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The Lyric Chorus in Euripides’ Phoenician Women

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The Lyric Chorus in Euripides’ Phoenician Women Paths of Song The Lyric Dimension of Greek Tragedy Edited by Rosa Andújar, Thomas R. P. Coward and Theodora A. Hadjimichael ISBN 978-3-11-057331-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-057591-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-057399-2 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com TableofContents Abbreviations IX RosaAndújar,ThomasR.P.Coward, and Theodora A. Hadjimichael Introduction 1 I Tragic and LyricPoets in Dialogue P. J. Finglass Stesichorus andGreek Tragedy 19 ThomasR.P.Coward ‘Stesichorean’ Footsteps in the Parodos of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 39 Pavlos Sfyroeras Pindar at Colonus: ASophoclean Response to Olympians 2and 3 65 Lucia Athanassaki Talking Thalassocracy in Fifth-centuryAthens: From Bacchylides’‘Theseus Odes’ (17 &18) and Cimonian Monuments to Euripides’ Troades 87 II Refiguring Lyric Genres in Tragedy LauraSwift Competing Generic Narratives in Aeschylus’ Oresteia 119 AndreaRodighiero How Sophocles Begins: Reshaping Lyric Genres in Tragic Choruses 137 Anastasia Lazani Constructing Chorality in Prometheus Bound: The Poetic BackgroundofDivine Choruses in Tragedy 163 Alexandros Kampakoglou Epinician Discourse in Euripides’ Tragedies: The Case of Alexandros 187 VIII TableofContents III Performing the Chorus: Ritual, Song, and Dance RichardRawles Theoric song and the Rhetoric of Ritual in Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women 221 Giovanni Fanfani What melos forTroy? Blending of LyricGenres in the First Stasimon of Euripides’ Trojan Women 239 RosaAndújar Hyporchematic Footprints in Euripides’ Electra 265 Enrico Emanuele Prodi Dancing in Delphi, Dancing in Thebes: The Lyric ChorusinEuripides’ Phoenician Women 291 NaomiA.Weiss Performing the Wedding Song in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis 315 Timothy Power New Music in Sophocles’ Ichneutae 343 Andrew Ford Afterword: On the NonexistenceofTragic Odes 367 Bibliography 381 Notes on Contributors 415 Index of Proper Names and Subjects 419 Index Locorum 433 EnricoEmanuele Prodi Dancing in Delphi, Dancing in Thebes: The Lyric Chorus in Euripides’ Phoenician Women Despite the great popularity of Euripides’ Phoenician Women throughout antiq- uity,its chorus had abad press alreadyatthat time.c When Aristophanes’ Di- caeopolis jibes that,asheputs on Telephus’ garb for his peroration to the old men of Acharnae, ‘the audience [must] know me, who Ireallyam, but the mem- bers of the chorus [must] stand therelikeidiots’ (Acharnians 442–3), an un- named critic remarks: τοςδ’ α χορευτς : κα δι τοτων τνΕριπδην διασρει. οτος γρεσγει τος χοροςοτε τκλουθα φθεγγονους τι ποθσει, λλ’ στορας τινς παγγλλοντας, ς νταςΦοινσσαις, οτε παθς ντιλαβανονους τν δικηθντων, λλ εταξ ππτοντας._ (Schol. EΓLh Ar. Ach.443 Wilson) ‘But the members of the chorus’ :With these words tooheisridiculing Euripides,for the choruses that the latter bringsonthe stage do not saysomethingrelevant to the plot,but tell some stories, as in the PhoenicianWomen,nor do they emotionallyside with those suf- feringinjustice,but are simplyinterposed. Iamdeeply indebted to audiences in Oxford, Seattle, Liverpool, and Venice,which heardver- sions of thispaper and helped it develop into its present shape; to the editors of thisvolume, fortheir feedback as well as forkindly requesting it in lieu of the one originally delivered at the Paths of Song conference; and to Vanessa Cazzato, who much improved it. Quotations from the Phoenician Women aretaken from Mastronarde’sTeubner text (Leipzig 1988). Alltranslations aremyown. Thispaper wasfirst delivered at the memorialcolloquiumfor James Worthen in 2010, and the written version, though much changed, remains dedicated to his memory. On the popularity of the Phoenician Women see for instanceBremer1983, 294;1984;Cribiore 2001. ππτοντας is found in placeofthe transmitted ντιππτοντας onlyonthe TLG-E (the newer online version has again ντι⌅). Filippomaria Pontani, whoalerted me to this fact,must be right that the reading – be it duetoaroguescribe or ameremistake – is the correct one. The sense of the text as transmitted is unclear,asisshown by the paraphrases givenby Riemschneider 1940,55(‘sondern gegenden Zusammenhang dazwischenfallen’)and Nikolai- dou-Arabatzi 2015,26n.2(‘but their narration lies somewhere in between the plot of the myth’,significantlyignoring ντι⌅); conversely, εταξ ππτειν is amplyattested and unproble- matic in context. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110575910-014 292 EnricoEmanuele Prodi He wasnot alone. Acommentator on the Phoenician Women itself curtlynotes the ostensible irrelevance of the third stasimon to the present events – specifical- ly,toMenoeceus’ heroic self-sacrifice – to which it ought to have reacted: βας βας πτεροσσα : πρςοδντατα· δει γρτνχορνοκτσασθαι δι τνθνα- τον Μενοικως ποδχεσθαι τνεψυχαν το νεανσκου, λλ τ περ Οδπουν κα τν Σφγγα διηγεται τ πολλκις ερηνα. ‘Youcame, youcame, Owinged one’ :This is pointless. The chorus should have expressed pity for Menoeceus’ death or approval for the young man’scourage;insteaditnarrates the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx, stuff told over and over. ρασι τκεα λεος : π τοτων χρνεθως ρξασθαι τνχορν. κενα γρπεριττ στιν. ‘With curses his children, wretched one’ :The chorus should have begun from this straight- away.What comes beforeissuperfluous. (Schol. MTAB E. Ph. 1019,1053 Schwartz) Contemporary scholarship has put much effort into investigating the role of the chorus and qualifying these rather ungracious statements.a On this occasion we shall focus on aparticularand hitherto undervalued aspect of the Phoenician women’srelevance to the playnamed after them: namely, the intimated charac- terisation of the chorus as a(cultic) chorus within the dramatic fiction, achar- acterisation which is parallel to, but independentof, their being achorus in the theatrical reality.↵ Helene Foleyput her finger on this characterisation over three decades ago: ‘This chorus, unlike Aeschylus’ chorus of native-born women [sc. in Seven against Thebes], is almost achorus by profession … The Phoenician maidens dedicate themselvestoApollo and to alife of celebrating myth in aforeign land through dance, song,and prayer in honor of the gods’.⁵ However,she did not pursue this valuable insight further or investigate Beside the relevantparts of the commentaries by Balmori 1945, Craik 1988, Mastronarde1994, and Amiech 2004,see Riemschneider 1940;Arthur 1977;Parry 1978,166–73;Cerbo 1984–1985; Foley 1985, 118–19,136–9; Mueller-Goldingen1985 passim;Nancy1986;Calame 1994–1995; Gould 1996,224–5; Medda 2005 (condensed into 2006,18–27); Papadopoulou 2008, 78 –87;La- mari 2010 passim;Hilton2011,41–6. By arguingfor afurther,exceptional layerofchorality in the PhoenicianWomen,this approach complements and enriches the argument made by Calame 1994–1995onthe enduring cultic function of the tragic chorus with reference to the same play. Comparealso Zimmermann 2002 on the ‘duplice carattere del coro, contemporaneamente dramatis persona ecorocultuale’ (p.122)inAeschylus’ Sevenagainst Thebes. Foley 1985, 119,144;see also Hilton2011, 42.Asimilar argument is compellinglymade by Mur- naghan 2006,99–100 with reference to Euripides’ moreobviouslymetatheatrical Bacchae, Dancing in Delphi, Dancing in Thebes 293 its significance for the chorus and for the playmore broadly. Doing so shall thereforebeour purpose on this occasion.The first part of this paper investigates the elements of choral characterisation that are subtlybut persistentlywoven into the chorus’ self-presentation in the earlyphases of the play, with parallels from cultic (and para-cultic) lyric and dedicatory epigrams; the second and final part explores the Phoenicianwomen’sstatusasatheoric chorus sent from Tyre to Thebes and Delphi and how such status is integraltothe narratives they sing and to the role that they perform in the rest of the play. The Phoenician women introduce themselvestwice: first to the audience in the first strophic pairofthe parodos (202–25), then to Polynices in the first epi- sode (280 –5). The latter passagealmost soundslike amoreprosaic résumé of the bare facts of the first,⁶ and we shall return to it shortly. But let us first exam- ine the openingofthe parodos: Τριον οδα λιποσβαν κροθνια Λοξαι Φοινσσας π νσου, Φοβωι δολα ελθρων (205) νπ δειρσι νιφοβλοις Παρνασσο κατενσθη, νιον κατ πντον λ- ται πλεσασα, περιρρτων πρ καρπστων πεδων (210) Σικελας Ζεφρου πνοας ππεσαντος νορανι κλλιστον κελδηα. πλεος κπροκριθεσς καλλιστεατα Λοξαι (215) Καδεων ολον γν, κλεινν Aγηνοριδν ογενες π Λαΐου πεφθεσνθδε πργους. σα δγλασι χρυσοτε-(220) κτοις Φοβωι λτρις γεναν· τι δ Κασταλας δωρ περινει ε κας ς δεσαι παρθνιον χλιδν Φοιβεαισι λατρεαις.(225) where ‘[t]he chorus of Asian bacchantes is playingarole, but it is the role, effectively,ofacho- rus’ (p.100). On the relation between the two passagessee Lamari 2010,51. 294 EnricoEmanuele Prodi Leavingthe Tyrian swellIhave come as achoice offeringfor Loxias from the Phoenician island, aslave of the halls for Phoebus where he dwells below the ridge of snow-strewn Parnassus; Isailed through the Ionian sea by ship as Zephyr with
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