[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
This volume gathers the peer-reviewed papers which were originally presented at the International Seminar METra (Mapping Epic in Tragedy), organised by the University of Verona and held online at the end of May 2021, with a view to exploring the different ways in which Athenian tragedy reworks epic stories, characters, narrative strategies, traditional formulae, and other stylistic features, as well as religious and other cultural ideas. The chapters it contains provide a comprehensive map of recognisable yet reconfigured epic vestiges in the tragic territories of ancient Greek drama, especially of that by Aeschylus and Sophocles.
The first two chapters of the book pursue the question of Sophocles’ traditionally assumed debt to epic poetry, in particular regarding his supposedly abundant appropriation of the Odyssey and the epic cycle in his plays.[1] Thus, in the first chapter, Laura Carrara conducts a thorough study of the interplay between the opening episode of princess Nausicaa and her maidens doing their laundry on a beach in Phaeacia and Sophocles’ play Nausicaa or The Washerwomen. Carrara focuses on fr. 439 Radt, transmitted by Pollux (Onom. 7.45), and traces its textual transmission and interpretations, examining the more or less felicitous proposals regarding the curious collocation of λινογενεῖς τ᾿ ἐπενδύτας, and most of all, the conspicuous use of the infinitive νῆσαι, from νέω, normally assumed to be a poetic reference to the manufacture –i.e. spinning, LSJ νέω (B)– of the clothes which the maidens have brought to wash. Following Olson’s reasonable misgivings about the credibility of the somewhat forced translation of this verb as “weave” instead of simply “pile up” –LSJ νέω (C)– which would be more appropriate for laundry chores, Carrara puts forward an altogether new reading of the fragment based on the transmission by two fifteenth-century manuscripts dismissed in the apparatus for reading τάνυσαι instead of τε νῆσαι. Carrara’s points are based not only on plausible textual criticism but also on linguistic, iconographical, and dramaturgical grounds. Indeed, her proposal allows us to chart Sophocles’ recreation of the well-known Homeric episode of clothes washing in Phaeacia on the Athenian stage.
In a similar vein, Francesco Lupi examines the fragments in which Sophocles repeatedly includes Odysseus in his plays as a character. Through a close reading of relevant fragments from (and other ancient sources on) Syndeipoi, Teucer, Palamedes and Euryalus, among others, Lupi draws attention to frequent cases of epic tradition “interference”, which the playwright appropriated by means of an ingenious reshaping of myth. Odysseus’ traditional characterisation as being skilled at rhetoric both in support of and against other heroes undergoes compelling intertextual variations throughout Sophocles’ multifarious pieces of work, such as Ajax and Teucer. In the former, Odysseus plays the role of the defendant of the son Telamon fathered with a Trojan princess and strikingly collaborates with him for the sake of concord, whereas in the latter, the Ithacan hero probably acts as a prosecutor of the surviving Telamonian, emphasising Teucer’s barbarian lineage (pp. 49-53). Odysseus’ twisted mind would plausibly be revealed in even more sinister terms in Sophocles’ Palamedes (pp. 53-54).
Along the same lines, Anna Maganuco also focuses on two very different examples of Sophocles’ use of the Homeric narrative pattern regarding the so-called “potential τις speech,” namely the imaginary report of what an anonymous collective voice might say regarding a character’s behaviour. In Maganuco’s detailed analysis, Sophocles displays his accomplished versatility in adapting Homer’s recognisable formal pattern to his own poetic schemes, which differ substantially not only in their use of Homeric references but also in their intradramatic motivations and consequences.
Meanwhile, Andrea Rodighiero examines recognisable Homeric scenes which the Athenian playwrights seem to have appropriated as dramaturgical formulae, transforming them into ‘typical tragic scenes’. As such, Euripides’ recurrent use of the tí klaíeis question, emotionally addressed to kinship characters in distress, is highly likely to evoke the similar question Thetis lovingly poses twice to her son Achilles in the Iliad. Likewise, the poetic terms employed by Euripides and Sophocles to describe Medea’s and Ajax’s respective mourning and fasting seem reminiscent not only of Penelope’s narratives of pain in the Odyssey but also of Demeter’s in the Homeric Hymn to the same goddess.
Giacomo Scavello builds on the similarities between epic Penelope and tragic Deianeira, detailing the features common to both but also their antithetical outcomes. Deianeira shares with Penelope her constant anxiety for the long-awaited return of her spouse, her continuous crying, and her unhappy nights of insomnia in the lonely marital bed. However, deprived of a personal encounter with her husband, Sophocles’ heroine will tragically differ from her epic analogue, whose poignant happy ending renders Deianira’s death even more moving.
Enrico Medda brilliantly explores Aeschylus’ striking transfer of a recognisable topos from epic —vaunting over the dead body of a warrior’s enemy— to the family vendetta woven throughout his Oresteia. As Medda cogently argues, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Aegisthus and Orestes misappropriate resounding Homeric expressions and imagery which actually jar with all these characters’ heroism manqué.
Carmen Morenilla Talens traces the traditional motif of a mother baring her breasts to plead with her son not to confront his enemy (and his own impending death). The poignancy of such scenes in Homer’s and Stesichorus’ poetry alike is analysed in close detail with an assessment not only of the success of the literary tradition they are more than likely to be reworking but also of its startling variations in the tragic receptions by Aeschylus and Euripides. In Aeschylus’ Choephoroi, the scene is appropriated to signal not only the appalling confrontation between a mother and her son, now enemies, but also the son’s crucial moment of doubt regarding his “heroic” duty (ll. 896 ff.). In Euripides’ Electra (ll. 1206 ff.), Orestes relates in song a similar scene to the chorus; moreover, the playwright adds the daughter’s ferocious collaboration when she assists her brother in his moment of tragic doubt. Some glimpses on the pictorial evidence regarding the same motif are also provided in support of its entrenched popularity amongst artists and audiences throughout Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Andrea Taddei delves into the opening prayer which Orestes addresses to Hermes Chthonius in Libation Bearers, which is rigorously interpreted in terms not only of its pragmatic religious resonances but also of the codified meanings of the plot which is staged on the symbolic theatrical space around Agamemnon’s tomb. Orestes’ particular invocation and plea to the god both partakes of and differs from renowned epic antecedents, such as Glaucus’ prayer to Apollo in Il. 16. 516-21, while foreshadowing subsequent prayers and invocations uttered in the play.
Finally, Alexandre Johnston pursues the issue of dramatic irony as deployed mainly in the Odyssey and in Sophocles’ Ajax and Oedipus Tyrannus. Johnston reflects on the epistemic gap that this trope opens up between the poet, the audience and the intradramatic characters, while at the same time highlighting the underlying theological aspects of such a compelling device regarding ancient assessments of human cognition. The various narrative procedures pertaining to such diverse genres as epic and drama allow the poets to convey different messages. In particular, Sophocles is shown to exploit a rather pessimistic albeit sympathetic view of humanity’s fallible and provisional knowledge.
Although the order of the chapters seems to follow a consistent thread and there is coherent development of the unifying topic —namely the focus on epic references in complete as well as fragmentary classical tragedies— internal references between the chapters are, however, sorely missing. Several chapters repeat the same information all over again, while drawing on differently accessed secondary references. Thus, chapters 1, 2 and 5 take as their starting point T 1. 80-81 Radt regarding Sophocles’ debt to Homer as well as his exploitation of the Odyssey. All three chapters also invoke Fraenkel’s famous quote about his wish to write a book on De Sophocle Homeri discipulo, if only he had a lifetime to do so. Equally redundant is the long footnote in chapter 5 (n. 3, pp. 112-113) regarding those Sophoclean plays which might possibly be related to the Odyssey, a subject already extensively tackled in the first two chapters of the book, and the same would apply to n. 6, pp. 114-15, concerning the Euryalus, a play already discussed in chapter 2 (pp. 54-57). Except for these missing internal references, which would have spared the reader the task of reading through virtually the same pieces of information (something welcome in a volume packed with data), all chapters are richly informative, fully up to date and well grounded.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Vicente Bañuls Oller, to whose insightful works not only on ancient epic but also on Aeschylus and Sophocles so many of us are deeply indebted. I am sure he would have thoroughly enjoyed the book both for its compelling topic and its in-depth bibliographical references.
Authors and Titles
Andrea Rodighiero, Giacomo Scavello, Anna Maganuco, “Introduzione”.
Laura Carrara, “Il bucato di Nausicaa. Una nuova lettura di Sofocle, fr. 439 R. (Ναυσικάα ἢ Πλύντριαι)”.
Francesco Lupi, “‘Schegge’ di Odisseo. I ‘volti’ dell’eroe nei frammenti dei drammi odissiaci di Sofocle”.
Anna Maganuco, “Usi e funzioni della τις-Rede da Omero a Sofocle (Soph. Ai. 500-5 ed El. 975-85)”.
Andrea Rodighiero, “Il pianto di Achille e il digiuno di Penelope. Impieghi ‘formulari’ da Omero ai tragici”.
Giacomo Scavello, “Penelope e Deianira. Carattere e sentimenti di due eroine rae pica e tragedia”.
Enrico Medda, “Rivisitazioni del vanto epico del guerriero nell’Orestea”.
Carmen Morenilla Talens, “«Nadie te lo reprochará» La súplica de una madre en Homero, Estesícoro y Esquilo”.
Andrea Taddei, “Basta chiedere? Forme, lessico e rituale della preghiera in Aesch. Cho. 1-3”.
Alexandre Johnston, “Irony and the Limits of Knowledge in Homer and Sophocles”.
Notes
[1] Cf. Soph. T 1. 80-1 as well as T 136. 8-9 Radt.