a poet at work

7/28/2019 a poet at work

1/30

A Poet at Work: The Parody ofHelenin the Thesmophoriazusae

Gian Franco Nieddu

klgein k tn gegrammnvnArist. Top. 105b

N E DOUBLECURIOSIT anime la critique moderne: elleveut savoir comment se font les textes, et elle veutUsavoir comment ils se dfont, noted J. Starobinski 1 in

initiating a debate on text genetics some years ago. A similartwofold curiosity is to be foundwe might even say right fromtheir very beginningsin studies on ancient literary tradition:

the desire to find out how the texts in our possession wereproduced, and how they were reusedin other words, to verifythe ancient writers working methods, the procedures involvedin the composition of a literary work, the conditions (even thematerial ones) for making poetry.

Four passages in Greek literature dating from before the fourthcentury B.C. explicitly portray the poet at work. Three of themare to be found in Aristophanes. 2 In Av. 904a957 the poetbrought on stage is an anonymous character, a person from the

1

J. Starobinski, Approches de la gntique des textes: Introduction pour undbat, in L. Hay, ed., La naissance du texte (Paris 1989) 208.2 See J. Herington, Poetry into Drama. Early Tragedy and the Greek Poetic

Tradition (Berkeley) 1985 4647, who however seems to recognise only thecases described in Acharnians and Thesmophoriazusae. There is far moreevidence relating to the later Greek and especially the Roman eras with in-formation on the process involved in the composition of a literary work, fromthe preliminary collection of materials to the final definitive writing, ready forpublication. This is now the subject of an interesting and well-documentedstudy by T. Dorandi, Le stylet et la tablette. Dans le secret des auteurs antiques(Paris 2000); some supplementary notes on Dorandis work are in V. Bers, CR21 (2001) 409410.

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 44 (2004) 331360 2004 GRBS


2/30


3/30

GIAN FRANCO NIEDDU 333

direct reference to writing materials or to the activity of writing,although it is not unrealistic to imagine that the poien ofEuripidesil primo drammaturgo che intravediamo nel suo

studio piuttosto che sulla scena come autore o cantore

6

wasperhaps scenically represented by a stylus and tablet placednext to the poet.

In Thesm. 101129 we find Agathon shown performing a lyricinterlude,7 evidently part of a tragedy (52, drmatow rxw), ina sort of private rehearsal8 where he interprets both the soloand the female chorus parts. In the words of the servant (4957a), preparing for his masters exhibition with a propitiatoryrite,9 the activity of poihtw is likened to the work of acraftsman. Just like a shipwright, a builder, a carpenterfromwhose world a relentless series of metaphors are gradually

taken10he first of all takes steps to lay the foundations, thebasis of his drama (52, druxouw tiynai drmatow rxw );then he models, moulds, adapts, polishes up, finishes off, and

uttered by Dicaeopolis upon receiving Telephus rags and cap (447, e g': oondh =hmatvn mpmplamai ).

6 G. Avezz, Il teatro tragico, in I. Lana and E. V. Maltese, edd., Storiadella civilt letteraria greca e latina I (Torino 1998) 236295, at 265: a col-location which more or less directly refers to the image of a bookish Euripides.

7 Cf. 67 (melopoen rxetai ) and 99 (melden a paraskeuzetai ), wherefirst the servant and then Euripides announce his entry on stage, asking forsilence (39, 99). The use ofdiaminresyai, with which the Relative at 100 de-scribes the poets performance, seems to suggest that Agathon exits humming

to himself or warbling: the root recurs at Eccl. 880 and Vesp. 219.8 Cf. C. Prato, Le donne alle Tesmoforie (Milan 2001) 169 (linno non sembraun testo definitivo pronto per la rappresentazione, ma una prova teatrale, ditipo privato); Herington, Poetry 47 (we seem to be witnessing a quite earlystage in the composition both of words and melody, before they have reachedthe point when they can be taught to the chorus and actor).

9 Cf. 3638, jrxetai | proyusmenow tw poisevw, a servant of his iscoming out to make an offering for his masters poetry (transl. Som-merstein), that is, to favour the poetic success of the master. The prefix pro- ofproyv combines the notions of before and on behalf of (Muecke,Portrait 43 n.18).

10Cf. schol. 52, 53, 54. See J. Taillardat, Les images dAristophane 2 (Paris1965) 442443; Rau, Paratragodia 102; W. Horn, Gebet und Gebetsparodie inden Komdien des Aristophanes (Nrnberg 1970) 9798; J. F. Gannon, Thesmo-

phoriazusae restitutae: An Essay in Annotation and Interpretation (diss. Yale1982) 3945; and especially Muecke, Portrait 4446.


4/30

334 A POET AT WORK

connects the various materials: he bends and curves new lines,he polishes them up on a lathe and glues them together, heforges sentences and coins words, casts moulds and rounds

off.

11

Thus we find a series of operations which are meta-phorically mentioned, in a way that is far more explicit andarticulated than in the passage in Acharnians: althoughspecifically designed to outline the comic image of Agathon,they correspond at least in part to several moments or phasesof the composing procedure and working method of an ancientauthor. Once again, however, the scene does not contain anyspecific reference to writing, which is perhaps a signif we donot want to ascribe it to deliberate comic distortion of thefactsthat the attention of Aristophanes was rather moredirected at ridiculing the poet in his quality of inspired poet/

craftsman poet/effeminate poet12aspects which for their

11Lines 5357a, kmptei d naw cdaw pn, | t d torneei, t d kol-lomele, | ka gnvmotupe kntonomzei ka khroxute ka goggllei kaxoaneei: he is bending new verbal timbers into shape, now gluing songstogether, now fashioning them on the lathe, and coining ideas and creatingmetaphors and melting wax and rounding out and casting in a mould (transl.Sommerstein). This series of crafts images shows a conception of poetic composi-tion as a process which involves fabrication, elaboration, adaptation, andlinking of materials, and which is far from the idea of a creative work thatflows mysteriously and obscurely from the mind of the genius. In particularnote the metaphor of kolln present in kollomelen (54: an unusual compoundform, cf. Prato, Le donne 156), which evokes a similar kind of operation de-scribed by Plato in Phaedrus (278DE) as being typical of the procedure used bythe writer of his time as compared to the dialectical philosopher (see n.75 infra).

12Cf. Muecke, Portrait 41. According to Herington, Poetry 47, the probableconclusion is that the late-fifth-century tragedian did not take to his pen orstylus until late in the composition or even until after the process was finished we may guess that at least the lyric poetry of archaic Greece, and perhaps itspoetry in all kinds, was composed by a similar process, with the act of thewriting down occurring toward the end or at the end rather than toward the

beginning. Now, it is true that per molti secoli dopo lintroduzione dellalfabeto i Greci non identificarono poesia e scrittura e che lidea di poesia nonevoc limmagine di una tavoletta di cera, di un rotolo di papiro o della letturasolitaria (M. Vetta, RivFil 112 [1984] 341342), but beginning in the firstdecades of the fifth century the association of poetry and writing (scrolls,tablets)which manages to involve Sappho, the Muses, even Mnemosyneherselfbecomes a specific and recurring subject in vase paintings: H. R.Immerwahr, Book Rolls on Attic Vases, in C. Henderson, ed., Classical

Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies in Honour of B. L. Ullman (Rome 1964)1737, and Attic Script. A Survey (Oxford 1990) 99 n.6; F. A. G. Beck, Album of


5/30


specifically linguistic-stylistic and rhythmical-musical expres-sion obviously could find an adequate parodic realization onlythrough an oral performance.13

In contrast, a direct reference to a moment in the writing of acomedy seems to be present in Cratinus Wineflask (first place inthe competition of 423). Here, as has been plausibly supposed,the comic poet himself, the main character of the play, is repre-sented in the act of writing, with Comedy, in the guise of hiswife, at his side lavish with suggestions: Dont talk nonsense!Put it into one episode! Cleisthenes, playing dice, will makethem laugh, and again Rub out Hyperbolus and write in themarket of oil-lamps.14

Even if these are the only passages where the act of com-posing (and with it the attitudes and personal ideas of the

protagonists) is the direct object of the literary performance,reading between the lines of another comic parodic text can beshown to provide more information on the actual mechanismspresent in the process of making poetry. Significant andsuggestive implications are to be found in the famous passage ofGreek Education. The Greeks at School and at Play (Sydney 1975), esp. II 49; V12; X 812, 2224, 27, 29, 3032, 34, 68; cf. J. R. Green, Oral Tragedies? AQuestion from St. Petersburg, QUCCN.S. 51 (1995) 7786, on the intriguingscene of the Attic hydria of the Pan Painter, from the second decade of the fifthcentury (LIMC III no. 846, pl. 401). There is also a considerable reflection ofthis motif in the literary world, where for the first time the image of writingdefined as mousomtor' rgnhn appears with Aeschylus (PV460461).

13In the opinion of M. Cr. Torchio, Nell officina del poeta tragico: Ar.Thesm. 101129, Quad. Dip. Fil. Rostagni 17 (2001) 127135, at 131, the sceneof Agathon takes us back a unoralit legata al contesto comunicativo tea-tralerather than to an orality of composition (Herington, Poetry): in thisscene the poet will try out leffetto che doveva ottenere lesecuzione pubblicadel suo canto, esercitando una sorta di controllo acustico sul testo dram-matico.

14Frr.208 (lhrew xvn: grf' atn | n peisod. geloow staiKleisynhw kubevn ) and 209 K.-A. ( Uprbolon d' posbsaw n tow lxnoisigrcon ). See Kassel-Austin, PCG IV 229230, on problems of interpretationand suggestions for emendations, particularly regarding fr.208. In his re-construction of the scene, which is not unlike that already proposed byFritzsche, Meineke, and Zielinski, M. Heath, Aristophanes and his Rivals,G& R 37 (1990) 143158, at 151, comments significantly the conception isstunning: the comedian is being advised by Comedy on writing a comedy in acomedy. Of all lost comedies, this is the one I would most like to read.


6/30

336 A POET AT WORK

the Thesmophoriazusae (855919) that parodies the EuripideanHelen.

Concerning the pastiche of Agathons song in the Thesmo-

phoriazusae, Wilamowitzs peremptory claim that Aristophanesmust have had the tragedians works in front of him (er hattenatrlich Lieder Agathons vor sich)15 can be seen as anachro-nistic and excessively bookish and quite properly set aside.16

But the situation in the parody of Helen is completely different.Here the full and independent preservation of the original textputs us in the happy positiona unique one17of being able toappreciate in all its complexities the technique used by thecomic poet and at the same time offers us the opportunity toreflect on the authors working method (the compositionprocedure, the material conditions, the operational choices)

when constructing a text starting from someone elses text.18In the Thesmophoriazusae the parody of the tragedy, performed

successfully one year earlier at the Dionysia of 412,19 is intro-duced as a mhxan of Euripides, who appears in the guise of

15U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Griechische Verskunst (Darmstadt1921) 341.

16We have to take into account the possibility that the comic writer wastrying here, as elsewhere, to freely reproduce the language, style, and musictypical of the dramatist, without making reference to a particular composition:thus for example in Frogs 13311363. Cf. Prato, Le donne 168169.

17In fact there are no other examples of such extended parodies of tragic

scenes where the hypotext has been preserved.18The passage has been the subject of a number of in-depth and stimulating

studies, which have underlined certain characteristics and problems. See inparticular Rau, Paratragodia 5365; R. Kannicht, Euripides Helena (Heidelberg1969) I 7982; M. G. Bonanno, Lallusione necessaria (Rome 1990) 241276(Metateatro in parodia [Sulle Tesmoforiazuse di Aristofane]); F. Bubel,Euripides, Andromeda (Stuttgart 1991) 159169 ("Appendix zur parodischenTechnik des Aristophanes); R. Klimek-Winter, Andromedatragdien: SophoklesEuripides Livius Andronicus Ennius Accius (Stuttgart 1993) 120125; Prato,Le donne 297304.

19tn kainn Elnhn mimsomai (850) is in fact exclaimed by the Relativewhile announcing the new expedient after the failure of the previous ploy. Onthe not simply temporal but especially qualitative values of kain see Kan-nicht, Helena I 2122; F. I. Zeitlin, Travesties of Gender and Genre inAristophanes Thesmophoriazousae, in H. P. Foley, ed., Reflections of Women inAntiquity (New York 1981) 169217, at 186; Bubel, Andromeda 160 n.5.


7/30


Menelaus to bring the Relative (in the role of Helen) to safety,after the latter has been arrested by the women for infiltratingtheir feast in womens clothing. Aristophanes re-writing of

the tragic model totals 44 lines, some reproduced exactly, otherspartly modified or summarised, and quite deliberately alter-nated with impertinent interruptions by Critylla, the old womanwho keeps watch over the Relative (her interventions make upabout 20 lines). He draws from five parts: the prologue, thescenes where Teucer and Menelaus make their entrances, thedialogue between Menelaus and the old gatekeeper, the meetingand reciprocal recognition between Helen and her legitimatespouse. Through an appropriate selection of the material fromthese scenes, Aristophanes represents his own Helen, whichcontains the principal elements of the Euripidean plot:

Menelaus arrival in the land of Egypt, the meeting between themarried couple who are still unaware of each others identity,the impending wedding between Helen and Proteus son, themoment of recognition. But the expected happy ending does notarrive for the two protagonists of the comic scene: the action isbrusquely interrupted by the guards intervention and their planto escape comes to nothing.

It should emphasised first that the comic re-composition isproduced from the original materials, which are freely cut andcleverly juxtaposed, and integrated only now and then withverses created ad hoc for the comic scene. Thus Aristophanes,rather differently from what he does on other occasions, doesnot limit himself to recalling a few episodes or the plot of thetragedy punctuated now and then with precise textual refer-ences; on the contrary, he works in complete dependence on themodel, resorting to it with extreme precision, not only in theevocation of the dramatic action but also by repeating, when-ever possible, the exact words pronounced by the characters. Ifwe set aside the interruptions of the astounded guard, the linesof the two protagonists in the comic adventure which attemptto recreate the tragic situation can be thus classified:


8/30

338 A POET AT WORK

(1) 15 lines reproduced exactly from the Euripidean tragedy withirrelevant variations (due in some cases to events in the traditionof one of the two literary texts), for a total of 34%;(2) 3 lines slightly modified for parodic purposes, 7%;

(3) 25 lines constructed in a Euripidean manner, where lexiconand stylistic elements from his other tragedies are variouslycombined and used as connecting or passing reference elementsespecially for summarising, 57%.20

What clearly emerges from all this is above all the considerablepresence of the lines taken up literally, in other words the carewith which Aristophanes transfers fragments of the tragictext into his text, displaying a textual fidelity which indicatesan attitude of attention and, as it were, respect towards theoriginal.

1. The prologue

KH. Nelou mn ade kallipryenoi =oa, 855w nt daw cakdow Afigptou pdonleukw notzei melanosurmaon len.

The first three lines of the tragedy are reproduced in a perfectlyidentical form up until the beginning of the third ( leukw ) andend with a burlesque variation par prosdokan, following anot uncommon procedure, which alters the syntactic relation-ships between the verbal elements21 and imposes a brusque turnin the sense of the phrase, without however relinquishing the

characteristic feature of the double accusative present in theoriginal.22 The following succession of lines are also taken from

20To these percentages we need to add 2%, deriving from the insertion of aSophoclean quotation (line 870).

21leukw (an element of cerniera tra citazione e variazione: G. Paduano,La festa delle donne [Milan 1983] 165 n.115), which in the original is the epithetof snow from which the Nile is born, rather surprisingly takes on the role of anattribute of Egypt in a play on words on the colour contrast between black/white with the following melanosurmaon, jokingly introduced to ridicule thepurgative customs of the Egyptians ( cf. E. W. Handley and J. Rea, The Telephusof Euripides [BICS Suppl. 5 (1957)] 23; Rau, Paratragodia 58).

22In fact this continued with takeshw xinow granei gaw : W. H. van deSande Bakhuyzen, De parodia in comoediis Aristophanis (Utrecht 1877) 123


9/30


the Euripidean prologue, which first continued (415) with agenealogical section dedicated to Proteus, ignored by Aristoph-anes as being irrelevant to the economy of his scene: Thesm.

859860 (= Hel. 1617), 862a (= Hel. 22), 864865a (= Hel.5253), 866 (= Hel. 49), 868a (= Hel. 56).

KH. mo d g mn patrw ok nnumow,Sprth, patr d Tundrevw.

GU. so g', leyre, 860patr kenw sti; Frunndaw mn on.

KH. Elnh d klyhn.GU. ayiw a ggnei gun,

prn tw traw donai gunaiksevw dkhn;KH. cuxa d polla di' m' p Skamandroiw

=oasin yanon.GU.B v felew d ka s ge. 865KH. kg mn nyd' em': d' yliow psiw

omw Menlaow odpv prosrxetai.t on ti z;

GU.B tn korkvn ponhr&.

These lines conform almost completely to the parodied original.Aristophanes has substantially respected the sequence of linesin the model in his selection of the key elements which make asort of reduced epitome. The exception is line 49 (= Thesm.866), kg mn nyd' em': d' yliow psiw, which he post-pones to the end of the brief monologue, to underline the eager-ness with which the Relative/Helen awaits the arrival of herMenelaus, who is to free her from her unfortunate positionas a prisoner. The comic text is extemporaneously turnedtowards an expression of expectation (867, omw Menlaowodpv prosrxetai ), which the tragic heroine would not have

124, comments, est omnino insolita dictio nihil tamen in Euripide mutandumesse docet Aristophanes, qui non modo pdon legit sed consulto difficultatemauxit verbo gaw substituendo lvn . Cf . also B. B. Rogers, The Thesmo-

phoriazusae of Aristophanes (London 1904) 91; Rau, Paratragodia 58 n.99.


10/30

340 A POET AT WORK

been able to say since she could not have been waiting for herbridegroom at this particular point in the story.23

In the reproduction of the lines from the prologue, apart from

the initial prosdkhton, there are only two points of de-parture from the model and these are in fact quite limited: (a)Thesm. 859, where in place of the emphatic plural mn (Hel. 16)we find the singular mo, una diminutio dello stile aulico, with-out any comic pointe, and not relevant enough to warrant thehypothesis of quotation from memory,24 but rather introduced(if we do not wish to consider it a copyists error) forse perconsentire lironica ripresa del successivo soi.25 (b) Thesm. 868,where in place of dt(a) (Hel. 56, even though Euripides giveshis heroine this tragic interrogative in an identical form again in293), we find on, an alteration which is apparently not in-

tentionalunless we in fact see in it an indication of an error inthe tradition of Helen as suggested by Handley/Rea and Kan-nicht.26

Bubels assertion,27 man hat also damit zu rechnen, daAristophanes keinen allzu groen Wert auf wortgetreue Wieder-

23The completion of the phrase in Helen (5051) is: strteum' yrosaw twmw narpagw | yhr poreuyew Ilou purgmata. As Paduano points out(La festa 167 n.120), il verso euripideo aveva un referente temporale pre-cedente alla guerra di Troia qui viene spostato alla contemporaneit im-mediata e piegato alla successiva impetuosa richiesta dellarrivo di Menelao.Cf. Rau, Paratragodia 58, von ihrer unglcklichen Trennung vom Gattenspricht Helena zunchst im Zitat, krzt dann aber mit der bloen Feststellungseiner Abwesenheit ab, und zwar in der komischen Handlung voraussetzend,was sie als Helena eigentlich nicht wei: odpv prosrxetai.

24As suggested by A. C. Schlesinger, Identification of Parodies in Aristoph-anes, AJP 57 (1937) 294305, at 295 n.3 (a slip of Aristophanes memory)and Paduano, La festa 165 n.116 (una diminutio dello stile aulico, ma dovutasenzaltro alla citazione a memoria).

25Prato, Le donne 298.26Handley/Rea, Telephus 23; Kannicht, Helena I 82 (da der Kontext des

Originals ersichtlich on, nicht dta erfordert, der Kontext der Parodie dagegeneher dta als on erwarten liee, ist damit zu rechnen, da die Parodie diegenuine Lesart bewahrt hat; also II 3334). In fact Kannicht and also J. Diggle,Euripidis fabulae III (Oxford 1994) ad loc., accept on. Bubel, Andromeda 163n.12, has reservations, as he sees the risk of berinterpretation in Kan-nichts type of argument.

27Andromeda 162.


11/30


gabe legt, sondern den tragischen Text mit einer gewissen Sou-vernitt handhabt, appears, at least regarding this section, tobe clearly proved wrong. On the contrary what immediately

stands out is the complete exactitude of the quotations, anexactness we can see as somewhat unnecessary, given thedifficulty for a theatrical audience to conduct an accurate com-parison for the correctness of the quotations. However even inthe procedures for the construction of the scene, Aristophanesseems to work starting from a text which he can handle with acertain ease: he chooses key-verses, singles out pieces he wantsto introduce in new comic situations, and makes a suitable syn-thesis or as Paduano puts it un rifacimento comico abrg,28

centred on the re-use of several essential themes (the exoticsetting in Egypt, the identification of Helen, the admission of

the fault for which she carries the burden, the expectation ofthe liberator). We can follow Aristophanes procedure step bystep, and in some cases identify the reasoning that was thebasis of his selection: mo d g mn patrw ok nnumow, |Sprth, patr d Tundrevw (859860) and the short phraseElnh d' klyhn (862a), taken from the mythological excursuson the divine origins of Helen (Hel. 1617, 22), allow the rapididentification of the role that the Relative is gradually assuming;cuxa d polla dfi' m' p Skamandroiw | =oasin yanon(864865 = Hel. 5253)29 and the desperate exclamation t onti z; (868a = 56), in their strong pathos, make an irresistibleinvitation for the deflating comments of the female guard.30 Thebreak in the linear sequence of the quotations,31 which hadbeen respected until now, introduces at this point the wait for

28Paduano, La festa 167 n.121.29The quotation is chosen as a synthesis of the whole story dedicated to the

narration of the misadventures linked to Helens name (Hel. 22b55).30Lines 865b (vfelew d ka s ge ), 869b (tn korkvn ponhr& ).31Paduano, La festa 167 n.120; cf. Bubel, Andromeda 163. The inversion,

clearly suited for the economy of the new context, means that the liberation ispostponed (Thesm. 866 = Hel. 49) to after the expression of guilt ( Thesm.864865 = Hel. 5253).


12/30

342 A POET AT WORK

the liberator, thus pointing to the connection with the figure ofEuripides/Menelaus who is about to make his appearance.

2. The arrival of Menelaus

In this second part Aristophanes summarizes a sequence ofthree episodes which in the original span more than 500 linesand whose discursiveness clearly shows Euripides clever desireto prolong the wait by delaying the meeting between theprotagonists: the dialogues between Teucer and Helen (a subtlepreparation for the recognition scene), between Menelaus andan ill-tempered old gatekeeper, and finally the crucial one be-tween Menelaus and Helen. The comic poet reduces these threescenes to their functional unity, making a bold abridgement32

which to an extent forces upon him greater liberty towards the

original text; but even though he reduces the speaking charactersfrom four to two, he does not refrain from inserting exactquotations into the new scene, alternated with linking verses inwhich the Euripidean manner is evoked and at times exag-gerated through words and phrases which he favoured or bysimply using ostentatatiously paratragic language.33

When our Menelaus enters on stage, instead of using theanalogous somewhat colourless lines reflecting his character,3 4

he uses the far more emphatic and high-sounding words ofTeucer, tw tnd' rumnn dvmtvn xei krtow; (Thesm. 871 =

32Many scholars have pointed out this operation, though in rather genericterms. Cf. Paduano, La festa 167 n.123 (i due versi successivi [872873] costi-tuiscono una transizione, sempre in stile tragico, che comprime lazione delmodello; in risposta infatti Mnesiloco/Elena fornisce le informazioni che nellatragedia vengono date a Menelao dalla scortesissima vecchia portinaia);Bubel, Andromeda 165 (bietet sich die Gelegenheit, die euripideischen SzenenHelena/Teukros und Menelaos/graw zu verknpfen, ohne da eineNahtstelle sichtbar wird).

33An example is the invocation of Zeus in the words of the Relative/Helen(870: m ceson, Ze, tw pioshw lpdow ), which announces the entrance ofthe saviour and inserts a hemistich from Sophocles Peleus (schol. ad loc., fr.493Radt) into the web of quotations from Helen.

34Hel. 459, tw d' de xra; to d basleioi dmoi;


13/30


Hel. 68). The continuation of his question35 is on the contrarywoven with lexical elements that remind us of the story that theAchaean hero will tell of his labours, both in the monologue with

which he introduces himself on stage (in particular Hel. 408410) and also during the dialogue with the old gatekeeper(449).36 In fact, the answer to the rather solemn question Whois the lord of this mighty palace? is a partial alteration of theone the ill-tempered Old Woman gives to Menelaus in Helen:Prvtvw td' st mlayra (Thesm. 874a Hel. 460). This linehas perhaps been deliberately altered in both syntax and lexi-con (the Euripidean tradition has Prvtew td' ofike dmat') tofavour the pun between the two names Proteus/Proteas,37 whilethe alteration ofdmata into mlayra, metrically necessary inAristophanes adaptation to avoid a split anapaest in

antilabe, finishes with an exaggeration of the Euripidean phrasein an even more tragic manner.38

35Lines 872873, stiw jnouw djaito pont sl | kmnontaw n xei-mni ka nauagaiw;

36Precise stylistic details in Rau, Paratragodia 59 (ad 872873); cf. Kannicht,Helena I 80 (87173 = Hel. 68 + Resm von 386434). But other scholars,e.g. Nauck, do not exclude the possibility that the lines make up a quotationfrom an unpreserved tragedy (fr. adesp. 64).

37In Kannichts opinion (Helena I 82, II 136, ad 460), ist deutlich daAristophanes den originalen Wortlaut in eine Formulierung mit possessivemGenitiv verwandeln mute, um das kalauernde Wortspiel Prvtvw : Prvtawphonetisch zu ermglichen. Doubts and reservations are expressed by Bubel,Andromeda 166 and 167 n.21. According to a conjecture already proposed by

Kirchhoff, H. Grgoire, Euripide, Hlne (Paris 1950) 68 (but also cf. Rogers,Thesmophoriazusae XXVII n.1), suggests in his critical apparatus the possibilitythat Aristophanes nearly preserves the genuine Euripidean reading, onlysubstituting mlayra for dmat' (nam quod anus dicit, secundum lectionemcodicum Euripidis, non est uerum). Diggle adopts this solution in his edition ofthe tragedy (Prvtvw td' st dmat' ). We must also take into considerationthat the Euripidean formulation with ofike, which presupposes that Proteusis still alive, would have been (if Aristophanes had known it!) the mostconvenient expression providing the comedy in Crityllas remark: tynhkePrvtaw th dka. However, according to Rau (Paratragodia 59) 'Helenagibt frei nach den Worten der Alten Auskunft. See also Paduano, La festa 167n.124 (citazione ad sensum), and Prato, Le donne 298.

38Bubel, Andromeda 166 n.20, seems to favour a different conclusion andnumbers our case among the Verbesserungen tragischer Ausdrucksweisendurch den Komdiendichter (169). According to Rau, Paratragodia 69, m -layra ist so gut tragisch wie dmata; still, it is undoubtedly of less frequent


14/30

344 A POET AT WORK

In the continuation of the dialogue between the characters onstage (877901), the literal or slightly altered quotations al-ternate and mingle with a freer rapid series of tragically-styled

questions and answers which reproduce several essential pas-sages of the stichomythia between Menelaus and the old Womanin Helen. An undeniable reminder ofHel. 459 (tw d' de xra; )is present in Thesm. 877 (poan d xran efiseklsamenskfei;), re-elaborated in a decidedly more elevated manner,39

while a strict adherence to the original text is in Thesm. 878 (dsthnow, o peplkamen ), which is almost identical with Hel.461 ( dsthnow, o ppleuk' ra )thus it is not to beexcluded that in the Euripidean text we should restore the formpplvk' ra on the basis of our passage.40 A more elaboratestylistic re-writing is seen in the following line 881 (atw d

Prvtew ndon st' 'jpiow; ), which again contains a questionmodelled on Hel. 467 (pteron ktw 'n dmoiw; ),41 but hasbeen formed by substituting ndon for ()n dmoiw and ()jpiow(a rather precious Euripidean neo-formation)42 for the morecommon ktw.43 Line 886 (td' stn ato sma) almostexactly repeats the initial hemistich from Hel. 466 (td' stn

use (H. Perdicoyianni, Le vocabulaire de lhabitation chez Euripide , LEC 64[1996] 2150, at 2126 and 3943).

39To Bubel, Andromeda 166, this appears in tragischem Stil ohne bekannteVorlage.

40Kannicht, Helena II 136137 (ad 461463): da Aristophanes in nicht-parodischem Zusammenhang die attische Form verwendet kann also mit derMglichkeit gerechnet werden, da er die ionische Form hier mit der Absichtverwendet hat, den pathetischen Ton des Ausrufs mit Hilfe eines euripideischenStilmittels zu berbieten. Andererseits lt sich natrlich die Mglichkeitnicht ausschlieen, da im Euripidestext ppleuk' aus pplvk' ra enstelltist (see also I 81 and II 135, ad 455, as well as Bakhuyzen, De parodia124125; pplvk' is in fact the form adopted by Grgoire, Hlne 69).

41The question, which in the original was about Theoclymenus, is now aboutProteus himself and is evidently meant to prepare the ground for the finalingenious ploy, where a reluctant Critylla is integrated into the parodic game(cf. 885, 890891, 895897a).

42Cf. Alc. 546,Med. 624, Supp. 1038.43Cf. Rau, Paratragodia 60; Prato, Le donne 300. Here we also have, as in the

use of the unusual Ionic form peplkamen, a demonstration of that tendencytowards a stylistic hypercharacterisation of the Euripidean lexicon.


15/30


ato mnma), with sma for mnma. Aristophanes wish toprepare for the new, indignant intervention by the female guard(887888) probably lies behind this substitution, introducing

into the text a commonplace word, generally already felt asequivalent to tfow (cf.Hel. 6364), strengthening the effect ofthe blasphemous assimilation of an altar to a tomb.44 Thehemistich that completes 886 ( f' kaymeya) allows arecovery of the theme of seeking asylum at Proteus tomb fromthe initial situation of Helen, present in the model from the veryfirst scene (6365)45 and now evoked in a strictly tragic stylewith a few strokes of the pen (889891):

EU. t da s ysseiw tsde tumbreiw drawfrei kaluptw, jnh;

KH. bizomai 890gmoisi Prvtvw paid summejai lxow.

Another central theme of the tragedy, the heroines claim offaithfulness, is again taken from the prologue.46 Here it is incon-gruously made to spite the poor Critylla, who tries to preventthe intrigue between the two and gets caught up against her willin the theatrical game, in the role of Theonoe, Proteus daughterand Theoclymenus sister:47

EU. jnh, tw graw kakorroyos se;KH. ath Yeonh Prvtvw.

GU. m t ye,

44Cf. Kannicht, Helena I 82 and especially II 137 (ad 466); Bubel, Andromeda167; Prato, Le donne 300. Rau, Paratragodia 60, is of a different opinion: dieerste Vershlfte ist zitiert, nur da Ar., vielleicht aus dem Gedchtnis zitierend,sma statt mnma schreibt. Note that in Hel. 797801 Euripides had alsomentioned the anomaly of the tomb which serves as an altar, as a guarantee ofinviolability.

45(EL.) tn plai d g psin | timsa Prvtvw mnma prosptnv tde |flktiw, n ndr tm diass lxh.

46Hel. 6365, cf. 5355, also 795, 927931.47In Euripides, the prophetess Theonoe enters at 865 and has an air of

benevolent complicity towards Helen and Menelaus: the role change to whichAristophanes has subjected the character is obvious.


16/30

346 A POET AT WORK

efi m Krtull g Antiyou Garghttyen.s d' e panorgow.

KH. psa toi bolei lge.

o gr gamomai s kasignt pot900

prodosa Menlevn mn n Tro& psin.

As can be seen, we are dealing with a construction which hasbeen skillfully planned and worked out and which makes use ofall the materials suitable for the new situation, recovering themfrom their original context and, as here, giving them a newcollocation.

3. The recognition

The longest and most continuous quotation is part of therecognition scene (Thesm. 902916a). The prefatory lines(902905) are constructed with a combination of tragic elementsthat correspond for the most part with Helen itself:

EU. gnai, t epaw; strcon ntaugew kraw.KH. afisxnoma se tw gnyouw brismnh.EU. tout t stin; fasa tw to m' xei

yeo, tn' cin efisor; tw e, gnai; 905

The highly poetical expression strcon ntaugew kraw,4 8

which may or may not have been taken from the Euripideanrepertoire, probably accompanied the gesture with which

Euripides/Menelaus tried to get his prim Helen to turn herface towards him. This provided the Relative with the op-portunity of giving a reluctant answer, which departs from thescene within the scene49 and recalls the painful shaving that had

48Prato, Le donne 302; cf. Rau, Paratragodia 61 (die Wendung knnteTragdienexzerpt sein).

49On the regressioni dalla seconda finzione (la paratragedia) allaprima (la commedia), typical of the Relative in his role as Helen and then asAndromeda, and more generally on the notion of metatheatre which operates inAristophanic comedy, see in particular Bonanno, Lallusione 241262 (with

bibliography).


17/30


been part of the disguise scene (215235).50

But from 906 to 912 Aristophanes limits himself to repro-ducing in a literal and continuous form a highly charged passage

from the tragic stichomythia, where the married couple realisethat they are both very much like Helen and Menelaus ( Hel.558 and 561566):51

KH. s d e tw; atw gr s km xei lgow.EU. Ellhnw e tiw pixvra gun; KH. Ellhnw. ll ka t sn ylv mayen. EU. Eln s moan d mlist edon, gnai.KH. g d Menel s', sa g k tn mfvn. 910EU. gnvw r' ryw ndra dustuxstaton.KH. xrniow lyn sw dmartow sxraw.

The only disparity is in the final part of 910, 52 a comic break

50For 904 cf.Hel. 548549, w dmaw dejasa sn | kplhjin mn fasante prostyhw. However, following a procedure already noted, line 905contaminates the parallel and almost identical expressions of surprise byTeucer and Menelaus when faced with the woman: yeo, tin' edon cin; (Hel.72, Teucer's entrance) and tw e; tn' cin sn, gnai, prosdrkomai; (Hel. 557,stichomythia between Helen and Menelaus). Cf. Handley/Rea, Telephus 24(line 905 is a conflation of Helen 72 and 557). According to Rau, Para-tragodia 62, it is an example of freie Zitation: Ar. htte gut Hel. 557 wrtlichbernehmen knnen, er hat aber auch hnliche Wendungen aus in der Situationentsprechenden Stellen im Kopf, die er dann bewut oder unbewut kon-taminiert. But also cf. Bubel, Andromeda 168 n.26.

51The pair of lines 559560 omitted here were uttered a parte and interruptedthe dialogue, revealing to the audience the different levels of recognition

reached by the two main characters in the process of reciprocal recognition:these lines are not pertinent to the new situation and are thus passed over byAristophanes who takes up the dialogue again with line 561 (cf. Kannicht,Helena II 158). On the other hand it is on the basis of the Aristophanic text(907) that 561 ofHelen, dropped in the Euripidean manuscript tradition, has

been restored, remedying textual damage evidently due to the identical incipitEllhnw with the following line (A. M. Dale, Euripides. Helen [Oxford 1967]102; Kannicht, Helena I 82). Dales observation on 558 is equally significant:the unusual inversion [ km' xei lgow ] is protected by Ar. Thesm. 906, whichalso gives atw for atw [from the LP codices].

52A clear surprise ending, preserved in the form sa g' k tn fifvn,which would recall the ancient malice towards Euripides mother (fifvn:vegetables). Cf. Kannicht, Helena I 8182, II 159 (ad 565567). mfvn (rags) isa modern conjecture, proposed by Grgoire (Hlne 73) and V. Coulon-Tauber,Beitrge zur Interpretation des Aristophanes, Philologus 95 (1942) 3154 at


18/30

348 A POET AT WORK

which is probably linked to the substitution of the original grwith r(a) in 911, adattato alla risposta del falso Mene-lao.53 More doubtful is the situation in 912 where, in place of

the demure w xraw of the tragic model, several scholars regardperfectly plausible the reading sxraw of the Ravennateshearth, but also gunaikeon mrionarrived at by a simplemetaplasm which is not unusual in Aristophanes and which isnot unworthy of the Relative. In any case this modification isclearly intentional, and with this and the clever attempt atliberation, the scene moves towards its unsuccessful conclusion,having reached a climax at the moment of the embrace. Thealmost pure reproduction of the affectionate outburst of theRelative/Helen is followed by a series of repeated and patheticimperatives in frenzied dochmiacs (913916a),54 with which the

Relative/Helen urges Euripides/Menelaus to take him away assoon as possible (even to remind us, in mocking contrast, of thevery prolonged, almost interminable duet of the Euripideantragedy):55

lab me, lab me, psi, perbale d xraw.fre s ksv. pag m' pag' pag' pag me 914/5labn tax pnu.

Armed with a torch, the good Critylla decides to put an end tothe suspicious afiguptizein of the two accomplices;56 and Eurip-ides, after trying once again to improvise a few unscriptedphrases,57 is obliged to flee.

4548, preferable to an allusion to Euripides alleged lineage, which would beout of place here.

53Prato, Le donne 303.54Cf. P. Pucci, Aristofane ed Euripide: ricerche metriche e stilistiche (Rome

1961) 346; Rau, Paratragodia 62.55Hel. 625697. In particular Aristophanes seems to make use of lines 627

629, 634635, and 694695.56Thesm. 921922, ok tw plai | guptizet'. ll' de mn dsei

dkhn.57Thesm. 918919, s tn mn gunaka kvleiw m, | tn Tundreion

pad', p Sprthn gein;


19/30


What clearly emerges from the framework that we have de-scribed is that Aristophanes does not limit himself to quotingverses in a more or less literal manner, but in parallel carries out

a series of operations which redesign the model text: (1) heexcises whatever he deems irrelevant and unnecessary58 or per-haps even too complex;59 (2) he summarises a lengthy accountin a line;60 (3) he inverts the sequence of the quotations; 61 (4) hecompresses distinct scenes and juxtaposes lines that in theoriginal belong to different contexts.62 With indisputableefficacy the result of his work is bent to comic use andselectively altered to fit the parodic game.

It is not easy to evaluate the implications of this complexseries of operations, behind which we can glimpse quiteconcretely an accurate and clever work of planning,63 which

involved the preliminary collection and selection of the poeticmaterials. In the case of the substitution of single words,without any comicpointe (mo for mn, on for dta, sma formnma), there is a widespread tendency to consider these mod-

58For example, the section on Proteus (415) or the mythological excursus onHelens divine origins (1721).

59All the problems regarding the double identity are also left out of theparody, together with the opposition between reality and appearance, thetheme of the false image or Eidolonmotiv (Rau, Paratragodia 65 and more gen-

erally 5657, and Das Tragdienspiel in den Thesmophoriazusen, in H.-J.Newiger, ed., Aristophanes und die alte Komdie [Darmstadt 1975] 339356, at350351).

60So 5253, extracted as a summary of the entire narration of the mis-adventures linked to Helens name (Hel. 2155).

61So 864865, which come earlier than in the model (5253) and serve tosummarize an entire mythological development; likewise 866, postponed (cf.Hel. 49) and put in a different temporal dimension, which is no longer mythical

but rather opportunely correlated to the reality of the situation on stage.62So the dialogue between the Relative/Helen and Euripides/Menelaus

which combines and mingles the two scenes Helen-Teucer and Menelaus-OldWoman with the insertion of the themes of seeking asylum and Helens claim offaithfulness.

63Man hat also mit erheblichen Freiheiten in der Verwendung des Originalszu rechnen, darf aber andererseits einen bestimmten Plan des Komikers

voraussetzen (Rau, Paratragodia 65; also see Kannicht, Helena I 79).


20/30

350 A POET AT WORK

ifications as quotation from memory.64 The same can be said ofthe apparent transformation of Prvtew td' ofike dmat' (Hel.460) into Prvtvw td' st mlayra (Thesm. 874a) or the

contamination in Thesm. 905 (= Hel. 72+557)taken either asfree quotations (Rau) or as ad sensum quotations (Paduano,Prato).65 Yet it seems impossible that such a complex operationcould be carried out without the support of a written textonthe threads of ones thoughts, based exclusively on the oralskill of the poet, whom we must imagine recalling to memoryentire sequences in relation to scenes which are certainly notshort. Even if we need not think that Aristophanes had to lookup every single word or quotation in Helen,66 the availabilityand consultation of the work in a written form appear to be thenecessary conditions for such a shrewdly exercised ars ex-

cerpendi.67 Moreover, it is the selfsame comedy-writer who givesevidence of the possibility (if not the practice) of copyingpassages from dramatic texts for personal use, when in Frogs hecondemns anyone who troubled to copy a rhesis from thetragedian Morsimus to lie in the perpetual mud of the damnedin the hereafter.68

64This is explicitly stated by Schlesinger and Paduano (see n.24), Rau (seen.44).

65See nn.37 and 50.66Aristophanes may have read or had the chosen text read to him, taking care

to isolate and copy down the pertinent passages, as happens in e.g. Xen.Mem.1.6.14 (see n.74).67C. F. Russo, Aristofane autore di teatro2 (Florence 1984), follows this line

when he asserts (318) that naturalmente molti specialisti, per ragioni dilavoro, si procuravano versioni scritte delle opere del teatro Aristofane, peresempio, si sar procurato subito un esemplare dellElena e dellAndromeda perparodiarle puntualmente nelle Tesmoforianti dellanno dopo. Cf. N. J. Lowe,Aristophanes Books, Annals of Scholarship 10 (1993) 6383, at 72, and P.Demont and A. Lebeau, Introduction au thtre grec antique (Paris 1996) 44.

68Ran. 151 Morsmou tiw =sin jegrcato. This must have been the mostlikely method chosen for learning passages by heart, which were to be recitedin society, or rather to the symposium, one of the venues that was also em-ployed for the reuse of dramatic texts ( cf. R. Reitzenstein, Epigramm und Sko-lion [Giessen 1893] 3439, and G. Avezz, Il teatro tragico, in I. Lana ed E.V. Maltese, edd., Storia della civilt letteraria greca e latina I [Torino 1998]236295, 285286).


21/30


The case of the parody in Thesmophoriazusae appears in manyrespects emblematic. Here it is not a matter of taking out tragiclines or parts of them, particularly memorable for their con-

tent or collocation, nor of quoting long, continuous sequences(this in fact could have easily been done mnemonically), andthen simply jamming them into the texture of the comedy asoften happens elsewhere. The far more complex and refinedoperation of undoing and re-making another theatrical piececertainly required a fair amount of reflection on the passageunder consideration.69 The methods themselves, as well as theabundance of the quotations, point towards an operationstarting from a written text. This would have been carefullyskimmed in order to single out and extract the serviceableelements for the parodic reuse.70 Further and not negligible

confirmation of this is that within the certainly fluid situation ofa Greek dramatic text from the end of the fifth centuryopen tocontributions, alterations, and the intrusion of stage prac-ticeAristophanes felt obliged to adhere to his model almostliterally, apart from obvious comic and parodical constraints.He does this to the point of certainly preserving, as we haveseen, a Euripidean verse dropped in the course of tradition, andperhaps even some quite precious authentic readings.71 Thusone can say that he in fact behaves according to ways andmethods belonging to a civilisation with a written tradition. It is

69As Russo (Aristofane 297298) very well observes, though in rathergeneral terms, le Tesmoforianti, in pratica, decompongono e ricompongonoparodicamente forme espressive e sceniche del teatro euripideo. Ma, natural-mente, solo la decomposizione e la ricomposizione della superstite Elena puessere bene apprezzata; e il trattamento cos sottile e maliziosamente puntualeche quella tragedia sub, implica che Aristofane se ne procur subito un mano-scritto.

70According to Lowe, Books 73, the quotations are diagnostic signs ofbook-quotation. The cento with which Frogs 12661274 and 12851295 areconstructed, is not so significant and probative evidence, and neither is thecollage ofWasps 750756 which echoes isolated themes and expressions fromAlcestis (863, 866867) and Hippolytus (215216, 219, 230).

71See notes 26, 37, 40. For the evidentiary value in general of the parody inthe constitution of the text ofHelen, cf. Kannicht, Helena I 81 n.4.


22/30

352 A POET AT WORK

clear that the text has reached a relative stabilityeven if notcompletely fixed or closedand that above all, this stabilityis recognised and substantially respected:72 nothing could be

further from a mechanism of oral re-utilisation.Xenophon also bears witness that the practice of legere etexcerpere (klgein), so amply documented in the writing activityof authors of the Greco-Roman age,73 was in use in a periodclose to that of Aristophanes, when he describes an unattestedbook-loving Socrates, who liked to meet with his friends andpupils to scan the writings of the great men of the past andcopy down those passages most worthy of interest.74 On the

72This is after all what the poet Philoxenus demanded of his public in thesame period. In a rather colourful account by Diogenes Laertius (4.36), he

brusquely intervenes against the deformations to which his compositions were

sometimes submitted: having once come across some brickmakers who weresinging his verses so badly, he started to tread on their bricks saying Ill ruinyour things just as you have ruined mine. This little story in some way offersthe best evidence for the passage from an oral mentality to a written one,demanding respect for the text, which is to be reproduced unaltered. In themediaeval age it will become a real topos ( cf. G. Sanga, Modi di produzione eforme di tradizione: dalloralit feudale alla scrittura capitalistica, in G.Cerina et al., edd., Oralit e scrittura nel sistema letterario [Rome 1982] 3148).As is well known, certain worries about the safeguarding of the authenticity ofones own verses already emerged with Theognis in elegiac poetry. On this seeW. Rsler, Dichter und Gruppe . Eine Untersuchung zu den Bedingungen undzur historischen Funktion frher griechischer Lyrik (Munich 1980) 7988; G.Cerri, Il significato di sphreghs in Teognide e la salvaguardia dellautenticittestuale nel mondo antico, in Lirica greca e latina, Atti del convegno polacco-italiano, Poznan 1990 (Rome 1992) 2543; P. Giannini, Il proemio, il sigillo e illibro di Teognide, in R. Pretagostini, ed., Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura

greca Scritti in onore di B. Genti li I (Rome 1993) 377391, at 382384.Herodotus (7.6.3) bears witness to a similar attitude, which was particularlystrict in defending the textual authenticity of a politically important tradition,when he relates that Onomacritus, who was responsible for the preparation(diaythw) of the collection of Musaeus oracles, was exiled by Hipparchus,with whom he had always been on very good terms, simply because he had beencaught by Lasus of Hermione interpolating ( mpoien) these oracles. Thenotion of respect for the text which is the main theme of the episode is also un-derlined by A. Schnapp-Gourbeillon, Homre, Hipparque et la bonne parole,Annales (ESC) 43 (1988) 805821, at 816817.

73An adequate illustration can be found in Dorandi, Le stylet 2750. We canrecall Aulus Gellius testimony (praef. 23) and that of Pliny the Younger (Ep.3.5.10) on his uncle.

74Xen. Mem. 1.6.14, ka tow yhsaurow tn plai sofn ndrn, owkenoi katlipon n bibloiw grcantew, nelttvn koin sn tow floiwdirxomai, ka n ti rmen gayn klegmeya. Cf. also 1.2.56 and Pl. Leg.


23/30


other hand, in the final scene ofPhaedrus Platos description ofthe writer of his timepoet, speech-writer, lawmakerisalmost as surprising. The activity is described as a process in

which the writer is busy going through his papers over andover again at length, cutting and pasting the different partstogether.75 This testimony is not unique. In Menexenus (236B),Socrates tells of having listened to Aspasia, a rhetoric teacherof no little importance, deliver an entire commemorativespeech, which she composed partly by improvising and partlyby putting together (sugkollsa) a number of passages whichshe had elaborated beforehand.76

81 1A, ofl d k pntvn keflaia kljantew ka tinaw law =seiw efiwtatn sungontew, and Arist. Top. 105b1213. See B. M. W. Knox, Booksand Readers in the Greek World, in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, edd.,

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I (Cambridge 1985) 116, at 11,13, 1415 n.3, and especially B. Gentili, Lo spettacolo nel mondo antico(Roma/Bari 1977) 68. The work of selection (klgein) could in realityinclude that of noting down passages of particular interest, together with asubsequent transcription, as is explicitly affirmed by authors of later periods(Pliny the Younger etc., cf. Dorandi, Le stylet 2750).

75Pl. Phdr. 278DE, okon a tn m xonta timitera n sunyhken gracen nv ktv strfvn n xrn, prw llhla kolln te ka fairn,n dk pou poihtn lgvn suggrafa nomogrfon proserew. With aclearly negative connotation Plato compares the writer, who spends all his timere-elaborating his compositions and writings which are his most preciouspossession, with that of the philosopher, who while aware of the funda-mental inadequacy of every form of writing, continues to follow the dialecticalmethod, which is deemed more suitable for the search and communication oftruth: E. Heitsch, nv ktv bei Platon, RhM 134 (1991) 276287, at284286, offers a careful discussion; also cf. G. F. Nieddu, La scrittura madre

delle Muse: agli esordi di un nuovo modello di comunicazione culturale(Amsterdam 2004) 121; G. Reale, Platone. Fedro (Milan 1998) 271.76peita t mn k to paraxrm moi diei, oa doi lgein, t d prteron

skemmnh, te moi doke sunetyei tn pitfion lgon n Periklw epen,perilemmat' tta j kenou sugkollsa : and thereupon she rehearsed tome the speech in the form it should take, extemporizing in part, while otherparts of it she had previously prepared, as I imagine, at the time when she wascomposing the funeral oration which Pericles delivered; and from this shepatched together sundry fragments (transl. R. G. Bury). Cf. N. Loraux,Linvention dAthnes. Histoire de loraison funbre dans la cit classique 2(Paris 1993) 333. As we have seen, Agathons servant also uses the image ofpasting together, to describe his masters composition technique. It alsorecurs in the parabasis of Wasps (10371041) in a judicial context, where Ari-stophanes claims before the audience that he had never been afraid to attack i

brividi e le febbri, i.e. the sycophants, che chini sui letti riempiono fogli sufogli (sunekllvn) di giuramenti, di citazioni, di testimonianze (transl.


24/30

354 A POET AT WORK

We also know from Clement of Alexandria, citing evidencefor his claim about the Greeks tendency to plagiarism, that thesophist Hippias boasted of one of his speeches being a novel

product composed (sunyew) by choosing and combining pas-sages from Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer, and other Greekand Barbarian poets and prose-writers.77 A thorough task ofselection (klejmenow) reportedly was also carried out byHipparchus in preparing the sententious maxims which he hadinscribed on the hermai along the roadsides of Attica, after firsthimself editing their writing up in verse.78

Mastromarco). Cf. also Nub. 446 ceudn sugkollhtw (a sticker-together oflies).

7786 B 6 D.-K. (FGrHist 6 F 4), totvn svw erhtai t mn Orfe, t dMousa kat brax ll llaxo, t d Hsid t d Omr, t d tow

lloiw tn poihtn, t d n suggrafaw t mn Ellhsi t d barbroiw:g d k pntvn totvn t mgista ka mfula sunyew toton kainnka polueid tn lgon poisomai. Gomperzs proposal to supply in the finalphrase t mgista (klejmenow) ka (t mlista) mfula is perhapsunnecessary but not without interest. The criteria of importance and affinitywhich guided Hippias in his work of selecting and combination are no differentfrom those we find expressed later; e.g., Plutarch and Cicero often used thetechnique of collecting extracts (see Dorandi, Le stylet 27ff). From a differentpoint of view, Heraclitus had rather polemically branded Pythagoras sofh asa mere operation ofklgein, and immediately afterwards he gave it a negativeconnotation by calling it polumayh and kakotexnh (22B129 D.-K., PuyagrhwMnhsrxou flstorhn skhsen nyrpvn mlista pntvn ka klejmenowtataw tw suggrafw poisato auto sofhn, polumayhn, kakotexnhn).On the difficulties and doubts on authenticity raised by the fragment, see D.-K.ad loc. (I p.181). Recent historiography has been rather more inclined towardslending full credence to the received text. For detailed discussion see W.

Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge [Mass.] 1972)130131, 161, 209210; J. Lallot, Une invective philosophique (Hraclite,Fragments 129 et 35 D.-K.), REA 73 (1971) 1523; Ch. H. Kahn, Philosophyand the Written Word: Some Thoughts on Heraclitus and the Early Greek Usesof Prose, in K. Robb, ed., Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy (LaSalle 1983) 110124, at 111114; J. Mansfeld, Fiddling the Books (HeraclitusB 129), in Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy (Assen/Maastricht 1990) 443448; Ch. Riedweg, Pythagoras hinterliess keineeinzige Schrift: ein Irrtum? Anmerkungen zu einer alten Streitfrage,MusHelv54 (1997) 6592, at 7887; M. Gemelli-Marciano, Le contexte culturel desPrsocratiques: adversaires et destinataires, in A. Laks et Cl. Louguet, edd.,Quest-ce que la Philosophie Prsocratique? (Lille 2002) 83114, at 97103.

78[Pl.] Hipparch. 228D, piboulevn a tow n tow grow paidesaisthsen atow Ermw kat tw dow n ms to steow ka tn dmvnkstvn, kpeita tw sofaw tw ato, n t mayen ka n atw jeren,


25/30


Moreover, a number of Hippocratic writings are thought todate to around the time when Aristophanes was active; theseworks were the result of an intensive preliminary activity of

collation of empirical data and of the successive elaborationand written fixing.79 In particular we know of a (collective)work from Cnidus school, the so-called Cnidian Sentences,which underwent revision and was then made public in the re-vised form.80

klejmenow geto softata enai, tata atw ntenaw efiw legeonato poimata ka pidegmata tw sofaw pgracen.

79Many studies have clearly highlighted how this may constitute a rathermore relevant methodological and epistemological novelty, characterising anew trend in medicine which was so consciously theorised and practised by thewriter-doctors of the time. See J. Pigeaud, Le style dHippocrate ou lcriturefondatrice de la mdecine, in M. Detienne, ed., Les savoirs de lcriture (Lille

1988) 305329, at 305306; Ph. J. van der Eijk, Towards a Rhetoric ofAncient Scientific Discourse, in E. J. Bakker, ed., Grammar as Interpretation.Greek Literature in its Linguistic Contexts (Leiden 1997) 77129, at 9799; R.Wittern, Gattungen im Corpus Hippocraticum, in W. Kullmann et al., Gat-tungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike (Tbingen 1998) 1736, at2931; J. Althoff, Die aphoristisch stilisierten Schriften des Corpus Hippocra-ticum, in Gattungen 3841. See also Nieddu, La scrittura 125128. A specificthough rather meagre insider testimony of this working method in successivephases is at Hippoc. Epid. 6.7, where the much-discussed expression t k tosmikro pinakidou, which opens the paragraph, seems to indicate the sourcefrom which all the immediately following material is taken: cf. D. Manetti andA. Roselli, Epidemie. Libro sesto (Florence 1982) 166169. Historiographersworking methods and the process which led to the formation of monumentalworks like those of Herodotus and Thucydides are also involved in this prob-lem. Jacobys hypothesis is of particular relevance, since he imagines the finalediting of the Herodotean work as essentially an operation of cutting and

pasting, an Arbeit mit der Schere (F. Jacoby, Herodotos, RE Suppl. 2 [1913]205520, at 361), in other words a sort of collage of the various lectures (Vor-trge) he gave over a period of time; but cf. R. Lattimore, The Composition ofthe History of Herodotus, CP 53 (1958) 921; W. Rsler, Alte und neueMndlichkeit. ber kulturellen Wandel im antiken Griechenland und heute,Der altsprachliche Unterricht 28.4 (1985) 426, at 2326, and Die Selbst-historisierung des Autors. Zur Stellung Herodots zwischen Mndlichkeit undSchriftlichkeit, Philologus 135 (1991) 215220, at 217. As regards Thu-cydides, Prentices pioneering criticism (W. K. Prentice, How ThucydidesWrote His History, CP 25 [1930] 117127) provides a significant contribu-tion, discussed by Dorandi, Le stylet 525.

80Hippoc. Acut. 1.13. 1 Joly (II 224228 L.), ofl suggrcantew tw Knidawkaleomnaw gnmaw ofl mntoi steron pidiaskeusantew a twofoldoperation of editing and correction which in its distinct phases can be dated tothe initial and middle decades of the century. See J. Jouanna, Hippocrate. Pourune archologie de lcole de Cnide (Paris 1974) 16 n.4, 24 nn.23, 132, 512, as


26/30

356 A POET AT WORK

Again, Plato makes reference to a long and articulatedprocess of elaboration in the opening scene of Theaetetus(143AC), a dialogue conceived as an account in a mimetic or

direct form (i.e., without the intervention of a narrating voice) ofthe conversations that Socrates had with the young Theaetetusshortly before his death. We are told that Euclid graduallytranscribed them as accurately as possible, working at his ease(kat sxoln ) at home on the notes (pomnmata) he hadtaken. These were then corrected and integrated with any newdetails that gradually came to his mind and about which, fromtime to time, he would take care to ask Socrates himself forconfirmation.81

The cuts, the displacements, the connections, the editing ofwhich these texts more or less explicitly attest, offer an idea of

how far writing had become part of the ancient authorslaboratory, and they cast his activity into a new culturaldimension. If, as we have tried to demonstrate, the operationcarried out by Aristophanes presupposes the availability andthe careful consultation of the text of Helen, this does notprejudice the enjoyment of the public as a whole, nor does itimply, as has been emphasised on more than one occasion,equal access by the whole community to a written culture. Here,as in other cases, it would have been sufficient for manythenave, the people who followed the theatrical event on a

well as G. F. Nieddu, Il ginnasio e la scuola: scrittura e mimesi del parlato, inG. Cambiano et al., edd., Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica I (Rome 1992)555585, at 557 n.4; Wittern, Gattungen 24. The existence of preparatorytexts, referred to by the ancient exegetic tradition (Galen), and the phenom-enon of rewriting and re-elaboration within the corpus are addressed moregenerally by A. Roselli, Sui generi degli scritti della collezione ippocratica,Lalies 21 (2001) 6378, at 7073.

81(EU.) ll' gracmhn mn tt' eyw okad' lyn pomnmata, sterond kat sxoln namimnskmenow grafon, ka skiw Aynaze fikomhn,panhrtvn tn Svkrth m memnmhn, ka dero lyn phnvryomhn:ste moi sxedn ti pw lgow ggraptai : but I made notes at the time assoon as I reached home, then afterwards at my leisure, as I recalled things, Iwrote them down, and whenever I went to Athens I used to ask Socrates aboutwhat I could not remember, and then I came here and made corrections; so that Ihave pretty much the whole talk written down (transl. H. N. Fowler).


27/30


superficial level looking only for the spectacular82to enjoy thegratifying feelings of recognition and appreciation of the mostapparent elements of the paratragic development of the piece,

of the stage movements, of the theatrical gestures, of thestylistic deviations.83 But in some way we have to presuppose alevel of comprehension which was not totally adequate, whichwould have been incapable of giving the correct value to theoften subtle and refined mechanisms used by the comic poet inthe construction of his text.84 The literary product, fruit of

82That is to say, as W. Ludwig, inMnandre (Entretiens Hardt 16 [1970]) 28,writes mit Auge und Ohr.

83Especially for the more popular and familiar authors and genres, the audi-ences memory and literary competence played a decisive part in perceivingthe presence of parodies, textual allusions, and stylistic references even if theywere not always completely decoded. G. Mastromarco, Commedie di Aristofane

I (Turin 1983) 3542; Pubblico e memoria letteraria nellAtene del quintosecolo, Quad. AICC Foggia 4 (1984) 6586; Trame allusive e memoria delpubblico (Acarn. 300-301 ~ Caval. 314), in Filologia e forme letterarie. Studiofferti a Fr. Della Corte I (Urbino 1987) 239243; Introduzione a Aristofane(Rome/Bari 1994) 141159; Pubblico e memoria teatrale nellAtene di Aristo-fane, in P. Thiercy et M. Menu, edd., Aristophane: la langue, la scne, la cit(Bari 1997) 529548, provides a major reference point for the characteristics,the contents, the limits, and the working mechanisms of this fundamental elementof the relationship between poet and public in fifth-century Athens. Also cf.Bonanno, Lallusione 267270, and C. Franco, La competenza del destinatarionella parodia tragica aristofanea, in E. Corsini, ed., La polis e il suo teatro 2(Padua 1988) 213232, which give particular attention to the context of theperformance in which the communicative function of the tragic parody isrealised.

84The kind of competence required here is clearly something more than thesensitive ear evoked by R. Harriott, Aristophanes Audience and the Playsof Euripides, BICS 9 (1962) 18, at 2, since it involves not simply identifyingthe nature and maybe the origin of a passage or a stylistic feature but the actualappreciation of the ingeniousness of the performed device, in other words theways the model has been revived. Mastromarco (Pubblico letteraria, esp.75; Trame 241243; Introduzione 147159) has given many compelling exam-ples of the need to assume the presence of an audience within the audience, whocould at the very least have been made up of other comic poets and theirentourages. In his opinion, the more subtle references and allusions sarannostate colte da una cerchia molto esigua del pubblico; e, probabilmente, sarannostate meglio apprezzate dopo lo spettacolo, in una discussione tra spettatoricolti che avranno rivisitato filologicamente il testo appena rappresentato(Pubblico letteraria 74). Cf. P. Walcot, Aristophanic and Other Audi-ences, G&R N.S. 18 (1971) 3550, at 45: the latest productions wouldcertainly have been discussed, and one place for such discussions would be thesymposium. Perhaps the diners could rely on more than just personal recol-lection. In not so very different terms we should imagine the relationship be-


28/30

358 A POET AT WORK

skilfully written elaboration, would have had to confront apublic (the majority of the listeners, the mayew or skaio) whowould not always have been able to capture the signals sent to

them by the author or to fully appreciate the comic play beyondquips, puns, or lines of immediate enjoyment.85

Several painful and notorious rejections gave Aristophanesthe chance to verify the strong disparity that had come to becreated between himself, the author who was participant anduser of a written culture, and the receiver who was largelyexcluded from it.86 In Wasps 10431054 regret over the spec-tators incapacity to properly and readily appreciate thenovelty of his inventions and the superior quality of his lines(toto mn on sy' mn afisxrn tow m gnosin paraxrma,

tween the tragic poet and the public. At the end of his meticulous study of thevery significant phenomenon of Aeschylean neoformations and their revival inthe works of Sophocles and Euripides, V. Citti, Eschilo e la lexis tragica (Am-sterdam 1994) 159166, observes that for these kinds of phenomena we mustpresume that the communication came about in un dialogo libresco, condotto inmodo che per noi evoca quello della poetica alessandrina. Anzitutto tra poeta epoeta, e quindi per cerchi di competenza assai ristretti, in cui condizione primae necessaria era il controllo testuale dellopera del poeta antico, cos puntualeda non poter essere fatta se non su testi scritti (165166). A stimulating theoryon the complex nature of the dramatic semiosis operating in the Attic texts ofthe fifth century is St. Jedrkiewicz, Teatro attico e comunicazione di massa:ipotesi di ricerca, QUCCN.S. 42 (1992) 724.

85Aristophanes himself is the first to bear witness to the different levels ofcompetence that existed in his audience when, for example, in his final appeal tothe judges in Eccl. 11541156, he addresses da una parte agli spettatori dotti

(perch, nellesprimere il loro voto, tengano conto delle parti dotte dellacommedia) e, dallaltra, ai meno colti, a coloro che ridono volentieri (perchtengano a mente le sue facezie) (Mastromarco, Pubblico teatrale 65).Likewise M. Vetta, Aristofane, Le donne allassemblea2 (Milan 1994) 274,observes: tra i sofo vanno messi coloro che, per gusto e formazione, oltre alle

battute farsesche, valutavano lo erhma e la dinoia di una commedia;essi erano in grado di cogliere tutte le allusioni letterarie.

86In the parabasis of the second Clouds (518562), in the depths of dis-appointment for the resented defeat, he also manages to include in his rebuke thesofo, the cultured people, for whom he had gone to so much trouble (525526). The diversity referred to here is not just the difference that is quitenormally found between the author and his often quite extensive and far lesseducated audience, but rather has roots and a raison dtre of a structuralorder, originating in the different conditions of those who were able, whennecessary, to use written texts freely and competently compared with thosewho had limited or almost no access to them.


29/30


1048) are associated with the wish that in the future they willknow how to render greater honour to those poets who try tothink up and say something new. When in Frogs, flattering the

public in an obviously interested way

87

and using the Chorus ashis mouthpiece, he urges the two competing protagonists toboldly tackle even the most subtle and refined subjects, heevokes cultural conditions which have already changed and inwhich the gap has been closed or is no longer such an im-portant handicap:

efi d toto katafobesyon, m tiw maya prostow yevmnoisin, w tlept m gnnai legntoin,

mhdn rrvdete toy': w oky otv tat' xei.strateumnoi gr efisi,

biblon t' xvn kastow manynei t deji:afl fseiw t' llvw krtistai,nn d ka parhknhntai.mhdn on deshton, ll

pnt' pjiton, yeatn g' onex', w ntvn sofn.8 8

Whatever the precise value we attribute to the enigmatic bibl-on,89 it is nonetheless highly significant that the new instrumentof communication appears as the protagonist of a twofold

87

The words with which Socrates (Pl. Ap. 26D) replies to Meletus whendenying the charges brought against him are inspired by a similar attitude andare an attempt to envelope the members of the jury in a subtle net of flattery:Do you think you are accusing Anaxagoras, my dear Meletus, and do you sodespise these gentlemen and think they are so unversed in letters (perouwgrammtvn) as not to know, that the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenianare full of such utterances? (transl. Fowler).

88Ran. 11091118: If what youre frightened of is that there may be someslow-wittedness in the audience, so that they may not understand the subtlethings you say, dont be apprehensive, because things arent like that any more.Theyre old campaigners, and every one of them has a book and understandsintellectual ideas; and being already well endowed by nature, they have now

been honed to the utmost acuteness. So have no fear, but explore everything, sofar as the audience are concerned; theyre smart! (transl. Sommerstein).

89A review of the various interpretative possibilities is to be found in K.Dover, Aristophanes Frogs (Oxford 1993) 34 n.68.


30/30

360 A POET AT WORK

cultural and semantic turning point (Things arent like that anymore!),90 founded on a new conception of sofa: a sofa nolonger just oral but also written, bookish and literary.91

June, 2004 Dip. di Filologia ClassicaFacolt di LettereUniversit di Cagliari (I)Piazza dArmi09123 Cagliari, [email protected]

90It is difficult to give a detailed account of the varied opinions about this.See J. D. Denniston, Technical Terms in Aristophanes, C Q 21 (1927)113121, at 118; W. B. Sedgwick, The Frogs and the Audience, ClMed 9(1947) 19; E. Fraenkel, Beobachtungen zu Aristophanes (Rome 1962) 179 n.1; R.Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 28 n.6; E. Schmalzriedt,Peri physeos. Zur Frhgeschichte der Buchtitel (Munich 1970) 5758 n.21; L.Woodbury, Aristophanes Frogs and Athenian Literacy: Ran. 5253, 1114,TAPA 106 (1976) 349357; Knox, Books 9; G. Cortassa, Il poeta, la tra-

dizione e il pubblico. Per una poetica di Aristofane, in E. Corsini, La polis e ilsuo teatro (Padua 1986) 185204, at 199201; Avezz, Il teatro 286. But thegeneral belief is that, over and above the comic hyperbole (things arent likethat any more; everyone has his own book), the irony and the opportunisticflatteryvoiced by the poet about the audiences comprehension skills beforepassing on to rather more subtle and refined forms of humour must have had aconcrete reflection in a situation where, as much evidence suggests, thedissemination of books was increasing rapidly (Dover, Frogs 35), and at leastin certain circles the biblon was establishing itself as the symbolic object of anew cultural fashion characterised by refinement and ingenious perspicacity.

91On this semantic turning point (from the oral sophia to the bookish andliterary sophia) which occurred in a key word from Greek culture and broughtit ever more frequently to a close association with the biblon, the new instru-ment of knowledge and cultural communication, see Th. Cole, Le metamorfosidella saggezza: sophia fra oralit e scrittura, in Pretagostini, Tradizione753763.

a poet at work

Documents