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Tension, Frustration and Surprise: A Study of Theatrical Techniques in some Scenes of Euripides’ Orestes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

W. Geoffrey Arnott
W. Geoffrey Arnott*
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Extract

Euripides’ Orestes is a paradox. Few critics of drama today would place it at the summit of the playwright’s achievement, on a level with the Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae. In antiquity, however, it appears to have been one of the most popular Greek tragedies, performed and praised without stint. The hypothesis prefixed to the play’s text in one mediaeval manuscript called the Orestes ‘one of those dramas with a great reputation on the stage’. The comic poet Strattis referred to it as ‘a most clever play’, Menander used one of its scenes as the model for a long messenger’s speech in his Sikyonioi, and several other comedians in Athens parody or quote phrases from the play. A house in Ephesus has an incident from the Orestes painted on one of its walls. Such evidence for the play’s popularity can be corroborated further by the state of its text in the mediaeval manuscripts and by epigraphy. The former is grossly adulterated with actors’ revisions, the latter provides evidence for a performance of the play at the Dionysia of 340 B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 17 , 1983 , pp. 13 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1983

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References

1 The Codex Parisinus 2713 (B).

2 Fr. 1(Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 1 [Leipzig 1880], 711;Google ScholarEdmonds, , The Fragments of Attic Comedy, 1 [Leiden 1957], 812)Google Scholar

3 On the relationship between Eur. Or. 866 ff. and Men. Sik. 176 ff., see now Katsouris, A.G.Tragic Patterns in Menander, (Athens 1975), 1ff.,Google Scholar with a useful bibliography (2 n. 2); and my own paper ‘Menander and Earlier Drama’, which will appear in the collection of Studies in Honour ofT. B. L. Webster, edited by J.H. Betts and others (Bristol Classical Press).

4 E.g. Eubulus fr. 64 (Kock, 2. 186; Edmonds, 2. 168; Hunter, R.L.Eubulus: The Fragments [Cambridge 1983], 56 and 150),Google Scholar parodying Or. 37; Alexis fr. 3 (Kock, 2. 298; Edmonds, 2. 376), parodying Or. 255; Men. Epit. 910, echoing Or. 922 (see Gomme, and Sandbach’s, Menander: A Commentary [Oxford 1973], 363);Google Scholar and two unidentified fragments of lost comedies (Kock, 3. 429, fr. 115, and 554, fr. 826; Edmonds, 3. 367 and 475), quoting or ridiculing Or. 234 and 742 respectively. F. Chapouthier’s introduction to his and Méridier’s, L. edition of the Orestes (Euripide, 6 [Paris 1959], 22 ff.)Google Scholar collects the evidence then known for the play’s popularity in the fourth century.

5 Eichler, F.Anzeiger der dsterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 105 (1968), 88; andGoogle ScholarStrocka, V.M.Gymnasium, 80 (1973), 371 f.Google Scholar and Die Wandmalerei der Hanghauser in Ephesos (Forschungen in Ephesos, 8 [Vienna 1977]), I. 53 f.

6 Page, D.L.Actors’ Interpolations in Greek Traged (Oxford 1934), 41ff.;Google ScholarBiehl, D.L.Textprobleme in Euripides' Orestes, Interpolationen u.a. (diss.Jena 1953).Google Scholar

7 IG II2 2320. 19;Pickard-Cambridge, A.Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (revised by Gould and Lewis [Oxford 1968]), 109.Google Scholar

8 Thus Kitto, H.D.F.Greek Tragedy3 (London 1961), 348,Google Scholar refers to the Orestes as ‘this febrile melodrama’; and Conacher, D.J.Euripidean Drama (Toronto and London 1967), 213,Google Scholar begins his discussion of the play by writing ‘To the casual reader (and to not a few critics) the Orestes gives the impression of involving several different strands of action with no clear relation between them.’ Cf. also Paley’s, F.A. introductory remarks in his edition of the play (Euripides with an English Commentary, 3 [London 1860], 225ff.);Google ScholarFuqua, C.Traditio, 32 (1976), 63ff. (especially n. 72).Google Scholar

9 There are useful summaries of earlier discussions in Conacher (op. cit. inn. 8), 215 f.;Burnett, A.P.Catastrophe Survived (Oxford 1971), 183 n.1;Google Scholar 1; and Fuqua (op. cit. inn. 8), 63 ff., nn. 72, 73. On the historical and political connexions, see especially Longo, O.Maia, 27 (1975), 265ff.;Google ScholarWolff, C. in Euripides: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Segal, E. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1968), 145 f.;Google Scholar also has some pertinent comments on this aspect of the play. as a motif, in addition to Longo, see particularly Greenberg, N.A.HSCP, 66 (1962), 157ff.;Google ScholarSchmidt-Berger, U.Philia: TypologiederFreundschaftund Verwandtschaft bei Euripide (diss.Tübingen 1973), 31 ff.;Google Scholar On the play as a study in criminal psychology, see especially Mullens, H.G.C.Q., 34 (1940), 153ff.Google Scholar

10 Paris Review 10 (1966), 33.

11 Cited byJens, W.Die Bauformen dergriechischen Tragöde (Munich 1971), 15 n. 3.Google Scholar

12 Cf. T.S. Eliot’s more elegant description of this device in his Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture on ‘Poetry and Drama’, delivered at Harvard University on 21 November 1950 (published in London 1951): ‘I tried to keep in mind that in a play, fromtime to time, something should happen; that the audience should be kept in the constant expectation that something is going to happen; and that when it does happen, it should be different, but not too different, from what the audience had been led to expect’ (p. 32). See also Solmsen, F. ‘Electra and Orestes: Three Recognitions in Greek Tragedy,’ Mededelingen d. konink. Nederlandse Akad. v. Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkun 30 / 2 (1967), 44 ff.,Google Scholar = Kleine Schriften (Hildesheim etc. 1982), 45 ff.

13 Euripides’ innovations in the myths about Orestes are well discussed byStephanopoulos, T.K.Umgestaltung des Mythos durch Euripides (Athens 1980), 127 ff.Google Scholar

14 Cf.Newiger, H.-J.Hermes 89 (1961), 422 ff.Google Scholar

15 Cf. Stephanopoulos (op. cit. in n. 13), 146 f.

16 Troades (dating to 415 B.C.: so Aelian, Var. Hist. 2. 8, and the scholia on Ar. Birds 842) is the tragic conclusion to a new, apparently non-Aeschylean type of trilogy (the best discussion is now Lee’s, K.H. edition of this play [London 1976], x ff.;Google ScholarScodel, R.The Trojan Trilogy of Euripides [Hypomnemata 60, Göttingen 1980]CrossRefGoogle Scholar is at times too speculative). Electra (whose dating to 413 B.C. still seems to me highly probable, for the reasons recently restated by Leimbach, R.Hermes 100 [1972], 190 ff.;Google Scholar cf. the bibliography attached to my paper in Greece & Rome 28 [1981], 190 n. 4) cleverly juxtaposes the value system of the traditional version of the myth with one more appropriate to contemporary Athens (cf. my paper, 179 ff.; and Gellie, G.BICS 28 [1981], 1 ff.).Google Scholar

17 In the preface to The Awkward Age (p. 30 of the Bodley Head edition).

18 In the introduction to the Denniston and Page edition of the play (Oxford 1957), xxxi.

19 Cf.Taplin, O.The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977), 276 ff.Google Scholar

20 Some — we cannot now estimate how many, but it is unlikely to have been more than a small minority —of the audience would have known Stesichorus’ palinode and the Herodotean account, both of which had wafted Helen to Egypt instead of Troy (see especiallyKannicht’s, R. edition of Euripides’ Helen [Heidelberg 1969)], 1. 26 6 ff., 41 ff.)Google ScholarSome too might have recalled Euripides’ own words in Electra 1280 ff., which read today remarkably like a trailer for next year’s production (cf. n. 16 above). To the vast majority of the audience in 412 B.C., however, Helen’s presence in Egypt must have been a bombshell which exploded with the play’s very first word ( Nile).

21 Innovation is perhaps not the right word, for in the portrayal of ragged heroes (as in so many other things) Euripides was forestalled by Aeschylus, who had dressed his Xerxes in rags already in the Persae of 472 B.C. However, the frequent references to Euripides’ tattered (and often crippled) heroes in Aristophanes (Ach. 410 ff., Peace 146 ff., Frogs 842, 846, 1063 f.) testify to both their numbers and their notoriety in Euripides. The Acharnians alone lists seven examples before 425 B.C.

22 Cf. especiallyWinnington-Ingram’s, R.P. paper on Euripides’ Hippolytus (Entretiens Hardt 6 [1958], 279).Google Scholar

23 See Taplin, O.HSCP 76 (1972), 57 ff.Google Scholar(particularly p. 77), and Stagecraft (n. 19), 304 ff., 317 ff.

24 Eleven, not twelve, for v. 3 8 was rightly deleted by Nauck (see DiBenedetto’s, V. edition of Euripides’ Orestes [Florence 1965],Google Scholarad loc; the line effectively contradicts v. 37).

25 The quotation comes from T.S. Eliot (loc. cit. in n. 12 above). On the surprise of Helen’s appearance at this point, and the dramatic function of Hermione's mission here, cf. Stephanopoulos (op. cit. in n. 13), 127.

26 Hermione must have been played by a mute, for three speaking characters (Electra, Helen, Orestes) are already on stage.

27 Cf. my earlier paper, Mus. Phil. Lond. 3 (1978), 4 ff.

28 Of the editors who discuss this type of parodos, see especially Di Benedetto on Or. 140, Kannichtoni/e/. 164, andBond’s, G.W. commentary on the Hypsipyle (Oxford 1963), 61Google Scholar(on fr. I. ii).Electra,Helen undHypsipyle provide exact parallels to the Orestes here, with chorus and actor sharing respondent lyrics; Medea, Heraclidaejon, Troades and Iphigenia in Tauris offer variants to this pattern.

29 Cf. also Burnett (op. cit. in n. 9), 196 f. An old dispute about the assignment of parts at 140 f. is continued in modern scholarship. These lines are attributed (rightly in my opinion; cf. Di Benedetto, ad loc.) to Electra by the second hypothesis to the play (falsely ascribed to Aristophanes of Byzantium), Cleanthes in Diog. Laert. 7.172, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Comp. Verb. 11; they are assigned to the chorus, however, by the mss., the scholia on BVC ad loc, the scholia on Phoen. 202, and an anonymous grammarian in Cramer, J.A.,Anecdota Graeca e codd. Paris (London 1839–41), 1. 19.Google Scholar

30 Cf. my paper in Antidosis: Festschrift fiir WaltherKraus (edited by Hanslik, R. and others [Vienna 1972]), 23ff.; andGoogle ScholarUssher’s, R.G. edition of Euripides’ Cyclops (Testi e Commenti, 3 [Rome 1978]), 184.Google Scholar

31 The humorous possibilities of this clash are underlined by W.S. Gilbert when he introduces the words of this chorus with the instruction ‘Pirates (very loud).’

32 The passage is sometimes mistranslated (e.g. in Edwards’, T.W.C. translation [London 1823]Google Scholar and in Vellacott’s, R.G. Penguin version [London 1972];Google Scholarfor the correct interpretation of see Di Benedetto’s commentary, ad loc.

33 The effectiveness and popularity of the two scenes are at least partially suggested by the parody of two phrases in the former by Alexis and an unknown comic poet, and by the exploitation of the latter in a play by Menander: see notes 3 and 4 above. Perhaps the two agonistic debates (491 ff.), between Orestes and Tyndareos, and Orestes and Menelaus, ought to be added to this brief list; they are dramatically effective and totally relevant (here seeConacher, D.J.AJP, 102 [1981], 3ff.),Google Scholareven if their forensic excitements may have been more attractive to ancient than to some modern tastes.

34 Cf. Winnington-Ingram, loc. cit. in n. 22.

35 Cf. e.g. v. 1120, and my remarks later in this paper.

36 See n. 16 above.

37 Cf. the editions of Weil, H. (Sept Tragedies d’Euripide Paris 2nd edition 1879,Google Scholar 3rd edition 1904) and Di Benedetto, commenting on v. 1196.

38 So from Homer, Od. 4 and 15 on: cf. especiall Engelmann, R.Lex. 1.2 (Leipzig 1886–90), 1925ff.; andGoogle ScholarGhali-Kahil, L.B.Les enlèvements et le retour d’Helène dans les textes et les documents figurés, (Paris 1955), 23ff.Google Scholar

39 Antichthon 16 (1982), 35 ff.

40 The extant examples are Aesch. Agam. 1343, 1345 (Agamemnon), Choeph. 869 (Aegisthus); Soph..E7. 1404–16 (Clytemnestra); Eur.Med. 1271 f., 1277 f. (Medea’s sons), Heracles 750,754(Lycus),.E7. 1165,1167 (Clytemnestra), and Or. 1296,1301 (Helen).

41 Cf. B. Gredley’s remark in his paper on Eur. Or. 1503-36 (GRBS 9 [1968], 416): ‘It would seem that Euripides has deliberately created a false impression of Helen’s murder, and suspended its refutation for over a hundred verses in order to make the news of her disappearance the more unexpected and effective.’ See also my earlier discussion of this passage in Greece & Rome 20 (1973), 56 ff. (= O. Longo, Euripide: Lettere critiche [Milan 1976], 21 ff.).

42 In fact just like Menander, for whom this image was originally coined by Post, L.A.AJP 80 (1969), 410.Google Scholar Cf. also Winnington-Ingram, loc. cit. in n. 22.

43 E.g. Men. Aspis 346 ff.; Plaut. Bacch. 749 f., M.G. 793, Poen. 172. Cf. my earlier observations in Gnomon 42 (1970), 25, and University of Leeds Review 13 (1970), 12 ff

44 Cf.Verrall, A.W.Essays on Four Plays of Euripides (Cambridge 1905), 248ff.;Google ScholarWebster, T.B.L. ‘Euripides: Traditionalist and Innovator’inGoogle ScholarAllen, D.C. and Rowell, H.T.The Poetic Tradition, (Baltimore 1968), 31ff.;Google Scholarand C. Wolff, op. cit. in n. 9, 139 f.

45 Cf. my earlier paper, op. cit. in n. 41, 59 f. (= Longo, 25 f.).

46 Barber, JohnDaily Telegraph (London) 9 May 1983, 10.Google Scholar

47 Earlier versions of this paper were delivered as lectures or seminar papers between 1981 and 1983 in several places, including Edinburgh, Alexandria, Vancouver, and (in the antipodes) Wellington, Palmerston North and Melbourne. I am most grateful for the many critical but helpful comments engendered by my suggestions, both in the formal discussions after the lectures and on other occasions.