knife on an altar’ to narratives involving
Telephus, and this must have been a revolutionary, emotionally stimulating, and highly notable scene, precipitating a shift in depictions on vase painting and serving as a hypotext
258 Taplin 2007, 205-6, rightly refutes the idea that the hostage scene in Telephus occurred offstage and was reported by a messenger. Why would Aristophanes parody a scene twice with so much detail in the borrowing of lines and staging unless it actually occurred onstage? 259 Csapo 1990, 41-52. 116 for a wide variety of hypertexts.260 Indeed, all subsequent hostage scenes in Greek drama were indebted to it.
The category of ‘hostage scenes’ may seem arbitrary, given that there was no explicit category in antiquity named as such. However, hostage scenes in drama, ever since
Telephus, contain a number of elements that are easily identifiable: 1) the taking of a hostage, 2) who is the child of a character onstage, 3) with a knife, 4) often at an altar.
These basic similarities, paired with the fact that the same cast of characters is involved in
Euripides’ presentations of hostage scenes (Orestes, Menelaus, Hermione), indicate that we can read these hostage scenes as a unified grouping of texts, all presenting modifications of the scene in Telephus. The hostage scenes represented by Telephus, Andromache,
Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and Orestes differ greatly from the only other potential parallel, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (818-886), in which Creon, who already abducted Oedipus’ daughter Ismene, abducts Oedipus’ other daughter Antigone in front of the powerless hero. Whereas the perpetrators in Telephus, Andromache, Acharnians,
Thesmophoriazusae and Orestes hold the child of a character hostage onstage, threatening immediate death with a knife or sword, Creon has Antigone dragged away without using a blade, as evidenced by Creon’s constant use of ‘verbs of touching’ (ξυναρπάζω, 819,
ἄγω, 819, 832, ἐξάγω, 826, ἅπτω, 830) and Antigone’s cries that she is being dragged away (ἀφελκοµαι, 844, πορεύοµαι, 845). While both the ‘hostage scenes’ and Oedipus at
Colonus 818-886 highlight a sense of violence towards the child of an onstage character, they differ in their explicitness - in Oedipus at Colonus, the audience fears what will
260 Thesmophoriazusae 693-5, which features the Kinsman abducting Mica’s “baby” (actually a winesack) and holding it hostage with a knife may attest to the presence of a knife in Euripides’ Telephus if the scene maintains some of the staging from Telephus: “Nay, here and now, smitten to his crimson veins by this knife (µαχαίρᾳ) atop the thigh bones, shall he begore the altar!” (Trans. Henderson, adapted). 117 happen offstage, whereas in the hostage scenes, the audience fears that a child will be slaughtered onstage. The hostage scenes and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus may be compared in other non-structural ways, for example, there are similar reasons for the hostage-taking in Orestes and the abduction in Oedipus at Colonus, namely, a betrayal of the code of friendship (philia).261 However, from the lack of direct parallels with the other hostage scenes it is clear that Sophocles was not drawing upon the hostage scene prototype, as exemplified in Euripides’ Telephus, in the same way. Consequently, these five scenes
(Telephus, Andromache, Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and Orestes) represent the totality of hostage scenes in extant drama.
This is not to say that other dramas about Telephus had no affect on Aristophanes’ parodies and the other hostage scenes in tragedy. In addition to Aeschylus’ Telephus, which as far as we can tell did not involve threats to Orestes or taking him hostage,
Sophocles wrote a Telepheia, which, according to a fourth century inscription, was likely a tetralogy (or at least a trilogy) about Telephus, possibly including plays entitled Sons of
Aleus, Mysians, Telephus, and Eurypylus.262 We know next to nothing of these plays about Telephus and even less about the other tragedies titled Telephus by Iophon (late 5th century BCE), Agathon (late 5th century BCE), Kleophon (4th century BCE) and
Moschion (4th century BCE) and the Doric comedies by Deinolochos (early 5th century) and Rhinthon (4th-3rd centuries BCE).263 Platter’s caveat must be taken seriously, that just because we have no evidence about these plays about Telephus or about other hostage
261 Edmunds 1996, 118-121. 262 The inscription can be found at DID 5 in Snell 1986, 39. On Aeschylus’ Telephus, see Csapo 1990, 41-52. On Sophocles’ Telephus plays, see Lloyd-Jones 1996, 32-33. 263 Olson 2002, lv. Iophon was the son of Sophocles, and was somewhat successful as a tragic poet in his own right. Agathon was the fourth best tragic poet outside of the triad of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (on Agathon, see Duncan 2006, 25-57). Little is known about Kleophon, Moschion and Deinolochus. Rhinthon wrote texts called hilarotragoidiai, on which see Taplin 1993, 48-52. 118 scenes does not mean that they did not exist or were unimportant to 5th century dramatic poets.264 However, we lack the evidence to suggest that these plays included hostage scenes at all, and even if they did, we cannot draw comparisons to what these other possible hostage scenes might have entailed.
THE TRAGEDIC TRADITION
After Euripides’ Telephus, the next attested hostage-taking scene in tragedy occurs in lines 309-463 of Euripides’ Andromache (c. 425 BCE).265 Andromache begins the play in difficult straits, as she has been captured and enslaved by Neoptolemus (12-15), and her troubles continue as Neoptolemus’ wife Hermione and her father Menelaus are plotting to kill Andromache and her child (39-40).266 Due to this threat, she has sent her son away
(47-8) and has taken sanctuary at the altar of Thetis, marked in the play by frequent references to the altar, the statue, the shrine, and the temenos of Thetis (42-4, 115, 117,
129-30, 135, 161-2, 246, 253, 260, 262, 314, 380). Andromache is physically touching the altar for sanctuary, as evidenced by the fact that she departs from the altar and abandons its protection at Andromache 411. The hostage scene begins when Menelaus brings in Andromache’s son as a hostage, threatening to kill the boy unless she leaves the protection of Thetis (315-16, 380-3). The word most often used to describe the threatened killing is the neutral word κτάνειν ‘to kill’, yet three times the root is σφάζ-/σφάγ- ‘to slaughter by slitting the throat with a blade’ (315, 429, 547) which implies that Menelaus is threatening them with a blade of some sort.267
264 Platter 2007, 149-50. 265 For an overview of the scene, see Allan 2000, 62-3. 266 Her child is unnamed in the play but is called Molossus in the mythological tradition, on which see Gantz 1993, 689, 692. 267 See Stevens 1971, note 315 for the same conclusion. 119
From this description of the plot of Andromache, I suggest that the hostage scene at
Andromache 309-463 responds to the hostage scene in Telephus on four levels, as both plays involve 1) the taking of a hostage, 2) who is a young boy and the child of a character onstage, 3) using a knife, 4) at an altar that is being used for protection. Euripides adapts the elements of Telephus’ hostage scene and re-arranges them to create an alternate staging of a hostage scene in Andromache. In Telephus, the hostage-taker (Telephus) uses the altar for protection and in that sacred place threatens the child (Orestes) with the knife, while the child’s mother (Clytemnestra) witnesses the incident away from the altar. In
Andromache, the hostage-taker (Menelaus) threatens the child with a knife away from the altar, while the child’s mother (Andromache) witnesses the incident at the altar as she uses it for protection.
This visual inversion of the hostage scene is but one of Andromache’s many reversals of Telephus, as numerous transformations of character occur as well. In
Telephus, Menelaus seems to have taken a neutral role, participating in the discussion about whether the Greeks should return to Troy or not, whereas in Andromache he is the villainous aggressor. In Telephus, Orestes is the baby taken hostage, whereas in
Andromache he is the savior of Hermione.268 Euripides develops the hostage scene as a whole while maintaining its most important elements for evoking a response from the audience. Both Telephus’ and Menelaus’ actions are horrific, as threatening to kill a child at an altar would have offended the audience in numerous ways, violating familial, social, and religious codes of conduct.
Roughly eighteen years later, Orestes (408 BCE) presents a new hostage scene, overturning Andromache in its plot, mythology, and dramaturgy. In Andromache, Orestes
268 Euripides will transform both characters once again in Orestes (408 BCE), on which see below. 120 rescues Hermione, but in Orestes he ends up holding her hostage (ὅµηρος, Orestes 1189).
In Apollo’s deus ex machina (1653-1657), the play’s new relationship between Orestes and Hermione is overturned, and Hermione is compelled to marry Orestes instead of
Neoptolemus (the version of the myth Euripides uses in Andromache).269 Zeitlin has remarked that in Orestes, Euripides’ own earlier play Andromache is a “play whose plot we are told retroactively will never take place.”270 From the perspective of Andromache, the hostage scene and the characters involved are also inverted. Orestes’ hostage scene as a whole maintains the primary elements that identify this as a hostage scene – 1) the taking of a hostage (ὅµηρος, 1189), 2) who is the child of a character onstage (Hermione’s father
Menelaus looks on with horror), 3) with a sword (ξίφος, 1575, ἐπισφάζω, 1596,
φάσγανον, 1608). Yet Euripides no longer locates the action at an altar, but instead places it atop the skēnē, a dramatic choice that sensationalizes the hostage scene.271 We can see Euripides deliberately remodeling the characters of Menelaus, Orestes, and Hermione as he progresses from Telephus to Andromache and finally to Orestes. Menelaus is a bystander in Telephus, the hostage-taker in Andromache, and the grieved father of the hostage Hermione in Orestes. Orestes is the baby held hostage in Telephus, the savior of
Hermione in Andromache, and the one who takes Hermione hostage in Orestes.272
Hermione changes from aggressor in Andromache to victim in Orestes. Throughout the plays, the size of the child threatened is enlarged, from baby Orestes in Telephus, to
Andromache’s child in Andromache, to the full-grown Hermione in Orestes. The
269 On the marriage of Neoptolemus and Hermione in Andromache, see Papadimitropoulos 2006, 147-158. 270 Zeitlin 2003, 340-1. 271 Wright 2008, 48 notes that this is the only tragedy culminating with a roof-top hostage scene. 272 Zeitlin 2003, 339 remarks that the hostage scene in Orestes is a ‘coming about full circle to his own childhood experience in another Euripidean play as a hostage at the hands of Telephus.” 121 differences at various chronological points mark a progression for the hostage scenes, whereby each scene directly adapts the one that precedes it.
The fact that Orestes in Orestes assumes the hostage-taking role that Menelaus played in Andromache is suggested by Euripides’ reversal of the ‘gotcha moment’ that he composed in Andromache.273 At the crucial point when Menelaus captures Andromache when she leaves the altar, Menelaus says, “I’ve got you! (ἔχω σ’, Andromache 427).”274
The same phrasing, a form of ἔχω and a personal pronoun, is used in Orestes, when
Menelaus says, “You’ve got me! (ἔχεις µε, 1617),” at the point where Menelaus is out- argued by Orestes and is left without any options or means to recover his daughter. While it may be objected that ἔχω and a form of a personal pronoun are not distinctive enough vocabulary to suggest an allusion between the plays, the combination of both elements together is actually quite rare. In the context of a struggle, a phrase like ἔχω σ’ can only refer to point at which one person defeats the other, as the remaining options the Liddell-
Scott-Jones lexicon provides for the active transitive verb ἔχω taking a person as a direct object do not give suitable semantics - ‘have as wife or husband’ (LSJ, ἔχω A.I.4),
‘entertain at one’s house’ (A.I.5), ‘support’ or ‘sustain’ (A.II.5), ‘check’ or ‘stop’ (A.II.9),
‘hinder’ (A.II.10), or ‘keep safe’ (A.II.12). Furthermore, these ‘gotcha moments’, using
ἔχω and a personal pronoun, are probably linguistically clipped forms of the fuller phrase
σε µέσον ἔχω, “I’ve got you by the middle”, a metaphor designating a particular wrestling hold, seen for example at Clouds 1047, Acharnians 571, Knights 388, and Frogs
273 Due to absence of text for the hostage scene in Telephus, there is no evidence one way or the other regarding the presence of a “gotcha moment” in that hostage scene. 274 This phrase is an emendation by Jackson 1955, correcting the manuscript reading of ἔγω σ’, which makes little sense. Jackson’s emendation is accepted by Diggle’s OCT, Kovacs’ Loeb, Lloyd’s 1994 commentary (upheld in his second edition in 2005), but is questioned in Sansone 2007 on the grounds of asyndeton and an unusual use of ἵνα. However, neither of these arguments is persuasive enough to discount the emendation. 122
469.275 In Orestes, Euripides stages an inversion of his earlier hostage scene and uses the same phrase to mark the moment of triumph both when Menelaus traps Andromache in
Andromache, but also when Menelaus is trapped by Orestes in Orestes. Orestes conforms to general standards of tragedic hostage scenes, but overturns and inverts the plots and characters of Euripides’ own earlier tragedies, so much so that it is as if they had not occurred at all.
THE COMEDIC TRADITION
Only two scenes in comedy contain hostage scenes, both of which parody the hostage scene in Euripides’ Telephus – Aristophanes’ Acharnians 317-625 and
Thesmophoriazusae 467-764.276 Both plays quote extensively from and rework Euripides’ play using different methods, and the paratragedy achieves different effects in each play.277
Among various other techniques, such as rearranging the elements of the hypotext in the hypertext or parodying different aspects of Euripides’ Telephus, I suggest that
Aristophanes adapts the hostage scenes by adding the distinctive element of ‘charcoal’ to
Acharnians and the distinctive element of ‘incineration’ to Thesmophoriazusae, extending the possibilities of what ‘charcoal’ might portend. Furthermore, I suggest that Euripides reacts to Aristophanes’ addition of incineration to the hostage scene in Thesmophoriazusae by incorporating the same incineration into the hostage scene in Orestes.
275 In the passage from Clouds, the metaphor is reinforced with the use of λαµβάνω, which, like ἔχω, can refer to wrestling (though normally with µέσον, see Poliakoff 1982, 40-53). The same reinforcement with λαµβάνω occurs at Orestes 1617-1618, where Menelaus exclaims, “You’ve got me (ἔχεις µε)!” and Orestes responds, “You captured yourself (σαυτὸν σύ γ᾽ ἔλαβες)!” While the use of a specific metaphor drawn from wrestling adds a greater nuance to understanding the scene, it is not necessary for my argument. 276 For other Aristophanic allusions to Telephus see Knights 813, 1240, Clouds 891, 921-4, Peace 528, and Frogs 855, 860-4 and possibly 1400. 277 See primarily Dobrov 2001, 37-53 and Platter 2007, 143-175. 123
In Acharnians, references to Euripides’ Telephus permeate the play from beginning to end, from line 8 (‘It was worthy of Greece’, ἄξιον γὰρ Ἑλλάδι) to line 1188
(‘He pressed and routed the brigands with his spear’, λῃστὰς ἐλαύνων καὶ
κατασπέρχων δορί). The most concentrated allusions appear in 317-625:278
1) 317-8 - Dicaeopolis offers to speak with his head on a butcher’s block
(ἐπίξενον), a comedic literalization of a metaphor from Telephus fr. 706, where
Telephus says he will speak even if someone were about to strike his neck with an
axe (πέλεκυς).
2) 325-48 - Dicaeopolis takes a charcoal-basket hostage and threatens to kill it,
much like Telephus does to Orestes.
3) 393-479 - Dicaeopolis visits Euripides to obtain Telephus’ rags in order to
heighten his persuasiveness, which derives from appropriating elements of tragedy.
Telephus appears as a beggar in rags in Telephus fr. 697, 698, 702a.279
4) 497-556 – Dicaeopolis speaks in defense of the Spartans with allusions to
Telephus’ speech in Telephus fr. 703, 708, 708a, 709, 710.
5) 577-8 – Dicaeopolis is accused of slander, which corresponds to Telephus fr.
712, 712a.
While most scholars have focused on the similarities between the two plays, it is important also to examine the differences. Minor changes are made by substituting lexical items to fit the genre of comedy; hence, Aristophanes replaces the “leaders of the Greeks” in Telephus with the metatheatrical address to “the spectators” in Acharnians.280 Dobrov has shown how Aristophanes’ scene in Acharnians jumbles the order of operations that
278 This list of concentrated allusions is drawn from Olson 2002, lviii-lix. 279 On the appropriation of Telephus’ rags see Chapter 5. 280 Platter 2007, 157. 124 occurred in Telephus, a parodic method that highlights the arbitrariness of the poetic construction of the original.281 For example, whereas Telephus arrives in his ragged disguise at the beginning of the play, Dicaeopolis gets his rags from Euripides halfway through the allusions to Telephus, which leads to consequences that are perhaps confusing
– Dicaeopolis has not yet put on his rag costume when he takes the charcoal bucket hostage. This process forces the audience to put a scene together actively rather than receiving it as a polished whole.282 Further differences concern the tone of the appropriation, as Platter has noted that when Aristophanes replaces the axe (pelekus) with a butcher’s block (epixenon), the heroic and epic tone of pelekus descends to the prosaic world of the laborer.283
I would add another difference between Acharnians and Telephus, which is important for the development of hostage scenes. In Acharnians, the chorus consists of the old men of Acharnae who are obsessed with charcoal.284 Not only does Aristophanes make
Dicaeopolis take one of their charcoal buckets hostage, he cleverly describes the chorus with adjectives that could equally characterize charcoal just as much as surly and sturdy old men (Acharnians 179-181):
Amphitheus: οἱ δ᾽ ὤσφροντο πρεσβῦταί τινες
Ἀχαρνικοί, στιπτοὶ γέροντες πρίνινοι
ἀτεράµονες Μαραθωνοµάχαι σφενδάµνινοι.
281 Dobrov 2001, 47-50. 282 The extensive reshuffling of dramatic elements in the parody is similar to what occurs in the ‘named’ parodies of Helen, Palamedes, and Andromeda in Thesmophoriazusae, on which see Nieddu 2004, 331-360. 283 Platter 2007, 153-5. 284 On the deme of Acharnae, see Olson 2002, 126 note on 177. On the historical evidence for the business of charcoal and firewood for fuel, see Olson 1991, 411-20. See Chapter 5 for arguments for paracomedy based on the Acharnians’ trait of ‘oldness’ as opposed to their connection with charcoal. 125
Amphitheus: Some elders of Acharnae got wind of them, sturdy geezers,
tough as hardwood, stubborn Marathon fighters, men of maple.
The Acharnians are ‘compressed’ (στίπτοι, 180), ‘made of holm oak’ (πρίνινοι, 180), and ‘made of maple’ (σφενδάµνινοι, 181). Charcoal is by nature compressed, and oak and maple are two types of wood used in making charcoal, but the terms have a double meaning by referring to the sturdy qualities of the old men. Though the chorus fought at the battle of Marathon, it turns out that their heroic exploits were actually just carrying around charcoal (212-213). The Acharnians are given individual names based on charcoal: Μαριλάδη “Son of coal dust” (609), Ἀνθράκυλλος “Little Coal”, Εὐφορίδης
“Son of Good-Carrier”, Πρινίδης “Son of Oak” (612), and the choral ode at 665-675 associates the Acharnians with fire, sparks, and oaken coals. Right after Dicaeopolis begins the allusions to Telephus by offering to put his head on a butcher block (317-8), he speaks about the chorus: “What a dark ember blazed up in you then! (οἷον αὖ µέλας τις ὑµῖν
θυµάλωψ ἐπέζεσεν, 321).”285 The word for ‘ember’ is the very rare word θυµάλωψ, which designates a half-burnt piece of charcoal, perfect for the fiery old men.286 Below I suggest that when this rare word θυµάλωψ re-appears at Thesmophoriazusae 729, it alludes to this passage.
The most memorable connection with charcoal is when Dicaeopolis strikes at the heart of the Acharnian economy by holding hostage the charcoal basket (λάρκος, 333) in the parody of the hostage scene in Telephus. The charcoal basket takes the place of baby
Orestes in Telephus, as evidenced by the chorus leader’s fear that Dicaeopolis has one of
285 See Olson 2002, 161-162 note on 321, for more information on his complex and mixed metaphor. 286 θυµάλωψ cited at Aristophanes’ Acharnians 321 and Thesmophoriazusae 729; Lucian’s Lexiphanes 24; Strattis fr. 58 (cited at Pollux 10.101), Pollux 7.110 and 7.152, and scattered entries in the lexicographers. 126 their children (παιδίον, 329) locked away. The Acharnians cannot bear to see one of their own held hostage, so they acquiesce.287 The hostage scene contains the same elements as in its model Telephus: 1) a hostage is taken (ὅµηροι, 327), 2) who is the child of someone onstage, 3) using a sword (342), though these tragedic elements are further adapted to fit the comic caricature of the anti-peace (182-5, 223-33) Acharnians who are, incidentally, obsessed with the production and transport of charcoal.288
The use of paratragedy in Acharnians is complex and offers different tones and modes of appropriation, and we can detect both negative and positive aspects of the paratragedy. On the negative side, the prosaic language of comedy contaminates the lofty language and subject material of tragedy, as when the commonplace ‘butcher’s block’ replaces the tragedic ‘axe’, highlighting the overblown diction of tragedy.289 Similarly, I argue in Chapter 5 that in Acharnians Aristophanes characterizes the use of rags in tragedy as old-fashioned and overdone pieces of costuming, portraying those costumes as ridiculous. On the positive side, Dicaeopolis appropriates the behavior of Telephus, an extraordinarily effective rhetorical speaker from tragedy, seeking to “defend comedy’s social and political criticism” and to “claim for it the moral authority, literary prestige and latitude that audiences have always given to more pretentious genres.”290 Foley argues that
Aristophanes selected Telephus because the tragedic hero shared a number of similarities
287 Once the coast is clear, Dicaeopolis further references charcoal, describing how some “Parnasian coals (ἄνθρακες) were nearly killed” (348) and that the “basket (λάρκος) has dirtied me with a load of coal dust (µαρίλη)” (350-1). Mt. Parnes, on the border of Acharnae, provided a source for the charcoal. 288 There is no evidence from Acharnians that explicitly states that Dicaeopolis took the charcoal hostage at the altar, though there is no reason to doubt it, as both the model Telephus and Aristophanes’ alternate parody in Thesmophoriazusae (see line 694) use the altar for their hostage scenes. 289 Platter 2007, 162. 290 Foley 1988, 43. 127 with him.291 According to Aristophanes, Cleon, the Athenian demagogue, had recently brought him up on charges for attacking Cleon and slandering the Athenians in his recent play Babylonians (426 BCE). From Aristophanes’ perspective, coopting Telephus’ rhetoric can help justify his position against Cleon. When Telephus, a Greek by birth, drove the
Greeks away from Mysia, and subsequently suffered hostility and slander from his own
Greek countrymen, Telephus argued that his original attack on his countrymen was justified under the circumstances. Similarly, when Aristophanes attacked his countryman
Cleon and allegedly slandered the Athenians in Babylonians, and endured Cleon’s charges of slander, Aristophanes claims that his attack on his countrymen was justified as well.
Even if Cleon’s lawsuit was not an actual historical event, as some scholars have suggested, and Aristophanes concocted the entire account to create a persona of moral indignation at being treated so horribly, the appropriation of Telephus’ rhetoric would still suit his purposes.292
Both positive and negative aspects of paratragedy (and paracomedy) can exist simultaneously as long as they suit the poetic needs and goals of the playwright. By deflating tragedy’s overblown tragedic language, costumes and scenes, Aristophanes implicitly suggests that his own are preferable. Telephus’ rhetoric, praised for its effectiveness, suits the rhetorical needs of Dicaeopolis within the play and Aristophanes outside the play. Even comedy’s overarching positioning as a subservient ‘low’ genre compared to the heights of tragedy satisfies Aristophanes’ goals. When Dicaeopolis proposes, “For comedy too knows about justice” (τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον οἶδε καὶ τρυγῳδία,
291 Foley 1988, 37. 292 Rosen 2010, 232-5, with bibliography, presents an overview of the historicity of the ‘rivalry’ of Cleon and Aristophanes. The problem with interpreting Cleon’s indictment as a historical event is that the only evidence of it comes from within the play itself (Acharnians 377-382, 502-503), and its presence could equally be due to Aristophanes’ persona. 128
500), tragedy is the implied comparison based on inclusion of the word ‘too’ and the fact that the word for ‘comedy’ (τρυγῳδία) is created off of the word for ‘tragedy’
(τραγῳδία). Yet this ‘low’ positioning also allows Aristophanes to criticize others with impunity (as his genre is ‘low’ and is allowed to do so) and not be criticized in return (since if he were criticized, he could claim that he was only joking).293 Comedy does not need to have a uniform relationship with tragedy, whereby tragedy is always ridiculous for its pomposity or always exemplary for its quality and merit. Indeed, we cannot pinpoint how
Aristophanes actually feels about tragedy; rather, the audience must sort through the myriad ways Aristophanes presents tragedy.
In contrast with the mixed-tone portrayal of tragedy in Acharnians, Aristophanes implements a thoroughly negative attack on individual tragedies in Thesmophoriazusae.294
In addition to the ‘named’ parodies of Helen, Palamedes, and Andromeda, he includes an unnamed but obvious parody of Telephus. In Thesmophoriazusae, the parody of the hostage scene in Telephus serves as but one element in a complex system of paratragedy in the play.
Platter has argued that the parody of Telephus in Thesmophoriazusae must be read both against Euripides’ play and Aristophanes’ earlier parody in Acharnians, engaging in a ‘double dialogism’.295 Aristophanes begins the Telephus parody with the same material covered in the Acharnians – the intruder pleading a rhetorical defense speech (467-519), the intruder’s identity being discovered (635), the chorus frantically
293 Bakhtin’s notion of ‘carnival’ genres provides a theoretical framework for understanding comedy’s positioning as a ‘low’ genre, on which see Platter 2007, 1-28. ‘High’ vs. ‘low’ genres is one model of understanding comedy, yet see the various approaches to genre in comedy in Bakola, Prauscello and Telò 2013. 294 See Chapter 5 for the arguments that the escalated negative tone in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae serves as a response to the paracomedy in Euripides’ Helen. 295 Platter 2007, 162-175. 129 searching for the intruder (663-687), and the hostage scene (688-764). In comparison with the order of events in Telephus or even the re-ordered sequence of events in Acharnians noted above, Thesmophoriazusae shuffles the material even further – after the Kinsman’s identity is discovered at 635, the chorus begins a search for “any other man” that might be there as well, even though they have already caught him.296 The re-organization of tragedic material is standard fare for Aristophanes’ parodies (as the parody in Acharnians discussed above uses the same tricks), and thus it aligns well with audience expectations.
While such re-shuffling does engage in double dialogism, more attention must be paid to what precisely is different about the parody in Thesmophoriazusae.
I suggest that the double dialogism in the hostage scene in Thesmophoriazusae is best understood as Aristophanes evoking his earlier presentation of the hostage scene in
Acharnians and innovating away from it by adding a new element of ‘incinerating the hostages’ to the tradition of hostage scenes. Aristophanes does this in three ways: 1) at
Thesmophoriazusae 724 he uses a bit of standard Euripidean metapoetic coding in the form of the word µεταβάλλω ‘to change’, 2) at Thesmophoriazusae 729 he uses the word
θυµάλωψ ‘half-burnt piece of charcoal’, which I argue alludes directly to Acharnians, and
3) at Thesmophoriazusae 730, he adds ὕφαπτε καὶ κάταιθε ‘light me up and burn me down’, the new addition to the hostage scene where he threatens to incinerate the hostage.
The word µεταβάλλω ‘to change’, I argue, represents a form of dramatic metapoetics. Torrance has shown that Euripides utilizes the related nominal form
µεταβολή ‘change’ to signal a new plot direction (Bacchae 1266-7, Iphigenia among the
Taurians 719-22, Iphigenia in Aulis 500 and 1101, Trojan Women 615, Heracles 735,
296 On Acharnians shuffling elements from Telephus, see Dobrov 2001, 47. 130
Orestes 233-4, Auge fr.272a).297 By using this trigger word, Euripides is prefiguring
Aristotle’s definition of a reversal (περιπέτεια) as a ‘change (µεταβολή) to the opposite of actions being performed” (Poetics 1452a22-6). Whereas some of Euripides’ usages appear in the context of a recognition of a terrible truth, as for example in Bacchae 1266-7 when
Agave realizes she is holding the severed head of her son rather than a lion, others more generally conform to a new plot movement, as when the chorus describes Heracles’ murder of Lycus as a ‘change (µεταβολά) of evils’ at Heracles 735, hinting at Heracles’ future downfall and marking the point of transition to a new plot device, the arrival of Iris and Lyssa.298 Still others draw audience attention to both plot structure and other authors’ use of poetics, as when Electra asks Orestes (Orestes 233-4):
Electra: ἦ κἀπὶ γαίας ἁρµόσαι πόδας θέλεις,