Junctures

Tragedy’s structural alternation of speech and song framed by exits before and entrances after the song had a significant consequence: the junctures of exit/song and song/entrance provided fertile opportunities for suggestive juxtapositions, important oppositions, and playful and painful ironies. These junctures could be used both to indicate the drama’s movement and to comment on its action; the juxtaposition could underscore a point or paint a sharp contrast. A few striking examples will suffice to show the potential effect of such juxtapositions. Agamemnon’s arrival (810) in Aeschylus’ play of that name receives elaborate preparation, as the overall shape of the drama is the nostos (homecoming). Immediately before his entrance, the choral stasimon (681-782) draws evocative yet pointed connections between Troy’s destruction and Argos. Just as a lion cub turns on its human hosts, Helen has brought ruin to Troy, sing the Argive elders, and just as one act of violence (hubris) begets further violence, now this ruin comes to Argos - in the form of Agamemnon, whom the chorus announces immediately at the conclusion of this song. His death at Clytemnestra’s hands becomes an illustration of the choral reflections on violence and a continuation of the ruin brought by the Trojan War.

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is, at one level, a tightly crafted detective story, revealing slowly and painfully the identity of Laius’ murderer. In the scene immediately before Oedipus unravels the final part of the riddle and learns that he is Laius’ murderer (and his own mother’s husband), the chorus (1086-1109) imagines that the ‘‘orphan’’ Oedipus may have a divine birth - perhaps Pan is his father. As is signaled repeatedly throughout the play, Oedipus is the opposite of what he thinks he is - he is not the result of a divine union but the offspring of ill-fated mortals. The ensuing scene juxtaposes his imagined lofty origins with his true and pain-filled heritage.

Euripides’ structurally bold Heracles presents a tour de force with the mid-play appearance on high of Iris and Lyssa (‘‘Madness’’ personified). The play’s first half has shown Heracles’ just-in-time rescue of his family from death at the hands of the new tyrant in Thebes, Lycus. No sooner has the hero dispatched this evil man than the chorus sings a celebratory hymn (734-814), announcing the divine justice seen in Heracles’ triumph. This declaration of a theodicy is premature: immediately after this song, the chorus screams in horror at the arrival of Iris and Lyssa, who have come to madden Heracles into murdering his own children, sending the play in a drastically different direction.

The juxtaposition of song and entrance could also take on a more gentle form. The young, female, and Asiatic maenads who comprise the chorus in Euripides’ Bacchae conclude their parodos with the image of a bacchant compared to a swiftly leaping foal (165-69). Arriving immediately on stage is Tiresias - old, male, and Greek, but, remarkably enough, wearing the bacchant’s costume. In his ensuing exchange with Cadmus, he explains that he feels young in the service of the god Dionysus, but his ludicrous appearance stands in sharp contrast to the bacchants, a contrast heightened by the juxtaposition of song and entrance. Episodes, then, display not only their own internal arrangement but also purposeful connections with the nexus of exit, song, and entrance that define them.

Epic narrative, to which all of Greek literature was much indebted, could move easily from scene to scene. Drama did not have this narrative elasticity and had to rely on fewer characters to tell its tale. Another contrasting factor is tragedy’s static scenic space. By convention, the action in a Greek tragedy occurred outdoors (there was no ‘‘missing fourth wall’’) and only very rarely did a tragedy change its location in midplay (Eumenides and Ajax are the sole examples from extant tragedy). Another ‘‘static’’ feature was the constant presence of the members of the chorus (their departure during a play was likewise highly unusual), with whom entering characters would commonly engage in dialogue.

Prometheus Bound and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus presented striking structural choices and challenges. At the opening of Prometheus, Prometheus is bound to a rock at the ends of the earth, and there he remains. Since he cannot leave the scene, all the action must come to him, and the play consists of dialogue between the bound Prometheus and the chorus of Oceanids and conversations with other visitors. At the start of his Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles has Oedipus take refuge at the shrine of the Erinyes. This decision has a vital thematic point - the importance of the physical connection of Oedipus to Athens, of which Colonus was a suburb - and designates the aged exile as the literal focus of this long drama, with all characters coming to him. These bold dramaturgical choices of Prometheus and Oedipus at Colonus are extreme versions of the more common ‘‘suppliant play’’ pattern. In plays such as Aeschylus’ Suppliants and Euripides’ Suppliants, Helen, Heracles, and Children of Heracles, a character takes refuge at a sacred space but remains in that position only until a rescuer arrives.

Although no simple set of categories encompasses the variety of episodes in Greek tragedy, I group together three prominent types: those involving all three actors with speaking parts; those that contain a messenger scene; and those that comprise an agon (verbal contest). These three types will provide a framework for exploring episodes’ dramatic possibilities. Following this survey of scenes, I discuss Euripides’ Medea in greater detail to present the overall structure built from episodes, their intersections with choral song, and their contributions to the play’s architectonics and dramatic meaning.