Euripides and His Extant Plays 2009026

2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 93.

!"#$ $%#&&

EURIPIDES AND HIS EXTANT PLAYS 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 94. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 95.

NEW MUSIC’S GALLERY OF IMAGES: THE “DITHYRAMBIC” FIRST STASIMON

OF EURIPIDES’ ELECTRA CF. TOC: “DI..” OR ‘DI..’ ?

E#'( C)"!*

Walther Kranz categorised the +rst stasimon of Euripides’ Electra as “dithyrambic.” In form he described dithyrambic odes as “self-contained ballad-like narratives.” In style and content he dismissed them as gaudy, light-weight, irrelevant and illogical, symptomatic of Euripides’ servile infatuation with the popular “New Music,”a display of merely super+cial and technical virtuosity (esp. : ). Some of Kranz’ followers were still more dismissive: Alt counselled readers to despair of any attempt to +nd “a logical sequence of thought” in Electra’s +rst stasimon (: ). Barlow dubbed Electra’s +rst stasimon “the classic case of pictorial irrelevance,”one “hardly justi+ed in terms of dramatic integration” (: ). 5etaleElectra’s +rst stasimon tells is indeed desultory: it begins abruptly, ends abruptly, and contains abrupt transitions. Connections in thought are at best implicit, at worst di6use and tenuous: its sequences are characterized as “leaps”; even the connection between ode and dramatic context is negatively characterised as an “escape.” It is, however, misguided to complain, like Kranz or Alt, about the ode’s “logic,” as if Euripides tried (or should have tried) but failed to imitate the rhetorical architecture of a Sophoclean ode. 5is is poetry of a di6erent stamp. It was Martin Cropp’s two-page introduction to this ode (: – ) that +rst induced me to study Euripides’ “New Musical” verse.1 Mar- tin showed me that Electra’s stasima are not “self-contained,”not “ballad- like,” and, indeed, not exactly “narratives.” Rather, they are, in Martin’s words, “a series of pictures” that speak less through logical connection than through the shi7ing “tones,”and “undertones” they provoke (Cropp : ). But for all that, they are not void of intellectual content— quite the contrary. Euripides’ pictures are o7en sketched in with the briefest, sometimes the most allusive of details. 5ey “rely on poetic and

1 I prefer to call the style “New Musical,”rather than “dithyrambic,”though dithyramb played a very large part in de+ning the style: see Csapo , Csapo , Csapo . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 96.

 &#'( ()"!*

iconographic traditions to supplement and give depth to the essential details provided by his sketches” (Cropp : ). 5ey are in words what a triglyph and metope frieze is in images, isolated details of cyclic narrative that challenge the viewer to recognise and supply the myths or themes that connect them to one another, and to the broader scheme of the work of which they form part. Despite Kranz, Alt, Barlow and others, the images are linked not only to each other, but to the rest of the drama “intimately” through “thematic motifs, mythical connotations and imagery” (Cropp : ). In this tribute to a brilliant and inspiring scholar, I explore three aspects of Euripides’ New Musical verse. In section one I describe the shape of the New Musical stasima in Euripides’ Electra. 5e +rst and second stasima share the same pattern: an “escape” to a distant and untrou- bled world of fancy and a gradual but de+nite return to the troubles of the play’s here and now. In section two I show how the series of pictures described by the chorus in the +rst stasimon is patterned to reveal the very anxiety which their “escape” would suppress. In particular I show how the emerging image patterns “ominously transform images from earlier in the poem” (Cropp : ). 5e return to the play’s grim reality is thus not nearly as late or abrupt as generally claimed. In section three I show how ambiguities in the poem’s language reinforce ambiguities in the images and allow the chorus’ anxieties to emerge, as it were, subliminally and despite itself. In a brief conclusion, I urge that the gallery of images in the Electra is best understood in the context of New Music’s attempt to create a more musical verse. Above all it is an experiment in making language seem more sensual, 9uid and voluble.

. !eShapeofEscape

Electra’s +rst and second stasima share the same form.2 5ey are in fact programmatically linked, but I will con+ne discussion of the second stasimon to this section of the essay. Both odes begin by evoking a gentle land- or seascape, far removed in time and space, +lled with benign creatures, music, dance and brightness. Roughly halfway through each of the odes there is an arresting turn. It marks the point at which the

2 Because of space constraints I regret my inability to provide my own text or translations of Electra – and –. 5e most important textual variants are discussed below. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 97.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

chorus’ thoughts gradually return from the bright idyll, by way of an increasingly sinister succession of images, to the deeply troubled present of the dramatic action. 5is movement has long been noticed for Electra’s +rst stasimon.3 5e mood changes as we pass from dancing Nereids and dolphins, to the dark horrors depicted on the shield of Achilles. It creeps up on one. Walsh described it as a “rhetorical progression from the remote to the immediate” (: ). It is less rhetorical, however, than visual and emotive—e6ected as Martin said, through a series of images, with cumulatively “disturbing undertones” (Cropp : ). In the second stasimon we pass from the bright idyll of Pan and his 9ocks in the +rst strophic pair to the sinister story of the rivalry of Atreus and 5yestes and its consequences in the second. 5is change too is e6ected by a series of images: the chorus identi+es these as !"#ερ"& µ'("ι (“frightening stories” –), just as in the +rst stasimon the sinister images are described as σ+µατα δε/µατα “signs fears” (). Bornmann has noted that in Euripidean lyric musical images o7en form the +rst term of an antithesis whose second term is bloodshed, horror, and grief (: –). 5egradualnatureofthetransitionnotwithstanding,onecandis- cern at the centre of each song, towards the end of the +rst strophic pair, a “pivotal” point at which the change in mood is most obvious. In the +rst stasimon it is at the ominous word 0Ατρε/δαις “for the Atrei- dae” ().4 Achilles is said to have been educated/nourished “for the Atreidae.” In what sense? 5e primary implication of the words is that Achilles has been trained as a war machine for the Atreidae’s battles. But beneath the ambiguity of the word τρ3!εν “educated/nourished” perhaps lies a suggestion that Achilles, who will die at Troy +ghting “for the Atreidae,” is like a lamb being fattened for the slaughter.5 5eword 0Ατρε/δαις is followed by the stasimon’s major shi7 in rhythm as well as mood. In the second stasimon the poem pivots at the sound of a name that causes heaven itself to turn. In the +rst antistrophe, when the chorus sings of the altars burning, the pipes playing and a chorus’ “lovely songs

3 O’Brien : ;Morwood; Cropp : . 4 Neitzel :  comments on the emphatic position “als ob Achill . . . nur für die Atriden da wäre.” 5 Compare Eur. IA  a similarly ominous ambiguity of τρα!ε5σαν used of Iphige- nia compared to a sacri+cial heifer. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 98.

 &#'( ()"!*

swelling, a +nale for the golden lamb . . .,” we expect to hear that the lamb is the lamb “of Atreus.” Instead, we hear, that the songs are “for the golden lamb / Θυ3στ"υ”—“OF THYESTES!”—a surprising prolepsis as the verse turns in enjambment (–).6 “For a7er seducing the wedded wife of Atreus with concealed intercourse he takes the prodigy away to his palace; coming to the town centre he announces that he holds the horned gold-9eeced lamb at home” (–). In both stasima the turning points of the narrative imitate and are imitated by the divisions of the song’s formal structure. In both odes the sinister turn is marked by a proper noun—“for the Atreidae,” “of 5yestes”—words hinting at the tragic recognition of a suppressed truth. 5e odes share another signi+cant structural articulation. 5eformof the second stasimon is a more classic example of a Sophoclean and early Euripidean type that Kranz described as an ode of two strophic pairs in which the antistrophe of the second pair is a brief connecting passage in which the chorus turns its thoughts to itself, the actors or both (: –). 5e chorus breaks o6 its description of the turning of the heavens, claims not to believe that the heavens would change their course “because of human misery, on account of a mortal rights-dispute” (– ) and concludes that “these are frightening tales useful for promoting worship of the gods, which [gods? tales?] you did not think of, sibling of famous brothers, when you killed your husband” (–). In the +rst stasimon this second turning point—or point of return—appears in the epode. At the end of the description of Achilles’ armour, the chorus also turn their thoughts to the Tyndarid (we will examine this passage in more detail later). Both odes share a structure: an initial escape into an idyllic realm pop- ulated by pleasant landscapes and gentle creatures, a turn to cumulatively gloomier and more threatening images, and +nally, through an apostrophe to the absent Clytemnestra, a +nal return to the drama’s grim reality of murder and revenge. Odes of this type are generally referred to as “escape odes.” But the term is in part misleading. Mastronarde notes that in Euripides, where such odes are especially common, the return to the here and now usually only occurs “a7er three quarters or two- thirds of the song have passed and very rarely before the +rst half has been completed.” 5e lateness of the returns, argues Mastronarde, make Euripides’ chorus seem “to be more aloof or approaching the point from

6 Exhaustive syntactic analysis of this e6ect in Panagl : –. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 99.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

a more circuitous route” and, thereby, to dampen “the sense of anticipation, foreboding, fear and worry”; indeed the whole structure of the escape ode, according to Mastronarde, is designed to “dissipate intense emotional involvement” (: , ). I wonder if the teasing tardiness of the return does not rather deepen anticipation, foreboding, fear and worry. In the case of the Electra stasima, at least, I would argue that the odes articulate the chorus’ wish to escape but demonstrate a very decided failure to do so. Martin’s commentary on the +rst stasimon stresses the gradualness of this return even if the chorus only really arrive “a7er three quarters or two-thirds of the song have passed.” Not only do the images of the entire second strophic pair o6er, as Martin says, “disturbing undertones” but “some features of the armour ominously transform images from earlier in the poem” so that in retrospect the escape attempt begins to fail from the start (: –). Despite the e6ort to distance itself from the action, the chorus’ anxieties come gradually but irrepressibly back into focus.

. Shi(ing Tones

Scholarship on Electra’s +rst stasimon has concentrated almost exclu- sively upon the basic contrast between gentle creatures in the +rst half of the ode and monsters in the second. In this section I wish to dis- cuss three iconographic patterns, which contribute, I believe, to the sinister e6ect created by the images evoked by the chorus’ description the armour of Achilles, as well as that retrospective process by which “features of the armour ominously transform images from earlier in the poem.” 5e images on Achilles’ shield and helmet are among the most popular mythological pursuit scenes in Greek art. More signi+cantly, unlike the images described in Homer’s shield of Achilles, pseudo-Hesiod’s shield of Heracles, or Aeschylus’ Seven Against !ebes,thedescriptionofthe arms of Achilles employs images drawn from the standard repertoire of devices found on real weaponry.7 5e gorgon, a sunburst, stars, a sphinx (especially with a youth in her claws), Pegasus, the chimaera, and the lion (as the chimaera is called in the ode) are all very well represented in art,

7 On the purely “literary” nature of (most of) the literary shields before Electra, cf. Spier : . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 100.

 &#'( ()"!*

and are particularly common as blazons on real armaments.8 Indeed, the ode’s descriptions, like the emblems on armaments, focus on abstracted, isolated mythological characters, not groups. 5ey also, like the emblems on armaments, focus on mythological creatures not as characters in a narrative, but as symbols, particularly apotropaic symbols: the Gorgon, the choruses of catasterised maidens (Pleiades and Hyades), the sphinxes and the Chimaera. In the myth-complex evoked by each image, the male participants are sidelined or conspicuously absent (like Orestes in Electra’s and the chorus’ eyes).9 5e abstract images concentrate upon the female characters. 5ree are female monsters, famous man-killers who are the victims of young heroes, for the most part, omitted from the descriptions. 5eplay a7er all deals with a young hero’s pursuit of a woman who is identi+ed as a man-killing monster and explicitly likened both to the Gorgon and to a female “lion.”10 In this series of female monsters the dancing choruses of Pleiades and Hyades appear out of place. 5e maidens are indeed “brighter” but no less apotropaic in function than the monsters. Of this the ode leaves no doubt: the sun and choruses of stars in the centre of Achilles’ shield are speci+cally described as tropaioi for the eyes of Hector (–). 5is threatening, deadly quality of the emblems lends the series a kind of coherence. But the star choruses, Pleiades and Hyades, add to the undertone of death and disaster in another way. In myth these were

8 Gorgon: Chase : –; Beazley : –; Krauskopf and Dahlinger : –, nos. –; Spier : , –; Powell : –; Hainsworth ad Il. .; West : . Perseus and Medusa: Roccos : –, nos. , , . Sun: Schauenburg : –. Stars: Chase : –; Eisler : , ; Simon : ; Yalouris : –; Hardie ; Steinhart : . Sphinx: ARV2 .; Chase : ; Boardman : ; Spier : . Pegasus: Chase : ; Beazley : –, : . Chimaera: Beazley : ; Jacquemin :  and nos. , –, , . Pegasus and Chimaera: Jacquemin : no. ; Clairmont : ; Malibu .AA. (Boeotian grave stele of Athanasius). Lion: Chase : –. Some of the emblems described here, and in other late +7h century literature, may not have been much used as devices in actual armour a7er the middle of the +7h century (Beazley : ; Spier : ). 5ey were, nonetheless, well known through the medium of art, dedications, and heirlooms, and we may suppose that these devices had archaic and heroic associations to the late +7h-century mind. 9 Perseus is in fact the only male hero who is mentioned at all, all the others (Phae- thon, Oedipus, and Bellerophon) are merely alluded to (for Phaethon see below). But even the mention of Perseus evokes the common iconographic schema where Medusa, frontal and centre, is 9anked by Perseus on one side, and his divine assistant on the other. 10 See Cropp :  with further literature. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 101.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

maidens catasterised when grieving for dead male relatives, much like the Heliades, to whom the adjective phaethon “gleaming” may allude in the description of the sun on his chariot, since they too grieved for their brother, Phaethon, fallen from the chariot of the sun.11 5ree ominously grieving choruses and three ominously dead male relatives form part of “the poetic and iconographic traditions” upon which Euripides relied “to supplement and give depth to the essential details provided by his sketches.”12 All three choruses re9ect back on the chorus of the play, vainly trying to forget its grief, and the danger to the male relative for whom Electra and the chorus pine. 5ese mourning female choruses evoke a second use shared by the series of images on Achilles’ arms. 5e ode’s creatures are commonplaces of funereal iconography, where they appear as abstract symbols, as in the ode and as on armaments. Sphinx, gorgon, Pegasus, and lion hover just above degree zero of mythological narrativity.13 5eevocationof a lion e6ects a smooth transition to the lord of “such heroes” killed by the Tyndarid: lions were the usual marker for the communal tombs (polyandria) of men killed in battle.14 5e apotropaic and funereal associations of the beasts in the second strophic pair do much to explain how the imagery accumulates enough foreboding to foil the chorus’ “escape” from the action of the play. But the apotropaic and funerary associations are also shared by the creatures of the +rst half of the ode: for dolphins and Nereids on dolphins

11 Deniston  ad loc.: “Perhaps with some thought of Phaethon”; Mulryne : : “the Greek . . . does not employ the proper name Phaethon, yet the association could scarcely fail to be in the audience’s mind.” 5e metamorphosis of the chorus of daughters of the sun was descripted at the end of Aeschylus’ Heliades (TrGF F –a) and was also mentioned in Euripides’ Phaethon (Diggle : –). For the Pleiades and Hyades, see Aesch. TrGF ;Eur.Erechtheus TrGF F .–, ; Austin : –, . Cf. Zeitlin : –. 12 Cropp :  (see above). 13 Sphinx: Lesky : ; Friis-Johansen : , , , , , –, ; Luschey ; Richter : , , ; Kurtz and Boardman : –, , , , , –, ; Moret : –; Williams : –; Clairmont : vol. , nos. , , ., ., ., ., ., ., vol. , nos. ., .b, .d, ., ., vol. , nos. ., ., .;Ho6mann . Gorgon: Friis-Johansen : –; Richter : ;Ho6mann . Pegasus: Lochin : . Lion: Friis- Johansen : ; Luschey ; Vermeule ; Kurtz and Boardman : , – , , –, , , , ; Clairmont  vol. , nos. , a–b,  and vol. , no. .. 14 Kurtz and Boardman : ; Vermeule : ; Clairmont : . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 102.

 &#'( ()"!*

carrying armour are also frequent blazons on arms,15 and standard +g- ures of funereal art.16 5is also puts the +rst half of the ode, at least ret- rospectively, in a less rosy light. 5ere is a third iconographic trait shared by the images on Achilles’ shield. Martin’s word “monumentality” best captures this trait: he explains that “the monumentality of the pictorial descriptions” in part forges the contrast “between the high achievement of Achilles and the heroic expedition and the crime against Agamemnon” (: ). “Monu- mentality” explains why Euripides departed from the literary convention of ecphrastic description of shields alone. Indeed scholars have remarked on the oddity of including images on every piece of the set of Achilles’ arms, even his spear.17 In this he followed art, not literature. 5ough it has escaped the notice of modern commentators, few Athenians could have failed to observe that Achilles’ armour mimics that of Pheidias’ Athena Parthenos. Like Achilles she carried a shield with a gorgonhead (her breastplate also carried a gorgonhead) and her gold-beaten helmet, like that of Achilles, carried a sphinx with a pegasos on either side.18 5e shield of the Parthenos was also decorated with astral imagery (as was Homer’s shield of Achilles, to which, it has been claimed, the Parthenos’ shield alludes).19 On the inside Helios appeared driving a four-horsed

15 Dolphins as shield emblems: Stesich. PMG ; Euphorion fr.  (Powell); Plut. Mor. b; Σ Lycophr. Alex.  (Scheer); Chase : –; Graef and Langlotz : ,pl.. Nereids bearing armour on shields and armour: ARV2 .; Barringer : , n.  and appendix no. ; Hekler : –. 16 For the funereal associations of Nereids (riding dolphins or other sea creatures), see Kossatz-Deissmann :  and n. ; Barringer  passim;Csapo: –.For dolphins: see also Schwarz ; Descoeudres . 17 5e manuscripts give 9ν δ: δ"ρ& at the beginning of line , which, for metrical reasons (it is a line of dactylic hexameter), must be changed to 9ν δ: δ"ρε& (cf. Denniston non-matching parenthesis  ad loc.; Friis-Johansen and Whittle (.). 5is “tragic” dative is required at change punctuation to : ? Aesch. Supp. , S. OC , ,and (cf. Aesch. TrGF F ;AchaeusTrGF  F ). In all four of these cases δ"ρ/ is the manuscript reading. 5e radical emendation ;"ρι δ’ 9ν, adopted by Musgrave, Hartung, Murray, Denniston and Diggle, spoils the balance with line ’s 9ν δ: µ3σ<ω. 5ey argue that spears o6er little surface for +gural decoration (Denniston  ad loc.), though the same might be said of swordblades (excavated Bronze Age artefacts are probably not relevant here) or sword handles (e.g. Ael. VH .). All the more reason, then, to suppose that Euripides does not model his verse upon the practice of the armaments industry but upon monumental sculpture, and particularly the Athena Parthenos of Pheidias, for whom Pliny reports that “every tiny space a6orded a +eld for art” (HN ., translation by Jex-Blake and Sellers : ). One must bear in mind that we are dealing here not with an arsenal inventory but with a work of creative imagination. 18 See IG II2 .–; Paus. .. with Leipen : –; cf. Lochin : no. . 19 Fittschen : n. . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 103.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

chariot (also Selene on donkey or horse). Not only do the arms of Achilles in the Electra bear the same symbols as Athena Parthenos, but the set of arms of Achilles is limited to match precisely those used by the Parthenos: shield, breastplate, helmet and spear. 5ere is no mention of other accou- trements such as greaves or sword, though they are prominent in literary and artistic depictions of the arming of Achilles. Achilles’ arms, like the arms of Athena, are covered with symbols of death. 5e conventional “dread” associated with its mythical beasts increases the gravity of the odes, slowly bringing down the chorus’ escap- ist leap. 5e contrast between return and escape is marked by a corre- spondence in the ode’s last and +rst images. 5e beasts of war ( >ππ"ι @παλλ"ν) romp in their element as did the beasts of dance in theirs ( @παλλε δελ!&ς). 5ere is even something of an echo in the dark colour of their respective elements, the black dust and the dark-blue rams of the ship ( πρBιραις κυανεµ#Dλ"ις). 5e symmetry is not added for the sake of bland parallelism, ring-composition, or forced closure. It creates a strong opposition between the joyful dance of innocent dolphins and the charge of warhorses. 5e epode opens with a line of dactylic hexameter to match its epic theme of galloping horses (): 9ν δ: δDρει !"ν/ωι τετρα#Eµ"νες >ππ"ι @παλλ"ν. 5e spear is proleptically bloody (although the description is of new armaments). 5e promise of slaughter lends colour to the description of the dust in the next line (): κελαινF δ’ Gµ!& νH(’ >ετ" κDνις. “Black is an odd colour for dust” remarks Denniston ( ad loc.). It is an oddity meant to catch the mind’s eye. “Black,” κελαινDς,is

the regular homeric epithet for blood (itnon-matching is never parenthesis used of dust anywhere else in Greek literature.20 5e dust is black because it is blackened with blood.21 To anyone versed in epic the “black dust” kicked up by the team of horses must evoke the image of the corpse of Hector, trailing in the dust behind Achilles’ chariot: “a cloud of dust rose around him as he was dragged, and his dark-blue hair (Iα5ται κυEνεαι) spread loose; his entire head was covered with dust . . .” (Il. . –). Hector’s hair is “dark blue,”like the prows of the ships in Electra, because it is mixed with blood

20 Iliad ., ., ., .; Od. ., ., ., ., , . Cf. κελαινε!:ς αJµα. Il. ., ., ., , , .; Od. ., .. Ebeling  s.v. κελαινDς notes that “in Od. non legitur nisi cum αJµα coniunctum.” For this reason κελαινDς is associated with the blood goddesses, the Erinyes: Aesch. Ag. ,Eur.El. . Cf. Wilamowitz  and Bond  ad Eur. HF , Dodds  ad.Eur.Bacch. . 21 Cf. Schiassi  ad.Eur.El. –; cf. King : . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 104.

 &#'( ()"!*

and dust (likenon-matching Vergil’s parenthesis Hector who is ater . . . cruento pulvere (Aen .– ).22 An early epic version (the Aethiopis?) known to Euripides and his contemporaries, presented the dragging of Hector’s corpse by Achilles’ chariot as the actual cause of Hector’s death.23 5e +rst stasimon of Electra says Achilles’ shield was designed to turn back the eyes of Hector (–). But we know that it did not: Hec- tor died because he stood his ground. In a version of the myth used by Euripides, all three bearers of the arms of Hephaestus—Achilles, Patro- clus and Hector—died wearing them, and, in an important sense, because of them.24 Hector’sdeath is pre+gured on the proleptically “bloody” spear of Achilles in Electra because, in the Iliad, Hector was destroyed by this spear: it was the only part of Achilles’ armaments that Hector had not seized.25 It was also the arm which, guided by Athena, cut through Hec- tor’s throat at the only point where, Achilles knew too well, the armour gave no protection (Hom. Il. .–). It is Hector’s death, pre+g- uring, indeed preparing Achilles’ own doom,26 which turns the chorus’ thoughts to “the blood poured out by iron from beneath the bloody neck” of the Tyndarid (–).

. Shi(ing Sememes

5e indeterminate, voluable nature of the imagery, is shared by—indeed o7en generated by—the arresting compounds and allusive epithets with which it is described. Who, for example, are the “lord of men” and the “Tyndarid” in the epode (–)? Opinions are deeply divided on which “daughter of Tyndareus” is meant.27 5e apostrophe, coming as it does right a7er a description of Achilles’ shield, would seem to urge

22 5edustonHector’scorpsebecomesaminorthemeintheIliad ., .– ; .6. In anticipation of this theme, the poem describes the crests of the helmet of Achilles “sullied by dust and blood” (.–)a7er the helmet was knocked o6 Patroclus’ head by Apollo, and shortly before Hector placed it on his own head. Cf. King :  n. . 23 Soph. Aj. –;Eur.Andr. –, ; cf. Verg. Aen ., .–; Hyg. Fab. ; further references in Kop6 : . See also Kilmer forthcoming; Seaford : . 24 Cf. esp. Hom. Il. .–; Gernet : ;Heath: –. 25 Shannon : , , –. 26 See Barringer :  with further literature. 27 See the discussion in O’Brien : –,n.. Since O’Brien most commentators have decided in favour of Clytemnestra. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 105.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

taking Achilles as the “lord” here, and hence Helen as his “Tyndarid” killer. “5e beds” that kill men are also more readily Helen’s, since her sexual in+delity was more notoriously, directly and generally destructive than the in+delity of Clytemnestra: Clytemnestra’s in+delity was only one of many motives behind Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon, and is sometimes portrayed, like the murder, as more of a symptom of her alienation, than a cause of the murder. It might be added that the +nal stanza of the +rst stasimon of Iphigenia in Tauris expresses the same wish and there it is explicitly Helen’s throat the chorus wishes to see cut. On the other hand, “lord of men,” ;ναK GνδρHν, is a Homeric formula for Agamemnon, and Clytemnestra is the character whose death is antic- ipated at this point in the play. Moreover, τ"ιHνδε “of such” at the beginning of the period immediately following the description of Achilles’ arms, makes it natural to suppose that “such” refers to men like Achilles, in which case Agamemnon is the “lord” (not Achilles) and Clytemnestra the “Tyndarid.” Nearly all commentators agree that the lines must refer either to Helen and Achilles or to Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. Perhaps the reputa- tion of the dithyrambic style tempts scholars to think that clarity might have been achieved but for its pretentious yet clumsy avoidances. To my knowledge only Paley ( ad loc.), Taccone ( ad loc.), Mul- ryne (: )andKraus(:  n. ) have entertained the notion that ambiguity is part of the design. Burkert (: ) notes that the patronymic is used of Clytemnestra only once in Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Ag. ), not at all in Sophocles’ Electra, but seven times in this one play of Euripides (El. , , , , , , ). “5ere is, in addition,” writes Burkert, “an insistence on the sibling relations that link Clytemnestra with the Dioscuri, and the fact that Clytemnestra is the sis- ter of Helen is constantly repeated.”28 5ere is some poetic point a7er all in compounding the daughters of Tyndareus. Like their brothers they are a natural pair. Unlike their brothers they are not saviours but mankillers. To merge the sisters under one patronymic, is in the +nal analysis, to taint one with the other’s colours.29 It could be argued that this ambiguous word strikes a theme that will be more fully developed later in the play: that the Pelopidae can in fact be tainted with the same brush since they are condemned to destroy one another by crimes of adultery and

28 Burkert : . Clytemnestra and Dioscuri: Eur. El. , , , , . Clytemnestra and Helen: Eur. El. , , , cf. –. 29 Cf. Mylryne : –. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 106.

 &#'( ()"!*

murder. But within the choral song these ambiguities ease the +nal stage in the transition from the distant idyll to the dramatic present. 5ere are, I believe, three further riddling expressions in the description of the arms of Achilles that produce comparably signi+cant ambiguities. At lines – the Laurentian manuscript has Περσ3α λαιµ"τD- µαν Mπ:ρ NλOς π"ταν"5σι πεδ/λ"ις !υFν Γ"ργDν"ς RσIειν. In itself this is perfectly intelligible: “[on the peripheral base of the rim of the shield] the throat-cutting Perseus above the sea by virtue of his winged sandals held the nature of the Gorgon.” However, emendation of λαιµ"τDµ"ν is necessary for the metre and editors change it to λαιµ"τDµαν.Butwhat does λαιµ"τDµαν mean? It could be from the otherwise unattested noun λαιµ"τDµας meaning “throat-cutter.” 5is would leave the meaning of the line the same as in the manuscript reading. But it may also be a form of the compound adjective λαιµDτ"µ"ς “with cut throat,”since nothing pre- vents the use of such compounds with three terminations.30 If λαιµ"τD- µαν were to be taken as “severed at the throat” it would agree with “nature of the Gorgon.” 5is is how the adjective is used elsewhere in Euripides and it is notable that of three attestations the adjective is once used of a human head and once associated with the Gorgon’s head. We should con- sider the possibility that the adjective is meant to cut both ways. Indeed, it was a notorious feature of the New Music that its melodies ignored the natural pitch accent of the spoken word. 5ere is, in other words, no way to avoid ambiguity no matter which reading we accept. A second ambiguity in the description of arms are “sphinxes bearing G"/διµ"ν prey in their claws” on Achilles’ helmet (–). Denniston ( ad loc.) rejected the most common meaning of G"/διµ"ς:“No doubt ‘the prey won by their songs,’ for the ordinary sense of G"/διµ"ς is weak and pointless, and, in view of the 9exibility with which attibutes are employed in Greek lyric verse . . . we cannot hesitate to accept here an unattested, but appropriate sense.” Most commentators agree.31 5e

30 See Denniston  ad loc.BothpassiveλαιµDτ"µ"ς and active λαιµ"τDµ"ς,though extremely rare elsewhere, have a special currency in New Musical verse. 5epassive adjective occurs only three times in Greek literature: Eur. Hec. , Ion , IA . 5e active adjective also appears only three times: Eur. IT ), Tim. Persai, PMG . non-matching parenthesis and in the Greek Anthology. Cf. Troiades’ dithyrambic +rst stasimon () where the manuscripts have both passive καρEτ"µ"ς and active καρατDµ"ς and both readings are possible; Rhesus ; Kayser’s emendation at Aesch. Ag.  and Fraenkel  ad loc. 5eactiveκαρατDµ"ς is used of Perseus in Eur. Archelaus . 31 Only Barnes , Seidler , and Paley  favour “famed in song.” “Won or trapped by song” is favoured by Musgrave , Weil , Keene , Wecklein , Ammendola , Schiassi , O’Brien ., Cropp . 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 107.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

dissatisfaction of these scholars with the “ordinary sense” of the word does suggest that it may have been chosen precisely for its capacity to give pause. But perhaps recourse to an “unattested, but appropriate sense” is too hasty a solution to this textual challenge. 5ewordmeans“subject of song.” 5is might then be the “prey of which the poets sing,” though it is sooner the sphinxes and not their victims which are the real object of poetic memory. Surely here one is meant to recall that the sphinxes themselves are G"ιδ"/. Sphinxes deliver their riddles in song. Moret translates “la proie de l’enigme” (: ). What is the answer to the riddle of the sphinx? It is “man.” 5e sphinx’s prey is also object of its riddle.32 And here mimetically the riddle riddles.33 5e third riddling expression is the adjective τετρα#Eµων in the +rst line of the epode (): 9ν δ: !"ν/ωι τετρα#Eµ"νες >ππ"ι @παλλ"ν. Compound adjectives ending with -#Eµων are usually ambiguous about who is doing the walking and how. 5eauthorofPrometheus Bound uses Sππ"#Eµων of a mounted army (), whereas Sophocles uses the adjective of centaurs.34 Τετρα#Eµων (= “moving with four”) is probably aEuripideancoinage.InHelen  (of the bear Callisto) and Phoenissae  (of the stalking sphinx) it means “moving with four [paws].” But the adjective is also used of chariots drawn by teams of horses in Phoenissae , a sense corresponding to τε(ριππ"#Eµων used of Pelops’ chariot drawn by a team of winged horses in Orestes .For“+tted with four horses” epic uses τετρE"ρ"ς, though this also seems to have become ambiguous, since Sophocles uses it to mean “with four legs” (Tro. ). Euripides can be seen to play with the ambiguity of τετρα#Eµων in

32 5e hexameter riddle about the creature who walks on four, two and three legs goes back to the archaic period, as shown by two inscribed vases of c. – =(&, discussed by Moret : , . 5e riddle reported by the earliest vase is not identical in form to that preserved in the hypothesis to Euripides’ Phoenissae, which appears to be taken from a +7h-century tragedy (Lesky : 6.; Lloyd-Jones : –). Euripides in his Oedipus gives the riddle in a di6erent form (TrGF F a.–). In all versions the answer to the riddle is “man” (a term which I use advisedly since in art and tragedy the preferred prey of the Sphinx is young males: see Fontenrose : –; Moret : –, ). 33 For the ambiguity in the language of the Sphinx, see Lesky : –; Detienne and Vernant : –. One can compare the play at Phoenissae –, µηδ: τO παρ(3νι"ν πτερDν, "Vρει"ν τ3ρας, 9λ(ε5ν π3ν(εα γα/ας Σ!ιγγDς, where Mastronarde  ad loc. notes that “the postponement of the gen. . . . almost creates a griphos in  which is clearly resolved in bis.” 34 Soph. Trach. . One can compare Sππ"#Eτης (“horsewalking”), which normally means “mounted on horseback,” but which Euripdes uses of centaurs “walking like horses” (IA ). 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 108.

 &#'( ()"!*

Troiades  where it is attached to a “wagon” suggesting both “four- wheeled” but also “quadruped” because this particular “wagon” is the Trojan horse—an ambiguity Wilamowitz characterised as per ambages sane δι(υραµ#Bδεις (: ). Traditional ideas about the “emptiness” of dithyrambic ornament would urge the view that at Electra  Euripides is making the rather obvious point that horses walk on four legs—or rather that the adjective has no point at all. Taccone is surely right to argue that the adjective was chosen because it also had the power to evoke the image of a team of four horses yoked to a chariot ( ad El. –). It adds its contour to the emerging image of Hector brought down in his prime by Achilles’ bloody spear and dragged through the black/bloody dust kicked up by the horses that drag his mangled and mutilated corpse.

Conclusion

5ose who approached the dithyrambic odes with expectations of struc- tured narrative, let alone logical argument, were disappointed. 5e songs of Euripides’ later dramas were inspired by the New Music. In odes like Electra’s +rst and second stasima poetry takes a distinctly musical turn.35 Like music, New Musical verse appeals directly to the senses, the subcon- scious, and the emotions. Its architecture is essentially musical not verbal. If it can be called “narrative,” it is a form of narrative which avoids structures peculiar to verbal logic, especially hypotaxis—the causal connections required by anything we usually identify as “plot.” Instead of building events up into a story, or propositions up into an argument, Euripides’ verse o6ers us an almost purely paratactic sequence, a gallery of images. Each image is not so much meaningful as highly suggestive, emotionally charged, and in many cases ambiguous. 5rough an essentially musical patterning of repetition and variation the tonality of the images can change. (Even the meaning of the words is o7en indeterminate, ambiguous, and designed to change with pattern recognition— made to 9ow, we might say, with the music.) 5e cheerful and comforting dance of Nereids at the beginning of Electra’s +rst stasimon is joined by the sound of the aulos, by dolphins and the colorful blue prows of ships, the happy leaps of young Achilles surrounded by his nurturing parents

35 What follows is an all too terse summary of points made in Csapo : – and Csapo : –. 2009026. Cousland. 09_Csapo. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 109.

$%& “:'$%;#"<='(” >'#)$ )$")'<*? *> &@#'!':&)’ "#"$%&' 

and the benign horseman (ambiguously Peleus or Cheiron)36 who served as his guardian. But even these happy and comforting images change their tones and contents as the series expands and the themes are repeated in a di6erent key. 5e Nereids and dolphins take on sinister and funereal airs. Achilles becomes a killing machine and the horses drag the corpses of young heroes through the dust

36 Kraus : –. 2009026. Cousland. 10_Storey. proef 1. 4-3-2009:16.05, page 110.