A schematic overview of the three genres that together with tragedy formed the program of the City Dionysia has demonstrated that we have to do with four clearly differentiated literary forms. While dithyramb stands apart, as we have seen, insofar as it is not mimetic and dramatic but narrative and lyric, the three other genres share certain theatrical elements such as mask, costume, and chorus, but otherwise have little in common. As far as tragedy and comedy are concerned, Oliver Taplin in two complementary studies (1986, 1996) has documented in detail Bernard Knox’s pithy formulation: ‘‘For the fifth-century Athenian tragedy was tragedy and comedy comedy, and never the twain should meet’’ (1979a, 251). Satyr-play was separated from tragedy by the obligatory chorus of satyrs, from comedy by its mythical material and the nature of its comic effect. Even if (as is probable) the three dramatic genres arose from the same or closely related cultural contexts, in their fully developed literary forms each has its separate identity.
On the other hand, since the three genres were produced for the same festival, there can be no doubt that the writers and choral directors, actors, members of the chorus, and musicians knew one another and not only followed the rehearsals and performances of their immediate competitors with great interest, but also kept an eye on the contiguous genres. It seems to me to go without saying that the great dramatists of the fifth century, who inhabited the same reasonably small space and competed against one another year after year, also discussed playwriting and production with one another. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that mutual influences can occasionally be detected.
Despite the sparse material available to us, certain interactions between dithyramb and the dramatic genres can already be determined in the first half of the fifth century. It appears that Aeschylus took inspiration from dithyramb in crafting the parodos of the Agamemnon (Fraenkel 1950, III p. 805); conversely, the dramatic character of some of Bacchylides’ dithyrambs is hardly imaginable without the influence of tragedy (Zimmermann 1989, 64-116). In the second half of the century the dramatization of dithyramb was further reinforced by the introduction of monodies and mimetic interludes (Zimmermann 1989, 127-28). At the same time the new dithyramb strongly influenced tragedy and comedy, above all with its musical experiments but also with the stylistic innovations that accompanied them. Aristophanes playfully parodied these innovations (in Birds, for example) and caricatured representatives of the new dithyramb such as Cinesias (Birds 1372-1409), as well as their disciples such as the tragedian Agathon (Women at the Thesmophoria 101-29). It is an open question whether Euripides was on friendly terms with Timotheus, as the ancient biographies report; what is certain is that a number of his choral odes (Kranz 1933, 228-66), as well as the great aria of the Phrygian in Orestes (1369-1472), were inspired by new dithyramb.
For satyr-play, too, the scarcity of the evidence does not permit a detailed statement about possible reciprocal influences involving tragedy and comedy. Comparison of the larger fragments of Aeschylean and Sophoclean satyr-play with Euripides’ Cyclops suggests, at any rate, that in the course of the fifth century the structure of satyr-play moved closer to that of tragedy. Taplin’s statement that satyr-play (as compared to tragedy) shows a ‘‘loose and undefined structure that makes for a rambling continuity which does not really fall into parts’’ (1977, 58) applies to the fragments of Aeschylean and Sophoclean satyr-plays, but the dramatic form of Cyclops, composed at the end of the century, is essentially identical with the basic structure of tragedy.
In tone, too, Cyclops is clearly distinct from the surviving fragments of Aeschylus and Sophocles. The simplicity, naturalness, and joviality of early satyr-play commingle with the critical irony so typical for Euripidean tragedies and with varied forms of literary parody (Seidensticker 1979b, 222-24). Euripides not only parodies epic language (Kassel 1955) and the typical elements of literary and popular komos (celebration) poetry (Rossi 1971a), but does not shrink from self-parody. Thus he puts into the mouth of the satyrs (179-86) and Polyphemus (280-81, 283-84) the criticism of the Trojan War - that it was fought for the sake of a whore - that runs through so many tragedies, and at 186-87 he has fun with Hippolytus’ famous diatribe against women (Hippolytus 616-44) when he has the satyrs say, ‘‘Would that the race of women did not exist anywhere - except for my own private use.’’ The great speech in which Polyphemus rejects Odysseus’ demand for gratitude and guest-friendship (316-46) is crafted into a parody, as funny as it is biting, of the radical positions of contemporary sophistry - a parody that might have been inspired by comedy and its attack on issues and individuals of the day.
The intriguing interaction between tragedy and satyr-play is most clearly seen, of course, in Alcestis, which Euripides presented in 438 as the fourth play of the tetralogy, that is, as a satyr-play (Sutton 1973; Seidensticker 1982, 136-39). The clearest link of this singular tragedy to satyr-play is forged by Heracles, the premier hero of that genre. The role he is made to play in Alcestis is his traditional role in satyr-play: the strongman who must overpower the ogre. He is announced as such by Apollo (65-69), as such he appears on stage (476-77; undoubtedly he is equipped with lionskin and club) and introduces himself. It should come as no surprise that this hero of satyr-play is unable to understand the tragedy in which he has ended up. He continues to behave in the way he is accustomed to in satyr-play: he satisfies his vast appetite (753-55), carouses to his heart’s content (756-59), sings loudly and out of tune (760), and preaches his philosophy of hedonistic materialism to the slave who serves him (773-802). Finally he wrestles the inevitable ogre to the ground and ushers in the obligatory happy ending. From his point of view the events at Pherae are no different from other satyr-play adventures (for example, his triumph over Syleus) - a recurrent sequence of arrival, banquet, victory over the ogre, happy ending, feast, and departure to new adventures. Grafted onto this pattern of action, characteristic of satyr-play and its most important hero, are additional dramatic and thematic motifs that seem to have been equally typical of the genre: deception, ruses, a symposium, a wrestling match. To be sure, these motifs of satyr-play are touched on only briefly, and even in the scenes involving Heracles the high-spirited tone of satyr-play does not dominate. All the same, there can be no ignoring the synthesis of tragedy and satyr-play by means of which Euripides has created a completely new form of tragedy.
Tragedy’s significance for comedy is not limited to the fact that tragedy offered a welcome target for mockery. Aristophanes not only repeatedly parodied Euripides, but was also inspired by that restless innovator to undertake his own experiments. Tragedy ‘‘provides the essential perspective and point of reference against which Aristophanic comedy asks to be placed. It is arguable that only tragedy, sphere of the universal, could have provided the stimulus to construct a comic vision beyond the demotic and the everyday’’ (Silk 2000, 415; cf. 42-97).
Possible influences of comedy on tragedy are not easy to determine. Herington (1963; cf. Taplin and Wilson 1993) has indeed correctly drawn attention to the fact that the ending of the Oresteia (and also of the Danaid trilogy) bears a certain resemblance to the ending of some of Aristophanes’ comedies. Whether we are entitled to conclude, however, that in these instances Aeschylus drew his inspiration from pre-Aristophanic comedy (which of course has not survived) is anything but certain. The same holds true for the freer treatment of time and space in Aeschylean tragedy (Taplin 1986, 165) and for comedic motifs that have occasionally been spotted in tragedy, such as a character’s rapping at the door (Libation Bearers 65356) or the entrance of two characters deep in conversation (Sophocles’ Philoctetes 1222). Nor can the increasing significance of self-referential allusions be unhesitatingly ascribed to the influence of comedy. To be sure, it cannot be excluded that Euripides, the poietes sophos (‘‘clever poet’’ - see Winnington-Ingram 1969), is indebted to Aristophanes for his self-referential play with the dramaturgical and thematic conventions of the theater and with the very genre of tragedy. But an increasing refinement and complexity of self-reference is a phenomenon frequently associated with the organic growth and development of a genre.
Particularly interesting for the question of the relationship between tragedy and comedy are the metamorphoses of old tragedy brought about by Euripides and observed and noted by Aristophanes. In the agon of Frogs Aristophanes’ Aeschylus accuses Euripides of transforming the noble heroes he inherited from Aeschylean tragedy into pitiful, sorry creatures (1011, 1013-17); he adds that Euripides substituted banal chatter for the elevated thoughts and lofty language of Aeschylean tragedy (1058-62). Euripides defends himself by saying that as a good democrat he gave everybody a chance to speak (948-49), that he represented ‘‘ordinary matters that we’re accustomed to and spend our lives with’’ (959), and that he put Aeschylus’ swollen style on a diet (939-43). Exact observations lie behind the harsh accusations and bold exaggerations with which Aristophanes caricatures the innovator Euripides. Euripides did in fact, as his Aristophanic ‘‘I’’ claims, bring the world of the audience on stage. The representation of everyday objects and situations, anxieties and problems is one of the most noticeable characteristics of his ‘‘new’’ tragedy. The objects range from Alcestis’ clothes-chest and Electra’s water jug, to the broom with which Ion sweeps the courtyard of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, to Orestes’ simple sickbed as depicted in the opening of Orestes, with a little stool placed at the side for his nurse Electra. The new anxieties range from Admetus’ preoccupation, after
Alcestis’ death, with the dusty floors in his palace, to the preparations for celebrating Ion’s birthday, to Menelaus’ unpleasant experience as a beggar in front of the Egyptian palace. Euripidean heroes discuss the education of children and the social position of women, questions of heredity and socialization as well as questions of military efficiency and political morale. As Knox (1979a) has shown, this demyth-ologizing tendency, a realistic deheroization of situation and atmosphere that results in the creation of a completely new untragic tone, is particularly apparent in the first part of Electra and in Ion.
For all his mockery, Aristophanes hits upon the decisive point where tragedy changes with his critique of the stature and moral quality of the Euripidean hero. No longer better (or at least more powerful and more important) than the average but a human being like you or me, the tragic hero in Euripides moves into the unflattering light of mediocrity.
Euripides plays out the old stories anew with the people of his own time. He exploits the tension between myth and reality, between the elevated image of humanity presented in myth and high poetry and the historical actuality of human beings in all their weakness and wretchedness. The reduction of the Aeschylean and Sophoclean demigods to ordinary people stands out particularly sharply in the context of traditional tragic situations and dilemmas, with which Euripides’ new-style heroes are also confronted. Against the background of the traditional portrait of the hero from Homer to Sophocles, Euripides’ heroes present themselves as regular folk who distinguish themselves from the audience and its political leaders only insofar as they are not named Myrrhine and Callias, but Electra and Orestes; not Cleon and Alcibiades, but Eteocles and Polynices. Euripidean heroes are often too small for the large tragic roles they have to fill. The heroes’ costumes, hanging loosely and pathetically around their all-too-small bodies, reveal their weaknesses more than they conceal them. It is only a small step, and often not even that, to the comic and ridiculous.
Sophocles is supposed to have said that he represented humans as better than they are, whereas Euripides represented them just as they are (Aristotle, Poetics 1460b33-34). How close the tragic hero may come to being average is not easy to determine; however, at the point when he forfeits his last vestige of the extraordinary, and (at the latest) when he sinks below the average moral and intellectual level of his audience, he readily becomes an object of contempt, derision, and mockery, of malicious pleasure and ridicule - an object more suitable for comedy or tragicomedy than tragedy.
Generally speaking, comic elements are not infrequent in Euripidean tragedy. Whereas Aeschylus and Sophocles limit their realistic and comic touches to minor supporting characters, Euripides repeatedly aims at comic effects. These extend from individual lines, such as Menelaus’ inquiry as to whether Helen gained weight in Troy (Trojan Women 1050; cf., however, Gregory 1999-2000), to a few brief scenes, such as the dressing scene in Bacchae (925-44), to sequences such as the opening of Electra or Ion, and to whole plays such as Helen. With a few exceptions, however, the comic character of the numerous comic elements is as un-Aristophanic as is its function. As a rule Euripides is concerned with intensifying the tragic effect. So, for example, the labored joke about Helen’s weight problem not only serves to ironically show up Menelaus but also sharpens the tragedy of Hecuba and the bitterness of the Trojans’ fate. This Menelaus will not kill Helen; the guilty party will never have to pay.
In Bacchae too the comic features of the scene in which Dionysus dresses Pentheus as a bacchant only intensify the tragic effect; one of the funniest scenes in Greek tragedy is at the same time one of the most horrible and pitiful. And, finally, the seemingly light-hearted comedy about the rescue of the innocent Egyptian Helen is the true tragedy of the senselessness of the war. It is in particular the weakness of Euripides’ heroes, the ‘‘dwindling and fading’’ (Reinhardt 1960, 239), which threatens to consign so many of them to the realm of the ridiculous, that is simultaneously sobering and frightening. The loss of intellectual and moral substance becomes a central tragic statement.
Time and again Euripides used whatever he may have learned from comedy (and satyr-play) to test the boundaries of tragedy, and surely time and again the Athenian audience was astonished, confused, and perhaps also angered by what Euripides offered up as tragedy. From our contemporary vantage point we can see that the restless, experimental innovator developed the basic forms of new genres such as tragicomedy or romantic comedy; with Ion he created the form of European comedy that was dominant from Menander to Oscar Wilde. Within the framework of the City Dionysia, however, tragedy’s difference from comedy and satyr-play always remained apparent despite all experiments.
The most important of the Athenian festivals of Dionysus offered its audience a colorful program. In addition to processions and sacrifices, the community made poetic offerings of very different types to the god. At the center stood the two major dramatic genres, now far removed from their ritual origins and only rarely and sporadically linked (whether in theme or in content) with Dionysus. At the dithy-rambic opening of the Dionysia and at the satyric close of each tragic tetralogy, however, the god stood fully at the center of his festival.
World History
