¹ Cf. the quotation below in the text (and n. 4), and the remarks of Lloyd-Jones, H. in ‘Tycho von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf on the Dramatic Technique of Sophocles’, CQ N.S. 22 (1972) 214–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 215 and 218. For ‘character’ discussed in strict rationalist and individualist terms, cf. W. Zürcher’s first chapter (pp. 11–15) in Die Darstellung des Menschen im Drama des Euripides (Basel 1947Google Scholar).

² On ‘dramatic effect’, cf. Wilamowitz, T., Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles, in Philol. Untersuch. 22 (1917) 39Google Scholar: ‘Immer kommt es Sophokles darauf am meisten an, die momentane Situation so zu gestalten, das alles, was sie an dramatischer Wirkung hergeben kann, zum vollen Eindruck kommt …’ etc. For a criticism of this criterion, cf. Easterling, P. E., ‘Presentation of Character in Aeschylus’, G & R 20 (1973) 5Google Scholar.

³ The article by Dawe, R. D., ‘Inconsistency of Plot and Character in Aeschylus’, PCPhS N.S. 9 (1963) 21–62Google Scholar, provided a stimulus to this paper. The article includes some extreme examples of the broad definition of ‘effect’: e.g., if Klytaimestra’s lines at 691 ff. were assigned (cf. below, n. 24) to Electra, the function of the sudden intervention of a silent and unnoticed character ‘would be simply to heighten the effect of this one scene, regardless of its coherence with what precedes or follows’ (54–55). Such an interpretation seems to view anything startling as ‘effective’, even if its effect would probably be distracting or confusing to the audience. Cf. the remarks of Easterling (above, n. 2) 15, and E. W. Handley, ‘Conventions of the Comic Stage’, in the Fond. Hardt volume 16 (Ménandre, Geneva 1969) p. 10.

⁴ T. Wilamowitz (above, n. 2) 40: ‘Aber fur Sophokles, das kann man mit Sicherheit sagen, ist die ausführliche, psychologisch genaue und konsequente Charakterzeichnung durchaus nicht, wie für die heutigen Ansprüche, die Hauptaufgabe des Dramatikers …, sondern alle seine Personen werden immer nur in Rücksicht darauf und nur gerade soweit charakterisiert, dass motiviert ist was sie im St–ckzu tun und zu leiden haben, und es liesse sich vielleicht behaupten, dass für die noch wirklich rein dramatisch Poesie dies das einzig Natürliche ist.’ In the omitted parenthetic expression, Wilamowitz states that there can be no question whatsoever of character change in a Sophoclean figure (cf. n. 11 below).

⁵ On the psychology of interaction and role, cf. Berne, Eric, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (New York 1961Google Scholar) Ch. 2; and James, Muriel and Jong-ward, Dorothy, Born to Win (Reading, Mass., 1971) p. 11Google Scholar, on contradictory behavior; pp. 86–89, on reversal of roles.

⁶ Kitto, H. D. F. early pointed out the irrelevance of this approach to Aeschylus in Greek Tragedy (1st ed., New York 1939) 99–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar (omitted from the 3rd ed., 1961). Sophoclean characters of course are less purely of this type. The latter are frequently placed in a background of previous experience, e.g. Aias and Tecmessa comparing standards of behavior (430–524); such details are a factor in creating what Albin Lesky once called the ‘logisch scharf umgrenzte Gedanken- und Gefühlswelt eines Individuums’, in ‘Die Orestie des Aischylos’, Hermes 66 (1931) 1977Google Scholar.

⁷ This paper was written before I could read John Gould’s article, ‘Dramatic Character and “Human Intelligibility” in Greek Tragedy’, PCPhS n.s. 24 (1978) 43–67Google Scholar. Gould argues that dramatic character must be intelligible in a broader way than that suggested by Easterling (above, n. 2; 13). I do not feel that Gould’s work conflicts with mine. (I touched on Gould’s main theme — ‘how form contributes to and controls meaning’ — in an earlier article; cf. n. 13, below. I have treated this theme at some length for the Persians of Aeschylus in an unpublished book, Tradition and Dramatic Form in the Persians.) The standard of character that I propose is useful for drama precisely because it works through the ‘language and gestures’ that, as Gould says (43), represents all we can know of the figures in Greek tragedy. His observation that we can obtain no interior view of Klyt.’s feelings (60) agrees with my own; and, for his remarks about the linkage between Klyt.’s personality and the whole structure of the play (ibid.), cf. the concluding paragraphs of this essay.

⁸ On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London 1962) 114Google Scholar, ‘the interlocking of status and stage event’. Jones’ interpretation of status is a very rigid one (cf. n. 10, below).

⁹ Cf. J. Jones (above, n. 8) Sect. II, ch. 4, especially p. 122.

¹⁰ Cf. the reservations of H. Lloyd-Jones, expressed in his review of Jones, J., in Review of English Studies 15 (1964) 222Google Scholar.

¹¹ Zürcher (above, n. 1), 14, makes this point, emphasizing that change must express individuality and not mere adjustment to situation, a distinction I doubt can be made for Aeschylus. Note that T. Wilamowitz is especially emphatic in denying character development to Sophocles (above, n. 4).

¹² The chorus suggest that Klyt. is mad (1407 ff., 1426 ff.) and predict she will be ‘cityless’ (apopolis, 1410) and ‘bereft of friends’ (steromenan philōn, 1429) at death; that is, she is an outcast. Her final iambic speech is provocative in its emphasis on sexuality and vulgar in tone; cf. Fraenkel’s, E. comments on the word parōphonēma (Agamemnon, Oxford 1950, III. 687Google Scholar).

¹³ The use of anapaests by the actor seems to lead to closer contact with the chorus. In the trimeter-lyric epirrhemata of the earlier plays, and even in the Or., actor and chorus often speak from utterly different viewpoints. Cf. the remarks of Peretti, Aurelio, Epirrema e tragedia (Florence 1939) 113–118Google Scholar, 206; and Popp, Hansjürgen, ‘Das Amoibaion’, in Die Bauformen der griechischen Tragödie (Jens, Walter, ed.; Münich 1971) 242–244Google Scholar. On the rapprochement between actor and chorus here, cf. Conacher, D. J., ‘Interaction Between Chorus and Characters in the Oresteia’, AJP 95 (1974) 324–330Google Scholar. The remarks of J. Gould (n. 7, above; 50–51) on the effect of such formal matters upon dramatic character are apposite here; on the isolation of the rhesis form, cf. my article, MAKRAN GAR EXETEIN AS in Hermes 102 (1974) 524–539.

¹⁴ Ag. 150–155; these lines are ambiguous, but one of their meanings clearly points to revenge for Iphigeneia’s death.

¹⁵ The chorus on Klyt.’s guilt: 1505–1506. Their bafflement: 1530 and 1561. On reciprocity: 1535 ff. and 1562 ff.

¹⁶ Some, e.g. Denys Page (in his edition with J. D. Denniston, Oxford 1957) deny any alteration in Klyt. Page counters E. Fraenkel’s rather over-fine interpretation of Klyt.’s feelings (above, n. 10; III. 678, 694, 712) by offering his own commonsensical ones: she speaks ‘coldly’ (208) and is ‘unrepentant, clear-minded’ (212).

¹⁷ She is, as Jones (above, n. 8), 92, and others have pointed out, trying to ‘buy off the daimon’. But the singular thing is that Klyt. does not refer, as she well might, to the boundless wealth she offers but to the small portion of it that will be enough for her. (apochrē a rare word in poetry — cf. E. Fraenkel, III. 741 — draws attention to the flat and meager expectations expressed here.)

¹⁸ At 1654–1656, Klyt. says to her consort that the ‘sad harvest’ of sorrow is ‘enough; let us shed no blood’. This, from the figure who used a plant simile to express her joy in the dew of Ag.’s blood!

¹⁹ Translation blurs the ambiguities caused by enjambement; the feminine of dikaias leaves it unclear whether the maker (tectōn) is the hand, or Klyt. herself. A similar note of perverted philia appears in Klyt.’s burial plans, 1553; she killed Ag. and she will bury him.

²⁰ Cf. n. 18, above.

²¹ Cf. the chorus’ remarks about Aigisthos, 1671 etc. Although Klyt. mentions the importance of consulting him, it is after all she who meets the messenger (Orestes), just as it was she who killed Ag.

²² Note that this excuse is the same, allowing for altered circumstances, that Klyt. offered for Orestes’ absence at Ag.’s return (877–886).

²³ Cf. Electra’s interpretation: she has been sold as a slave in exchange for Aigisthos (132–134); and Orestes, 915–917: ‘I was born of a free father and shamefully sold’.

²⁴ Editors who assigned the lines of mourning to Electra were influenced initially by what they judged to be the inappropriateness of the emotion, and secondarily by the clash in the use of philoi; cf. Headlam, W. G. and Thomson, George, The Oresteia (2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1966) II 163Google Scholar; and comments by McDonald, W. A., ‘A Dilemma: Choephoroi 691–699’, CI 55 (1962) 369Google Scholar. Dawe (above, n. 3) makes a jocular reference to ‘female exaggeration … under conditions of severe emotional stress’ (54), an explanation which — applied to Klyt. — can appeal only to somebody who has abandoned the concept of dramatic continuity.

²⁵ For other echoes of the philos/echthros reversal, cf. Choe. 89, 110, 198, 234, 241, 894, 976, 993. J. Jones (above, n. 8), 117–118 and 58, comments on this original philia with her husband as the social ‘love-situation in which she [Klyt.] was placed’ (117).

²⁶ Cf. Jones’ remarks (above, n. 8), 98, on the ‘collective life’ of Aeschylean characters.

²⁷ The text of 738 is bad, but it is certain that Klyt. is ‘concealing laughter’ from the servants. Dawe (above, n. 3), 53, creates quite a bit of mystification about the Nurse’s report, arguing that it directly contradicts what the audience has seen.

²⁸ Cf. McDonald (above, n. 24), 368, who rightly takes this conformity as a sign that 691 ff. belongs to Klyt.

²⁹ For the effect of the trimeter-lyric epirrhemata, cf. note 13 above.

³⁰ Apollo describes their isolation early in the play — 68–73 — in clear and detailed terms.

³¹ On their pollution, cf. Apollo at 185 ff.

³² Words related to timē and tiō include: aliō, (a)timō, timalphoumai, atietos, timios, atimia, atimos, and various compound adjectives, e.g. semnotimos, atimopenthēs. (tinō and its derivatives are not included.) Direct references to the timē of the Furies occur 27 times: 209, 227, 228, 324, 385, 394, 419, 712, 722, 747, 780, 793, 796, 807, 824, 833, 839, 845, 853, 854, 868, 884, 891, 894, 993, 1029, 1037. Indirectly related references to timē include: 213, 215 (contests of timē between the Furies and other gods); 95 (Klyt. suffers loss of timē after death); 624, 626, 640, 739 (timē of the maternal vs. the paternal side); 915–917 (timē given by the Furies to Athens). Less closely related, or unrelated instances: 369, 543, 545, 546, all of which refer to timē toward the ordinances of the Furies, or the atimia of those who flout them (Lebeck, A., The Oresteia, A Study in Language and Structure [Washington, 1971]Google Scholar, 155 ff., points out that the Furies describe their victims and themselves in the same terms); 967, which refers to the Moirai, half sisters of the Furies. Only 15 and 773 are unrelated.

³³ The parallels in language and meaning are glaring enough to have survived even in the damaged text of 385 ff. Whether or not one accepts the emendations as printed in Page’s edition, the verbal parallels of atietos and lack of sunlight are sure.

³⁴ Characters who see the Erinyes for the first time are struck by their strangeness; again and again we hear that they do not belong with gods or with men. ‘What land would claim them?’ the priestess asks (57–58). Cf. Apollo, 70, 191, 197, 228, 644, 721–722; the Furies themselves, 350–353, 365–366, 386; and even Athena, 411–412.

³⁵ I.e. the references listed in n. 32, from 780 on, as well as 915, 917, 967.

³⁶ They are not atimoi: 796, 824, 884. They will receive timē through cult observance: 807, 833, 853–854, 868, 891.

³⁷ Their dwelling place: hedras 805, timian hedran 854–855. Hearths: 806; cotenancy: 833. On the Furies’ metic status, cf. Headlam and Thomson (above, n. 24) II 232, on 1027–1031.

³⁸ On the Furies’ rights in the land, cf. 805, 869, 890 f.

³⁹ 886; cf. 900 and 970 ff.

⁴⁰ Cf. J. Gould (above, n. 7) for the importance of formal considerations in dramatic psychology (cf. also n. 13, above). Of the Furies, we might say that the choral lyric, while it exposes the inward feeling of the chorus, does not permit them to share these feelings with any actor, or to react intelligibly to changing stimuli coming from the actor.