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The So-called Kommos in Greek Tragedy

F. M. Cornford

The Classical Review / Volume 27 / Issue 02 / March 1913, pp 41 - 45 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00004509, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00004509

How to cite this article: F. M. Cornford (1913). The So-called Kommos in Greek Tragedy. The Classical Review, 27, pp 41-45 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00004509

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MARCH; 1918

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

THE SO-CALLED KOMMOS IN GREEK TRAGEDY.

THE choric part of Tragedy is classified X»pov ical airo drama extant Tragedy many passages which that the authenticity of the whole chap- are amoebaean, but are not dprjvoi.; to ter has been seriously suspected. We these the name ' Kommos' is inapplicable. find, however, later grammarians adopt- There are also songs of lamentation ing (with modifications) the definitions which are not amoebaean, but sung by it contains; and it seems probable that the actors only or by the chorus only; the chapter was written by an early to these the name ' Kommos' is suitable, Peripatetic, if not by Aristotle himself. but not the definition in the Poetics.2 But, if we take it as genuine, we must There are obvious objections to using a also accept the view endorsed by Prof. term which means ' lamentation' to Bywater, that ' the general assumption include passages which are not lamenta- in the Poetics is the theatre as it was tions at all, and to exclude passages in the middle of the fourth century' which are lamentations, but do not (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, 1909, satisfy the other part of the definition. p. 206), and take all the definitions in I am not, however, merely quarrelling the chapter as applicable to Tragedy at with the misuse of a technical term. In that date, but not necessarily to fifth- this name 'Kommos' and its literal mean- century drama. This view would, per- ing, scholars have found support for haps, be generally admitted to be theories which hold not only that the reasonable. What is certain, in any case, is that the definitions, taken as a 1 Faithful to Aristotle, Westphal insists on whole, will not fit our three tragedians. both parts of the definition, and refuses to recognise more than four Kotnmoi in Aeschylus' But, clear as this conclusion is, the extant plays {Proleg. 2. Aesck. Trag. 18) ; but term ' Kommos' (with which alone this other scholars are not so scrupulous. paper is concerned) is universally used 2 Thus the first chorikon (purely choral) of by scholars to designate those passages the Choephori is a Threnos, and moreover accompanied by rh norrrea-Bai, 1. 23 o£i>xeipi oivurSophocles or Euripides et il finit par etre employe des qu'une emo- would have used the name ' Kommos' to tion violente s'emparait des acteurs ou des describe the passages now so labelled choreutes: la nature de cette emotion pott- in their plays. We have no evidence vait Ure tres variee. Desespoir, tristesse, for its use as a term of dramatic tech- angoisse, sollicitude inquiete, passion tumul- nique before the middle of the fourth tueuse. . . .' Some similar statement century.1 At its first appearance in the will be found in most handbooks on the Poetics it is denned in a way that pre- Drama.4 sumably applies to contemporary drama, The current view is, then, that amoe- but certainly does not fit our three trage- baean composition was extended from dians. We are clearly bound to look Threnoi to other violent emotions—a further into the facts before we use the view depending entirely on the suppo- meaning of this term to support any sition that the amoebaean passages now theory as to the origins of Tragedy. labelled ' Kommoi' were so called in the We have to consider three classes of fifth century. Our only means of check- passages in fifth-century drama: ing this conjecture is to examine all the (1) Amoebaean passages which are extant Kommoi, to see if this extension Threnoi, and so satisfy both the meaning can be traced. If the view were true, and the definition of' Kommos.' we ought to find in the earliest tragedies (2) Amoebaean passages which are amoebaean composition solely or chiefly not Threnoi, and so satisfy neither the used for Threnoi, in the later tragedies meaning nor the definition. more such compositions expressing other (3) Threnoi which are not amoebaean, emotions and fewer of them restricted and so satisfy the meaning, but not the to Threnoi. The following table proves definition. that the actual case is exactly the re- verse. It shows all the passages classed The practice of scholars is to use the 6 term 'Kommos' to denote classes (1) as Kommoi in Masqueray's index (op. and (2), excluding (3). They regard, in 3 fact, amoebaean composition as the true ' UitymologiedumotestdonneeparEschyle, Choiphores, 423 : cKoyjra Koppov.' test of a Kommos, neglecting that part 4 E.g., Christ-Schmid, Griech. Literaturgesch. of the definition which asserts that it is (1908) i. 263 : ' Der Tragodie besonders eigen a Threnos. The practice is commonly waren die Klagegesange, no/ipol genannt von justified in the only possible way by der bei Totenklagen iiblichen Sitte, sich die Brust zu zerschlagen.' H. Weil, Eludes sur le the conjecture that ' the Kommos' was drame antique, p. 5 : ' Tout porte a croire que originally an amoebaean Threnos, but la lamentation etait un Element constitutif de subsequently the amoebaean form of la trage"die primitive. On trouve partout dans composition was extended by the drama- Eschyle ce chant lugubre. . . . Plus tard, sans tists from lamentations (to which this doute, l'antique lamentation ne revient pas dans toutes les pieces . . . mais le terme qui de"sig- form was appropriate in ordinary life) nait ces lamentations, le nom de KO^OS, reste to cases where any violent emotion had attache a tous les dialogues lyriques entre le to be expressed. Thus Masqueray, who' choeur et les acteurs, et temoigne du caractere has made a special study of the lyric originel de ces morceaux.' Nilsson, in his 2 admirable paper, 'Der Ursprung der Tragodie,' forms in Greek Tragedy, remarks : Le N. Jahrb. xxvii. (1911) 625, after pointing out Commos est un threne, c'est-d-dire un chant that there are lamentations in Homer over still de deuil. Aristote les confond ensemble. living heroes, continues : ' Die Tragodie hat also keine Neuerung eingefuhrt, als sie den 1 The phrase eKw\ra nofifiov "Apiov in Aesch. Kommos in jeder grossen Gefahr und Angst Choeph. 422 is, of course, no evidence for a anstimmen Hess, auch wenn es sich nicht um technical use of the term. einen Toten handelte.' 2 Thdorie des formes lyriques de la Tragedie 5 The Cyclops is, of course, omitted, and grecque. Paris, 1893, p. 17. also the Alcestis, which is not a tragedy. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 43 'KOMMOP IN EXTANT TRAGEDY. S0PH0CLES-«»«K««r.

AESCHYLUS. Prevailing Emotion or Prevailing Situation. Emotion 1 or Situation. Oedipus at 510 Oedipus recounts his Complaint Kolonos misfortunes 833) Oedipus, Kreon, and Expostulation Supplices 347 Chorus and King Entreaty 876 / Chorus 734 Danaos and Chorus Terror 1447 Oedipus, Antigone, Anxiety and 836 Herald threatening Terror and Sup- and Chorus Fear Chorus plication 1670 Antigone, Ismene, and Threnos Chorus Persae 256 Messenger announces Quasi-Threnos defeat: Chorus wail 694 Chorus and Ghost of Awe TOTALS 2 Threnoi Dareios 3 quasi - Threnoi after 922 Xerxes and Chorus Threnos death announced Septem 203 Eteocles and Chorus Terror and 1 dialogue during murder terrified at sounds Prayer 5 Complaints of war 4 other emotions 686 Eteocles and Chorus Expostulation T and Entreaty 5 874 Antigone, Ismene, Threnos and Chorus EURIPIDES. Prometheus 1 1040 Prometheus, Hermes, Defiance and and Chorus Threats Medea NO KOfXflOS Agamemnon 1072 Chorus and Cassandra Complaint foreboding Aga- Andromache 1197 Threnos memnon'sdeathand Herakleidae No KO/tfufc her own 1448 Clytaemnestra: Imperfect Hippolytos 569 Phaedra and Chorus Complaint Chorus lamenting Threnos 81 T Theseus over Phae- Threnos dra's body Ckoephori Quasi- Threnos 306 Orestes and Electra Hecuba 684 Hecuba over Poly- Threnos invoke Agam. dor us Eumenides 916 Athena and recon- Joyful recon- ciled Eumenides ciliation ! Herakles 887 Amphitryon during Quasi- Threnos murder of chilnren: messenger an* nounces it TOTALS 3 Threnoi (1 imperfect) 1042 Amphitryon laments Complaint (or 2 quasi- Threnoi 1 Complaint over Herakles quasi - Thre- 7 [81 other emotions (1 joy- nos ?) — ful) Ion 746 Chorus tell the oracle Agitation, grief, 13 [Ml etc. Supplices 794 Adrastos and Chorus Threnos 1072 Iphis and Chorus Complaint 1114 Children and Chorus SOPHOCLES. Threnos Troades 1216 Hecuba and Chorus Threnos 1287 Lament for Troy and Quasi- Threnos Prevailing Priam Emotion Electra 1177 Electra and Orestes Complaint (or or Situation. after murder of Cly* quasi - Thre- taemnestra, lament nos?) their own sin, etc Ajax 201 Tekmessa tells Chorus Grief and Fear Helena 330 Helen Complaint of madness of Ajax iphigeneia 643 Chorus condole with Quasi-Com- 348 Ajax bewails his Complaint in Taurts Orestes plaint and shame Condolence 879 T ekmessa announces Quasi- Threnos Phoenissae 1340 Kreon, messenger, Quasi- Threnos death of Ajax and Chorus: an- Antigone 806 Antigone bewails her Complaint nouncement of i own death death 1261 Kreon over the body Tkrenos of Haemon Orestes 1246 Electra and Chorus Dialogue during during murder murder. Electra 823 Electra after news of Quasi- Threnos T Orestes' death Iphigeneia 475 Iphigeneia bewails her Complaint 1398 Electra and Chorus Dialogue dur- at Aulis own death during murder of ing and after Bacchae 576 Dionysos and Chorus Bacchic enthu- Clytaemnestra murder during earthquake siasm (whose cries are 1031 Messenger announces Inverted heard): Orestes and death of Pentheus: Threnos Pylades announce Chorus exult the murder 1168 Agave with head of Inverted Oedipus Rex 649 Chorus and Oedipus ; Entreaty Pentheus Threnos Chorus and Jocasta Rhesus No KOfXfJ.O'S I313 Oedipus bewails his Complaint blindness Trachtniae 879 Nurse announces Quasi- Threnos TOTALS 8 Threnoi (2 inverted) Deianeira's death 3 quasi- Threnoi 7 Complaints (1 quasi- Pktloctetes 1081 Philoctetes bewails Complaint the loss of the bow Complaint; 2 quasi- Tkrenoif) x dialogue during murder 1 The final anapaests of the Prvmethivs, a play whose whole 2 other emotions structure is unlike the other Aeschylean plays, ought not perhaps to be called a ' Kommos,' though the Chorus take part. 21 44 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW cit., p. 307 ff.), with a short statement position was gradually extended from of the prevailing emotion or occasion. Threnoi to other violent emotions. I use (1) Threnos to denote a regular I am led to the following conclu- lamentation over the actual death of sions : some person in the play (including cases 1. The author of Poetics 12 is defin- such as the final ' Kommos' of Xerxes ing in ' Kommos' a term which belongs and the Chorus in the Persae); (2) quasi- to the theatre of the fourth century and Threnos, for lamentations commemora- to a date at which the tendency to limit tive of a death that has occurred some amoebaean composition to Threnoi had time before1 (e.g. the mourning of gone so far that the two were prac- Electra and Orestes at Agamemnon's tically or absolutely coextensive. The tomb in the Choephori), and passages choice of the word KO/X/XOS was probably where a death which has occurred off the dictated by the fact that dp?ivo<; already stage is announced; (3) Complaint, where denoted a particular class of lyric com- some character bewails his past troubles position and was therefore better avoided or future death. In this last case Opfjvos for this purpose.3 has only a metaphorical application.2 2. It is extremely unlikely that Aes- This evidence tends to show that, so chylus used the term /cop/ios to denote far from amoebaean composition being amoebaean passages, only a small pro- extended from Threnoi to other emo- portion of which were in any sense tions, it was used most freely by lamentations. We have also no reason Aeschylus for any strong emotion likely to think that either Sophocles or Euri- to occur in Tragedy, including joy. pides used the term, or indeed that it Less than half of his ' Komtnoi' are in was current as a technical theatrical any sense lamentations. In Sophocles term in the great period of Tragedy. the proportion is about two-thirds. In 3. No argument based on the mean- Euripides 18 out of 21 ' Komtnoi' are ing of the word ' Kommos ' can lend the lamentations; only 3 instances being slightest support to any theory which left for other emotions. Of these three, holds that Tragedy was originally a one (in the Orestes) is a dialogue during lamentation for a dead god or man. a murder off the stage, and so closely 4. If it is true that we may see in the connected with a death; another is in amoebaean passages the original kernel our only Dionysiac play, the Bacchae, of Tragedy, there is no reason to identify which in other respects too is excep- this with a Threnos. Amoebaean com- tional, containing as it does two 'in- position is a type of composition that verted Threnoi,' where the emotion is is not restricted to Threnoi, but naturally one of exultation, instead of mourning. arises wherever a single performer has The remaining instance is in a com- a distinct part in alternation with a paratively early play, the Ion. Though chorus. The technical term for such a statistics based on the small selection performer is ifjdpxav, 'leader.' There of plays which survive are liable to error, the evidence seems to me strong 3 Tzetzes, n. Tpay. nou\a. 64, distinguishes enough to refute the conjecture—for it between Ko/j.p.6s and Bpfjvos: is nothing more—that amoebaean com- OSTOS 8' 6 KOjxp.6i TOV x»pov T(XS>v jxipos vwOKpirdis ?jv as wo\v ovvTjypcvos- KOfifios 8e 9pr)vov 7revSiK0T€pov 7rXeoi/, o dpfjvos itrri 8' ^pe/xtoxepoi/ pipos. 1 If we follow Proclus (p. 321a B.), these, He then quotes Aristotle's definition : cases will count as Spijvoi, for, in contrast with TO eiriKrjSeiov^the lament over the body before Kopfibv waXiu aXXos 8c ns dprjvov Aeyo burial, 6 dptjuos ov Trepiypdfperai xpovtf. Eustath. noivbv x°pov o~Kt)vi)s re Tvyx&veiv \tya>v, on Od. 1673 limits dprjvos to a lamentation at Kai TaKXa Tavrd * Tl nXarvvofiep \6yovs ; the burial or at the annual festival of com- From Eukleides' list of the parts of Tragedy memoration (TTpo Ta | i/ibv TOV avrrjs. which presumably means ' in bits' () THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 45 is an exarchon in the round dance on in Tragedy are probably survivals of the Shield of Achilles (II. xviii. 606 a form of dithyramb which existed .fioKirrji; iljdpxovTos); in the Marching before ' Tragedy' took the shape we Paean sung by the Spartan king and know, and of which we may have his army (Plut. Lye. 22 ana $e egrjpxev another survival in the dialogue Dithy- (o ySactXeu?) ififiarripiov iraiavos) ; in ramb of Bacclylides (xvii). the Song of Archilochos, led by the Modern scholars would, I think, be Olympic victor at the head of the «&>/*<>? well advised to give up calling amoe- of his companions;x and finally in baean passages in fifth-century drama the Dithyramb, from whose if-dpxovTe<; by the name ' Kommoi.' Aristotle says that Tragedy arose F. M. CORNFORD. (Poet. 4).2 The amoebaean passages Cambridge, November, 1912.

1 Pind. 01. IX. I TO uiv 'Ap^iXd^ov /«Xoy . . . means by i£dpx<*v the ' poet-composer,' and Spxecre Kpoviov Trap' o^dov &yep,ovevcrai Kco/iafowTt that 'egdpxeiv SiSvpapfiov is practically a 0iXoit 'EV (pikav, airros rrjswas a distinct part performed by a ' leader' or abijs efyiyoipfvos. See J. E. Harrison, Themis leaders, not that it arose from a form which (1912), p. 256. (like other forms of poetry) had a ' poet-com- a I cannot agree with Prof. Bywater's note poser.' For the igdpxw cf. E. Reisch, Zur on this passage (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, Vorgeschichte d. att. Tragodie in Festschr. f. 1909, p. 134), where he1 says that Aristotle Th. Gomperz, 1902, p. 451 ff.

THE DRAGGING OF HECTOR.

VIRGIL says that Achilles— indeed most doubtful if in the original ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros, legend of the tale of Troy the city did fall—if its magic seal, lepa KprfSe/iva, was and such was the tradition known to ever broken!1 Euripides (Andromache, v. 107). As we On the other hand, the triple encom- know, Homer makes Achilles chase the passment of a corpse or a tomb is a living Hector thrice round the walls, and world-wide rite. It is no use my citing dragthe corpse to the Grecian camp, sub- instances,2 and this is not the place for sequently dragging it thrice round the a discussion of its meaning. The drag- tomb of Patroclus each day for three ging round the tomb is then, it would days. The triple dragging round the seem, the original version; but whence walls, the triple chasing round the walls, the dragging round the walls, and the the triple dragging round the tomb—all chasing round the walls ? The former three evidently are not each of inde- would seem to be a brutal variant of the pendent origin, and we have to inquire dragging round the tomb. The body of which is likely to be the original. Hector (and in the original version it Recalling the sevenfold encompass- was before death) would thus pass im- ment of Jericho, I thought it might be mediately under the eyes of his wife possible to find some evidence that the triple chasing round the walls was a magic act which would break the spell 1 From the use of the word Xu«i» I think the metaphor in lepa xp^Se/xva \va>jiev is taken front of Troy's inexpugnability, but the best the seal of a jar. Kpr^bfjiva (from