Havelock, Eric A. - The Oral Composition of Greek Drama - QUCC, 6 - 1980!61!113

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The Oral Composition of Greek Drama

Author(s): Eric A. Havelock
Source: Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, New Series, Vol. 6 (1980), pp. 61-113
Published by: Fabrizio Serra editore
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The Oral Composition
of Greek Drama
Eric A. Havelock
1. A Hypothesis
The Greek alphabet, an instrument of symbolic efficiency greatly
to the non-Greek
superior
it emerged,
from which
systems
introduced
itself into a culture which had for several centuries been completely
It is usually
non-literate.
of general Greek
all
after
is what
that with
supposed
the invention
a condition
This
literacy resulted automatically and quickly.

has
to
tended
in modern
times by
when
colonized
who
arrive already equipped with
happen
in non-literate
of literate
representatives
societies
cultures
the technologies of reading and
to
it may be incautious
the Greeks,
however,
writing.
act
in
must
of
One
the original
draw this conclusion.
distinguish
to
At
its
the
realise
vention
from the methods
potential.
required
were
not
exist.
for
There
it occurred,
time when
these did
example
In the case of
for teaching letters, and no body of documentation

to learn to
to
let alone the desire,
the occasion,
large enough
provide
is How
a few people did learn the art. The question
read. Obviously
no primary
schools
many, and where did they belong in the social scale? The existence
not of writers
of a general literacy depends
upon the existence
a majority.
to
form
but of a reading public
large enough
as such,
to
How
estimate the date at which this happened is admittedly difficult. The

Greeks
of
the archaic
evidence
reading habits. What
estimate
indirect. A conservative
not
periods
?
there is
did
would
conclude
and classical
take note
a considerable
that
their
of
?
body
a condition
* An
is
of
early draft of this paper was read to a colloquium held by the Institute
of Classical Philology at the University of Urbino, Italy on June 2, 1978, presided
in this
over by Professor Bruno Gentili, whose assistance and encouragement
enterprise the author gratefully acknowledges.
E.A. Havelock
62
general literacy came about in Athens

at the close
of
century B.C.,
in the case of
This means,
in the last third of the fifth
age, but not before

a time lag of well
mainland,
the Periclean
the Greek
that.
over
250 years between the date of the original invention and its complete
social
In Ionia,
application.
the period
may
have
been
shorter.
Is a
physiology
are
delay of this length credible?

It may become
taken into account.
The
factors
of elementary
The
is acoustic.
speech
for countless
existed
literature
of human
condition
'natural'
is now written
of what
material
so, if some
raw
mil
lenia only as itwas shaped by the mouth and heard by the ear. In the
centuries
the
introduction
of
the alphabet,
the
language had reverted to this purely oral condition if indeed
Greek
ever
it had
were
preceding
immediately
now
left
put
to mate
required
habits of hand
acquired
troduced
the new
it. To
the
invention
inherited
habits
eye. A completely
the act of verbal communication,
into
and
to full use,
its users
and ear to
of mouth
new
factor
was
vision.
in
The
namely
it is suggested,
of
senses,
required prolonged
alignment
was
to bridge
to vision. A psychological
adjustment
required
hearing
them. The first inscribers of course managed
the gap between
this,
Fluent
would
and painfully.
take time, and
but slowly
application
clash
of
the
of
dissemination
fluency,
longer
Greek
alphabet
and institutions
in mind
that we mean
such fluency, bearing
reading
the application
still. We
have been practising
of the
in the west
for some 2300
The
years.
skills, habits
to convert
it into a complete
in
cultural
required
strument have become perfected
and familiar, obscuring
the physiolog
created by its introduction,
alto
ical problems
though by no means
them.
gether removing
an additional
to achieving
For the Greeks
the transition
obstacle
in
the
formidable
of
their
for
tradition.
How
previous
lay
strength
can
this was
it is realized
be appreciated
when
that in any
midable
?
?
oral culture
and par excellence
that of the Greeks
important
a sophisti
must be an orally managed
communication
communication,
a body
to live by, a
of tradition
custom and propriety.
of information,
storehouse
verbalized
The only
can
in
is
survive
this
individual
survive
To
where
memory.
place
cast
to
in
it
in
be
the
instance
has
Greek
form, which
there,
rhythmic
cated
art.
is discovered
The
culture
requires
in the epics
of Homer.
We
read
as texts
what
was
of Greek Drama
63
composed
orally, recited orally, heard acoustically, memorized
in all communities
of the early Hel
and
taught acoustically
acoustically
were
formulaic
and
lenic civilization.
The rules for this procedure
some
and received
by an expertise
sophisticated:
they were nourished
originally
institutional support. They bred in the population a total habit of

oral
Is it likely
and comprehension.
usage
that
a culture
long
com
mitted to these loyalties would readily substitute habits of the written

word, andwould cheerfully take to reading? and would welcome the
to the contrary,
that the
is some evidence
a
as
an
at
least with
if not
book was greeted,
grave suspicion,
enemy,
source of deceit,
as against the integrity of the spoken word \
it) in the sixth
(or perhaps
Athens,
regaining
rising to importance
or
a
in a
was
still
even,
century before Christ,
city
proto-literate,
as a friend?
book
There
was
the corpus of verbalized
Where
sense, non-literate.
to which
of her own
she should turn, for the consolidation
was still
there
of her youth?
institutions
and the education
Obviously
and taught in school, market place,
Homer,
treasured,
recited, quoted
was not the native dialect;
it
But Homer's
and on public occasions.
majority
tradition
spring up
to Homer,
Ionic, and the tales he tells

amalgam predominantly
a desire
an
is
Will
and
pan-Hellenic.
appeal which
to acquire her own oral supplement
Athens
in proto-ldterate
and
the dialect of Attica,
in
native
the
speech,
composed
addressed
to native
an artificial
have a dimension
was
concerns?
Athenian
The outline of a hypothesis begins to emerge, to be tested against

the plays
drama,
last half
but
themselves,
an art form native
at present
to Athens,
in order
of the sixth century,
and extended
It continued
supplement.
audiences
the cultural
of Hellas.
These
functions
had been
the following
shape. Attic
as tradition
in the
suggests
to provide
the needed Homeric
taking
arose
hitherto
in the first
for
the benefit
of Athenian
for all
by Homer
performed
instance didactic:
the entertain
ment provided in the stories told in the Iliad and Odyssey was like a
and ethos of
to clothe a running report upon the nomos
spell woven
it was also recom
As it was reported,
the Greek maritime
complex.
the epics had furnished
In this way
the
for conservation.
mended
an overall
with
moral,
identity,
political,
peoples
Greek-speaking
to discover
their own
turned to drama
The Athenians
historical.
particular
1
Below,
identity,
which
was
that of
a single
city-state.
Listening
nn. 57, 59.
EA.
64
Havelock
as the plays were

and watching
and
performed,
they recognized
on their own nomos
a running commentary
Car
absorbed
and ethos.
remains
drama
didactic
rying out this function, Greek
fundamentally
?
a
more
accurate
in purpose.
Its many
title
than
composers
?
to
their
skills
oral
education
oral
with
authors
combining
applied
entertainment.
ways
were
not
perfected
esteemed
three masters
The
were
those who
in three different
in their own day they

that is why
a kind of standard
became
works
the combination;
as masters.
Their
but of instruction.
of performance
They
taught by indi
as Homer
is
for
this
the
that
oral
because
way
support
did,
?
?
as
we
is
made
the
"tradition"
memorizable
cultural
say
identity
reenactments
of aspects
The plays were
continual
and preservable.
the audience was
of the civic scene, with which
invited to identify.
only
rection,
in the sense
aside, the style was also essentially Homeric,
remained oral. Drama
that the basic rules of composition
had to be
as poets
or
was
were
it
and its authors
nothing,
recognized
poetic,
and cen
The chorus constituted
the original
rather than dramatists2.
Content
As
tral element.
vantage
a replacement
it had the great
for epic recital,
in language
be
could
reinforced
by mimesis
ad
that mimesis
in
dance, and that mimesis of melody and rhythm could be exploited far
the range of
beyond
was
formance
poured
the
chanted
a mass
of
hexameter.
sodal
Into
the
commentary,
and summarized
reiterated
which
reflective,
continually
its accepted
and
and ethos of the civic
community,
tudes and proprieties.
The dialogue
took from Homer's
protreptic
and admonitory
praying,
color,
denouncing,
and avoided,
exhorting,
was to be accepted
and feminine
response,
counselling,
repenting,
choric
directive
commenting,
the
per
and
nomos
atti
average
its
rhetoric
directing,
exposing what
poignantly
the extremes
of masculine
expressing
their penalties
and rewards3.
dramatizing
the "myth" of each play,
the plot in an imaginary
Finally,
locating
heroic past, continued
the principle
of the Homeric
fantasy, clothing
an
the contemporary
in
it distance
archaic
aura, and so giving
message
was
to
and grandiloquence
and survival value.
But all this
be done in
2 Plato uses the
appellation an?r tragikos (Phaedo 115a), but in the Frogs,
as elsewhere in Plato (e.g. Rep. X: cf. Aristotle Poet. 1453a 29) the authors of
"
plays
are
just
poets
".
3 "Slices from the

great banquet of Homer" is the description
(347e).
plays ascribed to their author by Athenaeus
of Aeschylus'
of Greek Drama
65
the Attic dialect, with a touch of Doric in the choruses to add a flavor
of
solemnity.
Yet compositionally,
tragedy could never have started

and nothing
else, and the longer it lasted,
simply Homeric,
by being
the more
it would begin to place a distance between itself and the oral model.
The
were
becomes
The authors
required hypothesis
complex.
in their own day described
not as writers
but
of these plays
as producers,
of
to the part
The phraseology
choruses".
calls attention
oral
communication
in
their
Yet who
played by
professional
activity.
even
in
verses
shall doubt
as
that
Athens
groups of
protoliterate
they
were put together were
to writing,
to be reviewed,
committed
enlar
as composition
The rules for singing which
ged, revised,
progressed?
"teachers
had guided the hexameters of the Homeric bard were one thing. The
a stage play in a
for putting
procedures
together
subsequent
more
were
Whether
else, physiologically
something
complicated.
?
more
or dictated
dramatist wrote himself
the
likely alternative4
either
his own
era
the
?
or more
vision
that of his amanuensis

who
probably
into play as a compositional
control
intruding
to hearing
the acoustic
he had long been used
controls
and
upon
was
to
The
share
the
but
the
with
ear,
eye
using.
responsibility
was
to
For
of
the
the
his
audience
he
eye
activity
personal
producer.
must
retain the ear alone, that is, the acoustic
rules, listening himself
read back
to him
came
as it was spoken and sung. It is to be inferred that

to his composition
was
in a state of continuous
Greek
composed
tragedy
physiological
It
of oral and written
communication.
tension between
the modes
can also be suggested
sets the high
that the secret of its genius, which
art forms, resides in this tension, peculiar
classic apart from subsequent
in quite the same
as it was to its time and place, never to be repeated
way.
to which
the populace,
the
coterminous
with
audience,
was
as
literate
dramas
addressed
themselves,
becoming
increasingly
on.
could be frozen in
communication
the century wore
Important
The
4When the
Oedipus Coloneus (to give an extreme example) was "written",
not
could
have read the script by unaided eyesight; so at least I have
Sophocles
in the Greek diet could have com
been assured by ophthalmologists.
Nothing
can
vision.
it
of
for
Unless
be shown that this play is more
senility
pensated
"oral"
in
composition
than
be that identical methods
its
predecessors,
the
reasonable
assumption
of composition were used for all of them.
would
66
E.A. Havelock
re-read
read,
script,
and
referred
instead
to,
of being
into
drilled
the
oral memory. By the logic of this progression what might be called

the orality of Greek
tragedy was
didactic
purpose wuold
weaken,
bound
to suffer
forms of stored
rely on written
nice balance between
instruction
information
erosion.
as the culture
came
available
The
central
to
increasingly
for re-use. The
a mnemonic
neces
and entertainment,
in favor of entertain
be altered
would
sity from times immemorial,

ment.
Traditional
plots manipulated
to celebrate
conserve
and
the
of a different
ethos of the community might yield to manipulation
to express a personal
vision on the part of the dramatist.
sort, designed
set in a Homeric
to
Characters
world
where
they were
required
concerns
in
the
of
this
express
growing
might
lapse
large community
need (now supplied by discussions in prose treatises) be supplanted by

of men
and women
with purely personal
representations
preoccupied
as
to
matters.
be written
with
the ex
Compositionally,
plays began
feel a reduced pressure
of being read, the composer would
pectation
to conform
to certain mnemonic
rules. The invented would
be freer
as the literate age set in with
to prevail
over the expected.
Finally,
the function
and
the tension would
the fourth century,
disappear,
become
obsolete.
Drama
of
classical
would
became
tragedy
style
high
ever since, an in
in literate
it has largely remained
societies
what
genious entertainment,
Such a hypothesis
not
a contribution
has
surely
to accept. Greek
sight are difficult

critical
differing
radical
drama
to the social encyclopaedia5.

at first
which
implications
has been written
about
but
standpoints,
literary, philosophical,
psychological,
is autonomous,
all presupposing
that here is an art form which
To
into existence
energies of its authors.
solely by the creative
so
a
to
in
and
substance
may
change
closely
technology
style
acceptable
day to be
tions
of
Yet
historical
5
the
being
were
perceived
grounded
a
not
matter
of changing
technological,
ideological,
not of mere communication.
the mind,
our hypothesis
reduce the genius
If anything,
of their plays?
stature
Shakespear's plays, both in plot and sentiment,
encyclopaedic
composed
character
in a time
seem
classic
seems
reasons,
in causes which
because
does
tie its
argued that high

but his observation
disagreeable.
indeed die for cultural
aesthetically
tragedy did
called
for one
Nietzsche
of
of Greek
classic
popular
transition
drama,
from
of the authors
their
from
in his
disposi
and the
be
achievement
retain some resemblance

and
oral
for
the
to written
same
word.
reason,
to
Drama
of Greek
comes
a comprehensiveness
life, with
The problems
and objectives
than
larger
modern
counterparts.
art became more
their
subtle
to
denied
their
surmounted
by
that could
than
complex
anything
for the stage. The social condition which
provoked
was historically
these compositions
and can
unique
now
be envisaged
forth
and called
never
and
67
recur.
If all this is true, evidence which fits and supports the hypothesis
is surely available
in the texts of the play we have. That is the place
to look for it, bearing
in mind however
that all we can do now is to
as originally
read them, without
the performance
hearing and watching
in
the
of
and
the
without
response
presented
sharing
original audience.
For
the investigator who presupposes

that composition
were undertaken
for a community
of oral communication,
and production
and governed
this is a genuine difficulty.

Ancient
authorities
offer some
on
one
dn
for
that
the
the era of
hand,
report
example
by this fact,
help.
They
Pisistratus
and his
in Athens were
recitations
sons, Homeric
regular
on
in the
the
the
and
that
ized,
purpose
other,
being educational6,
as
same era Greek
was
drama
established
invented,
certainly
perhaps
as matters
an Athenian
events occurred
of public
These
institution7.
and
policy,
performance
of two public
mentality
was
the instru
through
and the City Dio
given
continuity
the Panathenaea
festivals,
nysia, the first being a quadrennial celebration (supplemented by the

in the missing
years) but
an
guess,
opportunity
itself as supplement
and extend
the second
lesser Panathenaea
affording,
to propagate
one would
for
an annual
the new
one,
art of drama
to the already established

art of epic. The educational
intentions
for Homeric
recital
attested
as applicable
to drama also, the production
of
should be understood
was
which
financed
of
arrangement8
by public
was
state officials.
Performance
judgment
procession
by a ceremonial
of veterans
received armor
facts
duly
noticed
of a patriotic
presented
in histories
of
and
preceded
in which
character,
the state.
by
the Greek
by the
in the theater
rewarded
These
theater,
orphans
are familiar
but without
228b-c; cf. also Isocrates Panegyr. 159; Lycurgus in

Plato, Hipparchus
102; Diog. Laert. 1, 57.
7Marmor Par.
ep. 43; Plut. Solon 29; Diog. Laert. 3, 56; cf. Pickard
Cambridge, p. 58.
Leoc.
choregia,
rarchia. Both were
as a form
of
indirect
taxation,
had
the
same
status
as a
leitourgiai.
trie
68
E.A.
realization
of
patronage
love for
must
was
the
their
Havelock
Such
civic
elaborate
sociological
significance.
more
mere
a
been
than
inspired by something
have
It
theater.
somehow
surely reflected
a vital public
a conviction
service.
that
This
the
stage
make
would
performing
to be
felt to be a process
of public
if tragedy was
education,
its role, drawing
fostered by state support. This is how Plato describes
a role he ap
no distinction
not
is
Homer.
It
and
between
tragedy
sense
of: tragedy
proves
As for the historical
its educational
functions
says performs
badly.
reasons why dt may have assumed
such functions
interest in the matter
these do not concern him. His
he
in the first place,

not
is philosophical,
fortunate
By
literary.
however,
accident,
there
survives
an extended
cri
tique of Greek tragedy as an art form, the first of its kind, framed
not of the modern
reader but a contemporary
the understanding
not in a written
treatise ?
the time for such
and existing
audience,
?
as
a
come
not
but
The
has
stage performance.
stage itself is
yet
to offer commentary
the stage, but
in
this time
upon
exploited
one
or
covers
in
not
The
the
way
another,
critique,
tragedy.
comedy,
For all its comic disguise,
it
of drama in the fifth century.
progress
for
has
to say
things
about
the kinds
of plays
produced
in
that period
which indicate that our hypothesis may be well founded.
of a Contemporary
2. Testimony
The
after
Frogs
the death
time
or
was
of Aristophanes
about
produced
Of
of Euripides.
the various
characters
one
occupy
and the end. This
beginning
sented early
in
the play
who
at one
at the
stage, only
is Dionysus,
of
patron
repre
tragedy9,
as a devotee
of Euripides
whom
he would
the
another
four months
is there
both
like to fetch back from the underworld. Finally admitted to Hades,

10
until discovered shortly after
the god disappears briefly from view
inside,
present
as a guest
in Pluto's
dining
room, where
he has been
9 And
therefore the logical choice for the role of presiding over what is es
a
of tragedy's developmental
critique
sentially
history. There is no need to
posit "uncertainty" (Stanford, Introd. p. XXX) surrounding the symbolism of his
role.
10 11.669-673.
Aeschylus
at
guest
has been
the
head
chair
Aeschylus'
company
a fierce
to arbitrate
invited
present
of Greek
living
of the
Drama
69
and Euripides.
dispute between Aeschylus
there now for over fifty years, an honored
has on entering
taken
Euripides
to sit in it permanently.
the
Though
a strong resemblance
to the people
of
table.
and proposes
(who bear
Athens living and dead) have supported his decision, Aeschylus will
none of it ". The prolonged
and acrimonious
in which
wrangle
two
as
the
their rival merits
engage, disputing
poets presently
profes
sional dramatists,
takes up the second half of the play 12. The chorus
at suitable
intervals
adds fuel to the flames.
contributes
Dionysus
have
running
in a series
commentary
of
asides mostly
irreverent
and
ir
superiority
on
the
relevant.
The Art of Euripides

the
seizing
Euripides,
asserts
initiative,
his
ground of professional skill (831). The key term is techne, strictly

untranslatable
unless
of
and art
in a periphrasis
which
into a single notion.
fuses
The
senses
the modern
scene
in Hades
pre
technology
it into prominence.
has already brought
Dionysus'
viously described
a hubbub within.
the doorkeeper,
overhears
servant, parleying with
A
is going on? The doorkeeper
What
argument has
public
explains.
two
in
for the title
Hades
"craftsmen"
between
competing
erupted
of
"master-craftsman"
as
the prize.
This
in their respective
of troublesome
kind
skills with
a public
pension
is
(stasis)
disruption
are admitted.
craftsmen
social
the dead,
any time
always going on among
in the present
is required
is why Dionysus'
That
instance,
presence
as patron of tragedy, is an
to settle the matter,
since he presumably,
in question
in the particular
techne and
skill now
(762-821:
expert
occur ten times in this passage,
linked with
its derivatives
sophos
in the sense
of
"skillful").
Euripides warms to his work.

in which
the
merits
respective
If there is going to be a dog fight,
of diction,
music
and
"the
sinews
of
11This
portion of the action is transacted through "verbal scenery" (755
course of a dialogue held in front of the proscenium.
in
the
813),
12This reversal of
previous practice (Lesky, pp. 442-444) effectively focusses
dramatic
attention
upon
the
poetic
contest.
EA.
70
Havelock
13
{861-862), he is ready for it and will give
tragedy"may get mangled
as good as he gets. The chorus gleefully seconding both sides calls
on
muses
the Olympian
to come
and take
down
that they can enjoy the fun (876-884).

two
one
types of diction,
"civilised
seats
at the
The contest will be between

the other
and finehoned",
"tearing
up the ground with root and branch expressions" (901-904).
a glancing
of
blow at the reputation
a
launches
attack
two-pronged
Phryniohus,
diction
and bombastic
(909-935).
stage mutes
predecessor
Aeschylus'
on his rival's use of
As for himself, inheriting the art of tragedy from Aeschylus

has
"taken
the inflammation
out of
filtered out of papyri (941-943),

to give
mixture
So they
after dealing
Euripides,
begin.
so
ring
it" and
extract
"added
(931) he
of fluencies
to the
afterwards adding monodies
it nourishment"
All
(944).
characters
were
given
plenty of things to say (948-950) "and so I taught the present audience

to talk"
His
(954).
stage
action was
contemporary
"the kinds
of
things we all do and are familiar with" (959-960) without benefit of

mythological
respective
"You
(963-967).
equipment
see
to
the
difference"
pupils
to the audience?)
(pointing
have
to compare
only
our
(964).
types
Aeschylean
ones are cute
the Euripidean
are crude,
"This is the kind of thinking (phronein)14 I introduced
(965-967).
to the present
audience,
inserting
and inquiry
reasoning
into (dramatic)
technique (techne), which made them begin to cerebrate (noein 974)

to think
and able generally
of
households
management
to improve
things through and in particular

and question"
and investigate
(971-978).
The Art of Aeschylus
him
turn. The chorus

It is now Aeschylus'
as
"the
Hellenic
original
ambiguously
and
solemnities
author
of
the order
of
tragic
give him his cue, hailing

architect
of towering
trumpery"
(1004-1005)
and invite him to "let go" (1005) which he promptly does. His
opponent is a man he cannot stand (1006-1007). He will challenge
him
on
fundamentals.
"What
is the real basis
in the community15? Answer, please" (1008).

13The
14
Below,
of
a poet's
standing
The reply given is
scholiast interprets the language as referring to a cockfight.

n.
67.
15For this sense of

thaumazein see Herod.
3, 80, and LSJ s.v.
of Greek Drama
double-barrelled: One
his moral
71
thing is his virtuosity (dexiot?s); the other is
and his improvement

of human beings
(nouthesia)
this is exactly where my opponent
has failed.
"Very well,
not
he inherited
six
citizens
shirkers
but
noblemen,
footers,
guidance
in cities.
From me
(1013-1014). They were great fighters to boot (1016-1017) and look

what he has done with them!" (1013, pointing to the audience).
a better answer
wants
Euripides
the 'action'16 you put on which
"Pray, precisely what was

such 'instruction'
in no
than that:
produced
The question is put superciliously; it offends
bility?" (1019).
older poet, and he hesitates,

until Dionysus
us
tell
the answer"17
The answer
(1020).
?
fight
in their
rise
audience
seats.
him:
prompts
it comes
when
'action'
"The
I composed
"Come
make
was
full
the
on,
the
of
It was the Seven Against Thebes, and when they viewed it,
18
a passion
a
to prove himself
in the audience
conceived
every man
. .
warrior
That
(1021-1022).
My next 'instruction' was The Persians.
on
never
to
set
their
hearts
and
them
winning
losing (1026
taught
. . . That's
the exercise
that real poets
should be practising
1027)
and see how
?the great poets were
(askein). Go back to the beginning
those
who
made
themselves
beneficial
(dphelimoi
1030-1031)...
Divine Homer himself won fame and fortune only from the fact that
from his im
It was
(1035)...
in the creation
of many worthy
to inspire the
the purpose
being
he gave useful
(chr?sta) instruction19
took its stamp
that my mind
print
Teucers,
Patrocluses,
characters,
to stretch himself
citizen warrior
Eroticism
1052).
incest, he adds,
should
"suppress
and
He
out
to match
them"
(1040-1042).
fit subjects for the poet
(1043
to immorality
reference
(apokruptein
are not
to pon?ron) and avoid exhibiting it and giving instruction in it (1053

is the schoolmaster,
The man who explains
1054).
things to children
we say should
What
it is the poet (1054-1055).
but for adolescents20
. .
and reflections
be useful (chr?sta-, 1056).
(gn?
Important maxims
In
diction.
mai, dianoiai)
general verisimilitude
require corresponding
and their
be elevated
that the speech of demigods
(eikos)
requires
16
Below,
n.
47.
17 I follow here the division of

speaker proposed by Rogers and Stanford.
18On the force of einai
here, see Havelock, Greek Concept, pp. 237-239.
19
Plato, Rep. 601d-602a.
20As had been
represented in the so-called "School Scene" on a vase of
Duris: Havelock,
'Preliterary of the Greeks', pp. 385-387.
EA. Havelock
72
statelier
clothing
encouraged
1070).
have
Things
gone wrong
he argues, has
exercise
(1069
instruction,
of physical
(1059-1061)".
Euripides'
at the expense
verbal fluency
generally
"and my
ds the
opponent
cause of it" (1078), with his scenes of prostitution, illegitimate births,

and incest combined
with
the
city of Athens
has
and
scamps
victimizing
continually
"As a result,
(1079-1082).
with
scriveners21,
shysters
the demos
(1083-1086)".
general cynicism
become
crammed
Stylistic Comparisons
During
chorus would
and words,
a brief
the contestants
pause
them on. To be sure,
spur
but requiring
some
catch
their
it is only
on
sophistication
the
The
breath.
a battle
part
of wits
of
the
audience. Will they feel a lack of education (amathia) preventing

them from following the nice points (lepta) as they are made?
(1109-1111).
are equipped.
to worry;
one of them
No
need
that
is no
longer the
a papyrus22
case.
"They
to
is
and
able
Every
holding
ta
The
take in the verbal niceties"
1112-1114).
(manthanei
dexia,
contestants
is concerned;
need have no fear, so far as the audience
the intelligence is there (sophoi, 1118).

The
argument
launches
Euripides
are
their
parodied
author
and delivers
fine points
of dramatic
technique.
on Aeschylus'
their style and
prologues,
counter
(1119-1176).
quotation
Aeschylus
(1177-1247).
and meter
to
an attack
suitable
with
substance,
in kind
attacks
melody
reverts
Comparisons
then
(mel? 1248: cf. 861-862).
shift
to matters
Those of Aeschylus
to expose
their epic monotony
(1262).
Retaliating,
as
in source23
defends
his own
Homeric
(1298)
style
a frontal attack on the music
and meters
of Euripides.
They are foreign (1302), sentimental (1322) and meretricious

21
Below,
of
nn.
58,
(1308
59.
22On
biblion, see n. 55.
23 I so
interpret the phrase ek tou kalou (1298; as also the Loeb, note
ad loc). Aeschylus has already laid claim to Homeric diction and adoption of
Homeric character models.
It is his dactylic, i.e., epic, meters which have been
selected for special satiric treatment by Euripides. Accordingly at 1299-1300 he
defends his Homeric style as an alternative to the flowery meadows of Phrynichus.
Editors guided by a scholiast's note on 1082 have preferred to identify Terpander
as
the
"source"
intended.
Drama
73
1327). The attack concludes with
a long satirical parody of that
solo performance
kind
of
and
therefore
pides'
of Greek
judged
In
later plays.
1330),
(monodia,
to be trivial,
the present
emotional
occurs
which
a poor
example,
and personal,
of Euri
in some
girl has
spinning
had a bad dream, warning her that a neighbor has raided her hen
roost.
A decision is needed. To fight so far has been a draw. A

gigantic pair of scales is produced to weigh the lives and merits of
two
dramatists
had
been
imitated
a parody
of a Homeric
in turn
episode which
in an Aeschylean
In fact neither
drama.
pro
tagonist is weighed personally. Decision

registered
into the
Aeschylus
lines as they
by spoken
two
scale
has
the
is to depend on the weight
pans.
advantage
are deposited24
by the protagonists
are
lines
Competing
duly discharged.
in ponderosity.
is no doubt
There
of
that; he even proposes to wind up the competition by letting Eu

ripides and his entire family get into one of the pans and sit
"he can take his papyri with him too". All his rival needs
down ?
to do
to outweigh
is to pronounce
them
just
'two of his
own
lines
into the other pan (1407-1410).
A Final Exam
to
"I can't
is baffled.
however
Dionysus
"I do not want
the audience:
I consider
an
cision, what
a winner
and
come
for
the
intellectual,
is to become
take him
the ultimate
a de
I enjoy" 25. But without

to Hades?
original mission
other
of his
back with
test.
he says, turning
choose",
to alienate
either of them. One
says Pluto.
you",
Before meeting
it, the
The
two
"Pick
time
has
candidates
24 Is this hilarious scene

(aside from its obvious purpose to parody Homer)
also intended to recall a favorite but indecent after dinner amusement? There
is mock gravity in lines 1369-1377, hailing this tour de force of ingenuity.
25 I
agree with Stanford (note ad loc.) that the poet he enjoys is Aeschylus.
The pleasure is that of direct response to oral poetry, as opposed to a "formed
voices the
(1413). Dionysus
opinion" about the "intelligence" of Euripides
divided allegiance of contemporary Athens, hesitating between the claims of
traditional oralism and the new literate rationalism; so also at 1934.
74
EA. Havelock
as to the true purpose

to
of Dionysus'
visit
over aesthetics.
is not primarily
in an argument
interested
"I came down here to fetch a poet26.
I wanted
If you ask me why,
so
to
to
the city
continue
be rendered
and
conduct
choric
secure,
to
two
is
of
the
Which
counsel
you
performances.
give
city
likely
must
be
informed
Hades.
He
which
is really useful?
with
me"
amination
(1418-1421).
questions27
(ehreston). He'll
be the one I take back
god then sets

to answer.
The first
The
the
two
candidates
is a specific
topic is Alcibiades. How do we deal with him?

statement (gnome) from each of you" (1422-1423).
one:
I want
ex
"The
a brief
are each in character.

the radical
replies given
Euripides
him".
the conservative
says
says in effect
Aeschylus
"Repudiate
must
But now you have,
"You should not have
raised him.
you
The
tolerate him" (1424-1432).
The styles correspond. Euripides frames
two
covering
antithetical
definitions,
citizen,
ingeniously
terms.
antithetical
the true patriot

and the disloyal
in
four pairs of
sequence
by arranging
28
a vivid
of the lion cub
offers
image
expressed
Aeschylus
as a dangerous
in
the
house
pet.
up
growing
as they are, the two answers
still make
Different
difficult;
one
is intellectual,
the other
saph?s 1434). A second question

time
a general
each of
one:
"I want
one
easy
a decision
to understand
(sophos
very
. ..
is needed to break the tie, this

more
brief
statement
(gnome)
for the city's
formula
your
you,
security".
giving
has his
left the upper world,
has only
who
recently
Euripides,
answer
"Get rid of the present
(1443-1450).
government"
ready:
from
26The sense of lines 1417-1419 and

1469-1471, when compared with what
had been said in 52-54, 66-68, 71-72, 96-97 (with the parody of 1471 recalling
that of 101) does not justify the view (Stanford, Introd. pp. XXIV and XXXIX,
with n. 23) that Dionysus' motive for visiting Hades as originally stated, namely
to fetch back Euripides,
is "entirely ignored". To succeed in restoring him to
air
would automatically achieve continuation of the tragic choruses (1419)
upper
and the advice he is required to give for preserving the city is judged to be as
satisfactory as that of his rival. The final substitution of Aeschylus with its ap
propriate
encomium
is a comic
reversal.
27Discernible
in this portion of the plot may be an intention to parody
the Socratic elenchus of the poets, as described in Plato's Apology.
28 It had been used at
111 ff and appears to have been
Agamemnon
traditional.
of Greek Drama
75
cautious.
He needs informa
long absent from it, is more
Aeschylus,
is the city using
for a government?
tion.
"What kind of people
"Does
"No".
vicious
Are
useful
it prefer
(1455)
types?"
they
so
"A city
them only perforce".
undecided
"No, it employs
types?"
cannot
be made
(1454-1461).
"No,
be pronounced
comes:
ment
I'll
secure,
you
give
don't",
views
here
and released
after
"Your
So at last
upwards".
enemy's
I get
when
says Dionysus.
"Go
the
my
even
territory
up
there"
blessing must
the pronounce
if he
occupies
yours" (1463-1465).
are
in character.
The
first proposes
the
again
revert to the original war policies
the second would
radical solution;
to gnomic
are framed
of Pericles.
Both
antithetically,
conforming
The
answers
style. The first is introduced by a completely abstract epistemological

formula: "When present unbelief shall be considered believable, and
that which is believed become unbelievable" (1443-1444). This on
request
less
has
to be
says Dionysus,
("Please",
replaced
cf.
and more
understandable":
1111,
educated
"use words
by a
"Assume we
1434)
then runs:
which
specific
equivalent,
slightly more
now
cease to believe
in the citizens we
and use those we
trust,
?
now refrain from using
Or again, assume
follow.
security will
our
reverse
are at present
we
in a bad way,
and then that we
?
course
The
second
follow"
(1446-1450).
present
security will
as
now
as
in a
but
is
the first,
version
out,
spelled
conceptual
parody of propositional argument. It satisfied Dionysus

O
Palamedes,
nature
intellectual!"),
but
so do
the
("Well done,
concrete
ex
to a city which
"How give security
used by Aeschylus:
pressions
.
nor
M? . . when
in custom4ailoring
finds profit neither
ready-mades
and theirs the
soever
their common
land becomes
usage30
enemy's
are
is
income
non-income"
income
and
when
(1458
enemy's;
ships
the parody
1465, where
verbal
assonances)31.
29The Greek
expression
is at the expense
of his
imagist
diction
contrasts a tailored cloak for city wear with
and
rough
homespun.
30For this
rendering of nomizo see Havelock, Liberal Temper, pp.
411, 413.
31There is no need to obelize these lines
(Wilamowitz) merely because
recall a vanished policy.
122,
they
76
E.A.
Havelock
The Winner
The
contest
long
thus
in a draw.
ends
cuts
Dionysus
the knot
by announcing he will follow his heart (psyche) and choose Aeschylus,

thus nullifying that deep affection for Euripides which he had an
nounced early in the play. The loser reproaches him for this betrayal,
to no purpose.
but
While
Pluto,
in nine
chorus
lines
in the upper
"go home"
that
keen
comprehension
now
in his person will
to the benefit
world
In nine more
his own family (1483-1490).

the
acclaim
1490, xunesis and xunetos) which
(1483,
habit
for one last dinner with
to Hades
Aeschylus withdraws
the
the
of
and
citizenry
they decry the Socratic
the greatnesses
and "ignoring
away music"
"throwing
a
concentrates
art"
in
favor
of
which
(diatribe)
pursuit
tragic
of
of
on
big propositions and fancy talk (1491-1499).

now
Aeschylus,
dined
and wined,
to
reenters,
from
receive
Pluto and chorus their final farewells, which bid him "Secure our
city
with
pointing
maxims
worthy
to the audience),
and
and
the witless"
educate
the general
express
(1501-1503,
that
hope
"the
gods of the land will furnish to our city those goodly sentiments
(epinoiai) which produce major goods" (1529-1530).
3. The Testimony
At
first
Interpreted
this whole
sight,
comic
as
conducted
confrontation,
it
is likely to be read
is in an exchange
of quotations
and parodies,
are
two poets
as a comparison
The
of styles rather than substance.
as
that
the view
introduced
"craftsmen",
encouraging
unambiguously
turn less on what
it.
how
than
the issue will
say
they say
they
seems
initiative
Euripides'
to confirm
this, when
he
parison in terms of "diction" (epe) and meter-with-melody

though
he
also
adds
"tragedy's
as it gathers momentum
Dionysus
and
the
chorus,
muscle"
(neura
862).
is identified by both poets,

as one
between
competing
com
challenges
The
(mel?),
contest
as also by
varieties
of
virtuosity (sophia, sophismata 872, 882, 896, 1104, 1108; cf. 1519)
and verbal dexterity (dexiot?s, ta dexia, dexios 1009, 1114, 1370).
of Greek Drama
as hallmarks
are cited
These
(cf. 780), whether

dispute
the heroics
of the other.
of
77
achievement
applied
Euripides
as the sophos par excellence (1413,
on both
sides
32
of
the
to the elegancies
of one poet or
in the finale emerges
however
1434, 1451: cf. 776).
The Art of Civic Instruction

But when Aeschylus at his first opportunity takes the floor to
challenge his opponent, he elicits a proposition which in fact both
chief business
is edu
aside, a poet's
Virtuosity
accept33.
as "improvement
Phrased
of human beings
in cities"
(1009
a olich? describing
the educational
this reproduces
1010),
process
as envisaged
for example
Socrates34.
As a conception
of
by Plato's
of
them
cation.
the poet's
it is presented
function,
in the Frogs
not
in the guise
of
something thought up by sophistic theorists, but as a view shared

by
in general, which
honors
so
that Euripides
readily
society
surprising
He
so.
for doing
poets
concedes
this to be
is not
It
case.
the
had already defended his own dramatic style as an effective

of
method
"instructing"
his
to "express
audiences
themselves"
(954),
to which Aeschylus had retorted that such "instruction" might better

never
have
been
the
develop,
"craft"
emerges
The audiences,
given (955).
replies
of both dramatists35
As
(964).
"pupils"
been
is no
there
out
of
that
hint
as one
of
the
On
consideration.
have
Euripides,
these exchanges
is leaving
argument
the contrary,
civic
the poet's
instruction
its central
components.
theme, and defending
it squarely within
places
to his
warming
Aeschylus,
given by his own dramas,
that instruction
given by the four great
traditional
the instruction
context
the
poets
of Greece
of
36
32The entire choric "invocation"

(875-882) makes this clear. The tone of
Dionysus' instructions to both contestants (905-906) is Euripidean rather than
Aeschylean. Though the xunesis of Euripides is satirised (893), the same "ac
curate" faculty is in the conclusion assigned to Aeschylus (1483; cf. 876).
33
Below,
n.
48.
34
Apol. 24c-d; Protag. 318d, cf. 316c, 31i8a.
35And therefore in this
particular comedy partnership between
audience
is unusually
prominent;
see below,
n.
players and
45.
36Norwood
p. 260 sees in this passage only a bias which "leads to the
of
praising 'divine Homer' because he taught military science". For a
absurdity
EA.
78
and in a notable aphorism (1054-1055) defines the poet
(1030-1036)
as
Havelock
the man
over
takes
who
from
the
The
schoolmaster37.
verbs
didask? and ekdidask? reverberate like drumbeat through his elo

quent lines, no doubt playing deliberately upon the special sense of
the "instruction" given by a poet to his chorus (1026, 1035, 1054,
1055,
after
tably,
on Euripides'
No
1057)38.
lips 1019,
to the audience
them for failing
and reproaching
same
the
1069;
turning
verbs
to "practice" (askein) the required discipline, he then applies the

same
to describe
verb
and noun
Verb
After
the poet's
proper
"practice"
overtones39.
educational
have
a pause
to
allow
the
contestants
1030).
(1025,
to recover
the two
the issue upon which
concluded,
terms
in
of what
judged is restated
they can do
that
and moral
of political
by way
guidance
the
breath,
comedy reverts to light hearted parodies of style (1099-1413).
But
are to be
poets
to assist the city,
1420;
(parainein
cf.
nou
thesia 1009). This is the subject of the final examination for both
of them, and while the answers offered are typically different in
is no
of disavowing
their didactic
function.
thought
style, there
can manage
is to produce
citizens who
their affairs
The objective
?
to produce
in fact what
Plato
later calls "civic ex
efficiently
are the measures
to the
cellence".
"Benefit"
and "utility"
applied
poet's
services,
not
the
communication
of
aesthetic
sensibilities.
terms are stressed by Aeschylus

these utilitarian
(1030
Significantly,
a
as
modern
critic
not,
1455),
1031,
1035,
1054,
expect,
might
by
in the
The
his supposedly
counsel
which
opponent.
"sophistic"
finale both are challenged to supply is the practical one of making

collocation of Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, Musaeus
(with addition of Simonides)
as sophistic educators in disguise, see Plato, Protagoras 316d.
37
the
Plato, Protag. 325e-326a describes the literate situation in which
poets instead of being communicated orally and directly are memorised out of
sources.
written
38At
1026 the prefix ex- has been supplied (first by Bentley) to render the
metrical (cf. 1019). I agree with Stanford {ad loc.) that "taught
reading
"
the sense here, but would add that the play on the verbs would
catches
fully
MS
not
appear
artificial
to
contemporaries;
"teaching
cepted programme of oral education.

39 Stanford notes
ambiguity between
should
"poets
choruses"
was
part
should practice"
of
the
ac
and "poets
train men".
of Greek Drama

the city
in their
and
secure40,
79
accolade
parting
the
chorus
the
hail
winner as the likely source of "what is good for it" (1487).

The
audience
interest
munity,
are not
to as an
of such instruction
referred
recipients
to the performance
of playgoers
drawn
their
by
special
are
com
in the theater.
and
all
members
of
the
any
They
at
two
civic
who have to learn <tomanage
the
levels,
society
one, which is primary and in which politai are involved with their
polis (1010, 1014-1017, 1027, 1419-1433, 1435-1450, 1454-1465)
and the domestic, involving relationships within the oikia41 (976
977, 1489).
If drama
can be
today
used
as
an educational
as
instrument
it is inserted into the curricula of schools and colleges, this is done

in the interest
of
literary
and aesthetic
appreciation
sensibility.
different are the Greek objectives, as understood by Greeks.

poets,
their
accepting
as instructors
role
in social
utility,
Very
Both
assume
burden on behalf of the Greek stage which its modern counterpart

has not been called upon to bear (unless perhaps in Japan). Such
a function
makes
previously
offered
and
community.
in
however
that Athenian
to Homer,
supplement
re-enactment
literate
sense
drama
context
came
of
into
the hypothesis
as
existence
as a storage mechanism
for the oral
the mores
of an essentially
pre
instruction must be socially oriented, with
designed
consolidation
Such
the
of
is Homeric:
its ancestry
its method
of com
intention;
to
the
is
and
restricted
framed
munication
spoken word,
pronounced
as such, and existing
in the memory.
In short, behind
for repetition
the retorts,
the claims,
the recriminations,
the slapstick,
the parody,
utilitarian
lurk
a set of
of
the
history
of
corpus
mythos
oral
which
assumptions
European
wisdom
preserves
peculiar
literature.
contained
to one
and only one in

period
is a disguised
Greek
drama
a
the
narrative
within
matrix,
it.
40This concern is
obviously inspired by present perils (1531-1532). The
notion of civic s?teria is thematically repeated (1419, 1433, 1436, 1448, 1450,
1458, 1501). Is the poet also recalling a formula of contemporary political
theory? Cf. Democritus B252 (with Havelock, Liberal Temper, p. 92).
41The claim to teach better household
management is not made "absurdly"
is
of
that
the
ad
loc);
(Stanford
Protagoras apud Plato, Protag. 318e
language
319a.
80
E.A. Havelock
"Orality" of the Contest
The
The
competition
contestants
two
the
audience
of
and parody
quotation
a demand
on the
makes
of an
sophistication
is unparallelled.
could
How
on
nuances
niceties
and
of
turning
by modern
which
standards
often
of allusiveness,
be grasped understood
expression,
such wealth
verbal
drawn from the civic population?

fact
played
view
would
since
able
a role
ancient
on between
carried
and savored
by an audience
The debate in the Frogs has in
in building
up that modern
as
Greece
the home
of an
which
conception
never
ideal culture
Yet
the required
becomes
understand
sophistication
equalled.
a more
common
human dimension
if it is linked
and assumes
is served by an oral memory

that an oral culture
assumption
on which
sort. The knowledge
a rather specialised
this audience
relied was not what we would
call a "literary know
of non-readers
to the
of
to the recitation
used
of
ledge" 42. They were
an education
which
concentrated
and had received
of
this
practice.
Their
acquaintance
with
drama
remembered
on
was
verse,
the cultivation
not
confined
to the original
numbers
of
performance.
single competitive
Large
as
had over
the years
received
members
of
the populace
training
If as is probable,
in tragic recitation43.
the auditions
held
choruses
rehearsals
of dramas,
in Pericles'
Odeum
this again spread
included
an oral knowledge
of them. The plays went on circuit in the country
were
into the oral curri
side, and most
incorporated
importantly,
in social intercourse.
culum of the schools, and quoted
The proposals
to censor
makes
the curriculum
this clear.
of Plato
Presumably
there were
and
on
for
At
the mass
of dramatic material
among
that
these
Aristophanes
preferred
presumably
in his plays.
that occur generally
tragiparodies
favorites
it was
the
the
same
time,
in
this
particular
play,
he
has
available,
to draw
the
chorus
say on his behalf that now oral memory can be supplemented by

42This
problem is well treated by Sedgwick.
43
Dionysus,
restating his motive for going to fetch a poet from Hades
(1418-1419) explains that it is "to ensure that the city be rendered secure and
continue to hold choruses (i.e., choric dramas)". The explanation need not seem
"perfunctory" (Stanford ad loc.) once the sociological role of the dramatic festi
vals is appreciated. The comedy pleads half humorously and perhaps nostalgically
for the continuity of a traditional institution of oral education now threatened
not more by war than by the technological shift towards literacy.

instruction
from
of Greek Drama
a written
source
81
in the possession
of members
of
the audience44. The dramaturgy of the Frogs is unique in that it is

to
able
the mnemonic
exploit
and the new literacy.
are some particulars
There
resources
both
of
the
traditional
oralism
in the
text which
point
in the
same
"oralist" direction. They would not have been expressed quite in the
way they are, if the subject of the Frogs debate was a fully "literate"
For
literature.
acter
as
in order
though
the
example,
to involve
theater
char
step out of dramatic
are
in what
almost
saying,
they
were
in
treated as partners
being
the debaters
will
the audience
population
the critical give and take. This kind of relationship, aside from its
obvious
employment
in the parabases,
expresses
itself
as an occasional
feature in all Aristophanic dialogue, but is especially conspicuous in

this play45.
Again, Aeschylus, before the battle of wits is formally joined,

protests (866 ff.) that the location (Hades) in which it is to be staged
puts him at a disadvantage: his own poetry has not died with him,
but Euripides'
has. Commentators
from antiquity
poetry
onwards,
alert to see in this sally only a compliment
to one poet at the expense
of the other, involving
also a mistaken
powers
judgment of Euripides'
of survival, have missed the main point of the joke. The disadvantage
for Aeschylus is that he does not have his poetry with him; it is
available elsewhere. But Euripides has his with him "and so he will
be able to recite it" (869). The assumption behind the joke is that
is not a written
are
medium
but a spoken,
and its resources
poetry
the intimate property
its
of
maker.
situation
is the normal
Euripides'
one ?
he takes it with him when
he dies. Aeschylus'
is
situation
the abnormal. Unluckily for him, his poetry has stayed behind him
in the upper world, to be recited there, leaving him in Hades high
a paraprosdokian
and dry. The joke turns things upside down ?
in
manner.
the best Aristophanic
In similar vein, when
scene promised
the weighing
at 797
is
not
is
carried
it
written
two
works
of
the
that
out,
any
finally
poets
are placed in the scales, but spoken lines
almost
(one might
projected
say "spat") likewinged words (1388) into the pans. Aeschylus is con
44
Below, nn. 60, 62.
45
783, 954, 960, 962, 964?, 972,
1446-1450?, 1458?, 1476, 1484?, 1503.
1013?,
1025, 1084,
1086?,
1109-1119,
82
E.A.
fident
his
will
quotations
because
prevail
have
they
more
Havelock
acoustic
"weight" (1367); he is the better "oralist", as indicated when he caps

the contest by challenging his rival to climb into the pan himself and
take his family and his papyri with him. The mere utterance of two
more Aeschylean verses will still be enough to outweigh them (1407
1410).
stage is a place which
by its very nature requires performers
as talkers, not (except
and rarely) as readers.
intermittently
The
to behave
It is not a library or lecture hall. If the poetry discussed, quoted and

satirized
comes
in this comedy
as a purely
through
oral phenomenon,
this may be thought due to the mere fact that it is being quoted in
can be imagined
if a similar comic confrontation
Nevertheless,
in such a virtuosity
of
under modern
itself
conditions,
expressing
one
not
and
occasional
would
and
expect
quotation
misquotation,
drama.
casual
sources
to textual
reference
in published
or unpublished
works
scripts, particularly if the material is to be used for teaching? Such

are conspicuous
references, with one exception
already noted,
by their
verses
are not repeated
or read out from given
absence.
Quoted
as
are
or
to
but
cited
alluded
contexts,
dianoiai,
gn?mai,
epinoiai
(1059,
1423, 1430,
1435,
and the like.
phismata
That
1502,
is, they
1530: cf. 877) or as dexia, so

are thought of as maxims,
apho
are
framed
These
and delivered.
conceits,
sentiments,
risms,
orally
in the climax of the competition.
from both poets
solicited
comes
to in this way
The Greek
referred
poetry
a performance
rather
this impression
with
has been communicated
though it were
it is consistent
his
teaching
in terms
dience
than a body of
that Aeschylus
describes
through
as
and
"literature",
how
explaining
au
on
the
the effect
of
identification.
The Seven Against
psychological
to "stand up and fight". Watching
Thebes
makes
them want
(and
to win".
fills them will
ambition
to) the Persians
listening
"burning
on stage become
an inspiration
to the citizen
The Homeric
prototypes
to "stretch himself out on them"46 (1042).

because
drama
Aeschylean
is a "doing",
This becomes possible
an enactment
(1019,
1021,
46An
Aeschylean predilection for manic characters and scenes, satirised in
816-817 (Stanford, Aeschylus in His Style, pp. 13-14 and 129-131) may reflect a
parallel
tendency
ample might
to
exploit
a Homeric
oral-mimetic
relationship
with
audience,
rhapsodist reciting the grief of Achilles
as
or Priam.
for
ex

with
the
a play upon
existence
of
of Greek Drama
the word)47.
an intimacy
83
in a different
Euripides
between
his
plays
context
and
their
claims
audience
(959-961).
Intrusion of Literate Idiom

So far a common ground is shared by both poets48.
confrontation
Is their
not.
are not
personal?
Assuredly
Signs
two
two
between
but
only
styles,
epochs.
is fortuitous, meaning
that its emphasis
derives
then purely
not
of a collision
wanting
One of the differences
from the military

and naval situation of the moment.
of Arginusae
has recently
been
and won
fought
second one is still to come.
It will bring disaster
the city. The
times are critical. War
one last effort be made?
In this context
of
The
naval
battle
at heavy
cost. A
and the surrender
weariness
the military
is general.
Can
instruction
of
as against
receives
the "ci
Aeschylus
especial
emphasis,
Euripides
a
vilian ", the mouthpiece
of
solution.
purely political
can be charged
But
there are deeper
to a
which
differences,
in
ar
the
cultural
condition.
defends
the
change
Aeschylus
stoutly
tificialities
of heroic
status
[h?mitheous,
of what
importance
of Homer
and
language
for his
1060)
is being
is one which
said.
archaic
costume
and supernatural
as appropriate
to the
characters,
A style closer to the heroic
ethos
exploits to the full the element of mythic
same style calls for the

In contrast,
the plays
suppression
a
of Euripides,
removed
between
gap ranging
chronologically
by
forty
on the play chosen),
and eighty years (depending
show signs of a
to discard
so far as
the fantasy.
the characters,
True,
willingness
names
are concerned,
are still not contemporary.
in behavior
But
the debate brings out a shift in his plays away
they are. In particular
fantasy
characteristic
of what
47
In
classical
usage,
of oral didacticism.
The
is vulgar
in common
the
sense
literal
of
life.
drama
was
always
close
to
the
surface; cf. Plato, Apol. 35b, Symp. 222d, Rep. 451c.

48The
contrary views of Wilamowitz,
Murray, Page, Sikes, Rhys Roberts,
that the comedy constitutes a bitter attack on Euripides, suggests the difficulty
of understanding the impartiality of Aristophanes' humour. Stevens reviewing
and rejecting such opinions justly observes that the play's basic conception was
"the idea of exploiting the dramatic possibilities
inherent in the clash between
two playwrights so conveniently antithetical"; see alsoWycherley.
EA.
84
Havelock
from large political concerns towards those of the household (976

977) and its life style, the life style of masters and servants, the rela
tions both
and otherwise
legitimate
between
the sexes,
and the status
of infants and young children. The mythoi of the older master are
costume pieces formal in style and rigidly presented. Their Homeric
much
are given
characters
Euripides'
for his monodies,
and they are
monotonous.
is dramatically
to say. He claims merit
rhetoric
more
indeed solos, magnifying the presence in the plot of individuals whose

are private,
The concerns
roles do not depend upon social importance.
are
as such.
to
be
for the old style means
satirized
which
trivial,
they
same
contrasts
The
has always been a
show up in diction.
Metaphor
is no exception.
and Aristophanes
favored tool of critical appreciation,
His
stylistic terminology draws upon medicine (942-943), carpentry

(799), masonry (801), brick making (800), naval construction (824),
as well as armor (818) and animals (815, 822). Thus, for Euri
pidean diction he prefers brews and infusions (942-943), filings and
shavings49 (819, 881, 902), squares and triangulations (956), while
for Aeschylus, it is tree trunks (805, 907), timbers, beams and bolts
(824), battlements (1004), and also crested helmets (818) and shaggy
bulls (822, 925-926).
In part,
two
idiosyncratic
of a strictly oral
use of vocabulary
memorisation.
are chosen
these
to dramatize
is more
a comic
contrast
between
to it than that.
The genius
But there
is formulaic;
it encourages
the formation
and
are
of
oral
and
seductive
which
syntax
rhythms
styles.
style
statements
The
than general,
activist
are themselves
rather
to make
are specific
it prefers
rather
It delights
in similitudes
than analytic.
a per
The
encourage
episodes.
requirements
concrete
over
the
the
the
syntax favoring
abstract,
image
over the proposition.
at the expanse
Sound
effects may prevail
of
use
as
in
of
the
but semantically
cumbrous
sense,
imposing
simple
and
of
alliteration
words,
exploitation
compound
euphony
through
which
formative
49
raxo?,
Rendering
a connection
paraxoni?n
suggested
(819) as cognate in this instance

by
the
next
word
smileumato-erg?n;
to par axed, pa
cf.
also
pa
rapeismata (881). Rogers (Loeb) translates "whirling of splinters and phrases

smoothed down with the plane". Editors prefer to follow the scholiast by con
necting with "axle" (LSJ s.v.). Stanford accordingly (note ad loc.) imagines a
competition between heroes mounted on chariots. I prefer to think Aristophanes
brought two incompatibles into absurd combination, like "The Walrus and the
Carpenter".
of Greek Drama
Statements
and onomatopoea.
are not matters
tion 50. These
to the need
pression
85
are enlarged
upon
variant
repeti
but give ex
stylistic
idiosyncracy,
for mnemonic
enforcement.
Much
of Aristo
by
of
phanes' own poetry has this quality, which may incline him towards
a bias in favor of Aeschylus. But it is hard to detect this in the actual
course
of
the dispute,
for at the
same
constructs
time he
in skillful
parody (and not only in this play but several others) a very full
representation of a quite different type of diction and syntax. The
of this style are "smaller", and more accurately
Their
"shaped".
a
are
term.
is the adjective
also
hallmark
reiterated
They
leptos51,
more
are
is
that
additions
is,
plentiful;
being
increasing52;
fluency
to an existing vocabulary,
in some profusion
and this is arousing
made
words
resentment
from
traditionalists.
and activist, are being

character.
The form in which
concrete
didates
Finally,
converted
the final
narrative
examination
is cast reveals what

by Euripidean
replaced
alliteration,
and syntax
parallelism,
of Euripides'
is happening.
Aeschylean
are still
Both
abstractions.
antithesis,
onomatopoea.
terms can be perceived
of syntax,
of an analytic
of the two can
modes
into statements
images
are being
"gnomic",
using
But the accidence
as an anticipation
of the dialectic of a Plato insisting that we say what things are, not
they do or is done to them.
to uncover
two poetries
In parallel,
the dispute between
begins
or more
a widening
two
mentalities.
The
between
word
gap
winged
or
a
is turning
"notion"
into
"idea"
the feathered
phrase
correctly
what
(gnome, dianoia, epinoia). The content of what
is uttered is being
event or happening
the topic
towards
directed
away from the mere
case
or subject of a discourse,
"the
of Alcibiades"
for example,
(1422),
53
or actor's role is
or "the case of the city"
The narrator's
(1436).
interrupted by the dialectical question: What do you think? and the

framing
of alternatives,
one of which
may
be
rejected.
The
speaker
50 Stanford
(note on 1154) appropriately labels this habit "liturgical".

two examples of it, 1154-1157,1173-1179.
Division of opinion
criticises
Euripides
among rhetorical theorists over its merits (Stanford ad loc.) may indicate con
fusion of judgment when later and literate standards of composition are applied.
51 See Radermacher and Stanford ad loc.
52
Frequently derided as "mouthings" (841, 1069, 1071, 1310) as elsewhere
in other comedies, but defended by Euripides at 943.
53
Repub. 449c-450c is one of many passages which illustrates this common
philosophic
usage.
E.A. Havelock
86
uses calculation
an
972) where
(logismos
respondent
previously
a
situation
Narrated
intuitive
would
have
sufficed.
whole
grasp of
or
as they are performed
of actions
sequences
causes and their effects. The mythoi

call for more
The
old
The
that.
extensive
style plunged
new wonders
are rearranged
of
employed by Euripides now
in descriptive
offered
explanation
into the assumed
story-situation,
the negative
about
in terms
side,
54.
prologues
and that was
is and
about what
is
not the fact (1443-1444).

As we
have
said,
these differences
between
two poetries
are not
likely to be the result of mere personal choice, reflecting the kind of

we
contrast
expect
might
The Homeric
between
two
artistic
strong but divergent
noted
of Aeschylean
composition,
are consistent
the thesis that
with
personalities.
qualities
but not explained
by Aristophanes,
for a society
had been composing
Aeschylus
of oral
communication,
which means that the Athens of the first half of the fifth century was
such a society. Both poets
is still accepting
Euripides
the manner
verse
of his discourse
tion, in which
On
this count,
of an oral
society. Yet
Is this perhaps because
his
to an altered condition
of communica
the habits of literacy are invading those of orality?
composing
reader's
function.
is different.
to respond
is beginning
Is he
accept the didactic

the presuppositions
in
a writer's
idiom,
increasingly
dependent
on
response?
The Documented Word

one
a drastic
which
towards
conclusion,
points
question
some
to
were
not
it
for
which
draw
would
hesitate
encouragement
as
His Euripides
himself
himself
represents
provides.
Aristophanes
The
out of
is "an infusion
strained
whose
"fluency of diction"
55
and
literate
been
understood
later
(943). The remark has
by
papyri"
a poet
54At
1122 Euripides characterises Aeschylus' prologues as "unclear in the

expression of events". The line is defended by Merry but obelised by other
editors. The use of the tag "lost his bottle of oil" (1200 ff) satirises not only
homely vocabulary (so edd.) but also the prosaic result of expounding a play's
plot in logical sequence.
55On this as the
proper translation of biblia in the fifth century (as also
at lines 1113, 1409) see Havelock, Preface to Plato, p. 55 n. 16.
87
of Greek Drama
to refer to a supposed
interpreters
library in the poet's possession56.
to
More
it
is
poetry draws
suggest that Euripidean
correctly,
phrased
the idioms of documented
favoured
upon
expressions
speech.
by
What
are is not
these
precisely
except
explained
to describe
as
them
fluencies" (st?mulmata) which presumably are found by some to be

here
Euripides
though
disagreeable
presumes
they
are
acceptable.
"Aeschylus", to judge from the challenge with which he concludes

not agree. His
the weighing
scene, would
spoken verse can outweigh
of Euripides
and his family, but also
presence
only the corporeal
as ad
his "papyri" (1409).
Oral
and literate
styles are juxtaposed
not
to the advantage
versaries,
of
the former57.
That it may be proper to draw this general conclusion (rather

than restrict
on Euripides'
to an eccentricity
part) is in
are
course
out
in
that
of the
the
things
brought
an extended
concludes
and
condemnation
critique
the reference
two other
dicated
by
debate.
Aeschylus
of his adversary (1006-1072) with a peroration (1078-1088) which

identifies the immorality of his plots as the source of general social
to the
is there to see (pointing
The evidence
corruption.
in the swarm of rascals, shysters
and decadents.
So far so
audience),
are
common
terms
the
of
abuse
the
coin
of
But
good;
comedy.
heading
are
the same company,
acting as agents of the same demoralization,
that has infested
"the scribes"58,
the city59.
numbered
another dass
and civic
56This
(3A), where the author of the

supposition originates in Athenaeus
is credited with a library surpassing the collections of previous
Deipnosophists
famous book-collectors, ranging from Polycrates to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Euripi
des is included in the list.
57Cf. also
Eupolis 304.
58 In the 6th B.C.
apparently a privileged profession, as could be expected
'The Preliteracy of the Greeks',
when literacy was restricted; cf. Havelock,
pp. 384-385.
59
The
vulgate
were exempted
ditions
in
reads
hupo
from military
later
and
literate
grammate?n.
service, which
epoch.
Merry
The
scholiast
explains
that
these
looks like a guess inferred from con

observes
that
"the
reference
is
obscure", but that the noun may have meant "scribblers dabbling in philosophy",
a suggestion which comes nearer the mark than those based on emendation
uses grammateus pejoratively (De cor. 269, De fais. leg.
(below). Demosthenes
and
the
verb
371)
grammateu? derisively (De cor. 261, 265). Lysias (Or. 30, c.
399 B.C.) describes a certain Nicomachus as appointed and paid (in 411 B.C.),
and also re-appointed (in 403 B.C.), as a nomothet?s, to inscribe (anagraphein)
the laws of Solon, and denounces him for amending and distorting them to
suit his own purposes private and political. He made himself, says Lysias (27),
88
EA.
Havelock
The chorus follow up this sally by inviting the protagonists to

match
wits
with
from
excerpts
their works60.
this will
Dramatically
be a tour de force. Will the audience be bright enough to spot the

quotes and parodies (1111)? Yes, things have changed (1112). Every
member
poetic
so
a papyrus
is equipped61,
holding
virtuosities62
(1113-1114).
can
that he
in the
take
"into a nomothet?s instead of a hupogrammateusn.

At Frogs 1504-1514 Pluto
sends Aeschylus on his way with a parting denunciation of certain contemporary
characters
among
is a Nicomachus.
whom
has
This
encouraged
to
editors
read
at line 1084 hupogrammate?n as one word; and to interpret the noun pejoratively
as "underclerks". But the sense of this noun in Lysias (27 and 28) and of the
verb hupogrammateuein
(29) appears to be professional and not pejorative, and
to mean literally "underwriter", "subscriber" in the sense of an official charged
with adding commentary or paraphrase to the existing texts. The verb is also
used professionally, not pejoratively, by Demosthenes
(De fah. leg. 70). Lysias
in the same speech (Or. 30) refers to suggraphai "according to which sacrifices
these suggraphai
should be performed out of the kurbeis and st?la?\ What
were is disputed, but a possible meaning would refer to written versions prepared
on papyri, which were "out of" the monuments, meaning they derived from but
or
interpreted or amplified the oral sense of the archaic originals. Whether
not this suggestion is acceptable, the hesitancy of editors to accept the notion
that "writers" as such could be regarded as a nuisance in Athens at this time
is removed,
once
the
attitude
towards
the
in
is interpreted
reference
tion from protoliteracy
to literacy. The
use
spreading
the
context
same uneasiness
of written
documents
of
an uneasy
coloured
transi
the popular
(cf. Havelock,
Preface
to Plato, p. 40 with nn. 14, 15).

60At 1104 the chorus announce "There is a
supply of eisbolai sophismat?n"
available on each side (of the contest). These are not "introductions"
(Merry
and Stanford) but "verbal thrusts" (the English 'sally' employs the same meta
phor), as also at 956. The scholiast on 1208 uses the noun differently to in
dicate the "introduction" offered by a prologue; ta dexia are "verbal dexterities"
(including gn?mai) on which a composer might pride himself: cf. Clouds 547
548. On the practice of anthologising, Havelock, Preface to Plato (n. 55 above).
61
"Having served in war" (estrateumenoi) and so retaining the accoutre
ments previously acquired for service, these being humorously identified with
the papyrus copies in their hands. Citations in LSJ s.v. do not however illustrate
this interpretation. Does
the participle mean "having fought a campaign of
the implication that
in
"served
schools of reading?". With
lessons",
reading
such training was recent and arduous? Stanford interprets "veterans in literary
criticism",
as
experienced
in
previous
comedies.
But
what
comedies
would
these be?
62Was this biblion a version of the whole
play procurable by the time of
a second production for which a whole antistrophe (1109-1118) was added or
substituted? This seems very unlikely. Or was it a version of lines 1119-1363,

Commentators
of Greek Drama
have
89
over
labored
these
references.
They
become
immediately explicable on the theory that from two different points

of view
reflect
they
the effects
an infusion
of
of
an effect which
(1109)
poets
the change is
a deep disturbance
in the popular
consciousness.
on as the cause when
in fact he represents
only
creating
is seized
and literate
literacy
habits into the Athenian body politic. Negatively,
Euripides
the effect ?
to exploit.
Both
accepts and is prepared
Aristophanes
that a rather intricate competition
have to be reassured
of quotations will work, in the highly verbalized episode (1119-1247)

which will follow. The availability of readers in the audience is
recent.
In the opening
scene of the play, Dionysus,
his motive
explaining
for a journey to Hades, describes his longing to see Euripides. This

had come upon
first indication
any audience
him
of
reading
of
the existence
situation,
in Greek
to myself" ?
reader, divorced
the
the Andromeda
"when
the solitary
literature63.
from
existence
has no corporeal
uttered
and remembered
Language
was
as
culture
of
the
which
unaware).
airwaves,
(unless
Language
a thing,
an object,
from the
and read becomes
written
separated
of physical
in a condition
consciousness
that creates it, and immobilized
survival. The metaphors

notion
applied to describe both styles mirror the
are becoming
that words
material
objects.
The
and
brews
notions perhaps seek to catch the quality of liquidity in spoken speech.

But
the bricks,
frames,
beams
and boards
suggest
objects
that
are
almost tangible, certainly visible. Archaic terminology had described

as song, speech, utterance,
saying, talk.
synthetically,
language
the
In
word)64.
(Neither epos nor logos originally
separated
signified
an
to
one
view
detects
the Aristophanic
increasing
tendency
critique
human
or was it an
provided (at the poet's expense) for the original production?
intends
anthology (n. 60) of well known passages of drama which Aristophanes
to exploit?
63
Havelock,
'Preliteracy of the Greeks', p. 388.
64
The
orthoepeia
of Protagoras
need
not
mean
more
than
"correct
expres
sion", i.e. pronunciation of words in combination. But Prodicus' study of syn

onyms indicates a conceptual isolation of the single "word" (for which the
original equivalent was onoma; Heraclitus B23; Parmenides B8, 3<8; cf. Havelock,
Greek Concept, p. 268). Rogers and Stanford render both rh?ma and epos
variously
as
"expression",
"phrasing",
"line",
"verse",
and
also
as
"word"
862, 924, 929, 1161, 1198, 1379, 1381, etc).
(799,
90
EA.
as though
language
it were
broken
up into bits
and pieces
Havelock
of
separate
passages (1199), divided into lines (1239), measures (1162-1163),

feet (1323), stanzas (1281). These can be weighed and tested like
coins of varying but determinate values65 (802, 1367 etc.). This kind
of terminology, it is suggested, is being fostered by new habits of
as a physical
thing, a medium
seeing language
of the population
had in previous
generations
to.
heard and listened
which
been
for
only
a majority
spoken
and
A Shift in the Greek Consciousness

a growing
another
exhibits
intellectualism,
vocabulary
same
written
As
down
the
revolution.
silent
symptom
speech
so
content
the
does
him
has
from
who
becomes
it,
spoken
separated
as thoughts,
These become
of the statements made.
ideas,
objectified
as
own
in
their
notions
separate
existing
right.
Correspondingly,
The
new
of
one
source, not a linguistic
they seem to require a separate
one of
but a mental
the speaker's
associated
with
tongue or mouth,
a different
in his consciousness.
To produce
them this
order located
to activate
in
is required
consciousness
search,
itself, by question,
entities,
are presumptions
here
examination
and the like. There
vestigation,
or
at
on
intellectual
least
border
and
which go beyond
style
philosophy,
to the style
them as basic
perceives
critique
Aristophanes'
history.
of Euripides.
language now
1422,
1430,
a whole
caricature
register of cognitive
parodies
the
Greek
978, 982 ff.,
(957-958,
tongue66
invading
a
is
of increasing
it
1454 ff.),
result,
suggested,
delayed
His
65The
phrase basanizein kata epos (802; cf. also ep?n basanistria 826) was
introduced to describe the critical procedure reported as the one Euripides will
adopt. At 1121 he promises the procedure himself, using meros as direct object
of the verb. Both idioms signify a testing of physical parts one by one, rather
than torturing a slave (but cf. 616). The weighing
scene, ending with a chal
to
two
biblia
lines,
adroitly combines the notions of
spoken
pit
against
lenge
language
as utterance,
i.e.,
weightless,
and
as written,
having
corporeal
weight.
66 Stanford on
perinoein (958) notes that this verb does not recur in what
survives of literature of the 5th or 4th centuries; kompsos (967 al.) was coming
into fashion at this time to describe an "intellectual", whether in literature or
philosophy (cf. its use in Plato passim). Chantraine (cited by Stanford on 967)
translates
"bien
soign?".
of Greek Drama
91
literacy. The traditional style had "keptmen from thinking"67 (962,

971).
are often
linguistic
sophistication
of
the sophists
and the teaching
on the
in their final commentary
Socrates.
It is true that the chorus,
to the detriment
of tragedy, upon
debate, blame abuses of language,
remains
The
association
however
Socrates
with
(1492).
question
Such
of increasing
symptoms
to the experiments
of
attributed
the dialectical enterprise of the philosophers
whether
Athena
newborn
situation,
existing
linguistic
habits,
from
sprang like
to an
it a response
of Zeus; or was
an
in
but
incipient
accelerating
change
by
on by the literate revolution?
the head
created
brought
Growth of Invention
in their structuration
aside, the plots themselves might
Language
to the new
some response
literate possibilities.
Aeschylean
not make
He
are
static
does
dull.
and
of
accused
enough
being
plots
are
and
use of his characters;
his choral
dramatic
prolonged
lyrics
ex
to
what
know
his
audience
he
monotonous;
waiting;
they
keeps
show
pect (919) and how to be patient. Euripides offers livelier dialogue;

a contemporary,
life style into his plots.
that is non-mythic,
as par excellence
the inventor of twists and turns, the
is pilloried
and chorus
this is what Dionysus
artist of surprises
(even
though
he has added
seem to prefer,
His monodies,
which
often
905-906).
he
inserts
He
as novelties,
The
between
are selected
Aristophanic
the expected
for special satiric

does not
critique
attention.
that this
suggest
with
is connected
contrast
the unexpected
But the connection
word.
and
the
in
In
of the written
troduction
may be there.
it was argued that the word
our original hypothesis,
orally preserved
to be
the written
reasons
was
for mnemonic
familiar,
required
In
to the unexpected
and the invented.
word being more hospitable
at work;
effect
to
this
latter
it
be
may
perceive
possible
Euripides
is not accused of tampering with
but only in an incipient
stage68. He
67On
68A
the sense of phronein see Havelock, Preface to Plato, pp. 212-213.

comedy. Lesky p. 446
parallel effect is observable in Aristophanic
notes "the increased scope allowed to pure invention" in the Ecclesiazusae and
Plutus.
E.A. Havelock
92
are not at the stage of true

themselves
We
the mythoi
(1052-1053).
not
But
in literature,
be for several centuries.
it is
fiction
and will
to
that
the
conversations
and
Euripidean
permissible
speculate
lyric
are directed
listeners
towards
solos, so agile and topically diversified,
who
are growing
familiar,
necessarily
Summing
to this effect.
consciousness
up:
to reading, often
that is, traditional,
used
the
testimony
Overall,
during
was taking place,
that consciousness.
can be
of Aristophanes
the fifth century,
so far as Athens
because
Possibly
in prose, what
is no longer
and therefore
old-fashioned.
a shift
interpreted
in the Greek
was
the shift was
of
representative
in Athens,
focussed
her people were able to seize the philosophical leadership of antiquity.

as far back
of the change
of course extend
the beginning
might
to the
as the days of Solon and Pisistratus.
reaction
It was a delayed
at
turn
the
materialization
the
of
seventh century.
of the Greek
tongue
One
But it takes place in a condition of ambiguity. Euripides
is still for
are locked
an "oral poet".
purposes
Image and abstraction
practical
not know
in a relationship
do
tension.
Athenians
of
Contemporary
to make of it all. Between
the two competing
styles, which
quite what
are also states of minds, Dionysus
cannot choose:
in
"One is more
is which?
the other easier to understand".
Which
tellectual,
Surely
to
not
is
the
conditioned
clearer.
the Euripidean
No,
orally
analysis
mind, which
grasps with
immediacy the import of the Aeschylean
The
concrete, dynamic,
affective,
similitude,
acoustically memorizable.
a
as
million
he does the habits of
modern
years of
reader, inheriting
true.
is
feels
this
still
speech,
acoustically
preserved
at the end of the story, and he is
is composing
Aristophanes
to what
aware
he regards as the
that this is so, as he looks back
It had
for him only
of tragedy,
years earlier.
seventy
beginnings
a
to
out
its
tension
in
of
and
function
grown,
epoch be
unique
style,
The
tween the word orally remembered
down.
and the word written
?
users were
Its Athenian
had indeed won.
latter was now winning
so.
music"
the
condemns
for
and
them
chorus
m,
doing
"discarding
Yet
But in the same breath it sings the swan song of tragedy and perhaps
of comedy
69On
Greeks',
p.
also70.
the social significance
of "music"
see Havelock,
'Preliteracy of the
371.
70 " In the world of literature the deaths of

Euripides and Sophocles in the
previous year may have seemed to mark the end of a great epoch. In fact only
of Greek Drama
93
4. The Seven Against Thebes: A Tract For Its Times

Inviting
Aeschylus
to reply
to his
rival,
the chorus
of
the Frogs
had hailed him as the original Hellenic master of tragedy (1004-1005).

Challenged by Euripides to produce his credentials as the exponent
and
instructor
of civic
valour,
he
cites
the production
of
the
two
earliest extant plays we have, the Persians (472) and the Seven
Against Thebes (467). That is their supposed chronological order, as
recorded in antiquity. But it is not the order of the Aeschylus who
to the Seven, perhaps
as the
in this play. He gives priority
in retrospect
of drama in its didactic
role, as viewed
leading exemplar
text
two
its
first
Does
the
of this play
after
years
sixty
production.
speaks
any of
support
those
conclusions
critique?
Aristophanic
text as we have
The
which
it has
been
we
have
tampered
elicited
with.
from
the
is no
There
dispute that this begins at line 861. The extent of tampering after
can be variously
in Aristo
The drama celebrated
estimated.
text for its martial
inspiration
corresponds
only to the un
phanes'
an original
true
is
of
This
whether
regardless
portion.
tampered
or
it may
still survive as
whether
ending has been lost and replaced,
this point
from portions
reconstructed
of
the ending
we
have.
The Seven, Part One (it we may so style the first 860 lines) is a
that of a city
of a single situation,
very static play, a dramatization
to
it. Civic
and
defend
need
the
and
under
preserve
urgent
siege,
on decisive
is the paramount
issue,
morale,
leadership,
dependent
ex
in
the
in
reiterated
and
the
dwelt
subsequent
upon
prolongue
Fear of captivity
chorus and messenger.
protagonist,
the women,
for the civilian population,
particularly
Protection
from the city's
is vividly expressed
and as sternly repressed.
?
?
and their
their images are on stage
implored
gods is passionately
and
of the city despairingly
desertion
Besiegers
envisaged.
possible
changes between
and enslavement
defenders
is met
are
reviewed
in their martial
The
panoply.
Defiant
arms
challenge
and
himself
with
protagonist
counter-challenge.
his own doom as he does so. But
for battle,
foreseeing
he falls, the victory paean is raised. The city is saved.
leaves
though
?
one great masterpiece of the high classical period remained to be written
?
Stanford, Introd. p. XV.
Frogs of Aristophanes"
the
EA.
94
an Athenian
and watching,
audience would
Listening
to respond
so
to an action
infused with
many Homeric
its
its wives
under
and
queen
siege,
Troy
king
distraught,
under
threat
of enslavement
368); Hector
and exile
(cf. not
it easy
memories:
find
and children
78-180,
only
Havelock
but
321
its doomed defender, but equally the doomed aggressor
of a premonitory
is
after Hector
oracle,
"straightway
and waiting
for you" (cf. Eteocles
Chorus
and
683-704).
scene:
recreate
the battle
the
together by their spoken words
victim
Achilles,
death ready
actors
to the death.
The
arming, the duels
titles:
Achaeans
and
324)
(28,
given
the latter fits the professed
situation.
Theban
(59 etc.). Only
Argives
over recollection
But prevailing
of the Iliad
there is the con
civic reality. All the city states of Hellas
the
knew what
temporary
Homeric
the warriors
challenge,
are even
attackers
Homeric
threat of attack meant;
they lived with
even
as they were
also schooled
in
this
Argives
play are positive
to attack
it and had to cope with

in their
and negative
turn.
of the
Thebans
it,
and
same experienced
history. The defenders are that hoplite citizen army (717) already
verse.
of Homeric
by Tyrtaeus'
adaptations
are a paradigm
re
The
instructions
of the duties
given by Eteocles
a
in
crisis.
is
civic
such
The
of
the
of
chorus
any
panic
quired
body
to
an
at once a sympathetic
is likely
evocation
of what
and
happen,
and commended
celebrated
lesson
object
in what
is not
to be
to happen.
the facts of life as lived
allowed
awareness
in the
this general
A contemporary
Greek
city states there lurk some specific memories.
aware of one catastrophe
less than a
that had befallen
audience was
of
and
another
and
averted.
very recently
ago,
generation
narrowly
Behind
In 494, Miletus,
the largest
Her
the Persians.
fate was
turn next?
Athens'
dramatist
The
and wealthiest
a premonitory
in Ionia, had fallen to

it going to be
signal. Was
city
sack had been memorialized

twice
Phrynichus,
of
recalled
by Aristophanes
by
the Athenian
as Aeschylus'
predecessor (Frogs 910, 1298). His Taking of Miletus (Mil?tou Ha

losis) had earned him a heavy fine and the banning of the play, so
was
its effect
on Athens:
city of Ionia had

Fourteen
failed to save her daughter.
years later, the same foreign foe
took Athens,
abandoned
the entire population,
heroically
by almost
to
were
able
the ruined acropolis
who
reoccupy
only after risking all
emotional
on
the hazard
Never
again!
of an encounter
The
mythos
by sea.
of Thebes
the mother
is:
The message
of the Seven
the
within
provides
clothing
of Greek Drama
95
are disguised.
these concerns
lurk close to the surface of
They
the composition.
are
The city whose
invoked
for protection
is
gods
as one which
described
is Greek-speaking
and free, and must
be
from slavery's yoke (72-75).
same gods are
The
preserved
implored
never
to betray
it to a foreign-speaking
army (166-170).
Language
like this recalls the Persian
in which
Greek
threat, not a situation
meets Greek
as in the Theban
In the herald's
announcement
story.
which
of victory
slavery's
we hear
"Be of good cher

(792-794)
of monstrous
yoke; the bombasts
the accents
too. The
after Marathon
as "Children
of
of mothers
realike
clich?, until we
to
the
non-combatant
speaking
the action
men
and relief
our
have
city has escaped

been cast down"
after
and perhaps
Salamis,
are
announcement
of
this
addressed
recipients
on the face of it an
nursed and nurtured",
triumph
otiose
in Salamis
. . .this
in imagination
is
for
the
occasion
population
segregated
In these expressions,
scattered
through
that
the Argolid.
of the play, a present
and
the messenger
and vivid
consciousness
temporarily
breaks through the archaic framework of the myth. This is nowhere

more
evident
who,
than
in the prologue,
the dramatic
conventions
than
given
the Athenian
audience
addressed
of
to Cadmeian
the period,
citizens
can be none
other
themselves.
The plot of the Seven Against Thebes is bifocal. The major

a city successfully
defended
and saved, the besiegers
success has its negative
and de
price. Attackers
are led respectively
two
in
event
commit
brothers
the
who
by
is positive:
But
vanquished.
theme
fenders
mutual
fratricide.
This
denouement
is represented
effect of a previous
tragic family history,
a curse
and involving
(or
grandfather,
them by their own father.
The
emerge
necessity
only at 631
of
the
ff. Both
inevitable
their paternal
starting with
several curses) placed
upon
confrontation
brothers
as the
betray
between
them
an awareness
begins
of what
to
the
result is likely to be (616, 683 ff.). Up to this point only a single

has been
of this family burden
spoken,
solitary hint of the existence
a
in
of
the
role
commander
at line 70. The protagonist
initially speaks
addresses
in confident
city; and his messenger
charge of a Cadmeian
him in the same terms (1-2, 39). His familiar identification "Oedipus
child" is postponed till the chorus use it at 203, repeating it at 372
(with an ominous pun on the name) and 677. The child names his
own father only at 654, at which point the theme of the fatal family
96
E.A.
Havelock
As the protagonist
takes over; but even then not exclusively.
the stage to go to his death, the chorus break into a dirge com
the history and the fratricide now seen as inevitable.
Even
memorating
history
leaves
it clear that whatever

the fate of the family,
so, they make
concerns
in their minds
the city's
have priority
of
News
(758-771).
it arrives takes precedence
its rescue when
The messenger
(792-802).
as well;
are
the fears however
he rekindles
which
brings bad news
while
doing
is something
still for the city; the fate of the brothers
of a distraction.
As it dawns on the chorus what has happened,
their first cry is a brief
hymn of triumph to the city's gods for protecting it (822-824).

then realize
an emotional
at the city's
salvation,
dilemma:
or weep
shall
they
rejoice
for its "polemarchs"?
They
and cry Hurrah!

The
(825-832).
dead must have their obsequies (835-838), performed in a brief funeral

dirge (840-860), in the course of which the two bodies are brought in
and exposed on stage. The concluding
to the darkness
of Acheron's
shore,
Even
they sing, the chorus

their chief concern
(843).
while
remains
farewell consigns
a journey which
to confess
digress
both
brothers
awaits
that
us
the
all.
city
to be the last of three plays

the Seven
tradition
reported
to form a trilogy, the first two being named after the brothers'
The fact predisposes
in
and father respectively.
modern
grandfather
Later
assumed
to insist on a close relationship

the three, leading
between
terpreters
to the conclusion
that the theme of the family curse inherited
from
to play a larger role in the third than in fact
the first two is intended
text is left out of ac
appears to be the case (that is, if the tampered
treatment
If the plot postpones
of the curse and its effects,
count).
this is viewed as designed to furnish the play's climax. This theory

ignores the fact
to its successors,
that
the construction
of classical
drama,
the way
refers
to the Seven
not climactic.
is normally
From
we would
not
in Aristophanes,
alone
is quoted),
not
as opposed
"Aeschylus"
guess that the play
formed part of a trilogy, or dealt with
the house of Oedipus,
just as
seems
a later mention
an
in the Frogs
of
"Oresteia"
intended
(1124)
to refer to "a play about Orestes"
the
(which
meaning
Choephoroi
the
trilogy
now
known
by
that name,
of which
the Choephoroi forms a part in printed texts. If the Aristophanic

critique is any guide, the Athenian audience of 405 B.C. may be
judged to have been
The
fratricide,
indifferent
then,
forms
to trilogie composition.
an appendix,
not a climax,
to civic

defence
rescue.
and
to avert
97
in a way which
it
associates
theme of military
defence
against
it is treated
But
the city's welfare.

is supplemented
directly with
a foe without
the need
of Greek Drama
it. Attacker
The
of faction within,
by the prospect
are blood brothers.
and defender
and
In
this simple fact is symbolized the threat of civic stasis; both are mem
bers
It is a situation
the city and rivals for its leadership.

to the Greek
city states, and one
of
endemic
previous
in connection
generation
experienced
Persian
threat
with
no
of
less
the
within
conquest.
The threat is first exposed in a portion of the play (568-596) which

even
is unusually
and explicitly
storage
text.
it formed the center piece of the original
Conceivably
are
rare
virtue
the
characters
of
Greek
of
among
drama,
stage
Paragons
on the Argive
side in such
and when Aeschylus
presents Amphiaraus
the
by
didactic.
a guise,
standards
he has
Tydeus
in mind.
special intentions
by the messenger)
(as reported
militaristic
ethos
of
has been
who
oral
of
he charges
Polyneices,
city and its indigenous
first
utterance
The
the
condemns
he
the
aggressive
on
blames
army, which
attacking
the Argives'
"teacher"
(573). Then,
to lay waste
him with
the intention
gods with
a foreign
this man
of
turning on
his native
"Take your
army.
and
one
native
land with the sword, and it will never be your friend again" (585
586). This is not the kind of achievement to be celebrated orally and
to posterity
the
the language condemns
(581).
Explicitly,
is labelled
"a man
?is spoken by an authority who
"desires the reality of excellence,
and pious" who
transmitted
act of
treason, and
just, stalwart
sober,
not its appearance"
(592).
The treason is internecine,
of brother
against
a
enters
into
is
stasis
lesson
which
against civic
tradition
report,
with
voices
Solon.
Eteocles,
a variant
upon
brother.
Warning
the Greek
gnomic
the
upon
messenger's
commenting
this man of justice,
the same theme:
alas! is forced to keep company with fellow citizens (politai, 605) of

once more
stripe and may suffer their fate. Such language
a military
from
of
situation
the
Solon
translates
Amphiaraus
recalling
to a civic context.
a different
The mutual death that follows both averts the city's peril and
the protagonists;
redeems
it is in the nature
of
an act of absolution.
This is Aeschylus' way of recommending the healing of faction and

restoration
menides.
of
civic
harmony,
a theme
touched
on
later
in the Eu
Evidence for this interpretation lies in the linguistic treat
98
E.A.
ment
two
the
given
In
their death.
after
rivals
of as a pair of equivalents
are spoken
preserved
by
"The
passing.
is rescued
city
drunk the blood of its pair of kings" (820-821).

but
distinction
but
the
earth
has
"The city fares well,
their
lots and divided
for the city ... or bewail
are twin sorrows
(i.e. the bodies
its presidents,
have
the pair of generals,
I
Hurrah!
"Shall
(815-816).
cry
possessions"
its polemarchs?"
cast
"Here
(825-828).
for obsequies),
twin deeds of valour"
exposed
At
But in death the

moral
without
implicitly incorporate them into the city now
and given titles which

their
had
life, Eteocles
condemned his brother in moral terms (664-667).

two
Havelock
the point
the protagonist
where
(849).
realizes
is
that his opponent
likely to be his own brother (653), the full force of his family history,
as
it will
control
future
action,
explodes
upon
the
stage.
cries
He
aloud "O god-maddened and by gods abhorred! O family of Oedipus

and mine
most
own,
lamentable!".
The
dramatic
situation
becomes
paradoxical; in this fix he can protect the city only by being killed
himself; the family history so requires. Even as he arms himself to
repel the invader, following here the logic prescribed by all previous
preparations,
the perceived
of
power
He
(687).
proaching
now
the chorus would
the demon
resolutely
fain deter
of
accepts
him.
the family's
and
destiny
They
before
quail
now
ap
destiny
leaves for battle.
As he does so, they break into a longmeditation upon the fatal history
of the house of Laius (745) and Oedipus (752). It is this second
stasimon
that
rivets
the
attention
of
the
audience
upon
the
family
it reflects
by
foreboding,
over the fate of a city which
is embroiled with
the fate of
uncertainty
are
the two brothers who
of the house
lay claim to it. The calamities
to overwhelm
the ship of state and there
like an angry sea threatening
is so thin a defence
between
(758-763):
"My fear is that the city be
story.
Sung
in a mood
darkened
fear
and
vanquished in company with its kings" (759-765). These specific fears

are followed
meditations:
prosperity
Once
by general
"Destructive
thick
waxing
the chorus
once more
Solon's
reflections,
recalling
effects (fortunately)
the
pass by
needy.
induces headlong
jettisoning".
But
there is grief
preserved,
at
rescue.
for the brothers,
fear; only joy
In sum, while
of a family curse,
the drama includes a celebration
In the words
is with
of the Aristo
the civic good.
its preoccupation
an
the drama becomes
lesson, a nouthesia
admonitory
phanic critique,
but
learns
the city has been
civic
no more
of Greek Drama
99
or parainesis,
to this end. The vehicle
directed
for this
employed
an
is
in
archaic
Homeric
which
fashion enlarges con
purpose
mythos,
concerns
them in a grandiose
and heroic setting,
temporary
by placing
the more
the message
making
effective
by
distancing
it from
the
present.
5. The Language of Oral Instruction

The "Euripides" of the Frogs, proposing-the grounds on which a
meaningful comparison of rival dramatic skills should be made, had
of
spoken
overall
the "sinews
of
aside
tragedy".
Leaving
does
the
of
structure,
language
thematic
the mythos
the Seven
and
its
as it is
welded together line by line reveal any modalities of oral composition

the
within
operating
relationship
began, with
with
his
mind
and responding
composer's
can
audience?
We
begin where
the prolongue,
an element
in Aeschylean
to
an oral
audience
the
drama
which
Euripides selected for specific attack. "He has been difficult to

understand in the exposition of what goes on" (Frogs 1122). This
contrasts with Euripides' own method, previously described (945
946): "I didn't plunge in abruptly and mix things up. At the first
at the very beginning
entrance,
of the drama to come''.
The
just one.
Aeschylean
is required
way
His
a speaker
state
the
substance
a
is from Euripides'
standpoint
In
information
the
by providing
directly.
is done indirectly.
The fact that the information
the contrast
plays
I had
is drawn
start
style this
at all indicates
the presence
o? certain needs on the part
were
of the audience which
wrote.
when Euripides
being modified
to consult (or perhaps, by the time
There were no theater programmes
of the Frogs,
these have just appeared?).
That
the spoken prologue
in some sense took their place has long been observed.
But
it was
the assumption
that the drama
in
just a programme.
Accepting
its audience to identify with
the action, we can view the prologue
as telling us where we are, who we are, what has
or been
happened
to happen
or be done
in the past, and what
done
is going
in the
to
in
order
with
the
that the
cope
present
past. Euripides
complains
not
vited
prologues
of Aeschylus
are not
prologue to the Seven (1-77).
explicit.
This
is precisely
It is divided between
true of
the
two speakers
100
E.A.
Havelock
as participants
in the drama,
and voice
information.
Rendered
which
supply background
directly
takes the following
form:
the information
and explicitly,
who
introduce
themselves
concerns
1
2a
2b
3a
3b
4
5a
5b
6a
6b
7
8
9a
9b
10
11a
lib
12a
12b
13
14a
14b
15a
15b
16a
16b
16c
17a
17b
the participants are the citizen body; the speaker

the locale is Thebes;
is their ruler Eteocles (lines 1, 2 and 6)
orders to be given must be appropriate (1)
as befits any watchful guardian of the ship of state (2-3)
if one succeds, credit goes to the gods (4)
if mischance supervenes, the commander will become the object of dire
lamentation (5-8)
which may Zeus forfend (8-9)
all of military age are required to defend city, altars, children (10-16)
and earth which has nurtured them to be reliable inhabitants and shield
bearers (16-20)
so far heaven has been favorable (21)
a siege is in progress so far with heaven's favor successfully resisted
(22-23)
but an unerring soothsayer relying on hearing and sagacity gives intel
ligence (24-27)
that the Achaean enemy plans a major assault (28-29)
so total mobilization
is required to man walls and gates immediately
(30-35)
god will accomplish (things) favorably (35)
meanwhile visual intelligence has also arrived reliable and certain (36-41)
reporting
that
seven
heroic
enemy
champions
have
sworn
a blood
oath
to destroy Thebes (42-47)

or perish in the attempt, and have dedicated personal memorials to their
descendants; they are pitiless, breathing fire like lions (48-53)
events are moving
swiftly; they have just finished allotting gates to
themselves (54-56)
which requires an immediate counter-assignment
of (seven) picked de
fenders (57-58)
the Argive army is advancing en masse (59-61)
which requires the commander of the ship of state to take measures for
immediate defence (62-64)
the first opportunity must be seized (65)
provision of visual intelligence from the field will continue (66-67)
accurate reporting will ensure effective measures for defence (68)
gods of Greece, earth and city (69)
and also the avenging spirit of a father's curse (70)
are implored to avert utter destruction of a Greek city and enslavement
of its inhabitants (71-75)
this plea is made on common ground (76)
a prospering city honours gods (77).
101
of Greek Drama
In this rewritten
version
of
the text, speech rhetorically

framed,
of engaged
has been
persons,
expressive
to use Euripides'
"its inflammation
rendered
reduced",
analytically,
in order to extract from it that body of information
the
which
phrase,
of
reactions
and
attitudes
audience
actually acquires while

trast between
the two versions
tween
to it. To examine
the con
listening
a basic difference
is to uncover
be
as orally composed
and its literate counterpart.
has been separated out from its context
information
and
communication
In the latter,
into a series
turned
oral context,
of
Put
stated.
"facts",
impersonally
the component
parts of addresses
they become
back
into
delivered
by two living persons visibly present on stage. Since drama by defini

art form which
tion is that particular
human address, we have
exploits
learnt much
the obvious
difference
the
between
except
dramatic and the non-dramatic ?
until one observes
that while
the in
so far not
in the play may be said to be aimed at "us" as audience,

it
are
to
at
not
is not, in the original,
"us"
and
the
all,
spoken
speakers
are
to inform
motivated
"us". They
each
by any desire
informing
or
more
since
with
each
the
other,
other,
engaging
properly,
exchange
formation
the citizen body is one-sided. It would be possible to place a

speaker at the head of the play who in effect spoke his piece, his
with
prologue,
presented
to "us", framing
it as a series of facts
in an aloof separation
from the action.
about
This
the play, but

in fact is the
form of prologue which later gained preference with Euripides.

in an Aeschylean
speakers
in the action directly
volved
the information
aimed
woven
into
inherently
The
as characters
in
speak
already
their
and
mouths,
they open
consequently
at the audience
is mixed
the action,
up with
it. This
is what
the Euripides
of the Frogs
prologue
means
state
in abruptly and confusedly.
An explanatory
by plunging
scene by which
is incorporated
the information
into a dramatic
is conveyed
and implicitly.
indirectly
ment
This dramatic method
follows that law which had previously
didactic content had to be

epic poetry whereby
governed
contexts
in order to render it memorizable.
into narrative
of
informational
fact resemble
statements
of moral
rules
incorporated
Statements
or habitual
that so stated
in dynamic
in this,
patterns
they lack any involvement
event.
the
The
oral
action or quick-moving
memory
prefers
living
act
in
short
it
the
tale
and
whatever
of
event;
form,
panorama
prefers
or long, epic, lyric, dramatic.
So even the initial informational
prog
ramme of an Aeschylean
cast
is
in
this
form.
play
102
EA.
The
dramatic
ening.
release
Havelock
a stage
in
of the prologue
marked
separation
in which
the rule of oral composition
is weak
to see what
could have caused
other
than a
this,
Euripidean
development
It is difficult
from memory's
demands
created by increasing
The
literacy.
a
as
on
to
of
take
the
of
words
plot-content
play begins
they
quality
are read in separation
is said and done.
It becomes
from what
ob
jectified and separated from the action of the play itself. From the
the effect is to increase clarity and logic. From
Euripidean
standpoint,
a new fangled
it is to substitute
the Aeschylean
and oral standpoint,
in place of an instinctual
and truly
and bookish
drama
self-conscious
it is a way
of replacing
poetic one;
a
sciousness
of
the
intellect.
prose
by
a poetry
of
the organic
con
Elucidation of the difference can be pushed further by penetrating

into
But
no
such
verbs
in item
text
is rep
are.
the participants
the city is and who
are used.
are
statement
of veridical
elicited
They
of syntax.
the specifics
us what
as idling
resented
As
reworded
1, the
a dramatic
of the play "Citizens of

the first two words
vocative,
in a dramatic
The "facts" are there but only as celebrated
Cadmus!".
more
is
One
of
the
essential
the
fact,
posture.
speaker,
identity
a
nar
a
name
into
short vivid
till it becomes
incorporated
postponed
from
rative of an act of civic lamentation (3b).

states
(5a) adequately
But the original
mary.
different
'ages of man',
of what
they possess
fact.
veridical
the substance
of
Greek
"All of military age" in
in a conceptual
describes
and concretely
the
item
sum
three
vividly
identified
verbs
and
expressive
by
adjectives
or lack. A performative
syntax is used to relay
same
to clothe
the expression
of general
syntax is required
or another
serve to report,
to recom
in one way
which
conserve
to
is
mend
and
the community's
life style. This
"wisdom"
an inherent component
of Homer,
and no less so of drama, betraying
The
sentiments
in the plays their function

of oral instruc
presence
two
in the Frogs,
how
the
the final
poets
facing
were
to
submit
that
rival
examination,
required
gn?mai,
by its continuous
tion. We
recall
competitive
is, maxims
not
think
or
of
pronouncements.
aphoristic
testing dramatic
expertise
Though
today we would
in this way,
the text of the
that the test was reasonable

Seven, as of any Greek
play, demonstrates
at the time, because applied to a rooted characteristic
of Greek
tragedy.
some of the attention
If it has escaped
it deserves
from critics,
this is
103
of Greek Drama
the "wisdom"
the oral law of narrativization,
is
obeying
only because,
as action.
not only woven
into the action, but is itself expressed
the prologue
offers a few
of detached
As specimens
aphorisms,
brief recognizably distinct clauses (9b, 14b, 17b). More important are
the disguised forms, less recognizable for being attached to the specifics
of what is happening. The first occurs in the first lines of the drama.
who
says "To
2a, 2b are actually
spoken by the protagonist
over
is incumbent
upon any man who keeps watch
speak to the point
to allow
a city's rudder from the poop, refusing
state affairs, managing
his eyes to slumber".
Items
The standing "literary" (and literate) view of such language is

is
Eteocles
character.
of personal
initial indication
a
in
as
but
over-confident
here posturing
ruler,
perhaps
responsible
and
contrast either to the frenzied chorus, or to his own later doomed
to
look
critic
for
the
latter possibility
manic
self. This
encourages
it gives
that
"irony"
studies.
an
on Aeschylus'
part,
using
a term much
in vogue
in modern
But a functional approach to the poetics of Greek tragedy would

a nar
of the Homeric
that, after the manner
encyclopaedia,
context
is being used to incorporate
rative (or in this case rhetorical)
to be plausible
in the
a piece of the "wisdom"
of the society, adjusted
to
reference
direct
what
but
with
mouth
of the character
concerned,
estimate
a city state would

consider
plausible
generally.
more often it appears
the
but
aphorism visibility,
gives
the
the specific over
oral speech,
Memorisable
in disguise.
favoring
to
is the best policy"
of saying
instead
prefers
"Honesty
general,
So
far
the
man
as
is
he
who
it
"an
honest
reaps profit".
phrase
But the same oral tendency
in isolation.
is still perceptible
aphorism
the population
Isolation
of
will prefer to carry specificity further: "If I do good to friends will
a given person
is speaking,
and what more
to place
than that
such a person
in which
of the protag
the utterance
drama? Accordingly,
supplied by a Greek
as follows:
"If success should crown our efforts, credit
onist continues
it not
Here
profit me?".
is there
suitable context
(will go) to the gods" (3a), a statement tied to the participants in the
while
?
observation
action,
at the
same
what
people
a
if rather cynical
expressing
general
are always ready to
in such circumstances
time
say. This is followed up with
a remark applied specifically to the
104
E.A.
own person
speaker's
when
things go wrong
Havelock
a general
rule:
again implying
look for the appropriate
scapegoat.
but
(3b),
that
people
of aphorism, overt and latent, persist throughout
as a fundamental
are among
of the text. They
component
we
to
for
that
feel
be
in the
"classical"
responsible
quality
two varieties
The
the drama
the factors
sense.
antique
resource
To
and make
be
the Shakespearean
the same
plays exploit
a
it.
But
is
there
with
difference
play
sure,
considerable
amounts
to a difference
com
in kind.
which
Post-classical
on
scene
a
to
is
the
human
It
tends
mentary
commentary.
just that,
case itself in epigrams
rather than speak sayings;
it is more
self-con
into the action.
sciously framed, less woven
of degree
of
Much
the prologue
continues
in this vein.
Item
5a voices
the
standard duty of civic defence; 5b celebrates the debt to native soil

which justifies 5a, with an echo of similar sentiments framed by
a particular
credentials
Solon.
7 describes
define
the expected
the civic duty
restates
but in formal terms which

soothsayer,
is blind.
9a
of any soothsayer
who
the commander's
and 14a restates
duty
of 5a,
in a form promising
of 2b.
15b, though
personal
safety to the
a clich? describing
correct military
conceals
procedure.
protagonists,
as
are voiced
in the original
16a and 16c, which
by the protagonist
a propriety
of behavior
in such
he apostrophises
the gods, dramatize
cast
and should
this is what
circumstances;
any Greek would
to combine
the protagonist
the two senses of what
worded
custom
is common
shared by all.
the chorus and what
of
a kaleidoscopic
This
culture.
the
mirror
of
renders
the
and circumstance,
facets of the life style
thousand
inapplicable
shares with
as a deposit
in the
in
drama becomes
concealed
of such generalities
proportion
not lessen as the action proceeds.
The
to
a
time
and
place
specific
something
geared
The
text does
part
in part
is
17a
do.
of
many
the
canons
of
criticism derived from the kind of understanding supplied by a literate

if Eteocles
example,
reprimanding
sentiments
195, 200),
(187-190,
to interpret
in Hesiod,
it is a mistake
the chorus
For
culture.
indulges
similar ex
recalling
these as a sudden
in anti-feminist
pressions
revelation in depth of his own character. When

chorus
he exchanges
clich?s
over
opposed to self help (216-244),

tween
pious
believers
the relative
in dispute with
merits
of divine
help
the
as
this is not a character conflict be
and a committed
agnostic,
but
an extended
and
105
of Greek Drama
of the ambiguities
of popular wisdom
poignant
expression
in
of
attitudes
it.
and
with
issue,
popular
dealing
of
this
forbids
further
extended
review
embedded
Space
It
too much
is not
the text
to say that
of
any Greek
on
this
material.
classical
play
placed under similar scrutiny will yield similar results. Read from this
comes
of Greek
and listened
to, the language
tragedy
perspective,
a
as
consciousness.
To
understand
the language of
preliterate
through
and the oral antique.
it we have to bridge a gulf between
ourselves
Testimony
that the gulf exists is unwittingly contributed by those
critics who
as well
aphorisms
textual
amend
would
as repetitions
originals where
they can by excising
as irrelevant
to context.
The Aristophanic critique of Euripides had made much of un

wanted
was
audience
in his
innovation
stylistic
charged with
In
plays.
riposte,
was
Aeschylus
static rigidity and a kind of immobility of plot; the

always
kept waiting
for what
they already
knew
enough
to expect (Frogs 919-924). Our interpretation suggested that the

stylistic difference reflects a difference between methods of oral and
literate composition. The latter ismore free to indulge in the fictional
and
the
know
invented;
and familiar,
by anticipation,
the
former
and
tends
the
prefers
its audience
echo.
and responsive
prediction
once more
for this thesis emerges
Support
Its business
the Seven.
sort of
the unexpected,
of
the memories
eschews
to guide
information
to supply
being
in this? How much
cedent to the action, which

for the plot?
background
help
Item
to
in the prologue
one
what
asks:
information,
of
it deals with
to bring it about,
1 is unambiguous
facts
ante
supplying necessary
in this respect and
is supplemented by items 6a and b, 7, 8, 10, 11a and b, 12a. These

tell us
whose
the city of Thebes,

father has cursed him,
that
under
has
the command
successfully
of one Eteocles,
a prolonged
resisted
a last
siege, but has just received intelligence that it is threatened by
led by seven champions.
assault
Against
desperate
is indicated.
as it gets under way
action
the present
this background,
are
defences
The
to be suitablymanned (items 5, 6, 9a, 12b, 14a, with a hint in 5b that

the population to be defended is earth born). The enemy is ad
vancing (13). Intelligence will continue to be provided (15a). Heav
en's protection is solicited (4, 16a, 16c).
When however the character of this information (including some
items so far omitted) is considered in relation to the future as well as
106
E.A.
it becomes
and past,
present
that
evident
the purpose
of
Havelock
a great
deal
of it is not merely to supply an existing framework within which the

future will
take
to prepare
item 3 forecasts
Thus
predictive.
but
place,
the
audience
to expect
what
in fact be. The prologue is not only retrospective but
the future will
indirection
by
the complex
denoue
ment of the play. The city will be rescued with due credit given to
the gods (3a); the protagonist will suffer disaster followed by lamenta
tion (3b). Item 11a summarizes what will be more fully described
by the messenger in the body of the play, lib refers to what will
to the champions,
to their aggressive
and its reference
happen
in later descriptions.
12b prescribes
and so an
temper is expanded
us
out.
warns
in
the
will
15a
what
fact
carry
ticipates
protagonist
of the "action" will
be cast in the form of messenger's
that much
actually
16a and
reports.
a foretaste
16c provide
of the more
frenzied
appeals
to heaven which will be voiced by the chorus. 16b throws out a brief
hint of the future fatality of the family curse.
This phrasing of what is now happening to suggest or hint at
what is likely to happen is a device by which lengthy oral communica
tion
can be
easily
ments which
when
grasped
comprehensively
The mind
afterwards.
recalled
each other.
overlap
it is uttered
and more
is led on by a series of state

of the future is contained within
Part
a sense of time characteristically

oral, in which
producing
into
and
each other,
and
future
flow
past, present
interpenetrate
into fixed moments.
The
technique
by formal divisions
unseparated
the present,
and the sense

the mind
upon
are conceived
it creates
of
is responsible
for that strong impression
literate reader that the plots of Greek
the
fatalistically,
expressive
placed
drama
belief
Greek
of a peculiarly
not
were
In fact the Greeks
in
a
the power
of overriding
destiny.
to judge from their own dynamic
is
It
fatalistic people
pos
history.
neces
to a technological
sible to trace the cause of this impression
to serve
in oral composition
the use of forecast
sity which
required
which
purposes
were
mnemonic
rather
than
ideological.
same requirement
to burden
restate
the verse with
operates
of what has already been stated. The role of decisive
leadership,
The
ments
brought into immediate prominence in items 2a, 2b, is revived with

rewording in 14a, 14b. The muster of defenders first proposed in
5a, 5b
sistance
is reiterated
in 9a,
(3a, 4, 6a, 6b,
9b),
as is
as
need
for divine
imperative
in
the
culminating
concluding
apostrophe
the

to named
gods
107
of Greek Drama
(16a).
of
Intelligence
enemy
and moves
plans
is
provided twice (7, 10) and will be provided again (15a). These last
are cumulative
three
rather
than
are
two
repetitive;
linked
by
echo
pattern: the use of ears (7) is balanced by that of eyes (10).

All these should be viewed as responsions (rather than mere
repetitions,
ulary which
of
acteristic
salient
for none
are
the
recalls
identical),
formulaic
guided
an economy
of epic and
technique
function
They
literate
"facts of
by
composition.
the case",
imprinting
them
to drive
upon
the
We
in them
perceive
part of
the
reason
the
home
consciousness
a degree of
of the listener, to be retained in the memory with

automatism.
of vocab
is unchar
for
the
static
quality of Aeschylean drama (and indeed of all Greek drama). Thus

it moves
programmed,
its prescribed
towards
even
deliberately,
end.
ponderously,
but
inevitably
For themethodology is not confined to the prologue. It prolongs

itself throughout the subsequent episodes, maintaining a kind of
acoustic
parodos
is sung
protest
within
the
and responsions.
of echoes
Thus,
though
programming
of the chorus,
upon the prologue,
supervening
immediately
a
at
once an appeal,
in a different
emotional,
key, fiercely
and a cry of panic, yet thematicaMy
the boundaries
of statement
already
had warned
against
panic;
they respond
speaking
it stays carefully
The protagonist
expressed.
by voicing it. There
have been
warnings of impending assault; they give it lively and detailed descrip

tion.
Stress
has been
laid on the need
to protect
the city's
inhabitants
and its children; they respond in the role of the inhabitants themselves,
The help of Zeus and the city's gods has
for protection.
appealing
and extend
the invocation,
and intensify
been invoked;
they amplify
a catalogue
the
At
of who
these gods are (128-165).
it to include
restate
7
the
of
the
cham
their
of
arrangement
song they
midpoint
pions which is to govern the plot of the drama (124-126).

Once
from
completed,
the protagonist.
the
His
song
prompts
reproaches
a responsive
denunciation
in part echo the things
they
have been saying and doing (185-186, 190-191), in part reproduce the
warnings he himself had pronounced and which were pronounced to
him (182-183, 196-198), but which now include an addition, the
threat
of stoning.
These
contrary
attitudes
are
then
repeated
by being
brought together in contrapuntal dialogue (203-259), ending in a kind

of reciprocal reconciliation (260-287), leading into a choric lament
108
E.A.
Havelock
at the prospect
revives
fears previously
which
(288-368)
expressed
to the new
of the city's fall, but sung now in a lower key appropriate
at the close of the previous
mood
achieved
dialogue.
The audience with
the accents of the prologue
still in their ears
are waiting for the renewed optical intelligence previously promised

(item 15a). It is accordingly produced (369 ff ),with some repetitive
emphasis,
arithmetic
expanding
count of
on what
seven
the prologue
had
indicated.
already
An
is matched
warriors
previously
proposed
count of seven, also previously
by a corresponding
proposed,
producing
an arrangement
of seven
which
pairs,
expectation
sequential
along
are
the varieties
of description
and memory
guided,
accomodating
in two matching
each pair. The list culminates
within
brothers, whose
the
of
their
story
conjunction
triggers
automatically
family, related at
of mutual
fratricide.
length in the second stasimon, with premonition
as
time
in
action
for
the
the
the
The
audience,
briefly pauses,
only
play,
intel
and
waits
for
between
fear,
hope
again
promised
suspended
The
ligence.
news
when
The
previous
expectation.
first stasimon;
the brothers
to
offers matching
correspondence
in
has
the
fate
described
the
city
escaped
to the fate predicted
have succumbed
in
it arrives
the second. Such double tidings logically provoke double celebration:

the victory paean first, and then the ritual lament.
as they are heard
in performance
Such are the sequences
which
move
to
attract
to
and in retrospect
the attention
easily forward,
remember
them
in their
order
with
a minimum
of
effort.
Behind
con
all the artistry of language, character

and plot lies the persistent
trol imposed by the rules of the orally exercised memory.
6. From
Aeschylus
to Euripides
The hypothesis initially proposed has now been tested against a

under examination
text, which
out at two
carried
purpose
has
revealed
levels.
The
the presence
of these
first
of a didactic
is thematic,
requiring the plot of the play overall to be so manipulated
as to
a disguise
for contemporary
social concerns
and an indirect
provide
a level at
to manage
is aphoristic,
lesson in how
them. The second
are
con
the rhetoric and songs of all participants
whith
linguistically
trived
society,
to contain
its oral
copious
"wisdom".
of the
fragments
Such instruction,
ethos
to be
and
nomos
effective,
of
the
must
be
109
of Greek Drama
life in the oral memory.

The basic linguistic
tool
given a continuing
to achieve
a
this is the contrivance
narrative
of
situation
expressed
or 'plot' of the play, and the use of a
in the mythos
performative
to particular
statements
in the course of the
made
syntax applied
play. A supplementary tool is visible in the way the plot is forwarded,

statements
the successive
through
of
the participants,
by
the free use
of anticipation and prediction followed by repetitive echo and fulfill

ment
of expectation.
as fundamental
These
characteristics,
regarded
nature of Athenian
from
tragedy, have been extracted
to
the
original
the text of the
first eight hundred and seventy five lines (as numbered in the OCT)
to match
It is instructive
Thebes.
them against
Against
the tampered conclusion
of the play, covering
the next two hundred
an
or
and eighteen,
addition
substitution,
representing
partial or com
of the Seven
1.
are not
two
The
plete.
indicate:
Three
new
in accord,
characters
as
the
considerations
following
are introduced
Ismene
and
(Antigone,
or
to
without
any previous warning
any reference
them, in
direct or direct, casual or openly predictive.
This would
violate
that
we
deduced
law of oral composition,
from the previous
which
text,
a Herald)
style the law of aroused expectation.

an infusion
2.
In the text of this sequel one misses
of that kind
overt or concealed,
of aphoristic wisdom,
hitherto
characteristic
of the
can
to a con
One
four examples,
detect
all confined
composition.
may
cluding section introduced by the entrance of the herald, but this will
not
been
any
help
rejected
argument
by
general
for oral
since
authenticity,
All four lack
agreement.
rather prosaic and flat. Three (1011,

are
1051)
verse without
one-line
epigrams
loss. One may
which
this
section
has
and
imagery
are
slightly disguised, and 1044,
could
be
from
subtracted
say there is a "Euripidean"
ring
the
to them
(the third may be making a political point by substituting demos for

polis), and this is equally true of the fourth (1070-1071) which re
flects
a consciously
relativist moral
lament
The
long antiphonal
philosophy.
over
the two brothers,
shared
(in
theMS) by Antigone, Ismene and chorus (875-962), is a passage which

scholars
with
may
have
been
inclined
second
the preceding
a
to
different
point
to attribute
stasimon,
conclusion.
to the original.
A comparison
to
the
authentic
text,
belonging
That
stasimon,
maintaining
110
E.A.
Havelock
fidelity to the thematic complexity of the play, had hailed the city's
before
victory
to celebrate
turning
the brothers'
and had
death,
then
as it were dismissed them both to the dark shores of Acheron (822

one may
for a second
860). Why,
ask, the necessity
Is it even appropriate
them?
after such a dismissal?
celebration
And
of
one
why
the balance of the play by restoring their fate to
which disturbs
as well.
there is a stylistic problem
The original
center-stage?
Possibly
to
a genuine
in a gnome,
lament terminates
be
but
sure,
disguised
of traditional
wisdom:
"the boat keeps crossing Acheron:
fragment
us all": the con
it is a dismal mission:
the obscure
shore receives
imagery is characteristically
or of
a trace of such reflection,
lament.
densed
is not
and oral. There
Aeschylean
in the supplemental
such imagery,
It is to be concluded that suspicion falls on the whole of this last

are not merely
external
(e.g. the ap
is
There
of Sophocles'
the specific
parent
Antigone).
objection
violates
the canons of a genuinely
oral style of
that its composition
part
of the Seven.
The
grounds
use
as revealed
composition
in Part One.
we
The
original,
may have
to its main
thematic
intention,
forming
note of celebration,
after the manner
somewhat
of
now
secure.
its
and
the
rescued
and
gods
city
saluting
the history of the House

fratricide.
know
That was
it might
have
supplied extending
of Oedipus
the version
been
the original
period of composition
the original had been in circulation,
to suit contemporary
and amended
Simultaneously,
the mutual
and for all we

by Aeschylus
one. A correction
was
later
in which
the family history,
literate
con
on
the Eumenides,
had ended with
adopted
can be
suggest,
terminated
seen
were
the influence of a
at work.
read by actors
of
Manuscripts
and audiences,
tastes.
rather than
Family matters,
the business
of the stage. The constraints
civic education,
have become
a
oral
communication
culture
of
have been lifted.
imposed by
purely
Restatement
of traditional
and
the
of programmed
devices
material,
are no longer required for either didactic
or
and response,
anticipation
Remove
mnemonic
be
of construction
them, and novelties
purposes.
come possible,
intrusion of the two sisters. The
such as the sudden
to entertainment.
This was
whole
emphasis has shifted from tradition
not done,
The
advantage
we
suggest,
earlier
than
the fourth
century.
of the Seven
it an
gives
early date of the composition
in our demonstration.
Here
if anywhere
the original genius
111
of Greek Drama
or more correctly
of preliterate
will
tragic composition
protoJiterate
is possibly
The Seven
found at work.
the simplest
of
the
example
a
one.
on
to
is
He
could
relied
be
type; Aeschylus'
developing
style
?
as
the range of his composition
extend and elaborate
conspicuously
in the Oresteia ?
the
while
oral
retaining
strategy we have
underlying
to
has
been
considered
That
the
elucidated.
of any
exclusion
strategy
be
other
complexity
the
from
arising
use
of our original
let us
Yet
of writing.
It assumed
hypothesis.
not
that
the
forget
there existed
inGreek drama from the beginning an initial tension between the ear
which ?Listenedas the audience had to listen, and the eye whose
architectural
diated
or me
to the composer
of language was private
an amanuensis.
Our
examination
of the Seven
vision
to him
by
Against Thebes has concentrated on the former while
ignoring the
two
tasks, it has
estimates
the
latter,
and
is
therefore
incomplete.
the more
urgent
performed
as
of
literature
works
plays
miliar
and
of
the
since any critic who

one,
for literate audiences
written
The
and well-trodden
in Aeschylus,
But
ground.
in his
increasing
tension
covers
fa
is of course
successors,
but
there, already
its exploration
lies
beyond the limits of this paper. Briefly it can be indicated that the
Sophoclean diction, for all its marked differences, is still infused with
in Sophocles'
which
gnomic material
The Oedipus
takes over completely.
famous of all Greek
the most
perhaps
to be
a model
Tyrannus,
seems
plays,
contrived
choruses
sometimes
as example
from one point of
to take
and
art, tightly designed
as
even
the
personal genius.
protagonist
by
in the Seven)
in the prologue
he also
(as Eteocles,
speaks his mind
are
not his
of
These
of
and
statecraft.
the
power
aphorisms
speaks
as
it
be
has
been
that
inventions.
true,
just
suggested,
May
personal
view
controlled
of personally
reflective
its author's
Yet
as the Athens of 480 B.C. lies behind the Seven, so does the Periclean
administration lurk behind the image of Oedipus. The poet, in the
to the com
is "useful"
is still the voice of what
of Aeschylus,
so
canon
of
the
Greek
other
Nor does any
relentlessly
play
munity.
of
and
followed
mnemonic
the
apparatus
anticipation
prophecy
exploit
in
and
of
fulfillment
the
repeated
expectation
emphatic
previous
by
And
reinforced
yet also, com
conjunctions.
sequences,
by punning
one observes
in the
control,
peting
against these factors of mnemonic
words
Oedipus the growth of architectural design, particularly in the placing

of choruses
between
spaced
intervals
of dialogue,
symptomatic,
it is
112
E.A.
suggested,
process
intrusion
the
of
increasing
of composition.
As
of Euripides
prologues
of
the century
themselves
Havelock
the
the
reading eye upon
its close, the
towards
from
the action,
bookishly
moves
separate
and in the later plays more
the plot becomes objectified
fictional,
in the choruses,
while
surprise at the expense of prediction,
exploiting
as if to compensate
emo
of the dialogue,
for the growing
rationality
tional and personal
release
encroaches
social
and
traditional
upon
meditation.
said of Euripidean
choruses
that they are
It is often
severed
Their
the
from
action
spicuous examples,
the dramatic,
they
lose
progressively
The reenactment
melody
under
which
But
to the
become
is their
more
had
been
non
functional.
to take
two
not
less.
con
sense
In the modern
functional,
role as the carriers of
the ethos
of
and dance
dramatically
the Bacchae,
or
the Hippolytus
contention.
this
disproves
in either
role
become
and
of
What
they
tradition.
the cultural
an oral
of
their
community
through words,
reason
one
for existence,
to lose.
literacy they were bound
original
of increasing
the chorus,
instead
choosing
tragedy never discarded
once
its content.
the
chorus
had
the
been
Structurally,
conditions
end
to modify
central component
Even
in
its
that
the
Athens
of
latest
literate
and
Athens
the core of the oral message.

containing
as a reminder
it remained
altered
condition,
of 400 B.C.
was
the child
of protoliterate
500 B.C.
the history
and
Such are the kinds of conclusions
concerning
to
drama whicht
be
character of Greek
support
gain
might
expected
examination
of the extant plays.
The present
extended
from a more
its
its
allotted
exceeded
after
has
space.
Imperfect
already
study
if it has
fashion,
succeeded
in opening
up a problem
which
others
after me will feel prompted to pursue in depth, it will have performed

its
task.
Yale University
of Greek Drama 113
Bibliography
EA. Havelock, The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics, New Haven-London
1957.
?-, Preface to Plato, Oxford ?1963.
'The Preliteracy of the Greeks', New Lit. Hist. 8, 1976-1977, 369-391.
?,
The Greek Concept of Justice, Cambridge Mass. 1978.
?,
A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, London 1966.
LiddelkScott-Jones
(LSJ), Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford 1940.
W.W. Merry, Aristophanes The Frogs, Oxford 1905.
G. Norwood, Greek Comedy, London 1931.
A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, Oxford 19682.
L. Radermacher, Aristophanes' Fr?sche, Wien
19542.
B.B. Rogers, Aristophanes Frogs, Cambridge Mass.-London
1950.
W.B. Sedgwick, 'The Frogs and the Audience', Class, et Mediaev. 9, 1947, 1-9.
W.B. Stanford, Aeschylus in his Style, Dublin
1942.
?,
Aristophanes: The Frogs, London 1958.
P.T. Stevens, 'Euripides and the Athenians', Journ. Hell. Stud. 16, 1956, 87-94.

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Accademia Editoriale

The Oral Composition of Greek Drama

The Oral Composition

literacy resulted automatically and quickly.

arrive already equipped with

the technologies of reading and

for teaching letters, and no body of documentation

estimate the date at which this happened is admittedly difficult. The

general literacy came about in Athens

in the last third of the fifth

age, but not before

delay of this length credible?

language had reverted to this purely oral condition if indeed

The Oral Composition

institutional support. They bred in the population a total habit of

mitted to these loyalties would readily substitute habits of the written

Ionic, and the tales he tells

The outline of a hypothesis begins to emerge, to be tested against

nn. 57, 59.

as the plays were

in their own day they

3 "Slices from the

The Oral Composition

tragedy could never have started

that of his amanuensis

as it was spoken and sung. It is to be inferred that

be that identical methods

of composition were used for all of them.

oral memory. By the logic of this progression what might be called

sity from times immemorial,

ethos of the community might yield to manipulation

need (now supplied by discussions in prose treatises) be supplanted by

sight are difficult

to the social encyclopaedia5.

Shakespear's plays, both in plot and sentiment,

argued that high

retain some resemblance

The Oral Composition

the investigator who presupposes

this is a genuine difficulty.

nysia, the first being a quadrennial celebration (supplemented by the

to the already established

228b-c; cf. also Isocrates Panegyr. 159; Lycurgus in

rarchia. Both were

in the first place,

which indicate that our hypothesis may be well founded.

like to fetch back from the underworld. Finally admitted to Hades,

The Oral Composition

The Art of Euripides

ground of professional skill (831). The key term is techne, strictly

Euripides warms to his work.

If there is going to be a dog fight,

that they can enjoy the fun (876-884).

The contest will be between

up the ground with root and branch expressions" (901-904).

As for himself, inheriting the art of tragedy from Aeschylus

filtered out of papyri (941-943),

afterwards adding monodies

plenty of things to say (948-950) "and so I taught the present audience

things we all do and are familiar with" (959-960) without benefit of

"This is the kind of thinking (phronein)14 I introduced

technique (techne), which made them begin to cerebrate (noein 974)

things through and in particular